d it difficult to pass; the interior consisted of
a single chamber, except in the case of the chief of the works, whose
dwelling contained two.

[Illustration: 164.jpg THE HIGH CASTLE OF THE MINERS--HAIT-QAIT--AT THE
CONFLUENCE OF WADY GENNEH AND WADY MAGHARA]

Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph published in the
Ordnance Survey of the Peninsula of Sinai, Photographs, vol.
ii. pls. 59, 60.

A rough stone bench from two to two and a half feet high surrounds the
plateau on which the village stands; a _cheval defrise_ made of thorny
brushwood probably completed the defence, as in the _duars_ of the
desert. The position was very strong and easily defended. Watchmen
scattered over the neighbouring summits kept an outlook over the distant
plain and the defiles of the mountains. Whenever the cries of these
sentinels announced the approach of the foe, the workmen immediately
deserted the mine and took refuge in their citadel, which a handful of
resolute men could successfully hold, as long as hunger and thirst did
not enter into the question. As the ordinary springs and wells would
not have been sufficient to supply the needs of the colony, they had
transformed the bottom of the valley into an artificial lake. A dam
thrown across it prevented the escape of the waters, which filled the
reservoir more or less completely according to the season. It never
became empty, and several species of shellfish flourished in it--among
others, a kind of large mussel which the inhabitants generally used as
food, which with dates, milk, oil, coarse bread, a few vegetables, and
from time to time a fowl or a joint of meat, made up their scanty fare.
Other things were of the same primitive character. The tools found in
the village are all of flint: knives, scrapers, saws, hammers, and heads
of lances and arrows. A few vases brought from Egypt are distinguished
by the fineness of the material and the purity of the design; but the
pottery in common use was made on the spot from coarse clay without
care, and regardless of beauty. As for jewellery, the villagers had
beads of glass or blue enamel, and necklaces of strung cowrie-shells.
In the mines, as in their own houses, the workmen employed stone tools
only, with handles of wood, or of plaited willow twigs, but their
chisels or hammers were more than sufficient to cut the yellow
sandstone, coarse-grained and very friable as it was, in the midst of
which they worked.*

* E.