114 A LAKE OF SALT. 



desert of El-Tih, and whose hue, to adopt the expression of a 

 modern traveller, is that of calcined and fire-scathed matter, are 

 sufficient evidence that this country has been the theatre of dreadful 

 volcanic phenomena. 



Messrs. Bida and Hachette describe a place named Wddy-Nassoub, 

 situated a short distance from Sarabit-el-Kadim, on the road from 

 Sinai' to Suez. It is gained after traversing Ramleh ("the sandy"), 

 a sandy ravine which serves as a retreat for horrible black serpents, 

 both big and little, and for enormous lizards, and which is followed 

 by a narrow valley. " Wady-Nassoub," according to these travellers, 

 " is one of the most magnificent spectacles we have ever seen. It is 

 a circus of twenty to twenty-five leagues in extent, surrounded by 

 huge rocks arranged in successive terraces, and of incomparable 

 beauty of form and colour. Its arena is an immense sheet of 

 black basalt, furrowed here and there . by torrents of yellow sand. 

 A dazzling sun kindles up this landscape, which is one of incredible 

 splendour." 



As you approach the Isthmus of Suez which will soon be an- 

 nihilated, so to speak, by M. de Lesseps' great ship-canal the desert 

 resumes the character which we have seen it bear in Persia and 

 Central Arabia. The rocks, much rarer and less lofty, gradually give 

 place to mountains of sand. Salt lakes and fields of salt re-appear. 

 Near the shores of the Mediterranean lies a pool of salt, still known 

 by that name of Lake Baudouin (Baldwin), which the Crusaders 

 imposed upon it. There the salt forms a firm and tenacious crust, 

 on which the camel safely plants its foot. Sometimes the iron hoof 

 of a horse breaks through, but beneath this first frail stratum it 

 meets with another of astonishing hardness. " You might think 

 yourself," says a traveller, " on the Mer de Glace of Mont Blanc. 

 Our camel-drivers collected some large pieces from the surface. 

 Nothing can be more brilliant or more transparent than these 

 crystals. It is by tasting them only that you can distinguish 

 them from rock crystal. As we advance, the impression grows 

 overpowering. A plain of dazzling whiteness surrounds us, and is 



