Note 163 — Chapter XI · CAMPAIGN IN SYRIA.—BATTLE OF WACUSA ON THE YERMUK. A.H. XIII. A.D. 634.

Such is the received account of this extraordinary march, the memory of which is also preserved in contemporary verse. Ibn Ishâc speaks of twenty camels, which would have gone but a little way. Other accounts give the number of camels at so many per hundred lances, without mentioning the strength of the column. As before explained, Khâlid probably took the perilous route with only the lighter part of his force, leaving the bulky and heavy portion to follow by the ordinary road, along the Wady Sirhân, after he had cleared the Bostra approach. The lips of the camels were slit or cut off (according to other accounts bound up) to prevent their ruminating and the consequent digestion and assimilation of the water in their stomachs.