Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon

by Austen Henry Layard

During the time we dwelt at Arban, we were the guests and under the protection of Mohammed Emin, the Sheikh of the Jebours. On the day we crossed the river, he celebrated our arrival by a feast after the Arab fashion, to which the notables of the tribe were invited. Sheep, as usual, were boiled and served up piecemeal in large wooden bowls, with a mass of butter and bread soaked in the gravy. The chief’s tent was spacious, though poorly furnished. It was the general resort of those who chanced to wander, either on business or for pleasure, to the Khabour, and was, consequently, never without a goodly array of guests; from a company of Shammar horsemen out on a foray to the solitary Bedouin who was seeking to become a warrior in his tribe, by first stealing a mare from some hostile encampment.

Amongst the strangers partaking, at the time of our visit, of the Sheikh’s hospitality, were Serhan, a chief of the Agaydat, and Dervish Agha, the hereditary Lord of Nisibin, the ancient Nisibis. The tents of the former were at the junction of the Khabour and Euphrates, near Karkisia (the ancient Carchemish), or, as it is more generally called by the Arabs, Abou-Psera. The fertile meadows near the confluence of the two rivers formerly belonged to the Jebours, who occupied the banks of the Khabour throughout nearly the whole of its course. An old feud kept them at continual war with the great tribe of the Aneyza. They long successfully struggled with their enemies, but having at length been overcome they sought refuge in the neighborhood of Mosul. Having returned to the Khabour, they claimed their former rights, and Mohammed Emin was invited by Serhan to settle the contending claims; but it was to no effect.

Dervish Agha, of Kurdish descent, was the representative of an ancient family, and had come to persuade the Jebour Sheikh to assist Ferhan in recovering the plundered treasure from the Hamoud. My own large tent was no less a place of resort than that of Mohammed Emin, and as we were objects of curiosity, Bedouins from all parts flocked to see us. With some of them I was already acquainted, having either received them as my guests at Mosul, or met them during excursions in the Desert. They generally passed one night with us, and then returned to their own tents. A sheep was always slain for them, and boiled with rice, or prepared wheat, in the Arab way: if there were not strangers enough to consume the whole, the rest was given to the workmen or to the needy, as it is considered derogatory to the character of a truly hospitable and generous man to keep meat until the following day, or to serve it up a second time when cold. Even the poorest Bedouin who kills a sheep, invites all his friends and neighbours to the repast, and if there be still any remnants, distributes them amongst the poor and the hungry, although he should himself want on the morrow.

The wandering Arabs have no other means of grinding their corn than by handmills, which they carry with them wherever they go. They are always worked by the women, for it is considered unworthy of a man to engage in any domestic occupation. These handmills are simply two circular flat stones, generally about eighteen inches in diameter, the upper turning loosely upon a wooden pivot, and moved quickly round by a wooden handle. The grain is poured through the hole of the pivot, and the flour is collected in a cloth spread under the mill. It is then mixed with water, kneaded in a wooden bowl, and pressed by the hand into round balls ready for baking. During these processes, the women are usually seated on the bare ground: hence, in Isaiah (xlvii. 1, 2), is the daughter of Babylon told to sit in the dust and on the ground, and “to take the mill-stones to grind meal.”

The tribes who are always moving from place to place bake their bread on a slightly convex iron plate, called a sadj, moderately heated over a low fire of brushwood or camels’ dung. The lumps of dough are rolled, on a wooden platter, into thin cakes, a foot or more in diameter, and laid by means of the roller upon the iron. They are baked in a very short time, and should be eaten hot. The Kurds, whose flour is far whiter and more carefully prepared than that of the Arabs, roll the dough into large cakes, scarcely thicker than a sheet of paper. When carefully baked by the same process, it becomes crisp and exceedingly agreeable to the taste. All Arab bread is unleavened.

If a Bedouin tribe be moving in great haste before an enemy, and should be unable to stop for many hours, or be making a forced march to avoid pursuit over a desert where the wells are very distant from each other, the women sometimes prepare bread whilst riding on camels. The fire is then lighted in an earthen vessel. One woman kneads the flour, a second rolls out the dough, and a third bakes, boys or women on foot passing the materials, as required, from one to the other. But it is very rare that the Bedouins are obliged to have recourse to this process, and I have only once witnessed it.

The fuel used by the Arabs consists chiefly of the dwarf shrubs, growing in most parts of the Desert, of dry grass and of camels’ dung. They frequently carry bags of the latter with them when in summer they march over very arid tracts. On the banks of the great rivers of Mesopotamia, the tamarisk and other trees furnish them with abundant firewood. They are entirely dependent for their supplies of wheat upon the villages on the borders of the Desert, or on the sedentary Arabs, who, whilst living in tents, cultivate the soil. The Bedouins usually draw near to the towns and cultivated districts soon after the harvest, to lay in their stock of grain. A party of men and women, chosen by their companions, then take with them money, or objects for sale or exchange, and drive the camels to the villages, where they load them and return to their tents.

Nearly the whole revenue of an Arab Sheikh, whatever it may be, is laid out in corn, rice and other provisions. The quantity of food consumed in the tents of some of the great chiefs of the Bedouins is very considerable. The common Bedouin can rarely get meat. His food consists almost exclusively of wheaten bread with truffles, which are found in great abundance during the spring, a few wild herbs, such as asparagus, onions, and garlic, fresh butter, curds, and sour milk. But, at certain seasons, even these luxuries cannot be obtained; for months together he often eats bread alone. Roasted meat is very rarely seen in a Bedouin tent. Rice is only eaten by the Sheikhs, except amongst the tribes who encamp in the marshes of Southern Mesopotamia, where rice of an inferior quality is very largely cultivated. There it is boiled with meat and made into pilaws.

The Bedouins do not make cheese. The milk of their sheep and goats is shaken into butter or turned into curds: it is rarely or never drank fresh, new milk being thought very unwholesome, as by experience I soon found it to be, in the Desert. The sour milk, or sheneena, an universal beverage amongst the Arabs, is either buttermilk pure and diluted, or curds mixed with water. Camel’s milk is drank fresh. It is pleasant to the taste, rich, and exceedingly nourishing. It is given in large quantities to the horses. The Shammar and Aneyza Bedouins have no cows or oxen, those animals being looked upon as the peculiar property of tribes who have forgotten their independence, and degraded themselves by the cultivation of land. The sheep are milked at dawn, or even before daybreak, and again in the evening on their return from the pastures. The milk is immediately turned into leben, or boiled to be shaken into butter. Amongst the Bedouins and Jebours it is considered derogatory to the character of a man to milk a cow or a sheep, but not to milk a camel.

The Sheikhs occasionally obtain dates from the cities. They are either eaten dry with bread and leben, or fried in butter, a very favorite dish of the Bedouin.[125]