Richard's Midian was an utterly unknown country along the east coast of the Gulf of Akabah, one of the two narrow inlets in which the Red Sea ends. When I say unknown, it has been practically unvisited and its shores unexplored until now. There is abundant evidence of a former population and a cultivated period; there are ruins of large towns, of solid masonry, roads cut in the rock, aqueducts five miles long; remains of massive fortresses with artificial reservoirs, all the signs of a busy and a prosperous period, when fleets with richly laden cargoes came to and fro. The rocks are full of mineral wealth--gold, silver, tin, antimony, and many other rich things, just as in the gold districts elsewhere. The sands of the streams yield gold, and the ancient mining works lie destroyed round every town, heaps of ashes close to the mineral furnaces. There are mines of turquoises. This hoard of possible wealth would have set up Ismail Khedive and Egypt for ever, if she could only have worked it. Richard began to be called in fun the "new Pharaoh's new Joseph." These seas were once bright with trade and craft and cargoes from every part of the Eastern World. The mines flourished with the trade, and doubtless perished through the same causes. First the struggle between the Persians and Heraclius, and then the Moslem conquest. Richard went first to Moilah, thence to Aynunah Bay. Every ruined town had its mining works, dams for washing of sand and crushed rock, and gold-washing vessels. Then they went to Makna, written "Mugua" in the maps, the Capital of the land, as far as Jebel Hassani, and he found it much like ancient California. These gold and precious stones producing parts of Arabia were closed up four thousand years ago, and present the appearance of having been suddenly left, in consequence of earthquake or some great volcanic evolution. They found a black sand containing a very clear oxide of tin, and a large stone engraved with antique inscriptions, which they copied. [Sidenote: _Waiting and working_.] At the first expedition there was not money enough for us both to go, so I had to make the sacrifice and stay behind. On the 19th we went on board the _Espero_, the Khedive having summoned him to Egypt, where the work of organization went on, and they landed at Tur (where he had landed in 1853), and went to Arafat, and to El Muwáylah and Shermá, to Jebel el Abyaz, and innumerable other places.