found, for dressing victuals: in the anticipation of such an exigency,
the traveller provides a food called simitee: it consists of barley
boiled until it swells, then dried in the sun, and then further dried
over the fire ; and lastly, being ground into a powder, it is mixed
with salt, pepper, and carraway-seed, and put into a leather bag:
when it is to be used, it is kneaded into a dough, with just water
enough to give it consistency, and is served up with butter or oil.
If further diluted with water, then dates are added to the meal, and
it is called roum. Such is the food of the traveller when there is a
scarcity of fuel or of water; and none can be expended in boiling.
I was often, for days together, without other food than this cold
farinaceous pap, mixed with a few dates. Onions and red Spanish
pepper are the general and the only seasonings of each meal, with
the addition of salt.
On the seventh day, after a march of four hours, we reached
Biljoradec, commonly called Jahudie, a term implying that the
water is bad, or that other water is not to be found but at a considerable
distance.
The three following days, travelling occasionally in the night,
we were forty hours in actual journey. On the first of these, (being
the ninth day since leaving the vicinity of Cairo,) we reached the
chain of mountains which bounded the uniform desert through
which we had passed. On the tenth, mounting these hills, I observed
the plain on their summit to consist of a saline mass spread over so
large a tract of surface, that in one direction no eye could reach its
termination, and what might be called its width, I computed at
several miles. The clods of salt discoloured with sand lay thick
and close, and gave to this vast plain the appearance of a recently
ploughed field.
On the summit of this eminence, and almost in the middle of this
saline tract, (on computation of its width) I discovered a spring;
and the passage of Herodotus * occurring to my mind, in which he
mentions springs of fresh water on the salt hills, I eagerly made
up to its brink. I found it edged with salt: some poor pilgrims
attending me tasted the water, but it was so saturated with saline
matter, as to be wholly unfit for drink.
On the eleventh day (September the 15th), we came to an inhabited
spot; after five hours march arriving at the small village of
Vmmesogeir.
* In hoc supercilio sunt frusta sails, fere grumi grandes in collihus, et singulorum
collium vertices e medio sale ejaculantur aquam dulcem pariter et gelidam. Herodot.
t ed. Wesseling. p. 181.