At length I beheld an Arab camp—at length I entered an Arab tent! I would not have exchanged that sight for the possession of a palace. That first hour must remain associated with every effort to picture the ancient world—with every judgment of its present condition.
When we were comfortably arranged, the sheik brought a flat bowl with a pile of hot scous. As he set them down he said, “scou!” The two Scotchmen of the party had been surprised at the sight of the dish, but they were electrified when they heard the word: their astonishment burst forth in a way that puzzled and amazed the sheik. In his turn he was delighted with the explanation. The Douar, the Buled, the Cabaile, are mere extensions of the family and multiplications of the tent: the blood relationship runs through all; the parentage, therefore, of a race is of as much interest to them as that of an individual. “Every Arab of the present day,” says Burckhardt, “can tell back his fathers and their collateral relatives to the ninth generation.” In the last generation a Highlander would do the same.[247] But memory, like man, has lost its early longevity. At the time of Mahomet every Arab could trace back twenty generations.[248] through ages; whose people had remained almost to our
This Arab was delighted to hear of a race in England with patriarchal chiefs whose line ascended unbroken times unchanged; who had their own language,[249] who had a diet, part of which was “scous,”[250] and a dress, part of which was a haïk. He came and embraced me, when I told him that my forefathers had dwelt amongst them, and had left the usted as their memorial. The sympathy for which I was here indebted to my Highland blood, did not, as in Europe, spring from antipathy to England. At this moment, in Morocco, England is the idol. To her every eye is turned: they make inquiries, and hang upon your answer. One Englishman is peculiarly the object of their regard. There is not one of them who is not familiar with the name of “Palmerston.” Seldom did a day pass that I was not asked respecting the chances of his return to office, and many a kindly pat on the back did I receive.
Though our journey had not exceeded a dozen miles, we were completely exhausted by our day of preparations, and had not yet tasted food; so, making our supper upon this hors d’œuvre, the scous, we laid ourselves down. My companions soon resigned themselves to the empire of fatigue, and I, mesmerized by the waves of the Numidian folds, seemed to see the sides of the tent open on dim vistas of long years, through which great shadows flitted. Tacferinas rose, and, beyond, Jugurtha; there were mingled, like ghosts upon the shore of Styx, Hunerick and Hannibal, Nebuchadnezzar and Cervantes, Don Sebastian and St. Louis. Pictured scenes danced on the textile cloud—Moosa on the cliff of the Atlantic; Marius amidst Byrsa’s shattered battlements; Juba in his purple; Lot in his sackcloth; Rachel at the well; and, walking from the canvas, Abraham stood in the door. How many more from Atlas to Nelson—how many deeds from the battle of the gods to that of Trafalgar—what thrones and sceptred hands from the old Muley of Carteïa,[251] to the present one of Fez! At length the phantoms were cleared away, though not by light, and the vision was broken, because I fell from trance to slumber; and sense then let in what fancy had before kept out—the noises of an Arab camp by night.
To each tent there is at least one dog. The sheep ten per tent, expert in imitating old men’s cough. There are asses and horses secured with chains, and cattle (the mugitus bovum) mingle with the brayings of the one and the clanking of the other. The steeds are peculiarly quarrelsome, and their differences provoke the otherwise tranquil camels, who, when aroused, give it to one another in their own Xantippe fashion. Through all these pierced the infantine cry of the kid and goat. Lastly, there is chanticleer, reared from Jebusite eggs,—not like our sober cock, contented with a morning crow or two—but repeating hour by hour, and all night long, the warning notes which startled Peter. Take then the sum—eighty cocks, forty camels, forty asses, forty horses, eight hundred sheep, four hundred goats, one hundred dogs—or fifteen hundred animals, called “dumb,” pent up in a circle of three hundred yards’ diameter, in the middle of which your tent is pitched! Speak, then, of “Nature’s soft nurse.”
A watch was appointed. They came, bringing their dogs to sleep round the tent, and, of course, to sup with our guards and attendants. It was near eleven o’clock before they “sat down.” Arabs speak loud and long, and all together. They were long at their supper—longer at their talk. When they had done, the dogs fought for the bones, and continued after they were picked. As soon as they had concluded, the children in the school commenced, all at once, every one a different lesson, as loud as their throats could shriek, and as fast as their tongues could clatter. One sense was not, however, to be racked alone:—the process of acupuncture soon commenced with such vigour and method that, when daylight appeared, not one square line of my whole body remained unsuffused with a roseate hue. Hitherto, I had secured myself against this Egyptian plague, by a musquito curtain sewed to a sheet,[252] but had neglected to have one when needed most. When I stirred up the party, as I did betimes, the consolation I received was, “You are lucky that it is winter, or you must have had musquitoes into the bargain!” Each night it was the same. I recognized my old acquaintance among sheep, kids, dogs, camels—the same school-boys followed us everywhere, and we had over and over again the Lancasterian method in the morning. Not till the fourth night—after all expedients—cotton-stuffing, bandages, &c., had failed—did exhausted Nature close her ears and mine.
We started next morning under a Scotch mist, and were soon wet to the skin. After four or five hours’ toiling, yet advancing little, we turned restiff from cold and hunger, and desired to be housed, dried, or, at all events, fed. I insisted, as the direction we travelled in mattered little, on going in search of a Douar. For two hours more we continued to stray. Having missed the one we had sought, and avoiding others which were in sight, our course became to me at last utterly incomprehensible. I thought that wherever there was a tent there was a welcome, and wherever a roof, a shelter. I now discovered my mistake. I insisted on approaching a very small Douar of about fifteen tents, to which some old men and boys of most forbidding appearance, were driving in the cattle. The soldiers went to them, and standing long conversing, I advanced towards the Douar; they rushed at me with violent gestures. M. Seruya offered them money, but they derided him, and signed to us to be off.
It was strange: we had offended in nothing; we demanded nothing; we only begged for shelter, and we were willing to pay for it. They were Arabs: we were strangers. Our party was calculated to command respect or enforce obedience, being composed of officers from the city, the sheik of a neighbouring tribe, emissaries of the Sultan: we outnumbered them, and were armed and mounted. Yet the sense of hospitality, money, authority, strength availed us nothing; I asked for an explanation but gained none. Then came the question—the Homeric question, “Who are you?—of what race, of what land?”
Εἴπὲ δέ μοι γαῖαν τε τεὴν δῆμον τε πόλιν τέ.
Now light broke in. I had to ask the name, not of a village but a tribe.[253] A tribe might be trodden down, not the individuals; these were not a dozen shepherds:—they were Saba, who muster two thousand five hundred firelocks. This tribe had travelled from Arabia: they could go back to-morrow if they liked. They might have come yesterday, or a thousand, or two, or three thousand years ago. To such as they are, time brings no change, distance presents no obstacle. But this name was not heard now for the first time. Was it they, perchance, who stole Job’s cattle? Did any of them accompany their queen to Jerusalem? How do these bear the patronymic of that mysterious stock? Sheba was the firstborn of Cush and elder to Phut and Canaan and Mizram. Yet I could not call them with Isaiah “men of stature.” These Saba have seen arise and pass away the great empires of the earth. They will live when that one to which the wanderer belongs, whom they would not receive, is gone to be addressed by the shades of Nineveh and Babylon, “Art thou too become as one of us?” Well, they did not choose that we should enter, and we had neither right to question nor complain. My escort were Moors, not Frenchmen.