The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 by Richard Burton

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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 noble 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 multitude 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 passing 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 shells collected by the second Khedivial Expedition
on the shore of Midian and the Gulf of 'Akabah, by Edgar A.
Smith, Esq., British Museum.

I. Gastropoda.
1. Conus textile, Linne.
2. Conus sumatrensis, Hwass.
3. Conus catus var., Hwass.
4. Conus larenatus, Hwass.
5. Conus hebraus, Linne.
6. Conus ividus(?), Hwass.
6a. Conus ceylanensis, Hwass.
7. Terebra maculata, Linne.
8. Terebra dimidiata, Linne.
9. Terebra consobrina, Deshayes.
10. Terebra (Impages) carulescens, Lamarck.
11. Pleurotoma cingulifera, Lamarck.
11a. Murex tribulus, Linn.
12. Murex (Chicoreus) inflatus, Lamarck.
13. Cassidulus paradisiacus, Reeve.
14. Nassa coronata, Lamarck.
15. Nassa 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) anus, Lamarck.
29. Natica (Polinices) mamilla, Linne.
30. Natica albula(?), Recluz.
31. Natica (Mamilla) melanostoma, Lamarck.
32. Solarium perspectivum, Linne.
33. Cypraa arabica, Linne.
34. Cypraa pantherina, Linne.
35. Cypraa camelopardalis, Perry.
36. Cypraa carneola, Linne.
37. Cypraa scurra, Chemnitz.
38. Cypraa erosa, Linne.
39. Cypraa tabescens(?), Solander.
40. Cypraa caurica, Linne.
41. Cypraa 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 Cumingii, 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 shore 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 passed 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 shore; 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 shore 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
pass 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-shore into the Mellahah. It drains the
Hamiratayn, or "Two Reds;" the Hamirat Surrah in the Rugham or
Secondary formation, and the granitic mass 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 formula, 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 shore
road, and to the right of the pilgrim-highway; thus showing that
miners, not passing 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.

The travellers slept at the base of the Tuwayyil. Next morning M.
Philipin proceeded to collect specimens of the sulphur and of the
chalcedony-agate strewed over the plain, and here seen for the
first time. M. Marie and Lieutenant Yusuf rode on to the banks of
the Wady Hamz; and, after three hours (= nine miles), they came
upon the "Castle" and unexpectedly turned up trumps. I had
carelessly written for them the name of a ruin which all,
naturally enough, believed would prove to be one of the normal
barbarous Hawawit. They brought back specimens of civilized
architecture; and these at once determined one of the objectives
of our next journey. The party returned to El-Wijh on the next
day, in the highest of spirits, after a successful trip of more
than fifty miles.

Meanwhile I steamed southwards, accompanied by the rest of the
party, including the Sayyid, Shaykh Furayj, and the ex-Wakil,
Mohammed Shahadah, who is trusted by the Bedawin, and who brought
with him a guide of the Fawa'idah-Juhaynah, one Rajih ibn 'Ayid.
This fellow was by no means a fair specimen of his race: the
cynocephalous countenance, the cobweb beard, and the shifting,
treacherous eyes were exceptional; the bellowing voice and the
greed of gain were not. He had a free passage for himself, his
child, and eight sacks of rice, with the promise of a napoleon by
way of "bakhshish;" yet he complained aloud that he had no meat
to break his fast at dawn--an Arab of pure blood would rather
have starved. He shirked answering questions concerning the
number of his tribe. "Many, many!" was all the information we
could get from him; and his Arabic wanted the pure pronunciation,
and the choice vocabulary, that usually distinguish the Juhayni
pilots. Arrived at his own shore, he refused to make arrangements
for disembarking his rice; he ordered, with bawling accents and
pointed stick, the sailors of the man-of-war to land it at the
place chosen by himself; and he bit his finger when informed that
a sound flogging was the normal result of such impudence.

We set out at 4.30 p.m. (March 24th); and steamed due west till
we had rounded the northern head of El-Raykhah, a long low island
which, lying west-south-west of El-Wijh, may act breakwater in
that direction. Then we went south-west, and passed to port the
white rocks of Mardu'nah Isle, which fronts the Ras el-Ma'llah,
capping the ugly reefs and shoals that forbid tall ships to hug
this section of the shore. It is described as a narrow ridge of
coralline, broken into pointed masses two to three hundred feet
high, whose cliffs and hollows form breeding-places for wild
pigeons: the unusually rugged appearance is explained by the fact
that here the "Jinns" amuse themselves with hurling rocks at one
another. Before night we had sighted the Ras Kurkumah, so called
from its "Curcuma" (turmeric) hue, the yellow point facing the
islet-tomb of Shaykh Marbat.[EN#46] Upon this part of the shore,
I was told, are extensive ruins as yet unvisited by Europeans,
the dangerous Juhaynah being the obstacle. To the south-east
towered tall and misty forms, the Ghats of the
Tihamat-Jahaniyyah. Northernmost, and prolonging the Libn, that
miniature Sharr, is the regular wall of the Jebel el-Ward; then
come the peaks and pinnacles of the Jibal el-Safhah; and lastly,
the twin blocks El-Ral, between which passes the Egyptian Hajj
when returning from El-Medinah. Faint resemblances of these
features sprawl, like huge caterpillars, over the Hydrographic
Chart, but all sprawl unnamed.

By way of extra precaution we stood to the south instead of the
south-east, thus lengthening to one hundred and twenty knots the
normal hundred (dir. geog. sixty-eight) separating El-Wijh from
the Jebel Hassani. Moreover, we caught amidships a fine lumpy
sea, that threatened to roll the masts out of the stout old
corvette. As the Sinnar, which always reminded me of her
Majesty's steamship Zebra, is notably the steadiest ship in the
Egyptian navy, the captain was asked about his ballast. He
replied, "I have just taken command, but I don't think there is
any; the engine (El-'iddah) is our Saburra"--evidently he had
never seen the hold. This state of things, which, combined with
open ports, foundered her Majesty's sailing frigate Eurydice,
appears the rule of the Egyptian war-navy. I commend the
consideration to English sailors.

The steering also was detestable; and the man at the wheel could
not see the waves--a sine qua non to the mariner in these
latitudes, who "broaches to" whenever he can. A general remark:
The Egyptian sailor is first-rate in a Dahabiyyah (Nile-boat),
which he may capsize once in a generation; and ditto in a Red Sea
Sambuk, where he is also thoroughly at home. The same was the
case with the Sultan of Maskat's Arabo-English navy: the Arabs
and Sidis (negroes) were excellent at working their Mtepe-craft;
on frigates they were monkeys, poor copies of men. Our European
vessels are beyond and above the West Asiatic and the African. He
becomes at the best a kind of imitation Jack Tar. He will not, or
rather he cannot, take the necessary trouble, concentrate his
attention, fix his mind upon his "duties." He says "Inshallah;"
he relies upon Allah; and he prays five times a day, when he
should be giving or receiving orders. The younger generation of
officers, it is true, drinks wine, and does not indulge in
orisons whilst it should be working; but its efficiency is
impaired by the difficulties and delay in granting pensions. The
many grey beards, however carefully dyed, suggest an equipage de
veterans.

The consequence of yawing and of running half-speed by night was
that we reached Jebel Hassani just before noon, instead of eight
a.m., on the 25th. The island, whose profile slopes to the
south-eastward, is a long yellow-white ridge, a lump of coralline
four hundred feet high, bare and waterless in summer: yet it
feeds the Bedawi flocks at certain seasons. It is buttressed and
bluff to the south-west, whence the strongest winds blow; and it
is prolonged by a flat spit to the south-east, and by a long tail
of two vertebrae, a big and a little joint, trending north-west.
Thus it gives safe shelter from the Wester to Arab
barques;[EN#47] and still forms a landmark for those navigating
between Jeddah, Kusayr, and Suez. Its parallel runs a few miles
north of the Dadalus Light (north lat. 24 55' 30") to the west;
and it lies a little south of El-Haura on the coast, and of
El-Medinah, distant about one hundred and thirty direct miles in
the interior. If Ptolemy's latitudes are to be consulted, Jebel
Hassani would be the Timagenes Island in north lat. 25 40'; and
the corresponding Chersonesus Point is represented by the
important and well-marked projection "Abu Madd," which intercepts
the view to the south.

After rounding the southern spit, we turned to north-east and by
east, and passed, with a minimum of seven fathoms under keel,
between Hassani the Giant and the dwarf Umm Sahr, a flat sandbank
hardly visible from the shore. This is the only good approach to
the secure and spacious bay that bore the southernmost Nabathaan
port-town: there are northern and north-western passages, but
both require skilful pilots; and every other adit, though
apparently open, is sealed by reefs and shoals. With the blue and
regular-lined curtain of Abu el-Ghurayr in front, stretching down
coast to Ras Abu Madd, we bent gradually round to the north-east
and east. We then left to starboard the settlement El-Amlij, a
long line of separate 'Ushash, the usual Ichthyophagan huts,
dull, dark-brown wigwams. They were apparently deserted; at
least, only two women appeared upon the shore, but sundry
Katirahs and canoes warned us that fishermen were about. We ran
for safety a mile and three-quarters north of the exposed Ras
el-Haura; and at 1.30 p.m. (= twenty-one hours) we anchored, in
nine fathoms, under the Kuta'at el-Wazamah. The pea-green
shallows, which defended us to the north and south, had lately
given protection to the Khediviyyah[EN#48] steamer El-Hidayyidah,
compelled by an accident to creep along-shore like a Sambuk.

El-Haura' is not found either in the charts, or in Ptolemy's and
Sprenger's maps. It lies in north lat. 25 6', about the same
parallel as El-Medinah; and in east long. (Gr.) 37 13'
30".[EN#49] Wellsted (II. x.) heard of its ruins, but never saw
it: at least, he says, "In the vicinity of El-Haura, according to
the Arabs, are some remains of buildings and columns, but our
stay on the coast was too limited to permit our examining the
spot." He is, however, greatly in error when he adds, "Near this
station the encampments of the Bili' (Baliyy) tribe to the
southward terminate, and those of the Joheinah commence." As has
been seen, the frontier is nearly fifty miles further north. He
notices (chap. ix.) the "White Village" to differ with Vincent,
who would place it at El-Muwaylah; but he translates the word
(ii. 461) "the bright-eyed girl," instead of Albus (Vicus). He
quotes, however, the other name, Dar el-'ishrin ("Twentieth
Station"), so called because the Cairo caravan formerly reached
it in a score of days, now reduced to nineteen. He seems,
finally, to have landed in order to inspect "a ruined town on the
main," and to have missed it.

According to Sprenger, the "White Village, or Castle," was not a
Thamudite, but a Nabathaan port. Here Aelius Gallius disembarked
his troops from Egypt. Strabo (xvi. c. 4, S 24) shows that
was the starting-place of the caravans which, before
the Nile route to Alexandria was opened, carried to Petra the
merchandise of India and of Southern Arabia. Thence the imports
were passed on to Phoenicia and Egypt:--these pages have shown
why the journey would be preferred to the voyage northward. He is
confirmed by the "Periplus," which relates (chap. xix.) that
"from the port, and the castellum of Leuke Kome, a road leads to
Petra, the capital of the Malicha (El-Malik), King of the
Nabathaans: it also serves as an emporium to those who bring
wares in smaller ships from Arabia (Mocha, Muza, and Aden). For
the latter reason, a Perceptor or toll-taker, who levies
twenty-five per cent. ad valorem, and a Hekatontarches
(centurion), with a garrison, are there stationed." As the Nabata
were vassals of Rome, and the whole region had been ceded to the
Romans (Byzantines) by a chief of the Beni Kuda' tribe, this
Yuzbashi or "military commandant" was probably a Roman.

El-Haura, like most of the ruined settlements upon this coast,
shows two distinct "quarters;" a harbour-town and what may be
called a country-town. The latter, whose site is by far the more
picturesque and amene, lay upon a long tongue of land backing the
slope of the sea-cliff, and attached to the low whitish hillocks
and pitons rising down south. It is now a luxuriant orchard of
emerald palms forming three large patches. Behind it swells a
dorsum of golden-yellow sand; and the horizon is closed by ranges
of hills and highlands, red and white, blue and black. Our eyes
are somewhat startled by the amount of bright and vivid green:
for some reason, unknown to us, the shore is far more riant than
the northern section; and the land might be called
quasi-agricultural. The whole coast seems to be broken with
verdant valleys; from the Wady el-'Ayn, with its numerous
branches beautifying the north, to the Wady el-Daghaybaj in the
south, supplying water between its two paps.

On the evening of our arrival, we landed in a shallow bay bearing
north-north-east (30 mag.) from the roads where the corvette lay
at anchor; and walked a few yards inland to the left bank of the
Wady el-Samnah, the unimportant Fiumara draining low hills of the
same name. The loose sand is everywhere strewed with bits of
light porous lava, which comes from the Harrat el-Buhayr, a bluff
quoin to the north-west. About El-Haura, I have said, the
volcanic formations, some sixty miles inland on the parallel of
El-Muwaylah, approach the coast.

We were guided to the ruins by the shouts of sundry Arabs
defending their harvest against a dangerous enemy, the
birds--rattles and scarecrows were anything but scarce.
Apparently the sand contains some fertilizing matter. A field of
dry and stunted Dukhn (Holcus Dochna), or small millet, nearly
covers the site of the old castle, whose outline, nearly buried
under the drift of ages, we could still trace. There are two
elevations, eastern and western; and a third lies to the north,
on the right side of the Wady Samnah. Scatters of the usual
fragments lay about, and the blocks of white coralline explained
the old names--Whitton, Whitworth, Whitby. The Bedawin preserve
the tradition that this was the most important part of the
settlement, which extended southwards nearly four miles. The
dwarf valley-mouth is still a roadstead, where two small craft
were anchored; and here, doubtless, was the corner of the hive
allotted to the community's working-bees. An old fibster, Hamid
el-Fa'idi, declared that he would bring us from the adjacent
hills a stone which, when heated, would pour forth metal like
water--and never appeared again. It was curious to remark how
completely the acute Furayj believed him, because both were Arabs
and brother Bedawin.

Next morning we set out, shortly after the red and dewy sunrise,
to visit the south end of Leuke Kome. The party consisted of
twenty marines under an officer, besides our escort of ten negro
"Remingtons:" the land was open, and with these thirty I would
willingly have met three hundred Bedawin. Our repulse from the
Hisma had rankled in our memories, and we only wanted an
opportunity of showing fight. After rowing a mile we landed,
south-east of the anchorage (127 mag.), at a modern ruin, four
blocks of the rudest masonry, built as a store by a Yambu'
merchant. Unfortunately he had leased the ground from the
Fawa'idah clan, when the Hamidah claim it: the result was a
"faction fight"--and nothing done.

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