Travels in Syria and the Holy Land

by John Lewis Burckhardt

[p.440] hills of Djebel Shera. After two hours march we began to descend, in following the course of a Wady. At the end of four hours is a spring called Ibn Reszeysz (Arabic). The highest point of Djebel Hesma, in the direction of Akaba, bears from hence S.W. Hesma is higher than any part of Shera. In five hours we reached Ain Daleghe (Arabic), a spring in a fertile valley, where the Howeytat have built a few huts, and cultivate some Dhourra fields. We continued descending Wady Daleghe, which in winter is an impetuous torrent. The mountains are quite barren here; calcareous rock predominates, with some flint. At the end of seven hours we left the Wady, which takes a more northern direction, and ascended a steep mountain. At eight hours and a half we alighted on the declivity of the mountain, which is called Djebel Koula (Arabic), and which appears to be the highest summit of Djebel Shera. Our road was tolerably good all the way.

August 27th.After one hours march we reached the summit of Djebel Koula, which is covered with a chalky surface. The descent on the other side is very wild, the road lying along the edges of almost perpendicular precipices amidst large blocks of detached rocks, down a mountain entirely destitute of vegetation, and composed of calcareous rocks, sand-stone, and flint, lying over each other in horizontal layers. At the end of three hours we came to a number of tombs on the road side, where the Howeytat and other Bedouins who encamp in these mountains bury their dead. In three hours and a half we reached the bottom of the mountain, and entered the bed of a winter torrent, which like Wady Mousa has worked its passage through the chain of sand-stone rocks that form a continuation of the Syk. These rocks extend southwards as far as Djebel Hesma. The narrow bed is enclosed by perpendicular cliffs, which, at the entrance of the Wady, are about fifteen or twenty yards distant from each other, but wider lower down.

WADY GHARENDEL

[p.441] We continued in a western direction for an hour and a half, in this Wady, which is called Gharendel (Arabic). At five hours the valley opens, and we found ourselves upon a sandy plain, interspersed with rocks; the bed of the Wady was covered with white sand. A few trees of the species called by the Arabs Talh, Tarfa, and Adha (Arabic), grow in the midst of the sand, but their withered leaves cannot divert the travellers eye from the dreary scene around him. At six hours the valley again becomes narrower; here are some more tombs of Bedouins on the side of the road. At the end of six hours and a half we came to the mouth of the Wady, where it joins the great lower valley, issuing from the mountainous country into the plain by a narrow passage, formed by the approaching rocks. These rocks are of sand-stone and contain many natural caverns. A few hundred paces above the issue of the Wady are several springs, called Ayoun Gharendel, surrounded by a few date trees, and some verdant pasture ground. The water has a sulphureous taste, but these being the only springs on the borders of the great valley within one days journey to the N. and S. the Bedouins are obliged to resort to them. The wells are full of leeches, some of which fixed themselves to the palates of several of our camels whilst drinking, and it was with difficulty that we could remove them. The name of Arindela, an ancient town of Palæstina Tertia, bears great resemblance to that of Gharendel.

On issuing from this rocky country, which terminates the Djebel Shera, on its western side, the Wady Gharendel empties itself into the valley El Araba, in whose sands its waters are lost. This valley is a continuation of the Ghor, which may be said to extend from the Red sea to the sources of the Jordan. The valley of that river widens about Jericho, and its inclosing hills are united to a chain of mountains which open and enclose the Dead sea. At the southern

WADY EL ARABA

[p.442] extremity of the sea they again approach, and leave between them a valley similar to the northern Ghor, in shape; but which the want of water makes a desert, while the Jordan and its numerous tributary streams render the other a fertile plain. In the southern Ghor the rivulets which descend from the eastern mountains, to the S. of Wady Szafye, or El Karahy, are lost amidst the gravel in their winter beds, before they reach the valley below, and there are no springs whatever in the western mountain; the lower plain, therefore, in summer is entirely without water, which alone can produce verdure in the Arabian deserts, and render them habitable. The general direction of the southern Ghor is parallel to the road which I took in coming from Khanzyre to Wady Mousa. At the point where we crossed it, near Gharendel, its direction was from N.N.E. to S.S.W. From Gharendel it extends southwards for fifteen or twenty hours, till it joins the sandy plain which separates the mountains of Hesma from the eastern branch of the Red sea. It continues to bear the appellation of El Ghor as far as the latitude of Beszeyra, to the S. of which place, as the Arabs informed me, it is interrupted for a short space by rocky ground and Wadys, and takes the name of Araba (Arabic), which it retains till its termination near the Red sea. Near Gharendel, where I saw it, the whole plain presented to the view an expanse of shifting sands whose surface was broken by innumerable undulations, and low hills. The sand appears to have been brought from the shores of the Red sea by the southerly winds; and the Arabs told me that the valley continued to present the same appearance beyond the latitude of Wady Mousa. A few Talh trees (Arabic) (the acacia which produces the gum arable), Tarfa (Arabic) (tamarisk), Adha (Arabic), and Rethem (Arabic), grow among the sand hills; but the depth of sand precludes all vegetation of herbage. Numerous Bedouin tribes encamp here in the winter, when the torrents produce a copious supply of water, and a few

[p.443] shrubs spring up upon their banks, affording pasturage to the sheep and goats; but the camels prefer the leaves of the trees, especially the thorny Talh.

The existence of the valley El Araba, the Kadesh Barnea, perhaps, of the Scriptures, appears to have been unknown both to ancient and modern geographers, although it forms a prominent feature in the topography of Syria and Arabia Petræa. It deserves to be thoroughly investigated, and travellers might proceed along it in winter time, accompanied by two or three Bedouin guides of the tribes of Howeytat and Terabein, who could be procured at Hebron. Akaba, or Eziongeber, might be reached in eight days by the same road by which the communication was anciently kept up between Jerusalem and her dependencies on the Red sea, for this is both the nearest and the most commodious route, and it was by this valley that the treasures of Ophir were probably transported to the warehouses of Solomon.

Of the towns which I find laid down in DAnvilles maps, between Zoara and Aelana, no traces remain, Thoana excepted, which is the present Dhana. The name of Zoar is unknown to the Arabs, but the village of Szafye is near that point; the river which is made by DAnville to fall into the Dead sea near Zoara, is the Wady El Ahhsa; but it will have been seen in the above pages, [t]hat the course of that Wady is rather from the east than south. I enquired in vain among the Arabs for the names of those places where the Israelites had sojourned during their progress through the desert; none of them are known to the present inhabitants. The country, about Akaba, and to the W.N.W. of it, might, perhaps, furnish some data for the illustration of the Jewish history. I understand that M. Seetzen went in a straight line from Hebron to Akaba, across the desert El Ty; he may perhaps, have collected some interesting information on the subject.