The Well Is In A Sandy Soil,
Surrounded By Calcareous Rocks, And Notwithstanding Its Importance,
Nothing Has Been Done To Secure It From Being Choaked Up By The Sand And
Gravel Which Every Gust Of Wind Drives Into It.
Its sides are not lined,
and the Arabs take so little care in descending into it, that every
caravan which arrives renders it immediately turbid.
The level plain over which we had travelled from Ras el Kaa terminates
at Dharf el Rokob. Westward of it the ground is more intersected by
hills and Wadys, and here begins the Desert El Ty (Arabic), in which,
according to tradition, both Jewish and Mohammedan, the Israelites
wandered for several years, and from which
ODJME
[p.449] belief the desert takes its name. We went this evening two hours
farther than the Themmed, and alighted in the Wady Ghoreyr (Arabic),
after a day’s march of thirteen hours and a half. The Bedouins, when
travelling in small numbers, seldom alight at a well or spring, in the
evening, for the purpose of there passing the night; they only fill
their water-skins as quickly as possible, and then proceed on their way,
for the neighbourhood of watering places is dangerous to travellers,
especially in deserts where there are few of them, because they then
become the rendezvous of all strolling parties.
August 30th.—On issuing from the Wady Ghoreyr we passed a chain of hills
called Odjme (Arabic), running almost parallel with the Dharf el Rokob.
We had now re-entered the Hadj route, a broad well trodden road, strewn
with the whitened bones of animals that have died by the way. The soil
is chalky, and overspread with black pebbles. At the end of five hours
and a half we reached Wady Rouak (Arabic); here the term Wady is applied
to a narrow strip of ground, the bed of a winter torrent, not more than
one foot lower than the level of the plain, where the rain water from
the inequalities of the surface collects, and produces a vegetation of
low shrubs, and a few Talh trees. The greater part of the Wadys from
hence to Egypt are of this description. The coloquintida grows in great
abundance in all of them, it is used by the Arabs to make tinder, by the
following process: after roasting the root in the ashes, they wrap it in
a wetted rag of cotton cloth, they then beat it between two stones, by
which means the juice of the fruit is expressed and absorbed by the rag,
which is dyed by it of a dirty blue; the rag is then dried in the sun,
and ignites with the slightest spark of fire. The Arabs nearest to Egypt
use the coloquint in venereal complaints; they fill the fruit with
camel’s milk, roast it
[p.450] over the fire, and then give to the patient the milk thus
impregnated with the essence of the fruit.
In nine hours and a half we passed a chain of low chalky hills called
Ammayre (Arabic). On several parts of the road were holes, out of which
rock salt had been dug.
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