Kitabı oku: «A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 1 [of 2]», sayfa 12

January 23. – It is like a dream to be sitting here, writing a journal on a rock in Jebel Shammar. When I remember how, years ago, I read that romantic account by Mr. Palgrave, which nobody believed, of an ideal State in the heart of Arabia, and a happy land which nobody but he had seen, and how impossibly remote and unreal it all appeared; and how, later during our travels, we heard of Nejd and Haïl and this very Jebel Shammar, spoken of with a kind of awe by all who knew the name, even by the Bedouins, from the day when at Aleppo Mr. S. first answered our vague questions about it by saying, “It is possible to go there. Why do you not go?” I feel that we have achieved something which it is not given to every one to do. Wilfrid declares that he shall die happy now, even if we have our heads cut off at Haïl. It is with him a favourite maxim, that every place is exactly like every other place, but Jebel Shammar is not like anything else, at least that I have seen in this world, unless it be Mount Sinaï, and it is more beautiful than that. All our journey to-day has been a romance. We passed through Igneh in the early morning, stopping only to water our animals. It is a pretty little village, something like Jobba, on the edge of the sand, but it has what Jobba has not, square fields of green barley unwalled outside it. These are of course due to irrigation, which while waiting we saw at work from a large well, but they give it a more agricultural look than the walled palm-groves we have hitherto seen. Immediately after Igneh we came upon hard ground, and in our delight indulged our tired mares in a fantasia, which unstiffened their legs and did them good. The soil was beautifully crisp and firm, being composed of fine ground granite, quite different from the sandstone formation of Jobba and Jôf. The vegetation, too, was changed. The yerta and adr and other Nefûd plants had disappeared, and in their place were shrubs, which I remember having seen in the wadys of Mount Sinaï, with occasionally small trees of the acacia tribe known to pilgrims as the “burning bush” – in Arabic “talkh” – also a plant with thick green leaves and no stalks called “gheyseh,” which they say is good for the eyes. Every now and then a solitary boulder, all of red granite, rose out of the plain, or here and there little groups of rounded rocks, out of which we started several hares. The view in front of us was beautiful beyond description, a perfectly even plain, sloping gradually upwards, out of which these rocks and tells cropped up like islands, and beyond it the violet-coloured mountains now close before us, with a precipitous cliff which has been our landmark for several days towering over all. The outline of Jebel Shammar is strangely fantastic, running up into spires and domes and pinnacles, with here and there a loop-hole through which you can see the sky, or a wonderful boulder perched like a rocking stone on the sky line. One rock was in shape just like a camel, and would deceive any person who did not know that a camel could not have climbed up there. At half-past one we passed the first detached masses of rock which stand like forts outside a citadel, and, bearing away gradually to the left, reached the buttresses of the main body of hills. These all rise abruptly from the smooth sloping surface of the plain, and, unlike the mountains of most countries, with no interval of broken ground. Mount Sinaï is the only mountain I have seen like this. In both cases you can stand on a plain, and touch the mountain with your hand. Only at intervals from clefts in the hills little wadys issue, showing that it sometimes rains in Jebel Shammar. Indeed to-night, we shall probably have a proof of this, for a great black cloud is rising behind the peaks westwards, and every now and then it thunders. All is tight and secure in our tent against rain. There is a small ravine in the rock close to where we are encamped, with a deep natural tank full of the clearest water. We should never have discovered it but for the shepherd who came on with us to-day, for it is hidden away under some gigantic granite boulders, and to get at it you have to creep through a hole in the rock. A number of bright green plants grow in among the crevices (capers?), and we have seen a pair of partridges, little dove-coloured birds with yellow bills.

We passed a small party of Bedouin Shammar, moving camp to-day. One of them had a young goshawk¹⁶ on his delúl. They had no horses with them, and we have not crossed the track of a horse since leaving Shakik. I forgot to say that yesterday we saw a Harb Bedouin, an ugly little black faced man, who told us he was keeping sheep for the Emir. The Harb are the tribe which hold the neighbourhood of Medina, and have such an evil reputation among pilgrims.

January 24. – Thunderstorm in the night. We sent on Radi early this morning, for we had only a few miles to go, with our letters to Haïl. It was a lovely morning after the rain, birds singing sweetly from the bushes, but we all felt anxious. Even Mohammed was silent and preoccupied, for none knew now what any moment might bring forth. We put on our best clothes, however, and tried to make our mares look smart. We had expected to find Haïl the other side of the hills, but this was a mistake. Instead of crossing them, we kept along their edge, turning gradually round to the right, the ground still rising. The barometer at the camp was 3370, and now it marks an ascent of two hundred feet.

We passed two villages about a mile away to our left, El Akeyt and El Uta; and from one of them we were joined by some peasants riding in to Haïl on donkeys. This looked more like civilisation than anything we had seen since leaving Syria. We were beginning to get rather nervous about the result of our message, when Radi appeared and announced that the Emir had read our letters, and would be delighted to see us. He had ordered two houses to be made ready for us, and nothing more remained for us to do, than to ride into the town, and present ourselves at the kasr. It was not far off, for on coming to the top of the low ridge which had been in front of us for some time, we suddenly saw Haïl at our feet not half a mile distant. The town is not particularly imposing, most of the houses being hidden in palm groves, and the wall surrounding it little more than ten feet high. The only important building visible, was a large castle close to the entrance, and this Radi told us was the kasr, Ibn Rashid’s palace.

In spite of preoccupations, I shall never forget the vivid impression made on me, as we entered the town, by the extraordinary spick and span neatness of the walls and streets, giving almost an air of unreality.

CHAPTER X

“There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” —

Shakespeare.

Haïl – The Emir Mohammed Ibn Rashid – His menagerie – His horses – His courtiers – His wives – Amusements of the ladies of Haïl – Their domestic life – An evening at the castle – The telephone

As we stayed some time at Haïl, I will not give the detail of every day. It would be tedious, and would involve endless repetitions, and not a few corrections, for it was only by degrees that we learned to understand all we saw and all we heard.

Our reception was everything that we could have wished. As we rode into the courtyard of the kasr, we were met by some twenty well-dressed men, each one of whom made a handsomer appearance than any Arabs we had previously seen in our lives. “The sons of Sheykhs,” whispered Mohammed, who was rather pale, and evidently much impressed by the solemnity of the occasion. In their midst stood a magnificent old man, clothed in scarlet, whose tall figure and snow-white beard gave us a notion of what Solomon might have been in all his glory. He carried a long wand in his hand – it looked like a sceptre – and came solemnly forward to greet us. “The Emir,” whispered Mohammed, as we all alighted. Wilfrid then gave the usual “salam aleykum,” to which every one replied “aleykum salam,” in a loud cheerful tone, with a cordiality of manner that was very reassuring. I thought I had never seen so many agreeable faces collected together, or people with so excellent a demeanour. The old man, smiling, motioned to us to enter, and others led the way. We were then informed that these were the servants of the Emir, and the old man his chamberlain. They showed us first through a dark tortuous entrance, constructed evidently for purposes of defence, and then down a dark corridor, one side of which was composed of pillars, reminding one a little of the entrance to some ancient Egyptian temple. Then one of the servants tapped at a low door, and exchanged signals with somebody else inside, and the door was opened, and we found ourselves in a large kahwah, or reception room. It was handsome from its size, seventy feet by thirty, and from the row of five pillars, which stood in the middle, supporting the roof. The columns were about four feet in diameter, and were quite plain, with square capitals, on which the ends of the rafters rested. The room was lighted by small square air-holes near the roof, and by the door, which was now left open. The whole of the inside was white, or rather, brown-washed, and there was no furniture of any sort, or fittings, except wooden pegs for hanging swords to, a raised platform opposite the door where the mortar stood for coffee-pounding, and a square hearth in one corner, where a fire was burning.

It was very dark, but we could make out some slaves, busy with coffee-pots round the fire. Close to this we were invited to sit down, and then an immense number of polite speeches were exchanged, our healths being asked after at least twenty times, and always with some mention of the name of God, for this is required by politeness in Nejd. Coffee was soon served, and after this the conversation became general between our servants and the servants of the Emir, and then there was a stir, and a general rising, and the word was passed round, “yiji el Emir,” the Emir is coming. We, too, got up, and this time it really was the Emir. He came in at the head of a group of still more smartly-dressed people than those we had seen before, and held out his hand to Wilfrid, to me, and to Mohammed, exchanging salutations with each of us in turn, and smiling graciously. Then we all sat down, and Wilfrid made a short speech of the sort we had already agreed upon, which the Emir answered very amiably, saying that he was much pleased to see us, and that he hoped we should make his house our house. He then asked Mohammed for news of the road; of Jóhar and Meskakeh, and especially about the war going on between Sotamm and Ibn Smeyr. So far so good, and it was plain that we had nothing now to fear; yet I could not help looking now and then at those pegs on the wall, and thinking of the story of the young Ibn Jabars and their slaves, who had been so treacherously murdered in this very hall, and by this very man, our host.

The Emir’s face is a strange one. It may be mere fancy, prompted by our knowledge of Ibn Rashid’s past life, but his countenance recalled to us the portraits of Richard the Third, lean, sallow cheeks, much sunken, thin lips, with an expression of pain, except when smiling, a thin black beard, well defined black knitted eyebrows, and remarkable eyes, – eyes deep sunk and piercing, like the eyes of a hawk, but ever turning restlessly from one of our faces to the other, and then to those beside him. It was the very type of a conscience-stricken face, or of one which fears an assassin. His hands, too, were long and claw-like, and never quiet for an instant, incessantly playing, while he talked, with his beads, or with the hem of his abba. With all this, the Emir is very distinguished in appearance, with a tall figure, and, clothed as he was in purple and fine linen, he looked every inch a king. His dress was magnificent; at first we fancied it put on only in our honour, but this we found to be a mistake, and Ibn Rashid never wears anything less gorgeous. His costume consisted of several jibbehs of brocaded Indian silk, a black abba, interwoven with gold, and at least three kefiyehs, one over the other, of the kind made at Bagdad. His aghal, also, was of the Bagdad type, which I had hitherto supposed were only worn by women, bound up with silk and gold thread, and set high on the forehead, so as to look like a crown. In the way of arms he wore several golden-hilted daggers and a handsome golden-hilted sword, ornamented with turquoises and rubies, Haïl work, as we afterwards found. His immediate attendants, though less splendid, were also magnificently clothed.

After about a quarter of an hour’s conversation, Mohammed ibn Rashid rose and went out, and we were then shown upstairs by ourselves to a corridor, where dates and bread and butter were served to us. Then a message came from the Emir, begging that we would attend his mejlis, the court of justice which he holds daily in the yard of the palace. We were not at all prepared for this, and when the castle gate was opened, and we were ushered out into the sunshine, we were quite dazzled by the spectacle which met our eyes.

The courtyard, which is about a hundred yards long by fifty broad, was completely lined with soldiers, not soldiers such as we are accustomed to in Europe, but still soldiers. They were, to a certain extent, in uniform, that is to say, they all wore brown cloaks and blue or red kefiyehs on their heads. Each, moreover, carried a silver-hilted sword. I counted up to eight hundred of them forming the square, and they were sitting in a double row under the walls, one row on a sort of raised bench, which runs round the yard, and the other squatted on the ground in front of them. The Emir had a raised seat under the main wall, and he was surrounded by his friends, notably his cousin Hamúd, who attends him everywhere, and his favourite slave, Mubarek, whose duty it is to guard him constantly from assassins.¹⁷ In front of the Emir stood half-a-dozen suppliants, and outside the square of soldiers, a mob of citizens and pilgrims, for the pilgrimage had arrived at Haïl. We had to walk across the square escorted by a slave, and the Emir motioned us to take places at his side, which we accordingly did; he then went on with his work. People came with petitions, which were read to him by Hamúd, and to which he generally put his seal without discussion, and then there was a quarrel to settle, the rights of which I confess I did not understand, for the Arabic spoken at Haïl is different from any we had hitherto heard. I noticed, however, that though the courtiers addressed Mohammed as Emir, the poorer people, probably Bedouins, called him “ya Sheykh,” or simply “ya Mohammed.” One, who was probably a small Shammar Sheykh, he kissed on the cheek. Some pilgrims, who had a grievance, also presented themselves, and had their case very summarily decided; they were then turned out by the soldiers. No case occupied more than three minutes, and the whole thing was over in half-an-hour. At last the Emir rose, bowed to us, and went into the palace, while we, very glad to stretch our legs, which were cramped with squatting on the bench barely a foot wide, were escorted to our lodgings by the chamberlain and two of the soldiers.

We found a double house provided for us in the main street of Haïl, and not two hundred yards from the kasr – a house without pretence, but sufficient for our wants, and secure from all intruders, for the street door could be locked, and the walls were high. It consisted of two separate houses, as I believe most dwellings in Arabia do, one for men and the other for women. In the former there was a kahwah and a couple of smaller rooms, and this we gave over to Mohammed and the servants, keeping the harim for ourselves. This last had a small open court, just large enough for the three mares to stand in, an open vestibule of the sort they call liwan at Damascus, and two little dens. In one of these dens we stored our luggage, and in the other, spread our beds. The doors of these inner rooms could be locked up when we went out, with curious wooden locks and wooden keys; the doors were of ithel wood. All was exceedingly simple, but in decent repair and clean, the only ornaments being certain patterns, scratched out in white from the brown wash which covered the walls. Here we soon made ourselves comfortable, and were not sorry to rest at last, after our long journey.

Our rest, however, was not to come yet. It was only one o’clock when we arrived at our house, and before two, the Emir sent for us again. This time the reception was a private one in the upper rooms of the kasr, and we found the Emir alone with Hamúd. He received us with even more cordiality than before, and with less ceremony. We had brought presents with us, the duty of displaying which we left to Mohammed, who expatiated on their value and nature with all the art of a bazaar merchant. As for us, we were a little ashamed of their insignificance, for we had had no conception of Ibn Rashid’s true position when we left Damascus, and the scarlet cloth jibbeh we had considered the ne plus ultra of splendour for him, looked shabby among the gorgeous dresses worn at Haïl. We had added to the cloak and other clothes, which are the usual gifts of ceremony, a revolver in a handsome embroidered case, a good telescope, and a Winchester rifle, any one of which would have made Jedaan or Ibn Shaalan open his eyes with pleasure; but Ibn Rashid, though far too well-bred not to admire and approve, cared evidently little for these things, having seen them all before. Even the rifle was no novelty, for he had an exactly similar one in his armoury. Poor Mohammed, however, went on quite naïvely with his descriptions, while the Emir looked out of window through the telescope, pretending to be examining the wall opposite, for there was no view. Hamúd, his cousin, whose acquaintance we now made, is more sympathique than the Emir, though they are ridiculously like each other in face, but Hamúd has the advantage of a good conscience, and has no vengeance to fear. They were dressed also alike, so that it was difficult at first to know them apart; perhaps there is a motive in this, as with the Richmonds of Shakespeare. The Emir’s room was on the same plan as the kahwah, but smaller, and boasting only two columns, the coffee place in the right-hand corner as you enter, and the Emir’s fireplace, with a fire burning in it, on an iron plate in front. Persian carpets were spread, and there were plenty of cushions to lean against by the wall. We were invited to sit down to the left of the Emir and Hamúd, who never seems to leave his side. Mohammed had a place on the right, between them and the door. Coffee, and a very sweet tea, were handed round in thimblefuls, and a good deal of conversation ensued. We had brought a letter from our old friend the Nawab Ikbal ed-Dowlah, who had been at Haïl about forty years ago, in the time of Abdallah ibn Rashid.¹⁸ The Emir remembered his coming, though he must have been a child at the time, and said some pretty things in compliment of him. He then asked Mohammed about his Arûk relations in Jôf, and said that they had always been faithful to him. They had taken the Emir’s part, it would seem, in some revolt which took place there a few years ago. There was also an Ibn Arûk in Harík, a Bedouin sheykh, who the Emir said was a friend of his; at least, he was on bad terms with Ibn Saoud and the Wahhabis, and this is a title to favour at Haïl. Ibn Rashid is very jealous of Ibn Saoud, and now that the Wahhabi empire is broken up, fosters any discontent there may be in Aared. I believe many of the Bedouin sheykhs of Upper Nejd have come over to him. Mohammed, thus encouraged, launched out into his favourite tales, and repeated the Ibn Arûk legend, which, I confess, I am beginning to get a little tired of, and then went on to describe the wonders of Tudmur, of which he now implied, without exactly stating it in words, that he was actual Sheykh. The house he lived in at home, he said, had columns of marble, each sixty feet in height, and had been built originally by Suliman ibn Daoud. There were two hundred of these columns in and around it, and the walls were twenty feet thick. The Emir, who seemed rather perplexed by this, appealed to us for confirmation, and we told him that all this really existed at Tudmur; indeed, there was no gainsaying the fact that Mohammed’s father’s house had some of the objects named on the premises, though the house itself is but a little square box of mud. The city wall, in fact, makes one side of the stable, and a column or two have been worked into the modern building; but this we did not think it necessary to explain. Mohammed’s reputation rose in consequence, and I already began to fear that the Emir’s civilities had turned his head. I heard him whisper to Hamúd that the silver-hilted sword he is wearing, and which is the one Wilfrid gave him at Damascus, was an ancestral relic; it had been, he said, “min zeman,” from time immemorial, in the Arûk family. He had also established a fiction, in which he privately entreated us to join, that we started from home with a hawk (for all the best falcons come from Tudmur), and lost it on the journey.¹⁹

While we were discussing these important matters, the call to prayer was heard, and the two Ibn Rashids, begging us to remain seated, rose and went out.

They were absent a few minutes, and on their return the Emir, to our great delight, proposed to show us his gardens, and immediately led the way down tortuous passages and through courts and doors into a palm grove surrounded by a high wall. Here we were joined by numerous slaves, some black, some white, for there are both sorts at Haïl. A number of gazelles were running about, and came up quite familiarly as we entered. These were of two varieties, one browner than the other, answering, I believe, to what are called the “gazelle des bois,” and the “gazelle des plaines,” in Algeria. There were also a couple of ibexes with immense heads, tame like the gazelles, and allowing themselves to be stroked. The gazelles seemed especially at home, and we were told that they breed here in captivity. The most interesting, however, of all the animals in this garden were three of the wild cows (bakar wahhash), from the Nefûd, which we had so much wished to see. They proved to be, as we had supposed, a kind of antelope,²⁰ though their likeness to cows was quite close enough to account for their name. They stood about as high as an Alderney calf six months old, and had humps on their shoulders like the Indian cattle. In colour they were a yellowish white, with reddish legs turning to black towards the feet. The face was parti-coloured, and the horns, which were black, were quite straight and slanted backwards, and fully three feet long, with spiral markings. These wild cows were less tame than the rest of the animals, and the slaves were rather afraid of them, for they seemed ready to use their horns, which were as sharp as needles. The animals, though fat, evidently suffered from confinement, for all were lame, one with an enlarged knee, and the rest with overgrown hoofs. When we had seen and admired the menagerie, and fed the antelopes with dates, we went on through a low door, which we had almost to creep through, into another garden, where there were lemon trees (treng), bitter oranges (hámud), and pomegranates (roman). The Emir, who was very polite and attentive to me, had some of the fruit picked and gave me a bunch of a kind of thyme, the only flower growing there. We saw some camels at work drawing water from a large well, a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet deep, to judge by the rope. The Emir then crept through another low door and we after him, and then to our great satisfaction we found ourselves in a stable-yard full of mares, tethered in rows each to a manger. I was almost too excited to look, for it was principally to see these that we had come so far.

This yard contained about twenty mares, and beyond it was another with a nearly equal number. Then there was a third with eight horses, tethered in like manner; and beyond it again a fourth with thirty or forty foals. I will not now describe all we saw, for the Emir’s stud will require a chapter to itself. Suffice it to say, that Wilfrid’s first impression and mine were alike. The animals we saw before us were not comparable for beauty of form or for quality with the best we had seen among the Gomussa. The Emir, however, gave us little time for reflection, for with a magnificent wave of his hand, and explaining with mock humility, “The horses of my slaves,” he dragged us on from one yard to another, allowing us barely time to ask a few questions as to breed, for the answers to which he referred us to Hamúd. We had seen enough, however, to make us very happy, and Hamúd had promised that we should see them again. There was no doubt whatever that, in spite of the Emir’s disclaimer, these were Ibn Rashid’s celebrated mares, the representatives of that stud of Feysul ibn Saoud, about which such a romance had been made.

An equally interesting spectacle, the Emir thought for us, was his kitchen, to which he now showed the way. Here, with unconcealed pride, he displayed his pots and pans, especially seven monstrous cauldrons, capable each, he declared, of boiling three whole camels. Several of them were actually at work, for Ibn Rashid entertains nearly two hundred guests daily, besides his own household. Forty sheep or seven camels are his daily bill of fare. As we came out, we found the hungry multitude already assembling. Every stranger in Haïl has his place at Ibn Rashid’s table, and towards sunset the courtyard begins to fill. The Emir does not himself preside at these feasts. He always dines alone, or in his harim; but the slaves and attendants are extraordinarily well-drilled, and behave with perfect civility to all comers, rich and poor alike. Our own dinner was brought to us at our house. Thus ended our first day at Haïl, a day of wonderful interest, but not a little fatiguing. “Ya akhi,” (oh my brother), said Mohammed ibn Arûk to Wilfrid that evening, as they sat smoking and drinking their coffee, “did I not promise you that you should see Nejd, and Ibn Rashid, and the mares of Haïl, and have you not seen them?” We both thanked him, and, indeed, we both felt very grateful. Not that the favours were all on one side; for brotherly offices had been very evenly balanced, and Mohammed had been quite as eager to make this journey as we had. But, alas! our pleasant intercourse with Mohammed was very near its end.

The next few days of our life at Haïl may be briefly described. Wilfrid and Mohammed went every morning to the mejlis, and then paid visits, sometimes to Hamúd, sometimes to Mubarek, sometimes to the Emir. A slave brought us our breakfast daily from the kasr, and a soldier came to escort us through the streets. Mohammed had now made acquaintances of his own, and was generally out all day long. I stayed very much in doors, and avoided passing through the streets, except when invited to come to the castle, for we had agreed that discretion was the better part of valour with us. That there was some reason for this prudence I think probable, for though we never experienced anything but politeness from the Haïl people, we heard afterwards that some among them were not best pleased at the reception given us by the Emir. Europeans had never before been seen in Nejd; and it is possible that a fanatical feeling might have arisen if we had done anything to excite it. Wahhabism is on the decline, but not yet extinct at Haïl; and the Wahhabis would of course have been our enemies. In the Emir’s house, or even under charge of one of his officers, we were perfectly safe, but wandering about alone would have been rash. The object, too, would have been insufficient, for away from the Court there is little to see at Haïl.

With Hamúd and his family we made great friends. He was a man who at once inspired confidence, and we had no cause to regret having acted on our first impression of his character. He has always, they say, refused to take presents from the Emir; and has never approved of his conduct, though he has sided with him politically, and serves him faithfully as a brother. His manners are certainly as distinguished as can be found anywhere in the world, and he is besides intelligent and well informed. The Emir is different; with him there was always a certain gêne. It was impossible to forget the horrible story of his usurpation; and there was something, too, about him which made it impossible to feel quite at ease in his presence. Though he knows how to behave with dignity, he does not always do so. It is difficult to reconcile his almost childish manner, at times, with the ability he has given proofs of. He has something of the spoiled child in his way of wandering on from one subject to another; and, like Jóhar, of asking questions which he does not always wait to hear answered, a piece of ill-manners not altogether unroyal, and so, perhaps, the effect of his condition as a sovereign prince. He is also very naïvely vain, as most people become who are fed constantly on flattery; and he is continually on the look-out for compliments about his power, and his wisdom, and his possessions. His jealousy of other great Sheykhs whom we have seen is often childishly displayed. Hamúd has none of this. I fancy he stands to his cousin Mohammed somewhat in the position in which Morny is supposed to have stood to Louis Napoleon, only that Morny was neither so good a man nor even so fine a gentleman as Hamúd. He gives the Emir advice, and in private speaks his mind, only appearing to the outer world as the obsequious follower of his prince. Hamúd has several sons, the eldest of whom, Majid, has all his father’s charm of manner, and has, besides, the attraction of perfectly candid youth, and a quite ideal beauty. He is about sixteen, and he and his brother and a young uncle came to see us the morning after our arrival, sent by their father to pay their compliments. He talked very much and openly about everything, and gave us a quantity of information about the various mares at the Emir’s stable, and about his father’s mares and his own. He then went on to tell us of an expedition he had made with the Emir to the neighbourhood of Queyt, and of how he had seen the sea. They had made a ghazú on the felláhín of the sea-coast, and had then returned. He asked me how I rode on horseback, and I showed him my side-saddle, which, however, did not surprise him. “It is a shedad,” he said; “you ride as one rides a delúl.” This young Majid, though he looks quite a boy, is married; and we were informed that here no one of good family puts off marriage after the age of sixteen. I made acquaintance with his wife Urgheyeh, who is very pretty, very small in stature, and very young; she is one of Metaab’s daughters, and her sister is married to Hamúd, so that father and son are brothers-in-law.