[p.604] The narrowness of the valley of Feiran, which is not more than
an hundred paces across, the high mountains on each side, and the thick
woods of date-trees, render the heat extremely oppressive, and the
unhealthiness of the situation is increased by the badness of the water.
The Tebna are far from being as robust and healthy as their neighbours,
and in spring and summer dangerous fevers reign here. The few among them
who have cattle, live during those seasons under tents in the mountains,
leaving a few persons in care of the trees.
As Mount Serbal forms a very prominent feature in the topography of the
peninsula, I was determined if possible to visit it, and Hamd having
never been at the top of it, I was under the necessity of inquiring for
a guide. None of the Tebna present knew the road, but I found a young
man who guided us to the tent of a Djebalye, which was pitched in the
lower heights of Serbal, and who being a great sportsman, was known to
have often ascended the mountain. Leaving the servant with the camels, I
set out in the evening on foot with Hamd and the guide, carrying nothing
with us but some butter-milk in a small skin, together with some meal,
and ground Nebek, enough to last us for two days. We ascended Wady el
Sheikh for about three quarters of an hour, and then turned to the
right, up a narrow valley called Wady Ertama [Arabic] in the higher part
of which a few date-trees grow. In crossing over a steep ascent at its
upper extremity, I met with several inscriptions on insulated blocks,
consisting only of one line in the usual ancient character; but I did
not copy them, being desirous to conceal from my new guide that I was a
writing man, as it might have induced him to dissuade the Arabs in the
mountains from accompanying me farther up. On the other side of this
ascent we fell in with Wady Rymm, which I have already mentioned, and
found here