Читать книгу Southern Arabia - J. Theodore Bent - Страница 9

The first Arabian journey that we undertook was in 1889, when we visited the Islands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf; we were attracted by stories of mysterious mounds, and we proposed to see what we could find inside them, hoping, as turned out to be the fact, that we should discover traces of Phœnician remains.

The search for traces of an old world takes an excavator now and again into strange corners of the new. Out of the ground he may extract treasures, or he may not—that is not our point here—out of the inhabitants and their strange ways he is sure, whether he likes it or not, to extract a great deal, and it is with this branch of an excavator's life we are now going to deal.

We thought we were on the track of Phœnician remains and our interest in our work was like the fingers of an aneroid, subject to sudden changes, but at the same time we had perpetually around us a quaint, unknown world of the present, more pleasing to most people than anything pertaining to the past.

The group of islands known as Bahrein (dual form of Bahr, i.e. two seas) lies in a bay of the same name in the Persian Gulf, about twenty miles off the coast of El Hasa in Arabia.

Bahrein is really the name of the largest of the islands, which is twenty-seven miles long by ten wide. The second in point of size is Moharek, which lies north of Bahrein, and is separated from it by a strait of horse-shoe form, five miles in length, and in a few places as much as a mile wide, but for the greater part half a mile.

The rest of the group are mere rocks: Sitrah, four miles long, with a village on it of the same name; Nebi Saleh, Sayeh, Khaseifa, and, to the east of Moharek, Arad, with a palm-grove and a large double Portuguese fort, an island or a peninsula according to the state of the tide.

It was no use embarking on a steamer which would take us direct from England to our destination, owing to the complete uncertainty of the time when we should arrive, so we planned out our way viâ Karachi and Maskat; then we had to go right up to Bushire, and again change steamers there, for the boats going up the Gulf would not touch at Bahrein. At Bushire we engaged five Persians to act as servants, interpreter, and overseers over the workmen whom we should employ in excavating.

We had as our personal servant and interpreter combined a very dirty Hadji Abdullah, half Persian, half Arab. He was the best to be obtained, and his English was decidedly faulty. He always said mules for meals, foals for fowls, and any one who heard him say 'What time you eat your mules to-day, Sahib?' 'I have boiled two foals for dinner,' or 'Mem Sahib, now I go in bazaar to buy our perwisions of grub,' or 'What place I give you your grub, Mem Sahib?' would have been surprised.

He had been a great deal on our men-of-war; he also took a present of horses from the Sultan of Maskat to the Queen, so that he could boast 'I been to Home,' and alluded to his stay in England as 'when I was in Home.'

Abdullah always says chuck and never throw; and people unused to him would not take in that 'Those peacock no good, carboys much better,' referred to pickaxes and crowbars.

A Mosque at Manamah, Bahrein

He used to come to the diggings and say: 'A couble of Sheikhs come here in camp, Sahib. I am standing them some coffee; shall I stand them some mixed biscuits, too?'

I must say I pity foreigners who have to trust to interpreters whose only European language is such English as this.

With the whole of our party we embarked on the steamer which took us to Bahrein, or rather as close as it could approach; for, owing to the shallowness of the sea, while still far from shore we were placed in a baggala in which we sailed for about twenty minutes. Then when a smaller boat had conveyed us as near to the dry land as possible, we were in mid-ocean transferred, bag and baggage, to asses, those lovely white asses of Bahrein with tails and manes dyed yellow with henna, and grotesque patterns illuminating their flanks; we had no reins or stirrups, and as the asses, though more intelligent than our own, will not unfrequently show obstinacy in the water, the rider, firmly grasping his pommel, reaches with thankfulness the slimy, oozy beach of Bahrein.

Manamah is the name of the town at which you land; it is the commercial capital of the islands—just a streak of white houses and bamboo huts, extending about a mile and a half along the shore. A few mosques with low minarets may be seen, having stone steps up one side, by which the priest ascends for the call to prayer. These mosques and the towers of the richer pearl merchants show some decided architectural features, having arches of the Saracenic order, with fretwork of plaster and quaint stucco patterns.

On landing we were at once surrounded by a jabbering crowd of negro slaves, and stately Arabs with long, flowing robes and twisted camel-hair cords (akkal) around their heads.

Our home while in the town was one of the best of the battlemented towers, and consisted of a room sixteen feet square, on a stone platform. It had twenty-six windows with no glass in them, but pretty lattice of plaster. Our wooden lock was highly decorated, and we had a wooden key to close our door, which pleased us much. Even though we were close upon the tropics we found our abode chilly enough after sunset; and our nights were rendered hideous—firstly, by the barking of dogs; secondly, by cocks which crowed at an inordinately early hour; and, thirdly, by pious Mussulmans hard at work praying before the sun rose.

From our elevated position we could look down into a sea of bamboo huts, the habitations of the pearl-fishers: neat enough abodes, with courtyards paved with helix shells. In these courtyards stood quaint, large water-jars, which women filled from goat-skins carried on their shoulders from the wells, wobbling when full like live headless animals; and cradles, like hencoops, for their babies. They were a merry idle lot of folk just then, for it was not their season of work: perpetually playing games (of which tip-jack and top-spinning appeared the favourite for both young and old) seemed to be their chief occupation. Staid Arabs, with turbans and long, flowing robes, spinning tops, formed a sight of which we never tired. The spinning-tops are made out of whelk-shells, which I really believe must have been the original pattern from which our domestic toy was made. The door-posts of their huts are often made of whales' jaws; a great traffic is done in sharks; the cases for their swords and daggers are all of shagreen. The gulf well deserves the name given to it by Ptolemy of the Ichthyophagorum sinus.

Walking through the bazaars one is much struck by the quaint, huge iron locks, some of them with keys nearly two feet long, and ingeniously opened by pressure of a spring. In the commoner houses the locks and keys are all of wood. In the bazaars, too, you may find that queer El Hasa money called Tawilah, or 'long bits,' short bars of copper doubled back and compressed together, with a few characters indicating the prince who struck them.

The coffee-pots of Bahrein are quite a specialty, also coming from El Hasa, which appears to be the centre of art in this part of Arabia. With their long beak-like spouts and concentric circles with patterns on them, these coffee-pots are a distinct feature. In the bazaars of Manamah and Moharek coffee-vendors sit at every corner with some huge pots of a similar shape simmering on the embers; in the lid are introduced stones to make a noise and attract the attention of the passers-by. Coffee-shops take the place of spirit and wine shops, which in the strict Wahabi country would not be, for a moment, tolerated. In private houses it is thought well to have four or five coffee-pots standing round the fire, to give an appearance of riches.

Besides the coffee-pots, other objects of El Hasa workmanship may be seen in Bahrein. Every household of respectability has its wooden bowl with which to offer visitors a drink of water or sour milk; these are beautifully inlaid with silver in very elaborate patterns. The guns used by Bahreini sportsmen are similarly inlaid, and the camel saddles of the sheikhs are most beautifully decorated on the pommels in the same style.

The anvils, at which the blacksmiths in the bazaars were squatting, were like large nails with heads about six inches square, driven into the ground and about a foot high.

The old weapons of the Bedouin Arabs are still in use in Bahrein: the long lance which is put up before the tent of the chief when he goes about, the shield of camel-skin decorated with gold paint and brass knobs, the coat of mail, and other objects of warfare used in an age long gone by. Every other stall has dates to sell in thick masses, the chief food of the islanders. Then you may see locusts pressed and pickled in barrels; the poorer inhabitants are very fond of this diet, and have converted the curse of the cultivator into a favourite delicacy. As for weights, the stall-holders would appear to have none but stones, whelk shells, and potsherds, which must be hard to regulate.

An ancient Arab author states that in Oman 'men obtain fire from a spark, by rolling the tinder in dry Arab grass and swinging it round till it bursts into flame.' We often saw this process and bought one of the little cages, hanging to a long chain, which they use in Bahrein.

Of course pearl-fishing is the great occupation of the islands, and Manamah is inhabited chiefly by pearl merchants and divers. Bahrein has in fact been celebrated for its pearl-fishing ever since the days of the Periplus of Nearchus, in the time of Alexander the Great.

Albuquerque, in his commentaries,[1] thus speaks of Bahrein pearl-fishing in 1510:—'Bahrein is noted for its large breeding of horses, its barley crops, and the variety of its fruits; and all around it are the fishing grounds of seed pearls, and of pearls which are sent to these realms of Portugal, for they are better and more lasting than any that are found in any other of these parts.' This is also the verdict of the modern pearl merchants, who value Bahrein pearls, as more lasting and harder than those even of Ceylon. Evidently Albuquerque got an order from his sovereign for pearls, for he writes,[2] in 1515, that he is getting the pearls which the king had ordered for 'the pontifical of our lady.' To this day in their dealings the pearl merchants of Bahrein still make use of the old Portuguese weights and names.

The pearl oyster is found in all the waters from Ras Mussendom to the head of the Gulf, but on the Persian side there are no known banks of value. They vary in distance from one to ninety miles from the low-lying shore of 'Araby the Blest,' but the deep sea banks are not so much fished till the 'Shemal' or nor'westers of June have spent their force. The three seasons for fishing are known as 'the spring fishing' in the shallow water, 'the summer fishing' in the deep waters, and 'the winter fishing' conducted principally by wading in the shoals. The pearls of these seas are still celebrated for their firmness, and do not peel. They are commonly reported to lose one per cent. annually for fifty years in colour and water, but after that they remain the same. They have seven skins, whereas the Cingalese pearls have only six. The merchants generally buy them wholesale by the old Portuguese weight of the chao. They divide them into different sizes with sieves and sell them in India, so that, as is usually the case with specialties, it is impossible to buy a good pearl on Bahrein.

Diving here is exceedingly primitive; all the necessary paraphernalia consists of a loop of rope and a stone to go down with, a curious horn thing to hold the nose, and oil for the orifice of the ears. Once a merchant brought with him a diving apparatus, but the divers were highly indignant, and leaguing against him refused to show the best banks. In this way the fisheries suffer, for the best pearls are in the deeper waters, which can only be visited late in the season. The divers are mostly negro slaves from Africa; they do not live long, poor creatures, developing awful sores and weak eyes, and they live and die entirely without medical aid.

At present the pearl-fisheries employ about four hundred boats of from eight to twenty men each. Each boat pays a tax to the sheikh. The fishing season lasts from April to October.

Very curious boats ply in the waters between Manamah and Moharek; the huge ungainly baggalas can only sail in the deeper channels. The Bahrein boats have very long-pointed prows, elegantly carved and decorated with shells; when the wind is contrary they are propelled by poles or paddles, consisting of boards of any shape tied to the end of the poles with twine, and the oarsman always seats himself on the gunwale.

Perhaps the way these boats are tied and sewn together may have given rise to the legend alluded to by Sir John Maundeville when he saw them at the Isle of Hormuz. 'Near that isle there are ships without nails of iron or bonds, on account of the rocks of adamants (loadstones), for they are all abundant there in that sea that it is marvellous to speak of, and if a ship passed there that had iron bonds or iron nails it would perish, for the adamant, by its nature, draws iron to it, and so it would draw the ship that it should never depart from it.'

Many of the boats have curious-shaped stone anchors, and water casks of uniform and doubtless old-world shape. The sheikh has some fine war vessels, called batils, which did good execution about fifty years ago, when the Sultan of Oman and the rulers of El Hasa tried to seize Bahrein, and a naval battle took place in the shallow sea off the coast in which the Bahreini were victorious. Now that the Gulf is practically English and piracy at an end, these vessels are more ornamental than useful. His large baggala, which mounted ten tiny guns and was named the Dunijah, is now employed in trade.

Then there are the bamboo skiffs with decks almost flush with the side, requiring great skill in working. Boats are really of but little use immediately around the islands. You see men walking in the sea quite a mile out, collecting shellfish and seaweeds, which form a staple diet for both man and beast on Bahrein.

The shallowness of the sea between Bahrein and the mainland has contributed considerably to the geographical and mercantile importance of the Bahrein. No big vessels can approach the opposite coast of Arabia; hence, in olden days, when the caravan trade passed this way, all goods must have been transhipped to smaller boats at Bahrein.

Sir M. Durant, in a consular report, states it as his opinion that, 'under a settled government, Bahrein could be the trading place of the Persian Gulf for Persia and Arabia, and an excellent harbour near the warehouses could be formed.'

If the Euphrates Valley Railway had ever been opened, if the terminus of this railway had been at Koweit, as it was proposed by the party of survey under the command of Admiral Charlewood and General Chesney, the Bahrein group would at once have sprung into importance as offering a safe emporium in the immediate vicinity of this terminus. Bahrein is the Cyprus of the Persian Gulf, in fact. This day is, however, postponed indefinitely until such times as England, Turkey, and Russia shall see fit to settle their differences; and with a better understanding between these Powers, and the development of railways in the East, the Persian Gulf may yet once more become a high road of commerce, and the Bahrein Islands may again come into notice.

The Portuguese, who were the first Europeans after the time of Alexander to visit the Gulf, recognised the importance of Bahrein. Up to their time the Gulf had been a closed Mohammedan lake. The history of their rule in that part has yet to be written, but it will disclose a tale of great interest, and be a record of marvellous commercial enterprise. It was Albuquerque who first reopened the Gulf to Europeans.

Early in the sixteenth century (1504), he urged the occupation of the Gulf. In 1506 three fleets went to the East under the command of Tristan d'Acunha, with Albuquerque as second in command. Tristan soon took his departure further afield, and left Albuquerque in command. This admiral first attacked and took Hormuz, then governed by a king of Persian origin. Here, and at Maskat, he thoroughly established the Portuguese power, thereby commanding the entrance into the Gulf. From de Barros' account it would appear that the king of Bahrein was a tributary of the king of Hormuz, paying annually 40,000 pardaos, and from Albuquerque's letters we read that the occupation of Bahrein formed part of his scheme. 'With Hormuz and Bahrein in their hand the whole Gulf would be under their control,' he wrote. In fact, Albuquerque's scheme at that time would appear to have been exceedingly vast and rather chimerical—namely, to divert the Nile from its course and let it flow into the Red Sea, ruin Egypt, and bring the India trade viâ the Persian Gulf to Europe. Of this scheme we have only the outline, but, beyond establishing fortresses in the Gulf, it fell through, for Albuquerque died, and with him his gigantic projects.

The exact date of the occupation of Bahrein by the Portuguese I have as yet been unable to discover; but in 1521 we read of an Arab insurrection in Bahrein against the Persians and Portuguese, in which the Portuguese factor, Ruy Bale, was tortured and crucified.

Sheikh Hussein bin Said, of the Arabian tribe of Ben Zabia, was the instigator of this revolt. In the following year the Portuguese governor, Dom Luis de Menezes, came to terms with him, and appointed him Portuguese representative in the island.

A few years later, one Ras Bardadim, guazil, or governor of Bahrein, made himself objectionable, and against him Simeon d'Acunha was sent. He and many of his men died of fever in the expedition, but the Portuguese power was again restored.

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the Portuguese came under the rule of Spain, and from that date their power in the Persian Gulf began to wane. Their soldiers were drafted off to the wars in Flanders instead of going to the East to protect the colonies; and the final blow came in 1622, when Shah Abbas of Persia, assisted by an English fleet, took Hormuz, and then Bahrein. Twenty years later a company of Portuguese merchants, eager for the pearls of these islands, organised an expedition from Goa to recover the Bahrein, but the ships were taken and plundered by the Arabs before ever they entered the Gulf.

Thus fell the great Portuguese power in the Gulf, the sole traces of which now are the numerous fortresses, such as the one on Bahrein.

From 1622 to the present time the control over Bahrein has been contested between the Persians and Arabs, and as the Persian power has been on the wane, the Arabian star has been in the ascendent. In 1711 the Sultan bin Seif wrested Bahrein from Persia; in 1784 the Uttubbi of El Hasa conquered it. They have held it ever since, despite the attempts of Seyid Said of Oman, of the Turks and Persians, to take it from them. The Turks have, however, succeeded in driving them out of their original kingdom of El Hasa, on the mainland of Arabia opposite, and now the Bahrein is all that remains to them of their former extensive territories.

The royal family is a numerous one, being a branch of the El Khalifa tribe. They are the chiefs of the Uttubbi tribe of Arabs.

Most of them, if not actually belonging to that strict sect of Arabians known as Wahabi, have strong puritanical proclivities. Our teetotalers are nothing to them in bigotry. If a vendor of intoxicating liquor started a shop on Bahrein, they would burn his house down, so that the wicked who want to drink any intoxicating liquor have to buy the material secretly from ships in the harbour. Many think it wrong to smoke, and spend their lives in prayer and fasting. Church decoration is an abomination to the Wahabi; therefore, in Bahrein the mosques are little better than barns with low minarets, for the very tall ones of other Mohammedan sects are forbidden. The Wahabi are fanatics of the deepest dye; 'there is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet,' they say with the rest of the Mohammedan world, but the followers of Abdul Wahab add, 'and in no case must Mohammed and the Imams be worshipped lest glory be detracted from God.' All titles to them are odious; no grand tombs are to be erected over their dead, no mourning is allowed; hence the cemetery at Manamah is but a pitiful place—a vast collection of circles set with rough stones, each with a small uninscribed headpiece, and the surface sprinkled with helix shells.

The Wahabi would wage, if they dared, perpetual war not only against the infidel, but against such perverted individuals as those who go to worship at Mecca and other sacred shrines. The founder of this revival is reported to have beaten his sons to death for drinking wine, and to have made his daughters support themselves by spinning, but at the same time he felt himself entitled to give to a fanatical follower, who courted death for his sake, an order for an emerald palace and a large number of female slaves in the world to come.

In 1867 the Shah of Persia aimed at acquiring Bahrein, though his only claim to it was based on the fact that Bahrein had been an appanage of the Persian crown under the Suffavian kings. He instituted a revolt on the island; adopted a claimant to the sheikhdom, and got him to hoist the Persian flag. Our ships blockaded Bahrein, intercepted letters, and obliged the rebel sheikh to quit. Then it was that we took the islands under our protection. In 1875 the Turks caused trouble, and the occupation of Bahrein formed part of their great scheme of conquest in Arabia. Our ship the Osprey appeared on the scene, drove back the Turks, transported to India several sheikhs who were hostile to the English rule, and placed Sheikh Isa (or Esau) on the throne under British protection, under which he rules happily to this day.

We went to see him at Moharek, where he holds his court in the winter-time. We crossed over in a small baggala, and had to be poled for a great distance with our keel perpetually grating on the bottom. It was like driving in a carriage on a jolting road; the donkeys trotted independently across, their legs quite covered with water. We were glad when they came alongside, and we completed our journey on their backs.

The courtyard of the palace, which somewhat recalls the Alhambra in its architecture, was, when we arrived, crowded with Arab chiefs in all manner of quaint costumes. His majesty's dress was exceedingly fine. He and his family are entitled to wear their camel-hair bands bound round with gold thread. These looked very regal over the red turban, and his long black coat, with his silver-studded sword by his side, made him look every inch a king.

He is most submissive to British interests, inasmuch as his immediate predecessors who did not love England were shipped off to India, and still languish there in exile; as he owes his throne entirely to British protection, he and his family will probably continue to reign as long as the English are virtual owners of the Gulf, if they are willing to submit to the English protectorate.

We got a photograph of a group of them resting on their guns, and with their kanjars or sickle-shaped daggers at their waists. We took Prince Mohamed, the heir-apparent, and the stout Seid bin Omar, the prime minister of Bahrein. But Sheikh Esau refused to place his august person within reach of our camera.

During our visit we were seated on high arm-chairs of the kind so much used in India, and the only kind used here. They were white and hoary with old age and long estrangement from furniture polish. For our sins we had to drink the bitterest black coffee imaginable, which tasted like varnish from the bitter seeds infused in it; this was followed by cups of sweet syrup flavoured with cinnamon, a disagreeable custom to those accustomed to take their coffee and sugar together.

Moharek is aristocratic, being the seat of government; Manamah is essentially commercial, and between them in the sea is a huge dismantled Portuguese fort, now used as Sheikh Esau's stables.

The town of Moharek gets its water supply from a curious source, springing up from under the sea. At high tide there is about a fathom of salt water over the spring, and water is brought up either by divers who go down with skins, or by pushing a hollow bamboo down into it. At low tide there is very little water over it, and women with large amphora and goat-skins wade out and fetch what water they require; they tell me that the spring comes up with such force that it drives back the salt water and never gets impregnated. All I can answer for is that the water is excellent to drink.

This source is called Bir Mahab, and there are several of a similar nature on the coast around: the Kaseifah spring and others. There is such a spring in the harbour of Syracuse, about twenty feet under the sea.

The legend is that in the time of Merwan, a chief, Ibn Hakim, from Katif, wished to marry the lovely daughter of a Bahrein chief. His suit was not acceptable, so he made war on the islands and captured all the wells which supplied the towns on the bigger island; but the guardian deity of the Bahreini caused this spring to break out in the sea just before Moharek, and the invader was thus in time repulsed. It is a curious fact that Arados or Arvad, the Phœnician town on the Mediterranean, was supplied by a similar submarine source.

Sheikh Esau's representative at Manamah—his prime minister or viceroy, we should call him, though he is usually known there by the humble-sounding title of the 'bazaar master,' by name Seid bin Omar, is a very stout and nearly black individual, with a European cast of countenance. He looked exceedingly grand when he came to see us, in his under-robe of scarlet cloth, with a cloak of rustling and stiff white wool with a little red woven in it. Over his head floated a white cashmere shawl, with the usual camel-hair rings to keep it on, and sandals on his bare feet. He was deputed by his sovereign to look after us, and during the fortnight we were on the island he never left us for a single day. Though outwardly very strict in his asceticism, and constantly apt to say his prayers with his nose in the dust at inconvenient moments, we found him by no means averse to a cigarette in the strictest privacy, and we learnt that his private life would not bear European investigation. He is constantly getting married. Though sixty years of age he had a young bride of a few weeks' standing. I was assured that he would soon tire of her and put her away. Even in polygamous Arabia he is looked upon as a much-married man.