256 



ARTHUR W. SUTTON^ J.B., F.L.S., ON 



region of Sinai is bounded on both sides by an indescribable 

 scene of desolation. For unknown ages earthquakes and the 

 action of the scorching sun have been splitting the limestone and 

 granite mountain slopes, and then huge blocks of stone have 

 been poured down towards the wadi, and the wadi sides consist of 

 nothing but these heaps of refuse ; some blocks of stone being 

 hundreds of tons in weight. 



At the end of Wadi Q'ena.(on Wednesday, March 13th) we 

 passed the Wadi Maghara on the left, down which at a short 

 distance lie the ancient mines quarried for turquoises, from the 

 earliest Egyptian dynasties. From here we follow the Wadi Sidr, 

 until we enter the Wadi Mukatteb (" Wadi of the Inscriptions "). 

 The inscriptions in question long baffled all attempts to decipher, 

 but are now^ known to be Nabathean and to have been executed by 

 the inhabitants of Petra and other passers-by, including Greeks, 

 one of whom, a Greek soldier, wrote, " A bad set of people these. 

 I, the soldier, have written this with my own hand." 



At the summit of the Wadi Mukatteb we reach another 

 narrow rocky pass, and obtain a magnificent view of Mount 

 Serbal right before us. At length, we strike the apparently 

 interminable Wadi Feiran at its northern bend as it comes up 

 from the sea and here turns south-east. As guide books are 

 full of the beauties of the Oasis of Feiran, we expected almost 

 every turn to reveal, not only Serbal in all its grandeur, but 

 also the oasis itself. On and on, however, we went for at least 

 six hours, and the sun set before we touched the first oasis or 

 any water. 



The most impressive fact of the day's ride, apart from the 

 almost oppressive silence, was the absence of any human or 

 other form of life ; scarcely even a lizard was seen moving. At 

 last we touch damp sand in the dry river-bed, and soon come to 

 running water. About a mile before touching the water we pass 

 a huge rock with piles of stones before it, also stones on the top. 

 Professor Palmer was told by Bedouins that this was the rock 

 that Moses struck and water came forth, when the Israelites 

 were cut off from the waters of the oasis by the Amalekites, 

 who were about to fight against Israel in order to prevent their 

 access to these waters. 



A truly wonderful feature of the wadis we passed on our journey 

 was that every one of them was a dry watercourse, many showing 

 signs of tremendously powerful rivers in stormy weather ; and on 

 either side we passed immense widely-spread-out heaps of rubble 

 and stones which had been swept down the smaller lateral wadis, 

 and these again cut through as by a knife by the central torrent 



