There was another consideration which also weighed with me. Imprudent action and an open breach with the Government of the country might not only endanger our safety and entirely stop our work, but it might also close the doors for many years on Palestine explorers.
After patient waiting, however, during several months, which were fully employed in visiting places of interest only imperfectly described before, fortune at length favoured us for a while. The quarrels of the Arabs were settled, and I found at last a sturdy Arab chief of the old school, regarded by the Turks as a rebel, but powerful and respected over a large area east of Jordan, and willing to escort us. I was thus able to carry out the wishes of those at home and to start the Eastern Survey. It was not difficult, by leaving the greater part of my camp standing west of Jerusalem, to give the Turkish spies the slip. A regular treaty with Goblan, the aged Adwân chief, was signed. With Lieutenant Mantell I crossed Jordan, and finding that no active steps were taken by the Government, I sent for the rest of the expedition. For two anxious months we laboured at very high pressure; and after measuring our base-line and connecting our triangulation with that west of the river, we worked over five hundred square miles in detail.
I had quite hoped that, though not recognised, we might be tolerated in the country, and I believe we might have worked still longer—for I doubt if the Turks at all knew where we were gone—but that there was an adverse influence of some kind at work. Whether it was the jealousy of the Beni Sakhr, or whether some political counter-current existed, I was unable to find out. The Beni Sakhr had certainly seemed friendly. We had already subsidised them, and they expected us soon to work in their country, and to pay them handsomely for escort. No means that I could think of was neglected to interest all who could help in our peaceful and rapid progress. Yet suddenly the whole plan was spoilt by the extraordinary action of the Beni Sakhr chiefs. I am not aware that they are conspicuous for devotion to Turkish interests, though certainly they hated Goblân, with whom they had a blood-feud and whose life they sought. Whatever their reason, they went out of their way to draw attention to our presence. The Haj, conducted by the famous Kurdish Pasha, Muhammad Said of Damascus, was on its way through Moab to Mecca. To this Pasha they pointed out that English captains were measuring the land, and he only did his duty when he at once ordered us to be stopped, and telegraphed to Damascus, whence the news was sent to the Sultan. The governor of the Belka was reprimanded, and he in turn came down on the governor of Es Salt. Yet even after this we were able to extend the work over a considerable area, and only recrossed Jordan in time to escape from the winter storms or from being cut off by the flooding of the river. It was in the same year that Mr. Rassam’s researches in Mesopotamia were stopped, and no important or extensive explorations have since that date been possible in the Turkish dominions.
We could not blame the Turks for their action. They had every reason to be jealous and suspicious at a time when the war in Egypt was brewing, when Cyprus had been handed over and Tunis annexed, and when Russian political emissaries were, I believe, actually exploring Northern Syria. It was not likely that the Sultan or his advisers would discriminate closely between antiquarian work and political intrigue, especially as our explorations were not likely to put much money in the treasury. It had been my wish to go to Constantinople, and to place the matter fully before the Sultan, before attempting to begin the work; but when I was instructed to go to the capital, after our irregular proceedings had been peremptorily stopped, it was with a bad grace that I was forced to ask for regular authorisation, which, though promised, has not yet been granted.
In spite of all difficulties, a substantial bit of work was done—about an eighth of the total proposed—and we came back from the desert with our hands full of valuable results. I believe that but for the Beni Sakhr, or their unknown instigators, we might, through Turkish good-nature, have been allowed to work for some time longer. As it was, I revisited Moab and Gilead next year, through the kindness of our Royal Princes, and thus have seen nearly all the country east of Jordan except Bashan, on which I have only looked from a distance. Finally, we left Syria on a steamer crowded with refugees from the Alexandrian massacres; and Lieutenant Mantell and I had hardly been six weeks in England when we were ordered to Egypt on active service.
Since that date I have been in two campaigns, serving on the staff at Tell-el-Kebir, and laying down the west border of the Transvaal in South Africa; yet I can look back on no more anxious time than the weeks we spent in surveying Moab. Surrounded with lawless Arabs: roused almost every night, at times, by the attacks of thieves bent on stealing the horses on which we so much reckoned; having nothing on which to trust but the unproved loyalty of our old guide, Sheikh Goblan, whose life was in constant danger from his blood-foes on the south, and his liberty from the Turks, who had often tried to catch him, on the north; placed in opposition to the Turkish Government and disowned by the British,—we felt that a disaster might any day occur which might endanger the lives of brave comrades who had ventured to follow, but who certainly were alive to the perils of our position. I write these lines not to exaggerate those dangers, for Goblan was trusty and our relations with the Arabs were excellent, but to show how difficult it was to carry through even that small portion of the great task which we completed, and how utterly impossible it was to do any more.
The stoppage of the work was a great disappointment to us all; but I can only feel thankful that no accident marred our success, and that the sum banked in Syria to pay ransom in case of our being imprisoned, like Dr. Tristram in Kerak, or kidnapped by the wild Anazeh to the east, who could have brought many armed horsemen against our little band of fifteen, was never called into use.
