Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/57

Rh which will henceforth possess a melancholy interest as the spot where the late Professor Palmer, Lieutenant Gill, and their attendants were murdered by the Arabs. I took a sketch of this spot from our midday camp. I have already referred to this lamentable event, which has been described by Professor Palmer's biographer in befitting language. We discussed the matter with our Arabs, who expressed their abhorrence of the foul deed, and when questioned as to the way it happened, the account they gave was to the following effect.

The Arabs of the Tîh were on their way down the valley to Ayun Mûsa and Suez, in pursuance of an order from the agents of Arabi Pasha to kill the Christians, when they fell in with Palmer and his party on their way up the valley to negotiate with the tribes inhabiting the region of the Tîh. The result is known; but our informant seemed to believe that it was in consequence of orders from Egypt.

We camped for the night by the Wâdy Sudur. In reality there is no valley here, only a series of shallow watercourses spread over a space of a mile in breadth, and very little below the level of the plain. Generally these watercourses are perfectly dry, as on the present occasion; but we were told by the Arabs that a fortnight previously a party of Bedawins were encamped at a spot amongst them, when suddenly a great torrent descended from the mountains, flooding the plains, and carrying their tents and goods down into the sea. The evidences of a recent flood were clearly visible to us as we crossed successive branches of this imaginary valley. Here, as elsewhere in the Desert, the floods which arise from thunderstorms, on reaching the plains often spread out fan-shaped over wide areas, but without wearing down definite channels.

Our march on the next day was one of the longest, extending over a distance of about 30 miles. During the early part of the day the terraces were numerous and distinct, and the beds of sand contained numerous oyster shells; it was clear we were traversing the old bed of the Gulf of Suez. We passed several burrows of the jerboa, an animal about the size of a small rabbit, very shy and difficult of approach. These burrows continued at intervals throughout our course, as far as the borders of The Ghor. Here also we met with beds of the pretty little desert melon