[p.502] At four hours and a quarter we passed Wady Mowaleh [Arabic]; and
at the end of five hours and three quarters reached the northern point
of the last mentioned bay, formed by a projecting part of the mountain,
or promontory, called Abou Burko [Arabic], which means he who wears a
face veil, because on the top of it is a white rock, which is thought
to resemble the white Berkoa, or face veil of the Arab women, and
renders it a conspicuous object from afar. Noweyba, where we had first
reached the shore, bore from hence S.S.W. We rested for the night in a
pasturing place near the mountain, on the south side of the promontory.
Old Ayd, who carried his net with him, brought us some fish. His dog eat
the raw fish, and his master told me that the dog sometimes passed
several months without any other food.
May 8th.We set out long before day-break. None of our party was ever
more ready to alight, or to take his supper, than Szaleh, and none more
averse to start. During the whole way he was continually grumbling, and
endeavouring to persuade the others to turn back. We were one hour in
doubling the Abou Burko, a chalky rock, whose base is washed by the
waves. On the other side we passed, at two hours, in the bottom of a
small bay, Wady Zoara [Arabic], where a few date trees grow, and a well
of saltish water is found, unfit to drink. The maritime plain was here
nearly two miles in breadth. Having made the tour of another bay from
Abou Burko, we reached, at three hours and a half, a promontory forming
its northern boundary, and called Ras Om Haye [Arabic], a name derived
from the great quantity of serpents found there, some of which, Ayd told
me, were venemous; we however saw none of any kind. The whole coast of
the AElanitic gulf, from Ras Abou Mohammed to Akaba, consists of a
succession of bays separated from such other by head lands. The Ras Om
Haye forms the western extremity of the mountain of Tyh,