Arabia Felix

by Thorkild Hansen

  Forsskål took the same attitude, even though his motives in this instance were more pride than thrift The dola had to be humbled. Forsskål needed neither money nor soldiers; he had right on his side, and that for him was sufficient. He tried the same tactics that had saved them that first chaotic day in Mocha. He called on the representative of justice in the town, the kadi, and laid before him the documents they had just received from Mocha. The two men did not find it difficult to agree; the kadi was a just man, and in the presence of Forsskål he wrote a letter to the dola of Taaes in which he declared that the latter could not act contrary to an order from the Imam in Sana. A few hours later the dola replied. The whole thing rested on a misunderstanding. At no time had he wanted to prevent the Europeans from going to Sana. He merely wished them to wait a few more days so that he might have time to write the necessary letters of recommendation.

  For the moment Forsskål had to be content with this. Two days later a messenger arrived with a letter from the dola. This did not contain the promised letters of recommendation. It was an order to leave the town immediately and go to Mocha.

  Now Carsten Niebuhr began to waver. Perhaps they should after all try sweetening the angry man with money. Forsskål furiously disagreed, left the house without more ado, and went across to see the kadi. The judge had already heard about the dola’s breach of his promise and showed Forsskål the letter he had just written to him. It was in Forsskål’s own style, and contained one single sentence: “Do not show greed to these foreigners, for they are our guests.”

  Once again the dola replied immediately. The whole thing rested on a misunderstanding. Never for one moment had he wanted to prevent the Europeans from going to Sana.

  This time Forsskål would not give him any further chance of changing his mind. He acted immediately, gave orders for the cases to be packed, and himself saw to the hiring of the necessary camels and donkeys for the trip. By the afternoon of the next day the expedition must be ready to leave Taaes. The servant from Mocha was dismissed with no thought of the possible consequences. In his place Forsskål appointed a servant who had been recommended to him by the kadi. All this took place at a furious pace; Forsskål seemed to be everywhere at once, and now at last things began to go according to his plans. The following afternoon the hired donkeys and camels arrived; everything was packed, and all the members were ready to leave.

  Except for one man. Peter Forsskål had collapsed. Malaria, coming without warning, had laid him low. While the camels stood ready loaded in the street, he lay blue in the face, his body racked by gallstone pains, clutching his bed which shook beneath him as he shivered with fever. An hour passed and the attack seemed to abate. Niebuhr went across to him. There was nothing to be done. They could not take the responsibility of letting him ride to Sana in that condition. Once again they must postpone their departure. Forsskål’s body had been put out of action, but the fever had left his formidable will intact. He would not countenance any further postponement of their departure. Already three weeks had passed since they left Mocha; they had only just over a month before the English ships sailed for India and they had not covered a quarter of the way to Sana. There was not an hour to be lost if they were to reach the capital. They must reach the capital. Their caravan must leave as planned.

  Forsskål was adamant. Niebuhr could not dissuade him. He went into the street and in a low voice asked the others to mount. Now Forsskål himself appeared at the door. The others followed him with their eyes, but he did not return their glance. He was so weak that he had to be carried by Berggren and the kadi’s servant, who put him on his donkey.

  It was about sunset, 28th June, 1763. The little caravan was ready to depart. In an inside pocket of his coat Forsskål carried a letter given him by the kadi in Taaes. During these days of battle against the dola these two taciturn men had become attached to each other in their own spare way, and on their departure the kadi had wanted to give Forsskål this letter as a personal gift. It was written by a man who, like Forsskål himself, always wanted to have right on his side. It was an introduction to the Imam in Sana. But it was not the ruler of Arabia Felix who was to read the kadi’s words. With this letter in his inside pocket, Forsskål now rode towards a much higher Imam who rules over a far more felicitous Arabia. It made no difference; the kadi’s communication was also fitted for Him to read. Like the letter to the dola, it consisted of a single sentence: “Believe nothing evil of this man.”

  Then followed the wearisome miles—the miles a man rides alone. Surrounded by a little caravan, perhaps, but nevertheless alone.

  It was Carsten Niebuhr’s job to count those miles, as he had counted all the others the Danish expedition had covered. But he protested in his diary that the caravan made so many halts that he found difficulty in accurately calculating the distances. They were not great. By the first evening they had got no farther than an inn outside the town gate of Taaes. During the following days the stages got shorter and shorter. Time after time they had to halt at some wretched coffee hut along the road to seek shelter from the regular downpours and to let Forsskål rest awhile, and after four days they had got no further than the village of Abb. The next morning, 2nd July, Forsskål was so weak that, seated on his donkey, he could not keep up with the camels. At the next village of Lauad they had to abandon the idea of keeping the caravan together; instead, they sent the camel drivers and their beasts on ahead, while they themselves followed slowly behind with the sick man. Late in the evening they reached the village of Barken. By now Forsskål’s gallstone pains were so intense that even with the greatest effort of will he could no longer hold himself upright on his donkey. While earlier their normal day’s journey had been sixty miles or more, the next day they completed only the three miles or so to the village of Mensil at the foot of Mount Summara, the highest mountain on the road between Mocha and Sana.

  In Mensil they were fortunate to find, in place of the usual coffee hut, a well-established caravanserai, where there was a stone floor and where they could even get a room to themselves. They decided to spend the whole of the following day, 4th July, there in the hope that Forsskål might rally a little; now he no longer protested at the delay. But when Niebuhr went out that morning and set up his astrolabe to determine the location of the place, he was suddenly seized by a violent attack of the fever, referred to in his diary as the “cold,” that had attacked him at intervals ever since Beit el-Fakih. As Forsskål’s condition showed no sign of improvement either, they agreed to stay on at this well-appointed caravanserai until Niebuhr and Forsskål had recovered somewhat. Again there was no protest from the exhausted Swede. The camel drivers, however, resisted this decision, claiming that it was impossible for them to find more than one day’s food supply for so many men and animals in such a remote place. They assured Niebuhr that the large town of Jerim lay on the other side of Mount Summara, arguing that it was no farther from Mensil to Jerim than from Mensil to the village of Barken, which they had left the day before. As they promised to bring men to carry the sick Forsskål over the steep and almost impassable Mount Summara, Niebuhr let himself be persuaded to make an attempt to reach Jerim by the evening of the next day. Unfortunately he had no chance of checking the Arab’s words. It was more than five times as far from Mensil to Jerim as from Mensil to Barken.

  After only one day’s rest they set out from their comfortable caravanserai. It was 5th July, 1763. Niebuhr and Baurenfeind left before sunrise to make the most of the cool of the morning, while Kramer and Berggren remained behind with Forsskål to wait for the transport the Arabs had promised for the sick man.

  With the expedition split the difficulties began. When Niebuhr and Baurenfeind had covered some distance up the mountain, they bitterly regretted having chosen to set off so early in the day. They were on the shadowed side of the mountain and the cold was penetrating. They were much too lightly clad, and the remainder of their clothes were with the baggage loaded on the camels in Mensil. Shivering with cold,
they continued their upward march. Niebuhr complained in his diary that his “cold” was now so bad that he had to stop several times and lean against the rocky wall to vomit. Since they had found plenty of water everywhere along the road from Taaes to Mensil, they had got out of the habit of carrying drinking-water on their journeys. On Summara, however, there was not a drop of water to be found. Niebuhr could not even rinse his mouth between his bouts of vomiting. Now they crossed the pass and emerged on the sunny side of the mountain just as the midday heat set in. “Never have I suffered from such a thirst,” exclaims Niebuhr, who is not normally given to exaggeration. Not until late in the afternoon, when they reached the foot of the mountain, did they meet a peasant in the fields who handed them his water jar.

  At long last they reached Jerim. In spite of his misery, Niebuhr had taken care to ask the names of the villages they had come through; his map of the Yemen contains the names of five localities alone on the stretch from Mensil over Mount Summara to Jerim. When he calculated the distance they had covered his suspicions were confirmed. It was much farther than the Arabs had given him to understand. How would it go with the others? Niebuhr walked outside the town of Jerim and kept watch on the mountain road, full of disquiet at the thought of the sick Forsskål whom they had left with Kramer and Berggren in the caravanserai in Mensil. Hours passed. The road was deserted, and no caravan came in sight. Not until sunset did Niebuhr glimpse a little cloud of dust. At last the little procession reached the town. As Niebuhr got up and went to meet his friends, a dreadful sight met his eyes.

  In the caravanserai in Mensil the situation had soon become desperate. All morning Forsskål, Kramer and Berggren waited in vain for the Arabs whom the camel drivers had promised as porters. By midday it was clear that either they had never been ordered, or that as Mohammedans they would not demean themselves to carry a Christian. Nor was there much food left in Mensil for man or beast. If they wanted to reach Jerim by sunset, they could postpone their departure no longer. Forsskål’s internal pains were so severe that there was no question of sitting him on a donkey. The only thing to do was to remove the baggage from one of the camels and lash the sick man firmly to its back.

  The caravan moved off, step by step in the direct rays of the midday sun, up the mountain and down the mountain, step by step through a landscape of pain, where every view that unfolded was a view of pain, every tree that grew a tree of pain. From a cloudless sky the flames of the equatorial sun merged with the fire of pain in the body of the sick man. Not until the sun disappeared behind the mountain did this stony Via Dolorosa come to an end. When the horrified Niebuhr ran to them outside the town of Jerim, he could not recognise his sick friend. Like a half-empty sack flung over a beast of burden Peter Forsskål lay lashed across the camel, the remains of his vomit still trickling down the dusty flanks of the beast. His face was blue and drawn with pain, he was incapable of speech, but his eyes were open. He was still fully conscious.

  They continued slowly to the inn in Jerim. It was impossible to get a room to themselves; they had to establish themselves in the communal room, which was already full to overflowing. Soon a crowd of curious men pushed round the strangers, raking about in their belongings, shouting, pointing out odd things about their clothing and equipment, asking witty questions. Laughter echoed round the room. Niebuhr soon realised they must rent a house where they could be in peace. While Kramer and Baurenfeind looked after Forsskål, the exhausted man once again sallied out into the town. Jerim was scarcely bigger than a village, with few houses and virtually none empty. For a long time Niebuhr went vainly from door to door, until, by agreeing to an exorbitant price, he managed to rent a place so that Forsskål might have a house to die in.

  When he returned to the inn he met renewed difficulties. None of the Muslims present could be persuaded to help carry the sick man from the inn to the house. Surrounded by a crowd of passive but curious Arabs, Baurenfeind, Kramer, Berggren and the exhausted Niebuhr now picked up Forsskål’s camp bed themselves and carried him out of the inn and through the streets, where a noisy crowd at once gathered round the procession. To the noise of shouting and screaming they cleared a path to the new house. To reach the door Kramer had to thrust several Arabs aside. It is possible that in his desperation he went about things a little too violently; in any case the result was that the bystanders began throwing stones after the Europeans. At the last moment they managed to save themselves by slipping into the house, shutting the door and fastening the shutters; the noise of the stones thrown by the crowd continued long afterwards. At last Forsskål could rest. With a wax candle at his head he lay stretched out in the dark room, while the pain and the fever shook his body.

  Niebuhr’s sketch of the town Jerim, seen from the window of the room where Forsskål lay dying

  During the next few days Niebuhr tried to convince himself in his diary that Forsskål was getting a little better. The honest fellow scarcely dared look truth in the eye. He himself was still very sick; and now Baurenfeind and Berggren also began to complain of “colds.” None of them had the courage to go out into the hostile town. Niebuhr had to give up any idea of calling upon the leading men to gain information; he had to be content instead with sitting at the window in Forsskål’s sick-room, drawing the view. Not until some days later did he venture out to the market, in order, as he says, “to seek some distraction for my gloomy thoughts.” For several hours he walked round the covered streets among the mud houses plastered with cow-dung. When he was alone he so resembled an Arab that nobody remarked his presence. Unnoticed, he trudged round in his slippers, asking the prices of some things, observing the tailors and cobblers and smiths who sat on the bare ground in their booths, pausing for a moment outside a circumciser’s who also did a little blood-letting, or cured people by slashing the skin of their faces with his rusty knife and rubbing some ground fenugreek into the wounds.

  It was 10th July, 1763. As darkness fell Niebuhr returned to the house, where he found Forsskål in the grip of a new attack of fever. Although the illness had been working in him all through the long ride from Taaes and during the whole of that desperate trip over Mount Summara, it had taken a further five days to break his will. Now he was too weak to fight against it. About ten o’clock in the evening he fell into a deep sleep from which he did not awake. The following morning at half past nine Peter Forsskål died in the town of Jerim in Arabia Felix, aged thirty-one.

  That same afternoon Niebuhr had to report his death to the authorities. He sent the servant who had been recommended to Forsskål by the kadi in Taaes across to the dola and kadi of this town. The former would not receive him; the latter referred him to an Arab who, he thought, would sell the expedition a little plot of ground where they could bury the dead man. Niebuhr went at once and bought the land, but shortly afterwards the deal had to be called off. The plot was situated near a ditch used for taking water to irrigate the surrounding fields, and his neighbours had threatened the owner of the ground that if the water ever dried up or was spoilt because of the Christian buried there, they would hold him responsible.

  At the same time a message came from the dola. He wished to speak to a member of the expedition at once. Niebuhr went, prepared for what to expect, and firmly determined to follow Forsskål’s example and not pay a penny. The dola informed him that, in accordance with the law of the land, he himself was the sole heir whenever a Banyan or a Jew died in his district. Niebuhr knew that Forsskål had willed all his property to Baurenfeind in gratitude for the latter’s conscientious industry in drawing his botanical specimens, so he answered coldly that the deceased was neither a Jew nor a Banyan but a European, and that the dola in Mocha, where they had lost another of their colleagues, had made no such claim upon the deceased man’s property. The dola’s son said smoothly that his father’s words should not be interpreted literally; all he had meant was that on the occasion of this death he expected some considerable gift. Niebuhr replied that, as treasurer of the expedition, he co
uld not disburse any money without a proper receipt and the dola was therefore requested to inform him in writing how much he wanted. After this no further demands were made. The dola knew well enough that they were making for Sana, and feared that the matter might be reported to the Imam.

  When Niebuhr left the dola he went out into the town and managed to find a plot which did not lie near any irrigation canal or cultivated fields. But it seemed impossible to find six men to carry the body to the grave. Niebuhr promised an exorbitant sum for the work, and also gave assurance that it should be done in the middle of the night so that no one would notice. This did not help either. Not until the following day did he track down six ragged coolies who agreed to carry the body. That same night at three o’clock, when all the inhabitants of the town were asleep, they arrived to collect Forsskål’s coffin. Terrified at the thought of being discovered, they ran off with it through the streets and buried it in the greatest haste, only a few spade-depths below ground. After the exhausting negotiations of the day before, Niebuhr was so worn out that he could no longer stand; only Baurenfeind and Kramer were present at the “ceremony.”