number of grinding implements, large and small, coarse and fine,
all, save the most solid, broken to pieces by the mischievous
Bedawi. Some are of the normal basalt, which may also have served
for crushing grain; others are cut out of grey and ruddy
granites: a few are the common Mahrakah or "rub-stones," and the
many are handmills, of which we shall see admirable specimens
further on. One was an upper stone, with holes for the handle and
for feeding the mill: these articles are rare. I also secured the
split half of a ball, or rather an oblate spheroid, of serpentine
with depressions, probably where held by finger and thumb; the
same form is still used for grinding in the Istrian island of
Veglia. This is one of the few rude stone implements that
rewarded our careful search.

The north-eastern, which is the main Wady, has a sole uneven with
low swells and falls. It was dry as summer dust: I had expected
much in the way of botanical collection, but the plants were not
in flower, and the trees, stripped of their leaves, looked "black
as negroes out of holiday suits." Here lie the principal ruins,
forming a rude parallelogram from north-east to south-west. The
ground plan shows the usual formless heaps of stones and pebbles,
with the bases of squares and oblongs, regular and irregular,
large and small. There were no signs of wells or aqueducts; and
the few furnaces were betrayed only by ashen heaps, thin scatters
of scoria, and bits of flux--dark carbonate of lime. Here and
there mounds of the rosy micaceous schist, still unworked, looked
as if it had been washed out by the showers of ages. The general
appearance is that of an ergastulum like Umm Amil: here perhaps
the ore was crushed and smelted, when not rich enough to be sent
down the Wady for water-working at the place where the inland