Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

134 Bedotiin Tribes of the Euphrates, [ch. xxi.
us this story of them :—There was a
great warrior
who, from his skill with the spear, ruimnh, was
called Rummakh. He lived on this hill and kept
a wife on the opposite hill, and another on a third
still farther on.
The name of the first was Kokhle,
because she blackened her eyes with kohl ; but the
name of the second was Ada. Ada was the favourite
wife, and I quite expected the story to have gone
on to
say that one day, vexed with their perpetual
quarrelling, Rummakh had run them both
the body with his spear, when the
through
Roala stupidly
stopped, and said they had forgotten the rest
of it.
AVe have made a brisk march all day, doing quite
three and a half miles in the hour, and beguiled by
the assurances of the Koala that their friends were
close at hand. About two o'clock Wilfrid fonnd a
small hole in the limestone rock, holdinsr a few
bucketsfull of rain-water, which we gave to our
mares, and then we came suddenly on some people
filling their goatskins from a larger hole of the same
sort a mile farther on. We have been eight hours
on the march, and must have got
over thirty miles
of ground ; and now, although the Roala are really
close by, we have stopped just short of them in a
beautiful wady full of grass, sending on Ghanim
and the two men on the deliil to announce our
arrival at Ibn Shaalan's tent. Mr. S. recommends
this on the score of our dignity, and I am glad of
it for the mares' and camels' sake, who are now sure