The Bazar Is,
Like The Generality Of Such Places In The Villages Of Eastern Arabia, A
Long Lane, Here Covered
With matting, there open to the sun, and the
narrow streets-if they may be so called-are full of
Dust and glare.
Near the encamping ground of caravans is a fort for the officer
commanding a troop of Albanian cavalry, whose duty it is to defend the
village,[FN#24] to hold the country, and to escort merchant travellers.
The building consists of an outer wall of hewn stone, loopholed for
musketry, and surmounted by "Shararif," "remparts coquets," about as
useful against artillery as the sugar gallery round a Twelfth-cake.
Nothing would be easier than to take the place: a false attack would
draw off the attention of the defenders, who in these latitudes know
nothing of sentry-duty, whilst scaling-ladders or a bag full of powder
would command a ready entrance into the other side. Around the Al-Hamra
fort are clusters of palm-leaf huts, where the soldiery lounge and
smoke, and near it is the usual coffee-house, a shed kept by an
Albanian. These places are frequented probably on account of the
intense heat inside the fort. We passed a comfortless day at the "Red
Village." Large flocks of sheep and goats were being driven in and out
of the place, but their surly shepherds would give no milk, even in
exchange for bread and meat. The morning was spent in watching certain
Badawin, who, matchlock in hand, had climbed the hills in pursuit of a
troop of cranes: not one bird was hit of the many fired at-a
circumstance which did not say much for their vaunted marksmanship.
Before breakfast I bought a moderately sized sheep for a dollar.
[p.256] Shaykh Hamid "halaled[FN#25]" (butchered) it, according to
rule, and my companions soon prepared a feast of boiled mutton. But
that sheep proved a "bone of contention." The boy Mohammed had, in a
fit of economy, sold its head to a Badawi for three piastres, and the
others, disappointed in their anticipations of "haggis," lost temper.
With the "Demon's" voluble tongue and impudent countenance in the van,
they opened such a volley of raillery and sarcasm upon the young
"tripe-seller," that he in his turn became excited-furious. I had some
difficulty to keep the peace, for it did not suit my interests that
they should quarrel. But to do the Arabs justice, nothing is easier for
a man who knows them than to work upon their good feelings. "He is a
stranger in your country-a guest!" acted as a charm; they listened
patiently to Mohammed's gross abuse, only promising to answer him when
in his land, that is to say, near Meccah. But what especially soured
our day was the report that Sa'ad, the great robber-chief, and his
brother were in the field; consequently that our march would be delayed
for some time: every half-hour some fresh tattle from the camp or the
coffee-house added fuel to the fire of our impatience.
A few particulars about this Schinderhans of Al-Hijaz[FN#26] may not be
unacceptable. He is the chief of the Sumaydah and the Mahamid, two
influential sub-families of the Hamidah, the principal family of the
Beni-Harb tribe of Badawin. He therefore aspired to rule all the
Hamidah, and through them the Beni-Harb, in which case he would have
been, de facto, monarch of the Holy Land. But the Sharif of Meccah, and
Ahmad Pasha,
[p.257] the Turkish governor of the chief city, for some political
reason degraded him, and raised up a rival in the person of Shaykh
Fahd, another ruffian of a similar stamp, who calls himself chief of
the Beni-Amr, the third sub-family of the Hamidah family. Hence all
kinds of confusion. Sa'ad's people, who number it is said 5000, resent,
with Arab asperity, the insult offered to their chief, and beat Fahd's,
who do not amount to 800. Fahd, supported by the government, cuts off
Sa'ad's supplies. Both are equally wild and reckless, and-nowhere doth
the glorious goddess, Liberty, show a more brazen face than in this
Eastern
"Inviolate land of the brave and the free;"
both seize the opportunity of shooting troopers, of plundering
travellers, and of closing the roads. This state of things continued
till I left the Hijaz, when the Sharif of Meccah proposed, it was said,
to take the field in person against the arch-robber. And, as will
afterwards be seen in these pages, Sa'ad, had the audacity to turn back
the Sultan's Mahmil or litter-the ensign of Imperial power-and to shut
the road against its cortege, because the Pashas of Al-Madinah and of
the Damascus caravan would not guarantee his restitution to his former
dignity. That such vermin is allowed to exist proves the imbecility of
the Turkish government. The Sultan pays pensions in corn and cloth to
the very chiefs who arm their varlets against him; and the Pashas,
after purloining all they can, hand over to their enemies the means of
resistance. It is more than probable, that Abd al-Majid has never heard
a word of truth concerning Al-Hijaz, and that fulsome courtiers
persuade him that men there tremble at his name. His government,
however, is desirous, if report speaks truth, of thrusting Al-Hijaz
upon the Egyptian, who on his side would willingly pay a large sum to
avert such calamity. The Holy Land drains off Turkish gold and blood in
abundance, and the
[p.258] lords of the country hold in it a contemptible position. If
they catch a thief, they dare not hang him. They must pay black-mail,
and yet be shot at in every pass. They affect superiority over the
Arabs, hate them, and are despised by them. Such in Al-Hijaz are the
effects of the charter of Gulkhanah, a panacea, like Holloway's Pills,
for all the evils to which Turkish, Arab, Syrian, Greek, Egyptian,
Persian, Armenian, Kurd, and Albanian flesh is heir to.
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