356 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



lar volcanoes have existed in many other points of the moun- 

 tain-ridge between Syria and Yemen. Ali Bey remarked 

 seven groups of volcanic hills near Jedeida, which were en- 

 tirely black, and had the appearance of very picturesque ruins. 

 The islands of Kotembel and Gebel Tar, in the Red Sea, 

 have been already noticed as exhibiting traces of eruptions 

 now extinct ; and travellers have remarked that the rocky 

 peninsula on which Aden is situated resembles the fragment 

 of a volcano, the crater of which is covered by the sea.* 



Hot Springs. — The fountains already mentioned, called 

 Ayoun Mousa or the Wells of Moses, are lukewarm and sul- 

 phureous, boiling three or four inches above the surface, as 

 if they were agitated below by some violent heat. The 

 water brings up the sand with it ; yet the inhabitants abou\. 

 the place drink it in preference to the brackish springs near 

 Suez. Tococke says that the ground around them is like a 

 quagmire, and dangerous if approached too near. Several 

 of these springs appeared to be dried up : one only affords 

 sweet water ; but it is so often rendered muddy by the camels 

 of the Arabs that it is rarely fit to supply the wants of the 

 thirsty traveller. The waters of Hammam Faraoun or Baths 

 of Pharaoh, near Wady Gharendel, are extremely hot. Shaw 

 was assured that an egg might be boiled hard in one minute ; 

 but he had no opportunity of making the experiment himself. 

 These baths he within a cavern or grotto in the rock, and 

 have a low narrow entrance leading to them. " As soon as 

 one enters this passage," says Pococke, " there is heat 

 enough to make anybody sweat very plentifully, and many 

 peopfe have died that have gone as far as the water, by a vapour 

 that extinguishes the lights. The water runs through the 

 rocks and sandbanks in a great number of little streams into 

 the sea for a quarter of a mile, and it is even there exceed- 

 ingly hot, and so are the stones, which are incrusted with a 

 white substance, apparently of salt and sulphur." This trav- 

 eller gives an analysis of the fluid, which was found to be 

 impregnated with much earthy gross sulphur, a neutral salt, 

 a small quantity of alum, but no vitriol. The taste is nau- 

 seous ; but its virtues are much esteemed in cutaneous and 

 nervous disorders, as also for removing sterility. The pa- 

 tients, male or female, who desire a family, have this fertilizing 



* Vol. i. p 66. Valentia's Travels, vol. ii. p. 86. 



