Volume I Part 15 (1/2)

The March Through Central and Eastern Midian.

Chapter IX.

Work in and Around El-Muwaylah.

We arrived at El-Muwaylah too late to meet the Hajj-caravan, which, home returning, had pa.s.sed hurriedly through the station on February 9th. This inst.i.tution has sadly fallen off from its high estate of a quarter of a century ago. Then commanded by an Amir el-Hajj--”Lord of the Pilgrimage”--in the shape of two Pashas (generals), it is now under the direction of a single Bey (colonel). The ”True Believers,” once numbering thousands, were reduced in 1877-78 to some eight hundred souls, of whom only eighty appeared at El-Muwaylah; and the peculiar modification of modern days is that the Mahmal is escorted only by paupers. Yet the actual number of the Hajis who stand upon Jebel ?Arafat, instead of diminis.h.i.+ng, has greatly increased. The majority prefer voyaging to travelling; the rich hire state-cabins on board well-appointed ”Infidel” steamers, and the poor content themselves with ”Faithful” Sambuks. Indeed, it would seem that all the present measures, quarantines of sixty days (!) and detention at wretched Tor, comfortless enough to make the healthiest lose health, are intended to discourage and deter ”palmers” from proceeding by land. If this course be continued, a very few years will see the venerable inst.i.tution represented by only the Mahmal and its guard. The late Sa'id Pasha of Egypt once consigned the memorial litter per steam-frigate to Jeddah: the innovation saved Ghafr (”blackmail”) to the Bedawin; but it was not approved of by the Moslem world.

The Hajis were so poor that they had nothing for barter or for sale. Happily, however, there was a farrier amongst them, and Lieutenant Yusuf took care that our mules were properly shod. M.

Philipin had been a marechal ferrant, but a kick or two had left him no stomach for the craft. Our two fellow-travellers, with the whole camp, had set out from Makna on February 6th, and marched up the great Wady el-Kharaj. Along the eastern flank of the Jebel el-Fahisat, the ”Iron Mountain,” they found many outcrops of quartz, a rock which appears sporadically all the way to the northern soufriere. In two places it was green-stained, showing copper, while in another hydrated oxide and chromate of iron (hemat.i.te)[EN#143] abounded. After a stage of four hours and twenty minutes they left the caravan, struck off to the west, accompanied by Shaykh Furayj, and reached their destination.

Here, however, they met with accidents: the mules bolted, followed by the Shaykh's dromedary, and they were obliged to hurry off for fear of losing the caravan, now well ahead of them.

Thus, when I had ordered Lieutenant Yusuf to make a detailed plan of the formation, he had spent exactly ten minutes on the spot, and he appeared not a little proud of his work.

This young officer was not a pleasant companion. He had doubtless received his orders, but he carried them out in a peculiarly disagreeable way, taking notes of all our proceedings under our eyes. Together with Lieutenant Amir, he began to make a collection of geology: both, being utterly innocent of all knowledge, imitated us in picking up specimens; mixed them together without notes or labels; and, on return to Cairo, duly presented them at the Citadel. This was all that was required.

The papers were ”written to” and reported as follows: ”Closer examination has shown that the ?turquoises' brought to Cairo are merely malachite (!); and that the existence of any such quant.i.ty of gold as would pay for the working is, to say the least of it, very doubtful.”[EN#144]

The whole camp, indeed, was seized with a mania for collecting: old Haji Wali again gathered bits of quartz, which he once more presented as gold-stone to his friends and acquaintances at Zagazig; and Anton, the dragoman, triumphantly bore away fragments bristling with mica-slate, whose glitter he fondly conceived to be silver.

Lieutenant Yusuf was presently despatched with three soldiers, three quarrymen, Jazi, the Arab guide of a former visit, and eight camels, to bring back specimens of the copper silicate to the south of ?Aynanah, and to make a regular survey of the northern solfatara. He set out early on February 18th, and after twenty-one hours of caravan-marching reached the Jebel el-Fara'.

Here the outcrop is bounded north by the Wady el-Fara', and south by the Wadys el-Marikhah and Umm Niran, the latter forming the general recipient of these Nullahs. The Jebel is about 120 feet high, of oval form, stretching 1750 metres from north-north-west to south-south-east. The rich silicate (not carbonate) of copper, which disdains a streak and affects the file, is found, as usual with this ore, only in one part of the valley to the south-west, some thirty-five feet above the sole: it is a pocket, a ”circ.u.mscribed deposit,” as opposed to a ”true vein” or a ”vein-fissure.” The adjoining rocks contain carbonates of iron and copper, and the ore-ma.s.s is apparently carbonate of lime.

This second visit generally confirmed the report of Ahmed Kaptan, except that there were no signs of working, as he had supposed.

The travellers pa.s.sed the whole of February 20th at the diggings, made a plan, and sent back two camel-loads (four sacks) of the gangue, in charge of a soldier, to the Fort of El-Muwaylah.

On the next day the little party made for the Wady ?Aynunah, and, striking to the left of the straight line, crossed the maritime country, here a ma.s.s of Wadys, including our old friend the ?Afal. This highway to the northern Hisma falls, I have said, into the Minat el-?Ayanat, a portlet useful to Sambuks: its sickle-shaped natural breakwater, curving from west to south, resembles that of Sinaitic Marsa el-Ginai, and those which are so common in Western Iceland. On February 22nd, a very devious path, narrow and rocky, lasting for one hour, led them, about noon, to the northern Jebel el-Kibrit. The distance from El-Muwaylah is about sixty-six miles; and the country west of a line drawn from ?Aynunah to Makna was, before this march, utterly unknown to us, consequently to all the civilized world.

Lieutenant Yusuf's two journals checking each other, his plan and his specimens enable me to describe the northern deposit with more or less accuracy. The Sulphur-hill is a long oval of four hundred metres (east-west), by a maximum of one hundred and eighty (north-south); but it extends branches in all directions: the mineral was also found in a rounded piton, a k.n.o.b on the Wady Musayr, attached to the north-eastern side. The flattened dome is from fifty to sixty feet high, and the piton one hundred and forty. The metal underlying a dark crust, some twelve to fifteen centimetres thick, appears in regular crystals and amorphous fragments of pure brimstone pitting the chalky sulphate of lime: blasting was not required; the soft material yielded readily to the pick. This gypseous or Secondary formation was found to extend, not only over the adjacent hills, but everywhere along the road to Makna. The important point which now remains to be determined is, I repeat, whether sulphur-veins can be found diffused throughout these non-plutonic rocks.

Lieutenant Yusuf fixed his position by climbing the adjacent hills, whence Sina'fir bore 190, and Shu'shu' 150 (both magnetic); while greater elevations to the west shut out the view of lofty Ti'ra'n, and even of the Sinaitic range. The nearest water in the Wady el-Nakhil to the north-east was reported to be a two hours' march with loaded camels (= five miles) Several little ports, quite unknown to the Hydrographic Chart, were visited. These are, beginning from the north, the Minat Hamdan, lying between Makna and Dabbah; a refuge for Sambuks defended, like that of old ”Madyan,” by rising ground to the north. About three miles and a quarter further south is the Sharm Dabbah, the ”Sherm Dhaba, good anchorage” of the Chart: this ma.s.s of reefs and shoals may have been one of the ”excellent harbours”

mentioned by Procopius. It receives the Wady Sha'b el-Gann (Jann), ”the Watercourse of the Demons' (Ja'nn) Ravine,” flowing from a haunted hill of red stone, near which no Arab dares to sleep. From that point the travellers struck nine miles and a half to south-east of Ghubbat Suwayhil: this roadstead, used only by native craft, lies eastward of the long point forming the Arabian staple of the Gulf el-?Akabah's gate, where the coast-line of Midian bends at a right angle towards the rising sun. Adjoining it to the east, and separated by a long thin spit, is the Ghubbat el-Wagab (Wajb), the mouth of the watercourse similarly named: it is also known to the Katirah or ”smaller vessel,” and about a mile up its bed, which comes from the north-east, there is a well. According to Jazi, the guide, this Ghubbah (”gulf”), distant only four to five hours of slow marching from the Sulphur-hill, will be the properest place for s.h.i.+pping produce. In another eastern feature, the Wady Giyal (Jiyal), distant some eleven miles and a half from ?Aynunah and ending in a kind of sink, there is a fine growth of palms, about a quarter of a mile long, and a supply of ”wild” (brackish) water in wells and rain-pools. These uninteresting details will become valuable when the sulphur-mines of North Midian are ripe for working.

From the Ghubbat el-Wagab, the path, easy travelling over flat ground, strikes to the north-east; and, fourteen miles and a half beyond, joins the ?Aynunah highway. On February 26th, at the end of nine days' work, Lieutenant Yusuf returned to El-Muwaylah with two sacks of sulphur-bearing chalk which justified his previous report. As will appear, the Expedition was still travelling through the interior: after a halt for rest at head-quarters, he rejoined us on our northward route from Ziba, and I again found useful occupation for his energies.

Upon our happy return ”home,” i.e. Sharm Yaharr, preparations for a march upon the Hisma were at once begun. My heart was firmly fixed upon this project, hoping to find an ”unworked California”

to the east of the Harrah volcanoes; but the Shaykhs and camel-men, who did not like the prospect of a rough reception by the Ma'azah bandits, threw sundry small stumbling-blocks in our path. It was evidently useless to notice them so far from the spot; they would develop themselves only too well as we approached the tribal frontier. While these obstacles were being cleared away, we carefully examined the little dock that had so often given us shelter in the hour of need; and I set a small party to work at the central Jebel el-Kibri't, which had been explored by the first Expedition.

Sharm Yaharr is the usual distorted T, a long channel heading in a shorter cross-piece: it is formed by the confluence of four valleys, all composed of corallines and conglomerates of new sandstone. Those to the north and the north-west show distinct signs of upheaval; the two eastern features, known as the Wady el-Harr (”the Hot Watercourse”), of which Yaharr appears to be a corruption, bear marks of man's hand. The dock is divided into an outer and inner ”port” by a projecting northern point which is not sufficiently marked in the Chart (enlarged plan). At this place, where the tide rises a full metre, the crew of the Mukhbir had built a jetty of rough boulders, by way of pa.s.se-temps and to prevent wading. Native craft lie inside, opposite the ruins of a stone house: the existence of a former population is shown by the many graves on the upper plateau. In the northern Wady el-Harr, also, we picked up specimens of obsidian, oligistic iron, and admirably treated modern (?) slags showing copper and iron; evidently some Gypsy-like atelier must once have worked upon the Wady Yaharr. The obsidian also has apparently been subjected to the artificial fire; and a splinter of it contains a paillette of free copper.

What concerned us most, however, was the discovery of oysters, which, adhering to the reefs projected under water from the rocky northern cliff, formed a live conglomerate; and from the present time forwards we found the succulent molluscs in almost every bay. Those to the south, where the shallows overlie sand and mud, are not so good. At this season the Ustrida is flat, fleshy, and full sized; the sh.e.l.l has a purple border, and the hinge muscle of the savage, far stronger than that of the civilized animal, together with its exceeding irregularity of shape, giving no purchase to the knife, makes oyster-opening a sore trouble. We tried fire, but the thick-skinned things resisted it for a long time; and, when they did gape, the liquor had disappeared, thereby spoiling the flavour. The ”beard” was neither black, like that of the Irish, nor colourless, as in the English oyster. The Bedawin, who ignore the delicacy, could not answer any questions about the ”spatting season”--probably it is earlier than ours, which extends through June; whether also a close time is required, as in England to August 4th, we could not guess. The young probably find a natural ”culch” in the many sh.e.l.ls, c.o.c.kle and others, that strew the rock, sand, and clay.

Knowing that my gallant friend, Admiral McKillop (Pasha) of Alexandria, takes great interest in ”ostreoculture,” I sent him from Suez a barrel of the best Midianites The water had escaped by the carelessness of the magazine-man: enough, however, remained alive to be thrown into the harbour Eunostos, where they will, I hope, become the parents of a fine large progeny of ”natives.” Similarly we had laid in a store of forty-two langoustes (crayfish) for presentation at Court, and to gladden the hearts of Cairene friends: our Greeks placed the tubs in the sun and so close to the funnel, that, after about three hours, all the fine collection perished ign.o.bly.

We will now proceed to the central Jebel el-Kibri't; a superficial examination of which by the first Expedition[EN#145]

proved that the upper rock yielded four, and the lower nine, per cent. of tolerably pure brimstone. The shortest cut from the dock-harbour lies up the southern Wady Ha'rr, with its strangely weathered sandstone rocks, soft modern grits that look worm-eaten. Amongst them is a ledge-like block with undermined base projecting from the left bank: both the upper and the lower parts are scattered over with Wasm, or Arab tribal marks. On our return from El-Wijh we found this sandstone tongue broken in two: the ma.s.sive root remained in situ, but the terminal half had fallen on the ground. This was probably the work of an earthquake which we felt at Sharm Dumayghah on March 22nd.[EN#146] The track then strikes the modern Hajj-road, which runs west of and close to the Sulphur-hill; the line is a succession of watercourses,[EN#147] and in Wady Khirgah we found blocks of the hydrous silicate, corundophyllite which may be Serpentine: it is composed of a mult.i.tude of elements, especially pyrites. After an hour and a quarter's sharp walking, we hit the broad Wady el-Kibrit, which rounds its Jebel to the south-east, and which feeds the Wady el-Jibbah, itself a feeder of the Sharm Jibbah.

The latter, which gave us shelter in the corvette Sinnar (Captain Ali Bey), is a long blue line of water bounding the western base of the Sulphur-hill.

This central Tuwayyil el-Kibrit is an isolated k.n.o.b, rising abruptly from Wady-ground; measuring some 240 feet in height, and about 880 metres in diameter, not including its tail of four vertebrae which sets off from north-west to south-east. Viewed from the north it is, as the Egyptian officers remarked, a regular Haram (”pyramid”), with a kidney-formed capping of precipitous rock. Drinkable water, like that of the Wady el-Ghal, is said to be found in the Wady el-Kibrit to the north-east; and the country is everywhere tolerably wooded. The Bedawin brought us small specimens of rock-crystal and fragments of Negro-quartz, apparently rich in metal, from a neighbouring ”Maru.” They placed it amongst the hill-ma.s.ses to the east and south; and we afterwards found it for ourselves.[EN#148]