noble race.

Early next morning (six a.m., March 3rd) we followed the right
bank of the Wady el-Khandaki, which runs north with westing.
Beyond it lay the foot-hills of gloomy trap leading to the Jebel
el-Raydan, a typical granitic form, a short demi-pique saddleback
with inwards-sloping pommel like the Pao d'Assucar of picturesque
Rio de Janeiro. Here as elsewhere, the granites run parallel with
and seaward of the traps. The Tuwayl el-Suk is nothing but an
open and windy flat, where the Hajj-caravan used to camp an
adjoining ridge, the Hamra el-Tuwayl, shows spalled quartz, Wasm
and memorial stones. The principal formation here is the
mauve-purple conglomerate before described.

After riding nine miles we came unexpectedly upon a large and
curious ruin, backed by the broad Wady Damah gleaming white in
the sun. The first feature noticed was a pair of parallel walls,
or rather their foundations, thirty-five feet apart, and nearly a
kilometre in length: it looked like a vast hangar. To the left
lie three tracings of squares; the central is a work of earth and
stone, not unlike a rude battery; and, a few paces further north,
a similar fort has a cistern attached to its western curtain.
Heaps of rounded boulders, and the crumbling white-edged mounds
which, in these regions, always denote old habitations, run down
the right bank of the Wady el-Khandaki to its junction with the
Damah. For want of a better name I called this old settlement
Kharabat (the "Ruins of") el-Khandaki, and greatly regretted that
we had not time enough to march down the whole line of the Damah.

Half an hour more placed us at the great Wady, whose general