We ascended a good deal the following day, to a point whence our view extended over the great central desert. It looked like a blue sea with a yellow shore. We then turned a little to the south, then north again, and found ourselves among a quantity of wooded spurs, and on the edge of a deep wooded wadi.
Right up to the tops of the mountains, which reach an elevation of about 3,000 feet, the ground is fertile and covered with grass, on which large herds of cattle feed; clusters of sycamores and limes growing here and there give to the undulating hills quite a park-like appearance. As we happened to be there in the dry season, the grass was all brown and slippery, and there stood around us acres upon acres of hay with no one to harvest it; but after the rains the aspect of the Gara hills must be as green and pleasant as those of Derbyshire. The dry grass often catches fire, and from the mountains in various directions we saw columns of smoke arising as if from the chimneys of a manufacturing district. The country through which we travelled for the next two days is covered with thorny bushes and anthills, and is more like Africa than Arabia. The anthills, though very extensive, were not so fantastic as those we saw in Africa. We were going eastward over high ground; we decided to halt for two nights near a pretty little hole full of maidenhair fern, where there was water. It was nice and clean at first, but even at the end of the first day it was much diminished and very muddy. Travellers like ourselves must be a great nuisance drinking up the scanty supply of water which might last the inhabitants for a long while.
We had hoped to get a good rest after our many days of marching, but while we were here there came on the most frightful hurricane from the north; it blew steadily for two days and nights and put all rest out of the question. With difficulty could we keep our tents erect; when we were in ours we had to be tightly tied in and sit next to the sunniest wall; in the evening when the wind abated a little we used to sit by a large fire, dressed in blankets.
The piercing blasts quite shrivelled up our poor unclad conductors, who crouched in an inert mass round log fires which they made. We were obliged to remain inactive, for they said the camels would not move during this wind, though I believe the cause of inaction rose more from their own dislike to travel in the cold; and so inert were they that we could hardly get them to fetch us water from the neighbouring spring, their whole energy being expended in fetching huge logs of wood to keep the fires burning, and I think they were all pleased when the time came to descend to the lower regions again and a warmer atmosphere.
We were afraid to start before the sun was up for fear the camels would be too cold to move, and he did not visit us very early.
Sheikh Sehel promised to take us across the Gara border into Nejd if we wished; but as it would have entailed a considerable delay and parley with the sheikhs of the Nejd Bedouin, and as we could see from our present vantage ground that the country would afford us absolutely no objects of interest, we decided not to attempt this expedition.
On leaving our very exposed and nameless camping-ground, we pursued our course in a north-east direction, still passing through the same park-like scenery, through acres and acres of lovely hay, to be had for nothing a ton. It is exceedingly slippery, and dangerous foothold for the camels; consequently numerous falls were the result, and much of our journey had to be done on foot.
We and they used involuntarily to sit down and slide and be brought up suddenly by a concealed rock.
To the south the descent is abrupt and rocky to the plain of Dhofar and the Indian Ocean, and the horizon line on either side is remarkably similar, for in the far, far distance the sandy desert becomes a straight blue line like a horizon of water. To the east and west the arid barrenness of Arabia soon asserts itself, whereas the undulating Gara range, like the Cotswold, is fertile, and rounded with deep valleys and ravines running into it full of rich tropical vegetation.
On the second day we began again to descend a hideously steep path, and a drop of about 1,500 feet brought us to a remarkable cave just above the plain, and only about ten or twelve miles from Al Hafa. This cave burrows far into the mountain side, and is curiously hung with stalactites, and contains the deserted huts of a Bedou village, only inhabited during the rains. Immediately below this cave in the Wadi Nahast are the ruins of an extensive Sabæan town, in the centre of which is a natural hole 150 feet deep and about 50 feet in diameter; around this hole are the remains of walls, and the columns of a large entrance gate. We asked for information about this place, but all we could get in reply was that it was the well of the Addites, the name always associated with the ruins of the bygone race. They also said the Minqui had lived in the town. In my opinion this spot is the site of the oracle mentioned by Ptolemy and others, from which the capital of Dhofar took its name. It much resembles the deep natural holes, which we found in Cilicia in Asia Minor, where the oracles of the Corycian and Olbian Zeus were situated. It is just below the great cave I have mentioned, and, as a remarkable natural phenomenon, it must have been looked upon with awe in ancient days, and it was a seat of worship, as the ruined walls and gateway prove; furthermore, it is just half a day's journey east of the city of Mansura or Zufar, where, Ibn Batuta somewhat contemptuously says, 'is Al Akhaf, the abode of the Addites,' and there is no other point on the plain of Dhofar where the oracle could satisfactorily be located from existing evidence. Some time, perhaps, an enterprising archæologist may be able to open the ruins about here, and verify the identification from epigraphical evidence.
