Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/52

28 INTO THE DESERT.

day following, Saturday, 10th November, we were to bid farewell to Egypt and to civilisation—the day much desired—the beginning of our special work. It was a gay and beautiful sight as we slowly sailed down the gulf towards our landing place on the Asiatic coast. Away to the west, the broken ridge of Jebel Attâkah marked the shore of the African continent, and behind this, other headlands, separated by deep bays, carried the eye along the western shores of the Red Sea. The placid waters of the gulf sparkling in the sunlight stretched around, while towards the east the long line of the escarpment of the Tîh bounded the horizon several miles from the shore—its rich brown tints speckled with white softly shading into the rich chrome yellow of the desert sands below.

In the roads several large ships, gaily decorated in honour of the Prince, lay at anchor; we counted nine in all, most of them going south. The waters of the bay were beautifully clear, so that on approaching the shallows we could peer down to the bottom—generally formed of rippled sands—sometimes of coral rock—and observe the multitudes of dark purple echini, bristling with long spines, which decorated the floor. Amongst the echini, starfishes were less frequently to be seen, shells few or none.

On approaching our landing stage, as the shades of evening drew on, we noticed our Arabs and camels waiting our arrival, and in the distance the groves of palms and tamarisks which mark the position of “Moses’ Wells.” Along the shore on our left were the white tents of a quarantine station. Soon after we touched the shore, and selecting our camels, were on the march towards our camp beyond the palm-trees. On arriving we found our tents, five in number, pitched in a circle; that on the right the kitchen, aglow with the light of a lengthy stove, upon which sundry pots and pans were doing service; while Abu Miriam, the presiding deity, sat