This divide, also called the Jayb el Sa'luwwah, with granites to
the east, and traps mixed with granites on the west, shows signs
of labour. Hard by, to the south-west, some exceptionally
industrious Bedawi, of the Jerafin-Huwaytat, had laid out a small
field with barley. In the evening we walked westward to the hills
that bound the slope; and came upon a rock-cut road leading to an
atalier, where "Maru" has been spalled from the stone in situ.
Some specimens had a light-bluish tinge, as if stained by cobalt,
a metal found in several slags; and there were veins of
crystalline amethyst-quartz, coloured, said the engineer by
chlorure of silver (?). The filons and filets cut the granite in
all directions; and the fiery action of frequent trap-dykes had
torn the ground-rock to tatters. The western side of
El-Kutayyifah also showed modern ruins.

The guides reported, as usual when too late, that to the
west-south-west lies a Nakb, called Abu'l Marwah ("Father of the
Quartz-place"), whose waters flow via the Mutadan to the 'Amud
valley. For some days I had cold shudders lest this Pass, thus
left unvisited, might be the Zul-Marwah, the classical
"Mochoura," one of the objects of our Expedition. The alarm
proved, however, as will be seen, false. A Bedawi youth also
volunteered a grand account of three "written stones;" a built
well surrounded by broken quartz; and, a little off the road from
El-Kutayyifah to Umm Amil, the remains of El-Dayr ("the
Convent"). As Leake well knew, the latter is "a name which is
often indiscriminately applied by the Arabs to ancient ruins."
The lad said they were close by, but the Garib ("near") and the
Gurayyib ("nearish") of the Midianite much resemble the Egyptian
Fellah's Taht el-Wish, "Under the face"--we should say "nose"--or