The Land of Midian, Vol. 1

R >> Richard Burton >> The Land of Midian, Vol. 1

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We passed the night at El-'Usaylah, a Ghadir (or "hollow")
without drainage, which the sinking of water cakes with mud and
covers with an irregular circle of salsolaceous trees, a patch of
dark metallic green. This "'Usaylah" is eaten by camels, but
rejected by mules. Here our post reached us from Suez on the
seventh day, having started on the 2nd inst. A dollar was offered
to the Bedawi, who eyed the coin indignantly, declaring that it
ought to be a ginni (guinea). I had also given him some tobacco,
and repented, as usual, my generosity.

Next day we finished the last and larger part of the second
pilgrim-stage from El-Muwaylah. Our Arabs had been "dodging;"
and, much disappointed about converting a two days' into a three
days' march, they punished us by feeding their camels on the
road, and by not joining us till the evening. As before, there
was no game till we approached the springs; yet tufts and
scatters of tamarisks, Samur (Inga unguis) and Arák (Salvadora),
looked capable of sheltering it. And now, beyond the level and
monotonous Desert, we began to see our destination;--palms and
tufty trees at the mouth of a masked Wady. This watercourse runs
between a background of reddish-brown rock, the foot-hills and
sub-ranges of the grand block, "El-Zánah," to the north; and a
foreground of pale-yellow, stark-naked gypsum, apparently
tongue-shaped. Above the latter tower two sister-quoins of ruddy
material, the Shigdawayn, to which a tale hangs.

Presently we fell into and ascended the great Wady 'Afár, which
begins in the Hismá, or Red Region, east of the double
coast-range. After receiving a network of Secondary valleys that
enable it to flow a torrent, as in France, every ten to twelve
years, it falls into the Mínat el-'Ayánát, a little port for
native craft, which will presently be visited. We left this Wady
at a bend, some two hundred metres wide, called the "Broad of the
Jujube," from one of the splendid secular trees that characterize
North Midian. Near the camping-ground we shall find another
veteran Zizyphus, whose three huge stems, springing from a single
base, argue a green old age. Here both banks of the Fiumara are
lined with courses of rough stone, mostly rounded and rolled
boulders, evidently the ruins of the water-conduits which served
to feed the rich growth of the lower 'Afa'l. The vegetation of
the gorge-mouth developed itself to dates and Daums, tamarisks
and salsolaceæ, out of which scuttled a troop of startled
gazelles. We turned the right-hand jamb of the "Gate," and found
ourselves at the water and camping-ground of Magháir Shu'ayb.

The general appearance of the station-basin is novel,
characteristic, and not without its charms, especially when the
sunset paints the plain with the red, red gold, and washes every
barren peak with the tenderest, loveliest rosy pink. Under an
intensely clear sapphire-coloured sky rises a distant rim of
broken and chocolate-coloured trap-hills, set off by pale
hillocks and white flats of gypsum, here and there crystallized
by contact with the plutonics. The formation mostly stands up
either in stiff cones or in long spines and ridges, whose
perpendicular wall-like crests are impossible to climb. The snowy
cliffs rest upon shoulders disposed at the "angle of rest," and
the prevailing dull drab-yellow of the base is mottled only where
accidental fracture or fall exposes the glittering salt-like
interior. The gashes in the flank made by wind and rain disclose
the core--grey granite or sandstone coloured by manganese. The
greater part of the old city was built of this
alabaster-like[EN#34] material. When new, it must have been a
scene in fairy-land; Time has now degraded it to the appearance
and the consistence of crumbling salt. The quoin-shaped hills of
the foreground, all uptilted and cliffing to the north, show the
curious mauve and red tints of the many-coloured clays called in
the Brazil Tauá. Even the palms are peculiar. Their tall, upright
crests of lively green fronds, their dead-brown hangings, and
their trunks charred black by the careless Bedawi, form a quaint
contrast with the genteel, nattily dressed, and cockneyfied
brooms of Egypt and the Hejaz. And that grandeur may not be
wanting to the view, on the east rise the peak and pinnacles of
the Almond Mountain (Jebel el-Lauz), whilst northwards the Jebel
el-Za'nah, a huge dome, forms the horizon.

This place, evidently the capital of Madyan Proper, is the word> which Ptolemy (vi. 7) places amongst his "Mesogeian
towns" in north lat. 28 degrees 15 minutes;[EN#35] and it
deserves more than the two pages of description which Ruppell
bestowed upon it.[EN#36] We will notice its natural features
before proceeding to the remains of man. Here the Wady 'Afár
takes the name of "El-Badá." Sweeping from west to east, it is
deflected to a north-south line, roughly speaking, by the gate of
the Shigdawayn, twin-hills standing nearly east and west of one
another. Now become a broad, well-defined, tree-dotted bed, with
stiff silt banks, here and there twenty to twenty-five feet high,
it runs on a meridian for about a mile, including the
palm-orchard and the camping-ground. It then turns the west end
of the Jebel el-Safrá, a mass of gypsum on the left bank, and it
bends to the east of south, having thus formed a figure of Z.
After escaping from the imprisoning hills, the Fiumara bed, now
about three-quarters of a mile broad, is bisected longitudinally
by a long and broken lump of chloritic or serpentine sandstone;
and rises in steps towards the right bank, upon which the
pilgrims camp. Reaching the plain, the Wady flares out wildly,
containing a number of riverine islands, temporary, but sometimes
of considerable size. It retains sufficient moisture to support a
clump of palms--that which we saw from afar;--it bends to the
south-east, and, lastly, it trends seaward.

The "Water of Bada'" springs from the base of the hill El-Safrá,
oozing out in trickling veins bedded in soft dark mud. It can be
greatly increased by opening the fountains, and economized by a
roofing of mat: we tried this plan, which only surprised the
unready Arab. After swinging to the left bank and running for a
few yards, it sinks in the sand; yet on both sides there are
signs of labour, showing that, even of late years, the valley has
seen better days. Long leats and watercourses have been cut in
the clay, and are still lined with the white-flowered "Rijlah,"
whose nutritive green leaf is eaten, raw or boiled, by the
Fellahs of Egypt: the wild growth, however, is mostly bitter. On
both sides are little square plots fenced against sheep and goats
by a rude abattis of stripped and dead boughs, Jujube and acacia.
Young dates have been planted in pits; some are burnt and others
are torn; for the Bedawi, mischievous and destructive as the
Cynocephalus, will neither work nor allow others to work. The
'Ushash or frond-and-reed huts, much like huge birds'-nests, are
scattered about in small groups everywhere except near the water.
Wherever a collection of bones shows a hyena's lair, the hunters
have built a screen of dry stone.

In fact, Magháir Shu'ayb was spoken of as an Arab "Happy Valley."
But its owners, the Masá'íd, a spiritless tribe numbering about
seventy tents, are protégés of the Tagaygát. This Huwayti clan is
on bad terms with Khizr and 'Brahim bin Makbúl; and the brother
Shaykhs of the 'Imrán, recognized by the Egyptian Government,
claim the land where they have only the right of transit. Bedawi
clans and sub-tribes always combine against stranger families;
but when there is no foreign "war," they amuse themselves with
pilling and plundering, sabring and shooting one another. I
believe that the palms were roasted to death by the 'Imrán,
although the Shaykhs assured me that the damage was done this
year, by a careless Mas'údi when cooking his food. The tribe
appears to be Egypto-Arab, like the Huwayta't and the Ma'ázah,
having congeners at Ghazzah (Gaze) and at Ras el-Wady, near
Egyptian Tell el-Kebir. Consequently Rüppell is in error when he
suspects that die Musaiti are ein Judenstamm. The unfortunates
fled towards the sea and left the valley desolate about seven
months ago. Their Shaykh is dead, and a certain Agíl bin
Muhaysin, a greedy, foolish kind of fellow, mentioned during my
First Journey, aspires to the dignity and the profit of
chieftainship. He worried me till I named a dog after him, and
then he disappeared.

The ruins, of large extent for North Midian, and equal to those
of all the towns we have seen put together, begin with the
palm-orchard on the left bank. The Jebel el-Safrá shows the
foundations of what may have been the arx. It is a double quoin,
the taller to the south, the lower to the north, and both bluff
in the latter direction. The dip is about 45 degrees; the upper
parts of the dorsa are scatters of white on brown-yellow stone;
and below it, where the surface has given way, appear
mauve-coloured strata, as if stained by manganese. Viewed in
profile from the west, the site of El-Muttali'[EN#37], as the
Arabs call the hauteville, becomes a tall, uptilted wedge;
continued northwards by the smaller feature, and backed by a long
sky-line, a high ridge of plaster, pale coloured with glittering
points.

This isolated "Yellow Hill," a "horse" in Icelandic parlance,
rising about two hundred feet above the valley-sole, is separated
by a deep, narrow gorge from the adjacent eastern range. The
slopes, now water-torn and jagged, may formerly have declined in
regular lines, and evidently all were built over to the crest
like those of Syrian Safet. The foundations of walls and rock-cut
steps are still found even on the far side of the eastern
feature. The knifeback is covered with the foundations of what
appears to be a fortified Laura or Palace; a straight street
running north-south, with 5 degrees west (mag.). It serves as
base for walls one metre and a half thick, opening upon it like
rooms: of these we counted twenty on either side. At the northern
end of the "horse," which, like the southern, has been weathered
to a mere spur, is a work composed of two semicircles fronting to
the north and east. A bastion of well-built wall in three
straight lines overhangs the perpendicular face of the eastern
gorge: in two places there are signs of a similar defence to the
south, but time and weather have eaten most of it away. The
ground sounds hollow, and the feet sink in the crumbling heaps:
evidently the whole building was of Rughám (gypsum); and in the
process of decay it has become white as blocks of ice, here and
there powdered with snow.

On the narrow, flat ledge, between the western base of this Safrá
and the eastern side of the Bada' valley, lie masses of ruin now
become mere rubbish; bits of wall built with cut stone, and
water-conduits of fine mortar containing, like that of the
Pyramids, powdered brick and sometimes pebbles. We carried off a
lump of sandstone bearing unintelligible marks, possibly intended
for a man and a beast. We called it "St. George and the Dragon,"
but the former is afoot--possibly the Bedawin stole his steed.
There was a frustum or column-drum of fine white marble, hollowed
to act as a mortar; like the Moslem headstone of the same
material, it is attributed to the Jebel el-Lauz, where ancient
quarries are talked of. There were also Makrákah ("rub-stones")
of close-grained red syenite, and fragments of the basalt
handmills used for quartz-grinding. Part of a mortar was found,
made of exceedingly light and porous lava.

South-east of the hauteville falls in the now rugged ravine,
Khashm el-Muttalí, "Snout of the high" (town). It leads to the
apex of the coralline formations, scattered over with fragments
of gypsum, here amorphous, there crystalline or talc-like, and
all dazzling white as powdered sugar. Signs of tent foundations
and of buildings appear in impossible places; and the heights
bear two Burj or "watchtowers," one visible afar, and dominating
from its mamelon the whole land. The return to the main valley
descends by another narrow gorge further to the south-east,
called Sha'b el-Darak, or "Strait of the Shield:" the tall,
perpendicular, and overhanging walls, apparently threatening to
fall, would act testudo to an Indian file of warriors. High up
the right bank of this gut we saw a tree-trunk propped against a
rock by way of a ladder for the treasure-seeker. The Sha'b-sole
is flat, with occasional steps and overfalls of rock, polished
like mirrors by the rain-torrents; the mouth shows remains of a
masonry-dam some fourteen feet thick by twenty-one long; and
immediately below it are the bases of buildings and watercourses.

Walking down the left bank of the great Wady, and between these
secondary gorges that drain the "Yellow Hill," we came upon a
dwarf mound of dark earth and rubbish. This is the Siyághah
("mint and smiths' quarter"), a place always to be sought, as
Ba'lbak and Palmyra taught me. Remains of tall furnaces, now
level with the ground, were scattered about; and Mr. Clarke, long
trained to find antiques, brought back the first coins picked up
in ancient Midian. The total gathered, here and in other parts of
Magháir Shu'ayb, was 258, of which some two hundred were carried
home untouched; the rest, treated with chloritic and other acids,
came out well. One was a silver oval which may or may not have
been a token. Eleven were thick discs, differing from the normal
type; unfortunately the legends are illegible. The rest, inform
bits of green stuff, copper and bronze, were glued together by
decay, and apparently eaten out of all semblance of money until
the verdigris of ages is removed.

All are cast like the Roman "as", before B.C. 217, and some show
the tail. The distinguishing feature is the human eye; not the
outa of Horus,[EN#38] so well known to those who know the
Pyramids, but the last trace of Athene's profile. Two are Roman:
a Nerva with S.C. on the reverse; and a Claudius Augustus,
bearing by way of countermark a depressed oblong, of 20/100 by
14/100 (of inch), with a raised figure, erect, draped, and
holding a sceptre or thyrsus. There is also a Constantius struck
at Antioch. The gem of the little collection was a copper coin,
thinly encrusted with silver, proving that even in those days the
Midianites produced "smashers": similarly, the Egyptian miners
"did" the Pharaoh by inserting lead into hollowed gold. The
obverse shows the owl in low relief, an animal rude as any
counterfeit presentment of the
ever found in Troy. It has the normal olive-branch, but without
the terminating crescent (which, however, is not invariably
present) on the proper right, whilst the left shows a poor
imitation of the legend (NH). The silvering of
the reverse has been so corroded that no signs of the goddess's
galeated head are visible. My friend, Mr. W. E. Hayns, of the
Numismatic Society, came to the conclusion that it is a barbaric
Midianitish imitation of the Greek tetradrachm, which in those
days had universal currency, like the shilling and the franc. The
curious bits of metal, which also bear the owl, may add to our
knowledge of the Nabathaean coins, first described, I believe, by
the learned Duc de Luynes.[EN#39]

Another interesting "find" was a flat-bottomed, thick-walled clay
crucible of small size (2 10/16 inches high by 2 4/16 inches
across the mouth), exactly resembling the article picked up at
Hamámát. The latter, however, contains a remnant of litharge,
possibly showing that the old Egyptians worked the silver, which
may have been supplied by the Colorado quartz.

I would here crave leave to make a short excursus to the ancient
Ophirs of Egypt Proper, where, we are told by an inscription in
the treasury of Ramses the Great (fourteen centuries before
Christ), the gold and silver mines yielded per annum a total of
32,000,000 minæ = £90,000,000. Dr. H. Brugsch-Bey first drew
attention to Hamámát, where, as he had learned from Diodorus (i.
49--iii 12) and from the papyri, the precious metals had been
extensively worked. The "Wells of Hama'ma't" lie between Keneh on
the Nile and Kusayr (Cosseir) on the Red Sea; and the land is
held by the Abábdah Arabs, who have taken charge, from time
immemorial, of the rich commercial caravans. The formation of the
country much resembles that of Midian; and the metalliferous
veins run from northeast to south-west. In Arabia, however, the
filons are of unusual size; in Africa they are small, the
terminating fibrils, as it were, of the Asiatic focus; while the
Dark Continent lacks that wealth of iron which characterizes the
opposite coast.

By the courtesy of Generals Stone and Purdy I was enabled, after
return to Cairo in May, 1878, to inspect the collection.
Admirably arranged in order of place, and poor as well disposed,
it is, nevertheless, useful to students; and it was most
interesting to us. The only novelty is asbestos produced in the
schist: the raw material is now imported by the United States,
and used for a variety of purposes. It is said to exist in Mount
Sinai; we found none in Midian, where the schist formations are
of great extent, probably because we did not look for it. The
collection was made by Colonel Colston; and Mr. L. H. Mitchell, a
mining engineer attached to the Egyptian Staff, spent several
weeks spalling sundry tons of quartz. After finding a speck of
gold, the work was considered to be done. General Stone, however,
sensibly deprecated any attempt to exploit the minerals: the
country lacks wood and water, and the expense of camel-transport
from Hamámát to Kusayr, and thence in ships to Suez, would
swallow up all the profits.

That Egypt was immensely rich in old days we know from several
sources. Appian tells us that the treasury of Ptolemy
Philadelphus contained 740,000 talents; and assuming with
Ebers[EN#40] the Egyptian at half the Æginetan, we have the
marvellous sum of £83,250,000. According to Diodorus (i. 62), the
treasury of Rhampsinit, concerning which Herodotus (ii. 121, 122)
heard a funny story from his interpreter, contained 4,000,000
talents, equal to at least £450,000,000. This rich king's
treasure-house has been found portrayed in the far-famed Temple
of Medinat Habú: the mass of wealth, gold, silver, copper, and
spices, is enormous; and, while the baser metals are in bars, the
precious are stored in heaps, sacks, and vases.

The gold-mines of the old Coptos-plain, the modern Kobt, south of
Keneh, are preserved to all time by the earliest known map. It
has survived; whilst those of the Milesian Anaximander (B.C. 610-
547), of Hekataeus (ob. B.C. 4 76), also from Miletus and called
the "Father of Geography" (Ebers), and of Ptolemy the Pelusian
are irretrievably lost. A papyrus in the Turin Museum contains a
plan of the mineral region spoken of in two stelœ, those of
Radesiyyah and Kuban, describing the supply of drinking-water
introduced into the desert between Kuban and the Red Sea.
Chabas[EN#41] has published a coloured facsimile of this map: the
gold-containing mountains are tinted red, and the words "Tu en
nub" (Mons aureus) are written over them in hieratics.

The only modern gold-workings of Egypt are in the Mudíriyyat
(Nomos) of Famaka, the frontier town, better known as Fayzoghlú
from its adjacent heights. The washings were visited lately
(March, 1878) by my enterprising friend, Dr. P. Matteucci, and M.
Gessi. In old days this local Cayenne had a very bad name;
convicts were deported here with a frightful mortality. It is
still a station for galley-slaves, and it has a considerable
garrison, but we no longer hear of an abnormal fatality. The
surface was much turned over by the compulsory miners, and
European geologists and experts were sent to superintend them; at
last the diggings did not pay and were abandoned. But the natives
do by "rule of thumb," despite their ignorance of mineralogy,
without study of ground, and lacking co-ordination of labour,
what the Government failed to do. They have not struck the chief
vein' if any exist; but, during the heavy rains of the Kharif
("autumn") in the valley of the Túmát river, herds of slaves are
sent yearly to wash gold, and they find sufficient to supply the
only known coin--bars or ingots.

Beyond the Siyághah, the left bank is gashed by the ravines
draining the south-eastern prolongation of the "Yellow Hill."
Water cuts through this rotten formation of rubbish like a knife
into cheese; forming deep chasms, here narrow, there broad, with
walls built up, as it were, of fragments, and ready to be
levelled by the first rains. The lines of street and the outlines
of tenements can be dimly traced, while revetments of rounded
boulders show artificial watercourses and defences against the
now dried-up stream. The breadth of this, the eastern settlement,
varies with the extent of the ledge between the gypsum-hills and
the sandy Wady; the length may be a kilometre. The best preserved
traces of crowded building end with the south-eastern spur of the
Jebel el-Safrá. Beyond them is a huge cemetery. The ancient
graves are pits in the ground; a few still uncovered, the many
yawning wide, and all of them ignoring orientation. Those of the
moderns, on the contrary, front towards Meccah. The Bedawin of
this country seem ever to prefer for their last homes the most
ancient sites; they place the body in a pit, covered with a large
slab or a heap of stones, but they never fill in the hollow, as
is usual among Moslems, with earth. The arrangements suit equally
well the hyena and the skull-collector; and thus I was able to
make a fair collection of Bedawi crania.

At the south-eastern end of the outliers projected by the Jebel
el-Safrá, where a gentle slope of red earth falls towards the
valley-bank, is the only group of building of which any part is
still standing. The site may be old, but the present ruins are
distinctly mediæval, dating probably from the days of the
Egyptian "Mameluke" Sultans. Beginning from below and to the
south-west is a Hauz, or "cistern," measuring twenty-six by
nineteen and a half metres, with a depth of nine to ten feet. The
material is cut sandstone, cemented outside with mortar
containing the normal brick-crumbs and pebbles, and inside mixed
with mud. At the north-eastern and south-western corners are
retaining buttresses in two steps, exactly like those in the
inland fort of El-Wijh; at the two other angles are flights of
stairs, and the sole is a sheet of dried silt. To the south-east
lies the remnant of a small circular furnace, and on the
north-north-east a broken wall shows where stood the Bayt
el-Saghir, or smaller reservoir. A narrow conduit of cut stone
leads, with elaborate zigzags, towards two Sakiyah ("draw-wells")
hollowed in the gypsum. The Southern, an oval of five metres ten
centimetres, is much dilapidated; and its crumbling throat is
spanned by a worn-out arch of the surrounding Secondary rock.
Close to the north-west is the other, revetted with cut stone,
and measuring six metres in diameter. It is an elaborate affair;
with a pointed arch and a regular keystone, circular Sadúd, or
"walls for supporting the hauling-apparatus," and minor
reservoirs numbering three. On a detached hillock, a few paces to
the north, stands the Fort which defended the establishment. The
short walls of the parallelogram measure fifteen metres forty
centimetres; and the long, eighteen metres sixty centimetres: the
gate, choked by ruins, leads to a small hall, with a masked
entrance opening to the right. There is a narrow room under the
stone steps to the west, and two others occupy the eastern side.
This Fort is to be restored for the better protection of
pilgrims; and shortly after our departure an Egyptian engineer,
Sulayman Effendi, came from Suez to inspect and report upon it.

According to local modern tradition this scatter of masonry was
the original site of the settlement, called after the builder Bir
el-Sa'idáni--"the Well of Sa'ídán." For watering each caravan the
proprietor demanded a camel by way of fee; at last a Maghribí,
that is, a magician, refused to "part;" betook himself to the
present camping ground, sank pits, and let loose the copious
springs. The old wells then dried up, and the new sources gave to
this section of the great Wady 'Afál its actual name, Wady
el-Badá--"of the innovation," so hateful to the conservative
savage. Hence Rüppell's "Beden," which would mean an ibex.

On the opposite or right bank of the broad and sandy bed, the
traces of ancient buildings extend to a far greater distance, at
least to two kilometres. They have been a continuous line of
forts, cisterns, and tenements, still marked out by the bases of
long thick walls; the material is mostly gypsum, leprous-white as
the skin of Gehazi. But here, and indeed generally throughout
Midian, the furious torrents, uncontrolled during long ages by
the hand of man, have swept large gaps in the masses of homestead
and public buildings. Again the ruins of this section are
distributable into two kinds--the City of the Living, and the
City of the Dead.

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