Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/357

 parallel with the shores of the Arabian Sea. Besides, known under different names at each of their several sections, they extend for a distance of over 600 miles to the very gates of Cairo. It is the Egyptian part of this long ridge which takes the name of the "Arabian" range, because the riverain Nile populations see it standing out against the sky in the direction of Arabia. The Nubian Mountains, east of the Nile, are also sometimes collectively termed Etbaï, a name which is more especially reserved for a hill which rises near the coast opposite Jedda.

The coast or border chain of Nubia between Suakin and the Râs-Benas, north of the ancient port of Berenice, consists, like its Egyptian extension, almost entirely

of primitive rocks, such as granite, gneiss, and crystalline schist; towards the south alone the system presents extensive limestone formations. Rising gradually from the south to the north, it culminates in the Jebel-Olba, which, according to Wellsted, exceeds a height of 8,000 feet. Connected at this point with the mountains of the interior by lateral offshoots, the chain again falls in a northwesterly direction. At Mount Irba (Soturba) it attains a height of 7,010 feet, and at Mount Elba, the Etbaï properly so-called, it rises to more than 4,080 feet, that is, about the same height as the Jebel-Farageh, the Pentodactyle of the ancients, lying farther north, and which Schweinfurth vainly attempted to scale. In certain places the base of these escarpments is washed by the waters of the Red Sea,

‘

a