Chapter I: The name literally interpreted is “Old Man Flea,” but

it has no contemptuous significance to the pious. It was indeed a title of honour, for the old man so felt the sanctity of all life that he would not kill the most degraded of insects. His story is that of a poor pilgrim using all possible shifts to reach Mecca, and in the end succeeding. There are two accounts of his return. In the one he was compelled to trust himself to the sea journey of 180 miles alone in a tiny canoe. The sea spared him and he reached land where his tomb now stands, dying or dead of thirst. At any rate he was dead when found, and, being recognised as one who had perished on the pilgrimage, was buried as a shêkh. It is said that in memory of the manner of his death, sailors passing the spot pour a little fresh water into the sea. But, as a matter of fact, the custom is a general one, and all shêkhs’ tombs are thus honoured. It is a fine example indeed of a persistent, widespread, and very ancient observance, probably less bound up with Moslem and old Christian theology than Omar Khayyam’s well-known lines:

“And not a drop that from our cups we throw

For Earth to drink of but may steal below

To quench the fire of anguish in some eye

There hidden—far beneath and long ago.”

(See note by Aldis Wright in “Golden Treasury Edition.”)

Personally I think my sailors are actuated by some quite vague sacrificial idea.

The second, and more correct, story places his death at Jedda, while on the pilgrimage. As those who die in the performance of this sacred duty earn very special merit, he was honoured by burial in a wooden coffin. During the ceremonies so violent a storm arose that the mourners left the coffin on the sea-shore. Next morning it was found that a sudden rise of the sea had borne away the saint, and later the coffin was found floated ashore at the entrance to a harbour on the other side of the sea[22]. When found it was recognised as the remains of a holy man, and buried in a stone tomb on high ground at the harbour entrance; which harbour was renamed after him, Mersa Shêkh Barûd. The harbour was then completely desert, and this tomb, the size of a very small room, was the only stone building, except two small police stations, between Suakin and Egypt! Once a conspicuous mark for sailors (the Government for this reason keeping it brightly whitewashed), it is now quite inconspicuous under the towering electric cranes and coal transporters of the modern seaport, of which it is the only object more than five years old.

The sites of the tombs of these Holy Men of a sailor people are always well and appropriately chosen, generally on high ground at a harbour entrance. One I know, where the land is too low to give an impressive site, is built on the outermost point of the shore reef, hardly dry ground at lowest water level. That of our Holy Island has been mentioned; that of Shêkh Dabadib is by a well, and is also a conspicuous mark on a coast otherwise featureless, even for the Red Sea.

Mohammedanism here meets Ancestor Worship and involves the sanctity of the head of a reigning house. This tomb is none the less sacred for being new, antiquity and miraculous power are not always necessary to reverence; The Shêkh buried here is known to men still living, and his relatives are prominent people hereabouts. The photograph shews the building, which contains the tomb, with a prayer-space marked off outside, the Mecca-ward niche of which is decorated with flags. Here is also an almost perfectly spherical piece of granite, a natural boulder, black with libations of butter. One of my sailors is seen addressing this, hoping thereby to complete the prayers already made at the grave within.

_Plate XIII_

The building of even so simple a tomb must have been a great expense so far from civilisation. Masons were brought from Suakin to trim the coral blocks, taken living from the sea, of which the walls are built.

The other photograph on this plate shews one of a series of little towers which are found here and there near the foot of the mountains, the finding of which, in the midst of a desert devoid of all buildings, is almost startlingly unexpected. They also are Moslem graves, but are not now regarded with reverence. Built long ago in the Middle Ages they are relics of the old trade route from the ancient kingdom of Axum, to the now vanished seaport of Aydeb which may some day be discovered in the ruins of “Old Suakin” or Berenice.

Another way of honouring the saints is by the killing of sheep at their graves, especially on feast days. The flesh is eaten of course—after being distributed to all who care to take it.

I suppose as a safeguard against idolatry the posture of prayer at a tomb is entirely different from those prescribed for prayer to God. There are no bowings, or kneelings with the forehead touching the ground. The petitioner stands throughout, holding the palms of his hands as though they were an open book from which he read, and at the end of his prayer passing them over his face. The idea symbolised is that during the prayer his heart is open to receive the blessing, and at the close his action sets forth his faith that a blessing has been received, and applied to his person.

Whenever in the desert men encamp for any length of time, a place is set apart for prayer, and marked off by stones set on edge. It is a semicircle or half oval, the apex of which is in the direction of Mecca, to which all the Moslems of the world turn to pray. The space within is kept clean as holy ground, and no one may step within the stones without first removing his sandals and washing, with water if by a well or the sea, otherwise with sand, as though entering a mosque.

The third type of religious exercise is the “zikr” or “remembrance,” here called the “mûled[23]” or “Birthday,” this name being given because the main part of the ceremonial is the reading of a long poem, composed by a shêkh of this country, describing the birth and life of Mohammed.

As in Egypt, religious recitation takes the place of a dinner party or evening entertainment. The material apparatus required are, first and foremost, lamps and candles, the more that can be borrowed the better; secondly, some carpets and sheets of matting to lay in a circle on the ground for the guests to sit upon. Minor matters are tea (coffee is more rarely used in our village) and incense.

Imagine the Eastern starlight relieving the soft purple darkness, a gentle moving air, cool after the heated storm winds of the day. The only light visible in the whole village is that placed before the reader, a brilliant little circle shewing up the principal guests in their white robes and turbans, the holy book and the smoking censer. One by one the guests appear out of the darkness, the droning chant of the reader taking no heed of their comings. Some, in new white robes and turbaned heads, or those to whom age gives dignity independently of wealth, seat themselves in the light near the reader; others, shaggy haired and wild faced herdsmen from the hills, in dust coloured calico, remain half seen on the farther side of the circle. No woman or girl is visible, but they may gather at a little distance and raise their curious whistling trill, their joy cry, at intervals. The little boys of the village, of the age at which church going and sitting still generally were especially abhorrent to ourselves, are much in evidence, and certainly do not come for the tea, of which they may not be invited to partake.

The service contains real religious feeling, and besides the birth and life of Mohammed there is recited a long prayer, the droning of which is broken by the mournful chanting of responses, of which of course “La Allah ill’ Allah” is one. Nothing could be more expressive of submission to the hardness of desert life, or so impress upon the listener remembrance of his exile from his fellows in the cheerful striving with life of the younger nations, than these people’s singing, whether it be done for pleasure or as a religious service. The whole thing is full of Eastern poetic licence, e.g. blessings are called down upon each detail of the Prophet’s body separately. At the point where his actual birth is announced all stand awhile. Only one sentence is really objectionable to a Christian, where all the older prophets extol Mohammed, Jesus is made to repeat the words of John, “I am not worthy to unloose his shoe latchet.”

After about an hour’s reading all rise and join hands in a circle, chanting “La Allah ill’ Allah,” “There is no god but God,” emphasising the words with deep bowings, or by stamping the feet in unison; after some repetitions the time quickens, and the sentence is shortened to “La Allah”; even these words are finally abbreviated to a grunt as the bowings and stampings degenerate into mere furious exertion. Another sentence repeated in the same way is “Hû hay kayâm,” “He is the Life, the Almighty,” with an emphasis on the pronoun, Hû, that excludes all sharers in His attributes. In the same way this sentence is shortened down to “Hu” alone, delivered with a deep gasp, so that at a little distance the sound of worship may be mistaken for the barking of dogs. At intervals one of the more excitable men enters and dances round inside the ring, urging the congregation to still greater rapidity and energy of sound and movement. When the men are tired they resume their seats, tea is handed round again, and more incense thrown on the charcoal, which is kept burning for the purpose. The reader resumes his recitation awhile until the spirit moves the congregation to rise, bow and repeat the formula “HE is the Life, the Almighty,” as before.

The borderline between religion and superstition is of course very indefinite, and the belief in evil spirits and witchcraft is as strong as that in the intercession of dead saints. It is of no use to point out that such ideas are inconsistent with that of the Unity and Omnipotence of God, and only force can give weight to the consideration that loud drumming close to the head of a sick person, while certain to do harm, is unlikely to drive away the evil spirit which is the cause of the disease, or that a man suffering from heart disease is more likely to kill himself than drive out the evil spirit, by the violent exertions of a Mûled dance.

The wearing of amulets is, perhaps, the superstition most akin to religion, and one at least that has had its origin in intelligent respect for written wisdom. Every man wears them in numbers, and children have a few, mingled with other lucky objects, however insufficient their clothing. In the commonest form the paper is enclosed in a neat little leather case, a little over an inch square by half an inch deep, which may be slung round the neck with the prayer beads, by a string of twisted leather, or attached to a cord, of the same material, which passes round the arm just above the elbow. In some cases a man may wear up to twenty of these packets, partly as ornaments, partly as defence against each and all of the ills of life.

The contents are various, since, trusting to the ignorance of the purchaser, the charm-writer may put down the first thing that comes into his head, perhaps even lewd poetry, or the name of God written in various fantastic ways. Some charm-writers are quite illiterate, and their works are mere childish scribblings. A friend enquired of one of the better Shêkhs whether he had any faith himself in what he wrote, the reply being merely, “The Arabs like them so I write them.” I suppose the corollary, “and I like the money they pay for them,” may be taken for granted.

I was talking of amulets to one of my sailors. “The paper in this,” he said, indicating a dingy silver case hung by a bit of string round his neck, “was worth four pounds.” (This is two months’ pay.) “When I was in Suakin I went to a shêkh there as I was ill. He was a great Fakir, a great Shêkh, and his tomb is now in the middle of the bazaar. He told me he had a very good paper by him, and if I wore it for twelve days, I should, if it pleased God, become well. The price of this paper was four pounds, but I said, ‘I have only ten shillings.’ ‘Never mind,’ said he, ‘give me the rest if my words come true.’ And after twelve days I got better. He was no liar.” I was anxious to know whether the balance of the four pounds had been actually paid over or not, but my diplomatic questions were met by an impenetrable reserve, and the conversation was deflected into theology. “The Fakir does not say ‘you must get better’ after so many days, but only ‘if it is God’s will’.”

The common way of dissolving the ink of the writing in water and drinking it as medicine, is practised here. Sometimes the fakir may instruct the patient to burn a piece of it each day on a censer, enclosing the smoke in his clothes and so fumigating himself with it. My clerk called on a sailor who was ill, or thought he was. The cause of illness was presumed to be the issue against him of a bad writing by some malicious person unknown, so the obvious cure was to get a counterblast written by someone friendly to the bewitched sufferer. Do not imagine the romance of oriental wizardry, or of mediaeval alchemists with patriarchal beards! Superstition is, in reality, most dingily matter-of-fact. The good fairy who wrote the counterblast is a fat, waddling, little man, with tiny screwed-up eyes in a face expressing only good-natured commonplaceness, as completely as his figure expresses laziness and love of food. He is in fact as much like a grocer as an eastern magician, but he is a good little man too, and has undertaken the work of village schoolmaster, and teaches the boys the correct bowings and postures of prayer, without any remuneration.

Customs, possibly peculiar to this people, and not held by the Arabs of the other side of the sea, for instance, are connected with milking. A woman may not milk a sheep or goat, only men may perform this duty. Further, a man having milked an animal may not drink until some other man, no matter whom, has first taken three sips. So strong is this idea that the phrase “He milks and drinks” is a term of abuse. One would think the origin of the custom to be the unwritten laws of hospitality, but if so, the present generation have no knowledge of any such derivation. “It is just the custom” is all they can say.

I remember meeting a little boy and his sister, who for this purpose had carried milk two miles or more, to the only house besides their father’s then on the peninsula of Rawaya. What the thirsty father would have done if they had returned after finding no male at home I do not know. By chance one was ashore, the others having gone fishing.

Belief in the evil eye is universal here, as in the world at large, and the common sign which is supposed to afford protection against it, the figure of a hand with fingers outspread, is trusted in here also. This belief in the evil eye has prevented my obtaining more than one portrait of a woman, even the photograph of a woman’s hand and rings, etc. (opp. page 24) being obtained with much difficulty. The lady stood within a little window, placed low down in the side of her house, so as to be quite satisfied that her head could not be “seen” by the camera’s wicked glass eye. The reason given was that photography was an offence against their modesty, but I am sure the evil eye superstition had more to do with their reluctance.

The common idea that a pearl is due to the hardening of dew, to obtain which the oyster comes to the surface of the sea at night, was suggested to me by an Arab dealer, but a purely native idea is that abundance of rain in the winter will result in the appearance of many young oysters next summer. Because to themselves every drop of the scanty rainfall is precious beyond everything, they sympathetically imagine it must be of value to the oysters. However, this point, like the former on the formation of pearls, needs no great study of oyster habits to refute. As practically all oysters live under at least six feet of sea water, and are anchored firmly to the bottom, neither dew nor showers of rain can reach them, much less have any effect whatever upon them. Also the breeding season is summer, not winter.

The porpoise[24] is known as “Abu Salâma” or “Father of Safety,” its useful habit, in days of long ago, being supposed to be the conveyance to shore of shipwrecked sailors. But one day, according to tradition, a porpoise rescued a negro, who, as soon as he reached shore, most ungratefully put a knife into poor Abu Salâma. Since that day shipwrecked mariners have had to shift for themselves. (Note how the blame is put on to the subject race. Prof. D’Arcy Thomson[25] gives a similar superstition regarding another kind of dolphin at Rio de Janeiro, where it is said to bring home the bodies of drowned sailors, and to defend swimmers against another genus which is dangerous to man.)

No one will destroy a cat or drown young kittens. This is not merely misplaced compassion or respect for life in general, as they bury[26] superfluous puppies without any qualm. Perhaps it is a relic of the ancient Egyptians’ reverence for these animals. I tried to point out the inhumanity of allowing cats to multiply unchecked, and found that the avoidance of causing suffering to the cat had little, if anything, to do with the matter. “If they die of starvation it does not matter, but we must not kill them.” The consequence is that every town and village swarms with miserable half-starved cats.

I was once staying in a house where the balcony, on which we dined, overhung the sea at a height of perhaps 30 feet. A miserable cat, which had adopted the house as her residence, came and made herself a nuisance by the usual feline methods. One of the guests rose, caught, and threw her over the balcony into the sea. It seemed rather callous, but obviously such an animal’s destruction lessens the amount of misery in the world. I could hardly believe my eyes two days later, when that same cat walked on to the verandah. It appears that the process, which I had thought necessarily fatal, was repeated on this cat at recurring intervals, the dose being only sufficiently powerful to take effect for two or three days, after which she was as actively disagreeable as ever, and it had to be repeated.

Talking of cats there are not less than seven names for this one beast in Arabic! I wish I had taken down the complete list as my informant gave it, but one of the two I know is a good instance of onomatopœia, or instinctive naming from sounds associated with the object. The Arabic _gutt_ is obviously the same as cat, and may be the same word by actual derivation, but the Red Sea word is “Biss,” which, the Arab not being able to pronounce the letter P, is the same as “Puss.” It is hard to believe that this should actually pass through Egypt to finally be used in England as a merely “pet” name. It must have arisen independently in the two countries.

Once travelling on the desert east coast of Zanzibar island and sleeping in the open, I awakened in the night to find an eclipse of the moon in progress (1901 was the year). I expected my boat boys to be alarmed at the phenomenon, especially as they were some of the original inhabitants of the island, not mingled with Arab blood. But they took it very calmly, saying something to the effect that “The English know all about that!” In my Red Sea village in 1909, it was quite different. On going out in the morning my clerk asked me whether I had been disturbed by the natives’ efforts to save the moon’s life, or, as he put it, Had I _heard_ the eclipse? It appears that directly the shadow touched the moon everyone was aroused and a beating of tin cans commenced, with loud prayers that God would not allow the moon to be destroyed.

One of the origins of superstition is false reasoning from observed fact. When a native has a wound or open sore he is careful to keep his nose plugged with rag, or to sniff continually at aromatic substances, as he believes the smell of a wound will cause fever and mortification. The observation that if a wound smells, the patient is likely to be in a bad way, is sound enough, but the inference that the smell, or any smell, e.g. women’s scents, causes the fever is superstition. I am informed that this idea is very widespread. I fear my applications of iodoform, than which nothing can have a more persistent smell, will convince the natives that we share their belief in the efficacy of “drowning,” rather than preventing, the odour of decay.

Somewhat similar was the native treatment of a man who fell from the roof of a house we were building. He was lying senseless when I arrived, his nostrils carefully plugged with onion! Probably the smell of onion, like that of ammonia, may be useful in fainting, but far more important is free access of air, and _that_ they treated as a matter of no account at all.

The great remedy for everything is the application of a red-hot nail. Hence many of the scars which otherwise might be taken for the results of fighting.

One of my men, being in great pain from stricture, I gave the maximum dose of opium for his relief. On returning to see the effect he answered, “Yes, I have had no pain since they burned me.” My little tabloids were despised as too trifling a remedy for such serious ill; burning had been considered a more sensible treatment, and the relief afforded by a full dose of opium attributed to it. “Perhaps it was the English medicine that relieved your pain?” I suggested. “The English medicine is good, but I have had no pain since they burned me,” he repeated. Great is Faith! How many cures may have resulted from the faith excited by a red-hot nail, without the aid of opium! At the same time English medicines are highly valued, especially those which have a prompt and visible effect, and there is no fear of their being too nasty. I gave a baby girl, about a year old, a dose of castor oil. She smiled and licked her lips; perhaps it was no more unpleasant than native butter.

One of our camels fell lame. My clerk thought it had stepped on a thorn, but the native opinion was that it had smelled the dung of a hyaena.

A bundle of the knuckle bones of a sheep are hung up in the tent with the object of assisting the healthy growth of the baby, and dog’s teeth are tied round its neck to insure the regular succession of its own.

The cure for a headache is a string bound tightly round the head, and amulets are generally included.

My junior clerk having been stung by a scorpion, was induced by the severe pain, in the absence of other help, to trust to native ministrations. His head (which has abundant curly hair) they did with butter anoint, even with the malodorous “samin,” and gave him copiously of the same to drink. The root of a certain tree was bound round his wrist and an amulet round his elbow. I do not know which of these four remedies effected the cure; a good drink of “samin” would certainly have an effect in the right direction.

The Exhibit at Shepherd’s Bush of “charms” and magical objects, recently in use in England, indicates a mental level no whit higher than that of my brown people. And yet with what contempt would these English wearers of amulets and dried mole’s feet have regarded the “heathen niggers.” And can we say much more for the large numbers of half-educated people who do not like to spill the salt, and generally bow to the new moon, because “there might be something in it,” who refuse to believe what is strange to them, no matter what the evidence, though believing many things on no true evidence at all?

Religion and superstition having occupied so much of our attention, I seem to lack a sense of proportion in devoting but a short space to the more real matter of morality. Brevity is, however, excused by the fact that all description of men’s ways of life is necessarily an exposition of their moral state.

These northern tribes, isolated in the deserts, possess the primitive, yet most advanced, virtue of strict honesty. During the winter, when rain has fallen upon certain favoured spots and most of the population has migrated to them, one frequently comes across small trees bearing bundles of matting, boards, and sticks, the materials of a tent-house. The owner has left the country for the time the grazing will last, and, not wishing to take all his house with him, merely puts the materials out of the reach of the goats, secure in finding them untouched, not even borrowed, on his return two or three months later; this too in a country where even a bit of old sacking is a thing of value.