Volume I Part 10 (1/2)
Here a sharp black boy interrupted us, ”O, khatun, these are daughters of sheykhs, they have no work-no work _at all_ to do, don't you understand?”
_I_. ”Of course, I understand perfectly; but they might amuse themselves without doing work,” and turning to Zehowa I added, ”Don't you even look at the horses?”
_Zeh._ ”No, we do nothing.”
_I_. ”I should die if I did nothing. When I am at home I always walk round the first thing in the morning to look at my horses. How do you manage to spend your lives?”
_Zeh._ ”We sit.” Thus supreme contentment in the harim here is to sit in absolute idleness. It seems odd, where the men are so active and adventurous, that the women should be satisfied to be bored; but such, I suppose, is the tyranny of fas.h.i.+on.
Every evening after dinner we used to receive a message from the Emir, inviting us to spend the evening with him. This was always the pleasantest part of the day, for we generally found one or two interesting visitors sitting with him. As a sample of these I give an extract from my journal:
”We found the Emir this evening in high good humour. News had just come from El-Homeydi ibn Meshur, a Roala sheykh of the faction opposed to Sotamm, that a battle was fought about a month ago between the Roala and the Welled Ali, and that Sotamm has been worsted. Sotamm, at the head of a ghazu numbering six hundred hors.e.m.e.n, had marched against Ibn Smeyr at Jerud, but the latter refused to come out and fight him, and so Sotamm retired. On his way back home, however, he fell in with an outlying camp of Welled Ali, somewhere to the east of the Hauran, and summoned it to surrender. These, numbering only a hundred and fifty hors.e.m.e.n, at first entered into negotiation, and, it is said, offered to give up their camp and camels if they were permitted to retire with their mares (the women and children would of course not have been molested in any case), and to this Sotamm wished to agree. But the younger men of his party, and especially the Ibn Jendal family, who had a death to avenge, would not hear of compromise, and a battle ensued. It ended, strangely enough, in favour of the weaker side, who succeeded in killing four of the Roala, and among them Tellal ibn Shaalan, Sotamm's cousin and heir presumptive.
Sotamm himself is said to have been saved only by the speed of his mare.
Though the forces engaged were so disproportionate, n.o.body here seems surprised at the result, for victory and defeat are ”min Allah,” ”in the hand of G.o.d;” but everybody is highly delighted, and the Emir can hardly contain himself for joy. ”What do you think now of Sotamm?” he said; ”has he head, or has he no head?” ”Not much, I am afraid,” I answered, ”but I am sorry for him. He is weak, and does not know how to manage his people, but he has a good heart.” ”And Ibn Smeyr, what do you say to Ibn Smeyr?” ”He has more head than heart,” I said. This delighted the Emir.
”Ah,” he replied, ”it is you, khatun, that have the head. Now what do you say to me? have I head, or not head?” ”You have head,” I answered.
”And Hamud?” ”You all of you have plenty of head here, more of course than the Bedouins, who are most of them like children.” ”But we are Bedouins too,” he said, hoping to be contradicted. ”I like the Bedouins best,” I replied; ”it is better to have heart than head.” Then he went on to cross-question me about all the other sheykhs whose names he knew.
”Which,” he asked, ”is the best of all you have met with?” ”Mohammed Dukhi,” I said, ”is the cleverest, Ferhan ibn Hedeb the best-mannered, but the one I like best is your relation in the Jezireh, Faris Jerba.” I don't think he was quite pleased at this. He had never heard, he said, good or bad of Ibn Hedeb, who belonged to the Bisshr. He was not on terms with any of the Bisshr except Meshur ibn Mers.h.i.+d, who had paid him a visit two years ago. We told him that both Meshur and Faris were Wilfrid's ”brothers.” Meshur he liked, but Faris Jerba was evidently no favourite of his.
[Picture: Ibn Ras.h.i.+d's stable at Hal]
I fancy the Emir has taken Ferhan's part in the family quarrel. It is certain that when Amsheh, Sf.u.k's widow and Abdul Kerim's mother, came with her son Faris to Nejd, he would see neither of them. They stayed in the desert all the time they were here, and never came to Hal. Ras.h.i.+d ibn Ali, too, is Faris's friend, and of course in no favour at this court. {251} He then asked about Jedaan, touched rather unfeelingly on the idiocy of Turki, Jedaan's only son, and then cut some jokes at the expense of our old acquaintance, Smeyr ibn Zeydan. ”An old fool,” the Emir exclaimed, ”why did they send him here? They might as well have sent a camel!” This is the Smeyr who came to Nejd a year and a half ago to try and get Ibn Ras.h.i.+d's a.s.sistance for Sotamm, and arrange a coalition against Jedaan and the Sebaa. We knew his mission had failed, but the fact is Ibn Ras.h.i.+d is eaten up with jealousy of anyone who has the least reputation in the desert. We are surprised, however, to find him so well informed about everything and everybody in the far north, and we are much interested, as he has solved for us one of the problems about Nejd which used to puzzle us, namely, the relations maintained by the tribes of Jebel Shammar with those of the north. The Emir has told us that the Shammar of the Jezireh and his own Shammar still count each other as near relations. ”Our horses,” he said, ”are of the same blood.”
With the Roala he has made peace, and with Ibn Haddal; but the Sebaa and the rest of the Bisshr clan are out of his way. They never come anywhere near Nejd, except on ghazus, and that very rarely. Once, however, a ghazu, of Fedaan, had got as far as Kasim, and he had gone out against them, and captured a Seglawi Jedran mare of the Ibn Sbeni strain. He promised to show it to us. We then talked a good deal about horses, and our knowledge on this head caused general astonishment. Indeed, I think we could pa.s.s a better examination in the breeds than most of the Ibn Ras.h.i.+ds. By long residence in town they have lost many of the Bedouin traditions. Hamud, however, who takes more interest in horses than the Emir, has told us a number of interesting facts relating to the stud here, and that of the late Emir of Riad, Feysul ibn Saoud, solving another problem, that of the fabulous Nejd breed; but we are taking separate notes about these things.
We had not been talking long with the Emir and Hamud, when a fat vulgar-looking fellow was introduced and made to sit down by us. It was evident that he was no Hal man, for his features were coa.r.s.e, and his manners rude. He talked with a strong Bagdadi accent, and was addressed by everyone as ”ya Hajji.” It was clear that he belonged to the Haj, but why was he here? The mystery was soon cleared up, for after a whispered conversation with Hamud, the new visitor turned to Wilfrid, and began addressing him in what we at first took to be gibberish, until seeing that we made no answer, he exclaimed in Arabic, ”There, I told you he was no Englishman!” Wilfrid then cross-questioned him, and elicited the fact that he had been a stoker on board one of the British India Company's steamers on the Persian Gulf, and that the language he had been talking was English. Only two phrases, however, we succeeded in distinguis.h.i.+ng, ”werry good,” and ”chief engineer”-and having recognised them and given their Arabic equivalents, our ident.i.ty was admitted. The fellow was then sent about his business, and a very small, very polite old man took his place. He was conspicuous among these well-dressed Shammar by the plainest possible dress, a dark brown abba without hem or ornament, and a cotton kefiyeh on his head, unbound by any aghal whatsoever. He was treated with great respect, however, by all, and it was easy to see that he was a man of condition. He entered freely into conversation with us, and talked to Mohammed about his relations in Aared, and it presently appeared that he was from Southern Nejd. This fact explained the severity of his costume, for among the Wahhabis, no silk or gold ornaments are tolerated. He was, in fact, the Sheykh of Harik, the last town of Nejd towards the south, and close to the Dahna, or great southern desert. This he described to us as exactly like the Nefd we have just crossed, only with more vegetation. The ghada is the princ.i.p.al wood, but there are palms in places.
It is not the custom of Hal to smoke, either from Wahhabi prejudice, or, as I am more inclined to think, because tobacco has never penetrated so far inland in quant.i.ties sufficient to make the habit general. No objection, however, has been made to Wilfrid's pipe, which he smokes when and where he chooses, and this evening when the call to prayer sounded, and the Emir and Hamud had gone out to perform their devotions, the old man I have just mentioned, Na.s.sr ibn Hezani, hinted without more ceremony that he should like a whiff. He has quarrelled with Ibn Saoud, and probably hates all the Wahhabi practices, and was very glad to take the opportunity of committing this act of wickedness. He was careful, however, to return the pipe before the rest came back. He, at any rate, if a Wahhabi, is not one of the disagreeable sort described by Mr.
Palgrave, for he invited us very cordially to go back home with him to Harik. The Emir, however, made rather a face at this suggestion, and gave such an alarming account of what would happen to us if we went to Riad, that I don't think it would be wise to attempt to go there now. We could not go in fact without the Emir's permission. I do not much care, for town life is wearisome; we have had enough of it, and I have not much curiosity to see more of Nejd, unless we can go among the Bedouins there.
If Ibn Saoud still had his collection of mares the sight of them would be worth some risk, but his stud has long since been scattered, and Na.s.sr ibn Hezani a.s.sures us that there is nothing now in Arabia to compare with Ibn Ras.h.i.+d's stud. Ibn Hezani, like everybody else, laughs at the story of a Nejd breed, and says, as everybody else does, that the mares at Riad were a collection made by Feysul ibn Saoud in quite recent times.
Later in the evening, a native goldsmith was introduced, with a number of articles worked by him at Hal. They were pretty, but not specially interesting, or very unlike what may be seen elsewhere, dagger hilts and sheaths, and a few ornaments. It was this man, however, who had made the gold hilts which all the princely family here wear to their swords.
These we examined, and found the work really good.
The most amusing incident of the evening, however, and one which we were not at all prepared for, was the sudden production by the Emir of one of those toys called telephones, which were the fas.h.i.+on last year in Europe.
This the Emir caused two of his slaves to perform with, one going into the courtyard outside, and the other listening. The message was successfully delivered, the slave outside, to make things doubly sure, shouting at the top of his voice, ”Ya Abdallah weyn ente? yeridak el Emir.” ”O Abdallah, where are you? the Emir wants you,” and other such phrases. We expressed great surprise, as in duty bound; indeed, it was the first time we had actually seen the toy, and it is singular to find so very modern an invention already at Hal.
At about ten o'clock, the Emir began to yawn, and we all got up and wished him good-night. He very kindly sent for, and gave me, a number of trengs and oranges, which he gave orders should be conveyed to our house, together with a new-laid ostrich's egg, the ”first of the season,” which had just been brought to him from the Nefd.
[Picture: Evening with the Emir]
CHAPTER XI.
”I shall do well: The people love me, and the Desert's mine; My power's a crescent, and my auguring hope Says it will come to the full.”
SHAKESPEARE.
Political and historical-Shepherd role in Arabia-An hereditary policy-The army-The law-Taxation-The finances of Jebel Shammar-Ibn Ras.h.i.+d's ambition.
THE following is the result of our inquiries made while at Hal into the political condition and resources of the country. It has no pretension to rigid accuracy, especially in the figures given, but it will serve to convey an idea of the kind of government found in Arabia, and of the capacity for self-rule of the Arab race.
The political const.i.tution of Jebel Shammar is exceedingly curious; not only is it unlike anything we are accustomed to in Europe, but it is probably unique, even in Asia. It would seem, in fact, to represent some ancient form of government indigenous to the country, and to have sprung naturally from the physical necessities of the land, and the character of its inhabitants. I look upon Ibn Ras.h.i.+d's government as in all likelihood identical with that of the Kings of Arabia, who came to visit Solomon, and of the Shepherd Kings who, at a still earlier date, held Egypt and Babylonia; and I have little doubt that it owes its success to the fact of its being thus in harmony with Arab ideas and Arab tradition.