Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/87

Rh isolated hills consists of beds of sandstone and limestone on a granitic base. At length we came to the point where the Wâdy et Tîhyeh opens on the left into the apparently interminable Wâdy el Ain, and we gladly struck up the former in a direction somewhat circuitous, but generally making towards the north and east. We rested at noon by some wells in the sandstone rock, which was often encrusted with salt. The spot is pretty on account of the groups of palm trees. Through the rest of the day our course lay over a very broken line of country, diversified by deep depressions, terraced escarpments of limestone or sandstone, and ultimately we emerged on a wide plain bounded by fine escarpments of the former. The surface of this plain is dotted with plants; and in April is green with herbage, and occupied by several hundred Bedawins, who come here with their flocks and herds for pasturage, and to make butter;—now it was nearly deserted. At length, after a very long day’s march of ten hours, we pitched our tents near the head of the Wâdy el Tîhyeh, at the base of a limestone cliff, and at an elevation of 2,400 feet above the sea.