Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/113

Rh Arab divested himself of his light garments, and jumped down the sides laughing and shouting. The waterskins were thrown down to him by the others, who joined in the chorus, and our water barrels were soon filled. On Thursday, 6th December, we encamped near the centre of the Arabah Valley in an oasis of green shrubs surrounded by sandhills. The general features of the valley had quite changed. On the east the grand terraces of red sandstone of Jebel Zibbeyagh and Jebel Nachaleagh, surmounting their granitic foundations, rose to elevations of 2,000 or 3,000 feet, and along the deep depression of the Wâdy Gharandel formed massive walls, with horizontal courses of natural masonry. But on the western side the almost continuous limestone escarpment had sunk down and disappeared, and a great expanse of sandy plain stretched away for many miles towards the north-west, opening an uninterrupted entrance into the region of the Tîh. This expanse, however, was partially broken by a low ridge of limestone, at the end of which, at a distance of six miles, the solid line of the watershed stretched across the valley to the base of the eastern ridge; and beyond, to the north-east, the broken heights leading up to Mount Hor bounded the landscape. We were at length about to reach the long wished for "saddle" of the Wâdy el Arabah, towards which we had been slowly rising day by day for four days; and early in the afternoon our luncheon tent was pitched on the saddle itself, and we could look northwards down the descent of the Arabah Valley towards the depression of the Salt Sea.

Wâdy Gharandel.—Throughout our wanderings we met with three valleys of this name. One entering the Gulf of Suez, two days' march from Ayun Mûsa; another descending from the mountains of Edom, about 40 miles north of Akabah; and the third descending from the table land of Moab, and entering the Salt Sea from the south-east. These valleys are all remarkable for their physical features; and our camp on the 6th December was nearly opposite the entrance of the second of these, where it opens out on the valley of the Arabah. Near its entrance are some wells (Ayun Gharandel), which were visited by Laborde and Vignes. The valley itself was explored by my son, together with Messrs. Hart and Laurence. On passing by some low bluffs of loose sand we saw the entrance to the valley between cliffs of hard coarse puddingstone over 100 feet high, which rest on the limestone formation. This conglomerate is formed of blocks and fragments, chiefly of sandstone, porphyry, and metamorphic rock, derived from the cliffs further east. Here the valley