If coming from the
upper country; the Arabs say that the spirit of Moses then descends from
Mount Sinai, and in flying across the sea bids a farewell to his beloved
mountains.
We rode from Noweyba round a bay, the southern point of which bore from
thence S. by W. In two hours and three quarters from Noweyba we doubled
the point, and rested for the night in a valley just behind it, called
Wady Djereimele [Arabic], thickly overgrown with the shrub Gharkad, the
berries of which are gathered in great abundance. Red coral is very
common on this part of the coast. In the evening I saw a great number of
shellfish leave the water, and crawl to one hundred or two hundred paces
inland, where they passed the night, and at sun-rise returned to the
sea.
During the last two days of our return from the northward I had found no
opportunity to take notes. I had never permitted my companions to see me
write, because I knew that if their suspicions were once raised, it
would at least render them much less open in their communications to me.
It has indeed been a constant
[p.518] maxim with me never to write before Arabs on the road; at least
I have departed from it in a very few instances only, in Syria; and on
the Nile, in my first journey into Nubia; but never in the interior of
Nubia, or in the Hedjaz.
