mountains inland, ends seawards in the Pharos that commands an
horizon of blue water. The latter, according to the charts, is
one hundred and six feet above sea-level, and is theoretically
visible for fourteen miles; practice would reduce this radius to
ten, and the least haze to six and even five.

The lighthouse-charges are strongly objected to by the skippers
of Arab fishing-boats, although very small in their case.
Square-rigged vessels pay per ton twenty parahs (tariff): thus it
costs a ship of five hundred tons L2 10s. (Turkish). The keeper.
under Admiral M'Killop (Pasha), a young Greek named "Gurji," as
"George" here sounds, is assisted by a Moslem lad, Mohammed
Effendi of Alexandria. They serve for three years, and they look
forward to the end of them. The former also superintends the
condensing establishment: this office is a sinecure, except
during the three months of pilgrim-passage. The machine can
distil eighteen tons per diem; and there is another
water-magazine, an old paddle-wheeler moored to the beach under
the town. Behind the establishment lies the pilgrim-cemetery.
frequented by hyenas that prowl around the lighthouse,
threatening the canine guard. I found a new use for this vermin's
brain: it is administered by the fair ones at El-Wijh to jealous
husbands, upon whom, they tell me, it acts as a sedative.

El-Wijh has been heard of in England as the prophylactic against
the infected Hejaz. It is admirably suited for quarantine
purposes, and it has been abolished, very unwisely, in favour of
"Tor harbour." The latter, inhabited by a ring of thievish
Syro-Greek traders; backed by a wretched wilderness, alternately
swampy and sandy, is comfortless to an extent calculated to make