Maiden Voyages (20 page)

Next day I found myself back at Palermo. The Baron met me on the stairs as I came in, and I could not feel otherwise than flattered by the warm welcome he gave me, but my business here was with Ragusa, and I lost no time in taking him a specimen of “our butterfly.” He looked at it with great interest, said in any case it was new for Sicily, and finally decided to send off the example I had brought with me to a German entomologist of his acquaintance. I even feebly hoped that my dream would be realised of discovering a new kind of butterfly, which should be called the “Hurleyensis” (after Hurley); but that this discovery should be one of the larger members of the genus
Argynnis
seemed too good to be true.

(1868–1926)

from
THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

There could scarcely have been a better example of the freedom with which the Druzes control their own affairs than was offered by an incident that took place on the very evening of my arrival. It has already been intimated on the authority of Fendi that the relations between the Mountain and the Desert were fraught with the usual possibilities of martial incident, and we had not spent an afternoon in Salkhad without discovering that the great raid that had occurred some months previously was the topic that chiefly interested Nasīb and his brother. Not that they spoke of it in their conversations with me, but they listened eagerly when we told of the raid on the Hassaniyyeh and the part the Sukhūr had played in it, and they drew from us all we knew or conjectured as to the present camping grounds of the latter tribe, how far the raiders
had come, and in which direction retreated. The muleteers overheard men whispering at the street corners, and their whispers were of warlike preparations; the groups round Mikhāil’s fire, ever a centre of social activity, spoke of injuries that could not be allowed to pass unnoticed, and one of the many sons of Muhammad’s uncle had provided that famished Beyrouti with a lunch flavoured with dark hints of a league between the Wādi Sirhan and the Beni Sakhr which must be nipped in the bud ere it had assumed alarming proportions. The wave of the ghazu can hardly reach as far as Salkhad itself, but the harm is done long before it touches that point, especially in the winter when every four-footed creature, except the mare necessary for riding, is far away in the southern plain.

My camp was pitched in a field outside the town at the eastern foot of the castle hill. The slopes to the north were deep in snow up to the ruined walls of the fortress, and even where we lay there were a few detached snowdrifts glittering under the full moon. I had just finished dinner, and was debating whether it were too cold to write my diary, when a sound of savage singing broke upon the night, and from the topmost walls of the castle a great flame leapt up into the sky. It was a beacon kindled to tell the news of the coming raid to the many Druze villages scattered over the plain below, and the song was a call to arms. There was a Druze zaptieh sitting by my camp fire; he jumped up and gazed first at me and then at the red blaze above us. I said: “Is there permission to my going up?”

He answered: “There is no refusal. Honour us.”

We climbed together over the half frozen mud, and by the snowy northern side of the volcano, edged our way in the darkness round the castle walls where the lava ashes gave beneath our feet, and came out into the full moonlight upon the wildest scene that eyes could see. A crowd of Druzes, young men and boys, stood at the edge of the moat on a narrow shoulder of the hill. They were all armed with swords and knives and they were shouting phrase by phrase a terrible song. Each line of it was repeated twenty times or more until it seemed to the listener that it had been bitten, as an acid bites the brass, onto the intimate recesses of the mind.

So they sang, and it was as though the fury of their anger would never end, as though the castle walls would never cease from echoing their interminable rage and the night never again know silence, when suddenly the chant stopped and the singers drew apart and formed themselves into a circle, every man holding his neighbours by the hand. Into the circle stepped three young Druzes with bare swords, and strode round the ring of eager boys that enclosed them. Before each in turn they stopped and shook their swords and cried:

“Are you a good man? Are you a true man?”

And each one answered with a shout:

“Ha! ha!”

The moonlight fell on the dark faces and glittered on the quivering blades, the thrill of martial ardour passed from hand to clasped hand, and earth cried to heaven: War! red war!

And then one of the three saw me standing in the circle, and strode up and raised his sword above his head, as though nation saluted nation.

“Lady!” he said, “the English and the Druze are one.”

I said: “Thank God! we, too, are a fighting race.”

Indeed, at that moment there seemed no finer thing than to go out and kill your enemy.

And when this swearing in of warriors was over, we ran down the hill under the moon, still holding hands, and I, seeing that some were only children not yet full grown, said to the companion whose hand chance had put in mine:

“Do all these go out with you?”

He answered: “By God! not all. The ungrown boys must stay at home and pray to God that their day may soon come.”

When they reached the entrance of the town, the Druzes leapt on to a flat house roof, and took up their devilish song. The fire had burnt out on the castle walls, the night struck suddenly cold, and I began to doubt whether if Milhēm and the Vāli of Damascus could see me taking part in a demonstration against the Sukhur they would believe in the innocence of my journey; so I turned away into the shadow and ran down to my tents and became a European again, bent on peaceful pursuits and unacquainted with the naked primitive passions of mankind.

(1859–1931)

from
ON SLEDGE AND HORSEBACK TO OUTCAST SIBERIAN LEPERS

We pushed our way through the usual dense forest, along the track which had been cleared for me by the kind natives, as I have already mentioned, and which otherwise would have been impassable. Halting at the leper settlement of Hatignach, a scene met my eyes too horrible to describe fully. Twelve men, women, and children, scantily and filthily clothed, were huddled together in two small yourtas, covered with vermin. The stench was dreadful; one man was dying, two men had lost their toes and half of their feet; they had tied boards from their knees to the ground, so that by this help they could contrive to drag themselves along. One man had no fingers; and the poor stumps, raised
to make the sign of the cross, were enough to bring tears to the eyes of the most callous. On my approaching them they all crouched on the ground, as if almost terror-struck at the very idea of any one coming near to help them. I gave them all the help possible, and then, with a smile on their faces, they looked and pointed heavenwards, trying to make me understand that they were praying for blessings on those who had considered their wants. In some cases the fur of the tattered clothes had stuck to the sores, thus causing intense irritation.

During the eight or nine months of winter, these people huddled together with the cattle as closely as possible in their dreadful hovels, in order to keep warm. They, too, had been attacked by typhus fever and smallpox. I said farewell, and, mounting my horse, heard angry words behind me. Turning round I found that some of the lepers wanted to come near to speak to me, and the Yakuts were driving them away in horror, fearful lest they might catch the disease. Of course, I quickly went to them. They pleaded hard that the hospitals might be built speedily, and that they might be supplied with bread, because the food brought to them was generally putrid.

Then we set off for the next settlement, which was a hundred and fifty miles farther on. We travelled all night—in fact, the greater part of this journey had to be done by night on account of the intense heat during the day, and the incessant attacks of large horse-flies, as well as the myriads of other insects. We halted at Sredni Viluisk, which, although marked as a town on the map, is only a collection of a few dirty yourtas and one Government office. A man suspected of being a leper was brought to me, and, after examination by the doctor, the suspicion was soon confirmed. It was arranged that he should have a new yourta, and live at a leper settlement about fifty miles away.

“How is he to get there?” I asked; for I saw how deformed he was, and that parts of his feet and hands were gone.

“He is to walk,” was the reply.

This walking meant that the poor fellow would have to crawl or drag himself along fifty miles of forest. At last, it was suggested that he should be tied to the back of a bull, and the bull to be led by a boy (the man’s brother) with a long cord. After a deal of persuasion I got the people to provide a sledge, with plenty of straw, and a bull to draw it, as there
were no horses to spare. This is only a typical example of how some of the lepers, almost unable to walk at all, are left to get as best they can into the far-off forest. If a woman becomes a leper, she, too, is sometimes placed or tied on a bare-backed bull, which is led by a man with a long rope. If the animal sinks into the marshes or bogs, it must struggle out without help, and if the woman falls off, the man would rather die than go and touch her in giving assistance. Such sufferings as these, I try to refer to calmly; but it is hard to do so. The reader can imagine, without my help, all that such outcasts are compelled to endure. What a difference the bare-backed bullock presents to the merciful contrivances for removing the wounded from the battle-field and the victims of accidents in our streets!

Another dreadful instance of what they had to endure was related to me. A leper woman was placed in a yourta with another leper, a man, who, soon after her arrival, became insane. For four years this poor woman had to live with a madman in the depth of the forest, away from every human being, never sure from one hour to another of her life. Just picture the constant dread she must have lived in—at night, hardly daring to close her eyes to sleep; during the day, ever on the watch for each movement the man made, knowing well that, should he attack her, there was no hand to protect her, no ear to attend to her cries for help—for miles and miles around nothing but the dense forest to echo back her voice. As, bit by bit, this information was translated to me, a tremor went through my whole being; whilst, deep in my heart, I thanked God for sending me here to these helpless, forsaken ones.