“Here lie I down, and measure out my grave,
Farewell, kind master.”—Shakespeare.
Muttlak Ibn Arûk and the Ketherin—Their horses—We are adopted by the tribe—The Haj again—Ambar sends round the hat—A forced march of one hundred and seventy miles—Terrible loss of camels—Nejef.
February 16.—Two Asian Shammar of the Jezireh came last night, and recognised us as having been in Ferhan Pasha’s camp, last year, in Mesopotamia,—a very pleasant meeting, though we have no distinct recollection of either of them. They gave us all the latest Jezireh news in politics. Ferhan and his brother Faris are now at open war, though Ferhan is no fighter himself, and leaves the conduct of affairs to his eldest son, Aassa. All the Shammar of the Jezireh are with Faris, except Ferhan’s own tail, and the Abde, and the Asslan, Muttany’s men, and our old friend Smeyr ibn-Zeydan. It is true also that Faris is now friends with Jedaan. All this we are glad to hear.
This morning, Jedur and his mother left us, as they are not going any further our way. I like them both, and should have been glad to give the mother some small remembrance of our journey together, but, as Arabs do, they went away without saying good-bye. Our march to-day was a short one, nine or ten miles, still down the Wady Roseh, where water has actually been running since the late storm, and where there are pools still here and there, and a large swamp full of ducks, storks, and snipe,—the first water above ground we have seen since the Wady er-Rajel, nearly two months ago. There is capital grass, too, in the wady, a few inches high, which our hungry mares enjoy thoroughly. As we were stopping to let them and the camels graze on a particularly inviting spot, suddenly we perceived about thirty delúl riders coming over the hill to our right. Although it was probable that this was Muttlak, we all prepared for defence, making the camels kneel down, and seizing each his best weapon,—Wilfrid the rifle, I the gun, and Mohammed his large revolver. Awwad stood ready, sword in hand, and Abdallah squatted with his long gun pointed towards the new-comers; the rest, except Izzar, who possesses a sword, had only sticks, but made a formidable appearance.
There was no need, however, for alarm, for, presently, one of the approaching party detached himself from the rest, and trotting his dromedary towards us, saluted us in a loud voice, and we saw that it was Hazzam, the man who had gone on to announce our coming to Muttlak. In another five minutes the Sheykh himself had dismounted. There was of course a great deal of kissing and embracing between Mohammed and his new found relations, and Wilfrid came in for a share of it. Muttlak is a charming old man, very quiet and very modest, but possessed of considerable dignity. He has an expression of extreme kindness and gentleness which is very attractive, and we already like him better than any of Mohammed’s Jôf relations. Unlike the Ibn Arûks of Jôf and Tudmur, this branch of the family has remained Bedouin, and unmixed by any fellahin alliances. Mohammed’s rather vulgar pretensions to birth and dignity have fallen, ashamed before the simplicity of this good old man, the true representative of the Ibn Arûks of Aared, and though the kasíd has been trotted out once more, and the family genealogy stated and compared, it has been with modesty and decorum, and the sadness which befits decayed fortunes. There can be no question here who shall take the upper place, the Sheykh himself being always ready to take the lowest. To us he is charming in his attentions, and without false dignity in his thanks for the small presents [75] we have made him. He is to stay with us to-night, and then he will take us to his tents to-morrow.
Muttlak has brought us three sheep for a present. He has with him a very handsome falcon, a lanner like ours, but larger.
February 17.—We left our camp in the Wady Roseh, where Muttlak told us there was better pasture than we should find with him, and rode off on our mares to pay him a morning visit and return at night. Muttlak has with him his own little mare, the counterpart of himself, old and without other pretension than extreme purity of descent. She is a kehîlet Omm Jerass (mother of bells), and was once in Ibn Saoud’s stables. It is difficult to describe her, for her merits are not on the surface; I am sure nine out of ten English dealers would pass her over, if they saw her at Tattersall’s or Barnet Fair, as an insignificant little pony. She is very small, hardly over 13 hands, for even Mohammed’s mokhra looks tall beside her, chestnut with four white feet and a blaze, a good but not a pretty head, and, but for a proud carriage of the tail, no style or action; an old brood mare never ridden except on state occasions like the present, for on ordinary occasions no Arab of Nejd thinks of riding anything but a delúl. As Muttlak said, very gravely, “When God has given you a mare that is asil, it is not that you should ride, but that she should breed foals.” The old man stuck to his delúl, and the little mare was ridden by his cousin Shatti, who went with us, and gave us some valuable information by the way. The Ketherin, like all the tribes of Nejd, were formerly under Ibn Saoud. They are a branch of the Beni Khalid, who, in their turn, are a branch of the Beni Laam, an ancient and noble tribe, of which the main stock is still found between Aared and Katîf, while another branch settled some centuries ago beyond the Tigris, on the Persian frontier. The Ketherin are now few in number and decayed in circumstances, but Shatti informed us, with some pride, they can still turn out a hundred khayal on occasion; that is to say, if they are attacked and obliged to fight. This shows more than anything the small number of horses possessed by the tribes of Nejd. I asked Shatti which of the tribes still under Ibn Saoud are now most in repute as breeders of horses; and he told me the Muteyr or Dushan (for it seems they have both names), who could turn out four hundred horsemen. Their best breeds are Kehîlan Ajuz, Kehîlan el-Krush, Abeyan Sherrak, Maneghy Hedruj, and Rabdan Kesheyban. They have no Seglawis at all; the Krushiehs of Ibn Rashid came originally from them, Feysul having bought them from the tribe. It must not, however, be supposed, he said, that all the Dushan mares were asil. The Dushan, like every other tribe in Nejd and elsewhere, has “mehassaneh,” or half-breds, what the Ánazeh would call “beni” or “banat hossan;” that is to say, animals with a stain in their pedigree, and therefore not asil, though often nearly as good and as good-looking. Their own breeds (that is to say, the Ketherin’s) are principally Wadnan, Rishan, Rabdan, and Shueyman. As we got near the Ketherin tents we met two men on a delúl, leading a lovely little bay colt, one of the prettiest I ever saw, which Shatti told us was a Wadnan Horsan.
After nearly three hours’ riding we arrived at the buyut shaar (houses of hair), and were soon being hospitably entertained. It is the custom here, as it is in the Sahara, that the Sheykh should receive illustrious strangers, not in his own tent, but in a special tent set up for the purpose. It was a poor place, little more than an awning, but the welcome was hearty and sincere. Here all the principal people of the tribe assembled as soon as the news of our arrival spread, and a feast was prepared of tummin and fresh butter, and naga’s milk. The Arabs, never kill a lamb except for the evening meal.
After this entertainment I went to visit Muttlak’s family, and on my return I found Wilfrid inspecting the mares which we had already seen grazing near the tents. There were half-a-dozen of them, fair average animals, but nothing first-rate, or so handsome as the Wadnan colt, nor any over fourteen hands high. We were looking at these rather disappointedly, when Hazzam ibn Arûk, Muttlak’s brother, rode up on a really beautiful mare, which he told us was a Seglawieh Jedran, the only one left in Nejd. He added that they had been obliged to conceal the name of her breed for some years on account of the danger incurred of her being taken by force. In former times, when the Wahhabis were all powerful, any famous mare ran great risk of being seized for the Riad stables. Ibn Saoud would declare war with a tribe merely as an excuse for robbing it of its mares. Ibn Rashid, at the present day, put great pressure on the owners of valuable mares to make them sell; but he paid for what he took. This mare had been often asked about both for Ibn Rashid, and for Nassr el-Ashgar, Sheykh of the Montefyk, who (or rather his brother Fahad now) has the best collection of horses after Ibn Rashid and Ibn Saoud. She is a fine bright bay, muttlak-el-yemin, snip on the nose; has a splendid way of moving when ridden, action like Hamúd’s mare at Haïl, handsome rather than racing. The head is good, the eye bright and large, the forehead rather flat, the jowl deep; the wither high and back short, quarters round, like all the Nejd horses, sinews good, and hoofs large and round.
Hazzam’s mare is under fourteen hands, but stands over much ground, and ought to be up to weight, being wonderfully compact. We had some hopes at one moment of being able to purchase her, and for a good price and money down I think it might have been done, for they are all most anxious to oblige us. But we have no money and our cheque on Bagdad would be difficult for them to cash. The Ketherin are this year in great distress, as there was no autumn rain, and until a month ago, nothing that horses can eat. They are without corn or even dates, and but for the locusts, which have been abundant all the winter, they must have starved. Indeed locusts are still their main article of food, for man as well as beast. Great piles of these insects, dried over the fire, may be seen in every tent.