92 
[No. 1, 
C. J. Lyall— The Mo'allaqali of Lehid, with the 
v. 18. “Aja’ and Selma”: in the original el-jebeldn , “the two mountains:” 
the two well known ranges, now called collectively Jebel Shaumar, and formerly famous 
as the country of Teyyi’. They are now inhabited, according to Palgrave (I. 118), by 
a mixed race, sprung from the union of Teyyi’ with ‘Abs, Teghlib and Hawazin, called 
the Benu Shaumar (or acc. to Wetzstein, Z. D. M. G. XXII, p. 99, Shammar). 
el-Mohajjar is given as the name of several places in the Marasid : here it probably 
means a hill of the range of Teyyi’ which is girt (hojjira) by a stretch of sand. Fardeh 
is also the name of several places : here it appears to be an isolated hill in Teyyi’, called 
in the Marasid Fardet-esh-Shumus. er-Rukham (Rukham without the article in the 
Marasid), a place in Teyyi’. 
v. 19. Suwa’iq (in Marasid, es-Suwa’iq), a tract in el-Yemen. Of Tilkham the 
Marasid only knows that it is mentioned here, and Wihaf el-Q,ahr (“ Black rocks of 
violence”) is not mentioned at all. 
v. 23. Camels frequently have their soft feet protected by a leather shoe, which 
is tied by a strap round the pastern. 
v. 26. “Her rebellion and her desire.” The meaning seems to be that the 
he-ass’s jealousy is roused by the rebellion of the female before her pregnancy and her 
desire thereafter, which makes him suspect that she may not be with foal by him. 
v. 27. eth-Thelebut, a ivddi between Teyyi’ and rBubyan, South-East of the 
range of Selma. “ The guidestones” : drum, plural of irem, stones or cairns set up to 
mark the way in the desert. 
v. 28. “The six months of winter:” Jumdda sittetan. According to ez- 
Zauzeni, Jumdda is here put for esh-Shita , winter, as in the verse of the Hamaseh— 
“Id a night of Jumdda , the season of cold and rain, 
when the camp-dog cannot see the tent-ropes for the darkness thereof.” 
Others say that he divides the year into two halves of six months each, and that 
Jumada is taken in its ordinary meaning, the name of a month, as the last month with 
which the Winter season ends ; there are two Jumadas, the first and the second, respect¬ 
ively the fifth and sixth months of the Arabian year : the second would be meant here. 
The verse means that during the cool season of dews and rain the two wild asses had 
satisfied themselves with the grass of the pasture, and had had no need of water, from 
which they had abstained all this time : then the Summer set in, and the pasture wither¬ 
ed, so that they had to resort to the water in the deep valleys. 
v. 29. The literal version of this couplet is— 
“ The two returned with their affair to a strongly set (purpose) 
firmly determined: and success in plans is the fixing of them firm.” 
I have added in my translation what is understood,—that their purpose was to seek 
for water. 
v. 32. ‘ Arfaj , a shrub much used for fuel: its botanical name is not given by 
Lane, nor does it occur in Forskal. 
v. 36. “Who has lost her calf:” mesbu l ah, more fully “whose calf has been 
torn and slain by beasts of prey ( sabo ‘).” 
v. 37. “ Flat-nosed :” more accurately “ camoys-nosed,” Jchansd, an epithet re¬ 
served for kine and deer. “ The sand-meadows” : esh-Shaqa iq, , plural of Shaqiqah , an in¬ 
tervening space or tract between two elongated tracts of sand, producing good herbage. 
v. 38. “Youngling just weaned:” so I have rendered mo'affar , following the 
commentary, which explains that it means “ cast down in the dust” (‘afar), and is 
applied to the young of an animal which is suckled by its dam and then left for a day 
or two to find its own food, so as to wean it gradually. The mother tumbles over the 
