At half-past five A.M., after drowsily stumbling through hours of outer gloom, we entered a spacious basin at least six miles broad, and limited by a circlet of low hill. It was overgrown with camel-grass and Acacia (Shittim) trees, mere vegetable mummies; in many places the water had left a mark; and here and there the ground was pitted with mud-flakes, the remains of recently dried pools. After an hours rapid march we toiled over a rugged ridge, composed of broken and detached blocks of basalt and scoriæ, fantastically piled together, and dotted with thorny trees. Shaykh Masud passed the time in walking to and fro along his line of camels, addressing us with a Khallikum guddam, to the front (of the litter)! as we ascended, and a Khallikum wara, to the rear! during the descent. It was wonderful to see the animals stepping from block to block with the sagacity of mountaineers; assuring themselves of their forefeet before trusting all their weight to advance. Not a camel fell, either here or on any other ridge: they moaned, however, piteously, for the sudden turns of the path puzzled them; the ascents were painful, the descents were still more so; the rocks were sharp; deep holes yawned between the blocks, and occasionally an Acacia caught the Shugduf, almost overthrowing the hapless bearer by the suddenness and the tenacity of its clutch. This passage took place during daylight. But we had many at night, which I shall neither forget nor describe.
Descending the ridge, we entered another hill-encircled basin of gravel and clay. In many places basalt in piles and crumbling strata of hornblende schiste, disposed edgeways, green within, and without blackened by sun and rain, cropped out of the ground. At half-past ten we
[p.69] found ourselves in an Acacia-barren, one of the things which pilgrims dread. Here Shugdufs are bodily pulled off the camels back and broken upon the hard ground; the animals drop upon their knees, the whole line is deranged, and every one, losing temper, attacks his Moslem brother. The road was flanked on the left by an iron wall of black basalt. Noon brought us to another ridge, whence we descended into a second wooded basin surrounded by hills.
Here the air was filled with those pillars of sand so graphically described by Abyssinian Bruce. They scudded on the wings of the whirlwind over the plain,huge yellow shafts, with lofty heads, horizontally bent backwards, in the form of clouds; and on more than one occasion camels were thrown down by them. It required little stretch of fancy to enter into the Arabs superstition. These sand-columns are supposed to be Jinnis of the Waste, which cannot be caught, a notion arising from the fitful movements of the electrical wind-eddy that raises them, and as they advance, the pious Moslem stretches out his finger, exclaiming, Iron! O thou ill-omened one[FN#15]!
During the forenoon we were troubled by the Samum, which, instead of promoting perspiration, chokes up and hardens the skin. The Arabs complain greatly of its violence on this line of road. Here I first remarked the difficulty with which the Badawin bear thirst. Ya Latif,O Merciful! (Lord),they exclaimed at times; and yet they behaved like men.[FN#16] I had ordered them to place the
[p.70] water-camel in front, so as to exercise due supervision. Shaykh Masud and his son made only an occasional reference to the skins. But his nephew, a short, thin, pock-marked lad of eighteen, whose black skin and woolly head suggested the idea of a semi-African and ignoble origin, was always drinking; except when he climbed the camels back, and, dozing upon the damp load, forgot his thirst. In vain we ordered, we taunted, and we abused him: he would drink, he would sleep, but he would not work.
At one P.M. we crossed a Fiumara; and an hour afterwards we pursued the course of a second. Masud called this the Wady al-Khunak, and assured me that it runs from the East and the South-east in a North and North-west direction, to the Madinah plain. Early in the afternoon we reached a diminutive flat, on the Fiumara bank. Beyond it lies a Mahjar or stony ground, black as usual in Al-Hijaz, and over its length lay the road, white with dust and with the sand deposited by the camels feet. Having arrived before the Pasha, we did not know where to pitch; many opining that the Caravan would traverse the Mahjar and halt beyond it. We soon alighted, however, pitched the tent under a burning sun, and were imitated by the rest of the party. Masud called the place Hijriyah. According to my computation, it is twenty-five miles from Ghurab, and its direction is South-East twenty-two degrees.
Late in the afternoon the boy Mohammed started with a dromedary to procure water from the higher part of the Fiumara. Here are some wells, still called Bir Harun, after the great Caliph. The youth returned soon with two bags filled at an expense of nine piastres. This being the 28th Zul Kaadah, many pilgrims busied themselves
[p.71] rather fruitlessly with endeavours to sight the crescent moon. They failed; but we were consoled by seeing through a gap in the Western hills a heavy cloud discharge its blessed load, and a cool night was the result.
We loitered on Sunday, the 4th September, at Al-Hijriyah, although the Shaykh forewarned us of a long march. But there is a kind of discipline in these great Caravans. A gun[FN#17] sounds the order to strike the tents, and a second bids you move off with all speed. There are short halts, of half an hour each, at dawn, noon, the afternoon, and sunset, for devotional purposes, and these are regulated by a cannon or a culverin. At such times the Syrian and Persian servants, who are admirably expert in their calling, pitch the large green tents, with gilt crescents, for the dignitaries and their harims. The last resting-place is known by the hurrying forward of these Farrash, or tent Lascars, who are determined to be the first on the ground and at the well. A discharge of three guns denotes the station, and when the Caravan moves by night a single cannon sounds three or four halts at irregular intervals. The principal officers were the Emir Hajj, one Ashgar Ali Pasha, a veteran of whom my companions spoke slightingly, because he had been the slave of a slave, probably the pipe-bearer of some grandee who in his youth had been pipe-bearer to some other grandee. Under him was a Wakil, or lieutenant, who managed the executive. The Emir al-Surrahcalled simply Al-Surrah, or the Pursehad charge of the Caravan-treasure, and of remittances to the Holy Cities. And lastly there was a commander of the