SOIL. 357 



element copiously poured over them ; during forty days their 

 sole food must be oil, honey, and bread baked without salt, 

 and their drink water with dates steeped in it. 



Soil. — Arabia presents great diversities of soil. In the 

 highlands of Yemen its general character is clay mixed with 

 sand ; but the conformation of those schistous hills is unfa- 

 vourable to the growth of plants. They are usually so craggy 

 and precipitous as to afford neither room nor aliment for vege- 

 table productions ; the nutritive earth being continually 

 washed down by the rains. This circumstance has also had 

 the effect of rendering culture in these districts extremely 

 difficult and expensive ; water must be supplied either from 

 wells, or by terraces constructed along the sides of the 

 mountains. The barren sands of Hejaz resemble pulverized 

 quartz ; the calcareous stone from the hills is decomposed 

 into a blackish earth, which in time becomes fit to bear coarse 

 vegetables. The cultivable soil around Medina is clay, 

 mixed with a good deal of chalk and sand, and is of a grayish 

 white colour. In other parts it consists of a yellow loam, 

 and also of a substance resembling bole-earth ; of the latter, 

 small conical pieces about one and a half inches long, dried 

 in the sun and suspended on a piece of riband, are sold to 

 the pilgrims, who carry them home in commemoration of a 

 miracle said to have been performed by Mohammed, who 

 cured several Bedouins of a fever by washing their bodies 

 with water in which this earth had been dissolved. The 

 plain of Tehama contains large strata of salt. Lord Valen- 

 tia states, that in digging a well at Mocha Mr. Pringle found 

 the first eight feet to he the rubbish of buildings, — the next 

 two of clay, — one of sea-mud and wreck, — six of broken 

 madrepores, and eleven of sand and shells ; thus showing 

 that, to the depth of twenty-eight feet, the earth was entirely 

 composed of marine exuviae, with the exception of clay. 

 Near the surface the water was highly mephitic ; lower down 

 it became less brackish, and yielded only one per cent, of 

 salt. The wadis are generally formed of alluvial depositions ; 

 and are in consequence the most rich and beautiful spots in 

 the peninsula. 



The extreme variety of soils admits of a corresponding 

 diversity in the modes of cultivation, as well as in the kind 

 and quantity of the crops produced. In the greater part of 

 Arabia agriculture may be said to be entirely unknown. In 



