Both animal and plant life is mainly confined to the drainage lines. Of wild animals suitable for human food, gazelles can be shot fairly frequently in the south part of the area, but are very scarce in the north. Sand grouse and partridges can occasionally be obtained round Abu Saafa, while doves are very abundant in the groves near Bir Akwamtra, at the foot of Gebel Elba. Ibex were never seen with certainty, though their horns and lairs were often found on the mountains. Conies inhabit the rocks near Bir Abraq and Bir Madi. The wild ass has disappeared from the area, as also has the ostrich, though fragments of ostrich eggs picked up here and there, and drawings of this bird on the rocks, attest its presence here in recent times. Vultures, kites, and ravens are everywhere in evidence, and several kinds of smaller birds, such as swallows and wagtails, are often seen about the greener wadis. Lizards of many kinds are to be seen. Scorpions and snakes are seldom met with. Of butterflies and moths, especially the latter, many varieties occur. The common fly occurs in such numbers as to be a great pest, but mosquitoes and sand-flies are practically absent. Camel ticks infest the ground under all trees used as shade by travelling Arabs. Earwigs are in some places very abundant, and a great variety of beetles and bugs occur. Near the sea, whole armies of crabs are to be seen marching on the shore, and hermit crabs are very numerous in all sorts of gasteropod dwellings.

Of plant life the district contains a great variety. The north and central parts of the area contain the same trees and bushes as abound further north in Egypt,[42] and camel food is moderately abundant. As Elba is approached, many beautiful flowering plants not found further north are met with, while in the clefts of the slopes of Elba itself is a far richer vegetation than occurs wild in any other part of Egypt. I found the approach to Elba was stopped for baggage camels some four kilometres from the summit owing to the closeness of the trees, and the ascent on foot up the clefts of the mountain-face for the remainder of the way was more like going through an English wood than up a desert mountain. Many varieties of sweet-smelling flowers and some fruit-bearing trees unfamiliar in Egypt were seen, while mosses and lichens covered the tumbled masses of granite in many places. Schweinfurth, who examined the botany of this region in 1864, found that of 300 species of plants collected in the Elba district, the vast majority were of Abyssinian types; scarcely 100 were living in other more northerly parts of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, while still fewer are indigenous to the Nile Valley, and only fifteen species were of those found wild in Europe.[43]

Water Supplies.[44]

The sources of water comprise galts (rock basins forming rain water reservoirs in the mountains), springs and wells. Of these, galts yield the purest water, and form the principal supply of the pastoral Arabs, except in years of no rainfall, while springs and wells, the latter usually rude excavations in the alluvia of wadis, are most used by travellers from their easier accessibility. Small galts are called megal (Ababda) or megwel (Bisharin); they are frequently accompanied by small springs.

The small scale map on [Plate III,] which shows all sources known to exist within the area, gives a good idea of the distribution of water supplies. Water is scarce in the western parts of the country, Bir Abu Hashim being the only source within a radius of about sixty kilometres of itself, but galts and wells are fairly frequent among the mountainous tracts further east. The springs of Abraq and Abu Saafa are the most important sources in the central area. The portion of the country under the Sudan Administration is far richer in water that the Egyptian part, containing numerous fine wells and springs, such as Birs Meneiga, Abu Hodeid, Akwamtra, and Frukit. The coast plain is waterless, except for salty wells near the sea.

Water can usually be obtained at intervals of about two or three days when on the march, and in some parts much more frequently. The water of certain wells and springs has a purgative effect due to the absorption of magnesium salts, especially after a long interval without rain. That of others, again, such as Muelih and Shalatein, is so salty as to be only drinkable by camels.

Geology.[45]

The rocks composing this part of Egypt are principally igneous and metamorphic deposits of very ancient origin. Granite is most prominent in the Nugrus, Faraid, and Elba areas, schists and diorites cover a large portion of the remaining country, and huge masses of serpentines form the mountains of Abu Dahr, Korabkansi, and Gerf. Of sedimentary rocks, plateaux of Nubian sandstone (Cretaceous) cover large areas round Bir Abraq and westward of it, while a narrow belt of the same rock also occurs along the sea coast in the north part of the district. Gypseous limestones (Miocene?) form the hills of Ras Benas and occur along the coast north of Wadi Lahami, as well as in small areas near the coast further south in the neighbourhood of Halaib.

Sketch-Map OF SOUTH-EASTERN EGYPT.
Showing the Water-sources and the Roads connecting them.

Ball. Geography & Geology of South-Eastern Egypt.PLATE III.