Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVI. THE DESERT OF THE WANDERING-- Continued. We had planned and arranged, in compensation for our early halt on Saturday, to leave camp on Monday morning (March 9th) at half-past six; but the Arabs made it halfpast seven. Quite early (at 6.30) the thermometer indicated thirty and one-half degrees, the lowest point we had seen. We set forth over a vast plain, which at intervals showed lines of vegetation running across it. In one region, for a considerable distance, the limestone came to the surface. Before nine o'clock we had crossed two wadies, at nine Wady Aggab, and at 10.25 a fourth wady, all moderately well supplied witli herbs. Already we had fallen into the region of ancient remains. At Wady el Aggab, only six hours north of Nukhl, on a low ridge, are found a great number of those sepulchral cairns, concerning which history is wanting and conjecture is at fault. They are about four feet high, and of various diameters up to twenty feet. It was along here, too, that Palmer and Drake found, in the bed of Wady Arish, in a cut eight feet below the surface of the wady, remains of a charcoal fire and of a little hearth of stones, telling of some other unwritten scenes of the past. At eleven we descended a steep declivity, and saw before us another great expanse of desert, crossed in like manner with lines of vegetation. We repeatedly entered and left Wady Ikhrimm, or Fahdi, a large and comparatively fertile depression, running northward. Just after eleven o'clock we had a noticeable specimen of mirage. We saw, as we thought, directly before us, two broad lines of water waving in the gentle breeze. Not prepared for the sight of water, I doubted at first whether it could be so, but at length three of us became absolutely confident...
