Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/184

 spring the chief Ḥarb eben ʻAṭijje had fenced off a part of the ground with a wall of unburnt brick and had established a new garden, in which he had planted date palms, pomegranates, and a few fig trees, and his gardener cultivated vegetables there. But the artificial wall of this garden aroused the wrath of the wind, which deposited sand against it; the drift increased in size, surmounted the wall, and the sand was scattered into the garden. The gardens of Tebûk form the shape of a horseshoe open towards the northeast, and they enfold the stronghold and the settlement. The stronghold, which rises a few meters to the northeast of the spring, is a rectangular stone building of no great height, without side towers, and recalls the medieval structures on the Pilgrim Route. A narrow gate leads into a courtyard, around which dwelling places, storerooms, and stables flank the walls. An open staircase leads to the first floor, which is built along two sides of the wall. In the courtyard there is a well about four meters deep, with good water. From the stronghold a short road of no great width runs nearly due east between huts built of sun-dried brick and broken stone. Of these there are fewer than forty. By the northeastern extremity of the village, near a small mosque built by Italian masons, there is a well about six meters deep. Still farther to the northeast there are wells here and there, which become deeper and deeper the farther one goes; the well by the railway station, from which water is obtained for the engines, is twenty-four meters deep. By the eastern (Fig. 65) and northern extremities of the gardens the sandy soil is sown with barley after abundant rains. In years when there is little rain the barley is not sown, and even when there has been ample rain the ground has to be carefully watered from the neighboring wells, as otherwise it would dry up. About two hundred paces to the east of the eastern extremity of the gardens some huts have been built for the soldiers, and to the northeast of them a large quarantine station has been established for the pilgrims. To the south of this station rise the two isolated crags of al-Ḥṣejb where the stone is hewn for the buildings of Tebûk.

About fifteen families, constituting the original inhabitants of Tebûk, are descended from the Ḥamâjde tribe and are called al-Ḥmejdât. They have a chief from the family of the ʻAwad. The rest are immigrant railroad workmen who have no gardens. The chief Ḥarb eben