The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 by Richard Burton

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[EN#6] In Sinai "Shinnar" is also applied to a partridge, but I
am unable to distinguish the species--caccabis, Desert partridge,
(Ammoperdix heyi, the Arab Hajl), or the black partridge
(Francolinus vulgaris).

[EN#7] Chap. IX. has already noticed Ptolemy's short measure.

[EN#8] Chap. XVII.

[EN#9] Helix desertorum (Forsk.) and Helix (sp. incert.)

[EN#10] See "The Gold Mines of Midian,'' Chap. II.

[EN#11] So in Moab the ruins of "Meron" or Merou of the Greeks
has degenerated into Umm Rasas, "the Mother of Lead."

[EN#12] Their names will be given in Chap. XIII.

[EN#13] A. G., p. 24. See "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. XI.
Sprenger spells the word either with a Zad or a Za: I have
discussed the question in my "Itineraries," part ii. sect. 4.

[EN#14] See the end of this Chapter for a list.

[EN#15] See Chap. XIV.

[EN#16] "Irwin's Voyage," 1777.

[EN#17] This was probably a misprint originally, but it has been
repeated in subsequent editions. Hence it imposed upon even such
careful workmen as the late Lieutenant Henry Raper, "The Practice
of Navigation," etc., p. 527, 6th edition.

[EN#18] See an excellent description of the phenomenon in that
honest and courageous work, "Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina
on Foot," by Arthur J. Evans, B.A., F.S.A. London: Longmans,
1877.

[EN#19] There is, however, nothing to prevent its being eaten.

[EN#20] See Chap. X.

[EN#21] Chap. X.

[EN#22] Not to be confounded with the luguminous "Tanub"
mentioned by Forskal ("Flora," etc., p. 197).

[EN#23] The word classically means the cypress or the
juniper-tree: in Jeremiah, where it occurs twice (xvii. 6 and
xlviii. 6), the Authorized Version renders it by "heath." It is
now generally translated "savin" (Juniperus sabina), a shrub
whose purple berries have a strong turpentine flavour. When shall
we have a reasonable version of Hebrew Holy Writ, which will
retain the original names of words either untranslatable or to be
translated only by guess-work?

[EN#24] In Cairo generally called Espadrilles, and sold for 1.25
francs. Nothing punishes the feet at these altitudes so much as
leather, black leather.

[EN#25] The explorers laid this down at a few hundred feet. But
they judged from the eye; and probably they did not sight the
true culmination. Unfortunately, and by my fault, they were not
provided with an aneroid.

[EN#26] See Chap. V.

[EN#27] For the usual interpretations see Chapter I. The
Egyptians, like other nations, often apply their own names, which
have a meaning, to the older terms which have become
unintelligible. Thus, near Cairo, the old goddess, Athor el-Nubi
("of the Gold"), became Asr el-Nabi ("the Footprint of the
Apostle").

[EN#28] "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. XI.

[EN#29] See Chap. XI.

[EN#30] Chap. XII.

[EN#31] Chap XV.

[EN#32] Chap. XV.

[EN#33] Vol. ii. Chap. X. I have also quoted him in "The
Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. VI.

[EN#34] My "Pilgrimage" (Vol. I. Chap. XI.) called it "Sherm
Damghah": it is the "Demerah" of Moresby and the "Demeg" of 'Ali
Bey el-'Abbasi (the unfortunate Spaniard Badia).

[EN#35] See "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. VII.

[EN#36] The old being the classical (Iambia Vicus), in
north lat. 24 . This is Yambu' el-Nakhil, in Ptolemy's time a
seaport, now fifteen miles to the north-east (north lat. 24 12'
3"?) of the modern town. The latter lies in north lat. 24 5' 30"
(Wellsted, ii. II), and, according to the Arabs, six hours' march
from the sea.

[EN#37] Vol. I. pp. 364, 365.

[EN#38] "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. IX.

[EN#39] Chap. VI. describes one of the sporadic (?) outcrops near
Tayyib Ism; and Chap. IX notices the apparently volcanic
sulphur-mount near El-Muwaylah.

[EN#40] See Chap. IX.

[EN#41] "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. XII.

[EN#42] See "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. VIII.

[EN#43] "Pilgrimage," Vol. I. Chap. XI.

[EN#44] In "The Gold Mines of Midian" (Chap. IV.) I unconsciously
re-echoed the voice of the vulgar about "the harbour being bad
and the water worse" at El-Wijh.

[EN#45] This style of writing reminds me of the inch allah
(Inshallah!) in the pages of a learned "war correspondent"--a
race whose naive ignorance and whose rare self-sufficiency so
completely perverted public opinion during the Russo-Turkish war
of 1877-78.

[EN#46] Not Shaykh Hasan el-Marabit--"Pilgrimage," Vol. I. Chap.
XI.

[EN#47] "Pilgrimage," Vol. I. Chap. XI., where it is erroneously
called "Jebel Hasan;" others prefer Hasa'ni--equally wrong.
Voyagers put in here to buy fish, which formerly was dried,
salted, and sent to Egypt; and, during the Hajj season, the
Juhaynah occupy a long straggling village of huts on the south
side of the island.

[EN#48] There are now no less than three lines of steamers that
connect the western coast of Arabia with the north. The first is
the Egyptian Company, successively called Mejidiyyah, Aziziyyah,
and Khediviyyah, from its chief actionnaire: the packets, mostly
three-masted screws, start from Suez to Jeddah every fortnight.
Secondly, the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd which, with the subvention
of L1400 per voyage, began in 1870 to ply monthly between
Constantinople, Port Sa'id, Suez, Jeddah, and Hodaydah: it has
been suspended since the beginning of the Russo-Turkish war.
Thirdly, the British India Steam Navigation Company sends every
three weeks a ship from London via the Canal to Jeddah, Hodaydah,
and Aden. A fourth is proposed; Bymen's (Winan's?) steamers are
establishing a London-Basrah (Bassorah) line, in whose itinerary
will be Jeddah.

[EN#49] The observation was taken on board the Sinnar, by the
first lieutenant Nasir Effendi Ahmed: of course I am not
answerable for its correctness, although the latitude cannot be
far out. Thus the difference of parallel between it and El-Wijh
(north lat. 26 14') would be sixty-eight direct geographical
miles.

[EN#50] Beni Kalb: so the Juhaynah were called in the Apostle's
day.

[EN#51] The site was probably near the Shaykh's tomb, where there
are wells which in winter supply water.

[EN#52] This is the volume which I have translated: see also Dr.
Beke's papers in the Athenaum (February 8 and 15, 1873).

[EN#53] See "Mount Sinai a Volcano" (Tinsleys). For a list of
Yakut's volcanoes, see Dr. Beke, "Sinai in Arabia," Appendix, p.
535.

[EN#54] Vol. II. p. 187.

[EN#55] "The Gold-Mines of Midian," p. 213.

[EN#56] As regards these and similar graffiti see (Athenaeum,
March 16, 1878) an excerpt from the last Comptes Rendues of the
Acad. des Inscript. et B. Lettres, Paris. The celebrated M.
Joseph Halevy attacked in their entirety (about 680) the
rock-writings in the Safa desert, south-east of Damascus. The
German savants, mostly attributing them to the Saba tribes, who
immigrated from Yemen about our first century, tried the
Himyaritic syllabaries and failed. M. Halevy traces them to the
Beni Tamud (Thamudites), who served as mercenaries in the Roman
army, and whose head-quarters we are now approaching. They
contain, according to him, mostly proper names, with devotional
formulae, similar to those of the Sinaitic inscriptions and the
Kufic and later epigraphs which we discovered. For instance, "By
A., son of B., in memory of his mother; he has accomplished his
vow, may he be pardoned." The language is held to be intermediate
between Arabic and the northern Semitic branches. Names of the
Deity (El and Loo or La'?) are found only in composition, as in
Abd-El ("Abdallah, slave of El"); and the significant absence of
the cross and religious symbols remarked in the Syrian
inscriptions, denotes the era of heathenism, which lasted till
the establishment of Christianity, about the end of the third
century. "At that time," M. Halevy says, "Christianity became the
official religion of the Empire; doubt and scepticism penetrated
amongst those Arabic tribes which were the allies of Rome, and
amongst whom, for a certain time, a kind of vague Deism was
prevalent until the day when they disappeared, having been
absorbed by the great migrations which had taken place in those
countries."

[EN#57] Some call it so; others Umm Karayat: I have preferred the
former--"Mother of the Villages," not "of Villages"--as being
perhaps the more common.

[EN#58] See Chap. XIX.

[EN#59] Vol. II. Chap. X.

[EN#60] This rock, assayed in England, produced no precious
metal. As has been said, gold was found in its containing walls
of quartz.

[EN#61] This is the valley confounded by Wallin and those who
followed him (e.g. Keith Johnston) with the Wady Hamz, some forty
miles to the south.

[EN#62] See the illustration, "Desert of the Exodus," p. 306.

[EN#63] Vol. II. Chap. X.

[EN#64] Described in "The Gold-Mines of Midian," Chap. XII.

[EN#65] Chap. XVIII.

[EN#66] The barbarous names, beginning from the west, are Jebels
Sehayyir, 'Unka ("of the griffon"), Marakh (name of a shrub),
Genayy (Jenayy), El-Hazzah, El-Madhanah, Buza'mah, and Urnuwah.

[EN#67] Dr. C. Carter Blake examined the four brought home, and
identified No. 1, superior pharyngeal bone and teeth (Scarus);
No. 2, inferior bone and teeth of a large fish allied to Labrus
or Chrysophrys; No. 3, left side, pre-maxillary, possibly same
species; and No. 4, lower right mandible of Sphorodon
grandoculis, Ruppell.

[EN#68] The MS. of this geographer was brought to light by
Professor Sprenger, and Part I. has been published by Professor
de Goeje in his "Bibliotheca Geographarum Arabicorum," here
alluded to.

[EN#69] We have seen (Chap. II.) that the Arabs of Midian mistake
iron for antimony; and the same is the case in the Sinaitic
Peninsula.

[EN#70] Ahmed Kaptan's solar observation.

[EN#71] Written in pleasant memory of two visits to Uriconium,
the favourite "find" of poor Thomas Wright, under the guidance of
our steadfast and hospitable friend, Mr. Henry Wace, of
Brooklands, Shrewsbury.

[EN#72] The capital was also transported to Cairo; it could not
have been voluted as there were only two projections.

[EN#73] Lib. xvi. c. iv. S 24. The MSS. differ in the name of the
"village situated on the sea;" some call it Egra, others Negra,
after the inland settlement; and the commentator Kramer remarks,
Mire corrupta est h?c ultima libri pars.

[EN#74] North lat. 26 , which would correspond with that of the
Aba'l-Maru' ruins.

[EN#75] My friend Sprenger strongly protests against Alius
Gallus, begging me to abandon him, as the Romans must long have
held the whole coast to El-Haura, their chief settlement.

[EN#76] For a specimen of the superficiality which characterizes
Lane's "Modern Egyptians," and of the benefits which, despite the
proverbial difficulty of changing an old book into a new one, an
edition, much enlarged and almost rewritten, would confer upon
students, see Vol. III. Chap. XXI. Instead of a short abstract of
all this celebrated story, we have only popular excerpts from the
first volume.

[EN#77] On the maritime road between Meccah and El-Medinah,
celebrated for the apostolic battle which took place in A.H. 2.

[EN#78] The names marked with interrogations are unknown to all
the Arabs whom I consulted : they are probably obsolete.

[EN#79] Identified by Niebuhr and Wellsted with certains ruins
south of Yambu'. See Chap. IV.

[EN#80] The straight path, the highway to Egypt or Cairo.

[EN#81] Elsewhere called Sukyat Yezid, a name now forgotten.

[EN#82] I have remarked that the name of the Patriarch Jacob is
no longer connected with the Bada plain.

[EN#83] Schweinfurth (the Athenaum, July 6, 1878) speaks of a
"Wadi Abu Marwa ('Quartz Valley')" south of the Galalah block.

[EN#84] Chap. IX.

[EN#85] A paper describing our "finds" was read before the
Anthropological Section of the British Association Meeting at
Dublin on August 21, 1878, and subsequently before the
Anthropological Institute of London (December 10, 1878).

[EN#86] The following was the announcement offered to the
public:--

"La collection mineralogique et archeologique rapportee par le
Capitaine Burton, de sa seconde Expedition au pays de Midian, est
exposee dans les salles de l'Hippodrome, avant d'etre envoyee a
l'Exposition Universelle de Paris, sous la direction de M. G.
Marie, inge'nieur des mines.

"La salle du sud renferme les croquis et les aquarelles faits par
M. E. Lacaze.

"La partie du nord commence avec Akabah, point extreme atteint
par l'Expedition; elle contient les resultats du premier voyage
de l'Expedition, c'est-a-dire: Sherma, Djebel el-Abiat, Aynouneh,
Moghair-Schuaib, Mokna et Akabah.

"Le mur de l'est contient tout ce qui se rapporte a la seconde
exploration, c'est-a-dire l'Hisma et le grand massif du Sharr.

"Le mur du sud contient les principaux points de vue pris au sud
du pays de Midian: Wedje, la forteresse, la montagne de
Omm-el-Karayat, travaillee par les anciens, la mine de Omm
el-Harab, le temple antique, etc., etc.

"Sur la table sont les medailles et la collection anthropologique
fait par le Capitaine Burton.

"La salle du nord contient la collection geologique et
mineralogique faite par M. G. Marie; les mineraux sont classes
suivant l'ordre des pays parcourus, c'est-a-dire en commencant a
Akabah et finissant au Ouadi Hamz, frontiere du Hedjaz.

"Tout autour de la salle sont rangees les vingt caisses contenant
des echantillons que Son Altesse le Khedive envoie en Angleterre
pour y etre analyses. Pres de la porte de l'est sont places les
restes du temple de l'Ouadi Hamz, les moulins pour ecraser le
quartz, les briques refractaires, et enfin les inscriptions
Nabatheennes.

"Dans les loges de l'Hippodrome, derriere les deux salles, sont
deposes environ quinze tonnes d'echantillons, destines a etre
analyses par une Commission locale, nommee par Son Altesse le
Khedive."

[EN#87] M. Marie, L35 12s.; Haji Wali, L23; M. Philipin, L12 4s.;
M. Lacaze, L3 16s.

[EN#88] Starting with a hundred camels and three Shaykhs.

[EN#89] For all hands.

[EN#90] Includes "bakhshish."

[EN#91] Sixty-one camels, four Shaykhs.

[EN#92] For all hands.

[EN#93] Fifty camels, three Shaykhs.

[EN#94] For all hands.

[EN#95] Got from Mukhbir.

[EN#96] Fifty-eight camels, three Shaykhs.

[EN#97] For all hands.

[EN#98] Includes "bakhshish."

[EN#99] Six months' pay.

[EN#100] Four months.

[EN#101] Four months and a half.

[EN#102] Employed on special service.

End of The Land of Midian, (Revisited) By Richard F. Burton,
Volume 2.

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