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.
THE EXPLORER’S CARAVAN CAUGHT IN A SAND-STORM
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.