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The Land of Midian, Vol. 2

R >> Richard Burton >> The Land of Midian, Vol. 2




We then crossed the Wady Rábigh, another of the short broad
valleys which distinguish this section of South Midian. The bed
sides, especially the right, are heaps and mounds of snowy
quartz, with glittering crowns of block and boulder: all prove to
be veins in the grey granite, whose large coarse elements are
decomposed by weather. The dark and rusty walls of the valley
also discharge the white stone in shunts and shoots: here and
there they might be mistaken for Goz ("sand-banks") heaped up by
the wind, except that these are clad in thin vegetation, whereas
the "Maru'" is mostly mother-naked. We halted here for rest and
to examine these features: despite the Khamsín, the Great Gaster
became querulous; hunger was now the chief complaint, and even
the bon ordinaire had lost much of its attraction. A harmless
snake was killed and bottled; its silver robe was beautifully
banded with a line, pink as the circles of the "cobra coral,"
which ran along the whole length of the back. It proved to be a
new species; and Dr. Gunther named it Zamenis elegantissimus.

Beyond the Rábigh, we ascended a lateral valley, whence a low
divide led to the Wady el-Bahrah ("of the Basin"), another feeder
of the Sirr. It was also snow-white, and on the right of the path
lay black heaps, Hawáwít, "ruins" not worth the delay of a visit.
Then began a short up-slope with a longer counterslope, on which
we met a party of Huwaytát, camel-men and foot-men going to buy
grain at El-Wigh. Another apparition was a spear-man bestriding a
bare-backed colt; after reconnoitering us for some time, he
yielded to the temptations of curiosity. It afterwards struck us
that, mounted on our mules, preceded and followed by the Shaykhs
riding their dromedaries, we must have looked mighty like a party
of prisoners being marched inland. The horseman was followed by a
rough-coated, bear-eared hound of the kind described by
Wellsted[EN#63] as "resembling the English mastiff"--he did not
know how common is the beast further north. The Kalb gasúr
(jasur) or "bold dog," also called Kalb el-hámi, or "the hot"
(tempered), is found even amongst the Bedawin to the east of the
Suez Canal; but there the half-bred is more common than the
whole-blood. It is trained to tend the flocks; it never barks,
nor bites its charges; and it is said to work as well as the
shepherd-dog of Europe.

The Wady Mulaybij shows fine specimens of mica dorí in the
quartz-vein streaking the slate: it deceived all the caravan,
save those who tested it with their daggers. The bed, after
forming a basin, narrows to a sandy gut, smooth and pleasant
riding; and, after crossing several valley-heads, the path
debouches upon the Wady Abál-Gezaz. This "Father of Glass,"
though a day and a half's march from the sea, is even broader
than the great Sirr to which it is tributary. Its line, which
reminded us of the Dámah, is well marked by unusually fine
vegetation: and the basin bears large clumps of fan-palm,
scattered Daum-trees, the giant asclepiad El-‘Ushr,[EN#64]
thickets of tamarisk and scatters of the wild castor-plant, whose
use is unknown to the Arabs. Water wells up abundantly from a
dozen shallow pits, old and new, in the sand of the southern or
left bank. Here the flow is apparently arrested by a tall
buttress of coarse granite, red with orthose, and sliced by a
trap-dyke striking north-south.

Our day's work had been only four slow hours; but we were
compelled to await the caravan, which did not arrive till after
noon. It had passed round by the Wady Rábigh, into and up the
"Father of Glass;" in fact, it had described an easy semicircle;
while we had ridden in a series of zigzags, over rough and
difficult short cuts. A delay was also necessary for our mappers
to connect this march with their itinerary of the central region.
Already the Wady Mulaybij had shown us the familiar peak and
dorsum of Jebel Raydán; and we had "chaffed" Furayj about his
sudden return home. From our camp in the Abá'l-Gezáz, the Zigláb
block of Shaghab bore nearly north (350° mag.); and the adjoining
Jebel el-Aslah, also a blue cone on the horizon, rose about two
degrees further north.

After the big mess-tent had been duly blown down, and the usual
discipline had been administered for washing in the
drinking-pool; we crossed to the left of the Wady by way of an
evening stroll, and at once came upon an atelier of some
importance. The guides seemed to ignore its existence, so we
christened it Mashghal Alá'l-Gezáz. On the slope of a trap-hill
facing the Wady el-Ghami's, the southern valley which we had last
crossed, stood a square of masonry scattered round with fragments
of pottery, glass, and basalt. Below it, on the "mesopotamian"
plain, lay the foundations of houses still showing their cemented
floors. The lowlands and highlands around the settlement looked
white-patched with mounds, veins, and scatters of quartz. The
evening was stillness itself, broken only by the cries of the
Katás, which are now nesting, as they flocked to drink; and the
night was cool--a promise, and a false promise, that the Khamsín
had ended on its usual third day.

The next morning (April 3rd) showed us El-Bada', the whole march
lying up the Wady Abá'l-Gezáz, which changes its name with every
water. The early air was delightfully fresh and brisk, and the
cattle stepped out as if walking were a pleasure: yet the Arabs
declared that neither camels nor mules had found a full feed in
the apparently luxuriant vegetation of the Fiumara-bed. The tract
began badly over loose sandy soil, so honeycombed that neither
man nor beast could tread safely: the Girdi (Jirdi), or "field
rat," is evidently nocturnal like the jerboa, during the whole
journey we never saw a specimen of either. A yellow wolf was
descried skulking among the bushes, and a fine large hare was
shot; porcupine-quills were common, and we picked up the mummy of
a little hedgehog. The birds were swift-winged hawks and owls,
pigeons and ring-doves; crows again became common, and the
water-wagtail was tame as the Brazilian thrush, João de Barros:
it hopped about within a few feet of us, quite ignoring the
presence of Frenchmen armed with murderous guns. I cannot discern
the origin of the pseudo-Oriental legend which declares that the
"crow of the wilderness" (raven) taught Cain to bury his brother
by slaying a brother crow, and scraping a grave for it with beak
and claw. The murderous bird then perched upon a palm-tree, whose
branches, before erect, have ever drooped, and croaked the truth
into Adam's ear: hence it has ever been of evil augury to
mankind. The hoopoe, which the French absurdly call coq de
montagne, also trotted by the path-side without timidity; and the
butcher-bird impudently reviewed the caravan from its
vantage-ground, a commanding tree. The large swift shot screaming
overhead; and the cries of the troops of Merops, with
silver-lined wings, resembled those of the sand-grouse.

After some five miles the "Father of Glass" changed his name to
Abú Daumah (of the "one Theban Palm"). Porphyritic trap lay on
both sides of us. To the right rose the Jebel ‘Ukbal, whose grey
form (El-Ash'hab) we had seen from the heights above Umm
el-Haráb: the whole range of four heads, forming the
south-western rim of the Badá saucer, is known as El-‘Akábil.
Below these blocks the Wady-sides were cut into buttresses of
yellow clay, powdered white with Sabkh, or "impure salt." Charred
circlets in the sand showed where alkali had been burned: the
ashes, packed in skins, are shipped at El-Wijh for Syria, where
they serve to make soap. The Bedawin call it Aslah (Athlah); the
Egyptians Ghassálah ("the washer"), because, when rubbed in the
hands, its succulent shoots clean the skin. Camels eat it,
whereas mules refuse it, unless half-starved. This plant
apparently did not extend all up the Wady. The water, where there
is any, swings under the left bank; an ample supply had been
promised to us, with the implied condition that we should camp at
this Mahattat el-‘Urbán ("Halting place of the Arabs"), after a
marching day of two hours! Seeing that we rode on, the Baliyy
declared that they had searched for the two principal pools, and
that both were dry, or rather had been buried by the Bedawin.
But, with characteristic futility, they had allowed me to
overhear their conversation; and the word was passed to the
soldiers, who at once filled themselves and their water-skins.

Hitherto we had been marching south of east. Presently, where the
pretty green Wady el-Surám falls into the left bank, we turned a
corner, and sighted in front, or to the north, the great plain of
Badá. The block, El-‘Akábil, had projected a loop of some ten
miles to be rounded, whereas a short cut across it would not have
exceeded three. And now the Wady Abá Daumah abruptly changed
formation. The red and green traps of the right side made way for
grey granite, known by its rounded bulging blocks on the sides
and summit, by its false stratification, by its veins of quartz
that strewed the sand, and by its quaint weathering--one rock
exactly resembled a sitting eagle; a second was a turtle, and a
third showed a sphinx in the rough. The Badá plain is backed by a
curtain so tall that we seemed, by a common optical delusion, to
be descending when we were really ascending rapidly.

Anxiety to begin our studies of the spot made the ride across the
basin, soled with rises comfortably metalled, and with falls of
sand unpleasantly loose and honeycombed, appear very long. The
palm-clump, where men camp, with its two date-trees towering over
the rest, receded as it were. At last, after a total of four
hours and forty-five minutes (= sixteen miles), we dismounted at
the celebrated groves, just before the ugly Khamsín arose and
made the world look dull, as though all its colours had been
washed out.

The dates form a kind of square with a sharp triangle to the
south, upon the left bank of the thalweg, which overflows them
during floods. The enceinte is the normal Arab "snake-fence" of
dry and barked branches, which imperfectly defends the nurseries
of young trees and the plots of Khubbayzah ("edible mallows")
from the adjoining camping-place of bald yellow clay. The wells,
inside and outside the enclosure, are nine; three stone-revetted,
and the rest mere pits in the inchoate modern sandstone. The
trees want thinning; the undergrowth is so dense as to be
impenetrable; but the heads are all carefully trimmed, the first
time we have seen such industry in Midian. The shade attracts
vipers, chiefly the Echis: and I was startled by hearing the gay
warble of the Bulbul--a nightingale in Arabia!

The next day was devoted to inspecting this far-famed site, with
the following results. We have already seen a Bada' and
a Badí'a , whilst there is a Badí'ah [EN#65]
further north. We are now at a Badá which fulfils all
the conditions required by the centre and head-quarters of
"Thamuditis." The site of the Bújat Badá, "the Wide Plain of
Badá," as it is distinguished by the Arabs, represents,
topographically speaking, a bulge in the Wady Nejd, before it
becomes the Wady Abú Daumah, between the Shafah Mountains to the
east and the Tihámah range seawards. The latitude is 26° 45' 30"
= 0° 31' 30" north of El-Wijh [Footnote: Ahmed Kaptán's
observation of Polaris. The (Bades) of Ptolemy is
in north lat. 25° 30'.]. From its centre, a little south of our
camping-place, the Jebel Zigláb of Shaghab, distant, according to
Yákút, one march, bears 32°, and the Aslah (Athlah) cone 30°
(both mag.): it lies therefore south of Shuwák, with a little
westing. The altitude is upwards of twelve hundred feet above
sea-level (aner. 28.72). The size of the oval is about nine
statute miles from north to south, where the main watercourse
breaks; and twelve miles from east to west, giving an area of
some 108 square miles. The general aspect of the basin suggests
that of El-Haurá; the growth is richer than the northern, but not
equal to that of the southern country. The ruins belong to the
Magháir Shu'ayb category, and the guides compare the Hawáwít with
those of Madáin Sálih.

Such is the great station on the Nabathæan overland highway
between Leukè' Kóme and Petra; the commercial and industrial,
the agricultural and mineral centre, which the Greeks called
the Romans, Badanatha (Pliny, vi. 32); and the
mediæval Arab geographers, Badá Ya'kúb, in the days when the
Hajj-caravan used to descend the Wadys Nejd and the "Father of
Glass." Now it is simply El-Badá: the name of the "Prophet"
Jacob, supposed to have visited it from Egypt or Syria, being
clean forgotten.

The rolling plain is floored with grey granite, underlying
sandstones not unlike coral-rag, and still in course of
formation. Through this crust outcrop curious hillocks, or rather
piles of hard, red, and iron-revetted rock, with a white or a
rusty fracture--these are the characteristics of the basin. The
lower levels are furrowed with their threads of sand, beds of
rain-torrents discharged from the mountains; and each is edged by
brighter growths of thorn and fan-palm. The fattening Salíb grass
is scattered about the water; the large sorrel hugs the
Fiumara-sides; the hardy ‘Aushaz-thorn (Lycium), spangled with
white bloom and red currants, which the Arabs say taste like
grapes, affects the drier levels; and Tanzubs, almost all timber
when old, become trees as large as the Jujube.

The Bújat is everywhere set in a regular rim of mountains. The
Shafah curtain to the north is fretted with a number of peaks,
called as usual after their Wadys;[EN#66] the west is open with a
great slope, the Wady Manab, whose breadth is broken only by the
"Magráh" Naza'án, a remarkable saddleback with reclining cantle.
It is distant a ride of two hours, and we have now seen it for
three marches. A little south of east yawns the gorge-mouth of
the Wady Nejd, the upper course of the Abá'l-Gezáz: a jagged
black curtain, the Jebel Dausal, forms its southern jaw. Further
south the Tihámah Mountains begin with the peaky Jebel el-Kurr,
another remarkable block which has long been in sight. Its
neighbour is the bluff-headed Jebel el-Wásil of Marwát; whilst
the trap-blocks, already mentioned as the Jibál el-‘Akábil,
finish the circle.

The better to understand the shape of the ruins, we will ascend
the irregular block which rises a few furlongs to the north-east
of the palm-orchard. It has only three names: ‘Araygat Badá
("Veinlet of Badá"); Zeba'yat Badá, "the Low-lying (Hill) of
Badá;" and Shahíb el-Búm, "the Ash-coloured (Hill) of the Owl." I
will prefer the latter, as we actually sighted one of those dear
birds on its western flank. It is an outcrop of grey granite,
pigeon-holed by weather, and veined by a variety of dykes. Here
we find greenstone breccia'd with the blackest hornblende; there
huge filons of hard, red, heat-altered clays, faced with iron,
whilst the fracture is white as trachyte; and there filets of
quartz, traversing large curtains and sheets of light-coloured
argils. This was evidently the main quarry: the sides still show
signs of made zigzags; and the red blocks and boulders, all round
the hill, bear the prayers and pious ejaculations of the
Faithful. The characters range between square Kufic, hardly
antedating four centuries, and the cursive form of our day. Some
are merely scraped; others are deeply and laboriously cut in the
hard material, a work more appropriate for the miner than for the
passing pilgrim.

From the ruined look-out on the summit the shape of the city
shows a highly irregular triangle of nine facets, forming an apex
at the east end of our "Owl's Hill:" the rises and falls of the
ground have evidently determined the outline. The palm-orchard,
whose total circumference is five hundred and thirty-six metres,
occupies a small portion of its south-eastern corner; and our
camping-place, further east, was evidently included in the
ancient enceinte. The emplacement, extending along the eastern
bank of the main watercourse, is marked by a number of mounds
scattered over with broken glass and pottery of all kinds: no
coins were found, but rude bits of metal, all verdigris, were
picked up north of the palm-orchard. Here, too, lay queer
fish-bones, with tusks and teeth, chiefly the jaws of Scaridæ and
Sparidæ (seabreams).[EN#67]

Descending the Shahíb el-Búm, and passing a smaller black and
white block appended to its south-south-western side, we now
cross to the left bank of the main drain. Here lies the broken
tank, the normal construction of El-Islam's flourishing days. It
is a square of thirty-two metres, whose faces and angles do not
front the cardinal points. At each corner a flight of steps has
been; two have almost disappeared, and the others are very shaky.
The floor, originally stone-paved, is now a sheet of hard silt,
growing trees and bush: dense Tanzub-clumps (Sodada decidua),
with edible red berries, sheltering a couple of birds'-nests,
suggested a comparison between the present and the past. At the
east end is the Makhzan el-Máyah, or "smaller reservoir," an
oblong of 7.80 by 6.60 metres: the waggon-tilt roof has
disappeared, and the fissures show brick within the ashlar. Along
the eastern side are huge standing slabs of the coarse new
sandstone with which the tank is lined: these may be remains of a
conduit. Around the cistern lies a ruined graveyard, whose
yawning graves supplied a couple of skulls. A broken line of
masonry, probably an aqueduct, runs south-south-east (143° mag.)
towards the palms: after two hundred metres all traces of it are
lost.

The mining industry could not have been a prominent feature at
Badá, or we should have found, as in Shaghab and Shuwák, furnaces
and scoriæ. Yet about the tank we lit upon large scatters of
spalled quartz, which, according to the Baliyy, is brought from
the neighbouring mountains. Some of it was rosy outside: other
specimens bore stains of copper; and others showed, when broken,
little pyramids of ore. Tested in England, it proved to be pure
lead, a metal so rare that some metallurgists have doubted its
existence: the finds have been mostly confined to auriferous
lands. The blow-pipe soon showed that it was not galena (the
sulphide), but some of it contained traces of silver. Without
knowing the rarity of these specimens, certain American officers
at the Citadel, Cairo, compared them with the true galenas of the
Dár-Forian mines, called Mahattat el-Risás (the "Deposit of
Lead"), in the Wady Gotam, three days north-east of the capital
El-Fashr. The African metal is rich. Large quantities, analyzed
by Gastinel Bey, gave fifty per cent. of lead, and of silver
fifty dollars per ton; but the distance from any possible market
will reserve these diggings for the use of the future. Some were
sanguine enough to propose smelting the metal at Khartúm, where
Risás is ever in demand; and accordingly, for a time Dar-For was
"run," by a mild "ring," against Midian.

The plain, I have said, is everywhere broken by piles of stone
forming knobby hills. Leaving the outlined sphinx to the right,
we ascended a second block, which rises on the west of the chief
watercourse, further down than the "Owl's Hill." This Tell
el-Ahmar ("Red Hill"), alias Ja'dat Badá (the "Curved Hill of
Bada'"), is a quoin of grey granite bluff to the south-west. The
north-eastern flank shows the normal revetment of ruddy and black
heat-altered grit, which gives a red back to the pale-sided,
drab-coloured heap. Over the easy ascent is run a zigzag path;
half-way, up it passes piles of stone that denote building, and
it abuts at the summit upon one of those "look-outs" which are
essentially Arab.

Again, to the south-east of the palms is the Huzaybat Badá, the
"(Isolated) Hillock of Badá," a low ridge of naked grey granite,
much scaled and pigeon-holed. On the plain to its north stretch
regular lines of stone, probably the remnants of a work intended
to defend the city's eastern approach. South of the Huzaybah
appear the usual signs of an atelier: these workshops are
doubtless scattered all around the centre; but a week, not a day,
would be required to examine them. On the very eve of our
departure the guides pointed northwards (350° mag.) to a
"Mountain of Marú," called El-Arayfát, and declared that it
contained a Zaríbat el-Nasárá, or "enclosure made by the
Nazarenes." I offered a liberal present for specimens; all,
however, swore that the distance ranged from two to three hours
of dromedary, and that no mounted messenger could catch us unless
we halted the next day.

The Bedawin, still relegated to the upper country, were sending
their scouts to ascertain if the water-supply was sufficient in
Badá plain. The adjacent valleys were dotted with she-camels and
their colts. The adult animal here sells for twelve to thirty
dollars. During the cotton-full in Egypt, and the cotton-famine
of the United States, they fetched as many pounds sterling at the
frontier; and the traders of El-Wijh own to having made two
hundred per cent., which we may safely double. I asked them why
they did not import good stallions from the banks of the Nile;
and the reply was that of the North Country--the experiment had
ended in the death of the more civilized brutes. This is easily
understood: the Baliyy camel seems to live on sand.

The camp was visited by a few Bedawi stragglers, and the reports
of their immense numbers were simply absurd. The males were not
to be distinguished, in costume and weapons, from their
neighbours; and the "females" were all dark and dressed in
amorphous blue shirts. At last came an old man and woman of the
Huwaytát tribe, bringing for sale a quantity of liquefied butter.
They asked a price which would have been dear on the seaboard;
and naively confessed that they had taken us for pilgrims,--birds
to be plucked. But sheep and goats were not to be found in the
neighbourhood: yesterday we had failed to buy meat; and to-day
the young Shaykh, Sulaymán, was compelled to mount his dromedary
and ride afar in quest of it. The results were seven small sheep,
which, lean with walking, cost eleven dollars; and all were
slaughtered before they had time to put on fat.

During our stay a pitiable object, with a hide- bandaged lower
leg, often limped past the tents; and, thinking the limb broken,
I asked the history of the accident. Our hero, it appears, was a
doughty personage, famed for valour, who had lately slipped into
the Juhayni country with the laudable intention of "lifting" a
camel. He had, indeed, "taken his sword, and went his way to rob
and steal," under the profound conviction that nothing could be
more honourable--in case of success. He was driving off the
booty, when its master sallied out to recover the stolen goods by
force and by arms. Both bared their blades and exchanged cuts,
when the Baliyy found that his old flamberge was too blunt to do
damage. Consequently he had the worse of the affair; a slicing of
the right hand forced him to drop his "silly sword." He then
closed with his adversary, who again proved himself the better
man, throwing the assailant, and at the same time slashing open
his left leg. The wounded man lay in the "bush" till he gathered
strength to "dot and go one" homewards. Amongst these tribes the
Diyat, or "blood-money," reaches eight hundred dollars;
consequently men will maim, but carefully avoid killing, one
another.

The evening of our halt, with its lurid haze and its ominous
brooding stillness, was distinguished by a storm, a regular Arab
affair, consisting of dust by the ton to water by the drop. This
infliction of the "fearful fiend, Samiel, fatal to caravans,"
began in the west. A cloud of red sand advanced like a
prairie-fire at headlong speed before the mighty rushing wind,
whose damp breath smelt of rain; and presently the mountain-rim
was veiled in brown and ruddy and purple earth-haze. A bow in the
eastern sky strongly suggested, in the apparent absence of a
shower, refraction by dust--if such thing be possible. We were
disappointed, by the sinister wind, in our hopes of collecting a
bottle of rain-water for the photographer; nor did the storm,
though it had all the diffused violence of a wintry gale,
materially alter the weather. The next two nights were brisk and
cool, but the afternoons blew either the Khamsín ("south-wester")
or the Azyab ("south-easter").

The only Bedawi tradition concerning the Bada' plain is the
following. Many centuries ago, some say before the Apostle, the
Baliyy held the land, which was a valley of gardens, a foretaste
of Irem; the people were happy as the martyrs of Paradise, and
the date-trees numbered two thousand. The grove then belonged to
a certain Ibn Mukarrib, who dwelt in it with his son and a slave,
not caring to maintain a large guard of Arabs. Consequently he
became on bad terms with the Ahámidah-Baliyy tribe, who began
systematically to rob his orchard. At last one of a large
plundering party said to him, "O Ibn Mukarrib! wilt thou sell
this place of two thousand (trees), and not retreat (from thy
bargain)?" He responded "Buy!" (i.e. make an offer). The other,
taking off his sandal, exclaimed. "With this!" and the
proprietor, in wrath, rejoined, "I have sold!"

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