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This is the accounting for one of the notable features of El Katif from the incoming of June till the caravan extended itself on the road, and finally disappeared in the yellow farness of the Desert. One could not go amiss for purveyors in general. Dealers in horses, donkeys, camels, and dromedaries abounded. The country for miles around appeared like a great stock farm.
"The favor thou hast done me, O Hadji," he said, dismounted, "is in keeping with the acts of mercy to thy fellow-men with which I hear thou hast paved the road from El Katif as with mother-of-pearl." "Speak not of them, I pray," the Wanderer answered, returning the bow he received. "Who shall refuse obedience to the law?" "I see plainly thou art a good man," the Emir said, bowing again.
That of Captain Sadler of the Indian army, claims the first rank. Sent by the Governor of Bombay in 1819, on an embassy to Ibrahim Pacha, who was then at war with the Wahabees, that officer crossed the entire peninsula from Port El Katif on the Persian Gulf to Yambo on the Red Sea.
"Yes." "And then?" "The vultures and the jackals have their rights." "True, O Emir, but listen. The caravan left El Katif three thousand strong. Three hundred and more were struck with the plague, and left to die; of those, over one hundred were brought in by the Indian. They say it was for this he preferred to march in the rear.
The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldæan exiles; and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates.
This source is called Bir Mahab, and there are several of a similar nature on the coast around: the Kaseifah spring and others. There is such a spring in the harbour of Syracuse, about twenty feet under the sea. The legend is that in the time of Merwan, a chief, Ibn Hakim, from Katif, wished to marry the lovely daughter of a Bahrein chief.
In other words, El Katif was to Mecca on the east the gate Jeddo was to it on the west.
The law required the pilgrim to be at Mecca in the month of Ramazan, the time the Prophet himself had become a pilgrim. From El Katif the direct journey might be made in sixty days, allowing an average march of twelve miles. By way of Medina, it could be made to permit the votary to be present and participate in the observances usual on the day of the Mysterious Night of Destiny.
It was carried to Katif, a place near Bahrein, right across Arabia, and they kept it a long time until the people of Mecca paid a large sum of money and carried it back. On the long journey it must have fallen from the camel because, at present, it is cracked and the broken pieces are held together by a silver band.
To give the reader an idea of the pageant advancing to possess itself of the Valley, it will be well to refresh his memory with a few details. He should remember, in the first place, that it was not merely the caravan which left El Katif over on the western shore of the Green Sea, but two great caravans merged into one El Shemi, from Damascus, and Misri, from Cairo.
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