On Saturday, The 3rd September, The Hateful Signal-Gun Awoke Us At One
A.M. In Arab Travel There Is Nothing More Disagreeable Than The Sariyah
Or Night-March, And Yet The People Are Inexorable About It.
“Choose early
Darkness (daljah) for your Wayfarings,” said the Prophet, “as the
Calamities of the Earth (serpents and wild
Beasts) appear not at Night.”
I can scarcely find words to express the weary horrors of the long dark
march, during which the hapless traveller, fuming, if a European, with
disappointment in his hopes of “seeing the country,”
[p.68] is compelled to sit upon the back of a creeping camel. The
day-sleep, too, is a kind of lethargy, and it is all but impossible to
preserve an appetite during the hours of heat.
At half-past five A.M., after drowsily stumbling through hours of outer
gloom, we entered a spacious basin at least six miles broad, and
limited by a circlet of low hill. It was overgrown with camel-grass and
Acacia (Shittim) trees, mere vegetable mummies; in many places the
water had left a mark; and here and there the ground was pitted with
mud-flakes, the remains of recently dried pools. After an hour’s rapid
march we toiled over a rugged ridge, composed of broken and detached
blocks of basalt and scorić, fantastically piled together, and dotted
with thorny trees. Shaykh Mas’ud passed the time in walking to and fro
along his line of camels, addressing us with a Khallikum guddam, “to the
front (of the litter)!” as we ascended, and a Khallikum wara, “to the rear!”
during the descent. It was wonderful to see the animals stepping from
block to block with the sagacity of mountaineers; assuring themselves
of their forefeet before trusting all their weight to advance. Not a
camel fell, either here or on any other ridge: they moaned, however,
piteously, for the sudden turns of the path puzzled them; the ascents
were painful, the descents were still more so; the rocks were sharp;
deep holes yawned between the blocks, and occasionally an Acacia caught
the Shugduf, almost overthrowing the hapless bearer by the suddenness
and the tenacity of its clutch. This passage took place during
daylight. But we had many at night, which I shall neither forget nor
describe.
Descending the ridge, we entered another hill-encircled basin of gravel
and clay. In many places basalt in piles and crumbling strata of
hornblende schiste, disposed edgeways, green within, and without
blackened by sun and rain, cropped out of the ground. At half-past ten
we
[p.69] found ourselves in an “Acacia-barren,” one of the things which
pilgrims dread. Here Shugdufs are bodily pulled off the camel’s back and
broken upon the hard ground; the animals drop upon their knees, the
whole line is deranged, and every one, losing temper, attacks his
Moslem brother. The road was flanked on the left by an iron wall of
black basalt. Noon brought us to another ridge, whence we descended
into a second wooded basin surrounded by hills.
Here the air was filled with those pillars of sand so graphically
described by Abyssinian Bruce. They scudded on the wings of the
whirlwind over the plain,—huge yellow shafts, with lofty heads,
horizontally bent backwards, in the form of clouds; and on more than
one occasion camels were thrown down by them. It required little
stretch of fancy to enter into the Arabs’ superstition. These
sand-columns are supposed to be Jinnis of the Waste, which cannot be
caught, a notion arising from the fitful movements of the electrical
wind-eddy that raises them, and as they advance, the pious Moslem
stretches out his finger, exclaiming, “Iron! O thou ill-omened one[FN#15]!”
During the forenoon we were troubled by the Samum, which, instead of
promoting perspiration, chokes up and hardens the skin. The Arabs
complain greatly of its violence on this line of road. Here I first
remarked the difficulty with which the Badawin bear thirst. Ya Latif,—“O
Merciful!” (Lord),—they exclaimed at times; and yet they behaved like
men.[FN#16] I had ordered them to place the
[p.70] water-camel in front, so as to exercise due supervision. Shaykh
Mas’ud and his son made only an occasional reference to the skins. But
his nephew, a short, thin, pock-marked lad of eighteen, whose black
skin and woolly head suggested the idea of a semi-African and ignoble
origin, was always drinking; except when he climbed the camel’s back,
and, dozing upon the damp load, forgot his thirst. In vain we ordered,
we taunted, and we abused him: he would drink, he would sleep, but he
would not work.
At one P.M. we crossed a Fiumara; and an hour afterwards we pursued the
course of a second. Mas’ud called this the Wady al-Khunak, and assured me
that it runs from the East and the South-east in a North and North-west
direction, to the Madinah plain. Early in the afternoon we reached a
diminutive flat, on the Fiumara bank. Beyond it lies a Mahjar or stony
ground, black as usual in Al-Hijaz, and over its length lay the road,
white with dust and with the sand deposited by the camels’ feet. Having
arrived before the Pasha, we did not know where to pitch; many opining
that the Caravan would traverse the Mahjar and halt beyond it. We soon
alighted, however, pitched the tent under a burning sun, and were
imitated by the rest of the party. Mas’ud called the place Hijriyah.
According to my computation, it is twenty-five miles from Ghurab, and
its direction is South-East twenty-two degrees.
Late in the afternoon the boy Mohammed started with a dromedary to
procure water from the higher part of the Fiumara. Here are some wells,
still called Bir Harun, after the great Caliph. The youth returned soon
with two bags filled at an expense of nine piastres.
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