[p.480] of Sherkyeh, who was married to a girl of the Towara Arabs; last
night, being in the vicinity of the place where he knew his wife to be,
he put spurs to the ass on which he was mounted, and thinking that he
knew the road, he quitted the Wady Shebeyke two hours before we did, and
without any provision of water. He missed his way on the sandy plain of
Debbe, and instead of reaching the spring of Naszeb, where he intended
to allay his thirst, he rode the whole of this morning and afternoon
about the mountain in different directions, in fruitless search after
the shady and conspicuous rock of Naszeb. Towards the evening we met
him, so much exhausted with thirst, that his eyes had become dim, and he
could scarcely recognise us; had he not fallen in with us he would
probably have perished. My companions laughed at the effeminate
Egyptian, as they called him, and his presumption in travelling alone in
districts with which he was unacquainted. At the end of eight hours and
three quarters, in a general direction of. E. by S. we passed a small
inlet in the northern chain, where, at a short distance from the road,
is said to be a well of tolerable water, called El Maleha [Arabic], or
the saltish. We then ascended with difficulty a steep mountain, composed
to the top of moving sands, with a very few rocks appearing above the
surface. We reached the summit after a days march of nine hours and
three quarters, and rested upon a high plain, called Raml el Morak
[Arabic]. From hence we had an extensive view to the north, bounded by
the chain of mountains called El Tyh [Arabic]; this range begins near
the abovementioned mountain of Sarbout el Djemel, and extends in a curve
eastwards twenty or twenty-five miles, from the termination of the Wady
Hommar. At the eastern extremity lies a high mountain called Djebel
Odjme [Arabic], to the north of which begins another chain, likewise
running eastwards towards the gulf of