At Its Eastern Extremity It Is Called El Birka [Arabic]. It Borders To The North On The Chain Of El Tyh, Which Stretches In A Regular Line Eastwards, Parallel With The Zebeir, Beginning At Sarbout El Djeinel.

On reaching, in its eastern course, the somewhat higher mountain called El Odjme [Arabic], it separates into two; one

Of its branches turns off in a right angle northward, and after continuing for about fifteen miles in that direction, again turns to the east, and extends parallel with the second and southern branch all across the peninsula, towards the eastern gulf. The northern branch, which is called El Dhelel [Arabic], bounds the view from Mount St. Catherine. On turning to the east, I found that the mountains in this direction, beyond the high district of Sinai, run in a lower range towards the Wady Sal, and that the slope of the upper mountains is much less abrupt than on the opposite side. From Sal, east and north-east, the chains intersect each other in many irregular masses

[p.575] of inferior height, till they reach the gulf of Akaba, which I clearly distinguished when the sun was just rising over the mountains of the Arabian coast. Excepting the short extent from Noweyba to Dahab, the mountains bordering on the gulf are all of secondary height, but they rise to a considerable elevation between those two points. The country between Sherm, Nabk, and the convent, is occupied also by mountains of minor size, and the valleys, generally, are so narrow, that few of them can be distinguished from the point where I stood, the whole country, in that direction, appearing an uninterrupted wilderness of barren mountains. The highest points on that side appear to be above Wady Kyd, above the valley of Naszeb, and principally the peaks called Om Kheysyn [Arabic] and Masaoud [Arabic].

The view to the south was bounded by the high mountain of Om Shomar [Arabic], which forms a nucleus of itself, apparently unconnected with the upper Sinai, although bordering close upon it. To the right of this mountain I could distinguish the sea, in the neighbourhood of Tor, near which begins a low calcareous chain of mountains, called Djebel Hemam (i.e. death), not Hamam (or bath), extending along the gulf of Suez, and separated from the upper Sinai by a broad gravelly plain called El Kaa [Arabic], across which the road from Tor to Suez passes. This plain terminates to the W.N.W. of Mount St. Catherine, and nearly in the direction of Djebel Serbal. Towards the Kaa, the central Sinai mountains are very abrupt, and leave no secondary intermediate chain between them and the plain at their feet. The mountain of Serbal, which I afterwards visited, is separated from the upper Sinai by some valleys, especially Wady Hebran, and it forms, with several neighbouring mountains, a separate cluster terminating in peaks, the highest of which appears to be as high as Mount St. Catherine. It borders on the Wady Feiran and the chain of Zebeir.

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