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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.
Landing at El-Wijh, I at once consulted our intelligent friend, the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah. He had sent for a camel-load of the stuff, which, he declared, would not burn, although it had burned his money. The mountain is tall and black, apparently consisting of the "coal."
He then led us about the neighbourhood, and ended with inviting the Sayyid, Furayj, and the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah to a copious feast. The fort is the usual square, straight-curtained work of solid masonry, with a circular bastion at each angle, and a huge arched main-entrance in the western facade.
Meanwhile I steamed southwards, accompanied by the rest of the party, including the Sayyid, Shaykh Furayj, and the ex-Wakil, Mohammed Shahadah, who is trusted by the Bedawin, and who brought with him a guide of the Fawa'idah-Juhaynah, one Rajih ibn 'Ayid.
His brothers, Bedawi and Ali Shahadah, are also open-handed to the poor; very unlike their brother-in-law Surur Selamah, formerly a slave to the father of Mohammed Selamah whom we had met at Ziba. The list of notables ends with the Sayyid Ibrahim El-Mara'i and with the sturdy Abd el-Hakk, pearl and general merchant.
The camels varied from fifty-eight to sixty-four, when specimens were forwarded to the harbour-town. The expenditure amounted toL92 13s., including pay and "bakhshish" to the Baliyy Shaykhs, but not including our friends the Sayyid, Furayj, and the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah.
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