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. At four A.M., having
travelled about twenty-four miles due East, we encamped at Bir Abbas.
[FN#1] Alluding to the celebrated mountain, the "Hindu-kush," whence
the Afghans sallied forth to lay waste India.
[FN#2] Throughout this work I have estimated the pace of a Hijazi
camel, laden and walking in caravan line, under ordinary circumstances,
at two geographical miles an hour. A sandy plain or a rocky pass might
make a difference of half a mile each way, but not more.
[FN#3] See Chap. VIII., page 152, note 1, ante.
[FN#4] The reader must be warned that these little villages in Arabia,
as in Sind and Baluchistan, are continually changing their names,
whilst the larger settlements always retain the same. The traveller,
too, must beware of writing down the first answer he receives; in one
of our maps a village on the Euphrates is gravely named "M'adri,"
("Don't know").
[FN#5] Here called Samn, the Indian ghee.
[FN#6] The "Kahk" in this country is a light and pleasant bread made of
ground wheat, kneaded with milk, leavened with sour bean flour, and
finally baked in an oven, not, as usual, in the East, upon an iron
plate. The Kahk of Egypt is a kind of cake.
[FN#7] Stale unleavened bread is much relished by Easterns, who say
that keeping it on journeys makes it sweet. To prevent its becoming
mouldy, they cut it up into little bits, and, at the risk of hardening
it to the consistence of wood, they dry it by exposure to the air.
[FN#8] This Akit has different names in all parts of Arabia; even in
Al-Hijaz it is known by the name of Mazir, as well as, "Igt," (the
corruption of Akit). When very sour, it is called "Saribah," and when
dried, without boiling, "Jamidah." The Arabs make it by evaporating the
serous part of the milk; the remainder is then formed into cakes or
lumps with the hand, and spread upon hair cloth to dry. They eat it
with clarified butter, and drink it melted in water. It is considered a
cooling and refreshing beverage, but boasts few attractions to the
stranger. The Baluchis and wild tribes of Sindians call this
preparation of milk "Krut," and make it in the same way as the Badawin
do.
[FN#9] In Arabic and Hebrew, milk; the Maltese give the word a very
different signification, and the Egyptians, like the Syrians, confine
their use of it to sour milk or curds-calling sweet milk "laban halib,"
or simply "halib."
[FN#10] In a previous work (History of Sind), I have remarked that
there exists some curious similarity in language and customs between
the Arabs and the various races occupying the broad ranges of hills
that separate India from Persia. Amongst these must be numbered the
prejudice alluded to above. The lamented Dr. Stocks, of Bombay, who
travelled amongst and observed the Brahui and the Baluchi nomads in the
Pashin valley, informed me that, though they will give milk in exchange
for other commodities, yet they consider it a disgrace to make money by
it. This, methinks, is too conventional a point of honour to have
sprung up spontaneously in two countries so distant, and apparently so
unconnected.
[FN#11] At Aden, as well as in Sind, these dry storms abound, and there
the work of meteorological investigation would be easier than in
Al-Hijaz.
[FN#12] "Beni-Kalb," (or Juhaynah, Chap. X.), would mean the
"Dogs'-Sons"-"Beni-Harb," the "Sons of Fight."
[FN#13] The Shintiyan is the common sword-blade of the Badawin; in
Western Arabia, it is called Majar (from the Magyars?), and is said to
be of German manufacture. Good old weapons of the proper curve, marked
like Andrew Ferraras with a certain number of lines down their length,
will fetch, even in Arabia, from L7 to L8. The modern and cheap ones
cost about 10s. Excellent weapons abound in this country, the reason
being that there is a perpetual demand for them, and when once
purchased, they become heir-looms in the family. I have heard that when
the Beni Bu Ali tribe, near Ras al-Khaymah, was defeated with slaughter
by Sir Lionel Smith's expedition, the victors found many valuable old
European blades in the hands of the slain.
[FN#14] The way of carrying off a camel in this country is to loosen
him, and then to hang on heavily to his tail, which causes him to start
at full gallop.
[FN#15] The Arabic Misyal, Masyal, Masil, or Masilah, is the Indian
Nullah and the Sicilian "Fiumara," a hill water-course, which rolls a
torrent during and after rain, and is either partially or wholly dry at
other seasons,-the stream flowing slowly underground.
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