The usual land route into the country for British and American travellers was said by Murray to be from Cairo to Suez and across the Sinai peninsula. In 1858 the three principal stations on the road to Suez provided the following high cholesterol fare: ‘Breakfast, consisting of tea or coffee, bread and butter, a plate of eggs or a chicken; dinner, consisting of rice, a chicken or pigeon, potatoes, English cheese, and fruit; supper, consisting of tea, bread and butter, a plate of eggs or a chicken. N.B. The use of a bed, as well as wines and all other extras, must be paid for separately according to tariff.’
Suez was the last civilized outpost, and to reach Jerusalem meant a journey of some four hundred miles over mostly uninhabited ashy-looking waste, only the occasional oasis, monastery or ruin to vary the scenery, which was desolate and spectacular in turn. The first notable stopping place was the Monastery of St Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai, but to get there from Suez ‘it will be necessary to engage some of the Tor Arabs, who will supply camels, and act as guides through their desert’. Before starting it was necessary to make sure that every camel had its full and proper load, ‘if not, the Arabs will put a few things on each, and go away pretending they are loaded, their object being to get as many engaged as possible’.
Another trick practised by the Arabs was pointed out: ‘It sometimes happens that a traveller is stopped on the road by what is said to be a party of hostile Arabs, and obliged to pay a sum of money, as he supposes, to save his life, or to secure the continuation of his journey in safety.’ It is obvious, however, that: ‘If no resistance is made on the part of those who conduct the traveller, the attacking party are either some of their own, or of a friendly tribe who are allowed to spoil him by the very persons he pays to protect him; for an Arab would rather die than suffer such an affront from a hostile tribe in his own desert. If then his Arabs do not fight on the occasion, he may be sure it is a trick to extort money … he should, therefore, use no arms against the supposed enemies, but afterwards punish his faithless guides by deducting the sum taken from their pay; and it is as well, before starting, to make them enter into an agreement that they are able as well as willing to protect him.’
Hints of danger were not exaggerated. Richard Burton, in The Land of Midian, 1879, had, with reason, a poor opinion of the Bedouin law of honour: ‘They will eat bread and salt with the traveller whom they intend to murder.’ Cook’s guidebook Palestine and Syria, 1911, tells us that near the beginning of their journey Professor Palmer, Lieutenant Charrington and Captain Gill were killed by Arabs on 11 August 1882.
Two groups of the same tribe would sometimes argue over who was to escort the traveller, ‘and after he had gone some distance on his journey, he and his goods are taken by the opposition candidates, and transferred to their camels. The war is merely one of words, which the inexperienced in the language cannot understand; but he fully comprehends the annoyance of being nearly pulled to pieces by the rivals, and his things are sometimes thrown on the ground, to the utter destruction of everything fragile.’
In spite of these possible perfidies, the author concludes: ‘An extra supply of coffee and tobacco, to give the Arabs occasionally, will be found useful.’
By the time of the first English edition of Baedeker’s Palestine and Syria, 1876, the dragoman system had come into operation, and many of the above difficulties were taken care of by him. All the same: ‘It is customary for the traveller to enter into a written contract with the dragoman, and to get it signed by him and attested at the consulate’, otherwise ‘it is often a matter of great difficulty to induce them to make the slightest deviation from the usual routes, which in all probability have been followed by the caravans for many centuries.’
Baedeker tells us that though there is no danger on the more frequented routes of the area, ‘in the valley of the Jordan, and more particularly to the east of Jordan, danger from nomadic Beduins might perhaps be apprehended but for the custom of travellers in these parts to provide themselves with a Beduin escort’. Certain sums are specified which must be paid, and ‘in return for these fees, a number of Beduin village sheiks, settled near Jerusalem, have undertaken to protect the interests of travellers, make compensation for thefts, etc., and the traveller who neglects to avail himself of this kind of insurance will profit little by appealing to his consul. Far higher demands are of course made for escorting travellers beyond Jordan, where the Turkish supremacy is but nominally recognised, and where, especially in the border districts, the petty sheiks affect to disdain francs and shillings, and often demand English sovereigns for their services.’
Nevertheless, the bordering deserts were ‘infested with marauders of all kinds, but once in the interior of the territory of a desert-tribe, and under the protection of one of its sheiks, the traveller will generally meet with much kindness and hospitality. Predatory attacks are occasionally made on travellers by Beduins from remote districts, but only when the attacking party is the more powerful. To use one’s weapons in such cases may lead to serious consequences, as the traveller who kills an Arab immediately exposes himself to the danger of retaliation from the whole tribe.’
In unsafe districts at night a guard should be posted outside the tents, and objects of value placed either under the traveller’s pillow or as near the middle of the tent as possible, ‘lest they should be within reach of hands intruding from the outside. The traveller should likewise be on his guard against the thievish propensities of beggars.’
With regard to the ownerless ill-looking dogs which the traveller encounters in the villages and towns, they are often ‘a source of some alarm, but they fortunately never bite. Each town and village is infested with as many masterless dogs as its refuse can support. Unowned dogs will sometimes follow caravans if they are fed, in which case they will generally make themselves useful by their watchfulness at night.’
In the Baedeker of 1912 the above remarks are substantially the same, and though there had been some improvement in communications, a dragoman was still necessary for most places beyond Damascus and Jerusalem. Protection on the road to Jericho is discussed by a writer in 1909 in the magazine Travel and Exploration, and he tells the following story:
A few years ago two tourists, considering that the armed escort was an obsolete and futile custom, decided to dispense with them on their excursion to Jericho. Reaching their destination after an uneventful journey, they were not unnaturally jubilant. The arrival of two unaccompanied tourists reached the ears of the sheik (whose livelihood depended on his fees for escorts), and he laid his plans promptly. When the tourists reached the Wady Kelt on the return journey, they were waylaid and, though not injured in any way, all their clothes were taken from them. In this sorry plight the two victims were fain to fashion themselves some sort of covering out of a copy of The Times (the only possession left them by the sheik’s hirelings), and thus quaintly garbed they slunk into Jerusalem at nightfall, sadder and wiser men.