Chapter V: Appendix: I—chronological Table 409 (4)

The divers wear no elaborate diving-suit, but descend clothed only in their _fitaam_ and _khabaat_. The first is a true _pince-nez_ or clothespin-like clasp for their nostrils. It is made of two thin slices of horn fastened together with a rivet or cut out whole in a quarter circle so as to fit the lower part of the nose and keep out the water. It has a perforated head through which a string passes and which suspends it from the divers neck when not in use. _Khabaat_ are “finger-hats” made of leather and thrice the length of an ordinary thimble. They are worn to protect the fingers in gathering the pearl-shells from the sea-bottom; at the height of the pearl season large baskets full of all sizes of these finger-caps are exposed for sale in the bazaar. Each diver uses two sets (_twenty_) in a season. A basket, called _dajeen_, and a stone-weight complete the diver’s outfit. This stone, on which the diver stands when he plunges down feet-first, is fastened to a rope passing between his toes and is immediately raised; another rope is attached to the diver and his basket by which he gives the signal and is drawn up. The best divers remain below only two or three minutes at most, and when they come up are nine-tenths suffocated. Many of them are brought up unconscious and often cannot be brought to life. Deafness, and suppuration of the ear, due to carelessness or perforated ear-drums, caused by the enormous pressure of the water at such depths, are common among divers. Rheumatism and neuralgia are universal and the pearl-fishers are the great exception among the Arabs in not possessing beautiful teeth.

Sharks are plentiful and it is not a rare thing for them to attack divers. But the Bahrein divers are more fearful of a small species of devil-fish which lays hold of any part of the body and draws blood rapidly. Against this monster of the sea they guard themselves by wearing an “overall” of white cloth during the early part of the season when it frequents the banks. Their tales of horror regarding the devil-fish equal those of Victor Hugo in his “Toilers of the Sea.”

The divers remain out in their boats as long as their supply of fresh water lasts, often three weeks or even more. Sir Edwin Arnold’s lines are thus not as correct as they are beautiful:

“Dear as the wet diver to the eyes
Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore
By sands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf;
Plunging all day in the blue waves; at night,
Having made up his tale of precious pearls,
Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore.”

When the pearl-oysters are brought up they are left on deck over night and the next morning are opened by means of a curved knife, six inches long, called _miflaket_. Before the days of English commerce the mother-of-pearl was thrown away as worthless. Now it has a good market-value and (after being scraped free of the small parasites that infest the outer shell) is packed in wooden crates and exported in large quantities. The total value of this export in 1897 was £5,694 ($28,000). The Arabs have asked me in amazement what in the world the “Franks” do with empty sea-shells; and some tell idle tales of how they are ground up into pearl dust and pressed into artificial gems, or are used as a veneer to cover brick houses.

On shore the pearls are classified by the merchants, according to weight, size, shape, color and brilliancy. There are button-pearls, pendants, roundish, oval, flat, and perfect pearls; pearls, white, yellow, golden, pink, blue, azure, green, grey, dull and black; seed-pearls the size of grains of sand and pearls as large as an Arab’s report, emphasized with frequent _wallahs_, can make them. I have seen a pendant pearl the size of a hazelnut worth a few thousand rupees but there are Arabs who will swear by the prophet’s beard (each hair of which is sacred!) that they have brought up pearls as large as a pigeon’s egg. The pearl brokers carry their wares about tied in bags of turkey-red calico; they weigh them in tiny brass scales and learn their exact size by an ingenious device consisting of a nest of brass sieves, called _taoos_, six in number, with apertures slightly differing in size. The pearls are put into the largest sieve first; those that do not fall through its pea-sized holes are called, _Ras_, “chief”; such are generally pearls of great price, although their value depends most on weight and perfection of form. The second size is called _Batu_, “belly,” and the third _Dhail_, “tail.” Color has only a fashion-value; Europe prefers white and the Orient the golden-yellow; black pearls are not highly esteemed by Orientals.

Before they are shipped the large pearls are cleaned in _reeta_ a kind of native soap-powder, and the smaller ones in soft brown sugar; then they are tied up in calico and sold in lots by weight, each bundle being supposed to contain pearls of average equal value. How it is possible to collect custom dues on _pearls_ among a people whose consciences rival their wide breast-pockets in concealing capacity, surpasses comprehension. But the thing is done, for the farmer of the custom dues grows rich and the statistics of export are not pure guess-work.

The Bahrein islands also produce quantities of dates, and there is an export trade in a remarkably fine breed of asses, celebrated all over the Persian Gulf. A good Bahrein donkey is easy to ride and almost as good a roadster as an average horse. The only manufactures, beside sail-sheeting, are coarse cloth for turbans, and reed-mats of very fine texture. The chief imports are rice, timber and piece-goods for which Bahrein is the depot for all eastern Arabia. Three sights are shown to the stranger-tourist to the islands of Bahrein: the pearl-fisheries, the fresh-water springs, and the ancient ruins of an early civilization at the village of Ali. These ruins are the “_bayoot el owalin_” the dwellings of the first inhabitants, who are believed to have been destroyed by Allah because of their wickedness. An hour’s ride through the date gardens and past the minarets brings us to the village of Ali. It can generally be seen from a good distance because of the smoke which rises from the huge ovens where pottery is baked. The potter turns his wheel to-day and fashions the native water-jars with deft hand utterly ignorant and careless of the curious sepulchral tumuli which cast their shade at his feet. South and west of the village the whole plain is studded with mounds, at least three hundred of them, the largest being about forty feet in height. Only two or three have ever been opened or explored. Theodore Bent in company with his wife explored these in 1889, with meagre results, but no further investigations have been made though it is a field that may yet yield large results. M. Jules Oppert, the French Assyriologist, and others regard the island as an extremely old centre of civilization and it is now well known that the first settlements from ancient Babylonia were in the Persian Gulf which then extended as far north as Mugheir, near Suk-es Shiukh. But those first settlers probably went to the coasts of Africa and to the kingdoms of Southern Arabia, in which case Bahrein was on their line of travel. It must always have been a depot for shipping because of its abundant water-supply in a region where fresh-water is generally scarce. The mounds at Ali probably date from this very early period; although no corroboration in the shape of cylinders or bricks bearing inscriptions has yet been found, the character of the structures found in the mounds is undoubted proof of their great antiquity.

The larger mound opened by Bent, now consists of two rock-built chambers of very large stones, square masonry, and no trace of an arch or a pillar. The lower chamber is twenty-eight feet in length, five feet in width, and eight feet high; it has four niches or recesses about three feet deep, two at the end of the passage and two near its entrance. The upper chamber is of the same length as the lower, but its width is six inches less, and its height only four feet eight inches. The lower passage is hand plastered as an impression of the mason’s hand on the side wall still proves. If diggings were made _below_ the mounds or other mounds were opened better results might follow, and perhaps inscriptions or cylinders would be discovered. A year or two ago a jar containing a large number of gold coins was found near Ali by some native workmen; these however were Cufic and of a much later period than the mounds. Near Yau and Zillag, on the other side of the island there are also ruins and very deep wells cut through solid rock with _deep_ rope-marks on the curbing; perhaps these also are of early date. On the island of Moharrek there is a place called _Ed Dair_, “the monastery” with ruins of what the Arabs call a church; whether this is of Portuguese date like the castle or goes back to a much earlier period before Mohammed, we cannot tell.

The climate of Bahrein is not as bad as it is often described by casual visitors. No part of the Persian Gulf can be called a health resort, but neither is the climate unhealthful at all seasons of the year. In March and April, October, November and December the weather is delightful, indoor temperatures seldom rising above 85° F., or falling below 60° F. When north winds blow in January and February it is often cold enough for a fire; these are the rainy months of the year and least healthful, especially to the natives in their badly-built mat-huts. From May to September inclusive is the hot season, although the nights remain cool and the heat is tempered by sea-breezes (called, _El Barih_), until the middle of June. Heavy dews at night are common and make the atmosphere murky and oppressive when there is no sea-breeze. Land-breezes from the west and south continue irregularly throughout the entire summer. When they fail the thermometer leaps to over one hundred and remains there day and night until the ripples on the stagnant, placid sea proclaim a respite from the torture of sweltering heat. A record of temperature, kept at Menamah village in the summer of 1893, shows a minimum indoor temperature of 85° and a maximum of 107°F., in the shade. The prevailing wind at Bahrein, and in fact all over the Gulf, is the _shemmāl_ or Northwester changing its direction slightly with the trend of the coast. The air during a shemmāl is generally very dry and the sky cloudless, but in winter they are sometimes at first accompanied by rain-squalls. In winter they are very severe and endanger the shipping. The only other strong wind is called _kaus_; it is a southeaster and blows irregularly from December to April. It is generally accompanied by thick, gloomy weather, with severe squalls and falling barometer. The saying among sailors that “there is always too much wind in the Gulf or none at all,” is very true of Bahrein.

This saying holds true also of the political history of the Gulf. Bahrein, because of its pearl-trade has ever been worth contending for and it has been a bone of contention among the neighboring rulers ever since the naval battle fought by the early inhabitants against the Romans. After Mohammed’s day the Carmathians overran the islands. Portuguese, Arabs from Oman, Persians, Turks and lastly the English have each in turn claimed rule or protection over the archipelago. It is sufficient to note here that in 1867, ’Isa bin Ali (called _Esau_ in Curzon’s “Persia,” as if the name came from Jacob’s brother instead of the Arab form of Jesus!) was appointed ruling Sheikh by the British who deposed his father Mohammed bin Khalifa for plotting piracy.

The present Sheikh is a typical Arab and spends most of his time in hawking and the chase; the religious rule, which in a Moslem land means the judicial and executive department, rests with the _Kadi_ or Judge. There is no legislature as the law was laid down once for all in the Koran and the traditions. The administration of _justice_ is rare. Oppression, blackmail and bribery are universal; and, except in commerce and the slave-trade, English protection has brought about no reforms on the island. To be “protected” means here strict neutrality as to the internal affairs and absolute dictation as to affairs with other governments. To “protect” means to keep matters in _status quo_ until the hour is ripe for annexation. Sometimes the process from the one to the other is so gradual as to resemble growth; in such a case it would be correct to speak of the growth of the British Empire.

Contact with Europeans and western civilization has, however, done much for Bahrein in the matter of disarming prejudice and awakening the sluggish mind of the Arab to look beyond his own “Island of the Arabs.” Even as early as 1867, Palgrave could write: “From the maritime and in a manner central position of Bahreyn my readers may of themselves conjecture that the profound ignorance of Nejd regarding Europeans and their various classifications is here exchanged for a partial acquaintance with those topics; thus, English and French, disfigured into the local _Ingleez_ and _Francees_ are familiar words at Menamah, though Germans and Italians, whose vessels seldom or never visit these seas, have as yet no place in the Bahreyn vocabulary; while Dutch and Portuguese seem to have fallen into total oblivion. But Russians or _Moskop_, that is Muscovites, are alike known and feared, thanks to Persian intercourse and the instinct of nations. Beside the policy of Constantinople and Teheran are freely and at times sensibly discussed in these coffee-houses no less than the stormy diplomacy of Nejd and her dangerous encroachments.”

To the Bahrein Arabs Bombay is the centre of the world of civilization, and he who has seen that city is distinguished as knowing all about the ways of foreigners. So anxious are the boys for a trip on the British India steamer to this Eldorado of science and mystery that they sometimes run from home and go as stowaways or beg their passage. This close contact with India has had its effect on the Arabic spoken on the island which, although not a dialect, is full of Hindustani words. Of late years there has been a considerable Persian immigration into Bahrein from the coast between Lingah and Bushire, and next to Arabic, Persian is the language most in use.

XI

THE EASTERN THRESHOLD OF ARABIA

Beyond Bahrein the mainland stretches westward for eight hundred miles across the province of Hassa and lower Nejd and Hejaz to the Red Sea. As Jiddah is the western port, Bahrein is the eastern port for all Arabia. It is the gateway to the interior, the threshold of which is Hassa. Draw a line from Menamah to Katif, then on to Hofhoof (or El Hassa) and thence back to Menamah, and the triangle formed will include every important town or village of Eastern Arabia. North of that triangle on the coast is the inhospitable barren, thinly populated, country of the Bni Hajar; south of it is the peninsula of El Katar; westward stretches the sandy desert for five days’ marches to Riad and the old Wahabi country. The region thus bounded is really the whole of Hassa, although on maps that name is given to the whole coast as far as Busrah. But neither the authority of the Turkish government nor the significance of the word _Hassa_ (low, moist ground) can be said to extend outside of the triangle.

The peninsula of El Katar, about 100 miles long and fifty broad, is unattractive in every way and barren enough to be called a desert. Palgrave’s pen-picture cannot be improved upon: “To have an idea of Katar my readers must figure to themselves miles on miles of low barren hills, bleak and sun-scorched, with hardly a single tree to vary the dry monotonous outline; below these a muddy beach extends for a quarter of a mile seaward in slimy quicksands, bordered by a rim of sludge and seaweed. If we look landwards beyond the hills we see what by extreme courtesy may be called pasture land, dreary downs with twenty pebbles for every blade of grass; and over this melancholy ground scene, but few and far between, little clusters of wretched, most wretched earth cottages and palm-leaf huts, narrow, ugly and low; these are the villages, or ‘towns’ (for so the inhabitants style them) of Katar. Yet poor and naked as is the land it has evidently something still poorer and nakeder behind it, something in short even more devoid of resources than the coast itself, and the inhabitants of which seek here by violence what they cannot find at home. For the villages of Katar are each and all carefully walled in, while the downs beyond are lined with towers and here and there a castle, huge and square with its little windows and narrow portals.”

The population of Katar is not large; its principal town is Bedaa’. All the inhabitants live from the sea by pearl-diving and fishing, and in the season send out two hundred boats. The whole peninsula with its wild Bedouin population is claimed by Turkey and is the dread of the miserable soldiers who are sent there to preserve peace and draw precarious pay while they shake with malaria and grow homesick for Bagdad. The Arabs are always at feud with the government and it is very unsafe outside the walls after sunset.

The usual route from Bahrein to the interior of Hassa is to cross over by boat to Ojeir on the mainland, and thence to travel by caravan to Hofhoof. In October, 1893, I took this route, returning from the capital to Katif and thence back to Menamah. Embarking at sunset we landed at Ojeir before dawn the next day and I found my way to a Turkish custom-house officer to whom I had a friendly letter from a Bahrein merchant. Ojeir, although it has neither a bazaar nor any settled population, has a mud-fort, a dwarf flagstaff and an imposing custom-house. The harbor although not deep is protected against north and south winds and is therefore a good landing-place for the immense quantity of rice and piece-goods shipped from Bahrein into the interior. A caravan of from two to three hundred camels leaves Ojeir every week. For although the Jebel Shammar country is probably supplied overland from Busrah and Bagdad, the whole of Southern Nejd receives piece-goods, coffee, rice, sugar and Birmingham wares by way of Bahrein and Ojeir.

The whole plain in and about the custom-house was piled with bales and boxes and the air filled with the noise of loading seven hundred camels. I struck a bargain with Salih, a Nejdi, to travel in his party and before noon-prayers we were off. The country for many hours was bare desert, here and there a picturesque ridge of sand, and in one place a vein of greenish limestone. When night came we all stretched a blanket on the clean sand and slept in the open air; those who had neglected their water-skins on starting now satisfied thirst by scooping a well with their hands three or four feet deep and found a supply of water. During the day the sun was hot and the breeze died away; but at night, under the sparkling stars and with a north wind it seemed, by contrast, bitterly cold. On the second day at noon we sighted the palm-forests that surround Hofhoof and give it, Palgrave says, “the general aspect of a white and yellow onyx chased in an emerald rim” As we did not reach the “emerald rim” until afternoon I concluded to remain at Jifr, one of the many suburb villages. Here Salih had friends, and a delicious dinner of bread, butter, milk and dates, all fresh, was one of many tokens of hospitality. At sunset we went on to the next village, Menazeleh, a distance of about three miles through gardens and rushing streams of tepid water. The next morning early we again rode through gardens and date-orchards half visible in the morning mist. At seven o’clock the mosques and walls of Hofhoof appeared right before us as the sun lifted the veil; it was a beautiful sight.

El Hofhoof can claim a considerable age. Under the name of Hajar, it was next to Mobarrez, the citadel town of the celebrated Bni Kindi and Abd El Kais (570 A.D.) Both of these towns, and in fact every village of Hassa, owe their existence to the underground watercourses, which are the chief characteristic of the province; everywhere there is the same abundance of this great blessing. A land of streams and fountains,—welling up in the midst of the salt sea, as at Bahrein; flowing unknown and unsought under the dry desert at Ojeir; bubbling up in perennial fountains as at Katif; or bursting out in seven hot springs that flow, cooling, to bless wide fields of rice and wheat at Mobarrez. The entire region is capable of rich cultivation, and yet now more than half of it is desert. There is not a man to till the ground, and paradise lies waste except near the villages. Elsewhere Bedouin robbers and Turkish taxes prevent cultivation. _These two are the curse of agriculture all over the Ottoman provinces of Arabia._

Hofhoof itself is surrounded by gardens, and its plan gives a good idea of the general character of the towns of Arabia. A castle or ruler’s house; a bazaar with surrounding dwellings and a mud-wall built around to protect the whole. The moat is now dry and half filled in with the débris of the walls, which are not in good repair. The town is nearly a mile and a-half across at its greater diameter, but the houses are not built as close together as is the custom in most Oriental towns; here is the pleasant feature of gardens _inside_ the walls. The date-palm predominates, and indeed comes to wonderful perfection, but the nabak, the papay, the fig and the pomegranate are also in evidence. Indigo is cultivated, and also cotton, while all the region round about is green with fields of rice and sugar-cane and vegetables,—onions, radishes, beans, vetches, and maize.

The population of the city is entirely Moslem, except one Roman Catholic Christian, who is the Turkish doctor, and a half dozen Jews. The three Europeans who have previously visited and described Hofhoof are, Captain Sadlier (1819), Palgrave (1863), and Colonel Pelly (1865). The first gives the population at 15,000 and Palgrave speaks of 20,000 to 30,000. In 1871 when the Turkish expedition against Nejd took the city, they reported it to have 15,000 houses and 200 suburb villages(!) This shows the absolute uncertainty of most statistics in regard to Arabia.

El Hassa (Hofhoof) is the first stage on the direct caravan route from east Arabia to Mecca and Jiddah. Abd Er Rahman bin Salama, the Arab Sheikh, under the Turkish governor of the Rifa’a quarter of the town gave me the following information regarding this route. From Hassa to Riad is six days by camel, from Riad to Jebel Shammar nine days; to Wady Dauasir seven; and from Riad to Mecca eighteen days. That would be _twenty-eight days_ to cross the peninsula, not including stops on the road and travelling at the rate of an ordinary caravan, _i. e._, three miles an hour

The Kaisariyeh or bazaar of Hofhoof is well supplied with all the usual requirements and luxuries of the Levant; weapons, cloth, gold embroidery, dates, vegetables, dried fish, wood, salted locusts, fruit, sandals, tobacco, copper-ware and piece-goods—in irregular confusion as enumerated. Public auctions are held frequently in the square or on the plain outside the walls. Here, too, the barbers ply their trade, and blacksmiths beat at their anvils under the shade of a date-hut. The Rifa’a quarter has the _best_ houses, while the Na’athal has the largest number; the “East-end” in Hofhoof being for the rich and the “West-end” for the poor, as is proper in a land of paradoxes.

Hassa is celebrated for two sorts of manufacture; cloaks or _abbas_, with rich embroidery in gold and colored thread, delicately wrought and of elegant pattern, the gayest and costliest garments of Arabia; and brass coffee-pots of curious shape and pretty form, which, with the cloaks, are exported all over Eastern Arabia, even as far as Busrah and Muscat. Once trade flourished and the merchants grew rich in this land of easy agriculture and fertile soil. But intestine wars, Wahabi fanaticism and Turkish indolence, extortion and taxation have taken away prosperity, and Hassa’s capital is not what it was in the days of old, when the Carmathians held the town.

One remnant of its former glory remains; a unique and entirely local coinage called the _Toweelah_ or “long-bit.” It consists of a small copper-bar, mixed with a small proportion of silver, about an inch in length, split at one end and with a fissure slightly opened. Along one or both of its flattened sides run a few Cufic characters, nearly illegible in most specimens, but said to read: _Mohammed-al-Saood_, _i.e._, “Mohammed of the Saood family.” The coin has neither date nor motto, but was undoubtedly made by one of the Carmathian Princes about the year 920 A. D. This Moslem sect owed its origin to a fanatic and enthusiast born at Cufa, called Carmath, who first had a following about the year 277 of the Hejira. He assumed the lofty titles, Guide, Director, the Word, the Holy Ghost, the Herald of the Messiah, etc. His interpretation of the Koran was very lax in the matters of ablution, fasting, and pilgrimage, but he increased the number of prayers to fifty daily. He had twelve apostles among the Bedouins, and his sect grew so rapidly that they could muster in the field 107,000 fanatical warriors. Cufa and Busrah were pillaged and Bagdad taken. In 929 Abu Taher stormed the Holy City of Mecca and the Carmathians took away the black stone in triumph to Katif. The centre of their power remained at Hassa for some years. Here the coin was struck, which is the only remnant of their power and fanaticism. And while the Carmathian doctrines are held in abhorrence, their little bars of copper still buy rice and dates and stick to the hands of the money-changer in the bazaar.

In former days there were gold and silver coins of similar shape. Some in silver can yet be found occasionally inscribed with the noble motto in Arabic: “_Honor to the sober man, dishonor to the ambitious._” When I was in Hofhoof that strange, two-tailed copper-bar was worth half an anna and disputed its birthright in the market with rupees and Indian paper and Maria Theresa dollars and Turkish coppers. But how changed the bazaar itself would appear to the ghost of some Carmathian warrior of the ninth century who first handled a “long-bit.” Even the Wahabis have disappeared and tobacco, silk, music and wine are no longer deadly sins. Of these Moslem Puritans many have left for Riad, and the few that remain stroke their long white beards in horror at Turkish Effendis in infidel breeches smoking cigarettes, while they sigh for the golden days of the Arabian Reformer.

There is a military hospital at Hofhoof with a surgeon and doctor, but at the time of my visit there was a dearth of medicines and an abominable lack of sanitation. Few soldiers submit to hospital treatment, preferring to desert or seek furlough elsewhere, and nothing is done for the Arab population. Before my coming cholera raged here as well as on the coast, and during my short visit smallpox was epidemic and carried off many, many children. Thrice awful are such diseases in a land where a practical fanaticism, under the pious cloak of religion, scorns medicine or preventive measures.

The government of the province of Hassa is as follows. The _Sandjak_ (Turkish for administrative division) is divided into three _cazas_, Nejd, Katar and Katif and a small garrison holds each of these cazas; 600 men at Hofhoof, and 300 at Katar and Katif. The governor, called Mutaserrif Pasha, resides at the capital and _kaimakams_ or sub-governors at the other two centres. There are the usual Turkish tribunals and each Arab tribe has a representative or go-between to arrange its affairs with the governor. The principal tribes which at present acknowledge Turkish occupation and submit to their rule are: El Ajeman, El Morah, Bni Hajar, Bni Khaled, Bni Hassam, El Motter, El Harb, and El Ja’afer. The Turkish government has opened three schools in the province; the total number of pupils according to the Turkish official report is 3,540. The same report puts the entire population of the province at 250,000; this gives a fair idea of the backwardness of education even in this province which has always been remarkable for book-learning. The large mosque with its twenty-four arches and porticoes, smooth-plastered and with a mat-spread floor is always full of mischievous youth learning the mysteries of grammar and the commonplaces of Moslem theology; but the days of poetry and writing of commentaries on the Koran are in the past; even the Wahabi merchants talk of Bombay and are glad to get hold of an English primer or an atlas of the new world which is knocking at their door for admittance.

After four days spent in the city I accepted an opportunity to return northward with a caravan; I was not allowed to go, however, until after I had signed a paper, which, because of the unsafety of the road disclaimed all responsibility on the part of the Government should I come to lose life, limb or luggage. A copy of this document is in my possession, but the only foe I met in the desert was—fever. On Tuesday noon our small party set out, not going through the large town of Mobarrez as I had hoped, but turning east and reaching Kilabeejeh at two o’clock. We passed fountains and streams and fields of rice and swamps,—everything very unlike Arabia of the school-geography. In four hours, however, we were again in the midst of desert where the sun proved too hot for me and I was taken with a fever which did not leave me until I returned to Bahrein. The road continued desert all the way to Katif. On Wednesday we rode all night under the stars (because of a false alarm of robbers) until nine o’clock next morning. Then we rested at a place called, with bitter irony, Um El Hammam; there are no _baths_, no trees, no grass, only a shallow pit of dirty water and small shrubbery of dates. Here we spent a hot day. On Friday morning we came to the borders of Katif,—palm-groves, wells, and ancient aqueducts with curious towers and air-holes at intervals. Through gardens and around by the large square fort we came to the sea. At the custom-house, again, I found rest and refreshment.

Katif has no good name among Hassa Arabs; its location is low and marshy; “its inhabitants are mostly weak in frame, sallow in complexion, and suffer continually from malaria. The town itself is badly built, woefully filthy, damp and ill-favored in climate. Yet it has a good population and brisk trade. The inhabitants are mostly Shiahs of Persian origin and are held in abhorrence by the Wahabis and the Turks alike as little better than infidels. The present location of Katif corresponds to the very ancient settlement of the _Gerrha_ of the Greek geographers but no exploration for ruins has ever been made. A Portuguese castle marks _their_ occupation of this coast also during their supremacy in the gulf. Katif was taken by the Turks in 1871 and has been occupied by them ever since.

The Arabian coast north of Katif, all the way to Kuweit is without a single large settlement. Mostly barren and in the hands of the predatory and warlike tribe of Bni Hajar, it is very uninteresting and entirely unproductive.

XII

THE RIVER-COUNTRY AND THE DATE-PALM

“The rich plains of Mesopotamia and Assyria which were once cultivated by a populous nation and watered by surprising efforts of human industry, are now inhabited, or rather ravaged by wandering Arabs. So long as these fertile provinces shall remain under the government, or rather anarchy of the Turks they must continue deserts in which nature dies for want of the fostering care of man”—_Niebuhr_ (1792).

What changes of history have left their records in ruins and names and legends on the great alluvial plains of Northeastern Arabia! The two rivers still bear their Bible names, the Euphrates and _Dijleh_, or Hiddekel, but nothing else is left which could be called paradise. What impresses the traveller first and most is that so large an extent of this fertile region lies waste and unproductive under an effete rule. The splendor of the past can scarcely be believed because of the ruin of the present. Everywhere are traces of ancient empires and yet it seems incredible as we watch the half-naked Arabs ploughing through the mud-banks with their wild cattle and primitive implements.

Was this the cradle of the human race? Babylon and Nineveh are here for the archaeologist; Ctesiphon, Kufa and Zobeir for the historian; Bagdad and Busrah (or Bassorah) for old Arabian romance; and Ur of the Chaldees for the Bible student. Since Haroun Rashid went about in disguise how many yet stranger Arabian nights has Bagdad seen! How surprised Sinbad the sailor would be to see the decay of Busrah, yet with a dozen “smoke-ships” in its harbor!

Mesopotamia, called by the Arabs _El Jezira_, was formerly limited to the land lying between the two rivers and south of the old wall by which they were connected above Bagdad. From this point to the Persian Gulf the district was and is still known as Irak-Arabi, to distinguish it from the Irak of Persia. Commonly, however, the name of Mesopotamia (Mid-River-Country) is given to the whole northeastern part of Arabia. It has a total area of 180,000 square miles and presents great uniformity in its physical as well as its ethnical characteristics. Arabs live and Arabic is spoken for three hundred miles beyond Bagdad as far as Diarbekr and Mardin; but we limit our description to the region between Busrah and Bagdad including the delta at the mouth of the rivers.

Near Bagdad the two giant rivers, after draining Eastern Asia Minor, Armenia and Kurdistan, approach quite near together; from thence the main streams are connected by several channels and intermittent watercourses, the chief of which is the Shatt-el Hai. At Kurna the two rivers unite to form the Shatt-el-Arab which traverses a flat, fertile plain dotted with villages and covered with artificially irrigated meadow-lands and extensive date groves. As far up as Bagdad the river is navigable throughout the year for steamers of considerable size. It is entirely owing to the enterprise of English commerce and the Bagdad-Busrah steamship line that the country, so gloomily described by Niebuhr, in 1792, and even by Chesney in 1840, has been developed into new life and prosperity. Even Turkish misrule and oppression cannot do away utterly with natural fertility and productiveness; and if ever a good government should hold this region it would regain its ancient importance and double its present population.

Two features are prominent in the physical geography of this region. First the flat almost level stretches of meadow without any rise or fall except the artificial ancient mounds[36]. The second is the date-palm. The whole length of the country from Fao and Mohammerah to the country of the Montefik Arabs above Kurna is one large date plantation, on both sides of the wide river. Everywhere the tall shapely trees line the horizon and near the lower estuary of the Shatt-el-Arab they are especially luxuriant and plentiful. Formerly every palm-tree on the Nile, was registered and taxed; but to count every such tree on the Shatt-el-Arab would be an unending task.

The proper coat-of-arms for all lower Mesopotamia would be a date-palm. It is the “banner of the climate” and the wealth of the country. There may be monotony in these long groves and rows of well-proportioned columns with their tops hidden in foliage, but there certainly is nothing wearisome. A date garden is a scene of exceeding beauty, varying greatly according to the time of the day and the state of the weather. At sunrise or sunset the gorgeous colors fall on the gracefully pendant fronds or steal gently through the lighter foliage and reflect a vivid green so beautiful that once seen, it can never be forgotten. At high-noon the dark shadows and deep colors of the date-forests refresh and rest the eye aching from the brazen glare of sand and sky. But the forest is at its best, when on a dewy night the full moon rises and makes a pearl glisten on every spiked leaf and the shadows show black as night in contrast with the sheen of the upper foliage.

It was an Arab poet who first sang the song of the date-palm so beautifully interpreted by Bayard Taylor:

“Next to thee, O fair Gazelle!
O Bedowee girl, beloved so well,—
Next to the fearless Nejidee
Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee—
Next to ye both I love the palm
With his leaves of beauty and fruit of balm.
Next to ye both, I love the tree
Whose fluttering shadows wrap us three
In love and silence and mystery.

Our tribe is many, our poets vie
With any under the Arab sky
Yet none can sing of the palm but I.
The noble minarets that begem
Cairo’s citadel diadem
Are not so light as his slender stem.
He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam glance
As the Almehs lift their arms in dance;
A slumberous motion, a passionate sigh
That works in the cells of the blood like wine.
O tree of love, by that love of thine
Teach me how I shall soften mine.”

Mark Twain compared the palm-tree to “a liberty-pole with a haycock” on top of it. The truth lies between the poet and the “Innocent” traveller, for the date-tree is both a poem and a commercial product; to the Arab mind it is the perfection of beauty and utility.

The date palm-tree is found in Syria, Asia Minor, nearly all parts of Arabia and the southern islands of the Mediterranean, but it attains to its greatest perfection in upper Egypt and Mesopotamia.[37] Some idea of the immense importance of this one crop in the wealth of Mesopotamia may be gained from the statement of an old English merchant at Busrah, that “the entire annual date-harvest of the River-country might conservatively be put at 150,000 tons.”

The date-tree consists of a single stem or trunk about fifty to eighty feet high, without a branch, and crowned at the summit by a cluster of leaves or “palms” that drop somewhat in the shape of a huge umbrella. Each of these palms has long lanceolate leaves spreading out like a fan from the centre stem which often attains a length of ten or even twelve feet. In a wild state the successive rows of palms, which mark the annual growth of the tree, wither and contract but remain upon the trunk, producing with every breath of wind the creaking sound so often heard in the silence of the desert-night. But where the palms are cultivated the old stems are cut away as fast as they dry and are put to many different uses. The trunk of the palm-tree therefore presents the appearance of scales which enable a man, whose body is held to the tree by a rope noose, to climb to the top with ease and gather the fruit. At a distance, these annual _rings_ of the date-palm appear as a series of diagonal lines dividing the trunk. Palm-trees often reach the age of a hundred years. The date-palm is diœcious; but in Mesopotamia the pistilate-palms far exceed in number the staminate. Marriage of the palms takes place every spring and is a busy time for the husbandman as it is no small task to climb all the trees and sprinkle the pollen.

Arabs have written books and Europeans have composed fables on the thousand different uses of the palm-tree. Every part of this wonderful tree is useful to the Arabs in unexpected ways. To begin at the top:—The pistils of the date-blossom contain a fine curly fibre which is beaten out and used in all Eastern baths as a sponge for soaping the body. At the extremity of the trunk is a terminal bud containing a whitish substance resembling an almond in consistency and taste, but a hundred times as large. This is a great table delicacy. There are said to be over one hundred varieties of date-palm all distinguished by their fruit and the Arabs say that “a good housewife may furnish her husband every day for a month with a dish of dates differently prepared.” Dates form the staple food of the Arabs in a large part of Arabia and are always served in some form at every meal. Syrup and vinegar is made from old dates, and by those who disregard the Koran, even a kind of brandy. The date-pit is ground up and fed to cows and sheep so that nothing of the precious fruit may be lost. Whole pits are used as beads and counters for the Arab children in their games on the desert-sand. The branches or palms are stripped of their leaves and used like rattan, to make beds, tables, chairs, cradles, bird-cages, reading-stands, boats, crates, etc., etc. The leaves are made into baskets, fans and string and the _bast_ of the outer trunk forms excellent fibre for rope of many sizes and qualities. The wood of the trunk, though light and porous, is much used in bridge-building and architecture and is quite durable. In short, when a date-palm is cut down there is not a particle of it that is wasted. This tree is the “poor-house” and asylum for all Arabia; without it millions would have neither food nor shelter. For one half of the population of Mesopotamia lives in date-mat dwellings.

Although everywhere the date-culture is an important industry, Busrah is the centre of the trade, for here is the principal depot for export. The three best varieties of dates known at Busrah are the _Hallawi_, _Khadrawi_ and _Sayer_. These are the only kinds that will stand shipping to the European markets. They are packed in layers in wooden boxes, or in smaller carton boxes. The average export to London and New York from Busrah for the past five years has been about _20,000 tons_, nearly one half of which was for the American market. Other important varieties are _Zehdi_, _Bérem_, _Dery_ and _Shukri_. These are packed more roughly in matting or baskets, and are sent along the whole Arabian coast, to India, the Red Sea littoral and Zanzibar. There are over thirty other varieties cultivated near Busrah for local consumption. Some of them have curious names such as: “Mother of Perfume,” “Sealed-up,” “Red Sugar,” “Daughter of Seven,” “Bride’s-finger,” “Little Star,” “Pure Daughter”; others have names which it is better not to translate.

Palgrave and others, with whose verdict I agree, pronounced the _Khalasi_ date of El Hassa superior to all other kinds. It has recently been introduced into Mesopotamia. Palgrave says, “the literal and not inappropriate translation of the name is ‘quintessence’—a species peculiar to Hassa and easily the first of its kind.” The fruit itself is rather smaller than the usual _Hallawi_ date, but it is not so dry and far more luscious. It is of a rich dark amber color, almost ruddy, and translucent; the kernel is small and easily detached, the date tastes sweet as sugar and is as far superior to the date bought in the American market as a ripe Pippin is to dried apple-rings.

At Busrah the date season opens in September and keeps every one busy until the vast harvest is gathered and shipped. The dates for export to Europe and America are of prime quality, a box of half a hundred-weight on board the steamer is worth about three or four shillings wholesale. All poor, wet, and small dates are packed separately in mats or bags, and are sent to India as second-quality. The poorest lot are sent in mass to the distilleries in England. Thus nothing is lost. Date-packers, who put the fruit in layers, receive three or four _kameris_ for packing a box. The best packers can only pack four boxes a day, so that their wages are about a _kran_ (about ten cents) per day. They live cheaply on the fruit, and bring all their family, babes and greybeards with them to lodge for the season in the date-gardens. The date season in Busrah begins in the early or middle part of September and lasts for six or eight weeks. The price of the date-crop varies. It is usually fixed at a meeting held in some date-garden where the growers and buyers play the bull and the bear until an agreement is reached. The prices in 1897 were, in the language of the trade: “340 Shamis for Hallawis, 280 Shamis for Khadrawis, and 180 Shamis for Sayer.” Seventeen _Shamis_ are equal to about one pound sterling, and the prices quoted are for a _kara_, about fifty hundred-weights.

The culture of the date has steadily increased for the past fifteen years. In 1896 the greater part of the country was inundated by heavy floods and over a million date-trees are said to have been destroyed; new gardens are being planted continually. The Arabs of Mesopotamia display great skill and unusual care in manuring, irrigating and improving their date-plantations, for they realize more and more that this is no mean source of wealth. One recent use to which export dates are put is in the manufacture of vinegar, it would seem, since the beet-sugar industry has proved so profitable, that there must be some method by which good sugar could be manufactured from date-syrup.

Mesopotamia is rich not only in date-groves but in cereals, wool, gums, licorice root and other products. The export of wool alone in 1897 was valued at £288,700. And the total exports the same year, for the two provinces of Bagdad and Busrah, were put at £522,960. Busrah is the shipping place for all the region round about, and ocean steamers of considerable size are always in Busrah harbor, during 1897 four hundred and twenty-one sailing vessels and ninety-five steamships cleared the port, with a total tonnage of 131,846; ninety-one of the steamships were British.

The population of the two vilayets is given by Cuinet, who follows Turkish authorities, as follows:

_Moslems._ _Christians._ _Jews._ _Total._
Bagdad Vilayet, 789,500 7,000 53,500 850,000
Busrah Vilayet, 939,650 5,850 4,500 950,000

In Bagdad vilayet nearly four-fifths of the Moslem population belongs to the Sunnite sect, while in Busrah vilayet three-fourths of them are Shiahs. The Sabeans are generally reckoned among the Christians, although these are already sufficiently divided into Latin, Greek Orthodox, Greek, Syrian, Chaldean Catholic, Armenian Gregorian, Armenian Catholic and Protestants—the last in the smallest minority possible and the others chiefly distinguished by mutual distrust and united hatred of Protestantism.

The vilayet of Bagdad is divided again into three _Sandjaks_ or districts of Bagdad, Hillah and Kerbela, and that of Busrah likewise into those of Busrah, Amara Muntefik and Nejd[38]. Of these six districts that of Bagdad is the largest in area and importance and is the centre of military power for both vilayets. The boundaries of Bagdad Sandjak go as far as Anah on the Euphrates toward the north and include Kut-el-Amara on the south with both banks of the Tigris. Hillah and Kerbela are along the Euphrates with irregular boundaries while the Muntefik Sandjak with its provincial town of Nasariya separates them from that of Busrah. The Sandjak of Amara begins a few miles north of the junction of the two rivers, and the whole frontier toward Persia is entirely undefined or at least “_in litigation_,” as the Turkish official maps have it.

The two Turkish provinces have all the involved machinery of Turkish civil and military administration. There are plenty of offices and office-holders and constant changes in both. Each province has a governor-general or _Wali_ and (outside of the governor’s sandjak) each district has its _mutaserrif-pasha_ either of the first or second class—those one has to deal with generally prove to be of the latter. Then there are _Kaimakams_ for smaller districts or cities, and finally _mudirs_ for villages. At the seat of government, called the _Serai_, there is an administrative council, including the _Näib_ or _kadi_, corresponding to chief-justice; the _defterdar_ or secretary of finance; the _mufti_ or public interpreter of Moslem law; the _nakib_, etc., etc., etc. There are several courts of justice of different rank; the custom-house administration is on the _e pluribus unum_ plan and _ne plus ultra_ system. Besides these there are the “Regie des tabacs” or the tobacco-monopoly, the post and telegraph administration, the sanitary offices, the salt-inspectors, and, at Kerbela, the Tarif of corpses levied on imported pilgrims. To describe all these satisfactorily would require a volume.

XIII

THE CITIES AND VILLAGES OF TURKISH-ARABIA

Kuweit,[39] on the gulf a little south of the river delta, will in all probability—before long, rise in importance and be as well known as Suez or Port Said. It has the finest harbor in all Eastern Arabia, and is an important town of from 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants. Here will probably be the terminus of the proposed railroads to bind India and the gulf to Europe by the shortest route. The whole country round about being practically desert, the place is entirely dependent on its trade for support. It possesses more bagalows (sailing-vessels) than any port in the gulf; is remarkably cleanly; has some very well-built houses and an extensive dockyard for boat building. The town and tribe are nominally under Turkish subjection, although protection is the better word, and it is rumored that Kuweit will soon be as much in the hands of the English as is Bahrein.

The Bedouin tribes of Northern Hassa, and even from Nejd, bring horses, cattle and sheep to this place to barter for dates, clothing and fire-arms. There is nearly always a large encampment of Bedouins near the town. The route overland from Kuweit to Busrah is across the desert until we come to an old artificial canal; leaving Jebel Sinam to the left the second march brings us to Zobeir, a small village on the site of ancient Busrah, and only a few hours to the present site. At Zobeir is the tomb of the Moslem leader for whom the town is named. The village contains about 400 houses, and the population is rich and fanatical. In the vicinity are gardens where a kind of melon is raised, which is celebrated in all the region round about for sweetness and delicacy of flavor. The journey from Kuweit to Busrah is generally made, even by natives, in bugalows; while the Persian Gulf steamers, not calling at Kuweit, proceed direct from Bushire to Fao, at the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab. A great hindrance to commerce is the bar formed by the alluvial deposit of the immense river as it reaches the gulf. At low tide there is only ten feet of water in the deepest part of the channel, and even at flood tide large steamers must plow their way through the mud to reach Busrah.

Fao is of no importance except as the terminus of the cable from Bushire. A British telegraph station was established here in 1864. The Turkish telegraph system from up the rivers terminates at Fao, and here too they have a representative to govern the place and enforce stringent quarantine. The Shatt-el-Arab winds motononously between the vast date-orchards or desert banks for about forty miles, until we reach the Karun river and the Persian town of Mohammerah. Busrah is sixty-seven miles from the bar and between it and Fao there are many important villages on each bank of the river. Aboo Hassib is perhaps the most important and is a great centre for date-culture and packing.