This place, evidently the capital of Madyan Proper, is the <Greek word> which Ptolemy (vi. 7) places amongst his "Mesogeian towns" in north lat. 28 degrees 15 minutes;[EN#35] and it deserves more than the two pages of description which Ruppell bestowed upon it.[EN#36] We will notice its natural features before proceeding to the remains of man. Here the Wady 'Afár takes the name of "El-Badá." Sweeping from west to east, it is deflected to a north-south line, roughly speaking, by the gate of the Shigdawayn, twin-hills standing nearly east and west of one another. Now become a broad, well-defined, tree-dotted bed, with stiff silt banks, here and there twenty to twenty-five feet high, it runs on a meridian for about a mile, including the palm-orchard and the camping-ground. It then turns the west end of the Jebel el-Safrá, a mass of gypsum on the left bank, and it bends to the east of south, having thus formed a figure of Z. After escaping from the imprisoning hills, the Fiumara bed, now about three-quarters of a mile broad, is bisected longitudinally by a long and broken lump of chloritic or serpentine sandstone; and rises in steps towards the right bank, upon which the pilgrims camp. Reaching the plain, the Wady flares out wildly, containing a number of riverine islands, temporary, but sometimes of considerable size. It retains sufficient moisture to support a clump of palms--that which we saw from afar;--it bends to the south-east, and, lastly, it trends seaward. The "Water of Bada'" springs from the base of the hill El-Safrá, oozing out in trickling veins bedded in soft dark mud. It can be greatly increased by opening the fountains, and economized by a roofing of mat: we tried this plan, which only surprised the unready Arab. After swinging to the left bank and running for a few yards, it sinks in the sand; yet on both sides there are signs of labour, showing that, even of late years, the valley has seen better days. Long leats and watercourses have been cut in the clay, and are still lined with the white-flowered "Rijlah," whose nutritive green leaf is eaten, raw or boiled, by the Fellahs of Egypt: the wild growth, however, is mostly bitter. On both sides are little square plots fenced against sheep and goats by a rude abattis of stripped and dead boughs, Jujube and acacia. Young dates have been planted in pits; some are burnt and others are torn; for the Bedawi, mischievous and destructive as the Cynocephalus, will neither work nor allow others to work. The 'Ushash or frond-and-reed huts, much like huge birds'-nests, are scattered about in small groups everywhere except near the water. Wherever a collection of bones shows a hyena's lair, the hunters have built a screen of dry stone.