His Excuse Was That He Had Found None At Hand; But One Of Our
Young Men Had Overheard His Wife Scolding
BIAR OMSHASH
[P.447] him, and declaring that she would not permit a lamb to be
slaughtered for such miserable ill-looking strangers! The Bedouin women,
in general, are much less generous and hospitable than their husbands,
over whom they often use their influence, to curtail the allowance to
guests and strangers.
At the end of five hours we issued from the head of Wady Lahyane again
into the plain. The hill on the top of this Wady is called Ras el Kaa
(Arabic), and is the termination of a chain of hills which stretch
across the plain in a northern direction for six or eight hours: it
projects like a promontory, and serves as a land-mark to travellers; its
rock is calcareous. The plain which we now entered was a perfect flat
covered with black pebbles. The high insulated mountain behind which
Ghaza is situated, bore from hence N. by W. distant three long days
journey. At the end of seven hours, there was an insulated hill to the
left of our road two hours distant, called Szoeyka (Arabic); we here
turned off to the left of the great road, in order to find water. In
eight hours, and late at night, we reached several wells, called Biar
Omshash (Arabic), is where we found an encampment of Heywat, with whom
we wished to take our supper after having filled our water skins; but
they assured us that they had nothing except dry bread to give us.
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