[p.252] hails a change, even though it be one from bad to worse.  When our enemy began slanting towards the West, we felt ready enough to proceed on our journey.  The camels were laden shortly after 3 P.M., July 20th, and we started, with water jars in our hands, through a storm of Samun.

We travelled five hours in a North-Easterly course up a diagonal valley,[FN#18] through a country fantastic in its desolation-a mass of huge hills, barren plains, and desert vales.  Even the sturdy Acacias here failed, and in some places the camel grass could not find earth enough for its root.  The road wound among mountains, rocks and hills of granite, and over broken ground, flanked by huge blocks and boulders piled up as if man’s art had aided Nature to disfigure herself.  Vast clefts seamed like scars the hideous face of earth; here they widened into dark caves, there they were choked with glistening drift sand.  Not a bird or a beast was to be seen or heard; their presence would have argued the vicinity of water; and, though my companions opined that Badawin were lurking among the rocks, I decided that these Badawin were the creatures of their fears.  Above, a sky like polished blue steel, with a tremendous blaze of yellow light, glared upon us without the thinnest veil of mist cloud.  Below, the brass-coloured circle scorched the face and dazzled the eyes, mocking them the while with offers of water that was but air.  The distant prospect was more attractive than the near view, because it borrowed a bright azure tinge from the intervening atmosphere; but the jagged peaks and the perpendicular streaks of shadow down the flanks of the mountainous background

[p.253] showed that yet in store for us was no change for the better.

Between 10 and 11 P.M., we reached human habitations-a phenomenon unseen since we left Al-Musahhal-in the shape of a long straggling village.  It is called Al-Hamra, from the redness of the sands near which it is built, or Al-Wasitah, the “half-way,” because it is the middle station between Yambu’ and Al-Madinah.  It is therefore considerably out of place in Burckhardt’s map; and those who copy from him make it much nearer the sea-port than it really is.  We wandered nearly an hour in search of an encamping station, for the surly villagers ordered us off every flatter bit of ground, without, however, deigning to show us where our jaded beasts might rest.  At last, after long wrangling, we found the usual spot; the camels were unloaded, the boxes and baggage were disposed in a circle for greater security against the petty pilferers in which this part of the road abounds, and my companions spread their rugs so as to sleep upon their valuables.  I was invited to follow the general example; but I absolutely declined the vicinity of so many steaming and snoring fellow-travellers.  Some wonder was excited by the Afghan Haji’s obstinacy and recklessness; but resistance to these people is sometimes bien place, and a man from Kabul is allowed to say and to do strange things.  In answer to their warnings of nightly peril, I placed a drawn sword by my side[FN#19] and a cocked pistol under my pillow, the saddle-bag:  a carpet spread upon the cool loose sand formed by no means an uncomfortable couch, and upon it I enjoyed a sound sleep till day-break.