My Night Was Spent Perched Upon The Front Bar Of My Shugduf, Encouraging The Dromedary; And That We Had Not One Fall Excited My Extreme Astonishment.

At five A.M. (Thursday, 8th September) we entered a wide plain thickly clothed with the usual thorny trees, in whose strong grasp many a Shugduf lost its covering, and not a few were dragged with their screaming inmates to the ground.

About five hours afterwards we crossed a high ridge, and saw below us the camp of the Caravan, not more than two miles distant. As we approached it, a figure came running out to meet us. It was the boy Mohammed, who, heartily tired of riding a dromedary with his friend, and possibly hungry, hastened to inform my companion Abdullah that he would lead him to his Shugduf and to his son. The Shaykh, a little offended by the fact that for two days not a friend nor an acquaintance had taken the trouble to see or to inquire about him, received Mohammed roughly; but the youth, guessing the grievance, explained it away by swearing that he and all the party had tried in vain to find us. This wore the semblance of truth: it is almost impossible to come upon any one who strays from his place in so large and motley a body.

[p.136]At eleven A.M. we had reached our station. It is about wenty-four miles from Al-Ghadir, and its direction is South-east ten degrees. It is called Al-Birkat (the Tank), from a large and now ruinous cistern built of hewn stone by the Caliph Harun.[FN#11] The land belongs to the Utaybah Badawin, the bravest and most ferocious tribe in Al-Hijaz; and the citizens denote their dread of these banditti by asserting that to increase their courage they drink their enemy’s blood.[FN#12] My companions shook their heads when questioned upon the subject, and prayed that we might not become too well acquainted with them—an ill-omened speech!

The Pasha allowed us a rest of five hours at Al-Birkat: we spent them in my tent, which was crowded with Shaykh Abdullah’s friends. To requite me for this inconvenience, he prepared for me an excellent water-pipe, a cup of coffee, which, untainted by cloves and by cinnamon, would have been delicious, and a dish of dry fruits. As we were now near the Holy City, all the Meccans were busy canvassing for lodgers and offering their services to pilgrims. Quarrels, too, were of hourly occurrence. In our party was an Arnaut, a white-bearded old man, so

[p.137] decrepit that he could scarcely stand, and yet so violent that no one could manage him but his African slave, a brazen-faced little wretch about fourteen years of age. Words were bandied between this angry senior and Shaykh Mas’ud, when the latter insinuated sarcastically, that if the former had teeth he would be more intelligible. The Arnaut in his rage seized a pole, raised it, and delivered a blow which missed the camel-man, but, which brought the striker headlong to the ground. Mas’ud exclaimed, with shrieks of rage, “Have we come to this, that every old-woman Turk smites us?” Our party had the greatest trouble to quiet the quarrel[l]ers. The Arab listened to us when we threatened him with the Pasha. But the Arnaut, whose rage was “like red-hot steel,” would hear nothing but our repeated declarations, that unless he behaved more like a pilgrim, we should be compelled to leave him and his slave behind.

At four P.M. we left Al-Birkat, and travelled Eastwards over rolling ground thickly wooded. There was a network of footpaths through the thickets, and clouds obscured the moon; the consequence was inevitable loss of way. About 2 A.M. we began ascending hills in a south-westerly direction, and presently we fell into the bed of a large rock-girt Fiumara, which runs from east to west. The sands were overgrown with saline and salsolaceous plants; the Coloquintida, which, having no support, spreads along the ground[FN#13]; the Senna, with its small green leaf; the Rhazya stricta[FN#14]; and a large luxuriant variety of the Asclepias gigantea,[FN#15] cottoned over with

[p.138] mist and dew. At 6 A.M. (Sept. 9th) we left the Fiumara, and, turning to the West, we arrived about an hour afterwards at the station. Al-Zaribah, “the valley,” is an undulating plain amongst high granite hills. In many parts it was faintly green; water was close to the surface, and rain stood upon the ground. During the night we had travelled about twenty-three miles, and our present station was south-east 56° from our last.

Having pitched the tent and eaten and slept, we prepared to perform the ceremony of Al-Ihram (assuming the pilgrim-garb), as Al-Zaribah is the Mikat, or the appointed place.[FN#16] Between the noonday and the afternoon prayers a barber attended to shave our heads, cut our nails, and trim our mustachios. Then, having bathed and perfumed ourselves,—the latter is a questionable

[p.139] point,—we donned the attire, which is nothing but two new cotton cloths, each six feet long by three and a half broad, white, with narrow red stripes and fringes: in fact, the costume called Al-Eddeh, in the baths at Cairo.[FN#17] One of these sheets, technically termed the Rida, is thrown over the back, and, exposing the arm and shoulder, is knotted at the right side in the style Wishah. The Izar is wrapped round the loins from waist to knee, and, knotted or tucked in at the middle, supports itself. Our heads were bare, and nothing was allowed upon the instep.[FN#18] It is said that some clans of Arabs still preserve this religious but most uncomfortable costume; it is doubtless of ancient date, and to this day, in the regions lying west of the Red Sea, it continues to be the common dress of the people.

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