The
Latter Province Supplies The Holy Land With Its Choicest Horses And
Camels.
The great heats of the parts near the Red Sea appear
prejudicial to animal generation; whereas the lofty table-lands and the
broad pastures of Nijd, combined with the attention paid by the people
to purity of blood, have rendered it the greatest breeding country in
Arabia.
[FN#3] I mean a civilised column. "Herse" is the old military name for
a column opposed to "Haye," a line. So we read that at far-famed Cressy
the French fought en battaille a haye, the English drawn up en herse.
This appears to have been the national predilection of that day. In
later times, we and our neighbours changed style, the French preferring
heavy columns, the English extending themselves into lines.
[FN#4] The Albanians, delighting in the noise of musketry, notch the
ball in order to make it sing the louder. When fighting, they often
adopt the excellent plan-excellent, when rifles are not procurable-of
driving a long iron nail through the bullet, and fixing its head into
the cartridge. Thus the cartridge is strengthened, the bullet is
rifled, and the wound which it inflicts is death. Round balls are apt
to pass into and out of savages without killing them, and many an
Afghan, after being shot or run through the body, has mortally wounded
his English adversary before falling. It is false philanthropy, also,
to suppose that in battle, especially when a campaign is commencing, it
is sufficient to maim, not to kill, the enemy. Nothing encourages men
to fight so much, as a good chance of escaping with a wound-especially
a flesh wound. I venture to hope that the reader will not charge these
sentiments with cruelty. He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in
it will be the greatest benefactor the world has yet known.
[FN#5] The late Captain Nolan.
[FN#6] The first symptom of improvement will be a general training to
the Bayonet exercise. The British is, and for years has been, the only
army in Europe that does not learn the use of this weapon: how long
does it intend to be the sole authority on the side of ignorance? We
laughed at the Calabrese levies, who in the French war threw away their
muskets and drew their stilettos; and we cannot understand why the
Indian would always prefer a sabre to a rifle. Yet we read without
disgust of our men being compelled, by want of proper training, to
"club their muskets" in hand-to-hand fights,-when they have in the
bayonet the most formidable of offensive weapons,-and of the Kafirs and
other savages wresting the piece, after drawing off its fire, from its
unhappy possessor's grasp.
[FN#7] I began to treat it hydropathically with a cooling bandage, but
my companions declared that the water was poisoning the wound, and
truly it seemed to get worse every day. This idea is prevalent
throughout Al-Hijaz; even the Badawin, after once washing a cut or a
sore, never allow air or water to touch it.
[FN#8] Hawamid is the plural of Hamidah, Shaykh Sa'ad's tribe.
[FN#9] Shuab properly means a path through mountains, or a watercourse
between hills. It is generally used in Arabia for a "Valley," and
sometimes instead of Nakb, or the Turkish Bughaz, a "Pass."
[FN#10] Others attribute these graves to the Beni Salim, or Salmah, an
extinct race of Hijazi Badawin. Near Shuhada is Jabal Warkan, one of
the mountains of Paradise, also called Irk al-Zabyat, or Thread of the
Winding Torrent. The Prophet named it "Hamt," (sultriness), when he
passed through it on his way to the Battle of Badr. He also called the
valley "Sajasaj," (plural of Sajsaj, a temperate situation), declared
it was a valley of heaven, that 70 prophets had prayed there before
himself, that Moses with 70,000 Israelites had traversed it on his way
to Meccah, and that, before the Resurrection day, Isa bin Maryam should
pass through it with the intention of performing the Greater and the
Lesser Pilgrimages. Such are the past and such the future honours of
the place.
[FN#11] The Indians sink wells in Arabia for the same reason which
impels them to dig tanks at home,-"nam ke waste,"-"for the purpose of
name"; thereby denoting, together with a laudable desire for posthumous
fame, a notable lack of ingenuity in securing it. For it generally
happens that before the third generation has fallen, the well and the
tank have either lost their original names, or have exchanged them for
others newer and better known.
[FN#12] Suwaykah derives its name from the circumstance that in the
second, or third, year of the Hijrah (Hegira), Mohammed here attacked
Abu Sufiyan, who was out on a foray with 200 men. The Infidels, in
their headlong fight, lightened their beasts by emptying their bags of
"Sawik." This is the old and modern Arabic name for a dish of green
grain, toasted, pounded, mixed with dates or sugar, and eaten on
journeys when it is found difficult to cook. Such is the present
signification of the word: M.C. de Perceval (vol. iii., p. 84) gives it
a different and a now unknown meaning. And our popular authors
erroneously call the affair the "War of the Meal-sacks."
[FN#13] A popular but not a bad pun-"Harb" (Fight), becomes, by the
alteration of the H, "Harb" (Flight).
[FN#14] The old Arabic proverb is "A greater wiseacre than the goat of
Akhfash"; it is seldom intelligible to the vulgar.
[FN#15] That is to say, "I will burn them (metaphorically) as the fiery
wick consumes the oil,"-a most idiomatic Hijazi threat.
[FN#16] A "cold-of-countenance" is a fool. Arabs use the word "cold" in
a peculiar way. "May Allah refrigerate thy countenance!" i.e. may it
show misery and want. "By Allah, a cold speech!" that is to say, a
silly or an abusive tirade.
[FN#17] That is to say, they would use, if necessary, the dearest and
noblest parts of their bodies (their eyes) to do the duty of the basest
(i.e. their feet).
[FN#18] Writers mention two Al-Akik.
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