WADY GHARENDEL. 
474 
see the bitter well of Howara on the road to Gharendel. The non 
existence, at present, of twelve wells at Gharendel must not be con 
sidered as evidence against the just-stated conjecture ; for Niebuhr 
says that his companions obtained water here by digging to a very 
small depth, and there was a great plenty of it, when I passed; 
water, in fact, is readily found by digging, in every fertile valley in 
Arabia, and wells are thus easily formed, which are quickly filled 
up again by the sands. 
The Wady Gharendel contains date trees, tamarisks, acacias of 
different species, and the thorny shrub Gharkad (2), the Peganum 
retusum of Forskal, which is extremely common in this peninsula, 
and is also met with in the sands of the Delta on the coast of the 
Mediterranean. Its small red berry, of the size of a grain of the 
pomegranate, is very juicy and refreshing, much resembling a 
ripe gooseberry in taste, but not so sweet. The Arabs are very fond 
of it, and I was told that in years when the shrub produces large 
crops, they make a conserve of the berries. The Gharkad, which 
from, the colour of its fruit is also called by the Arabs Homra 
(), delights in a sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in the 
height of summer when the ground is parched up, exciting an 
agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry pro 
duced in the driest soil and season.* The bottom of the valley 
of Gharendel swarms with ticks, which are extremely distressing 
both to men and beasts, and on this account the caravans usually 
encamp on the sides of the hills which border the valley. 
Might not the berry of this shrub have been used by Moses to sweeten the waters of 
Marah? The words in Exodus, xv. 25, are : “ And the Lord shewed him a tree, which 
when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.” The Arabic transla 
tion of this passage gives a different, and, perhaps, more correct reading : “ And the 
Lord guided him to a tree, of which he threw something into the water, which then be 
came sweet.” I do not remember, to have seen any Gharkad in the neighbourhood