The Bedouins who occupy the peninsula of Mount Sinai are:
I. The Szowaleha [Arabic]. They are the principal tribe, and they boast of having been the first Bedouins who settled in these mountains, under their founder Ayd, two of whose sons, they say, emigrated with their families to the Hedjaz. The Szowaleha are divided into several branches: 1. The Oulad Said [Arabic], whose Sheikh is at present the second Sheikh of the Towara Arabs. They are not so poor as the other tribes, and possess the best valleys of the mountains. 2. Korashy [Arabic], or Koreysh, whose Sheikh, Szaleh Ibn Zoheyr, is at present the great Sheikh of the Towara, and transacts the public business with the government of Egypt. The Korashy are descendants of a few families of Beni Koreysh, who came here as fugitives from the Hedjaz, and settled with the Szowaleha, with whom they are now intimately intermixed. 3. Owareme [Arabic], a subdivision of whom are the Beni Mohsen [Arabic]; in one of the families of which is the hereditary office of Agyd, or the commander of the Towara in their hostile expeditions. 4. Rahamy [Arabic]. The Szowaleha inhabit principally the country to the west of the convent, and their date valleys are, for the greater part, situated on that side. These valleys are the exclusive property of individuals, but the other pasturing places of the tribe are common to all its branches, although the latter usually remain somewhat separated from each other.
II. Aleygat [Arabic]. They are much weaker in number than the Szowaleha, and encamp usually with the Mezeine, and with them form a counterbalance to the power of the Szowaleha. A tribe of Aleygat is found in Nubia on the banks of the Nile about twenty miles north of Derr, where they occupy the district called Wady
BEDOUINS OF SINA
[p.558] el Arab, of which Seboua makes a part.[See Journey towards Dongola, p. 26.] The Aleygat of Sinai are acquainted with this settlement of their brethren, and relate that in the time of the Mamelouks, one of them who had embarked with a Beg at Tor for Cosseir travelled afterwards towards Ibrim, and when he passed Seboua was delighted there to find the people of his own tribe. They treated him well, and presented him with a camel and a slave. I am ignorant by what chance the Aleygat settled in Nubia.
III. El Mezeine [Arabic], who live principally to the eastward of the convent towards the gulf of Akaba.
IV. Oulad Soleiman [Arabic], or Beni Selman [Arabic], at present reduced to a few families only, who are settled at Tor, and in the neighbouring villages.
V. Beni Waszel [Arabic], about fifteen families, who live with the Mezeine, and are usually found in the neighbourhood of Sherm. They are said to have come originally from Barbary. Some of their brethren are also settled in Upper Egypt.
These five tribes are comprised under the appellation Towara, or the Bedouins of Tor, and form a single body, whenever any foreign tribe of the northern Bedouins attacks any one of them; but sometimes, though not often, they have bloody quarrels among themselves. Their history, according to the reports of the best informed among them, founded upon tradition, is as follows:
At the period of the Mohammedan conquest, or soon after, the peninsula of Mount Sinai was inhabited exclusively by the tribe of Oulad Soleiman, or Beni Selman, together with the monks. The Szowaleha, and Aleygat, the latter originally from the eastern Syrian desert, were then living on the borders of Egypt, and in the Sherkieh or eastern district of the Delta, from whence they were