Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/243

 to be cleaned out by the soldiers. If a rainstorm sweeps to the southwest and the foaming water rushes down, it fills the culverts with a deposit, comes to a standstill, breaks through the embankment, and carries away the sleepers. This had happened the previous winter, and the sleepers were still lying in the river bed. At 12.08 P. M. and again at 12.15 we saw on our right a number of culverts which were completely clogged up with sand.

The valley through which we proceeded is called Ḫanzîra. It is of such a rugged nature that the construction of the railway line there demanded considerable labor. At 12.23 we rode past some ruined culverts, at 12.35 past a bridge whose pillars were entirely covered up with a deposit of stone and sand; at 12.40 we saw a part of the railway embankment in ruins. At one o’clock we arrived at a bridge which had recently been built afresh but had already been damaged again by water. To the right Ḫalîl pointed out two large boulders saying that they were two petrified pigs. Why these wretched animals had been changed into rocky boulders here in the inhospitable desert, neither he nor the shepherd Muṭalleḳ could say, although the latter hailed from Tejma and had often accompanied caravans from al-Muʻaẓẓam to Tebûk.

At 1.08 we passed the small railway station of Maḳaṣṣ al-Asʻad. To the east-northeast of the station in the valley is situated a large boulder known as Ḥaǧar al-Bint. A maiden (bint al-bejt) of the Swêfle clan had been compelled by her father to marry an old man. On the eve of the wedding day she had escaped from the tent and had sat down on this boulder, saying: “Never will I marry that old man full of wrinkles, but you, O stone, shall become my husband.” And by a miracle her wish was fulfilled. Her father, who was told of her escape, went to look for her and found her lying on this stone. Noticing some blood, he searched in the sand for the tracks of a man, but found no tracks except those of his daughter. So awed was he by this portent that he did not compel his daughter to return to the old man’s tent but allowed her to marry the man she loved. Since then the girls of the Swêfle, if they have to marry a man whom they do not like, threaten to make a journey to Ḥaǧar al-Bint.

At 1.25 we observed in the railway embankment a washout a few meters in length, another proof of the hasty