In a Syrian Saddle

by A. Goodrich-Freer

CHAPTER IV
MSHATTA

"Thou still unravished bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme."

Keats

There was so much of interest at Madaba, that we did not succeed in accomplishing the early start we had intended, and even after we were in the saddle, and had picked our way, not without difficulty, among the scattered stones, the middens, the children and dogs and chickens which occupy such open spaces as serve for paths, a native, speaking excellent German, came out of a house to suggest a visit to yet another mosaic pavement. This, however, we reluctantly declined, for, although we had a journey of but five hours in view, the sun was already high, and we had a bare plateau to traverse.

We soon left all traces of town life behind, and in little more than an hour came upon a scene which was, to many of us, a new delight: that of many hundreds of wandering camels in their native surroundings—we had almost said their native element, so different are these creatures from the suffering, melancholy, over-worked, evil-smelling, grumbling brutes to which we are accustomed in Jerusalem. A camel to be seen to advantage requires the primeval spaces for which he was originally designed. He should stand clear against the horizon, however boundless; the background of narrow streets, the human brutality and noise, the mud beneath feet intended for desert sands, are an injustice for which we, and not they, are to blame. Bewildered, tortured, over-driven, he acquires that air of abject dejection which he shares with the London cab-horse, that habit of futile remonstrance which we learn to associate with him, to the entire exclusion of that dignity—an undoubted part of the freedom which is his birthright—that grace, which is inseparable from the surroundings that were his when the original type, never yet adapted to human environment, was first devised.

Camels of all shades of brown and grey were there; camels that had never had their coats disfigured by clipping nor galled with burdens; white camels, almost dazzling against the sapphire sky, the golden plain, the purple hills; baby camels, playful as kittens but with a puppy-like air of solemnity, and more graceful than young colts, because better proportioned as to legs. The Bedu speak of the white camels as "blue," possibly for the same reason that an inhabitant of the Hebrides, when on the sea in stormy weather, will speak of his island by a fictitious name or, after dark, will whistle to his dogs rather than call them by name, for fear of attracting the attention of the Evil One. Many superstitions among Arabs are associated with blue, as again, the Highlander associating them with green, the colour of the fairies, will avoid naming the hue of the grass, calling it blue if adjective be necessary. The Arab puts a blue bead on his horse, a blue necklace on his child; his wife carries blue beads on her market-basket, and one is often hung over the door of the house, especially a new house. So Caliban, in the Oriental story which Shakespeare preserves for us in "The Tempest," speaks of his mother Setebos, the witch, as "a blue-eyed hag" (not "blear-eyed" into which certain commentators have corrected the original); and in a commentary upon an Arabic poem by Al Chirnik, sister of Tarafah, belonging to the early part of the seventh century, a seeress is described as "Hy, the blue-eyed one, from the notorious people of the time of ignorance"—i.e. the period before the revelation of the Moslem faith.

Here and there the vast plain was dotted with the black temporary villages of the Bedu, generally arranged in a circle or square, dooah, around a central space upon which all the tents open, although, with some instinct of sanitation, the drapery was generally raised, both "but and ben," as they say in Scotland. The population seemed to be largely abroad, and every half mile or so we came upon a little group, more or less keeping an eye upon the herds, visible for miles, even to the farthest horizon, where they made long dados of themselves against the cloudless sky. Almost due south of us, each on its own hill, overlooking a Roman road running north and south, are two important ruins—Um Weleed (mother of children) and Um el Kuseir. They are only about half-an-hour apart, and we longed to make the short détour necessary to visit them, but the Professor's face was turned where duty called and we did not venture to propose the expenditure of time. Tristram describes these cities, and others lying along the same route, and thinks they may have been at least Maccabean, for they are obviously much older than the Saracenic khans and the Roman forts, which are alike numerous in the district. He says that in all he looked in vain for any traces of Christian worship but that in each case there were the ruins of a temple, always outside the city, with the entrance to the east, and, wherever the architecture could be determined, of Doric origin; and he speculates as to whether these High Places may have originally served for Baal-worship. Another point which he notes, and which we, later, had opportunities of verifying, is the immense number of cisterns and underground storehouses, still in use by the Bedu for storage of grain and protection of flocks. It is interesting to recall that one of the commands given upon the Moabite stone, which was found but a few hours' journey south west, was "Make for yourselves every man a cistern in his house." The present names of these ruined towns, Um Weleed, Kirbet el-Herri, Zebîb, Um er-Resâs, Um el-Kuseir, and others, are all Arabic, and do not help us in identification, and trace of any other name seldom remains. They must, nevertheless, have been important; Um Weleed, for example, measures half-a-mile in length within the walls, and has suburbs in addition.