Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/86

 carefully concealed under his new red and yellow cloak, received a few days before as a gift from the new ḳâjmaḳâm at al-ʻAḳaba. No Bedouin would have bought a garment of such a color. When, however, the Sultan at Constantinople selected this garment for Ḥammâd and sent it to him by his official, Ḥammâd could not refuse the gift, for Mawlâna-s-Sulṭân (Our Lord the Sultan) knew well what would be most fitting for the chief of the Šamsân. Entering into conversation with him, I discovered that he was familiar with the art of giving directions and distances and that he had a wide knowledge of local place names. In consequence I hired him as a guide. As we were drawing near his camp, he seized my camel by the bridle and implored me to dismount at his tent as a guest sent by Allâh. Not wishing to squander time unnecessarily, I extolled his lavishness and hospitality in high-flown words and asked him to excuse me on this occasion, adding that I would perhaps rest in his tent on my return.

Inquiring about ruins, I discovered that there are no remains of old buildings in the territory of the ʻImrân, but I was told that southeast of us there were the caves Moṛâr ʻAntar, constructed in the same extensive and beautiful manner as those at Wâdi Mûsa (Petra). After Ḥammâd had given me an exact description of these caves, we branched off to the east at 12.45 in order to inspect them. We rode through a šeʻîb, broad in most places but made so narrow in spots by the encroachment of the sandstone hills that the watercourse can scarcely penetrate it, and therefore called aẓ-Ẓjejḳe (the gorge) (Fig. 23). The banks are steep walls and reminded me of Sîḳ Wâdi Mûsa. The rays of the sun were reflected from the brown rocks, and the white sand which here and there formed extensive drifts was so dazzling that it was impossible to look at it. My right eye pained me; the lid was swollen, and the veins in the white of the eye were blood-shot. At 1.25 P. M., from a high rock, we perceived to the west on the right-hand side of Wâdi Jitm al-ʻImrân (or al-ʻEmrân) the dark-tinted mountain of aẓ-Ẓabʻi; the flat ridge of Lebenân lies opposite, on the left side of the wâdi. To the south of us rose the black, worn, granite rock of al-Hešîm, near which there flows a scanty spring; while south of us towered the isolated summit of al-Mkasseb. Branching off to the southeast, at two o’clock we entered into a broad šeʻîb that contained a number of small fields, and later we came