For the first few kilometres the main road from Abu Sighawâl runs very straight over a level plain, on which fossil sea-urchins are so abundant as to attract the attention of the most casual observer; it then ascends a low escarpment, the Nagab el Jellab. The somewhat rough limestone country beyond is known as the Mishâbit, and then El Botîkh, with its countless millions of spherical chert concretions, is crossed. Beyond El Botîkh the road passes an isolated limestone hill called El Mograbi, where tradition has it that a Mograbi Arab from the west and his stolen oasis bride were overtaken and decapitated by the Kharga people. A little farther to the east there is a bifurcation, but the branches soon rejoin, and after passing El Masaâd the plain is fairly level, though covered with very angular blocks of crystalline limestone and cherty concretions. Farther on are the rocks of El Buraig, where large quantities of broken pottery indicate the site of one of the many water-stations maintained by the Romans along this road. Garat el Melh is so called from the occurrence of salt in the limestones of this locality. A few kilometres to the east of Garat el Melh the road passes El Suâga, an artificial heap of stones to which every self-respecting Bedawi is careful to contribute; and a couple of hours beyond, a fairly conspicuous limestone hill, called Garat Radwan, is reached. Shortly after passing Garat Radwan the most prominent landmarks met with on this road, in the form of two solitary crescent-shape sand-dunes, loom into sight; these are called El Ghart by the Arabs and are distant 55 kilometres from Abu Sighawâl. They form part of a belt of single isolated dunes which crosses this part of the desert in a N.N.W. and S.S.E. direction. The same line of dunes is passed by the railway at kilometre No. 100, and I have observed its continuation still farther north on the Sohag road, at a point 45 kilometres from the Refûf pass. These dunes mark the entrance to an area of very rough hummocky crystalline limestone known as El Zizagat, through which the track is not easily followed. On emerging from El Zizagat the road bears slightly to the north, and is here only a few kilometres south of El Tundaba. At this point it bifurcates, the northern branch proceeding direct to Waled Hallaf near Girga, the southern continuing over the easy level plains of El Ishab to the rocks of El Baglûli, and thence past those of Dilail el Kelb to the twin hillocks of Dubîya. Beyond El Dubîya the road crosses the shallow drainage-line of Rod el Ghanam, near the head of the Wadi Samhûd, down which it passes, and thence over the Nile Valley plains past El Hamera and Hagar Hawara to Karnak and Farshut.