thalweg; and the honeycombed ground, always above the line of
highest water, the homes of the ant, beetle, jerboa, lizard, and
(Girdi) rat, will throw even the cautious camel.

2. Ghadir--the basin where rain-water sinks. It is mostly a
shining bald flat of hard yellow clay, as admirable in dry as it
is detestable in wet weather.

3. Majra--here pronounced "Maghrah"[EN#29]--the divide;
literally, the place of flowing. It is the best ground of all,
especially where the yellow or brown sands are overlaid by hard
gravel, or by a natural metalling of trap and other stones.

4. Wa'r--the broken stony surface, over which camels either
cannot travel, or travel with difficulty: it is the horror of the
Bedawi; and, when he uses the word, it usually means that it
causes man to dismount. It may be of two kinds; either the Majra
proper ("divide") or the Nakb ("pass"), and the latter may safely
be left to the reader's imagination.

The partial ascent of the mighty Sharr gave an admirable study of
the mode in which the granites have been enfolded and enveloped
by the later eruptions of trap. Nor less curious, also, was it to
remark how, upon this Arabian Alp, vegetation became more
important; increasing, contrary to the general rule, not only in
quantity but in size, and changing from the date and the Daum to
the strong smelling Ferula, the homely hawthorn, and the tall and
balmy juniper-tree. There is game, ibex and leopard, in these
mountains; but the traveller, unless a man of leisure, must not
expect to shoot or even to sight it.