The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume II Part 4

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 Jibal 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.

Signs of Arab everywhere appeared, but there were no tents.

Consequently we were unable to ascertain the extent of the water-supply--an important matter if this is to become the port of El-Wijh. The Sambuks might bring it, but the people on sh.o.r.e would be dependent upon what they can find. The Hajj-road, running some miles inland, is doubtless supplied with it. Even, however, were the necessary wanting, the pilgrim-s.h.i.+ps, whilst taking refuge here, could easily transport it from the south.

Shaykh Furayj; pointed out to us the far northern blue peaks of the ?Amud Zafar, in whose branch-Wady lie the ruins of M'jirmah.

The day ended with a sudden trembling of the s.h.i.+p, as if straining at anchor; but the crew was again performing fantasia, and the earthquake or sea-quake rolled unheededly away.

Apparently the direction was from north to south: I noted the hour, 9.10 p.m., and the duration, twenty seconds. According to the Arabs the Zilzilah is not uncommon in Midian, especially about the vernal equinox: on this occasion it ended the spell of damp and muggy weather which began on March 19th, and which may have been connected with it.

The survey soundings were not finished till nearly eight a.m.

(March 23rd), when the old corvette swung round on her heel; and, with the black hills of Salbah to port, resumed her rolling, rollicking way southwards. Her only ballast consisted of some six hundred conical shot, or twelve tons for a s.h.i.+p of eight hundred.

After one hour of steaming (= seven miles) we pa.s.sed the green mouth of the Wady ?Antar, in whose Istabl ("stable"), or upper valley-course, the pilgrimage-caravan camps. It drains a small inland feature to the north-east, the true "Jebel ?Antar," which the Hydrographic Chart has confounded with the great block, applying, moreover, the term Istabl to the height instead of the hollow. This Jebel Libn, along which we are now steaming, is a counterpart on a small scale, a little brother, of the Sharr, measuring 3733 instead of 6000 to 6500 feet. We first see from the north a solid block capped with a mural crown of three peaks.

When abreast of us the range becomes a tall, fissured, and perpendicular wall: this apical comb, bluff to the west, reposes upon a base sloping, at the angle of rest, to the environing sandy Wady. To complete the resemblance, even the queer "Pins"

are not wanting; and I should expect to find in it all the accidents of the giant of El-Muwaylah.

The complexion of the Libn, which the people p.r.o.nounce "Libin,"

suggests grey granite profusely intersected with white quartz: hence, probably, the name, identical with Lebanon and Liba.n.u.s--"the Milk Mountain." The t.i.tle covers a mult.i.tude of peaks: the Bedawin have, doubtless, their own terms for every head and every hollow. The citizens comprehensively divide the block into two, El-ali ("the Upper") being its southern, and El-Asfal ("the Lower") its northern, section. It is said to abound in water; and a Nakhil ("date-grove") is described as growing near the summit. The Hutaym, who own most of it, claim the lover and hero-poet, ?Antar, as one of their despised tribe--hence, probably, his connection with the adjoining mountain and "the stable."

"Jebel Libin" is the great feature of the Tihamat-Balawiyyah; for many days it will appear to follow us, and this is the proper place for a.s.signing its rank and status to it. About El-?Akabah, the northern head of the Ghats or coast-range, we have prospected the single chain of Jebel Shara'; the "Sa'ar of the tribes of the Shasu" (Bedawin)[EN#35] in the papyri, and the Hebrew Mount Seir, the "rough" or "rugged." Further south we have noted how this tall eastern bulwark of the great Wady el-?Arabah bifurcates; forming the Shafah chain to the east, and westward of it, in Madyan Proper, the Jibal el-Tihamah, of which the Sharr is perhaps the culmination. We have noted the accidents of the latter as far as Dumayghah Cove, and now we descry in the offing the misty forms--how small they look!--of the Jebel el-Ward; the Jibal el-Safhah; the two blocks, south of the Wady Hamz, known as the Jibal el-Ral; and their neighbours still included in the Tihamat-Balawiyyah. Lastly, we shall sight, behind El-Haura, the Abu Ghurayr and a number of blocks which, like the former, are laid down, but are not named, in the Chart.

Beyond El-Haura the chain stretches southwards its mighty links with smaller connections. The first is the bold range Jebel Radwah, the "Yambo Hills" of the British sailor, some six thousand feet high and lying twenty-five miles behind the new port.[EN#36] Pa.s.sing it to left on the route to El-Medinah, I heard the fables which imposed upon Abyssinian Bruce: "All sorts of Arabian fruits grew to perfection on the summit of these hills; it is the paradise of the people of Yenbo, those of any substance having country-houses there." This was hardly probable in Bruce's day, and now it is impossible. The mountain is held by the Beni Harb, a most turbulent tribe, for which see my "Pilgrimage."[EN#37] Their head Shaykh, Sa'd the Robber, who still flourished in 1853, is dead; but he has been succeeded by one of his sons, Shaykh Hudayfah, who is described with simple force as being a "dog more biting than his sire." Between these ill-famed haunts of the Beni Harb and Jeddah rises the Jebel Subh, "a mountain remarkable for its magnitude" (4500 feet), inhabited by the Beni Subh, a fighting clan of the "Sons of Battle."

The largest links of these West-Arabian Ghats are of white-grey granite, veined and striped with quartz; and they are subtended inland by the porphyritic traps of the Jibal el-Shafah, which we shall trace to the parallel of El-Hamz, the end of Egypt. I cannot, however, agree with Wellsted (II. xii.) that the ridges increase in height as they recede from the sea; nor that the veins of quartz run horizontally through the "dark granite." The greater alt.i.tudes (three to six thousand feet) are visible from an offing of forty to seventy miles; and they are connected by minor heights: some of these, however, are considerable, and here and there they break into detached pyramids. All are maritime, now walling the sh.o.r.e, like the Tayyib Ism; then sheering away from it, where a broad "false coast" has been built by Time.

These western Ghats, then, run down, either in single or in double line, the whole length of occidental Arabia; and, meeting a similar and equally important eastern line, they form a mighty nucleus, the mountains of El-Yemen. After carefully inspecting, and making close inquiries concerning, a section of some five hundred miles, I cannot but think that the mines of precious ores, mentioned by the mediaeval Arabian geographers,[EN#38] lay and lie in offsets from the flanks either of the maritime or the inland chain; that is, either in the Tihamah, the coast lowlands, or in the El-Nejd, the highland plateau of the interior.

What complicates the apparently simple ground is the long line of volcanic action which, forming the eastern frontier of the plutonic granites and of the modern grits, may put forth veins even to the sh.o.r.es of the ?Akabah Gulf and the Red Sea.[EN#39]

The length, known to me by inquiry, would be about three degrees between north lat. 28 and 25, the latter being the parallel of El-Medinah; others make them extend to near Yambu', in north lat.

24 5'. They may stretch far to the north, and connect, as has been suggested, with the Syrian centres of eruption, discovered by the Palestine Exploration. I have already explained[EN#40] how and why we were unable to visit "the Harrah" lying east of the Hisma; but we repeatedly saw its outlines, and determined that the lay is from north-west to south-east. Further south, as will be noticed at El-Haura, the vertebrae curve seawards or to the south-west; and seem to mingle with the main range, the mountains of the Tihamat-Jahaniyyah ("of the Juhaynah"). Thus the formation a.s.sumes an importance which has never yet been attributed to it; and the five several "Harrahs," reported to me by the Bedawin, must be studied in connection with the mineralogical deposits of the chains in contact with them. It must not be forgotten that a fragment of porous basalt, picked up by the first Expedition near Makna, yielded a small b.u.t.ton of gold.[EN#41]

Dreadfully rolled the Sinnar, as she ran close in-sh.o.r.e before the long heavy swell from the north-west, and the old saying, Bon rouleur, bon marcheur, is cold consolation to an active man made to idle malgre lui. This section of the coast, unlike that to the north, is remarkably free from reefs. A little relief was felt while sheltered by the short tract of channel between the mainland and the shoals. But the nuisance returned in force as, doubling the Ras Muraybit (not Marabat), we sighted the two towers of El-Wijh, both beflagged, the round Burj of the fort, and the cubical white-washed lighthouse crowning its rocky point.

And we were quiet once more when the Sinnar, having covered the thirty miles in four hours and thirty minutes, cast anchor in the usual place, south-east of the northern jaw. The main objection to our berth is that the prevailing north wind drives in a rolling sea from the open west. The log showed a total of 102 miles between the Sharms Yaharr and El-Wijh, or 107 from the latter to El-Muwaylah.

"El-Wijh," meaning the face, a word which the Egyptian Fellah perverts to "Wish," lies in north lat. 26 14'. It is the northernmost of the townlets on the West Arabian sh.o.r.e, which gain importance as you go south; e.g., Yamba', Jeddah, Mocha, and Aden. It was not wholly uncivilized during my first visit, a quarter of a century ago, when I succeeded in buying opium for feeble patients. Distant six stations from Yamba', and ten from El-Medinah, it has been greatly altered and improved. The pilgrim-caravan, which here did penance of quarantine till the last two years, has given it a masonry pier for landing the unfortunates to encamp upon the southern or uninhabited side of the cove. A tall and well-built lighthouse, now five years old, boasts of a good French lantern, wanting only soap and decent oil. Finally, guardhouses and bakehouses, already falling to ruins like the mole, and an establishment for condensing water, still kept in working order, are the princ.i.p.al and costly novelties of the southern sh.o.r.e.

The site of El-Wijh is evidently old, although the ruins have been buried under modern buildings. Sprenger (p. 21) holds the townlet to be the port of "Egra, a village" (El-Hajar, or "the town, the townlet"?) "in the territory of Obodas," whence, according to Strabo (xvi. c. 4, -- 24), aelius Gallus embarked his baffled troops for Myus Hormus.[EN#42] Formerly he believed El-Aunid to be Strabo's "Egra," the haven for the north; as El-Haura was for the south, and El-Wijh for the central regions.

Pliny (vi. 32) also mentions the "Tamudaei, with their towns of Domata and Hegra, and the town of Badanatha." It is generally remarked that "Egra" does not appear in Ptolemy's lists; yet one of the best texts (n.o.bbe, Lipsia, 1843) reads instead of the "Negran" which Pirckheymerus (Lugduni, MDx.x.xV.) and others placed in north lat. 26.

My learned friend writes to me--"El-Wijh, on the coast of Arabia, is opposite to Qocayr (El-Kusayr), where aelius Gallus landed his troops. We know that ?Egra' is the name of a town in the interior, and it was the constant habit to call the port after the capital of the country, e.g., Arabia Emporium = Aden. We have now only to inquire whether El-Wijh had claims to be considered the seaport of El-Hijr." This difficulty is easily settled.

El-Wijh is still the main, indeed the only, harbour in South Midian; and, during our stay there, a large caravan brought goods, as will be seen, from the upper Wady Hamz.

Under the influence of the quarantine, El-Wijh, the town on the northern bank of its cove, has blossomed into a hauteville, dating from the last dozen years. The ancient ba.s.seville, probably the site of many former settlements, is now used chiefly for shops and stores. Another and a more pretentious mosque has supplanted the little old Zawiyah ("chapel") with its barbarous minaret, whose finial, a series of inverted crescents, might be taken for a cross; while a Jami' or "cathedral," begun in the upper town, has stopped short through want of funds. Some of the best houses now extend towards the northern point. As usual in Arab settlements, they are long, tall claret-cases of coral-rag and burnt lime; flat-roofed, whitewashed in front, and provided with wooden doors and shutters. Lastly, on the slope still appears the smoky coffee-shed that witnessed the memorable encounter between its surly proprietor and "Saad the Devil."[EN#43]

Stony ramps, stiff as those of Gibraltar, connect the low with the high town, the cool breezy new settlement upon the crest of the northern cliff, whose n.o.ble view of the Jebel Libn and the palm-scattered Wady el-Wijh were formerly monopolized by the fort and its round tower. This work, only sixty-five years old, now stands so perilously near the undermined edge of the rock-cornice, that some day it will come down with a run. It is used by the garrison, and serves as a jail; but lately a Bedawi prisoner, like a certain Mamluk Bey, jumped down the precipitous cove-face and effected his escape. Behind it are the "Doctors'

Quarters," empty and desolate, because the sanitary officers have been removed. They are sheds of white-washed boarding, brought from the Crimea, like those of the Suez Ca.n.a.l; and comfortably distributed into Harem, kitchens, offices, and other necessaries.

The inhabitants of El-Wijh may number twelve hundred, without including chance travellers and the few wretched Bedawin, Hutaym and others, who pitch their black tents, like those of Alexandrian "Ramleh," about and beyond the town. The people live well; and the merchants are large and portly men, who evidently thrive upon meat and rice. Flesh is retailed in the bazar, and mutton is cheap, especially when the Bedawin are near; a fine large sheep being dear at ten s.h.i.+llings. Water is exceptionally abundant, even without the condenser's aid. The poorer cla.s.ses and animals are watered at the pits and the two regular wells near the valley's mouth, half an hour's trudge from the town. The wealthy are supplied by the inland fort, which we shall presently visit: the distance going and coming would be about four slow hours, and the skinful costs five Khurdah, or copper piastres = three halfpence. The inner gardens grow a small quant.i.ty of green meat: water-melons are brought from Yamba(?): opium and Has.h.i.+sh abound, but no spirits are for sale since the one Greek Bakkal, or petty shopkeeper, "made tracks." He borrowed from a certain Surur Selamah, negro merchant and head miser, 150 napoleons, in order to buy on commission certain bales of cotton s.h.i.+pwrecked up coast; he left in pledge the keys of his miserable store, which, by-the-by, la loi refuses to open; he was never seen again, and poor rich Surur is in the depths of despair.

One of the small industries of El-Wijh is the pearl trade. Mr.

Clarke bought for 4 (twenty dollars) a specimen of good round form but rather yellow colour; and presently refused 5 for it.

Those of pear-shape easily fetch thirty-six to forty dollars.

Turquoises set in sealing-wax are sold cheap by the returning Persian pilgrims: the Zib el-Bahr ("Sea-wolf"), an Egyptian cruiser, had carried off the best shortly before our arrival. The people speak of an ?Akik ("carnelian") which, rubbed down in vinegar, enters into the composition of a favourite philtre--we could not, however, find any for sale. On our return, an ?Anezah caravan of some ninety camels, driven by a hundred or so of spearmen and matchlockmen, came in loaded with valuable Samn or clarified b.u.t.ter: the fact suggests that the time has come for establis.h.i.+ng a Gumruk ("custom-house") at El-Wijh. Another source of wealth will be El-Mellahah, "the salina," along which we shall travel: every man who has a donkey may carry off what he pleases, and sell to pilgrims and Bedawin the kilogramme for four piastres copper (= one piastre currency = five farthings). This again should be taken in hand by Government; and regular "salterns,"

like those of Triestine Capodistria, would greatly increase the quant.i.ty. Nothing can be better than the quality except rock-salt. There is another salina about one hour down the coast, formed by a reef, near the Ras el-Ma'llah.

The afternoon of arrival was spent in receiving visits. The Muhafiz or "civil governor," Hasan Bey, calls himself a Circa.s.sian: he is a handsome old man, whose straight features suggest the Greek slave, and who served in the Syrian campaigns under Ibrahim Pasha. Forty years ago he left his home; he has been here six years, and yet he knows absolutely nothing of the interior. He ought to reside at the inland fort, but he prefers the harbour-town; and he had not the common-sense to ride out with us. He shows his zeal by inventing obstacles; for instance, he suggests that the Bedawin should leave, during our journey, hostages at the fort: this is wholly unnecessary, and means only piastres. The Yuzbas.h.i.+, or "military commandant," Sid-Ahmed Effendi, has charge of the forty-five regulars, half a company, who garrison the post and outpost. The chief merchant, who afterwards volunteered to be our travelling companion, is Mohammed Shahadah, formerly Wakil ("agent") of the fort, a charge now abolished by a pound-foolish policy: he is an honest and intelligent, a charitable and companionable man, who has travelled far and wide over the interior, and who knows the tribes by heart. I strongly recommended him to his Highness the Viceroy. His brothers, Bedawi and Ali Shahadah, are also open-handed to the poor; very unlike their brother-in-law Surur Selamah, formerly a slave to the father of Mohammed Selamah whom we had met at Ziba. The list of notables ends with the Sayyid Ibrahim El-Mara'i and with the st.u.r.dy Abd el-Hakk, pearl and general merchant. All recognized our friend the Sayyid, whom even the "gutter-boys" saluted by name; and, although the Arab manner is blunt and independent, all showed perfect civility. It is needless to say that our late work, and our future plans, were known to everybody at El-Wijh as well as to ourselves; and that the tariffs of pay and hire, established in the North Country, at once became the norm of the South.

Our favourite walk at old "Egra" was to the quarantine-ground and the lighthouse. The situation of the town is by no means satisfactory, and the heavy dews of April, wetting the streets, cause frequent fevers. En revanche, nothing can be more healthy or exhilarating than the air of the tall plateau to the south of the cove. The quarantine-ground, with its grand view of the mountains inland, ends seawards in the Pharos that commands an horizon of blue water. The latter, according to the charts, is one hundred and six feet above sea-level, and is theoretically visible for fourteen miles; practice would reduce this radius to ten, and the least haze to six and even five.

The lighthouse-charges are strongly objected to by the skippers of Arab fis.h.i.+ng-boats, although very small in their case.

Square-rigged vessels pay per ton twenty parahs (tariff): thus it costs a s.h.i.+p of five hundred tons 2 10s. (Turkish). The keeper.

under Admiral M'Killop (Pasha), a young Greek named "Gurji," as "George" here sounds, is a.s.sisted by a Moslem lad, Mohammed Effendi of Alexandria. They serve for three years, and they look forward to the end of them. The former also superintends the condensing establishment: this office is a sinecure, except during the three months of pilgrim-pa.s.sage. The machine can distil eighteen tons per diem; and there is another water-magazine, an old paddle-wheeler moored to the beach under the town. Behind the establishment lies the pilgrim-cemetery.

frequented by hyenas that prowl around the lighthouse, threatening the canine guard. I found a new use for this vermin's brain: it is administered by the fair ones at El-Wijh to jealous husbands, upon whom, they tell me, it acts as a sedative.

El-Wijh has been heard of in England as the prophylactic against the infected Hejaz. It is admirably suited for quarantine purposes, and it has been abolished, very unwisely, in favour of "Tor harbour." The latter, inhabited by a ring of thievish Syro-Greek traders; backed by a wretched wilderness, alternately swampy and sandy, is comfortless to an extent calculated to make the healthiest lose health. Moreover, its climate, says Professor Palmer (p. 222), is very malarious: "owing to the low and marshy nature of the ground, there is a great deal of miasma even in the winter season." Finally, and worst of all, it is near enough to Suez for infection to travel easily. A wealthy pilgrim has only to pay a few gold pieces, his escape to the mountains is winked at; and thence he travels or voyages comfortably to Suez and Cairo. Even without such irregularities, the transmission of contaminated clothing, or other articles, would suffice to spread cholera, typhus, and smallpox. Tor is, in fact, an excellent medium for focussing and for propagating contagious disease; and its vicinity to Egypt, and consequently to Europe, suggests that it should at once be abolished.

At first I lent ear to the popular statement at El-Wijh; namely, that the visiting doctors and the resident sanitary officers naturally prefer the shorter to the longer voyage, and the nearer station to that further from home. Moreover, inasmuch as, if inclined to be dishonest, they find more opportunities in the north, it was their interest to transfer the establishment to Tor. The local authorities, the people a.s.sured me, were induced to report that the single fort-well had run dry; that the condensers had proved a failure, and that the old steamer-magazine, into which they had poured brine, was leaky and inefficient. But what was my astonishment when, after return to Cairo, I was told that the change had been strongly advocated by the English Government?

The objections to El-Wijh are two, both equally invalid. The port is dangerous, especially when westerly winds are blowing: s.h.i.+ps during the pilgrimage-season must bank their fires, ever ready to run out. True; but it has been shown that Sharm Dumayghah, the best of its kind, lies only thirty knots to the north. The second, want of water, or of good water, is even less cogent. We have seen that the seaboard wells supply the poorer cla.s.ses and animals; and we shall presently see the Fort-wells, which, in their day, have watered caravans containing twenty to thirty thousand thirsty men and beasts. So far from the condensers being a failure, the tank still holds about twenty tons of distilled water, although it gives drink to some thirty mouths composing the establishment. Finally, the old steamer has done its duty well, and, like the proverbial Marine, is still ready to do its duty again.[EN#44]

Thus the expense of laying out the quarantine-ground at El-Wijh has been pitifully wasted. That, however, is a very small matter; the neglect of choosing a proper position is serious, even ominous. Unlike Tor, nothing can be healthier or freer from fever than the pilgrims' plateau. From El-Wijh, too, escape is hopeless: the richest would not give a piastre to levant; because, if a solitary traveller left the caravan, a Bedawi bullet would soon prevail on him to stop. This, then, should be the first long halt for the "compromised" travelling northwards.

When contagious disease has completely disappeared, the second precautionary delay might be either at Tor or, better still, at the "Wells of Moses" (?Uyun Musa), near the head of the Suez Gulf: here sanitary conditions are far more favourable; and here supplies, including medical comforts, would be cheaper as well as more abundant. Briefly, it is my conviction that, under present circ.u.mstances, "Tor" is a standing danger, not only to Egypt, but to universal Europe.

The coast about El-Wijh is famed for sh.e.l.ls; the numerous reefs and shoals favouring the development of the molluscs. We were promised a heavy haul by the citizens, who, however, contented themselves with picking up the washed-out specimens found everywhere on the sh.o.r.e: unfortunately we had no time to superintend the work. A caseful was submitted to the British Museum, and a few proved interesting on account of their locality. The list printed at the end of this chapter was kindly supplied to me by Mr. Edgar A. Smith, superintendent of the Conchological Department.

I will conclude this chapter with a short notice the Hutaym or Hitaym, a people extremely interesting to me. They are known to travellers only as a low caste. Wellsted (II. xii.) tells us that the "Huteimi," whom he would make the descendants of the Ichthyophagi described by Diodorus Siculus and other cla.s.sics, are noticed by several Arabian authorities. "In one, the Kitab el-Mush Serif[EN#45] (Musharrif?), they are styled ?Hooten,' the descendants of ?Hooter,' a servant of Moses." He also relates a legend that the Apostle of Allah p.r.o.nounced them polluted, because they ate the flesh of dogs. Others declare that they opposed Mohammed when he was rebuilding the Ka'bah; and thereby drew upon themselves the curse that they should be held the "basest of the Arabs." These tales serve to prove one fact, the antiquity of the race.

The Hutaym, meaning the "Broken" (tribe), hold, in Midian and Egypt, the position of Pariahs, like the Akhdam "serviles", or Helots, of Maskat and El-Yemen. No clan of pure Arabs will intermarry with them; and when the Fellahs say, Tatahattim (=tatamaskin or tatazalli), they mean, "Thou cringest, thou makest thyself contemptible as a Hutaymi." Moreover, they must pay the dishonouring Akhawat, or "brother-tax," to all the Bedawin amongst whom they settle.

The Hutaym are scattered as they are numerous. They have extended, probably in ancient times, to Upper Egypt, and occupy parts of Nubia; about Sawakin they are an important clan. They number few in the Sinaitic Peninsula and in Midian, but they occupy the very heart of the Arabian Peninsula. Those settled on Jebel Libn, we have seen, claim as their kinsman the legendary ?Antar, who was probably a negro of the n.o.ble Semitic stock. A few are camped about El-Wijh; and they become more important down coast. In the eastern regions bordering upon Midian, they form large and powerful bodies, such as the Nawamisah and the Shararat, whose numbers and bravery secure for them the respect of their fighting equestrian neighbours, the Ruwala-?Anezah.

Like other Arabs, the Hutaym tribe is divided into a mult.i.tude of clans, septs, and families, each under its own Shaykh. All are Moslems, after the Desert pattern, a very rude and inchoate article. Wellsted knew them by their remarkably broad chins: the Bedawi recognize them by their look; by their peculiar accent, and by the use of certain peculiar words, as Harr! when donkey-driving. The men are unwashed and filthy; the women walk abroad unveiled, and never refuse themselves, I am told, to the higher blood.

The Arabs of Midian always compare the Hutaym with the Ghagar (Ghajar) or Gypsies of Egypt; and this is the point which gives the outcasts a pa.s.sing interest. I have not yet had an opportunity of carefully studying the race; nor can I say whether it shows any traces of skill in metal-working. Meanwhile, we must inquire whether these Helots, now so dispersed, are not old immigrants of Indian descent, who have lost their Aryan language, like the Egyptian Ghajar. In that case they would represent the descendants of the wandering tribes who worked the most ancient ateliers. Perhaps they may prove to be congeners of the men of the Bronze Age, and of the earliest waves of Gypsy-immigration into Europe.

NOTE.

A list of the sh.e.l.ls collected by the second Khedivial Expedition on the sh.o.r.e of Midian and the Gulf of ?Akabah, by Edgar A.

Smith, Esq., British Museum.

I. Gastropoda.

1. Conus textile, Linne.

2. Conus sumatrensis, Hwa.s.s.