Volume II Part 8 (1/2)
Beyond the Rabigh, we ascended a lateral valley, whence a low divide led to the Wady el-Bahrah (”of the Basin”), another feeder of the Sirr. It was also snow-white, and on the right of the path lay black heaps, Hawawit, ”ruins” not worth the delay of a visit.
Then began a short up-slope with a longer counterslope, on which we met a party of Huwaytat, camel-men and foot-men going to buy grain at El-Wigh. Another apparition was a spear-man bestriding a bare-backed colt; after reconnoitering us for some time, he yielded to the temptations of curiosity. It afterwards struck us that, mounted on our mules, preceded and followed by the Shaykhs riding their dromedaries, we must have looked mighty like a party of prisoners being marched inland. The horseman was followed by a rough-coated, bear-eared hound of the kind described by Wellsted[EN#63] as ”resembling the English mastiff”--he did not know how common is the beast further north. The Kalb gasur (jasur) or ”bold dog,” also called Kalb el-hami, or ”the hot”
(tempered), is found even amongst the Bedawin to the east of the Suez Ca.n.a.l; but there the half-bred is more common than the whole-blood. It is trained to tend the flocks; it never barks, nor bites its charges; and it is said to work as well as the shepherd-dog of Europe.
The Wady Mulaybij shows fine specimens of mica dori in the quartz-vein streaking the slate: it deceived all the caravan, save those who tested it with their daggers. The bed, after forming a basin, narrows to a sandy gut, smooth and pleasant riding; and, after crossing several valley-heads, the path debouches upon the Wady Abal-Gezaz. This ”Father of Gla.s.s,”
though a day and a half's march from the sea, is even broader than the great Sirr to which it is tributary. Its line, which reminded us of the Damah, is well marked by unusually fine vegetation: and the basin bears large clumps of fan-palm, scattered Daum-trees, the giant asclepiad El-?Ushr,[EN#64]
thickets of tamarisk and scatters of the wild castor-plant, whose use is unknown to the Arabs. Water wells up abundantly from a dozen shallow pits, old and new, in the sand of the southern or left bank. Here the flow is apparently arrested by a tall b.u.t.tress of coa.r.s.e granite, red with orthose, and sliced by a trap-d.y.k.e striking north-south.
Our day's work had been only four slow hours; but we were compelled to await the caravan, which did not arrive till after noon. It had pa.s.sed round by the Wady Rabigh, into and up the ”Father of Gla.s.s;” in fact, it had described an easy semicircle; while we had ridden in a series of zigzags, over rough and difficult short cuts. A delay was also necessary for our mappers to connect this march with their itinerary of the central region.
Already the Wady Mulaybij had shown us the familiar peak and dorsum of Jebel Raydan; and we had ”chaffed” Furayj about his sudden return home. From our camp in the Aba'l-Gezaz, the Ziglab block of s.h.a.ghab bore nearly north (350 mag.); and the adjoining Jebel el-Aslah, also a blue cone on the horizon, rose about two degrees further north.
After the big mess-tent had been duly blown down, and the usual discipline had been administered for was.h.i.+ng in the drinking-pool; we crossed to the left of the Wady by way of an evening stroll, and at once came upon an atelier of some importance. The guides seemed to ignore its existence, so we christened it Mashghal Ala'l-Gezaz. On the slope of a trap-hill facing the Wady el-Ghami's, the southern valley which we had last crossed, stood a square of masonry scattered round with fragments of pottery, gla.s.s, and basalt. Below it, on the ”mesopotamian”
plain, lay the foundations of houses still showing their cemented floors. The lowlands and highlands around the settlement looked white-patched with mounds, veins, and scatters of quartz. The evening was stillness itself, broken only by the cries of the Katas, which are now nesting, as they flocked to drink; and the night was cool--a promise, and a false promise, that the Khamsin had ended on its usual third day.
The next morning (April 3rd) showed us El-Bada', the whole march lying up the Wady Aba'l-Gezaz, which changes its name with every water. The early air was delightfully fresh and brisk, and the cattle stepped out as if walking were a pleasure: yet the Arabs declared that neither camels nor mules had found a full feed in the apparently luxuriant vegetation of the Fiumara-bed. The tract began badly over loose sandy soil, so honeycombed that neither man nor beast could tread safely: the Girdi (Jirdi), or ”field rat,” is evidently nocturnal like the jerboa, during the whole journey we never saw a specimen of either. A yellow wolf was descried skulking among the bushes, and a fine large hare was shot; porcupine-quills were common, and we picked up the mummy of a little hedgehog. The birds were swift-winged hawks and owls, pigeons and ring-doves; crows again became common, and the water-wagtail was tame as the Brazilian thrush, Joo de Barros: it hopped about within a few feet of us, quite ignoring the presence of Frenchmen armed with murderous guns. I cannot discern the origin of the pseudo-Oriental legend which declares that the ”crow of the wilderness” (raven) taught Cain to bury his brother by slaying a brother crow, and sc.r.a.ping a grave for it with beak and claw. The murderous bird then perched upon a palm-tree, whose branches, before erect, have ever drooped, and croaked the truth into Adam's ear: hence it has ever been of evil augury to mankind. The hoopoe, which the French absurdly call coq de montagne, also trotted by the path-side without timidity; and the butcher-bird impudently reviewed the caravan from its vantage-ground, a commanding tree. The large swift shot screaming overhead; and the cries of the troops of Merops, with silver-lined wings, resembled those of the sand-grouse.
After some five miles the ”Father of Gla.s.s” changed his name to Abu Daumah (of the ”one Theban Palm”). Porphyritic trap lay on both sides of us. To the right rose the Jebel ?Ukbal, whose grey form (El-Ash'hab) we had seen from the heights above Umm el-Harab: the whole range of four heads, forming the south-western rim of the Bada saucer, is known as El-?Akabil.
Below these blocks the Wady-sides were cut into b.u.t.tresses of yellow clay, powdered white with Sabkh, or ”impure salt.” Charred circlets in the sand showed where alkali had been burned: the ashes, packed in skins, are s.h.i.+pped at El-Wijh for Syria, where they serve to make soap. The Bedawin call it Aslah (Athlah); the Egyptians Gha.s.salah (”the washer”), because, when rubbed in the hands, its succulent shoots clean the skin. Camels eat it, whereas mules refuse it, unless half-starved. This plant apparently did not extend all up the Wady. The water, where there is any, swings under the left bank; an ample supply had been promised to us, with the implied condition that we should camp at this Mahattat el-?Urban (”Halting place of the Arabs”), after a marching day of two hours! Seeing that we rode on, the Baliyy declared that they had searched for the two princ.i.p.al pools, and that both were dry, or rather had been buried by the Bedawin.
But, with characteristic futility, they had allowed me to overhear their conversation; and the word was pa.s.sed to the soldiers, who at once filled themselves and their water-skins.
Hitherto we had been marching south of east. Presently, where the pretty green Wady el-Suram falls into the left bank, we turned a corner, and sighted in front, or to the north, the great plain of Bada. The block, El-?Akabil, had projected a loop of some ten miles to be rounded, whereas a short cut across it would not have exceeded three. And now the Wady Aba Daumah abruptly changed formation. The red and green traps of the right side made way for grey granite, known by its rounded bulging blocks on the sides and summit, by its false stratification, by its veins of quartz that strewed the sand, and by its quaint weathering--one rock exactly resembled a sitting eagle; a second was a turtle, and a third showed a sphinx in the rough. The Bada plain is backed by a curtain so tall that we seemed, by a common optical delusion, to be descending when we were really ascending rapidly.
Anxiety to begin our studies of the spot made the ride across the basin, soled with rises comfortably metalled, and with falls of sand unpleasantly loose and honeycombed, appear very long. The palm-clump, where men camp, with its two date-trees towering over the rest, receded as it were. At last, after a total of four hours and forty-five minutes (= sixteen miles), we dismounted at the celebrated groves, just before the ugly Khamsin arose and made the world look dull, as though all its colours had been washed out.
The dates form a kind of square with a sharp triangle to the south, upon the left bank of the thalweg, which overflows them during floods. The enceinte is the normal Arab ”snake-fence” of dry and barked branches, which imperfectly defends the nurseries of young trees and the plots of Khubbayzah (”edible mallows”) from the adjoining camping-place of bald yellow clay. The wells, inside and outside the enclosure, are nine; three stone-revetted, and the rest mere pits in the inchoate modern sandstone. The trees want thinning; the undergrowth is so dense as to be impenetrable; but the heads are all carefully trimmed, the first time we have seen such industry in Midian. The shade attracts vipers, chiefly the Echis: and I was startled by hearing the gay warble of the Bulbul--a nightingale in Arabia!
The next day was devoted to inspecting this far-famed site, with the following results. We have already seen a Bada'
further north. We are now at a Bada
= 0 31' 30” north of El-Wijh [Footnote: Ahmed Kaptan's observation of Polaris. The <greek> (Bades) of Ptolemy is in north lat. 25 30'.]. From its centre, a little south of our camping-place, the Jebel Ziglab of s.h.a.ghab, distant, according to Yakut, one march, bears 32, and the Aslah (Athlah) cone 30 (both mag.): it lies therefore south of Shuwak, with a little westing. The alt.i.tude is upwards of twelve hundred feet above sea-level (aner. 28.72). The size of the oval is about nine statute miles from north to south, where the main watercourse breaks; and twelve miles from east to west, giving an area of some 108 square miles. The general aspect of the basin suggests that of El-Haura; the growth is richer than the northern, but not equal to that of the southern country. The ruins belong to the Maghair Shu'ayb category, and the guides compare the Hawawit with those of Madain Salih.
Such is the great station on the Nabathaean overland highway between Leuke' Kome and Petra; the commercial and industrial, the agricultural and mineral centre, which the Greeks called <greek> the Romans, Badanatha (Pliny, vi. 32); and the mediaeval Arab geographers, Bada Ya'kub, in the days when the Hajj-caravan used to descend the Wadys Nejd and the ”Father of Gla.s.s.” Now it is simply El-Bada: the name of the ”Prophet”
Jacob, supposed to have visited it from Egypt or Syria, being clean forgotten.
The rolling plain is floored with grey granite, underlying sandstones not unlike coral-rag, and still in course of formation. Through this crust outcrop curious hillocks, or rather piles of hard, red, and iron-revetted rock, with a white or a rusty fracture--these are the characteristics of the basin. The lower levels are furrowed with their threads of sand, beds of rain-torrents discharged from the mountains; and each is edged by brighter growths of thorn and fan-palm. The fattening Salib gra.s.s is scattered about the water; the large sorrel hugs the Fiumara-sides; the hardy ?Aushaz-thorn (Lycium), spangled with white bloom and red currants, which the Arabs say taste like grapes, affects the drier levels; and Tanzubs, almost all timber when old, become trees as large as the Jujube.
The Bujat is everywhere set in a regular rim of mountains. The Shafah curtain to the north is fretted with a number of peaks, called as usual after their Wadys;[EN#66] the west is open with a great slope, the Wady Manab, whose breadth is broken only by the ”Magrah” Naza'an, a remarkable saddleback with reclining cantle.
It is distant a ride of two hours, and we have now seen it for three marches. A little south of east yawns the gorge-mouth of the Wady Nejd, the upper course of the Aba'l-Gezaz: a jagged black curtain, the Jebel Dausal, forms its southern jaw. Further south the Tihamah Mountains begin with the peaky Jebel el-Kurr, another remarkable block which has long been in sight. Its neighbour is the bluff-headed Jebel el-Wasil of Marwat; whilst the trap-blocks, already mentioned as the Jibal el-?Akabil, finish the circle.
The better to understand the shape of the ruins, we will ascend the irregular block which rises a few furlongs to the north-east of the palm-orchard. It has only three names: ?Araygat Bada (”Veinlet of Bada”); Zeba'yat Bada, ”the Low-lying (Hill) of Bada;” and Shahib el-b.u.m, ”the Ash-coloured (Hill) of the Owl.” I will prefer the latter, as we actually sighted one of those dear birds on its western flank. It is an outcrop of grey granite, pigeon-holed by weather, and veined by a variety of d.y.k.es. Here we find greenstone breccia'd with the blackest hornblende; there huge filons of hard, red, heat-altered clays, faced with iron, whilst the fracture is white as trachyte; and there filets of quartz, traversing large curtains and sheets of light-coloured argils. This was evidently the main quarry: the sides still show signs of made zigzags; and the red blocks and boulders, all round the hill, bear the prayers and pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the Faithful. The characters range between square Kufic, hardly antedating four centuries, and the cursive form of our day. Some are merely sc.r.a.ped; others are deeply and laboriously cut in the hard material, a work more appropriate for the miner than for the pa.s.sing pilgrim.
From the ruined look-out on the summit the shape of the city shows a highly irregular triangle of nine facets, forming an apex at the east end of our ”Owl's Hill:” the rises and falls of the ground have evidently determined the outline. The palm-orchard, whose total circ.u.mference is five hundred and thirty-six metres, occupies a small portion of its south-eastern corner; and our camping-place, further east, was evidently included in the ancient enceinte. The emplacement, extending along the eastern bank of the main watercourse, is marked by a number of mounds scattered over with broken gla.s.s and pottery of all kinds: no coins were found, but rude bits of metal, all verdigris, were picked up north of the palm-orchard. Here, too, lay queer fish-bones, with tusks and teeth, chiefly the jaws of Scaridae and Sparidae (seabreams).[EN#67]
Descending the Shahib el-b.u.m, and pa.s.sing a smaller black and white block appended to its south-south-western side, we now cross to the left bank of the main drain. Here lies the broken tank, the normal construction of El-Islam's flouris.h.i.+ng days. It is a square of thirty-two metres, whose faces and angles do not front the cardinal points. At each corner a flight of steps has been; two have almost disappeared, and the others are very shaky.
The floor, originally stone-paved, is now a sheet of hard silt, growing trees and bush: dense Tanzub-clumps (Sodada decidua), with edible red berries, sheltering a couple of birds'-nests, suggested a comparison between the present and the past. At the east end is the Makhzan el-Mayah, or ”smaller reservoir,” an oblong of 7.80 by 6.60 metres: the waggon-tilt roof has disappeared, and the fissures show brick within the ashlar. Along the eastern side are huge standing slabs of the coa.r.s.e new sandstone with which the tank is lined: these may be remains of a conduit. Around the cistern lies a ruined graveyard, whose yawning graves supplied a couple of skulls. A broken line of masonry, probably an aqueduct, runs south-south-east (143 mag.) towards the palms: after two hundred metres all traces of it are lost.