formed the dragoman that they knew Wady Beerayn well enough; but they thought I might want to visit it, and they had had wellhunting enough for one trip. Owdy had quietly passed the word to them all to feign ignorance under my questioning, and they had acted their part to perfection. 25. A CAMP AT EL-'AUJEH. El-'Aujeh is one of three places prominent for their extensive ruins in the western Negeb; the other two being El-'Abdeh and Sebayta. Palmer quotes a saying of the Arabs, "There is nothing grander than El-'Aujeh and El-'Abdeh, except Sebaita, which is grander than either." As has been already mentioned,* Robinson, misled by his Arabs and a Hebron camel-owner, confounded El'Aujeh with El-'Abdeh,3 and his error has been followed and popularized by Porter in Murray's Handbook. After Seetzen's first mention of El-'Abdeh, as "Abde," Bonar and Stewart7 pointed out the two places, El-'Abdeh and El-'Aujeh, in their separateness; and finally Palmer visited both places, as also Sebayta, and gave a full description of the three. Stewart has suggested the identity of El-'Aujeh with the capital of ancient Gerar, and it is certainly a more reasonable site for that city than the ruins near Gaza, as conforming to the hints of its location in the Bible text. El-'Aujeh seems to be a favorite haunt of the 'Azâzimeh, and they are jealous of its approach by Christians;10 yet, as it is not within their extensive domain, they cannot confiscate the property of travelers whom the Teeyâhah guide past it. 1 Des. of Exod., II., 375. 2 See page 87 f., supra, note. See Murray's Handbook for Syria and Pal., edition of 1875, p. 100. 5 Reise, III., 43. 6 Des. of Sinai, p. 302 ff. Tent and Khan, p. 198 ff. 9 Tent and Khan, pp. 200, 209. 10 Des. of Exod., II., 371. The principal ruins of El-'Aujeh are on the summits of a double hill, which looms up above the plain of Wady Hanayn as one approaches it from the south. Eastward and northerly of this hill gleamed our snowy tents, as we came over the plain at the close of the day. But between us and our camp we saw, at our right, the black tents of Bed'ween, whom our Arabs at once pronounced "'Azâzimeh," and with this recognition the discoverers, dragoman included, were filled with dismay. All seemed more fearful than usual, as if from the thought that the 'Azâzimeh might be aware of our clandestine visit of the day before, to their jealously-guarded wells. 26. ARAB MODE OF BALANCING AN ACCOUNT. The 'Azâzimeh camp was a large one. As we neared it, in passing, we saw that we were watched curiously by sharp-eyed women and children at every tent. Great flocks of sheep and goats were feeding in the vicinity. The men whom we saw, gave us surly looks. Hardly were we in our tents, on reaching our camp, before word came that the 'Azâzimeh had seized one of the dromedaries we had been riding. At this our dragoman applied to the 'Azâzimeh shaykh for an explanation. The shaykh's reply was, that some two years before this the Teeyâhah had taken a dromedary from his people, and he had been waiting all this time for an opportunity of reprisal. At last the opportunity and the dromedary were at hand. He had simply balanced a long standing account. Could anything be fairer than this? Instead of denouncing the whole transaction as dishonest and outrageous, Muhammad Ahmad, with true Oriental courtesy and shrewdness, admitted that the principle affirmed was eminently a correct one. On the shaykh's showing of the case, the Teeyâhah clearly owed a dromedary to the 'Azâzimeh; and the 'Azâzimeh were quite right in desiring to collect their dues. But there was another point in this case, which the shaykh would do well not to overlook. The Teeyâhah were now under contract with "Christian" travelers to convey them safely and speedily to Hebron. The dromedaries of the caravan belonged for the time being to the Christians. They were now on the highway, over which the Teeyâhah were by desert law entitled to pass. There was here no trespass on the 'Azâzimeh's exclusive domain. If a dromedary were taken from this caravan, the Christians would rightly be angered; and their curse might be brought on the land. They might bring a sayl down Wady Hanayn; or their people from afar might come to retake the desert. If the shaykh were wise, he would postpone his attempt at reprisal until the Teeyâhah came that way without any Christian travelers in convoy. This was the dragoman's putting of the case; and he presented it as if out of sheer love for the 'Azâzimeh, rather than because of his incidental connection with the Teeyâhah. The shaykh, if not wise, was superstitious; as every Arab is. The pictured dangers he was incurring, were too formidable for him. He would have braved the Teeyâhah without hesitation; but he was not ready to defy the mysterious "Christians" with their power over the invisible world. He expressed regret that he had failed to comprehend the true state of this case, from the beginning; and he hastened to restore the dromedary to its place in the caravan camp.1 1 It is possible that this narrow escape of a dromedary has increased the Teeyâhah reluctance to cross the 'Azâzimeh territory northward. At all events, Professor Post, of Bayroot, a long time resident of the East, while crossing the desert with his friend, the Rev. Dr. Field, of New York, in the spring of 1882, found himself unable to induce the Teeyâhah to take that course. He says ("Sunday School World" for January, 1883), "[They] raised so many difficulties in regard to the route to Hebron, that we were obliged to modify our itinerary and go by way of Gaza." An English party, about the same time (as reported in "Macmillan's Magazine" for January, 1883), intent on going "by Nakhl, Beersheba and Hebron," had a similar experience. The narrator says: "We were forced to make a détour by Gaza [from Nakhl], 27. AN 'AZÂZIMEH PROTEST. Later in the evening, the 'Azâzimeh shaykh came again to our camp, as if under exercise of mind about the suggestions of our dragoman concerning the possible performances of the Christian travelers. He said that he very well knew that all this country— the desert land—once belonged to the Christians' grandfathers, and that the ruins about us-El-'Aujeh included-were Christian ruins; but now the country belonged to the 'Azâzimeh, and he hoped the Christians would respect 'Azâzimeh rights. He was much relieved when assured that the Christians of this party would make no claim to the territory, and that their declaration to him was: "We will go by the king's highway; we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders. And if we and our cattle drink of thy water, then we will pay for it we will only, without doing anything else, go through on our feet."1 This 'Azâzimeh shaykh's anxiety was an illustration of the common dread, among the wilder Arab tribes, of a Christian invasion of the desert; a dread which in itself has been one of the chief hindrances to unrestricted visits to the region of 'Ayn Qadees. Owdy and our young shaykhs told our dragoman, on this evening at El-'Aujeh, that the prevailing unwillingness of their people to have travelers visit 'Ayn Qadees and 'Ayn el-Qadayrât grew out of the fear that if Christians knew there were such wells as those in the desert, they would come and retake the country. Because desert wells are such a priceless treasure to the Bed'ween, it is hard for the Bed'ween to realize that Christians can see them in any less as we learnt on the way that fighting was going on between certain tribes round Beersheba, and nothing would induce our Arabs to go on unless we would change our plans." 1 Num. 20: 17, 19. attractive light. Indeed our Arabs grieved the heart of Muhammad Ahmad by reproaching him for having used his influence as a Muhammadan preacher to induce them to disclose the sacred treasures of the desert to unbelievers.1 And these incidents at El-'Aujeh closed up our two days' romantic and successful hunt for the wells of Qadees, Qadayrât, and Qasaymeh. 12 Kings 20: 12-17; Isa. 39: 1-6. It is more than possible that the young shaykhs, Hamdh and Ibrâheem, were taken seriously to task by their indignant fathers, when it became known that they had actually piloted Christian travelers to the long-concealed well at Qadees. If so, their mistake will be less likely to occur again. |