"They are now emancipated from the bondage they have so long been held in—I do not mean personal bondage, for perhaps there is less of it in the East than in the West—but their whole moral position has undergone a vast change. The man is now first taught that the woman is his best friend; his firmest, truest companion; his equal in the social scale, as God made her—a help meet for him, not a mere piece of household furniture. The woman is also taught to reverence the man as her head; thus imparting that beautiful lesson, 'He for God only, she for God through him.' She is also taught perhaps a harder lesson, a more painful task—to relinquish all her costly ornaments, when such may be more usefully employed in trade and traffic; to consider necessaries more beautiful than costly clothes or embroidered suits. Gradually she is allowed to unite with the man in prayers, which is permitted by no other sect in the East, women always having a portion of the church set apart for them, and the Moslems praying at different times. May it please Him who gives and dispenses all things, to prosper this and all other good and holy works!... On leaving Aintab, we passed over the hills that environ the town, and entered a pretty valley, through which the Sadschur river accompanies us. Here, at a small village called Naringa, we chose a pretty spot under some trees, and pitched our tents. The horses browsed at our door, the stream jumped by before us as we took our evening's repose. And repose it is to sit thus at the close of a day of travel, to enjoy the view of the lovely regions given man to dwell in; to see the various changes time, circumstances, and religion have wrought in the family of Adam, or, as the Arabs say, in the Beni Adam. It was a lovely evening; and as I reclined apart from my more gregarious fellow-travellers, I felt
'That the night was filled with music,
And the cares that infested the day
Had folded their tents, like the Arab,
And as silently stolen away.'"
From Naringa our route lies eastward over low undulated hills, still marked by frequent tels, generally surmounted by a village. "Are these mounds natural, or does man still fondly cling to the ruined home of his fathers?" Crossing the river Kirsan, we arrive at Nezeeb, lying among vineyards and plantations of figs, pistachios, and olives, interspersed with fields of wheat. At this village the Sultan's forces, 70,000 strong, were defeated by Ibrahim Pasha with 45,000 men—a bootless victory, soon neutralised by a few lines from our "Foreign Office." On the 6th day after leaving Aleppo, we find ourselves on the Euphrates, the Mourad Shai, or "Water of desire."[14]
"In all its majesty, it glides beneath our gaze. It is needless to tell the history of this river, renowned in the earliest traditions. Watering the Paradise of earth, it has been mingled with the fables of heaven; the Lord gave it in his covenants unto Abram; Moses, inspired, preached it in his sermon to the people. In its waters are bound the four angels, and, at the emptying of the sixth vial, its waters will dry up, that the 'way of the kings of the East may be prepared.' In every age it has formed a prominent feature in the diorama of history, flashing with sunshine, or sluggish and turbid with blood; and here, on its bank, its name unchanged, all now is solitude and quiet.
"Descending amidst wide burial-grounds, where here and there a kubbé sheltered some clay more revered than the rest, we reached its shores, and patiently took up our quarters beneath the shade of a tree, till a boat should arrive to carry us over. The redoubt, Fort William, as it was called, of the Euphrates expedition still remains. In ancient times four shallows existed where there were bridges over the Euphrates: the northernmost at Samosata, now unused; Rum Kalaat, further south, being the route frequented; Bir, the khan and eastern bank of which is called Zeugma, or the Bridge, to this day; and the fourth at Thapsacus, the modern Thapsaish, where Cyrus, Alexander, and Crassus passed into Mesopotamia. The Arabs now generally pass here, or else by fords known only to themselves. Julian crossed at a place called Menbidjy, which was probably abreast of Hierapolis.
"But what avails to recount individual cases?—the whole land is history. Near us is Racca, once the favourite residence of Aaron the Just. Here he delighted to spend his leisure—
'Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.'"
We cross the Euphrates to the town of Bir, and proceed still eastward, along a flat desert, strewn with a small-bladed scanty grass, aromatic flowers, and wormwood. "One small gleam, like a polished shield or a dark sward, is all we see of the mighty river that flows around us. Every hour of the day changes the aspect of the desert: now it is wild and gloomy, as scudding clouds pass over the sun; now smiling with maiden sweetness, as the sun shines out again." Often we pass by the tented homes of the desert tribes, with their flocks and herds tended by busy maidens, now screaming wildly after their restless charge—now singing songs as wild, but sweeter far. Then comes sunset with its massed clouds of purple, blue, and gold; the air is full of bleatings as the flocks all tamely follow their shepherds home. On the tenth day after leaving Aleppo, we descend into a plain covered with some dusty olive-trees: we come to a hill with a low wall, and a castle on its summit. "And this is the Ur of the Chaldees, the Edessa of the Romans, the Orfa of the Arabs. Here God spake to Abram." From this city, very fruitful in legends, we reach Haran in six hours; travelling over a plain strewn with tels and encampments of the Koords.
"Perhaps by this very route Abraham of old and those with him travelled; nor is it extravagance to say, the family we now meet may exhibit the exact appearance that the patriarchs did four thousand years ago—the tents and pots piled on the camels; the young children in one saddle-bag balancing the kids in the other; the matron astride on the ass; the maid following modestly behind; the boys now here, now there; the patriarch himself on his useful mare, following and directing the march. As we pass, he lays his hand on his heart, and says, 'Peace be with you; where are you going?—Depart in peace.'"
Haran appears to be, without doubt, the ancient city of Nahor, where Laban lived, and where Jacob served for Leah and Rachel. Here, too, is Rebekah's well, and here our traveller beheld the very counterpart of the scene that Eleazar saw when he sought a bride for his master's son. By this time our author had so far identified himself with the desert tribes, their language, their interests, their enjoyment of the desert life, and their love of horses, that he seems to feel, and almost to speak, in the Arab style. We have never seen that interesting people so happily described and so vividly illustrated. If we had not so much before us still to investigate, we would gladly dwell upon the desert journey from Haran to Tel Bagdad, and on the raft voyage thence down the Tigris to Mosul. One graphic sketch of an Arab sheik must serve for many: his characteristic speech contains volumes of his people's history.
"The young sheik was not, probably, more than seventeen or eighteen years of age; handsome, but with that peculiarly girlish effeminate appearance I have before mentioned as so frequently found among the younger aristocracy of the desert, and so strangely belied by their character and deeds. He now held my horse, and, apologising for his father's temporary absence, welcomed us. The tent was large and well made. We remained here smoking and drinking coffee till the sheik Dahhal arrived. He was fully dressed in silk—a fine figure of a man with light clear eyes. Wounds, received long ago, have incapacitated him from the free use of his hands, but report says he can still grasp the rich dagger at his girdle with a fatal strength when passion urges him. Though every feeling was subdued, there showed through all his mildness the baffled tiger, whose vengeance would be fearful—he resembled a netted animal, vainly with all its cunning seeking to break the meshes that encompassed him on all sides.
"He received us with a hospitality that seemed natural; his words were more sonorous, grand, and flowing than those of any Arab I had before seen. They reminded me of the pleasure I had felt in South America in listening to the language of a true Spaniard, heard amidst the harsh gutturals of a provincial jargon; strings of highflown compliments, uttered with an open, noble mien, that, while it must please those to whom it is used, seems but a worthy condescension in him.
'He was a man of war and woes;
Yet on his lineaments ye cannot trace,
While gentleness her milder radiance throws
Along that aged venerable face,
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.'"If report speaks true, never did there breathe a truer son of Hagar than Sheik Dahhal. During his whole life his hand has been against every man, and every man's against him. Gaining his social position with his dagger, he openly endeavoured to enlarge it by every exercise of force or fraud. The whole frontier of Mardin, Nisibis, Mosul, Bagdad, &c., are his deadly enemies, made so by his acts. It must be sad in declining years to see the wreck of a youth thus spent; already the punishment and repayment are hard at hand.
"Successful violence brings temporary rewards—power, rule, dominion; but for this he has bartered honour, fame, youth, conscience: every stake, every ruse, has been used, and he gains but defeat, disgrace, and contempt. It must be hard, very hard, for the proud man to live on thus. I pitied him, and could feel for him as he fondled his young son, a lovely little naked savage, who lay crouching at his side. He had two or three other children, all strikingly handsome....
"We were ultimately obliged to refuse his escort. 'It is well,' said he, 'whether you go or stay, all Dahhal has, all his enemies have left him, is yours.' We asked him if he saw any change in the Arab since he remembered: he looked quietly round at his tents, at his camels now crowded round them, the flocks lowing to their homes; his dress, his arms, and then said, 'No: since the time of the Prophets—since time was, we are unchanged; perhaps poorer, perhaps less hospitable in consequence; but otherwise unchanged.' He made a very just remark afterwards: 'Our habits are the only ones adapted to the country we live in; they cannot change unless we change our country: no other life can be lived here.'"
Our travellers, sending their horses and servants along the banks of the Tigris, themselves embarked on board a raft composed of inflated skins; and their voyage, after many incidents, terminated in the following scene:—
"At last the pious true-believing eye of the boatman detected the minarets of Mosul over the low land on the right. On our left was a large temporary village, built of dried grass, roughly and coarsely framed; low peaked mountains ahead broke the steel line of the sky. No sooner did our boatman detect the minarets, than he continued his prayers, confiding the oars to one of the servants. Poor fellow! it was sad work; for the raft, as if in revenge for the way he had pulled her about, kept pertinaciously turning, and as it bore his Mecca—turned front to the north, east, or west—he had to stop his pious invocations, that otherwise would have been wafted to some useless bourne; and then, as in the swing she turned him to the black stone, he had to hurry on, like sportsmen anxious for some passing game. Often he rose, but seemed not satisfied, and again he knelt, and bowing prayed his Caaba-directing prayers. This man had not prayed before during the voyage.
"At last, over the land appeared a mud fort hardly distinguishable from the hill; before it a white-washed dome, a few straggling buildings—it was Mosul. Presently an angle is turned, and the broken ruinous wall of an Eastern town lies before us."
Mosul is only sixteen days' journey from Aleppo. Although now invested with a lasting interest by its connection with Mr Layard's magnificent discoveries, it is one of the least attractive cities of the East. Its neighbourhood, with the grand exception of buried Nineveh, and some curious naphtha springs, is equally devoid of interest. The huge mound called Koyunjik, "coverer of cities," lies on the opposite side of the Tigris, about two miles from the river. Tel Nimroud, where the first successful excavations were made, is about eighteen miles lower down. It will be remembered that Mr Rich, a merchant of Bagdad, first directed attention to these subterranean treasures nearly twenty years ago: M. Botta, more recently, made some energetic attempts to discover them; but it remained for our gallant countryman, Mr Layard, to render his name illustrious by unveiling the mysteries of ages, and restoring to light the wonders of the ancient capital of the Assyrians. His renown, and still more his success itself, must be its own reward; but we fear that in all other respects the nation is still deeply in his debt. The capricious liberalities of our Government with respect to art are very singular; the financial dispositions of the British Museum are still more difficult to explain. The former does not hesitate to bestow £2500 on transporting a pillar from the sea-shore of Egypt to London, while it only places at Mr Layard's disposal £3000 for the excavation of Nineveh and its surrounding suburbs, eighteen miles in extent—together with the support and pay of a numerous staff of artists and others during eighteen months. On the other hand, the trustees of the British Museum, knowing themselves already to be deeply in Mr Layard's debt, refuse to further his great efforts, except by the paltry (and refused) pittance of £12 a-month; and, at the same time, they furnish Colonel Rawlinson with the sum of £2000 to proceed with excavations at Koyunjik, (three hundred miles from his residence,) and at Susa, which is one-third of the distance. In the approaching session of Parliament, we hope that Mr Layard's services to England and to art will be more generously appreciated than they have hitherto been; and that, at all events, we shall not be left to labour under the disgrace of pecuniary debt to that enterprising gentleman.