[p.156]a cocoa tree's,[FN#28] the Badawin would not neglect it. We lay down upon the sand, to rest among a party of Maghrabi pilgrims travelling to Suez. These wretches, who were about a dozen in number, appeared to be of the lowest class; their garments consisted of a Burnus-cloak and a pair of sandals; their sole weapon a long knife, and their only stock a bag of dry provisions. Each had his large wooden bowl, but none carried water with him. It was impossible to help pitying their state, nor could I eat, seeing them hungry, thirsty, and way-worn. So Nassar served out about a pint of water and a little bread to each man. Then they asked for more. None was to be had, so they cried out that money would do as well. I had determined upon being generous to the extent of a few pence. Custom, as well as inclination, was in favour of the act; but when the alms became a demand, and the demand was backed by fierce looks and a derisive sneer, and a kind of reference to their knives, gentle Charity took the alarm and fled. My pistols kept them at bay, for they were only making an attempt to intimidate, and, though I took the precaution of sitting apart from them, there was no real danger. The Suez road, by the wise regulations of Mohammed Ali, has become as safe to European travellers as that between Hampstead and Highgate; and even Easterns have little to fear but what their fears create. My Indian servant was full of the dangers he had run, but I did not believe in them. I afterwards heard that the place where the Maghrabis attempted to frighten what they thought a timid Turk was notorious for plunder and murder. Here the spurs of two opposite hills almost meet upon the plain, a favourable ground for Badawi ambuscade. Of the Maghrabis
[p.157]I shall have more to say when relating my voyage in the Pilgrim Ship: they were the only travellers from whom we experienced the least annoyance. Numerous parties of Turks, Arabs, and Afghans, and a few East-Indians[FN#29] were on the same errand as ourselves. All, as we passed them, welcomed us with the friendly salutation that becomes men engaged in a labour of religion.
About half an hour before sunset, I turned off the road leftwards; and, under pretext of watering the dromedaries, rode up to inspect the fort Al-'Ajrudi.[FN#30] It is a quadrangle with round towers at the gateway and at the corners, newly built of stone and mortar; the material is already full of crevices, and would not stand before a twelve-pounder. Without guns or gunners, it is occupied by about a dozen Fellahs, who act as hereditary "Ghafirs," (guardians); they were expecting at that time to be reinforced by a party of Bashi Buzuks-Irregulars from Cairo. The people of the country were determined that an English fleet would soon appear in the Red Sea, and this fort is by them ridiculously considered the key of Suez. As usual in these Vauban-lacking
[p.158]lands, the well supplying the stronghold is in a detached and distant building, which can be approached by an enemy with the greatest security. Over the gate-way was an ancient inscription reversed; the water was brackish, and of bad quality.[FN#31]
We resumed our way: Suez now stood near. In the blue distance rose the castellated peaks of Jabal Rahah and the wide sand-tracts over which lies the land-route to Al-Hijaz. Before us the sight ever dear to English eyes,-a strip of sea gloriously azure, with a gallant steamer walking the waters. On the right-hand side the broad slopes of Jabal Mukattam, a range of hills which flanks the road all the way from Cairo. It was at this hour a spectacle not easily to be forgotten. The near range of chalk and sandstone wore a russet suit, gilt where the last rays of the sun seamed it with light, and the deep folds were shaded with the richest purple; whilst the background of the higher hills, Jabal Tawari, generally known as Abu Daraj (the Father of Steps), was sky-blue streaked with the lightest plum colour. We drew up at a small building called Bir Suways (Well of Suez); and, under pretext of watering the cattle, I sat for half an hour admiring the charms of the Desert. The eye never tires of such loveliness of hue, and the memory of the hideousness of this range, when a sun in front exposed each gaunt and barren feature, supplied the evening view with another element of attraction.
It was already night when we passed through the tumbling six-windowed gateway of Suez; and still remained the task of finding my servant and effects. After
[p.159]wandering in and out of every Wakalah in the village, during which peregrination the boy Mohammed proved himself so useful that I determined at all risks to make him my companion, we accidentally heard that a Hindi had taken lodgings at a hostelry bearing the name of Jirjis al-Zahr.[FN#32] On arriving there our satisfaction was diminished by the intelligence that the same Hindi, after locking the door, had gone out with his friends to a ship in the harbour; in fact, that he had made all preparations for running away. I dismounted, and tried to persuade the porter to break open the wooden bolt, but he absolutely refused, and threatened the police. Meanwhile Mohammed had found a party of friends, men of Al-Madinah, returning to the pilgrimage after a begging tour through Egypt and Turkey. The meeting was characterised by vociferous inquiries, loud guffaws and warm embraces. I was invited to share their supper and their dormitory,-an uncovered platform projecting from the gallery over the square court below,-but I had neither appetite nor spirits enough to be sociable. The porter, after much persuasion, showed me an empty room, in which I spread my carpet. That was a sad night. My eighty-four mile ride had made every bone ache; I had lost epidermis, and the sun had seared every portion of skin exposed to it. So, lamenting my degeneracy and the ill effects of four years' domicile in Europe, and equally disquieted in mind about the fate of my goods and chattels, I fell into an uncomfortable sleep.
[FN#l] The proper hire of a return dromedary from Cairo to Suez is forty piastres. But every man is charged in proportion to his rank, and Europeans generally pay about double. [FN#2] The tender traveller had better provide himself with a pair of stirrups, but he will often find, when on camel back, that his legs are more numbed by hanging down, than by the Arab way of crossing them before and beneath the pommel. He must, however, be careful to inspect his saddle, and, should bars of wood not suit him, to have them covered with stuffed leather. And again, for my part, I would prefer riding a camel with a nose-ring,-Mongol and Sindian fashion,-to holding him, as the Egyptians do, with a halter, or to guiding him,-Wahhabiwise,-with a stick. [FN#3] "O pilgrim!" The Egyptians write the word Hajj, and pronounce Hagg. In Persia, India, and Turkey, it becomes Haji. These are mere varieties of form, derived from one and the same Arabic root. [FN#4] The Egyptians and Arabs will not address "Salam" to an infidel; the Moslems of India have no such objection. This, on the banks of the Nile, is the revival of an old prejudice. Alexander of Alexandria, in his circular letter, describes the Arian heretics as "men whom it is not lawful to salute, or to bid God-speed." [FN#5] It is Prince Puckler Muskau, if I recollect rightly, who mentions that in his case a pair of dark spectacles produced a marked difference of apparent temperature, whilst travelling over the sultry sand of the Desert. I have often remarked the same phenomenon. The Arabs, doubtless for some reason of the kind, always draw their head-kerchiefs, like hoods, far over their brows, and cover up their mouths, even when the sun and wind are behind them. Inhabitants of the Desert are to be recognised by the net-work of wrinkles traced in the skin round the orbits, the result of half-closing their eyelids; but this is done to temper the intensity of the light. [FN#6] Their own pipe-tubes were of coarse wood, in shape somewhat resembling the German porcelain pipe. The bowl was of soft stone, apparently steatite, which, when fresh, is easily fashioned with a knife. In Arabia the Badawin, and even the townspeople, use on journeys an earthen tube from five to six inches shorter than the English "clay," thicker in the tube, with a large bowl, and coloured yellowish-red. It contains a handful of tobacco, and the smoker emits puffs like a chimney. In some of these articles the bowl forms a rectangle with the tube; in others, the whole is an unbroken curve, like the old Turkish Meerschaum. [FN#7] See Wallin's papers, published in the Journals of the Royal Geographical Society. [FN#8] Shurum, (plural of Sharm, a creek), a word prefixed to the proper names of three small ports in the Sinaitic peninsula. [FN#9] Tawarah, plural of Turi, an inhabitant of Tur or Sinai. [FN#10] This feature did not escape the practised eye of Denon. "Eyes long, almond-shaped, half shut, and languishing, and turned up at the outer corner, as if habitually fatigued by the light and heat of the sun; cheeks round, &c.," (Voyage en Egypt). The learned Frenchman's description of the ancient Egyptians applies in most points to the Turi Badawin. [FN#11] "And he" (Ishmael) "dwelt in the wilderness of Paran," (Wady Firan?) "and his mother took him a wife, out of the land of Egypt," (Gen. xxi. 21). I wonder that some geographers have attempted to identify Massa, the son of Ishmael, (Gen. xxv. 14), with Meccah, when in verse 18 of the same chapter we read, "And they" (the twelve princes, sons of Ishmael) "dwelt from Havilah unto Shur." This asserts, as clearly as language can, that the posterity of, or the race typified by, Ishmael,-the Syro-Egyptian,-occupied only the northern parts of the peninsula. Their habitat is not even included in Arabia by those writers who bound the country on the north by an imaginary line drawn from Ras Mohammed to the mouths of the Euphrates. The late Dr. J. Wilson ("Lands of the Bible"), repeated by Eliot Warburton ("Crescent and Cross"), lays stress upon the Tawarah tradition, that they are Benu Isra'il converted to Al-Islam, considering it a fulfilment of the prophecy, "that a remnant of Israel shall dwell in Edom." With due deference to so illustrious an Orientalist and Biblical scholar as was Dr. Wilson, I believe that most modern Moslems, being ignorant that Jacob was the first called "prince with God," apply the term Benu-Isra'il to all the posterity of Abraham, not to Jews only. [FN#12] In 1879 the Gates of Suez are a thing of the past; and it is not easy to find where they formerly stood. [FN#13] In the mouth of a Turk, no epithet is more contemptuous than that of "Fellah ibn Fellah,"-"boor, son of a boor!" The Osmanlis have, as usual, a semi-religious tradition to account for the superiority of their nation over the Egyptians. When the learned doctor, Abu Abdullah Mohammed bin Idris al-Shafe'i, returned from Meccah to the banks of the Nile, he mounted, it is said, a donkey belonging to one of the Asinarii of Bulak. Arriving at the Caravanserai, he gave the man ample fare, whereupon the Egyptian, putting forth his hand, and saying, "hat" (give!) called for more. The doctor doubled the fee; still the double was demanded. At last the divine's purse was exhausted, and the proprietor of the donkey waxed insolent. A wandering Turk seeing this, took all the money from the Egyptian, paid him his due, solemnly kicked him, and returned the rest to Al-Shafe'i, who asked him his name-"Osman"-and his nation-the "Osmanli,"-blessed him, and prophesied to his countrymen supremacy over the Fellahs and donkey boys of Egypt. [FN#14] From Samm, the poison-wind. Vulgar and most erroneously called the Simoon. [FN#15] Hugh Murray derives this word from the Egyptian, and quoting Strabo and Abulfeda makes it synonymous with Auasis and Hyasis. I believe it to be a mere corruption of the Arabic Wady [Arabic text] or Wah. Nothing can be more incorrect than the vulgar idea of an Arabian Oasis, except it be the popular conception of an Arabian Desert. One reads of "isles of the sandy sea," but one never sees them. The real "Wady" is, generally speaking, a rocky valley bisected by the bed of a mountain torrent, dry during the hot season. In such places the Badawin love to encamp, because they find food and drink,-water being always procurable by digging. When the supply is perennial, the Wady becomes the site of a village. The Desert is as unaptly compared to a "sandy sea." Most of the wilds of Arabia resemble the tract between Suez and Cairo; only the former are of primary formation, whereas the others are of a later date. Sand-heaps are found in every Desert, but sand-plains are a local feature, not the general face of the country. The Wilderness, east of the Nile, is mostly a hard dry earth, which requires only a monsoon to become highly productive: even where silicious sand covers the plain, the waters of a torrent, depositing humus or vegetable mould, bind the particles together, and fit it for the reception of seed. [FN#16] The intelligent reader will easily understand that I am speaking of the Desert in the temperate season, not during the summer heats, when the whole is one vast furnace, nor in winter, when the Sarsar wind cuts like an Italian Tramontana. [FN#17] This, as a general rule in Al-Islam, is a sign that the Maghrib or evening prayer must not be delayed. The Shafe'i school performs its devotions immediately after the sun has disappeared. [FN#18] This salutation of peace is so differently pronounced by every Eastern nation that the observing traveller will easily make of it a shibboleth. [FN#19] To "nakh" in vulgar, as in classical, Arabic is to gurgle "Ikh! ikh!" in the bottom of one's throat till the camel kneels down. We have no English word for this proceeding; but Anglo-Oriental travellers are rapidly naturalising the "nakh."
[FN#20] There are many qualifications necessary for an Imam-a leader of prayer; the first condition, of course, is orthodoxy. [FN#21] "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night," (Psalm cxxi. 6). Easterns still believe firmly in the evil effects of moonlight upon the human frame,-from Sind to Abyssinia, the traveller will hear tales of wonder concerning it. [FN#22] The Dum i Gurg, or wolf's tail, is the Persian name for the first brushes of grey light which appear as forerunners of dawn. [FN#23] Dar al-Bayda is a palace belonging to H.H. Abbas Pasha. This "white house" was formerly called the "red house," I believe from the colour of its windows,-but the name was changed, as being not particularly good-omened. [FN#24] The Tetrao Kata or sand-grouse, (Pterocles melanogaster; in Sind called the rock pigeon), is a fast-flying bird, not unlike a grey partridge whilst upon the wing. When, therefore, Shanfara boasts "The ash-coloured Katas can only drink my leavings, after hastening all night to slake their thirst in the morning," it is a hyperbole to express exceeding swiftness. [FN#25] I have already, when writing upon the subject of Sind, alluded to this system as prevalent throughout Al-Islam, and professed, like Mr. Lane, ignorance of its origin and object. In Huc's travels, we are told that the Tartars worship mountain spirits by raising an "Obo,"-dry branches hung with bones and strips of cloth, and planted in enormous heaps of stones. Park, also, in Western Africa, conformed to the example of his companions, in adding a charm or shred of cloth on a tree (at the entrance of the Wilderness), which was completely covered with these guardian symbols. And, finally, the Tarikh Tabari mentions it as a practice of the Pagan Arabs, and talks of evil spirits residing in the date-tree. May not, then, the practice in Al-Islam be one of the many debris of fetish-worship which entered into the heterogeneous formation of the Saving Faith? Some believe that the Prophet permitted the practice, and explain the peculiar name of the expedition called Zat al-Rika'a (place of shreds of cloth), by supposing it to be a term for a tree to which the Moslems hung their ex-voto rags. [FN#26] The saint lies under a little white-washed dome, springing from a square of low walls-a form of sepulchre now common to Al-Hijaz, Egypt, and the shores and islands of the Red Sea. As regards his name my informants told me it was that of a Hijazi Shaykh. The subject is by no means interesting; but the exact traveller will find the word written Takroore, and otherwise explained by Sir Gardner Wilkinson. [FN#27] Called by the Arabs Shih [Arabic text], which the dictionaries translate "wormwood of Pontus." We find Wallin in his works speaking of Ferashat al-shih, or wormwood carpets. [FN#28] We are told in verse of "a cocoa's feathery shade," and sous l'ombre d'un cocotier. But to realise the prose picture, let the home reader, choosing some sultry August day, fasten a large fan to a long pole, and enjoy himself under it. [FN#29] On a subsequent occasion, I met a party of Panjabis, who had walked from Meccah to Cairo in search of "Abu Tabilah," (General Avitabile), whom report had led to the banks of the Nile. Some were young, others had white beards-all were weary and wayworn; but the saddest sight was an old woman, so decrepit that she could scarcely walk. The poor fellows were travelling on foot, carrying their wallets, with a few pence in their pockets, utterly ignorant of route and road, and actually determined in this plight to make Lahore by Baghdad, Bushir, and Karachi. Such-so incredible-is Indian improvidence! [FN#30] Upon this word Cacography has done her worst-"Haji Rood" may serve for a specimen. My informants told me that Al-'Ajrudi is the name of a Hijazi Shaykh whose mortal remains repose under a little dome near the fort. This, if it be true, completely nullifies the efforts of Etymology to discern in it a distinct allusion to "the overthrow of Pharaoh's chariots, whose Hebrew appellation, ‘Ageloot,' bears some resemblance to this modern name." [FN#31] The only sweet water in Suez is brought on camel back from the Nile, across the Desert. The "Bir Suez" is fit for beasts only; the 'Uyun Musa (Moses' Wells) on the Eastern side, and that below Abu Daraj, on the Western shore of the Suez Gulf, are but little better. The want of sweet water is the reason why no Hammam is found at Suez. [FN#32] The "George": so called after its owner, a Copt, Consular Agent for Belgium. There are 36 Caravanserais at Suez, 33 small ones for merchandise, and 3 for travellers; of these the best is that of Sayyid Hashim. The pilgrim, however, must not expect much comfort or convenience, even at Sayyid Hashim's.
[p.160]CHAPTER IX.