The claimants met with the usual ceremony; right hands placed on the opposite left breasts—this is not done when there is bad blood—foreheads touching, and the word of peace, "Salám," ceremoniously ejaculated by both mouths. Then came the screaming voices, the high words, and the gestures, which looked as if the Kurbáj ("whip") were being administered. The Huwayti stubbornly refused to march with the other tribe, whom, moreover, he grossly insulted: he professed perfect readiness to carry me and mine gratis, the while driving the hardest bargain; he spoke of "our land," when the country belongs to the Khediv; he openly denied his allegiance; he was convicted of saying, "If these Christians find gold, there will be much trouble (fitneh) to us Moslems;" and at a subsequent time he went so far as to abuse an officer. I had "Shaykh'd" him (Shayyakht-uh), that is, promoted him in rank, said the Sayyid 'Abd el-Rahím; and the honour had completely changed his manners. "Nasaggharhu" (We will "small" him), was my reply. The only remedy, in fact, was to undo what had been done; to cut down, as Easterns say, the tree which I had planted. So he was solemnly and conspicuously disrated; the fee, one dollar per diem, allotted as travelling and escort-allowance to the chiefs, was publicly taken from him, and he at once subsided into an ignoble Walad ("lad"), under the lead of his uncle, Shaykh 'Aláyan ibn Rabí. The latter is a man of substance, who can collect at least two thousand camels. Though much given to sulking, on the whole, he behaved so well that, the Expedition ended, I recommended him to his Highness the Viceroy for appointment to the chieftainship of his tribe, and the usual yearly subsidy. With him was associated his cousin, Shaykh Furayj, an excellent man, of whom I shall have much to say; and thus we had to fee three Bedawi chiefs, including Hasan. The latter was a notable intriguer and mischief-maker, ever breeding bad blood; and his termper was rather violent than sullen. When insulted by a soldier, he would rush off for his gun, ostentatiously light the match, walk about for an hour or two threatening to "shyute," and then apparently forget the whole matter.
All wanted to let their camels by the day, whereas the custom of Arabia is to bargain for the march. Thus, the pilgrims pay one dollar per stage of twelve hours; and the post-dromedary demands the same sum, besides subsistence-money and "bakhshi'sh." But our long and frequent halts rendered this proceeding unfair to the Bedawin. I began by offering seven piastres tariff, and ended by agreeing to pay five per diem while in camp, and ten when on the road.[19] Of course, it was too much; but our supply of money was ample, and the Viceroy had desired me to be liberal. In the Nile valley, where the price of a camel is some £20, the average daily hire would be one dollar: on the other hand, the animal carries, during short marches, 700 lbs. The American officers in Upper Egypt reduced to 300 lbs. the 500 lbs. heaped on by the Súdáni merchants. In India we consider 400 lbs. a fair load; and the Midianite objects to anything beyond 200 lbs.
I have no intention of troubling the reader with a detailed account of our three first stages from El-Muwaylah to the Jebel el-Abyaz, or White Mountain.[20] On December 21st, leaving camp with the most disorderly of caravans—106 camels instead of 80, dromedaries not included—we marched to the mouth of the Wady Tiryam, where we arrived before our luggage and provisions, lacking even "Adam's ale." The Shaykhs took all the water which could be found in the palm-boothies near the shore, and drank coffee behind a bush. This sufficed to give me the measure of these "wall-jumpers."
Early next morning I set the quarrymen to work, with pick and basket, at the north-western angle of the old fort. The latter shows above ground only the normal skeleton-tracery of coralline rock, crowning the gentle sand-swell, which defines the lip and jaw of the Wady; and defending the townlet built on the northern slope and plain. The dimensions of the work are fifty-five mètres each way. The curtains, except the western, where stood the Báb el-Bahr ("Sea gate"), were supported by one central as well as by angular bastions; the northern face had a cant of 32 degrees east (mag.); and the northwestern tower was distant from the sea seventy-two me'tres, whereas the south-western numbered only sixty. The spade showed a substratum of thick old wall, untrimmed granite, and other hard materials. Further down were various shells, especially bénitiers ( Tridacna gigantea) the harp (here called "Sirinbáz"), and the pearl-oyster; sheep-bones and palm charcoal; pottery admirably "cooked," as the Bedawin remarked; and glass of surprising thinness, iridized by damp to rainbow hues. This, possibly the remains of lachrymatories, was very different from the modern bottle-green, which resembles the old Roman. Lastly, appeared a ring-bezel of lapis lazuli; unfortunately the "royal gem," of Epiphanus was without inscription.
Whilst we were digging, the two staff-officers rode to the date-groves of Wady Tiryam, and made a plan of the ancient defences—the results of the first Khedivial Expedition had either not been deposited at, or had been lost in, the Staff bureau, Cairo. They found that the late torrents had filled up the sand pits acting as wells; and the people assured them that the Fiumara had ceased to show perennial water only about five or six years ago.
The second march was disorderly as the first: it reminded me of driving a train of unbroken mules over the Prairies; the men were as wild and unmanageable as their beasts. It was every one's object to get the maximum of money for the minimum of work. The escort took especial care to see that all their belongings were loaded before ours were touched. Each load was felt, and each box was hand-weighed before being accepted: the heaviest, rejected by the rich, were invariably left to the poorest and the lowest clansmen with the weakest and leanest of animals. All at first especially objected to the excellent boxes—a great comfort—made for the Expedition[21] at the Citadel, Cairo; but they ended with bestowing their hatred upon the planks, the tables, and the long tent-poles. As a rule, after the fellows had protested that their camels were weighted down to the earth, we passed them on the march comfortably riding—for "the 'Orbán can't walk." And no wonder. At the halting-place they unbag a little barley and wheat-meal, make dough, thrust it into the fire, "break bread," and wash it down with a few drops of dirty water. This copious refection ends in a thimbleful of thick, black coffee and a pipe. At home they have milk and Ghí (clarified butter) in plenty during the season, game at times, and, on extraordinary occasions, a goat or a sheep, which, however, are usually kept for buying corn in Egypt. But it is a "caution" to see them feed alle spalle altrui.
Nothing shabbier than the pack-saddles; nothing more rotten than the ropes. As these "Desert ships" must weigh about half the sturdy animals of Syria and the Egyptian Delta, future expeditions will, perhaps, do well to march their carriage round by El-'Akabah. The people declare that the experiment has been tried, but that the civilized animal sickens and dies in these barrens; they forget, however, the two pilgrim-caravans.
At this season the beasts are half-starved. Their "kitchen" is a meagre ration of bruised beans, and their daily bread consists of the dry leaves of thorn trees, beaten down by the Makhbat, a flail-like staff, and caught in a large circle of matting (El-Khasaf). In Sinai the vegetation fares even worse: the branches are rudely lopped off to feed the flocks; only "holy trees" escape this mutilation. With the greatest difficulty we prevented the Arabs tethering their property all night close to our tents: either the brutes were cold; or they wanted to browse or to meet a friend: every movement was punished with a wringing of the halter, and the result may be imagined.
We slept that night at Wady Sharmá. Of this ruined town a plan was made for "The Gold-Mines of Midian," by Lieutenant Amir, who alone is answerable for its correctness. We afterwards found layers of ashes, slag, and signs of metal-working to the north-east of the enceinte, where the furnace probably stood. The outline measures 1906 metres, not "several kilometres;" and desultory digging yielded nothing but charcoal, cinders, and broken pottery. It was not before nine a.m. on the next day that I could mount my old white, stumbling, starting mule; the delay being caused by M. Marie's small discovery, which will afterwards be noticed. We crossed both branches of the Sharmá water; and, ascending the long sand-slope of the right bank, we again passed the Bedawi cemetery. I sent Lieutenants Amir and Yusuf to prospect certain stone-heaps which lay seawards of the graves; and they found a little heptangular demi-lune, concave to the north; the curtains varying from a minimum length of ten to a maximum of eighty me'tres, and the thickness averaging two metres, seventy-five centimetres. It was possibly intended, like those above Wady Tiryam, to defend the western approach; and, superficially viewed, it looks like a line of stones heaped up over the dead, with that fine bird's-eye view of the valley which the Bedawi loves for his last sleeping-place.
Thence we passed through the dry Báb ("sea gap"), cut by a torrent in the regular line of the coralline cliff, the opening of the Wady Melláh, off which lay our Sambúk. Marching up the Wady Maka'dah, our experienced eyes detected many small outcrops of quartz, formerly unobserved, in the sole and on the banks. The granite hills, here as throughout Midian, were veined and dyked with two different classes of plutonic rock. The red and pink are felsites or fine-grained porphyries; the black and bottle-green are the coarse-grained varieties, easily disintegrating, and forming hollows [Illustration with caption: Fortification on the cliff commanding the right bank of Wady Sharma'.] in the harder granite. The ride was made charming by the frontage of picturesque Jebel 'Urnub, with its perpendicular Pinnacles upon rock-sheets dropping clear a thousand feet; its jutting bluffs; its three huge flying Buttresses, that seemed to support the mighty wall-crest; and its many spits and "organs," some capped with finials that assume the aspect of logan-stones. There was no want of animal life, and the yellow locusts were abroad; one had been seized by a little lizard which showed all the violent muscular action of the crocodile. There were small long-eared hares, suggesting the leporide; sign of gazelles appeared; and the Bedawin spoke of wolves and hyenas, foxes and jackals.