i88i] A JOURNEY IN THE HEjAZ 541 



his less scrupulous companion discharged his gun and 

 grazed its shoulder. On returning to Mecca, the pre 

 sumptuous hunter was seized with disease in all his joints, 

 and died within two months obviously of rheumatism 

 fever, caught by lying out in the wet. Al Mas, however, 

 feels sure that the occurrence was supernatural, and 

 was anxious to know whether there is a specimen of a 

 Jinny preserved in any of the museums of Europe. I 

 answered him very seriously that I believed there was 

 not, and that it was not probable that beings who have 

 the power to change their form could be captured by men, 

 or that it would be prudent to attempt any such thing. 

 I then told him the story of the fisherman and the pot 

 with Solomon s seal, from the Arabian Nights, which he 

 accepted as tolerably conclusive in favour of my argument. 

 This talk brought us in about an hour -from the top of 

 Wady-ez-Zeima to a depression in the plateau, where 

 every traveller fills his skins from water -holes in the 

 torrent bed. Close by were the ruins of a small hamlet, 

 and some rocks with Cufic inscriptions. The torrent is 

 known simply as the Seil the Torrent par excellence. It 

 is the point at which pilgrims descending to Mecca don 

 the ihram, or holy attire. Beyond the torrent, which 

 is the limit of the Beheita, we diverged from the Nejd 

 road and again turned into the hills by a sandy pass 

 winding through granite walls, on which were many 

 Cufic inscriptions, praying for the mercy of God on such 

 a one, the son of such a one. Characteristically, there 

 were no dates, so that the writing was valueless. This 

 pass is naturally the roughest bit of road on the whole 

 highway to Taif ; but as it is a great route, some attempt 

 had been made to improve it by art. The steepest places 

 were paved, and at one very bad place the road was 

 partly built and partly cut by blasting through a thick 

 bed of granite and whins tone. Works of this kind are 

 not undertaken at public expense, but by private in 

 dividuals, and are reckoned acts of piety. The bene- 



