The Generic Term For Dollars Is “Riyal Fransah.” [FN#48] Torale, Sicut Est Mos Judaicus Et Persicus, Non Inspiciunt. Novae Nuptae Tamen Maritus Mappam Manu Capit:

Mane autem puellae mater virginitatis signa viris mulieribusque domi ostendit eosque jubilare jubet quod calamitas domestica, sc.

Filia, intacta abiit. Si non ostendeant mappam, maeret domus, “prima enim Venus” in Arabia, “debet esse cruenta.” Maritus autem humanior, etiamsi absit sanguis, cruore palumbino mappam tingit et gaudium fingens cognatis parentibusque ostendit; paululum postea puellae nonnulla causa dat divortium. Hic urbis et ruris mos idem est. [FN#49] An explanation of this term will be found below. [FN#50] It is the plural of “Kaum,” which means “rising up in rebellion or enmity against,” as well as the popular signification, a “people.” In some parts of Arabia it is used for a “plundering party.” [FN#51] Bayt (in the plural Buyut) is used in this sense to denote the tents of the nomades. “Bayt” radically means a “nighting-place”; thence a tent, a house, a lair, &c., &c. [FN#52] Some tribes will not sell their sheep, keeping them for guests or feasts. [FN#53] So the word is pronounced at Meccah. The dictionaries give “Aakal,” which in Eastern Arabia is corrupted to “Igal.” [FN#54] Called “Tatarif,” plural of Tatrifah, a cartridge. [FN#55] The liver and the spleen are both supposed to be “congealed blood.” Niebuhr has exhausted the names and the description of the locust. In Al-Hijaz they have many local and fantastic terms: the smallest kind, for instance, is called Jarad Iblis, Satan’s locust. [FN#56] This is the Kurut of Sind and the Kashk of Persia. The butter-milk, separated from the butter by a little water, is simmered over a slow fire, thickened with wheaten flour, about a handful to a gallon, well-mixed, so that no knots remain in it, and allowed to cool. The mixture is then put into a bag and strained, after which salt is sprinkled over it. The mass begins to harden after a few hours, when it is made up into balls and dried in the sun. [FN#57] The North American trappers adopted this natural prejudice: the “free trapper” called his more civilized confrere, “mangeur de lard.” [FN#58] Burckhardt shrank from the intricate pedigree of the Meccan Sharifs. I have seen a work upon the subject in four folio volumes in point of matter equivalent to treble the number in Europe. The best known genealogical works are Al-Kalkashandi (originally in seventy-five books, extended to one hundred); the Umdat al-Tullab by Ibn Khaldun; the “Tohfat al-Arab fi Ansar al-Arab,” a well-known volume by Al-Siyuti; and, lastly, the Sirat al-Halabi, in six volumes 8vo. Of the latter work there is an abridgment by Mohammed al-Banna al-Dimyati in two volumes 8vo.; but both are rare, and consequently expensive. [FN#59] I give the following details of the Harb upon the authority of my friend Omar Effendi, who is great in matters of genealogy. [FN#60]The first word is the plural, the second the singular form of the word. [FN#61] In the singular Aufi and Amri. [FN#62] To these Mr. Cole adds seven other sub-divisions, viz.:— 1. Ahali al-Kura (“the people of Kura?”), 5000. 2. Radadah, 800. 3. Hijlah, 600. 4. Dubayah, 1500. 5. Benu Kalb, 2000. 6. Bayzanah, 800. 7. Benu Yahya, 800. And he makes the total of the Benu Harb about Al-Jadaydah amount to 35,000 men. I had no means of personally ascertaining the correctness of this information. [FN#63] The reader will remember that nothing like exactitude in numbers can be expected from an Arab. Some rate the Benu Harb at 6000; others, equally well informed, at 15,000; others again at 80,000. The reason of this is that, whilst one is speaking of the whole race, another may be limiting it to his own tribe and its immediate allies. [FN#64] “Sham” which, properly speaking, means Damascus or Syria, in Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa is universally applied to Al-Hijaz.

[p.124] CHAPTER XXVI.

FROM AL-SUWAYRKIYAH TO MECCAH.

WE have now left the territory of Al-Madinah. Al-Suwayrkiyah, which belongs to the Sharif of Meccah, is about twenty-eight miles distant from Hijriyah, and by dead reckoning ninety-nine miles along the road from the Prophet’s burial-place. Its bearing from the last station was S.W. 11°. The town, consisting of about one hundred houses, is built at the base and on the sides of a basaltic mass, which rises abruptly from the hard clayey plain. The summit is converted into a rude fortalice—without one, no settlement can exist in Al-Hijaz—by a bulwark of uncut stone, piled up so as to make a parapet. The lower part of the town is protected by a mud wall, with the usual semicircular towers. Inside there is a bazar, well supplied with meat (principally mutton) by the neighbouring Badawin; and wheat, barley, and dates are grown near the town. There is little to describe in the narrow streets and the mud houses, which are essentially Arab. The fields around are divided into little square plots by earthen ridges and stone walls; some of the palms are fine-grown trees, and the wells appear numerous. The water is near the surface and plentiful, but it has a brackish taste, highly disagreeable after a few days’ use, and the effects are the reverse of chalybeate.

The town belongs to the Benu Hosayn, a race of

[p.125] schismatics mentioned in the foregoing pages. They claim the allegiance of the Badawi tribes around, principally Mutayr, and I was informed that their fealty to the Prince of Meccah is merely nominal. The morning after our arrival at Al-Suwayrkiyah witnessed a commotion in our little party: hitherto they had kept together in fear of the road. Among the number was one Ali bin Ya Sin, a perfect “old man of the sea.” By profession he was a “Zemzemi,” or dispenser of water from the Holy Well,[FN#1] and he had a handsome “palazzo” at the foot of Abu Kubays in Meccah, which he periodically converted into a boarding-house.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 43 of 170
Words from 43179 to 44228 of 175520