THE FIGHT ON THE SILK EL ZAHAB.
At last, after slowly working up a narrow creek leading to the Yambu harbour, on July 17th we sprang into a shore-boat, and felt new life when bidding eternal adieu and “sweet bad luck” to the Golden Thread, which seemed determined to wreck itself about once per diem.
Yambu, the port of El Medinah, lies S.S.W. of, and a little over a hundred and thirty miles from, its city. The road was infamous—rocky, often waterless, alternately fiery and freezing, and infested with the Beni Harb, a villainous tribe of hill Bedouins. Their chief was one Saad, a brigand of the first water. He was described as a little brown man, contemptible in appearance but remarkable for courage and for a ready wit, which saved him from the poison and pistol of his enemies. Some called him the friend of the poor, and all knew him to be the foe of the rich.
There was nothing to see at Yambu, where, however, we enjoyed the hammam and the drinking-water, which appeared deliciously sweet after the briny supplies of Suez. By dint of abundant bargaining we hired camels at the moderate rate of three dollars each—half in ready money, the rest to be paid after arrival. I also bought a shugduf, or rude litter carrying two, and I chose the boy Mohammed as my companion. The journey is usually done in five days. We took eight, and we considered ourselves lucky fellows.
On the evening of the next day (July 18th) we set out with all the gravity of men putting our heads
into the lion’s jaws. The moon rose fair and clear as we emerged from the shadowy streets. When we launched into the desert, the sweet, crisp air delightfully contrasted with the close, offensive atmosphere of the town.
My companions all, as Arabs will do on such occasions, forgot to think of their precious boxes full of the plunder of Constantinople, and began to sing. We travelled till three o’clock in the morning (these people insist upon setting out in the afternoon and passing the night in travelling). And the Prophet informs us that the “calamities of earth,” meaning scorpions, serpents, and wild beasts, are least dangerous during the dark hours.
After a pleasant sleep in the wilderness, we joined for the next day’s march a caravan of grain carriers, about two hundred camels escorted by seven Turkish Bashi Buzuk, or Irregular Cavalry. They confirmed the report that the Bedouins were “out,” and declared that Saad, the Old Man of the Mountain, had threatened to cut every throat venturing into his passes. That night the robbers gave us a mild taste of their quality, but soon ran away. The third march lay over an iron land and under a sky of brass to a long straggling village called, from its ruddy look, El Hamra (the Red); it is the middle station between Yambu and El Medinah. The fourth stage placed us on the Sultan’s high-road leading from Meccah to the Prophet’s burial-place, and we joined a company of pious persons bound on visitation.
The Bedouins, hearing that we had an escort of two hundred troopers, manned a gorge and would not let us advance till the armed men retired. The fifth and sixth days were forced halts at a vile place called Bir Abbas, where we could hear the distant dropping of the musketry, a sign that the troops and the hill-men were settling some little dispute. Again my companions were in cold perspirations about their treasures, and passed the most of their time in sulking and quarrelling.
About sunset on July 23rd, three or four caravans assembled at Bir Abbas, forming one large body for better defence against the dreaded Bedouins. We set out at 11 p.m., travelling without halting through the night, and at early dawn we found ourselves in an ill-famed narrow known as Shuab El Haji, or the Pilgrim’s Pass. The boldest looked apprehensive as we approached it. Presently, from the precipitous cliff on our left, thin puffs of blue smoke rose in the sultry morning air, and afterwards the sharp cracks of the hill-men’s matchlocks were echoed by the rocks on the right. A number of Bedouins could be seen swarming like hornets up the steeper slopes, carrying huge weapons and “spoiling for a fight.” They took up comfortable positions on the cut-throat [embankment] and began practising upon us from behind their breastworks of piled stones with perfect convenience to themselves. We had nothing to do but to blaze away as much powder and to veil ourselves in as dense a smoke as possible. The result was that we lost