Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/131

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Wâdy el Arabah, west of Mount Hor, becomes a great plain about 15 miles across. Under the circumstances in which we were placed a detailed survey of both sides became impracticable. Having a more certain knowledge of the west side than of the east, we accordingly devoted more of our attention to the latter, and worked our way northwards at no great distance from the base of the hills. The plain is here formed of sand and gravel composed of great varieties of stone, such as granite, porphyry, felstone, quartz, sandstone, and limestone. Near the west side rise Jebels Jerafeh and Magrah, or Mukrah (Fig. 11).

The plain was occasionally strewn with blocks of porphyry, granite, and trap, with a few of sandstone of considerable size—some measuring 14 inches across, and occasionally sub-angular. Nevertheless, many of them, if not all, must have been carried down from the interior mountains by the torrents, and spread over the great plain by the vast floods which have left their channels as evidence of their occasional presence. It may be possible, on the other hand, that the presence of such large blocks may date down from a time when the waves of the retreating sea washed the bases of the mountains and caused the cliff's to crumble into pieces. In the afternoon we came upon the dry bed of a large stream, flowing northwards between banks of reddish clay, under which the limestone floor of the plain was sometimes disclosed; and shortly afterwards, on reaching an elevation, the hills of Judtea and the basin of the Salt Sea came into view. This was hailed by cheers from our party, and a few hundred yards more brought us to our camp.

My readers may here be inclined to put the question to me. How does it come to pass that you were on your way down towards the Salt Sea, inasmuch as by the arrangement with Sheikh Ali, he was to take the party across the Desert of the Tîh towards Gaza instead of along the route towards the north into The Ghôr? I feel that some explanation of this is due, and