When Lehi and his family moved on past "Shazer," Nephi referred to "keeping in the borders near the Red Sea" (1 Nephi 16:14). According to the Hiltons Nephi was probably designating the area about halfway down the Red Sea coastal plain where the trail widens near Jiddah. The bow breaking incident occurred after the party had traveled "for the space of many days" (It is interesting that Nephi repeats that phrase twice, both in 1 Nephi 16:15 and in 16:17). Since Nephi says that they again traveled "for the space of many days" (1 Nephi 16:33) to reach Nahom after leaving this camp of the broken bow, it may have been halfway between Shazer and Nahom. If so, the incident may have been roughly in the vicinity of the ancient port of Jiddah, on the shores of the Red Sea. Here the weather is a merciless combination of heat, humidity, sand, and salt--forces strong enough to destroy steel by rust. Between March and November the heat is pitiless. Even in late January the daytime temperature hovers around 85 degrees. Humidity averages about 60 per-cent year round, and in the more moist part of a fifteen-year cycle the humidity rises to a yearly average of 92 percent. Unpainted iron or steel simply cannot survive long in such conditions. [Lynn M. Hilton and Hope A. Hilton, Discovering Lehi, pp. 51, 114]
It was at Jiddah that the Hiltons experienced "a merciless combination of heat, humidity, sand, and salt--a force strong enough to destroy steel." They were stunned to see holes rusted through car fenders in a few months' time. This climate, plus the fact that Lehi's party had moved away from the dry climate of Jerusalem, might explain why Nephi's steel bow was broken, and how the other wooden bows might have lost their spring by absorbing moisture. The Hiltons also found that, according to knowledgeable Arab sources, the pomegranate trees which grow around Jiddah would have provided good wood for Nephi to have used in building a new bow. [Lynn and Hope Hilton, In Search of Lehi's Trail, pp. 81,82]
1 Nephi 16:18 I did break my bow (Hilton Theory) [[Illustration]]: The Frankincense Trails. This map shows the Hilton's proposed location for where Lehi's group "pitched their tent for a time" and where Nephi "did break [his] bow." [Lynn and Hope Hilton, In Search of Lehi's Trail, pp. 22-23]