The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume II Part 3

Early on March 16th we attacked the Sharr in a general direction from north to south, where the ascent looked easy enough. On the left bank a porphyritic block, up whose side a mule can be ridden, is disposed in a slope of the palest and most languid of greens, broken by piles of black rock so regular as to appear artificial. This step leads to a horizontal crest, a broken wall forming its summit: it is evidently an outlier; and experience asked, What will be behind it? The more distant plane showed only the heads of the Shen.a.z.ir or "Pins," the two quaint columns which are visible as far as the Sharr itself. This lower block is bounded, north and south, by gorges; fissures that date from the birth of the mountain, deepened by age and raging torrents: apparently they offered no pa.s.sage. In the former direction yawns the Rushuh Abu Tin.a.z.ib, so called from its growth--the Tanzub-tree[EN#22] (Sodada decidua); and in the latter the Shab Umm Khargah (Kharjah). I should have preferred a likely looking Nakb, south of this southern gorge, but the Bedawin, and especially Abu Khartum, who had fed his camels and sheep upon the mountain, overruled me.

The ascent of the outlier occupied three very slow hours, spent mostly in prospecting and collecting. At nine a.m. we stood 3200 feet above sea-level (aner. 26.79), high enough to make our tents look like bits of white macadam. What most struck us was the increased importance of the vegetation, both in quant.i.ty and quality; the result, doubtless, of more abundant dew and rain, as well as of shade from each pa.s.sing mist-cloud. The view formed a startling contrast of fertility and barrenness. At every hundred yards the growths of the plain became more luxuriant in the rich humus filling the fissures, and, contrary to the general rule, the plants, especially the sorrel (Rumex) and the dandelion (Taraxac.u.m), instead of dwindling, gained in stature. The strong-smelling Ferula looked like a bush, and the Sarh grew into a tree: the Ar'ar,[EN#23] a homely hawthorn (hawthorn-leaved Rhus), whose appearance was a surprise, equalled the Crat?gus of Syria; and the upper heights must have been a forest of fine junipers (Habibah = Juniperus Ph?nicea), with trunks thick as a man's body. The guides spoke of wild figs, but we failed to find them. Our cha.s.seurs, who had their guns, eagerly conned over the traces of ibex and hyenas, and the earths, as well as the large round footprints, of un leopard; but none of the larger animals were seen. The Bedawi matchlock has made them wary; chance might give a shot the first day: on the other hand, skill might be baffled for a month or two--I pa.s.sed six weeks upon the Anti-Liba.n.u.s before seeing a bear. The n.o.ble Shinnar-partridge again appeared; an eagle's feather lay on the ground; two white papillons and one yellow b.u.t.terfly reminded me of the Camarones Mountain; the wild bee and the ladybird-like Ba'uzah stuck to us as though they loved us; and we were pestered by the attentions of the common fly. The Egyptian symbol for "Paul Pry" is supposed to denote an abundance of organic matter: it musters strong throughout Midian, even in the dreariest wastes; and it accompanies us everywhere, whole swarms riding upon our backs.

The only semblance of climbing was over the crest of brown, burnished, and quartzless traps. Even there the hands were hardly required, although our poor feet regretted the want of Spartelles.[EN#24] Here the track debouched upon an inverted arch, with a hill, or rather a tall and k.n.o.bby outcrop of rock, on either flank of the keystone. The inland or eastward view was a map of the region over which we had travelled; a panorama of little chains mostly running parallel with the great range, and separated from it by Wadys, lateral, oblique, and perpendicular.

Of these torrent-beds some were yellow, others pink, and others faint sickly green with decomposed trap; whilst all bore a fair growth of thorn-trees--Acacias and Mimosas. High over and beyond the monarch of the Shafah Mountains, Jebel Sahharah, whose blue poll shows far out at sea, ran the red levels of the Hisma, backed at a greater elevation by the black-blue Harrah. The whole Tihamah range, now so familiar to us, a.s.sumed a novel expression.

The staple material proved to be blocks and crests of granite, protruding from the younger plutonics, which enfolded and enveloped their bases and backs. The one exception was the dwarf Umm Jedayl, a heap composed only of grey granite. The Jebel Kh'shabriyyah in the Dibbagh block attracted every eye; the head was supported by a neck swathed as with an old-fashioned cravat.

The summit of the outlier is tolerably level, and here the shepherds had built small hollow piles of dry stone, in which their newly yeaned lambs are sheltered from the rude blasts. The view westwards, or towards the sea, which is not seen, almost justifies by its peculiarity the wild traditions of built wells, of a "moaning mountain," and of furnaces upon the loftiest slopes: it is notable that the higher we went, the less we heard of these features, which at last vanished into thin air. Our platform is, as I suspected, cut off from the higher plane by a dividing gorge; but the depth is only three hundred feet, and to the south it is bridged by a connecting ridge. Beyond it rises the great mask of granite forming the apex, a bonier skeleton than any before seen. Down the northern sheet-rocks trickled a thin stream that caught the sun's eye; thus the ravine is well supplied with water in two places. South of it rises a tempting Col, with a slope apparently easy, separating a dull ma.s.s of granite on the right from the peculiar formation to the left. The latter is a dome of smooth, polished, and slippery grey granite, evidently unpleasant climbing; and from its landward slope rise abrupt, as if hand-built, two isolated gigantic "Pins," which can hardly measure less than four hundred feet in stature. They are the remains of a sharp granitic comb whose apex was once the "Parrot's Beak." The ma.s.s, formerly mammilated, has been broken and denticulated by the destruction of softer strata. Already the lower crest, bounding the Sha'b Umm Khargah, shows perpendicular fissures which, when these huge columns shall be gnawed away by the tooth of Time, will form a new range of pillars for the benefit of those ascending the Sharr, let us say in about A.D.

10,000. Such are the "Pins" which name the mountain; and which, concealed from the coast, make so curious a show to the north, south, and east of this petrified glacier.

After breaking their fast, M.M. Clarke, Lacaze, and Philipin volunteered to climb the tempting Col. None of them had ever ascended a mountain, and they duly despised the obstacles offered by big rocks distance-dwarfed to paving-stones; and of sharp angles, especially the upper, perspective-blunted to easy slopes.

However, all three did exceeding well: for such a "forlorn hope"

young recruits are better than old soldiers. They set out at eleven a.m., and lost no time in falling asunder; whilst the quarrymen, who accompanied them with the water-skins, shirked work as usual, lagged behind, sat and slept in some snug hollow, and returned, when dead-tired of slumber, declaring that they had missed the "Effendis."

M. Philipin took singly the sloping side of the connecting ridge; and, turning to the right, made straight for the "Pins," below which was spread a fleck of lean and languid green. The ascent was comparatively mild, except where it became a sheet of smooth and slippery granite; but when he reached a clump of large junipers, his course was arrested by a bergschrund, which divides this block--evidently a second outlier--from the apex of the Sharr, the "Dome" and the "Parrot's Beak." It was vain to attempt a pa.s.sage of the deep gash, with perpendicular upper walls, and lower slopes overgrown with vegetation; nor could he advance to the right and rejoin his companions, who were parted from him by the precipices on the near side of the Col. Consequently, he beat a retreat, and returned to us at 2.30 p.m., after three hours and thirty minutes of exceedingly thirsty work: the air felt brisk and cool, but the sun shone pitilessly, unveiled by the smallest sc.r.a.p of mist. He brought with him an ibex-horn still stained with blood, and a branch of juniper, straight enough to make an excellent walking-stick.

The other two struck across the valley, and at once breasted the couloir leading to the Col, where we had them well in sight. They found the ascent much "harder on the collar" than they expected: fortunately the sole of the huge gutter yielded a trickle of water. The upper part was, to their naive surprise, mere climbing on all fours; and they reached the summit, visible from our halting-place, in two hours. Here they also were summarily stopped by perpendicular rocks on either side, and by the deep gorge or creva.s.se, shedding seawards and landwards, upon whose further side rose the "Parrot's Beak." The time employed would give about two thousand feet, not including the ascent from the valley (three hundred feet); and thus their highest point could hardly be less than 5200 feet. Allowing another thousand for the apex, which they could not reach,[EN#25] the alt.i.tude of the Sharr would be between 6000 and 6500 feet.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen before the two reappeared, and the delay caused no small apprehension; the Sayyid showed a kindly agitation that was quite foreign to his calm and collected demeanour, when threatened by personal danger. To be benighted amongst these cruel mountains must be no joke; nor would it have been possible to send up a tent or even mouth-munition. However, before the sun had reached the west, they came back triumphant with the spoils of war. One was a snake (Echis colorata, Gunther), found basking upon the stones near the trickle of water. It hissed at them, and, when dying, it changed colour, they declared, like a chameleon--that night saw it safely in the spirit-tin. They were loaded with juniper boughs, and fortunately they had not forgotten the berries; the latter establish the ident.i.ty of the tree with the common Asiatic species. M. Lacaze brought back several Alpine plants, a small Helix which he had found near the summit, and copious scrawls for future croquis--his studies of the "Pins" and the "Dome" were greatly admired at Cairo.

Ere the glooms of night had set in, we found ourselves once more at the tents. Only one man suffered from the ascent, and his sunstroke was treated in Egyptian fashion. Instead of bleeding like that terrible, murderous Italian school of Sangrados, the Fellahs tie a string tightly round the head; and after sunset--which is considered de rigueur--they fill the ears with strong brine. According to them the band causes a bunch of veins to swell in the forehead, and, when pressed hard, it bursts like a pistol-shot. The cure is evidently effected by the cold salt-and-water. The evening ended happily with the receipt of a mail, and with the good news that the Sinnar corvette had been sent to take the place of El-Mukhbir, the unfortunate. Once more we felt truly grateful to the Viceroy and the Prince who so promptly and so considerately had supplied all our wants, and whose kindness would convert our southern cruise into a holiday gite, without the imminent deadly risk of a burst boiler.

We set out in high spirits on the next morning (6.15 a.m., March 17th), riding, still southwards, up the Surr: the stony, broken surface now showed that we were fast approaching its source.

Beyond the Umm Khargah gorge on the western bank, rose a tall head, the Ras el-Rukabiyyah; and beyond it was a ravine, in which palms and water are said to be found. The opposite side raised its monotonous curtain of green and red traps, whose several projections bore the names of Jebel el-Wu'ayrah--the hill behind our camping-ground--Jebel el-Main, and Jebel Shahitah. A little beyond the latter debouched the Darb el-Kufl ("Road of Caravans"), alias Darb el-Asharif ("Road of the Sherifs"), a winding gap, the old line of the Egyptian pilgrims, by which the Sulaymayyan Bedawin still wend their way to Suez. The second name, perhaps, conserves the tradition of long-past wars waged between the Descendants of the Apostle and the Beni ?Ukbah.[EN#26] The broad mouth was dotted with old graves, with quartz-capped memorial-cairns, and, here and there, with a block bearing some tribal mark. The Wady-sole grew a "stinkhorn" held to be poisonous, and called, from its fetor, "Faswat el-?Aguz"

(Cynophallus impudicus): one specimen was found on the tip of an ibex-horn, and the other had been impaled with a stick. After two hours and thirty minutes (= seven miles) we sighted the head of the Wady Surr proper, whose influents drain the southern Khurayatah or Hisma Pa.s.s. Here the amount of green surface, and the number of birds, especially the blue-rock and the insect-impaling "butcher," whose nests were in the thin forest of thorn-trees, argue that water is not far off. The Ras Wady Surr is a charming halting-place.

Our Arabs worked hard to gain another day. The only tolerable Pa.s.s rounding the southern Sharr was, they declared, the Wady Aujar, an influent of the Wady Zahakan, near Ziba. The Col el-Kuwayd, now within a few yards of us, is so terrible that the unfortunate camels would require, before they could attempt it, at least twenty-four hours of preparatory rest and rich feeding; and so forth. However, we pushed them on with flouts and jeers, and we ourselves followed at eleven a.m.

The Pa.s.s proved to be one of the easiest. It began with a gradual rise up a short broad Wady, separating the southernmost counterforts of the Sharr from the north end of the Jebel el-Ghurab. This "Raven Mountain" is a line of similar but lower formation, which virtually prolongs the great "Landmark," down coast. The bottom was dotted with lumps of pure "Maru," washed from the upper levels. We reached the summit in forty minutes, and the seaward slope beyond it was a large outcrop of quartz in situ, that a.s.sumed the strangest appearance,--a dull, dead chalky-white, looking as if heat-altered or mixed with clay. The rock-ladder leading to the lower Wady Kuwayd, which has an upper branch of the same name, offered no difficulty to man or beast; and the aneroid showed its height to be some 470 feet (28.13--28.50). The caravan, having preceded us, revenged itself by camping at the nearest pool, distant nineteen and a half direct geographical miles from our destination.

This day was the first of the Khamsin or, as M. Loufti (?), a Coptic student, writes it, "Khamasin," from Khama ("warm") and Sina ("air").[EN#27] The Midianites call it El-Daufun, the hot blasts, and expect it to blow at intervals for a couple of months. This scirocco has been modified in Egypt, at least during the spring, apparently by the planting of trees. About a quarter-century ago, its regular course was three days: on the first it set in; the second was its worst; and men knew that it would exhaust itself on the third. Now it often lasts only a single day, and even that short period has breaks.

The site of the camp made sleep well-nigh impossible--a bad preparation for the only long ride of this excursion. Setting off at dark (4.20 a.m., March 18th), we finished the monotonous Wady Kuwayd, which mouths upon the rolling ground falling coastwards.

The track then struck to the north-west, across and sometimes down the network of Wadys that subtends the south-western Sharr--their names have already been mentioned. As we sighted the cool green-blue sea, its horizon-line appeared prodigiously uplifted, as if the Fountains of the great Deep were ready for another Deluge. I remembered the inevitable expressions of surprise with which, young Alpinists and ballooners, expecting the rim of the visible circle to fall away, see it rising around them in saucer-shape. The cause is simply that which breaks the stick in water, and which elevates the Sha'rr every morning--Refraction.

After a march of seven hours (= twenty-two miles), we debouched, via the Wady Harr, upon our old Sharm, the latter showing, for the first time since its creation, two war-steamers, with their "tender," a large Sambuk. The boats did not long keep us waiting; and we were delighted to tread once more the quarter-deck of the corvette Sinnar. Captain Ali Bey Shukri's place had been taken by Captain Hasan-Bey, an Osmanli of Cavala who, having been forty-eight years in the service, sighed for his pension. He did, however, everything in his power to make us feel "at home;" and the evening ended with a fantasia of a more p.r.o.nounced character than anything that I had yet seen.[EN#28]

Resume of the March Through Eastern or Central Midian.

Our journey through Eastern or Central Midian lasted eighteen days (February 19--March 8), with an excursion of six (March 13--18) to its apex, the mighty Sharr, which I would add to our exploration of Central Midian. Despite enforced slow marches at the beginning of the first section, we visited in round numbers, according to my itinerary, 197 miles: Lieutenant Amir's map gives a linear length of 222 miles, not including the offsets. The second part covered fifty-five miles, besides the ascent of the mountain to a height of about five thousand feet: the mapper also increased this figure to 59 2/3. Thus the route-line shows a grand total of 252 to 281 2/3 in direct statute miles. The number of camels engaged from Shaykhs ?Alayan and Hasan was sixty-one; and the hire, according to Mr. Clarke, represented 147 6s. 6d., not including the 40 of which we were plundered by the bandit Ma'azah. The ascent of the Sharr also cost 40, making a grand total of 187 6s. 6d.

The march to the Hisma gave us a fair idea of the three main formations of Madyan, which lie parallel and east of one another:--1. The sandy and stony maritime region, the foot-hills of the Ghats, granites and traps with large veins and outcrops of quartz; and Wadys lined with thick beds of conglomerate. 2. The Jibal el-Tihamah, the majestic range that bounds the seaboard inland, with its broad valleys and narrow gorges forming the only roads. 3. The Jibal el-Shafah, or interior ridge, the "lip" of North-Western Arabia; in fact, the boundary-wall of the Nejd plateau.

The main object of this travel was to ascertain the depth from west to east of the quartz-formations, which had been worked by the Ancients. I had also hoped to find a virgin region lying beyond El-Harrah, the volcanic tract subtending the east of the Hisma, or plateau of New Red Sandstone. We ascertained, by inquiry, that the former has an extent wholly unsuspected by Dr.

Wallin and by the first Expedition; and that a careful examination of it is highly desirable. But we were stopped upon the very threshold of the Hisma by the Ma'azah, a tribe of brigands which must be subjected to discipline before the province of Madyan can be restored to its former status.

This northern portion had been visited by Dr. Wallin; the other two-thirds of the march lay, I believe, over untrodden ground. We brought back details concerning the three great parallel Wadys; the Salma, the Damah, that "Arabian Arcadia," and the ?Aslah-Aznab. We dug into, and made drawings and plans of, the two princ.i.p.al ruined cities, Shuwak and s.h.a.ghab, which probably combined to form the cla.s.sical ; and of the two less important sites, El-Khandaki and Umm amil.

The roads of this region, and indeed of all Midian, are those of Iceland without her bogs and snows: for riding considerations we may divide them into four kinds:--

1. Wady--the Fiumara or Nullah; called by travellers "winter-brook" and "dry river-bed." It is a channel without water, formed, probably, by secular cooling and contraction of the earth's surface, like the fissures which became true streams in the tropics, and in the higher temperate zones. Its geological age would be the same as the depressions occupied by the ocean and the "ma.s.sive" eruptions forming the mountain-skeleton of the globe. Both the climate and the vegetation of Midian must have changed immensely if these huge features, many of them five miles broad, were ever full of water. In modern days, after the heaviest rains, a thin thread meanders down a wilderness of bed.

The Wady-formation shows great regularity. Near the mouth its loose sands are comfortable to camels and distressing to man and mule. The gravel of the higher section is good riding; the upper part is often made impa.s.sable by large stones and overfalls of rock; and the head is a mere couloir. Flaked clay or mud show the thalweg; and the honeycombed ground, always above the line of highest water, the homes of the ant, beetle, jerboa, lizard, and (Girdi) rat, will throw even the cautious camel.

2. Ghadir--the basin where rain-water sinks. It is mostly a shining bald flat of hard yellow clay, as admirable in dry as it is detestable in wet weather.

3. Majra--here p.r.o.nounced "Maghrah"[EN#29]--the divide; literally, the place of flowing. It is the best ground of all, especially where the yellow or brown sands are overlaid by hard gravel, or by a natural metalling of trap and other stones.

4. Wa'r--the broken stony surface, over which camels either cannot travel, or travel with difficulty: it is the horror of the Bedawi; and, when he uses the word, it usually means that it causes man to dismount. It may be of two kinds; either the Majra proper ("divide") or the Nakb ("pa.s.s"), and the latter may safely be left to the reader's imagination.

The partial ascent of the mighty Sharr gave an admirable study of the mode in which the granites have been enfolded and enveloped by the later eruptions of trap. Nor less curious, also, was it to remark how, upon this Arabian Alp, vegetation became more important; increasing, contrary to the general rule, not only in quant.i.ty but in size, and changing from the date and the Daum to the strong smelling Ferula, the homely hawthorn, and the tall and balmy juniper-tree. There is game, ibex and leopard, in these mountains; but the traveller, unless a man of leisure, must not expect to shoot or even to sight it.

Chapter XIV.

Down South--to El-Wijh?Notes on the Quarantine--the Hutaym Tribe.

There remained work to do before we could leave El-Muwaylah. The two Shaykhs, ?Alayan and Hasan el-?Ukbi, were to be paid off end dismissed with due ceremony; provisions were to be brought from the fort to the cove; useless implements to be placed in store; mules to be embarked--no joke without a pier!--and last, but not least, the ballastless Mukhbir was to be despatched with a mail for Suez. The whole Expedition, except only the sick left at the fort, was now bound southwards. The Sayyid and our friend Furayj accepted formal invitations to accompany us: Bukhayt, my "shadow," with Husayn, chef and romancer-general, were shipped as their henchmen; and a score of soldiers and quarrymen represented the escort and the working-hands. Briefly, the Sinnar, though fretting her vitals out at the delay, was detained two days (March 19--20) in the Sharm Yaharr. Amongst other things that consoled us for quitting the snug dock, was the total absence of fish. At this season the shoals leave the coast, and gather round their wonted sp.a.w.ning-grounds, the deep waters near the Sha'b ("reefs"), where they find luxuriant growths of seaweed, and where no ships disturb them.

Bidding a temporary adieu to our old fellow voyagers on board the Mukhbir, including the excellent engineer, Mr. David Duguid, we steamed out of the quiet cove, at a somewhat late hour (6.30 a.m.) on March 21st; and, dashing into the dark and slaty sea, stood to the south-east. For two days the equinoctial weather had been detestable, dark, cloudy, and so damp that the dry and the wet bulbs showed a difference of only 4--5. This morning, too, the fire of colour had suddenly gone out; and the heavens were hung with a gloomy curtain. The great Sharr, looming unusually large and tall in the Scandinavian mountain-scene, grey of shadow and glancing with sun-gleams that rent the thick veils of mist-cloud, a.s.sumed a manner of Ossianic grandeur. After three hours and a half we were abreast of Ziba, around whose dumpy tower all the population had congregated. Thence the regular coralline bank, whose beach is the Bab, runs some distance down coast, allowing pa.s.sage to our ugly old friend, Wady Salma. The next important mouth is the Wady ?Amud, showing two Sambuks at anchor, and a long line of vegetation like the palm-strips of the ?Akabah Gulf: this valley, I have said, receives the Mutadan, into which the Abu Marwah gorge discharges.[EN#30]

It would appear that this "?Amud" represents the "Wady el-?Aunid," a name utterly unknown to the modern Arabs, citizens and Bedawin, at least as far south as El-Haura. Yet it is famed amongst mediaeval geographers for its fine haven with potable water; and for its flourishing city, where honey was especially abundant. El-Idrisi settles the question of its site by placing it on the coast opposite the island El-Na'man (Nu'man), but can El-Idrisi be trusted?

Sprenger (p. 24), induced, it would appear, by similarity of sound, and justly observing that in Arabic the letters Ayn and Ghayn are often interchanged, would here place the (Rhaunathi Vicus) of Ptolemy (north lat. 25 degrees 40'). According to my friend, also, the Ras Abu Masarib, the long thin point north of which the Wady Damah, half-way to the Wady Azlam, falls in, represents the (Chersonesi Extrema) on the same parallel. I cannot help suspecting that both lie further south--in fact, somewhere about El- Haura.[EN#31]

Here the maritime heights, known as the Jibal ("Mountains" of the) Tihamat-Balawiyyah (of "the Baliyy tribe"), recede from the sea, and become mere hills and hillocks; yet the continuity of the chain is never completely broken. At noon we slipped into the channel, about a mile and a half broad, which separates the mainland from the Jebel ("Mount") Nu'man, as the island is called: so the Arabs speak of Jebel (never Jezirat) Ha.s.sani.[EN#32] The surface of the water was like oil after the cross seas on all sides, the tail of an old gale which the Arab pilots call Bahr madfun ("buried sea"), corresponding with the Italian mar vecchio. On our return northwards we landed upon Nu'man, whose name derives from the red-flowered Euphorbia retusa; bathed, despite the school of sharks occupying the waters around; collected botany, and examined the ground carefully. Like the Dalmatian Archipelago, it once formed part of the mainland, probably separated by the process that raised the maritime range.

The rolling sandy plateau and the dwarf Wadys are strewed with trap and quartz, neither of which could have been generated by the new sandstones and the yellow corallines. It has two fine bays, facing the sh.o.r.e and admirably defended from all winds; the southern not a little resembles Sinafir-cove.

The "top," or dwarf plateau, commands a fine view of the coast scenery; the "Pins" of the Sharr; the Mutadan Mountain, twin ridges of grey white granite, and, further south, the darker forms of Raydan and Ziglab. Here, during springtide, the Huwaytat transport their flocks in the light craft called Katirah, and feed them till the pasture is browsed down. We made extensive inquiries, but could hear of no ruins. Yet the islet, some three to four miles long by one broad, forming a natural breakwater to the coast, is important enough to bear, according to Sprenger, a cla.s.sical name, the (Timagenis Insula) of Ptolemy. If this be the case, either the Pelusian or his ma.n.u.scripts are greatly in error. He places the bank in north lat. 25 45', whilst its centre would be in north lat. 27 5'; and the sixty miles of distance from the coast, evidently the blunder of a copyist, must be reduced to a maximum of three.

Pa.s.sing another old friend, the Aslah-Aznab, down whose head we had ridden to s.h.a.ghab, about two p.m. we steamed along the mouth of the Wady Azlam, the Ezlam of Wellsted,[EN#33] which he unduly makes the southern frontier of the Huwaytat, and the northern of the Baliyy tribes. Beyond it is the gape of the once populous Wady Dukhan--of "the (furnace?) Smoke"--faced by a large splay of tree-grown sand. Ruins are reported in its upper bed. Beyond Marsa Zubaydah (not Zebaider), the sea is bordered by the red-yellow coast-range; and the fretted sky line of peaks and cones, "horses" and "hogs'-backs," is cut by deep valleys and drained by dark "gates." The background presents a long, regular curtain of black hill, whose white sheets and veins may be granite and quartz. We were then shown the Minat el-Marrah, one of the many Wady-mouths grown with vegetation; and here the ruins El-Nabagah (Nabakah) are spoken of. At four p.m. we doubled the Ras Labayyiz (not Lebayhad), a long flat tongue projecting from the coast range, and defending its valley to the south. In the Fara't or upper part, some five hours' march from the mouth, lie important remains of the Mutakkadimin ("ancients"). The report was confirmed by an old Arab Bash-Buzuk at El-Wijh; he declared that in his youth he had seen a tall furnace, and a quant.i.ty of scoriae from which copper could be extracted, lying northwards at a distance of eighteen hours' march and five by sea.

The next important feature is the Wady Salbah, the Telbah of the Chart, up whose inland continuation, the Wady el-Nejd, we shall travel. Here the coast-range again veers off eastward; and the regular line is cut up into an outbreak of dwarf cones, mere thimbles. Above the gloomy range that bounds it southwards, appear the granitic peaks and "Pins" of Jebel Libn, gleaming white and pale in the livid half-light of a cloudy sunset. After twelve hours' steaming over seventy to seventy-two knots of reefy sea, we ran carefully into the Sharm Dumayghah.[EN#34] This lake-like, land-locked cove is by far the best of the many good dock-harbours which break the Midian coast. Its snug retreat gave hospitality to half a dozen Juhayni Sambuks, fishers and divers for mother-of-pearl, riding beyond sight of the outer world, and utterly safe from the lighthouse dues of El-Wijh.

I resolved to pa.s.s a day at these old quarters of a certain Haji ?Abdullah. The hydrographers have given enlarged plans of Yaharr and Jibbah, ports close to each other; while they have ignored the far more deserving Sharm Dumayghah. Distant only thirty miles of coasting navigation, a line almost clear of reefs and shoals, it is the natural harbour for the pilgrim-ships, which ever run the danger of being wrecked at El-Wijh; and it deserves more notice than we have hitherto vouchsafed to it. The weather also greatly improved on the next day (March 22nd): the cloud-canopy, the excessive moisture, and the still sultriness which had afflicted us since March 19th, were in process of being swept away by the strong, cool, bright norther.

The survey of the Egyptian officers shows an oval extending from north-west to south-east, with four baylets or bulges in the northern sh.o.r.e. The length is upwards of a knot, and the breadth twelve hundred yards. It may be described as the embouchure of the Wady Dumayghah, which falls into its head, and which, doubtless, in olden times, when the land was wooded, used to roll a large and turbulent stream. As is often seen on this coast, the entrance is defended by a natural breakwater which appears like a dot upon the Chart. Capped with brown crust, falling bluff inland, and sloping towards the main, where the usual stone-heaps act as sea-marks, this bank of yellowish-white coralline, measuring 310 metres by half that width, may be the remains of the bed in which the torrents carved out the port. The northern inlet is a mere ford of green water: my "Pilgrimage" made the mistake of placing a fair-way pa.s.sage on either side of the islet. The southern channel, twenty-five fathoms deep and three hundred metres broad, is garnished on both flanks with a hundred metres of dangerous shallow, easily distinguished by green blazoned upon blue. The bay is shoal to the south-east; the best anchorage for ships lies to the north-west, almost touching land.

A reef or rock is reported to be in the middle ground, where we lay with ten fathoms under us: it was seen, they say, at night, by the aid of lanterns; but next morning Lieutenants Amir and Yusuf were unable to find it. Native craft usually make fast in three fathoms to a lumpy natural mole of modern sandstone, north of the entrance: a little tr.i.m.m.i.n.g would convert it into a first-rate pier.

At this place we landed to prospect the country, and to gather information from the Sambuk crews before they had time to hoist sail and be off. The owners of the land are not Juhaynah, the "Wild Men" with whom the Rais of the Golden Wire had threatened us in 1853. The country belongs to the Baliyy; now an inoffensive tribe well subject to Egypt, mixed with a few Kura'an-Huwaytat and Karaizah-Hutaym. The fishermen complained that no fish was to be caught, and the strong tides, setting upon the stony flank of the mole, had broken most of the sh.e.l.ls, not including, however, the oysters. The usual eight-ribbed turtle appeared to be common.