The Hájis were so poor that they had nothing for barter or for sale. Happily, however, there was a farrier amongst them, and Lieutenant Yusuf took care that our mules were properly shod. M. Philipin had been a maréchal ferrant, but a kick or two had left him no stomach for the craft. Our two fellow-travellers, with the whole camp, had set out from Makná on February 6th, and marched up the great Wady el-Kharaj. Along the eastern flank of the Jebel el-Fahísát, the "Iron Mountain," they found many outcrops of quartz, a rock which appears sporadically all the way to the northern soufrière. In two places it was green-stained, showing copper, while in another hydrated oxide and chromate of iron (hematite)[EN#143] abounded. After a stage of four hours and twenty minutes they left the caravan, struck off to the west, accompanied by Shaykh Furayj, and reached their destination. Here, however, they met with accidents: the mules bolted, followed by the Shaykh's dromedary, and they were obliged to hurry off for fear of losing the caravan, now well ahead of them. Thus, when I had ordered Lieutenant Yusuf to make a detailed plan of the formation, he had spent exactly ten minutes on the spot, and he appeared not a little proud of his work. This young officer was not a pleasant companion. He had doubtless received his orders, but he carried them out in a peculiarly disagreeable way, taking notes of all our proceedings under our eyes. Together with Lieutenant Amir, he began to make a collection of geology: both, being utterly innocent of all knowledge, imitated us in picking up specimens; mixed them together without notes or labels; and, on return to Cairo, duly presented them at the Citadel. This was all that was required. The papers were "written to" and reported as follows: "Closer examination has shown that the ‘turquoises' brought to Cairo are merely malachite (!); and that the existence of any such quantity of gold as would pay for the working is, to say the least of it, very doubtful."[EN#144] The whole camp, indeed, was seized with a mania for collecting: old Háji Wali again gathered bits of quartz, which he once more presented as gold-stone to his friends and acquaintances at Zagázig; and Anton, the dragoman, triumphantly bore away fragments bristling with mica-slate, whose glitter he fondly conceived to be silver.