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We persisted and found the path almost as smooth as a main road. The object was to halt for the night at a neighbouring water-hole in the rocks; and, when their trick failed, the Baliyy with a naive infantine candour, talked and laughed over their failure, sans vergogne and within earshot. After the usual ante-meridian halt, we pushed on down the valley, meeting only a few donkey-drivers.
The owners of the land are not Juhaynah, the "Wild Men" with whom the Rais of the Golden Wire had threatened us in 1853. The country belongs to the Baliyy; now an inoffensive tribe well subject to Egypt, mixed with a few Kura'an-Huwaytat and Karaizah-Hutaym.
The Baliyy modestly rate their numbers at four thousand muskets, by which understand four hundred. Yet they divide themselves into a multitude of clans; our companion, the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah, can enumerate them by the score; and I wrote down the twenty-three principal, which are common both to South Midian and to Egypt.
It is now at Tor; and, as has been said, it forms a standing menace, not only to the Nile Valley, but to the whole of Europe. Whilst abounding in wood, the Southern Country is not so well watered as are Central and Northern Midian On the other hand, the tenants, confined to the Baliyy tribe, with a few scatters of the despised Hutaym, are milder and more tractable than the Huwaytat.
The escort redeemed many a past lache, by showing that their weapons had been kept bright and clean, and by firing neatly enough. The Baliyy, who had never seen a breech-loader, were delighted; but one of our party so disliked the smell of powder, that he almost quarrelled with me for bringing him into such imminent deadly risk.
Seeing that we rode on, the Baliyy declared that they had searched for the two principal pools, and that both were dry, or rather had been buried by the Bedawin. But, with characteristic futility, they had allowed me to overhear their conversation; and the word was passed to the soldiers, who at once filled themselves and their water-skins. Hitherto we had been marching south of east.
Umm el-Karayat, "the Mother of the Villages," derives her title, according to the Baliyy, from the numerous offspring of minor settlements scattered around her. We shall pass several on the next day's march, and I am justified in setting down the number at a dozen. The remains of the daughter are those of the "mother."
The Baliyy evidently like the prospect of some L6 per diem; and do not like the idea of approaching the frontier, where their camels may be stolen. We ought not to move without seeing the "Nazarenes' Ruin" at El-'Arayfat. Again, I had sent a certain Salim, a cousin of the Shaykh, with orders for fresh supplies from El-Wijh: he was certain to miss us if we marched.
Many centuries ago, some say before the Apostle, the Baliyy held the land, which was a valley of gardens, a foretaste of Irem; the people were happy as the martyrs of Paradise, and the date-trees numbered two thousand. The grove then belonged to a certain Ibn Mukarrib, who dwelt in it with his son and a slave, not caring to maintain a large guard of Arabs.
He was driving off the booty, when its master sallied out to recover the stolen goods by force and by arms. Both bared their blades and exchanged cuts, when the Baliyy found that his old flamberge was too blunt to do damage. Consequently he had the worse of the affair; a slicing of the right hand forced him to drop his "silly sword."
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