Very Few Trees Had Any Fruit Upon Them; Indeed Date Trees, In General, Yield A Very Uncertain Produce, And Even In Years, When Every Other Kind Of Fruit Is Abundant, They Are Sometimes Quite Barren.

We met here several families of Arabs, who had come to look after their trees, and to collect salt.

In the midst of the small peninsula of Dahab are about a dozen heaps of stones irregularly piled together, but shewing traces of having once been united; none of them is higher than five feet. The Arabs call them Kobour el Noszara, or the tombs of the Christians, a name given by them to all the nations which peopled their country before the introduction of the Islam.

We remained several hours under the refreshing shade of the palm trees, and there continued our road. In crossing the tongue of land I observed the remains of what I conceived to be a road or causeway, which began at the mountain and ran out towards the point of the peninsula; the stones which had formed it were now separated from each other, but lay in a straight line, so as to afford sufficient proof of their having been placed here by the

WADY GHAYB

[p.525] labour of man. To the south of Dahab the camel road along the shore is shut up by cliffs which form a promontory called El Shedjeir [Arabic]; we were therefore obliged to take a circuitous route through the mountains, and directed our road by that way straight towards Sherm, the most southern harbour on this coast.

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