Travels in Syria and the Holy Land

by John Lewis Burckhardt

On a descent from the summit of Wady Sebaye, at an hour and a half from the convent, we turned to the right from the road to Sherm, and entered Wady Owasz [Arabic], in a direction

WADY RAHABA

[p.588] S. b. W. I found here a small chain of white and red sand-stone hills in the midst of granite. The morning was so very cold that we were obliged to stop and light a fire, round which we sat till sunrise; my feet and hands were absolutely benumbed, for neither gloves or stockings are in fashion among Bedouins. We continued in the valley, crossing several hills, till at four hours and a half we reached Wady Rahaba [Arabic], in the lower parts of which we had passed a very rainy night on the 17th. Rahaba is one of the principal valleys on this side of the peninsula; it is broad, and affords good pasturage. We halted under a granite rock in the middle of it, close by about a dozen small buildings, which are called by the Bedouins Makhsen (magazines), and which serve them as a place of deposit for their provision, clothes, money, &c. As Bedouins are continually moving about, they find it inconvenient to carry with them what they do not constantly want; they therefore leave whatever they have not immediate need of in these magazines, to which they repair as occasion requires. Almost every Bedouin in easy circumstances has one of them; I have met with them in several parts of the mountains, always in clusters of ten or twenty together. They are at most ten feet high, generally about ten or twelve feet square, constructed with loose stones, covered with the trunks of date trees, and closed with a wooden door and lock. These buildings are altogether so slight, and the doors so insecure, that a stone would be sufficient to break them open; no watchmen are left to guard them, and they are in such solitary spots that they might easily be plundered in the night, without the thief being ever discovered. But such is the good faith of the Towara towards each other, that robberies of this kind are almost unheard of; and their Sheikh Szaleh, whose magazine is well known to contain fine dresses, shawls, and dollars, considers his property as safe there as it would be in the best

OM SHOMAR

[p.589] secured building in a large town. The Towara are well entitled to pride themselves on this trait in their character; for I found nothing similar to it among other Bedouins. The only instance upon record of a magazine having been plundered among them, is that mentioned in page 475, for which the robbers own father inflicted the punishment of death.

We continued our route in a side branch of the Rababa, till at the end of five hours and a half, we ascended a mountain, and then descended into a narrow valley, or rather cleft, between the rocks, called Bereika [Arabic]. The camel which I rode not being able to proceed farther on account of the rocky road, I left it here in charge of one of the Djebalye. This part of Sinai was completely parched up, no rain having fallen in it during the last winter. W.S.W. from hence, on entering a narrow pass called Wady Zereigye [Arabic], we found the ground moist, there being a small well, but almost dried up; it would have cost us some time to dig it up to obtain water, which no longer rose above the surface, though it still maintained some verdure around it. This defile was thickly overgrown with fennel, three or four feet high; the Bedouins eat the stalks raw, and pretend that it cools the blood. Farther down we came to two copious springs, most picturesquely situated among the rocks, being overshaded by large wild fig-trees, a great number of which grow in other parts of this district. We descended the Zereigye by windings, and at the end of eight hours reached its lowest extremity, where it joins a narrow valley extending along the foot of Om Shomar, the almost perpendicular cliffs of which now stood before us. The country around is the wildest I had yet seen in these mountains; the devastations of torrents are every where visible, the sides of the mountains being rent by them in numberless directions; the surface of the sharp rocks is blackened by the sun; all vegetation is dry and withered; and the whole

[p.590] scene presents nothing but utter desolation and hopeless barrenness.

We ascended S.E. in the valley of Shomar, winding round the foot of the mountain for about an hour, till we reached the well of Romhan [Arabic], at nine hours from the convent, where we rested. This is a fine spring; high grass grows in the narrow pass near it, with several date-trees and a gigantic fig-tree. Just above the well, on the side of the mountain, are the ruins of a convent, called Deir Antous; it was inhabited in the beginning of the last century, and according to the monks, it was the last convent abandoned by them. I found it mentioned in records of the fifteenth century in the convent; it was then one of the principal settlements, and caravans of asses laden with corn and other provisions passed by this place regularly from the convent to Tor, for this is the nearest road to that harbour, though it is more difficult than the more western route, which is now usually followed. The convent consisted of a small solid building, constructed with blocks of granite. I was told that date plantations are found higher up in the valley of Romhan, and that the monks formerly had their gardens there, of which some of the fruit trees still remain.

May 24th.Early this morning I took Hamd with me to climb the Om Shomar, while the other man went with his gun in pursuit of some mountain-goats which he had seen yesterday at sunset upon the summit of a neighbouring mountain; he was accompanied by another Djebalye, whom we had met by chance. I had promised them a good reward if they should kill a goat, for I did not wish to have them near me, when examining the rocks upon the mountain. It took me an hour and a half to reach the top of Shomar, and I employed three hours in visiting separately all the surrounding heights, but I could no where find the slightest traces of a volcano, or of any volcanic productions, which I have not observed in any part of

[p.591] the upper Sinai. Om Shomar consists of granite, the lower stratum is red, that at the top is almost white, so as to appear from a distance like chalk; this arises from the large proportion of white feldspath in it, and the smallness of the particles of hornblende and mica. In the middle of the mountain, between the granite rocks, I found broad strata of brittle black slate, mixed with layers of quartz and feldspath, and with micaceous schistus. The quartz includes thin strata of mica of the most brilliant white colour, which is quite dazzling in the sun, and forms a striking contrast with the blackened surface of the slate and red granite.