Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/241

 a small barrack for soldiers, where fifteen men were quartered. Halting at 5.48 in front of the railway station, we wished to water our camels, but the well was locked up, the station master was asleep, and none of the soldiers ventured to go and wake him. The soldiers filled one of our bags from their own water supply, and at 6.10 we left (temperature: 32° C).

Ḫalîl urged me to give the guide only a third of his wages; otherwise, he said, he would drive him away before he received anything. The reason, he stated, was that the Beli had extorted large gifts from us and had ill-treated us and that he would therefore like to avenge himself on one of them. Together with Šerîf he was preparing to knock the guide about, but I would not permit them to harm him in word or deed, and I paid him all his wages. He at once disappeared among the crags to the west, afraid that after our departure the soldiers or the gendarmes would rob him. I should have liked to proceed to some encampment of the Âjde or the Fuḳara’, but nobody at al-Muʻaẓẓam knew for certain where they were encamped. I was told that all their clans had gone at first northward but that some had now joined the Mwâhîb and had fled to the volcanic territory west of Medâjen Ṣâleḥ. The Weld Slejmân, with whom I was likewise acquainted, were encamped in the volcanic territory extending to the south of al-Bird.

As our camels were so tired that they could not have endured the journey to the southern camps, I proposed that we should proceed to the north, hoping soon to discover where the clans were encamped who had departed in that direction.

We had not gone one kilometer from al-Muʻaẓẓam, when we were overtaken by a non-commissioned officer of the gendarmes, who handed Ḫalîl a written order to return with me immediately to Tebûk. If I refused to obey or wished to branch off to the right or left of the Pilgrim Road, he was to inform me and my native guide that the Government would no longer protect me and would assume no further responsibility for the safety of my life or property. Things had thus turned out as I had expected. I could go where I liked, but I should have had no protector, and anybody could have robbed or killed me. The marauding tribes encamped along the railway would certainly have made away with us all, if they had found out that the Government was