Pretty variegated granite and porphyry blocks, which I perceived in the sand, were joyful tokens of the proximity of the _Mons porphyrites_. In the mean time the broad valley, into which we had turned, got narrower and narrower, and divided into two arms, the right one of which we took. But this again divided, and the whole neighbourhood, according to former descriptions, showed us that we were again on a wrong track. To give our wearied animals some rest, I halted, and sent out the guide alone to find the right way. We encamped under the shadow of a cliff, hungry, and eager for a draught of water. Our position grew critical. I began to doubt that our guide would succeed in discovering the well in these uniform desolate mountain passes. And where was our caravan? Had it found its way to the water? If they had followed the traces of our donkey as before, they must also have lost their way. We waited impatiently for Selîm; he could at any rate bring us back to the Arab huts, which we had seen the previous day. But one hour followed another; Selîm came not. The sun rose higher, and robbed of the slight shade of the rock where we had taken refuge, we sat silently on the burning stones. We dared not leave the spot, for fear of missing Selîm. Had he met with an accident, or had he so forgotten himself as only to think of his own safety, and to leave us to our fate, as had happened some years before to three Turks, who were never seen again, in the same wilderness! Or was Selîm too weak to return to us? He had almost always gone on foot, and must have been much more exhausted than ourselves. From time to time we mounted the adjacent heights and fired our muskets,--all in vain! At last we were obliged to resign ourselves to the melancholy certainty that we should not see our guide again. Noon had arrived after four hours of waiting, and also the time for departure, if the hope of reaching the Arab huts, about six hours distant from us, was to be accomplished. For it would have been fool-hardy to seek any longer for the well, as Selîm himself had not found it. Gebel Zeït, where our ship was lying, was three and a half days’ journey from us; the Nile on the other side of the mountain, five days’ journey; the camels had drunk nothing for four days, and the donkey was thoroughly weakened. We therefore set out. My companion had done everything I had proposed; but never have I felt my responsibility for others, whose lives, together with my own, were in jeopardy, so heavily as in that hesitating resolve. It seemed foolhardy to travel in this totally uninhabited highland, already confused and even more put out of the way by our nocturnal windings without a guide, according to the stars; and yet there was nothing else to be done.