46 
S. B. Miles —On the route between 
[No. 1, 
quested Sheikh Selim to furnish us with an escort to the limits of el-Jow, 
but as he proposed to accompany me himself the first stage, I accepted his 
company with pleasure. It was not without strong remonstrances and 
pressing invitations to stay a day or two longer that we were permitted to 
make a start, but we succeeded in doing so about 3 p. M., and in presence 
of an admiring crowd of boys and Bedouins, we left el-Bereymi at a brisk 
trot by the same road that we had come ; the Bedoos shouting and singing 
and racing their camels at full speed in high spirits and evident delight at 
being on the road again, and already oblivious of the fact that half an hour 
before they had been sulky and disgusted at being told to collect the camels 
for the journey. After some miles apeak to our left, named Katar, was 
pointed out to me as having on the top the remains of a Persian settlement 
with trees, dwellings, &c., and said to have beea occupied by them after 
their repulse at el-Bereymi. We passed Khatmet el-Shikla, a+LA) a 
small village at 12 miles, and soon after observing a low reddish coloured hill 
some distance off very conspicuous among the other dark rocks, I told a 
man to bring me a specimen. Nearly the whole party started off, and re¬ 
turned with sufficient stones to fill a portmanteau. It was a red compact 
nummulitic limestone, and was the only block of the kind I noticed on the 
journey. It was just dark when we reached el-Khurus, a deep 
cleft in the rocky bed of the Wadi ’Ain, which holds a perennial supply of 
rain water. The Arabs were anxious to push on to Hail, another 15 miles 
or so in the dark, but I objected ; wood and water were sufficiently abundant, 
and we soon had a good fire under way and suppers cooking. I noticed the 
men obtained fire from a spark by rolling the tinder into a ball with dry 
Arabs grass and swinging it round until it burst into flame. The dew to-night 
was very heavy, and my blanket was drenched by morning. The elevation 
of el-Khurus is 1,630. 
20th .—Before starting I took leave of Sheikh Selim-bin-Mohammed, 
whose protection was no longer required, giving him a suitable present, and 
I may mention as an instance of the entire want of shamefacedness in the 
Arab in begging, that he came up to me quietly, after he had received his 
douceur from my factotum, to whisper a request for two dollars more. I 
insinuated he had already received what I thought was proper for him, on 
which he said, “ Well, give me one, only one more dollar, and I will be 
satisfied.” This man’s father is Chief of one of the largest tribes in ’Oman, 
and he himself a man of much influence and consideration. We reached the 
Nejd two hours after leaving el-Khurus. The ground here, which for some 
extent is comparatively level, is well wooded with acacias, rhamnus, &c., 
and green with low brushwood and grass. It is visited in the season by 
the Na’im and Ka’b Arabs for pasturing their camels and goats.' The 
mountain range we were crossing is, except in the valleys and water-courses, 
