16 THE EMPTY QUARTER

clean precincts of the wells for the first prayer of our journey.
When travelling, the five prayers of the normal day are
telescoped into three. The dawn prayer is taken alone and
in full as usual, while the noon and afternoon prayers are
halved and said together—each preceded by a separate call—
and at sunset the usual prayer, said in full, is followed at once
after a separate call by the halved evening service. It is a
very simple and practical arrangement reflecting the common-
sense of the founder of Islam and his appreciation of the
difficulties inherent in a community which normally spends
a greater part of its time in travel.

We passed out of the dung-circle of the wells into the low,
firm sand-downs to the eastward, having on our right hand
about a mile away a low ridge of rock, I noted a largo pro-
portion of black pebbles in the gravel sprinkled about this
area, in which there were some scattered Harm bushes, each
with a comet-like trail of sand extending some four or five
feet to leeward—i.e., to the south-south-east, the wind during
these days having been from the diametrically opposite
quarter. About 4.30 p.m. we entered a rolling dune country
which Zayid vaguely named to me as Hamarir1 nl Thuwair*
He was obviously very much out to please, very friendly and
conversational, but his voice was half way between a bark
and a squeak and his manner too sanctimonious* and precious.
Also he had an annoying habit of trying to monopolize my
attention, butting in in an explanatory and entirely helpful
sort of way whenever I tried to get on to conversational terms
with the wary and undemonstrative JSadu of the party.
However, thought I, there was plenty of time to change all
such habits and I had no mind to go too fast for the time
being, although I did privately register the opinion that Zayid
was not up to the standard,of some guides I had known in the
past. It was, therefore, unfortunate that he appeared to be
the only guide available for the first few days,

A voice hailed us from over the rolling waves to our left,
and we were soon in camp in a tract of donea called Al
Mutrib to find that the tents had been pitchecfsncl tea made

1 Plural of Hamrur, a name applied to pink Nafud*ltit» miicta. Tho won!

Nafud does not seem to be used much in this south country,