influents by the dozen, falls into the Salbah (Thalbah) of Sharm Dumaghah. The Sirr, though still far from its mouth, is at least three miles broad; and the guides speak of it as the Asl el-Balawíyyah, or “Old Home of the Baliyy.” The view from its bed is varied and extensive. Behind us lies the Tihámat-Balawíyyah, the equivalent of the Gháts of North Midian, from the Zahd to the Shárr. The items are the little Jebel Antar, which, peeping over the Fiumara’s high left bank, is continued south by the lower Libn. The latter attaches to the higher Libn, whose triad of peaks, the central and highest built of three distinct castellations, flush and blush with a delicate pink-white cheek as it receives the hot caresses of the sun. We are now haunted by the Libn, which, like its big brother the Shárr, seems everywhere to accompany us.
Beyond the neutral ground, over which we are travelling, appear in front the pale-blue heights bordering the Wady Nejd to the north-west, and apparently connected with the Jebelayn el-Jayy in the far north (30° mag.). To the north-east the view is closed by the lumpy Jebel el-Kurr (the Qorh of Arabian geographers?); followed southwards by the peaked wall of the Jebel el-Ward, and by El-Safhah with its “Pins.” For the last eighteen miles we had seen no quartz, which, however, might have veined the underground-rock. The sole of the Sirr now appeared spread with snow, streaked and patched with thin white paint; the stones were mostly water-rolled, the discharge of valleys draining from afar. The ground was unpleasantly pitted and holed; the camels were weak with semi-starvation and the depressing south-wester; Lieutenant Amir put his dromedary to speed, resulting in a nose-flattening fall; and the Sayyid nearly followed suit.
This is our second day of Khamsin; yet on the northern slope of the great Fiumara we meet the cool land-wind. Either it or the sea-breeze generally sets in between seven and eight a.m., when the stony, sandy world has been thoroughly sunned. The short divide beyond the far bank of the Sirr is strewn with glittering mica-schist that takes the forms of tree-trunks and rotten wood; and with dark purple-blue fragments of clay-slate looking as if they had been worked. A counterslope of the same material, which makes excellent path-metal placed us in the Wady Rubayyigh (“the Little Rábigh” or “Green-grown Spring”), a short and proportionally very broad branch draining to the Sirr. Here large outcrops of quartz mingled with the clay slate. A few yards further it abutted upon a small gravelly basin with ruins and a huge white reef of “Mará,” which caused a precipitate dismounting. We had marched only four hours (= thirteen miles); but the loss of time has its compensations. Our Arabs, who consider this a fair day’s work, will now, in hopes of a halt, show us every strew of quartz and every fragment of wall. They congratulated us upon reaching a part of their country absolutely unvisited by Europeans.
The site of our discovery was the water-parting of the Wady Rubayyigh with the Wady Rábigh, both feeders of the Sirr; this to the north, that to the south. The ruins, known as Umm el-Haráb, “Mother of Desolation,” are the usual basement-lines: they lie in the utterly waterless basin, our camping-ground, stretching west of Mará Rubayyigh, the big white reef. This “Mother” bears nearly north of Umm el-Karáyát, in north lat. 26° 33′ 36″ (Ahmed Kaptán): her altitude was made upwards of a thousand feet above sea-level (aner. 28.92)
At Umm el-Haráb we saw for the first time an open mine, scientifically worked by the men of old. They chose a pear-shaped quartz-reef; the upper dome exposed, the converging slopes set and hidden in green trap to the east and west, and the invisible stalk extending downwards, probably deep into Earth’s bowels. They began by sinking, as we see from certain rounded apertures, a line of shafts striking north-north-east (45°–50° mag.) to south-south-west across the summit, which may measure one hundred and twenty yards. The intervening sections of the roof are now broken away; and a great yawning crevasse in the hill-top gives this saddleback of bare cream-coloured rock, spangled with white where recently fractured, the semblance of a “comb” or cresting reef.
We descended into this chasm, whose slope varies from a maximum of 45° to a minimum of 36° at the south. The depth apparently did not exceed thirty feet, making allowance for the filling up of centuries; but in places the hollow sound of the hammer suggested profounder pits and wells. I should greatly doubt that such shallow sinking as this could have worked out any beyond the upper part of the vein. Here it measures from six to eight feet in diameter, diminishing to four and a half and even three below. The sloping roof has been defended from collapse by large pillars of the rock, left standing as in the old Egyptian quarries; it shows the clumsy but efficient practice that preceded timbering. The material worked was evidently the pink-coloured and silver-scaled micaceous schist; but there was also a whitish quartz, rich in geodes and veinlets of dark-brown and black dust. The only inhabitants of the cave, bats and lizards (Gongylus ocellatus, L., etc.), did not prevent M. Lacaze making careful study of the excavation; the necessity of brown shadows, however, robs the scene of its charm, the delicate white which still shimmers under its transparent veil of shade. Similar features exist at El-Muwaylah and El-Aujah, in the wilderness of Kadesh: but those are latomiæ; these are gold mines.[EN#62]
Another sign of superior labour is shown by the quartz-crushing implements. Here they are of three kinds: coarse and rough basaltic lava for the first and rudest work; red granite and syenitic granite for the next stage; and, lastly, an admirable handmill of the compactest grey granite, smooth as glass and hard as iron. Around the pin-hole are raised and depressed concentric circles intended for ornament; and the “dishing” towards the rim is regular as if turned by machinery. We have seen as yet nothing like this work; nor shall we see anything superior to it. All are nether millstones, so carefully smashed that one can hardly help suspecting the kind of superstitious feeling which suggested iconoclasm. The venerable Shaykh Afnán showed a touching ignorance concerning the labours of the ancients; and, when lectured about the Nabat (Nabathæans), only exclaimed, “Allah, Allah!”
In the evening we ascended the porphyry hills to the north of the little camping-basin; and we found the heights striped by two large vertical bands of quartz. The eastern vein, like the Jebel el-Marú, has a north-east to south-west strike (45° mag.); the western runs east-west with a dip to south. From the summit we could see that the quartz-mountain, as usual an exaggerated vein, is hemmed in on both sides by outcrops and hills of trap, black, green, and yellow, which culminate eastward in the Jebel el-Guráb (Juráb). We had a fine bird’s-eye view of the Wady Rábigh, and of our next day’s march towards the Shafah Mountains: the former was white with quartz as if hail-strewn. Far beyond its right bank rose an Ash’hab, or “grey head,” which seemed to promise quartzose granite: it will prove an important feature. Before sleeping, I despatched to El-Wijh two boxes of micaceous schist and two bags of quartz, loads for a pair of camels.
Chapter XVII.
The March Continued to El-BadáDescription of the Plain Badais.
After the exciting scenes of the last three days, this stage was dull riding, and consequently, I fear, it will be dull reading as well as writing. We set off afoot betimes (5.10 a.m.) in the still warm morning that augured Khamsín: the third day was now telling heavily on man and beast. A walk of ten minutes led down the rough line of the little water-course draining the Marú Rubayyigh to the Wady Rábigh. At a re-entering angle of the junction, a shallow pit was sunk; the sand became moist and red, and presently it was underlaid by a rubble of porphyritic trap. Nothing more!
We then crossed the Wady Rábigh, another of the short broad valleys which distinguish this section of South Midian. The bed sides, especially the right, are heaps and mounds of snowy quartz, with glittering crowns of block and boulder: all prove to be veins in the grey granite, whose large coarse elements are decomposed by weather. The dark and rusty walls of the valley also discharge the white stone in shunts and shoots: here and there they might be mistaken for Goz (“sand-banks”) heaped up by the wind, except that these are clad in thin vegetation, whereas the “Maru'” is mostly mother-naked. We halted here for rest and to examine these features: despite the Khamsín, the Great Gaster became querulous; hunger was now the chief complaint, and even the bon ordinaire had lost much of its attraction. A harmless snake was killed and bottled; its silver robe was beautifully banded with a line, pink as the circles of the “cobra coral,” which ran along the whole length of the back. It proved to be a new species; and Dr. Gunther named it Zamenis elegantissimus.
Beyond the Rábigh, we ascended a lateral valley, whence a low divide led to the Wady el-Bahrah (“of the Basin”), another feeder of the Sirr. It was also snow-white, and on the right of the path lay black heaps, Hawáwít, “ruins” not worth the delay of a visit. Then began a short up-slope with a longer counterslope, on which we met a party of Huwaytát, camel-men and foot-men going to buy grain at El-Wigh. Another apparition was a spear-man bestriding a bare-backed colt; after reconnoitering us for some time, he yielded to the temptations of curiosity. It afterwards struck us that, mounted on our mules, preceded and followed by the Shaykhs riding their dromedaries, we must have looked mighty like a party of prisoners being marched inland. The horseman was followed by a rough-coated, bear-eared hound of the kind described by Wellsted[EN#63] as “resembling the English mastiff”–he did not know how common is the beast further north. The Kalb gasúr (jasur) or “bold dog,” also called Kalb el-hámi, or “the hot” (tempered), is found even amongst the Bedawin to the east of the Suez Canal; but there the half-bred is more common than the whole-blood. It is trained to tend the flocks; it never barks, nor bites its charges; and it is said to work as well as the shepherd-dog of Europe.
The Wady Mulaybij shows fine specimens of mica dorí in the quartz-vein streaking the slate: it deceived all the caravan, save those who tested it with their daggers. The bed, after forming a basin, narrows to a sandy gut, smooth and pleasant riding; and, after crossing several valley-heads, the path debouches upon the Wady Abál-Gezaz. This “Father of Glass,” though a day and a half’s march from the sea, is even broader than the great Sirr to which it is tributary. Its line, which reminded us of the Dámah, is well marked by unusually fine vegetation: and the basin bears large clumps of fan-palm, scattered Daum-trees, the giant asclepiad El-Ushr,[EN#64] thickets of tamarisk and scatters of the wild castor-plant, whose use is unknown to the Arabs. Water wells up abundantly from a dozen shallow pits, old and new, in the sand of the southern or left bank. Here the flow is apparently arrested by a tall buttress of coarse granite, red with orthose, and sliced by a trap-dyke striking north-south.
Our day’s work had been only four slow hours; but we were compelled to await the caravan, which did not arrive till after noon. It had passed round by the Wady Rábigh, into and up the “Father of Glass;” in fact, it had described an easy semicircle; while we had ridden in a series of zigzags, over rough and difficult short cuts. A delay was also necessary for our mappers to connect this march with their itinerary of the central region. Already the Wady Mulaybij had shown us the familiar peak and dorsum of Jebel Raydán; and we had “chaffed” Furayj about his sudden return home. From our camp in the Abá’l-Gezáz, the Zigláb block of Shaghab bore nearly north (350° mag.); and the adjoining Jebel el-Aslah, also a blue cone on the horizon, rose about two degrees further north.
After the big mess-tent had been duly blown down, and the usual discipline had been administered for washing in the drinking-pool; we crossed to the left of the Wady by way of an evening stroll, and at once came upon an atelier of some importance. The guides seemed to ignore its existence, so we christened it Mashghal Alá’l-Gezáz. On the slope of a trap-hill facing the Wady el-Ghami’s, the southern valley which we had last crossed, stood a square of masonry scattered round with fragments of pottery, glass, and basalt. Below it, on the “mesopotamian” plain, lay the foundations of houses still showing their cemented floors. The lowlands and highlands around the settlement looked white-patched with mounds, veins, and scatters of quartz. The evening was stillness itself, broken only by the cries of the Katás, which are now nesting, as they flocked to drink; and the night was cool–a promise, and a false promise, that the Khamsín had ended on its usual third day.
The next morning (April 3rd) showed us El-Bada’, the whole march lying up the Wady Abá’l-Gezáz, which changes its name with every water. The early air was delightfully fresh and brisk, and the cattle stepped out as if walking were a pleasure: yet the Arabs declared that neither camels nor mules had found a full feed in the apparently luxuriant vegetation of the Fiumara-bed. The tract began badly over loose sandy soil, so honeycombed that neither man nor beast could tread safely: the Girdi (Jirdi), or “field rat,” is evidently nocturnal like the jerboa, during the whole journey we never saw a specimen of either. A yellow wolf was descried skulking among the bushes, and a fine large hare was shot; porcupine-quills were common, and we picked up the mummy of a little hedgehog. The birds were swift-winged hawks and owls, pigeons and ring-doves; crows again became common, and the water-wagtail was tame as the Brazilian thrush, João de Barros: it hopped about within a few feet of us, quite ignoring the presence of Frenchmen armed with murderous guns. I cannot discern the origin of the pseudo-Oriental legend which declares that the “crow of the wilderness” (raven) taught Cain to bury his brother by slaying a brother crow, and scraping a grave for it with beak and claw. The murderous bird then perched upon a palm-tree, whose branches, before erect, have ever drooped, and croaked the truth into Adam’s ear: hence it has ever been of evil augury to mankind. The hoopoe, which the French absurdly call coq de montagne, also trotted by the path-side without timidity; and the butcher-bird impudently reviewed the caravan from its vantage-ground, a commanding tree. The large swift shot screaming overhead; and the cries of the troops of Merops, with silver-lined wings, resembled those of the sand-grouse.
After some five miles the “Father of Glass” changed his name to Abú Daumah (of the “one Theban Palm”). Porphyritic trap lay on both sides of us. To the right rose the Jebel Ukbal, whose grey form (El-Ash’hab) we had seen from the heights above Umm el-Haráb: the whole range of four heads, forming the south-western rim of the Badá saucer, is known as El-Akábil. Below these blocks the Wady-sides were cut into buttresses of yellow clay, powdered white with Sabkh, or “impure salt.” Charred circlets in the sand showed where alkali had been burned: the ashes, packed in skins, are shipped at El-Wijh for Syria, where they serve to make soap. The Bedawin call it Aslah (Athlah); the Egyptians Ghassálah (“the washer”), because, when rubbed in the hands, its succulent shoots clean the skin. Camels eat it, whereas mules refuse it, unless half-starved. This plant apparently did not extend all up the Wady. The water, where there is any, swings under the left bank; an ample supply had been promised to us, with the implied condition that we should camp at this Mahattat el-Urbán (“Halting place of the Arabs”), after a marching day of two hours! Seeing that we rode on, the Baliyy declared that they had searched for the two principal pools, and that both were dry, or rather had been buried by the Bedawin. But, with characteristic futility, they had allowed me to overhear their conversation; and the word was passed to the soldiers, who at once filled themselves and their water-skins.
Hitherto we had been marching south of east. Presently, where the pretty green Wady el-Surám falls into the left bank, we turned a corner, and sighted in front, or to the north, the great plain of Badá. The block, El-Akábil, had projected a loop of some ten miles to be rounded, whereas a short cut across it would not have exceeded three. And now the Wady Abá Daumah abruptly changed formation. The red and green traps of the right side made way for grey granite, known by its rounded bulging blocks on the sides and summit, by its false stratification, by its veins of quartz that strewed the sand, and by its quaint weathering–one rock exactly resembled a sitting eagle; a second was a turtle, and a third showed a sphinx in the rough. The Badá plain is backed by a curtain so tall that we seemed, by a common optical delusion, to be descending when we were really ascending rapidly.
Anxiety to begin our studies of the spot made the ride across the basin, soled with rises comfortably metalled, and with falls of sand unpleasantly loose and honeycombed, appear very long. The palm-clump, where men camp, with its two date-trees towering over the rest, receded as it were. At last, after a total of four hours and forty-five minutes (= sixteen miles), we dismounted at the celebrated groves, just before the ugly Khamsín arose and made the world look dull, as though all its colours had been washed out.
The dates form a kind of square with a sharp triangle to the south, upon the left bank of the thalweg, which overflows them during floods. The enceinte is the normal Arab “snake-fence” of dry and barked branches, which imperfectly defends the nurseries of young trees and the plots of Khubbayzah (“edible mallows”) from the adjoining camping-place of bald yellow clay. The wells, inside and outside the enclosure, are nine; three stone-revetted, and the rest mere pits in the inchoate modern sandstone. The trees want thinning; the undergrowth is so dense as to be impenetrable; but the heads are all carefully trimmed, the first time we have seen such industry in Midian. The shade attracts vipers, chiefly the Echis: and I was startled by hearing the gay warble of the Bulbul–a nightingale in Arabia!
The next day was devoted to inspecting this far-famed site, with the following results. We have already seen a Bada’
a Badí’a
further north. We are now at a Badá
the conditions required by the centre and head-quarters of “Thamuditis.” The site of the Bújat Badá, “the Wide Plain of Badá,” as it is distinguished by the Arabs, represents, topographically speaking, a bulge in the Wady Nejd, before it becomes the Wady Abú Daumah, between the Shafah Mountains to the east and the Tihámah range seawards. The latitude is 26° 45′ 30″ = 0° 31′ 30″ north of El-Wijh [Footnote: Ahmed Kaptán’s observation of Polaris. The
in north lat. 25° 30′.]. From its centre, a little south of our camping-place, the Jebel Zigláb of Shaghab, distant, according to Yákút, one march, bears 32°, and the Aslah (Athlah) cone 30° (both mag.): it lies therefore south of Shuwák, with a little westing. The altitude is upwards of twelve hundred feet above sea-level (aner. 28.72). The size of the oval is about nine statute miles from north to south, where the main watercourse breaks; and twelve miles from east to west, giving an area of some 108 square miles. The general aspect of the basin suggests that of El-Haurá; the growth is richer than the northern, but not equal to that of the southern country. The ruins belong to the Magháir Shu’ayb category, and the guides compare the Hawáwít with those of Madáin Sálih.
Such is the great station on the Nabathæan overland highway between Leukè’ Kóme and Petra; the commercial and industrial, the agricultural and mineral centre, which the Greeks called
The rolling plain is floored with grey granite, underlying sandstones not unlike coral-rag, and still in course of formation. Through this crust outcrop curious hillocks, or rather piles of hard, red, and iron-revetted rock, with a white or a rusty fracture–these are the characteristics of the basin. The lower levels are furrowed with their threads of sand, beds of rain-torrents discharged from the mountains; and each is edged by brighter growths of thorn and fan-palm. The fattening Salíb grass is scattered about the water; the large sorrel hugs the Fiumara-sides; the hardy Aushaz-thorn (Lycium), spangled with white bloom and red currants, which the Arabs say taste like grapes, affects the drier levels; and Tanzubs, almost all timber when old, become trees as large as the Jujube.
The Bújat is everywhere set in a regular rim of mountains. The Shafah curtain to the north is fretted with a number of peaks, called as usual after their Wadys;[EN#66] the west is open with a great slope, the Wady Manab, whose breadth is broken only by the “Magráh” Naza’án, a remarkable saddleback with reclining cantle. It is distant a ride of two hours, and we have now seen it for three marches. A little south of east yawns the gorge-mouth of the Wady Nejd, the upper course of the Abá’l-Gezáz: a jagged black curtain, the Jebel Dausal, forms its southern jaw. Further south the Tihámah Mountains begin with the peaky Jebel el-Kurr, another remarkable block which has long been in sight. Its neighbour is the bluff-headed Jebel el-Wásil of Marwát; whilst the trap-blocks, already mentioned as the Jibál el-Akábil, finish the circle.
The better to understand the shape of the ruins, we will ascend the irregular block which rises a few furlongs to the north-east of the palm-orchard. It has only three names: Araygat Badá (“Veinlet of Badá”); Zeba’yat Badá, “the Low-lying (Hill) of Badá;” and Shahíb el-Búm, “the Ash-coloured (Hill) of the Owl.” I will prefer the latter, as we actually sighted one of those dear birds on its western flank. It is an outcrop of grey granite, pigeon-holed by weather, and veined by a variety of dykes. Here we find greenstone breccia’d with the blackest hornblende; there huge filons of hard, red, heat-altered clays, faced with iron, whilst the fracture is white as trachyte; and there filets of quartz, traversing large curtains and sheets of light-coloured argils. This was evidently the main quarry: the sides still show signs of made zigzags; and the red blocks and boulders, all round the hill, bear the prayers and pious ejaculations of the Faithful. The characters range between square Kufic, hardly antedating four centuries, and the cursive form of our day. Some are merely scraped; others are deeply and laboriously cut in the hard material, a work more appropriate for the miner than for the passing pilgrim.
From the ruined look-out on the summit the shape of the city shows a highly irregular triangle of nine facets, forming an apex at the east end of our “Owl’s Hill:” the rises and falls of the ground have evidently determined the outline. The palm-orchard, whose total circumference is five hundred and thirty-six metres, occupies a small portion of its south-eastern corner; and our camping-place, further east, was evidently included in the ancient enceinte. The emplacement, extending along the eastern bank of the main watercourse, is marked by a number of mounds scattered over with broken glass and pottery of all kinds: no coins were found, but rude bits of metal, all verdigris, were picked up north of the palm-orchard. Here, too, lay queer fish-bones, with tusks and teeth, chiefly the jaws of Scaridæ and Sparidæ (seabreams).[EN#67]
Descending the Shahíb el-Búm, and passing a smaller black and white block appended to its south-south-western side, we now cross to the left bank of the main drain. Here lies the broken tank, the normal construction of El-Islam’s flourishing days. It is a square of thirty-two metres, whose faces and angles do not front the cardinal points. At each corner a flight of steps has been; two have almost disappeared, and the others are very shaky. The floor, originally stone-paved, is now a sheet of hard silt, growing trees and bush: dense Tanzub-clumps (Sodada decidua), with edible red berries, sheltering a couple of birds’-nests, suggested a comparison between the present and the past. At the east end is the Makhzan el-Máyah, or “smaller reservoir,” an oblong of 7.80 by 6.60 metres: the waggon-tilt roof has disappeared, and the fissures show brick within the ashlar. Along the eastern side are huge standing slabs of the coarse new sandstone with which the tank is lined: these may be remains of a conduit. Around the cistern lies a ruined graveyard, whose yawning graves supplied a couple of skulls. A broken line of masonry, probably an aqueduct, runs south-south-east (143° mag.) towards the palms: after two hundred metres all traces of it are lost.
The mining industry could not have been a prominent feature at Badá, or we should have found, as in Shaghab and Shuwák, furnaces and scoriæ. Yet about the tank we lit upon large scatters of spalled quartz, which, according to the Baliyy, is brought from the neighbouring mountains. Some of it was rosy outside: other specimens bore stains of copper; and others showed, when broken, little pyramids of ore. Tested in England, it proved to be pure lead, a metal so rare that some metallurgists have doubted its existence: the finds have been mostly confined to auriferous lands. The blow-pipe soon showed that it was not galena (the sulphide), but some of it contained traces of silver. Without knowing the rarity of these specimens, certain American officers at the Citadel, Cairo, compared them with the true galenas of the Dár-Forian mines, called Mahattat el-Risás (the “Deposit of Lead”), in the Wady Gotam, three days north-east of the capital El-Fashr. The African metal is rich. Large quantities, analyzed by Gastinel Bey, gave fifty per cent. of lead, and of silver fifty dollars per ton; but the distance from any possible market will reserve these diggings for the use of the future. Some were sanguine enough to propose smelting the metal at Khartúm, where Risás is ever in demand; and accordingly, for a time Dar-For was “run,” by a mild “ring,” against Midian.
The plain, I have said, is everywhere broken by piles of stone forming knobby hills. Leaving the outlined sphinx to the right, we ascended a second block, which rises on the west of the chief watercourse, further down than the “Owl’s Hill.” This Tell el-Ahmar (“Red Hill”), alias Ja’dat Badá (the “Curved Hill of Bada'”), is a quoin of grey granite bluff to the south-west. The north-eastern flank shows the normal revetment of ruddy and black heat-altered grit, which gives a red back to the pale-sided, drab-coloured heap. Over the easy ascent is run a zigzag path; half-way, up it passes piles of stone that denote building, and it abuts at the summit upon one of those “look-outs” which are essentially Arab.
Again, to the south-east of the palms is the Huzaybat Badá, the “(Isolated) Hillock of Badá,” a low ridge of naked grey granite, much scaled and pigeon-holed. On the plain to its north stretch regular lines of stone, probably the remnants of a work intended to defend the city’s eastern approach. South of the Huzaybah appear the usual signs of an atelier: these workshops are doubtless scattered all around the centre; but a week, not a day, would be required to examine them. On the very eve of our departure the guides pointed northwards (350° mag.) to a “Mountain of Marú,” called El-Arayfát, and declared that it contained a Zaríbat el-Nasárá, or “enclosure made by the Nazarenes.” I offered a liberal present for specimens; all, however, swore that the distance ranged from two to three hours of dromedary, and that no mounted messenger could catch us unless we halted the next day.
The Bedawin, still relegated to the upper country, were sending their scouts to ascertain if the water-supply was sufficient in Badá plain. The adjacent valleys were dotted with she-camels and their colts. The adult animal here sells for twelve to thirty dollars. During the cotton-full in Egypt, and the cotton-famine of the United States, they fetched as many pounds sterling at the frontier; and the traders of El-Wijh own to having made two hundred per cent., which we may safely double. I asked them why they did not import good stallions from the banks of the Nile; and the reply was that of the North Country–the experiment had ended in the death of the more civilized brutes. This is easily understood: the Baliyy camel seems to live on sand.
The camp was visited by a few Bedawi stragglers, and the reports of their immense numbers were simply absurd. The males were not to be distinguished, in costume and weapons, from their neighbours; and the “females” were all dark and dressed in amorphous blue shirts. At last came an old man and woman of the Huwaytát tribe, bringing for sale a quantity of liquefied butter. They asked a price which would have been dear on the seaboard; and naively confessed that they had taken us for pilgrims,–birds to be plucked. But sheep and goats were not to be found in the neighbourhood: yesterday we had failed to buy meat; and to-day the young Shaykh, Sulaymán, was compelled to mount his dromedary and ride afar in quest of it. The results were seven small sheep, which, lean with walking, cost eleven dollars; and all were slaughtered before they had time to put on fat.
During our stay a pitiable object, with a hide- bandaged lower leg, often limped past the tents; and, thinking the limb broken, I asked the history of the accident. Our hero, it appears, was a doughty personage, famed for valour, who had lately slipped into the Juhayni country with the laudable intention of “lifting” a camel. He had, indeed, “taken his sword, and went his way to rob and steal,” under the profound conviction that nothing could be more honourable–in case of success. He was driving off the booty, when its master sallied out to recover the stolen goods by force and by arms. Both bared their blades and exchanged cuts, when the Baliyy found that his old flamberge was too blunt to do damage. Consequently he had the worse of the affair; a slicing of the right hand forced him to drop his “silly sword.” He then closed with his adversary, who again proved himself the better man, throwing the assailant, and at the same time slashing open his left leg. The wounded man lay in the “bush” till he gathered strength to “dot and go one” homewards. Amongst these tribes the Diyat, or “blood-money,” reaches eight hundred dollars; consequently men will maim, but carefully avoid killing, one another.
The evening of our halt, with its lurid haze and its ominous brooding stillness, was distinguished by a storm, a regular Arab affair, consisting of dust by the ton to water by the drop. This infliction of the “fearful fiend, Samiel, fatal to caravans,” began in the west. A cloud of red sand advanced like a prairie-fire at headlong speed before the mighty rushing wind, whose damp breath smelt of rain; and presently the mountain-rim was veiled in brown and ruddy and purple earth-haze. A bow in the eastern sky strongly suggested, in the apparent absence of a shower, refraction by dust–if such thing be possible. We were disappointed, by the sinister wind, in our hopes of collecting a bottle of rain-water for the photographer; nor did the storm, though it had all the diffused violence of a wintry gale, materially alter the weather. The next two nights were brisk and cool, but the afternoons blew either the Khamsín (“south-wester”) or the Azyab (“south-easter”).
The only Bedawi tradition concerning the Bada’ plain is the following. Many centuries ago, some say before the Apostle, the Baliyy held the land, which was a valley of gardens, a foretaste of Irem; the people were happy as the martyrs of Paradise, and the date-trees numbered two thousand. The grove then belonged to a certain Ibn Mukarrib, who dwelt in it with his son and a slave, not caring to maintain a large guard of Arabs. Consequently he became on bad terms with the Ahámidah-Baliyy tribe, who began systematically to rob his orchard. At last one of a large plundering party said to him, “O Ibn Mukarrib! wilt thou sell this place of two thousand (trees), and not retreat (from thy bargain)?” He responded “Buy!” (i.e. make an offer). The other, taking off his sandal, exclaimed. “With this!” and the proprietor, in wrath, rejoined, “I have sold!”
Ibn Mukarrib then arose and went forth, with his son and the slave, to the place whence came the water (that fed the palms): this he closed up, and fared towards the north. One day it so happened that the three were sitting under the shade of a Marakh-tree and eating its berries. Quoth the sire to the son, “Say, which is the sweeter, the eating of the Marakh fruit or the dates of our orchard?” And the youth rejoined, “O my father! far sweeter is the eating of the fruit of our palm-yard;” when his sire at once arose and slew him with the sword (to wipe away the disgrace of such want of manliness).
Then Ibn Mukarrib turned to the slave, and asked him the question which he had asked of his son. Whereupon the slave replied in this quatrain:
“Eating wild grain in the house of respect; And not eating dates in the house of contempt: And walking in honour but a single day; And not sitting in disgrace for a thousand years!”
Ibn Mukarrib, pleased with these words, forthwith adopted the slave; both marched to the north and dwelt there till the end of their days. The palm-trees, deprived of irrigation, all died; and Bújat-Badá, the beautiful, became a wilderness. About twenty years ago, the wells were reopened and the dates were replanted. So much for the past: as for the future, we may safely predict that, unless occupied by a civilized people, the Badá plain will again see worse times. Nothing would be easier than to rebuild the town, and to prepare the basin for irrigation and cultivation; but destruction is more in the Bedawi line.
Chapter XVIII.
Coal a “Myth”–March to Marwát–Arrival at the Wady Hamz.
Before leaving Badá I was careful to make all manner of inquiries concerning stone-coal; and the guides confirmed the suspicions which had long suggested themselves. His Highness the Viceroy had laid great stress upon the search: the first question to me on return was whether the fuel had been found; and a shade of disappointment appeared when the answer distinctly declared it a myth.
This coal, it appears, is an old story. My learned friend Sprenger wrote to me (June 13, 1877): “It is likely that west of Marwa, on the way to Hawrá (which lies on the sea-shore), coal is found: I confess that the prospect of discovering much coal in Arabia does not appear to me very great; still it would be worth while to make inquiries.” Subsequently (December 8, 1877), he gave up all hopes of the pure mineral, but he still clave to bituminous schist. El-Mukaddasi (p. 103),[EN#68] treating of the marvels of the land, has the following passage unconnected with those which precede and succeed it:–“A fire arose between El-Marwat and El-Haurá, and it burned, even as charcoal (el-Fahm) burns.” Probably Sprenger had read, “and it (the stone) burned as charcoal burns,” suggesting that the houses and huts were built of inflammable material, like the bituminous schist of the Brazil; and that the Arabs were surprised to find them taking fire. Evidently, however, the text refers to an eruption in one of the many Harrahs or volcanic districts. El-Mukaddasi describes the “houses artful (farihín, alluding to the Thamúdites in the Koran, xxvi. 149), and made of admirable stone (alabaster?); over the doors were knots (Ukúd), and ornaments (Turúh), and carvings (Nukúsh).”
Landing at El-Wijh, I at once consulted our intelligent friend, the Wakíl Mohammed Shahádah. He had sent for a camel-load of the stuff, which, he declared, would not burn, although it had burned his money. He then travelled in person to the Jebel el-Muharrak (“Burnt Mountain”), five short marches inland from El-Badá plain, and behind its northern curtain, the Jibál el-Shafah. According to him, El-Muharrak is part of the great Harrah; and the unexplored Jaww, which lies north (?) of it, is a prolongation of the Hismá plateau, here belonging to the Balawíyyah or Baliyy-land. The mountain is tall and black, apparently consisting of the “coal.” Near its summit lies the Bir el-Shifá’ (“Well of Healing”), a pit of cold sulphur-water, excellent for the eyes; and generally a “Pool of Bethesda,” whither Arabs flock from afar. At Abá’l-Gezáz, Mohammed destroyed all our surviving hopes by picking up a black stone which, he declared, belonged to El-Muharrak. It was schist, with a natural fracture not unlike coal, and weathered into the semblance of wood: unfortunately it was hard as iron, and it did not contain an atom of bitumen.
At Badá old Shaykh Afnán, whose tents are now pitched one day ahead of us, was taken into consultation upon the subject. He confirmed these statements of the Wakíl, adding that the Shafah Mountains are a mere ridge, not the seaward walls of a plateau, and that the land east of them is exactly that which we have already traversed. He had bathed in the sulphur-water; he spoke of brimstone being picked up on the hill-flanks, and he had heard of El-Kohl (stibium, collyrium, antimony) being found about El-Muharrak.[EN#69]
These details, apparently authentic, did not tempt me to waste precious time upon El-Muharrak. I do not yet despair, as has been said, of finding coal in Arabia; but we must hardly expect volcanic ground to yield it.
Our preparations for a march southwards were made under difficulties. The Baliyy evidently like the prospect of some £6 per diem; and do not like the idea of approaching the frontier, where their camels may be stolen. Every silly, childish pretext was used to suggest delay. We ought not to move without seeing the “Nazarenes’ Ruin” at El-Arayfát. Again, I had sent a certain Salim, a cousin of the Shaykh, with orders for fresh supplies from El-Wijh: he was certain to miss us if we marched. Still again, old Afnán’s dromedary had a thorn in the foot–u. s. w.
Nevertheless, an order was given for the return march on April 5th.
No matter how philosophical the traveller may be, I defy him not to feel some emotion when, his Desert work being duly done, he throws his leg over the saddle, and turn the animal’s head homewards–towards London. Such was our pleasant predicament; for, though the détour would be considerable, and the delay still more so, I could distinguish the bourne at the far end of the very long perspective.
We were now in excellent marching order, not, however, including the mules, of which two had broken down with sore backs, and the others were breaking fast. The réveillé sounded at 3 to 3.30 p.m.; the “general” followed at four; and the start took place immediately afterwards. The camels are wretched animals, that work equally badly full and fasting: when hungry, they break their halters to graze along the path; and when gorged they are too lazy to go beyond a saunter of two miles an hour. Yet they can work well when pushed: the man Sa’lim came up with us on the evening of the fourth day, after a forced march of thirty-two hours.
We took the track which crosses the Bújat-Badá to the south-east. For a short way it was vilely rat-eaten; presently it issued upon good, hard, stony ground; and, after four miles, it entered the Wady el-Marwát. This gorge, marked by the Jebel Wásil, a round head to the north, is a commonplace affair of trap and white clay; broad, rough, and unpicturesque. The sole shows many piles of dry stone, ruins of “boxes,” in which the travelling Arab passes the night, whilst his camels are tethered outside. The watercourse heads in a Khuraytah, the usual rock-ladder; we reached it after eleven miles’ riding. Nájí, the sea-lawyer of the party, assured us that we had not finished a third of the way, when two-thirds would have been nearer the truth.
The Wady sides and head showed traces of hard work, especially where three veins of snowy quartz had been deeply cut into. The summit of the Col, some 2100 feet above sea-level, carried a fine reef of “Marú,” measuring eight feet at the widest, and trending 332° (mag.) Around it lay the usual barbarous ruins, mere basements, surrounded by spalled stone: from this place I carried off a portable Kufic inscription. The view down the regular and tree-dotted slope of the Wady el-Marwát, as far as the flats of Badá, was charming, an Argelèz without its over-verdure.
From the Col two roads lead to our day’s destination. The short cut to the right was reported stony: as most of our mules were casting their irons and falling lame, I avoided it by the advice of Furayj, thereby giving huge offence to old Afnán. We followed the long slope trending to the Wady el-Kurr, which drains the notable block of that name. Seeing the Wakíl, and the others in front, cutting over the root to prevent rounding a prodigiously long tongue-tip, I was on the qui vive for the normal dodge; and presently the mulatto Abdullah screamed out that the Nakb must be avoided, as it was all rock. We persisted and found the path almost as smooth as a main road. The object was to halt for the night at a neighbouring water-hole in the rocks; and, when their trick failed, the Baliyy with a naive infantine candour, talked and laughed over their failure, sans vergogne and within earshot.
Despite the many Zawábahs (“dust-devils”), this was one of our finest travelling days. After the usual ante-meridian halt, we pushed on down the valley, meeting only a few donkey-drivers. At 2.15 p.m. (seven hours = twenty miles and a half), we reached the beautiful Ayn el-Kurr, some ten direct miles east of the Wady Rábigh; and the caravan was only one hour behind us. This Wady is a great and important affluent of the Wady el-Miyáh already mentioned. The reach where we camped runs from north to south; and the “gate” of porphyritic trap, red, green, yellow, and white with clay, almost envelops the quartz-streaked granite. The walls are high enough to give shade between eight a.m. and 2.15 p.m.; and the level sole of the cleanest sand is dotted, near the right side, with holes and pools of the sweetest water. Here “green grow the rushes,” especially the big-headed Kasbá (Arundo donax); the yellow-tipped Namas or flags (Scirpus holoschænus) form a dense thicket; the Ushr, with its cork-like bark which makes the best tinder, is a tree, not a shrub; and there are large natural plantations of the saffron-flowered, tobacco-like Verbascum, the Arab’s Uzn el-Humár (“Donkey’s Ear”). Add scattered clusters of date-trees, domineering over clumps of fan-palm; and, lastly, marvellous to relate, a few hundred feet of greensward, of regular turf–a luxury not expected in North-Western Arabia–a paradise for frogs and toads (Bufo vulgaris), grasshoppers, and white pigeons; and you will sympathize with our enjoyment at the Ayn el-Kurr. In such a place extensive ruins of the “Old Ones” were to be expected. Apparently there is no trace of man beyond Wasm on the rocks; a few old Bedawi graves in a dwarf Wady inflowing from the west; a rude modern watercourse close above its mouth, and Arab fences round the trimmed dates and newly set palm shoots.
During the afternoon the Shaykhs came to us with very long faces. At this season, and as long as the Baliyy are in the Shafah uplands, the almost deserted frontier districts, which we are about to enter, suffer from the Gaum, or razzia, of the neighbouring Anezah and the Juhaynah;–the two tribes, however, not mixing. The bandits, numbering, they say, from fifty to sixty, mounted on horses and dromedaries, only aspire to plunder some poor devil-shepherd of a few camels, goats, and muttons. They never attack in rear; they always sleep at night, save when every moment is precious for “loot”-driving; and their weapons, which may be deadly in the narrows, are despicable in the open country.
I suspected at first that this was another “dodge” to enhance the services of our Arabs, but the amount of risk we were to run was soon found out by consulting Furayj. He said that we must march in rear of the caravan for a day or two; and that such attacks were possible, but only once in a hundred cases. There might have been treachery in camp; the Egyptian officers suggested that a Baliyy scout could have been sent on to announce the approach of a rich caravan. Accordingly, I ordered an evening review of our “Remingtons;” and chose a large mark purposely, that the Bedawi lookers-on might not have cause to scoff. The escort redeemed many a past lâche, by showing that their weapons had been kept bright and clean, and by firing neatly enough. The Baliyy, who had never seen a breech-loader, were delighted; but one of our party so disliked the smell of powder, that he almost quarrelled with me for bringing him into such imminent deadly risk. He was hardly to be blamed; his nerves had been terribly shaken by a viper killed in his tent.
Next morning (April 6th) saw the most unpleasant of our marches. The young Shaykh Sulaymán, accompanied by his cousin Sálim, set out in the dark as éclaireurs: they were supposed to lead eight or ten of the best matchlock-men, whereas I doubt whether the whole camp contained that total. Presently it appeared that they were alone, and the farce was hardly kept up through the next day. At 5.15 a.m. we followed them, marching militairement, as my friend Sefer Pasha had strongly advised at Cairo. It is no joke to follow starveling beasts whose best speed seldom attains two miles and a half per hour. However, the effect was excellent: never had there been so little straggling; never had the halting-places been reached in such good time and good order.
A pleasant surprise awaited us in the grandest display of quartz that we had yet seen. The descent of the Wady el-Kurr seemed to be as flat, stale, and profitless as possible, when “Mará” appeared on the left side in mounds, veins, and strews. Presently we turned south, and passed the brackish well, El-Hufayrah (“the Little Pit”), in a bay of the left bank, distant about eight miles from our last camp. Here the whole Wady, some two miles broad, was barred with quartz, in gravel of the same rock, and in veins which, protruding from the dark schist, suggested that it underlies the whole surface. Nothing more remarkable than the variety of forms and tints mingling in the mighty mass–the amorphous, the crystallized, the hyaline, the burnt; here mottled and banded, there plain red and pink, green and brown, slaty and chocolate, purple, kaolin-white; and, rarest of all, honeycomb-yellow. The richest part was at the Majrá el-Kabsh (“Divide of the Ram”), where we alighted and secured specimens.
From this point the Wady el-Kurr flows down the right side of its valley, and disappears to the west; while the far side of the Majrá shows the Wady Gámirah (Kámirah), another influent of the Wady el-Miyáh. Various minor divides led to the Wady el-Laylah, where ruins were spoken of by our confidant, Audah, although his information was discredited by the Shaykhs. Quartz-hills now appeared on either side, creamy-coated cones, each capped by its own sparkle whose brilliancy was set off by the gloomy traps which they sheeted and topped. In some places the material may have been the usual hard, white, heat-altered clay; but the valley-sole showed only the purest “Marú.” The height of several hills was nearly double that of the northern Jebel el-Abyaz; and the reef-crests were apparently unworked.
After the march had extended to seven hours (= 18 miles), there were loud complaints about its length, the venerable Afnán himself begging us to spare his camels–which, being interpreted, meant spoiling our pockets. I therefore gave orders to camp in the broad and open Wady Laylah. We were far from water, but the evening was pleasant, and the night was still more agreeable.
At five a.m. next day (April 7th) we rode up the Wady Laylah, which gave us another surprise, and an unexpected joy, in the shifting scenery of the Jibál el-Safhah. The “Mountains of the Plain,” so called because they start suddenly from a dead level, are a section of the Tihámat-Balawíyyah range; yet they are worthy links of a chain which boasts of a Shárr. Rising hard on our left, beyond the dull traps that hem in the Wadys, these blocks, especially the lower features, the mere foot-hills, assume every quaintest nuance of hue and form. The fawn-grey colour, here shining as if polished by “slickensides,” there dull and roughened by the rude touch of Time, is a neutral ground that takes all the tints with which sun and moon, mist and cloud, paint and glaze the world: changeable as the chameleon’s, the coating is never the same for two brief hours. The protean shape, seen in profile and foreshortened from the north or south, appears a block bristling with “Pins” and points, horns and beaks. Viewed from the east the range splits into a double line, whose ranks have never been “dressed” nor sized; whilst a diagonal prospect so alters their forms and relations that they apparently belong to another range.
The background, lying upon the most distant visible plane, is the white-streaked and regular wall of the Jebel el-Ward, which we have already seen from the sea. Its northern foot-ranges are the pale-white and jagged Afayr, whose utter isolation makes it interesting; and the low and long, the dark and dumpy Jebel Tufayyah. It is separated by a broad valley from its southern neighbour, the Jebel el-Ughlub, or El-Ghalab as some call it. This typical block consists chiefly of a monstrous “Parrot’s Beak” of granite, continued by a long dorsum to the south. Its outliers number four. These are, first, the Umm Natash, two sets of perpendicular buttresses pressed together like sausages or cigars. Then comes the Talát Muhajjah, a broken saddleback, whose cantle from the south-east appears split into a pair of steeple-like boulders–an architect of Alexander the Great’s day would have easily cut and trimmed them into such towers as the world has never seen. Follows the Umm el-Natákah, bristling like the fretful porcupine, and apparently disdaining to receive the foot of man; while the last item, the Jebel el-Khausilah, has outlines so thoroughly architectural that we seem to gaze upon a pile of building.
About five miles behind or south of El-Khausilah runs the Wady Hamz. Thus the two blocks, El-Ward and El-Ughlub, form the Safhah proper. The line is continued, after a considerable break, by the two blue and conical peaks in the Tihámat-Jahaníyyah, known as the Jebelayn el-Rál. They are divided and drained to the Wady Hamz by the broad Wady el-Sula’; and the latter is the short cut down which the Egyptian Hajj, returning northwards from El-Medínah, debouches upon the maritime plain of South Midian.
The Wady Laylah, draining both the Shafah and the Tihámah ranges, including the block El-Ward, assumes, as usual, various names: we shall follow it till it is received into the mighty arms of the Wady Hamz, some three miles from the sea. After riding eight hours, we sighted the long line of Daum-palms which announce the approach to El-Birkah, “the Tank.” Here the huge Fiumara, sweeping grandly from north-east to south-west, forms a charming narrow and a river-like run about a mile and a half long–phenomenal again in sun-scorched Arabia. The water, collecting under the masses of trap which wall in the left bank, flows down for some distance in threads, à ciel ouvert, and finally combines in a single large blue-green pool on the right side. A turquoise set in enamel of the brightest verdure, it attracts by its dense and shady beds of rushes a variety of water-fowl–one of our Bedawin killed a black-headed duck with a bullet, which spoilt it as a specimen. About the water-run are dwarf enclosures, and even water-melons were sown; unhappily the torrent came down and carried all away.
We halted near the upper spring at 8.20 a.m., after the usual accident which now occurred daily about that hour. On this occasion Lieutenant Yusuf’s shoe stuck in the stirrup when he was dismounting from an unsteady mule; the animal threw him, and he had a somewhat narrow escape from being dragged to death. Man and beast would have lingered long over the pleasures of watering and refection, but I forced them onwards at nine a.m., whilst the hot sun-rays were still tempered by the cool land-breeze. The threads of water and the wet ground extended some two kilometres beyond the Birkat. Further on was another fine “gate,” whose eastern or right jamb was the Jibál el-Tibgh, fronting the Wady M’jirmah. The narrows showed two Arab wells, with the usual platform of dry trunks that make a footing round the mouth. There was no break in the continuity of the quartz: the black trap enclosed, here sheets, there veins, and there almonds in puddings.
At the halting-place a “cerastes” (Echis carinata, Merr.), so called from the warty hollows over the eyes (?), was brought to me in a water-bag; the bearer transferred it to the spirit-bottle by neatly thrusting a packing-needle through the head. The pretty specimen of an amiable, and much oppressed, race did not show an atom of vice. I cannot conceive what has caused the absurd prejudice against snakes, even the most harmless. Perhaps we must trace it to the curious resemblance of the profile, with the flattened forehead, the steely bright eye, the formidable biting apparatus, and the vanishing chin, to the genus woman, species Lorette. It is hard to imagine that this little beast, which some one called a “Cleopatra’s hasp,” could be fatal: its small bag can hardly contain a couple of drops. Yet the vox populi is distinctly against me.
The Shaykhs were anxious to push on for another half-hour, where, they declared, a rain-hole is found in the next ravine, the Sha’b el-Kahafah. But we had been privily told of another further down the valley, at the Sha’b el-Hárr; and, although we much wanted a bottleful for photography, we determined to run the risk. The result is curious, showing how jealously water-secrets are kept in these lands. The next thing I heard was that the water had waxed salt; then it had dried up; and, lastly, it was in the best condition, the truth being that there was none at all. Consequently we were compelled to send back four camels and two cameleers from our next camping-ground to the Kahafah. Venerable Afnán made many a difficulty, and an uncommon favour, of risking the plundering of the dromedaries and the lives of his caterans by a razzia. The fellows set off after nightfall towards the upper ravine, distant some two hours’ slow march: they must there have had a pleasant, refreshing sleep; and they did not return, doubtless by order, till late next morning. This gave the Shaykhs a good opportunity of fearing greatly for the safety of their people, and of delaying our march as much as possible.
Resuming the road at 2.30 p.m., we entered the western prolongation of the Wady el-Birkah. Here it becomes the Wady Abá’l-Agág (Ajáj), and preserves that name till it anastomoses with the Hamz. There have been some wells in the bed; but all are now filled up, and water must be carried from El-Birkah. We camped at a noble reach, garnished with a mimic forest of old tamarisks, whose small voices, united in chorus, passably imitated the mighty murmur of the sea. Our day’s march had covered a score of miles; hard work, considering the condition of the mules.
After a splendid night, we set out London-wards at five a.m., April 8th, delayed, as has been said, by the politiké of the Shaykhs. Moreover, one of the party, whose motto should have been halt’s maul, had remarked that the camels appeared fewer than before–another reason for stopping to count them. Half an hour placed us at a lower and a grander carrefour, abounding in fuel and seducing with tamarisk-shade: its water is known as the Máyat el-Badí’ah. Presently the hilly encasement of the Wady el-Ajáj ended with El-Adrá, a red butte to the left, and the Jebel el-Yakhmúm on the right. This knob was copiously veined with quartz, of which a prodigious depôt, explored on the next day, exists in the heights behind it. The Wady now flares out; we have done with the Tihámah Mountains, and we are again in maritime South Midian.
Although we were standing some four hundred feet above the wassersspiegel, there was no view of the sea, and we had to cross a wave of ground before we pulled off our hats to Father Neptune, as he lay smiling in front of us. There was nothing monotonous in the scene. The mirage raised high in air the yellow mound of Ras Kurkumah (“Turmeric Head”), which bounded the water-line to the south. Nearer, but still far to the left, ran the high right bank of the Wady Hamz, sweeping with a great curve from north-east to west, till it stood athwart our path. Knobby hills were scattered over the plain; and on our right rose El-Juwayy, a black mound with white-sided and scarred head, whose peculiar shape, a crest upon a slope, showed us once more the familiar Secondary formation of North-Western Arabia. Thus the gypsum has been traced from the Sinaitic shore as far south as the Wady Hamz.
We rode sharply forwards, impatient to see the classical ruins, leaving the caravan to follow us. The Girdi (“sand-rat”) had ceased to burrow the banks; but the jerboa had made regular rabbit-warrens. At half-past seven we crossed a winding and broad-spreading track, the upper Hajj-road, by which the Egyptian Mahmal passes when returning from El-Medi’nah viâ the Wady Hamz. A few yards further on showed us a similar line, the route taken by the caravan when going to Meccah viâ Yambú’, now distant five marches. The two meet at the Wady Wafdíyyah, to the north-east of the Abá’l-Marú range, which we shall visit to-morrow.
Shortly after 10 a.m. we crossed the deepest vein of the Wady Hamz, urged the mules up the *stiff* left bank, and sprang from the saddle to enjoy a first view of the Gasr (Kasr) Gurayyim Sa’id.
Chapter XIX.
The Wady Hamz–the Classical Ruin–Abá’l-Marú, the Mine of “Marwah”–Return to El-Wijh–Résumé of the Southern Journey.
Before describing the Palace of Sa’íd the Brave, I must devote a few lines to a notice of the Wady Hamz. The Wady Hamz, which has been mentioned as the southern frontier of Egyptian Midian, and the northern limit of the Ottoman Hejaz, is the most notable feature of its kind upon the North-Western Arabian shore. Yet Wallin has unjustifiably described and inscribed it “Wady Nejd,” confusing it with a northern basin, whose mouth, the Salbah (Thalbah), we passed before reaching Sharm Dumayghah. He appears to identify it with the classical Wady el-Kura. Sprenger clean ignores the name, although he mentions its branches; and of course it is utterly neglected by the Hydrographic Chart. This main approach to the Arabian interior is not a fissure, like the vulgar Wadys, but rather an opening where the Gháts, or maritime chain, break to the north and south. Distant one long or two short marches from El-Wijh, its mouth is in north lat. 25° 55′; and it is said to head fifteen days inland, in fact beyond El-Medínah, towards which it curves with a south-easterly bend. It receives a multitude of important secondary valleys; amongst which is the Wady el-Uwaynid, universally so pronounced. I cannot help thinking that this is El-Aúníd of El-Mukaddasi, which El-Idrísí (erroneously?) throws into the sea opposite Nu’ma’n Island. If my conjecture prove true, we thus have a reason why this important line has been inexplicably neglected. Another branch is the Wady el-Is, Sprenger’s “Al-Ys” (pp. 28, 29), which he calls “a valley in the Juhaynah country,” and makes the northern boundary of that tribe.
Ethnologically considered, the lower Wady Hamz is now the southern boundary of the Balawíyyah (Baliyy country), and the northern limit of the Jahaníyyah, or Juhaynah-land: the latter is popularly described as stretching down coast to Wady Burmah, one march beyond Yambú’ (?). Higher up it belongs to the Alaydán-Anezahs, under Shaykh Mutlak–these were the Bedawin who, during our stay at the port, brought their caravan to El-Wijh. Both tribes are unsafe, and they will wax worse as they go south. Yet there is no difficulty in travelling up the Hamz, at least for those who can afford time and money to engage the escort of Shaykh Mutlak. A delay of twelve days to a fortnight would be necessary, and common prudence would suggest the normal precaution of detaining, as hostage in the seaboard settlement, one of his Alaydán cousins. Water is to be found the whole way, and the usual provisions are to be bought at certain places.
The following notes upon the ruins of the Wady Hamz were supplied to me by the Baliyy Bedawin and the citizens of El-Wijh. Six stages up the lower valley, whose direction lies nearly north-east, lead to El-Ilá, Wallin’s “Ela,” which belongs to the Anezah. Thence a short day, to the north with easting, places the traveller at Madáin (not Madyan nor Medínat) Sálih–“the cities of Sálih.” The site is described to be somewhat off the main valley, which is here broken by a Nakb (?); and those who have visited both declared that it exactly resembles Nabathæan Magháir Shu’ayb in extensive ruins and in catacombs caverning the hill-sides.
Also called El-Hijr, it is made by Sprenger (p. 20) the capital of Thamuditis. This province was the head-quarters of the giant race termed the “Sons of Anak” (Joshua xi. 21); the Thamudeni and Thamudæ of Agatharkides and Diodorus; the Tamudæi of Pliny; the Thamyditæ of Ptolemy; and the Arabian Tamúd (Thamúd), who, extinct before the origin of El-Islam, occupied the seaboard between El-Muwaylah and El-Wijh. Their great centre was the plain El-Badá; and they were destroyed by a terrible sound from heaven, the Beth-Kol of the Hebrews, after sinfully slaughtering the miraculously produced camel of El-Sálih, the Righteous Prophet (Koran, cap. vii.). The exploration of “Sálih’s cities” will be valuable if it lead to the collection of inscriptions sufficiently numerous to determine whether the Tamúd were Edomites, or kin to the Edomites; also which of the two races is the more ancient, the Horites of Idumæa or the Horites in El-Hijr.
And now to inspect the Gasr. The first sensation was one of surprise, of the mental state which gave rise to the Italian’s–
“Dear Columns, what do you here?
Not knowing, can’t say, Mynheer!'”
And this incongruous bit of Greece or Rome, in the Arabian wild, kept its mystery to the last: the more we looked at it, the less we could explain its presence. Not a line of inscription, not even a mason’s mark–all dark as the grave; deaf-dumb as “the olden gods.”
The site of the Gasr is in north lat. 25° 55′ 15″;[EN#70] and the centre of the Libn block bears from it 339° (mag.). It stands upon the very edge of its Wady’s left bank, a clifflet some twenty-five feet high, sloping inland with the usual dark metal disposed upon loose yellow sand. Thus it commands a glorious view of the tree-grown valley, or rather valleys, beneath it; and of the picturesque peaks of the Tihámat-Balawíyyah in the background. The distance from the sea is now a little over three miles–in ancient days it may have been much less.
The condition of the digging proves that the remains have not long been opened: the Baliyy state less than half a century ago; but exactly when or by whom is apparently unknown to them. Before that time the locale must have shown a mere tumulus, a mound somewhat larger than the many which pimple the raised valley-bank behind the building. A wall is said to have projected above ground, as at Uriconium near the Wrekin.[EN#71] This may have suggested excavation, besides supplying material for the Bedawi cemetery to the south-west. The torrent waters have swept away the whole of the northern wall, and the treasure-seeker has left his mark upon the interior. Columns and pilasters and bevelled stones have been hurled into the Wady below; the large pavement-slabs have been torn up and tossed about to a chaos; and the restless drifting of the loose yellow Desert-sand will soon bury it again in oblivion. The result of all such ruthless ruining was simply null. The imaginative Nájí declared, it is true, that a stone dog had been found; but this animal went the way of the “iron fish,” which all at El-Muwaylah asserted to have been dug up at El-Wijh–the latter place never having heard of it. Wallin (p. 316) was also told of a black dog which haunts the ruins of Karáyyá, and acts guardian to its hidden treasures. Years ago, when I visited the mouth of the Volta river on the Gold Coast, the negroes of Cape Coast Castle were pleased to report that I had unearthed a silver dog, at whose appearance my companion, Colonel de Ruvignes, and myself fell dead. But why always a dog? The “Palace” is a Roman building of pure style; whether temple or nymphæum, we had no means of ascertaining. The material is the Rughám or alabaster supplied by the Secondary formation; and this, as we saw, readily crumbles to a white powder when burnt. The people, who in such matters may be trusted, declare that the quarries are still open at Abú Makhárír, under the hills embosoming Abá’l-Marú. We should have been less surprised had the ruin been built of marble, which might have been transported from Egypt; but this careful and classical treatment of the common country stone, only added to the marvel.
It must have been a bright and brilliant bit of colouring in its best days–hence, possibly, the local tradition that the stone sweats oil. The whole building, from the pavement to the coping, notched to receive the roof-joists, is of alabaster, plain-white and streaked with ruddy, mauve, and dark bands, whose mottling gives the effect of marble. Perhaps in places the gypsum has been subjected to plutonic action; and we thought that the coloured was preferred to the clear for the bases of the columns. The exposed foundations of the eastern and western walls, where the torrent has washed away the northern enceinte, show that, after the fashion of ancient Egypt, sandstone slabs have been laid underground, the calcaire being reserved for the hypaethral part. The admirable hydraulic cement is here and there made to take the place of broken corners, and flaws have been remedied by carefully letting in small cubes of sound stone. There are also cramp-holes for metal which, of course, has been carried off by the Bedawin: the rusty stains suggest iron.
The building is square-shaped, as we see from the western wall, and it evidently faced eastward with 25° (mag.) of southing. This orientation, probably borrowed from the Jews, was not thoroughly adopted in Christendom till the early fifth century, when it became a mos. The southern wall, whose basement is perfect, shows everywhere a thickness of 0.95 centimetre, and a total length of 8 metres 30 centimetres. At 2 metres 87 centimetres from the south-western corner is a slightly raised surface, measuring in length 2 metres 15 centimetres. Mr. James Fergusson supposes that this projection, which directly fronts the eastern entrance, was the base of the niche intended for the image. On each side of the latter might have been a smaller colonette, which would account for the capital carried off by us to Egypt. Thus, adding 2 metres 87 centimetres for the northern end swept into the valley, we have a length of 7 metres 89 centimetres; and the additional half thickness of the east wall would bring it to a total of 8 metres 30 centimetres.
The shrine was not in antis, and the site hardly admits of a peristyle; besides which, excavations failed to find it. That it might have had a small external atrium is made probable by the peculiarity of the entrance. Two rounded pilasters, worked with the usual care inside, but left rough in other parts because they could not be seen, were engaged in the enceinte wall, measuring here, as elsewhere, 0.95 centimetre in thickness. Nothing remained of them but their bases, whose lower diameters were 0.95 centimetre, and the upper 0.65; the drums found elsewhere also measured 0.65. The interval between the lowest rings was 1 metre 63 centimetres; and this would give the measure of the doorway, here probably a parallelogram. Lying on the sand-slope to the north, a single capital showed signs of double brackets, although both have been broken off:[EN#72] the maximum diameter across the top was 0.60 centimetre, diminishing below to 0.50 and 0.44, whilst the height was 0.40. The encircling wall was probably adorned with pilasters measuring 0.62 centimetre below, 0.45 above, and 0.11 in height: they are not shown in the plan; and I leave experts to determine whether they supported the inside or the outside surface. Several stones, probably copings, are cut with three mortice-joints or joist-holes, each measuring 0.15 centimetre, at intervals of 0.14 to 0.15.
In the tossed and tumbled interior of this maison carrée the pavement-slabs, especially along the south-western side, appear in tolerable order and not much disturbed; whilst further east a long trench from north to south had been sunk by the treasure seeker. The breadth of the free passage is 1 metre 92 centimetres; and the disposal suggested an inner peristyle, forming an impluvium. Thus the cube could not have been a heroön or tomb. Four bases of columns, with a number of drums, lie in the heap of ruins, and in the torrent-bed six, of which we carried off four. They are much smaller than the pilasters of the entrance; the lower tori of the bases measure 0.60 centimetre in diameter, and 0.20 in height (to 0.90 and 0.25), while the drums are 0.45, instead of 0.65. It is an enormous apparatus to support what must have been a very light matter of a roof. The only specimen of a colonette-capital has an upper diameter of 0.26, a lower of 0.17, and a height of 0.16.
Although the Meccan Ka’bah is, as its name denotes, a “cube,” this square alabaster box did not give the impression of being either Arab or Nabathæan. The work is far too curiously and conscientiously done; the bases and drums, as the sundries carried to Cairo prove, look rather as if turned by machinery than chiselled in the usual way. I could not but conjecture that it belongs to the days of such Roman invasions as that of Ælius Gallus. Strabo[EN#73] tells us of his unfortunate friend and companion, that, on the return march, after destroying Negrán[EN#74] (Pliny, vi. 32), he arrived at Egra or Hegra (El-Wijh), where he must have delayed some time before he could embark “as much of his army as could be saved,” for the opposite African harbour, Myus Hormus. It is within the limits of probability that this historical personage[EN#75] might have built the Gasr, either for a shrine or for a nymphæum, a votive-offering to the Great Wady, which must have cheered his heart after so many days of “Desert country, with only a few watering-places.” Perhaps an investigation of the ruins at Ras Kurkumah and the remains of Madáin Sálih may throw some light upon the mystery. In our travel this bit of classical temple was unique.
Mr. Fergusson, whose authority in such matters will not readily be disputed, calls the building a small shrine; and determines that it can hardly be a tomb, as it is hypæthral. The only similar temple known to him is that of “Soueideh” (Suwaydah), in the Haurán (De Vogüé, “Syrie Centrale,” Plate IV.). The latter, which is Roman, and belonging to the days of Herod Augustus, has a peristyle here wanting: in other respects the resemblance is striking.
M. Lacaze photographed, under difficulties such as bad water and a most unpleasant drift of sand-dust, the interior of the building, the stones lying in the Wady below, and the various specimens which we carried off for the inspection of his Highness the Viceroy. Meanwhile we “pottered about,” making small discoveries. The exposed foundations of the north-western wall, where the slabs of grit rest upon the sands of the cliff, afforded signs of man in the shape of a jaw-bone, with teeth apparently modern; and above it, in the terreplein, we dug down upwards of a yard, without any result beyond unearthing a fine black scorpion. The adjoining Arab graveyard, adorned with the mutilated spoils of the classical building, gave two imperfect skulls and four fragments. We opened one of the many mounds that lie behind the Gasr, showing where most probably stood the ruined town; and we found the interior traversed by a crumbling wall of cut alabaster–regular excavation may some day yield important results. A little to the south-west lies a kind of ossuary, a tumulus slightly raised above the wavy level, and showing a central pit choked with camels’ bones: at least, we could find no other.
And here I was told the Arab legend by the Wakíl; who, openly deriding the Bedawi idea that the building could be a “Castle,” opined that it was a Kanísah, a “Christian or pagan place of worship.” Gurayyim Sa’íd, “Sa’íd the Brave,” was an African slave, belonging to an Arab Shaykh whose name is forgotten. One day it so happened that a razzia came to plunder his lord, when the black, whose strength and stature were equal to his courage and, let us add, his appetite, did more than his duty. Thus he obtained as a reward the promise of a bride, his master’s daughter. But when the day of danger was past, and the slave applied for the fair guerdon, the Shaykh traitorously refused to keep his word. The Brave, finding a fit opportunity, naturally enough carried off the girl to the mountains; solemnly thrashed every pursuing party; and, having established a “reign of terror,” came to the banks of the Wady Hamz, and built the “Palace” for himself and his wife. But his love for butcher’s-meat did not allow him to live happily ever after. As the land yielded little game, he took to sallying out every day and carrying off a camel, which in the evening he slew, and roasted, and ate, giving a small bit of it to his spouse. This extravagance of flesh-diet ended by scandalizing the whole country-side, till at last the owner of the plundered herds, Diyáb ibn Ghánim, one of the notables celebrated in the romance called Sírat Abu’ Zayd,[EN#76] assembled his merry men, attacked the Gurayyim, and slew him. Wa’ s’ salám!
Here Egypt ends. We have done our work–
“And now the hills stretch home.”
I must, however, beg the reader to tarry with me awhile. The next march to the north will show him what I verily believe to be the old gold-mine lying around El-Marwah. It acquires an especial interest from being the northernmost known to the mediaeval geographers.
El-Mukaddasi (vol. I. p. 101), in an article kindly copied by my friend, the Aulic Councillor, Alfred Von Kremer, says, “Between Yambú’ and El-Marwah are mines of gold;” adding (“Itinerary,” vol. i. p. 107) the following route directions: “And thou takest from El-Badr (the New Moon’)[EN#77] to El-Yambú’ two stages; thence to the Ras el-Ayn (?),[EN#78] one stage; again to the mine (subaudi, of gold), one stage; and, lastly, to El-Marwah, two stages. And thou takest from El-Badr to El-Jár[EN#79] one stage; thence to El-Jahfah (?), or to El-Yambu’, two stages each. And thou takest from El-Jiddah (Jedda) to El-Jár, or to El-Surrayn (?), four stages each. And thou takest from El-Yasrib (Jatrippa or El-Medínah) to El-Suwaydíyyah (?), or to Batn el-Nakhil (?), two stages each; and from El-Suwaydíyyah to El-Marwah, an equal distance (i.e. four marches); and from the Batn el-Nakhil to the mine of silver, a similar distance. And if thou seek the Jáddat Misr,[EN#80] then take from El-Marwah to El-Sukyá[EN#81] (?), and thence to Badá Ya’kúb,[EN#82] three marches; and thence to El-Aúníd, one march.” Hence Sprenger would place Zú’l-Marwah “four days from El-Hijr, on the western road to Medina;” alluding to the western (Syrian) road, now abandoned.
And now for our march. On the finest possible morning (April 9th), when the world was all ablaze with living light, I walked down the Wady Hamz. It has been abundantly supplied with water; in fact, the whole vein (thalweg) subtending the left bank would respond to tapping. The well El-Kusayr, just below the ruin, though at present closed, yielded till lately a large quantity: about half a mile to the westward is, or rather was, a saltish pit surrounded by four sweet. Almost all are now dry and filled up with fuel. A sharp trudge of three-quarters of an hour leads to the Bir el-Gurnah (Kurnah), the “Well of the Broad,” in a district of the same name, lying between the ruin and the shore. It is a great gash in the sandy bed: the taste of the turbid produce is distinctly sulphurous; and my old white mule, being dainty in her drink, steadfastly refused to touch it. The distinct accents of the Red Sea told us that we were not more than a mile from its marge.
We then struck north-east, over the salt maritime plain, till we hit the lower course of the Wady Umm Gilifayn (Jilifayn). It heads from the seaward base of the neighbouring hills; and its mouth forms a Marsá, or “anchorage-place,” for native craft. A little to the north stands the small pyramidal Tuwayyil el-Kibrít, the “little Sulphur Hill,” which had been carefully examined by MM. Marie and Philipin. A slow ride of eight miles placed us in a safe gorge draining a dull-looking, unpromising block. Here we at once found, and found in situ for the first time, the chalcedony which strews the seaboard-flat. This agate, of which amulets and signet-rings were and are still made, and which takes many varieties of tints, lies in veins mostly striking east-west; and varying in thickness from an inch to several feet. The sequence is grey granite below, the band of chalcedony, and above it a curious schistose gneiss-formation. The latter, composing the greater part of these hills, is striped dark-brown and yellow; and in places it looks exactly like rotten wood. The small specimens of chalcedony in my private collection were examined at Trieste, and one of them contained dendritic gold, visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately the engineer had neglected this most important rock, and only a few ounces of it, instead of as many tons, were brought back for analysis.
A short and easy ascent led to a little counter-slope, the Majrá Mujayrah (Mukayrah), whose whitening sides spoke of quartz. We rode down towards a granite island where the bed mouths into the broad Wady Mismáh, a feeder of the Wady Argah. Here, after some ten miles, the guide, Na’ji’, who thus far had been very misty in the matter of direction, suddenly halted and, in his showman style, pointed to the left bank of the watercourse, exclaiming, “Behold Abá’l-Marú!” (the “Father of Quartz”). It was another surprise, and our last, this snowy reef with jagged crest, at least 500 metres long, forming the finest display of an exposed filon we had as yet seen; but–the first glance told us that it had been worked.
We gave the rest of the day to studying and blasting the quartz-wall. It proved to be the normal vein in grey granite, running south-north and gradually falling towards the valley-plain. Here a small white outlier disappears below the surface, rising again in filets upon the further side. The dip is easterly: in this direction a huge strew of ore-mass and rubbish covers the slope which serves as base to the perpendicular reef. The Negro quartz, which must have formed half the thickness, had been carried bodily away. If anything be left for the moderns it is hidden underground: the stone, blasted in the little outlier, looked barren. Not the least curious part of this outcrop is the black thread of iron silicate which, broken in places, subtends it to the east: some specimens have geodes yielding brown powder, and venal cavities lined with botryoidal quartz of amethystine tinge. In other parts of the same hills we found, running along the “Mará,” single and double lines of this material, which looked uncommonly like slag.
The open Wady Mismáh showed, to the east of our camp, the ruins of a large settlement which has extended right across the bed: as the guides seemed to ignore its existence, we named it the Kharábat Abá’l-Marú. Some of the buildings had been on a large scale, and one square measured twenty yards. Here the peculiarity was the careful mining of a granitic hillock on the southern bank. The whole vein of Negro quartz had been cut out of three sides, leaving caves that simulated catacombs. Further west another excavation in the same kind of rock was probably the town-quarry. The two lieutenants were directed next morning to survey this place, and also a second ruin and reef reported to be found on the left bank, a little below camp.
We have now seen, lying within short distances, three several quartz-fields, known as–Marwah, “the single Place or Hill of Maú'” (quartz); Marwát, “the Places of Quartz;” and Abá’l-Marú, the “Father of Quartz;” not to speak of a Nakb Abú Marwah[EN#83] further north. The conclusion forced itself upon me that the name of the celebrated Arab mine Zú’l Marwah or El-Marwah, the more ancient
Thus El-Marwah would signify “the Place of Marú,” or “Quartz-land,” even as Ophir means “Red Land.” A reviewer of my first book on Midian objects to the latter derivation; as Seetzen, among others, has conclusively shown that Ophir, the true translation of which is riches,’ is to be looked for in Southern Arabia.” Connu! But I question the “true translation;” and, whilst owning that one of the Ophirs or “Red Lands” lay in the modern Yemen, somewhere between Sheba (Sabá) and Havilah (Khaulán), I see no reason for concluding that this was the only Ophir. Had it been a single large emporium on the Red Sea, which collected the produce of Arabia and the exports of India and of West Africa, the traditional site could hardly have escaped the notice of the inquiring Arabian geographers of our Middle Ages. The ruins of a port would have been found, and we should not be compelled theoretically to postulate its existence.
* * * * * *
And now nothing remained but to escape as quickly as possible from the ugly Wady Mismáh; with its violent, dusty wester, or sea-breeze, and its sun-glare which, reflected and reverberated by the quartz, burned the grass and made the trees resemble standing timber.
April 10th saw the last of our marches, a hurry back to the stable, a sauve qui peut. The camel-men, reckless of orders, began to load and to slip away shortly after midnight. Ali Marie, who, as usual, had lost his head, when ordered to enjoin silence gave the vain and vague direction, “Tell the Arabs to tell the camels not to make so much noise.” Even the bugler sounded the “general” of his own accord; and the mules, now become painfully intelligent, walked as if they knew themselves to be walking homewards. Our last stage lay over the upper skirts of the maritime plain which has already been noticed. At 10.15 am., after riding five hours and thirty minutes (= seventeen miles), we found ourselves once more upon the seaboard. Our kind host, Captain Hasan Bey, came to meet us in his gig: the quarter-deck had been dressed with flags, as for a ball; and before twelve bells struck, we had applied ourselves to an excellent breakfast in the gun-room of our old favourite, the Sinnár. The auspicious day of course ended with a fantasia.
Résumé of Our Last Journey.
We had left the Sharm Yáhárr on March 21st, and returned to it on April 13th; a total of twenty-four days. Our actual march through South Midian, which had lasted thirteen days (March 29–April 10), described a semicircle with El-Wijh about the middle of the chord. The length is represented by 170 miles in round numbers: as usual, this does not include the various offsets and the by-paths explored by the members; nor do the voyages to El-Wijh and El-Haurá, going and coming, figure in the line of route. The camels varied from fifty-eight to sixty-four, when specimens were forwarded to the harbour-town. The expenditure amounted to£92 13s., including pay and “bakhshísh” to the Baliyy Shaykhs, but not including our friends the Sayyid, Furayj, and the Wakíl Mohammed Shahádah.
This southern region differs essentially from the northern, which was twice visited, and which occupied us two months, mostly wasted. Had we known what we do now, I should have begun with the south, and should have devoted to it the greater part of our time. Both are essentially mining countries; but, whilst the section near Egypt preserves few traces of the miner, here we find the country carefully and conscientiously worked. The whole eastern counterslope of the outliers that project from the Ghát-section known as the mountains of the Tihámat-Balawíyyah, is one vast outcrop of quartz. The parallelogram between north lat. 26 degrees, including the mouth of the Wady Hamz, and north lat. 27°, which runs some fifteen miles north of the Badá plain, would form a Southern Grant, sufficiently large to be divided and subdivided as soon as judged advisable.
If the characteristics of North Midian (Madyan Proper) are its argentiferous, and especially its cupriferous ores, South Midian worked chiefly gold and silver, both metals being mentioned by the mediaeval geographers of Arabia. Free gold in paillettes was noticed by the Expedition in the micaceous schists veining the quartz, and in the chalcedony which parts the granite from the gneiss. The argentiferous Negro quartz everywhere abounds, and near the ruins of Badá lie strews of spalled “Marú,” each fragment showing its little block of pure lead. Saltpetre is plentiful, and a third “Sulphur hill” rises from the maritime plain north of the Wady Hamz.
The principal ruins and ateliers number five; these, beginning from the north, are the Umm el-Karáyát, the Umm el-Haráb, the Bújat-Badá, the Kharábat Abá’l-Marú, and the old Nabathean port, E1-Haurá. Amongst them is not included the gem of our discovery, the classical shrine, known as Gasr Gurayyim Sa’íd, nor the minor ateliers, El-Kubbah, Abá’l-Gezáz, and the remains upon the Marwát ridge. Good work was done by the Egyptian Staff-officers in surveying the fine harbour of El-Dumayghah, so well fitted as a refuge for pilgrim-ships when doing quarantine; and I venture upon recommending, to the English and Egyptian Governments, my remarks concerning the advisability of at once re-transferring the station to El-Wijh. It is now at Tor; and, as has been said, it forms a standing menace, not only to the Nile Valley, but to the whole of Europe.
Whilst abounding in wood, the Southern Country is not so well watered as are Central and Northern Midian On the other hand, the tenants, confined to the Baliyy tribe, with a few scatters of the despised Hutaym, are milder and more tractable than the Huwaytát. As I have remarked, they are of ancient strain, and they still conserve the instincts of their predecessors, or their forefathers, the old mining race. It will be necessary to defend them against the raids and incursions of the Juhaynah, or “Sons of Dogs,” who border upon them to the south, and from the Alaydán-Anezah to the south-east; but nothing would be easier than to come to terms with the respective Shaykhs. And the sooner we explore the Jaww, or sandstone region in the interior, with its adjacent “Harrahs,” the better for geography and, perhaps not less, for mineralogy. The great ruins of Madáin Sálih upon the Wady Hamz still, I repeat, await the discoverer.
Conclusion.
The next day saw us at El-Wijh, dispensing pay and “bakhshísh” to the companions of our Desert march; and shipping the men and mules, with the material collected during the southern journey. The venerable Shaykh Afnán and his Baliyy were not difficult to deal with; and they went their way homewards fully satisfied. We exchanged a friendly adieu, or rather an au revoir, with our excellent travelling companion, Mohammed Shahádah; and I expressed my sincere hopes to find him, at no distant time, governor of the restored Quarantine-station.
On the morning of April 12th we set out betimes, and anchored for the night in one of the snug bays of Jebel Nu’man. The next day placed us at the Sharm Yáhárr, where the process of general distribution happily ended. Here the final parting took place with the gallant companions of our four months’ travel. Shaykh Furayj, delighted with the gift, in addition to his pay, of a Styrian skean-dhu and an Austrian Werndl-carbine, at once set off to rejoin the tribe up-country; while the Sayyid steadfastly stayed with us to the last. These men had become our friends; and my sorrow at leaving them was softened only by the prospect of presently seeing them again.
Immediately after my return to Cairo I strongly recommended the Sayyid for promotion, in these words:–“First and foremost is the Sayyid Abd el-Rahím, the head of a noble family, settled for generations at El-Muwayláh, where he is now Kátib (accountant’) to the Fort. He knows thoroughly the whole Land of Midian; he is loved and respected by all the Arabs, and both he and his are devoted to the Government of your Highness. Evidently it would be advantageous to promote such a man to the post of governor of the place–a post which will presently become of high importance, and which is actually held by an old officer, almost bed-ridden.
“The second is Shaykh Mohammed Shahádah, of El-Wijh, a man of family and position; known far and wide, and made generally popular by his generous and charitable actions. He was formerly Wakíl, or agent,’ to the Fort el-Wijh, until that office was abolished. The port will presently have its custom-house; and I propose forwarding to her Britannic Majesty’s Government my notes upon the subject of the Quarantine-station, which has imprudently been transferred from Arabia to Tor, in the Sinaitic Peninsula. Meanwhile it would, I venture to suggest, be most advantageous if Mohammed Shahádah were named governor of his native place.”
The Expedition, in its urgent desire to return northwards, was not seconded by weather. Despite an ugly gale, the Sinnár boldly attempted giving the slip to Arabia on April 16th, but she was beaten back before she reached El-Muwaylah. After another stormy day, we again got up steam; and, fighting hard against adverse winds and waves, greatly to the distress of the unfortunate mules and gazelles, we reached Suez on April 20th.
At Suez my wife had been awaiting me for long weeks, preferring the simplicity of the Desert to the complex life of Cairo. Some delay was again necessary in order to telegraph our arrival, to apply for a special train, and to sort and pack in the travelling-cases our twenty-five tons of specimens. As often happens, the return to civilization was in nowise cheery. Everything seemed to go wrong. For instance, the Dragoman despatched to town from the New Docks in order to lay in certain comforts, such as beef and beer, prudently laid out the coin in a brand-new travelling suit intended for his own service. Such an apology for a dinner had not been seen during the last four months of wild travel–unpleasant when guests have been bidden to a feast! The night at the Docks, also, was a trifle mortuary, over-silent and tranquil: all hands, officers and men, who could not get leave to sleep ashore, simply took leave–I believe myself to have been for a time both captain and crew of the Sinnár. And, lastly, we heard that both our dog-companions, Juno and Páijí, had died of some canine epidemic.
The next day ended our halt at Suez, with visits to slop-shops and a general discussion of choppes. The old hotel, under the charge of Mr. and Mrs. Adams, had greatly improved by the “elimination” of the offensive Hindi element; and my old friends of a quarter-century’s standing received me with all their wonted heartiness. Sa’íd Bey was still a Bey, but none the less jovial and genial; Captain Ali Bey, who had commanded the Sinnár, was now acting commodore; and my only regret was having again missed Colonel Gordon (Pasha).
April 22nd convinced us that, even in these prosaic regions, our misadventures and accidents had not reached their fated end. A special train had been organized by Hanafi Effendi for eight a.m. About ten miles from Suez one of the third-class carriages began “running hot;” and, before we could dismount, the axle-box of a truck became a young Vesuvius in the matter of vomiting smoke. I ordered the driver, who was driving furiously, to make half speed; but even with this precaution there were sundry stoppages; and at the Naffíshah station, where my Bolognese acquaintances still throve, we could not be supplied with a change of “rolling-stock.” About Tell el-Kabír, the brake-van also waxed unsafely warm; but it reached Zagázig without developing more caloric. Briefly, we caught fire three times in one morning.
These accidents must always be expected, where spare carriages are placed for months upon sidings to become tinder in the sun; and where the cracks and crevices of the woodwork fill up with the silicious sand of the Desert, an admirable succedaneum for flint and steel. One consolation, however, remained to us: the Dragoman, brand-new clothes and all, was left behind at Suez. His last chef d’uvre of blundering has already been noticed[EN#84]–the barrel of Midianitish oysters sent to Admiral M’Killop (Pasha) had been so carelessly headed up, and so carefully turned topsy-turvy, that the result was, to use my friend’s words, they could be nosed from the half-way station. The “Kyrios” had probably passed a Bacchanalian night with his Hellenic friends, and he subsequently made act of presence at Cairo with a very British-looking black eye. His accident at Suez was a bit of “poetical justice,” which almost convinced one of the “moral government.”
A succulent breakfast à la fourchette, in the charming garden of our friend M. Vetter, of Zagázig, duly discussed, we again went “on board,” amusing the lookers-on by our naive enjoyment of the Nile-valley: they had not been in Arabia, and they found the “emerald-green” dusty and yellow. We reached Cairo at 5.30 p.m. More troubles! Ten minutes after arrival we found ourselves in possession, in sole charge of the gare. The train was loaded with Government property, officers, soldiers and escort, mules, boxes and bags of specimens whose collecting had cost money. Yet station-master, agent, and employés at once went their ways, declining even to show the room allotted to our goods, although a telegram from the railway authorities had advised me that one had been made ready. The assistant-agent, when at last hunted up, declared, before vanishing once more, that the porters for whom we applied were busy loading cotton, and that we must e’en do the best we could for ourselves. So the waggons were shunted and unloaded by their tenants, and the minerals were deposited under a kind of shed whose key was not forthcoming. We failed to find even a light, till the local train from Suez was announced; and, when it began whistling, the officials, who had returned like rats from their holes, gave us peremptory directions to shunt again. This time, however, I had the game in my hands; and replied by taking due precautions against being turned out.
At first the soldier-escort worked as well as could be expected; but the numbers fell off every quarter of an hour, till we were left with a very select party; the only recipients, by-the-by, of “bakhshísh.” The Sub-Lieutenant Mohammed Effendi mounted a donkey the moment he stepped out of the R.R. carriage; and, utterly disregarding so vexatious a frivolity as asking leave, rode off to his home at Torah. His example was followed by the Sergeant Mabrúk Awaz. And yet both these men had the impudence to call upon me at the hotel, and to apply for especial Shahádahs, or “testimonials” of good conduct. In short, we were detained at the station for three mortal hours, working with our own hands. If this be a fair specimen of European management in Egypt, and I am told that it has now become worse, much worse in every way, the sooner we return to Egyptian mismanagement the better. The latter is, at any rate, cheap and civil.
On the next day the Viceroy graciously sent his junior Master of Ceremonies, his Excellency Tonino Bey, to welcome me back; and I was at once honoured with audiences at the Khedivial Palace, Abidin, and by Prince Husayn Kámil Pasha at Gizah (Jízah). The Khediv was pleased to express satisfaction with my past exertions, and ordered several measures to be carried out at once. Amongst them was a little exhibition of mineralogy and archaeology, maps and plans, sketches and croquis, at the Hippodrome.
I need hardly say that his Highness at once saw the gist of the matter. Many concessions had been applied for, even from Australia; but the Viceroy determined that, before any could be granted, careful analyses of the specimens must be made, at his Highness’s private expense, in London. M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, of world-wide fame, volunteered, in the most friendly way, to submit échantillons of the rocks to the Parisian Académie des Sciences, of which he is a distinguished member. The Viceroy was also pleased spontaneously to remind me of, and to renew, the verbal promise made upon my return from the first Expedition to Midian; namely, that I should be honoured with a concession, or that a royalty of five per cent. on the general produce of the mines should be the reward of discovery. The young Minister of Finance, Prince Husayn Kámil Pasha, after courteously congratulating me upon the successful result of our labours, put as usual the most pertinent of questions.
The opening of our little Exposition was delayed by sundry difficulties. The Greek Easter set in with its usual severity about later April. A general shop-shutting, a carouse unlimited, catholic, universal; and, despite stringent police orders, a bombardment of the town by squibs and crackers, were the principal features of the fête. The 29th was the classical Shamm el-Nasin, or “the Smelling of the Zephyr,” a local May-day religiously kept with utter idleness. Mr. W. E. Hayns and I utilized it by going a flint-hunting on the left bank of the Nile.[EN#85] Then the terrible “May coupon” gave immense trouble and annoyance to the rulers; who, so far from making merry with the lieges, had to work in person between five a.m. and midnight. After such exertion as this, rest was of course necessary. Subsequently, a grand review monopolized one day; another was spent by the Court in despatching the young Prince Fu’ád to Switzerland; and yet another was given to his Highness the Prince Hasan Pasha, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian auxiliaries, who, on the conclusion of the war, had returned to Cairo en route for Europe.
Briefly, it was not before May 9th that the Khediv, accompanied by the Prince héritier, Taufík Pasha, found leisure personally to open the Exhibition–the first, by-the-by, ever honoured with the Viceregal presence. Despite all my efforts, the rooms, which should have been kept clear till his Highness had passed through, were crowded at an early hour. The maps prepared at the Citadel by Lieutenants Amir and Yusuf, with the aid of three extra hands, were very imperfect, half finished at the last moment, and abounding in such atrocities as “Ouorh” for “El-Wijh.” The engineer, M. Marie, when asked aloud, and with all publicity, by the Khediv whether he was sure that such and such specimens contained gold, shirked a direct reply, evasively declaring that “Midian is a fine mining country.” He had pointed out to me the precious metal during our exploration of Umm el-Karáyat; but such is the wretched result of “knowing the people,” instead of telling the truth like a man. And one of the many jealous, a mild Mephisto., whispered in the Viceregal ear, “There can’t be much gold there, or ces messieurs would have said more about it.”
Despite these small contretemps the Exhibition[EN#86] was pronounced a success, and served, as such things do, for a nine days’ wonder. Several travellers from England and Australia took the opportunity of inspecting the rocks; and I was much encouraged to find the general opinion so highly favourable. Locally there were dissidents, but this must be expected where interests differ.
Meanwhile his Highness kept me hard at work. I was directed to draw up a concise general description of the province; to report upon the political and other measures by which the Midian country would be benefited; and, lastly, to suggest the means which, in my humble opinion, were best calculated for successfully working the mines. In former days the Viceroy would at once have undertaken the task, and probably would have sent down five thousand men to open the diggings. Now, however, the endless trickery of European adventurers and speculators has made a wise precaution absolutely necessary. During the last audience, his Highness ably and lucidly resumed the history of the past measures, and the steps which he proposed for the future. The first Khedivial Expedition had been simply one of exploration, sent to ascertain whether the precious metals really existed. The second was intrusted with the charge of laying down the probable limits of the mining formation; and of bringing back varied specimens, in quantities sufficient for scientific analysis. The third and next step would be to organize a Compagnie de Recherche, with the object of beginning a serious exploitation. The future thus settled, I was kindly and courteously dismissed, with a desire that I should take charge of the specimens, and personally superintend the work of assaying. Mr. Charles Clarke received pay and leave for three months, and was ordered to convey the boxes by “long sea.”
On May 10th we left Cairo in company with our friend Mr. Garwood, C.E. At Alexandria a great repose fell upon my spirit; it was like gliding into a smooth port after a storm at sea. All the petty troubles and worries of Cairo; the cancans, the intrigues, the silly reports of the envious and the jealous, with the buzz and sting of mosquitoes; the weary waiting; the visits of “friends” whose main object in life seemed to be tuer le ver; and the exigencies of my late fellow-travellers, who, after liberal pay and free living for four months, seemed determined to quarter themselves upon the Egyptian Government for the rest of their natural lives;–all these small cares, not the less annoying because they were small, disappeared like magic at the first glimpse of blue water. I had barely time to pass an afternoon at Ramleh, “the Sand-heap,” with an intimate of twenty-five years’ standing, Hartley John Gisborne, an old servant of the Egyptian “Crown,” for whom new men and new measures have, I regret to see, made the valley of the Nile no longer habitable.
The next Sunday placed us on board the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd’s screw-steamer Austria (Capitano Rossol). As usual, the commander and officers did all they could to make their voyagers comfortable; the Company did the contrary. At this spring season, true, the migratory host of unfeathered bipeds crowds northwards; even as in autumn it accompanies the birds southwards. But when berths are full, passengers should be refused; and if the commercial director prefers dead to live goods, travellers should be duly warned. The accommodation would have been tolerable in a second-class or third-class English steamer, which charges fifteen shillings to a sovereign per diem; here, however, we were paying between £2 and £3.
The Alexandrian agent had been asked to lodge us decently. My wife found herself in a cabin occupied by two nurses. I was placed in a manner of omnibus, a loose box for six, of whom one was an Armenian and two were Circassians from Daghistán–good men enough, but not pleasant as bedroom fellows. No extra service had been engaged for an extra cargo of seventy-two; that is, forty-two first, and thirty second class. There were only three stewards, including the stewardess; and the sick were left to serve themselves. At least half a dozen were required; and, in such places as Trieste and Alexandria, a large staff of cooks and waiters can always be engaged in a few hours. On board any English ship some of the smartest and handiest seamen would have been converted into temporary attendants–here no one seemed to think of a proceeding so far out of the usual way. There was only one, instead of three or four cooks; and the unfortunate had to fill a total of one hundred and thirty-five mouths, the crew included, three times a day. The other tenant of the close and wretched little galley lay sick with spotted typhus; and, after barbarous neglect, he died on the day following our arrival at Trieste–I did not hear that the surgeon of the screw-steamer Austria had met with his deserts by summary dismissal from the service. The Austro-Hungarian Lloyd’s was once famed for good living; over-economy and high dividends have now made the cuisine worse than the cheapest of tables d’hôte. Provisions as well as their preparation were so bad that Sefer Pasha, an invalid, confined himself to a diet of potatoes and eggs.
Add the quasi-impossibility of obtaining a bath; the uncleanliness of the offices; the hard narrowness of the sofas; the small basins, or rather bowls, and the tiny towels like napkins; the clamorous pets of the small fry, cats and dogs; the crowding of second-class passengers on the quarter-deck; and the noise of the Armenian lady beating her maid, who objected to the process in truly dreadful language: throw in an engine which, despite the efforts of her energetic English engineer, Mr. Wilkinson, managed only nine instead of eleven and a half knots an hour; an ugly north-easter off Cape Matapan, bringing tropical downfalls of rain; and a muggy Scirocco off Istria, when we breathed almost as much water as air: and I think that the short entry in my journal, “horridly uncomfortable,” was to a certain extent justified by the conduct of the poor Austria. Yet the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd’s boasts a dividend of seven per cent. She shall see no more of my money: until she mend her ways I shall prefer the Genoese Rubattino.
But, as the Persian poet has it, Ín níz bug’zared–“Even these things pass away.” At Corfu we were cheered by once more meeting Sir Charles Sebright, who looked hale and hearty as of yore. When we reached Trieste, his Excellency Baron Pino von Friendenthall, accompanied by the most amiable of “better halves,” came off in his galley, happily unconscious of typhus; and carried us away without the usual troubles and delays of landing in harbour bumboats. Friendly faces smiled a welcome; and, after an absence of some seven months, I found myself once more in the good town which has given us a home during the last five years.
At Trieste I was delayed for some time, awaiting the report that the specimens collected by the Expedition had arrived at their destination, the warehouses of the London Docks. Mr. Clarke met with obstacles at Suez; and, consequently, did not reach England till June 20th, after twenty-three rough days. As her Majesty’s Foreign Office had been pleased to accord me two months of leave to England, I determined to make the voyage by “long sea.” Both suffering from the same complaint, want of rest and of roast-beef, as opposed to rosbif, we resolved to ship on board the English steamer Hecla, of the B. and N. A. R. M. S. P. Company, the old Cunard line, famous for never having lost a life, a ship, or a letter. We left Trieste on July 7, 1878, in charge of our excellent commander, Captain James Brown; and, after a cruise of twenty days, viâ Venice, Palermo, and Gibraltar–a comfortable, cheery, hygienic cruise in charming weather over summer seas–we found ourselves once more (July 26th) in the city of the Liver.
Appendix I.
DATES OF THE THREE JOURNEYS (Northern, Central, and Southern) made by the Second Khedivial Expedition.
First Journey.
(December 19, 1877, to February 13, 1878.)
December 6, 1877, left Cairo.
10 1877, left Suez.
14 1877, reached El-Muwaylah (Sharm Yáhárr) on the “Day of ‘Arafát.”
* * * * *
December 19, 1877, landed at El-Muwaylah. 21 1877, marched upon Wady Tiryam. 22 1877, marched upon Wady Sharmá. 23 1877, marched upon Jebel el-Abyaz. 30 1877, returned to Wady Sharmá. January 7, 1878, marched upon ‘Aynúnah. 8 1878, halted at ‘Aynúnah.
9 1878, halted at Wady el-‘Usaylah.