Our reception was everything that we could have wished. As we rode into the courtyard of the kasr, we were met by some twenty well-dressed men, each one of whom made a handsomer appearance than any Arabs we had previously seen in our lives. “The sons of Sheykhs,” whispered Mohammed, who was rather pale, and evidently much impressed by the solemnity of the occasion. In their midst stood a magnificent old man, clothed in scarlet, whose tall figure and snow-white beard gave us a notion of what Solomon might have been in all his glory. He carried a long wand in his hand—it looked like a sceptre—and came solemnly forward to greet us. “The Emir,” whispered Mohammed, as we all alighted. Wilfrid then gave the usual “salam aleykum,” to which every one replied “aleykum salam,” in a loud cheerful tone, with a cordiality of manner that was very reassuring. I thought I had never seen so many agreeable faces collected together, or people with so excellent a demeanour. The old man, smiling, motioned to us to enter, and others led the way. We were then informed that these were the servants of the Emir, and the old man his chamberlain. They showed us first through a dark tortuous entrance, constructed evidently for purposes of defence, and then down a dark corridor, one side of which was composed of pillars, reminding one a little of the entrance to some ancient Egyptian temple. Then one of the servants tapped at a low door, and exchanged signals with somebody else inside, and the door was opened, and we found ourselves in a large kahwah, or reception room. It was handsome from its size, seventy feet by thirty, and from the row of five pillars, which stood in the middle, supporting the roof. The columns were about four feet in diameter, and were quite plain, with square capitals, on which the ends of the rafters rested. The room was lighted by small square air-holes near the roof, and by the door, which was now left open. The whole of the inside was white, or rather, brown-washed, and there was no furniture of any sort, or fittings, except wooden pegs for hanging swords to, a raised platform opposite the door where the mortar stood for coffee-pounding, and a square hearth in one corner, where a fire was burning.
It was very dark, but we could make out some slaves, busy with coffee-pots round the fire. Close to this we were invited to sit down, and then an immense number of polite speeches were exchanged, our healths being asked after at least twenty times, and always with some mention of the name of God, for this is required by politeness in Nejd. Coffee was soon served, and after this the conversation became general between our servants and the servants of the Emir, and then there was a stir, and a general rising, and the word was passed round, “yiji el Emir,” the Emir is coming. We, too, got up, and this time it really was the Emir. He came in at the head of a group of still more smartly-dressed people than those we had seen before, and held out his hand to Wilfrid, to me, and to Mohammed, exchanging salutations with each of us in turn, and smiling graciously. Then we all sat down, and Wilfrid made a short speech of the sort we had already agreed upon, which the Emir answered very amiably, saying that he was much pleased to see us, and that he hoped we should make his house our house. He then asked Mohammed for news of the road; of Jóhar and Meskakeh, and especially about the war going on between Sotamm and Ibn Smeyr. So far so good, and it was plain that we had nothing now to fear; yet I could not help looking now and then at those pegs on the wall, and thinking of the story of the young Ibn Jabars and their slaves, who had been so treacherously murdered in this very hall, and by this very man, our host.
The Emir’s face is a strange one. It may be mere fancy, prompted by our knowledge of Ibn Rashid’s past life, but his countenance recalled to us the portraits of Richard the Third, lean, sallow cheeks, much sunken, thin lips, with an expression of pain, except when smiling, a thin black beard, well defined black knitted eyebrows, and remarkable eyes,—eyes deep sunk and piercing, like the eyes of a hawk, but ever turning restlessly from one of our faces to the other, and then to those beside him. It was the very type of a conscience-stricken face, or of one which fears an assassin. His hands, too, were long and claw-like, and never quiet for an instant, incessantly playing, while he talked, with his beads, or with the hem of his abba. With all this, the Emir is very distinguished in appearance, with a tall figure, and, clothed as he was in purple and fine linen, he looked every inch a king. His dress was magnificent; at first we fancied it put on only in our honour, but this we found to be a mistake, and Ibn Rashid never wears anything less gorgeous. His costume consisted of several jibbehs of brocaded Indian silk, a black abba, interwoven with gold, and at least three kefiyehs, one over the other, of the kind made at Bagdad. His aghal, also, was of the Bagdad type, which I had hitherto supposed were only worn by women, bound up with silk and gold thread, and set high on the forehead, so as to look like a crown. In the way of arms he wore several golden-hilted daggers and a handsome golden-hilted sword, ornamented with turquoises and rubies, Haïl work, as we afterwards found. His immediate attendants, though less splendid, were also magnificently clothed.
After about a quarter of an hour’s conversation, Mohammed ibn Rashid rose and went out, and we were then shown upstairs by ourselves to a corridor, where dates and bread and butter were served to us. Then a message came from the Emir, begging that we would attend his mejlis, the court of justice which he holds daily in the yard of the palace. We were not at all prepared for this, and when the castle gate was opened, and we were ushered out into the sunshine, we were quite dazzled by the spectacle which met our eyes.
The courtyard, which is about a hundred yards long by fifty broad, was completely lined with soldiers, not soldiers such as we are accustomed to in Europe, but still soldiers. They were, to a certain extent, in uniform, that is to say, they all wore brown cloaks and blue or red kefiyehs on their heads. Each, moreover, carried a silver-hilted sword. I counted up to eight hundred of them forming the square, and they were sitting in a double row under the walls, one row on a sort of raised bench, which runs round the yard, and the other squatted on the ground in front of them. The Emir had a raised seat under the main wall, and he was surrounded by his friends, notably his cousin Hamúd, who attends him everywhere, and his favourite slave, Mubarek, whose duty it is to guard him constantly from assassins. [218] In front of the Emir stood half-a-dozen suppliants, and outside the square of soldiers, a mob of citizens and pilgrims, for the pilgrimage had arrived at Haïl. We had to walk across the square escorted by a slave, and the Emir motioned us to take places at his side, which we accordingly did; he then went on with his work. People came with petitions, which were read to him by Hamúd, and to which he generally put his seal without discussion, and then there was a quarrel to settle, the rights of which I confess I did not understand, for the Arabic spoken at Haïl is different from any we had hitherto heard. I noticed, however, that though the courtiers addressed Mohammed as Emir, the poorer people, probably Bedouins, called him “ya Sheykh,” or simply “ya Mohammed.” One, who was probably a small Shammar Sheykh, he kissed on the cheek. Some pilgrims, who had a grievance, also presented themselves, and had their case very summarily decided; they were then turned out by the soldiers. No case occupied more than three minutes, and the whole thing was over in half-an-hour. At last the Emir rose, bowed to us, and went into the palace, while we, very glad to stretch our legs, which were cramped with squatting on the bench barely a foot wide, were escorted to our lodgings by the chamberlain and two of the soldiers.
We found a double house provided for us in the main street of Haïl, and not two hundred yards from the kasr—a house without pretence, but sufficient for our wants, and secure from all intruders, for the street door could be locked, and the walls were high. It consisted of two separate houses, as I believe most dwellings in Arabia do, one for men and the other for women. In the former there was a kahwah and a couple of smaller rooms, and this we gave over to Mohammed and the servants, keeping the harim for ourselves. This last had a small open court, just large enough for the three mares to stand in, an open vestibule of the sort they call liwan at Damascus, and two little dens. In one of these dens we stored our luggage, and in the other, spread our beds. The doors of these inner rooms could be locked up when we went out, with curious wooden locks and wooden keys; the doors were of ithel wood. All was exceedingly simple, but in decent repair and clean, the only ornaments being certain patterns, scratched out in white from the brown wash which covered the walls. Here we soon made ourselves comfortable, and were not sorry to rest at last, after our long journey.
Our rest, however, was not to come yet. It was only one o’clock when we arrived at our house, and before two, the Emir sent for us again. This time the reception was a private one in the upper rooms of the kasr, and we found the Emir alone with Hamúd. He received us with even more cordiality than before, and with less ceremony. We had brought presents with us, the duty of displaying which we left to Mohammed, who expatiated on their value and nature with all the art of a bazaar merchant. As for us, we were a little ashamed of their insignificance, for we had had no conception of Ibn Rashid’s true position when we left Damascus, and the scarlet cloth jibbeh we had considered the ne plus ultra of splendour for him, looked shabby among the gorgeous dresses worn at Haïl. We had added to the cloak and other clothes, which are the usual gifts of ceremony, a revolver in a handsome embroidered case, a good telescope, and a Winchester rifle, any one of which would have made Jedaan or Ibn Shaalan open his eyes with pleasure; but Ibn Rashid, though far too well-bred not to admire and approve, cared evidently little for these things, having seen them all before. Even the rifle was no novelty, for he had an exactly similar one in his armoury. Poor Mohammed, however, went on quite naïvely with his descriptions, while the Emir looked out of window through the telescope, pretending to be examining the wall opposite, for there was no view. Hamúd, his cousin, whose acquaintance we now made, is more sympathique than the Emir, though they are ridiculously like each other in face, but Hamúd has the advantage of a good conscience, and has no vengeance to fear. They were dressed also alike, so that it was difficult at first to know them apart; perhaps there is a motive in this, as with the Richmonds of Shakespeare. The Emir’s room was on the same plan as the kahwah, but smaller, and boasting only two columns, the coffee place in the right-hand corner as you enter, and the Emir’s fireplace, with a fire burning in it, on an iron plate in front. Persian carpets were spread, and there were plenty of cushions to lean against by the wall. We were invited to sit down to the left of the Emir and Hamúd, who never seems to leave his side. Mohammed had a place on the right, between them and the door. Coffee, and a very sweet tea, were handed round in thimblefuls, and a good deal of conversation ensued. We had brought a letter from our old friend the Nawab Ikbal ed-Dowlah, who had been at Haïl about forty years ago, in the time of Abdallah ibn Rashid. [221] The Emir remembered his coming, though he must have been a child at the time, and said some pretty things in compliment of him. He then asked Mohammed about his Arûk relations in Jôf, and said that they had always been faithful to him. They had taken the Emir’s part, it would seem, in some revolt which took place there a few years ago. There was also an Ibn Arûk in Harík, a Bedouin sheykh, who the Emir said was a friend of his; at least, he was on bad terms with Ibn Saoud and the Wahhabis, and this is a title to favour at Haïl. Ibn Rashid is very jealous of Ibn Saoud, and now that the Wahhabi empire is broken up, fosters any discontent there may be in Aared. I believe many of the Bedouin sheykhs of Upper Nejd have come over to him. Mohammed, thus encouraged, launched out into his favourite tales, and repeated the Ibn Arûk legend, which, I confess, I am beginning to get a little tired of, and then went on to describe the wonders of Tudmur, of which he now implied, without exactly stating it in words, that he was actual Sheykh. The house he lived in at home, he said, had columns of marble, each sixty feet in height, and had been built originally by Suliman ibn Daoud. There were two hundred of these columns in and around it, and the walls were twenty feet thick. The Emir, who seemed rather perplexed by this, appealed to us for confirmation, and we told him that all this really existed at Tudmur; indeed, there was no gainsaying the fact that Mohammed’s father’s house had some of the objects named on the premises, though the house itself is but a little square box of mud. The city wall, in fact, makes one side of the stable, and a column or two have been worked into the modern building; but this we did not think it necessary to explain. Mohammed’s reputation rose in consequence, and I already began to fear that the Emir’s civilities had turned his head. I heard him whisper to Hamúd that the silver-hilted sword he is wearing, and which is the one Wilfrid gave him at Damascus, was an ancestral relic; it had been, he said, “min zeman,” from time immemorial, in the Arûk family. He had also established a fiction, in which he privately entreated us to join, that we started from home with a hawk (for all the best falcons come from Tudmur), and lost it on the journey. [223]
While we were discussing these important matters, the call to prayer was heard, and the two Ibn Rashids, begging us to remain seated, rose and went out.
They were absent a few minutes, and on their return the Emir, to our great delight, proposed to show us his gardens, and immediately led the way down tortuous passages and through courts and doors into a palm grove surrounded by a high wall. Here we were joined by numerous slaves, some black, some white, for there are both sorts at Haïl. A number of gazelles were running about, and came up quite familiarly as we entered. These were of two varieties, one browner than the other, answering, I believe, to what are called the “gazelle des bois,” and the “gazelle des plaines,” in Algeria. There were also a couple of ibexes with immense heads, tame like the gazelles, and allowing themselves to be stroked. The gazelles seemed especially at home, and we were told that they breed here in captivity. The most interesting, however, of all the animals in this garden were three of the wild cows (bakar wahhash), from the Nefûd, which we had so much wished to see. They proved to be, as we had supposed, a kind of antelope, [224] though their likeness to cows was quite close enough to account for their name. They stood about as high as an Alderney calf six months old, and had humps on their shoulders like the Indian cattle. In colour they were a yellowish white, with reddish legs turning to black towards the feet. The face was parti-coloured, and the horns, which were black, were quite straight and slanted backwards, and fully three feet long, with spiral markings. These wild cows were less tame than the rest of the animals, and the slaves were rather afraid of them, for they seemed ready to use their horns, which were as sharp as needles. The animals, though fat, evidently suffered from confinement, for all were lame, one with an enlarged knee, and the rest with overgrown hoofs. When we had seen and admired the menagerie, and fed the antelopes with dates, we went on through a low door, which we had almost to creep through, into another garden, where there were lemon trees (treng), bitter oranges (hámud), and pomegranates (roman). The Emir, who was very polite and attentive to me, had some of the fruit picked and gave me a bunch of a kind of thyme, the only flower growing there. We saw some camels at work drawing water from a large well, a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet deep, to judge by the rope. The Emir then crept through another low door and we after him, and then to our great satisfaction we found ourselves in a stable-yard full of mares, tethered in rows each to a manger. I was almost too excited to look, for it was principally to see these that we had come so far.