day, made us think lightly of present troubles; it proved, however, to
be false.

During the last four days I attentively observed the general face of
the country. This line is a succession of low plains and basins, here
quasi-circular, there irregularly oblong, surrounded by rolling hills
and cut by Fiumaras which pass through the higher ground. The basins
are divided by ridges and flats of basalt and greenstone averaging from
one hundred to two hundred feet in height. The general form is a huge
prism; sometimes they are table-topped. From Al-Madinah to
Al-Suwayrkiyah the low beds of sandy Fiumaras abound. From
Al-Suwayrkiyah to Al-Zaribah, their place is taken by “Ghadir,” or hollows
in which water stagnates. And beyond Al-Zaribah the traveller enters a
region of water-courses tending West and South-West The versant is
generally from the East and South-East towards the West and North-West.
Water obtained by digging is good where rain is fresh in the Fiumaras;
saltish, so as to taste at first unnaturally sweet, in the plains; and
bitter in the basins and lowlands where nitre effloresces and rain has
had time to become tainted. The landward faces of the hills are
disposed at a sloping angle, contrasting strongly with the
perpendicularity of their seaward sides, and I found no inner range
corresponding with, and parallel to, the maritime chain. Nowhere had I
seen a land in which Earth’s anatomy lies so barren, or one richer in
volcanic and primary formations.[FN#19] Especially

[p.74] towards the South, the hills were abrupt and highly vertical,
with black and barren flanks, ribbed with furrows and fissures, with
wide and formidable precipices and castellated summits like the work of
man. The predominant formation was basalt, called the Arabs’ Hajar
Jahannam, or Hell-stone; here and there it is porous and cellular; in