and cliffs the Secondaries and the conglomerates take all shades
of colour, marvellous to behold when the mirage raises to giant
heights the white coast-banks patched with pink, red, mauve, and
dark brown. Moreover, the quarries of mottled alabaster, which
the Ancients worked for constructions, still show themselves.

The travellers slept at the base of the Tuwayyil. Next morning M.
Philipin proceeded to collect specimens of the sulphur and of the
chalcedony-agate strewed over the plain, and here seen for the
first time. M. Marie and Lieutenant Yusuf rode on to the banks of
the Wady Hamz; and, after three hours (= nine miles), they came
upon the "Castle" and unexpectedly turned up trumps. I had
carelessly written for them the name of a ruin which all,
naturally enough, believed would prove to be one of the normal
barbarous Hawawit. They brought back specimens of civilized
architecture; and these at once determined one of the objectives
of our next journey. The party returned to El-Wijh on the next
day, in the highest of spirits, after a successful trip of more
than fifty miles.

Meanwhile I steamed southwards, accompanied by the rest of the
party, including the Sayyid, Shaykh Furayj, and the ex-Wakil,
Mohammed Shahadah, who is trusted by the Bedawin, and who brought
with him a guide of the Fawa'idah-Juhaynah, one Rajih ibn 'Ayid.
This fellow was by no means a fair specimen of his race: the
cynocephalous countenance, the cobweb beard, and the shifting,
treacherous eyes were exceptional; the bellowing voice and the
greed of gain were not. He had a free passage for himself, his
child, and eight sacks of rice, with the promise of a napoleon by
way of "bakhshish;" yet he complained aloud that he had no meat