hand, which was chained to fome one o f the company n ight
and day'; but he very fenftbly refufed it, faying, “ Unchain
m y hands when you load and unload your camels, I can--
not then run away from y o u ; for tho’ you did not fhoot me,
I Ihould ftarve with hunger and thirft; but keep me to the
end o f the journey as you began with me, then I cannot
mifbehave, and Iofe the reward which you fay you are to*
give me.”
A t forty minutes pail three o’clock, we faw large ftratas
o f foflile fait everywhere upon the furface o f the ground-
At five 'w e found the body o f Mahomet Towaih, on the
fpot where he had been murdered, ftript naked, and lying,
on his face unburied. The wound in the back-finew o f:
his leg was apparent; he was, befides, thruft through the;
back with a lance, and had two wounds in the head with;
fwords. We followed fome footfteps in the fand to the
right, and there faw three other bodies, whom Idris
knew to be his principal fervants. Thefe, it feemed, had
taken to their arms upon the Aga’s being firft wounded, and
the cowardly, treacherous Biihareens had perfuaded them
to capitulate upon promife o f g iv in g them camels and pro-
vifion to carry them into Egypt, after which they had
murdered them behind thefe ro ck s -1 1
A t fix o’clock we alighted at Umarack, fo called from a>
number o f rack-trees that grow there, and which feem to
affeffc a faltiih fo il; at Rabaek and Mafuah I had feen
them growing in the fea. When I ordered a halt at Umarack,
the general cry was, to travel all night, fo that we
might be at a diftance from that dangerous, unlucky fpot-.
The fight o f the men murdered, and fear o f the like fa te ,
had
h i d g o t th e iheiter o f their other ienfadons. .in Ihort, there
was. nothing more vifible,pthaal that their apprehenfions
were o f twoi forts,.and produced very different operations.
The fimoom, the iftalkirig pillars o f fand, and probability: o f
d ying w ifh thirft .or hunger, brought on a torpor, or in difference,
that made them maftlve; but the difeovery o f
the Arab a t Terfowey, the feat; of- meeting the Bifhareen at
th e wells, and the dead bodies o f.ihe Aga and his unfortunate
.companions, produced a degree o f activity and irritation
that refembled very much their fpirits being elevated
by good news. I told them, that, o f all the places in the
defert’through which they had palled, this was by far the
fafeft, becaufei fear o f being mettiby troops from Afiouan,
feeking the murderers, o f Mahomet Towaih would keep all
th e Bifhareen at aidiftance. ;!Our Arab faid, that the next
well belonged to ithe Ababde, and not the Bifhareen, and
that the Bifhareen had flain the Aga there, to make men
believe it had been done by the Ababde. Idris contributed
his morfel o f comfort, by a lluring us, that the wells now, as
far as Egypt, were fo fcanty o f water, that no party above
te n men would truft their provifion to them, and none o f
us had the leaft apprehenfion from marauders o f twice
that dumber. The night at Umarack was exceflively cold-,
as to fenfation ; Fahrenheit’s thermometer was however at
49“ an hour before day-light.
O n the 23d we left Umarack at fix o’clock in the m o m -
in g, our road this day being between mountains o f blue
ftones o f a very fine and perfect quality, through the heart
o f which ran thick veins o f jafper, their ftrata perpendicular
to the horizon. There were other mountains o f marble
o f the colour called Ifabella. In other places the rock feem-
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