The Malays Came To Ask
Me For Their Share, Giving Me To Understand That Their Compliance With
My Entreaties In Favour Of Their Poor Countryman, Was Deserving Of
Reward; But The Bedouins Who Were With Us, Saved Me, By Their Taunting
Reprimands, The Trouble Of Answering Them.
Several tombs of hadjys were
seen near the wells, which the Wahabys had respected; for they seldom
injured any tombs that pride or bigotry had left unadorned.
January 21st. We set out at three o'clock P.M. The plain we crossed is
either flinty, or presents spots of cultivable clay. The direction was
north. After proceeding over a sandy plain, covered with low brush-wood
for two hours and a half, we had Djebel Ayoub about six miles distant:
then begins a lower ridge of mountains, running parallel to the road.
Here we quitted the great Hadj route, which turns off in a more westerly
direction, and we proceeded towards the mountains N. 15 E. to reach
Szafra by the nearest route. After a
[p.305] march of thirteen hours, over uneven ground and low hills, we
halted near day-break, in a sandy plain, by the well called Bir-es'-
Sheikh. It will have been observed, that our night marches were always
very long; but the rate of the camel's walk was very slow, scarcely more
than two miles an hour, or two and a quarter. Bir-es'-Sheikh is a well
between thirty and forty feet deep, and fifteen feet in diameter,
solidly cased with stone; the work of men who felt more anxiety for the
convenience of travellers to the holy cities, than the present chiefs of
the faithful evince.
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