best tinder, is a tree, not a shrub; and there are large natural
plantations of the saffron-flowered, tobacco-like Verbascum, the
Arab's Uzn el-Humar ("Donkey's Ear"). Add scattered clusters of
date-trees, domineering over clumps of fan-palm; and, lastly,
marvellous to relate, a few hundred feet of greensward, of
regular turf--a luxury not expected in North-Western Arabia--a
paradise for frogs and toads (Bufo vulgaris), grasshoppers, and
white pigeons; and you will sympathize with our enjoyment at the
'Ayn el-Kurr. In such a place extensive ruins of the "Old Ones"
were to be expected. Apparently there is no trace of man beyond
Wasm on the rocks; a few old Bedawi graves in a dwarf Wady
inflowing from the west; a rude modern watercourse close above
its mouth, and Arab fences round the trimmed dates and newly set
palm shoots.

During the afternoon the Shaykhs came to us with very long faces.
At this season, and as long as the Baliyy are in the Shafah
uplands, the almost deserted frontier districts, which we are
about to enter, suffer from the Gaum, or razzia, of the
neighbouring 'Anezah and the Juhaynah;--the two tribes, however,
not mixing. The bandits, numbering, they say, from fifty to
sixty, mounted on horses and dromedaries, only aspire to plunder
some poor devil-shepherd of a few camels, goats, and muttons.
They never attack in rear; they always sleep at night, save when
every moment is precious for "loot"-driving; and their weapons,
which may be deadly in the narrows, are despicable in the open
country.

I suspected at first that this was another "dodge" to enhance the
services of our Arabs, but the amount of risk we were to run was