Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, volume 2.djvu/47



month of June, ^hen I was obliged^ by indisposition, to return as speedily as possible towards Cairo.

While at Benisodef, where we remained some weeks, we caught several crabs, exactly resembling those of our sea, but very small. I have seen many of them also in Nubia, and other parts of the Nile. From Beniso6ef we proceeded to the monastery of St. Antony, called, in Arabic, De'ir (convent), Antonios, or Mdr (Saint) Antonios, a distance of about seventy-six or seventy-seven miles. Our road was, as maybe imagined, uninteresting enough. The flatness of the plain"" is only interrupted now and then by gentle ascents and descents ; a few trees and low shrubs in the beds of torrents, which continually cross it in different parts, were the only agreeable objects ; and most of the streams were dried up for want of rain, little (in many places none) having fallen upon these mountains and plains for the last three years.

W^dy Arabah extends from the beginning of the western ex- tremity of these mountains to the Red Sea, in a direction nearly due east; it is said to have received its appellation from an ancient chariot-road, which our Arabs tol.d us led towards the water of Zaffardna and the sea, but which we never met with on crossing the plain ; indeed, on being asked to take us to see it, they con- fessed they did not know exactly where it was. I think it pro** bable, however, that the remains of some such road may still exist there, and if so, probably near that watering-place. Another sheikh assured me, that there were three roads which led to this water ; one of these, he said, takes the direction of Ar6idy, but of the others he knew nothing more than that they were marked out and supported by large stones.

At Gebel Annabaf we stopped for water; there are two very good springs three or four miles from the plain ; near each of which is one old deserted house, probably built by the monks of the neighbouring convent. The ravines are very fine and bold, and, judging from their depth, much water must fall there in the rainy season. The distance from thence to De'ir Antonios is little less than twelve miles.

The innmtes of this convent are Copts, living of course in the

Waly Abourimth ; while, from a little beyond that, the descent to the Red Sea is very rapid. Browne, in speaking of the canal connecting the Nile and Red Sea, in the direction of Gosseir, observes, that the water, if it ever flowed by such a canal, must have run from the Nile to the sea, and not from the sea to the Nile, a remark perfectly in harmony with the observations of every traveller who goes from the river to the Arabian Gulf. Pliny, however, (lib. vi. c. 29.) assures us that the Red Sea was found to be three cubits higher than the land of Egypt ; though* this difficulty would easily be removed if the assertion of a savant, ' that Uie Delta; is now fourteen cubits higher than 3284 years ago/ could be admitted.
 * Tlrere is a gentle ascent from the Nile to that part of Wady Araba, called

f This should perhaps be Ainebe, ' a grape.'

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