The Wady Surr now began to widen out, and to become more riant, whilst porphyry was almost the only visible rock. After a total of ten "dawdling" miles, marching almost due east, we found our tents pitched in a broad and quasi-circular basin, called El-Safh ("the level ground of") Jebel Malíh ("Mount Pleasant"?), which the broad-speaking Bedawin lengthen to Malayh. Our camel-men had halted exactly between two waters, and equally distant from both, so as to force upon us the hire of extra animals. We did not grumble, however, as we were anxious to inspect the Afrán ("furnaces") said to be found upon the upper heights of the Shárr--of these apocryphal features more hereafter. Fresh difficulties! The Jeráfín-Huwaytát tribe, that owns the country south of the Surr, could not be reached under a whole day of dromedary-riding: in reality they were camped a few furlongs off, but anything to gain £8 per diem for doing nothing! Two Bedawi shepherd-lads promised to act guides next morning, and duly failed to appear, or, more probably, were forbidden to appear. They had also romanced about ruins, fountains, palms, and rushes in the Wady el-Kusayb, the south-eastern influent. At night Ahmed el-‘Ukbi, surnamed Abú Khartúm, arrived in camp: he had travelled more than once to Tabúk, carrying grain, and though he had failed as a merchant, he retained his reputation as a guide. As regards the furnaces, he also, like Furayj, could speak only from hearsay. Opinions were divided in camp: I saw clearly that a stand was being made to delay us for four or five days; and, despite grumbling, I resolved upon deferring the visit till our return from the interior. The first march had led us eastward, instead of north-eastward, in order to inspect the Wady Surr. From the seaboard, this line, which drains the northern flank of the Shárr Mountains, appears the directest road into the interior. We shall presently see, however, why the devious northern way of the Wady Sadr has become the main commercial route connecting El-Muwaylah with Tabúk.[EN#151] During the evening we walked up the Wady Surr, finding, in its precipitous walls, immense veins of serpentine and porphyritic greenstone, but not a speck of gold. The upper part of the Fiumara also showed abundant scatters of water-rolled stones, serpentines, and hard felspars, whose dove-coloured surface was streaked with fibrils and at times with regular veins of silvery lustre, as if brought out by friction of the surface. I offered a considerable sum to a Jeráfín Bedawi if he would show the rock in situ; he was evidently ignorant of it, but, like others, he referred us to Jebel Malíh.