O Allah, May Thy Gums Be Sore As Mine Are!"
A Well-Known And Characteristic Tale Is Told Of The Gerad Hirsi, Now Chief
Of The Berteri Tribe.
Once meeting a party of unarmed pilgrims, he asked
them why they had left their weapons at home:
They replied in the usual
phrase, "Nahnu mutawakkilin"--"we are trusters (in Allah)." That evening,
having feasted them hospitably, the chief returned hurriedly to the hut,
declaring that his soothsayer ordered him at once to sacrifice a pilgrim,
and begging the horror-struck auditors to choose the victim. They cast
lots and gave over one of their number: the Gerad placed him in another
hut, dyed his dagger with sheep's blood, and returned to say that he must
have a second life. The unhappy pilgrims rose _en masse_, and fled so
wildly that the chief, with all the cavalry of the desert, found
difficulty in recovering them. He dismissed them with liberal presents,
and not a few jibes about their trustfulness. The wilder Bedouins will
inquire where Allah is to be found: when asked the object of the question,
they reply, "If the Eesa could but catch him they would spear him upon the
spot,--who but he lays waste their homes and kills their cattle and
wives?" Yet, conjoined to this truly savage incapability of conceiving the
idea of a Supreme Being, they believe in the most ridiculous
exaggerations: many will not affront a common pilgrim, for fear of being
killed by a glance or a word.
Our supper, also provided by the hospitable Hajj, is the counterpart of
the midday dinner. After it we repair to the roof, to enjoy the prospect
of the far Tajurrah hills and the white moonbeams sleeping upon the nearer
sea. The evening star hangs like a diamond upon the still horizon: around
the moon a pink zone of light mist, shading off into turquoise blue, and a
delicate green like chrysopraz, invests the heavens with a peculiar charm.
The scene is truly suggestive: behind us, purpling in the night-air and
silvered by the radiance from above, lie the wolds and mountains tenanted
by the fiercest of savages; their shadowy mysterious forms exciting vague
alarms in the traveller's breast. Sweet as the harp of David, the night-
breeze and the music of the water come up from the sea; but the ripple and
the rustling sound alternate with the hyena's laugh, the jackal's cry, and
the wild dog's lengthened howl.
Or, the weather becoming cold, we remain below, and Mohammed Umar returns
to read out more "Book of Lights," or some pathetic ode. I will quote in
free translation the following production of the celebrated poet Abd el
Rahman el Burai, as a perfect specimen of melancholy Arab imagery:
"No exile is the banished to the latter end of earth,
The exile is the banished to the coffin and the tomb
"He hath claims on the dwellers in the places of their birth
Who wandereth the world, for he lacketh him a home.
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