Mon. Feb. 9 [9 February 1914] We had a difficult 3 hours this morning.
First Sayyah told M. al M. [Muhammad al Marawi] that we ought to
take a man of the Faqir, since one of their Shaikhs, Muhammad ibn
Fendi, was in his tents. Then, having received the revolver, he came
to F. [Fattuh] and said he wd not let me go without the glass and £10 -
was I not a Xian? We waited about in a bitter cold wind and I went
over to his tents and finally refused the 'ajleh though Muhammad ibn
'Id kept 5 mej. for his pains and the trouble of those who had brought
her. Then I went back to the camels and presently they all came out
of the tent towards us. F. came and told me there was no help for it, I
must give the glass. I gave it and took back the revolver. Then I
mounted and rode on a little. More talk with F. and Sa'id. Sayyah
declared he wd send no rafiq and wd rob me in the night; that no
Nasraniyyeh had travelled here and none should travel; that it was a
disgrace that a Nasraniyyeh should take back a revolver from a
shaikh. Sa'id said to F. "Ya F. ukhlusna ba'dain besir mush tayyib."
So F. gave the revolver also. We have as rafiq, Zayyid ibn Mhailan
cousin of Sayyah. Hamid ibn Fendi al Jebel, brother of the Faqir
Shaikh Muhammad, and another of the Faqir, Dahir. I asked
Muhammad if they remembered Khalil and he answered yes and that
he was a good man. He rode away shouting to M al M "I confide to
you my brother, wrap him warm at night." Once when Sayyah spoke
to me "Ya sitta, ya sitta" I sat on my camel and looked down at him
saying nothing. "Why do you not say ha!" he said. I said "I will say no
word to you." We rode over very featureless country all day, rolling
sand, stone besprinkled. Once we crossed the track of an ostrich, the
3 great pads. My bearings bad, nothing to take them by and I did not
like to question too closely as to our direction. In the middle of the
day Hamid called out to me a blessing "our journey shd be
prosperous, please God, and water present and pasture also (mara')
and might I travel ever in safety. It was perhaps a sort of olive branch.
Sayyah is known to be mal'un al walidain, but M. al M. says the Faqir
are still more accursed in their parentage. M. ibn Fendi, like Sayyah
has a long thin face, and a long black beard, square at the end like an
Assyrian. Sayyah mulcted Ghadi of 3 mej. or else he wd not be
answerable for the safety of their camels. M. al M. stood surety for
him, since he has nothing. The Sherarat we have left to continue the
process of starvation with Sayyah. We camped in a district called al
Wasmiyyeh on account of its 'aishb. There is not much, but the trees
are pretty good. White aromatic daisies round my tent jehowiyyan, a
sort of caromel[?]? Musuid sometimes prays and I saw some men
praying outside Sayyah's tent last night. I bound up the burnt feet of
the Shammari Sluggah puppy. The Shammar were deeply
distressed at Sayyah's behaviour to me and promise me a different
reception among their people. F. says Sayyah proposed to Sa'id
that they shd kill the Nas. and the Arabs wd give my men half the
goods.