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The Land of Midian — Volume 2 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 42 of 325 (12%)

Leaving the Mahattat el-Ghal, he rode up its watercourse, and
then turned southwards into the long Wady Umm Jirmah. After seven
miles and a half (= direct five and three-quarters), he came upon
the Jebel el-Fayruz. It is a rounded eminence of no great height,
showing many signs of work, especially three or four cuttings
some twenty metres deep. A hillock to the north-west supplied the
scoria before mentioned. Lieutenant Yusuf blasted the
chocolate-coloured quartzose rock in four places, filled as many
sacks, and struck the pilgrim-road in the Wady el-Mu'arrash,
leaving its red block, the Hamra el-Mu'arrash, to the left. His
specimens were very satisfactory; except to the learned
geologists of the Citadel, Cairo, who pronounced them to be
carbonate of copper! Dr. L. Karl Moser, of Trieste, examined them
and found crystals of turquoise, or rather "johnite," as Dana has
it, embedded in or spread upon the quartz. One specimen,
moreover, contained silver. So much for the Ziba or southern
turquoise-diggings.

Our journey ended on March 8th with a dull ride along the
Hajj-road northwards. Passing the creek Abu Sharir, which, like
many upon this coast, is rendered futile by a wall of coral reef,
we threaded a long flat, and after two hours (= seven miles) we
entered a valley where the Secondary formation again showed its
debris. Here is the Mahattat el-Husan ("the Stallion's Leap"), a
large boulder lying to the left of the track, and pitted with
holes which a little imagination may convert into hoof-prints.
The name of the noble animal was El-Mashhur; that of its owner
is, characteristically enough, forgotten by the Arabs: it lived
in the Days of Ignorance; others add, more vaguely still, when
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