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Saltpetre is plentiful, and a third "Sulphur hill" rises from the maritime plain north of the Wady Hamz. The principal ruins and ateliers number five; these, beginning from the north, are the Umm el-Karayat, the Umm el-Harab, the Bujat-Bada, the Kharabat Aba'l-Maru, and the old Nabathean port, E1-Haura.
The open Wady Mismah showed, to the east of our camp, the ruins of a large settlement which has extended right across the bed: as the guides seemed to ignore its existence, we named it the Kharabat Aba'l-Maru. Some of the buildings had been on a large scale, and one square measured twenty yards. Here the peculiarity was the careful mining of a granitic hillock on the southern bank.
A few yards further on showed us a similar line, the route taken by the caravan when going to Meccah via Yambu', now distant five marches. The two meet at the Wady Wafdiyyah, to the north-east of the Aba'l-Maru range, which we shall visit to-morrow. Before describing the Palace of Sa'id the Brave, I must devote a few lines to a notice of the Wady Hamz.
Here, after some ten miles, the guide, Na'ji', who thus far had been very misty in the matter of direction, suddenly halted and, in his showman style, pointed to the left bank of the watercourse, exclaiming, "Behold Aba'l-Maru!"
The material is the Rugham or alabaster supplied by the Secondary formation; and this, as we saw, readily crumbles to a white powder when burnt. The people, who in such matters may be trusted, declare that the quarries are still open at Abu Makharir, under the hills embosoming Aba'l-Maru.
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