Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/155



Not wishing to let our starved and weakened camels suffer unnecessary hunger any longer, I asked ʻAfnân to allow us to depart and to give me the guide he had promised. The latter asked me to pay him twenty English pounds in advance and declared that he would go with me no farther than the first camp of the Beni ʻAṭijje, as at Tebûk and in its vicinity there dwelt families hostile to him. ʻAfnân called upon his people, one after another, to accompany me, but they all refused. In the midst of our difficulties there arrived at the oasis a Bedouin about twenty years old, who was seeking work and profit. Scarcely had he heard of our quandary than he seized the edge of my cloak and begged me to take him, saying that as a shepherd he knew the whole region of the Ḥwêṭât at-Tihama from al-Bedʻ in the north to Wâdi ad-Dâma in the south, that he was also acquainted with the shepherds of the Beni ʻAṭijje and could therefore obtain one of them as a new guide for me. Having come to an agreement with him, I gave ʻAfnân the presents intended for him and his servants, and at 8.04 A. M. we left the oasis.

Our road led through dense palm thickets, across small, marshy, shallow streams. The oasis of Šarma is scarcely four hundred meters broad and is bordered on the north and south by low, steep, rocky slopes. Date palms thrive there admirably and their fruit ripens quite early in the year. Many dates had already attained a bright brown color, and ʻAfnân brought me a handful of the half ripe fruit.

At 8.45 we reached a large, dry hollow with a few palms, close to the spot, to the north, where the combined gullies of al-Maḳ‘ade and al-ʻEfrija come to an end. Toward the east