How many com-
plaints of similar treatment have I heard in different parts of
the Eastern world!
plaints of similar treatment have I heard in different parts of
the Eastern world!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
”
This capable soldier and author was very inadequately recom-
pensed. As a soldier, his bravery and long service brought him only
the rank of Captain. In the civil service he was given only second-
class consulates. The French Geographical Society, and also the
Royal Geographical Society of England, each awarded him a gold
medal, but the latter employed him upon only one expedition. At
the age of sixty-five he was knighted. He had no other honors.
This lack of recognition was undoubtedly a mortification, although
toward the end of his career he writes philosophically:-
«The press are calling me (the neglected Englishman,' and I want to
express to them the feelings of pride and gratitude with which I have seen
the exertions of my brethren of the press to procure for me a tardy justice.
The public is a fountain of honor which amply suffices all my aspirations;
it is the more honorable as it will not allow a long career to be ignored
because of catechisms or creed. )
He comforted himself, no doubt, with the belief that his out-
spoken skepticism was the cause of this lack of advancement, and
that he was in some sort a martyr to freedom of thought; but one
may be excused for discrediting this in the face of so many contrary
instances. Capable men too scarce to throw aside for such
things in this century. The real and sufficient reason was his
equally outspoken criticism of his superior officers in every depart-
are
## p. 2885 (#457) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2885
ment. A subordinate may and often does know more than his
masters; but if he wishes the luxury of advertising the fact, he must
pay for it with their ill-will and his own practical suppression.
Lady Burton was also an author; her Inner Life in Syria' and
(Arabia, Egypt, and India) are bright and entertaining. But her
most important work is the Life of Sir Richard F. Burton,'
published in 1892, two years after her husband's death. This un-
organized mass of interesting material, in spite of carelessness and
many faults of style and taste, shows her a ready observer, with
a clever and graphic way of stating her impressions.
THE PRETERNATURAL IN FICTION
From the Essay on (The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night
S
“A
measure
The active world is inferior to the rational soul,” says
Bacon, with his normal sound sense, “so Fiction gives
to Mankind what History denies, and in some
satisfies the Mind with Shadows when it cannot enjoy the Sub-
stance. And as real History gives us not the success of things
according to the deserts of vice and virtue, Fiction corrects it
and presents us with the fates and fortunes of persons rewarded
and punished according to merit. ” But I would say still more.
History paints or attempts to paint life as it is, a mighty maze
with or without a plan; Fiction shows or would show us life as
it should be, wisely ordered and laid down on fixed lines. Thus
Fiction is not the mere handmaid of History: she has a house-
hold of her own, and she claims to be the triumph of Art,
which, as Goethe remarked, is “Art because it is not Nature. ”
Fancy, la folle du logis, is “that kind and gentle portress who
holds the gate of Hope wide open, in opposition to Reason,
the surly and scrupulous guard. ” As Palmerin of England says,
and says well:-“For that the report of noble deeds doth urge
the courageous mind to equal those who bear most commenda-
tion of their approved valiancy; this is the fair fruit of Im-
agination and of ancient histories. ” And last, but not least, the
faculty of Fancy takes count of the cravings of man's nature for
the marvelous, the impossible, and of his higher aspirations
for the Ideal, the Perfect; she realizes the wild dreams and
visions of his generous youth, and portrays for him a portion of
that "other and better world,” with whose expectation he would
console his age.
## p. 2886 (#458) ###########################################
2886
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
The imaginative varnish of The Nights) serves admirably as
a foil to the absolute realism of the picture in general. We
enjoy being carried away from trivial and commonplace charac-
ters, scenes, and incidents; from the matter-of-fact surroundings
of a workaday world, a life of eating and drinking, sleeping
and waking, fighting and loving, into a society and a mise-en-
scène which we suspect can exist and which we know do not.
Every man, at some turn or term of his life, has longed for
supernatural powers and a glimpse of Wonderland. Here he is
in the midst of it. Here he sees mighty spirits summoned to
work the human mite's will, however whimsical; who can trans-
port him in an eye-twinkling whithersoever he wishes; who can
ruin cities and build palaces of gold and silver, gems and
jacinths; who can serve up delicate viands and delicious drinks
in priceless chargers and impossible cups, and bring the choicest
fruits from farthest Orient: here he finds magas and magicians
who can make kings of his friends, slay armies of his foes, and
bring any number of beloveds to his arms.
And from this outraging probability and outstripping possi-
bility arises not a little of that strange fascination exercised for
nearly two centuries upon the life and literature of Europe by
"The Nights,' even in their mutilated and garbled form. The
reader surrenders himself to the spell, feeling almost inclined to
inquire, “And why may it not be true ? ” His brain is dazed
and dazzled by the splendors which flash before it, by the sudden
procession of Jinns and Jinniyahs, demons and fairies, some
hideous, others preternaturally beautiful; by good wizards and
evil sorcerers, whose powers are unlimited for weal and for woe;
by mermen and mermaids, flying horses, talking animals, and
reasoning elephants; by magic rings and their slaves, and by
talismanic couches which rival the carpet of Solomon. Hence, as
one remarks, these Fairy Tales have pleased and still continue to
please almost all ages, all ranks, and all different capacities.
Dr. Hawkesworth observes that these Fairy Tales find favor
"because even their machinery, wild and wonderful as it is, has
its laws; and the magicians and enchanters perform nothing but
what was naturally to be expected from such beings, after we
had once granted them existence. ” Mr. Heron (rather supposes
the very contrary is the truth of the fact. It is surely the
strangeness, the unknown nature, the anomalous character of the
supernatural agents here employed, that makes them to operate
## p. 2887 (#459) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2887
as
we
so powerfully on our hopes, fears, curiosities, sympathies, and in
short, on all the feelings of our hearts. We see men and women
who possess qualities to recommend them to our favor, subjected
to the influence of beings whose good or ill will, power or weak-
ness, attention or neglect, are regulated by motives and circum-
stances which we cannot comprehend: and hence we naturally
tremble for their fate with the same anxious concern
should for a friend wandering in a dark night amidst torrents
and precipices; or preparing to land on a strange island, while
he knew not whether he should be received on the shore by
cannibals waiting to tear him piecemeal and devour him, or by
gentle beings disposed to cherish him with fond hospitality. ”
Both writers have expressed themselves well; but meseems
each has secured, as often happens, a fragment of the truth and
holds it to be the whole Truth. Granted that such spiritual
creatures as Jinns walk the earth, we are pleased to find them so
very human, as wise and as foolish in word and deed as our-
selves; similarly we admire in a landscape natural forms like
those of Staffa or the Palisades, which favor the works of archi-
tecture. Again, supposing such preternaturalisms to be around
and amongst us, the wilder and more capricious they prove, the
more our attention is excited and our forecasts are baffled, to be
set right in the end. But this is not all. The grand source of
pleasure in fairy tales is the natural desire to learn more of
the Wonderland which is known to many as a word and nothing
more, like Central Africa before the last half-century; thus the
interest is that of the “personal narrative” of a grand explora-
tion, to one who delights in travels. The pleasure must be
greatest where faith is strongest; for instance, amongst imagin-
ative races like the Kelts, and especially Orientals, who imbibe
supernaturalism with their mothers' milk. "I am persuaded,"
writes Mr. Bayle St. John, that the great scheme of preter-
natural energy, so fully developed in The Thousand and One
Nights,' is believed in by the majority of the inhabitants of all
the religious professions both in Syria and Egypt. ” He might
have added, by every reasoning being from prince to peasant,
from Mullah to Badawi, between Marocco. and Outer Ind. ”
Dr. Johnson thus sums up his notice of The Tempest":
“Whatever might have been the intention of their author, these
tales are made instrumental to the production of many char-
acters, diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with
## p. 2888 (#460) ###########################################
2888
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
profound skill in nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and
accurate observation of life. Here are exhibited princes, court-
iers, and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is
the agency of airy spirits and of earthy goblins, the operations of
magic, the tumults of a storm, the adventures on a desert island,
the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of guilt,
and the final happiness of those for whom our passions and
reason are equally interested. ”
We can fairly say this much and far more for our Tales,
Viewed as a tout ensemble in full and complete form, they are
a drama of Eastern life, and a Dance of Death made sublime by
faith and the highest emotions, by the certainty of expiation and
the fullness of atoning equity, where virtue is victorious, vice is
vanquished, and the ways of Allah are justified to man. They are
a panorama which remains ken-speckle upon the mental retina.
They form a phantasmagoria in which archangels and angels,
devils and goblins, men of air, of fire, of water, naturally mingle
with men of earth; where flying horses and talking fishes are
utterly realistic: where King and Prince meet fisherman and
pauper, lamia and cannibal; where citizen jostles Badawi, eunuch
meets knight; the Kazi hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and
pious sit down to the same tray with the pander and the pro-
curess; where the professional religionist, the learned Koranist,
and the strictest moralist consort with the wicked magician, the
scoffer, and the debauchee-poet like Abu Nowas; where the
courtier jests with the boor, and where the sweep is bedded with
the noble lady. And the characters are finished and quickened
by a few touches swift and sure as the glance of sunbeams. ”
The whole is a kaleidoscope where everything falls into picture;
gorgeous palaces and pavilions; grisly underground caves and
deadly wolds; gardens fairer than those of the Hesperid; seas
dashing with clashing billows upon enchanted mountains; valleys
of the Shadow of Death; air-voyages and promenades in the
abysses of ocean; the duello, the battle, and the siege; the woo-
ing of maidens and the marriage-rite. All the splendor and
squalor, the beauty and baseness, the glamor and grotesqueness,
the magic and the mournfulness, the bravery and baseness of
Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab pas-
sions— love, war, and fancy — entitle it to be called Blood,
Musk, and Hashish. And still more, the genius of the story-
teller quickens the dry bones of history, and by adding Fiction
## p. 2889 (#461) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2889
to Fact revives the dead past; the Caliphs and the Caliphate
return to Baghdad and Cairo, whilst Asmodeus kindly removes
the terrace-roof of every tenement and allows our curious glances
to take in the whole interior. This is perhaps the best proof of
their power. Finally the picture-gallery opens with a series of
weird and striking adventures, and shows as a tail-piece an idyllic
scene of love and wedlock, in halls before reeking with lust and
blood.
A JOURNEY IN DISGUISE
From The Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah)
HE thoroughbred wanderer's idiosyncrasy I presume to be a
Tya
» and
locality,” equally and largely developed. After a long and
toilsome march, weary of the way, he drops into the nearest
place of rest to become the most domestic of men. For a while
he smokes the “pipe of permanence with an infinite zest; he
delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal a long
sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and
wonders at the demoralization of the mind which cannot find
means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a
newspaper.
But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a
paroxysm of ennui coming on by slow degrees, Viator loses appe-
tite, he walks about his room all night, he yawns at conversa-
tions, and a book acts upon him as a narcotic. The man wants
to wander, and he must do so or he shall die.
After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I
perceived the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered
my incomings and outgoings, I surrendered. The world was
“all before me,” and there was pleasant excitement in plunging
single-handed into its chilling depths. My Alexandrian Shaykh,
whose heart fell victim to a new “jubbeh ” which I had given in
exchange for his tattered zaabut, offered me in consideration of
a certain monthly stipend the affections of a brother and reli-
gious refreshment, proposing to send his wife back to her papa,
and to accompany me in the capacity of private chaplain to
the other side of Kaf. I politely accepted the brüderschaft,"
but many reasons induced me to decline his society and serv-
ices. In the first place, he spoke the detestable Egyptian jargon.
## p. 2890 (#462) ###########################################
2890
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
Secondly, it was but prudent to lose the “spoor” between Alex-
andria and Suez. And thirdly, my brother” had shifting eyes
(symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of cunning); a
flat-crowned head and large ill-fitting lips, signs which led me
to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage. Phre.
nology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often
among civilized people, the proper action of whose brains and
features is impeded by the external pressure of education, acci-
dent, example, habit, necessity, and what not. But they are
tolerably safe guides when groping your way through the mind
of man in his natural state, a being of impulse in that chrysalis
stage of mental development which is rather instinct than reason.
But before my departure there was much to be done.
The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilized, and unpleas-
antly so: nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present
middle state between barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition
against carrying arms is rigid as in Italy; all “violence” is vio-
lently denounced; and beheading being deemed cruel, the most
atrocious crimes, as well as those small political offenses which
in the days of the Mamelukes would have led to a beyship or
a bowstring, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to Fai-
zoghli, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant to be
flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates;
when you curse your boatman, he complains to your consul; the
dragomans afflict you with strange wild notions about honesty; a
government order prevents you from using vituperative language
to the natives” in general; and the very donkey-boys are be-
coming cognizant of the right of man to remain unbastinadoed.
Still the old leaven remains behind; here, as elsewhere in
“ morning-land,” you cannot hold your own without employing
The passport system, now dying out of Europe, has
sprung up, or rather revived, in Egypt with peculiar vigor. Its
good effects claim for it our respect; still we cannot but lament
its inconvenience. We, I mean real Easterns.
We, I mean real Easterns. As strangers --
even those whose beards have whitened in the land — know abso-
lutely nothing of what unfortunate natives must endure, I am
tempted to subjoin a short sketch of my adventures in search of
a Tezkireh at Alexandria.
Through ignorance which might have cost me dear but for
my friend Larking's weight with the local authorities, I had
neglected to provide myself with a passport in England; and it
your fists.
## p. 2891 (#463) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2891
was not without difficulty, involving much unclean dressing and
an unlimited expenditure of broken English, that I obtained from
the consul at Alexandria a certificate declaring me to be an
Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor,
aged thirty, and not distinguished — at least so the frequent
blanks seemed to denote — by any remarkable conformation of
eyes, nose, or cheek. For this I disbursed a dollar. And here
let me record the indignation with which I did it. That mighty
Britain - the mistress of the seas— the ruler of one-sixth of man-
kind - should charge five shillings to pay for the shadow of her
protecting wing! That I cannot speak my modernized “civis
sum Romanus” without putting my hand into my pocket, in order
that these officers of the Great Queen may not take too ruinously
from a revenue of fifty-six millions! Oh the meanness of our
magnificence! the littleness of our greatness!
My new passport would not carry me without the Zabit or
Police Magistrate's counter-signature, said the consul.
Next day
I went to the Zabit, who referred me to the Muhafiz (Governor)
of Alexandria, at whose gate I had the honor of squatting at
least three hours, till a more compassionate clerk vouchsafed the
information that the proper place to apply to was the Diwan
Kharijiyeh (the Foreign Office). Thus a second day was utterly
lost. On the morning of the third I started as directed for the
place, which crowns the Headland of Figs. It is a huge and
couthless shell of building in parallelogrammic form, containing
all kinds of public offices in glorious confusion, looking with their
glaring whitewashed faces upon a central court, where a few
leafless wind-wrung trees seem struggling for the breath of life
in an eternal atmosphere of clay, dust, and sun-blaze.
The first person I addressed was a Kawwas or police officer,
who, coiled comfortably' up in a bit of shade fitting his person
like a robe, was in full enjoyment of the Asiatic Kaif. ” Hav-
ing presented the consular certificate and briefly stated the
nature of my business, I ventured to inquire what was the right
course to pursue for a visá.
They have little respect for Dervishes, it appears, at Alex-
andria! M'adri” (Don't know), growled the man of authority,
without moving anything but the quantity of tongue necessary
for articulation.
Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,- by
bribe, by bullying, or by bothering them with a dogged perse-
## p. 2892 (#464) ###########################################
2892
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
1
verance into attending to you and your concerns. The latter is
the peculiar province of the poor; moreover, this time I resolved
for other reasons to be patient. I repeated my question in
almost the same words. “Ruh! ” (Be off) was what I obtained
for all reply. By this time the questioned went so far as to
open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper in my hands, and
looking very humble and very persevering, till a loud “Ruh ya
Kalb! ” (Go, O dog! ) converted into a responsive curse the little
speech I was preparing about the brotherhood of El-Islam and
the mutual duties obligatory on true believers. I then turned
away slowly and fiercely, for the next thing might have been a
cut with the Kurbaj [bastinado], and by the hammer of Thor!
British flesh and blood could never have stood that.
After which satisfactory scene,- for satisfactory it was in one
sense, proving the complete fitness of the Dervish's dress,— I
tried a dozen other promiscuous sources of information,-police-
men, grooms, scribes, donkey-boys, and idlers in general. At
length, wearied of patience, I offered a soldier some pinches of
tobacco and promised him an Oriental sixpence if he would
manage the business for me. The man was interested by the
tobacco and the pence; he took my hand, and inquiring the
while he went along, led me from place to place till, mounting a
grand staircase, I stood in the presence of Abbas Effendi, the
governor's Naib or deputy.
It was a little whey-faced black-bearded Turk, coiled up in the
usual conglomerate posture upon a calico-covered divan, at the
end of a long bare large-windowed room. Without deigning
even to nod the head which hung over his shoulder with tran-
scendent listlessness and affectation of pride, in answer to my
salams and benedictions, he eyed me with wicked eyes and
faintly ejaculated Minent ? » Then hearing that I was a Der-
vish and doctor, — he must be an Osmanli Voltairian, that little
Turk,--the official snorted a contemptuous snort. He conde-
scendingly added, however, that the proper source to seek was
« Taht,” which, meaning simply “below," conveyed rather imper-
fect information in a topographical point of view to a stranger.
At length however my soldier guide found out that a room in
the custom-house bore the honorable appellation of Foreign
Office. Accordingly I went there, and after sitting at least a
couple of hours at the bolted door in the noonday sun, was told,
with a fury which made me think I had sinned, that the officer
1
## p. 2893 (#465) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2893
in whose charge the department was had been presented with an
olive-branch in the morning, and consequently that business was
not to be done that day. The angry-faced official communicated
the intelligence to a large group of Anadolian, Caramanian, Bos-
niac, and Roumelian Turks,- sturdy, undersized, broad-shouldered,
bare-legged, splay-footed, horny-fisted, dark-browed, honest-looking
mountaineers, who were lounging about with long pistols and
yataghans stuck in their broad sashes, head-gear composed of
immense tarbooshes with proportionate turbans coiled round
them, and two or three suits of substantial clothes — even at this
season of the year — upon their shoulders.
Like myself they had waited some hours, but they were not
patient under disappointment: they bluntly told the angry official
that he and his master were a pair of idlers, and the curses that
rumbled and gurgled in their hairy throats as they strode towards
the door sounded like the growling of wild beasts.
Thus was another day truly Orientally lost. On the morrow
however I obtained permission, in the character of Dr. Abdullah,
to visit any part of Egypt I pleased, and to retain possession of
my dagger and pistols.
And now I must explain what induced me to take so much
trouble about a passport. The home reader naturally inquires,
Why not travel under your English name?
For this reason. In the generality of barbarous countries you
must either proceed, like Bruce, preserving the dignity of man-
hood" and carrying matters with a high hand, or you must worm
your way by timidity and subservience; in fact, by becoming an
animal too contemptible for man to let or injure. But to pass
through the Holy Land you must either be a born believer, or
have become one; in the former case you may demean yourself
as you please, in the latter a path is ready prepared for you.
My spirit could not bend to own myself a Burma, a rene-
gade — to be pointed at and shunned and catechized, an object of
suspicion to the many and of contempt to all. Moreover, it
would have obstructed the aim of my wanderings. The convert
is always watched with Argus eyes, and men do not willingly
give information to a new Moslem,” especially a Frank: they
suspect his conversion to be a feigned or a forced one, look
upon him as a spy, and let him see as little of life as possible.
Firmly as was my heart set upon traveling in Arabia, by Heaven!
I would have given up the dear project rather than purchase a
## p. 2894 (#466) ###########################################
2894
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
the way.
coarse
doubtful and partial success at such a price. Consequently I
had no choice but to appear as a born believer, and part of my
birthright in that respectable character was toil and trouble in
obtaining a tezkirah.
Then I had to provide myself with certain necessaries for
These were not numerous.
The silver-mounted dress-
ing-case is here supplied by a rag containing a miswak, a bit of
soap, and a comb — wooden, for bone and tortoise-shell are not,
religiously speaking, correct. Equally simple was my wardrobe:
a change or two of clothing. The only article of canteen descrip-
tion was a zemzemiyah, a goatskin water-bag, which communi-
cates to its contents, especially when new, a ferruginous aspect
and a wholesome though hardly an attractive flavor of tanno-
gelatine. This was a necessary; to drink out of a tumbler,
possibly fresh from pig-eating lips, would have entailed a certain
loss of reputation. For bedding and furniture I had a
Persian rug - which, besides being couch, acts as chair, table,
and oratory,-a cotton-stuffed chintz-covered pillow, a blanket in
case of cold, and a sheet, which does duty for tent and mosquito
curtains in nights of heat. As shade is a convenience not always
procurable, another necessary was a huge cotton umbrella of
Eastern make, brightly yellow, suggesting the idea of an over-
grown marigold. I had also a substantial housewife, the gift of
a kind friend: it was a roll of canvas, carefully soiled, and gar-
nished with needles and thread, cobblers' wax, buttons, and other
such articles. These things were most useful in lands where
tailors abound not; besides which, the sight of a man darning
his coat or patching his slippers teems with pleasing ideas of hu-
mility. A dagger, a brass inkstand and penholder stuck in the
belt, and a mighty rosary, which on occasion might have been
converted into a weapon of offense, completed my equipment.
I must not omit to mention the proper method of carrying
money, which in these lands should never be intrusted to box or
bag. A common cotton purse secured in a breast pocket (for
Egypt now abounds in that civilized animal the pickpocket) con-
tained silver pieces and small change. My gold, of which I
carried twenty-five sovereigns, and papers, were committed to a
substantial leathern belt of Maghrabi manufacture, made to be
strapped round the waist under the dress. This is the Asiatic
method of concealing valuables, and a more civilized one than
ours in the last century, when Roderick Random and his com-
## p. 2895 (#467) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2895
panion "sewed their money between the lining and the waistband
of their breeches, except some loose silver for immediate expense
on the road. ” The great inconvenience of the belt is its weight,
especially where dollars must be carried, as in Arabia, causing
chafes and inconvenience at night. Moreover it can scarcely be
called safe. In dangerous countries wary travelers will adopt
surer precautions.
A pair of common native khurjin or saddle-bags contained my
wardrobe, the “bed,” readily rolled up into a bundle; and for a
medicine chest I bought a pea-green box with red and yellow
flowers, capable of standing falls from a camel twice a day.
The next step was to find out when the local steamer would
start for Cairo, and accordingly I betook myself to the Transit
Office. No vessel was advertised; I was directed to call every
evening till satisfied. At last the fortunate event took place: a
“weekly departure,” which by-the-by had occurred once every
fortnight or so, was in order for the next day. I hurried to the
office, but did not reach it till past noon - the hour of idleness.
A little dark gentleman, so formed and dressed as exactly to
resemble a liver-and-tan bull-terrier, who with his heels on the
table was dozing, cigar in mouth, over the last Galignani, posi-
tively refused after a time,- for at first he would not speak at
all, — to let me take my passage till three in the afternoon. I
inquired when the boat started, upon which he referred me, as I
had spoken bad Italian, to the advertisement. I pleaded inabil-
ity to read or write, whereupon he testily cried “Alle nove! alle
nove! ” (At nine! at nine! ) Still appearing uncertain, I drove
him out of his chair, when he rose with a curse and read “8
An unhappy Eastern, depending upon what he said,
would have been precisely one hour too late.
Thus were we lapsing into the real good old Indian style of
doing business. Thus Indicus orders his first clerk to execute
some commission; the senior, having work upon his hands,
sends a junior; the junior finds the sun hot, and passes on the
word to a “peon”; the peon charges a porter with the errand;
and the porter quietly sits or dozes in his place, trusting that
fate will bring him out of the scrape, but firmly resolved, though
the shattered globe fall, not to stir an inch.
The reader, I must again express a hope, will pardon the ego-
tism of these descriptions: my object is to show him how busi-
ness is carried on in these hot countries — business generally.
A. M. ”
## p. 2896 (#468) ###########################################
2896
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
For had I, instead of being Abdullah the Dervish, been a rich
native merchant, it would have been the same.
How many com-
plaints of similar treatment have I heard in different parts of
the Eastern world! and how little can one realize them without
having actually experienced the evil! For the future I shall
never see a "nigger” squatting away half a dozen mortal hours
in a broiling sun, patiently waiting for something or for some
one, without a lively remembrance of my own cooling of the
calces at the custom-house of Alexandria.
At length, about the end of May, all was ready. Not without
a feeling of regret I left my little room among the white myrtle
blossoms and the oleander flowers. I kissed with humble osten-
tation my kind host's hand in presence of his servants, bade
adieu to my patients, who now amounted to about fifty, shaking
hands with all meekly and with religious equality of attention,
and, mounted in a “trap” which looked like a cross between a
wheel-barrow and dog-cart, drawn by a kicking, jibbing, and
biting mule, I set out for the steamer.
EN ROUTE
From A Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah)
A
T 3 P. M. we left El Zaribah, traveling towards the S. W. ,
and a wondrously picturesque scene met the eye. Crowds
hurried along, habited in the · pilgrim garb, whose white-
ness contrasted strangely with their black skins, their newly
shaven heads glistening in the sun, and their long black hair
streaming in the wind. The rocks rang with shouts of Labbayk!
Labbayk! ” At a pass we fell in with the Wahhabis, accom-
panying the Baghdad caravan, screaming «Here am ; and
guided by a large loud kettle-drum, they followed in double file
the camel of a standard-bearer, whose green flag bore in huge
white letters the formula of the Moslem creed. They were wild-
looking mountaineers, dark and fierce, with hair twisted into
thin dalik or plaits: each was armed with a long spear, a match-
lock, or a dagger. They were seated upon coarse wooden sad-
dles, without cushions or stirrups, a fine saddle-cloth alone
denoting a chief. The women emulated the men; they either
guided their own dromedaries, or sitting in pillion, they clung
## p. 2897 (#469) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2897
arose
to their husbands; veils they disdained, and their countenances
certainly belonged not to a soft sex. ” These Wahhabis were
by no means pleasant companions. Most of them were followed
by spare dromedaries, either unladen or carrying water-skins,
fodder, fuel, and other necessaries for the march. The beasts
delighted in dashing furiously through our file, which, being
colligated, was thrown each time into the greatest confusion.
And whenever we were observed smoking, we were cursed aloud
for infidels and idolaters.
Looking back at El Zaribah, soon after our departure, I saw
a heavy nimbus settle upon the hilltops, a sheet of rain being
stretched between it and the plain. The low grumbling of
thunder sounded joyfully in our ears. We hoped for a shower,
but were disappointed by a dust-storm, which ended with a few
heavy drops. There
a report that the Bedouins had
attacked a party of Meccans with stones, classical Arabian mis-
siles,- and the news caused men to look exceeding grave.
At
5 P. M.
we entered the wide bed of the fiumara, down
which we were to travel all night. Here the country falls rapidly
towards the sea, as the increasing heat of the air, the direction
of the watercourses, and signs of violence in the torrent-bed
show. The fiumara varies in breadth from 150 feet to three-
quarters of a mile; its course, I was told, is towards the south-
west, and it enters the sea near Jeddah. The channel is a
coarse sand, with here and there masses of sheet rock and
patches of thin vegetation.
At about half-past 5 P. M. we entered a suspicious-looking
place. On the right was a stony buttress, along whose base the
stream, when there is one, flows; and to this depression was our
road limited by the rocks and thorn-trees, which filled the other
half of the channel. The left side was a precipice, grim and
barren, but not so abrupt as its brother. Opposite us the way
seemed barred by piles of hills, crest rising above crest into the
far blue distance. Day still smiled upon the upper peaks, but
the lower slopes and the fiumara bed were already curtained
with gray sombre shade.
A damp seemed to fall upon our spirits as we approached this
Valley Perilous. I remarked with wonder that the voices of the
women and children sank into silence, and the loud Labbaykas
of the pilgrims were gradually stilled. Whilst still speculating
upon the cause of this phenomenon, it became apparent. A small
V--182
## p. 2898 (#470) ###########################################
2898
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
curl of smoke, like a lady's ringlet, on the summit of the right-
hand precipice, caught my eye, and simultaneous with the echo-
ing crack of the matchlock a high-trotting dromedary in front of
me rolled over upon the sands. A bullet had split his heart,
throwing his rider a goodly somerset of five or six yards.
Ensued terrible confusion; women screamed, children shrieked,
and men vociferated, each one striving with might and main to
urge his animal out of the place of death. But the road being
narrow, they only managed to jam the vehicles in a solid immov-
able mass.
At every matchlock shot a shudder ran through the
huge body, as when the surgeon's scalpel touches some
sensitive nerve. The irregular horsemen, perfectly useless, gal-
loped up and down over the stones, shouting to and ordering
one another. The Pacha of the army had his carpet spread at
the foot of the left-hand precipice, and debated over his pipe
with the officers what ought to be done. No good genius whis-
pered "Crown the heights. ”
Then it was that the conduct of the Wahhabis found favor in
my eyes. They came up, galloping their camels,
more
«Torrents less rapid and less rash,
with their elf-locks tossing in the wind, and their flaring matches
casting a strange lurid light over their features. Taking up a
position, one body began to fire upon the Utaybah robbers,
whilst two or three hundred, dismounting, swarmed up the hill
under the guidance of the Sherif Zayd. I had remarked this
nobleman at El Medinah as a model specimen of the pure Arab.
Like all Sherifs, he is celebrated for bravery, and has killed
many with his own hand. When urged at E1 Zaribah to ride
into Meccah, he swore that he would not leave the caravan till
in sight of the walls; and fortunately for the pilgrims, he kept
his word. Presently the firing was heard far in our rear - the
robbers having fled; the head of the column advanced, and the
dense body of the pilgrims opened out. Our forced halt was
now exchanged for a flight. It required much management to
steer our desert-craft clear of danger; but Shaykh Masud was
equal to the occasion. That many were lost was evident by the
boxes and baggage that strewed the shingles. I had no means
of ascertaining the number of men killed and wounded: reports
were contradictory, and exaggeration unanimous. The robbers
were said to be 150 in number; their object was plunder, and
## p. 2899 (#471) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2899
they would eat the shot camels. But their principal ambition
was the boast “We, the Utaybah, on such and such a night
stopped the Sultan's mahmal one whole hour in the pass. "
At the beginning of the skirmish I had primed my pistols,
and sat with them ready for use. But soon seeing that there
was nothing to be done, and wishing to make an impression, -
nowhere does Bobadil now go down but in the East, I
called aloud for my supper. Shaykh Nur, exanimate with fear,
could not move.
The boy Mohammed ejaculated only an «Oh,
sir! ” and the people around exclaimed in disgust, “By Allah! he
eats! Shaykh Abdullah, the Meccan, being a man of spirit,
was amused by the spectacle. «Are these Afghan manners,
Effendim ? ” he inquired from the shugduf behind me. "Yes,” I
replied aloud, in my country we always dine before an attack of
robbers, because that gentry is in the habit of sending men to
bed supperless. ” The Shaykh laughed aloud, but those around
him looked offended. I thought the bravado this time mal placé;
but a little event which took place on my way to Jeddah proved
that it was not quite a failure.
As we advanced our escort took care to fire every large dry
asclepias, to disperse the shades which buried us. Again the
scene became wondrous wild:
«Full many a waste I've wander'd o'er,
Clomb many a crag, cross'd many a shore,
But, by my halidome,
A scene so rude, so wild as this,
Yet so sublime in barrenness,
Ne'er did my wandering footsteps press,
Where'er I chanced to roam. ”
On either side were ribbed precipices, dark, angry, and tower-
ing above, till their summits mingled with the glooms of night;
and between them formidable looked the chasm, down which our
host hurried with shouts and discharges of matchlocks. The
torch-smoke and the night-fires of flaming asclepias formed a
canopy, sable above and livid red below, which hung over our
heads like a sheet, and divided the cliffs into two equal parts.
Here the fire flashed fiercely from a tall thorn, that crackled and
shot up showers of sparks into the air; there it died away in
1urid gleams, which lit up a truly Stygian scene. As usual, how-
ever, the picturesque had its inconveniences. There
was
no
## p. 2900 (#472) ###########################################
2900
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
path. Rocks, stone-banks, and trees obstructed our passage. The
camels, now blind in darkness, then dazzled by a flood of light,
stumbled frequently; in some places slipping down a steep
descent, in others sliding over a sheet of mud.
There were
furious quarrels and fierce language between camel-men and their
hirers, and threats to fellow-travelers; in fact, we were united in
discord. I passed that night crying «Hai! Hai! » switching the
camel, and fruitlessly endeavoring to fustigate Masud's nephew,
who resolutely slept upon the water-bags. During the hours of
darkness we made four or five halts, when we boiled coffee and
smoked pipes, but man and beasts were beginning to suffer from
a deadly fatigue.
Dawn found us still traveling down the fiumara, which here is
about one hundred yards broad. The granite hills on both sides
were less precipitous, and the borders of the torrent-bed became
natural quays of stiff clay, which showed a water-mark of from
twelve to fifteen feet in height. In many parts the bed was
muddy, and the moist places, as usual, caused accidents.
I hap-
pened to be looking back at Shaykh Abdullah, who was then
riding in old Ali bin Ya Sin's fine shugduf; suddenly the camel's
four legs disappeared from under him, his right side flattening
the ground, and the two riders were pitched severally out of the
smashed vehicle. Abdullah started up furious, and, abused the
Bedouins, who were absent, with great zest. Feed these Arabs,”
he exclaimed, quoting a Turkish proverb, "and they will fire at
Heaven! ” But I observed that, when Shaykh Masud came up,
the citizen was only gruff.
We then turned northward, and sighted El Mazik, more gen-
erally known as Wady Laymun, the Valley of Limes. On the
right bank of the fiumara stood the Meccan Sherif's state pavil.
ion, green and gold: it was surrounded by his attendants, and
prepared to receive the Pacha of the caravan. We advanced half
a mile, and encamped temporarily in a hill-girt bulge of the fiu-
mara bed. At 8 A. M. we had traveled about twenty-four miles
from El Zaribah, and the direction of our present station was
S. W. 50°
Shaykh Masud allowed us only four hours' halt; he wished to
precede the main body. After breaking our fast joyously upon
limes, pomegranates, and fresh dates, we sallied forth to admire
the beauties of the place. We are once more on classic ground,
the ground of the ancient Arab poets:-
## p. 2901 (#473) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2901
"Deserted is the village - waste the halting place and home
At Mina; o'er Rijam and Ghul wild beasts unheeded roam;
On Rayyan hill the channel lines have left a naked trace,
Time-worn, as primal Writ that dints the mountain's flinty face;" —
and this wady, celebrated for the purity of its air, has from
remote ages been a favorite resort of the Meccans. Nothing can
be more soothing to the brain than the dark-green foliage of the
limes and pomegranates; and from the base of the southern
hill bursts a bubbling stream, whose
«Chiare, fresche e dolci acque
At 2 P. M. ,
flow through the garden, filling them with the most delicious of
melodies, and the gladdest sound which nature in these regions
knows.
Exactly at noon Masud seized the halter of the foremost
camel, and we started down the fiumara. Troops of Bedouin
girls looked over the orchard walls laughingly, and children came
out to offer us fresh fruit and sweet water.
travel-
ing southwest, we arrived at a point where the torrent-bed turns
to the right, and quitting it, we climbed with difficulty over a
steep ridge of granite. Before three o'clock we entered a hill-
girt plain, which my companions called "Sola. ” In some places
were clumps of trees, and scattered villages warned us that we
were approaching a city. Far to the left rose the blue peaks of
Taif, and the mountain road, a white thread upon the nearer
heights, was pointed out to me. Here I first saw the tree, or
rather shrub, which bears the balm of Gilead, erst so celebrated
for its tonic and stomachic properties. I told Shaykh to break
off a twig, which he did heedlessly. The act was witnessed by
our party with a roar of laughter, and the astounded Shaykh
was warned that he had become subject to an atoning sacrifice.
Of course he denounced me as the instigator, and I could not
fairly refuse assistance. The tree has of late years been care-
fully described by many botanists; I will only say that the bark
resembled in color a cherry-stick pipe, the inside was a light
yellow, and the juice made my fingers stick together.
At 4 P. M. we came to a steep and rocky pass, up which we
toiled with difficulty. The face of the country was rising once
more, and again presented the aspect of numerous small basins
divided and surrounded by hills. As we jogged on were
passed by the cavalcade of no less a personage than the Sherif
we
## p. 2902 (#474) ###########################################
2902
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
of Meccah. Abd el Muttalib bin Ghalib is a dark, beardless old
man with African features, derived from his mother. He was
plainly dressed in white garments and a white muslin turban,
which made him look jet-black; he rode an ambling mule, and
the only emblem of his dignity was the large green satin
umbrella borne by an attendant on foot. Scattered around him
were about forty matchlock-men, mostly slaves. At long inter-
vals, after their father, came his four sons, Riza Bey, Abdullah,
Ali, and Ahmed, the latter still a child. The three elder
brothers rode splendid dromedaries at speed; they were young
men of light complexion, with the true Meccan cast of features,
showily dressed in bright-colored silks, and armed, to denote
their rank, with sword and gold-hilted dagger.
We halted as evening approached, and strained our eyes, but
all in vain, to catch sight of Meccah, which lies in a winding
valley. By Shaykh Abdullah's direction I recited, after the
usual devotions, the following prayer. The reader is forewarned
that it is difficult to preserve the flowers of Oriental rhetoric in
a European tongue.
“O Allah! verily this is thy safeguard (Amn) and thy Sanc-
tuary (Haram)! Into it whoso entereth becometh safe (Amin).
So deny (Harrim) my flesh and blood, my bones and skin, to
hell-fire. O Allah! Save me from thy wrath on the day when
thy servants shall be raised from the dead. I conjure thee by
this that thou art Allah, besides whom is none (thou only), the
merciful, the compassionate. And have mercy upon- our lord
Mohammed, and upon the progeny of our lord Mohammed, and
upon his followers, one and all! ” This was concluded with the
« Talbiyat," and with an especial prayer for myself.
We again mounted, and night completed our disappointment.
About 1 A. M. I was aroused by general excitement. «Meccah!
Meccah! ” cried some voices. «The Sanctuary! O the Sanctuary!
exclaimed others; and all burst into loud Labbayk,” not unfre-
quently broken by sobs. I looked out from my litter, and saw
by the light of the southern stars the dim outlines of a large
city, a shade darker than the surrounding plain. We were pass-
ing over the last ridge by a winding path” flanked on both
sides by watch-towers, which command the Darb el Maala," or
road leading from the north into Meccah. Thence we passed
into the Maabidah (northern suburb), where the Sherif's palace
is built. After this, on the left hand, came the deserted abode
1
## p. 2903 (#475) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2903
Op-
of the Sherif bin Aun, now said to be a haunted house. ” *
posite to it lies the Jannat el Maala, the holy cemetery of Mec-
cah. Thence, turning to the right, we entered the Sulaymaniyah
or Afghan quarter. Here the boy Mohammed, being an inhabi-
tant of the Shamiyah or Syrian ward, thought proper to display
some apprehension. These two are on bad terms; children never
meet without exchanging volleys of stones, and men fight furi-
ously with quarter-staves. Sometimes, despite the terrors of
religion, the knife and sabre are drawn. But these hostilities
have their code. If a citizen be killed, there is a subscription
for blood-money.
An inhabitant of one quarter, passing singly
through another, becomes a guest; once beyond the walls, he is
likely to be beaten to insensibility by his hospitable foes.
At the Sulaymaniyah we turned off the main road into a
by-way, and ascended by narrow lanes the rough heights of
Jebel Hindi, upon which stands a small whitewashed and crenel-
lated building called a “fort. ” Thence descending, we threaded
dark streets, in places crowded with rude cots and dusky figures,
and finally at 2 A. M. we found ourselves at the door of the boy
Mohammed's house.
We arrived on the morning of Sunday the 7th Zu'l Hijjah
(11th September, 1853), and had one day before the beginning of
the pilgrimage to repose and visit the Haram. From El Medinah
to Meccah the distance, according to my calculation, was 248
English miles, which was accomplished in eleven marches.
*I cannot conceive what made the accurate Niebuhr fall into the strange
error that apparitions are unknown in Arabia. ” Arabs fear to sleep alone,
to enter the bath at night, to pass by cemeteries during dark, and to sit
amongst ruins, simply for fear of apparitions. And Arabia, together with
Persia, has supplied half the Western World - Southern Europe — with its
ghost stories and tales of angels, demons, and fairies. To quote Milton, the
land is struck «with superstition as with a planet. ”
## p. 2904 (#476) ###########################################
2904
ROBERT BURTON
(1577-1640)
as
HERE are some books of which every reader knows the names,
but of whose contents few know anything, excepting as the
same may have come to them filtered through the work of
others. Of these, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy) is one of the
most marked instances. It is a vast storehouse from which subse-
quent authors have always drawn and continue to draw, even
Burton himself drew from others,—though without always giving the
credit which with him was customary. Few would now have the
courage to read it through, and probably
fewer still could say with Dr. Johnson that
it was the only book that ever took him
out of bed two hours sooner than he wished
to rise. ”
Of Robert Burton himself very little is
known. He was born in 1577, a few years
later than Shakespeare,- probably at Lind-
ley, in Leicestershire; and died at Oxford
in 1640. He had some schooling at Sutton
Coldfield in Warwickshire, and was sent to
Brasenose College at Oxford in 1593; was
elected a student at Christ Church College
in 1599, and took his degree or B. D. in
ROBERT BURTON
1614. He was then thirty-seven years of
age.
This capable soldier and author was very inadequately recom-
pensed. As a soldier, his bravery and long service brought him only
the rank of Captain. In the civil service he was given only second-
class consulates. The French Geographical Society, and also the
Royal Geographical Society of England, each awarded him a gold
medal, but the latter employed him upon only one expedition. At
the age of sixty-five he was knighted. He had no other honors.
This lack of recognition was undoubtedly a mortification, although
toward the end of his career he writes philosophically:-
«The press are calling me (the neglected Englishman,' and I want to
express to them the feelings of pride and gratitude with which I have seen
the exertions of my brethren of the press to procure for me a tardy justice.
The public is a fountain of honor which amply suffices all my aspirations;
it is the more honorable as it will not allow a long career to be ignored
because of catechisms or creed. )
He comforted himself, no doubt, with the belief that his out-
spoken skepticism was the cause of this lack of advancement, and
that he was in some sort a martyr to freedom of thought; but one
may be excused for discrediting this in the face of so many contrary
instances. Capable men too scarce to throw aside for such
things in this century. The real and sufficient reason was his
equally outspoken criticism of his superior officers in every depart-
are
## p. 2885 (#457) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2885
ment. A subordinate may and often does know more than his
masters; but if he wishes the luxury of advertising the fact, he must
pay for it with their ill-will and his own practical suppression.
Lady Burton was also an author; her Inner Life in Syria' and
(Arabia, Egypt, and India) are bright and entertaining. But her
most important work is the Life of Sir Richard F. Burton,'
published in 1892, two years after her husband's death. This un-
organized mass of interesting material, in spite of carelessness and
many faults of style and taste, shows her a ready observer, with
a clever and graphic way of stating her impressions.
THE PRETERNATURAL IN FICTION
From the Essay on (The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night
S
“A
measure
The active world is inferior to the rational soul,” says
Bacon, with his normal sound sense, “so Fiction gives
to Mankind what History denies, and in some
satisfies the Mind with Shadows when it cannot enjoy the Sub-
stance. And as real History gives us not the success of things
according to the deserts of vice and virtue, Fiction corrects it
and presents us with the fates and fortunes of persons rewarded
and punished according to merit. ” But I would say still more.
History paints or attempts to paint life as it is, a mighty maze
with or without a plan; Fiction shows or would show us life as
it should be, wisely ordered and laid down on fixed lines. Thus
Fiction is not the mere handmaid of History: she has a house-
hold of her own, and she claims to be the triumph of Art,
which, as Goethe remarked, is “Art because it is not Nature. ”
Fancy, la folle du logis, is “that kind and gentle portress who
holds the gate of Hope wide open, in opposition to Reason,
the surly and scrupulous guard. ” As Palmerin of England says,
and says well:-“For that the report of noble deeds doth urge
the courageous mind to equal those who bear most commenda-
tion of their approved valiancy; this is the fair fruit of Im-
agination and of ancient histories. ” And last, but not least, the
faculty of Fancy takes count of the cravings of man's nature for
the marvelous, the impossible, and of his higher aspirations
for the Ideal, the Perfect; she realizes the wild dreams and
visions of his generous youth, and portrays for him a portion of
that "other and better world,” with whose expectation he would
console his age.
## p. 2886 (#458) ###########################################
2886
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
The imaginative varnish of The Nights) serves admirably as
a foil to the absolute realism of the picture in general. We
enjoy being carried away from trivial and commonplace charac-
ters, scenes, and incidents; from the matter-of-fact surroundings
of a workaday world, a life of eating and drinking, sleeping
and waking, fighting and loving, into a society and a mise-en-
scène which we suspect can exist and which we know do not.
Every man, at some turn or term of his life, has longed for
supernatural powers and a glimpse of Wonderland. Here he is
in the midst of it. Here he sees mighty spirits summoned to
work the human mite's will, however whimsical; who can trans-
port him in an eye-twinkling whithersoever he wishes; who can
ruin cities and build palaces of gold and silver, gems and
jacinths; who can serve up delicate viands and delicious drinks
in priceless chargers and impossible cups, and bring the choicest
fruits from farthest Orient: here he finds magas and magicians
who can make kings of his friends, slay armies of his foes, and
bring any number of beloveds to his arms.
And from this outraging probability and outstripping possi-
bility arises not a little of that strange fascination exercised for
nearly two centuries upon the life and literature of Europe by
"The Nights,' even in their mutilated and garbled form. The
reader surrenders himself to the spell, feeling almost inclined to
inquire, “And why may it not be true ? ” His brain is dazed
and dazzled by the splendors which flash before it, by the sudden
procession of Jinns and Jinniyahs, demons and fairies, some
hideous, others preternaturally beautiful; by good wizards and
evil sorcerers, whose powers are unlimited for weal and for woe;
by mermen and mermaids, flying horses, talking animals, and
reasoning elephants; by magic rings and their slaves, and by
talismanic couches which rival the carpet of Solomon. Hence, as
one remarks, these Fairy Tales have pleased and still continue to
please almost all ages, all ranks, and all different capacities.
Dr. Hawkesworth observes that these Fairy Tales find favor
"because even their machinery, wild and wonderful as it is, has
its laws; and the magicians and enchanters perform nothing but
what was naturally to be expected from such beings, after we
had once granted them existence. ” Mr. Heron (rather supposes
the very contrary is the truth of the fact. It is surely the
strangeness, the unknown nature, the anomalous character of the
supernatural agents here employed, that makes them to operate
## p. 2887 (#459) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2887
as
we
so powerfully on our hopes, fears, curiosities, sympathies, and in
short, on all the feelings of our hearts. We see men and women
who possess qualities to recommend them to our favor, subjected
to the influence of beings whose good or ill will, power or weak-
ness, attention or neglect, are regulated by motives and circum-
stances which we cannot comprehend: and hence we naturally
tremble for their fate with the same anxious concern
should for a friend wandering in a dark night amidst torrents
and precipices; or preparing to land on a strange island, while
he knew not whether he should be received on the shore by
cannibals waiting to tear him piecemeal and devour him, or by
gentle beings disposed to cherish him with fond hospitality. ”
Both writers have expressed themselves well; but meseems
each has secured, as often happens, a fragment of the truth and
holds it to be the whole Truth. Granted that such spiritual
creatures as Jinns walk the earth, we are pleased to find them so
very human, as wise and as foolish in word and deed as our-
selves; similarly we admire in a landscape natural forms like
those of Staffa or the Palisades, which favor the works of archi-
tecture. Again, supposing such preternaturalisms to be around
and amongst us, the wilder and more capricious they prove, the
more our attention is excited and our forecasts are baffled, to be
set right in the end. But this is not all. The grand source of
pleasure in fairy tales is the natural desire to learn more of
the Wonderland which is known to many as a word and nothing
more, like Central Africa before the last half-century; thus the
interest is that of the “personal narrative” of a grand explora-
tion, to one who delights in travels. The pleasure must be
greatest where faith is strongest; for instance, amongst imagin-
ative races like the Kelts, and especially Orientals, who imbibe
supernaturalism with their mothers' milk. "I am persuaded,"
writes Mr. Bayle St. John, that the great scheme of preter-
natural energy, so fully developed in The Thousand and One
Nights,' is believed in by the majority of the inhabitants of all
the religious professions both in Syria and Egypt. ” He might
have added, by every reasoning being from prince to peasant,
from Mullah to Badawi, between Marocco. and Outer Ind. ”
Dr. Johnson thus sums up his notice of The Tempest":
“Whatever might have been the intention of their author, these
tales are made instrumental to the production of many char-
acters, diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with
## p. 2888 (#460) ###########################################
2888
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
profound skill in nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and
accurate observation of life. Here are exhibited princes, court-
iers, and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is
the agency of airy spirits and of earthy goblins, the operations of
magic, the tumults of a storm, the adventures on a desert island,
the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of guilt,
and the final happiness of those for whom our passions and
reason are equally interested. ”
We can fairly say this much and far more for our Tales,
Viewed as a tout ensemble in full and complete form, they are
a drama of Eastern life, and a Dance of Death made sublime by
faith and the highest emotions, by the certainty of expiation and
the fullness of atoning equity, where virtue is victorious, vice is
vanquished, and the ways of Allah are justified to man. They are
a panorama which remains ken-speckle upon the mental retina.
They form a phantasmagoria in which archangels and angels,
devils and goblins, men of air, of fire, of water, naturally mingle
with men of earth; where flying horses and talking fishes are
utterly realistic: where King and Prince meet fisherman and
pauper, lamia and cannibal; where citizen jostles Badawi, eunuch
meets knight; the Kazi hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and
pious sit down to the same tray with the pander and the pro-
curess; where the professional religionist, the learned Koranist,
and the strictest moralist consort with the wicked magician, the
scoffer, and the debauchee-poet like Abu Nowas; where the
courtier jests with the boor, and where the sweep is bedded with
the noble lady. And the characters are finished and quickened
by a few touches swift and sure as the glance of sunbeams. ”
The whole is a kaleidoscope where everything falls into picture;
gorgeous palaces and pavilions; grisly underground caves and
deadly wolds; gardens fairer than those of the Hesperid; seas
dashing with clashing billows upon enchanted mountains; valleys
of the Shadow of Death; air-voyages and promenades in the
abysses of ocean; the duello, the battle, and the siege; the woo-
ing of maidens and the marriage-rite. All the splendor and
squalor, the beauty and baseness, the glamor and grotesqueness,
the magic and the mournfulness, the bravery and baseness of
Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab pas-
sions— love, war, and fancy — entitle it to be called Blood,
Musk, and Hashish. And still more, the genius of the story-
teller quickens the dry bones of history, and by adding Fiction
## p. 2889 (#461) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2889
to Fact revives the dead past; the Caliphs and the Caliphate
return to Baghdad and Cairo, whilst Asmodeus kindly removes
the terrace-roof of every tenement and allows our curious glances
to take in the whole interior. This is perhaps the best proof of
their power. Finally the picture-gallery opens with a series of
weird and striking adventures, and shows as a tail-piece an idyllic
scene of love and wedlock, in halls before reeking with lust and
blood.
A JOURNEY IN DISGUISE
From The Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah)
HE thoroughbred wanderer's idiosyncrasy I presume to be a
Tya
» and
locality,” equally and largely developed. After a long and
toilsome march, weary of the way, he drops into the nearest
place of rest to become the most domestic of men. For a while
he smokes the “pipe of permanence with an infinite zest; he
delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal a long
sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and
wonders at the demoralization of the mind which cannot find
means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a
newspaper.
But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a
paroxysm of ennui coming on by slow degrees, Viator loses appe-
tite, he walks about his room all night, he yawns at conversa-
tions, and a book acts upon him as a narcotic. The man wants
to wander, and he must do so or he shall die.
After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I
perceived the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered
my incomings and outgoings, I surrendered. The world was
“all before me,” and there was pleasant excitement in plunging
single-handed into its chilling depths. My Alexandrian Shaykh,
whose heart fell victim to a new “jubbeh ” which I had given in
exchange for his tattered zaabut, offered me in consideration of
a certain monthly stipend the affections of a brother and reli-
gious refreshment, proposing to send his wife back to her papa,
and to accompany me in the capacity of private chaplain to
the other side of Kaf. I politely accepted the brüderschaft,"
but many reasons induced me to decline his society and serv-
ices. In the first place, he spoke the detestable Egyptian jargon.
## p. 2890 (#462) ###########################################
2890
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
Secondly, it was but prudent to lose the “spoor” between Alex-
andria and Suez. And thirdly, my brother” had shifting eyes
(symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of cunning); a
flat-crowned head and large ill-fitting lips, signs which led me
to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage. Phre.
nology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often
among civilized people, the proper action of whose brains and
features is impeded by the external pressure of education, acci-
dent, example, habit, necessity, and what not. But they are
tolerably safe guides when groping your way through the mind
of man in his natural state, a being of impulse in that chrysalis
stage of mental development which is rather instinct than reason.
But before my departure there was much to be done.
The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilized, and unpleas-
antly so: nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present
middle state between barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition
against carrying arms is rigid as in Italy; all “violence” is vio-
lently denounced; and beheading being deemed cruel, the most
atrocious crimes, as well as those small political offenses which
in the days of the Mamelukes would have led to a beyship or
a bowstring, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to Fai-
zoghli, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant to be
flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates;
when you curse your boatman, he complains to your consul; the
dragomans afflict you with strange wild notions about honesty; a
government order prevents you from using vituperative language
to the natives” in general; and the very donkey-boys are be-
coming cognizant of the right of man to remain unbastinadoed.
Still the old leaven remains behind; here, as elsewhere in
“ morning-land,” you cannot hold your own without employing
The passport system, now dying out of Europe, has
sprung up, or rather revived, in Egypt with peculiar vigor. Its
good effects claim for it our respect; still we cannot but lament
its inconvenience. We, I mean real Easterns.
We, I mean real Easterns. As strangers --
even those whose beards have whitened in the land — know abso-
lutely nothing of what unfortunate natives must endure, I am
tempted to subjoin a short sketch of my adventures in search of
a Tezkireh at Alexandria.
Through ignorance which might have cost me dear but for
my friend Larking's weight with the local authorities, I had
neglected to provide myself with a passport in England; and it
your fists.
## p. 2891 (#463) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2891
was not without difficulty, involving much unclean dressing and
an unlimited expenditure of broken English, that I obtained from
the consul at Alexandria a certificate declaring me to be an
Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor,
aged thirty, and not distinguished — at least so the frequent
blanks seemed to denote — by any remarkable conformation of
eyes, nose, or cheek. For this I disbursed a dollar. And here
let me record the indignation with which I did it. That mighty
Britain - the mistress of the seas— the ruler of one-sixth of man-
kind - should charge five shillings to pay for the shadow of her
protecting wing! That I cannot speak my modernized “civis
sum Romanus” without putting my hand into my pocket, in order
that these officers of the Great Queen may not take too ruinously
from a revenue of fifty-six millions! Oh the meanness of our
magnificence! the littleness of our greatness!
My new passport would not carry me without the Zabit or
Police Magistrate's counter-signature, said the consul.
Next day
I went to the Zabit, who referred me to the Muhafiz (Governor)
of Alexandria, at whose gate I had the honor of squatting at
least three hours, till a more compassionate clerk vouchsafed the
information that the proper place to apply to was the Diwan
Kharijiyeh (the Foreign Office). Thus a second day was utterly
lost. On the morning of the third I started as directed for the
place, which crowns the Headland of Figs. It is a huge and
couthless shell of building in parallelogrammic form, containing
all kinds of public offices in glorious confusion, looking with their
glaring whitewashed faces upon a central court, where a few
leafless wind-wrung trees seem struggling for the breath of life
in an eternal atmosphere of clay, dust, and sun-blaze.
The first person I addressed was a Kawwas or police officer,
who, coiled comfortably' up in a bit of shade fitting his person
like a robe, was in full enjoyment of the Asiatic Kaif. ” Hav-
ing presented the consular certificate and briefly stated the
nature of my business, I ventured to inquire what was the right
course to pursue for a visá.
They have little respect for Dervishes, it appears, at Alex-
andria! M'adri” (Don't know), growled the man of authority,
without moving anything but the quantity of tongue necessary
for articulation.
Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,- by
bribe, by bullying, or by bothering them with a dogged perse-
## p. 2892 (#464) ###########################################
2892
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
1
verance into attending to you and your concerns. The latter is
the peculiar province of the poor; moreover, this time I resolved
for other reasons to be patient. I repeated my question in
almost the same words. “Ruh! ” (Be off) was what I obtained
for all reply. By this time the questioned went so far as to
open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper in my hands, and
looking very humble and very persevering, till a loud “Ruh ya
Kalb! ” (Go, O dog! ) converted into a responsive curse the little
speech I was preparing about the brotherhood of El-Islam and
the mutual duties obligatory on true believers. I then turned
away slowly and fiercely, for the next thing might have been a
cut with the Kurbaj [bastinado], and by the hammer of Thor!
British flesh and blood could never have stood that.
After which satisfactory scene,- for satisfactory it was in one
sense, proving the complete fitness of the Dervish's dress,— I
tried a dozen other promiscuous sources of information,-police-
men, grooms, scribes, donkey-boys, and idlers in general. At
length, wearied of patience, I offered a soldier some pinches of
tobacco and promised him an Oriental sixpence if he would
manage the business for me. The man was interested by the
tobacco and the pence; he took my hand, and inquiring the
while he went along, led me from place to place till, mounting a
grand staircase, I stood in the presence of Abbas Effendi, the
governor's Naib or deputy.
It was a little whey-faced black-bearded Turk, coiled up in the
usual conglomerate posture upon a calico-covered divan, at the
end of a long bare large-windowed room. Without deigning
even to nod the head which hung over his shoulder with tran-
scendent listlessness and affectation of pride, in answer to my
salams and benedictions, he eyed me with wicked eyes and
faintly ejaculated Minent ? » Then hearing that I was a Der-
vish and doctor, — he must be an Osmanli Voltairian, that little
Turk,--the official snorted a contemptuous snort. He conde-
scendingly added, however, that the proper source to seek was
« Taht,” which, meaning simply “below," conveyed rather imper-
fect information in a topographical point of view to a stranger.
At length however my soldier guide found out that a room in
the custom-house bore the honorable appellation of Foreign
Office. Accordingly I went there, and after sitting at least a
couple of hours at the bolted door in the noonday sun, was told,
with a fury which made me think I had sinned, that the officer
1
## p. 2893 (#465) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2893
in whose charge the department was had been presented with an
olive-branch in the morning, and consequently that business was
not to be done that day. The angry-faced official communicated
the intelligence to a large group of Anadolian, Caramanian, Bos-
niac, and Roumelian Turks,- sturdy, undersized, broad-shouldered,
bare-legged, splay-footed, horny-fisted, dark-browed, honest-looking
mountaineers, who were lounging about with long pistols and
yataghans stuck in their broad sashes, head-gear composed of
immense tarbooshes with proportionate turbans coiled round
them, and two or three suits of substantial clothes — even at this
season of the year — upon their shoulders.
Like myself they had waited some hours, but they were not
patient under disappointment: they bluntly told the angry official
that he and his master were a pair of idlers, and the curses that
rumbled and gurgled in their hairy throats as they strode towards
the door sounded like the growling of wild beasts.
Thus was another day truly Orientally lost. On the morrow
however I obtained permission, in the character of Dr. Abdullah,
to visit any part of Egypt I pleased, and to retain possession of
my dagger and pistols.
And now I must explain what induced me to take so much
trouble about a passport. The home reader naturally inquires,
Why not travel under your English name?
For this reason. In the generality of barbarous countries you
must either proceed, like Bruce, preserving the dignity of man-
hood" and carrying matters with a high hand, or you must worm
your way by timidity and subservience; in fact, by becoming an
animal too contemptible for man to let or injure. But to pass
through the Holy Land you must either be a born believer, or
have become one; in the former case you may demean yourself
as you please, in the latter a path is ready prepared for you.
My spirit could not bend to own myself a Burma, a rene-
gade — to be pointed at and shunned and catechized, an object of
suspicion to the many and of contempt to all. Moreover, it
would have obstructed the aim of my wanderings. The convert
is always watched with Argus eyes, and men do not willingly
give information to a new Moslem,” especially a Frank: they
suspect his conversion to be a feigned or a forced one, look
upon him as a spy, and let him see as little of life as possible.
Firmly as was my heart set upon traveling in Arabia, by Heaven!
I would have given up the dear project rather than purchase a
## p. 2894 (#466) ###########################################
2894
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
the way.
coarse
doubtful and partial success at such a price. Consequently I
had no choice but to appear as a born believer, and part of my
birthright in that respectable character was toil and trouble in
obtaining a tezkirah.
Then I had to provide myself with certain necessaries for
These were not numerous.
The silver-mounted dress-
ing-case is here supplied by a rag containing a miswak, a bit of
soap, and a comb — wooden, for bone and tortoise-shell are not,
religiously speaking, correct. Equally simple was my wardrobe:
a change or two of clothing. The only article of canteen descrip-
tion was a zemzemiyah, a goatskin water-bag, which communi-
cates to its contents, especially when new, a ferruginous aspect
and a wholesome though hardly an attractive flavor of tanno-
gelatine. This was a necessary; to drink out of a tumbler,
possibly fresh from pig-eating lips, would have entailed a certain
loss of reputation. For bedding and furniture I had a
Persian rug - which, besides being couch, acts as chair, table,
and oratory,-a cotton-stuffed chintz-covered pillow, a blanket in
case of cold, and a sheet, which does duty for tent and mosquito
curtains in nights of heat. As shade is a convenience not always
procurable, another necessary was a huge cotton umbrella of
Eastern make, brightly yellow, suggesting the idea of an over-
grown marigold. I had also a substantial housewife, the gift of
a kind friend: it was a roll of canvas, carefully soiled, and gar-
nished with needles and thread, cobblers' wax, buttons, and other
such articles. These things were most useful in lands where
tailors abound not; besides which, the sight of a man darning
his coat or patching his slippers teems with pleasing ideas of hu-
mility. A dagger, a brass inkstand and penholder stuck in the
belt, and a mighty rosary, which on occasion might have been
converted into a weapon of offense, completed my equipment.
I must not omit to mention the proper method of carrying
money, which in these lands should never be intrusted to box or
bag. A common cotton purse secured in a breast pocket (for
Egypt now abounds in that civilized animal the pickpocket) con-
tained silver pieces and small change. My gold, of which I
carried twenty-five sovereigns, and papers, were committed to a
substantial leathern belt of Maghrabi manufacture, made to be
strapped round the waist under the dress. This is the Asiatic
method of concealing valuables, and a more civilized one than
ours in the last century, when Roderick Random and his com-
## p. 2895 (#467) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2895
panion "sewed their money between the lining and the waistband
of their breeches, except some loose silver for immediate expense
on the road. ” The great inconvenience of the belt is its weight,
especially where dollars must be carried, as in Arabia, causing
chafes and inconvenience at night. Moreover it can scarcely be
called safe. In dangerous countries wary travelers will adopt
surer precautions.
A pair of common native khurjin or saddle-bags contained my
wardrobe, the “bed,” readily rolled up into a bundle; and for a
medicine chest I bought a pea-green box with red and yellow
flowers, capable of standing falls from a camel twice a day.
The next step was to find out when the local steamer would
start for Cairo, and accordingly I betook myself to the Transit
Office. No vessel was advertised; I was directed to call every
evening till satisfied. At last the fortunate event took place: a
“weekly departure,” which by-the-by had occurred once every
fortnight or so, was in order for the next day. I hurried to the
office, but did not reach it till past noon - the hour of idleness.
A little dark gentleman, so formed and dressed as exactly to
resemble a liver-and-tan bull-terrier, who with his heels on the
table was dozing, cigar in mouth, over the last Galignani, posi-
tively refused after a time,- for at first he would not speak at
all, — to let me take my passage till three in the afternoon. I
inquired when the boat started, upon which he referred me, as I
had spoken bad Italian, to the advertisement. I pleaded inabil-
ity to read or write, whereupon he testily cried “Alle nove! alle
nove! ” (At nine! at nine! ) Still appearing uncertain, I drove
him out of his chair, when he rose with a curse and read “8
An unhappy Eastern, depending upon what he said,
would have been precisely one hour too late.
Thus were we lapsing into the real good old Indian style of
doing business. Thus Indicus orders his first clerk to execute
some commission; the senior, having work upon his hands,
sends a junior; the junior finds the sun hot, and passes on the
word to a “peon”; the peon charges a porter with the errand;
and the porter quietly sits or dozes in his place, trusting that
fate will bring him out of the scrape, but firmly resolved, though
the shattered globe fall, not to stir an inch.
The reader, I must again express a hope, will pardon the ego-
tism of these descriptions: my object is to show him how busi-
ness is carried on in these hot countries — business generally.
A. M. ”
## p. 2896 (#468) ###########################################
2896
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
For had I, instead of being Abdullah the Dervish, been a rich
native merchant, it would have been the same.
How many com-
plaints of similar treatment have I heard in different parts of
the Eastern world! and how little can one realize them without
having actually experienced the evil! For the future I shall
never see a "nigger” squatting away half a dozen mortal hours
in a broiling sun, patiently waiting for something or for some
one, without a lively remembrance of my own cooling of the
calces at the custom-house of Alexandria.
At length, about the end of May, all was ready. Not without
a feeling of regret I left my little room among the white myrtle
blossoms and the oleander flowers. I kissed with humble osten-
tation my kind host's hand in presence of his servants, bade
adieu to my patients, who now amounted to about fifty, shaking
hands with all meekly and with religious equality of attention,
and, mounted in a “trap” which looked like a cross between a
wheel-barrow and dog-cart, drawn by a kicking, jibbing, and
biting mule, I set out for the steamer.
EN ROUTE
From A Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah)
A
T 3 P. M. we left El Zaribah, traveling towards the S. W. ,
and a wondrously picturesque scene met the eye. Crowds
hurried along, habited in the · pilgrim garb, whose white-
ness contrasted strangely with their black skins, their newly
shaven heads glistening in the sun, and their long black hair
streaming in the wind. The rocks rang with shouts of Labbayk!
Labbayk! ” At a pass we fell in with the Wahhabis, accom-
panying the Baghdad caravan, screaming «Here am ; and
guided by a large loud kettle-drum, they followed in double file
the camel of a standard-bearer, whose green flag bore in huge
white letters the formula of the Moslem creed. They were wild-
looking mountaineers, dark and fierce, with hair twisted into
thin dalik or plaits: each was armed with a long spear, a match-
lock, or a dagger. They were seated upon coarse wooden sad-
dles, without cushions or stirrups, a fine saddle-cloth alone
denoting a chief. The women emulated the men; they either
guided their own dromedaries, or sitting in pillion, they clung
## p. 2897 (#469) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2897
arose
to their husbands; veils they disdained, and their countenances
certainly belonged not to a soft sex. ” These Wahhabis were
by no means pleasant companions. Most of them were followed
by spare dromedaries, either unladen or carrying water-skins,
fodder, fuel, and other necessaries for the march. The beasts
delighted in dashing furiously through our file, which, being
colligated, was thrown each time into the greatest confusion.
And whenever we were observed smoking, we were cursed aloud
for infidels and idolaters.
Looking back at El Zaribah, soon after our departure, I saw
a heavy nimbus settle upon the hilltops, a sheet of rain being
stretched between it and the plain. The low grumbling of
thunder sounded joyfully in our ears. We hoped for a shower,
but were disappointed by a dust-storm, which ended with a few
heavy drops. There
a report that the Bedouins had
attacked a party of Meccans with stones, classical Arabian mis-
siles,- and the news caused men to look exceeding grave.
At
5 P. M.
we entered the wide bed of the fiumara, down
which we were to travel all night. Here the country falls rapidly
towards the sea, as the increasing heat of the air, the direction
of the watercourses, and signs of violence in the torrent-bed
show. The fiumara varies in breadth from 150 feet to three-
quarters of a mile; its course, I was told, is towards the south-
west, and it enters the sea near Jeddah. The channel is a
coarse sand, with here and there masses of sheet rock and
patches of thin vegetation.
At about half-past 5 P. M. we entered a suspicious-looking
place. On the right was a stony buttress, along whose base the
stream, when there is one, flows; and to this depression was our
road limited by the rocks and thorn-trees, which filled the other
half of the channel. The left side was a precipice, grim and
barren, but not so abrupt as its brother. Opposite us the way
seemed barred by piles of hills, crest rising above crest into the
far blue distance. Day still smiled upon the upper peaks, but
the lower slopes and the fiumara bed were already curtained
with gray sombre shade.
A damp seemed to fall upon our spirits as we approached this
Valley Perilous. I remarked with wonder that the voices of the
women and children sank into silence, and the loud Labbaykas
of the pilgrims were gradually stilled. Whilst still speculating
upon the cause of this phenomenon, it became apparent. A small
V--182
## p. 2898 (#470) ###########################################
2898
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
curl of smoke, like a lady's ringlet, on the summit of the right-
hand precipice, caught my eye, and simultaneous with the echo-
ing crack of the matchlock a high-trotting dromedary in front of
me rolled over upon the sands. A bullet had split his heart,
throwing his rider a goodly somerset of five or six yards.
Ensued terrible confusion; women screamed, children shrieked,
and men vociferated, each one striving with might and main to
urge his animal out of the place of death. But the road being
narrow, they only managed to jam the vehicles in a solid immov-
able mass.
At every matchlock shot a shudder ran through the
huge body, as when the surgeon's scalpel touches some
sensitive nerve. The irregular horsemen, perfectly useless, gal-
loped up and down over the stones, shouting to and ordering
one another. The Pacha of the army had his carpet spread at
the foot of the left-hand precipice, and debated over his pipe
with the officers what ought to be done. No good genius whis-
pered "Crown the heights. ”
Then it was that the conduct of the Wahhabis found favor in
my eyes. They came up, galloping their camels,
more
«Torrents less rapid and less rash,
with their elf-locks tossing in the wind, and their flaring matches
casting a strange lurid light over their features. Taking up a
position, one body began to fire upon the Utaybah robbers,
whilst two or three hundred, dismounting, swarmed up the hill
under the guidance of the Sherif Zayd. I had remarked this
nobleman at El Medinah as a model specimen of the pure Arab.
Like all Sherifs, he is celebrated for bravery, and has killed
many with his own hand. When urged at E1 Zaribah to ride
into Meccah, he swore that he would not leave the caravan till
in sight of the walls; and fortunately for the pilgrims, he kept
his word. Presently the firing was heard far in our rear - the
robbers having fled; the head of the column advanced, and the
dense body of the pilgrims opened out. Our forced halt was
now exchanged for a flight. It required much management to
steer our desert-craft clear of danger; but Shaykh Masud was
equal to the occasion. That many were lost was evident by the
boxes and baggage that strewed the shingles. I had no means
of ascertaining the number of men killed and wounded: reports
were contradictory, and exaggeration unanimous. The robbers
were said to be 150 in number; their object was plunder, and
## p. 2899 (#471) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2899
they would eat the shot camels. But their principal ambition
was the boast “We, the Utaybah, on such and such a night
stopped the Sultan's mahmal one whole hour in the pass. "
At the beginning of the skirmish I had primed my pistols,
and sat with them ready for use. But soon seeing that there
was nothing to be done, and wishing to make an impression, -
nowhere does Bobadil now go down but in the East, I
called aloud for my supper. Shaykh Nur, exanimate with fear,
could not move.
The boy Mohammed ejaculated only an «Oh,
sir! ” and the people around exclaimed in disgust, “By Allah! he
eats! Shaykh Abdullah, the Meccan, being a man of spirit,
was amused by the spectacle. «Are these Afghan manners,
Effendim ? ” he inquired from the shugduf behind me. "Yes,” I
replied aloud, in my country we always dine before an attack of
robbers, because that gentry is in the habit of sending men to
bed supperless. ” The Shaykh laughed aloud, but those around
him looked offended. I thought the bravado this time mal placé;
but a little event which took place on my way to Jeddah proved
that it was not quite a failure.
As we advanced our escort took care to fire every large dry
asclepias, to disperse the shades which buried us. Again the
scene became wondrous wild:
«Full many a waste I've wander'd o'er,
Clomb many a crag, cross'd many a shore,
But, by my halidome,
A scene so rude, so wild as this,
Yet so sublime in barrenness,
Ne'er did my wandering footsteps press,
Where'er I chanced to roam. ”
On either side were ribbed precipices, dark, angry, and tower-
ing above, till their summits mingled with the glooms of night;
and between them formidable looked the chasm, down which our
host hurried with shouts and discharges of matchlocks. The
torch-smoke and the night-fires of flaming asclepias formed a
canopy, sable above and livid red below, which hung over our
heads like a sheet, and divided the cliffs into two equal parts.
Here the fire flashed fiercely from a tall thorn, that crackled and
shot up showers of sparks into the air; there it died away in
1urid gleams, which lit up a truly Stygian scene. As usual, how-
ever, the picturesque had its inconveniences. There
was
no
## p. 2900 (#472) ###########################################
2900
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
path. Rocks, stone-banks, and trees obstructed our passage. The
camels, now blind in darkness, then dazzled by a flood of light,
stumbled frequently; in some places slipping down a steep
descent, in others sliding over a sheet of mud.
There were
furious quarrels and fierce language between camel-men and their
hirers, and threats to fellow-travelers; in fact, we were united in
discord. I passed that night crying «Hai! Hai! » switching the
camel, and fruitlessly endeavoring to fustigate Masud's nephew,
who resolutely slept upon the water-bags. During the hours of
darkness we made four or five halts, when we boiled coffee and
smoked pipes, but man and beasts were beginning to suffer from
a deadly fatigue.
Dawn found us still traveling down the fiumara, which here is
about one hundred yards broad. The granite hills on both sides
were less precipitous, and the borders of the torrent-bed became
natural quays of stiff clay, which showed a water-mark of from
twelve to fifteen feet in height. In many parts the bed was
muddy, and the moist places, as usual, caused accidents.
I hap-
pened to be looking back at Shaykh Abdullah, who was then
riding in old Ali bin Ya Sin's fine shugduf; suddenly the camel's
four legs disappeared from under him, his right side flattening
the ground, and the two riders were pitched severally out of the
smashed vehicle. Abdullah started up furious, and, abused the
Bedouins, who were absent, with great zest. Feed these Arabs,”
he exclaimed, quoting a Turkish proverb, "and they will fire at
Heaven! ” But I observed that, when Shaykh Masud came up,
the citizen was only gruff.
We then turned northward, and sighted El Mazik, more gen-
erally known as Wady Laymun, the Valley of Limes. On the
right bank of the fiumara stood the Meccan Sherif's state pavil.
ion, green and gold: it was surrounded by his attendants, and
prepared to receive the Pacha of the caravan. We advanced half
a mile, and encamped temporarily in a hill-girt bulge of the fiu-
mara bed. At 8 A. M. we had traveled about twenty-four miles
from El Zaribah, and the direction of our present station was
S. W. 50°
Shaykh Masud allowed us only four hours' halt; he wished to
precede the main body. After breaking our fast joyously upon
limes, pomegranates, and fresh dates, we sallied forth to admire
the beauties of the place. We are once more on classic ground,
the ground of the ancient Arab poets:-
## p. 2901 (#473) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2901
"Deserted is the village - waste the halting place and home
At Mina; o'er Rijam and Ghul wild beasts unheeded roam;
On Rayyan hill the channel lines have left a naked trace,
Time-worn, as primal Writ that dints the mountain's flinty face;" —
and this wady, celebrated for the purity of its air, has from
remote ages been a favorite resort of the Meccans. Nothing can
be more soothing to the brain than the dark-green foliage of the
limes and pomegranates; and from the base of the southern
hill bursts a bubbling stream, whose
«Chiare, fresche e dolci acque
At 2 P. M. ,
flow through the garden, filling them with the most delicious of
melodies, and the gladdest sound which nature in these regions
knows.
Exactly at noon Masud seized the halter of the foremost
camel, and we started down the fiumara. Troops of Bedouin
girls looked over the orchard walls laughingly, and children came
out to offer us fresh fruit and sweet water.
travel-
ing southwest, we arrived at a point where the torrent-bed turns
to the right, and quitting it, we climbed with difficulty over a
steep ridge of granite. Before three o'clock we entered a hill-
girt plain, which my companions called "Sola. ” In some places
were clumps of trees, and scattered villages warned us that we
were approaching a city. Far to the left rose the blue peaks of
Taif, and the mountain road, a white thread upon the nearer
heights, was pointed out to me. Here I first saw the tree, or
rather shrub, which bears the balm of Gilead, erst so celebrated
for its tonic and stomachic properties. I told Shaykh to break
off a twig, which he did heedlessly. The act was witnessed by
our party with a roar of laughter, and the astounded Shaykh
was warned that he had become subject to an atoning sacrifice.
Of course he denounced me as the instigator, and I could not
fairly refuse assistance. The tree has of late years been care-
fully described by many botanists; I will only say that the bark
resembled in color a cherry-stick pipe, the inside was a light
yellow, and the juice made my fingers stick together.
At 4 P. M. we came to a steep and rocky pass, up which we
toiled with difficulty. The face of the country was rising once
more, and again presented the aspect of numerous small basins
divided and surrounded by hills. As we jogged on were
passed by the cavalcade of no less a personage than the Sherif
we
## p. 2902 (#474) ###########################################
2902
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
of Meccah. Abd el Muttalib bin Ghalib is a dark, beardless old
man with African features, derived from his mother. He was
plainly dressed in white garments and a white muslin turban,
which made him look jet-black; he rode an ambling mule, and
the only emblem of his dignity was the large green satin
umbrella borne by an attendant on foot. Scattered around him
were about forty matchlock-men, mostly slaves. At long inter-
vals, after their father, came his four sons, Riza Bey, Abdullah,
Ali, and Ahmed, the latter still a child. The three elder
brothers rode splendid dromedaries at speed; they were young
men of light complexion, with the true Meccan cast of features,
showily dressed in bright-colored silks, and armed, to denote
their rank, with sword and gold-hilted dagger.
We halted as evening approached, and strained our eyes, but
all in vain, to catch sight of Meccah, which lies in a winding
valley. By Shaykh Abdullah's direction I recited, after the
usual devotions, the following prayer. The reader is forewarned
that it is difficult to preserve the flowers of Oriental rhetoric in
a European tongue.
“O Allah! verily this is thy safeguard (Amn) and thy Sanc-
tuary (Haram)! Into it whoso entereth becometh safe (Amin).
So deny (Harrim) my flesh and blood, my bones and skin, to
hell-fire. O Allah! Save me from thy wrath on the day when
thy servants shall be raised from the dead. I conjure thee by
this that thou art Allah, besides whom is none (thou only), the
merciful, the compassionate. And have mercy upon- our lord
Mohammed, and upon the progeny of our lord Mohammed, and
upon his followers, one and all! ” This was concluded with the
« Talbiyat," and with an especial prayer for myself.
We again mounted, and night completed our disappointment.
About 1 A. M. I was aroused by general excitement. «Meccah!
Meccah! ” cried some voices. «The Sanctuary! O the Sanctuary!
exclaimed others; and all burst into loud Labbayk,” not unfre-
quently broken by sobs. I looked out from my litter, and saw
by the light of the southern stars the dim outlines of a large
city, a shade darker than the surrounding plain. We were pass-
ing over the last ridge by a winding path” flanked on both
sides by watch-towers, which command the Darb el Maala," or
road leading from the north into Meccah. Thence we passed
into the Maabidah (northern suburb), where the Sherif's palace
is built. After this, on the left hand, came the deserted abode
1
## p. 2903 (#475) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
2903
Op-
of the Sherif bin Aun, now said to be a haunted house. ” *
posite to it lies the Jannat el Maala, the holy cemetery of Mec-
cah. Thence, turning to the right, we entered the Sulaymaniyah
or Afghan quarter. Here the boy Mohammed, being an inhabi-
tant of the Shamiyah or Syrian ward, thought proper to display
some apprehension. These two are on bad terms; children never
meet without exchanging volleys of stones, and men fight furi-
ously with quarter-staves. Sometimes, despite the terrors of
religion, the knife and sabre are drawn. But these hostilities
have their code. If a citizen be killed, there is a subscription
for blood-money.
An inhabitant of one quarter, passing singly
through another, becomes a guest; once beyond the walls, he is
likely to be beaten to insensibility by his hospitable foes.
At the Sulaymaniyah we turned off the main road into a
by-way, and ascended by narrow lanes the rough heights of
Jebel Hindi, upon which stands a small whitewashed and crenel-
lated building called a “fort. ” Thence descending, we threaded
dark streets, in places crowded with rude cots and dusky figures,
and finally at 2 A. M. we found ourselves at the door of the boy
Mohammed's house.
We arrived on the morning of Sunday the 7th Zu'l Hijjah
(11th September, 1853), and had one day before the beginning of
the pilgrimage to repose and visit the Haram. From El Medinah
to Meccah the distance, according to my calculation, was 248
English miles, which was accomplished in eleven marches.
*I cannot conceive what made the accurate Niebuhr fall into the strange
error that apparitions are unknown in Arabia. ” Arabs fear to sleep alone,
to enter the bath at night, to pass by cemeteries during dark, and to sit
amongst ruins, simply for fear of apparitions. And Arabia, together with
Persia, has supplied half the Western World - Southern Europe — with its
ghost stories and tales of angels, demons, and fairies. To quote Milton, the
land is struck «with superstition as with a planet. ”
## p. 2904 (#476) ###########################################
2904
ROBERT BURTON
(1577-1640)
as
HERE are some books of which every reader knows the names,
but of whose contents few know anything, excepting as the
same may have come to them filtered through the work of
others. Of these, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy) is one of the
most marked instances. It is a vast storehouse from which subse-
quent authors have always drawn and continue to draw, even
Burton himself drew from others,—though without always giving the
credit which with him was customary. Few would now have the
courage to read it through, and probably
fewer still could say with Dr. Johnson that
it was the only book that ever took him
out of bed two hours sooner than he wished
to rise. ”
Of Robert Burton himself very little is
known. He was born in 1577, a few years
later than Shakespeare,- probably at Lind-
ley, in Leicestershire; and died at Oxford
in 1640. He had some schooling at Sutton
Coldfield in Warwickshire, and was sent to
Brasenose College at Oxford in 1593; was
elected a student at Christ Church College
in 1599, and took his degree or B. D. in
ROBERT BURTON
1614. He was then thirty-seven years of
age.
