Sometimes when the coral reef rises above the surface low islets have been formed, with sandy surface and a scant marine vegetation. By one of these, named Siyal, we were anchored for a night, and on landing we found it about three miles in length, some 50 feet in width, and never more than 4 feet above the surface of the sea. On its eastern side the shore was strewn with cinders from the numerous steamers which ply the Red Sea, and quantities of straw cases for bottles, out of which the ospreys, which live here in large numbers, have built their nests. Turtles revel in the sand, and corals of lovely colours line the beach, and at one extremity of the islet we found the remains of a holy sheikh's hut, with his grave hard by. Many such holy men dwell on promontories and on remote island rocks along this coast in sanctified seclusion, and they are regularly supported by the Bedouin and pearl-fishers, who bring them food and water, neither of which commodities is to be found in such localities. Our sailors on New Year's Eve took a handsome present of bread and candles, presented to them by us, to a holy man who dwelt on the extreme point of Ras Bernas, and had a long gossip with him concerning what boats had passed that way and the prospects of trade--_i.e._ the slave trade--in these desert regions. They burnt incense before his shrine, and the captain devoutly said his evening prayer, whilst he of the tom-tom, Ahmet Faraj, stood behind and mimicked him, to the great amusement of his fellows--a piece of irreverence I have never seen before in any Mohammedan country. Still I think our sailors were as a whole religious; they observed their fasts and prayers most regularly during Ramazan, and their only idea of time was regulated by the five prayers. 'We shall start to-morrow at "God is great," and anchor at the evening prayer,' and so forth, they used to say.