Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 39

[p.495] S.W. by W. We now descended into a valley of deep sand covered with blocks of chalk rock. At one hour and three quarters the valley is contracted into a narrow pa.s.s, between low hills of sand-stone, bearing traces of very violent torrents. At the end of two hours, route east by north, we quitted the valley, and crossed a rough rocky plain, intersected on every side by beds of torrents; and at two hours and three quarters halted near a rock. One of the guides went with the camels up a side valley, to bring water from the well Hadhra [Arabic], (perhaps the Hazeroth [Hebrew] mentioned in Numbers x.x.xiii. 17), distant about two miles from the halting place. Near the well are said to be some date trees, and the remains of walls which formerly enclosed a few plantations.

We here met some Towara Bedouins on their way to Cairo with charcoal.

After employing a considerable time in collecting the wood and burning it into coal they carry it to Cairo, a journey at least of ten days, and there sell it for three or four dollars per load: so cheap do they hold their labour, and so limited are their means of subsistence. In return, they bring home corn and clothes to their women and children.

We started again as soon as the camels returned from the well, but should probably have gone astray had not the Bedouins above mentioned pointed out the road we ought to take; for Szaleh, the uncle of Hamd, although he pretended to be quite at home in this district, gave evident proofs of being but very slightly acquainted with it. We made many windings between sand-stone rocks, which presented their smooth perpendicular sides to the road; some of them are of a red, others of a white colour; the ground was deeply covered with sand. The traces of torrents were observable on the rocks as high as three and four feet above the

BOSZEYRA

[p.496] present level of the plain. Our main direction was E.N.E. At four hours and three quarters from the time we set out in the morning, we entered Wady Rahab [Arabic], a fine valley with many Syale trees, where the sands terminate. Route E. At five hours and a half we entered another valley, broader than the former, where I again found an alternation of sand-stone and granite. The barrenness of this district was greater than I had yet witnessed in my travels, excepting perhaps some parts of the desert El Tyh; the Nubian valleys might be called pleasure grounds in comparison. Not the smallest green leaf could be discovered; and the th.o.r.n.y mimosa, which retains its verdure in the tropical deserts of Nubia, with very little supply of moisture, was here entirely withered, and so dry that it caught fire from the lighted cinders which fell from our pipes as we pa.s.sed. We continued to descend by a gentle slope, and at six hours and a half entered Wady Samghy [Arabic], coming from the south, in which we descended N.E. At the end of eight hours and a half we left this valley and turned E. into a side one, called Boszeyra [Arabic]; where we halted for the night, at eight hours and three quarters.

We had met in Wady Samghy two old Bedouins of the Mezeine tribe, who belong to the Towara nation: they were fishermen, on their way to the sea to exercise their profession. One of them carried in a small sack a measure of meal which was to serve for their food on sh.o.r.e, the other had a skin of water upon his shoulder; they were both half naked, and both approaching to seventy years of age. One of them was deaf, but so intelligent that it was easy to talk with him by signs; he had established a vocabulary of gestures with his companion, who had been his fis.h.i.+ng partner for ten years, and who was one of the shrewdest and hardiest Bedouins I had ever seen; in his younger days he had been a noted robber,

[p.497] and in attempting to carry off the baggage of a French officer in the Sherkyeh province in Egypt, he was seized, laid under the stick, and so severely beaten, that his back had from that time become bent; but notwithstanding this misfortune and his age, he had lost none of his spirits, and his robust const.i.tution still enabled him to cross these mountains on foot, and to exert his activity whenever it was required.

These two men partook this evening of my supper; they of course asked me where I was going, and shook their heads when I told them I was bound for Akaba. None of my guides knew what business I had there, but they supposed that I had some verbal message to deliver to the Turkish Aga, who was at the head of the garrison. Ayd es Szaheny [Arabic], the old robber, soon found out that my guide Szaleh knew little of the road, and still less of the Arab tribes before us. He plainly told him that he would not be able to ensure either my safety or his own, in pa.s.sing through their districts, and reproached him for having deluded me with false a.s.surances. There appeared to be so much good faith and sense in all the old man said, and I found him so well informed respecting the country, that I soon determined to engage him to join us; but as we were to descend the next morning by the same road to the sea-sh.o.r.e, I deferred making him any overtures till we should arrive there.

The Wady Boszeyra is enclosed by gray granite rocks, out of which the Towara Arabs sometimes hew stones for hand mills, which they dispose of to the northern Arabs, and transport for sale as far as Khalyl. It is very seldom that any Arabs pasture in the district we had traversed, from Wady Sal. The Towara find better pasturage in the southern and south-western parts of the peninsula, and as its whole population is very small, the more barren parts of it are abandoned, and especially this side, where very few wells are found.

WASTA

[p.498] May 7th.?From Boszeyra we crossed a short ridge of mountains, and then entered a narrow valley, the bed of a torrent, called Saada [Arabic], in the windings of which we descended by a steeper slope than any of the former; our main direction E. The mountains on both sides were of moderate height and with gentle slopes, till after an hour and a half, when we reached a chain of high and perpendicular grunstein rocks, which hemmed in the valley so closely as to leave in several places a pa.s.sage of only ten feet across. After proceeding for a mile in this very striking and majestic defile, I caught the first glimpse of the gulf of Akaba; the valley then widens and descends to the sea, and after two hours and a quarter we alighted upon the sandy beach, which is here several hundred paces in breadth; the grunstein and granite rocks reach all the way down; but at the very foot of the mountain a thin layer of chalk appeared just above the surface of the ground. The valley opens directly upon the sea, into which it empties its torrent when heavy rains fall. Some groves of date-trees stand close by the sh.o.r.e, among which is a well of brackish but drinkable water; the place is called El Noweyba [Arabic]. We now followed the coast in a direction N.N.E. and at the end of three hours and a quarter halted at a grove of date-trees, intermixed with a few tamarisks, called Wasta [Arabic], close by the sea. Here is a small spring at a distance of fifty yards from the sea, and not more than eight feet above the level of the water; it was choked with sand, which we removed, and on digging a hole about three feet deep and one foot in diameter, it filled in half an hour with very tolerable water. The sh.o.r.e is covered with weeds brought hither by the tide[.]

Here the two Bedouins intended to take up their quarters for fis.h.i.+ng, but I easily prevailed upon Ayd to accompany us farther on. He promised to conduct us as far as Taba, a valley in sight of Akaba, but declared that he should not be justified in

[p.499] holding out to me promises of safety beyond that point. This was all that I wished, for the present, thinking that when we arrived thither, I should be able to prevail on him to continue farther. Szaleh now gave me reason to suspect that, from the moment of our setting out, he had had treacherous intentions. He secretly endeavoured to persuade Hamd to return, and finding the latter resolved to fulfil his engagements, he declared that he had now shown us enough of the way, that we had only to follow the sh.o.r.e to reach Akaba, and that the weakness of his camel would not allow it to proceed farther. I replied that he was at liberty to take himself off, but that, on my return to the convent, I should pay him only for the three days he had travelled with me. This was not to his liking, and he therefore preferred going on. Before we left this place Ayd told me that as I had treated him with a supper last night, it was his duty to give me a breakfast this morning. While he kneaded a loaf of flour, and baked it in the ashes, his companion caught some fish, which we boiled, and made a soup of the broth mixed with bread. The deaf man was made to understand by signs that he was to wait for the return of Ayd, and we set out together before mid-day. Before us lay a small bay, which we skirted; the sands on the sh.o.r.e every where bore the impression of the pa.s.sage of serpents, crossing each other in many directions, and some of them appeared to be made by animals whose bodies could not be less than two inches in diameter. Ayd told me that serpents were very common in these parts; that the fishermen were much afraid of them, and extinguished their fires in the evening before they went to sleep, because the light was known to attract them. As serpents are so numerous on this side, they are probably not deficient towards the head of the gulf on its opposite sh.o.r.e, where it appears that the Israelites pa.s.sed, when they journeyed from mount Hor, by the way of the Red sea, to compa.s.s the land of

[p.500] Edom,? and when the ?Lord sent fiery serpents among the people.?[Numbers c. xxi, v. 4, 6. The following pa.s.sage of Deuteronomy (viii. 15) in giving a general description of this country, alludes to the serpents: ?Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint. Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna,? &c. Scorpions are numerous in all the adjacent parts of Palestine and the desert. The Author observes in a note in another place, that the Arabic translation of the Pentateuch has ?serpents of burning bites,? instead of ?fiery serpents.? Note of the Editor.]

On the opposite side of the gulf the mountains appeared to reach down to the sea-side. In the direction S.S.E. and S.E. they are high; to the northward the chain lowers, and from the point E.S.E. towards Akaba the level is still lower. We saw at a distance several Gazelles, which, my guides told me, descend at mid-day to the sea to bathe. At one hour from Wasta we reached near the sea another collection of palm trees, larger than the former, and having a well, which was completely choaked up.

These trees receive no other irrigation than the winter rains; each tree has its acknowledged owner among some of the Towara tribes: those which I have just noticed belong to some persons of the tribe of Aleygat. Not the smallest attention is paid to the trees till the period of the date harvest, when the owners encamp under them with their families for about a week while the fruit is gathered. The shrub Gharkad also grows here in large quant.i.ties. At one hour and three quarters we came to another small bay, round which lay the road, the main direction of the sh.o.r.e being N.E. by N. The mountains approach very near to the water, leaving only a narrow sloping plain covered with loose stones, washed down from above by the torrents. The road was profusely strewed with sh.e.l.ls of different species, all of which were empty. The fishermen collect the sh.e.l.ls, take out the animals, and

WADY OM HASH

[p.501] dry them in the sun, particularly that of the species called Zorombat [Arabic], which I have also seen in plenty on the African coast of the Red sea, north of Souakin, and at Djidda, where they are much esteemed by the mariners, and are sold by the fishermen at Tor and Suez.

I here made a rough measurement of the breadth of the gulf: having a.s.sumed a base of seven hundred paces along the beach, and then measured with my compa.s.s the angles formed at either extremity of it, with a prominent point of the opposite mountain, the result gave a breadth of about twelve miles. The vegetation appeared to be much less impregnated with saline particles than I had found it on other parts of the coast of the Red sea.

At two hours and three quarters we had to pa.s.s round the bottom of another bay, of red and white sand-stone, where steep rocks advance so close to the water as to leave only a narrow path. At three hours and three quarters we pa.s.sed an opening into the mountain, called Wady Om Hash [Arabic], from whence a torrent descends, which, after its issue from the mountain, spreads to a considerable distance along the sh.o.r.e, and produces verdure. The shrub Doeyny [Arabic] grows here in abundance; it is almost a foot in height, and continues green the whole year. The Arabs collect and burn it, and sell the ashes at Khalyl, where they are used in the gla.s.s manufactories. We pa.s.sed on our left several similar inlets into the mountain, the beds of torrents, but my guides could not, or would not, tell their names.The Bedouins are generally averse to satisfying the traveller?s curiosity on such subjects; not being able to conceive what interest he has in informing himself of mere names, they ascribe to repeated questions of this nature improper motives. Some cunning is often required to get proper answers, and they frequently give false names, for no other reason than to have the pleasure of deluding the enquirer, and laughing at him among themselves behind his back.

RAS OM HAYE

[p.502] At four hours and a quarter we pa.s.sed Wady Mowaleh [Arabic]; and at the end of five hours and three quarters reached the northern point of the last mentioned bay, formed by a projecting part of the mountain, or promontory, called Abou Burko [Arabic], which means ?he who wears a face veil,? because on the top of it is a white rock, which is thought to resemble the white Berkoa, or face veil of the Arab women, and renders it a conspicuous object from afar. Noweyba, where we had first reached the sh.o.r.e, bore from hence S.S.W. We rested for the night in a pasturing place near the mountain, on the south side of the promontory.

Old Ayd, who carried his net with him, brought us some fish. His dog eat the raw fish, and his master told me that the dog sometimes pa.s.sed several months without any other food.

May 8th.?We set out long before day-break. None of our party was ever more ready to alight, or to take his supper, than Szaleh, and none more averse to start. During the whole way he was continually grumbling, and endeavouring to persuade the others to turn back. We were one hour in doubling the Abou Burko, a chalky rock, whose base is washed by the waves.On the other side we pa.s.sed, at two hours, in the bottom of a small bay, Wady Zoara [Arabic], where a few date trees grow, and a well of saltish water is found, unfit to drink. The maritime plain was here nearly two miles in breadth. Having made the tour of another bay from Abou Burko, we reached, at three hours and a half, a promontory forming its northern boundary, and called Ras Om Haye [Arabic], a name derived from the great quant.i.ty of serpents found there, some of which, Ayd told me, were venemous; we however saw none of any kind. The whole coast of the AElanitic gulf, from Ras Abou Mohammed to Akaba, consists of a succession of bays separated from such other by head lands. The Ras Om Haye forms the western extremity of the mountain of Tyh,

OM HAYE

[p.503] whose straight and regular ridge runs quite across the peninsula, and is easily distinguished from the surrounding mountains.

We halted at the end of five hours in a rocky valley at the foot of Ras Om Haye, where acacia trees and some gra.s.s grow. Ayd a.s.sured us that in the mountain, at some distance, was a reservoir of rain water, called Om Hadjydjein [Arabic], but he could not answer for its containing water at this time. He described to Hamd its situation, and the way to it, with a view of persuading him to go and fetch some water for us; but his description was so confused, and I thought contradictory in several circ.u.mstances, and withal so pompous, that I concluded it to be all a story, and told him he was a babbler. ?A babbler!? he exclaimed; ?min Allah, no body in my whole life ever called me thus before. A babbler!

I shall presently shew you, which of us two deserves that name.? He then seized one of the large water skins, and barefooted as he was, began ascending the mountain, which was covered with loose and sharp stones.

We soon lost sight of him, but saw him again, farther on, climbing up an almost perpendicular path. An hour and a half after, he returned by the same path, carrying on his bent back the skin full of water, which could not weigh less than one hundred pounds, and putting it down before us said, ?There! take it from the babbler!? I was so overcome with shame, that I knew not how to apologize for my inconsiderate language; but when he saw that I really felt myself in the wrong, he was easily pacified, and said nothing more about it till night, when seeing me take a hearty draught of the water, and hearing me praise its sweetness, compared with the brackish water of the coast, he stopped me, and said, ?Young man, for the future never call an old Bedouin a babbler.?

On the opposite side of the gulf the mountains recede somewhat from the sh.o.r.e, leaving at their feet a sloping plain. A place on

[p.504] the coast, called Hagol [Arabic], bore from hence E. b. S; it is a fruitful valley by the water side, with large date plantations, which were clearly discernible. It is in possession of the tribe of Arabs called Akraba [Arabic]. Behind them, in the mountains, dwells the strong and warlike tribe of Omran [Arabic]. Hagol is one long day?s journey from Akaba; to the south of it about four hours is a similar cl.u.s.ter of date trees, called El Hamyde [Arabic], which bore from us S.E. b. E. The mountains on that coast are steep, with many peaks.

No Arabs live on the western coast, owing to the scanty pasturage; it is occasionally visited by fishermen and others, who come to collect the herb from which the soda ashes are obtained, or to cut wood and burn it into charcoal. The fishermen are very poor and visit the coast only during the summer months; they cure their fish with the salt which they collect on the southern part of the coast, and when they have thus prepared a sufficient quant.i.ty of fish, they fetch a camel and transport it to Tor or Suez. At Tor a camel?s load of the fish, or about four hundred pounds, may be had for three dollars. The fishermen prepare also a sort of lard by cutting out the fat adhering to the fish and melting it, they then mix it with salt, preserve it in skins, and use it all the year round instead of b.u.t.ter, both for cookery and for anointing their bodies. Its taste is not disagreeable. As the Bedouins prefer the upper road, this road along the coast is seldom visited, except by poor pilgrims who have been cut off from the caravan, or robbed by Bedouins, and who being ignorant of the road across the desert to Cairo, sometimes make the tour of the whole peninsula by the sea side, as they are thus sure not to lose their way, and in winter-time seldom fail in finding pools of water. Ayd told me that he had frequently met with stragglers of this description, worn out with fatigue and hunger.

WADY MEZEIRYK

[p.505] From hence northwards the sh.o.r.e runs N.E. 1/2 N. Having doubled the point of Om Haye, we found on the other side, after again pa.s.sing round a small bay, at five hours and three quarters, a bank of sand running into the sea to a considerable distance, and several miles in breadth; it is called Wady Mokabelat [Arabic], and is the termination of a narrow Wady in the mountains to our left, from whence issues a torrent which spreads in time of rain over a wide extent of ground, partly rocky and partly sandy, where it produces good pasturage, and irrigates many acacia trees. The view up this Wady or inlet of the mountain is very curious: at its mouth it is nearly two miles wide, and it narrows gradually upwards with the most perfect regularity, so that the eye can trace it for five or six miles, when it becomes so narrow as to present only the appearance of a perpendicular black line. At six hours and a half we came again to a mountain forming a promontory, called Djebel Sherafe [Arabic]. The mountains from Om Haye northward decline considerably in height. The highest point of the chain appears to be the summit above Noweyba, where we had descended to the sh.o.r.e.

Beyond Djebel Sherafe we found the road along the sh.o.r.e obstructed by high cliffs, and were obliged to make a detour by entering a valley to the west, called Wady Mezeiryk [Arabic]. We ascended through many windings, entered several lateral valleys, and descended again to the sh.o.r.e at the end of eight hours and a half, at a point not more than half an hour distant from where we had turned out of the road. We found the valley Mezeiryk full of excellent pasture; many sweet-scented herbs were growing in it, and the acacia trees were all green. Upon enquiry I learnt that to the north of Djebel Tyh copious rains had fallen during the winter, while to the south of it there had been very little for the last two years, and in the eastern parts none.

[p.506] In the whole way from the convent I had not met with the smallest trace of antiquity, either inscriptions upon the rocks by the road-side or any other labour of man, until we reached the summit of Wady Mezeiryk, where, close to the road, is a large sand-stone rock, which seems, for a small s.p.a.ce, to have received an artificial surface.

Upon it I found rude drawings of camels, and of mountain and other goats, resembling those which I had before seen, and those which I saw afterwards in the Wady Mokatteb. No inscriptions were visible, but the annexed figures were drawn between the animals. These were the only drawings or inscriptions that I met with in the mountains to the E. of the convent, although I pa.s.sed many flat rocks, well suited to them. I am inclined to think that the inscriptions have been written by pilgrims proceeding to Mount Sinai, and that the drawings of animals which are executed in a ruder manner and with a less steady hand, are the work of the shepherds of the peninsula. We find only those animals represented which are natives of these mountains, such as camels, mountain and other goats, and gazelles, but princ.i.p.ally the two first,[It may be worthy of mention in this place that among the innumerable paintings and sculptures in the temples, and tombs of Egypt, I never met with a single instance of the representation of a camel. At Thebes, in the highest of the tombs on the side of the Djebel Habou, called Abd el Gorne, which has not, I believe, been noticed by former travellers, or even by the French in their great work, I found all the domestic animals of the Egyptians represented together in one large painting upon a wall, forming the most elaborate and interesting work of the kind, which I saw in Egypt. A shepherd conducts the whole herd into the presence of his master, who inspects them, while a slave is noting them down. Yet even here I looked in vain for the camel.] and I had occasion to remark in the course of my tour, that the present Bedouins of Sinai are in the habit of carving the figures of goats upon rocks and in grottos. Niebuhr observes, that in the hieroglyphic

WADY TABA

[p.507] inscriptions which he saw in the ancient burying ground not far distant from Naszeb, he found figures of goats upon almost every inscribed tomb-stone; this animal is not very frequent in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt.

From the point where we descended again to the sh.o.r.e, we followed a range of black basaltic cliffs, into which the sea has worked several creeks, appearing like so many small lakes, with very narrow openings towards the sea; they are full of fish and sh.e.l.ls. At the end of nine hours and a half we had pa.s.sed these cliffs, and reached the plain beyond, upon which we continued our route near the sh.o.r.e, and rested for the night at ten hours and a quarter, under a palm-tree, in the vicinity of a deep brackish well, which we were obliged to excavate, in order to procure some water for our camels, they having drank none since we quitted Wasta. From hence the promontory of Om Haye bore S.W. b. S. This plain, which is the extremity of a valley descending from the western mountain, is called Wady Taba [Arabic]. Ayd had promised to conduct me to this spot, but no farther; nor would the new offers which I now made induce hire to advance. We had already pa.s.sed beyond the limits of the Arabs Towara, which terminate on this side of Wady Mokabelat, and we were now in the territory of the Heywat, who have a very bad reputation.

We had met with n.o.body on the road, but in Wady Mezeiryk, as well as in Wady Taba, we saw footsteps, which shewed that some persons must have pa.s.sed there a short time before. None of my guides were acquainted with the tribe of Heywat; had we therefore met any strong party of them, they would certainly have stripped us, although not at war with the Towara, for it is a universal practice among Bedouins to plunder all pa.s.sengers who are unknown to them, and not attended by guides of their own tribe, provided they possess

AKABA

[p.508] any thing worth seizing. Szaleh had completely deluded both myself and his own nephew Hamd: he had confidently a.s.serted that he knew the Heywat well, and that the first individual of them whom we should meet would easily be prevailed upon to join our party, and to serve as an additional protector. About one hour before us was another promontory, beyond which we knew that the country was well peopled by two other tribes, the Alowein and Omran, who are the masters of the district of Akaba, intrepid robbers, and allies of the Heywat, and who are to this day quite independent of the government of Egypt. Through them we must unavoidably pa.s.s to reach Akaba, and Ayd could not give me the smallest hope of being able to cross their valleys without being attacked. Had I been furnished with a Firmahn from Mohammed Ali Pasha, I should have repaired at once to the great Sheikh of the Towara, and obliged him to send for some Heywat or Omran guides, who might have ensured my safety. But having been disappointed in this respect, I had no alternative but to turn back. Hamd, it is true, bravely offered to accompany me wherever I chose to go, though he knew nothing of the road before us, or the Arabs upon it; but I saw little chance of success, and knew, from what I had heard during my journey from Kerek to Cairo, that the Omran not only rob but murder pa.s.sengers. Ayd had seen on the sh.o.r.e the footsteps of a man, which he knew to be those of a fisherman, a friend of his who had probably pa.s.sed in the course of this day. Had we met with him he might have served as our guide, but not a soul was any where to be seen. Under these circ.u.mstances I reluctantly determined to retrace my steps the next day, but, instead of proceeding by the sh.o.r.e, to turn off into the mountains, and return to the convent by a more western route.

[p.509] Akaba was not far distant from the spot from whence we returned.

Before sun-set I could distinguish a black line in the plain, where my sharp-sighted guides clearly saw the date-trees surrounding the castle, which bore N.E. 1 E.; it could not be more than five or six hours distant. Before us was a promontory called Ras Koreye [Arabic], and behind this, as I was told, there is another, beyond which begins the plain of Akaba. The castle is situated at an hour and a half or two hours from the western chain, down which the Hadj route leads, and about the same distance from the eastern chain, or lower continuation of Tor Hesma, a mountain which I have mentioned in my journey through the northern parts of Arabia Petraea. The descent of the western mountain is very steep, and has probably given to the place its name of Akaba, which in Arabic means a cliff or a steep declivity; it is probably the Akabet Aila of the Arabian geographers; Makrizi says that the village Besak stands upon its summit. In Numbers, x.x.xiv. 4, the ?ascent of Akrabbim?

is mentioned, which appears to correspond very accurately to this ascent of the western mountain from the plain of Akaba. Into this plain, which surrounds the castle on every side except the sea, issues the Wady el Araba, the broad sandy valley which leads towards the Dead sea, and which I crossed in 1812, at a day and a half, or two days journey from Akaba. At about two hours to the south of the castle the eastern range of mountains approaches the sea. The plain of Akaba, which is from three to four hours in length, from west to east, and, I believe, not much less in breadth northward, is very fertile in pasturage. To the distance of about one hour from the sea it is strongly impregnated with salt, but farther north sands prevail. The castle itself stands at a few hundred paces from the sea, and is surrounded with large groves of date-trees.

It is a square building, with strong walls, erected, as it now

[p.510] stands, by Sultan el Ghoury of Egypt, in the sixteenth century.

In its interior are many Arab huts; a market is held there, which is frequented by Hedjaz and Syrian Arabs; and small caravans arrive sometimes from Khalyl. The castle has tolerably good water in deep wells. The Pasha of Egypt, keeps here a garrison of about thirty soldiers, to guard the provisions deposited for the supply of the Hadj, and for the use of the cavalry on their pa.s.sage by this route to join the army in the Hedjaz. Cut off from Cairo, the soldiers of the garrison often turn rebellious; three years ago an Aga made himself independent, and whenever a corps of troops pa.s.sed he shut the gates of the castle, and prepared to defend it. He had married a daughter of the chief of the Omran, and thus secured the a.s.sistance of that tribe. Being at last attacked by some troops sent against him from Cairo he fled to his wife?s tribe, and escaped into Syria.

It appears that the gulf extends very little farther east than the castle, distant from which one hour, in a southern direction, and on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the gulf, lies a smaller and half-ruined castle, inhabited by Bedouins only, called Kaszer el Bedawy. At about three quarters of an hour from Akaba, and the same distance from Kaszer el Bedawy, are ruins in the sea, which are visible only at low water: they are said to consist of walls, houses, and columns, but cannot easily be approached, on account of the shallows. This information was not given to me by my guides, but after my return to Cairo, by some French Mamelouks, in the army of Mohammed Ali Pasha, who had formerly been for several weeks in garrison at Akaba; they, however, had never seen the ruins except from a distance. I enquired particularly whether the gulf did not form two branches at this extremity, as it has always been laid down in the maps, but I was a.s.sured that it had only a single ending, at which the castle is situated.

[p.511] To the north of Akaba, in the mountain leading up to Tor Hesma, is a Wady known by the name of Wady Ithem [Arabic]. I was told that at a certain spot this valley is shut up by an ancient wall, the construction of which is ascribed by the Arabs to a king named Hadeid, whose intention in erecting it was to prevent the tribe of Beni Helal of Nedjed from making incursions into the plain. By this valley a road leads eastwards towards Nedjed, following, probably, a branch of the mountain which extends towards the Akaba of the Syrian Hadj route, where the pilgrims coming from Damascus descend by a steep and difficult pa.s.s into the lower plains of Arabia. I believe this chain of mountains continues in a direct and uninterrupted line from the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Dead sea to the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Red sea, and from thence to Yemen. Makrizi, the Egyptian historian, says, in his chapter on Aila (Akaba); ?It is from hence that the Hedjaz begins; in former times it was the frontier place of the Greeks; at one mile from it, is a triumphal arch of the Caesars. In the time of the Islam it was a fine town, inhabited by the Beni Omeya. Ibn Ahmed Ibn Touloun (a Sultan of Egypt), made the road over the Akaba or steep mountain before Aila.

There were many mosques at Aila, and many Jews lived there; it was taken by the Franks during the Crusades; but in 566, Salaheddyn transported s.h.i.+ps upon camels from Cairo to this place, and recovered it from them.

Near Aila was formerly situated a large and handsome town, called Aszyoun [Arabic],? (Eziongeber.)

My guides told me, that in the sea opposite to the above mentioned promontory of Ras Koreye, there is a small island; they affirmed that they saw it distinctly, but I could not, for it was already dusk when they pointed it out, and the next morning a thick fog covered the gulf.

Upon this island, according to their statement, are ruins of infidels, but as no vessels are kept in these parts,

[p.512] Ayd, who had been here several times, had never been able to take any close view of them; they are described as extensive, and built of hard stone, and are called El Deir, ?the convent,? a word often applied by Arabs to any ruined building in which they suppose that the priests of the infidels once resided.

The Bedouins in the neighbourhood of Akaba, as I have already observed, are the Alouein, Omran, and Heywat. They are all three ent.i.tled to a pa.s.sage duty from the Hadj caravan; the Alouein exact it as owners of the district extending from the western mountain, across the plain to Akaba; the Heywat, as the possessors of the country from the well of Themmed, to the summit of the same mountain; and the Omran as masters of the desert from Akaba southward as far as the vicinity of Moeleh.