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.
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