629
WADY KHOEYFERA.
Cairo; we immediately got every thing ready, and when the caravan ¬
was opposite the castle, at about twenty minutes distance,
Hamd and I hastily joined it. What became of the officer and his
garrison, I never heard. I bought of the Bedouins of the caravan
a supply of water, sufficient to last me to Cairo.
Although the passage of this desert is less dangerous than formerly, ¬
it is impossible to protect it effectually, without establishing
a small body of horsemen or dromedaries at Adjeroud ; and it is a
discredit to the government of Egypt, that this is not done. The
well of Emshash affords a seasonable supply of water to robbers, ¬
who lay in wait in the rocky country of Montala, where one
of them stationed on the top of a hill gives notice of the approach
of any enemy or object of plunder. The castle was undoubtedly -
intended as a look-out post against the Arabs. The French
once had a garrison in it, and its walls have been repaired
by Mohammed Ali Pasha, but the interior is in a very ruinous
state, and few provisions are kept in the extensive store-houses
within it.
On proceeding to Cairo, the caravan took, for the first stage
from Adjeroud, a route somewhat to the southward of that by
which I had gone to Sinai, and joined the latter at Dar el Hamra.
Six hours and a half from Adjeroud we passed Wady Khoeyfera
o,), the bed of a torrent, with trees growing in it, a very
little below the level of the surrounding plain. Here I saw the
ruins of a small stone reservoir, and to a considerable distance
round it, ruins of walls, and several wells, some built with brick
and others with stone. They appear to have been surrounded by
a wall, which now forms a circular enclosure of mounds almost
wholly covered with sands. The existence of these ruins, which
I do not remember to have seen mentioned by any traveller, confirms -
my belief, that in the most ancient times regular stations
