Richard Francis Burton

“ For months the Jebel Shárr, the grand block which backs El–Muwaylah, had haunted us, starting up unexpectedly in all directions, with its towering heads, that shifted shape and colour from every angle, and with each successive change of weather. We could hardly leave unexplored the classical “Hippos Mons,” the Moslem’s El–Ishárah (“the Landmark”) , and the Bullock’s Horns of the prosaic British tar.174 The few vacant days before the arrival of the Sinnár offered an excellent opportunity for studying the Alpine ranges of maritime Midian. ”

“ After two hours and thirty minutes (= seven miles) we sighted the head of the Wady Surr proper, whose influents drain the southern Khurayatah or Hismá Pass. Here the amount of green surface, and the number of birds, especially the blue-rock and the insect-impaling “butcher,” whose nests were in the thin forest of thorn-trees, argue that water is not far off. The Ras Wady Surr is a charming halting-place.
Our Arabs worked hard to gain another day. The only tolerable Pass rounding the southern Shárr was, they declared, the Wady Aújar, an influent of the Wady Zahakán, near Zibá. ”

“ Kusayb, towered above our heads. Thorn-trees are abundant; fan-palm bush grows in patches; and we came upon what looked like a flowing stream ruffled by the morning breeze: the guides declared that it is a rain-pool, dry as a bone in summer. Presently the rocky bed made a sharp turn; and its “Gate,” opened upon another widening, the meeting place of four Wadys, the northern being the Wady Zibayyib that drains ruddy Abá‘l-bárid.
After a short halt to examine the rude ruins reported by Mr. Clarke,179 we resumed the ascent of the Surr, whose left bank still defines the eastern edge of the Shárr. ”

“ The colours of the pale rock-skeleton are so faint that there is nothing to interfere with the perfect development of atmospheric effects: it is a white sheet spread to catch the grand illumination, lambent lights of saffron and peach-blossom and shades of purple and hyacinth. ”

“ Both the climate and the vegetation of Midian must have changed immensely if these huge features, many of them five miles broad, were ever full of water. In modern days, after the heaviest rains, a thin thread meanders down a wilderness of bed.
The Wady-formation shows great regularity. Near the mouth its loose sands are comfortable to camels and distressing to man and mule. The gravel of the higher section is good riding; the upper part is often made impassable by large stones and overfalls of rock ”

“ The roads of this region, and indeed of all Midian, are those of Iceland without her bogs and snows: for riding considerations we may divide them into four kinds:—
1. Wady—the Fiumara or Nullah; called by travellers “winter-brook” and “dry river-bed.” It is a channel without water, formed, probably, by secular cooling and contraction of the earth’s surface, like the fissures which became true streams in the tropics, and in the higher temperate zones. ”

“ South of it rises a tempting Col, with a slope apparently easy, separating a dull mass of granite on the right from the peculiar formation to the left. The latter is a dome of smooth, polished, and slippery grey granite, evidently unpleasant climbing; and from its landward slope rise abrupt, as if hand-built, two isolated gigantic “Pins,” which can hardly measure less than four hundred feet in stature. They are the remains of a sharp granitic comb whose apex was once the “Parrot’s Beak.” The mass, formerly mammilated, has been broken and denticulated by the destruction of softer strata. ”

“ To be benighted amongst these cruel mountains must be no joke; nor would it have been possible to send up a tent or even mouth-munition. However, before the sun had reached the west, they came back triumphant with the spoils of war. ”

“ Early on March 16th we attacked the Shárr in a general direction from north to south, where the ascent looked easy enough. On the left bank a porphyritic block, up whose side a mule can be ridden, is disposed in a slope of the palest and most languid of greens, broken by piles of black rock so regular as to appear artificial. ”

“ Wa’r—the broken stony surface, over which camels either cannot travel, or travel with difficulty: it is the horror of the Bedawi; and, when he uses the word, it usually means that it causes man to dismount. It may be of two kinds; either the Majrá proper (“divide”) or the Nakb (“pass”) , and the latter may safely be left to the reader’s imagination.
The partial ascent of the mighty Shárr gave an admirable study of the mode in which the granites have been enfolded and enveloped by the later eruptions of trap. ”

“ From the beak-shaped apex the range begins to decline and fall; there is little to notice in the fourth horn, whose unimportant items, the Ras Lahyánah, the Jebel Maí‘h, and the Umm Gisr (Jisr) , end the wall. Each has its huge white Wady, striping the country in alternation with dark-brown divides, and trending coastwards in the usual network.
The material of the four crests is the normal grey granite, enormous lumps and masses rounded by degradation ”

“ I should have preferred a likely looking Nakb, south of this southern gorge, but the Bedawin, and especially Abú Khartúm, who had fed his camels and sheep upon the mountain, overruled me.
The ascent of the outlier occupied three very slow hours, spent mostly in prospecting and collecting. At nine a.m. we stood 3200 feet above sea-level (aner. 26.79) , high enough to make our tents look like bits of white macadam. What most struck us was the increased importance of the vegetation, both in quantity and quality ”

“ The ascent of the Shárr also cost £40, making a grand total of £187 6s. 6d.
The march to the Hismá gave us a fair idea of the three main formations of Madyan, which lie parallel and east of one another:—1. The sandy and stony maritime region, the foot-hills of the Gháts, granites and traps with large veins and outcrops of quartz; and Wadys lined with thick beds of conglomerate. 2. The Jibál el-Tihámah, the majestic range that bounds the seaboard inland, with its broad valleys and narrow gorges forming the only roads. 3. The Jibál el-Shafah, or interior ridge, the “lip” of North–Western Arabia ”