This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

A PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD,

THE CRADLE OF THE ARAB RACE.

A VISIT TO THE COURT OF THE ARAB EMIR, AND
“OUR PERSIAN CAMPAIGN.”

By LADY ANNE BLUNT.
AUTHOR OF “THE BEDOUIN TRIBES OF THE EUPHRATES.”

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. II.

WITH MAP, PORTRAITS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
THE AUTHOR’S DRAWINGS.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,
1881.

[All rights reserved.]

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II.

CHAPTER XII.

“Je ne trouvai point en eux ces formes que je m’attendais à retrouver dans la patrie de Zeid el Kheil.”—Guarmani.

Nejd horses—Their rarity—Ibn Saoud’s stud—The stables at Haïl—Some notes of individual mares—The points of a Nejd head—The tribes in the Nefûds and their horses—Meaning of the term “Nejdi”—Recipe for training.

A chapter on the horses we saw at Haïl has been promised, and may as well be given here.

Ibn Rashid’s stud is now the most celebrated in Arabia, and has taken the place in public estimation of that stud of Feysul ibn Saoud’s which Mr. Palgrave saw sixteen years ago at Riad, and which he described in the picturesque paragraphs which have since been constantly quoted. The cause of this transference of supremacy from Aared to Jebel Shammar, lies in the political changes which have occurred since 1865, and which have taken the leadership of Central Arabia out of the hands of the Ibn Saouds and put it into those of the Emirs of Haïl.

Mohammed ibn Rashid is now not only the most powerful of Bedouin sheykhs, but the richest prince in Arabia; and as such has better means than any other of acquiring the best horses of Nejd, nor have these been neglected by him.

The possession of thoroughbred mares is always among the Arabs a symbol of power; and with the loss of their supreme position in Nejd, the Ibn Saouds have lost their command of the market, and their stud has been allowed to dwindle. The quarrels of the two brothers, Abdallah and Saoud, sons of Feysul, on their father’s death, their alternate victories and flights from the capital, and the ruin wrought on them both by the Turks, broke up an establishment which depended on wealth and security for its maintenance; and at the present moment, if common report speaks true, hardly a twentieth part of the old stud remains at Riad. The rest have passed into other hands.

That Feysul’s stud in its day was the best in Arabia is probable, and it may be that no collection now to be found there has an equal merit; but there seems little reason for supposing that it differed in anything but degree from what we ourselves saw, or that the animals composing it were distinct from those still owned by the various Bedouin tribes of Nejd. All our inquiries, on the contrary (and we spared no occasion of asking questions), tend to show that it is a mistake to suppose that the horses kept by the Emirs of Riad were a special breed, preserved in the towns of Aared from time immemorial, or that they differed in any way from those bred elsewhere in Central Arabia. They were, we were repeatedly assured, a collection recruited from the various tribes of the Nefûds,—a very fine collection, no doubt, but still a collection. Every Bedouin we have asked has laughed at the idea of there being a special Nejd breed, only found in Aared. In answer to our questions we were informed that in Feysul’s time emissaries from Riad were constantly on the look-out for mares wherever they could find them; and that the Emir had often made ghazús against this and that tribe, with no other object than the possession of a particular animal, of a particular breed. The tribe from which he got the best blood, the Hamdani Simri and the Kehilan el-Krush, was the Muteyr (sometimes called the Dushan), while the Beni Khaled, Dafir, Shammar, and even the Ánazeh, supplied him with occasional specimens. Abdallah ibn Saoud, his successor, still retains a few of them, but the bulk of the collection was dispersed, many of the best passing into the hands of Metaab and Bender, Mohammed ibn Rashid’s predecessors. Mohammed himself follows precisely the same system, except that he does not take by force, but on payment. He makes purchases from all the tribes around, and though he breeds in the town, his collection is constantly recruited from without. Were this not the case, no doubt, it would soon degenerate, as town-bred horses in Arabia, being stall-fed and getting no sort of exercise, are seldom fit for much. There is a false notion that the oases, such as those of Jebel Shammar and Aared, are spots especially adapted for the rearing of horses, and that the sandy wastes outside contain no pasture. But the very reverse of this is the case. The oases in which the towns stand, produce nothing but date palms and garden produce, nor is there a blade of grass, or even a tuft of camel pasture in their neighbourhood. The townspeople keep no animals except a few camels used for working the wells, and now and then a donkey. Even these must be fed either on corn or dates, which none but the rich can afford. Horses are a luxury reserved only for princes, and even the richest citizens do their travelling from village to village on foot. Longer journeys are performed on dromedaries brought in from the desert for the purpose, which are either the property of Bedouins or held with them by the citizens on shares.

The Nefûds, on the other hand, contain pasture in abundance, not only for camels, but for sheep and horses, and it is in the Nefûds that all these are bred. Ibn Rashid goes every spring with the bulk of his live stock to the desert, and leaves them during part of the summer with the tribes, only a few animals being reserved for use in the town. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon, that the upper plateaux of Nejd, where the towns and villages are found, are a stony wilderness almost entirely devoid of vegetation, while the Nefûds afford an inexhaustible supply of pasture. The want of water alone limits the pastoral value of these, for the inhabited area is necessarily confined to a radius of twenty or thirty miles round each well,—and wells are rare. These facts have not, I think, been hitherto sufficiently known to be appreciated.

With regard to Ibn Rashid’s collection at Haïl we looked it over three or four times in the stables, and saw it out once on a gala day, when each animal was made to look its best. The stables consist of four open yards communicating with each other, in which the animals stand tethered each to a square manger of sun-dried brick. They are not sheltered in any way, but wear long heavy rugs fastened across the chest. They are chained by one or more feet to the ground, and wear no headstalls. It being winter time and they ungroomed, they were all in the roughest possible condition, and, as has been mentioned, our first impression was one of disappointment. When at Haïl they are given no regular exercise, remaining it would seem for weeks together tied up thus, except for a few minutes in the evening, when they are led to drink. They are fed almost entirely on dry barley. In the spring only, for a few weeks, they eat green corn grown on purpose, and then are taken to the Nefûd or on ghazús. It is surprising that they should be able to do their work under such conditions.

The first yard one enters in going through the stables, contained, when we saw them, from twenty-five to thirty mares. In the second were twenty more, kept in a certain kind of condition for service in case of necessity; but even these get very little exercise. As they stand there in the yard, slovenly and unkempt, they have very little of that air of high breeding one would expect; and it requires considerable imagination to look upon them as indeed the ne plus ultra of breeding in Arabia. We made the mistake, too common, of judging horses by condition, for, mounted and in motion, these at once became transfigured.

Here may follow some descriptions of particular animals, written after one of our visits to the stud; these will give a better idea of them than any general remarks. In our notes I find:—

“1. A chestnut Kehîlet el-Krush with three white feet (mutlak el-yemin), 14 hands, or 14·1, but very powerful. Her head is plainer than most here—it would be thought a good head in England—lean and rather narrow. She has too heavy a neck, but a very fine shoulder, a high wither, legs like steel, hind quarter decidedly coarse, much hair at the heels. More bone than breeding, one is inclined to say, seeing her at her manger, though moving, and with the Emir on her back, one must be very captious not to admire. She is Mohammed’s favourite charger, and of the best blood in Nejd. Ibn Rashid got this strain from Ibn Saoud’s stables at Riad, but it came originally from the Muteyr.”

“2. A bay Hamdanieh Simri, also from Ibn Saoud’s collection, a pretty head, but no other distinction. N.B. This mare is of the same strain as our own mare Sherifa, but inferior to her.”

“3. A grey Seglawieh Sheyfi, extremely plain at first sight, with very drooping quarters, and a head in no way remarkable, but with a fine shoulder. This Seglawieh Sheyfi has a great reputation here, and is of special interest as being the last of her race, the only descendant of the famous mare bought by Abbas Pasha, who sent a bullock cart from Egypt all the way to Nejd to fetch her, for she was old, and unable to travel on foot. The story is well known here, and was told to us exactly as we heard it in the north, with the addition that this mare of Ibn Rashid’s is the only representative of the strain left in Arabia.” [7]

“4. A dark bay Kehîlet Ajuz, quite 14·2, one white foot, really splendid in every point, shoulder quarter and all; the handsomest head and largest eye of any here. She has ideal action, head and tail carried to perfection, and recalls Beteyen ibn Mershid’s mare, but her head is finer. She belongs to Hamúd, who is very proud of her, and tells us she came from the Jerba Shammar. It surprises us to find here a mare from Mesopotamia; but we are told that interchange of horses between the southern and northern Shammar is by no means rare.”

“5. A dark brown Kehîlet Ajuz, no white except an inch in breadth just above one hoof, lovely head and thoroughbred appearance, and for style of galloping perhaps the best here, although less powerful than the Emir’s chestnut and Hamúd’s bay. It is hard to choose among the three.”

“Of the eight horses, the best is a Shueyman Sbah of great power, head large and very fine. He reminds us of Faris Jerba’s mare of the same strain of blood; they are probably related closely, for he has much the same points, forequarter perfect, hindquarter strong but less distinguished. He was bred, however, in Nejd.”

“A grey Seglawi Jedran, from Ibn Nedéri of the Gomussa Ánazeh, is a poor specimen of that great strain of blood; but the Bedouin respect for it prevails here though they have now no pure Seglawi Jedrans in Nejd. It is interesting to find this horse valued here, as the fact proves that the Ánazeh horses are thought much of in Nejd. The more one sees of the Nejd horses here, the more is one convinced of the superiority of those of the Ánazeh in the points of speed, and, proud as every one here is of the ‘kheyl Nejdi,’ it seems to be acknowledged that in these points they are surpassed by the Ánazeh horses.”

“Our own Ánazeh mares are looked upon as prodigies of speed.

“In comparing what we see here, with what we saw last year in the north, the first thing that strikes us is that these are ponies, the others horses. It is not so much the actual difference in height, though there must be quite three inches on an average, as the shape, which produces this impression. The Nejd horses have as a rule shorter necks and shorter bodies, and stand over far less ground than the Ánazehs. Then, although their shoulders are undoubtedly good and their withers higher than one generally sees further north, the hind-quarter is short, and if it were not for the peculiarly handsome carriage of the tail would certainly want distinction. Their legs all seem to be extremely good; but we have not seen in one of them that splendid line of the hind leg to the hock which is so striking in the Ánazeh thoroughbreds. Of their feet it is difficult to judge, for from long standing without exercise, all the Emir’s mares have their hoofs overgrown. Their manes and tails are thicker than one would expect.

“In their heads, however, there is certainly a general superiority to the Ánazeh mares, at least in all the points the Arabs most admire, and we were both struck, directly we saw them, with the difference.”

* * * * *

As I may fairly assume that few persons out of Arabia have an idea what are there considered the proper points of a horse’s head, I will give here a description of them:

First of all, the head should be large, not small. A little head the Arabs particularly dislike, but the size should be all in the upper regions of the skull. There should be a great distance from the ears to the eyes, and a great distance from one eye to the other, though not from ear to ear. The forehead, moreover, and the whole region between and just below the eyes, should be convex, the eyes themselves standing rather “à fleur de tête.” But there should be nothing fleshy about their prominence, and each bone should be sharply edged; a flat forehead is disliked. The space round the eyes should be free of all hair, so as to show the black skin underneath, and this just round the eyes should be especially black and lustrous. The cheek-bone should be deep and lean, and the jaw-bone clearly marked. Then the face should narrow suddenly and run down almost to a point, not however to such a point as one sees in the English racehorse, whose profile seems to terminate with the nostril, but to the tip of the lip. The nostril when in repose should lie flat with the face, appearing in it little more than a slit, and pinched and puckered up, as also should the mouth, which should have the under-lip longer than the upper, “like the camel’s,” the Bedouins say. The ears, especially in the mare, should be long, but fine and delicately cut, like the ears of a gazelle.

It must be remarked that the head and the tail are the two points especially regarded by Arabs in judging of a horse, as in them they think they can discover the surest signs of his breeding. The tails of the Nejd horses are as peculiar as their heads, and are as essential to their beauty. However other points might differ, every horse at Haïl had its tail set on in the same fashion, in repose something like the tail of a rocking horse, and not as has been described, “thrown out in a perfect arch.” In motion the tail was held high in the air, and looked as if it could not under any circumstances be carried low. Mohammed ibn Arûk declared roundly that the phenomenon was an effect, partly at least, of art. He assured us that before a foal is an hour old, its tail is bent back over a stick and the twist produces a permanent result. But this sounds unlikely, and in any case it could hardly affect the carriage of the tail in galloping.

With regard to colour, of the hundred animals in the Haïl stables, there were about forty greys or rather whites, thirty bays, twenty chestnuts, and the rest brown. We did not see a real black, and of course there are no roans, or piebalds, or duns, for these are not Arab colours. The Emir one day asked us what colours we preferred in England, and when we told him bay or chestnut he quite agreed with us. Nearly all Arabs prefer bay with black points, though pure white with a very black skin and hoofs is also liked. In a bay or chestnut, three white feet, the off fore-foot being dark, are not objected to. But, as a rule, colour is not much regarded at Haïl, for there as elsewhere in Arabia a fashionable strain is all in all.

“Besides the full grown animals, Ibn Rashid’s yards contain thirty or forty foals and yearlings, beautiful little creatures but terribly starved and miserable. Foals bred in the desert are poor enough, but these in town have a positively sickly appearance. Tied all day long by the foot they seem to have quite lost heart, and show none of the playfulness of their age. Their tameness, like that of the “fowl and the brute,” is shocking to see. The Emir tells us that every spring he sends a hundred yearlings down to Queyt on the Persian Gulf under charge of one of his slaves, who sells them at Bombay for £100 apiece. They are of course now at their worst age, but they have the prospect of a few months’ grazing in the Nefûd before appearing in the market.”

“On the whole, both of us are rather disappointed with what we see here. Of all the mares in the prince’s stables I do not think more than three or four could show with advantage among the Gomussa, and, in fact, we are somewhat alarmed lest the Emir should propose an exchange with us for our chestnut Ras el-Fedawi which is greatly admired by every one. If he did, we could not well refuse.”

With regard to Nejd horses in general, the following remarks are based on what we saw and heard at Haïl, and elsewhere in Arabia.

First, whatever may have been the case formerly, horses of any kind are now exceedingly rare in Nejd. One may travel vast distances in the Peninsula without meeting a single horse or even crossing a horse track. Both in the Nefûd and on our return journey to the Euphrates, we carefully examined every track of man and beast we met; but from the time of our leaving the Roala till close to Meshhed Ali, not twenty of these proved to be tracks of horses. The wind no doubt obliterates footsteps quickly, but it could not wholly do so, if there were a great number of the animals near. The Ketherin, a true Nejd tribe and a branch of the Beni Khaled, told us with some pride that they could mount a hundred horsemen, and even the Muteyr, reputed to be the greatest breeders of thoroughbred stock in Nejd, are said to possess only 400 mares. The horse is a luxury with the Bedouins of the Peninsula, and not, as it is with those of the North, a necessity of their daily life. Their journeys and raids and wars are all made on camel, not on horse-back; and at most the Sheykh mounts his mare at the moment of battle. The want of water in Nejd is a sufficient reason for this. Horses there are kept for show rather than actual use, and are looked upon as far too precious to run unnecessary risks.

Secondly, what horses there are in Nejd, are bred in the Nefûds. The stony plateaux of the interior contain no suitable pasture except in a very few places, while the Nefûds afford grass, green or dry, the whole year round. The Muteyr, the Beni Khaled, the Dafir, and the Shammar, are now the principal breeders of horses in Nejd, but the Ánazeh are regarded as possessing the best strains, and the Ánazeh have disappeared from Nejd. They began to migrate northwards about two hundred years ago, and have ever since continued moving by successive migrations till all have abandoned their original homes. It may be that the great name which Nejd horses undoubtedly have in the East, was due mainly to these very Ánazeh, with whose horses they are now contrasted. The Bisshr Ánazeh were settled in the neighbourhood of Kheybar, on the western edge of the Nefûd, the Roala south of Jôf, and the Amarrat in the extreme east. These probably among them supplied Nejd horses in former times to Syria, Bagdad, and Persia, and some sections of the tribe may even have found their way further south; for the Ibn Saouds themselves are an Ánazeh family. So that then, probably, as now, the best strains of blood were in their hands. To the present day in the north the Ánazeh distinguish the descendants of the mares brought with them from Nejd as “Nejdi,” while they call the descendants of the mares captured from the tribes of the North, “Shimali” or Northerners.

The management and education of horses seems to differ little in Nejd from what it is elsewhere among the Arabs. But we were surprised to find that, in place of the Bedouin halter, the bit is used at Haïl. At first we fancied that this was in imitation of Turkish manners; but it is more likely to be an old custom with town Arabs. Indeed the Bedouins of the Sahara, no less than the Turks, use the ring bit, which may after all have been an invention of Arabia. Bad as it is for the mouth, it is certainly of use in the fancy riding indulged in at Haïl, the jerid play and sham fighting. Among the Bedouins of Nejd the halter alone is used.

Of anything like racing we could learn nothing. Trials of speed are no longer in fashion, as they must have been once, and skill in turning and doubling is alone of any value. That some tradition, however, of training still exists among the Arabs, the following recipe for rearing a colt seems to prove. It was given us in answer to our description of English racing and racehorses, and probably represents a traditional practice of Arabia as old as the days of Mahomet.

ARAB RECIPE FOR REARING A COLT.

“If,” said our informant, “you would make a colt run faster than his fellows, remember the following rules:—

“‘During the first month of his life let him be content with his mother’s milk, it will be sufficient for him. Then during five months add to this natural supply goat’s milk, as much as he will drink. For six months more give him the milk of camels, and besides a measure of wheat steeped in water for a quarter of an hour, and served in a nosebag.

“‘At a year old the colt will have done with milk; he must be fed on wheat and grass, the wheat dry from a nose-bag, the grass green if there is any.

“‘At two years old he must work, or he will be worthless. Feed him now, like a full-grown horse, on barley; but in summer let him also have gruel daily at midday. Make the gruel thus:—Take a double-handful of flour, and mix it in water well with your hands till the water seems like milk; then strain it, leaving the dregs of the flour, and give what is liquid to the colt to drink.

“‘Be careful from the hour he is born to let him stand in the sun; shade hurts horses, but let him have water in plenty when the day is hot.

“‘The colt must now be mounted, and taken by his owner everywhere with him, so that he shall see everything, and learn courage. He must be kept constantly in exercise, and never remain long at his manger. He should be taken on a journey, for work will fortify his limbs.

“‘At three years old he should be trained to gallop. Then, if he be of true blood, he will not be left behind. Yalla!’”

CHAPTER XIII.

“Babel was Nimrod’s hunting box, and then
A town of gardens, walls, and wealth amazing,
Where Nabuchodonosor, king of men,
Reigned till one summer’s day he took to grazing.”

Byron.

“. . . Oh how wretched
Is that poor man that lives on princes’ favours.”

Shakespeare.

Mohammed loses his head—A ride with the Emir—The mountain fortress of Agde—Farewell to Haïl—We join the Persian Haj—Ways and manners of the pilgrims—A clergyman of Medina.

I have hinted at a mystification in which we found ourselves involved a few days after our arrival at Haïl, and which at the time caused us no little anxiety. It had its origin in a piece of childishness on Mohammed’s part, whose head was completely turned by the handsome reception given him as an Ibn Arûk by the Emir, and a little too, I fear, by our own spoiling. To the present day I am not quite sure that we heard all that happened, and so forbear entering upon the matter in detail; but as far as we could learn, Mohammed’s vanity seems to have led him to aggrandise his own position in the eyes of Ibn Rashid’s court, by representing us as persons whom he had taken under his protection, and who were in some way dependent on him; boasting that the camels, horses, and other property were his own, and our servants his people. This under ordinary circumstances might have been a matter of small consequence, and we should not have grudged him a little self-glorification at our expense, conscious as we were of having owed the success of our journey hitherto, mainly to his fidelity. But unfortunately the secondary rôle which he would thus have assigned to us, made our relations with the Emir not only embarrassing, but positively dangerous. Our reception at first had been cordial to a degree that made it all the more annoying to find, that when we had been four days at Haïl, we no longer received the attentions which had hitherto been paid us. The presents of game ceased, and the lamb, with which we had hitherto been regaled at dinner, was replaced by camel meat. Instead of two soldiers being sent to escort us to the palace, a slave boy came with a message. On the fifth day we were not invited to the evening party, and on the sixth Wilfrid, calling at the palace, was told curtly that the Emir was not at home. We could not imagine the cause of this change, and Mohammed, usually so cheerful and so open-hearted, had become moody and embarrassed, keeping almost entirely with the servants in the outer house. Hanna, the faithful Hanna, began to hint darkly that things were not well, and Abdallah and the rest of the Mussulman servants seemed unwilling to do their duty. We remembered that we were among Wahhabi fanatics, and we began to be very much alarmed. Still we were far from guessing the real reason, and it was not till we had been a week at Haïl that Wilfrid, happening to meet the Emir’s chief slave Mubarek, learned from him how matters stood. It was no use being angry; indeed Mohammed’s conduct was rather childish than disloyal, and the dénouement would have not been worth mentioning except as an illustration of Arab manners and ways of thought, and also as explaining why our stay at Haïl was cut shorter than we had originally intended it to be; and why, instead of going on to Kasim, we joined the Persian pilgrimage on their homeward road to Meshhed Ali.

Matters of course could not rest there, and on returning home from his interview with Mubarek, Wilfrid upbraided Mohammed with his folly, and then sent to the palace for Mufurraj, the master of ceremonies, and the same dignified old gentleman who had received us on our arrival, and having explained the circumstances bade him in his turn explain them to the Emir. The old man promised to do this, and I have no doubt kept his word, for that very evening we were sent for once more to the palace, and received with the old cordiality. It is, too, I think very creditable to the arrangements of the Haïl court, that no explanations of any sort were entered into. Mohammed, though put in his proper place, was still politely received; and only an increase of amiable attentions made us remember that we had ever had cause to complain. As to Mohammed, I am bound to say, that once the fumes of his vanity evaporated, he bore no kind of malice for what we had been obliged to do, and became once more the amiable, attentive and serviceable friend he had hitherto been. Ill-temper is not an Arab failing. Still the incident was a lesson and a warning, a lesson that we were Europeans still among Asiatics, a warning that Haïl was a lion’s den, though fortunately we were friends with the lion. We began to make our plans for moving on.

I have said little as yet about the Persian pilgrimage which, encamped just outside the walls of Haïl, had all along been a main feature in the goings on of the place. On a certain Tuesday, however, the Emir sent us a message that he expected us to come out riding with him, and that he would meet us at that gate of the town where the pilgrims were. It was a fortunate day for us, not indeed because we saw the pilgrims, but because we saw what we would have come the whole journey to see, and had almost despaired of seeing,—all the best of the Emir’s horses out and galloping about. We were delighted at the opportunity, and made haste to get ready. In half an hour we were on our mares, and in the street. There was a great concourse of people all moving towards the camp, and just outside the town we found the Emir’s cavalcade. This for the moment absorbed all my thoughts, for I had not yet seen any of the Haïl horses mounted. The Emir, splendidly dressed but barefooted, was riding a pretty little white mare, while the chestnut Krushieh followed him mounted by a slave.

All our friends were there, Hamúd, Majid and the two boys his brothers, with a still smaller boy, whom they introduced to us as a son of Metaab, the late Emir, all in high spirits and anxious to show off their horses and their horsemanship; while next the Emir and under his special protection rode the youth with the tragical history, Naïf, the sole remaining son of Tellál, whose brothers Mohammed had killed, and who, it is whispered, will some day be called on to revenge their deaths. Mubarek too, the white slave, was there, a slave in name only, for he is strikingly like the princely family in feature and is one of the richest and most important personages in Haïl. The rest of the party consisted of friends and servants, with a fair sprinkling of black faces among them, dressed in their best clothes and mounted on the Emir’s mares. Conspicuous on his beautiful bay was Hamúd, who, as usual, did us the honours, and pointed out and explained the various persons and things we saw. It was one of those mornings one only finds in Nejd. The air brilliant and sparkling to a degree one cannot imagine in Europe, and filling one with a sense of life such as one remembers to have had in childhood, and which gives one a wish to shout. The sky of an intense blue, and the hills in front of us carved out of sapphire, and the plain, crisp and even as a billiard table, sloping gently upwards towards them. On one side the battlemented walls and towers of Haïl, with the palace rising out of a dark mass of palms almost black in the sunlight; on the other the pilgrim camp, a parti-coloured mass of tents, blue, green, red, white, with the pilgrims themselves in a dark crowd, watching with curious half-frightened eyes the barbaric display of which we formed a part.

Presently the Emir gave a signal to advance, and turning towards the south-west, our whole party moved on in the direction of a clump of palm-trees we could see about two miles off. Hamúd then suddenly put his mare into a gallop, and one after another the rest of the party joined him in a sham fight, galloping, doubling, and returning to the Emir, who remained alone with us, and shouting as though they would bring the sky about their ears. At last the Emir could resist it no longer, and seizing a jerid or palm stick from one of the slaves, went off himself among the others. In a moment his dignity and his town manners were forgotten, and he became the Bedouin again which he and all his family really are. His silk kefiyehs were thrown back, and bare-headed with his long Bedouin plaits streaming in the wind and bare-legged and bare-armed, he galloped hither and thither; charging into the throng, and pursuing and being pursued, and shouting as if he had never felt a care, and never committed a crime in his life.

We found ourselves alone with a strange little personage whom we had already noticed riding beside the Emir, and who seemed even more out of place in this fantastic entertainment than ourselves. I hope at least that we looked less ridiculous than he did. Mounted on a sorry little kadish, and dressed in the fashion of European children fifty years ago, with a high waisted coat, well pleated at the skirt, trousers up to his knees, and feet shod with slippers, a little brown skull cap on his head, and a round shaven face, sat what seemed an overgrown boy, but what in reality was a chief person from among the Persian pilgrims. It was Ali Koli Khan, son of the great Khan of the Bactiari, who for his father’s sake was being treated by the Emir with all possible honour. He, with the rest of the Haj, was now on his way back from Mecca, and it was partly to impress him with the Emir’s magnificence that the present party had been arranged.

We did not long stay alone, for in a few minutes the galloping ceased, and we then went on sedately as before, and in due time arrived at the palm trees, which, it turned out, were the Emir’s property, and contained in a garden surrounded by a high wall. Here we were invited to dismount, and a carpet having been spread under the trees, we all sat down. Slaves were soon busy serving a luncheon of sweetmeats,—boys were made to climb the lemon trees, and shake down the fruit, and coffee was handed round. Then all the party said their prayers except ourselves and the Persian, who, as a Shiah, could not join in their devotions, and we mounted again and rode home. This time we too joined in the galloping, which speedily recommenced, our mares fully enjoying the fun, and in this way we scampered back to Haïl.

On the following day Wilfrid called on Ali Koli Khan in his tent, going there with Mohammed, now once more a reasonable companion and follower. Indeed in the Persian camp assumptions of nobility on Mohammed’s part would have been quite thrown away, for the Persians care nothing for Arabian nobility, and treat all alike as Bedouins and barbarians. Ali Koli, though only a younger son, was travelling in state, having his mother with him, and a multitude of servants, male and female, besides his hemeldaria or contractor, and the Arabs managing his beasts. His major-domo and interpreter was a magnificent personage, and his followers, dressed in felt tunics and skull caps, gave him the appearance of being an important chief. His tent was of the Turkish pattern, well lined and comfortable, with fine Persian carpets on the floor, and a divan. There Wilfrid found him sitting with a friend, Abd er-Rahim, the son of a merchant of Kermanshah, who is also British consular agent there. The young Persians were very amiable; but the contrast of their manners with those of the ceremonious Arabs struck Wilfrid at once. There were none of those elaborate compliments and polite inquiries one gets used to at Haïl, but rather a European sans géne in the form of reception. They made Wilfrid comfortable on the divan, called for tea, which was served in a samovar, and at once poured out a long history of their sufferings on the pilgrimage. This they did in very broken Arabic, and with an accent irresistibly absurd, for the Persians speak with a drawl in their intonation, wholly foreign to that of the Arabs. Ali’s natural language, he says, is Kurdish, but being an educated person, and an officer in the Shah’s army, he talks Persian equally well. In Persia, Arabic plays much the part in education which Latin did in Europe before it was quite a dead language. Both he and Abd er-Rahim were loud in complaints of every thing Arabian, and in spite of Mohammed’s presence, abused roundly the whole Arab race, the poverty of the towns, the ignorance of the citizens, and the robberies of the Bedouins, also the extortionate charges of the Arab hemeldarias, contractors for camels, and the miseries of desert travelling. “Was ever anything seen so miserable as the bazaar at Haïl; not a bag of sweetmeats to be had for love or money, the Arabs were mere barbarians, drinkers of coffee instead of tea.” Every now and then, too, they would break out into conversation in their own language. Wilfrid, however, liked Ali Koli, and they parted very good friends, with an invitation from both the young Persians to travel on with them to Meshhed on the Euphrates, where the Persians always end their pilgrimage by a visit to the shrines of Ali and Huseyn. This seemed an excellent opportunity, and having consulted the Emir, who highly approved of the plan, we accordingly decided to travel with the Haj as soon as it should start.

Our last days at Haïl were by no means the least pleasant. As a final proof of his goodwill and confidence, the Emir announced that we might pay a visit to Agde, a fortress in the mountains some miles from Haïl, and which he had never before shown to any stranger. I do not feel at liberty to say exactly where this is, for we were sent to see it rather on parole, and though I hope Ibn Rashid runs no danger of foreign invasion, I would not give a clue to possible enemies. Suffice it to say that it lies in the mountains, in a position of great natural strength, made stronger by some rude attempts at fortification, and that it is really one of the most curious places in the world.

One approaches it from the plain by a narrow winding valley, reminding one not a little of the wadys of Mount Sinai, where the granite rocks rise abruptly on either hand out of a pure bed of sand. On one of these is engraved an inscription in Arabic which we copied and which though not very legible may be read thus:—

“Hadihi kharâbat Senhârib.”

“This (is) the ruin of Senacherib (’s building).”

Such at least is its meaning in the opinion of Mr. Sabunji, a competent Arabic scholar, though I will not venture to explain on what occasion Senacherib made his way to Nejd, nor why he wrote in Arabic instead of his own cuneiform.

Inside the defences, the valley broadens out into an amphitheatre formed by the junction of three or four wadys in which there is a village and a palm garden. Besides which, the wadys are filled with wild palms watered, the Arabs say, “min Allah,” by Providence, at least by no human hand. They are very beautiful, forming a brilliant contrast of green fertility with the naked granite crags which overhang them on all sides. These are perhaps a thousand feet in height, and run down sheer into the sandy floor of the wadys, so that one is reminded in looking at them of that valley of diamonds where the serpents lived, and down which the merchants threw their pieces of meat for the rocs to gather, in the tale of Sinbad the Sailor. No serpents however live in Agde, but a population of very honest Shammar, who entertained us with a prodigality of dates and coffee, difficult to do justice to. We had been sent in the company of two horsemen of the Emir’s, Shammar, who did the honours, as Agde and all in it are really Ibn Rashid’s private property. These and the villagers gave us a deal of information about the hills we were in, and showed us where a great battle had been fought by Mohammed’s father and his uncle Obeyd against the Ibn Ali, formerly Emirs of the Jebel. It would seem that Agde was the oldest possession of the Ibn Rashids, and that on their taking Haïl the Ibn Alis marched against them, when they retreated to their fortress, and there gave battle and such a defeat to the people of Kefar that it secured to the Ibn Rashids supreme power ever after. They also showed us with great pride a wall built by Obeyd to block the narrow valley, and made us look at everything, wells, gardens, and houses, so that we spent nearly all the day there. They told us too of a mysterious beast that comes from the hills by night and climbs the palm trees for sake of the dates. “As large as a hare, with a long tail, and very good to eat.” They describe it as sitting on its hind-legs, and whistling, so that Wilfrid thinks it must be a marmot. Only, do marmots climb? They call it the Webber.

We had a delightful gallop home with the two Bedouins, (Mohammed was not with us,) of whom we learned one of the Shammar war songs, which runs thus:—

“Ma arid ana erkobu delúl,
Lau zeynuli shedadeha,
Aridu ana hamra shenûf,
Hamra seryeh aruddeha.”

thus literally translated:—

“I would not ride a mere delúl,
Though lovely to me her shedad (camel-saddle);
Let me be mounted on a mare,
A bay mare, swift and quick to turn.”

They were mounted on very pretty ponies, but could not keep up with us galloping. If we had been in Turkey, or indeed anywhere else but in Arabia, we should have had to give a handsome tip after an expedition of this kind; but at Haïl nothing of the sort was expected. Both these Shammar were exceedingly intelligent well mannered men, with souls above money. They were doing their duty to the prince as Sheykh, and to us as strangers, and they did it enthusiastically.

The level of Agde is 3,780 feet above the sea, that of Haïl 3,500.

This was, perhaps, the pleasantest day of all those we spent at Haïl, and will live long with us as a delightful remembrance. On the following day we were to depart. Mohammed, while we were away, had been making preparations. Two new camels had been bought, and a month’s provision of dates and rice purchased, in addition to a gift of excellent Yemen coffee sent us by the Emir. Our last interview with Ibn Rashid was characteristic. He was not at the kasr, but in a house he has close to the Mecca gate, where from a little window he can watch unperceived the goings on of the Haj encamped below him. We found him all alone, for he has lost all fear of our being assassins now, at his window like a bird of prey, calculating no doubt how many more silver pieces he should be able to make out of the Persians before they were well out of his clutches. Every now and then he would lean out of the window, which was partly covered by a shutter, and shout to one of his men who were standing below some message with regard to the pilgrims. He seemed to be enjoying the pleasure of his power over them, and it is absolute.

To us he was very amiable, renewing all his protestations of friendship and regard, and offering to give us anything we might choose to ask for, dromedaries for the journey, or one of his mares. This, although we should have liked to accept the last offer, we of course declined, Wilfrid making a short speech in the Arab manner, saying that the only thing we asked was the Emir’s regard, and wishing him length of days. He begged Mohammed ibn Rashid to consider him as his vakil in Europe in case he required assistance of any kind, and thanked him for all the kindness we had received at his hands. The Emir then proposed that we should put off our departure, and go with him instead on a ghazú or warlike expedition he was starting on in a few days, a very attractive offer which might have been difficult to refuse had it been made earlier, but which we now declined. Our heads, in fact, had been in the jaws of the lion long enough, and now our only object was to get quietly and decorously out of the den. We therefore pleaded want of time, and added that our camels were already on the road; we then said good-bye and took our leave.

There was, however, one more visit to be paid, this time of friendly regard more than of ceremony. As we rode through the town we stopped at Hamúd’s house and found him and all his family at home. To them our farewells were really expressions of regret at parting, and Hamúd gave us some very sound advice about going on with the Haj to Meshhed Ali, instead of trying to get across to Bussora. There had been rain, he said, on the pilgrim road, and all the reservoirs (those marked on the map as the tanks of Zobeydeh) were full, so that our journey that way would be exceptionally easy, whereas between this and Bussorah, we should have to pass over an almost waterless region, without anything interesting to compensate for the difficulty. But this we should see as we went on—the first thing, as I have said, was to get clear away, and it would be time enough later to settle details about our course.

Majid was there, and received from Wilfrid as a remembrance a silver-handled Spanish knife, whereupon he sent for a black cloth cloak with a little gold embroidery on the collar and presented it to me. It was a suitable gift, for I had nothing of the sort, indeed no respectable abba at all, and this one was both dignified and quiet in appearance. Majid at least, I am sure, regrets us, and if circumstances ever take us again to Haïl, it would be the best fortune for us to find him or his father on the throne. They are regarded as the natural heirs to the Sheykhat, and Ibn Rashid’s does not look like a long life.

After this we mounted, and in another five minutes were clear of the town. Then looking back, we each drew a long breath, for Haïl with all the charm of its strangeness, and its interesting inhabitants, had come to be like a prison to us, and at one time when we had had that quarrel with Mohammed, had seemed very like a tomb.

We left Haïl by the same gate at which we had entered it, what seemed like years before, but instead of turning towards the mountains, we skirted the wall of the town and further on the palm gardens, which are its continuation, for about three miles down a ravine-like wady. Then we came out on the plain again, and at the last isolated group of ithel trees, halted for the last time to enjoy the shade, for the sun was almost hot, before joining the pilgrim caravan, which we could see like a long line of ants traversing the plain between us and the main range of Jebel Shammar.

It was, without exception, the most beautiful view I ever saw in my life, and I will try to describe it. To begin with, it must be understood that the air, always clear in Jebel Shammar, was this day of a transparent clearness, which probably surpasses anything seen in ordinary deserts, or in the high regions of the Alps, or at the North Pole, or anywhere except perhaps in the moon. For this is the very centre of the desert, four hundred miles from the sea, and nearly four thousand feet above the sea level. Before us lay a foreground of coarse reddish sand, the washing down of the granite rocks of Jebel Aja, with here and there magnificent clumps of ithel, great pollards whose trunks measure twenty and thirty feet [34] in circumference, growing on little mounds showing where houses once stood—just as in Sussex the yew trees do—for the town seems to have shifted from this end of the oasis to where it now is. Across this sand lay a long green belt of barley, perhaps a couple of acres in extent, the blades of corn brilliantly green, and just having shot up high enough to hide the irrigation furrows. Beyond this, for a mile or more, the level desert fading from red to orange, till it was again cut by what appeared to be a shining sheet of water reflecting the deep blue of the sky—a mirage of course, but the most perfect illusion that can be imagined. Crossing this, and apparently wading in the water, was the long line of the pilgrim camels, each reflected exactly in the mirage below him with the dots of blue, red, green, or pink, representing the litter or tent he carried. The line of the procession might be five miles or more in length; we could not see the end of it. Beyond again rose the confused fantastic mass of the sapphire coloured crags of Jebel Aja, the most strange and beautiful mountain range that can be imagined—a lovely vision.

When we had sufficiently admired all this, and I had made my sketch of it, for there was no hurry, we got on our mares again and rejoicing with them in our freedom, galloped on singing the Shammar song, “Ma arid ana erkobu delúl lau zeynoli shedadeha, biddi ana hamra shenûf, hamra seriyeh arruddeha,” a proceeding which inspired them more than any whip or spur could have done, and which as we converged towards the Haj caravan, made the camels caper, and startled the pilgrims into the idea that the Harb Bedouins were once more upon them. So we went along with Mohammed following us, till we reached the vanguard of the Haj, and the green and red banner which goes in front of it. Close to this we found our own camels, and soon after camped with them, not ten miles from Haïl in a bit of a wady where the standard was planted.

Our tents are a couple of hundred yards away from the Haj camp, which is crowded together for fear of the dangers of the desert. The pilgrim mueddins have just chanted the evening call to prayers, and the people are at their devotions. Our mares are munching their barley, and our hawk (a trained bird we bought yesterday for six mejidies of a Bedouin at Haïl), is sitting looking very wise on his perch in front of us. It is a cold evening, but oh how clean and comfortable in the tent!

February 2.—It appears after all that only about half the Haj left Haïl yesterday. There has been a difficulty about camels some say, others that Ibn Rashid will not let the people go, an affair of money probably in either case. So we had hardly gone more than two miles before a halt was ordered by the emir el-haj, one Ambar, a black slave of Ibn Rashid’s, and the camels and their riders remained massed together on a piece of rising ground for the purpose we think of being counted. The dervishes, however, and other pilgrims on foot went on as they liked, and so did we, for we do not consider ourselves bound by any of the rules of the Haj procession, and Abdallah has orders to march our camels well outside the main body. There was no road or track at all to-day, and we went forward on the look-out for water which we heard was somewhere on ahead, crossing some very rough ground and wadys which were almost ravines. We have become so used to the desert now, that from a long distance we made out the water, guessing its position from the white colour of the ground near it. The whiteness is caused by a stonelike deposit the water makes when it stands long anywhere; and in this instance it lay in a sort of natural reservoir or series of reservoirs in the bed of a shallow wady. These must have been filled some time during the winter by rain, and we hurried on to fill our goat skins at them while they were still clean, for the pilgrims would soon drink up and pollute them. They are but small pools. We found Awwad already there, he having been sent on in front with a delúl to make sure of our supply, and the process of filling the skins was hardly over before the dervishes who always march ahead of the Haj began to arrive. They have an unpleasant habit of washing in the water first, and drinking it afterwards, which we are told is part of their religious ritual.

The wind has been very violent all day with a good deal of sand in it, but it has now gone down. Our course since leaving Haïl has been east by north, and is directed towards a tall hill, Jebel Jildiyeh, which is a very conspicuous landmark. Our camp to-night is a pleasanter one than yesterday’s, being further from the pilgrims, and we have a little wady all to ourselves, with plenty of good firewood, and food for the camels.

February 3.—Though fires were lit this morning at four o’clock as if in preparation of an early start, no move has been made to-day. Half the pilgrimage they tell us is still at Haïl, and must be waited for. Wilfrid went to-day into the camp to find our friend Ali Koli Khan, but neither he nor Abd er-Rahim, nor anyone else he knew had arrived.

The Persian pilgrims, though not very agreeable in person or in habits (for they are without the sense of propriety which is so characteristic of the Arabs), are friendly enough, and if we could talk to them, would, I dare say, be interesting, but on a superficial comparison with the Arabs they seem coarse and boorish. They are most of them fair complexioned, and many have fair hair and blue eyes; but their features are heavy, and there is much the same difference between them and the Shammar who are escorting them, as there is between a Dutch cart-horse and one of Ibn Rashid’s mares. In spite of their washings, which are performed in season and out of season all day long, they look unutterably dirty in their greasy felt dresses, as no unwashed Arab ever did. Awwad and the rest of our people now and then get into disputes with them when they come too near our tents in search of firewood, and it is evident that there is no love lost between Persian and Arab.

My day has been spent profitably at home re-stuffing my saddle, which was sadly in want of it. Mohammed has become quite himself again, no airs or graces of any kind, and, as he says, the air of Haïl did not agree with him. He seems anxious now to efface all recollection of the past, and has made himself very agreeable, telling us histories connected with the Sebaa and their horses, all of them instructive, some amusing.

February 4.—Another day’s waiting, the pilgrims as well as we ourselves impatient, but impatience is no good. Wilfrid, by way of occupying the time, went off on a surveying expedition by himself, with his mare and the greyhounds. He went in a straight line northwards, towards a line of low hills which are visible here from the high ground. They are about twelve miles off. He met nobody except a couple of Bedouins on delúls, going to Atwa, where they told him there is a well. They looked on him and his gun with suspicion, and did not much like being cross-questioned. After that he found the desert absolutely empty of life, a succession of level sandy plains, and rough ridges of sandstone. The hills themselves, which he reached before turning back, were also of yellow sandstone, weathered black in patches, and from the top of the ridge he could make out the Nefûd, like a red sea. He galloped to the ridge and back in three hours. The ride was useful, as it enabled him to get the position of several of the principal hills, Yatubb, Jildiyeh, and others, and to mark them on his chart. He did not say where he intended to go, but as it happened, he returned before there was time for me to become anxious.

In the meanwhile, Awwad and Abdallah had been giving the falcon a lesson with a lure they have made out of one of the nosebags. The bird seems very tame, and comes to Awwad when he calls it, shouting “Ash’o, ash’o,” which he explains is the short for its name, Rasham, a corruption of the word rashmon, which means shining like lightning. We may hope now with Rasham’s assistance to keep ourselves supplied with meat, for hares are in plenty.

In the afternoon visitors came, some Shammar Bedouins of the Ibn Duala family, who have preferred to camp beside us, as more congenial neighbours to them than the Persians. They are on their way from Haïl to their tents in the Nefûd with a message from the Emir that more camels are wanted; and they are going on afterwards with the Haj as far as Meshhed Ali, or perhaps to Samawa on the Euphrates, to buy rice (tummin), and wheat. It is only twice a year that the tribes of Jebel Shammar can communicate with the outside world; on the occasion of the two Haj journeys, coming and going. It is then that they lay in their provision for the year. The eldest of these Ibn Duala, a man of sixty, is very well-mannered and amiable. He dined with Mohammed and the servants in their tent, and came to sit with us afterwards in ours. We are in half a mind to leave this dawdling Haj, and go on with him to-morrow. But his tents lie some way to the left out of our road.

Besides the Ibn Dualas, there are some poor Bedouins with their camels crouched down in our wady to be out of sight. They are afraid of being impressed for the Haj, and at first it was difficult to understand why, if so, they should have come so close to it. But they explained that they hoped to get lost in the crowd, and hoped to have the advantage of its company, without having their camels loaded. They, like everybody else, are on their way to Meshhed to buy corn.

There is a report that the Emir is coming from Haïl to-morrow, and will travel three days with the pilgrimage, going on afterwards, nobody knows where, on a ghazú. This would be tiresome, as now we have wished him good-bye we only want to get away.

February 5.—We have moved at last, but only another ten miles, to a larger wady, which seems to drain the whole country, and which they call Wady Hanasser (the valley of the little fingers), why so called I cannot say. Here there are numerous wells, and a large tract of camel pasture, of the sort called rimh. There are a good number of hares in this cover, and we have had some coursing with our greyhounds, aided by a sort of lurcher who has attached himself to us. The servants call him “Merzug,” which may be translated a “windfall” literally a gift from God, an unattractive animal, but possessed of a nose.

Two hours after starting we came to a curious tell standing quite alone in the plain. It is, like all the rest of the country now, of sandstone, and we were delighted to find it covered with inscriptions, [41] and pictures of birds and beasts of the sort we had already seen, but much better executed, and on a larger scale. The character, whatever its name, is a very handsome one, as distinct and symmetrical as the Greek or Latin capitals, and some of the drawings have a rude, but real artistic merit. They cannot be the work of mere barbarians, any more than the alphabet. It is remarkable that all the animals represented are essentially Arabian, the gazelle, the camel, the ibex, the ostrich. I noticed also a palm tree conventionally treated, but nothing like a house, or even a tent. The principal subject is a composition of two camels with necks crossed, of no small merit. It is combined with an inscription very regularly cut. That these things are very ancient is proved by the colour of the indentations. The rock is a reddish sandstone weathered black, and it is evident that when fresh, the letters and drawings stood out red against a dark back-ground, but now many of these have been completely weathered over again, a process it must have taken centuries in this dry climate to effect.

We were in front of the Haj when we came to this tell (Tell es Sayliyeh), and we waited on the top of it while the whole procession passed us, an hour or more. It was a curious spectacle. From the height where we were, we could see for thirty or forty miles back over the plain, as far as Jebel Aja, at the foot of which Haïl lies. The procession, three miles long, was composed of some four thousand camels (nor was this the whole Haj), with a great number of men on foot besides. In front were the dervishes, walking very fast, almost running; wild dirty people, but amiable, and quite ready to converse if they know Arabic; then, a group of respectably dressed people walking out of piety, a man with an immense blue turban, we believe to be an Afghan; a slim, very neat-looking youth, who might be a clerk or a shopkeeper’s assistant, reading as he walks a scroll, and others carrying leather bottles in their hands containing water for their ablutions, which they stop every now and then to perform. Sometimes they chant or recite prayers. All these devotees are very rude to us, answering nothing when we salute them, and being thrown into consternation if the greyhounds come near them lest they should be touched by them and defiled. One of them, the youth with the scroll, stopped this morning at our fire to warm his hands as he went by, and we offered him a cup of coffee, but he said he had breakfasted, and turned to talk to the servants, his fellow Mussulmans, but the servants told him to move on. Among Arabs, to refuse a cup of coffee is the grossest offence, and is almost tantamount to a declaration of war. The Arabs do not understand the religious prejudices of the Shiyite Persians.

Some way behind these forerunners comes the berak, or banner, carried in the centre of a group of mounted dromedaries magnificently caparisoned and moving on at a fast walk. These most beautiful creatures have coats like satin, eyes like those of the gazelle, and a certain graceful action which baffles description. Not even the Arabian horse has such a look of breeding as these thorough-bred camels. They are called naamiyeh, because one may go to sleep while riding them without being disturbed by the least jolting.

The berak, Ibn Rashid’s standard, is a square of purple silk with a device and motto in white in the centre, and a green border. It is carried by a servant on a tall dromedary, and is usually partly furled on the march. Ambar, the negro emir el-Haj, generally accompanies this group. He has a little white mare led by a slave which follows him, and which we have not yet seen him ride.

After the berak comes the mass of pilgrims, mounted sometimes two on one camel, sometimes with a couple of boxes on each side, the household furniture. The camels are the property of Bedouins, mostly Shammar, but many of them Dafir, Sherârat, or Howeysin. They follow their animals on foot, and are at perpetual wrangle with the pilgrims, although, if they come to blows, Ibn Rashid’s police mounted on dromedaries interfere, deciding the quarrel in a summary manner.

A Persian riding on a camel is the most ridiculous sight in the world. He insists on sitting astride, and seems absolutely unable to learn the ways and habits of the creature he rides; and he talks to it with his falsetto voice in a language no Arabian camel could possibly understand. The jokes cut on the Persians by the Arabs never cease from morning till night. The better class of pilgrims, and of course all the women except the very poor, travel in mahmals or litters—panniers, of which a camel carries two—covered over like a tradesman’s van with blue or red canvas. One or two persons possess tahteravans, a more expensive kind of conveyance, which requires two mules or two camels, one before and one behind, to carry it. In either of these litters the traveller can squat or even lie down and sleep. The camels chosen for the mahmals are strong and even-paced; and some of these double panniers are fitted up with a certain care and elegance, and the luxuries of Persian rugs and hangings. A confidential driver leads the camel, and servants sometimes walk beside it. One of the pilgrims keeps a man to march in front with his narghileh, which he smokes through a very long tube sitting in the pannier above. There are a few horses, perhaps about half a dozen. One, a white Kehilan Harkan, was bought the other day by a rich pilgrim from a Shammar Bedouin of the escort. This horse seems to be thoroughbred as far as can be judged from his head, tail, and pasterns; the rest of him is hidden by a huge pallan, or pack-saddle, with trappings, in which his new owner rides him. I have seen no others worth mentioning.

The whole of this procession defiled before us as we sat perched on the Tell es Sayliyeh just above their heads.

We have made some new acquaintances, Hejazis from Medina, who came to our tent to-day and sat down in a friendly way to drink coffee with us. The Hejazi, though accounted pure Arabs, are almost as black as negroes, and have mean squat features, very unlike those of the Shammar and other pure races we have seen. They are also wanting in dignity, and have a sort of Gascon reputation in this part of Arabia. These were extremely outspoken people. The chief man among them, one Saleh ibn Benji, is keeper of the grand mosque at Medina, and is now travelling to collect alms in Persia for the shrine.

He told us that although quite willing to make friends with us here and drink our coffee, he could not advise us to go to Medina. Not but what Englishmen as Englishmen were in good repute there; but it was against their rule to allow any except Mussulmans inside the town. If we came as Mussulmans it would be all very well, but as Nasrani it would not do. He himself would be the first to try and compass our deaths. They had found a Jew in Medina last year and executed him; and the people were very angry because the Sultan had sent a Frank engineer to survey the district, and had given out that he was a Moslem. The rule only applied to the two holy cities, Mecca and Medina, not to the rest of the country. The Mussulman subjects of the Queen who came from India were (even though Shias) always well received; so should we be if we conformed to Islam. The Persians, though tolerated by the Hejazi, were disliked as Persians as well as heretics, and often got beaten in Medina. He (Saleh) was going to collect money from them, as they were fools enough to give it him, but he did not care for their company. He would sooner travel with us. We might all go together on this tour through Persia. One thing he could not understand about the English Government, and that was, what earthly interest they had in interfering with the slave trade. We said it was to prevent cruelty. But there was no cruelty in it, he insisted. “Who ever saw a negro ill-treated?” he asked. We could not say that we had ever done so in Arabia; and, indeed, it is notorious that with the Arabs the slaves are like spoiled children rather than servants. We had to explain that in other countries slaves were badly used; but as Saleh remained unconvinced, we could only wind up with a general remark, that this interference with the slave trade was a “shoghl hukm,” a matter concerning the Government, and no affair of ours. He seemed pretty well informed of what was going on in the world, having heard of the Russian war, though not the full circumstances of its termination; and of the cession of Cyprus, as to which he remarked, that the English Queen has been given Kubros as a bakshish by the Sultan. His last words were, “Plain speaking is best. I am your friend here; but, remember, not in Medina, on account of religion.”

CHAPTER XIV.

“Come, Myrrha, let us go on to the Euphrates.”—Byron.

We go in search of adventures—Taybetism—An hyæna hunt—How to cook locusts—Hawking—The reservoirs of Zobeydeh—Tales, and legends—A coup de théâtre—Mohammed composes a kasid.

February 6.—We are tired of loitering with the Haj, and besides, do not care to see more of Ibn Rashid, who is expected to-day. It is always a good rule not to outstay your welcome, and to go when you have once said good-bye. So, finding no indication of a move in the pilgrim camp this morning, we decided on marching without them. We have not gone far; indeed, from the high ground where we are camped we can see the smoke of the camp rising up at the edge of the plain. There is capital pasture here; and we have a fine wide prospect to the south and west; Jebel Jildiyeh being now due south of us, and Jebel Aja west by south, Haïl perhaps forty miles off; to the north the Nefûd, and behind us to the east from the ridge above our camp, we can look over a subbkha six or seven miles distant, with the oasis of Bekaa or Taybetism (happy be its name) round its shores. The place had always been called Bekaa, we are told, till a few years ago, when the name was thought unlucky, and changed, though I cannot quite understand why, for the word means a place where water can collect.

We flew our falcon to-day, and, after one or two disappointments, it caught us a hare. The wadys are full of hares, but the dogs cannot see them in the high bushes, and this was the only one started in the open. We have encamped early, and are enjoying the solitude. The moon will be full to-night; and it is provoking to think how much of its light has been wasted by delay. The moon is of little use for travelling after it is full.

February 7.—Though we did not move our camp to-day, we had a long ride, and got as far as the village of Taybetism, which is worth seeing. It is a very curious place, resembling Jobba as far as situation goes. Indeed, it seems probable that most of the towns of Nejd have in common this feature, that they are placed in hollows towards which the water drains, as it is in such positions that wells can be dug without much labour. Like Jobba, Taybetism has a subbkha, but the latter is altogether a more important oasis, for the palm-gardens reach nearly round the lake, and though not quite continuous, they must have an extent of four or five miles. The houses seem to be scattered in groups all along this length, and there is no special town. [50] The geology of the district is most interesting. At the edge of the subbkha the sandstone rocks form strange fantastic cliffs, none more than fifty feet high, but most fanciful in form. Some, shaped like mushrooms, show that the subbkha must at one time have been an important lake, instead of the dry semblance of a lake it now is. We measured the largest of these, and found it was forty feet in length by twenty-five in width at top, with a stalk of only five feet, the whole mass resting on a high pedestal. Other rocks looked as though they had been suddenly cooled while boiling and red hot, with the bubbles petrified as they stood. There were broad sheets of rose-coloured stone like strawberry cream with more cream poured into it and not yet mixed, streaked pink and white. Here and there, there were patches of Nefûd sand with the green Nefûd adr growing on them, and clusters of wild palms and tamarisks with a pool or two of bitter water. The subbkha, although quite dry, looked like a lake, so perfect was the mirage, of clear blue water without a ripple, reflecting the palms and houses on the opposite shore. We went round to some of these, and found beautiful gardens and well-to-do farms with patches of green barley growing outside. These were watered from wells about forty-five feet deep, good water, which the people drew for our mares to drink. We passed, but did not go into a large square kasr belonging to Ibn Rashid, where a dozen or so of dervishes from the Haj were loafing about. They asked us for news—whether the Emir had come, and whether the Haj was still waiting. These were most of them not Persian dervishes, though Shias, but from Bagdad and Meshhed Ali, people of Arab race.

On our way back we crossed a party of Shammar Bedouins, with their camels come for water from the Nefûd, which is close by. They gave us some lebben to drink, the first we have tasted this year. There were women with them. We also met a man alone on a very thin delúl. Mohammed made some rather uncomplimentary remarks about this animal, whereupon the owner in great scorn explained that she was a Bint Udeyhan, the very best breed of dromedaries in Arabia, and that if Mohammed should offer him a hundred pounds he would not sell her, that she was the camel always sent by Ibn Rashid on messages which wanted speed. He then trotted off at a pace which, though it appeared nothing remarkable, soon took him out of sight.

Awwad and Ibrahim Kasir have been back to the Haj camp for water, and have brought news that the Emir has actually arrived, and a message from him, that if we go on to the wells of Shaybeh he will meet us there.

February 8.—We have marched fifteen miles to-day from point to point, making a circuit round Taybetism and are now encamped at the top of the Nefûd. A Shammar boy of the name of Izzar with three delúls came back from the Haj camp yesterday with Awwad, and he undertakes to show us the way if we want to go on in front. He would sooner travel with us than with the Haj, as his beasts are thin, and he is afraid of their being impressed for the pilgrims. He wants to drive them unloaded to Meshhed, so that they may grow fat on the way, and then load them for the home voyage with wheat. He talks about six or seven days to Meshhed; but Wilfrid insists that we are not twenty miles nearer Meshhed than when we left Haïl, as we have been travelling almost due east, instead of nearly due north, and there must be four hundred miles more to go. This should take us twenty days at least. But the servants will not believe. We shall see who is right. They and Mohammed are very unwilling to go on before the Haj, but now that we have got this boy Izzar we are determined not to wait. If we delay we shall run short of provisions, which would be worse than anything. Already, Awwad says, the pilgrims are complaining loudly that they shall starve if they are kept longer waiting in this way. They have brought provisions for so many days and no more, and there is no place now where they can revictual. “The Haj,” added Awwad, “is sitting by the fire, very angry.”

Our march to-day was enlivened by some hunting, though with no good result. Sayad and Shiekha coursed a herd of gazelles, and succeeded in turning them, but could not get hold of any, though one passed close to Mohammed, who fired without effect. They made off straight for the Nefûd. The falcon was flown at a houbara (frilled bustard), but the bustard beat him off, as he is only a last year’s bird, and not entered to anything but hares. Rasham, however, is an amusement to us and sits on his perch at our tent door. This spot is pleasant and lonely, within a hundred yards of the edge of the Nefûd.

February 9.—Having sent Izzar to a high point for a last look back for the Haj and in vain, we have given them up and now mean to march straight on without them. It is however annoying that we are still going east instead of north, coasting the Nefud I suppose to get round instead of crossing it; but we dare not plunge into it against Izzar’s positive assurance that the other is the only way. Soil sprinkled with jabsin (talc), and in places with the fruit of the wild poisonous melon. Passed the well of Beyud (eggs) thirty feet deep, and travelled six and a half hours, perhaps eighteen miles, to our present camp absolutely without incident. Looking at the stars to-night, Mohammed tells me they call Orion’s belt “mizan” (the balance), and the pole star “el jiddeh” (the kid). We now have milk every day from Izzar’s she-camel, a great luxury.

February 10.—At eight o’clock we reached the wells of Shaybeh. There are forty of them close together in the middle of a great bare space, with some hills of white sand to the north of them. The wind was blowing violently, drifting the sand, and the place looked as inhospitable a one as could well be imagined, a good excuse for over-ruling all notions of stopping there, “to wait for the Emir.”

Shaybeh stands on the old Haj road which passes east of Haïl, making straight for Bereydeh in Kasîm, and the reason of our travelling so far east is thus explained. Now we have turned at right angles northwards, and there is a well-defined track which it will be easy enough for us to follow, even if we lose our Shammar guide. After leaving the wells, we travelled for some miles between ridges of white sand, which the wind was shaping “like the snow wreaths in the high Alps.” The white sand, I noticed, is always of a finer texture than the red, and is more easily affected by the wind. It carries, moreover, very little vegetation, so that the mounds and ridges are less permanent than those of the Nefûd. While we were watching them, the wind shifted, and it was interesting to observe how the summits of the ridges gradually changed with it, the lee side being always steep, the wind side rounded. We gradually ascended now through broken ground to the edge of a level gravelly plain, beyond which about four miles distant we could see the red line of the real Nefûd. We had nearly crossed this, when we sighted an animal half a mile away, and galloped off in pursuit, Mohammed following. I thought at first it must be a wolf or a wild cow, but as we got nearer to it, we saw that it was a hyæna, and it seemed to be carrying something in its mouth. The dogs now gave chase, and the beast made off as fast as it could go for the broken ground we had just left, and where it probably had its den, dropping in its hurry the leg of a gazelle, the piece of booty it was bringing with it from the Nefûd. The three greyhounds boldly attacked it, Sayad especially seizing it at the shoulder, but they were unable to stop it, and it still went on doggedly intent on gaining the broken ground. It would have escaped had not we got in front and barred the way. Then it doubled back again, and we managed to drive it before us towards where we had left our camels. I never saw so cowardly a creature, for though much bigger than any dog, it never offered to turn round and defend itself as a boar or even a jackal would have done, and the dogs were so persistent in their attacks, that Wilfrid had great difficulty in getting a clear shot at it, which he did at last, rolling it over as it cantered along almost under the feet of our camels. Great of course were the rejoicings, for though Mohammed and Awwad affected some repugnance, Abdallah declared boldly and at once, that hyena was “khosh lahm,” capital meat. So it was flayed and quartered on the spot. I confess the look of the carcass was not appetising, the fat with which it was covered being bright yellow, but hyænas in the desert are not the ghoul-like creatures they become in the neighbourhood of towns, and on examination the stomach was found to be full of locusts and fresh gazelle meat. Wilfrid pronounces it eatable, but I, though I have just tasted a morsel, could not bring myself to make a meal off it. I perceive that in spite of protestations about unclean food, the whole of this very large and fat animal has been devoured by our followers. I am not sure whether Mohammed kept his resolution of abstaining.

Locusts are now a regular portion of the day’s provision with us, and are really an excellent article of diet. After trying them in several ways, we have come to the conclusion that they are best plain boiled. The long hopping legs must be pulled off, and the locust held by the wings, dipped into salt and eaten. As to flavour this insect tastes of vegetable rather than of fish or flesh, not unlike green wheat in England, and to us it supplies the place of vegetables, of which we are much in need. The red locust is better eating than the green one. [57] Wilfrid considers that it would hold its own among the hors d’œuvre at a Paris restaurant; I am not so sure of this, for on former journeys I have resolved that other excellent dishes should be adopted at home, but afterwards among the multitude of luxuries, they have not been found worth the trouble of preparation. For catching locusts, the morning is the time, when they are half benumbed by the cold, and their wings are damp with the dew, so that they cannot fly; they may then be found clustered in hundreds under the desert bushes, and gathered without trouble, merely shovelled into a bag or basket. Later on, the sun dries their wings and they are difficult to capture, having intelligence enough to keep just out of reach when pursued. Flying, they look extremely like May flies, being carried side-on to the wind. They can steer themselves about as much as flying fish do, and can alight when they like; in fact, they very seldom let themselves be drifted against men or camels, and seem able to calculate exactly the reach of a stick. This year they are all over the country, in enormous armies by day, and huddled in regiments under every bush by night. They devour everything vegetable; and are devoured by everything animal: desert larks and bustards, ravens, hawks, and buzzards. We passed to-day through flocks of ravens and buzzards, sitting on the ground gorged with them. The camels munch them in with their food, the greyhounds run snapping after them all day long, eating as many as they can catch. The Bedouins often give them to their horses, and Awwad says that this year many tribes have nothing to eat just now but locusts and camels’ milk; thus the locust in some measure makes amends for being a pestilence, by being himself consumed.

We are encamped to-night once more in the Nefûd, amongst the same herbage, and at the edge of one of the same kind of fuljes, we were accustomed to on our way from Jôf. This Nefûd however, is intermittent, as there are intervening tracts of bare ground, between the ridges of sand which here very distinctly run east and west. The sand is not more than eighty feet deep, and the fuljes are insignificant compared with what we saw further west.

February 11.—Some boys with camels joined us last night, Bedouins from the Abde tribe of Shammar, on their way to meet the Haj, as they have been ordered up by Ibn Rashid. They have given us some information about the road. Ibn Duala is five days’ journey on; but we shall find the Dafir, with their Sheykh, Ibn Sueyti, on the second day. Ibn Sueyti, they say, has a kind of uttfa like Ibn Shaalan’s, but it is pitched like a tent when a battle is to be fought. The Ajman, near Queyt, have a real uttfa with ostrich feathers and a girl to sing during the fighting. [59] They also narrated the following remarkable tale.

There is, they say, in the desert, five days’ march from here to the eastwards, and ten days from Suk es Shiôkh on the Euphrates, a kubr or tomb, the resting-place of a prophet named Er Refay. It is called Tellateyn el Kharab (the two hills of the ruins), and near it is a birkeh or tank always full of water. The tomb has a door which stands open, but round it there sleeps all day and all night a huge snake, whose mouth and tail nearly meet, leaving but just room for anyone to pass in. This it prevents unless the person presenting himself for entrance is a dervish, and many dervishes go there to pray. Inside there is a well, and those who enter are provided (“min Allah”) for three days with food, three times a day, but on the fourth they must go. A lion is chained up by the neck inside the kubr.

The birkeh outside is always full of water, but its shores are inhabited by snakes, who spit poison into the pool so that nothing can drink there. But at evening comes the ariel (a fabulous antelope), who strikes the water with his horns, and by so doing makes it sweet. Then all the beasts and birds of the desert follow him, and drink. The Sheykh of the Montefyk is bound to send camels and guides with all dervishes who come to him at Suk-es-Shiôkh to make the pilgrimage to Refay. The boys did not say that they had themselves seen the place.

We are not on the high road now, having left it some miles to the right, and our march to-day has been mostly through Nefûd. The same swarms of locusts everywhere, and the same attendant flocks of birds, especially of fine black buzzards, one of which Abdallah was very anxious to secure if possible, as he says the wing bones are like ivory, and are used for inlaying the stocks of guns and stems of pipes. But he had no success, though he fired several times. Wilfrid was more fortunate, however, in getting what we value more, a bustard, and the very best bird we ever ate. Though they are common enough here, it is seldom that they come within shot, but this one was frightened by the hawk, and came right overhead.

About noon, we came to a solitary building, standing in the middle of the Nefûd, called Kasr Torba. It is square, with walls twenty feet high, and has a tower at each corner. It is garrisoned by four men, soldiers of Ibn Rashid’s, who surlily refused us admittance, and threatened to fire on us if we drew water from the well outside. For a moment we thought of storming the place, which I believe we could have done without much difficulty, as the door was very rotten and we were all very angry and thirsty, but second thoughts are generally accepted as best in Arabia, and on consideration, we pocketed the affront and went on.

Soon afterwards, we overtook a young man and his mother, travelling with three delúls in our direction. They were on the look-out, they said, for their own people, who were somewhere in the Nefûd, they didn’t quite know where. There are no tracks anywhere, however, and they have stopped for the night with us. Very nice people, the young fellow attentive and kind to his mother, making her a shelter under a bush with the camel saddles. They are Shammar, and have been on business to Haïl.

February 12.—Our disappointment about water yesterday, has forced us back on to the Haj road and the wells of Khuddra, thirteen or fourteen miles east of last night’s camp. We had, however, some sport on our way. First, a hare was started and the falcon flown. The Nefûd is so covered with bushes, that without the assistance of the bird the dogs could have had no chance, for it was only by watching the hawk’s flight that they were able to keep on the hare’s track. It was a pretty sight, the bird above doubling as the hare doubled, and the three dogs below following with their noses in the air. We made the best of our way after them, but the sand being very deep they were soon out of sight. Suddenly we came to the edge of the Nefûd, and there, a few hundred yards from the foot of the last sand-bank, we saw the falcon and the greyhounds all sitting in a circle on the ground, watching a large hole into which the hare had just bolted. The four pursuers looked so puzzled and foolish, that in spite of the annoyance of losing the game, we could not help laughing. Hares in the desert always go to ground. Mohammed and Abdallah and Awwad were keen for digging out this one, and they all worked away like navvies for more than half an hour, till they were up to their shoulders in the sandy earth (here firm ground), but it was in vain, the hole was big enough for a hyæna, and reached down into the rock below. Further on, however, we had better luck, and having run another hare to ground, pulled out not only it, but a little silver grey fox, where they were both crouched together. I do not think the hares ever dig holes, but they make use of any they can find when pressed. We also coursed some gazelles.

There are fourteen wells at Khuddra, mere holes in the ground, without parapet or anything to mark their position, and as we drew near, we were rather alarmed at finding them occupied by a large party of Bedouins. It looked like a ghazú, for there were as many men as camels, thirty or forty of them with spears; and the camels wore shedads instead of pack saddles. They did not, however, molest us, though their looks were far from agreeable. They told us they were Dafir waiting like the rest for the Haj; that their Sheykh, Ibn Sueyti, was still two days’ march to the eastwards, beyond Lina, which is another group of wells something like these; and they added, that they had heard of us and of our presents to the Emir, the rifle which fired twelve shots, and the rest. It is extraordinary how news travels in the desert. I noticed that Mohammed when questioned by them, said that he was from Mosul, and he explained afterwards that the Tudmur people had an old standing blood feud with the Dafir in consequence of some ghazú made long before his time, in which twenty of the latter were killed. [63] This has decided us not to pay Ibn Sueyti the visit we had intended. It appears that there has been a battle lately between the Dafir and the Amarrat (Ánazeh), in which a member of the Ibn Haddal family was killed. This proves that the Ánazeh ghazús sometimes come as far south as the Nefûd. These wells are seventy feet deep, and the water when first drawn smells of rotten eggs; but the smell goes off on exposure to the air.

The zodiacal light is very bright this evening; it is brightest about two hours after sunset, but though I have often looked out for it, I have never seen it in the morning before sunrise. It is a very remarkable and beautiful phenomenon, seen only, I believe, in Arabia. It is a cone of light extending from the horizon half-way to the zenith, and is rather brighter than the Milky Way.

February 13.—We have travelled quite twenty-four miles to-day, having had nothing to distract our attention from the road, and have reached the first of the reservoirs of Zobeydeh.

To my surprise this, instead of being on low ground, is as it were on the top of a hill. At least, we had to ascend quite two hundred feet to get to it, though there was higher ground beyond. It is built across a narrow wady of massive concrete, six feet thick, and is nearly square, eighty yards by fifty. The inside descends in steps for the convenience of those who come for water, but a great rent in the masonry has let most of this out, and now there is only a small mud-hole full of filthy water in the centre. We found some Arabs there with their camels, who went away when they saw us, but we sent after them to make inquiries, and learnt that they were Beni Wáhari, a new artificial compound tribe of Sherârat, Shammar and others, made up by Ibn Rashid with a slave of his own for their Sheykh. They are employed in taking care of camels and mares for the Emir. They talk of eight days’ journey now to Meshhed Ali, but Wilfrid says it cannot be less than fifteen or sixteen.

Mohammed, who has been very anxious to make himself agreeable, now he is quite away from Haïl influences, has been telling us a number of stories and legends, all more or less connected with his birthplace Tudmur. He has a real talent as a narrator, an excellent memory, and that most valuable gift, the manner of a man who believes what he relates. Here is one of his tales, a fair specimen of the extraordinary mixture of fable and historic tradition to be found in all of them:

Suliman ibn Daoud (Solomon, son of David) loved a Nasraniyeh (a Christian woman), named the Sitt Belkis, [65] and married her. This Christian lady wished to have a house between Damascus and Irak (Babylonia), because the air of the desert was good, but no such a house could be found. Then Solomon, who was king of the birds as well as king of men, sent for all the birds of the air to tell him where he should look for the place Belkis desired, and they all answered his summons but one, Nissr (the eagle), who did not come. And Solomon asked them if any knew of a spot between Damascus and Irak, in the desert where the air was good. But they answered that they knew of none. And he counted them to see if all were there, and found that the eagle was missing. Then he sent for the eagle, and they brought him to Solomon, and Solomon asked him why he had disobeyed the first summons. And Nissr answered, that he was tending his father, an old eagle, so old that he had lost all his feathers, and could not fly or feed himself unless his son was there. And Solomon asked Nissr if he knew of the place wanted by Belkis; and Nissr answered that his father knew, for he knew every place in the world, having lived four thousand years. And Solomon commanded that he should be brought before him in a box, for the eagle could not fly. But when they tried to carry the eagle he was so heavy that they could not lift him. Then Solomon gave them an ointment, and told them to rub the bird with it and stroke him thus, and thus, and that he would grow young again. And they did so, and the feathers grew on his back and wings, and he flew to Solomon, and alighted before the throne. And Solomon asked him, “where is the palace that the Sitt Belkis requires, between Damascus and Irak, in the desert where the air is good?” and the eagle answered, “It is Tudmur, the city which lies beneath the sand.” And he showed them the place. And Solomon ordered the jinns to remove the sand, and when they had done so, there lay Tudmur with its beautiful ruins and columns.

Still there was no water. For the water was locked up in a cave in the hills by a serpent twenty thousand double arms’ length long, which blocked the mouth of the cave. And Solomon called on the serpent to come out. But the serpent answered that she was afraid. And Solomon promised that he would not kill her. But as soon as she was half way out of the cave (and they knew it by a black mark on her body which marked half her length), Solomon set his seal upon her and she died. And the jinns dragged her wholly out and the water ran. Still it was poisonous with the venom of the serpent, and the people could not drink. Then Solomon took sulphur (kubrit) and threw it into the cave, and the water became sweet. And the sulphur is found there to this day.

Mohammed says also that ghosts (afrit) are very common among the ruins at Tudmur—also (more curious still) that there is a man at Tudmur more than a hundred years old, and that when he reached his hundredth year he cut a complete new set of teeth, and is now able to eat like a young man. [67] So he beguiled the evening.

February 14.—We have passed more birkehs in better repair than the first, and being now in the neighbourhood of water, find a good many Bedouins on the road. Jedur (the Shammar with the mother, with whom we are still travelling, and whom we like particularly) knows everybody, and it is well that he is with us, as some of these Bedouins are rough looking fellows with hang-dog countenances (especially the Dafir and the Sellem), which we don’t quite like. To-day, as Wilfrid and I were riding apart from our caravan, a number of men ran towards us without any salaam aleykum and began calling to us to stop. But we did not let them get within arm’s length, and bade them ask their questions from a distance. We shall have to keep watch to-night. The road is now regularly marked out with a double wall, which we are told was built by Zobeydeh to hang an awning from, so that the pilgrims might travel in the shade. But this must be nonsense. It is more likely that it is merely the effect of the road having been cleared of the big stones which here cover the plain.

* * * * *

Since writing this a curious thing has happened. We encamped early inside a ruined birkeh and had just got all in order for the night, when we perceived six men on dromedaries riding down from the northeast, straight towards us. There was much speculation of course amongst us, as to who they might be, honest men or robbers, Shammar or Dafir. They evidently were not a mere party of camels for the Haj, as each delúl was mounted by a man with a lance, and they came on at a trot. They rode straight to where we were, made their camels kneel down, took off khurjs and shedads and then arranged their bivouac for the night. Then they came up to our tents and accosted Mohammed and the servants, who of course invited them to sit down and drink coffee. Mohammed presently came to us and whispered that he felt convinced they were Dafir, but that we should presently know for certain. They sat down and began talking on general subjects, as the custom is till coffee has been served, but afterwards Mohammed asked them whence they had come and whither they were going. They answered that they were Ketherin, sent by their Sheykh to Haïl on business, and explained further that their object was to find a certain relative of their Sheykh’s whom he had heard of as being a guest at Ibn Rashid’s and to invite him to their tents. Perhaps we might have heard of him, his name was Mohammed ibn Arûk. And their Sheykh’s name? Muttlak ibn Arûk! Here is a coup de théâtre! Mohammed’s long-lost relation, the third brother of the three who left Aared in the eighteenth century and parted company at Jôf, has been discovered in his descendant, whose servants are at this moment in our camp. Imagine the joy of Mohammed and the triumph of so appropriate an occasion for reciting once more the kasid Ibn Arûk! The rhymes of that well-known legend, recited by Mohammed and responded to by the new comers in chorus, were indeed the first intimation we had of what had happened. Then the Ketherin ambassadors were brought to our tent and their story told. Now all ideas of Bussorah and Meshhed Ali and the Haj are abandoned, and, for the moment, there is no other plan for any of us but an immediate visit to these new relations. One of the Ketherin has already started off homewards to announce the joyful event, and the rest will turn back with us to-morrow. Muttlak’s tents are not more than a day’s journey from where we now are, and we shall see these long-lost cousins to-morrow before the sun goes down. “Yallah,” exclaimed Mohammed, beaming with joy and pride.

February 15.—We made a late start, for Mohammed has lost his head again and is playing the fine gentleman, as he did at Haïl, afraid or ashamed to be seen by his new acquaintances doing any sort of work. Instead of helping to pack or load the camels, he would do nothing but sit on the ground playing with his beads, and calling to Awwad to saddle his delúl,—airs and graces which, I am glad to see, are thrown away on the Ketherin, who, as Bedouins, care little for the vanities of life. Even when started, we did not get far, for it began to thunder and lighten, and presently to rain heavily, so that Wilfrid ordered a halt at half-past ten. We have now come to the great birkehs which are full of water. They stand in a valley called the Wady Roseh, from a plant of that name which grows in it, and is much prized as pasture for both camels and horses. There are two tanks near us, one round, the other square, and both of the same fashion as the first we saw. We have been examining the construction and find that the walls were originally built hollow, of stone, and filled up with concrete. This is now as hard as granite, and has a fine polish on the surface. The water is beautifully clear and good. The largest of the tanks is sixty-four yards by thirty-seven, and perhaps twelve feet deep. There is a ruined khan of the same date close by, and Wilfrid has discovered an immense well ten feet wide at the mouth and very deep. All these were constructed by Zobeydeh, the wife of the Caliph Haroun er-Rashid, who nearly died of thirst on her way back from Mecca and so had the wells and tanks dug. Wilfrid believes that no European has visited them before, though they are marked vaguely on Chesney’s map. A wild day has ended with a fine sunset. Dinner, not of stalled ox, nor of herbs, but of boiled locusts and rice, with such bread as we can manage to make of flour well mixed with sand.

Mohammed, who has been in the agonies of poetic composition for a week past, has at last delivered himself of the following kasíd or ballad, which I believe is intended as a pendant to the original Ibn Arûk kasíd, with which he sees we are bored.

KASÍD IBN ARÛK EL JEDÍDE.

Nahárrma min esh Sham, el belád el bayíde,
Némshi ma el wudiân wa el Beg khaláwa.
Wa tobéyt aéla Jôf, dar jedíde.
Yaáz ma tílfi ubrobok khaláwi.
Nahárret ’Abu Túrki, aálumi bayíde,
Dábakha lil khottár héyle semáne.
Ya marhába bil Beg wa es Sitt Khatún.
Talóbbt bíntu gal jaátka atíye.
Wa siághahu min el Beg khámsin mía.
Khatún, ya bint el akrám wa el juwádi.
Khatún, ya bint el Amáva wa el kebár.
Ya Robb, selémli akhúi el Beg wa es Sitt Khatún.
Ya Robb, wasálhom diyar essalámi,
Wa dar el Ajjem wa belad hade Hanûd,
Wa yetóbb aál bahûr sébba khaláwi,
Wa yetóbb aála Lóndra wa yekéllem efnún,
Wa yehágg el sahíbe aála ma sar jári.

NEW BALLAD OF IBN ARÛK.

I went out from Damascus, the far-off country.
I marched through the lone valley, with the Beg alone.
I lighted down at Jôf, at a new built dwelling.
Dear are the souls it shelters. “Guests,” he said, “sit down.”
“See, Abu Turki, see,” I called, “thy kinsmen.”
“Bring first for these,” he cried, “a fatted lamb.
“Welcome, O Beg, welcome O Lady Khatún,
Welcome, O distant kinsman, to your home.”
I asked him for his daughter. “Take her dowerless.”
“Her dower be these, five thousand,” said the Beg.
Lady, O daughter of the great the generous!
Lady, O daughter of a princely line!
O Lord, keep safe my brother and the Khatúm.
Grant them to reach the dwellings of repose.
Guide them through Persia and far Hind and lead them
By all the seven seas in safety home.
Let them once more behold their friends and London.
Let them relate the things that they have done.

CHAPTER XV.

“Here lie I down, and measure out my grave,
Farewell, kind master.”—Shakespeare.

Muttlak Ibn Arûk and the Ketherin—Their horses—We are adopted by the tribe—The Haj again—Ambar sends round the hat—A forced march of one hundred and seventy miles—Terrible loss of camels—Nejef.

February 16.—Two Asian Shammar of the Jezireh came last night, and recognised us as having been in Ferhan Pasha’s camp, last year, in Mesopotamia,—a very pleasant meeting, though we have no distinct recollection of either of them. They gave us all the latest Jezireh news in politics. Ferhan and his brother Faris are now at open war, though Ferhan is no fighter himself, and leaves the conduct of affairs to his eldest son, Aassa. All the Shammar of the Jezireh are with Faris, except Ferhan’s own tail, and the Abde, and the Asslan, Muttany’s men, and our old friend Smeyr ibn-Zeydan. It is true also that Faris is now friends with Jedaan. All this we are glad to hear.

This morning, Jedur and his mother left us, as they are not going any further our way. I like them both, and should have been glad to give the mother some small remembrance of our journey together, but, as Arabs do, they went away without saying good-bye. Our march to-day was a short one, nine or ten miles, still down the Wady Roseh, where water has actually been running since the late storm, and where there are pools still here and there, and a large swamp full of ducks, storks, and snipe,—the first water above ground we have seen since the Wady er-Rajel, nearly two months ago. There is capital grass, too, in the wady, a few inches high, which our hungry mares enjoy thoroughly. As we were stopping to let them and the camels graze on a particularly inviting spot, suddenly we perceived about thirty delúl riders coming over the hill to our right. Although it was probable that this was Muttlak, we all prepared for defence, making the camels kneel down, and seizing each his best weapon,—Wilfrid the rifle, I the gun, and Mohammed his large revolver. Awwad stood ready, sword in hand, and Abdallah squatted with his long gun pointed towards the new-comers; the rest, except Izzar, who possesses a sword, had only sticks, but made a formidable appearance.

There was no need, however, for alarm, for, presently, one of the approaching party detached himself from the rest, and trotting his dromedary towards us, saluted us in a loud voice, and we saw that it was Hazzam, the man who had gone on to announce our coming to Muttlak. In another five minutes the Sheykh himself had dismounted. There was of course a great deal of kissing and embracing between Mohammed and his new found relations, and Wilfrid came in for a share of it. Muttlak is a charming old man, very quiet and very modest, but possessed of considerable dignity. He has an expression of extreme kindness and gentleness which is very attractive, and we already like him better than any of Mohammed’s Jôf relations. Unlike the Ibn Arûks of Jôf and Tudmur, this branch of the family has remained Bedouin, and unmixed by any fellahin alliances. Mohammed’s rather vulgar pretensions to birth and dignity have fallen, ashamed before the simplicity of this good old man, the true representative of the Ibn Arûks of Aared, and though the kasíd has been trotted out once more, and the family genealogy stated and compared, it has been with modesty and decorum, and the sadness which befits decayed fortunes. There can be no question here who shall take the upper place, the Sheykh himself being always ready to take the lowest. To us he is charming in his attentions, and without false dignity in his thanks for the small presents [75] we have made him. He is to stay with us to-night, and then he will take us to his tents to-morrow.

Muttlak has brought us three sheep for a present. He has with him a very handsome falcon, a lanner like ours, but larger.

February 17.—We left our camp in the Wady Roseh, where Muttlak told us there was better pasture than we should find with him, and rode off on our mares to pay him a morning visit and return at night. Muttlak has with him his own little mare, the counterpart of himself, old and without other pretension than extreme purity of descent. She is a kehîlet Omm Jerass (mother of bells), and was once in Ibn Saoud’s stables. It is difficult to describe her, for her merits are not on the surface; I am sure nine out of ten English dealers would pass her over, if they saw her at Tattersall’s or Barnet Fair, as an insignificant little pony. She is very small, hardly over 13 hands, for even Mohammed’s mokhra looks tall beside her, chestnut with four white feet and a blaze, a good but not a pretty head, and, but for a proud carriage of the tail, no style or action; an old brood mare never ridden except on state occasions like the present, for on ordinary occasions no Arab of Nejd thinks of riding anything but a delúl. As Muttlak said, very gravely, “When God has given you a mare that is asil, it is not that you should ride, but that she should breed foals.” The old man stuck to his delúl, and the little mare was ridden by his cousin Shatti, who went with us, and gave us some valuable information by the way. The Ketherin, like all the tribes of Nejd, were formerly under Ibn Saoud. They are a branch of the Beni Khalid, who, in their turn, are a branch of the Beni Laam, an ancient and noble tribe, of which the main stock is still found between Aared and Katîf, while another branch settled some centuries ago beyond the Tigris, on the Persian frontier. The Ketherin are now few in number and decayed in circumstances, but Shatti informed us, with some pride, they can still turn out a hundred khayal on occasion; that is to say, if they are attacked and obliged to fight. This shows more than anything the small number of horses possessed by the tribes of Nejd. I asked Shatti which of the tribes still under Ibn Saoud are now most in repute as breeders of horses; and he told me the Muteyr or Dushan (for it seems they have both names), who could turn out four hundred horsemen. Their best breeds are Kehîlan Ajuz, Kehîlan el-Krush, Abeyan Sherrak, Maneghy Hedruj, and Rabdan Kesheyban. They have no Seglawis at all; the Krushiehs of Ibn Rashid came originally from them, Feysul having bought them from the tribe. It must not, however, be supposed, he said, that all the Dushan mares were asil. The Dushan, like every other tribe in Nejd and elsewhere, has “mehassaneh,” or half-breds, what the Ánazeh would call “beni” or “banat hossan;” that is to say, animals with a stain in their pedigree, and therefore not asil, though often nearly as good and as good-looking. Their own breeds (that is to say, the Ketherin’s) are principally Wadnan, Rishan, Rabdan, and Shueyman. As we got near the Ketherin tents we met two men on a delúl, leading a lovely little bay colt, one of the prettiest I ever saw, which Shatti told us was a Wadnan Horsan.

After nearly three hours’ riding we arrived at the buyut shaar (houses of hair), and were soon being hospitably entertained. It is the custom here, as it is in the Sahara, that the Sheykh should receive illustrious strangers, not in his own tent, but in a special tent set up for the purpose. It was a poor place, little more than an awning, but the welcome was hearty and sincere. Here all the principal people of the tribe assembled as soon as the news of our arrival spread, and a feast was prepared of tummin and fresh butter, and naga’s milk. The Arabs, never kill a lamb except for the evening meal.

After this entertainment I went to visit Muttlak’s family, and on my return I found Wilfrid inspecting the mares which we had already seen grazing near the tents. There were half-a-dozen of them, fair average animals, but nothing first-rate, or so handsome as the Wadnan colt, nor any over fourteen hands high. We were looking at these rather disappointedly, when Hazzam ibn Arûk, Muttlak’s brother, rode up on a really beautiful mare, which he told us was a Seglawieh Jedran, the only one left in Nejd. He added that they had been obliged to conceal the name of her breed for some years on account of the danger incurred of her being taken by force. In former times, when the Wahhabis were all powerful, any famous mare ran great risk of being seized for the Riad stables. Ibn Saoud would declare war with a tribe merely as an excuse for robbing it of its mares. Ibn Rashid, at the present day, put great pressure on the owners of valuable mares to make them sell; but he paid for what he took. This mare had been often asked about both for Ibn Rashid, and for Nassr el-Ashgar, Sheykh of the Montefyk, who (or rather his brother Fahad now) has the best collection of horses after Ibn Rashid and Ibn Saoud. She is a fine bright bay, muttlak-el-yemin, snip on the nose; has a splendid way of moving when ridden, action like Hamúd’s mare at Haïl, handsome rather than racing. The head is good, the eye bright and large, the forehead rather flat, the jowl deep; the wither high and back short, quarters round, like all the Nejd horses, sinews good, and hoofs large and round.

Hazzam’s mare is under fourteen hands, but stands over much ground, and ought to be up to weight, being wonderfully compact. We had some hopes at one moment of being able to purchase her, and for a good price and money down I think it might have been done, for they are all most anxious to oblige us. But we have no money and our cheque on Bagdad would be difficult for them to cash. The Ketherin are this year in great distress, as there was no autumn rain, and until a month ago, nothing that horses can eat. They are without corn or even dates, and but for the locusts, which have been abundant all the winter, they must have starved. Indeed locusts are still their main article of food, for man as well as beast. Great piles of these insects, dried over the fire, may be seen in every tent.

Amid a general chorus of good wishes, we at last took our leave of these good people. “You,” they said to Wilfrid, “shall be our Sheykh whenever you return to us. Muttlak will not be jealous. We will make war for you on all your enemies, and be friends with your friends.” Muttlak himself has promised that there shall be a general council to-night to decide whether the tribe shall move northwards as has been proposed, or not, and that if it is decided that it shall be so, he will join us to-morrow morning, and travel with us to Meshhed to make arrangements with the intervening tribes, whose consent must first be obtained. It is strange what friendship we have made with these simple-hearted people in a few hours. We are the first Europeans they have seen, and they look upon us as beings of a superior world.

As we came back to the crest of the hill overlooking Wady Roseh, we saw away to the south a smoke rising—the Haj.

February 18.—We had walked down to the birkeh to try and stalk some ducks when the first runners of the Haj arrived, and presently the Haj itself, now swelled to double its former size, swept past us down the Wady. At the same moment Muttlak appeared on his delúl ready to go with us. This gave us great pleasure. He has got the consent of his tribe, and what is of more importance of the women of his family, to go with us to Meshhed Ali, and see what arrangements can be made with the Ánazeh Sheykhs for a migration of the Ketherin northwards. Such migrations have, I fancy, taken place in all ages among the Bedouins of Arabia; the want of pasture constantly driving them outwards from Central Arabia to the richer deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia. In this way the Shammar and the Ánazeh obtained their present inheritance of the Hamád and the Jezireh, and thus in still earlier times the Taï abandoned Nejd.

Muttlak’s equipment for the journey is of the simplest kind, the clothes in which he stands. He and a single attendant are mounted together on an old black dromedary, the Sheykh perched on the saddle, and his man kneeling behind, their only weapon a stick, and they guide the delúl with a rope passed through a hole in his nostril, a primitive arrangement. “There,” we said to Mohammed, “that is how your ancestors left Nejd.” The old man is very pious; unlike the Ánazeh and other tribes of the north, these Bedouins of Nejd say their prayers regularly, and profess the Mussulman creed, and Muttlak’s first act on dismounting this evening in camp, was to go apart with his attendant and pray. Mohammed and Abdallah still say their prayers occasionally, though with less and less fervour as the distance from Haïl grows greater. Awwad’s devotion is of a very varying quality, sometimes quite imperceptible, at others almost alarming. I have noticed that any special stress of work in loading the camels of a morning, or pitching the tents at night, is sure to call forth a burst of spiritual fervour. At such times his la-ilaha-illa-llah goes on for a prodigious length of time, and may be heard a quarter of a mile off.

Ambar, the negro emir-el-haj, has brought a polite message for us from Ibn Rashid. He came with the Haj as far as Khuddra, and then went back to Haïl, so we have lost nothing by not going with him on his intended ghazú.

Having camped early we sent Abdallah and Hanna to the Haj to find out our Persian friends there, and invite them to dine with us, as we had killed a sheep, and just before sunset they arrived, Ali Koli Khan, Huseyn Koli Khan, and Abd er-Rahim of Kermanshah. We seated them all on a carpet outside our little tent, for it is a warm evening, and then the dinner was served. But much to our vexation, for we had carefully arranged the entertainment, they refused to eat anything, first saying that they had already dined, and afterwards admitting that the Mollahs in whose company they were travelling, had forbidden their eating with us during the Haj. They were very polite, however, and made all sorts of apologies, and even took one mouthful each to avoid being positively rude. Ali said that but for his mother’s Mollah, he would have asked us to dine with him, for he has a good cook, but under the circumstances it cannot be. Huseyn, who is the son of an ex-vizier, pretended to speak French, but the only complete phrase which he had at command, and which seemed borrowed from a copy-book, was, “L’Arabe est charlatan.” This he repeated in and out of season, whenever there was a pause in the conversation. These Persians were as loud as ever in their complaints against the Arabs, and being now out of his dominions, did not spare the Emir, whom they accused of having plundered them terribly. They also had much to tell of the extortions of the hemeldaria, or contractors for the Haj.

It appears that each pilgrim, when he starts for Mecca, puts himself into the hands of an Arab contractor, generally a native of Meshhed Ali, who undertakes to provide him with transport, either in the shape of riding dromedaries, or litters, or even in some cases, mules or horses. He does this for a sum of money down, accepting all risks, and is bound to replace any animal that breaks down or dies on the road, with another at a moment’s notice. It is a very speculative business, as if all goes well with the Haj, the hemeldaria makes a fortune, whereas if things go badly, he may lose one. In some years great numbers of camels die, and then the contractors are ruined; but generally they make a very good thing out of it, as their charges are enormous. At any rate they seem very rich, and ride about themselves on the finest dromedaries in the Haj, and wear the finest clothes. There are twenty of these contractors now with the Haj, who divide the two thousand Persian pilgrims amongst them. Besides the Persians there are about a hundred Shias from Bagdad and Bussorah, but these do not mix much with the Persians, and a body-guard of about a thousand Bedouins, Ibn Rashid’s people. In all, over three thousand persons, with five thousand camels. It must be like the journey of the children of Israel to Mount Sinai.

Ali Koli Khan left Haïl with the Emir, nearly a week after we did, so we did not need to be in any hurry, but I think we were right to get clear away while we could.

February 19.—An early start before sunrise, though there were stragglers till seven o’clock. We were the last to go, but we had sent our camels on as there was good grass, and we wanted our mares to have a comfortable feed. Occasionally one of the pilgrims would come and sit down a moment by our fire to warm his hands. We have now quite left the Nefûd, and are travelling over broken stony ground. The Haj marches fast, quite three miles an hour, and there is no stopping on the way. We are halted this evening at the last of the reservoirs of Zobeydeh, the Birkeh Jemaymeh (Jemima’s pool). Here there are considerable ruins and a very large well.

The boy Izzar has left us, I am sorry to say, and he is sorry too. He was very serviceable and pleasant, and we lose with him his naga’s milk, which we have been drinking fresh every morning. (N.B. We will never travel again without a she camel for milk.) But his delúls have been impressed for the Haj. We gave him three mejidies (about ten shillings) for his ten days’ service, which brought down blessings on our heads. I do not think he expected anything.

February 20.—Again the Haj has come to a stand-still, to the renewed wrath of the pilgrims. It is now twenty days since they left Haïl and not more than half the journey has been accomplished. There are two hundred miles more of road, and their provisions, calculated for three weeks, are all but run out. What makes this new delay the more aggravating to them is that it has been ordered by the negro Ambar, so that he may send the hat round for a private contribution to his own benefit. He has made it known that two mejidies a head is what he expects, and that he will not move till the sum is forthcoming. This will be a nice little purse for him, something like eight hundred pounds, and we maintain a fleet in the Red Sea to suppress the slave trade, out of motives of humanity! The Persians are powerless to resist, for without the black man’s order, not a camel would move. We, as Ibn Rashid’s guests, are exempted from all toll or tax whatever, but we want to get on. Fortunately we laid in a whole month’s provisions at Haïl.

The day has been a very hot one, and we have had the tent propped up all round, so that it resembles a gigantic umbrella. It is pitched on a hill overlooking the Haj, and has attracted a good many visitors. The first of them was a certain Seyd Mustafa, a native of Shustar in Persia, but speaking Arabic well. He is travelling as interpreter with Ali Koli Khan, and has given us some information about the country between Bagdad and his own town. Ali Koli has several times proposed that we should go on with him from Bagdad, to pay a visit to his father in the Bactiari mountains, and Wilfrid is very much bent on doing this.

He himself is going round by the river to Bussorah, and then up the Karun to Shustar, a plan which would not suit us; but Seyd Mustafa says he will go with us by land, though it is a very difficult country to get through. The frontier between Turkey and Persia is occupied by the Beni Laam who recognise neither the Sultan nor the Shah. The Beni Laam however, ought to receive us well from our connection with the Ibn Arûks, and a visit to them would almost complete our acquaintance with the Arab tribes north of Nejd.

Next two poor women came, an old and a young one, dressed alike in white rags. They are from Bagdad, and have made the pilgrimage barefoot and begging their bread. One of them carries a tin mug, into which somebody had just thrown a handful of barley. I gave them a loaf of bread, with which they went away invoking blessings on me. They seem perfectly contented and happy.

Then we had a visit from some Bagdadis; one had been a soldier, the others shopkeepers. They were pilgrims, however, now, and not on business, as most of the Arabs here are.

Next a Dafir boy, with a lamb and a skin of fresh butter to sell, the butter mixed up with date-skins and hair, and coloured yellow with a plant called saffron. After much haggling (for stinginess in a purchaser inspires respect) we bought the lamb and the butter for a mejidie—four shillings.

Next a Jinfaneh Shammar, with a bay horse, also for sale, a Kehîlan Ajuz fourteen hands, with good jowl, good shoulder, and tail well carried, but rather small eye, thick nose, and coarse hind quarter—altogether strong with plenty of bone—aged, very much aged! We do not want him.

Then an Ibn Duala, with a Wadneh mare, also bay, thirteen hands three inches, or fourteen hands—pretty head, with projecting forehead, very good jowl, good shoulder, but thick nose and coarse hindquarter, rather high on the legs, with a good deal of hair on the fetlocks. They all seem to have the same faults.

I asked the Jinfaneh Shammar about the well of Wakisa, marked on Chesney’s map as eight hundred feet deep, but he laughed and said, “forty of these,” holding out his arms, and Muttlak confirmed the statement; this would make it two hundred and forty, a much more probable depth.

Wilfrid in the meanwhile had been with Seyd Mustafa and Mohammed to the Haj, and had had tea with Huseyn Koli Khan. They also called on Ambar and Ali Koli Khan; but both were out. Most of the pilgrims were lying on their backs asleep in the sun. It was very hot.

Ambar’s little white mare has been brought to graze near our tents, for as usual we have chosen the best pasture for our camp. The slave with her says she is a Krushieh. She is a flea-bitten grey, very old and very small, but for her size powerful, with a good head, though not a handsome one, a very fine shoulder with high wither, the usual Nejd hindquarter and manner of carrying the tail, legs like iron. To complete the picture, I must mention one knee swelled, all four feet much out of shape with long standing in the yard at Haïl, and very hairy heels. There are with the Haj several yearling colts bought by the hemeldaria for sale at Bagdad, scraggy little things more like goats than horses.

The sun has brought out a huge tarantula from the sand close to our tent. It is the first venomous reptile I have seen on the journey.

February 21.—Ambar seems determined to make up for lost time, and he has hurried the Haj on all day so that we have done over thirty miles. Our road has been through broken ground, the Wady el-Buttn (the valley of the stomach), where we saw a fox and some hares. One of these last the dogs caught after a long course, and another was run to ground. Abd er-Rahim, the Kermanshahi, rode with us a part of the day, mounted on the most lovely delúl that was ever seen; she is of a bright chestnut colour, with a coat like satin, a light fine mane rather darker than the rest, eyes more beautiful than those of the gazelle, and a style of going which I have not seen equalled by any other camel. This delúl can canter and gallop as well as trot, and kept up with us very fairly when we were chasing the hare, though of course she could not really command a horse’s pace. Abd er-Rahim and Ali Koli Khan now both ride delúls, and have dressed themselves up in Arab fashion, all silk and gold, the mean-looking little Kurd being thus transformed into a fine gentleman. Their saddles, bridles, and trappings are also very gay, got up regardless of expense. They hired their delúls of Ibn Rashid for the journey, I forget exactly for what sum, but it was a good deal of money. The Persians will not eat hare; and Ali Koli Khan, who is travelling with a private chaplain, would not join us in our sport. Indeed he seems now to keep rather aloof from us, but Abd er-Rahim has no such scruples. We hear that a sermon was preached yesterday in camp, against the sin of holding intercourse with kaffirs.

This has been a long, tedious march, two of our camels being tired. We have come to the end of our provision of flour for them, and there is really very little they can eat on the road. Wilfrid makes it still a hundred and forty miles to Meshhed.

February 22.—We travelled yesterday through a low-lying district, bounded by cliffs a little in the style of Jôf (it is all called el buttn, the stomach), and this morning, soon after starting, we reached the end of it, and had to ascend two or three hundred feet, the last akabah or ascent being very steep.

Here there was a great confusion, as the road was narrowed to a single track, and the Haj had to go almost in single file, instead of in line, its usual way of travelling. The steepness of the cliff proved too much for more than one camel, tired as they were with yesterday’s march and want of food. Among them poor Shenuan, the ugly camel of our string, gave in. He is not old, but has long been ailing, and for the last week has carried nothing but his pack-saddle, and been nothing but a trouble to us, still it cost us a pang to abandon him. He has had mange from the very beginning of our journey; in fact, he was the only camel of those originally purchased by Mohammed for us, to which we demurred at the outset. Our objections were overruled by Mohammed’s arguments, that Shenuan’s youth and strength would enable him to get over the effects of mange, but he never prospered, and did not recover from the fatigue of the Nefûd. Poor fellow, he was very loath to be left behind, and struggled on till he came to this hill, which was too much for him. We left him, I am glad to say, in a bit of wady where there was some grass, but I fear his chance is a small one. Camels seldom recover when they get past a certain stage of exhaustion. They break their hearts, like deer, and die. Poor Shenuan! I shall not easily forget his face, looking wistfully after his companions as they disappeared over the crest of the hill. He is the first of our small party that has fallen out of the ranks, and we are depressed with the feeling that he may not be the last.

At the top of the cliff we came to a perfectly level plain, strewn with fine flints, and across this we have travelled all day. Its height above the sea is 1460 feet, and we find that ever since leaving Shaybeh, where the road turned north, we have been descending at an average rate of about ten feet per mile, but the descent is not regular, because of these cliffs which we have come to, which have all been, in a sense, contrary to the general declivity of the ground. About mid-day we came to a great pool of rain-water, at which the camels drank and the goat-skins were filled, a very welcome accident. Our march to-day was twenty-four miles.

February 23.—The flinty plain is called Mahamiyeh, and with the Buttn forms a neutral ground between the Shammar and the Ánazeh, who are here represented by the Amarrat, their Sheykh Ibn Haddal. It was somewhere about here that the battle was fought the other day, in which the Dafir got the best of it, and some of the Ibn Haddal were killed. The consequence of its being thus neutral is, that the Mahamiyeh is covered with dry grass of last year, uneaten by any flocks, a great boon to us; for there is no fresh grass yet.

Beyond the Mahamiyeh we came again to hills, amongst which we found the wells of Sherab, and beyond this again the ground sloped downwards until we came to a regular valley, which we followed in its windings all the afternoon. This is the Wady Shebekkeh, which narrows in one place almost to a ravine. There water had evidently flowed not long ago, and we found some beautiful clear pools, beside which the Haj is camped. We ourselves are some two miles further on, where there is better pasture. The Haj camels are getting terribly thin. These forced marches (we came twenty-eight miles to-day) are telling on them, and their owners are complaining loudly. The pilgrims having only hired the camels, of course care nothing for their welfare, and will not let them graze as they go, because riding a camel which eats as it goes is rather tiresome. Then in the evening the tents have to be pitched in some spot where a large camp can stand altogether, irrespective of considerations of pasture, the poor camels often having to go two or three miles to their food. We manage better, and always choose our spot for their sakes more than our own. Two of our camels nevertheless are tired, but our camels are loaded far more heavily than those of the pilgrimage.

To-night we have had a long and serious talk with Muttlak about the Ketherin tribe, in which we now consider we have an interest. He promises that he will really come north as soon as he can make arrangements with the Sebaa, and we have in return promised him that we will set up a “house of hair” with them, and keep a few nagas and a mare or two, and a small flock of sheep. This would be very agreeable, and serve as a pied à terre in the desert, quite independent of all the world.

February 24.—Another akabah had to be climbed to-day—another long winding road followed across another open plain. The wonder is why the road should wind where there is no obstacle to avoid and no object to reach by a circuit. But such is always the case. Everybody seemed cross with the hard work, enlivened only by an occasional course, in which the hare sometimes ran right in among the pilgrims, when there was a scrimmage with the dervishes for possession of the quarry. The dervishes, who are mostly from Bagdad, are ready to eat hare or anything else they can get, indeed everybody is at starvation point. The only cheerful one of our party is the stalwart Ibrahim, who has come out again now as a wag. To-day, as we were marching along, we passed a fat Persian on a very little donkey, whom Ibrahim began chaffing, but finding the Persian did not understand him, he ran up, and seizing hold, lifted donkey and man in his arms. I could not have believed it possible, had I not seen that the donkey’s four legs were off the ground. The Persian did not seem to understand this joke better than the rest, but they are stolid people, and have had a long breaking in and experience in patience during the last four months.

We have found a peaceful spot for the night, with plenty of pasture and plenty of “jelleh” for fuel. The sun has set, but in the clear cold sky there is a nearly new moon, which gives a certain amount of light.

Wilfrid is making plans for spending the spring in Persia, and the summer in India, regardless of such news as may meet us at Bagdad from England or elsewhere. Such plans, however pleasant as they are in the planning, cannot be counted on. Much may have happened in the three months since we have been cut off from all communication with Europe, or indeed any part of the world out of Arabia, and even the traveller most detached from all affections or thoughts of his distant home is liable to be seized by a sudden longing for green fields with buttercups and daisies. The passing note of a bird or the scent of a flower may be enough to upset a most admirably contrived plan.

February 25.—Twenty-seven miles of march yesterday, and thirty to-day.

The camels cannot last at this pace, but the Haj is pushing on now because the men are starving. It is said that to-morrow we may reach Kasr Ruheym, the first outpost of the Euphrates district, and there they may find supplies, but it must still be a long distance off, if our reckoning is not altogether incorrect. Wilfrid has kept a dead reckoning now ever since we left Damascus, calculating the direction by the compass, and the distance of each day’s march by the pace of the camels, and in the thousand miles we have travelled, it may well be a little out—but according to it we should now be forty-seven miles from Meshhed Ali, which should be to the north-west, not to the north of our present position.

The weather has become cold, and all day long a bitter wind blew in our faces. The vegetation has changed. In one place we saw some acacias, the first trees since we left Haïl, and some of those broom bushes which bear a flower smelling sweet like the flower of the bean, and called here by the Arabs, “gurrtheh.” The acacias have given their name to the wady, Wady Hasheb (the Valley of timber).

We had a good view of the berak unfurled to-day, and a respectable-looking pilgrim, who lives, he tells us, in the mosque of Abd-el-Kader at Bagdad, pointed out to us the motto and device in the centre of it; the sword, he says, is the sword of God, and under it is written “La ilaha ila’llahi, wa Mohammed rasuluhu” (There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet). On the other side of the flag is written “Nasron min Allahi wa fathon karîbon” (Victory is from God and success is near).

February 26.—This has been a long and hard day, over ten hours, and the whole time beating against a wind which cut through everything, the sky darkened with sand, driving right in our faces. We have however reached Kasr Ruheym, and all our camels are still alive. Many of the pilgrims’ camels, sixty or some say seventy, lay down and died on the road. The beautiful thoroughbred delúls cannot stand the cold, which is very unusual at this latitude so late in the season, and their owners are in despair. All the Haj is furious with Ambar, not the Persians only, but the Bedouin escort and the camel owners, for his dawdling marches at first, and his forced ones afterwards. In the last six days we have marched a hundred and seventy miles, the greater part of the Haj on foot, and almost fasting. What would an English army say to that? Yet not one of the men—nor even of the poor women—who have had to trudge along thus, has been left behind. For ourselves we have had no extra fatigue, for the change from camel-back to horse-back and back again is of itself a rest. Khrer, my delúl, has very even paces, so that one is not soon tired riding him.

We are here in clover, not actually at the Kasr, but in sight of it, encamped at the edge of a running stream! The stream rises here and is said to be perennial. There is a quantity of coarse sword grass growing beside it, and everything looks green and pretty to eyes wearied of desert scenes. A pair of francolins, disturbed by the sudden invasion of their resting-place, which they doubtless thought safely secluded from the world, are flying backwards and forwards, put up continually by the grazing camels, and are calling to each other from the bushes. This shows that we are approaching the Euphrates.

There is a village near the Kasr, about two miles from where we are; and a good many felláhin on donkeys and horses have arrived with provisions for sale, but they have not brought a twentieth part of what is wanted for the Haj. A cry of “stop thief” already announces that we have returned to the Turkish Empire. It has not been heard since we left Mezárib.

February 27.—No abatement of the wind, but less sand. It appears that our acquaintances, Ali Koli Khan and Abd er-Rahim are missing, lost in yesterday’s storm. They rode with us part of the afternoon, and then, hearing that Ruheym was not far off, they started away on their delúls in front of the Haj at a trot, and of course being Persians, lost their way, for the Persians are helpless people in the desert. The sand was very thick at the time, and they must have got out of the track. Ambar has sent people to look all over the country for them, but without result. They never reached Ruheym, and it is feared that they may have perished of cold in the night.

This delayed the Haj from starting early, and at one time it was given out that no move at all would be made to-day, which would have suited us well, as there was plenty of camel pasture at Ruheym, and two of our animals were quite at the end of their strength. But at eight o’clock the drum beat, and we were obliged to load and be off, for now that we had entered Turkish territory, there was danger on the road, and all must keep together. Ibn Rashid’s protection would no longer avail.

The march was tedious, on account of the weariness of the camels, though cheered by the sight of the gilt dome of Meshhed Ali, shining like a star across the blue sea of Nejef, itself a lovely apparition. The sea of Nejef (or as the Arabs call it, the Sheríet-Ibn Haddal), is the counterpart of the Birket el-Korn in the Egyptian Fayum, an artificial lake, formed by cutting a canal from the Euphrates; it is about twenty miles long, by six or seven broad. It is probably of Babylonian origin, though the Arabs say it was made by an Ibn Haddal ancestor of the present Amarrat Sheykhs, so that his camels might have a drinking pool. The Ibn Haddal were, till comparatively lately, lords of the whole of this district, and levied tribute on Meshhed Ali and Huseyn. The town stands upon the eastern shore above a fine line of limestone cliffs, and remained in sight all day long, as we wound slowly round the lake. It was a beautiful sight as far as nature was concerned, but made horrible by the sufferings of the poor dying camels, which now lay thick upon the road, with their unfortunate owners, poor Bedouins perhaps with nothing else in the world, standing beside them, luggage and bedding strewn about, which the pilgrims were trying to carry off on their heads, seeing the journey so nearly over.

Many of the camels had rushed into the lake, to drink, and lain down there, never to get up again. Others could just move one foot before the other, following at the rate of perhaps a mile an hour, with hopeless glazed eyes, and poor emaciated bodies bare of all burden, even of the shedad. We who started late because we were not ready, and had thought to remain quiet at Ruheym, passed all these, amongst others our friend Izzar, the Shammar boy, who was weeping over his delúls—two out of the three were dead. All were loud in their execrations of Ambar, and one or two of Ibn Rashid himself, whom they held responsible for part of the delay. Ibn Rashid’s government is less popular in the desert than in the towns, especially on account of his conduct of the Haj. He impresses the camels and men at a fixed rate, ten mejidies, and gives no compensation for losses. They say, however, that Ambar runs some risk of losing his head, when all his mismanagement becomes known at Haïl, and I confess I think he deserves it.

At last we got to the akabah, or ascent, where the road leads up the cliff, and here the camels lay down by scores, among the rest our beautiful camel, Amud (the pillar), so called from his great height. He was younger than the rest, except poor Shenuan, and had been out of sorts for several days past. A camel that lies down under such circumstances, seldom rises again. It is not the labour, but the want of food that kills; and unless food can be brought to the exhausted animal, he never gets strength to rise. Between five and six hundred must have perished thus to-day.

At the top of the akabah Meshhed Ali lay close before us, a long line of magnificent old walls with twelve round towers, all of burnt brick, the only building appearing over them being the mosque with its cupola of burnished gold, and its four minarets. The whole was reddened by the afternoon sun, and the dome looked like a sun itself.

Through a crowd of dirty children perched on the tombs of the vast burying-ground which, on this side, stretches for some distance from the walls of the city, we approached the gate of Meshhed Ali. These disorderly ragamuffins shouted jeers and rude remarks at the pilgrims, and threw stones at our dogs, and we were glad when, turning an angle of the wall, we reached the camping ground, a short distance from the north-eastern corner of the city, and found ourselves at peace, with leisure to reflect that our pilgrimage is over.

CHAPTER XVI.

“Nos gaillards pélerins
Par monts, par vaux, et par chemins,
À la fin arrivèrent.”—La Fontaine.

The Shrines of the Shias—Bedouin honesty—Legend of the Tower of Babel—Bagdad—Our party breaks up.

Meshhed Ali (the shrine of Ali), or Nejef as it is more correctly called, is an ideal Eastern City, standing as it does in an absolute desert and bare of all surroundings but its tombs. It is nearly square, and the circuit of its walls is broken by only one gate. These walls are of kiln-burnt brick, and date from the time of the Caliphs, and are still in excellent preservation. They are strengthened at intervals by round towers, all very massive and stately. So high are they, that they completely hide every building inside them, with the single exception of the great Mosque of Ali, whose glittering dome of gold shows like a rising sun above them.

Inside, the houses are closely packed; but there is more symmetry in their arrangement than in most Asiatic towns, as the bazaar leads in a straight line from the gate to the Mosque, which stands in the centre of the town. The shops are good, or appeared so to our eyes unused to the things of cities. I did not myself venture far inside, as the streets were very crowded, and we did not wish to attract unnecessary notice just then at the time of the pilgrimage; but Wilfrid describes the façade of the Mosque as the richest he has seen, a mass of gold and mosaic work like some highly chased reliquary. He would not go inside for fear of offending our pilgrim friends, and left it to the rest of our party to recount the splendours of the tomb.

This tomb of Ali is held by the Shias as at least as holy as the Caaba at Mecca, and it is an article of pious belief with them that any Moslem buried within sight of the dome is certain of salvation. The consequence is that pilgrims from all parts of the Shia world, and especially from Persia, come to Nejef to die, and that immense numbers of corpses are sent there for interment. Burial fees in fact constitute the chief revenue of the place.

This city and Kerbela, where there is the sister shrine of Huseyn, are inhabited by a number of Mahometan subjects of Her Majesty, from India, who have settled in them from religious motives, but remain under the protection of the British Resident at Bagdad. They live on good terms with the Arabs, but do not mix much or intermarry with them, and retain their own language. As is natural in cities of pilgrimage, all classes are ostentatiously religious, and we were amused at listening to the devout exclamations of the blacksmith who came to shoe our horses. “Ya Ali, ya Huseyn, ya Ali, ya Mohammed,” at every stroke of the hammer. They are all, moreover, bitterly hostile to Turkish rule, having the double motive of national and religious antipathy to support them. Both Meshhed Ali and Kerbela are kept strongly garrisoned, but in spite of everything have constantly revolted within the last forty years. When we were at Meshhed, the Turkish Caimakam had four companies of infantry under his orders; and the garrison of Kerbela, the head quarters of the district, was far larger.

Kerbela, which lies fifty miles north of Meshhed Ali, is physically quite unlike its rival. It is unfortified, and instead of standing in the desert, is surrounded by palm gardens, like the towns of Nejd. It is a richer and more populous city than Meshhed, but to a traveller it is less interesting as having nothing distinctive in its appearance. The Hiudieh canal, which supplies it with water from the Euphrates, makes it the centre of the most considerable agricultural district of the Bagdad pashalik. Meshhed, on the other hand, has little besides its shrine to depend on.

We were now very nearly at the end of our resources, both of money, and strength, and patience; and, without more delay than was absolutely necessary to refit our caravan, we set out for Bagdad. On the evening preceding our departure, a curious incident occurred.

A young Bedouin came to our tent and introduced himself as a Shammar from the Jezireh, one of Faris’s men whom we had met the year before on the Khabur. He hailed the “Beg” at once as brother to his master, and mentioned the incident of the loan of ten pounds made by us to Faris. This sum he offered on his own responsibility to repay us now, and, seeing that we were rather out at elbows, he pulled out the money from his sleeve, and almost forced it upon us. He had been sent by Faris to buy a mare from the Montefyk, and had the purchase money with him,—he knew Faris would wish him to repay the debt. Though we would not take the money, the honesty and good feeling shown greatly pleased us, and we were glad of an opportunity to send messages to Faris, Tellál, and Rashid ibn Ali, who it appeared was still with the northern Shammar.

This same night, too, Muttlak left us. It was a grief to us to say good-bye, and he, more visibly touched even than we were, shed tears. He had found, he said, men of the Amarrat at Meshhed, who had promised to arrange his business with the Sebaa for him, and so he would go home. He had come quite two hundred miles with us, and we could not ask him to do more. He had, however, something behind the reasons which he gave us for his going; Mohammed, his cousin, had grown jealous of his position with us, and, we have reason to suspect, made things uncomfortable for the old Sheykh when we were not present, in a way we could not prevent. Besides this, there was a story of a blood-feud between the Ketherin and the Maadan, a tribe which lives between Nejef and Kerbela; this may have helped to deter Muttlak from going on with us, for he is essentially a man of peace, but there could have been no danger for him in our company. Be it as it may, he came that night to dine with us for the last time, and could eat nothing, and when we asked him why, he said it was from sorrow, and that he must say good-bye. It was evident that he spoke the truth, and I am sure that no word of the blessings which he heaped upon our heads, and of his promises to keep our memory green in his heart, was more than what he felt. Muttlak is not a man of words. Wilfrid kissed the old Sheykh, and his servant kissed our hands, and they got on their old black delúl, and rode quietly away the way they came, and we saw them no more.

Three days of easy travelling brought us to Kerbela, for we did not care to push on fast, and four days more to Bagdad. One incident only of our route need be mentioned. As we were passing the neighbourhood of Birs Nemrud, the reputed tower of Babel, we stopped for the night at some tents belonging to the Messaoud, a half felláhin tribe of the left bank of the Euphrates, where they were growing barley on some irrigated land. The Sheykh, Hajji et-Teyma was away, but his son Fuaz entertained us, and after dinner related the history of Nimrod, the founder of the tower. Nimrod, he said, was an impious man, and thought that the sun was God. And in order to make war on him he built this tower, but finding that he could not reach him thus, he had a platform constructed with a pole in the middle, and to each corner of the platform he chained an eagle, and on the pole he hung a sheep, and the eagles wishing to reach the sheep, flew up with the platform and Nimrod who was standing on it. And when Nimrod thought himself near enough, he shot an arrow at the sun. And God to punish him destroyed the tower. The Yezidis worship Nimrod and Shaytan there to this day.

Beyond Kerbela our road lay through cultivated land till we reached the Euphrates, which we crossed by the bridge of boats at Musseyib. Then we found ourselves among Babylonian mounds, canals, and abandoned fields, the unvarying features of Irak. These brought us at last to Bagdad, where by a strange fatality we arrived once more in floods of rain, and where, again, we were welcomed in the hospitable four walls of the Residency. On the 6th of March we slept once more in beds, having been without that luxury for almost three months.

Here, therefore, ends our pilgrimage to Nejd, which, in spite of some difficulties and some hardships, was accomplished successfully without any really disagreeable incident, and here, if we had been wise, our winter’s adventures would have ended too. We had been lucky beyond our expectations in seeing and doing all we had proposed as the objects of our journey, and hardly a day of the eighty-four we had spent in Arabia had been uninteresting or unromantic. What followed was neither profitable nor agreeable, and might well have been left undone.

At Bagdad our party necessarily broke up. Among the letters awaiting us at the Consulate, was one for Mohammed ibn Arûk which obliged his instant return to Tudmur. Great events had occurred there in his absence, and for a moment we felt a pang of regret at having kept him so long away from his duties and his interests at home. The politics of Tudmur are a little complicated. Mohammed’s father, Abdallah, is not the legitimate Sheykh of the town, the true head of the Ibn Arûk family there being his cousin Faris. Abdallah, however, has for some years past enjoyed Government support, and is the Turkish nominee. The town has consequently been divided into two factions, [107] headed respectively by Faris and Mohammed, the latter representing his father, who is too old for such quarrels, and as long as the Turks were supreme at Tudmur, Mohammed’s party had it all their own way. Not, however, that either faction wished any good to the Sultan, for during the Russian war Mohammed was one of the foremost in refusing the contingent demanded of the Tudmuri for the Turkish army, but family quarrels are fierce among the Arabs, and they take advantage of all the help they can get alike from friend or enemy. So Mohammed supported Turkish policy in his native town, and was in turn supported by the Turks. But after the surrender of Plevna, and the destruction of the Sultan’s army in the Balkans, Tudmur was abandoned to its own devices, and Faris once more asserted his right to the sheykhat, though parties were so evenly balanced that nothing serious for some time occurred, and only on one occasion Faris and Mohammed exchanged shots, without serious result. It was in defiance of remonstrances on the part of his father and all his friends that Mohammed had come with us, and the moment he was gone war had broken out. A messenger, it appears, had arrived to recall him not a week after he started with us from Damascus, and now another letter announced that blood had been shed. This was sufficient reason for our journey together coming to an end, and Mohammed, though piously ready to accept accomplished facts with an “Allah kerim,” was evidently in a hurry to be off. Even if we had wished it, we could not ask him to go further with us now. But we did not wish it. The episode of his foolish behaviour at Haïl, forgive it as we would, had left a certain gêne between us, which he was conscious of as well as ourselves, and, though he had done much since then to atone for it, we all felt that it was best to part. Still there was something mournful in his leaving us on so forlorn an errand, and he, as Arabs do, shed tears, owning that he had behaved in that instance ungratefully to us, and protesting his devotion. We on our side made him as comfortable as we could with letters of recommendation to Valys and Consuls, whose protection he might have need of, and with what arms and ammunition we could spare. And so he and Abdallah, and Awwad the robber, went their way on four of our delúls, which we gave them for the journey, and we saw them no more.

We had hoped to induce Hanna to go on with us, for he in all our difficulties had never failed us, and with his cousin the Tawíl had helped us loyally when others had been cross or unwilling—but Hanna was home-sick, and the Tawíl would not desert him. So one day they joined a caravan of muleteers on the point of starting for Mosul, and left us with many tears and blessings; and the little army with which we had crossed the desert was finally dispersed. [109]

PART II.
OUR PERSIAN CAMPAIGN.

CHAPTER I.

“Duo illum sequor? In Persas.”—Plautus.

“Halas! diséit-elle, faut-il que je périsse sous les pattes d’une araignée, moi qui viens de me tirer des griffes d’un lion?”—Fables d’Ésope.

New plans and new preparations—We leave Bagdad for Persia—Wild boar hunting in the Wudian—A terrible accident—We travel with a holy man—Camps of the Beni Laam—An alarm.

Amongst the letters awaiting our arrival at Bagdad, we had found an invitation from Lord and Lady Lytton to spend the summer, or part of it, with them at Simla. It seemed that this would be an opportunity, which might never again occur, of going on to India by land, a plan which might be made to include a visit to the Bactiari mountains, where our acquaintance of the pilgrimage, Ali Koli Khan, had his home. Ali had often talked to us of his father, and of a wonderful stud of thoroughbred Arabians possessed by his family, and the prospect of seeing these, and a tribe reputed to be the most powerful in Persia, was an attraction that could not be denied. He had indeed proposed to travel there with us, and introduce us himself to his people, and if circumstances had been propitious, no doubt we might have accomplished this part of our journey comfortably enough. Unfortunately, when we took leave of the Haj at Meshhed Ali, our friend was not there for us to concert arrangements with him, nor even to wish him good-bye. He had been lost in the sandstorm, already mentioned as having occurred on the last day but one of the pilgrimage; and though before going on to Kerbela we had received news of his safety, we had no opportunity of meeting him. The consequence was that he neither came with us, nor gave us so much as a letter to his father; and in the end we started alone, a mistake we had ample reason to repent. The plan of travelling from Bagdad to India by land appeared to me of doubtful wisdom under the circumstances; but Wilfrid’s thirst for exploration was not yet slaked. He argued that spring was just beginning, and a spring journey through Persia must of necessity be the most delightful thing in the world, and that we could at any moment get down to some port of the Persian Gulf, if the weather became too hot for us. Our means of transport were ready. We should find some difficulty in disposing of our camels at Bagdad, and had better make use of them; and though we were now without servants, servants might easily be found. Thus, in an evil day, and without due consideration of the difficulties and dangers which were before us, we determined to go on. A final circumstance decided the matter beyond recall. Captain Cameron, the African traveller, arrived at Bagdad, with the object of surveying a line for an Indo-Mediterranean railway from Tripoli to Bushire, and thence to the Indus, having already made the first stages of his survey; and Wilfrid now proposed to assist him in the more serious part of his undertaking. It was agreed between them that they should take different lines from Bagdad, and meet again either at Bushire or Bender Abbas, thus comparing notes as to the most practicable railway line from the Tigris to the Persian Gulf. Captain Cameron was to follow the left bank of the river as far as Amara, and then to strike across the marshy plains to Ahwas and Bender Dilam, while we should keep further east, skirting the Hamrin and Bactiari hills. So presented, the project sounded useful, if not agreeable, and acquired a definite object, which, if it ran us into unnecessary dangers, served also to carry us through them afterwards. The expedition was accordingly a settled thing.

Our preparations were made, unfortunately, with as little reflection as the decision. On arriving at Bagdad, we had, as has been mentioned, said goodbye to Mohammed and the camel-men, and had, moreover, allowed Hanna and Ibrahim, who were homesick, or tired of travelling, to depart. The difficulty now was how to replace them. It is always a dangerous experiment to begin a serious journey with untried followers, and it was our first misfortune that we were obliged to do this. Colonel Nixon, as he had done last year, kindly lent us a cavass; but, alas! Ali, the intelligent fat man who had been of such assistance to us in our Mesopotamian tour, was not fit to leave Bagdad. He was lying ill of a fever, and could not be disturbed. The cavass given us was consequently a stranger, and might be good or bad, useful or useless, for anything we knew. It was necessary, too, that somebody should know Persian, and we engaged a Persian cook, Ramazan by name, highly recommended, but equally untried. A young Bagdadi next volunteered as groom, and, lastly, the Sheykh of the Agheyls, an old friend, sent two of his men as camel-drivers.

None, however, of these attendants, the two last excepted, had seen each other before, nor knew anything of our way of travelling or our way of life. We did not even start together, as it would have been wise to do. The country round Bagdad is bare of pasture for many miles, and we thought to better matters for our camels by sending them on some marches down the river, intending to join them later with our baggage by boat, a most unfortunate arrangement, for the men being stupid timorous fellows, seem, when left to themselves, to have lost their heads, and instead of obeying their orders, which were to travel slowly, pasturing the animals as they went, drove them without halting to the village we had named as a meeting-place, and kept them there, half-starved in dirty stables, till we came, a piece of negligence which cost us dear. When we joined them, one, the black delúl was already missing, dead they informed us; and a second, Shayl, a camel which, when we left Damascus, had been a model of strength and good looks, was so reduced as to be unfit for further travelling, while the remaining six were but a shadow of their former selves. Only Hatheran, the giant leader, who had saved our fortunes in the Nefûd, was still fit for a full load; and to him once more we had mainly to trust during all that was to come.

It is difficult for those who have never owned camels to imagine how much attached one becomes to these animals on a long journey, and what a variety of character they possess. Each one of ours had its name, which it knew well, and its special quality of courage, or caution, or docility. Wilfrid’s white delúl, “Helweh” (sweetmeat), was gentle and obedient; the Meccan, “Hamra,” thoughtless and vain; “Ghazal,” affectionate, but rude and inclined to buck (poor thing, she was far from bucking now); “Hatheran,” especially, was a camel of character. He was evidently proud of his strength and his superior understanding, and possessed a singular independence of opinion which compelled respect. It was his pride to march ahead of the rest, who accepted him as guide, and followed his lead on all doubtful occasions. He cared little for the beaten track, choosing his ground as seemed best to him and always for good reasons. He was never impatient or put out, and in difficulties never lost his head. He could carry twice the load of the others, and could walk faster, and go longer without water. At the same time, he considered himself entitled to extra rations when we made up the evening meal, and would leave us no peace till he was satisfied. I mention these things now, for feeding and driving and tending these camels was to be our chief occupation during the rest of our journey, and on them depended the safety of our march, and, in great measure, of our lives. I say it with no little vanity, that, starting under the unfavourable circumstances we did, we nevertheless marched our camels without accident five hundred miles over mountain and plain, through swamps and streams never before traversed by camels, and across nine large rivers, one of them bigger than the Rhine; and that we brought them in to their journey’s end fat and well. I must not, however, forestall matters.

On the 20th of March, having thus sent on our camels with the Agheyls, we embarked on board an English river steamer, with our servants, our horses, our greyhounds, and Rasham, the falcon who had followed our march from Haïl, and were taken down about eighty miles to a point of the river below Kut, where several streams run into the Tigris from the east, thus giving the district the name of Wudian (streams).

It was a cheerless start, for all down the river we steamed through driving rain, till at last the steamer was brought to, amid the downpour, in front of a bare round bank, and we were invited to descend. There was nothing but mud and a few bushes to be seen for miles, and it seemed impossible we should step out of the luxury of a civilised English cabin into what seemed a mere slough, and that without means of transport further than the bank, for of camels and men there was nothing at all to be seen. But the die was cast; this was the place we had agreed on, and, without more ado, we landed, first our horses and then our baggage, and then ourselves. While this was in operation, some Arabs had appeared on the scene, and to one of them, an old man in a green turban, Captain Clements, before he said good-bye, confided us. Seyd Abbas, he told us, was an old acquaintance, and an honest man; and though the rest, it was easy to see, were of the lowest order of felláhin Arabs, we were fain to be content with this assurance and make what friends we could, at least with the old man. Sitting disconsolately on our camel bags in the rain, we then made our last farewell to all on board, and having watched the steamer till it steamed out of sight, set ourselves in earnest to the work that was before us. [119] I resume my journal:

“The tent was soon rigged up on a piece of sounder ground than the rest, and the horses fettered and turned out to graze. My new mare, Canora, so called after the Canora or Nebbuk tree which grows in the Residency yard, is certainly a great beauty, and attracts much, too much, attention, from the rather thievish-looking people of this place. Wilfrid has been to the encampment, which is about half a mile off, with Seyd Abbas, and has made friends with their chief people, but he has no agreeable impression of those he has seen. They appear to be, he says, a mixed collection of felláhin from all the Iraki tribes, and can lay no claim at all to good birth. Their Sheykh alone, for Seyd Abbas is not their Sheykh, claims gentility as coming from the Beni Laam, but we do not like his looks. The Beni Laam, Seyd Abbas tells us, are three days’ journey from here, and there is war going on amongst them just now, owing to a quarrel between their Sheykh, Mizban, and one of his brothers. He gives rather a terrible picture of them, and has been trying to dissuade us from going further; but we think that with the letters we have for Mizban, there can be no difficulty. The Beni Laam are, at any rate, a true Bedouin tribe, not felláhin, like the people here. Old Hajji Mohammed (the cavass) stayed with me while Wilfrid was away. He was once in the army, and insisted on standing sentry in the rain in spite of all I could do to make him sit down under the flap of the tent. He has evidently small confidence in the people here.

Some fowls have been brought from the camp, and there are sticks enough to make a fire. Now we shall see what our Persian cook can do. If the camels were here, our being detained would not so much matter. We heard of them at Kut as we passed by in the steamer, but that is twenty-five miles off; and with this rain it is impossible to say when they may arrive.

March 22.—The weather has cleared, and we can see the Hamrin hills to the east, not so very far off. The country is less hideous than it seemed yesterday in the rain. This place is a sort of peninsula or island, formed by two rivers, which come from the Hamrin hills and fall into the Tigris. These seemed to be joined higher up by a canal, so that the space inside is cut off from the desert. It is partly a swamp, partly a thicket of guttub bushes, with here and there patches of cultivation made by felláhin. These call themselves Saadeh, but Seyd Abbas says they come from all parts. He himself is brother to the Sheykh of Ali Ghurbi, a village on the other side of the Tigris. There are no villages at all on this side after Kut, and this island of Wudian is the only inhabited spot. The felláhin are very poor, and complain bitterly of the government, which ruins them. They are completely under the thumb of the Turks, now that the government has steamers on the river, and the tax-gatherers take (if we may believe them), about two-thirds of their crops. They have also to pay ten beshliks (francs) for each tent, half a beshlik for each sheep, two beshliks for each buffalo they keep, and a capitation tax of two and a half beshliks besides. Moreover, they are visited now and then by zaptiehs, who take their horses from them if they do not manage to hide them away, on the pretence that they cannot afford to keep them, while Mizban makes them pay tribute for protection too, or rather for the right of being left alone. The government does absolutely nothing in return for what it takes. They are indeed in a wretched plight, and one wonders why they take all this trouble of cultivation for so little, but perhaps it is a choice between that and starvation.

The great feature of Wudian is its wild-boars. These literally swarm in the fields, trotting about in open day-light, and doing exactly as they like. The people are afraid of them, and keep out of their way, and no wonder, for they are gigantic beasts. A man who was at our tents to-day, shewed us a terrible wound he had received from one which charged him quite without provocation. The people have only their short spears to protect themselves with. The beasts come almost inside the camp, and Wilfrid found one this afternoon fast asleep under a bush, within ten yards of the path which leads to the tents. The people passing along, went a long way round so as not to disturb it, for it lay quite exposed to view. Seyd Abbas begged him to destroy some of them, and Wilfrid has ridden out on Ariel, and taken the Winchester rifle to see what he can do. I have felt feverish, and have stayed at home drying the things which had got wet.

The people here are all Shias, and very fanatical, and Seyd Abbas as a descendant of the Prophet enjoys a high position among them. Among the Ánazeh and Shammar, the Bedouins think nothing of saints and seyyids, but here they have everybody at their feet. Bashaga, the Sheykh, though a Beni Laam and, as such, a “gentleman,” is not nearly so important as the old man in the green turban. The latter has been talking to me this morning and promises to take us to Mizban’s camp, if we insist on going, though he advises strongly not. He says that with him we shall be safe, as they also have a great respect for Seyyids, and besides he has married into Mizban’s family. Seyyid or not, he eats and drinks with us freely; so we feel a certain amount of confidence in him.

Wilfrid has returned triumphant. He was not more than two hours and a half away, and he has killed five boars and a sow. Ariel behaved wonderfully, following the pigs without any need of urging, and without flinching when they charged. It seems to have been splendid sport. Amongst the victims was the old boar that had been seen asleep, and which charged most viciously. It is lucky the dogs were not taken, as they would certainly have got hurt. The Arabs are highly delighted at the result, and we hope it may put us on better terms with them. They have dragged one of the corpses, a disgusting object, to the bank of the river, intending, they say, to send it to the British Resident at Bagdad by the next steamer. No news, alas, of the camels.

March 23.—A fearful storm in the night, and the whole place under water. Wilfrid went out early to try and get news of the camels, riding Job, the grey horse we bought of Col. Nixon. He did not get far, for the streams are so swollen that they are impassable, at least for one who does not know the fords; and Job is a rather timid horse to get into difficulties with. He is young, and fairly bolted when a pig jumped up from out of a bush near him. We are both going out now for some more boar-hunting. I should enjoy it better if I was sure we should ever get away from this swampy place.

* * * * *

We have had a great misfortune. Ariel is badly wounded. We went out to-day, a large party, people on foot with spears and hoes, and one or two on sorry little mares. It was a beautiful day after the rain, birds singing in all the bushes, francolins calling, hoopoes flying about, and woodcocks starting from guttub thickets. The island was half under water, and droves of pigs, boars, sows and little ones, turned out of the bushes, where they generally lie in the day-time, were grunting and trotting and splashing about everywhere. We singled out a great red boar, and all gave chase, but the ground was heavier than yesterday, and we had a longish gallop to come up to him. It was difficult, too, to keep to the boar we had chosen, where there were so many. At last he charged, and was hit, but not enough to stop though it turned him, and then we had another gallop, and another shot rolled him over. The people on foot, who were following them, rushed in, but just as they got near him up he jumped, and bolted towards some deep water, where there was a high guttub bush. I was in front, and Wilfrid shouted to me to turn him, which I would have done if I could, but instead, he turned me, coming at me with a savage grunt and a toss of his head which I knew was dangerous. Then he plunged into the deep water, but instead of going on, suddenly changed his mind, and came back to where the bush was on the land, and before we were aware, had charged right in among us. Wilfrid turned his mare, but, alas, not fast enough, firing as he turned. To my horror, I saw the hideous beast catch Ariel and give her a toss, such as I have seen in the bull-ring given by a bull. He seemed to lift horse and rider clean off the ground. Ariel staggered away, while the boar lay down, and was soon after dispatched by the Arabs.

We meanwhile had torn off our kefiyehs and scarfs, and were trying to staunch a ghastly wound in the poor mare’s leg. The leg was ripped up inside from the hock to the stifle, and an artery had been cut. For a long while it was all in vain. We could not stop the flow, and no words can describe our misery as we watched the blood pouring fast upon the ground. We were in despair, for besides the fact of her being thus precious in race, we are much attached to the mare for her own sake, as who would not be, for Ariel is the noblest and best and gentlest creature that ever was. She has a pathetic look in her eyes, and is absolutely patient under her suffering. We have now some hope of her recovery, but Wilfrid fears she must be abandoned, for the sinew is cut bare, and she cannot put her foot to the ground.

While we were engaged in tending her, suddenly the camels appeared. It would have given us immense pleasure a few hours ago. Now all seemed indifferent. Their presence, however, enabled us to bring our camp here, where the mare is.

March 24.—This certainly is an ill-starred journey. The stupid Agheyls have so neglected our camels that Abdeh is dead, and Shayl unable to go further. Nor are the rest in much better case. We had some discussion this morning about giving up our present plan, and taking the next steamer which passes by for Bussora where we could make a fresh start. This would have been the best chance of saving the mare. But we decided to push on, and accordingly we left Wudian this morning, fording the canal, which is about four feet deep, fortunately without accident, and marching slowly in a south-east direction across a perfectly level plain. Ours is a melancholy caravan, for poor Ariel walks with great difficulty, her leg being terribly swollen; but she has such courage that we hope she may yet pull through. It was a choice of evils, bringing or leaving her; for leaving her would mean that we should never see her again. Bashaga could not be trusted with her, nor any of the Arabs of Wudian except Seyd Abbas, and he has come with us. Seyd Abbas is mounted on a sorry little white kadish, and his son Hassan, who has come too, marches on foot. Wilfrid is mounted now on Job, and Hajji Mohammed on the hamra. Thus we have travelled about ten miles. The plain is here for the most part absolutely bare alluvial soil, like that of Irak, but mixed with saltpetre, and so producing nothing. Here and there, however, there is a swamp, with a little show of verdure, and we have encamped in the middle of a patch of thistles, the first bit of pasture we have come to. We have met no one, but there are some tents now at a distance, with camels feeding, supposed to belong to the Beni Laam. Hajji Mohammed has been to the tents, but he does not seem to know how to manage among the Bedouins, and has come back empty-handed, declaring that the owners were rude to him. We ought, I suppose, to have gone ourselves, but we are in such distress about the mare that we do not like to leave her. We have been dressing her wounds with Holloway’s ointment, as she lies on her side at our tent door. The thistles are of the spotted sort, and all the animals, including Ariel, seem to enjoy them.

March 25.—We hoped that Ariel was better, she had eaten well over-night, and though very stiff this morning, was able to start with us; but after travelling a couple of miles, she staggered and fell down, and though she got up again, she again fell. The third time she refused to move, the pain being too great, and there she lay on her side as if dead. It was useless to try to bring her further, and as we happened to be passing within half a mile of the tents we had seen yesterday, it was agreed that Hassan, Seyd Abbas’ son, should stop with her and get her gradually to them, and so back to Wudian. We have promised him a handsome reward if he succeeds in recovering her and sending her back to Bagdad, and he has protested he will do everything he can. All the same, I do not doubt that we have bid good-bye to Ariel for ever. She lifted up her beautiful head as we took leave of her, and seemed to understand what was happening, for Arab horses understand things as people do. Wilfrid brought her a bucket of water, which she drank, and then she laid her head upon the ground again, and we went away. [128]

Travelling without her to-day has seemed unnatural. It is impossible to enjoy looking at the sunshine or the Hamrin hills, though these have been very beautiful. We are again encamped in the open plain not ten miles from these hills, and three or four perhaps from the river, which we have been marching almost parallel with.

A new complication has arisen in the behaviour of Ramazan, the cook, who has proved so insubordinate that he is to be sent about his business. Seyd Abbas is to go to-morrow to Ali Ghurbi on the river, to make purchases of rice and dates for us, and he will take Ramazan with him, as also the groom, who declares he has got fever, caught in the Wudian swamps, and will go no further. Thus our party is melting away at the outset; but we are in the meanwhile to go on, with a young man Seyd Abbas brought with him from last night’s tents, to a large camp of the Beni Laam, which is said to be just under the hills, and wait there till the Seyyid joins us.

March 26.—Four hours’ march has brought us to the hills. As we got near them, we found the usual signs of a Bedouin encampment, distant flocks of sheep and then shepherds, all moving with that exaggerated, mysterious appearance of speed the mirage gives. We galloped on to reconnoitre from a tall tell in front of us, and soon made out the camp. There was a stream of water just below, and the tell and the plain near it were covered with something like turf, while the hill sides were visibly green with grass. A shepherd told us that the camp was Musa’s, the sheykh we were in search of; and, waiting till the camels came up with us, we went on there.

Musa ibn Sollal was absent, and we were directed to his brother Akul’s tent. We found him fast asleep in a corner of the tent, but he woke up when we entered, and received us politely. He told us that the Sheykh had gone to Amara, at a summons from the mutesserif of that town, to meet his brother Mizban, and have their quarrel made up. It seems that Musa, Akul and Homeydi, all sons of one mother, are making war against their half-brother, Mizban, who is head of the Ibn Sollal family, as well as principal Sheykh of all the Beni Laam; and the quarrel is now a serious affair, for Mizban has killed one of Musa’s sons. There can be little chance of its being patched up by Turkish intervention, for the present mutesserif is weak “like a lady,” they say, and not at all the man to deal with a blood-feud.

Akul is an elderly man, with a grey beard, and devoted to children. He has been doing his best to entertain us, as well as to amuse a little group of small children who came clustering around him when he awoke. His tent is a poor one, small and hot like a stewpan; and we escaped from it the moment we could with propriety go to our own, pitched only a few yards off—too few, alas! for comfort, for the people here, though well-behaved, cannot resist their curiosity to “farraj.”

These Beni Laam must be counted as true Bedouins, as none of them are felláhin, or would lift a finger to till the ground, for which purpose they employ such low tribes as our friends the Saadeh and the Abiad. But they are quite different from any other true Bedouins I have visited, not only in manners but in looks; and there seems to be among them a great mixture of races. Seyd Abbas has told us that they intermarry with Persian and Kurdish tribes, and that they also receive and adopt into their own tribe vagabonds from no one knows where; and this account is fully borne out by their appearance. Mixed descent may be read in their faces. Neither do they, as far as I can make out, lay much claim to good breeding, except in the ruling family, Ibn Sollal, which is proud of its ancestry in the male line. Akul and his brother Homeydi, who visited us in the evening, talked a great deal about their Nejdean descent. According to their own account they (the Ibn Sollal) came from Nejd twelve generations ago and I do not doubt the correctness of the tradition; but their Arabian blood has since become so much diluted with foreign additions, that in Nejd itself they would not be accepted as nobly born. They do not deny their marriages with the daughters of the neighbouring lands, but seem to think it a matter of no consequence. They will even marry with townspeople and Bagdadis; and we heard on board the steamer of a relative of Mizban’s married to a certain Jazin Sabunji, a tradesman in Bagdad. His brother, Ahmet Sabunji, had, on the strength of the connection, given us a letter to add to our packet of introductions to Mizban.

The horses here seem to be of small account. Fifteen or twenty mare’s, wearing the usual iron shackles, are grazing about a mile off, some with foals by their sides, all standing in water above their fetlocks. We walked round to examine them, and saw one good-looking white mare that may be thoroughbred, and also a bay somewhat better than the rest, but they are inferior animals. A foal was born last night, and was being removed with its mother, a wretched little creature, to the dry ground at the camp. There were no camels to be seen. They and the sheep are at pasture at a considerable distance.

A couple of Bagdad sheep-dealers have come by with a large flock just purchased from Mizban’s people. Their description is glowing of the wealth and grandeur, and excellent reception to be met with at the great Sheykh’s tents. They are travelling quietly, and apparently without precaution or fear of being attacked by the ghazús, so much talked about. But I suppose they know what they are doing.

Several women came to see me, accompanied by some children, two or three of whom were really beautiful, one little boy especially. Their visit soon attracted a crowd, for everybody who passed stopped to join the circle in front of our tent. They were good-humoured and rather encroaching and forward, but kept in check by a middle-aged man with a big stick, who undertook the office of master of the ceremonies. His method was rough and ready; every now and then to effect a complete dispersion of the party by rushing into the midst of them and dealing out blows on every side without distinction of age or sex. The visitors then ran away in all directions laughing, and almost immediately returned more gay and merry than before. One young lady, Basha by name, proposed to accompany us on our journey, and my answer, “Marhaba, fetch your mare and come,” brought down on her endless chaff.

A few small presents have made Musa very amiable, and he has sent us a guard for our tents. There is, it would seem, some apprehension of attack on the part of the hostile section of the tribe who are not far off, and a ghazú from Mizban is much talked of. So the conference of the two brothers at Amara does not prevent their followers from carrying on the war.

March 27.—Nothing worse happened during the night than a thunderstorm. Wilfrid started early on Job to try and find old Seyd Abbas, of whom nothing was heard yesterday. He went alone, and cantered for about ten miles in the direction of the river, but finding a large marsh between him and it, and, moreover, that Ali Ghurbi was beyond the river, he returned. He met, he tells me, a number of Arabs whom he believes to have been Mizban’s people. They made some show of trying to circumvent him, but were too ill-mounted to be dangerous. At midday the Seyyid arrived with two donkey loads of provisions from the village. We had all but given him up for lost, and in our dearth of friends, we now begin to feel something like affection for him, seeing him return.

We have made so little progress this week that we could not consent to stay another night with Musa, and have come on, in spite of tempestuous skies and alarming rumours of a ghazú, which is said to be on the march from Mizban’s. We have, however, hitherto, escaped all these dangers. The thunderstorms, though rattling like artillery, right, left, in front, and behind us, spared us overhead; and we have seen no living soul all the afternoon. It is a wild, strange piece of country, but covered in places with excellent pasture, so that we have the satisfaction of seeing our dear camels growing fat beneath our eyes. We have stopped for the night at the edge of an enormous red morass, the haunt of innumerable birds. There are two little tells close by, and a pool of rain water good to drink. We have now left the neighbourhood of the Tigris for good, so that these swamps have nothing to do with it. They seem to be caused by small streams running from the Hamrin Hills, and caught in this great flat plain. The railway, in Wilfrid’s opinion, if it is ever made, ought to run along the foot of the hills where the ground is sounder. It is difficult, however, to imagine the use of a railway in such an uninhabited country.

The tells where we are, are called Doheyleh; but there is nothing in the shape of a village anywhere this side the Tigris, nor are there any Bedouins except these Beni Laam.

March 28.—A good morning’s march has brought us safely to Mizban’s. It seems that after all we ran some danger last night, for a ghazú was really out between the two Beni Laam camps, and we find Mizban’s people in commotion. A few miles from the camp we were met by a body of horsemen advancing in open order, who, as soon as they saw us, galloped at full speed towards us, and seemed as if intending to attack. But Seyd Abbas rode forward to meet them on his old grey kadish and waved his cloak and shouted to them to stop. “It is I,” he called, “Seyd Abbas.” Whereupon the horsemen pulled up, and dismounting, kissed the old man’s hand. They were a ghazú, they told us, from Lazim, Mizban’s eldest son, and they were following on the track of some robbers from Musa’s, who had carried off seventeen camels in the night. They cross-questioned Seyd Abbas as to Musa’s whereabouts, but the old man would not let out the secret. It would have been a breach of the hospitality he had just received from Musa. They did not stop long, however, to talk, but went on their way, leaving a couple of the party only to show us to Mizban’s tent.

The tents of the Beni Laam are peculiar. Instead of being, like every other Arab tent we have seen, set on a number of poles each of different height, these are shaped like regular pent-houses, with gable roof and walls. Such, at least, is Mizban’s mudíf, a construction corresponding with the kahwah of a town house, and used only for reception. The living tents are smaller, and the word beyt house here applies only to the harim. The mudíf is a fine airy room, very pleasant in the hot weather we are beginning to have. It is pitched close to the river Tibb in the middle of a very large camp, several hundred tents, and looks imposing enough. The country all round is very bare and trodden down, having been exposed last night to a fearful hail storm, which has wrecked all the vegetation. The hailstones, they say, were as big as dates.

The Tibb is much swollen, and flowing through a deep cutting, looks anything but easy to cross,—a turbid yellow river cutting its way through the alluvial plain without valley of any sort, so that you do not know it is there until you come close to it. It is about fifty yards wide.

At the door of the mudíf we alighted, and presently made the acquaintance of our host—not Mizban, for he, as we heard before, is away at Amara, but his son Beneyeh—a rather handsome but not quite agreeable looking youth, whose forward, almost rude manners show him to be, what he no doubt is, a spoilt child. We have been rather reserved with him in consequence, and have left to Hajji Mohammed the task of explaining our name and quality, and delivering the letters which we have with us for his father. Beneyeh is not the eldest son, and I do not quite understand why he does the honours of his father’s tent instead of Lazim. It is difficult to know exactly how to treat him; but we think it better to be on the side of politeness, so we have sent him the cloak intended for the Sheykh, and have added to it a revolver, with which he seems pleased. We are so completely in his hands for our further progress, that we must do what we can to secure his good will. I have paid a visit to the harim, and have been well received by Beneyeh’s mother, Yeddi, a fat jovial person, young-looking for her age. She is very proud of her son, and the evident cause of his spoiling. Her stepdaughter Hukma, and daughter-in-law Rasi, are both rather pretty; though the latter, like the mother-in-law, shows signs of foreign blood, being inclined to fat, and being red-haired and fair complexioned. The occasion of my visit to them was a distressing one. We had hardly retired to our own tent when a loud explosion was heard, and immediately afterwards a man came running to us to beg us to come, for an accident had happened. In the storm last night some gunpowder belonging to Beneyeh had got wet, and a slave had been set to dry it at the fire in the women’s tent, with the result of a blow up and fearful burning of the unfortunate creature. They wanted us, of course, to cure him; and we gave what advice we could, but with little chance of success. The poor slave lay groaning there behind a matting all the time I was in the tent, but Yeddi and the rest chattered, and laughed, and screamed, regardless as children. Sick people get little peace in the Desert.

* * * * *

Wilfrid believes he has arranged matters with Beneyeh, who came to dine with us this evening, and talked matters over afterwards with Seyd Abbas. He declared at first that a journey across the frontier into Persia was out of the question, that nobody had ever been that way, that the Beni Laam were at war with the Ajjem (Persians) and could not venture into the neighbourhood of Dizful, or any town of Persia, and that his father was away, and he had no men to spare as escort. After much talking, however, and persuasion on the Seyyid’s part, he has agreed to start with us to-morrow with thirty horsemen and see us safely to the camp of one Kerim Khan, chief of a Kurdish tribe, which lives on the river Karkeria, beyond which Persia proper begins, and that he will take £10 for his trouble. The sum is hardly excessive if he fulfils his part of the bargain, for the country between Turkey and Persia has the reputation of being quite impracticable, not only from the robber bands which inhabit it, but from the rivers which must be crossed. Hajji Mohammed is very gloomy about the whole matter.

In the middle of our conversation a fearful hubbub arose in the camp round, followed by some shots and the galloping of horses, and Beneyeh exclaiming, “A ghazú, a ghazú!” jumped up and rushed out of the tent. Our first thought was to put out the candle, and our second to stand to our arms and look outside. In the dim starlight we could see what seemed to be a fight going on inside and round the mudíf; and though night attacks are very unusual in the desert, we were convinced an enemy was sacking the camp. Though the quarrel was no affair of ours, and we should probably be in little danger had it been daylight, now in the darkness we could not help feeling alarmed. Wilfrid served out cartridges, and gave the order that all should kneel down so as to be prepared for action if the tide of battle should come our way, an arrangement which resulted only in Hajji Mohammed’s letting off his gun by accident, and very nearly shooting one of the Agheyls. The mares had their iron fetters on, and with the keys in our pockets we knew they could not be lost. Still it was an anxious moment. At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, Beneyeh came back in great excitement to say that a ghazú had come from Musa’s, and that some camels had been driven away; that the hubbub in the tent was not fighting, but preparation to fight; and that he was come to borrow a rifle as he and his friends were starting in pursuit. Wilfrid gave him one of the guns and offered to ride with him on his expedition, but Seyd Abbas, who had all the time been cheering us with an assurance that “it was not our affair,” would not hear of this; and, after a long discussion, it was decided that we should all stay together, as indeed is only prudent. I do not believe the ghazú has been anything very serious; for, though Beneyeh and some of his men have galloped off in the supposed direction of the enemy, by far the greater number have remained, preferring shouting and singing to actual fighting. They are now chaunting in chorus “Aduan—Mizban (enemies—Mizban)—Aduan—Mizban,” and striking their spears on the ground to beat time. A great fire has been lit and is blazing in the mudíf, and the dark figures passing and repassing in front of it make the whole thing wild and savage in the extreme.

CHAPTER II.

Gloucester. “’Tis true that we are in great danger,
The greater therefore should our courage be.”

Shakespeare.

“La plus mauvaise rencontre dans le désert est celle de l’homme.”

Guarmani.

We are betrayed into the hands of robbers—Ghafil and Saadun—We diplomatise—A march across “No-man’s-land”—Night terrors—We claim protection of a Persian prince.

March 29.—The event of last night, though in truth it was less alarming than it seemed, made us anxious not to remain longer at Mizban’s than could be helped. Wilfrid accordingly no sooner saw Beneyeh this morning, than he began to urge our departure on him, as it had been arranged over-night. The young man was in a bad humour, his pursuit of the ghazú having been either unsuccessful, or, as we suspect, never seriously made; and at first he would hear of nothing but that we should go back to Amara, instead of crossing the frontier, which he again declared to be impracticable. He was put out, moreover, because we did not allow him to keep the gun which he had borrowed in the night; and but for old Seyd Abbas, whom he is bound to treat with respect, I doubt if he would have kept to his bargain with us. I begin to regret now that he at last allowed himself to be persuaded, for we seem to have got into a very awkward pass.

Our troubles to-day began early. First of all we had to say farewell to Seyd Abbas, our last connecting link with respectability. The old man said he dared not go further; that in the country where we were going his condition as a seyyid would not be respected, nor could he do more for us than wish us well through it. He washed his hands, in fact, of the whole proceeding, and protested that he had gone farther than he ought in bringing us thus far. We could not indeed find fault with him for wishing to return, and thanking him heartily for all, and so recommending him once more to see to Ariel, we let him go. Since then all has gone wrong. We had first the river to cross, a not very easy proceeding, for the banks were of mud, and the water up to our horses’ shoulders. Still, nothing untoward happened till we had all got over. Then the two Agheyls, our camel-drivers, declared that they too would go no further. The journey into Persia frightened them, they said, as well as Seyd Abbas, and though they gave a variety of reasons besides, it always came back to this, that they did not like to die in a foreign land. It was no use arguing with them that they should not die, and that we would provide handsomely for their return to Bagdad by sea; no offers could move them, nor even the threat of their Sheykh’s displeasure, which we held in terrorem over them. It was impossible to be really angry, yet our case is a forlorn one without them. To-day we and Hajji Mohammed have had to load and drive the camels ourselves, for he is the only servant left us, and Beneyeh and his Arabs would do nothing, contenting themselves with galloping about and shouting out their unasked-for advice. It was very annoying.

Beneyeh’s manner has changed alarmingly. Finding us practically in his power, now we have crossed the Tibb and cannot retreat, he has become most insolent, trying all day to pick a quarrel with us about the revolver we gave him, and which he has put out of order by his clumsiness, and asking for one thing and another belonging to us exactly like a rude, ill-bred child. Wilfrid was obliged to speak sharply to him and bid him be ashamed of himself, as his manners are those of an Iraki fellah, not of a Sheykh’s son. Still he went on, now asking for Wilfrid’s sword, now proposing to buy my mare, impertinences both, till, on being told he was a fool, he rode on in a huff with his men. There were nine of them, and one only remained with us, an older man who seemed ashamed of his young chief, and with whom we got on more pleasantly. Still it is a disagreeable prospect to have to travel with such rascals all the way to Persia. The party are tolerably mounted, the Beni Laam having a few asil mares, principally of the Wadnan breed, and at Mizban’s camp there was a horse which they called a Nusban, a name new to us.

The country, after passing the Tibb, is a fine rolling down, with capital pasture in the hollows, so that to our other difficulties we are fortunately spared that of anxiety about our camels. It is worth something to see them feeding on rich green grass as they go, making up at last for their long winter’s fast.

At two o’clock we sighted some tents, where we found Beneyeh with his men, waiting for a dinner of lamb which was being prepared. Hungry as we were, we should have much preferred passing on unfeasted, for we are now suspicious of our host, and feel anxious when away from our horses. Still there was no refusing, or seeming to doubt or be afraid, and we joined with as good a grace as we could in the rather rude entertainment. The meal lasted upwards of an hour, and when we were ready to start there were still delays, so that it was dark before we reached the camp which was to be our resting-place for the night. The late rains have put much of the low-lying country under water, and we are now in a broad valley, formerly, one may guess, a rich agricultural district, but long deserted. We passed about sunset the mounds of an ancient city, which are not marked on any of our maps, and which the people here call Jeréysiat; and near these we came upon the camp where we now are.

What its inhabitants are we do not yet know. Dakher, the chief man, is, it would seem, a Beni Laam, but the rest have more the appearance of outlaws than of respectable Bedouins. They have the most evil countenances of any people we have met on any of our travels, and Hajji Mohammed says roundly they are Kurdish robbers. Dakher and his brother Ghafil look capable of any treachery. They have a soft manner, with great flabby faces, and a black look in their eyes, which, with their rows of glittering white teeth, give one a shudder. They received us at first with some show of hospitality in their “mudíf,” which was a large one; but though a fire of logs was blazing in the middle, and pots were standing round, nobody gave us coffee, a very disagreeable omen; and when I asked just now for water, they would not bring it me in one of their own pans, but took ours. They are Shias, probably, and rude on principle. We have pitched our tent the best way we could in the dark, and piled up all our luggage inside, for every man here looks like a thief—I might say like a murderer.

March 30.—Last night, before we lay down to sleep, Beneyeh came to our tent with Dakher, and began bullying again and begging, but Wilfrid would give him nothing except the sum of £10 agreed on, for which he promised, and Dakher promised, that thirty khayal should go on with us to Dizful, a distance of about ninety miles. Beneyeh himself refused to go, saying that Ajjem (Persia) was not his country, but Dakher should go for him, or Ghafil. This was a distinct breach of agreement, but we were only too pleased to get rid of him, and Wilfrid, after some show of expostulation, accepted the substitute. Then Beneyeh made a pretence of writing letters to certain khans or chiefs of the frontier tribes, but I suspect these are not worth much, for having no seal of his own with him, the young jackanapes signed the letters with a seal lent him by a bystander, an irregular and rather suspicious proceeding, but we made no remark, being thankful at any price to be freed from his company. With the grimace of one who has played a successful trick he pocketed the money, and then, without saying good-bye, mounted and rode off, our only friend, the middle-aged man, to our sorrow following him.

We were now left alone with Dakher and his crew, who sat round us while with infinite labour we loaded our camels. Poor old Hajji Mohammed in his rusty uniform, with his sword dangling between his legs, was anything but an efficient camel-man, and in spite of the best will in the world things proceeded slowly. It was as much as we could get out of Dakher that he should tell one of his sulky fellows to lend an occasional hand to the work, and keep the rest from getting in our way. The help was given grudgingly, and in obedience rather to Wilfrid’s command, for he was now obliged to talk loud, than of good-will. Dakher, however, kept up a semblance of politeness, being still our host, a position sacred even in the eyes of the most abandoned, and when his brother Ghafil appeared, announcing himself as our escort, we were suffered to depart.

Once on our horses, and with the camels driven in front of us, we felt more at ease; yet all were not a little anxious. We should, I think, have turned back now but for the recollection of Beneyeh and the river Tibb behind us, evils we knew of while the unknown evils before us seemed preferable. For a while, too, we flattered ourselves with the idea that Ghafil was to be our only company, and for a mile or two the illusion lasted, and we were reassured. There is something, besides, in a very bright morning’s march through a beautiful country, for we were close to the hills, which prevents one feeling anxious, and whatever its inhabitants may be, this frontier-land of Persia looks like a Garden of Eden, with its grass and flowers knee deep in every hollow.

Ghafil is another and a worse edition of Dakher, having, over and above his brother’s vices of countenance, a most abominable squint. His face looks always like a thunder-cloud, and the smiles on it, (for he smiles sometimes, showing a wonderful set of white teeth from ear to ear) are like the smiles of a wild beast. He has, too, a sort of cat’s manner, soft and cowardly, but very offensive. At starting, and as long as he was alone with us, he seemed amiable enough, but at the end of about an hour we came up with the rest of the party in whose company we were to travel, and then his demeanour changed. These were not horsemen, or an escort at all, but a collection of the most extraordinary vagabonds we have ever seen. There were about forty of them, with about twice as many beasts, camels, and oxen, which they were driving before them loaded with empty sacks. Amongst them were two women on foot, and there was a single horseman heading the procession, mounted on a little white mare. We asked them where they were going, and they answered, “To Dizful, to buy corn,” and then in return plied us with a hundred questions. Many of these were not a little impertinent, but by parrying some, and affecting not to understand the rest, we managed to hold our own, even returning some of their small wit with interest on themselves. Hajji Mohammed, however, poor man, was soon singled out as a special butt for their mirth. His old uniform coat they found supremely absurd, and he was as mercilessly chaffed about his tailor as if he had been amongst a party of roughs on the Epsom Downs, while he had not the sense always to keep his temper. There was, besides, something more than mere high spirits in their wit. He was a Suni, and they were Shias, and religious bitterness made them bitter. From words at last they seemed rapidly coming to blows, when Wilfrid interfered, making his horse curvet amongst them, and dispersing them for a while. But they soon returned, and it was all we could do to prevent the poor cavass from being maltreated. One called on him to dismount and give him a ride, another to let him have a shot with his gun, and a third to fill him a pipe of tobacco, to none of which demands the unfortunate Hajji knew how to give the proper refusal. “Ya Hajji,” “Ya Hajji,” was the perpetual cry all the morning long; “Where is your pipe? where is your tobacco? Quick, I am thirsting for a smoke.” Ghafil in the meanwhile would do nothing or could do nothing in the way of control, sitting on his camel gloomily in silence, or talking in an undertone with a great one-eyed rascal, more villainously hideous than himself. The position was often almost unbearable, and only the doctrine of patience which we had learned in Arabia, and a constant show of good humour to the crowd, made it tolerable. In the course of the afternoon, however, we managed to get upon some sort of friendly terms with two or three of the rabble, so that by the evening, when we stopped, we had established a little party among them in our favour. This, I believe, was the means of preventing a worse disaster, for it is nearly certain that Ghafil and the more serious of the party meant us deliberate mischief.

About an hour before sunset we came to a broad river, broader and deeper than the Tibb, and here Ghafil decreed a halt. If we had been a strong enough party to shift for ourselves, and if we could have crossed the river alone, we should now have gone on and left our persecutors behind; but in our helpless state this was impossible, and we had no choice but to dismount. It was an anxious moment, but I think we did what was wisest in showing no sign of distrust; and we had no sooner stopped than we gave one a horse to hold, and another a gun, while we called on others to help us unload the camels, and get out coffee and provisions for a general feast. This seemed to most of them too good an offer to be declined, and we had already distributed a sack of flour and a sack of rice amongst them, which the two women had promised to bake into loaves for the whole party, when Ghafil and the one-eyed man, who had been down to look for a ford, arrived upon the scene. They were both very angry when they saw the turn things had taken, and were at first for forbidding the people to eat with us, alleging that we were kaffirs (infidels), so at least the people informed us later, but this was more than they could insist on. They would not, however, themselves eat with us or taste our coffee, and remained apart with those of the party which had not made friends with us. The women were on our side, and the better sort of the young men. Still it was a terribly anxious evening, for even our friends were as capricious as the winds, and seemed always on the point of picking an open quarrel. Later, they all went away and left us to our own devices, sitting round a great bonfire of brushwood they had built up, “to scare away lions,” they said. We managed to rig up our tent, and make a barricade of the camel-bags in such a way that we could not be surprised and taken at a disadvantage. I did not shut my eyes all night, but lay watching the bonfire, win my hand on my gun. Hajji Mohammed once in the darkness crept out and got near enough to overhear something of their talk, and he assures us that there was a regular debate as to whether and when and how we should be murdered, in which the principal advocate of extreme measures was the one-eyed man, a great powerful ruffian who carried a sort of club, which he told us he used to frighten the lions, beating it on the ground. The noise, he declared, sounded like a gun and drove them away. With this tale of horror Hajji Mohammed returned to comfort us; nor was it wholly a delusion, for in the middle of the night, Wilfrid being asleep, and Hajji Mohammed, whose watch it was, having fallen into a doze, I distinctly saw Ghafil, who had previously come under pretext of lions or robbers to reconnoitre, prowl stealthily round, and seeing us all as he thought asleep, lift up the flap of the tent and creep under on Wilfrid’s side. I had remained motionless, and from where I lay I could see his figure plainly against the sky. As he stooped I called out in a loud voice, “Who goes there?” and at the sound he started back, and slunk away. This woke Hajji Mohammed, and nobody slept again, but I could see Ghafil prowling like an hyæna round us the best part of the night. [152]

Hajji Mohammed has behaved very well, though he owns himself much frightened. So am I, only I conceal my alarm better than he does. Indeed I am sure that putting on a bold face is our only chance of safety, for nothing but cowardice now prevents Ghafil and his set from attacking us. We are well armed, and he knows he could not do it with impunity. As long as we are on horseback, I believe we run no great risk, but the night is a disagreeable time. If we had only open desert in front of us we could set them all at defiance.

March 31.—The morning broke tempestuously, and we were afraid the river might have risen in the night, a complication which would have probably decided our fate; but though the clouds lay black and heavy on the hills there was no flood. After trying several places, all of which proved too deep, our akid, the man on the white mare, found a ford, if such it can be called, for the water was over his mare’s back, and all the party followed him. The robbers, for so I now call them, passed easily enough, for their camels were unloaded, but ours barely managed it. The current was very strong, and though Hatheran and the strongest of them came on boldly, two of them stopped in the middle and seemed on the point of turning down and being swept away, when Wilfrid rode back below them, into the deep water, and drove them on. It was nervous work to watch them, seeing nothing of rider and horse but their heads, but Job swam very well, and the camels were saved and all got safely over. This incident proved a fortunate one, for it impressed the better sort of the robbers with an idea of our determination, and there was again a party in our favour. It was fortunate that it was so, for we were no sooner across than Ghafil and the one-eyed monster, Saadun, came forward with a more menacing manner than they had yet dared to show, and said we should proceed no further. It was plain enough what they meant, but we affected not to understand them, and declaring in a cheerful tone that it was a charming spot to stay in, with plenty of grass and water for the beasts, at once consented to a halt. Wilfrid begged Ghafil to sit down and smoke a pipe with him, and when the man sulkily demurred, insisted on it. “Now, Ghafil,” he said, “here you are my guest, as we have been yours; what can I do for you to make you happy?” “Wallah, ya Beg,” interposed Saadun, “you have done nothing for him or any of us, and now you must.” “Must? Indeed, I shall be too delighted. Tell me only in what I can assist you—what it is that Ghafil wants.” Ghafil then began a long history about his dignity as Sheykh of the expedition, and the disgrace it was to him to have received no cloak of honour from the Beg, and the insult that he had thus received from us—at all which Wilfrid expressed the greatest possible pain and surprise. [154] “There has been some mistake here,” he said; “I would not for the world that anyone should be treated with less respect than was his due by me. The disgrace would be mine;” and he made a show of taking off his own cloak to give him; still Ghafil seemed dissatisfied. “No, no, it is not that,” said Saadun, in a stage whisper, “what the Sheykh wants is money—money, do you see?—money for all of us.” “And is it possible,” exclaimed Wilfrid, “that you have all remained unpaid?—that Beneyeh gave you nothing of what he received from me?—that you have been working for me, ‘balash,’ for nothing? This is indeed a disgrace. Come, Saadun, let us talk this matter over and repair the mistake.” He then took the one-eyed man by the arm and led him aside for a private conference, while Ghafil sat on gloomily with me. Wilfrid’s first care, when he got the Kurd alone, was to square him with a present of ten krans (francs) for his own account, and a promise of twenty more when we got to the Kerkha, judging rightly that this fellow was in fact our most dangerous enemy. Then he intrusted him with negotiating the rest of the blackmail with Ghafil. We were prepared now for almost any demand, for we were completely in their power, and had a sum of nearly £100 with us, besides property to the value of perhaps as much more. We were consequently no little relieved when Saadun returned with a demand of one hundred krans, and a silk abba, in return for Ghafil’s protection. This, after much affected reluctance to part with so enormous a sum, and a declaration at one moment that rather than pay we would stay where we were for a month, we at last produced—giving the robber the very silk abba which had been one of Ibn Rashid’s presents to us in Nejd—a white silk one, embroidered with gold, but the only one we had; which being done we were suffered to proceed. The truth of the matter probably is that Ghafil dared not drive us to extremities, partly from physical fear, for we soon had proof sufficient of his cowardice, and partly because many of his men would not have joined him in a deed of violence. Bloodshed is a thing no Arab willingly consents to, however low his morality, especially where a guest, or one who has been a guest, is in question; and though the mongrel Kurds and Persians, who made up more than half the band, would have abetted him, the rest would not. One of the women, too, was Ghafil’s wife, and the women were openly friends with us. Another consideration may have been that we were entering now upon an enemy’s country, for the Dueri is the limit of Beni Laam authority, and our men were too miserable cowards not to count upon us for something in case of attack. Part of our agreement with Ghafil was that we were to fight for him in case of need against the Persians, a promise we readily gave. The atmosphere now was somewhat cleared, and we started afresh under rather better conditions. The teasing of Hajji Mohammed continued, but we ourselves were treated with respect, and the one-eyed Kurd even occasionally lent a hand in driving the camels, in company with a youth clothed in green, who had hitherto been one of our worst persecutors.

The whole party proceeded cautiously, avowing without the slightest shame their immense fear of the Ajjem (the Persians), whom they expected to meet at every turn of the road. Beyond the Dueri we found ourselves in a beaten track, which winds up and down over an undulating bit of desert, the last ripple of the Hamrin hills which are now behind us. The akid usually rode on in front to spy out possible enemies, and all had orders to keep together. Ours, however, was such a noisy party, that one would have thought its passage could have been heard for miles round. The bullocks were getting tired and required a great deal of driving, and the shouting and screaming reminded one of an Irish fair. So we went on without a halt till three o’clock, when a halt was ordered in a hollow, where we were out of sight of enemies, and where there was a quantity of wild celery, and another edible plant called “hakallah,” which we found good, for we had eaten nothing all day. Not far off were some sand mounds, with tufts of what looked very like ithel, but we dared not leave our camels to inspect them. The halt was only for half-an-hour; then with shouts of “Yalla yalla, erkob, erkob,” the mob went on.

We stopped again suddenly about an hour before sunset, and this time in alarm. The akid, who had ridden to the top of a low hill, was seen waving, as he came back, his abba, and instantly the cry arose, “El Ajjem, el Ajjem.” In an instant everybody was huddled together in a hollow place, like a covey of partridges when they see a hawk, and we were entreated, commanded to dismount. A few hurried words with the akid confirmed the terrible news of danger to the band, and all seemed at their wits’ end with terror. “How many horsemen?—how many?” we inquired. “Five,” was the answer, “but there are more behind; and then these are the Ajjem!” “And if they are the Ajjem, and only five of them, are you not forty of you here and able to fight?” “No, no!” they screamed, “you do not understand. These horsemen are Persians—Persians; every one of them capable of killing five of us.” I did not think men could be so craven-hearted. A few of the least cowardly now crept up to the hill-top and one by one came back to report; the number of horsemen seen rose rapidly from five to fifteen and eventually to fifty. When the last number was reached, the coward Ghafil, who had kept well in the middle of the mob, so as to be in the least possible danger, came to us with his softest and most cringing manner, forgetful of all his bullying, and begged us to be sure and do our best in the battle which was imminent. “You should stand in front of the others,” he said, “and shoot as fast as you can, and straight, so as to kill these Ajjem—dead you understand—it is better to shoot them dead. You, khatún, know how to shoot, I am sure—and you will not be afraid.” We could not help laughing at him, which shocked him dreadfully. Presently a man came rushing up to say the enemy was coming, and again there was unutterable confusion. The boy in green had begged some percussion caps of Wilfrid for his gun, and had been given fifty, and this now led to a wrangle, as he refused to share his prize with the rest. Everybody was trying to borrow everybody else’s gun or spear or bludgeon, for they were very rudely armed, and nobody would stand in front, but everybody behind. The women alone seemed to have got their heads, while Ghafil, white in the face, walked nervously up and down. We and the cavass stood a little apart from the rest, holding our horses, ready to fire and mount, and Wilfrid occupied the interval of expectation with giving me instructions what to do if we got separated in the fray. I was too well mounted to be overtaken, and was to make for the Kerkha river, which we knew could not be far away to the east, and put myself under the protection of the first Persian khan I should meet there; if possible, Kerim Khan, to whom I had a letter in my pocket, and who is a vakil of the Persian Government. We hoped, however, that we might be able to keep together, and beat off the enemy. Wilfrid called out to Ghafil, “You must tell me when to fire,” but Ghafil was too frightened to reply. Several of the men, however, called out, “Shoot at anybody you see—everybody here is an enemy.” The camels had been made to kneel down, and the cattle had been huddled together; only a few of all the mob looked as if they really meant to fight. They were silent enough now, talking only in whispers. So we remained perhaps for half-an-hour; then somebody ran up the hill again to look, and Wilfrid, tired of waiting, proposed that we should eat our dinner, as we had had nothing all day. I got some bread and a pomegranate out of the delúl bag, and we were soon at work, much to the disgust of the rest, who were shocked at our levity in such a moment. Presently there was another alarm and the people called to me to come inside their square, meaning kindly I think, but of course we would do no such thing, being really much safer where we were with our mares. Still no enemy came, and when we had finished our meal we tied our horses’ halters to our arms and lay down in our cloaks; we were very tired and soon were sound asleep. Nothing more was heard of the enemy that night.

But our troubles were not to end here. We were hardly comfortably asleep, before a tremendous crash of thunder roused us and a downpour of rain. On putting our heads out of our cloaks we saw our valiant escort rigging up our servants’ tent for themselves. They were terribly afraid of getting washed in the rain, and were shrieking to us to come inside too, indignant at Wilfrid’s “ma yukhalif” (“never mind”), with which he had already treated their remonstrances on other occasions. Indeed, “ma yukhalif” had now become a sort of nickname with them, and no dishonourable one, I think, for the person concerned. We neither of us could think of joining them in the tent, but having managed to get a couple of horse-rugs from the delúl bag, we covered ourselves over again and went to sleep; Sayad and Shiekha creeping in under them to keep us company. All of a sudden the rain stopped, and before we were well aware, the mob was again on the march. It was pitch dark, and we were within an ace of being left behind, a circumstance which perhaps we should have hardly regretted. Still, now we felt that our position with the robbers was such, that we ran less danger in their company than alone; and we all hurried on together. Ghafil was polite again; and the rest, feeling, I suppose, that the journey was nearly over, and their power over us vanishing, even made us offers of assistance. A long, weary night march we had, and at dawn found ourselves descending rapidly into a broad plain, knee deep in pasture. This was the valley of the Kerkha; and as it grew light we became aware of a long line of mounds, with two kubbrs or shrines in front of us, which Ghafil told us were the ruins of Eywan. At seven o’clock we saw tents within the circuit of the ancient city, and some shepherds in conical felt caps, and sheepskin dresses, the costume of the Bactiari and other tribes of Kurdish origin. We were in Persia.

Ghafil now went forward to announce our arrival to Sirdal Khan, the chieftain at whose tents we now are. But I must leave further details for to-morrow.

CHAPTER III.

“Henceforth in safe assurance may ye rest,
Having both found a new friend you to aid,
And lost an old foe that did you molest,
Better new friend than an old foe is said.”

Faëry Queen.

A prince in exile—Tea money—Rafts on the Kerkha—Last words with the Beni Laam—Kerim Khan—Beautiful Persia—We arrive at Dizful.

Sirdal Khan is a Shahzade, or member of the Royal family of Persia, many of whom are to be found living in official, and even private capacities in different parts of the kingdom. He himself had fallen into disgrace with the Court many years ago, and had been exiled from Persia proper, a misfortune which led to his taking up his residence with a section of the semi-dependent Seguand tribe of Lurs, where he became Khan or Chieftain. Both in looks and in manner, he stands in striking contrast with the people round him, having the handsome, regular features, long nose and melancholy, almond-shaped eyes of the family of the Shah, which, I believe, is not of Persian origin, and a certain dignity of bearing very different from the rude want of manners of the Lurs. These would seem to be of Tartar origin, coarse-featured, short-faced men, honest in their way and brave, but quite ignorant of those graces of address which even the worst Arabs are not wholly without. Sirdal, when he arrived among the Lurs, was possessed of considerable wealth, which he invested in flocks and herds, and until a short time before our visit he was living in Bedouin magnificence. But his enemies it would seem still pursued him, and not satisfied with his disgrace, molested him even in his exile. By some means, the rights of which we did not learn, they managed to instigate against him a rival chief, one Kerim Khan, who, under Government sanction, made a successful raid upon his flocks, stripping the unfortunate prince of everything, and driving him and his tribe across the Kerkha river into the No Man’s Land, which lies between Persia and Turkey, and which we had just crossed. In this position he has been obliged to maintain himself as he could, making terms with Mizban and the Beni Laam, who are his nearest neighbours westwards. The river Kerkha is considered the boundary of Persia, and as it is a large and rapid river, nearly half a mile across, he is in comparative safety from the east. Ghafil, therefore, as a Beni Laam, was on friendly terms with him, though it was easy to see that he despised and had no kind of sympathy with him or the ruffians of his band. By Hajji Mohammed’s advice, and to secure ourselves against further risks at their hands, we accordingly placed ourselves at once under the Khan’s protection. Hajji Mohammed fortunately knows both Persian and Kurdish, and soon explained to Sirdal the circumstances of our position, and he, delighted to meet once more with respectable people, readily assented. He received us with great kindness, made us comfortable in his tent, which, in spite of his poverty, was still more luxurious than any found among the Arabs; having partitions of matting worked in worsted with birds and beasts, carpets, and a fire, and gave us what we were much in want of, an excellent breakfast of well served rice and lamb. Then, when we had pitched our own tent just outside, he provided us with an efficient guard of Lurs, who soon sent our robber acquaintance of the last few days about their business. There is no love lost between them and the Arabs. Presently I received a visit from the Khan’s wife, whom he has lately married, and his mother, a well-bred person with perfect manners, and a refined, pleasing face. She was in black, in mourning she explained for a son; she has five sons, including the Khan, whose brothers live with him. A crowd of Seguand ladies came in her company, and an Arab woman who had been nurse to one of the Khan’s children, and who served me as interpreter. Ghafil’s wife, too, one of the poor women who had travelled with us, came in and joined the conversation. She is loud in her complaints of Ghafil, who treats her ill. He is now very polite, and presented himself during the afternoon at our tent as if nothing had happened, with a little girl named Norah in his arms whom he told us was his niece, he having a sister here married to one of Sirdal’s men. I had a carpet spread for the ladies outside our tent, for it could not have held them all, and they sat round me for an hour or more, curious and enquiring, but exceedingly polite. They admired especially my boots and gloves, which I pulled off to show them. One of them, turning up my sleeve, exclaimed at the whiteness of my wrist. At the end of an hour the elder lady rose, and wishing me affectionately good morning, took her leave, the rest following.

We then had a pleasant day of peace and a sound night’s rest, hardly disturbed by the ferocious shouting and singing of our guard, which, under other circumstances, might have been frightening. Anything more wild and barbarous than their chaunting I never listened to, but to us it was sweet as music, for we knew that it was raised to scare our jackals, the Beni Laam.

April 2.—Next day we crossed the Kerkha. When we saw the size of the river, swollen with melted snow and running eight miles an hour, and as wide as the Thames at Greenwich, we felt thankful indeed for having met Sirdal Khan. Here there would have been no fording possible, and we, or at least our goods, would have been at the mercy of our robber escort. The Khan, however, agreed for a sum of money, 100 krans (nothing in Persia is done for nothing, either by prince or peasant), to have us ferried over with our baggage to the Persian shore, and our camels and horses swum after us. Hospitality is not a virtue real or pretended with the Persians, and the Khan, prince as he was and a really charming man, explained to Hajji Mohammed without affectation, that sixty of the one hundred krans he would count as “tea money,” or as the Spaniards would say, “ruido de casa,” payment for board and lodging. To this, however, we were indifferent, and appreciate none the less his kindness and good manners. He rode with us himself to the river on a well-bred Arabian mare he told us was “asil,” as it well might be, and saw that all things in the matter of the rafts were done as they should be. At first we rode through the mounds of Eywan, which are disposed in a quadrangle fronting the river, and where we found plentiful remains of pottery; then past the kubbr of I forget what Mohammedan saint, facing a similar kubbr on the eastern bank; then across some fordable branches of the river and islands clothed with guttub and canora trees, to the main body of the Kerkha, where we found a raft preparing. The canora bushes had fruit on them, which the Khan politely picked, and gave me to eat, little yellow fruits, pleasantly acid, like medlars, and with stones inside.

The passage of the river was a tedious, not to say difficult, process, the single raft being composed of twenty skins only, and very crank. We found besides, to our disgust, and also waiting to take advantage of our passage, our late disagreeable companions, Ghafil, the one-eyed Kurd, and all the rest, who presently began a loud argument with the Lurs as to who should pilot our camels through the water, a ticklish duty, which required both knowledge of the animals and skill in swimming, to perform successfully. At first we were naturally in favour of the Lurs, and unwilling to trust any part of our property with the mongrel Arabs; but when it came to the point of testing their capabilities, the Lurs broke lamentably down, being hardly able to manage the camels even on dry land, so by the Khan’s advice we let the Bedouins manage the business, which I must say they performed with no little courage and skill. It takes two men to swim a camel safely. First of all the beast must be unloaded to the skin. Then a cord is tied to the tail for one man to hold by, and another mounts on his back. Thus he is driven into the water, and pushed on gradually till he loses his legs. The man on his back then floats off down stream of him, and holding with one hand by the hump, splashes water in the camel’s face to keep his head straight, while the other urges him from behind. The camel seems heavier than most animals in the water, showing nothing but the tip of his nose above the surface, and he is a slow swimmer. It was an anxious quarter of an hour for us while they were crossing, and great was the speculation among the bystanders as to the result. “Yetla,” “ma yetla,” “he does it,” “he doesn’t,” were the cries as they were carried down the river. The strongest pushed fairly straight across, but those in the worst condition seemed borne helplessly along till camel and men and all disappeared out of our sight,—and we had already given them up as lost, when we saw them emerging quite a mile down upon the bank. Then we ourselves and the luggage were put across, the mares swimming with us, though they got across much quicker than we did. The raft was hardly eight feet square, a rough framework of tamarisk poles lashed together on twenty goat skins. Our luggage went first, with Hajji Mohammed perched on the top of it, booted and cloaked, and loaded with gun and cartridge bag, sublimely indifferent, though an accident would have sent him like lead to the bottom. We ourselves were more prudent, and divested ourselves of every superfluous garment before taking our seats, which we did in the company of our dogs and bird, and of Ghafil’s wife, who nearly upset us at starting by jumping in from the shore upon us. Our feet were in the water all the way, and our hearts in our mouths, but by the mercy of Providence, we finally reached land amid a chorus of such “betting on the event” as had accompanied the camels. The last creature of our party was the little hamra mare, which Sirdal’s servant had been holding, and which, slipping her halter, came bravely across alone.

Just across the river lives Kerim Khan, Sirdal’s enemy, a Kurdish chief in government pay. To him we had letters, and nothing more remained but to go to his camp, and ask his help to forward us to Dizful.