THE MIDDLE EAST

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15131, 27 January 1917, Page 7

THE MIDDLE EAST

CAMPAIGNING IN ARABIA. SOME PICTURESQUE SCENES, (By Gerard Shaw, in an Exchange.) The other day wo had a dreadful dust atonh; for a long time it was very hot and stuffy, not a breath of air. Sweat trickled down one in streams even while one lay still, then the sun was clouded over, and a faint breeze rustled the palm leaves, and a brown cloud came up over the horizon, slowly growing and rising up, up, u’l it leached right overhead, threatening, with whirlings, and eddies of yellow-brown in the centre, long trailing curtains of a livid brown colour and ragged wisps reaching out across the clear part of* the sky. Suddenly it broke. A shrieking wind, a dull red twilight (just the of light red paint), almost dark, rivers of dust and gravel rushing in straight lines along the ground, so fast that it made me giddy to watch them. One couldn’t see two yards; inside the hut was a dense suffocating fog, everything was thickly powdered; The Arabs looked very weird with their hair and eyebrows pale dust-coloured. We had to go out on column in the middle of it, the gravel and sand stung one like whips. I tied a handkerchief over my nose and mouth. After an hour or more it got brown, then yellow, finally whitish, and then clear, and the moon came out shining quietly through white clouds floating on a cool strong breeze and no dust anywhere, a great relief. The next day I saw a real sacred scarabaeus beetle—large, black, something like a dor beetle, but not so stout. It walked backwards .with its front legs, holding in its hind *legs a hall of dry mud, or hardened sand, as big as a very large marble; he simply rushed backwards with, it. When I very gently took it away from him and let it roll down the hill, he wasted no time looking for it up the slope, but hurried to the bottom, almost at once, and picked it up again. Then he buried it and himself in a bit of soft sand. A PRETTY PICTURE. I saw a nice little picture the other day, an Abyssinian girl, or young woman. She had a tiny black baby astride her hip ;she was in front of her house, a little stick aud mat hut. Soon she sat down and began shelling some little things like dried peas. All her hens and goats came round her, piebald and mottled goats and kids; some reddish brown, some black and white, or grey, and very playful, to try and steal the peas . A young camel tied up near by craned his long neck yearningly, and then began to console himself with an old basket which he contentedly chewed up. and swallowed. The young woman was quite nice and pretty. That race of people are the ancient Ethiopians, whom the Egyptians drove south from Egypt. Their features are not negroid at all, though they are as black and smooth as coal itself. The women have their hair in a. big bun on their necks, held in a coarse net, tight and hard. This one was very fat, but clean and quite pleasant; her arms and shoulders were bare, and she had great amber beads round each arm above the elbow; her robe was white,.covered with little purple and red and black patterns. She sat and smiled, showing snow-white teeth Some of tire' little hens made a rush at her peas; she drove them off with a cry, and a sweeping gesture of shining black arms, the same gesture and cry that one has often seen and heard English farm girls use. It was the same picture and dull reds and yellows that one sees in Cornwall in greens and pinks apd whites and pearly greys The other day I saw some new soldiers from England, I believe. Their arms and faces and knees were really astonishingly white. I can hardly believe that everyone at home would be like that ; it made one realise that one really is very burnt, though it is a yellowish, more sickly colour than English seaside sunburn. THE BUCKET BATH. Out last night on column. Got back all right, and had a bath at the well, four buckets poured over oneself; it was fine. A good sleep—nearly full moon rising up as I went to sleep, very large and bright. , I have just, been to the bath houses. There is only one lot; they are used by natives and Indian soldiers as well as by us. Somali negroes, Arabs, Asiatic Jews, and mixtures all flock there. The water is drawn up out of a deep well by camels, a special steep-down path is cut for them. They go up to the top one at a time, then turn round; the Arab hooks the rope on to their harness and they walk to the bottom of the path, thus pulling up a huge black dripping leather skin, full of water. This is emptied into a tank, and one has one’s bath in a little cubicle place, under a large tap, so at least each customer has fresh water. I rather liked it. The people who wait are very interesting. it costs a half-penny! The streets are straight and wide. Square, fiat-roofed houses with every window iron-barred, no glass, but strong wooden shutters inside the bars. The roofs have wooden water spouts which jut out, to take the water away when it does rain, which they say is once in every seven or eight years, but we had a fearful rainstorm two days ago. This is what you see as you walk along the street—in front of a white house with blue and yellow streaks of paint round door and windows, sit three camels. Their heads inside the open aits an old man on a stool. He twists camel grass into (oundles about a foot long, very neatly, and poshes them into the camel’s mouths, • one by one, time after time till they have had enough. This is the method "of camel feeding! STUDY IN COLOUR. Through the -door, behind man, is a mysterious dusky interior, with a back-door opening into an inner courtyard, a peep, of blue sky above, and an earthenware pitcher with a group of flies, light against the shadow, lazily weaving a dance in the still air. Next, door, an old Arab woman in a long red garment like a nightdress, one line from arms to feet (usual dress, in various colours) washes a camel with yellow liquid, smearing it methodically with her hands, dipping it up from a bowl on the ground: the camel is dyed a deep orange (perhape it kills the Gon them). Camel carts stand round, of old silver-grey unpainted wood; tiny fowls, bantams, scratch in -the dust, and run in and out of the houses, roosting

where they like. Flocks of pretty brown and dappled goats and kids swarm in the street, and fawn-coloured fat-tailed sheep with hair instead of W6ol; their horns have grown long and up-curled through lack of exercise; they are periodically taken to the shoemaker, who cuts'the long toes with a chiae4 (not painful for them). A little black girl, just a pretty, little, fat, black animal, smooth and shiny, with hair in tiny parallel braids about two feet long, with large amber beads round her arms, sits and sings a plaintiff little song on a doorstep; her bright and purple dress glows very-brightly. Then there is a sick man, fat and light skinned; he lies all day in the shade *f his house, his bed is close to the wall at the side of the road. There he lies, propped up with piles of bright cushions, an enormous silver and brass hookah standing beside him. A group of friends sit round him on stools. They have coffee brought out on a little three-legged table. It is long-neck-ed jug with no handle. The friends are desert people, wearing little white, cotton jackets, - small Slack turbans, and bright loin cloths reaching to the knees. They have very thick waistbands with two or three silver-handled hooked daggers stuck in them ;• they have no horses, camels always. ‘ SORTING TOBACCO LEAVES. Close to us is a place where a group of negresses, two old, four young, fat and shiny, with snow-white teeth, sit on the ground and sort tobacco leaves. They usually have white gowns on' with black and purplish pink patterns, big yellow beads on their arms, and bare 'feet. I pass them always on the way to the bath house. They are always cheerful and smiling, sitting in the dust, their dark little grass hut behind them, and their little goats frisking round them, trying to steal tobacco leaves to eat- Fat little nude babies of all shades of brown and black toddle round, and suck their fingers at one, salute (like soldiers), and often fall down in the effort! When that downpour of rain came we were drenched. Our huts don’t keep a drop out. There was three feet* of water on the floor; my boots floated away! It came at 2 a.m. I had lent my overcoat and was soaked and cold, but lam none the worse for it. There, I have described the place as well as - can, but it is so hot, and the flies are so bad that I can’t write with any ease of comfort. I have found the top of a shell fuse and an empty cartridge case that the Turks fired in the last scrap; star and crescent on them, quite good little relics. I hope to bring them home.