UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF CHARLES DOUGHTY TELL OF ARABIAN TRIP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17854, 24 May 1926, Page 4

UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF CHARLES DOUGHTY TELL OF ARABIAN TRIP.

GREAT ADVENTURER’S TRIALS LAID BARE. Among the papers of the late Mr Charles M. Doughty, some letters have been found which throw, light on his movements after the Sick and weary traveller had reached the port of Jidda and “ the open hospitality of the British Consulate." as recorded in the final sentence of “ Arabia Deserta." With these letters are two others written in February. 1877, towards the end of his sojourn at Medain Salih, halfway between Damascus and Mecca. He had just taken the fateful resolve not to return with the Pilgrims, then on the upward journey, but to encounter fr«esh perils for an uncertain period in the illimitable desert. On the first page of his book Doughty tells us thatv the British Consul at Damascus. Mr Thomas S. Jago: had let it be known that “ he had as much regard of me, would I take such dangerous ways, as of his old hat." Unprovided with the official backing, or even “ the informal benevolent word,” of his own Consulate, he knew that his life would be in constant danger, and when he wrote these letters he must have reflected that they might prove to be his final communications with the outside world. . The was addressed to his mother's sister, Miss Amelia Ilotham, the second to a friendly subordinate of Mr Jago's. They were entrusted, together with the rubbings and drawings made at Medain Salih, to the care of the clerk of the Haj, one Mohammed Tahir. “He laid my commission," says Doughty. “in his camel chests, and promised with good humour to deliver them at Damascus to the British Consulate, and very honourably he did so indeed.” The letter to his aunt is as follows: To Miss Ilotham. Pearcefield, Lansdowne Road, Tunbridge Wells. Medain Salih. Hejr, N.W. Arabia, February 2, 1877. My Dear Aunt, —I am happy to send you some news of me from these parts. Your thoughts have perhaps followed me with some anxiety* into Arabia. I came down then with the Mecca Pilgrims without misadventure from Damascus. At every station is a fortress for the necessary water. Such an one there is here, where I have lodged now some two months, visiting the antiquities there, certainly not without danger—principally that I am not a muslim. The pilgrims return in their upward journey in two more clays, with whom I send you these lines. Here was a considerable place. The antiquities arc tombs hewn in the rocks, with inscriptions. It was a . market upon the road by which they fctched the incense from South Arabia to Palestine: thence dispersed to all quarters, burned in the temple at Jerusalem and in the heathen temples of the Western World—and is only lobscurely mentioned in ancient authors. I have transcribed the inscriptions.

From hence I go probably to visit the neighbouring Arabs now in a few days—making various excursions as I may be able. I hope at length to arrive-at the Persian Gulf. I do not speak more particularly. Without some special acquaintance with Arabia and an excellent map m your hand you would not follow the routes. I am some 13G miles north of Medina. I have not even the smallest intention to visit either Medina or Mecca. My thoughts return to you out of this obscure corner of the world. Though I carmot see you. I wish you all the health and happiness that can be. This small paper will show you at least that I am alive. I am in health, thanks to the warrii climate. without other food than corn and rice, in this prison. My hands are busy and my head also. The Arabs arrive at every moment new and press in upon me talking and shouting, greeting, questioning. begging tobacco. I am upon the eve of departing upon an adventurous journey. My love to such as love me that inquire of me.—Your affect. Nephew. Charles M. Doughty. Plans for the Journey. The second letter gives more explicit information as to his plans and intentions. To M. Selim Meshaka, British Consulate. Damascus. Ilcjr, Medain Salih. February 5, 1867 (sic). Dear Sir, The jurdy arrived here vesterday. By it T have received the book from Mr Reichardt. and besides nothing nor any letters. Then Mohammed Effendy Tahir has paid me over the money, fourteen Napoleons eighty piastres. The fruit of my fatigues, a large round parcel in oilcloth containing impressions of inscriptions, and a packet of drawing and other papers. I send by this opportunity, and pray you to preserve them well in the Consulate. And if you think they may be neglected there, do not disdain for the honour of science to take them into 3*our own friendly keeping. Inscriptions so long desired of a country so obscure—which I obtained at the daily adventure of my life. Or rriy friend Mr Reichardt in the cause of science and any other case may, I do not doubt, be so kind as to take charge of them. That which will spoil and ruin them is pressure and the damp. I have bought now a camel and Turkish liras, and go from hence with Zaid, Sheykh of the Fukara Arabs of this district (Annezy), to stay' sometime with him near Teyma, vaccinating and with medicines. Then to Teyma. 'ffhen returned he will consign me to the Sheykh of the'lbn Shamer, Bely, Arabs, who will forward me to Wejh on the coast; then returning consign me to IMotlog, Sheykh of the Welad Aly | Arabs, with whom I may visit Khevj bar. From Kheybar to I bn Rashid and to Bagdad or Bosra, and much more if I am able to descend south to Wadv Dawasir, and ascend thence to I bn Saoud Sultain of E. Najd and to Bagdad. My compliments to Mr Jago. My j compliments to Mr Reichardt, and j thanks. My kind remembrances to I friends which inquire of me. Mv | compliments and thanks to Mikhail Effendv Toweel. And I am, dear sir, with kind acknowledgements,—Yours , very truly. CHARLES M. DOUGHTY. Postscript, 12 Feb —The clerk of the jurdv delivered me your letter and the vaccination quills two days After their arrival. They had been misplaced. The Haj only arrived this morning a week late, delayed by heavy rains. My best thanks for all your kindness. I hope to be again in Damascus this year. Eighteen long months elapsed before Doughty’s wanderings ended. After resting for a while with the friendlv Consul of Jidda, he embarked for Aden, “vhere he rested again, and thence for

India. He reached Bombay in October, I 1878. in such a feeble state that he lay down in the waiting room of the station more dead than alive. A Good Samaritan, finding him there, took him to his own house until room could be found for him in the. hospital. Writing thence to the Bombay branch of the | Royal Asiatic Society, he begged for the loan, of books, including C haucer (“except the ‘Canterbury Tales,’” which, removed from the folio of 1(387. he had had with him throughout his travels), and offered to address the society on Arabia; “but I will look to von,” he concludes, “on your part for some little kindness to me a stranger. If you are scientific men will you let me languish here?” Complaints of Treatment. lie addressed the society' on his travels on November 18, but from a letter, written from Naples on June 21, 1879, it is to be inferred that his appeal was ignored, as he complains bitterly of his treatment at Bombay, and also at Aden. When he landed there, travel-worn and clad in Arab dress, the military authorities had taken him for a Russian spy and had refused to allow him to visit the island of Perim. On the other hand, the local bankers had cashed his cheque without question, and he was always grateful to them for supplying him with the r<b£dy money- that he needed. On December 13, 1878, he wrote again to Selim Mashaka to announce that he was alive, and to ask whether the precious packages dispatched from Medain Salih nearly two y-ears previously had reached Damascus. Meshaka’s reply*, dated January- 15, 1879, shows that he never received the letter printed above, and that he had only just ascertained that “the inscriptions and papers” were safe in the Consulate. This information was confirmed by Mr Jago himself, in a letter written in February. A month or two later Doughty, who had returned to England in the Crocodile. a troopship commanded by his cousin, was again in Damascus to recover them. The opening words of lus book recall this visit, but the “old friend” who hailed him as he “paced again in that long street which is called Straight,” was certainly not Consul Jago, who “with a light heart had betrayed my life to so many cruel deaths.” It was perhaps Mr Reichardt or Mikhail Toweel. In the interval his aunt had died, and the letter to her, which had been lying all that while at the Consulate, came back into the hands of the writer. There is nothing in this letter that calls for annotation. It was evidently intended to reassure her as to the past, and at tfie ,§ame time to prepare her for a not improbable disaster to come In the letter to Meshaka occurs the word “jurdy,” which is explained in “Arabia Deserta” as “the fly-ing provision train which since ancient times is sent down from Syria to relieve the returning pilgrimage at Medain Salih.” Doughty succeeded in visiting Teyma and Kheybar, and Ibn Rashid at Hayil. but did not reach the Persian Gulf, or Wejh, on the Red Sea, or Bosra, or Bagdad.

His notebooks, which since 1922 have been preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum. throw welcome light on the book referred to in the second sentence of the letter to Meshaka. Under the date February' 5, 1877’ is the entry:—

The day wearing I went with Mohammed Aly to Mohammed Effendy’s tent to receive the money: but. finding him occupied paying out the Arabs, I passed by. He afterwards sept for me. I sat down and received a parcel containing only ‘‘Tanner’s Medicine,” and. no letters. The tattered, rfumpy volume in question, bearing on its title page the note in Doughty’s writing, “I carried this little medicine book through Arabia,” surra (tribute for safe passage) to the has recently been placed by Mrs Doughty with the notebooks at Cambridge. It is hardly' too much to say that, but for the use he was able to make of it and the friends that his remedies won him (though the vaccine failed him —“exposed in open quills, the virtue was lost even before they' could be delivered at Medain Salih”), he would not have returned alive from Arabia to enrich English literature with a great masterpiece.—“ The Times.”