Yusuf were unable to find it. Native craft usually make fast in
three fathoms to a lumpy natural mole of modern sandstone, north
of the entrance: a little trimming would convert it into a
first-rate pier.

At this place we landed to prospect the country, and to gather
information from the Sambuk crews before they had time to hoist
sail and be off. The owners of the land are not Juhaynah, the
"Wild Men" with whom the Rais of the Golden Wire had threatened
us in 1853. The country belongs to the Baliyy; now an inoffensive
tribe well subject to Egypt, mixed with a few Kura'an-Huwaytat
and Karaizah-Hutaym. The fishermen complained that no fish was to
be caught, and the strong tides, setting upon the stony flank of
the mole, had broken most of the shells, not including, however,
the oysters. The usual eight-ribbed turtle appeared to be common.
On the sands to the north, M. Lacaze picked up a large old and
bleached skull, which went into my collection; we failed to find
any neighbouring burial-ground. Striking inland, however, towards
the dotted square, marked "Fort (ruin)" in the Chart, we came
upon an ancient cemetery to the north of the bay, and concluded
that these graves had been mistaken for remains of building.

We then bent eastward towards the Jibal el-Salbah, and examined
the two dwarf valleys which, threading the heights, feed the Wady
Dumayghah. That to the south showed us a perfectly familiar
formation; conglomerates of water-rolled pebbles in the lower
levels, and hills of the normal dark porphyries, with large
quartz-seams of many colours trending in every direction. The
mouth of the northern gorge was blocked by a vein of finely
crystallized carbonate of lime, containing geodes and bunches.