The Red Sea to starboard, where Africa rises wild and grim, is a dangerous shore, requiring lighthouses, which it has not. The morning after, we could see Mount Sinai lone in the Tih Desert. In my husband's Arab days, he landed at Tur, and bathed at Hammam Musa on his way to Mecca. On the other side is the Gulf of Akabah the stormy, and Richard at this time (1876) was brewing his project of the Midian mines, whose gold he had discovered twenty-five years before. He then pointed out to me Yambu, the Port of Medinah, where he was in his pilgrimage, and the winding valleys that lead to it, and Richard asked the pilot about Sa'ad, the Shaykh of the Harb Bedawi, the robber-chief of the Jebel el Fikrah, who attacked Richard's caravan going to Mecca, and he replied that "that dog has since gone to Jehannum." [Sidenote: _Jeddah_.] Jeddah is the most lovely town I have ever seen, and by moonlight quite ghostly. It looks like an ancient model carved in old ivory. It was here my husband came by land _from_ Mecca, after the pilgrimage, and embarked in 1853. Mecca lies in a valley between those high mountains at the back. Mr. Gustavus Wylde, the Vice-Consul, the son of our old friend Mr. Henry Wylde, of the F.O., sent a boat and a _kawwás_ to bring us off, and insisted on our remaining, the eight days that we were to anchor there, at the Consulate, which we gladly accepted, and I think it was the pleasantest eight days I ever remember. It was a bachelor house, consisting of five men. The Consulate was made of white coralline, with brown wood shutters; jalousies and balconies of fanciful shape, mostly all crooked, but as finely carved as delicate lace. There was a room at the top, a sort of belvedere with windows opening to all sides with delicious views, which I called "The Eagle's Nest," and everything was a combination of Eastern and European comfort. They always mounted us, and we used to ride out into the desert by the Hajj way. It was very tantalizing to find one's self so near Mecca--on one occasion about twenty-five miles--and to have to turn round and come back; but two Americans and two English had gone up for a lark, and had got into trouble. Richard could have gone, but it was not exactly the time to show my blue eyes and broken Arabic upon holy ground, so we returned through the Meccan Gate and the bazars, which are half-dark and half-lit. [Sidenote: _Bazars of Jeddah_.]