Enormous Quantities Of Liquid Were Consumed, For The Sun Seemed To
Have Got Into Our Throats, And The Perspiration Trickled As After A
Shower Of Rain.
Whilst we were eating, a Badawi woman passed close by
the tent, leading a flock of sheep and goats, seeing which I expressed
a desire to drink milk.
My companions sent by one of the camel-men a
bit of bread, and asked in exchange for a cupful of "laban.[FN#9]" Thus
I learned that the Arabs, even in this corrupt region, still adhere to
the meaningless custom of their ancestors, who chose to make the term
"Labban[FN#10]" (milk-seller) an opprobrium and a disgrace. Possibly
the origin of the prejudice
[p.247] might be the recognising of a traveller's guest-right to call
for milk gratis. However this may be, no one will in the present day
sell this article of consumption, even at civilised Meccah, except
Egyptians, a people supposed to be utterly without honour. As a general
rule in the Hijaz, milk abounds in the spring, but at all other times
of the year it is difficult to be procured. The Badawi woman managed,
however, to send me back a cupful.
At three P.M. we were ready to start, and all saw, with unspeakable
gratification, a huge black nimbus rise from the shoulder of Mount
Radhwah, and range itself, like a good genius, between us and our
terrible foe, the sun. We hoped that it contained rain, but presently a
blast of hot wind, like the breath of a volcano, blew over the plain,
and the air was filled with particles of sand. This is the "dry storm"
of Arabia; it appears to depend upon some electrical phenomena which it
would be desirable to investigate.[FN#11] When we had loaded and
mounted, my camel-men, two in number, came up to the Shugduf and
demanded "Bakhshish," which, it appears, they are now in the habit of
doing each time the traveller starts. I was at first surprised to find
the word here, but after a few days of Badawi society, my wonder
diminished. The men were Beni-Harb of the great Hijazi tribe, which has
kept its blood pure for the last thirteen centuries,-how much more we
know not,-but they had been corrupted by intercourse with pilgrims,
retaining none of their ancestral qualities but greed of gain,
revengefulness, pugnacity, and a frantic kind of bravery, displayed on
rare occasions. Their nobility, however, did not prevent my quoting the
Prophet's saying, "Of a truth, the worst names among the Arabs are the
Beni-Kalb
[p.248] Kalb and the Beni-Harb,[FN#12]" whilst I taunted them severely
with their resemblance to the Fellahs of Egypt. They would have
resented this with asperity, had it proceeded from their own people,
but the Turkish pilgrim-the character in which they knew me, despite my
Arab dress-is a privileged person. The outer man of these Fight-Sons
was contemptible; small chocolate-coloured beings, stunted and thin,
with mops of course bushy hair burned brown by the sun, straggling
beards, vicious eyes, frowning brows, screaming voices, and well-made,
but attenuated, limbs.
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