we had the pleasure of once more greeting the blue cove that
forms the port of Ziba.

We then descended into the Wady Sidrah, whose left bank is formed
by the Safra Ziba--"the Yellow (hill) of Ziba." This small
outlying peak is clad in the gaudiest of colours, especially a
vivid citron-yellow, set off by red and rusty surroundings, which
are streaked with a dead chalky-white. The citizens declare that
it is absolutely useless, because it does not supply sulphur.
During our day's halt at Ziba, M. Marie brought from it quartz of
several kinds; the waxy, the heat-altered, and the blue, stained
with carbonate of copper. Possibly this metal may be abundant at
a lower horizon

The "Valley of the (one) Jujube-tree," after narrowing to a stony
gut, suddenly flares out into the Wady Ziba, the vulgar feature of
these regions, provided with the normal "Gate" some three hundred
yards broad. Beyond it, the flat surrounding the head of the cove is
remarkably well grown with palms, clumps of the Daum, and scattered
date-trees, of which one is walled round. Hence I am disposed to
consider Ziba the , or Phoenicon Vicus, of Ptolemy: although
he places it in north lat. 26 20', or between Sharm Dumayghah and
El-Wijh, when it lies in north lat. 27 20'. I have already
protested against the derivation of the word--which is written
"Dhoba" by Wallin, "Deba" by Niebuhr, and "Zibber" by the
Hydrographic Chart--proposed by my learned friend Sprenger.[EN#13]
His theory was probably suggested by El-Yakut (iii. 464), who, in
the twelfth century, describes "Dhabba" as "a village on the coast,
opposite to which is a settlement with flowing water, called Bada:
the two are separated by seventy miles." An older name for the