[p.418] seen at a distance. The camp is, however, not unfrequently betrayed by the camels which pasture in the vicinity.
In the evening we took our final departure, crossing an uneven plain, covered with flints and the ruins of several villages, and then descended into the Wady Nedjed (Arabic); the rivulet, whose source is in a large paved basin in the valley, joins that of Shobak. Upon the hills which border this pleasant valley are the ruins of a large town of the same name, of which nothing remains but broken walls and heaps of stones. In one hour and a quarter from our encampment, and about as far from Shobak, we reached the camp of another tribe of Fellahein Bedouins, called Refaya (Arabic), where we slept. They are people of good property, for which they are indebted to their courage in opposing the extortions of the Howeytat. Here were about sixty tents and one hundred firelocks. Their herds of cows, sheep, and goats are very numerous, but they have few camels. Besides corn fields they have extensive vineyards, and sell great quantities of dried grapes at Ghaza, and to the Syrian pilgrims of the Hadj. They have the reputation of being very daring thieves.
August 22nd.I was particularly desirous of visiting Wady Mousa, of the antiquities of which I had heard the country people speak in terms of great admiration; and from thence I had hoped to cross the desert in a straight line to Cairo; but my guide was afraid of the hazards of a journey through the desert, and insisted upon my taking the road by Akaba, the ancient Eziongeber, at the extremity of the eastern branch of the Red sea, where he said that we might join some caravans, and continue our route towards Egypt. I wished, on the contrary, to avoid Akaba, as I knew that the Pasha of Egypt kept there a numerous garrison to watch the movements of the Wahabi and of his rival the Pasha of Damascus;
SAOUDYE
[p.419] a person therefore like myself, coming from the latter place, without any papers to shew who I was, or why I had taken that circuitous route, would certainly have roused the suspicions of the officer commanding at Akaba, and the consequences might have been dangerous to me among the savage soldiery of that garrison. The road from Shobak to Akaba, which is tolerably good, and might easily be rendered practicable even to artillery, lies to the E. of Wady Mousa; and to have quitted it, out of mere curiosity to see the Wady, would have looked very suspicious in the eyes of the Arabs; I therefore pretended to have made a vow to slaughter a goat in honour of Haroun (Aaron), whose tomb I knew was situated at the extremity of the valley, and by this stratagem I thought that I should have the means of seeing the valley in my way to the tomb. To this my guide had nothing to oppose; the dread of drawing upon himself, by resistance, the wrath of Haroun, completely silenced him.
We left the Refaya early in the morning, and travelled over hilly ground. At the end of two hours we reached an encampment of Arabs Saoudye (Arabic), who are also Fellahein or cultivators, and the strongest of the peasant tribes, though they pay tribute to the Howeytat. Like the Refaya they dry large quantities of grapes. They lay up the produce of their harvest in a kind of fortress called Oerak (Arabic), not far from their camp, where are a few houses surrounded by a stone wall. They have upwards of one hundred and twenty tents. We breakfasted with the Saoudye, and then pursued the windings of a valley, where I saw many vestiges of former cultivation, and here and there some remains of walls and paved roads, all constructed of flints. The country hereabouts is woody. In three hours and a half we passed a spring, from whence we ascended a mountain, and travelled for some time along its barren summit, in a S.W. direction, when we again descended, and reached Ain
ELDJY
[p.420] Mousa, distant five hours and a half from where we had set out in the morning. Upon the summit of the mountain near the spot where the road to Wady Mousa diverges from the great road to Akaba, are a number of small heaps of stones, indicating so many sacrifices to Haroun. The Arabs who make vows to slaughter a victim to Haroun, think it sufficient to proceed as far as this place, from whence the dome of the tomb is visible in the distance; and after killing the animal they throw a heap of stones over the blood which flows to the ground. Here my guide pressed me to slaughter the goat which I had brought with me from Shobak, for the purpose, but I pretended that I had vowed to immolate it at the tomb itself. Upon a hill over the Ain Mousa the Arabs Lyathene (Arabic) were encamped, who cultivate the valley of Mousa. We repaired to their encampment, but were not so hospitably received as we had been the night before.
Ain Mousa is a copious spring, rushing from under a rock at the eastern extremity of Wady Mousa. There are no ruins near the spring; a little lower down in the valley is a mill, and above it is the village of Badabde (Arabic), now abandoned. It was inhabited till within a few years by about twenty families of Greek Christians, who subsequently retired to Kerek. Proceeding from the spring along the rivulet for about twenty minutes, the valley opens, and leads into a plain about a quarter of an hour in length and ten minutes in breadth, in which the rivulet joins with another descending from the mountain to the southward. Upon the declivity of the mountain, in the angle formed by the junction of the two rivulets, stands Eldjy (Arabic), the principal village of Wady Mousa. This place contains between two and three hundred houses, and is enclosed by a stone wall with three regular gates. It is most picturesquely situated, and is inhabited by the