I returned from Eldjy to the encampment above Ain Mousa, which is considerably higher than the town, and set out from thence immediately, for I very much disliked the people, who are less civil to strangers than any other Arabs in Shera. We travelled in a southern direction along the windings of a broad valley which ascends from Ain Mousa, and reached its summit at the end of two hours and a quarter. The soil, though flinty, is very capable of cultivation.
This valley is comprised within the appellation of Wady Mousa, because the rain water which collects here joins, in the winter, the torrent below Eldjy. The water was anciently conducted through this valley in an artificial channel, of which the
AIN MEFRAK
[p.434] stone walls remain in several places. At the extremity of the Wady are the ruins of an ancient city, called Betahy (Arabic), consisting of large heaps of hewn blocks of silicious stone; the trees on this mountain are thinly scattered. At a quarter of an hour from Betahy we reached an encampment, composed of Lyathene and Naymat, where we alighted, and rested for the night.
August 24th.Our road lay S.S.W.; in one hour we came to Ain Mefrak (Arabic), where are some ruins. From thence we ascended a mountain, and continued along the upper ridge of Djebel Shera. To our right was a tremendous precipice, on the other side of which runs the chain of sand- rocks which begin near Wady Mousa. To the west of these rocks we saw the great valley forming the continuation of the Ghor. At the end of three hours, after having turned a little more southward, we arrived at a small encampment of Djaylat (Arabic) where we stopped to breakfast. The Bedouin tents which composed a great part of this encampment were the smallest I had ever seen; they were about four feet high, and ten in length. The inhabitants were very poor, and could not afford to give us coffee; our breakfast or dinner therefore consisted of dry barley cakes, which we dipped in melted goats grease. The intelligence which I learnt here was extremely agreeable; our landlord told us that a caravan was to set out in a few days for Cairo, from a neighbouring encampment of Howeytat, and that they intended to proceed straight across the desert. This was exactly what I wished, for I could not divest myself of apprehensions of danger in being exposed to the undisciplined soldiers of Akaba. It had been our intention to reach Akaba from hence in two days, by way of the mountainous district of Reszeyfa (a part of Shera so called) and Djebel Hesma; but we now gladly changed our route, and departed for the encampment of the Howeytat. We turned to the S.E. and in half an
EL SZADEKE
[p.435] hour from the Djeylat passed the fine spring called El Szadeke (Arabic), near which is a hill with extensive ruins of an ancient town consisting of heaps of hewn stones. From thence we descended by a slight declivity into the eastern plain, and reached the encampment, distant one hour and a half from Szadeke. The same immense plain which we had entered in coming from Beszeyra, on the eastern borders of the Ghoeyr, here presented itself to our view. We were about six hours S. of Maan, whose two hills, upon which the two divisions of the town are situated, were distinctly visible. The Syrian Hadj route passes at about one hour to the east of the encampment. About eight hours S. of Maan, a branch of the Shera extends for three or four hours in an eastern direction across the plain; it is a low hilly chain.
The mountains of Shera are considerably elevated above the level of the Ghor, but they appear only as low hills, when seen from the eastern plain, which is upon a much higher level than the Ghor. I have already noticed the same peculiarity with regard to the upper plains of El Kerek and the Belka: and it is observable also in the plain of Djolan relatively to the level of the lake of Tiberias. The valley of the Ghor, which has a rapid slope southward, from the lake of Tiberias to the Dead sea, appears to continue descending from the southern extremity of the latter as far as the Red sea, for the mountains on the E. of it appear to increase in height the farther we proceed southward, while the upper plain, apparently continues upon the same level. This plain terminates to the S. near Akaba, on the Syrian Hadj route, by a steep rocky descent, at the bottom of which begins the desert of Nedjed, covered, for the greater part, with flints. The same descent, or cliff, continues westward towards Akaba on the Egyptian Hadj road, where it joins the Djebel Hesma (a prolongation of Shera),
MAAN
[p.436] about eight hours to the N. of the Red sea. We have thus a natural division of the country, which appears to have been well known to the ancients, for it is probably to a part of this upper plain, together with the mountains of Shera, Djebal, Kerek, and Belka, that the name of Arabia Petræa was applied, the western limits of which must have been the great valley or Ghor. It might with truth be called Petræa, not only on account of its rocky mountains, but also of the elevated plain already described, which is so much covered with stones, especially flints, that it may with great propriety be called a stony desert, although susceptible of culture: in many places it is overgrown with wild herbs, and must once have been thickly inhabited, for the traces of many ruined towns and villages are met with on both sides of the Hadj road between Maan and Akaba, as well as between Maan and the plains of Haouran, in which direction are also many springs. At present all this country is a desert, and Maan (Arabic) is the only inhabited place in it. All the castles on the Syrian Hadj route from Fedhein to Medina are deserted. At Maan are several springs, to which the town owes its origin, and these, together with the circumstance of its being a station of the Syrian Hadj, are the cause of its still existing. The inhabitants have scarcely any other means of subsistence than the profits which they gain from the pilgrims in their way to and from Mekka, by buying up all kinds of provisions at Hebron and Ghaza, and selling them with great profit to the weary pilgrims; to whom the gardens and vineyards of Maan are no less agreeable, than the wild herbs collected by the people of Maan are to their camels. The pomgranates, apricots, and peaches of Maan are of the finest quality. In years when a very numerous caravan passes, pomgranates are sold at one piastre each, and every thing in the same proportion. During