Hamal

“ About middle life he sets hard, like plaster of Paris, his senses get obfuscated, and a shell appears to form on the outside of his intellect, so that access to his understanding becomes very difficult. Sometimes his temper also grows crabbed, and noli me tangere writes itself distinctly across the mark of his god on his old brow. A Hamal in this phase is the most impracticable animal in this universe. When found fault with, he never answers back, but he enters on a vigorous conversation with himself, which is like a tune on a musical box, for it must be allowed to go until it runs itself out ”

“ Every now and then, at some particular phase of the moon, he sets his intellect in operations and the consequences are, as the Brahmin boy described the result of his examination, “appalling.” It was our Hamal’s duty to fill the filter, and at a time when the water was very bad, orders were given that it should be boiled before being filtered. One day, my wife saw the Hamal in the act of filling the filter, and it occurred to her to warn him to let the water cool first, lest he might crack the filter. ”

“ She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Mardas, hearing the tribesmen’s praises of Gharib, again thanked him for his derring-do. But the youth, when he had delivered Mahdiyah from Al-Hamal whom he slew, was smitten by the shaft of her glances and fell into the nets of her allurements, wherefore his heart could not forget her and he became drowned in love and longing and the sweets of sleep forsook him and he had no joy of drink or meat. He would spur his horse up to the mountain tops, where he would spend the day in composing verses and return at nightfall ”

“ He will come to understand the essential equality of all men, and the real nature of the contract which subsists between master and servant. Yes, I am afraid the day is fast drawing near when you will no longer venture to cut the hamal’s pay for letting mosquitoes into your bed curtains and he will no longer join his palms and call you his father and mother for doing so. ”

“ The mussaul is not a bad man, but the “Bootrail’s” example infects him too. He barters the kerosine oil at the petty shop round the corner for arrack. As for the hamal, she is tired of fighting with him. From this account of herself you will be able to infer that the Ayah is not a favourite with the other servants; but she is powerful, and so with oriental prudence they veil their feelings. The butler indeed, tries to be proud and risks ruin, but the mussaul truckles to her, and the cook, who can spoil her dinner, and has some control over her, trims between her and the butler. ”

“ Now the reason of this was that when Gharib put Al-Hamal and his men to the sword, the rest fled and 265ceased not flying till they reached their lord’s brother and told him what had happened, whereat his Doom-day rose and he gathered together his Amalekites and choosing out five hundred cavaliers, each fifty ells high, [326] set out with them in quest of blood-revengement for his brother. By the way he fell in with Mardas and his companions and there happened between them what happened; after which he bade his men alight and rest, saying, “O folk, the idols have given us an easy blood-wreak ”

“ Some mount their own horses, which the grooms hold in attendance, others avail themselves of the more jaded looking animals who are waiting to be hired, and sometimes the Turkish ladies,—rather antiquities of the species, deliberately mount the leather hunch on the Hamal’s back, and they too ride up, while others still are obliged, either from a lack of a like independence, or other stringent motives, to go on Shank’s mare. ”

“ Then the enemy passed the night rejoicing in their victory, whilst Mardas and his men despaired of life and made sure of doom. So far concerning them; but as regards Sahim al-Layl, who had been wounded in the fight with Al-Hamal, he went in to his sister Mahdiyah, and she rose to him and kissed his hands, saying, “May thy two hands ne’er wither nor thine enemies have occasion to be blither! But for thee and Gharib, we had not escaped captivity among our foes. Know, however, O my brother, that thy father hath ridden forth with an hundred and fifty horse, purposing to slaughter Gharib ”

“ It is this way of regarding himself and his master which makes the Boy generally such a faithful servant; but he often has a sort of spurious conscience, too, growing out of the fond pride with which he cherishes his good name, so that you do not strain the truth to say that he is strictly honest. Veracity is the point on which he is weakest, but even in this there are exceptions. My last Boy was curiously scrupulous about the truth, and would rarely tell a lie, even to shield himself from blame, though he would do so to get the hamal into a scrape. ”

“ If master marries, the Boy sometimes becomes a Butler, but I have generally seen that the change was fatal to him. He feels a share at first in master’s happiness on the auspicious occasion, and begins to fit on his new dignity. He provides himself with a more magnificent cumberbund, enlarges the border of gold thread on his puggree, and furbishes up his English that he may converse pleasantly with mem saheb. He orders about the other servants with a fuller voice than before, and when anyone calls for a chair, he no longer brings one himself, but commands the hamal to do so. ”

“ The various companies of hamals are as jealous of their claims upon a particular locality as are the dogs of the quarter. They may carry a load in a district not their own, only if the load is taken up first in their own quarter. Any attempt to commence work in another company’s territory results in a fierce fight between the parties concerned, and exposes the articles in dispute to serious damage. The Moslem hamals are very attentive to their religious duties.211 It is often impossible to get them to attend to your wants at the hours of prayer. ”

“ Owing to the hilliness of the city and the roughness of the streets, much of the carrying business of the city is done by hamals, a class of sturdy-limbed men, who, I am told, are mostly Armenians. They wear a sort of pack-saddle, and carry loads the mere sight of which makes the average Westerner groan. For carrying such trifles as crates and hogsheads of crockery and glass-ware, and puncheons of rum, four hamals join strength at the ends of two stout poles. ”

“ The Pasha, being a kind-hearted man, consented, and after sealing the bag, called his steward, instructing him to keep it till the owner called for it. The steward gave the man a receipt, to the effect that he had received a sealed bag containing money.
When the poor man returned, he went to the Pasha and received his bag of money. On reaching his room he opened the bag, and to his horror found that it contained, instead of the medjidies he had put in it, copper piasters, [Pg 81] which are about the same size as medjidies. The poor Hamal was miserable, his hard-earned savings gone. ”

“ Hamah (45) , the Hamath of the Bible, an ancient city of Syria, on the Orontes, 110 m. NE. of Damascus; manufactures silk, cotton, and woollen fabrics; is one of the oldest cities of the world; has some trade with the Bedouins in woollen stuffs; during the Macedonian dynasty it was known as Epiphania; in 1812 Burckhardt discovered stones in it with Hittite inscriptions.
Haman, an enemy of the Jews in Persia, who persuaded the king to decree the destruction of them against a particular day, but whose purpose was defeated by the reversal of the sentence of doom. ”

“ The weights that these coolies carry slung on their bamboo-poles are something surprising. I have seen Turkish hamals bent nearly double under the most impossible loads, such as no London railway porter would look at; but it makes one’s shoulders ache to see the Chinamen fetch and carry, for they do not hold the poles in their hands with the support of a shoulder-strap, like the chairmen who used to take old ladies out to tea and scandal in English country towns, but the bamboo poles are fastened at the ends, and the men simply hoist them on to their shoulders and stagger off under them. ”

“ So having arrived at Sulaimania I had to send Hama back, for the time was near when the Jew should return, and my man must be there to receive the merchandise and arrange transport. Hama, however, had not liked the idea of going to Halabja empty-handed; like all Kurds who have come in contact with trade and business, he was keen to experiment. So after a consultation with Matti and Habib Badria, the former of whom did not quite like the idea, it was arranged that he should take with him a load of shoes and a few odd things, for sale to the shopkeepers of Halabja. ”

“ We stand amazed before one that is forty feet high, until the eye travels down the river to another wheel of sixty feet; and our guide takes us out to the edge of the city where a monster ninety feet in diameter is playing its slow, solemn tune.
It is impossible to shut out the sound of their creaking. I know of travelers who have been so distracted by the incessant, inescapable noise that they could not sleep in Hama ”

“ This Haman, who now, in a time of profound peace and full security—while both races were exiles from the land of their fathers—had plotted the ruin of their nation, the total extermination of their race; who had doomed the feeble and helpless, the little one and the aged, to perish with the strong man in his might; this Haman was the son of those who fell upon the tribes, faint and weary, in the wilderness ”

“ Then the king gave his ring to Haman as a sign that he would pledge his word to do what he asked, and said,
"The silver is given to thee, the people also, to do with them as it seemeth good to thee."
Then Haman had letters written and sealed with the king's seal ring, saying to the rulers of every province in the kingdom that all Jews, both young and old, throughout the kingdom, must be destroyed in one day, and their goods, and money, and lands be taken for a prey, and the thirteenth day of the twelfth month was set in which to destroy them. ”

“ Hamel,” she said, “and yet, I believe in you. I believe that you really care for Esther. If you can help us now, it will be for your happiness, too. You are a man. God bless you!”
Hamel groped his way round the side of the Tower and took up a position at the extreme corner of the landward side of the building, within a yard of the closed doors. The light far out upon the left was still gleaming brightly, but two of the others in a line with it had disappeared. He flattened himself against the wall and waited, listening intently, his eyes straining through the darkness. ”

“ Do you paint, Mr. Hamel?”
“Not at all,” Hamel answered.
“Our friend Hamel,” Mr. Fentolin intervened, “woos other and sterner muses. He fights nature in distant countries, spans her gorges with iron bridges, stems the fury of her rivers, and carries to the boundary of the world that little twin line of metal which brings men like ants to the work-heaps of the universe. My dear Florence,” he added, suddenly turning to the woman at his other side, “for the moment I had forgotten. You have not met our guest yet. Hamel, this is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Seymour Fentolin.” ”

“ Hamath had already fallen. A portion of its population had been transported to the north, and their places filled with settlers from Babylonia. Its king had become an Assyrian vassal, who along with the other subject princes of Asia attended the court held by Tiglath-pileser at Damascus after its capture, there to pay homage to the conqueror and swell his triumph. A few years later, on the accession of Sargon, Hamath made a final effort to recover its freedom. But the [pg 140] effort was ruthlessly crushed, and henceforward the last of the Aramæan kingdoms was made an Assyrian province. ”

“ After lunch there is an interesting little excursion to be made some eight kilometers up the Djelfa road to El Hamel. The car should not be overloaded, as there are three or four kilometers to do off the main road up to the gates of the town. Built on the side of a barren hill, it has a wild look, and its tall walls give it an imposing aspect as the car climbs up the steep road to its gates. El Hamel is interesting because of its zaouïa and Mohammedan college for those studying [181] the Koran with a view to becoming muftis or imams. ”

“ The situation of Babylonia, and its proximity to that mountain region where man must have first “increased and multiplied” after the Flood, are in favor of its being the original centre from which the other Cushite races were derived. The Biblical genealogy of the sons of Ham points, however, the other way; for it derives Nimrod from Cush, not Cush from Nimrod. Indeed this document seems to follow the Hamites from Africa—emphatically “the land of Ham”—in one line along Southern Arabia to Shinar or Babylonia, in another from Egypt through Canaan into Syria. ”

“ Esther’s features had suddenly become stony and expressionless. Hamel felt instinctively that something was wrong.
“There are compensations,” Mr. Fentolin continued, with the air of one enjoying speech, “which find their way into even the gloomiest of lives. As I lie on my back, hour after hour, I feel all the more conscious of this. The world is a school of compensations, Mr. Hamel. The interests—the mental interests, I mean—of unfortunate people like myself, come to possess in time a peculiar significance and to yield a peculiar pleasure. I have hobbies, Mr. Hamel. ”

“ The verse you quote will apply in the same manner, 'I love you, therefore will I visit upon you your iniquities;' meaning, 'I will punish you for them as they occur, little by little, by which means you may have quittance and happiness in the world to come.'"
The action of the king in delivering his signet ring to Haman had more effect upon the Jews than the precepts and warnings of forty-eight prophets who lectured to them early and late. They clothed themselves in sackcloth, and repented truly with tears and fasting, and God had compassion upon them and destroyed Haman. ”