[p.64] pleasant spot, from whence there is a fine prospect over the
lower country. A large nebek-tree, near the spring which drizzles down
the rocks, afforded me shade, and a delicious cool breeze allayed the
sultry heat which we had endured ever since our departure from Djidda.
Leaving Kora, we found the road very steep, and, although it had lately
been repaired, so bad, that a mounted traveller could hardly hope to
reach the summit without alighting. Steps had been cut in several
places, and the ascent rendered less steep, by conducting it, in many
windings, to the top: half a dozen spacious resting-places had also been
formed on the side of the mountain, where the caravans take breath,
there being no where so much as eight square feet of level ground. The
same spring, which comes from near the top, is crossed several times. I
met many of the Hodheyl Bedouins, with their families and flocks of
sheep, near the road. One of them gave me some milk, but would not take
any money in return; the sale of milk being considered by these Bedouins
as a scandal, though they might derive great profits from it at Mekka,
where one pound of milk is worth two piastres. I conversed freely with
the men, and with the wife of one of them. They seemed a race of hardy
mountaineers, and, although evidently poor, have a more robust and
fleshy appearance than the northern Bedouins, which I ascribe chiefly to
the healthiness of the climate, and the excellence of the water. The
Beni Hodheyl, famous in the ancient history of Arabia, were nominally
subject to the Sherif of Mekka, in whose territory they live; but they
were in fact quite independent, and often at war with him.