The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume I Part 16

The Land of Midian is by no means one of the late Prince Metternich's "geographical expressions." The present tenants of the soil give a precise and practical definition of its limits.

Their Arz Madyan extends from El-?Akabah north (north lat. 29 28') to El-Muwaylah with its Wady, El-Surr (north lat. 27 40').

It has thus a total lat.i.tudinal length of 108 direct geographical miles.[EN#149] South of this line, the seaboard of North-Western Arabia, as far as El-Hejaz, has no generic name. The Bedawin are contented with such vague terms, derived from some striking feature, as "the Lands of Ziba," "of Wady Salma," "of Wady Damah," "of El-Wijh," to denote the tract lying between the parallels of El-Muwaylah and of Wady Hamz (

The breadth of this Egyptian province is determined by the distance from the sea to the maritime mountains. In Madyan Proper, or North Midian, the extremes would be twenty-four and thirty-five miles. For the southern half these figures may be doubled. Here, again, the Bedawin are definitive as regards limits. All the Tihamah or "lowlands" and their ranges belong to Egypt; east of it the Daulat Sham, or Government of Syria, claims possession.

I have taken the liberty of calling the whole tract Midian; the section above El-Muwaylah (Madyan Proper) I would term "North Midian," and that below it "South Midian." In the days of the ancient Midianites the frontiers were so elastic that, at times, but never for a continuity, they embraced Sinai, and were pushed forward even into Central Palestine. Moreover, I would prolong the limits eastward as far as the Damascus-Medinah road. This would be politically and ethnologically correct. With the exception of the Ma'azah country, the whole belongs to Egypt; and all the tribes, formerly Nabathaean, are now more or less Egypto-Arab, never questioning the rights of his Highness the Viceroy, who garrisons the seaboard forts. Of the other points, historical and geographical, I am not so sure. My learned friend, Aloys Sprenger, remarks: "Let me observe that your extending the name ?Midian' over the whole country, as far south as the dominions of the Porte, appears to me an innovation by which the ident.i.ty of the race along the sh.o.r.e of the Gulf of ?Akabah, coast down to Wajh and Hawra, is prejudged. Would it not be better to leave Midian where it always has been, and to consider Bada[EN#150] the centre of Thamuditis, as it was at the time of Pliny and Ptolemy, and as it continued to be until the Balee (Baliyy), and other Qodha' (Kuda') tribes, came from Southern Arabia, and exterminated the Thamudites?" This is, doubtless, a valid objection: its only weak point is that it goes too far back. We cannot be Conservatives in geography and ethnology; nor can we attach much importance, in the nineteenth century, to a race, the Beni Tamud, which had wholly disappeared before the seventh. On the whole, it still appears to me that by adopting my innovation we gain more than we lose; but the question must be left for others to decide.

In our days, two great Sultanis or "highways" bound Madyan the Less and Midian the Greater. The western, followed by the Hajj el-Misri (Egyptian caravan), dates from the age of Sultan Selim Khan the Conqueror; who, before making over the province to the later Mamluk Beys, levelled rocks, cut through ridges, dug wells, laid out the track, and defended the line by forts. Before that time the road ran, for convenience of water, to the east or inland: it was, in fact, the old Nabathaean highway which, according to Strabo, connected Leuke Kome with the western capital, Petra. Further east, and far beyond the double chain of maritime mountains, is the highway followed by the Hajj el-Shami (Syrian or Damascus caravan), which sets out from Constantinople, musters at Damascus, and represents the Sultan. On both these main lines water is procurable at almost every station; and to them military expeditions are perforce limited. The parallelogram between the two, varying in breadth, according to Wallin, from 90 to 120 miles (direct and geographical), is irregularly supplied in places with springs, wells, and rain-pits, which can always be filled up or salted by the Bedawin.

The main body of the Expedition, Mr. Clarke, MM. Marie and Lacaze, Ahmed Kaptan, and Lieutenant Amir, set out from El-Muwaylah at 6.30 a.m. (February 19th), escorted by the Sayyid and the three salaried Shaykhs, including our friend Furayj. The Remingtons numbered ten, and there were also ten picks, of whom five waited upon the mules; of the sixty-one camels six were dromedaries, and as the road grew lighter our beasts of burden increased, somehow or other, to sixty-four. The caravan now loads in twenty minutes instead of five hours; and when politike, or fear of danger, does not delay us, we start in a quarter of an hour after the last bugle-sound. This operation is under charge of Lieutenant Amir, who does his best to introduce Dar-Forian discipline: the camels being first charged with the Finatis ("metal water-barrels"), then with the boxes, and lastly with the tents.

After pa.s.sing the ruins of Abu Hawawit, we began at 9:15 a.m. to exchange the broad Wady Surr of the flat seaboard, with its tall banks of stiff drab clay, for a gorge walled with old conglomerates, and threading the ruddy and dark-green foot-hills of the main Ghat. As in the Wady el-Maka'dah and other "winter-brooks," the red porphyritic trap, heat-altered argil, easily distinguished by its fracture from the syenites of the same hue, appeared to be iron-clad, coated with a thin crust of shiny black or brown peroxide (?). This peculiarity was noticed by Tuckey in the Congo, by Humboldt in the Orinoco, and by myself in the So Francisco river; I also saw it upon the sandstones of the wild mountains east of Jerusalem, where, as here, air and not water must affect the oxide of iron. In both cases, however, the cause would be the same, and the polish would be a burnishing of Nature on a grand scale.

After six very slow miles we halted, for rest and refection, at a thread of water in the section of the Surr which receives the Wady el-Najil. The sides were crowded with sheep and goats, the latter, as in the Syrian lowlands, almost invariably black; and the adjoining rocks had peculiar attractions for hares, hawks, and partridge. In these upland regions water is almost everywhere, and generally it is drinkable; hence the Bedawin naturally prefer them to the coast. An umbrella-shaped thorn-tree, actually growing on a hill-top, and defined by the sky-line, excited our wonder and admiration; for here, as in Pontus--

"Rara, nec haec felix, in apertis eminet arvis Arbor, et in terra est altera forma maris."

Indeed, throughout our journey this spectacle always retained its charms, aiding Fancy to restore the barrens to what they had been in the prosperous days of yore.

The Wady Surr now began to widen out, and to become more riant, whilst porphyry was almost the only visible rock. After a total of ten "dawdling" miles, marching almost due east, we found our tents pitched in a broad and quasi-circular basin, called El-Safh ("the level ground of") Jebel Malih ("Mount Pleasant"?), which the broad-speaking Bedawin lengthen to Malayh. Our camel-men had halted exactly between two waters, and equally distant from both, so as to force upon us the hire of extra animals. We did not grumble, however, as we were anxious to inspect the Afran ("furnaces") said to be found upon the upper heights of the Sharr--of these apocryphal features more hereafter. Fresh difficulties! The Jerafin-Huwaytat tribe, that owns the country south of the Surr, could not be reached under a whole day of dromedary-riding: in reality they were camped a few furlongs off, but anything to gain 8 per diem for doing nothing! Two Bedawi shepherd-lads promised to act guides next morning, and duly failed to appear, or, more probably, were forbidden to appear.

They had also romanced about ruins, fountains, palms, and rushes in the Wady el-Kusayb, the south-eastern influent. At night Ahmed el-?Ukbi, surnamed Abu Khartum, arrived in camp: he had travelled more than once to Tabuk, carrying grain, and though he had failed as a merchant, he retained his reputation as a guide. As regards the furnaces, he also, like Furayj, could speak only from hearsay. Opinions were divided in camp: I saw clearly that a stand was being made to delay us for four or five days; and, despite grumbling, I resolved upon deferring the visit till our return from the interior.

The first march had led us eastward, instead of north-eastward, in order to inspect the Wady Surr. From the seaboard, this line, which drains the northern flank of the Sharr Mountains, appears the directest road into the interior. We shall presently see, however, why the devious northern way of the Wady Sadr has become the main commercial route connecting El-Muwaylah with Tabuk.[EN#151] During the evening we walked up the Wady Surr, finding, in its precipitous walls, immense veins of serpentine and porphyritic greenstone, but not a speck of gold. The upper part of the Fiumara also showed abundant scatters of water-rolled stones, serpentines, and hard felspars, whose dove-coloured surface was streaked with fibrils and at times with regular veins of silvery l.u.s.tre, as if brought out by friction of the surface.

I offered a considerable sum to a Jerafin Bedawi if he would show the rock in situ; he was evidently ignorant of it, but, like others, he referred us to Jebel Malih.

The whole of the next day (February 20th) was spent in northing.

Leaving the noisy braying caravan to march straight on its destination, we set out (6.15 a.m.) up the Wady Guwaymarah, guided by Hasan el-?Ukbi, who declared that he well knew the sites of the ruined settlements El-Khulasah and El-Zibayyib.

After walking half an hour we turned eastward into a feeder of the Surr, the Wady el-Khulasah, whose aspect charmed me: this drain of the inner Jedayl block was the replica of a Fiumara in Somali-land, a broad tree-dotted flat of golden sand, bordered on either side by an emerald avenue of dense Mimosas, forming line under the green-stone hills to the right, and the red-stone heights to the left. The interior, we again remarked, is evidently more rained upon, and therefore less sterile and desolate, than the coast and the sub-maritime regions; and here one can well imagine large towns being built. At last, after walking about an hour and a half (= four miles and a half) towards the Sharr, with our backs turned upon our goal, the rat-faced little intriguer, Hasan, declared that he knew nothing about El-Khulasah, but that Zibayyib lay there! pointing to a bright-red cliffy peak, "Aba'l-barid," on the left bank of the Wady, and to others whose heads were blue enough and low enough to argue considerable distance. He had intended his cousin Gabr to be the real guide, and to take to himself all the credit; but I had sent off the parlous "judge" in another direction.

Mr. Clarke, whose cantering mule had no objection to leave its fellows, rode off with the recreant Hasan, whilst we awaited his return under a tree.

Instead of hugging Aba'l-barid, behind which a watercourse would have taken him straight to his destination, he struck away from the Wady el-Khulasah. Then crossing on foot, and hauling his animal over, a rough divide, he fell, after six miles instead of two, into the upper course of the Wady Surr, which he reported to be choked with stones, and refusing pa.s.sage to loaded camels--as will afterwards appear, the reverse is the case. The ruins of El-Zibayyib lie at a junction of three, or rather four, watercourses. The eastern is the Surr, here about five hundred yards broad, forming a bulge in the bed, and then bending abruptly to the south; a short line from the south-west, the Wady Zibayyib, drains the Aba'?l-barid peak; and the northernmost is the Wady el-Safra,[EN#152] upon which the old place stands a cheval. The western part is the larger and the more ruinous. The thin line, three hundred yards long by thirty broad, never shows more than two tenements deep, owing to the hill that rises behind it: here the only furnace was found. The eastern block measures one hundred yards by forty; both are razed to their bas.e.m.e.nts, resembling the miners' settlement on the Sharma cliff. They attract attention only by their material, red boulders being used instead of the green porphyries of the hills; and the now desolate spot shows no signs of water or of palm-groves.

Mr. Clarke rejoined us after a couple of hours, having lost the dog ?Brahim: under a sudden change of diet it had become too confident of its strength, and thus it is that dogs and men come to grief. We retraced our steps down the Wady el-Khulasah, whose Jebel is the crupper of the little block Umm Jedayl. The lower valley shows a few broken walls, old Arab graves, and other signs of ancient habitation; but I am convinced that we missed the ruins which lay somewhere in the neighbourhood. One Sulayman, a Bedawi of the Selalimah-Huwaytat tribe, who had been rascalized by residence at El-Muwaylah, was hunted up by the energetic Sayyid; hoping, as usual, that no action would be taken upon mere words, he declared that El-Khulasah stood on the top of a trap-lump. We halted to inspect it, and Lieutenant Amir rode the Shaytanah, his vicious little she-mule, up and down steeps fit only for a goat. Again all was in vain.

We then travelled over granite gravel along the western foot-hills of Umm Jedayl, in which a human figure or statue had been reported to me: now, however, it became a Sarbut, or "upright stone." Along the flanks of the chief outlier, the Jebel el-Ramzah, distinguished by its red crest and veins, the slope was one strew of quartz, whole and broken; like that which we had seen to the north, and which we were to see on our southern journey. Despising the "rotten water" offered in two places by the Umm Jedayl, we pitched camp on the fine gravel of the Sayl Wady el-Jimm. Here I heard for the first time, after sighting it for many weeks, that the latter is the name, not of a mountain,[EN#153] but of a Sha'b or "gully" in the Jebel Dibbagh where waters "meet." The Wady Kh'shabriyyah, separating the Umm Jedayl from its northern neighbour, the Dibbagh, looks like a highway; but all declare that it is closed to camels by Wa'r, or "stony ground." Of its ruins more when we travel to the Sharr.

This day's march of four hours (= ten miles and a half) had been a series of zigzags--north, north-east, west, and again north.

After a cool, pleasant night we set out at 6.30 a.m. (February 21st), across the broad Sayl, towards a bay in the mountains bearing north-north-west, the mouth of the Wady Zennarah.

Entering the block, we made two short cuts to save great bends in the bed. The first was the Sha'b el-Liwewi', the Weiwi of Wallin (p. 304)--wild riding enough; the path often winding almost due east, when the general direction was north-north-east. We saw, for the first time, pure greenish-yellow chlorite outcropping from the granite. The animals were apparently hibernating, and plants were rare; we remarked chiefly the sorrel and the blue thistle, or rather wild artichoke, the Shauk el-Jemel, a thorn loved by camels (Blepharis edulis), which recalled to mind the highlands of Syria. The second short-cut, the Wady el-Ga'agah, alias Sawawin, was the worse of the two: the deep drops and narrow gutters in the quartz-veined granite induced even the Shaykhs to dismount before attacking the descents. This is rarely done when ascending, for their beasts climb like Iceland ponies.

One of M. Lacaze's most effective croquis is that showing monture and man disappearing in the black depths of a crevice. Some of the hill-crests were weathered with forms resembling the artificial. At the mid-day halting-ground we saw a stone-mother nursing a rock-child, which might still be utilized in lands where "thaumaturgy" is not yet obsolete.

Our course thence lay eastward up the easy bed of the Fiumara, an eastern section of an old friend, the Wady Tiryam; it now takes the well-known name "Wady Sadr," and we shall follow it to its head in the Hisma. The scene is rocky enough for Scotland or Scandinavia, with its huge walls bristling in broken rocks and blocks, its blue slides, and its polished sheets of dry watercourse which, from afar, flash in the sun like living cataracts. On the northern or right bank rises the mighty Harb, whose dome, single when seen from the west, here becomes a Tridactylon, splitting into three several heads. Facing it, the northernmost end of the Dibbagh range forms a truncated tower, conspicuous far out at sea: having no name, it was called by us Burj Jebel Dibbagh. A little further to the east it will prove to be the monstrous pommel of a dwarf saddleback, everywhere a favourite shape with the granite outcrop.

MM. Clarke and Lacaze, who had never before seen anything higher that the hillocks of the Isle of Wight or the b.u.t.tes de Montmartre were hot upon ascending the almost perpendicular sides of the Burj, relying upon the parallel and horizontal fissures in the face, which were at least ten to twenty feet apart. These dark marks, probably stained by oxide of iron, reminded me of those which wrinkle the granitic peaks about Rio de Janeiro, and which have been mistaken for "hieroglyphs."

The valley-sole is parti-coloured; the sands of the deeper line to the right are tinctured a pale and sickly green by the degradation of the porphyritic traps, here towering in the largest ma.s.ses yet seen; while the gravel of the left bank is warm, and lively with red grit and syenitic granite. Looking down the long and gently waving line, we feel still connected with the civilized world by the blue and purple screen of Sinai forming the splendid back-ground. Everything around us appears deserted; the Ma'azah are up country, and the Beni ?Ukbah have temporarily quitted these grazing-grounds for the Surr of El-Muwaylah. We camped for the night, after a total march of eleven miles, at the Sayl el-Nagwah, a short Nullah at the foot of a granite block similarly named; and a gap supplied us with tolerable rain-water.

On the next day (February 22nd) we left the "Nagwah" at seven instead of six a.m., and pa.s.sed to the right a granitic outcrop in the Wady bed, a reduced edition of the Burj. After an hour's slow walking we were led by a Bedawi lad, Hasan bin Husayn, to a rock-spur projected northwards from the left side and separating two adjacent Sayls or "torrent-beds," mere bays in the bank of mountains. A cut road runs to the top of the granite tongue, which faces the westernmost or down-stream outbreaks of the huge porphyritic ma.s.ses on the other side of the Wady Sadr. The ridge itself is strewed with spalled stone, quartz broken from the veins that seam the granite, and with slag as usual admirably worked. Not a trace of human habitation appears, nor is there any tradition of a settlement having existed here; consequently we concluded that this was another atelier of wandering workmen.

Below the rock-tongue we found for the first time oxydulated iron and copper, either free or engaged in trap and basaltic d.y.k.es: the former metal, also attached in layers to dark-red vermeilled jasper, here appears streaked with white quartz.

Resuming our ride, we dismounted, after four miles, at the half-way Mahattah ("halting-place"): it is a rond-point in the Wady Sadr, marked from afar by a tall blue pyramid, the Jebel el-Ga'lah (Jalah). We spent some time examining this interesting bulge. Here the Jibal el-Tihamah end, and the eastern parallel range, the Jibal el-Shafah, begins. The former belong to the Huwaytat and to Egypt; the latter, partly to the Ma'azah and to Syria. The geographical frontier is well marked by two large watercourses disposed upon a meridian, and both feeding the main drain, the Sadr-Tiryam. To the north the Wady Sawadah divides the granitic Harb from the porphyritic Jebel Sawadah; while the southern Wady Aylan separates the Dibbagh from the Jebel Aylan, a tall form distinctly visible from the Upper Sharr. The rest of our eastward march will now be through the Shafah ma.s.sif. It resembles on a lower scale the Tihamah Ghats; but it wholly wants their variety, their beauty, and their grandeur. The granites which before pierced the porphyritic traps in all directions, now appear only at intervals; and this, I am told, is the case throughout the northern, as we found it to be in the southern, prolongation of the "Lip"-range. At the same time there is no distinct geographical separation between the two parallels; and both appear, not as if parted by neutral ground, but rather as topographical continuations of each other.

While breaking our fast and resting the mules, a few shots ringing ahead caused general excitement: we were now on the edge of the enemy's country. Presently three of the Ma'azah came in and explained, with their barking voices, that their people had been practicing at the Nishan ("target"); which meant "We have powder in abundance." One of them, at once dubbed El-Nasnas ("the Satyr") from his exceeding monstrous ugliness--a baboon's muzzle with a scatter of beard--kindly volunteered to guide us, with the intention of losing the way. The dialogue that took place was something as follows:--

What are your names ?

A. Na'akal wa nashrab! Our names are "We eat and We drink!"

Where do we find water to-day?

Furayj e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es, "The water of the Rikab!"

A. No, by Allah! The Arabs will never allow you to drink! You should be killed for carrying off in Dumus ("skins") the sand of the Wady Jahd (alluding to Lieutenant Amir's trip).

We did not pay much heed to these evil signs. Ahmed el-?Ukbi had been sent forward to obtain a free pa.s.s from the chiefs, and we hardly expected that the outlying thieves would be daring enough to attack us.

Resuming our way, in a cold wind and a warm sun, up the upper Wady Sadr, we threaded the various bends to the south and south-east, with a general south-south-eastern direction. The normal dark-green traps and burnished red porphyries and grits were spa.r.s.ely clad with the Shauhat and the Yasar trees, resembling the Salvadora and the Tamarix. The country began to show a few donkeys and large flocks of sheep and goats; the muttons have a fine "tog," and sell for three dollars and a half.

The women in charge, whose complexions appeared notably lighter than those of the seaboard, barked like the men. They were much puzzled by a curious bleating which came from the mules; and hurriedly counted their kids, suspecting that one had been purloined, whilst they had some trouble to prevent the whole flock following us. All roared with laughter when they found that Mr. Clarke was the performer.

We crossed two short cuts over long bends in the Wady; and at the second found a pot-hole of rain-water by no means fragrant, except to nostrils that love impure ammonia. It has a grand name, Muwah (for Miyah) el-Rikab ("the Waters of the Caravan"); and we made free with it, despite the morning's threats. We again camped in the valley at an alt.i.tude of 2200 feet (aner. 27.80); and, though the thermometer showed 66 F. at five p.m., fires inside and outside the mess-tent were required. A wester or sea-breeze, deflected by the ravines to a norther, was blowing; and in these regions, as in the sub-frigid zones of Europe, wind makes all the difference of temperature. During the evening we were visited by the Ma'azah Bedawin of a neighbouring encampment: they began to notice stolen camels and to wrangle over past times--another bad sign.

Setting out on a splendidly lucent morning (6:45 a.m., February 23rd), when the towering heads of Harb and Dibbagh looked only a few furlongs distant, we committed the imprudence of preceding, as usual, the escort. Our men had become so timid, starting at the sight of every wretched Bedawi, that they made one long for a "rash act." After walking about a mile and a half, we pa.s.sed some black tents on the left bank, where the Sadr enters a narrow rocky gorge; and suddenly about a dozen varlets were seen scampering over the walls, manning the Pa.s.s, and with lighted matches threatening to fire. Then loud rang the war-song--

"Hill el-Zawaib, hilla-ha; W'abdi Nuhudak kulla-ha!"

"Loose thy top-locks with a loosing (like a lion's mane); And advance thy breast, all of it (opponite pectora without shrinking)."

Other varieties of the slogan are:--

"O man of small mouth (un miserable)!

If we fail, who shall win?"

And--

"By thy eyes (I swear), O she-camel, if we go (to the attack) and gird (the sword), We will make it a day of sorrow to them, and avert from ourselves every ill."

We dismounted, looked to our weapons, and began to parley. The ragged ruffians, some of them mere boys, and these always the readiest to blow the matches of guns longer than themselves, began with high pretensions. They declared that they would be satisfied with nothing less than plundering us; they flouted Shaykh Furayj, and they insulted the Sayyid, threatening to take away his sword.

Presently the escort and the Arab camel-men were seen coming up at the double. The Ma'azah at once became abject; kissed our heads and declared "there was some mistake." I had already remarked, whilst the matchlock-men were swarming up the Wady-sides, that the women and children remained in camp, and the sheep and goats were not driven off. This convinced me that nothing serious had been intended: probably the demonstration was ordered from head-quarters in order to strike us with a wholesome awe.

The fellows gently reproached us with travelling through their country without engaging (and paying) Ghafir--"guides and protectors." So far, as owners of the soil, they were "in their right;" and manning a pa.s.s is here the popular way of levying transit dues. On this occasion the number of our Remingtons sufficed to punish their insolence by putting the men to flight, and by carrying off their camels and flocks; but such a step would have stopped the journey, and what would not the "Aborigines Protection Society" have said and done? I therefore hired one of the varlets, and both parties went their ways rejoicing that the peace had not been broken.

The valley, winding through the red and green hills, was dull and warm till the cool morning easter, which usually set about eight a.m., began to blow. The effect of increasing alt.i.tude showed itself in the vegetation. We now saw for the first time the Kidad (Astragalus), with horrid thorns and a flower resembling from afar the gooseberry: it is common on the Hisma and in the South Country. The Kahla (Echium), a bugloss, a borage-like plant, with viscous leaves and flowers of two colours,--the young light-pink and the old dark-blue,--everywhere beautified the sands, and reminded me of the Istrian hills, where it is plentiful as in the Nile Valley. The Jarad-thorn was not in bloom; and the same was the case with the hyacinth (Dipcadi erythraeum), so abundant in the Hisma', which some of us mistook for a "wild onion." The Zayti (Lavandula) had just donned its pretty azure bloom. There were Reseda, wild indigo, Tribulus (terrestris), the blue Aristida, the pale Stipa, and the Bromus gra.s.s, red and yellow.

The Ratam (spartium), with delicate white and pink blossoms, was a reminiscence of Tenerife and its glorious crater; whilst a little higher up, the amene Cytisus, flowering with gold, carried our thoughts back to the far past.

Presently the great Fiumara opened upon a large basin denoting the Ras ("head") Wady Sadr: native travellers consider this their second stage from El-Muwaylah. In front the Jibal Sadr extended far to the right and left, a slight depression showing the Khuraytah, or "Pa.s.s," which we were to ascend on the morrow.