A little later we turned to the right, off the pilgrim road, and took a short cut across gradually rising ground of flat basalt ridges12, buried in sand till only their topmost piles showed above the surface. It held moisture enough to be well grown over with hard wiry grass and shrubs13 up and down the slopes, on which a few sheep and goats were pasturing. There Tafas showed me a stone, which was the limit of the district of the Masruh, and told me with grim pleasure that he was now at home, in his tribal14 property, and might come off his guard.
Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan15 to it, against aggression16. Even the wells and trees had their masters, who allowed men to make firewood of the one and drink of the other freely, as much as was required for their need, but who would instantly check anyone trying to turn the property to account and to exploit it or its products among others for private benefit. The desert was held in a crazed communism by which Nature and the elements were for the free use of every known friendly person for his own purposes and no more. Logical outcomes were the reduction of this licence to privilege by the men of the desert, and their hardness to strangers unprovided with introduction or guarantee, since the common security lay in the common responsibility of kinsmen17. Tafas, in his own country, could bear the burden of my safe-keeping lightly.
The valleys were becoming sharply marked, with clean beds of sand and shingle, and an occasional large boulder18 brought down by a flood. There were many broom bushes, restfully grey and green to the eye, and good for fuel, though useless as pasture. We ascended19 steadily20 till we rejoined the main track of the pilgrim road. Along this we held our way till sunset, when we came into sight of the hamlet of Bir el Sheikh. In the first dark as the supper fires were lighted we rode down its wide open street and halted. Tafas went into one of the twenty miserable21 huts, and in a few whispered words and long silences bought flour, of which with water he kneaded a dough22 cake two inches thick and eight inches across. This he buried in the ashes of a brushwood fire, provided for him by a Subh woman whom he seemed to know. When the cake was warmed he drew it out of the fire, and clapped it to shake off the dust; then we shared it together, while Abdulla went away to buy himself tobacco.
They told me the place had two stone-lined wells at the bottom of the southward slope, but I felt disinclined to go and look at them, for the long ride that day had tired my unaccustomed muscles, and the heat of the plain had been painful. My skin was blistered24 by it, and my eyes ached with the glare of light striking up at a sharp angle from the silver sand, and from the shining pebbles25. The last two years I had spent in Cairo, at a desk all day or thinking hard in a little overcrowded office full of distracting noises, with a hundred rushing things to say, but no bodily need except to come and go each day between office and hotel. In consequence the novelty of this change was severe, since time had not been given me gradually to accustom23 myself to the pestilent beating of the Arabian sun, and the long monotony of camel pacing. There was to be another stage tonight, and a long day to-morrow before Feisal’s camp would be reached.
So I was grateful for the cooking and the marketing26, which spent one hour, and for the second hour of rest after it which we took by common consent; and sorry when it ended, and we re-mounted, and rode in pitch darkness up valleys and down valleys, passing in and out of bands of air, which were hot in the confined hollows, but fresh and stirring in the open places. The ground under foot must have been sandy, because the silence of our passage hurt my straining ears, and smooth, for I was always falling asleep in the saddle, to wake a few seconds later suddenly and sickeningly, as I clutched by instinct at the saddle post to recover my balance which had been thrown out by some irregular stride of the animal. It was too dark, and the forms of the country were too neutral, to hold my heavy-lashed, peering eyes. At length we stopped for good, long after midnight; and I was rolled up in my cloak and asleep in a most comfortable little sand-grave before Tafas had done knee-haltering my camel.
Three hours later we were on the move again, helped now by the last shining of the moon. We marched down Wadi Mared, the night of it dead, hot, silent, and on each side sharp-pointed hills standing27 up black and white in the exhausted28 air. There were many trees. Dawn finally came to us as we passed out of the narrows into a broad place, over whose flat floor an uneasy wind span circles, capriciously in the dust. The day strengthened always, and now showed Bir ibn Hassani just to our right. The trim settlement of absurd little houses, brown and white, holding together for security’s sake, looked doll-like and more lonely than the desert, in the immense shadow of the dark precipice29 of Subh, behind. While we watched it, hoping to see life at its doors, the sun was rushing up, and the fretted30 cliffs, those thousands of feet above our heads, became outlined in hard refracted shafts31 of white light against a sky still sallow with the transient dawn.
We rode on across the great valley. A camel-rider, garrulous32 and old, came out from the houses and jogged over to join us. He named himself Khallaf, too friendly-like. His salutation came after a pause in a trite33 stream of chat; and when it was returned he tried to force us into conversation. However, Tafas grudged34 his company, and gave him short answers. Khallaf persisted, and finally, to improve his footing, bent35 down and burrowed36 in his saddle pouch37 till he found a small covered pot of enamelled iron, containing a liberal portion of the staple38 of travel in the Hejaz. This was the unleavened dough cake of yesterday, but crumbled39 between the fingers while still warm, and moistened with liquid butter till its. particles would fall apart only reluctantly. It was then sweetened for eating with ground sugar, and scooped40 up like damp sawdust in pressed pellets with the fingers.
I ate a little, on this my first attempt, while Tafas and Abdulla played at it vigorously; so for his bounty41 Khallaf went half-hungry: deservedly, for it was thought effeminate by the Arabs to carry a provision of food for a little journey of one hundred miles. We were now fellows, and the chat began again while Khallaf told us about the last fighting, and a reverse Feisal had had the day before. It seemed he had been beaten out of Kheif in the head of Wadi Safra, and was now at Hamra, only a little way in front of us; or at least Khallaf thought he was there: we might learn for sure in Wasta, the next village on our road. The fighting had not been severe; but the few casualties were all among the tribesmen of Tafas and Khallaf; and the names and hurts of each were told in order.
Meanwhile I looked about, interested to find myself in a new country. The sand and detritus42 of last night and of Bir el Sheikh had vanished. We were marching up a valley, from two hundred to five hundred yards in width, of shingle and light soil, quite firm, with occasional knolls43 of shattered green stone cropping out in its midst. There were many thorn trees, some of them woody acacias, thirty feet and more in height, beautifully green, with enough of tamarisk and soft scrub to give the whole a charming, well kept, park-like air, now in the long soft shadows of the early morning. The swept ground was so flat and clean, the pebbles so variegated44, their colours so joyously45 blended that they gave a sense of design to the landscape; and this feeling was strengthened by the straight lines and sharpness of the hills. They rose on each hand regularly, precipices46 a thousand feet in height, of granite-brown and dark porphyry-coloured rock, with pink stains; and by a strange fortune these glowing hills rested on hundred-foot bases of the cross-grained stone, whose unusual colour suggested a thin growth of moss47.
We rode along this beautiful place for about seven miles, to a low watershed48, crossed by a wall of granite slivers49, now little more than a shapeless heap, but once no doubt a barrier. It ran from cliff to cliff, and even far up the hill-sides, wherever the slopes were not too steep to climb. In the centre, where the road passed, had been two small enclosures like pounds. I asked Khallaf the purpose of the wall. He replied that he had been in Damascus and Constantinople and Cairo, and had many friends among the great men of Egypt. Did I know any of the English there? Khallaf seemed curious about my intentions and my history. He tried to trip me in Egyptian phrases. When I answered in the dialect of Aleppo he spoke of prominent Syrians of his acquaintance. I knew them, too; and he switched off into local politics, asking careful questions, delicately and indirectly50, about the Sherif and his sons, and what I thought Feisal was going to do. I understood less of this than he, and parried inconsequentially. Tafas came to my rescue, and changed the subject. Afterwards we knew that Khallaf was in Turkish pay, and used to send frequent reports of what came past Bir ibn Hassani for the Arab forces.
Across the wall we were in an affluent51 of Wadi Safra, a more wasted and stony52 valley among less brilliant hills. It ran into another, far down which to the west lay a cluster of dark palm-trees, which the Arabs said was Jedida, one of the slave villages in Wadi Safra. We turned to the right, across another saddle, and then downhill for a few miles to a corner of tall cliffs. We rounded this and found ourselves suddenly in Wadi Safra, the valley of our seeking, and in the midst of Wasta, its largest village. Wasta seemed to be many nests of houses, clinging to the hillsides each side the torrent-bed on banks of alluvial53 soil, or standing on detritus islands between the various deep-swept channels whose sum made up the parent valley.
Riding between two or three of these built-up islands, we made for the far bank of the valley. On our way was the main bed of the winter floods, a sweep of white shingle and boulders54, quite flat. Down its middle, from palm-grove on the one side to palm-grove on the other, lay a reach of clear water, perhaps two hundred yards long and twelve feet wide, sand-bottomed, and bordered on each brink55 by a ten-foot lawn of thick grass and flowers. On it we halted a moment to let our camels put their heads down and drink their fill, and the relief of the grass to our eyes after the day-long hard glitter of the pebbles was so sudden that involuntarily I glanced up to see if a cloud had not covered the face of the sun.
We rode up the stream to the garden from which it ran sparkling in a stone-lined channel; and then we turned along the mud wall of the garden in the shadow of its palms, to another of the detached hamlets. Tafas led the way up its little street (the houses were so low that from our saddles we looked down upon their clay roofs), and near one of the larger houses stopped and beat upon the door of an uncovered court. A slave opened to us, and we dismounted in privacy. Tafas haltered the camels, loosed their girths, and strewed56 before them green fodder57 from a fragrant58 pile beside the gate. Then he led me into the guest-room of the house, a dark clean little mud-brick place, roofed with half palm-logs under hammered earth. We sat down on the palm-leaf mat which ran along the dais. The day in this stifling59 valley had grown very hot; and gradually we lay back side by side. Then the hum of the bees in the gardens without, and of the flies hovering60 over our veiled faces within, lulled61 us into sleep.
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1
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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2
scoured
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| 走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的过去式和过去分词 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮 | |
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3
shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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beaver
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| n.海狸，河狸 | |
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looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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13
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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kinsmen
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| n.家属，亲属( kinsman的名词复数 ) | |
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18
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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accustom
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| vt.使适应，使习惯 | |
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24
blistered
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| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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25
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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26
marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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30
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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34
grudged
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| 怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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35
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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36
burrowed
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的过去式和过去分词 )；翻寻 | |
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37
pouch
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| n.小袋，小包，囊状袋；vt.装...入袋中，用袋运输；vi.用袋送信件 | |
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38
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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39
crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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40
scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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41
bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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42
detritus
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| n.碎石 | |
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43
knolls
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| n.小圆丘，小土墩( knoll的名词复数 ) | |
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44
variegated
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| adj.斑驳的，杂色的 | |
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45
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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46
precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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47
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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48
watershed
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| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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49
slivers
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| （切割或断裂下来的）薄长条，碎片( sliver的名词复数 ) | |
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50
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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51
affluent
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| adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的 | |
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52
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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53
alluvial
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| adj.冲积的；淤积的 | |
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54
boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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55
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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56
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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58
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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60
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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