'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎i-v] (70/72)

Notwithstanding the bitter early morning cold "David the Poet^' so far abated his
puritanical sternness as to come and see the kdjila off.
ShatMtha. Towards noon the very considerable town of Shath&tha
rose like a bank of clouds on the horizon. Miles upon miles of dark green date-palm here
embrace a great natural spring and basin of tepid mineral water having a highly medicinal
smell. Strictly speaking it is less a town than a large collection of semi-chateau semi-
fortalice homesteads, spread over an extensive surface, and many of them surrounded with
small hamlets. In so straggling a place the population is difficult to reckon, but it must
be counted by thousands. Here, too, dates and lucern are the principal products. The
latter not being ready for cutting, no forage was to be had. In the centre of everything
the Osmanli have a government house or Sardi. As mere townspeople, and moreover
Shias, the inhabitants of Shathatha may not have much in common with their Bedouin
neighbours. Nevertheless, just as Der was seen to be a good place to feel the Ih-ni-Zah,
so Shathatha will generally be found affording numerous glimpses of Cental Arabian tribes
and politics. At the period now referred to the talk was all of the Amir Muhammad
Ibnu'r Rashid, of Jabal Shammar, now without doubt the rising star of independent Arabia.
Quite lately the Amir had shown himself as far north as Shath^tha, at the head of his desert
legions, pillaging and driving before him the Ih-ni-zah, but scorning to touch settled folk.
Nevertheless, the Osmanli had not liked it, and a letter of remonstrance had been sent to
him, it was said, by the Baghdad Government. Wonderful stories were in everyone's mouth
as to the generosity, prowess, and barbaric splendour of this latest aspirant to the empire of
Najd. Camels laden with dollars, it is believed, always form part of his train,* while a
guard of black slaves waits day and night on his glance, equally to avert from him the fate
he has meted out to so many others, and to deal in a moment with any one obnoxious to
him. Taking his stand less on Wah&byism, now perhaps played out, than on the surer
foundation of dollars, camels, and breech-loaders, there is no saying how far this scion of an
adventurous stock may go.t
In passing out of Shathatha the route was over narrow paths, by the side of blue and
T K b vapourish running water; past at first squalid shops and
cottages, then houses and date plantations, and so by
degrees into the desert. Like Madina itself and so many other spots within Arabia the
ShathS.tha oasis seems at one period to have supplied an asylum to the Jews, and ruined
mansions of imposing size are still called by the names of otherwise forgotten Israelites.
Nearly due west seemed to be the direction. Gradually, after passing on the left two very
large lakes of brackish water, the surface of ShS,mia, here powdered with saline or nitrous
efflorescence resembling newly fallen snow, was once more exchanged for the Babylonian
alluvium. This marked out the KarbalS, district; and presently the minarets and gilded
domes of the historical little town (population fluctuating round fifty thousand) of the same
name X rose against the sky. Included partly within the Arabian desert, partly within the
fertile plains of Lower Mesopotamia or Chaldea, this district, while offering boundless
spaces for the tents of the Ih-ni-zah, when they come in autumn to buy corn and dates and
sell their colts and camels, contains also some of the best cultivated and most productive
land in the Baghdad Pash4Iik. The town unfortunately stands about a day's journey from
the present course of the Euphrates, and the ancient canal connecting it with the river is
sometimes running, sometimes dry. But all over the cultivated parts wells abound.
Section XIV.—Karbala and Najaf.
Twelve centuries have revolved since the date of the tragedy which first made these
names household words for Islamism. But to this day, as is well known, once in every
year, that is during the first ten days of the lunar month Muharram, the memory of it is
revived by dramatic representations and other means everywhere in the Muhammadan
world.
Among the political and religious facts lying near the surface at Karbala and Najaf
the following may be mentioned: millions of pious Mus-
General features i
lims hold the spots themselves not less worthy than Mecca
* Nothing falls in with Bedouin humour more than after striking a big blow to turn all of a sudden host and
patron. In 1880 this same Ibnu'r Rashid led a ghaziH to within eight miles of Damascus.
+ H^yil, capital of the important province of Jabal Shammar on the northern confines of Najd, forms his head
quarters. Palgrave visited H^yil (in disguise) in 1862—vide his "Central and Eastern Arabia;" also Mr. and the
Lady Anne Blunt, openly, in 1879; latter's " Pilgrimage to Najd " containing a picturesque description of present
Amir and his surroundings
nit
X Also called Mashhad Husain, mean place of martyrdom (lit, testifying) of Husain.