CHAPTER XIV
HARASSED BY OUR GUIDES
We never could ascertain whether the Tamimi had come or not, so on February 18, having given up all hope of joining them and changed ten camels, we set out, but not before nine o'clock.
After Sa'ah the Wadi Adim becomes narrow, stony, and uninteresting, and our way lay for a good part along a stony river bed, gradually mounting, but almost imperceptibly. For several days we pursued the course of this valley, and had we known what would befall us as we approached the head of the Wadi Adim, I think nothing would have induced us to take this route. It appears that a very wicked branch of the Hamoumi tribe hold a portion of this valley, and determined that their enemies, the Jabberi, who stole their cattle and plundered their caravans, should not have the exclusive patronage of the lucrative English travellers on their way to the coast. To our surprise at twelve o'clock we stopped at a well, Bir al Ghuz, when our men began to unload the camels. They said they were only just waiting for the Hamoumi siyara to come up, and that they had already arrived at Sa'ah.
The Hamoumi are a small, poor tribe of Bedouin, who occupy the lower end of Wadi Adim. They hire out camels to caravans, and do a great deal of the carrying business. Their villages consist of miserable little hovels gathered round forts, placed at intervals down the valleys, so that they can see from one to another. They have many flocks and herds, for there is actually pasturage for them, and many of the shepherds live in caves, there being plenty in the sides of the valley, which are composed of pudding-stone; they wall up the front.
We considered that, as Talib-bin-Abdullah, the chief of the Jabberi and so notorious a robber, was our Mokadam, we had better keep friends with him, therefore we spoke him fair. He and his companions came and wrote their names after a list of stages, and made a most solemn oath they would do anything we liked; and after we had sat for an hour or more in the sun, waiting for the Hamoumi, they said we must pass the night at Bir al Ghuz, still swearing to the seven days.
We therefore encamped, and very soon the Jabberi came and asked my husband for a sheep, but he said he would not give one now, but later in the journey he would do so if he found we were getting on well; so they went away, but soon came back for twenty-seven dollars, as siyar to the Hamoumi. My husband said he had agreed for twenty-five, but they said they had spent two dollars on a messenger to fetch the Hamoumi. The Jabberi were by way of having 110 dollars for their siyar, forty first and the rest at Sheher. They would not move next morning (the 20th) without the whole of the money, so they had to be given that and the twenty-seven dollars for the Hamoumi. Besides this they always demanded their camel-hire every evening.
They next said the way was very dangerous, and we must take men from five other tribes (though we could not imagine how so many could be accommodated in that wilderness), and pay twenty dollars. As my husband refused, and asked them to reflect upon the consequences of their conduct, the soldiers came and now said they recommended him to pay and recover the money at Sheher; otherwise they, the soldiers, said they would give up their weapons to the Jabberi as a pledge that they would pay forty dollars at Sheher. We said they might, but Talib told us that if we did not pay they would give the Hamoumi their money and all go back themselves. We then summoned Imam Sharif and had another council of three.
The servants, meanwhile, used often to be leaning in at the tent door, scanning our faces and begging us to do anything the Jabberi wanted, and moaning that we should never see the ocean any more.
The Jabberi had gone away, as my husband said he must think over this; so we consulted together. We at first quite decided to return to Al Koton, and try to reach the coast by Wadi al Ain and, if we could not have the camels, to load our own three animals with necessaries and money, leaving all else behind, and perhaps to slip by Siwoun in the night. So Talib was recalled, and told that we would go back; that we were now convinced of the dangers of this road, as we saw he was afraid himself, and as he had told us of two places where murders were always committed. But afterwards we thought it wiser to consent to pay the extra thirty dollars (in all fifty-seven) as siyar to the Hamoumi, all the tribes mentioned being varieties of Hamoumi. The money was to be placed on the Koran and taken thence by Talib, with an oath that, if the sultan of Sheher thought it unnecessary, it should be refunded. Seid-bin-Iselem and three soldiers witnessed this, but Talib would not allow the Hamoumi to be present. Instead of taking Talib's gun as a deposit, the soldiers were to keep the money in their hands. We were still to be at Sheher within the seven days, and not now to wait two or three days for the five tribes.