From Persepolis he returned by the way of Shiraz to Abusheher, where he embarked in one of the country vessels for the island of Karak, where he was hospitably received and entertained by the Dutch merchants settled there; and after a short stay, proceeded to Bassorah. Here he embarked in a small vessel which was about to sail up the Euphrates to Hillah. His companion, during this voyage, was an officer of the janizary corps, who lay in a small chamber close to Niebuhr’s cabin, and appeared to be at the point of death. In other respects this little voyage, which occupied twenty-one days, was sufficiently agreeable. The passengers were remarkable for their good-humour and obliging disposition; and often, when our traveller set up his quadrant on the banks of the stream, they stood round him in a circle, while he was making his observations, to screen him from the wind with their long flowing dresses.
At Rumahia, a small village on the Euphrates, he lodged with two of his Mohammedan companions at the house of a Soonnee, who happened to be themoollahof a mosque. Soon after their arrival, our traveller entered into conversation with his host, and their discourse turning on the subject of marriage, he observed, among other things, that in Europe a man, when he gives his daughter to any one in wedlock, is generally accustomed to add a considerable sum of money. This custom greatly delighted the moollah. “Do you hear,” says he to his mother-in-law, who was sitting near him, while the daughter was preparing theirpilau,—“do you hear what the stranger is saying? It was not thus that you acted towards me, my mother; I was compelled to pay you a sum of money before you would give me your daughter!” The mother-in-law, after patiently hearing him to the end, replied, “Ah! myson, upon what should I and my daughter have subsisted, had I given thee my field and my date-trees?” This slight interruption in the conversation having ceased, Niebuhr, resuming the thread of the discourse, remarked, that in Europe no man could possess more than one wife, under pain of death; that married persons enjoyed every thing in common; and that their property descended to their children. It was now the old lady’s turn to be eloquent. “Well, my son,” says she, “have you marked what the gentleman has just related? Ah! what justice prevails in those countries! Ah! had you no other wife than my daughter, and could I be sure you would never divorce her, how willingly would I relinquish to you my house, and all I possess!” The young woman, who had hitherto seemed to pay no attention to what was said, now likewise joined in the discussion. “Alas! my husband!” said she, “how can you desire that my mother should give you her house? You would soon bestow it upon your other wives. You love them better than me. I see you so seldom!”
The mother and daughter proceeded in this style for some time, and at length Niebuhr, turning to the moollah, demanded how many wives he had.—“Four,” replied the man. This was the highest number permitted by the law. He had, therefore, indulged his affections to the utmost; and as each of his spouses had a separate house and garden, he flitted at pleasure from wife to wife, and was everywhere received as a man returning home from a long journey. Our traveller inquired of this zealous polygamist whether his private happiness had been increased or diminished by his having availed himself of the privilege of a Mohammedan; but, because his reply was contrary to his own European views, as that of every other Mussulman, whom he had questioned on the subject, had been, he absurdly accused him of insincerity.
From this place he proceeded toMeshed Ali, where he was deterred from entering the mosque, by the fear that he might, as a punishment for his presumption, be compelled to profess Mohammedanism; but he admired the exterior of its gilded dome, which glittered like a globe of flame in the sun. The riches of this mosque, allowing much for the exaggeration of theShiahs, must still be immense. The interior of the dome is no less superbly gilt than the exterior, and is adorned with Arabic inscriptions in rich enamel; other inscriptions, in letters of gold, glitter along the walls; while enormous candelabra, in silver and fine gold, set with jewels, support the tapers which afford light to the pious during the darkness of the night. This accumulation of gorgeous ornaments, though supplied from a commendable motive, affects the worshippers injuriously, and once occasioned a pious Arab to exclaim, “Verily, the treasures lavished upon this tomb have made me forget God!”
Niebuhr next visited the ruins of Kufa, and Meshed Hussein, and then returned to Hillah, near which are found the misshapen ruins of Babylon. We must not, as he justly observes, expect to find among the remains of this city any thing resembling the sublime magnificence which cast a halo over the ruins of Persian and Egyptian cities. Babylon, like modern London, was a city of bricks, prodigious in extent, mighty in appearance, but calculated, from the nature of its materials, to give way, when war or time laid its giant hands upon its towers. Its very site is now become an enigma, “a place for the bittern, and pools of water.” Modern travellers, however, have since visited this celebrated spot, and described it so frequently, that it is unnecessary to pause and repeat what they have written, particularly as no two agree upon any one point.
His stay at Babylon was brief, and on the 5th of January, 1766, he left it to proceed towards Bagdad,where he remained until the 3d of March, awaiting the departure of a caravan for Syria. At length, finding no better companions, he departed with a kafilah composed wholly of Jews, from one of whom, who had travelled much in the country, he expected to derive considerable information. He still possessed the sultan’s firman, which he had procured at Constantinople, and had likewise provided himself with a passport from the Pasha of Bagdad. He therefore anticipated no interruption on the way. In proceeding from Bagdad to Mousul, he traversed the plain on which the great battle of Arbela, which reduced Persia to a Macedonian province, was gained by Alexander. Ruin and desolation have since that day been busily at work in these countries. Among the vagabonds who now roam over or vegetate upon these renowned scenes, are a strange people, accused by many writers of worshipping the devil; I mean theYezeedis, who, though suspected by Niebuhr of being an offshoot from the Beyazi sect of Oman, appear to be rather the descendants of the ancient Manichæans, or a remnant of the Hindoo population, worshippers ofSiva, hurled into this obscure haunt by the storms of war.
At Mousul, where he found numerous Catholic and Nestorian Christians, he was received with extreme scorn, because his worthy coreligionists learned that he did not fast during Lent. However, by allowing himself to be defrauded a little by a Dominican father, a dealer in coins and physic, he quickly regained his character, and, during the remainder of his stay, was reputed a very good Christian. From this city he departed with a numerous caravan, bound partly for Aleppo, partly for Mardin, Orfah, or Armenia. The whole number of the travellers, including a guard of fifty soldiers, and about three or four hundred Arabs, amounted to little less than a thousand men. Yet, notwithstandingtheir numbers, the slightest report of there being a horde of Kurds in their neighbourhood threw these gallant warriors into consternation, and, upon one particular occasion, their confusion was so extreme that, like the honest knight of La Mancha, they mistook a flock of sheep for an army. The robbers on this road are exceedingly expert in their vocation; and one of the merchants of the caravan, who had often travelled by this route, amused Niebuhr with an anecdote illustrative of their skill, which deserves to be repeated:—He was one night encamped, he said, on the summit of a steep hill, and for the greater security had pitched his tent on the edge of the precipice. He himself kept watch until midnight, at which time he was relieved by his servant, who, as it would appear, soon fell asleep. On awaking about daybreak he observed a robber in the tent. He had already fastened the hook, with which he meant to perform his feat, in a bale of merchandise; but sprang out of the tent, upon perceiving he was discovered, still holding fast the cord of his hook. The merchant, however, immediately detached the hook from the bale, and fastened it in the clothes of his slumbering domestic, who, as the robber continued tugging violently at the cord, was soon roused. The robber pulled, the servant rolled along like a woolsack, and the master had the satisfaction of seeing him tumble down to the bottom of the hill, that he might in future be somewhat more careful of his master’s property.
Niebuhr himself, whose cautious temper generally defended him from danger, had on this journey a trifling adventure with an Arab sheïkh. It entered into the head of this fiery young Islamite that it would be amusing to have a frolic with a Giaour, and for this purpose he deprived our traveller of his bed and counterpanes. Niebuhr complained to the caravan bashi, but could only get a portion of his property restored. Next day, therefore, he appliedto the sheïkh himself, who, instead of returning the articles, only jested with him upon his uncharitable disposition, which would not allow him to share his luxuries, even for a few days, with a true believer, who was willing to be condescending enough to sleep on the bed of an infidel. Our traveller, hoping to terrify the Arab, now produced the sultan’s firman, and the Pasha of Bagdad’s passport; but this only rendered matters worse. “Here in the desert,” said the sheïkh, “Iam thy sultan and thy pasha. Thy papers have no authority with me!” Some days afterward, however, the Arab returned him his effects, from fear, according to Niebuhr, of the Governor of Mardin; but more probably because he had never intended to retain them.
From this point of his travels he proceeded by way of Mardin, Diarbekr, and Orfah, to Aleppo, where he arrived on the 6th of June. Here he remained some time, during which he acquired the friendship of the celebrated Dr. Patrick Russel, from whom he received much information respecting the Kurds and Turkomans, whose principal chiefs frequently visited our distinguished countryman at his house. His inquiries likewise extended to the Nassaireah and Ismaeleah, who, from the accounts of the Mohammedans and oriental Christians, would appear to have preserved among them the rites and ceremonies of the ancient worshippers of Venus. Nocturnal orgies, in which every man chose his mistress in the dark, and the adoration of the Yoni, in a young woman who exposed herself naked for the purpose of receiving this extravagant reverence, were likewise attributed to them; but, as Niebuhr observes, there is nothing too absurd or abominable to be related by the orthodox and dominant party of a persecuted heretical sect. He, in fact, found that the Roman Catholics everywhere in the East represented their Protestantbrethren as persons who lived without hope and without God in the world; while we, on the other hand, look upon them as idolaters, as far removed as the pagans of old from the pure religion of Christ.
After the death of his companions, Niebuhr had applied to the Danish government for permission to extend his journey in the East, and, through the benevolence of Count Bernstorf, his wishes had been readily complied with. He therefore passed from Syria into Cyprus, for the purpose of copying certain Phenician inscriptions at Cittium, the birth-place of Zeno, which had, it was suspected, been incorrectly copied by Pococke. Finding no inscriptions of the kind on the spot to which he had been directed, he, with an illiberality which was not common with him, imputed to Pococke the gross absurdity of having confounded Armenian with Phenician characters; but, as his recent biographer remarks, it is more probable that the stones had, in the interval, been removed.
From Cyprus he passed over into Palestine, visited Jerusalem, Sidon, Mount Lebanon, and Damascus, and then returned to Aleppo. Here he continued until the 20th of November, 1766, when he set out with a caravan for Brusa, in Asia Minor; and in traversing the table-land of Mount Taurus, suffered, says one of his biographers, as much from frosts, piercing winds, and snow-drifts, as he could have done in a winter journey in northern regions. Lofty mountains are everywhere cold. Chardin nearly perished among the snows of Mount Caucasus; Don Ulloa suffered severely from the same cause in the Andes, almost directly under the equator; and the lofty range of the Himalaya, which divides Hindostan from Tibet, is so excessively cold, that Baber Khan, though a soldier and a Tartar, beheld with terror the obstacle which these mountains presented to his ambition; and their summits have hitherto been protected by cold from humanintrusion. Upon reaching Brusa, however, he reposed himself for some time, and then set out for Constantinople, where he arrived on the 20th of February, 1767.
Here he remained three or four months, studying the institutions of the empire, civil and military. He then directed his course through Roumelia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Moldavia, towards Poland, and on arriving at Warsaw was received with extraordinary politeness by King Stanislaus Poniatowsky, with whom he afterward corresponded for many years. From Warsaw he continued his journey towards Copenhagen, and visited on the way Göttingen and his beloved native place, when the death of his mother’s brother, during his absence, had left him in possession of a considerable marsh-farm. He arrived at Copenhagen in November, and was received in the most flattering manner by the court, the ministers, and men of science.
Niebuhr now employed himself in preparing his various works for publication. The “Description of Arabia” was published in 1772, and although it must unquestionably be regarded as one of the most exact and copious works of the kind ever composed on any Asiatic country, it met with but a cold reception from the public. This, however, is not at all surprising. Written in the old style of books of travels, which appear to have aimed at imparting instruction without at all interesting the imagination, it can never be relished by the generality of readers, who at all times, and especially in these latter ages, have required to be cheated into knowledge by the secret but irresistible charms of composition. Niebuhr, unfortunately, possessed in a very limited degree the art of an author. His style has nothing of that life and vivacity which compensates, in many writers, for the want of method. But those who neglect his works on these accounts are to be pitied; for they abound with information, and everywhereexhibit marks of a remarkable power of penetrating into the character and motives of men, and a noble, manly benevolence, which generally inclines to a favourable, but just interpretation. He understood the Arabs better than almost any other traveller, and his opinion of them upon the whole was remarkably favourable. It is to him, therefore, that in an attempt to appreciate the character of this extraordinary people, I would resort, in preference even to Volney, who, whatever might be the perspicuity of his mind, had far fewer data whereon to found his conclusions.
In 1773 he married, and his wife bore him two children, a daughter and B. G. Niebuhr, the author of the “Roman History.” Next year the first volume of his “Travels” appeared, and was received by the public no less coldly than the “Description of Arabia;” which was, perhaps, the cause why the second volume was not published until 1778; and why the third, which would have completed his “Travels’” history, was never laid before the world, or even prepared for publication. This is exceedingly to be regretted, as, whatever may be the defects of Niebuhr as an author, which it appeared to be my duty to explain, he was, as an observer, highly distinguished for sagacity; and his account of Asia Minor would have been still valuable, notwithstanding all that has since been written on that country.
He continued to live at Copenhagen for ten years; but at length the retirement of Count Bernstorf from the ministry, and a report that General Huth designed to despatch him into Norway for the purpose of making a geographical survey of that country, disgusted him with the capital. He therefore demanded of the government permission to exchange his military for a civil appointment, and accordingly obtained the situation of secretary of the district of Meldorf, whither he removed his family in the year 1778. This town afforded Niebuhr few opportunitiesof entering into society. He consequently endeavoured to extract from solitude and from study the pleasures which he could not take in the company of mankind, and addicted himself to gardening and books. When his children had reached an age to require instruction, he undertook to conduct their education himself. “He instructed us,” says his son, “in geography, and related to us many passages of history. He taught me English and French—better, at any rate, than they would have been taught by anybody else in such a place; and something of mathematics, in which he would have proceeded much further, had not want of zeal and desire in me unfortunately destroyed all his pleasure in the occupation. One thing, indeed, was characteristic of his whole system of teaching: as he had no idea how anybody could have knowledge of any kind placed before him, and not seize it with the greatest avidity, and hold to it with the steadiest perseverance, he became disinclined to teach whenever we appeared inattentive or reluctant to learn. As the first instruction I received in Latin, before I had the good fortune to become a scholar of the learned and excellent Jäger, was very defective, he helped me, and read with me “Cæsar’s Commentaries.” Here again, the peculiar bent of his mind showed itself: he always called my attention much more strongly to the geography than the history. The map of Ancient Gaul by D’Anville, for whom he had the greatest reverence, always lay before us. I was obliged to look out every place as it occurred, and to tell its exact situation. His instruction had no pretensions to be grammatical; his knowledge of the language, so far as it went, was gained entirely by reading, and by looking at it as a whole. He was of opinion that a man did not deserve to learn what he had not principally worked out for himself; and that a teacher should be only a helper to assist the pupil out of otherwise inexplicable difficulties. Fromthese causes his attempts to teach me Arabic, when he had already lost that facility in speaking it without which it is impossible to dispense with grammatical instruction, to his disappointment and my shame, did not succeed. When I afterward taught it myself, and sent him translations from it, he was greatly delighted.
“I have the most lively recollection of many descriptions of the structure of the universe, and accounts of eastern countries, which he used to tell me instead of fairy tales, when he took me on his knee before I went to bed. The history of Mohammed; of the first califs, particularly of Omar and Ali, for whom he had the deepest veneration; of the conquests and spread of Islamism; of the virtues of the heroes of the new faith, and of the Turkish converts, were imprinted on my childish imagination in the liveliest colours. Historical works on these same subjects were nearly the first books that fell into my hands.
“I recollect, too, that on the Christmas-eve of my tenth year, by way of making the day one of peculiar solemnity and rejoicing to me, he went to a beautiful chest containing his manuscripts, which was regarded by us children, and indeed by the whole household, as a kind of ark of the covenant; took out the papers relating to Africa, and read to me from them. He had taught me to draw maps, and with his encouragement and assistance I soon produced maps of Habbesh and Soudan.
“I could not make him a more welcome birthday present than a sketch of the geography of eastern countries, or translations from voyages and travels, executed as might be expected from a child. He had originally no stronger desire than that I might be his successor as a traveller in the East. But the influence of a very tender and anxious mother upon my physical training and constitution, thwarted his plan, almost as soon as it was formed. In consequenceof her opposition, my father afterward gave up all thoughts of it.
“The distinguished kindness he had experienced from the English, and the services which he had been able to render to the East India Company, by throwing light upon the higher part of the Red Sea, led him to entertain the idea of sending me, as soon as I was old enough, to India. With this scheme, which, plausible as it was, he was afterward as glad to see frustrated as I was myself, many things, in the education he gave me, was intimately connected. He taught me, by preference, out of English books, and put English works, of all sorts, into my hands. At a very early age he gave me a regular supply of English newspapers: circumstances which I record here, not on account of the powerful influence they have had on my maturer life, but as indications of his character.”
In the winter of 1788 he received from Herder a copy of his “Persepolis,” which afforded him one proof that he was not forgotten by his countrymen. He took a deep interest in the war which was then raging against Turkey; for, in proportion to his love for the Arabs, was his hatred of the Turks, whom he cordially desired to see expelled from Europe. The French expedition to Egypt, however, was no object of gratification to him; for his dislike of the French was as strong as his dislike of the Turks, convinced that their absurd vanity and want of faith would infallibly neutralize the good effects even of the revolution itself. I am sorry to discover that, among other prejudices, he was led, partly, perhaps, from vanity, to accuse Bruce of having copied his astronomical observations; of having fabricated his conversation with Ali Bey; as well as, to borrow the strange language of his recent English biographer, “the pretendedjourney over the Red Sea, inthe country of Bab el Mandeb, as well as that on the coast south from Cosseir.” The same writer informs us that“Niebuhr read Bruce’s workwithout prejudice, and the conclusion he arrived at was the same which is, since the second Edinburgh edition, and the publication of Salt’s two journeys,the universal and ultimate one.” During the composition of these Lives, I have almost constantly avoided every temptation to engage in controversy with any man; I hope, likewise, that I have escaped from another, and still stronger temptation, to exalt my own countrymen at the expense of foreigners; but I cannot regard it as my duty, on the present occasion, to permit to pass unnoticed what appears to me a mere ebullition of envy in Niebuhr, and of weakness and want of reflection in his biographer. What is meant by a “journey over the Red Sea?” And where does Bruce pretend to have travelled in the “countryofBab el Mandeb?” These Arabic words are, I believe, by oriental scholars acknowledged to signify the “Gate of Tears,” and were anciently applied to what is commonly called the “Strait of Bab el Mandel,” from the belief that those who issued through that strait into the ocean could never return. The biographer seems to misunderstand the state of the question. Bruce has often been charged with never having sailed down the Red Sea so far as the strait, notwithstanding his assertions in the affirmative. But who are his accusers? Lord Valentia, Salt, and others of that stamp; men who never dared to venture their beards amid the dangers which Bruce encountered intrepidly. With respect to the coast from Cosseir southward, what, I will venture to inquire, could Niebuhr have known about the matter? Had he ever set his foot upon it? Had he even beheld it from a distance? If he relied, as in fact he did, upon the testimony of others, who were they? what were their opportunities? and what their claims to be believed? I am far from insinuating that Lord Valentia and Mr. Salt have entered into a conspiracy to wound the memory of Bruce; but, toadopt the language of an old orator, I would ask these gentlemen if they themselves could have been guilty of the impudent mendacity which they impute to Bruce? If, as there can be no doubt on the subject, Lord Valentia and Mr. Salt would spurn the imputation, is it to be for a moment believed that the discoverer of the sources of the Nile, the honourable, the fearless, the brave Bruce, could have condescended to do what these individuals, who, compared with him, are insignificant and obscure, would, by their own confession, have shrunk from perpetrating? But my unwillingness to speak harshly of Niebuhr, whose name ranks with me among those of the most honest and useful of travellers, forbids me to carry this discussion any further. I honour him for his knowledge, for his integrity, for his high sense of honour; but, for this very reason, I vehemently condemn his unjust attack upon the memory of our illustrious traveller. The opinion of his recent biographer, an able and, I make no doubt, a conscientious man, appears evidently to have arisen from an imperfect knowledge of the subject, and is therefore the less entitled to consideration.
The account given by his distinguished son of the latter days of this meritorious traveller is worthy of finding a place here. “His appearance,” says he, “was calculated to leave a delightful picture in the mind. All his features, as well as his extinguished eyes, wore the expression of the extreme and exhausted old age of an extraordinarily robust nature. It was impossible to behold a more venerable sight. So venerable was it, that a Cossack who entered an unbidden guest into the chamber where he sat with his silver locks uncovered, was so struck with it, that he manifested the greatest reverence for him, and a sincere and cordial interest for the whole household. His sweetness of temper was unalterable, though he often expressed his desire to go to his final home, since all which he had desired to live for had been accomplished.
“A numerous, and as yet unbroken, family circle was assembled around him; and every day in which he was not assailed by some peculiar indisposition he conversed with cheerfulness and cordial enjoyment on the happy change which had taken place in public affairs. We found it very delightful to engage in continued recitals of his travels, which he now related with peculiar fulness and vivacity. In this manner he once spoke much and in great detail of Persepolis, and described the walls on which he had found the inscriptions and bas-reliefs, exactly as one would describe those of a building visited within a few days and familiarly known. We could not conceal our astonishment. He replied, that as he lay in bed, all visible objects shut out, the pictures of what he had beheld in the East continually floated before his mind’s eye, so that it was no wonder he could speak of them as if he had seen them yesterday. With like vividness was the deep intense sky of Asia, with its brilliant and twinkling host of stars, which he had so often gazed at by night, or its lofty vault of blue by day, reflected in the hours of stillness and darkness on his inmost soul; and this was his greatest enjoyment. In the beginning of winter he had another bleeding at the nose, so violent that the bystanders expected his death; but this also he withstood.
“About the end of April, 1815, the long obstruction in his chest grew much worse; but his friendly physician alleviated the symptoms, which to those around him appeared rather painful than dangerous. Towards evening on the 26th of April, 1815, he was read to as usual, and asked questions which showed perfect apprehension and intelligence; he then sunk into a slumber, and departed without a struggle.”
Niebuhr had attained his eighty-second year. He was a man rather below than above the middle size, but robust in make, and exceedingly oriental in air and gestures. As might be clearly enough inferredfrom his works, he was no lover of poetry; for, though he is said to have admired Homer in the German translation of Voss, together with the Herman and Dorothea of Goëthe, this might be accounted for upon a different principle. His imagination, however, was liable to be sometimes excited in a very peculiar way. “It is extraordinary,” says his son, “that this man, so remarkably devoid of imagination, so exempt from illusion, waked us on the night in which his brother died, though he was at such a distance that he knew not even of his illness, and told us that his brother was dead. What had appeared to him, waking or dreaming, he never told us.”