Coming back, the bride
and the bridegroom met in the street, and then we all adjourned to her
father's house, where there were more ceremonies and festivities. At
midnight we formed a procession to take the bride to her bridegroom's
house, with singing, dancing, snapping of fingers, and loud cries of
"Yallah! Yallah!" which lasted till 2 a.m. Then the harim proceeded
to undress the bride. We were up all night, watching and joining in
different branches of festivities.
The wedding over, we returned home to Salahiyyeh by slow stages. It was
a terribly hot road through the desert. I suffered with burning eyeballs
and mouth parched with a feverish thirst. I know nothing to equal the
delight with which one returns from the burning desert into cool shades
with bubbling water. Our house seemed like a palace; and our welcome
was warm. So we settled down again at Damascus.
We had a troublesome and unpleasant time during the next few months,
owing to a continuation of official rows. There were people at Damascus
always trying to damage us with the Government at home, and sending lying
reports to the Foreign Office. They were most unscrupulous. One man,
for instance, complained to the Foreign Office that I had been heard to
say that I had "finished my dispatches," meaning that I had finished the
work of copying Richard's. Imagine a man noting down this against a
woman, and twisting it the wrong way.
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