“Our only companions as yet were Mubarek and Dahesh. We had outstripped the rest, whose baggage and equipments had required a more tedious arrangement than our own. Before long they came up—a motley crew. Ten or thereabouts of the Kaseem, some from Bereydah itself, others from neighboring towns; two individuals, who gave themselves out, but with more asseveration than truth, to be natives of Mecca itself; three Bedouins, two of whom belonged to the Shomer clan, the third an ’Anezah of the north; next a runaway negro, conducting four horses, destined to pass the whole breadth of Arabia, and to be shipped off at Koweyt, on the Persian Gulf, for Indian sale; two merchants, one from Zulphah, in the province of Sedeyr, the other from Zobeyr, near Bussora; lastly, two women, wives of I know not exactly whom in the caravan, with some small children; all this making up, ourselves included, a band of twenty-seven or twenty-eight persons, the most mounted on camels, a few on horseback, and accompanied by a few beasts of burden alongside—such was our Canterbury pilgrims’ group.
“Thus assembled, on we went together, now amid granite rocks, now crossing grassy valleys, till near sunset we stopped under a high cliff, at the extreme southerly verge of Djebel ’Aja’, or, in modern parlance, of Djebel Shomer. The mountain here extended far away to right and left, but in front a wide plain of full twenty miles across opened out before us, till bounded southward by the long bluish chain of Djebel Solma, whose line runs parallel to the heights we were now to leave, and belongs to the same formation and rocky mass denominated in a comprehensive way the mountains of Ta’i or Shomer.
“At about three in the afternoon, next day, we saw, some way off to our west, a troop of Bedouins coming up from the direction of Medina. While they were yet in the distance, and half-hidden from view by the shrubs and stunted acacias of the plain, we could not precisely distinguish their numbers; but they were evidently enough to make us desire, with Orlando, ‘that we might be better strangers.’ On our side we mustered about fifteen matchlocks, besides a few spears and swords. The Bedouins had already perceived us, and continued to approach, though in the desultory and circuitous way which they affect when doubtful of the strength of their opponent; still they gained on us more than was pleasant.
“Fourteen armed townsmen might stand for a reasonable match against double the number of Bedouins, and in any case we had certainly nothing better to do than to put a bold face on the matter. The ’Eyoon chief, Foleyh, with two of his countrymen and Ghashee, carefully primed their guns, and then set off at full gallop to meet the advancing enemy, brandishing their weapons over their heads, and looking extremely fierce. Under cover of this manœuvre the rest of our band set about getting their arms ready, and an amusing scene ensued. One had lost his match, and was hunting for it in his housings; another, in his haste to ram the bullet home had it stick midway in the barrel, and could neither get it up nor down; the lock of a third was rusty and would not do duty; the women began to whine piteously; the two Meccans, who for economy’s sake were both riding one only camel, a circumstance which caused between them many international squabbles, tried to make their beast gallop off with them, and leave the others to their fate; while the more courageous animal, despising such cowardly measures, insisted on remaining with his companions and sharing their lot; all was thoroughly Arab, much hubbub and little done. Had the menacing feint of the four who protected our rear proved insufficient, we might all have been in a very bad predicament, and this feeling drew every face with reverted gaze in a backward direction. But the Harb banditti, intimidated by the bold countenance of Foleyh and his companions, wheeled about and commenced a skirmishing retreat, in which a few shots, guiltless of bloodshed, were fired for form’s sake on either side, till at last our assailants fairly disappeared in the remote valley.
“Our valiant champions now returned from pursuit, much elated with their success, and we journeyed on together, skirting the last rocky spur of Solma, close by the spot where Hatim Ta’i, the well-known model, half mythic and half historical, of Arab hospitality and exaggerated generosity, is said to be buried. Here we crossed some low hills that form a sort of offshoot to the Solma mountain, and limit the valley; and the last rays of the setting sun gilding to our view, in a sandy bottom some way off, the palm-trees of Feyd.
“Feyd may be taken as a tolerable sample of the villages met with throughout Northern or Upper Kaseem, for they all bear a close likeness in their main features, though various in size. Imagine a little sandy hillock of about sixty or seventy feet high, in the midst of a wide and dusty valley; part of the eminence itself and the adjoining bottom is covered by low earth-built houses, intermixed with groups of the feathery ithel. The grounds in the neighborhood are divided by brick walls into green gardens, where gourds and melons, leguminous plants and maize, grow alongside of an artificial irrigation from the wells among them; palms in plenty—they were now heavy laden with red-brown fruits; and a few peach or apricot trees complete the general lineaments. The outer walls are low, and serve more for the protection of the gardens than of the dwellings; here are neither towers nor trenches, nor even, at least in many places, any central castle or distinguishable residence for the chief; his habitation is of the same one-storied construction as those of his neighbors, only a little larger. Some of the townlets are quite recent, and date from the Shomer annexation, which gave this part of the province a degree of quiet and prosperity unknown under their former Wahabee rulers.
“Next morning, the 10th of September, we were all up by moonlight, two or three hours before dawn, and off on our road to the southeast. The whole country that we had to traverse for the next four days was of so uniform a character that a few words of description may here serve for the landscape of this entire stage of our journey.
“Upper Kaseem is an elevated plateau or steppe, and forms part of a long upland belt, crossing diagonally the northern half of the peninsula; one extremity reaches the neighborhood of Zobeyr and the Euphrates, while the other extends downward to the vicinity of Medina. Its surface is in general covered with grass in the spring and summer seasons, and with shrubs and brushwood at all times, and thus affords excellent pasture for sheep and camels. Across it blows the fresh eastern gale, so celebrated in Arab poetry under the name of ‘Seba Nedjin,’ or ‘Zephyr of Nedjed’ (only it comes from precisely the opposite corner to the Greek or Roman Zephyr), and continually invoked by sentimental bards to bring them news of imaginary loves or pleasing reminiscences. No wonder; for most of these versifiers being themselves natives of the barren Hedjaz or the scorching Tehama, perhaps inhabitants of Egypt and Syria, and knowing little of Arabia, except what they have seen on the dreary Meccan pilgrim road, they naturally look back to with longing, and frequently record, whatever glimpses chance may have allowed them of the cooler and more fertile highlands of the centre, denominated by them Nedjed, in a general way, with their transient experience of its fresh and invigorating climate, of its courteous men and sprightly maidens.
“But when, nor is this seldom, the sweet smell of the aromatic thyme-like plants that here abound mixes with the light morning breeze and enhances its balmy influence, then indeed can one excuse the raptures of an Arab Ovid or Theocritus, and appreciate—at least I often did—their yearnings after Nedjed, and all the praises they lavish on its memory.
“Then said I to my companion, while the camels were hastening
To bear us down the pass between Meneefah and Demar,
‘Enjoy while thou canst the sweets of the meadows of Nedjed:
With no such meadows and sweets shalt thou meet after this evening.Ah! heaven’s blessing on the scented gales of Nedjed,
And its greensward and groves glittering from the spring shower,
And thy dear friends, when thy lot was cast awhile in Nedjed,
Little hadst thou to complain of what the days brought thee;Months flew past, they passed and we perceived not,
Nor when their moons were new, nor when they waned.’”