And here I was told the Arab legend by the Wakíl; who, openly deriding the Bedawi idea that the building could be a "Castle," opined that it was a Kanísah, a "Christian or pagan place of worship." Gurayyim Sa'íd, "Sa'íd the Brave," was an African slave, belonging to an Arab Shaykh whose name is forgotten. One day it so happened that a razzia came to plunder his lord, when the black, whose strength and stature were equal to his courage and, let us add, his appetite, did more than his duty. Thus he obtained as a reward the promise of a bride, his master's daughter. But when the day of danger was past, and the slave applied for the fair guerdon, the Shaykh traitorously refused to keep his word. The Brave, finding a fit opportunity, naturally enough carried off the girl to the mountains; solemnly thrashed every pursuing party; and, having established a "reign of terror," came to the banks of the Wady Hamz, and built the "Palace" for himself and his wife. But his love for butcher's-meat did not allow him to live happily ever after. As the land yielded little game, he took to sallying out every day and carrying off a camel, which in the evening he slew, and roasted, and ate, giving a small bit of it to his spouse. This extravagance of flesh-diet ended by scandalizing the whole country-side, till at last the owner of the plundered herds, Diyáb ibn Ghánim, one of the notables celebrated in the romance called Sírat Abu' Zayd,[76] assembled his merry men, attacked the Gurayyim, and slew him. Wa' s' salám!
Here Egypt ends. We have done our work—
"And now the hills stretch home."
I must, however, beg the reader to tarry with me awhile. The next march to the north will show him what I verily believe to be the old gold-mine lying around El-Marwah. It acquires an especial interest from being the northernmost known to the mediaeval geographers.
El-Mukaddasi (vol. I. p. 101), in an article kindly copied by my friend, the Aulic Councillor, Alfred Von Kremer, says, "Between Yambú' and El-Marwah are mines of gold;" adding ("Itinerary," vol. i. p. 107) the following route directions: "And thou takest from El-Badr (the New Moon')[77] to El-Yambú' two stages; thence to the Ras el-Ayn (?),[78] one stage; again to the mine (subaudi, of gold), one stage; and, lastly, to El-Marwah, two stages. And thou takest from El-Badr to El-Jár[79] one stage; thence to El-Jahfah (?), or to El-Yambu', two stages each. And thou takest from El-Jiddah (Jedda) to El-Jár, or to El-Surrayn (?), four stages each. And thou takest from El-Yasrib (Jatrippa or El-Medínah) to El-Suwaydíyyah (?), or to Batn el-Nakhil (?), two stages each; and from El-Suwaydíyyah to El-Marwah, an equal distance (i.e. four marches); and from the Batn el-Nakhil to the mine of silver, a similar distance. And if thou seek the Jáddat Misr,[80] then take from El-Marwah to El-Sukyá[81] (?), and thence to Badá Ya'kúb,[82] three marches; and thence to El-Aúníd, one march." Hence Sprenger would place Zú'l-Marwah "four days from El-Hijr, on the western road to Medina;" alluding to the western (Syrian) road, now abandoned.
And now for our march. On the finest possible morning (April 9th), when the world was all ablaze with living light, I walked down the Wady Hamz. It has been abundantly supplied with water; in fact, the whole vein (thalweg) subtending the left bank would respond to tapping. The well El-Kusayr, just below the ruin, though at present closed, yielded till lately a large quantity: about half a mile to the westward is, or rather was, a saltish pit surrounded by four sweet. Almost all are now dry and filled up with fuel. A sharp trudge of three-quarters of an hour leads to the Bir el-Gurnah (Kurnah), the "Well of the Broad," in a district of the same name, lying between the ruin and the shore. It is a great gash in the sandy bed: the taste of the turbid produce is distinctly sulphurous; and my old white mule, being dainty in her drink, steadfastly refused to touch it. The distinct accents of the Red Sea told us that we were not more than a mile from its marge.
We then struck north-east, over the salt maritime plain, till we hit the lower course of the Wady Umm Gilifayn (Jilifayn). It heads from the seaward base of the neighbouring hills; and its mouth forms a Marsá, or "anchorage-place," for native craft. A little to the north stands the small pyramidal Tuwayyil el-Kibrít, the "little Sulphur Hill," which had been carefully examined by MM. Marie and Philipin. A slow ride of eight miles placed us in a safe gorge draining a dull-looking, unpromising block. Here we at once found, and found in situ for the first time, the chalcedony which strews the seaboard-flat. This agate, of which amulets and signet-rings were and are still made, and which takes many varieties of tints, lies in veins mostly striking east-west; and varying in thickness from an inch to several feet. The sequence is grey granite below, the band of chalcedony, and above it a curious schistose gneiss-formation. The latter, composing the greater part of these hills, is striped dark-brown and yellow; and in places it looks exactly like rotten wood. The small specimens of chalcedony in my private collection were examined at Trieste, and one of them contained dendritic gold, visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately the engineer had neglected this most important rock, and only a few ounces of it, instead of as many tons, were brought back for analysis.
A short and easy ascent led to a little counter-slope, the Majrá Mujayrah (Mukayrah), whose whitening sides spoke of quartz. We rode down towards a granite island where the bed mouths into the broad Wady Mismáh, a feeder of the Wady Argah. Here, after some ten miles, the guide, Na'ji', who thus far had been very misty in the matter of direction, suddenly halted and, in his showman style, pointed to the left bank of the watercourse, exclaiming, "Behold Abá'l-Marú!" (the "Father of Quartz"). It was another surprise, and our last, this snowy reef with jagged crest, at least 500 metres long, forming the finest display of an exposed filon we had as yet seen; but—the first glance told us that it had been worked.
We gave the rest of the day to studying and blasting the quartz-wall. It proved to be the normal vein in grey granite, running south-north and gradually falling towards the valley-plain. Here a small white outlier disappears below the surface, rising again in filets upon the further side. The dip is easterly: in this direction a huge strew of ore-mass and rubbish covers the slope which serves as base to the perpendicular reef. The Negro quartz, which must have formed half the thickness, had been carried bodily away. If anything be left for the moderns it is hidden underground: the stone, blasted in the little outlier, looked barren. Not the least curious part of this outcrop is the black thread of iron silicate which, broken in places, subtends it to the east: some specimens have geodes yielding brown powder, and venal cavities lined with botryoidal quartz of amethystine tinge. In other parts of the same hills we found, running along the "Mará," single and double lines of this material, which looked uncommonly like slag.
The open Wady Mismáh showed, to the east of our camp, the ruins of a large settlement which has extended right across the bed: as the guides seemed to ignore its existence, we named it the Kharábat Abá'l-Marú. Some of the buildings had been on a large scale, and one square measured twenty yards. Here the peculiarity was the careful mining of a granitic hillock on the southern bank. The whole vein of Negro quartz had been cut out of three sides, leaving caves that simulated catacombs. Further west another excavation in the same kind of rock was probably the town-quarry. The two lieutenants were directed next morning to survey this place, and also a second ruin and reef reported to be found on the left bank, a little below camp.