The Scene Was, As Usual, One Of
Strange Contrasts:
Badawin bestriding swift dromedaries; Turkish
dignitaries on fine horses; the most picturesque beggars, and the most
uninteresting Nizam.
Not a little wrangling mingled with the loud
bursts of Talbiyat. Dead animals dotted the ground, and carcasses had
been cast into a dry tank, the Birkat al-Shami which caused every
Badawi to
[p.179] hold his nose.[FN#2] Here, on the right of the road, the poorer
pilgrims, who could not find houses, had erected huts, and pitched
their ragged tents. Traversing the suburb Al-Ma’b’dah (Ma’abadah), in a
valley between the two barren prolongations of Kayka’an and Khandamah, we
turned to the north-east, leaving on the left certain barracks of
Turkish soldiery, and the negro militia here stationed, with the
Saniyat Kuda’a in the background. Then, advancing about 3000 paces over
rising ground, we passed by the conical head of Jabal Nur,[FN#3] and
entered the plain of many names.[FN#4] It contained nothing but a few
whitewashed walls, surrounding places of prayer, and a number of stone
cisterns, some well preserved, others in ruins. All, however, were dry,
and water-vendors crowded the roadside. Gravel and lumps of granite
grew there like grass, and from under every large stone, as Shaykh Mas’ud
took a delight in showing, a small scorpion, with tail curled over its
back, fled, Parthian-like, from the invaders of its home. At eleven
A.M., ascending a Mudarraj, or flight of stone steps, about thirty
yards broad, we passed without difficulty, for we were in advance of
the caravans, over the Akabah, or Steeps,[FN#5] and the narrow,
hill-girt entrance, to the low gravel basin in which Muna lies.
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