The lighthouse-charges are strongly objected to by the skippers of Arab fishing-boats, although very small in their case. Square-rigged vessels pay per ton twenty parahs (tariff): thus it costs a ship of five hundred tons £2 10s. (Turkish). The keeper. under Admiral M'Killop (Pasha), a young Greek named "Gurjí," as "George" here sounds, is assisted by a Moslem lad, Mohammed Effendi of Alexandria. They serve for three years, and they look forward to the end of them. The former also superintends the condensing establishment: this office is a sinecure, except during the three months of pilgrim-passage. The machine can distil eighteen tons per diem; and there is another water-magazine, an old paddle-wheeler moored to the beach under the town. Behind the establishment lies the pilgrim-cemetery. frequented by hyenas that prowl around the lighthouse, threatening the canine guard. I found a new use for this vermin's brain: it is administered by the fair ones at El-Wijh to jealous husbands, upon whom, they tell me, it acts as a sedative.
El-Wijh has been heard of in England as the prophylactic against the infected Hejaz. It is admirably suited for quarantine purposes, and it has been abolished, very unwisely, in favour of "Tor harbour." The latter, inhabited by a ring of thievish Syro-Greek traders; backed by a wretched wilderness, alternately swampy and sandy, is comfortless to an extent calculated to make the healthiest lose health. Moreover, its climate, says Professor Palmer (p. 222), is very malarious: "owing to the low and marshy nature of the ground, there is a great deal of miasma even in the winter season." Finally, and worst of all, it is near enough to Suez for infection to travel easily. A wealthy pilgrim has only to pay a few gold pieces, his escape to the mountains is winked at; and thence he travels or voyages comfortably to Suez and Cairo. Even without such irregularities, the transmission of contaminated clothing, or other articles, would suffice to spread cholera, typhus, and smallpox. Tor is, in fact, an excellent medium for focussing and for propagating contagious disease; and its vicinity to Egypt, and consequently to Europe, suggests that it should at once be abolished.
At first I lent ear to the popular statement at El-Wijh; namely, that the visiting doctors and the resident sanitary officers naturally prefer the shorter to the longer voyage, and the nearer station to that further from home. Moreover, inasmuch as, if inclined to be dishonest, they find more opportunities in the north, it was their interest to transfer the establishment to Tor. The local authorities, the people assured me, were induced to report that the single fort-well had run dry; that the condensers had proved a failure, and that the old steamer-magazine, into which they had poured brine, was leaky and inefficient. But what was my astonishment when, after return to Cairo, I was told that the change had been strongly advocated by the English Government?
The objections to El-Wijh are two, both equally invalid. The port is dangerous, especially when westerly winds are blowing: ships during the pilgrimage-season must bank their fires, ever ready to run out. True; but it has been shown that Sharm Dumayghah, the best of its kind, lies only thirty knots to the north. The second, want of water, or of good water, is even less cogent. We have seen that the seaboard wells supply the poorer classes and animals; and we shall presently see the Fort-wells, which, in their day, have watered caravans containing twenty to thirty thousand thirsty men and beasts. So far from the condensers being a failure, the tank still holds about twenty tons of distilled water, although it gives drink to some thirty mouths composing the establishment. Finally, the old steamer has done its duty well, and, like the proverbial Marine, is still ready to do its duty again.[44]
Thus the expense of laying out the quarantine-ground at El-Wijh has been pitifully wasted. That, however, is a very small matter; the neglect of choosing a proper position is serious, even ominous. Unlike Tor, nothing can be healthier or freer from fever than the pilgrims' plateau. From El-Wijh, too, escape is hopeless: the richest would not give a piastre to levant; because, if a solitary traveller left the caravan, a Bedawi bullet would soon prevail on him to stop. This, then, should be the first long halt for the "compromised" travelling northwards. When contagious disease has completely disappeared, the second precautionary delay might be either at Tor or, better still, at the "Wells of Moses" (Uyun Músá), near the head of the Suez Gulf: here sanitary conditions are far more favourable; and here supplies, including medical comforts, would be cheaper as well as more abundant. Briefly, it is my conviction that, under present circumstances, "Tor" is a standing danger, not only to Egypt, but to universal Europe.
The coast about El-Wijh is famed for shells; the numerous reefs and shoals favouring the development of the molluscs. We were promised a heavy haul by the citizens, who, however, contented themselves with picking up the washed-out specimens found everywhere on the shore: unfortunately we had no time to superintend the work. A caseful was submitted to the British Museum, and a few proved interesting on account of their locality. The list printed at the end of this chapter was kindly supplied to me by Mr. Edgar A. Smith, superintendent of the Conchological Department.
I will conclude this chapter with a short notice the Hutaym or Hitaym, a people extremely interesting to me. They are known to travellers only as a low caste. Wellsted (II. xii.) tells us that the "Huteimi," whom he would make the descendants of the Ichthyophagi described by Diodorus Siculus and other classics, are noticed by several Arabian authorities. "In one, the Kitab el-Mush Serif[45] (Musharrif?), they are styled Hooteïn,' the descendants of Hooter,' a servant of Moses." He also relates a legend that the Apostle of Allah pronounced them polluted, because they ate the flesh of dogs. Others declare that they opposed Mohammed when he was rebuilding the Ka'bah; and thereby drew upon themselves the curse that they should be held the "basest of the Arabs." These tales serve to prove one fact, the antiquity of the race.
The Hutaym, meaning the "Broken" (tribe), hold, in Midian and Egypt, the position of Pariahs, like the Akhdám "serviles", or Helots, of Maskat and El-Yemen. No clan of pure Arabs will intermarry with them; and when the Fellahs say, Tatahattim (=tatamaskin or tatazalli), they mean, "Thou cringest, thou makest thyself contemptible as a Hutaymi." Moreover, they must pay the dishonouring Akháwat, or "brother-tax," to all the Bedawin amongst whom they settle.
The Hutaym are scattered as they are numerous. They have extended, probably in ancient times, to Upper Egypt, and occupy parts of Nubia; about Sawákin they are an important clan. They number few in the Sinaitic Peninsula and in Midian, but they occupy the very heart of the Arabian Peninsula. Those settled on Jebel Libn, we have seen, claim as their kinsman the legendary Antar, who was probably a negro of the noble Semitic stock. A few are camped about El-Wijh; and they become more important down coast. In the eastern regions bordering upon Midian, they form large and powerful bodies, such as the Nawámisah and the Sharárát, whose numbers and bravery secure for them the respect of their fighting equestrian neighbours, the Ruwalá-Anezah.
Like other Arabs, the Hutaym tribe is divided into a multitude of clans, septs, and families, each under its own Shaykh. All are Moslems, after the Desert pattern, a very rude and inchoate article. Wellsted knew them by their remarkably broad chins: the Bedawi recognize them by their look; by their peculiar accent, and by the use of certain peculiar words, as Harr! when donkey-driving. The men are unwashed and filthy; the women walk abroad unveiled, and never refuse themselves, I am told, to the higher blood.