[p.65] Kora, called Nakeb el Ahmar, from four to five hundred feet higher than the place where we stood, and appearing to overtop all the neighbouring chain. Towards the north, the mountain, about thirty miles distant, seemed to decrease considerably in height; but southward it continues of the same height. After half an hours ride from the summit, we came to a small village called Ras el Kora. Finding myself much fatigued, I insisted upon sleeping here, with which my guide reluctantly complied, as he had received orders to travel expeditiously.
August 28th.—The village and neighbourhood of Ras el Kora is the most beautiful spot in the Hedjaz, and more picturesque and delightful than any place I had seen since my departure from Lebanon, in Syria. The top of Djebel Kora is flat, but large masses of granite lie scattered over it, the surface of which, like that of the granite rocks near the second cataract of the Nile, is blackened by the sun. Several small rivulets descend from this peak, and irrigate the plain, which is covered with verdant fields and large shady trees on the side of the granite rocks. To those who have only known the dreary and scorching sands of the lower country of the Hedjaz, this scene is as surprising as the keen air which blows here is refreshing. Many of the fruit-trees of Europe are found here,—figs, apricots, peaches; apples, the Egyptian sycamore, almonds, pomegranates; but particularly vines, the produce of which is of the best quality. There are no palm-trees here, and only a few nebek-trees. The fields produce wheat, barley, and onions; but the soil being stony, these do not succeed so well as the fruits. Every beled, as they here call the fields, is enclosed by a low wall, and is the property of a Hodheyl Bedouin. When Othman el Medhayfe took Tayf from the Sherif, this place was ruined, the fields were destroyed, and many of the walls had not yet been rebuilt.
After having passed through this delightful district, for about half an hour, just as the sun was rising, when every leaf and blade
[p.66] of grass was covered with a balmy dew, and every tree and shrub diffused a fragrance as delicious to the smell as was the landscape to the eye, I halted near the largest of the rivulets, which, although not more than two paces across, nourishes upon its banks a green Alpine turf, such as the mighty Nile, with all its luxuriance, can never produce in Egypt. Some of the Arabs brought us almonds and raisins, for which we gave them biscuits; but although the grapes were ripe, we could not obtain any, as they are generally purchased while on the vines by the merchants of Tayf, who export them to Mekka, and keep them closely watched by their own people till they are gathered. Here a Turkish soldier, complimented with the title of Aga, was stationed under a tent, to forward the provisions coming from the lower station to Tayf. I observed with some astonishment, that not a single pleasure-house was built on this high platform. Formerly, the Mekka merchants had their country-seats at Tayf, which stand in a situation as desert and melancholy, as this is cheerful and luxuriant; but none of them ever thought of building a cottage here; a new proof of the opinion which I have long entertained, that orientals, especially the Arabs, are much less sensible of the beauties of nature than Europeans. The water of Ras el Kora is celebrated throughout the Hedjaz for its excellence. While Mohammed Ali remained at Mekka and at Djidda, he received a regular supply of Nile water for drinking, sent from Egypt, by every fleet, in large tin vessels; but on passing this place, he found its water deserving of being substituted for the other: a camel comes here daily from Tayf for a load of it.
The houses of the Hodheyl, to whom these plantations belong, are scattered over the fields in clusters of four or five together. They are small, built of stones and mud, but with more care than might be expected from the rude hands of the occupants. Every dwelling comprises three or four rooms, each of which being separated from the others by a narrow open space, forms, as it were,
[p.67] a small detached cottage. These apartments receive no light but from the entrance; they are very neat and clean, and contain Bedouin furniture, some good carpets, woollen and leathern sacks, a few wooden bowls, earthen coffee-pots, and a matchlock, of which great care is taken, it being generally kept in a leathern case. At night I reposed upon a large well-tanned cow-skin: the covering was formed of a number of small sheep-skins neatly sewed together, similar to those used in Nubia. The Hodheyl told me, that before the Wahabys came, and obliged them to pay tribute for their fields, they knew no land-tax, but, on the contrary, received yearly presents from the sherifs, and from all the Mekkawys who passed this way to Tayf. Ras el Kora extends from east to west about two and a half or three miles, and is about a mile in breadth. According to the statements of the Arabs, many spots towards the south, where Bedouin tribes, like the Hodheyl, cultivate the soil in detached parts of the mountain, are equally fertile and beautiful as that which we saw in the chain above mentioned.
We left the Ras, which will be remembered by me as long as I am sensible to the charms of romantic scenery, and rode for about one hour over uneven barren ground, with slight ascents and descents, till we came to a steep declivity, to walk down which occupied us half an hour, and double that time would be necessary for ascending it. The rock is entirely composed of sand-stone. From the summit of the declivity just mentioned, Tayf is seen in the distance. At half an hour from the foot of the mountain, we entered a fertile valley, called Wady Mohram, extending from N.W. to S.E. Like the upper district, it is full of fruit-trees; but the few cultivated fields are watered from wells, and not by running streams. A village, which the Wahabys had almost wholly ruined, stands on the slope, with a small tower constructed by the inhabitants to secure the produce of their fields against the invasion of enemies.
[p.68] Here begins the territory of Tayf, and of the Arab tribe of Thekyf, who, in former times, were often at war with their neighbours the Hodheyl. The Wady is denominated Mohram, from the circumstance, that here the pilgrims and visitors going from the eastward to Mekka, invest themselves with the ihram before noticed. There is a small ruined stone tank close by the road. The caravan of the Yemen pilgrims, called Hadj el Kebsy, whose route lies along these mountains, used always to observe the ceremony here, and the tank was then filled with water for ablution. The husbandmen of Mohram draw the water from their wells in leathern buckets suspended from one end of an iron chain, passed round a pulley, and to the other end they yoke a cow, which, for want of a wheel, walks to a sufficient distance from the well to draw up the bucket, when she is led back to resume the same course. The cows I saw here, like all those of the Hedjaz, are small, but of a stout, bony make: they have generally only short stumps of horns, and a hump on the back, just over the shoulder, about five inches in height and six in length, much resembling in this respect the cows which I saw on the borders of the Nile in Nubia. According to the natives, the whole chain of mountains from hence southward, as far as the country where the coffee-plantations begin, is intersected by similar cultivated valleys at some distance from each other, the intermediate space consisting chiefly of barren rocky soil.
From Wady Mohram we again crossed uneven, mountainous ground, where I found sand-stone and silex. Acacia trees are seen in several sandy valleys, branching out from the road. At two hours and a half from Wady Mohram we ascended, and at the top of the hill saw Tayf lying before us. We reached it in three hours and a half from Wady Mohram, after having crossed the barren sandy plain which separates it from the surrounding hills. The rate of our march from Mekka, when we were quite alone upon our dromedaries, and able to accelerate their pace at pleasure, was not
[p.69] less than three miles, and a quarter per hour. I therefore calculate from Mekka to the foot of Djebel Kora, about thirty-two miles; to its top, ten miles; and from thence to Tayf, thirty miles, making in the whole seventy-two miles. The bearing of the road from Arafat to Tayf is about twelve or fifteen degrees of the compass, to the southward of that from Mekka to Arafat; but having had no compass with me, I cannot give the bearing with perfect accuracy.