PLATE VI. TEBBES.
The tree in the foreground is a huge tamarisk.
A lofty minaret rises above the little town, which is surrounded by a wall (Plate VI.). Within are old buildings, mosques, and a fort with towers. Outside the town are tilled fields and palm groves.
Spring had come when we pitched our tents on a meadow in the shade of thick dark-green palms. There was a rustle and pleasant whisper among the hard fronds when the spring storms swept over the country. We were tired of the everlasting dull yellow tint of the desert and were delighted with the fresh verdure. Outside my tent purled a brook of fine cool water, all the more agreeable after the intense drought of the desert. A nightingale sang in the crown of the palm above my tent. He plays an important part in Persian poetry under the name of bulbul.
If you were in some mysterious manner transferred to Tebbes, you would on the very first evening wonder what was the curious serenade which you heard from the desert. If you sat at the fall of day reading at the door of your tent, you would look up from your book and listen. You would have an uneasy feeling and be uncomfortable at being alone in the tent. But after the same serenade had been repeated every evening as regular as the sunset, you would become accustomed to it, and at length trouble yourself no more about it.
It is only the jackals singing their evening song. The word "jackal" is Persian, and the jackal is allied to the dog, the wolf, and the fox. He is a beast of prey and seeks his food at night. He is not large, is yellowish-grey in colour, has pointed ears and small, keen eyes, and holds his tail erect, not hanging down like the wolf's. Nothing edible comes amiss to him, but he prefers chickens and grapes to fallen caravan animals. If he can find nothing else, he steals dates in the palm gardens, especially when ripe fruits have fallen after heavy storms. The jackal is, indeed, a shameless, impudent little rascal. One night a pack of jackals sneaked into our garden and carried off our only cock under the very noses of the dogs. We were awakened by the noise of a terrible struggle between the two forces, but the jackals got the better of it and we heard the despairing cackle of the cock dying away in the desert.
Heaven knows where the jackals remain as long as the sun is up! In zoological text-books it is stated that they dwell in holes, but I could see no holes round Tebbes, and yet jackals come in troops to the oasis every night. They are as mysterious as the desert; they are found everywhere and nowhere.
As soon as the sun sinks below the horizon and the darkness spreads its veil over the silent desert, and the palms doze off, waiting for the return of the sun, then begins the jackals' serenade. It sounds like a short, sharp laugh rising and falling, a plaintive whine increasing in strength and dying away again, answered by another pack in another direction; a united cry of anguish from children in trouble and calling for help. They say to one another, "Comrades, we are hungry, let us seek about for food," and gather together from their unknown lairs. Then they steal cautiously to the skirts of the oasis, hop over walls and bars and thieve on forbidden ground.
These insignificant noisy footpads live on the refuse and offal of the desert from Cape Verde in the uttermost west of the Old World to the interior of India; but their home is not in the silent desert alone. When the military bands strike up at the clubs in Simla, you have only to put your head out of the window to hear the mournful, piteous, and distressed howl of the jackals.
They are not always to be treated lightly, for in 1882 jackals killed 359 men in Bengal alone. Especially are they a terrible danger when hydrophobia rages among them, as the experiences of the last Boundary Commission in Seistan showed. A mad jackal sneaked into the camp one night and bit a sleeping man in the face. Within six weeks the man was dead. Others stole into the natives' huts and lay in ambush, waiting for an opportunity to bite. Perhaps the worst incident occurred on a dark winter's night, when a north wind was raging and sweeping the dust along the ground. A mad jackal came into the Englishmen's camp and crept into a tent where several men were sleeping. Fortunately he only set his teeth in a felt rug. This wakened the sleepers, however, and they at once started up and looked for weapons. The camp consisted of three sections, and more than a hundred tethered camels. In the pitchy darkness it was impossible to see where the jackal went, but the camels could be heard shrieking with fear, and thus it was only too clear where the brute was. When day broke seventy-eight bitten dromedaries were counted. They were isolated from the others, and killed as soon as they showed signs of sickness, while the dogs and goats which had been bitten by the jackal were shot at once.