attempts of the "Red Indians" in North and South America. There
are, however, two scrapings evidently alphabetic, and probably
Nabathaan, which are offered to the specialists in epigraphy: six
appear in Wellsted's illustration, especially that with a long
line above it, near the left and lower corner of the cut. M.
Lacaze and I copied the most striking features in our carnets; he
taking the right or southern side and leaving the other block to
me. But the results did not satisfy us; and on April 10th I sent
him with M. Philipin to make photographs. The latter, again, are
hardly as satisfactory as they might be, because the inscriptions
have not been considered the central points of interest. We shall
pass during our present journey many of these Oriental "John
Joneses" and "Bill Browns:" they will suggest the similar
features of Sinaitic Wady Mukattib, which begot those monstrous
growths, "The One Primaeval Language" and "The Voice of Israel
from Mount Sinai."[EN#56] From the "written rock" the caravan
travelled westward up an easy watercourse, "El-Khaur,"
distinguished as El-Shimali ("the Northern"): it winds round by
the north, and we shall descend it to-morrow. The mule-riders
left the Wady el-Wijh, which extends some two hours eastward, and
struck to the east-south-east. The bridle-path, running up the
left bank of an ugly rocky torrent, the Wady Zurayb, presently
reaches a plateau undulating in low rises. Burnt with heat,
almost bare of trees, and utterly waterless, it is the model of a
mining country: elevate it from five hundred to nine thousand
feet, and it would be the living (or dead) likeness of a Peruvian
cerro. The staple material, porphyritic trap, shows scatters of
quartz and huge veins, mostly trending north-south: large
trenches made, according to the guides, by the ancients, and
small cairns or stone piles, modern work, were also pointed out