BITTER WATERS 193

somnolent moments and might have been bolder with
impunity, for my shot-gun had now gone finally out of action
and all our efforts to put it right were unavailing. This was
something of a tragedy as we could scarcely hope to get any
more small birds though I continued to note their occurrence,
and even tried from time to time to shoot them with my
pocket pistol.

As I sat alone on a dune top commanding the hollow a
rifle shot rang out, echoing and re-echoing from slope to
slope. I saw a fox standing stock-still on the rock below.
For a moment it stood there before flight into the sands
beyond, where I followed it with my glasses as Farraj and
Al Aqfa pursued. The beast was obviously wounded—the
bullet had gone through its abdomen—and rapidly the bitch
overhauled it. Then among the bushes came the end, and
Farraj came back triumphant with his trophy, which proved
to be a Fennec or Desert Fox of the new subspecies1
collected last year by Mr. Thomas.

Having surveyed the scene sufficiently I went straight
down the steep soft slope towards the pit, whose geological
formation I examined while the tents were being pitched and
the camels driven forth to the pastures. About 50 feet
above the floor of the depression an intermittent stratum of
friable greyish sandstone appeared from under the heaped-
up sands. Downwards it shelved to a rock-floor of similar
formation, some acres in extent and curving round the actual
well area in an imposing semicircular cliff of 10 or 12 feet,
whose horns penetrated and lost themselves in the steep
surrounding sand slopes. In this area I found a few shell
fragments of freshwater2 origin, but otherwise nothing but the
characteristic odds and ends of old Badawin camps—horns of
the Rim gazelle, cartridge cases, fragments of leather and the
like. But three fragments of stone picked up by me in
this locality have proved to be parts of a single small
stony meteorite.3

1 Arabia Felix, p. 340. I brought back three specimens in all, which
have been provisionally labelled Cynalopex sp. by Captain J. G, Dollman of
the British Museum.

2 Melanoides tuberculatd—see Appendix. z See Appendix.

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