OM HAYE
[p.503] whose straight and regular ridge runs quite across the peninsula, and is easily distinguished from the surrounding mountains. We halted at the end of five hours in a rocky valley at the foot of Ras Om Haye, where acacia trees and some grass grow. Ayd assured us that in the mountain, at some distance, was a reservoir of rain water, called Om Hadjydjein [Arabic], but he could not answer for its containing water at this time. He described to Hamd its situation, and the way to it, with a view of persuading him to go and fetch some water for us; but his description was so confused, and I thought contradictory in several circumstances, and withal so pompous, that I concluded it to be all a story, and told him he was a babbler. A babbler! he exclaimed; min Allah, no body in my whole life ever called me thus before. A babbler! I shall presently shew you, which of us two deserves that name. He then seized one of the large water skins, and barefooted as he was, began ascending the mountain, which was covered with loose and sharp stones. We soon lost sight of him, but saw him again, farther on, climbing up an almost perpendicular path. An hour and a half after, he returned by the same path, carrying on his bent back the skin full of water, which could not weigh less than one hundred pounds, and putting it down before us said, There! take it from the babbler! I was so overcome with shame, that I knew not how to apologize for my inconsiderate language; but when he saw that I really felt myself in the wrong, he was easily pacified, and said nothing more about it till night, when seeing me take a hearty draught of the water, and hearing me praise its sweetness, compared with the brackish water of the coast, he stopped me, and said, Young man, for the future never call an old Bedouin a babbler.
On the opposite side of the gulf the mountains recede somewhat from the shore, leaving at their feet a sloping plain. A place on
[p.504] the coast, called Hagol [Arabic], bore from hence E. b. S; it is a fruitful valley by the water side, with large date plantations, which were clearly discernible. It is in possession of the tribe of Arabs called Akraba [Arabic]. Behind them, in the mountains, dwells the strong and warlike tribe of Omran [Arabic]. Hagol is one long days journey from Akaba; to the south of it about four hours is a similar cluster of date trees, called El Hamyde [Arabic], which bore from us S.E. b. E. The mountains on that coast are steep, with many peaks.
No Arabs live on the western coast, owing to the scanty pasturage; it is occasionally visited by fishermen and others, who come to collect the herb from which the soda ashes are obtained, or to cut wood and burn it into charcoal. The fishermen are very poor and visit the coast only during the summer months; they cure their fish with the salt which they collect on the southern part of the coast, and when they have thus prepared a sufficient quantity of fish, they fetch a camel and transport it to Tor or Suez. At Tor a camels load of the fish, or about four hundred pounds, may be had for three dollars. The fishermen prepare also a sort of lard by cutting out the fat adhering to the fish and melting it, they then mix it with salt, preserve it in skins, and use it all the year round instead of butter, both for cookery and for anointing their bodies. Its taste is not disagreeable. As the Bedouins prefer the upper road, this road along the coast is seldom visited, except by poor pilgrims who have been cut off from the caravan, or robbed by Bedouins, and who being ignorant of the road across the desert to Cairo, sometimes make the tour of the whole peninsula by the sea side, as they are thus sure not to lose their way, and in winter-time seldom fail in finding pools of water. Ayd told me that he had frequently met with stragglers of this description, worn out with fatigue and hunger.
WADY MEZEIRYK
[p.505] From hence northwards the shore runs N.E. 1/2 N. Having doubled the point of Om Haye, we found on the other side, after again passing round a small bay, at five hours and three quarters, a bank of sand running into the sea to a considerable distance, and several miles in breadth; it is called Wady Mokabelat [Arabic], and is the termination of a narrow Wady in the mountains to our left, from whence issues a torrent which spreads in time of rain over a wide extent of ground, partly rocky and partly sandy, where it produces good pasturage, and irrigates many acacia trees. The view up this Wady or inlet of the mountain is very curious: at its mouth it is nearly two miles wide, and it narrows gradually upwards with the most perfect regularity, so that the eye can trace it for five or six miles, when it becomes so narrow as to present only the appearance of a perpendicular black line. At six hours and a half we came again to a mountain forming a promontory, called Djebel Sherafe [Arabic]. The mountains from Om Haye northward decline considerably in height. The highest point of the chain appears to be the summit above Noweyba, where we had descended to the shore.
Beyond Djebel Sherafe we found the road along the shore obstructed by high cliffs, and were obliged to make a detour by entering a valley to the west, called Wady Mezeiryk [Arabic]. We ascended through many windings, entered several lateral valleys, and descended again to the shore at the end of eight hours and a half, at a point not more than half an hour distant from where we had turned out of the road. We found the valley Mezeiryk full of excellent pasture; many sweet-scented herbs were growing in it, and the acacia trees were all green. Upon enquiry I learnt that to the north of Djebel Tyh copious rains had fallen during the winter, while to the south of it there had been very little for the last two years, and in the eastern parts none.
[p.506] In the whole way from the convent I had not met with the smallest trace of antiquity, either inscriptions upon the rocks by the road-side or any other labour of man, until we reached the summit of Wady Mezeiryk, where, close to the road, is a large sand-stone rock, which seems, for a small space, to have received an artificial surface. Upon it I found rude drawings of camels, and of mountain and other goats, resembling those which I had before seen, and those which I saw afterwards in the Wady Mokatteb. No inscriptions were visible, but the annexed figures were drawn between the animals. These were the only drawings or inscriptions that I met with in the mountains to the E. of the convent, although I passed many flat rocks, well suited to them. I am inclined to think that the inscriptions have been written by pilgrims proceeding to Mount Sinai, and that the drawings of animals which are executed in a ruder manner and with a less steady hand, are the work of the shepherds of the peninsula. We find only those animals represented which are natives of these mountains, such as camels, mountain and other goats, and gazelles, but principally the two first,[It may be worthy of mention in this place that among the innumerable paintings and sculptures in the temples, and tombs of Egypt, I never met with a single instance of the representation of a camel. At Thebes, in the highest of the tombs on the side of the Djebel Habou, called Abd el Gorne, which has not, I believe, been noticed by former travellers, or even by the French in their great work, I found all the domestic animals of the Egyptians represented together in one large painting upon a wall, forming the most elaborate and interesting work of the kind, which I saw in Egypt. A shepherd conducts the whole herd into the presence of his master, who inspects them, while a slave is noting them down. Yet even here I looked in vain for the camel.] and I had occasion to remark in the course of my tour, that the present Bedouins of Sinai are in the habit of carving the figures of goats upon rocks and in grottos. Niebuhr observes, that in the hieroglyphic