FAUNA AND FLORA OF SINAI, PETRA, AND WADY 'ARAB AH. 17 



hostile character of the adjoining tribes of Arabs, who are constantly- 

 engaged in predatory warfare, the Gh6r es Safieh being very frequently 

 the scene of their conflicts. Our imaginations were kept excited by con- 

 tinual reports and warnings of those terrible Kerak Sheikhs, Huwaytats, 

 and others who were about to demolish us. I had also read and heard 

 much of the impossibility of doing any good exploring work where an 

 escort is always necessary, and where the Bedawln were bent on plunder- 

 ing unwary strangers. However, day after day I followed the bent of my 

 inclinations, frequently alone, climbing the eastern hills, searching the 

 jungles and marshes, and collecting birds and plants without ever receiving 

 the smallest annoyance. 



The Gh6r es Safieh, where we spent ten days, lies at the south-eastern 

 end of the Dead Sea, about 1,250 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. 

 It is watered by the Garahy River as the Feifeh is by the Tufileh, both 

 descending from the eastern highlands. Between these two oases there is 

 a strip of desert. Both these streams were well supplied with water during 

 our visit, and I understood from the Arabs that the Garahy at least was 

 unfailing. The latter is called also El Ahsi, Hessi, and Safi, and the Nahr 

 el Hussein. Smith's ' Ancient Atlas ' calls it the Brook Zered. It is dis- 

 tributed into numerous smaller watercourses for purposes of irrigation by 

 the cultivating Ghawarniheh Arabs, by whose tented village we were 

 encamped. There is another smaller village, called, I believe. El Feifeh, 

 of which we obtained a passing view. 



The whole distance from the base of the sudden descent from the 

 barren white marls into the plain is about ten miles to the Dead Sea. The 

 Gh6r es Safieh is about three to four miles wide. The upper Ghdr of 

 El Feifeh is, as I have said, cut off from the lower by a strip of desert, an 

 unwatered patch of sand-dunes and Salsolaceae. On the east the Gh6r is 

 bounded by the highlands of Moab, and on the west by the briny, muddy, 

 barren bed of the Tufileh. Steep marl banks, a couple of hundred feet 

 high, enclose it on the south, while northwards it gradually becomes Salter 

 and swampier, with a diminishing vegetation to the lifeless margin of the 

 Dead Sea. 



On the Moab cliffs, as also on the Judsean to the west, the lower 

 declivities are flanked in many places with saline white marls to an upper 

 limit of 650 feet. These marls are absolutely barren in situ, but they are 



