'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎13r] (25/72)

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summer, all of the Shammar who love to stand on the old ways. No opportunity of meet
ing Farh^n or F&ris occurred at this time. The former, a letter of introduction to whom
His Excellency the Wali of Baghdad had been good enough to supply, was away playing
the courtier at Baghdad, while the latter and his free lances were tending their camels
or waiting for a prey, in remote solitudes. The few Shammar camps fallen in with be
tween Hit and Tiknt were of the ordinary type.
More noteworthy a body of Ih-ni-zah of the Salgah tribe, who, doubtless for some suffi-
Salgah tribe of Ih-ni-zah. f ient reason . their own people, and become what
is called " Gasir" or refugees with the Shammar. These
were remarkable for their poverty-stricken look. Half-naked, tlear-eyed, and pinched with
cold, the contrast between them and the mares hobbled outside their tents realised the
Gulliverian conception of the Yahoo.
There was no getting near people like the above without the Commander of the Os-
The Osmanli escort manli escort sticking close. Riding a mule for which no
pace proved too fast, this excellent officer (a Chachan or
Caucasian) was not to be escaped from, at any rate on marching days. Between him and
this Salgah there was mutual antipathy ; he looking on them as of the nature of Ferse
Naturae ; and they on him as a kind of executioner and tax-gatherer in one. This made
them but surlily civil, and indeed they looked truculent enough to cut one's throat for the
sake of the gilt buttons on his cloak, which they, no doubt, thought were gold. Their inform
ation was at zero point. The Sultan they knew something about; but the English they
seemed t,o think a branch or variety of the great tribe of " Muskao" or Russian ! That a
British officer should be going about attended by an Osmanli soldier was a thing past their
comprehension.
The nightly halts were made near wells [abydr) yet not too near, for fear of ghazti;
the Ih-ni-zah to the west of the Euphrates being as apt to
Halting places. r aid upon the Shammar as the latter are to swim their
mares across the river and harry the Ih-ni-zah in the so-called country of Shamia.
Even in the best wells the water tasted like epsom salts. Still, as any water is better
^ ^ than none, their names and sites are shown in accompany.
ing special sketch map. Several wells proved choked and
others dried up. In more than one were carcases of gazelles, which, in their haste to drink,
had fallen in and been drowned.- The Arabic word [Irdd) for watering mules or horses,
meaning literally the causing, or helping, them to reach it, deserves a thought from those
who hold Arabia to have been the original habitat of the equidae.
Between Hit and Tiknt there are not many landmarks, and a guide is requisite.
^ One of the few physical fea'tures traceable is the ivddi. or
Physical features. , a / , • •
valley, of Thirthar (the ancient Thirtha), a great natural
water-course more or less bisecting Mesopotamia from towards the Sinj&r range on the
north to the vast salt marsh below Tikrit on the south. Winter as it was, a fine growth of
the saffron-coloured himri clothed the desert. Than this grass there is no better forage;
and if only an expedition were provided with the means of reaping it, and compressing it
into bales, chopped straw would not be necessary. Mares and geldings can be turned loose
in it to eat their fill. But stallions get so excited by the desert air, or perhaps by the pre
sence of strange mares, that animals noted for their sobriety after the longest march think
only of attacking some rival. Not a day passed without exemplifying the numerous
inconveniences, and even risks to life and limb, of taking stallions out among the Arabs.
The Bedouin have neither grooms nor stables; and any one visiting them on an entire
horse finds him a troublesome charge all the time he stays with them. Besides himri the
Mesopotamian soil yields a great variety of aromatic shrubs, on which horses and camels
feed greedily.
Early in the fourth march Tiknt was sighted. Here was born SMihu'd-din of the
Crusades, better known as Saladin, whose father, a Kurdi
Chief, was Governor of its ancient castle, under the Sel-
jukian Kings of Persia. Strategically it deserves note as about the furthest inhabited point
on the Tigris to which steamers can with certainty ascend. But in itself it is a poor place,
peopled mostly by Arabs engaged in the traffic by boats and rafts between Mosul and Bagh
dad. As in Hit and Rumadi, the Osmanli element in it is represented by a revenue officer
from Baghdad, a scribe or two, and a few gens d'armes, or dhdhitia. One's further course
lying on the opposite or eastern side of the Tigris, it was thought as well to cross the
river at once so as to get clear of the town. This proved a long business. First, the mules
B I