Even Sa'ad and Hamid had not the face to sit their camels
during the halt, when all around were washing, sanding
themselves,[FN#31] and busy with their devotions.
We then ate our
suppers, remounted, and started once more. Shortly after night set in,
we came to a sudden halt. A dozen different reports rose to account for
this circumstance, which was occasioned by a band of Badawin, who had
manned a gorge, and sent forward a "parliamentary," ordering us
forthwith to stop. They at first demanded money to let us pass; but at
last, hearing that we were Sons of the Holy Cities, they granted us
transit on the sole condition that the military,-whom they, like Irish
peasants, hate and fear,-should return to whence they came. Upon this,
our escort, 200 men, wheeled their horses round and galloped back to
their barracks. We moved onwards, without, however, seeing any robbers;
my camel-man pointed out their haunts, and showed me a small bird
hovering over a place where he supposed water trickled from the rock.
The fellow had attempted a sneer at my expense when the fray was
impending. "Why don't you load your pistols, Effendi,"
[p.262] he cried, "and get out of your litter, and show fight?"
"Because," I replied as loudly, "in my country, when dogs run at us, we
thrash them with sticks." This stopped Mansur's mouth for a time, but
he and I were never friends. Like the lowest orders of Orientals, he
required to be ill-treated; gentleness and condescension he seemed to
consider a proof of cowardice or of imbecility. I began with kindness,
but was soon compelled to use hard words at first, and then threats,
which, though he heard them with frowns and mutterings, produced
manifest symptoms of improvement.
"Oignez vilain, il vous poindra!
Poignez vilain, il vous oindra!"
says the old French proverb, and the axiom is more valuable in the East
even than in the West.
Our night's journey had no other incident. We travelled over rising
ground with the moon full in our faces; and, about midnight, we passed
through another long straggling line of villages, called
Jadaydah,[FN#32] or Al-Khayf.[FN#33] The principal part of it lies on
the left of the road going to Al-Madinah; it has a fort like that of
Al-Hamra, springs of tolerable drinking water, a Nakhil or date-ground,
and a celebrated (dead) saint, Abd al-Rahim al-Burai. A little beyond
it lies the Bughaz[FN#34] or defile, where in A.D. 1811 Tussun Bey and
his 8000 Turks were totally defeated by 25,000 Harbi Badawin and
Wahhabis.[FN#35]
[p.263] This is a famous attacking-point of the Beni-Harb. In former
times both Jazzar Pasha, the celebrated "butcher" of Syria, and
Abdullah Pasha of Damascus, were baffled at the gorge of
Jadaydah[FN#36]; and this year the commander of the Syrian caravan,
afraid of risking an attack at a place so ill-omened, avoided it by
marching upon Meccah via the Desert road of Nijd.
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