i88i] A JOURNEY IN THE HEjAZ 529 



road, and followed it in the direction of Mecca, till we 

 were close to the mosque and shrine of Meymoon, and 

 not very far from the pillars that mark the border of the 

 Haram or sacred land. In passing along this road we 

 attained a lofty point, from which there was an excellent 

 view of the Mountain of Light and the neighbouring 

 range, but I think that Al Mas had planned our hours 

 so that we should not come too near the Holy Land by 

 full daylight, and the white cupola of Al Meymoon was 

 only just discernible in the thickening twilight. Just as 

 it opened before us on a turn of the road we struck off 

 to the left and ascended a very bare but striking mountain 

 glen, enclosed in walls of granite and floored with a beauti 

 ful white gravel. This was Wady Jir ana, a path which 

 none of our party had travelled before, and which would 

 not have been our road had a Christian been allowed to 

 set foot within the boundaries of the Haram. It soon 

 appeared that Al Mas was not sure of his way, and an 

 hour and a half after sunset we came to a halt, and pre 

 pared our bivouac under the shelter of a rock. 



V. SOLA ZEIMA AND THE BEHEITA 



We had a very pleasant bivouac in Wady Jir ana under 

 the bright moonlight. Having eaten a tremendous meal 

 three hours before, my men had no supper to prepare, 

 so we drank innumerable cups of coffee and enjoyed a 

 long chat round the fire. Al Mas, as usual, was full of 

 superstitions, and showed me Bedouin methods of divina 

 tion. One of these is used to decide whether or not a 

 tribe shall ride out on a foray. A circle is drawn in the 

 sand with an arbitrary number of rays, which must not 

 be counted, diverging from its circumference. The first 

 and second rays are then joined by a cross stroke, so are 

 the third and fourth, and so on. If there is an odd number 

 of rays, one, of course, remains unconnected, and is held 

 to symbolise an open road for war. If all the rays are 



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