Three days' camel-riding up one of the short valleys which lead towards the high table-land offered little of interest beyond arid, igneous rocks, and burnt-up, sand-covered valleys, with distorted strata on either side. Here and there, where warm volcanic streams rise out of the ground, the wilderness is converted into a luxuriant garden, in which palms, tobacco, and other green things grow. One of the scrub trees which clothe the wilderness is called by the Arabs rack, and is used by them for cleaning their teeth. It amused us to chew this as we went along: it is slightly bitter, but cleans the teeth most effectually.
There is also a poisonous sort of cucumber, called by the Arabs madakdak. They clean out the inside and fill the skin with water, which they drink as a medicine. At Sibeh, which we reached after a very hot ride of twelve or thirteen miles, we found water with scores of camels lying round it, for there were two or three other kafilas, or caravans, beside our own. It was dreadfully cold that night, and we could not get at our bag of blankets.
Next we entered the narrow, tortuous valley of Howeri, which ascends towards the highland, in which the midday heat was intense; and at our evening halts we suffered not a little from camel-ticks, which abound in the sand, until we learnt to avoid old camping-grounds and not to pitch our tents in the immediate vicinity of the wells.
We encamped in a narrow, stony river-bed, between walls of rock, near a little village called Tahiya. There is a good deal of cultivation about. The closeness of the situation made the smell of the dried fish we carried for the camels almost unbearable.
These sacks are stretched open in the evening and put in the middle of a circle of camels, their masters often joining in the feast. One of the men was attacked by fever, so he was given quinine, and his friends were told to put him to bed and cover him well. When we went to visit him later we found him quite contented in one of these fish sacks, his head in one corner and his legs all doubled up and packed in; only a bare brown back was exposed, so we had a few of the camel's rags thrown on his back, and he was well next day.
We went on ten miles to Al Ghail, rising to an altitude of 2,000 feet above the sea-level. This word ghail begins with the Arabic ghin, which is a soft sound between r and g.
There are two villages near the head of the Wadi Howeri, where there is actually a ghail—that rare phenomenon in Arabia, a rill or running stream. Here the Bedou inhabitants cultivate the date palm, and have green patches of lucerne and grain, very refreshing to the eye.
We had come up one of the narrowest of gorges, but with hundreds of palm-trees around Al Ghail, the first of the two villages, which is in the end of the Wadi Howeri. It is an uninteresting collection of stone huts, with many pretty little fields, and maidenhair fern overhanging the wayside. There are little enclosures with walls round them, and small stones in them, on which they dry the dates before sending them to Aden. The rocky river-bed itself is waterless, the ghail being used up in irrigation.
At Al Bat'ha, which is just above the tableland, we actually encamped under a spreading tree, a wild, unedible fig called luthba by the Arabs, a nickname given to all worthless, idle individuals in these parts. Bedou women crowded around us, closely veiled in indigo-dyed masks, with narrow slits for their eyes, carrying their babies with them in rude cradles resembling hencoops, with a cluster of charms hung from the top, which has the twofold advantage of amusing the baby and keeping off the evil eye. After much persuasion we induced one of the good ladies to sit for her photograph, or rather to sit still while something was being done which she did not in the least understand.
There is very good water at Al Bat'ha, and so much of the kind of herbs that camels like that we delayed our departure till eight, shivering by a fire and longing as ardently for the arrival of the sun as we should for his departure. The road had been so steep and stony that the camel-riders had all been on foot for two days. I am sure that, except near a spring, no one dropped from the skies would dream he was in Arabia the Happy. It is hard to think that 'the Stony' and 'the Desert' must be worse.
