One day, a Turkish mollah arrived at the Drayhy’s; he wore the large green turban that distinguishes the descendants of Mahomet, a white flowing robe, his eyes blackened, and an enormous beard; he wore also several rows of chaplets, and an inkstand in the form of a dagger at his belt. He rode on an ass, and carried in his hand an arrow. He was come to instil his fanaticism into the Bedouins, and excite in them a great zeal for the religion of the Prophet, in order to attach them to the cause of the Turks. The Bedouins are of great simplicity of character, and remarkable for their frankness. They do not understand differences of religion, and do not willingly allow them to be spoken of. They are deists; they invoke the protection of God in all the events of life, and refer to him their success or their failures with humble resignation; but they have no ceremonies or obligatory ritual, and make no distinction between the sects of Omar and of Ali, which divide the East. They never inquired what was our religion. We told them that we were Christians; their answer was, “All men are equal in the sight of God, and are his creatures; we have no right to inquire what is the creed of other men.” This discretion on their part was much more favourable to our projects than the fanaticism of the Turks; so that the arrival of the mollah gave some anxiety to Sheik Ibrahim, who went to the tent of the Drayhy, where he found the conference already begun, or rather the preaching, to which the chiefs were listening with a dissatisfied air. As they all arose at our entrance to salute us, the mollah inquired who we were, and having learnt that we were Christians:—“It is forbidden,” said he, “by the laws of God, to rise before infidels; you will be cursed for holding intercourse with them; your wives will be illegitimate, and your children bastards. Such is the decree of our lord, Mahomet, whose name be for ever venerated!”
The Drayhy, without waiting for the end of his speech, got up in a rage, seized him by the beard, threw him down, and drew his sabre; Sheik Ibrahim sprang forward, withheld his arm, and conjured him to moderate his anger: at length, the emir consented to cut off his beard instead of his head, and drove him away with ignominy.
The Drayhy having attacked the tribe of Beni-Sakhrer, the only one which still opposed him, beat it completely.
However, as the autumn was now come, we commenced our return towards the east. As we approached Homs, the governor sent the Drayhy forty camels loaded with corn, ten machlas, and a pelisse of honour. Sheik Ibrahim addressed me in private and said, “We are going into the desert; we have exhausted all our stock; what must we do?” “Give me your orders,” I replied; “I will go secretly to Aleppo, and get what we want, and I will engage not to make myself known to my family.” It was agreed that I should rejoin the tribe at Zour; and I went to Aleppo. I took up my station in a khan but little frequented, and remote from all my acquaintances. I sent a stranger to the correspondent of M. Lascaris to get five hundred tallaris. The precaution was unnecessary, for with my long beard, my costume, and my Bedouin accent, I ran no risk of being known; I proved this sufficiently on purchasing some goods at the Bazaar. I met many of my friends there, and amused myself with behaving rudely to them. But to these moments of careless gaiety, painful ones succeeded; I passed and repassed continually before the door of my house, hoping to get a glimpse of my brother or my poor mother. My desire of seeing her above all was so great that I was twenty times on the point of breaking my word; but the conviction that she would not again allow me to return to M. Lascaris restored my courage, and after six days I was obliged to tear myself away from Aleppo, without obtaining any news of my relatives.
I overtook the tribe on the banks of the Euphrates opposite Daival-Chahar, where there are still some fine ruins of an ancient city. I found the Bedouins engaged, before crossing the river, in selling cattle, or changing them for goods with the pedlers from Aleppo. They have no idea of the value of fictitious money; they will not receive gold in payment, recognising nothing but silver tallaris. They would rather pay too much, or not receive enough in change, than admit of fractions. The merchants, aware of this foible, dexterously profit by it. Besides the exchanges, the tribes sold to the amount of twenty-five thousand tallaris; and every man put his money into his sack of flour, that it might not sound on loading and unloading.
A tragical accident happened at the passage of the Euphrates. A woman and two children, mounted on a camel, were carried down by the current before it was possible to give them any assistance. We found Mesopotamia covered with the tribes of Bagdad and Bassora. Their chiefs came daily to congratulate the Drayhy on his victory, and to make acquaintance with us, for the renown of Sheik Ibrahim had reached them. They felt indebted to him for having counselled the war against the Wahabees, whose rapacity and exactions were become intolerable. Their king, Ebn-Sihoud, was accustomed to send a mezakie to count the flocks of each individual, and to take the tenth, always choosing the best: he then had the tents taken down, from that of the sheik to that of the poorest wretch, to find his money, of which they also exacted a tenth. He was still more odious to the Bedouins, because in his extreme fanaticism, he exacted ablutions and prayers five times a day, and punished with death those who refused to submit. When he forced a tribe to make war for him, instead of sharing the gains and the losses, he kept all the plunder, and only left his allies to bewail their dead. And thus, by degrees, the Bedouins were becoming the slaves of the Wahabees, for want of a chief capable of making head against Ebn-Sihoud.
We encamped at a spot called Nain-el-Raz, three days from the Euphrates. Here the Emir Fares el Harba, the chief of the tribe El Harba, of the territory of Bassora, came to make an offensive and defensive alliance with the Drayhy. When the chiefs have to discuss any important affair, they quit the camp and hold their conference at a distance; this is called dahra,—secret assembly. Sheik Ibrahim having been called to the dahra, showed some mistrust of Fares, fearing that he was a spy of the Wahabees. The Drayhy said to him, “You judge of the Bedouins by the Osmanlis: know that the characters of the two people are directly opposed—treason is unknown among us.” After this declaration, all the sheiks present at the council mutually pledged their word. Sheik Ibrahim took advantage of this disposition to propose to them to conclude a treaty in writing, to be signed and sealed by all those who would successively enter into the alliance against Ebn-Sihoud. This was a great step in the interest of Sheik Ibrahim, and I drew up the treaty in the following terms:—
“In the name of the God of mercy, who by his might will help us against traitors. We praise him for all his goodness, and return thanks to him for having given us to distinguish good from evil—to love liberty and to hate slavery; we acknowledge that he is the only and Almighty God, alone to be adored.
“We declare that we are confederated by our own free will without any constraint, that we are all sound in body and mind, and that we have unanimously resolved to follow the advice of Sheik Ibrahim and Abdallah el Katib, for the interest of our prosperity, of our glory, and of our liberty. The articles of our treaty are:—
“1st. To separate ourselves from the Osmanlis.