A Pilgrimage to Nejd Volume I Part 3

Selim, the elder of the two, told me that he has been thirty years now in the Hauran, and has no idea of going back to Tudmur. The land at Tafazz is so good that it will grow anything, while at Tudmur there are only the few gardens the stream waters. He is a _fellah_ and likes ploughing and sowing better than camel driving. To Tafazz they are gone, Selim on his chestnut mare, old, worn, and one-eyed, but _asil_; Aamar on his bay Kehileh from the Roala, also old and very lame. They went with tears in their eyes, wishing us all possible blessings for the road.

The consequence is, we have to do more than our share of work, and have had a hard day loading and reloading the camels, for we were among the hills, and the roads were bad. The beasts have not yet become accustomed to each other, and the old camel we bought at Mezarib shows every sign of wishing to return there. He is an artful old wretch, and chose his moment for wandering off whenever we were looking the other way, and wherever a bit of uneven ground favoured his escape. Once or twice he very nearly gave us the slip. He wants to get back to his family, Abdallah says, for we bought him out of a herd where he was lord and master, a sultan among camels. Our road to-day has been very rough. We were told to make our way to Salkhad, a point on the far horizon, just on the ridge of the Hauran, and the only road there was the old Roman one.

This went in an absolutely straight line over hill and dale, and as two out of every three of the stones paving it were missing, and the rest turned upside down, it was a long stumble from beginning to end. We had been warned to keep a good look-out for robbers, so Wilfrid and I rode ahead, reconnoitering every rock and heap. We pa.s.sed one or two ruined villages, but met n.o.body all day long, still following the pointed hill of Salkhad, which, as we got nearer it, we could see was crowned by a huge fortress. The country had now become a ma.s.s of boulders, which in places had been rolled into heaps, making gigantic cairns, not recently, but perhaps in ancient days, when there were giants in the land. The soil thus uncovered was a rich red earth, and here and there it had been cultivated. There was now a little pasture, for on the hills rain had fallen, and once we saw some goats in the distance.

As we approached Salkhad the road got so bad that Mohammed made a vow of killing a sheep if ever we got safe to Huseyn el-Atrash. We were amused at this and asked him what it meant; and he told us the story of the prophet Ibrahim who made a vow to kill his son, and who was prevented from doing so by the prophet Musa, who appeared to him and stopped him, and showed him two rams which he said would do instead. These vows the Arabs make are very curious, and are certainly a relic of the ancient sacrifices. Mohammed explained them to us. "The Bedouins," he said, "always do this when they are in difficulties," he could not say why, but it was an old custom; and when they go back home they kill the sheep, and eat it with their friends. He does not seem to consider it a religious ceremony, only a custom, but it is very singular.

Nine and a half hours' march from seven o'clock brought us to the foot of the conical hill, on which the fortress of Salkhad stands. This is a very ancient building, resembling not a little the fortress of Aleppo, a cone partly artificial and surrounded by a moat, cased with smooth stone and surmounted by walls still nearly perfect. We remarked on some of them the same device as at Aleppo, a rampant lion, the emblem of the Persian Monarchy. The fortress itself, however, is probably of much older date, and may have existed at the time the children of Israel conquered the country. Wilfrid and I, who had gone on in front, agreed to separate here, and ride round the citadel, he to the right, and I to the left, and I was to wait on the top of the ridge till he gave me some signal. This I did and waited so long, that at last the camels came up.

He in the meantime had found a little town just under the fortress on the other side and had ridden down into it. At first he saw n.o.body, and thought the place deserted, but presently people in white turbans began to appear on the house-tops, very much astonished to see this horseman come riding down upon them, for the road was like a stair. He saluted them, and they saluted politely in return, and answered his inquiry for Huseyn el-Atrash, by pointing out a path which led down across the hills to a town called Melakh, where they said Huseyn lived. They asked where he was going, and he said Bussora, Bussora of Bagdad, at which they laughed, and showing him the Roman road, which from Salkhad still goes on in a straight line about south-east, said that that would take him to it.

This is curious, for it certainly is exactly the direction, and yet it is impossible there can ever have really been a road there. It probably goes to Ezrak but we hope to find out all about this in a day or two. At the bottom of the hill Wilfrid beckoned to me, and I found him at a large artificial pool or reservoir, still containing a fair supply of water, and there, when the rest had joined us, we watered the camels and horses.

Mohammed in the meanwhile had been also on a voyage of discovery, and came back with the news that Huseyn el-Atrash was really at Melakh, and Melakh was only two hours and a half further on.

Salkhad is a very picturesque town. It hangs something like a honeycomb under the old fortress on an extremely steep slope, the houses looking black from the colour of the volcanic stone of which they are built.

Many of them are very ancient, and the rest are built up of ancient materials, and there is a square tower like the belfry of a church. {56} The tanks below are at least equally old with the town, having a casing of hewn stone, now much dilapidated, and large stone troughs for watering cattle. Its inhabitants, the people in the white turbans, are Druses, a colony sent I believe from the Lebanon after the disturbances in 1860.

From Salkhad our road lay princ.i.p.ally down hill, for we had now crossed the watershed of the Jebel Hauran, and became somewhat intricate, winding about among small fields. The country on this side the hills is divided into walled enclosures, formed by the rolling away of boulders, which give it a more European look than anything we have seen of late. These date I should think from very early times, for the stones have had time to get covered with a grey lichen, so as to resemble natural rather than artificial heaps, and in these dry climates lichen forms slowly. In some of the enclosures we found cultivation, and even vines and fig-trees. It is remarkable how much more prosperous the land looks as soon as one gets away from Turkish administration. The sun was setting as we first caught sight of Melakh, another strange old mediaeval town of black stone, with walls and towers much out of the perpendicular; so leaving the camels to come on under Abdallah's charge and that of a man who had volunteered to guide us, we cantered on with Mohammed, and in the twilight arrived at the house of Huseyn el-Atrash.

Huseyn is a fine specimen of a Druse sheykh, a man of about forty, extremely dark and extremely handsome, his eyes made darker and more brilliant by being painted with kohl. This seems to be a general fashion here. He was very clean and well dressed in jibbeh and abba; and, unlike most of the Druses, he wore a kefiyeh of purple and gold, though with the white turban over it in place of the aghal. He was sitting with his friends and neighbours on a little terrace in front of his house, enjoying the coolness of the evening, while we could see that a fire had been lit indoors. He rose and came to meet us as we dismounted, and begged us to come in, and then the coffee pots and mortar were set at work and a dinner was ordered. The Sheykh's manners were excellent, very ceremonious but not cold, and though we conversed for an hour about "the weather and the crops," he carefully avoided asking questions as to who we were and what we wanted. Neither did we say anything, as we knew that the proper moment had not come. At last our camels arrived, and dinner was served, a most excellent one, chicken and burghul, horse-radishes in vinegar and water, several sweet dishes, one a puree of rice, spiced tea, cream cheese, and the best water-melon ever tasted. The cookery and the people remind us of the frontier towns of the Sahara, everything good of its kind, good food, good manners, and good welcome. Then, when we had all eaten heartily down to the last servant, he asked us who we were.

Mohammed's answer that we were English persons of distinction, on our way to Jof, and that he was Mohammed, the son of Abdallah of Tudmur, made quite a _coup de theatre_, and it is easy to see that we have at last come to the right place. We have been, however, glad to retire early, for we have had a hard day's march, nearly twelve hours, and over exceedingly bad ground.

_December_ 21.-The shortest day of the year, but still hot, though the night was cold.

We spent the morning with Huseyn. His house has not long been built, but it looks old because it is built of old stones. Its construction is simple but good, the main room being divided into sections with arches so as to suit the stone rafters with which it is roofed. In front there is a pleasant terrace overlooking an agreeable prospect of broken ground, with glimpses of the desert beyond. While Wilfrid was talking to Huseyn I went to see the ladies of the establishment. Huseyn has only one wife; her name is Wardi (a rose). She is the mother of a nice little boy, Mohammed, about six years old and very well behaved, whom we had seen with the Sheykh; and of a pretty little girl of two, named Amina. There are, besides, some older children by a former husband. Wardi is rather fat, with a brilliant complexion and well-kohled eyes and eyebrows; she has good manners, and received me very cordially in a room opening on to a terrace, with a beautiful view eastward of some tells at the edge of the Hamad. She sat surrounded by dependants and relations, among whom were Huseyn's mother and her own. The former was suffering from cough and loss of voice, and another member of the family complained of a rheumatic arm; both wanted me to advise them as to treatment. The ladies would not uncover their faces until a.s.sad, the Sheykh's secretary, who accompanied me, had retired. Wardi's concealment of her features was, however, a mere make-believe, only a corner of her head veil pulled half across her face. She talked a great deal about her children of the former marriage, Mustafa a son of eighteen, who is chief of a neighbouring village, and a daughter of perhaps twelve who was present.

This young girl seemed particularly intelligent and had received some education; enough to read out a phrase from my Arabic exercise book, and to repeat the first chapter of the Koran. The pleasure of my visit was somewhat marred by the quant.i.ty of sweetmeats and tea and coffee served; with the tea and coffee I got on very well, as the cups were of the usual small size, but the sugar-plums were of so ma.s.sive a kind that it was impossible to swallow them. The two small children fortunately came to my rescue; and by their zeal in devouring everything I handed to them, took off their mother's attention from my shortcomings. At parting Wardi gave me a bunch of feathers pulled then and there out of an ostrich skin hanging up against the wall; the skin, she said, had been brought to her some months before, from somewhere in the south.

The Druses of the Hauran say that they are Arabs who came here with the immediate successors of the prophet from the south; that the Jebel was at that time inhabited by Rmi (Greeks), whose descendants still live here and are Christians. We saw one of them in Huseyn's house to-day, apparently on excellent terms with the other visitors. He was dressed like an Arab, and was undistinguishable from the ordinary fellahin Arabs one sees in the desert towns. The Druse women, except those of Huseyn's family, go about unveiled. They are particularly well-mannered and civil, with clean fresh complexions and bright coloured cheeks, and always say "Salam aleyk.u.m" to travellers. They all kohl their eyes carefully and broadly.

There has of course been much discussion about our further journey. It is rather aggravating to think that a whole week has pa.s.sed since we left Damascus, and yet we are not, as the crow flies, more than eighty miles on our way. Still there seems a chance now of our really getting forward, for Huseyn promises to send some men with us to Kaf, an oasis in the Wady Sirhan, with which there is occasional communication on this side of the Hauran, as there are salt beds to which the villagers send camels to fetch salt. They say it is about five days' journey from here.

The princ.i.p.al difficulty is that there are several Bedouin tribes on the road, and n.o.body knows which. The Sirdieh are friends of Huseyn's, and so are the Kreysheh, but there are others whom he does not know, Sherarat Sirhan and Howeysin, the last mere thieves "worse than the Sleb." Any or all of these may be met with, though it is very possible we may meet n.o.body. Huseyn has sent a man on horseback to Ezrak, the first stage on our way, where there are wells and an old castle, to find out who is there. The Kreysheh we have letters to, from Mohammed Dukhi, and if we can find them there will be no more difficulty, as they are strong enough to give us protection from the rest. At any rate we go on to-morrow. We are anxious to get away to the desert, for life is very fatiguing in these towns; there are so many people to be civil to, and the children make such a noise. They have been playing hockey all day long just outside our tent, tiresome little wretches. Wilfrid went out for an hour this afternoon, and got some grouse, of which there are immense flocks all about the fields, while I made a picture of the town from behind a wall.

We have at last got a man to go with us as servant, who looks promising.

He is a Shammari from Jebel Shammar who, for some reason or other, has left his own tribe (probably for some crime against Bedouin law), and has been settled for the last few years at Salkhad, where he has married a Druse woman. There is some mystery about his profession and way of life, but he has an attractive face, and in spite of very poor clothes a certain air of distinction. We both like him, and Huseyn seems to know something about him. Besides, he has made the whole journey from Nejd already, and has been backwards and forwards between Salkhad and Jof more than once. He wants now, he says, to go back to his own country.

Mohammed has also discovered a red-headed man, a native of Sokhne and as such almost a fellow countryman, who will come as camel driver under Abdallah; so that our complement of hands is made up to its original number, eight.

To-morrow we may hope to sleep in the desert.

_Note_. Alas, since this was written, our friends at Melakh have experienced sad reverses. In September, 1879, Midhat Pasha, to signalize his a.s.sumption of office at Damascus, and support that reputation of energy which Europe has given him, sent an armed force to coerce the independent Druses. At first these, fighting for their liberty, were successful. They met and defeated the Turkish troops advancing through the Leja, and the expedition returned with a loss of 400 men. A month later, however, Midhat retrieved his fortunes. He bribed or persuaded Mohammed Dukhi to overrun the Eastern Hauran with his Bedouins, and while these were blockading the towns, marched a second column of regular troops through the mountains, and so gained possession of Salkhad, Melakh, and the rest, reducing all to submission. An Ottoman Governor now replaces the native Sheykhs, and the blessings of the Sultan's rule have been extended to every village of the Hauran.

[Picture: Run to earth]

CHAPTER IV.

"For all is rocks at random thrown, Black walls of crag, black banks of stone."

SCOTT.

We start in earnest-The Harra-A Theory of Mirage-Camp of the Beni Sokkhr-Wady er Rajel-A Christmas Dinner in the Desert-Sand storm-We reach Kaf.

_December_ 22.-A white frost, and off at half-past seven. Huseyn has sent two men with us, a.s.sad, his head man, and another. We have also letters from him for Ali el-Kreysheh, and the Sheykh of Kaf.

Mohammed as we rode away was much elated at the success of this visit, and related to me the pretty things Huseyn had said about us. Huseyn had seen other franjis but none who understood the _shoghl Arab_, Arab ways, as we did. They had come with an escort to see the ruins, but we had come to see him. "Ah," said Mohammed, "now they are sitting drinking coffee and talking about us. They are saying to each other that the Beg and I are brothers, and we are travelling together, as is right, in search of relations, and to make friends all over the world. There is nothing so _asil_ (n.o.ble) as to travel and make friends. Once upon a time there was an old man who had a son, but very little other property, and when he came to die he called his son and said to him, "O my son, I am about to die, and I have nothing to leave behind me for your good but advice, and my advice is this: 'Build to yourself houses in every part of the world.'" And the son, who was a child without understanding, wondered how he was to do this, seeing he had no money to build houses with, and so set out on a journey in search of a wise man who could explain to him his father's last words. And he travelled for many years and visited every part of the world, and made friends in each town, and at last he found the wise man who told him that he had already done as his father had bidden him, "for," he said, "you have friends everywhere, and is not your friend's house your own?"

We too were in high spirits, as everything now seemed to be going right.

Our course lay nearly south on the road to Ezrak, and we pa.s.sed several ruined villages and some cultivated land. Every now and then we put up immense packs of sand-grouse, which were busy feeding on the seeds of the _zueyti_, a kind of thistle which grows abundantly on the fallows.

Wilfrid got eight of them at a shot, and at one of the villages we bought ten partridges of a man who had been out with a matchlock, so that we are well supplied with meat for a couple of days. a.s.sad has got a very handsome greyhound with him, of the long-haired breed, which has a wonderful nose for game. His master declares he _sees_ the birds, for the Arabs do not seem to understand the theory of scent.

After two hours' fair travelling, we stopped at a village called Metem, where a.s.sad had friends, and where we were obliged to go through the ceremony of drinking coffee, losing much time thereby. Then a new discussion arose as to our road, somebody having just come in from Ezrak, who announced that the Sirhan were camped there, and the Sirhan we knew were friendly with Huseyn el-Atrash. a.s.sad, and Salman his companion, refused in consequence to go that way, and were for stopping the night at Metem to think over it; but this we would not listen to. We were determined to go somewhere, and if not to Ezrak then by some other route to Kaf. Somebody suggested El Kreysheh, who was said to be in the Wady er-Rajel, and others the Sirdieh, who were camped a day's journey towards the east. It was difficult to decide; but at the well of the village while we were watering our animals, we met a man and his wife, who told us they knew where to find the Sirdieh, and were themselves on their way to join them. So this decided us, and we determined on the Sirdieh. The Sirdieh are friends of Huseyn's, and our Druse guides made no objection to going that way; Awwad the Shammari declared also that it was all right. Accordingly we left the Ezrak road, and striking off to the east, soon found ourselves out of the range of cultivation. Metem is to be the last village we shall see, and the desert is now before us all the way to Nejd.

We are encamped at the edge of a plateau, from which there is an immense prospect of hill and plain, and Wilfrid has been very busy making out a rough chart of the different landmarks, as they may be useful to-morrow if we should happen to miss our way. The man and woman we met at the well are with us, and know the different points by name. Awwad too, declares he knows every part of the desert between this and Kaf and he has pointed out a tell, south-east by south, beyond which it lies. The Druses, like townsmen, are already nervous at the sight of the desert, and angry with us for camping away from villages and tents. Our camp is well concealed in an old volcanic crater, where also we are sheltered from the wind, which is very cold. There is a spring just below called Ain el-Ghiaour (the infidel's spring); according to the Druses, the scene of a great battle fought by the Arabs of the first invasion, in which they routed the Christians. At that time all the country we have been pa.s.sing through, and perhaps the broken ground in front of us, was well inhabited; and there is a tell with a ruined convent on it not far off to the north-west, still known as Ed Deyr. There is capital pasture here, _rotha_, which the camels have been making the most of. We too have dined, and now all is quiet, and the sky is full of stars. We have been sitting on the edge of the crater talking over plans for to-morrow. The Sirdieh, it now appears, are at a _khabra_ or pool, called Shubboitia, which we could see before the sun set like a yellow line far away to the northeast, too far out of our road for us to go there. Awwad is in favour of going straight to Kaf and taking our chance of what Arabs we may meet. El Kreysheh is somewhere in front of us, and so they say is Ibn Majil, the Akid of the Roala, whom we met last year. At any rate, we must take a good supply of water with us, and go forward at the first streak of dawn.

_December_ 23.-As soon as it was light we climbed up to the top of the crater and looked over the plain. It was a wonderful sight with its broken tells and strange chaotic wadys, all black with volcanic boulders, looking blacker still against the yellow morning sky. There is always something mysterious about a great plain, and especially such a plain as this, where Europeans, one may say, have never been, and which even the people of the Hauran know little of. Besides, it seems to have had a history if only in the days of Og, king of Basan. But it was not to look at the view or for any romantic reason that we had come there; only to examine the country before us and see if we could discover traces of Arab encampments. After looking carefully all round we at last made out a thin column of smoke to the northeast, ten or twelve miles away, and another nearly due east. The first must be the Sirdieh, the second perhaps the Kreysheh. Satisfied with this we returned to our party, who were just setting the camels in motion, and as the sun rose we began our march.

We have been stumbling about all day among the boulders of the Harra, following little tracks just wide enough for the camels to get along, and making a great circuit in order to find ourselves at last barely twelve miles from where we began. At first we kept company with our new acquaintances, the people going to the Sirdieh, but when we had arrived at the foot of the hills we found them turning away to the north, and so wished them good-bye, much to the Druses' disgust, who did not at all relish our wild-goose chase of the Kreysheh, and still less the idea of going straight to Kaf. They followed, however, when they found that we would listen to no reason, and I must say good-humouredly. One great charm of the Arab character is that it bears no malice, even about trifles. Sulkiness is very rare with them. They did not pretend to know much of the country, so we made Awwad lead the way. Going straight was out of the question, for the Harra is an impracticable country, not only for camels but for horses, on account of the boulders, except just where the paths lead. We had a bleak desolate ride, for a cold wind had sprung up in our faces with a decided touch of winter. This country must be a furnace, however, in summer with its polished black stones. I noticed that these were very regularly weathered; one side, that towards the north, being grey with a sort of lichen, so that as we rode past they seemed to change colour continually. There was very little sign of life in this region, only a few small birds, and no trace of inhabitants or of any recent pa.s.sers by. The tracks followed generally the beds of wadys, and wandered on without any particular aim or direction. They looked like the paths made by sheep or camels, only that the stones were so big it seemed impossible that the mere pa.s.sage of animals could have ever made them. On the whole I think they must be artificial, made by shepherds in very ancient times for their flocks. In the spring, we are told, the whole of this Harra is excellent grazing ground. It is a curious thing that every here and there in the hollows there is a s.p.a.ce free from stones where water lies after rain, forming a pool. Why are there no stones there? The soil is a dry clay with a highly glazed surface cracked into very regular squares, so glazed indeed that even close by it has the appearance of water, reflecting the light of the sky.

This, no doubt, is the way some of the curious mirage effects are produced in the desert, for it is to be noticed that the most perfect delusions are found just in places where one would naturally expect to find water-that is, where water has been.

At half-past twelve, we came suddenly on a level bit of open ground, which we took at first for one of these khabras, but found it to be part of a long wady running north and south, with a very distinct watercourse in the middle, with tamarisk bushes, and patches of fresh gra.s.s, showing that water had run down it not long ago. Both Awwad and the Druses recognised this as the Wady-er-Rajel, where the Kreysheh were reported to be encamped, and the only question was, whether to turn up or down it.

While we were debating, however, a flock of sheep was sighted, and presently a boy, who told us he was a Sirdieh, but that the Kreysheh were only a couple of hours further down the valley. This just suited, as it was exactly in the right direction for us, and we are now at Ali el-Kreysheh's camp, and being hospitably entertained by a young relation in the Sheykh's absence. Ali is away at Mezarib with fifty hors.e.m.e.n, to escort the Jerdeh on their way to Maan.

We have had some singing to-night, and playing of the rebab. Among the songs I was pleased to recognise an old Shammar ballad about Abdul Kerim and the man who had no mare.

_December_ 24.-The Kreysheh, at whose camp we now are, belong to the Beni Sokkhr, a large, but not very warlike tribe, which occupies the whole of the district from the pilgrim road eastwards to the extreme edge of the Harra, throughout a wilderness of stones. To this they are said to owe their name of Beni Sokkhr, children of the rocks; and they a.s.sure us that they have lived in the Harra "from all time." They do not come from Nejd, they say, like the anazeh, but are Shimali or Northern Arabs. We were told the names of ten divisions into which the Beni Sokkhr have ramified, each owning a separate Sheykh, though nominally subject to Fendi el-Faiz, or rather his son Sottan, for Fendi is old and has given up practical authority. These divisions are probably nothing more than groups of the tribe, as their names are those of their Sheykhs, the princ.i.p.al being Sottan, and next to him El Kreysheh, and next again Ed Dreybi ibn Zebbed. The Kreysheh have camels as well as sheep, and seem pretty well off; but they have no great number of mares, and those not of the best type. They keep hawks and greyhounds.

They have given us news of the Roala. Ibn Majil, whom we met last year at Sotamm Ibn Shaalan's, and who took our side in the negotiations for peace with the Sebaa, has now separated from Sotamm, and is somewhere down by Jof, so perhaps we may meet him; while Sotamm has just marched north again to attack the Welled Ali. The Kreysheh are friends with Ibn Majil, but at war with Sotamm, another curious instance of the inconsistencies of Bedouin politics. These are, indeed, as changing as the clouds in the sky, and transform themselves so rapidly, that in Desert history, if it were written, ten years would comprise as much incident as a century in Europe.

While negotiations were going on about arrangements for our further progress, I went to call on Ali el-Kreysheh's wives. There are two of them, Hazna and Fa.s.sal; but I only saw the latter, who had the women's tent to herself with her attendants and three children, two little boys and a girl, remarkably dirty, and (what is rare among Bedouins) suffering from sore eyes. Fa.s.sal was plain and uninteresting but sensible, and I daresay has the advantage over Hazna, who, poor thing, is childless. She told me she was from a section of the tribe further north, and took an interest in Damascus, asking about the new Valy as well as about Mohammed ibn Smeyr, who is the great name in these parts. She seemed much pleased with the box of sugar-plums I gave her, and when I went away followed me as far as the end of the tent ropes invoking blessings on my head.

I found our own tents down and everything ready for a start; for an arrangement had been come to with the young man representing our host, that we were to have a _zellem_ (person) to go with us as far as Kaf for the sum of ten mejidies (forty shillings). a.s.sad and Salman were just saying good-bye, for they had to go back to Melakh. They were made very happy with a Turkish pound apiece, and a.s.sad has left us his greyhound, the black and tan dog, who whined piteously when his master went away. I like the dog for this.

As we left the Kreysheh camp a bitter wind sprang up from the west-south-west, and continued all day long, chilling us, in spite of all the furs and cloaks we could put on, to the bone. Our course lay nearly across it south-south-east. We are out of the hills now in a nearly level plain still covered with the black stones. The only variety during the day was when we came to a large khabra (Khabra-el-Gurrthi), a dreary flat of dried up clay and sand which we took two hours to cross, though we went at the camels' best pace. The wind drove great clouds of sand across it, making it one of the dreariest places I ever saw. We were all too cold for much talking, and sat huddled up on our deluls with our backs to the wind, and our heads wrapped up in our cloaks. We met no one all day long, except one string of a dozen camels driven by two very wild-looking Arabs who told us they were Shesharat, and nothing living except a hare which got up among the stones, and which the dogs coursed for some hundreds of yards, over ground which would have broken every bone of an English greyhound, apparently without hurting themselves.

About two o'clock we came, to our great delight, upon the Wady er-Rajel again, an angle of whose course we had been cutting off. Here we found beautiful soft ground and gra.s.s and pools of water, for this wady had running water in it last month, and is not quite drunk up yet. The pasture was too good to be pa.s.sed, so here we remain for the night. Just as we were unloading, a little troop of gazelles looked over the edge of the wady, perhaps come for water, and Mohammed set off in pursuit with a Winchester rifle. We heard him fire all the twelve shots one after the other, but he came back empty-handed. Our tent is set under the lee of a rough wall of loose stones, such as are set up by the shepherds as a shelter for their flocks. The wind still blows tempestuously, and it is cold as a Christmas Eve need be. But Hanna has made us a capital curry, which with soup and burghul and a plum-pudding from a tin, makes not a bad dinner, while Abdallah has distinguished himself baking bread, and Awwad roasting coffee.

_Wednesday_, _December_ 25.-Christmas Day. We are out of the Harra at last, and on open ground. That black wilderness had become like a nightmare with its horrible boulders and little tortuous paths, which prevented the camels from doing more than about two miles an hour. Now we are able to push on at three, or three and a quarter.

After floundering down the wady for half an hour, we came to some splendid pools in a narrow cleft of rock, where we stopped to take in water. We have been very fortunate in such a season as this to find the Wady er-Rajel full. The rain which filled it must have been some isolated waterspout on the eastern slope of Jebel Hauran, for not a drop fell anywhere else; and there is no autumn gra.s.s except just along its edge. It is rapidly drying, or rather being drunk up, and the little vegetation is very closely eaten down. In the smaller pools there is a very distinct flavour of sheep and camels in the water; but at the pools we came to this morning it is still pure. The Kreysheh have been all up this valley, eating and drinking their way, and leaving not a blade they could help behind them, and we have come upon numerous tracks of their cattle. Every here and there we have pa.s.sed the traces of their camps, stones set in line on three sides of a square; one we saw had been only just deserted, and we put up a number of vultures and ravens from the fresh carcase of a camel lying by it. There crossed it also the footprint of a horse, which brought on the usual talk of ghazus and marauders, in which our people delight. They, however, have settled it among them to their satisfaction, that such accidents as meeting robbers or people of a hostile tribe are "min Allah" (from G.o.d), to be cla.s.sed with the rain and fine weather, and sickness and good health, all which things the Bedouins consider fortuitous.

Having filled our goat skins, we left the Wady er-Rajel for good, and are to come across no more water now till we get to Kaf. The valley takes a turn here to the west before it reaches the Wady Sirhan, and would therefore be out of our road. We have been crossing some rolling downs covered with light flinty gravel, a delightful change from the Harra, and have had a gallop or two after the gazelles, which now and then came in sight. We thought too of our Christmas dinner, and how glad we should be to get some addition to the rice, which was all we had; but neither greyhounds nor mares were in good enough condition to run down their quarry. Once we made a rather successful stalk, and a charge in among a small herd, but the dogs could not get hold of anything, and, though several shots were fired, nothing came to bag. Then we had a long gallop after Sayad, the black and tan greyhound, who went on after the gazelles for a good two miles, so that we were afraid of losing him; and then another long gallop to get back to our camels. This time, we had been three quarters of an hour away from them, and we found our people all much alarmed, Abdallah rather angry at our going so far, for Mohammed was with us. He was perfectly in the right, and we were to blame, for we are on a serious journey not a sporting tour; and to say nothing of danger from enemies, there is always a certain risk of missing one another in a country like this where camels leave no track behind them. A turn to right or left out of the direct line and a fold in the ground, and they are lost. So we apologised, and promised to do so again no more. We were, however, in a most unexpected manner provided with dinner; for while we were still talking, behold a grazing camel all alone on the plain, not a mile away; when with a general shout of "a prize," the whole party on horseback and on foot rushed in pursuit. We were naturally the first up, and drove the animal at a canter to the others. The camel was a young one of last spring, in good condition, and at the sight tears rushed into Hanna's eyes-tears of hunger, not of pity. I am afraid indeed that none of the party had much thought of pity, and the scene caused me mixed feelings of compa.s.sion for the poor victim, and disgust at ourselves who were waiting to prey upon it. No question was raised as to ownership; camels found astray in desert places were by acclamation declared the property of the first comer. We were in fact a ghazu, and this was our lawful prize. So the poor little camel was driven on before us.

Dinner is thus secured, and I must see what else can be arranged in honour of the occasion.

_December_ 26.-Mohammed, Abdallah, Awwad, the two Ibrahims and Hanna, all of them, spent the evening in feasting and ate up the whole of the camel except the short ribs, which were set before us, and the shoulders which were kept for to-day. They divided among them the labour of killing, skinning and quartering, and cooking it, for all were equally ready to lend a hand to the work. People talk sometimes of camel meat, as if it were something not only unpalatable, but offensive. But it is in reality very good; when young it resembles mutton, even when old it is only tough, and never has any unpleasant taste as far as my experience goes; indeed if served up without the bones it could hardly be distinguished from mutton.

The servants having thus feasted were all soon sound asleep, and even when suddenly, between two and three in the morning, the wind rose with a deafening noise, they did not wake, not till their tent blew down upon them as ours did upon us. We were awake and might have kept our tent standing had we not been too lazy to get up and drive in the pegs. It was too late when the tent had fallen on us to do anything but lie as well as we could beneath the ruins and wait for daylight. Fortunately the main pegs had not drawn, and the sand, for this hurricane was a sand storm, soon covered over the edges of the fallen tent, and no further damage was done. In the morning, the servants proposed staying where we were; but we would not hear of this, as we had water for only two days, and it would have been folly to dawdle, so after rubbing the sand out of or rather into our eyes, we set to work packing and loading. The wind continued violent and bitterly cold, and carried a great deal of sand with it. It came from the west-south-west. We had camped under shelter at a small tell close to the Tell Guteyfi, which proved to be the same as one pointed out to us by Awwad from Ain el-Giaour, and once beyond it, we found ourselves on a perfectly open bit of plain, exposed to the full fury of the gale, now more violent than ever. Sand storms are evidently common here, for the Tell Guteyfi, which is of black volcanic boulders like the Harra, is half smothered in sand. We saw it looming near us in the thick air, and soon after were almost hidden from each other in the increasing darkness. The sun shone feebly at intervals through the driving sand, but it was all we could do to keep the caravan together, and not lose sight of each other. At one moment we had all to stop and turn tail to the wind, covering our eyes and heads with our cloaks, waiting till the burst was over. Nothing could have faced it. Still we were far from having any idea of danger, for there really is none in these storms, and had plenty of time to notice how very picturesque the situation was, the camels driven along at speed, all huddled together for protection, with their long necks stretched out, and heads low, tags and ropes flying, and the men's cloaks streaming in the wind, all seen through the yellow haze of sand which made them look as though walking in the air. The beasts looked gigantic yet helpless, like antediluvian creatures overwhelmed in a flood. Still, as I said, there was no danger, for the wind was steady in its direction, and our course was directly across it-that we knew-and by patiently struggling on, we managed to get over a deal of ground. Suddenly the sandy plain over which we were travelling, seemed to sink away in front of us, and at the bottom of a steep dip we could see clumps of tamarisk looming through the storm. We knew that a refuge was at hand.

[Picture: Sand Storm in the Wady Er-Rajel]