The
Plain Was Already Dotted With Tents And Lights.
We found the Baghdad
Caravan, whose route here falls into the Darb al-Sharki.
It consists of
a few Persians and Kurds, and collects the people of North-Eastern
Arabia, Wahhabis and others. They are escorted by the Agayl tribe and
by the fierce mountaineers of Jabal Shammar. Scarcely was our tent
pitched, when the distant pattering of musketry and an ominous tapping
of the kettle-drum sent all my companions in different directions to
enquire what was the cause of quarrel. The Baghdad Cafilah, though not
more than 2000 in number, men, women and children, had been proving to
the Damascus Caravan, that, being perfectly ready to fight, they were
not going to yield any point of precedence. From that time the two
bodies
[p.129] encamped in different places. I never saw a more pugnacious
assembly: a look sufficed for a quarrel. Once a Wahhabi stood in front
of us, and by pointing with his finger and other insulting gestures,
showed his hatred to the chibuk, in which I was peaceably indulging. It
was impossible to refrain from chastising his insolence by a polite and
smiling offer of the offending pipe. This made him draw his dagger
without a thought; but it was sheathed again, for we all cocked our
pistols, and these gentry prefer steel to lead. We had travelled about
seventeen miles, and the direction of Al-Sufayna from our last halting
place was South-East five degrees. Though it was night when we
encamped, Shaykh Mas’ud set out to water his moaning camels: they had not
quenched their thirst for three days. He returned in a depressed state,
having been bled by the soldiery at the well to the extent of forty
piastres, or about eight shillings.
After supper we spread our rugs and prepared to rest. And here I first
remarked the coolness of the nights, proving, at this season of the
year, a considerable altitude above the sea. As a general rule the
atmosphere stagnated between sunrise and ten A.M., when a light wind
rose. During the forenoon the breeze strengthened, and it gradually
diminished through the afternoon. Often about sunset there was a gale
accompanied by dry storms of dust. At Al-Sufayna, though there was no
night-breeze and little dew, a blanket was necessary, and the hours of
darkness were invigorating enough to mitigate the effect of the sand
and Samum-ridden day. Before sleeping I was introduced to a namesake,
one Shaykh Abdullah, of Meccah. Having committed his Shugduf to his
son, a lad of fourteen, he had ridden forward on a dromedary, and had
suddenly fallen ill. His objects in meeting me were to ask for some
medicine, and for a temporary seat in my Shugduf; the latter I offered
with pleasure, as the boy Mohammed was
[p.130] longing to mount a camel. The Shaykh’s illness was nothing but
weakness brought on by the hardships of the journey: he attributed it
to the hot wind, and to the weight of a bag of dollars which he had
attached to his waist-belt. He was a man about forty, long, thin, pale,
and of a purely nervous temperament; and a few questions elicited the
fact that he had lately and suddenly given up his daily opium pill. I
prepared one for him, placed him in my litter, and persuaded him to
stow away his burden in some place where it would be less troublesome.
He was my companion for two marches, at the end of which he found his
own Shugduf. I never met amongst the Arab citizens a better bred or a
better informed man. At Constantinople he had learned a little French,
Italian, and Greek; and from the properties of a shrub to the varieties
of honey,[FN#5] he was full of “ useful knowledge,” and openable as a
dictionary. We parted near Meccah, where I met him only once, and then
accidentally, in the Valley of Muna.
At half-past five A.M. on Tuesday, the 6th of September, we rose
refreshed by the cool, comfortable night, and loaded the camels. I had
an opportunity of inspecting Al-Sufayna. It is a village of fifty or
sixty mud-walled, flat-roofed houses, defended by the usual rampart.
Around it lie ample date-grounds, and fields of wheat, barley, and
maize. Its bazar at this season of the year is well supplied: even
fowls can be procured.
We travelled towards the South-East, and entered a country destitute of
the low ranges of hill, which from Al-Madinah southwards had bounded
the horizon. After
[p.131] a two miles’ march our camels climbed up a precipitous ridge, and
then descended into a broad gravel plain. From ten to eleven A.M. our
course lay southerly over a high table-land, and we afterwards
traversed, for five hours and a half, a plain which bore signs of
standing water. This day’s march was peculiarly Arabia. It was a desert
peopled only with echoes,—a place of death for what little there is to
die in it,—a wilderness where, to use my companion’s phrase, there is
nothing but He.[FN#6] Nature scalped, flayed, discovered all her
skeleton to the gazer’s eye. The horizon was a sea of mirage; gigantic
sand-columns whirled over the plain; and on both sides of our road were
huge piles of bare rock, standing detached upon the surface of sand and
clay. Here they appeared in oval lumps, heaped up with a semblance of
symmetry; there a single boulder stood, with its narrow foundation
based upon a pedestal of low, dome-shapen rock. All were of a pink
coarse-grained granite, which flakes off in large crusts under the
influence of the atmosphere. I remarked one block which could not
measure fewer than thirty feet in height. Through these scenes we
travelled till about half-past four P.M., when the guns suddenly roared
a halt.
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