April 22nd. The torrent had decreased, and we crossed it in the afternoon. We rode for an hour in a narrow valley, following the torrent upwards. At the end of an hour and half we left the torrent: the plain opened to the east, and is here called Esselsele; our road over it was in the direction W.S.W. The rocks spread over the plain were calcareous. At the end of three hours and a half we again entered the mountain, and continued in its vallies, slowly descending, for the whole night. At the break of day we passed the plain called El Fereysh, where I had encamped the day before I reached Medina; and alighted, after a march of twelve hours and a half, in the upper part of Wady es Shohada. [The distances of this journey do not exactly agree with those given in coming to Medina; but I prefer stating them as I found them noted down in my journal.]
April 23rd. We had no sooner deposited our baggage than a
[p.403] heavy rain set in, accompanied with tremendous peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. The whole Wady was flooded in a moment, and we expected that it would be necessary to pass the whole day here. I found shelter in the tent of the merchant of Maskat. In the afternoon the storm ceased. At two P.M. we started, and at the end of an hour passed the tombs of the Martyrs or Shohada, the followers of Mohammed, forty of whom, it was said, lie buried there. We continued slowly descending in the Wady, mostly in the direction S.S.W. At the top of Wady Shohada, the granite rocks begin, the upper ranges of that chain being calcareous. At the end of five hours we issued from the Wady. In the night we passed the plains of Shab el Hal and Nazye; and, after a march of thirteen hours and a half, encamped in the mountains, in the wide valley called Wady Medyk, which lies in the road from Nazye to Djedeyde, two hours distant from the former, and which we had passed at night in my former journey. I heard that in these mountains between Medina and the sea, all the way northward, mountain-goats are met with, and that leopards are not uncommon.
April 24th. A few Arabs of Beni Salem here sow some fields with durra, which they irrigate by means of a fine spring of running water issuing from a cleft in the mountains, where it forms several small basins and pretty cascades—the best water I had drank since leaving the mountains of Tayf. We started from hence in the afternoon, and encountered more heavy rain from mid-day to sun-set. In the caravan were several sick and convalescents, especially women, who were all complaining. I had had a strong attack of fever during the night, which returned to-day, and lasted till I reached Yembo. It was particularly distressing to me, being accompanied by profuse perspiration during the night, followed by shivering fits towards day-break; and as the caravan could not halt on my account, I had no opportunity to change my linen. We were, moreover, obliged to encamp upon wet ground; and as the number of camel-drivers was very small, considering the quantity of baggage, I could not avoid assisting to load, my own Bedouin being one of the most ill-natured and lazy fellows I ever met with among people of his nation.
[p.404] We rode in the winding valley for two hours and a half, to El Kheyf, the beginning of Wady Djedeyde, where the chief of the Turkish post stationed there inquired for news from head-quarters: he had been a whole fortnight without hearing what was done at Medina. During the whole Turkish campaign in the Hedjaz, no regular couriers had been any where established. Tousoun Pasha was often left for months at Medina, ignorant of the state of the army under his father; and even the latter usually received his intelligence from Mekka and Djidda by ordinary conveyances of caravans; expresses were seldom despatched, and still less any regular communication established over land between Cairo and Mekka. Not merely in this respect, but in many other details of warfare, the best Turkish commanders show an incredible want of activity or foresight, which causes the surprise even of Bedouins, and must expose their operations to certain failure whenever they encounter a more vigilant enemy with no disparity of force.
The camp of the soldiers at Kheyf was completely inundated, and the whole breadth of the wady covered with a rapid stream of water. Without stopping any where we passed Djedeyde at the end of three hours and a half, and further on Dar el Hamra, where the inhabitants had cultivated several new plantations, since I passed this way in January. The copious rains were a sure prognostic of a plentiful year, and the ever-recurring questions put to our guides by the people they passed on the road were, whether such and such a spot in the upper country was well drenched with rain. In seven hours we came to Szafra. The party from Mekka that was with us, separated here, having hired their camels only thus far, from whence they intended to take others for the journey to Mekka; and those which had carried them thus far, followed our party to Yembo. All those camels which are engaged in the transport and carriage between the coast and Medina, belong to the Beni Harb tribe.
We remained a few minutes only, about midnight, at Szafra, to drink some coffee in one of the shops, and then continued our road to the westward of the route by which I reached Szafra in coming from Mekka. Thick date- plantations form an uninterrupted line on both
[p.405] sides of the narrow valley in which we slowly descended. After nine hours and a half we passed a village called El Waset, built among the date-groves, and having extensive gardens of fruit-trees in its vicinity. At every step water is found in wells or fountains. A little beyond this village we left the valley to the right, and took our way up a steep mountain, this being a nearer road than that through the valley. The route over the mountain was rocky and steep; our guides obliged us to walk, and it was with difficulty that I mustered strength sufficient to reach the summit; from thence we descended by a less rough declivity, and, after twelve hours march, again fell into the road in the valley, near a small village called Djedyd. The mountain we had crossed has the name of Thenyet Waset. The valley we had left to our right takes a western circuitous tour, and includes several other villages, of which I heard the following mentioned: Hosseynye, (nearest to Waset); then, lower down, Fara and Barake, in the vicinity of Djedyd. Below Waset the the valley is considered as belonging to Wady Beder, and above it to Szafra. Djedyd has very few date-trees and fields; it stands upon a plain, through which the torrent passes, after having irrigated the upper plantations of the wady. We continued on this plain for one hour, direction S. 50 W. After a thirteen hours march we entered a chain of mountains, extending westward, the same which I have mentioned in my journey to Medina, as branching out westward from the great chain near Bir-es-Sheikh. Our road lay in a broad sandy valley, with little windings, which brought us, after a very fatiguing march of fourteen hours and a half, to Beder.
April 25th. Beder, or as it is also called, Beder Honeyn, is a small town, the houses of which are built either of stone or mud, and of better appearance, although less numerous, than those of Szafra. It is surrounded by a miserable mud wall, ruined in many places. A copious rivulet flows through the town, which rises in the ridge of mountains we had just passed, and is conducted in a stone channel: it waters extensive date-groves, with gardens and fields on the south-west side of the place; and, although at a distance from its source,
[p.406] is still somewhat tepid. El Assamy, the historian of Mekka, says that El Ghoury, Sultan of Egypt, built a fine reservoir at Beder, for the Hadj; but I did not see it, and am ignorant whether it be yet in existence.