Travels in Syria and the Holy Land

by John Lewis Burckhardt

I was naturally asked for what object I had come to these mountains. As the passage of Greeks on their way to visit the convent of Sinai is frequent, I might have answered that I was a Greek; but I thought it better to adhere to what I had already told my guides, that I had left Cairo, in order not to expose myself to the plague, that I wished to pass my time among the Bedouins while the disease prevailed, and that I intended to visit the convent. Other Moslems would have considered it impious to fly from the infection; but I knew that all these Bedouins entertain as great a dread of the plague as Europeans themselves. During the spring, when the disease usually prevails in Egypt, no prospect of gain can induce them to expose themselves to infection, by a journey to the banks of the Nile; the Bedouins with whom I left Cairo were the last who had remained there. Had the Pasha granted me a Firmahn to the great Sheikh of the Towara Arabs, I should have gone directly to his tent, and in virtue of it I should have taken guides to conduct me to Akaba; but being without the Firmahn, I thought it more prudent to visit the convent in the first instance, and to depart from thence for Akaba, in order to take advantage of such influence as the Prior might possess over the Bedouins, for though they pay little respect to the priests, yet they have some fear of being excluded from the gains accruing from the transport of visitors to the convent. As every white-skinned person, who makes his appearance in the desert, is supposed by the Arabs to be attached to the Turkish army, or the government of Cairo, my

[p.486] going to Akaba without any recommendations would have given rise to much suspicion, and I should probably have been supposed to be a deserter from the Turkish army, attempting to escape by that circuitous route to Syria; a practice which is sometimes resorted to by the soldiers, to whom, without the Pashas passport, Egypt is closed both by sea and land.

In the Wady Osh there is a well of sweet water. From hence upwards, and throughout the primitive chain of Mount Sinai, the water is generally excellent, while in the lower chalky mountains all round the peninsula, it is brackish, or bitter, except in one or two places. The Wady Osh and Wady Berah empty their waters in the rainy season into Wady el Sheikh, above Feiran.

April 30th.We did not leave our kind hosts till the afternoon, for they insisted on my taking a dinner before I set out. I gave to their children, who accompanied me a little way, some coffee beans to carry to their mothers, and some Kammereddein, a sweetmeat made at Damascus from apricots, of which I had laid in a large stock, and which is very acceptable to all the Bedouins of Syria, Egypt, and the Hedjaz. The offer of any reward to a Bedouin host is generally offensive to his pride; but some little presents may be given to the women and children. Trinkets and similar articles are little esteemed by the Bedouins; but coffee is in great request all over the desert; and sweetmeats and sugar are preferred to money, which, though it will sometimes be accepted, always creates a sense of humiliation, and consequently of dislike towards the giver. For my own part, being convinced that the hospitality of the Bedouin is afforded with disinterested cordiality, I was in general averse to making the slightest return. Few travellers perhaps will agree with me on this head; but will treat the Bedouins in the same manner as the Turks, and other inhabitants of the towns, who never proffer their services or

WADY EL SHEIKH

[p.487] hospitality without expecting a reward; the feelings of Bedouins, however, are very different from those of townsmen, and a Bedouin will praise the guest who departs from him without making any other remuneration than that of bestowing a blessing upon them and their encampment, much more than him who thinks to redeem all obligations by payment.

We returned from Wady Osh towards Wady Berah; but leaving the latter, which here takes a direction towards Wady Feiran, we ascended by a narrow valley called Wady Akhdhar [Arabic]. Here I again saw some inscriptions on blocks of stone lying by the road side. A few hours to the N.E. of Wady Osh is a mountain called Sheyger, where native cinnabar is collected; it is called Rasokht [Arabic] by the Arabs, and is usually found in small pieces about the size of a pigeons egg. It is very seldom crystallized; but there are sometimes nodules on the surface; it stains the fingers of a dark colour, and its fracture is in perpendicular fibres. I did not hear that the Arabs traded at all in this metal. In Wady Osh are rocks of gneiss mixed with granite. Gneiss is found in many parts of the peninsula.

After one hour we came to a steep ascent, and descent, called El Szaleib [Arabic], which occupied two hours. We then continued our descent into the great valley called Wady el Sheikh [Arabic], one of the principal valleys of the peninsula. The rocks of Szaleib consist throughout of granite, on the upper strata of which run layers of red feldspath, some of which has fallen down and covers the valley in broken fragments. The Wady el Sheikh is broad, and has a very slight acclivity; it is much frequented by Bedouins for its pasturage. Whenever rain falls in the mountains, a stream of water flows through this Wady, and from thence through Wady Feiran, into the sea. We rode in a S.E. direction along the Wady el Sheikh for two hours, and then halted in it for the

[p.488] night, after an afternoons march of four hours. Several Arabs of the encampment where we slept the preceding night had joined our party, to go to the convent, for no other reason, I believe, than to get a good dinner and supper on the road. This evening eight persons kneeled down round a dish of rice, cooked with milk which I had brought from Wady Osh, and the coffee-pot being kept on the fire, we sat in conversation till near midnight.

May 1st.We continued in a S.E. direction, ascending slightly: the valley then becomes narrower. At two hours we came to a thick wood of tamarisk or Tarfa, and found many camels feeding upon their thorny shoots. It is from this evergreen tamarisk, which grows abundantly in no other part of the peninsula, that the manna is collected. We now approached the central summits of Mount Sinai, which we had had in view for several days. Abrupt cliffs of granite from six to eight hundred feet in height, whose surface is blackened by the sun, surround the avenues leading to the elevated platform, to which the name of Sinai is specifically applied. These cliffs enclose the holy mountain on three sides, leaving the E. and N.E. sides only, towards the gulf of Akaba, more open to the view. On both sides of the wood of Tarfa trees extends a range of low hills of a substance called by the Arabs Tafal [Arabic], which I believe to be principally a detritus of the feldspar of granite, but which, at first sight, has all the appearance of pipe-clay; it is brittle, crumbles easily between the fingers, and leaves upon them its colour, which is a pale yellow. The Arabs sell it at Cairo, where it is in request for taking stains out of cloth, and where it serves the poor instead of soap, for washing their hands; but it is chiefly used to rub the skins of asses during summer, being supposed to refresh them, and to defend them against the heat of the sun.