and the name of a Gujrati maker, printed upon a sack of
Anglo-Indian canvas, had a curious effect among such Bedawi
surroundings.

At last we sank a pit some five feet deep in a re-entering angle
of the northern or smaller branch; we lined it with stone
down-stream, where the flow made the loose sand fall in, and we
obtained an ample and excellent supply. Doubtless it was spoiled,
as soon as our backs were turned, by the half-Fellah
Jerafin-Huwaytat, to whom the place belongs. The sea-breeze
during the day was high and dust-laden, but we passed a cool
delicious night upon the clean sweet sand, which does not stick
or cling. At this altitude there is no fear of bugs and
fleas--the only dread is Signor "Pediculus."

We will begin, with our surveyors, at the valley head, and note
the ruins as we stroll down. This section, Shuwak proper, is
nearly a mile and a half long, and could hardly have lodged less
than twenty thousand souls. But that extent by no means
represents the whole; our next march will prolong it along the
valley for a total of at least four miles. The material is
various--boulders of granite and syenite; squares of trap and
porphyry; the red sandstones of the Hisma; the basalts of the
Harrah; and the rock found in situ, a brown and crumbling grit,
modern, and still in process of agglutination. The heaps and
piles which denote buildings are divided by mounds and tumuli of
loose friable soil, white with salt,--miniatures of Babylon,
Nineveh, and Troy. On either flanks of the river-holm the
periodical torrents have done their worst, cutting up the once
regular bank into a succession of clay buttresses. On the right