There was once a town at Abu Jîr, guarded by a little square fort with bastioned angles like Ḳaṣr Khubbâz. It was, however, much more ruined; of the interior buildings nothing remained, while the outer walls were little better than heaps of stones. But below this later work there were remains of older foundations, more careful masonry of larger materials, and outside the walls traces of a pavement, composed of big slabs of stone, accurately fitted together. All round the fort lay the foundations of houses, stone walls or crumbling mounds of sun-dried brick, not unlike the ruins of Ma’mûreh. There must have existed here a mediæval Mohammadan settlement, if there was nothing older, and the discovery was sufficiently surprising, for Abu Jîr now lies far beyond the limits of fixed habitation. The Deleim still turn the abundant water of the oasis to some profit, planting a few patches of corn and clover in the low ground below the ruins, but the insecurity of the desert forbids all permanent occupation. We had not gone far on our way next morning before Muḥammad stopped short in the ode he was singing and bent down from his saddle to examine some hoof-prints in the sandy ground. Two horsemen had travelled that way, riding in the same direction that we were taking.
“Those are the mares of our enemies,” he observed.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I heard that they had passed Abu Jîr in the night,” he answered and resumed his song. When he had brought it to an end, he called out—
“Oh lady, I will sing the ode that I composed about the carriage.”
At this the camel-riders and Ḥussein drew near and Muḥammad began the first ḳaṣîdah that has been written to a motor.
“I tell a marvel the like of which no man has known,
A glory of artifice born of English wit.”
“True, true!” ejaculated Fawwâz ecstatically.
“Eh billah!” exclaimed Ḥussein.
“Her food and her drink are the breath from a smoke-cloud blown,
If her radiance fade bright fire shall reburnish it.”