RAML EL MORAK.
480
vince of Sherkyeh, who was married to a girl of the Towara Arabs;
last night, being in the vicinity of the place where he knew his wife
to be, he put spurs to the ass on which he was mounted, and thinking
that he knew the road, he quitted the Wady Shebeyke two hours
before we did, and without any provision of water. He missed his
wayon the sandy plain of Debbe, and instead of reaching the spring
of Naszeb, where he intended to allay his thirst, he rode the whole
of this morning and afternoon about the mountain in different directions, ¬
in fruitless search after the shady and conspicuous rock
of Naszeb. Towards the evening we met him, so much exhausted
with thirst, that his eyes had become dim, and he could scarcely
recognise us; had he not fallen in with us he would probably have
perished. My companions laughed at the effeminate Egyptian, as
they called him, and his presumption in travelling alone in districts ¬
with which he was unacquainted. At the end of eight hours
and three quarters, in a general direction of E. by S. we passed
a small inlet in the northern chain, where, at a short distance
from the road, is said to be a well of tolerable water, called El
Maleha (u), or the saltish. We then ascended with difficulty
a steep mountain, composed to the top of moving sands, with
a very few rocks appearing above the surface. We reached the
summit after a day’s march of nine hours and three quarters, and
rested upon a high plain, called Raml el Morak (). From
hence we had an extensive view to the north, bounded by the chain
of mountains called El Tyh (a); this range begins near the abovementioned ¬
mountain of Sarbout el Djemel, and extends in a curve
eastwards twenty or twenty-five miles, from the termination of the
Wady Hommar. At the eastern extremity lies a high mountain -
called Djebel Odjme ), to the north of which begins
another chain, likewise running eastwards towards the gulf of
