Volume I Part 8 (1/2)

The sand to tired camels is like a prison, and in the sand we should have remained. Mohammed, Abdallah, and the rest all behaved like heroes; even old Hanna, with stray locks of grey hair hanging from under his kefiyeh, for he has grown grey on the journey, and his feet bare, for it is impossible to walk in shoes, trudged on as valiantly as the most robust of the party. All were cheerful and uncomplaining, though the usual songs had ceased, and they talked but little.

Wilfrid and I were the only ones who rode at all, except Hanna, whom Wilfrid forced to ride his mare from time to time, and we were the gloomiest of the party. We felt annoyed at being unable to do our work on foot with the others; though from time to time we walked or rather waded through the sand, until obliged to remount for lack of breath and strength. Neither of us could have kept up on foot; but a European is no match for even a town Arab in the matter of walking.

To-day the _khall Abu Zeyd_ (Abu Zeyd's road) was distinctly traceable, and we begin to think that it may not have been altogether a romance.

There are regular cuttings in some places, and the track is often well marked for half a mile together. Radi a.s.sures us that there is a road of stone under the sand; of stone brought from Jebel Shammar at, I am afraid to say, what expense of camels and men, who died in the work. I noticed to-day a buzzard and a grey shrike; and a couple of wolves had run along the road, as one could see by their footmarks and the scratching on the sand.

The level of the Nefd had been rising all day, and at one o'clock we were 3300 feet above the sea. From this point we had a large view southwards, sand, all sand still for many a mile; but close before us the group of islands we had so long been steering for, the rocks of Jobba.

The nearest was not two miles off. We could see nothing of the oasis, for it was on the other side of the hills; but we could make out a wide s.p.a.ce bare of sand, which looked like a subbkha, and beyond this a further group of rocks of exceedingly fantastic outline, rising out of the sand. It was like a scene on some great glacier in the Alps. Beyond again, lay a faint blue line of hills. ”Jebel Shammar. Those are the hills of Nejd,” said Radi. They were what we have come so far to see.

We made haste now to get to the rocks, and reached them at half-past three. They were of the same character as Aalem, sand and ironstone.

There Wilfrid took a map, and I a sketch, and we waited till the camels came up; a doleful string they were as we looked down from the top of our rocky hill at them pa.s.sing below. Shenuan and Amud toiled on with only their saddles, and the poor black delul, absolutely bare and hardly able to walk, was fifty yards behind, urged along by Abdallah. We still had some miles to go to get to Jobba, but on harder ground and all down hill; and Mohammed proposed that we three should ride on, and prepare a place for the camels in the village. On our way we saw what we thought was a cloud of smoke moving from west to east, and the tail of it pa.s.sed over us. We found it was a flight of locusts in the red stage of their existence, which the people here prefer for eating, but we did not care to stop now to gather them, and rode on. It was nearly sunset when we first saw Jobba itself, below us at the edge of the subbkha, with dark green palms cutting the pale blue of the dry lake, and beyond that a group of red rocks rising out of the pink Nefd; in the foreground yellow sand tufted with adr; the whole scene transfigured by the evening light, and beautiful beyond description.

[Picture: Delul Rider]

CHAPTER IX.

”They went till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken.”

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

Jobba-An unpleasant dream-We hear strange tales of Ibn Ras.h.i.+d-Romping in the Nefd-A last night there-The Zodiacal light-We enter Nejd-The granite range of Jebel Shammar.

JOBBA is one of the most curious places in the world, and to my mind one of the most beautiful. Its name Jobba, or rather Jubbeh, meaning a well, explains its position, for it lies in a hole or well in the Nefd; not indeed in a fulj, for the basin of Jobba is on quite another scale, and has nothing in common with the horse-hoof depressions I have hitherto described. It is, all the same, extremely singular, and quite as difficult to account for geologically as the fuljes. It is a great bare s.p.a.ce in the ocean of sand, from four hundred to five hundred feet below its average level, and about three miles wide; a hollow, in fact, not unlike that of Jof, but with the Nefd round it instead of sandstone cliffs. That it has once been a lake is pretty evident, for there are distinct water marks on the rocks which crop up out of its bed just above the town; and, strange to say, there is a tradition still extant of there having formerly been water there. The wonder is how this s.p.a.ce is kept clear of sand. What force is it that walls out the Nefd and prevents encroachment? As you look across the subbkha or dry bed of the lake, the Nefd seems like a wall of water which must overwhelm it, and yet no sand s.h.i.+fts down into the hollow, and its limits are accurately maintained.

The town itself (or village, for it has only eighty houses) is built on the edge of the subbkha, 2860 feet above the sea, and has the same sort of palm gardens we saw at Jof, only on a very small scale. The wells from which these are watered are seventy-five feet deep, and are worked, like all the wells in Arabia, by camels. The village is extremely picturesque, with its little battlemented walls and its gardens. At the entrance stand half a dozen fine old ithel-trees with gnarled trunks and feathery branches. The rocks towering above are very grand, being of purple sandstone streaked and veined with yellow, and having an upper facing of black. They are from seven hundred to eight hundred feet high, and their bases are scored with old water marks. Wilfrid found several inscriptions in the Sinatic character upon them. Jobba is backed by these hills, and by a strip of yellow sand, like the dunes of Ithery, on which just now there are brilliantly green tufts of adr in full leaf.

Beyond the subbkha the rocks of Ghota rising out of the Nefd remind one of the Aletsch Glacier, as seen from the Simplon Road.

So much for the outer face of Jobba. The interior is less attractive.

The houses are very poor, and less smartly kept than those of Kaf and Ithery. I can hardly call them dirty, for dirt in this region of sand is almost an impossibility. It is one of the luxuries of the Nefd that no noxious insects are found within its circuit. The Nefd and, indeed, Nejd, which lies beyond it, are free from those creatures which make life a torment in other districts of the East. Even the fleas on our greyhounds died as soon as they entered the enchanted circle of red sand.

But Jobba would be dirty if it could; and its inhabitants are the least well-mannered of all the Arabs we saw in Nejd. The fact is, the people are very poor and have no communication with the outer world, except when the rare travellers between Hal and Jof stop a night among them. At the time of our pa.s.sage through Jobba, the Sheykh had lately died, and his office was being held by a young man of two or three and twenty, who had no authority with his fellow-youths, a noisy, good-for-nothing set. Ibn Ras.h.i.+d has no special lieutenant at Jobba, and the young Sheykh Naf was unsupported by any representative of the central government, even a policeman. The consequence was that though entertained hospitably enough by Naf, we were considerably pestered by his friends, and made to feel not a little uncomfortable. I quote this as a single instance of incivility in a country where politeness is very much the rule.

The style of our entertainment at Naf's house requires no special mention, as it differed in no respect from what we had already received elsewhere. There was a great deal of coffee drinking, and a great deal of talk. Wherever one goes in Arabia one only has to march into any house one pleases, and one is sure to be welcome. The kahwah stands open all day long, and the arrival of a guest is the signal for these two forms of indulgence, coffee and conversation, the only ones known to the Arabs. A fire is instantly lighted, and the coffee cups in due course are handed round. One curious incident, however, of our stay at Jobba must be related.

For some days before our arrival there Mohammed, who was usually careless enough about the dangers of the road, had betrayed considerable uneasiness whenever there was a question of meeting Arabs on the way or making new acquaintances. He had dissuaded us more than once from looking about for tents; and when we had met the solitary man with the camels and the man we called the spy, he had given very short answers to their inquiries of who we were, and where we were going. It was not till the evening of our arrival at Jobba that he explained the cause of his anxiety. It then appeared that Radi in the course of conversation had mentioned the name of a certain Shammar Sheykh, one Ibn Ermal, as being in the neighbourhood, and Mohammed had remembered that many years ago a Sheykh of that name had made a raid against Tudmur. There had been some fighting, and a man or two killed on the Shammar side; and this was enough to make it extremely probable that a blood-feud might be still unsettled between his family and the Ibn Ermals. He therefore begged us not to mention his name in Jobba, or the fact that he and Abdallah were Tudmur men. He had the more reason for this because he had discovered that Naf, our host, was himself related to the Ibn Ermals; and it was fortunate that Tudmur had not yet been mentioned by any one in conversation. Later on in the evening he came to us very radiant, with the news that we need no longer be under any apprehension. He had managed ingeniously to lead the conversation with Naf to the subject he had at heart, and had just learned that the blood-feud was considered at an end. Mohammed ibn Ras.h.i.+d, before he came to the Sheykhat of Jebel Shammar, was Emir el-Haj, or Prince of the pilgrimage to Mecca, a position of honour and profit, under his brother Tellal, and in that capacity had made acquaintance with several Tudmuri at the holy cities, and when he succeeded to the Sheykhat he had good-naturedly composed their difference with his people. He had either paid the blood-money himself, or had used pressure on Ibn Ermal to forego his revenge, and the blood-feud had been declared cancelled. Whatever the Emir's reason for acting thus as peace maker, it was a very fortunate circ.u.mstance for us, and now Mohammed and Naf were the best of friends. On the morning, however, of our departure from Jobba (we stayed there two nights), Naf in wis.h.i.+ng Mohammed good bye, narrated that he had had a curious dream that night. He had gone to sleep, he said, thinking of this old feud; and in his sleep he thought he heard a voice reproaching him with having neglected his duty of taking just revenge on the man who was his guest, and he had been much distressed between the conflicting duties of vengeance and hospitality, so that he had got up in his sleep to feel about for his sword, and had found himself doing this when he woke. Then he had remembered that the feud was at an end, and said El hamdu lillah, and went to sleep again. ”What a dreadful thing it would have been,” he said to Mohammed at the end of this story, ”if I had been obliged to kill you, you, my guest!” Mohammed, however, maintained to us that even if the blood-feud had not been settled, Naf would not have been bound to do anything, once he had eaten and drunk with him in his house. Such, at least, would be the rule at Tudmur, though morals might be stricter in Nejd.

We only stayed, as I have said, two nights with Naf. The young people of the village were inquisitive and obtrusive, and we were obliged to make a sort of scene with our host about it, a thing which is disagreeable, but sometimes necessary. I dare say they meant no harm, but their manners were bad, and there was something almost hostile in their tone about Nasrani (Nazarenes or Christians), which it was advisable to check. I am glad to say that this is the only instance we have had in Arabia of unpleasant allusions to religion. The Arabs are by nature tolerant to the last degree on this point, and national or religious prejudices are exceedingly rare.

This little episode, however, made us rather anxious about our possible reception at Hal. No European nor Christian of any sort had penetrated as such before us to Jebel Shammar, and all we knew of the people and country was the recollection of Mr. Palgrave's account of his visit there in disguise sixteen years before. Ibn Ras.h.i.+d, for all we knew, might be as ill-disposed towards us as these Jobbites here, and it was clear that, without his countenance and protection, we should be running considerable risk in entering Hal. Still, the die was cast. We had crossed our Rubicon, the Red Desert, and there was no turning back. There was nothing to be done but to put a good face on things and proceed on our way. We cross questioned Radi as to the state of affairs at Hal, and I may as well give here the whole of the information he gave us, corroborated and amplified by subsequent narrators. The main facts we learned from him.

Radi, in the first place, confirmed in general terms the account we had already heard of the history of the Ibn Ras.h.i.+d family. About fifty years ago, Abdallah ibn Ras.h.i.+d, at that time ”a mere _zellem_,” individual, of the Abde section of the Shammar tribe, took service with the Ibn Saouds of Upper Nejd, and was appointed lieutenant of Jebel Shammar, by the Wahhabi Emir. He was a great warrior, and reduced the whole country to order with the help of his brother Obeyd, the princ.i.p.al hero of Shammar tradition. Of Obeyd we heard nothing to confirm the evil tales mentioned by Mr. Palgrave. On the contrary, he has left a great reputation among the Arabs for his hospitality, generosity, and courage, the three cardinal virtues of their creed. He was never actually Emir of Jebel Shammar, but after his brother's death he virtually ruled the country.

It was he that counselled the destruction of the Turkish soldiers in the Nefd. He lived to a great age, and died only nine years ago, having been paralysed from the waist downwards for some months before his death.

It is related of him that he left no property behind him, having given away everything during his lifetime-no property but his sword, his mare, and his young wife. These he left to his nephew Mohammed, ibn Ras.h.i.+d, the reigning Emir, with the request that his sword should remain undrawn, his mare unridden, and his wife unmarried for ever afterwards. Ibn Ras.h.i.+d has respected his uncle's first two wishes, but he has taken the wife into his own harim.

Abdallah ibn Ras.h.i.+d died in 1843, and was succeeded in the Sheykhat of the Shammar and the lieutenancy of Hal, by his son Tellal, who took the t.i.tle of Emir, and made himself nearly independent of the Wahhabi government. There is not much talk at Hal now about Tellal. He has left behind him little of the reputation one would expect from Mr.

Palgrave's account of him. In his time, his second brother and successor, Metaab, conquered Jof and Ithery, and Metaab's name is much more frequently mentioned than Tellal's. About twelve years ago Tellal went out of his mind and committed suicide. He stabbed himself at Hal with his own dagger. He left behind him several sons, the eldest of whom was Bender, and two brothers, Metaab and Mohammed, besides his uncle Obeyd, then a very old man, and several cousins. Bender was quite a boy at the time, and Metaab succeeded Tellal with the approval of all the family. Metaab, however, only ruled for three years, and dying rather suddenly, a dispute arose as to the succession. Mohammed, who for some years had been acting as Emir el-Haj, or leader of the pilgrims, was away from Hal, settling a matter connected with his office with Ibn Saoud at Riad, and Bender, being now twenty years old, was proclaimed Emir. He was supported by all the family except Mohammed and Hamud, Obeyd's eldest son, who had been brought up with Mohammed as a brother. Mohammed, when he heard of this, was very angry, and for many days, so Radi told us, sat with his kefiyeh over his face like one in grief, and refused to speak with anyone. He remained at Riad, rejecting all Bender's advances and invitations until Obeyd was dead, when he consented to return to Hal, and resume his post with the Haj. This post brought him in much money, and he was fond of money. But he plotted all the while for the Sheykhat, intriguing with the Sherarat and other Bedouins under Bender's rule. It was in this way that he ultimately gratified his ambition, for it happened one day that a caravan of Sherarat came to Hal to buy dates, and placed themselves under Mohammed's protection instead of the Emir's.

This made Bender very angry, and he sent for Mohammed, and asked him the meaning of this insolence. ”Are you Sheykh,” he asked, ”or am I?” He then mounted his mare and rode out, threatening to confiscate the Sherarat camels, for they were encamped under the walls of Hal. But Mohammed followed him, and riding with him, a violent dispute arose, in which Mohammed drew his _shabriyeh_ (a crooked dagger they all wear in Nejd), and stabbed his nephew, who fell dead on the spot. Then Mohammed galloped back to the castle, and, finding Hamud there, got his help and took possession of the place. He then seized the younger sons of Tellal, Bender's brothers, all but one child, Naf, and Bedr, who was away from Hal, and had their heads cut off by his slaves in the courtyard of the castle. They say, however, that Hamud protested against this. But Mohammed was reckless, or wished to strike terror, and not satisfied with what he had already done, went on destroying his relations. He had some cousins, sons of Jabar, a younger brother of Abdallah and Obeyd; and these he sent for. They came in some alarm to the castle, each with his slave. They were all young men, beautiful to look at, and of the highest distinction; and their slaves had been brought up with them, as the custom is, more like brothers than servants. They were shown into the kahwah of the castle, and received with great formality, Mohammed's servants coming forward to invite them in. It is the custom at Hal, whenever a person pays a visit, that before sitting down, he should hang up his sword on one of the wooden pegs fixed into the wall, and this the sons of Jabar did, and their slaves likewise. Then they sat down, and waited and waited, but still no coffee was served to them. At last Mohammed appeared surrounded by his guard, but there was no ”salaam aleyk.u.m,” and instantly he gave orders that his cousins should be seized and bound. They made a rush for their swords, but were intercepted by the slaves of the castle, and made prisoners. Mohammed then, with horrible barbarity, ordered their hands and their feet to be cut off, and the hands and the feet of their slaves and had them, still living, dragged out into the courtyard of the palace, where they lay till they died. These ghastly crimes, more ghastly than ever in a country where wilful bloodshed is so unusual, seem to have struck terror far and wide, and no one has since dared to raise a hand against Mohammed. Now he is said to have repented of his crimes, and to be ”angry with himself” for what he has done. But Radi is of opinion that Heaven is at least as angry, for though Mohammed has married over and over again, he has never been blessed with a son, nor even with a daughter. His rule, however, apart from its evil commencement, though firm, has been beneficent. The only other persons, with one exception, who have suffered death during his reign, have been highway robbers, and these are now extirpated within three hundred miles of Hal. A traveller may go about securely in any part of the desert with all his gold in his hand, and he will not be molested. Neither are there thieves in the towns. He has made Jebel Shammar definitely independent of Riad, and has resisted one or two attempted encroachments by the Turks. He is munificent to all, and exercises unbounded hospitality. No man, rich or poor, is ever sent away from his gate unfed, and seldom without a present of clothes or money; and hospitality in Arabia covers a mult.i.tude of sins. Besides, the Arabs easily forget, and Mohammed is already half forgiven. ”Allah yetowil omrahu,” G.o.d grant him long life, exclaimed Radi, after giving us these particulars.