Although Auda has probably captured more loot on his raids than any other Bedouin chieftain, he is a comparatively poor man as the result of his lavish hospitality. The profits of a hundred successful raids have provided entertainment for his friends. One of his few remaining evidences of transitory wealth is an enormous copper kettle around which twenty-five people can gather at a meal. His hospitality is sometimes very inconvenient except to guests in the last stages of starvation. One day, when he was helping me to a heaped portion of rice and mutton from the copper kettle, I was discussing the subject of camels with him and mentioned the fact that we had none in my country except in the zoos. The old Bedouin couldn’t understand this and insisted on presenting me with twenty of his prize dromedaries to take back to America to start a camel industry. It required all Lawrence’s persuasive eloquence to convince him that it was impossible for me to accept the regal gift on account of the difficulty of transporting his camels half-way around the world.
In May, 1918, the Turks sent a large number of camels down from Syria. They put them into an impromptu corral at Maan railway station. Auda heard of this, and at the head of a small party of twelve of his tribesmen he dashed boldly into Maan. There were thousands of Turkish soldiers all around, but before they realized what had occurred Auda had rounded up twenty-five of the camels and had driven them off at a twenty-five-mile-an-hour gallop. He was full of such pranks as this and recounted his adventures afterward with great gusto.
One of the most amazing bits of brigandage in Auda’s long and lurid career was when he held up his intimate friend and prince. Feisal was on his way across the desert on an expedition and had four thousand pounds in gold coin. Unluckily his route lay through Auda’s country, and somehow the latter got to know about the treasure. So he insisted that Feisal and retinue remain as his guests until they had given the old pirate three thousand out of the four thousand sovereigns. Auda, of course, did not use force; he merely intimated that he was entitled to the gold!
Auda Abu Tayi is a handsome old chieftain, a pure desert type. He is tall, straight, and powerful, and, although sixty years of age, as active and sinewy as a cougar. His lined and haggard face is pure Bedouin. He has a broad, low forehead, high, sharp, hooked nose, greenish brown eyes inclined to slant outward, black pointed beard, and mustache tinged with gray. The name “Auda” means “Father of Flying,” which recalls the day on which he made his first aëroplane flight. Instead of showing any fear he urged the pilot, Captain Furness-Williams, to take him higher and higher.
The old hero is as hard-headed as he is hot-headed. He receives advice, criticism, or abuse with a smile as constant as it is charming, but nothing on earth would make him change his mind or obey an order or follow a course of which he disapproves. He is modest, simple as a child, honest, kind-hearted and affectionate, and warmly loved even by those to whom he is most trying—his friends. His hobby is to concoct fantastic tales about himself and to relate fictitious but humorously horrible stories concerning the private life of his host or guests. He takes wild delight in making his friends uncomfortable. One time he strolled into the tent of his cousin, Mohammed, and roared out for the benefit of all present how villainously his kinsman had behaved at El Wejh. He told how Mohammed had bought a beautiful necklace for one of his wives. But, alas, Mohammed met a strange woman, a very beautiful strange woman in El Wejh who was as fascinating as starlight, and, succumbing to her charms, he presented her with the necklace. It was a wonderful necklace with gems that sparkled as the stars, with blues that recalled the seas and reds of desert sunsets. Most eloquently Auda discoursed on the lady’s charms. On the other side of the partition the women of Mohammed’s household heard of their lord and master’s perfidy. Although the tale was mischievously fabricated, there was a great commotion in the household of Mohammed, and his life was made unbearable for several weeks.
Auda’s home is on a mud flat eighty miles east of Akaba. During his association with Lawrence in the Arabian campaign, he picked up many interesting details of life in Europe. His eyes sparkled at tales of hotels and cabarets and palaces, and he was suddenly fired with the determination to abandon his tent for a house as splendid as any Sidi Lawrence had known in London.
The first problem that confronted him was the question of labor. This was solved by raiding a Turkish garrison and taking fifty prisoners, whom he put to work digging wells. After he had finished that job, he promised them their liberty if they would build him a beautiful house. They constructed one with forty rooms and four towers, but on account of the scarcity of timber in the desert, no one could figure out how to roof such an enormous building. Auda, keen as a steel trap, immediately worked out a plan. Summoning his warriors, he started out across the sands to the Pilgrim’s Railway, over-powered the passing Turkish patrol, and carried off thirty telegraph-poles, which now form the framework of his desert palace.
