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. In a very short time the water poured down in torrents from the mountains and when the hail ceased, after about an hour, we found that the rain, which still continued, had covered the Wady Noman with a sheet of water three feet deep, while streams of nearly five feet in breadth crossed the road with an impetuosity which rendered it impossible for us to pass them. In this situation we could neither advance nor retreat, knowing that similar currents would have been formed in our rear we therefore took post on the side of the mountain, where we were sure of not being washed away, and where we could wait in security till the subsiding of the storm. The mountains, however, soon pre-sented on their sides innumerable cascades, and the inundation became general; while the rain, accompanied with thunder and lightning, continued with undiminished violence. I saw the Kadhy, who had quitted Shedad soon after us, at some distance, separated from our party by a deep torrent, while several of his women, mounted upon mules, were also obliged to remain at a distance from him. We continued in this disagreeable situation for about three hours, when the rain ceased and the torrents soon diminished; but our asses could with difficulty be brought to attempt the slippery ground still covered with water, and we were at last obliged to alight and drive them before us, till we reached a more elevated surface.

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Words from 35139 to 35653 of 182297