Authors: Wilfred Thesiger
We ate some dates, and Jadid then went back while the rest of us set off in an easterly direction, the mist still thick about us. I hoped we should not stumble on some Arab encampment. The mist did not lift for another two hours.
The dunes ran from west to east so that we were travelling easily. They consisted of great massifs similar to the
qaid
which I had seen in Ghanim, but there they were linked together to form parallel dune chains about three hundred feet in height, the broad valleys between them being covered with bright-green salt-bushes. We passed several palm groves and a few small settlements of dilapidated huts made, as bin Kabina had described, from matting and palm fronds. They were all abandoned.
At midday, while we were eating more of our revolting dates, two Arabs accompanied by a saluki appeared on a distant dune. They stood and watched us, so al Auf went over to them. They shouted to him not to come any nearer, and when he called back that he wanted ‘the news’ they answered that they had none and wanted none of his and threatened that they would shoot if he came any closer. They watched us for a while and then made off.
We travelled slowly to rest our camels and reached the Rabadh sands five days after leaving Balagh. Sometimes we saw camels. It did not seem to matter how far off they were; my companions were apparently always able to distinguish if they
were in milk. They would say, There are camels’, and point to some dots on a dune a mile or more away. After a further scrutiny they would agree that one or more were in milk. We would then ride over to them, for travellers in the desert may milk any camels they encounter. These camels were feeding on salt-bushes and gushes of liquid green excrement poured constantly down their hocks. Al Auf told me that camels which fed on salt-bushes always scoured like this, but that it did them no harm provided they had plenty of water. Certainly most of these looked in excellent condition.
Once we passed a dozen camels tended by a woman with two small children. AI Auf said, ‘Let’s get a drink’, and we rode over to them. He jumped from his camel, greeted the woman, a wizened old thing bundled up in black cloth turned green with age, took the bowl which she handed him, and went towards the camels. She shrilled at her sons, ‘Hurry! Hurry! Fetch the red one. Fetch the two-year-old. God take you, child! Hurry! Fetch the red one. Fetch the two-year-old. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to the guests!’ Al Auf handed us the bowl and in turn we squatted down to drink, for no Arab drinks standing, while the old woman asked us where we were going. We answered that we were going to fight for the Al bu Falah and she exclaimed, ‘God give you victory!’
On another occasion we came upon a small encampment of Manasir. Hamad insisted that we must go over to them, or we should arouse their suspicions since they had already seen us. We were on foot at the time and I suggested that they should leave the camels to graze and that I should herd them until they returned. After some argument they agreed. I knew that they wanted milk, and I should have liked a drink myself, but it seemed stupid to run the risk of detection. When they returned, bin Kabina grinned whenever he looked at me, so I asked him what the joke was. He said, The Manasir gave us milk but insisted that we should fetch you, saying, “Why do you leave your companion without milk?” Al Auf explained that you were our slave, but they still insisted that we should fetch you.’ I knew that among Bedu even a slave is considered as a travelling companion, entitled to the same treatment as the rest of the party. Bin Kabina went on, ‘Finally al Auf said,
“Oh! he is half-witted. Leave him where he is”, and the Manasir insisted no more.’ Mabkhaut said, ‘True, they said no more, but they looked at us a bit oddly.’
Next morning while we were leading our camels down a steep dune face I was suddenly conscious of a low vibrant hum, which grew in volume until it sounded as though an aeroplane were flying low over our heads. The frightened camels plunged about, tugging at their head-ropes and looking back at the slope above us. The sound ceased when we reached the bottom. This was 4he singing of the sands’. The Arabs describe it as roaring, which is perhaps a more descriptive word. During the five years that I was in these parts I only heard it half a dozen times. It is caused, I think, by one layer of sand slipping over another. Once I was standing on a dune-crest and the sound started as soon as I stepped on to the steep face. I found on this occasion that I could start it or stop it at will by stepping on or off this slip-face.
Near Rabadh, Musallim suddenly jumped off his camel, pushed his arm into a shallow burrow, and pulled out a hare. I asked him how he knew it was there, and he said that he had seen its track going in and none coming out. The afternoon dragged on until we reached the expanse of small contiguous dunes which give these sands the name of Rabadh. There was adequate grazing, so we stopped on their edge. We decided to eat the rest of our flour, and Musallim conjured three onions and some spices out of Ms saddle-bags. We sat round in a hungry circle watching bin Kabina cooking the hare, and offering advice. Anticipation mounted, for it was more than a month since we had eaten meat, except for the hare that al Auf had killed near the Uruq al Shaiba. We sampled the soup and decided to let it stew just a little longer. Then bin Kabina looked up and groaned, ‘God! Guests!’
Coming across the sands towards us were three Arabs. Hamad said, ‘They are Bakhit, and Umbarak, and Salim, the children of Mia’, and to me, ‘They are Rashid.’ We greeted them, asked the news, made coffee for them, and then Musallim and bin Kabina dished up the hare and the bread and set it before them, saying with every appearance of sincerity that they were our guests, that God had brought them, that today
was a blessed day, and a number of similar remarks. They asked us to join them but we refused, repeating that they were our guests. I hoped that I did not look as murderous as I felt while I joined the others in assuring them that God had brought them on this auspicious occasion. When they had finished, bin Kabina put a sticky lump of dates in a dish and called us over to feed.
Feeling thoroughly ill-tempered I lay down to sleep, but this was impossible. The others, excited by this meeting with their fellow-tribesmen, talked incessantly within a few yards of my head. I wondered irritably why Bedu must always shout. Gradually I relaxed. I tried the old spell of asking myself, ‘Would I really wish to be anywhere else?’ and having decided that I would not, I felt better. I pondered on this desert hospitality and, compared it with our own. I remembered other encampments where I had slept, small tents on which I had happened in the Syrian desert and where I had spent the night. Gaunt men in rags and hungry-looking children had greeted me, and bade me welcome with the sonorous phrases of the desert. Later they had set a great dish before me, rice heaped round a sheep which they had slaughtered, over which my host poured liquid golden butter until it flowed down on to the sand; and when I had protested, saying, ‘Enough ! Enough ! ‘, had answered that I was a hundred times welcome. Their lavish hospitality had always made me uncomfortable, for I had known that as a result of it they would go hungry for days. Yet when I left them they had almost convinced me that I had done them a kindness by staying with them.
My thoughts were interrupted by the raised voices of my companions. Bin Kabina was protesting passionately. I could see him gesticulating against the sky. I listened and, as I had expected, they were talking about money, the rights and wrongs of some ancient dispute about a few shillings which concerned none of them. I wondered if any other race was as avaricious as the Arabs, with such an intense love of money, and then I thought of bin Kabina giving away his only loin-cloth in Ramlat al Ghafa and wondered who, other than a Bedu, would have done that. It is characteristic of Bedu to do things by extremes, to be either wildly generous or unbelievably mean, very patient
or almost hysterically excitable, to be incredibly brave or to panic for no apparent reason. Ascetic by nature, they derive satisfaction from the bare simplicity of their lives and scorn the amenities which others would judge essential. Although, on the rare occasions that offer, they eat enormously, I have never met a Bedu who was greedy. Continent for months on end, not one of them, even the most austere, would regard celibacy as a virtue. They want sons, and consider that women are provided by God for the satisfaction of men. Deliberately to refrain from using them would be not only unnatural but also ridiculous, and Bedu are very susceptible to ridicule. Yet an Arab will use his sister’s name as his battle-cry, and Glubb has suggested that the medieval conception of chivalry came to Europe from the Arabs at the time of the Crusades. Bedu set great score by human dignity, and most of them would prefer to watch a man die rather than see him humiliated. Always reserved in front of strangers and accustomed on formal occasions to sit for hours motionless and in silence, they are a garrulous, lighthearted race. But, at the instigation of religious zealots, they can become uncompromisingly puritanical, quick to frown on all amusement, regarding song and music as a sin and laughter as unseemly. Probably no other people, either as a race or as individuals, combine so many conflicting qualities in such an extreme degree.
I was dimly conscious of their voices until nearly dawn.
In the morning Bakhit pressed us to come to his tent, saying, ‘I will give you fat and meat’, the conventional way of saying that he would kill a camel for us. We were tempted, for we were very hungry, but Hamad said that it would be wiser not to go there, for the sands in which Bakhit was camped were full of Arabs. We told Bakhit that we wished to buy a camel, and he said he would fetch one and meet us next day at an abandoned well farther to the east. He met us there a little before sunset. He had with him an old camel, a
hazmia,
black-coated and in good condition, which had been bred in the sands. There were long strips of skin hanging from the soles of her feet. AI Auf said she would not be able to travel far on the gravel plains in the Dura country, but Mabkhaut answered that we could take her along with us until her feet wore
through and then kill her. We bought her after a little haggling.
The next morning we saw some tents, and Hamad said, ‘I don’t know who they are’, so we bore off to the right in order to pass wide of them; but a man came out from among them and ran across the sand towards us, shouting, ‘Stop! Stop!’ As he came near, Hamad said, ‘It is all right. He is Salim, old Muhammad’s son.’ We greeted him and he said, ‘Why do you pass by my tent? Come, I will give you fat and meat.’ I protested instinctively, but he silenced me by saying, ‘If you do not come to my tent I shall divorce my wife.’ This was the divorce oath, which he was bound to obey if we refused. He took my camel’s rein and led her towards the tents. An old man came forward and greeted us. He had a long white beard, kindly eyes, and a gentle voice. He walked very upright, as do all the Bedu. Hamad said, This is old Muhammad.’ The two tents were very small, less than three yards long and four feet high, and were half-filled with saddles and other gear. An old woman, a younger woman, and three children, one of them a small naked child with a running nose and his thumb in his mouth, watched us as we unloaded. The women were dressed in dark-blue robes, and were unveiled. The younger one was very pretty. Salim called to al Auf and together they went off across the dunes. They came back later with a young camel, which they slaughtered behind the tents.
Meanwhile the old man had made coffee and set out dates for us to eat. Hamad said, ‘He is the Christian.’ The old man asked, ‘Is he the Christian who travelled last year with bin al Kamam and the Rashid to the Hadhramaut?’ and after Hamad had assented he turned to me and said, ‘A thousand welcomes.’ It had not taken long for this news to arrive, although here we were near the Persian Gulf, far from the Hadhramaut; but I was not surprised. I knew how interested Bedu always are in ‘the news’, how concerned to get the latest information about their kinsmen, about raids and tribal movements and grazing. I knew from experience how far they would go out of their way to ask for news. I had realized that it was the chance of getting this as much as the craving for milk that had tantalized my companions during the past days when we had seen and
avoided distant tents. They hated travelling through inhabited country without knowing exactly what was happening around them.
‘What is “the news”?’ It is the question which follows every encounter in the desert even between strangers. Given a chance the Bedu will gossip for hours, as they had done last night, and nothing is too trivial for them to recount. There is no reticence in the desert. If a man distinguishes himself he knows that his fame will be widespread; if he disgraces himself he knows that the story of his shame will inevitably be heard in every encampment. It is this fear of public opinion which enforces at all times the rigid conventions of the desert. The consciousness that they are always before an audience makes many of their actions theatrical. Glubb once told me of a Bedu sheikh who was known as ‘The Host of the Wolves’, because whenever he heard a wolf howl round his tent he ordered his son to take a goat out in the desert, saying he would have no one call on him for dinner in vain.
It was late in the afternoon when Salim spread a rug in front of us, and placed on it a large tray covered with rice. He lifted joints of meat from the cauldron and put them on this, ladled soup over the rice, and finally tipped a dishful of butter over it. He then poured water over our outstretched hands. Old Muhammad invited us to eat, but refused our invitation to join us. He stood and watched us, saying, ‘Eat ! Eat ! You are hungry. You are tired. You have come a long way. Eat ! ’ He shouted to Salim to bring more butter, although we protested that there was enough already, and taking the dish from Salim’s hand poured it over the rice. Gorged at last, we licked our fingers and rose together muttering ‘God requite you.’ We washed, using water. There was no need here to clean our fingers with sand, for the well was near by. Salim then handed us coffee and the bitter drops were welcome and clean-tasting after the greasy rice and cold lumps of fat which we had eaten. He and his father urged us to remain with them at least for another day to rest ourselves and our camels, and we willingly agreed. They brought us milk at sunset and we drank till we could drink no more. As each of us handed back the bowl from which he had drunk, he said, ‘God bless her!’, a blessing
on the camel who had given the milk. Bakhit and Umbarak turned up next morning, saying that they had expected to find us here. Bakhit was anxious to accompany us to Ibri, where he wished to buy rice and coffee with the money we had given him for the camel. He was afraid to go alone because of the enmity between the Rashid and the Duru.