POOL IN UM-YESSAH RAVINE, JEBEL KITTAR.
KITTAR WATERFALL.
DISCOVERED BY FLOYER 1886.
Wadi Kittar,
February 3rd, 1891.
The mystery of the War Office waterfall is solved! The map is right, but I was not wrong either, as there are two waterfalls, one as pretty as the other. The one I previously described is not mentioned in the description, nor marked on the map, so I claim to be the discoverer of it. I found the one marked on the map to-day, about six miles from here, up the arm of the ravine which I did not visit yesterday. Powney was going this way, stalking, so I went with him, intending to take some photographs at the head of the Wadi. Luckily, we suddenly came upon the cascade before I had used any of my plates. There is not so much water as in the Medisa fall, but the wall over which it flows is higher, probably about eighty feet, and the basin below is larger. But, on the other hand, there is only one, as against four at Medisa. The fall is covered with maidenhair fern, and a Syrian fig-tree spreads its branches over the pool.
About one hundred feet above the fall, and perched on a ledge of rock, is what Sir Gardner Wilkinson describes as an ancient church. He describes an inscription on it which I failed to find.[18] Having taken all my photographs and torn off a lump of fern, we set off home, and arrived hungry enough at 3 P.M. Powney returned at dark, having killed a “she” ibex. We are unlucky in having, so far, killed four “shes” out of five. But it can’t be helped, as we have no other source for getting meat.
To-morrow we shift camp to our original position at Medisa. Powney will go round the mountain with the caravan, and I shall re-visit the falls, walking thence across the mountains, about fourteen miles, till I meet him again at the camp in the evening.
Medisa,