Maskat, I could never conjure a shade of affection for the modern representative of the Anoplotherium. Let me end this chapter with the Arab explanation of why the horse hates the camel, an antipathy noticed by the Greeks as early as the days of Herodotus. It is well known to all the world that Allah, determining to create this noble animal, called the South Wind and said, "I desire to draw from thee a new being: condense thyself by parting with thy fluidity." The Creator then took a handful of this element, now become gross and tangible, and blew upon it the breath of life: the horse appeared and was addressed, "Thou shalt be for man a source of happiness and wealth: he shall render himself illustrious by mounting thee." * But the stiff-necked stranger presently complained that much more might have been done for him; that his throat was too short for browsing on the line of march; that his back had no hump to steady the saddle; and that his small hoofs sank deep into the sand, with many other grievances of a similar nature, somewhat reminding us of a certain King of Castile. Where The Bedawi believes the horse, first tamed and ridden by Ishmael, to have been produced by the sneeze of Adam when awaking to life. So the cat is the sneeze of the lion, produced when Noah, offended by the number of mice in the Ark, tickled the nose of the King of Beasts. upon Allah, like Jupiter who once threatened the dreadful threat of granting the silly prayers of mankind, created the camel. The horse shuddered at the sight of what he wanted to become, and from that hour to this he has ever started when meeting his caricature. CHAPTER V. FROM EL-MUWAYLÁH TO WADY AYNÚNAH. AT 6.30 a.m. on April 3rd, M. Marie and I set out in the Sambúk El Mabrúkeh, Rais Atiyyeh. We were accompanied by Lieutenants Hasan and Abd el-Kerim: the escort, ten soldiers, with the Chawush Ali and Marius, the chef, followed in the other boat. The remaining force, under Lieutenant Amir, with Mr. Clarke and old Haji Wali, remained on board Sinnár to hasten the levy of the promised camels. I felt thoroughly at home on board the Sambúk, where the sailors at once rigged up an awning to defend us from the sun. The distance, thirty-five miles by sea, twenty-seven to twenty-eight direct geographical miles by land, or twelve to thirteen. Sa'át (hours)* of caravan-marching and halting, is The "hour" is here reckoned at five kilomètres (5468 yards) or three statute miles and a bittock (5280 yards). The Arab mile is to the English and Italian geographical = ten stadia Roman German. The Sa'át thus corresponds = = usually a day's boating before a stiff southerly breeze; this boon, however, Fortune denied us. The crew were Juhaynah Bedawin, descended from the Kahtaníyyeh or Joctanite Arabs.* The race has learned navigation, and supplies pilots to all our part of the coast. They are known by the Masháli, or gashes, numbering one to three, athwart the right cheek. Their habitat is south of El-Muwayláh, especially about the Jebel, or rather Istabl 'Antar. I had before met them at Mársa Damghah and at ElWijh, where they are mixed with the scattered Orban Bally. They extend as far south as Yambú', and eastward to El-Tabúk: they are neighbours to and friendly with the Beni Ma'ázeh; and, like the latter, they may number 5000 Nafar (men and boys). verbally with the Teutonic stunde, or hour's march, half a meile (four geog. miles), that is two direct geographical miles. The actual marching of a caravan would seldom exceed this distance. For further information, see chap. xii. The tribal, which is the same as the patriarchal name, is "Juhayni," in the plural "Juhaynah," but never Jahaynah, as I miswrote it in my "Pilgrimage" (i. 315). Wallin follows the Egyptian fashion "Guheiní"; Sprenger (p. 29) prefers "Gohayna,” and makes the tribe, like the "Balyy," a branch of the "Jodhâ'ites," the great family El-Kudá'a. He borrows from El-Humdáni and Maltzan; and he gives an exhaustive list of their settlements which. need not be repeated here. †The Balíy are mentioned by Wallin in pp. 320 to 326. This Himyaritic tribe, claiming the whole of the Harrah country with the port-town of Wijh, is divided into a multitude of clans, as1. the Muwáhil, to whom the Shaykh's family belongs; 2. the Mu'ákilah; 3. the Arádát; and, 4. the Beni Lút. (See Sprenger on the "Balyy," pp. 30-1.) Their land, as we could see by the ballast, supplies "harrah," or porous basalt, and some of their Kaliúns (pipes, dudheens) were of steatite, said to be worked at Makuá. As usual, there was a black slave on board to do servile work. "Marján" owned the usual broad grin, mother-of-pearl teeth, and yep-yep laugh, but he had quite forgotten Kisáwáhíli, with the exception, however, of the grossly abusive part which distinguishes that very free and easy African tongue. The Governor of El-Muwayláh Fort had given, as a pilot and guide, a Muwallid, or son of an emancipated slave, who called himself Sálih bin Mohammed, a Topji, or artilleryman, in the service of the Viceroy. He afterwards proved true to the instincts of his African blood, and his intrigues with * Wallin writes the name "Mutawallid." He justly observes that these negroes not only fill whole villages, as El-Ríheh (Jericho), many parts of El-Jauf (the western hollow lying parallel with the Dead Sea), and the Súk-el-Shaykh; they also form large clans among the nomadic Arabs, leading the same pastoral and predatory life as their former masters, to whom, although freed, they generally remain attached from the true African feeling that once a slave always a slave. Genuine Arabs will seldom, if ever, condescend to take to wife a negress or even a brown-skinned Habashiyyeh (Abyssinian woman); so these blacks, intermarrying with their own race, remain in the nomad tents unaltered through long generations. With the settled tribes, however, the prejudice in favour of pure blood is not so strong; and the Muwallidín of the towns and villages mix and intermarry with the Arabs, "producing children in whose features it is quite impossible to recognize the African type" (?). |