Arabian Sands (10 page)

In Darfur I had fed my camels on grain and had trotted them. A good camel travelling at about five or six miles an hour is very comfortable, but when walking even the best throw a continuous and severe strain on the rider’s back. In southern Arabia the Bedu never trot when they are on a journey, for their camels eat only what they can find, which is generally very little, and have to travel long distances between wells. I had already learnt on the journeys to Bir Natrun and to Tibesti not to press a camel beyond its normal walking pace when travelling in the desert. I was soon to discover how considerate the Bedu were of their camels, always ready to suffer hardship themselves in order to spare their animals. Several times while travelling with them and approaching a well, I have expected them to push on and fill the water-skins, as our water was finished, but they have insisted on halting for the night short of the well, saying that farther on there was no grazing.

Whenever we passed any bushes we let our camels dawdle to strip mouthfuls of leaves and thorns, and whenever we came to richer grazing we halted to let them graze at will. I was making a time-and-compass traverse of our route and these constant halts were frustrating, making it difficult to estimate the distance which we had covered. On good going, where there was no feeding to delay us, we averaged three miles an hour, but in the Sands, where the dunes were steep and difficult, we might only do one mile an hour.

It often seemed incredible to me, especially when I was on foot and conscious of the steps I was taking, that we could cover such enormous distances going at this pace. Sometimes I counted my footsteps to a bush or to some other mark, and this number seemed but a trifle deducted from the sum that lay ahead of us. Yet I had no desire to travel faster. In this way there was time to notice things – a grasshopper under a bush, a dead swallow on the ground, the tracks of a hare, a bird’s nest, the shape and colour of ripples on the sand, the bloom of tiny seedlings pushing through the soil. There was time to collect a plant or to look at a rock. The very slowness of our march diminished its monotony. I thought how terribly boring it would be to rush about this country in a car.

We drifted along, our movements governed by an indefinable common consent. There was seldom much discussion; we either halted or we went on. Sometimes we would start in the morning, expecting to do a long march, come unexpectedly on grazing soon after we had started, and halt for the day. At other times we planned to stop somewhere, but finding when we got to our destination that there was no grazing, we would push on without a halt till dark or even later. If we stopped in the middle of the day we would hurriedly unload the camels, hobble them, and turn them loose to graze. Then we might cook bread or porridge, but more often we ate dates. Always we drank coffee, which my companions craved for as a drug. Some of them smoked, and this was their only other indulgence. No one ever smoked without sharing his pipe with the others; they would squat round while one sifted a few grains of tobacco from the dust in the bottom of a small leather bag which he carried inside his shirt next to his skin. He would stuff this tobacco into a small stemless pipe cut out of soft stone, or into an old cartridge case open at both ends, light it with a flint and steel, take two or three deep puffs and hand it to the next person. If we were travelling when they wished to smoke, they stopped, got off, squatted down, smoked, and then climbed back into their saddles.

We always camped crowded together. All around us was endless space, and yet in our camps there was scarcely room to move, especially when the camels had been brought in for the
night and couched around the fires. When we started on this journey we had divided ourselves into messes of five or six people, who each carried their own food. I fed with old Tamtaim, Sultan, and three others. One was Mabkhaut, a slightly built man of middle age; he was good-humoured and considerate, but he seldom spoke, which was unusual among these garrulous Bedu. Another was Musallim bin Tafl, who had been pointed out to me by the Wali as a skilful hunter. He was avaricious even by Bedu standards, quick-witted and hardworking. He was often in Salala, hanging about the palace, and had had in consequence the unusual experience of some contact with the outside world. He volunteered to do the cooking for our party.

When we had enough water he would cook rice, but generally he made bread for our evening meal. He would scoop out three or four pounds of flour from one of the goatskin bags in which we carried our supplies, and would then damp this, add a little salt and mix it into a thick paste. He would divide the dough into six equal-sized lumps, pat each lump between his hands until it had become a disc about half an inch thick, and would then put it down on a rug while he shaped the others. Someone else would have lighted the fire, sometimes with matches but generally with flint and steel. There was plenty of flint in the desert and the blade of a dagger to use as steel. They would tear small strips off their shirts or head-cloths for tinder, with the result that each day their clothes became more tattered in appearance. Musallim would rake some embers out of the fire to make a glowing bed, and then drop the cakes of dough on to it. The heat having sealed the outside of the cakes, he would turn them over almost immediately, and then, scooping a hollow in the sand under the embers, would bury them and spread the hot sand and embers over them. I would watch bubbles breaking through this layer of sand and ashes as the bread cooked. Later he would uncover the cakes, brush off the sand and ashes and put them aside to cool. When we wished to feed he would give one to each of us, and we would sit in a circle and, in turn, dip pieces of this bread into a small bowl containing melted butter, or soup if we happened to have anything from which to make it. The bread was brick hard or
soggy, according to how long it had been cooked, and always tasted as if it had been made from sawdust. Sometimes Musallim shot a gazelle or an oryx, and only then did we feed well. After we had eaten we would sit round the fire and talk. Bedu always shout at each other, even if they are only a few feet apart. Everyone could therefore hear what was being said by everyone else in the camp, and anyone who was interested in a conversation round another fire could join in from where he was sitting.

Soon after dinner I would spread out my rug and sheepskin and, putting my dagger and cartridge belt under the saddlebags which I used as a pillow, lie down beneath three blankets with my rifle beside me. While I was among the Arabs I was anxious to behave as they did, so that they would accept me to some extent as one of themselves. I had therefore to sit as they did, and I found this very trying, for my muscles were not accustomed to this position. I was glad when it was night and I could lie down and be at ease. I had sat on the ground before, but then I had been travelling with men whom I knew well, and with them I could relax and lie about. Now I would get off my camel after a long march and have to sit formally as Arabs sit. It took me a long time to get used to this. For the same reason I went barefooted as they did, and at first this was torture. Eventually the soles of my feet became hardened, but even after five years they were soft compared with theirs.

It hardly occurred to the Bedu that there could be other ways of doing things than those to which they were accustomed. When they fetched me from the R.A.F. camp at Salala they had seen an airman urinating. Next day they asked me what physical deformity he suffered from which prevented him from squatting as they did. In the mountains it was easy to go behind a rock to relieve myself. Later, on the open plains, I walked off to a distance and squatted as they did, with my cloak over my head to form a tent. Except when we were at a well, we used sand to scrub our hands after we had fed, and to clean ourselves after we had defecated. Bedu are always careful not to relieve themselves near a path. In the trackless sands Arabs who stopped behind to urinate turned instinctively aside from the tracks which we ourselves had made before they squatted.

Muslims are usually very prudish and careful to avoid exposing themselves. My companions always kept their loincloths on even when they washed at the wells. At first I found it difficult to wear a loin-cloth with decency when sitting on the ground. Bedu say to anyone whose parts are showing, ‘Your nose!’ I had this said to me once or twice before I learnt to be more careful. The first time I wiped my nose thinking that there was a drip on the end of it, for the weather was very cold.

At first I found living with the Bedu very trying, and during the years that I was with them I always found the mental strain greater than the physical. It was as difficult for me to adapt myself to their way of life, and especially to their outlook, as it was for them to accept what they regarded as my eccentricities. I had been used to privacy, and here I had none. If I wanted to talk privately to someone it was difficult. Even if we went a little apart, others would be intrigued and immediately come to find out what we were talking about and join in the conversation. Every word I said was overheard, and every move I made was watched. At first I felt very isolated among them. I knew they thought that I had unlimited money, and I suspected that they were trying to exploit me. I was exasperated by their avarice, and wearied by their importunities. Whenever during these early days one of them approached me, I thought, ‘Now what is
he
going to ask for?’ and I would be irritated by the childish flattery with which they invariably prefaced their requests. I had yet to learn that no Bedu thinks it shameful to beg, and that often he will look at the gift which he has received and say, ‘Is this all that you are going to give me?’ I was seeing the worst side of their character, and was disillusioned and resentful, and irritated by their assumption of superiority. In consequence I was assertive and unreasonable.

Some rain had fallen three months earlier on the northern slopes of the Qarra mountains, and there was a little green grazing in some of the valley-bottoms where freshets had run down. The Bedu were loath to leave this grazing and push on into the empty wastes which they knew lay ahead. They dawdled along doing one hour’s marching one day, and perhaps two the next, while my exasperation mounted. Whenever we came to a patch of grazing they vowed that it was the last
and insisted on stopping; and then next day wewould find more grazing and stop again. Anyway, most of this grazing did not seem to me to be worth stopping for. Usually it was only a few green shrubs. I did not yet realize how rare any fresh vegetation was in this desert. I still thought in terms of so many marching hours a day, which had been easy to do in the Sudan where we hand-fed our camels. I fretted at the constant delays, counting the wasted days instead of revelling in this leisurely travel. Unfairly, I suspected that the Arabs were trying to lengthen our journey in order to collect more money from me. When in the evenings I would protest and insist that we must do proper marches, Sultan and the others would add to my exasperation by saying that I knew nothing about camels, which was true. I would, however, explain indignantly what a lot of experience I had had with them in the Sudan. I found it difficult to understand what they were saying and this added to my frustration.

Bedu, attracted from afar by the fresh grazing, were herding camels and goats in the valleys through which we passed. They were hungry, as Bedu always are, and they collected each evening in our camp to feed at our expense. Everyone had heard that the Christian had great quantities of food with him. These unwanted guests never waited for an invitation before sitting down with us to feed. They just joined us and shared whatever we had for as long as they were with us. Many of them followed us, turning up evening after evening. My companions accepted their presence with equanimity, since they would have done the same; and, anyway, no Bedu will turn a guest away unfed. But I was irritated by their assumption that we should feed them, and disturbed by their numbers. I realized that we had not brought enough food with us and that we were going to be short before we returned to Salala. In my more bitter moments I thought that Bedu life was one long round of cadging and being cadged from.

It was three months before I returned to Salala. They were hard months of constant travel during which I learnt to admire my companions and to appreciate their skill. I soon found these tribesmen far easier to consort with than more progressive
town Arabs who, after discarding their own customs and traditions, have adopted something of our ways. I myself infinitely preferred the Bedu’s arrogant self-assurance to the Effendi’s easily wounded susceptibilities. I was beginning to see the desert as the Bedu saw it, and to judge men as they judged them. I had come here looking for more than locusts, and was finding the life for which I sought.

Two memories in particular remain with me of this journey. I had turned aside into the sands of Ghanim with a dozen Arabs, while the others went on to Mughshin. It was eight days since we had left the well at Shisur and our water had been finished for twenty-four hours. We were near Bir Halu, or ‘the sweet well’, when we came on clumps of yellow-flowering tribulus, growing where a shower had fallen a few months before. We grazed our camels for a while, and I then suggested going on to the well, for I was thirsty. Eventually Tamtaim, Sultan, and Musallim came on with me; the others said they would join us later after feeding their camels. We arrived at the well, unsaddled our camels, watered them, and then sat down near the well. No one had yet drunk. I was anxious not to appear impatient, but eventually I suggested we should do so. Sultan handed me a bowl of water. I offered it to old Tamtaim, but he told me to drink, saying that he would wait till the others came, adding that as they were his travelling companions it would be unseemly for him to drink till they arrived. I had already learnt that Bedu will never take advantage over a companion by feeding while he is absent, but this restraint seemed to me exaggerated. The others did not arrive until five hours later, by which time I was thoroughly exasperated and very thirsty. Though the water looked deliciously cold and clear, it tasted like a strong dose of Epsom salts; I took a long draught and involuntarily spat it out. It was my first experience of water in the Sands.