A Woman in Arabia by Gertrude Bell

Author:Gertrude Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-07-12T16:00:00+00:00

February 24, 1914

We are within sight of Hayyil and I might have ridden in today but I thought it better to announce my auspicious coming! So I sent in two men early this morning. Muhammad and ’Ali, and have myself camped a couple of hours outside. We had . . . a most delicious camp in the top of a mountain, Jebel Rakham. I climbed the rocks and found flowers in the crevices—not a great bounty, but in this barren land a feast to the eyes. . . . Yesterday we passed by two more villages and in one there were plum trees flowering—oh the gracious sight! And today we have come through the wild granite crags of Jebel ’Ajja and are camped in the Hayyil plain. From a little rock above my tent I have spied out the land and seen the towers and gardens of Hayyil, and Swaifly lying in the plain beyond, and all is made memorable by Arabia Deserta. I feel as if I were on a sort of pilgrimage, visiting sacred sites. And the more I see of this land the more I realize what an achievement that journey was. But isn’t it amazing that we should have walked down into Nejd with as much ease as if we had been strolling along Piccadilly!

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