While negotiations were going on about arrangements for our further progress, I went to call on Ali el-Kreysheh’s wives. There are two of them, Hazna and Fassal; but I only saw the latter, who had the women’s tent to herself with her attendants and three children, two little boys and a girl, remarkably dirty, and (what is rare among Bedouins) suffering from sore eyes. Fassal was plain and uninteresting but sensible, and I daresay has the advantage over Hazna, who, poor thing, is childless. She told me she was from a section of the tribe further north, and took an interest in Damascus, asking about the new Valy as well as about Mohammed ibn Smeyr, who is the great name in these parts. She seemed much pleased with the box of sugar-plums I gave her, and when I went away followed me as far as the end of the tent ropes invoking blessings on my head.
I found our own tents down and everything ready for a start; for an arrangement had been come to with the young man representing our host, that we were to have a zellem (person) to go with us as far as Kâf for the sum of ten mejidies (forty shillings). Assad and Salman were just saying good-bye, for they had to go back to Melakh. They were made very happy with a Turkish pound apiece, and Assad has left us his greyhound, the black and tan dog, who whined piteously when his master went away. I like the dog for this.
As we left the Kreysheh camp a bitter wind sprang up from the west-south-west, and continued all day long, chilling us, in spite of all the furs and cloaks we could put on, to the bone. Our course lay nearly across it south-south-east. We are out of the hills now in a nearly level plain still covered with the black stones. The only variety during the day was when we came to a large khabra (Khabra-el-Gurrthi), a dreary flat of dried up clay and sand which we took two hours to cross, though we went at the camels’ best pace. The wind drove great clouds of sand across it, making it one of the dreariest places I ever saw. We were all too cold for much talking, and sat huddled up on our delúls with our backs to the wind, and our heads wrapped up in our cloaks. We met no one all day long, except one string of a dozen camels driven by two very wild-looking Arabs who told us they were Shesharât, and nothing living except a hare which got up among the stones, and which the dogs coursed for some hundreds of yards, over ground which would have broken every bone of an English greyhound, apparently without hurting themselves. About two o’clock we came, to our great delight, upon the Wady er-Rajel again, an angle of whose course we had been cutting off. Here we found beautiful soft ground and grass and pools of water, for this wady had running water in it last month, and is not quite drunk up yet. The pasture was too good to be passed, so here we remain for the night. Just as we were unloading, a little troop of gazelles looked over the edge of the wady, perhaps come for water, and Mohammed set off in pursuit with a Winchester rifle. We heard him fire all the twelve shots one after the other, but he came back empty-handed. Our tent is set under the lee of a rough wall of loose stones, such as are set up by the shepherds as a shelter for their flocks. The wind still blows tempestuously, and it is cold as a Christmas Eve need be. But Hanna has made us a capital curry, which with soup and burghul and a plum-pudding from a tin, makes not a bad dinner, while Abdallah has distinguished himself baking bread, and Awwad roasting coffee.
Wednesday, December 25.—Christmas Day. We are out of the Harra at last, and on open ground. That black wilderness had become like a nightmare with its horrible boulders and little tortuous paths, which prevented the camels from doing more than about two miles an hour. Now we are able to push on at three, or three and a quarter.
After floundering down the wady for half an hour, we came to some splendid pools in a narrow cleft of rock, where we stopped to take in water. We have been very fortunate in such a season as this to find the Wady er-Rajel full. The rain which filled it must have been some isolated waterspout on the eastern slope of Jebel Hauran, for not a drop fell anywhere else; and there is no autumn grass except just along its edge. It is rapidly drying, or rather being drunk up, and the little vegetation is very closely eaten down. In the smaller pools there is a very distinct flavour of sheep and camels in the water; but at the pools we came to this morning it is still pure. The Kreysheh have been all up this valley, eating and drinking their way, and leaving not a blade they could help behind them, and we have come upon numerous tracks of their cattle. Every here and there we have passed the traces of their camps, stones set in line on three sides of a square; one we saw had been only just deserted, and we put up a number of vultures and ravens from the fresh carcase of a camel lying by it. There crossed it also the footprint of a horse, which brought on the usual talk of ghazús and marauders, in which our people delight. They, however, have settled it among them to their satisfaction, that such accidents as meeting robbers or people of a hostile tribe are “min Allah” (from God), to be classed with the rain and fine weather, and sickness and good health, all which things the Bedouins consider fortuitous.
Having filled our goat skins, we left the Wady er-Rajel for good, and are to come across no more water now till we get to Kâf. The valley takes a turn here to the west before it reaches the Wady Sirhán, and would therefore be out of our road. We have been crossing some rolling downs covered with light flinty gravel, a delightful change from the Harra, and have had a gallop or two after the gazelles, which now and then came in sight. We thought too of our Christmas dinner, and how glad we should be to get some addition to the rice, which was all we had; but neither greyhounds nor mares were in good enough condition to run down their quarry. Once we made a rather successful stalk, and a charge in among a small herd, but the dogs could not get hold of anything, and, though several shots were fired, nothing came to bag. Then we had a long gallop after Sayad, the black and tan greyhound, who went on after the gazelles for a good two miles, so that we were afraid of losing him; and then another long gallop to get back to our camels. This time, we had been three quarters of an hour away from them, and we found our people all much alarmed, Abdallah rather angry at our going so far, for Mohammed was with us. He was perfectly in the right, and we were to blame, for we are on a serious journey not a sporting tour; and to say nothing of danger from enemies, there is always a certain risk of missing one another in a country like this where camels leave no track behind them. A turn to right or left out of the direct line and a fold in the ground, and they are lost. So we apologised, and promised to do so again no more. We were, however, in a most unexpected manner provided with dinner; for while we were still talking, behold a grazing camel all alone on the plain, not a mile away; when with a general shout of “a prize,” the whole party on horseback and on foot rushed in pursuit. We were naturally the first up, and drove the animal at a canter to the others. The camel was a young one of last spring, in good condition, and at the sight tears rushed into Hanna’s eyes—tears of hunger, not of pity. I am afraid indeed that none of the party had much thought of pity, and the scene caused me mixed feelings of compassion for the poor victim, and disgust at ourselves who were waiting to prey upon it. No question was raised as to ownership; camels found astray in desert places were by acclamation declared the property of the first comer. We were in fact a ghazú, and this was our lawful prize. So the poor little camel was driven on before us.
Dinner is thus secured, and I must see what else can be arranged in honour of the occasion.
December 26.—Mohammed, Abdallah, Awwad, the two Ibrahims and Hanna, all of them, spent the evening in feasting and ate up the whole of the camel except the short ribs, which were set before us, and the shoulders which were kept for to-day. They divided among them the labour of killing, skinning and quartering, and cooking it, for all were equally ready to lend a hand to the work. People talk sometimes of camel meat, as if it were something not only unpalatable, but offensive. But it is in reality very good; when young it resembles mutton, even when old it is only tough, and never has any unpleasant taste as far as my experience goes; indeed if served up without the bones it could hardly be distinguished from mutton.
The servants having thus feasted were all soon sound asleep, and even when suddenly, between two and three in the morning, the wind rose with a deafening noise, they did not wake, not till their tent blew down upon them as ours did upon us. We were awake and might have kept our tent standing had we not been too lazy to get up and drive in the pegs. It was too late when the tent had fallen on us to do anything but lie as well as we could beneath the ruins and wait for daylight. Fortunately the main pegs had not drawn, and the sand, for this hurricane was a sand storm, soon covered over the edges of the fallen tent, and no further damage was done. In the morning, the servants proposed staying where we were; but we would not hear of this, as we had water for only two days, and it would have been folly to dawdle, so after rubbing the sand out of or rather into our eyes, we set to work packing and loading. The wind continued violent and bitterly cold, and carried a great deal of sand with it. It came from the west-south-west. We had camped under shelter at a small tell close to the Tell Guteyfi, which proved to be the same as one pointed out to us by Awwad from Ain el-Giaour, and once beyond it, we found ourselves on a perfectly open bit of plain, exposed to the full fury of the gale, now more violent than ever. Sand storms are evidently common here, for the Tell Guteyfi, which is of black volcanic boulders like the Harra, is half smothered in sand. We saw it looming near us in the thick air, and soon after were almost hidden from each other in the increasing darkness. The sun shone feebly at intervals through the driving sand, but it was all we could do to keep the caravan together, and not lose sight of each other. At one moment we had all to stop and turn tail to the wind, covering our eyes and heads with our cloaks, waiting till the burst was over. Nothing could have faced it. Still we were far from having any idea of danger, for there really is none in these storms, and had plenty of time to notice how very picturesque the situation was, the camels driven along at speed, all huddled together for protection, with their long necks stretched out, and heads low, tags and ropes flying, and the men’s cloaks streaming in the wind, all seen through the yellow haze of sand which made them look as though walking in the air. The beasts looked gigantic yet helpless, like antediluvian creatures overwhelmed in a flood. Still, as I said, there was no danger, for the wind was steady in its direction, and our course was directly across it—that we knew—and by patiently struggling on, we managed to get over a deal of ground. Suddenly the sandy plain over which we were travelling, seemed to sink away in front of us, and at the bottom of a steep dip we could see clumps of tamarisk looming through the storm. We knew that a refuge was at hand.
