“It is the road of death,” said Ḥussein Onbâshî, stuffing tobacco into the cup of his narghileh.
“Eh billah!” said one who laid the glowing charcoal atop. “Eight days’ ride, and the government, look you, pays no more than fifteen mejîdehs from Hît and back again.”
An old man, wrapped in a brown cloak edged with gold, took up the tale.
“The government reckons fifteen mejîdehs to be the price of a man’s life. Wallah! if the water-skins leak between water and water, or if the camel fall lame, the rider perishes.”
“By the truth, it is the road of death,” repeated Ḥussein. “Twice last year the Deleim robbed the mail and killed the bearer of it.”
I had by this time spread out Kiepert.
“Inform me,” said I, “concerning the water.”
“Oh lady,” said the old man, “I rode with the mail for twenty years. An hour and a half from Kebeisah there is water at ’Ain Za’zu’, and in four hours more there is water in the tank of Khubbâz after the winter, but this year there is none, by reason of the lack of rain. Twelve hours from Khubbâz you shall reach Ḳaṣr ’Amej, which is another fortress like Khubbâz, but more ruined; and there is no water there. But eighteen hours farther you find water in the Wâdî Ḥaurân, at Muḥeiwir.”
“Is there not a castle there?” I asked. Kiepert calls it the castle of ’Aiwir.
“There is nought but rijm,” said he. (Rijm are the heaps of stones which the Arabs pile together for landmarks.) “And after nine hours more there is water at Ga’rah, and then no more till Dumeir, nine hours from Damascus.”