Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

APPENDIX. 403
diately outside tlie northern gate of the town,
begin the vast barren deserts, where there is
no water (tertiary Hmestone and chalk
formation),
which lie to the south of the district
of Wohabi, and where constant and lasting
simooms come, transforming the passing
traveller into a kind of mummy, and leaving
him half-conscious, and in many cases lifeless,
and dries up the entire system. Tayf is
reckoned to be twelve or fourteen days' journey
from the northern end of the desert, i. e. to the
beginning of the district of Nedsch.
There are
but few oases in the midst of this vast barren
tract. Immediately beyond the southern gate
of the city of Tayf begin the cultivated land,
high mountains, and rich grass valleys, resembling
in many respects some of the districts
of Abyssinia ; and from one to one and a half
day's journey farther south, are the mountains
(10,000 feet high) of Gurnads, the highest
peak of which is sometimes covered with snow
and hail, the valleys being perpetually green.
The powerful tribe of Beni Sephian carries on
farming to a large extent.
frontier of Asiatic Arabians.
This is the northern
I did not find any
actual slaves there : but in the inner uninhabited
valley of Gurnads, half desert, half steppe, I
again found some of the same small nomad
tribe of Ethiopian extraction, which I had seen