Snofrûi restored or constructed several castles in this district, which perpetuated his name for a long time after his death. These had the square or rectangular form of the towers, whose ruins are still to be seen on the banks of the Nile. Standing night and day upon the battlements, the sentinels kept a strict look-out over the desert, ready to give alarm at the slightest suspicious movement. [Illustration: 157.jpg TWO REFUGE TOWERS OF THE HIRÛ-SHÂÎTÛ, IN THE WADY BÎAR] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the vignette by E. H. Palmer, _The Desert of the Exodus_, p. 317. The expression Kîm-Oîrît, “the very black,” is applied to the northern part of the Red Sea, in contradistinction to Ûaz-Oîrît, Uazît-Oîrît, “the very green,” the Mediterranean; a town, probably built at a short distance from the village of Maghfâr, had taken its name from the gulf on which it was situated, and was also called Kîm- Oîrît. The marauders took advantage of any inequality in the ground to approach unperceived, and they were often successful in getting through the lines; they scattered themselves over the country, surprised a village or two, bore off such women and children as they could lay their hands on, took possession of herds of animals, and, without carrying their depredations further, hastened to regain their solitudes before information of their exploits could have reached the garrison. If their expeditions became numerous, the general of the Eastern Marches, or the Pharaoh himself, at the head of a small army, started on a campaign of reprisals against them. The marauders did not wait to be attacked, but betook themselves to refuges constructed by them beforehand at certain points in their territory. They erected here and there, on the crest of some steep hill, or at the confluence of several wadys, stone towers put together without mortar, and rounded at the top like so many beehives, in unequal groups of three, ten, or thirty; here they massed themselves as well as they could, and defended the position with the greatest obstinacy, in the hope that their assailants, from the lack of water and provisions, would soon be forced to retreat.* * The members of the English Commission do not hesitate to attribute the construction of these towers to the remotest antiquity; the Bedouin call them “namûs,” plur. “nawamîs,” mosquito-houses, and they say that the children of Israel built them as a shelter during the night from mosquitos at the time of the Exodus. The resemblance of these buildings to the “Talayôt” of the Balearic Isles, and to the Scotch beehive-shaped houses, has struck all travellers.