About Two Hours Distant From The Spot Where We Rested, To The North-
East, Is Water, With A Small Date-Grove.
I heard that the sea was from
six to eight hours distant.
The mountains continued to be seen between
twenty and thirty miles on the east; their summits sharp, and presenting
steep and insulated peaks. They are inhabited by the tribe of Ateybe,
which in the seventeenth century, according to Asamy, also inhabited
Wady Fatme. In the morning some Bedouin women appeared, with a few
starved herds of sheep and goats, which were searching for the scanty
herbage. No rain had fallen in the plain, and every shrub was withered;
yet these Bedouins did not dare to seek for better pasturage in the
neighbouring mountains, which did not belong to the territory of their
tribe; for, whenever there is a drought, the limits of each territory
are rigorously watched by the shepherds. I went out with several of the
Malays to meet the women, and to ask them for some milk; the Malays had
taken money with them to buy it; and I had filled my pockets with
biscuit, for the same purpose. They refused to take the money, saying
they were not accustomed to sell milk; but when I made them a present of
the biscuits, they filled my wooden bowl in return. During the passage
of the Hadj, these poor Bedouins fly in all directions, knowing the
predatory habits of the soldiers who escort the caravan.
January 19th. We left Kolleya at half-past one o'clock P.M., and
[p.301] proceeded over the plain. In three hours, we came to low hills
of moving sand; at four hours, to a stony plain, with masses of rock
lying across the road: direction N. 25 W. At the end of nine hours, we
halted during the night near the village of Rabegh, our road having been
constantly level. Three or four hamlets, little distant from each other,
are all comprised under this appellation; the principal of which, like
that of Kholeys, is distinguished by the additional name of Es-Souk, or
the market-place. The neighbouring plain is cultivated, and thick
plantations of palm-trees render Rabegh a place of note on this route.
Amongst the palm-trees grow a few tamarinds, or Thamr Hindy, the green
fruit of which was now sufficiently ripe and pleasant. A few of these
trees likewise grow at Mekka. Some rain had fallen here lately, and the
ground was, in many parts, tilled. The ploughs of those Arabs, which are
drawn by oxen or camels, resemble those delineated by Niebuhr, and which
are, I believe, generally used in the Hedjaz and. Yemen. [I cannot
conceive what could have led Ptolemy to place a river in the direction
between Mekka and Yembo, as certainly no river empties itself into the
sea any where in the Hedjaz. In winter time, many torrents rush down
from the mountains.] Rabegh possesses the advantage of a number of
wells, the water of which is, however, but indifferent:
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