PRIMITIVE ARABIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 104, 4 May 1929, Page 22

PRIMITIVE ARABIA.

DEBUNKING THE DESERT.

THE SHEIK OF KEALITY. AND THE WOMAN lIE LOVES. (By EOSITA FORBES, in the "New York Herald Tribune.") The sheik who captures an American or European maiden under the noses of her singularly incompetent relatives, and, flinging her across his saddle, gallops into a Hollywood desert full of modern comforts but, apparently, immune from motors, planes or tourists, exists only in the "movies," though numerous tourist agencies have beue'fited enormously from the invention of such an attraction. Every year bevies of optimistic spinsters leave their provincial cities, where nothing exciting ever happens, and make what is little less than a pilgrimage to the edge of a desert' which, they are convinced, bristles with amorous possibilities. Naturally, the particular edge to which they are lured by advertised luxuries—"H. and c. in all bedrooms: first rate cuisine: expeditions arranged"—is carefully swept and garnished before their arrival. Every possible and impossible blend of local colour is ladled out for their benefit and, if they are insistent, the best looking dragoman, who probably hasn't a drop of Arab blood in his veins, will play up to his conception of the "slieek" as interpreted by Hichens and Mrs. Hull, whom lie doubtless has read in the original. The result, plus moonlight, scarlet hibiscus and a reed pipe, may be as glamorous as Ali Baba at Drury Lane, but it is not Arab! The sheik of reality is an elderly graybeard who has succeeded to his responsible position on the death of a father as dignified as himself, or been elected to it after years of service to the tribe. He resembles a patriarchal Abraham, lord of many flocks and herds and father of many children, rather than a Rudolph Valentino. He has lived a hard life with a minimum of food and leisure, at the mercy of the elements and of raiding parties, so he is old before his time, thin and wiry as the gazelle he hunts, suspicious as the jackal and intolerant of anything he doesn't understand—in which may be included the indecency and ugliness of foreign women! For, to the Arab, anything feminine should be soft, small and frail, with generous curves slipping over bosom and hip, each one fuller than the last.

". . . Like Smooth Goats' Butter." "My love hath cheeks like smooth goats' butter," sings a desert poet, "her chin is like a ball iu a cup and her hips are so heavy that she sways between them like a flower!" The Arab beauty has long, black hair, sleek as silk, and neither she nor lier lord can understand the shingle. "Allah has disgraced you!" is her horrified exclamation when faced with this madness of the west: "Hide your head, or you will never get a husband!" To the desert Arab, the American or European woman is utterly devoid of charm. "There is no mystery about her. She shows not only her thoughts, but her bones!" remarked the Emir of TransJordan, referring to the anatomical specimens considered beautiful in London. Wc bant and the east stuffs! Here, in six words, is the essential difference. For a month the desert fiancee remains motionless in the corner of the women's tent, in order that she may acquire still ampler curves with which to delight her future husband. She is steeped in oil to make*lier smooth and shiny, and, to tell the truth, she probably smells just as strongly as the sheik who is to be her mate, and who sees water far too rarely to waste it on washing! For this reason the lot of the American foolish enough to fall in love with the genuine article in sheiks—at a distance, presumably—would be remarkably unpleasant.

Love in the desert is represented by a few poems sung at evening round the scanty fires. These tell of Antar, legendary Nubian hero and slave, in love with Abla, his master's daughter, and who compared her smile to "Sunshine on swoi\|s drawn in battle"; or of "The Madman of Leila," the fool who followed his love in disguise, singing under what he thought was her window —often with unexpected results —until he lost his senses and became, for the first time in his life, of value to his tribe —for, as everyone in the desert knows, the creature afflicted by Allah brings luck! But the most beautiful descriptions in< Arab poetry refer to the dual passions, which inspire the untamed heart of the Bedouin—hunting and war. In the civilised towns, where a veil may slip in the street, or an ankle hint at the perfection concealed beneath the 1 shapeless black 01* white bundle, love, as we know it, may be stimulated by curiosity. The puritan of Riad never catches sight of any women but his own, and, to put it crudely, he can have as many of these as he wants, without troubling to fall in love. There is 210 competition and no uncertainty, so love is deprived of its savour. In Damascus, the new impinges on the old. Some years ago an Arab parliament discussed the advisability of votes for women, while, by order of the Pasha, the police slashed with great scissors the habbara of any woman sufficiently immodest to show a hint of wrist or ankle in the street! Nevertheless, in that apricot-scented city, there were ways of evading- ancient customs. Arab Vengeance. The most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life introduced into a harem an Egyptian lover disguised as a female musician. She had the effrontery to I ask all her friends to a party, during which the man she loved, muffled to the eyes in a wrap of indigo cotton, played the audh among a group of gnarled old crones who must have enjoyed the joke thoroughly. Nemesis, however, was not long delayed. For, leaning over an upper balustrade, the Pasha witnessed the farewell between his daughter and the so-called musician. "Your skin has the scent of apricots," murmured the man with the passion of the west, not of the east! Next day I was sitting with the beauty in her latticed room, when a basket of apricots was brought to her. She thought it came from her lover, and she took it away to a balcony. There she died, a lialf-eaten fruit in her fingers, for the apricots were the poisoned gift of her father, who knew no other means of avenging the honour < of his house. 1 The Arab is a gentle lover. I have : watched him in so many harems, where j the women greet their lord with ceremonial kisses—the slaves on his knee, 1 foe daughter oil Ma sleeve, the wife ga }

his shoulder, the mother on his brow— and I liave noticed that he always treats those soft feminine dependents as H thev were all children together. There is little difference between the slave and the free-born dame who cai trace her high tribal lineage back through the Koreish, rulers ot Mecca, when " the Prophet Mahomet was boin, to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, who married one of their princesses. v\nen the slave bears a child to her loid, by immemorial custom she is free, but hu life remains the same, for probably slit will never leave the four walls ot a cool, mud room, high up on some parapeted roof. "Her feet are too curved for rough ways," says the primitive Arab ot the woman he guards, and she hersel would rather die than leave the seclusion to which she is accustomed. When I described the life of America and Europe to one such cloistered girl, was a mother at thirteen _ and whose knowledge of life was limited room in which she and child had been born, slio exclaimed in horror, "Your husband makes you walk in the streets! ' Are all foreign men as cruel as that?"

Unendurable Monotony. Motherhood is the goal of eveiy woman, for, according to the on y she knows, "Paradise is under fe £ of the mothers." She is brought up to serve, and to realise the dignity of such service, for another Arab piovei > "Any who is worthy may serve, but only from the highest may service accepted." The desert is no place for the average American woman. Her youth wou disappear within the first year, * 01 would have to live on strong smelling goats' cheese, sour milk and lice tn tured with sand, with occasional muttoi to celebrate tribal festivities. She would have to bear a child every year ana do all the work of tent and held m additX w'hen an Arab marries he guarantees to protest his wife from all that the Western girl desires—change, excitement and flirtation—in return for which he exacts unremitting service. Lady Hester Stanhope coolced the dinner and washed the feet of her Bedouin husband, brought him his pipe and his weapons, looked after his sick lambs and _foals. In fact, she lived the hard, prosaic life of ■ the desert woman, whose nightly toilet consists of unwinding the wrap which during the day has sheltered hei head from the sun, and rolling it round her feet to protect them from the frost. Very few Western women could endure the monotony of desert life. There is nothing whatsoever to do between dawn and sunset, except cook, mend and doctor the sick. After a few weeks or months, according to the rapidity with which the blood thins as a result of exposure and inadequate nourishment, the sun becomes a personal and particularly vindictive enemy, striking between the unprotected shoulder blades with the force of an actual blow. The Arab woman tries to shield herself by piling one garment on top of another and the sheer weight of material would break the spirit of the average American or European. The Hollywood beauty defies the unnaturally clean "sheik" until the last reel, but the victim of a real one would be sufficiently humbled after the first week by the drag of the draperies on her head, which, by the way, she would certainly not be able to carry upright. The Sherifa of Wezzan.

The Sherifa of Wezzan was one of the few exceptions which prove that occasionally East and West can meet. She was an English governess in Tangiers, and the story runs that the Slierif, a chieftain of wealth and position, descendant of the„ .Prophet Mahomet and consequently possessed of the "Barraka," a mysterious and very convenient blessing which enables its owner to do what he chooses without danger of criticism, saw her leaning out of a window drying her golden hair in the sunshine. He is supposed to have stopped his horse there and then, and bought half the flower market to lay at the feet of this unknown houri. But thereafter his wooing proceeded on European lines.

Eventually the English girl consented to marry him, but she made him take an oath that she should be his only wife. He kept his oath, and I believe they were very happy. The blonde Sherifa did a great deal of good in that stony mountain zone; but as soon as she left Tangiers she wore the veil and she lived as a native woman. She made friends with her husband's relations arid became, eventually, an acknowledged authority among his people. To this day the villagers bless her for the doctors she brought among them, and the women will remember the name of the white Sherifa because of the education and the hygiene with which she tried to ventilate their "stuffy" lives.

It is difficult to write generically of the Arab, because, naturally, there is no more resemblance between the polyglot Syrian student and the Wahabi of Nejd, than there is betVeen the Swedish philosopher and the Basque peasant. Yet the Damascan who can discuss politics in four languages and the fanatical warrior of the central deserts, who cannot even read the Koran, are both Arabs and both maintain the harem system with regard to their Avomen. This is the only point of contact between them.

Neither of tliem see .-the women they marry before the wedding day, so lovefor them is limited to the sentiment they feel for some unveiled girl with whom they pass a few idle hours. The strongest passion of primitive Arab life undoubtedly is war. The desert youth looks forward to the excitement of his first- raid as the average Latin does to a love affair. A desert proverb runs, "Man is made for war and woman for his relaxation." And I believe the tribesman has more affection for the trotting camel 011 which he pursues his enemy or the stallion which takes him to the chase than for any woman, except, perhaps, his mother. "What Is This Love?" I remember discussing the subject in the tents of the Emir Abdullah, who had just returned from a visit to England. An exceedingly good looking young sheik with smooth olive skin, enormous brown eyes and long plaits of hennaed hair, exclaimed: "When my women are sick I give them medicine and when they are hungry I give them food, but what is this love you talk about ? Such a remark is representative of the attitude of the average warrior who lives by the fleetness of his steed, the keenness of his sight and the steadiness of his hand 011 the trigger. To such a man, woman in his hours of ease is as 'much a physical necessity as food and S sleep, and she is equally easy to obtain. Among all the lighting tribes, from one end of Arabia to another, the women outnumber the men, because they are not killed in battle. And as it is a disgrace for any girl to remain unwed after the age of fourteen or fifteen, it is the ambition of every father to dispose of his daughter aa soon as possible, " 1

In the Teat black camelhair tents of desert chieftains the women are as secluded as within the blind mud-walled dwellings of the villages. When a youth wants a bride or an old man a mother for his sous he barerg ins for her just as if she were any , other kind of animal, Seated on a , «heepskin spread on the desert sand . and leaning against a camel saddle, he , will discuss tribal politics till the moment before he rises to leave, and ' then, as if it were an afterthought, men- : tion' the price in livestock or weapons ■ that he is prepared to pay for the girl : his female relations have recommended to him. It is related how an Englishman visitin* lbn Saoud, Sultan of Nedjd, on the eve of his breaking camp, when 500 tents and a host of camels would go southward with the dawn, was warned that a new bride that moment had arrived in the 1 monarch's camp. The Englishman, embarrassed by the inopportuneness of his visit, made every effort to curtail his business, but the Sultan kept him talking till long after midnight and dismissed him with the leiuaik that it was hardly worth parting, as they would meet .with the sun. The representative of civilisation smiled, for the girl was reputed lovelv, but lbn Saoud justified his boast. Before the green of the false dawn faded the mighty caravan was on the march. Arab Wooing. The desert Arab loves his sword, his tribe and his race, but there is little romance about his wooing, though, according to a custom which is observed of the year. If it be successful she may the «nrl, who is a stranger to him, has been° escorted to his tent, she is supposed to be safe from his attentions. There is one African tribe which celebrates its nuptials at the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting. Each girl of the village in turn is mounted on a white camel and sped into the desert, whither the youths follow. He who catches the trailing end of her rein leads her back in triumph as a bride. In mountainous Asir a maiden, veiled and mounted on a dromedary, is still supposed to lead the first raiding party of the year. If it be successful she may choose the husband she desires among the survivors of the ghazu. Age is honoured among the _ Arabs, whether it is masculine or feminine, because it is connected with wisdom. So the old women have a respected position in their families and they are the marriage makers of the tribe. I remember talking to an aged sheik who had between eighty and ninety wives—in rotation, of course, for Islam restricts the number to four. Expressing the polite hope that he would make up the hundred before he died, I was startled by his indignant reply. "Under Allah, it shall be two hundred!" he exclaimed, "for my grey beard is the result of wisdom, not of years." Family quarrels are not usual among a race where one sex is brought up in complete subjection to the other. Still, by Sheriat law—which, I imagine, in this case is rarely enforced —the woman who "raises her hand against her husband" is liable to death by slow strangulation. In primitive Arabia divorce is so much easier than argument! It is only necessary for man or woman to say: "I divorce thee" three times before witnesses for the marriage to be dissolved. The TOuple can remarry three times, but in tase they want to make a habit of it, after the third divorce, a "'man of straw" must intervene before the original couple can be reunited. This proxy bridegroom is wedded to the volatile lady for a single night, during which one of her male relations watches at the head of the couch, and a guardian appointed by her former and future husband keeps vigil at the foot!

Sometimes the Pasha buys half a dozen sisters and marries but one of them. The others never see their lord. They have no hope of motherhood, and their cramped existence is confined to a corner of some overcrowded room, the windows- set so- high that they have no view of the freedom denied to them. Could any American woman endure such a life? Given a choice between the squalor of the Bedouin tent, where goats and camel foals invade the women's couch —a coarse blanket spread on the sand —and where witchcraft or death are the only cures for ill health due to flailing sand storms, fever, famine and fouled wells, given the choice between this and the close-packed idleness of blind harem rooms, I imagine that any American or European woman would prefer the for-? mer. A Bullet for Release. I have known two or three harem women who hailed from beyond the Mediterranean. They were quiescent, because after years of stagnation they had lost all power of conscious volition. They chattered like magpies, ate voraciously and were completely shapeless. Slothmoral, mental and physical—was their only recognisable attribute. They had probably once been pretty 'and their curiosity had been tempted by the false glamour of the East, which offered pearls, silks and ease instead of work in a coastal emporium. They got their trumpery jewels and, with them, a servitude which broke them so completely that they hadn't the initiative for escape. They ceased to be individuals at all. After the few weeks during which they may have amused the Pasha nearly as much as his latest mechanical toy, they became harem furniture, with no more rights than the other human animals who, condensed in a solid female mass—several hundred of them perhaps—asked nothing but a share of the communal food. I remember that their eyes were like those of codfish.

The only American or European woman I have ever met in a Bedouin tent was English, and she chose a bullet as the best way of solving an impossible problem. I learned nothing about her. While I was in camp she kept in the background. Her hair, which must once have been brown, was stained with! henna to hide the grey. She might have been anything over fifty, but the other women assured me she was very young. rhe sun hurts her," they said, "and Allah has made her delicate"—by which they meant mad—but she was sane enough to steal my revolver while I was asleep, and that was the end of a storv the beginning of which I shall - never know.