This
incident aroused no inconsiderable excitement, for it seemed ominous of
worse things about to happen to us when entangled in the hills, and the
faces of my companions, perfect barometers of fair and foul tidings,
fell to zero.
For nine hours we journeyed through a brilliant
moonlight, and as the first grey streak appeared in the Eastern sky we
entered a scanty "Misyal,[FN#15]" or Fiumara, strewed with pebbles and
rounded stones, about half a mile in breadth, and flanked by almost
perpendicular hills of primitive formation. I began by asking the names
of peaks and other remarkable spots, when I found that a folio volume
would not contain a three months' collection[FN#16]: every hill and
dale, flat, valley, and
[p.251] water-course here has its proper name or rather names. The
ingenuity shown by the Badawin in distinguishing between localities the
most similar, is the result of a high organization of the perceptive
faculties, perfected by the practice of observing a recurrence of
landscape features few in number and varying but little amongst
themselves. After travelling two hours up this torrent bed, winding in
an Easterly direction, and crossing some "Harrah," or ridges of rock,
"Ria," steep descents,[FN#17] "Kitaah," patch of stony flat, and bits
of "Sahil," dwarf plain, we found ourselves about eight A.M., after a
march of about thirty-four miles, at Bir Sa'id (Sa'id's Well), our
destination.
I had been led to expect at the "Well," a pastoral scene, wild flowers,
flocks and flowing waters; so I looked with a jaundiced eye upon a deep
hole full of slightly brackish water dug in a tamped hollow-a kind of
punch-bowl with granite walls, upon whose grim surface a few thorns of
exceeding hardihood braved the sun for a season. Not a house was in
sight-it was as barren and desolate a spot as the sun ever "viewed in
his wide career." But this is what the Arabian traveller must expect.
He is to traverse, for instance, the Wady Al-Ward-the Vale of Flowers.
He indulges in sweet recollections of Indian lakes beautiful with the
Lotus, and Persian plains upon which Narcissus is the meanest of
grasses. He sees a plain like swish-work, where knobs of granite act
daisies; and where, at every fifty yards, some hapless bud or blossom
is dying of inanition among the stones.
The sun scorched our feet as we planted the tent, and, after drinking
our breakfast, we passed the usual day of perspiration and
semi-lethargy. In discomfort man naturally
[p.252] hails a change, even though it be one from bad to worse. When
our enemy began slanting towards the West, we felt ready enough to
proceed on our journey. The camels were laden shortly after 3 P.M.,
July 20th, and we started, with water jars in our hands, through a
storm of Samun.
We travelled five hours in a North-Easterly course up a diagonal
valley,[FN#18] through a country fantastic in its desolation-a mass of
huge hills, barren plains, and desert vales.
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