Bidding a temporary adieu to our old fellow voyagers on board the
Mukhbir, including the excellent engineer, Mr. David Duguid, we
steamed out of the quiet cove, at a somewhat late hour (6.30
a.m.) on March 21st; and, dashing into the dark and slaty sea,
stood to the south-east. For two days the equinoctial weather had
been detestable, dark, cloudy, and so damp that the dry and the
wet bulbs showed a difference of only 4 --5 . This morning, too,
the fire of colour had suddenly gone out; and the heavens were
hung with a gloomy curtain. The great Sharr, looming unusually
large and tall in the Scandinavian mountain-scene, grey of shadow
and glancing with sun-gleams that rent the thick veils of
mist-cloud, assumed a manner of Ossianic grandeur. After three
hours and a half we were abreast of Ziba, around whose dumpy
tower all the population had congregated. Thence the regular
coralline bank, whose beach is the Bab, runs some distance down
coast, allowing passage to our ugly old friend, Wady Salma. The
next important mouth is the Wady 'Amud, showing two Sambuks at
anchor, and a long line of vegetation like the palm-strips of the
'Akabah Gulf: this valley, I have said, receives the Mutadan,
into which the Abu Marwah gorge discharges.[EN#30]

It would appear that this "'Amud" represents the "Wady el-'Aunid," a
name utterly unknown to the modern Arabs, citizens and Bedawin, at
least as far south as El-Haura. Yet it is famed amongst mediaeval
geographers for its fine haven with potable water; and for its
flourishing city, where honey was especially abundant. El-Idrisi
settles the question of its site by placing it on the coast opposite
the island El-Na'man (Nu'man), but can El-Idrisi be trusted?
Sprenger (p. 24), induced, it would appear, by similarity of sound,
and justly observing that in Arabic the letters Ayn and Ghayn are