WADY HOMMAR. 
476 
corn out of a magazine belonging to a friend of the family. In the 
great eastern desert the Aeneze Bedouins are not so severe in such 
instances ; but they would punish a Bedouin who should pilfer 
any thing from his guest’s baggage. 
April 28th.—We set out before dawn, and continued for three 
quarters of an hour in the Wady, after which we ascended 
E. b. S. and came upon a high plain, surrounded by rocks, with a 
towering mountain on the N. side, called Sarbout el Djemel 
). We crossed the plain at sun rise ; and the fresh air 
of the morning was extremely agreeable. There is nothing which so 
much compensates for the miseries of travelling in the Arabian de 
serts, as the pleasure of enjoying every morning the sublime spec 
tacle of the break of day and of the rising of the sun, which is al 
ways accompanied, even in the hottest season, with a refreshing 
breeze. It was an invariable custoin with me, at setting out early 
in the morning, to walk on foot for a few hours in advance of the 
caravan ; and as enjoyments are comparative, I believe that I de 
rived from this practice greater pleasure than any which the arts 
of the most luxurious capitals can afford. At two hours and a half 
the plain terminated ; we then turned the point of the above-men 
tioned mountain, and entered the valley called Wady Hommar 
,), in which we continued E. b. N. This valley, in which 
a few acacia trees grow, has no perceptible slope on either side ; 
its rocks are all calcareous, with flint upon some of them ; by the 
road side, I observed a few scratchings of the figures of camels, 
done in the same style as those in Wady Mokatteb copied by M. 
Niebuhr and M. Seetzen, but without any inscriptions. At four 
hours we issued from this valley where the southern rocks which 
enclose it terminate, and we travelled over a wide, slightly ascend 
ing plain of deep sand, called El Debbe (àM), a name given by the 
Towara Bedouins to several other sandy districts of the same kind.