however, is a mere mask or excrescence, being everywhere based
upon and backed by the green and red plutonic traps which have
enveloped it. And the prism has no easy inland slopes, as a first
glance suggests; instead of being the sea-wall of a great
plateau, it falls abruptly to the east as well as to the west.
The country behind it shows a perspective of high and low hills,
lines of dark rock divided from one another by Wadys of the usual
exaggerated size. Of these minor heights only one, the Jebel
el-Sahharah looks down upon the sea, rising between the
Dibbagh-Kh'shabriyyah block to the north, and the Sharr to the
south. Beyond the broken eastern ground, the ruddy Hisma and the
gloomy Harrah form the fitting horizon.

After this much for geography, we may view the monarch of
Midianite mountains in the beauty and the majesty of his
picturesque form. Seen from El-Muwaylah, he is equally
magnificent in the flush of morning, in the still of noon, and in
the evening glow. As the rays, which suggested the obelisk, are
shooting over the southern crests, leaving the basement blue with
a tint between the amethyst and the lapis lazuli, its northern
third lies wrapped in a cloak of cold azure grey, and its central
length already dons a half-light of warmer hue. Meanwhile, the
side next the sun is flooded with an aerial aureole of subtle
mist, a drift of liquid gold, a gush of living light, rippling
from the unrisen orb, decreasing in warmth and brilliancy, paling
and fading and waxing faint with infinite gradations proportioned
to the increase of distance. Again, after the clear brooding
sheen of day has set off the "stark strength and grandeur of
rock-form contrasted with the brilliancy and sprightliness of
sea," the sinking sun paints the scene with the most gorgeous of