The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 by Richard Burton

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A few minutes' walking, over unpleasantly deep sand, placed us
upon the Hajj-road. It is paved, like the shore, with natural
slabs and ledges of soft modern sandstone; and, being foot-worn,
it makes a far better road than that which connects Alexandria
with Ramleh. The broad highway, scattered with quartz and basalt,
greenstone, and serpentine, crossed one of the many branches of
the Wady el-'Ayn: in the rich and saltish sand grew crops of
Dukhn, and the Halfa-grass (Cynosures durus) of the Nile Valley,
with tamarisk-thickets, and tufts of fan-palm. On its left bank a
lamp-black vein of stark-naked basalt, capped by jagged blocks,
ran down to the sea, and formed a conspicuous buttress. The
guides spoke of a similar volcanic outcrop above Point Abu Madd
to the south; and of a third close to Yamba' harbour.

An hour of "stravaguing" walk showed us the first sign of the
ruins: wall-bases built with fine cement, crowning the summit of
a dwarf mound to the left of the road; well-worked scoria were
also scattered over its slopes. We now entered the date orchards
conspicuous from the sea: on both sides of us were fences of
thorn, tamped earth, and dry stone; young trees had been planted,
and, beyond the dates, large fields of Dukhn again gave an
agricultural touch to the scene. Flocks of sheep and goats were
being grazed all around us; and the owners made no difficulty, as
they would have done further north, in selling us half a dozen.

We then entered the Wady Haura, where the caravan camps. It is a
cheery charming site for rich citizens, with its plain of rich
vegetation everywhere, say the natives, undermined by water; its
open sea-view to the west; its mound of clean yellow sand behind,
extending to the rocky horizon; and its pure fresh breezes
blowing from the Nejd with an indescribable sense of lightness
and health and enjoyment. In fact, it has all the accessories of
an "eligible position." At the third or southern palm patch, we
found the only public work which remains visible in the great
Nabathaean port. It was formerly a Kariz, the
underground-aqueduct so common in Persia; and it conducted
towards the sea the drainage of the Jebel Turham, a round knob
shown in the Chart, which bears south-east (121 mag.) from the
conduit-head. The line has long ago been broken down by the
Arabs; and the open waters still supply the Hajj-caravan. The
'Ayn ("fountain") may be seen issuing from a dark cavern of white
coralline: the water then hides itself under several filled-up
pits, which represent the old air-holes; and, after flowing below
sundry natural arches, the remains of the conduit-ceiling, it
emerges in a deep fissure of saltish stone. From this part of its
banks we picked up fair specimens of saltpetre. The lower course
abounds in water-beetles, and is choked with three kinds of
aquatic weeds. After flowing a few yards it ends in a shallow
pool, surrounded by palms and paved with mud, which attracts
flights of snipes, sandpipers, and sandgrouse.

The turbulent "Dog's Sons"[EN#50] were mostly in the upper lands;
but a few wretched fellows, with swords, old spears, and
ridiculous matchlocks, assembled and managed to get up a squabble
about the right of leading strangers into "our country"
(Bilad-na). The doughty Rajih ibn 'Ayid, who, mounted upon a mean
dromedary, affected to be chief guide, seemed to treat their
pretensions as a serious matter, when we laughed them to scorn.
He and all the other experts gave us wholly discouraging details
concerning a ruin represented to lie, some hours off, in the
nearest of the southern Harrah. According to them, the Kasr
el-Bint ("Maiden's Palace") was in the same condition as
El-Haura; showing only a single pillar, perhaps the "columns" to
which Wellsted alludes. We could learn nothing concerning the
young person whose vague name it bears; except that she preferred
settling on the mainland, whereas her brother built a
corresponding castle upon the islet Jebel Hassani.[EN#51] He is
locally called Warakat ibn Naufal, a venerated name in the
Fatrah, or "interval," between Jesus and Mohammed; he was the
uncle of Khadijah the widow, and he is popularly supposed to have
been a Christian. Here, as at other places, I inquired, at the
suggestion of a friend, but of course in vain, about the human
skeleton which Ibn Mujawar, some six centuries ago, found
embedded in a rock near the sea-shore.

Such is the present condition of the once famous emporium Leuke
Kome. We returned along the shore to embark; and, shortly after
noon, the old corvette of Crimean date again swung round on her
heel, and resumed her wanderings, this time northwards. The run
of eighteen hours and fifteen minutes was semicircular, but the
sea had subsided to a dead calm. The return to El-Wijh felt like
being restored to civilization; we actually had a salad of radish
leaves--delicious!

Our travel will now lie through the Baliyy country, and a few
words concerning this ancient and noble tribe may here be given.
Although they apparently retain no traditions of their origin,
they are known to genealogists as a branch of the Beni Kuda',
who, some fifteen centuries ago, emigrated from Southern Arabia,
and eventually exterminated the Thamudites. I have noted their
northern and southern frontiers: to the north-east they are
bounded by the vicious Ma'azah and the Ruwala-'Anezahs, and to
the south-east by the Alaydan-'Anezahs, under Shaykh Mutlak. Like
their northern nomadic neighbours, they have passed over to
Egypt, and even the guide-books speak of the "Billi" in the
valley of the Nile.

The Baliyy modestly rate their numbers at four thousand muskets,
by which understand four hundred. Yet they divide themselves into
a multitude of clans; our companion, the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah,
can enumerate them by the score; and I wrote down the
twenty-three principal, which are common both to South Midian and
to Egypt. The chief Shaykh, Mohammed 'Afnan ibn Ammar, can reckon
backwards seven generations, beginning from a certain Shaykh
Sultan. About ten years ago he allowed the tribe to indulge in
such dangerous amusements as "cutting the road" and plundering
merchants. It is even asserted, privily, that they captured the
fort of El-Wijh, by bribing the Turkish Topji ("head gunner"), to
fire high--like the half-caste artilleryman who commanded the
Talpur cannoneers at Sir Charles Napier's Battle of "Meeanee." A
regiment of eight hundred bayonets was sent from Egypt, and the
Shaykh was secured by a Hilah, or "stratagem;" that is, he was
promised safe conduct: he trusted himself like a fool, he was
seized, clapped in irons, and sent to jail in the Citadel of
Cairo. Here he remained some seven months in carcere duro, daily
expecting death, when Fate suddenly turned in his favour; he was
sent for by the authorities, pardoned for the past, cautioned for
the future, and restored to his home with a Muratibah ("regular
pension") of eight hundred piastres per mensem, besides rations
and raiment. The remedy was, like cutting off the nose of a
wicked Hindu wife, sharp but effective. Shaykh 'Afnan and his
tribe are now models of courtesy to strangers; and the traveller
must devoutly wish that every Shaykh in Arabia could be subjected
to the same discipline.

The Baliyy are a good study of an Arab tribe in the rough. The
Huwaytat, for example, know their way to Suez and to Cairo; they
have seen civilization; they have learned, after a fashion, the
outlandish ways of the Frank, the Fellah, and the Turk-fellow.
The Baliyy have to be taught all these rudiments. Cunning,
tricky, and "dodgy," as is all the Wild-Man-race, they lie like
the "childish-foolish," deceiving nobody but themselves. An
instance: Hours and miles are of course unknown to them, but they
began with us by affecting an extreme ignorance of comparative
distances; they could not, or rather they would not, adopt as a
standard the two short hours' march between the Port and the
inland Fort of El-Wijh. When, however, the trick was pointed out
to them, they at once threw it aside as useless. No pretext was
too flimsy to shorten a march or to cause a halt--the northerners
did the same, but with them we had a controlling power in the
shape of Shaykh Furayj. And like the citizens, they hate our
manner of travelling: they love to sit up and chat through half
the night; and to rise before dawn is an abomination to them.

At first their manners, gentle and pliable, contrast pleasantly
with the roughness of the half-breds, Huwaytat and Maknawi, who
have many of the demerits of the Fellah, without acquiring the
merits of the Bedawi. As camel-men they were not difficult to
deal with; nor did they wrangle about their hire. Presently they
turned out to be "poor devils," badly armed, and not trained to
the use of matchlocks. Their want of energy in beating the bushes
and providing forage for their camels, compared with that of the
northerners, struck us strongly. On the other hand, they seem to
preserve a flavour of ancient civilization, which it is not easy
to describe; and they certainly have inherited the instincts and
tastes of the old metal-workers: they are a race of born miners.
That sharpest of tests, the experience of travel, at last
suggested to us that the Baliyy is too old a breed; and that its
blue blood wants a "racial baptism," a large infusion of
something newer and stronger.

Note on the "Harrahs" of Arabia.

The learned Dr. J. G. Wetzstein, in the appendix to his
"Reisebericht," etc.,[EN#52] records a conversation with A. von
Humboldt and Carl Ritter (April, 1859), respecting the specimens
which he had brought from the classical Trachonitis. Their
appearance led the latter to question whether the latest
eruptions of the Harrat Rajil, as it is called from an adjoining
valley, may not have taken place within the historic period; and
he referred to Psalm xviii. as seeming to note the occurrence,
during David's reign, of such a phenomenon in or near Palestine.
Humboldt deemed it probable that the Koranic legend (chap. iv.)
of the Abyssinian host under Abraha destroyed by a shower of
stones baked in hell-fire, referred, not to small-pox as is
generally supposed, but to an actual volcanic eruption in Arabia.

"With what interest would that great man have learnt," writes Dr.
Wetzstein, "that, as I was turning over the leaves of Yakut's
'Geographical Lexicon,' only a few days ago, I found that the
Arabians knew of the existence of twenty-eight different volcanic
regions between Hauran and Bab el-Mandeb!" Later still, Dr. Otto
Loth published an elaborate paper "On the Volcanic Regions
(Harras) of Arabia, according to Yakut" (thirteenth century), in
which these eruptive sites are nearly all identified and
described.

"Among the numerous volcanoes thus found to exist within the
Arabian Peninsula," remarks Dr. Beke,[EN#53] "the only one
recorded as having been in activity within the historic period is
the Harrat-el-Nar ('Fire Harra'), situate to the north-east of
Medina, in the neighbourhood of Khaibur (Khaybar), in about 26 .
30' north lat., and 40 . east long.; which, being traditionally
said to have been in an active state six centuries before
Mohammed, had actually an eruption in the time of the Prophet's
successor, Omar. To the north-west of this 'Fire Harra' lies that
known as the 'Harra of (the tribe of) Udhra' (Azra): again, to
the north of this is the 'Harra of Tabuk,' so called from the
station of that name on the Hajj-road from Damascus to Mekka, the
position of which is in about 28 deg. 15' north lat. and 37 deg.
east long.; and beyond this last, further to the north, and
consequently between it and the northernmost Harra of the Radjil,
or Trachonitis, is the Harra Radjla. . . . Its designation, which
means 'rough,' 'pathless,' seems to indicate its peculiarly
rugged surface, and to lead to the inference that it is an
immense field of lava." He cites Irby and Mangles ("Travels in
Egypt," pp. 115, 116; reprinted by Murray, London, 1868),
describing their route between Kerak and Petra, on the east side
of the Ghor or Wady 'Arabah. "We noticed three dark volcanic
summits, very distinguishable from the land. The lava that had
streamed from them forms a sort of island in the plain."

Hence my late friend concluded that his "true Mount Sinai" was
the focus and origin of this volcanic region; and that the latter
was the "great and terrible wilderness" (Deut. i. 19) through
which the children of Israel were led on their way to mysterious
Kadesh-Barnea. Thus, too, he explained the "pillar of the cloud
by day," and the "pillow of fire by night" (Exod. xiii. 21).

Chapter XVI.
Our Last March--the Inland Fort--Ruins of the Gold-mines at Umm
El-Karayat and Umm El-Harab.

Again there were preliminaries to be settled before we could
leave El-Wijh for the interior. Shaykh Mohammed 'Afnan had been
marrying his son; and the tale of camels came in slowly enough.
On the day after our return from El-Haura the venerable old man
paid us a visit aboard Sinnar. He declares that he was a boy when
the Wahhabi occupied Meccah and El-Medinah--that is, in 1803-4.
Yet he has wives and young children. His principal want is a pair
of new eyes; and the train of thought is, "I can't see when older
men than myself can." The same idea makes the African ever
attribute his sickness and death to sorcery: "Why should I lose
life when all around me are alive?"--and this is the idea that
lies at the bottom of all witch-persecution. Two pair of
spectacles were duly despatched to him after our return to Cairo;
and M. Lacaze there exhibited a capital sketch of the
picturesque, white-bearded face, with the straight features and
the nutcracker chin, deep buried in the folds of a huge red
shawl.

The son, Sulayman, has been espoused to a cousin older, they say,
than himself; and he seems in no hurry to conclude the marriage.
He would willingly accompany us to Egypt, but he is the father's
favourite, and the old man can do nothing without him. A youth of
about eighteen, and even more handsome than his sire, he has the
pretty look, the sloping shoulders, the soft snaky movements, and
the quiet, subdued voice of a nice girl. During the first marches
he dressed in the finery of the Bedawin--the brilliant
head-kerchief, the parti-coloured sandals, and the loose cloak of
expensive broadcloth. The "toggery" looked out of place as the
toilettes of the Syrian ladies who called upon us in laces and
blue satins amid the ruins of Ba'lbek. Although all the hired
camels belonged, as is customary, to the tribe, not to the
Shaykh, the latter was accompanied by the usual "Hieland tail;"
by his two nephews, Hammad and Naji, the latter our head-guide,
addicted to reading, writing, and lying; by his favourite and
factotum, Abdullah, an African mulatto, Muwallid or "house-born;"
and by his Wakil ("agent"), a big black slave, Abdullah Mohammed,
ready of tongue and readier of fist. Lastly, I must mention one
'Audah 'Adayni, a Huwayti bred in the Baliyy country, a traveller
to Cairo, passing intelligent and surpassing unscrupulous.
Confidential for a consideration, he told all the secrets of his
employers, and it is my firm conviction that he was liberally
paid for so doing by both parties of wiseacres.

The immediate objective of this, our last march, was the Bada
plain, of which we first heard at Shaghab. I purposed
subsequently to collect specimens of a traditional coal-mine, to
which his Highness the Viceroy had attached the highest
importance. Then we would march upon the Mochoura of the
ancients, the mediaeval El-Marwah or Zu Marwah, the modern
Marwat-cum-Aba'l-Maru. Finally, we would return to El-Wijh, via
the Wady Hamz, inspecting both it and the ruins first sighted by
MM. Marie and Philipin.

On Friday, March 29th, I gave a breakfast, in the wooden
barracks, to the officers of the Sinnar and the officials of the
port. After which, some took their opium and went to sleep; while
others, it being church-day, went to Mosque. We ran out of
El-Wijh at 1.45 p.m., our convoy consisting of fifty-eight
camels, forty-four of which were loaded; seven were dromedaries,
and an equal number carried water. All had assured us that the
rains of the two past years had been wanting: last winter they
were scanty; this cold season they were nil. In truth, the land
was suffering terribly from drought. Our afternoon was hot and
unpleasant: about later March the Hawa el'-Uwwah, a violent
sand-raising norther, sets in and lasts through a fortnight. It
is succeeded, in early April, by the calms of El-Ni'am ("the
Blessings"), which, divided into the Greater and the Less, last
forty days. After that the summer--Jehannum!

From the raised and metalled bank, upon which the Burj stands, we
descended to the broad mouth of the Wijh valley, draining the low
rolling blue-brown line of porphyritic hillocks on the east. To
our right lay the sparkling, glittering white plain and pool,
El-Mellahah, "the salina." After an hour and a quarter of sandy
and dusty ride, we passed through a "gate" formed by the
Hamirat-Wijh, the red range which, backing the gape of the valley
and apparently close behind the town, strikes the eye from the
offing. Here the gypsum, ruddy and mauve, white and black, was
underlaid by granite in rounded masses; and the Secondary
formation is succeeded by the usual red and green traps. Though
this part of our route lies in El-Tihamah, which, in fact, we
shall not leave, we are again threading the Wady Sadr of the
northern Shafah-range. A pleasant surprise was a fine vein of
sugary quartz trending north-south: at that period we little
suspected the sub-range to the south--perhaps also the
northern--of being, in places, one mighty mass of "white stone."

After covering six miles in an hour and three-quarters,
exaggerated by the guides to three, we suddenly sighted the
inland fort. Its approach is that of a large encamping-ground,
and such, indeed, it is; the Egyptian pilgrim-caravan here halts
on the fourth day from El-Muwaylah. The broken, untidy environs,
strewed with bones and rubbish, show low mounds that mean ovens;
stone rings, where tents are pitched; and the usual graves,
amongst which a reverend man, Shaykh Salih, rests in a manner of
round tower. The site is, in one point at least, admirably
well-chosen, a kind of carrefour where four valleys and as many
roads meet; and thus it commands the mouths of all the gorges
leading inland.

Riding up to the fort, we were welcomed by its commandant,
Lieutenant Nasir Ahmed, a peculiarly good specimen of his arm,
the infantry. His garrison consists of thirteen regulars, whose
clean uniforms show discipline, and whose hale and hearty
complexions testify to the excellence of the water and the air.
The men are paid annually by the treasurer of the Hajj-caravan.
They are supposed to be relieved after seven years; but they have
wives and families; and, like the British soldier in India half a
century ago, they are content to pass their working lives in
local service. The commandant showed us over his castle, which
was in excellent order; and brewed coffee, which we drank in the
cool porch of the single gate. He then led us about the
neighbourhood, and ended with inviting the Sayyid, Furayj, and
the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah to a copious feast.

The fort is the usual square, straight-curtained work of solid
masonry, with a circular bastion at each angle, and a huge arched
main-entrance in the western facade. It is, in fact, one of the
buildings that belong to the solid, sturdy age of Sultan Selim,
and of the Sinnan Pasha so well known about Damascus. An
inscription, with an illegible date, bears the name of Ahmed ibn
Taylun, the founder of the Taylunide dynasty, in A.D. 868--884:
this is another proof that the Mamluk Soldans were lords of the
soil; and that, even in the ninth century, South Midian was a
province, or a dependency, of Egypt. Moreover, we picked up, to
the north-east of the work, old and well-treated scoria,
suggesting a more ancient settlement. Perhaps it was the locale
preferred by the proprietors of the slaves who worked the inner
mines, hidden from view and from the sea-breeze by the hills.

The castle being perfectly commanded by the heights behind, the
circular towers to the east have crests raised in that direction,
giving them a spoon-shape, and a peculiar aptitude for arresting
every cannon-ball coming from the west. The Bedawin, however,
have no great guns; and apparently this shelter has been added
since Wellsted's day.[EN#54] To the curtains are attached the
usual hovels, mat, palm-leaf, and walls of dry stone or mud,
which here, as at Palmyra, inevitably suggest wasp-nests. The
northern side is subtended by three large cisterns, all
strengthened at the inner angles by the stepped buttresses first
noticed when we were exploring Maghair Shu'ayb.

Up the valley and behind the fort, or to the north-east, lie the
palm-plantations, the small kitchen-gardens, and the far-famed
wells which, dug by Sultan Selim and repaired by Ibrahim Pasha in
A.D. 1524 (?), supply the Hajj-caravan. The sandy bed, disposed
east-west, is streaked, dotted, and barred with walls and
outcrops of the hardest greenstone porphyry; and those which run
north-south must arrest, like dykes, the flow of water
underground. One of these reefs is laboriously scraped with
Bedawi Wusum, and with Moslem inscriptions comparatively modern.
The material is heavy, but shows no quartz; whereas the smaller
valleys which debouch upon the northern or right bank of the main
line, display a curious conformation of the "white stone,"
contorted like oyster shells, and embedded in the trap.

Of the six wells, revetted with masonry and resembling in all
points those of Ziba, four, including El-Tawilah, the deepest,
supply brackish water; and the same is the case with a fifth
inside the fort, close to the chapel of his Holiness, Shaykh
Abubakr. The water, however, appeared potable; and perhaps
cleaning out and deepening might increase the quantity. The sweet
element drunk by the richards of El-Wijh comes from the Bir
el-Za'faraniyyah ("of Saffron"), and from its north-eastern
neighbour, El-'Ajwah ("the Date-paste"). The latter measures four
or five fathoms; and the water appears under a boulder in situ
that projects from the southern side. The reader will now agree
with me that El-Wijh is not too drouthy for a quarantine-ground.

The plots of green meat lie about the water, sheltered from the
burning sun by a luxuriant growth of date-trees. The Egyptian is
the best man in the world for dabbling in mud; and here, by
scraping away the surface-sand, he has come upon a clayey soil
sufficiently fertile to satisfy his wants. The growth is confined
to tobacco, potatoes, and cabbages, purslain (Portulaca,
pourpier), radishes, the edible Hibiscus, and tomatoes, which are
small and green. Lettuces do not thrive; cucumbers and
water-melons have been tried here and up country; and--man wants
little in Midian.

We set out early on the next day (5.30 a.m., March 30th) in
disorderly style. The night had been cool and comfortable, dry
and dewless; but the Shaykhs were torpid after the feast, and the
escort and quarrymen had been demoralized by a week of sweet
"do-nothing." Striking up the Wady el-Wijh, which now becomes
narrow and gorge-like, with old and new wells and water-pits
dotting the sole, we were stopped, after half an hour's walk, by
a "written rock" on the right side of the bed. None of the guides
seemed to know or, at any rate, to care for it; although I
afterwards learnt that Admiral M'Killop (Pasha), during his last
visit to El-Wijh, obtained a squeeze of the inscriptions.
Wellsted (II. x.) erroneously calls this valley "Wadi el-Moyah,"
the name of a feature further south--thus leading me to expect
the find elsewhere. Moreover, he has copied the scrawls with a
carelessness so prodigious, that we failed at first to recognize
the original. He has hit upon the notable expedient of massing
together in a single dwarf wood-cut (Vol. II. p. 189) what covers
many square feet of stone; and I was fool enough to republish his
copy.[EN#55]

A tall, fissured rock, of the hardest porphyritic greenstone,
high raised from the valley-sole, facing north-west, and
reducible to two main blocks, is scattered over with these
"inscriptions," that spread in all directions. Most of them are
Arab Wusum, others are rude drawings of men and beasts, amongst
which are conspicuous the artless camel and the serpent; and
there is a duello between two funny warriors armed with sword and
shield. These efforts of art resemble, not a little, the "Totem"
attempts of the "Red Indians" in North and South America. There
are, however, two scrapings evidently alphabetic, and probably
Nabathaan, which are offered to the specialists in epigraphy: six
appear in Wellsted's illustration, especially that with a long
line above it, near the left and lower corner of the cut. M.
Lacaze and I copied the most striking features in our carnets; he
taking the right or southern side and leaving the other block to
me. But the results did not satisfy us; and on April 10th I sent
him with M. Philipin to make photographs. The latter, again, are
hardly as satisfactory as they might be, because the inscriptions
have not been considered the central points of interest. We shall
pass during our present journey many of these Oriental "John
Joneses" and "Bill Browns:" they will suggest the similar
features of Sinaitic Wady Mukattib, which begot those monstrous
growths, "The One Primaeval Language" and "The Voice of Israel
from Mount Sinai."[EN#56] From the "written rock" the caravan
travelled westward up an easy watercourse, "El-Khaur,"
distinguished as El-Shimali ("the Northern"): it winds round by
the north, and we shall descend it to-morrow. The mule-riders
left the Wady el-Wijh, which extends some two hours eastward, and
struck to the east-south-east. The bridle-path, running up the
left bank of an ugly rocky torrent, the Wady Zurayb, presently
reaches a plateau undulating in low rises. Burnt with heat,
almost bare of trees, and utterly waterless, it is the model of a
mining country: elevate it from five hundred to nine thousand
feet, and it would be the living (or dead) likeness of a Peruvian
cerro. The staple material, porphyritic trap, shows scatters of
quartz and huge veins, mostly trending north-south: large
trenches made, according to the guides, by the ancients, and
small cairns or stone piles, modern work, were also pointed out
to us.

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