This northern portion had been visited by Dr. Wallin; the other two-thirds of the march lay, I believe, over untrodden ground. We brought back details concerning the three great parallel Wadys; the Salmá, the Dámah, that "Arabian Arcadia," and the Aslah-Aznab. We dug into, and made drawings and plans of, the two principal ruined cities, Shuwák and Shaghab, which probably combined to form the classical ; and of the two less important sites, El-Khandaki and Umm Ámil.
The roads of this region, and indeed of all Midian, are those of Iceland without her bogs and snows: for riding considerations we may divide them into four kinds:—
1. Wady—the Fiumara or Nullah; called by travellers "winter-brook" and "dry river-bed." It is a channel without water, formed, probably, by secular cooling and contraction of the earth's surface, like the fissures which became true streams in the tropics, and in the higher temperate zones. Its geological age would be the same as the depressions occupied by the ocean and the "massive" eruptions forming the mountain-skeleton of the globe. Both the climate and the vegetation of Midian must have changed immensely if these huge features, many of them five miles broad, were ever full of water. In modern days, after the heaviest rains, a thin thread meanders down a wilderness of bed.
The Wady-formation shows great regularity. Near the mouth its loose sands are comfortable to camels and distressing to man and mule. The gravel of the higher section is good riding; the upper part is often made impassable by large stones and overfalls of rock; and the head is a mere couloir. Flaked clay or mud show the thalweg; and the honeycombed ground, always above the line of highest water, the homes of the ant, beetle, jerboa, lizard, and (Girdi) rat, will throw even the cautious camel.
2. Ghadír—the basin where rain-water sinks. It is mostly a shining bald flat of hard yellow clay, as admirable in dry as it is detestable in wet weather.
3. Majrá—here pronounced "Maghráh"[29]—the divide; literally, the place of flowing. It is the best ground of all, especially where the yellow or brown sands are overlaid by hard gravel, or by a natural metalling of trap and other stones.
4. Wa'r—the broken stony surface, over which camels either cannot travel, or travel with difficulty: it is the horror of the Bedawi; and, when he uses the word, it usually means that it causes man to dismount. It may be of two kinds; either the Majrá proper ("divide") or the Nakb ("pass"), and the latter may safely be left to the reader's imagination.
The partial ascent of the mighty Shárr gave an admirable study of the mode in which the granites have been enfolded and enveloped by the later eruptions of trap. Nor less curious, also, was it to remark how, upon this Arabian Alp, vegetation became more important; increasing, contrary to the general rule, not only in quantity but in size, and changing from the date and the Daum to the strong smelling Ferula, the homely hawthorn, and the tall and balmy juniper-tree. There is game, ibex and leopard, in these mountains; but the traveller, unless a man of leisure, must not expect to shoot or even to sight it.