We had left the Sharm Yaharr on March 21st, and returned to it on
April 13th; a total of twenty-four days. Our actual march through
South Midian, which had lasted thirteen days (March 29--April
10), described a semicircle with El-Wijh about the middle of the
chord. The length is represented by 170 miles in round numbers:
as usual, this does not include the various offsets and the
by-paths explored by the members; nor do the voyages to El-Wijh
and El-Haura, going and coming, figure in the line of route. The
camels varied from fifty-eight to sixty-four, when specimens were
forwarded to the harbour-town. The expenditure amounted toL92
13s., including pay and "bakhshish" to the Baliyy Shaykhs, but
not including our friends the Sayyid, Furayj, and the Wakil
Mohammed Shahadah.

This southern region differs essentially from the northern, which
was twice visited, and which occupied us two months, mostly
wasted. Had we known what we do now, I should have begun with the
south, and should have devoted to it the greater part of our
time. Both are essentially mining countries; but, whilst the
section near Egypt preserves few traces of the miner, here we
find the country carefully and conscientiously worked. The whole
eastern counterslope of the outliers that project from the
Ghat-section known as the mountains of the Tihamat-Balawiyyah, is
one vast outcrop of quartz. The parallelogram between north lat.
26 degrees, including the mouth of the Wady Hamz, and north lat.
27 , which runs some fifteen miles north of the Bada plain, would
form a Southern Grant, sufficiently large to be divided and
subdivided as soon as judged advisable.