Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX. "They went till they came to tho Delectable Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken." PlLGBIIt'S PliOGHESS. Jobba--An unpleasant dream--We hear strange tales of Ibn Bashid-- Romping in the Nefud--A last night there--The Zodiacal light--We enter Nejd--The granite range of Jebel Shammar. Jobea is one of the most curious places in the world, and to my mind one of the most beautiful. Its name Jobba, or rather Jubbeh, meaning a well, explains its position, for it lies in a hole or well in the Nefud; not indeed in a fulj, for the basin of Jobba is on quite another scale, and has nothing in common with the horse-hoof depressions I have hitherto described. It is, all the same, extremely singular, and quite as difficult to account for geologically as the fuljes. It is a great bare space in the ocean of sand, from four hundred to five hundred feet below its average level, and about three miles wide; a hollow, in fact, not unlike that of J6f, but with the Nefud round it instead of sandstone cliffs. That it has once been a lake is pretty evident, for there are distinct water marks on the rocks which crop up out of its bed just above the town; and, strange to say, there is a tradition still extant of there having formerly been water there. The wonder is how this space is kept clear of sand. What force is it that walls out the Nefud and prevents encroachment? As you look across the subbkha or dry bed of the lake, the Nefud seems like a wall of water which must overwhelm it, and yet no sand shifts down into the hollow, and its limits are accurately maintained. The town itself (or village, for it has only eighty houses) is built on the edge of the subbkha, 2860 feet above the sea, and has the..."
