Oriental Encounters

Oriental Encounters, by Marmaduke Pickthall

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Title: Oriental Encounters Palestine and Syria, 1894-6
Author: Marmaduke Pickthall

Release Date: September 25, 2006 [eBook #19378]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been | | preserved. Inconsistent spellings of Arabic terms have been | | preserved. | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this | | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this | | document. | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------+

ORIENTAL ENCOUNTERS
Palestine And Syria (1894-5-6)
by
MARMADUKE PICKTHALL

London: 48 Pall Mall W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. Glasgow Melbourne Auckland Copyright 1918

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE.
INTRODUCTION 1
I. RASH?D THE FAIR 11
II. A MOUNTAIN GARRISON 20
III. THE RHINOCEROS WHIP 28
IV. THE COURTEOUS JUDGE 36
V. NAW?DIR 45
VI. NAW?DIR (continued) 54
VII. THE SACK WHICH CLANKED 68
VIII. POLICE WORK 77
IX. MY COUNTRYMAN 87
X. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 96
XI. THE KNIGHT ERRANT 106
XII. THE FANATIC 117
XIII. RASH?D'S REVENGE 125
XIV. THE HANGING DOG 134
XV. TIGERS 142
XVI. PRIDE AND A FALL 151
XVII. TRAGEDY 161
XVIII. BASTIRMA 171
XIX. THE ARTIST-DRAGOMAN 181
XX. LOVE AND THE PATRIARCH 188
XXI. THE UNPOPULAR LANDOWNER 198
XXII. THE CA?MMAC?M 209
XXIII. CONCERNING BRIBES 218
XXIV. THE BATTLEFIELD 226
XXV. MURDERERS 237
XXVI. THE TREES ON THE LAND 245
XXVII. BUYING A HOUSE 255
XXVIII. A DISAPPOINTMENT 264
XXIX. CONCERNING CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 273
XXX. THE UNWALLED VINEYARD 282
XXXI. THE ATHEIST 291
XXXII. THE SELLING OF OUR GUN 302
XXXIII. MY BENEFACTOR 311

INTRODUCTION
Early in the year 1894 I was a candidate for one of two vacancies in the Consular Service for Turkey, Persia, and the Levant, but failed to gain the necessary place in the competitive examination. I was in despair. All my hopes for months had been turned towards sunny countries and old civilisations, away from the drab monotone of London fog, which seemed a nightmare when the prospect of escape eluded me. I was eighteen years old, and, having failed in one or two adventures, I thought myself an all-round failure, and was much depressed. I dreamed of Eastern sunshine, palm trees, camels, desert sand, as of a Paradise which I had lost by my shortcomings. What was my rapture when my mother one fine day suggested that it might be good for me to travel in the East, because my longing for it seemed to indicate a natural instinct, with which she herself, possessing Eastern memories, was in full sympathy!
I fancy there was some idea at the time that if I learnt the languages and studied life upon the spot I might eventually find some backstairs way into the service of the Foreign Office; but that idea, though cherished by my elders as some excuse for the expenses of my expedition, had never, from the first, appealed to me; and from the moment when I got to Egypt, my first destination, it lost whatever lustre it had had at home. For then the European ceased to interest me, appearing somehow inappropriate and false in those surroundings. At first I tried to overcome this feeling or perception which, while I lived with English people, seemed unlawful. All my education until then had tended to impose on me the cult of the thing done habitually upon a certain plane of our society. To seek to mix on an equality with Orientals, of whatever breeding, was one of those things which were never done, nor even contemplated, by the kind of person who had always been my model.
My sneaking wish to know the natives of the country intimately, like other unconventional desires I had at times experienced, might have remained a sneaking wish until this day, but for an accident which freed me for a time from English supervision. My people had provided me with introductions to several influential English residents in Syria, among others to a family of good position in Jerusalem; and it was understood that, on arrival in that country, I should go directly to that family for information and advice. But, as it chanced, on board the ship which took me to Port Said from Naples I met a man who knew those people intimately--had been, indeed, for years an inmate of their house--and he assumed the office of my mentor. I stayed in Cairo, merely because he did, for some weeks, and went with him on the