Beyond the Wady Sukk, a bad rough path leads along the base of the Tayyih Ism Mountain; then the cliffs fall sheer into the sea, explaining why caravans never travel that way. Yet there was a maritime road, for we know that Abú Sufyán, on his way from Syria to fight the battle of "Bedr" (A.H. 2), passed by a roundabout path for safety, along the shore of Midian. Thus compelled, the track bends inland, and enters a Nakb, a gash conspicuous from the Gulf, an immense cañon or couloir that looks as if ready to receive a dyke or vein. Curious to say, a precisely similar formation, prolonged to the south-west, cuts the cliffs south of Marsá Dahab in the Sinaitic Peninsula. The southern entrance to the gorge bears signs of human habitation: a parallelogram of stones, 120 paces by 91, has been partially buried by a land-slip (?); and there are remnants of a dam measuring about a hundred metres in length (?). About three hundred yards higher up, water appears in abundance, and palm clumps grow on both sides of it. Here, however, all trace of man is wanting; the winter torrents must be dangerous; and there is no grass for sheep. The crevasse now becomes very wild; the Pass narrows from fifty to ten paces, and, in one section, a loaded camel can hardly squeeze through; whilst the cliff-walls of red and grey granite (?) tower some two thousand feet above the thread of path.[EN#106] Water which, as usual, sinks in the sand, is abundant enough in three other places to supply a large caravan; and two date-clumps were passed. Hence, if all here told be true, the "Nakhil (palm-plantation) Tayyib Ism" reported to the first Expedition. After covering sixteen miles in five hours, the caravan had not made more than half the distance to the Bir el-Máshi, where a small Marsá, or anchorage-ground, called El-Suwayhil ("the Little Shore") nestles in the long sand-slope between the mountain Tayyib Ism and its huge northern neighbour, the Mazhafah block. From this "Well of the Walker," a pass leads to the Wady Marsha', where, according to certain Bedawin, are found extensive ruins and Bíbán ("doors"), or catacombs. The whole is, however, an invention; our Sayyid had ridden down the valley during his journey to El-Hakl.