[p.588] S. b. W. I found here a small chain of white and red sand-stone
hills in the midst of granite. The morning was so very cold that we were
obliged to stop and light a fire, round which we sat till sunrise; my
feet and hands were absolutely benumbed, for neither gloves or stockings
are in fashion among Bedouins. We continued in the valley, crossing
several hills, till at four hours and a half we reached Wady Rahaba
[Arabic], in the lower parts of which we had passed a very rainy night
on the 17th. Rahaba is one of the principal valleys on this side of the
peninsula; it is broad, and affords good pasturage. We halted under a
granite rock in the middle of it, close by about a dozen small
buildings, which are called by the Bedouins Makhsen (magazines), and
which serve them as a place of deposit for their provision, clothes,
money, &c. As Bedouins are continually moving about, they find it
inconvenient to carry with them what they do not constantly want; they
therefore leave whatever they have not immediate need of in these
magazines, to which they repair as occasion requires. Almost every
Bedouin in easy circumstances has one of them; I have met with them in
several parts of the mountains, always in clusters of ten or twenty
together. They are at most ten feet high, generally about ten or twelve
feet square, constructed with loose stones, covered with the trunks of
date trees, and closed with a wooden door and lock. These buildings are
altogether so slight, and the doors so insecure, that a stone would be
sufficient to break them open; no watchmen are left to guard them, and
they are in such solitary spots that they might easily be plundered in
the night, without the thief being ever discovered. But such is the good
faith of the Towara towards each other, that robberies of this kind are
almost unheard of; and their Sheikh Szaleh, whose magazine is well known
to contain fine dresses, shawls, and dollars, considers his property as
safe there as it would be in the best