You drive on, the desert getting less rocky and more sandy. You are sure that you must have long since crossed the border of British Mandate Palestine and are now pushing deep into the Emirate of Transjordan, a semiautonomous British protectorate to the east of Mandatory territory. But out here in the wild, fictions like borders and nations mean little or nothing at all.
As the sun dips inexorably toward the horizon, Mehedi suddenly perks up, pointing ahead and a little to the right. "There!" he says in a state of some excitement. "There! The Bull's Horns!"
You can see nothing, but when you put your binoculars to your eyes, your destination shimmers into view, still tiny but clear enough against the darkening desert sky: a low, almost cuboid hulk of rock with two remarkable formations on its roof that rise and curve inwards to a point. The Bull's Horns.
"We are close now," says Mehedi. "But night comes on. We will not reach it today. Early tomorrow."
Tantalizingly close yet still frustratingly far from your objective, your party comes to a halt once again and makes camp.
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