116	THE EMPTY QUARTER
suspending it head downwards by the hind legs. Unfor-
tunately my solicitude ruined the specimen, which was found
on arrival in camp to have been so soaked in a pool of its own
exuded blood that the skin was not worth preserving.
A vast bare shingle plain with very dry and scanty scrub
succeeded the sands. On it we found the typical camel-paths
leading forward to the water, while afar off on the left began
to appear a long line of lofty orange dunes—the first of the
vast sands of the great desert! About mid-afternoon we
came to them or rather to a firm, undulating sandy plain
projecting from them towards the Summan ; and from here
onwards to Maqainama itself we marched, now on one and
now on the other, along the sinuous boundary between the
sands and the steppe. Here and there we passed by patches
of exposed gypsum suggesting that the desert floor—once
doubtless the bed of the sea—lay very close beneath the sur-
face of these sands. Salih had a shot at a raven and missed
it, while I had better sport among some brightly coloured
Scarab beetles winging among or settled on the bushes. At
the base of one of the latter I noticed a splash of liquid crim-
son. It is water, said Salih, the water of dew washing the
bark of the bush. It looked to me like a resinous exudation
similar to the stuff which, according to Dr. Yahuda, the
Israelites of the Exodus called Man^1' because they knew not
what it was '. We call it Manna, but Salih said Ma'n, mean-
ing water.
By now we had done a satisfactory day's labour and all
thoughts centred on the idea of camping when suddenly we
came upon four or five patches of exposed gypsum, in the
midst of which lay the well of Bir ibn Juhaiyim. All I saw
was a short wooden stake protruding from a shallow saucer
of sand. But no sooner were we dismounted and the cooks
at work against sunset than 'Ali and some others initiated
me into one of the common customs of the great sands. The
well was not buried but protected with a covering of wattle
and skins over its mouth. There was a sufficient thickness
of blown sand over the cover to show what would have hap-
^1 Dr. Yahuda interprets this as an Egyptian word meaning * we do not
know ', used currently in the speech of the Hebrews.