Everything, however, was at last arranged, the marriage contract written out and signed, and everybody made happy. Then the rest of the evening was spent in jubilation. A kid was killed and eaten, songs sung, and stories told, nor was, as might be expected, the Arûk ballad left out of the programme. Nassr is a poet, and recited an ode impromptu for the occasion. Among the guests were two pilgrims from Mecca—so at least they called themselves—and some men who had run away from the Turkish conscription in Syria. These feasted with the rest, as though they too had been relations. And so ended Mohammed’s marriage negotiations. He is to come back next year or send for Muttra; but for the present he is to be content and wait.
While this family arrangement was in progress, we had also on hand a more important negotiation of our own, and that was to get the governor’s permission for our journey on to Haïl. The first thing to be done was to make friends with Jóhar, for all in this despotic country depends upon his good will and pleasure; and if he had chosen to send us back to Kâf by the Wady Sirhán, I do not know that we could have offered any resistance. Jôf is not an easy place to get away from. It is more than three hundred miles from the nearest point on the Euphrates, and without the governor’s leave no one would have dared to travel a mile with us. Accordingly, the day after our arrival at Meskakeh, we called on Jóhar, who had been warned of our visit, and received us in state.
Jóhar is a perfectly black negro, with repulsive African features; tall, and very fat, and very vain. He had put on his finest clothes to receive us, a number of gaudy silk jibbehs one over the other, a pair of sky-blue trousers—things new to us in Arabia—a black and gold abba, and a purple kefiyeh. His shirt was stiff with starch, and crackled every time he moved. He carried a handsome gold-hilted sword, and looked altogether as barbaric a despot as one need wish to see. He kept us waiting nearly ten minutes in the kahwah, to add, I suppose, to his importance, and then came in behind a procession of armed men, all of them well got up with silver hilted swords, silver ornamented belts, and blue and red kefiyehs bound with thick white aghals. He affected the affable, rather languid air of a royal personage, passing from one subject of conversation to another without transition, and occasionally asking explanations of our remarks or questions from one or other of his attendants. It struck me as eminently absurd to see this negro, who is still a slave, the centre of an adulous group of white courtiers, for all these Arabs, noble as many of them are in blood, were bowing down before him, ready to obey his slightest wink and laugh at his poorest joke. After the first few moments of dignified silence, Jóhar, as I have said, became affable, and began asking the news. We had come from the north, and could tell him all about the war. What was Sotamm doing and what was Ibn Smeyr,—the latter evidently a hero with the Jôfi or rather with the Haïl people, for they are not friends with Sotamm, and old Mohammed Dukhi is considered Sotamm’s great rival. We were glad to be able to say that we had seen Ibn Smeyr himself at Damascus not a month ago. Jóhar told us in return of a report recently brought in to Meskakeh by some Sleb that the Roala had been beaten in a fight with Mohammed Dukhi, and that Sotamm was killed—a report we were sorry to hear.
Then, but in a tone of minor interest, we were questioned about the Sultan. He had made peace with the Muscov, Jóhar was glad to hear it. Peace was a good thing, and now “inshallah es Sultan mabsutin,” “the Sultan, let us hope, was pleased;” this with a mock sentimental, patronising accent and a nasal twang in the voice, which was extremely comic. A little whispering then took place between Mohammed and one of the suite, which resulted in their going out together, to hand over to Jóhar the presents we had brought for him. Mohammed was, I believe, cross-questioned as to our position and the objects of our journey, and answered, as it had been agreed beforehand he should do, that we were going to Bussora to meet friends, and that we had come by way of Jôf to avoid the sea-voyage. This, though of course not by any means the whole truth, was true as far as it went, and was a story easily understood and accepted by those to whom it was told. Mohammed added, moreover, that as we had happened to pass through the Emir’s dominions, the English Beg was anxious to pay his respects to Ibn Rashid at Haïl before going any further, and begged Jóhar to give us the necessary guides. This, after some discussion, and some coyness on the governor’s part, he consented to do. His heart had been softened by the handsome clothes we had given him, and I believe a small present in money was also talked of between him and Mohammed.
When we were summoned again to Jóhar’s presence, this time on the house-top, we found the negro’s face wreathed in smiles, and our journey being discussed as a settled matter. Carpets were then spread, and we all sat down on the roof and had breakfast, boiled meat on rice, with a sharp sauce to pour over the rice, and then after the usual washings and el hamdu lillahs we retired, extremely pleased to get away from the flies and the hot sun of Jóhar’s roof; and not a little thankful for the good turn things had taken with us. As Wilfrid remarked, when we were well on our mares again and riding home, Jóhar was just the picture of a capricious despot, and one who, if he had been in a bad humour, might have ordered our heads off, with no more ceremony than he had ordered breakfast. Our last day at Meskakeh was a quiet one.
January 11.—Every morning since we have been here there has been a fog, and to-day (Saturday), as I have already said, it has rained heavily. The rain came with thunder and lightning, as I believe is almost always the case in this part of the world. I am much surprised to learn, in talking of the lightning, that nobody at Meskakeh has heard of people being killed by it, and Mohammed confirms the statement made here, by saying that the same is the case at Tudmur. He seemed astonished when I asked him, at lightning being thought dangerous, and says that accidents from it never occur in the desert. This is strange. The surface soil of Meskakeh is very nearly pure sand, and the rain runs through it as quickly as it falls, remaining only in a few hollows, where there is a kind of sediment hard enough to hold it.
In the afternoon the weather cleared, and we made a little expedition to the top of the low tell just outside Nassr’s farm. The tell is of sandstone rock, orange coloured below, but weathered black on the upper surface. It is not more than a hundred feet high, but standing alone, it commands a very extensive view, curious as all views in the Jôf district are, and very pretty besides. In the fore-ground just below lay the farm, a square walled enclosure of three or four acres, with its palms and ithel trees, and its two low mud houses, and its wells, looking snug and trim and well to do. Beyond, looking westwards, three other farms were visible, spots of dark green in the broken wilderness of sand and sandstone rock, and then behind them Meskakeh, only its palm-tops in sight, and the dark mass of its citadel rising over them in fantastic outline. The long line of the palm grove stretched far away to the south, disappearing at last in a confused mass of sand-hills. These specially attracted our notice, for they marked the commencement of the Nefûd, not indeed the great Nefûd, but an outlying group of dunes tufted with ghada, and not at all unlike those passed through by the Calais and Boulogne railway. Our route, we know, lies across them, and we are to start to-morrow.
While I sat sketching this curious view, Wilfrid, who had climbed to the top of a tall stone, crowning the hill, came back with the news that he had discovered an inscription. We have been looking out, ever since our arrival in the sandstone district, for traces of ancient writing, but have hitherto found nothing except some doubtful scratches, and a few of those simple designs one finds everywhere on the sandstone, representing camels and gazelles. Here however, were three distinctly formed letters,
It was evident, too, by the colour of the incisions, that they had been there for very many years. On these we have built a number of historical conjectures relating to Meskakeh, and its condition in classical times.