Opposite to Negadé, on the other side of the river about three miles, is Cus, a large town, the Appollonis Civitas Parva of the ancients. There are no antiquities at this place; but the caravan, which was to carry the corn for Mecca, across the desert to Cosseir, was to assemble there. I found they were not near ready; and that the Arabs Atouni had threatened they would be in their way, and would not suffer them to pass, at any rate, and that the guard commanded to escort them across the desert, would come from Furshout, and therefore I should have early warning. It was the 2d of February I returned to Badjoura, and took up my quarters in the house formerly assigned me, greatly to the joy of Shekh Ismael, who, though he was in the main reconciled to his friend, friar Christopher, had not yet forgot the wounding of the five men by his miscalculating ramadan; and was not without fears that the same inadvertence might, some day or other, be fatal to him, in his pleurisy and asthma, or, what is still more likely, by the operation of the tabange. As I was now about to launch into that part of my expedition, in which I was to have no further intercourse with Europe I set myself to work to examine all my observations, and put my journal in such forwardness by explanations, where needful, that the labours and pains I had hitherto been at, might not be totally lost to the public, if I should perish in the journey I had undertaken, which, every day, from all information I could procure, appeared to be more and more desperate. Having finished these, at least so far as to make them intelligible to others, I conveyed them to my friends Messrs Julian and Rosa at Cairo, to remain in their custody till I should return, or news come that I was otherwise disposed of. CHAP. VIII. _The Author sets out from Kenné--Crosses the Desert of the Thebaid--Visits the Marble Mountains--Arrives at Cosseir, on the Red Sea--Transactions there._ It was Thursday, the 16th of February 1769, we heard the caravan was ready to set out from Kenné, the Cæne Emporium of antiquity. From Kenné our road was first East, for half an hour, to the foot of the hills, which here bound the cultivated land; then S. E. when, at 11 o’clock in the forenoon, we passed a very dirty small village called Sheraffa. All the way from Kenné, close on our left, were desert hills, on which not the least verdure grew, but a few plants of a large species of Solanum, called Burrumbuc.