We had been for the whole morning somewhat alarmed by the appearance of some suspicious looking men on camels at a distance in our rear, and our Bedouins had, in consequence, prepared their matchlocks. When we halted during the mid-day hours, they also alighted upon a hill at a little distance; but seeing us in good order, and with no heavy loads to excite their cupidity, they did not approach us. They, however, this evening, fell upon a small party of unarmed Egyptian peasants who were carrying corn to Suez, stripped them, took away their camels and loads, and the poor owners fled naked into Suez. It was afterwards learnt that they belonged to the tribe of Omran, who live on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the gulf of Akaba. Without establishing regular patrols of the Bedouins themselves on this road, it will never be possible to keep it free from robbers.
At six hours and a half begins a hilly country, with a slight descent through a narrow pa.s.s between hills, called El Montala [Arabic], a favourite spot for robbers. At seven hours and a half we pa.s.sed Adjeroud [Arabic], about half an hour to our left; about two miles west of it is a well in the Wady Emshash, called Bir Emshash, which yields a copious supply of water in the winter, but dries up in the middle of summer if rains have not been abundant; the garrison of Adjeroud, where is a well so bitter that even camels will not drink the water, draws its supply of drinking water from the Bir Emshash. From hence the road turns S.E. over a slightly descending plain. At ten hours and a half is the well called Bir Suez, a
SUEZ
[p.465] copious spring enclosed by a ma.s.sive building, from whence the water is drawn up by wheels turned by oxen, and emptied into a large stone tank on the outside of the building. The men who take care of the wheels and the oxen remain constantly shut up in the building for fear of the Bedouins. The water is brackish, but it serves for drinking, and the Arabs and Egyptian peasants travelling between Cairo and Suez, who do not choose to pay a higher price for the sweet water of the latter place, are in the habit of filling their water skins here, as do the people of Suez for their cooking provision. From an inscription on the building, it appears that it was erected in the year of the Hedjra 1018.
We reached Suez about sunset, at the end of eleven hours and a half. I alighted with the Bedouins upon an open place between the western wall of the town, and its houses.
April 24th. In the time of Niebuhr Suez was not enclosed; there is now a wall on the west and south-west, which is rapidly falling to decay. The town is in a ruinous state; and neither merchants nor artisans live in it. Its population consists only of about a dozen agents, who receive goods from the ports of the Red sea, and forward them to their correspondents at Cairo, together with some shop-keepers who deal chiefly in provisions. The Pasha keeps a garrison here of about fifty hors.e.m.e.n, with an officer who commands the town, the neighbouring Arabs, and the shipping in the harbour. As Suez is one of the few harbours in the Red sea where ships can be repaired, some vessels are constantly seen at the wharf; the repairs are carried on by Greek shipwrights and smiths, in the service of the Pasha, who are let out to the shipowners by the commanding officer. Suez has of late become a harbour of secondary importance, the supplies of provisions, &c. for the Hedjaz being collected princ.i.p.ally at Cosseir, and shipped from thence to Yembo and Djidda: but the trade in coffee and
[p.466] India goods still pa.s.ses this way to Cairo. I saw numerous bales of spices and coffee lying near the sh.o.r.e, and a large heap of iron, together with packages of small wares, antimony, and Egyptian goods for exportation to Djidda, and ultimately to Yemen and India. The merchants complained of the want of camels to transport their goods to Cairo. The Pasha, who owns a considerable part of the imports of coffee, has fixed the carriage across the desert at a low price, and none of the agents venture to offer more to the camel drivers; the consequence of which is, that few are encouraged to come to Suez beyond the number required for the Pasha?s merchandize. A caravan consisting of five or six hundred camels leaves Suez for Cairo on the 10th of each lunar month, accompanied by guards and two field-pieces; while smaller ones, composed of twenty or thirty beasts, depart almost every four or five days; but to these the merchants are shy of trusting their goods, because they can never depend on the safety of the road; accidents however seldom happen at present, so formidable is the name of Mohammed Ali.
Before the power of this Pasha was established in Egypt, and during the whole period of the Mamelouk government, the Bedouins might be called complete masters of Suez. Every inhabitant was obliged t[o] have his protector, Ghafyr [Arabic], among the Bedouins of Mount Sinai, to whom he made annual presents of money, corn, and clothes, and who ensured to him the safe pa.s.sage of his goods and person through the desert, and the recovery of whatever was plundered by the others. At that time the rate of freight was fixed by the Bedouins, and camels were in plenty; but, whenever the governors of Cairo quarrelled with the Bedouins, or ill- treated any of them at Cairo, the road was immediately interrupted, and the Bedouins placed guards over the well of Naba [Arabic], two hours distant from Suez, in the hills on the eastern side of the gulf, to prevent the people of the town from drawing from thence their
[p.467] daily supply of sweet water. The difference was always settled by presents to the Bedouins, who, however, as may readily be conceived, often abused their power; and it not unfrequently happened that, even in time of peace, a Bedouin girl would be found, in the morning, sitting on the well, who refused permission to the water carriers of Suez to draw water unless they paid her with a new shirt, which they were obliged to do; for to strike her, or even to remove her by force, would have brought on a war with her tribe. The authority of the Bedouins is now at an end, though their Sheikhs receive from the Turkish governors of Suez a yearly tribute, under the name of presents, in clothes and money; the Pasha himself has become the Ghafyr of the people of Suez, and exacts from every camel load that pa.s.ses through the gates from two to four dollars, for which he engages to ensure the pa.s.sage through the desert; when the caravan however was plundered in 1815, he never returned the value of the goods to the owners.
The Arabs Terabein are the conductors of the caravans to Ghaza, and Khalyl (Hebron), the latter of which is eight days distant. At this time the freight per camel?s load was eighteen Patacks, or four dollars and a half. These caravans bring the manufactures of Damascus, soap, gla.s.s- ware, tobacco, and dried fruits, which are shipped at Suez for the Hedjaz and Yemen.
The eastern part of the town of Suez is completely in ruins, but near the sh.o.r.e are some well built Khans, and in the inhabited part of the town are several good private houses. The aspect of Suez is that of an Arabian, and not an Egyptian town, and even in the barren waste, which surrounds it, it resembles Yembo and Djidda; the same motley crowds are met with in the streets, and the greater part of the shop-keepers are from Arabia or Syria. The air is bad, occasioned by the saline nature of the earth, and the extensive low grounds on the north and north-east sides, which are filled
[p.468] with stagnant waters by the tides. The inhabitants endeavour to counteract the influence of this bad atmosphere by drinking brandy freely; the mortality is not diminished by such a remedy, and fevers of a malignant kind prevail during the spring and summer.
The water of the well of Naba, though called sweet, has a very indifferent taste, and becomes putrid in a few days if kept in skins.
The government has made a sort of monopoly of it; but its distribution is very irregular, and affrays often happen at the well, particularly when ships are on the point of sailing. In general, however, they touch at Tor, for a supply; those lying in the harbour might fill their casks at the well of Abou Szoueyra [Arabic], about seven hours to the south of Ayoun Mousa, and about half an hour from the sea sh.o.r.e, where the water is good; but Arabs will seldom give themselves so much trouble for water, and will rather drink what is at hand, though bad, than go to a distance for good.
Ships, after delivering their cargoes at Suez, frequently proceed to Cosseir, to take in corn for the Hedjaz. They first touch at Tor for water, and then stand over to the western coast, anchoring in the creeks every evening till they reach their destination. The coast they sail along is barren, and without water, and no Arabs are seen. At one or two days sail from Suez is an ancient Coptic convent, now abandoned, called Deir Zafaran or Deir El Araba [Arabic]; it stands on the declivity of the mountain, at about one hour from the sea. Some wild date-trees grow there. At the foot of the mountain are several wells three or four feet deep, upon the surface of whose waters naphtha or petroleum is sometimes found in the month of November, which is skimmed off by the hand; it is of a deep brownish black colour, and of the same fluidity as turpentine, which it resembles in smell. This substance, which is known
[p.469] under the name of Zeit el Djebel [Arabic], mountain oil, is collected princ.i.p.ally by the Christians of Tor, and by the Arabs Heteim, of the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Red sea; it is greatly esteemed in Egypt as a cure for sores and rheumatism, and is sold at Suez and Tor, at from one to two dollars per pound.
Niebuhr, travelling in 1762, says that Suez derives its provisions in great part from Mount Sinai and Ghaza: this is not the case now. From Mount Sinai it obtains nothing but charcoal, and a few fruits and dates in the autumn; dried fruits of the growth of Damascus are the only import from Ghaza. The town is supplied with provisions from Cairo; vegetables are found only at the time of the arrival of the caravan.
Every article is of the worst quality, and twenty-five per cent. dearer than at Cairo. Syrian, Turkish, and Moggrebyn pilgrims are constantly seen here, waiting for the departure of ships to the Hedjaz. I found three vessels in the harbour, and it may be calculated that one sails to the southward every fortnight. No Europeans are settled here; but an English agent is expected next year, to meet the ships from Bombay, according to a treaty made with the Pasha, by several English houses, who wished to open a direct communication between India and Egypt.[In May, 1817, a small fleet arrived at Suez direct from Bombay, which was composed of English ships, and of others belonging to Mohammed Ali Pasha: among the articles imported were two elephants destined by the Pasha as presents to the Porte. This has been the first attempt within the last forty years to open a direct trade between India and Egypt, and will be as profitable to the Pasha as it must be ruinous to his subjects. The cargoes of these ships and the coffee which he imports from Yemen, are distributed by him among the merchants of Cairo, in proportion to their supposed capital in trade, and they are obliged to take the articles off his hands at the highest prices which they bear in the Bazar. If this trade is encreased by the Pasha, it will entirely prevent the merchants from importing goods on their own account from Djidda, the quant.i.ty they are thus obliged to take from the Pasha being fully sufficient for the consumption of Egypt.]
April 15th.?As the small caravan with which I had come to
EL AHTHA
[p.470] Suez remained there, I set out accompanied only by my guide and another Arab, whom he had engaged, and who afterwards proved through the whole journey a most serviceable, courageous, and honest companion. We left Suez early in the morning: the tide was then at flood, and we were obliged to make the tour of the whole creek to the N. of the town, which at low water can be forded. In winter time, and immediately after the rainy season, this circuit is rendered still greater, because the low grounds to the northward of the creek are then inundated, and become so swampy that the camels cannot pa.s.s them. We rode one hour and three quarters in a straight line northwards, after pa.s.sing, close by the town, several mounds of rubbish, which afford no object of curiosity except a few large stones, supposed to be the ruins of Clysma or Arsinoe. We then turned eastwards, just at the point where the remains of the ancient ca.n.a.l are very distinctly visible: two swellings of the ground, of which the eastern is about eight or ten feet high, and the western somewhat less, run in a straight line northwards, parallel with each other, at the distance of about twenty-five feet. They begin at a few hundred paces to the N.W. of high-water mark, from whence northwards the ground is covered by a saline crust. We turned the point of this inlet, and halted for a short time at the wells of Ayoun Mousa, under the date trees. The water of these wells is copious, but one only affords sweet water, and this is so often rendered muddy by the pa.s.sage of Arabs, whose camels descend into the wells, that it is seldom fit to supply a provision to the traveller, much less for shipping. We rested, at two hours and three quarters from the wells, in the plain called El Kordhye [Arabic].
April 26th.?We proceeded over a barren sandy and gravelly plain, called El Ahtha [Arabic], direction S. by E. For about an hour the plain was uneven; we then entered upon a widely-extended flat, in which we continued S.S.E. Low mountains, the commencement
WADY WARDAN
[p.471] of the chain of Tyh, run parallel with the road, to the left, about eight miles distant; they are inhabited by Terabein. At the end of four hours and a half we halted for a few hours in Wady Seder which takes its name of Wady only, from being overflown with water when the rains are very copious, which, however, does not happen every year. Its natural formation by no means ent.i.tles it to be called a valley, its level being only a few feet lower than that of the desert on both sides.
Some th.o.r.n.y trees grow in it, but no herbs for pasture. We continued our way S. b. E. over the plain, which was alternately gravelly, stony, and sandy. At the end of seven hours and a half we reached Wady Wardan [Arabic], a valley or bed of a torrent, similar in nature to the former, but broader. Near its extremity, at the sea side, it is several miles in breadth; and here is the well of Abou Szoueyra, which I have already mentioned. The Arabs of Tor seldom encamp in this place, but the Terabein Arabs are sometimes attracted by the well. During the war which happened about eight years ago between the Towara and the Maazy Bedouins, who live in the mountains between Cairo and Cosseir, a party of the former happened to be stationed here with their families. They were surprised one morning by a troop of their enemies, while a.s.sembled in the Sheikh?s tent to drink coffee. Seven or eight of them were cut down: the Sheikh himself, an old man, seeing escape impossible, sat down by the fire, when the leader of the Maazy came up, and cried out to him to throw down his turban and his life should be spared. The generous Sheikh, rather than do what, according to Bedouin notions, would have stained his reputation ever after, exclaimed, ?I shall not uncover my head before my enemies;? and was immediately killed with the thrust of a lance. A low chain of sand-hills begins here to the west, near the sea; and the eastern mountains approach the road. At nine hours and a half,
HOWARA
[p.472] S.S.E. the eastern mountains form a junction with the western hills. At ten hours we entered a hilly country; at ten hours and three quarters we rested for the night in a barren valley among the hills, called Wady Amara [Arabic]. We met with n.o.body in this route except a party of Yembo merchants, who had landed at Tor, and were travelling to Cairo. The hills consist of chalk and silex in very irregular strata: the silex is sometimes quite black; at other times it takes a l.u.s.tre and transparency much resembling agate.
April 27th.?We travelled over uneven hilly ground, gravelly and flinty.
At one hour and three quarters we pa.s.sed the well of Howara [Arabic], round which a few date trees grow. Niebuhr travelled the same route, but his guides probably did not lead him to this well, which lies among hills about two hundred paces out of the road. He mentions a rock called Hadj er Rakkabe, as one German mile short of Gharendel; I remember to have halted under a large rock, close by the road side, a very short distance before we reached Howara, but I did not learn its name. The water of the well of Howara is so bitter, that men cannot drink it; and even camels, if not very thirsty, refuse to taste it.
From Ayoun Mousa to the well of Howara we had travelled fifteen hours and a quarter. Referring to this distance, it appears probable that this is the desert of three days mentioned in the Scriptures to have been crossed by the Israelites immediately after their pa.s.sing the Red sea, and at the end of which they arrived at Marah.In moving with a whole nation, the march may well be supposed to have occupied three days; and the bitter well at Marah, which was sweetened by Moses, corresponds exactly with that of Howara. This is the usual route to Mount Sinai, and was probably therefore that which the Israelites took on their escape from Egypt, provided it be admitted that they crossed the sea near Suez, as Niebuhr, with good reason, conjectures. There is
WADY GHARENDEL
[p.473] no other road of three days march in the way from Suez towards Sinai, nor is there any other well absolutely bitter on the whole of this coast, as far as Ras Mohammed. The complaints of the bitterness of the water by the children of Israel, who had been accustomed to the sweet water of the Nile, are such as may daily be heard from the Egyptian servants and peasants who travel in Arabia. Accustomed from their youth to the excellent water of the Nile, there is nothing which they so much regret in countries distant from Egypt; nor is there any eastern people who feel so keenly the want of good water as the present natives of Egypt. With respect to the means employed by Moses to render the waters of the well sweet, I have frequently enquired among the Bedouins in different parts of Arabia whether they possessed any means of effecting such a change, by throwing wood into it, or by any other process; but I never could learn that such an art was known.
At the end of three hours we reached Wady Gharendel [Arabic] which extends to the N.E. and is almost a mile in breadth, and full of trees.
The Arabs told me that it may be traced through the whole desert, and that it begins at no great distance from El Arysh, on the Mediterranean, but I had no means of ascertaining the truth of this statement. About half an hour from the place where we halted, in a southern direction, is a copious spring, with a small rivulet, which renders the valley the princ.i.p.al station on this route. The water is disagreeable, and if kept for a night in the water skins, it turns bitter and spoils, as I have myself experienced, having pa.s.sed this way three times.
If we admit Bir Howara to be the Marah[Morra in Arabic means ?bitter.?
Marah in Hebrew is ?bitterness.?] of Exodus (xv. 23), then Wady Gharendel is probably Elim, with its wells and date trees, an opinion entertained by Niebuhr, who, however, did not
[p.474] see the bitter well of Howara on the road to Gharendel. The nonexistence, at present, of twelve wells at Gharendel must not be considered as evidence against the just-stated conjecture; for Niebuhr says that his companions obtained water here by digging to a very small depth, and there was a great plenty of it, when I pa.s.sed; water, in fact, is readily found by digging, in every fertile valley in Arabia, and wells are thus easily formed, which are quickly filled up again by the sands.
The Wady Gharendel contains date trees, tamarisks, acacias of different species, and the th.o.r.n.y shrub Gharkad [Arabic], the Peganum retusum of Forskal, which is extremely common in this peninsula, and is also met with in the sands of the Delta on the coast of the Mediterranean. Its small red berry, of the size of a grain of the pomegranate, is very juicy and refreshing, much resembling a ripe gooseberry in taste, but not so sweet. The Arabs are very fond of it, and I was told that in years when the shrub produces large crops, they make a conserve of the berries. The Gharkad, which from the colour of its fruit is also called by the Arabs Homra delights in a sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in the height of summer when the ground is parched up, exciting an agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry produced in the driest soil and season.[Might not the berry of this shrub have been used by Moses to sweeten the waters of Marah? The words in Exodus, xv. 25, are: ?And the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.? The Arabic translation of this pa.s.sage gives a different, and, perhaps, more correct reading: ?And the Lord guided him to a tree, of which he threw something into the water, which then became sweet.? I do not remember, to have seen any Gharkad in the neighbourhood of Howara, but Wady Gharendel is full of this shrub. As these conjectures did not occur to me when I was on the spot, I did not enquire of the Bedouins whether they ever sweetened the water with the juice of the berries, which would probably effect this change in the same manner as the juice of pomegranate grains expressed into it.] The bottom of the valley of Gharendel swarms with ticks, which are extremely distressing both to men and beasts, and on this account the caravans usually encamp on the sides of the hills which border the valley.
WADY SHEBEYKE
[p.475] We continued in a S.E. 1/2 E. direction, pa.s.sing over hills, and at the end of four hours from our starting in the morning, we came to an open, though hilly country, still slightly ascending, S.S.E. and then reached by a similar descent, in five hours and a half, Wady Oszaita [Arabic], enclosed by chalk hills. Here is another bitter well which never yields a copious supply, and sometimes is completely dried up. A few date trees stand near it. From hence we rode over a wide plain S.E.
b. S. and at the end of seven hours and three quarters came to Wady Thale [Arabic]. Rock salt is found here as well as in Gharendel; date, acacia, and tamarisks grow in the valley; but they were now all withered. To our right was a chain of mountains, which extend towards Gharendel. Proceeding from hence south, we turned the point of the mountain, and then pa.s.sed the rudely constructed tomb of a female saint, called Arys Themman [Arabic], or the bridegroom of Themman, where the Arabs are in the habit of saying a short prayer, and suspending some rags of clothing upon some poles planted round the tomb. After having doubled the mountain we entered the valley called Wady Taybe [Arabic], which descends rapidly to the sea. At the end of eight hours and a half we turned out of Wady Taybe into a branch of it, called Wady Shebeyke [Arabic], in which we continued E.S.E. and halted for the night, after a day?s march of nine hours and a quarter. This is a broad valley, with steep though not high cliffs on both sides. The rock is calcareous, and runs in even horizontal layers. Just over the road, a place was shewn to me from whence, some years since, a Bedouin of the Arabs of Tor precipitated his son, bound hands and feet, because he had stolen
WADY HOMMAR
[p.476] corn out of a magazine belonging to a friend of the family. In the great eastern desert the Aeneze Bedouins are not so severe in such instances; but they would punish a Bedouin who should pilfer any thing from his guest?s baggage.
April 28th.?We set out before dawn, and continued for three quarters of an hour in the Wady, after which we ascended E. b. S. and came upon a high plain, surrounded by rocks, with a towering mountain on the N.
side, called Sarbout el Djemel [Arabic]. We crossed the plain at sun rise; and the fresh air of the morning was extremely agreeable. There is nothing which so much compensates for the miseries of travelling in the Arabian deserts, as the pleasure of enjoying every morning the sublime spectacle of the break of day and of the rising of the sun, which is always accompanied, even in the hottest season, with a refreshing breeze. It was an invariable custom with me, at setting out early in the morning, to walk on foot for a few hours in advance of the caravan; and as enjoyments are comparative, I believe that I derived from this practice greater pleasure than any which the arts of the most luxurious capitals can afford. At two hours and a half the plain terminated; we then turned the point of the above-mentioned mountain, and entered the valley called Wady Hommar [Arabic], in which we continued E. b. N. This valley, in which a few acacia trees grow, has no perceptible slope on either side; its rocks are all calcareous, with flint upon some of them; by the road side, I observed a few scratchings of the figures of camels, done in the same style as those in Wady Mokatteb copied by M. Niebuhr and M. Seetzen, but without any inscriptions. At four hours we issued from this valley where the southern rocks which enclose it terminate, and we travelled over a wide, slightly ascending plain of deep sand, called El Debbe [Arabic], a name given by the Towara Bedouins to several other sandy districts of the same kind.
WADY EL NASZEB
[p.477] The direction of our road across it was S. E. by S. At six hours and a half we entered a mountainous country, much devastated by torrents, which have given the mountains a very wild appearance. Here sand-stone rocks begin. We followed the windings of a valley, and in seven hours and a quarter reached the Wady el Naszeb [Arabic], where we rested, under the shade of a large impending rock, which for ages, probably, has afforded shelter to travellers; it is I believe the same represented by Niebuhr in vol. i. pl. 48. He calls the valley Warsan, which is, no doubt, its true name, but the Arabs comprise all the contiguous valleys under the general name of Naszeb. Shady spots like this are well known to the Arabs, and as the scanty foliage of the acacia, the only tree in which these valleys abound, affords no shade, they take advantage of such rocks, and regulate the day?s journey in such a way, as to be able to reach them at noon, there to take the siesta.
The main branch of the Wady Naszeb continues farther up to the S.E. and contains, at about half an hour from the place where we rested, a well of excellent water; as I was fatigued, and the sun was very hot, I neglected to go there, though I am sensible that travellers ought particularly to visit wells in the desert, because it is at these natural stations that traces of former inhabitants are more likely to be found than any where else. The Wady Naszeb empties its waters in the rainy season into the gulf of Suez, at a short distance from the Birket Faraoun.
While my guides and servant lay asleep under the rock, and one of the Arabs had gone to the well to water the camels and fill the skins, I walked round the rock, and was surprised to find inscriptions similar in form to those which have been copied by travellers in Wady Mokatteb.
They are upon the surface of blocks which have fallen down from the cliff, and some of them appear to have been engraved while the pieces still formed a part of the main
[p.478] rock. There is a great number of them, but few can be distinctly made out. I copied the following from some rocks which are lying near the resting-place, at about an hundred paces from the spot where travellers usually alight. [not included] The fallen blocks must be closely examined in order to discover
[p.479] the inscriptions; in some places they are still to be seen on the rock above. They have evidently been done in great haste, and very rudely, sometimes with large letters, at others with small, and seldom with straight lines. The characters appear to be written from right to left, and although mere scratches, an instrument of metal must have been required, for the rock, though of sandstone, is of considerable hardness. Some of the letters are not higher than half an inch; but they are generally about fifteen lines in height, and four lines in breadth; the annexed figure, (as M. Seetzen has already observed in his publication upon these inscriptions in the Mines de l?Orient) is seen at the beginning of almost every line. Hence it appears that none of the inscriptions are of any length, but that they consist merely of short phrases, all similar to each other, in the beginning at least. They are perhaps prayers, or the names of pilgrims, on their way to Mount Sinai, who had rested under this rock. A few drawings of camels and goats, done in the coa.r.s.est manner, are likewise seen. M. Niebuhr (vol. i. pl. 50) has given some sketches of them.
Some Syale trees, a species of the mimosa, grow in this valley. The pod which they produce, together with the tenderest shoots of the branches, serve as fodder to the camels; the bark of the tree is used by the Arabs to tan leather. The rocks round the resting-place of Naszeb are much shattered and broken, evidently by torrents; yet no torrents within the memory of man have ever rushed down the valley.
In the afternoon we entered a lateral branch of the Naszeb, more northerly than the main branch which contains the well, and we gradually ascended it. We had been joined at the Ayoun Mousa by an Egyptian Bedouin, belonging to the Arabs of the province
RAML EL MORAK