Though The Bandits Showed No Symptoms Of Bravery, And
Confined Themselves To Slaughtering The Enemy From Their Hill-Top, My
Companions Seemed To Consider This Questionable Affair A Most Gallant
Exploit.
After another hour's hurried ride through the Wady Sayyalah, appeared
Shuhada, to which we pushed on,
"Like nighted swain on lonely road,
When close behind fierce goblins tread."
Shuhada is a place which derives its name, "The Martyrs," because here
are supposed to be buried forty braves that fell in one of Mohammed's
many skirmishes. Some authorities consider it the cemetery of the
people of Wady Sayyalah.[FN#10] The once populous valley is now barren,
and one might easily pass by the consecrated spot without observing a
few ruined walls and a cluster of rude Badawin graves, each an oval of
rough stones lying beneath the thorn trees on the left of and a little
off the road. Another half hour took us to a favourite halting-place,
Bir al-Hindi,[FN#11] so called from some forgotten Indian
[p.275] who dug a well there. But we left it behind, wishing to put as
much space as we could between our tents and the nests of the Hamidah.
Then quitting the Fiumara, we struck Northwards into a well-trodden
road running over stony rising ground. The heat became sickening; here,
and in the East generally, at no time is the sun more dangerous than
between eight and nine A.M. Still we hurried on. It was not before
eleven A.M. that we reached our destination, a rugged plain covered
with stones, coarse gravel, and thorn trees in abundance; and
surrounded by inhospitable rocks, pinnacle-shaped, of granite below,
and in the upper parts fine limestone.
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