Authors: Wilfred Thesiger
As I entered the town of Salala I passed a small caravan, two men with four camels tied head to tail, and when I questioned the guard who was with me he said that these camels were carrying
mughur,
or frankincense. Today, however, the trade is small and of little value, hardly more important in the market at Salala than the buying and selling of goats and firewood.
My attention was caught by the men who led the camels. They were small and wiry, about five feet four inches in height, and were dressed in a length of dark-blue cloth wound round their waists, with an end thrown over one shoulder; the indigo had run out from the cloth and smeared their chests and arms. They were bare-headed, and their hair was long and untidy. Both of them wore daggers and carried rifles. My guard said that they were Bedu from beyond the mountains and that they belonged to the Bait Kathir. In the market-place were more of them, while others waited outside the palace gates. They reminded me of the tribesmen whom I had seen recently at Dhala on the Yemen border, and seemed very different to the Arabs from the great Bedu tribes I had met in Syria and the Najd.
The palace gates were guarded by armed men dressed in long Arab shirts and head-cloths. Some of them were from Oman and the rest were slaves; none were local tribesmen. One of them took me into the reception hall, where I met the Wali. He was a townsman from Oman, large and portly. He was dressed in a white shirt reaching to the ground, a brown cloak, embroidered with gold, and a Kashmiri shawl which was loosely wrapped round his head. He wore a large curved dagger at the middle of his stomach. I greeted him in Arabic, and before we started our discussion I ate a few dates and drank three cups of bitter black coffee handed to me by one of his retainers.
The Wali told me that he had been instructed by the Sultan to collect a party of Bedu with camels to take me to Mughshin. He said that he had arranged for forty-five Bedu to go with me and that now he would send messengers into the desert to fetch them. I thanked him, but suggested that forty-five were far more than I needed, and that a dozen would be quite
enough. I knew that the British Consul in Muscat, when he got permission for me to do this journey, had agreed with the Sultan that the size of the party should be fixed by the Wali, and that I was to pay the equivalent of ten shillings a day to each man who went with me. I realized that everyone here regarded my journey as a heaven-sent opportunity to enrich himself, and that they would all try to make my party as large as possible. The Wali now insisted that, as there was a serious risk of my meeting raiders, he could not take the responsibility of allowing me to go to Mughshin with fewer than forty-five men, and that the Bedu themselves would not agree to go with a smaller party. I knew there had been raiding near Mughshin when Bertram Thomas went there in 1929, but as he was the only European who had ever crossed the Qarra mountains, which I had seen that morning six or eight miles beyond the camp, I was completely ignorant of what conditions were now like in the desert beyond. Eventually, after several meetings with the Wali I agreed to take thirty Arabs. The Wali told me they would be from the Bait Kathir tribe, and added that they would be ready to start in a fortnight.
I arranged to spend this time travelling in the Qarra mountains, which had been explored by Theodore and Mabel Bent in 1895 and by Bertram Thomas in 1929. The Wali said that he would send four of his retainers with me, two Omanis and two slaves, and that we should have to hire camels from the Qarra, who live in the mountains, changing them every time we crossed from one valley into the next, since each valley was owned by a different section of the tribe, and all of them were jealous of each other and much divided by feuds. He warned me: ‘Don’t trust them. These mountain folk are not like the Bedu from the desert. They are treacherous and thievish; altogether without honour.’
It was obvious that, although the Qarra lived only a few miles from Salala, the Sultan of Muscat had little control over them. Arabs rule but do not administer. Their government is intensely individualistic, and is successful or unsuccessful according to the degree of fear and respect which the ruler commands, and his skill in dealing with individual men.
Founded on an individual life, their government is impermanent and liable to end in chaos at any moment. To Arab tribesmen this system is comprehensible and acceptable, and its success or failure should not be measured in terms of efficiency and justice as judged by Western standards. To these tribesmen security can be bought too dearly by loss of individual freedom.
Two days later we rode our camels across the stony plain of Jarbib; we passed some cultivation and went on towards Jabal Qarra, which is about two thousand feet high, and is flanked on either side by much higher mountains which close in on the sea. Some peculiarity in the shape of these mountains draws the monsoon clouds, so that the rain concentrates upon the southern slopes of Jabal Qarra, which are in consequence covered with mist and rain throughout the summer and were now dark with jungles in full leaf after the monsoon. All the way along the south Arabian coast for 1,400 miles from Perim to Sur, only these twenty miles get a regular rainfall. The mountains on either side are often beautiful, especially at dawn and sunset when borrowed colours soften the austerity of rock and sand, but they are seldom touched with green. Usually the few camel-thorns, which throw a thin mesh of shadow over the darkly patinated rock, rustle dryly in the breeze. But on Jabal Qarra the jungle trees are wreathed with jasmine and giant convolvulus and roped together with lianas. Massive tamarinds grow in the valleys, and on the downs great fig-trees rise above the wind-rippled grass like oaks in an English park.
We camped in the mouth of a valley near a Qarra village. To my unpractised eye these tribesmen were similar in appearance to the Bait Kathir whom I had seen in Salala, but they spoke their own language, whereas the Bait Kathir spoke Arabic. Three tribes, the Qarra, Mahra, and Harasis, as well as the remnants of others like the Shahara, speak different dialects of a common origin and are known to the Arab-speaking tribes as the Ah! al Hadara. Bertram Thomas had made some study of these dialects, sufficient to establish that they were closely related to the ancient Semitic languages of the Minaeans, Sabaeans, and Himyarites. He suggested that Hadara
may perhaps be identified with Hadoram, who is given in Genesis as one of the sons of Joktan, a descendant of Shem, and that Hadhramaut, the present-day name of the country immediately to the west of the Mahra country, could be connected with Hazaramaveth, the brother of Hadoram.
As we climbed the mountain-side I noticed paradise flycatchers, rufous and black, with long white streamers in their tails, and brilliant butterflies. They were in keeping with the jungles which surrounded us, and as unexpected in Arabia. Then we came out on to the downs and camped near the top of the mountain. I walked to the watershed, anxious to see what lay beyond, and found myself standing between two worlds. To the south were green meadows where cattle grazed, thickets, and spreading trees, whereas a stone’s throw to the north was empty desert – sand, rocks, and a few wisps of withered grass. The transition was as abrupt as it is between the irrigated fields and the desert in the Nile valley. Here the dividing line followed the crest of the mountains.
The Qarra were camped in family groups on the downs. They owned small humpless cattle, a few camels, and flocks of goats, but no sheep, horses, or dogs. Most of the families owned twenty to thirty cows. Thomas mentioned in his book that when a man died his family sacrificed half his cows. He thought that this custom was peculiar to them, but apparently the Wahiba, a Bedu tribe in Oman, do the same. They also had another strange practice which hitherto I had seen only among the Nuer in the southern Sudan. Before a man milked a cow – women were forbidden even to touch the udders – he would sometimes put his lips to the cow’ s vagina and blow into it to induce the cow to lower her milk. These Qarra told me that they would remain here till January and then move down to the foot of the mountain and collect in large cattle camps – one of which we had passed on the way – small grass shelters crowded together in the mouth of the valley. When the monsoon started they would move back into the valleys and shelter their animals in caves in the limestone cliffs, or in low dark byres made of stones and roofed with matted grass.
I stayed there for ten days. Then I heard rumours that the
Bait Kathir, who were to go with me, were in Salala, and I decided to go back. Some Qarra came with us. They carried butter, firewood, and a pot of wild honey which they would sell in the market. They said they would buy dried sardines, which they feed to their animals later in the season when the grazing gets scarce.
On my return the Wali invited me to meet some of the Bait Kathir who were to go with me. There were eight of them sitting with him when I arrived. Six wore head-cloths and Arab shirts reaching half-way down their calves; two were bareheaded and dressed only in loin-cloths. All wore daggers and cartridge belts; they had left their rifles outside the audience hall. While we drank coffee and ate dates I wondered how I should get on with these people. An old man with a fringe of white beard and twinkling eyes, Salim Tamtaim, was their head sheikh. The Wali said he was eighty, but still vigorous, having just married another wife; and the old man exclaimed ‘Eh, by God, I can still ride and shoot.’ I noticed especially a man called Sultan who looked more like a Red Indian than an Arab. The others deferred to him rather than to Tamtaim, and I remembered that the Qarra had said: ‘Sultan has arrived in Salala with the Bait Kathir’ It was obvious that he was their leader. He had a striking face, austere, lined, and hairless, except for a few hairs growing in a curl on his chin. The Wali pointed to another of them and said: ‘Musallim will shoot meat for you. He is famous as a hunter.’ The man of whom he spoke was dressed in a clean white shirt, and an embroidered head-cloth. He was a small man, like all the others, but he was more solidly built and slightly bow-legged. He looked more of a townsman than a Bedu. I arranged with them that they should fetch me next morning from the R.A.F. camp.
They arrived after breakfast accompanied by a large crowd from Salala. They were a wild-looking lot, most of them wearing only lojn-cloths, and all of them armed with rifles and daggers. I showed old Tamtaim and Sultan the food I had provided for the journey – rice, flour, dates, sugar, tea, coffee, and liquid butter. With the help of the R.A.F. storeman I had done it up in sacks in what seemed to me suitable-sized
loads, but Sultan said at once that they were too heavy. They undid them and started to repack, pouring the rice, flour, and sugar into dirty-looking goatskin bags. They argued endlessly among themselves, shouting in harsh voices. The camels were led up and couched, but they struggled roaring to their feet, and were couched again. An unkempt savage with inflamed eyes and a tangled mop of hair refused to allow a camel to be loaded, and started to lead it away. Someone else seized the camel’s halter, and I thought they were going to fight. Everyone else gathered round and shouted. I could understand little of what they said. Eventually the camel was led back and loaded.
When they were nearly ready I went into the hut where I had been staying and put on my Arab clothes. To have worn European clothes would have alienated these Bait Kathir at once, for although a few of them had travelled with Bertram Thomas, most of them had not even spoken to an Englishman before. I wore a loin-cloth, a long shirt, and a head-cloth with the ends twisted round my head in their fashion. None of these Bait Kathir wore the black woollen head-rope which is a conspicuous feature of Arab dress in the north.
As this was the first time I had worn Arab dress I felt extremely self-conscious. My shirt was new, white, and rather stiff, very noticeable among the Bedu’s dingy clothes. They were all small men, and as I am six foot two I felt as conspicuous as a lighthouse, and as different from them as one of the R.A.F.
On previous journeys I had commanded respect as an Englishman, and in the Sudan I had the prestige of being a government official. When I had travelled in the desert there I had tried to break through the barrier that lay between me and my companions, but I had always felt rather condescending. Now for the first time I was travelling without a servant. Quite alone among a crowd of Arabs whom I had never seen before, I should be with them for three or four months, even for six if I undertook the second journey to the Hadhramaut which I was already planning. At first glance they seemed to to be little better than savages, as primitive as the Danakil, but I was soon disconcerted to discover that, while they were
prepared to tolerate me as a source of very welcome revenue, they never doubted my inferiority. They were Muslims and Bedu and I was neither. They had never heard of the English, for all Europeans were known to them simply as Christians, or more probably infidels, and nationality had no meaning for them. They had heard vaguely of the war as a war between the Christians, and of the Aden government as a Christian government. Their world was the desert and they had little if any interest in events that happened outside it. They identified me with the Christians from Aden, but had no idea of any power greater than that of Ibn Saud. One day they spoke of a sheikh in the Hadhramaut who had recently defied the government and against whom the Aden levies had carried out some rather inconclusive operations. I realized that they thought that this force was all that my tribe could muster. They judged power by the number and effectiveness of fighting men, not by machines which they could not understand.
I shall always remember the first camp at the foot of the Qarra mountains. We had stopped in a shallow watercourse which ran out into the plain, and we had dumped our kit wherever there was room for it among thorn bushes and boulders. The others were soon busy, greasing water-skins, twisting rope, mending saddles, and looking to their camels. I sat near them, very conscious of their scrutiny. I longed to go over and join them in their tasks, but I was kept awkwardly apart by my reserve. For the first and last time I felt lonely in Arabia. Eventually old Tamtaim hobbled over and invited me to drink coffee with them, and Sultan fetched my blankets and saddlebags and put them down beside the fire. Later Musallim cooked rice and six of us fed together.