Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah Volume I Part 4

say the Arabs. And the Persians apply the following pithy tale to their neighbours. "Brother," said the leopard to the jackal, "I crave a few of thy cast-off hairs; I want them for medicine;[FN#14] where can I find them?" "Wa'llahi!" replied the jackal, "I don't exactly know-I seldom change my coat-I wander about the hills. Allah is bounteous,[FN#15] brother! hairs are not so easily shed."

Woe to the unhappy Englishman, Pasha, or private soldier, who must serve an Eastern lord! Worst of all, if the master be an Indian, who, hating all Europeans,[FN#16]

[p.40]adds an especial spite to Oriental coa.r.s.eness, treachery, and tyranny. Even the experiment of a.s.sociating with them is almost too hard to bear. But a useful deduction may be drawn from such observations; and as few have had greater experience than myself, I venture to express my opinion with confidence, however unpopular or unfashionable it may be.

I am convinced that the natives of India cannot respect a European who mixes with them familiarly, or especially who imitates their customs, manners, and dress. The tight pantaloons, the authoritative voice, the pococurante manner, and the broken Hindustani impose upon them-have a weight which learning and honesty, which wit and courage, have not.

This is to them the master's att.i.tude: they bend to it like those Scythian slaves that faced the sword but fled from the horsewhip. Such would never be the case amongst a brave people, the Afghan for instance; and for the same reason it is not so, we read, with "White Plume," the North American Indian. "The free trapper combines in the eye of an Indian (American) girl, all that is dashing and heroic in a warrior of her own race, whose gait and garb and bravery he emulates, with all that is gallant and glorious in the white man." There is but one cause for this phenomenon; the "imbelles Indi" are still, with few exceptions,[FN#17] a cowardly and slavish people, who would raise themselves by depreciating those superior to them in the scale of creation. The Afghans and American aborigines, being chivalrous races, rather exaggerate the valour of their foes, because by so doing they exalt their own.[FN#18]

[FN#1] Villages notorious for the peculiar Egyptian revelry, an undoubted relic of the good old times, when "the most religious of men"

revelled at Canopus with an ardent piety in honour of Isis and Osiris.

[FN#2] "Haykal" was a pleasant fellow, who, having basely abused the confidence of the fair ones of Wardan, described their charms in sarcastic verse, and stuck his scroll upon the door of the village mosque, taking at the same time the wise precaution to change his lodgings without delay. The very mention of his name affronts the brave Wardanenses to the last extent, making them savage as Oxford bargees.

[FN#3] The Barrage is a handsome bridge,-putting the style of architecture out of consideration,-the work of French engineers, originally projected by Napoleon the First. It was intended to act as a dam, raising the waters of the Nile and conducting them to Suez, the salt lakes, and a variety of other places, through a number of ca.n.a.ls, which, however, have not yet been opened. Meanwhile, it acts upon the river's trunk as did the sea of old upon its embouchures, blocking it up and converting the land around it to the condition of a swamp.

Moreover, it would have cleaned out the bed by means of sluice gates, forming an artificial increase of current to draw off the deposit; but the gates are wanting, so the piers, serving only to raise the soil by increasing the deposit of silt, collect and detain suspended matter, which otherwise would not settle. Briefly, by a trifling expenditure the Barrage might be made a blessing to Egypt; in its present state it is a calamity, an "enormous, cruel wonder," more crushing to the people than were the pyramids and sphinxes of old.

[FN#4] Those skilled in simples, Eastern as well as Western, praise garlic highly, declaring that it "strengthens the body, prepares the const.i.tution for fatigue, brightens the sight, and, by increasing the digestive power, obviates the ill-effects arising from sudden change of air and water." The traveller inserts it into his dietary in some pleasant form, as "Provence-b.u.t.ter," because he observes that, wherever fever and ague abound, the people, ignorant of cause but observant of effect, make it a common article of food. The old Egyptians highly esteemed this vegetable, which, with onions and leeks, enters into the list of articles so much regretted by the Hebrews (Numbers, xi. 5; Koran, chap. 2). The modern people of the Nile, like the Spaniards, delight in onions, which, as they contain between 25 and 30 per cent.

of gluten, are highly nutritive. In Arabia, however, the stranger must use this vegetable sparingly. The city people despise it as the food of a Fellah-a boor. The Wahhabis have a prejudice against onions, leeks, and garlic, because the Prophet disliked their strong smell, and all strict Moslems refuse to eat them immediately before visiting the mosque, or meeting for public prayer.

[FN#5] A policeman; see Chap. I.

[FN#6] The stricter sort of Moslems, such as the Arabs, will not wear gold ornaments, which are forbidden by their law.

[FN#7] See "The Gold Mines of Midian," and "The Land of Midian (Revisited)," by Sir R. F. Burton.

[FN#8] The projecting latticed window, made of wood richly carved, for which Cairo was once so famous. But they are growing out of fashion with young Egypt, disappearing before heating gla.s.s and unsightly green blinds.

[FN#9] Caste in India arises from the peculiarly sociable nature of the native mind, for which reason "it is found existing among sects whose creeds are as different and as opposite as those of the Hindu and the Christian." (B. A. Irving's Prize Essay on the Theory and Practice of Caste.) Hence, nothing can be more terrible to a man than expulsion from caste; the excommunication of our feudal times was not a more dreadful form of living death.

[FN#10] With us every man's house is his castle. But caste divides a people into huge families, each member of which has a right to know everything about his "caste-brother," because a whole body might be polluted and degraded by the act of an individual. Hence, there is no such thing as domestic privacy, and no system of espionnage devised by rulers could be so complete as that self-imposed by the Hindus.

[FN#11] The Calcutta Review (No. 41), noticing "L'Inde sous la Domination Anglaise," by the Baron Barchou de Penhoen, delivers the following sentiment: "Whoever states, as the Baron B. de P. states and repeats, again and again, that the natives generally entertain a bad opinion of the Europeans generally, states what is decidedly untrue."

The reader will observe that I differ as decidedly from the Reviewer's opinion. Popular feeling towards the English in India was "at first one of fear, afterwards of horror: Hindus and Hindis (Moslems) considered the strangers a set of cow-eaters and fire-drinkers, tetrae beluae ac molossis suis ferociores, who would fight like Iblis, cheat their own fathers, and exchange with the same readiness a broadside of shots and thrusts of boarding-pikes, or a bale of goods and a bag of rupees."

(Rev. Mr. Anderson-The English in Western India.) We have risen in a degree above such a low standard of estimation; still, incredible as it may appear to the Frank himself, it is no less true, that the Frank everywhere in the East is considered a contemptible being, and dangerous withal. As regards Indian opinion concerning our government, my belief is, that in and immediately about the three presidencies, where the people owe everything to and hold everything by our rule, it is most popular. At the same time I am convinced that in other places the people would most willingly hail any change. And how can we hope it to be otherwise,-we, a nation of strangers, aliens to the country's customs and creed, who, even while resident in India, act the part which absentees do in other lands? Where, in the history of the world, do we read that such foreign dominion ever made itself loved?

[FN#12] This was written three years before the Indian Mutiny. I also sent into the Court of Directors a much stronger report-for which I duly suffered.

[FN#13] In the Arabic "Muruwwat," generosity, the n.o.ble part of human nature, the qualities which make a man.

[FN#14] "For medicine," means for an especial purpose, an urgent occasion.

[FN#15] "Allah Karim!" said to a beggar when you do not intend to be bountiful.

[FN#16] Read an account of Tipu Sahib's treatment of his French employes. If Rangit Singh behaved better to his European officers, it was only on account of his paramount fear and hatred of the British.

The Panjabi story of the old lion's death is amusing enough, contrasted with that Anglomania of which so much has been said and written. When the Sikh king, they declare, heard of our success in Afghanistan-he had allowed us a pa.s.sage through his dominions, as ingress into a deadly trap-his spirits (metaphorically and literally) failed him; he had not the heart to drink, he sickened and he died.

[FN#17] The Rajputs, for instance, "whose land has ever been the focus of Indian chivalry, and the home of Indian heroes."

[FN#18] As my support against the possible, or rather the probable, imputation of "extreme opinions," I hold up the honoured name of the late Sir Henry Elliot (Preface to the Biographical Index to the Historians of Mohammedan India). "These idle vapourers (bombastic Babus, and other such political ranters), should learn that the sacred spark of patriotism is exotic here, and can never fall on a mine that can explode; for history will show them that certain peculiarities of physical, as well as moral organisation, neither to be strengthened by diet nor improved by education, have hitherto prevented their ever attempting a national independence; which will continue to exist to them but as a name, and as an offscouring of college declamations."

[p.41]CHAPTER IV.

LIFE IN THE WAKALAH.

THE "Wakalah," as the Caravanserai or Khan is called in Egypt, combines the offices of hotel, lodging-house, and store. It is at Cairo, as at Constantinople, a ma.s.sive pile of buildings surrounding a quadrangular "Hosh" or court-yard. On the ground-floor are rooms like caverns for merchandise, and shops of different kinds-tailors, cobblers, bakers, tobacconists, fruiterers, and others. A roofless gallery or a covered verandah, into which all the apartments open, runs round the first and sometimes the second story: the latter, however, is usually exposed to the sun and wind. The accommodations consist of sets of two or three rooms, generally an inner one and an outer; the latter contains a hearth for cooking, a bathing-place, and similar necessaries. The staircases are high, narrow, and exceedingly dirty; dark at night, and often in bad repair; a goat or donkey is tethered upon the different landings; here and there a fresh skin is stretched in process of tanning, and the smell reminds the veteran traveller of those closets in the old French

[p.42]inns where cat used to be prepared for playing the part of jugged hare. The interior is unfurnished; even the pegs upon which clothes are hung have been pulled down for fire-wood: the walls are bare but for stains, thick cobwebs depend in festoons from the blackened rafters of the ceiling, and the stone floor would disgrace a civilised prison: the windows are huge apertures carefully barred with wood or iron, and in rare places show remains of gla.s.s or paper pasted over the framework.

In the court-yard the poorer sort of travellers consort with tethered beasts of burden, beggars howl, and slaves lie basking and scratching themselves upon mountainous heaps of cotton bales and other merchandise.

This is not a tempting picture, yet is the Wakalah a most amusing place, presenting a succession of scenes which would delight lovers of the Dutch school-a rich exemplification of the grotesque, and what is called by artists the "dirty picturesque."

I could find no room in the Wakalah Khan Khalil, the Long's, or Meurice's of native Cairo; I was therefore obliged to put up with the Jamaliyah, a Greek quarter, swarming with drunken Christians, and therefore about as fashionable as Oxford Street or Covent Garden. Even for this I had to wait a week. The pilgrims were flocking to Cairo, and to none other would the prudent hotel keepers open their doors, for the following sufficient reasons. When you enter a Wakalah, the first thing you have to do is to pay a small sum, varying from two to five shillings, for the Miftah (the key). This is generally equivalent to a month's rent; so the sooner you leave the house the better for it. I was obliged to call myself a Turkish pilgrim in order to get possession of two most comfortless rooms, which I afterwards learned were celebrated for making travellers ill; and I had to pay eighteen piastres for the key and eighteen ditto per mensem for

[p.43]rent, besides five piastres to the man who swept and washed the place. So that for this month my house-hire amounted to nearly four pence a day.

But I was fortunate enough in choosing the Jamaliyah Wakalah, for I found a friend there. On board the steamer a fellow-voyager, seeing me sitting alone and therefore as he conceived in discomfort, placed himself by my side and opened a hot fire of kind inquiries. He was a man about forty-five, of middle size, with a large round head closely shaven, a bull-neck, limbs st.u.r.dy as a Saxon's, a thin red beard, and handsome features beaming with benevolence. A curious dry humour he had, delighting in "quizzing," but in so quiet, solemn, and quaint a way that before you knew him you could scarcely divine his drift.

"Thank Allah, we carry a doctor!" said my friend more than once, with apparent fervour of grat.i.tude, after he had discovered my profession. I was fairly taken in by the pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and some days elapsed before the drift of his remark became apparent.

"You doctors," he explained, when we were more intimate, "what do you do? A man goes to you for ophthalmia: it is a purge, a blister, and a drop in the eye! Is it for fever? well! a purge and kinakina (quinine).

For dysentery? a purge and extract of opium. Wa'llahi! I am as good a physician as the best of you," he would add with a broad grin, "if I only knew the Dirham-birhams,[FN#1]-drams and drachms,-and a few break-jaw Arabic names of diseases."

Haji Wali[FN#2] therefore emphatically advised me to

[p.44]make bread by honestly teaching languages. "We are doctor-ridden," said he, and I found it was the case.

When we lived under the same roof, the Haji and I became fast friends.

During the day we called on each other frequently, we dined together, and pa.s.sed the evening in a Mosque, or some other place of public pastime. Coyly at first, but less guardedly as we grew bolder, we smoked the forbidden weed "Hashish,[FN#3]" conversing lengthily the while about that world of which I had seen so much. Originally from Russia, he also had been a traveller, and in his wanderings he had cast off most of the prejudices of his people. "I believe in Allah and his Prophet, and in nothing else," was his st.u.r.dy creed; he rejected alchemy, jinnis and magicians, and truly he had a most unoriental distaste for tales of wonder. When I entered the Wakalah, he const.i.tuted himself my cicerone, and especially guarded me against the cheating of trades-men. By his advice I laid aside the Darwaysh's gown, the large blue pantaloons, and the short shirt; in fact all connection with Persia and the Persians. "If you persist in being an 'Ajami," said the Haji, "you will get yourself into trouble; in Egypt you will be cursed; in Arabia you will be beaten because you are a heretic; you will pay the treble of what other travellers do, and if you fall sick you may die by the roadside." After long deliberation about

[p.45]the choice of nations, I became a "Pathan.[FN#4]" Born in India of Afghan parents, who had settled in the country, educated at Rangoon, and sent out to wander, as men of that race frequently are, from early youth, I was well guarded against the danger of detection by a fellow-countryman. To support the character requires a knowledge of Persian, Hindustani and Arabic, all of which I knew sufficiently well to pa.s.s muster; any trifling inaccuracy was charged upon my long residence at Rangoon. This was an important step; the first question at the shop, on the camel, and in the Mosque, is "What is thy name?" the second, "Whence comest thou?" This is not generally impertinent, or intended to be annoying; if, however, you see any evil intention in the questioner, you may rather roughly ask him, "What may be his maternal parent's name?"-equivalent to enquiring, Anglice, in what church his mother was married,-and escape your difficulties under cover of the storm. But this is rarely necessary. I a.s.sumed the polite, pliant manners of an Indian physician, and the dress of a small Effendi (or gentleman), still, however, representing myself to be a Darwaysh, and frequenting the places where Darwayshes congregate. "What business,"

asked the Haji, "have those reverend men with politics or statistics, or any of the information which you are collecting? Call yourself a religious wanderer if you like, and let those who ask the object of your peregrinations know that you are under a vow to visit all the holy places in Al-Islam. Thus you will persuade them that you are a

[p.46]man of rank under a cloud, and you will receive much more civility than perhaps you deserve," concluded my friend with a dry laugh. The remark proved his sagacity; and after ample experience I had not to repent having been guided by his advice.

Haji Wali, by profession a merchant at Alexandria, had accompanied Khudabakhsh, the Indian, to Cairo on law-business. He soon explained his affairs to me, and as his case brought out certain Oriental peculiarities in a striking light, with his permission I offer a few of its details.

My friend was defendant in a suit inst.i.tuted against him in H.B.M.'s Consular Court, Cairo, by one Mohammed Shafi'a, a scoundrel of the first water. This man lived, and lived well, by setting up in business at places where his name was not known; he enticed the unwary by artful displays of capital; and, after succeeding in getting credit, he changed residence, carrying off all he could lay hands upon. But swindling is a profession of personal danger in uncivilised countries, where law punishes pauper debtors by a short imprisonment; and where the cheated prefer to gratify their revenge by the cudgel or the knife.

So Mohammed Shafi'a, after a few narrow escapes, hit upon a prime expedient. Though known to be a native of Bokhara-he actually signed himself so in his letters, and his appearance at once bespoke his origin,-he determined to protect himself by a British pa.s.sport. Our officials are sometimes careless enough in distributing these doc.u.ments, and by so doing they expose themselves to a certain loss of reputation at Eastern courts[FN#5]; still Mohammed Shafi'a

[p.47]found some difficulties in effecting his fraud. To recount all his Reynardisms would weary the reader; suffice it to say that by proper management of the subalterns in the consulate, he succeeded without ruining himself. Armed with this new defence, he started boldly for Jeddah on the Arabian coast. Having entered into partnership with Haji Wali, whose confidence he had won by prayers, fastings, and pilgrimages, he openly trafficked in slaves, sending them to Alexandria for sale, and writing with matchless impudence to his correspondent that he would dispose of them in person, but for fear of losing his British pa.s.sport and protection.

Presently an unlucky adventure embroiled this worthy British subject with Faraj Yusuf, the princ.i.p.al merchant of Jeddah, and also an English protege. Fearing so powerful an adversary, Mohammed Shafi'a packed up his spoils and departed for Egypt. Presently he quarrels with his former partner, thinking him a soft man, and claims from him a debt of L165. He supports his pretensions by a doc.u.ment and four witnesses, who are ready to swear that the receipt in question was "signed, sealed, and delivered" by Haji Wali. The latter adduces his books to show that accounts have been settled, and can prove that the witnesses in question are paupers, therefore, not legal; moreover, that each has received from the plaintiff two dollars, the price of perjury.

[p.48]Now had such a suit been carried into a Turkish court of justice, it would very sensibly have been settled by the bastinado, for Haji Wali was a respectable merchant, and Mohammed Shafi'a a notorious swindler. But the latter was a British subject, which notably influenced the question. The more to annoy his adversary, he went up to Cairo, and began proceedings there, hoping by this acute step to receive part payment of his demand.

Arrived at Cairo, Mohammed Shafi'a applied himself stoutly to the task of bribing all who could be useful to him, distributing shawls and piastres with great generosity. He secured the services of an efficient lawyer; and, determining to enlist heaven itself in his cause, he pa.s.sed the Ramazan ostentatiously; he fasted, and he slaughtered sheep to feed the poor.

Meanwhile Haji Wali, a simple truth-telling man, who could never master the rudiments of that art which teaches man to blow hot and to blow cold with the same breath, had been persuaded to visit Cairo by Khudabakhsh, the wily Indian, who promised to introduce him to influential persons, and to receive him in his house till he could provide himself with a lodging at the Wakalah. But Mohammed Shafi'a, who had once been in partnership with the Indian, and who possibly knew more than was fit to meet the public ear, found this out; and, partly by begging, partly by bullying, persuaded Khudabakhsh to transfer the influential introductions to himself. Then the Hakim[FN#6]

Abdullah-your humble servant-appears upon the scene: he has travelled in Feringistan, he has seen many men and their cities, he becomes an intimate and an adviser of the Haji, and he finds out evil pa.s.sages in Mohammed Shafi'a's life. Upon which Khudabakhsh ashamed, or rather afraid of his duplicity, collects his Indian friends. The Hakim Abdullah draws up a pet.i.tion

[p.49]addressed to Mr. Walne (H.B.M's Consul) by the Indian merchants and others resident at Cairo, informing him of Mohammed Shafi'a's birth, character, and occupation as a vendor of slaves, offering proof of all a.s.sertions, and praying him for the sake of their good name to take away his pa.s.sport. And all the Indians affix their seals to this paper. Then Mohammed Shafi'a threatens to waylay and to beat the Haji.

The Haji, not loud or hectoringly, but with a composed smile, advises his friends to hold him off.

One would suppose that such a doc.u.ment would have elicited some inquiry.But Haji Wali was a Persian protege, and proceedings between the Consulates had commenced before the pet.i.tion was presented. The pseudo-British subject, having been acknowledged as a real one, must be supported. Consuls, like kings, may err, but must not own to error. No notice was taken of the Indian pet.i.tion; worse still, no inquiry into the slave-affair was set on foot[FN#7]; and it was discovered that the pa.s.sport having been granted by a Consul-General could not with official etiquette be resumed by a Consul.[FN#8]

[p.50]Thus matters were destined to proceed as they began. Mohammed Shafi'a had offered 5,000 piastres to the Persian Consul's interpreter; this of course was refused, but still somehow or other all the Haji's affairs seemed to go wrong. His statements were mistranslated, his accounts were misunderstood, and the suit was allowed to drag on to a suspicious length. When I left Cairo in July, Haji Wali had been kept away nearly two months from his business and family, though both parties-for the plaintiff's purse was rapidly thinning-appeared eager to settle the difference by arbitration: when I returned from Arabia in October, matters were almost in statu quo ante, and when I started for India in January, the proceedings had not closed.

Such is a brief history, but too common, of a case in which the subject of an Eastern state has to contend against British influence. It is doubtless a point of honour to defend our proteges from injustice, but the higher principle should rest upon the base of common honesty. The worst part of such a case is, that the injured party has no redress.

"Fiat injust.i.tia, ruat coelum,"

is the motto of his "natural protectors," who would violate every law to gratify the false pride of a petty English official. And, saving the rare exceptions where rank or wealth command consideration, with what face, to use the native phrase, would a hapless Turk appeal to the higher powers, our ministers or our Parliament?

After lodging myself in the Wakalah, my first object was to make a certain stir in the world. In Europe your travelling doctor advertises the loss of a diamond ring, the gift of a Russian autocrat; or he monopolises a whole column in a newspaper, feeing perhaps a t.i.tle for the use of a signature; the large bra.s.s plate, the gold-headed cane, the rattling chariot, and the summons from the sermon complete the work. Here, there is no such Royal

[p.51]Road to medical fame. You must begin by sitting with the porter, who is sure to have blear eyes, into which you drop a little nitrate of silver, whilst you instil into his ear the pleasing intelligence that you never take a fee from the poor. He recovers; his report of you spreads far and wide, crowding your doors with paupers. They come to you as though you were their servant, and when cured they turn their backs upon you for ever. Hence it is that European doctors generally complain of ingrat.i.tude on the part of their Oriental patients. It is true that if you save a man's life, he naturally asks you for the means of preserving it. Moreover, in none of the Eastern languages with which I am acquainted is there a single term conveying the meaning of our "grat.i.tude," and none but Germans[FN#9] have ideas unexplainable by words. But you must not condemn this absence of a virtue without considering the cause. An Oriental deems that he has the right to your surplus. "Daily bread is divided" (by heaven), he a.s.serts, and eating yours, he considers it his own. Thus it is with other things. He is thankful to Allah for the gifts of the Creator, but he has a claim to the good offices of a fellow-creature. In rendering him a service you have but done your duty, and he would not pay you so poor a compliment as to praise you for the act. He leaves you, his benefactor, with a short prayer for the length of your days. "Thank you," being expressed by "Allah increase thy weal!" or the selfish wish that your shadow (with which you protect him and his fellows) may never be less. And this is probably the last you hear of him.