CHAPTER XIII
THE CREED OF THE KORAN
We left Jezireh early next morning. The scenery was now much tamer; the banks of the river were low; stretches of conglomerate and red rocks were interspersed with grassy slopes. The river was no longer disturbed by rocks and rapids, and our two kalekjis had been replaced by a bright-faced youth who was going to take us single-handed as far as Mosul.
"Am not I a good kalekji?" he kept on saying to us, "see how quick I make the raft go. When you get to Mosul you will remember what a good kalekji I was," and, standing up on the raft, grasping the two oars, he would throw himself right backwards, causing the raft to shoot on through the sluggish stream. Then when we had got into a faster bit of current he would lean on his oars and roll up a cigarette, talking all the time.
"The ladies like me, do they not? They see I am a good kalekji. They surely like me better than their other kalekjis?"
Six rafts laden with merchandise had followed us from Jezireh, and one with a hut similar to ours, and flying the Turkish crescent, was conveying a Turkish Yuzbashi with his harem to Mosul. The women were shut inside the hut the whole time, and occasionally, when the rafts drifted alongside, we caught glimpses of them peering shyly at us through the little glazed window. Did they envy us, sitting boldly outside, unveiled, open to the stares of all this crowd? Or, knowing no other lot, did they merely regard us with astonished curiosity, these so-called women from a strange land, who dressed like women but went about like men?
The fat little officer in his smart uniform sat outside most of the day, smoking with Oriental listlessness or playing with his little fat boy, a miniature counterpart of himself, dressed in uniform with a toy sword.
On some of the merchandise rafts the kalekjis were accompanied by their families. The sacks were piled up to form a rough shelter, under which the women and children crouched all day and cooked their masters' food. More rafts joined on to us further down, until we numbered thirteen. All day we floated in and out amongst each other, the rafts twisting and turning with the vagaries of the current. The kalekjis yelled and shouted at one another; they raced for the fast bits of current ahead where only one raft could pass at a time; they jostled one another or got entangled in shallow places, and the other rafts passed them with jeers.
Our little kalekji put forth all his skill.
"See, Pasha," he would say, excitedly, "see how we leave them behind! You have the best kalekji; do you see I always have the best of the river? Yah, yah, yah," and he roared derisive laughter at his pursuers.
At night we all moored together and the kalekjis would land and sleep in the caves under overhanging rocks, or light a fire on the banks and stretch themselves out round it, taking turns at the night watch.
No sooner was the raft drawn up along the banks than X and I would land to get as much exercise as possible in the remaining hour of daylight. The Zaptiehs, who were obliged to accompany us, wrung their hands over this display of energy.
"Amān, amān. These English have strange habits. They land all in a minute, and before you know what they are doing one has rushed in one direction and one in another, and perhaps both are lost in the darkness, and we have orders from the Government never to lose sight of them. If the Government only knew what they were asking!"
The first evening after leaving Jezireh, Ali and I climbed to the highest point near the river, from where I obtained a good view of the surrounding country. The top of the hill on which we stood was a mass of stones and bulbous plants with withered leaves and tufts of rough grass. The country stretched away all round in strong, firm undulations to a distant horizon. To the west was the full glory of an Eastern sunset, intensifying the reddish hue of the rolling hills until they merged into blackness in the shadows. To the east the terminating range was snow-clad, and the setting sun, casting a pink glow over the white peaks, gave a gradation of colour which caused them to melt imperceptibly into the sky and mingle with the pale reflection of the sun's setting rays on the opposite horizon. What villages, what life lay concealed in the hollows of these rolling hills I do not know. To the eye there was nothing visible but the hill-tops in their naked immensity and intense desolation; on one side the flaming colours of the setting sun, on the other its pale reflection on the snowy peaks, and over it all the vast, inscrutable sky. We were alone, Ali and I, with "that silence which some call God." I liked Ali's companionship on these evening walks; his nature, truly Eastern, was in keeping with the country. He had been chatting away merrily all the way up, trying to teach me Turkish words; and now we both lapsed of one accord into silence and his merry face took on something of the sternness of the surroundings. He laid his rifle on the ground, and moving away a little distance, went through the evening prayer. Now upright, now bending, now on his knees, a misty black form in the dazzling red light, he murmured inaudibly the prescribed words, words which at that same hour were being uttered alike by so many thousands in the fevered rush of busy towns, on the house-tops, and in the crowded chambers. A form, a ritual of empty words this prayer may be, but up here, in Nature's loneliness, the prayer and the man seemed strangely relevant.
Was it not in such a place as this, alone with the great forces of Nature, that Mahomet formed his conception of God as an Irresistible Power?
"Has there come to thee the story of the overwhelming?" he cries out at one time, and again: "Does there not come in man a portion of time when he is nothing worth mentioning?"
The great need of man is for expression; in places such as these his own insignificance is forced upon him by the overwhelming might of primeval forces. Alone with the great silence which his voice cannot fill, with the great space in which he, as a physical being, is lost; with the great mountains against which to measure his strength, with the stars which he cannot reach, and the floods which he cannot stem, his own personality seems so trivial that he doubts its very existence, until a strong feeling of participation in the forces themselves, of his own share in them, gives a truer sense of his own proportion; and the reaction of feeling, from this realization of his own impotence to that of his own magnificence in being part of them, produces an overwhelming desire for utterance.
Was it under such influences as these that Mahomet's longing, awe-struck soul first heard, "Cry, what shall I cry?" and subsequently gave forth that long blazonry of Nature's beauty in the Koran? There is something in the grand simplicity and childish acceptance of the unspoilt Eastern character at its best which seems to be a counterpart of the feeling inspired by Nature in this Eastern land itself. That it should be so seems natural when we remember how Mahomet was continually conjuring his followers to look at Nature and understand great things.
"Look at the heaven how it is reared, and at the mountains how they are set up, and at the earth how it is spread out...."
"Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth are signs to you if you would understand...."
"Lift up thine eyes to the heaven; dost thou see any flaw therein? Nay, lift up thine eyes again; thy sight returneth dim and dazed...."
The murmuring words of Ali's prayer had stopped; the sun sank behind the distant line of hills; a breeze sprang up and stirred the tufts of withered grass, whispering in the "still of night."
We retraced our steps to the edge of the hill and dropped into the hidden valley, where the Tigris rushed along unheeded and unseen from above.
Arten's voice rose with the sound of the waters, singing the well-worn words of an Armenian Protestant hymn.
The kalekjis had lit fires at the mouth of the caves, and crouched round the black pot which contained the evening meal. From the far corner of one cave came the wail of a new-born infant.
Under "the splendour of the Night Star" we too retired to rest.
We were already afloat when I woke next morning. From my bed I could see the banks shooting past the little window of the hut. The reader must not imagine a continuous view, such as one would get through the window of a more civilized vehicle of locomotion. The banks at one moment would move straight past the window in the orthodox way; then they would be suddenly shooting past in the opposite direction, or we had a view of the river behind. It requires in many ways a certain amount of practice to live in a state of equilibrium on a raft. One is constantly being made aware of the truism that there are two sides to everything. First of all there are, as one would expect, two sides to the river; and owing to the particular method of our progression we were always being reminded, in a most irritating way, of this purely geological fact. No sooner had we become aware of the scenery on one side, and had decided that it was the right bank, than—swish—round went the raft, and the whole length of the right bank would be shot before our view like a circular panorama, and before you could take it in you were looking at the left bank; moreover, you would be looking at it moving past you upwards, though you were perfectly certain the raft could only be floating downwards. There was hardly time to reason this out when—swish—round you go the reverse way again, the left bank swings past you downwards and you are travelling up the right bank, although the raft, you are persuaded, is still pursuing its downward course. If you stood outside and fixed your eye with strenuous determination on some fixed and immutable spot of heaven or earth you might be able to keep your bearings with a strong mental effort. But when you observed the features of the landscape through the small window of your hut you gave it up—and simply gazed at the view as you would at a magic-lantern slide being slowly withdrawn through the porthole of an undulating steamer.
It was equally difficult to look steadily ahead from a mental point of view. Travelling by yourself you might be able to arrange your own philosophy, but it is upsetting when the other person sees the side which at any particular moment you do not happen to be looking at. When, for instance, we were delayed later that morning repairing burst skins, X was perfectly happy dwelling on the romance of navigating this noble and ancient river in the same way as those heroes whose feats were recorded on the tablets of Nineveh, until I unwittingly disturbed the harmony of these thoughts by complaining that I was unpleasantly reminded of a punctured bicycle on a lonely road of civilisation.
"How delightful this is," I said, in exuberant laziness, when we were floating on once more, "to be able to lose all conception of time and float on, as it were, to eternity."
"Personally," said X, "I find myself counting the days with a most unpleasant conception of the lapse of time, for we have only food enough for one day, and owing to this delay there is no possibility of renewing our supply for two."
I felt an injury had been inflicted on me by being reminded of absence of dinner when I had been inflated with great thoughts. But I had not long to wait for my revenge.
"What a picturesque man the kalekji is," X exclaimed suddenly. "I take such a delight in watching him shaking out his flowing garments and folding himself up in such graceful attitudes."
"Personally," I said, with some malice, "it gives me no pleasure since I became aware that he is only engaged in hunting for fleas."
X made no answer; I felt we were quits. She would have to think of the presence of fleas while I thought of the absence of dinner.
We floated on very quietly that day. The banks were flatter and the patches of grass became more frequent. At long intervals we passed villages of mud huts built on the sides of the river where the banks rose to a higher point. Towards evening we swung round under a rocky prominence, on the top of which stood the village of Hassoni. There was no possibility of mooring the raft anywhere near it for the night. The banks rose up in a straight wall of rock, of such a height that the inhabitants of the village, peering down at us from above, seemed like pigmies on the sky-line. We floated on until the hills curved and the banks sloped down to a muddy flat. The other rafts were already moored along the shore and we drifted alongside of them. Ali and I landed, and we set off to walk back to the village in the hope of getting some eggs and milk to eke out our supply of provisions. We had some difficulty in scrambling up the wet, grassy places between edges of rock where the water oozed out and trickled down to the river below; and on reaching the top we found ourselves on the edge of an extensive tableland which ended abruptly in the escarpment under which we had floated. Below us we could see the river winding ahead through a low-lying country to the east. We walked for half a mile across the flat table-top towards the village; a long procession of black and yellow cattle were sauntering along in front of us, lowing quietly in answer to the shrill calls of a boy who stood motionless on a little hillock, a weird figure in the straight, square-cut sheepskin cloak of the natives.
From all sides flocks of goats and sheep were coming in and filled the narrow streets, sharing the homes of their masters as a protection against the raids of Hamidieh chiefs. It was a partly Kurdish, partly Arab village, and the inhabitants mingled their curiosity at my appearance with fright at that of Ali's. Long experience had taught them that a visit from a Turkish Zaptieh meant extortion of some sort. A child in our path screamed aloud, rooted to the spot with terror. Ali's bright, laughing face clouded over.
"That is what the children are taught to think of us," he said, "and I have my own little ones at home."
Our demands for milk were received with sullen grimness, until the sight of the unwonted coin caused the faces to clear, and a further present of tobacco established quite a friendly footing. I sat down inside an enclosure of maize stalks at the door of a larger hut, where the cows were being milked, and the natives, clustering round, plied Ali with questions. One of the villagers offered to walk back with us and carry the milk. It was dark before we reached the edge of the tableland again, and I shouted down in the hopes of getting an answer which would guide us to the encampment below. The village boy held up his hand with a scared look: the call was only answered by its own echo, and the stones, slipping under our feet, rattled noisily down the steep slope.
"Hush!" said Ali, "who knows but what Ibrahim Pasha may hear you," and we slid silently down the slippery banks in the darkness, until the light of a camp-fire gleamed out a welcome signal.
CHAPTER XIV
THE EVIL ONE
At noon on the tenth day after leaving Diarbekr and the fourth from Jezireh we caught sight of the minarets and cupolas of Mosul, and floated for a couple of miles under the chain of limestone cliffs on the end of which the town is built. We had hardly got within sight of the town itself when a fearful cannonading met our ears, accompanied by piercing screams and savage yells. It sounded as if the walls were being attacked by battering-rams, and all along the shore line at their base we could faintly distinguish a seething line of human beings brandishing some form of weapon. We were evidently going to be eye-witnesses of a tribal disturbance which would cause diplomatic unrest in Europe, and who knows but what our participation in it would not brand us with fame for the rest of time. I determined to make full use of the opportunity and prepared my camera and notebook.
The Zaptiehs, however, seemed quite unconcerned, and we understood from them that there was no cause for alarm, and that this sort of thing was of weekly occurrence in Mosul. On floating up to the scene of action we realised that it was indeed only Mosul's washing-day. All along the shore, as far as we could see, under the walls of the town stretched a continuous line of women beating clothes with flat sticks on the stones at the water's edge; and the screams resolved themselves into the ordinary sounds usually emitted where women congregate in large numbers. Truly, the men of the East are wise in their generation. They had thus solved the problem of washing-day and all its horrors, and were left in peaceful and undisputed possession of their hearths and tempers. The women were there in their hundreds, and, as we approached the bridge of boats which crossed the river lower down, we floated past a small army of them on the opposite shore, where a flat stretch of mud was covered with gaudy rags laid out to dry. Mosul, I believe, derives its name from the manufacture of muslin carried on there, and the guide-book informs us that it is chiefly remarkable for the Assyrian mounds found near it. I am bound to confess, however, that it is indelibly impressed on my mind solely in its connection with the vulgar art of washing.
We had to wait several days at Mosul while a new raft was being constructed, on to which our huts were bodily transferred. The skins on which we had floated so far were deflated and the kalekjis would return with them to Diarbekr by land on donkey back.
We spent the time visiting the historic mounds of Koyunjik and Khorsabad, for detailed information on which I must refer the reader to the works of Layard and Botha and King. The site of Nineveh to the uninitiated eye is represented by the great mound of Koyunjik, which rises out of the flat country on the opposite side of the river to Mosul; it is surrounded by smaller tumuli representing parts of the ancient walls. Here and there are patches of cultivation, and at the time of our visit the bare brown earth was beginning to show promise of being covered by a scanty vegetation. Of winged bulls, of lettered slabs, of cylinders, of all the wondrous contents of the palaces of the ancient Assyrian kings, now ensconced in the museums of Western cities, the only indication we had on the spot were the subterranean tunnels, now choked with fallen débris, from which these evidences had been removed; and the broken bits of masonry and pottery which were strewn promiscuously about the surface. From the summit we obtained a comprehensive view of the country: of Mosul at our feet standing on its limestone cliffs at the farther side of the Tigris, and of the distant country through which the river wandered southwards; a great plain dotted with villages round which patches of cultivated land were already green with the rising corn. Long strings of mules laden with cabbage and other vegetables came in from the outlying villages and swelled the motley coloured crowd at the stalls established on this side of the river, or passed on over the rickety wooden bridge to the bazaars inside the town.
The exertion of living on land for these few days had seemed so very great that we were not sorry when we found ourselves afloat once more on the new raft and with a new set of men. Achmet and Ali had bidden us a tearful farewell, and we now had one Zaptieh only as escort, an Arab also named Ali. He was a Chous,[7]and I will give him his full title to distinguish him from our late friend. A picturesque kalekji is almost an essential in such close quarters as a raft, and up till now we had rejoiced in the brightly-striped Kurdish coats and turbans of our first kalekjis, and the clean, flowing, white abba of our Jezireh friend. The two men who were to take us from Mosul to Baghdad presented a very different appearance. Unlike most Arabs, they were both huge, stout men, and were dressed in rough brown camel-hair cloaks over unwashed white under-garments. One of them we nicknamed at once the Evil One; he had the most excruciatingly wicked face imaginable—and the terror of it was considerably heightened when he tried to superinduce a conciliating smile on his hideous expression of wickedness.
The country below Mosul was decidedly tame; the dry brown plain was fringed by the already green banks of the river. The river itself was now much wider, and here and there its course would be divided by islands with low, swampy banks, round which the waters would lose themselves in marshy tracts, where herons waded in and out and innumerable black ducks dived and spluttered amongst the rushes. The jungle round was the haunt of the wild boar, jackal, and hyena. It was hard to believe that a few weeks later the first spring sun would call forth wild masses of gorgeous flowers and long, rank grasses, and that the whole country would be teeming with succulent vegetation.
It was, indeed, a monotonous bit of country. The sun had not yet melted the snows of the distant Armenian hills, which later on would cause a rapid flood to the river, and we progressed very slowly in the low, sluggish waters. Our two kalekjis displayed no desire to hurry matters by their own exertions, and leant on their oars all day, disturbing the general harmony by constant quarrelling in harsh, grating voices. Now and then Ali Chous, who was fat and meek, would address himself to them in a soothing, almost pleading tone of voice. The purport of their remarks was lost to us, as their conversation was carried on in Arabic, and we found it hard to extract any information out of Ali, who could communicate with us in Turkish.
"Tell them they must stop talking and row," I said; "we are hardly moving at all."
And Ali Chous would answer:
"They will row, Effendi, indeed they will row." And the kalekjis rested on their oars as before, and the Evil One would smile at me, distorting his evil countenance with a diabolical grin.
Finally, Ali informed us, in his anxious, conciliating tone, that they had brought no food with them and that they were hungry. If the Pashas would give them bread they could row; now they were faint. This was a favourite Eastern dodge with which we were well acquainted by this time. The kalekjis were always engaged with the understanding that they fed themselves, and knowing the fatal results of giving in on such points we hardened our countenances.
"Tell them we cannot help that; they knew they had to bring their own food, and if they starve it is not our fault." And the Evil One, on hearing this through Ali's no doubt modified interpretation, gave us another grin, even more diabolical than before.
When we retired into the hut for our next meal I took the precaution of cutting a hole in the felt wall, and peeping through it, saw them comfortably ensconced at the furthest end of the raft, eating bread and scraps of meat out of a dirty linen bag, which they hastily sat on when we reappeared.
Arten was terribly afraid of them, and I knew what that meant.
"Arten," I said to him early in the day, "if you dare to give these men any food without my leave we will land you at the next village."
Arten hastily disclaimed any intention of giving them food, but he evidently cherished the thought as quite a good idea; after all, he was more alarmed of them even than he was of me.
Early on the second day we arrived at a small village, where it seemed as if we were expected. There was a crowd on the banks, and one of the men was waiting with a large sack. Ali explained to us that it contained the kalekjis' bread, and that we must land to take it on board.
The Evil One waded on shore with the rope, which he made fast to a rock. A little further down the banks were several natives making a raft, and I strolled down to have a look at them. One man sat on the ground with a pile of skins beside him. The skins had been cut off above the hind legs, and the man was engaged in tying up this end, and the openings of the fore legs, with string. One end of the string was tied round his big toe, and he worked the other end up and down round the gathered end of the skin until the tied ends were quite air-tight. Then he threw the skin to another man, who blew into the open fore end until it was inflated, when he tied it up. A third man stood in the water, tying the inflated skins on to the poplar poles with the ends of the same strings that had served to tie up the openings.
After watching them a little time I returned to our raft. By this time the whole village had turned out, and a great uproar was going on.
"What's up?" I said to X, who had not left the raft.
"I've been trying to find out," said X. "The Evil One has displeased them somehow and they will not let him go."
We instructed Ali Chous to insist on our going on. The second kalekji, Jedan by name, seemed only too delighted; he kept winking at us and pointing derisively at the Evil One. He untied the rope and shoved off. A man on the shore promptly seized the rope and held us back.
"Get a stick," said X, "and give him a smack on his head."
X was of a peaceable disposition, and I daresay she was laughing at me. She enjoyed seeing me get angry. But it was in our contract that I should do all the manual labour connected with keeping order, so I obediently seized a long pole, and let it descend gently on the offender's shoulder. He turned round and stared, dropping the rope with an astonished grin. The crowd burst into joyous shouts and pointed at the Evil One, who still stood expostulating angrily in their midst.
"Hit him!" they yelled, "he is the one to hit!" and quite believing them I transferred my attentions, along with the end of the pole, to his shoulder.
"Come!" I shouted. It sounds tame, but it was the only Arabic word I knew. The raft slowly drifted down-stream and the Evil One, dashing in up to his waist, clambered on board.
Ali explained to us that he refused to pay enough for his bread, and that the crowd would not let him go until he had done so.
The Evil One grinned, and, diving into the bag, offered me a dirty piece of native bread in his still dirtier fingers. He would share his food with us, though we refused to do so with him; a typical Eastern method of putting one in the wrong.
The waters were still sluggish, and the men seemed determined to do no work.
"I am beginning to think they are in league with some one on shore," said X. "It cannot be to their advantage to be so long on the way, as they are paid a lump sum to get us to Baghdad, and we are not feeding them. I quite expect we shall be held up and robbed before evening."
Finding that orders and threats were of no use and learning from Ali that Jedan, the second kalekji, was afraid of the Evil One, who would not allow him to row, I sat down facing them and produced my revolver.
"Tell the bad kalekji," I said to Ali Chous, "that if he does not row I will shoot him."
The Evil One, greatly to my astonishment, appeared to believe in the possibility of bloodshed and set to work at the oars. All the rest of the day I sat with my revolver at his head. It was a most fatiguing, if effectual, process.
"Supposing he does stop rowing," said X, "will you shoot him?"
"I cannot think what I shall do," I said; "the only way will be to fire over his head and pretend I've missed him."
"Mind you do miss him," said X languidly.
"Sure to," I answered hopefully.
Some hours before sunset we were held up in a manner which admitted of no blame being attached to the Evil One. A strong head-wind arose, before which the raft refused to make headway, and we were forced to take refuge on a dreary mud bank which sloped down to the water's edge under a low line of shaley rocks.
The men sat about cross and disconsolate. It was very unsafe, they said, to spend the night so far from a village. We should certainly be attacked; the Evil One had arranged this—wind and all. We might be there for days, and what should we do for food? Tired of looking at all their sulky faces, I clambered up the cliff above to see what I could see. The top of the hill was as level as if it had been flattened out by a giant with a hot iron. A low line of hills with equally flattened tops at a little distance hid the further view. I walked to the top of them, led on by the sort of fascination which makes one wish to see what is hidden between one and the horizon. Having reached the top there was nothing to be seen but repeated lines of naked, flat-topped hills. The dreary loneliness of the place, its utter nakedness, in which one seemed shut off from all the real things of life, colour, sound, space, and growth, descended like a physical weight on one's senses. It was all like one great senseless punishment, which from its sheer callousness held one, with mingled fascination and terror, rooted to the spot. With an effort I turned to retrace my steps, when my eye caught sight of a dark object on the same line of hills on which I stood, which made my blood turn cold. A wild-looking, half-naked Arab, who seemed to have dropped suddenly from the sky, was standing motionless gazing at me from a little distance. For one moment I stood transfixed with nameless dread; the whole feeling of terror which had been established by the mere aspect of the country seemed now to be concentrated and personified in this sudden apparition. What hordes of like beings might not be concealed behind these mysterious hillocks? He moved one step towards me and I turned and fled, down the slope and across the level plain to the edge of the cliff under which the raft was moored. The apparition pursued me silently. On reaching the edge of the cliff I peered over and could see the crew of the raft still occupying the disconsolate positions in which I had left them. My senses now slowly returned, and I sat down to await the arrival of the apparition out of consideration to my own self-respect. He was still some distance from me, and, on seeing me sit down, he also sat down and we gazed at one another. The comic element in the scene asserted itself. A savage and I holding each other at bay like two dogs preparing for a fight on the top of the cliff, and down below X sitting unconcernedly on the raft reading the "Meditations of Marcus Aurelius." I laughed out loud; the savage sprang to his feet with a yell, brandished his arms in the air, and darting up a neighbouring slope disappeared behind it as suddenly as he had appeared.
I slid down the cliff and joined X.
"Where have you been?" she said. "I was just going to send Ali to look for you; he says it is not safe to go out of sight of the raft."
"I was only on the top," I answered, too ashamed to enter into further details.
We discussed our general situation in bed that night.
"X," I said, "if you met a savage all alone in a wild piece of country what would you do?"
"Why, go up and speak to him, of course," said X; "it would be awfully interesting. What would you do?"
"I don't know," I answered; "I want to go to sleep now."
The wind dropped in the night, and at the first break of day we were off once more.
CHAPTER XV
ARAB HOSPITALITY
Fifty-three pairs of dark eyes were fixed upon us in unwavering scrutiny; it was dark and there was silence. The eyes, as they gleamed out of the darkness, might have belonged to a herd of wild beasts watching their prey; but we were privileged guests of the Arab Shaykh in whose tent we were sitting, and the gaze was but that of friendly curiosity. We had been placed on the seat of honour—a rush mat at one side of the tent; opposite to us squatted our host, a venerable old man with a white beard which flowed over his bare, wrinkled chest; with one arm he supported a small boy, who played with the beads round the old chief's neck.
Between us, in the centre of the hut, glowed a dying fire, and beside it, silently watching the pot on the ashes, sat the coffee-maker. Now and then he scraped the ashes together round the pot. A thin veil of smoke rose up slowly and dispersed itself under the low roof of the tent. The silence was almost religious; the darkness suggested witchcraft rather than night; a hobgoblin might have sprung out of the coffee-maker's pot and not been out of keeping with the natural sequence of events.
All at once, at the back of the tent, a hand was raised and a bundle of fine brushwood came down on to the fire; in sudden blaze it momentarily lit up the fifty-three dark faces, flared an instant, flickered, then as rapidly died away, and we only felt the gaze we had seen before. We silently watched the coffee-maker and our host, who, being nearest to the fire, were dimly visible in its remaining light; the attention of the one was concentrated on his pot; that of the other, in common with his companions, was on us. There was no call for speech, for we spoke in tongues unintelligible to one another, and the only sound which fitfully broke the ghostly silence was that language understood by all nations alike, the wail of an infant in its mother's arms.
"Salaam Aleikum," we had been received with as the Shaykh stood up to welcome us on our arrival, unexpected and uninvited, in the midst of his tribe. We had been guided to his tent by the long spear which stood upright at the door, and when he had offered us that token of Arab goodwill—the cup of coffee—we knew that we were amongst friends. He waved us to our seats, and then, seating himself, pulled the child towards him; he patted his own chest, and then pointed to the lad with pride.
"His youngest child," interpreted Ali, who accompanied us, and who understood a few words of Arabic.
We nodded back our looks of appreciation, and, these preliminary acts of courtesy having established the requisite good feeling, all need for further converse seemed at an end, and a comfortable silence fell upon us all.
The whole village had followed us into their chief's tent as a matter of course, and those for whom there was no room inside herded together at the door. The Eastern standard of ideas, which allows respectful equality with one's superiors, was responsible for the total absence of ill-mannered jostling which would have characterised a civilised crowd under similar circumstances on the reception of strange foreigners.
The coffee-maker reached out his hand without turning, and one amongst the crowd at his back handed him a massive iron spoon on to which was chained a copper ladle. The Shaykh's little son, obeying a nod from his father, pulled a bag out of a dark recess behind him; another bundle of brushwood was thrown upon the fire and by the light of its sudden, almost startling blaze, the lad untied the bag and carefully counted out the allotted number of coffee-berries. The coffee-maker dropped them into the spoon, for which he had raked out a hole in the ashes. The slight stir caused by these proceedings subsided, the blaze died away, and the attention of all was again riveted on us, save that only of the coffee-maker, who, sitting close up to the embers, now scraped the white ashes round the pot, now turned the roasting berries over with the ladle chained to the spoon. The Shaykh's hand stole on to the little boy's head, and the boy, looking up, stroked the old man's beard. On we sat in the dark silence, learning from these true masters of Time how neither to waste it nor to let it drag, but going step by step with it, to lay ourselves open to receive all that it had to give.
The silence was so prolonged and so intense that, silently as time flies, we could almost hear its moments ticking away. It has been said that we take no note of time except when we count its loss. It might be said of all Easterns that they are unconscious of the time they lose, because they take no note of it; they live unconsciously up to the fact that, the past being beyond recall and the future unfathomable, the present only is in our power. And the Eastern is master of Time because he spends it absorbing the present.
Meanwhile the berries had blackened, and the man emptied them into a copper mortar. As he pounded them he caused the pestle to ring in tune against the sides of the bowl. The child laughed gleefully and pointed at him; the stern old man smiled and shot a proud glance over at us.
"Fiddle away, old Time," rang out the tones of the metal pestle. It seemed to give voice to our joyful derision of Time; here was Time trying to weary us with himself, and we only laughed at him.
"Fiddle away, old Time—Fiddle away, old Fellow!Airs for infancy, youth, and prime,Times both shrill and mellow.Fiddle away,Or grave or gay,For faces pink or yellow—Scrape your song a lifetime long,Fiddle away, old Fellow!"
"Fiddle away, old Time—Fiddle away, old Fellow!Airs for infancy, youth, and prime,Times both shrill and mellow.Fiddle away,Or grave or gay,For faces pink or yellow—Scrape your song a lifetime long,Fiddle away, old Fellow!"
"Fiddle away, old Time—
Fiddle away, old Fellow!
Airs for infancy, youth, and prime,
Times both shrill and mellow.
Fiddle away,
Or grave or gay,
For faces pink or yellow—
Scrape your song a lifetime long,
Fiddle away, old Fellow!"
Not a soul moved. Outside in the dusk a stunted black cow thoughtfully chewed the maize stalks of which the enclosure round the tent was built, and a kid rubbed his head up and down against a child's bare leg. Beyond this the darkness had nothing to conceal. We were in the middle of a bare, largely uninhabited, desert land known only to a few wandering Arab tribes. Outside, the mysterious open vault of the dark sky with its many hundred points of light; inside, the mysterious recess of the dark tent with the fifty-three pairs of gleaming eyes, every one fixed upon ourselves. Now and then, as a flash of lightning in the sky at night will expose the immediate surroundings to view, so a sudden spark from the fire revealed the setting of the eyes—the solemn, dusky, Arab faces.
A splutter on the fire as the pot boiled over put an end alike to the tune and to the meditations called up by it. The man transferred the ground berries to a copper jug and, pouring the boiling water on to them, placed this second pot on the hot ashes. We had been sitting there for an hour watching these preparations, and it seemed as if we might now reasonably entertain hopes of tasting the results. Our expectations in this direction were also enhanced by the appearance of three tiny cups which had been unearthed from a dark corner, and handed to one of the men nearest the fire. He proceeded to rinse them out one by one with hot water, displaying a care and absorption in the process which contrasted strangely with the simplicity of his task.
The coffee on the fire came to the boil, the coffee-maker poured it back into the original pot, which he again set on the ashes. He then handed the empty jug to the cup-washer, who rinsed each cup out carefully with a few drops of the coffee left for this purpose. Very quietly, very precisely, he placed each cup on the ground within reach of the coffee-maker, and retreated into the background.
The coffee on the fire boiled up; we straightened ourselves in expectation as the coffee-maker reached out his hand. But he emptied the boiling liquid back again into the original pot and replaced it on the ashes.
The fire now burned very dimly. Even the man's form bending over the glowing ashes was discernible only as a black shadow. The stillness for a few moments was so great, and the concentration of all so centred on the bubbling coffee-pot, that one felt as if all the meaning of life, the past, the present, and the future, was being distilled in the black liquid, and that an incantation was only necessary for the future to take shape and, rising out of the pot, become visible to us all in this mysterious darkness.
Again the coffee boiled up. Again the man emptied the boiling liquid back into the other pot and replaced it on the fire.
The stillness and the concentration became more intense. Outside, a lamb's sudden cry and the mother's answering bleat rang out sharply in the black night, a distant reminder of a far-off world; it died away, and the broken silence was all the more intense.
The coffee boiled up.
By this time one had ceased to associate the drinking of coffee with the end of these mysterious rites. The coffee of Cook's hotels, the coffee of crowded railway stations, whole coffee, ground coffee, French coffee, coffee at 1s. 8d. a pound; the clatter of black saucepans, the hot and anxious cook, the bustling waiter, the impatient people of the world with only a minute to wait—calling for instantaneous coffee; what had coffee and all these associations to do with this? And so it was with a certain shock that we looked at this magician pouring the result of his black art into the cups, a few carefully measured drops only. Two are handed to us and one to the Shaykh. We sipped the oily black drink slowly and thoughtfully. A liquid which had been prepared with so much deliberation could not be quaffed down with the reckless indifference ordinarily displayed in the process. It was thick and bitter. We drained the last drop and returned the cups. Another spoonful was poured in and they were passed back to us. Etiquette required that we should not refuse till the third time of offering; then the remainder of the coffee was handed round to the rest of the company in order of rank.
There was a stir amongst the crowd round the door, and a woman forced her way through with a baby in her arms. She squatted in front of us, and held the child down for our closer inspection by the firelight.
"Khasta" (Ill), said Ali Chous; "she wants medicine."
The mother pointed to the sores on the child's face and body, the pleading eloquence in her dark eyes rendering unnecessary any explanations on the part of our interpreter.
It was a pathetic instance of the suffering induced by man, even when living so akin to Nature, when he tries to superimpose his own crude ideas of beauty and expediency on to the human frame. The baby, though only a few months old, had been pierced in the nose and ears for the reception of the ornaments which were to enhance its charms in after-life, and of the blue bead which would ensure its safety from the one recognised enemy—the Evil Eye. The wounds were healing badly, and the irritation set up had caused fever.
"Tell her we can give her medicine," we said to Ali, "but it is not medicine to drink, it is to wash the wounds with. If the baby drinks it, it will die."
The message was interpreted. "Aha, aha, Mashallah," was murmured all through the crowd. The baby became an object of intense interest. Ali threw back his head and pretended to swallow, then he pointed significantly to heaven and to the unconscious victim at his feet.
"Ha! ha!" murmured the crowd.
Hassan meanwhile had begun to fidget uneasily.
"There are fleas here," he said, "you must not stop any longer."
We rose, and silently salaaming our host, passed out of the tent. It was lighter outside; the moon had risen, casting mysterious black shadows round the huts, where weird black and white forms flitted stealthily in and out.
Owing to the shallowness of the water on the low shelving mud banks we had been unable to bring the raft right up to the shore, and it had been moored at a little distance out in the water. The kalekjis had carried us across on their backs and had returned to cook their evening meal on board. We now shouted across the water to them to come and carry us back. As we stood waiting, a woman came up to us dragging a child by the arm, who hid his head in his mother's dress and refused to allow himself to be examined.
"He is ill too," said Ali, "like the other child."
"We will give them some medicine when we get on the raft," we said; "tell them each to send a cup."
"And this one says he is ill," the man went on, as a tall, sheepish-looking youth touched me on the arm; "they will all say they are ill now that they know you have medicine."
"We can only give to those who are really ill," we answered; "what is the matter with this one?"
"He has fever, he cannot eat, and his head hurts."
I had some quinine pills in my pocket, and I gave three to the boy.
"Tell him to take two now, and not to keep them in his mouth," I explained, "but drink some water and swallow them down; then, when the sun has risen one hour to-morrow, let him take the other one."
A dozen interested spectators at once went through the whole process in pantomime; a pill was swallowed, and its downward course indicated by stroking the chest. "Ha!" was ejaculated all round. Then the second pill was swallowed with equally suggestive signs. The rising point of the sun was indicated, and one finger held up, and the third pill swallowed.
"Mashallah!" went up through the crowd, staring with bated breath.
We boarded the raft, and had scarcely established ourselves in our sleeping-hut when Hassan staggered to the door with a huge clay pitcher capable of holding several gallons; he deposited it at our feet.
"For the medicine," he said gravely.
"We said that the woman was to send a cup," we said; "the few drops of lotion will be lost in that."
"For the medicine," he answered, imperturbably.
"We had better send it in one of our cups," I said, and I measured out some lotion. Hassan took it; a few minutes later he returned laden with cups, jars, pitchers, and bowls of every size and description.
"For the medicine," he said, as he deposited them beside us.
We looked at one another aghast.
"Say that we have no more," we said.
"I have told them," he said, "but they will not go away."
We went outside, where a tremendous hubbub had arisen. Our men were standing round the edge of the raft resolutely pushing would-be intruders back into the river. Up to their waists in water, hanging on to the raft at every point, shouting out their ailments, pointing to their throats, their eyes, their heads, were the whole male population of the place. In vain our men strove to keep them off; the raft was besieged at every point. In desperation we unmoored and floated out into the middle of the river; the most determined swam out after us, and holding on to the raft with one hand stroked their chests and pointed to the absent sun with the other. Finally, as we drifted down-stream, they gave up, and the last sight we had was that of a row of disconsolate invalids, suddenly endowed with great evidences of health and strength, careering wildly on the mud flats in the starlight round a discarded heap of empty bowls and pitchers.