From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

Around the spring, long before men appeared to take possession, a company of green plants had effected settlement. Who can tell how they got there? Perhaps the sand-storm sowed the seeds, which first germinated by the well, and grew into plants, with leaves, flowers, and another generation of seeds which were scattered through whole valleys. It is certain, at least, that they were not planted by men, for the mimosas which form the greater part of the little colony occur also in springless hollows, where one sees them sometimes singly, sometimes forming a small thicket of ten or twenty. They alone are able to keep life awake in the desert; they put forth green leaves, they blossom and send forth fragrance—how fresh and balmy! In their pleasant shade the gazelle rests; from their tops resound the songs of the few feathered songsters of the desert. The sappy leaves, seen amid the stiff masses of limestone, the cones of black granite, and the dazzling sand, do the eyes good like a meadow in May; their flowers as well as their shade refresh the soul.

In the larger, more copiously watered oases, men have planted palms, which lend a fresh charm to the settlement. The palm is here all in all: it is the queen of trees, the giver of fruit which sustains man and binds him to his little spot of earth, the tree around which saga and song are twined, the tree of life. What would an oasis be without palms? A tent without a roof, a house without inmate, a well without water, a poem without words, a song without tune, a picture without colour. The palm’s fruits feed the nomad herdsman and the settler alike, they become wheat or barley in his hand, they satisfy even the tax-gatherer of his lord and master. Its stems, its crown, its narrow leaves supply him with shelter and utensils, mats, baskets, and sacks, ropes and cords. In the sandy desert one first appreciates its full worth and importance, it becomes the visible emblem of Arabian poetry, which rises like it from frequently barren ground, which grows strong and fades not, which raises itself on high, and there only bears sweet fruit.

Fig. 52.—An Oasis in the Desert of Sahara.

Mimosas and palms are the characteristic trees of all oases, and are never absent from those which have so many springs or wells that gardens and fields become possible. Here they are restricted, like outposts against the invading sand, to the outer fringe of the desert island, while the interior is adorned with more exacting plants which require more water. Thus around the springs or wells there are often charming gardens in which grow almost all the fruit-bearing plants of North Africa. Here the vine clambers, the orange glows amid its dark foliage, the pomegranate opens its rosy mouth, the banana expands its fan-shaped leaf clusters, the melons straggle among the beds of vegetables, prickly-pears and olives, perhaps even figs, apricots, and almonds, complete the picture of fruitfulness. At a greater distance from the centre lie the fields, bearing at least Kaffir-millet, and, in favourable conditions, wheat, or even rice.

In oases so rich man finds a permanent home, while in those which are poorer he is but a sojourner, or a more or less periodic guest. The village or small township of a large oasis is essentially like that of the nearest cultivated country; like it it has its mosques, its bazaars, its coffee-houses; but the inhabitants are children of a different spirit from that which marks the peasants or townsfolk in the Nile valley or along the coast. Although usually of diverse race among themselves they all exhibit the same customs and habits. The desert has shaped and fashioned them. Their slender build, sharply-cut features, and keen eyes, gleaming from under bushy brows, mark them at once as sons of the desert; but their habits and customs are even more characteristic. They are unexacting and readily contented, energetic and full of resource, hospitable and open-hearted, honourable and loyal, but proud, irritable, and passionate, inclined to robbery and acts of violence, like the Bedouins, though not their equals either in good or evil. A caravan entering their settlement is a welcome sight, but they expect the traveller to pay them toll.

Very different from such oases are those valleys in which a much-desired well is only to be found at times. The Arabian nomads are well pleased if the supply of drinking-water for themselves and their herds is sufficient for a few months or even weeks; and the caravan, which rests in such a place, may be content if its demands are satisfied within a few days. The well is usually a deep shaft, from whose walls the water oozes rather than trickles. A few tom-palms rise among the sparse mimosas and saltworts which surround the well; a few stems of grass break through the hard ground.

Unutterably poor are these nomad herdsmen, who pitch their tents here as long as their small flocks of goats can find anything to eat. Their struggle for existence is a continuous succession of toil, and want, and misery. Their tent is of the simplest; a long dark web of cloth, made of goats’ hair, is laid across a simple framework, and its ends pinned to the ground; a piece of the same stuff forms the back-wall, and a mat of palm-leaves forms the door in front. The web is the wife’s self-made dowry, the materials for which she gathered, spun, and wove from her eighth to her sixteenth year. A few mats which serve as beds, a block of granite and a grindstone for pounding the grain got in barter, a flat plate of clay to roast the cakes, two large jars, some leather sacks and skins, an axe and several lances, form the total furnishings. A herd of twenty goats is counted a rich possession for a family. But these people are as brave as they are poor, as lovable as they are well-built, as good-natured as they are beautiful, as generous as they are frugal, as hospitable as they are honourable, as chaste as they are devout. Ancient pictures rise in the mind of the Occidental who meets with these folk for the first time; he sees biblical characters face to face, and hears them speak in a manner with which he has been familiar from his childhood. Thousands of years have been to these nomads of the desert as one day; to-day they think, and speak, and act as did the patriarchs of old. The very greeting which Abraham uttered meets the stranger’s ear; the very words which Rebecca spoke to Abraham’s servant were addressed to me, when, tortured with thirst, I sprang from my camel at the well of Bahiuda, and begged a beautiful brown damsel for a drink of fresh water. There she stood before me, the Rebecca of thousands of years ago, alive and in unfading youth, another and yet the same.

On the arrival of the caravan the whole population of the temporary settlement assembles. The chief steps forward from their midst, and utters the greeting of peace; all the rest bid the strangers welcome. Then they offer the most precious of gifts, fresh water; it is all that they have to give, and it is given with dignified friendliness, ungrudgingly, yet without urgency. Eagerly the travellers drink in long refreshing draughts; the camels also press in riotously upon the watering-place, although they might know from experience that they must first be unloaded, tethered, and turned on the grass before they are allowed to quench an unbroken thirst of four or six days. Even at the well not a drop is wasted, therefore the camels first get any water that remains in the skins, and it is not till these are filled up again that the beasts get a fresh draught, and that with more respect to the existing supplies than their actual needs. Only at the copious wells can one satisfy their apparently unbounded desires, and see, not without amusement, how they swallow without ever looking up, and then hasten from the well to the not less eagerly desired pasture, forced by their hobbles to grotesque and clumsy movements, which make their stomachs rumble like half-filled casks.

And now begins a festival both for travellers and settlers. The former find fresh water, perhaps even milk and meat, to increase the delight of the longed-for resting-time; the latter gladly welcome any break in their life, which, in good seasons, is very monotonous. One of the camel-drivers finds in the nearest tent the favourite instrument of those who live in the desert, the tambura or five-stringed zither, and he knows right well how to use it in accompaniment to his simple song. The music allures the daughters of the camp, and slim, beautiful women and girls press inquisitively around the strangers, fastening their dark eyes on them and their possessions, inquiring curiously about this and that. Steel thy heart, stranger; else these eyes may set it on fire. They are more beautiful than those of the gazelle, the lips beneath put corals to shame, and the dazzling teeth excel any pearls which thou couldst give these daughters of the desert. And soon all yields to music and to song. Around the zither-player groups arrange themselves for the dance; hands both hard and soft beat time to the tune, the words, and the regular swaying movements. New forms come and those we have become familiar with disappear; there is a constantly changing bustle and crowd around the strangers, who are wise if they regard all with the same innocence and simplicity which their hosts display. All the discomforts of the journey are forgotten, and all longings are satisfied, for water flows abundantly and takes the place of all that one might desire in other places or at other seasons.