In the preceding chapter I have given an account of the discoveries made in the ruins of Arban, I will now add a few notes of our residence on the Khabour. A sketch of Arab life, and a description of a country not previously visited by European travellers, may be new and not uninteresting to my readers.

During the time we dwelt at Arban, we were the guests and under the protection of Mohammed Emin, the Sheikh of the Jebours. On the day we crossed the river, he celebrated our arrival by a feast after the Arab fashion, to which the notables of the tribe were invited. Sheep, as usual, were boiled and served up piecemeal in large wooden bowls, with a mass of butter and bread soaked in the gravy. The chief’s tent was spacious, though poorly furnished. It was the general resort of those who chanced to wander, either on business or for pleasure, to the Khabour, and was, consequently, never without a goodly array of guests; from a company of Shammar horsemen out on a foray to the solitary Bedouin who was seeking to become a warrior in his tribe, by first stealing a mare from some hostile encampment.

Amongst the strangers partaking, at the time of our visit, of the Sheikh’s hospitality, were Serhan, a chief of the Agaydat, and Dervish Agha, the hereditary Lord of Nisibin, the ancient Nisibis. The tents of the former were at the junction of the Khabour and Euphrates, near Karkisia (the ancient Carchemish), or, as it is more generally called by the Arabs, Abou-Psera. The fertile meadows near the confluence of the two rivers formerly belonged to the Jebours, who occupied the banks of the Khabour throughout nearly the whole of its course. An old feud kept them at continual war with the great tribe of the Aneyza. They long successfully struggled with their enemies, but having at length been overcome they sought refuge in the neighborhood of Mosul. Having returned to the Khabour, they claimed their former rights, and Mohammed Emin was invited by Serhan to settle the contending claims; but it was to no effect.

Dervish Agha, of Kurdish descent, was the representative of an ancient family, and had come to persuade the Jebour Sheikh to assist Ferhan in recovering the plundered treasure from the Hamoud. My own large tent was no less a place of resort than that of Mohammed Emin, and as we were objects of curiosity, Bedouins from all parts flocked to see us. With some of them I was already acquainted, having either received them as my guests at Mosul, or met them during excursions in the Desert. They generally passed one night with us, and then returned to their own tents. A sheep was always slain for them, and boiled with rice, or prepared wheat, in the Arab way: if there were not strangers enough to consume the whole, the rest was given to the workmen or to the needy, as it is considered derogatory to the character of a truly hospitable and generous man to keep meat until the following day, or to serve it up a second time when cold. Even the poorest Bedouin who kills a sheep, invites all his friends and neighbours to the repast, and if there be still any remnants, distributes them amongst the poor and the hungry, although he should himself want on the morrow.

The wandering Arabs have no other means of grinding their corn than by handmills, which they carry with them wherever they go. They are always worked by the women, for it is considered unworthy of a man to engage in any domestic occupation. These handmills are simply two circular flat stones, generally about eighteen inches in diameter, the upper turning loosely upon a wooden pivot, and moved quickly round by a wooden handle. The grain is poured through the hole of the pivot, and the flour is collected in a cloth spread under the mill. It is then mixed with water, kneaded in a wooden bowl, and pressed by the hand into round balls ready for baking. During these processes, the women are usually seated on the bare ground: hence, in Isaiah (xlvii. 1, 2), is the daughter of Babylon told to sit in the dust and on the ground, and “to take the mill-stones to grind meal.”

The tribes who are always moving from place to place bake their bread on a slightly convex iron plate, called a sadj, moderately heated over a low fire of brushwood or camels’ dung. The lumps of dough are rolled, on a wooden platter, into thin cakes, a foot or more in diameter, and laid by means of the roller upon the iron. They are baked in a very short time, and should be eaten hot. The Kurds, whose flour is far whiter and more carefully prepared than that of the Arabs, roll the dough into large cakes, scarcely thicker than a sheet of paper. When carefully baked by the same process, it becomes crisp and exceedingly agreeable to the taste. All Arab bread is unleavened.

If a Bedouin tribe be moving in great haste before an enemy, and should be unable to stop for many hours, or be making a forced march to avoid pursuit over a desert where the wells are very distant from each other, the women sometimes prepare bread whilst riding on camels. The fire is then lighted in an earthen vessel. One woman kneads the flour, a second rolls out the dough, and a third bakes, boys or women on foot passing the materials, as required, from one to the other. But it is very rare that the Bedouins are obliged to have recourse to this process, and I have only once witnessed it.

The fuel used by the Arabs consists chiefly of the dwarf shrubs, growing in most parts of the Desert, of dry grass and of camels’ dung. They frequently carry bags of the latter with them when in summer they march over very arid tracts. On the banks of the great rivers of Mesopotamia, the tamarisk and other trees furnish them with abundant firewood. They are entirely dependent for their supplies of wheat upon the villages on the borders of the Desert, or on the sedentary Arabs, who, whilst living in tents, cultivate the soil. The Bedouins usually draw near to the towns and cultivated districts soon after the harvest, to lay in their stock of grain. A party of men and women, chosen by their companions, then take with them money, or objects for sale or exchange, and drive the camels to the villages, where they load them and return to their tents.

Nearly the whole revenue of an Arab Sheikh, whatever it may be, is laid out in corn, rice and other provisions. The quantity of food consumed in the tents of some of the great chiefs of the Bedouins is very considerable. The common Bedouin can rarely get meat. His food consists almost exclusively of wheaten bread with truffles, which are found in great abundance during the spring, a few wild herbs, such as asparagus, onions, and garlic, fresh butter, curds, and sour milk. But, at certain seasons, even these luxuries cannot be obtained; for months together he often eats bread alone. Roasted meat is very rarely seen in a Bedouin tent. Rice is only eaten by the Sheikhs, except amongst the tribes who encamp in the marshes of Southern Mesopotamia, where rice of an inferior quality is very largely cultivated. There it is boiled with meat and made into pilaws.

The Bedouins do not make cheese. The milk of their sheep and goats is shaken into butter or turned into curds: it is rarely or never drank fresh, new milk being thought very unwholesome, as by experience I soon found it to be, in the Desert. The sour milk, or sheneena, an universal beverage amongst the Arabs, is either buttermilk pure and diluted, or curds mixed with water. Camel’s milk is drank fresh. It is pleasant to the taste, rich, and exceedingly nourishing. It is given in large quantities to the horses. The Shammar and Aneyza Bedouins have no cows or oxen, those animals being looked upon as the peculiar property of tribes who have forgotten their independence, and degraded themselves by the cultivation of land. The sheep are milked at dawn, or even before daybreak, and again in the evening on their return from the pastures. The milk is immediately turned into leben, or boiled to be shaken into butter. Amongst the Bedouins and Jebours it is considered derogatory to the character of a man to milk a cow or a sheep, but not to milk a camel.

The Sheikhs occasionally obtain dates from the cities. They are either eaten dry with bread and leben, or fried in butter, a very favorite dish of the Bedouin.[125]

To this spare and simple dish the Bedouins owe their freedom from sickness, and their extraordinary power of bearing fatigue. Diseases are rare amongst them; and the epidemics, which rage in the cities, seldom reach their tents. The cholera, which has of late visited Mosul and Baghdad with fearful severity, has not yet struck the Bedouins, and they have frequently escaped the plague, when the settlements on the borders of the Desert have been nearly depopulated by it. The small pox, however, occasionally makes great havoc amongst them, vaccination being still unknown to the Shammar, and intermittent fever prevails in the autumn, particularly when the tribes encamp near the marshes in Southern Mesopotamia. Rheumatism prevails somewhat, and Ophthalmia is common in the Desert as well as in all other parts of the East, and may be attributed as much to dirt and neglect as to any other cause.

The Bedouins are acquainted with few medicines. The Desert yields some valuable simples, which are, however, rarely used. Dr. Sandwith hearing from Suttum that the Arabs had no opiates, asked what they did with one who could not sleep. “Do!” answered the Sheikh, “why, we make use of him, and set him to watch the camels.” If a Bedouin be ill, or have received a wound, he sometimes comes to the nearest town to consult the barbers, who are frequently not unskilful surgeons.

The women suffer little in labor, which often takes place during a march, or when they are far from the encampment watering the flocks or collecting fuel. They allow their children to remain at the breast until they are nearly two and even three years old, and, consequently, have rarely many offspring.

Soon after our arrival at the Khabour I bought a deloul, or dromedary, as more convenient than a horse for making excursions in the Desert. Her name was Sahaima, and she belonged to Moghamis, the uncle of Suttum, having been taken by him from the Aneyza; she was well trained, and swift and easy in her paces. The best delouls come from Nedjd and the Gebel Shammar. They are small and lightly made, the difference between them and a common camel being as great as that between a high-bred Arab mare and an English cart-horse. Their powers of endurance are very great.

The deloul is much prized, and the race is carefully preserved. The Arabs breed from them once in two years, and are very particular in the choice of the male. An ordinary animal can work for twenty years. Suttum assured me that they could travel in the spring as many as six days without water. Their color is generally light brown and white, darker colors and black are more uncommon. Their pace is a light trot kept up for many hours together without fatigue; they can increase it to an unwieldy gallop, a speed they cannot long maintain. A good deloul is worth at the most 10l., the common price is about 5l.

After the day’s work at Arban I generally rode with Suttum into the Desert on our delouls, with the hawks and greyhounds. During these rides over the flowered greensward, the Arab Sheikh would entertain me with stories of his tribe, of their wars and intrigues, their successful plundering expeditions, and their occasional defeats. In the evening Mohammed Emin would join our party in the tent, remaining until the night was far spent.

The grass around Arban having been eaten by the flocks, the Jebours struck their tents at dawn on the 4th of April, and wandered down the Khabour in search of fresh pastures. The Boraij, too, moved further inland from the river. During the whole morning the Desert around the ruins was a busy scene; sheep, cattle, beasts of burden, men, women, and children being scattered far and wide over the plain. By mid-day the crowd had disappeared, and the meadows, which a few hours before had been teeming with living things, were now again left lonely and bare. Mohammed Emin alone, with a few Sherabeen Arabs, remained to protect us.

Soon after our arrival at the Khabour, Adla, Suttum’s first wife, came to us with her child. After the Sheikh’s marriage with Rathaiyah, she had been driven from her husband’s tent by the imperious temper of his new bride, and had returned to Moghamis, her father. Her eldest sister was the wife of Suttum’s eldest brother Sahiman, and her youngest, Maizi, was betrothed to Suttum’s youngest brother Midjwell. The three were remarkable for their beauty; their dark eyes had the true Bedouin fire, and their long black hair fell in clusters on their shoulders. Their cousins, the three brothers, had claimed them as their brides, according to Bedouin law. Adla now sought to be reconciled through me to her husband. After much difficulty, all the outward forms of perfect reconciliation between the two wives were satisfactorily gone through, although Suttum evidently saw that there was a different reception in store for himself when there were no European eye-witnesses. Such are the trials of married life in the Desert![126]On the sixth of April we witnessed a remarkable electrical phenomenon. During the day heavy clouds had been hanging on the horizon, foreboding one of those furious storms which at this time of the year occasionally visit the Desert. Late in the afternoon these clouds had gathered into one vast circle, which moved slowly round, like an enormous wheel, presenting one of the most extraordinary and awful appearances I ever saw. From its sides leaped, without ceasing, forked flames of lightning. Clouds springing up from all sides of the heavens, were dragged hurriedly into the vortex, which advanced gradually towards us, and threatened soon to break over our encampment. Fortunately, however, we only felt the very edge of the storm,—a deluge of rain and of hail of the size of pigeons’ eggs. The great rolling cloud, attracted by the Sinjar hill, soon passed away, leaving in undiminished splendor the setting sun.

Monday, 8th of April. The Mogdessi, one of my servants, caught a turtle in the river measuring three feet in length. The Arabs have many stories of the voracity of these animals, which attain, I am assured, to even a larger size, and Suttum declared that a man had been pulled under water and devoured by one, probably an Arab exaggeration.

A Bedouin, who had been attacked by a lion whilst resting, about five hours lower down on the banks of the river, came to our encampment. He had escaped with the loss of his mare. The lion is not uncommon in the jungles of the Khabour, and the Bedouins and Jebours frequently find their cubs in the spring season.

April 9th. A Bedouin youth, thin and sickly, though of a daring and resolute countenance, sat in my guest tent. His singular appearance at once drew my attention. His only clothing was a kerchief, very dirty and torn, falling over his head, and a ragged cloak, which he drew tightly round him, allowing the end of a knotted club to appear above its folds. His story, which he was at length induced to tell, was characteristic of Bedouin education. He was of the Boraij tribe, and related to Suttum. His father was too poor to equip him with mare and spear, and he was ashamed to be seen by the Arabs on foot and unarmed. He had now become a man, for he was about fourteen years old, and he resolved to trust to his own skill for his outfit as a warrior. Leaving in his father’s tent all his clothes, except his dirty keffieh and his tattered aba, and, without communicating his plans to his friends, he bent his way to the Euphrates. For three months his family hearing nothing of him, believed him to be dead. During that time, however, he had lived in the river jungle, feeding on roots and herbs, hiding himself during the day in the thickets, and prowling at night round the tents of the Aneyza in search of a mare that might have strayed, or might be less carefully guarded than usual. At length the object of his ambition was found, and such a mare had never been seen before; but, alas! her legs were bound with iron shackles, and he had brought no file with him. He succeeded in leading her to some distance from the encampment, where, as morning dawned, to avoid detection, he was obliged to leave his prize and return to his hiding-place. He was now on his way back to his tents, intending to set forth again, after recruiting his strength, on new adventures in search of a mare and spear, promising to be wiser in future, and to carry a file under his cloak. Suttum seemed very proud of his relative, and introduced him to me as a promising, if not distinguished, character.[127] It is thought no disgrace thus to steal a mare as long as the thief has not eaten bread in the tent of her owner.

April 11th. The waters of this river had been rising rapidly since the recent storm, and had now spread over the meadows. We moved our tents, and the Arabs took refuge on the mound, which stood like an island in the midst of the flood. The Jebours killed four beavers, and brought three of their young to us alive. They had been driven from their holes by the swollen stream. Mohammed Emin eagerly accepted the musk bags, which are much valued as majouns by the Turks, and, consequently, fetch a large price in the towns. Beavers were formerly found in large numbers on the Khabour, but in consequence of the value attached to the musk bag, they have been hunted almost to extermination by the Arabs. Mohammed Emin assured me that for several years not more than one or two had been seen. Sofuk, the great Shammar Sheikh, used to consider the musk bag of a beaver the most acceptable present he could send to a Turkish Pasha, whose friendship he wished to secure.

April 12th. We rode this morning to the tents of the Jebours, which had now been moved some miles down the river. Rathaiyah remained behind. The large tents and the workmen were left under the care of the Bairakdar. About three miles from Arban we passed a small artificial mound called Tel Hamer (the red); and similar ruins abound on the banks of the river. Three hours from Arban we reached a remarkable artificial mound called Shedadi, washed by the Khabour. It consists of a lofty platform, nearly square, from the centre of which springs a cone. On the top are the tombs of several Jebour chiefs, marked by the raised earth, and by small trees now dry, fixed upright in the graves. I found fragments of pottery and bricks, but no trace of inscriptions.

We did not reach the encampment of Mohammed Emin, spreading three or four miles along the Khabour, until after sunset. The chief’s tents were pitched near a mound called Ledjmiyat, on a bend of the river, and opposite to a very thick zor or jungle, known to the Arabs as El Bostan “the garden,” a kind of stronghold of the tribe, which the Sheikh declared could resist the attack of any number of nizam (regular troops), if only defended by Jebours. Suttum looked upon the grove rather as a delicious retreat from the rays of the summer’s sun, to which the Boraij occasionally resorted, than as a place for war.

During the evening, the different Sheikhs assembled in my tent to plan a ghazou, or plundering expedition, for the following day, against the Agaydat, encamped at Abou Psera (Carchemish). On the following morning, Mohammed Emin, with two of his sons, the horsemen of the tribe, and the Sheikhs who were his guests, started on their ghazou. The plain, like all the country watered by the Khabour, was one vast meadow teeming with flowers. Game abounded, and the falcon soon flew towards a bustard, which his piercing eye had seen lurking in the long grass. The sun was high in the heavens, already soaring in the sky, was the enemy of the trained hawk, the “agab,” a kind of kite or eagle, whose name, signifying “butcher,” denotes his bloody propensities.[128] Although far beyond our ken, he soon saw Hattab, and darted upon him in one swoop. The affrighted falcon immediately turned from his quarry, and with shrill cries of distress flew towards us. After circling round, unable from fear to alight, he turned towards the Desert, still followed by his relentless enemy. In vain his master, following as long as his mare could carry him, waved the lure, and called the hawk by his name; he saw him no more. Whether the noble bird escaped, or fell a victim to the “butcher,” we never knew.

Suttum was inconsolable at his loss. He wept when he returned without his falcon on his wrist, and for days he would suddenly exclaim, “O Bej! Billah! Hattab was not a bird, he was my brother.” He was one of the best trained hawks I ever saw amongst the Bedouins, and was of some substantial value to his owner, as he would daily catch six or seven bustards, except during the hottest part of summer, when the falcon is unable to hunt.

About a mile and a half below Ledjmiyat, but on the opposite bank of the river, was another large mound called Fedghami. We reached Shemshani in an hour and three quarters. It is a considerable ruin on the Khabour, and consists of one lofty mound, surrounded on the Desert side by smaller mounds and heaps of rubbish. It abounds in fragments of glazed and plain pottery, bricks, and black basaltic stone, but I could find no traces of sculpture or inscription.

Leaving Mohammed Emin to continue his journey we returned to our tents. On our road we met Moghamis, and a large party of Bedouins on their way to join the Jebour horsemen, for they also had been invited to take part in the attack on the Agaydat, and to share in the spoil. They rode their swift dromedaries, two men on each, the rediff leading the mare of his companion; that of the Sheikh was of the Obeyan race, and far famed in the Desert. She was without saddle or clothes, and we could admire the exquisite symmetry and beauty of her form.

We dismounted, embraced, and exchanged a few words. The Bedouins then continued their rapid course over the Desert. We passed other riders on delouls and mares, hastening to join the main body, or to meet their friends at the rendezvous for the night near Abou Psera. The attack on the tents was to be made at dawn on the following morning, the true Bedouin never taking an unfair advantage of his enemy in the dark.

On the 16th of April, Mohammed Emin and his sons returned from their expedition, driving before them their spoil of cows, oxen, and mares. The Agaydat were taken by surprise, and made but a feeble defence; there was, consequently, little bloodshed, as is usually the case when Arabs go on these forays. The fine horse of the Jays chief had received a bad gunshot wound, and this was the only casualty amongst my friends. Mohammed Emin brought me one or two of the captured mares as an offering. They were, of course, returned, but they involved the present of silk dresses to the Sheikh and his sons.

April 18th. To-day we visited the tents of Moghamis and his tribe; they were pitched about five miles from the river. The face of the desert was as burnished gold. Its last change was to flowers of the brightest yellow hue, and the whole plain was dressed with them. Suttum rioted in the luxuriant herbage and scented air. I never saw him so exhilarated. “What Kef (delight),” he continually exclaimed, as his mare waded through the flowers, “has God given us equal to this? It is the only thing worth living for. Ya Bej! what do the dwellers in cities know of true happiness, they have never seen grass or flowers? May God have pity on them!”

Moghamis clad himself in a coat of chain mail, of ordinary materials and rude workmanship, but still strong enough to resist the coarse iron spear-heads of the Arab lance, though certainly no protection against a well-tempered blade. The Arabs wear their armour beneath the shirt, because an enemy would otherwise strike at the mare and not at her rider.[129]

After we had enjoyed all the luxuries of an Arab feast, visited the women’s compartments, where most of the ladies of the tribe had assembled to greet us, examined the “chetab,” or camel saddle, used by the wives of the chiefs, and enquired into various details of the harem, we returned as we came, through the flowers and long grass to our tents at Arban.