Chapter VI: Appendix: I—chronological Table 409 (5)

Busrah consists of the native city—containing the principal bazaars, the government house, and the bulk of the population—and the new town on the river. The native town is about two miles from the river on a narrow creek, called _Ashar_; a good road runs along the bank, and this road really unites the two parts of the city into one as it is lined with dwelling-houses for a large part of the way. Busrah has seen better days, but also worse. In the middle of the eighteenth century it numbered upward of 150,000 inhabitants. In 1825, it had diminished to 60,000; the plague of 1831 reduced it further by nearly one-half, and after the plague of 1838, scarcely 12,000 inhabitants remained. In 1854, it is said to have had only 5,000 inhabitants. At present the place is growing yearly in population and importance in spite of misgovernment and ruinous taxation. It has every natural advantage over Bagdad, except climate, and will yet outstrip the city of the old caliphs, if Turkey’s rule mends or ends. The present population of the city proper is given by Ottoman authorities at 18,000. Many ruins all over the plains and in the surrounding gardens tell of its former extent and splendor. At present the native town looks sadly dilapidated, and tells the story of neglect and decay. The unexampled filthiness of the streets and the undrained marshes in the environs make the place proverbially unhealthy. This unhygienic condition is not improved by the Ashar Creek being at the same time the common sewer and the common water supply for over one-half of the population. The wealthy classes send out boats to bring water from the river, but all the poorer people use the creek. Such are the results of an imbecile government which could easily drain the marshes and supply every one with great abundance of pure water.

Ancient Busrah, near the present site of Zobeir, was founded in 636 A. D., by the second Caliph Omar as a key to the Euphrates and Tigris. It reached great prosperity, and was the home of poetry and grammatical learning, as Bagdad was the centre of science and philosophy. After the twelfth century the city began to decay, and at the conquest of Bagdad by Murad IV., in 1638, this entire stretch of country fell into the hands of the Turks. Then the present city took the name of Busrah. Later it was in the hands of the Arabs and Persians, and from 1832 to 1840, Mohammed Ali was in possession. Under the rule of Midhat Pasha, governor-general of Bagdad, the city of Busrah arose in importance partly because of the Turkish Steam Navigation Company which he promoted. But it was a dream-life. English commerce and enterprise aroused the place thoroughly, and the whistle of steamships has kept it awake ever since the Suez canal opened trade with Europe by way of the gulf.[40]

In making the journey from Busrah to Bagdad the traveller has choice of two lines of river-steamers: the Ottoman service has six steamers and the English company three, but the latter are only allowed to use two by the Turkish government. For romance, discomfort and tediousness, choose the former; for all other reasons select the latter. I have tried both. The English steamers carry the mails to Bagdad and make weekly trips; four or five days being required for the journey up stream, and three days down, although when the water is low the journey may be long delayed. In bad or shallow places the steamers often discharge a part of their cargo, heave over the shallow part and load up again. Of course trade suffers and vast quantities of merchandise often lie for weeks at Busrah awaiting shipment. No steps are ever taken by the Ottoman government to counteract the great waste of water which flows into the marshes. In course of time, unless prevented, this waste will lead to the closing up of the main channel of the Tigris even as the Euphrates below Suk-es-Shiukh has become a marsh for lack of use.

The good Steamship _Mejidieh_ with its kindly Captain Cowley, or the sister ship _Khalifah_ lies at anchor just off the English Consulate, the blue-peter flies overhead and the decks are overcrowded with all sorts and conditions of men—Persians, Turks, Indians, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks;—baggage, bales, boxes, water-bottles—chickens, geese, sheep, horses, not to speak of the insect-population on which it is impossible to collect freight-charges. The steamers are somewhat after the type of the American river-steamers on the Mississippi; but no Mark Twain has yet arisen to immortalize them, although they afford an even more fertile theme. With a double deck and broad of beam they carry hundreds of passengers and an astonishing amount of cargo for their size. The accommodation during cool weather is excellent, and during the hot days no one travels for the sake of luxury.

The first place at which the steamer calls is Kurna at the junction of the rivers, and from whence the course is up the Tigris to Bagdad. The Tomb of Ezra, about nine hours from Busrah, is a great place for pilgrimages by the Jews. It is a pretty spot on the river bank and picturesque with its crowd of embarking and disembarking Jews and Jewesses. The tomb is a domed cloister enclosing a square mausoleum, and paved with blue tiles. Over the doorway are two tablets of black marble with Hebrew inscriptions attesting to the authenticity of the tomb. It is not improbable that Ezra is buried here, for the Talmud states that he died at Zamzuma, a town on the Tigris. He is said to have died here on his way from Jerusalem to Susa to plead the cause of the captive Jews. Josephus says that he was buried at Jerusalem, but no Jew of Bagdad doubts that Ezra’s remains rest on the Tigris.

Ten hours beyond, we pass also on the west bank, Abu Sadra, a tomb of an Arab saint marked only by a reed-hut and a grove of poplars. Next is Amara, a large and growing village with a coaling-depot and an enterprising population. This place was founded in 1861, and promises to become a centre of trade. After passing Ali Shergi, Ali Gherbi, and Sheikh Saad, small villages, without stopping, the steamer calls at Kut-el-Amara, a larger place even than Amara, on the east bank, with over 4,000 inhabitants.

All the way from Busrah to Bagdad, but especially along this part of the river, we pass Bedouin tribes, encamped in the black tents of Kedar, engaged in the most primitive agriculture or irrigation of their land, or rushing along the banks to hail the passing steamer. A hungry, impudent, noisy, cheerful lot they are; filling the merciful with pity and moving the thoughtless to laughter, as they scramble up and down the banks into the water to catch a piece of bread or a few dates thrown to them.

Meanwhile we steam along passing Bughela, Azizieh, Bagdadieh and reach Bustani Kesra, or the arch of Ctesiphon. The little village of Soleiman-Pak is named for the pious man who was the private barber of Mohammed the prophet. After various wanderings, poor pious Pak was buried here, only a short distance from the great arch. A village sprang up near the tomb, pilgrims come from everywhere and miracles are claimed to be wrought by him who when alive only handled the razor. The whole region of Mesopotamia is more rich in saints, tombs and pilgrim-shrines than any other part of Arabia.

The arch of Ctesiphon is not a shrine but it is well worth a visit. It is the only prominent object that remains of the vast ruins of Ctesiphon on the east bank of the Tigris, and Seleucia on the west. The arch is now almost in ruins but must once have been the façade of a magnificent building. Its length is 275 feet, and its height is given variously as eighty-six or one hundred feet; the walls are over twelve feet thick and the span of the magnificent arch is nearly eighty feet. What Ctesiphon was in the days of the Sassanian kings we read in Gibbon. Now its glory has departed and the tomb of the Barber has more visitors than the ancient throne of the Chosroes. Eight hours after leaving Ctesiphon’s ruins, our steamer is in full sight of the city of Haroun Rashid.

Bagdad is a familiar name even to the boy who reads the Arabian tales rather than his geography. It is one of the chief cities of the Turkish empire and has a history much older than the empire itself. Founded by the Caliph Mansur about the year 765 A. D., it was the capital of the Mohammedan world for five hundred years, until it was destroyed by Halakn, grandson of Jengiz Khan. Situated in the midst of what was once the richest and most productive region of the old world it is now no longer queen of the land but rather reminds us of decay and dissolution. Its present beauties are only the ruins of former glory. The untidy soldiers slouching about the streets, the evil-smelling bazaars and ruined mosques, the rotten bridge of boats that spans the river, the faces of the poor and the miserable who go begging through the streets, indicate the curse of Turkish inanition and oppression.

On the west bank of the river is the old town enclosed by extensive orange and date-groves. On the east bank is New-Bagdad, which also looks old enough. Here are the government offices, consulates, and the chief commercial buildings as well as the custom-offices. Bagdad is still an important city on many accounts. No other city of the Turkish empire is influenced so much by the desert and Arabia as is Bagdad; and no other stands in such direct contact with the towns in the interior of the peninsula. The Arabic spoken is comparatively pure, and Bedouin manners still prevail in many ways in the social life of the people. The city has a very motley population, because of commerce on the one hand and the number of pilgrim-shrines on the other. The tombs of Abd-ul-Kadir, and Abu Hanifah and the gilded domes and minarets which mark the resting-places of two of the Shiah Imams—all draw their annual concourse of visitors from many lands and peoples. All the languages of the Levant are spoken on its streets although Arabic prevails over all. Dr. H.M. Sutton remarks, “I have been at the bedside of a patient where in a company of half-a-dozen people we had occasion to use five languages, and on another occasion we were in a company of about forty people in a room where no less than fourteen languages were represented. The land of Shinar is thus still the place of the confusion of tongues.” Bagdad like Busrah has suffered greatly by ravages of the plague at various times, but especially in 1830 when the plague was followed by a fearful inundation. In one night, when the river burst its banks 7,000 houses fell and 15,000 people perished.

The population of Bagdad is at present variously estimated at from 120,000 to 180,000. Nearly one-third are Jews while the Oriental Christians number about 5,000. The trade of Bagdad is large not only with the region southwards and toward Busrah but with Nejd and Northern Mesopotamia. The import trade from India and Europe to Bagdad is over £1,000,000 every year, and the export trade to Europe alone is placed at £522,960 for 1897. The river north of Bagdad is not navigable for steamers but an immense number of _kelleks_ daily arrive from the north loaded with lumber from Kurdistan and with other products. These _kelleks_ are a craft made of inflated goatskins boarded over with reeds and matting. The boatmen return with the empty skins overland with the caravan companies. Still more characteristic of Bagdad is the small river-boat called a _kuffe_ or coracle. It consists of a perfectly circular hull, six to eight feet in diameter, with sides curving inward like a huge basket, and covered with pitch. This type of boat is as old as Nineveh and they are pictured quite accurately on the old monuments.

Bagdad has more than sixty-eight mosques, six churches and twenty-two synagogues. Of the mosques some, like that of Daood Pasha, are in fine condition; others are almost in ruins, and remind one of the remark of Lady Ann Blunt: “A city long past its prime, its hose a world too wide for its shrunk shanks.” The feature of Bagdad is of course the river Tigris, with its swift-flowing tide ever washing the mud banks and watering the gardens for miles around. The houses come down close to the water’s edge and some of them have pretty gardens almost overhanging the stream and terraces and verandas—oriental and picturesque. The British Residency is perhaps most beautiful in its location and its frontage on the river; but the other consulates vie with it in displaying to the traveller the strength and hospitality of European States. The European community is larger than at Busrah.

XIV

A JOURNEY DOWN THE EUPHRATES

Through the kind assistance of Colonel Mockler, at that time the Bagdad Consul General and Resident, in the autumn of 1892, I was able to make the journey from Bagdad across to Hillah and down the Euphrates—a route not often taken by the traveller. After making necessary preparations and finding a suitable servant we hired two mules and left the city of the old Caliphs with a caravan for Kerbela. It was in July and we made our first halt four hours from Bagdad, sleeping on a blanket under the stars. An hour after midnight the pack-saddles were lifted in place and we were off again. It was a mixed company; Arabs, Persians, and Turks; merchants for Hillah and pilgrims to the sacred shrines; women in those curtained, cage-like structures called _taht-i-vans_,—two portable zenanas hanging from each beast; dervishes on foot with green turbans, heavy canes and awful visages: and to complete the picture a number of rude coffins strapped cross-wise on pack-mules and holding the remains of some “true believers,” long since ready for the holy ground at Nejf (Nedjef).

The caravan travelled along the desert road mostly at night to escape the fearful heat of midday when we sought shelter in public khan. Nothing could be more uninteresting than the country between Bagdad and Babylon at this season of the year. The maps mark six khans on the route, but three of these are in ruins and the others are merely stages of a caravan rather than villages or centres of cultivation. The soil appears excellent, but there are no irrigation canals, and everything has a deserted appearance. A few low shrubs between the mounds and moles of an ancient civilization; mud-houses near the khans and some Arab encampments; camel skeletons shining white by the wayside, under a burning sun; and a troop or two of gazelle making for the river-banks—that is all you see until you reach the palm-banked Euphrates at Hillah.

The khans consist of a large enclosure with heavy walls of sun-dried or Babylonian brick. In the interior are numerous alcoves or niches, ten by six feet and four feet above ground; you seek out an empty niche and find a resting-place until the caravan starts at midnight. In the centre of the enclosure is a well and a large platform for prayer—utilized for sleeping and cooking by late arrivals who find no niche reserved as in our case. The rest of the court is for animals and baggage. Usual Arab supplies were obtainable at these resting-places, but every comfort is scarce and the innkeepers are too busy to be hospitable.

Khan el Haswa where we arrived the second day is the centre of a small village of perhaps 300 people. At three in the morning we left Haswa but it was nearly noon when we reached the river, because of a delay on the road. The bazaar and business of Hillah were formerly on the Babylonian side of the stream, but are now principally on the further side of the rickety bridge of boats four miles below the ruins of Babylon. After paying toll we crossed over and found a room in the Khan Pasha—a close, dirty place, but in the midst of the town and near the river. Hillah is the largest town on the Euphrates north of Busrah. Splendid groves of date-trees surround it and stretch along the river as far as the eye can reach. The principal merchandise of the town is wheat, barley and dates. Of the Moslem population two-thirds are Shiah, and the remaining Sunni are mostly Turks. There are one or two native Christians and many Jews, but it is difficult to estimate correctly the population of Hillah or of any of the towns on the Euphrates. At Hillah the river is less than 200 yards wide and has a much more gentle flow than the Tigris at Bagdad. A short distance northwest of the town is Kerbela. It is only a village but the spot is visited by thousands of faithful Moslems every year who venerate the twelve Imams of the Shiah sect. Here is the tomb of Hosein the grandson of the prophet and the son of Ali whom they believe the true successor in the Caliphate. By living or dying here the Shiah devotee has nought to fear for the next world. So strong is this belief that many leave directions in their wills to be buried in this hallowed spot. Thousands of corpses are imported some even from India—after proper drying and salting—and are laid to rest in the sacred ground. Nejf, south of Hillah, is the place of Ali’s martyrdom and is no less sacred for the living and the dead.

At Kerbela the manufacture of _torbat_ is about the only industry. A _torbat_ is a small piece of baked clay about two inches in length, generally round or oblong, with the names of Ali and Fatima rudely engraved on it. Made out of holy-ground, these are carried home by all pilgrims and are used by nearly every Shiah as a resting-place for the forehead in their prayer prostrations. According to all reports Kerbela is similar to Mecca in its loose morals and the character of its permanent population.

On July 31st we left Hillah and sailed down the river in a native boat similar to the “bellum” of Busrah, but without awning. The Euphrates is more muddy than the Tigris, and its course, though less sinuous, is broken here and there by shallow rapids.[41] We sailed all night and did not stop until we arrived at Diwaniyeh the following afternoon. Many of the villages on the way appeared to have a considerable population; date-groves were plentiful, and we passed two or three Mathhab or tombs of Arab Sheikhs, including that reputed to be Job’s, “the greatest of all the sons of the East.”

At Diwaniyeh I was directed to the Serai, or government-house, where the Muttaserif Pasha of Hillah was forcing taxes from the unwilling Arabs. I was kindly received, and, probably because of my passport, was entertained at the Pasha’s table. Diwaniyeh has only a small population, and its importance is due to its wealth of palms and the wheat trade, which gives another opportunity for the government to establish a toll-bridge and custom-house.

The Arabs of this region are notorious for their piracy on native craft, and in 1836 they even attacked the English surveying expedition. So I left the place with a guard of two soldiers—Saadeh and Salim, who were as happy as their names. Patching their uniforms, asleep in the bottom of the boat, eating of our bread and dates, or polishing their rifles marked “_U. S. Springfield_, Snider’s Pat. 1863,” we reached Samawa safely. During the day we passed the hamlets Um Nejis, Abu Juwareeb, Rumeitha, and Sheweit. But the general scene was that of narrow morass channels branching out from the river, where forests of reeds half hid mat-huts and naked Arabs. These river tribes are not true nomads,[42] but live in one place, on fish and the products of the river buffalo. It is a strange sight to see a herd of large black cattle swimming across stream, pursued by shouting, swimming and swearing herdsmen. And this was once the home of Abraham, the friend of God.

Near Rumeitha there was a large menzil of the Lamlum tribe. Here we fastened the boat for the night, as our company was afraid to cross certain rapids by starlight. Some of the Arabs came to our boat, armed with flint-locks and the Mikwar—a heavy stick knobbed with sandstone or hard bitumen—in Arab hands a formidable weapon. Most of the people were asleep, and we could get no supplies of any kind except two roast fowl from the Turkish garrison in a mud brick fort opposite. Even one of these fell to the share of a hungry jackal during the night. We left early in the morning, and after some difficulty in crossing the shallow rapids, reached Samawa in four hours. Dismissing the zaptiehs, we found a room in the Khan of Haj Nasir on the second floor and overlooking the bazaar.

It was the day before Ashera, the great day of Moharram, and the whole town was in funereal excitement. All shops were closed. Shiah were preparing for the great mourning, and Sunni sought a safe place away from the street. As soon as I came the local governor sent word that I must not leave the khan under any circumstances, nor venture in the street, as he would not be responsible for Shiah violence. I remained indoors, therefore, until the following day, and saw from the window the confusion of the night of Ashera, the tramp of a mob, the beating of breasts, the wailing of women, the bloody banners, and mock-martyr scenes, the rhythmic howling and cries of “Ya Ali! ya Hassan! ya Hussein!” until throats were hoarse and hands hung heavy for a moment, only to go at it again. A pandemonium, as of Baal’s prophets on Carmel, before the deaf and dumb God of Islam,—monotheistic only in its book. “There is no god but God,” and yet to the Shiah devotees of Moharram, “He is not in all their thoughts.” The martyr caliphs of Nejf are their salvation and their hope, the Houris’ lap.

Between Samawa and Nasariya, the next important town, we passed the villages: Zahara, El Kidr, Derj Kalat, (where there is a Turkish Mudir and a telegraph station on the Hillah-Busrah wire) Luptika, El Ain, Abu Tabr and El Assaniyeh. The river begins to broaden below Samawa, and its banks are beautiful with palms and willows. We were again delayed at a toll-bridge; there must be taxes everywhere in Turkey, on ships and on fishermen, on boats and on bridges, on tobacco and on salt; but this taxing of the same cargo at every river port is peculiar.

Nasariya is a comparatively modern town and better built than any on the Euphrates river. Its bazaar is large and wide, and the government-houses are imposing for Arabdom. A small gunboat lies near the landing, and this floating tub, with its soldier guard and bugle-call, represents the only civilization that has yet come to the Euphrates valley, and is a thing of wonder to the Arabs. Opposite Nasariya are two large walled enclosures, wheat granaries protected from Arab robbers. Three hours west are the ruins of Mugheir—Ur of the Chaldees.

Our meheleh sailed down the river before daylight and five hours later came to Suk el Shiukh, “the bazaar of old men.” Abd el Fattah, in whose Persian kahwah we found a place, is a cosmopolitan. He had seen “Franjees” before, had been to Bombay, Aden and Jiddah, knew something of books, a little less of the gospel, and spoke two English words, of which he was very proud, “Stop her” and “Send a geri.” He was a model innkeeper, and had it not been for his tea and talk, the three days of stifling heat under a mat-roof would have been less tolerable.

South of Suk el Shiukh the river widens into marshes, where the channel is so shallow that part of the cargo of all river boats is transferred to smaller craft. On account of this delay, we ran short of provisions before reaching Kurna, and our boatmen were such prejudiced sectarians that it required argument and much backsheesh to bargain for some rice and the use of their cooking-pot. We were “nejis,” “kafir,” and what not, and the captain vowed he would have to wash the whole boat clean at Busrah from the footprints of the unbelievers. Between Suk and the junction of the two rivers to form the Shatt-el-Arab at Kurna, there are many wide, waste marshes, growing reeds and pasture for the buffalo—a breeding place for insect life and the terror of the boatmen because of the Me’dan pirates. We were three days on this part of the river, and often all of us were in the water to lift and tug the boat over some mud-bank. El Kheit is the only village of any size the whole distance, but the Bedouin of the swamp, who live half the time in the water and have not arrived at even the loincloth stage of civilization, are a great multitude. At length we reached Kurna and thence, by the broad, lordly, Shatt-el-Arab to the mission-house at Busrah.

What is to be the future of this great and wealthy valley, which once supported myriads and was the centre of culture and ancient civilization? Will it evermore rest under the blight of the fez and the crescent? The one curse of the land is the inane government and its ruthless taxation. The goose with the golden egg is killed every day in Turkey—at least robbed to its last _nest-egg_. The shepherd-tribes, the villagers, the nomads, the agricultural communities, all suffer alike from the same cause. When and whence will deliverance come? Perhaps a partial reply to these two questions will be found if we read between the lines in our chapter on the recent politics of Arabia. A _Turkish_ railroad in the Euphrates valley would rust; but a railroad under any other government would develop a region capable of magnificent improvement.

XV

THE INTERIOR—KNOWN AND UNKNOWN

“The central provinces of Nejd, the genuine Wahabi country, is to the rest of Arabia a sort of a lion’s den on which few venture and yet fewer return.”—_Palgrave._

“A desert world of new and dreadful aspect! black camels, and uncouth hostile mountains; and a vast sand wilderness shelving toward the dire impostor’s city.”—_Doughty._

The region which, for want of a more definite name, we may call the Interior includes four large districts. Three of these have been comparatively well explored and mapped, but the fourth is utterly unknown. These districts are: Roba’-el-Khali, Nejran with Wady Dauasir, Nejd proper, and Jebel Shammar.

It is surprising that at the close of the nineteenth century there should remain so many portions of our globe still unexplored. We have better maps of the north pole and of the moon than we have of Southeastern Arabia and parts of Central Asia. A triangle formed by lines drawn from Harrara in Oman to El Harik in Southern Nejd, thence to Marib in Yemen and back to Harrara will measure very nearly 500 miles on each of its upper sides and 800 on the base. This triangle, with an area of 120,000 square miles is as utterly unknown to the world at large as if it were an undiscovered continent in some polar sea. Never has it been crossed by any European traveller or entered by an explorer. It includes all the _hinterland_ of the Mahrah and Gharah tribes, all western Oman and the so-called Roba’-el-Khali (literally, “empty abode”) of the Dahna desert, as well as that mysterious region of El Ahkaf to which the Koran refers and which is said by the Arabs to be a sea of quicksands, able to swallow whole caravans.

On most maps the region in question is left blank; others designate it as an uninterrupted desert from Mecca to Oman; while Ptolemy’s map describes the region as producing myrrh and abounding in Arab tribes and caravan-routes. Whatever we know of the country at present must be the result of Arab hearsay booked by travellers in the coast-provinces. The few names of places given in the Roba’-el-Khali would _not_ lead one to suppose that “uninterrupted desert” was its only characteristic feature. In the north are Jebel Athal (the Tamarisk Mountains), and Wady Yebrin. Wady Shibwan and Wady Habuna seem to extend at least some distance into the triangle from the west, while, in the very centre we have the very unusual names for a desert region Belad-ez-Zohur (Flower-country) and El-Joz (the nut-trees). There is no doubt that a large part of the region is now desert and uninhabited; but it may not always have been so and may hold its own secrets, archæological and geographical.

An Arab of Wady Fatima told Doughty, what the divine partition of the world was in the following words: “Two quarters Allah divided to the children of Adam, the third part He gave to Gog and Magog, a manikin people, parted from us by a wall, which they shall overskip in the latter days; and then will they overrun the world. Of their kindred be the gross Turks and the misbelieving Persians; but you, the Engleys are of the good kind with us. The fourth part of the world is called Roba’-el-Khali, the empty quarter.” Doughty adds, “I never found any Arabian who had aught to tell, even by hearsay, of that dreadful country. Haply it is Nefud, with quicksands, which might be entered into and even passed with milch dromedaries in the spring weeks. Now my health failed me; otherwise I had sought to unriddle that enigma.” It still awaits solution. In Oman they say it is only twenty-seven days’ caravan march overland to Mecca right through the desert; perhaps from the Oman highlands one could more easily penetrate into the unknown and get safely to Riad if not to Yemen.

Nejran, celebrated as an ancient Christian province of Arabia and sacred by the blood of martyrs, lies north of Yemen and east of the Asir country. Together with the Dauasir-Wady region it forms a strip of territory about 300 miles long and 100 broad, well-watered and even more fertile than the best parts of Yemen[43]. The intrepid traveller, Halévy (1870) first visited this region from Yemen and found a large Jewish population in the southern part. He visited the towns Mahlaf, Rijlah and Karyet-el-Kabil, penetrated Wady Habuna but could not succeed in reaching Wady Dauasir. He describes the fertility of the Wadys and the extensive date-plantations of this part of Arabia in terms of greatest admiration. Ruins and inscriptions are plentiful. In Wady Dauasir the Arabs say that the palm-groves extend three dromedary-journeys. The people are all agricultural Arabs but, as in Oman, they live in continual feud and turmoil because of tribal jealousies and old quarrels.

The region east of Wady Dauasir is called Aflaj or Felej-el-Aflaj, two days’ journey distant, here there are also palm-oases. It is six days’ journey thence to Riad, but the way is rugged, without villages.[44] It was along Wady Dauasir that I had hoped to make the overland journey from Sana to Bahrein in 1894, once beyond Turkish espionage the way would have been open. According to the testimony of Halévy the inhabitants of Nejran and Wady Dauasir are not fanatical. Nowhere in Yemen are the Jews treated so kindly as by the Arabs of Nejran. This entire region must also be classed with the fertile districts of Arabia. Water is everywhere abundant coming down from the Jebel Rian, fifteen days’ journey from Toweyk and from the southern ranges of Jebel Ban and Jebel Tumra. The inhabitants of Nejran and of Southern Dauasir are heretical Moslems. They belong to the Bayadhi sect like the people of Oman,[45] and are supposed to be followers of Abd-Allah-bin-Abad (746 A. D.).

Historically, Nejran is of special interest because here it was that the Roman army of 11,000 men sent by Augustus Cæsar under Ælius Gallus to make a prey of the chimerical riches of Arabia Felix came to grief. The warriors did not fall in battle but, purposely misled by the Nabateans, their allies, they marched painfully over the waterless wastes in Central Arabia six months; the most perished in misery and only a remnant returned. Strabo, writing from the mouth of Gallus himself, who was his friend and prefect of Egypt, gives a description of the Arabian desert that cannot be improved: “It is a sandy waste with only a few palms and pits of water; the acacia thorn and the tamarisk grow there; the wandering Arabs lodge in tents and are camel graziers.”

Nejd—the heart of Arabia, the genuine Arabia, the Arabia of the poets—is properly bounded,—on the east, by the Turkish province of Hasa; on the south by the border of the desert near Yemama; on the west by Hejaz in its widest extent to Khaibar; and on the north by Jebel Shammar. Thus defined it includes the regions of El-Kasim, El-Woshem, El-Aared, and Yemama. The “Zephyrs of Nejd” are the pregnant theme of many an Arab poet and in these highlands, the air is crisp and dry and invigorating, especially to the visitors from the hot and moist coast provinces. It was such a poet who wrote in raptures of the Nejd climate:

“Then said I to my companion while the camels were hastening
To bear us down the pass between Menifah and Demar.
‘Enjoy while thou canst the sweets of the meadows of Nejd;
With no such meadows and sweets shalt thou meet after this evening.’
Ah! heaven’s blessing on the scented gales of Nejd,
And its greensward and groves glittering from the spring showers;
And thy dear friends when thy lot was cast in Nejd—
Months flew past, they passed and we knew not,
Nor when their moons were new nor when they waned.”

As to the real and prosaic features of the country, Nejd is a plateau of which Jebel Toweyk is the centre and backbone. Its general height above the sea is about 4,000 feet, but there are more lofty ledges and peaks, some as high as 5,500 feet. These highlands are for the most clothed with fine pasture; trees are common, solitary or in little groups; and the entire plateau is intersected by a maze of valleys cut out of the sandstone and limestone. In these countless hollows is concentrated the fertility and the population of Nejd. The soil of the valleys is light, mixed with marl sand and pebbles washed down from the cliffs. Water is found everywhere in wells at a depth of not much over fifteen feet and often less; in Kasim it has a brackish taste, and the soil is salty, but in other parts of Nejd there are traces of iron in it. The climate of all Nejd, according to Palgrave, is perhaps one of the healthiest in the world. The air is dry, clear and free from all the malarial poison of the coast; the summers are warm but not sultry, and the winter air is biting cold. The usual monotony of an Arabian landscape is not only enlivened by the presence of the date-palm near the villages, but by groups of Talh, Nebaa’ and Sidr, the Ithl and Ghada Euphorbia—all of them good-sized shrubs or trees.[46]

Nejd is pasture land, so that its breed of sheep are known all over Arabia; their wool is remarkably fine, almost equal to Cashmire in softness and delicacy. Camels abound; according to Palgrave, Nejd is “a wilderness of camels.” The color is generally brownish white or grey; black camels are found westward and southward in the inhospitable Harra-country toward Mecca. Oxen and cows are not uncommon. Game is plenty, both feathered and quadruped. Partridges, quail, a kind of bustard; gazelle, hares, jerboa, wild-goat, wild-boars, porcupine, antelope, and a kind of wild-ox (wathyhi) with beautiful horns. Snakes are not common, but lizards, centipedes and scorpions abound. The ostrich is also found in western Nejd as well as in Wady Dauasir. The Bedouin hunt them to sell the skins to the Damascus feather merchants who come down with the Haj every year to Mecca; forty reals (dollars) was the price paid in Doughty’s time for a single skin—a small fortune to the poor nomad. Mounted on their dromedaries they watch for the bird and then waylay it, matchlock ready to hand. The Arabs esteem the breast of the ostrich good food; the fat is a sovereign remedy with them and half a _finjan_ (the measure of an Arab coffee-cup), is worth half a Turkish mejidie. The ostrich is no longer as common in Arabia as formerly, and in many parts of the peninsula the bird is unknown even by name.

Nejd is a land of camels and horses. But although a fine breed of the latter exist it is a common mistake to suppose that horses are plentiful in Central Arabia and that every Arab owns his steed. Doughty says “there is no breeding or sale of horses at Boreyda or Aneyza nor any town in Nejd.” Most of the horses shipped from Busrah or Kuweit to Bombay are not from Nejd, although originally of Nejd-breed, but come from Jebel Shammar and the Mesopotamian valley. He who would know all about the beauty of the Nejd horse must visit the Hail stables with Palgrave who “goes raving mad” about the animals; or he can read Lady Ann Blunt’s “Pilgrimage to Nejd” in search of horses; better still let him buy that remarkable book by Colonel Tweedie: THE ARABIAN HORSE, _His country and His people_. In this volume the horse is the hero and Arabs are grooms and stable-boys. The Arab is more kind to his horse than to any other animal. No Arab dreams of tying up a horse by the neck, a tether replaces the halter, one of the animal’s hind-legs being encircled about the pastern by a light iron ring or leather strap, and connected with a chain or rope to an iron peg. Nejdi horses are specially valuable for great speed and endurance. They are all built for riding and not for draught, to the unprofessional eye they do not seem at all superior to the best horses seen in London or New York City, but I leave the matter to the authorities mentioned.[47]

The government of Nejd indicates what the independent rulers of Arabia are like. Doughty testifies that the sum of all he could learn from the mouth of the Arabs themselves of Ibn Rashid’s government (now in the hands of Abd-el-Aziz bin Mitaab, his nephew) was this: “He makes sure of them that may be won by gifts, he draws the sword against his adversaries, he treads down them that fear him and he were no right ruler, hewed he no heads off!” Some of the nomads consider the prince of Nejd a tyrant, but the villagers generally are well content. Forsooth it is better for them to have _one_ tyrant than _many_, as in the days before the political upheaval that unified central Arabia. Other of the more religious folk of Nejd cannot forget the bloody path by which Ibn Rashid gained his seat of power and call him “_Nejis_, (polluted), a cutter-off of his kinsfolk with the sword.”

Lavish sums in the eyes of the starved Bedouin are spent on hospitality but all guests are pleased and depart from the pile of rice to praise God and the Amir of Nejd. Daily, in the guest-room, according to Doughty, one hundred and eighty messes of barley-bread with rice and butter are served to the men freely; a camel or smaller animal is killed for the first-class guests and the total expense of his famous hospitality is not over £1,500 annually. The revenues are immense and Ibn Rashid’s private fortune had grown large even when Doughty visited him in 1877. He has cattle innumerable and “40,000 camels”; some 300 blooded mares and 100 horses; over 100 negro slaves; besides private riches laid up in silver metal, land at Hail and plantations in Jauf.

Contrasted with the Turkish provinces of Arabia the subjects of the Amir of Nejd enjoy light taxation and even the Bedouin warriors who are in the service of the Nejd ruler receive better wages than the regular troops of the Sultan. From the descrip-

tion of Mr. and Mrs. Blunt and Doughty at Hail, one cannot but feel that the government of Nejd is much more liberal and less fanatical than it was in the old days of the Wahabis as described by Palgrave. The old Wahabi power is now broken forever and Nejd is getting into touch with the world through commerce. Kasim already resembles the border-lands and the inhabitants are worldly-wise with the wisdom of the Bombay horse-dealers. Many of the youth of Nejd visit Bagdad, Busrah and Bahrein in their commercial ventures. Says Doughty, “all Nejd Arabia, east of Teyma, appertains to the Persian Gulf traffic and not to Syria [as does western Nejd]: and therefore the foreign color of Nejd is Mesopotamian.” He marvelled at the erudition of the Nejd Arabs in spite of their isolation until he found that even here newspapers had found their way in recent years. English patent medicines are sold in the bazaar of Aneyza and the Arabs are somewhat acquainted with the wonders of Bombay and Calcutta. Palgrave found the inhabitants of Kasim and southern Nejd far more intelligent than those of the north. Except for the four large towns of Hail, Riad, Boreyda and Aneyza, Nejd has no large centres of population. Bedouin tribes are found everywhere and villagers cultivate the fertile oases even in the desert; but the population is not as dense as in Oman or Yemen nor even as in Nejran and Wady Dauasir.

Hail, the present capital of Nejd, may have a population of ten thousand within its walls. It lies east of Jebel Aja, a granite range 6,000 feet high ending abruptly at this point. The city is on a table-land 3,500 feet above the sea. The Amir’s castle is a formidable stronghold occupying a position of immense natural strength in the Jebel Aja. Blunt visited this place in 1878, but does not give its exact site, “lest the information might be utilized by the Turks under possible future contingencies.” We have three pen-pictures of Hail: that of Palgrave who drew a plan of the city; the description of Doughty with his plan of the Amir’s residence and

guest-house; and the sketches of Lady Ann Blunt on her pilgrimage. It is a walled town with several gates, a large market-place, the palaces overtopping all and mosques sufficient for the worshippers. It is a clean, well-built town, according to Doughty and pleasant to live in save for the awe of the tyrant-ruler. Its circuit may be nearly an hour, in the centre of the walled enclosure stands the palace; near it the great mosque and directly opposite the principal bazaar. The great coffee-hall where the Amir gives his audiences is eighty feet long with lofty walls and of noble proportions. It has long rows of pillars “upholding the flat roof of ethel timbers and palm-stalk mat-work, goodly stained and varnished with the smoke of the daily hospitality. Under the walls are benches of clay overspread with Bagdad carpets. By the entry stands a mighty copper-tinned basin or ‘sea’ of fresh water with a chained cup, from thence the coffee-server draws and he may drink who thirsts. In the upper end of this princely _kahwa_ (coffee-house) are two fire-pits, like shallow graves, where desert bushes are burned in colder weather; they lack good fuel, and fire is blown commonly under the giant coffee-pots in a clay hearth like a smith’s furnace.”

The palace castles are built in Nejd with battled towers of clay-brick and whitened on the outside with _jiss_ or plaster; this in contrast with the palm-gardens in the walled-enclosure give the town a bright, fresh aspect. Outside the walls, the contrast of the Bedouin squalor and the rusty black basalt rocks lying in rough confusion is intense. Hail lies in the midst of a barren country and is an oasis not by nature but by the pluck and perseverance of its founders. The Shammar Arabs settled here from antiquity and the place is mentioned in the ancient poem of Antar.

_Er-Riadh_ or Riad (the “gardens-in-the-desert”) was the Wahabi metropolis of Eastern Nejd and of all the Wahabi empire. The city lies in the heart of the Aared country, enclosed north and south by Jebel Toweyk and about 280 miles southeast of Hail. It is a large place (according to Palgrave of 30,000 population!), but nothing is known of its present state, as no European traveller has visited it since Palgrave. The general appearance of Riad, according to our guide is like that of Damascus. “Before us stretched a wide open valley, and in its foreground, immediately below the pebbly slope on whose summit we stood, lay the capital, large and square, crowned by high towers and strong walls of defence, a mass of roofs and terraces, where, overtopping all, frowned the huge but irregular pile of Feysul’s royal castle, and hard by it rose the scarce less conspicuous palace, built and inhabited by his eldest son, Abdallah. All around for full three miles over the surrounding plain, but more especially to the west and south, waved a sea of palm-trees above green fields and well-watered gardens; while the singing, droning sound of the water-wheels reached us even where we had halted at a quarter of a mile or more from the nearest town-walls. On the opposite side southward, the valley opened out into the great and even more fertile plains of Yemama, thickly dotted with groves and villages, among which the large town Manhufah, hardly inferior in size to Riad itself, might be clearly distinguished.... In all the countries which I have visited, and they are many, seldom has it been mine to survey a landscape equal to this in beauty, and in historical meaning, rich and full alike to the eye and the mind. The mixture of tropical aridity and luxuriant verdure, of crowded population and desert tracts, is one that Arabia alone can present, and in comparison with which Syria seems tame and Italy monotonous.”[48]

Undoubtedly the population of Riad has diminished since the seat of government was transferred to Hail; at present it has even less trade and importance than Hofhoof (Hassa) since the Turkish occupation.

JEBEL SHAMMAR and the northwestern desert, remain to be considered. The chief characteristics of this region are the extensive _Nefuds_ or sandy-deserts and the nomad population. Jebel Shammar more than any part of Arabia is the tenting ground for the sons of Kedar. Everywhere are the black-worsted booths—the houses of goat-hair, so celebrated in Arabic poetry and song. Place-names on the map of this country are not villages or cities but watering-places for cattle and encampments of the tribes from year to year. From the Gulf of Akaba to the Euphrates, and as far north as their flocks can find pasture, the nomads call the land their own. Many of them are subject to the government of Nejd and pay a small annual tribute; some are nominally under Turkish rule and others know no ruler save their Sheikh and have no law save that of immemorial Bedouin custom.

Burckhardt discourses of these people like one who has dwelt among them, tasting the sweet and bitter of their hungry, homely life. He describes their tents and their simple furniture, arms, utensils, diet, arts, industry, sciences, diseases, religion, matrimony, government, and warfare. He tells of their hospitality to the stranger; their robbery of the traveller; their blood-revenge and blood-covenants; their slaves and servants; their feasts and rejoicings; their domestic relations and public functions; their salutations and language; and how at last they bury their dead in a single garment, scraping out a shallow grave in hard-burned soil and heaping on a few rough stones to keep away the foul hyenas.

Burckhardt devotes a considerable portion of his book to an enumeration of the Bedouin-tribes and their numerous subdivisions. These will prove of great service to those who visit or cross the northern part of the Peninsula. The most important tribe is that of the _Anaeze_. They are nomads in the strictest acceptation of the word, for they continue during the whole year in almost constant motion. Their summer quarters are near the Syrian frontiers and in winter they retire into the heart of the desert or toward the Euphrates. When the tents are few they are pitched in a circle and called _dowar_, in greater numbers, they encamp in rows, one behind the other, especially along a rivulet or wady-bed; such encampments are called _Nezel_. The Sheikh’s or chief’s tent has the principal place generally toward the direction whence guests or foes may be expected. The Anaeze tents are always of black goat’s-hair; some other tribes have stuff striped white and black. Even the richest among them never have more than one tent unless he happen to have a second wife who cannot live on good terms with the first; he then pitches a smaller tent near his own. But polygamy is very unusual among the Bedouin Arabs, although divorce is common. The tent furniture is simplicity itself; camel-saddles and cooking utensils with carpets and provision skins, are all the Arab housewife has to look after.

Since the days of Job the Bedouin have been a nation of robbers. “The oxen were plowing and the asses feeding beside them; and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them away, yea they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword.” (Job i. 14.) The Bedouin’s hand is against every man in all Jebel Shammar to this day. The tribes are in a state of almost perpetual war against each other; it seldom happens, according to Burckhardt, that a tribe enjoys a moment of general peace with all its neighbors, yet the war between two tribes is not of long duration. Peace is easily made and easily broken. In Bedouin parlance a salt covenant is only binding while the salt is in their stomachs. General battles are rarely fought, and few lives are lost; to surprise an enemy by sudden attack, or to plunder a camp, are the chief objects of both parties. The dreadful effects of “blood-revenge” (by which law the kindred of the slain are in duty bound to slay the murderer or his kin) prevent many sanguinary conflicts. Whatever the Arabs take in their predatory excursions is shared according to previous agreement. Sometimes the whole spoil is equally divided by the Sheikh among his followers; at other times each one plunders for himself. A Bedouin raid is called a _ghazu_, and it is worthy of remark that the earliest biographer of Mohammed, Ibn Ishak, so designates the wars of the prophet of God with the Koreish. The Anaeze Bedouin never attack by night, for during the confusion of a nocturnal assault the women’s apartments might be entered, and this they regard as treachery. The female sex is respected even among the most inveterate enemies whenever a camp is plundered, and neither men, women nor slaves are ever taken prisoners. It is war only for booty. The Arabs are robbers, seldom murderers; to ask protection or _dakheil_ is sure quarter, even when the spear is lifted. Peace is concluded generally by arbitration in the tent of the Sheikh of a third tribe friendly to both combating tribes. The most frequent cause of war is quarrels over wells or watering-places and pasture grounds, just as in the days of the patriarchs.

“The Bedouins have reduced robbery,” says Burckhardt, “in all its branches to a complete and regular system, which offers many interesting details.” These details are very numerous, and the stories of robbery and escape given by the Arabian chroniclers, or told at the camp-fires, would fill a volume. One example will suffice us. Three robbers plan an attack on an encampment. One of them stations himself behind the tent that is to be robbed, and endeavors to excite the attention of the nearest watch-dogs. These immediately attack him; he flies, and they pursue him to a great distance from the camp, which is thus cleared of those dangerous guardians. The second robber goes to the camels, cuts the strings that confine their legs and makes as many rise as he wishes. He then leads one of the she-camels out of the camp, the others following as usual, while the third robber has all this time been standing with lifted club before the tent-door to strike down any one who might awake and venture forth. If the robbers succeed they then join their companion, each seizes the tail of a strong leading-camel and pulls it with all his might; the camels set up a gallop into the desert and the men are dragged along by their booty until safe distance separates them from the scene of robbery. They then mount their prey and make haste to their own encampment.