Page 127 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

108 SURVEY OF THE [cm.

of former European vessels. At ten we an­

chored in a small bay about ten miles from
R&s Furtak, and immediately afterwards the
wind increased, until, at night, and during the
following day, it blew a furious gale. The
view we obtained from our anchorage sur­
passed in magnificence and extent any I had
previously witnessed, and its wild and roman­

tic aspect more than compensated for the
monotonv so characteristic of desert mountain
scenery. Here the atmosphere was so re­
markably clear and pure, that the outline of
the hills on the Egyptian shore, distant one
hundred and five miles, appeared as clearly
defined as if they had been but ten.
The Gulf of ’Akabah* has the appearance
of a narrow deep ravine, extending nearly a
hundred miles in a straight direction; and
the circumjacent hills rise in some places two
thousand feet perpendicularly from the shore.

The gulf which fills the bed of this valley has
remained for many centuries unknown to
Europeans. By the ancients it was styled

* Diodorus Siculus has furnished a good description of this
gulf. Let any one, to be satisfied with this, compare his descrip­
tion with modern maps, and then with the result of our survey.