In a Syrian Saddle

by A. Goodrich-Freer

Various animals of the desert are there: camels that are graceful and asses that are intelligent; horses with the manes and tails which Nature intended for them; stallions of the fellahin and mares of the Bedu; oxen and goats and sheep and, as link with the wilder creatures, the pariah dog and the feral cat. There is a whole armoury of weapons, mostly of the kind adapted for a provincial museum, from a matchlock to a modern breech-loader, from a two-edged dagger to a cavalry sabre, from a horn-handled kitchen knife to the dainty instrument with which, with some futility, one of the party is manicuring his nails.

We begin to realise that we have said goodbye not only to roads, and sheets and tablecloths, but almost to humanity, for it seems as if the entire population were leaving the country towards which our faces are set. There is shouting in half-a-dozen languages—our own little party habitually provides five—there is the utter disorder combined with the perfect courtesy, which contrasts so strongly with the general order and personal indifference, of what we of the West suppose to be a higher civilisation.

The Lady showed her sense of the new order of things by betaking herself to a second stirrup; for, when you have to hang on to precipices by your eyelids, climb pathless mountains in the dark, descend over solid rock, slippery and defenceless, or over shale which disappears beneath your horse's feet; when you may expect to be ten, twelve, or even fourteen hours a day in the saddle—and such a saddle as one is likely to obtain in the East—a Hyde Park seat does not afford all the security and convenience which anxious friends can desire. There was not enough leather in our outfit to go round, and as that second stirrup hung on by a piece of string it afforded an excellent measure of temperature, distance, and individual mood. "When in doubt" upon any question—if someone were desperate for a halt, when the party became scattered and consequent waiting provided a few odd minutes of spare time, when conversation failed or anyone were aching for occupation, if any member of the party had a sudden access of politeness and wished to exhibit interest or pay a little attention to the suddenly-remembered female sex—there was always that second stirrup to fall back upon. In the morning the string had lengthened with the night-dews, but as the day went on and each cavalier had added an attentive knot, the rider would allege that she had become as lopsided as a London milkwoman. By-and-by the knots tautened, the perpetual pull of a thousand feet of ascent or descent, as the case might be, strained the string to its utmost, and the stirrup became inaccessible; after dusk she was suspected of dispensing with it altogether. The whole position was an excellent illustration of the misfit of the privileges claimed as "women's rights!" Nevertheless, it said something for the worth of the compromise, that she never once dismounted on account of the nature of the ground, that she brought home her animal with sound knees, that both horse and rider came back as fresh as they started, and that the company were loud in declaring that their patience was unexhausted and that they were ready, if any shred survived, to begin operations again upon that string to-morrow.

The Professor and the Lady had both changed horses; he for one which, however much elated by his position, could yet be induced to behave discreetly in the neighbourhood of the Bedawi mare; she for one which, although incapable of the much-vaunted rahwân, could nevertheless be kept within such bounds as befitted ascent of pathless precipices, and progress over the dry beds of mountain streams. It was probably owing to the superior lightness of the burden he had to carry that her new steed, Sadowi, a light-limbed grey, was, like his predecessor, generally ahead of all the party. The Professor's long-legged mount and the active wide-flanked slender-headed mare of the officer, were of course the official leaders of the expedition, and the Lady did her utmost to sustain a modest retirement into the background. But her task was not easy, not only because of the personal ambitions of Sadowi, but on account of certain human vices on the part of the Professor's horse, for which the usual cherchez la femme was the occasion. The Bedawy beauty, with whom he carried on an active flirtation, was, on Oriental principles, haram (forbidden) to anyone else, and he refused to tolerate the neighbourhood of any other horse, looking round perpetually with an evil expression of suspicion and hatred, worthy only of his human superiors. When Sadowi passed him he turned aside to bite him in the act; when the Lady succeeded in keeping in the rear he kicked out at irregular intervals, on the chance of the proximity of his rival.

The coffee served to us pending our arrangements at the Jordan bridge was more than welcome, for we had almost forgotten our half-past-three-o'clock breakfast, and the feast of the eye ceased, after a time, to suffice the appetite. Some of us had built our hopes on private stores of chocolate; but chocolate, in the East, even in October, has its drawback, from a tendency to trickle out of the corners of one's pockets in tell-tale streams which are not appetising. The humble peppermint, of the quality stamped "Extra Strong," reminiscent of the smell of afternoon church in the country, may rather be recommended, as allaying both hunger and thirst, the latter probably by stimulus of the salivary gland. Meat lozenges and other devices of the amateur traveller share the fate of the chocolate; bread becomes rusk and, like biscuit, is provocative of thirst; raisins, except of the kind which at home we dedicate to puddings, are, strange to say, unknown; and figs and dates with no water to wash them in, are—here where we know their antecedents—for most of us out of the question. One of our mukaris went about with a necklace of figs threaded on a string, from which he subtracted as occasion suggested. He had learned the art of the simplification of life: he drank almost anything that was wet, ate as has been described, never, so far as was known, undressed, and slept anywhere except, apparently, in a bed, but for choice on the top of one of the baggage animals whenever the road in any degree approached the horizontal. His only luxury was his water-pipe, which he produced at every moment of leisure, trusting to his companion to keep it alight without any unnecessary expenditure of tombak, the special tobacco used for the narghile, whenever duty called him away. He was to such a degree a man of resource and expedient that a story which the Professor told us, though, as a matter of fact, observed elsewhere, might just as well have been applied to him. Some mukari in the Professor's employ had also a water-pipe, but seems to have been fastidious, which Khalil was not, and on one occasion was seen looking around for something which might be conveniently inserted into the bottle-shaped vase which holds the water, and in which a ring of scum had formed upon the glass. His eye fell upon a neighbouring donkey. He seized the beast's tail, twisted it into a convenient bottle brush, performed the required ablution, and returned it to the astonished owner, who, however, with the usual intelligence of the Palestine ass, made no remark upon the subject.

In Syria the greatest difficulty in locomotion, except backsheesh, for which it is the pretext, is quarantine. It is easy enough to cross the Jordan bridge eastward on payment of a toll of three piasters (about 7d.), for man and beast, but it may not be so easy to get back again, as quarantine may be imposed at any hour, and may last for any length of time. It was necessary, therefore, to make it clear to the official mind that, by special favour, we were to be allowed to return without let or hindrance, whatever might have occurred in the interval. That, in the name of Allah, would be as Allah and certain exalted persons willed, we were piously assured, and finally, with much hand-shaking and invocation—May peace go with you! May your path be broad! May your day be blessed!—the gates were opened, and in a few minutes we were east of the River Jordan, which in the rainy season is at least one hundred feet wide, but was now only one-third of that distance.

A plain some four or five hours broad—for here all measurement is by time, at the rate of three or four miles an hour, according to the nature of the country—lay between us and the foot of the hills, although during all the months we had looked longingly at them from the hills of Judæa they had seemed to rise almost perpendicularly from the banks of the Jordan and of the Dead Sea.

Our destination before nightfall was Madaba, which lies 2940 feet above sea level. Starting from the valley of the Dead Sea, 1292 feet below the Mediterranean, and with the wide plain of the Jordan valley to cross before the ascent could begin, it was evident we must reserve our force for the precipitous climb of over 4000 feet which awaited us, and we accordingly kept our horses in check, although the sandy plain offered temptation for a canter. We had abundance of interest. The Sportsmen hardly expected to meet with the lions which formerly infested the thickets of the Jordan, but traces of wild boar might be looked for, also hyænas, jackals, and foxes (which it is considered legitimate to shoot) both the desert fox, canis niloticus, and the canis variegatus, smaller than the English fox, with a grey back, black breast, and a large bushy tail. Cheetahs are occasionally found in the district we were approaching, the wild cat, felis caligata, though rare, is not unknown, of gazelles we should doubtless see plenty in the mountains, the ibex, with huge horns, might be expected among the rocks of the highest points; and the sight of a wolf was not wholly impossible. However, the immediate expectation, considering the hour, the place, and the sounds which accompanied our cavalcade—for nothing short of personal danger can silence an Arab—was rather of bird than of beast. The first prize in the mind of the Sportsmen was the francolin, much valued in Syria as a pot-shot. It is something between a pheasant and a partridge, of dark grey plumage, very strong both to run and fly, and with a powerful call. Partridges, too, came within their ambitions, and the partridge of Syria is indeed game worth the powder. Down here, in the plains, the Hey's partridge, ammoperdix heyi, with its delicate plumage, a soft grey touched with richest blue, is the most common; but as we advance the larger Greek partridge, the caccabis saxatilis, awaits us, among the rocks and boulders of the mountain passes. Pigeons and sand-grouse, and the large Indian turtle-dove, turtur risorius, were abundant, but the wedge-tailed raven, corvus affinis, with his whistling cry and jackdaw-like air of gaiety, did not show until we reached the cliffs of a higher district.

The Lady openly exulted in the lack of accessible game, and grudged even the occasional shots fired, as disturbing to the smaller creatures in which she found delight—the grakle, the blackbird with orange under wings with whom we had already made friends by the brook Cherith, whose bell-like note sounded from tree to tree, the dainty sun-bird, cinnyris oseæ, whose metallic sheen flashed in and out of the tamarisk-trees, the delicate—hued Moabite sparrow, the aristocrat of his family, who ran up reeds and tree trunks like the familiar tits at home. We were too early to see the flights of birds of passage on their way south to warmer climes, and which, before and after the winter months, pause in the thickets of the Jordan basin, and fill the air with music, which includes the notes of the cuckoo and the nightingale, and recalls, however irrelevantly, Browning's "Oh, to be in England, now that April's here!" We had hoped to see the busy little jerboa, a jumping mouse with long hind legs, like a microscopic kangaroo, but circumstances were, for the present, against us, chiefly the noise of our cavalcade. He is a friendly little beast, and easily tamed, and though familiar with him in confinement we should have liked to see him under happier conditions.

We could not have happened on a more unfortunate season for flowers; the wonderful flora of the Jordan valley was now at rest, and even the autumn squills, the delicate muscari, and a few lingering silenae had been left behind on the higher ground the other side of Jericho. The only feast of colour was the oleander, familiar to most of us as a greenhouse shrub, and which here rose with its rich crimson or pure white flowers, single or double, wherever a little water remained to keep the earth moist about its roots. We speculated as to what might be its nearest cousin in our northern latitudes, and the wildest guesses were made, including the rhododendron, mezereum, daphne, and syringa, but no one thought of the familiar periwinkle, with its shining trails and sapphire blooms, in habit and appearance so utterly dissimilar, but which also belongs to the family of apocynacea, or dog-bane. In spite of its rich colouring and welcome beauty, the oleander bush is highly poisonous, affecting even the water in which it grows. A story is told of some French soldiers in the Peninsular War who utilised some of its twigs to serve as spits for roasting meat, with the result that seven out of twelve who ate of it shortly died.