A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Land of Midian, Vol. 2

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




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And now nothing remained but to escape as quickly as possible
from the ugly Wady Mismáh; with its violent, dusty wester, or
sea-breeze, and its sun-glare which, reflected and reverberated
by the quartz, burned the grass and made the trees resemble
standing timber.

April 10th saw the last of our marches, a hurry back to the
stable, a sauve qui peut. The camel-men, reckless of orders,
began to load and to slip away shortly after midnight. Ali Marie,
who, as usual, had lost his head, when ordered to enjoin silence
gave the vain and vague direction, "Tell the Arabs to tell the
camels not to make so much noise." Even the bugler sounded the
"general" of his own accord; and the mules, now become painfully
intelligent, walked as if they knew themselves to be walking
homewards. Our last stage lay over the upper skirts of the
maritime plain which has already been noticed. At 10.15 am.,
after riding five hours and thirty minutes (= seventeen miles),
we found ourselves once more upon the seaboard. Our kind host,
Captain Hasan Bey, came to meet us in his gig: the quarter-deck
had been dressed with flags, as for a ball; and before twelve
bells struck, we had applied ourselves to an excellent breakfast
in the gun-room of our old favourite, the Sinnár. The auspicious
day of course ended with a fantasia.





Résumé of Our Last Journey.



We had left the Sharm Yáhárr on March 21st, and returned to it on
April 13th; a total of twenty-four days. Our actual march through
South Midian, which had lasted thirteen days (March 29--April
10), described a semicircle with El-Wijh about the middle of the
chord. The length is represented by 170 miles in round numbers:
as usual, this does not include the various offsets and the
by-paths explored by the members; nor do the voyages to El-Wijh
and El-Haurá, going and coming, figure in the line of route. The
camels varied from fifty-eight to sixty-four, when specimens were
forwarded to the harbour-town. The expenditure amounted to£92
13s., including pay and "bakhshísh" to the Baliyy Shaykhs, but
not including our friends the Sayyid, Furayj, and the Wakíl
Mohammed Shahádah.

This southern region differs essentially from the northern, which
was twice visited, and which occupied us two months, mostly
wasted. Had we known what we do now, I should have begun with the
south, and should have devoted to it the greater part of our
time. Both are essentially mining countries; but, whilst the
section near Egypt preserves few traces of the miner, here we
find the country carefully and conscientiously worked. The whole
eastern counterslope of the outliers that project from the
Ghát-section known as the mountains of the Tihámat-Balawíyyah, is
one vast outcrop of quartz. The parallelogram between north lat.
26 degrees, including the mouth of the Wady Hamz, and north lat.
27°, which runs some fifteen miles north of the Badá plain, would
form a Southern Grant, sufficiently large to be divided and
subdivided as soon as judged advisable.

If the characteristics of North Midian (Madyan Proper) are its
argentiferous, and especially its cupriferous ores, South Midian
worked chiefly gold and silver, both metals being mentioned by
the mediaeval geographers of Arabia. Free gold in paillettes was
noticed by the Expedition in the micaceous schists veining the
quartz, and in the chalcedony which parts the granite from the
gneiss. The argentiferous Negro quartz everywhere abounds, and
near the ruins of Badá lie strews of spalled "Marú," each
fragment showing its little block of pure lead. Saltpetre is
plentiful, and a third "Sulphur hill" rises from the maritime
plain north of the Wady Hamz.

The principal ruins and ateliers number five; these, beginning
from the north, are the Umm el-Karáyát, the Umm el-Haráb, the
Bújat-Badá, the Kharábat Abá'l-Marú, and the old Nabathean port,
E1-Haurá. Amongst them is not included the gem of our discovery,
the classical shrine, known as Gasr Gurayyim Sa'íd, nor the minor
ateliers, El-Kubbah, Abá'l-Gezáz, and the remains upon the Marwát
ridge. Good work was done by the Egyptian Staff-officers in
surveying the fine harbour of El-Dumayghah, so well fitted as a
refuge for pilgrim-ships when doing quarantine; and I venture
upon recommending, to the English and Egyptian Governments, my
remarks concerning the advisability of at once re-transferring
the station to El-Wijh. It is now at Tor; and, as has been said,
it forms a standing menace, not only to the Nile Valley, but to
the whole of Europe.

Whilst abounding in wood, the Southern Country is not so well
watered as are Central and Northern Midian On the other hand, the
tenants, confined to the Baliyy tribe, with a few scatters of the
despised Hutaym, are milder and more tractable than the Huwaytát.
As I have remarked, they are of ancient strain, and they still
conserve the instincts of their predecessors, or their
forefathers, the old mining race. It will be necessary to defend
them against the raids and incursions of the Juhaynah, or "Sons
of Dogs," who border upon them to the south, and from the
Alaydán-‘Anezah to the south-east; but nothing would be easier
than to come to terms with the respective Shaykhs. And the sooner
we explore the Jaww, or sandstone region in the interior, with
its adjacent "Harrahs," the better for geography and, perhaps not
less, for mineralogy. The great ruins of Madáin Sálih upon the
Wady Hamz still, I repeat, await the discoverer.





Conclusion.



The next day saw us at El-Wijh, dispensing pay and "bakhshísh" to
the companions of our Desert march; and shipping the men and
mules, with the material collected during the southern journey.
The venerable Shaykh ‘Afnán and his Baliyy were not difficult to
deal with; and they went their way homewards fully satisfied. We
exchanged a friendly adieu, or rather an au revoir, with our
excellent travelling companion, Mohammed Shahádah; and I
expressed my sincere hopes to find him, at no distant time,
governor of the restored Quarantine-station.

On the morning of April 12th we set out betimes, and anchored for
the night in one of the snug bays of Jebel Nu'man. The next day
placed us at the Sharm Yáhárr, where the process of general
distribution happily ended. Here the final parting took place
with the gallant companions of our four months' travel. Shaykh
Furayj, delighted with the gift, in addition to his pay, of a
Styrian skean-dhu and an Austrian Werndl-carbine, at once set off
to rejoin the tribe up-country; while the Sayyid steadfastly
stayed with us to the last. These men had become our friends; and
my sorrow at leaving them was softened only by the prospect of
presently seeing them again.

Immediately after my return to Cairo I strongly recommended the
Sayyid for promotion, in these words:--"First and foremost is the
Sayyid ‘Abd el-Rahím, the head of a noble family, settled for
generations at El-Muwayláh, where he is now Kátib (‘accountant')
to the Fort. He knows thoroughly the whole Land of Midian; he is
loved and respected by all the Arabs, and both he and his are
devoted to the Government of your Highness. Evidently it would be
advantageous to promote such a man to the post of governor of the
place--a post which will presently become of high importance, and
which is actually held by an old officer, almost bed-ridden.

"The second is Shaykh Mohammed Shahádah, of El-Wijh, a man of
family and position; known far and wide, and made generally
popular by his generous and charitable actions. He was formerly
Wakíl, or ‘agent,' to the Fort el-Wijh, until that office was
abolished. The port will presently have its custom-house; and I
propose forwarding to her Britannic Majesty's Government my notes
upon the subject of the Quarantine-station, which has imprudently
been transferred from Arabia to Tor, in the Sinaitic Peninsula.
Meanwhile it would, I venture to suggest, be most advantageous if
Mohammed Shahádah were named governor of his native place."

The Expedition, in its urgent desire to return northwards, was
not seconded by weather. Despite an ugly gale, the Sinnár boldly
attempted giving the slip to Arabia on April 16th, but she was
beaten back before she reached El-Muwaylah. After another stormy
day, we again got up steam; and, fighting hard against adverse
winds and waves, greatly to the distress of the unfortunate mules
and gazelles, we reached Suez on April 20th.

At Suez my wife had been awaiting me for long weeks, preferring
the simplicity of the Desert to the complex life of Cairo. Some
delay was again necessary in order to telegraph our arrival, to
apply for a special train, and to sort and pack in the
travelling-cases our twenty-five tons of specimens. As often
happens, the return to civilization was in nowise cheery.
Everything seemed to go wrong. For instance, the Dragoman
despatched to town from the New Docks in order to lay in certain
comforts, such as beef and beer, prudently laid out the coin in a
brand-new travelling suit intended for his own service. Such an
apology for a dinner had not been seen during the last four
months of wild travel--unpleasant when guests have been bidden to
a feast! The night at the Docks, also, was a trifle mortuary,
over-silent and tranquil: all hands, officers and men, who could
not get leave to sleep ashore, simply took leave--I believe
myself to have been for a time both captain and crew of the
Sinnár. And, lastly, we heard that both our dog-companions, Juno
and Páijí, had died of some canine epidemic.

The next day ended our halt at Suez, with visits to slop-shops
and a general discussion of choppes. The old hotel, under the
charge of Mr. and Mrs. Adams, had greatly improved by the
"elimination" of the offensive Hindi element; and my old friends
of a quarter-century's standing received me with all their wonted
heartiness. Sa'íd Bey was still a Bey, but none the less jovial
and genial; Captain Ali Bey, who had commanded the Sinnár, was
now acting commodore; and my only regret was having again missed
Colonel Gordon (Pasha).

April 22nd convinced us that, even in these prosaic regions, our
misadventures and accidents had not reached their fated end. A
special train had been organized by Hanafi Effendi for eight a.m.
About ten miles from Suez one of the third-class carriages began
"running hot;" and, before we could dismount, the axle-box of a
truck became a young Vesuvius in the matter of vomiting smoke. I
ordered the driver, who was driving furiously, to make half
speed; but even with this precaution there were sundry stoppages;
and at the Naffíshah station, where my Bolognese acquaintances
still throve, we could not be supplied with a change of
"rolling-stock." About Tell el-Kabír, the brake-van also waxed
unsafely warm; but it reached Zagázig without developing more
caloric. Briefly, we caught fire three times in one morning.

These accidents must always be expected, where spare carriages
are placed for months upon sidings to become tinder in the sun;
and where the cracks and crevices of the woodwork fill up with
the silicious sand of the Desert, an admirable succedaneum for
flint and steel. One consolation, however, remained to us: the
Dragoman, brand-new clothes and all, was left behind at Suez. His
last chef d'œuvre of blundering has already been
noticed[EN#84]--the barrel of Midianitish oysters sent to Admiral
M'Killop (Pasha) had been so carelessly headed up, and so
carefully turned topsy-turvy, that the result was, to use my
friend's words, they could be nosed from the half-way station.
The "Kyrios" had probably passed a Bacchanalian night with his
Hellenic friends, and he subsequently made act of presence at
Cairo with a very British-looking black eye. His accident at Suez
was a bit of "poetical justice," which almost convinced one of
the "moral government."

A succulent breakfast à la fourchette, in the charming garden of
our friend M. Vetter, of Zagázig, duly discussed, we again went
"on board," amusing the lookers-on by our naive enjoyment of the
Nile-valley: they had not been in Arabia, and they found the
"emerald-green" dusty and yellow. We reached Cairo at 5.30 p.m.
More troubles! Ten minutes after arrival we found ourselves in
possession, in sole charge of the gare. The train was loaded with
Government property, officers, soldiers and escort, mules, boxes
and bags of specimens whose collecting had cost money. Yet
station-master, agent, and employés at once went their ways,
declining even to show the room allotted to our goods, although a
telegram from the railway authorities had advised me that one had
been made ready. The assistant-agent, when at last hunted up,
declared, before vanishing once more, that the porters for whom
we applied were busy loading cotton, and that we must e'en do the
best we could for ourselves. So the waggons were shunted and
unloaded by their tenants, and the minerals were deposited under
a kind of shed whose key was not forthcoming. We failed to find
even a light, till the local train from Suez was announced; and,
when it began whistling, the officials, who had returned like
rats from their holes, gave us peremptory directions to shunt
again. This time, however, I had the game in my hands; and
replied by taking due precautions against being turned out.

At first the soldier-escort worked as well as could be expected;
but the numbers fell off every quarter of an hour, till we were
left with a very select party; the only recipients, by-the-by, of
"bakhshísh." The Sub-Lieutenant Mohammed Effendi mounted a donkey
the moment he stepped out of the R.R. carriage; and, utterly
disregarding so vexatious a frivolity as asking leave, rode off
to his home at Torah. His example was followed by the Sergeant
Mabrúk ‘Awaz. And yet both these men had the impudence to call
upon me at the hotel, and to apply for especial Shahádahs, or
"testimonials" of good conduct. In short, we were detained at the
station for three mortal hours, working with our own hands. If
this be a fair specimen of European management in Egypt, and I am
told that it has now become worse, much worse in every way, the
sooner we return to Egyptian mismanagement the better. The latter
is, at any rate, cheap and civil.

On the next day the Viceroy graciously sent his junior Master of
Ceremonies, his Excellency Tonino Bey, to welcome me back; and I
was at once honoured with audiences at the Khedivial Palace,
‘Abidin, and by Prince Husayn Kámil Pasha at Gizah (Jízah). The
Khediv was pleased to express satisfaction with my past
exertions, and ordered several measures to be carried out at
once. Amongst them was a little exhibition of mineralogy and
archaeology, maps and plans, sketches and croquis, at the
Hippodrome.

I need hardly say that his Highness at once saw the gist of the
matter. Many concessions had been applied for, even from
Australia; but the Viceroy determined that, before any could be
granted, careful analyses of the specimens must be made, at his
Highness's private expense, in London. M. Ferdinand de Lesseps,
of world-wide fame, volunteered, in the most friendly way, to
submit échantillons of the rocks to the Parisian Académie des
Sciences, of which he is a distinguished member. The Viceroy was
also pleased spontaneously to remind me of, and to renew, the
verbal promise made upon my return from the first Expedition to
Midian; namely, that I should be honoured with a concession, or
that a royalty of five per cent. on the general produce of the
mines should be the reward of discovery. The young Minister of
Finance, Prince Husayn Kámil Pasha, after courteously
congratulating me upon the successful result of our labours, put
as usual the most pertinent of questions.

The opening of our little Exposition was delayed by sundry
difficulties. The Greek Easter set in with its usual severity
about later April. A general shop-shutting, a carouse unlimited,
catholic, universal; and, despite stringent police orders, a
bombardment of the town by squibs and crackers, were the
principal features of the fête. The 29th was the classical Shamm
el-Nasin, or "the Smelling of the Zephyr," a local May-day
religiously kept with utter idleness. Mr. W. E. Hayns and I
utilized it by going a flint-hunting on the left bank of the
Nile.[EN#85] Then the terrible "May coupon" gave immense trouble
and annoyance to the rulers; who, so far from making merry with
the lieges, had to work in person between five a.m. and midnight.
After such exertion as this, rest was of course necessary.
Subsequently, a grand review monopolized one day; another was
spent by the Court in despatching the young Prince Fu'ád to
Switzerland; and yet another was given to his Highness the Prince
Hasan Pasha, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian auxiliaries, who,
on the conclusion of the war, had returned to Cairo en route for
Europe.

Briefly, it was not before May 9th that the Khediv, accompanied
by the Prince héritier, Taufík Pasha, found leisure personally to
open the Exhibition--the first, by-the-by, ever honoured with the
Viceregal presence. Despite all my efforts, the rooms, which
should have been kept clear till his Highness had passed through,
were crowded at an early hour. The maps prepared at the Citadel
by Lieutenants Amir and Yusuf, with the aid of three extra hands,
were very imperfect, half finished at the last moment, and
abounding in such atrocities as "Ouorh" for "El-Wijh." The
engineer, M. Marie, when asked aloud, and with all publicity, by
the Khediv whether he was sure that such and such specimens
contained gold, shirked a direct reply, evasively declaring that
"Midian is a fine mining country." He had pointed out to me the
precious metal during our exploration of Umm el-Karáyat; but such
is the wretched result of "knowing the people," instead of
telling the truth like a man. And one of the many jealous, a mild
Mephisto., whispered in the Viceregal ear, "There can't be much
gold there, or ces messieurs would have said more about it."

Despite these small contretemps the Exhibition[EN#86] was
pronounced a success, and served, as such things do, for a nine
days' wonder. Several travellers from England and Australia took
the opportunity of inspecting the rocks; and I was much
encouraged to find the general opinion so highly favourable.
Locally there were dissidents, but this must be expected where
interests differ.

Meanwhile his Highness kept me hard at work. I was directed to
draw up a concise general description of the province; to report
upon the political and other measures by which the Midian country
would be benefited; and, lastly, to suggest the means which, in
my humble opinion, were best calculated for successfully working
the mines. In former days the Viceroy would at once have
undertaken the task, and probably would have sent down five
thousand men to open the diggings. Now, however, the endless
trickery of European adventurers and speculators has made a wise
precaution absolutely necessary. During the last audience, his
Highness ably and lucidly resumed the history of the past
measures, and the steps which he proposed for the future. The
first Khedivial Expedition had been simply one of exploration,
sent to ascertain whether the precious metals really existed. The
second was intrusted with the charge of laying down the probable
limits of the mining formation; and of bringing back varied
specimens, in quantities sufficient for scientific analysis. The
third and next step would be to organize a Compagnie de
Recherche, with the object of beginning a serious exploitation.
The future thus settled, I was kindly and courteously dismissed,
with a desire that I should take charge of the specimens, and
personally superintend the work of assaying. Mr. Charles Clarke
received pay and leave for three months, and was ordered to
convey the boxes by "long sea."

On May 10th we left Cairo in company with our friend Mr. Garwood,
C.E. At Alexandria a great repose fell upon my spirit; it was
like gliding into a smooth port after a storm at sea. All the
petty troubles and worries of Cairo; the cancans, the intrigues,
the silly reports of the envious and the jealous, with the buzz
and sting of mosquitoes; the weary waiting; the visits of
"friends" whose main object in life seemed to be tuer le ver; and
the exigencies of my late fellow-travellers, who, after liberal
pay and free living for four months, seemed determined to quarter
themselves upon the Egyptian Government for the rest of their
natural lives;--all these small cares, not the less annoying
because they were small, disappeared like magic at the first
glimpse of blue water. I had barely time to pass an afternoon at
Ramleh, "the Sand-heap," with an intimate of twenty-five years'
standing, Hartley John Gisborne, an old servant of the Egyptian
"Crown," for whom new men and new measures have, I regret to see,
made the valley of the Nile no longer habitable.

The next Sunday placed us on board the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's
screw-steamer Austria (Capitano Rossol). As usual, the commander
and officers did all they could to make their voyagers
comfortable; the Company did the contrary. At this spring season,
true, the migratory host of unfeathered bipeds crowds northwards;
even as in autumn it accompanies the birds southwards. But when
berths are full, passengers should be refused; and if the
commercial director prefers dead to live goods, travellers should
be duly warned. The accommodation would have been tolerable in a
second-class or third-class English steamer, which charges
fifteen shillings to a sovereign per diem; here, however, we were
paying between £2 and £3.

The Alexandrian agent had been asked to lodge us decently. My
wife found herself in a cabin occupied by two nurses. I was
placed in a manner of omnibus, a loose box for six, of whom one
was an Armenian and two were Circassians from Daghistán--good men
enough, but not pleasant as bedroom fellows. No extra service had
been engaged for an extra cargo of seventy-two; that is,
forty-two first, and thirty second class. There were only three
stewards, including the stewardess; and the sick were left to
serve themselves. At least half a dozen were required; and, in
such places as Trieste and Alexandria, a large staff of cooks and
waiters can always be engaged in a few hours. On board any
English ship some of the smartest and handiest seamen would have
been converted into temporary attendants--here no one seemed to
think of a proceeding so far out of the usual way. There was only
one, instead of three or four cooks; and the unfortunate had to
fill a total of one hundred and thirty-five mouths, the crew
included, three times a day. The other tenant of the close and
wretched little galley lay sick with spotted typhus; and, after
barbarous neglect, he died on the day following our arrival at
Trieste--I did not hear that the surgeon of the screw-steamer
Austria had met with his deserts by summary dismissal from the
service. The Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's was once famed for good
living; over-economy and high dividends have now made the cuisine
worse than the cheapest of tables d'hôte. Provisions as well as
their preparation were so bad that Sefer Pasha, an invalid,
confined himself to a diet of potatoes and eggs.

Add the quasi-impossibility of obtaining a bath; the
uncleanliness of the offices; the hard narrowness of the sofas;
the small basins, or rather bowls, and the tiny towels like
napkins; the clamorous pets of the small fry, cats and dogs; the
crowding of second-class passengers on the quarter-deck; and the
noise of the Armenian lady beating her maid, who objected to the
process in truly dreadful language: throw in an engine which,
despite the efforts of her energetic English engineer, Mr.
Wilkinson, managed only nine instead of eleven and a half knots
an hour; an ugly north-easter off Cape Matapan, bringing tropical
downfalls of rain; and a muggy Scirocco off Istria, when we
breathed almost as much water as air: and I think that the short
entry in my journal, "horridly uncomfortable," was to a certain
extent justified by the conduct of the poor Austria. Yet the
Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's boasts a dividend of seven per cent. She
shall see no more of my money: until she mend her ways I shall
prefer the Genoese Rubattino.

But, as the Persian poet has it, Ín níz bug'zared--"Even these
things pass away." At Corfu we were cheered by once more meeting
Sir Charles Sebright, who looked hale and hearty as of yore. When
we reached Trieste, his Excellency Baron Pino von Friendenthall,
accompanied by the most amiable of "better halves," came off in
his galley, happily unconscious of typhus; and carried us away
without the usual troubles and delays of landing in harbour
bumboats. Friendly faces smiled a welcome; and, after an absence
of some seven months, I found myself once more in the good town
which has given us a home during the last five years.

At Trieste I was delayed for some time, awaiting the report that
the specimens collected by the Expedition had arrived at their
destination, the warehouses of the London Docks. Mr. Clarke met
with obstacles at Suez; and, consequently, did not reach England
till June 20th, after twenty-three rough days. As her Majesty's
Foreign Office had been pleased to accord me two months of leave
to England, I determined to make the voyage by "long sea." Both
suffering from the same complaint, want of rest and of
roast-beef, as opposed to rosbif, we resolved to ship on board
the English steamer Hecla, of the B. and N. A. R. M. S. P.
Company, the old Cunard line, famous for never having lost a
life, a ship, or a letter. We left Trieste on July 7, 1878, in
charge of our excellent commander, Captain James Brown; and,
after a cruise of twenty days, viâ Venice, Palermo, and
Gibraltar--a comfortable, cheery, hygienic cruise in charming
weather over summer seas--we found ourselves once more (July
26th) in the city of the Liver.

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