Not The Least Beauty Of
The Spectacle Was Its Wondrous Variety Of Detail:
No man was dressed
like his neighbour, no camel was caparisoned, no horse was
[P.66] clothed in uniform, as it were. And nothing stranger than the
contrasts; a band of half-naked Takruri marching with the Pasha’s
equipage, and long-capped, bearded Persians conversing with Tarbush’d and
shaven Turks.
The plain even at an early hour reeked with vapours distilled by the
fires of the Samum: about noon, however, the air became cloudy, and
nothing of colour remained, save that milky white haze, dull, but
glaring withal, which is the prevailing day-tint in these regions. At
mid-day we reached a narrowing of the basin, where, from both sides, “Irk,”
or low hills, stretch their last spurs into the plain. But after half a
mile, it again widened to upwards of two miles. At two P.M. (Friday,
Sept. 2), we turned towards the South-west, ascended stony ground, and
found ourselves one hour afterwards in a desolate rocky flat, distant
about twenty-four miles of unusually winding road from our last
station. “Mahattah Ghurab,[FN#13]” or the Raven’s Station, lies 10° south-west
from Ja al-Sharifah, in the irregular masses of hill on the frontier of
Al-Hijaz, where the highlands of Nijd begin.
After pitching the tent, we prepared to recruit our supply of water;
for Mas’ud warned me that his camels had not drunk for ninety hours, and
that they would soon sink under the privation.
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