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remove many hundred tents, and the fugitives move from one tribe to another for more than fifty years, until at length a compromise is made. For those slain in wars between two tribes, the price of blood is required from the persons who were known to have actually killed them. Appeals are sometimes made to the mebesshae, to settle by whom a man may have been killed in battle if the accused denies the charge.

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Such are a few outlines of the character and peculiar usages of the Arabs of the great Syrian and Arabian deserts, which have been almost entirely derived from the comprehensive work of Burckhardt upon the Bedouins and the Wahabys.' It is of course only by long intercourse with the tribes whom the traveller comes across, that he learns any particulars of their mode of life or is admitted to their friendship, and no one hurriedly passing through their territories, as we did, can ever expect to see much of the mode of life pursued among the Bedawin. Still it is a great advantage that we can derive, from the works of some distinguished oriental travellers, such full and interesting details as have been gathered together of the manners and customs of the nomade tribes of Arabia.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE EASTERN ROUTE TO PETRA BY WADY ITHM.

We had now been four days doing nothing at Akabah, for there is really no way of passing the time profitably there, partly from there being hardly any traces of the ancient port of Ezion-Geber to examine, and owing to the great heat which prevails it is impossible to walk much during the day. The thermometer stood at 103° in the tent, a degree of heat which utterly incapacitates most Europeans from active exertion; lolling about the tent-door, under the shade of some palm trees, and watching any movements on the part of the Arabs who constantly hovered about our camp, was the most we could do. One day we saw the curious practice of impregnating the female palm tree, by means of fastening a bunch of the male seed to a branch exposed to the wind, which disseminates it over the blossoms. It is necessary to do this to enable the palm tree to bear fruit, but in most places it is found sufficient to plant a single male among several female date trees. They have a very primitive mode also of obtaining water for the camels to drink, simply by scooping some holes in the sand close to the sea, and after standing for a little,

the water which gathers in them is sufficiently fresh for drinking purposes. But we grew very tired of our inaction, and were rejoiced when at last, about half-past eight on the morning of Friday, March 15, we slowly defiled from the shady palmgroves of Akabah. We found our new escort by no means so tractable or well up to their work as our Tawarah friends. In fact Achmet and his two trusty officials, Ali and the cook, did most of the work this morning in the way of striking the tents and loading the camels, for our escort were smoking, wrangling and shouting, with little regard to our interests.

Our party was rather an imposing one as we defiled across the plain, and excited some attention on the part of the assembled crowd of townspeople who saw us off. Our sheikh rode at the head of the cavalcade with his two brothers, all armed with long guns and pistols in their belts; those three all wore some article of dress of a red colour, apparently signifying their rank. The sheikh's wife and his little boy Hassan, of whom he seemed very fond and proud, also joined our party. We were told that there had been no traveller to Petra for three years past, so that we may consider ourselves fortunate in having been allowed to proceed there. A much greater privilege was the fact of our being able to take the Eastern route by way of the Wady-el-Ithm, Laborde's route, which has been hardly ever traversed by any one since his time. A recent matrimonial alliance between Sheikh Mohammed's sister and the ruler of the territory of the Wady Ithm enabled the former to guarantee us a safe passage. After holding along the sloping plateau which extends from

Akabah in a north-western direction, we reached in the course of an hour the entrance of the narrow pass which leads to Edom. This is the way along which the Israelites must have passed on their way to Moab, and in ancient times it was the main approach from Elath to Petra. Stanley and all recent travellers took the road up the broad Wady Arabah, down which the Israelites came on their return from Kadesh, and which runs in a northerly course until it meets the waters of the Dead Sea. Near the entrance of the wady we passed a massive stone wall, three yards in thickness, with an opening for the winter's torrent to pass through, which is supposed to have been erected by the Bedawin as a defence against intruders. At mid-day we found that we were nearly 2,000 feet above the sea level, so steadily and continuously had we ascended. On either side of the valley the mountains rise very precipitously, and the bed of the wady is composed of granite gravel washed away from the cliffs. Grey granite is the prevailing character of rock, streaked sometimes perpendicularly, but occasionally obliquely and horizontally, with veins of different-coloured porphyry or basalt. These streaks vary in colour from chocolate, red brown, and black, and are not often more than 15 or 20 feet broad, but they impart a very distinctive character to the scenery. The rocks have a peculiar earthy, friable look about them, not the glistening, solid, adamantine appearance of the Sinaitic group. We lunched near a lofty mountain, Jebel Badry by name, and had to endure the persecution of thousands of the common house-flies, so familiar to

Europeans, which had followed us from Akabah, and whom we did not shake off for some days. These flies were another of the annoyances we suffered at Akabah, which had almost escaped my memory.

We continually ascended the Wady Ithm all this day, and were struck with its uniformly sterile and desolate nature. Though this was once a great highway of commerce, it would be found extremely difficult now to convey merchandise over its rock-strewn defiles. What pavement may once have existed has long since been swept away by the torrents of ages, and there are hardly any trees at all to be met with, while water is almost unknown. The masses of accumulated débris on both sides of the valley are very regular in their formation, in many places looking like a railway embankment. The sides of the torrent's bed are also singularly scarped away, in some places being as perpendicular as a wall, and in height at least 25 or 30 feet, thus showing the resistless force of the angry torrent. Our campingground was about 3,000 feet above the sea, an extensive undulating plain called Holden Saardeh, with those lofty streaked granite mountains on all sides. Somewhere near this must be the watershed between the Wady Arabah and the interior of Edom. There are many small shrubs and prickly acacia trees about this spot, but we saw no water. Next morning my camel was found to have strayed away during the night, and could nowhere be seen, so I had to ride the sheikh's horse for some hours this morning, until I got another camel. About 9.30 A.M. we saw upon the

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