Next day we remained where we were, waiting for Hamaid. I wondered what to do if Yasir refused to help us, and half regretted having sent Hamaid to him, feeling that perhaps had we travelled fast we could have slipped unobserved through the country ahead of us. Now we had hung about here too long, but whatever happened we should be able to get back to the Wahiba.
Bin Kabina was sitting near me mending his shirt. It was worn thin and yesterday it had torn right across the shoulders. I said to him irritably, ‘Why don’t you wear your new shirt?’ He did not answer but went on sewing. I asked him again, and he answered without looking up, ‘I have not got another.’
I said, ‘I saw the new one with the red stitching in your saddle-bags a few days ago.’
‘I gave it away.’
‘Who to?’
‘Sultan.’
‘God, why did you do that when you only have that rag to wear?’
‘He asked me for it.’
‘Damn the man. I gave him a handsome present. Really, you are a fool.’
‘Would you have me refuse when he asked for it?’
‘Of course. We could have given him a few more dollars.’
‘When I have asked you for money you have refused to give me any.’
This was true. Several times he had borrowed money to give away to people who asked for it; twice recently I had refused to let him have any more, so as to stop this incessant scrounging of money from him which he would later need for himself. I had told him that I would give him his money at Muwaiqih. I would probably need what I had with me before we got there. I said that he could put the blame on me, and tell them that I would not give him the money.
Now I grumbled, ‘You will look well if we do meet Yasir, half-naked in that rag.’
He answered angrily, ‘Do I have to ask your permission before I can give my own things away?’
Hamaid returned late in the afternoon. Yasir and three other Arabs were with him. Yasir was dressed in a plain white shirt and a large embroidered head-cloth. He wore a dagger and cartridge belt, and carried a 450 Martini. He was a big heavy man, who shuffled as he walked. He had prominent, ill-proportioned features, and a large beard streaked with grey. Hamaid told me later that Yasir had been greatly embarrassed by my arrival, since the Imam, who had heard of my presence in these parts, had given orders that I was to be arrested if I came this way. Yasir had, however, felt obliged to meet me since I had brought a letter from Zayid. He said at once that he could not take me to Muwaiqih without the Imam’s permission, but that he would himself go to Nazwa in the morning and see the Imam, and that his son would meanwhile take us to a place in the hills half-way between Nazwa and Izz. I realized that if we went there, and if Yasir then failed to secure me a safe conduct from the Imam, we should be unable to escape. I asked the others what they thought, and bin al Kamam said, ‘If you want to get back to Muwaiqih you will have to trust Yasir.’ I therefore took Yasir aside and said, ‘Zayid, who is my great friend, assured me that only you, the most influential sheikh in these parts, could take me safely through Oman. I have come to you now with Zayid’s letter to ask you for your help. I put myself in your hands and am ready to do whatever you suggest.’ I then gave him two hundred Maria Theresa dollars, as a present. He answered, ‘Go with my son. Tomorrow evening I will meet you, and, God willing, I will have the Imam’s permission for your journey.’
We camped next day within ten miles of Nazwa. The town itself was out of sight, hidden behind a rocky ridge, one of many in the broken country that lay between our camp and the foot of the Jabal al Akhadar, or ‘The Green Mountain’, a name which seemed singularly inappropriate, since its slopes and precipices looked as bare as the hills that surrounded us. The atmosphere was unusually clear and I could see its entire length. For fifty miles it stretched across our front, its face scored by great gorges – streaks of purple on a background of pale yellow and misty blue. The Jabal al Akhadar is a single continuous ridge, and I could not decide which of the bumps and pinnacles that broke its outline was the actual summit. Ten thousand feet high, it forms the highest part of a range which extends unbroken for four hundred miles from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean.
Ahmad named the towns and villages which we could see. Pointing to a town just visible at the foot of the mountain, he said, That is Birkat al Mauz – Sulaiman bin Hamyar lives there. He is Sheikh of the Bani Riyam and head of all the Ghafaris. The Jabal al Akhadar belongs to him. They say there is running water all the year round on the mountain, and forests of trees and lots of fruit. It is bitterly cold up there; an Arab from the mountain once told me that in the winter the rain sometimes turns into a soft white powder like salt. No, not hail; we often get hail even down here.’ I asked, ‘Would Sulaiman allow me to travel on the mountain?’ and he answered, ‘God knows; he might. They say he is a friend of the Christians who live in Muscat. The Imam, however, would prevent your meeting him. He does not trust Sulaiman.’ After a pause, he went on: ‘If you could get to Birkat al Mauz without being stopped, I think Sulaiman would take you into the mountain. No one else could take you there.’
Yasir came back at sunset. He had several Arabs with him. He told us that on his way to Nazwa he had met a party of horsemen sent by the Imam to arrest me. He had persuaded them to return to Nazwa, and there, after much angry argument, he had induced the Imam to authorize my journey back to Muwaiqih. The Imam had sent one of his men with Yasir as his representative. I anticipated that this would be some sour-faced fanatic, and was relieved when Yasir introduced me to a friendly old man with an obvious sense of humour. Yasir had also persuaded one of the Dura sheikhs, called Huaishil, to come with us. Huaishil possessed the charm which Yasir so sadly lacked. I knew that accompanied by the Imam’s representative, and by rabias from Junuba, Dura, and Wahiba, I had no further cause to worry.
I was very busy during the eight days that it took me to reach Muwaiqih. In the desert there had been little to plot except our course, but here there was a great deal of detail to fill in. Except for the outline of Jabal al Akhadar and the position of a few of the larger towns, the existing maps were blank. I was thankful that there was no further need to conceal my identity, and that I could work openly taking bearings and making sketches.
As we were passing under an enormous dome of light-coloured rock which formed a buttress to Jabal Kaur we passed three men on camels. One of them, a small indignant man, smothered under a large white turban, was the redoubtable Riqaishi, Governor of Ibri. At the time I was riding with bin Kabina, bin al Kamam, and the two Awamir some way behind the others. The Riqaishi had just met them. He had immediately warned Yasir that the Christian was in the neighbourhood, and added that he was on his way to Nazwa to inform the Imam. He was horrified when he heard that I was in their company, and left them without further word. The Imam’s representative chuckled when later he described the scene to me. Bin al Kamam greeted the Riqaishi as he passed and asked him courteously if there was anything he could do for him. The Riqaishi gave his camel an angry blow and answered, ‘You would not have brought the Christian here if you had wished to please me.’
That evening, encamped outside Ibri, we heard that bin Ghabaisha and another Rashid had been there a week earlier. They had visited the Riqaishi, who had publicly insulted bin Ghabaisha, possibly because by now he was a well-known brigand, more probably because he was known to be one of my companions. Furiously angry, bin Ghabaisha got up and left the room. After dark he waylaid the Riqaishi’s coffee-maker, a person of importance in an Arab household, threatened to kill him at once if he made a sound and took him outside the town. There he tied the man up and loaded him on a camel. He then roused a cultivator and said to him, ‘I am bin Ghabaisha. Tell the Riqaishi in the morning that in return for his insults I have taken his servant, and intend to sell him in the Hasa.’
When I met bin Ghabaisha he told me that the Riqaishi had offered him fifty dollars for the return of his servant. I asked him whether he accepted. ‘No. I sent
back word that I realized that the man was useless as a coffee-maker. Had he not left me without coffee when I called to pay my respects to the Governor? All the same he would fetch more than that in Saudi Arabia.’ Eventually the Riqaishi ransomed his servant for a considerable sum.
From Ibri we rode northward along the foot of the mountains towards Jabal Hafit, passing through the territory of the Bani Kitab and Al bu Shams. Both of these tribes would have stopped me if they could, but now, accompanied as I was by the Imam’s representative and rabias from the Junuba, Dura, and Wahiba, they were obliged to let me pass. We reached Muwaiqih on 6 April. We had ridden eleven hundred miles since we had left Zayid’s fort on 28 January.
17. The Closing Door
Anxious to explore the Jabal at
Akhadar I return to Buraimi the
following year, but am turned back
from the Jabal by the Imam of
Oman. I leave Arabia.
I returned from England in November 1949 intending to complete my map of the Duru country, and if possible to visit Jabal al Akhadar. At Muwaiqih I found bin Kabina, his half-brother Muhammad bin Kalut, bin Ghabaisha, bin Tahi, and al Jabari of the Awamir. Bin al Kamam had unfortunately gone back to Dhaufar. The others were ready to go with me, but bin Kabina warned me that the Duru would prevent my re-entering their territory. With Zayid’s help I sent for Huaishil, the Duru Sheikh who had been with me the year before. My companions admitted that, accompanied by him, we were unlikely to have trouble with the Duru, since he was one of their most influential sheikhs. He arrived six week later, while we were hawking in the Sands to the west of Muwaiqih, and after much argument he promised to take me through the Duru country to Birkat al Mauz, where Sulaiman bin Hamyar lived. Only Sulaiman could take me to the Jabal al Akhadar.
Ten days after we had left Muwaiqih, we had breakfasted and were saddling our camels when bin Kharas, the same unprepossessing and truculent sheikh who had held me up the year before, arrived with a large following of Duru, and ordered us to return at once the way we had come. That night I had been stung by a scorpion, once in the shoulder as I rolled over in my sleep, and again in the hand as instinctively I reached up. There had been no moon and it had been very dark. I had woken bin Tahi, who was near me, but the old man only muttered, ‘I expect it was a mouse,’ and went to sleep again. Now, although the pain had stopped, I felt dizzy and rather sick, disinclined to listen patiently to the interminable wrangling of these exasperating Duru. All that day they argued, and the following morning they still refused to let us pass. Huaishil was furious; I have seldom seen a man so angry. Suddenly he shouted, ‘By God we are going on, whatever you may say or do, bin Kharas,’ and strode off to fetch his camel. Bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha led me aside, and bin Ghabaisha said, ‘Listen to me, Umbarak, Huaishil is mad with anger and will lead you into trouble if you follow him. These cursed Dura mean business and will shoot if we try to go on. You will be the first to die. Why die trying to see their country? What good will that do you? It is not even as if we were raiding. May God destroy these worthless Ghafaris!’ So far I had taken little part in the discussion, but now I called Huaishil and suggested that he should go to Ali bin Hilal, the head Sheikh of the Dura, and get his permission for me to travel in their country, the rest of us remaining where we were until he returned. He had already told me that Ali bin Hilal was well disposed towards me. Huaishil and the other Dura eventually agreed to this suggestion, but I heard bin Kharas mutter, The Christian is not going through our country even if a hundred Ali bin Hilals give him permission. Who is Ali to give us orders?’
Huaishil rode off, saying he would be back in three days’ time, and bin Kharas and his followers left for some encampments near by. In the evening a sheikh of the Afar turned up in our camp, accompanied by a Wahiba and a Harasis. They had heard that we were in trouble with the Dura, and being Hanawis had come to give us their support. They assured us that they would remain with us until Huaishil returned. The weather now turned horribly cold with a tearing gale from the north-east.
Three days later, bin Kharas was back demanding that we should leave, since Huaishil had not returned as he had promised; we both of us knew quite well that he would not travel in this bitter weather. For the next two days we argued almost incessantly. The Dura did not seem unfriendly. They agreed that I had done them no harm when I had been in their country, but maintained that if they allowed me to travel there at will I should be followed by other Christians in cars, looking for oil and intending to seize their land. The situation was complicated by a tribal feud among the Dura themselves. These particular Dura had been for many years at variance with the Mahamid, the section of the tribe to which the sheikhs belonged. Bin Kharas, although himself of the Mahamid, was bitterly jealous of Ali bin Hilal and Huaishii, and anxious to increase his own authority by lessening theirs.
To divert their attention and to gain a little more time for Huaishil to arrive, I offered a prize of ten Maria Theresa dollars for a camel race. Anxious to win this money and to show off their animals, they agreed to race, after trying unsuccessfully to get me to increase the stakes. A particularly fine camel belonging to bin Kharas won easily. Although the Dura seemed almost cordial after the race, the Afar sheikh advised us to leave, maintaining that they were planning to kill us. They intended, he said, to invite Huaishil’s three companions to a discussion, and then to seize and disarm them before attacking us. Like all Dura, they hated the Rashid, and apparently bin Kharas was now saying that it was as meritorious to kill a Christian as to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, and in this case much less trouble’.
In the evening bin Kharas came to our camping place and said, The Christian must leave tomorrow morning. We are all resolved that he can remain here no longer.’ He refused the coffee which we offered him, and left immediately. After he had gone, bin Ghabaisha, who was pouring out coffee for the rest of us, glanced round the hollow in which we were camped and said, ‘If we are still here at this time tomorrow we shall be fighting for our lives.’ Bin Tahi agreed, and added, ‘We must leave; we should not stand a chance, but by God I will come back some time and take that camel off bin Kharas. He is not fit to have one like that.’ My companions were certain that the Dura were not bluffing. Even if I had thought otherwise I was dependent upon them and forced in such a case to follow their advice. So when Muhammad asked, ‘What do you think, Umbarak?’ I said, ‘We had better leave in the morning.’
Huaishii rejoined us when we were in the Sands eighty miles to the west. He told us that Ali bin Hilal had agreed to my travelling through their country, and explained that he had waited at Ali’s encampment for the wind to drop before coming back to us. I was angry that he had not returned sooner, but said nothing, not wishing to antagonize him. He promised to take us in the morning to the Wadi al Amairi.
The wind had been southerly, but next day it went back to the north-east and blew another gale. Bitterly cold off the frozen uplands of central Asia, it was thick with sand whipped from the dunes around us. We sat throughout the day, without shelter, in a reddish obscurity, half-smothered by the flying grains which, reaching to a height of about eight feet above the ground, rasped our skins, filled our eyes, noses, and ears, and were gritty between our teeth. This continuous discomfort became almost intolerable with the passing hours. Sunset brought relief, for the wind dropped and the stars came out. Next morning I noticed that the dune crests had altered a little, but the general outline of the dunes themselves was unchanged. These sandstorms in southern Arabia must be mild compared with those that occur in the Sahara. One storm in which I had been caught on my way to Tibesti was far worse than any I experienced in the Empty Quarter. But even here these sandstorms sometimes had fatal results; for instance, bin Tahi told me of some Rashid who followed raiders into sands that were unknown to them and died when such a storm wiped out the tracks which they were following.
We travelled back through the Sands and then across gravel plains through country similar to that
which I had seen before. In the Wadi al Aswad we met some Dura, one of whom was suffering from fever. I thought it was probably malaria and gave him quinine and aspirin; next day, however, bin Kabina went down with a similar attack. To rest him we remained where we were. In the morning bin Ghabaisha, bin Tahi, and one of Huaishil’s Dura were sick. We went on slowly, for our water was getting short, and the evening before we reached the Amairi I myself had a high temperature and a splitting headache, but as our water was finished we could not stop. Next day I was feeling so ill that it was an effort even to keep upright in the saddle, but as I rode along I had constantly to check our course with my compass and note how long we had travelled on each bearing; also I had to write down the names of each watercourse that we crossed; otherwise the thread of my traverse would have been irreparably broken. It took us five hours to reach the Amairi. Some Duru fired on us as we approached the well, but Huaishil rode forward and spoke with them. They had been warned by bin Kharas that we might be coming this way and at first they were hostile. However, Huaishil persuaded them to let us pass. I recovered from my fever two days later, but at the time I hardly cared what they said or did, wishing only to be left alone. I think we were suffering from influenza. We heard later that there had been some sort of epidemic in Oman and several deaths. This was the only time I was ill during the years I was in Arabia.
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