[p.448] it is chalky. Wherever the rain collects in winter, vegetation
of trees and shrubs is produced. In the midst of this desert we met a
poor Bedouin woman, who begged some water of us; she was going to Akaba,
where the tents of her family were, but had neither provisions nor water
with her, relying entirely on the hospitality of the Arabs she might
meet on the road. We directed her to the Heywat at Omshash and in Wady
Lahyane. She seemed to be as unconcerned, as if she were merely taking a
walk for pleasure. After an uninterrupted march of nine hours and a
half, we reached a mountain called Dharf el Rokob (Arabic). It extends
for about eight hours in a direction from N.W. to S.E. At its foot we
crossed the Egyptian Hadj road; it passes along the mountain towards
Akaba, which is distant from hence fifteen or eighteen hours. We
ascended the northern extremity of the mountain by a broad road, and
after a march of eleven hours reached, on the other side, a well called
El Themmed (Arabic), whose waters are impregnated with sulphur. The
pilgrim caravan passes to the N. of the mountain and well, but the Arabs
who have the conduct of the caravan repair to the well to fill the water
skins for the supply of the Hadjis. The well is in a sandy soil,
surrounded by calcareous rocks, and notwithstanding its importance,
nothing has been done to secure it from being choaked up by the sand and
gravel which every gust of wind drives into it. Its sides are not lined,
and the Arabs take so little care in descending into it, that every
caravan which arrives renders it immediately turbid.
The level plain over which we had travelled from Ras el Kaa terminates
at Dharf el Rokob. Westward of it the ground is more intersected by
hills and Wadys, and here begins the Desert El Ty (Arabic), in which,
according to tradition, both Jewish and Mohammedan, the Israelites
wandered for several years, and from which