The Rigorous Way In
Which This Custom Is Carried Out Gives The Sharif And His Retainer
Great Power Among The Arabs.
As a general rule, they are at the bottom
of all mischief.
It was a Sharif (Hosayn bin Ali) who tore down and
trampled upon the British flag at Mocha; a Sharif (Abd al-Rahman of
Waht) who murdered Captain Mylne near Lahedge. A page might be filled
with the names of the distinguished ruffians.
[FN#25] In these lines of Labid, the “Mina” alluded to must not, we are
warned by the scholiast, be confounded with “Mina” (vulg. “Muna”), the Valley
of Victims. Ghul and Rayyan are hills close to the Wady Laymun. The
passage made me suspect that inscriptions would be found among the
rocks, as the scholiast informs us that “men used to write upon rocks in
order that their writing might remain.” (De Sacy’s Moallaka de Lebid, p.
289.) I neither saw nor heard of any. But some months afterwards I was
delighted to hear from the Abbe Hamilton that he had discovered in one
of the rock monuments a “lithographed proof” of the presence of Sesostris
(Rhameses II.).
[FN#26] The “balsamon” of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, a corruption of the
Arabic “balisan” or “basham,” by which name the Badawin know it. In the valley
of the Jordan it was worth its weight in silver, and kings warred for
what is now a weed. Cleopatra by a commission brought it to Egypt. It
was grown at Heliopolis. The last tree died there, we are told by
Niebuhr, in the early part of the seventeenth century (according to
others, in A.D. 1502); a circumstance the more curious, as it was used
by the Copts in chrisome, and by Europe for anointing kings. From Egypt
it was carried to Al-Hijaz, where it now grows wild on sandy and stony
grounds; but I could not discover the date of its naturalisation.
Moslems generally believe it to have been presented to Solomon by
Bilkis, Queen of Sheba. Bruce relates that it was produced at Mohammed’s
prayer from the blood of the Badr-Martyr. In the Gospel of Infancy
(book i. ch. 8) we read,—“9. Hence they (Joseph and Mary) went out to that
sycamore, which is now called Matarea (the modern and Arabic name for
Heliopolis). 10. And in Matarea the Lord Jesus caused a well to spring
forth, in which St. Mary washed his coat; 11. And a balsam is produced
or grows in that country from the sweat which ran down there from the
Lord Jesus.” The sycamore is still shown, and the learned recognise in
this ridiculous old legend the “hiero-sykaminon,” of pagan Egypt, under
which Isis and Horus sat. Hence Sir J. Maundeville and an old writer
allude reverently to the sovereign virtues of “bawme.” I believe its
qualities to have been exaggerated, but have found it useful in
dressing wounds. Burckhardt (vol. ii. p. 124) alludes to, but appears
not to have seen it.
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