The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places (23 page)

In nomad ears this word, Aarab, signifies “the people”. Beduin passengers when they meet with herdsmen in the desert enquire,
Fen el-Aarab?
“where is the folk?” Of
the multitude of nomad tribes east and west, they say in plural wise,
el-Arbân.
This other word, Beduin, received into all our languages, is in the Arabian speech Bedùwy, that
is to say inhabitant of the waste,
(bâdia,)
in the plural
Bedaùwy (aù
dipth.), but commonly
él-Bèduw.
As we sit, the little cup, of a few
black drops, is served twice round. When they have swallowed those boiling sips of coffee-water, and any little news has been related among them, the men rise one after other to go home over the
hot sand: all are barefoot, and very rarely any of those Aarab has a pair of sandals. So every one is come again to his own, they say the midday prayers; and when they have breakfasted, they will
mostly slumber out the sultry midday hours in their housewife’s closed apartment. I have asked an honest wife, “How may your lubbers slug out these long days till evening?” and
she answered, demurely smiling, “How, sir, but in solace with the hareem!”

The héjra, or small flitting-tent, laid out by the housewife, with its cords stretched to the pins upon the ground, before the am’dàn or props be set up under, is in this
form: to every pair of cords, is a pair of stakes; there are three stakes to every pair of cords in the waist of the tent. Greater booths are stayed by more pairs of waist-cords, and stand upon
taller staves. The Aarab tent, which they call the
beyt
[pl.
byût
]
es-shaar,
“abode, booth, or house of hair,” that is of black worsted or hair-cloth, has,
with its pent roof, somewhat the form of a cottage. The tent-stuff, strong and rude, is defended by a list sewed under at the heads of the am’dàn, and may last out, they say, a
generation, only wearing thinner; but when their roof-cloth is thread-bare it is a feeble shelter, thrilled by the darting beams of the Arabian sun, and casting only a grey shadow. The Arabian tent
strains strongly upon all the staves and in good holding ground, may resist the boisterous blasts which happen at the crises of the year, especially in some deep mountainous valleys. Even in weak
sand the tents are seldom overblown. Yet the cords,
tunb el-beyt,
which are worsted-twist of the women’s spinning, oft-times burst: who therefore (as greater sheykhs) can spend silver,
will have them of hempen purchased in the town. In all the road tribes they every year receive rope, with certain clothing and utensils, on account of their haj surra. The tent-stuff is seamed of
narrow lengths of the housewives’ rude worsted weaving; the yarn is their own spinning, of the mingled wool of the sheep and camels’ and goats’ hair together. Thus it is that the
cloth is blackish: we read in the Hebrew Scripture, “Black as the tents of Kedar.” Good webster-wives weave in white borders made of their sheep’s wool, or else of their
gross-spun cotton yarn (the cotton wool is purchased from Medina or the sea coast).

When the tent-cloth is stretched upon the stakes, to this roof they hang the tent-curtains, often one long skirt-cloth which becomes the walling of the nomad booth: the selvedges are broached
together with wooden skewers. The booth front is commonly left open, to the half at least we have seen, for the
mukaad
or men’s sitting-room: the other which is the women’s and
household side, is sometimes seen closed (when they would not be espied, whether sleeping or cooking) with a fore-cloth; the woman’s part is always separated from the men’s apartment by
a hanging, commonly not much more than breast or neck high, at the waist poles of the tent. The mukaad is never fenced in front with a tent-cloth, only in rain they incline the am’dàn
and draw down the tent eaves lower. The nomad tents are thus very ill lodging, and the Beduins, clothed no better than the dead, suffer in cold and stormy weather. In winter they sometimes load the
back-cloth ground-hem with great stones, and fence their open front at the men’s side with dry bushes. The tent side-cloths can be shifted according to the wind and sun: thus the back of the
Beduin booth may become in a moment the new front. A good housewife will bethink herself to unpin and shift the curtain, that her husband’s guests may have shadow and the air, or shelter.

Upon the side of the hareem, that is the household apartment, is stored all their husbandry. At the woman’s curtain stand the few tent-cloth sacks of their poor baggage,
él-gush:
in these is bestowed their corn and rice if they have any; certain lumps of rock-salt, for they will eat nothing insipid; also the housewife’s thrift of wool and her
spun yarn, – to be a good wool-wife is honourable among Aarab women; and some fathoms perhaps of new calico. There may be with the rest a root of
er’n
or tan wood, the scarlet
chips are steeped in water, and in two or three days, between ráhlas, they cure therein their goat-skins for girbies and semîlies, besides the leather for watering-buckets,
watering-troughs, and other nomad gear. The poorest wife will have some box, (commonly a fairing from the town,) in which are laid up her few household medicines, her comb and her mirror,
mèrguba,
her poor inherited ornaments, the earrings and nose-ring of silver or even golden (from the former generations); and with these any small things of her husband’s, (no
pockets are made in their clothing,) which she has in her keeping. But if her good-man be of substance, a sheykh of surra, for his bundle of reals and her few precious things she has a locked
coffer painted with vermilion from Medina, which in the ráhla is trussed (also a mark of sheykhly estate) upon her bearing-camel. – Like to this I have mused, might be that ark of
things sacred to the public religion, which was in the nomad life of B. Israel.

Commonly the housewife’s key of her box is seen as a glittering pendant, upon her veil backward; and hangs, with her thimble and pincers, (to pluck the thorns out of their bare soles,) by
a gay scarlet lace, from the circlet of the head-band. Their clotted dates, if they have any, are stived in heavy pokes of camel-hide, that in the ráhla are seen fluttering upon the
bearing-cattle with long thongs of leather. This apparel of fringes and tassels is always to the Semitic humour; of the like we read in Moses, and see them in the antique Jewish sculptures. Of
their old camel sack-leather, moisty with the juice of the dates, they cut the best sandals. The full-bellied sweating water-skins are laid, not to fret at the ground, upon fresh sprays of broom or
other green in the desert; amongst all stands the great brazen pot,
jidda,
tinned within by the nomad smith, or by the artificer in their market village. They boil in it their butter, (when
they have any, to make samn,) and their few household messes; they seethe the guest-meal therein in the day of hospitality.

The Aarab
byût shaar
are thus tents of haircloth made housewise. The “houses of hair” accord with that sorry landscape! Tent is the Semitic house:
their clay house is built in like manner; a public hall for the men and guests, and an inner woman’s and household apartment. Like to this was Moses’ adorned house of the nomad God in
the wilderness. Also the firmament, in the Hebrew prophet, is a tabernacle of the one household of God’s creation. These flitting-houses in the wilderness, dwelt in by robbers, are also
sanctuaries of “God’s guests,”
theûf Ullah,
the passengers and who they be that haply alight before them. Perilous rovers in the field, the herdsmen of the desert are
kings at home, fathers of hospitality to all that seek to them for the night’s harbour. “Be we not all, say the poor nomads,
guests of Ullah?”
Has God given unto them,
God’s guest shall partake with them thereof: if they will not for God render His own, it should not go well with them. The guest entered, and sitting down amongst them, they observe an
honourable silence, asking no untimely questions, (such is school and nurture of the desert,) until he have eaten or drunk somewhat at the least, and by “the bread and salt” there is
peace established between them, for a time (that is counted two nights and the day in the midst, whilst their food is in him). Such is the golden world and the “assurance of Ullah” in
the midst of the wilderness: travelled Beduins are amazed to see the sordid inhospitality of the towns; – but where it were impossible that the nomad custom should hold.

THE POINT OF RETURN

Harry St John Bridger Philby

(1885–1960)

By 1930 the Rubh al Khali, the desolate “Empty Quarter” of southern Arabia, was the only sizeable wilderness which still defied exploration. “Jack”
Philby, a rugged individualist, had long set his sights on it. He travelled widely in Arabia, forsook British employ to serve under King ibn Saud of Riyadh, and converted to Islam. But when
permission was at last given, it coincided with news that Bertram Thomas, another Briton, had just completed the first crossing. Philby was heartbroken. Asserting that Thomas had chosen the
shortest south-north route, in 1932 he set off from the Gulf for Shanna on Thomas’s route, and then headed west into the unknown. His followers were horrified, not least because Philby
insisted on travelling by day so as to conduct observations. Later evidence showed that, had he not accepted defeat, he would certainly have been murdered. A second attempt fared better, and he
became the first to make an east-west crossing of the “Empty Quarter”.

W
e began the fourth day’s march under a sense of combined strain and expectation. During the night the abandonment of our enterprise had been
seriously canvassed and my lack of sympathy with our strained camels provided Farraj with an opportunity to read me a lecture. If your beast is well, said he, then you are well; but if she wilts,
then you wilt. Very true, I said, but it is you folk that think not twice of increasing the strain. We have to cross this Empty Quarter, and I but ride straight on, neither thinking of retreat nor
thinking of diversion. But look for instance at Zayid and Salih, who rode off just now on the trail of an Oryx. All day they may ride their beasts after their quarry and return at nightfall
unsuccessful, disheartened and tired. Then they will chide me for my obstinacy and want to return to water. That is always your way.

Soon after starting on the day’s march and just passing from the Abal Khadhim tract into the very similar bare rolling country of Hadhat al Qata – indeed the only difference was the
scanty appearance of
Hadh
amidst the
Abal
and
Alaq
– we had come upon the tracks of four Oryx, and our men lusted to be off after them. Zayid drew up to me with a
cringing request for permission to follow up the tracks, and I was glad enough to think that I might have some hours free of his company. To Salih I replied that he could please himself, and off
the pair went at a steady walk which soon took them out of sight on our flank. ’Ali had unsuccessfully pleaded for similar liberty. Look you, he had said untruthfully, we have come to the end
of the country I know. Beyond this there is no guidance in me, but Ibn Humaiyid knows it all and I can go and seek out an Oryx for you. I can do without the Oryx, I had replied, and I want your
company. So he rode on sulkily far ahead, while Farraj danced attendance on me.

An hour later we passed the spot where the advance-party had prayed and made coffee. It was 9 a.m. and they must have left the spot barely an hour and a half before, yet over their fresh tracks
lay the still more recent trail of a full-grown bull Oryx! That was too much for us all. Lovingly they read the message of the tracks aloud – how the great beast had sauntered along from the
north cropping a bush here and there as he passed: how he had stood transfixed for a moment as he came upon the ploughed-up channel of our baggage camels: and how finally he had galloped away for
dear life from the scent and signs of danger. ’Ali pleaded with tears in his eyes, and I yielded. Farraj strained at the leash, and I acquiesced with the reproach that I would soon be left
entirely alone. Off they went, and we went on.

Very soon Farraj came back, protesting that he could not bear to leave me so ill-attended. Look you, he said, we would never have left our dear families and come out on this business but for two
reasons: hope of profit and fear of punishment. I have no desire but to serve you, but it is Zayid and ’Ali that are to blame for all our troubles. You will surely not let their behaviour
involve the rest of us in loss. Tell me what you want and I will do it. He was the lack-wit of our party – ever resisting but repenting, repenting but resisting – but the frankest of
them all in naïve self-seeking. I had appealed to his cupidity the previous evening with some small pecuniary compensation for the trouble involved in capturing the two foxes – and for a
bitten finger of which he had made the most, quite shamelessly.

Up hill and down dale we marched on. Here and there a small patch of exposed bluish rock in the bottom of a valley claimed our attention. The vegetation became scantier as we went, and all that
there was was dead. Soon the rolling downs became absolutely bare, and the hot sun blazed down on them until the sand glared again into our faces mercilessly. Now and again the higher sands
produced a mirage like sheets of glass. Not a bird did we see all that day, though once we heard the piping of an invisible lark. A dragonfly astonished me in such surroundings and thrice we saw a
butterfly – flitting shadows that caught my eye for an instant and disappeared into the enveloping sheen of sand-reflected light. Two gargoylish lizards crouched in the sandy fire as we
passed and were duly consigned to my ever-ready bottle.

We passed from Hadhat al Qata into Khillat al Hawaya about midday – a vast down-tract of rounded ribs of soft sand lying SW. and NE. as usual, with occasional lofty dunes to vary the
monotony. It was easy going, but the heat was intense without relief. At 2 p.m. we halted by an exposed patch of the underlying bedrock for a short rest. I spread my mantle over the branches of a
moribund
Abal
bush and scraped away the heated upper layer of sand to make myself a couch in the shade. I slept until I was summoned to coffee, and we disposed of the afternoon prayer before
resuming the march.