The Wells of Memory

8/11/2019 The Wells of Memory

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The Wells of Memory

One of the first travelers in a century to walk through the Hejaz desert of Saudi Arabia !aul Salo"ek

encounters a fabled "ast of caravans and "ilgrims of em"ires come and gone#

By Paul Salopek

Photograph by John Stanmeyer

There are thousands of wells in the old Hejaz# We walk to them#

Sometimes their water is sweet# More often it is salt# $t matters little# These wells which "ock the long%

disused caravan trails of Arabia are monuments to human survival# &ach concentrates a fine distillation

of the landsca"e# And the same a""lies to the "eo"le who drink from them# $n the Hejaz'the fabled

realm of a vanished kingdom of the Hashemites who once ruled the (ed Sea coast of Saudi Arabia'

there are bustling wells and lonesome wells# There are wells whose waters convey the chemistry of

sadness or joy# &ach re"resents a cosmos in a bucket# We take our bearings off them#

Wadi Wasit is a well of forgetting#

We reach it on a fiery day in August# We are halfway through a more than )**%mile foot journey "erha"s

the first made in generations from +eddah to +ordan# We rest in the dendrites of gray shade thrown by the

well,s two thorn trees# Here we meet the running man#

He arrives in a "icku" truck# !ortly mustachioed a -edouin camel herder he is friendly curious

talkative jittery# He mistakes us for treasure seekers# .Why else walk through the scorching desert/0 He

has come to sell artifacts#

12ook at this34 he says# He dis"lays a tin ring# The iron scabbard of a sword# A well%rubbed coin#

How old are these things/

The running man doesn,t know# Kadim jidn,he says5 6ery old# He shrugs#

The Hejaz'a crossroads where Arabia Africa and Asia meet and long tied by trade to &uro"e'is one

of the most storied corners of the ancient world# $t has seen millennia of wanderers# Stone Age "eo"le

hunted and fished their way north out of Africa through vanished savannas# !eo"le from some of

humankind,s first civilizations'Assyrians &gy"tians and 7abataeans'roamed through here trading

slaves for incense and gold# (omans invaded the Hejaz# .Thousands of the legionaries died of disease and

thirst#0 $slam was born here in the dark volcanic hills of Mecca and Medina# !ilgrims from Morocco or


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8onstantino"le "robably drank from the well in Wadi Wasit# 2awrence of Arabia may have gul"ed its

water too# 7obody knows# 9adim jidn#

1Take it34 the running man says# He shoves his or"han finds at us# 1Take it for free34 -ut we decline to

buy his curiosities#

!acking our two camels to leave we s"ot him once again# He is running now's"rinting around the well#

He has removed his white robe# And he is running through the desert in his underwear circling the well

under the ruthless sun# He runs with abandon# Ali al Harbi my translator takes a "hotogra"h# Awad

Omran our camel handler guffaws# -ut $ cannot laugh# He is not mad the running man# Or drugged# Or

"laying some joke# He is lost $ think# As we all are when we abandon history# We don,t know where to

go# There is an abundance of "asts in the Hejaz# -ut $ have never been to a "lace more memory%less#

A small, bottomless wellin the Hejaz5 a white "orcelain cu"#

$t holds dark rich coffee# $t sits ato" a "olished wooden table inside an elegant mansion in the "ort of

+eddah# Three articulate Hejazi women refill the cu" endlessly# They take turns talking wishing to correct

mis"erce"tions about Saudi Arabia5 that the kingdom is a homogenized society a culture flattened by its

famously austere brand of $slam a nation rendered dull by esca"ist consumerism and by "etrodollars# 7o#

Saudi Arabia they say is a rich human mosaic# $t enfolds many distinctive regions and cultures5 a Shiite

east a :emeni south a 2evantine north and a tribal -edouin stronghold in the center'the "uritanicalredoubt of the 7ajdis home of the ruling dynasty the House of Saud# The women insist moreover that

no region in Saudi Arabia remains more inde"endent more "roud than the realm that has guarded the

holy cities of Mecca and Medina since the tenth century'the vanished kingdom of the Hejaz# ;ully

inde"endent by the end of World War $ the Hejaz was anne?@# $t

remains a "lace of contradictions of com"le


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te


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:et a few diehards remain#

One ste"s from the truck# He is a graybeard in a stained gray thobe,the classic robe of Saudi men# He

brings us a gift# 1$t is our way4 says the old man who calls himself Abu Saleh# He swee"s a callused

hand at the surrounding desert# 1We welcome all travelers#4

7o other soul is visible on the horizon# Abu Saleh leaves us with a sim"le goodbye# His gift5 a small well

of kindness'a dented steel bowl full of camel,s milk#

Built of necessity,the wells in the old Hejaz have faded softened eroded into objects of beauty and

contem"lation#

The earliest of these watering stations were established "recisely one day,s walk a"art by the 8ali"h

Dmar in A#E# BFG# 1A traveler is the "erson worthiest of receiving "rotection4 he declared before

"ioneering the most so"histicated rest%sto" system in the ancient world5 way"oints on the "ilgrims, trails

to Mecca serviced by forts cisterns guesthouses date groves hos"itals canals even distance markers#

We trudge the same trails'ribbons of desert burnished by countless shuffling camels by numberless

sandaled feet# Scholars from Timbuktu drank from these wells# So did merchants from S"ain seeking

frankincense# So did sun%boiled =>th%century &uro"ean eth%century Swiss "olymath +ohann 2udwig -urckhardt who traveled to the religious core

of $slam as a "au"er'a 1reduced &gy"tian gentleman4'and never made it home# .He died of dysentery


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and was buried with Muslim rites in 8airo#0 There is the brilliant and "om"ous &nglishman (ichard

;rancis -urton who if he can be believed actually touched the 9aaba the holiest of holies'a massive

cube of volcanic stone in Mecca toward which all Muslims must "ray# These &uro"eans witnessed a

world locked in time# They found (ed Sea towns built of shining white coral blocks their arched doors

and window shutters "ainted sea green and dazzling nomad blue# They "assed through walled cities

whose tall gates creaked shut at dusk# They gallo"ed camels between fortified oases with wild%haired

men the -edouin whom they found harshly admirable# .-urton5 1We had another fight before we got to

Mecca and a s"lendid camel in front of me was shot through the heart#40 This literary Hejaz if it ever

truly e


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1They were a "eo"le of s"asms of u"heavals of ideas the race of the individual genius4 2awrence wrote

of his comrades in the Hejaz# 1The desert Arab found no joy like the joy of voluntarily holding back# He

found lu


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Some Hejazis blame Saudi Arabia,s ultraconservative version of $slam for much of the erasure of their

"ast# $n recent years for eG*s to make way for high%rise hotels# .1Old residents come here to cry#40


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The "ast is fraught territory in every country# Dntil barely a generation ago D#S# te


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hundred miles of words# !ages crazed with jottings about devastating heat# $nked ma"s of "ilgrim roads#

Eivinations of -edouin fire doctors# -earings for remote wells#

$ reach a modern tourist resort# 7o one "ays me any mind# There is the novelty of women driving cars# $

watch cou"les strolling beaches in sarongs# $ sto" at a mini%mart and buy a bottle of filtered water5 a small

"lastic well an artifact from the main channel of history# $ "eer south beyond the Julf of Aaba'toward

the Hejaz# A cloaked "lace# The li"s of its ancient wells are grooved by ro"es turned to dust# Eust long

since blown away# $ si" my water# $t tastes utterly ordinary#

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The Wells of Memory