Authors: Wilfred Thesiger
Sultan told me that from here we must turn southwards to rejoin the rest of my party. Two days later, as we approached a well in the Wadi Andam, my eye was caught by an outstandingly fine camel, fully saddled. At the well a tall man, in a faded brown shirt with an embroidered woollen head-cloth twisted loosely round his head, was talking to two boys and a girl who were watering a flock of goats. I noticed that his dagger was elaborately decorated with silver. Ahmad whispered to me. ‘That is Ali bin Said bin Rashid, Sheikh of the Yahahif.’ After we had greeted him, he said, ‘So you have arrived safely. You are very welcome. Your companions are near my encampment; all of them well and waiting for you. We will go there tomorrow. Tonight we will camp with some Baluchi near here. You must be tired and hungry, for you have travelled far.’ Then, turning to Ahmad, he asked, ‘Did you have any trouble?’ He had steady, thoughtful eyes, a large, slightly crooked nose, deep creases down his cheeks, a straggling beard turning grey, and a closely clipped moustache above rather full lips. It was a good-natured face with no hint of fanaticism, but with unmistakable authority. A Bedu sheikh has no paid retainers on whom he can rely to carry out his orders. He is merely the first among equals in a society where every man is intensely independent and quick to resent any hint of autocracy. His authority depends in consequence on the force of his own personality and on his skill in handling men. His position in the tribe, in fact, resembles that of the chairman of a committee meeting. I had always heard that Ali possessed considerable influence, and looking at him now I could well believe it.
Ahmad fetched Ali’s camel, and the five of us rode over to the Baluch encampment near by, where we were to spend the night. It was four o’clock when we got there, but eleven o’clock before we sat down to a large platter heaped with tough meat and dates.
About twenty men and boys collected round our fire. All of them, even the children, wore shirts – for here, unlike Dhaufar, it is not the custom to dress only in a loin-cloth. Ali had told me that these people were in origin Baluchis from Persia, but that they had lived for so long among the Wahiba that now they counted as a section of that tribe. They spoke only Arabic, and I should not have distinguished them from other members of their adopted tribe.
Bin Kabina as usual kept his rifle always ready to his hand. Ali noticed this and said, ‘It is all right, boy, you can leave your rifle over there. Thanks to the Imam, God lengthen his life, we have peace here. It is not like the sands where you come from, where there is always raiding and killing.’
We rejoined the others late the next evening near Barida well in the Wadi Halfain, having ridden nearly two hundred and fifty miles since we had parted from them ten days earlier. Ali urged us to go on to his encampment a few miles farther down the wadi, but, instead, we persuaded Mm to spend the night with us. Bin al Kamam bought a goat; it was long after midnight before we fed. We spent the following day at Ali’s tent. This was only about twelve feet long, woven of black goat’s-hair and pitched like a wind-break under a small tree. Among these Bedu tribes there is no contrast between rich and poor, since everyone lives in a similar manner, dressing in the same way and eating the same sort of food, and the poorest of them considers himself as good as the richest.
Ali’s two wives, with whom, as is the custom here, we had shaken hands on arrival, joined us after we had fed, and sat talking with us while we drank coffee. Before we left the tent they produced a small dish filled with a yellow oil scented with amber and made (I was told) from sesame, saffron, and something called
waris.
We dipped our fingers in it and rubbed it over our faces and beards. I met with this custom only among the Wahiba and the Dura, but bin Kabina told me that he
had been anointed with a similar oil before his circumcision.
Ali warned us that the Ghafari tribes to the north had heard of my arrival among the Wahiba and were determined to stop my going through their country. He said, ‘Don’t think you can slip past them unobserved as you have just done. They will be on the watch for you now. Why don’t you travel along the coast to Muscat and then go on through the Batina?’ But to do this meant giving up the main object of my journey, which was to explore the interior of Oman. In any case, I was not at all anxious to encounter the Sultan of Muscat. When I had met him in Salala after my first journey through these parts he had been charming. Now after another unauthorized journey I was sure he would be furious. I told Ali that Zayid had given me a letter to Yasir requesting him to help me, and asked him whether he thought Yasir would be able to take me back to Muwaiqih. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose Yasir could take you through, but I doubt if he will. He won’t wish to offend the Imam.’
There were several Wahiba camped here, some in tents, others in shelters made from tree-trunks and branches. During the next three days we met many more of them watering their stock at the wells which we passed as we rode up the Halfain. The Wahiba seemed to me to be a finer people than the Duru, in the same indefinable way that the Rashid had impressed me as being superior to the Bait Kathir. The Rashid lived harder lives than the Bait Kathir, which perhaps accounted for the difference between them, but the Wahiba and the Duru lived similar lives in the same sort of country. I wondered if the contrast between these two tribes was due to some fundamental difference in origin far back in the past.
I sent Hamaid to Yasir with Zayid’s letter when we were near Adam, a small village lying in the gap between Madhamar and Salakh, two mountains which rise abruptly from the gravel plain and run westwards in the shape of a crescent for thirty miles from the Halfain to the Amairi. I had no instruments to calculate their height but guessed that Salakh was three thousand feet and Madhamar fifteen hundred. The limestone of which they are formed had been weathered to leave no prominent features, and no vegetation was apparent on the naked
rock. Both of them were dome-shaped, and I thought regretfully that their formation was of the sort which geologists associate with oil. But, even so, I did not anticipate that eight years later an oil company would have established a camp, made an airfield, and be drilling at Fahud not more than forty miles away.
The following day we camped to the north of Madhamar at Tawi Yasir, where we had arranged for Hamaid to meet us. In the evening an elderly villager joined us. He had a disapproving face and an untidy beard, which, according to Ibadhi custom, had never been trimmed. We made coffee for him, and preceded it with a dish of dates. As soon as he had drunk the coffee he prayed interminably and later sat in silence fingering his beard. After dinner bin Tahi tried to enliven the evening by being funny. The result was not happy. Our visitor suddenly got to his feet and declared that bin Tahi was making a mock of him. Shocked, everyone vowed that this was not the case, that he was our guest and that our only wish was to please him. Bin al Kamam tried to mend matters by pretending that bin Tahi had never been right in his head since he had fallen off. his camel some years before. The man refused to be pacified, however, and finally made everyone angry by saying, This is what happens to Muslims when they travel with an infidel.’ Bin Tahi answered immediately, T may not be learned in religious matters, but at any rate I don’t spend the whole time I am praying scratching my arse.’ As the man rode off into the dark, the others said, Thank God he is gone.’ But I was anxious, and fearful that he would cause us trouble.
Next day we remained where we were, waiting for Hamaid. I wondered what to do if Yasir refused to help us, and half regretted having sent Hamaid to him, feeling that perhaps had we travelled fast we could have slipped unobserved through the country ahead of us. Now we had hung about here too long, but whatever happened we should be able to get back to the Wahiba.
Bin Kabina was sitting near me mending his shirt. It was worn thin and yesterday it had torn right across the shoulders. I said to him irritably, ‘Why don’t you wear your new shirt?’ He did not answer but went on sewing. I asked him again, and
he answered without looking up, ‘I have not got another.’
I said, ‘I saw the new one with the red stitching in your saddle-bags a few days ago.’
‘I gave it away.’
‘Who to?’
‘Sultan.’
‘God, why did you do that when you only have that rag to wear?’
‘He asked me for it.’
‘Damn the man. I gave him a handsome present. Really, you are a fool.’
‘Would you have me refuse when he asked for it?’
‘Of course. We could have given him a few more dollars.’
‘When I have asked you for money you have refused to give me any.’
This was true. Several times he had borrowed money to give away to people who asked for it; twice recently I had refused to let him have any more, so as to stop this incessant scrounging of money from him which he would later need for himself. I had told him that I would give him his money at Muwaiqih. I would probably need what I had with me before we got there. I said that he could put the blame on me, and tell them that I would not give him the money.
Now I grumbled, ‘You will look well if we do meet Yasir, half-naked in that rag.’
He answered angrily, ‘Do I have to ask your permission before I can give my own things away?’
Hamaid returned late in the afternoon. Yasir and three other Arabs were with him. Yasir was dressed in a plain white shirt and a large embroidered head-cloth. He wore a dagger and cartridge belt, and carried a 450 Martini. He was a big heavy man, who shuffled as he walked. He had prominent, ill-proportioned features, and a large beard streaked with grey. Hamaid told me later that Yasir had been greatly embarrassed by my arrival, since the Imam, who had heard of my presence in these parts, had given orders that I was to be arrested if I came this way. Yasir had, however, felt obliged to meet me since I had brought a letter from Zayid. He said at once that he could not take me to Muwaiqih without the Imam’s
permission, but that he would himself go to Nazwa in the morning and see the Imam, and that his son would meanwhile take us to a place in the hills half-way between Nazwa and Izz. I realized that if we went there, and if Yasir then failed to secure me a safe conduct from the Imam, we should be unable to escape. I asked the others what they thought, and bin al Kamam said, ‘If you want to get back to Muwaiqih you will have to trust Yasir.’ I therefore took Yasir aside and said, ‘Zayid, who is my great friend, assured me that only you, the most influential sheikh in these parts, could take me safely through Oman. I have come to you now with Zayid’s letter to ask you for your help. I put myself in your hands and am ready to do whatever you suggest.’ I then gave him two hundred Maria Theresa dollars, as a present. He answered, ‘Go with my son. Tomorrow evening I will meet you, and, God willing, I will have the Imam’s permission for your journey.’
We camped next day within ten miles of Nazwa. The town itself was out of sight, hidden behind a rocky ridge, one of many in the broken country that lay between our camp and the foot of the Jabal al Akhadar, or ‘The Green Mountain’, a name which seemed singularly inappropriate, since its slopes and precipices looked as bare as the hills that surrounded us. The atmosphere was unusually clear and I could see its entire length. For fifty miles it stretched across our front, its face scored by great gorges – streaks of purple on a background of pale yellow and misty blue. The Jabal al Akhadar is a single continuous ridge, and I could not decide which of the bumps and pinnacles that broke its outline was the actual summit. Ten thousand feet high, it forms the highest part of a range which extends unbroken for four hundred miles from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean.
Ahmad named the towns and villages which we could see. Pointing to a town just visible at the foot of the mountain, he said, That is Birkat al Mauz – Sulaiman bin Hamyar lives there. He is Sheikh of the Bani Riyam and head of all the Ghafaris. The Jabal al Akhadar belongs to him. They say there is running water all the year round on the mountain, and forests of trees and lots of fruit. It is bitterly cold up there; an Arab from the mountain once told me that in the winter the
rain sometimes turns into a soft white powder like salt. No, not hail; we often get hail even down here.’ I asked, ‘Would Sulaiman allow me to travel on the mountain?’ and he answered, ‘God knows; he might. They say he is a friend of the Christians who live in Muscat. The Imam, however, would prevent your meeting him. He does not trust Sulaiman.’ After a pause, he went on: ‘If you could get to Birkat al Mauz without being stopped, I think Sulaiman would take you into the mountain. No one else could take you there.’
Yasir came back at sunset. He had several Arabs with him. He told us that on his way to Nazwa he had met a party of horsemen sent by the Imam to arrest me. He had persuaded them to return to Nazwa, and there, after much angry argument, he had induced the Imam to authorize my journey back to Muwaiqih. The Imam had sent one of his men with Yasir as his representative. I anticipated that this would be some sour-faced fanatic, and was relieved when Yasir introduced me to a friendly old man with an obvious sense of humour. Yasir had also persuaded one of the Dura sheikhs, called Huaishil, to come with us. Huaishil possessed the charm which Yasir so sadly lacked. I knew that accompanied by the Imam’s representative, and by
rabias
from Junuba, Dura, and Wahiba, I had no further cause to worry.
I was very busy during the eight days that it took me to reach Muwaiqih. In the desert there had been little to plot except our course, but here there was a great deal of detail to fill in. Except for the outline of Jabal al Akhadar and the position of a few of the larger towns, the existing maps were blank. I was thankful that there was no further need to conceal my identity, and that I could work openly taking bearings and making sketches.
As we were passing under an enormous dome of light-coloured rock which formed a buttress to Jabal Kaur we passed three men on camels. One of them, a small indignant man, smothered under a large white turban, was the redoubtable Riqaishi, Governor of Ibri. At the time I was riding with bin Kabina, bin al Kamam, and the two Awamir some way behind the others. The Riqaishi had just met them. He had immediately warned Yasir that the Christian was in the
neighbourhood, and added that he was on his way to Nazwa to inform the Imam. He was horrified when he heard that I was in their company, and left them without further word. The Imam’s representative chuckled when later he described the scene to me. Bin al Kamam greeted the Riqaishi as he passed and asked him courteously if there was anything he could do for him. The Riqaishi gave his camel an angry blow and answered, ‘You would not have brought the Christian here if you had wished to please me.’