‘A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the cradle of the Arab race. A visit to the court of the Arab Emir, and "Our Persian Campaign."' [‎109] (156/334)

CH. Y.]
Sherarat statistics.
109
were separated from one another by miscliief-makers,
and afterwards managed to carry on a corre
spondence by tying their letters to their goats when
these Avent out to pasture
January 4.—There was no dawdling this morn
ing, for everybody has become serious, and we were
off by seven, and have marched steadily on for
quite thirty miles without stopping, at the rate of
three-and-a-half miles an hour. We have left the
Wady Sirhan for good, and are making a straight
cut across the Hamad for J6f. There is no water
this way, but less chance of ghazCis. The soil has
been a light hard gravel, with hardly a plant or an
inequality to interfere with the camels' pace. At
one o'clock Ave came to some hills of sandstone
faced with iron, the beginning of the broken ground
in Avhich, they say, Jof stands. We had been
gradually ascending all day, and as we reached
that, the highest point of our route, the barometer
marked 2660 feet. Here we found a number of
little pits, used, so Hamdiin explained, for collecting
and Avinnowing semh, a little red grain Avhich
groAvs Avild in this part of the desert, and is used
by the J6f people for food.
A little later Ave sighted two men on a delul, the
first people Ave have seen, except the ghazii, since
leaving Kaf. Wilfrid and Mohammed galloped up
to see Avhat they Avere, and Mohammed, to atone I
suppose for his inertness on a recent occasion, fired
several shots, and succeeded in frightening them