United States or Somalia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The camels varied from fifty-eight to sixty-four, when specimens were forwarded to the harbour-town. The expenditure amounted toL92 13s., including pay and "bakhshish" to the Baliyy Shaykhs, but not including our friends the Sayyid, Furayj, and the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah.

Pectunculus lividus, Reeve. 73. Pectunculus pectenoides, Deshayes. 74. Avicula margaritifera, Linne. 75. Tridacna gigas, Linne. On the day of our arrival at El-Wijh I sent a hurried letter of invitation to Mohammed 'Afnan, Shaykh of the Baliyy tribe; inviting him to visit the Expedition, and to bring with him seventy camels and dromedaries.

There might have been treachery in camp; the Egyptian officers suggested that a Baliyy scout could have been sent on to announce the approach of a rich caravan. Accordingly, I ordered an evening review of our "Remingtons;" and chose a large mark purposely, that the Bedawi lookers-on might not have cause to scoff.

The name of the noble animal was El-Mashhur; that of its owner is, characteristically enough, forgotten by the Arabs: it lived in the Days of Ignorance; others add, more vaguely still, when the Beni 'Ukbah, the lords of the land, were warring with the Baliyy. The gorge was then a mere cutting, blocked up by this rock.

The condition of the digging proves that the remains have not long been opened: the Baliyy state less than half a century ago; but exactly when or by whom is apparently unknown to them. Before that time the locale must have shown a mere tumulus, a mound somewhat larger than the many which pimple the raised valley-bank behind the building.

Lastly, I must mention one 'Audah 'Adayni, a Huwayti bred in the Baliyy country, a traveller to Cairo, passing intelligent and surpassing unscrupulous. Confidential for a consideration, he told all the secrets of his employers, and it is my firm conviction that he was liberally paid for so doing by both parties of wiseacres.

Our travel will now lie through the Baliyy country, and a few words concerning this ancient and noble tribe may here be given. Although they apparently retain no traditions of their origin, they are known to genealogists as a branch of the Beni Kuda', who, some fifteen centuries ago, emigrated from Southern Arabia, and eventually exterminated the Thamudites.

The following notes upon the ruins of the Wady Hamz were supplied to me by the Baliyy Bedawin and the citizens of El-Wijh. Six stages up the lower valley, whose direction lies nearly north-east, lead to El-'Ila, Wallin's "Ela," which belongs to the 'Anezah.

The Huwaytat, for example, know their way to Suez and to Cairo; they have seen civilization; they have learned, after a fashion, the outlandish ways of the Frank, the Fellah, and the Turk-fellow. The Baliyy have to be taught all these rudiments. Cunning, tricky, and "dodgy," as is all the Wild-Man-race, they lie like the "childish-foolish," deceiving nobody but themselves.

Shaykh 'Afnan and his tribe are now models of courtesy to strangers; and the traveller must devoutly wish that every Shaykh in Arabia could be subjected to the same discipline. The Baliyy are a good study of an Arab tribe in the rough.