The 'Ushash or frond-huts of the Maknáwi and the Beni 'Ukbah were still mostly empty. At this season, all along the seaboard of North-Western Arabia, the Bedawin are grazing their animals in the uplands, and they will not return coastwards till July and August supply the date-harvest. The village shows the inconséquence of doors and wooden keys to defend an interior made of Cadjan, or "dry date-fronds," which, bound in bundles, make a good hedge, but at all times a bad wall. One of its peculiar features is what looks like a truncated and roofless oven; in this swish cylinder they pound without soaking the date-kernels that feed their camels, sheep, and goats. A few youths, however, who remained in this apology for a "deserted village," assisted us in night-fishing with the lantern; and they brought from the adjoining reefs the most delicate of shell and scale fish. The best were the langoustes (Palinurus vulgaris), the clawless lobsters called crawfish (crayfish) in the United States, and the agosta or avagosta of the Adriatic: it was confounded by the Egyptian officers with "Abú Galambo,"[103] the crab (Cancer pelagicus). The echinidae of various species, large-spined and small-spined, the latter white as well as dull-red, were preserved in spirits.[104] Amongst the excellent fish, the Marján (a Scina) the Sultan el-Bahr, the Palamita (Scomber), the Makli (red mullets, Mugil cephalus), and the Búri, were monstrous animals, with big eyes and long beaks like woodcocks; some of these were garnished with rows of ridiculously big teeth. I failed to procure live specimens of small turtle, and yet the huts were full of carapaces, all broken and eight-ribbed. One species, the Sakar, supplies tortoise-shell sold at Suez for 150 piastres per Ratl or pound; the Bísa'h, another large kind without carapace, is used only for eating: both are caught off the reefs and islets. An eel-like water-snake (Marrína = Murna Ophis) showed fight when attacked. The Arabs do not eat it, yet they will not refuse the Shaggah, or large black land-snake.
The enforced delay at Makná gave us the opportunity of making careful reconnaissances in its neighbourhood. During the last spring I had heard of a Jebel el-Kibí't ("sulphur-hill") on the road to 'Aynúnah, but no guide was then procurable. Shortly after our return, a Bedawi named Jázi brought in fine specimens of brimstone, pure crystals adhering to the Secondary calcaire, and possibly formed by decomposition of the sulphate of lime. If this be the case we may hope to find the mineral generally diffused throughout these immense formations; of course, in some places the yield will be richer and in others poorer. Further investigation introduced us, as will be seen, to two southern deposits, without including one heard of in Northern Sinai. All lie within a short distance of the sea, and all are virgin: the Bedawin import their sulphur from the "Barr el-'Ajam," the popular name for Egypt, properly meaning Persia or any non-Arab land. Thus, in one important article Midian rivals, if not excels, the riches of the opposite African shore, where for a single mine thirty millions of francs have been demanded by way of indemnity.
Betimes on January 26th, a caravan of four camels, for the two quarrymen and the guide, set off southwards, carrying sacks, tools, and other necessaries. They did not return till the morning of the third day; Jázi had lost the road, and the Bedawin rather repented of having been so ready to disclose their treasures. Of course, our men could not ascertain the extent of the deposits; but they brought back rich specimens which determined me to have the place surveyed. Unfortunately I had forgotten a sulphur-still; and the engineer vainly attempted to extract the ore by luting together two iron mortars, and by heating them to a red heat. The only result was the diffusion of the sulphur crystals in the surrounding gypsum. This discovery gave me abundant trouble; the second search-party was a failure; and it was not till February 18th that I could obtain a satisfactory plan of the northern Jebel el-Kibrít.
At Makná I was much puzzled by the presence of the porous basalt, which had yielded to the first Expedition a veinlet of "electron"—gold and silver mixed by the hand of Nature. The plutonic rock, absent from the Wady Makná, appears in scatters along the shore to the north. Our friend Furayj knew nothing nearer than El-Harrah, the volcanic tract bounding the Hismá on the east, and distant some five days' march. This was going too far; querns of the same material, found in all the ruins, suggested a neighbouring outcrop. Moreover, during the last spring, I had heard of a mining site called Nakhil Tayyib Ism, the "Palm-orchard (of the Mountain) of the Good Name," in the so-called range to the north of Makná.
Lieutenant Amir was despatched (January 27th) to seek for basalt, with a small dromedary-caravan, under the lead of Shaykh Furayj. After winding for about two hours along the shore, which is cut by the broad mouths of many a Wady; and whose corallines, grits, and limestones are weathered into the strangest shapes; he left to the right (east) the light-coloured Jebel Sukk. On the southern side of the Wady (Sukk) which drains it to the sea, a hill of the porous stone which the Arabs call "Hajar el-Harrah" appeared. The specimens brought home, si vera sunt exposita, if they be really taken from an outcrop, prove that volcanic centres, detached, sporadic, and unexpected, like those found further north, occur even along the shore. As will afterwards appear, another little "Harrah" was remarked by Burckhardt ("Syria," p. 522), about one hour and a quarter north of Sinaitic Sherm. He says, "Here for the first and only time, I saw volcanic rocks," and he considers that their extension towards Ras Abú(?) Mohammed may have given rise to the name .
Wellsted,[105] who apparently had not read Burckhardt, makes the same remark. The many eruptive centres in the limestones of Syria and Palestine were discovered chiefly by my late friend, the loved and lamented Charles F. Tyrwhitt-Drake. It would be interesting to ascertain the relation which they bear to tile great lines of vulcanism in the far interior, the Haura'n and the Harrah, subtending the coast mountains. And Dr. Beke, another friend now no more, would have been delighted to know that his "True Mount Sinai" was not unconnected with a volcanic outbreak.
Beyond the Wady Sukk, a bad rough path leads along the base of the Tayyih Ism Mountain; then the cliffs fall sheer into the sea, explaining why caravans never travel that way. Yet there was a maritime road, for we know that Abú Sufyán, on his way from Syria to fight the battle of "Bedr" (A.H. 2), passed by a roundabout path for safety, along the shore of Midian. Thus compelled, the track bends inland, and enters a Nakb, a gash conspicuous from the Gulf, an immense cañon or couloir that looks as if ready to receive a dyke or vein. Curious to say, a precisely similar formation, prolonged to the south-west, cuts the cliffs south of Marsá Dahab in the Sinaitic Peninsula. The southern entrance to the gorge bears signs of human habitation: a parallelogram of stones, 120 paces by 91, has been partially buried by a land-slip (?); and there are remnants of a dam measuring about a hundred metres in length (?). About three hundred yards higher up, water appears in abundance, and palm clumps grow on both sides of it. Here, however, all trace of man is wanting; the winter torrents must be dangerous; and there is no grass for sheep. The crevasse now becomes very wild; the Pass narrows from fifty to ten paces, and, in one section, a loaded camel can hardly squeeze through; whilst the cliff-walls of red and grey granite (?) tower some two thousand feet above the thread of path.[106] Water which, as usual, sinks in the sand, is abundant enough in three other places to supply a large caravan; and two date-clumps were passed. Hence, if all here told be true, the "Nakhil (palm-plantation) Tayyib Ism" reported to the first Expedition.
After covering sixteen miles in five hours, the caravan had not made more than half the distance to the Bir el-Máshi, where a small Marsá, or anchorage-ground, called El-Suwayhil ("the Little Shore") nestles in the long sand-slope between the mountain Tayyib Ism and its huge northern neighbour, the Mazhafah block. From this "Well of the Walker," a pass leads to the Wady Marsha', where, according to certain Bedawin, are found extensive ruins and Bíbán ("doors"), or catacombs. The whole is, however, an invention; our Sayyid had ridden down the valley during his journey to El-Hakl.
On the next day another reconnaissance was made. I had been shown fine specimens of quartz from the Eastern highlands; moreover, a bottle of "bitter" or sulphur-water from the Wady Mab'úg, the "oblique" or "crooked" valley, mentioned in "The Gold-Mines of Midian,"[107] had been brought to us with much ceremony. Those who tasted it, indeed, were divided as to whether it smacked more of brimstone or of ammonia. Accordingly, Mr. Clarke and Lieutenant Yusuf walked up the Wady Makná, and ascended the Mab'úg, where the mineral spring proved to be a shallow pool of rain-water, much frequented by animals, camels included. Search for the "Marú" was more successful: they found a network of veins in the sandstone grits (?) of the Jebel Umm Lasaf; and they thus established the fact that the "white stone" abounds to the east as well as to the south of Makná.
Meanwhile we were working hard at the Jebel el-Fahísát, the great discovery of the northern journey. I had been struck by the name of the watercourse to the north of the hauteville, Wady Majrá Sayl Jebel el-Marú—"the Nullah of the Divide of the Torrent (that pours) from the Mountain of Quartz." Moreover, a Makna'wi lad, 'Id bin Mohsin, had brought in fine specimens of the Negro or iridescent variety, offering to show the place. Lastly, other Bedawi had contributed fine specimens of Marú, with the grey copper standing out of it in veins. On the evening of January 27th we walked up the picturesque mouth of the Makná valley. After passing the conglomerate "Gate," and the dwarf plantations on both sides above it, we reached in forty-five minutes the spot where the lower water, 'Ayn el-Fara'í, tumbles over rocks of grit and granite. On the left bank, denoted by a luxuriant growth of rushes, is an influent called Sha'b el-Kázi, or "the Judge's Pass."[108] Ascending it for a few paces, we struck up the broad and open Fiumara, which I shall call for shortness "Wady Majrá." The main trunk of many branches, it is a smooth incline, perfectly practicable to camels; with banks and buttresses of green-yellow chloritic sands, and longitudinal spines outcropping from the under surface. It carries off the surplus water from the north-western slopes of that strange wavelike formation, the Jebel el-Fahísát, which bounds the right (southern) bank of the Wady Makná. Presently we sighted the Jebel el-Maru', the strangest spectacle. The apex of the gloomy porphyritic trap is a long spine of the tenderest azure-white, filmy as the finials of Milan Cathedral, and apparently melting into thin air. Its crest seems abnormally tall and distant; and below it a huge grey vein, horizontal and wavy, cuts and pierces the peaklet of red rock; and is cut and pierced, in its turn, by two perpendicular dykes of porphyritic trap, one flanking the right and the left shoulders of the low cone. When standing upon the hauteville during my first visit, I had remarked this "white Lady" of a vein, without, however, attaching to it any importance.