“El hamdu l’illah”—Praised be God! resounded on all sides. We were saved!
Our caravan, whence the two Arabs came, had as usual followed our track, and therefore like ourselves had lost their way, but Ibrahim Aga, soon perceiving our confusion, halted sooner, had fires, lighted in the night on all the hills, with difficulty gathered fuel, and had almost used up the powder. But the wind set the opposite way, and we heard none of the signals of our distressed comrades. Next morning they had proceeded, and by dint of the wonderful memory of Sheikh Selâm, who had once been here five-and-twenty years ago, had got on the right way to the well. Yet Ibrahim Aga encamped at an hour’s distance from it, as every trace of us was lost, and sent in great trouble concerning our fate, Arab patrols into the mountains to find us.
How strange it was, that we should enter the great valley just in time to meet such a post! As we had come into the side valley over the mountain, no trace of our animals—who, of course, besides this could not be tracked on the stones—could lead into it; had we therefore started a few minutes later, they would certainly have passed before we were in sight, and had we come down the valley earlier, we should have turned to the right towards the huts, and gone away from the caravan far to the left.
About two o’clock, we arrived in the camp, which we entered amid shouts of joy from all present. The greatest astonishment was expressed at not finding Selîm with us; he was given up by every one. I did not, however, allow the camp to be broken up, but had the camels led to the well alone. The Arabs were again sent into the mountains to search for Selîm, and I remained quietly in my tent for the rest of the day.
Towards evening some Arabs returned from the well, and with them, loaded on a camel, Selîm. They had found him lying speechless, with open mouth, and his body swollen from intemperate draughts of water, by the edge of the well. How he had come thither, we did not immediately learn, as he answered to none of our questions. He must, however, have found his way by chance out of the mountains, or by the wonderful innate power of tracing the way peculiar to the Arab. Now he was probably speechless more by the fear of the serious consequences of the miserable trick he had played us. When he perceived that we regarded him with some pity, he soon recovered. But I did not keep him about me any more; for the remainder of the journey I took the old trustworthy Sheikh Selâm, as a guide for our advanced party, and left the other with the caravan.
Gebel Dochân, the Porphyry mountain, which had been our actual reason for coming this way, and had caused the whole undertaking, was, however, found to be far behind us. We had, as I had suspected, notwithstanding Selîm’s assurances to the contrary, ridden by its foot for several hours, as we erroneously thought the well was near it. None of the caravan had seen the old quarries, and the remains of the ancient colony. Notwithstanding this, I determined to make a second attempt on the ensuing day; and in this I succeeded.
With the dawn, I set forth with Max, the Sheikh Selâm, and a young sturdy Arab. The huts had not been observed by the caravan, and lay much too far to the east for us. We therefore rode straight for the highest peak of the Dochân group. Chance decreed that we should, when in the vicinity of the ruins, meet an Abdi from those huts with some camels, for which he was seeking a grazing-place. With his assistance we arrived at our destination.
We first found the great mouth of a well, built up of rude stones, measuring twelve feet in diameter, but it was now ruined and filled up. On the western side, were five pillars of a hall, seemingly covered at an earlier period, a sixth was destroyed. Three hundred paces further up the valley, on a granite rock, projecting from the left side, a temple was built, but which was now in ruins. The walls had been piled upon rude stones, but the finer architectural portions well chiselled out of red granite. A stair of twenty steps led from the north, on the paved court, surrounded by a wall, in the centre of which a rude altar of granite stood. Four cells adjoined this court on the left, the most southern of which, however, had now partially fallen down, together with the rock foundation; to this, as there was space on the rock, a still smaller chamber had been added, in which a larger, but also uninscribed altar stood. Before these spaces in the middle of the court, there stood, at an elevation of some feet, and grounded with sharp blocks of granite, an Ionian portico, consisting of four monolithic pillars, slender and swelling, the bases and capitals of which, together with the cornice and architrave, lay around in pieces. The long dedicatory inscription informed us that the temple was dedicated, in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, to Zeus Helios Sarapis, by the Eparch Rammius Martialis. To the left of the wall, the ruins of the town lie on an eminence. It was four-cornered, and, as usual, defended by towers. In the middle there was again a well, the principal requirement of every station, built of burnt brick, and stuccoed. Eight rude thin granite pillars formed the entrance to the well.
An old steep roadway leads up the adjacent mountains, and conducts to the porphyry quarries, which, hard under the top of the mountain, gave the beautiful dark red porphyry in which so many of the monuments of the Imperial time were hewn. Its broad veins lay between another blue-white sprinkled, and an almost brick-red stone, and were worked to a considerable depth. We found five or six quarries by each other, the largest forty square paces in extent. I could nowhere find chisel holes for splitting; for the blue-stone lying next to the quarry, rubbed almost as fine as sand, seemed to indicate the employment of fire. By the town, too, I found considerable heaps of ashes.
From the quarries I climbed to the height of the mountain, which gave a splendid view of the neighbouring mountains, in the steeply-descending, first hilly, and then sandy plain, towards the sea, and beyond the blue mirror to the opposite high chain of Tôr, After taking a number of observations I descended, and was back in our camp near the Moie Messâid, after sunset.