Hill;" the ground is too porous for rain cisterns, and the depth
is not sufficient for quarrying. The furnaces showed the normal
slag; but the only "metals" lying around them were poor
iron-clay, and a shining black porphyry, onyxed with the whitest
quartz. There were, however, extensive scatters of Negro, which
had evidently been brought there; and presently we found large
heaps of rosy-coloured, washed-out schist.[EN#60] These explained
the raison d'etre of this dreary and dismal hole.

Meanwhile the juniors ascended the rocky "Kubbah" hill, which
proved to be a small matter of 120 feet (aner. 29.34) above the
valley-sole (aner. 29.46). The "Dome" was nothing but a truncated
circle of wall, porphyry and cement, just large enough to hold a
man; the cupola-roof, if there ever had been one, was clean gone;
and adjoining it yawned a rock-cut pit some fifteen feet deep. I
came to the conclusion that here might have been a look-out
where, possibly, the "bale-fire" was also lit. The
"ascensionists" brought back a very healthy thirst.

We rested till noon in the filmy shade of the thorn-trees. The
caravan was at once sent forward to reach the only good water,
lying, said the guides, many a mile beyond. We had made up our
minds for a good long march; and I was not a little vexed when,
after half an hour, we were led out of the Wady el-Kubbah, whose
head, our proper line, lies to the north, into its eastern
influent, the Wady el-Dasnah. Here, after an afternoon "spell" of
forty-five minutes (= two miles and a half), and a total of four
hours and forty-five minutes (= fifteen miles and a half), a day
nearly half wasted, we found the tents pitched. The heat had
strewed the Wady with soldiers and quarrymen; and the large pit