Of course our first thought on coming amongst them was for a wife for Mohammed, at whose request I took an early opportunity of making acquaintance with the women of the family. I found them all very friendly and amiable, and some of them intelligent. Most of the younger ones were good looking. The most important person in the harim was Nassr’s wife, a little old lady named Shemma (candle), thin and wizened, and wrinkled, with long grey locks, and the weak eyes of extreme old age; and, though she can have been hardly more than sixty, she seemed to be completely worn out. She was the mother of Turki and Areybi; and I had heard from Mohammed that Nassr had never taken another wife but her. In this, however, he was mistaken, for on my very first visit, she called in a younger wife from the adjoining room, and introduced her at once to me. The second wife came in with two little boys of two and three years old, the eldest of whom (for they all have extraordinary names) is called Mattrak, “stick;” in spite of which he seemed an amiable, good-tempered child. In this he resembled his mother, whose respectful manner towards her elder, Shemma, impressed me favourably; she had, besides, a really beautiful face. The little boy, Mattrak, I recognised as a boy I had seen in the morning with old Nassr in our garden, and supposed to be his grandson. Nassr was doing his best to spoil the child, after the fashion of old men among the Arabs. I had then given Mattrak a little red frock, one I had bought for Sotamm’s boy, Mansur, when we thought we were going to the Roala, and in this the child was now strutting about, showing off his finery to two very pretty little girls, his sisters. These two ran in and out during my visit, helping to bring bowls of dates, and to eat the dates when brought. Next appeared Turki’s two wives, a pretty one and a plain one, and Areybi’s one wife, pretty, and lately married. All these seemed to be on better terms with one another than is usually the case among mixed wives and daughters-in-law. They were extremely anxious to please me, and I, of course, did my best to satisfy their hospitable wishes about eating. They offered me dates of countless kinds,—dry ones and sticky ones, sweet and less sweet, long dried ones, and newer ones, a mass of pulp; it was impossible for one person to do justice to them all.
Shemma treated all the young people with the air of one in authority, though her tone with them was kind. She, however, spoke little, while the others talked incessantly and asked all sorts of questions, requiring more knowledge of Arabic than I possessed to answer. In the middle of the visit, Nazzch, Nassr’s married daughter, own sister to Turki and Areybi, arrived with her daughter, and an immense bowl of dates. She had walked all the way from the town of Meskakeh, about three miles, carrying this child, a fat heavy creature of four, as well as the dates, and came in, panting and laughing, to see me. She was pleasant and lively, very like her brother Turki in face, that is to say, good-tempered rather than good-looking. Any one of these young ladies, seen on my first visit, might have done for Mohammed’s project of marriage, but, unfortunately, they were all either married or too young. I asked if there were no young ladies already “out,” and was told that there were none in Nassr’s house, but that his cousin Jazi had two grown-up daughters, not yet married; so I held my peace till there should be an opportunity of seeing them.
Mohammed, in the meantime, had already begun to make inquiries on his own account, and the first day of our visit was not over before he came to me with a wonderful account of these very daughters of Jazi. There were three of them, he declared, and all more beautiful each than the others, Asr (afternoon), Hamú and Muttra—the first two unfortunately betrothed already, but Muttra still obtainable. I could see that already he was terribly in love, for with the Arabs, a very little goes a long way; and never being allowed to see young ladies, they fall in love merely through talking about them. He was very pressing that I should lose no time about making my visit to their mother, and seemed to think that I had been wasting my time sadly on the married cousin. Mohammed has all along declared that he must be guided by my opinion. I shall know, he pretends, at once, not only whether Muttra is pretty, but whether good-tempered, likely to make a good wife. He had been calculating, he said, and thought forty pounds would be asked as her dower. It is a great deal to be sure, but then she was really “asil,” and the occasion was a unique one—a daughter of Jazi!—a niece of Merzuga!—a girl of such excellent family!—an Ibn Arûk! and Ibn Arûks were not to be had every day!—forty pounds would hardly be too much. He trusted all to my judgment—I had so much discernment, and had seen the wives and daughters of all the Ánazeh Sheykhs; I should know what was what, and should not make a mistake. Still, he would like Abdallah to go with me, just to spy out things. Abdallah, as a relation, might be admitted to the door on such an occasion, though he, Mohammed, of course could not; he might, perhaps, even be allowed to see the girl, as it were, by accident. With us, the Ibn Arûks, the wives and daughters are always veiled, a custom we brought with us from Nejd, for we are not like the Bedouins; yet on so important an occasion as this, of arranging a marriage, a man of a certain age, a dependant, or a poor relation, is sometimes permitted to see and report. I promised that I would do all I could to expedite the matter.
Accordingly, the next day Turki was sent for, and a word dropped to him of the matter in hand, and he was forthwith dispatched to announce my visit to the mother of the daughters of Jazi—Mohammed explaining, that it was etiquette that the mother should be made acquainted with the object of my visit, though not necessarily the daughters. Then we went to Jazi’s house, Turki, Abdallah, and I.
Jazi’s house is close to Nassr’s, only the garden wall dividing them, and is still smaller than his, a poor place, I thought, to which to come for a princess; but in Arabia one must never judge by externals. At the door, among several women, stood Saad, Jazi’s eldest son, who showed us through the courtyard to an inner room, absolutely dark, except for what light might come in at the doorway. It is in Arabia that the expression “to darken one’s door,” must have been invented, for windows there are none in any of the smaller houses. There was a smell of goats about the place, and it looked more like a stable than a parlour for reception. At first I could see nothing, but I could hear Saad, who had plunged into the darkness, shaking something in a corner, and as my eyes got accustomed to the twilight, this proved to be a young lady, one of the three that I had come to visit. It was Asr the second, a great, good-looking girl, very like her cousin Areybi, with his short aquiline nose and dark eyes. She came out to the light with a great show of shyness and confusion, hiding her face in her hands, and turning away even from me; nor would she answer anything to my attempts at conversation. Then, all of a sudden, she broke away from us, and rushed across the yard to another little den, where we found her with her mother and her sister Muttra. I hardly knew what to make of all this, as besides the shyness, I thought I could see that Asr really meant to be rude, and the polite manners of her mother Haliyeh and her little sister Muttra confirmed me in this idea. I liked Muttra’s face at once; she has a particularly open, honest look, staring straight at one with her great dark eyes like a fawn, and she has, too, a very bright fresh colour, and a pleasant cheerful voice. I paid, then, little attention to Asr’s rudeness, and asked the little girl to walk with me round their garden, which she did, showing me the few things there were to be seen, and explaining about the well, and the way they drew the water. The garden, besides the palm trees, contained figs, apricots, and vines, and there was a little plot of green barley, on which some kids were grazing. Muttra told me that in summer they live on fruit, but that they never preserve the apricots or figs, only the dates. I noticed several young palm trees, always a sign of prosperity. The well was about ten feet square at the top, and carefully faced with stone, the water being only a few feet below the surface of the ground. Water, she told me, could be found anywhere at Meskakeh by digging, and always at the same depth. I was pleased with the intelligence Muttra showed in this conversation, and pleased with her pretty ways and honest face, and decided in my own mind without difficulty that Mohammed would be most fortunate if he obtained her in marriage. It was promising, too, for their future happiness, to remark that Haliyeh, the mother, seemed to be a sensible woman; only I could not understand the strange behaviour of the elder sister Asr. Abdallah, in the meanwhile, standing at the door, had made his notes, and come to much the same conclusion as myself; so we returned with an excellent report to give to the impatient suitor waiting outside.
Mohammed’s eagerness was now very nearly spoiling the negotiation, for he at once began to talk of his intended marriage; and the same thing happened to him in consequence, which happened long ago to Jacob, the son of Isaac. Jazi, imitating the conduct of Laban, and counting upon his cousin’s anxiety to be married, first of all increased the dower from forty pounds to sixty, and then endeavoured to substitute Leah for Rachel, the ill-tempered Asr for the pretty Muttra.
This was a severe blow to Mohammed’s hopes, and a general council was called of all the family to discuss it and decide. The council met in our tent, Wilfrid presiding; on one side sat Mohammed, with Nassr as head of the house; on the other, Jazi and Saad, representing the bride, while between them, a little shrivelled man knelt humbly on his knees, who was no member of the family, but, we afterwards learned, a professional go-between. Outside, the friends and more distant relations assembled, Abdallah and Ibrahim Kasir, and half a dozen of the Ibn Arûks. These began by sitting at a respectful distance, but as the discussion warmed, edged closer and closer in, till every one of them had delivered himself of an opinion.
Mohammed himself was quite in a flutter, and very pale; and Wilfrid conducted his case for him. It would be too long a story to mention all the dispute, which sometimes was so warmly pressed, that negotiations seemed on the point of being broken off. Jazi contended that it was impossible he should give his younger daughter, while the elder ones remained unmarried. “Hamú, it was true, was engaged, and of her there was no question, but Asr, though engaged too, was really free; Jeruan, the shock-headed son of Merzuga, to whom she was betrothed, was not the husband for her. He was an imbecile, and Asr would never marry him. If a girl declares that she will not marry her betrothed, she is not engaged, and has still to seek a husband she likes. But this would not do. We cited the instance of Jedaan’s marriage with an engaged girl, and the unfortunate sequel, as proving that Jeruan’s consent was necessary for Asr, and Mohammed chimed in, “Ya ibn ammi, ya Jazi, O Jazi! O son of my uncle how could I do this thing, and sin against my cousin? How could I take his bride? Surely this would be a shame to us all.” In fine, we insisted that Muttra it should be or nobody, and Asr’s claim was withdrawn. Still it was pleaded, Muttra was but a child, hardly fifteen, and unfit for so great a journey as that to Tudmur. Where indeed was Tudmur? who of all the Jôfi had ever been so far? Mohammed, however, replied that if youth were an obstacle, a year or two would mend that. He was content to wait for a year, or two, or even for three years, if need were. He was an Ibn Arûk, and trained to patience. As to Tudmur, it was far, but had we not just come thence, and could we not go back? He would send one of his brothers at the proper time, with twenty men, thirty, fifty, to escort her. So argued, the marriage project was at last adopted, as far as Muttra was concerned. But the question of “settlements” was not as easily got over. Here it was very nearly being wrecked for good and all. Wilfrid had all along intended to pay the dower for Mohammed, but he would not say so till the thing was settled, and left Mohammed to fight out the question of jointure to as good a bargain as they could make. This Mohammed was very capable of doing, despite the infirmity of his heart, and strengthened by Abdallah, who took a strictly commercial view of the whole transaction, a middle sum was agreed on, and the conference broke up.
Things, however, were not yet to go off quite smoothly. On the day following, when I went with some little presents for the bride to Jazi’s house, I was met at the door by Jazi himself, who received me, as I at once perceived, with an embarrassed air, as also did Haliyeh, for both she and a strange relation were sitting in the kahwah. To my questions about Muttra short answers were given; and the conversation was at once turned on “the weather and the crops,” or rather on that Arabian substitute for it, a discussion about locusts. We had had a heavy thunderstorm in the morning, for which all were thankful. It would bring grass in the Nefûd, but the locusts there, never were so numerous as this year. Again I asked about the girls, but again got no reply; and at last, tired of their idle talk, and quite out of patience, I exclaimed, “O Jazi, what is this? I trust that you—and you, O Haliyeh,—are pleased at this connection with Mohammed.” To which he replied, in a sing-song voice, “Inshallah, inshallah,” and Haliyeh repeated “Inshallah,” and the stranger. I saw that something must be wrong, for it was no answer to my question, and rose to go. Then Haliyeh went out with me into the yard, and explained what had happened. Asr, it appeared, with her violent temper, was frightening them all out of their wits. She would not hear of her sister being married before herself, or making so much better a match. Jeruan she despised, though he was Sheykh of Kâf; and she wanted to marry the Sheykh of Tudmur herself. She had tormented old Jazi into withdrawing his consent; and Muttra was afraid of her. What was to be done? I said it was no use arguing about this over again; that if she and her husband were really not able to manage their daughters, we must look out elsewhere for Mohammed; that I hoped and trusted Asr would not be so foolish as to stand in the way of her sister’s happiness, for it would not profit her. This bad temper of hers made it more than ever certain that she could not marry Mohammed, and, in fine, that the family must make up their minds, yes or no, about Muttra, and at once, for we were leaving Meskakeh presently, and must have the matter settled. I then saw the two girls, and spoke to them in the same strain, and with such effect that a few hours later, Mohammed, who had fallen into low spirits about the affair, now came with a joyful countenance to say that the marriage contract would be signed that evening.
Signed, therefore, it was, though to the last moment difficulty on difficulty was raised, and a lamentably haggling spirit displayed by all except Turki in the matter of the dower. Fifty Turkish pounds was, however, the sum ultimately fixed on; and Wilfrid refused curtly to advance a beshlik beyond it, even to buy off a cousin who unaccountably appeared on the scene and claimed his right to Muttra or an equivalent for her in coin. It was not very dignified this chaffering about price; and people do better in England, leaving such things to be settled by their lawyers.