2

there in your presence he milks as much as you please into a handsome tin vessel.1 And there are many milch goats. Here, again, is sold a great quantity of truffles: sometimes twenty-five or thirty camels arrive laden with them, and in three or four days they are sold. They come from the mountains of Armenia and Turkey. The said Moors go clothed in certain long and wide garments, without girdles, made of silk or cloth, and the greater number wear breeches of wool and white shoes. When a Moor meets a Mameluke, although he may be the principal merchant of the place, he is obliged to do honour and give place to the Mameluke, and if he do not so he is bastinadoed. The Christians have there many warehouses, which contain cloths, and silk and satin, velvets, and brass, and all merchandize that is required; but they are ill treated."

1 The long-eared goats of Damascus are correctly described, and the custom of hawking them about the streets still prevails.

2 Truffles (Arab. Kama) are found in large quantities, at certain seasons of the year, along the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, and are transported by the Bedawîn long distances. The price at Mosul and Baghdad varies from one to six shillings the 'okkah of four pounds.

3 Until within the last few years Varthema's Moors or Mussulmans at Damascus were quite as overbearing in their conduct towards the Christians as the Mamluks were in his time. As late as 1835 a haughty Seyyed insisted on my descending from the pavement into the street while he passed, and he literally foamed at the mouth with rage because I declined obeying him.

THE

ΒΟΟΚ

CONCERNING

ARABIA DESERTA.

THE CHAPTER SHOWING THE ROUTE FROM DAMASCUS TO MECCA, WHEREIN SOME ARABS ARE CONCERNED.

THE matters relating to Damascus having been here described perhaps more diffusely than was necessary, opportunity invites me to resume my journey. In 1503, on the 8th day of April, the caravan being set in order to go to Mecca, and I being desirous of beholding various scenes and not knowing how to set about it, formed a great friendship with the captain of the said Mamelukes of the caravan, who was a Christian renegade, so that he clothed me like a Mameluke and gave me a good horse, and placed me in company with the other Mamelukes, and this was accomplished by means of the money and other things which I gave him ; and in this manner we set ourselves on the way, and travelled three days to a place which is called Mezeribe,1 and there we remained three days, in order that the merchants might provide themselves, by purchase, with as many horses as they required. In this Mezeribe there is a lord who is named.

' El-Mezarîb, where, according to Burckhardt, the pilgrim caravan to Meccah generally remains encamped for ten days to collect stragglers, obtain supplies, and pay the accustomed tribute to the different Arab tribes for tho passage of the caravan through the desert. Travels in Syria, pp. 240-242.

Zambei,' and he is lord of the country, that is to say, of the Arabians; which Zambei has three brothers and four male children, and he has 40,000 horses, and for his court he has 10,000 mares. And he has here 300,000 camels, for his pasture-ground extends two days' journey. And this lord Zambei, when he thinks proper, wages war with the Sultan of Cairo, and the Lord' of Damascus and of Jerusalem, and sometimes, in harvest time, when they think that he is a hundred miles distant, he plans some morning a great incursion to the granaries of the said city, and finds the grain and the barley nicely packed up in sacks, and carries it off. Sometimes he runs a whole day and night with his said mares without stopping, and when they have arrived at the end of their journey they give them camels' milk to drink, because it is very refreshing. Truly it appears to me that they do not run but that they fly like falcons; for I have been with them, and you must know that they ride, for the most part, without saddles, and in their shirts, excepting some of their principal men. Their arms consist of a lance of Indian cane ten or twelve cubits in length with a piece of iron at the end, and when they go on any expedition they keep as close together as starlings. The said Arabians are very small men, and are of a dark tawny colour, and they have a feminine voice, and long, stiff, and black hair. And truly these Arabs are in such vast numbers that they cannot be counted, and they are constantly fighting amongst themselves. They inhabit the mountain and come down at the time when the caravan passes through to go to Mecca, in order to lie in wait at the passes for the purpose of robbing the said caravan. They carry their wives, children, and all

1 Burckhardt enables me to identify this with Zäabi or Ez-Zäabi, the patronymic of the principal Arab family in this district. He says: “At three hours from Mezarîb is the village of Ramtha,...the sheikh of which is generally a santon, that dignity being in the family of Ez-Zäabi, who possess there a mosque of the same name."-Ibid. Appendix iii.

C

their furniture, and also their houses, upon camels, which houses are like the tents of soldiers, and are of black wool and of a sad appearance.1

2

On the 11th of April, the said caravan departed from Mezeribe; there were 35,000 camels, about 40,000 persons, and we were sixty Mamelukes in guard of the said caravan. One third of the Mamelukes went in advance of the caravan with the standard, another third in the centre, and the other third marched in the rear. You must understand that we performed our journey in this wise. From Damascus to Mecca is a journey of forty days and forty nights: thus, we set out from Mezeribe in the morning and travelled for twenty hours. At that point certain signals made by the captain were passed from band to band that the whole company should stop where they then found themselves, and they pass twenty-four hours in unloading, and feeding themselves and their camels. And then they make signals, and the camels are immediately laden again. And you must know that they give the said camels for food only five loaves of barley-meal, uncooked, and each of about the size of a pomegranate,3 and then they mount their horses and journey all night and all the following day for the said twenty-two hours, and then for twenty-four hours do as before. And every eight days they find water, that is, by digging in the earth or sand; also, certain wells and cisterns are found, and at the end of the eight days they stop for one or two days, because the said camels carry as great a burthen as two

1 A most graphic and correct description of the predatory and warlike customs of the desert Arabs, and of their physical and social peculiarities. The picture is throughout true to the life at the present day.

2 This is either an error, or Varthema meant thereby to reckon his travelling days only; otherwise, as he left Damascus on the 8th of the month, was three days in reaching Mezarîb, and remained there another three days, the date should be April 14th.

3 The meal or flour is made into a paste and then formed into a ball. Cameleers throughout the East, especially on long journeys, adopt the same mode of baiting their animals.

mules, and they only give the poor animals drink once in every three days. When we halted at the said waters we

• always had to fight with a vast number of Arabs, but they never killed more than one man and one lady, for such is the baseness of their minds, that we sixty Mamelukes were sufficient defence against forty or fifty thousand Arabs; for pagans, there are no better people with arms in their hands than are the Mamelukes. You must know that I had excellent experiences of these Mamelukes during the journey. Amongst others, I saw a Mameluke take one of his slaves and place a pomegranate on his head, and make him stand twelve or fifteen paces distant from him, and at the second trial strike off the pomegranate by a shot from a bow. Again, I saw another Mameluke, running at full gallop, take off his saddle and place it upon his head, and afterwards return it to its original place without falling, and always at full gallop. Their saddles are made according to our usage.

THE CHAPTER CONCERNING THE CITY OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH.

And when we had travelled twelve days we found the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah. Verily the Scriptures do not lie, for one sees how they were destroyed by a miracle of God; and I say that there are three cities which were on the top of three mountains, and around them to the height of three or four cubits is still seen what appears to be blood, like red wax mixed with earth. Of a truth, I believe, upon what I have seen, that they were a wicked people, for all around the entire country is desert and barren. The earth produces no one thing, nor water; and they lived upon manna and were punished, for not acknowledging the benefits they received; and by a miracle everything is still seen in ruin. Then we passed that valley, which was at