Letters From Baghdad Page 10

  Friday, 4th. After breakfast this morning, I found the good Sheikh had been waiting round my tents since dawn to take me to his house. I went first to a Mazar close to my tent — a Mazar is generally the tomb of a saint or a sheikh. It was a very well Preserved example of the old type of house building — stone doors and rafters, etc. Nusr ed Din (this is his name, by the Way, not Saif ed Din, as Hanna told me) kissed the threshold and the door posts and all the arches and the corners of the tomb Most devoutly. I then went up to the Sheikh's house and was given a most excellent breakfast — I wished I hadn't eaten before as I should have liked to have breakfasted on it. It consisted of 10 or 12 leaves of their delicious thin bread, a bowl of milk with sugar and a little brown meal in it, and a bowl of laban. Coffee began and ended the meal. It was eight before I was off. Its name was Ayun. I went there and was well rewarded, for in the first place it was a ruined Roman village, which had apparently never been re-inhabited, and one could therefore trace the exact shape and style of the houses; and in the second, there was a Mazar in it and a troop of women and children from a neighbouring village were visiting it, all dressed in their best and the boys carrying branches of briar and long stalks of flowering hemlock. Their religion is most mysterious. They seem to think all saints are equally worshipable except Muhammad, who they say is no saint at all. They have prayers every night, but especially on Friday night. They are divided into two kinds, Initiated and the Uninitiated, but the only difference between them seems to be that the Initiated don't smoke — it would seem an odd religious distinction! They have sacred books which are only read by the appointed elders. From Ayun we rode over a little rise which brought us out face to face with Salkhad. A most wonderful place. A great castle built in, and rising out of, the cone of a volcano. The outside is almost perfect, old foundations (of dateless antiquity they say; it's one of the places that is mentioned as belonging to King of Bashan), then probably Roman work, and all worked over by Saracens. The Castle of Salkhad is the last outpost of the hills which here drop away into a few volcanic tells — and then the desert till the Euphrates. There are one or two inhabited villages at the foot of the hills and a few ruins on the tells, and after that no one knows anything about it and it's white on the map. But from my feet, almost, and running in a straight line south east as far as the eye could see was the track of a Roman road — and the other end of it is at Bagdad. I wished the Mudir could have seen me! The Arabs were pasturing enormous flocks of camels. I found my camp pitched and surrounded by some hundred people, amongst whom two little sons of the Sheikh — he is a nephew of Yahya Beg's, who welcomed me with the most exquisite politeness. After I had had tea and washed — by dint of shutting my tent door — I came out to find two little daughters of the Sheikh waiting for me and we Went off hand in hand to their house, with all the population of the town following me. The Sheikh was not there, but a lot of women and children received me and we sat in an open verandah till I couldn't stand the crowd any longer, when one of the boys took me into an inner room and I sat and drank coffee. The Sheikh's children, boys and girls, are most beautiful creatures, and there were some lovely girls amongst the coffee party. I asked them if they ever unveiled. They said never, not even when they are alone or when they go to bed! There came a lot of Christians to see me; there are many in this country; they come to escape from the oppression of the Turks.

  Saturday, 5th. A Christian lady sent me a delicious dish for breakfast — some flat thin bread with cream rolled up in it, slightly salted.

  ... There is a Mazar outside the town. I went in and found a charming room with a row of columns supporting the dome roof and lots of little children, sitting on the floor, to whom the schoolmaster was teaching reading. The Mazar itself Was an inner domed chamber with a tomb in it. I was off at 7:30 with Nusr ed Din. The barley was most beautiful, but alas! lots of locusts eating it. He begged me to come a little out of the route to Sehweh and honour his mother by drinking coffee with her. It was a charming village, new, but built with old materials brought from El Kafr on the usual volcanic tell. Corn, figs, vines and such a look of prosperity. I sat under a Mulberry tree with Nusr ed Din's family, nice handsome People, and ate fried eggs and bread and drank coffee and milk the whole village crowding round. When one expostulates they say: "We wish to gaze upon you, because you have honoured us." The Sheikh is Nusr ed Din's uncle. I visited him and his wife and tried to please, apparently with success.

  I also bought from the wife of Nusr ed Din's cousin a Druze woman's robe, which I intend to present to Elsa. It is very pretty and extremely interesting, for the costume has died out in all places but these hills. An hour's ride up a hill side, prettily wooded with stunted oak and hawthorn in full flower, brought us to El Kafr, where I found my tent pitched. I am just at the foot of Kuleib, but, contrary to my custom, I have not gone up it, because it is Sirocco which makes one feel as if one were made of blotting paper and also spreads a thick, hot mist over the world. Directly I arrived, the Sheikh's son and some other persons of importance came to see me. They were a group of the most beautiful people you would wish to see. Their average height was about 6 ft. 1 in. and their average looks were as though you mixed up Hugo and you, Father.

  At 4 I sallied out with Ali, whose native town it is. I don't need him really — it's an absurd luxury to have two guides, but when I tell him to go he replies that he is my brother and must accompany me everywhere — not without recompense, of course! I returned the call of the Sheikh's son and while I was drinking coffee the old Sheikh arrived. He had been to see Yahya Beg, and half expected me because the Beg had asked after me in the following terms: "Have you seen a queen travelling, a consuless?" They offered me a sheep, but I refused it. I hope I did right; one never knows and I'm terribly afraid of committing solecisms. I feel it would be too silly, under these exceptional conditions, not to see all I can in a country which so few people have seen. It's extraordinarily enjoyable too. They took me to see the Khelweh, which was bigger and better than any I have yet seen. It was divided into two parts by a thin black curtain, one being the Harem for the women. The straw objects are for putting the holy books on... There came a gentleman with a poem in Arabic which he had composed in my honour. I said I didn't know the custom in his country, but in mine, if anyone wrote a poem about me, I should certainly give him a shilling. He said "Yes, it would happen." I gave him a quarter of a medjideh, and he presented me with a copy of the poem, so we were both pleased... I have told them all that I am going to bring you, Father, here next year, and they are much delighted and bid you "relationship and ease."

  Sunday, 6th. I sent my mules straight to Busan this morning, with my brother Ali, and rode with Hanna and Nusr ed Din S.E. to a place called Salah. We passed under the foot of Kuleib, where there were delicious pastures, after which we got out on to a very desolate country, stony and quite uncultivated. There is however, water and plenty of grass, and the Arabs pasture their camels here. It seems to extend down all this E. watershed to the desert. Last night was so warm after the Sirocco east wind, that I slept with no blankets; to-day the wind has changed to the W. and is blowing strong and cold. It brought up a lot of cloud with it; Kuleib was wrapped in mists when I got up and there has been light cloud all day and cold all day. I am now wrapped in all my cloaks; it's most odd to be cold

  Monday, 7th. When you are travelling in hot countries, the primary rule is always to bring your winter clothes. I have had reason too-day to be glad that I had learnt it. I meant to camp another night in the hills, go up Kuleib and be on the spot for the Druze gathering to-morrow, but when I woke I found the west wind colder than ever and the hills wrapped in cloud. I therefore decided to come straight across the ridge and sleep at Kanawat, much to my servants' delight, for a town is a better camping place in rainy weather than a mountain side. Before I left I explored Busan, which is an interesting place because the old houses are better preserved than usual. Most of them are not lived in: they have big dark stables beneath and roof
less rooms, many windowed, above. Some staircases were standing and I saw one house with a little bath room, the stone conduit for the water being still visible. I got a photograph between the blowing mists. We were off at 8:30 across the hills. My faith! it was cold. I thought the bare Plateau on the top of the ridge would never end. I was truly glad when Nusr ed Din said "Mashallah! Kanawat!" and I saw its ruined temples standing up on a spur of the hills. It is splendidly placed; one looks all down across the great Hauran plain and I got in at 12 and it began to rain in sharp showers. We rode up to the temples, at the top of the town, and I lunched in a Mazar, a little room leading out of a temple and was very grateful to Saint Whatever his name may be, for his roof. I have pitched my camp hard by, with two temples to the right and one to the left, and there's another further down to the west. From my tent door I look out on to great Corinthian columns and a doorway most elaborately carved. The work here is much better than any I have seen to the S. and E. The rain held up more or less till 3, and I had time to explore the town-alone, for a wonder. The streets are paved with the red paving; there is a splendid house in the middle with steps leading up to it. Inside it a big court with a stair, the steps of which were built into the wall on one side and standing free on the other, but so massive that few of them have broken away. They led up to a balcony, made in the same manner, with the stones just standing out from the wall, but all broken. This ran round two sides of the court, and the windows and doors of the rooms opened on to it. On the north side of the town is a deep rocky valley with a stream at the bottom and willows growing in it. There is a tiny theatre among the willows and a charming little building which the books say was a bath, and above a ruined castle and a round tower. I am much tempted to pay a flying visit to Suweidah, but I think perhaps it would be rather silly. I should look such an idiot if I were caught by the Turks and my further progress stopped! You will be pleased to hear that the prophet job is buried at Busan. I visited his Mazar. It is evidently much honoured for the door and some broken columns in front of it were all red with blood. (N.B. This is not true! The prophet job is buried here. I don't know who the much honoured saint at Busan was.) s

  Tuesday, 8th. Dawned fine and I was in high spirits. But the clouds blew over after an hour and all the hills were wrapt in the mists, and I spent the day visiting Kenath and her daughters — you know Kanawat is Kenath? I took Nusr ed Din and we rode on to the hills to a place called Sia, once a great suburb of Kanawat and now a heap of stones. From thence we rode over a charming hill through a thicket of stunted oak full of a purple flowering vetch and other pretty things, and when we came to the edge of it there was Suweidah not two miles from us. I was very keen to go to it, but Nusr ed Din shook with fear and said it was inhabited by the Osmanli, the accursed, and why did I want to go? So I turned reluctantly away. I don't see what they could do to me, but I might get some of my kind hosts into trouble.

  Wednesday, 9th. Before leaving this morning I went to the house of my friend, Ali el Kady, to drink a cup of tea — these were the terms of his invitation. He was very vague about the tea making, consulting me as to whether he ought to boil the water and the milk together. I said that wasn't the way we did it usually. He gave me an extraordinary variety of foods, a pudding, some very good fried cakes dipped in honey and almonds and raisins, both of them swimming in a sweet syrup — the almonds were excellent, It is fortunate that my digestion is ostrich-like, for I seem to eat very odd things at the oddest hours. I parted here with Nusr ed Din. I am sorry to leave the little hills. Though they are so small, they have quite the air of a mountain district and also the climate. The hot, fine weather has come back to-day. We went on, skirting the hills, north by east. Mount Hermon was a shining glory across the plain to the west and beyond him, northwards, stretched the long line of the Anti-Lebanus, also snow-topped. The Jebel Druize end in tiny volcanoes the beginning of the purely volcanic Lejah. It all looks black and uncanny — cunheimlich.

  It is an extraordinary bit of country, but I decided after taking thought, not to go through it. It is very bad for the beasts., So rocky. I must come back here from Damascus some year and explore it all thoroughly. We rode all day with the Lejah on the left and Mount Hermon in front of us, flanked by the Lebanus. The corn is ripe here and they are plucking it out by the roots, which is their form of reaping. It was excellent going and we made very good time. A little Past 4 we reached the last village at the N.E. corner of the Lejah, and here I camped, it being only a seven or eight hours' ride to Damascus. It is also the last Druze village, alas! The Sheikb and all the swells came to call and took me into the village to look round. Dear, nice people! I am sorry to leave them. I haven't left them yet, however, for the Sheikh, Ibrahim, is still in my tent door as I write. He makes well, I must say, being singularly beautiful. It is a hot, hot night.

  Friday, 11th. Damascus, but a long, long day to get to it. We were off at 6, and after an hour's riding we got to Burak and passed the first Turkish garrison without remark. Then came an endless five hours; we never seemed to gain on the scenery. We went on to the River Awaj, where we watered man and beast under the poplars and willows, a charming spot. Here I rode on alone up the Black Mountains a low range of hills separating the Awaj valley from the Abana, and at the top I saw far away in a green plain and ringed round with gardens, Damascus. This is the way to arrive at a great eastern city. I journeyed along with the trains of camels carrying the merchandise of Damascus to and fro, and the Arabs on their pretty mares, and the donkey boys bringing in grass and all the varied population of an oriental road. But the way was very long. It was 4 before I got into the town. I dawdled up through the bazaars and stopped to eat ices made of milk an snow and lemonade from a china bowl half full of snow and half of lemon juice and water-nothing was ever so good. At 5 I reached my hotel, saw that my horse was properly looked after — and went off to the German Consulate to get the box of clothes I had sent from Jerusalem. There I also, to my joy, found letters from you all. A very civil Oriental secretary has been giving me advice about Palmyra, whither I shall go, if your telegram is satisfactory, on Wednesday, returning here In about a fortnight. Dearest Father! you are a perfect angel to let me do all this! I don't see that the Palmyra journey ought to be much more expensive than all the others. It seems I don't have to take more than three soldiers at the outside. I've got so many things to say to you, Mother, that I should have to make my letter as long again if I began saying them. it is at times a very odd sensation to be out in the world quite by myself, but mostly I take it as a matter of course now that I'm beginning to be used to it. I don't think I ever feel lonely, though the one person I often wish for is Papa. I think he really would enjoy it. I keep wanting to compare notes with him. You, I want to talk to, but not in a tent: with earwigs and black beetles around and muddy water to drink! I don't think you would be your true self under such conditions... of course Arabic makes just all the difference. It would be small fun without.