212 MB. E. M- REDHEAD ON THE PLOBA OE SIKAL 



the " Grhurkud " of the Arabs : its greenish spikes of inconspi- 

 euoua flowers were now appearing here ; but on the following 

 day, in the Wady Ghuriindel, I found the small, oval, scarlet berry, 

 with subacid flavour, fully ripe : the leaves in taste resemble our 

 sea-coast Atriplex. It has been alleged that tlie " Ghurkud " was 

 the plant employed by Moses to sweeten the water of Marah ; 

 the change, however, was certainly miraculous ; at present the 

 water has the saline taste of a weak solution of Epsom salts. 



We rode on by starlight, the air loaded with the perfume of 

 Mathiola odoratissima^ which was henceforward of frequent occur- 



rence in the Desert, and of most delicious fragrance. 



Our encampment in Wady Ghurundel was in the midst of a 

 thicket of Tamarisks, the first trees seen since we left 'Ayun Musa. 

 Here Nitraria grew abundantly, and I first saw its bright scarlet 

 b^rry — the crop of which, however, would not be ripe for some 

 months, as the plant was hardly yet in flower. The camels eat 

 this shrub with greediness; and as a consequence the bushes are 

 cropped into dense rounded tufts, the inside of which forms a 

 cone of sand : the plant is the invariable accompaniment of salt 

 springs. 



"With this wady, Ghurundel, commences the grand scenery of 

 the peninsula, which gradually increases in sublimity until it 

 reaches its climax in Mount Serbal and Mount Sinai itself 

 Leaving behind us the sandy and flint-covered plain, our path 

 winds amidst chalky hills of most fantastic outline, their denuded 

 sides banded with horizontal streaks of brown and yellow, and 

 their summits capped with dark gravel: on our right was the 

 sombre mass of Gebel Hammam Faraon, so called from its hot 

 sulphur-spring said to have been frequented by the Egyptian | 



monarchs ; the proximity of mineral waters was proved by our 

 frequently passing masses of tufa and coarse travertine. 



We descended into Wady Useit, in which grow many tufts ot 

 dwarf date-palm, and tamarisk, around some muddy pools oi | 



water ; the whole ground is thickly coated with a saline incrus- 

 tation : here was growing, on the roots of the Spartium monospeT- 

 mum, a really noble Orobanclie, 18 inclies high, of the most bright 

 golden yellow, and extremely succulent. Asparagus Tiorridus was 

 plentiful here, scrambling over the '*Eetem" bushes, in some 

 places forming a dense, tangled mass. 



In the next valley, Wady Thai, grew finer palms than we had 

 hitherto seen in the Desert, and many shrubs, or low trees, of the 

 " Seyal," Acacia seyal, which has a reddish trunk, and much- 





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