I had hoped to ascend the mountain by way of Wadi Akwamtra, which heads right under the peak selected for the triangulation station. But on arriving at the well we were still more than six kilometres from the head of the wadi, and further progress for camels was very difficult owing to the closeness of the trees, and the bouldery nature of the wadi floor. Guides sent out to reconnoitre having reported that the ascent could be made with less difficulty from the Wadi Yahameib, we followed a very winding track leading over the Asut Duk pass into Yahameib, and then made our way southward over the sloping bouldery plain, thick with trees and scrub, until the camels could get no farther. The camp was pitched in a slight clearing at the foot of the mountain, three and a quarter kilometres north-west of the beacon, at an altitude of 343 metres above sea, or 1,085 metres below the beacon. The climb to the summit was a long and tiring one, but very interesting. Starting at 6.30 a.m. on April 25, 1908, we first followed up the Wadi Yahameib to its head in a sort of neck between two peaks; this neck, which we reached at 10 a.m., is 1,093 metres above sea. About half way up to the neck, among some large granite blocks, there is a small spring of very pure water; it forms a pool holding about a gallon and a half, which fills as fast as it is emptied. Passing over the neck, we dropped down to a level of 984 metres in crossing the head of Wadi Akwamtra, and then, climbing up the opposite side, we reached the beacon (1,428 metres) at noon. Except the last 150 metres to the summit, which was bare steep granite, the whole climb was through a thick growth of trees, very green and fresh, with a tangled undergrowth of flowering shrubs and some mosses and lichens. The trees grow very near to the summit and give plenty of shady resting-places. Acacia (_sellim_) trees cease about 350 metres above sea, and new forms take their place. The most remarkable is a large tree called _Hohait_ by my Arabs; this tree, which I have not seen elsewhere in Egypt, grows in fair abundance to ten metres or more high, with thick woody looking trunk and branches, the foliage being great bunches of aloe-like leaves on the ends of the branches; according to my Arabs, it bears an edible fruit, of which they showed me the stone—a nearly spherical red one, about as big as a pea, very hard.[112] The top of the mountain is narrow and very rough, but narrow sleeping places can be found on ledges. The view from the summit in clear weather is very fine and extensive; the subjoined figure is from a careful sketch which I made of the outlook southwards from the beacon. But, as already remarked, the mountain is frequently shrouded in cloud, and of the ten days I remained on the summit in April and May 1908 only three were clear. [Illustration: Fig. 3.—View from the summit of Gebel Elba.]