The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume II Part 5

3. Conus catus var., Hwa.s.s.

4. Conus larenatus, Hwa.s.s.

5. Conus hebraeus, Linne.

6. Conus ividus(?), Hwa.s.s.

6a. Conus ceylanensis, Hwa.s.s.

7. Terebra maculata, Linne.

8. Terebra dimidiata, Linne.

9. Terebra consobrina, Deshayes.

10. Terebra (Impages) caerulescens, Lamarck.

11. Pleurotoma cingulifera, Lamarck.

11a. Murex tribulus, Linn.

12. Murex (Chicoreus) inflatus, Lamarck.

13. Ca.s.sidulus paradisiacus, Reeve.

14. Na.s.sa coronata, Lamarck.

15. Na.s.sa pulla, Linne.

16. Engina (Pusiostoma) mendicaria, Lamarck.

17. Cantharus (Tritonidea) sp. juv.

18. Purpura hippocastanum, Lamarck.

19. Sistrum arachnoides, Lamarck.

20. Sistrum fiscellum, Chemnitz.

21. Sistrum tuberculatum, Blainville.

22. Harpa solida, A. Adams.

23. Fasciolaria trapezium, Lamarck.

24. Turbinella cornigera, Lamarck.

25. Dolium (Malea) pomum, Linne.

26. Triton maculosus, Reeve.

27. Triton aquatilis, Reeve.

28. Triton (Persona) a.n.u.s, Lamarck.

29. Natica (Polinices) mamilla, Linne.

30. Natica albula(?), Recluz.

31. Natica (Mamilla) melanostoma, Lamarck.

32. Solarium perspectivum, Linne.

33. Cypraea arabica, Linne.

34. Cypraea pantherina, Linne.

35. Cypraea camelopardalis, Perry.

36. Cypraea carneola, Linne.

37. Cypraea scurra, Chemnitz.

38. Cypraea erosa, Linne.

39. Cypraea tabescens(?), Solander.

40. Cypraea caurica, Linne.

41. Cypraea talpa, Linne.

41B. Cypraea lynx, Linne.

42. Cerithium tuberosum, Fabricius.

43. Turritella torulosa(?), Kiener.

44. Strombus tricornis, Lamarck.

45. Strombus gibberulus, Linne.

46. Strombus floridus, Lamarck.

47. Strombus fasciatus, Born.

48. Pterocera truncatum, Lamarck.

49. Planaxis breviculus, Deshayes.

50. Nerita marmorata, Reeve.

51. Nerita quadricolor, Gmelin.

52. Nerita rumphii Recluz.

53. Turbo petholatus, Linne.

54. Turbo chrysostoma var.(?), Linne.

55. Trochus (Pyramis) dentatus, Forskal.

56. Trochus (Cardinalia) virgatus, Gmelin.

57. Trochus (Polydonta) sanguinolentus, Chemnitz.

58. Trochus (Clanculus) pharaonis, Linne.

59. Trochus (Monodonta) sp.

60. Patella variabilis(?), Krauss.

61. Chiton sp.

62. Bulla ampulla, Linne.

II. Conchifera

63. Dione florida, Lamarck.

64. Dione sp.

65. Tellina staurella, Lamarck.

66. Paphia glabrata, Gmelin.

67. Chama Ruppellii, Reeve.

68. Arca (Barbatia) sp.

68a Arca (Senilia) sp.

69. Cardium leucostoma, Born.

70. Venericardia c.u.mingii, Deshayes.

71. Modiola auriculata, Krauss.

72. Pectunculus lividus, Reeve.

73. Pectunculus pectenoides, Deshayes.

74. Avicula margaritifera, Linne.

75. Tridacna gigas, Linne.

Chapter XV.

The Southern Sulphur-hill--the Cruise to El-Haura--Notes on the Baliyy Tribe and the Volcanic Centres of North--Western Arabia.

On the day of our arrival at El-Wijh I sent a hurried letter of invitation to Mohammed ?Afnan, Shaykh of the Baliyy tribe; inviting him to visit the Expedition, and to bring with him seventy camels and dromedaries. His tents being pitched at a distance of three days' long march in the interior, I determined not to waste a precious week at the end of the cold season; and the party was once more divided. Anton, the Greek, was left as storekeeper, with orders to pitch a camp, to collect as much munition de bouche as possible, and to prepare for this year's last journey into the interior. MM. Marie and Philipin, with Lieutenant Yusuf, Cook Giorji, and Body-servant Ali Marie, were directed to march along the sh.o.r.e southwards. After inspecting a third Jebel el-Kibrit, they would bring back notices of the Wady Hamz, near whose banks I had heard vague reports of a Gasr (Kasr), "palace" or "castle," built by one Gurayyim Sa'id.

Meanwhile, the rest of us would proceed in the Sinnar to El-Haura, a roundabout cruise of a hundred miles to the south.

M. Philipin lost time in shoeing very imperfectly his four mules; and M. Marie, who could have set out with eight camels at any moment, delayed moving till March 26th. The party was composed of a single Bash-Buzuk from the fort, and two quarrymen: the Ras Kafilah was young Shaykh Sulayman bin ?Afnan--of whom more presently--while his brother-in-law Hammad acted guide. At 6.40 a.m. they struck to the south-east of the town, and pa.s.sed the two brackish pits or wells, Bir el-Isma'il and El-Sannusi, which supply the poor of the port. Thence crossing the broad Wady el-Wijh, they reached, after a mile's ride, Wady Mellahah, or "the salina." It is an oval, measuring some eighteen hundred yards from north to south: the banks are padded with brown slush frosted white; which, in places, "bogs" the donkeys and admits men to the knee. Beyond it lie dazzling blocks of pure crystallized salt; and the middle of the pond is open, tenanted by ducks and waterfowl, and visited by doves and partridges. At the lower or northern end, a short divide separates it from the sea; and the waves, during the high westerly gales, run far inland: it would be easy to open a regular communication between the harbour and its saltern. The head is formed by the large Wady Surrah, whose many feeders at times discharge heavy torrents. The walls of the valley-mouth are marked, somewhat like the Harr, with caverned and corniced cliffs of white, canary-yellow, and light-pink sandstone.

They then left to the right the long point Ras el-Ma'llah, fronting Mardunah Island. Here, as at El-?Akabah and Makna, sweet water springs from the salt sands of the sh.o.r.e; a freak of drainage, a kind of "Irish bull" of Nature, so common upon the dangerous Somali seaboard. The tract leads to the south-east, never further from the sh.o.r.e than four or five miles, but separated by rolling ground which hides the main. For the same reason the travellers were unable to sight the immense development of granite-embedded quartz, which lurks amongst the hills to the inland or east, and which here subtends the whole coast-line. They imagined themselves to be in a purely Secondary formation of gypsum and conglomerates, cut by a succession of Wady-beds like the section between El-Muwaylah and ?Aynunah. Thus they crossed the mouths of the watercourses, whose heads we shall sight during the inland march, and whose mid-lengths we shall pa.s.s when marching back to El-Wijh.

These exceedingly broad beds are divided, as usual, by long lines of Nature-metalled ground. The first important feature is the Wady Surrah, which falls into the Wady el-Wijh a little above the harbour-pier: its proper and direct mouth, El-Ga'h (Ka'h), or "the Hall," runs along-sh.o.r.e into the Mellahah. It drains the Hamiratayn, or "Two Reds;" the Hamirat Surrah in the Rugham or Secondary formation, and the granitic ma.s.s Hamirat el-Nabwah, where the plutonic outbreaks begin. Amongst the number of important formations are:--the Wady el-Miyah, which has a large salt-well near the sea, and down whose upper bed we shall travel after leaving Umm el-Karayat; the Wady el-Kurr, whose acquaintance we shall make in the eastern region; and the Wady el-?Argah (?Arjah). The latter is the most interesting. Near its head we shall find knots of ruins, and the quartz-reef Aba'l-Maru; while lower down the bed, on the north-east side of a hill facing the valley, Lieutenant Yusuf came upon a rock scrawled over with religious formulae, Tawakkaltu ?al' Allah ("I rely upon Allah"), and so forth, all in a comparatively modern Arabic character. The inscriptions lie to the left of the sh.o.r.e road, and to the right of the pilgrim-highway; thus showing that miners, not pa.s.sing travellers, have here left their mark.

After riding five hours and forty minutes (= seventeen miles) the party reached the base of the third sulphur-hill discovered by the Expedition on the coast of Midian. Also known as the Tuwayyil el-Kibrit, the "Little-long (Ridge) of Brimstone," it appears from afar a reddish pyramid rising about two miles inland of an inlet, which is said to be safe navigation. Thus far it resembles the Jibbah find: on the other hand, it is not plutonic, but chalky like those of Makna and Sinai, the crystals being similarly diffused throughout the matrix. In the adjoining hills and cliffs the Secondaries and the conglomerates take all shades of colour, marvellous to behold when the mirage raises to giant heights the white coast-banks patched with pink, red, mauve, and dark brown. Moreover, the quarries of mottled alabaster, which the Ancients worked for constructions, still show themselves.