A brief general retrospect of the topography of Upper Egypt may here be given. The towns and cultivation are wholly confined to the banks of the Nile, but especially on the East. Mountains continue to present a regular barrier behind on both sides. Beyond this natural wall, on the West, is a vast sandy desert, traversed at times by the Muggrebîn Arabs; here and there, at the distance of about a hundred miles or more from the Nile, are Oases or fertile isles, in the ocean of sand. On the East, between the river and the Arabian gulf, are vast ranges of mountains, abounding with marble and porphyry, but generally destitute of water, so that no town or village can be built. Among these ranges, however, some tribes of Bedouin Arabs, as the _Ababdi_ and _Beni Hossein_, contrive to find some fertile spots and diminutive springs, so as to furnish residences for about three or four thousand inhabitants. Even the shores of the Red Sea, corresponding with Egypt, contain but a small number of tribes; and the Arabs on the East in general are little formidable. The Muggrebîns are more ferocious, and might send forth thirty thousand men capable of bearing arms, could they ever be united, a thing almost impossible, their parties seldom exceeding four or five hundred, and the tribes being divided by intestine enmities. The Lesser Oasis, now _El-wah el-Ghurbi_, forms a kind of capital settlement, if I may so speak, of the Muggrebîn Arabs, who extend even to Fezzân and Tripoli. They are dressed in a linen or cotton shirt, over which is wrapped a blanket of fine flannel; all have fire-arms and are good marksmen, and their musquets are their constant companions. Their chief employment lies in breeding horses[24], camels, and sheep. They are very hardy and abstemious, a small cake of bread and leathern bottle of water supplying a man with ample provision for a day. It is said that several ruins are to be found at _El-wah-el-Ghurbi_. Of the _Oasis Magna_, now El-wah, I shall speak at large in treating of my journey to Dar-Fûr; but must observe that the distance between this Oasis and that styled _Parva_ is erroneously laid down in the most recent maps. I was informed by the Muggrebîns at _El-wah_, that _Charjé_, the most northern village of that district, was but two days journey from the nearest part of _El-wah-el-Ghurbi_; that is, about forty miles. _Oasis Magna_ seems rightly to correspond with the latitude of Dendera, and of course that of the southern extremity of _Oasis Parva_ should be a little to the South of that of Assiût, and not far North of Tinodes Mons, in D’Anville’s map; apparently the chain on the East of both the Oases, or الواحات. On the West I observed no mountains, nor on the South. The most northern Oasis known near Egypt is that of _Siwa_, already described. CHAP. IX. UPPER EGYPT.