The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume II Part 2

Here the best of news was in store for us. Lieutenant Yusuf, who had this morning rejoined the Expedition, brought our mails from the Sambuk, which I had ordered by letter at El-?Akabah; and reported that his Highness's frigate Sinnar, an old friend, would relieve the lively Mukhbir in taking us to our last journey southwards. Rations for men and mules, and supplies for ourselves, all were coming. We felt truly grateful to the Viceroy and the Prince Minister for the gracious interest they had taken in the Expedition; and we looked forward with excitement to the proper finish of our labours. Without the third march, the exploration of Midian would have been Abtar, as the Arabs say, "tail-less;" that is, lame and impotent in point of conclusion.

But I would not be beaten by the enemy upon the subject of the lapis Pharanitis mine. During the course of the day, a Jerafin Bedawi, Selim ibn Musallim, brought in scoriae of copper and iron; and on the morrow I sent him as guide to Lieutenant Yusuf, with an escort of two soldiers and eight quarrymen on seven camels. After three days' absence (March 8--10) the officer rejoined us and reported as follows:--

Leaving the Mahattat el-Ghal, he rode up its watercourse, and then turned southwards into the long Wady Umm Jirmah. After seven miles and a half (= direct five and three-quarters), he came upon the Jebel el-Fayruz. It is a rounded eminence of no great height, showing many signs of work, especially three or four cuttings some twenty metres deep. A hillock to the north-west supplied the scoriae before mentioned. Lieutenant Yusuf blasted the chocolate-coloured quartzose rock in four places, filled as many sacks, and struck the pilgrim-road in the Wady el-Mu'arrash, leaving its red block, the Hamra el-Mu'arrash, to the left. His specimens were very satisfactory; except to the learned geologists of the Citadel, Cairo, who p.r.o.nounced them to be carbonate of copper! Dr. L. Karl Moser, of Trieste, examined them and found crystals of turquoise, or rather "johnite," as Dana has it, embedded in or spread upon the quartz. One specimen, moreover, contained silver. So much for the Ziba or southern turquoise-diggings.

Our journey ended on March 8th with a dull ride along the Hajj-road northwards. Pa.s.sing the creek Abu Sharir, which, like many upon this coast, is rendered futile by a wall of coral reef, we threaded a long flat, and after two hours (= seven miles) we entered a valley where the Secondary formation again showed its debris. Here is the Mahattat el-Husan ("the Stallion's Leap"), a large boulder lying to the left of the track, and pitted with holes which a little imagination may convert into hoof-prints.

The name of the n.o.ble animal was El-Mashhur; that of its owner is, characteristically enough, forgotten by the Arabs: it lived in the Days of Ignorance; others add, more vaguely still, when the Beni ?Ukbah, the lords of the land, were warring with the Baliyy. The gorge was then a mere cutting, blocked up by this rock. El-Mashhur "negotiated" it, alighting upon the surface like a Galway hunter taking a stone wall; and carried to Wady Tiryam its rider, whose throat was incontinently cut by the foeman in pursuit. The legend is known to all, and the Bedawin still sc.r.a.pe away the sands which threaten to bury the boulder: it has its value, showing that in regions where the horse is now unknown, where, in fact, nothing but a donkey can live, n.o.ble blood was once bred. The same remark is made by Professor Palmer ("The Desert of the Exodus," p. 42) concerning the Mangaz Hisan Abu Zena ("Leap of the Stallion of the Father of Adultery"), two heaps of stone near the Sinaitic Wady Gharandal. There, however, the animal is cursed, while here it is blessed: perhaps, also, the Midianite tradition may descend from a source which, still older, named the . Is this too far-fetched? And yet, peradventure, it may be true.

We then fell into the Wady Jibbah; pa.s.sed the Jebel el-Kibrit, examined M. Philipin's work, and, led over a very vile and very long "short cut," found ourselves once more on board the Mukhbir.

Note on the Supplies Procurable at Ziba.

The chief stores are:--

Rice (good Yemani), per Kis, or bag of five and a half Kaylah (each twenty-one Ratl = eighteen pounds), four to six dollars.

Durrah (Sorghum), per Ardebb (each = twelve Kaylah), seven and a half to eight dollars.

Dukhn (millet), not common, per Ardebb, eight dollars.

Wheat, always procurable, per Ardebb, ten to twelve dollars.

Barley, always procurable, per Ardebb, five to six dollars.

?Adas (lentils, Revalenta Arabica), per Ardebb, ten to twelve

Samn (liquified b.u.t.ter), per Ratl, seven and a half to eight dollars.

Coffee (green), per pound, eighteen-pence.

?Ajwah (pressed dates), 100 to 110 piastres per Kantar (= 100 Ratl).

Eggs, thirty-five to the shilling.

It is generally possible to buy small quant.i.ties of Hummus (lupins or chick-peas), Kharru'b (carob-pods), "hot" and coa.r.s.e tobacco for the Arabs, and cigarette-paper, matches, etc.

Chapter XIII.

A Week Around and upon the Sharr Mountain?Resume of the March Through Eastern or Central Midian.

For months the Jebel Sharr, the grand block which backs El-Muwaylah, had haunted us, starting up unexpectedly in all directions, with its towering heads, that shifted shape and colour from every angle, and with each successive change of weather. We could hardly leave unexplored the cla.s.sical "Hippos Mons," the Moslem's El-Isharah ("the Landmark"), and the Bullock's Horns of the prosaic British tar.[EN#16] The few vacant days before the arrival of the Sinnar offered an excellent opportunity for studying the Alpine ranges of maritime Midian.

Their stony heights, they said, contain wells and water in abundance, with palms, remains of furnaces, and other attractions. Every gun was brought into requisition, by tales of leopard and ibex, the latter attaining the size of bullocks (!) and occasionally finding their way to the fort:--it was curious to hear our friends, who, as usual, were great upon "le shport,"

gravely debating whether it would be safe to fire upon le leopard. I was anxious to collect specimens of botany and natural history from an alt.i.tude hitherto unreached by any traveller in Western Arabia; and, lastly, there was geography as well as mineralogy to be done.

The Hydrographic Chart gives the Mountain a maximum of nine thousand[EN#17] feet, evidently a clerical error often repeated--really those Admiralty gentleman are too incurious: Wellsted, who surveyed it, remarks (II. X.), "The height of the most elevated peak was found to be 6500 feet, and it obtained from us the appellation of ?Mowilabh High Peak"'--when there are native names for every head. We had been convinced that the lesser is the true measure, by our view from the Hisma plateau, 3800 feet above sea-level. Again, the form, the size, and the inclination of the n.o.ble ma.s.sif are wrongly laid down by the hydrographers. It is a compact block, everywhere rising abruptly from low and sandy watercourses, and completely detached from its neighbours by broad Wadys--the Surr to the north and east, while southwards run the Kuwayd and the Zahakan. The huge long-oval prism measures nineteen and a half by five miles (= ninety-seven and a half square miles of area); and its lay is 320 (mag.), thus deflected 40 westward of the magnetic north. The general appearance, seen in profile from the west, is a Pentedactylon, a central apex, with two others on each side, tossed, as it were, to the north and south, and turning, like chiens de faence, their backs upon one another.

Moreover, the Chart a.s.signs to its "Mount Mowilah" only two great culminations--"Sharp Peak, 6330 feet," to the north; and south of it, "High Peak, 9000." The surveyors doubtless found difficulty in obtaining the Bedawi names for the several features, which are unknown to the citizens of the coast; but they might easily have consulted the only authorities, the Jerafin-Huwaytat, who graze their flocks and herds on and around the mountain. As usual in Arabia, the four several main "horns" are called after the Fiumaras that drain them. The northernmost is the Abu Gusayb (Kusayb) or Ras el-Gusayb (the "Little Reed"), a unity composed of a single block and of three k.n.o.bs in a knot; the tallest of the latter, especially when viewed from the south, resembles an erect and reflexed thumb--hence our "Sharp Peak." Follows Umm el-Furut (the "Mother of Plenty"), a mural crest, a quoin-shaped wall, cliffing to the south: the face, perpendicular where it looks seawards, bears a succession of scars, upright gashes, the work of wind and weather; and the body which supports it is a slope disposed at the natural angle. An innominatus, in the shape of a similar quoin, is separated by a deep Col, apparently a torrent-bed, from a huge Beco de Papagaio--the "Parrot's Bill" so common in the Brazil. This is the Abu Shen.a.z.ir or Shaykhanib (the "Father of Columns"); and, as if two names did not suffice, it has a third, Ras el-Huwayz ("of the Little Cistern"). It is our "High Peak," the most remarkable feature of the sea-facade, even when it conceals the pair of towering pillars that show conspicuously to the north and south. From the beak-shaped apex the range begins to decline and fall; there is little to notice in the fourth horn, whose unimportant items, the Ras Lahyanah, the Jebel Mai'h, and the Umm Gisr (Jisr), end the wall. Each has its huge white Wady, striping the country in alternation with dark-brown divides, and trending coastwards in the usual network.

The material of the four crests is the normal grey granite, enormous lumps and ma.s.ses rounded by degradation; all chasms and naked columns, with here and there a sheet burnished by ancient cataracts, and a slide trickling with water, unseen in the shade and flashing in the sun like a sheet of crystal. The granite, however, is a mere mask or excrescence, being everywhere based upon and backed by the green and red plutonic traps which have enveloped it. And the prism has no easy inland slopes, as a first glance suggests; instead of being the sea-wall of a great plateau, it falls abruptly to the east as well as to the west.

The country behind it shows a perspective of high and low hills, lines of dark rock divided from one another by Wadys of the usual exaggerated size. Of these minor heights only one, the Jebel el-Sahharah looks down upon the sea, rising between the Dibbagh-Kh'shabriyyah block to the north, and the Sharr to the south. Beyond the broken eastern ground, the ruddy Hisma and the gloomy Harrah form the fitting horizon.

After this much for geography, we may view the monarch of Midianite mountains in the beauty and the majesty of his picturesque form. Seen from El-Muwaylah, he is equally magnificent in the flush of morning, in the still of noon, and in the evening glow. As the rays, which suggested the obelisk, are shooting over the southern crests, leaving the bas.e.m.e.nt blue with a tint between the amethyst and the lapis lazuli, its northern third lies wrapped in a cloak of cold azure grey, and its central length already dons a half-light of warmer hue. Meanwhile, the side next the sun is flooded with an aerial aureole of subtle mist, a drift of liquid gold, a gush of living light, rippling from the unrisen orb, decreasing in warmth and brilliancy, paling and fading and waxing faint with infinite gradations proportioned to the increase of distance. Again, after the clear brooding sheen of day has set off the "stark strength and grandeur of rock-form contrasted with the brilliancy and sprightliness of sea," the sinking sun paints the scene with the most gorgeous of blazonings. The colours of the pale rock-skeleton are so faint that there is nothing to interfere with the perfect development of atmospheric effects: it is a white sheet spread to catch the grand illumination, lambent lights of saffron and peach-blossom and shades of purple and hyacinth. As indescribably lovely is the after-glow, the zodiacal light which may have originated the pyramid; the lively pink reflection from the upper atmosphere; the vast variety of tints with which the greens and the reds, the purples and the fiery crimsons of the western sky tincture the receptive surface of the neutral-hued granites; and the chameleon-shiftings of the dying day, as it sinks into the arms of night. Nor less admirable are the feats of the fairy Refraction. The mighty curtain seems to rise and fall as if by magic: it imitates, as it were, the framework of man. In early morning the dancing of the air adds many a hundred cubits to its apparent stature: it is now a giant, when at midnight, after the equipoise of atmospheric currents, it becomes a dwarf replica of its former self.

I had neglected to order overnight the camels from El-Muwaylah, a penny-wise proceeding which delayed our departure. It was nearly nine a.m. (March 13th) before we left the Mukhbir, whose unhappies still sighed and yearned for the civilization and dissipation of Suez; landed at the head of the Sharm Yaharr, and marched up the Wady Harr. We were guided by two Jerafin, Sulayman ibn Musallim and Farj ibn ?Awayz; the former a model hill-man, a st.u.r.dy, thick-legged, huge-calved, gruff-voiced, full-bearded fellow, hot-tempered, good-humoured, and renowned as an ibex-hunter. His gun, marked "Lazari Coitinaz," was a long-barrelled Spanish musket, degraded to a matchlock: it had often changed hands, probably by theft, and the present owner declared that he had bought it for seventy dollars--nearly 15!

Yet its only luxury was the bottom of a breechloader bra.s.s cartridge, inlaid and flanked by the sharp incisors of the little Wabar, or mountain coney. These Bedawin make gunpowder for themselves; they find saltpetre in every cavern, and they buy from Egypt the sulphur which is found in their own hills.

After a few minutes we left the Harr, which drains the tallest of the inland hillock-ranges, and the red block "Hamra el-Maysarah;"

and we struck south-east into the Wady Sanawiyyah. It is a vulgar valley with a novelty, the Tamrat Faraj. This cairn of brick-coloured boulders b.u.t.tressing the right bank has, or is said to have, the Memnonic property of emitting sounds--Yarinn is the Bedawi word. The boomings and bellowings are said to be loudest at sunrise and sunset. The "hideous hum" of such subterraneous thunderings is alluded to by all travellers in the Dalmatian Island of Melada, and in the Narenta Valley. The marvel has been accounted for by the escape of imprisoned air unequally expanded, but "a veil of mystery hangs over the whole."[EN#18]

The valley-sides of dark trap were striped with white veins of heat-altered argil; the sole with black magnetic sand; and patches of the bed were b.u.t.tercup-yellow with the Handan (dandelion), the Cytisus, and the Zaram (Panic.u.m turgidum) loved by camels. Their jaundiced hue contrasted vividly with the red and mauve blossoms of the boragine El-Kahla, the blue flowerets of the Lavandula (El-Zayti), and the delicate green of the useless[EN#19] asphodel (El-Borag), which now gave a faint and shadowy aspect of verdure to the slopes. Although the rise was inconsiderable, the importance of the vegetation palpably decreased as we advanced inland.

After four miles we reached the Wady-head, and wasted a couple of hours awaiting the camels that carried our supplies. The path then struck over a stony divide, with the Hamra to the left or north, and on the other side the Hamra el-Mu'arrash, made familiar to us by our last march. The latter ends in an isolated peak, the Jebel Gharghur, which, on our return, was mistaken for the sulphur-hill of Jibbah. Presently we renewed acquaintance with the Wady el-Bayza, whose lower course we had crossed south of Sharm Yaharr: here it is a long and broad, white and tree-dotted expanse, glaring withal, and subtending all this section of the Sharr's sea-facing base. We reached, after a total of eight miles, the Jibal el-Kawaim, or "the Perpendiculars," one of the features which the Bedawin picturesquely call the Aulad el-Sharr ("Sons of the Sha'rr"). The three heads, projected westwards from the Umm Furut peak and then trending northwards, form a lateral valley, a bay known as Wady el-Kaimah. It is a picturesque feature with its dark sands and red grit, while the profile of No. 3 head, the Kaimat Abu Raki, shows a snub-nosed face in a judicial wig, the trees forming an apology for a beard.

I thought of "Buzfuz Bovill."

We camped early, as the Safh el-Sharr (the "Plain of the Sharr") and the lateral valley were found strewed with quartzes, white, pink, and deep slate-blue. The guides had accidentally mentioned a "Jebel el-Maru," and I determined to visit it next morning. The night was warm and still. The radiation of heat from the huge rock-range explained the absence of cold, so remarkable during all this excursion--hence the African traveller ever avoids camping near bare stones. Dew, however, wetted our boxes like thin rain: the meteor, remarked for the first time on March 13th, will last, they say, three months, and will greatly forward vegetation. It seems to be uncertain, or rather to be influenced by conditions which we had no opportunity of studying: at times it would be exceptionally heavy, and in other places it was entirely absent. Before evening new contract-boots, bought from the Mukhbir, were distributed to the soldiers and all the quarrymen, who limped painfully on their poor bare feet:--next day all wore their well-hidden old boots.

Early on March 14th we ascended the Wady el-Kaimah, which showed a singular spectacle, and read us another lecture upon the diversity of formation which distinguishes this region. An abrupt turn then led over rough ground, the lower folds of the Umm Furut, where a great granite gorge, the Nakb Abu Shar, ran up to a depression in the dorsum, an apparently practicable Col.

Suddenly the rocks a.s.sumed the quaintest hues and forms. The quartz, slaty-blue and black, was here spotted and streaked with a dull, dead white, as though stained by the droppings of myriad birds: there it lay veined and marbled with the most vivid of rainbow colours-- reds and purples, greens and yellows, set off by the pale chalky white. Evident signs of work were remarked in a made road running up to the Jebel el-Maru (proper), whose strike is 38 (mag.), and whose dip is westward. It is an arete, a c.o.c.k's-comb of snowy quartz some sixty feet high by forty-five broad at the base; crowning a granitic fold that descends abruptly, with a deep fall on either side, from the "Mother of Plenty." This strangely isolated wall, left standing by the denudation that swept away the containing stone, had been broken by perpendicular rifts into four distinct sections; the colour became whiter as it neared the coping, and each rock was crowned with a capping that sparkled like silver in the sudden glance of the "cloud-compelling" sun. The sight delighted us; and M. Lacaze here made one of his most effective croquis, showing the explorers reduced to the size of ants. As yet we had seen nothing of the kind; nor shall we see a similar vein till we reach Abu'l-Marwah, near our farthest southern point. I expected a corresponding formation upon the opposite eastern versant: we found only a huge crest, a spine of black plutonic rock, intensely ugly and repulsive. As we rode back down the "Valley of the Perpendiculars," the aspect of the Jebel el-Maru was epatant--to use another favourite camp-word. Standing sharply out from its vague and gloomy background made gloomier by the morning mists, the Col, whose steep rain-cut slopes and sole were scattered with dark trees and darker rocks, this glittering wall became the sh.e.l.l of an enchanted castle in Gustave Dore.

Returning to our old camping-ground after a ride of three hours and thirty minutes (= nine miles), we crossed two short divides, and descended the Wady el-Kusayb, which gives a name to "Sharp Peak." Here a few formless stone-heaps and straggling bushes represented the ruins, the gardens of palms, and the bullrushes of the Bedawi shepherd lads.[EN#20] Our tents had been pitched in the rond-point of the Wady Surr, which before had given us hospitality (February 19th), on a Safh or high bouldery ledge of the left bank, where it receives the broad Kusayb watercourse.

The day had been sultry; the sun was a "rain sun," while the clouds ma.s.sed thick to the south-west; and at night the lamps of heaven shone with a reddish, lurid light. The tent-pegs were weighted with camel-boxes against the storm; nevertheless, our mess-tent was levelled in a moment by the howling north-easter--warm withal--which, setting in about midnight, made all things uncomfortable enough.

Whilst the caravan was ordered to march straight up the n.o.ble Wady Surr, we set off next morning at six a.m. up the Wady Malih, the north-eastern branch of the bulge in the bed. A few Arab tents were scattered about the bushes above the mouth; and among the yelping curs was a smoky-faced tyke which might have been Eskimo-bred:--hereabouts poor ?Brahim had been lost, and was not fated to be found. A cross-country climb led to the Jebel Malih, whose fame for metallic wealth gave us the smallest expectations--hitherto all our discoveries came by surprise. A careful examination showed nothing at all; but a few days afterwards glorious specimens of cast copper were brought in, the Bedawi declaring that he had found them amongst the adjoining hills. In the re-entering angles of the subjacent Wady the thrust of a stick is everywhere followed by the reappearance of stored-up rain, and the sole shows a large puddle of brackish and polluted water. Perhaps the Malayh of the Bedawin may mean "the salt" (Malih), not "the pleasant" (Malih). Malih, or Mallih, is also the name of a plant, the Reaumuria vernice of Forskal.

Resuming our ride up the torrent-bed, and crossing to the Wady Daumah (of the "Single Daum-palm"), we dragged our mules down a ladder of rock and boulder, the left bank of the upper Surr. The great valley now defines, sharply as a knife-cut, the northernmost outlines of the Sharr, whose apex, El-Kusayb, towered above our heads. Thorn-trees are abundant; fan-palm bush grows in patches; and we came upon what looked like a flowing stream ruffled by the morning breeze: the guides declared that it is a rain-pool, dry as a bone in summer. Presently the rocky bed made a sharp turn; and its "Gate," opened upon another widening, the meeting place of four Wadys, the northern being the Wady Zibayyib that drains ruddy Aba?l-barid.

After a short halt to examine the rude ruins reported by Mr.

Clarke,[EN#21] we resumed the ascent of the Surr, whose left bank still defines the eastern edge of the Sharr. The latter presently puts forth the jagged spine of black and repulsive plutonic rock, which notes the Sha'b Makhul, the corresponding versant of the Nakb Abu Sha'r. The Bedawin, who, as usual, luxuriate in nomenclature, distinguish between the eastern and western faces of the same block, and between the Wadys of the scarp and the counter-scarp. For instance, the eastern front of the Ras el-Kusayb is called Abu Kurayg (Kurayj). This is natural, as the formations, often of a different material, show completely different features.

A little further on, the continuity of the right bank is broken by the Wady el-Hamah. It receives the Wady Kh'shabriyyah, which, bifurcating in the upper bed, drains the Dibbagh and the Umm Jedayl blocks; and in the fork lie, we were told, the ruins of El-Fara', some five hours' march from this section of the Surr.

At the confluence of El-Hamah we found the camels grazing and the tents pitched without orders: the two Shaykhs were determined to waste another day, so they were directed to reload while we breakfasted. Everything was in favour of a long march; the dusty, gusty north-easter had blown itself out in favour of a pleasant southerly wind, a sea breeze deflected from the west.

After marching three miles we camped at the foot of the ridge to be ascended next morning: the place is called Safhat el-Mu'ayrah from a slaty schistose hill on the eastern bank. The guides declared that the only practicable line to the summit was from this place; and that the Sha'bs (Cols) generally cannot be climbed even by the Arabs--I have reason to believe the reverse.

Musallim, an old Bedawi, brought, amongst other specimens from the adjacent atelier, the Mashghal el-Mu'ayrah, a bright bead about the size of No. 5 shot: in the evening dusk it was taken for gold, and it already aroused debates concerning the proper direction of the promised reward, fifty dollars. The morning light showed fine copper. Here free metal was distinctly traceable in the scoriae, and it was the first time that we had seen slag so carelessly worked. Not a little merriment was caused by the ostentatious display of "gold-stones," marked by M.

Philipin's copper-nailed boots. Sulayman, the Bedawi, had killed a Wabar, whose sadly mutilated form appeared to be that of the Syrian hill coney: these men split the bullet into four; "pot" at the shortest distance, and, of course, blow to pieces any small game they may happen to hit.