"Aris And Ghars, And Rumah And Buza'at And Busat, With Bayruha And Ihn."[FN#30]

[P.415]After my sleep, which was allowed to last until a pipe or two of Latakia had gone round the party, we remounted our animals.

Returning towards Al-Madinah, my companions pointed out to me, on the left of the village, a garden called Al-Madshuniyah. It contains a quarry of the yellow loam or bole-earth, called by the Arabs, Tafl, by the Persians, Gil-i-Sarshui, and by the Sindians, Metu. It is used as soap in many parts of the East, and, mixed with oil, it is supposed to cool the body, and to render the skin fresh and supple. It is related that the Prophet cured a Badawi of the Benu Haris tribe, of fever, by washing him with a pot of Tafl dissolved in water, and hence the earth of Al-Madinah derived its healing fame. As far as I could learn from the Madani, this clay is no longer valued by them, either medicinally or cosmetically: the only use they could mention was its being eaten by the fair sex, when in the peculiar state described by "chlorosis."

[FN#1] The Baradiyah or gugglets of Al-Madinah are large and heavy, of a reddish-grey colour, and celebrated for cooling water, a property not possessed by those of Meccan fabric. [FN#2] I afterwards found reason to doubt this location. Ibn Jubayr (12th century), places it an arrow-shot from the Westward wall of Al-Madinah, and seems to have seen it.

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