yet our old acquaintance, Mohammed el-Musalmani, is a Copt who
finds it convenient to be a Moslem. He aided us in collecting
curiosities, especially a chalcedony (agate) intended for a
talisman and roughly inscribed in Kufic characters, archaic and
pointed like Bengali, with the Koranic chapter (xcii.) that
testifies the Unity, "Kul, Huw' Allah," etc. As regards the port,
Wellsted (Il. X.) is too severe upon it: "At Sherm Dhoba the
anchorage is small and inconvenient, and could only be made
available for boats or small vessels." Dredging the sand-bar and
cutting a passage in the soft coralline reef will give excellent
shelter and, some say, a depth of seventeen fathoms.

Our first care was to walk straight into the sea, travelling
clothes and all. I then received the notables, including Mohammed
Selamah of El-Wijh, and at once began to inquire about the Jebel
el-Fayruz. The chief trader pleaded ignorance: he was a stranger,
a new-comer; he had never been out of the settlement. The others
opposed to me hard and unmitigated Iying: they knew nothing about
turquoises; there were no such stones; the mines were exhausted.

And yet I knew that this coast is visited for turquoises by
Europeans; and that the gem has been, and still is, sold at Suez
and Cairo. Mr. Clarke had many uncut specimens at Zagazig,
embedded in a dark gangue, which he called "porphyry," as opposed
to the limestone which bears the silicate of copper. Upon our
first Expedition, we had noticed a splendid specimen, set in a
Bedawi matchlock; and the people of El-'Akabah praised highly the
produce of the Jebel el-Ghal. Lastly, I happened to have heard
that an Arab lately brought to Ziba a turquoise which sold there
for L3. Evidently the mine, like the gold-sands before alluded