A Pilgrimage to Nejd Volume Ii Part 10

"Last scene of all ... ...

A mere oblivion."-SHAKESPEARE.

A last rush through the sun-We arrive at Dilam on the Persian Gulf-Politics of the Gulf-A journey "in extremis"-Bushire-The End.

THE rest of our journey was little better than a feverish dream of heat and flies. After a day spent at Bebahan, where we were hospitably entertained by the Shahzade, Ahtesham ed-Daulah, a Persian n.o.bleman of real good breeding, we recommenced our weary march, thinking only now to get down to Bushire alive.

The kind invitations of our host could not detain us, nor the polite attentions of his wives, nor the amiable visits of merchants, calendars, and other idle persons, who thronged our lodgings from dawn to dusk. The truth is Bebahan was like a furnace, and we felt that it was more than our strength would stand, to prolong our sufferings over another week.

The lowlands of Persia, bordering on the Persian Gulf, are one of the most oven-like regions of the world, and though Bebahan lies nearly 1400 feet above the sea, it shares the climate of the Gulf. We had now, besides, nothing further to fear in the way of robbers or marauders, and prepared ourselves for a last desperate rush through the sun to Bushire.

The distance was hardly more than a hundred and twenty miles, but between Bebahan and Dilam there lay a region of hills, worse, according to report, than any we had yet pa.s.sed, and absolutely impa.s.sable for camels.

Still we had good reason to feel confident in the climbing powers of our beasts, and could not think of leaving them behind. Accordingly the next day we started, our courage well screwed to the sticking point of endurance, and under escort of three of the Shahzade's hors.e.m.e.n.

We set off at six in the afternoon, making the best of what daylight yet remained to get well started on our road. The difficulties are almost always greater close to the town, and once fairly on the beaten track, our camels would have no temptation to wander. From Bebahan to Dilam there are two considerable lines of ridges or hills-steps, as it were, and extremely precipitous ones, down to the sea coast. At first it was easy going for the camels, but presently, about an hour after dark, we found ourselves in broken ground, where, after stumbling on till half-past nine, we were brought to a dead halt by finding ourselves at the brink of a deep gulf, in which the road seemed to disappear. This made it necessary we should wait till daylight, and we lay down with our camels on the road, and slept soundly till the first streak of dawn at half-past four. Then we discovered we had left the road, though only a few yards, and that the fissure before us was a sufficient reason for the halt we had made. The chief formation of these hills is not rock but clay, which being entirely without vegetation except in favoured spots, is furrowed into ravines and fissures by the action of the rain, making the district impa.s.sable except along the beaten track. We had risen some hundred feet from Bebahan, and so had nearly reached the summit of the first pa.s.s, where to our joy we saw something far away which we knew by instinct must be the sea. This raised our spirits, and we began our descent at once.

The path was very precipitous, and looking down from the edge it looked impossible that a camel should get down the thousand feet of zigzag which one could see plainly to the bottom. In some places rocks jutted out of the soil, making awkward narrow pa.s.ses, and in others there were drops of three feet and more. Our horses of course made no difficulty, but watching the camels was nervous work, knowing as we did how little could be done to help them. Still we did what we could, going in front and calling them "Hao-hao," according to Bedouin fashion, which they understand so well. They know us now and trust in us, and so came bravely on. Even the Mecca delul and the Safra, the young and giddy ones, have learned sobriety. Three hours exactly it took to get down, and without accident. Another hour brought us to Zeytun, a pretty village on the river Zorah, with palm gardens and a good patch of cultivated land. At the river we stopped, exhausted already by the sun and overcome by the sight of the cool running water. Here we lay frizzling till the afternoon.

At four we crossed the river, as broad but a little less deep than the Kurdistan (both have gravelly bottoms), and resumed our march. A last cup of the ice-cold water was indulged in, but it could not slake my thirst, which nothing now can cure, though as a rule we drink nothing till the evening. Our march was a repet.i.tion of last night's, a long stumble half asleep along a break-neck road ending as before in an "impa.s.se," and the rest of the night spent on the ground. We are plagued now, especially in these night halts, where we cannot see to choose a bed, with the horrible little spiked gra.s.s. Every bit of clothing we have is full of these points. These and the flies make it impossible to sleep by day, and we are both very weary, Wilfrid almost a skeleton.

_April_ 23.-At a quarter past three, we again went on, by the light of a false dawn, the Scorpion, still in front of us. We know exactly now the rising of these stars in the south-eastern sky. The ascent this time was longer and more gradual, and the descent shorter than the former one, but quite as difficult. This second ridge is considerably lower than the first, and at the foot of it our path followed a sort of valley in which we found a few pools of water. Then suddenly the gorge opened and we found ourselves at eight o'clock in the plain, with a village near us, and about eight miles away Dilam and the sea, simmering like melted lead to the horizon.

Eight miles, it sounds an easy march; but the heat, which now on the sea coast is more insufferable than ever, stopped us half way, and again we rigged up our tent on the plain, and lay under it till evening. Then we rode into Dilam. Our first question was for Captain Cameron, whose road should here have joined our own; but no Frank or stranger of any kind had pa.s.sed that way. {227}

Dilam, like most maritime villages on the north-eastern sh.o.r.e of the Persian Gulf, is inhabited by people of Arab race, who have carried on a mixed trade of commerce and piracy there from time immemorial. Of the two, the piracy seems to have been the more profitable trade, for since its suppression by the English or rather Indian navy, the villages have languished. The Arab idea of piracy by sea, is exactly the same as that of ghazus by land. Any stranger not in alliance with the tribe, or under its protection, is held to be an enemy, and his goods to be lawful prize.

The greater part, however, of the armed expeditions, formerly made in the Gulf were directed by one tribe or village against another tribe or village, and were called in Arabic ghazus no less than if they had been made by land. The British Government, however, naturally found these ideas antiquated and the practice inconvenient, and in the interests of its commerce undertook, thirty or forty years ago, to keep the police of the Gulf. It compelled the Sheykhs of the various towns and villages to enter into what is called the Truce of the Gulf, and piracy has disappeared. Expeditions henceforth, if made at all, were to be made by land, and armed vessels, if met by an English cruiser, were confiscated.

This sealed the fate of the coast villages, for the commerce of the Gulf alone being insufficient to support them, their inhabitants took up new quarters further inland, and from sailors became cultivators of the soil.

The sea-port villages, where ports there are, still live on but poorly, and where there are no ports, the coast is abandoned. Dilam possesses no regular port, except for small boats, but the anchorage is good, and I believe the roadstead is considered one of the best in the Gulf. It has been talked of as the terminus of an Indo-Mediterranean railway.

Dilam now is a poor place of perhaps two hundred houses, but there are a few well-to-do people in it who presently came out to pay us their respects. The English name is well known on the coast, and there was no danger now of any lack of courtesy. We were besieged at once with hospitable offers of entertainment for man and beast, but as usual preferred our camp outside the town. This we placed on a strip of sand dunes fronting the sea, and dividing it from the level plain which runs inland ten miles to the foot of the hills. This strip was scattered over with thorn bushes, in one of which a pair of cormorants were sitting.

Our visitors remonstrated with us on choosing such a spot, a.s.suring us that it was full of poisonous snakes, but this no doubt was nonsense.

Among the rest came a wild-looking man with a gun, who told us he was a Beluch, and sent by the governor of Dilam as a guard, to protect us during the night. He had been in Turkish service, and was now in the Persian. This was our first meeting with anything Indian. We liked the man. In the evening, when it was dark and all were gone, Wilfrid gave himself the luxury of bathing in salt water.

We had now done what few if any Europeans had done before,-come all the way by land from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf: our journey had been over two thousand miles.

_April_ 24.-There was now a great debate whether we should go on still by land for the other hundred miles which remained to us before we could reach Bushire, or whether, selling our camels here at Dilam, we should hire a sefineh, or native boat, to convey us with our things by sea.

Wilfrid was much taken with this last idea, thinking that the arrangement would save us from another week's toil in the overwhelming heat; but to me the sight of the rickety boats in which we should have had to trust ourselves and our horses to the mercy of the winds and waves, was sufficient to make me rejoice that the negotiation about a sea journey failed. Then it was decided to march on as before. There seemed something sad, too, in abandoning our camels here, and taking to the ships of the sea where they could not follow us; and though we knew our parting from them was anyhow at hand, it was a respite to take them on.

We had got, from our long care of them, to take great pride in their condition, and they were now fat and free from mange, a triumph of management which only those who have travelled far and loved their camels will understand.

On the afternoon of the 24th, having spent just twenty-four hours at Dilam, we struck our tents, and began our last march.

The country bordering the Persian Gulf is here a dead flat, little, if anything, raised above the level of the sea. It is very barren, and impregnated for the most part with saltpetre, while here and there broad tidal creeks intersect it, wherever a stream runs into it from the hills.

These formed the only obstacle to our march, and we travelled more easily now by night, for there began to be a moon.

I hurry over these last days, indeed the heat and the march absorbed all our faculties and thought. Our plan was to start about three o'clock in the afternoon, when usually a light breeze sprang up from the south-east, and travel on till the moon set, or till some creek barred pa.s.sage for the night; then sleep upon the ground till dawn, and on again till eight.

By that hour the sun had become a fierce and importunate thing, beating as if with a weight upon our heads; and, choosing a place where there was some show of pasture, we unloaded and turned out our beasts to graze, and then rigged up the tent and lay gasping under it in the breathless air, supporting life with tea. Hajji Mohammed now was only capable of tea-making. In all things else he had become idiotic, sitting half back on his beast, or in the tent, ejaculating: "Allah kerim," G.o.d is generous. Our tempers all were severely tried, and we could do little now to help each other. Ghada and Rahim, Arab and Persian, were at daggers drawn. The horses' backs for the first time were getting sore, and the dogs were run nearly off the soles of their feet. Shiekha and Sayad in a course in which they killed a gazelle were injured, the former having cut her feet badly on the glazed edges of some dry cracked mud she had galloped over. Lastly, and this was a terrible grief, one of the camels being badly loaded had slipped its pack, and in the fall Rasham had been crushed. The falcon's leg was broken, and for the last three days of our journey, it seemed impossible he should live, clinging as he was obliged to do by one leg to the saddle. It was all like a night-mare, with no redeeming feature but that we knew now the end was close at hand.

On the 25th we reached Gunawa, on the 26th Bender Rik and on the 27th, Rohalla, where we crossed the river, and then marching on without halting through the night, we forded a shallow arm of the sea, and found ourselves the next morning about dawn upon the edge of the Khor, or salt lake of Bushire. As the sun rose Bushire itself was before us, and our long march was at an end.

It was now necessary to abandon our nomadic life, and shipping all our goods in a "baggara," and leaving the unloaded camels to be driven round at low tide to the neck of the Bushire peninsula, we put ourselves and our dogs and bird on board, and with a fresh breeze ran in two hours to the custom-house landing. There, taken for Arabs, we had long to wait, but in the end procuring porters, walked in procession through the streets to the Residency. When we arrived at the door of the Residency, the well-dressed Sepoys in their smart European uniforms, barred us the door with their muskets. They refused to believe that such vagabonds, blackened with the sun, and grimed with long sleeping on the ground, were English gentlefolks or honest people of any sort.

APPENDIX.

[Picture: Granite range of Jebel Shammar. Effect of mirage]

NOTES ON THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NORTHERN ARABIA.

Arabia between lat.i.tude 34 and lat.i.tude 29, may be described in general terms as a plain of sand-stone grit, or gravel, unbroken by any considerable range of hills, or by any continuous watercourse, if we except the Wady Hauran, which traverses it in the extreme north and in rainy seasons forms a succession of pools from the Harra, east of Jebel Hauran, to the Euphrates. This stony plain is known to the Bedouins as the Hamad or "Plain" _par excellence_; and though for the most part dest.i.tute of perennial pasture, or of water above ground, there are certain districts in it better provided which form their winter quarters.

Such are the above mentioned Wady Hauran, the resort of the Bisshr anazeh, and the Wady-er-Rothy, of the Daffir, and Shammar. A few wells would seem to exist on the line of certain ancient routes, traversing the Hamad from various points on the Euphrates, and these form centres of attraction to the tribes. But their immediate neighbourhood is invariably barren, having been pitilessly browsed down for centuries.

Routes of this sort connect Kaf with Shedadi, Meskakeh with Suk-esh-Shiokh, and Jof with Maan. But the best frequented of them and that best supplied with water is the great Haj road from Meshhed Ali to Jebel Shammar, called the road of Zobeydeh. On this wells and reservoirs were constructed in the 9th century, by the widow of Harun-el-Rashid, and khans, for the convenience of pilgrims, the ruins of which still exist.

The _Hamad_, starting from the level of the Euphrates, rises rapidly for a few miles through a district much intersected by ravines, to an upper plateau, which thenceforward has a fairly regular slope upwards towards the west and south of 8 to 10 feet per mile. The drainage of the plain would not, however, seem to be continuous towards the river; but to terminate in certain sandy hollows, known by the name _b.u.t.tn Jof_ or _Bekka_, all signifying belly or receptacle, which may in former times have been lakes or small inland seas. These do not now at any time of the year hold water above ground, but at the depth of a few feet below the surface it may be found in wells. Such are the b.u.t.tn on the Haj road, in which the Wady-er-Rothy terminates, the oases of Taibetism and Jobba in the south, and I believe that of Teyma in the west; but the most remarkable of them all is without comparison the so-called Wady and Jof of Sirhan.

The _Wady Sirhan_ bisects northern Arabia in a line parallel with the Euphrates and with the coast lines of the Peninsula, that is to say, nearly from N.W. to S.E. Immediately east and north of it the Hamad reaches its highest level, 2,500 feet above the sea; and the cliffs bounding it on this side are rather abrupt, corresponding, as I am inclined to think, with the general formation of the plain. This consists of a series of shelves set one above the other, with their edges opposed to the general slope; a formation very evident on the Haj road, where the traveller from Nejd, though in reality descending at a general rate of more than eight feet to the mile, is tempted to fancy himself on an ascending road, owing to the frequent _Akabas_ or steep cliffs he has to climb. I am inclined, therefore, to believe that the Wady Sirhan and the Jof receive their drainage princ.i.p.ally from the west, and that there is a second great watershed to the plain in the volcanic region, which, according to Guarmani, continues the Hauran ridge southwards to Tabuk.

East of the Wady Sirhan I was struck by the absence of large tributary wadys such as one would expect if the area drained was a wide one. The Wady Sirhan, however, in the days when it was an inland sea, must have received contributions from all sides. It lies as a trough between two watersheds in the plain, and may have been supplied from Jebel Aja in the south, as it is still supplied from Jebel Hauran in the north. Its general level below that of the adjacent plain eastwards, is about 500 feet, and the plain may rise again still higher to the west.

Be this as it may, one thing is clear, namely, that the Wady was and is the great central receptacle of the plain, and corresponds pretty closely with its neighbour, the still existing Dead Sea, while the Wady-er-Rajel entering it from the north, holds towards it the position of the Jordan.

Water in the Wady Sirhan is found at a nearly uniform level of 1850 feet; and this rule applies to that part of it which is known as the Jof as well as to the rest. The abundance of water obtainable from its wells along a line extending 300 miles from the frontier of Syria, to within 200 of the frontier of Nejd, points out Wady Sirhan as the natural high road of Northern Arabia, and such it must from the earliest times have been. It is probable that in the days when Arabia was more populous than now, villages existed in it at intervals from Ezrak to Jof. At present, the wells of these only remain, if we except the twin oases of Kaf and Ithery, still preserved in life by the salt lakes which supply them with an article of trade. These are but poor places, and their population can hardly exceed two hundred souls.

Jof and Meskakeh are still flourishing towns, but I have reason to think their population has been over estimated by Mr. Palgrave. I cannot put the total number of houses in Jof at more than 500, nor in Meskakeh at more than 600, while 100 houses are an ample allowance for Kara and the other hamlets of the Jof oasis. This would give us a census of hardly 8,000 souls, whereas Mr. Palgrave puts it at 40,000. I do not, however, pretend to accuracy on this point.

With regard to the geology of the Hamad and the adjacent districts north of the Nefd, I believe that sandstone is throughout the princ.i.p.al element. In the extreme north, indeed, limestone takes its place or conglomerate; but, with the exception of a single district about 100 miles south of Meshhed Ali on the Haj road, I do not think our route crossed any true calcareous rock. The cliffs which form the eastern boundary of the Wady Sirhan are, I think, all of sandstone, south at any rate of Jebel Mizmeh, as are certainly the hills of Jof and Meskakeh, the rocks of Aalem and Jobba, and all the outlying peaks and ridges north-west of Hal. These have been described as basaltic or of dark granite, the mistake arising from their colour which, though very varied, is in many instances black. The particular form of sandstone in which iron occurs, seems indeed to acquire a dark weathering with exposure, and unless closely examined, has a volcanic look. I do not, however, believe that south of lat.i.tude 31 the volcanic stones of the Haura are really met with; unless indeed it be west of the Wady Sirhan. Jebel Mizmeh, the highest point east of it, is alone perhaps basaltic. The whole of the Jof district reminded me geologically of the sandstone formation of Sina, both in the excentric outline of its rocks, which are often mushroom shaped, and in their colour, where purple, violet, dark red, orange, white and even blue and green are found, the harder rock a.s.suming generally an upper weathering of black. I can state positively that nothing basaltic occurs on the road between Jof and Jebel Aja. Of Jebel Mizmeh I am less certain, as I did not actually touch the stone, but, if volcanic it be, it is the extreme limit of the Harra southwards. The tells of Kaf I certainly took to be of basalt when I pa.s.sed them. But I did not then consider how easily I might be mistaken. On the whole I am inclined to place lat.i.tude 31 as the boundary of the volcanic district east of the Wady.

The bed of the Wady Sirhan is princ.i.p.ally of sand, though in some places there is a clayey deposit sufficient to form subbkhas, or salt lakes, notably at Kaf and Ithery. About three days' journey E.S.E. of Ithery, I heard of quicksands, but did not myself cross any ground holding water.

The sand of the Wady Sirhan, like that of all the hollows both of the Hamad and of northern Nejd, is nearly white, and has little to distinguish it from the ordinary sand of the sea sh.o.r.e, or of the Isthmus of Suez. It is far less fertile than the red sand of the Nefd, and is more easily affected by the wind. The ghada is found growing wherever the sand is pure, and I noticed it as far north as Kaf. In some parts of the Wady which appear to hold water in rainy seasons, there is much saltpetre on the surface, and there the vegetation is rank, but of little value as pasture. In the pure white sand, little else but the ghada grows. Wady Sirhan is the summer quarters of the Sherarat.

The _Harra_ is a high region of black volcanic boulders too well known to need description. It begins as far north as the lat.i.tude of Damascus, and stretches from the foot of the Hauran hills eastward for some fifty miles, when it gives place to the Hamad. Southwards it extends to Kaf, and forms the water shed of the plain east of the Wady Sirhan. According to Guarmani, it is found again west of the Wady, as far south as Tebuk.

The eastern watershed of the Harra would seem with the Jebel Hauran to feed the Wady-er-Rajel, a bed sometimes containing running water, and on its opposite slope the Wady Hauran which reaches the Euphrates. The Harra is more plentifully supplied with water than the Hamad, and has a reputation of fertility wherever the soil is uncovered by the boulders.

_The Nefd_.-A little north of lat.i.tude 29', the Hamad, which has to this point been a bare plain of gravel broken only by occasional hollows, the beds of ancient seas, suddenly becomes heaped over with high ridges of pure red sand. The transition from the smooth hard plain to the broken dunes of the Nefd is very startling. The sand rises abruptly from the plain without any transition whatever; and it is easy to see that the plain is not really changed but only hidden from the eye by a super-inc.u.mbent ma.s.s. Its edge is so well defined that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that with one foot a man may stand upon the Hamad, and with the other on the Nefd; nor is there much irregularity in its outline. The limit of the sand for several hundred miles runs almost evenly from east to west, and it is only at these extremities that it becomes broken and irregular. Such, at least, I believe to be the case; and if, as seems probable, the whole drift of sand has been shaped by prevailing easterly winds, the phenomenon is less strange than might be thought.

The great Nefd of Northern Arabia extends from the wells of Lina in the east to Teyma in the west, and from the edge of the Jof basin in the north to the foot of Jebel Aja in the south. In its greatest breadth it is 150 miles, and in its greatest length 400 miles, but the whole of this is not continuous sand. The extreme eastern portion (and perhaps also the extreme western) is but a series of long strips, from half a mile to five miles in breadth, running parallel to each other, and separated by intervening strips of solid plain. Nor is the sand everywhere of equal depth; the intermittent Nefds are comparatively shallow, and would seem to bear a certain proportion in depth to the breadth of the strips. Thus the highest sand ridge crossed by the Haj road is barely eighty feet, while others are but fifty and twenty feet. The continuous Nefd on the other hand, between Jof and Hal, has a depth of at least two hundred feet. The intermittent ridges may possibly suggest an explanation of the original formation of the ma.s.s. It would seem as if the wind acting upon the sand drove it at first into lines, and that, as these grew broader and deeper, they at last filled up the intervening s.p.a.ce, and formed themselves into a continuous ma.s.s at their lee end. If this be the case, the intermittent ridges show the direction in which the solid ma.s.s of sand is advancing, the direction, that is, contrary to that of the wind.

I leave this deduction, however, to more competent persons than myself to draw, contenting myself with recording the fact.

The red sand of the Nefd is of a different texture from the ordinary white sand of the desert, and seems to obey mechanical laws of its own.

It is coa.r.s.er in texture and far less volatile, and I am inclined to think that the ordinary light winds which vary sandy surfaces elsewhere leave it very little affected. A strong wind alone, amounting to a gale, could raise it high in the air. It is remarkable that whereas the light white sand is generally found in low hollows, or on the lee side of hills, the red sand of the Nefd has been heaped up into a lofty ma.s.s high above the highest part of the plain. The Hamad where the Nefd begins is 2,200 feet above the sea. No traveller can see this desert of red sand for the first time without acknowledging its individuality. It is as little like the ordinary sand dunes of the desert, as a glacier is like an ordinary snow field in the Alps. It seems, like the glacier, to have a law of being peculiar to itself, a law of increase, of motion, almost of life. One is struck with these in traversing it, and one seems to recognise an organism.

[Picture: Horse-hoof shaped hollows]

The most remarkable phenomenon of the Nefd are the long lines of horse-hoof shaped hollows, called _fuljes_, with which its surface is pitted; these are only observable where the sand has attained a depth of from 80 to 100 feet, and are consequently seldom found in the intermittent portion of the Nefd; while it is remarkable that in the very centre of all, where it might be supposed the sand was deepest, the fuljes are less deep than towards the northern and southern edges, while the lines in which they run become more regular. Indeed, for some miles on either side of Aalem, which marks the centre of the Nefd, there are no large fuljes; but their strings are so regular as to form, with the intervening s.p.a.ces, a kind of shallow ridge and furrow running nearly east and west, and not altogether unlike, on a gigantic scale, those ridges in which meadows are sometimes laid down in England. From the top of Aalem this formation was very distinct.

The fuljes themselves are singularly uniform in shape, though varying in size. They represent very closely horse tracks on an enormous scale, that is to say a half-circle, deep at the curved end or toe, and shelving up to the level of the plain at the square end or heel. The sides of the former are as precipitous as it is in the nature of sand to be, and they terminate abruptly where they meet the floor of the fulj. This floor, sloping downwards towards the toe at an angle of about 70, and scored with water-courses converging to a centre, roughly represents the frog, so that in plan the whole hollow would appear as in the woodcut A; while in section it would appear as in woodcut B. It is necessary, therefore, in entering a fulj on horseback, or with camels, to approach it from the east; but on foot one can slip down the sand at any point. I noticed that just west of the deep fuljes there is generally a high mound of sand, which adds considerably to their apparent depth and to the delusion of their being artificial in their origin, as though the sand scooped out has been thrown up by a digger.