Identifier: booklongtrail00newb (find matches)
Title: The book of the long trail
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Newbolt, Henry John, Sir, 1862-1938
Subjects: Explorers
Publisher: New York, London (etc.) : Longmans, Green and Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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him a Meccandromedary with a magnificent saddle covered with acrimson sheepskin and with enormous tassels hangingalmost to the ground. The boy himself walked, ashe was too proud to ride a donkey and could notget hold of a horse. He wore the same gorgeousembroidered coat that had cost Burton so dear at theprophets tomb, and he carried a pistol which he waslonging for an opportunity to use. Shaykh Hamidwas mounted on an ass more miserable even thanBurtons original mount. They left the town and passed southwards throughthe palm groves. There was a gentle breeze, rare inAl-Hijaz, and the warbling of small birds mingled withthe splash of water from the wells into the woodentroughs and the sound of the Persian water-wheels.The famous date trees were loaded with great clustersof fruit weighing upwards of eighty pounds each. Thereare said to be 139 different varieties of date. Thebest, called Al-Shelebi, is packed in skins or flat boxesand sent all over the world, but it is too expensive for
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• The boy Mohammed had procured for him a Meccan dromedarywith a magnificent saddle. 74 THE BOOK OF THE LONG TRAIL the natives. Then there is the Ajwah, which may beeaten but not sold, because the prophet declared thatwhoever broke his fast daily with six or seven of thesedates need not fear poison or magic. Another—Al-Hilwah—is so called from its remarkable sweetness.The legend runs that Mohammed once planted a stonewhich grew up in a few minutes into this tree and borefruit at once. There is also Al-Birni, the cure for allsickness, and Wahshi, which once salamed to the prophetand ever since bows down its head, and many others.The natives speak of their dates as the Irishman speaksof his potatos, and they are eaten both for food andmedicine. The most usual method is to broil themin clarified butter, a most unappetising dish to aEuropean, but when an Oriental cannot enjoy it hisstomach is considered to be out of order. The childrenwear necklaces made of the unripe fruit strung o

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