[p.495] S.W. by W. We now descended into a valley of deep sand covered with blocks of chalk rock. At one hour and three quarters the valley is contracted into a narrow pass, between low hills of sand-stone, bearing traces of very violent torrents. At the end of two hours, route east by north, we quitted the valley, and crossed a rough rocky plain, intersected on every side by beds of torrents; and at two hours and three quarters halted near a rock. One of the guides went with the camels up a side valley, to bring water from the well Hadhra [Arabic], (perhaps the Hazeroth [Hebrew] mentioned in Numbers xxxiii. 17), distant about two miles from the halting place. Near the well are said to be some date trees, and the remains of walls which formerly enclosed a few plantations.

We here met some Towara Bedouins on their way to Cairo with charcoal. After employing a considerable time in collecting the wood and burning it into coal they carry it to Cairo, a journey at least of ten days, and there sell it for three or four dollars per load: so cheap do they hold their labour, and so limited are their means of subsistence. In return, they bring home corn and clothes to their women and children.

We started again as soon as the camels returned from the well, but should probably have gone astray had not the Bedouins above mentioned pointed out the road we ought to take; for Szaleh, the uncle of Hamd, although he pretended to be quite at home in this district, gave evident proofs of being but very slightly acquainted with it. We made many windings between sand-stone rocks, which presented their smooth perpendicular sides to the road; some of them are of a red, others of a white colour; the ground was deeply covered with sand. The traces of torrents were observable on the rocks as high as three and four feet above the

BOSZEYRA

[p.496] present level of the plain. Our main direction was E.N.E. At four hours and three quarters from the time we set out in the morning, we entered Wady Rahab [Arabic], a fine valley with many Syale trees, where the sands terminate. Route E. At five hours and a half we entered another valley, broader than the former, where I again found an alternation of sand-stone and granite. The barrenness of this district was greater than I had yet witnessed in my travels, excepting perhaps some parts of the desert El Tyh; the Nubian valleys might be called pleasure grounds in comparison. Not the smallest green leaf could be discovered; and the thorny mimosa, which retains its verdure in the tropical deserts of Nubia, with very little supply of moisture, was here entirely withered, and so dry that it caught fire from the lighted cinders which fell from our pipes as we passed. We continued to descend by a gentle slope, and at six hours and a half entered Wady Samghy [Arabic], coming from the south, in which we descended N.E. At the end of eight hours and a half we left this valley and turned E. into a side one, called Boszeyra [Arabic]; where we halted for the night, at eight hours and three quarters.

We had met in Wady Samghy two old Bedouins of the Mezeine tribe, who belong to the Towara nation: they were fishermen, on their way to the sea to exercise their profession. One of them carried in a small sack a measure of meal which was to serve for their food on shore, the other had a skin of water upon his shoulder; they were both half naked, and both approaching to seventy years of age. One of them was deaf, but so intelligent that it was easy to talk with him by signs; he had established a vocabulary of gestures with his companion, who had been his fishing partner for ten years, and who was one of the shrewdest and hardiest Bedouins I had ever seen; in his younger days he had been a noted robber,

[p.497] and in attempting to carry off the baggage of a French officer in the Sherkyeh province in Egypt, he was seized, laid under the stick, and so severely beaten, that his back had from that time become bent; but notwithstanding this misfortune and his age, he had lost none of his spirits, and his robust constitution still enabled him to cross these mountains on foot, and to exert his activity whenever it was required. These two men partook this evening of my supper; they of course asked me where I was going, and shook their heads when I told them I was bound for Akaba. None of my guides knew what business I had there, but they supposed that I had some verbal message to deliver to the Turkish Aga, who was at the head of the garrison. Ayd es Szaheny [Arabic], the old robber, soon found out that my guide Szaleh knew little of the road, and still less of the Arab tribes before us. He plainly told him that he would not be able to ensure either my safety or his own, in passing through their districts, and reproached him for having deluded me with false assurances. There appeared to be so much good faith and sense in all the old man said, and I found him so well informed respecting the country, that I soon determined to engage him to join us; but as we were to descend the next morning by the same road to the sea-shore, I deferred making him any overtures till we should arrive there.

The Wady Boszeyra is enclosed by gray granite rocks, out of which the Towara Arabs sometimes hew stones for hand mills, which they dispose of to the northern Arabs, and transport for sale as far as Khalyl. It is very seldom that any Arabs pasture in the district we had traversed, from Wady Sal. The Towara find better pasturage in the southern and south-western parts of the peninsula, and as its whole population is very small, the more barren parts of it are abandoned, and especially this side, where very few wells are found.

WASTA

[p.498] May 7th.From Boszeyra we crossed a short ridge of mountains, and then entered a narrow valley, the bed of a torrent, called Saada [Arabic], in the windings of which we descended by a steeper slope than any of the former; our main direction E. The mountains on both sides were of moderate height and with gentle slopes, till after an hour and a half, when we reached a chain of high and perpendicular grünstein rocks, which hemmed in the valley so closely as to leave in several places a passage of only ten feet across. After proceeding for a mile in this very striking and majestic defile, I caught the first glimpse of the gulf of Akaba; the valley then widens and descends to the sea, and after two hours and a quarter we alighted upon the sandy beach, which is here several hundred paces in breadth; the grünstein and granite rocks reach all the way down; but at the very foot of the mountain a thin layer of chalk appeared just above the surface of the ground. The valley opens directly upon the sea, into which it empties its torrent when heavy rains fall. Some groves of date-trees stand close by the shore, among which is a well of brackish but drinkable water; the place is called El Noweyba [Arabic]. We now followed the coast in a direction N.N.E. and at the end of three hours and a quarter halted at a grove of date-trees, intermixed with a few tamarisks, called Wasta [Arabic], close by the sea. Here is a small spring at a distance of fifty yards from the sea, and not more than eight feet above the level of the water; it was choked with sand, which we removed, and on digging a hole about three feet deep and one foot in diameter, it filled in half an hour with very tolerable water. The shore is covered with weeds brought hither by the tide[.]