The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume I Part 13

Dr. Beke, I am persuaded, is right in denying that Mount Sinai occupies the site at present a.s.signed to it; but I cannot believe that he has found it in the Jebel el-Yitm, near El-'Akabah. His "Mount Barghir" is evidently a corruption of the "Wali" on the summit, Shaykh Bakir--a common Arab name. His "Mountain of Light"

is a term wholly unknown to the Arabs, except so far as they would a.s.sign the term to any saintly place. The "sounds heard in the mountain like the firing of a cannon," is a legend applied to two other neighbouring places. All the Bedawin still sacrifice at the tombs of their Santons: at the little white building which covers the reputed tomb of Aaron, sheep are slaughtered and boiled in a huge black cauldron. The "pile of large rounded boulders" bearing "cut Sinaitic inscriptions" (p. 423) are clearly Wusum: these tribal-marks, which the highly imaginative M. de Saulcy calls "planetary signs," are found throughout Midian. The name of the Wady is, I have said, not El-Ithem, but El-Yitm, a very different word. Lastly, the "Mountain Eretowa,"

or "Ertowa" (p. 404), is probably a corruption of El-Taur (El-Hisma), the "inaccessible wall" of the plateau, which Dr.

Beke calls Jebel Hisma. My old friend, with his usual candour and straightforwardness, honestly admitted that he had been "egregiously mistaken with respect to the volcanic character of (the true) 'Mount Sinai."' But without the eruption, the "fire and smoke theory," what becomes of his whole argument?[EN#132]

Save for the death of my friend, I should have greatly enjoyed the comical side of his subject; the horror and disgust with which he, one of the greatest of geographical innovators, regards a younger rival theory, the exodist innovation of Dr. Heinrich Brugsch-Bey. The latter is the first who has rescued the "March of the Children of Israel" from the condition of mere guesswork described by the Rev. Mr. Holland.

Under the guidance of our new acquaintances, we rowed to the site of Elath, which evidently extended all round the Gulf-head from north-east to north-west. Linant and Laborde ("Voyage de l'Arabie Petree," etc., Paris, 1830) confine it to the western sh.o.r.e, near the mouth of the Wady el-'Arabah, and make Ezion-geber to face it as suggested by the writings of the Hebrews. Disembarking at the northern palm-clump, we inspected El-Dar, the old halting-place of the pilgrim-caravan before New 'Akabah was founded. The only ruins[EN#133] are large blocks under the clearest water, and off a beach of the softest sand, which would make the fortune of a bathing-place in Europe. Further eastward lies an enclosed date-orchard called El-Hammam: the two pits in it are said to be wells, but I suspect the treasure-seeker. Inland and to the north rise the mounds and tumuli, the sole remains of ancient Elath, once the port of Petra, which is distant only two dromedary marches. During rain-floods the site is an island: to the west flows the surface-water of the Wady el-'Arabah, and eastward the drainage of the Wady Yitm has dug a well-defined bed. A line of larger heaps to the north shows where, according to the people, ran the city wall: finding it thickly strewed with scoriae, old and new, I decided that this was the Siyaghah or "smiths'

quarter." Between it and the sea the surface is scattered with gla.s.s, shards, and slag: I inquired in vain for "written stones,"

and for the petroleum reported to exist in the neighbourhood.

Shaykh Mohammed declared that of old a chain stretched from the Pharaohnic island-castle to the Jebel el-Burayj or Kasr el-Bedawi on the Midianite sh.o.r.e: this chain is a lieu commun of Eastern legends. The "Bedawi's Castle" is mentioned by Robinson and Burckhardt ("Syria," p. 510), as lying one hour south of El-'Akabah. Moreover, the Wady Yitm, whose upper bed shows two ruins, was closed, at the narrow above the mouth, by a fortified wall of stone and lime, thus cutting off all intercourse with the interior. The Bedawin declare it to be the work of King Hadid (Iron), who thus kept out the Beni Hilal of El-Nejd. We were shown large earth-dams, thrown across the embouchure of the torrent to prevent the floods injuring the palm-groves of New 'Akabah. These may date from ancient days, when the old city here extended its south-eastern suburb; as usual, they have become a cemetery, modern and Moslem; and on the summit of the largest the holy Shaykh el-Girmi (Jirmi) still names his ruined tomb.

Walking round the eastern bay, where the ubiquitous black sand striped the yellow sh.o.r.e, we observed that the tide here rises only one foot,[EN#134] whereas at Suez it may reach a metre and a half to seven feet. According to the chart, the springs attain four feet at "Omeider" (El-Humayzah), some nineteen direct knots to the south; and in the Sharm Yaharr we found them about one metre. Presently we entered, by wooden doors with locks and keys, the carefully kept palm-groves, walled with pise and dry stone.

Wells were being sunk; and a depth of nine to ten feet gave tolerably sweet water. Striking the broad northern trail which leads to the Wady Yitm and to the upper El-'Arabah, still a favourite camping-ground of the tribes,[EN#135] we reached the modern settlement, which has something of the aspect of a townlet, not composed, like El-Muwaylah, of a single house. The women fled at our approach, as we threaded the alleys formed by the mud tenements.

The fort[EN#136] is usually supposed to have been built by Sulta'n Selim I., in A.D. 1517, or three years before his death, after he had subdued the military aristocracy of the Mamluks, who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Much smaller than that of El-Muwaylah, it is the normal affair: an enceinte once striped red and white; curtains flanked by four Burj, all circular, except the new polygon to the north-west; and a huge, gloomy main-gateway fronting north, and flanked by two bastions. On the proper right side is a circle of stone bearing, without date, the name of "Sultan Selim Khan el-Fatih," who first laid out the pilgrim-route along the Red Sea sh.o.r.e. Inside the dark cool porch a large inscription bears the name "El-Ashraf Kansur (sic)[EN#137] El-Ghori," the last but one of the Circa.s.sian Mamluk kings of Egypt, who was defeated and slain by the Turkish conqueror near Aleppo in A.D. 1501. Above it stand two stone shields dated A.H. 992 (= A.D. 1583--1584). In the southern wall of the courtyard is the mosque, fronted by a large deep well dug, they say, during the building of the fort: it still supplies the whole Hajj-caravan with warmish sweet water. On the ground lies a good bra.s.s gun with Arabic inscription and numerals; and the towers, commanding the little kitchen-gardens outside the fort-wall, are armed with old iron carronades. The garrison, consisting of half a dozen gunners and a few Ba'sh-Buzuks, looks pale, bloodless, and unwholesome: the heats of summer are almost unsupportable; and 'Akabah has the name of a "little h.e.l.l."

Moreover, they eat, drink, smoke, sleep, chat, quarrel, and never take exercise: the officers complained sadly that I had made them walk perhaps a mile round the bay-head. And yet they have, within two days of sharp ride, that finest of sanitaria, the Hisma, which extends as far north and south as they please to go.

I at once made arrangements for a dromedary-post to Suez, and wrote officially to Prince Husayn Pasha, requesting that his Highness would exchange the Mukhbir for a steamer less likely to drown herself. Moreover, the delay at Maghair Shu'ayb had exhausted our resources; and the Expedition required a month's additional rations for men and mules. The application was, it will appear, granted in the most gracious manner, with as little delay as possible; and my wife, who had reached Cairo, saw that the execution of the order was not put off till the end of March.

Messrs. Voltera Brothers were also requested to forward another instalment of necessaries and comforts; and they were as punctual and satisfactory as before. For this postal service, and by way of propitiatory present, Shaykh Mohammed received ten dollars, of which probably two were disbursed. We therefore parted fast friends, he giving me an especial invitation to his home in the Hisma, and I accepting it with the firm intention of visiting him as soon as possible.

Meanwhile Mr. Clarke and Ali Marie were busy with buying up such stores as El-'Akabah contains; and the officers of the fort, who stayed with us to the last, were profuse in kind expressions and in little gifts which, as usual, cost us double their worth. In these lands one must expect to be "done" as surely as in Italy.

What the process will be, no one knows till it discloses itself; but all experts feel that it is in preparation.

NOTE ON THE SUPPLIES TO BE BOUGHT AT EL-'AKABAH.

The following is a list of the stores with their prices. It must be borne in mind that the Hajj-caravan was pa.s.sing at the time we visited El-'Akabah.

A large sheep cost half a napoleon; the same was the price of a small sheep, with a kid.

Fowls (seventy-one bought), thirteen pence each; pigeons, sixpence a head.

Eggs (sixty), two for threepence.

Tobacco (8 lbs.), coa.r.s.e and uncut, but welcome to the Bedawin, one shilling per pound.

Samn ("liquefied b.u.t.ter" for the kitchen) also one shilling per pound. This article is always dear in Arabia, but much cheaper than in Egypt.

Pomegranates (fifty), four shillings a hundred.

Onions (one kanta'r or cwt.), one sovereign.

Thin-skinned Syrian raisins, fivepence per pound.

Dried figs, twopence halfpenny per pound.

Matches (sixteen boxes), three halfpence per box.

A small quant.i.ty of grain may be bought. Lentils (Revalenta Arabica) are to be had in any quant.i.ty, and they make an admirable travelling soup. Unfortunately it is supposed to be a food for Fellahs, and the cook shirks it--the same is the case with junk, salt pork, and pease-pudding on board an English cruiser. Sour limes are not yet in season; they will be plentiful in April. A little garden stuff may be had for salads. The list of deficiencies is great; including bread and beef, potatoes, 'Raki, and all forms of "diffusable stimulants."

Here, as at Cairo, the piastre is of two kinds, metallic (debased silver) and non-metallic. Government pays in the former, which is called Sagh ("coin"); and the same is the term throughout Egypt.

The value fluctuates, but 97-1/2 may be a.s.sumed = one sovereign (English), and one hundred to the Egyptian "lira." The second kind, used for small purchases, is not quite half the value of the former (205:100); in North-Western Arabia it is called Abyas ("white"), and Tarifa ("tariff"); the latter term in Cairo always signifying the Sagh or metallic. The dodges of the Shroffs, or "money-changers," make housekeeping throughout Egypt a study of arithmetic. They cannot change the value of gold, but they "rush"

the silver as they please; and thus the "dollar-sinko" (i.e. the five-franc piece), formerly fetching 19.10, has been reduced to 18.30. The Khurdah, or "copper-piastre," was once worth a piastre; now this "coin of the realm" has been so debased, that it has gradually declined through 195 to 500 and even 650 for the sovereign. Moreover, not being a legal tender, it is almost useless in the market.

As regards the money to be carried by such expeditions, anything current in Egypt will do. The Bedawin prefer sovereigns when offered five-franc pieces, and vice versa. The Egyptian sovereign of 100 piastres (metallic) or 250 "current" must not be confounded with the Turkish = 87.30 (curr. 175.20 to 180). The napoleon averages 77.6 (curr. 160); the dollar varies according to its kind; the shilling is 3.35 (curr. 10), and the franc 3.35 (curr. 8). It is necessary to lay in a large quant.i.ty of small change by way of "bakhshish," such as ten and twenty parah bits (40 = 1 piastre).

Chapter VIII.

Cruise from El-'Akabah to El-Muwaylah--the Shipwreck Escaped?Resume of the Northern Journey.

I resolved upon hastening back with all speed to El-Muwaylah, finishing, by the way, our work of quartz-prospecting on the 'Akabah Gulf. Thus far it had been a success; we heard of "Maru"

in all directions. But all had not gone equally well. We had already on two occasions been prevented by circ.u.mstances from visiting the mysterious Hisma, and we now determined to devote all our energies to its exploration.

Two heavy showers having fallen during the dark hours, on February 8th Aurora looked as if she had pa.s.sed a very bad night indeed. The mist-rack trailed along the rock slopes, and rested upon the Wady-sands; the mountains veiled their heads in clouds, and--

"Above them lightnings to and fro ran coursing evermore, Till, like a red, bewildered map, the skies were scribbled o'er."

Meanwhile, in the north-west and south-west we saw--rare thing in Arabia!--Iris holding two perfect bows at the same time, not to speak of "wind dogs." Zephyrus, the wester, here a noted bad character, rose from his rocky couch strong and rough, beating down the mercury to 56 degrees F.: after an hour he made way for Eurus; and the latter was presently greeted by Boreas in one of his most boisterous and bl.u.s.tering moods.

We steamed off, with only a single stoppage for half an hour to cool the engine-bearings, at 7.30 a.m.; and, after one mile we pa.s.sed, on the Arabian side, a ruin called Kasr el-Bint--"the Girl's Palace." Beyond it lies the Kasr el-Bedawi, alias El-Burayj ("of the Little Tower or Bastion"), the traditional holding-pier of the great chain. When Wellsted (ii. 146) says, "Here (i.e. at the Kasr el-Bedawi), I am told, there is a chain extending from the sh.o.r.e to a pier built in the sea"--he evidently misunderstood the Arabs. The eastern coast of El-'Akabah begins with an abrupt mountain-wall, like that which subtends the whole of the Sinai sh.o.r.e, till it trends south of the Mi'nat el-Dahab. After three miles the heights fall into a stony, sandy plain, which rises regularly as a "rake," or stage-slope, to the Shara' (Seir) range, which closes the horizon. After two hours and forty five minutes we pa.s.sed into the fine, open, treacherous Bay of "Hagul" (El-Hakl), distant thirteen knots from El-'Akabah Fort, to which it is the nearest caravan-station. On the north-east, and stretching eastward, are the high "horse," or dorsum, and the big b.u.t.tresses of the long, broad Wady, which comes winding from the south-east. They appear to be a body of sand; but, as usual on this coast, the superficial sheet, the skin, hardly covers the syenite and porphyritic trap that form the charpente. Between west and south, a long spit, high inland, and falling low till where its sandstone blufflet meets the sea, proves to be the base of a large and formidable reef, which extends in verdigris patches over the blue waters of the bay. It is not mentioned by Wellsted (ii. 149), who describes "Ha'gool on the Arabian sh.o.r.e," as "a small boat-harbour much exposed to the northerly winds." The embouchure of the Wady nourishes four distinct clumps of date-trees, well walled round; a few charred and burnt, the most of them green and luxuriant. These lines are broken by the channels which drain the surface water; and between the two western sections appear the ragged frond-huts. Not a soul was seen on sh.o.r.e.

The wind blew great guns outside the bay, and the inside proved anything but calm. As the water was fifty-eight fathoms deep near the coast, our captain found no moorings for his ship, except to the dangerous reef; and we kept drifting about in a way which would have distracted sensitive nerves. I had been told of ruins and tumuli at El-Hakl, which denote, according to most authorities, the Mesogeian town (Ancale): Ptolemy (vi. 7, 27) places this oppidum Mediterraneum between Makna or Maina (Madyan), and Madiama (Maghair Shu'ayb), the old capital.

Unwilling, however, to risk the safety of the gunboat, where nothing was to be expected beyond what we had seen at El-'Akabah, I resolved, after waiting half an hour, not to land. The Sambuk received a cargo of quarrymen and sacks, in order to ship at Makna the "argentiferous galena" and other rocks left by Lieutenant Yusuf and M. Philipin upon the sh.o.r.e; and, that done, she was directed to rejoin us at Tiran Island. As long as the norther coursed high, she beat us hollow; in the afternoon, however, when the gale, as usual, abated, she fell off, perhaps purposely, not wishing to pa.s.s a night in the open. By sunset her white sail had clean disappeared, having slipped into some snug cove.

The Arabian sh.o.r.e is here of simpler construction than that of Sinai; consequently the chart has had a better chance. The Mukhbir resumed her way southwards in glorious weather, a fresh breath blowing from the north; and fleecy clouds variegating the sky, which was almost as blue as the waves After six miles and a half from El-Hakl and nearly twenty from El-Akabah, she ran to the west of El-Humayzah Island, the "Omasir" of Wellsted (ii.

149), between which and the mainland is a well sheltered berth.

It is a great contrast with the "Hill of the Fort," the Pharaohnic rock, this lump some eighty feet high, built of Secondary gypsum and yellow serpentine like the coast behind it.

Gleaming deadly white, pale as a corpse in the gorgeous sunshine, and utterly bare, except for a single shrub, it is based upon a broad, dark-coloured barrier-reef. Local tradition here places the Kasr el-Bedawiyyah, "Palace of the Bedawi Woman (or Girl),"

but we saw neither sign of building nor trace of population in the second island which the Gulf el-'Akabah owns.

We then pa.s.sed sundry uninteresting features, and night fell upon us off Jebel Tayyib Ism, where familiar scenes began to present themselves. The captain had already reduced speed from four and a half to three knots, his object being to reach the Bughaz or "Gulf-mouth" after dawn. But as midnight drew near it became necessary to ride out the furious gale with the gunboat's head turned northwards. M. Lacaze, a stout-hearted little man, worked half the night at the engine, a.s.sisting Mr. Duguid. About four a.m. (February 8th) a lull in the storm allowed her to resume her southerly course; but two hours afterwards, an attempt to make the Makna sh.o.r.e, placing her broadside on to the wind, created much confusion in the crockery and commotion among the men.

Always a lively craft, she now showed a Vokes-like agility; for, as is ever the case, she had no ballast, and who would take the trouble to ship a few tons of sand? At such moments the engine was our sole stand-by: had it played one of its usual tricks, the Mukhbir, humanly speaking, was lost; that is, she would have been swamped and water-logged. As for setting sail, it was not till our narrow escape that I could get the canvas out of stowage in the hold.

As the morning wore on the Gulf became even rougher, with its deep and hollow waves; they seemed to come from below, as if bent upon hoisting us in the air. The surface-water shivered; and the upper spray was swept off by the north wind, which waxed colder and more biting as we steered sunwards. The Sinaitic side now showed its long slopes; and at 9.45 a.m. we pa.s.sed the palms of the Nebiki anchorage, some six miles from the "Gate." On the sh.o.r.e of Midian, south of the dark Fahisat Mountains, four several b.u.t.tresses of gypsum, decreasing in size as they followed one another eastwards, trended diagonally away from the sea. This part of the Arabian coast ends in a thin point: the maps call it "Ras Fartak;" and the pilots "Shaykh Hami,"[EN#138] from a holy man's tomb to which pious visitation is made. The other land-tongue, adjoining to the south, is known as the Umm Ruus, or "Mother of Heads." I cannot find out whence Ruppell borrowed his "Omel Ha.s.sanie" (Umm el-Ha.s.sani?).

As we approached the ugly gape of the formidable Gulf, the waves increased in size, and coursed to all directions, as if distorted by the sunken reefs. The eastern jamb is formed by Tiran Island; the western by the sandy Ras Nasrani, whose glaring tawny slope is dotted with dark basaltic cones, detached and disposed like great ninepins. Beyond this cape the Sinaitic coast, as far as Ras Mohammed, the apex of the triangle, is fretted with little indentations; hence its name, El-Shurum--"the Creeks." Near one of these baylets, Wellsted chanced upon "volcanic rocks which are not found in any other part of the peninsula:" this sporadic outbreak gives credibility to the little "Harrah" reported to be found upon the bank of the Midianitish "Wady Sukk." A hideous, horrid reef, dirty brown and muddy green, with white horses madly charging the black diabolitos, whose ugly heads form chevaux de frise, a stony tongue based upon Tiran Island, and apparently connected from the eastern coast behind, extends its tip to mid-channel. The clear way of the dreaded Bughaz is easily found in the daytime: at night it would be almost impossible; and when Midian shall be "rehabilitated," this reef will require a Pharos.