“Let us now see some of the other patients. The gold-hilted swordsman has naturally a special claim on our attention. He is the son of Rosheyd, Telal’s maternal uncle. His palace stands on the other side of the way, exactly opposite to our house; and I will say nothing more of him for the present, intending to pay him afterward a special visit, and thus become more thoroughly acquainted with the whole family.
“Next let us take notice of those two townsmen who are conversing, or rather ‘chaffing,’ together. Though both in plain apparel, and much alike in stature and features, there is yet much about them to distinguish the two; one has a civilian look, the other a military. He of the wand is no less a personage than Mohammed-el-Kadee, chief justice of Ha’yel, and of course a very important individual in the town. However, his exterior is that of an elderly, unpretentious, little man, and one, in spite of the proverb which attributes gravity to judges, very fond of a joke, besides being a tolerable representative of what may here be called the moderate party, neither participating in the fanaticism of the Wahabee, nor yet, like the most of the indigenous chiefs, hostile to Mahometanism; he takes his cue from the court direction and is popular with all factions because belonging properly to none.
“He requires some medical treatment for himself, and more for his son, a big, heavy lad with a swollen arm, who has accompanied him hither. Here, too, is a useful acquaintance, well up to all the scandal and small talk of the town, and willing to communicate it. Our visits were frequent, and I found his house well stored with books, partly manuscript, partly printed in Egypt, and mainly on legal or religious subjects.
“Of the country folks in the villages around, like Mogah, Delhemee’eh, and the rest, Mohammed-el-Kadee used to speak with a sort of half-contemptuous pity, much like a Parisian talking of Low Bretons; in fact, the difference between these rough and sturdy boors and the more refined inhabitants of the capital is, all due proportion allowed, no less remarkable here than in Europe itself. We will now let one of them come forward in his own behalf, and my readers shall be judges.
“It is accordingly a stout clown from Mogah, scantily dressed in working wear, and who has been occupied for the last half hour in tracing sundry diagrams on the ground before him with a thick peach-tree switch, thus to pass his time till his betters shall have been served. He now edges forward, and taking his seat in front of the door, calls my attention with an ‘I say, doctor.’ Whereon I suggest to him that his bulky corporation not being formed of glass or any other transparent material, he has by his position entirely intercepted whatever little light my recess might enjoy. He apologizes, and shuffles an inch or two sideways. Next I inquire what ails him, not without some curiosity to hear the answer, so little does the herculean frame before me announce disease. Whereto Do’eymis, or whatever may be his name, replies, ‘I say, I am all made up of pain.’ This statement, like many others, appears to me rather too general to be exactly true. So I proceed in my interrogatory: ‘Does your head pain you?’ ‘No.’ (I might have guessed that; these fellows never feel what our cross-Channel friends entitle ‘le mal des beaux esprits.’) ‘Does your back ache?’ ‘No.’ ‘Your arms?’ ‘No.’ ‘Your legs?’ ‘No.’ ‘Your body?’ ‘No.’ ‘But,’ I conclude, ‘if neither your head nor your body, back, arms, or legs pain you, how can you possibly be such a composition of suffering?’ ‘I am all made up of pain, doctor,’ replies he, manfully intrenching himself within his first position. The fact is, that there is really something wrong with him, but he does not know how to localize his sensations. So I push forward my inquiries, till it appears that our man of Mogah has a chronic rheumatism; and on ulterior investigation, conducted with all the skill that Barakat and I can jointly muster, it comes out that three or four months before he had an attack of the disease in its acute form, accompanied by high fever, since which he has never been himself again.
“This might suffice for the diagnosis, but I wish to see how he will find his way out of more intricate questions; besides, the townsmen sitting by, and equally alive to the joke with myself, whisper, ‘Try him again.’ In consequence, I proceed with, ‘What was the cause of your first illness?’ ‘I say, doctor, its cause was God,’ replies the patient. ‘No doubt of that,’ say I; ‘all things are caused by God: but what was the particular and immediate occasion?’ ‘Doctor, its cause was God, and secondly, that I ate camel’s flesh when I was cold,’ rejoins my scientific friend. ‘But was there nothing else?’ I suggest, not quite satisfied with the lucid explanation just given. ‘Then, too, I drank camel’s milk; but it was all, I say, from God, doctor,’ answers he.
“Well, I consider the case, and make up my mind regarding the treatment. Next comes the grand question of payment, which must be agreed on beforehand, and rendered conditional on success; else no fees for the doctor, not at Ha’yel only, but throughout Arabia. I inquire what he will give me on recovery. ‘Doctor,’ answers the peasant, ‘I will give you, do you hear? I say, I will give you a camel.’ But I reply that I do not want one. ‘I say, remember God,’ which being interpreted here means, ‘do not be unreasonable; I will give you a fat camel, everyone knows my camel; if you choose, I will bring witnesses, I say.’ And while I persist in refusing the proffered camel, he talks of butter, meal, dates, and such like equivalents.
“There is a patient and a paymaster for you. However, all ends by his behaving reasonably enough; he follows my prescriptions with the ordinary docility, gets better, and gives me for my pains an eighteen-penny fee.”
During this residence in Ha’yel, Palgrave made many friends, and soon established those relations of familiar intercourse which are so much easier in Moslem than in Christian lands—a natural result of the preservation of the old importance, which in the earliest Hebrew days was attached to “the stranger.” Palgrave’s intimacies embraced many families related to Telal, and others, whose knowledge of Arabian history or literature made their acquaintance welcome. His own knowledge of these subjects, fortunately, was equal to theirs, and, from the number of his invitations to dinners and suppers, he seems to have been a welcome guest to the better classes of Ha’yel. One of the aristocracy, by name Dohey, was his most agreeable acquaintance; and we quote the following pleasant account of his intercourse:
“Dohey’s invitations were particularly welcome, both from the pleasantness of his dwelling-place, and from the varied and interesting conversation that I was sure to meet with there. This merchant, a tall and stately man of between fifty and sixty years of age, and whose thin features were lighted up by a lustre of more than ordinary intelligence, was a thorough Ha’yelite of the old caste, hating Wahabees from the bottom of his heart, eager for information on cause and effect, on lands and governments, and holding commerce and social life for the main props if not the ends of civil and national organization. His uncle, now near eighty years old, to judge by conjecture in a land where registers are not much in use, had journeyed to India, and traded at Bombay; in token whereof he still wore an Indian skullcap and a cashmere shawl. The rest of the family were in keeping with the elder members, and seldom have I seen more dutiful children or a better educated household. My readers will naturally understand that by education I here imply its moral not its intellectual phase. The eldest son, himself a middle-aged man, would never venture into his father’s presence without unbuckling his sword and leaving it in the vestibule, nor on any account presume to sit on a level with him or by his side in the divan.