_10th March._ After a march of three hours, over a rocky and mountainous country, along a road thickly covered with loose stones, we arrived at El Haimar (حيمَر), a collection of wells of great repute in this desert. Just before we reached it we passed by the tomb of a distinguished person belonging to the Mamelouks, who died on this spot. His companions having inclosed the naked corpse within low walls of loose stones, had covered it over with a large block. The dryness of the air had preserved the corpse in the most perfect state. Looking at it through the interstices of the stones which enveloped it, it appeared to me a more perfect mummy than any I had seen in Egypt. The mouth was wide open, and our guide related that the man had died for want of water, although so near the wells. When the remnant of the Mamelouks under the command of Ibrahim Beg el Kebír, and Osman Beg Hassan, left the shores of the Nile, near Ibrim, in the year 1810, to escape from the eager pursuit of the Pasha’s troops, they retired to these mountains, and claimed the hospitality of the Ababde Bedouins, who received them in their encampments, but left no means untried of getting possession of all the property they had brought with them. Provisions were sold to them at enormous prices, and as one well or source could not afford water to so large a party for any length of time, the Mamelouks were obliged to trust to their Ababde guides to carry them from one watering place to another. During these wanderings the Ababde often carried their guests through circuitous routes in order to create a momentary distress for water, and sell their skins of water (which they secretly filled at some neighbouring spring), at the most exorbitant prices. It was a want of water, caused by these contrivances, that proved fatal to the above mentioned Mamelouk, and to others, who lie buried in the neighbourhood. Their whole corps remained several weeks at Haimar, and it was from thence that they ordered all their unnecessary servants and followers to depart: among these were several dashing Egyptian dancing girls, the price of whose charms had increased in the mountains, in the same proportion as other commodities, and who had thus been enabled to acquire large sums of money in a very short time. The dismissed followers of the Mamelouk camp formed a caravan, which was proceeding towards Assouan under the guidance of several Ababde, when, the night before they expected to reach the Nile, their guides absconded, and the next morning they found themselves attacked by a large body of Ababde, by whom they were robbed and stripped naked, and in this condition permitted to pursue their journey towards Egypt. The Ababde, as an excuse for their abominable treachery upon this and other occasions when many of the Mamelouk stragglers were robbed and killed by them, allege that the Mamelouks were the first to prove themselves unworthy of good faith and the rights of hospitality, by