Instead, he sent for Sheik Khallil of Elgi, a neighboring village, and told him it would be necessary to summon all the able-bodied women for miles around to help reinforce his troops. Arabian women may not have gone in for Red Cross work and women’s motor-corps or canteen service, as their Western sisters did during the war, but they have always encouraged their men to fight. In the incessant tribal warfare they are often in the rear, encouraging their men with praise, chanting songs of Bedouin heroes, and shrieking words of blame if their own men-folk are not gallantly charging into the thick of the fray. A few centuries ago the fighting forces of the desert always had two or three of their women dressed in resplendent robes to act as standard-bearers. This, however, was the first time in Arabian history that armed battalions of women actually engaged in battle.
The Bedouin women living in the vicinity of Petra rose magnificently to the emergency. They dropped their butter-making and their weaving and thronged to Lawrence’s headquarters under the leadership of Sheik Khallil’s wife. No smart uniforms with braid and buttons for the Bedouin Amazons! Barefooted, with long blue cotton robes, wearing gold bracelets and rings in their ears and noses, they gathered from all quarters to form their Battalion of Death. Rallying to the call of Lawrence, who had few men at his disposal, they fought with as great valor as their husbands and brothers and played a vital part in routing the Turks.
Lawrence, remembering the stout defense put up by the old Nabatæan kings, when Alexander’s army failed to capture Petra, stationed the Bedouin women at the narrow gorge opposite the Temple of Isis to defend the city. The women were fierce in their enthusiasm and needed no coaching to make them capable musketeers. They hid behind the pillars of the temple, some of them with their half-grown children, and covered with their rifles the gorge, which was so narrow that only a few Turks and Germans could march through abreast. The women held their ground and were not even panic-stricken when German aëroplanes swooped down over the rock temples and dropped bombs on the streets, theater and water-circus. They clutched their rifles only the more tightly when one German bomb made a direct hit on an Arabian machine-gun, causing the Maxim and its crew to vanish as though spirited away. Throughout the whole battle Lawrence commanded from the top of the north ridge. He had with him a force of fifty Bedouin youths, who were selected for their speed as runners and who proved most valuable as orderlies. They could sprint like hares and clamber about the rocks with the agility of the oryx. If one had viewed the battle from the Arabian positions and seen only the women and the Bedouin men dressed in every conceivable desert costume, mounted on horses and camels without saddles, and using nearly every weapon invented by man from the dawn of time, if one could have eliminated the modern note provided by the trench-helmets and commonplace lead-colored uniforms of the Turks and by their squadron of aëroplanes, one might easily have mistaken the battle of Petra for a clash between the ancient Edomites and the kings of Israel.
Lawrence had only two mountain-guns and two machine-guns, but with these he held the first ridge five miles south of Petra for over six hours and killed sixty Turks, with practically no casualties on his side. Then, when the enemy attack had fully developed, when the Turks and Germans were advancing straight up the ridge in spite of the fire of the Arabs, Lawrence vacated it and sent half his men to occupy a ridge a little nearer Petra to the south, and the other half to a ridge on the opposite side of the valley on the north. Between his two companies ran the wide part of the Wadi Musa, a mile distant from the point where it narrows down and becomes a mere cleft through the mountain wall south of the city.
The Turks, elated at having captured the trenches on the first ridge, were certain that they had decisively beaten Lawrence’s forces; so they charged enthusiastically over the summit and down into the valley, thinking the Arabs had surely retired all the way into Petra. Meanwhile, Lawrence and his men were hiding in ambush on the hills of Petra. He permitted at least a thousand of the enemy’s troops to push headlong into the gorge before he gave the order to fire. When he had the Turks wedged into the narrowest part of the gorge, near the entrance to the city, one of his aides fired a rocket into the air as a signal for the Arabs to attack. A moment later pandemonium broke loose in the mountains of Edom. The Arabs poured in a stream of fire from all sides, The crack of rifles seemed to come from every rock. With shrill screams the women and children tumbled huge boulders over the edge on the heads of the Turks and Germans hundreds of feet below. Those stationed behind the columns of the Temple of Isis kept up a steady fire. Utterly bewildered, the invaders became panicky and scattered in all possible directions, while the Arabs on the ridges continued to devastate their broken ranks.
A few minutes before the sun declined behind the rose-colored mountains, Lawrence and Malud Bey sent up a second signal to their followers.
“Up, children of the desert!” shouted Malud.
Crouching figures sprang from behind the rocks on all sides. “Allah! Allah!” came the answer from the throats of hundreds of Bedouins as they swept down the ridges into the valley.
The Arabs captured the entire Turkish transport a complete field-hospital, and hundreds of prisoners. One body of over a thousand Turks, who succeeded in retreating to Busta in fair order, fought their way hack several days later to Abu el Lissan and to Maan.
After the battle, Lawrence slipped through the Turkish lines in disguise and returned with a copy of the Turkish communiqué describing the battle. It brought roars of laughter from the victorious Arabs. It ran:
We have stormed the fortifications of Petra, losing twelve killed and ninety-four wounded. The Arab losses are one thousand dead and wounded, and we counted seventeen British officers among the bodies.
The only British officers, except Lawrence, who were in that part of Arabia at the time were many miles away, at Akaba. Lawrence himself had worn his Arab robes. His losses were twenty-eight killed and wounded. The Turks had made a little error of 972 in their estimate.
CHAPTER XX
THE RELATIVE IN MY HOUSE
PERHAPS the reason why women played such a small part in the war in the Land of the Arabian Nights,” explained Colonel Lawrence, “was because their men-folk wear the skirts and are prejudiced against petticoats.” Then adding philosophically: “Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I am so fond of Arabia. So far as I know, it is the only country left where men rule!”
But Colonel Lawrence denies the assertion made by another authority on Arabia that man is the absolute master and woman a mere slave. Although “she is the object of his sensual pleasures, a toy with which he plays whenever and however he pleases”; although “knowledge is his, ignorance is hers”; although “the firmament and the light are his, darkness and the dungeon are hers”; and although “his is to command, hers is blindly to obey,” she still wields a vast indirect influence. But one sees and hears very little of her. Arabia is one country, indeed, where the equal suffrage propaganda of Mrs. Catt and Mrs. Pankhurst has made little headway.
Although the king of the Hedjaz figures in the cable news, his queen, Gellaleta el Melika, is never mentioned. Emir Feisal attended the Versailles Peace Conference as the head of the Arabian delegation, but his wife, who shortly afterward became the first queen of a new dynasty in Bagdad, did not accompany him.
Hussein Ibn Ali’s capital is one city where European and American diplomatists and their wives are not welcome. Just imagine how dull life in London and New York would become if the customs of Mecca were suddenly adopted. There would be no charming stenographers, no coquettish midinettes, no dancing in Hotels and restaurants, no charity bazaars, and no feminine politicians.
Where we rise when a woman enters the room, an Arab never does. In fact, he will not even eat with a woman, but, of course, she is expected to serve him. When an Arab prince goes out “to smell the air” on his camel, his wife does not accompany him. In fact, the women of the towns rarely leave the harem oftener than once a week. In Jeddah, for instance, on Thursda
y afternoon they stroll outside the city wall to the tomb of Mother Eve. But, in spite of their secluded lives, many a veiled beauty of Arabia has played a subtle part in politics and has by no means been satisfied with conquests of love. Many, indeed, have been the successors to the queen of Sheba who, by their wisdom as well as their charm, have made their lords and masters kiss the dust beneath their feet.
The Koran permits a man to have four wives at a time, but a Moslem usually marries only one unless he is rich enough to provide a separate house for others. Of course, this only refers to the townsmen. Hard as it may be to believe, it is, nevertheless, true that the average Mussulman actually finds it difficult to get along peacefully with four wives all under the same roof! The Koran also conveniently permits him to have as many concubines and slave-girls as his right hand can hold. Mohammed himself is said to have had eleven wives and several concubines; and, although it may be difficult for a stream to rise higher than its source, it is, nevertheless, a fact that among the more intelligent city dwellers of to-day polygamy, concubinage, and slavery are dying out. King Hussein, King Feisal, Emir Ali, and the Sultan Abdullah of Transjordania, and most of the prominent present-day leaders in Arabia, have but one wife each.
An Arab woman can be divorced for not having a son; she not only can be, but frequently is. An Arab seldom speaks of a woman as his wife. He calls her “the relative in my house,” or “the mother of my son Ali.” Girl babies are usually not very welcome. But when a child is born, no matter what the sex, the first precaution taken is to protect the babe from the influence of the evil eye. This is done by hanging a charm about its neck. Mothers also have a prejudice against curly hair and do everything possible to straighten out any stubborn kinks in a baby’s locks.
In some parts of the desert there is an unwritten law that if a girl is attacked by a man between sunrise and noon the man shall be flogged severely; if between noon and sunset, he is merely fined; and if during the night, when all are supposed to be in their tents under the protection of their families, the man is not subject to punishment.
A man usually marries between the ages of twenty and twenty-four, and a woman any time after she is twelve. Professional matchmakers in Arabia do not perform their services gratuitously and unsolicited as they do in Europe and America. When a Moslem wants to take unto himself a helpmate he hires the services of a matronly lady who is an arranger of marriages by profession. He pays a certain sum for his bride; how much is always a matter of spirited argument. He never sees his fiancée until after the orange-blossoms and old shoes—and then it ’s too late. The bride’s mother does n’t call in the neighbors and a professional dressmaker to study the trousseau patterns in “Vogue” or “The Ladies’ Home Journal.” She merely borrows a cashmere shawl for her daughter.
One of the few careers open to a woman of the Near East to-day is that of acting as a professional mourner. Often the mourners wail for days; and the wail, which sounds like the cry of a lost soul, usually ends in a piercing shriek which makes your blood run cold.
The customs of immediate burial often result in complications. There is a bazaar story told in Jeddah to the effect that a Scot, who was stationed there early in the war, passed away as a result of some mysterious malady. He was carried a short distance outside the city and buried in the sand near the shore, wrapped in nothing but a Union Jack. A few hours before the funeral a boat left Jeddah Harbor, and it carried an official memorandum to the Government in London telling of the death of the officer. After the ceremony the mourners were returning to the city when suddenly they heard shouts and, turning, were panic-stricken to see the corpse running toward them, swathed in the Union Jack. It seems that the Scot had merely been in a trance, and, a few moments after he was buried in the loose sand, land-crabs attacked him and brought him back to life. But, not satisfied at letting the yarn go at this, they tell how the Scot was afterward arrested in London for impersonating himself when he called at his bank to cash a check.
Between the nomad woman of the tents and the townswoman there is even more difference than between a wiry desert patriarch and his corpulent city cousin. Townswomen are fat and white, while the Bedouin women are thin and tanned. Many Bedouin sheiks have four wives at a time. Some of the richest chieftains have as many as fifty wives during a lifetime, but never more than four at once. One reason why they so frequently indulge themselves the luxury of three or four is because it means easier housework. The Bedouin women all live in the same tent, too; and, strangely enough, jealousy is uncommon. They do not regard a husband as exclusive property as we do.
Bedouin women are much more ignorant and prejudiced than their men-folk, and they spend no small part of their time urging the men to fight. It is they who keep the century-old blood-feuds alive.
The desert nomads have no way of marking time; no Sundays, no Mondays, no 1924’s and no 1925’s. They are born: “It is the will of Allah.” Then they grow up and after a while they die: “It is the will of Allah.” That is all there is to it: “It is the will of Allah.” So it is n’t bad form to ask a Bedouin woman her age, for she does n’t know whether she is sweet sixteen or a Mrs. Methuselah.
They are all frightfully talkative, and whenever we were seated on the men’s side of the thin partition which divides the goat’s-hair home of a Bedouin sheik, talking about Western customs, such as women walking along city streets unveiled, or attending the theater in company with their gentlemen friends, or playing golf, his wives would pop their heads up over the partition and remark: “How disgusting! How vulgar! How beastly!”
Despite the example set by the Arabs themselves, Colonel Lawrence scrupulously avoided free talk about women. It is as difficult a subject as religion.
On one occasion, when seated in Sheik Auda Abu Tayi’s tent, Lawrence was in an unusually talkative frame of mind and was giving his host a racy description of cabaret life in London. Every few minutes Auda would slap his knee and roar: “By Jove! I wish I were there!” Then his wives would break in and upbraid him bitterly.
The Bedouin women usually retain their beauty until their thirties, but after that! They are all short and thin. They take all their pleasures in their tents. The Bedouin women of the desert are not veiled, but they tattoo their faces and paint their lips blue. On all occasions they wear a garment of dark blue cotton and keep their hair covered. Mohammed objected to women exposing their hair in public.
All Arabs are fond of buying pearls or trinkets of hammered gold for their women. Some of their wives wear gold ornaments worth £1000 or more. According to the unwritten law of Arabia, all ornaments are the personal property of a woman, and if divorced she keeps them. If an Arab wants to divorce his wife, he simply says three times before witnesses: “I divorce thee! I divorce thee! I divorce thee!” Consequently, all the women are foresighted enough to insist on having their possessions in portable form.
The training of the Bedouin women is entirely in the tents. They spend much of their time milking their camels and goats and making butter. To do the latter they get the milk in curds, which they squeeze in their hands and put on the tent-roofs until all the moisture drops out. When it dries it becomes as hard as a rock. In fact, their butter is so hard that it will even turn the edge of a knife! Lawrence would pulverize it between stones and mix it with water until it resembled malted milk.
Many Bedouins regard women as the source of all evil and say that hell is full of them. The verses of a few desert poets breathe hatred for women rather than love. Here is a verse from one of Sir Richard Burton’s translations:
They said, marry.
I said I am free;
Why take unto my bosom
A sackful of snakes?
May Allah never bless womankind
It is a simple matter for a Bedouin woman to clean house or move. The tribe leaves one bit of the desert as soon as the pasturage in the vicinity is exhausted. The more aristocratic Bedouins have neither sheep nor goats—only camels and horses. They limit themsel
ves to the least possible amount of possessions and refuse to be tied down to any one spot. They have the fewest wants and are the freest of all the peoples of the earth.
Sheik Nuri Shalaan once asked to be told something about European customs. “Well, if you come to my house in England,” said Lawrence, “my women will serve you with tea.” Whereupon Nuri clapped his hands for one of his wives, ordered her to make tea, and invited Lawrence into the women’s quarters to drink it, an act entirely contrary to the unwritten law of the desert.
The Bedouins are exceedingly courteous, and no matter how apalling your Arabic they will never presume to correct you. When you call at a Bedouin tent you make all of your polite speeches right away, and then when you leave you may get up and brush off without saying a word of farewell. I have seen Bedouins call on Lawrence in his tent when he was reading. He would greet them, and then they would crouch down on their heels and he would resume his book. After a while they would get up and silently walk out. But Lawrence himself would never leave so long as a guest was there.
A1 Ghazzali, the great theologian of Islam of the eleventh century, said, “Marriage is a kind of slavery, for the wife becomes the slave of her husband, and it is her duty, absolutely, to obey him in everything he requires of her except in what is contrary to the laws of Islam.” Wife-beating is allowed by the Koran. All female slaves taken in war may become the private property of the man who wins them. There is an old tradition that a lie is excusable in three circumstances: in war, to reconcile friends, and to women.
To the average Arab, heaven is an oasis with date-palms, sparkling fountains, and racing camels, where every male angel may have as many concubines as he desires. So is it any wonder that the Arab and the Turk are splendid fighters when we realize that if they die in battle against the unbeliever they will go direct to such a paradise?
With Lawrence in Arabia Page 18
