Note 5 — 1. Did the Nile, or a Branch of it, ever flow through the Libyan Desert to the Mediterranean?

A similar ambiguity of meaning very commonly attaches to Arabic geographical terms. Thus beled may mean either a village or an entire country; gebel, either a mountain or a desert; gezira, either an island or a part of the Nile bank which is alternately covered and uncovered by the rise and fall of the river; bir, which properly signifies a well, is often used to denote a spring or a water-cistern; wadi, though its proper meaning is a valley, is also sometimes employed for a closed-in depression, as in the case of the Wadi Natrun.