We will now proceed to the central Jebel el-Kibri't; a superficial examination of which by the first Expedition[145] proved that the upper rock yielded four, and the lower nine, per cent. of tolerably pure brimstone. The shortest cut from the dock-harbour lies up the southern Wady Ha'rr, with its strangely weathered sandstone rocks, soft modern grits that look worm-eaten. Amongst them is a ledge-like block with undermined base projecting from the left bank: both the upper and the lower parts are scattered over with Wasm, or Arab tribal marks. On our return from El-Wijh we found this sandstone tongue broken in two: the massive root remained in situ, but the terminal half had fallen on the ground. This was probably the work of an earthquake which we felt at Sharm Dumayghah on March 22nd.[146] The track then strikes the modern Hajj-road, which runs west of and close to the Sulphur-hill; the line is a succession of watercourses,[147] and in Wady Khirgah we found blocks of the hydrous silicate, corundophyllite which may be Serpentine: it is composed of a multitude of elements, especially pyrites. After an hour and a quarter's sharp walking, we hit the broad Wady el-Kibrít, which rounds its Jebel to the south-east, and which feeds the Wady el-Jibbah, itself a feeder of the Sharm Jibbah. The latter, which gave us shelter in the corvette Sinnár (Captain Ali Bey), is a long blue line of water bounding the western base of the Sulphur-hill.
This central Tuwayyil el-Kibrít is an isolated knob, rising abruptly from Wady-ground; measuring some 240 feet in height, and about 880 metres in diameter, not including its tail of four vertebræ which sets off from north-west to south-east. Viewed from the north it is, as the Egyptian officers remarked, a regular Haram ("pyramid"), with a kidney-formed capping of precipitous rock. Drinkable water, like that of the Wady el-Ghál, is said to be found in the Wady el-Kibrít to the north-east; and the country is everywhere tolerably wooded. The Bedawin brought us small specimens of rock-crystal and fragments of Negro-quartz, apparently rich in metal, from a neighbouring "Maru." They placed it amongst the hill-masses to the east and south; and we afterwards found it for ourselves.[148]
Our middle Sulphur-hill differs essentially from the other two deposits, the northern near Makná, and the southern near El-Wijh, in being plutonic and not sedimentary. One would almost say that it smokes, and the heat-altered condition of the granite, the greenstone, and other rocks, looking as if fresh from a fire, suggests that it may be one of the igneous veins, thrown westward by the great volcanic region, El-Harrah. In parts it is a conglomerate, where a quantity of quartz takes the place of chalk and gypsum. Other deposits are iron-stained and have the appearance of the decomposed iron pyrites which abounds in this neighbourhood. Usually the yield is the normal brimstone-yellow, yet some of the beds are deep red, as if coloured by ochre or oxide of iron: this variety is very common in the solfataras of Iceland; and I have heard of it in the Jebel Mokattam, near Cairo. The colour is probably due to molecular changes, and possibly shows greater age than the yellow.
M. Philipin was directed to take charge of Sergeant Mabrúk, the nine quarrymen, and the Bedawi owners of two camels to carry his boring-irons, forge, and water from El-Muwaylah. I advised him to dig at least forty feet down all round the pyramid, wherever surface-indications attracted notice: old experience had taught me that such depth is necessary before one can expect to find brimstone beds like those of Sicily. The borings brought up sulphur from fourteen metres; beyond these, six were pierced, but they yielded nothing. In and around the pyramid M. Philipin sank five pits; the northernmost shaft, half-way up the hill, gave crystals of the purest sulphur.
If the depth of the deposit be not great, the surface extent is. The pyramid evidently forms the apex of a large vein which strikes north-south. The field consists of this cone with its dependencies, especially the yellow cliffs to the north and the south, facing, in the latter direction, a large plain cut by the Wady el-Kibrít. Moreover, a vein of the red variety, about three kilometres long by twenty-five to thirty metres broad, lies to the south-east near a gypsum hill: the latter also yields the crystallized salt which so often accompanies sulphur, and heaps of gigantic half-fossilized oyster-shells are strewed about it.
M. Philipin here remained sixteen days (February 18—March 5), during our absence in the East Country; on return we found our good blacksmith much changed for the worse. Whilst in hard work he had been half-starved, the Jeráfín Bedawin of the neighbourhood having disappeared with their flocks; he had been terribly worried by the cameleers, and he had been at perpetual feud with the miserable quarrymen. I never saw a man less fitted to deal with (two-legged) "natives." The latter instinctively divined that he would rather work himself than force others to work; and they acted accordingly.
The Expedition was thus divided into four, three working parties and one of idlers. Anton and Petros were left behind to do nothing as magazine-men.
Lieutenant Darwaysh (the linesman) who was too weak to ride, and Sub-Lieutenant Mohammed (the miner) who was too old to travel, had charge of the sick; both found the far niente equally sweet. On February 17th I again bade adieu to the gunboat Mukhbir, and marched with the largest party upon our camp at El-Muwaylah, distant about six miles (=one hour and forty-five minutes). The path from Sharm Yáhárr crosses the hard sands of the maritime plain, metalled with the natural macadam of the Desert. The stone is mostly dark silex, the "hen's liver" of the Brazil, and its surface is kept finely polished, and free from "patina," by the friction of the dust-laden winds. The line is deeply gashed by short, broad gullies: the Hajj-road, running further east, heads these ugly Nullahs. The third and largest channel is Wady Surr, the great valley of El-Muwaylah, which may be regarded as the southern frontier of "Madyan" (Proper): we shall trace it to its head in the Hismá.
I had left the camp-pitching at El-Muwaylah to the Egyptian officers, who naturally chose the site nearest the two northern wells; a wave of ground hot by day, cold at night, windy and dusty at all times; moreover, the water was near enough to be horribly fouled. No wonder that in such a place many of the men fell ill, and that one subsequently died—our only loss during the four months' march.
On February 18th we proceeded, under the misguidance of a Básh-Buzúk of the fort, Ahmed Sálih el-Mal'ún, to inspect a neighbouring ruin called Abá Hawáwít—"the Father of (Dwelling-) Walls." Wallin (p. 30) declares that, "finding no mention made of Muweilih in Arab manuscripts, nor traces or traditions among the existing generation in the land, pointing to a high antiquity," he is inclined to consider it a town of modern origin, in fact the growth of the Egyptian pilgrimage. His error is excusable. He was a passing traveller; and I well remember that for a whole year the true name of a hill immediately behind our house at Damascus remained unknown to me: we had called it after our own fashion, and the term had at once been adopted by all our over-polite native friends. Indeed, this is one of the serious difficulties to be encountered, throughout the East, by the scrupulous traveller whose greatest fear is that of misleading others. The Expedition had paid four several visits to El-Muwaylah, and had never heard a word about ruins, when I happened to read out before the Shaykhs assembled at Magháir Shu'ayb a passage from El-Makrízi treating of the destroyed cities of Madyan. They at once mentioned half a dozen names lying within short distances of the "little salt." Amongst them was Abú Hawáwít, literally meaning "tenement walls," but here applied, in the short form Hawáwít, to ruins in general.