Arabian Sands

by Wilfred Thesiger

  Next day we travelled across the Jilida plain. Its surface was of coarse sand and fine gravel, covered in places with small angular pebbles, highly polished by the wind. They were of many kinds: I recognized pieces of porphyry, granite, rhyolite, jasper, and limestone. There were occasional ridges, some of them twenty feet in height, of the quartz conglomerate that underlies the gravel surface of the plain, but these were easily avoided. We travelled fast until midday, when we came on grazing and stopped for two hours. I wandered off to a distant ridge, glad to be alone for a while, and sat watching formless shadows dapple an umber-coloured plain where nothing else moved. It was very still, with the silence which we have driven from our world. Then bin Kabina shouted to me and I went back. Coffee was ready. Muhammad said, ‘We thought you were going after those oryx’; and when I asked, ‘Which oryx?’ he stared at me in amazement. I looked where he pointed and saw them at once, eighteen white dots on the dark plain. Bin Kabina said, ‘If they had been Arabs you would have sat there, without seeing them, until they came and cut your throat.’ Bedu are always observant; even when they are engrossed in an argument their dark, restless eyes notice everything, and their minds record it. They never daydream.

  We found no more grazing and camped at last on flat empty sands beyond the Jilida. We passed much oryx spoor, and saw twenty-eight of them during the day. In the afternoon bin Ghabaisha and I stalked three which we saw ahead of us. As we were getting near them I heard someone calling. Looking round I saw Salih hastening towards us. I thought, ‘They have seen Arabs and don’t want me to shoot.’ When he came up he said, ‘Look out or you will give them your wind.’ I whispered furiously, ‘I hunted animals before you were born. It is you who will frighten them by making such a beastly noise.’ Whereupon he merely added to my exasperation by maintaining that oryx did not mind the sound of voices, an inexplicable belief held by some of the Bedu, which probably explains why so few of them succeed in shooting one. I had to take a long shot. I saw that I had hit the one I had fired at, but they all galloped off. We hurried forward and found bloodstains on the ground. When the camels arrived we followed the oryx, but they were going to the south-east and after a while the others refused to go on, saying that we could not afford to lengthen our march by going in the wrong direction. This was so obviously true that I was forced to agree.

  Two days later we reached the Bani Maradh. Looking at the mountainous dunes which stretched across our front, I realized that our real difficulties were only now beginning. Fortunately the prevailing winds were different from those in the sands to the south of the Jilida, and in consequence the easier slopes faced south. Even so they imposed a severe strain on our tired camels; they had had only one full meal in the eleven days since we had left Manwakh. If these southern faces had been steep, as in the Uruq al Shaiba the year before, we should never have got over them. Each dune was three to four hundred feet in height, and the highest peaks were built up round deep crescent-shaped hollows. It took us an hour or more to cross each range. Their northern faces fell away in unbroken walls of sand into successive valleys, two miles or more across, which ran down from the Aradh escarpment, and continued until they disappeared from sight twenty miles or more to the east. So far the sands we had passed on this journey had been dreary and uninteresting. Now for the first time the dunes were a lovely golden-red and, although I was tired, hungry, and thirsty, their shapes gave me great pleasure.

  Once across the Bani Maradh we were on the southern edge of the had pastures on which the Bedu graze their camels, but ours were too thirsty to eat this plant. At midday we came upon tracks, less than a week old, of Arabs and camels, and from now on two of us scouted continuously ahead. We were uncomfortably aware that our own tracks would show any Arab that we had come from the south. A very strong north wind added to our discomfort by filling our eyes and ears with sand, without, however, hiding our tracks, which remained clearly visible in the valley-bottoms where the ground was covered with a mosaic of highly polished limestone fragments.

  About four o’clock we decided to stop, so that we could cook a meal and put out the fire before dark. Salih remained to keep watch behind us, and we turned eastwards along the top of the next dune instead of crossing it. Half an hour later we unloaded in a hollow in the downs where our camels could graze without showing themselves upon a skyline. Sadr and bin Ghabaisha stood guard while Muhammad herded the camels, and the rest of us gathered wood and baked bread. The sky was overcast and I could see that it was raining heavily to the west.

  When it grew dark we couched the camels, and waited for Salih to come. He arrived an hour later, to report that no one was following us. We fed; everything was cold from the long wait – the coffee, the bread, and the watery gravy from shark-meat. It was still blowing strongly, and now it had begun to rain. We dared not light a fire and sat talking in whispers. I had just decided to get into my sleeping-bag when bin Ghabaisha signed to us to be quiet and pointed to the camels. They had stopped chewing, and all of them were staring in one direction. Our rifles were already in our hands, during these days we never put them down, and we slid quietly to the ground, crawling to the edge of the small basin in which we had camped. It was too dark to see anything, but the camels still watched something, although now they were looking farther to our right. I lay there motionless, straining to see what they saw. Shadows formed and re-formed but I could be sure of nothing. Bin Kabina lay beside me. I touched him inquiringly but he made a sign that he too could see nothing. The cold rain which had soaked through my shirt ran down my flanks, and pattered on my bare legs. The camels started to chew the cud again and were no longer watching. I thought uneasily, ‘They are working round behind us.’ Amair and bin Ghabaisha evidently thought the same, for they moved farther round to watch the night behind us. Hours later I crawled to my saddle-bags to fetch a blanket, which I shared with bin Kabina. The rest of the night passed very slowly, and nothing happened.

  In the morning bin Ghabaisha found the tracks of a wolf that had circled our camp. Muhammad said disgustedly, ‘God! Fancy spending the whole night sitting in the rain staring my eyes out trying to see a wolf!’, and bin Ghabaisha answered, ‘Better be cold and wet than wake up with a dagger in your ribs.’

  Wet, cold, and tired, we started early on a cloudy, sunless morning. Later the sun came through and it was very hot, and my thirst grew worse and worse. We passed more fortnight-old tracks of Arabs and their herds. Ahead of us Sadr and bin Ghabaisha scanned each slope and hollow before they signed to come on. The rest of us dragged the trembling camels up the slopes, and held them back as they ploughed down the far side of each dune in cascades of sand. It was weary work and all the time I felt that we were being watched. The dunes were now about five hundred feet high and at the western end of each valley we could at last see the dark wall of the Aradh. We stopped after nine hours when the camels could go no farther, again cooking a quick meal before sunset, and eating it in the dark after Sadr, who had been watching our tracks, had joined us. For the first time on this journey there was a heavy dew. We slept fitfully, jerking to wakefulness whenever a camel stirred. It was fine and clear when we started again at sunrise. Two hours later one of the baggage camels lay down and refused to move, until, at Amair’s suggestion, we poured a little water down her nostrils, which revived her. We reached the Aradh at one o’clock and camped two hours later in a shallow watercourse on the limestone plateau. We were across the Sands.

  The valleys when I woke at dawn were filled with eddying mist, above which the silhouettes of the dunes ran eastwards, like fantastic mountains towards the rising sun. The sky glowed softly with the colours of the opal. The world was very still, held in a fragile bowl of silence. Standing at last on this far threshold of the Sands I looked back, almost regretfully, the way we had come.

  We reached the Hassi three days later, after travelling northward across a gravel plain scattered with pieces of limestone. The precipitous western edge of the Aradh was on our left. Beneath
it were the three shallow wells of Zifr, and thirty miles to the north of them was the deep, brackish well of Qariya, among the ruins of a Sabaean city.

  According to Sadr the well mounds of Mankhali, believed by the Bedu to be the wells of the Bani Ad, lay at the southern end of the Aradh; and their lost city of Ad under the sands of Jaihman, a further day’s journey to the south. Muhammad was, however, convinced that this city, one of the two mentioned in the Koran as having been destroyed by God for arrogance, was buried in the sands to the north of Habarut. He reminded me of the many clearly defined tracks which converge on these sands, and which the Rashid maintain once led to that city. Sadr pointed beyond the sands of Bani Ramh to some peaks visible far to the west, which were, he said, in the foothills of the Hajaz, and I told them how I had visited that country two years before. When I told them that I had ridden through it on a donkey they scoffed at me and we argued happily as we went along.

  On the second day after leaving the Sands we camped in the stream bed of the Hanu, that runs down to Qariya; and next morning, as we rode along the track to the Hassi, we came unexpectedly on eight mounted Yam, whose rifles were slung under their saddles, while ours were in our hands. We were only a few yards from them. I saw bin Ghabaisha slip his safety-catch forward. There was an old man opposite me, and though his face was muffled in his head-cloth I could see the hatred in his eyes. No one moved or spoke. The silence was heavy between us. At last I said ‘Salam alaikum,’ and he replied. A boy whispered to him, ‘Are they Mishqas?’ and he snarled back without taking his eyes off us, ‘Don’t you know the tribes? Don’t you know the foe?’ Muhammad said that we came in peace, that we were Rashid from the eastern sands on our way to visit Ibn Saud, adding that our main party was close behind and advising them to be careful when they met them. We then rode on. I wondered uneasily what we should have done with them if we had surprised them in the Sands. Perhaps if we had taken their rifles and their camels we could have let them live. Twenty minutes later we were at the Hassi. It was sixteen days since we had left Manwakh.

  Having watered our camels and filled our skins, we learnt from some women that Ibn Saud’s guardian on the well had just gone off with his son to look for a strayed camel. Sadr and Salih were anxious to seize this opportunity and slip away before he returned. We loaded their camels, which were still in good condition, with all the food and water that they could carry, and as the women had told us that the Yam had all moved westwards a week ago and that the sands to the south were empty, we hoped that they would be all right. To avoid arousing suspicion we told the women that they were going to fetch one of our camels which had collapsed two days earlier. We whispered our farewells, embraced them, and they left us. They arrived safely at Manwakh, as I later heard from bin al Kamam when I met him on the Trucial Coast.

  There was nothing for us now to do but to go to Sulaiyil and hope for the best. Our camels were in need of rest; we had very little food and no guide. Even if we had been able to slip away, a pursuit party would certainly be sent after us. The guardian of the well, a Yam, returned next day and made no attempt to conceal his dislike of us. When he learnt that I was a Christian he refused to drink the coffee we offered him, saying that I was an infidel and that my companions, as Muslims who had sold themselves into the service of an infidel for gold, were even worse. Virtually under arrest, we went with him to Sulaiyil, where we arrived two days later.

  The oasis extended for about two miles along the Wadi Dawasir, and the settlement itself consisted of five small villages. On our way to the village where the Amir lived we passed fields of wheat and lucerne, watered from trip-buckets raised from the wells by animals descending ramps. There were palms to the west of the village. The Yam led us down narrow, twisting lanes. Some men called out asking who we were, and he answered scornfully, ‘An infidel and his servants.’ We stopped at the Amir’s house, flat-roofed and made of mud, like all the others.

  Rather to my surprise, the Amir, who was a young slave, received us graciously. He showed us to an empty house with a courtyard on the outskirts of the village and, after saying that we should of course feed with him, told us that we must remain at Sulaiyil until he heard from Ibn Saud. He and one of his retainers, a Murra who knew the Rashid, and two young wireless operators were the only friendly people. Everyone else was fanatical and unpleasant. The elders spat on the ground whenever we passed, and the children followed me round chanting derisively, ‘Al Nasrani, al Nasrani,’ the name by which these Arabs know a Christian. In the evening we bought lucerne, but only Muhammad’s camel would eat it. When after supper we gave the Amir an account of our journey, he said: ‘You do not realize how lucky you have been to get here. I should not have thought that you would have had a chance. The sands you came through were filled with Arabs until a week ago, when most of them moved westward across the Aradh to better grazing. If a single Arab had seen you, the hue-and-cry would have been out, for they would have known at once that you are from the south. Didn’t you know that Ibn Saud has given permission to his tribes to raid the Mishqas and to kill any of them they meet, in revenge for the recent raids on the Yam and the Dawasir? They are wildly excited here at having permission to raid after years of enforced peace. Many parties have gone off and others are getting ready to go. Any of them would have killed you out of hand if they had met you; nothing could have saved you if they had found that one of you was a Christian. These tribes are the last of the Akhwan. Even in this village, where they are under control, you can see how they hate you as an infidel.’ He looked at me, shook his head, and said again, ‘By God, you were lucky!’

  I knew he was right and realized how badly I had misjudged our chances. This realization increased the responsibility I felt towards my companions, who had appreciated the true risks and yet had come with me.

  Two days later the Amir came to our room to tell me he had received orders by wireless from Ibn Saud to detain the Englishman and to imprison his companions. He removed our rifles and daggers, told me to remain where I was, leaving the Murra as a guard, and ordered Muhammad and Amair to follow him. He said that bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, who were herding the camels, could wait till the evening. When I protested at being separated from my companions, and asked that we should be treated alike, he said he must obey the King’s orders, but allowed me to send a telegram to Ibn Saud.

  After several efforts I composed a telegram saying that we had been travelling in the Empty Quarter and had come to the Hassi for water. I asked for his forgiveness, adding that if he wished to punish anyone I was solely to blame, since my companions, who had no knowledge of this country, had gone where I wished and that it was I who had guided them.

  In the evening, I saw bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha coming towards the village with the camels. They looked very cheerful, laughing and joking together. The Murra allowed me to meet them and tell them what had happened. Seeing me, some children called out, ‘Now the King will cut off the Christian’s head and the heads of his companions.’ I was so distressed that I could hardly speak. They had trusted me and I wondered unhappily whether they were now going to suffer for it. I felt worse about them than I did about the others, for they were so much younger. They asked a few questions, and then bin Kabina put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry, Umbarak; if God wills, all will be well.’

  At sunset the Amir did his best to cheer us up with a meal in his house, but it was an unhappy evening. Hours later when I was half asleep the door was thrown open. A large black slave came in swinging a pair of fetters, and ordered me to get up and go with him at once, as the Amir of the Wadi had arrived. I followed through silent streets to the Amir of Sulaiyil’s house.

  The room was packed with people. An elderly bearded man in a brown gold-embroidered cloak returned my formal greeting, bidding me sit opposite him. His clerk, a shifty-looking, self-important slave whom I disliked on sight, was bullying Amair. ‘Don’t lie,’ he shouted after every answer. ‘You only know how to lie.’ Eventually
the Amir asked me where we came from and why. I explained that I had come from the Hadhramaut, that I had been exploring and shooting oryx in the Empty Quarter and, having run out of water, had come to the Hassi. I told him that the Rashid, who were with me, knew neither the country nor where we were going. He asked me how in that case we had found the Hassi, and I said that Philby had marked it on the map, and that the two Saar who had been with us had known where it was, having visited it from Najran. I said they had gone back when we reached this well. I insisted that I alone was to blame for having come here, and accepted all responsibility.

  Later, after coffee and tea had been handed round, the Amir of the Wadi said I must go with him to Dam, and that one of my companions could come with me. I asked for bin Kabina. Eventually the two of us climbed into the back of the Amir’s truck, the slave who had fetched me from my room got in with us, still holding the fetters. After the Amir, his clerk, and the driver had mounted in front, we drove off to the west. It was very cold, the car lurched and bumped, and bin Kabina was car-sick. He had told me as we waited to get into the car that all four of them had been put in the stocks, when suddenly a messenger arrived and asked which was bin Kabina. I said the Amir had given permission for one of them to accompany me and that I had asked for him. He replied, ‘You should have asked for Muhammad. He is the eldest.’

  At last we arrived at another village and stopped in front of a large castle. The slave informed us that we were at Dam. We followed the Amir inside, and he gave orders for tea and coffee to be made, and a fire to be lit where we could warm ourselves. He told me that he had seen my telegram to the King, and said, ‘Don’t worry. I am sure that all will be well.’ Then he bade us good night and left the room.