Richard Francis Burton

“ Had “Wali Háji,” as Wallin was called by the Bedawin, looked only ten feet beyond the north-eastern tower of the fort, near the ruins of a modern Mastabah (“masonry bench”) , he would have found long-forgotten vestiges of ovens and slags containing copper and iron. The same will prove to be the case about the inland defence of El–Wijh; in fact, all these works seem for obvious reasons to have been built upon sites that have been utilized long before their modern day. ”

“ The “beard” was neither black, like that of the Irish, nor colourless, as in the English oyster. The Bedawin, who ignore the delicacy, could not answer any questions about the “spatting season”—probably it is earlier than ours, which extends through June; whether also a close time is required, as in England to August 4th, we could not guess. The young probably find a natural “culch” in the many shells, cockle and others, that strew the rock, sand, and clay. ”

“ Native craft lie inside, opposite the ruins of a stone house: the existence of a former population is shown by the many graves on the upper plateau. In the northern Wady el-Hárr, also, we picked up specimens of obsidian, oligistic iron, and admirably treated modern (?) slags showing copper and iron; evidently some Gypsy-like atelier must once have worked upon the Wady Yáhárr. ”

“ M. Marie was strolling near the old furnaces to the north-east of the fort where, in 1877, he had picked up an auriferous specimen, unfortunately lost before it reached Cairo. Here he again found a fragment of serpentine, broken and water-rolled into the semblance of half a globe; it showed crust and stains of iron, filets of white quartz, and a curve (~) of bright yellow dots, disposed like the chainlet of an aneroid. Thereupon, we gravely debated whether these were the remains of a vein, or had been brought to the surface by the rubbing and polishing of the stone in water. ”

“ This central Tuwayyil el-Kibrít is an isolated knob, rising abruptly from Wady-ground; measuring some 240 feet in height, and about 880 metres in diameter, not including its tail of four vertebræ which sets off from north-west to south-east. Viewed from the north it is, as the Egyptian officers remarked, a regular Haram (“pyramid”) , with a kidney-formed capping of precipitous rock. Drinkable water, like that of the Wady el-Ghál, is said to be found in the Wady el-Kibrít to the north-east; and the country is everywhere tolerably wooded. ”

“ El–Muwaylah’s only house, the Sayyid’s. The site is a holm or island in the Wady Surr, which here runs east-west, and splits: the main line is the southern, and a small branch, a mere gully, occupies the northern bed-side.
The chief ruin is an oblong of twenty metres by sixteen, the short ends facing 195° (mag.) ; the whole built of huge pebbles. The interior is composed of one large room to the north, with sundry smaller divisions to the south, east, and west. ”