Stones.”  This people nescit ignorare-it will know everything. [FN#23] “Moses’ Well.”  I have no argument except the untrustworthy traditions of the Badawin, either for or against this having been the identical well near which Moses sat when he fled from the face of Pharaoh to the land of Midian.  One thing is certain, namely, that in this part of Arabia, as also at Aden, the wells are of a very ancient date.

[p.207]Chapter xi.

To Yambu’.

On the 11th July, 1853, about dawn, we left Tur, after a pleasant halt, with the unpleasant certainty of not touching ground for thirty-six hours.  I passed the time in steadfast contemplation of the web of my umbrella, and in making the following meteorological remarks.

Morning.-The air is mild and balmy as that of an Italian spring; thick mists roll down the valleys along the sea, and a haze like mother-o’-pearl crowns the headlands.  The distant rocks show Titanic walls, lofty donjons, huge projecting bastions, and moats full of deep shade.  At their base runs a sea of amethyst, and as earth receives the first touches of light, their summits, almost transparent, mingle with the jasper tints of the sky.  Nothing can be more delicious than this hour.  But as

“les plus belles choses Ont le pire destin,”

so lovely Morning soon fades.  The sun bursts up from behind the main, a fierce enemy, a foe that will force every one to crouch before him.  He dyes the sky orange, and the sea “incarnadine,” where its violet surface is stained by his rays, and he mercilessly puts to flight the mists and haze and the little agate-coloured masses of cloud that were before floating in the firmament.  The atmosphere is so clear that now and then a planet is visible.  For the two

[p.208] hours following sunrise the rays are endurable; after that they become a fiery ordeal.  The morning beams oppress you with a feeling of sickness; their steady glow, reflected by the glaring waters, blinds your eyes, blisters your skin, and parches your mouth:  you now become a monomaniac; you do nothing but count the slow hours that must “minute by” before you can be relieved.[FN#1]

Midday.-The wind, reverberated by the glowing hills is like the blast of a lime-kiln.  All colour melts away with the canescence from above.  The sky is a dead milk-white, and the mirror-like sea so reflects the tint that you can scarcely distinguish the line of the horizon.  After noon the wind sleeps upon the reeking shore; there is a deep stillness; the only sound heard is the melancholy flapping of the sail.  Men are not so much sleeping as half-senseless; they feel as if a few more degrees of heat would be death.