CHAPTER XII
Before we awoke, a meal of bread and dates had been prepared for us by
the people of the house. The dates were new, meltingly sweet and good,
like none I had ever tasted. The owner of the property, a Harbi, was,
with his neighbours, away serving Feisal; and his women and children
were tenting in the hills with the camels. At the most, the tribal
Arabs of Wadi Safra lived in their villages five months a year. For the
other seasons the gardens were entrusted to slaves, negroes like the
grown lads who brought in the tray to us, and whose thick limbs and
plump shining bodies looked curiously out of place among the birdlike
Arabs. Khallaf told me these blacks were originally from Africa,
brought over as children by their nominal Takruri fathers, and sold
during the pilgrimage, in Mecca. When grown strong they were worth from
fifty to eighty pounds apiece, and were looked after carefully as
befitted their price. Some became house or body servants with their
masters; but the majority were sent out to the palm villages of these
feverish valleys of running water, whose climate was too bad for Arab
labour, but where they flourished and built themselves solid houses,
and mated with women slaves, and did all the manual work of the
holding.
They were very numerous--for instance, there were thirteen villages of
them side by side in this Wadi Safra--so they formed a society of their
own, and lived much at their pleasure. Their work was hard, but the
supervision loose, and escape easy. Their legal status was bad, for
they had no appeal to tribal justice, or even to the Sherifs courts;
but public opinion and self-interest deprecated any cruelty towards
them, and the tenet of the faith that to enlarge a slave is a good
deed, meant in practice that nearly all gained freedom in the end. They
made pocket-money during their service, if they were ingenious. Those I
saw had property, and declared themselves contented. They grew melons,
marrows, cucumber, grapes and tobacco for their own account, in
addition to the dates, whose surplus was sent across to the Sudan by
sailing dhow, and there exchanged for corn, clothing and the luxuries
of Africa or Europe.
After the midday heat was pa**ed we mounted again, and rode up the
clear, slow rivulet till it was hidden within the palm-gardens, behind
their low boundary walls of sun-dried clay. In and out between the tree
roots were dug little can*ls a foot or two deep, so contrived that the
stream might be let into them from the stone channel and each tree
watered in its turn. The head of water was owned by the community, and
shared out among the landowners for so many minutes or hours daily or
weekly according to the traditional use. The water was a little
brackish, as was needful for the best palms; but it was sweet enough in
the wells of private water in the groves. These wells were very
frequent, and found water three or four feet below the surface.
Our way took us through the central village and its market street.
There was little in the shops; and all the place felt decayed. A
generation ago Wasta was populous (they said of a thousand houses); but
one day there rolled a huge wall of water down Wadi Safra, the
embankments of many palm-gardens were breached, and the palm trees
swept away. Some of the islands on which houses had stood for centuries
were submerged, and the mud houses melted back again into mud, k**ing
or drowning the unfortunate slaves within. The men could have been
replaced, and the trees, had the soil remained; but the gardens had
been built up of earth carefully won from the normal freshets by years
of labour, and this wave of water--eight feet deep, running in a race
for three days--reduced the plots in its track to their primordial banks
of stones.
A little above Wasta we came to Kharma, a tiny settlement with rich
palm-groves, where a tributary ran in from the north. Beyond Kharma the
valley widened somewhat, to an average of perhaps four hundred yards,
with a bed of fine shingle and sand, laid very smooth by the winter
rains. The walls were of bare red and black rock, whose edges and
ridges were sharp as knife blades, and reflected the sun like metal.
They made the freshness of the trees and gra** seem luxurious. We now
saw parties of Feisal's soldiers, and grazing herds of their saddle
camels. Before we reached Harhra every nook in the rocks or clump of
trees was a bivouac. They cried cheery greetings to Tafas, who came to
life again, waving back and calling to them, while he pressed on quickly
to end his duty towards me.
Hamra opened on our left. It seemed a village of about one hundred
houses, buried in gardens among mounds of earth some twenty feet in
height. We forded a little stream, and went up a walled path between
trees to the top of one of these mounds, where we made our camels kneel
by the yard-gate of a long, low house. Tafas said something to a slave
who stood there with silver-hilted sword in hand. He led me to an inner
court, on whose further side, framed between the uprights of a black
doorway, stood a white figure waiting tensely for me. I felt at first
glance that this was the man I had come to Arabia to seek--the leader
who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory. Feisal looked very tall
and pillar-like, very slender, in his long white silk robes and his
brown head-cloth bound with a brilliant scarlet and gold cord. His
eyelids were dropped; and his black beard and colourless face were like
a mask against the strange, still watchfulness of his body. His hands
were crossed in front of him on his dagger.
I greeted him. He made way for me into the room, and sat down on his
carpet near the door. As my eyes grew accustomed to the shade, they saw
that the little room held many silent figures, looking at me or at
Feisal steadily. He remained staring down at his hands, which were
twisting slowly about his dagger. At last he inquired softly how I had
found the journey. I spoke of the heat, and he asked how long from
Rabegh, commenting that I had ridden fast for the season.
'And do you like our place here in Wadi Safra?'
Well; but it is far from Damascus.'
The word had fallen like a sword in their midst. There was a quiver.
Then everybody present stiffened where he sat, and held his breath for
a silent minute. Some, perhaps, were dreaming of far off success:
others may have thought it a reflection on their late defeat. Feisal at
length lifted his eyes, smiling at me, and said, 'Praise be to God,
there are Turks nearer us than that'. We all smiled with him; and I
rose and excused myself for the moment.