A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 2 [of 2]. Lady Anne Blunt

to explain on what occasion Senacherib made his way to Nejd, nor why he wrote in Arabic instead of his own cuneiform.

      Inside the defences, the valley broadens out into an amphitheatre formed by the junction of three or four wadys in which there is a village and a palm garden. Besides which, the wadys are filled with wild palms watered, the Arabs say, “min Allah,” by Providence, at least by no human hand. They are very beautiful, forming a brilliant contrast of green fertility with the naked granite crags which overhang them on all sides. These are perhaps a thousand feet in height, and run down sheer into the sandy floor of the wadys, so that one is reminded in looking at them of that valley of diamonds where the serpents lived, and down which the merchants threw their pieces of meat for the rocs to gather, in the tale of Sinbad the Sailor. No serpents however live in Agde, but a population of very honest Shammar, who entertained us with a prodigality of dates and coffee, difficult to do justice to. We had been sent in the company of two horsemen of the Emir’s, Shammar, who did the honours, as Agde and all in it are really Ibn Rashid’s private property. These and the villagers gave us a deal of information about the hills we were in, and showed us where a great battle had been fought by Mohammed’s father and his uncle Obeyd against the Ibn Ali, formerly Emirs of the Jebel. It would seem that Agde was the oldest possession of the Ibn Rashids, and that on their taking Haïl the Ibn Alis marched against them, when they retreated to their fortress, and there gave battle and such a defeat to the people of Kefar that it secured to the Ibn Rashids supreme power ever after. They also showed us with great pride a wall built by Obeyd to block the narrow valley, and made us look at everything, wells, gardens, and houses, so that we spent nearly all the day there. They told us too of a mysterious beast that comes from the hills by night and climbs the palm trees for sake of the dates. “As large as a hare, with a long tail, and very good to eat.” They describe it as sitting on its hind-legs, and whistling, so that Wilfrid thinks it must be a marmot. Only, do marmots climb? They call it the Webber.

      We had a delightful gallop home with the two Bedouins, (Mohammed was not with us,) of whom we learned one of the Shammar war songs, which runs thus: —

      “Ma arid ana erkobu delúl,

      Lau zeynuli shedadeha,

      Aridu ana hamra shenûf,

      Hamra seryeh aruddeha.”

      thus literally translated: —

      “I would not ride a mere delúl,

      Though lovely to me her shedad (camel-saddle);

      Let me be mounted on a mare,

      A bay mare, swift and quick to turn.”

      They were mounted on very pretty ponies, but could not keep up with us galloping. If we had been in Turkey, or indeed anywhere else but in Arabia, we should have had to give a handsome tip after an expedition of this kind; but at Haïl nothing of the sort was expected. Both these Shammar were exceedingly intelligent well mannered men, with souls above money. They were doing their duty to the prince as Sheykh, and to us as strangers, and they did it enthusiastically.

      The level of Agde is 3,780 feet above the sea, that of Haïl 3,500.

      This was, perhaps, the pleasantest day of all those we spent at Haïl, and will live long with us as a delightful remembrance. On the following day we were to depart. Mohammed, while we were away, had been making preparations. Two new camels had been bought, and a month’s provision of dates and rice purchased, in addition to a gift of excellent Yemen coffee sent us by the Emir. Our last interview with Ibn Rashid was characteristic. He was not at the kasr, but in a house he has close to the Mecca gate, where from a little window he can watch unperceived the goings on of the Haj encamped below him. We found him all alone, for he has lost all fear of our being assassins now, at his window like a bird of prey, calculating no doubt how many more silver pieces he should be able to make out of the Persians before they were well out of his clutches. Every now and then he would lean out of the window, which was partly covered by a shutter, and shout to one of his men who were standing below some message with regard to the pilgrims. He seemed to be enjoying the pleasure of his power over them, and it is absolute.

      To us he was very amiable, renewing all his protestations of friendship and regard, and offering to give us anything we might choose to ask for, dromedaries for the journey, or one of his mares. This, although we should have liked to accept the last offer, we of course declined, Wilfrid making a short speech in the Arab manner, saying that the only thing we asked was the Emir’s regard, and wishing him length of days. He begged Mohammed ibn Rashid to consider him as his vakil in Europe in case he required assistance of any kind, and thanked him for all the kindness we had received at his hands. The Emir then proposed that we should put off our departure, and go with him instead on a ghazú or warlike expedition he was starting on in a few days, a very attractive offer which might have been difficult to refuse had it been made earlier, but which we now declined. Our heads, in fact, had been in the jaws of the lion long enough, and now our only object was to get quietly and decorously out of the den. We therefore pleaded want of time, and added that our camels were already on the road; we then said good-bye and took our leave.

      There was, however, one more visit to be paid, this time of friendly regard more than of ceremony. As we rode through the town we stopped at Hamúd’s house and found him and all his family at home. To them our farewells were really expressions of regret at parting, and Hamúd gave us some very sound advice about going on with the Haj to Meshhed Ali, instead of trying to get across to Bussora. There had been rain, he said, on the pilgrim road, and all the reservoirs (those marked on the map as the tanks of Zobeydeh) were full, so that our journey that way would be exceptionally easy, whereas between this and Bussorah, we should have to pass over an almost waterless region, without anything interesting to compensate for the difficulty. But this we should see as we went on – the first thing, as I have said, was to get clear away, and it would be time enough later to settle details about our course.

      Majid was there, and received from Wilfrid as a remembrance a silver-handled Spanish knife, whereupon he sent for a black cloth cloak with a little gold embroidery on the collar and presented it to me. It was a suitable gift, for I had nothing of the sort, indeed no respectable abba at all, and this one was both dignified and quiet in appearance. Majid at least, I am sure, regrets us, and if circumstances ever take us again to Haïl, it would be the best fortune for us to find him or his father on the throne. They are regarded as the natural heirs to the Sheykhat, and Ibn Rashid’s does not look like a long life.

      After this we mounted, and in another five minutes were clear of the town. Then looking back, we each drew a long breath, for Haïl with all the charm of its strangeness, and its interesting inhabitants, had come to be like a prison to us, and at one time when we had had that quarrel with Mohammed, had seemed very like a tomb.

      We left Haïl by the same gate at which we had entered it, what seemed like years before, but instead of turning towards the mountains, we skirted the wall of the town and further on the palm gardens, which are its continuation, for about three miles down a ravine-like wady. Then we came out on the plain again, and at the last isolated group of ithel trees, halted for the last time to enjoy the shade, for the sun was almost hot, before joining the pilgrim caravan, which we could see like a long line of ants traversing the plain between us and the main range of Jebel Shammar.

      It was, without exception, the most beautiful view I ever saw in my life, and I will try to describe it. To begin with, it must be understood that the air, always clear in Jebel Shammar, was this day of a transparent clearness, which probably surpasses anything seen in ordinary deserts, or in the high regions of the Alps, or at the North Pole, or anywhere except perhaps in the moon. For this is the very centre of the desert, four hundred miles from the sea, and nearly four thousand feet above the sea level. Before us lay a foreground of coarse reddish sand, the washing down of the granite rocks of Jebel Aja, with here and there magnificent clumps of ithel, great pollards whose trunks measure twenty and thirty feet 2 in circumference, growing on little mounds showing where houses once stood – just as in Sussex the yew trees do – for the town seems to have shifted from this end of the oasis to where it now is. Across this sand lay a long green belt of barley, perhaps a couple of acres in extent, the blades of corn brilliantly

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We measured one, a pollard, thirty-six feet round the trunk at five feet from the ground.