We Left Our Resting-Place At Ten O'clock P.M., And Proceeded Over The
Plain Of Kara, In A Direction N. 40 W. At The End Of Three Hours We
Passed A Ruined Building Called Sebyl El Kara, Where A Well, Now Filled
Up, Formerly Supplied The Passengers With Water.
I saw no hills to the
west, as far as my eyes could reach.
The plain is here overgrown with
some trees and thick shrubs. We continued to cross it till six hours,
where it closes; and the road begins to ascend slightly through a broad
woody valley: here is situated Bir Asfan, a large, deep well, lined with
stone, with a spring of good water in the bottom. This is a station of
the Hadj. There is another way from Wady Fatme to Asfan, four miles to
the eastward of our route. We passed the well without stopping.
Samhoudy, the historian of Medina, mentions a village at Asfan, with a
spring called Owla; there is now no village here. At seven hours begins
a very narrow ascending passage between rocks, affording room for only
one camel. The torrents which rush down through this passage in winter
have entirely destroyed the road, and filled it with large, sharp blocks
of stone; the Hadj route seemed, in several places, to be cut out of the
rock, but the night was too dark for seeing any thing distinctly. At the
end of eight hours we reached the top of this defile, where a small
building stands, perhaps the tomb of a Sheikh.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 416 of 669
Words from 113545 to 113804
of 182297
