Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/56

32 Our course for the two first days, as far as the W. Gharandel, lay along an undulating plain, bounded on the west by the Gulf of Suez, and on the east by the escarpment of the Tîh plateau. It has been aptly named in the Bible the Wilderness of Shur, which, according to Mr. Poole, means "The Wilderness of the Wall;" for such is the appearance of the long escarpment which bounds the table-land of the Tîh to the eastward, from the W. Gharandel to the Mediterranean. This tract is broken by low-terraced hills, but is generally covered by sand and gravel containing sea-shells. It is unquestionably to some extent the former bed of the Red Sea, when the land was submerged to a depth of at least two hundred feet lower than at present. In some places four terraces at successive levels may be distinguished, indicating, probably, as many sea margins formed during the rising of the land. One of these, about three miles south of Ayun Mûsa, is crossed by the road, and is 40 feet higher than that on which we had been riding. Fragments of selenite strew the ground, often in great abundance.

On our way we espied a group of Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus) perched on a bank about half a mile to our left. These were the first living things we had seen during several hours, and we felt curious to ascertain the cause of their presence. This was soon explained on our coming upon the carcase of a dead camel partly devoured. Dead camels are seldom allowed to lie for any length of time unvisited by these, or other, birds of prey, who congregate from afar in districts where to the eye they are unseen. I shall have a still more remarkable case to relate in a future page, but this was the first illustration we had of the passage, "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles (or vultures) be gathered together."

On looking in a south-easterly direction from rising ground near our camp at Ayun Mûsa, we observed in the far distance a dark isolated hill, somewhat resembling the crater of an extinct volcano, and known as Tâset Bisher.

It lies in the line of the broken escarpment of the Tîh plateau, but it was clear that at this place the escarpment is crossed by a valley descending to the plain from the interior, the isolated hill above referred to occupying a position at the southern entrance to the valley. A little after noon of this day (12th November) we came more directly in front of this valley,