ridiculous matchlocks, assembled and managed to get up a squabble
about the right of leading strangers into "our country"
(Bilad-na). The doughty Rajih ibn 'Ayid, who, mounted upon a mean
dromedary, affected to be chief guide, seemed to treat their
pretensions as a serious matter, when we laughed them to scorn.
He and all the other experts gave us wholly discouraging details
concerning a ruin represented to lie, some hours off, in the
nearest of the southern Harrah. According to them, the Kasr
el-Bint ("Maiden's Palace") was in the same condition as
El-Haura; showing only a single pillar, perhaps the "columns" to
which Wellsted alludes. We could learn nothing concerning the
young person whose vague name it bears; except that she preferred
settling on the mainland, whereas her brother built a
corresponding castle upon the islet Jebel Hassani.[EN#51] He is
locally called Warakat ibn Naufal, a venerated name in the
Fatrah, or "interval," between Jesus and Mohammed; he was the
uncle of Khadijah the widow, and he is popularly supposed to have
been a Christian. Here, as at other places, I inquired, at the
suggestion of a friend, but of course in vain, about the human
skeleton which Ibn Mujawar, some six centuries ago, found
embedded in a rock near the sea-shore.

Such is the present condition of the once famous emporium Leuke
Kome. We returned along the shore to embark; and, shortly after
noon, the old corvette of Crimean date again swung round on her
heel, and resumed her wanderings, this time northwards. The run
of eighteen hours and fifteen minutes was semicircular, but the
sea had subsided to a dead calm. The return to El-Wijh felt like
being restored to civilization; we actually had a salad of radish
leaves--delicious!