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they dare not cross motorways. They rather move across
desert trails that are remote from populous areas. In the
mountains of the southwestern part of the country, one can
find packs of monkeys that look like dogs.
Once, my husband Elman Arasli and I were on our way
to Mecca to perform “Umra”. We saw multitudes of these
monkeys near a mountainous path. At first, we thought they
were human beings, which was very strange, as you cannot
expect people to stand along a multi-lane motorway. My
husband started to clamp the breaks and simultaneously
blew the horn. But this did not have any effect on the
monkeys that were sitting before us. When we drew
close to them, they approached our car and surrounded
us. Fortunately, the car windows were closed. But soon
some of them went up to the roof of the car, making all
sorts of intelligible gestures, striking on their bellies and
putting their fingers in their mouths, while extending their
hands forward as an indication that they were hungry and
needed something to eat. It was also clear that they were
used to receiving food from motorists who happened to
pass by. Unfortunately, all our food reserves were packed
in the trunk of the car and we could not, at the time, for
obvious reasons, get out of the car. We may have had to
stay locked up in the car for quite some time had not a car
come behind us that attracted the attention of the monkeys,
as the people in that car were apparently prepared for this
and started throwing fruits, thus encouraging the monkeys
to leave us in peace and turn to them in order to get a
share of the fruits being thrown to them, and thus making
it possible for us to resume our journey in peace. It is
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reported that in cases of anger and resentment, they could
throw stones at people, but we were lucky to have been
spared such ordeal. On our way, we kept remembering the
different postures of the monkeys, especially a tiny little
one that stood on our car and started making all sorts of
funny gestures that made us burst with laughter.
On the rare drawings on the rocks in the mountainous
part of the western coast of the country known as Assir,
which lies along the historical route of the caravans
traveling from Yemen to Mecca, we saw many drawings
showing horsemen mounted on their horses and others
sitting on the necks of camels, as well as hunters carrying
bows, arrows and long and short spears, in addition to
tame and ferocious animals, like lions and tigers, which
can be seen today only in the zoo. The lion’s share of
these drawings is reserved for camels, which is not a mere
coincidence in the pre-oil era, as such animals played an
important part in the life of people, together with the sheep
and goats, which are the essential resource for the life
of the population of the Arabian Peninsula. Needless to
say, fishermen and pearl divers in the coastal regions had
other resources than camels, but this category represented
a small part of the natives. Thus, the camel was in the
first place a symbol of material and financial wealth and a
bedouin had to have tens of camels and 50 heads of sheep
and goats as well as a hunting dog and a horse. After the
advent of fire arms, the rifle was an indispensable weapon.
A bride’s dowry consisted, in addition to clothes and other
household accessories, of money with which camels and
sheep were normally bought and which, in time, would