invitation to Mohammed 'Afnan, Shaykh of the Baliyy tribe;
inviting him to visit the Expedition, and to bring with him
seventy camels and dromedaries. His tents being pitched at a
distance of three days' long march in the interior, I determined
not to waste a precious week at the end of the cold season; and
the party was once more divided. Anton, the Greek, was left as
storekeeper, with orders to pitch a camp, to collect as much
munition de bouche as possible, and to prepare for this year's
last journey into the interior. MM. Marie and Philipin, with
Lieutenant Yusuf, Cook Giorji, and Body-servant Ali Marie, were
directed to march along the shore southwards. After inspecting a
third Jebel el-Kibrit, they would bring back notices of the Wady
Hamz, near whose banks I had heard vague reports of a Gasr
(Kasr), "palace" or "castle," built by one Gurayyim Sa'id.
Meanwhile, the rest of us would proceed in the Sinnar to
El-Haura, a roundabout cruise of a hundred miles to the south.

M. Philipin lost time in shoeing very imperfectly his four mules;
and M. Marie, who could have set out with eight camels at any
moment, delayed moving till March 26th. The party was composed of
a single Bash-Buzuk from the fort, and two quarrymen: the Ras
Kafilah was young Shaykh Sulayman bin 'Afnan--of whom more
presently--while his brother-in-law Hammad acted guide. At 6.40
a.m. they struck to the south-east of the town, and passed the
two brackish pits or wells, Bir el-Isma'il and El-Sannusi, which
supply the poor of the port. Thence crossing the broad Wady
el-Wijh, they reached, after a mile's ride, Wady Mellahah, or
"the salina." It is an oval, measuring some eighteen hundred
yards from north to south: the banks are padded with brown slush
frosted white; which, in places, "bogs" the donkeys and admits