Arabia Felix

by Thorkild Hansen

  The professor, apprehensive but conceited, felt both flattered and unhappy. Right from the start we see him twisting and turning before this great undertaking, rather like a dwarf trying to assume a giant’s coat. He had begun to show fright already in Constantinople. There he was lucky enough to overhear the French Ambassador, who had already tried to persuade him of the hopelessness of any attempt to penetrate Arabia Felix, explaining that Djebel el-Mokateb simply did not exist—a piece of information von Haven hastened to pass on to Bernstorff, adding that nobody else in Constantinople had ever heard of this particular hill either.

  The same thing happened to him in Cairo. The Archbishop of Sinai knew the name Djebel el-Mokateb, but had never heard anything about any inscriptions. Not a single person in the entire elegant French quarter had ever heard anything about any inscriptions! Von Haven was therefore properly sceptical, but nevertheless determined to undertake a journey there. In November of 1761 he reported to von Gähler that because of the intense heat it was impossible to travel in the desert in summer, and that therefore he must visit the hill in winter. He seems to have forgotten that he was in fact writing his letter in winter, and that there was apparently nothing to prevent him from leaving at once. Two months later, in a letter of 7th January, 1762, he still had not left Cairo; and again he repeats the same words about how “the journey to the Sinai hill is intolerable in summer.” Now, however, it has also become extremely difficult in spring: “At that season an extremely hot wind blows into the desert from the south, which might result in our paying dearly for the doubtful pleasure of wandering about the burning sands of the desert for weeks or possibly even months, looking for some inscriptions that perhaps do not even exist.” Von Haven gave a hurried assurance that naturally he would not miss the opportunity of going there while in Cairo; but immediately afterwards he reverted to his doubts. “It is true, as I have already mentioned, that that journey will be painful, exhausting and dangerous.” He mentions how sixteen pilgrims were recently said to have been taken prisoner by Arabs in this district, while some other Bedouin had plundered a ship near the coast; and recently a certain Herr Donati had returned from the Sinai desert “utterly exhausted and greatly offended by his very bad reception by the Arabs in the desert, who would not even permit him to collect herbs.” Von Haven concluded this catalogue of misfortunes with an outburst reminiscent of his terror aboard the man-o’-war in Helsingör: “These are the most recent instances. I sincerely hope that I shall not, in my own person, help to augment their number.”

  A few more months pass without von Haven being able to brace himself to the ordeal. On 16th April he wrote a letter to Temler which deals exclusively with the proposed journey to Sinai. Once again he emphasised that it could only be made in winter; again he depicted the heat of the summer in dramatic turns of phrase. His bulletin of misfortune from the region of the “hill of inscriptions” had also grown longer. The sixteen captured pilgrims had now increased to seventeen; not one but three merchant ships had been attacked and plundered near the coast, while in the general mood of dejection a fourth ship had simply sunk in the Red Sea. Finally there were more and more people in Cairo who had never heard of Djebel el-Mokateb. The advice was so conflicting that von Haven was convinced that, in order to find the hill, “he would have to search the entire desert that lies between Palestine, Arabia and Egypt.”

  Von Haven flapped about in his giant’s coat, twisting and turning, but not daring to ask outright to be relieved of it, fearing with good reason that his oft-repeated objections would not make a particularly favourable impression in Copenhagen. Now, in this same letter to Temler, he offered an excuse that was not so easily dismissed. He was, he wrote, as good as on his way to Sinai; but just as he stood with his foot on the threshold, there arrived von Gähler’s instruction that the members of the expedition were to remain in Cairo, and were not to divide themselves up into smaller groups until further orders arrived from Bernstorff. Moreover, said von Haven, Baurenfeind refused outright to go with him to Sinai. Finally, he added: “I would quite gladly have set out alone, if other factors had not arisen which I would rather pass over in silence until such time as we are once more back home again, God willing.”

  In this new series of excuses it is not difficult to see which are genuine and which are mere pretexts. Von Gähler’s orders that the expedition should for the moment remain together could certainly not be interpreted as meaning that von Haven should postpone his important journey to Sinai on that account. If that had been the case, Forsskål should not have gone to Alexandria, nor Niebuhr and Baurenfeind to Damietta. That von Haven—after the affair with the arsenic and his overbearing behaviour aboard the Greenland—was not able to persuade Baurenfeind to accompany him to Sinai sounds probable enough; what is not so probable is that he ever had any serious plans for a two-man journey of this kind. The last two lines—those about his having gladly gone alone if other factors had not cropped up—are something he had thought up himself. The lines in question have no more value than any of his innumerable other excuses for this important journey not having materialised. But they are of interest in that this is the only mention—either in von Haven’s letters or in his other papers, and admittedly only in this peculiarly ambiguous way—of the drama initiated by his desperate purchase of arsenic in Constantinople. He was on his own. The others wanted nothing to do with him. This is the reality to be read between the lines. When all irrelevancies have been stripped away, this was the real reason why the Sinai journey never came to anything. He had not the courage to take the initiative himself, and he could find nobody to help him. Not until several months later, when—thanks to an unexpected and resolute decision by one of the other members of the party—the situation had changed, was it possible to get Professor von Haven to Sinai.

  Relations within the group had thus not improved during the many months it remained in Cairo waiting for an answer from Bernstorff. On the contrary, dramatic clashes had taken place on numerous occasions between the two mortal enemies von Haven and Forsskål. By 15th March, matters had gone so far that Niebuhr had to write a letter to von Gähler, which also bears Forsskål’s and Baurenfeind’s signatures, in which he once again requested that von Haven be separated from the rest. He told how they were still waiting in vain for some decision from Copenhagen, and he described one of the many scenes between Forsskål and the hypersensitive Dane. Once again there had been some political discussion; this time von Haven had let himself go in crude terms about the Dutch:

  “When for the tenth time he used the same disparaging expression, our botanist answered calmly and good-temperedly that, even though there were no Dutchmen present, one might well find some more delicate expression when referring to whole nations at a time. Von Haven immediately bridled, saying that the other had no right to correct him; and thereafter he became so indignant that he not only began using the same defamatory and coarse language that he had used on board the man-o’-war, but he also seized hold of a jug and in a rage threatened to fling it at the head of our botanist. The moment it looked as though things were becoming serious between the two men, we grabbed hold of the jug in order to prevent worse things happening, following all the while Your Excellency’s express recommendation, that is, without using force on him and without saying a word he might later pick on to defend his conduct. This did not prevent him from continuing his coarse language, although we reminded him that he had already once before been compelled to apologise for similar words in the presence of Your Excellency. As he refused to attach any significance to that incident, our botanist now humbly begs that Copenhagen will give him satisfaction for this new insult.

  How difficult the remainder of the expedition is going to be if we are to go on living in the company of this man ! Even though he does not live in the same house as us, it has happened more than once that he has been out in our kitchen just before dinner-time, and afterwards left the house in order to eat dinner with the French businessmen. Your Excellenc
y can easily imagine what our appetites are like as we sit down to dinner, when we see or hear something like this. And even allowing that we may not have anything to fear from the stuff he bought in Constantinople, nevertheless he can still do us harm in many other ways. Some of us have to make our way to dangerous places, surrounded only by Arabs, in order to find plants; and others of us have to expose ourselves to comparable dangers when going out mapping the towns or the countryside. How easy would it be, in this country—where one can get anything done for money—to send an Arab after one of us, or a Turk after the other, and in this fashion bring misfortune upon both! Therefore we beseech you as urgently as we are able, Your Excellency, to free us from this man as rapidly as possible, from whose machinations we no longer feel safe.”

  Six months had passed since this same request was made the first time in the letter from Rhodes. When yet another month went by without any answer from Copenhagen, Forsskål went so far as to press Bernstorff himself cautiously for a decision. On 20th April he concluded a letter to the Danish Minister as follows: “Your Excellency will be aware through our impartial judge, Ambassador von Gähler, of the other circumstances connected with our expedition; and we hope with the greatest confidence, that thanks to Your Excellency’s sympathy and sense of justice, this will very soon be changed.”

  The tone of these two letters is quite unmistakable. From the lightly ironical form of the letter from Rhodes, they have now gone over to direct and urgent entreaty. It is clear that with the passing of time the situation had deteriorated month by month. The tense relationship between Forsskål and von Haven had reached a point where it could bear no more. The whole expedition was paralysed; only a decision taken in Copenhagen could set the great enterprise going again. The months that followed Forsskål’s last letter dragged out in a weary period of waiting. By the summer, when more than a year had passed since the first clash at Commander Fisker’s dinner-party, Niebuhr and Forsskål had almost given up hope of receiving any answer to their request. Arabia Felix seemed further away than ever. Everything lay silent. The great Egyptian summer had laid siege to Cairo. Niebuhr called a halt to his copying of inscriptions and used the cool evening hours to play a little on his flute, together with Baurenfeind. Forsskål had to give up his botanical trips because the few plants still growing down by the river dried up and withered in his hands only a few moments after he had picked them.

  This brings us to the end of June 1762. Then, finally, Bernstorff’s decision arrived. The dispatch consisted of three letters, one for Forsskål, one for von Haven, and one to Niebuhr. The three men hastily retired to their rooms and tore open the seals of the royal missives.

  Oriental musical instruments drawn by Baurenfeind

  6

  Back home in the Copenhagen of Frederik V the launching of this bold undertaking had been viewed with a sense of national satisfaction. People felt that they had the sacred cow in good keeping. At the end of the eighteenth century, just as to-day, science was the sacred cow; and by dispatching these five men of science the nation was felt to be satisfactorily represented in the front line of research. It was even less likely than before that any news of their painful internal conflicts would leak out to the general public, and when the Royal Danish Post (Den Kongelige Danske Posttidende) was able on Monday, 21st December, 1761 to print its first bulletin from the expedition, it did so in quite triumphant terms:

  “That His Majesty, concerned as he always is for the furtherance of science and the promotion of knowledge for the advantage of all, dispatched at the beginning of this year a group of scholars to the Orient is well known; as is also the fact that the prime objective of this group is to remain for three years in the, to us, hitherto little-known country, Arabia Felix. Reliable reports have now reached us that not only has it during the past summer in Constantinople made arrangements and preparations for this long expedition, so important for the learned world, but also that it was there adequately provided with all necessities, and in particular with passports from the Emperor of Turkey, and with letters of recommendation from all foreign ambassadors accredited to the Ottoman Court, such as will assure their safety and give them entry to all places; furthermore, that after completing its journey across the Mediterranean, it arrived safely and in the best of health at Alexandria in Egypt. It has permission to remain some months in Cairo, whence it will subsequently follow a route that will take it past Mount Sinai. In this region its particular and especial object of attention will be the ancient inscriptions hewn into the rock, which are presumed to be from the time of Moses and the flight of the children of Israel, and which might therefore throw considerable light on Biblical history. From this place the group is to continue its journey down the Red Sea to Arabia Felix.”

  By the time this news was printed in the Royal Danish Post Peter Forsskål’s startling disclosures in the famous letter from Rhodes had already given rise to intensive diplomatic activity between Constantinople and Copenhagen. Forsskål’s letter had put the Danish Ambassador in an extremely difficult situation. Von Gähler soon realised that the conflict between these two men was too serious, and the question of their possible separation too fundamental for him to reach any decision on his own responsibility. He had therefore no alternative but to resort to the—for a diplomat—most disagreeable of all conceivable actions: humbly to inform His Excellency the Minister of something unpleasant.

  On 17th November, 1761, he decided to forward Forsskål’s letter to Bernstorff in Copenhagen; and he enclosed with it a report many pages long written in French. His account, which is at present preserved in the Danish National Archives, is enthralling, casting new light from the wings, as it were, on the main characters in the drama now unfolding.

  After expressing profound regret at the extremely unfortunate circumstances which he felt compelled to report to His Excellency, von Gähler turned to an account of the expedition’s stay in Constantinople. He described how, from the very first day, he had noticed the bad feeling that prevailed among the members of the expedition, who were clearly divided into two cliques: “I saw plainly that Herr von Haven had joined forces with his countryman, the doctor, while the astronomer and the artist had gone over to Herr Forsskål.”

  Following on various confidences and complaints from the individuals, von Gähler had been able to track down the source of this disagreement, and he now described in detail for Bernstorff the dramatic dinner-party on board the Greenland. He does not actually repeat von Haven’s injunction to Forsskål; he merely says that “von Haven used an expression so coarse that the respect I feel for Your Excellency absolutely forbids me to repeat it; but since the circumstances nevertheless compel me to characterise it in more detail, I do so by pointing out that the common people use this expression as intimating the most abominable kind of cowardice, comparable with the nature of a dog.”

  Once the ugly necessity had been circumvented with the necessary elegance, von Gähler tells how he succeeded in persuading both parties concerned to forgive and embrace each other in the presence of the entire company. It now pained him profoundly to learn that this scene had left von Haven bent on seeking revenge. But, he continues, “even having regard to the evil that may lurk in characters of a certain kind, I must admit that the plans they wish to attribute to von Haven seem to me altogether too black, too inhuman, for me to believe him capable of them. It is only the verified fact of his purchase of poison or arsenic, and the fact that this has no connection with the professor’s actual duties, that gives rise to those suspicions which the doctor has communicated to the others; but according to what I was quick to establish from the chemist concerned, the amount is a good deal less than these gentlemen allege.”

  At this crucial point, however, posterity is compelled to interrupt the distinguished diplomat and with the greatest respect catch him out in a downright lie. This is regrettable but unavoidable. Among the papers von Gähler left behind at his death was a chemist’s bill, which can similarly be scrutinised
at the National Archives in Copenhagen. It is headed Compte des Médicaments que Florent apoticaire eu l’honneur de fournir pour Messieurs les voyageurs de la cour de Danemark, i.e. an account of the medicaments which the chemist Florent had the honour to supply to the travellers from the Court of Denmark. It appears from this that von Haven had in fact procured arsenic to the value of 24 asper. The purchasing power of this particular coin is not known to-day, but its value is linked with the fact that the amount is one of the smallest items on the bill. Even today arsenic is a commodity which may be said to be fairly cheap in proportion to its effects. It is normally reckoned that an amount sufficient to cover the point of a knife, i.e. a maximum of 5 grammes, is absolutely fatal; and a hundred grammes to-day costs less than four shillings (sterling). This means that it costs about twopence-halfpenny to do away with one person, a price which even with the low valuation our age puts on human life cannot be said to be exorbitant. The crucial factor, therefore, is not the sum which von Haven paid for the poison, but the weight. Forsskål reports that the Dane bought two packets, and that the contents were sufficient to provide the last meal for a couple of regiments, an assertion disputed by von Gähler in his report to Bernstorff. If only the ambassador, who in his own view had been so swift to get his information, had taken a little trouble to look at the bill he had himself acquired from the chemist, it would have been the matter of a moment for him to realise that Forsskål was right. As the researches of Henrik Schück have shown, the bill also contains the amounts by weight. It is stated that von Haven received thirty-one duells of yellow arsenic, and four ounces of white. In contrast to the case of the coins, we are here in a position to make an exact calculation of these two units. There are thirty-two duells to the ounce; in other words, von Haven got about five ounces of arsenic. One ounce is a little over thirty grammes. The two packets thus contained about 150 grammes of arsenic; and as it takes at most five grammes to kill a man, there was enough to kill at least thirty people. Even if this is not exactly what one understands by two regiments, there was still enough to wipe out at least six expeditions to Arabia Felix.