A Pilgrimage to Nejd Volume I Part 2

At the first streak of dawn we struck our tents, loaded our camels, and a little after sunrise were on our mares and well away from the town in marching order for Nejd! At first we skirted the city, pa.s.sing the gate where St. Paul is said to have entered, and the place where he got over the wall, and then along the suburb of Maidan, which is the quarter occupied by Bedouins when they come to town, and where we had found the Tudmuri and our camels. Here we were to have met the Jerdeh, and we waited some time outside the Bawabat Allah, or "Gates of G.o.d," while Mohammed went in to make inquiries, and take leave of his Tudmuri friends. It is in front of this gate that the pilgrims a.s.semble on the day of their start for Mecca, and from it the Haj road leads away in a nearly straight line southwards. The Haj road is to be our route as far as Mezarib, and is a broad, well worn track, though of course not a road at all according to English ideas. It has, nevertheless, a sort of romantic interest, one cannot help feeling, going as it does so far and through such desolate lands, a track so many thousand travellers have followed never to return. I suppose in its long history a grave may have been dug for every yard of its course from Damascus to Medina, for, especially on the return journey, there are constantly deaths among the pilgrims from weariness and insufficient food.

Our caravan, waiting at the gate, presented a very picturesque appearance. Each of the deluls carries a gay pair of saddle-bags in carpet-work, with long worsted ta.s.sels hanging down on each side half way to the ground; and they have ornamented _reshmehs_ or headstalls to match. The camels, too, though less decorated, have a gay look; and Wilfrid on the chestnut mare ridden in a halter wants nothing but a long lance to make him a complete Bedouin. The rest of our party consists, besides Mohammed and Hanna, who have each of them a delul to ride, of Mohammed's "cousin" Abdallah, whom we call Sheykh of the camels, with his two Agheyl a.s.sistants, Awwad, a negro, and a nice-looking boy named Abd er-Rahman. These, with Mohammed, occupy one of the servants' tents, while Hanna and his "brother" Ibrahim have another, for even in the desert distinctions of religious caste will have to be preserved. It is a great advantage in travelling that the servants should be as much as possible strangers to each other, and of different race or creed, as this prevents any combination among them for mutiny or disobedience. The Agheyls will be one clique, the Tudmuri another, and the Christians a third, so that though they may quarrel with one another, they are never likely to unite against us. Not that there is any prospect of difficulty from such a cause; but three months is a long period for a journey, and everything must be thought of beforehand.

Mohammed was not long in the Maidan, and came back with the news that the Jerdeh has not been seen there, but might be at a khan some miles on the road called Khan Denun. It was useless to wait for them there, and so, wis.h.i.+ng our friend, Mr. Siouffi, good-bye (for he had accompanied us thus far) we rode on. Nothing remarkable has marked our first day's journey; a gazelle crossing the track, and a rather curious squabble between a kite, a buzzard, and a raven, in which the raven got all the profit, being the only events. From the crest of a low ridge we looked back and saw our last of Damascus, with its minarets and houses imbedded in green.

We shall see no more buildings, I suppose, for many a day. Mount Hermon to the left of it rose, an imposing ma.s.s, hazy in the hot sun, for, December though it is, the summer is far from over. Indeed, we have suffered from the heat today more than we did during the whole of our last journey.

At Denun no sign or knowledge of the Jerdeh, so we have decided to do without them. On a road like this we cannot want an escort. There are plenty of people pa.s.sing all day long, most of them, like ourselves, going to Mezarib for the annual fair which takes place there on the occasion of the Jerdeh visit. Among them, too, are zaptiehs and even soldiers; and there are to be several villages on the way. We filled our goat-skins at Denun and camped for this our first night on some rising ground looking towards Hermon. It is a still, delightful evening, but there is no moon. The sun is setting at five o'clock.

_December_ 14.-Still on the Haj road and through cultivated land, very rich for wheat or barley, Mohammed says, though it has a fine covering of stones. These are black and volcanic, very s.h.i.+ny and smooth, just as they were shot up from the Hauran when the Hauran was a volcano. The soil looks as if it ought to grow splendid grapes, and some say the bunches the spies brought to Joshua came from near here. The villages, of which we have pa.s.sed through several, are black and s.h.i.+ny too, dreary looking places even in the suns.h.i.+ne, without trees or anything pleasant to look at round them. The fields at this time of year are of course bare of crops, and it is so long since there was any rain that even the weeds are gone. This is part of what is called the Leja, a district entirely of black boulders, and interesting to archaeologists as being the land of Og, king of Basan, whose cities some have supposed to exist in ruins to the present day.

In the middle of the day we pa.s.sed a small ruin, about which Mohammed, who has been this road before, as his father was at one time camel-contractor for the Haj, told us a curious story. Once upon a time there were two children, left orphans at a very early age. The elder, a boy, went out into the world to seek his fortune, while the other, a girl, was brought up by a charitable family in Damascus. In course of time the brother and sister came together by accident, and, without knowing their relations.h.i.+p, married, for according to eastern usage the marriage had been arranged for them by others. Then, on comparing notes, they discovered the mistake which had been made; and the young man, anxious to atone for the guilt they had inadvertently incurred, consulted a wise man as to what he should do in penance. He was told to make the pilgrimage to Mecca seven times, and then to live seven years more in some desert place on the Haj road offering water to the pilgrims. This he did, and chose the place we pa.s.sed for the latter part of his penance.

When the seven years were over, however, he returned to Damascus, and the little house he had built and the fig-trees he had planted remain as a record of his story. Mohammed could not tell me what became of the girl, and seemed to think it did not matter.

He has been talking a great deal to us on the duties of brotherhood, which seemed a little like a suggestion. The rich brother, it would seem, should make the poor one presents, not only of fine clothes, but of a fine mare, a fine delul, or a score of sheep,-while the poor brother should be very careful to protect the life of his sworn ally, or, if need be, to avenge his death. Wilfrid asked him how he should set about this last, if the case occurred. "First of all," said Mohammed, "I should inquire who the shedder of blood was. I should hear, for instance, that you had been travelling in the Hauran and had been killed, but I should not know by whom. I should then leave Tudmur, and, taking a couple of camels so as to seem to be on business, should go to the place where you had died, under a feigned name, and should pretend to wish to buy corn of the nearest villagers. I should make acquaintance with the old women, who are always the greatest talkers, and should sooner or later hear all about it. Then, when I had found out the real person, I should watch carefully all his goings out and comings in, and should choose a good opportunity of taking him unawares, and run my sword through him. Then I should go back to Tudmur as fast as my delul could carry me." Wilfrid objected that in England we thought it more honourable to give an enemy the chance of defending himself; but Mohammed would not hear of this.

"It would not be right. My duty," he said, "would be to avenge your blood, not to fight with the man; and if I got the opportunity, I should come upon him asleep or unarmed. If he was some poor wretch, of no consequence, I should take one of his relations instead, if possible the head of his family. I cannot approve of your way of doing these things.

Ours is the best." Mohammed might have reasoned (only Arabs never reason), that there were others besides himself concerned in the deed being secretly and certainly done. An avenger of blood carries not only his own life but the lives of his family in his hand; and if he bungles over his vengeance, and himself gets killed, he entails on them a further debt of blood. To Mohammed, however, on such a point, reasoning was unnecessary. What he had described was the custom, and that was enough.

We are now a little to the south of the village of Gunayeh where we have sent Abdallah with a delul to buy straw. There is no camel pasture here nor anything the horses can eat. To the east we can see the blue line of the Hauran range, and to the west the Syrian hills from Hermon to Ajalon.

I told Mohammed the story of the sun standing still over Gibeon and the moon over Ajalon, which he took quite as a matter of course, merely mentioning that he had never heard it before.

I forgot to say that we crossed the old Roman road several times to-day.

It is in fair preservation, but the modern caravan track avoids it.

Perhaps in old days wheeled carriages were common and required a stone road. Now there is no such necessity. At Ghabaghat, a village we pa.s.sed about eleven o'clock, we found a tank supplied with water from a spring, and while we were waiting there watering the camels a fox ran by pursued by two greyhounds, who soon came up with and killed him. One of the dogs, a blue or silver grey, was very handsome and we tried to buy him of his owner, a soldier, but he would not take the money. After that we had a bit of a gallop in which we were pleased with our new mares. But we are both tired with even this short gallop, being as yet not in training, and we feel the heat of the sun.

_Sunday_, _December_ 15.-We have left the Leja country and are now in bare open fields, a fine district for farmers, but as uninteresting as the plains of Germany or northern France. These fields are better watered than the Leja, and we crossed several streams to-day by old stone bridges belonging to the Roman road. The streams run, I believe, eventually into the Jordan, and in one place form a marsh to the right of the road which Mohammed declared to be infested by robbers, men who lurk about in the tall reeds and when they have made a capture run off with their booty into it and cannot be followed. We saw nothing suspicious, however, nor anything of interest but a huge flock of sand grouse, of which we got four as they pa.s.sed overhead. There were also immense clouds of starlings, and we started a hare. We pa.s.sed many villages, the princ.i.p.al one being Shemskin, where there are the ruins of an old town.

Our road then bore away to the right, leaving the Roman road for good.

This goes on straight to Bozra, the chief town of the Hauran in former days.

At Tafazz we stopped to pay a visit to some Tudmuri settled there, relations of Mohammed's but not on the Ibn Ark side, very worthy people though hardly respectable as relations. Tafazz from the outside looks like a heap of ruins half smothered in dunghills. There has been a murrain among the cattle this year, and dead cows lay about in every stage of decomposition. We had some difficulty in groping our way through them to the wretched little mud hovel where the Tudmuri lived.

The family consisted of two middle-aged men, brothers, with their mother, their wives, and a pretty daughter named Shemseh (suns.h.i.+ne), some children, and an old man, uncle or grandfather of the others. These were all presently cl.u.s.tering round us, and hugging and kissing Mohammed who, I must say, showed a complete absence of false pride in spite of his fine clothes and n.o.ble appearance. Their welcome to us, poor people, was very hearty; and in a few minutes coffee was being pounded, and a breakfast of unleavened loaves, thin and good, an omelette, b.u.t.termilk (lebben), and a sweet kind of treacle (dibs), made of raisins, prepared. While we were at breakfast a little starved colt looked in at the door from the yard; and some chickens and a pretty fawn greyhound, all equally hungry I thought, watched us eagerly. The people were very doleful about the want of rain, and the loss of their yoke-oxen, which makes their next year's prospects gloomily uncertain. They told us, however, that they had a good stock of wheat in their underground granaries, sufficient for a year or even more, which shows a greater amount of forethought than I should have expected of them. In these countries it is quite necessary to provide against the famines which happen every few years, and in ancient times I believe it was a universal practice to keep a year's harvest in store.

After many entreaties that we would stay the night under their roof they at last suffered us to depart, promising that the men of the party would rejoin us the following day at Mezarib, for Mezarib was close by. There we arrived about three o'clock and are encamped on the piece of desert ground where the fair is held. The view from our tents is extremely pretty, a fine range of distant hills, the Ajlun to the south-west, and about a mile off a little lake looking very blue and bright, with a rather handsome ruined khan or castle in the foreground. To the left the tents of the Suk, mostly white and of the Turkish pattern. There are about a hundred and fifty of them in four rows, making a kind of street.

The village of Mezarib stands on an island in the lake, connected by a stone causeway with the sh.o.r.e, but the Suk is on the mainland. There is a great concourse of people with horses, and donkeys, and camels, and more are constantly coming from each quarter of the compa.s.s. They have not as yet paid much attention to us, so that we have been able to make ourselves comfortable. There is a fresh wind blowing from the south, and there is a look in the clouds of something like rain. I have never before wished for rain on a journey, but I do so heartily now; these poor people want it badly.

_December_ 16.-To-day we have done nothing but receive visits. First there came a Haurani, who announced himself as a sheykh, and gave us the information that Sotamm ibn Shaalan and the Roala are somewhere near Ezrak. If this be true it will be a great piece of good luck for us, but other accounts have made it doubtful. A more interesting visitor was a young man, a native of Bereydeh in Nejd, who, hearing that we were on our way to Jof, came to make friends with us. Though a well-mannered youth, he is evidently nothing particular in the way of position at home, and admits having been somebody's servant at Bagdad, but on the strength of a supposed descent from the Beni Laam in Nejd, he has claimed kins.h.i.+p with Mohammed and they have been sitting together affectionately all the morning, holding each an end of Mohammed's rosary. We have cross-questioned him about Nejd; but though he knows Hal and Kasim and other places, he can give us little real information. He seems to have left it as a boy. We are cheered, however, by the little he has had to tell us, as he seems to take it for granted that everybody in Nejd will be delighted to see us, and he has given us the name and address of his relations there.

Mohammed went last night to find out whether any of the Beni Sokkhr Sheykhs were at the Suk, for it is to them that we have letters from Mohammed Dukhi, and in the middle of the day Sakhn, a son of Fendi el-Faiz, the nominal head of the tribe, was introduced. He was a not ill-looking youth, and when we had shewn him our letter to his father informed us that the Sheykh had just arrived, so we sent him to fetch him. While Hanna was preparing coffee, the old man came to our tent. In person he is very different from any of the anazeh Sheykhs we have seen, reminding one rather of the Jiburi, or other Euphrates Arabs. The Beni Sokkhr are in fact of s.h.i.+mali or Northern race, which is quite distinct from the Nejdi, to which both anazeh and Shammar belong. He is a fine picturesque old man, with rugged features and grey beard and an immense nose, which put us in mind of the conventional Arab types of Scripture picture books, and seemed to correspond with a suggestion I have heard made, that the Beni Sokkhr {41} are really the Beni Issachar, a lost tribe.

The Sheykh was very much "en ceremonie," and we found it difficult to carry on conversation with him. Either he had not much to say, or did not care to say it to us; and the talk went on princ.i.p.ally between his second son Tellal, a Christian merchant (here on business), and Mohammed.

We did not, ourselves, broach the subject of our journey; but after coffee had been served, Mohammed had a private conversation with the Sheykh, which resulted in an invitation from him to his tents, which he described as being somewhere near Zerka on the Haj road, from which he will send us on to Maan, and ultimately to Jof. This plan, however, does not at all suit Wilfrid, who is determined on exploring the Wady Sirhan, which no European has ever done, and he insists that we must go first to Ezrak. Fendi, it appears, cannot take us that way, as he is on bad terms with the Kreysheh, a branch of his own tribe who are on the road.

Perhaps, too, he is afraid of the Roala. It is very perplexing, as some sort of introduction we must have at starting, and yet we cannot afford to go out of our way or even wait here indefinitely till Fendi is ready.

The Jerdeh people are after all not expected for another two days, and it may be a week before they go on.

Later in the day Sottan, Fendi's youngest son, came to us and offered to accompany us himself to Jof, but at a price which was altogether beyond our ideas. He had travelled once with some English people on the Syrian frontier, and had got foolish notions about money. Five pounds was the sum we had thought of giving; and he talked about a hundred. So we sent him away. Later still, came a Shammar from the Jebel, who said he was willing to go for fifteen mejidies, and a Kreysheh who made similar offers. We have engaged them both, but neither could do more than show us the road. They would be no introduction. The difficulty, by all accounts, of going down the Wady Sirhan, is from the Sherarat, who hang about it, and who having no regular Sheykh, cannot easily be dealt with.

They are afraid, however, of the Beni Sokkhr Sheykhs, and of course of Mohammed Dukhi and Ibn Shaalan; and if we could only get a proper representative of one or other of these to go with us, all would be right. But how to get such a one is the question.

It has been very hot and oppressive here to-day, and the appearance of rain is gone. The thermometer about noon stood at 86.

_December_ 17.-We have decided not to wait here any longer, but to go off to-morrow in the direction of Ezrak, trusting to find some one on the road. We shall have to pa.s.s through Bozra, and may have better luck there. Our Shammar seems to think it will be all right; but the Kreysheh came back this morning with a demand for thirty pounds, instead of the two pounds ten s.h.i.+llings, which he informed Mohammed, Fendi had told him to ask. He seems to be with Fendi, although his branch of the tribe are not on terms with their princ.i.p.al chief. He still talks, however, of coming on the original terms, but that will be without Fendi's permission. It is quite necessary to be, or appear to be stingy with these people, as throwing money away is considered by them the act of a simpleton.

Mohammed has been sent to the Suk to make some last purchases, and inquire about two more camels. Now that it is decided we are to go by the Wady Sirhan, we shall be obliged to buy two extra camels to carry food for the rest. In ordinary seasons this would not be necessary, but this year everybody tells us we shall find no pasture. _Altek_, which is the camel food used at Damascus, is made of a sort of grain, like small misshapen peas or lentils, the husk green and the seed red. It is mixed up into dough with wheaten flour and water, and then kneaded into egg-shaped b.a.l.l.s five inches long. Six of these b.a.l.l.s are a camel's daily ration, which, if he can pick up any rubbish by the way, will be enough to keep him fat. We are carrying barley for the mares.

Aamar and Selim, our Tafazz relations, have come to pay us their promised visit, and will perhaps accompany us to-morrow. They brought with them a measure of _ferikeh_, wheat crushed very fine, a sort of burghul, some bread, and a couple of fowls; also Mohammed's sheepskin coat, which one of the women has been lining for him; and lastly, the little greyhound we saw at their house, all as a present, or very nearly so, after the fas.h.i.+on of the country.

Mohammed has come back with two camels for our approval, one a very handsome animal, but rather long-legged, the other short and broad-chested like a prize-fighter. We have paid ten pounds and eleven pounds for them. Nothing is absolutely settled about who is going and who is not going with us. Nothing but this, that we leave Mezarib to-morrow.

As I write, an immense hubbub and a cry of thieves from the Suk. They are ducking a man in the lake.

[Picture: Salkhad]

CHAPTER III.

"Rather proclaim it That he which hath no stomach to this fight Let him depart. His pa.s.sport shall be made."

SHAKESPEARE.

Beating about-Bozra-We leave the Turkish dominions-Mohammed vows to kill a sheep-The citadel of Salkhad and the independent Druses-We are received by a Druse chieftain-Historical notice of the Hauran.

_December_ 18.-Our caravan has lost some of its members. To begin with the two guides, the Kreysheh and the Shammar have failed to make their appearance. Then Abd er-Rahman, the little Agheyl, came with a pet.i.tion to be allowed to go home. He was too young, he said, for such a journey, and afraid he might die on the road. He had brought a cousin with him as a subst.i.tute, who would do much better than himself, for the cousin was afraid of nothing. The subst.i.tute was then introduced, a wild picturesque creature all rags and elf locks and with eyes like jet, armed too with a matchlock rather longer than himself, and evidently no Agheyl.

We have agreed, however, to take him and let the other go. Unwilling hands are worse than useless on a journey. Lastly, the slave Awwad has gone. Like most negroes he had too good an opinion of himself, and insisted on being treated as something more than a servant, and on having a donkey to ride. So we have packed him too off. He was very angry when told to go, and broke a rebab we had given him to play on, for he could both play and sing well. We are now reduced to our two selves, Mohammed, Abdallah, Hanna, Ibrahim and the subst.i.tute-seven persons in all, but the Tafazz people are to go the first two days' march with us and help drive the camels.

We were glad to get clear of the dirt and noise of the Suk, and leaving the Haj road, took a cross track to the south-east, which is to lead us to Bozra. All day long we have been pa.s.sing through a well-inhabited country, with plenty of villages and a rich red soil, already ploughed, every acre of it, and waiting only for rain. The road was full of people travelling on donkey-back and on foot to Mezarib, singing as they went along. In all the numerous villages we saw the effects of the late murrain in the dead cattle strewed about. I counted seventy carca.s.ses in one small place, a terrible loss for the poor villagers, as each working cow or bullock was worth ten pounds. I asked what disease had killed them, and was told it was "min Allah" (from G.o.d). Mohammed, however, calls it _abu hadlan_ (father of leanness).

This district is said to be the best corn-growing country anywhere, and looks like it, but unless rain falls soon, the year must be barren. The villages depend almost entirely on rain for their water supply. In each there is an old reservoir hollowed out of the rock. It is difficult to understand how these tanks get filled, for they seem to have no drainage leading to them, being on the contrary perched up generally on high ground. They are now all dry, and the villagers have to send many miles for their drinking water. All this country belongs to the Hauran, and we are now in a Haurani village called Ghizeh. The people are evidently not pure Arabs, as many of them have light eyes.

We are being hospitably entertained by the village Sheykh, who is an old acquaintance of Mohammed's father's, and insists on setting all he has got before us,-coffee, a plate of rice, barley for the mares, and, what is more precious just now, water for them as well as for ourselves.

Ha.s.san, for such is his name, has a very pretty wife, who was among the crowd which gathered round us on our arrival at the village. She, like the women of all these villages, made no pretence of shyness, and was running about unveiled as any peasant girl might in Italy. She was evidently a spoilt child, and required more than one command from Ha.s.san before she would go home. The Sheykh has been spending the evening with us. He is in great distress about his village, which is in the last straits for water. The cattle, as I have said, have all died, and now even the beasts of burden which have to go for the water are dying. The nearest spring is at Bozra, twelve miles off; and if the donkeys break down the village must die too of thirst. He told us that a Frank pa.s.sed this way two years ago, and had told him that there must be an ancient well somewhere among the ruins of which the village is built, and he has been looking for it ever since. He entreated us to tell him the most likely spot either for finding the old well or digging a new one. We are much distressed at not being engineers enough to do this for him; and I can't help thinking how much a real reformer (not a Midhat) might do in Turkey by attending to such crying wants as these. Ghizeh is within fifty miles from Damascus as the crow flies, and there are scores of villages in like condition throughout the Hauran, which a Syrian governor might relieve at the cost of sending round an engineer. But until tramways and railroads and new bazaars have been made, I suppose there is little chance for mere wells under the present regime.

Besides meat and drink, Ha.s.san has given us useful advice. He has reminded Mohammed of another old friend of his father's, who he thinks might be of more service to us than anybody else could be, and he advises us to go first to him. This is Huseyn ibn Nejm el-Atrash, a powerful Druse Sheykh, who lives somewhere beyond the Hauran mountains. He must certainly have relations with some of the Bedouin tribes beyond, for it appears he lives in a little town quite on the extreme edge of the inhabited country towards the Wady Sirhan. We have always heard of this Druse country as unsafe, but what country is not called unsafe outside the regular Turkish authority? The Ghizeh Sheykh's suggestion seems worth following, and we shall make for the Druse town.

The little greyhound s.h.i.+ekhah (so called from a plant of that name) is very docile and well-behaved. She is a regular desert dog, and likes dates better than anything else. I have made her a coat to wear at night for she is chilly.

_December_ 19.-Ha.s.san with true hospitality did not leave his house this morning, but let us depart quietly. His coming to wish us good-bye would have looked like asking for a present, and he evidently did not wish for anything of the sort. This is the first time we have received hospitality absolutely gratis in a town, for even when staying with Mohammed's father at Tudmur, the women of the family had eagerly asked for money. In the desert, Ha.s.san's behaviour would not have needed remark.

Before leaving Ghizeh we went to look at a house where there is a mosaic floor of old Roman work, scrolls with orange trees and pomegranates, vines with grapes on them, vases and baskets, all coloured on a white ground. It speaks well for the quality of the workmans.h.i.+p that it has so long stood the weather and the wear, for it is out of doors, and forms the pavement in the courtyard of a house.

Three and a half hours of steady marching brought us to Bozra, where we now are. The entrance of the town is rather striking, as the old Roman road, which has run in a straight line for miles, terminates in a gateway of the regular cla.s.sic style, beyond which lie a ma.s.s of ruins and pillars, and to the right a fine old castle. A raven was sitting on the gateway, and as we rode through solemnly said "caw."

Bozra is, I have no doubt, described by Mr. Murray, so I won't waste my time in writing about the ruins, which indeed we have not yet examined.

They seem to be Roman, and in tolerable preservation. The castle is more modern, probably Saracenic, a huge pile built up out of older fragments.

It is occupied by a small garrison of Turkish regulars, the last, I hope, we shall see for many a day, for Bozra is the frontier town of the Hauran, and beyond it the Sultan is not acknowledged. I believe that its occupation is not of older date than fifteen to twenty years ago, the time when Turkey made its last flicker as a progressing state, and that before that time the people of Bozra paid tribute to Ibn Shaalan, as they once had to the Wahhabis of Nejd. The Roala still keep up some connection with the town, however, for a shepherd we met at the springs just outside it a.s.sured us that Ibn Shaalan had watered his camels at them not two months ago. It was somewhere not far from Bozra that the forty days battle between the Mesenneh and the Roala, described by Fatalla, {51} was fought. Though the details are no doubt exaggerated, Mohammed knows of the battle by tradition. Wilfrid asked him particularly about it to-day, and he fully confirms the account given by Fatalla of the downfall of the Mesenneh. He has added too some interesting details of their recent history. We are encamped outside the town at the edge of a great square tank of ancient masonry, now out of repair and dry. Here would be another excellent occupation for Midhat and his Circa.s.sians.

_December_ 20.-We were disturbed all night by the barking of dogs, and the strange echoes from the ruined places round. I never heard anything so unearthly-a cold night-and melancholy too, as nights are when the moon rises late, and is then mixed up in a haggard light with the dawn.

The Tafazz relations are gone, very sorrowful to wish us good-bye.