But At Al-Madinah
Discovery Would Entail More Serious Consequences.
The next risk to be
run was the journey between the two cities, where it would be easy for
the local officials quietly to dispose of a suspected person by giving
a dollar to a Badawi.
[FN#1] The “Tayyarah,” or “Flying Caravan,” is lightly laden, and travels by
forced marches.
[FN#2] This “Musafahah,” as it is called, is the Arab fashion of shaking
hands. They apply the palms of the right hands flat to each other,
without squeezing the fingers, and then raise the hand to the forehead.
[FN#3] On this occasion I heard three new words: “Kharitah,” used to
signify a single trip to Meccah (without return to Al-Madinah), “Ta’arifah,”
going out from Meccah to Mount Arafat, and “Tanzilah,” return from Mount
Arafat to Meccah.
[FN#4] And part of an extra animal which was to carry water for the
party. Had we travelled by the Darb al-Sultani, we should have paid 6½
dollars, instead of 10, for each beast.
[FN#5] The system of advances, as well as earnest money, is common all
over Arabia. In some places, Aden for instance, I have heard of
two-thirds the price of a cargo of coffee being required from the
purchaser before the seller would undertake to furnish a single bale.
[FN#6] Most men of the Shafe’i school clip their mustachios exceedingly
short; some clean shave the upper lip, the imperial, and the parts of
the beard about the corners of the mouth, and the forepart of the
cheeks. I neglected so to do, which soon won for me the epithet
recorded above. Arabs are vastly given to “nick-naming God’s creatures”;
their habit is the effect of acute observation, and the want of variety
in proper names. Sonnini appears not to like having been called the
“Father of a nose.” But there is nothing disrespectful in these personal
allusions. In Arabia you must be “father” of something, and it is better to
be father of a feature, than father of a cooking pot, or father of a
strong smell (“Abu-Zirt.”)
[FN#7] Salt among the Hindus is considered the essence and preserver of
the seas; it was therefore used in their offerings to the gods. The old
idea in Europe was, that salt is a body composed of various elements,
into which it cannot be resolved by human means: hence, it became the
type of an indissoluble tie between individuals. Homer calls salt
sacred and divine, and whoever ate it with a stranger was supposed to
become his friend. By the Greek authors, as by the Arabs, hospitality
and salt are words expressing a kindred idea. When describing the
Badawin of Al-Hijaz, I shall have occasion to notice their peculiar
notions of the Salt-law.
[FN#8] The import of such articles shows the march of progress in
Al-Hijaz. During the last generation, schoolmasters used for pencils
bits of bar lead beaten to a point.
[FN#9] The “two comforts” are success and despair; the latter, according to
the Arabs, being a more enviable state of feeling than doubt or hope
deferred.
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