Sheik Ibrahim was very dissatisfied; he wished to penetrate farther into the desert, and proceed as far as Bagdad; and he found himself bound to a tribe that remained between Damascus and Homs. He thus lost all the summer, being able to remove only with danger of his life. He desired me to obtain some knowledge respecting the Drayhy, to learn his character, the places where he passed the summer, where he wintered, if he received strangers, and many other particulars; in short, he told me he had the greatest interest in being rightly informed.
These details were difficult to obtain without exciting suspicion: it was necessary to find some one not of the tribe of El Hassnnée. At length I became acquainted with a man named Abdallah el Chahen (the poet.) Knowing that poets are sought after by the great, I asked him about all the tribes he had visited, and learned with pleasure that he had been for a long time with the Drayhy. I obtained from him all the information I had desired.
One day Nasser made me write to Sheik Saddad, and him of Corietain, to demand from each a thousand piastres and six machlas. This claim is called right of fraternity: it is an arrangement between the sheiks of villages and the more powerful chiefs of the Bedouins, to be protected against the ravages of the other tribes. This is an annual tax. These unhappy villages are ruined to satisfy two tyrants—the Bedouins and the Turks.
Mehanna holds this fraternity with all the villages of the territories of Damascus, Homs, and Hama, which brings him in a revenue of about fifty thousand piastres. The pacha of Damascus pays him twelve thousand five hundred, and the cities of Homs and Hama furnish him besides a certain quantity of corn, rice, dried grapes, and stuffs. The small tribes bring him butter and cheese. In spite of all, he never has any money, and is often in debt, without having any expenses to incur; which greatly astonished us. We learned that he gave all away in presents to the most distinguished warriors, either of his own tribe or to others, and that he had thus raised for himself a powerful party. He is always ill-clothed, and when he receives a handsome pelisse or other article for a present, he gives it to the person who happens to be near him at the moment. The Bedouin proverb, that generosity covers all defects, is amply verified in Mehanna, whose liberality alone renders the conduct of Nasser bearable.
A short time after this event we went to encamp, three hours from the Orontes, upon lands called El Zididi, on which there are many springs.
Mehanna having one day been with ten horsemen to visit the Aga of Homs, returned loaded with presents from all the merchants, who cultivate his friendship, because, wheresoever dissatisfied with them, he intercepts their commerce and plunders the caravans.—Immediately upon his return, Nasser set forth on an expedition against the tribe Abdelli, which is commanded by the Emir El Doghiani, and encamped near Palmyra, on two small hills of equal size, called Eldain (the breast;) he returned after three days with five hundred camels and two hundred sheep. In this affair we lost three men, and Zamel’s mare was killed under him. On the other hand, we took three mares, killed ten men, and wounded twenty more. Notwithstanding this success, the Bedouins were indignant at Nasser’s want of faith, who had no cause of hatred against this tribe.
On all sides measures were taken with the Drayhy, to destroy the tribe El Hassnnée. The news reached the Emir Douhi, the chief of the tribe Would Ali, a kinsman and intimate friend of Mehanna, and who, as well as himself, is charged with the escort of the grand caravan; and he came with thirty horsemen to make known the danger with which he was threatened. The heads of the tribe went out to meet Douhi: having entered the tent, Mehanna ordered coffee; the emir stopped him and said, “Mehanna, thy coffee is drunk already! I come here neither to eat nor drink, but to inform thee that the behaviour of thy son Nasser Pacha (for so he styled him in derision) is bringing down destruction upon thee and thine: know that all the Bedouins have leagued together, and are about to declare against thee a war of extermination.” Mehanna, changing colour, exclaimed, “Well, art thou now satisfied, Nasser? Thou wilt be the last of the race of Melkghem.”
Nasser, still obstinate, replied that he should make head against all the Bedouins; and that he should have the support of twenty thousand Osmanlis, as well as that of Mola Ismael, the chief of the Kurdish cavalry, who bears the schako. Douhi passed the night in endeavouring to turn Nasser from his projects, but without succeeding: the day following, he departed, saying, “My conscience forbids me to join you. Our relationship, and the bread we have eaten together, prevent me from declaring war against you. Farewell; I leave you with sorrow.”
From this moment our time passed very disagreeably with the Bedouins. We could never quit them, for all the people who went to a distance from the tents were massacred. There were continual attacks on both sides, sudden changes of the encampment for greater security, alarms, reprisals, incessant disputes between Mehanna and his son; but the old man was so kind and so credulous, that Nasser always succeeded in persuading him that he was in the right.
We were told a thousand traits of his simplicity: amongst others, that being at Damascus whilst Yousouf Pacha, the grand vizier of the Porte, was holding his court there on his return from Egypt after the departure of the French, Mehanna was presented to him, as well as the other grandees; but, being little acquainted with Turkish etiquette, he accosted him without ceremony and with the Bedouin mode of salutation, and placed himself on the divan by his side without being invited. Yousouf, equally unaccustomed to the usages of the Bedouins, and ignorant of the dignity of the little shabby old man who treated him with such familiarity, ordered him to be taken from his presence and beheaded. The slaves took him out, and were preparing to execute the order, when the Pacha of Damascus cried aloud, “Hold! what is it you are doing? If there should fall a hair of his head, with all your power, you will never send another caravan to Mecca.” The vizier instantly had him brought back, and placed him by his side; he gave him coffee, had him invested with a rich Cachemire turban, a rich gombaz (robe,) and a pelisse of honour, and presented him with a thousand piastres. Mehanna, deaf, and besides not understanding Turkish, knew nothing of what was passing; but taking off the fine clothes, he gave them to three of his slaves who accompanied him. The vizier asked him, through the dragoman, if he was not satisfied with the present. Mehanna replied, “Tell the vizier of the sultan, that we Bedouins seek not to distinguish ourselves by fine clothes: I am ill clad, but all the Bedouins know me; they know that I am Mehanna el Zadel, the son of Melkghem.” The pacha, not daring to offend him, affected to smile, and to be much pleased.