[Footnote 1: This railway was in charge of Mr. George Wadham Floyer,
who died a few months later in his dahabia near Girgeh, aged 26. He
was a younger brother of Mr. Ernest Ayscoghe Floyer, chief of the
Telegraph Department in Egypt, a distinguished Oriental Scholar,
who first explored the Kittar Mountains in 1886, and to whom I am
indebted for the foot-notes in the accompanying pages.—F.P.]
[Footnote 2: A French railway contractor, a well-known figure on
the Nile.]
[Footnote 3: Ficus Sycamorus—the sycamore fig. The once popular
drive in the Shubra is lined for the most part with these trees.]
[Footnote 4: Artemisia.]
[Footnote 5: One of the hydreumata, or watering stations placed by
the Ptolemies at frequent intervals along the numerous roads across
this desert, which led to the quarries and gold and emerald mines,
which were worked as late as the time of Trajan Hadrian, circa 147
A.D. At this period camels were not used but oxen and carts.]
[Footnote 6: Capparis spinosa; Arabic, lussuf.]
[Footnote 7: Small stone shelters are made near watering-places
frequented by ibex. In these the Bedawin lie hid, and shoot.]
[Footnote 8: Fifty thousand gallons, an unusually large
quantity. Much rain fell in the preceding season. This is the
reservoir marked on the War Office map. That at which the party
watered was dry when the map was made, and the pool is not
marked. Great caution is used before marking “water” on a
desert map.]
[Footnote 9: Necessary with a young camel, and not so painful as
it seems.]
[Footnote 10: “Yessar” is the Arabic name for the _moringa
aptera_ mentioned later on.]
[Footnote 11: These aneroid heights may be taken as correct.]
[Footnote 12: Herr Lepsius, commanding the German Expedition
of 1842-45 was the first, in modern days, to cross this pass or
“Nojeb.” His party were lost in these mountains, and of this pass
in particular he speaks in almost horror. He unloaded the camels,
and his men carried the loads to the bottom.]
[Footnote 13: Oïridh, “devils”; Hindustani, latūr; Arabic,
sheitan. These are in the desert what waterspouts are in the sea,
and might be called sandspouts were not “spout” indescriptive
of the appearance in either case.
The phenomenon is produced as follows:—A whirlwind arises at
perhaps a height of five hundred feet. Its vortex decreases in
diameter downwards until, on the desert surface, it is perhaps two
or three feet in diameter, whirling round with great velocity, and
with an upward spiral. When it passes over loose sand it carries
with it all movable particles. The whole thing, like a whipping top
in form, rises and falls and moves about. When it rises, and only
the point of the whipping top rests on the surface, the circular
motion is harmless. It sometimes goes up into the air and, when the
circular motion is interrupted, drops sand and small bushes over a
large area. When depressed, and when the diameter of the whirlwind
reaches twenty or thirty feet, it has great force, and a camel will
lie down, blinded, and fearing to be blown over. These “devils”
march or dance about the desert in parties often of ten or twelve,
and look like weird giants on a sultry gloomy evening. The effect is
heightened by the dead stillness outside the radius of gyration. They
have been the subject of highly-coloured description by travellers,
and the statement in the text is characteristically simple.]
[Footnote 14: There are three kinds of partridge in this desert. The
most interesting, hitherto shot near Assuan only by Colonel Harkness,
is the Amnoperdrix Heysii, a richly coloured bird with a tuft or
pencil of white feathers behind each ear.]
[Footnote 15: The Imperial porphyry, the Rosso Antico, is quarried
here. It was said of the legitimate descendants of the Roman
emperors that they were “porphyrogeniti,” or born in the purple,
meaning that they were born in a chamber lined with this stone,
to which chamber access was permitted only to the Emperor’s
rightful wife. The quarries, after lying idle for 1700 years,
are now worked by Mr. Brindley of London.]
[Footnote 16: Lycium, sp.?]
[Footnote 17: The seeds were raised at Great Carlton, and some
of the young plants transferred to the Royal Gardens, Kew. Among
them—Moringa aptera, Cassia obovata (the senna of commerce),
Capparis spinosa, Zygophyllum album. Before mineral oils were
introduced the oil of Ben, produced from the moringa aptera, was
used by watchmakers.]
[Footnote 18: The inscription has not been seen since Sir Gardner
Wilkinson’s visit. The text is given, in translation, in a paper
on the Eastern Desert Proc. R. G. S., November, 1887. The original
Greek is in Proc. R. G. S.]
[Footnote 19: These mountains support several hundred sheep and many
half-wild donkeys. The wild ass is still found to the south. The
sheep feed on the leaves of the acacias, which are shaken down for
them by the shepherds, who use long hooks to shake the branches. The
sheep are thus entirely dependent on the shepherd for food, and
follow him eagerly the moment they see him take up his hook.]
[Footnote 20: The kurbatch is a long tapering strip cut from the hide
of a hippopotamus. It is hard, but flexible, like stiff indiarubber.]