On the 19th of March we crossed the plain to the Enned Mountains, running along the seacoast, and passing them by a cross valley. A rich fountain was here, the running water of which accompanied us for a long distance. I should take it to be the _Fons Tadmos_ of Pliny, as its water has only become salt and undrinkable by the natron layer of the surface. The ruins of Abu Shâr, the ancient _Myos hormos_, or _Philoteras portus_, we left to the right, and encamped on the peninsula of Gimsheh, called by the Arabs Kibrît, from the quantity of sulphur which is found there. Yesterday morning we rode between the Enned Mountains and the sea-shore to the Gulf of Gebel Zeït. The ridges of Tôr, which floated milky-blue upon the watered mirror before sunrise, contrasted delicately with the heavens; first with the rising sun were its outlines lost. After dinner we arrived at Gebel Zeït, “the oil mountain.” Our ships, sent for from Kossêr, had made the passage in six days, and already awaited our arrival four days. The camels were dismissed here, and went back the same evening. A quarter north of our anchorage lay the Zeïtieh; so are the five or six pits called which are excavated in the shore-sand or rock, and are filled with black-brown syrup-like earth oil. Some years ago investigations were commenced here by Em Bey, who hoped to find coals in the depths, without however, up to this time, arriving at such a result. Last evening was calm. In the first night there arose a slight wind from the north, which we immediately used for departure. With a favourable wind we might have made the passage in a single night; but now the day is again closing, and the haven is not yet reached. The long oars, too, which are now brought into employment, scarcely bring the loaded vessel on. The sailors of the sea are very different from those of the Nile. Their manner is far more equable, less false and less creeping. Their songs, beginning with the first stroke of the oar, consists of short broken lines, given out one by one and taken up by others, while the rest make short tones at equal intervals. The rais, on a higher seat, also rows. He is a negro, like several others among the sailors, but one of the handsomest and most powerful blacks that I have ever seen--a real Othello, when, with his athletic movements, he rolls his yellow-white eyes, shows his gleaming white teeth, and commences the song with a piercing, yelling, but practised voice, leading it for some time. LETTER XXXII. CONVENT OF SINAI. _Easter Monday, March 24, 1845._