June 11th.A slight shower of rain fell, which the Turk ascribed to his prayers; but all the water we could collect in every vessel which the castle could furnish, scarcely afforded to each of us a draught. Hamd made a second attempt to night to go to Suez, but it being unfortunately moonlight, he was seen and again driven back.
June 12th.After three days blockade, I had the pleasure of descrying the Suez caravan at a distance, on its way towards
WADY KHOUYFERA
[p.629] Cairo; we immediately got every thing ready, and when the caravan was opposite the castle, at about twenty minutes distance, Hamd and I hastily joined it. What became of the officer and his garrison, I never heard. I bought of the Bedouins of the caravan a supply of water, sufficient to last me to Cairo.
Although the passage of this desert is less dangerous than formerly, it is impossible to protect it effectually, without establishing a small body of horsemen or dromedaries at Adjeroud; and it is a discredit to the government of Egypt, that this is not done. The well of Emshash affords a seasonable supply of water to robbers, who lay in wait in the rocky country of Montala, where one of them stationed on the top of a hill gives notice of the approach of any enemy or object of plunder. The castle was undoubtedly intended as a look-out post against the Arabs. The French once had a garrison in it, and its walls have been repaired by Mohammed Ali Pasha, but the interior is in a very ruinous state, and few provisions are kept in the extensive store-houses within it.
On proceeding to Cairo, the caravan took, for the first stage from Adjeroud, a route somewhat to the southward of that by which I had gone to Sinai, and joined the latter at Dar el Hamra. Six hours and a half from Adjeroud we passed Wady Khoeyfera [Arabic], the bed of a torrent, with trees growing in it, a very little below the level of the surrounding plain. Here I saw the ruins of a small stone reservoir, and to a considerable distance round it, ruins of walls, and several wells, some built with brick and others with stone. They appear to have been surrounded by a wall, which now forms a circular enclosure of mounds almost wholly covered with sands. The existence of these ruins, which I do not remember to have seen mentioned by any traveller, confirms my belief, that in the most ancient times regular stations
CAIRO
[p.630] were established on this road, to which we must also attribute the date trees now found in a petrified state.
A road, called Derb el Ban [Arabic], leads from Adjeroud to Birket el Hadj, by the north side of the mountain El Oweybe; it is the most northern of all the routes to Suez, and is little frequented.
On the 13th of June, early in the morning, I entered Cairo; the plague had ceased, and had been less destructive, than it was last year.