To the south we saw the two jebels called the Nahud [Breasts] from their shape. No Arab going westwards will drive his flocks between these hills on his way to the rainy season grazing for fear lest one of his party die. The legend is of giants- that the rocks were like those of the Clashing Rocks that Odysseus so narrowly escaped.
-Diary, March 5, 1931, C.A.E. Lea
I never asked KhairAllah if he shared that fear, that if he were to ride a camel between those two hills he might be crushed by them. We started from the town of Nahud, at the foot of its double jebel, and I didn’t have my dictionary out that first day. If I’d had, no doubt we’d have had something more to laugh about, other than when the two young he-camels got frisky and Hamid said to me, ‘Ayzeen yaneeq- the second verb in that compound phrase, They want to f…, which I didn’t know and asked him to explain its meaning. I wonder how many more words the drovers thought I’d need to be taught.