Whatever our interpretation, this is no “traveller’s tale” of Varthema’s making. His painstaking veracity, except in the “practical politics” of life, has been confirmed a hundred times over. Later on in his book, we come across a description of the structure and habits of the elephant which is a triumph of sharp prose-vision and detailed matter of fact. One cannot doubt that he saw a beast at Mecca which resembled, not remotely, the Unicorn supporter of our Royal Coat of Arms. It is remarkable that Pliny describes a similar animal, and that Ctesias, Aristotle and Strabo speak of the Unicorn. The name occurs nine times in the Bible; but it is commonly supposed to refer to the Rhinoceros. Varthema’s strange beast was a very different animal, apparently resembling the horse-like creature with a solitary central horn which Niebuhr found repeatedly sculptured on the ruins of Persepolis. Similar beasts have been reported from Abyssinia and Cape Colony; and at one time the unicorn was believed in India to inhabit that refuge of the rare, inaccessible Thibet. Yet a generation that is still with us regarded the gorillas and pygmy men of Hanno as Carthaginian fables, until Du Chaillu brought back carcasses of the one and Stanley gave authentic word of the other. But scientists leave us no hope that some happy traveller shall come across a unicorn dead or alive. For the stumpy protuberance of the rhinoceros is an epidermal tissue, and the true bony horns of the deer tribe are developments which grow from, or correspond to, two frontal bones; and it would be impossible for a bony outgrowth to proceed from the mesian line. Varthema’s statement must be deemed by all who know anything of comparative anatomy to be incorrect. The great Owen thought that one of the two horns of the animal must have been broken off or remained undeveloped. Mr. Dollman, of South Kensington Museum, whose opinion the author sought through the kind agency of Mr. S. le Marchant Moore, thinks the creature was an onyx, with one of its horns suppressed and both gentlemen suggest “that Varthema saw the creature in profile, and having ascertained as well as he could under the circumstances, the existence of one horn, did not trouble himself much further about it: possibly the horn might have become more or less incurved.” We must leave the question there, until someone shall give us ocular evidence that Varthema made not the slightest blunder: truly his “horn shall be exalted!”
Varthema had now been signally successful in gratifying the passion to penetrate unknown and mysterious regions which Spanish and Portuguese discovery had aroused in him. So far as is known, he was the first European Christian to reach the holy cities of Arabia; and since his day no traveller ventured on the long and perilous route which he took. At least six Europeans managed to visit Mecca in the last century; but they all took the short route from the Red Sea.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ESCAPE FROM THE CARAVAN
And now, in the spirit of Alexander sighing for new worlds to conquer, he looked forward with dismay to the return-journey of the caravan. A perilous surprise awaited him which, with wonted adroitness, he turned to his purpose. “Having charge from my Captain to buy certain things, a Moor looked me in the face, knew me and asked me ‘Where are you from?’ I answered: ‘I am a Moslem.’ His reply was: ‘You lie.’ ‘By the head of the Prophet,’ I said, ‘I am a Moslem’; whereto he answered: ‘Come to my house’; and I followed him thither. Then he spake to me in Italian, telling me whence I had come that he knew me to be no Moslem; and that he had been in Genoa and Venice; whereof he gave me proof. When I understood this, I told him that I was a Roman, and had become a Mameluke at Cairo (!) Whereat he rejoiced greatly, and treated me with much honour.” Varthema now began to ask questions of his host; craftily affecting ignorance of recent events and pretending to be very hostile to Christians and greatly indignant at hearing of the appearance of the Portuguese in Eastern Seas. “At this, he showed me yet greater honour, and told me everything, point by point. So, when I was well instructed, I said to him: ‘O friend, I beseech you in the name of the Prophet to tell me of some way to escape from the Caravan; for I would go to those who are the Christians’ bitterest foes. Take my word that, if they knew what I can do, they would search me out, even as far as Mecca.’ Then he: ‘By the faith of our Prophet, tell me, what can you do?’ I replied that I was the most skilful artificer in large mortars in the world. Hearing this, he exclaimed: ‘Mohammed be praised for ever, who has sent such an one to the Moslem and God.’” Whereupon, a bargain was struck. The Moor was ready to hide Varthema in his house, if Varthema could induce the Captain of the Caravan to pass fifteen camels, laden with spices, duty free. Varthema was so confident of having thoroughly ingratiated himself with the Captain that he was ready to negotiate for the free passage of a hundred camels, if the Moor owned so many. “And, when he heard this, he was greatly pleased,” and gave full information as to how to get to India. There was no difficulty about bribing the Captain; and the day before the departure of the caravan, Varthema stole to the Moor’s house and lay there in concealment.
Next morning, two hours before daybreak, bands of men, as was the usage, went through the city, sounding trumpets and other instruments, and proclaiming death to all Mamelukes who should not mount for the journey to Syria. “At this,” says Varthema, “my breast was mightily troubled, and I pleaded with tears to the merchant’s wife, and I besought God to save me.” Soon he had the relief of knowing that the caravan was gone, and the Moorish merchant with it. He had left instructions with his wife to send Varthema on to Jidda, on the Red Sea, with the caravan returning to India. It was to start later than the Syrian caravan. Varthema was a man of winning ways, and he found no difficulty in fascinating man or woman. He was far from being as vain as, say, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, but, like that ingenuous gentleman, he does not neglect to inform us when he has pleased the fair. “I cannot tell how much kindness I received from this lady, and, in particular, from her niece of fifteen years. They promised to make me rich if I would stay on. But I declined their offer by reason of the pressing peril. I set out at noontide of the following day, with the caravan, to the no small sorrow of these ladies, who made much lament.”
In due time the caravan arrived at Jidda, which was then a very important mart and harbour. Varthema immediately made for a mosque, with thousands of indigent pilgrims, and stayed there a whole fortnight.
“All day long, I lay on the ground, covered up in my garments, and groaning as if I suffered great pain in my bowels and body. The merchants would ask: ‘Who is that, groaning so?’ Whereto the poor people about me would reply: ‘He is a poor Moslem who is dying.’ But when night came I would leave the mosque to buy food. Judge of what my appetite became when I could only get food (and that bad) once a day.”
When the caravan had left the port, he contrived to see the master of a ship bound for Persia who agreed to take him as a passenger; and on the seventeenth day of hiding at Jidda, the ship put forth on the Red Sea. To a true Moslem, the whole Eastern world as far as China was barely more perilous than the Mediterranean was to a Christian. Those were days when the seas teemed with pirates; but, on land, property was better safeguarded by the despotic rulers of Asia than it was in Europe. But the line between Eastern and Western traffic was rigidly drawn at certain marts of exchange. Such were Aleppo and Beyrout for commodities forwarded by way of the Persian Gulf; and still more important were Cairo and Alexandria, the marts of Mediterranean and Red Sea commerce. The Eastern trade was mainly in the hands of Arabs; but it was pursued by certain Greeks, Albanians and Circassians also, who, or their forefathers, had renounced Christianity for gain; and these were not few. Jidda and other ports of the Red Sea, as well as those of Somaliland, were crowded with ships, great and small, bearing spices, drugs, dyes and other Eastern goods for the markets of Western Asia and Europe. The Arabian coast of the Red Sea was hugged, and often, for days together, no progress could be made at night; for the multitude of rocks and sunken reefs rendered navigation perilous enough, even by day, and a look-out was always kept at the mast-head.