Tracing old steps, making new tracks

Most scholars agree that the dispute as to the exact track to follow if one wants to trace the old steps [of the 40 Days Road]- as some adventurers have done- is thus somewhat irrelevant.

-Jenny Jobbins, The 40 Days’ Nightmare, Al-Ahram Weekly, November 13, 2003

Wayn al-sikka? Wayn al-bahr? Wayn Masr? Where’s the track? Where’s the [Nile] sea? Which way to Egypt? KhairAllah had a lot of questions for the other khabeer Muhammad al-Humri. From Day 28 of my 1984 Trail Diary…Lost and found, last night with Muhammad in the lead we wandered off track crossing the Sesibi Reach. KhairAllah knew we were lost, we camped and this morning set off to the west to pick up the trail, climbing the rises and pointing with their whips all around the four compass points. KhairAllah joked to us, Muhammad needs your map, we said, Our map is useless, KhairAllah said, The Sahara has big problems. Muhammad climbed another dune and gave the Follow Me sign, we’d been within sight of the Nile all along.

Billa Ali’s two dinners and two faces

Proverb. Al-Saariq bi-layl wa al-Qassaas bi-nahar, [Camel] Thief by Night and [Camel] Tracker by Day

—Sudan Arabic, Sigmar Hillelson

Qissa, n. A story. Qaseesa, Qasaa’is (pl), n. A camel which one follows after, the footsteps of travelling camels. Qaass, n. A teller of stories in their proper order, because he tells story after story.

-Lane’s Lexicon

We invited Billa Ali al-Grayn to eat at our campfire at ‘Idd Ahmad when he approached us after dark driving in one of our camels, claiming he had picked it up as a stray we’d left behind. KhairAllah didn’t think that we had, he thought that Billa Ali had cut it out of our dabouka after nightfall and then presented it to us expecting a monetary reward, which we gave him, and also a goat meat dinner. After he ate with us he went over to Muhammad al-Humri’s camp to eat some more goat meat. KhairAllah thinks this is the funniest story from that trip and he always begins it by saying, The night Billa Ali ate twice…

For some, a 40 day nightmare. For others, a sleeper’s sultanate

It spelled lucrative trade for some and despair for others…40 days of discomfort at best and at worst, of agony. The caravan- the most romantic of all desert scenes, and the most terrible…

-Jenny Jobbins, The 40 Days’ Nightmare, Al-Ahram Weekly, November 13, 2003

Despair, discomfort, agony? The most terrible? A forty day nightmare? Never. As an Egyptian once said when my cousin scolded me for snoring, Al-Naayim huwa Sultan, The Sleeper is a Sultan. Just keep dreaming, KhairAllah might have said to me if I ever complained. Or, You can sleep on soft pillows when we get to Cairo.

words i never heard Khairallah speak

Tdha’oun, n. A camel ridden by a woman. Mitdh’aan, adj. Easy in pace (applied to a she-camel). Tdha’eena, n. Woman in a camel litter. Usage example from the pre-Islamic poet Amr ibn Kulthoom, from his Hanging Ode (which begins with a drinking song, Ha Girl! Up with the wine bowl!). Pause Thou before our parting, O Woman in the camel litter, We will inform Thee of what is True and Thou will inform We.

-from Lane’s Lexicon

There were no female drovers with our dabouka, but if there had been I doubt that the tenor of our camp banter would have changed. We talked about camels, not girls, and about eating meat, not having sex. Women would have been welcome to join in our conversations as long as they joined in our chores. Hobbling, unhobbling, fire-making, tea-brewing. No need to wash pots because we always licked them clean.

beer drinking in the backward n

We are now to describe the contiguous parts along the Nile resembling in its course the [backward] letter N. After flowing to the north from Meroe it turns to the south…then entering far into Africa it turns again to the north…In general then the extreme parts of the habitable world adjacent to the intemperate region, which is not habitable because of heat, must necessarily be defective and inferior…this is evident from the mode of life of the inhabitants and their want of what is requisite…they are for the most part naked and wander from place to place with their herds…they live on millet from which also a drink is made…

-Strabo, The Geography, B XVII, C I and II

Merissa…who wants what more is requisite once you’ve got millet beer to drink and livestock to wander or maybe stumble after? Ask Bilal, who did both at the same time when we first set out. He knew all about the intemperate region to the north, up by the Nile’s second N turn far into Africa where millet doesn’t grow. That’s where our trail led. The aseeda flour we’d have to bring with us. The merissa he’d have to leave behind, so he drank it fast.

Handling a he-camel

Though aroused by the proximity of a female in heat, male camels lack the instinct that should direct them to the appropriate orifice and have to be assisted- manually. Authoritative sources suggest that only this human intervention has saved the species from extinction since the camel was domesticated, though some say they are just bone idle and if someone is willing to lend a tactful hand, you will not hear a camel say no.

-Africa: Biography of a Continent, John Reader

Let it be known there were no she-camels in our dabouka and no wayward orifices amongst us. KhairAllah often said No to us, in English, instead of Laa, in Arabic, but I never heard a camel say that.

diyaab's short arm and weak grasp

…but on his camel he was a better policeman than they. He could ride anywhere silently, see everything, and fire his gun.

-African Calliope: A Journey to the Sudan, Edward Hoagland

Hoagland never met Diyaab, policeman of Hamid Village, the last checkpoint west of the Nile before reaching the border. I’m copying from Day 29 of my 1984 trail diary…Ahmad Diyaab, a donkey for his squad car, a chronic aragi-holic (date wine drunk) according to KhairAllah, who says the shakedown cost him thirty Sudanese pounds last time. Diyaab asks the drovers for their papers which few carry. He sits Muhammad the Miskeen, the Unfortunate, down before his desk with the miniature national flag and asks, Where do you live exactly? Kordofan, he answers, Sodiri District, Umm Badr. North or South? Diyaab asks. North. Ahh, says Diyaab, What’s your pay? Three hundred guineas, says Muhammad. Ahh, again says Diyaab. KhairAllah takes me outside and turns his back to Diyaab and hands me his roll of cash and pantomimes that I put it in my pocket. Later he takes it back, after we’ve left Hamid Village behind, the tafteesh kamil, the complete inspection, over, a few piasters paid out to spring Muhammad from Diyaab’s grip, the wad safe now.

Strong draughts

…Through Desert or the Wilderness/…or as One/The Camel’s trait—attained—/How powerful the Stimulus/Of an Hermetic mind—

-Strong Draughts, Poem 711

She writes of seeking water in waterless times, of reading as a reservoir, of desert treks between wells of inspiration, of riding miles between draughts, of reaching at last for your oasis, your books, with a withered hump and goat skins dry, closed to all things but drink. KhairAllah and Rabih and the rest never felt so far gone between sips. It wasn’t reading they feared lacking, but sugar in their tea- another stimulus to a one track mind.

Climbing the camel

In Wind Gap the cliffs of Camel’s Hump tower above the hiker but he does not have to scale them.

-Guide to the Long Trail, A Footpath in the Vermont Wilderness

Camel Trail (AMC)- This trail connecting Boott Spur to Lake-in-the-Clouds Hut takes its name from certain ledges which seen against the skyline ressemble a kneeling camel.

-AMC White Mountain Guide, New Hampshire

Descend steeply from the state line to Camel Gap (4645 ft) at 9.45 miles. Ascend, swinging to the Tennessee side around wooded side of Camel Hump Knob (5250 ft) at 10.45 miles.

-Guide to Appalachian Trail in Tennessee and North Carolina

A war of words erupted this week between Sudan and Eritrea…Jebel Abu Gamal [Father of the Camel Mountain] is at the center of the conflict with both sides claiming the area…

-IPS News Agency, July 25, 1996

KhairAllah was as likely to climb Camel Hump Knob as he was Jebel Abu Gamal, which being on the Sudan-Eritrea border is as far off his mind’s eye Kordofan-to-KitKat geographical grid as Dollywood and Gatlinburg’s honkytonks, just downhill from Camel Gap on the state line.

Sand gets in your eyes

William of Tyre [1130-1186] describes in vivid terms the simoom of the Arabian Desert and how men have to lie flat on the ground at the time of its passing…he dilates on the terrors of drought in the desert…he goes on to assert that fish are found in the Sand Sea…if we remove the halo of fable surrounding all this…the descriptions of them are wholly fanciful.

-Geographical Lore at the Time of the Crusades, John Kirtland Wright

William wrote of Arabs caught in wind storms so fierce they had to dig their hands deep into the sand to anchor themselves to the ground lest they fly away…more of that nonsense about sand seas, dune waves, and camels as ships of the desert. The wind blew plenty hard on our trip but you wouldn’t want to lie flat in it. Turn your back to it, cover your tea glass with the palm of your hand between sips and imagine being someplace else. Hajj Bashir’s majlis. The kushary joint in Bab al-Luk. Papa Costa’s on Jumhuriyya Street. Anywhere the desert didn’t get into your food or drink or mouth or eyes.

Homely words on the trail

In the unaffected speech of the illiterate the dialectical element largely predominates, while the educated are inclined to eschew the homely words of the countryside…

-Sudan Arabic, Sigmar Hillelson

Reading through Hillelson’s 350 page lexicon of dialectical Sudanese Arabic is like rewatching a beloved classic film with the volume turned on for the first time. “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve?” Not until now do I know that the whole time I’d not really understood their most basic words…good, samh…bad, ka’b…man, zool…camel, ga’ood. I learned them quick enough from context and inference, but my hard earned visual images of dictionary definitions never came to mind because you won’t find Sudanese vernacular in Wehr or Lane. Whenever KhairAllah would point and say something like, Qoosh samh qudaam, Good grazing ahead…or, Al-ga’ood dak ka’b, That camel is bad off, I would make a fifty-fifty bet with myself. Good or bad? Man or camel?

Jets, Birds, and camels

Pisthetaerus- What are you shouting for? Euelpides- Why, it’s another kind of bird. Pisthetaerus- Aye indeed, and this is a foreign bird too. What is this bird from beyond the mountains with a face as solemn as it is stupid? Epops- It is called a Mede. Euelpides- The Mede! But by Hercules, how, if a Mede, has he flown here without a camel?

-The Birds, circa 414 BCE

Aristophanes has a gathering of birds who hope to supplant the gods. One was a Mede, a Persian, who to an Athenian was as rough-hewn an exotic as is a Kababish drover in the eyes of a Cairene. How could either come here from anywhere except on a camel? they might ask. In Arabic, the words for bird, airplane and to fly are all close cognates. KhairAllah would point to a jet leaving a con trail overhead and ask, Why don’t you fly to Cairo? I would answer, I prefer camels. No one laughed, no one thought it a joke.

skulduggery on the darb al-arba'een

Imbaba Journal, Camels and Men, All is Changing and Unchanged…Camels raised by different subclans for the trek to the Nile at Aswan and the train to Cairo, each herd sending a representative with them to guard against skulduggery.

-The New York Times, December 18, 1989

Skulduggery, n. Underhand dealing, roguish intrigue. Machination, trickery.

-OED

If Hajj Bashir had sent someone with our dabouka to watch out for skulduggery, who might he have been? Certainly not KhairAllah, for he was our khabeer, our trail boss, our expert, our watcher over men and herd…and watchers themselves need watching. Was it Masood, the goofy one, who reminded me of the Seven Dwarves, with his oversized features on his undersized build covered by a nightgown-looking full length galabiyya.…but no, not Masood, for he couldn’t count past ten, so how was he to know, say, if eleven head were missing from our herd of 150. Maybe Muhammad, the one we called the Miskeen, the Unfortunate, with ragged clothes, always waiting for the cold last fistful from the aseeda bowl…but most likely not, for he was too poor in spirit to watch over even himself. Adam Hamid? Never, for he was of the Hamar tribe and a young hot head no less…a bad one to look over others with different ways. That leaves only Daoud and me, but we were clueless, not recognizing camel skulduggery even if it spoke to us with the voice of the whip, Sawt al-sawT. There was much of everything in those forty days, but no, I saw no skulduggery on the Darb.

Thalatta! Thalatta! Al-bahr! Al-bahr!

But as the shout kept getting louder and nearer…it became clear to Xenophon that here was something of singular importance…And in a moment they heard the soldiers shouting Thalatta! Thalatta! and passing the word along. Then all the troops of the rearguard likewise broke into a run and the pack animals began racing ahead…then indeed they fell to embracing one another with tears in their eyes…

-Anabasis, Book IV

They say that every well-educated British schoolboy post-Dunkirk feels the same way as the Greek rearguard whenever they read these lines and hear the words, The Sea! The Sea! I can tell you from personal experience that Kababish drovers do not. When we reached the Nile, al-Bahr, at Khileyu on Day 21, it was the camels who celebrated most, not the men. The camels were dead dry thirsty and drank their fill. The drovers unlike Xenophon’s men did not think the sea, as they called the river, was the last step of their long way home. They were still outbound, on their catabasis, and none of them knew how to swim. Cairo was their Babylon and KhairAllah was not their commander, only their khabeer.

A camel's starts and stops

A camel’s walking pace, Taraqa. Trot (camel), Tabbaq. Canter (camel), Qarrab. Gallop (camel), Ghar. Balk (camel), Harran. Couch a camel, Nazzal. Cameleer’s command to couch (Kordofan), Kh-Kh-Kh. Cameleer’s command to couch (Darfur), Sh-Sh-Sh.

-taken from Sudan Arabic, Hillelson, and personal experience

I suppose that a beginning rider is better off knowing how to couch than to rouse his camel. And to walk and trot before he canters and gallops. But I was always amazed when we crossed trails with a Darfuri dabouka and its men susurrated their mounts. I wished mine took its orders to couch itself in the same manner, being sh-sh-sh’d instead of kh-kh-kh’d to the ground, a veritable camel’s Tower of Babel, to say nothing about the conversation that ensued around the tea fire between the Americans and the Fur drovers, with KhairAllah performing the cultural translation. Ismak kareem, What is your generous name? I would ask them. Who are they? they would ask KhairAllah, glancing at us. Slowly the answers emerged, while the camels waited patiently to resume the trail at a walk.

Hamhams, hawhaws, and 'aw'ees

Hamham, a she-camel whinny [to her foal]. Hawhaw, a dog bark. Koorak, a cat mew. Dagha, a goat maa. Ga’ar, a sheep baa. Hannaq, a donkey bray. ‘Aw’ee, a cock crow. Saksak, a bird chirp. Sarakh, a human shout.

-Sudan Arabic, Sigmar Hillelson

These words all came to me later, except Sarakh which was most useful in Cairo where we just called it Dawsha, Unpleasant Loud Noise [or “Sound out of place” as defined in a recent American University in Cairo M.A. thesis], the audio track of Egyptian everyday life. On the trail except for the rare set-to it was mostly quiet, only to be heard the murmuring of men singing to themselves, the blowing of the incessant north wind, the nocturnal teeth grinding of camels chewing cuds. No she-camels with foal, no donkeys, no roosters. What sounds there were, were mostly in my head. For forty days.