Presently 'Brahim brought in his elder brother, Khizr bin Makbúl, about as ill-conditioned a "cuss" as himself. Very dark, with the left eye clean gone, this worthy appeared pretentiously dressed in the pink of Desert fashion--a scarlet cloak, sheepskin-lined, and bearing a huge patch of blue cloth between the shoulders; a crimson caftan, and red morocco boots with irons resembling ice-cramps at the heels. Like 'Brahim, he uses his Bákúr, or crooked stick, to trace lines and dots upon the ground; similarly, the Yankee whittles to hide the trick that lurks in his eyes. Khizr tents in the Hismá, and his manners are wild and rough as his dwelling-place; possibly manly, brusque certainly, like the Desert Druzes of the Jebel Haurán. He paid his first visit when our Shaykhs were being operated upon by the photographer: I fancied that such a novelty would have attracted his attention for the moment. But no: his first question was, Aysh 'Ujratí?--"What is the hire for my camels?" Finally, these men threw so many difficulties in our way, that I was compelled to defer our exploration of the eastern region to a later day. After a week of washing for metals at Magháir Shu'ayb, it was time to move further afield. On January 17th, the Egyptian Staff-officers rode up the Wady 'Afál, and beyond the two pyramidal rocks of white stone, which have fallen from the towered "Shigd," they found on its right bank the ruins of a small atelier. It lies nearly opposite the mouth of the Wady Tafrígh, which is bounded north by a hill of the same name; and south by the lesser "Shigd." Beyond it comes the Wady Nimir, the broad drain of the Jibál el-Nimir, "Hills of the Leopard," feeding the 'Afál: the upper valley is said to have water and palms. After a "leg" to the north-east (45 deg. mag.), they found the 'Afál running from due north; and one hour (= three miles) led them to other ruins on the eastern side of the low hills that prolong to the north the greater "Shigd." The names of both sites were unknown even to Shaykh Furayj. The foundations of uncut boulders showed a semicircle of buildings measuring 229 paces across the horseshoe. They counted eleven tenements--probably occupied by the slave-owners and superintendents--squares and oblongs, separated by intervals of from forty-five to ninety-seven or a hundred paces. On the north-north-east lay the chief furnace, a parallelogram of some twenty-three paces, built of stone and surrounded by scatters of broken white quartz and scoriæ. These two workshops seem to argue that the country was formerly much better watered than it is now. Moreover, it convinced me that the only rock regularly treated by the ancients, in this region, was the metallic Marú (quartz).