Part 25

The caravan starts at daybreak and proceeds without a sound. The baggage-camels step out briskly and their drivers keep pace with elastic steps; the riding-camels hasten at full trot, urged according to their strength, and soon leave the burden-bearers far behind. With unslackened speed they hurry on. All one’s bones seem to crack with the jerks and jolting caused by the rapid pace of the riding-camels. The sun beats down, piercing through all the garments with which one tries to protect oneself. Under the thicker clothing perspiration pours all over the body, on the more lightly clad arms and legs it evaporates as it is formed. The tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth. Water, water, water! is the one idea left to those unaccustomed to these discomforts. But the water, instead of being in iron vessels or flasks, is in the characteristic skin-bags of the country; it has been carried for days in the full sun on the camel’s back, it is more than lukewarm, of evil odour, thick, brown in colour, and tastes so vilely of leather and colocynth varnish that it produces nausea or even vomiting. But it seems as impossible to improve it as to do without it. Its penetrating taste and smell baffle all attempts to enjoy it in coffee or tea, or mixed with wine or brandy. Undiluted wine or brandy simply increase the burning thirst and oppressive heat. The traveller’s condition becomes one of torture before the sun reaches the zenith, and his distress is the greater the worse the water. But it has to be and is endured. And although the Northerner can never conquer his repugnance to the kind of water which we have described, he grows used to the heat, at first so unbearable, and, as he begins to be at home with his steed, other discomforts are also lessened. In the future he will make sure of water which is at least clean, and will soon cease to complain of its warmth or of any other inevitable inconveniences of his journey.

Resting comfortably, though rudely wakened by the loud grumbling of the baggage-camels, the experienced travellers allow the caravan to go on ahead while they comfort body and soul with coffee and tobacco. Thereafter they mount the dromedaries and speed along as quickly as these trotters will go. Not a word is exchanged, the only sounds are the crunching of the sand under the elastic hoofs, the loud breathing, and hollow, deep grunting of the camels. In a short time the baggage-train is overtaken, and we shoot on ahead. A gazelle browses near our course and raises hopes of welcome booty. With spirited movements the graceful creature--image of the desert poet’s fancy--skips and dances before its pursuers; the gasping, sharply-spurred camels rush on with gigantic strides. The gazelle seems careless and allows near approach; the riders act as if they would pass it, they rein in their beasts and ride more moderately. But one slips from the saddle to the ground, stops his beast for a moment, and from under cover of its body fires a deadly shot. In a trice the leader has sprung from his saddle to make sure of the fallen game; triumphantly he drags it along, fastens it dexterously to his saddle, and on goes our cavalcade.

Towards noon a halt is called. If there is a hollow near, it will probably contain an umbrella-like mimosa, whose thin foliage will afford some slight shade; but if the sandy plain stretches unbroken on all sides, all that can be done is to fix four lances in the sand and stretch a blanket over them. Though the sand on which one must lie is glowing, and the air one breathes is oppressive, languor and weariness overpower even the natives, how much more the Northerner. One seeks rest, but it comes not, and refreshment, but one cannot enjoy it. Blinded by the overflowing light and the tremulous atmosphere, we shut our eyes; but, tormented by scorching heat, and tortured by feverish thirst, we toss about sleepless. The hours go by on leaden feet.

The baggage-train winds slowly past and disappears in a vapourous sea on whose heaving waves the camels seem to float. Still one lingers, and continues to suffer the same agonies. The sun has long since passed the zenith, but his glowing beams are as fierce as ever. It is not till late in the afternoon that a fresh start is made. And again there is a rapid ride, whose swiftness seems almost to create a cooling breeze of air. The baggage-camels come in sight again, and are soon overtaken. The drivers stride behind them, singing; one leads the song, and the rest join in at the end of each verse in regular refrain.

When one knows the toilsome labour of the camel-driver in the desert, one wonders indeed to hear him singing. Before daybreak he loaded his camel, after he had shared with it a few handfuls of soft-boiled dhurra grains--the sole food of both; all through the long day he strides behind his beast, without a bite to eat, with at most an occasional mouthful of ill-smelling water; the sun scorches his head, the glowing sand burns his feet, the hot air parches his sweating body; for him there is no time to pause or rest; he may perhaps have had to change the loads of some of the beasts, or to catch one or other which had bolted; and yet he sings! It is the approach of night which inspires him.

When the sun goes to rest, the limbs of these wizened children of the desert seem to become supple again; in this, as in all else, they are like their mother. Like her they are parched at noon, like her they revive at night. As the sun declines, their poetic gifts weave golden dreams even in waking hours. The singer praises the well-springs rich in water, the groups of palms around them, and the dark tents in the shade; he greets a brown maiden in one of the tents, who hails him with welcome; he extols her beauty, likens her eyes to those of the gazelle, and her mouth to a rose, whose fragrance is as her words, and these as pearls in his ear; for her sake he rejects the sultan’s eldest daughter, and longs for the hours when fate shall permit him to share her tent. But his comrades admonish him to seek after higher joys, and raise his thoughts to the Prophet, “who satisfies all longing”.

Such is the song which falls on the Northerner’s ears, and the songs of home rise to his lips, and when the last rosy flush of the setting sun fades away, when night stretches her robe of witchery over the desert, then it seems to him as if the hardest had been easy, as though he had suffered no thirst in the heat, nor discomfort by the way. Cheerfully he leaps from the saddle, and while the drivers unload and tether the camels, he heaps and smooths the sand for his bed, spreads his carpet and coverlet, and gives himself over with delight to the rest he had longed for.

The small camp-fire illumines the plain only for a few paces. Around it the dark, half-naked sons of the desert move about busily; the flame casts a weird light on them, and in the half-darkness they look like shadows. The bales and boxes, saddles and utensils assume strange shapes; and the camels, lying in a wide circle outside the baggage, become ghostly figures when their eyes gleam with the reflection of the firelight. It becomes quieter and quieter in the camp. One driver after another leaves the camels, with whom he has shared his frugal supper, wraps himself in his long body-cloth, sinks to the ground, and becomes one with the sand. The fire flares up for the last time, loses its glow, and goes out. It is night in the camp.

He who would describe a night in the desert should be, by the grace of God, a poet. For how can its beauty be described, even by one who has watched, revelled, and dreamed through it all? After the heat of the day it comes as the gentle, compensating, reconciling bestower of unspeakable comfort and inspiration, bringing peace and joy, for which a man longs as for his beloved who atones to him for his long waiting. “Leïla”, the starry night of the desert, Leïla is with justice the Arab’s image of all that is fair and joyous. Leïla he calls his daughter; with the words, “my starry night”, he embraces his beloved; “Leïla, O Leïla!” is the musical refrain of his songs. And what a night it is, which here in the desert, after all the burden and discomfort of the day, soothes every sense and feeling! In undreamt-of purity and brightness the stars shine forth from the dark dome of heaven: the light of the nearest is strong enough to cast slight shadows on the pale ground. With full chest one breathes the pure, fresh, cooling, and invigorating air; with delight one gazes from star to star, and as their light seems to come nearer and nearer, the soul breaks through the fetters which bind it to the dust and holds converse with other worlds. Not a sound, not a rustle, not even the chirping of a grasshopper interrupts the current of thought and feeling. The majesty, the sublimity of the desert is now for the first time appreciated; its unutterable peace steals into the traveller’s heart. But what proud self-consciousness also fills his breast: here, in the midst of the infinite solitude, so alone, apart from all human society and help, reliant on himself only, his confidence, courage, and hope are strengthened. Dream-pictures full of infinite charm pass before his wakeful eyes, and merge in ever fresh and fascinating combinations, and as the stars begin to twinkle and tremble, his thoughts become dreams, and his eyes close in sleep.

After the refreshment which the desert night brings both to body and soul, the discomforts of the next day seem lighter, however much effort it may require to drink the water, which becomes more vile every hour. Perfect rest, unclouded comfort is only to be had at one of the desert wells. Always menaced by dearth of the most essential necessaries of life, every desert journey is a ceaseless anxiety, a restless hastening on; it is therefore entirely devoid of that ease and comfort with which one would prefer to travel. One day passes like another; each night, in favourable seasons at least, is like that which I have described. But in the oasis, the day becomes a holiday, the evening is a joyous festival, and the night brings perfect rest.

The essential condition for the formation of an oasis is a basin-like or valley-like depression. Without a gushing spring, without at least an artificial well, rich vegetation is impossible, and water is found in the desert only on the lofty mountains or in the deepest hollows. As the sea of sand is in so many respects the counterpart of the ocean, so its oases are counterparts of islands, but they do not rise above the surface, they are sunk beneath it. The water may either rise in a visible spring, or it may be found at a slight depth below the surface. Its abundance and its quality determine the character of the oasis. In the minority the water is pure and cool, but in most cases it is salt, ferruginous, or sulphurous, and on that account probably very healthful. But it is by no means always drinkable or conducive to fertility. Perhaps there is hardly one oasis which produces fresh, green sward. And it is only in very favourable places that the water is evident at all; in most cases it collects drop by drop in clefts of the rock or in shafts which have been dug for it; at times at least it has to be artificially forced. Even where the water wells up copiously it would soon lose itself in the sand, if it were not carefully collected and distributed. At the same time it always evokes a refreshing life, doubly welcome amid such sterility.

Around the spring, long before men appeared to take possession, a company of green plants had effected settlement. Who can tell how they got there? Perhaps the sand-storm sowed the seeds, which first germinated by the well, and grew into plants, with leaves, flowers, and another generation of seeds which were scattered through whole valleys. It is certain, at least, that they were not planted by men, for the mimosas which form the greater part of the little colony occur also in springless hollows, where one sees them sometimes singly, sometimes forming a small thicket of ten or twenty. They alone are able to keep life awake in the desert; they put forth green leaves, they blossom and send forth fragrance--how fresh and balmy! In their pleasant shade the gazelle rests; from their tops resound the songs of the few feathered songsters of the desert. The sappy leaves, seen amid the stiff masses of limestone, the cones of black granite, and the dazzling sand, do the eyes good like a meadow in May; their flowers as well as their shade refresh the soul.

In the larger, more copiously watered oases, men have planted palms, which lend a fresh charm to the settlement. The palm is here all in all: it is the queen of trees, the giver of fruit which sustains man and binds him to his little spot of earth, the tree around which saga and song are twined, the tree of life. What would an oasis be without palms? A tent without a roof, a house without inmate, a well without water, a poem without words, a song without tune, a picture without colour. The palm’s fruits feed the nomad herdsman and the settler alike, they become wheat or barley in his hand, they satisfy even the tax-gatherer of his lord and master. Its stems, its crown, its narrow leaves supply him with shelter and utensils, mats, baskets, and sacks, ropes and cords. In the sandy desert one first appreciates its full worth and importance, it becomes the visible emblem of Arabian poetry, which rises like it from frequently barren ground, which grows strong and fades not, which raises itself on high, and there only bears sweet fruit.

Mimosas and palms are the characteristic trees of all oases, and are never absent from those which have so many springs or wells that gardens and fields become possible. Here they are restricted, like outposts against the invading sand, to the outer fringe of the desert island, while the interior is adorned with more exacting plants which require more water. Thus around the springs or wells there are often charming gardens in which grow almost all the fruit-bearing plants of North Africa. Here the vine clambers, the orange glows amid its dark foliage, the pomegranate opens its rosy mouth, the banana expands its fan-shaped leaf clusters, the melons straggle among the beds of vegetables, prickly-pears and olives, perhaps even figs, apricots, and almonds, complete the picture of fruitfulness. At a greater distance from the centre lie the fields, bearing at least Kaffir-millet, and, in favourable conditions, wheat, or even rice.

In oases so rich man finds a permanent home, while in those which are poorer he is but a sojourner, or a more or less periodic guest. The village or small township of a large oasis is essentially like that of the nearest cultivated country; like it it has its mosques, its bazaars, its coffee-houses; but the inhabitants are children of a different spirit from that which marks the peasants or townsfolk in the Nile valley or along the coast. Although usually of diverse race among themselves they all exhibit the same customs and habits. The desert has shaped and fashioned them. Their slender build, sharply-cut features, and keen eyes, gleaming from under bushy brows, mark them at once as sons of the desert; but their habits and customs are even more characteristic. They are unexacting and readily contented, energetic and full of resource, hospitable and open-hearted, honourable and loyal, but proud, irritable, and passionate, inclined to robbery and acts of violence, like the Bedouins, though not their equals either in good or evil. A caravan entering their settlement is a welcome sight, but they expect the traveller to pay them toll.

Very different from such oases are those valleys in which a much-desired well is only to be found at times. The Arabian nomads are well pleased if the supply of drinking-water for themselves and their herds is sufficient for a few months or even weeks; and the caravan, which rests in such a place, may be content if its demands are satisfied within a few days. The well is usually a deep shaft, from whose walls the water oozes rather than trickles. A few tom-palms rise among the sparse mimosas and saltworts which surround the well; a few stems of grass break through the hard ground.

Unutterably poor are these nomad herdsmen, who pitch their tents here as long as their small flocks of goats can find anything to eat. Their struggle for existence is a continuous succession of toil, and want, and misery. Their tent is of the simplest; a long dark web of cloth, made of goats’ hair, is laid across a simple framework, and its ends pinned to the ground; a piece of the same stuff forms the back-wall, and a mat of palm-leaves forms the door in front. The web is the wife’s self-made dowry, the materials for which she gathered, spun, and wove from her eighth to her sixteenth year. A few mats which serve as beds, a block of granite and a grindstone for pounding the grain got in barter, a flat plate of clay to roast the cakes, two large jars, some leather sacks and skins, an axe and several lances, form the total furnishings. A herd of twenty goats is counted a rich possession for a family. But these people are as brave as they are poor, as lovable as they are well-built, as good-natured as they are beautiful, as generous as they are frugal, as hospitable as they are honourable, as chaste as they are devout. Ancient pictures rise in the mind of the Occidental who meets with these folk for the first time; he sees biblical characters face to face, and hears them speak in a manner with which he has been familiar from his childhood. Thousands of years have been to these nomads of the desert as one day; to-day they think, and speak, and act as did the patriarchs of old. The very greeting which Abraham uttered meets the stranger’s ear; the very words which Rebecca spoke to Abraham’s servant were addressed to me, when, tortured with thirst, I sprang from my camel at the well of Bahiuda, and begged a beautiful brown damsel for a drink of fresh water. There she stood before me, the Rebecca of thousands of years ago, alive and in unfading youth, another and yet the same.

On the arrival of the caravan the whole population of the temporary settlement assembles. The chief steps forward from their midst, and utters the greeting of peace; all the rest bid the strangers welcome. Then they offer the most precious of gifts, fresh water; it is all that they have to give, and it is given with dignified friendliness, ungrudgingly, yet without urgency. Eagerly the travellers drink in long refreshing draughts; the camels also press in riotously upon the watering-place, although they might know from experience that they must first be unloaded, tethered, and turned on the grass before they are allowed to quench an unbroken thirst of four or six days. Even at the well not a drop is wasted, therefore the camels first get any water that remains in the skins, and it is not till these are filled up again that the beasts get a fresh draught, and that with more respect to the existing supplies than their actual needs. Only at the copious wells can one satisfy their apparently unbounded desires, and see, not without amusement, how they swallow without ever looking up, and then hasten from the well to the not less eagerly desired pasture, forced by their hobbles to grotesque and clumsy movements, which make their stomachs rumble like half-filled casks.

And now begins a festival both for travellers and settlers. The former find fresh water, perhaps even milk and meat, to increase the delight of the longed-for resting-time; the latter gladly welcome any break in their life, which, in good seasons, is very monotonous. One of the camel-drivers finds in the nearest tent the favourite instrument of those who live in the desert, the tambura or five-stringed zither, and he knows right well how to use it in accompaniment to his simple song. The music allures the daughters of the camp, and slim, beautiful women and girls press inquisitively around the strangers, fastening their dark eyes on them and their possessions, inquiring curiously about this and that. Steel thy heart, stranger; else these eyes may set it on fire. They are more beautiful than those of the gazelle, the lips beneath put corals to shame, and the dazzling teeth excel any pearls which thou couldst give these daughters of the desert. And soon all yields to music and to song. Around the zither-player groups arrange themselves for the dance; hands both hard and soft beat time to the tune, the words, and the regular swaying movements. New forms come and those we have become familiar with disappear; there is a constantly changing bustle and crowd around the strangers, who are wise if they regard all with the same innocence and simplicity which their hosts display. All the discomforts of the journey are forgotten, and all longings are satisfied, for water flows abundantly and takes the place of all that one might desire in other places or at other seasons.

Such a rest revives body and soul. Strengthened and encouraged the caravan goes on its way, and if the days bring nothing worse than scorching, thirst, and fatigue, a second, and a third well is safely reached, and finally the goal of the journey--the first township on the other side of the desert. But the desert--the sea of sand--is like the all-embracing ocean also in that it is fickle. For here too there are raging storms, which wreck its ships and raise destruction-bringing billows. When the north wind, which blows continuously for months, comes into conflict with currents from the south, or yields them the mastery, the traveller suddenly sees the sand become alive, rising in huge pillars as thick as they are high, which whirl more or less rapidly over the plain. The sun’s rays sometimes lend them the ruddy gleam of flames, at another time they seem almost colourless, yet again, portentously dark, the furious storm weakens them and strengthens them, splits them and unites them, sometimes merging two or more into one huge sand-spout which reaches to the clouds. Well might the Occidental exclaim at the sublimity of the spectacle, did not the anxious looks and words of his escort make him dumb. Woe to the caravan which is overtaken by one of these raging whirlwinds, it will be good fortune if man and beast escape alive. And even if the inexorable messenger of fate pass over the party without doing harm, danger is by no means over, for behind the sand-spouts usually comes the Simoom or poisonous storm.

This ever-dreaded wind, which blows as the Chamasin through Egypt, as the Sirocco towards Italy, as the Föhn through the Alps, as the Tauwind in North Europe, does not always rise into a storm; not unfrequently it is hardly noticeable, and yet it makes many a man’s heart tremble. Of course much that is fabulous is told of it, but this much is true, that it is in certain conditions extremely dangerous to the caravan, and that it is responsible for the bleached skeletons of camels and the half-buried, half-mummified, corpses of men that one sees by the wayside. It is not its strength, but its character, its electric potential, which brings suffering and destruction to man and beast wandering on the sandy sea.

The natives and the observant can foretell the coming of the sand-storm at least one day, often several days, ahead. Unfailing symptoms tell of its approach. The air becomes sultry and oppressive; a light, grayish or reddish vapour obscures the sky; and there is not a breath of wind. All living creatures suffer visibly under the gradually increasing sultriness; men grumble and groan; the wild animals are shyer than usual; the camels become restless and cross, jostling one another, jibbing stubbornly, even lying down on the ground. The sun sets without any colour; no red-glow fringes the evening sky; every light is veiled in a vaporous shroud. Night brings neither coolness nor refreshment, rather an aggravation of the sultriness, the lassitude, the discomfort; in spite of all weariness one cannot sleep. If men and beasts are still able to move, no rest is taken, but they hurry on with the most anxious haste as long as the leader can see any of the heavenly bodies. But the vapour becomes a dry fog, obscuring one constellation after another, hiding moon and sun, though in the most favourable conditions these may be visible, about half their normal size, pale in colour and of ill-defined contour.

Sometimes it is at midnight that the wind begins to raise its wings; more commonly about noon. Without a watch no one could tell the time, for the fog has become so thick that the sun is completely hidden. A gloomy twilight covers the desert, and everything even within a short radius is hazy and indistinct. Gently, hardly perceptibly the air at length begins to move. It is not a breeze, but the merest breath. But this breath scorches, pierces like an icy wind into bone and marrow, producing dull headache, enervation, and uneasiness. The first breath is followed by a more perceptible gust, equally piercing and deadening. Several brief blasts rage howling across the plain.

It is now high time to encamp. Even the camels know this, for no whip will make them take another step. Panic-stricken they sink down, stretch out their long necks in front of them, press them closely on the sand, and shut their eyes. Their drivers unload them as rapidly as possible, build the baggage into a barricade, and heap all the water-bags closely together, so as to present the least possible surface to the wind, and cover them with any available mats. This accomplished, they wrap themselves as closely as may be in their robes, moisten the part which surrounds the head, and take refuge behind the baggage. All this is done with the utmost despatch, for the sand-storm never leaves one long to wait.

Following one another in more rapid succession, the blasts soon become continuous, and the storm rages. The wind roars and rumbles, pipes and howls in the firmament; the sand rushes and rages along the ground; there is creaking and crackling and crashing among the baggage as the planks of the boxes burst. The prevailing sultriness increases till the limit of endurance seems all but reached; all moisture leaves the sweat-covered body; the mucous membranes begin to crack and bleed; the parched tongue lies like a piece of lead in the mouth; the pulse quickens, the heart throbs convulsively; the skin begins to peel, and into the lacerations the raging storm bears fine sand, producing new tortures. The sons of the desert pray and groan, the stranger murmurs and complains.

The severest raging of the sand-storm does not usually last long, it may be only for an hour, or for two or three, just like the analogous thunder-storm in the north. As it assuages the dust sinks, the air clears, perhaps a counter-breeze sets in from the north; the caravan rearranges itself and goes on its way. But if the Simoom last for half a day or for a whole day, then it may fare with the traveller as it did with an acquaintance of mine, the French traveller Thibaut, as he journeyed through the Northern Bahiuda desert. He found the last well dry, and with almost exhausted water-bags he was forced to push on towards the Nile, four days’ journey off. On him and his panic-stricken caravan, which had left every dispensable piece of baggage at the dry well, the deadly storm broke loose. The unfortunate company encamped, hoped for the end of the storm, but waited in vain, mourning, desponding, desperate. One of Thibaut’s servants sprang up maddened, howled down the storm, raged, and raved, and at last, utterly spent, fell prostrate on his master, gasped, and died. A second fell victim to sunstroke, and when the storm at last abated was found dead in his resting-place. A third lingered behind the rest after they had started again on their life-or-death race, and he also perished. Half of the camels were lost. With the remnant of his company Thibaut reached the Nile, but in two days his coal-black hair had become white as snow.

To such storms are due the mummied corpses which one sees by the path of the caravan. The storm which killed them also buries them in the drifting sand; this removes all moisture so quickly that the body, instead of decaying, dries up into a mummy. Over them one wind casts a shroud of sand, which another strips away. Then the corpse is seen stretching its hand, its foot, or its face towards the traveller, and one of the drivers answers the petition of the dead, covers him again with sand, and goes on his way, saying, “Sleep, servant of God, sleep in peace.”

To such storms are also due the dream-pictures of the Fata Morgana which arise in the minds of the survivors. As long as a man pursues his way with full, undiminished strength and with sound senses, the mirage appears to him merely as a remarkable natural phenomenon, and in no wise as Fata Morgana. During the hot season, especially about noon, but from nine in the morning until three o’clock, the “devil’s sea” is to be seen daily in the desert. A gray surface like a lake, or more accurately like a flooded district, is formed on every plantless flat at a certain distance in front of or around the traveller; it heaves and swells, glitters and shimmers, leaves all actually existing objects visible, but raises them apparently to the level of its uppermost stratum and reflects them down again. Camels or horses disappearing in the distance appear, like the angels in pictures, as if floating on clouds, and if one can distinguish their movements, it seems as if they were about to set down each limb on a cushion of vapour. The distance which limits the phenomenon remains always the same, as long as the observer does not change his angle of vision; and thus it varies for the rider and the pedestrian. The whole phenomenon depends on the well-known law, that a ray of light passing through a medium which is not homogeneous is refracted, and thus it is inevitable, since the lower strata of air become expanded by reflection of heat from the glowing sand. No Arab hides his face when he sees a mirage, as fanciful travellers assure their credulous readers; none puts any deep interpretation on the phrase which he likes to use--“the devil’s sea”. But when the anxiety, distress, enervation, and misery consequent on a sand-storm beset and weaken him, and the mirage appears, then it may become a Fata Morgana, for the abnormally excited imagination forms pictures which are in most perfect harmony with the most urgent desire of the moment--the desire for water and for rest. Even to me, who have observed the mirage hundreds of times, the Fata Morgana appeared once. It was after four-and-twenty hours of torturing thirst that I saw the devil’s sea sparkling and gleaming before me. I really thought I saw the sacred Nile and boats with full-bellied sails, palm-groves and woods, and country-houses. But where my abnormal senses perceived a flourishing palm-grove, my equally abnormal comrade saw sailing-boats, and where I fancied I recognized gardens, he saw not less imaginary woodland. And all the deceptive phantasms vanished as soon as we were refreshed with an unexpected draught of water; only the nebulous gray sea remained in sight.