Wady El Sheikh, Where It Appears Broadest, And Near The Place Where I
Had Entered It, In Coming From Suez, E.N.E.
Sheikh Abou Taleb, the tomb of a saint mentioned above, E. 1/2 S.
Nakb el Raha, from whence the road from the convent to Feiran begins to
descend from the upper Sinai, E.S.E.
Mount St. Catherine, S.E. 1/2 E.
Om Shomar, S.S.E.
Daghade, [Arabic], a fertile valley in the mountains, issuing into the
plain of Kaa, S.W.
The direction of Deir Sigillye was pointed out to me S. b. E. or S.S.E.
This is a ruined convent on the S.E. side of Serbal, near the road which
leads up to the summit of the mountain. It is said to be well built and
spacious, and there is a copious well near it. It is four or five hours
distant by the shortest road from Feiran, and lies in a very rocky
district, at present uninhabited even by Bedouins.
I found great difficulty in descending. If I had had a plentiful supply
of water, and any of us had known the road, we should have gone down by
the steps; but our water was nearly exhausted, and in this hot season,
even the hardy Bedouin is afraid to trust to the chance only of finding
a path or a spring. I was therefore obliged to return by the same way
which I had ascended
WADY ALEYAT
[p.611] and by crawling, rather than walking, we reached the lower
platform of Serbal just about noon, and reposed under the shade of a
rock. Here we finished our stock of milk and of water; and Hamd, who
remembered to have heard once that a well was in this neighbourhood,
went in search of it, but returned after an hour’s absence, with the
empty skin. I was afterwards informed, that in a cleft of the rock, not
far from the stone tank, which I have already mentioned, there is a
small source which never dries up. We had yet a long journey to make,
Hamd, therefore, volunteered to set out before me, to fill the skin in
the valley below, and to meet me with it at the foot of the cleft; by
which we had entered the mountain. He departed, leaping down the
mountain like a Gazelle, and after prolonging my siesta I leisurely
followed him, with the other Arab. When we arrived, at the end of two
hours and a half, at the point agreed upon, we found Hamd waiting for us
with the water, which he had brought from a well at least five miles
distant. A slight shower of rain which had fallen, instead of cooling
the air appeared only to have made it hotter.
Instead of pursuing, from our second halting-place, the road by which we
had ascended in the morning from Ain Rymm, we took a more western
direction, to the left of the former, and reached by a less rapid
descent, the Wady Aleyat [Arabic], which leads to the lower parts of
Wady Feiran.
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