We Arose At About 9 A.M. (July 19), And After Congratulating One
Another Upon Being Once More In The "Dear Desert," We Proceeded In
Exhilarated Mood To Light The Fire For Pipes And Breakfast.
The meal-a
biscuit, a little rice, and a cup of milkless tea-was soon dispatched,
after which I proceeded to inspect our position.
[P.245]About a mile to the westward lay the little village
Al-Musahhal,[FN#4] a group of miserable mud hovels. On the south was a
strip of bright blue sea, and all around, an iron plain producing
naught but stones and grasshoppers, and bounded northward by a grisly
wall of blackish rock. Here and there a shrub fit only for fuel, or a
tuft of coarse grass, crisp with heat, met the eye. All was
sun-parched; the furious heat from above was drying up the sap and
juice of the land, as the simmering and quivering atmosphere showed;
moreover the heavy dews of these regions, forming in large drops upon
the plants and stones, concentrate the morning rays upon them like a
system of burning-glasses. After making these few observations I
followed the example of my companions, and returned to sleep.
At two P.M. we were roused to a dinner as simple as the breakfast had
been. Boiled rice with an abundance of the clarified butter[FN#5] in
which Easterns delight, some fragments of Kahk[FN#6] or soft biscuit,
and stale bread[FN#7] and a handful of stoned and pressed date-paste,
called 'Ajwah, formed the menu.
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