station is Bir el-Sultani--the "Well of the Sultan" (Selim?): we
shall presently inspect these remains. Itineraries also give Kabr
el-Tawashi, "the Eunuch's Tomb;" and this we still find near the
palms at the head of the inner baylet. It is a square measuring six
paces each way, mud and coralline showing traces of plaster outside.
Like Wellsted (II. X.) we failed to discover any sign of the Birkat
("tank") mentioned in a guide-book which Burckhardt quotes; nor had
the citizens ever heard of a "reservoir."

The camping-ground of the pilgrims lies between the "Gate" and
the cove-head. Around the wells sat at squat a small gathering of
the filthy "Moghrebin" (Allah yakharrib-hum!). About 260 of these
rufffians were being carried gratis, by some charitable merchant,
in a Sambuk that lay at the harbour-mouth. A party had lately
slaughtered a camel, of course not their own property; and yet
they wondered that the Bedawin shoot them. They showed their
insolence by threatening with an axe the dog Juno, when she
sportively sallied out to greet them; and were highly offended
because, in view of cholera and smallpox, I stationed sentries to
keep them at a distance. Had there been contagious disease among
them, it would have spread in no time. They haunted the wells,
which were visited all day by women driving asses from the
settlement; even the single old beggar of Ziba--unfailing sign of
civilization--was here; and the black tents of the Arabs, who
grazed their flocks at the cove-head, lay within easy shot of
infection. On the evening of the next day, when the Sambuk made
sail, the shouting and screaming, the brawling, cudgelling, and
fighting, heard a mile off, reminded me of the foul company of
Maghrabis on board the Golden Wire.