About Two Hours
Afterwards, As The Sun Became Oppressive, We Unloaded In A Water-Course,
Called By My Companions Adad Or The Acacia Gum [42]:
The distance was
about twenty-five miles, and the direction S. W. 225° of Kuranyali.
We spread our couches of cowhide in the midst of a green mass of tamarisk
under a tall Kud tree, a bright-leaved thorn, with balls of golden gum
clinging to its boughs, dry berries scattered in its shade, and armies of
ants marching to and from its trunk. All slept upon the soft white sand,
with arms under their hands, for our spoor across the desert was now
unmistakeable. At midday rice was boiled for us by the indefatigable
women, and at 3 P.M. we resumed our march towards the hills, which had
exchanged their shadowy blue for a coat of pronounced brown. Journeying
onwards, we reached the Barragid fiumara, and presently exchanged the
plain for rolling ground covered with the remains of an extinct race, and
probably alluded to by El Makrizi when he records that the Moslems of Adel
had erected, throughout the country, a vast number of mosques and
oratories for Friday and festival prayers. Places of worship appeared in
the shape of parallelograms, unhewed stones piled upon the ground, with a
semicircular niche in the direction of Meccah. The tombs, different from
the heaped form now in fashion, closely resembled the older erections in
the island of Saad El Din, near Zayla--oblong slabs planted deep in the
soil.
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