The Land of Midian (Revisited) — Volume 1Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Science
The Land of Midian (Revisited) — Volume 1
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890; Hejaz (Saudi Arabia) -- Description and travel
We then travelled over granite gravel along the western
foot-hills of Umm Jedayl, in which a human figure or statue had
been reported to me: now, however, it became a Sarbút, or
"upright stone." Along the flanks of the chief outlier, the Jebel
el-Ramzah, distinguished by its red crest and veins, the slope
was one strew of quartz, whole and broken; like that which we had
seen to the north, and which we were to see on our southern
journey. Despising the "rotten water" offered in two places by
the Umm Jedayl, we pitched camp on the fine gravel of the Sayl
Wady el-Jimm. Here I heard for the first time, after sighting it
for many weeks, that the latter is the name, not of a
mountain,[EN#153] but of a Sha'b or "gully" in the Jebel Dibbagh
where waters "meet." The Wady Kh'shabriyyah, separating the Umm
Jedayl from its northern neighbour, the Dibbagh, looks like a
highway; but all declare that it is closed to camels by Wa'r, or
"stony ground." Of its ruins more when we travel to the Shárr.
This day's march of four hours (= ten miles and a half) had been
a series of zigzags--north, north-east, west, and again north.
After a cool, pleasant night we set out at 6.30 a.m. (February
21st), across the broad Sayl, towards a bay in the mountains
bearing north-north-west, the mouth of the Wady Zennárah.
Entering the block, we made two short cuts to save great bends in
the bed. The first was the Sha'b el-Liwéwi', the Weiwî of Wallin
(p. 304)--wild riding enough; the path often winding almost due
east, when the general direction was north-north-east. We saw,
for the first time, pure greenish-yellow chlorite outcropping
from the granite. The animals were apparently hibernating, and
plants were rare; we remarked chiefly the sorrel and the blue
thistle, or rather wild artichoke, the Shauk el-Jemel, a thorn
loved by camels (Blepharis edulis), which recalled to mind the
highlands of Syria. The second short-cut, the Wady el-Ga'agah,
alias Sawáwín, was the worse of the two: the deep drops and
narrow gutters in the quartz-veined granite induced even the
Shaykhs to dismount before attacking the descents. This is rarely
done when ascending, for their beasts climb like Iceland ponies.
One of M. Lacaze's most effective croquis is that showing monture
and man disappearing in the black depths of a crevice. Some of
the hill-crests were weathered with forms resembling the
artificial. At the mid-day halting-ground we saw a stone-mother
nursing a rock-child, which might still be utilized in lands
where "thaumaturgy" is not yet obsolete.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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