“Yes, I know Moses. Where did he cross?”
“Well,” closing his eye very tight, “him long time ago, not now. He cross way down there, can't see him from here.”
On the way we passed the white tents of the Quarantine Station, on our right by the shore, where the caravan of Mecca pilgrims had been detained. We hoped to see it: but it had just set out on its desert march further inland. It was seen from Suez all day, straggling along in detachments, and at night camped about two miles north of the town. However, we found a dozen or two of the pilgrims, dirty, ragged, burned by the sun, and hungry, lying outside the enclosure at the wells.
The Wells of Moses (or Ain Moosa, “Moses' Well,” in the Arabic) are distant a mile or more from the low shore, and our first warning of nearness to them was the appearance of some palms in a sandy depression. The attempt at vegetation is rather sickly, and the spot is but a desolate one. It is the beginning of the route to Mount Sinai, however, and is no doubt a very welcome sight to returning pilgrims. Contrast is everything; it is contrast with its surroundings that has given Damascus its renown.
There are half a dozen of these wells, three of which are some fifteen to twenty feet across, and are in size and appearance very respectable frog-ponds. One of them is walled with masonry, evidently ancient, and two shadoofs draw water from it for the garden, an enclosure of an acre, fenced with palm-matting. It contains some palms and shrubs and a few vegetables. Here also is a half-deserted house, that may once have been a hotel and is now a miserable trattoria without beds. It is in charge of an Arab who lives in a hut at the other side of the garden, with his wife and a person who bore the unmistakable signs of being a mother-in-law. The Arab made coffee for us, and furnished us a table, on which we spread our luncheon under the verandah. He also gave us Nile-water which had been brought from Suez in a cask on camel-back; and his whole charge was only one bob (a shilling) each. I mention the charge, because it is disenchanting in a spot of so much romance to pay for your entertainment in “bobs.”
We had come, upon what I may truly call a sentimental pilgrimage, on account of Moses and the Children of Israel. If they crossed over from Mount Attâka yonder, then this might be the very spot where Miriam sang the song of triumph. If they crossed at Chaloof, twenty miles above, as it is more probable they did, then this might be the Marah whose bitter waters Moses sweetened for the time being; the Arabs have a tradition that Moses brought up water here by striking the ground with his stick. At all events, the name of Moses is forever attached to this oasis, and it did not seem exactly right that the best well should be owned by an Arab who makes it the means of accumulating bobs. One room of the house was occupied by three Jews, traders, who establish themselves here a part of the year in order to buy, from the Bedaween, turquoise and antiquities which are found at Mount Sinai. I saw them sorting over a peck of rough and inferior turquoise, which would speedily be forwarded to Constantinople, Paris, and London. One of them sold me a small intaglio, which was no doubt of old Greek workmanship, and which he swore was picked up at Mount Sinai. There is nothing I long more to know, sometimes, than the history of wandering coins and intaglios which we see in the Orient.
It is not easy to reckon the value of a tradition, nor of a traditional spot like this in which all the world feels a certain proprietorship. It seemed to us, however, that it would be worth while to own this famous Asiatic well; and we asked the owner what he would take for it. He offered to sell the ranche for one hundred and fifty guineas; this, however, would not include the camel,—for that he wanted ten pounds in addition; but it did include a young gazelle, two goats, a brownish-yellow dog, and a cat the color of the sand. And it also comprised, in the plantation, a few palms, some junipers, of the Biblical sort, the acacia or “shittah” tree of the Bible, and, best of all, the large shrub called the tamarisk, which exudes during two months in the year a sweet gummy substance that was the “manna” of the Israelites.
Mother-in-law wore a veil, a string of silver-gilt imitation coins, several large silver bracelets, and a necklace upon which was sewed a string of small Arabic gold coins. As this person more than anyone else there represented Miriam,—not being too young,—we persuaded her to sell us some of the coins as mementoes of our visit. We could not determine, as I said, whether this spot is associated with Miriam or whether it is the Marah of bitter waters; consequently it was difficult to say what our emotions should be. However, we decided to let them be expressed by the inscription that a Frenchman had written on a wall of the house, which reads:—Le cour me palpitait comme un amant qui revoit sa bien aimée.
There are three other wells enclosed, but unwalled, the largest of which—and it has near it a sort of loggia or open shed where some dirty pilgrims were reposing—is an unsightly pond full of a green growth of algæ. In this enclosure, which contains two or three acres, are three smaller wells, or natural springs, as they all are, and a considerable thicket of palms and tamarisks. The larger well is the stronger in taste and most bitter, containing more magnesia. The water in all is flat and unpleasant, and not enlivened by carbonic acid gas, although we saw bubbles coming to the surface constantly. If the spring we first visited could be aerated, it would not be worse to drink than many waters that are sought after. The donkeys liked it; but a donkey likes any thing. About these feeble plantations the sand drifts from all directions, and it would soon cover them but for the protecting fence. The way towards Sinai winds through shifting sand-mounds, and is not inviting.
The desert over which we return is dotted frequently with tufts of a flat-leafed, pale-green plant, which seem to thrive without moisture; and in the distance this vegetation presents an appearance of large shrub growth, greatly relieving the barrenness of the sand-plain. We had some fine effects of mirage, blue lakes and hazy banks, as of streams afar off. When we reached an elevation that commanded a view of the indistinct Sinai range, we asked the guide to point out to us the “rosy peaks of Mount Sinai” which Murray sees from Suez when he is there. The guide refused to believe that you can see a rosy peak one hundred and twenty miles through the air, and confirmed the assertion of the inhabitants of Suez that Mount Sinai cannot be seen from there.