In his dealings with Auda and other Arab chiefs, Lawrence found their rich sense of humor an important asset. Make an Arab laugh, and you can persuade him to do most things. Arabic is a solemn language, full of ceremony and stateliness; and Lawrence, who had an unusual knowledge of the various dialects spoken in Arabia, made the discovery that the direct translation into Arabic of ordinary colloquial English, spiced with wit, delighted his hearers. Another highly useful weapon in Colonel Lawrence’s mental armory was the faculty of mastering the unexpected with some inspired improvisation. Time and again he happened upon a desperate situation from which there was no obvious means of escape. In the space of a few seconds his alert brain would work out some seemingly fantastic but really brilliant method of dealing with the emergency.
Such an incident was one of his many adventures in the Syrian Desert. He was at the town of Azrak among the shifting sand-dunes southeast of Damascus, when a courier brought news that some Turkish spies were in a caravan of Syrian merchants which was on its way to the Arabian army supply-base at Akaba, three hundred miles to the south. He immediately decided that in order to draw the teeth of the spies he must reach Akaba either in company with the caravan or soon after its arrival. Normally the journey from Azrak to Akaba is twelve days by camel, and already the Syrian caravan had a start of nine days.
Realizing that his followers could not stand the forced pace at which he meant to travel, Lawrence took with him but one man—a half-breed Haurani— who was famous in the North Arabian Desert for his endurance. The pair were racing over the ridges between Azrak and Bair, eighty miles south of the camp from which they started, when suddenly a dozen Arabs appeared over the edge of a sand-dune and galloped their camels down the slope to cut off the strangers. As they approached, the Arabs shouted a request that Lawrence and his companion should dismount, and at the same time announced themselves as friends and members of the Jazi-Howeitat tribe. When only thirty yards away they themselves dismounted by way of encouraging the lone couple to do likewise. But Lawrence had recognized the Arabs as of the Beni-Sakr, allies of the Turks and blood-enemies of most of the Bedouin tribes that were fighting for King Hussein and Emir Feisal. It was known to the Beni-Sakr that gold passed up and down the caravan route, and they were out looking for loot.
This particular sector was the only war-time trade-route between Syria and Arabia, along which the merchants of Syria had for many months journeyed to Akaba for the purchase of Manchester cotton. Lawrence used cotton both as an aid to propaganda and as a means of getting as much gold as possible from Syria and Turkey. The Ottoman Empire needed cotton urgently, and for this reason the military authorities allowed traders to pass back and forth through the lines. When they reached Akaba, Lawrence and the Arab leaders would make converts among them by preaching Arab Nationalistic doctrines. At the same time they would collect much valuable information regarding conditions in Turkey. The merchants were also useful in smuggling down to Akaba German field-glasses which Lawrence needed for the equipment of his desert troops.
Meanwhile, the dismounted marauders of the Beni-Sakr stood on the sand and fingered their rifles expectantly, while still passing friendly greetings. Of a sudden Lawrence grinned so genially that they became mystified.
“Come near; I want to whisper something to you,” he said to their leader. Then bending down from the saddle of his camel he asked, “Do you know what your name is? ”
The sheik looked speechless and rather amazed. Lawrence continued, “I think it must be ‘Terrace’ (Procurer)!”
This is the most terrible insult that one can offer a Bedouin. The Beni-Sakr leader was dumfounded and rather nervous. He could not understand how an ordinary traveler would dare to say such a thing to him in the open desert when numbers and arms were on his side. Before the sheik had time to recover himself, Lawrence remarked pleasantly:
“May Allah give you peace! ”
Quietly telling the Haurani to come along, he swung off across the sand. The men of Beni-Sakr remained half bewildered until the pair had ridden about a hundred yards. Then they recovered their senses and began shooting; hut the blond Prince of Mecca galloped over the nearest ridge and escaped. Bullets, by the way, have but little immediate effect on a camel that is traveling at twenty miles an hour.
Both Lawrence and his Haurani nearly killed their camels during the journey. They rode on an average of twenty-two hours a day. From dawn to setting sun they crossed the burning sands, only stopping then for a moment’s rest for their camels. When they reached Auda Abu Tayi’s country, east of the southern end of the Dead Sea, they exchanged their mounts for fresh beasts. They covered the whole distance of three hundred miles in just three days, a record for fast camel trekking that should stand for many years.
This weird adventure was but one of a hundred that befell Lawrence. I heard of another which explains why he always carried a Colt revolver of an early frontier model.
Some years ago, while wandering in Asia Minor, near Marash, a fever came upon him, and he made for Birgik, the nearest village. He happened to meet a Turkoman. They are a semi-nomadic crowd of Mongol descent, men with crooked eyes and faces that look as though they had been modeled in butter and then left out in the sun. He was not quite sure of his directions and asked the Turkoman to point out the way. The reply was, “Right across those low hills to the left.” As Lawrence turned away from him the Mongol sprang on his back, and they had a bit of a dog-fight on the ground for a few minutes. But Lawrence had walked more than a thousand miles and, apart from the fever, was nearly done up. Soon he found himself underneath.
“He sat on my stomach, pulled out my colt,” said Lawrence, “pressed it to my temple, and pulled the trigger many times. But the safety-catch was on The Turkoman was a primitive fellow and knew very little about revolver mechanism. He threw the weapon away in disgust and proceeded to pound my head with a rock until I was no longer interested. After taking everything I had, he made off. I went to the village and got the inhabitants to help me chase the scoundrel. We caught him and made him disgorge the things he’d relieved me of. Since then I ’ve always had a profound respect for a Colt, and have never been without one.”
CHAPTER XV
MY LORD THE CAMEL
NO knowledge that could increase his influence over the peoples of Arabia was neglected by Lawrence. He even made a minute study of that beast of mystery, the camel, the character and quality of which few Arabs are altogether familiar with, although it plays such an all-important part in their lives. Lawrence is the only European I have ever met who possesses “camel instinct”—a quality that implies intimate acquaintance with the beast’s habits, powers, and innumerable idiosyncrasies. Auda Abu Tayi, the Bedouin Robin Hood, had this instinct developed to an unusually high degree.
There are six different species of camels found in Central Arabia, from whence come the finest breeds. The Bedouin call their country “the Mother of the Camel.” Arabian camels have but one hump; in fact, most of the Arabs have never even heard of the two-humped variety, which is found only in Central Asia, to the northwest of Persia, chiefly in the Gobi Desert. The two-humped breed is slow and of little use except as a beast of burden. The one-humped camel is the dromedary, which is the Greek word for a camel that runs.
The chief unit of wealth in Arabia is the camel. A man is not spoken of as owning so many apartment-houses or country estates, but as owning so many camels. From biblical down to modern times, wars have been waged in the desert for the possession of camels. One tribe will swoop down upon another and steal all its camels; then that tribe will mount its horses, dash across the desert, and drive off all the camels of another tribe. So, in the course of twelve months, one camel may become the stolen property of half a dozen different tribes. The very existence of human life in the desert depends upon the camel. The Arabs use it not only as a beast of burden; they drink its milk and use its hair for making cloth, and when it becomes old they kill it and use its flesh for food. Camel steak
in Arabia is regarded much as blubber is among the Eskimos, but the average European would prefer to worry along on caviar and pâté de foie gras.
The camel is practically the only animal that can exist on the scant vegetation of the desert. Its teeth are so long that it can chew cactus without the thorns pricking either its lips or the roof of its mouth. Although camels can go for long periods without water, when they do drink they more than make up for lost time. It takes a half-hour to water them, but each camel can accommodate a nice little swallow of twenty gallons. It is very irritating when suffering from thirst in the desert to hear your camel drawing on the copious reserve of water inside its body. At such times the Arabs, when in dire straits, will kill a camel and drink the water in its stomach. The water is of a greenish color and has a greenish taste, but one can’t be too fastidious when perishing from thirst.
In judging a camel, some of the many things to be considered are the length of the inside of the belly, the way the beast lifts its feet, the way it carries its head, the depth of the neck, the length of the front leg, the length of the front and back shoulders, and the girth and shape of the hump. A very long leg is particularly desirable, as is a small circumference around the waist. A camel should be neither too fat nor too thin. The hump, which should be of hard, fatless muscle, is of paramount importance. The dromedary actually seems to live on its hump, and if it be worked too hard the hump gradually disappears. If it has no hump, or a low one or a thin one or a fat one, the animal is of little value and will break down in a short time. Age is judged by the teeth, as with the horse. Camels usually live for about twenty-five years, being in their prime between the ages of foul and fourteen. Over good ground first-class Arabian dromedaries can trot up to twenty-one miles an hour, canter up to twenty-eight miles an hour, and gallop up to thirty-two with their legs going like huge pistons. For a whole day’s travel, however, the most desirable pace is a jog-trot of seven miles an hour. The ordinary speed for a long journey of many days across the desert is only about four and a half miles an hour; and if the journey extends over hundreds of miles, it is advisable always to keep the camel at a walk. Lawrence’s feat in making a forced trek of three hundred miles in three days was therefore looked upon by his followers as almost a miracle. A good camel makes absolutely no sound when it walks; a trait which is of great assistance both to the Bedouins during their night raids and to desert traders who fear assault. The Arab teaches his mount not to whine, and a whole caravan may pass within twenty yards of a tent without being heard by the occupants.
The winter of 1917-18 was a severe one for the camels. Lawrence’s army was at Tafileh in January, at an altitude of five thousand feet. The snow drifted to a depth of four feet, impassable for the camels unless their riders dismounted and dug a path with their hands. Many of them, both camels and Arabs, perished from the cold.
Lawrence sent a request to headquarters, Cairo, for heavy clothing and boots for his men. Instead of receiving them, he got a wireless message telling him that Arabia was a “tropical country”!
One morning an Arab column awoke on a hillside to find that snow had drifted over their crouching camels. They dug them out with the iron spoons which are used for roasting coffee-beans, but all were dead. Lawrence and his men had to walk barefoot through the snow for miles before they reached a military encampment. Another time thirty-four men started from Akaba for Tafileh on camels, and only one man succeeded in getting through alive. The Arab army had plenty of camels at this time, thanks, partly, to Prince Zeid. Some months previous the Turks had sent a large caravan of supplies toward Medina from Hail, Ibn Rashid’s capital in Central Arabia. Zeid and his men surprised it at Hanakieh, killed thirty Turks, captured two hundred and fifty more and also three thousand camels, two thousand sheep, four mountain-guns, and several thousand rifles.
Although “the camel is an intricate animal and calls for skilled labor in the handling, ” according to Colonel Lawrence, “she yields a remarkable return. We had no system of supply: each man was self-contained and carried on the saddle from the sea-base, at which the raid started, six weeks’ food for himself. The six weeks’ ration for ordinary men was a half-bag of flour, forty-five pounds in weight. Luxurious feeders carried some rice also for variety. Each man baked for himself, kneading his own flour into unleavened cakes and warming it in the ashes of a fire. We carried about a pint of drinking-water each, since the camels required to come to water on the average every three days, and there was no advantage in our being richer than our mounts. Some of us never drank between wells, but those were hardy men; most of us drank a lot at each well, and had a drink during the intermediate dry day. In the heat of summer Arabian camels will do about two hundred and fifty miles comfortably between drinks: and this represents about three days’ vigorous marching.
“The country is not so dry as it is painted, and this radius was always more than we needed. Wells are seldom more than one hundred miles apart. An easy day’s march was fifty miles: an emergency march might be up to one hundred and ten miles in a day.
“The six weeks’ food gave us a range of over a thousand miles out and home; and that (like the pint of water) was more than ever we needed, even in so large a country as Arabia. It was possible (for me, the camel novice in the army, ‘painful’ was a better word) to ride fifteen hundred miles in a month without revictualing; and there was never a fear of starvation, for each of us was riding on two hundred pounds of potential meat, and when food lacked we would stop and eat the weakest of our camels. Exhausted camel is poor food, but cheaper killing than a fat one; and we had to remember that our future efficiency depended upon the number of good camels at our disposal. They lived on grazing as we marched (we never gave them grain or fodder); and after their six weeks on the road they would be worn thin, and have to be sent to pasture for some months’ rest, while we called out another tribe in replacement, or found fresh riding-beasts.”
Tradition says that the horse originated in Arabia. The most beautiful and symmetrical horses are found there. They do not, however, have the greatest powers of endurance; neither are they the fleetest.
The Arabs are very fond and proud of their horses, They are really domestic animals, and it is by no means uncommon for them to occupy the same tent as their master. The pedigrees of some of them can be traced back to the fifth century, and registered mares are seldom sold, although stallions are sometimes given away to distinguished foreigners. It is maintained that a female, whether horse or camel, has much more highly developed powers of endurance. The Arabs oil the hoofs of their horses to keep them from slipping on the hot sand, and feed them on boiled goat’s-meat to give them staying powers. They are seldom given all the water they desire to drink. Even as colts they are continually stinted of water so that they may become inured to thirst and suffer as little as possible when crossing the dry parts of the Arabian Desert. Many of the water-holes of the desert are five days’ travel apart. A horse, of course, cannot go so long without water; a camel can, however, and so an Arabian horse will travel by the side of a camel and drink the camel’s milk, and in that manner make the distance from one water-hole to another.
The foregoing is but a small fraction of the horse and camel lore familiar to a Bedouin expert. After years of careful study in the Arabian and Syrian deserts, Lawrence confessed to me that often he could not size up his dromedary correctly.
CHAPTER XVI
ABDULLAH THE POCK-MARKED, AND THE STORY OF FERRAJ AND DAOUD
ABDULLAH, the pock-marked, undersized, fiery little Bedouin who commanded Lawrence’s personal body-guard, although in appearance a dried-up stick of a man, is one of the most daring and chivalrous sons of Ishmael that ever rode a dromedary. He would take keen delight in tackling ten men by himself. Apart from his fearlessness, he was a valuable lieutenant, because he knew how to deal with unruly members of the body-guard. Lawrence would urge his followers on with the promise of extravagant rewards—gold, jewels, and beautiful clothes—if they succeede
d. Abdullah would promise them a sound beating if they failed, and the certainty that he would fulfil his threat carried at least as much weight with the body-guard as did Lawrence’s milder method. As for Abdullah himself, his most frequent boast was that he had served under all the princes of the desert and had been imprisoned by every one of them.
The English shereef’s personal body-guard, consisting of eighty carefully picked men, was the corps d’élite of the desert. All its men were famous fighters who possessed powers of endurance which would enable them to ride hard for a day and a night on end, if necessary. They were required to be ready for a raid on the Turks at any moment, and always to keep up with their leader on the trek. No man was accepted who could not, with one hand free, leap into the camel-saddle at the trot while carrying a rifle in the other. Taking it all round, the bodyguard was an extraordinary collection of mettlesome, gay-spirited, good-natured scalawags.
Its members were devoted to their Anglo-Bedouin shereef; but to guard against the possibility of a conspiracy among them, never more than two men were selected from each tribe, so that intertribal jealousy might prevent any group from plotting against their leader. Nearly every man in the Hedjaz army wanted to belong to the body-guard, because Lawrence took it on all of his raiding, bridge-blowing, and train-wrecking expeditions, “stunts” which provided much loot and many thrills—gifts dear to the heart of the Bedouin. Then, too, the pay was greater than that given to any of the other volunteers in the Arabian army. Furthermore, they received a liberal allowance for costly raiment, for they spent all their money on clothes, and when gathered in a body they produced an effect similar to that of an Oriental flower-garden.
A familiar saying among them was that they might as well spend their gold on clothes and a good time, since Allah might take them to paradise at any moment. Among Colonel Lawrence’s personal retinue the percentage of casualties was far greater than among other regulars and irregulars of Feisal’s army, for they were continually being sent across the desert on dangerous missions. Frequently they were despatched through the Turkish lines to act as spies, a service for which the body-guard was especially suitable, since it contained at least one man from each district between Mecca and Aleppo. Lawrence always arrogated to himself more than his full share of these hazardous missions.
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