We held sundry long confabs with Shaykh Mohammed, who seemed to know the neighbourhood unusually well. He declared that there were ruins but no trees at 'Ayn el-Ghadya'n, distant one day's march up the Wady el-'Arabah, and lying near the western wall. This is the place first identified by Robinson, who says nothing about the remains, with Ezion-geber, while Dean Stanley ("Sinai," etc., p. 85) opines that we have no means of fixing the position of the "Giant's shoulder-blade."[EN#128] Josephus ("Antiq.," viii. 6, 4) places it near Ælana; and the present distance from the sea, like that of Heroopolis (Shaykh el-Ajrúd?) from Suez, may show the rise of the Wady el-'Arabah within historic times. The Shaykh assured us that "Marú" was to be found everywhere among the hills east of El-'Akabah, and Mr. Milne (Beke, p. 405) brought from the very summit of the "true Mount Sinai" (Jebel el-Yitm) a "fine piece of quartz, the same kind of stone as the Brazilian pebbles of which they make the best spectacles." We carried off a specimen of native copper from the Sinaitic Jebel and Wady Raddádí, some six hours to the north-west of the fort: it is found strewed upon the ground but not in veins (?). The stone looked so new that we concluded it to be the work of later generations; and the traces of smelting furnaces at old Elath confirmed the idea. Shaykh Mohammed, who boasted that his tribe could mount five hundred horses--by which understand five--offered his safeguard to the Hismá, three easy marches, without pass or climax, up the Wady Yitm to the east, and behind the range El-Shará'. He made the region begin northwards at one day south of El-Ma'án, the fort lying to the east-south-east of Petra; and he confirmed the accounts of Mabrúk, the guide, who was never tired of expatiating upon its merits. The fountains flow in winter, in summer the wells are never dry; the people, especially the Huwaytát, are kind and hospitable; sheep are cheap as dirt. At Jebel Saur a Maghrabi magician raised a Kidr Dahab ("golden pot"); but, his incense failing at the critical moment, it sank before yielding its treasures.