He Seemed, However,
Willing To Avoid The Trouble And Expense Of A Guest; For When I
Expressed Some Appre-Hensions That My Tired Ass Would Be Unable To Keep
Pace With His Fine Mule, He Immediately Answered, That He Hoped, At All
Events, To Meet Me Again At Mekka.
I departed, therefore, with the
soldiers, leaving the Kadhy to repose a little longer.
We passed the
mid-day hours at the coffee-hut called Shedad, where several Bedouins
were amusing themselves by shooting at a mark. They gave proofs of great
dexterity, often hitting a piastre, which I placed at about forty yards'
distance. Except coffee and water, nothing is to be procured in any of
the huts on this road; the coffee is not served up in single cups, as
usual in most parts of the Levant; but, whoever asks for it, has a small
earthen pot of hot coffee set before him, containing from ten to fifteen
cups: this quantity the traveller often drinks three or four times a
day. These pots are called mashrabe. (See their form in the outlines
annexed.) [Illustration not included].
Into the mouth of the pot is stuck a bunch of dry herbs, through which
the liquid is poured. I have already noticed the immoderate
[p.92] use of coffee in this part of Arabia, and it is said to prevail
still more in the south, and towards the vicinity of the coffee country.
On the road from Shedad, which lies along the lower plains, between
sharp mountains, we were surprised by a most violent shower of rain and
hail, which obliged us to halt.
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of 182297
