THE
GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
OF
SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.

OROGRAPHICAL MAP OF SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.

Photo-Metal-Process. Survey Dept. Cairo 1910. (60-190)

(Largest-size: [upper], [lower], [legend], [scale])

MINISTRY OF FINANCE.

SURVEY DEPARTMENT, EGYPT.

THE
GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
OF
SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.

BY
JOHN BALL, Ph.D., D.Sc.,
F.G.S., A.R.S.M., M.Inst.C.E.

CAIRO:
Government Press.

To be obtained either directly or through any Bookseller,
from the Publications Office, Government Press, Bulaq; from the Sale-Room,
Geological Museum, Ministry of Public Works Gardens; or from the
Survey Department, Gîza (Mudiria).

1912.

Price 40 p.t.

PREFACE.

This book is an attempt to give a systematic account of the geography and geology of South-Eastern Egypt according to the latest information available. It is based on surveys which I carried out by order of the Egyptian Government during the four years 1905-1908, and has been written in the intervals of other official work during the succeeding three years.

In the first or introductory chapter, I have given a summary, with some criticisms, of previous accounts of the region. This seemed advisable in that the literature, although not very extensive, is scattered in books and papers in various languages, and is not always easy of access.

The second chapter is a concise systematic account of the district, designed mainly as a summary for those who do not wish to go into the details; it also contains sections dealing with matters of insufficient importance, or of which our knowledge is too scanty, to be treated of specially in the succeeding chapters.

The third chapter is an account of the surveying methods employed and the principal geographical results obtained. The surveying methods are treated at some length, firstly because an adequate specification of the survey methods used is necessary for the assessment of the value of any contribution to modern geography, and, secondly, because some of the methods are either new or little known, and have been found by experience to be specially adapted to the mapping of this type of country. The principal geographical results are given, mostly in tabular form, as exhibiting clearly the groundwork of the actual maps, and as indicating a series of adequately fixed positions which may be employed as a basis in any further surveys.

In the fourth to sixth chapters the drainage lines and hill features are systematically described. A knowledge of the drainage lines, as the key to a precise understanding of the relief, is nowhere more important than in these deserts.

In the seventh chapter the important question of water supplies is considered, and the positions and particulars of the various water sources are tabulated for easy reference.

The eighth to tenth chapters deal with the various rocks occurring in the district. The petrology of the region has been discussed with some fulness, because while the district offers a remarkable wealth of rock-species, well exposed in considerable masses, detailed studies of Egyptian petrology have hitherto been few. My great regret in this connexion is that I have been unable to add chemical analyses of the rocks.

The eleventh chapter summarises the general geological structure and history of the region, as gathered from a broader outlook over the detailed geological evidences.

In the twelfth chapter I have set down the information I was able to obtain regarding the territorial limits of the different Bedouin tribes inhabiting the region.

The thirteenth and concluding chapter of the book consists of brief notes taken on the return march to Port Sudan.

In regard to the cartographic material, most of which is new, special attention has been given to the place-names, and it is believed that these are correct in almost every case. But as the names are in languages not understood by European draughtsmen, it is almost impossible that mistakes have been entirely avoided; in any case where map and text may disagree in spelling (the differences will, I trust, never be so great as to leave doubts of identity), the text should be followed in preference to the map, as mistakes in the text are usually more easily perceived and corrected. I would remark that although the whole of the field maps have been employed in preparing the small scale ones, yet the full detail can be recorded only on the large scale maps, which are given for the most important districts; a future explorer would do well, therefore, to refer to the manuscript field maps which are filed at the Survey Office at Gîza, before concluding that no more detailed survey exists than is shown on the maps in this book.

The plates illustrating the scenic types are from my own photographs, while those illustrating the natural-size aspect of the typical rocks are reproductions from water-colour drawings which I made from actual specimens. These coloured plates of rocks are mainly designed to enable prospectors to identify readily the ordinary kinds of stone they meet with in the field; but they will also serve to give to petrologists an idea of the appearance of hand specimens of rocks from this part of the world, which are not frequently met with in the great museums. The text figures of rock sections I have mostly drawn at the microscope on silver prints from photographic plates, the prints being afterwards bleached out with mercuric chloride; they will appear slightly diagrammatic in places, owing to the necessity of using lines and dots for tints, but I find I myself get a better idea of a rock from a drawing of this kind than from a photograph.

Much detailed surveying of this mountainous and arid region remains yet to be done, especially in the districts round the heads of the Wadi Alaqi, before our knowledge of it can be considered complete. It is hoped, however, that a substantial beginning has been made towards this end, and that future work may be facilitated by the observational data recorded in the following pages.

John Ball.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF PLATES.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.

THE GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF
SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Fig. 1.—Sketch-Map of Egypt.
The shaded area shows the district treated of in this book.

The district treated of in this volume constitutes the extreme south-east corner of Egypt, lying between the parallels of 22° and 25° of north latitude, and between the meridian of 34° E. and the Red Sea coast. It comprises an area of about 56,000 square kilometres, and includes some of the most mountainous and least accessible portions of the Khedive’s dominions.

The district has been comparatively little visited by travellers, and the literature concerning it is not very extensive. Berenice (Jh)[1] was founded by Ptolemy II (285-247 B.C.), who named the town after his mother, as a station at one end of the road for transporting goods from the Red Sea to the Nile at Koptos (Quft). The emerald mines in the Zabara area were worked at least as early as Ptolemaic times, and gold mines in the south at a much earlier date.

References to this part of Egypt occur in the writings of Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny, as well as in Ptolemy’s Geography and the Antonine Itinerary. Both Strabo and Pliny state that in Berenice, as in Syene, the sun cast no shadow at the summer solstice from which they inferred the town to be on the tropic of Cancer, though in reality it lay in their day some twenty-five kilometres, and is now about 28′, or some fifty-two kilometres, north of the tropic, the difference being caused by the secular change in the obliquity of the ecliptic since the beginning of the Christian era. Ptolemy gives the latitude of Berenice as 23° 50′, which is only 5′ too low; the Smaragdus mons, or emerald mountain, he places in latitude 25°, which is about 15′ higher than the true position of Gebel Zabara (Ec). Diodorus gives a very clear description of the working of gold mines in the Eastern Desert in his day, by miserable convict labour. The road from Koptos to Berenice is mentioned, with lists of stations and water reservoirs and their distances from each other, both by Pliny and the writer of the Antonine Itinerary; and though Pliny gives fewer stations than the Itinerary, the two accounts agree very closely in estimating the total distance at about 258 Roman miles, which, so far as can be judged from a partial identification of the stations marking the route, is pretty correct. The island of Zeberged (Ok), on which occurs the green gem called peridot, is probably the Topazos Insula of Diodorus, and the Agathon of Ptolemy; but Diodorus gives its length as eighty stades (about twelve kilometres), which is three times greater than its present size, and Ptolemy’s latitude of 23½° is some 16′ too low. Ptolemy states that the coast was inhabited by the Ichthyophages, or fish-eaters, while the Troglodytes, or cave-dwellers, of Strabo, were probably the workers in the mines.

The books of the Arab geographers, Edrisi and Abu el Feda, contain some references to the roads and mines of the Eastern Desert, but their descriptions are unimportant and contain frequent palpable errors.

D’Anville, in his Mémoires sur l’Egypte, Paris, 1766, pp. 230-235, attempted to construct a map of the coast of the Red Sea by combining the classical records with some early Portuguese and other charts, but the latter were too crude to enable any approach to be made to an accurate map.

It has been thought that Bruce discovered the island of Zeberged and the emerald mines of Zabara in 1769, but it is tolerably certain that he saw neither of these places. He estimated the latitude of the island he saw “pretty exactly” as 25° 3′, and its distance from the coast as three miles,[2] whereas Zeberged is really in latitude 23° 36′, and is over thirty miles from the nearest coast. The mines he saw were so close to the coast that he could walk to them from his boat and back in less than a day (in fact he states that they were only three miles from the coast), while both the Sikait and the Zabara mines are over a day’s journey from the sea. Nor could the mines have been the sulphur workings near El Ranga (He), unless Bruce made a large error in his observation for latitude, for the sulphur mines are about in latitude 24° 25′, and, moreover, Bruce states that he found “brittle green crystals,” not sulphur.

It is to the French traveller Cailliaud[3] that we owe the first modern account of Berenice and the emerald mines. Cailliaud was a mineralogist, in favour with Mohammad Ali Pasha, who sent him on two expeditions in 1816 and 1817 to search for mines in the Eastern Desert. On his first expedition, starting from Redesia (near Edfu), he discovered the rock temple of Seti I, forty-five kilometres east of the Nile, and several ancient stations on his route, and proceeded to the emerald mines of Zabara and the sulphur mines of El Ranga. On his second expedition he took with him sixty Albanian workmen to exploit the mines, and led them by nearly his former route to Zabara, where they extracted ten lbs. weight of emeralds (beryls) for presentation to the Pasha. On this second expedition Cailliaud discovered the mines and ruins of Sikait, and also other ruins in the Wadi Nugrus (Ed). Cailliaud’s drawings of the ruins of Sikait greatly exaggerate their size and elegance.

Jomard, in notes prefaced to Cailliaud’s account of his travels, made a careful study of the probable positions of the ancient roads and mines in this part of Egypt; he thought that Wadi Gemal Island (Hd) was Zeberged.

In 1818, Belzoni,[4] fired by Cailliaud’s discoveries, set out to discover the ancient Berenice. Starting from Edfu, he travelled eastward for some days over Cailliaud’s route, then marched via Bir Samut (where he discovered the ancient station) and Wadi Ghuel to the Zabara mines, where he found Cailliaud’s miners still at work. From Zabara he journeyed through the Wadi Sikait, passing the mines and ruined temples which had been discovered by Cailliaud, and down the Wadi Gemal to the sea. Proceeding then southward along the coast, he examined the sulphur mines at El Ranga near the mouth of the Wadi Abu Ghusun, and then made his discovery of the ruins of the temple and town of Berenice, near the peninsula of “Cape Galahen” (Ras Benas). The ruins were so inconspicuous as to be only found with difficulty, and the temple was so buried in sand that Belzoni could only make a very imperfect plan of it. The ancient town he estimates to have covered a space near the temple 1,600 feet broad and 2,000 feet long. Leaving Berenice the same day on which he made his discovery, Belzoni returned to Sikait by way of Abu Greia, Haratreit (where he discovered ancient stations), Hefeiri well, and the spring of Um Sueh. After copying some Greek inscriptions at Sikait, he returned to Edfu by way of Wadis Hafafit (Dc), where he found an ancient station, Abu Had, and Samut.

Belzoni’s map[5] of his routes is of course very crude and erroneous, but the fact that he gives the names of the places he passed enables one to reconstruct his routes on modern maps with fair exactitude. His drawings of the ruins he visited are fairly accurate, that of the rock temple of Sikait being a much truer picture than Cailliaud’s.

The extreme south-east corner of Egypt was first explored in 1831 and 1832 by Linant de Bellefonds, who twenty years later published an interesting account of his travels and discoveries.[6] The manner in which Linant Bey’s expedition arose is very curious. He had read the accounts of Diodorus and Arabic writers concerning the ancient gold mines of the Eastern Desert, and when he accidentally discovered small crystals of gold in quartzose detritus brought down the Wadi Alaqi into the Nile by a storm torrent, he at once inferred that this wadi would lead him to the mines. The Arabs told him, quite correctly, that the down-wash had its origin far up the wadi, nine days’ journey from its mouth. Reporting his discovery to Mohammad Ali Pasha, that prince commissioned him to lead an expedition to search for the mines. Starting from Aswan, Linant journeyed south-east and discovered the ancient mines and ruins at Gebel Seiga (Bp), and subsequently the more extensive workings at various places round the head of Wadi Alaqi, such as Egat (Ft) and Darahib (Gu). From the Alaqi district he proceeded northward to Bir Shinai (Hr), and thence eastwards round the spurs of the mountains to Bir Meisah (Kr), east of which he discovered the old mines of Romit (Ls). Crossing the great Wadi Di-ib, he appears to have reached Bir Akwamtra (Os), at the foot of Gebel Elba. His desire to explore the mysterious Elba mountains was frustrated by the Arabs, and he only ascended a minor peak before commencing his return march. From Elba he returned via Bir Meisah, Bir Beida (Ho), and the Wadis Khashab (Gn), Hodein, Rod el Kharuf (Ch), and Kharit to Daraw on the Nile, discovering the springs of Abu Saafa (Em) in the course of his march.

Linant thus performed for the south portion of the district a similar service to that which his compatriot Cailliaud had already done for the north portion. His remarks on the people of the country, their manners and customs, are no less interesting than his descriptions of the ruins and mines which he discovered. The notes on certain points, such as the manner of trapping the wild ass which then roamed these deserts, are specially interesting as illustrating past usages. Linant also compiled a small Bisharin-French vocabulary as an appendix to his work. The large map accompanying his book, though it is well engraved and depicts well the general mountainous character of the country, is unfortunately full of large errors; Gebel Is (Jt), for example, is placed more than sixty kilometres too far south; while many of the place-names are either wholly incorrect or so loosely transliterated as to be almost unrecognisable. But with all its defects, Linant’s map remained the only source for cartographers for a large portion of the Eastern Desert down to the time of the commencement of the present survey; the map of Egypt published in 1905 by the Topographical Section of the British General Staff, for instance, contains much of Linant’s material, though a comparison of that map with the one joined to this report will show how great were the errors in the matter thus incorporated.

Wilkinson[7] gives very brief notes on Berenice and the ancient roads leading to it, as well as on the emerald mines of Zabara and the ruins of the Sikait district. Wilkinson believed he had identified all the ancient stations on the Koptos-Berenice road, besides another smaller one not mentioned in classical itineraries. In the temple of Berenice he found a small fountain, which is now in the British Museum. But his work added little to what had already been learned by Cailliaud and Belzoni regarding this part of Egypt.

In 1836, Wellsted,[8] a lieutenant in the Indian Navy, who had been employed in surveying the Red Sea coast, described the topography of Berenice, and assigned to the place its true latitude of 23° 55′. He gives a plan and view of the temple, which he partially cleared, and in which he found fragments of Greek tablets and of a statue.

Between 1830 and 1840 important contributions were furnished to the geography of Eastern Egypt by the surveys of the Red Sea, carried out by Moresby, Wellsted, and other officers of the East India Company’s Navy. Their sailing directions formed the foundation of the “Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot,” now published by the British Admiralty.[9] Both the charts and sailing directions have been continually revised by Admiralty surveys, and furnish much accurate information about the coast. The principal errors are that almost the entire coast-line between latitudes 22° and 25° is placed too far to the west,[10] and some of the place-names are wrong, or at least unknown to the local sailors of to-day. Such details of the inland relief as are given on the charts are not correct, as was of course to be expected in a hydrographic survey; but the main summits are fairly accurately laid down, and their altitudes agree well with my determinations. Thus the “Southern peak” of the chart, in latitude 23° 18′, is Gebel Fereyid;[11] the “Black conical hill,” near Mersa Shab, is Gemeida; “Scragged hill” is Qash Amir;[12] “High peak” is Gebel Elba; “Castle hill” is Gebel Shendodai; and “South peak” is Asotriba, the highest mountain of the Elba group.

In 1846, Barth made a journey from Aswân to Berenice and thence to Qoseir, and subsequently published a brief journal of his expedition.[13] Going eastward from Aswân, he passed north of Gebel Hamrat Mukbud (Cf), via the Wadi Khashab, past the tomb of Sheikh Shadli (Df) and the granite boss of Selaia (Fh), which he thought to be of slate, and then descended to the coast by Wadi Salib Abiad and Wadi Khoda (Hf). He discovered the old station (now called Garia Kalalat) south-west of Berenice, on his way to the temple, of which he took measures. Barth remarks on the insignificant nature of the ruins and on the badness of the site for a town. On his return journey, he discovered the wells and ruins of Shenshef (Jj), where there are well preserved remains of substantial dwellings which he thought denoted a settlement by people from Berenice. Ascending the Wadi Shut after returning to Wadi Khoda, he turned westward and reached the plain south of the Abu Hamamid-Hamata mountains. Crossing this mountain track by the difficult pass of Hilgit, he descended the Wadi Huluz (Ef), into Wadi Gemal, whence he turned northward and visited the ruins of Sikait. From Sikait he proceeded by winding tracks past Bir Ghadir (Ec) and on to Qoseir.

The next traveller to visit the district, von Heuglin, examined the country from the coast.[14] Sailing southward from Qoseir, he discovered ruins which he thought to be those of Ptolemy’s Nechesia, in latitude 24° 55′, a little south of Ras Tundeba. Further south, he enumerates the various openings and anchorages of the coast to Suakin. Gebel Hamata (Gf) he wrongly thought might be the Alaqi of the ancient mining records. His “Wadi el Hemmah” is doubtless Wadi Lahami (Hg). Rounding Ras Benas, he passed the coral island of Mukawar (Geziret el Ras), and anchored by the ruins of Berenice, which he states to be called Sikait Qibli.[15] In and near the temple ruins von Heuglin found copper nails, fragments of statues, Roman coins, a quartz sistrum and pieces of beryl, besides potsherds and broken glass. Passing Mersa Shab (Sherm Hel el Madfa), he notes a few fishermen’s dwellings on Seyal Island, and a pearl fisher from Jidda plying his calling at a small anchorage called Gota, near Ras Fatma. He mentions Kwolala as “Geziret Elba,” close to the “peninsula of Halaib” (now an island, Geziret Halaib).[16] The Elba mountains he states to be the Prionotus mons of Ptolemy. The “Sherm Qubeten,” which he notes to the south of Halaib, is doubtless Mersa Qabatit of my map.

It is to the veteran African traveller Schweinfurth that we owe the first investigations of the Elba mountains, as long surrounded with mystery as the stronghold of dreaded Bisharin tribes.[17] Like von Heuglin, Schweinfurth visited the country from the coast, making excursions inland. Starting from Qoseir in March, 1864, he proceeded with frequent stoppages to Suakin, spending nearly six months in exploring the littoral districts. His chief object was the investigation of the flora of the country, but his accounts[18] contain much geographical and geological information of great interest. He compares the coastal ranges of Africa with the Cordilleras of South America, and the Abyssinian highlands with Quito. The flora of the Elba district he found to be sharply marked off from that of the rest of Egypt by the presence of large numbers of plants of Abyssinian types. Among his geological notes, it is interesting to come across a reference to serpentine, which I have lately found to form the great mountain masses of Abu Dahr (Gk), Korabkansi (Fq), and Gerf (Hp). Schweinfurth wrote, however, in the early days of petrography, and his term “basalts” includes a variety of fine-grained dark eruptive rocks which we should now call by other names. The sulphur mines of El Ranga he characterised as worthless, the mineral being in very small quantity. Schweinfurth’s map of the Elba district was a great advance on anything of the kind previously existing, though it contains many inaccuracies, particularly of place-names, as was in fact only to be expected from his very short stay in the locality. He remarked the separation of Gebel Elba (Pr) from the more southern mountains, but failed to notice that Qash Amir (Os), (the “Scragged Hill” of the Admiralty Chart), is in its turn quite distinct from Elba, Halaib is called Elei,[19] and the Geziret Halaib is shown as a peninsula; Kwolala is called “Geziret Elei,” and the Geziret el Dibia (the Elba Island of the charts) is called Geziret Abu Fendira by Schweinfurth. My Wadi Shellal he calls “Wadi Heberah,” and Cape Elba (my Ras Hadarba) is noted as “Ras Edineb.” His “highest peak” (South Peak of the charts) is Asotriba, the highest mountain of the group, lying just within the Sudan; the name Asotriba (Schweinfurth’s “Soturba”) means “green mountain,” and refers to the vegetation on its slopes. Schweinfurth’s experience of the Bisharin led him to give them a very bad character, though he gives high recognition to their beauty of feature and figure; but being unfamiliar with their language was, he admits, an obstacle to forming a fair judgment of them.

In 1873, Colonels Purdy and Colston, two American officers attached to the Egyptian Army, were commissioned by the Khedive Ismail Pasha to carry out a reconnaissance for a proposed railway line between Berenice and Berber. Colston[20] travelled overland from Qena via Qoseir to Berenice, discovering several ancient stations on his way to join Purdy. Though Purdy sanguinely states[21] that “la construction d’un chemin de fer de ce point (Berenice) à Berber n’offrirait pas de grandes difficultés,” the reconnaissance appears to have been singularly rough for a decision in so weighty a matter. Distances were mere guesses, and the only instruments employed seem to have been a compass, aneroid, and hypsometer. The compass must often have been unreliable owing to magnetic rocks, which in places deflect the needle as much as 40° from its normal position, while the use of the aneroid was so little understood that Purdy could actually write, in the concluding paragraph of his paper: “Je me permets de rappeler l’attention sur les notes barométriques jointes à ce rapport. A ce propos, je dois faire observer que quoique l’anéroïde soit très sensible aux changements de niveau, il ne l’est pas assez pour la pression atmosphérique, et sa marche est excessivement irrégulière. . . . Il m’est arrivé, par exemple, de constater, le matin, au moment du départ, une différence sensible du point marqué le soir précédent à mon arrivée.” Not only are many of the place-names given by Purdy erroneous, but some of his most important statements are contrary to fact; to take only a few examples, the Wadi Kalalat is confused with Wadi Shenshef, and Gebel Shut with Gebel Dahanib, while it is stated that no water exists between Gebel Dif (Fm) and Gebel Egat (Ft), although there are several good wells between the two places. The map accompanying Purdy’s paper is full of errors, and almost worse than useless. Of Colston’s route from Qena to Berenice there was no published cartographic record until 1891, when G. Cora[22] endeavoured to place Colston’s track on a map from his manuscript sketches. Cora’s map shows no new material except the route, and even this cannot be very correct, for it is evident on comparison with the results of the recent survey that Colston’s sketch map was of the same rough and inaccurate character as Purdy’s.

In January 1889, Golénischeff made an expedition from the Nile to Berenice and back. His object was to collect archæological information, especially concerning the ancient roads and stations, but the careful account[23] which he has given of his journey is also of geographical interest. Starting from Redesia by Cailliaud’s route, he examined the temple of Seti I, and then discovered the ancient station of Abu Medrik[24] further to the south-east. Passing the ruins at Samut and Dweig (Cc), he found another small station on the way to Abu Had, and arrived at the station in Wadi Gemal (Ed), near Wadi Hafafit. From the Wadi Gemal he proceeded via the Wadis Abiad (Fe), Abu Hegilig, Hefeiri, Abu Ghusun (Ge), Haratreit (Hf), Khashir (in which another ancient station was discovered), and Lahami (Hg), past the Abu Greia ruins, to Berenice. He returned by way of Wadis Naait (Hh) and Lahami on to the plain of Kharit, and thence past Hamrat Mukbud (Cf), via the Wadis Khashab, Kharit (Ag), and Abu Modellim, to the Nile. Golénischeff, besides giving small plans of the various ancient stations and a carefully measured plan of the temple of Berenice, made a comparison of his itinerary with the descriptions of the old roads by classical writers and by Colston. He considers there can be no doubt that Abu Greia is the Vetus hydreuma of Pliny, and the ruins in Wadi Khashir the Novum hydreuma of the same writer. The ruins in Wadi Haratreit he considers to be the station Cabalsi of the Antonine Itinerary, Apollonus being identified with the well found by Colston at Hefeiri, Falacro with the ruins in the Wadi Gemal, and Aristonis with those in Wadi Dweig.

In 1891, Floyer, at the head of a scientific exploring expedition sent out by the Khedive Tewfik Pasha, travelled over the country north of 23° 30′, and his results were published in French in 1893.[25] A little later, the geographical results of the expedition were embodied in an English paper read at the Royal Geographical Society.[26] The general map in the French essay is only on a very small scale, but the English publication is accompanied by a much more illuminating map on a scale of 1:760,320, reduced from one prepared by the Intelligence Division of the War Office from Floyer’s original plane-table sketches. This latter map, in spite of many errors and defects, was a very great advance on anything which had previously appeared, and it formed the principal source of geographical information concerning the north part of the district at the commencement of my survey in 1905.

The geological observations made by Floyer during his expedition formed the subject of a paper read by him before the Geological Society of London in 1892.[27] This paper is chiefly remarkable for the number of grave errors of observation into which Floyer’s limited acquaintance with geology caused him to fall, and later researches have fully justified the scepticism with which his deductions were received by the Society. Thus, for instance, he refers to the ancient schists and slates of Zabara as “blue clay,”[28] and to the dark schists and diorite of Abu Hamamid and Abu Gurdi as “compact granite.” The rocks which Floyer considered to be “metamorphosed sandstone” are diorites and schists at Um Eleiga and in the Wadi Gemal, and typical gneisses and granites in the Nugrus and Hafafit ranges. Not a trace of sandstone has been found to exist within many miles of the places where Floyer records its metamorphism, nor has any evidence of the recent volcanic activity reported by him (Geog. Journal, 1893, p. 430) been discovered.

An account of a short visit to the Elba district was published by Bent[29] in 1896. Bent landed at Halaib and camped near Gebel Shellal (Qt). He thinks that Halaib may have been the town of Aydat mentioned by the Arab geographers Abu el Feda and Edrisi, and that it is a place of purely Arab origin. At Suakin el Qadim (Qs) he found among the mounds nothing earlier than Cufic remains, unless certain graves, formed of four large blocks of coral set deep in the ground, may be looked upon as a more ancient form of sepulture. His “Gebel Shendeh” should be correctly Gebel Shendib, and his “Shendoeh” is correctly Shendodai; the “Riadh” mentioned by him I have not been able to identify. His estimated heights are considerably in error; thus Gebel Shendib is really 6,273 feet and Gebel Shellal 4,623 feet instead of the 4,500 feet and 4,100 feet which he gives. The paper contains interesting remarks on the Hamedorab tribe, which Bent was informed totalled only some 300 fighting men in the entire district from Asotriba to Ras Benas. The reference to the sheikh as “the batran” is due to a misconception; Batran was the late sheikh’s first name, and is not a title of station. The map accompanying Bent’s paper is only to a very small scale, and formed practically no addition to existing knowledge.

Macalister[30] has given a detailed and interesting account of the Sikait district (Ed), with special reference to its geology, as the result of an expedition there in 1899. The small scale sketch map of the route followed in reaching the mines from the valley is not very correct, but the detail maps of the Sikait neighbourhood give an accurate representation of the area in which the mines are situated, while the geological notes give an excellent idea of one of the most highly metamorphic areas of the entire Eastern Desert. Macalister gives some notes also on the ruins and the people of the neighbourhood. His experience of the Ababda as workers was very unfavourable; though his characterisation is unfortunately only too well merited by a large section of the tribe, it is probable that a longer acquaintance with Arabs would have enabled him to select men of a better class. A sufficiency of good men for a caravan of 130 camels cannot be raised without great expenditure of time and care, even by those who have lived for many years among the Arabs, and a few bad characters in a desert camp soon exert a bad influence over the rest.

The brilliant series of investigations carried out by the officers accompanying the Austrian research ship “Pola” in the Red Sea in the winter of 1895-96, though chiefly concerned with oceanographic questions, contain not a few observations of interest connected with the land.[31] The positions determined include Sherm Sheikh, Berenice, St. John’s or Zeberged Island, and Halaib. The latitudes observed agree well with the values which I found by triangulation.[32] For longitude the method used was the transport of chronometers, and this method is liable to such considerable errors that we need have no hesitation in preferring my triangulation values, especially as our latitudes are in agreement. The observations made by the officers of the “Pola” on the compass-variation at Berenice and Halaib are of considerable importance as enabling us, by comparison with my own observations at the same places, eleven and twelve years later, to obtain a reliable value for the rate of secular change of this magnetic element in the district. A large scale map of Halaib is given, and amongst other observations of interest to the geographer in South-Eastern Egypt are analyses of the water at Halaib, a series of pendulum observations which show a decided increase in the force of gravity over the sea as compared with the intensity over the land, and descriptions with figures of some of the reptiles which are found in the region.

Turning now to the work of the Geological Survey in the district, the maps and descriptions in the present volume are the result of surveys carried out by me in the three seasons 1905-1908, or about twenty-two months’ work in all. The survey was commenced primarily with the view of enabling mining concessions to be accurately marked out. How little possibility of this existed so recently as 1902 may be gathered from the fact that although a ministerial order of that year had defined the administrative frontier between Egypt and the Sudan as being a line joining certain important mountains and wells, which were named, yet it was impossible to lay this frontier down correctly on a map because the geographical positions even of these important features were uncertain to many kilometres.

The main interest in the field methods used, which will be described in detail in a subsequent chapter, lies in the fact that many of them are wholly or in part new, having been devised as the work proceeded to meet the special exigencies of the case. The costly nature of camel-transport, and the relatively small value of the country, precluded the employment of the ordinary sequence of survey operations, and it was necessary to carry on reconnaissance, precise triangulation, detailed topographical mapping, and geological surveying, all at once, and to move rapidly so as to cover a large area in a moderate time. Starting from a measured base near Gebel Muelih, which had been previously connected by triangulation with the Nile Valley, a network of large triangles was thrown over the country. The essential feature of the triangulation was the employment of observations at relatively few occupied main summits, to fix large numbers of points by intersection; in some cases over a hundred triangulation points were sighted from a single occupied station. The triangulation was continued so as to join to a second base line near Gebel Um Harba (Ck), and was also connected on to main points in the trigonometrical survey of the Sudan, thus linking up a continuous chain of triangles from Alexandria to Berber. The total number of main (occupied) stations was sixty-four, while the intersected points numbered 450. In addition to these, about 1,200 minor points were fixed by subsidiary triangulation from short local bases.

Levels were taken trigonometrically for all points fixed by triangulation, using the actual sea-level as the datum. The altitudes of nearly all camps were likewise found trigonometrically, and between successive camps aneroid readings, adjusted to the initial and terminal points of the day’s march, were employed to supplement trigonometrical determinations made on the journey.

For the control of the maps, latitudes and azimuths were taken at intervals, the former by equal altitudes of three or more stars, the latter by elongations of close circumpolar stars.

The topographical sketching, carried out on plane-tables on a scale of 1:100,000, was based on the points triangulated, these being computed in camp and plotted by their geographical coordinates as much ahead of the lines of march as possible. When marching, plane-table stations were fixed by re-section from three or more triangulated points, the compass being useless owing to abundance of magnetic rocks. Details along the line of march were put in by tacheometric readings from the stations, using specially devised long distance methods. But the greater portion of the sketching was done from the mountain tops while occupying them as trigonometrical stations, and for this again special methods, involving an extensive use of vertical angles, were employed. On an average, about thirty square kilometres were sketched in during each day’s march, and about 400 square kilometres from each main trigonometrical station, where it was usually necessary to remain for at least a week to get sufficiently clear weather for the more distant sights. It was not, of course, possible to sketch every portion of the area in uniform detail, for some parts lay so far from the line of march and from the triangulation stations that little or no detail was visible. The lacunæ were filled in as far as possible in the field from guides’ statements, taking care on the field maps to distinguish parts so filled as only approximate. A few additions near the west limit of the map have been added from reconnaissance surveys by various colleagues of the Survey Department. For details of the upper part of the basin of the Wadi Alaqi, I have taken advantage of an admirable reconnaissance-survey of this tract recently made by Mr. J. Morrow Campbell, B.Sc., F.R.G.S., for the Egyptian Options, Ltd., who kindly placed their map at the disposal of the Government. My triangulation gave the positions and altitudes of all the principal peaks of this region, and thus enabled Mr. Campbell’s map to be accurately adjusted to the Survey positions, and his drainage lines and other topographical details have been inserted with great advantage to the map, which would otherwise have been almost blank in this particular area. Mr. Campbell’s map does not, unfortunately, give any altitudes, and the only altitude data for the orographical sketching were the peaks and other points of connexion with the Survey map; but by taking into account the depth of shading of the different hill masses and the known altitudes determined by triangulation, it is believed that a fairly approximate picture of the orography has been obtained.

The sea coast north of latitude 24° 10′ was adapted from the Admiralty Chart, fitting it on to coast points trigonometrically fixed. South of 24° 10′ the coast was surveyed in detail by means of depression angles from the occupied peaks of the triangulation. The local circumstances, in the existence of high mountains pretty close to the sea, are so favourable to the employment of this method, that it is confidently believed that the maps represent a considerable advance in accuracy over the Admiralty Charts. It was frequently possible to check the accuracy of the coast-line delineation by plane-table rays, and it was invariably found that the errors were insensible, even on the fairly large scale employed in the field-maps. The coast-line shown is the high water-line. The tidal change of level, though it is generally less than a metre, uncovers in many places extensive coral reefs at low water, but no attempt was made to map these.

Very special care was taken with place-names, which are transliterated on the Egyptian Government system. It may be remarked that this system is based on the Arabic spelling, not on pronunciation. Thus, in this part of the country, the letter g is almost always soft, like an English j, and the q is always sounded like a hard g. The same system was used for the Bishari and Ababda names, these being first written by a guide in Arabic characters and then transliterated. It is believed that the orthography is correct in almost all cases.

The geology was examined along every line of march, and additional specimens were obtained by sending guides to collect rocks from mountains otherwise unvisited. Where possible, the principal geological boundaries were drawn direct on the plane-table sheets in the field, and the remainder have been placed from field notes. The limits of the different igneous and metamorphic rocks shown on the geological map aim only at showing general relationships, for in many cases it is difficult, owing to insensible gradations, to decide exactly where granites and diorites end and gneisses and schists begin, while in other places rocks of two or three distinct species are so intimately mixed that the boundaries could not be shown on the small scale used, even if the exact limits were traced by a life-time’s work; in these latter cases the areas are coloured in accordance with what appeared to be the dominant rock within them.

Throughout the three seasons’ work I was accompanied by Dahab Effendi Hassan, who rendered useful assistance in booking angles and in reconnaissance, and in the third season Mr. O. N. Bakewell also accompanied me and gave me much useful help. The Egyptian unskilled staff employed consisted almost entirely of Bedouin and comprised on an average about twenty-five camel drivers (for thiry-five baggage camels), six porters, three guides, and two postmen, all placed under an Arab sheikh.

The total cost of the field-work was approximately L.E. 5,090, or about 150 milliemes for each square kilometre of country mapped in detail. Nearly two-thirds of the entire amount were expended in camel-transport, the remainder representing the expenditure on salaries and allowances of the author and assistants engaged in actual surveying operations.

[1]The references in parentheses after place-names refer to their positions on the map, [Plate I.]

[2]Bruce’s Travels to discover the Sources of the Nile. Halifax, 1845. pp. 78-80.

[3]Cailliaud, Travels in the Oasis of Thebes and in the Deserts east and west of the Thebaid, edited by Jomard. Translated from the French. London, 1822. This work contains two small maps and many engravings. (The map of the Eastern Desert is unfortunately wanting in the Khedivial Library copy, which is the only one I have seen.)

[4]Belzoni, Narrative of the Operations and Discoveries in Egypt and Nubia, and of a Journey to the Coast of the Red Sea, in search of the ancient Berenice. London, 1820.

[5]Plates illustrative of the Researches and Operations of G. Belzoni in Egypt and Nubia. London, 1822. (This is a large folio atlas of 44 plates.)

[6]Linant de Bellefonds, L’Etbaye, Paris (N. D., but the title of the map accompanying the work gives the date as 1854).

[7]Wilkinson, Topography of Thebes and General View of Egypt. London, 1835. pp. 415-422. Modern Egypt and Thebes. London, 1843. Vol. 2, pp. 389-394.

[8]Wellsted, Notice of the Ruins of Berenice. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. London, 1836. pp. 96-100.

[9]Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot. 5th edition. London, 1900 (with several later supplements). Admiralty Charts of the Red Sea. Sheets 2 and 3.

[10]At Halaib Fort the difference is as much as 1′ 53″, or nearly 2 miles; see [p. 66.]

[11]This should not be confounded with the higher Gebel Faraid to the northward.

[12]Qash Amir is quite a separate mountain from Gebel Elba, not part of the same range as the chart indicates.

[13]Barth, Reise von Assuan über Berenike nach Kosser—Zeits. für allgem. Erdkunde. Berlin. Vol. VII (1859), pp. 1-31. (There is no map to this work, but the route followed is easily traceable on a modern map owing to the place-names being given in the journal.)

[14]v. Heuglin, Reise in Nordost Africa und längs des Rothen Meeres im Jahre 1857. Petermann’s geogr. Mittheilungen, 1860. pp. 332-335. (This paper is accompanied by a map, which is, however, lacking in the copy of the Khedivial Library).

[15]This I think is an error. A small isolated granite hill west of Berenice is called Sikeit, and has been visited by Barth and myself; but it is devoid of ruins. My Arabs called Berenice Medinet el Haras.

[16]There was no “Geziret Elba” known to the sailors of Halaib at the time of my survey. The “Elba Island” of the Admiralty Chart is called Geziret el Dibia; it is a very small island, which looks like a boat from a distance.

[17]Though the Bisharin are now very orderly and friendly, the ancient dread of their country still persists to such a degree that it is almost impossible to persuade Ababda Arabs to go near the Elba district.

[18]Schweinfurth, Reise an der Kuste des Rothen Meeres von Kosser bis Suakin, Zeits. für allgem. Erdkunde. Berlin, Band XVIII (1865), pp. 131-150, 283-313, 320-384. A special account of the Elba district is given with a map, in another paper, Das Land am Elba- und Soturba-Gebirge in Petermann’s geog. Mittheilungen, 1865. pp. 330-340. Schweinfurth also published several other papers dealing with the rich botanical results of his expedition.

[19]I found many of the natives could not recognise the name Halaib, which has become the official name of their village. They call it “Oleiyib,” sounding the final consonant only slightly; so that Schweinfurth’s “Elei” is not very different from the local name.

[20]Colston, Journal d’un voyage du Caire à Keneh, Bérénice et Berber. Bull. Soc. Khédiv. de Géographie. 1886. pp. 489-568.

[21]Purdy, Reconnaissance entre Bérénice et Berber. Ibid. pp. 431-435, with a map.

[22]Cora, La route de Kéneh à Bérénice levée en 1873, par le Colonel R. E. Colston. Bull. Soc. Khéd. de Géog. Cairo, Sept. 1891. pp. 533-538, with map.

[23]Golénischeff, Une Excursion à Bérénice. Recueil de Travaux. Vol. XIII (1891), pp. 75-96.

[24]Golénischeff names this place Abu Greïa, a name which he remarks is the same as that of a station near Berenice. Garia Abu Medrik is the name given to it by the Arab guides accompanying the Survey expeditions.

[25]Floyer, Etude sur le Nord Etbai. Cairo, 1893.

[26]Further Routes in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Geog. Journal. London, 1893. pp. 408-431.

[27]Notes on the Geology of the Northern Etbai. Quart. Journal Geol. Soc. London, 1892. pp. 576-582.

[28]Professor Hull, in the discussion on Floyer’s paper, suggested, even in the absence of specimens, that Floyer’s “blue clay” was really a decomposed Archæan schist. My observations have proved the sagacity of this suggestion.

[29]Bent, A visit to the Northern Sudan. Geogr. Journal. London. Vol. VIII (1896), pp. 335-353.

[30]Macalister, The Emerald Mines of Northern Etbai. Geog. Journal. London. Vol. XVI (1900), pp. 537-549.

[31]Berichte der Commission für Oceanographische Forschungen. Sechste Reihe, Wien 1898, and Siebente Reihe, Wien, 1901.

[32]See [p. 65.]

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.

In this chapter will be given a brief general account of the district, under the heads of:—

The subjects of topography, water supplies, and geology, will be further considered more fully in succeeding chapters.

Extent.

As already mentioned in the introduction, the district treated of in this volume lies between the parallels of 25° and 22° of north latitude, and between the meridian of 34° E. and the Red Sea. It comprises an area of about 56,000 square kilometres (22,000 square miles).

Relief.[33]

The higher mountains of the Eastern Desert generally form the watershed between the Nile and the Red Sea. This watershed is much nearer to the coast than to the Nile, with the result that the eastward drainage is much steeper than to the west.

Commencing from the north (see the orographical map, [Plate I]), the principal mountain masses are:—

(i) The Migif — Hafafit — Nugrus — Hangalia — Zabara group (1,505 metres[34]), cut off to the south by the Wadi Gemal (Fd).

(ii) The Abu Hamamid — Hamata — Abu Gurdi group (1,978 metres), limited on the south by the Wadi Lahami (Hg).

(iii) The Um Gunud — Dahanib — Batoga group (1,270 metres), lying between Wadi Lahami on the north and Wadi Khoda (Hj) on the south.

(iv) The Abu Dahr — Orga — Um Tenedba group (1,131 metres), separating the drainage of Wadi Betan (Fl) from Wadis Khoda and Rahaba (Hl).

(v) The Faraid group, the Mons Pentadactylus of Ptolemy, comprising some very remarkable granite peaks (1,366 metres), lying near the coast between Wadi Khoda and Wadi Rahaba.

(vi) The Awamtib — Abraq — Dif — Aqab el Negum — Mishbih group (1,353 metres), forming the tripartite watershed between the great Wadi systems of Kharit and Alaqi on the west, and that of Wadi Hodein on the east.

(vii) The Gerf — Abu Hodeid group, a mighty mass rising to 1,736 metres, lying between Wadi Hodein (Jn) and Wadi Hasium (Hs).

(viii) The Meisah — Adar Qaqa — Is group, between the Wadis Hasium and Di-ib (Mr).

(ix) The Elba — Shendib group (1,912 metres[35]), a great mass of spiky mountains lying near the sea between Wadi Di-ib and the coast.

Besides these main groups, there are numerous more or less isolated mountains, of which Gebels Abu Khrug (Bd, 870 metres), Hamrat Mukbud (Cf, 890 metres), Zergat Naam (Ej, 845 metres), and the two Niqrubs (Fn and Fo, 829 metres and 1,078 metres) are examples.

Some of the mountains, especially the granite “bodkin” of Gebel Faraid (Hl), and some of the peaks of the Elba group, appear to be unclimbable. A few others are rather dangerous of ascent, as, for example, Gebel Abu Hamamid (Ef) on account of its steepness, and Gebel Abu Dahr (Gk) by reason of combined steepness and rotten rock, which comes away in tons at a touch. The highest peak of all within the district, Gebel Hamata (Gf), is a comparatively easy climb from the north.

Hydrography.

The course of the main watershed which parts the Red Sea and Nile drainages is highly irregular both in altitude and direction, as will be evident from the orographical map ([Plate I]), on which it is shown by a red line. From Gebel Hamrat Wogud, in the north, it passes east of Gebel Atut, thence through the high masses of Gebels Hangalia, Nugrus, Hafafit, and Migif, beyond which it drops southward through the low country round Gebel Abu Had. Entering the mountains again at Gebel Nukheira, it takes an eastward bend, passing along the great ridges of Gebels Abu Hamamid, Um Usher, Um Hasidok, and Ras el Kharit. Striking southward across the head of Wadi Kharit, it courses through the mountains of Mikbi and Abu Gurdi, thence dropping to the south on the plain near the hills called Marwot Elemikan. Turning here sharply westward over the plain, it passes through the hill-mass of Gebel Abu Derega and on to Gebel Zergat Naam, south-west of which it crosses the low tract at the head of Wadi el Arned to the sandstone plateaux of Dagalai, whence it courses a little to the west of Gebel Um Reit and enters the mountainous tract of Gebel Aqab el Negum. Its further course has not been traced in detail, but from guides’ statements and the indications of the main drainage-lines it is believed to run as shown on the map, in a great curve through the two sharp peaks of Gebel Sheyenit to the west of Gebel Mishbih, and then in another flatter curve south-eastwards to Gebel Soaorib, at the head of Wadi Hasium. Continuing along the mountain ridges of Gebel Soaorib, it crosses to Gebel Is,[36] separating the Wadi Is from the heads of Wadi Alaqi on the Sudan frontier.

The watershed is for a great part of its course quite impassable for camels. The principal places where it can be crossed are at the head of Wadi Nugrus, near Abu Had, the Wadi Marasan between Huluz and Wadi el Sheikh, the heads of Wadi Lahami, Wadi el Fil, Wadi Arned, and Wadi Um Reit, passes at Aqab el Negum and Hamrat el Feg, near Gebel Mishbih, the head of Wadi Hasium, and the pass of Adar Ameit, north of Gebel Is. All these places are practicable for baggage camels, though in some of them, as, for instance, at the head of Wadi Nugrus, care is required because the track is steep and stony.

The principal drainage-basins are shown on the small scale map on [Plate II.] The westward drainage ultimately reaches the Nile by the three main trunk wadis of Shait, Kharit, and Alaqi; Shait and Kharit enter the Nile Valley at Kom Ombo, while Alaqi debouches near Dakka. The eastward drainage is much more complex, the principal trunk wadis, such as Um Khariga, Gemal, Khoda, Rahaba, Hodein, Ibib, Di-ib, and Serimtai, being separated by very numerous minor wadis draining independently to the sea.[37]

Nearly all the wadis contain vegetation in the form of trees and bushes, and plant life flourishes as a rule far more luxuriously in wadis draining seawards than in those leading to the Nile. Feqoh, Naam, and the lower reaches of Hodein are, however, exceptionally barren. Forming, as they do, the only possible roads, furnishing the entire supply of camel food, and containing most of the wells, the wadis are to the desert what the Nile is to Egypt proper. The intervening mountains are of no interest to the Arabs, except when they contain water-reservoirs. Hence the place-naming starts from the wadis, even the smallest of which have names unless they are barren. Mountains are generally named after the nearest wadi, and may thus have two names when situated between two wadis, the particular name used depending on which side the mountain is seen from.

Coast-line.

The coast-line of this part of Egypt is somewhat irregular, the peninsula of Ras Benas forming a prominent projection in latitude 24°. In the south part of the area the eastward extension of the country, culminating in Ras Hadarba (Cape Elba of existing maps), is very marked, extending nearly to 37° of east longitude. The coast is almost entirely fringed by coral reefs, passage through which is only possible at certain points, and then only with the utmost care in navigation.[38] Between the feet of the mountains and the sea there extends a gently sloping plain, varying in width from about eight to twenty-five kilometres, covered with sand, over which the drainage meanders in shallow courses, often only traceable by the vegetation which occurs along them. A rather surprising result brought out by the levelling observations is that the slope of the coast plain, even where it looks flattest and sandiest, is as steep as the floors of some of the wadis draining on to it, and several times more steep than the beds of the wadis which drain westwards to the Nile, its fall seawards averaging six metres per kilometre and reaching over ten metres per kilometre in some sections.

Climate.

The climate of the district is predominantly hot and dry to the west of the watershed, hot and moist eastward of it; but very cold weather is apt to prevail for a few weeks in January and February, with strong north winds, on both sides of the watershed, and the transition from piercing cold to great heat at these times is often brought about very suddenly by a change of wind direction. There is seldom any frost, but water-bags are occasionally frozen on the mountain tops at night. Cool north-west winds prevail in the north part of the area, while hot damp winds from the south-east are usual in the south. In the central part, round Berenice, absolute calms are frequent.[39] The highest mountain-masses are frequently swathed in clouds for weeks together, especially from January to March. The hot, dry, sand-laden winds called Khamsin occasionally blow for four or five days together in March and April; at these times the shade temperature rises to over 45° C., and the air is thick with sand and dust. Rain falls in most years, but its quantity is very variable; in some years there is barely enough to keep the wells supplied, and much of the vegetation withers; in others, heavy storms produce wild downrushes in the wadis, filling them for short periods with raging torrents. Curious electrical and optical phenomena can sometimes be seen on the mountain-tops during storms and in mists.[40] The Elba region is seldom free from clouds, and receives far more rain than any other portion of the area, forming in fact the northern limit of the rainy tropical zone; it is in consequence relatively well wooded, while the other mountains are a dreary waste of naked rocks.

Sketch-Map OF SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.
Showing Drainage-Basins.

Photo-Metal-Process. Survey Dept. Cairo 1910. (60-190)

Scale 1:2,000,000.

Scenery.

The predominant types of scenery are extensive sandy plains and gaunt rugged mountains. In the low-lands, pleasant relief from the stony monotony is afforded by the trees and scrub which occur along most of the wadis, though their struggle for existence is often evidenced by miles of withered and blackened scrub in places which a few years ago were green and flourishing. The bareness of the mountains becomes slightly relieved in the Elba district, where beautiful trees and flowering plants thrive high up the mountain-side along all the drainage lines. As to the forms of the mountains, one sees extensive broken sandstone plateaux at Gebel Abraq (El), remarkable rounded granite bosses at Gebels Muelih (Ab), Nugrus (Dc), Selaia (Fh), and Um Rasein (Jr), jagged and spiky granite peaks in the mountains of Faraid (Jk), Qash Amir (Os), and Elba (Ps), and broken masses of gneiss, dark schists and serpentines at Gebels Hafafit (Dc), Hangalia (Dc), Abu Hamamid (Ef), Hamata (Gf), and Gerf (Hp). Perhaps the most remarkable of all the peaks are those of Faraid (Jk), which from the north look like the expanded fingers of a huge hand, whence they received their name of Mons Pentadactylus in antiquity, while one specially sharp peak is styled very appropriately “the Bodkin” on Admiralty Charts. The mass of Elba forms a very fine view from the north, but the prevalence of clouds about its summits frequently hides it from view for months together. The views from the mountain-tops are extensive and beautiful, especially at sunrise and sunset, when the peaks take on wonderful colours, and the views from the summits when the entire lower landscape is bathed in clouds, through which only the higher peaks project like islands from a great sea, are not less remarkable. Though a good look out was kept from the highest mountains across the sea, the mountains of the opposite shore of Arabia were never with certainty made out; the cone of Zeberged Island was, however, often seen. It is stated by d’Anville, on the authority of Castro,[41] that both the Arabian and African mountains can be seen from the summit of Zeberged.

Animal and Plant Life.

Both animal and plant life is mainly confined to the drainage lines. Of wild animals suitable for human food, gazelles can be shot fairly frequently in the south part of the area, but are very scarce in the north. Sand grouse and partridges can occasionally be obtained round Abu Saafa, while doves are very abundant in the groves near Bir Akwamtra, at the foot of Gebel Elba. Ibex were never seen with certainty, though their horns and lairs were often found on the mountains. Conies inhabit the rocks near Bir Abraq and Bir Madi. The wild ass has disappeared from the area, as also has the ostrich, though fragments of ostrich eggs picked up here and there, and drawings of this bird on the rocks, attest its presence here in recent times. Vultures, kites, and ravens are everywhere in evidence, and several kinds of smaller birds, such as swallows and wagtails, are often seen about the greener wadis. Lizards of many kinds are to be seen. Scorpions and snakes are seldom met with. Of butterflies and moths, especially the latter, many varieties occur. The common fly occurs in such numbers as to be a great pest, but mosquitoes and sand-flies are practically absent. Camel ticks infest the ground under all trees used as shade by travelling Arabs. Earwigs are in some places very abundant, and a great variety of beetles and bugs occur. Near the sea, whole armies of crabs are to be seen marching on the shore, and hermit crabs are very numerous in all sorts of gasteropod dwellings.

Of plant life the district contains a great variety. The north and central parts of the area contain the same trees and bushes as abound further north in Egypt,[42] and camel food is moderately abundant. As Elba is approached, many beautiful flowering plants not found further north are met with, while in the clefts of the slopes of Elba itself is a far richer vegetation than occurs wild in any other part of Egypt. I found the approach to Elba was stopped for baggage camels some four kilometres from the summit owing to the closeness of the trees, and the ascent on foot up the clefts of the mountain-face for the remainder of the way was more like going through an English wood than up a desert mountain. Many varieties of sweet-smelling flowers and some fruit-bearing trees unfamiliar in Egypt were seen, while mosses and lichens covered the tumbled masses of granite in many places. Schweinfurth, who examined the botany of this region in 1864, found that of 300 species of plants collected in the Elba district, the vast majority were of Abyssinian types; scarcely 100 were living in other more northerly parts of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, while still fewer are indigenous to the Nile Valley, and only fifteen species were of those found wild in Europe.[43]

Water Supplies.[44]

The sources of water comprise galts (rock basins forming rain water reservoirs in the mountains), springs and wells. Of these, galts yield the purest water, and form the principal supply of the pastoral Arabs, except in years of no rainfall, while springs and wells, the latter usually rude excavations in the alluvia of wadis, are most used by travellers from their easier accessibility. Small galts are called megal (Ababda) or megwel (Bisharin); they are frequently accompanied by small springs.

The small scale map on [Plate III,] which shows all sources known to exist within the area, gives a good idea of the distribution of water supplies. Water is scarce in the western parts of the country, Bir Abu Hashim being the only source within a radius of about sixty kilometres of itself, but galts and wells are fairly frequent among the mountainous tracts further east. The springs of Abraq and Abu Saafa are the most important sources in the central area. The portion of the country under the Sudan Administration is far richer in water that the Egyptian part, containing numerous fine wells and springs, such as Birs Meneiga, Abu Hodeid, Akwamtra, and Frukit. The coast plain is waterless, except for salty wells near the sea.

Water can usually be obtained at intervals of about two or three days when on the march, and in some parts much more frequently. The water of certain wells and springs has a purgative effect due to the absorption of magnesium salts, especially after a long interval without rain. That of others, again, such as Muelih and Shalatein, is so salty as to be only drinkable by camels.

Geology.[45]

The rocks composing this part of Egypt are principally igneous and metamorphic deposits of very ancient origin. Granite is most prominent in the Nugrus, Faraid, and Elba areas, schists and diorites cover a large portion of the remaining country, and huge masses of serpentines form the mountains of Abu Dahr, Korabkansi, and Gerf. Of sedimentary rocks, plateaux of Nubian sandstone (Cretaceous) cover large areas round Bir Abraq and westward of it, while a narrow belt of the same rock also occurs along the sea coast in the north part of the district. Gypseous limestones (Miocene?) form the hills of Ras Benas and occur along the coast north of Wadi Lahami, as well as in small areas near the coast further south in the neighbourhood of Halaib.

Sketch-Map OF SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.
Showing the Water-sources and the Roads connecting them.

Photo-Metal-Process. Survey Dept. Cairo 1910. (60-190)

Scale 1:2,000,000.

Crushing of the older rocks is almost everywhere strongly evidenced, but faulting is difficult to trace except in the sandstone areas, where it is strongly marked. The presence of clearly defined overthrust faulting in the Abraq area shows that tangential earth movements, so rare in this part of the world,[46] have not been altogether absent.

Mineral Products.

The mineral resources of this part of Egypt are not of very great importance, owing partly to its inaccessible situation and desert character. Gold and copper ores occur in places; other localities contain beryl and peridots, while others, again, bear iron ores, gypsum, sulphur, steatite, asbestos, and magnesite, and good building stones abound over large areas.

The presence of ruins and excavations at places like Hangalia, Sikait, Zabara, Romit, and Darahib, are evidence of mining activity in the past, but the mean nature of the accommodation for the workers, and the presence of old stone hand mills where gold was the thing sought for, confirm the statement of Diodorus[47] that the mines were worked by miserable convicts.

In recent years much prospecting has been done to test whether the ancient mines could be developed and made commercially productive under modern conditions. In the case of many areas, including that round Darahib, the mines of which are believed to be those referred to with a map in the Turin papyrus of the Nineteenth Dynasty,[48] the prospecting licences have been surrendered to the Government because the results were unfavourable. In a few other cases prospecting is still being carried out, and in three localities the results have been sufficiently encouraging for exploitation to be undertaken.

The following tables, compiled from information supplied by the Mines Department, give particulars of the prospecting licences and mining leases at present (1912) held within the area described in this book:—

Prospecting Licences.

Mining Leases.

Of the above three mining leases, the last mentioned (the Peridot and Egyptian Gems Co., Ltd.) is the only one under which any considerable exploitation has been carried on, large numbers of beautiful peridots having been obtained from the mines. The two gold mining undertakings have been commenced too recently for much to have been as yet accomplished.

Antiquities.

The archæological remains of pre-Arab times in this part of Egypt comprise the small ruined temples of Berenice and Sikait, the ruins of stations along the old mining roads, the ancient mines with the rude habitations of the miners, and sundry markings on rocks near the roads.

The Temple of Berenice is a low inconspicuous structure measuring only some ten metres square, containing five small rooms and a tiny corridor and staircase.[49] Owing to its exposed situation on the coast and the soft limestone (from Ras Benas) of which it is built, it is in a very dilapidated condition, and it is difficult to make out many of the inscriptions on its walls. The axial direction of the temple (63° 20′ east of true north) appears to show that it was oriented to face the rising sun at the summer solstice. Of the village (one can hardly call it a city) of Berenice, only insignificant remains exist near the temple. The houses were mere hovels built of rough lumps of coral.

There are three temples in Wadi Sikait; they are small rock-hewn structures in even worse preservation than that of Berenice.[50]

Many attempts have been made to trace the ancient mining roads mentioned by classical writers. The stations on the road from Koptos (Quft) to Berenice, enumerated by Pliny and Antoninus, have not been with certainty identified. The absence of any reliable map of the main features of the country has hitherto prevented travellers from locating the positions of stations found, while in careful surveying it has generally been necessary to travel by other roads than the ancient ones, so that it cannot be hoped that all the ruined stations, many of which are invisible till one is close to them, have been included in the maps. Now that all the principal features of the country have been accurately laid down, it will be much easier for future travellers to locate precisely any ruins they may come across.

Of the road leading from Contra-Apollinopolis (Edfu) to the emerald mines of Sikait and Zabara, much more is known, this route having been traversed by Golénischeff[51] and most of its stations located by the Geological Survey. Leading from Edfu, past Bir Abad, the ruins of a large station and rock temple occur at a distance of about forty-five kilometres from the Nile, at a place now called Kanais (the churches), where a well yielding good water was sunk three years ago by the Mines Department. About forty-five kilometres further on is the station called Gariat Abu Medrik, where there are two ancient stucco-lined cylindrical reservoirs, but no well. At the next station, called Samut, there is a good well in the centre of a large rubble ruin. As all the stations just mentioned lie outside the limits of the maps which accompany this memoir, I give their approximate geographical positions below:—

The next station after Samut appears to have been the ruins near Gebel Dweig. Further on, after passing over the watershed, is another station with two cisterns in a semicircular enclosure. The road continues past Gebel Abu Had to the Wadi Gemal, where there are two more cisterns, this time in a triangular enclosure, and thence up to the Wadi Nugrus and Wadi Sikait to the mines. The Edfu-Sikait road may have joined the Quft-Berenice road at the Wadi Gemal station.

A third ancient road is believed to have led northward from Berenice to Qoseir, along the coast; while a fourth, from near Dakka on the Nile up the Wadi Alaqi to the gold mines of the south, is now a regular route to the Nile Valley Company’s mine of Um Gariart.

The ancient emerald mines of Zabara and Sikait consist of numerous irregular shafts, mostly of no very great depth, excavated in schists of micaceous and talcose types. The old gold mines, such as those at Sukari, Um Eleiga, Seiga, Romit, and the Darahib district, are on a considerable scale, excavations having been carried on in quartz veins to fair depths. The dwellings at the mines were for the most part only miserable hovels of rubble stone. A view of those of Um Eleiga is given on [Plate IV.] The ancient quartz-grinding mills, mostly made of a hard diorite, are frequently found among the ruins of the hovels. There is no clear evidence that any of the mines yielded a very rich output; the workings were of the nature of penal settlements (Prof. Mahaffy[52] has aptly termed them a “tropical Siberia”) in times when life and labour were cheap, and a very moderate yield may under those conditions have been satisfactory.[53]

PLATE IV.

Ruins of Um Eleiga. Gebel Abu Dahr in the Background.

Ruins in Wadi Shenshef.

Besides those at the mining camps and stations, there are some other extensive collections of ruins in the district, two of the most considerable being at Shenshef and Bir Meneiga. The ruins at Shenshef (see [Plate IV]) are in part those of well-built houses, furnished with doors and windows, formed of slabs of fissile quartzose schist, quarried in the neighbouring hills. There are wells at Shenshef, but apparently no mines; the presence of watch towers on the hills, and the peculiar situation of the place, suggest that it may have been a slave dealer’s stronghold where slaves were herded till they could be shipped from Berenice. The better houses may have been those of the overseers, while the ruder hovels accommodated the slaves, and sentinels at the watch towers prevented any attempt at escape. The ruins at Bir Meneiga, though extensive, are very rude, and probably only represent a camping ground near the springs. A large rubble enclosure near Abraq springs has been thought by Purdy[54] to have been a hunting station of the Ptolemies.

In many places there are marks and drawings on the rocks near roads. These are frequently spirited representations of animals, among which the ostrich is often seen. At the Galt el Aguz, near the watershed at the head of one of the branches of Wadi Garara, the drawings are accompanied by rude Greek inscriptions. At Abu Saafa, one of the springs issues from a niche cut in the sandstone, having a carved cornice with the remains of a Greek inscription on it.

Another class of remains are found scattered over the area in the form of cylindrical rubble piles, four metres in diameter and from one to two metres high. The natives consider these to be tombs of pre-Arab date.

Of Arab tombs in the area, the most considerable is that of Sheikh Shadli, near Gebel Abu Hamamid, a view of which is shown on [Plate V.] It is a well-built tomb of several domes, inhabited by a Moorish guardian. A yearly pilgrimage is made to this place by the Ababda Arabs, who hold the memory of Shadli in high veneration. The next largest tomb is probably that of Sheikh Hamid, near Abraq springs. Near the nose of Ras Benas is a large sheikh’s tomb, where sailors perform their devotions, and smaller tombs of the same type, built of drift-wood, are to be seen at other points near the coast. Cemeteries of small Arab graves exist near every well and spring.

Inhabitants.

The South-Eastern Desert of Egypt is inhabited by nomad Arabs of the various Ababda and Bisharin tribes.[55] Ababda (Ashabab and Meleikab) occupy the country north of Muqsim and Bir Shalatein, while Bisharin (Hamedorab, Kurbeilab, Koatil, and Balgab) inhabit the country to the south.[56] Only guesses are available as to their numbers, but it is not probable that they comprise so much as one inhabitant for each five square kilometres. A casual journey through the country would lead one to think that it was inhabited to an even less degree, but the Arabs mostly camp in selected narrow wadis out of sight of the traveller. They are a people of good physique, hardy, intelligent, and fair workers if once their employer knows how to handle them. They share, however, in the universal Bedouin dislike to protracted regular work; after a few months of regular routine, even the semi-nomad routine of a survey-expedition, they experience strong desires for their own independent roaming life, and it is impossible to retain them for longer periods. Many of the Ababda who are settled near the Nile have lost their true desert character, and on desert expeditions men of this class are far less satisfactory than nomads; they do not know the country, but fear the desert and are continually desirous of returning to the valley. The better desert guides, on the other hand, love the wilderness, and they have a perfectly marvellous geographic instinct. The skeleton on which they arrange their knowledge is always the system of drainage. If a map of their country is laid before them, and a few points named to them, they will delight in tracing out and naming all the wadis and peaks. But they have very vague ideas of proportion, and can only read a map when it is laid on the ground in its true orientation with respect to the meridian. The Ababda are generally regarded as the best type of Egyptian desert Arab, while my experience of the Bisharin of the Elba district is that they are superior, in industry, intelligence, truthfulness, and orderliness, to the Ababda.[57] It is, however, necessary either to understand the Bishari tongue, or to have men who can interpret into Arabic, as the great mass of the Bisharin understand only their own language, which is quite different from Arabic.[58] Education is very backward, but there is a kuttab (elementary school) at Halaib, where instruction in Arabic reading and writing is given to boys. All the Arabs are of course Moslems, but they are not at all fanatical.

PLATE V.

Tomb of Sheikh Shadli.

Bir Shadli.

The manner of life of the Arabs is very simple. Most of the men have only a single cotton wrap about their middle, though some wear the ordinary galabia and cotton drawers. Their camps are rude tents of matting about two metres in diameter, but the men commonly sleep in the open, sheltering themselves from winds by their camel saddles, covered only with their cotton wrap, which they spread over their entire bodies, including their heads. They wear no head covering, having heavy “mops” of curled black hair plentifully supplied with mutton fat. Their food consists almost entirely of milk and meat, of which their flocks and herds give them a plentiful supply; they eat but little bread, but they are fond of a kind of gruel of flour and water, and of dates, which are imported from Arabia via Suakin. Only a few of them smoke tobacco, and that generally in soapstone pipes which they carve out for themselves. Intoxicants are unknown amongst true desert Arabs. For arms, they carry swords and knives, seldom fire-arms. Of their tribal customs, I saw but little; Linant de Bellefonds gives an interesting account of them in his “L’Etbaye.” On festive occasions, camel-racing and dancing are favourite amusements.

Slavery appears to be non-existent at present, for in the course of my twenty months’ wanderings I received no complaint under this head, as I should almost certainly have done had any oppressive servitude existed.

Languages.

My own study of the Ababda and Bishari tongues has been mainly confined to their geographical terms. The Ababda nowadays almost all speak Arabic, and most of their place-names are either Arabic or closely akin to it. A marked feature of their tongue is a fondness for diminutives. Thus we have Sellim and Seleim, Hafafit and Hefeifit, Faraid, and Fereyid, Wadi and Wadai, in each of which the second of the pair is a diminutive formed by vowel-change, generally accompanied by a change in the placing of the stress. The commonest special geographical terms in Ababda country are: erf, a ridge; rod, a tributary wadi; talet, a small tributary wadi; kab, a watershed or pass; hamrat, a (red) granite mountain; zergat, a black mountain; galt, a rock basin containing rain water; and megal, a small water hole. Thus we have such names as Hamrat Selma, Zergat Naam, and so on, the name often giving a clue to the nature of the rock.

As soon as one passes into Bisharin country the change in the nature of place-names is very striking. The definite article is no longer el, but o, u, ei, e (masc.), and to, tu, tei, ti (fem.). Many place-names end in ai and oi. The principal geographical terms are: kwan, a wadi; da-aiyob, a depression from which there is no drainage outlet; aweib and riba, a mountain; kulet, a hill; megwel, a water hole; adar, red; hadal, black; sotai, green; eire, white; sarara, deep; salala, rather deep (applied to wells). Hence we get such combinations as: Hadal Aweib Meisah, the black mountain near Wadi Meisah; Eir Arib, the white (granite) rock; Sarobi Kwan, the wadi where the Sarob plant (Capparis sodada) grows; Bir Sararat Seyet, the deep well in Wadi Seyet, and so on. A mountain called adar is generally of red granite, while one called hadal is usually diorite or serpentine. Asotriba, the green mountain south of Gebel Elba, receives its name from the vegetation on it.

Industries.

The principal industries carried on by the desert Arabs are the rearing of camels, sheep and goats, especially the first-named. The Bisharin devote much attention to camel-breeding, and supply many animals annually to the Coast Guard Administration. Their camels are very superior animals, and need to be hardy in order to negotiate the steep mountain passes of their country. Sheep and goats can be bought cheaply in the south, and are driven in to Aswân for sale at the higher rates there prevailing. It is common to find a flock of hundreds of sheep being watered at wells such as Bir Abu Hashim and Qoleib on the route to Kom Ombo; but many animals drop and die on the weary march from well to well.

Charcoal burning has been practised, especially in the Ababda country, but is not much carried on now; this industry deserves strong opposition, for it only impoverishes the country, and the seyal trees are few enough for the support of camels in years of drought.

In recent years some employment has been found for the Arabs by prospectors for mining companies, both as miners and for camel-transport, and they are occasionally, as in the present expedition, employed on Government work.

For the information of future travellers, it may be worth while to mention the prices paid for local labour on the survey expeditions. The men and animals were all the best obtainable of their particular class, and the prices include saddles and fodder for camels, their own provision of water and food for the men, and, in the case of sheikhs, postmen, and guides, their riding camels and fodder:—

A small amount of agriculture is practised in the Wadi Di-ib, slightly south of the Sudan frontier, but there is none actually within the district here described. My camels were fed for some time on durra (Indian corn) brought from Wadi Di-ib.

A little fishing is carried on near Berenice and at Mersa Shab and Halaib, but only for the food of the fishermen, who subsist almost entirely on it, and thus recall the Ichthyophages of Ptolemy. When I had abundance of excellent fish at Shab and Halaib, I noticed that but few of my Bisharin cared to partake of what was to me a very welcome change of diet.

Halaib is the only permanent village, and even it is merely a miserable collection of wooden huts and tents, where trade is confined to dates, fat, corn, sugar, and such like necessaries; supplies are brought by boat from Suakin and sold to the local Arabs.

Communications.

There are numerous camel-roads connecting the various wells with each other and with the Nile, the principal of which are indicated on [Plate III] (p. 26). The most usual starting points from the valley are Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswân, Dakka, and Berber. The roads lie mostly along wadis, and are far from being very direct, being necessarily so chosen as to pass water supplies and to avoid very steep places. From Aswân or Kom Ombo, Berenice can be reached in about seven or eight days by luggage camels, and the roads are fairly good; water is least scarce on the Kom Ombo road, which takes advantage of the wells of Qoleib and Abu Hashim. Between any two wells, there are generally several possible roads. The one taken by any particular traveller is naturally that which his guides happen to know best, or that along which the most camel food is to be found at the time; hardly any two Europeans have journeyed by precisely the same road. A “road” in desert parlance is only a track by which camels have passed at some time or other; there is nothing of the nature of a made road, even along the ancient routes mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary; and the tracks are sometimes obliterated by sand. Since the opening up of Port Sudan, the Elba district is most easily reached from that place, whence it is about 340 kilometres distant, by two roads of nearly equal length, one skirting the coast and the other more inland; the latter passes good wells at about two days’ intervals.[60] To reach Elba from the valley, a camel journey of more than 500 kilometres is necessary whether Aswân, Dakka, or Berber be the starting point. The ports of Berenice, Shab, and Halaib are only touched occasionally and irregularly by coasting boats and Coast Guard steamers. News is passed orally among the wandering Arabs with remarkable rapidity, but naturally it frequently gets somewhat modified in transit.

Government.

The geographical frontier between Egypt and the Sudan is the 22nd parallel of north latitude. But for administrative purposes it has been found convenient to consider all Bisharin Arabs as under the Sudan Government, and all Ababda under that of Egypt. The administrative frontier therefore runs between the districts of the two main tribal divisions, along a zigzag line from Gebel Muqsim, via Gebel Um el Tiur el Foqani, Gebel Niqrub el Foqani, and Bir Meneiga, to Bir Shalatein on the coast.[61] A territory of some 16,000 square kilometres in the extreme south-east corner of Egypt is thus placed for purposes of government under the Sudan mudiria of Berber, under which arrangement a moawin and small police force are maintained in the fort of Halaib. The remainder of the area is administered by the Egyptian mudir of Aswân. In Egypt, the Arabs are not taxed except in respect of any lands they may own in the Nile Valley. In the Sudan a tax is levied on each tribe in return for police protection and other advantages; the tax is paid very willingly, for the Bisharin are less poor than the Ababda, and thoroughly appreciate the advantage of good government, while they have unbounded faith in the justice of Anglo-Egyptian officials in settling their disputes. One of the incidents which most strongly impressed itself on my remembrance during my travels in the district was the meeting near Gebel Korabkansi of an English inspector from Berber, to whom a number of Bisharin Arabs engaged in disputes stated their rival claims quietly and reasonably, both sides having the utmost confidence that the judgment given would be just and fair. In Egypt, the Arabs are less friendly in their feelings towards the government, and prefer to settle their differences among themselves; a circumstance no doubt due to the fact that Egyptian governors have had their hands full with matters connected with the valley, and have had no time to become acquainted with Bedouin ideas and customs, while the Arabs, independent for centuries and very poor, are afraid of misunderstanding and taxation. It would, I think, be unfair to tax the true desert Arabs of Egypt, even to the moderate extent which is done for the Arabs of the Sudan, for their country is much more barren than that of the Bisharin, and their sources of income are consequently fewer. In a year of little or no rainfall, there is not enough vegetation to feed their animals, so that many are lost, and the only way a tax could be raised at such times would be by cutting down trees for charcoal; but, as already mentioned, any encouragement of the charcoal industry would soon impoverish the country still further, the thorny acacia trees being the principal reserve camel food in rainless years. That so many Ababda are settled in and near the Nile Valley is possibly in part due to their having been driven from the desert by the growing scarcity of trees consequent on the prosecution of the charcoal industry in the past.

[33]The mountains and hills will be found described in fuller detail in [Chapter VI.]

[34]The altitudes refer to the highest points of the groups.

[35]This is the altitude of Shendib, the highest of the group in Egypt; but the peaks of Asotriba, which is part of the same mass lying within the Sudan, rise considerably higher.

[36]In the map on [Plate I,] I have shown the watershed crossing directly from Gebel Soaorib across the high intervening mountains to Gebel Is, which is how it appeared to me from my station on Hadal Aweib Meisah. But Mr. Morrow Campbell’s map (referred to on [p. 15]) shows the heads of Wadi Soaorib to extend further west than I could see them; and if this is correct, as it probably is since Mr. Morrow Campbell doubtless approached the watershed more closely than I did, the watershed between Gebel Soaorib and Gebel Is lies further west than I have shown it on Plate I. In drawing the wadis on the geological and tribal maps on Plates [XX] and [XXVI,] I have shown the westward extension of the heads of Wadi Soaorib according to Mr. Morrow Campbell.

[37]The wadis will be found described at length in Chapters [IV] and [V.]

[38]See the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot, published by the Admiralty.

[39]See my short paper on the meteorology of the Berenice district in Survey Notes, Sept. 1907, p. 325.

[40]I have given short accounts of some of these phenomena in Survey Notes, April 1907, p. 219, and in the Cairo Scientific Journal, May 1908, p. 206.

[41]D’Anville, Mémoires sur l’Egypte. p. 234.

[42]See Barron and Hume, Topography and Geology of the Eastern Desert, Central Portion. Cairo, 1902. pp. 98-104.

[43]Schweinfurth, in Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 1865.

[44]For a fuller description of the water-sources of the region, see [Chapter VII.]

[45]For a fuller account of the geology, see Chapters [VIII] to [XI,] and the geological map on [Plate XX.]

[46]Suess, The Face of the Earth. Miss Sollas’ translation. Vol. I. Oxford, 1904. p. 376.

[47]Lib. III, 12-14.

[48]See Dunn, Notes on the Mineral Deposits of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, published by the Sudan Government. Khartoum, 1911. p. 15.

[49]For a plan of the temple and notes on its inscriptions, see Golénischeff, Une Excursion à Bérénice, Recueil de Travaux. XIII (1891). pp. 75-96.

[50]Macalister, Geog. Journal. Vol. XVI (1900). p. 546.

[51]Op. cit. Golénischeff gives sketch plans of the stations.

[52]The Empire of the Ptolemies. London, 1895. p. 130.

[53]Diodorus (I. 49) probably greatly exaggerated the value of the produce of the mines. See Uhlemann, Handbuch der gesammten aegyptischen Alterthumskunde, Zweiter Theil, Leipzig, 1857, pp. 148-151, where a very clear account, mainly derived from Diodorus, is given of the mining methods used by the ancients.

[54]Bulletin Soc. Khéd. de Géogr. 1886. p. 443.

[55]According to Mr. Bramly (The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. 1905. p. 91) the Bisharin are not true Arabs, and are of Hamitic descent.

[56]Regarding the geographical boundaries of the different tribes, see [Chapter XII.]

[57]Schweinfurth did not have the same experience in 1864; but one speaks as one finds. Schweinfurth was reluctant to pass judgment, not knowing the language, and possibly in the interval since 1864 the people have improved.

[58]On the Bishari language, see Almkvist, Die Bishari-sprache, Upsala, 1881-1885; Reinisch, Die Bedauye-sprache in Nordost-Africa, Wien, 1893; and Reinisch, Wörterbuch der Bedauye-sprache, Wien, 1895.

[59]The millieme is practically equivalent to an English farthing.

[60]For a detailed description of this road, see [Chapter XIII.]

[61]Arrêté of the Ministry of Interior, Egypt, June 25, 1902.

CHAPTER III.

SURVEYING METHODS AND PRINCIPAL GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.

Triangulation.

Base-Lines—The triangulation was commenced by measuring a base line[62] near Gebel Muelih by means of a 100-metre steel tape, which had been previously standardised at the Khedivial Observatory. A level tract having been selected, in such a position as to afford easy connection with points already triangulated from the Nile Valley, a line about two and a half kilometres long was ranged out, along which wooden pegs were driven flush with the ground at 100-metre intervals. The inequalities of the ground between the pegs were levelled off by tiny embankments and cuttings, so as to enable the tape to lie flat. On each peg was nailed a zinc plate having a millimetre scale running in the direction of the line. In measuring, the tape was laid on the ground, stretched to a constant tension by a spring balance at each end, in such manner that its end marks fell on the zinc scales, and readings were simultaneously taken on the scales at the two ends. Temperatures were taken in several places along the tape by mercurial thermometers. The operation of measurement was carried out in the early morning, so as to avoid any large difference of temperature between the ground and the air. The levels of the pegs were found by spirit levelling. After correction for the initial error of the tape, temperature, stretch, and inclination, the true length of the base-line reduced to sea-level was found, as the mean of two separate measurements at different tensions, to be 2,482·280 metres. The azimuth of the line was found by observations of Polaris at elongation to be 30° 30′ 6″ E. of N. The geographical position of the west end of the line was found by triangulation-connexion with the Nile Valley by Mr. Villiers Stuart to be latitude 24° 53′ 36″·7 N., longitude 34° 4′ 17″·9 E.

A second connexion to a base-line was made near Gebel Um Harba, where a base had been previously measured by Mr. Villiers Stuart in the course of his triangulation of the western part of the desert. In this case the connexion was not made to the actual base-line, but to another main line tied directly on to it. The data at this point of connexion from the two triangulations afforded a useful check on the accuracy of the work, and were as follows:—

Reconnaissance for triangulation points was carried out simultaneously with the triangulation itself. The distance of likely looking peaks was determined either by intersecting them from distant stations, or by special small triangulations from short bases, and such selection made as seemed most likely to secure well shaped figures and a good command of surrounding country. As a rule, the highest summits were selected as main (occupied) stations, while all other prominent peaks and other features were fixed by intersection from two or more main stations. The form adopted for the main triangulation net was a series of quadrilateral figures with diagonals, combined with centric polygons, all the angles of the figures being generally measured. The average length of side was about thirty-five kilometres.

Beacons.—Main stations were marked by wrought-iron beacons, consisting of two lengths of stove piping about 15 centimetres diameter by 1½ metres long, the upper length fitting into a faucet made by splaying out the lower tube. Near the top of the tube were affixed four sheet iron wings, bolted on to angle iron cleats. A conical cairn of stones was built up round the tube, nearly up to the wings, so that the beacon when erected was about three metres high, two metres in diameter across the base of the cairn, and about a metre wide across the wings. The beacons were taken down while a station was being occupied, and replaced on leaving.

Intersected points were sometimes marked with a beacon or cairn, but in general the peaks were simply bisected from several stations, as it was found that this gave sufficiently accurate results.

Measurement of Horizontal Angles.—Angles were measured with a 6-inch theodolite furnished with reading microscopes graduated to 10″ and permitting of reliable estimations to 1″. The angles between main points were read on four arcs to eliminate circle errors. Intersected points were observed on one arc only. The average error of closure of main triangles was 3″·3.

Field Computation and Plotting of Triangulated Points.—The triangles were computed by the ordinary method, but the angles were rounded off to 10″ to enable the sines to be taken direct from the logarithmic tables, and the logarithms were only taken to five places. The length of the sides having been thus found, the geographical positions were found by the ordinary L M Z computation, using, however, only two latitude terms and 5-place logarithms, while azimuths were only taken out to the nearest 10″. The abbreviated form of computation used will be best illustrated by an example:—[63]

Computation of Position of △ No. 260 from No. 275.

In the above, it will be noticed that the azimuth is always noted as so much east or west of north or south. If this convention be adopted, one may consider the first term of dφ as always +, and the second term will be + if the azimuth contains the word south,—if it is from the north, while the total dφ is to be added or subtracted according as one is going north or south. A somewhat similar convention is adopted in neglecting the sign of dλ till the actual addition or subtraction is made. It was found in the field that this method prevented any mistake of sign, while being much simpler to work than one involving angles greater than 90°.

The geographical coordinates thus found were plotted directly on to the plane-table sheets, on which the graticule at 10′ intervals was the first thing drawn. The odd minutes and seconds were first converted into minutes and decimals, and then into kilometres by multiplying by the factors appropriate to the latitude, so that the plotting could be done by the ordinary scale of kilometres. To avoid difficulties of paper-shrinkage, as many points as possible were plotted at the time of drawing the graticule, and in general the points had to be plotted as far ahead as possible for controlling the traversing and sketching.

Astronomical Observations.—Astronomical checks on the triangulation were obtained by observations of latitude at certain selected main stations 60-120 kilometres apart, and by azimuth observations for certain main lines.

The method used for latitude was that of observing the times of equal altitudes of three or more stars, selected as near to the meridian[64] as possible. This method presents great advantages over the usual Polaris and circummeridian altitudes, in that the observations are more easily made, and yield much more accurate results, because uncertainties in refraction are largely eliminated and the errors of circle graduation are not involved, the altitudes not being read at all.[65] The theodolite used was the same as was employed in triangulation, and the times were taken by a half chronometer watch, preferably one marking sidereal time with a rate which could be considered negligible during the hour or so occupied by the observation. The first star taken was usually Polaris, and the vertical circle was left clamped at its altitude. For the other stars, any dislevelment was corrected by touching up the levelling screws just before the instant of observation; this was found better, than taking bubble readings and correcting for slight difference of altitude.

The method which I found best in the field for reducing the observations differs somewhat from that described by Chauvenet. Assuming approximate values for the latitude and watch error, I first calculated the altitude of each star from the formula

sin h = sin φ sin ε + cos φ cos δ cos t

If the assumed latitude and watch error were correct, all the stars would give the same value for h. If not, each star would give an equation of the form

h + cos A dφ + cos φ sin A dT − h₀ = 0

where A is the star’s azimuth, dφ the required correction to the assumed latitude, dT the required correction to the assumed watch times, and h₀ the true altitude common to the three stars. The values of cos A and cos φ sin A were calculated from the ordinary formula

sin A = cos δ sin tcos h

by four-place logarithms (using the approximate values for φ, t, and h, since these are quite sufficiently accurate for the purpose) and inserted into the three star-equations.[66] By then solving the three simultaneous equations for dφ, the required correction to the assumed latitude was at once obtained.

As the method is one not usually treated of in books on practical astronomy, I give on the following pages the reduction of an observation worked out in full.

Latitude by Equal Altitudes of Three Stars.

Station on Gebel Um Heshenib. January 30, 1906.

Sidereal watch U. and C. 30811, approximately 2^m 22^s fast on L.S.T., rate negligible.