We had taken six full water-pots with us for Qeneh; the camel-drivers were worse off, and were obliged to thirst a great deal. Besides our old trustworthy leader Selâm, I had brought another guide Selîm from Qeneh, who was said to know the mountainous region between Hamamât and Gebel Zeït very well, although he had only gone once over the ground twelve years before. Under his guidance we arrived in two days at Gebel Fatîreh. After much trouble and a great deal of seeking, we found the remains of the ancient colony, who had here worked a fine black and white granite. Hence, however, the conductor’s ignorance became apparent in many ways. We arrived on the evening of the 15th of March at a high ridge, on the rocky ground of which we were obliged to pass the night, as no tent could be erected. The next day, Palm Sunday, we suddenly came early to a steep precipice, which sinks down to the depth of 800 feet between the two chains of the Munfîeh mountains. It seemed impossible to cross the precipitous and dangerous path with a caravan. The Arabs protested in a body against every attempt to do so, and broke out into the most violent imprecations against Selîm. He was now in a critical position. He was evidently unacquainted with the difficulties of the way; the passable roads lead, of course, at a great distance, either by Nech êl Delfe to the east, or by Shaib el Benât to the west. To have taken one of these two routes would have cost us at least two more days, and as we had lost much time at Gebel Fatîreh, we should have come into the greater danger of a want of water, as our provision had been very scantily reckoned, and we had only one well to expect between Hamamât and Gebel Zeït, which was said to be by Gebel Dochân. I therefore gave orders and (notwithstanding the most violent opposition) succeeded in having all the camels unladen at the top, and the whole of the baggage carried down on the shoulders of the Arabs. My own attendants had to set the example, and we all of us joined in the work. All the boxes and packages were transported singly from one rock to the other; this was most difficult to do with the great water-vessels, which could only be moved by three or four men at a time. Then the unloaded animals were carefully led down, and lo, the daring attempt succeeded without any misfortune or injury, under loud and hearty invocations of the holy camel-saint Abd el Qader. After three laborious hours everything was completed and the animals were reloaded.
Soon, however, we were to run into a far greater danger. I rode, as usually, before the caravan with Maximilian[104] and some attendants, and left the company to follow in my donkey’s track in the sand. Toward noon we saw to our left, the Gebel Dochân, “the smoke mountain,” rising dark blue behind the Munfîeh chain; and after some hours, when we emerged from the higher mountains into a hilly but more open district, we perceived, for the first time, beyond the wide plain and the sea behind it, the far-distant mountains of Tôr, lying in a third quarter of the world, which we should soon enter upon.
After three o’clock we came to two Bedouin huts, made of mats, in which we found a woman and a bright-eyed brown-complexioned boy, who gave us some milk. The boy, on my question as to whether there were any old walls in the neighbourhood, led me to a solitary granite rock, surrounded by a rough but well-laid wall ten feet in height, about an hour distant. The square, of which the rock formed the Acropolis, was seventy paces long and sixty broad; the entrance from the south had two round half-towers, the same at the four corners, and in the middle of the three other sides. Within spaces were divided off, in the centre was a well of burnt bricks, but it was now filled up.[105]
According to the account of our guide, we were now in the neighbourhood of the water, which was understood to be only half a day’s journey from our last encampment. The sun, however, set without our having attained the desired goal. By the sparing light of a young moon, we at last entered a high pass, which Selîm assured us would conduct us to the well. We ascended for a long time between naked cliffs of granite; the moon set, no wells were to be seen, and the guide confessed that he had missed the right valley. We were obliged to return. The same occurred in a second and third valley, to which the evidently confused guide had directed our steps, after several changes in our route. He excused himself on account of the uncertain light of the moon, and was certain that he should find the proper road at the dawn of day. Thus there was nothing for us to do but to lie down on the hard ground in our light and airy clothes, and seek to obtain a fitful slumber, without food, without water, for our bottles were long since empty, and the little store of four biscuits per man had long been eaten. Our only defence against the cold north wind consisted of a few camel-saddles. Thus we comforted ourselves, with the stars above us and the stones beneath.
As the morning dawned we mounted again. My donkey, who had drank his last spare draught of water twenty-four hours before, and who did not understand how to abstain like the camels, refused to proceed. Selîm, however, was in good spirits, and expected soon to be in the right path again. We discovered camel-tracks in great numbers. “But a little while,” exclaimed the guide, “and we shall be on the spot!” Our hopes were again animated.
Pretty variegated granite and porphyry blocks, which I perceived in the sand, were joyful tokens of the proximity of the Mons porphyrites. In the mean time the broad valley, into which we had turned, got narrower and narrower, and divided into two arms, the right one of which we took. But this again divided, and the whole neighbourhood, according to former descriptions, showed us that we were again on a wrong track. To give our wearied animals some rest, I halted, and sent out the guide alone to find the right way. We encamped under the shadow of a cliff, hungry, and eager for a draught of water.
Our position grew critical. I began to doubt that our guide would succeed in discovering the well in these uniform desolate mountain passes. And where was our caravan? Had it found its way to the water? If they had followed the traces of our donkey as before, they must also have lost their way. We waited impatiently for Selîm; he could at any rate bring us back to the Arab huts, which we had seen the previous day. But one hour followed another; Selîm came not. The sun rose higher, and robbed of the slight shade of the rock where we had taken refuge, we sat silently on the burning stones. We dared not leave the spot, for fear of missing Selîm. Had he met with an accident, or had he so forgotten himself as only to think of his own safety, and to leave us to our fate, as had happened some years before to three Turks, who were never seen again, in the same wilderness! Or was Selîm too weak to return to us? He had almost always gone on foot, and must have been much more exhausted than ourselves.
From time to time we mounted the adjacent heights and fired our muskets,—all in vain! At last we were obliged to resign ourselves to the melancholy certainty that we should not see our guide again. Noon had arrived after four hours of waiting, and also the time for departure, if the hope of reaching the Arab huts, about six hours distant from us, was to be accomplished. For it would have been fool-hardy to seek any longer for the well, as Selîm himself had not found it. Gebel Zeït, where our ship was lying, was three and a half days’ journey from us; the Nile on the other side of the mountain, five days’ journey; the camels had drunk nothing for four days, and the donkey was thoroughly weakened.
We therefore set out. My companion had done everything I had proposed; but never have I felt my responsibility for others, whose lives, together with my own, were in jeopardy, so heavily as in that hesitating resolve. It seemed foolhardy to travel in this totally uninhabited highland, already confused and even more put out of the way by our nocturnal windings without a guide, according to the stars; and yet there was nothing else to be done.
We determined, after much consultation, to ride back into the principal valley, which we had entered in the morning with such hope. But the infinite variety of the naked craggy mountains, and the sand and rubbish-filled valley, treeless and bushless, make so wholly uniform impressions, that no one of us would have recognised the principal valley as the right, if the direction and general distance of it had not told us that it was the right one. At the end of the valley we had again to enter the region of the hills, between which it seemed possible to find the Arab huts towards the south, as I had taken the bearing of the principal peak of the Dochân from the neighbouring hill-fort. The huts were of course so hidden, that one could ride by them at the distance of a few minutes, and not observe them; perhaps, too, the mats were set up in another place. Thus we were lost in the wide burning desert without a guide, gnawed with hunger, and parched with thirst, and, as far as man could see, quite abandoned to chance. In silence we journeyed on, each occupied with his own thoughts, in the glowing noon heat, when suddenly—the moment will never be forgotten by me!—two men came forth from behind the rock. They rushed to us, embraced our knees, offered us water from their jugs, and kept continually repeating expressions of joy and greetings, with the greatest delight.