“They were barbarous, nay, almost savage, fellows, like most Sherarat, whether chiefs or people; but they had been somewhat awed by the grandeurs of Hamood, and yet more so by the prospect of coming so soon before the terrible majesty of Telal himself. All were duly armed, and had put on their best suits of apparel, an equipment worthy of a scarecrow or of an Irishman at a wake. Tattered red overalls; cloaks with more patches than original substance, or, worse yet, which opened large mouths to cry for patching, but had not got it; little broken tobacco pipes, and no trousers soever (by the way, all genuine Arabs are _sans-culottes_); faces meagre with habitual hunger, and black with dirt and weather stains—such were the high-born chiefs of Azzam, on their way to the king’s levee. Along with them were two Bedouins of the Shomer tribe, a degree better in guise and person than the Sherarat; and lastly, three men of Djowf, who looked almost like gentlemen among such ragamuffins. As to my comrade and myself, I trust that the reader will charitably suppose us the exquisites of the party. So we rode on together. “Next morning, a little after sunrise, we arrived at a white calcareous valley, girt round with low hills of marl and sand. Here was the famous Be’er Shekeek, or ‘well of Shekeek,’ whence we were to fill our water-skins, and that thoroughly, since no other source lay before us for four days’ march amid the sand passes, up to the very verge of Djebel Shomer. “Daughters of the Great Desert, to use an Arab phrase, the ‘Nefood,’ or sand-passes, bear but too strong a family resemblance to their unamiable mother. What has been said elsewhere about their origin, their extent, their bearings, and their connection with the Dhana, or main sand-waste of the south, may exempt me from here entering on a minute enarration of all their geographical details; let it suffice for the present that they are offshoots—inlets, one might not unsuitably call them—of the great ocean of sand that covers about one-third of the peninsula, into whose central and comparatively fertile plateau they make deep inroads, nay, in some places almost intersect it. Their general character, of which the following pages will, I trust, give a tolerably correct idea, is also that of Dahna, or ‘red desert,’ itself. The Arabs, always prone to localize rather than generalize, count these sand-streams by scores, but they may all be referred to four principal courses, and he who would traverse the centre must necessarily cross two of them, perhaps even three, as we did. [Picture: Captain Burton as a Pilgrim]