Shortly after leaving the city, our party was joined by other travellers, and towards evening we found ourselves in force, the effect of an order that pilgrims must not proceed singly upon this road. Coffee-houses and places of refreshment abounding, we halted every five miles to refresh ourselves and the donkeys.[FN#3] At sunset we prayed near a Turkish guard-house, where one of the soldiers kindly supplied me with water for ablution.
Before nightfall I was accosted, in Turkish, by a one-eyed old fellow, who,
with faded brow, Entrenched with many a frown, and conic beard,
and habited in unclean garments, was bestriding a donkey as faded as himself. When I shook my head, he addressed me in Persian. The same manuvre made him try Arabic; still he obtained no answer. Then he grumbled out good Hindustani. That also failing, he tried successively Pushtu, Armenian, English, French, and Italian. At last I could keep a stiff lip no longer; at every change of dialect his emphasis beginning with Then who the d are you? became more emphatic. I turned upon him in Persian, and found that he had been a pilot, a courier, and a servant to Eastern tourists, and that he had visited England, France, and Italy, the Cape, India, Central Asia, and China. We then chatted in English, which Haji Akif spoke well, but with all manner of couriers phrases; Haji Abdullah so badly, that he was counselled a course of study. It was not a little strange to hear such phrases as Come p, Neddy, and Cre nom dun baudet, almost within earshot of the tomb of Ishmael, the birthplace of Mohammed, and the Sanctuary of Al-Islam.
[p.262] About eight P.M. we passed the Alamayn, which define the Sanctuary in this direction. They stand about nine miles from Meccah, and near them are a coffee-house and a little oratory, popularly known as the Sabil Agha Almas. On the road, as night advanced, we met long strings of camels, some carrying litters, others huge beams, and others bales of coffee, grain, and merchandise. Sleep began to weigh heavily upon my companions eye-lids, and the boy Mohammed hung over the flank of his donkey in a most ludicrous position.
About midnight we reached a mass of huts, called Al-Haddah. Ali Bey places it eight leagues from Jeddah. At the Boundary which is considered to be the half-way halting-place, Pilgrims must assume the religious garb,[FN#4] and Infidels travelling to Taif are taken off the Meccan road into one leading Northward to Arafat. The settlement is a collection of huts and hovels, built with sticks and reeds, supporting brushwood and burned and blackened palm leaves. It is maintained for supplying pilgrims with coffee and water. Travellers speak with horror of its heat during the day; Ali Bey, who visited it twice, compares it to a furnace. Here the country slopes gradually towards the sea, the hills draw off, and every object denotes departure from the Meccan plateau. At Al-Haddah we dismounted for an hours halt. A coffee-house supplied us with mats, water-pipes, and other necessaries; we then produced a basket of provisions, the parting gift of the kind Kabirah, and, this late supper concluded, we lay down to doze.
After half an hours halt had expired, and the donkeys were saddled, I shook up with difficulty the boy Mohammed, and induced him to mount. He was, to use his own expression, dead from sleep; and we had
[p.263] scarcely advanced an hour, when, arriving at another little coffee-house, he threw himself upon the ground, and declared it impossible to proceed. This act caused some confusion. The donkey-boy was a pert little Badawi, offensively republican in manner. He had several times addressed me impudently, ordering me not to flog his animal, or to hammer its sides with my heels. On these occasions he received a contemptuous snub, which had the effect of silencing him. But now, thinking we were in his power, he swore that he would lead away the beasts, and leave us behind to be robbed and murdered. A pinch of the windpipe, and a spin over the ground, altered his plans at the outset of execution. He gnawed his hand with impotent rage, and went away, threatening us with the Governor of Jeddah next morning. Then an Egyptian of the party took up the thread of remonstrance; and, aided by the old linguist, who said, in English by G! you must budge, youll catch it here! he assumed a brisk and energetic style, exclaiming, Yallah! rise and mount; thou art only losing our time; thou dost not intend to sleep in the Desert! I replied, O my Uncle, do not exceed in talk!Fuzul (excess) in Arabic is equivalent to telling a man in English not to be impertinentrolled over on the other side heavily, as doth Encelades, and pretended to snore, whilst the cowed Egyptian urged the others to make us move. The question was thus settled by the boy Mohammed who had been aroused by the dispute: Do you know, he whispered, in awful accents, what that person is? and he pointed to me. Why, no, replied the others. Well, said the youth, the other day the Utaybah showed us death in the Zaribah Pass, and what do you think he did? Wallah! what do we know! exclaimed the Egyptian, What did he do? He called forhis dinner, replied the youth, with a slow and
[p.264] sarcastic emphasis. That trait was enough. The others mounted, and left us quietly to sleep.
I have been diffuse in relating this little adventure, which is characteristic, showing what bravado can do in Arabia. It also suggests a lesson, which every traveller in these regions should take well to heart. The people are always ready to terrify him with frightful stories, which are the merest phantoms of cowardice. The reason why the Egyptian displayed so much philanthropy was that, had one of the party been lost, the survivors might have fallen into trouble. But in this place, we were, I believe,despite the declarations of our companions that it was infested with Turpins and Fra Diavolos,as safe as in Meccah. Every night, during the pilgrimage season, a troop of about fifty horsemen patrol the roads; we were all armed to the teeth, and our party looked too formidable to be cruelly beaten by a single footpad. Our nap concluded, we remounted, and resumed the weary way down a sandy valley, in which the poor donkeys sank fetlock-deep. At dawn we found our companions halted, and praying at the Kahwat Turki, another little coffee-house. Here an exchange of what is popularly called chaff took place. Well, cried the Egyptian, what have ye gained by halting? We have been quiet here, praying and smoking for the last hour! Go, eat thy buried beans,[FN#5] we replied. What does an Egyptian boor know of manliness! The surly donkey-boy was worked up into a paroxysm of passion by such small jokes as telling him to convey our salams to the Governor of Jeddah, and by calling the asses after the name of his tribe. He replied by foul, unmannered, scurril taunts, which only drew forth fresh derision, and the coffee-house keeper laughed consumedly,