The second of the two books contains somewhat less antiquarian research, but more practical information than the first. It is a record of the second expedition (also equipped at the expense of the Egyptian Government by order of the ex-Khedive), and is full of pleasant travel-talk and adventure. Setting out from Cairo in a sickly season and under the most unfavourable circumstances—the resources of the country being drained by distress at home and the Turkish-Russian war abroad—they at length got under way once more for the desert, not without encountering hair-breadth escapes from the bursting of some of the tubes of the engine of their steamer. Once landed, the initial difficulties of desert travel had to be encountered. “It had been reported,” says Captain Burton, “that I was the happy possessor of £22,000, mostly to be spent in El-Muwaylah. The unsettled Arabs plunder and slay; the settled Arabs slander and cheat.” These, however, were soon smoothed over by the commander’s tact and firmness, the rival claims of two tribes to act as escort were disposed of, and the work of the expedition then began.
The first march, through Madyan proper (North Midian), occupied fifty-four days. The country was essentially a mining district, and very rich in mineral wealth, though, strange to say, it had not been much worked by the ancients. The first expedition found free gold in the basalt, but the researches of the second yielded none. The second march, through South Midian, lasted eighteen days. Its principal object was to ascertain the depth from east to west of the quartz formations, and to explore the virgin region towards the east. Here, however, they were stopped by the exactions and turbulent conduct of the Maazeh, who tried to pick quarrels with their Huweitat guides, and made it impossible for Captain Burton to proceed without such loss of time and other inconveniences as must have sacrificed the other and more important objects of the expedition. The last journey was through the southern portion of Midian, and lasted twenty-four days. This part of the country has been systematically worked in former times, and it is here that the gold and silver mines are placed by the mediæval Arab geographers.
Throughout Midian, ruined towns, villages, mining stations, and smelting furnaces were found, testifying to the former mining industry of the country, and described by Captain Burton in his usual graphic and careful style.
That Midian abounds in mineral wealth, and that gold and silver may be found in plenty there, is clear both from the documentary evidence of the author and from the testimony of the physical and geological features of the country. The very first reconnaissance showed a formation exactly reproducing “the conditions which Australia shows, and which produced the huge ‘welcome nugget’ of Ballarat.” The country also closely resembles the known gold-working sites of Ancient Egypt, but with filons of larger size. Some of these “Ophirs of Egypt Proper” yielded the treasury of Ramses the Great the enormous sum of £90,000,000 a year, as hieroglyphic inscriptions tell us. Herodotus, too, tells us of the immense wealth in the precious metals possessed by some of the Pharaohs. The modern Bedawins have legends of “gold pieces, square as well as round, bearing, by way of inscription, ‘prayers’ to the Apostle of Allah,” which Captain Burton suspects to be “the Tibr, or ‘pure gold-dust,’ washed from the sands and cast probably in rude moulds.” The close proximity to the sea and the facilities of the country for transport, it being “prepared by Nature to receive a tramway,” remove half the difficulties of working.
That the specimens brought back by Captain Burton’s expedition did not actually yield a larger proportion of the precious metals is in all probability due to the fact that they had no expert with them, and did not, therefore, sufficiently seek for and select stone from the auriferous rocks, but brought away much that the ancients had rejected, or left as unworkable. He is, however, convinced, as the impartial reader of his work must also be, that the gold land of Midian is still a fine field for commercial enterprise, which would soon restore to it the advantages which all ancient authorities declare that it once possessed.
“The Land of Midian” attracted another explorer besides Captain Burton—namely, the late Dr. Beke, an account of whose labours has been given to the world by his widow in a bulky volume on the subject. His object was to discover the “true Mount Sinai,” which he identified with a certain Jebel Barguir, otherwise the “Mountain of Light,” on the Eastern shore of the Gulf of Akaba, and in which he fancied he saw the “volcano,” the existence of which he had previously conjectured in his pamphlet, “Mount Sinai a Volcano.” To make this theory accord with the Scriptural account, he had not only to shift the scene of the Law-giving from the Sinaitic Peninsula to the other side of the Gulf, but he was obliged to find another Mizraim than Egypt, and boldly sacrificed hieroglyphic, Biblical, and classic testimony, as well as that of tradition, to his own hypothesis. In confirmation of his theory, he found indications that the Mountain of Light was regarded as a holy place, and discovered ancient inscriptions near the summit, of which he brought copies home in triumph. Unfortunately, however, the name Barguir turns out to be his own corruption of Bakir, a well-known Mohammedan name, and, in the present instance, that of the petty Arab saint whose tomb gives the only sanctity the mountain may possess, while the proper name of the mountain is Jebel el Yitm; the inscriptions are only the ordinary Nabathæan graffiti and Arab-tribe marks, which are so common all over Arabia Petræa; and lastly, there is no volcano at all. The volume is interesting, as it contains much topographical information about a country the ancient history and future prospects of which render it of the highest importance; but as a contribution to the literature of the much-vexed question of the Exodus the late Dr. Beke’s work is absolutely useless. Whether the so-called Peninsula of Sinai is really the scene of the early portion of that drama, the recent Egyptian researches of Dr. Brugsch Bey have rendered very doubtful; but wherever Mount Sinai has ultimately to be placed, it is not that discovered by Dr. Beke.
As Mrs. Burton supplemented the “Unexplored Syria” of her husband and the late C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake with her own more personal but none the less interesting “Inner Life of Syria,” so she has now embodied her own impression of the various localities which she and Captain Burton have visited during the last few years in a pleasant book entitled, A. E. I.: Arabia, Egypt, and India (London: W. Mullan & Son, 1879). Mrs. Burton’s pages are eminently readable, her powers of observation are keen, and her descriptions always fresh and vivid. If the spots she writes about have been often before depicted by pen and pencil, she yet finds something new to say, and some interesting and little-known historical incident to narrate, concerning them. The latter part of the book, containing a history and description of the old Portuguese settlement of Goa, and a minutely-detailed account of the life and works of St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, will be new to most readers and read with interest by all. The book is one which may be taken up at any moment with the certainty of finding something to amuse, instruct, or furnish food for earnest thought.