Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/134

 and I make known to all of you present that I am journeying before the countenance and under the protection of the chief Abu Ṭḳêḳa, and he who harms me or my companions, or hinders us on our journey, let him fear the vengeance of the chief Abu Ṭḳêḳa. You know that his sword is sharp and his arm is long.”

“We do not fear Abu Ṭḳêḳa; he does not hold sway over us,” the Arab answered.

“Nevertheless,” I went on, “you pay him annual tribute for his protection and send him gifts. If you do not fear him, then know that there are six of us, that each of our rifles has six charges, each of our revolvers ten, and Allâh, who led us into your country, will not permit a single one of our shots to miss its aim.”

Paying no heed to the robbers and their leader, I caught hold of my camel, urged it to kneel down, jumped into the saddle, and turned towards our baggage. My companions drove the rest of the camels on before me. We did not even look behind us at our assailants.

While we were packing up our baggage, Sâlem, our companion, told me that he could not accompany me to the chief Abu Ṭḳêḳa, as one of his relatives had killed a subject of Abu Ṭḳêḳa, who attended to a palm garden in the oasis of Šarma; but he added that he had found another guide for me. This proved to be a man of about sixty, who had a very marked squint. Mḥammad spat when he first saw the new guide and called upon Allâh to us from bad omens and from the misfortune which is brought by every person who squints.

At eleven o’clock we rode off in a southeasterly direction past the ruins of Ḥawra, crossed the stream of al-ʻEfâl, and at 11.26 halted by the ruins of al-Mâlḥa (Figs. 53, 54). This was a pilgrimage station established after the sixteenth century. Northeast of al-Mâlḥa appear the ruins of an old building—the watchtower al-Birǧ, with a well. After halting for twenty minutes, we turned off towards the south and at 11.55 came upon the large, quadrangular, ruined fortress of al-Malḳaṭa, situated at the southern edge of the oasis. Here the broad ramparts and deep trenches are still clearly visible, surrounding great piles made up of ruins of old buildings that have fallen to decay. Some of the walls can be traced for a distance of one hundred paces. Only a strip of soft