114 MARCH TO 



we obtained a good view from the top of Muyah, 

 the name of the precipice we had just descended. 

 We were nearly an hour crossing the next plain 

 of blown sand, which from its appearance I thought 

 had probably been conveyed by the wind from the 

 shores of the Bahr Assal ; it was covered with the 

 dry wiry grass before mentioned, and numerous 

 plants of a species of colycinth. Before we reached 

 the only passable place in the next ridge, we had 

 to ascend a road which was so serpentine that 

 frequently we had to turn, and proceed some 

 distance with our faces looking in a direction 

 towards Tajourah. In my notes I have remarked 

 that this plain must have been the bottom of the 

 old portion of the sea, which once connected the 

 Bahr Assal with Goobat ul Khhrab, for I found 

 in some places a sandstone, very light-coloured, 

 and a cretaceous rock, in which I found traces of 

 a spiral univalve and other shells. 



After a long dreary march, during which we 

 passed between and among certain broad and square 

 chimney-like vents of volcanic vapours, (for I could 

 account for their existence in no other way,) situated 

 in the midst of an extensive field of black scorea- 

 cious lava, at the eastern extremity of which, near 

 Goobat ul Khhrab, was a small, but perfect and 

 well-formed crater. We at length reached a small 

 winding wada, or valley, in which were a few 

 stunted doom palm-trees. Round the lower part of 

 their trunks had collected the decaying remains of 



