Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/118

 twenty families of the Fawâjde clan of the tribe of Beni ʻOḳba, which once ruled over the tribes of the Maʻʻâze and the Ḥwêṭât at-Tihama and is said to have been descended from the Ṯamûd tribe that built rock dwellings at al-Ḥeǧr and Moṛâjer Šuʻejb. Today the ruins of these dwellings, as well as the oasis of al-Bedʻ, belong to the Bedaʻîn clan of the Mesâʻîd tribe. The Mesâʻîd are not akin either to the ʻImrân or to the Ḥwêṭât at-Tihama, and they form two equally numerous clans, the Bedaʻîn and Farâḥîn together consisting of about one hundred and twenty tents. The Farâḥîn sojourn for the most part between the šeʻîb of al-Ḳijâl and Râs Fartak (Cape Fartak), while the Bedaʻîn remain north of them between the oasis of al-Bedʻ and Maḳna on the seashore.

At 6.38 we rode through the šeʻîb of al-Maḳje and approached the black mountain of al-Ḫšêrme. To the southeast we saw the mountain of Zihed, which resembles a kneeling camel. Its isolated peak rises above the entrance to the šeʻîb of al-Ḫrob.

To the northwest rose the high obelisk of Ab-aḏ-Ḏên, separated from the lower one of Abu Rijâš by the broad šeʻîb of Faršt ʻEdd. At 7.15 the broad šeʻîb of Frejšt al-ʻEḳejl opened out on our right. The region through which we were passing was completely void of life. Nowhere did we see animals or birds, nowhere was there any green growth of vegetation. The ratam bushes were absolutely bare, as though dried up, and even the hardy acacia sejâl, which defies the drought, had not a single leaf. My right eye was not yet well, and my left one also began to pain me. The fever returned.

At eight o’clock we had the huge mountain of Lebûn on our left, and we admired the mountains of ar-Râḥa and al-Maḳla, covered with a delicate veil of haze. These mountains form the watershed of the Wâdi al-Abjaẓ—and thus of the Red Sea and the lowlands traversed by the railway to al-Medîna. West of the saddle Naḳb al-Maḳla yawned the deep ravine of Fejḥân, through which a road leads from the valley of al-Abjaẓ to the well al-ʻAjn and farther on to the passes Naḳb al-Madsûs and Naḳb al-Maḳla. At 8.30, on our right lay the small šeʻîb of Ḫajjij, with the water of the same name at its entrance; at 8.40 we saw the small šeʻîb of ʻEḳejl, which comes from al-Klejḫi and Ṭrejf al-Bawwâl.