THE REAL RED DESERT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1930, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE REAL RED DESERT.

ROMANTIC FACT AND FICTION. ■. actual UTE nf THE SAND NO CHABM : POR THE' NATIVE.

(By AMEEN KIHANT.)

The desert has an irresistible fascina-. for, those who have nevor .been* Shrough it.. In the pages of » nov& or on lithe screen It never fail* to castJ.ts spell. • frhß-noveUflt and. the film producer wave and lo» a banquet is spread Jor iih 9 eye .and 'for itarving'hearts. imaginary banquet of the khalif In .the ' Nightj.* cannot hold a.; candle flo it. Bui the guesti at the desert fea^t,, • tanlik*;th» guest of the khalif, cannot hit '.(back. They eat up the glamour ,whie> i Satisfies a certain .craving produced by; - jcivilisation, aiil go ;Hqme satisfied,'.^l- - That empty dishes were carried pompously, intb. the banquet haU "Ibv phantom steward and *s pompou y • jwhisked from before the JewiMered •'guest, is immaterial* 1%,. , ~ ::filni producer—have, the m and The novelist, camera man, artist and musician are the th " the, explorer is the steward 'ffhe first four beyond a certain limit in their travels;., and with ■the' instruments, at &eir' command • prder the desert to them. < jef magic'is reversed. The artist cast4-hia ■, But in the unfolding there xs,a toup transformation j The tent becomes' a.- gastlej P , camel Bedouin - becomes ,a■_ 'sheik"; loses its-hump ahd acquires .the win s of Pegasus; /the raids for daily breaj become kidnapping; partiesjdaigepa clothed in the glamour of*gJ the tantalising mirage resolves itsel^int a blue lake of real water, the wilderness ; becomes a artist?;of every, feather, hover around . it for'inspiration. . / The Desert Bulbul. It would be fatuous that the song of the bulbul w the heart of toe ,du4s has /a: through all my- travels'** l * e Arabia-and I have .been rocked on the hump of a camel, for fifty 4ay only birds I have seen • of two. kinds,'a dumb : little creature withsilver lined black wings, which, m n Slfanfone°of Bto ■larger, wWcl seemed jMjJgLjftgS in fiviriff low before us and.-circbng, w^en £ of-Wto'kefP of our caravan.' He could on y P ''"What 2 the name of " ia ( l d ' r { asked "That h ~>he-mt of the;cartvan. "ind «

Salem himself?" This from Hamad, who always tried to vie with Baddah. Well, we met only the mother, of, the family and heard her repeat her do re mi. But my friend in his; little'jvjjla on the outskirts of the desert, soaring on the keyboard of his piano, heard the whole sonata. And later the song of the desert enthralled London and New York. - The real song of, the desert, of. the men of the desert, : is enlivening, ex-, hilarating. It has,Jor the,traveller in the desert, a certain fascination. But to a Western audience, if it were faithfully reproduced, it would'be a"barbaric yawp. In the wilds of the unknown, in _ the infinite vastness that is expressive chiefly of danger and of death, the purely artistic is unnatural and does not, of course, exist. It is only in the v oasis, under the cool shadow of the-palms,, in the bosom .of friendliness and that one hears the soft strains of a Bedouin mother's lullaby or the bewitchmg plaintive notes of a Bedouin girl in . -loyeL , ,* '< "sheik," the harem of the "sheik," . the luxury and glamour of the desert dwelling of the '"sheik/' and the little army of. fierce-looking knights, on the swiftest dromedaries or the most, fiery Arab speeds, in quest of the European girl for the harem of the "sheiks" — nothing is more thrilling, more fascinating, more bewitching in the pages of fiction or oh the screen; nothing is more poignantly pathetic in reality. ' Don Juan is eternal. But this Arab Don Juan is cinematographic. , In spite of the most magnificent incarnation the "6heik" is a failure. He is the product of our mechanical, .age. ( Everything about him, even -his, name,, ia falsa. It is not " sheik" but shaykh, which in Arabic means a venerable old man, or a man of learning or of authority. We speak of the Shaykh of Al-Azhar University, for instance, or fhe shaykh of a certain tribe.. Among a few families of the Christians vand the Druse of Mount Lebanon, shaykh is also an inherited title. But. of the. material things of life, little or nothing goes with it. The Desert Raid. Even when a shaykh has a harem of two or three, or even four, wives, which is nowadays very rare, he cannot afford an "ensemble." He must segregate them or he is lost. For one woman alone is. & problem, two; together are an enigma, three or fotir are & conspiracy. Imagine women huddled together' like sheep, or as we behold them on the screen lying in* silken ease in the harem quarters, and a black slave, whip in hand, ordering them to the bath. It _is a libel upon womankind anywhere in the world., _ t Imagine, 'moreover, such a scene in the desert. ■ One shaykh I knew had three wives, each one living in a separate compartment in. the long black tent, but his wealth consisted only of a horse, a camel and a few sheep. "And how can you support your women folk?" I asked. . "Allah be praised," he replied, "it is by; their'help that I can keep the fire burning and the coffee browing *for the guests.", V i • . But such desert domesticity is too sordid for the screen. We must have glamour, romance We must have the thine that grips and thrills and enrap-1 tures. Hare ia a raid. - Five or ten Bedouins on mangy camela or on korees "that" iodic inore like pon > 6:1 •VV , '4' ,M<-. -

Rocinante than Arab thoroughbreds, and a flock of sheep tended by a boy shouldering a gun. The raiders shriek their ■warning and gallop forth invoking the assistance of Allah. The boy fire* his eun in the air and runs away, hastening to tell his master. The raiders meanwhile have driven the flock before them and changed their course to elude the pursuers. They disapear among the dunes. The owner, with\a few of his. men, his children or his neighbours,, pursues them in vain and to his tent in the comfort of resignation. But a few days later, trusting in Allah, he goes out raiding to replenish his stock. Sometimes there is an encounter, an exchange of shots, a casualty or two, and the recovery of a part of the stolen property. It also happens that when the two parties, the raiders and the raided, are of equal strength and valour, a truce is called, which i 3 followed by a council of war and 9* division of the booty. The Arab is a sportsman, and raiding is his favourite game. You beat us to-day 5/ we'll beat you, Allah willing, to-morrow. The Deserf s Gifts,. The womenfolk are seldom involved in these raids. The cut-throat Arab ia the flower of chivalry. He is also a man of? wisdom. If within the sanctum of the harem a comely Husnah is pining for her handsome Hasan, who may be of an enemy tribe, the father tries to persuade her with the prosaic kindness of ythe bourgeois gentlemanj and .£ she is, not persuaded ;and the kidnapping takes place, in nine cases out of ten the parents' resign themselves to Allah. In the exceptional case there is a raiding party ,and the father of the selfwUled Husnah..-is content, with the booty. A few camels or a dozen cheep are better than his minx of a daughter. She is a punishment to the enemy husband,:. To the native the desert has no charm. Even to the traveller with a purpose or on a mission the . charm is intermittent and often fleeting. A continuity of joyous intervals ia impossible, unless it be on the screen,. There is in the real desert, m the heart of the red sand desert, a potent charm, an ineffable beauty. But such beauty and charm cannot be caught by the camera. The glow of the atmosphere at dawn and sundown, the subtle and elusive coloration of the dunes, the moonlit nights, the. vastness and the silence "tiat no perspective can encompass, the long Weary hours on'the march, listening to the creak of your camel saddle or the tinkle of the caravan bells, hearing even the still voice of your own soul in contemplation—these cannot be reproduced upon the screen.

No, the pure joye, which, are at bottom spiritual, cannot be transported, cannot be filmed. Even, tha minor gifts of the desert are not transferable. The rocking for days on a camel, for instance, is a sure cure for citronic indigestion. The sun soothes the exhausted nerves. The evening breeze, vibrating through the moonlight, is reconciling. The vast silence invites the heart to the higher, universal realm of love. The infinite spaces, unfolding their horizons, one circle of the unknown after another, stimulate the imagination.