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High over and beyond the monarch of the Shafah Mountains, Jebel Sahharah, whose blue poll shows far out at sea, ran the red levels of the Hisma, backed at a greater elevation by the black-blue Harrah. The whole Tihamah range, now so familiar to us, assumed a novel expression.
I had also hoped to find a virgin region lying beyond El-Harrah, the volcanic tract subtending the east of the Hisma, or plateau of New Red Sandstone. We ascertained, by inquiry, that the former has an extent wholly unsuspected by Dr. Wallin and by the first Expedition; and that a careful examination of it is highly desirable.
But we were stopped upon the very threshold of the Hisma by the Ma'azah, a tribe of brigands which must be subjected to discipline before the province of Madyan can be restored to its former status. This northern portion had been visited by Dr. Wallin; the other two-thirds of the march lay, I believe, over untrodden ground.
Clarke, represented L147 6s. 6d., not including the L40 of which we were plundered by the bandit Ma'azah. The ascent of the Sharr also cost L40, making a grand total of L187 6s. 6d. The march to the Hisma gave us a fair idea of the three main formations of Madyan, which lie parallel and east of one another: 1.
Beyond the broken eastern ground, the ruddy Hisma and the gloomy Harrah form the fitting horizon. After this much for geography, we may view the monarch of Midianite mountains in the beauty and the majesty of his picturesque form. Seen from El-Muwaylah, he is equally magnificent in the flush of morning, in the still of noon, and in the evening glow.
The head is black, as in the C. melanocephala of Abyssinia, and the legs and feet are red like the smaller "Greek" caccabis that inhabits the Hisma; the male birds have no spurs, and they are but little larger than their mates. There seems to be no difficulty in keeping them; we bought a hen and chicks caged at El-Wijh, but whether they lived or not I neglected to note.
This projection will remain in sight until we reach Shuwak; and in places we shall see it backed by the basalts and lavas of the straightlined Harrah. Like yesterday's, the loose red sand is Hisma; and it is also scattered with Harrah lava. After a four hours' ride we halted to enable the caravan to come up.
After an hour's sharp riding we reached its head, a fair round plain some two miles across, and rimmed with hills of red, green, and black plutonics, the latter much resembling coal. It was a replica of the Sadr-basin below the Hisma, even to the Khuraytah or "Pass" at the northern end. Here, however, the Col is a mere bogus; that is, no raised plateau lies beyond it.
We advanced another five miles, and crossed to the southern side of the actual torrent-bed, whose banks, strewed with a quantity of dead flood-wood entangling the trees, and whose flaky clays, cracked to the shape of slabs and often curling into tubes of natural pottery, show that at times the Hisma must discharge furious torrents.
I was anxious to collect specimens of botany and natural history from an altitude hitherto unreached by any traveller in Western Arabia; and, lastly, there was geography as well as mineralogy to be done. We had been convinced that the lesser is the true measure, by our view from the Hisma plateau, 3800 feet above sea-level.
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