252 



ARTHUR W. SUTTON, J. P., F.L.S., ON 



driving tempest, which sometimes made me think that this must be 

 the real meaning of a ' howling wilderness,' we rode on the whole day." 



From time to time on subsequent days we came across evi- 

 dences of sand-storms — the sand being piled up like snow-drifts 

 as we know them. We were glad, however, not to have any 

 actual experience of such storms, except for two or three hours 

 the first Sunday afternoon, when every object was obliterated in 

 a dense cloud of yellow sand. Thus far in our journey we 

 had been continually crossing wadis, or riding through them — 

 generally the latter. A wadi is a hollow between hills ; all 

 valleys are wadis, but all wadis are not valleys ; for instance, 

 Wadi Sudur (which we reached on the second day) is a shallow, 

 dry bed of a watercourse, perhaps three feet deep, and always 

 dry, except during occasional Hoods caused by very rare storms. 

 At other times, wadis are the valleys between the mountains, 

 but never by any chance is there water except at an oasis, or 

 during one of the very rare storms. 



It was on the precipices of the slopes of the Tih range 

 opposite our camp at Wadi Sudur that Professor Palmer, the 

 eminent Arabic scholar, Captain Gill, E.E., and Lieutenant 

 Charrington, E.A., were murdered by Arabs in August, 1882. 

 They had gone into the Desert with the object of buying camels 

 for the British expedition, and of getting the Bedouins of the 

 Desert to join the English against Arabi Pasha. They were 

 taken prisoners at Wadi Sudur on August 10th, and murdered 

 on the following day. Colonel Warren subsequently obtained 

 full particulars of the murder, and tlie money stolen from 

 Professor Palmer was returned by the Arabs, about £9,000 ; and 

 five of the ringleaders were hanged on March 1st, 1883, at 

 Zagazig, and others at Suez and elsewhere. At the present 

 time, the country is so quiet that probably a defenceless woman 

 might travel safely alone from Suez to Sinai and Tor ! One of 

 the results of English rule in Egypt, as is universally and grate- 

 fully admitted. 



On the third day we passed Ayun Hawara, generally 

 considered to be the site of Marah. It is a small spring on a 

 sandy hill with a few wild palms ; but the only evidence of 

 w^ater (which, like nearly all desert waters, is bitter) is the 

 damp sand around. Later in the day we reached Hajar 

 or-Eekkab (" the Stone of the Eider "), a heap of stone in a vast 

 sloping basin, enclosed by limestone hills and sand hills. We 

 were still impressed by the monotony of our march ; but we 

 were following the wanderings of the Israelites, and our faces 

 were toward Sinai. 



