Ya Sattar[FN#10]!

[P.134]The morning of Wednesday (September 7th) broke as we entered a wide plain.

In many places were signs of water: lines of basalt here and there seamed the surface, and wide sheets of the tufaceous gypsum called by the Arabs Sabkhah shone like mirrors set in the russet framework of the flat. This substance is found in cakes, often a foot long by an inch in depth, curled by the sun’s rays and overlying clay into which water had sunk. After our harassing night, day came on with a sad feeling of oppression, greatly increased by the unnatural glare:—

“In vain the sight, dejected to the ground, Stoop’d for relief: thence hot ascending streams And keen reflection pain’d.”

We were disappointed in our expectations of water, which usually abounds near this station, as its name, Al-Ghadir, denotes. At ten A.M. we pitched the tent in the first convenient spot, and we lost no time in stretching our cramped limbs upon the bosom of mother Earth. From the halting-place of the Mutayr to Al-Ghadir is a march of about twenty miles, and the direction south-west twenty-one degrees. Al-Ghadir is an extensive plain, which probably presents the appearance of a lake after heavy rains. It is overgrown in parts with Desert vegetation, and requires nothing but a regular supply of water to make it useful to man. On the East it is bounded by a wall of rock, at whose base are three wells, said to have been dug by the Caliph Harun. They are guarded by a Burj, or tower, which betrays symptoms of decay.

In our anxiety to rest we had strayed from the Damascus Caravan amongst the mountaineers of Shammar. Our Shaykh Mas’ud manifestly did not like the company; for shortly after three P.M. he insisted upon our striking the tent and rejoining the Hajj, which lay encamped about two miles distant in the western part of the basin. We

[p.135] loaded, therefore, and half an hour before sunset found ourselves in more congenial society. To my great disappointment, a stir was observable in the Caravan. I at once understood that another night-march was in store for us.

At six P.M. we again mounted, and turned towards the Eastern plain. A heavy shower was falling upon the Western hills, whence came damp and dangerous blasts. Between nine P.M. and the dawn of the next day we had a repetition of the last night’s scenes, over a road so rugged and dangerous, that I wondered how men could prefer to travel in the darkness. But the camels of Damascus were now worn out with fatigue; they could not endure the sun, and our time was too precious for a halt. My night was spent perched upon the front bar of my Shugduf, encouraging the dromedary; and that we had not one fall excited my extreme astonishment. At five A.M. (Thursday, 8th September) we entered a wide plain thickly clothed with the usual thorny trees, in whose strong grasp many a Shugduf lost its covering, and not a few were dragged with their screaming inmates to the ground.

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