from the road and then destroying them. Wishing to overcome her temptations, the travelers pick up the small stones, place them on the boulders and think of their relatives, who would mourn for them if they knew that they had gone astray and perished of hunger.
On our right we had the black cone of Ab-aḏ-Ḏahab, covered here and there with a growth of yellow moss (temperature: 35° C).
From 2.48 to 3.15 the camels grazed in the šeʻîb of Semʻ which proceeds from the huge mountain of Šejbân, towering up to the southwest. In the northern part of Šejbân are the wells of Ǧhajjer and al-Ǧeba’. At 3.32 we crossed the šeʻîb of al-ʻAṯâne, more than four hundred meters broad and containing a growth of šîḥ, baʻejṯrân, ḳejṣûm, and ratam. To the northeast, not far from our road, al-ʻAṯâne is joined by the šeʻîb of Zrâb.[1]
The country now becomes rolling; the šeʻibân are broad, the slopes less abrupt but more stony. At 4.08 we turned to the south toward Mount Šejbân with its innumerable clusters of knolls and mutilated cones. In front of us towered the black spur of ad-Dâra. At 4.46 we were near the water of al-Embâṭe, where we found a large herd of camels being driven by armed men to Mount Šejbân. The camels belonged to the Ḫuẓara’ clan of the Beni ʻAṭijje. The men in charge of them said that al-Âjde were preparing a warlike expedition against them. An ʻAṭîwi, or member of the Beni ʻAṭijje, who had served among the Âjde as a shepherd, having heard about this raid, had escaped and warned his kinsmen of the danger by which they were threatened. The Ḫuẓara’ and al-Masâbḥe had then occupied the crossings at al-Lwij, Laʻabân, and al-Ḳnêʻer, leading from the southeast into their territory, and had sent herds of camels to Mount Šejbân to hide them there. The flocks of goats had remained near the tents which they had erected in hidden ravines.
We were rather exhausted before we found one of these small encampments of the Ḫuẓara’ in the narrow, stony šeʻîb of Abu Ṣawra, where we halted at 5.58 (temperature: 29° C).
- ↑ Jâḳût, Muʻǧam (Wüstenfeld), Vol. 3, p. 614, mentions ʻEṯâl as a defile and valley in the land of the Ǧuḏâm.—Our ʻAṯâne (n interchanged with l) is a valley and a defile, as a road leads through it from the west to the valley of al-Ǧizel and to the plains near Tebûk, traversing a nearly impassable volcanic region which formerly belonged to the Ǧuḏâm.
