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Updated: June 14, 2025
Under the lamps she was the embodiment of all that was coarse and greasy. Even the pitiful slenderness of Irena seemed attractive when compared with her billowing charms, which she kept in a continual commotion that was almost terrifying. "Hadj is nearly dead with fear," whispered Batouch, complacently. Domini's lips curled.
The poet was in the white arcade with Hadj, who looked both wicked and deplorable, and had a shabby air, in marked contrast to Batouch's ostentatious triumph. Domini felt quite sorry for him. "You come with us too," she said. Hadj squared his shoulders and instantly looked vivacious and almost smart. But an undecided expression came into his face. "Where is Madame going?" "To see the village."
It was a curious but instructive attitude. These miserable men were quite proud to think that the tyranny of their kaid, the great El Arbi bel Hadj ben Haida, was not to be rivalled by anything Shiadma could show. They instanced his treatment of them and pointed to the young boy who was of their company.
Suddenly she found herself thinking of the fanatical religious performance she had seen with Hadj on the night when she had ridden out to watch the moon rise. She saw in imagination the bowing bodies, the foaming mouths, the glassy eyes of the young priests of the Sahara.
Their number must be supposed very great, even if the caravan be but thinly attended, when it is considered that besides those carrying water and provisions for the hadjys and soldiers, their horses, and the spare camels brought to supply such as may fail on the road, daily food for the camels themselves must be similarly transported; as well as provisions, which are deposited in castles on the Hadj route, to form a supply for the return.
From Lyne three days' journey, in a desert without water, brings the traveller to the well of Shebekka, and from that one day to the town of Meshehd Aly. This is the summer route in winter, when the rain-water is collected in ponds on the way, the Arabs travel from the well of Shebekka by the road called Derb Bereydha, the ancient Hadj route of the Khalifes when they went on pilgrimage.
He was a native of some place near Sanaa; and as the pilgrimage or Hadj el Kebsy had been for some years interrupted, and he could not afford a passage by sea to Djidda, he undertook this route, which is practicable even in these critical times to those who can pass unsuspected in the character of pilgrims. He was every where treated with hospitality.
Two of these men were very young, with pale, ascetic faces and weary eyes. They looked like young priests of the Sahara. At a short distance, upon a red pillow, sat a tiny boy of about three years old, dressed in yellow and green. When Domini and Hadj came into the court no one looked at them except the child, who stared with slowly-rolling, solemn eyes, slightly shifting on the pillow.
The rate of hire this year was very moderate, on account of the great number of beasts of burden: I engaged two of these camels, for the journey of four days to Arafat and back again, for three dollars. On the 8th of Zul Hadj, early in the morning, the Syrian Hadj passed in procession through the town, accompanied by all its soldiers, and carrying the Mahmal in front.
Over the djerbi, to protect her from the sun, or wind and blowing sand, were hung heavy rugs made by the women of the Djebel Amour mountains, the red and blue folds ornamented by long strands and woollen tassels of kaleidoscopic colours. There was a musician among the camel-drivers, chosen especially so said Ben Hadj because he knew and could sing a hundred famous songs of love and war.
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