[p. 246]alone along the Hadj route, the fear of the Aeneze rendering
every one unwilling to accompany us. In a quarter of an hour we came to
a bridge over the Wady Mezareib, called Djissr Kherreyan [Arabic]; to
the left, near the road, is the ruined village Kherbet el Ghazale
[Arabic], where the Hadj sometimes encamps. It often happens that the
caravan does not encamp upon the usual spots, owing to a wish either to
accelerate or to prolong the journey. Past the Akabe, near the head of
the Red Sea, beyond which the bones of dead camels are the only guides
of the pilgrim through the waste of sand, the caravan often loses its
way, and overshoots the day's station; in such cases the water-skins are
sometimes exhausted, and many pilgrims perish through fatigue and
thirst.
At one hour from the Mezareib, following the river that issues from the
small lake, are several mills: from thence, south-west, begins the
district called Ollad Erbed [Arabic]. Half an hour to the right, at some
distance from the road, is the village Tel el Shehab [Arabic]; forty
minutes, Wady Om El Dhan [Arabic], coming from the eastward, with a
bridge over it, built by Djezzar Pasha. In winter this generally proves
a very difficult passage to the Hadj, on account of the swampy ground,
and the peasants of the adjacent villages are, in consequence, obliged
to cover the road with a thick layer of straw. At one hour to the right
of the road is the village El Torra [Arabic], on the top of a low chain
of hills, forming a circle, through the centre of which lies the road.
Here, as in so many other parts of the Haouran, I saw the most luxuriant
wild herbage, through which my horse with difficulty made his way.
Artificial meadows can hardly be finer than these desert fields: and it
is this which renders the Haouran so favourite an abode of the Bedouins.
The peasants of Syria are ignorant of the advantages of feeding their
cattle with hay; they suffer the superfluous grass to wither away, and
in summer and winter feed them on cut straw. In one