Three p.m. had struck before we found ourselves in broken water off the fort of El-Muwaylah, where our captain cast a single anchor, and where we had our first escape from drifting upon the razor-like edges of the coralline reefs. In fact, everything looked so menacing, with surging sea around and sable storm-clouds to westward, that I resolved upon revisiting our old haunt, the safe and dock-like Sharm Yáhárr. Here we entered without accident; and were presently greeted by the Sayyid 'Abd el-Rahím, our former Káfilah-báshi, who had ridden from El-Muwaylah to receive us. The news was good: a truce of one month had been concluded between the Huwaytát and the Ma'ázah, probably for the better plundering of the pilgrims. This year the latter were many: the "Wakfah," or standing upon Mount Ararat, fell upon a Friday; consequently it was a Hajj el-Akbar, or "Greater Pilgrimage," very crowded and very dangerous, in more ways than one.
I had given a free passage to one Sulaymán Aftáhi, who declared himself to be of the Beni 'Ukbah, when he was a Huwayti of the Jeráfín clan. After securing a free passage and provision gratis, when the ship anchored, he at once took French leave. On return I committed him to the tender mercies of the Governor, Sa'íd Bey. The soldiers, the quarry-men, and the mules were landed, and the happy end of the first stage brought with it a feeling of intense relief, like that of returning to Alexandria. Hitherto everything had gone wrong: the delays and difficulties at Cairo; at Suez, the death of poor Marius Isnard and the furious storm; the break-down of the engine; the fire in the wasteroom; and, lastly, the rough and threatening gale between the harbour and El-Muwaylah. What did the Wise King mean by "better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof"? I only hope that it may be applicable to the present case. In the presence of our working ground all evils were incontinently forgotten; and, after the unusual dankness of the Egyptian capital, and the blustering winds of the Gulf and the sea, the soft and delicate air of the Midian shore acted like a cordial. For the first time after leaving Alexandria, I felt justified in taper de l'oeil with the clearest of consciences.
The preliminary stage ended with disembarking at the Fort, El-Muwaylah, all our stores and properties, including sundry cases of cartridges and five hundred pounds of pebble-powder, which had been stored immediately under the main cabin and its eternal cigarettes and allumettes. The implements, as well as the provisions, were made over to the charge of an old Albanian, one Rajab Aghá, who at first acted as our magazine-man for a consideration of two napoleons per month, in advance if possible. This done, the Mukhbir returned into the dock Yáhárr, in order to patch up her kettle, which seemed to grow worse under every improvement. We accompanied her, after ordering a hundred camels to be collected; well knowing that as this was the Bairam, 'Id, or "Greater Festival," nothing whatever would be done during its three days' duration.
The respite was not unwelcome to me; it seemed to offer an opportunity for recovering strength. At Cairo I had taken the advice of a learned friend (if not an "Apostle of Temperance," at any rate sorely afflicted with the temperance idea), who, by threats of confirmed gout and lumbago, fatty degeneration of the heart and liver, ending in the possible rupture of some valve, had persuaded me that man should live upon a pint of claret per diem. How dangerous is the clever brain with a monomania in it! According to him, a glass of sherry before dinner was a poison, whereas half the world, especially the Eastern half, prefers its potations preprandially; a quarter of the liquor suffices, and both appetite and digestion are held to be improved by it. The result of "turning over a new leaf," in the shape of a phial of thin "Gladstone," was a lumbago which lasted me a long month, and which disappeared only after a liberal adhibition of "diffusible stimulants."
It required no small faith in one's good star to set out for a six weeks' work in the Desert under such conditions. My consolation, however, was contained in the lines attributed to half a dozen who wrote good English:—
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all."
This time, however, Mind was tranquil, whatever Matter might suffer. As the novelist says, "Lighting upon a grain of gold or silver betokens that a mine of the precious metal must be in the neighbourhood." It had been otherwise with my first Expedition: a forlorn hope, a miracle of moral audacity; the heaviest of responsibilities incurred upon the slightest of justifications, upon the pinch of sand which a tricky and greedy old man might readily have salted. It reminds me of a certain "Philip sober," who in the morning fainted at the sight of the precipice which he had scaled when "Philip drunk." I look back with amazement upon No. I.
NOTE.
The second Khedivial Expedition to Midian was composed of the following officers and men. The European staff numbered four, not including the commander, viz.:—
M. George Marie, of the État-Major, Egyptian army, an engineer converted into a geologist and mineralogist; he was under the orders of his Highness Prince Husayn Pasha.