Here the air was filled with those pillars of sand so graphically described by Abyssinian Bruce. They scudded on the wings of the whirlwind over the plain,—huge yellow shafts, with lofty heads, horizontally bent backwards, in the form of clouds; and on more than one occasion camels were thrown down by them. It required little stretch of fancy to enter into the Arabs’ superstition. These sand-columns are supposed to be Jinnis of the Waste, which cannot be caught, a notion arising from the fitful movements of the electrical wind-eddy that raises them, and as they advance, the pious Moslem stretches out his finger, exclaiming, “Iron! O thou ill-omened one[FN#15]!” During the forenoon we were troubled by the Samum, which, instead of promoting perspiration, chokes up and hardens the skin. The Arabs complain greatly of its violence on this line of road. Here I first remarked the difficulty with which the Badawin bear thirst. Ya Latif,—“O Merciful!” (Lord),—they exclaimed at times; and yet they behaved like men.[FN#16] I had ordered them to place the [p.70] water-camel in front, so as to exercise due supervision. Shaykh Mas’ud and his son made only an occasional reference to the skins. But his nephew, a short, thin, pock-marked lad of eighteen, whose black skin and woolly head suggested the idea of a semi-African and ignoble origin, was always drinking; except when he climbed the camel’s back, and, dozing upon the damp load, forgot his thirst. In vain we ordered, we taunted, and we abused him: he would drink, he would sleep, but he would not work. At one P.M. we crossed a Fiumara; and an hour afterwards we pursued the course of a second. Mas’ud called this the Wady al-Khunak, and assured me that it runs from the East and the South-east in a North and North-west direction, to the Madinah plain. Early in the afternoon we reached a diminutive flat, on the Fiumara bank. Beyond it lies a Mahjar or stony ground, black as usual in Al-Hijaz, and over its length lay the road, white with dust and with the sand deposited by the camels’ feet. Having arrived before the Pasha, we did not know where to pitch; many opining that the Caravan would traverse the Mahjar and halt beyond it. We soon alighted, however, pitched the tent under a burning sun, and were imitated by the rest of the party. Mas’ud called the place Hijriyah. According to my computation, it is twenty-five miles from Ghurab, and its direction is South-East twenty-two degrees. Late in the afternoon the boy Mohammed started with a dromedary to procure water from the higher part of the Fiumara. Here are some wells, still called Bir Harun, after the great Caliph. The youth returned soon with two bags filled at an expense of nine piastres. This being the 28th Zu’l Ka’adah, many pilgrims busied themselves