The Land of Midian (Revisited) — Volume 2
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Title: The Land of Midian (Revisited) — Volume 2
Author: Sir Richard Francis Burton
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7113]
Most recently updated: December 30, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7113
Credits: Produced by JC Byers and proofread by MaryAnn Short
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF MIDIAN (REVISITED) — VOLUME 2 ***
Produced by JC Byers and proofread by MaryAnn Short
The Land of Midian (Revisited).
By Richard F. Burton.
In Two Volumes.
Vol. II.
C. Kegan Paul & Co.
London:
1879.
To the Memory of My Much Loved Niece,
Maria Emily Harriet Stisted,
Who Died at Dovercourt,
November 12, 1878.
CONTENTS
PART II.
The March Through Central and Eastern Midian. (Continued)
Chapter XI. The Unknown Lands South of the Hismá--Ruins of
Shuwák and Shaghab
Chapter XII. From Shaghab to Zibá--Ruins of El-Khandakí and Umm
Ámil--The Turquoise Mine--Return to El-Muwaylah
Chapter XIII. A Week Around and Upon the Shárr Mountain--Résumé
of the March Through Eastern or Central Midian
Chapter XIV. Down South--To El-WijhNotes on the Quarantine--
The Hutaym Tribe.
Chapter XV. The Southern Sulphur-Hill--The Cruise to El-Haurá-
-Notes on the Baliyy Tribe and the Volcanic
Centres of North-Western Arabia
Chapter XVI. Our Last March--The Inland Fort--Ruins of the
Gold-Mines at Umm El-Karáyát and Umm El-Haráb
Chapter XVII. The March Continued to El-Badá--Description of the
Plain Badais
Chapter XVIII. Coal a "Myth"--March to Marwát--Arrival at the
Wady Hamz
Chapter XIX. The Wady Hamz--The Classical Ruin--Abá'l-
Marú, The Mine of "Marwah"--Return to El-
Wijh--Résumé of the Southern Journey
Conclusion
Appendix I. Dates of the Three Journeys (Northern,
Central, and Southern) made by the Second
Khedivial Expedition
Appendix II. EXpenses of the Expedition to Midian,
Commanded by Captain R. F. Burton, H.B.M.
Consul, Trieste
Appendix III. Preserved Provisions and other Stores,
Supplied by Messrs. Voltéra Bros., of the
Ezbekiyyah, Cairo
Appendix IV. Botany and List of Insects
Appendix V. Meteorological Journal
Index
PART II.
The March Through Central and Eastern Midian.
(Continued.)
Chapter XI.
The Unknown Lands South of the HismáRuins of Shuwák and Shaghab.
We have now left the region explored by Europeans; and our line
to the south and the south-east will lie over ground wholly new.
In front of us the land is no longer Arz Madyan: we are entering
South Midian, which will extend to El-Hejáz. As the march might
last longer than had been expected, I ordered fresh supplies from
El-Muwaylah to meet us in the interior viâ Zibá. A very small boy
acted dromedary-man; and on the next day he reached the fort,
distant some thirty-five and a half direct geographical miles
eastward with a trifling of northing.
We left the Jayb el-Khuraytah on a delicious morning (6.15 a.m.,
February 26th), startling the gazelles and the hares from their
breakfast graze.
The former showed in troops of six; and the latter were still
breeding, as frequent captures of the long-eared young proved.
The track lay down the Wady Dahal and other influents of the
great Wady Sa'lúwwah, a main feeder of the Dámah. We made a
considerable détour between south-south-east and south-east to
avoid the rocks and stones discharged by the valleys of the
Shafah range on our left. To the right rose the Jibál el-Tihámah,
over whose nearer brown heights appeared the pale blue peaks of
Jebel Shárr and its southern neighbour, Jebel Sa'lúwwah.
At nine a.m. we turned abruptly eastward up the Wady
el-Sulaysalah, whose head falls sharply from the Shafah range.
The surface is still Hismá ground, red sand with blocks of ruddy
grit, washed down from the plateau on the left; and, according to
Furayj, it forms the south-western limit of the Harrah. The
valley is honeycombed into man-traps by rats and lizards, causing
many a tumble, and notably developing the mulish instinct. We
then crossed a rough and rocky divide, Arabicè a Majrá, or, as
the Bedawin here pronounce it, a "Magráh,"[EN#1] which takes its
name from the tormented Ruways ridge on the right. After a hot,
unlively march of four hours (= eleven miles), on mules worn out
by want of water, we dismounted at a queer isolated lump on the
left of the track. This Jebel el-Murayt'bah ("of the Little
Step") is lumpy grey granite of the coarsest elements, whose
false strata, tilted up till they have become quasi-vertical, and
worn down to pillars and drums, crown the crest like gigantic
columnar crystallizations. We shall see the same freak of nature
far more grandly developed into the "Pins" of the Shárr. It has
evidently upraised the trap, of which large and small blocks are
here and there imbedded in it. The granite is cut in its turn by
long horizontal dykes of the hardest quadrangular basalt,
occasionally pudding'd with banded lumps of red jasper and
oxydulated iron: from afar they look like water-lines, and in
places they form walls, regular as if built. The rounded forms
result from the granites flaking off in curved laminæ, like
onion-coats. Want of homogeneity in the texture causes the
granite to degrade into caves and holes: the huge blocks which
have fallen from the upper heights often show unexpected hollows
in the under and lower sides. Above the water we found an immense
natural dolmen, under which apparently the Bedawin take shelter.
After El-Murayt'bah the regular granitic sequence disappears, nor
will it again be visible till we reach Shaghab (March 2nd).
About noon we remounted and rounded the south of the block,
disturbing by vain shots two fine black eagles. I had reckoned
upon the "Water of El-Murayt'bah," in order to make an
exceptional march after so many days of deadly slow going. But
the cry arose that the rain-puddle was dry. We had not brought a
sufficient supply with us, and twenty-two miles to and from the
Wady Dahal was a long way for camels, to say nothing of their
owners and the danger of prowling Ma'ázah. In front water lay
still farther off, according to the guides, who, it will be seen,
notably deceived us. So I ordered the camp to be pitched, after
reconnoitering the locale of the water; and we all proceeded to
work, with a detachment of soldiers and quarrymen. It was not a
rain-puddle, but a spring rising slowly in the sand, which had
filled up a fissure in the granite about four feet broad; of
these crevices three were disposed parallel to one another, and
at different heights. They wanted only clearing out; the produce
was abundant, and though slightly flavoured with iron and
sulphur, it was drinkable. The thirsty mules amused us not a
little: they smelt water at once; hobbled as they were, all
hopped like kangaroos over the plain, and with long ears well to
the fore, they stood superintending the operation till it was
their turn to be happy.
Our evening at the foot of El-Ruways was cheered, despite the
flies, the earwigs, and the biting Ba'úzah beetle, which here
first put in an appearance, by the weird and fascinating aspect
of the southern Hismá-wall, standing opposite to us, and distant
about a mile from the dull drab-coloured basin, El-Majrá. Based
upon mighty massive foundations of brown and green trap, the
undulating junction being perfectly defined by a horizontal white
line, the capping of sandstone rises regular as if laid in
courses, with a huge rampart falling perpendicular upon the
natural slope of its glacis. This bounding curtain is called the
Taur el-Shafah, the "inaccessible part of the Lip-range." Further
eastward the continuity of the coping has been broken and
weathered into the most remarkable castellations: you pass mile
after mile of cathedrals, domes, spires, minarets, and pinnacles;
of fortresses, dungeons, bulwarks, walls, and towers; of
platforms, buttresses, and flying buttresses. These Girágir
(Jirájir), as the Bedawin call them, change shape at every new
point of view, and the eye never wearies of their infinite
variety. Nor are the tints less remarkable than the forms. When
the light of day warms them with its gorgeous glaze, the
buildings wear the brightest hues of red concrete, like a certain
house near Prince's Gate, set off by lambent lights of lively
pink and balas-ruby, and by shades of deep transparent purple,
while here and there a dwarf dome or a tumulus gleams sparkling
white in the hot sun-ray. The even-glow is indescribably lovely,
and all the lovelier because unlasting: the moment the red disc
disappears, the glorious rosy smile fades away, leaving the pale
grey ghosts of their former selves to gloom against the gloaming
of the eastern sky. I could not persuade M. Lacaze to transfer
this vividity of colour to canvas: he had the artist's normal
excuse, "Who would believe it?"
The next morning saw the Expedition afoot at six a.m., determined
to make up for a half by the whole day's work so long intended.
The track struck eastward, and issued from the dull hollow, Majrá
el-Ruways, by a made road about a mile and a half long, a cornice
cut in the stony flanks of a hill whose head projected southwards
into the broad Wady Hujayl ("the Little Partridge"). This line
seems to drain inland; presently it bends round by the east and
feeds the Wady Dámah. Rain must lately have fallen, for the earth
is "purfled flowers," pink, white, and yellow. The latter is the
tint prevailing in Midian, often suggesting the careless European
wheat-field, in which "shillock" or wild mustard rears its
gamboge head above the green. Midian wants not only the charming
oleander and the rugged terebinth, typical of the Desert; but
also the "blood of Adonis," the lovely anemone which lights up
the Syrian landscape like the fisherman's scarlet cap in a
sea-piece. This stage introduced us to the Hargul (Harjal, Rhazya
stricta), whose perfume filled the valley with the clean smell of
the henna-bloom, the Eastern privet--Mr. Clarke said
"wallflowers." Our mules ate it greedily, whilst the country
animals, they say, refuse it: the flowers, dried and pounded,
cure by fumigation "pains in the bones." Here also we saw for the
first time the quaint distaff-shape of the purple red Masrúr
(Cynomorium coccineum, Linn.), from which the Bedawi "cook
bread." It is eaten simply peeled and sun-dried, when it has a
vegetable taste slightly astringent as if by tannin, something
between a potato and a turnip; or its rudely pounded flour is
made into balls with soured milk. This styptic, I am told by Mr.
R. B. Sharpe, of the British Museum, was long supposed to be
peculiar to Malta; hence its pre-Linnaean name (Fungus
Melitensis).[EN#2] Now it is known to occur through the
Mediterranean to India. Let me here warn future collectors of
botany in Midian that throughout the land the vegetable kingdom
follows the rule of the mineral: every march shows something new;
and he who neglects to gather specimens, especially of the
smaller flowers, in one valley, will perhaps find none of them in
those adjoining.
A denser row of trees lower down the Wady Hujayl led to the water
of Amdán (Mídán?), about an hour and a half from our last
nighting-place; yesterday it had been reported six hours distant.
High towering on our left (north) rose three huge buttresses of
the Girágir. In front stood a marvellous background of domes and
arches, cones and ninepins, all decayed Hismá, blurred and broken
by the morning mist, which could hardly be called a fog; and
forming a perspective of a dozen distances. Now they curve from
north-east to south-west in a kind of scorpion's tail, with
detached vertebrae torn and wasted by the adjacent plutonic
outcrops; and looking from the west they suggest blood-red islets
rising above the great gloomy waves of trap and porphyry. This
projection will remain in sight until we reach Shuwák; and in
places we shall see it backed by the basalts and lavas of the
straightlined Harrah.
Presently turning sharp to the right (south-east), we struck
across a second divide, far more shallow than the first; and fell
into the northern basin of the great Dámah valley, also known as
El-Rahabah, "the Open;"--the Rehoboth ("spaces") of the Hebrews.
Like yesterday's, the loose red sand is Hismá; and it is also
scattered with Harrah lava. After a four hours' ride we halted to
enable the caravan to come up. Our Shaykhs were bent upon making
twelve miles the average day's work; and their "little game" was
now to delay as much as possible. Here we again found flocks of
sheep and goats tended by young girls, who ran away like
ostriches, and by old women who did not: on the contrary, Sycorax
enjoyed asking the news and wrangling over a kid. The camels
throughout this country seem to be always under the charge of men
or boys.
Here began our study of the great Wady Da'mah, whose fame as an
Arabian Arcadia extends far and wide, and whose possession has
caused many a bloody battle. We now see it at its best, in early
spring morning, when
"The landscape smiles
Calm in the sun, and silent are the hills
And valleys, and the blue serene of air."
This notable feature is a Haddúdah ("frontier divider"), which in
ancient days separated the Ukbíyyah ("Ukbah-land") to the north
from the Balawi'yyah ("Baliyy-land") south. The latter still
claim it as their northern limit; but the intrusive Egypto-Arabs
have pushed their way far beyond this bourne. Its present Huwayti
owners, the Sulaymiyyín, the Sulaymát, the Jeráfín, and other
tribes, are a less turbulent race than the northerns because they
are safe from the bandit Ma'ázah: they are more easily managed,
and they do not meet a fair offer with the eternal Yaftah
Allah--"Allah opens."[EN#3]
The head of the Dámah, a great bay in the Hismá-wall to the east,
is now in sight of us; and we shall pass its mouth, which
debouches into the sea below Zibá. This tract is equally abundant
in herds (camels), flocks, and vegetation: in places a thin
forest gathers, and the tree-clumps now form a feature in the
scenery. The sole, a broad expanse of loose red arenaceous
matter, the washings of the plateau, is fearfully burrowed and
honeycombed; it is also subject, like its sister the Sadr, to the
frequent assault of "devils," or sand-pillars. That it is
plentifully supplied with water, we learn from the presence of
birds. The cries of the caravane, the "knock-kneed" plover of
Egypt, yellow-beaked and black-eyed, resounded in the more barren
belts. A lovely little sun-bird (Nectarinia ose?), which the
Frenchmen of course called colibri, with ravishing reflections of
green and gold, flashed like a gem thrown from shrub to shrub:
this oiseau mouche is found scattered throughout Midian; we saw
it even about El-Muwaylah, but I had unfortunately twice
forgotten dust-shot. The Egyptian Rakham (percnopter), yellow
with black-tipped wings; a carrion-eater, now so rare, and the
common brown kite, still so common near civilized Cairo, soared
in the sky; while the larger vultures, perching upon the
rock-ridges, suggested Bedawi sentinels. The ravens, here as
elsewhere, are a plague: flights of them occupy favourite places,
and they prey upon the young lambs, hares, and maimed birds.
We advanced another five miles, and crossed to the southern side
of the actual torrent-bed, whose banks, strewed with a quantity
of dead flood-wood entangling the trees, and whose flaky clays,
cracked to the shape of slabs and often curling into tubes of
natural pottery, show that at times the Hismá must discharge
furious torrents. We camped close to the Dámah at the foot of the
Jebel el-Balawi; the water, known as Máyat el-Jebayl ("of the
Hillock"), lay ahead in a low rocky snout: it was represented as
being distant a full hour, and the mules did not return from it
till three had passed; but thirty minutes would have been nearer
the truth. The Nile-drinkers turned up their fastidious noses at
the supply, but Lieutenant Amir, who had graduated in the rough
campaigning-school of the Súdán, pronounced it "regular."
The nighting-place on the Dámah was as pretty and picturesque as
the Majrá was tame and uncouth. While the west was amber clear,
long stripes of purpling, crimson, flaming cloud, to the south
and the east, set off the castled crags disposed in a semicircle
round the Wady-head; and the "buildings" appeared art-like
enough to be haunted ground, the domain of the Fata Morgana, a
glimpse of the City of Brass built by Shaddaá, son of Ad. When
the stars began to glitter sharp and clear, our men fell to
singing and dancing; and the boy Husayn Ganinah again
distinguished himself by his superior ribaldry. Our work was more
respectable and prosaic, firing a mule with a swollen back.
Within a mile or so of us stood some Bedawi tents, which we had
passed on the march: they were deserted by the men, here
Sulaymát, who drive their camels to the wilds sometimes for a
week at a time. An old wife who brought us a goat for sale, and
who begged that Husayn, the Básh-Buzúk, might pass the night with
her, in order to shoot an especially objectionable wolf, had a
long tale to tell of neighbouring ruins. She also reported that
near the same place there is a well with steps, into which the
Arabs had descended some seven fathoms; presently they found
houses occupying the galleries at the bottom, and fled in terror.
Lieutenant Amir was sent to sketch and survey the site next
morning; and he was lucky enough to be guided by one Sa'id bin
Zayfullah, the Sulaymi, whose prime dated from the palmy days of
the great Mohammed Ali Pasha. He acknowledged as his friends the
grandfather, and even the father, of our guide Furayj; but the
latter he ignored, looking upon him as a mere Walad ("lad").
Moreover, he remembered the birth of Shaykh Mohammed Afnán,
chief of the Baliyy, which took place when he himself had already
become a hunter of the gazelle.[EN#4] According to him, the
remains are still known as the Dár ("house") or Diyár ("houses")
El-Nasárá--"of the Nazarenes," that is, of the Nabathaeans. The
former term is retained here, as in Sinai, by popular tradition;
and the latter is clean forgotten throughout Midian.[EN#5]
Riding down the Wady Dámah to the southwest, Lieutenant Amir came
upon a spring in a stone-revetted well near the left bank: this
Ayn el-Bada' is not to be confounded with the Badí' water, or
with the Badá plain, both of which we shall presently visit. A
strew of broken quartz around it showed the atelier, and
specimens of scattered fragments, glass and pottery, were
gathered. The settlement-ruins, which the guide called
El-Kantarah, lie further down upon a southern influent of the
main line: they are divided into two blocks, one longer than the
other. Lieutenant Amir made a careful plan of the remains, and
then pushed forward to Shuwák by the direct track, westward of
that taken by the caravan. He arrived in camp, none the worse for
a well-developed "cropper;" his dromedary had put its foot in a
hole, and had fallen with a suddenness generally unknown to the
cameline race.
By way of geographical exercitation, we had all drawn our several
plans, showing, after Arab statement, the lay of Shaghab and
Shuwák, the two ruins which we were about to visit. Nothing could
be more ridiculous when the sketch-maps came to be compared. This
was owing to the route following the three sides of a long
parallelogram; whilst the fourth is based upon the Wady Dámah,
causing considerable complication. And, the excursus ended, all
were convinced that we had made much southing, when our furthest
point was not more than five miles south of Zibá (north lat. 27°
20').
We quitted the great valley at six a.m. (February 28th), and
struck up the Wady Shuwák, an influent that runs northwards to
the Dámah's left bank. On the stony ground above the right side
of this Fiumara lay six circles of stones, disposed in a line
from north-east to south-west: they may have been ruins of Hufrah
("water-pits"). As we rose the Nullah surface was pied with white
flowers, the early growth which here takes the place of
primroses. I had some difficulty in persuading our good friend
Furayj, who had not seen the country for fifteen years, to engage
as guide one of the many Bedawin camel-herds: his course seemed
to serpentine like that of an animal grazing--he said it was
intended to show the least stony road--and, when he pointed with
the wave of the maimed right hand, he described an arc of some
90°. The Sulaymi lad caught the nearest camel, climbed its sides
as you would a tree, and, when the animal set off at a lumbering
gallop, pressed the soles of his feet to the ribs, with exactly
the action of a Simiad; clinging the while, like grim Death, to
the hairy hump.
After some six miles we attempted a short cut, a gorge that
debouched on the left bank of the Shuwák valley. It showed at
once a complete change of formation: the sides were painted with
clays of variegated colours, crystallized lime and porphyritic
conglomerates, tinted mauve-purple as if by manganese. Further
on, the path, striking over broken divides and long tracts of
stony ground, became rough riding: it was bordered by the usual
monotonous, melancholy hills of reddish and greenish trap, whose
slaty and schist-like edges in places stood upright. On the
summit of the last Col appeared the ruins of an outwork, a large
square and a central heap of boulder-stones. Straight in front
rose the block that backs our destination, the Jebel el-Sáni', or
"Mountain of the Maker," the artificer par excellence, that is,
the blacksmith: it is so called from a legendary shoer of horses
and mules, who lived there possibly in the days before Sultán
Selim. It is remarkable for its twin peaks, sharp-topped blocks,
the higher to the east, and called by the Bedawin Naghar and
Nughayr. The guides spoke of a furnace near the summit of these
remarkable cones; excellent landmarks which we shall keep in
sight during several marches. At length, after ten miles of slow
work, we saw before us, stretched as upon a map, the broad valley
with its pink sands; the Daum-trees, the huge Ushr or "Apple of
Sodom," the fan-palm bush, and the large old Jujubes--here an
invariable sign of former civilization--which informed us that
there lay fair Shuwák.
The dull gorge introduced us to what was then a novelty in
Midian; but we afterwards found it upon the cold heights of the
Shárr, where it supplied us with many a dainty dish. This was the
Shinnár[EN#6] (caccabis), a partridge as large as a pheasant, and
flavoured exactly like the emigrant from Phasis.
The coat, the clock! clock! and the nimble running over the
rocks, ever the favourite haunt, denote the "perdix." The head is
black, as in the C. melanocephala of Abyssinia, and the legs and
feet are red like the smaller "Greek" caccabis that inhabits the
Hismá; the male birds have no spurs, and they are but little
larger than their mates. There seems to be no difficulty in
keeping them; we bought a hen and chicks caged at El-Wijh, but
whether they lived or not I neglected to note. Here, too, we
learned the reason why the falcons and the hawks (Falco milvus,
F. gentilis, etc.) are so fierce and so well-fed. The tyrant of
the air raises the partridge or the quail by feinting a swoop,
and, as it hurries away screaming aloud, follows it leisurely at
a certain distance. Finally, when the quarry reaches the place
intended--at least, the design so appears--the falcon stoops and
ends the chase. The other birds were ring-doves, turtles, and the
little "butcher" impaling, gaily as a "gallant Turk," its live
victim upon a long thorn.
Shuwák, which lies in about north lat. 27° 15', can be no other than
the <Greek> placed by Ptolemy (vi. 7) in north lat. 26° 15'; and, if
so, we must add one degree to his latitudes, which are sixty miles
too low.[EN#7] According to Sprenger ("Alt. Geog.," p. 25), <Greek>
and <Greek> do not fit into any of the Alexandrian's routes; and
were connected only with their ports Rhaunathos (M'jirmah?) and
Phoenicon Vicus (Zibá?). But both these cities were large and
important centres, both of agriculture and of mining industry,
forming crucial stations on the great Nabathæan highway, the
overland between Leukè Kóme and Petra. The line was kept up by the
Moslems until Sultán Selim's superseded it; and hence the modern
look of the remains which at first astonished us so much. The
tradition of the Hajj-passage is distinctly preserved by the
Bedawin; and I have little doubt that metal has been worked here as
lately, perhaps, as the end of the last century. But by whom, again,
deponent ventures not to say, even to guess.
The site of Shuwák is a long island in the broad sandy Wady of
the same name, which, as has been remarked, feeds the Dámah. Its
thalweg has shifted again and again: the main line now hugs the
southern or left bank, under the slopes and folds of the Jebel
el-Sáni'; whilst a smaller branch, on the northern side, is
subtended by the stony divide last crossed. At the city the lay
of the valley is from north-east to south-west, and the altitude
is about seventeen hundred feet (aner. 28.28). The head still
shows the castellations of the Hismá. Looking down-stream, beyond
the tree-dotted bed and the low dark hills that divide this basin
from the adjoining Wady to the south, we see the tall grey tops
of the Jebel Zigláb (Zijláb) and of the Shahbá-Gámirah--the
"ashen-coloured (Peak) of Gámirah"--the latter being the name of
a valley. Both look white by the side of the dark red and green
rocks; and we shall presently find that they mark the granite
region lying south and seaward of the great trap formations. We
were not sorry to see it again--our eyes were weary of the gloomy
plutonic curtains on either side.
At Shuwák we allowed the camels a day of rest, whilst we planned
and sketched, dug into, and described the ruins. A difficulty
about drinking-water somewhat delayed us. The modern wells, like
those of the Haurán, are rudely revetted pits in a bald and shiny
bit of clay-plain below the principal block of ruins: only one in
the dozen holds water, and that has been made Wahsh ("foul") by
the torrent sweeping into it heaps of the refuse and manure
strewed around. The lower folds of the Sáni' block also supply
rain-pools; but here, again, the Arabs and their camels had left
their marks. The only drinkable water lies a very long mile down
the southern (left) bank, above the old aqueduct, in a deep and
narrow gorge of trap. The perennial spring, still trickling down
the rocks, was dammed across, as remnants of cement show us, in
more places than one. There are also signs of cut basins, which
the barrages above and below once divided into a series of tanks.
Up the rough steps of the bed the camel-men drove their beasts;
and the name of a Gujráti maker, printed upon a sack of
Anglo-Indian canvas, had a curious effect among such Bedawi
surroundings.
At last we sank a pit some five feet deep in a re-entering angle
of the northern or smaller branch; we lined it with stone
down-stream, where the flow made the loose sand fall in, and we
obtained an ample and excellent supply. Doubtless it was spoiled,
as soon as our backs were turned, by the half-Fellah
Jeráfín-Huwaytát, to whom the place belongs. The sea-breeze
during the day was high and dust-laden, but we passed a cool
delicious night upon the clean sweet sand, which does not stick
or cling. At this altitude there is no fear of bugs and
fleas--the only dread is Signor "Pediculus."
We will begin, with our surveyors, at the valley head, and note
the ruins as we stroll down. This section, Shuwák proper, is
nearly a mile and a half long, and could hardly have lodged less
than twenty thousand souls. But that extent by no means
represents the whole; our next march will prolong it along the
valley for a total of at least four miles. The material is
various--boulders of granite and syenite; squares of trap and
porphyry; the red sandstones of the Hismá; the basalts of the
Harrah; and the rock found in situ, a brown and crumbling grit,
modern, and still in process of agglutination. The heaps and
piles which denote buildings are divided by mounds and tumuli of
loose friable soil, white with salt,--miniatures of Babylon,
Nineveh, and Troy. On either flanks of the river-holm the
periodical torrents have done their worst, cutting up the once
regular bank into a succession of clay buttresses. On the right
side we find a large fort, half sliced away, but still showing
the concrete flooring of a tower. About the centre of the length
are the remnants of a round Burj; blocks of buildings, all
levelled to the foundations, lie to the north-west, and on the
west appear signs of a square. Perhaps the most interesting
discovery is that of catacombs, proving a civilization analogous
to Magháir Shu'ayb, but ruder, because more distant from the
centre. The "caves" are hollowed in a long reef of loose breccia,
which, fronting eastward, forms the right bank of the smaller
branch. They are now almost obliterated by being turned into
sheep-folds; the roofs have fallen in, and only one preserves the
traces of two loculi.
The arrangements touching fuel and water in this great
metal-working establishment are on a large scale. The biggest of
the Afrán ("furnaces") lies to the north-west, near the right
bank of the valley: all are of the ordinary type, originally some
five or six feet high, to judge from the bases. They are built of
fire-brick, and of the Hismá stone, which faces itself into a
natural latex. We dug deep into several of them; but so careful
had been the workmen, or perhaps those who afterwards ransacked
these places, that not the smallest tear of metal remained: we
found only ashes, pottery, and scoriae, as usual black and green,
the latter worked sub-aerially; many of them had projections like
stalactite. Round the furnaces are strewed carbonate of lime,
stained black with iron, like that of Sharmá; and a quantity of
the chlorite-enamelled serpentine still used in the Brazil as a
flux.
Quartz was absent, and we were at a loss to divine what stone had
been worked. At last we observed near the catacombs sundry heaps
of pinkish earth, evidently washed out; and our researches in the
South Country afterwards suggested that this may have been the
remains of the micaceous schist, whose containing quartz was so
extensively worked at Umm el-Haráb. Moreover, a short study of
Shaghab threw more light on the matter.
Water also had been stored up with prodigious labour. We could
easily trace the lines of half a dozen aqueducts, mostly
channelled with rough cement, overlying a fine concrete; some of
them had grooved stones to divert the stream by means of lashers.
The Fiskíyyah or "tanks," as carefully built, were of all sizes;
and the wells, which appeared to be mediaeval, were lined with
stones cut in segments of circles: we shall see the same curve in
Sultán Selim's work near Zibá. The greatest feat is an aqueduct
which, sanded over in the upper part, subtends the left side of
the valley. It is carefully but rudely built, and where it
crosses a gully, the "horizontal arch" is formed of projecting
stone tiers, without a sign of key. This magnum opus must date
from the days when the southern part of the Wady was nearly what
it is now.
About a mile and a quarter below our camp, the Wady, which
broadens to a mile, shows on the left bank a wall measuring a
thousand metres long, apparently ending in a tank of 110 feet
each way. Around it are ruined parallelograms of every size,
which in ancient times may have been workshops connected with the
buildings in the island higher up. The torrents have now washed
away the continuation, if ever there was any; and, though the
lower remnants are comparatively safe upon their high ledge, the
holm is evidently fated to disappear.
I did not learn till too late that a single day's march
southwards from the Wady Shuwák, along the old main line of
traffic, leads to the Wady Nejd, upon whose upper course is the
plain of Badá; and which, after assuming four different names,
falls, as will be seen, into the sea about thirty-five miles
north of El-Wijh.
We left Shuwák considerably posed, puzzled, and perplexed by what
it had shown us. A little pottery had been picked up, but our
diggings had not produced a coin or even a bit of glass. The
evidences of immense labour are the more astonishing when
compared with the utter absence of what we call civilization. The
Greek and Latin inscriptions of the Hauranic cities declare their
origin: these, absolutely unalphabetic, refuse a single hint
concerning the mysterious race which here lived and worked, and
worked so nobly. And, finally, who were the Moslems that
succeeded them in a later day, when the Hajj-caravan, some three
centuries and a half ago, ceased to march by this road? How is it
that the annalists say nothing of them? that not a vestige of
tradition remains concerning any race but the Nazarenes?
From Shuwák to the Wady Dámah there are two roads, a direct and
an indirect; the latter passing by the ruins of Shaghab. The
caravan begged hard to take the former, but was summarily
refused. At six a.m. we rode down the Shuwák valley, again noting
its huge constructions, and then striking away from it to the
left, we passed over a short divide of brown hill, where the
narrow Pass was marked only by Bedawi graves. The morning showed
a peculiar rainbow, if a bow may be called so when no rain
appeared; a perpendicular stripe, brilliant enough, and lasting
at least twenty minutes. The cloud behind it had no skirt, no
droop in fact, no sign of dissolution; and what made it the
stranger was that this "bull's-eye" lay north of, and not
opposite to, but quite near, the rising sun. We shall note
another of these exceptional rainbows at El-Badá.[EN#8]
After marching some seven miles to the south with westing, we saw
inform heaps to the left: half an hour afterwards,
boulder-encircled pits of a brighter green on the right, the
Themáil el-Má ("artificial cisterns") of the Arabs, announced
that we were reaching Shaghab. The caravan punished us by wasting
five hours on the way, in order to force a halt; and by camping
at the wrong place, when I objected to the delay. It brought with
it, however, a fine young Beden (ibex), killed by one of the
Bedawin; and we determined to stuff, to bury, and to bake it,
Arab fashion, under the superintendence of the Básh-Buzúk Husayn.
Unfortunately it was served to us on the next day cold, whereas
it should have been eaten at once, piping hot. The meat was dark,
with a beefy rather than a gamey flavour, palatable, but by no
means remarkable. There were loud regrets that a cuisse de
chevreuil had not been marinée; in fact, an infect odour of the
Quartier Latin everywhere followed us; and when a guide told us
the pattern lie, that we should not reach Umm Amir before the
fourth day, the poor "Frogs" croaked, and croaked audibly as
dismally. Their last bottle of ordinaire was finished; Gabr, the
Kázi, had come into camp, bearing a long official Arabic document
from Lieutenant Yusuf, but not a single Journal de Genève; there
was no news of a steamer being sent with rations and forage from
Suez: briefly, c'était embetant--to use the milder of the two
favourite synonyms.
The ruins of Shaghab are built upon a more complicated site than
those of Shuwák. The position is charming. The Wady Shaghab,
flowing to the south, here spreads out in a broad bulge or basin
open to the west. Down-stream we see a "gate" formed by the
meeting of two rocky tongue-tips, both showing large works.
Beyond these narrows the valley bends to the south-west and feeds
the Wady Aznab, which falls into the sea south of the Dámah. The
mass of the ruined city lies upon the left bank, where a high and
artificial-looking remblai of earth masks an eastern influent,
the Wady el-Aslah (Athlah), or "of the Kali-plant." It drains the
mountain of the same name, and the Jebel Zigláb (Zijláb), the
cones of pale granite visible from Shuwák; and upon its broad
mouth the old settlement stood à cheval. A little north of west
rises profiled the great Shárr, no longer a ridge with a coping
of four horns, but a tall and portly block, from whose summit
spring heads and peaks of airy blue-pink. Slightly east of north
the twins Naghar and Nughayr, combining to form the "Mountain of
the Maker" (Jebel el-Sáni'), tower in the shape of a huge
pyramid. Lastly, a regular ascent, the Majrá el-Wághir, fronts
the city, sloping up to the west-north-west, and discloses a view
of the Jibál el-Tihámah: this broad incline was, some three
centuries ago, the route of the Hajj-caravan.
We walked down the Shaghab valley-bed, whose sides, like those of
the Dámah, are chevaux de frise of dead wood. The characteristic
rock is a conglomerate of large and small stones, compacted by
hard silicious paste, and stained mauve-purple apparently by
manganese: we had seen it on the way to Shuwák; and the next
day's march will pave the uplands with it. The wells in the sole
are distinctly Arab, triangular mouths formed and kept open by
laying down tree-trunks, upon which the drawer of water safely
stands. On the right bank up-stream no ruins are perceptible;
those on the left are considerable, but not a quarter the size of
Shuwák. Here again appear the usual succession of great squares:
the largest to the east measures 500 metres along the sides; and
there are three others, one of 400 metres by 192. They are
subtended by one of many aqueducts, whose walls, two feet thick,
showed no signs of brick: it is remarkable for being run
underground to pierce a hillock; in fact, the system is rather
Greek or subterranean, than Roman or subaerial. Further down are
the remains apparently of a fort: heaps of land-shells lie about
it; they are very rare in this region, and during our four
months' march we secured only two species.[EN#9]
Still descending, we found the ancient or mediaeval wells,
numbering about a dozen, and in no wise differing from those of
Shuwák. At the gorge, where the Wady escapes from view,
Lieutenant Amir planned buildings on the lower right bank, and on
the left he found a wall about half a mile long, with the remains
of a furnace and quartz scattered about it. This stone had
reappeared in large quantities, the moment we crossed the divide;
the pale grey of the Jebel Zigláb and its neighbours was
evidently owing to its presence; and from this point it will be
found extending southwards and seawards as far as El-Hejaz. He
brought with him a hard white stone much resembling trachyte, and
fragments of fine green jasper.
A cursory inspection of Shaghab removed some of the difficulties
which had perplexed us at Shuwák and elsewhere. In the North
Country signs of metal-working, which was mostly confined to the
Wadys, have been generally obliterated; washed away or sanded
over. Here the industry revealed itself without mistake. The
furnaces were few, but around each one lay heaps of Negro and
copper-green quartz, freshly fractured; while broken handmills of
basalt and lava, differing from the rubstones and mortars of a
softer substance, told their own tale.
At Shaghab, then, the metalliferous "Marú" brought from the
adjacent granitic mountains was crushed, and then transported for
roasting and washing to Shuwák, where water, the prime necessary
in these lands, must have been more abundant. Possibly in early
days the two settlements formed one, the single <Greek> of
Ptolemy; and the south end would have been the headquarters of
the wealthy. Hence the Bedawin always give it precedence--Shaghab
wa Shuwák; moreover, we remarked a better style of building in
the former; and we picked up glass as well as pottery.
As a turkey buzzard (vulture) is the fittest emblem for murderous
Dahome, so I should propose for Midian, now spoiled and wasted by
the Wild Man, a broken handmill of basalt upon a pile of spalled
Negro quartz.
Chapter XII.
From Shaghab to Zibá--ruins of El-Khandakí' and Umm Ámil--the
Turquoise MineReturn to El-Muwaylah.
Leaving Lieutenant Amir to map the principal ruins, we followed
the caravan up the Majrá el-Wághir, the long divide rising to the
west-north-west. The thin forest reminded me of the wooded slopes
of the Anti-Libanus about El-Kunaytarah: there, however,
terebinths and holm-oaks take the place of these unlovely and
uncomfortable thorn-trees. They are cruelly beaten--an operation
called El-Ramá--by the Bedawi camel-man, part of whose travelling
kit, and the most important part too, here as in Sinai, is the
flail (Murmár or Makhbat) and the mat to receive the leaves:
perhaps Acacias and Mimosas are not so much bettered by "bashing"
as the woman, the whelp, and the walnut-tree of the good old
English proverb. After three miles we passed, on the left, ruins
of long walls and Arab Wasm, with white memorial stones perched
on black. In front rose the tall Jebel Tulayh, buttressing the
right or northern bank of the Dámah; and behind it, stained
faint-blue by distance, floated in the flickering mirage the
familiar forms of the Tihámah range, a ridge now broken into half
a dozen blocks. I had ordered the caravan to march upon the
Tuwayl el-Súk; but, after one hour and fifteen minutes, we found
the tents pitched some three miles short of it, on a bleak and
ugly wave of the Wághir. The Shaykhs swore, by all holy things,
that this was the veritable Tuwayl; and a Bedawi, who declared
that he knew where water lay in the neighbourhood, refused to
show it sans the preliminary "bakhshísh." Mashallah! It is a
noble race.
Early next morning (six a.m., March 3rd) we followed the right
bank of the Wady el-Khandakí, which runs north with westing.
Beyond it lay the foot-hills of gloomy trap leading to the Jebel
el-Raydán, a typical granitic form, a short demi-pique saddleback
with inwards-sloping pommel like the Pao d'Assucar of picturesque
Rio de Janeiro. Here as elsewhere, the granites run parallel with
and seaward of the traps. The Tuwayl el-Súk is nothing but an
open and windy flat, where the Hajj-caravan used to camp an
adjoining ridge, the Hamrá el-Tuwayl, shows spalled quartz, Wasm
and memorial stones. The principal formation here is the
mauve-purple conglomerate before described.
After riding nine miles we came unexpectedly upon a large and
curious ruin, backed by the broad Wady Dámah gleaming white in
the sun. The first feature noticed was a pair of parallel walls,
or rather their foundations, thirty-five feet apart, and nearly a
kilometre in length: it looked like a vast hangar. To the left
lie three tracings of squares; the central is a work of earth and
stone, not unlike a rude battery; and, a few paces further north,
a similar fort has a cistern attached to its western curtain.
Heaps of rounded boulders, and the crumbling white-edged mounds
which, in these regions, always denote old habitations, run down
the right bank of the Wady el-Khandakí to its junction with the
Dámah. For want of a better name I called this old settlement
Kharábát (the "Ruins of") el-Khandakí, and greatly regretted that
we had not time enough to march down the whole line of the Dámah.
Half an hour more placed us at the great Wady, whose general
direction is here west with a little southing, and which still
merits its fame as an Arabian Arcadia. The banks were thickly
bordered with secular tamarisks (T. orientalis), those hardy
warriors with the Hebrew-Arabic name Asl (Athl), that battle
against wind and weather, as successfully at Dovercourt (Essex)
as at Haydarábád (Sind).
The tint was the normal grey-green, not unlike that of the traps
in arrière plan. The clumps sheltered goats, sheep, and camels;
and our mules now revel every day on green meat, growing fatter
and fatter upon the Aristida grass, the Panicum, the Hordeum
murinum, and the Bromus of many varieties. Fronting us rose the
twin granitic peaks of Jebel Mutadán, one with a stepped side
like an unfinished pyramid. They are separated from the Dámah by
a rough and stony divide; and ruins with furnaces are reported to
be found in their valley-drain, which feeds the great Wady Amúd.
We halted, after some sixteen to seventeen miles, at the water
El-Ziyayb, slightly brackish but relished by our animals; and
resumed our way in the cool sea-breeze at one p.m., passing the
Jebel Tulayh on the north bank. The track then left the Dámah and
turned up a short broad bed to the north-west. On the right rose
a block of syenite, ruddy with orthose, all rounded lumps and
twisted finials; it discharged a quantity of black sand that
streaked the gravel plain. At four p.m. we camped on a broad
divide, El-Kutayyifah, where an adjacent Sha'b, or "fold,"
supplied fresh rain-water. The march had teen long (seven hours =
twenty-two miles); and Shaykhs and camel-men looked, the Sayyid
said, as if they had "smelt Jehannum."
This divide, also called the Jayb el Sa'lúwwah, with granites to
the east, and traps mixed with granites on the west, shows signs
of labour. Hard by, to the south-west, some exceptionally
industrious Bedawi, of the Jeráfín-Huwaytát, had laid out a small
field with barley. In the evening we walked westward to the hills
that bound the slope; and came upon a rock-cut road leading to an
atalier, where "Marú" has been spalled from the stone in situ.
Some specimens had a light-bluish tinge, as if stained by cobalt,
a metal found in several slags; and there were veins of
crystalline amethyst-quartz, coloured, said the engineer by
chlorure of silver (?). The filons and filets cut the granite in
all directions; and the fiery action of frequent trap-dykes had
torn the ground-rock to tatters. The western side of
El-Kutayyifah also showed modern ruins.
The guides reported, as usual when too late, that to the
west-south-west lies a Nakb, called Abú'l Marwah ("Father of the
Quartz-place"), whose waters flow viâ the Mutadán to the Amúd
valley. For some days I had cold shudders lest this Pass, thus
left unvisited, might be the Zúl-Marwah, the classical
"Móchoura," one of the objects of our Expedition. The alarm
proved, however, as will be seen, false. A Bedawi youth also
volunteered a grand account of three "written stones;" a built
well surrounded by broken quartz; and, a little off the road from
El-Kutayyifah to Umm Ámil, the remains of El-Dayr ("the
Convent"). As Leake well knew, the latter is "a name which is
often indiscriminately applied by the Arabs to ancient ruins."
The lad said they were close by, but the Garíb ("near") and the
Gurayyib ("nearish") of the Midianite much resemble the Egyptian
Fellah's Taht el-Wish, "Under the face"--we should say "nose"--or
Taht el-Ka'b, "Under the heel." They may mean a handful of miles.
As he refused to guide us, we secured the services of an old
shepherd, who, objecting to sleep in camp, caused abundant
trouble and delay next morning.
From this divide two roads lead to the ruins of Umm Ámil: one
makes a considerable detour up a branch-valley in order to avoid
an ugly Pass on the direct line. I again refused the camel-men
permission to proceed by the indirect route, well knowing that
they would do their best to miss us. On March 4th, at six a.m., a
long descent and a similar rise led us to a Col, which presently
became a broad open plain, 2100 feet above sea-level (aner.
28.85). Tents were scattered about the valleys; the lads tended
their goats, and we greatly admired one fellow who had fallen
asleep in the hot ascending steams. Here the old guide halted us,
and declared that on the top of the dark trap-block the left
(south) was a Mashghal, or "work-place," with a strew of quartz
and nothing else. Thus ended the "built well." Descending to a
lower plane, bounded in front by low rolling hills, I sent
Lieutenant Amir to examine the "Convent" and the "written
stones." He came up with us at the halt; having been led over a
rough divide by an abominable path; and he had seen only a few
ruined heaps and three Arab Wusúm. Moreover, he had not dared to
show disappointment before the old shepherd, who would probably
have bolted in fear, and left him to find his own way.
Meanwhile the caravan continued its course down the broad smooth
Wady Ruways, on whose left side was a large atelier, with broken
walls and spalled quartz of the Negro variety. Here we found, for
the first time, the handmills made of the hardest grey granite,
so beautifully worked further south; they explained the fine and
carefully polished tube which had been brought to the first
Expedition at Zibá.[EN#10] Several of these articles were all but
whole, an exception in this land of "clasts." We then struck
over the stony divide to the left, towards a fine landmark--a
Khitm, or "block," shaped like a seal cut en cabochon: its name
is the barbarous sounding Khurm el-Badaríyyah. During the ascent,
which was easy, we passed a second strew and scatter of the white
stone broken into small pieces. From the Col, reached at 9.45
a.m., a descent, vile for camels not for mules, presently landed
us in the Wady Umm Ámil. The left bank of the hideous narrow
gorge showed a line of wells or water-pits, made, said Furayj, by
the Mutakaddimín (veteres),--the Ancients who were probably
Mediævals. Crossing the torrent-gully we left on its right bank
the ruins of large works, especially the upper parallelogram.
After a thirteen miles' ride we halted at 10.40 a.m. under a rock
on the left side, opposite three couthless heaps of water-rolled
stones surrounded by fine quartz. By far the poorest thing we had
yet seen, this "town" had been grandiosely described to the first
Expedition at Zibá. Many blessings were heaped upon the head of
Ámil and his mother: the name, however, as the Sayyid suggested,
is evidently a corruption of Mu'ámil--"the workman, the
employee."[EN#11] I would conjecture that here the slave-miners
were stationed, Old Zibá being the master's abode: our caravan
entitled it El-Lomán--"the bagnio, the prison for galériens." On
the coast-town I procured some specimens of heavy red copper
which had been dug out of a ruined furnace; the metal is
admirable, and it retrieves to a certain extent the lost
reputation of Umm Ámil.
At noon we resumed a hot ride down the ugly, rocky watercourse,
both of whose banks showed long lines of ruins. Presently,
crossing a divide marked by two stone-heaps, we fell into the
broader but equally unpicturesque Wady Salmá. It is on about the
same parallel as Ziba' (north lat. 27° 20'); and more than the
usual allowance for the error of low latitude must be admitted if
we would identify it with the Mediterranean <Greek> of
Ptolemy (vi. 7), <Greek>, in north lat. 260°, or fifteen
miles south of Sóaka.
Wady Salmá is the smallest and the northernmost of the three
basins which we have just visited; the central being the Dámah,
and the southern Wady Shaghab-Aslah-Aznab. Steaming southwards we
shall note the mouths of all these watercourses. We presently
passed on the right bank the debouchure of the Wady Ruways, and
left there a guard to direct the caravan, in case it should
disobey orders, and march up to Umm Ámil. Here the valley gave
forage to a herd of milch-camels, apparently unguarded; each had
her foal, some newborn, others dating from January or February.
After one hour and forty-five minutes (= six miles) we camped on
the fine sands that floor the dull line hemmed in by tall masses
of red and green trap. The adjacent scatter of Arab wells in the
bed is known as the Má el-Badí'ah. I carefully inquired
concerning ruins in the neighbourhood; and we climbed the
torrent-sides to command a (very limited) bird's-eye view of the
hills. According to the guides, there are no remains of the "old
ones" nearer than Umm Ámil
Setting out early next morning (5.45 a.m., March 5th), after half
an hour down the Wady Salmá, we saw its lower course becoming a
mere gorge, constricted by two opposite rocks. On the left bank,
above this narrow, lies a group of Arab graves, which may have
been built upon older foundations. The right side here receives
the Wady Haraymal ("Little Peganum-plant"), the Haráímil of the
broad-speaking Bedawin. As we struck up its dull ascent, the
southern form of the Shárr-giant suddenly broke upon us, all
glorious in his morning robes of ethereal gauzy pink. The
foreshortened view, from the south as well as the north, shows a
compact prism-formed mass which has been compared with an
iceberg. The main peak, Abú Shenázir, here No. 4 from the north,
proudly bears a mural crown of granite towers, which it hides
from El-Muwaylah; and the southern end, a mere vanishing ridge at
this angle, but shown en face to the seaboard abreast of it,
breaks into three distinctly marked bluffs and heads.[EN#12]
A divide then led upwards and downwards to the Wady Abá Rikayy,
remarkable only for warm pools, and crystal-clear runners,
springing from the sole. The fringings of white show the presence
of salt; the shallows are covered with the greenest mosses, and
beetles chase one another over the depths where the waters sleep.
The lower course takes the name of Wady Kifáfí, and discharges
into the sea north of the Wady Salmá, with which it has
erroneously been united, as in Niebuhr's Selmá wa Kafâfa.
According to the Kátib Chelebi, who, over two centuries ago, made
the "Kabr Shaykh el-Kifáfí" the second pilgrim-station south of
El-Muwaylah, a certain Bedawi chief, El-Kifáfí, was killed with a
spear, and his tomb became a place of pious visitation. It is
said still to exist between the Wadys Salmá and Kifáfí. A third
divide to the north led along the eastern flank of the Jebel Abú
Rísh, which exposes its head to the sea; and, reaching the Col,
we had the pleasure of once more greeting the blue cove that
forms the port of Zibá.
We then descended into the Wady Sidrah, whose left bank is formed
by the Safrá Zibá--"the Yellow (hill) of Zibá." This small
outlying peak is clad in the gaudiest of colours, especially a
vivid citron-yellow, set off by red and rusty surroundings, which
are streaked with a dead chalky-white. The citizens declare that
it is absolutely useless, because it does not supply sulphur.
During our day's halt at Zibá, M. Marie brought from it quartz of
several kinds; the waxy, the heat-altered, and the blue, stained
with carbonate of copper. Possibly this metal may be abundant at
a lower horizon
The "Valley of the (one) Jujube-tree," after narrowing to a stony
gut, suddenly flares out into the Wady Zibá, the vulgar feature of
these regions, provided with the normal "Gate" some three hundred
yards broad. Beyond it, the flat surrounding the head of the cove is
remarkably well grown with palms, clumps of the Daum, and scattered
date-trees, of which one is walled round. Hence I am disposed to
consider Zibá the <Greek>, or Phoenicon Vicus, of Ptolemy: although
he places it in north lat. 26° 20', or between Sharm Dumayghah and
El-Wijh, when it lies in north lat. 27° 20'. I have already
protested against the derivation of the word--which is written
"Dhoba" by Wallin, "Deba" by Niebuhr, and "Zibber" by the
Hydrographic Chart--proposed by my learned friend Sprenger.[EN#13]
His theory was probably suggested by El-Yákút (iii. 464), who, in
the twelfth century, describes "Dhabba" as "a village on the coast,
opposite to which is a settlement with flowing water, called Badá:
the two are separated by seventy miles." An older name for the
station is Bir el-Sultáni--the "Well of the Sultán" (Selim?): we
shall presently inspect these remains. Itineraries also give Kabr
el-Tawáshi, "the Eunuch's Tomb;" and this we still find near the
palms at the head of the inner baylet. It is a square measuring six
paces each way, mud and coralline showing traces of plaster outside.
Like Wellsted (II. X.) we failed to discover any sign of the Birkat
("tank") mentioned in a guide-book which Burckhardt quotes; nor had
the citizens ever heard of a "reservoir."
The camping-ground of the pilgrims lies between the "Gate" and
the cove-head. Around the wells sat at squat a small gathering of
the filthy "Moghrebin" (Allah yakharrib-hum!). About 260 of these
rufffians were being carried gratis, by some charitable merchant,
in a Sambúk that lay at the harbour-mouth. A party had lately
slaughtered a camel, of course not their own property; and yet
they wondered that the Bedawin shoot them. They showed their
insolence by threatening with an axe the dog Juno, when she
sportively sallied out to greet them; and were highly offended
because, in view of cholera and smallpox, I stationed sentries to
keep them at a distance. Had there been contagious disease among
them, it would have spread in no time. They haunted the wells,
which were visited all day by women driving asses from the
settlement; even the single old beggar of Zibá--unfailing sign of
civilization--was here; and the black tents of the Arabs, who
grazed their flocks at the cove-head, lay within easy shot of
infection. On the evening of the next day, when the Sambúk made
sail, the shouting and screaming, the brawling, cudgelling, and
fighting, heard a mile off, reminded me of the foul company of
Maghrabís on board the Golden Wire.
"Sultán Selim's Well" has now grown to four, all large and
masonry-lined. That to the south-east is dry; travellers are
confined to the western, whose strong coping they have managed to
tear down; whilst the northern shows hard old kerb-stones, deeply
grooved and rope-channelled like that of Beersheba. We
breakfasted at the head of the inner bay, whilst the Sayyid rode
forward to meet his brother Mahmúd, who had kindly brought us the
news from El-Muwaylah. Here we could see the townlet covering a
low point projecting into the Sharm; a few large and some small
tenements formed the body, whilst the head was the little Burj
built, some fourteen years ago, upon the tall sea-bank to the
north. It bore, by way of welcome, the Viceroy's flag.
The camp was pitched upon the northern shore of the inner cove,
behind the new town, and sheltered by the tall sea-cliff: here
stood Old Zibá, whose stones, buried for ages under the sand, are
now dug up to build its successor. I thought better of the
settlement and of the port after visiting them a second time. We
had looked forward to it even as to a petit Paris: so Damascus
and the Syrian cities appear centres of civilization to Westerns
coming from the East--not from the West. It is far superior,
especially in the article water, to El-Muwaylah; it exports
charcoal in large quantities, and it does a thriving business
with the Bedawi. Here are signs of a pier, and a mosque is to be
built. The fish is excellent and abundant; lobsters are caught by
night near the reef, and oysters in the bay when the tide is out.
We succeeded, at last, in having our batterie de cuisine properly
tinned, and we replenished our stores.[EN#14] As at El-Akabah,
"Hashísh" may be bought in any quantity, but no Ráki--hence,
perhaps, the paleness and pastiness of the local complexion--and
yet our old acquaintance, Mohammed el-Musalmáni, is a Copt who
finds it convenient to be a Moslem. He aided us in collecting
curiosities, especially a chalcedony (agate) intended for a
talisman and roughly inscribed in Kufic characters, archaic and
pointed like Bengali, with the Koranic chapter (xcii.) that
testifies the Unity, "Kul, Huw' Allah," etc. As regards the port,
Wellsted (Il. X.) is too severe upon it: "At Sherm Dhobá the
anchorage is small and inconvenient, and could only be made
available for boats or small vessels." Dredging the sand-bar and
cutting a passage in the soft coralline reef will give excellent
shelter and, some say, a depth of seventeen fathoms.
Our first care was to walk straight into the sea, travelling
clothes and all. I then received the notables, including Mohammed
Selámah of El-Wijh, and at once began to inquire about the Jebel
el-Fayrúz. The chief trader pleaded ignorance: he was a stranger,
a new-comer; he had never been out of the settlement. The others
opposed to me hard and unmitigated Iying: they knew nothing about
turquoises; there were no such stones; the mines were exhausted.
And yet I knew that this coast is visited for turquoises by
Europeans; and that the gem has been, and still is, sold at Suez
and Cairo. Mr. Clarke had many uncut specimens at Zagázig,
embedded in a dark gangue, which he called "porphyry," as opposed
to the limestone which bears the silicate of copper. Upon our
first Expedition, we had noticed a splendid specimen, set in a
Bedawi matchlock; and the people of El-Akabah praised highly the
produce of the Jebel el-Ghál. Lastly, I happened to have heard
that an Arab lately brought to Zibá a turquoise which sold there
for £3. Evidently the mine, like the gold-sands before alluded
to, would be carefully hidden from us. This reticence explained
how, on our first visit, the two Staff-officers sent to prospect
the diggings had been misdirected to a block lying north of the
townlet, the "Red Hills," alias the Jebel el-Shegayg.
Shortly after I left Egypt an Italian, Sig. F--, returned to Suez
from El-Muwaylah, with some fine pearls worth each from £20 to
£30, and turquoises which appeared equally good. He was then
bound for Italy, but he intended returning to Midian in a month
or two. These are the men who teach the ready natives the very
latest "dodges;" such as stimulating the peculiar properties of
the pearl-oyster by inserting grains of sand.
I also collected notes concerning the ruins of M'jirmah, of which
we had heard so many tales. The site, they said, is a branch of
the Wady Azlam, the first of the three marches between Zibá and
El-Wijh, and seven and a half hours' sail along the coast. This
watercourse shows, above the modern Hajj-station, the ruins of a
fort built by Sultán Selim: Wellsted (II. X.) also mentions a
castle lying three miles inland. From the head of the Sharm
Dumayghah, seventy to seventy-two knots south of El-Muwaylah,
Shaykh Furayj pointed out to us the pale-blue peaks of the Jebel
Zafar:[EN#15] in the upper part of its Wady, the Amúd Zafar, a
southern branch valley of the Azlam, lies the ruin. He made it
six hours' march from the seaboard. It was an ancient gold-mine
(?), whose house-foundations and a "well with steps" still
remain. "M'jirmah," which must not be confounded with the "Umm
Jirmah," an atelier that we shall visit to-morrow, has been
identified with the <Greek> (Rhaunathi Pagus) of Ptolemy
(north lat. 25° 40'). We will return to this subject when
steaming down coast.
Our day of rest ended, at seven p.m., with a heavy storm of wind
and rain from the north: the sun had been unusually hot for some
days, and the sky looked ugly in the evening. As usual, all
assured us that the clouds contained wind, not rain. Despite
which, when the mess-tent had been nearly blown down, owing to
our men being unwilling to leave their warm retreats, a heavy
drenching downfall set in, and continued till eleven p.m. After a
short lull, wind and rain again raged at midnight; and then the
gale gradually blew itself out. The next two mornings were
delightfully brisk and bracing; and deep puddles dotted the
rocks.
On March 7th the caravan marched straight northwards, by the
Hajj-road, along the shore to its camping-ground, an affair of
two hours, while M. Marie and I set off for the turquoise mine.
Furayj, who had never passed that way, engaged as guide one
Sulaym el-Makrafi; and this old dromedary-rider's son had been
sent on to bring into camp all the Fayruz he could find. Crossing
at six a.m. the broad pilgrim-track, we struck eastward at a
place where the Secondary gypsum subtends the old coralline
cliff. After three-quarters of an hour, we traversed the Wady
Zahakán, the southernmost Pass over the Shárr (proper); and
presently we ascended a branch that falls into the right bank. As
we advanced, it became a rock-walled, stonesoled tunnel; winding,
contracting and widening, rising and flattening, and generally
interesting, compared with the dull flat breadth of such features
as the Wady Salmá. The overfalls of rock and the unfriendly
thorn-trees, selfishly taking up all the room, necessitate
frequent zigzags up and down the rocky, precipitous banks. After
a number of divides we entered the Wady Háskshah, which was wider
and good for riding; and at 8.30 a.m. we passed into the Wady Umm
Jirmah.
In this broad basin we found none of the ruins so often reported;
but immense quantities of broken quartz showed the Mashghal or
atelier. The material was distinguished, from all the outcrops
hitherto observed, by its pretty pink, stained with oxide of
iron: it appeared in large ramifications mostly striking
east-west, and in little pitons dotting the valley sole and
sides. A subsequent visit to Wady Umm Jirmah found many furnaces
surrounded by well-worked scoriae; of these, specimens were
secured.
After another half-hour, we dismounted at the watershed of the
Wady el-Ghál, where the old guide lost no time in losing his
head. The Jebel el-Ghál, whose folds fall into its watercourse,
is a detached block, rising nearly due south of the "Sharp Peak,"
as the Chart calls Abú Kusayb, the northernmost horn of the
Shárr; while the Ghál cove, breaking the sea-cliff, bears 270°
(mag.) from the summit. The hill, which may measure 250 feet
above sea-level (aner. 29.75), is composed of porphyritic trap
and of the hardest felspars, veined with chocolate-coloured
quartz, the true gangue. While we examined the formation, Furayj
and old Sulaym, who became more and more "moony," ransacked the
block in all directions, and notably failed to find a trace of
mining. Evidently Athor, the genius of the "Turquoise Mountain,"
was not to be conquered by a coup de main; so I determined to
tire her out.
After building a stone-man on the finial of the Jebel el-Ghál,
and a short rest in the north-western Wady, we remounted and
struck seawards. Some ugly divides led us, after half an hour, to
a broad Fiumara, well grown with palm-bush, the veritable Wady
el-Ghál. From this point a total of four miles, and a grand total
of fourteen, led us to the camp: it had been pitched at the
Mahattat el-Gha'l, on the north bank, where the "winter-torrent,"
falling into the cove, has broken through the sea cliff.
Here the best of news was in store for us. Lieutenant Yusuf, who
had this morning rejoined the Expedition, brought our mails from
the Sambúk, which I had ordered by letter at El-Akabah; and
reported that his Highness's frigate Sinnár, an old friend, would
relieve the lively Mukhbir in taking us to our last journey
southwards. Rations for men and mules, and supplies for
ourselves, all were coming. We felt truly grateful to the Viceroy
and the Prince Minister for the gracious interest they had taken
in the Expedition; and we looked forward with excitement to the
proper finish of our labours. Without the third march, the
exploration of Midian would have been Abtar, as the Arabs say,
"tail-less;" that is, lame and impotent in point of conclusion.
But I would not be beaten by the enemy upon the subject of the
lapis Pharanitis mine. During the course of the day, a Jeráfín
Bedawi, Selím ibn Musallim, brought in scoriae of copper and
iron; and on the morrow I sent him as guide to Lieutenant Yusuf,
with an escort of two soldiers and eight quarrymen on seven
camels. After three days' absence (March 8--10) the officer
rejoined us and reported as follows:--
Leaving the Mahattat el-Ghál, he rode up its watercourse, and
then turned southwards into the long Wady Umm Jirmah. After seven
miles and a half (= direct five and three-quarters), he came upon
the Jebel el-Fayrúz. It is a rounded eminence of no great height,
showing many signs of work, especially three or four cuttings
some twenty metres deep. A hillock to the north-west supplied the
scoriæ before mentioned. Lieutenant Yusuf blasted the
chocolate-coloured quartzose rock in four places, filled as many
sacks, and struck the pilgrim-road in the Wady el-Mu'arrash,
leaving its red block, the Hamrá el-Mu'arrash, to the left. His
specimens were very satisfactory; except to the learned
geologists of the Citadel, Cairo, who pronounced them to be
carbonate of copper! Dr. L. Karl Moser, of Trieste, examined them
and found crystals of turquoise, or rather "johnite," as Dana has
it, embedded in or spread upon the quartz. One specimen,
moreover, contained silver. So much for the Zibá or southern
turquoise-diggings.
Our journey ended on March 8th with a dull ride along the
Hajj-road northwards. Passing the creek Abú Sharír, which, like
many upon this coast, is rendered futile by a wall of coral reef,
we threaded a long flat, and after two hours (= seven miles) we
entered a valley where the Secondary formation again showed its
débris. Here is the Mahattat el-Husan ("the Stallion's Leap"), a
large boulder lying to the left of the track, and pitted with
holes which a little imagination may convert into hoof-prints.
The name of the noble animal was El-Mashhúr; that of its owner
is, characteristically enough, forgotten by the Arabs: it lived
in the Days of Ignorance; others add, more vaguely still, when
the Beni Ukbah, the lords of the land, were warring with the
Baliyy. The gorge was then a mere cutting, blocked up by this
rock. El-Mashhúr "negotiated" it, alighting upon the surface like
a Galway hunter taking a stone wall; and carried to Wady Tiryam
its rider, whose throat was incontinently cut by the foeman in
pursuit. The legend is known to all, and the Bedawin still scrape
away the sands which threaten to bury the boulder: it has its
value, showing that in regions where the horse is now unknown,
where, in fact, nothing but a donkey can live, noble blood was
once bred. The same remark is made by Professor Palmer ("The
Desert of the Exodus," p. 42) concerning the Mangaz Hisán Abú
Zená ("Leap of the Stallion of the Father of Adultery"), two
heaps of stone near the Sinaitic Wady Gharandal. There, however,
the animal is cursed, while here it is blessed: perhaps, also,
the Midianite tradition may descend from a source which, still
older, named the <Greek>. Is this too far-fetched? And yet,
peradventure, it may be true.
We then fell into the Wady Jibbah; passed the Jebel el-Kibrít,
examined M. Philipin's work, and, led over a very vile and very
long "short cut," found ourselves once more on board the Mukhbir.
Note on the Supplies Procurable at Zibá.
The chief stores are:--
Rice (good Yemani), per Kis, or bag of five and a half Kaylah
(each twenty-one Ratl = eighteen pounds), four to six dollars.
Durrah (Sorghum), per Ardebb (each = twelve Kaylah), seven and a
half to eight dollars.
Dukhn (millet), not common, per Ardebb, eight dollars.
Wheat, always procurable, per Ardebb, ten to twelve dollars.
Barley, always procurable, per Ardebb, five to six dollars.
Adas (lentils, Revalenta Arabica), per Ardebb, ten to twelve
Samn (liquified butter), per Ratl, seven and a half to eight
dollars.
Coffee (green), per pound, eighteen-pence.
Ajwah (pressed dates), 100 to 110 piastres per Kantar (= 100
Ratl).
Eggs, thirty-five to the shilling.
It is generally possible to buy small quantities of Hummus
(lupins or chick-peas), Kharru'b (carob-pods), "hot" and coarse
tobacco for the Arabs, and cigarette-paper, matches, etc.
Chapter XIII.
A Week Around and upon the Shárr MountainRésumé of the March
Through Eastern or Central Midian.
For months the Jebel Shárr, the grand block which backs
El-Muwaylah, had haunted us, starting up unexpectedly in all
directions, with its towering heads, that shifted shape and
colour from every angle, and with each successive change of
weather. We could hardly leave unexplored the classical "Hippos
Mons," the Moslem's El-Ishárah ("the Landmark"), and the
Bullock's Horns of the prosaic British tar.[EN#16] The few vacant
days before the arrival of the Sinnár offered an excellent
opportunity for studying the Alpine ranges of maritime Midian.
Their stony heights, they said, contain wells and water in
abundance, with palms, remains of furnaces, and other
attractions. Every gun was brought into requisition, by tales of
leopard and ibex, the latter attaining the size of bullocks (!)
and occasionally finding their way to the fort:--it was curious
to hear our friends, who, as usual, were great upon "le shport,"
gravely debating whether it would be safe to fire upon le
léopard. I was anxious to collect specimens of botany and natural
history from an altitude hitherto unreached by any traveller in
Western Arabia; and, lastly, there was geography as well as
mineralogy to be done.
The Hydrographic Chart gives the Mountain a maximum of nine
thousand[EN#17] feet, evidently a clerical error often
repeated--really those Admiralty gentleman are too incurious:
Wellsted, who surveyed it, remarks (II. X.), "The height of the
most elevated peak was found to be 6500 feet, and it obtained
from us the appellation of Mowilabh High Peak"'--when there are
native names for every head. We had been convinced that the
lesser is the true measure, by our view from the Hismá plateau,
3800 feet above sea-level. Again, the form, the size, and the
inclination of the noble massif are wrongly laid down by the
hydrographers. It is a compact block, everywhere rising abruptly
from low and sandy watercourses, and completely detached from its
neighbours by broad Wadys--the Surr to the north and east, while
southwards run the Kuwayd and the Zahakán. The huge long-oval
prism measures nineteen and a half by five miles (= ninety-seven
and a half square miles of area); and its lay is 320° (mag.),
thus deflected 40° westward of the magnetic north. The general
appearance, seen in profile from the west, is a Pentedactylon, a
central apex, with two others on each side, tossed, as it were,
to the north and south, and turning, like chiens de faïence,
their backs upon one another.
Moreover, the Chart assigns to its "Mount Mowilah" only two great
culminations--"Sharp Peak, 6330 feet," to the north; and south of
it, "High Peak, 9000." The surveyors doubtless found difficulty
in obtaining the Bedawi names for the several features, which are
unknown to the citizens of the coast; but they might easily have
consulted the only authorities, the Jeráfín-Huwaytát, who graze
their flocks and herds on and around the mountain. As usual in
Arabia, the four several main "horns" are called after the
Fiumaras that drain them. The northernmost is the Abú Gusayb
(Kusayb) or Ras el-Gusayb (the "Little Reed"), a unity composed
of a single block and of three knobs in a knot; the tallest of
the latter, especially when viewed from the south, resembles an
erect and reflexed thumb--hence our "Sharp Peak." Follows Umm
el-Furút (the "Mother of Plenty"), a mural crest, a quoin-shaped
wall, cliffing to the south: the face, perpendicular where it
looks seawards, bears a succession of scars, upright gashes, the
work of wind and weather; and the body which supports it is a
slope disposed at the natural angle. An innominatus, in the shape
of a similar quoin, is separated by a deep Col, apparently a
torrent-bed, from a huge Beco de Papagaio--the "Parrot's Bill" so
common in the Brazil. This is the Abú Shenázir or Shaykhánib (the
"Father of Columns"); and, as if two names did not suffice, it
has a third, Ras el-Huwayz ("of the Little Cistern"). It is our
"High Peak," the most remarkable feature of the sea-façade, even
when it conceals the pair of towering pillars that show
conspicuously to the north and south. From the beak-shaped apex
the range begins to decline and fall; there is little to notice
in the fourth horn, whose unimportant items, the Ras Lahyánah,
the Jebel Maí'h, and the Umm Gisr (Jisr), end the wall. Each has
its huge white Wady, striping the country in alternation with
dark-brown divides, and trending coastwards in the usual network.
The material of the four crests is the normal grey granite,
enormous lumps and masses rounded by degradation; all chasms and
naked columns, with here and there a sheet burnished by ancient
cataracts, and a slide trickling with water, unseen in the shade
and flashing in the sun like a sheet of crystal. The granite,
however, is a mere mask or excrescence, being everywhere based
upon and backed by the green and red plutonic traps which have
enveloped it. And the prism has no easy inland slopes, as a first
glance suggests; instead of being the sea-wall of a great
plateau, it falls abruptly to the east as well as to the west.
The country behind it shows a perspective of high and low hills,
lines of dark rock divided from one another by Wadys of the usual
exaggerated size. Of these minor heights only one, the Jebel
el-Sahhárah looks down upon the sea, rising between the
Dibbagh-Kh'shabríyyah block to the north, and the Shárr to the
south. Beyond the broken eastern ground, the ruddy Hismá and the
gloomy Harrah form the fitting horizon.
After this much for geography, we may view the monarch of
Midianite mountains in the beauty and the majesty of his
picturesque form. Seen from El-Muwaylah, he is equally
magnificent in the flush of morning, in the still of noon, and in
the evening glow. As the rays, which suggested the obelisk, are
shooting over the southern crests, leaving the basement blue with
a tint between the amethyst and the lapis lazuli, its northern
third lies wrapped in a cloak of cold azure grey, and its central
length already dons a half-light of warmer hue. Meanwhile, the
side next the sun is flooded with an aerial aureole of subtle
mist, a drift of liquid gold, a gush of living light, rippling
from the unrisen orb, decreasing in warmth and brilliancy, paling
and fading and waxing faint with infinite gradations proportioned
to the increase of distance. Again, after the clear brooding
sheen of day has set off the "stark strength and grandeur of
rock-form contrasted with the brilliancy and sprightliness of
sea," the sinking sun paints the scene with the most gorgeous of
blazonings. The colours of the pale rock-skeleton are so faint
that there is nothing to interfere with the perfect development
of atmospheric effects: it is a white sheet spread to catch the
grand illumination, lambent lights of saffron and peach-blossom
and shades of purple and hyacinth. As indescribably lovely is the
after-glow, the zodiacal light which may have originated the
pyramid; the lively pink reflection from the upper atmosphere;
the vast variety of tints with which the greens and the reds, the
purples and the fiery crimsons of the western sky tincture the
receptive surface of the neutral-hued granites; and the
chameleon-shiftings of the dying day, as it sinks into the arms
of night. Nor less admirable are the feats of the fairy
Refraction. The mighty curtain seems to rise and fall as if by
magic: it imitates, as it were, the framework of man. In early
morning the dancing of the air adds many a hundred cubits to its
apparent stature: it is now a giant, when at midnight, after the
equipoise of atmospheric currents, it becomes a dwarf replica of
its former self.
* * * * * *
I had neglected to order overnight the camels from El-Muwaylah, a
penny-wise proceeding which delayed our departure. It was nearly
nine a.m. (March 13th) before we left the Mukhbir, whose
unhappies still sighed and yearned for the civilization and
dissipation of Suez; landed at the head of the Sharm Yáhárr, and
marched up the Wady Hárr. We were guided by two Jeráfín, Sulayman
ibn Musallim and Farj ibn Awayz; the former a model hill-man, a
sturdy, thick-legged, huge-calved, gruff-voiced, full-bearded
fellow, hot-tempered, good-humoured, and renowned as an
ibex-hunter. His gun, marked "Lazari Coitinaz," was a
long-barrelled Spanish musket, degraded to a matchlock: it had
often changed hands, probably by theft, and the present owner
declared that he had bought it for seventy dollars--nearly £15!
Yet its only luxury was the bottom of a breechloader brass
cartridge, inlaid and flanked by the sharp incisors of the little
Wabar, or mountain coney. These Bedawin make gunpowder for
themselves; they find saltpetre in every cavern, and they buy
from Egypt the sulphur which is found in their own hills.
After a few minutes we left the Hárr, which drains the tallest of
the inland hillock-ranges, and the red block "Hamrá el-Maysarah;"
and we struck south-east into the Wady Sanawíyyah. It is a vulgar
valley with a novelty, the Tamrat Faraj. This cairn of
brick-coloured boulders buttressing the right bank has, or is
said to have, the Memnonic property of emitting sounds--Yarinn is
the Bedawi word. The boomings and bellowings are said to be
loudest at sunrise and sunset. The "hideous hum" of such
subterraneous thunderings is alluded to by all travellers in the
Dalmatian Island of Melada, and in the Narenta Valley. The marvel
has been accounted for by the escape of imprisoned air unequally
expanded, but "a veil of mystery hangs over the whole."[EN#18]
The valley-sides of dark trap were striped with white veins of
heat-altered argil; the sole with black magnetic sand; and
patches of the bed were buttercup-yellow with the Handán
(dandelion), the Cytisus, and the Zaram (Panicum turgidum) loved
by camels. Their jaundiced hue contrasted vividly with the red
and mauve blossoms of the boragine El-Kahlá, the blue flowerets
of the Lavandula (El-Zayti), and the delicate green of the
useless[EN#19] asphodel (El-Borag), which now gave a faint and
shadowy aspect of verdure to the slopes. Although the rise was
inconsiderable, the importance of the vegetation palpably
decreased as we advanced inland.
After four miles we reached the Wady-head, and wasted a couple of
hours awaiting the camels that carried our supplies. The path
then struck over a stony divide, with the Hamrá to the left or
north, and on the other side the Hamrá el-Mu'arrash, made
familiar to us by our last march. The latter ends in an isolated
peak, the Jebel Gharghúr, which, on our return, was mistaken for
the sulphur-hill of Jibbah. Presently we renewed acquaintance
with the Wady el-Bayzá, whose lower course we had crossed south
of Sharm Yáhárr: here it is a long and broad, white and
tree-dotted expanse, glaring withal, and subtending all this
section of the Shárr's sea-facing base. We reached, after a total
of eight miles, the Jibál el-Kawáim, or "the Perpendiculars," one
of the features which the Bedawin picturesquely call the Aulád
el-Shárr ("Sons of the Sha'rr"). The three heads, projected
westwards from the Umm Furút peak and then trending northwards,
form a lateral valley, a bay known as Wady el-Káimah. It is a
picturesque feature with its dark sands and red grit, while the
profile of No. 3 head, the Káimat Abú Rákí, shows a snub-nosed
face in a judicial wig, the trees forming an apology for a beard.
I thought of "Buzfuz Bovill."
We camped early, as the Safh el-Shárr (the "Plain of the Shárr")
and the lateral valley were found strewed with quartzes, white,
pink, and deep slate-blue. The guides had accidentally mentioned
a "Jebel el-Marú," and I determined to visit it next morning. The
night was warm and still. The radiation of heat from the huge
rock-range explained the absence of cold, so remarkable during
all this excursion--hence the African traveller ever avoids
camping near bare stones. Dew, however, wetted our boxes like
thin rain: the meteor, remarked for the first time on March 13th,
will last, they say, three months, and will greatly forward
vegetation. It seems to be uncertain, or rather to be influenced
by conditions which we had no opportunity of studying: at times
it would be exceptionally heavy, and in other places it was
entirely absent. Before evening new contract-boots, bought from
the Mukhbir, were distributed to the soldiers and all the
quarrymen, who limped painfully on their poor bare feet:--next
day all wore their well-hidden old boots.
Early on March 14th we ascended the Wady el-Káimah, which showed
a singular spectacle, and read us another lecture upon the
diversity of formation which distinguishes this region. An abrupt
turn then led over rough ground, the lower folds of the Umm
Furút, where a great granite gorge, the Nakb Abú Shár, ran up to
a depression in the dorsum, an apparently practicable Col.
Suddenly the rocks assumed the quaintest hues and forms. The
quartz, slaty-blue and black, was here spotted and streaked with
a dull, dead white, as though stained by the droppings of myriad
birds: there it lay veined and marbled with the most vivid of
rainbow colours-- reds and purples, greens and yellows, set off
by the pale chalky white. Evident signs of work were remarked in
a made road running up to the Jebel el-Marú (proper), whose
strike is 38° (mag.), and whose dip is westward. It is an arête,
a cock's-comb of snowy quartz some sixty feet high by forty-five
broad at the base; crowning a granitic fold that descends
abruptly, with a deep fall on either side, from the "Mother of
Plenty." This strangely isolated wall, left standing by the
denudation that swept away the containing stone, had been broken
by perpendicular rifts into four distinct sections; the colour
became whiter as it neared the coping, and each rock was crowned
with a capping that sparkled like silver in the sudden glance of
the "cloud-compelling" sun. The sight delighted us; and M. Lacaze
here made one of his most effective croquis, showing the
explorers reduced to the size of ants. As yet we had seen nothing
of the kind; nor shall we see a similar vein till we reach
Abú'l-Marwah, near our farthest southern point. I expected a
corresponding formation upon the opposite eastern versant: we
found only a huge crest, a spine of black plutonic rock,
intensely ugly and repulsive. As we rode back down the "Valley of
the Perpendiculars," the aspect of the Jebel el-Marú was
épâtant--to use another favourite camp-word. Standing sharply out
from its vague and gloomy background made gloomier by the morning
mists, the Col, whose steep rain-cut slopes and sole were
scattered with dark trees and darker rocks, this glittering wall
became the shell of an enchanted castle in Gustave Doré.
Returning to our old camping-ground after a ride of three hours
and thirty minutes (= nine miles), we crossed two short divides,
and descended the Wady el-Kusayb, which gives a name to "Sharp
Peak." Here a few formless stone-heaps and straggling bushes
represented the ruins, the gardens of palms, and the bullrushes
of the Bedawi shepherd lads.[EN#20] Our tents had been pitched in
the rond-point of the Wady Surr, which before had given us
hospitality (February 19th), on a Safh or high bouldery ledge of
the left bank, where it receives the broad Kusayb watercourse.
The day had been sultry; the sun was a "rain sun," while the
clouds massed thick to the south-west; and at night the lamps of
heaven shone with a reddish, lurid light. The tent-pegs were
weighted with camel-boxes against the storm; nevertheless, our
mess-tent was levelled in a moment by the howling
north-easter--warm withal--which, setting in about midnight, made
all things uncomfortable enough.
Whilst the caravan was ordered to march straight up the noble
Wady Surr, we set off next morning at six a.m. up the Wady Malíh,
the north-eastern branch of the bulge in the bed. A few Arab
tents were scattered about the bushes above the mouth; and among
the yelping curs was a smoky-faced tyke which might have been
Eskimo-bred:--hereabouts poor Brahim had been lost, and was not
fated to be found. A cross-country climb led to the Jebel Malíh,
whose fame for metallic wealth gave us the smallest
expectations--hitherto all our discoveries came by surprise. A
careful examination showed nothing at all; but a few days
afterwards glorious specimens of cast copper were brought in, the
Bedawi declaring that he had found them amongst the adjoining
hills. In the re-entering angles of the subjacent Wady the thrust
of a stick is everywhere followed by the reappearance of
stored-up rain, and the sole shows a large puddle of brackish and
polluted water. Perhaps the Malayh of the Bedawin may mean "the
salt" (Málih), not "the pleasant" (Malíh). Malíh, or Mallih, is
also the name of a plant, the Reaumuria vernice of Forskâl.
Resuming our ride up the torrent-bed, and crossing to the Wady
Daumah (of the "Single Daum-palm"), we dragged our mules down a
ladder of rock and boulder, the left bank of the upper Surr. The
great valley now defines, sharply as a knife-cut, the
northernmost outlines of the Shárr, whose apex, El-Kusayb,
towered above our heads. Thorn-trees are abundant; fan-palm bush
grows in patches; and we came upon what looked like a flowing
stream ruffled by the morning breeze: the guides declared that it
is a rain-pool, dry as a bone in summer. Presently the rocky bed
made a sharp turn; and its "Gate," opened upon another widening,
the meeting place of four Wadys, the northern being the Wady
Zibayyib that drains ruddy Abál-bárid.
After a short halt to examine the rude ruins reported by Mr.
Clarke,[EN#21] we resumed the ascent of the Surr, whose left bank
still defines the eastern edge of the Shárr. The latter presently
puts forth the jagged spine of black and repulsive plutonic rock,
which notes the Sha'b Makhúl, the corresponding versant of the
Nakb Abú Sha'r. The Bedawin, who, as usual, luxuriate in
nomenclature, distinguish between the eastern and western faces
of the same block, and between the Wadys of the scarp and the
counter-scarp. For instance, the eastern front of the Ras
el-Kusayb is called Abú Kurayg (Kurayj). This is natural, as the
formations, often of a different material, show completely
different features.
A little further on, the continuity of the right bank is broken
by the Wady el-Hámah. It receives the Wady Kh'shabríyyah, which,
bifurcating in the upper bed, drains the Dibbagh and the Umm
Jedayl blocks; and in the fork lie, we were told, the ruins of
El-Fara', some five hours' march from this section of the Surr.
At the confluence of El-Hámah we found the camels grazing and the
tents pitched without orders: the two Shaykhs were determined to
waste another day, so they were directed to reload while we
breakfasted. Everything was in favour of a long march; the dusty,
gusty north-easter had blown itself out in favour of a pleasant
southerly wind, a sea breeze deflected from the west.
After marching three miles we camped at the foot of the ridge to
be ascended next morning: the place is called Safhat el-Mu'ayrah
from a slaty schistose hill on the eastern bank. The guides
declared that the only practicable line to the summit was from
this place; and that the Sha'bs (Cols) generally cannot be
climbed even by the Arabs--I have reason to believe the reverse.
Musallim, an old Bedawi, brought, amongst other specimens from
the adjacent atelier, the Mashghal el-Mu'ayrah, a bright bead
about the size of No. 5 shot: in the evening dusk it was taken
for gold, and it already aroused debates concerning the proper
direction of the promised reward, fifty dollars. The morning
light showed fine copper. Here free metal was distinctly
traceable in the scoriæ, and it was the first time that we had
seen slag so carelessly worked. Not a little merriment was caused
by the ostentatious display of "gold-stones," marked by M.
Philipin's copper-nailed boots. Sulaymán, the Bedawi, had killed
a Wabar, whose sadly mutilated form appeared to be that of the
Syrian hill coney: these men split the bullet into four; "pot" at
the shortest distance, and, of course, blow to pieces any small
game they may happen to hit.
Early on March 16th we attacked the Shárr in a general direction
from north to south, where the ascent looked easy enough. On the
left bank a porphyritic block, up whose side a mule can be
ridden, is disposed in a slope of the palest and most languid of
greens, broken by piles of black rock so regular as to appear
artificial. This step leads to a horizontal crest, a broken wall
forming its summit: it is evidently an outlier; and experience
asked, What will be behind it? The more distant plane showed only
the heads of the Shenázir or "Pins," the two quaint columns which
are visible as far as the Shárr itself. This lower block is
bounded, north and south, by gorges; fissures that date from the
birth of the mountain, deepened by age and raging torrents:
apparently they offered no passage. In the former direction yawns
the Rushúh Abú Tinázib, so called from its growth--the
Tanzub-tree[EN#22] (Sodada decidua); and in the latter the Sháb
Umm Khárgah (Khárjah). I should have preferred a likely looking
Nakb, south of this southern gorge, but the Bedawin, and
especially Abú Khartúm, who had fed his camels and sheep upon the
mountain, overruled me.
The ascent of the outlier occupied three very slow hours, spent
mostly in prospecting and collecting. At nine a.m. we stood 3200
feet above sea-level (aner. 26.79), high enough to make our tents
look like bits of white macadam. What most struck us was the
increased importance of the vegetation, both in quantity and
quality; the result, doubtless, of more abundant dew and rain, as
well as of shade from each passing mist-cloud. The view formed a
startling contrast of fertility and barrenness. At every hundred
yards the growths of the plain became more luxuriant in the rich
humus filling the fissures, and, contrary to the general rule,
the plants, especially the sorrel (Rumex) and the dandelion
(Taraxacum), instead of dwindling, gained in stature. The
strong-smelling Ferula looked like a bush, and the Sarh grew into
a tree: the Ar'ar,[EN#23] a homely hawthorn (hawthorn-leaved
Rhus), whose appearance was a surprise, equalled the Cratgus of
Syria; and the upper heights must have been a forest of fine
junipers (Habíbah = Juniperus Phnicea), with trunks thick as a
man's body. The guides spoke of wild figs, but we failed to find
them. Our chasseurs, who had their guns, eagerly conned over the
traces of ibex and hyenas, and the earths, as well as the large
round footprints, of un léopard; but none of the larger animals
were seen. The Bedawi matchlock has made them wary; chance might
give a shot the first day: on the other hand, skill might be
baffled for a month or two--I passed six weeks upon the
Anti-Libanus before seeing a bear. The noble Shinnár-partridge
again appeared; an eagle's feather lay on the ground; two white
papillons and one yellow butterfly reminded me of the Camarones
Mountain; the wild bee and the ladybird-like Ba'úzah stuck to us
as though they loved us; and we were pestered by the attentions
of the common fly. The Egyptian symbol for "Paul Pry" is supposed
to denote an abundance of organic matter: it musters strong
throughout Midian, even in the dreariest wastes; and it
accompanies us everywhere, whole swarms riding upon our backs.
The only semblance of climbing was over the crest of brown,
burnished, and quartzless traps. Even there the hands were hardly
required, although our poor feet regretted the want of
Spartelles.[EN#24] Here the track debouched upon an inverted
arch, with a hill, or rather a tall and knobby outcrop of rock,
on either flank of the keystone. The inland or eastward view was
a map of the region over which we had travelled; a panorama of
little chains mostly running parallel with the great range, and
separated from it by Wadys, lateral, oblique, and perpendicular.
Of these torrent-beds some were yellow, others pink, and others
faint sickly green with decomposed trap; whilst all bore a fair
growth of thorn-trees--Acacias and Mimosas. High over and beyond
the monarch of the Shafah Mountains, Jebel Sahhárah, whose blue
poll shows far out at sea, ran the red levels of the Hismá,
backed at a greater elevation by the black-blue Harrah. The whole
Tihámah range, now so familiar to us, assumed a novel expression.
The staple material proved to be blocks and crests of granite,
protruding from the younger plutonics, which enfolded and
enveloped their bases and backs. The one exception was the dwarf
Umm Jedayl, a heap composed only of grey granite. The Jebel
Kh'shabríyyah in the Dibbagh block attracted every eye; the head
was supported by a neck swathed as with an old-fashioned cravat.
The summit of the outlier is tolerably level, and here the
shepherds had built small hollow piles of dry stone, in which
their newly yeaned lambs are sheltered from the rude blasts. The
view westwards, or towards the sea, which is not seen, almost
justifies by its peculiarity the wild traditions of built wells,
of a "moaning mountain," and of furnaces upon the loftiest
slopes: it is notable that the higher we went, the less we heard
of these features, which at last vanished into thin air. Our
platform is, as I suspected, cut off from the higher plane by a
dividing gorge; but the depth is only three hundred feet, and to
the south it is bridged by a connecting ridge. Beyond it rises
the great mask of granite forming the apex, a bonier skeleton
than any before seen. Down the northern sheet-rocks trickled a
thin stream that caught the sun's eye; thus the ravine is well
supplied with water in two places. South of it rises a tempting
Col, with a slope apparently easy, separating a dull mass of
granite on the right from the peculiar formation to the left. The
latter is a dome of smooth, polished, and slippery grey granite,
evidently unpleasant climbing; and from its landward slope rise
abrupt, as if hand-built, two isolated gigantic "Pins," which can
hardly measure less than four hundred feet in stature. They are
the remains of a sharp granitic comb whose apex was once the
"Parrot's Beak." The mass, formerly mammilated, has been broken
and denticulated by the destruction of softer strata. Already the
lower crest, bounding the Sha'b Umm Khárgah, shows perpendicular
fissures which, when these huge columns shall be gnawed away by
the tooth of Time, will form a new range of pillars for the
benefit of those ascending the Shárr, let us say in about A.D.
10,000. Such are the "Pins" which name the mountain; and which,
concealed from the coast, make so curious a show to the north,
south, and east of this petrified glacier.
After breaking their fast, M.M. Clarke, Lacaze, and Philipin
volunteered to climb the tempting Col. None of them had ever
ascended a mountain, and they duly despised the obstacles offered
by big rocks distance-dwarfed to paving-stones; and of sharp
angles, especially the upper, perspective-blunted to easy slopes.
However, all three did exceeding well: for such a "forlorn hope"
young recruits are better than old soldiers. They set out at
eleven a.m., and lost no time in falling asunder; whilst the
quarrymen, who accompanied them with the water-skins, shirked
work as usual, lagged behind, sat and slept in some snug hollow,
and returned, when dead-tired of slumber, declaring that they had
missed the "Effendis."
M. Philipin took singly the sloping side of the connecting ridge;
and, turning to the right, made straight for the "Pins," below
which was spread a fleck of lean and languid green. The ascent
was comparatively mild, except where it became a sheet of smooth
and slippery granite; but when he reached a clump of large
junipers, his course was arrested by a bergschrund, which divides
this block--evidently a second outlier--from the apex of the
Shárr, the "Dome" and the "Parrot's Beak." It was vain to attempt
a passage of the deep gash, with perpendicular upper walls, and
lower slopes overgrown with vegetation; nor could he advance to
the right and rejoin his companions, who were parted from him by
the precipices on the near side of the Col. Consequently, he beat
a retreat, and returned to us at 2.30 p.m., after three hours and
thirty minutes of exceedingly thirsty work: the air felt brisk
and cool, but the sun shone pitilessly, unveiled by the smallest
scrap of mist. He brought with him an ibex-horn still stained
with blood, and a branch of juniper, straight enough to make an
excellent walking-stick.
The other two struck across the valley, and at once breasted the
couloir leading to the Col, where we had them well in sight. They
found the ascent much "harder on the collar" than they expected:
fortunately the sole of the huge gutter yielded a trickle of
water. The upper part was, to their naive surprise, mere climbing
on all fours; and they reached the summit, visible from our
halting-place, in two hours. Here they also were summarily
stopped by perpendicular rocks on either side, and by the deep
gorge or crevasse, shedding seawards and landwards, upon whose
further side rose the "Parrot's Beak." The time employed would
give about two thousand feet, not including the ascent from the
valley (three hundred feet); and thus their highest point could
hardly be less than 5200 feet. Allowing another thousand for the
apex, which they could not reach,[EN#25] the altitude of the
Shárr would be between 6000 and 6500 feet.
The shadows were beginning to lengthen before the two reappeared,
and the delay caused no small apprehension; the Sayyid showed a
kindly agitation that was quite foreign to his calm and collected
demeanour, when threatened by personal danger. To be benighted
amongst these cruel mountains must be no joke; nor would it have
been possible to send up a tent or even mouth-munition. However,
before the sun had reached the west, they came back triumphant
with the spoils of war. One was a snake (Echis colorata,
Günther), found basking upon the stones near the trickle of
water. It hissed at them, and, when dying, it changed colour,
they declared, like a chameleon--that night saw it safely in the
spirit-tin. They were loaded with juniper boughs, and fortunately
they had not forgotten the berries; the latter establish the
identity of the tree with the common Asiatic species. M. Lacaze
brought back several Alpine plants, a small Helix which he had
found near the summit, and copious scrawls for future
croquis--his studies of the "Pins" and the "Dome" were greatly
admired at Cairo.
Ere the glooms of night had set in, we found ourselves once more
at the tents. Only one man suffered from the ascent, and his
sunstroke was treated in Egyptian fashion. Instead of bleeding
like that terrible, murderous Italian school of Sangrados, the
Fellahs tie a string tightly round the head; and after
sunset--which is considered de rigueur--they fill the ears with
strong brine. According to them the band causes a bunch of veins
to swell in the forehead, and, when pressed hard, it bursts like
a pistol-shot. The cure is evidently effected by the cold
salt-and-water. The evening ended happily with the receipt of a
mail, and with the good news that the Sinnár corvette had been
sent to take the place of El-Mukhbir, the unfortunate. Once more
we felt truly grateful to the Viceroy and the Prince who so
promptly and so considerately had supplied all our wants, and
whose kindness would convert our southern cruise into a holiday
gîte, without the imminent deadly risk of a burst boiler.
We set out in high spirits on the next morning (6.15 a.m., March
17th), riding, still southwards, up the Surr: the stony, broken
surface now showed that we were fast approaching its source.
Beyond the Umm Khárgah gorge on the western bank, rose a tall
head, the Ras el-Rukabíyyah; and beyond it was a ravine, in which
palms and water are said to be found. The opposite side raised
its monotonous curtain of green and red traps, whose several
projections bore the names of Jebel el-Wu'ayrah--the hill behind
our camping-ground--Jebel el-Maín, and Jebel Sháhitah. A little
beyond the latter debouched the Darb el-Kufl ("Road of
Caravans"), alias Darb el-Ashárif ("Road of the Sherifs"), a
winding gap, the old line of the Egyptian pilgrims, by which the
Sulaymáyyán Bedawin still wend their way to Suez. The second
name, perhaps, conserves the tradition of long-past wars waged
between the Descendants of the Apostle and the Beni
Ukbah.[EN#26] The broad mouth was dotted with old graves, with
quartz-capped memorial-cairns, and, here and there, with a block
bearing some tribal mark. The Wady-sole grew a "stinkhorn" held
to be poisonous, and called, from its fetor, "Faswat el-Agúz"
(Cynophallus impudicus): one specimen was found on the tip of an
ibex-horn, and the other had been impaled with a stick. After two
hours and thirty minutes (= seven miles) we sighted the head of
the Wady Surr proper, whose influents drain the southern
Khurayatah or Hismá Pass. Here the amount of green surface, and
the number of birds, especially the blue-rock and the
insect-impaling "butcher," whose nests were in the thin forest of
thorn-trees, argue that water is not far off. The Ras Wady Surr
is a charming halting-place.
Our Arabs worked hard to gain another day. The only tolerable
Pass rounding the southern Shárr was, they declared, the Wady
Aújar, an influent of the Wady Zahakán, near Zibá. The Col
el-Kuwayd, now within a few yards of us, is so terrible that the
unfortunate camels would require, before they could attempt it,
at least twenty-four hours of preparatory rest and rich feeding;
and so forth. However, we pushed them on with flouts and jeers,
and we ourselves followed at eleven a.m.
The Pass proved to be one of the easiest. It began with a gradual
rise up a short broad Wady, separating the southernmost
counterforts of the Shárr from the north end of the Jebel
el-Ghuráb. This "Raven Mountain" is a line of similar but lower
formation, which virtually prolongs the great "Landmark," down
coast. The bottom was dotted with lumps of pure "Marú," washed
from the upper levels. We reached the summit in forty minutes,
and the seaward slope beyond it was a large outcrop of quartz in
situ, that assumed the strangest appearance,--a dull, dead
chalky-white, looking as if heat-altered or mixed with clay. The
rock-ladder leading to the lower Wady Kuwayd, which has an upper
branch of the same name, offered no difficulty to man or beast;
and the aneroid showed its height to be some 470 feet
(28.13--28.50). The caravan, having preceded us, revenged itself
by camping at the nearest pool, distant nineteen and a half
direct geographical miles from our destination.
This day was the first of the Khamsín or, as M. Loufti (?), a
Coptic student, writes it, "Khamasín," from Khama ("warm") and
Sina ("air").[EN#27] The Midianites call it El-Daufún, the hot
blasts, and expect it to blow at intervals for a couple of
months. This scirocco has been modified in Egypt, at least during
the spring, apparently by the planting of trees. About a
quarter-century ago, its regular course was three days: on the
first it set in; the second was its worst; and men knew that it
would exhaust itself on the third. Now it often lasts only a
single day, and even that short period has breaks.
The site of the camp made sleep well-nigh impossible--a bad
preparation for the only long ride of this excursion. Setting off
at dark (4.20 a.m., March 18th), we finished the monotonous Wady
Kuwayd, which mouths upon the rolling ground falling coastwards.
The track then struck to the north-west, across and sometimes
down the network of Wadys that subtends the south-western
Shárr--their names have already been mentioned. As we sighted the
cool green-blue sea, its horizon-line appeared prodigiously
uplifted, as if the Fountains of the great Deep were ready for
another Deluge. I remembered the inevitable expressions of
surprise with which, young Alpinists and ballooners, expecting
the rim of the visible circle to fall away, see it rising around
them in saucer-shape. The cause is simply that which breaks the
stick in water, and which elevates the Sha'rr every
morning--Refraction.
After a march of seven hours (= twenty-two miles), we debouched,
viâ the Wady Hárr, upon our old Sharm, the latter showing, for
the first time since its creation, two war-steamers, with their
"tender," a large Sambúk. The boats did not long keep us waiting;
and we were delighted to tread once more the quarter-deck of the
corvette Sinnár. Captain Ali Bey Shukri's place had been taken by
Captain Hasan-Bey, an Osmanli of Cavala who, having been
forty-eight years in the service, sighed for his pension. He did,
however, everything in his power to make us feel "at home;" and
the evening ended with a fantasia of a more pronounced character
than anything that I had yet seen.[EN#28]
Résumé of the March Through Eastern or Central Midian.
Our journey through Eastern or Central Midian lasted eighteen
days (February 19--March 8), with an excursion of six (March
13--18) to its apex, the mighty Shárr, which I would add to our
exploration of Central Midian. Despite enforced slow marches at
the beginning of the first section, we visited in round numbers,
according to my itinerary, 197 miles: Lieutenant Amir's map gives
a linear length of 222 miles, not including the offsets. The
second part covered fifty-five miles, besides the ascent of the
mountain to a height of about five thousand feet: the mapper also
increased this figure to 59 2/3. Thus the route-line shows a
grand total of 252 to 281 2/3 in direct statute miles. The number
of camels engaged from Shaykhs Alayán and Hasan was sixty-one;
and the hire, according to Mr. Clarke, represented £147 6s. 6d.,
not including the £40 of which we were plundered by the bandit
Ma'ázah. The ascent of the Shárr also cost £40, making a grand
total of £187 6s. 6d.
The march to the Hismá gave us a fair idea of the three main
formations of Madyan, which lie parallel and east of one
another:--1. The sandy and stony maritime region, the foot-hills
of the Gháts, granites and traps with large veins and outcrops of
quartz; and Wadys lined with thick beds of conglomerate. 2. The
Jibál el-Tihámah, the majestic range that bounds the seaboard
inland, with its broad valleys and narrow gorges forming the only
roads. 3. The Jibál el-Shafah, or interior ridge, the "lip" of
North-Western Arabia; in fact, the boundary-wall of the Nejd
plateau.
The main object of this travel was to ascertain the depth from
west to east of the quartz-formations, which had been worked by
the Ancients. I had also hoped to find a virgin region lying
beyond El-Harrah, the volcanic tract subtending the east of the
Hismá, or plateau of New Red Sandstone. We ascertained, by
inquiry, that the former has an extent wholly unsuspected by Dr.
Wallin and by the first Expedition; and that a careful
examination of it is highly desirable. But we were stopped upon
the very threshold of the Hismá by the Ma'ázah, a tribe of
brigands which must be subjected to discipline before the
province of Madyan can be restored to its former status.
This northern portion had been visited by Dr. Wallin; the other
two-thirds of the march lay, I believe, over untrodden ground. We
brought back details concerning the three great parallel Wadys;
the Salmá, the Dámah, that "Arabian Arcadia," and the
Aslah-Aznab. We dug into, and made drawings and plans of, the
two principal ruined cities, Shuwák and Shaghab, which probably
combined to form the classical <Greek>; and of the two less
important sites, El-Khandaki and Umm Ámil.
The roads of this region, and indeed of all Midian, are those of
Iceland without her bogs and snows: for riding considerations we
may divide them into four kinds:--
1. Wady--the Fiumara or Nullah; called by travellers
"winter-brook" and "dry river-bed." It is a channel without
water, formed, probably, by secular cooling and contraction of
the earth's surface, like the fissures which became true streams
in the tropics, and in the higher temperate zones. Its geological
age would be the same as the depressions occupied by the ocean
and the "massive" eruptions forming the mountain-skeleton of the
globe. Both the climate and the vegetation of Midian must have
changed immensely if these huge features, many of them five miles
broad, were ever full of water. In modern days, after the
heaviest rains, a thin thread meanders down a wilderness of bed.
The Wady-formation shows great regularity. Near the mouth its
loose sands are comfortable to camels and distressing to man and
mule. The gravel of the higher section is good riding; the upper
part is often made impassable by large stones and overfalls of
rock; and the head is a mere couloir. Flaked clay or mud show the
thalweg; and the honeycombed ground, always above the line of
highest water, the homes of the ant, beetle, jerboa, lizard, and
(Girdi) rat, will throw even the cautious camel.
2. Ghadír--the basin where rain-water sinks. It is mostly a
shining bald flat of hard yellow clay, as admirable in dry as it
is detestable in wet weather.
3. Majrá--here pronounced "Maghráh"[EN#29]--the divide;
literally, the place of flowing. It is the best ground of all,
especially where the yellow or brown sands are overlaid by hard
gravel, or by a natural metalling of trap and other stones.
4. Wa'r--the broken stony surface, over which camels either
cannot travel, or travel with difficulty: it is the horror of the
Bedawi; and, when he uses the word, it usually means that it
causes man to dismount. It may be of two kinds; either the Majrá
proper ("divide") or the Nakb ("pass"), and the latter may safely
be left to the reader's imagination.
The partial ascent of the mighty Shárr gave an admirable study of
the mode in which the granites have been enfolded and enveloped
by the later eruptions of trap. Nor less curious, also, was it to
remark how, upon this Arabian Alp, vegetation became more
important; increasing, contrary to the general rule, not only in
quantity but in size, and changing from the date and the Daum to
the strong smelling Ferula, the homely hawthorn, and the tall and
balmy juniper-tree. There is game, ibex and leopard, in these
mountains; but the traveller, unless a man of leisure, must not
expect to shoot or even to sight it.
Chapter XIV.
Down South--to El-WijhNotes on the Quarantine--the Hutaym Tribe.
There remained work to do before we could leave El-Muwaylah. The
two Shaykhs, Alayán and Hasan el-Ukbi, were to be paid off end
dismissed with due ceremony; provisions were to be brought from
the fort to the cove; useless implements to be placed in store;
mules to be embarked--no joke without a pier!--and last, but not
least, the ballastless Mukhbir was to be despatched with a mail
for Suez. The whole Expedition, except only the sick left at the
fort, was now bound southwards. The Sayyid and our friend Furayj
accepted formal invitations to accompany us: Bukhayt, my
"shadow," with Husayn, chef and romancer-general, were shipped as
their henchmen; and a score of soldiers and quarrymen represented
the escort and the working-hands. Briefly, the Sinnár, though
fretting her vitals out at the delay, was detained two days
(March 19--20) in the Sharm Yáhárr. Amongst other things that
consoled us for quitting the snug dock, was the total absence of
fish. At this season the shoals leave the coast, and gather round
their wonted spawning-grounds, the deep waters near the Sha'b
("reefs"), where they find luxuriant growths of seaweed, and
where no ships disturb them.
Bidding a temporary adieu to our old fellow voyagers on board the
Mukhbir, including the excellent engineer, Mr. David Duguid, we
steamed out of the quiet cove, at a somewhat late hour (6.30
a.m.) on March 21st; and, dashing into the dark and slaty sea,
stood to the south-east. For two days the equinoctial weather had
been detestable, dark, cloudy, and so damp that the dry and the
wet bulbs showed a difference of only 4°--5°. This morning, too,
the fire of colour had suddenly gone out; and the heavens were
hung with a gloomy curtain. The great Shárr, looming unusually
large and tall in the Scandinavian mountain-scene, grey of shadow
and glancing with sun-gleams that rent the thick veils of
mist-cloud, assumed a manner of Ossianic grandeur. After three
hours and a half we were abreast of Zibá, around whose dumpy
tower all the population had congregated. Thence the regular
coralline bank, whose beach is the Bab, runs some distance down
coast, allowing passage to our ugly old friend, Wady Salmá. The
next important mouth is the Wady Amúd, showing two Sambúks at
anchor, and a long line of vegetation like the palm-strips of the
Akabah Gulf: this valley, I have said, receives the Mutadán,
into which the Abú Marwah gorge discharges.[EN#30]
It would appear that this "Amúd" represents the "Wady el-Aúníd," a
name utterly unknown to the modern Arabs, citizens and Bedawin, at
least as far south as El-Haurá. Yet it is famed amongst mediaeval
geographers for its fine haven with potable water; and for its
flourishing city, where honey was especially abundant. El-Idrísí
settles the question of its site by placing it on the coast opposite
the island El-Na'mán (Nu'mán), but can El-Idrísí be trusted?
Sprenger (p. 24), induced, it would appear, by similarity of sound,
and justly observing that in Arabic the letters Ayn and Ghayn are
often interchanged, would here place the <Greek> (Rhaunathi Vicus)
of Ptolemy (north lat. 25 degrees 40'). According to my friend,
also, the Ras Abú Masárib, the long thin point north of which the
Wady Dámah, half-way to the Wady Azlam, falls in, represents the
<Greek> (Chersónesi Extrema) on the same parallel. I cannot help
suspecting that both lie further south--in fact, somewhere about El-
Haurá.[EN#31]
Here the maritime heights, known as the Jibál ("Mountains" of
the) Tihámat-Balawiyyah (of "the Baliyy tribe"), recede from the
sea, and become mere hills and hillocks; yet the continuity of
the chain is never completely broken. At noon we slipped into the
channel, about a mile and a half broad, which separates the
mainland from the Jebel ("Mount") Nu'mán, as the island is
called: so the Arabs speak of Jebel (never Jezírat)
Hassáni.[EN#32] The surface of the water was like oil after the
cross seas on all sides, the tail of an old gale which the Arab
pilots call Bahr madfún ("buried sea"), corresponding with the
Italian mar vecchio. On our return northwards we landed upon
Nu'mán, whose name derives from the red-flowered Euphorbia
retusa; bathed, despite the school of sharks occupying the waters
around; collected botany, and examined the ground carefully. Like
the Dalmatian Archipelago, it once formed part of the mainland,
probably separated by the process that raised the maritime range.
The rolling sandy plateau and the dwarf Wadys are strewed with
trap and quartz, neither of which could have been generated by
the new sandstones and the yellow corallines. It has two fine
bays, facing the shore and admirably defended from all winds; the
southern not a little resembles Sináfir-cove.
The "top," or dwarf plateau, commands a fine view of the coast
scenery; the "Pins" of the Shárr; the Mutadán Mountain, twin ridges
of grey white granite, and, further south, the darker forms of
Raydán and Zigláb. Here, during springtide, the Huwaytát transport
their flocks in the light craft called Katirah, and feed them till
the pasture is browsed down. We made extensive inquiries, but could
hear of no ruins. Yet the islet, some three to four miles long by
one broad, forming a natural breakwater to the coast, is important
enough to bear, according to Sprenger, a classical name, the <Greek>
(Timagenis Insula) of Ptolemy. If this be the case, either the
Pelusian or his manuscripts are greatly in error. He places the bank
in north lat. 25° 45', whilst its centre would be in north lat. 27°
5'; and the sixty miles of distance from the coast, evidently the
blunder of a copyist, must be reduced to a maximum of three.
Passing another old friend, the Aslah-Aznab, down whose head we
had ridden to Shaghab, about two p.m. we steamed along the mouth
of the Wady Azlam, the Ezlam of Wellsted,[EN#33] which he unduly
makes the southern frontier of the Huwaytát, and the northern of
the Baliyy tribes. Beyond it is the gape of the once populous
Wady Dukhán--of "the (furnace?) Smoke"--faced by a large splay of
tree-grown sand. Ruins are reported in its upper bed. Beyond
Marsá Zubaydah (not Zebaider), the sea is bordered by the
red-yellow coast-range; and the fretted sky line of peaks and
cones, "horses" and "hogs'-backs," is cut by deep valleys and
drained by dark "gates." The background presents a long, regular
curtain of black hill, whose white sheets and veins may be
granite and quartz. We were then shown the Mínat el-Marrah, one
of the many Wady-mouths grown with vegetation; and here the ruins
El-Nabagah (Nabakah) are spoken of. At four p.m. we doubled the
Ras Labayyiz (not Lebayhad), a long flat tongue projecting from
the coast range, and defending its valley to the south. In the
Fara't or upper part, some five hours' march from the mouth, lie
important remains of the Mutakkadimín ("ancients"). The report
was confirmed by an old Arab Básh-Buzúk at El-Wijh; he declared
that in his youth he had seen a tall furnace, and a quantity of
scoriæ from which copper could be extracted, lying northwards at
a distance of eighteen hours' march and five by sea.
The next important feature is the Wady Salbah, the Telbah of the
Chart, up whose inland continuation, the Wady el-Nejd, we shall
travel. Here the coast-range again veers off eastward; and the
regular line is cut up into an outbreak of dwarf cones, mere
thimbles. Above the gloomy range that bounds it southwards,
appear the granitic peaks and "Pins" of Jebel Libn, gleaming
white and pale in the livid half-light of a cloudy sunset. After
twelve hours' steaming over seventy to seventy-two knots of reefy
sea, we ran carefully into the Sharm Dumayghah.[EN#34] This
lake-like, land-locked cove is by far the best of the many good
dock-harbours which break the Midian coast. Its snug retreat gave
hospitality to half a dozen Juhayni Sambúks, fishers and divers
for mother-of-pearl, riding beyond sight of the outer world, and
utterly safe from the lighthouse dues of El-Wijh.
I resolved to pass a day at these old quarters of a certain Háji
Abdullah. The hydrographers have given enlarged plans of Yáhárr
and Jibbah, ports close to each other; while they have ignored
the far more deserving Sharm Dumayghah. Distant only thirty miles
of coasting navigation, a line almost clear of reefs and shoals,
it is the natural harbour for the pilgrim-ships, which ever run
the danger of being wrecked at El-Wijh; and it deserves more
notice than we have hitherto vouchsafed to it. The weather also
greatly improved on the next day (March 22nd): the cloud-canopy,
the excessive moisture, and the still sultriness which had
afflicted us since March 19th, were in process of being swept
away by the strong, cool, bright norther.
The survey of the Egyptian officers shows an oval extending from
north-west to south-east, with four baylets or bulges in the
northern shore. The length is upwards of a knot, and the breadth
twelve hundred yards. It may be described as the embouchure of
the Wady Dumayghah, which falls into its head, and which,
doubtless, in olden times, when the land was wooded, used to roll
a large and turbulent stream. As is often seen on this coast, the
entrance is defended by a natural breakwater which appears like a
dot upon the Chart. Capped with brown crust, falling bluff
inland, and sloping towards the main, where the usual stone-heaps
act as sea-marks, this bank of yellowish-white coralline,
measuring 310 metres by half that width, may be the remains of
the bed in which the torrents carved out the port. The northern
inlet is a mere ford of green water: my "Pilgrimage" made the
mistake of placing a fair-way passage on either side of the
islet. The southern channel, twenty-five fathoms deep and three
hundred metres broad, is garnished on both flanks with a hundred
metres of dangerous shallow, easily distinguished by green
blazoned upon blue. The bay is shoal to the south-east; the best
anchorage for ships lies to the north-west, almost touching land.
A reef or rock is reported to be in the middle ground, where we
lay with ten fathoms under us: it was seen, they say, at night,
by the aid of lanterns; but next morning Lieutenants Amir and
Yusuf were unable to find it. Native craft usually make fast in
three fathoms to a lumpy natural mole of modern sandstone, north
of the entrance: a little trimming would convert it into a
first-rate pier.
At this place we landed to prospect the country, and to gather
information from the Sambúk crews before they had time to hoist
sail and be off. The owners of the land are not Juhaynah, the
"Wild Men" with whom the Rais of the Golden Wire had threatened
us in 1853. The country belongs to the Baliyy; now an inoffensive
tribe well subject to Egypt, mixed with a few Kura'án-Huwaytát
and Karáizah-Hutaym. The fishermen complained that no fish was to
be caught, and the strong tides, setting upon the stony flank of
the mole, had broken most of the shells, not including, however,
the oysters. The usual eight-ribbed turtle appeared to be common.
On the sands to the north, M. Lacaze picked up a large old and
bleached skull, which went into my collection; we failed to find
any neighbouring burial-ground. Striking inland, however, towards
the dotted square, marked "Fort (ruin)" in the Chart, we came
upon an ancient cemetery to the north of the bay, and concluded
that these graves had been mistaken for remains of building.
We then bent eastward towards the Jibál el-Salbah, and examined
the two dwarf valleys which, threading the heights, feed the Wady
Dumayghah. That to the south showed us a perfectly familiar
formation; conglomerates of water-rolled pebbles in the lower
levels, and hills of the normal dark porphyries, with large
quartz-seams of many colours trending in every direction. The
mouth of the northern gorge was blocked by a vein of finely
crystallized carbonate of lime, containing geodes and bunches.
The taste is astringent, probably from the alumina; and it is
based upon outcrops of a sandy calcaire apparently fit for
hydraulic cement. The only novelty in the vegetation was the
Fashak-tree, a creeper like a gigantic constrictor, with sweet
yellow wood somewhat resembling liquorice.
Signs of Arab everywhere appeared, but there were no tents.
Consequently we were unable to ascertain the extent of the
water-supply--an important matter if this is to become the port
of El-Wijh. The Sambúks might bring it, but the people on shore
would be dependent upon what they can find. The Hajj-road,
running some miles inland, is doubtless supplied with it. Even,
however, were the necessary wanting, the pilgrim-ships, whilst
taking refuge here, could easily transport it from the south.
Shaykh Furayj; pointed out to us the far northern blue peaks of
the Amúd Zafar, in whose branch-Wady lie the ruins of M'jirmah.
The day ended with a sudden trembling of the ship, as if
straining at anchor; but the crew was again performing fantasia,
and the earthquake or sea-quake rolled unheededly away.
Apparently the direction was from north to south: I noted the
hour, 9.10 p.m., and the duration, twenty seconds. According to
the Arabs the Zilzilah is not uncommon in Midian, especially
about the vernal equinox: on this occasion it ended the spell of
damp and muggy weather which began on March 19th, and which may
have been connected with it.
The survey soundings were not finished till nearly eight a.m.
(March 23rd), when the old corvette swung round on her heel; and,
with the black hills of Salbah to port, resumed her rolling,
rollicking way southwards. Her only ballast consisted of some six
hundred conical shot, or twelve tons for a ship of eight hundred.
After one hour of steaming (= seven miles) we passed the green
mouth of the Wady Antar, in whose Istabl ("stable"), or upper
valley-course, the pilgrimage-caravan camps. It drains a small
inland feature to the north-east, the true "Jebel Antar," which
the Hydrographic Chart has confounded with the great block,
applying, moreover, the term Istabl to the height instead of the
hollow. This Jebel Libn, along which we are now steaming, is a
counterpart on a small scale, a little brother, of the Shárr,
measuring 3733 instead of 6000 to 6500 feet. We first see from
the north a solid block capped with a mural crown of three peaks.
When abreast of us the range becomes a tall, fissured, and
perpendicular wall: this apical comb, bluff to the west, reposes
upon a base sloping, at the angle of rest, to the environing
sandy Wady. To complete the resemblance, even the queer "Pins"
are not wanting; and I should expect to find in it all the
accidents of the giant of El-Muwaylah.
The complexion of the Libn, which the people pronounce "Libin,"
suggests grey granite profusely intersected with white quartz:
hence, probably, the name, identical with Lebanon and
Libanus--"the Milk Mountain." The title covers a multitude of
peaks: the Bedawin have, doubtless, their own terms for every
head and every hollow. The citizens comprehensively divide the
block into two, El-Áli ("the Upper") being its southern, and
El-Asfal ("the Lower") its northern, section. It is said to
abound in water; and a Nakhil ("date-grove") is described as
growing near the summit. The Hutaym, who own most of it, claim
the lover and hero-poet, Antar, as one of their despised
tribe--hence, probably, his connection with the adjoining
mountain and "the stable."
"Jebel Libin" is the great feature of the Tihámat-Balawíyyah; for
many days it will appear to follow us, and this is the proper
place for assigning its rank and status to it. About El-Akabah,
the northern head of the Gháts or coast-range, we have prospected
the single chain of Jebel Shará'; the "Sa'ar of the tribes of the
Shasu" (Bedawin)[EN#35] in the papyri, and the Hebrew Mount Seir,
the "rough" or "rugged." Further south we have noted how this
tall eastern bulwark of the great Wady el-Arabah bifurcates;
forming the Shafah chain to the east, and westward of it, in
Madyan Proper, the Jibál el-Tihámah, of which the Shárr is
perhaps the culmination. We have noted the accidents of the
latter as far as Dumayghah Cove, and now we descry in the offing
the misty forms--how small they look!--of the Jebel el-Ward; the
Jibál el-Safhah; the two blocks, south of the Wady Hamz, known as
the Jibál el-Rál; and their neighbours still included in the
Tihámat-Balawíyyah. Lastly, we shall sight, behind El-Haurá, the
Abú Ghurayr and a number of blocks which, like the former, are
laid down, but are not named, in the Chart.
Beyond El-Haurá the chain stretches southwards its mighty links
with smaller connections. The first is the bold range Jebel
Radwah, the "Yambo Hills" of the British sailor, some six
thousand feet high and lying twenty-five miles behind the new
port.[EN#36] Passing it to left on the route to El-Medínah, I
heard the fables which imposed upon Abyssinian Bruce: "All sorts
of Arabian fruits grew to perfection on the summit of these
hills; it is the paradise of the people of Yenbo, those of any
substance having country-houses there." This was hardly probable
in Bruce's day, and now it is impossible. The mountain is held by
the Beni Harb, a most turbulent tribe, for which see my
"Pilgrimage."[EN#37] Their head Shaykh, Sa'd the Robber, who
still flourished in 1853, is dead; but he has been succeeded by
one of his sons, Shaykh Hudayfah, who is described with simple
force as being a "dog more biting than his sire." Between these
ill-famed haunts of the Beni Harb and Jeddah rises the Jebel
Subh, "a mountain remarkable for its magnitude" (4500 feet),
inhabited by the Beni Subh, a fighting clan of the "Sons of
Battle."
The largest links of these West-Arabian Gháts are of white-grey
granite, veined and striped with quartz; and they are subtended
inland by the porphyritic traps of the Jibál el-Shafah, which we
shall trace to the parallel of El-Hamz, the end of Egypt. I
cannot, however, agree with Wellsted (II. xii.) that the ridges
increase in height as they recede from the sea; nor that the
veins of quartz run horizontally through the "dark granite." The
greater altitudes (three to six thousand feet) are visible from
an offing of forty to seventy miles; and they are connected by
minor heights: some of these, however, are considerable, and here
and there they break into detached pyramids. All are maritime,
now walling the shore, like the Tayyib Ism; then sheering away
from it, where a broad "false coast" has been built by Time.
These western Gháts, then, run down, either in single or in
double line, the whole length of occidental Arabia; and, meeting
a similar and equally important eastern line, they form a mighty
nucleus, the mountains of El-Yemen. After carefully inspecting,
and making close inquiries concerning, a section of some five
hundred miles, I cannot but think that the mines of precious
ores, mentioned by the mediæval Arabian geographers,[EN#38] lay
and lie in offsets from the flanks either of the maritime or the
inland chain; that is, either in the Tihámah, the coast lowlands,
or in the El-Nejd, the highland plateau of the interior.
What complicates the apparently simple ground is the long line of
volcanic action which, forming the eastern frontier of the
plutonic granites and of the modern grits, may put forth veins
even to the shores of the Akabah Gulf and the Red Sea.[EN#39]
The length, known to me by inquiry, would be about three degrees
between north lat. 28° and 25°, the latter being the parallel of
El-Medínah; others make them extend to near Yambú', in north lat.
24° 5'. They may stretch far to the north, and connect, as has
been suggested, with the Syrian centres of eruption, discovered
by the Palestine Exploration. I have already explained[EN#40] how
and why we were unable to visit "the Harrah" lying east of the
Hismá; but we repeatedly saw its outlines, and determined that
the lay is from north-west to south-east. Further south, as will
be noticed at El-Haurá, the vertebrae curve seawards or to the
south-west; and seem to mingle with the main range, the mountains
of the Tihámat-Jahaníyyah ("of the Juhaynah"). Thus the formation
assumes an importance which has never yet been attributed to it;
and the five several "Harrahs," reported to me by the Bedawin,
must be studied in connection with the mineralogical deposits of
the chains in contact with them. It must not be forgotten that a
fragment of porous basalt, picked up by the first Expedition near
Makná, yielded a small button of gold.[EN#41]
Dreadfully rolled the Sinnár, as she ran close in-shore before
the long heavy swell from the north-west, and the old saying, Bon
rouleur, bon marcheur, is cold consolation to an active man made
to idle malgré lui. This section of the coast, unlike that to the
north, is remarkably free from reefs. A little relief was felt
while sheltered by the short tract of channel between the
mainland and the shoals. But the nuisance returned in force as,
doubling the Ras Muraybit (not Marabat), we sighted the two
towers of El-Wijh, both beflagged, the round Burj of the fort,
and the cubical white-washed lighthouse crowning its rocky point.
And we were quiet once more when the Sinnár, having covered the
thirty miles in four hours and thirty minutes, cast anchor in the
usual place, south-east of the northern jaw. The main objection
to our berth is that the prevailing north wind drives in a
rolling sea from the open west. The log showed a total of 102
miles between the Sharms Yáhárr and El-Wijh, or 107 from the
latter to El-Muwaylah.
"El-Wijh," meaning the face, a word which the Egyptian Fellah
perverts to "Wish," lies in north lat. 26° 14'. It is the
northernmost of the townlets on the West Arabian shore, which
gain importance as you go south; e.g., Yambá', Jeddah, Mocha, and
Aden. It was not wholly uncivilized during my first visit, a
quarter of a century ago, when I succeeded in buying opium for
feeble patients. Distant six stations from Yambá', and ten from
El-Medínah, it has been greatly altered and improved. The
pilgrim-caravan, which here did penance of quarantine till the
last two years, has given it a masonry pier for landing the
unfortunates to encamp upon the southern or uninhabited side of
the cove. A tall and well-built lighthouse, now five years old,
boasts of a good French lantern, wanting only soap and decent
oil. Finally, guardhouses and bakehouses, already falling to
ruins like the mole, and an establishment for condensing water,
still kept in working order, are the principal and costly
novelties of the southern shore.
The site of El-Wijh is evidently old, although the ruins have
been buried under modern buildings. Sprenger (p. 21) holds the
townlet to be the port of "Egra, a village" (El-Hajar, or "the
town, the townlet"?) "in the territory of Obodas," whence,
according to Strabo (xvi. c. 4, § 24), Ælius Gallus embarked his
baffled troops for Myus Hormus.[EN#42] Formerly he believed
El-Aúníd to be Strabo's "Egra," the haven for the north; as
El-Haurá was for the south, and El-Wijh for the central regions.
Pliny (vi. 32) also mentions the "Tamudæi, with their towns of
Domata and Hegra, and the town of Badanatha." It is generally
remarked that "Egra" does not appear in Ptolemy's lists; yet one
of the best texts (Nobbe, Lipsia, 1843) reads <Greek> instead
of the "Negran" which Pirckheymerus (Lugduni, MDXXXV.) and others
placed in north lat. 26°.
My learned friend writes to me--"El-Wijh, on the coast of Arabia,
is opposite to Qoçayr (El-Kusayr), where Ælius Gallus landed his
troops. We know that Egra' is the name of a town in the
interior, and it was the constant habit to call the port after
the capital of the country, e.g., Arabia Emporium = Aden. We have
now only to inquire whether El-Wijh had claims to be considered
the seaport of El-Hijr." This difficulty is easily settled.
El-Wijh is still the main, indeed the only, harbour in South
Midian; and, during our stay there, a large caravan brought
goods, as will be seen, from the upper Wady Hamz.
Under the influence of the quarantine, El-Wijh, the town on the
northern bank of its cove, has blossomed into a hauteville,
dating from the last dozen years. The ancient basseville,
probably the site of many former settlements, is now used chiefly
for shops and stores. Another and a more pretentious mosque has
supplanted the little old Záwiyah ("chapel") with its barbarous
minaret, whose finial, a series of inverted crescents, might be
taken for a cross; while a Jámi' or "cathedral," begun in the
upper town, has stopped short through want of funds. Some of the
best houses now extend towards the northern point. As usual in
Arab settlements, they are long, tall claret-cases of coral-rag
and burnt lime; flat-roofed, whitewashed in front, and provided
with wooden doors and shutters. Lastly, on the slope still
appears the smoky coffee-shed that witnessed the memorable
encounter between its surly proprietor and "Saad the
Devil."[EN#43]
Stony ramps, stiff as those of Gibraltar, connect the low with
the high town, the cool breezy new settlement upon the crest of
the northern cliff, whose noble view of the Jebel Libn and the
palm-scattered Wady el-Wijh were formerly monopolized by the fort
and its round tower. This work, only sixty-five years old, now
stands so perilously near the undermined edge of the
rock-cornice, that some day it will come down with a run. It is
used by the garrison, and serves as a jail; but lately a Bedawi
prisoner, like a certain Mamlúk Bey, jumped down the precipitous
cove-face and effected his escape. Behind it are the "Doctors'
Quarters," empty and desolate, because the sanitary officers have
been removed. They are sheds of white-washed boarding, brought
from the Crimea, like those of the Suez Canal; and comfortably
distributed into Harem, kitchens, offices, and other necessaries.
The inhabitants of El-Wijh may number twelve hundred, without
including chance travellers and the few wretched Bedawin, Hutaym
and others, who pitch their black tents, like those of
Alexandrian "Ramleh," about and beyond the town. The people live
well; and the merchants are large and portly men, who evidently
thrive upon meat and rice. Flesh is retailed in the bazar, and
mutton is cheap, especially when the Bedawin are near; a fine
large sheep being dear at ten shillings. Water is exceptionally
abundant, even without the condenser's aid. The poorer classes
and animals are watered at the pits and the two regular wells
near the valley's mouth, half an hour's trudge from the town. The
wealthy are supplied by the inland fort, which we shall presently
visit: the distance going and coming would be about four slow
hours, and the skinful costs five Khurdah, or copper piastres =
three halfpence. The inner gardens grow a small quantity of green
meat: water-melons are brought from Yambá(?): opium and Hashísh
abound, but no spirits are for sale since the one Greek Bakkál,
or petty shopkeeper, "made tracks." He borrowed from a certain
Surúr Selámah, negro merchant and head miser, 150 napoleons, in
order to buy on commission certain bales of cotton shipwrecked up
coast; he left in pledge the keys of his miserable store, which,
by-the-by, la loi refuses to open; he was never seen again, and
poor rich Surur is in the depths of despair.
One of the small industries of El-Wijh is the pearl trade. Mr.
Clarke bought for £4 (twenty dollars) a specimen of good round
form but rather yellow colour; and presently refused £5 for it.
Those of pear-shape easily fetch thirty-six to forty dollars.
Turquoises set in sealing-wax are sold cheap by the returning
Persian pilgrims: the Zib el-Bahr ("Sea-wolf"), an Egyptian
cruiser, had carried off the best shortly before our arrival. The
people speak of an Akík ("carnelian") which, rubbed down in
vinegar, enters into the composition of a favourite philtre--we
could not, however, find any for sale. On our return, an Anezah
caravan of some ninety camels, driven by a hundred or so of
spearmen and matchlockmen, came in loaded with valuable Samn or
clarified butter: the fact suggests that the time has come for
establishing a Gumruk ("custom-house") at El-Wijh. Another source
of wealth will be El-Melláhah, "the salina," along which we shall
travel: every man who has a donkey may carry off what he pleases,
and sell to pilgrims and Bedawin the kilogramme for four piastres
copper (= one piastre currency = five farthings). This again
should be taken in hand by Government; and regular "salterns,"
like those of Triestine Capodistria, would greatly increase the
quantity. Nothing can be better than the quality except
rock-salt. There is another salina about one hour down the coast,
formed by a reef, near the Ras el-Ma'llah.
The afternoon of arrival was spent in receiving visits. The
Muháfiz or "civil governor," Hasan Bey, calls himself a
Circassian: he is a handsome old man, whose straight features
suggest the Greek slave, and who served in the Syrian campaigns
under Ibrahim Pasha. Forty years ago he left his home; he has
been here six years, and yet he knows absolutely nothing of the
interior. He ought to reside at the inland fort, but he prefers
the harbour-town; and he had not the common-sense to ride out
with us. He shows his zeal by inventing obstacles; for instance,
he suggests that the Bedawin should leave, during our journey,
hostages at the fort: this is wholly unnecessary, and means only
piastres. The Yuzbáshi, or "military commandant," Sid-Ahmed
Effendi, has charge of the forty-five regulars, half a company,
who garrison the post and outpost. The chief merchant, who
afterwards volunteered to be our travelling companion, is
Mohammed Shahádah, formerly Wakil ("agent") of the fort, a charge
now abolished by a pound-foolish policy: he is an honest and
intelligent, a charitable and companionable man, who has
travelled far and wide over the interior, and who knows the
tribes by heart. I strongly recommended him to his Highness the
Viceroy. His brothers, Bedawi and Ali Shahádah, are also
open-handed to the poor; very unlike their brother-in-law Surúr
Selámah, formerly a slave to the father of Mohammed Selámah whom
we had met at Zibá. The list of notables ends with the Sayyid
Ibrahim El-Mara'í and with the sturdy Abd el-Hakk, pearl and
general merchant. All recognized our friend the Sayyid, whom even
the "gutter-boys" saluted by name; and, although the Arab manner
is blunt and independent, all showed perfect civility. It is
needless to say that our late work, and our future plans, were
known to everybody at El-Wijh as well as to ourselves; and that
the tariffs of pay and hire, established in the North Country, at
once became the norm of the South.
Our favourite walk at old "Egra" was to the quarantine-ground and
the lighthouse. The situation of the town is by no means
satisfactory, and the heavy dews of April, wetting the streets,
cause frequent fevers. En revanche, nothing can be more healthy
or exhilarating than the air of the tall plateau to the south of
the cove. The quarantine-ground, with its grand view of the
mountains inland, ends seawards in the Pharos that commands an
horizon of blue water. The latter, according to the charts, is
one hundred and six feet above sea-level, and is theoretically
visible for fourteen miles; practice would reduce this radius to
ten, and the least haze to six and even five.
The lighthouse-charges are strongly objected to by the skippers
of Arab fishing-boats, although very small in their case.
Square-rigged vessels pay per ton twenty parahs (tariff): thus it
costs a ship of five hundred tons £2 10s. (Turkish). The keeper.
under Admiral M'Killop (Pasha), a young Greek named "Gurjí," as
"George" here sounds, is assisted by a Moslem lad, Mohammed
Effendi of Alexandria. They serve for three years, and they look
forward to the end of them. The former also superintends the
condensing establishment: this office is a sinecure, except
during the three months of pilgrim-passage. The machine can
distil eighteen tons per diem; and there is another
water-magazine, an old paddle-wheeler moored to the beach under
the town. Behind the establishment lies the pilgrim-cemetery.
frequented by hyenas that prowl around the lighthouse,
threatening the canine guard. I found a new use for this vermin's
brain: it is administered by the fair ones at El-Wijh to jealous
husbands, upon whom, they tell me, it acts as a sedative.
El-Wijh has been heard of in England as the prophylactic against
the infected Hejaz. It is admirably suited for quarantine
purposes, and it has been abolished, very unwisely, in favour of
"Tor harbour." The latter, inhabited by a ring of thievish
Syro-Greek traders; backed by a wretched wilderness, alternately
swampy and sandy, is comfortless to an extent calculated to make
the healthiest lose health. Moreover, its climate, says Professor
Palmer (p. 222), is very malarious: "owing to the low and marshy
nature of the ground, there is a great deal of miasma even in the
winter season." Finally, and worst of all, it is near enough to
Suez for infection to travel easily. A wealthy pilgrim has only
to pay a few gold pieces, his escape to the mountains is winked
at; and thence he travels or voyages comfortably to Suez and
Cairo. Even without such irregularities, the transmission of
contaminated clothing, or other articles, would suffice to spread
cholera, typhus, and smallpox. Tor is, in fact, an excellent
medium for focussing and for propagating contagious disease; and
its vicinity to Egypt, and consequently to Europe, suggests that
it should at once be abolished.
At first I lent ear to the popular statement at El-Wijh; namely,
that the visiting doctors and the resident sanitary officers
naturally prefer the shorter to the longer voyage, and the nearer
station to that further from home. Moreover, inasmuch as, if
inclined to be dishonest, they find more opportunities in the
north, it was their interest to transfer the establishment to
Tor. The local authorities, the people assured me, were induced
to report that the single fort-well had run dry; that the
condensers had proved a failure, and that the old
steamer-magazine, into which they had poured brine, was leaky and
inefficient. But what was my astonishment when, after return to
Cairo, I was told that the change had been strongly advocated by
the English Government?
The objections to El-Wijh are two, both equally invalid. The port
is dangerous, especially when westerly winds are blowing: ships
during the pilgrimage-season must bank their fires, ever ready to
run out. True; but it has been shown that Sharm Dumayghah, the
best of its kind, lies only thirty knots to the north. The
second, want of water, or of good water, is even less cogent. We
have seen that the seaboard wells supply the poorer classes and
animals; and we shall presently see the Fort-wells, which, in
their day, have watered caravans containing twenty to thirty
thousand thirsty men and beasts. So far from the condensers being
a failure, the tank still holds about twenty tons of distilled
water, although it gives drink to some thirty mouths composing
the establishment. Finally, the old steamer has done its duty
well, and, like the proverbial Marine, is still ready to do its
duty again.[EN#44]
Thus the expense of laying out the quarantine-ground at El-Wijh
has been pitifully wasted. That, however, is a very small matter;
the neglect of choosing a proper position is serious, even
ominous. Unlike Tor, nothing can be healthier or freer from fever
than the pilgrims' plateau. From El-Wijh, too, escape is
hopeless: the richest would not give a piastre to levant;
because, if a solitary traveller left the caravan, a Bedawi
bullet would soon prevail on him to stop. This, then, should be
the first long halt for the "compromised" travelling northwards.
When contagious disease has completely disappeared, the second
precautionary delay might be either at Tor or, better still, at
the "Wells of Moses" (Uyun Músá), near the head of the Suez
Gulf: here sanitary conditions are far more favourable; and here
supplies, including medical comforts, would be cheaper as well as
more abundant. Briefly, it is my conviction that, under present
circumstances, "Tor" is a standing danger, not only to Egypt, but
to universal Europe.
The coast about El-Wijh is famed for shells; the numerous reefs
and shoals favouring the development of the molluscs. We were
promised a heavy haul by the citizens, who, however, contented
themselves with picking up the washed-out specimens found
everywhere on the shore: unfortunately we had no time to
superintend the work. A caseful was submitted to the British
Museum, and a few proved interesting on account of their
locality. The list printed at the end of this chapter was kindly
supplied to me by Mr. Edgar A. Smith, superintendent of the
Conchological Department.
I will conclude this chapter with a short notice the Hutaym or
Hitaym, a people extremely interesting to me. They are known to
travellers only as a low caste. Wellsted (II. xii.) tells us that
the "Huteimi," whom he would make the descendants of the
Ichthyophagi described by Diodorus Siculus and other classics,
are noticed by several Arabian authorities. "In one, the Kitab
el-Mush Serif[EN#45] (Musharrif?), they are styled Hooteïn,' the
descendants of Hooter,' a servant of Moses." He also relates a
legend that the Apostle of Allah pronounced them polluted,
because they ate the flesh of dogs. Others declare that they
opposed Mohammed when he was rebuilding the Ka'bah; and thereby
drew upon themselves the curse that they should be held the
"basest of the Arabs." These tales serve to prove one fact, the
antiquity of the race.
The Hutaym, meaning the "Broken" (tribe), hold, in Midian and
Egypt, the position of Pariahs, like the Akhdám "serviles", or
Helots, of Maskat and El-Yemen. No clan of pure Arabs will
intermarry with them; and when the Fellahs say, Tatahattim
(=tatamaskin or tatazalli), they mean, "Thou cringest, thou makest
thyself contemptible as a Hutaymi." Moreover, they must pay the
dishonouring Akháwat, or "brother-tax," to all the Bedawin
amongst whom they settle.
The Hutaym are scattered as they are numerous. They have
extended, probably in ancient times, to Upper Egypt, and occupy
parts of Nubia; about Sawákin they are an important clan. They
number few in the Sinaitic Peninsula and in Midian, but they
occupy the very heart of the Arabian Peninsula. Those settled on
Jebel Libn, we have seen, claim as their kinsman the legendary
Antar, who was probably a negro of the noble Semitic stock. A
few are camped about El-Wijh; and they become more important down
coast. In the eastern regions bordering upon Midian, they form
large and powerful bodies, such as the Nawámisah and the
Sharárát, whose numbers and bravery secure for them the respect
of their fighting equestrian neighbours, the Ruwalá-Anezah.
Like other Arabs, the Hutaym tribe is divided into a multitude of
clans, septs, and families, each under its own Shaykh. All are
Moslems, after the Desert pattern, a very rude and inchoate
article. Wellsted knew them by their remarkably broad chins: the
Bedawi recognize them by their look; by their peculiar accent,
and by the use of certain peculiar words, as Harr! when
donkey-driving. The men are unwashed and filthy; the women walk
abroad unveiled, and never refuse themselves, I am told, to the
higher blood.
The Arabs of Midian always compare the Hutaym with the Ghagar
(Ghajar) or Gypsies of Egypt; and this is the point which gives
the outcasts a passing interest. I have not yet had an
opportunity of carefully studying the race; nor can I say whether
it shows any traces of skill in metal-working. Meanwhile, we must
inquire whether these Helots, now so dispersed, are not old
immigrants of Indian descent, who have lost their Aryan language,
like the Egyptian Ghajar. In that case they would represent the
descendants of the wandering tribes who worked the most ancient
ateliers. Perhaps they may prove to be congeners of the men of
the Bronze Age, and of the earliest waves of Gypsy-immigration
into Europe.
NOTE.
A list of the shells collected by the second Khedivial Expedition
on the shore of Midian and the Gulf of Akabah, by Edgar A.
Smith, Esq., British Museum.
I. Gastropoda.
1. Conus textile, Linné.
2. Conus sumatrensis, Hwass.
3. Conus catus var., Hwass.
4. Conus larenatus, Hwass.
5. Conus hebræus, Linné.
6. Conus ividus(?), Hwass.
6a. Conus ceylanensis, Hwass.
7. Terebra maculata, Linné.
8. Terebra dimidiata, Linné.
9. Terebra consobrina, Deshayes.
10. Terebra (Impages) cærulescens, Lamarck.
11. Pleurotoma cingulifera, Lamarck.
11a. Murex tribulus, Linn.
12. Murex (Chicoreus) inflatus, Lamarck.
13. Cassidulus paradisiacus, Reeve.
14. Nassa coronata, Lamarck.
15. Nassa pulla, Linné.
16. Engina (Pusiostoma) mendicaria, Lamarck.
17. Cantharus (Tritonidea) sp. juv.
18. Purpura hippocastanum, Lamarck.
19. Sistrum arachnoides, Lamarck.
20. Sistrum fiscellum, Chemnitz.
21. Sistrum tuberculatum, Blainville.
22. Harpa solida, A. Adams.
23. Fasciolaria trapezium, Lamarck.
24. Turbinella cornigera, Lamarck.
25. Dolium (Malea) pomum, Linné.
26. Triton maculosus, Reeve.
27. Triton aquatilis, Reeve.
28. Triton (Persona) anus, Lamarck.
29. Natica (Polinices) mamilla, Linné.
30. Natica albula(?), Récluz.
31. Natica (Mamilla) melanostoma, Lamarck.
32. Solarium perspectivum, Linné.
33. Cypræa arabica, Linné.
34. Cypræa pantherina, Linné.
35. Cypræa camelopardalis, Perry.
36. Cypræa carneola, Linné.
37. Cypræa scurra, Chemnitz.
38. Cypræa erosa, Linné.
39. Cypræa tabescens(?), Solander.
40. Cypræa caurica, Linné.
41. Cypræa talpa, Linné.
41B. Cypraea lynx, Linné.
42. Cerithium tuberosum, Fabricius.
43. Turritella torulosa(?), Kiener.
44. Strombus tricornis, Lamarck.
45. Strombus gibberulus, Linné.
46. Strombus floridus, Lamarck.
47. Strombus fasciatus, Born.
48. Pterocera truncatum, Lamarck.
49. Planaxis breviculus, Deshayes.
50. Nerita marmorata, Reeve.
51. Nerita quadricolor, Gmelin.
52. Nerita rumphii Récluz.
53. Turbo petholatus, Linné.
54. Turbo chrysostoma var.(?), Linné.
55. Trochus (Pyramis) dentatus, Forskâl.
56. Trochus (Cardinalia) virgatus, Gmelin.
57. Trochus (Polydonta) sanguinolentus, Chemnitz.
58. Trochus (Clanculus) pharaonis, Linné.
59. Trochus (Monodonta) sp.
60. Patella variabilis(?), Krauss.
61. Chiton sp.
62. Bulla ampulla, Linné.
II. Conchifera
63. Dione florida, Lamarck.
64. Dione sp.
65. Tellina staurella, Lamarck.
66. Paphia glabrata, Gmelin.
67. Chama Ruppellii, Reeve.
68. Arca (Barbatia) sp.
68a Arca (Senilia) sp.
69. Cardium leucostoma, Born.
70. Venericardia Cumingii, Deshayes.
71. Modiola auriculata, Krauss.
72. Pectunculus lividus, Reeve.
73. Pectunculus pectenoides, Deshayes.
74. Avicula margaritifera, Linné.
75. Tridacna gigas, Linné.
Chapter XV.
The Southern Sulphur-hill--the Cruise to El-Haurá--Notes on the
Baliyy Tribe and the Volcanic Centres of North--Western Arabia.
On the day of our arrival at El-Wijh I sent a hurried letter of
invitation to Mohammed Afnán, Shaykh of the Baliyy tribe;
inviting him to visit the Expedition, and to bring with him
seventy camels and dromedaries. His tents being pitched at a
distance of three days' long march in the interior, I determined
not to waste a precious week at the end of the cold season; and
the party was once more divided. Anton, the Greek, was left as
storekeeper, with orders to pitch a camp, to collect as much
munition de bouche as possible, and to prepare for this year's
last journey into the interior. MM. Marie and Philipin, with
Lieutenant Yusuf, Cook Giorji, and Body-servant Ali Marie, were
directed to march along the shore southwards. After inspecting a
third Jebel el-Kibrít, they would bring back notices of the Wady
Hamz, near whose banks I had heard vague reports of a Gasr
(Kasr), "palace" or "castle," built by one Gurayyim Sa'íd.
Meanwhile, the rest of us would proceed in the Sinnár to
El-Haurá, a roundabout cruise of a hundred miles to the south.
M. Philipin lost time in shoeing very imperfectly his four mules;
and M. Marie, who could have set out with eight camels at any
moment, delayed moving till March 26th. The party was composed of
a single Básh-Buzúk from the fort, and two quarrymen: the Ras
Káfilah was young Shaykh Sulaymán bin Afnán--of whom more
presently--while his brother-in-law Hammád acted guide. At 6.40
a.m. they struck to the south-east of the town, and passed the
two brackish pits or wells, Bir el-Isma'íl and El-Sannúsi, which
supply the poor of the port. Thence crossing the broad Wady
el-Wijh, they reached, after a mile's ride, Wady Melláhah, or
"the salina." It is an oval, measuring some eighteen hundred
yards from north to south: the banks are padded with brown slush
frosted white; which, in places, "bogs" the donkeys and admits
men to the knee. Beyond it lie dazzling blocks of pure
crystallized salt; and the middle of the pond is open, tenanted
by ducks and waterfowl, and visited by doves and partridges. At
the lower or northern end, a short divide separates it from the
sea; and the waves, during the high westerly gales, run far
inland: it would be easy to open a regular communication between
the harbour and its saltern. The head is formed by the large Wady
Surrah, whose many feeders at times discharge heavy torrents. The
walls of the valley-mouth are marked, somewhat like the Hárr,
with caverned and corniced cliffs of white, canary-yellow, and
light-pink sandstone.
They then left to the right the long point Ras el-Ma'llah,
fronting Mardúnah Island. Here, as at El-Akabah and Makná, sweet
water springs from the salt sands of the shore; a freak of
drainage, a kind of "Irish bull" of Nature, so common upon the
dangerous Somali seaboard. The tract leads to the south-east,
never further from the shore than four or five miles, but
separated by rolling ground which hides the main. For the same
reason the travellers were unable to sight the immense
development of granite-embedded quartz, which lurks amongst the
hills to the inland or east, and which here subtends the whole
coast-line. They imagined themselves to be in a purely Secondary
formation of gypsum and conglomerates, cut by a succession of
Wady-beds like the section between El-Muwaylah and Aynúnah. Thus
they crossed the mouths of the watercourses, whose heads we shall
sight during the inland march, and whose mid-lengths we shall
pass when marching back to El-Wijh.
These exceedingly broad beds are divided, as usual, by long lines
of Nature-metalled ground. The first important feature is the
Wady Surrah, which falls into the Wady el-Wijh a little above the
harbour-pier: its proper and direct mouth, El-Gá'h (Ká'h), or
"the Hall," runs along-shore into the Melláhah. It drains the
Hamíratayn, or "Two Reds;" the Hamírat Surrah in the Rughám or
Secondary formation, and the granitic mass Hamírat el-Nabwah,
where the plutonic outbreaks begin. Amongst the number of
important formations are:--the Wady el-Miyáh, which has a large
salt-well near the sea, and down whose upper bed we shall travel
after leaving Umm el-Karáyát; the Wady el-Kurr, whose
acquaintance we shall make in the eastern region; and the Wady
el-Argah (Arjah). The latter is the most interesting. Near its
head we shall find knots of ruins, and the quartz-reef
Abá'l-Marú; while lower down the bed, on the north-east side of a
hill facing the valley, Lieutenant Yusuf came upon a rock
scrawled over with religious formulæ, Tawakkaltu al' Allah ("I
rely upon Allah"), and so forth, all in a comparatively modern
Arabic character. The inscriptions lie to the left of the shore
road, and to the right of the pilgrim-highway; thus showing that
miners, not passing travellers, have here left their mark.
After riding five hours and forty minutes (= seventeen miles) the
party reached the base of the third sulphur-hill discovered by
the Expedition on the coast of Midian. Also known as the Tuwayyil
el-Kibrít, the "Little-long (Ridge) of Brimstone," it appears
from afar a reddish pyramid rising about two miles inland of an
inlet, which is said to be safe navigation. Thus far it resembles
the Jibbah find: on the other hand, it is not plutonic, but
chalky like those of Makná and Sinai, the crystals being
similarly diffused throughout the matrix. In the adjoining hills
and cliffs the Secondaries and the conglomerates take all shades
of colour, marvellous to behold when the mirage raises to giant
heights the white coast-banks patched with pink, red, mauve, and
dark brown. Moreover, the quarries of mottled alabaster, which
the Ancients worked for constructions, still show themselves.
The travellers slept at the base of the Tuwayyil. Next morning M.
Philipin proceeded to collect specimens of the sulphur and of the
chalcedony-agate strewed over the plain, and here seen for the
first time. M. Marie and Lieutenant Yusuf rode on to the banks of
the Wady Hamz; and, after three hours (= nine miles), they came
upon the "Castle" and unexpectedly turned up trumps. I had
carelessly written for them the name of a ruin which all,
naturally enough, believed would prove to be one of the normal
barbarous Hawáwít. They brought back specimens of civilized
architecture; and these at once determined one of the objectives
of our next journey. The party returned to El-Wijh on the next
day, in the highest of spirits, after a successful trip of more
than fifty miles.
Meanwhile I steamed southwards, accompanied by the rest of the
party, including the Sayyid, Shaykh Furayj, and the ex-Wakíl,
Mohammed Shahádah, who is trusted by the Bedawin, and who brought
with him a guide of the Fawá'idah-Juhaynah, one Rájih ibn Ayid.
This fellow was by no means a fair specimen of his race: the
cynocephalous countenance, the cobweb beard, and the shifting,
treacherous eyes were exceptional; the bellowing voice and the
greed of gain were not. He had a free passage for himself, his
child, and eight sacks of rice, with the promise of a napoleon by
way of "bakhshísh;" yet he complained aloud that he had no meat
to break his fast at dawn--an Arab of pure blood would rather
have starved. He shirked answering questions concerning the
number of his tribe. "Many, many!" was all the information we
could get from him; and his Arabic wanted the pure pronunciation,
and the choice vocabulary, that usually distinguish the Juhayni
pilots. Arrived at his own shore, he refused to make arrangements
for disembarking his rice; he ordered, with bawling accents and
pointed stick, the sailors of the man-of-war to land it at the
place chosen by himself; and he bit his finger when informed that
a sound flogging was the normal result of such impudence.
We set out at 4.30 p.m. (March 24th); and steamed due west till
we had rounded the northern head of El-Raykhah, a long low island
which, lying west-south-west of El-Wijh, may act breakwater in
that direction. Then we went south-west, and passed to port the
white rocks of Mardu'nah Isle, which fronts the Ras el-Ma'llah,
capping the ugly reefs and shoals that forbid tall ships to hug
this section of the shore. It is described as a narrow ridge of
coralline, broken into pointed masses two to three hundred feet
high, whose cliffs and hollows form breeding-places for wild
pigeons: the unusually rugged appearance is explained by the fact
that here the "Jinns" amuse themselves with hurling rocks at one
another. Before night we had sighted the Ras Kurkumah, so called
from its "Curcuma" (turmeric) hue, the yellow point facing the
islet-tomb of Shaykh Marbat.[EN#46] Upon this part of the shore,
I was told, are extensive ruins as yet unvisited by Europeans,
the dangerous Juhaynah being the obstacle. To the south-east
towered tall and misty forms, the Gháts of the
Tihámat-Jahaníyyah. Northernmost, and prolonging the Libn, that
miniature Shárr, is the regular wall of the Jebel el-Ward; then
come the peaks and pinnacles of the Jibál el-Safhah; and lastly,
the twin blocks El-Rál, between which passes the Egyptian Hajj
when returning from El-Medínah. Faint resemblances of these
features sprawl, like huge caterpillars, over the Hydrographic
Chart, but all sprawl unnamed.
By way of extra precaution we stood to the south instead of the
south-east, thus lengthening to one hundred and twenty knots the
normal hundred (dir. geog. sixty-eight) separating El-Wijh from
the Jebel Hassáni. Moreover, we caught amidships a fine lumpy
sea, that threatened to roll the masts out of the stout old
corvette. As the Sinnár, which always reminded me of her
Majesty's steamship Zebra, is notably the steadiest ship in the
Egyptian navy, the captain was asked about his ballast. He
replied, "I have just taken command, but I don't think there is
any; the engine (El-iddah) is our Saburra"--evidently he had
never seen the hold. This state of things, which, combined with
open ports, foundered her Majesty's sailing frigate Eurydice,
appears the rule of the Egyptian war-navy. I commend the
consideration to English sailors.
The steering also was detestable; and the man at the wheel could
not see the waves--a sine quâ non to the mariner in these
latitudes, who "broaches to" whenever he can. A general remark:
The Egyptian sailor is first-rate in a Dahabiyyah (Nile-boat),
which he may capsize once in a generation; and ditto in a Red Sea
Sambúk, where he is also thoroughly at home. The same was the
case with the Sultan of Maskat's Arabo-English navy: the Arabs
and Sídís (negroes) were excellent at working their Mtepe-craft;
on frigates they were monkeys, poor copies of men. Our European
vessels are beyond and above the West Asiatic and the African. He
becomes at the best a kind of imitation Jack Tar. He will not, or
rather he cannot, take the necessary trouble, concentrate his
attention, fix his mind upon his "duties." He says "Inshallah;"
he relies upon Allah; and he prays five times a day, when he
should be giving or receiving orders. The younger generation of
officers, it is true, drinks wine, and does not indulge in
orisons whilst it should be working; but its efficiency is
impaired by the difficulties and delay in granting pensions. The
many grey beards, however carefully dyed, suggest an equipage de
vétérans.
The consequence of yawing and of running half-speed by night was
that we reached Jebel Hassáni just before noon, instead of eight
a.m., on the 25th. The island, whose profile slopes to the
south-eastward, is a long yellow-white ridge, a lump of coralline
four hundred feet high, bare and waterless in summer: yet it
feeds the Bedawi flocks at certain seasons. It is buttressed and
bluff to the south-west, whence the strongest winds blow; and it
is prolonged by a flat spit to the south-east, and by a long tail
of two vertebrae, a big and a little joint, trending north-west.
Thus it gives safe shelter from the Wester to Arab
barques;[EN#47] and still forms a landmark for those navigating
between Jeddah, Kusayr, and Suez. Its parallel runs a few miles
north of the Dædalus Light (north lat. 24° 55' 30") to the west;
and it lies a little south of El-Haurá on the coast, and of
El-Medínah, distant about one hundred and thirty direct miles in
the interior. If Ptolemy's latitudes are to be consulted, Jebel
Hassáni would be the Timagenes Island in north lat. 25° 40'; and
the corresponding Chersónesus Point is represented by the
important and well-marked projection "Abú Madd," which intercepts
the view to the south.
After rounding the southern spit, we turned to north-east and by
east, and passed, with a minimum of seven fathoms under keel,
between Hassáni the Giant and the dwarf Umm Sahr, a flat sandbank
hardly visible from the shore. This is the only good approach to
the secure and spacious bay that bore the southernmost Nabathæan
port-town: there are northern and north-western passages, but
both require skilful pilots; and every other adit, though
apparently open, is sealed by reefs and shoals. With the blue and
regular-lined curtain of Abú el-Ghurayr in front, stretching down
coast to Ras Abú Madd, we bent gradually round to the north-east
and east. We then left to starboard the settlement El-Amlij, a
long line of separate Ushash, the usual Ichthyophagan huts,
dull, dark-brown wigwams. They were apparently deserted; at
least, only two women appeared upon the shore, but sundry
Katírahs and canoes warned us that fishermen were about. We ran
for safety a mile and three-quarters north of the exposed Ras
el-Haurá; and at 1.30 p.m. (= twenty-one hours) we anchored, in
nine fathoms, under the Kutá'at el-Wazamah. The pea-green
shallows, which defended us to the north and south, had lately
given protection to the Khedivíyyah[EN#48] steamer El-Hidayyidah,
compelled by an accident to creep along-shore like a Sambúk.
El-Haura' is not found either in the charts, or in Ptolemy's and
Sprenger's maps. It lies in north lat. 25° 6', about the same
parallel as El-Medínah; and in east long. (Gr.) 37° 13'
30".[EN#49] Wellsted (II. x.) heard of its ruins, but never saw
it: at least, he says, "In the vicinity of El-Haurá, according to
the Arabs, are some remains of buildings and columns, but our
stay on the coast was too limited to permit our examining the
spot." He is, however, greatly in error when he adds, "Near this
station the encampments of the Bili' (Baliyy) tribe to the
southward terminate, and those of the Joheïnah commence." As has
been seen, the frontier is nearly fifty miles further north. He
notices (chap. ix.) the "White Village" to differ with Vincent,
who would place it at El-Muwaylah; but he translates the word
(ii. 461) "the bright-eyed girl," instead of Albus (Vicus). He
quotes, however, the other name, Dár el-ishrin ("Twentieth
Station"), so called because the Cairo caravan formerly reached
it in a score of days, now reduced to nineteen. He seems,
finally, to have landed in order to inspect "a ruined town on the
main," and to have missed it.
According to Sprenger, the "White Village, or Castle," was not a
Thamudite, but a Nabathæan port. Here Æelius Gallius disembarked
his troops from Egypt. Strabo (xvi. c. 4, § 24) shows that
<Greek> was the starting-place of the caravans which, before
the Nile route to Alexandria was opened, carried to Petra the
merchandise of India and of Southern Arabia. Thence the imports
were passed on to Phoenicia and Egypt:--these pages have shown
why the journey would be preferred to the voyage northward. He is
confirmed by the "Periplus," which relates (chap. xix.) that
"from the port, and the castellum of Leukè Kóme, a road leads to
Petra, the capital of the Malicha (El-Malik), King of the
Nabathæans: it also serves as an emporium to those who bring
wares in smaller ships from Arabia (Mocha, Múza, and Aden). For
the latter reason, a Perceptor or toll-taker, who levies
twenty-five per cent. ad valorem, and a Hekatontarches
(centurion), with a garrison, are there stationed." As the Nabatæ
were vassals of Rome, and the whole region had been ceded to the
Romans (Byzantines) by a chief of the Beni Kudá' tribe, this
Yuzbáshi or "military commandant" was probably a Roman.
El-Haurá, like most of the ruined settlements upon this coast,
shows two distinct "quarters;" a harbour-town and what may be
called a country-town. The latter, whose site is by far the more
picturesque and amene, lay upon a long tongue of land backing the
slope of the sea-cliff, and attached to the low whitish hillocks
and pitons rising down south. It is now a luxuriant orchard of
emerald palms forming three large patches. Behind it swells a
dorsum of golden-yellow sand; and the horizon is closed by ranges
of hills and highlands, red and white, blue and black. Our eyes
are somewhat startled by the amount of bright and vivid green:
for some reason, unknown to us, the shore is far more riant than
the northern section; and the land might be called
quasi-agricultural. The whole coast seems to be broken with
verdant valleys; from the Wady el-Ayn, with its numerous
branches beautifying the north, to the Wady el-Daghaybaj in the
south, supplying water between its two paps.
On the evening of our arrival, we landed in a shallow bay bearing
north-north-east (30° mag.) from the roads where the corvette lay
at anchor; and walked a few yards inland to the left bank of the
Wady el-Samnah, the unimportant Fiumara draining low hills of the
same name. The loose sand is everywhere strewed with bits of
light porous lava, which comes from the Harrat el-Buhayr, a bluff
quoin to the north-west. About El-Haurá, I have said, the
volcanic formations, some sixty miles inland on the parallel of
El-Muwaylah, approach the coast.
We were guided to the ruins by the shouts of sundry Arabs
defending their harvest against a dangerous enemy, the
birds--rattles and scarecrows were anything but scarce.
Apparently the sand contains some fertilizing matter. A field of
dry and stunted Dukhn (Holcus Dochna), or small millet, nearly
covers the site of the old castle, whose outline, nearly buried
under the drift of ages, we could still trace. There are two
elevations, eastern and western; and a third lies to the north,
on the right side of the Wady Samnah. Scatters of the usual
fragments lay about, and the blocks of white coralline explained
the old names--Whitton, Whitworth, Whitby. The Bedawin preserve
the tradition that this was the most important part of the
settlement, which extended southwards nearly four miles. The
dwarf valley-mouth is still a roadstead, where two small craft
were anchored; and here, doubtless, was the corner of the hive
allotted to the community's working-bees. An old fibster, Hámid
el-Fá'idi, declared that he would bring us from the adjacent
hills a stone which, when heated, would pour forth metal like
water--and never appeared again. It was curious to remark how
completely the acute Furayj believed him, because both were Arabs
and brother Bedawin.
Next morning we set out, shortly after the red and dewy sunrise,
to visit the south end of Leukè Kóme. The party consisted of
twenty marines under an officer, besides our escort of ten negro
"Remingtons:" the land was open, and with these thirty I would
willingly have met three hundred Bedawin. Our repulse from the
Hismá had rankled in our memories, and we only wanted an
opportunity of showing fight. After rowing a mile we landed,
south-east of the anchorage (127° mag.), at a modern ruin, four
blocks of the rudest masonry, built as a store by a Yambú'
merchant. Unfortunately he had leased the ground from the
Fawá'idah clan, when the Hámidah claim it: the result was a
"faction fight"--and nothing done.
A few minutes' walking, over unpleasantly deep sand, placed us
upon the Hajj-road. It is paved, like the shore, with natural
slabs and ledges of soft modern sandstone; and, being foot-worn,
it makes a far better road than that which connects Alexandria
with Ramleh. The broad highway, scattered with quartz and basalt,
greenstone, and serpentine, crossed one of the many branches of
the Wady el-Ayn: in the rich and saltish sand grew crops of
Dukhn, and the Halfá-grass (Cynosures durus) of the Nile Valley,
with tamarisk-thickets, and tufts of fan-palm. On its left bank a
lamp-black vein of stark-naked basalt, capped by jagged blocks,
ran down to the sea, and formed a conspicuous buttress. The
guides spoke of a similar volcanic outcrop above Point Abú Madd
to the south; and of a third close to Yambá' harbour.
An hour of "stravaguing" walk showed us the first sign of the
ruins: wall-bases built with fine cement, crowning the summit of
a dwarf mound to the left of the road; well-worked scoriæ were
also scattered over its slopes. We now entered the date orchards
conspicuous from the sea: on both sides of us were fences of
thorn, tamped earth, and dry stone; young trees had been planted,
and, beyond the dates, large fields of Dukhn again gave an
agricultural touch to the scene. Flocks of sheep and goats were
being grazed all around us; and the owners made no difficulty, as
they would have done further north, in selling us half a dozen.
We then entered the Wady Haurá, where the caravan camps. It is a
cheery charming site for rich citizens, with its plain of rich
vegetation everywhere, say the natives, undermined by water; its
open sea-view to the west; its mound of clean yellow sand behind,
extending to the rocky horizon; and its pure fresh breezes
blowing from the Nejd with an indescribable sense of lightness
and health and enjoyment. In fact, it has all the accessories of
an "eligible position." At the third or southern palm patch, we
found the only public work which remains visible in the great
Nabathaean port. It was formerly a Káríz, the
underground-aqueduct so common in Persia; and it conducted
towards the sea the drainage of the Jebel Turham, a round knob
shown in the Chart, which bears south-east (121° mag.) from the
conduit-head. The line has long ago been broken down by the
Arabs; and the open waters still supply the Hajj-caravan. The
Ayn ("fountain") may be seen issuing from a dark cavern of white
coralline: the water then hides itself under several filled-up
pits, which represent the old air-holes; and, after flowing below
sundry natural arches, the remains of the conduit-ceiling, it
emerges in a deep fissure of saltish stone. From this part of its
banks we picked up fair specimens of saltpetre. The lower course
abounds in water-beetles, and is choked with three kinds of
aquatic weeds. After flowing a few yards it ends in a shallow
pool, surrounded by palms and paved with mud, which attracts
flights of snipes, sandpipers, and sandgrouse.
The turbulent "Dog's Sons"[EN#50] were mostly in the upper lands;
but a few wretched fellows, with swords, old spears, and
ridiculous matchlocks, assembled and managed to get up a squabble
about the right of leading strangers into "our country"
(Bilád-ná). The doughty Rájih ibn Ayid, who, mounted upon a mean
dromedary, affected to be chief guide, seemed to treat their
pretensions as a serious matter, when we laughed them to scorn.
He and all the other experts gave us wholly discouraging details
concerning a ruin represented to lie, some hours off, in the
nearest of the southern Harrah. According to them, the Kasr
el-Bint ("Maiden's Palace") was in the same condition as
El-Haurá; showing only a single pillar, perhaps the "columns" to
which Wellsted alludes. We could learn nothing concerning the
young person whose vague name it bears; except that she preferred
settling on the mainland, whereas her brother built a
corresponding castle upon the islet Jebel Hassáni.[EN#51] He is
locally called Warakat ibn Naufal, a venerated name in the
Fatrah, or "interval," between Jesus and Mohammed; he was the
uncle of Khadijah the widow, and he is popularly supposed to have
been a Christian. Here, as at other places, I inquired, at the
suggestion of a friend, but of course in vain, about the human
skeleton which Ibn Mujáwar, some six centuries ago, found
embedded in a rock near the sea-shore.
Such is the present condition of the once famous emporium Leukè
Kóme. We returned along the shore to embark; and, shortly after
noon, the old corvette of Crimean date again swung round on her
heel, and resumed her wanderings, this time northwards. The run
of eighteen hours and fifteen minutes was semicircular, but the
sea had subsided to a dead calm. The return to El-Wijh felt like
being restored to civilization; we actually had a salad of radish
leaves--delicious!
Our travel will now lie through the Baliyy country, and a few
words concerning this ancient and noble tribe may here be given.
Although they apparently retain no traditions of their origin,
they are known to genealogists as a branch of the Beni Kudá',
who, some fifteen centuries ago, emigrated from Southern Arabia,
and eventually exterminated the Thamudites. I have noted their
northern and southern frontiers: to the north-east they are
bounded by the vicious Ma'ázah and the Ruwalá-Anezahs, and to
the south-east by the Alaydán-Anezahs, under Shaykh Mutlak. Like
their northern nomadic neighbours, they have passed over to
Egypt, and even the guide-books speak of the "Billi" in the
valley of the Nile.
The Baliyy modestly rate their numbers at four thousand muskets,
by which understand four hundred. Yet they divide themselves into
a multitude of clans; our companion, the Wakíl Mohammed Shahádah,
can enumerate them by the score; and I wrote down the
twenty-three principal, which are common both to South Midian and
to Egypt. The chief Shaykh, Mohammed Afnán ibn Ammár, can reckon
backwards seven generations, beginning from a certain Shaykh
Sultán. About ten years ago he allowed the tribe to indulge in
such dangerous amusements as "cutting the road" and plundering
merchants. It is even asserted, privily, that they captured the
fort of El-Wijh, by bribing the Turkish Topji ("head gunner"), to
fire high--like the half-caste artilleryman who commanded the
Talpúr cannoneers at Sir Charles Napier's Battle of "Meeanee." A
regiment of eight hundred bayonets was sent from Egypt, and the
Shaykh was secured by a Hílah, or "stratagem;" that is, he was
promised safe conduct: he trusted himself like a fool, he was
seized, clapped in irons, and sent to jail in the Citadel of
Cairo. Here he remained some seven months in carcere duro, daily
expecting death, when Fate suddenly turned in his favour; he was
sent for by the authorities, pardoned for the past, cautioned for
the future, and restored to his home with a Murátibah ("regular
pension") of eight hundred piastres per mensem, besides rations
and raiment. The remedy was, like cutting off the nose of a
wicked Hindú wife, sharp but effective. Shaykh Afnan and his
tribe are now models of courtesy to strangers; and the traveller
must devoutly wish that every Shaykh in Arabia could be subjected
to the same discipline.
The Baliyy are a good study of an Arab tribe in the rough. The
Huwaytát, for example, know their way to Suez and to Cairo; they
have seen civilization; they have learned, after a fashion, the
outlandish ways of the Frank, the Fellah, and the Turk-fellow.
The Baliyy have to be taught all these rudiments. Cunning,
tricky, and "dodgy," as is all the Wild-Man-race, they lie like
the "childish-foolish," deceiving nobody but themselves. An
instance: Hours and miles are of course unknown to them, but they
began with us by affecting an extreme ignorance of comparative
distances; they could not, or rather they would not, adopt as a
standard the two short hours' march between the Port and the
inland Fort of El-Wijh. When, however, the trick was pointed out
to them, they at once threw it aside as useless. No pretext was
too flimsy to shorten a march or to cause a halt--the northerners
did the same, but with them we had a controlling power in the
shape of Shaykh Furayj. And like the citizens, they hate our
manner of travelling: they love to sit up and chat through half
the night; and to rise before dawn is an abomination to them.
At first their manners, gentle and pliable, contrast pleasantly
with the roughness of the half-breds, Huwaytát and Maknáwi, who
have many of the demerits of the Fellah, without acquiring the
merits of the Bedawi. As camel-men they were not difficult to
deal with; nor did they wrangle about their hire. Presently they
turned out to be "poor devils," badly armed, and not trained to
the use of matchlocks. Their want of energy in beating the bushes
and providing forage for their camels, compared with that of the
northerners, struck us strongly. On the other hand, they seem to
preserve a flavour of ancient civilization, which it is not easy
to describe; and they certainly have inherited the instincts and
tastes of the old metal-workers: they are a race of born miners.
That sharpest of tests, the experience of travel, at last
suggested to us that the Baliyy is too old a breed; and that its
blue blood wants a "racial baptism," a large infusion of
something newer and stronger.
Note on the "Harrahs" of Arabia.
The learned Dr. J. G. Wetzstein, in the appendix to his
"Reisebericht," etc.,[EN#52] records a conversation with A. von
Humboldt and Carl Ritter (April, 1859), respecting the specimens
which he had brought from the classical Trachonitis. Their
appearance led the latter to question whether the latest
eruptions of the Harrat Rájil, as it is called from an adjoining
valley, may not have taken place within the historic period; and
he referred to Psalm xviii. as seeming to note the occurrence,
during David's reign, of such a phenomenon in or near Palestine.
Humboldt deemed it probable that the Koranic legend (chap. iv.)
of the Abyssinian host under Abraha destroyed by a shower of
stones baked in hell-fire, referred, not to small-pox as is
generally supposed, but to an actual volcanic eruption in Arabia.
"With what interest would that great man have learnt," writes Dr.
Wetzstein, "that, as I was turning over the leaves of Yákút's
Geographical Lexicon,' only a few days ago, I found that the
Arabians knew of the existence of twenty-eight different volcanic
regions between Hauran and Bab el-Mandeb!" Later still, Dr. Otto
Loth published an elaborate paper "On the Volcanic Regions
(Harras) of Arabia, according to Yakut" (thirteenth century), in
which these eruptive sites are nearly all identified and
described.
"Among the numerous volcanoes thus found to exist within the
Arabian Peninsula," remarks Dr. Beke,[EN#53] "the only one
recorded as having been in activity within the historic period is
the Harrat-el-Nar (Fire Harra'), situate to the north-east of
Medina, in the neighbourhood of Khaibur (Khaybar), in about 26°.
30' north lat., and 40°. east long.; which, being traditionally
said to have been in an active state six centuries before
Mohammed, had actually an eruption in the time of the Prophet's
successor, Omar. To the north-west of this Fire Harra' lies that
known as the Harra of (the tribe of) Udhra' (Azra): again, to
the north of this is the Harra of Tabuk,' so called from the
station of that name on the Hajj-road from Damascus to Mekka, the
position of which is in about 28 deg. 15' north lat. and 37 deg.
east long.; and beyond this last, further to the north, and
consequently between it and the northernmost Harra of the Râdjil,
or Trachonitis, is the Harra Radjlâ. . . . Its designation, which
means rough,' pathless,' seems to indicate its peculiarly
rugged surface, and to lead to the inference that it is an
immense field of lava." He cites Irby and Mangles ("Travels in
Egypt," pp. 115, 116; reprinted by Murray, London, 1868),
describing their route between Kerak and Petra, on the east side
of the Ghor or Wady Arabah. "We noticed three dark volcanic
summits, very distinguishable from the land. The lava that had
streamed from them forms a sort of island in the plain."
Hence my late friend concluded that his "true Mount Sinai" was
the focus and origin of this volcanic region; and that the latter
was the "great and terrible wilderness" (Deut. i. 19) through
which the children of Israel were led on their way to mysterious
Kadesh-Barnea. Thus, too, he explained the "pillar of the cloud
by day," and the "pillow of fire by night" (Exod. xiii. 21).
Chapter XVI.
Our Last March--the Inland Fort--Ruins of the Gold-mines at Umm
El-Karáyát and Umm El-Haráb.
Again there were preliminaries to be settled before we could
leave El-Wijh for the interior. Shaykh Mohammed Afnán had been
marrying his son; and the tale of camels came in slowly enough.
On the day after our return from El-Haurá the venerable old man
paid us a visit aboard Sinnár. He declares that he was a boy when
the Wahhábi occupied Meccah and El-Medínah--that is, in 1803-4.
Yet he has wives and young children. His principal want is a pair
of new eyes; and the train of thought is, "I can't see when older
men than myself can." The same idea makes the African ever
attribute his sickness and death to sorcery: "Why should I lose
life when all around me are alive?"--and this is the idea that
lies at the bottom of all witch-persecution. Two pair of
spectacles were duly despatched to him after our return to Cairo;
and M. Lacaze there exhibited a capital sketch of the
picturesque, white-bearded face, with the straight features and
the nutcracker chin, deep buried in the folds of a huge red
shawl.
The son, Sulaymán, has been espoused to a cousin older, they say,
than himself; and he seems in no hurry to conclude the marriage.
He would willingly accompany us to Egypt, but he is the father's
favourite, and the old man can do nothing without him. A youth of
about eighteen, and even more handsome than his sire, he has the
pretty look, the sloping shoulders, the soft snaky movements, and
the quiet, subdued voice of a nice girl. During the first marches
he dressed in the finery of the Bedawin--the brilliant
head-kerchief, the parti-coloured sandals, and the loose cloak of
expensive broadcloth. The "toggery" looked out of place as the
toilettes of the Syrian ladies who called upon us in laces and
blue satins amid the ruins of Ba'lbek. Although all the hired
camels belonged, as is customary, to the tribe, not to the
Shaykh, the latter was accompanied by the usual "Hieland tail;"
by his two nephews, Hammád and Náji, the latter our head-guide,
addicted to reading, writing, and lying; by his favourite and
factotum, Abdullah, an African mulatto, Muwallid or "house-born;"
and by his Wakíl ("agent"), a big black slave, Abdullah Mohammed,
ready of tongue and readier of fist. Lastly, I must mention one
Audah Adayni, a Huwayti bred in the Baliyy country, a traveller
to Cairo, passing intelligent and surpassing unscrupulous.
Confidential for a consideration, he told all the secrets of his
employers, and it is my firm conviction that he was liberally
paid for so doing by both parties of wiseacres.
The immediate objective of this, our last march, was the Badá
plain, of which we first heard at Shaghab. I purposed
subsequently to collect specimens of a traditional coal-mine, to
which his Highness the Viceroy had attached the highest
importance. Then we would march upon the Móchoura of the
ancients, the mediaeval El-Marwah or Zú Marwah, the modern
Marwát-cum-Abá'l-Marú. Finally, we would return to El-Wijh, viâ
the Wady Hamz, inspecting both it and the ruins first sighted by
MM. Marie and Philipin.
On Friday, March 29th, I gave a breakfast, in the wooden
barracks, to the officers of the Sinnár and the officials of the
port. After which, some took their opium and went to sleep; while
others, it being church-day, went to Mosque. We ran out of
El-Wijh at 1.45 p.m., our convoy consisting of fifty-eight
camels, forty-four of which were loaded; seven were dromedaries,
and an equal number carried water. All had assured us that the
rains of the two past years had been wanting: last winter they
were scanty; this cold season they were nil. In truth, the land
was suffering terribly from drought. Our afternoon was hot and
unpleasant: about later March the Hawá el'-Uwwah, a violent
sand-raising norther, sets in and lasts through a fortnight. It
is succeeded, in early April, by the calms of El-Ni'ám ("the
Blessings"), which, divided into the Greater and the Less, last
forty days. After that the summer--Jehannum!
From the raised and metalled bank, upon which the Burj stands, we
descended to the broad mouth of the Wijh valley, draining the low
rolling blue-brown line of porphyritic hillocks on the east. To
our right lay the sparkling, glittering white plain and pool,
El-Melláhah, "the salina." After an hour and a quarter of sandy
and dusty ride, we passed through a "gate" formed by the
Hamírat-Wijh, the red range which, backing the gape of the valley
and apparently close behind the town, strikes the eye from the
offing. Here the gypsum, ruddy and mauve, white and black, was
underlaid by granite in rounded masses; and the Secondary
formation is succeeded by the usual red and green traps. Though
this part of our route lies in El-Tihámah, which, in fact, we
shall not leave, we are again threading the Wady Sadr of the
northern Shafah-range. A pleasant surprise was a fine vein of
sugary quartz trending north-south: at that period we little
suspected the sub-range to the south--perhaps also the
northern--of being, in places, one mighty mass of "white stone."
After covering six miles in an hour and three-quarters,
exaggerated by the guides to three, we suddenly sighted the
inland fort. Its approach is that of a large encamping-ground,
and such, indeed, it is; the Egyptian pilgrim-caravan here halts
on the fourth day from El-Muwaylah. The broken, untidy environs,
strewed with bones and rubbish, show low mounds that mean ovens;
stone rings, where tents are pitched; and the usual graves,
amongst which a reverend man, Shaykh Sálih, rests in a manner of
round tower. The site is, in one point at least, admirably
well-chosen, a kind of carrefour where four valleys and as many
roads meet; and thus it commands the mouths of all the gorges
leading inland.
Riding up to the fort, we were welcomed by its commandant,
Lieutenant Násir Ahmed, a peculiarly good specimen of his arm,
the infantry. His garrison consists of thirteen regulars, whose
clean uniforms show discipline, and whose hale and hearty
complexions testify to the excellence of the water and the air.
The men are paid annually by the treasurer of the Hajj-caravan.
They are supposed to be relieved after seven years; but they have
wives and families; and, like the British soldier in India half a
century ago, they are content to pass their working lives in
local service. The commandant showed us over his castle, which
was in excellent order; and brewed coffee, which we drank in the
cool porch of the single gate. He then led us about the
neighbourhood, and ended with inviting the Sáyyid, Furayj, and
the Wakíl Mohammed Shahádah to a copious feast.
The fort is the usual square, straight-curtained work of solid
masonry, with a circular bastion at each angle, and a huge arched
main-entrance in the western façade. It is, in fact, one of the
buildings that belong to the solid, sturdy age of Sultán Selim,
and of the Sinnán Pasha so well known about Damascus. An
inscription, with an illegible date, bears the name of Ahmed ibn
Taylún, the founder of the Taylunide dynasty, in A.D. 868--884:
this is another proof that the Mamlúk Soldans were lords of the
soil; and that, even in the ninth century, South Midian was a
province, or a dependency, of Egypt. Moreover, we picked up, to
the north-east of the work, old and well-treated scoriæ,
suggesting a more ancient settlement. Perhaps it was the locale
preferred by the proprietors of the slaves who worked the inner
mines, hidden from view and from the sea-breeze by the hills.
The castle being perfectly commanded by the heights behind, the
circular towers to the east have crests raised in that direction,
giving them a spoon-shape, and a peculiar aptitude for arresting
every cannon-ball coming from the west. The Bedawin, however,
have no great guns; and apparently this shelter has been added
since Wellsted's day.[EN#54] To the curtains are attached the
usual hovels, mat, palm-leaf, and walls of dry stone or mud,
which here, as at Palmyra, inevitably suggest wasp-nests. The
northern side is subtended by three large cisterns, all
strengthened at the inner angles by the stepped buttresses first
noticed when we were exploring Magháir Shu'ayb.
Up the valley and behind the fort, or to the north-east, lie the
palm-plantations, the small kitchen-gardens, and the far-famed
wells which, dug by Sultán Selim and repaired by Ibrahim Pasha in
A.D. 1524 (?), supply the Hajj-caravan. The sandy bed, disposed
east-west, is streaked, dotted, and barred with walls and
outcrops of the hardest greenstone porphyry; and those which run
north-south must arrest, like dykes, the flow of water
underground. One of these reefs is laboriously
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