by John Keay
The Aarab byût shaar are thus tents of haircloth made housewise. The “houses of hair” accord with that sorry landscape! Tent is the Semitic house: their clay house is built in like manner; a public hall for the men and guests, and an inner woman’s and household apartment. Like to this was Moses’ adorned house of the nomad God in the wilderness. Also the firmament, in the Hebrew prophet, is a tabernacle of the one household of God’s creation. These flitting-houses in the wilderness, dwelt in by robbers, are also sanctuaries of “God’s guests,” theûf Ullah, the passengers and who they be that haply alight before them. Perilous rovers in the field, the herdsmen of the desert are kings at home, fathers of hospitality to all that seek to them for the night’s harbour. “Be we not all, say the poor nomads, guests of Ullah?” Has God given unto them, God’s guest shall partake with them thereof: if they will not for God render His own, it should not go well with them. The guest entered, and sitting down amongst them, they observe an honourable silence, asking no untimely questions, (such is school and nurture of the desert,) until he have eaten or drunk somewhat at the least, and by “the bread and salt” there is peace established between them, for a time (that is counted two nights and the day in the midst, whilst their food is in him). Such is the golden world and the “assurance of Ullah” in the midst of the wilderness: travelled Beduins are amazed to see the sordid inhospitality of the towns; – but where it were impossible that the nomad custom should hold.
THE POINT OF RETURN
Harry St John Bridger Philby
(1885–1960)
By 1930 the Rubh al Khali, the desolate “Empty Quarter” of southern Arabia, was the only sizeable wilderness which still defied exploration. “Jack” Philby, a rugged individualist, had long set his sights on it. He travelled widely in Arabia, forsook British employ to serve under King ibn Saud of Riyadh, and converted to Islam. But when permission was at last given, it coincided with news that Bertram Thomas, another Briton, had just completed the first crossing. Philby was heartbroken. Asserting that Thomas had chosen the shortest south-north route, in 1932 he set off from the Gulf for Shanna on Thomas’s route, and then headed west into the unknown. His followers were horrified, not least because Philby insisted on travelling by day so as to conduct observations. Later evidence showed that, had he not accepted defeat, he would certainly have been murdered. A second attempt fared better, and he became the first to make an east-west crossing of the “Empty Quarter”.
We began the fourth day’s march under a sense of combined strain and expectation. During the night the abandonment of our enterprise had been seriously canvassed and my lack of sympathy with our strained camels provided Farraj with an opportunity to read me a lecture. If your beast is well, said he, then you are well; but if she wilts, then you wilt. Very true, I said, but it is you folk that think not twice of increasing the strain. We have to cross this Empty Quarter, and I but ride straight on, neither thinking of retreat nor thinking of diversion. But look for instance at Zayid and Salih, who rode off just now on the trail of an Oryx. All day they may ride their beasts after their quarry and return at nightfall unsuccessful, disheartened and tired. Then they will chide me for my obstinacy and want to return to water. That is always your way.
Soon after starting on the day’s march and just passing from the Abal Khadhim tract into the very similar bare rolling country of Hadhat al Qata – indeed the only difference was the scanty appearance of Hadh amidst the Abal and Alaq – we had come upon the tracks of four Oryx, and our men lusted to be off after them. Zayid drew up to me with a cringing request for permission to follow up the tracks, and I was glad enough to think that I might have some hours free of his company. To Salih I replied that he could please himself, and off the pair went at a steady walk which soon took them out of sight on our flank. ’Ali had unsuccessfully pleaded for similar liberty. Look you, he had said untruthfully, we have come to the end of the country I know. Beyond this there is no guidance in me, but Ibn Humaiyid knows it all and I can go and seek out an Oryx for you. I can do without the Oryx, I had replied, and I want your company. So he rode on sulkily far ahead, while Farraj danced attendance on me.
An hour later we passed the spot where the advance-party had prayed and made coffee. It was 9 a.m. and they must have left the spot barely an hour and a half before, yet over their fresh tracks lay the still more recent trail of a full-grown bull Oryx! That was too much for us all. Lovingly they read the message of the tracks aloud – how the great beast had sauntered along from the north cropping a bush here and there as he passed: how he had stood transfixed for a moment as he came upon the ploughed-up channel of our baggage camels: and how finally he had galloped away for dear life from the scent and signs of danger. ’Ali pleaded with tears in his eyes, and I yielded. Farraj strained at the leash, and I acquiesced with the reproach that I would soon be left entirely alone. Off they went, and we went on.
Very soon Farraj came back, protesting that he could not bear to leave me so ill-attended. Look you, he said, we would never have left our dear families and come out on this business but for two reasons: hope of profit and fear of punishment. I have no desire but to serve you, but it is Zayid and ’Ali that are to blame for all our troubles. You will surely not let their behaviour involve the rest of us in loss. Tell me what you want and I will do it. He was the lack-wit of our party – ever resisting but repenting, repenting but resisting – but the frankest of them all in naïve self-seeking. I had appealed to his cupidity the previous evening with some small pecuniary compensation for the trouble involved in capturing the two foxes – and for a bitten finger of which he had made the most, quite shamelessly.
Up hill and down dale we marched on. Here and there a small patch of exposed bluish rock in the bottom of a valley claimed our attention. The vegetation became scantier as we went, and all that there was was dead. Soon the rolling downs became absolutely bare, and the hot sun blazed down on them until the sand glared again into our faces mercilessly. Now and again the higher sands produced a mirage like sheets of glass. Not a bird did we see all that day, though once we heard the piping of an invisible lark. A dragonfly astonished me in such surroundings and thrice we saw a butterfly – flitting shadows that caught my eye for an instant and disappeared into the enveloping sheen of sand-reflected light. Two gargoylish lizards crouched in the sandy fire as we passed and were duly consigned to my ever-ready bottle.
We passed from Hadhat al Qata into Khillat al Hawaya about midday – a vast down-tract of rounded ribs of soft sand lying SW. and NE. as usual, with occasional lofty dunes to vary the monotony. It was easy going, but the heat was intense without relief. At 2 p.m. we halted by an exposed patch of the underlying bedrock for a short rest. I spread my mantle over the branches of a moribund Abal bush and scraped away the heated upper layer of sand to make myself a couch in the shade. I slept until I was summoned to coffee, and we disposed of the afternoon prayer before resuming the march.
Far away now to our southward lay the long line of the Hibaka, whose northerly extremity we had traversed the previous day, with the Qa’amiyat uplands beyond it; while to our north the Hawaya ridges extended a day and a half to the Bani Jallab tract, westward of which lies Al Jaladal1 (apparently a gravel plain), with the northern Hibaka (or Hibaka Faraja) on its northern side. The downs gradually changed in character to form a series of more or less parallel ridges (always lying SW. and NE.), which we crossed in wearisome succession at intervals of a quarter-mile or more. Very hot it became as the afternoon wore on and our spirits drooped. Yet every now and then a cool zephyr breathed upon us from the east, fragrant reminder of the oncoming night. At the hottest of the day the shade temperature had touched 93°, but at 10 p.m. it was only 65°, and the minimum of the night in camp was 50°. We camped at 5 p.m. near the western edge of Khillat Hawaya and our hunters dribbled in about sunset from their futile hunting. The camels had felt the day’s strain, marching through a pastureless wilderness, but there was less talk of giving up. We were now
a hundred miles away from Shanna and at least as far from any water, while Zayid and ’Ali had evidently devised a plan for the morrow to their own liking. The baggage-train was started off before 2 a.m., and after the chatter and clatter of their starting we slept in peace in the cool desert while the waning moon went its way over us through an almost starless sky.
I awoke before dawn as usual, and over our morning coffee and dates after the prayer it was announced that the camels of Zayid and ’Ali were missing! Having come in rather late the previous evening, they had been left to graze in the moonlight and had strayed away. An hour was wasted in looking for them – a precious hour of the day’s coolth – and then it was proposed that the rest of us should start leaving Muhaimid with one camel, carrying water and provisions, in attendance on Zayid and ’Ali, who would track down their lost beasts and follow in our trail. They might as well have made a clean breast of their plans, which were too obvious to call for comment. They would have today for another long pursuit of the elusive Oryx and – most significant of all – our future plans could be reconsidered if they failed again. By nightfall we would still be near enough to water to go back and, viewed in the light of such a pact, the developments of the day fall into a clearer, if ominous, perspective. Meanwhile there was nothing to be done but to make the best of a bad situation and hope for the best. But I did privately register the hope that Zayid and ’Ali might not meet with success in their selfish quest. So we started off on our fifth day’s march with Farraj riding the animal that carried my boxes, Ibn Humaiyid as guide and Salih in attendance. All went merrily enough and we joked and laughed, nominating Parraj to the Amirate, left vacant by the desertion of Zayid, and Salih as his deputy. And I offered to wager a large sum that the hunters would return disappointed. Meanwhile we could be happy without their company. And we were happy enough as we struck out over the bare, easy, rolling downs, streaked at wide intervals with ridges of sand so low as to be scarcely perceptible. Farraj characteristically made the most of his uncomfortable perch on my boxes as evidence of his will to service; and I chaffed him, pointing out how he dominated us all as from a throne raised aloft. How well it would be, I said, if we could always march thus without Zayid and ’Ali! You and Salih could take it in turns each day to be our leader and ride upon the throne, as rode the Arab virgins in the good old days in a litter leading their tribal, warriors into battle. I am content, Salih interposed hastily, to leave that honour to Farraj, and I can serve you better catching lizards for you or turning aside with you to collect rocks and shells – and perhaps flints – from the bare valley-bottoms on the way. And at intervals when the conversation flagged, they would strike up their barren singing to break the silence of the desert.
After an hour we passed into Qasba Hawaya, and they pointed out to me the dried-up stubble of the Qasab grass which differentiates it from what had gone before. After good rains, said Ibn Humaiyid, this is good grazing country and the Arabs come hither with their milch-camels to seek the Oryx. And they remain out until the camels need water, themselves living only on milk and the meat of the chase. But it is the great ones only who do that – people like Ibn Nifl and Ibn Jahman and Ibn Suwailim. It is a hard life. But there has been no rain in these parts for seven or eight years now, and none come hither these days. Gradually the country had become more undulating with rounded dunes and low ridges. But it was amazingly bare.
The light, cool breeze of the early morning dropped, but for an hour or two the conditions remained pleasant enough though the air was deathly still. The silence – once broken by the sweet piping of an invisible lark – was astonishing. And the dunes and ridges merged into a sea of billows without order, tossed and tumbled by the conflict of desert winds. A little way off to the southward a group of lofty pink dunes towered above it all, and we went by the tracks and dung of a solitary Oryx, which had passed across this wilderness two days earlier questing for pastures further north.
Suddenly there appeared before us the trough of a great valley-bottom cleaving the rolling downs from south-west to north-east. In its bed we saw a long series of exposed patches of the underlying rock, which we turned out of our way to visit in search of shells. We found none and climbed up the long and weary slope beyond to enter, on its crest, the district of Hadhat al Hawaya, a tract of deeper valleys and higher ridges which extend in uniformly parallel lines for some 40 or 50 miles westward to the Shuwaikila country. Here the Hadh bush reappeared after a long absence, dead like everything else though occasional tufts of green raised hopes that were doomed to disappointment. As the day drew on to noontide and the sun blazed down on us without mercy it was easy to believe that never in twenty years or more had rain fallen in this district. The dry Hadh shrubs had gathered mounds of sand about their half-buried heads and even the hardy Abal, the longest-lived of all the desert plants, had not survived the strain.
Its long, blackened roots lay spread about the sandy floor round the perished relics of once great thickets, whose gnarled and writhing branches proclaimed the agonies to which at last after a gallant struggle they had succumbed exhausted. Drought and famine stalked the land with drawn swords of flaming fire, breathing hotly upon us who ventured thus into their domain. It was impressive but it was depressing, and I was oppressed, maybe, by a premonition of failure. Grimly and in silence we marched on over an endless succession of valleys and ridges, hoping that each crest would gladden our eyes with a vision of pastures ahead, but hoping in vain. Nevertheless it was a pleasant landscape – these rolling downs and deep valleys of Hawaya, where Death reigned supreme, and a single raven waged perpetual war against the little creatures that dared to live against such odds, larks and lizards and tiny warblers.
It occurred to me, as we passed through the various belts of this great sand-desert, that the sharply defined limits of Hadh and Qasba, Hamra2and Khilla and the like must in some way reflect the chemical character of the sands themselves or of the soils and waters underlying them. Each plant has a more or less definite life-period dependent on the frequency of rains, the hardiest coming to life out of death or dormancy upon the slightest encouragement and lasting through the years under the greatest provocation, while the tenderer herbs shrink from rebirth until tempted by copious rainfall and wilt as soon as the drought resumes its sway. But a systematic study of the plants themselves and of the sand and bedrock of their habitat would certainly yield interesting and important results, especially if correlated with the study of similar or comparable plant-zones in the Sahara and other great desert tracts of the world. The untutored eye could detect no outward and visible explanation of the zone phenomenon. It merely noted the beginnings and the ends of the Hadh belts, outside which all was Khilla dotted with Abal or naked Hamra, with minor zones of Qasba and Birkan.
In a space of about four hours we had crossed as many valleys, well-marked channels between broad gently sloping ridges. In each case the wind had scoured out the bed to expose patches of the calcareous rock below, of which we collected samples while searching in vain for shells and fossils. Here and there in the sandy hollows we found queer, thin tubes of coagulated sand, which my companions regarded as evidence of subsoil water in the neighbourhood and which they often find near the known wells. These proved to be fulgurites or lightning-sticks, formed by the fusing of damp sand by lightning and the adhesion of sand to the fused mass in such a manner as to form a thin tube. Our specimens are puny little things compared with many in the British Museum, but the frequency of their occurrence in the rainless, or almost rainless, desert is remarkable enough.
Some of these ridges flattened out at the top into broad plateaux of a gentle switchback character with shallow undulations and occasional moraines of low rounded dunes in large groups. Far and wide it was an unimaginably bare wilderness, and our nerves seemed to be at high tension as we faced the prospect of hour after hour of the same desolation, labouring on in the growing sultriness of noon along the furrow ploughed ahead of us by the passage of our baggage-train.
Not once had we drawn rein since starting and the time drew nigh for a short halt for a breather, with coffee to cheer the heart of man. We had crossed the third valley and slowly climbed the long slope beyond it to the ridge crest, whence we looked forth on yet another valley with rolling downs beyond. Our general course had been WNW., but now almost due north of us, as we scanned the horizon, we saw a tent silhouetted against the slope of the further ridge. It was evidently one of our own tents, pitched for the first time since leaving Shanna, for we had discarded all unnecessary trouble and comfort to save time. The tent foreboded ill; the sudden change of direction was ominous. It was scarcely past midday and I railed in natural wrath against the transport folk for their wretched marching. The light-headed Farraj took up the challenge with a hysterical outburst. We toil for you in vain; we strain the camels till they break – all in vain. You are ever displeased and critical. Would you have them march on in the fire of this noontide sun? They are perchance resting for an hour or two. Yet he knew, as I felt instinctively, that the tent foreboded more than ill – perhaps disaster. Could one be anything but critical and on one’s guard with companions who would readily have sacrificed the whole object of our endeavour to their own miserable comfort? In such circumstances the Arab does not show up to advantage. He clings frantically, desperately, to life, however miserable, and, when that is at risk, loses heart and head. Greed of filthy lucre alone makes him pause from flight, and gradually he may be brought round to a more reasonable attitude if he can be made to feel that all the troubles of the past may have been in vain if he shrinks from those of the future. At Shanna it had been fear of human foes that had produced rebellion, and I had submitted with a good enough grace though not without a struggle. On the way I had frankly, though vainly, tried to bribe ’Ali Jahman to turn south while it was still not too late, but he had shrunk from the prospect of incurring the hostility of his companions. And now it was the waterless desert, the fear of thirst and death, that made women of these men. I could not, would not yield. We had come 140 miles. A third of the journey was behind us and a steady effort would carry us through if only they would play the man. They were, of course, weak and disheartened with hunger for we had had nothing but dates since Shanna. I was famished myself and could sympathise with their condition. I felt like Moses in the wilderness when the multitude clamoured against him, but I could produce neither water nor manna.