'Personal Narrative of a pilgrimmage to Al-Madinah and Meccah. Vol. I' [‎247] (304/564)

ah. XIII. — From Biv 247
walwed^ dice might be the recognising of a traveller's guest-right
with a k ( to call for milk gratis. However this may be, no one will
ities of id in the present day sell this article of consumption, even at
e got into oj civilised Meccah, except Egyptians, a people supposed to
-f a shower r,: be utterly without honour. As a general rule in the
wman Hijaz, milk abounds in the spring, but at all other times
jp and m of the year it is difficult to be procured. The Badawi
ilk. My co® woman managed, however, to send me back a cupful,
of bread, at; At three p.m . we were ready to start, and all saw, with
1, 1 " J,,.; | unspeakable gratification, a huge black nimbus rise from
it region, si the shoulder of Mount Radhwah, and range itself, like a
ncestors, ?;! good genius, between us and our terrible foe, the sun.
Her) an cm We hoped that it contained rain, but presently a blast
, of the pi of hot wind, like the breath of a volcano, blew over the
plain, and the air was filled with particles of sand.
11 as"igt,"(tk This is the "dry storm" of Arabia; it appears to depend
" Saribah," ai; upon some electrical phenomena which it would be de
sirable to investigate. 1 When we had loaded and mounted,
my camel-men, two in number, came up to the Shugduf
fdrinkTmdtt an d demanded "Bakhshish," which, it appears, they are
ig beverage, k now in the habit of doing each time the traveller starts,
luchis and m i was at first surprised to find the word here, but after
irut," and mi a f ew ^ays of Badawi society, my wonder diminished.
The men were Beni-Harb of the great Hijazi tribe,
which has kept its blood pure for the last thirteen cen-
Synans, confe tur i, es —how much more we know not,—but they had
jet milk "laba 7 , „ . . .
been corrupted by intercourse with pilgrims, retaining
»remarked tl» none of their ancestral qualities but greed of gain, re-
Justoms betwfe vengefulness, pugnacity, and a frantic kind of bravery,
i ranges of i displayed on rare occasions. Their nobility, however,
ustbennmlw ^ not p reven t m y quoting the Prophet's saying, "Of a
ids, of Bona; truth, the worst names among the Arabs are the Beni-
md the Balidi ' 0
hough they«l "
t they consito 1 At Aden, as well as in Sind, these dry storms abound, and
is toocoB* there the work of meteorological investigation would be easier than
meously in * Al-Hijaz.