Even The Sturdy Acacias
Here Failed, And In Some Places The Camel Grass Could Not Find Earth
Enough For Its Root.
The road wound among mountains, rocks and hills of
granite, and over broken ground, flanked by huge blocks and boulders
piled up as if man's art had aided Nature to disfigure herself.
Vast
clefts seamed like scars the hideous face of earth; here they widened
into dark caves, there they were choked with glistening drift sand. Not
a bird or a beast was to be seen or heard; their presence would have
argued the vicinity of water; and, though my companions opined that
Badawin were lurking among the rocks, I decided that these Badawin were
the creatures of their fears. Above, a sky like polished blue steel,
with a tremendous blaze of yellow light, glared upon us without the
thinnest veil of mist cloud. Below, the brass-coloured circle scorched
the face and dazzled the eyes, mocking them the while with offers of
water that was but air. The distant prospect was more attractive than
the near view, because it borrowed a bright azure tinge from the
intervening atmosphere; but the jagged peaks and the perpendicular
streaks of shadow down the flanks of the mountainous background
[p.253] showed that yet in store for us was no change for the better.
Between 10 and 11 P.M., we reached human habitations-a phenomenon
unseen since we left Al-Musahhal-in the shape of a long straggling
village. It is called Al-Hamra, from the redness of the sands near
which it is built, or Al-Wasitah, the "half-way," because it is the
middle station between Yambu' and Al-Madinah.
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