But Martyn had not slept or eaten. He could
hardly sit upright on his pony. Yet he set out and travelled on
through the night.
Next morning he had a little shelter of leaves and branches made, and
an Arab poured water on the leaves and on Martyn all day to try to
keep some of the frightful heat from him. But even then the heat
almost slew him. So they marched on through another night and then
camped under a grove of date palms.
"I threw myself on the burning ground and slept," Martyn wrote. "When
the tent came up I awoke in a burning fever. All day I had recourse to
the wet towel, which kept me alive, but would allow of no sleep."
At nine that night they struck camp. The ground threw up the heat that
it had taken from the sun during the day. So frightfully hot was the
air that even at midnight Martyn could not travel without a wet towel
round his face and neck.
As the night drew on the plain grew rougher: then it began to rise
to the foothills and mountains. At last the pony and mules were
clambering up rough steep paths so wild that there was (as Martyn
said) "nothing to mark the road but the rocks being a little more
worn in one place than in another." Suddenly in the darkness the pony
stopped; dimly through the gloom Martyn could see that they were on
the edge of a tremendous precipice.
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