Wilfrid called on Ali Koli Khan in his tent, going there with Mohammed, now once more a reasonable companion and follower.  Indeed in the Persian camp assumptions of nobility on Mohammed’s part would have been quite thrown away, for the Persians care nothing for Arabian nobility, and treat all alike as Bedouins and barbarians.  Ali Koli, though only a younger son, was travelling in state, having his mother with him, and a multitude of servants, male and female, besides his hemeldaria or contractor, and the Arabs managing his beasts.  His major-domo and interpreter was a magnificent personage, and his followers, dressed in felt tunics and skull caps, gave him the appearance of being an important chief.  His tent was of the Turkish pattern, well lined and comfortable, with fine Persian carpets on the floor, and a divan.  There Wilfrid found him sitting with a friend, Abd er-Rahim, the son of a merchant of Kermanshah, who is also British consular agent there.  The young Persians were very amiable; but the contrast of their manners with those of the ceremonious Arabs struck Wilfrid at once.  There were none of those elaborate compliments and polite inquiries one gets used to at Haïl, but rather a European sans géne in the form of reception.  They made Wilfrid comfortable on the divan, called for tea, which was served in a samovar, and at once poured out a long history of their sufferings on the pilgrimage.  This they did in very broken Arabic, and with an accent irresistibly absurd, for the Persians speak with a drawl in their intonation, wholly foreign to that of the Arabs.  Ali’s natural language, he says, is Kurdish, but being an educated person, and an officer in the Shah’s army, he talks Persian equally well.  In Persia, Arabic plays much the part in education which Latin did in Europe before it was quite a dead language.  Both he and Abd er-Rahim were loud in complaints of every thing Arabian, and in spite of Mohammed’s presence, abused roundly the whole Arab race, the poverty of the towns, the ignorance of the citizens, and the robberies of the Bedouins, also the extortionate charges of the Arab hemeldarias, contractors for camels, and the miseries of desert travelling.  “Was ever anything seen so miserable as the bazaar at Haïl; not a bag of sweetmeats to be had for love or money, the Arabs were mere barbarians, drinkers of coffee instead of tea.”  Every now and then, too, they would break out into conversation in their own language.  Wilfrid, however, liked Ali Koli, and they parted very good friends, with an invitation from both the young Persians to travel on with them to Meshhed on the Euphrates, where the Persians always end their pilgrimage by a visit to the shrines of Ali and Huseyn.  This seemed an excellent opportunity, and having consulted the Emir, who highly approved of the plan, we accordingly decided to travel with the Haj as soon as it should start.

Our last days at Haïl were by no means the least pleasant.  As a final proof of his goodwill and confidence, the Emir announced that we might pay a visit to Agde, a fortress in the mountains some miles from Haïl, and which he had never before shown to any stranger.  I do not feel at liberty to say exactly where this is, for we were sent to see it rather on parole, and though I hope Ibn Rashid runs no danger of foreign invasion, I would not give a clue to possible enemies.  Suffice it to say that it lies in the mountains, in a position of great natural strength, made stronger by some rude attempts at fortification, and that it is really one of the most curious places in the world.

One approaches it from the plain by a narrow winding valley, reminding one not a little of the wadys of Mount Sinai, where the granite rocks rise abruptly on either hand out of a pure bed of sand.  On one of these is engraved an inscription in Arabic which we copied and which though not very legible may be read thus:—

“Hadihi kharâbat Senhârib.”

“This (is) the ruin of Senacherib (’s building).”

Such at least is its meaning in the opinion of Mr. Sabunji, a competent Arabic scholar, though I will not venture to explain on what occasion Senacherib made his way to Nejd, nor why he wrote in Arabic instead of his own cuneiform.

Inside the defences, the valley broadens out into an amphitheatre formed by the junction of three or four wadys in which there is a village and a palm garden.  Besides which, the wadys are filled with wild palms watered, the Arabs say, “min Allah,” by Providence, at least by no human hand.  They are very beautiful, forming a brilliant contrast of green fertility with the naked granite crags which overhang them on all sides.  These are perhaps a thousand feet in height, and run down sheer into the sandy floor of the wadys, so that one is reminded in looking at them of that valley of diamonds where the serpents lived, and down which the merchants threw their pieces of meat for the rocs to gather, in the tale of Sinbad the Sailor.  No serpents however live in Agde, but a population of very honest Shammar, who entertained us with a prodigality of dates and coffee, difficult to do justice to.  We had been sent in the company of two horsemen of the Emir’s, Shammar, who did the honours, as Agde and all in it are really Ibn Rashid’s private property.  These and the villagers gave us a deal of information about the hills we were in, and showed us where a great battle had been fought by Mohammed’s father and his uncle Obeyd against the Ibn Ali, formerly Emirs of the Jebel.  It would seem that Agde was the oldest possession of the Ibn Rashids, and that on their taking Haïl the Ibn Alis marched against them, when they retreated to their fortress, and there gave battle and such a defeat to the people of Kefar that it secured to the Ibn Rashids supreme power ever after.  They also showed us with great pride a wall built by Obeyd to block the narrow valley, and made us look at everything, wells, gardens, and houses, so that we spent nearly all the day there.  They told us too of a mysterious beast that comes from the hills by night and climbs the palm trees for sake of the dates.  “As large as a hare, with a long tail, and very good to eat.”  They describe it as sitting on its hind-legs, and whistling, so that Wilfrid thinks it must be a marmot.  Only, do marmots climb?  They call it the Webber.

We had a delightful gallop home with the two Bedouins, (Mohammed was not with us,) of whom we learned one of the Shammar war songs, which runs thus:—

“Ma arid ana erkobu delúl,
Lau zeynuli shedadeha,
Aridu ana hamra shenûf,
Hamra seryeh aruddeha.”

thus literally translated:—

“I would not ride a mere delúl,
Though lovely to me her shedad (camel-saddle);
Let me be mounted on a mare,
A bay mare, swift and quick to turn.”

They were mounted on very pretty ponies, but could not keep up with us galloping.  If we had been in Turkey, or indeed anywhere else but in Arabia, we should have had to give a handsome tip after an expedition of this kind; but at Haïl nothing of the sort was expected.  Both these Shammar were exceedingly intelligent well mannered men, with souls above money.  They were doing their duty to the prince as Sheykh, and to us as strangers, and they did it enthusiastically.

The level of Agde is 3,780 feet above the sea, that of Haïl 3,500.

This was, perhaps, the pleasantest day of all those we spent at Haïl, and will live long