Page 85 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

66 SHERM TO SINAI. [CH.

were related to me of females who had
wholly devoted themselves to the charge of
the sick person; in which case they share
their quarantine together. Thus trusting
their recovery to nature, it will readily be
imagined that, of the number attacked, but
a very few recover; but in the Desert the

&• air is pure, and the intercourse much less
general than in towns; so that this, or any
other contagion, extends but a short dis­
::: tance from them. The direction of the valley

through which we now advanced was north­
west. A winter torrent but a few weeks be­
fore had swept through it: trees torn from
their roots and deposited against hillocks of
sand, or other impediments which had ob­
structed their career, and the wasted, shat­
tered appearance of the banks on either hand,
afforded abundant proofs of the fury of its
£
y course. In the crevices of the rocks which
£
I
bound this valley there is a great variety of
1 flowers now in full bloom, which yielded a
->
delicious fragrance as we passed along.
% Several camels had been left without attend­
I ants to browse on them: and they are at this
£■
period so succulent, that those invaluable

i