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The party from the yacht numbered eighteen; there were fifty Bedawi Arabs in attendance on a hundred camels; eight horses, Arabs or Somali ponies, each required a syce, while the sheikh who had brought the caravan from Pajura was overlord of a score of hangers-on who figured in his list as servants. A thin haze of dust rose as this regiment advanced.
But I would not be beaten by the enemy upon the subject of the lapis Pharanitis mine. During the course of the day, a Jerafin Bedawi, Selim ibn Musallim, brought in scoriae of copper and iron; and on the morrow I sent him as guide to Lieutenant Yusuf, with an escort of two soldiers and eight quarrymen on seven camels.
Our ideas as to Bedouin and Bedawi, which latter word we never heard while we were in Southern Arabia, were that they were tall, bearded men, not very dark in colour, and our imaginations connected them with hospitality and much clothes. None of these characteristics are found among the Bedouin of this district. Bedouin is not a word in use, but Bedou for both singular and plural.
It was that we should change the whole direction of our journey, turning aside into the mountain of the Druzes. The Druzes were at war with many of the Bedu probably with this man's tribe; at any rate, a Bedawi, unless disguised, would run grave risk among them while the war was on.
Have I ever opened his door, or leaped over his fence? It is some envious jealousy from seeing me; does he think that I am like some steer among the cows, whom the bull overthrows? If this is a wretch who thinks to enrich himself at my cost, not a Bedawi and a Bedawi fit for fight, then let us put the matter to judgment.
Any trifles therefore which we might bestow on him were really nothing as compared with what he gave us every hour of every day. It grew unbearable. The people in the khan at Mazarib were laughing at us because that wretched Bedawi, a chance adherent, ruled our party. We plotted desperately to get rid of him. At length Suleymân devised a scheme.
We had looked forward to it even as to a petit Paris: so Damascus and the Syrian cities appear centres of civilization to Westerns coming from the East not from the West. It is far superior, especially in the article water, to El-Muwaylah; it exports charcoal in large quantities, and it does a thriving business with the Bedawi. Here are signs of a pier, and a mosque is to be built.
That, however, was no more than Burton had anticipated; consequently as soon as the expedition was well on the road he deprived the Bedawi of his mare and accoutrements, and retained both as hostages until Damascus should be reached again. Appropriately enough this occurred on April the First.
In the time of Sanehat the upper Tenu who held the hills were opposed to the Tenu in general who held the plains; later on the Semites of the hills opposed the Philistines of the plain, and now the fellah of the hills opposes the Bedawi of the plain.
Sulayman, the Bedawi, had killed a Wabar, whose sadly mutilated form appeared to be that of the Syrian hill coney: these men split the bullet into four; "pot" at the shortest distance, and, of course, blow to pieces any small game they may happen to hit. Early on March 16th we attacked the Sharr in a general direction from north to south, where the ascent looked easy enough.