Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/846

826 Before dismissing the subject of climate, I wish to testify to the invigorating, delightful air in the desert; it has a bracing quality that enables one to expend much energy without fatigue. From about 1 to 3 the glare of the sun is often great, and shade is a comfort; but the constant breeze, sometimes rather too strong, tempers the heat. I suspect, too, that the air is very free from disease-germs.

In the journey from Suez to Sinai by the ordinary caravan route, one crosses undulating plains, limestone and sandstone hills, and eventually reaches bold granitic mountains, rising to the height of eight thousand feet. Each of these regions is furrowed by wadis, or dry water-courses, which present very different aspects in the three divisions named. The first fifty-two miles of the journey, occupying about two days and a half, as camels travel, cover an arid, sterile plain about ten miles wide from the low range of limestone hills on the east, Et Tîh, to the gulf on the west. This plain, like that of El Gâa, to the south, rises gradually from the sea to the foot-hills, and is undulating toward its southern end. It is crossed by broad, shallow wadis, running east and west, which were perfectly dry at the time of my visit; Wadi Werdan, the largest, is depressed but a foot or two below the level of the plain, and is approximately three miles in width at about six miles from the point where it enters the sea.

The most extensive plain on the western side of the peninsula is that of El Gâa, which is about eighty miles long and fifteen wide at its widest point. From the sea-coast to the mountains bordering it on the east it rises nearly one thousand feet, but so gradually as to deceive the eye and appear level. It is crossed by many shallow wadis, and its northern half is separated from the sea by a range of limestone hills (Jebel-el-Araba) reaching a height of sixteen hundred feet. When the plain was covered by the sea, this range was probably an island, or series of islands. The plain is rarely broken by hills, the sharp-pointed Krên Utûd, conspicuous from a distance, being an exception. I crossed the monotonous desolate waste, from the mouth of the beautiful Wadi Es-Sleh to Tor (or Tûr), on the gulf, a distance of about fifteen miles, and noted scarcely a dozen tufts of plants; water is absolutely wanting. North of Tor, however, and east of Jebel-elAraba, are palm-gardens that extend for several miles in a narrow belt; and these date-bearing trees owe their existence to several saline springs occurring at intervals, some of which were quite warm. On this sterile plain the characteristics of a desert are seen in perfection: the level expanse is not too broad to conceal the lofty mountains on the east, nor to prevent glimpses of the blue sea on the western horizon; the floor is a firm, hard surface, made up of a compact mixture of gravel and coarse sand, so hard