Chapter VIII: Meals and Medicine

AT intervals there were pleasant marks of hospitality from the Senussi leaders at Jaghbub.

There are various forms of hospitality among the Bedouins, depending upon the rank both of the host and of the guest and upon the circumstances of the given case. When a traveler comes to an oasis or a town in the desert he has with him his own caravan, provided with all the necessities of living. He does not put up at a hotel or go to a friend’s house to live but sets up his own establishment, either pitching his tents and making a camp, or perhaps, as happened to me at Jaghbub, at Jalo, and again at Kufra, occupying a house put at his disposal by some one in the place. Then comes the question of entertainment and honor from the dignitaries of the community. They may either invite one to luncheon or to dinner in their own houses or send a meal to the guest at his own house or camp. The first form of hospitality I shall describe when we reach Jalo, where I was entertained by twelve or fifteen notables in turn. The second form was that which I received at Jaghbub. This variety of hospitality may be extended from three to seven days, depending upon the respective ranks of host and guest.

Several days after my arrival Sidi Ibrahim and Sidi Mohi Eddin, young sons of Sayed Ahmed, the former guardian of Sayed Idris, who is now in Angora, boys of thirteen and fifteen years of age, made the _beau geste_ of showing me hospitality. There arrived at my house a Bedouin of the Barassa tribe, with two slaves laden with food. They set before me a feast of at least a score of dishes, and I was bidden to eat. The representative of my hosts sat courteously by, himself not touching a morsel, while I tasted the dishes in turn; no mortal man could eat them all and live. It was his function as deputy host to see that I lacked nothing to make the meal a satisfying and pleasant one, and to entertain me with conversation while I ate. The men of his tribe are the aristocrats of the desert, tall, erect, handsome, proud and with the spirit and courage of lions. A Barassy, if he were alone in the midst of an alien tribe, would not hesitate to meet an insult or a discourtesy with instant challenge and to fight the whole lot single-handed if it came to that.

Under his solicitously attentive eye, and waited on by the slaves who accompanied him, I ate my meal. I am not sure that I can remember the full tale of the dishes that were set before me, but they ran something like this: a rich meat soup, made with butter and rice; a great dish of boiled meat; a big bowl of rice with bits of meat in it; eggs, hard-boiled, fried, and made into an omelet with onions and herbs; tripe; meat in tomato sauce; meat croquettes; sausages; vegetable marrows; _bamia_ or okra; _mulukhia_, an Egyptian vegetable with a peculiar flavor of its own; marrows stuffed with rice and bits of meat; _kus-kus_, a distinctively Arab dish made of flour and steamed; a salad; a kind of blanc-mange or pudding of corn-flour and milk; Bedouin pancakes with honey; a sweet pudding of rice; a delicate kind of pastry made of flour with raisins and almonds. This last is an Egyptian dish rather than one native to the desert. The slave who had cooked my meal, knowing me to be an Egyptian, had put forth her best energies to please me and as a climax had provided this Egyptian delicacy. At home we call it _sadd-el-hanak_, “that which fills the mouth.” It fills the soul of the epicure with joy as well.

In the Bedouin cuisine meat predominates, generally lamb or mutton. True hospitality without meat is impossible for the desert-dweller to imagine. It is the key-stone of the structure not only of Bedouin hospitality but of Bedouin living, except of course when one is on the trek and cannot get it. A guest must be given meat, and it must be meat specially provided for him. When a Bedouin invites one to dine with him, he slaughters a sheep expressly for his visitor. As a rule he will neither prepare the meal nor even kill the animal until one has arrived, in order that there may be no doubt that the preparations were made expressly for the guest. He carries his courtesy to the point of asking a guest, on his arrival to partake of a meal, to lend him a knife with which to slaughter a sheep, for hospitality demands that the guest shall be convinced that full honor is being done him.

The great variety of dishes on the Bedouin menu, when a friend or a stranger is being formally entertained, is the essence of the ceremony. The greater the number the better the host and the higher the honor he is able to pay the partaker of the meal.

Bedouin entertaining concentrates itself upon food, for in the desert there is nothing to be had in the way of pleasure except eating. In the primitive surroundings of an oasis, to eat is the whole story.

Two incidents of that month in Jaghbub interested me as illustrating how, with all their differences, the East and the West are often humorously alike. The one incident was comic, but the other had pathos in it as well as humor.

I had given instructions that no one who came to my house in quest of medicine should ever be turned away. Sidi Zwela, an _ikhwan_, had appealed for help for his cough, and I had given him a bottle of cough-syrup. Two days later he appeared again. He said the first few doses had done him so much good that he had quickly finished the bottle. Might he have another bottle? Abdullahi, who was present at the interview, after his departure growled out a cynical comment: “Yes, he found it sweet and pleasant to the taste. He takes it as a delicacy and not as a medicine.” The comment was probably accurate. More than one child I had heard of during my years in England whose cough persisted strangely so long as the cough-medicine was sweet and tasty.

I am afraid that my men used to boast about the things that could be done with what we had among our stores. The Baskari, after Ahmed had been pulling his leg about my having medicine for everything, came to me to ask for something to cure a slave-girl of absent-mindedness. I could only reply that from my experience in various lands to keep a servant from forgetting was as easy as to prevent water from sinking into the sand.

The second incident involved two men as different as day and night. There came to my house one day a slave of the _wakil_ sent by his master to consult me. It was a matter about which Sidi Hussein could not approach me in person. Bedouin etiquette forbids a man to talk to another about his wife, or even about any particular woman who is not known to both of them. But a slave could say for him what his dignity forbade him to speak in person. The slave’s message was that the wife of the _wakil_ had borne no children, which was a keen disappointment to the husband. Surely, his master thought, I must have, in my medicine-chest filled with the wonders of the science of the West, some remedy for the poor woman’s childless state.

My thoughts went straight back to my last days at Oxford. An old college servant was an excellent fellow, but most inordinately shy. He came to me one day as I was preparing for the journey home, and with a tremendous summoning of his courage proffered a request.

“If you would allow me, sir,” he said, “to ask a favor? My wife and I have no children. The doctor can’t help us; he has nothing to suggest. Now, sir, back in that country of yours, I’ve heard it said, they have wonderful talismans that will do all kinds of things. I’m not one who has believed much in having to do with magic, but this is a very special case. Do you think you might find me a talisman and send it on? If it’s not asking too much, sir?”

In a few years if the wind continues in the same direction the trees will be embedded forever in the sands]

In the face of his anxiety and the courageous breaking down of the barriers of his shyness, I could only answer gravely but sympathetically that I would do what I could. But the necessity did not arise. He had died, remembered by Balliol men past and present, before I came to Oxford again.

In the case of Sidi Hussein, however, I could not put the matter off. The slave was waiting for an answer, and doubtless his master was waiting for him. I thought quickly. I gave the slave half a bottle of Horlick’s malted milk tablets, with solemn instructions that three were to be taken by the lady each day until all were gone.

When the slave had left, I reflected on the amusing parallel between the two cases. There in Oxford, the West, having exhausted all that its science had to offer on behalf of the universal desire for offspring, had tried to draw upon the spiritual resources of the East. Here in Jaghbub, the East, finding all its spiritual appeals of no avail, had turned to the science of the West for aid. East or West, we alike believe in the miraculous power of the unknown.

But all this pleasant peaceful life and courteous hospitality did not produce camels. I sent messengers out into the surrounding country in quest of the beasts, making my offers of money for their hire larger and larger as time went on, but I could get no favorable responses. I invoked the aid of Sidi Hussein, but he professed himself powerless. I sent a messenger back to Siwa with a telegram to Sayed Idris in Egypt, informing him of my predicament and asking his aid. As soon as could be expected, a reply came directing Sidi Hussein to give me all the assistance in his power. Still the _wakil_ seemed to be unable to help me.

At last, when things began to seem hopeless, a Zwaya caravan arrived from Jalo on its way to Siwa for dates. I wanted those camels, but of course their owners had no desire to turn back without the dates they had come for. However, a way was found to persuade them, for I communicated to them, through Sidi Hussein, the news that an order had been issued by the Egyptian Government forbidding Zwayas to enter Egyptian territory until they had composed their differences with the Awlad Ali, who live in Egypt, and with whom they had a feud. Since they could not go to Siwa, which is in Egypt, without fear of punishment, there they were stranded at Jaghbub, with nothing to do but go back the way they came. That was precisely the way I wanted them to go. The combined effect of the order of the Egyptian Government, of the message from Sayed Idris, of the persuasions of Sidi Hussein, and of the promise of exorbitant prices for hire of their camels, which they succeeded in dragging out of me because of my necessity, finally made them agree to take me to Jalo.

The quiet days of contemplation under the shadows of the white _kubba_ and the anxious days of striving for the means of continuing my journey came at last to an end. On February 22, thirty-four days after I had entered Jaghbub, I turned my face to the westward and set out for Jalo.