CHAPTER XIII.
NOTES ON THE ROAD FROM HALAIB TO PORT SUDAN.
On the completion of the survey work at Halaib in May 1908, I returned to Cairo by marching in to Port Sudan and thence taking steamer to Suez. The journey from Halaib to Port Sudan with baggage camels occupied eleven days, travelling on an average thirty kilometres a day. This rate of travel did not permit of any surveying being done en route, but I took brief notes of the road and the wells on it, and as this road does not appear to be included in those described in the Sudan Handbook, I give here the notes I made. The distances are estimated from the times occupied in marching.
I would mention that from Mohamed Ghul onwards to Port Sudan there are two roads; a lower one near the sea, usually followed by the Police patrols, and an upper one which goes a little distance inland. The upper road was the one I followed, as my guides informed me that while it was only some eight kilometres longer than the lower one, there was much better water to be found on it.
In the sketch maps on Plates [XXVII] and [XXVIII,] I have shown the road and the wells on it as correctly as is possible from my notes, using the Admiralty Chart No. 2,336 as a basis for the coast-line and the maps 36 I and 46 A, issued by the Sudan Survey Department, for the position of Port Sudan and some topographical details. As the direction of march was roughly north-to-south and the total estimated distances between Halaib and Mohamed Ghul, and between Mohamed Ghul and Port Sudan, agree pretty well with those scaled from the maps after laying down the terminal positions correctly, it may be taken that the latitudes of the wells are fairly correct, while the longitudes are liable to greater error as being only rough estimations.
| Ball—Geography & Geology of South-Eastern Egypt. | PLATE XXVII. |
Photo-Metal-Process. Survey Dept. Cairo 1911. (190)