Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/486

, amidst those barren, bare, and stony mountains which border the valley of Egypt on the west.

6th of October they came to El-Vah, a large village, or town, thick-planted with palm-trees, the Oasis Parva of the ancients, the last inhabited place to the west that is under the jurisdiction of Egypt. By softening the original name, Poncet calls this Helaoue, which, as he says, signifies sweetness. But surely this was never given it from the productions he mentions to abound there, viz. senna and coloquintida. The Arabs call El-Vah a shrub or tree, not unlike our hawthorn either in form or flower. It was of this wood, they say, Moses's rod was made when, he sweetened the waters of Marah. With a rod of this wood, too, Kaleb Ibn el Waalid, the great destroyer of Christians, sweetened these waters at El-Vah, once very bitter, and gave it the name from this miracle. A number of very fine springs burst from the earth at El-Vah, which renders this small spot verdant and beautiful, though surrounded with dreary deserts on every quarter; it is situated like an island in the midst of the ocean.

caravan rested four days at El-Vah to procure water and provisions for the continuation of the journey thro' the desert. Poncet's description of the unpleasantness of this, is perfectly exact, and without exaggeration. In two days they came to Cheb, where there is water, but strongly impregnated with alum, as the name itself signifies; and, three days after, they reached Selima, where they found the water good, rising from an excellent spring, which gives its name to a large desert extending westward forty-five days journey to Dar Fowr, Dar Sele, and Bagirma, three small