The View Up This Wady Or Inlet Of The Mountain Is Very
Curious:
At its mouth it is nearly two miles wide, and it narrows
gradually upwards with the most perfect regularity, so that the eye can
trace it for five or six miles, when it becomes so narrow as to present
only the appearance of a perpendicular black line.
At six hours and a
half we came again to a mountain forming a promontory, called Djebel
Sherafe [Arabic]. The mountains from Om Haye northward decline
considerably in height. The highest point of the chain appears to be the
summit above Noweyba, where we had descended to the shore.
Beyond Djebel Sherafe we found the road along the shore obstructed by
high cliffs, and were obliged to make a detour by entering a valley to
the west, called Wady Mezeiryk [Arabic]. We ascended through many
windings, entered several lateral valleys, and descended again to the
shore at the end of eight hours and a half, at a point not more than
half an hour distant from where we had turned out of the road. We found
the valley Mezeiryk full of excellent pasture; many sweet-scented herbs
were growing in it, and the acacia trees were all green. Upon enquiry I
learnt that to the north of Djebel Tyh copious rains had fallen during
the winter, while to the south of it there had been very little for the
last two years, and in the eastern parts none.
[p.506] In the whole way from the convent I had not met with the
smallest trace of antiquity, either inscriptions upon the rocks by the
road-side or any other labour of man, until we reached the summit of
Wady Mezeiryk, where, close to the road, is a large sand-stone rock,
which seems, for a small space, to have received an artificial surface.
Upon it I found rude drawings of camels, and of mountain and other
goats, resembling those which I had before seen, and those which I saw
afterwards in the Wady Mokatteb.
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