30 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE 



CHAPTER VI. 



'AKABAH TO MOUNT HOR. 



At 'Akabah we have left the Sinaitic peninsula ; from here we turned 

 northwards up the Widy 'Arabah. Happily we had occasion henceforth 

 to travel more slowly, in order to give, the surveying party time to keep 

 pace with us. I was thus enabled to make wide detours east and west out 

 of the 'Arabah, but my inclination lay chiefly eastwards into the precipitous 

 borderland of Edom. 



In the Wady 'Arabah I saw gazelles several times ; Wady Menaiyeh, 

 on the west, may be mentioned as a good hunting-ground. These graceful 

 animals seemed more at home on the west side, abounding on the Judsean 

 wilderness, and all over the Tih plateau. Ibexes, on the other hand, 

 appeared more frequently on the higher mountain declivities of Edom, to 

 the east. Hyaenas, judging from their tracks, must be plentiful ; once I 

 had a good view of one, and quickened his lolloping pace with a fusilade 

 from revolver and fowling-piece. At El Tabi, on the east side, about 

 twenty-five miles north of 'Akabah, a fruitful, marshy place with a deep 

 spring, I saw perfectly fresh tracks of ' nimr,' or leopard, and subsequently, 

 at 'Aytln Buweirideh, Laurence came on fresh remains of some beast 

 which had served apparently as a meal for these animals. A hare, the 

 Sinaitic species, was killed a few miles north of 'Akabah. A much larger 

 hare, L. cegyptiacus, was seen several times on the eastern declivity of the 

 Tih. My frequent failure in bringing down game and specimens I 

 attributed partly to my having been unable to land English cartridges 

 or powder in Egypt, and being dependent on very worthless and very 

 expensive ones procured in Cairo. I would recommend all sporting 

 travellers to run any risk in smuggling sooner than let this occur to 

 them. 



The Wady 'Arabah abounds in rodents. These animals appear to be 

 chiefly nocturnal in their habits, and are very seldom seen. The number 

 of holes and the abundance of their tracks is truly astonishing. Their 

 colours are usually in strict harmony with the desert, for the Widy 'Arabah 

 is some ten to thirteen miles across, and more correcdy called a desert 



