The Predominant Formation Was Basalt, Called The Arabs’ Hajar Jahannam, Or Hell-Stone; Here And There It Is Porous And Cellular; In Some Places Compact And Black; And In Others Coarse And Gritty, Of A Tarry Colour, And When Fractured Shining With Bright Points.

Hornblende is common at Al-Madinah and throughout this part of Al-Hijaz:

It crops out of the ground edgeways, black and brittle. Greenstone, diorite, and actinolite are found, though not so abundantly as those above mentioned. The granites, called in Arabic Suwan,[FN#20] abound. Some are large-grained, of a pink colour, and appear in blocks, which, flaking off under the influence of the atmosphere, form ooidal blocks and boulders piled in irregular heaps. Others are grey and compact enough to take a high polish when cut. The syenite is generally coarse, although there is occasionally found a rich red variety of that stone. I did not see eurite or euritic porphyry except in small pieces, and the same may be said of the petrosilex and the milky and waxy quartz.[FN#21] In some parts, particularly between Yambu’ and Al-Madinah, there is an abundance of tawny

[p.75] yellow gneiss markedly stratified. The transition formations are represented by a fine calcareous sandstone of a bright ochre colour: it is used at Meccah to adorn the exteriors of houses, bands of this stone being here and there inserted into the courses of masonry. There is also a small admixture of the greenish sandstone which abounds at Aden. The secondary formation is represented by a fine limestone, in some places almost fit for the purposes of lithography, and a coarse gypsum often of a tufaceous nature. For the superficial accumulations of the country, I may refer the reader to any description of the Desert between Cairo and Suez.

[FN#1] The distance from Baghdad to Al-Madinah is 180 parasangs, according to ’Abd al-Karim: “Voyage de l’Inde, a la Mecque;” translated by M. Langles, Paris, 1797. This book is a disappointment, as it describes everything except Al-Madinah and Meccah: these gaps are filled up by the translator with the erroneous descriptions of other authors, not eye-witnesses. [FN#2] Here, it is believed, was fought the battle of Buas, celebrated in the pagan days of Al-Madinah (A.D. 615). Our dictionaries translate “Ghadir” by “pool” or “stagnant water.” Here it is applied to places where water stands for a short time after rain. [FN#3] Travels in Arabia, vol. 2, p, 217. The Swiss traveller was prevented by sickness from visiting it. The “Jazb al-Kulub” affords the following account of a celebrated eruption, beginning on the Salkh (last day) of Jamadi al-Awwal, and ending on the evening of the third of Jamadi al-Akhir, A.H. 654. Terrible earthquakes, accompanied by a thundering noise, shook the town; from fourteen to eighteen were observed each night. On the third of Jamadi al-Akhir, after the Isha prayers, a fire burst out in the direction of Al-Hijaz (eastward); it resembled a vast city with a turretted and battlemental fort, in which men appeared drawing the flame about, as it were, whilst it roared, burned, and melted like a sea everything that came in its way. Presently red and bluish streams, bursting from it, ran close to Al-Madinah; and, at the same time, the city was fanned by a cooling zephyr from the same direction. Al-Kistlani, an eye-witness, asserts that “the brilliant light of the volcano made the face of the country as bright as day; and the interior of the Harim was as if the sun shone upon it, so that men worked and required nought of the sun and moon (the latter of which was also eclipsed?).” Several saw the light at Meccah, at Tayma (in Nijd, six days’ journey from Al-Madinah), and at Busra, of Syria, reminding men of the Prophet’s saying, “A fire shall burst forth from the direction of Al-Hijaz; its light shall make visible the necks of the camels at Busra.” Historians relate that the length of the stream was four parasangs (from fourteen to sixteen miles), its breadth four miles (56? to the degree), and its depth about nine feet. It flowed like a torrent with the waves of a sea; the rocks, melted by its heat, stood up as a wall, and, for a time, it prevented the passage of Badawin, who, coming from that direction, used to annoy the citizens. Jamal Matari, one of the historians of Al-Madinah, relates that the flames, which destroyed the stones, spared the trees; and he asserts that some men, sent by the governor to inspect the fire, felt no heat; also that the feathers of an arrow shot into it were burned whilst the shaft remained whole. This he attributes to the sanctity of the trees within the Harim. On the contrary, Al-Kistlani asserts the fire to have been so vehement that no one could approach within two arrow-flights, and that it melted the outer half of a rock beyond the limits of the sanctuary, leaving the inner parts unscathed. The Kazi, the Governor, and the citizens engaged in devotional exercises, and during the whole length of the Thursday and the Friday nights, all, even the women and children, with bare heads wept round the Prophet’s tomb. Then the lava current turned northwards. (I remarked on the way to Ohod signs of a lava-field.) This current ran, according to some, three entire months. Al-Kistlani dates its beginning on Friday, 6 Jamadi al-Akhir, and its cessation on Sunday, 27 Rajab: in this period of fifty-two days he includes, it is supposed, the length of its extreme heat. That same year (A.H. 654) is infamous in Al-Islam for other portents, such as the inundation of Baghdad by the Tigris, and the burning of the Prophet’s Mosque. In the next year first appeared the Tartars, who slew Al-Mu’tasim Bi’llah, the Caliph, massacred the Moslems during more than a month, destroyed their books, monuments, and tombs, and stabled their war-steeds in the Mustansariyah College. [FN#4] In this part of Al-Hijaz they have many names for a pass:—Nakb, Saghrah, and Mazik are those best known. [FN#5] This is the palm, capped with large fan-shaped leaves, described by every traveller in Egypt and in the nearer East. [FN#6] The charge for a cup of coffee is one piastre and a half.

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