A new complication has arisen in the behaviour of Ramazan, the cook, who has proved so insubordinate that he is to be sent about his business. Seyd Abbas is to go to-morrow to Ali Ghurbi on the river, to make purchases of rice and dates for us, and he will take Ramazan with him, as also the groom, who declares he has got fever, caught in the Wudian swamps, and will go no further. Thus our party is melting away at the outset; but we are in the meanwhile to go on, with a young man Seyd Abbas brought with him from last night’s tents, to a large camp of the Beni Laam, which is said to be just under the hills, and wait there till the Seyyid joins us.
March 26.—Four hours’ march has brought us to the hills. As we got near them, we found the usual signs of a Bedouin encampment, distant flocks of sheep and then shepherds, all moving with that exaggerated, mysterious appearance of speed the mirage gives. We galloped on to reconnoitre from a tall tell in front of us, and soon made out the camp. There was a stream of water just below, and the tell and the plain near it were covered with something like turf, while the hill sides were visibly green with grass. A shepherd told us that the camp was Musa’s, the sheykh we were in search of; and, waiting till the camels came up with us, we went on there.
Musa ibn Sollal was absent, and we were directed to his brother Akul’s tent. We found him fast asleep in a corner of the tent, but he woke up when we entered, and received us politely. He told us that the Sheykh had gone to Amara, at a summons from the mutesserif of that town, to meet his brother Mizban, and have their quarrel made up. It seems that Musa, Akul and Homeydi, all sons of one mother, are making war against their half-brother, Mizban, who is head of the Ibn Sollal family, as well as principal Sheykh of all the Beni Laam; and the quarrel is now a serious affair, for Mizban has killed one of Musa’s sons. There can be little chance of its being patched up by Turkish intervention, for the present mutesserif is weak “like a lady,” they say, and not at all the man to deal with a blood-feud.
Akul is an elderly man, with a grey beard, and devoted to children. He has been doing his best to entertain us, as well as to amuse a little group of small children who came clustering around him when he awoke. His tent is a poor one, small and hot like a stewpan; and we escaped from it the moment we could with propriety go to our own, pitched only a few yards off—too few, alas! for comfort, for the people here, though well-behaved, cannot resist their curiosity to “farraj.”
These Beni Laam must be counted as true Bedouins, as none of them are felláhin, or would lift a finger to till the ground, for which purpose they employ such low tribes as our friends the Saadeh and the Abiad. But they are quite different from any other true Bedouins I have visited, not only in manners but in looks; and there seems to be among them a great mixture of races. Seyd Abbas has told us that they intermarry with Persian and Kurdish tribes, and that they also receive and adopt into their own tribe vagabonds from no one knows where; and this account is fully borne out by their appearance. Mixed descent may be read in their faces. Neither do they, as far as I can make out, lay much claim to good breeding, except in the ruling family, Ibn Sollal, which is proud of its ancestry in the male line. Akul and his brother Homeydi, who visited us in the evening, talked a great deal about their Nejdean descent. According to their own account they (the Ibn Sollal) came from Nejd twelve generations ago and I do not doubt the correctness of the tradition; but their Arabian blood has since become so much diluted with foreign additions, that in Nejd itself they would not be accepted as nobly born. They do not deny their marriages with the daughters of the neighbouring lands, but seem to think it a matter of no consequence. They will even marry with townspeople and Bagdadis; and we heard on board the steamer of a relative of Mizban’s married to a certain Jazin Sabunji, a tradesman in Bagdad. His brother, Ahmet Sabunji, had, on the strength of the connection, given us a letter to add to our packet of introductions to Mizban.
The horses here seem to be of small account. Fifteen or twenty mare’s, wearing the usual iron shackles, are grazing about a mile off, some with foals by their sides, all standing in water above their fetlocks. We walked round to examine them, and saw one good-looking white mare that may be thoroughbred, and also a bay somewhat better than the rest, but they are inferior animals. A foal was born last night, and was being removed with its mother, a wretched little creature, to the dry ground at the camp. There were no camels to be seen. They and the sheep are at pasture at a considerable distance.
A couple of Bagdad sheep-dealers have come by with a large flock just purchased from Mizban’s people. Their description is glowing of the wealth and grandeur, and excellent reception to be met with at the great Sheykh’s tents. They are travelling quietly, and apparently without precaution or fear of being attacked by the ghazús, so much talked about. But I suppose they know what they are doing.
Several women came to see me, accompanied by some children, two or three of whom were really beautiful, one little boy especially. Their visit soon attracted a crowd, for everybody who passed stopped to join the circle in front of our tent. They were good-humoured and rather encroaching and forward, but kept in check by a middle-aged man with a big stick, who undertook the office of master of the ceremonies. His method was rough and ready; every now and then to effect a complete dispersion of the party by rushing into the midst of them and dealing out blows on every side without distinction of age or sex. The visitors then ran away in all directions laughing, and almost immediately returned more gay and merry than before. One young lady, Basha by name, proposed to accompany us on our journey, and my answer, “Marhaba, fetch your mare and come,” brought down on her endless chaff.
A few small presents have made Musa very amiable, and he has sent us a guard for our tents. There is, it would seem, some apprehension of attack on the part of the hostile section of the tribe who are not far off, and a ghazú from Mizban is much talked of. So the conference of the two brothers at Amara does not prevent their followers from carrying on the war.
March 27.—Nothing worse happened during the night than a thunderstorm. Wilfrid started early on Job to try and find old Seyd Abbas, of whom nothing was heard yesterday. He went alone, and cantered for about ten miles in the direction of the river, but finding a large marsh between him and it, and, moreover, that Ali Ghurbi was beyond the river, he returned. He met, he tells me, a number of Arabs whom he believes to have been Mizban’s people. They made some show of trying to circumvent him, but were too ill-mounted to be dangerous. At midday the Seyyid arrived with two donkey loads of provisions from the village. We had all but given him up for lost, and in our dearth of friends, we now begin to feel something like affection for him, seeing him return.