We Had Made Several Short Halts During The Night, And Kindled Fires To Warm Ourselves.

Kholeys stands upon a wide plain, in several parts of which date-groves are seen, with fields, where dhourra,

Bemye, and dokken are cultivated. Several hamlets appear scattered about, which are comprised in the general name of Kholeys; the largest is called Es-Souk, or the market- place, near which the Hadj encamps. A small rivulet, tepid, like that in Wady Fatme, rises near the Souk, and is collected

[p.298] on the outside of the village in a small birket, now ruined, and then waters the plain. Near the birket there are also the ruins of a sebyl. [A sebyl is a small, open building, often found by the side of fountains; in these sebyls travellers pray, and take their repose.] According to Kotobeddyn, the birket and sebyl were built by Kayd Beg, Sultan of Egypt, about A.H. 885. At that time, Kholeys had its own Emir, who was a very powerful person in the Hedjaz. I saw plenty of cattle, cows, and sheep; but the Arabs complained that their plantations suffered from drought, no rain having yet fallen, though the season was far advanced. The water from the rivulet did not appear sufficient to irrigate all the cultivated grounds, and the supply was even less than it might have been, as half of the water was suffered, through negligence, to escape from the narrow channels.

The village Es-Souk contains about fifty houses, all built of mud, and very low: its main street is lined with shops, kept by the people of Kholeys, and frequented by all the neighbouring Bedouins. The principal article for sale was dates, with which most of the shops were filled; in the others were sold dhourra, barley, lentils and onions, (both from Egypt,) rice, and some other articles of provision; but no wheat, that grain being little used by the Bedouins of this country: there were also spices, a few drugs, the bark of a tree for tanning the water-skins, and some butter. Milk was not to be found, for no one likes to be called a milk-seller. A tolerably well-built mosque stands by the rivulet, near some gigantic sycamore trees. I found in it two negro hadjys from Darfour; they had, the night before, been stripped on the road of a few piastres, earned at Mekka: one of them having attempted to defend himself, had been severely beaten; and they now intended to go back to Djidda, and endeavour to retrieve their loss by a few months' labour. One of the Bedouins who had stripped them, was smoking his pipe in the village; but they had not the means of proving the robbery against him, nor of obtaining justice. Kholeys is the chief seat of the Arab tribe of Zebeyd, a branch of Beni Harb, and the residence of their Sheikh. The greater part of them are Bedouins; and many even of those who cultivate the ground, pass some part of the

[p.299] year under tents in the Desert, for the purpose of pasturing their cattle upon the wild herbage.

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