Whatever Richard told Mohammed to do, he did it thoroughly. If he wanted a culprit that had run away, he would say, "Bring me So-and-so, Mohammed." "Eywallah! ya Sidi Beg" (Yes, by Allah, my Lord Beg); and he would go off, saying, "If he were in hell I would have him out." Once he brought a man kicking and struggling under his arm, and put him down before Richard, saying, "There he is, your Excellency."
This faithful Afghan had served him in India, and he had accidentally found him in Damascus, and made him his chief kawwás. He now rode up. Richard gave him a few orders in Afghani, which no one else understood. He saluted and retired. When we got about three hours away from Damascus in the open desert, the Bedawin had his mare and his arms taken from him, and was mounted on a baggage mule. Every kindness was shown to him, and he enjoyed every comfort that we had, but two mounted guard over him day and night, and he was thus powerless. We knew quite well that the Bedawin, on his thoroughbred mare, would have curveted off in circles, pretending to look for wells, when in reality he would have fetched the tribe down upon us, and we should have been captured; orders would have been given to respect and treat us well, and then we should have to be ransomed, and this would have proved the impossibility of visiting Palmyra without a Bedawi escort at six thousand francs a head, and the Foreign Office would have smartly reproved, and perhaps recalled, their Consul for running such a risk. We stuck our Mezrab up for a show, to prove that we had a Bedawin escort, whenever Bedawi raids were near, but he was not allowed to move or to make a sign. Da'as joined us with ten of his men, and whenever there was the smallest occasion for joy or self-congratulation, they used to do a Jeríd. When I say the men are riding Jeríd, I mean that they are galloping about violently, firing from horseback at full speed, yelling, hanging over in their stirrups with their bridles in their mouth, playing with and quivering their long feathered lances in the air, throwing them and catching them again at full gallop, picking things from the ground that they have thrown there, firing pistols, throwing themselves under the horses' bellies and firing under them at full gallop, yelling and shouting their war-cry, as Buffalo Bill's cowboys do, only far more picturesque figures, with their many-coloured dresses, and better mounted on their beautiful mares. The wildness of the whole spectacle is very refreshing; but you have to be a good rider yourself, as the horses simply go wild.
On one occasion we saw a large body, apparently of mounted Bedawi. We waved and whistled our stragglers in, and drew up in line; the others did the same. We fully expected a charge. By this time I had transformed myself into a boy (Richard's son)—found it more convenient for riding long distances, and for running away. It sounds indecent, but all Arab clothes are so baggy and draping that it little matters whether you are dressed as a man or woman. So he let me ride out with two other horsemen from the ranks forward (it would have been undignified for him to do so, being in command of the party); they did the same, and this is what it proved to be—the Shaykh and his fighting men on the part of a distant village, and a priest on the part of the Archbishop of Karryatayn, with invitations. All the men embraced, my hand was kissed, and we were escorted back in great triumph, riding Jeríd as before. We rode to the village of the Shaykh, and we sent on others with our letters to Omar Beg, the Brigadier at that time commanding troops at Karryatayn, because they expected a revolt of the tribes.
We eventually arrived at Karryatayn. We were treated with great hospitality by Omar Beg, and when we left he accompanied us a little way with an immense cavalcade, which was very picturesque and pretty. We saw a mirage that day in the desert, and were very tired, and had to sleep with our arms, without undressing. We then had a somewhat dangerous defile to pass through mountains, where we found a well. I had invented a capital way of watering the beasts. Man can always draw water, but nobody thinks of the horses, and in a cup or tin pot you cannot get enough water for them. I had bags made of skins, exactly like a huge tobacco-pouch with ropes, and whenever we came to inaccessible water these were lowered until every animal had drank its fill. At each of these places, Jerúd, Atneh, and Karryatayn, several who had been longing to go to Tadmor wanted to join us, secure of protection, of food for themselves, and corn for their animals without paying a farthing for it. We increased to a hundred and sixty persons, and some had one and some two animals. I had one man with me as my own servant, a Syrian Christian, who gave us a great deal of trouble. He was very clever, and the best dancer; but the second or third day after a hard day's ride, the horses were dead beat, and instead of taking his horse and watering and feeding it, and putting it in shelter as I desired, he drew his sword and cut its throat, in hopes of being allowed to ride my second horse, so I ordered him off to the baggage in the rear. No Moslem would have done such a thing. I never liked him after. We could not turn the man out to die in the desert, but the day that we got back to Damascus, my husband sent him to prison, for that and thefts in the houses where we stayed.
We met with another ghazú before we arrived, but we imposed on them by calling a halt, planting the flag, showing our Bedawin, and ordering breakfast to be spread. We then improvised a tir by planting a lance in the sand at a good distance, with a pumpkin at the top, or an orange, and showed them how far our rifles would carry, and the ghazú being mounted on mares, not camels, we were not attacked. A few of ours curveted about, preparatory to bolting, but my husband called out to the men to form into line, and then he shouted, "The first man who leaves this line, I'll shoot him in the back as he rides away." That made them settle down.
The first sight of Palmyra makes you think it is a regiment of cavalry drawn out in single line on the horizon; it was the most imposing sight I ever looked upon, though I have seen plenty of other ruins. It is so gigantic, so extensive, so bare, so desolate, rising out of, and partially buried in a sea of sand. There is something that almost takes your breath away about this splendid City of the Dead. When you are alone and gazing in silence upon her solitary grandeur, you feel as if you were wandering in some unforgotten world, and respect and wonder bid you hush like a child amidst the tombs of a long-closed and forgotten churchyard. This was the Tadmor built by Solomon, as a safe halt for the treasures of India and Persia passing through the desert (2 Paralipomenon or Chronicles viii. 4), "And he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store cities, which he built in Hamar." Read also 3 Kings or 1 King ix. 18.
I shall never forget the imposing sight of Tadmor. There is nothing so deceiving as distance in the desert. At sea you may calculate it, but in the desert you never can. A distant ruin stands out of the sea of sand, the atmosphere is so clear that you think you will reach it in half an hour; you ride all day and you never seem to get any nearer to it, just as if it receded in proportion as you advanced. We camped outside, close to the great colonnade. We had five tents, our free-lances ten, the rest of the party theirs, and the animals close by. There were four sulphurous streams; we kept one to drink, and one to bathe, and two for the animals. There is a height of rock on which is a castle; the mountain-top was cruised all around with an infinity of labour to form a drawbridge and moat. The ascent is exceedingly steep. On two sides is a fine range of mountains, on the other two a desert of sand, stretching far away like a yellow sea. The ruins and a small oasis caused by the foundation lie at our feet. It is possible that Tadmor once spread over all the irrigated part of the plain. A few orchards, and the splendid ruins, and a handful of wretched people have huts plastered like wasps' nests within them. The whole City must have been composed of parallel streets, and similar streets crossing them, some formed by immense columns, and stretching far over the plains, and cornered by temples and castles. The Temple of the Sun was carved from great blocks of rock from the mountains; has some fine cornices, some still perfect. In one direction there is a falling wall on the slant, as if it was arrested in falling. It has a square court of seven hundred and forty feet each side, encompassed by a wall seventy feet high. The central door is thirty-two feet high and sixteen wide. The temple still has one hundred columns standing. The few people who live there are disgusting and ophthalmic.
The tombs are a great interest—tall square towers with a handsome frontage. Inside are four stories. The ceilings are beautiful; the entrances are lined with Corinthian columns and busts. There are tiers to the very top for bodies. One contained one hundred bodies. One bore a 102 B.C. date, one Anno Domini 2—evidently a very swell family, and all speaking of sad ruined grandeur. The ruins are enormous and extensive, and simply splendid. I cannot describe the sensation of being in a great City of the Dead, and thinking over all the story of Zenobia and her capture, especially by moonlight. The simoom blew our tents nearly down part of the time. Richard discovered caves, and he spent several days excavating. We found human curios, human bones, and skulls with hair on them, which we brought home. There is a sulphurous river, bright as crystal, and tepid with the properties of Vichy. Water issues from a cavernous hole in the mountain, and streams through Palmyra. A separate spring, of the same quality, bubbles up in the sand near it. The Damascenes send for Vichy water; why don't they get it from here? We also found some Greek statues; one of Zenobia, life size. Some of our men were taken with wahteb, a disease peculiar to Syria, and hereditary—a sort of convulsions or hysteria. They generally get a firstborn to tread up and down the back, but I brought them to quicker with doses of hot brandy and water. We returned by a different route part of the way. There is a well-known river and outwork six hours' ride away from Palmyra, called Selamíyyah, and bearing east-south-east of the Mount of Hamah. Here begins a high rolling ground called El Aláh, which we come to later on. We had very bad weather, and our tents were nearly carried away at night. We had a wild-boar hunt on the way. We fell in with fifty Bedawi; they were not strong enough to attack us, but we had to stick to our baggage. Our usual day in the desert (in which we lived off and on) was as follows:—