We also dug in an old pit amongst the Christian graves to the south-east of the camp, and below the left jamb of the "Gate." Here also the Bedawin had been at work; and, when unable to work deep enough, they told us wonderful tales of an alabaster slab, which doubtless concealed vast treasures. In Arabia, as in Africa, one must look out for what there is not, as well as for what there is. After spending a morning in sinking a twelve-feet shaft, we came upon a shapeless coralline-boulder, which in old times had slipped from the sea-face of the cliff to the left of the valley. I ascended this height, and saw some stones disposed by the hand of man; but there were no signs of a large slave-miner settlement like that on the other side of the Báb.
In the afternoon Mr. Clarke led a party of quarrymen across the graveyards to El-Khuraybah, the seaport of 'Aynúnah, and applied them to excavating the floor of a cistern and the foundations of several houses; a little pottery was the only result. It was a slow walk of forty minutes; and thus the total length of the aqueducts would be three miles, not "between four and five kilometres." I had much trouble and went to some expense in sending camels to fetch a "written stone" which, placed at the head of every newly buried corpse, is kept there till another requires it. It proved to be a broken marble pillar with a modern Arabic epitaph. In the Gád el-Khuraybah, the little inlet near the Gumruk ("custom-house"), as we called in waggery the shed of palm-fronds at the base of the eastern sandspit, lay five small Sambúks, which have not yet begun fishing for mother-of-pearl. Here we found sundry tents of the Tagaygát-Huwaytát, the half Fellahs that own and spoil the once goodly land; the dogs barked at us, but the men never thought of offering us hospitality. We had an admirable view of the Tihámah Mountains—Zahd, with its "nick;" the parrot-beak of Jebel el-Shátí; the three perpendicular Pinnacles and flying Buttresses of Jebel 'Urnub; the isolated lump of Jebel Fás; the single cupola of Jebel Harb; the huge block of Dibbagh, with its tall truncated tower; the little Umm Jedayl, here looking like a pyramid; and the four mighty horns of Jebel Shárr.
I left 'Aynúnah under the conviction that it has been the great Warshah ("workshop") and embarking-place of the coast-section extending from El-Muwaylah to Makná; and that upon it depended both Wady Tiryam and Sharmá, with their respective establishments in the interior. Moreover, the condition of the slag convinced me that iron and the baser metals have been worked here in modern times, perhaps even in our own, but by whom I should not like to say.
Chapter III. — Breaking New Ground to Magháir Shu'ayb.
On January 9th we left 'Aynúnah by the Hajj-road, and passed along the Quarry Hill visited during my first journey: the crest has old cuttings and new cuttings, the latter still worked for Bedawi headstones. The dwarf pillar with the mysterious cup is reflected by the Nubians, who hollow out the upper part of the stela to a depth of eight or ten inches without adding any ornament. Hence, perhaps, the Sawahíli custom of the inserted porcelain-plate.
After issuing from the stony and sandy gorge which forms the short cut, we regained the Hajj-road, and presently sighted a scene readily recognized. Fronting us, the northern horizon was formed by the azure wall of Tayyib Ism,[32] the "Mountain of the Good Name," backed by the far grander peaks of Jebel Mazhafah: the latter rises abruptly from the bluer Gulf of El-Akabah, and both trend to their culminating points inland or eastward. On our right followed the unpicturesque metalliferous heap of Jebel Zahd or 'Aynúnah Mountain, whose Brèche de Roland seems to show from every angle; its chocolate-coloured heights contain, they say, furnaces and "Mashghal," or ateliers, where the Marú ("quartz") was worked for ore. In places it is backed by the pale azure peaks of Jebel el-Lauz. This "Mountain of Almonds" is said to take its name from the trees, probably bitter, which flourish there as within the convent-walls of St. Catherine, Sinai. They grow, I was told, high up in the clefts and valleys; and here, also, are furnaces both above and below. Of its white, sparkling, and crystallized marble, truly noble material, a tombstone was shown to me; and I afterwards secured a slab with a broken Arabic inscription, and a ball apparently used for rubbing down meal. The Lauz appears to be the highest mountain in Northern Midian-land; unfortunately, it is to be reached only viâ Sharaf, two long stations ahead, and I could not afford time for geographical research to the prejudice of mineralogical. Its nearer foot-hill is the Jebel Khulayf; and this feature contains, according to the Bedawin, seven wells or pits whose bottom cannot be seen. Between the "Almond Block" and its northern continuation, Jebel Munífah, we saw a gorge containing water, and sheltering at times a few tents of the 'Amírát Arabs; in the same block we also heard of a Sarbút or rock said to be written over.
The regular cone of El-Maklá' ends the prospect in the north-eastern direction. Looking westward, we see the ghastly bare and naked Secondary formation, the Rughám of the Bedawin, not to be confounded with Rukhám ("alabaster or saccharine marble"). We afterwards traced this main feature of the 'Akabah Gulf as far south as the Wady Hamz. It is composed of the sulphates of lime—alabaster, gypsum, and the plaster with which the Tertiary basin of Paris supplies the world; and of the carbonates of lime—marble, chalk, kalkspar, shells, and eggs. The broken crests of the Jibál el-Hamrá, the red hills backing Makná,[33] and the jagged black peaks of their eastern parallel, the Kalb el-Nakhlah, look like plutonic reefs or island-chains emerging from the Secondary sea. The latter, whose bleached and skeleton white is stained, here and there, by greenish-yellow sands, chlorite and serpentine, stands boldly out from the chaos of purpling mountains composing Sinai, and ending southwards in the azure knobs of three-headed Tirán Island. The country, in fact, altogether changed: quartz had disappeared, and chlorite had taken its place.
We passed the night at El-'Usaylah, a Ghadir (or "hollow") without drainage, which the sinking of water cakes with mud and covers with an irregular circle of salsolaceous trees, a patch of dark metallic green. This "'Usaylah" is eaten by camels, but rejected by mules. Here our post reached us from Suez on the seventh day, having started on the 2nd inst. A dollar was offered to the Bedawi, who eyed the coin indignantly, declaring that it ought to be a ginni (guinea). I had also given him some tobacco, and repented, as usual, my generosity.