From Hence We Rode Over A
Wide Plain, Sometimes Sandy, And In Other Parts A Mixture Of Sand And
Clay, Where Trees And Shrubs Grow.
At fourteen hours, near the break of
dawn, we passed a small Bedouin encampment, and alighted, at the end of
fifteen hours, in the neighbourhood of a village called Kholeys.
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.
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