‘A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the cradle of the Arab race. A visit to the court of the Arab Emir, and "Our Persian Campaign."' [‎209] (262/334)

CH. IX,]
209
was beautifully crisp and firm, being composed of
fine ground granite, quite different from the sand
stone formation of Jobba and J6f. The vegetation,
too, was changed. The yerta and adr and other
NefM plants had disappeared, and in their place were
shrubs, which 1 remember having seen in the wadys
of Mount Sinai, with occasionally small trees of the
acacia tribe known to pilgrims as the " burning bush"
—in Arabic " talkh "—also a plant with thick green
leaves and no stalks called " gheyseh," which they
say is good for the eyes. Every now and then a
solitary boulder, all of red granite, rose out of the
plain, or here and there little groups of rounded rocks,
out of which we started several hares. The view in
front of us was beautiful beyond description, a per
fectly even plain, sloping gradually upwards, out of
which these rocks and tells cropped up like islands,
and beyond it the violet-coloured mountains now
close before us, with a precipitous cliff which has
been our landmark for several days towering over
all. The outline of Jebel Shammar is strangely
fantastic, running up into spires and domes and pin
nacles, with here and there a loop-hole through which
you can see the sky, or a wonderful boulder perched
like a rocking stone on the sky line. One rock was
in shape just like a camel, and would deceive any
person who did not know that a camel could not
have climbed up there. At half-past one we passed
the first detached masses of rock which stand like
forts outside a citadel, and, bearing away gradually
VOL. I. t