BIR EL SHEB 295 



This, situated on a hill, fifty feet high, overhanging the 

 well, bears on its woodwork the bullet scars made by 

 a determined attack of Dervishes on seven men of the 

 Camel Corps. 



Bir el Sheb (the well of alum), unlike Nakhla, does 

 not belie its name. Eight hundred yards south-west 

 of the well lie acres and acres of alum. It covers the 

 surface like newly-laid metalling. An inch below the 

 surface it is white, floury, and damp. We collected 

 some, as rubbed on with an onion, it is invaluable as 

 a cure for a camel's sore feet. 



I tried to stalk a gazelle and did, but it got away 

 before I could shoot. The sand was heavy and the 

 day hot. Clumps of dom palm were dotted every- 

 where on small steep ridges. The fruit, of the nature 

 of a nutmeg, but large as an orange, was not bad. 

 The gazelle are rendered very wild, firstly by the cara- 

 vans who surround and kill them with spears, and 

 secondly, by the police patrols who, in the summer, 

 run them down on foot. 



Sheb is the scene of one of the grim jokes per- 

 petrated in the desert. Not many months before my 

 visit, when tourists, 120 miles away, were scratching 

 their names on the rock of Abusir, a patrol of three 

 (Garrarish-riverain Arabs) police lost themselves, killed 

 a camel for the water it had stored in its stomach, and 

 then found their way to the wells. This is the story 

 as tracked by the Kababish police, who justly described 

 the Garrarish as utter fools in the desert. It is evident 

 that by the wells they found a caravan, and that now 

 two camels more and three riverain Arabs toil for some 



