Volume I Part 10 (1/2)
The average work rarely exceeds six hours (= eighteen to twenty miles). Even this, if kept up day after day, is hard labour for our montures, venerable animals whose chests, galled by the breast-straps, show that they have not been broken to the saddle.
Accustomed through life to ply in a state of semi-somnolence, between Cairo and the Citadel, they begin by proving how unintelligent want of education can make one of the most intelligent of beasts. They trip over every pebble, and are almost useless on rough and broken ground; they start and swerve at a man, a tree, a rock, a distant view or a glimpse of the sea; they will not leave one another, and they indulge their pet dislikes: this s.h.i.+es at a camel, that kicks at a dog. Presently Tamaddun, as the Arabs say, ”urbanity,” or, more literally, being ”citified,” a.s.serts itself, as in the human c.o.c.kney; and at last they become cleverer and more knowing than any country-bred. They climb up the ladders of stone with marvellous caution, and slip down the slopes of sand on their haunches; they round every rat-hole which would admit a hoof; and they know better than we do where water is. They are not always well treated; the ”galloping griff” is amongst us, who enjoys ”lambing” and ”bucketing” even a half-donkey. Of course, the more sensible animal of the two is knocked up; whilst the rider a.s.sumes the airs of one versed in the haute ecole. The only difficulty, by no fault of the mules, was the matter of irons: shoeless they could travel only in sand; and, as has been said, the farrier was forgotten.
Amongst our recreant Shaykhs I must not include Furayj bin Rafi'a el-Huwayti, a man of whom any tribe might be proud, and a living proof that the Bedawi may still be a true gentleman. A short figure, meagre of course, as becomes the denizen of the Desert, but ”hard as nails,” he has straight comely features, a clean dark skin, and a comparatively full beard, already, like his hair, waxing white, although he cannot be forty-five. A bullet in the back, and both hands distorted by sabre-cuts, attempts at a.s.sa.s.sination due to his own kin, do not prevent his using sword, gun, and pistol. He is the 'Agid of the tribe, the African ”Captain of War;” as opposed to the civil authority, the Shayhk, and to the judicial, the Kazi. At first it is somewhat startling to hear him prescribe a slit weasand as a cure for lying; yet he seems to be known, loved, and respected by all around him, including his hereditary foes, the Ma'azah. He is the only Bedawi in camp who prays. Naturally he is a genealogist, rich in local lore. He counteracts all the intrigues by which that rat-faced little rascal, Shaykh Hasan el-'Ukbi, tries to breed mischief between friends. He is a walking map; it would be easy to draw up a rude plan of the country from his information. He does not know hours and miles, but he can tell to a nicety the comparative length of a march; and, when ignorant, he has the courage to say M'adri, ”don't know.” He never asked me for anything, nor told a lie, nor even hid a water-hole. Willing and ready to undertake the longest march, the hardest work, his word is Hazir--”I'm here”--and he will even walk to mount a tired man. Seated upon his loud-voiced little Hijn,[EN#89] remarkable because it is of the n.o.ble Bishari strain, bred between the Nile and the Red Sea, he is ever the guide in chief. At last it ends with Nadi Shaykh Furayj!--”Call Shaykh Furayj”--when anything is to be done, to be explained, to be discovered. I would willingly have recommended him for the chieftains.h.i.+p of his tribe, but he is not wealthy; he wisely prefers to see the dignity in the hands of his cousin 'Alayan, who, by-the-by, is helpless without him. He remained with us to the end: he seemed to take a pride in accompanying the expedition by sea to El-Haura, and by land to the Wady Hamz, far beyond the limits of his tribe. When derided for mounting a pair of Government ”bluchers,” tied over bare feet, with bits of glaring ta.s.sel-string from his camel-saddle, he quoted the proverb, ”Whoso liveth with a people forty days becomes of them.”
We parted after the most friendly adieu, or rather au revoir, and he was delighted with some small gifts of useful weapons:--I wonder whether Shaykh Furayj will prove ”milk,” to use Sir Walter Scott's phrase, ”which can stand more than one skimming.”
In such wild travel, the traveller's comfort depends mainly upon weather. Usually the air of Maghair Shu'ayb was keen, pure, and invigorating, with a distinct alternation of land-breeze by night, and of sea-breeze by day. Nothing could be more charming than the flus.h.i.+ng of the mountains at sunrise and sunset, and the magnificence of the windy, wintry noon. The rocky spires, pinnacles, and domes, glowing with gorgeous golden light, and the lower ranges, shaded with hazy blue, umber-red, and luminous purple, fell into picture and formed prospects indescribably pure and pellucid. But the average of the aneroid (29.19) gave an alt.i.tude of eight hundred feet; and even in this submaritime region, the minimum temperature was 42 deg. F., ranging to a maximum of 85 deg F. in the shade. These are extremes which the soft Egyptian body, reared in the house or the hut, could hardly support.
Darwaysh Effendi followed suit after Yusuf Effendi; it was a study to see him swathed to the nose, bundled in the thickest clothes, with an umbrella opened against the sun, and with a soldier leading his staid old mule. Bukhayt Ahmar and several of the soldiers were laid up; Ahmed Kaptan was incapacitated for work by an old and inveterate hernia, the effect, he said, of riding his violent little beast; and a sound ague and fever, which continued three days, obliterated in my own case the last evils of Karlsbad. We had one night of rain (January 15), beginning gently at 2.30 a.m., and ending in a heavy downfall--unfortunately a pluviometer was one of the forgotten articles. Before the shower, earth was dry as a bone; shortly after it, sprouts of the greenest gra.s.s began to appear in the low places, and under the shadow of the perennial shrubs. The cold damp seemed to make even the snakes torpid: for the first time in my life I trod upon one--a clairvoyante having already warned me against serpents and scorpions. There were also bursts of heat, ending in the normal three grey days of raw piercing norther; and followed by a still warmer spell. Upon the Gulf of El-'Akabah a violent gale was blowing. On the whole the winter climate of inland Midian is trying, and a speedy return to the seaboard air is at times advisable, while South Midian feels like Thebes after Cairo. The coast climate is simply perfect, save and except when El-Ayli, the storm-wind from 'Akabat Aylah, is abroad. My meteorological journal was carefully kept, despite the imperfection of the instruments. Mr. Clarke registered the observations during my illness; Mr. Duguid and Nasir Kaptan made simultaneous observations on board the s.h.i.+ps; and Dr. Maclean kindly corrected the instrumental errors after our return to Cairo.[EN#90]
I had proposed to march upon the Hisma, or sandy plateau to the east, which can be made from Maghair Shu'ayb without the mortification of a Nakb, or ladder of stone. Thereupon our Tagaygat-Huwaytat Shaykhs and camel-men began to express great fear of the 'Imran-Huwaytat, refusing to enter their lands without express leave and the presence of a Ghafir (”surety”).
Our caravan-leader, the gallant Sayyid, at once set off in search of 'Brahim bin Makbul, second chief of the 'Imran, and recognized by the Egyptian Government as the avocat, spokesman and diplomatist, the liar and intriguer of his tribe. This man was found near El-Hakl (Hagul), two long marches ahead: he came in readily enough, holding in hand my kerchief as a pledge of protection, and accompanied by three petty chiefs, Musallam, Sa'd, and Muhaysin, all with an eye to ”bakhs.h.i.+sh.” In fact, every naked-footed ”cousin,” a little above the average clansman, would call himself a Shaykh, and claim his Mushahirah, or monthly pay; not a cateran came near us but affected to hold himself dishonoured if not provided at once with the regular salary.
'Brahim was wholly beardless, and our Egyptians quoted their proverb, Sabah el-Kurud, wa la Saban el-'Ajrud--”Better (see ill-omened) monkeys in the morning than the beardless man.” As the corruption of the best turns to the worst, so the Bedawi, a n.o.ble race in its own wilds, becomes thoroughly degraded by contact with civilization. I remember a certain chief of the Wuld Ali tribe, near Damascus, who was made a Freemason at Bayrut, and the result was that ”brother” Mohammed became a model villain.
By way of payment for escort and conveyance to the Hisma, 'Brahim expected a recognition of his claim upon the soil of Maghair Shu'ayb, which belongs to the wretched Masa'id. He held the true Ishmaelitic tenet, that as Sayyidna (our Lord) adam had died intestate, so all men (Arabs) have a right to all things, provided the right can be established by might. Hence the saying of the Fellah, ”Shun the Arab and the itch.” Thus encouraged by the Shaykhs, the ”dodges” of the clansmen became as manifold as they were palpable. They wanted us to pay for camping-ground; they complained aloud when we cut a palm-frond for palms, or used a rotten fallen trunk for fuel. They made their sheep appear fat by drenching them with water. The people of the Fort el-Muwaylah, determined not to deroger, sent to us, for sale, the eggs laid by our own fowls. And so forth.
Presently 'Brahim brought in his elder brother, Khizr bin Makbul, about as ill-conditioned a ”cuss” as himself. Very dark, with the left eye clean gone, this worthy appeared pretentiously dressed in the pink of Desert fas.h.i.+on--a scarlet cloak, sheepskin-lined, and bearing a huge patch of blue cloth between the shoulders; a crimson caftan, and red morocco boots with irons resembling ice-cramps at the heels. Like 'Brahim, he uses his Bakur, or crooked stick, to trace lines and dots upon the ground; similarly, the Yankee whittles to hide the trick that lurks in his eyes. Khizr tents in the Hisma, and his manners are wild and rough as his dwelling-place; possibly manly, brusque certainly, like the Desert Druzes of the Jebel Hauran. He paid his first visit when our Shaykhs were being operated upon by the photographer: I fancied that such a novelty would have attracted his attention for the moment. But no: his first question was, Aysh 'Ujrati?--”What is the hire for my camels?” Finally, these men threw so many difficulties in our way, that I was compelled to defer our exploration of the eastern region to a later day.
After a week of was.h.i.+ng for metals at Maghair Shu'ayb, it was time to move further afield. On January 17th, the Egyptian Staff-officers rode up the Wady 'Afal, and beyond the two pyramidal rocks of white stone, which have fallen from the towered ”s.h.i.+gd,” they found on its right bank the ruins of a small atelier. It lies nearly opposite the mouth of the Wady Tafrigh, which is bounded north by a hill of the same name; and south by the lesser ”s.h.i.+gd.” Beyond it comes the Wady Nimir, the broad drain of the Jibal el-Nimir, ”Hills of the Leopard,”
feeding the 'Afal: the upper valley is said to have water and palms. After a ”leg” to the north-east (45 deg. mag.), they found the 'Afal running from due north; and one hour (= three miles) led them to other ruins on the eastern side of the low hills that prolong to the north the greater ”s.h.i.+gd.” The names of both sites were unknown even to Shaykh Furayj. The foundations of uncut boulders showed a semicircle of buildings measuring 229 paces across the horseshoe. They counted eleven tenements--probably occupied by the slave-owners and superintendents--squares and oblongs, separated by intervals of from forty-five to ninety-seven or a hundred paces. On the north-north-east lay the chief furnace, a parallelogram of some twenty-three paces, built of stone and surrounded by scatters of broken white quartz and scoriae. These two workshops seem to argue that the country was formerly much better watered than it is now. Moreover, it convinced me that the only rock regularly treated by the ancients, in this region, was the metallic Maru (quartz).
I had heard by mere chance of a ”White Mountain,” at no great distance, in the ma.s.s of hills bounding to the north the Secondary formations of Maghair Shu'ayb. On January 21st, M.
Marie and Lieutenant Amir were detached to inspect it. They were guided by the active Furayj and a Bedawi lad, Hamdan of the Amirat, who on receiving a ”stone dollar” (i.e. silver) could not understand its use. Travelling in a general northern direction, the little party reached their destination in about three hours (= nine miles). They found some difficulty in threading a mile and a quarter of very ugly road, a Nakb, pa.s.sing through rocks glittering with mica; a ladder of stony steps and overfalls, with angles and zigzags where camels can carry only half-loads. The European dismounted; the Egyptian, who was firm in the saddle, rode his mule the whole way. We afterwards, however, explored a comparatively good road, via the Wady Murakh, to the seaboard, which will spare the future metal-smelter much trouble and expense.
The quartz mountain is, like almost all the others, the expanded mushroom-like head of a huge filon or vein; and minor filets thread all the neighbouring heights. The latter are the foot-hills of the great Jebel Zanah, a towering, dark, and dome-shaped ma.s.s clearly visible from Maghair Shu'ayb. This remarkable block appeared to me the tallest we had hitherto seen; it is probably the ”Tayyibat Ism, 6000,” of the Hydrographic Chart. The travellers ascended the Jebel el-Maru, trembling the while with cold; and from its summit, some fifteen hundred feet above sea-level, they had a grand view of the seaboard and the sea. They brought home specimens of the rock, and fondly fancied that they had struck gold: it was again that abominable ”crow-gold” (pyrites), which has played the unwary traveller so many a foul practical joke.
During our stay at Maghair Shu'ayb the camp had been much excited by Bedawi reports of many marvels in the lands to the north and the north-east. The Arabs soon learned to think that everything was worth showing: they led M. Lacaze for long miles to a rock where bees were hiving. A half-naked 'Umayri shepherd, one Suwayd bin Sa'id, had told us of a Hajar masdud (”closed stone”) about the size of a tent, with another of darker colour set in it; the Arabs had been unable to break it open, but they succeeded with a similar rock in the Hisma, finding inside only Tibn (”tribulated straw”) and charcoal. Another had seen a Kidr Dahab (”golden pot”), in the 'Aligan section of the Wady el-Hakl (Hagul) where it leaves the Hisma; and a matchlock-man had brought down with his bullet a bit of precious metal from the upper part. This report prevails in many places: it may have come all the way from ”Pharaoh's Treasury” at Petra, or from the Sinaitic Wady Leja. At the mouth of the latter is the Hajar el-Kidr (”Potrock”), which every pa.s.sing Arab either stones or strikes with his staff, hoping that the mysterious utensil will burst and shed its golden shower. Moreover, a half-witted Ma'azi, by name Masa'i, had tantalized us with a glorious account of the ”House of 'Antar” in the Hisma, and the cistern where that negro hero and poet used to water his horses. Near its ma.s.sive walls rises a Hazbah (”steep and solitary hillock”) with Dims or layers of ashlar atop: he had actually broken off a bit of greenstone sticking in the masonry, and sold it to a man from Tor (Khwajeh Kostantin?) for a large sum--two napoleons, a new s.h.i.+rt, and a quant.i.ty of coffee. A similar story is found in the Badiyat el-Tih, the Desert north of the Sinaitic Peninsula. At the ruined cairns of Khara'bat Lussan (the ancient Lysa), an Arab saw a glimmer of light proceeding from a bit of curiously cut stone. ”This he carried away with him and sold to a Christian at Jerusalem for three pounds.”[EN#91]
Shaykh 'Brahim had also heard of this marvel; but he called it the Harab 'Antar (”Ruin of 'Antar”), and he placed it in the Wady el-Hakl, about an hour's ride south of the Wady 'Afal. Finally, a tablet in the Wady Hawwayi', adorned with a dragon and other animals, was reported to me; and the memory of inscriptions mentioned in the Jihan-numa was still importunate. Evidently all these were mere fancies; or, at best, gross distortions of facts.
The Bedawin repeat them in the forlorn hope of ”bakhs.h.i.+sh,” and never expect action to be taken: next morning they will probably declare the whole to be an invention. Yet it is never safe to neglect the cry of ”wolf”: our most remarkable discovery, the Temple at the Wady Hamz, was made when report promised least.
Accordingly, on January 24th, I despatched, with Shaykhs Khizr and 'Brahim as guides, Mr. Clarke and the two Staff-lieutenants towards El-Rijm, the next station of the pilgrim-caravan. Riding up the Wady 'Afal, they reached, after an hour and three-quarters, the ruins known as Igar Muas--a name of truly barbarous sound. The settlement had occupied both banks, but the princ.i.p.al ma.s.s was on the left: here two blocks, separated by a hillock, lay to north-east and south-west of each other.
Apparently dwelling-places, they were composed of a masonry-cistern and of fourteen buildings, detached squares and oblongs, irregular both in orientation and in size; the largest measuring eighty by fifty metres, and the smallest five by four.
The material was of water-rolled boulders, huge pebbles without mortar or cement. There were no signs of a furnace, nor were the usual fragments of gla.s.s and pottery strewed about. To the north and running up the north-north-eastern slope stood a line of wall two metres broad and three hundred long: it ended at the south-western extremity in five round towers razed to their foundations. It was suggested that this formed part of a street, laid out on the plan of the Jebel el-Safra, the hauteville of Maghair Shu'ayb. On the right bank of the Wady appeared a heap of stones suggesting a Burj. Fine, hard, compact, and purple-blue slate was collected in the ruins; and the red conglomerates on either side of the watercourse suggested that Cascalho had been worked.
After riding their dromedaries some three hours, halts not included, the travellers were asked why they had not brought their tents. ”Because we expect to return to camp this evening!”
Then it leaked out that they had not reached half-way to the ”closed stone,” while the dragon-tablet would take a whole day.
Unprepared for a wintry night in the open, some twelve hundred feet above sea-level, they rode back at full speed, greatly to the disgust of the Arabs, who, at this hungry season, rarely push their lean beasts beyond three and a half to four miles an hour.
Lieutenant Amir, who is invaluable in the field, would have pressed forward: not so the European.
I did not see Shaykhs Khizr or 'Brahim for many a day; nor did we attempt any more reconnaissances to the north of Maghair Shu'ayb.
Not the least pleasant part of our evening's work was collecting information concerning the origin of the tribes inhabiting modern Midian; and, as on such occasions a mixed mult.i.tude was always present, angry pa.s.sions were often let rise. As my previous volume showed, the tribes in this Egyptian corner of North-Western Arabia number three--the Huwaytat, the Maknawi, and the Beni 'Ukbah; the two former of late date, and all more or less connected with the Nile Valley. Amongst them I do not include the Hutaym or Hitaym, a tribe of Pariahs who, like the Akhdam (”serviles”) of Maskat and Yemen, live scattered amongst, although never intermarrying with, their neighbours. As a rule the numbers of all these tribes are grossly exaggerated, the object being to impose upon the pilgrim-caravans, and to draw black-mail from the Government of Egypt. The Huwaytat, for instance, modestly declare that they can put 5000 matchlocks into the field: I do not believe that they have 500. The Ma'azah speak of 2000, which may be reduced in the same proportion; whilst the Baliyy have introduced their 37,000 into European books of geography, when 370 would be nearer the mark. I antic.i.p.ate no difficulty in persuading these Egypto-Arabs to do a fair day's work for a fair and moderate wage. The Bedawin flocked to the Suez Ca.n.a.l, took an active part in the diggings, and left a good name there. They will be as useful to the mines; and thus shall Midian escape the mortification of the ”red-flannel-s.h.i.+rted Jove,” while enjoying his golden shower.
I first took the opportunity of rectifying my notes on the origin of the Huwayta't tribe.[EN#92] According to their own oral genealogists, the first forefather was a lad called 'Alayan, who, travelling in company with certain Shurafa (”descendants of the Apostle”), and erg held by his descendants to have been also a Sherif, fell sick on the way. At El-'Akabah he was taken in charge by 'Atiyyah, Shaykh of the then powerful Ma'azah tribe, who owned the land upon which the fort stands. A ”clerk,” able to read and to write, he served his adopted father by superintending the accounts of stores and provisions supplied to the Hajj. The Arabs, who before that time embezzled at discretion, called him El-Huwayti' (”the Man of the Little Wall”) because his learning was a fence against their frauds He was sent for by his Egyptian friends; these, however, were satisfied by a false report of his death: he married his benefactor's daughter; he became Shaykh after the demise of his father-in-law; he drove the Ma'azah from El-'Akabah, and he left four sons, the progenitors and eponymi of the Midianite Huwaytat. Their names are 'Alwan, 'Imran, Suway'id, and Sa'id; and the list of nineteen tribes, which I gave in ”The Gold-Mines of Midian,” is confined to the descendants of the third brother.
The Huwaytat tribe is not only an intruder, it is also the aggressive element in the Midianite family of Bedawin; and, of late years, it has made great additions to its territory. If it advances at the present rate it will, after a few generations, either ”eat up,” as Africans say, all the other races or, by a more peaceful process, a.s.similate them to its own body.
We also consulted Shaykh Hasan and his cousin Ahmed, alias Abu Khartum, concerning the origin of his tribe, the Beni 'Ukbah.