AN EGYPTIAN DONKEY AND ITS DRIVER.
Outside Mecca the road widens, taking an abrupt turn from a northerly to a north-easterly direction. We passed innumerable huts and Bedouin tents, we skirted the Jebelé-Nur or Mountain of Light on our left, and then, swerving back to the north, we kept a sharp look-out for the pitfalls which beset our every step. In no case were the mountains many miles away. The colour of them changed gradually from a gloomy drab to a deep brown. Many camels had knocked up and lay festering in the sun. Along the route dead pilgrims had been buried so close to the surface that the odour of putrefaction polluted the air. The stench of decaying flesh was positively sickening. Again and again I had to hold my nose and cry aloud, “Astaghferallah Menash-Shaitan: I seek shelter in God from Satan.” This phrase was used more often than any other, and in varying moods and with many meanings. Every time an animal fell down its driver would mutter the expression. If the animal remained obstinate, refusing to rise, the driver would rub his hands and repeat the words. An Arab Sheykh who rode behind me took refuge in God against the devil whenever he failed in his attempt to get past me. This was merely a sign of impatience. Had he given vent to his feelings by saying the formula sixty-nine times in quick succession I might possibly have made way for him for no other reason than because I should have expected him to strike a blow in defence of his claim to precede me. For the Prophet has said: “Utter not a word in wroth until you have repeated seventy Astaghferallahs.” Believe me, it is a word to conjure with. As a mark of ironic negation it is more convincing than the strongest affirmative. In a rocky pass I asked Seyyid ’Alí, whose face had turned copper-red, and whose lips were scorched, if he was thirsty. “Astaghferallah, yá-Moulai!” he cried, smiling ironically. Later on, in the neck of the pass, where two men could not ride abreast, I had proof of the expression being used by way of a courteous refusal. Riding far ahead of us two mullás in íhram, with shaven heads and unkempt beards, drew rein simultaneously, each requesting the other to pass on. This exchange of punctilio was most unseasonable. So long did the two priests bandy courtesy, crying “Astaghferallah” one after the other, that the word was soon used in a contrary sense by the pilgrims in the rear.
We waited about five minutes for the intervening pilgrims to ride on in single file, and when we reached the spot it was to find that the road lay between two rocks some four feet apart. One of my friends, quoting a well-worn proverb, bent towards me and remarked: “Why do they not remove those stones out of the path of the Faithful?” Seyyid ’Alí observed a priest in front of him, and replied significantly, “I behold a bigger stone in my path!” The priest, who was reading the Kurán atop of his camel, overheard the words, and tugged his camel round that he might face the sceptical rascal. The camel made a vicious snap at Seyyid ’Alí’s mule. The mule, finding itself between two fires—the rock on the one side and the camel on the other—sat down on its haunches; and my guide, crying out the word, “Astaghferallah,” came a cropper, striking his head against a stone. The upper portion of his íhram fell off. “Was it you, Seyyid ’Alí who fell?” cried Sheykh Eissa. Seyyid ’Alí, all bruised and bleeding, crept from under the mule’s legs, and picked up his sacred habit. “Astaghferallah!” he replied; “it was not I who fell. It was my íhram. Unfortunately I happened to be in it.” A burst of laughter followed and then a shrill scream. “I verily believe,” said Sheykh Eissa, addressing me, “that your guide would make a kitten ‘eat a dozen sticks’ if it mispronounced the Arabic letter ‘ain’ in the feline word ‘maou! maou!’”
But I had turned whence the scream had come and made him no reply. My guide’s mishap, as I saw on looking ahead, had excited the compassion of a lady in a palanquin. She was a Meccan. No sooner did she see the blood than she uttered a shriek of deepest commiseration. Then she recovered herself, and cooed out a couple of orders. Her warmth of heart was now as evident as had been her emotional susceptibility. In one breath she summoned her husband and sent him to Seyyid ’Alí with an offer of a certain famous prescription for wounds and bruises. In the next she implored her moghavem to ransack on one of the camels a chest that contained, among other things, a small bottle of scorpion oil. It was the remedy in question. This is the way it is prepared: the stings having been extracted, a couple of black scorpions are dried in the sun, are then put in a bottle holding about half a pint of castor-oil, and in this they are kept corked up for the space of a year. The unwilling Arab made demur, pleading that the delay would inconvenience the pilgrims behind her own caravan; but she reduced him to obedience with a look. “Be sharp!” she crooned, as he swung reluctantly on his heel; so sweet was her voice that without another sign of hesitation he leaped forward to carry out her wishes. The camel was made to kneel down by the wayside; then the chest was overhauled. By the time her husband had returned the precious oil was found and given to him. “Take it,” she said, still gazing in ’Alí’s countenance over her husband’s shoulder, “and tell him to use it unsparingly lest the beauty of his face should be ruined.” Meccan gentlewomen allow themselves a certain freedom of speech and action, otherwise a less presentable man than this woman’s husband might have been jealous enough to resent the frank admiration in her voice. Seyyid ’Alí, having laid on the oil by means of a wooden bodkin used for the purpose, handed the bottle back to the husband, who pressed him to accept the rest of its contents, which would be useful, he said, in case of further accident. My guide, however, refused with many thanks, saying that he could not find it in his heart to deprive the giver of the possibility of exercising her compassion on the next unfortunate she might chance to meet. And with this our respective caravans moved on.
Before reaching the Valley of Mina a serious accident happened, this time to a Malay pilgrim—an accident that proved fatal to him, for he was crushed to death in a stampede of mules. I am happy to say that our own caravan was not concerned in the disaster. Two women swooned at the sight, and all the other women round about raised their voices in bitterest lamentation, as though they had lost a near relative. A quarter of an hour after, when the unfortunate man had been laid to rest in his shallow grave, the two women who had fainted fell to prattling merrily as if nothing untoward had occurred. In fact, the chief characteristics of the Oriental woman are her absolute helplessness outside the restricted limits of her special sphere of influence, and the swiftness with which she passes from one emotion to another. There is no transition in her moods. She passes from the tearful or the terrible to the mirthful or the ridiculous at a single bound of her mercurial temperament. She is at once more womanish and more womanly than her European sisters. Not less marked, on this journey of ours to the holiest mountain of Islám, were the vanity of the wealthier classes as it preened itself among the men, and the unfailing good humour of the mob. A Persian nobleman, to whom my host had attached himself, had a special chamberlain whose sole duty it was to hand his lord and master a cigarette whenever he felt disposed to smoke. Another grandee of the same nationality, if he had occasion to drop his reins in order to adjust his beard, would cry out at the top of his voice to his moghavem, saying: “Boy, come here! Hand me the reins!” preserving the while an expression of sphinx-like aloofness from all human kind.
As for the good temper of the crowd, it was due, I avow, to the soberness of each and every individual in it. Of drunkenness there was nothing on the road so far as my experience went, though I am constrained to admit that a good many pilgrims of my acquaintance had smuggled along with them a bottle or two of brandy apiece which, as a safeguard against prying eyes, had been labelled “cholera mixture.” When I say the mob was sober I only mean that it was not drunk. Its humour, of course, was individualised. It varied with the character of the unit. Some of the pilgrims were lively, frivolous, even rowdy in a playful sort of way, meaning no mischief. These chatted and chaffed and flirted, killing monotony in many a breach of etiquette. They being theoretically resigned to the will of Allah, were resolved in practice to reflect Omnipotence in a merry mood. Others, rapt and devotional, intoned the holy and instructive Kurán, as they sat on their camels or limped barefooted over the stony ground. Prayers were muttered, religious hymns were sung, tears were shed, tales were told, amid the deafening shouts of the drivers and the lofty orders of the moghavems. Conspicuous in their pastime on the road were the Bedouins. Either they beguiled the tedium of the march by singing love-songs that acted like magic on the listeners, or else they showed that their weariness under restraint was invincible by frequent salivation. For yawning is almost exclusively a European habit. Oriental folk rarely yawn in public. If they are bored they give odd little sham coughs instead, while the Bedouins get rid of their moral phlegm or call attention to its existence by expectorating. Nor is the habit regarded even by the most courteous among them as offensive: it is hallowed by custom. The virtue of politeness is relative. In Great Britain, for example, the very sound of the word “belch” could only be described as unspeakable; whereas the act itself in many Eastern countries breathes grace and gratitude after meat on the part of the guests. The more often it is repeated by them the better pleased is their host. Thus it is not in a carping frame of mind that I have written down whatever in the manners of my co-religionists excited my quasi-European squeamishness.
Now, the road, before entering the narrow Wadi of Mina, in which a village stands, narrows into a gap and climbs a flight of stone steps. There the pilgrims thought it necessary, as, indeed, I suppose it was, to call a halt, while they performed a two-prostration prayer, and in the chaos of confusion which arose I was separated from my companions, or shoved forward by the pressure of the crowd behind me. I was about to force my way back to them when I caught sight of a young Syrian girl sitting astride an ass. In the excitement of the moment she had forgotten to cover her face, and our eyes met. On the instant all thought of returning left me, for the girl was good to behold. The caravan she was with numbered about fifty people, and with it I rode along through the village into the dreary gully beyond. Every now and then we would glance at each other, the maiden and I. She was shy, and I was anything but bold, breathing, in her neighbourhood, a spell so pure. So on we journeyed, side by side, I covertly watching her every movement, and she playing hide-and-seek with my eyes, until at last I summoned the courage to smile on her. By chance, or I know not by what blessing, the smile was returned, and so heartening was its effect on me that my whole being seemed to throb, “not from one heart, but from a hundred!” Never was I so near to a complete surrender to love at first sight. In the meantime the sun was going down behind the mountains in the west; shopkeepers were busy erecting their booths in readiness for the return of the Hájj on the Day of Sacrifice; torches were lighted, casting a lurid glare around; cannons were fired and rockets flung aloft to announce to the weary pilgrims the hour of evening prayer. There, in the ruddy light about us and the gathering darkness beyond, my maiden and I knelt down, obeying the call of the faith, within arm’s reach of each other. In my heart of hearts I prayed that God would give me one day a helpmate as sweet as my companion.
Not a word had passed between us, nor did we exchange more than a glance, when the caravan got under way again. To my dismay there came along, with furtive tread, an ugly-looking Syrian, barefoot and old, and entered into conversation with me, placing himself, with an air of suspicion that nettled, and a look of proprietorship that alarmed me, between the maiden and myself. I thought that he might be her father, but he said he was her husband. Instinctively I drew rein, and soon she was lost to me in the blackness of the night. Caravan after caravan went by, but there I remained, meditating first on the ways of the veil-worn sex, and then on my hapless lot, cut off as I was from my companions, with only a few mejidis in silver in a small bag round my neck. By and by the moon rose, and I pulled myself together. In truth, the pangs of a healthy appetite began to clamour for satisfaction, and so I pressed forward until I reached the top of the valley, which was simply blocked with pilgrims, all hurrying as fast as they could go to the Mosque of Khaif. There I alighted, and, leading my mule by the bridle, made to cross the open space in front, where several coffee booths offered refreshment; but my obstinate beast would not budge, pull as I might. Not for nothing do the Easterns call them “the children of donkeys.” They are certainly more stubborn and more uncertain than their mothers. Many paupers were hanging about, and any one of them would have been only too glad to take the mule in tow, but the danger was that he would run away with it—such cases of theft are of frequent occurrence on the pilgrimage—and therefore I called to a booth-keeper asking him to send out his man to take charge of the beast that I might go and quench my thirst and smoke a pipe at his stall. Once rid of my stupid burden, I pushed my way into the booth which was crowded with pilgrims of the poorer classes. My sudden appearance among them raised not a little astonishment. I fraternised at once with a needy Bedouin, and together we smoked a pipe of peace. Suddenly a gun went off outside the booth, the report echoing and re-echoing among the mountains. “A blood-feud!” cried my companion, leaping to his feet, then ran out of doors.
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE ROAD TO ARAFAT
(Concluded)
More shots followed in quick succession: everybody in the booth made a rush for the door, except the booth-keeper and myself: and we stood staring at each other for some moments without uttering a single word. But my companion did not long remain silent under the questioning look I turned upon him. “The sons of dogs!” he cried: “they have not paid me!” and, before I could even smile at the humour of the situation, he was gone.