Amusheh afterwards invited me to go upstairs, that she might show me her own private apartment, on the floor above the kahwah. I followed her up a steep staircase, of which each step was at least eighteen inches in height. It led nowhere, except to a single room, the same size as the one below, and built in the same way, with two columns supporting the roof, and with a window in a recess corresponding to the door beneath. This apartment was well carpeted, and contained for other furniture a large bed, or couch, composed of a pile of mattresses, with a velvet and gold counterpane spread over it; also a kind of press or cupboard, a box (sanduk) rather clumsily made of dark wood, ornamented by coarse, thin plaques of silver stuck on it here and there. The press stood against the wall, and might be five feet long and two to three feet high, opening with two doors, and raised about two feet from the floor on four thin legs. Underneath and in front of it were three or four rows of china and crockery of a common sort, and a few Indian bowls, all arranged on the carpet like articles for sale in the streets. Amusheh asked what I thought of her house, was it nice? And after satisfying herself of my approbation, she conducted me down again, and we sat as before on the mattress between the brazier and the wall.
During my stay, the Emir paid two visits to the kahwah, and each time that he appeared at the door the crowd and the wives, except Amusheh, rose and remained standing until he left. Amusheh only made a slight bow or movement, as if about to rise, and kept her place by me while her husband stood opposite to us talking. He addressed himself almost entirely to me, and spoke chiefly in the frivolous, almost puerile, manner he sometimes affects. He inquired my opinion of his wives, whether they were more beautiful and charming than Ibn Shaalan’s wife, Ghiowseh, the sister of El Homeydi ibn Meshur, or than his former wife, Turkya, Jedaan’s daughter, who had left him and returned to her father’s tent. In the forty-eight hours since my arrival at Haïl, the Emir had already asked me many questions about these two ladies, and I now answered for the hundredth time that Turkya was pretty and nice, and that Ghiowseh was still prettier, but very domineering. He was, however, determined on a comparison of the two families, and it was fortunate that now, having seen Amusheh, Hedusheh, and Lulya and Atwa, I could say with truth they were handsomer, even the poor little despised Atwa, than their rivals. He was rather impatient of Atwa being classed with the others, and said, “Oh, Atwa, I don’t want her; she is worth nothing.” His character is, as I have already said, a strange mixture of remarkable ability and political insight on the one hand, and on the other a tendency to waste time and thought on the most foolish trifles, if they touch his personal vanity. Of his ability I judge by his extremely interesting remarks on serious subjects, as well as by the position he has been able to seize and to keep. Of his energy no one can doubt, for he has shown it, alas, by his crimes; but he is so eaten up with petty personal jealousies, that I sometimes wonder whether these would influence his conduct at an important political crisis. I think, however, that at such a moment all little vanities would be forgotten, for he is above all things ambitious, and his vanity is, as it were, a part and parcel of his ambition. He is personally jealous of all other renowned chiefs, because here in Arabia personal heroism is, perhaps more than anywhere else in the world since the age of chivalry, an engine of political power. He would, I doubt not, make alliance with Sotamm, if necessary to gain his ends; nevertheless, he could not resist talking to me about Ibn Shaalan at this most inappropriate moment, evidently hoping to hear something disparaging of his rival. I confess I found it embarrassing to undergo an examination as to the merits of Ghiowseh and Turkya in the presence of Mohammed’s own wives, who all listened with wide open eyes, breathless with attention. My embarrassment only increased when, after the Emir was gone, Amusheh, on her part, immediately attacked me with a volley of questions. While he remained he had persisted in his inquiries, especially about Turkya, till I, being driven into a corner, at last lost patience, and exclaimed, “But why do you ask me these questions? Why do you want to hear about Turkya? What is it to you whether she is fair or kind? You never have seen her, nor is it likely you ever will see her!” “No,” he replied, “I have never seen her. Yet I want to know something about her, and to hear your opinion of her. Perhaps some day I may like to marry her. I might take her instead of this little girl,” pointing to Atwa, “who will never do for me, and whom I will not have. She is worthless,” he repeated, “worthless.” Poor little Atwa stood listening, but I think with stolid indifference, for I watched her countenance, and could not detect even a passing shade of regret or disappointment. Indeed, of all the wives, Amusheh alone seemed to me to have any personal feeling of affection for the Emir. She, the moment he had left, fell upon me with questions. “Who is Turkya?” she asked, almost gasping for breath. It surprised me that she did not know, for she knew who El-Homeydi ibn Meshur was. I had to explain that his sister Ghiowseh had married Sotamm ibn Shaalan, and to tell her the story of Sotamm’s second marriage; and of how Ghiowseh had determined to get rid of her rival, and succeeded in making the latter so uncomfortable, that she had left, and had since refused to return. Amusheh certainly cares about Ibn Rashid, and I thought she feared lest a new element of discord should be brought into the family. As to her own position, it could hardly be affected by the arrival of a new wife; she, as Hamúd’s sister, must be secure of her rank and influence, and the Emir, with his guilty conscience, would never dare, if he ever wished, to slight her or Hamúd, to whose support he owes so much.
From Amusheh’s house I went with a black slave girl to another house also within the kasr, that of Hamúd’s wife, Beneyeh, a daughter of Metaab. There I saw Urgheyeh, her sister, married to Majid, son of Hamúd; also another wife of Hamúd’s. This last person I found was not considered as an equal, and on asking about her birth and parentage, was told, “She is the daughter of a Shammar.” “Who?” I inquired. “Ahad” (one). “But who is he?” “Ahad,—fulan min Haïl min el belad” (some one, a person of the town). She was hardly considered as belonging to the family. The third and fourth wives, whom I afterwards saw, are, like the first, relations, one a daughter of Tellál, and the other of Suleyman, Hamúd’s uncle on the mother’s side (khal). These four are young; Majid’s mother, whose name I never heard, died, I believe, several years ago. Hamúd, like the Emir, keeps up the number of his wives to the exact figure permitted by the law of the Koran, any one who dies or fails to please being replaced as we replace a servant.
Beneyeh met me at her door, and we went through a little ante-room or vestibule into her kahwah. Here we remained only a few moments till, to my surprise, three arm-chairs were brought and placed in the ante-room. On these I and Beneyeh and the second class wife sat, drinking tea out of tea-cups, with saucers and tea-spoons. The cups were filled to the brim, and the tea in them then filled to overflowing with lumps of sugar. It was, however, good. A pile of sweet limes was then brought; slaves peeled the fruits, and divided them into quarters, which they handed round. After these refreshments Beneyeh wished to show me her room upstairs. It was reached, like Amusheh’s private apartment, by a rugged staircase from the kahwah, and was built in the same style, with two columns supporting the rafters, only it had no outlook, being lighted only by two small openings high up in the wall. It was, however, more interesting than Amusheh’s room, for its walls were decorated with arms. There were eighteen or twenty swords, and several guns and daggers, arranged with some care and taste as ornaments. The guns were all very old-fashioned things, with long barrels, but most of them beautifully inlaid with silver. Two of the daggers we had already seen in the evening, when the Emir sent for them to show us as specimens of the excellence of Haïl goldsmiths’ work. The swords, or sword-hilts, were of various degrees of richness, the blades I did not see. Unfortunately at the moment I did not think of Obeyd and his three wishes, and so forgot to ask Beneyeh whether Obeyd’s sword was among these; it would not have done to inquire about the widow, but there would have been no impropriety in asking about the sword, and I afterwards the more regretted having omitted to do so, because this proved to be my only opportunity. It would have been curious to ascertain whether Obeyd wore a plain unjewelled weapon in keeping with Wahhabi austerity. He would surely have disapproved, could he have foreseen it, of the gold and jewels, not to mention silks and brocaded stuffs now worn by his descendants; for his own children have none of the severe asceticism attributed to him, although they inherit his love of prayer.
Hamúd came upstairs while I was there with Beneyeh, but he only stayed a few minutes. They seemed to be on very good terms, and after he left she talked a great deal about him, and seemed very proud of him. “This is Hamúd’s, and this, and this,” said she, “and here is his bed,” pointing to a pile of mattresses with a fine coverlid. There were several European articles of furniture in the room, an iron bedstead with mattresses, several common looking-glasses, with badly gilt frames, and a clock with weights. Urgheyeh now joined us, and Beneyeh particularly showed me a handsome necklace her sister wore of gold and coral, elaborately worked. “This was my father’s,” she told me, adding that the ornament came from Persia. Beneyeh is immensely proud of her son, Abdallah, a fine boy of four months old. She and her sister were so amiable and anxious to please, that I could willingly have spent the rest of the afternoon with them. But it was now time to pay my next visit. After many good-byes and good wishes from both sisters, my black guide seized hold of my hand, and we proceeded to the apartments of another wife of Hamúd, Zehowa, daughter of Tellál. She is sympathetic and intelligent, extremely small and slight, with the tiniest of hands. Like the other ladies, she wore rings on her fingers, with big, irregular turquoises. We sat by the fire and ate sweet limes and trengs and drank tea. Zehowa sent for her daughter, a baby only nine months old, to show me, and I told her I had a daughter of my own, and that girls were better than boys, which pleased her, and she answered, “Yes, the daughter is the mother’s, but the son belongs to the father.”
Presently one of the guards, a tall black fellow, all in scarlet, came with a message for me, a request from the Beg that I would join him in the Emir’s kahwah, where he was waiting for me. Zehowa, like her cousins, begged hard that I would stay, or at least promise to visit her again as soon as possible, and I, bidding her farewell, followed the scarlet and black swordsman through courts, alleys, and passages to the kahwah, where I found Wilfrid. He was being entertained by an elderly man with coffee and conversation. This personage was Mubarek, already mentioned as the chief of the slaves, and he had been giving Wilfrid a vast deal of interesting information about horses, especially the dispersion of Feysul ibn Saoud’s stud, and the chief sources from which that celebrated collection was obtained. It had been originally got together, he said, entirely from the Bedouins, both of Nejd and of the north, by purchase and in war.
I never saw Zehowa, Beneyeh, or Amusheh again, for the next few days were fully occupied, and afterwards, owing to our finding ourselves involved in a network of mystery, and subject to an adverse influence, the pressure of which made itself felt without our being able at first to lay hold of anything tangible, or even to conjecture the cause, it became more than ever an object to us to remain quiet and unobserved. But I am anticipating circumstances to be detailed further on.
About three days later I paid a visit to the harim of Hamúd’s uncle. This gentleman, Suleyman, we were already acquainted with, from seeing him at Court on several occasions. He had sent me an invitation to visit his family, and two black slaves came to escort me to their house, one of the dependencies of the palace. In a kahwah opening out of a small yard, I found the old man waiting to receive me. He dyes his beard red, and loves books, amidst a pile of which he was sitting. I was in hopes that his conversation would be instructive, and we had just begun to talk when, alas, his wife came in with a rush, followed by a crowd of other women, upon which he hastily gathered up all his books and some manuscripts which were lying about, and putting some of them away in a cupboard, carried off the rest and made his escape.
Ghut, his wife, was the stupidest person I had seen at Haïl, but very talkative, and hospitable with dates, fresh butter floating in its own buttermilk, and sugar-plums. The many-coloured crowd of white, brown, and black attendants, slaves, and children, were not in much awe of her, and chattered away without a check to their hearts’ content. All were, however, respectful and attentive to me. Ghut’s daughter, another Zehowa, presently arrived with a slave carrying her son, Abderrahman, a child about a year old. This Zehowa was good-looking, but nearly as stupid and tiresome as her mother. She was very much taken up with showing me her box of trinkets, which she sent for on purpose to display before me its contents. These were of the usual sort, gold ornaments for head and arms and ankles, set with turquoises and strings of pearls. The furniture of the room, which she and her mother specially pointed out for my admiration, was also like what I had already seen—presses or boxes on legs, and ornamented with rude silver plaques.
The conversation was dull. Here is a sample: