At Four A.M., Having Travelled About Twenty-Four Miles Due East, We Encamped At Bir Abbas.

[FN#1] Alluding to the celebrated mountain, the "Hindu-kush," whence the Afghans sallied forth to lay waste India. [FN#2] Throughout this work I have estimated the pace of a Hijazi camel, laden and walking in caravan line, under ordinary circumstances, at two geographical miles an hour.

A sandy plain or a rocky pass might make a difference of half a mile each way, but not more. [FN#3] See Chap. VIII., page 152, note 1, ante. [FN#4] The reader must be warned that these little villages in Arabia, as in Sind and Baluchistan, are continually changing their names, whilst the larger settlements always retain the same. The traveller, too, must beware of writing down the first answer he receives; in one of our maps a village on the Euphrates is gravely named "M'adri," ("Don't know"). [FN#5] Here called Samn, the Indian ghee. [FN#6] The "Kahk" in this country is a light and pleasant bread made of ground wheat, kneaded with milk, leavened with sour bean flour, and finally baked in an oven, not, as usual, in the East, upon an iron plate. The Kahk of Egypt is a kind of cake. [FN#7] Stale unleavened bread is much relished by Easterns, who say that keeping it on journeys makes it sweet. To prevent its becoming mouldy, they cut it up into little bits, and, at the risk of hardening it to the consistence of wood, they dry it by exposure to the air. [FN#8] This Akit has different names in all parts of Arabia; even in Al-Hijaz it is known by the name of Mazir, as well as, "Igt," (the corruption of Akit). When very sour, it is called "Saribah," and when dried, without boiling, "Jamidah." The Arabs make it by evaporating the serous part of the milk; the remainder is then formed into cakes or lumps with the hand, and spread upon hair cloth to dry. They eat it with clarified butter, and drink it melted in water. It is considered a cooling and refreshing beverage, but boasts few attractions to the stranger. The Baluchis and wild tribes of Sindians call this preparation of milk "Krut," and make it in the same way as the Badawin do. [FN#9] In Arabic and Hebrew, milk; the Maltese give the word a very different signification, and the Egyptians, like the Syrians, confine their use of it to sour milk or curds-calling sweet milk "laban halib," or simply "halib." [FN#10] In a previous work (History of Sind), I have remarked that there exists some curious similarity in language and customs between the Arabs and the various races occupying the broad ranges of hills that separate India from Persia. Amongst these must be numbered the prejudice alluded to above. The lamented Dr. Stocks, of Bombay, who travelled amongst and observed the Brahui and the Baluchi nomads in the Pashin valley, informed me that, though they will give milk in exchange for other commodities, yet they consider it a disgrace to make money by it.

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