In the evening my camel got lost. We all searched for it, but in the darkness of the night its track could not be found. As there are numerous fahad and nimr in the volcanic region and the camel was exhausted, I was afraid that it might have become their prey, and I therefore listened to every sound. But I heard nothing unusual. Shortly before midnight a dark moving shape appeared to the east; it drew near and turned out to be the camel coming back to us.
THROUGH ḤARRAT AL-ʻAWÊREẒ TO THE RAILWAY
On Sunday, July 3, 1910, we let the camels out to graze before three o’clock in the morning. The animal belonging to our guide strayed away somewhere, so that it was 4.15 before we could start (temperature: 17.5° C). The dark red gravel lacerated the soles of our poor beasts. At 4.40 the region opened out on all sides. In the north appeared the volcano of al-Ḫaẓra, to the northwest of it al-Ḥaṣnawên; on the eastern horizon rose the sharp peak of ad-Dabbe, near which the šeʻîb of Ḥaṣât al-Ḳanîṣ begins; nearer to us was the huge volcano of Bâḳûr, with the smaller volcano of al-Mṭawwaḳ to the northwest of it. On the right hand, to the south, we observed the two almost circular volcanoes of ʻAjr, between which is the rain water well Ǧebw ʻAjr; and to the north of them the volcano of Umm Arṭa, near which begins the šeʻîb of the same name.
The road which we had followed hitherto led in a north-easterly direction to the station of al-Muʻaẓẓam, and, as we wished to reach the station of Dâr al-Ḥamra’, we had to branch off eastward on rocky ground. The ground consists of hard sandstone, which the sun has baked to a dark brown color, and forms innumerable small basin-like hollows with sharp edges. At 6.30 we had to the north-northeast the low, rugged mountain range of Ḥlejlât abu Ṭarfa’, and we arrived at the uneven rocky tract between the volcanoes of al-Ḫmâm[1] and Umm al-Ǧerâd.
To the southeast of Umm al-Ǧerâd are grouped the reddish hillocks of Abraḳ al-ʻAšâr. To the east are the hills of ʻAfejž al-Asmar and aṣ-Ṣwêwîne, forming the watershed between
- ↑ According to Jâḳût, Muʻǧam (Wüstenfeld), Vol. 2, p. 469, Ḫimân is the name of the mountains in the territory of the Ḳuḍâʻa on the road to Syria.—Our extinct volcanoes of Ḫmâm (n is frequently interchanged with m at the beginning and end of words) are situated by the road Darb al-Bakra leading from Wâdi al-Ḳura’ through the former territory of the Ḳuḍâʻa. We may therefore identify them with the Ḫimân mountains mentioned by Jâḳût.
