The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume I Part 21

[EN#131] For the Mount or Mountain see Exodus xix. 2, 12, 20, 23; also x.x.xii. 19; Deut. iv. II, and v. 23; Heb. xii. 18. Josephus ("Antiq.," II. ii. I) speaks of it similarly as a "mountain," and describes it with all the apparatus of fable; while his compatriot and contemporary, St. Paul (Epist. to the Galatians iv. 25), calls it only "Mount Sinai in Arabia," i.e. east of Jordan.

[EN#132] See Athenaeum, February 8th and 15th, 1873.

[EN#133] They were heard of by Burckhardt ("Syria," p. 510).

[EN#134] Beke (p. 446), on February 6th, estimated the rise of the tide at 'Akabah head to be three to four feet. This is greatly in excess of actuality; but, then, he was finding out some rational way of drowning "Pharaoh and his host."

[EN#135] Those living further north, the 'Ammarin and the Liyasinah, are unmitigated scoundrels and dangerous ruffians: amongst the former Shaykh Sala'mah ibn 'Awwad with his brother, and among the latter Ibrahim el-Hasanat, simply deserve hanging.

In Edom, too, 'Abd el-Rahman el-'Awar ("the One-eyed"), Shaykh of the Fellahin, is "wanted;" and the 'Alawin-Huwaytat would be greatly improved were they to be placed under Egyptian, instead of Syrian, rule.

[EN#136] Dr. Beke's artist (p. 374) has produced a work of imagination, especially in the foreground and background of his "Migdol or Castle of Akaba."

[EN#137] Commonly written Kansuh (Kansooh) and corrupted by Europeans to Campson (like Sampson) Goree.

[EN#138] Not Hamid, as some misp.r.o.nounce the word.

[EN#139] "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. XII.

[EN#140] The chain did not part. The anchor was afterwards fished up by divers from El-Muwaylah, and its shank was found broken clean across like a carrot. Yet there was no sign of a flaw. Mr.

Duguid calculated the transverse breaking strain of average anchor-iron (8 1/2 inches x 4 = 22 square inches), at 83 1/10 tons; and the tensile breaking strain at 484 tons, or 22 tons to the square inch; while the stud-length cable of 1 1/8 inch chain, 150 fathoms long, would carry, if proof, 24 tons. Captain Mohammed was persevering enough, after the divers had failed, to recover his chain when on his cruise homewards; and the Rais of the Sambuk was equally lucky.

[EN#141] "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Ch. XII. p. 317.

[EN#142] See Chap. X.

[EN#143] Lieutenant-Colonel Bolton kindly compared the specimens with those in his cabinet. The first, which was accompanied by quartz, resembled the produce of Orenburg. A Peruvian mine-proprietor had p.r.o.nounced it to be "Rosicler" silver. The magnetic sand bore a tantalizing resemblance to the highly auriferous black sand of Ekaterinburg.

[EN#144] Correspondence of the Sheffield Telegraph (May 18), copied into the Globe of May 25, etc., etc., etc.

[EN#145] "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. XI. It was then visited from its creek, Sharm Jibbah.

[EN#146] Chap. XIV.

[EN#147] A water-rolled fragment of this rock is called Korundogeschieb by Dr. L. Karl Moser, Professor of Natural History at the Gymnasium of Trieste, who kindly examined my little private collection of "show things."

[EN#148] Chap. XII.

[EN#149] Let me at once protest against the a.s.sertions contained in an able review of "The Gold-Mines of Midian" (Pall Mall Gazette, June 7, 1878). The writer makes ancient Midian extend from the north of the Arabic Gulf (El-'Akabah?) and Arabia Felix (which? of the cla.s.sics or of the moderns?) to the plains of Moab"--exactly where it a.s.suredly does not now extend.

[EN#150] Described in Chap. XV.

[EN#151] This place is noticed in "The Gold-Mines of Midian,"

Chap. X.

[EN#152] I am not certain of this name, as several variants were given to me. For historical notices of the ruined town of Khulasah, see Chap. IV.

[EN#153] In "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. V., occur several differences of nomenclature, which may or may not be mistakes.

They are corrected in my "Itineraries," part ii. sect. 2.

[EN#154] To this breed belonged the beast which carried me on the first Expedition.

[EN#155] For a short notice of this region, hitherto unvisited by Europeans, see Chap. XVIII.

[EN#156] For a note on the "Burnt Mountain," so well known at El-Wijh, see Chap. XVIII.

[EN#157] It was afterwards exhibited at the Hippodrome, Cairo, and was carefully photographed by M. Lacaze. Others said that it came from the east of our camp, near the Jils el-Daim.

[EN#158] It was duly committed to the charge of our Sayyid.

End of The Land of Midian (Revisited) By Richard F. Burton,