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.
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