Part 7
At our feet was a spacious plain, bounded in front by undulating ground; on the left by the grim rocks of Mount Ohod; on the right by the gardens of Kuba. On the north-west of the town wall was a tall white-washed fort, partly built upon rock. In the suburb El Munakhah, near at hand, rose the brand-new domes and minarets of the five mosques. Farther away to the east could be seen the gem of El Medinah, the four tall towers, and the flashing green dome under which rest the Prophet's remains.
We proceeded towards the gate, from which an eager multitude poured forth to greet friends in the caravan. I took my abode with Shaykh Hamid, who abandoned his former dirt and shabbiness and appeared clean, well-dressed, and with neatly trimmed moustache and beard. He was to pilot me through the intricate ceremonies of the visits to the Prophet's tomb and the other holy places, and in the evening I set out with him for the Haram, or sanctuary of the Prophet.
The Prophet's mosque at El Medinah is the second of the three most venerable places in the world, according to Islamic belief; it is peculiarly connected with Mohammed, as Meccah is with Abraham, and Jerusalem with Solomon. On entering it, I was astonished at the mean and tawdry appearance of a place so venerated in the Moslem world. There is no simple grandeur about it, as there is about the Kaabah at Meccah; rather does it suggest a museum of second-rate art, decorated with but pauper splendour. The mosque is a parallelogram about 420 feet in length by 340 broad, and the main colonnade in the south of the building, called El Rawzah (the garden), contains all that is venerable. Shaykh Hamid and I fought our way in through a crowd of beggars with our hands behind us, and beginning with the right feet, we advanced towards the holy places. After preliminary prayers at the Prophet's pulpit, we reached the mausoleum, an irregular square in the south-east corner, surrounded by walls and a fence. Three small windows enable one to peer at the three tombs within--Mohammed's, Abubekr's, and Omar's. After long praying I was permitted to look through the window opposite the Prophet's tomb. I could see nothing but a curtain with inscriptions, and a large pearl rosary denoting the exact position of the tomb. Many other sacred spots had to be visited, and many other prayers uttered, ere we left the building.
The principal places of pious visitation in the vicinity of El Medinah are the mosques of Kuba, the cemetery El Bakia, and the martyr Hamzah's tomb at the foot of Mount Ohod, the scene of one of Mohammed's most famous battles. The mosques of Kuba are the pleasantest to visit, lying as they do among the date-palm plantations, amid surroundings most grateful to the eye weary with hot red glare. There were green, waving crops and cool shade; a perfumed breeze, strange luxury in El Hejaz; small birds warbled, tiny cascades splashed from the wells. The Prophet delighted to visit one of the wells at Kuba, the Bir el Aris. He would sit upon its brink with bare legs hanging over the side; he honoured it, moreover, with expectoration, which had the effect, say the historians, of sweetening the water, which before was salt.
On August 28 arrived the great caravan from Damascus, and in the plain outside the city there sprang up a town of tents of every size, colour, and shape. A tribal war prevented me from carrying out my intention of journeying overland to Muscat, so I determined to proceed to Meccah with the Damascus caravan. Accordingly, on August 31 I bade farewell to my friends at El Medinah, and hastened after the caravan, which was proceeding to Meccah along the Darb el Sharki, or eastern road. I had escaped all danger of detection at El Medinah, and was now to travel to Meccah along a route wholly unknown to Europeans.
_III.--At the Shrine of the Prophet_
Owing to the caravan's annoying practice of night marching, in accordance with the advice of Mohammed, I could see nothing of much of the country through which we travelled. What I did see was mostly a stony and sandy wilderness, with outcrops of black basalt; occasionally we passed through a valley containing camel-grass and acacia trees--mere vegetable mummies--and surrounded with low hills of gravel and clay. At a large village called El Sufayna we encountered the Baghdad caravan, and quarrelled hotly with it for precedence on the route. At the halt before reaching this place a Turkish pilgrim had been mortally wounded by an Arab with whom he had quarrelled. The injured man was wrapped in a shroud, placed in a half-dug grave, and left to die. This horrible fate, I learnt, often befalls poor and solitary pilgrims whom illness or accident incapacitates from proceeding.
At El Zaribah, an undulating plain amongst high granite hills, we were ordered to assume the Ihram, or garb that must be worn by pilgrims at Meccah. It consists simply of two strips of white cotton cloth, with narrow red stripes and fringes. The women donned white robes and hideous masks of palm leaves, for during the ceremonies their veils must not touch their faces. We were warned that we must not quarrel or use bad language; that we must not kill game or cause animals to fly from us; that we were not to shave, or cut or oil our hair, or scratch, save with the open palm; and that we must not cover our heads. Any breach of these and numerous other rules would have to be atoned for by the sacrifice of a sheep.
A short distance beyond this point we had a lively skirmish with robbers, during which I earned a reputation for courage by calling for my supper in the midst of the excitement. Meccah lies in a winding valley, and is not to be seen until the pilgrim is close at hand. At length, at one o'clock in the morning, in the course of our eleventh march since leaving El Medinah, I was aroused by general excitement. "Meccah! Meccah!" cried some voices; "the Sanctuary! O the Sanctuary!" exclaimed others. I looked out from my litter, and saw by the light of the southern stars the dim outlines of a large city. We were passing over the last ridge by an artificial cut, and presently descended to the northern suburb. I took up my lodgings at the home of a boy, Mohammed, who had accompanied me throughout the pilgrimage.
The Kaabah, or House of Allah, at Meccah, which has already been accurately described by the traveller Burckhardt, stands in an oblong square, enclosed by a great wall, 257 paces long, and 210 broad. The open space is surrounded by colonnades united by pointed arches and surmounted by domes. The Kaabah itself is an oblong, flat-roofed structure, 22 paces long and 18 broad; the height appears greater than the length. It is roughly built of large irregular blocks of the grey Meccah stone. It is supposed to have been built and rebuilt ten times--first by the angels of Allah before the creation--secondly by Adam; thirdly by his son Seth; fourthly by Abraham and his son; the eighth rebuilding was during the lifetime of the Prophet.
On the morning of our arrival we bathed and proceeded in our pilgrim garb to the sanctuary. There it lay, the bourne of my long and weary pilgrimage. Here was no Egyptian antiquity, no Greek beauty, no barbaric gorgeousness; yet the view was strange, unique; and how few have looked upon the celebrated shrine! I may truly say that of all the worshippers there, not one felt for the moment a deeper emotion than did the Haji from the far north. But, to confess humbling truth, theirs was the high feeling of religious enthusiasm; mine was the ecstasy of gratified pride.
After drinking holy water, we approached as near as we could to the sacred Black Stone, the subject of so much sacred Oriental tradition, and prayed before it. The stone was surrounded by a crowd of pilgrims, kissing it and pressing their hearts against it. Then followed the ceremony of circumambulation. Seven times we passed round the Kaabah, which was draped in a huge dark curtain, to which pilgrims clung weeping. The boy Mohammed, by physical violence, made a way to the Black Stone. While kissing it, I narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it is a big aërolite. After several other ceremonies, I left the holy place thoroughly exhausted.
I did not enter the interior of the Kaabah until later. Nothing could be more simple; a marble floor, red damask hangings, three columns supporting the cross-beams of the ceiling, many lamps said to be of gold, and a safe of aloe-wood, sometimes containing the key of the building, were all that was to be seen. Many pilgrims refuse to enter the Kaabah for religious reasons. Those who tread the hallowed floor are bound, among many other things, never again to walk barefooted, to take up fire with the fingers, or to tell lies. These stipulations, especially the last-named, are too exacting for Orientals.
Meccah is an expensive place during the pilgrimage. The fees levied by the guardians of the Kaabah are numerous and heavy. The citizens make large sums out of the entertainment of pilgrims; they are, for the most part, covetous spendthrifts, who anticipate the pilgrimage by falling into the hands of the usurer, and then endeavour to "skin" the richer Hajis.
On September 12 we set forth for the ceremonies at Mount Arafat, where Adam rejoined Eve after the Fall, and where he was instructed by the archangel Gabriel to erect a house of prayer. At least 50,000 pilgrims were encamped at the foot of the holy mountain. On the day after our arrival we climbed to the sacred spots, and in the afternoon a sermon was preached on the mountain, which I did not hear--being engaged, let me confess, in a flirtation with a fair Meccan. At length the preacher gave the signal to depart, and everyone hurried away with might and main. The plain bristled with tent-pegs, litters were crushed, pedestrians trampled and camels overthrown; single combats with sticks and other weapons took place; briefly, it was a state of chaotic confusion.
Next day was performed, at Muna, on the way back to Meccah, the ceremony of stoning the Shaytan el Kabir, or Great Devil, who is represented by a dwarf buttress placed against a rough wall of stones. The buttress was surrounded by a swarm of pilgrims, mounted and on foot, eager to get as near to the Great Devil as possible. I found myself under the stomach of a fallen dromedary, and had great difficulty in extricating myself; the boy Mohammed emerged from the tumult with a bleeding nose. Schooled by adversity, we bided our time ere approaching to cast the seven stones required by the ceremonial.
At Muna sheep were sacrificed by those pilgrims who, like myself, had committed breaches of the rules. Literally, the land stank. Five or six thousand animals were slain and cut up in this Devil's punch-bowl. I leave the reader to imagine the rest. When I had completed El Umrah, or the little pilgrimage--a comparatively simple addition to the other ceremonies--I deemed it expedient to leave Meccah. The danger of detection was constantly before me; for had my disguise been penetrated, even although the authorities had been willing to protect me, I should certainly have been slain by indignant devotees.
Issuing from Meccah into the open plain, I felt a thrill of pleasure--such pleasure as only the captive delivered from his dungeon can experience. At dawn the next morning (September 23) we sighted the maritime plain of Jeddah, situated 44 miles distant from Meccah. Worn out with fatigue, I embarked on a vessel of the Bombay Steam Navigation Company, received the greatest kindness from the officers (I had revealed my identity to the British consul at Jeddah), and in due time arrived at Suez.
Let me conclude in the words of a long-dead brother traveller, Fahian, "I have been exposed to perils, and I have escaped them; and my heart is moved with emotions of gratitude that I have been permitted to effect the objects I had in view."
SIR WILLIAM BUTLER
The Great Lone Land
_I.--The Red River Expedition_
Sir William Francis Butler, G.C.B., born at Suirville, Tipperary, Ireland, Oct. 31, 1838, was educated at the Jesuit College, Tullabeg, King's County, and joined the British Army as an ensign in the 69th Regiment in 1858. In 1877 he married Miss Thompson, the celebrated painter of "The Roll Call." Sir William Butler is a versatile writer, his works embracing records of travel, histories of military campaigns, biographies, and fiction. His first book was "The Great Lone Land," published in 1872. Half the volume is devoted to a sketch of the early history of the northwest regions of Canada, and to tracing the causes which led to the rebellion of the settlers--principally half-breeds--under Louis Riel, against the Canadian Government in 1870. He describes the romantic part he took in the bloodless campaign of the expeditionary force under Colonel (now Lord) Wolseley, from Lake Superior to Winnipeg, for its suppression. In the other half of the book he describes his journey on a special mission for the Canadian Government to the Hudson Bay forts and Indian camps in the valleys of the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers. Sir William, as a writer, has the rich vocabulary of the cultivated Celt; he presents many striking word pictures of the natural scenery of the regions he traversed. He was almost the first to proclaim the possibilities of the settlement of the Saskatchewan prairies, now receiving such an influx of population from all over the world.
It was a period of universal peace over the world. Some of the great powers were even bent on disarming. To be more precise, the time was the close of the year 1869. But in the very farthest West, somewhere between the Rocky Mountains, Hudson Bay, and Lake Superior, along the river called the Red River of the North, a people, of whom nobody could tell who and what they were, had risen in insurrection.
Had the country bordering on the Red River been an unpeopled wilderness, the plan of transferring the land of the Northwest from the Hudson Bay Company to the crown, and from the crown to the Dominion of Canada, might have been an eminently wise one. But, unfortunately, it was a country which had been originally settled by the Earl of Selkirk in 1812 with Scots from the Highland counties and the Orkney Islands, and subsequently by French _voyageurs_ from Lower Canada.
There were 15,000 persons living in peaceful possession of the soil thus transferred, and these persons very naturally objected to have themselves and their possessions signed away without one word of consent or note of approbation. Hence began the rebellion led by Louis Riel, who, with his followers, seized Fort Garry, with all its stores of arms, guns, provisions, dominated the adjacent village of Winnipeg, and established what was called a Provisional Government. The rebels went steadily from violence to pillage, from pillage to robbery, much supplemented by drunkenness and dictatorial debauchery; and, finally, on March 4, 1870, with many accessories of cruelty, shot to death a loyalist Canadian prisoner they had taken, named Thomas Scott.
When, at the beginning of April 1870, news came of the projected dispatch of an armed force from Canada against Louis Riel and his malcontent followers at the Red River, there was one who hailed in the approaching expedition the chance of a solution to the difficulties which had beset him in his career. That one was myself. Going to the nearest telegraph station, I sent a message to the leader: "Please remember me." I sailed at once for Canada, visited Toronto, Quebec, and Montreal, interviewed many personages, and finally received instructions on June 12 from those in authority to proceed west.
The expedition had started some time before for its true base of operations, Fort William, on the north-west shore of Lake Superior. It was to work its way from Lake Superior to the Red River through British territory. My instructions were to pass round by the United States, and, after ascertaining the likelihood of a Fenian intervention from the side of Minnesota and Dakota, to arrange for supplies for the expeditionary force from St. Paul; then to endeavour to reach Colonel Wolseley beyond the Red River, with all the tidings I could gather as to the state of parties and the chances of fight. At St. Paul my position was not at all a pleasant one. My identity as a British officer became known, and to escape unnecessary attention I paid a flying visit to Lake Superior and then pushed on to Fort Abercrombie. I could find no evidence at either place that there was a possibility at Vermilion Lakes, eighty miles north of the latter place, of any filibusters making a dash at the communications of the expeditionary force.
Afterwards, at Frog's Point on the Red River, I joined the steamer International, which took me down to a promontory within a couple of hundred yards of the junction of the Assiniboine and Red rivers, where, with the connivance of the captain, I jumped ashore and escaped Riel's scouts, who had heard of my coming, and had been ordered by their leader to bring me into Fort Garry, "dead or alive." After a pursuit of several hours in the dark, in which I had a narrow "shave" of being captured, I reached the lower fort, occupied by loyalists, and thence passed on next day to an Indian settlement. This was on July 23.
Riel, learning where I was, sent a messenger to say that the pursuit of me had all been a mistake, and that I might safely come to Fort Garry. I was anxious to see the position of affairs at the fort, and I repaired thither, passing without challenge a sentry who was leaning lazily against a wall. There were two flagstaffs; one flew a Union Jack in shreds and tatters, and the other a bit of bunting with a _fleur-de-lys_ and a shamrock on a white field. I was conducted to a house, and asked if I wished to see Mr. Riel. "To call upon him?" "Yes." "Certainly not!" "But if he calls upon you?" "Then I will see him."
A door opened, and there entered a short, stout man with a large head; a sallow, puffy face; a sharp, restless, intelligent eye; his square-cut, massive forehead overhung by a mass of long and thickly clustering hair, and marked with well-cut eyebrows--altogether a remarkable-looking face. This was Louis Riel. He was dressed in a curious mixture of clothing--a black frock coat, vest, trousers, and Indian mocassins. In the course of the interview he denied he was making preparation to resist the approaching British expeditionary force. Everything he had done had been for the sake of peace and to prevent bloodshed; but if the expedition tried to put him out of his position, they would find they could not do it, and he would keep what was his till a proper governor arrived!
Eventually he said: "Had I been your enemy, you would have known it before. I heard you would not visit me, and although I felt humiliated, I came to see you to show my pacific inclinations."
_II.--The Expedition in the Wilderness_
An hour later I left the fort, hastened to my old quarters at the Indian settlement, and started by canoe to seek the coming expedition. We paddled down the Red River to Lake Winnipeg, crossing which we entered the mouth of the Winnipeg River, and came to Fort Alexandra, a mile up stream.
This river has an immense volume of water. It descends 360 feet in a distance of 160 miles by a series of terraces; it is full of eddies and whirlpools; has every variety of waterfall, from chutes to cataracts; it expands into lonely pine-cliffed lakes and far-reaching island-studded bays. My Ojibway crew with infinite skill accomplished the voyage up-stream, surmounting falls and cataracts by making twenty-seven portages in five days from leaving Fort Alexandra, during which we had only encountered two solitary Indians. It was on the evening of July 30 that we reached the Lake of the Woods. Through a perfect maze of islands, we steered across this wonderfully beautiful sheet of water to the mouth of the Rainy River, up which we paddled to Fort Francis, where we arrived on August 4, and heard, for the first time, news of the expeditionary force.
We were now 400 miles from Fort Garry, and 180 miles beyond the spot where I had counted upon falling in with them. Next morning we paddled up to the foot of a rapid which the river makes as it flows out of the Rainy Lake. Glancing along the broad waters of the lake the glint of something strange caught my sight. Yes, there they were! Coming with the full swing of eight paddles, swept a large North-west canoe, its Iroquois paddlers timing their strokes to an old French chant. We put into the rocky shore, and, mounting upon a crag which guarded the head of the rapid, I waved to the leading canoe as it swept along. In the centre sat a figure in uniform, with a forage-cap on head, and I could see that he was scanning through a field-glass the strange figure that waved a welcome from the rock. Soon they entered the rapid, and at the foot, where I joined the large canoe, Colonel Wolseley called out: "Where on earth have you dropped from?" "From Fort Garry," said I; "twelve days out, sir."
It is unnecessary to describe the voyage to Fort Garry along the same route which I had taken in my canoe. The expeditionary force consisted of 400 of the 60th Rifles, soldiers whose muscles and sinews, taxed and tested by continuous toil, had been developed to a pitch of excellence seldom equalled, and whose appearance and physique told of the glorious climate of these northern solitudes. There were also two regiments of Canadian militia, who had undergone the same hardships. Some accidents had occurred during the journey of 600 miles through the wilderness. There had been many "close shaves" of rock and rapid, but no life had been lost.
The expedition camped on August 23 within six miles of Fort Garry. All through the day the river-banks were enlivened with people shouting welcome to the soldiers, and church-bells rang out peals of gladness as the boats passed by. I was scouring the woods, but found no Riel to dispute the passage. Next morning the troops began to disembark from the boats for the final advance to Fort Garry at a bend in the Red River named Point Douglas, two miles from the fort. Preceded by skirmishers and followed by a rear-guard, the little force drew near Fort Garry. There was no sign of occupation; no flag on the flagstaff, no men upon the walls, no sign of resistance visible. The gate facing the Assiniboine River was open, and two mounted men entered the fort at a gallop. On the top steps stood a tall, majestic-looking man--an officer of the Hudson Bay Company, who alternately welcomed with uplifted hat the new arrivals, and denounced in no stinted terms one or two miserable-looking men who cowered beneath his reproaches.