It Is Not My Intention Minutely To Describe The Line Down Which We
Travelled That Night:
The pages of Burckhardt give full information
about the country.
Leaving Meccah, we fell into the direct road running
south of Wady Fatimah, and traversed for about an hour a flat
surrounded by hills. Then we entered a valley by a flight of rough
stone steps, dangerously slippery and zigzag, intended to facilitate
the descent for camels and for laden beasts. About midnight we passed
into a hill-girt Wady, here covered with deep sands, there hard with
[p.261] gravelly clay: and, finally, about dawn, we sighted the
maritime plain of Jeddah.
Shortly after leaving the city, our party was joined by other
travellers, and towards evening we found ourselves in force, the effect
of an order that pilgrims must not proceed singly upon this road.
Coffee-houses and places of refreshment abounding, we halted every five
miles to refresh ourselves and the donkeys.[FN#3] At sunset we prayed
near a Turkish guard-house, where one of the soldiers kindly supplied
me with water for ablution.
Before nightfall I was accosted, in Turkish, by a one-eyed old fellow,
who,
“with faded brow,
Entrenched with many a frown, and conic beard,”
and habited in unclean garments, was bestriding a donkey as faded as
himself. When I shook my head, he addressed me in Persian. The same
manśuvre made him try Arabic; still he obtained no answer. Then he
grumbled out good Hindustani. That also failing, he tried successively
Pushtu, Armenian, English, French, and Italian. At last I could “keep a
stiff lip” no longer; at every change of dialect his emphasis beginning
with “Then who the d— are you?” became more emphatic. I turned upon him in
Persian, and found that he had been a pilot, a courier, and a servant
to Eastern tourists, and that he had visited England, France, and
Italy, the Cape, India, Central Asia, and China. We then chatted in
English, which Haji Akif spoke well, but with all manner of courier’s
phrases; Haji Abdullah so badly, that he was counselled a course of
study. It was not a little strange to hear such phrases as “Come ’p, Neddy,”
and “Cre nom d’un baudet,” almost within earshot of the tomb of Ishmael, the
birthplace of Mohammed, and the Sanctuary of Al-Islam.
[p.262] About eight P.M. we passed the Alamayn, which define the
Sanctuary in this direction. They stand about nine miles from Meccah,
and near them are a coffee-house and a little oratory, popularly known
as the Sabil Agha Almas. On the road, as night advanced, we met long
strings of camels, some carrying litters, others huge beams, and others
bales of coffee, grain, and merchandise. Sleep began to weigh heavily
upon my companions’ eye-lids, and the boy Mohammed hung over the flank of
his donkey in a most ludicrous position.
About midnight we reached a mass of huts, called Al-Haddah. Ali Bey
places it eight leagues from Jeddah. At “the Boundary” which is considered
to be the half-way halting-place, Pilgrims must assume the religious
garb,[FN#4] and Infidels travelling to Taif are taken off the Meccan
road into one leading Northward to Arafat. The settlement is a
collection of huts and hovels, built with sticks and reeds, supporting
brushwood and burned and blackened palm leaves. It is maintained for
supplying pilgrims with coffee and water. Travellers speak with horror
of its heat during the day; Ali Bey, who visited it twice, compares it
to a furnace. Here the country slopes gradually towards the sea, the
hills draw off, and every object denotes departure from the Meccan
plateau. At Al-Haddah we dismounted for an hour’s halt. A coffee-house
supplied us with mats, water-pipes, and other necessaries; we then
produced a basket of provisions, the parting gift of the kind Kabirah,
and, this late supper concluded, we lay down to doze.
After half an hour’s halt had expired, and the donkeys were saddled, I
shook up with difficulty the boy Mohammed, and induced him to mount. He
was, to use his own expression, “dead from sleep”; and we had
[p.263] scarcely advanced an hour, when, arriving at another little
coffee-house, he threw himself upon the ground, and declared it
impossible to proceed. This act caused some confusion. The donkey-boy
was a pert little Badawi, offensively republican in manner. He had
several times addressed me impudently, ordering me not to flog his
animal, or to hammer its sides with my heels. On these occasions he
received a contemptuous snub, which had the effect of silencing him.
But now, thinking we were in his power, he swore that he would lead
away the beasts, and leave us behind to be robbed and murdered. A pinch
of the windpipe, and a spin over the ground, altered his plans at the
outset of execution. He gnawed his hand with impotent rage, and went
away, threatening us with the Governor of Jeddah next morning. Then an
Egyptian of the party took up the thread of remonstrance; and, aided by
the old linguist, who said, in English “by G—! you must budge, you’ll catch
it here!” he assumed a brisk and energetic style, exclaiming, “Yallah! rise
and mount; thou art only losing our time; thou dost not intend to sleep
in the Desert!” I replied, “O my Uncle, do not exceed in talk!”—Fuzul (excess)
in Arabic is equivalent to telling a man in English not to be
impertinent—rolled over on the other side heavily, as doth Encelades, and
pretended to snore, whilst the cowed Egyptian urged the others to make
us move. The question was thus settled by the boy Mohammed who had been
aroused by the dispute: “Do you know,” he whispered, in awful accents, “what
that person is?” and he pointed to me. “Why, no,” replied the others. “Well,”
said the youth, “the other day the Utaybah showed us death in the Zaribah
Pass, and what do you think he did?” “Wallah!
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