“Barakat’s whole attention was at once engrossed by this personage. A remarkably handsome face, of a type evidently not belonging to the Arab peninsula, long hair curling down to the shoulders, an over-dress of fine spun silk, somewhat soiled by travel, a colored handkerchief of Syrian manufacture on the head, a manner and look indicating an education much superior to that ordinary in his class and occupation, a camel-driver’s, were peculiarities sufficient of themselves to attract notice, and give rise to conjecture. But when these went along with a welcome and a salute in the forms and tone of Damascus or Aleppo, and a ready flow of that superabundant and overcharged politeness for which the Syrian subjects of the Turkish empire are renowned, Barakat could no longer doubt that he had a fellow-countryman, and one, too, of some note, before him.
“Such was in fact the case. Aboo-’Eysa, to give him the name by which he was commonly known in these parts, though in his own country he bears another denomination, was a native of Aleppo, and son of a not unimportant individual in that fair city. His education, and the circumstances of his early youth, had rendered him equally conversant with townsmen and herdsmen, with citizens and Bedouins, with Arabs and Europeans. By lineal descent he was a Bedouin, since his grandfather belonged to the Mejadimah, who are themselves an offshoot of the Benoo-Khalid; but in habits, thoughts, and manners he was a very son of Aleppo, where he had passed the greater part of his boyhood and youth. When about twenty-five years of age he became involved, culpably or not, in the great conspiracy against the Turkish government which broke out in the Aleppine insurrection of 1852. Like many others he was compelled to anticipate consequences by a prompt flight.
“After trying commerce in order to retrieve his ruined fortunes, but with ill success, Aboo-’Eysa engaged in the horse trade between Persia and Arabia, and also failed. He then went to Ri’ad, the capital of Nedjed, and by presents to Feysul, the chief, obtained a post as guide to the Persian caravans of pilgrims to Mecca, across Arabia. At this time he had followed that career for three years, and had amassed considerable wealth, for his politeness, easy manners, and strict probity made him popular with the pilgrims.
“He recognized a fellow-countryman in Barakat,” says Palgrave, “received him with marked politeness, and carefully informed himself of our whence and whither. Barakat, overjoyed to find at last a kind of opening after difficulties that had appeared to obstruct all further progress, made no delay in inquiring whether he would undertake our guidance to Ri’ad. Aboo-’Eysa replied that he was just on the point of separating from his friends the Persians, whose departure would leave camels enough and to spare at his disposition, and that so far there was no hindrance to the proposal. As for the Wahabees and their unwillingness to admit strangers within their limits, he stated himself to be well known to them, and that in his company we should have nothing to fear from their suspicious criticism.”
The agreement was made at once, and the travellers now only waited until their new companion should have made some final arrangements with the Persian pilgrims, who were to travel directly from Bereydah to Bagdad. In the meantime, the former took advantage of the delay to see as much as possible of the place, and even to make excursions in the neighborhood, especially in the direction of the beleaguered city of ’Oneyzah. Palgrave’s description of the place shows that it possesses the same general features as the other Arabian towns, yet may be quoted for its intrinsic picturesqueness:
“Barakat and myself have made our morning household purchases at the fair, and the sun being now an hour or more above the horizon, we think it time to visit the market-place of the town, which would hardly be open sooner. We re-enter the city gate, and pass on our way by our house door, where we leave our bundle of eatables, and regain the high street of Bereydah. Before long we reach a high arch across the road; this gate divides the market from the rest of the quarter. We enter. First of all we see a long range of butchers’ shops on either side, thick hung with flesh of sheep and camel, and very dirtily kept. Were not the air pure and the climate healthy, the plague would assuredly be endemic here; but in Arabia no special harm seems to follow. We hasten on, and next pass a series of cloth and linen warehouses, stocked partly with home manufacture, but more imported; Bagdad cloaks and head-gear, for instance, Syrian shawls and Egyptian slippers. Here markets follow the law general throughout the East, that all shops or stores of the same description should be clustered together, a system whose advantages on the whole outweigh its inconveniences, at least for small towns like these. In the large cities and capitals of Europe greater extent of locality requires evidently a different method of arrangement; it might be awkward for the inhabitants of Hyde Park were no hatters to be found nearer than the Tower. But what is Bereydah compared even with a second-rate European city? However, in a crowd, it yields to none; the streets at this time of the day are thronged to choking, and to make matters worse, a huge, splay-footed camel comes every now and then, heaving from side to side like a lubber-rowed boat, with a long beam on his back menacing the heads of those in the way, or with two enormous loads of firewood, each as large as himself, sweeping the road before him of men, women, and children, while the driver, high-perched on the hump, regards such trifles with the most supreme indifference, so long as he brushes his path open. Sometimes there is a whole string of these beasts, the head-rope of each tied to the crupper of his precursor, very uncomfortable passengers when met with at a narrow turning.
“Through such obstacles we have found or made our way, and are now amid leather and shoemakers’ shops, then among coppersmiths and ironsmiths, whose united clang might waken the dead or kill the living, till at last we emerge on the central town-square, not a bad one either, nor very irregular, considering that it is in Kaseem.
“The vegetable and fruit market is very extensive, and kept almost exclusively by women; so are also the shops for grocery and spices. Nor do the fair sex of Bereydah seem a whit inferior to their rougher partners in knowledge of business and thrifty diligence. ‘Close-handedness beseems a woman no less than generosity a man,’ says an Arab poet, unconsciously coinciding with Lance of Verona in his comments on the catalogue of his future spouse’s ‘conditions.’
“The whole town has an aspect of old but declining prosperity. There are few new houses, but many falling into ruin. The faces, too, of most we meet are serious, and their voices in an undertone. Silk dresses are prohibited by the dominant faction, and tobacco can only be smoked within doors, and by stealth. Every now and then zealous Wahabee missionaries from Ri’ad pay a visit of reform and preaching to unwilling auditors, and disobedience to the customs of the Nedjean sect is noticed and punished, often severely.
“Enough of the town; the streets are narrow, hot, and dusty; the day, too, advances; but the gardens are yet cool. So we dash at a venture through a labyrinth of by-ways and cross-ways till we find ourselves in the wide street that, like a boulevard in France, runs immediately along but inside the walls.