542 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



f actor in the present case was not an Arab, but an Indian. 

 The pass, which bears the name of Ree ez Zelale, is about 

 two hours long, and has the reputation of a haunt of 

 robbers. It must always have been a very important 

 route, connecting the system of roads which converge 

 on the Beheita with Taif and the southern Hejaz. Its 

 eastern debouchment is the market-place of Okatz, 

 which in the times before Islam was the seat of an im 

 portant sanctuary and of the greatest fair of Central 

 Arabia. No place, therefore, could afford a fitter site for 

 a monument, and long before the period of the Cufic 

 scrawls already mentioned, a great face of brownish 

 granite near the middle of the pass, overhanging the road 

 and facing towards the north, was chosen by some ancient 

 king to record his name. The centre of the rock bears 

 the image of the king seated, with one arm akimbo, and 

 the other extended, and grasping a sceptre, in a pose 

 which at once recalls Egyptian art. The squaring of the 

 shoulders, the set of the head, the bearing of the arms and 

 body, and the dress, of which nothing is indicated except 

 a shovel-like apron, exactly resemble Egyptian drawing. 

 But the workmanship is altogether different, and of a 

 purely Arabic character. In all the sculptured stones of 

 the Hejaz the natural face of the rock is left unpolished, 

 and the hammer- work which marks out the figures merely 

 breaks the surface, producing its effect mainly by the 

 difference of colour where the stone is chipped. To ensure 

 distinctness, the stone operated on is almost always a 

 brownish red piece of granite, on which the inscription or 

 drawing stands out whitish. One cannot take a squeeze 

 of such sculpture, for the natural roughness of the granite 

 would leave a much deeper impress than the superficial 

 work of the engraver. The figure of the king is a sil 

 houette, light on a dark ground, and whether from the 

 natural imperfection of the process, or from the injuries 

 of time and of the Arabs, who take the figure for a Sheitan, 

 the outline of the face and the details of the hands and 



