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The 8th of February, from the first dawn of day, Mocha came in sight, now a ruined town, whose walls would fall at a gunshot, yet which shelters here and there some verdant date-trees; once an important city, containing six public markets, and twenty-six mosques, and whose walls, defended by fourteen forts, formed a girdle of two miles in circumference.
Here and there were fields of barley, with some low tents in their midst; and a grove of date-trees circling a well, near which was an open space. The sheikh advanced into the centre, and the camels immediately halting, they were unloaded, and all hands set to work to erect the tents. The tribe had reached their home, after their long pilgrimage.
When people are travelling across this desert, they get very tired of looking at nothing but sand all day. Then, at last, as the sun sets, they reach an oasis where there is water and bananas and date-trees, and perhaps houses and people. Sometimes great winds blow in the desert and bring a sandstorm. Then the sand beats hard against everything.
The country round Koba, and towards the S.E. of the town, presents many spots of nearly equal beauty with Koba, which in summer are places of recreation to the people of Medina; but I believe there are no villages any where to be seen, only insulated houses, or small groupes of buildings, scattered amongst the date-trees.
At last, I grew weak and turned to flee from him, whereupon my companions and tribesmen likewise took to flight and my hosts were put to the rout, and Solomon cried out, saying, 'Take yonder furious tyrant, the accursed, the infamous! Then man fell upon man and Jinn upon Jinn and the armies of the Prophet charged down upon us, with the wild beasts and lions on their right hand and on their left, rending our horses and tearing our men; whilst the birds hovered over-head in air pecking out our eyes with their claws and beaks and beating our faces with their wings, and the serpents struck us with their fangs, till the most of our folk lay prone upon the face of the earth, like the trunks of date-trees.
The fertility of the fields and gardens is in proportion to the quality of the well-water; those irrigated with brackish water, repay badly the labour of their owners; the date-trees alone thriving equally well in any place. In that part of the suburb, called El Ambarye, we find a good arched stone bridge thrown across its banks, where it is about forty feet in breadth.
Some assert that all who visit the oases are taken ill. Probably, like Mourzuk, they lay low, in a wady or hollowed plain. Date-trees are numerous, and bear good fruit. A fair quantity of wheat and ghusub is grown. Besides sheep, and goats, and fowls, there is a few camels. The people are occupied in the gardens, but too numerous for the oases; they are very poor, and obliged to emigrate.
Several of the wells are private property, and yield to their owners a considerable income. The town of Djidda is without gardens, or vegetation of any kind except a few date-trees adjoining one of the mosques; even outside the town the whole country is a barren desert, covered
That contrast of motion and silence, that aspect of nature at once calm and animated, strikes the imagination of the traveller when he enters the basin of the Mediterranean, within the zone of olives, dwarf palms, and date-trees. We passed the night on the eastern bank of the Orinoco, at the foot of a granitic hill. Near this desert spot was formerly seated the Mission of San Regis.
To Moghayr Shayb: many wells of sweet water, date-plantations, and trees among the rocks, render this one of the most agreeable stations on the route; but it is infested by robbers. To Ayoun el Kassab, a plain ground with date-trees, and water. It belongs to the territory of Moeyleh.
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