Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah Volume I Part 11

[p.128]who required any civility from Dr. Walne, then the English official at Cairo, to enter the "Presence" furnished with an order from the Foreign Office.

I had neglected the precaution, and had ample reason to regret having done so. Failing at the British Consulate, and unwilling to leave Cairo without being "en regle,"-the Egyptians warned me that Suez was a place of obstacles to pilgrims,[FN#18]-I was obliged to look elsewhere for protection. My friend Haji Wali was the first consulted; after a long discussion he offered to take me to his Consul, the Persian, and to find out for what sum I could become a temporary subject of the Shah.

We went to the sign of the "Lion and the Sun," and we found the dragoman,[FN#19] a subtle Syrian Christian, who,

[p.129]after a rigid inquiry into the state of my purse (my country was no consideration at all[FN#20]), introduced me to the Great Man. I have described this personage once already, and he merits not a second notice. The interview was truly ludicrous. He treated us with exceeding hauteur, motioned me to sit almost out of hearing, and after rolling his head in profound silence for nearly a quarter of an hour, vouchsafed the information that though my father might be a Shirazi, and my mother an Afghan, he had not the honour of my acquaintance. His companion, a large old Persian with Polyphemean eyebrows and a mulberry beard, put some gruff and discouraging questions. I quoted the verses

"He is a man who benefits his fellow men, Not he who says 'why?' and 'wherefore?' and 'how much?'"

upon which an imperious wave of the arm directed me to return to the dragoman, who had the effrontery to ask me four pounds sterling for a Persian pa.s.sport. I offered one. He derided my offer, and I went away perplexed. On my return to Cairo some months afterwards, he sent to say that had he known me as an Englishman, I should have had the doc.u.ment gratis,-a civility for which he was duly thanked.

At last my Shaykh Mohammed hit upon the plan. "Thou art," said he, "an Afghan; I will fetch hither the princ.i.p.al of the Afghan college at the Azhar, and he, if

[p.130]thou make it worth his while," (this in a whisper) "will be thy friend." The case was looking desperate; my preceptor was urged to lose no time.

Presently Shaykh Mohammed returned in company with the princ.i.p.al, a little, thin, ragged-bearded, one-eyed, hare-lipped divine, dressed in very dirty clothes, of nondescript cut. Born at Maskat of Afghan parents, and brought up at Meccah, he was a kind of cosmopolite, speaking five languages fluently, and full of reminiscences of toil and travel. He refused pipes and coffee, professing to be ascetically disposed: but he ate more than half my dinner, to rea.s.sure me, I presume, should I have been fearful that abstinence might injure his health. We then chatted in sundry tongues. I offered certain presents of books, which were rejected (such articles being valueless), and the Shaykh Abd al-Wahhab having expressed his satisfaction at my account of myself, told me to call for him at the Azhar Mosque next Morning.

Accordingly at six P.M. Shaykh Mohammed and Abdullah Khan,[FN#21]-the latter equipped in a gigantic sprigged-muslin turband, so as to pa.s.s for a student of theology,-repaired to Al-Azhar. Pa.s.sing through the open quadrangle, we entered the large hall which forms the body of the Mosque. In the northern wall was a dwarf door, leading by breakneck stairs to a pigeon-hole, the study of the learned Afghan Shaykh. We found him ensconced behind piles of musty and greasy ma.n.u.scripts, surrounded by scholars and scribes, with whom he was cheapening books.

He had not much business to transact; but long before he was ready, the stifling atmosphere drove us out of the study, and we repaired to the hall. Presently the Shaykh joined us, and we all rode on to the citadel, and waited in a Mosque till the office hour struck. When the doors were opened we went into the

[p.131]"Diwan," and sat patiently till the Shaykh found an opportunity of putting in a word. The officials were two in number; one an old invalid, very thin and sickly-looking, dressed in the Turco-European style, whose hand was being severely kissed by a troop of religious beggars, to whom he had done some small favours; the other was a stout young clerk, whose duty it was to engross, and not to have his hand kissed.

My name and other essentials were required, and no objections were offered, for who holier than the Shaykh Abd al-Wahhab ibn Yunus al-Sulaymani? The clerk filled up a printed paper in the Turkish language, apparent1y borrowed from the European method for spoiling the traveller; certified me, upon the Shaykh's security, to be one Abdullah, the son of Yusuf (Joseph), originally from Kabul, described my person, and, in exchange for five piastres, handed me the doc.u.ment.

I received it with joy.

With bows, and benedictions, and many wishes that Allah might make it the officials' fate to become pilgrims, we left the office, and returned towards Al-Azhar. When we had nearly reached the Mosque, Shaykh Mohammed lagged behind, and made the sign. I drew near the Afghan, and asked for his hand. He took the hint, and muttering, "It is no matter!"-"It is not necessary!"-"By Allah it is not required!"

extended his fingers, and brought the "musculus guineorum" to bear upon three dollars.

Poor man! I believe it was his necessity that consented to be paid for the doing a common act of Moslem charity; he had a wife and children, and the calling of an Alim[FN#22] is no longer worth much in Egypt.

My departure from Cairo was hastened by an accident. I lost my reputation by a little misfortune that happened in this wise.

[p.132]At Haji Wali's room in the Caravanserai, I met a Yuzbashi, or captain of Albanian Irregulars, who was in Egypt on leave from Al-Hijaz. He was a tall, bony, and broad-shouldered mountaineer, about forty years old, with the large bombe brow, the fierce eyes, thin lips, lean jaws, and peaky chin of his race. His mustachios were enormously long and tapering, and the rest of his face, like his head, was close shaven. His Fustan[FN#23] was none of the cleanest; nor was the red cap, which he wore rakishly pulled over his frowning forehead, quite free from stains. Not permitted to carry the favourite pistols, he contented himself with sticking his right hand in the empty belt, and stalking about the house with a most military mien. Yet he was as little of a bully as carpet knight, that same Ali Agha; his body showed many a grisly scar, and one of his shin bones had been broken by a Turkish bullet, when he was playing tricks on the Albanian hills,-an accident inducing a limp, which he attempted to conceal by a heavy swagger. When he spoke, his voice was affectedly gruff; he had a sad knack of sneering, and I never saw him thoroughly sober.

Our acquaintance began with a kind of storm, which blew over, and left fine weather. I was showing Haji Wali my pistols with Damascene barrels when Ali Agha entered the room. He sat down before me with a grin, which said intelligibly enough, "What business have you with weapons?"-s.n.a.t.c.hed the arm out of my hand, and began to inspect it as a connoisseur. Not admiring this procedure, I wrenched it away from him, and, addressing myself to Haji Wali, proceeded quietly with my dissertation. The captain of Irregulars and I then looked at each other. He c.o.c.ked his cap on one side, in token of excited pugnacity. I twirled my moustachios to display a kindred emotion. Had he been armed, and in Al-Hijaz,

[p.133]we should have fought it out at once, for the Arnauts are "terribili colla pistola," as the Italians say, meaning that upon the least provocation they pull out a horse-pistol, and fire it in the face of friend or foe. Of course, the only way under these circ.u.mstances is to antic.i.p.ate them; but even this desperate prevention seldom saves a stranger, as whenever there is danger, these men go about in pairs. I never met with a more reckless brood. Upon the line of march Albanian troops are not allowed ammunition; for otherwise there would be half a dozen duels a day. When they quarrel over their cups, it is the fashion for each man to draw a pistol, and to place it against his opponent's breast. The weapons being kept accurately clean, seldom miss fire, and if one combatant draw trigger before the other, he would immediately be shot down by the bystanders.[FN#24] In Egypt these men,-who are used as Irregulars, and are often quartered upon the hapless villagers, when unable or unwilling to pay taxes,-were the terror of the population. On many occasions they have quarrelled with foreigners, and insulted European women. In Al-Hijaz their recklessness awes even the Badawin.

The townspeople say of them that, "tripe-sellers, and bath-servants, at Stambul, they become Pharaohs (tyrants, ruffians,) in Arabia." At Jeddah the Arnauts have amused themselves with firing at the English Consul, Mr. Ogilvie, when he walked upon his terrace. And this man-shooting appears a favourite sport with them: at Cairo numerous stories ill.u.s.trate the sang froid with which they used to knock over the camel-drivers, if any one dared to ride past their barracks. The Albanians vaunt their skill in using weapons, and their pretensions impose upon Arabs as well as Egyptians; yet I have never found them wonderful with any arm

[p.134](the pistol alone excepted); and our officers, who have visited their native hills, speak of them as tolerable but by no means first-rate rifle shots.

The captain of Irregulars being unhappily debarred the pleasure of shooting me, after looking fierce for a time, rose, and walked majestically out of the room. A day or two afterwards, he called upon me civilly enough, sat down, drank a cup of coffee, smoked a pipe, and began to converse. But as he knew about a hundred Arabic words, and I as many Turkish, our conversation was carried on under difficulties.

Presently he asked me in a whisper for "'Araki."[FN#25] I replied that there was none in the house, which induced a sneer and an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n sounding like "Himar," (a.s.s,) the slang synonym amongst fast Moslems for water-drinker. After rising to depart, he seized me waggishly, with an eye to a trial of strength. Thinking that an Indian doctor and a temperance man would not be very dangerous, he exposed himself to what is professionally termed a "cross-b.u.t.tock," and had his "nut" come in contact with the stone floor instead of my bed, he might not have drunk for many a day. The fall had a good effect upon his temper. He jumped up,

[p.135]patted my head, called for another pipe, and sat down to show me his wounds, and to boast of his exploits. I could not help remarking a ring of English gold, with a bezel of bloodstone, sitting strangely upon his coa.r.s.e, sun-stained hand. He declared that it had been s.n.a.t.c.hed by him from a Konsul (Consul) at Jeddah, and he volubly related, in a mixture of Albanian, Turkish, and Arabic, the history of his acquisition. He begged me to supply him with a little poison that "would not lie," for the purpose of quieting a troublesome enemy, and he carefully stowed away in his pouch five grains of calomel, which I gave him for that laudable purpose. Before taking leave he pressed me strongly to go and drink with him; I refused to do so during the day, but, wishing to see how these men sacrifice to Bacchus, promised compliance that night. About nine o'clock, when the Caravanserai was quiet, I took a pipe, and a tobacco-pouch,[FN#26] stuck my dagger in my belt, and slipped into Ali Agha's room. He was sitting on a bed spread upon the ground: in front of him stood four wax candles (all Orientals hate drinking in any but a bright light), and a tray containing a basin of stuff like soup maigre, a dish of cold stewed meat, and two bowls of Salatah,[FN#27] sliced cuc.u.mber, and curds. The "materials" peeped out of an iron pot filled with water; one was a long, thin, white-gla.s.s flask of 'Araki, the other a bottle of some strong

[p.136]perfume. Both were wrapped up in wet rags, the usual refrigerator.

Ali Agha welcomed me politely, and seeing me admire the preparations, bade me beware how I suspected an Albanian of not knowing how to drink; he made me sit by him on the bed, threw his dagger to a handy distance, signalled me to do the same, and prepared to begin the bout. Taking up a little tumbler, in shape like those from which French postilions used to drink la goutte, he inspected it narrowly, wiped out the interior with his forefinger, filled it to the brim, and offered it to his guest[FN#28] with a bow. I received it with a low salam, swallowed its contents at once, turned it upside down in proof of fair play, replaced it upon the floor, with a jaunty movement of the arm, somewhat like a pugilist delivering a "rounder," bowed again, and requested him to help himself. The same ceremony followed on his part. Immediately after each gla.s.s,-and rapidly the cup went about,-we swallowed a draught of water, and ate a spoonful of the meat or the Salatah in order to cool our palates. Then we re-applied ourselves to our pipes, emitting huge puffs, a sign of being "fast" men, and looked facetiously at each other,-drinking being considered by Moslems a funny and pleasant sort of sin.

The Albanian captain was at least half seas over when we began the bout, yet he continued to fill and to drain without showing the least progress towards ebriety. I in vain for a time expected the bad-masti (as the Persians call it,) the horse play, and the gross facetiae, which generally

[p.137]accompany southern and eastern tipsiness. Ali Agha, indeed, occasionally took up the bottle of perfume, filled the palm of his right hand, and dashed it in my face: I followed his example, but our pleasantries went no further.

Presently my companion started a grand project, namely, that I should entice the respectable Haji Wali into the room, where we might force him to drink. The idea was facetious; it was making a Bow-street magistrate polk at a casino. I started up to fetch the Haji; and when I returned with him Ali Agha was found in a new stage of "freshness." He had stuck a green-leaved twig upright in the floor, and had so turned over a gugglet of water, that its contents trickled slowly, in a tiny stream under the verdure; whilst he was sitting before it mentally gazing, with an outward show of grim Quixotic tenderness, upon the shady trees and the cool rills of his fatherland. Possibly he had peopled the place with "young barbarians at play;" for verily I thought that a tear "which had no business there" was glistening in his stony eye.

The appearance of Haji Wali suddenly changed the scene. Ali Agha jumped up, seized the visitor by the shoulder, compelled him to sit down, and, ecstasied by the old man's horror at the scene, filled a tumbler, and with the usual grotesque grimaces insisted upon its being drunk off.

Haji Wali stoutly refused; then Ali Agha put it to his own lips, and drained it, with a hurt feeling and reproachful aspect. We made our unconvivial friend smoke a few puffs, and then we returned to the charge. In vain the Haji protested that throughout life he had avoided the deadly sin; in vain he promised to drink with us to-morrow,-in vain he quoted the Koran, and alternately coaxed, and threatened us with the police. We were inexorable. At last the Haji started upon his feet, and rushed away, regardless of any thing but escape,

[p.138]leaving his Tarbush, his slippers, and his pipe, in the hands of the enemy. The host did not dare to pursue his recreant guest beyond the door, but returning he carefully sprinkled the polluting liquid on the cap, pipe, and shoes, and called the Haji an a.s.s in every tongue he knew.

Then we applied ourselves to supper, and dispatched the soup, the stew, and the Salatah. A few tumblers and pipes were exhausted to obviate indigestion, when Ali Agha arose majestically, and said that he required a troop of dancing girls to gladden his eyes with a ballet.

I represented that such persons are no longer admitted into Caravanserais.[FN#29] He inquired, with calm ferocity, "who hath forbidden it?" I replied "the Pasha;" upon which Ali Agha quietly removed his cap, brushed it with his dexter fore-arm, fitted it on his forehead, raking forwards, twisted his mustachios to the sharp point of a single hair, shouldered his pipe, and moved towards the door, vowing that he would make the Pasha himself come, and dance before us.

I foresaw a brawl, and felt thankful that my boon companion had forgotten his dagger. Prudence whispered me to return to my room, to bolt the door, and to go to bed, but conscience suggested that it would be unfair to abandon the Albanian in his present helpless state. I followed him into the outer gallery, pulling him, and begging him, as a despairing wife might urge a drunken husband, to return home. And he, like the British husband, being greatly irritated by the unjovial advice, instantly belaboured with his pipe-stick[FN#30] the first person

[p.139]he met in the gallery, and sent him flying down the stairs with fearful shouts of "O Egyptians! O ye accursed! O genus of Pharaoh! O race of dogs! O Egyptians!"

He then burst open a door with his shoulder, and reeled into a room where two aged dames were placidly reposing by the side of their spouses, who were basket-makers. They immediately awoke, seeing a stranger, and, hearing his foul words, they retorted with a hot volley of vituperation.

Put to flight by the old women's tongues, Ali Agha, in spite of all my endeavours, reeled down the stairs, and fell upon the sleeping form of the night porter, whose blood he vowed to drink-the Oriental form of threatening "spiflication." Happily for the a.s.saulted, the Agha's servant, a st.u.r.dy Albanian lad, was lying on a mat in the doorway close by. Roused by the tumult, he jumped up, and found the captain in a state of fury. Apparently the man was used to the master's mood.

Without delay he told us all to a.s.sist, and we lending a helping hand, half dragged and half carried the Albanian to his room. Yet even in this ign.o.ble plight, he shouted with all the force of his lungs the old war-cry, "O Egyptians! O race of dogs! I have dishonoured all Sikandariyah-all Kahirah-all Suways.[FN#31]" And in this vaunting frame of mind he was put to bed. No Welsh undergraduate at Oxford, under similar circ.u.mstances, ever gave more trouble.

"You had better start on your pilgrimage at once,"

[p.140]said Haji Wali, meeting me the next morning with a "goguenard"

smile.

He was right. Throughout the Caravanserai nothing was talked of for nearly a week but the wickedness of the captain of Albanian Irregulars, and the hypocrisy of the staid Indian doctor. Thus it was, gentle reader, that I lost my reputation of being a "serious person" at Cairo.

And all I have to show for it is the personal experience of an Albanian drinking-bout.

I wasted but little time in taking leave of my friends, telling them, by way of precaution, that my destination was Meccah via Jeddah, and firmly determining, if possible, to make Al-Madinah via Yambu'.

"Conceal," says the Arab's proverb, "Thy Tenets, thy Treasure, and thy Travelling."

[FN#1] Festival. It lasts the three first days of Shawwal, the month immediately following Ramazan, and therefore, among Moslems, corresponds with our Paschal holidays, which succeed Lent. It is called the "Lesser Festival," the "Greater" being in Zu'l Hijjah, the pilgrimage-month.

[FN#2] In Chap. V. of this Volume, I have mentioned this cemetery as Burckhardt's last resting-place.

[FN#3] You are bound also to meet even your enemies in the most friendly way-for which mortification you afterwards hate them more cordially than before.

[FN#4] Persian.

[FN#5] With due deference to the many of a different opinion, I believe "Kahirah" (corrupted through the Italian into Cairo) to mean, not the "victorious," but the "City of Kahir," or Mars the Planet. It was so called because, as Richardson has informed the world, it was founded in A.D. 968 by one Jauhar, a Dalmatian renegade before mentioned, when the warlike planet was in the ascendant.

[FN#6] "There were no weeping women; no neighhours came in to sit down in the ashes, as they might have done had the soldier died at home; there was no Nubian dance for the dead, no Egyptian song of the women lauding the memory of the deceased, and beseeching him to tell why he had left them alone in the world to weep."-(Letter from Widdin, March 25, 1854, describing a Turkish soldier's funeral.) [FN#7] Captain Haines wisely introduced the custom into Aden. I wonder that it is not made universal in the cities of India, where so much iniquity is perpetrated under the shadow of night.

[FN#8] The reason being that respectable Europeans, and the pa.s.sengers by the Overland Mail, live and lodge in this quarter.

[FN#9] "Our lord," i.e. H.H. the Pasha. "Kikh" is an interjection noting disapproval, or disgust.-"Fie!" or "Ugh!"

[FN#10] Shortly after the Ramazan of 1853, the Consul, I am told, obtained an order that British subjects should be sent directly from the police office, at all hours of the night, to the Consulate. This was a most sensible measure.

[FN#11] Most Eastern nations, owing to their fine ear for sounds, are quick at picking up languages; but the Armenian is here, what the Russian is in the West, the facile princeps of conversational linguists. I have frequently heard them speak with the purest accent, and admirable phraseology, besides their mother tongue, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani, nor do they evince less apt.i.tude for acquiring the Occidental languages.

[FN#12] It has been too frequently treated of, to leave room for a fresh description. Though pretty and picturesque, it is open to the reproach of Moslem dressing, namely, that the in-door toilette admits of a display of bust, and is generally so scanty and flimsy that it is unfit to meet the eye of a stranger. This, probably the effect of secluding women, has now become a cause for concealing them.

[FN#13] He was from the banks of the Nile, as his cognomen, al-Basyuni proves, but his family, I was told, had been settled for three or four generations at Meccah.

[FN#14] Almost all the articles of food were so far useful, that they served every one of the party at least as much as they did their owner.

My friends drank my coffee, smoked my tobacco, and ate my rice. I bought better tea at Meccah than at Cairo, and found as good sugar there. It would have been wiser to lay in a small stock merely for the voyage to Yambu', in which case there might have been more economy. But I followed the advice of those interested in setting me wrong. Turks and Egyptians always go pilgrimaging with a large outfit, as notably as the East-Indian cadet of the present day, and your outfitter at Cairo, as well as Cornhill, is sure to supply you with a variety of superfluities. The tent was useful to me; so were the water-skins, which I preferred to barrels, as being more portable, and less liable to leak. Good skins cost about a dollar each; they should be bought new and always kept half full of water.

[FN#15] This shape secures the lid, which otherwise, on account of the weight of the box, would infallibly be torn off, or burst open. Like the Kafas, the Sahharah should be well padlocked, and if the owner be a saving man, he does not entrust his keys to a servant. I gave away my Kafas at Yambu', because it had been crushed during the sea-voyage, and I was obliged to leave the Sahharah at Al-Madinah, as my Badawi camel-shaykh positively refused to carry it to Meccah, so that both these articles were well nigh useless to me. The Kafas cost four shillings, and the Sahharah about twelve. When these large boxes are really strong and good, they are worth about a pound sterling each.