Arabia Felix

by Thorkild Hansen

  It was not only that von Haven felt himself painfully humiliated; he was now involved in an undertaking that might lead heaven knew where without his being able to do anything about it. There was nothing else for it but to have it out forthwith; it was a desperate measure but it was his only chance. When the members of the expedition were called together to meet the new arrival, he demanded—according to Niebuhr’s later account—that the financial control be transferred to him. If any votes were to be taken, he demanded two votes more than the others, together with the right of veto. When asked his reasons he answered, quite beside himself, that it was because the others lacked his learning.

  To Peter Forsskål it looked like an interesting start.

  7

  Even though the extant letters give no further information on the point, it seems evident that from the very beginning the situation between the expedition’s two professors was extremely tense. It was not likely that anyone could get away with telling Forsskål that he was ignorant. Nor, from the point of view of character, was there much room for understanding between the past master of pretext and procrastination from Rome and the tireless polemicist of the fight for freedom and the battle over Falck. Those who in view of the later catastrophic consequences have reproached Bernstorff for not making Niebuhr the expedition’s leader from the outset are being wise after the event. Admittedly both Forsskål and von Haven had made themselves unpopular in Copenhagen, while Niebuhr was undoubtedly the member whom Bernstorff regarded with the greatest sympathy. But Niebuhr was the youngest of the party; and remembering Forsskål’s cool reception of the embarrassed young student, to say nothing of von Haven’s indignation when it became known that the control of the finances had been transferred to him, it is quite clear that neither of them would have agreed to accept his authority. In addition, Niebuhr with his cautious and reserved temperament scarcely possessed qualities of leadership.

  For one thing he found it hard to take decisions that affected others. His modest origins and the fact that he was almost entirely self-taught had left him unsure of himself—in sharp contrast to the supreme self-confidence of von Haven and Forsskål. Niebuhr had declined the title of professor and would presumably have taken the same attitude towards any suggestion of making him the expedition’s leader. It was not his nature to seek the limelight. He preferred tasks that could be done quietly, on the side, and worked best when on his own. “Abstraction and speculation were not part of his make-up; he needed to transpose things into concrete terms,” his son said of him. Niebuhr was by nature an observer; his strength lay neither in bold decisions nor in startling ideas, but in giving a patient and precise account of whatever material he had in front of him. He had wanted to be an organist, to sit concealed in the organ loft of some country church and reproduce as well as he could what somebody else had already written down in musical notation. He had wanted to be a surveyor, to go out alone under the open sky and determine as accurately as possible the boundaries fixed by others. And finally, Niebuhr had enthusiastically agreed to join the expedition to Arabia Felix.

  Of all its members, he was perhaps the one most strongly drawn to the adventure. The task that awaited him in the Arabian desert was, as his son said, “in complete accord with his inmost inclinations.” Here he would be able to work even more inconspicuously, even more apart, than in the wastes of his own marshlands, and instead of merely establishing farm boundaries, he would have the opportunity to compile a map of an entire country. He had no wish for better fortune, his ambition embraced no desire to lead or exercise power over others. But none of the argumentative, self-assured and conceited gentlemen on the Danish expedition had such high hopes of it as this twenty-eight-year-old country lad who was indifferent to titles and to power. Niebuhr did not want to be anything; or rather he simply wanted to be happy.

  There can be no doubt that Bernstorff soon realised not only that Forsskål and von Haven would never accept Niebuhr as leader, but also that the latter was not suited to the role. By making him treasurer, Bernstorff had gone as far as he could. On the other hand, as regards von Haven’s demands, he kept strictly to the decision already taken. There was in any case no time for alterations to the programme. On 21st December, 1760, the man-o’-war Greenland was anchored in the roads outside Copenhagen. A servant was engaged to accompany the party, a strong and taciturn Swede by the name of Berggren who had previously been in the service of a colonel of the Hussars in the war against Prussia. The six men were given orders to be ready for an immediate departure. By Christmas, Carsten Niebuhr had received the king’s final directions for the Danish expedition. They were drawn up in forty-three paragraphs, the more important of which included the following:

  The expedition will leave for Constantinople with the warship Greenland and proceed from there to Arabia Felix, where with the purpose of the expedition in mind it will make whatever observations are possible.

  The route it will follow will be via Constantinople to Alexandria, Cairo, through Egypt to Sinai, and down the Red Sea to Mocha. From His Majesty’s Ambassador in Constantinople members of the expedition will receive passports and letters of recommendation. The length of the stay in Arabia Felix is to be two or, if necessary, three years.

  Your first task is to learn the Arabic language as well as you can, in which you will be assisted by the botanist and the philologist.

  You will traverse the interior of Arabia as well as journey along the coast. As you are accompanied by a physician, it is expected that this will allow you an opportunity of visiting a number of places where deadly diseases are prevalent without exposing your lives to danger.

  Every member of the expedition will keep a diary, a copy of which he will send home as often as circumstances permit.

  The members of the expedition will behave very circumspectly towards the Mohammedans, will respect their religion, and will not behave towards their women with European freedom.

  2000 Rigsdaler are to be made available for the purchase of manuscripts at a reasonable price, in the proportion of two-fifths to the philologist, two-fifths to the botanist and one-fifth to yourself. The intention is to purchase writings on natural history, history and geography, together with any ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, any copies of Arabic translations of the Bible, and particularly the most ancient which employ an alphabet differing from that used in the present day.

  The members will do their utmost to answer the questions put by Professor Michaelis as well as those sent in by other European scholars, and copies should be sent home as with the diaries.

  All the members enjoy equal rank; and in case of disagreement, a majority decision is to decide. By making longitudinal and latitudinal calculations, you must seek to collect data for a map of those districts over which you have travelled, noting any differences there may be between the dry and rainy seasons, and paying heed to any surviving remnants of past ages, to the size of the population, and to the fertility of the country. Moreover, you will pay particular attention to the ebb and flow of the Red Sea, to the relations between the living and the dead, to the influence of polygamy on the increase or decline of the people, to the relationship between the sexes, and to the number of women in the towns and in the country.

  Dr. Kramer is to concern himself with the diseases peculiar to the region under investigation, and with the measures taken against them; by assisting those Arabs who are sick, he is to win their confidence.

  Professor von Haven is to observe the customs and habits of the country, and in particular those on which the Holy Scriptures and the Jewish laws cast some light.

  He is to seek to discover as much as possible about the Arabs, Hebrews and Syrians, and to try to inform himself about the religious services and customs of the heathens before the time of Mohammed; he is to transcribe any variations from the text of the Bible in old Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Any ancient Arabic or other Oriental manuscripts he cannot decipher he is to copy with care.

  Professor Fors
skål is to make zoological and botanical collections, in particular of things mentioned in the Bible.

  Herr Baurenfeind, the artist, is to assist the other members of the expedition when his help is required.

  The party is to return home together from Basra by way of Aleppo, Smyrna, and thence to Europe.

  With this, after years of preparation and violent quarrels, the Danish expedition was ready to depart. All depended now on Commander Fisker of the man-o’-war Greenland. By the New Year the vessel was ready to weigh anchor; and on 4th January, 1761, the six men went aboard from the rowing-boat which had taken them out from the Tollbooth. A week later, the Kiøbenhavnske Danske Posttidende carried this item: “As His Majesty, despite the heavy cares of government in these evil times, strives indefatigably for the furtherance of knowledge and of science and for the greater glory of his people . . .”

  Despite these evil times. Perhaps it is only in evil times that men dream of voyaging to Arabia Felix. In Denmark in 1761 there was widespread fear of war and a general uncertainty. Even if the Danish Government of the time was carrying out a larger cultural programme than ever before—or, for that matter, ever since—the signs were hardly propitious. The state finances were in chaos; as a result of the war in Germany, Bernstorff had had to station an expensive army of 24,000 men in Holstein to protect the frontier. The threat of war with Russia urged him to feverish diplomatic activity; but the day was not far distant when Peter III was to send his army into Mecklenburg, declaring his intention of chasing the Danish royal couple to Trankebar. Plenty of similar threats were heard in these years. Beyond the immediate horizon lay something that later ages might almost have called a world war. Frederick the Great was not content to remain playing his flute in Sans Souci. By 1761 the Seven Years’ War had reached its fifth year, while out upon the seven seas of the world, in India and America, a bloody Anglo-French colonial struggle had entered its sixth year. Perhaps it was this above all that contributed most to the Danish king’s “cares of government.” The English privateers were making the seas unsafe for Danish merchantmen; trade suffered severe losses, and to protect its merchant ships against the English, the Danish Government had to escort them with warships.

  Such a ship was the naval vessel Greenland, which about the New Year of 1761 was preparing to leave for the Mediterranean to escort a Danish convoy from Marseille to Smyrna. This was the ship which the six men saw as they gazed into the sun that calm winter morning, for here at last all six were gathered together, all of them composed but for good reasons silent: the elegant von Haven, bitter about his demotion and full of resentment against this expedition; the cold, precise Forsskål, who only four days previously had complained to Linnaeus about the “blunderer” who had been forced upon him as an assistant; and the blunderer himself, the unfortunate Kramer, who now faced the prospect of a journey lasting years in which it had been made clear to him from the start that he was not wanted. Here was the stocky little country lad from the marshlands, Niebuhr, who had not forgotten Forsskål’s condescending manner at their first encounter and who had to suffer the almost daily abuse of von Haven. Here, finally, was the amiable Baurenfeind, sober—all too sober—in the chill of the morning and the sharp winter light; and the Swedish servant, Berggren, who was probably the only one unaffected by the general mood of depression, for he had already been through worse wars than this.

  So there they were, all six of them, on their way at last to the country with one of those magic names we give to places that only our yearnings know. The land of incense, myrrh and balsam. Eudaimon Arabia, as Alexander termed it, because he did not manage to conquer it. Arabia Felix, as it was called in Rome. In von Haven’s elegant letters, it became l’Arabie heureuse, and Niebuhr in his diary called the country das glückliche Arabien. That is, until the day he got there. Thereafter he called it simply Yemen. But naturally this was only a coincidence. “Happy Arabia” became in short the Yemen. A question of words.

  Perhaps there was something else behind this sudden change of name. Or was it also mere chance that this first scientific expedition to leave Denmark was sent to the land that ever since Alexander had borne the name of “happiness”? Was it exclusively “the furtherance of knowledge and the more exact interpretation of the Holy Scriptures” that they had in mind? As far as the biblical aspect is concerned, we can afford to dismiss it; all through history it had provided a pretext for strange and curious undertakings. There was something else. No one ever referred to it; it was not mentioned in a single letter; but it was there none the less. They wanted to know why the country was so called. Of course, this could not be included in any of the petitions; it was not serious enough. Yet, then as now, people were curious. In the midst of the dry rationalism of the age, the Arabian expedition seemed to embody that age-old hyperborean longing for a happy land somewhere in the South—a longing that stirs a little in its deep sleep. When it came to the point they were curious ; and what is so remarkable about that? Even in times of the most entrenched rationalism, even in the most evil times, there lives in every man a little Alexander who never managed to conquer his Eudaimon Arabia.

  It is therefore not surprising that even the sober Peter Forsskål began to wonder about this country with the remarkable name. On the very first page of his journal, which begins precisely on the day they embarked, he asked himself: “Why should Arabia Felix be called ‘felicitous’ and sought beyond distant seas?” Why was the country called Happy Arabia? As we picture the six men standing silently in the boat on that calm winter morning of 4th January, 1761, we cannot help repeating Forsskål’s question.

  Only one of the six men ever returned to Denmark.

  2. The Storm

  The members of the expedition were given a friendly welcome aboard the man-o’-war Greenland by Commander Fisker. Everything was in order for their journey; the captain himself accompanied them down to two of the vessel’s best cabins, where the learned gentlemen now established themselves with their books, their papers and their instruments. The great expedition could begin.

  They were not, however, able to weigh anchor on 4th January as planned because of the calm weather, and the Greenland was obliged to lie in the roads for the next two days waiting for a favourable wind. It was not until 7th that they were able to set sail northwards on a light southerly breeze; but this also dropped during the afternoon, and it was largely with the help of the north-flowing current that they reached Helsingör that evening.

  In Helsingör too Commander Fisker was obliged to wait for wind. Niebuhr took advantage of the delay to measure the altitude of the sun with his new astrolabe, and was thus able to calculate the latitude of Kronborg. It was already known, but Niebuhr now took every opportunity to practise on places where he could check his results.

  On 14th January there was again a southerly wind and the Greenland, together with a number of other ships, sailed out from Helsingör roads. As the man-o’-war passed Kronborg, the Danish fortress greeted it with a salute of three guns, and Hälsingborg with four; and Niebuhr, who had witnessed the ceremony from the deck, noted in his diary how the Swedes always salute with an even number of guns and the Danes with an odd. Later in the evening, when they were still only level with Kullen, the wind dropped again. The sailors told Forsskål that such a sudden calm in winter was usually fair warning of a gale, and their forecast proved correct. During the night the wind rose, and for a day and a half the Greenland battled with the weather in the Kattegat. It was not until 17th January that the clouds dispersed enough for Niebuhr to plot the ship’s position with his astrolabe. It appeared that the gale had driven them right up under Laesö, and as it was increasing steadily in strength, Captain Fisker gave orders to return to Helsingör, where they met the ships that had sailed out with them several days earlier.

  There followed several further days of idleness, which for the active Forsskål were almost a greater trial than gales and sea-sickness. He wrote in his diary: “There was little scope for natura
l history on that wild vast sea in the middle of the severest winter months. The raging gale had also given us something other than scholarly research to think about. But I could not bear to remain completely unoccupied at the beginning of an expedition that promised to provide opportunities for making the most remarkable discoveries.”

  Forsskål set about measuring the salt-content of the various currents and studying the various seaweeds, the only thing in the sea to tempt a botanist: “I always tried to be on hand when the anchor was hauled up from a sea-bed where there was plant-life; and sometimes I found something new among the attached seaweed.” Already at Helsingör he was able to list seven different sorts of seaweed and lay the foundation of a collection of molluscs, which he killed with concentrated alcohol before they had managed to withdraw into their shells, so that Baurenfeind could draw them life-size.

  The wind freshened once more, and on 26th January the Greenland skimmed north through the Kattegat before a fresh south-westerly breeze. They had passed Skagen and were in hopes of reaching the open sea when the wind veered west and increased to near-hurricane force. In his diary Carsten Niebuhr endeavoured to keep his composure: “All day on 2nd February it was so stormy that we could not even light a fire on board. However, we did not worry too much on that account, for when one is at sea one must learn to disregard such inconveniences. We suffered the loss of only one sailor, who fell from the yard-arm into the sea during the gale and could not be rescued because of the darkness and the tremendous seas.”

  There are no pictures of the ship Greenland, but the shipwrights’ plans are still in existence. Here are the designs for the decoration of bow and stern. This vessel was launched in 1757 and was therefore still new when the Danish expedition sailed with it to the Mediterranean