In his old Arab days, wandering about with his Korán, forty years ago, Richard came upon a gold land in that part of Arabia belonging to Egypt. He was a romantic youth, with a chivalrous contempt for filthy lucre, and only thought of "winning his spurs;" so, setting a mark upon the place, he turned away and passed on. After twenty-five years, seeing Egypt distressed for gold, he asked for "leave," and he went back to Cairo, and imparted his secret to the Khedive. Uncle Gerard furnished him with the means of going. His Highness equipped an Expedition in a few days, and sent him there to rediscover the land (end of 1876). He has given an account of that trip in the "Gold Mines of Midian" and the "Ruined Midianite Cities," 1878. The Khedive engaged him to come back the following winter, 1877, with a view to learning every item concerning this rich old country, and applied to the Foreign Office for the loan of him for the winter, which being granted, he set out in October, 1877, in command of a new Expedition, on a much larger scale, and was out seven months in the desert of Arabia, doing hard work. He discovered a region of gold and silver, zinc, antimony, sulphur, tin, copper, porphyry, turquoise, agate, lead, and six or seven commoner metals, extending some hundreds of miles either way, and pearls on the coast, a Roman temple, and thirty-two mining Cities. The Expedition mapped and planned and sketched the whole country, and brought back abundance of the various metals for assay or analysis. The ancients had only worked forty feet, whereas with our appliances we might have gone down twelve hundred. The Khedive was charmed; he made splendid contracts with my husband, so that, with the commonest luck, not only Egypt would have become rich, but my husband would have been a millionaire in a very few years, and he used to say jokingly that he would be _Duke of Midian_, the only title he had ever wished for. To our great misfortune Ismail Khedive abdicated just as the third Expedition was about to come off, in 1878-9. The new Khedive, Tewfik, did not consider himself bound by any act of his father's; the English Government (it is hardly worth while to remark) was not likely to give Richard a chance of anything good, and instead of being able to carry out the enterprise, he lost all the money which we had advanced and partly borrowed for paying expenses which we were sure would be refunded.[3] His second interesting work on this expedition was the "Land of Midian Revisited" (2 vols., 1879).