ABOO AHMED BY MOONLIGHT. 
433 
the track was over heavy sand, strewed with frag- 
ments of rock and pebbles. The hill of Burgul Anak 
was passed when we were four miles to its left, and 
on arrival at Gcegee we could look back upon it seven 
miles off in a south-east direction. 
2d. — Starting off across the plain at sunrise, our 
beacon was a pyramidal mass of quartz a few miles 
distant. We passed a tomb erected by Latiffe 
Pasha to the memory of a Liverpool gentleman, 
and at length, picking our steps amongst the splin- 
ters from the blue and grey slate rocks, we arrived 
at Musra Jahcesh, upon a bend of the Nile, which here 
flows in a westerly direction. There were no people 
nor houses on our side of the river. To avoid the 
heat we lay in the deep shadow of the doom-palm, 
and changed our positions as the sun veered round. 
Starting again at five in the afternoon, we ascended 
to a wild dreary plateau, but which became interesting 
from the colours of the rocks. Every moment I was 
tempted to dismount and pick up specimens in which 
blue was contrasted with pure white quartz, or pink 
was marbled with white, or all three colours would 
blend together. By seven o'clock we had descended 
from this plateau by a sandy tract, and reached the 
high gravel bank of the river again. Here the moon 
lighted up the rippled blue water and the palms and 
green vegetation on the opposite bank. The village of 
Aboo Ahmed looked beautiful in this light, but on 
reaching it we found it ankle-deep in sand. My camel, 
which for the first time I had pressed ahead with a 
cane, showed his fatigue by squatting down without 
warning, upon my stopping to ask for the Deewan's 
house. He knew that his journey had come to an 
2 E 
