SOUTHERN JAFURA 81

reliance on the many tales of them told by professing eye-
witnesses ; but Salih came to the rescue with assurances
that he himself had seen them in those far-off sands around
his wonderful home, where there are according to him pre-
historic ruins in which I might still see, if I cared to visit the
scene under his guidance, the guns used in the days of the
' Ignorance ' ! Doubtless he may have seen pieces of artillery
dating back to Portuguese times, but I was beginning to
realise that he preferred colour to truth and I reserved judg-
ment on the ' walking stones ' until they could be produced
to perform in my presence. The only specimens of such I had
myself seen hitherto were two bits of basaltic scoria from the
volcanic tract of Harrat al Kishb in western Najd, but these
had been duly examined by the authorities of the British
Museum and divested of all reasonable claim to the magic
qualities imputed to them by the Arabs,

Abu Ja'sha, now more or less recovered from his ophthalmic
troubles, was beginning to play a prominent part in the
desultory conversations that accompanied our marching.
Among his treasured possessions was a pocket compass, .on
the strength of which he boasted something of a scientific
attitude towards life, and he was as delighted as a child one
day when, before an admiring audience, his needle was found
to point in exactly the same direction as that of my prismatic
affair. But his strong subject was sex, and he loved to poke
fun at Salih by dilating on Manasir practice in the matter of
female circumcision. Take it from me, he said, they let their
women come to puberty with clitoris intact and, when a girl
is to be married, they make a feast for her circumcision a
month or two before the wedding. It is only then that they
circumcise them and not at birth as do the other tribes—
Qahtan and Murra, Bani Hajir, ay, and 'Ajman. Thus their
women grow up more lustful than others, and fine women
they are too and that hot! But then they remove everything,
making them as smooth as smooth, to cool their ardour with-
out reducing their desire. Zayid blushed for his unblushing
frankness. Be not angry with him, he urged, it is his way and
his tongue masters him but he has a good heart. And if they
make a feast for such occasions I asked, do they perform the