At four o’clock we arrived at the ruin Hellet el Bib, which from a distance has quite the appearance of a castle of the middle ages. It rises on low rocks, the ridge of which traverses the court and the building itself, so that a part of it appears like an upper story. The whole edifice is built of unburnt, but good and carefully-formed bricks, cemented with a small quantity of mortar, and covered with a coating of the same. Within are various large and small rooms, some with half-round niches in them and arched doorways. The walls of the west side were fifteen feet high. The outer wall of the court of unhewn stone, but carefully built up to about five to eight feet, enclosed a tolerably regular square, the side of which was about sixty-five paces long. This small castle, but still respectable for the neighbourhood, reminds one, by its niches and arched doors, of the Christian architecture of former centuries, but it does not appear to have been destined for any religious purpose. Perhaps in its prime it belonged to the powerful and warlike tribes of the Shaiqîeh, which, according to tradition, immigrated from Arabia into this neighbourhood some centuries ago. At the time of the Egyptian conquest the country was under the dominion of three Shaiqîeh princes; probably one of them resided here. The surrounding country was also more favoured by nature, the shore flatter, beset with bushes, here and there bordered by a fertile piece of land. After I had sketched the plan of the building, we set off at nine o’clock in the evening, by the light of a full moon, on our way back, which we shortened considerably by taking the road from the island of Saffi through the desert, where we passed the night, on an open sand plain, in the great granite field. About five o’clock, between moonshine and morning dawn, we were again on our way, and by nine o’clock we had reached our ship at Kasinqar. Near this place I met with a tree quite new to me, in a little Wadi, which led to the river. It was called Bân, and does not grow anywhere but in this Wadi, which is called Chôr el Bân from it, and in another, near Méraui.[89] A strong white-barked stem, not unlike that of our walnut-tree, with some more stems round it, and short white branches, grew short and knotty out of the ground. The branches were now almost naked, a few only had leaves, if we can call the great bunches of switches by that name. The fruit is a long, round fluted ball, which splits into three pieces, when the five to ten black-shelled nuts (of about the size of a hazel-nut) which it contains, are ripe; the white sweet, though rather sharp, oily kernel is not unpleasant; but it is mostly used by the inhabitants to press oil from. The bloom of the tree is yellow, and grows in bunches.