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




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,
Günther), 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
identity 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 Sinnár 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
gîte, 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 Khárgah gorge on the western bank, rose a tall
head, the Ras el-Rukabíyyah; 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-Maín, and Jebel Sháhitah. A little
beyond the latter debouched the Darb el-Kufl ("Road of
Caravans"), alias Darb el-Ashárif ("Road of the Sherifs"), a
winding gap, the old line of the Egyptian pilgrims, by which the
Sulaymáyyán 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-‘Agúz"
(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 Hismá Pass. 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
Pass rounding the southern Shárr was, they declared, the Wady
Aújar, an influent of the Wady Zahakán, near Zibá. 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 Pass proved to be one of the easiest. It began with a gradual
rise up a short broad Wady, separating the southernmost
counterforts of the Shárr from the north end of the Jebel
el-Ghuráb. 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 "Marú," 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 assumed 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 Khamsín or, as M. Loufti (?), a
Coptic student, writes it, "Khamasín," from Khama ("warm") and
Sina ("air").[EN#27] The Midianites call it El-Daufún, 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
Shárr--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,
viâ the Wady Hárr, upon our old Sharm, the latter showing, for
the first time since its creation, two war-steamers, with their
"tender," a large Sambúk. The boats did not long keep us waiting;
and we were delighted to tread once more the quarter-deck of the
corvette Sinnár. 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 pronounced character
than anything that I had yet seen.[EN#28]





Résumé 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 Shárr, 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 ‘Alayán 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'ázah. The ascent of the Shárr also cost £40, making a grand
total of £187 6s. 6d.

The march to the Hismá 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 Gháts, granites and traps with large veins and outcrops of
quartz; and Wadys lined with thick beds of conglomerate. 2. The
Jibál el-Tihámah, the majestic range that bounds the seaboard
inland, with its broad valleys and narrow gorges forming the only
roads. 3. The Jibál 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
Hismá, 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 Hismá by the Ma'ázah, 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 Salmá, the Dámah, that "Arabian Arcadia," and the
‘Aslah-Aznab. We dug into, and made drawings and plans of, the
two principal ruined cities, Shuwák and Shaghab, which probably
combined to form the classical ; and of the two less
important sites, El-Khandaki and Umm Ámil.

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 "massive" 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 impassable 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. Ghadír--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. Majrá--here pronounced "Maghráh"[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 Majrá
proper ("divide") or the Nakb ("pass"), and the latter may safely
be left to the reader's imagination.

The partial ascent of the mighty Shárr 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
quantity 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, ‘Alayán 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 Sinnár, though
fretting her vitals out at the delay, was detained two days
(March 19--20) in the Sharm Yáhárr. 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 spawning-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 Shárr, 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, assumed a manner of Ossianic grandeur. After three
hours and a half we were abreast of Zibá, 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 passage to our ugly old friend, Wady Salmá. The
next important mouth is the Wady ‘Amúd, showing two Sambúks at
anchor, and a long line of vegetation like the palm-strips of the
‘Akabah Gulf: this valley, I have said, receives the Mutadán,
into which the Abú Marwah gorge discharges.[EN#30]

It would appear that this "‘Amúd" represents the "Wady el-‘Aúníd," a
name utterly unknown to the modern Arabs, citizens and Bedawin, at
least as far south as El-Haurá. 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-Idrísí
settles the question of its site by placing it on the coast opposite
the island El-Na'mán (Nu'mán), but can El-Idrísí 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 Abú Masárib, the long thin point north of which the
Wady Dámah, half-way to the Wady Azlam, falls in, represents the
(Chersónesi Extrema) on the same parallel. I cannot help
suspecting that both lie further south--in fact, somewhere about El-
Haurá.[EN#31]

Here the maritime heights, known as the Jibál ("Mountains" of
the) Tihámat-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'mán, as the island is
called: so the Arabs speak of Jebel (never Jezírat)
Hassáni.[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 madfún ("buried sea"), corresponding with the
Italian mar vecchio. On our return northwards we landed upon
Nu'mán, 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 shore and admirably defended from all winds; the
southern not a little resembles Sináfir-cove.

The "top," or dwarf plateau, commands a fine view of the coast
scenery; the "Pins" of the Shárr; the Mutadán Mountain, twin ridges
of grey white granite, and, further south, the darker forms of
Raydán and Zigláb. Here, during springtide, the Huwaytát 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 classical name, the
(Timagenis Insula) of Ptolemy. If this be the case, either the
Pelusian or his manuscripts 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.

Passing another old friend, the Aslah-Aznab, down whose head we
had ridden to Shaghab, 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 Huwaytát, and the northern of
the Baliyy tribes. Beyond it is the gape of the once populous
Wady Dukhán--of "the (furnace?) Smoke"--faced by a large splay of
tree-grown sand. Ruins are reported in its upper bed. Beyond
Marsá 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 Mínat 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 Mutakkadimín ("ancients"). The report
was confirmed by an old Arab Básh-Buzúk at El-Wijh; he declared
that in his youth he had seen a tall furnace, and a quantity of
scoriæ 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 Sambúks, 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 pass a day at these old quarters of a certain Háji
‘Abdullah. The hydrographers have given enlarged plans of Yáhárr
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 shore. 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 passage 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 trimming would convert it into a
first-rate pier.

At this place we landed to prospect the country, and to gather
information from the Sambúk 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'án-Huwaytát
and Karáizah-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 shells, not including, however,
the oysters. The usual eight-ribbed turtle appeared to be common.
On the sands to the north, M. Lacaze picked up a large old and
bleached skull, which went into my collection; we failed to find
any neighbouring burial-ground. Striking inland, however, towards
the dotted square, marked "Fort (ruin)" in the Chart, we came
upon an ancient cemetery to the north of the bay, and concluded
that these graves had been mistaken for remains of building.

We then bent eastward towards the Jibál el-Salbah, and examined
the two dwarf valleys which, threading the heights, feed the Wady
Dumayghah. That to the south showed us a perfectly familiar
formation; conglomerates of water-rolled pebbles in the lower
levels, and hills of the normal dark porphyries, with large
quartz-seams of many colours trending in every direction. The
mouth of the northern gorge was blocked by a vein of finely
crystallized carbonate of lime, containing geodes and bunches.
The taste is astringent, probably from the alumina; and it is
based upon outcrops of a sandy calcaire apparently fit for
hydraulic cement. The only novelty in the vegetation was the
Fashak-tree, a creeper like a gigantic constrictor, with sweet
yellow wood somewhat resembling liquorice.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.