Mohammed has been improving the occasion of a dispute which arose this evening on a choice of camp, to tell us some stories of his own adventures in the desert; and we have been telling him ours. He had a younger brother, whom his mother was very fond of, a regular town boy with “a white face like a girl,” who knew how to read and write and knew nothing of the desert (Mohammed himself like his great namesake, has always been a camel driver). Now at Tudmur they have constantly had fights and quarrels for the Sheykhat, and on one such occasion his brother was sent away by his parents to Sokhne, the neighbouring village, about thirty miles from Tudmur; and there he stayed for some time with a relation. At last, however, he got tired of being away from home, and wanted to see his mother. He started off with another boy of his own age (about fifteen) to walk back to Tudmur. It was in the middle of summer, and they lost their way and wandered far down into the Hamád where they died of thirst. Mohammed had gone out to look for them, and found them both dead close together.
On another occasion Mohammed himself was nearly meeting his death. He had gone alone with his camels on the road to Karieteyn, and had fallen in with a ghazú of robbers from the hills. These stripped him of everything except his shirt and a tarbush. His gun he had contrived to hide under a bush, but they left him nothing else, neither food nor water, and it was in the middle of summer. Karieteyn, the nearest place, was about forty miles off, and he was lame with a blow he had received. However, when the robbers were gone, he set out in that direction, and managed to walk on till night and the next day, till he got to a ruin called Kasr el Hayr where he fell down senseless under the shade, and lay for twenty-four hours unable to move, and suffering agonies from thirst. At last, when he had said to himself, “now I shall have to die,” a party of camel men from Sokhne came by and found him lying there. At first they took him for a slave, for the sun had burnt him black, and his tongue was dried so that he could not speak. Fortunately one of the party recognised him, and then they gave him water. He still could give no account of himself, but they put him on a donkey and brought him with them to Tudmur.
Our own story was the one of our quarrel with Abunjad and our rush from Akaba to Gaza, when we so nearly perished of thirst.
The year would have begun prosperously, but for a severe cold Wilfrid has caught. He has lost his voice.
January 2.—A hard frost—water frozen in the pail. Reached the wells of Shaybeh at half-past eight and watered the camels—water very brackish—level by aneroid 1950, depth to surface of water twelve feet. Got into a sort of track, part of the morning, but one evidently not frequented. At one o’clock came to another well, near a curious rock which at first we took for a castle. We have now crossed the wady and are on its western bank. Passed a ruined house of no great antiquity called Abu Kasr and another well near it, and at half-past four have encamped under some sand hills, crowned with ghada, a delightful spot not far from a fourth well called Bir el-Jerawi—level by barometer 1840. Wilfrid has recovered his voice but still has a bad cold. I am as lame as ever, though in less pain. I sometimes think I shall never be able to walk again.
Friday, January 3.—We have had an adventure at last and a disagreeable one; a severe lesson as to the danger of encamping near wells. We started early, but were delayed a whole hour at Jerawi taking water, and did not leave the wells till nearly eight o’clock. Then we turned back nearly due east across the wady. The soil of pure white sand was heavy going, and we went slowly, crossing low undulations without other landmark than the tells we had left behind us. Here and there rose little mounds tufted with ghada. To one of these Wilfrid and I cantered on, leaving the camels behind us, and dismounting, tied our mares to the bushes that we might enjoy a few minutes’ rest, and eat our midday mouthful—the greyhounds meanwhile played about and chased each other in the sand. We had finished, and were talking of I know not what, when the camels passed us. They were hardly a couple of hundred yards in front when suddenly we heard a thud, thud, thud on the sand, a sound of galloping. Wilfrid jumped to his feet, looked round and called out, “Get on your mare. This is a ghazú.” As I scrambled round the bush to my mare I saw a troop of horsemen charging down at full gallop with their lances, not two hundred yards off. Wilfrid was up as he spoke, and so should I have been, but for my sprained knee and the deep sand, both of which gave way as I was rising. I fell back. There was no time to think and I had hardly struggled to my feet, when the enemy was upon us, and I was knocked down by a spear. Then they all turned on Wilfrid, who had waited for me, some of them jumping down on foot to get hold of his mare’s halter. He had my gun with him, which I had just before handed to him, but unloaded; his own gun and his sword being on his delúl. He fortunately had on very thick clothes, two abbas one over the other, and English clothes underneath, so the lances did him no harm. At last his assailants managed to get his gun from him and broke it over his head, hitting him three times and smashing the stock. Resistance seemed to me useless, and I shouted to the nearest horseman, “ana dahílak” (I am under your protection), the usual form of surrender. Wilfrid hearing this, and thinking he had had enough of this unequal contest, one against twelve, threw himself off his mare. The khayal (horsemen) having seized both the mares, paused, and as soon as they had gathered breath, began to ask us who we were and where we came from. “English, and we have come from Damascus,” we replied, “and our camels are close by. Come with us, and you shall hear about it.” Our caravan, while all this had happened, and it only lasted about five minutes, had formed itself into a square and the camels were kneeling down, as we could plainly see from where we were. I hardly expected the horsemen to do as we asked, but the man who seemed to be their leader at once let us walk on (a process causing me acute pain), and followed with the others to the caravan. We found Mohammed and the rest of our party entrenched behind the camels with their guns pointed, and as we approached, Mohammed stepped out and came forward. “Min entum?” (who are you?) was the first question. “Roala min Ibn Debaa.” “Wallah? will you swear by God?” “Wallah! we swear.” “And you?” “Mohammed ibn Arûk of Tudmur.” “Wallah?” “Wallah!” “And these are Franjis travelling with you?” “Wallah! Franjis, friends of Ibn Shaalan.”
It was all right, we had fallen into the hands of friends. Ibn Shaalan, our host of last year, was bound to protect us, even so far away in the desert, and none of his people dared meddle with us, knowing this. Besides, Mohammed was a Tudmuri, and as such could not be molested by Roala, for Tudmur pays tribute to Ibn Shaalan, and the Tudmuris have a right to his protection. So, as soon as the circumstances were made clear, orders were given by the chief of the party to his followers to bring back our mares, and the gun, and everything which had been dropped in the scuffle. Even to Wilfrid’s tobacco bag, all was restored. The young fellows who had taken the mares made rather wry faces, bitterly lamenting their bad fortune in finding us friends. “Ah the beautiful mares,” they said, “and the beautiful gun.” But Arabs are always good-humoured, whatever else their faults, and presently we were all on very good terms, sitting in a circle on the sand, eating dates and passing round the pipe of peace. They were now our guests.
What struck us as strange in all this was, the ready good faith with which they believed every word we said. We had spoken the truth, but why did they trust us? They knew neither us nor Mohammed; yet they had taken our word that we were friends, when they might so easily have ridden off without question with our property. Nobody would ever have heard of it, or known who they were.
It appears that Ibn Debaa (hyæna), the Sheykh, and his friends were a small party in advance of the main body of the Roala. They had come on to see what pasturage there might be in the wady, and had there camped only a few miles from the wells of El Jerawi near which we slept last night. They had come in the morning for water, and had seen our tracks in the sand, and so had followed, riding in hot haste to overtake us. It was a mere accident their finding us separated from the rest of the caravan, and they had charged down as soon as they saw us. Everything depends on rapidity in these attacks, and this had been quite successful The least hesitation on their part, and we should have been safe with our camels. There they could not have molested us, for though they were twelve to our eight, they had only lances, while we carried firearms. We liked the look of these young Roala. In spite of their rough behaviour, we could see that they were gentlemen. They were very much ashamed of having used their spears against me, and made profuse apologies; they only saw a person wearing a cloak, and never suspected but that it belonged to a man. Indeed their mistake is not a matter for surprise, for they were so out of breath and excited with their gallop, that they looked at nothing except the object of their desire—the mares. The loss of these, however, I fear, was to them a cause of greater sorrow than the rough handling to which we had been treated, when, after explanations given and regrets interchanged, they rode away. Mohammed was anxious not to detain them, prudently considering that our acquaintance with them had gone far enough, and it was plain that Awwad was in a terrible fidget. I fancy he has a good many debts of blood owing him, and is somewhat shy of strangers. The others, too, were rather subdued and silent; so we wished Ibn Debaa farewell and let him go.