Accordingly, on January 24th, I despatched, with Shaykhs Khizr and 'Brahím as guides, Mr. Clarke and the two Staff-lieutenants towards El-Rijm, the next station of the pilgrim-caravan. Riding up the Wady 'Afál, they reached, after an hour and three-quarters, the ruins known as Igár Muás--a name of truly barbarous sound. The settlement had occupied both banks, but the principal mass was on the left: here two blocks, separated by a hillock, lay to north-east and south-west of each other. Apparently dwelling-places, they were composed of a masonry-cistern and of fourteen buildings, detached squares and oblongs, irregular both in orientation and in size; the largest measuring eighty by fifty metres, and the smallest five by four. The material was of water-rolled boulders, huge pebbles without mortar or cement. There were no signs of a furnace, nor were the usual fragments of glass and pottery strewed about. To the north and running up the north-north-eastern slope stood a line of wall two metres broad and three hundred long: it ended at the south-western extremity in five round towers razed to their foundations. It was suggested that this formed part of a street, laid out on the plan of the Jebel el-Safrá, the hauteville of Magháir Shu'ayb. On the right bank of the Wady appeared a heap of stones suggesting a Burj. Fine, hard, compact, and purple-blue slate was collected in the ruins; and the red conglomerates on either side of the watercourse suggested that Cascalho had been worked. After riding their dromedaries some three hours, halts not included, the travellers were asked why they had not brought their tents. "Because we expect to return to camp this evening!" Then it leaked out that they had not reached half-way to the "closed stone," while the dragon-tablet would take a whole day. Unprepared for a wintry night in the open, some twelve hundred feet above sea-level, they rode back at full speed, greatly to the disgust of the Arabs, who, at this hungry season, rarely push their lean beasts beyond three and a half to four miles an hour. Lieutenant Amir, who is invaluable in the field, would have pressed forward: not so the European. I did not see Shaykhs Khizr or 'Brahím for many a day; nor did we attempt any more reconnaissances to the north of Magháir Shu'ayb.