MAGAGA WELLS. 245 between overhanging cliffs till suddenly you arrived at a large and dirty pool, where horses and camels were drinking. Above this again were crowds of men, buckets, pumps, and tanks, and at the far end of all these, in a dip overshadowed by perpendicular rocks 150 feet high, was a deep pool of water. These were the Magaga Wells, holding quite half the quantity of water as Gakdul ; and why they had been only comparatively lately made use of, being so close to the track, I don't know.

That night, by eleven o'clock, before the moon was up, we had started on our way, and, with the exception of a rest of an hour for food during the small hours of the morning, walked all night till 7 a.m., when we arrived at the wells of El Howeiyat. Here there was a small detachment of Sussex to guard the wells and keep up the line of communication by signalling and otherwise. On the top of the hill above the wells was a heliograph, which could receive and flash messages all the way to Zobrick el Kelb on the one side, and "Thirty-mile Hill" on the other.

Thus, by means of an instrument at " Twelve-mile