Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 43

These five tribes are comprised under the appellation Towara, or the Bedouins of Tor, and form a single body, whenever any foreign tribe of the northern Bedouins attacks any one of them; but sometimes, though not often, they have b.l.o.o.d.y quarrels among themselves. Their history, according to the reports of the best informed among them, founded upon tradition, is as follows:

At the period of the Mohammedan conquest, or soon after, the peninsula of Mount Sinai was inhabited exclusively by the tribe of Oulad Soleiman, or Beni Selman, together with the monks. The Szowaleha, and Aleygat, the latter originally from the eastern Syrian desert, were then living on the borders of Egypt, and in the Sherkieh or eastern district of the Delta, from whence they were

[p.559] accustomed to make frequent inroads into this territory, in order to carry off the date-harvest, and other fruits.[Some encampments of Szowaleha are still found in the Sherkieh.] Whenever the inundation of the Nile failed, they repaired in great numbers to these mountains, and pastured their herds in the fertile valleys, the vegetation of which is much more nutritious for camels and sheep than the luxuriant but insipid pastures on the banks of the Nile. After long wars the Szowaleha and Aleygat succeeded in reducing the Oulad Soleiman; many of their families were exterminated, others fled, and their feeble remains now live near Tor, where they still pride themselves upon having been the former lords of this peninsula. The Szowaleha and Aleygat, however, did not agree, and had frequent disputes among themselves. At that period there arrived at Sherm four families of the Mezeine, a very potent tribe in the Hedjaz, east of Medina, where they are still found in large numbers, forming part of the great tribe of Beni Harb. They were flying from the effects of blood-revenge, and wis.h.i.+ng to settle here, they applied to the Szowaleha, begging to be permitted to join them in their pastures. The Szowaleha consented, on condition of their paying a yearly tribute in sheep, in the same manner as the despised tribe of Heteym, on the opposite coast of the gulf of Akaba, does to all the surrounding Arabs. [Arabic]. The high spirited Mezeine however rejected the offer, as derogatory to their free born condition, and addressed themselves to the Aleygat, who readily admitted them to their brotherhood and all their pastures. Long and obstinate wars between the Szowaleha and Aleygat were the consequence of this compact. The two tribes fought, it is said, for forty years; and in the greatest and the last battle, which took place in Wady Barak, the Mezeine decided the contest in favour of the Aleygat. ?So

[p.560] great,? says the Bedouin tradition, ?was the number of the Szowaleha killed in this engagement, that the nails of the slain were seen for many years after, the sport of the winds in the valleys around the field of battle.?[No nation equals the Bedouins in numerical exaggeration. Ask a Bedouin who belongs to a tribe of three hundred tents, of the numbers of his brethren, and he will take a handful of sand, and cast it up in the air, or point to the stars, and tell you that they are as numberless. Much cross-questioning is therefore necessary even to arrive at an approximation to the truth.] A compromise now took place, the Szowaleha and Aleygat divided the fertile valleys of the country equally, and the Mezeine received one-third of their share from the latter. The Sheikh of the Szowaleha was, at the same time, acknowledged as Sheikh of the whole peninsula. At present the Mezeine are stronger than the Aleygat, and both together are about equal in number to the Szowaleha.

Besides the Towara tribes, three others inhabit the northern parts of the peninsula; viz. The Heywat [Arabic], who live towards Akaba; the Tyaha [Arabic], who extend from the chain of the mountain El Tyh northwards towards Ghaza and Hebron; and the Terabein [Arabic], who occupy the north-west part of the peninsula, and extend from thence towards Ghaza and Hebron. These three tribes are together stronger than the Towara, with whom they are sometimes at war, and being all derived from one common stock, the ancient tribe of Beni Attye, they are always firmly united during hostilities. They have no right to the pasturages south of Djebel Tyh, but are permitted to encamp sometimes in that direction, if pasture is abundant. The pastures in their own territory, along the whole of the northern parts of Djebel Tyh, are said to be excellent, and to extend from one side of the peninsula to the other.

I believe that the population of the entire peninsula, south of a

[p.561] line from Akaba to Suez, as far as cape Abou Mohammed, does not exceed four thousand souls. In years of dearth, even this small number is sometimes at a loss to find pasturage for their cattle.

The Towara are some of the poorest of the Bedouin tribes, which is to be attributed princ.i.p.ally to the scarcity of rain and the consequent want of pasturage. Their herds are scanty, and they have few camels; neither of their two Sheikhs, the richest individuals amongst them, possesses more than eight; few tents have more than two; it often happens that two or three persons are partners in one camel, and great numbers are without any. There are no horses even among the Sheikhs, who constantly ride on camels; but a.s.ses are common. Their means of subsistence are derived from their pastures, the transport trade between Suez and Cairo, the sale at the latter place of the charcoal which they burn in their mountains, of the gum arabic which they collect, and of their dates and other fruits. The produce of this trade is laid out by them at Cairo in purchasing clothing and provisions, particularly corn, for the supply of their families; and if any thing remains in hand, they buy with it a few sheep and goats at Tor or at Sherm, to which latter place they are brought by the Bedouins of the opposite coast of Arabia.

When Egypt was under the unsettled government of the Mamelouks the Towara Bedouins, who were then independent, were very formidable, and often at war with the Begs, as well as with the surrounding tribes. At present they have lost much of the profits which they derived from their traffic with Suez, and from the pa.s.sage of caravans to Cairo; they are kept in awe by Mohammed Ali, and have taken to more peaceful habits, which, however, they are quite ready to abandon, on the first appearance of any change in the government of Egypt. Even now, they pay no duty whatever to

[p.562] the Pasha, who, on the contrary, makes their chief some annual presents; but they are obliged to submit to the rate of carriage which the Pasha chooses to fix for the transport of his goods. They live, of course, according to their means; the small sum of fifteen or twenty dollars pays the yearly expenses of many, perhaps of most of their families, and the daily and almost unvarying food of the greater part of them is bread, with a little b.u.t.ter or milk, for which salt alone is subst.i.tuted when the dry season is set in, and their cattle no longer yield milk. The Mezeine appeared to me much hardier than the other tribes, owing probably to their being exposed to greater privations in the more barren district which they inhabit. They hold more intercourse with the neighbouring Bedouins to the north than the other Towaras, and in their language and manners approach more to the great eastern tribes than to the other Bedouins of the peninsula.

All the tribes of the Towara complain of the sterility of their wives;[They wish for children because their tribe is strengthened by it.

But Providence seems to have wisely proportioned the fertility of their women to the barrenness of the country.] and though the Bedouin women in general are less fruitful than the stationary Arabs, the Towara are even below the other Bedouins in this respect, three children being a large family among them.

To the true Bedouin tribes above enumerated are to be added the advenae called Djebalye [Arabic], or the mountaineers. I have stated that when Justinian built the convent, he sent a party of slaves, originally from the sh.o.r.es of the Black sea, as menial servants to the priests. These people came here with their wives, and were settled by the convent as guardians of the orchards and date plantations throughout the peninsula.

Subsequently, when the Bedouins deprived the convent of many of its possessions, these slaves turned

[p.563] Moslems, and adopted the habits of Bedouins. Their descendants are the present Djebalye, who unanimously confess their descent from the Christian slaves, whence they are often called by the other Bedouins ?the children of Christians.? They are not to be distinguished, however, in features or manners, from other Bedouins, and they are now considered a branch of the Towara, although the latter still maintain the distinction, never giving their daughters in marriage to the Djebalye, nor taking any of theirs; thus the Djebalye intermarry only among themselves, and form a separate commmunity of about one hundred and twenty armed men. They are a very robust and hardy race, and their girls have the reputation of superior beauty over all others of the peninsula, a circ.u.mstance which often gives rise to unhappy attachments, and romantic love-tales, when their lovers happen to belong to other tribes.

The Djebalye still remain the servants of the convent; parties of three attend in it by turns, and are the only Bedouins who are permitted to enter within the walls; but they are never allowed to sleep in the house, and pa.s.s the night in the garden. They provide fire-wood, collect dried herbage for the mule which turns the mill, bring milk, eggs, &c.

and receive all the offals of the kitchen. Some of them encamp as Bedouins in the mountains surrounding the peaks of Moses and St.

Catherine, but the greater part are settled in the gardens belonging to the convent, in those mountains. They engage to deliver one-half the fruit to the convent, but as these gardens produce the finest fruit in the peninsula, they are so beset by Bedouin guests at the time of gathering, that the convent?s share is usually consumed in hospitality.

The Djebalye have formed a strict alliance with the Korashy, that branch of the Szowaleha which has no claims of protectors.h.i.+p upon the convent, and by these means they have maintained from

[p.564] ancient times, a certain balance of power against the other Szowaleha. They have no right to transport pilgrims to the convent, and are, in general, considered as pseudo-Arabs, although they have become Bedouins in every respect. They are divided into several smaller tribes, some of whom have become settlers; thus the Tebna are settled in the date valley of Feiran, in gardens nominally the property of the convent: the Bezya in the convent?s gardens at Tor; and the Sattla in other parts, forming a few families, whom the true Bedouins stigmatize with the opprobrious name of Fellahs, or peasants. The monks told me that in the last century there still remained several families of Christian Bedouins who had not embraced Islamism; and that the last individual of this description, an old woman, died in 1750, and was buried in the garden of the convent. In this garden is the burial-ground of the monks, and in several adjoining vaulted chambers their remains are collected after the bodies have lain two years in the coffins underground. High piles of hands, s.h.i.+n bones, and sculls are placed separately in the different corners of these chambers, which the monks are with difficulty persuaded to open to strangers. In a row of wooden chests are deposited the bones of the Archbishops of the convent, which are regularly sent hither, wherever the Archbishops may die. In another small chest are shewn the sculls and some of the bones of two ?Indian princes,? who are said to have been s.h.i.+pwrecked on the coast of Tor, and having repaired to the convent, to have lived for many years as hermits in two small adjoining caves upon the mountain of Moses. In order to remain inseparable in this world, they bound two of their legs together with an iron chain, part of which, with a small piece of a coat of mail, which they wore under their cloaks, is still preserved. No one could tell me their names, nor the period at which they resided here. At the

DJEBEL MOUSA

[p.565] entrance of the charnel houses is the picture of the h.o.a.ry St.

Onuphrius. He is said to have been an Egyptian prince, and subsequently one of the first monks of Djebel Mousa, in which capacity he performed many miracles.

After two days repose in the convent and its delightful garden, I set out for the holy places around it, a pilgrimage which I had deferred making immediately on my first arrival, which is the usual practice, that the Arabs might not confound me with the common run of visitors, to whom they shew no great respect. The Djebalye enjoy the exclusive right of being guides to the holy places; my suite therefore consisted of two of them loaded with provisions, together with my servant and a young Greek. The latter had been a sailor in the Red sea, and appeared to have turned monk chiefly for the sake of getting his fill of brandy from the convent?s cellar.

May 20th.?We were in motion before sunrise for the Djebel Mousa or Mountain of Moses, the road to which begins to ascend immediately behind the walls of the convent. Regular steps were formerly cut all the way up, but they are now either entirely destroyed, or so much damaged by the winter torrents as to be of very little use. After ascending for about twenty-five minutes, we breathed a short time under a large impending rock, close by which is a small well of water as cold as ice; at the end of three quarters of an hour?s steep ascent we came to a small plain, the entrance to which from below is through a stone gateway, which in former times was probably closed; a little beneath it stands, amidst the rocks, a small church dedicated to the Virgin. On the plain is a larger building of rude construction, which bears the name of the convent of St. Elias; it was lately inhabited, but is now abandoned, the monks repairing here only at certain times of the year to read ma.s.s.

Pilgrims usually halt on this spot, where a tall cypress tree grows by the side of a stone tank, which receives the winter rains.

[p.566] On a large rock in the plain are several Arabic inscriptions, engraved by pilgrims three or four hundred years ago; I saw one also in the Syriac language.

According to the Koran and the Moslem traditions, it was in this part of the mountain, which is called Djebel Oreb, or h.o.r.eb, that Moses communicated with the Lord. From hence a still steeper ascent of half an hour, the steps of which are also in ruins, leads to the summit of Djebel Mousa, where stands the church which forms the princ.i.p.al object of the pilgrimage; it is built on the very peak of the mountain, the plane of which is at most sixty paces in circ.u.mference. The church, though strongly built with granite, is now greatly dilapidated by the unremitted attempts of the Arabs to destroy it; the door, roof, and walls are greatly injured. Szaleh, the present Sheikh of the Towara, with his tribe the Korashy, was the princ.i.p.al instrument in the work of destruction, because, not being ent.i.tled to any tribute from the convent, they are particularly hostile to the monks. Some ruins round the church indicate that a much larger and more solid building once stood here, and the rock appears to have been cut perpendicularly with great labour, to prevent any other approach to it than by the southern side. The view from this summit must be very grand, but a thick fog prevented me from seeing even the nearest mountains.

About thirty paces from the church, on a somewhat lower peak, stands a poor mosque, without any ornaments, held in great veneration by the Moslems, and the place of their pilgrimage. It is frequently visited by the Bedouins, who slaughter sheep in honour of Moses; and who make vows to him and intreat his intercession in heaven in their favour. There is a feast-day on which the Bedouins come hither in a ma.s.s, and offer their sacrifices. I was told that formerly they never approached the place without being

[p.567] dressed in the Ihram, or sacred mantle, with which the Moslems cover their naked bodies on visiting Mekka, and which then consisted only of a napkin tied round the middle; but this custom has been abandoned for the last forty years. Foreign Moslem pilgrims often repair to the spot, and even Mohammed Ali Pasha and his son Tousoun Pasha gave notice that they intended to visit it, but they did not keep their promise. Close by the footpath, in the ascent from St. Elias to this summit, and at a small distance from it, a place is shown in the rock, which somewhat resembles the print of the fore part of the foot; it is stated to have been made by Mohammed?s foot when he visited the mountain. We found the adjacent part of the rock sprinkled with blood in consequence of an accident which happened a few days ago to a Turkish lady of rank who was on her way from Cairo to Mekka, with her son, and who had resided for some weeks in the convent, during which she made the tour of the sacred places, bare footed, although she was old and decrepid. In attempting to kiss the mark of Mohammed?s foot, she fell, and wounded her head; but not so severely as to prevent her from pursuing her pilgrimage. Somewhat below the mosque is a fine reservoir cut very deep in the granite rock, for the reception of rain water.

The Arabs believe that the tables of the commandments are buried beneath the pavement of the church on Djebel Mousa, and they have made excavations on every side in the hope of finding them. They more particularly revere this spot from a belief that the rains which fall in the peninsula are under the immediate control of Moses; and they are persuaded that the priests of the convent are in possession of the Taourat, a book sent down to Moses from heaven, upon the opening and shutting of which depend the rains of the peninsula. The reputation, which the monks have thus obtained of having the dispensation of the rains

[p.568] in their hands has become very troublesome to them, but they have brought it on by their own measures for enhancing their credit with the Bedouins. In times of dearth they were accustomed to proceed in a body to Djebel Mousa, to pray for rain, and they encouraged the belief that the rain was due to their intercessions. By a natural inference, the Bedouins have concluded that if the monks could bring rain, they had it likewise in their power to withhold it, and the consequence is, that whenever a dearth happens they accuse the monks of malevolence, and often tumultuously a.s.semble and compel them to repair to the mountain to pray. Some years since, soon after an occurrence of this kind, it happened that a violent flood burst over the peninsula, and destroyed many date trees; a Bedouin, whose camel and sheep had been swept away by the torrent, went in a fury to the convent, and fired his gun at it, and when asked the reason, exclaimed; ?You have opened the book so much that we are all drowned!? He was pacified by presents; but on departing he begged that in future the monks would only half open the Taourat, in order that the rains might be more moderate.

The supposed influence of the monks is, however, sometimes attended with more fortunate results: the Sheikh Szaleh had never been father of a male child, and on being told that Providence had thus punished him for his enmity to the convent, he two years ago brought a load of b.u.t.ter to the monks, and entreated them to go to the mountain and pray that his newly-married wife, who was then pregnant, might be delivered of a son.

The monks complied, and Szaleh soon after became the happy father of a fine boy; since that period he has been the friend of the convent, and has even partly repaired the church on Djebel Mousa. This summit was formerly inhabited by the monks, but, at present they visit it only in time of festivals.

BIR SHONNAR

[p.569] We returned to the convent of St. Elias, and then descended on the western side of the mountain for half an hour by another decayed flight of steps, into a valley where is a small convent called El Erbayn, or the forty; it is in good repair, and is at present inhabited by a family of Djebalye, who take care of the garden annexed to it, which affords a pleasing place of rest to those who descend from the barren mountains above. In its neighbourhood are extensive olive plantations, but I was told that for the last five summers the locusts had devoured both the fruit and foliage of these trees, upon which they alight in preference to all others. This insect is not less dreaded here than in Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, but the Bedouins of Mount Sinai, unlike those of Arabia, instead of eating them, hold them in great abhorrence.

We pa.s.sed the mid-day hours at St. Elias, and towards evening ascended the mountain opposite to that of Mousa, which forms the western cliff of this narrow valley. After proceeding about an hour we stopped near a small well, where we found several huts of Djebalye, and cleared a place among the rocks, where our party encamped for the night. The well is called Bir Shonnar [Arabic], from the circ.u.mstance of a monk who was wandering in these mountains, and nearly dying of thirst, having miraculously discovered it by seeing the bird Shonnar fly up from the spot; it is closely surrounded by rocks, and is not more than a foot in diameter and as much in depth. The Bedouins say that it never dries up, and that its water, even when exposed to the sun, is as cold as ice.

Several trees grow near it, amongst others the Zarour [Arabic], now almost in full bloom. Its fruit, of the size of a small cherry, with much of the flavour of a strawberry, is, I believe, not a native of Egypt, but is very common in Syria. I bought a lamb of the Bedouins, which we roasted among the rocks, and although there were only two women and one girl present, and

[p.570] the steep side of the mountain hardly permitted a person to stand up with firmness, and still less to wheel about, yet the greater part of the night was spent in the Mesamer, or national song and dance, to which several other neighbouring Djebalye were attracted. The air was delightfully cool and pure. While in the lower country, and particularly on the sea sh.o.r.e, I found the thermometer often at 102?105, and once even at 110; in the convent it never stood higher than 75. The Semoum wind never reaches these upper regions. In winter the whole of the upper Sinai is deeply covered with snow, which chokes up many of the pa.s.ses, and often renders the mountains of Moses and St. Catherine inaccessible.

The climate is so different from that of Egypt, that fruits are nearly two months later in ripening here than at Cairo; apricots, which begin to be in season there in the last days of April, are not fit to eat in Sinai till the middle of June.

May 21st.?We left our resting-place before sign-rise, and climbed up a steep ascent, where there had formerly been steps, which are now entirely destroyed. This side of Djebel Katerin or Mount St. Catherine, is noted for its excellent pasturage; herbs sprout up every where between the rocks, and as many of them are odoriferous, the scent early in the morning, when the dew falls, is delicious. The Zattar [Arabic], Ocimum Zatarhendi, was particularly conspicuous, and is esteemed here the best possible food for sheep. In the month of June, when the herbs are in blossom, the monks are in the habit of repairing to this and the surrounding mountains, in order to collect various herbs, which they dry, and send to the convent at Cairo, from whence they are dispatched to the archbishop of Sinai at Constantinople, who distributes them to his friends and dependents; they are supposed to possess many virtues conducive to health. A botanist would find a rich harvest here, and it is much to be regretted that two mountains so easy of access,

[p.571] and so rich in vegetation, as Sinai and Liba.n.u.s, should be still unexplored by men of science. The pretty red flower of the Noman plant [Arabic], Euphorbia retusa of Forskal, abounds in al[l] the valleys of Sinai, and is seen also amongst the most barren granite rocks of the mountains.

As we approached the summit of the mountain we saw at a distance a small flock of mountain goats feeding among the rocks. One of our Arabs left us, and by a widely circuitous road endeavoured to get to leeward of them, and near enough to fire at them; he enjoined us to remain in sight of them, and to sit down in order not to alarm them. He had nearly reached a favourable spot behind a rock, when the goats suddenly took to flight. They could not have seen the Arab, but the wind changed, and thus they smelt him. The chase of the Beden, as the wild goat is called, resembles that of the chamois of the Alps, and requires as much enterprise and patience. The Arabs make long circuits to surprise them, and endeavour to come upon them early in the morning when they feed. The goats have a leader, who keeps watch, and on any suspicious smell, sound, or object, makes a noise which is a signal to the flock to make their escape. They have much decreased of late, if we may believe the Arabs, who say that, fifty years ago, if a stranger came to a tent and the owner of it had no sheep to kill, he took his gun and went in search of a Beden. They are however even now more common than in the Alps, or in the mountains to the east of the Red sea. I had three or four of them brought to me at the convent, which I bought at threefourths of a dollar each. The flesh is excellent, and has nearly the same flavour as that of the deer. The Bedouins make waterbags of their skins, and rings of their horns, which they wear on their thumbs. When the Beden is met with in the plains the

[p.572] dogs of the hunters easily catch him;but they cannot come up with him among the rocks, where he can make leaps of twenty feet.

The stout Bedouin youths are all hunters, and excellent marksmen; they hold it a great honour to bring game to their tents, in proof of their being hardy mountain runners, and good shots; and the epithet Bowardy yknos es-szeyd [Arabic], ?a marksman who hunts the game,? is one of the most flattering that can be bestowed upon them. It appears, from an ancient picture preserved in the convent, which represents the arrival of an archbishop from Egypt, as well as from one of the written doc.u.ments in the archives, that in the sixteenth century all the Arabs were armed with bows and arrows as well as with matchlocks; at present the former are no longer known, but almost every tent has its matchlock, which the men use with great address, notwithstanding its bad condition.

I believe bows are no longer used as regular weapons by the Bedouins in any part of Arabia.

After a very slow ascent of two hours we reached the top of Mount St.

Catherine, which, like the mountain of Moses, terminates in a sharp point; its highest part consists of a single immense block of granite, whose surface is so smooth, that it is very difficult to ascend it.

Luxuriant vegetation reaches up to this rock, and the side of the mountain presented a verdure which, had it been of turf instead of shrubs and herbs, would have completed the resemblance between this mountain and some of the Alpine summits. There is nothing on the summit of the rock to attract attention, except a small church or chapel, hardly high enough within to allow a person to stand upright, and badly built of loose uncemented stones; the floor is the bare rock, in which, solid as it is, the body of St. Catherine is believed to have been miraculously buried by angels, after her martyrdom at Alexandria. I saw inscribed here

[p.573] the names of several European travellers, and among others that of the unfortunate M. Boutin, a French officer of engineers, who pa.s.sed here in 1811.[M. Boutin came to Egypt from Zante; he first made a journey to the cataracts of a.s.souan, and then went to Bosseir, where he hired a s.h.i.+p for Mokha, but on reaching Yembo, Tousoun Pasha, the son of Mohammed Ali, would not permit him to proceed, he therefore returned to Suez, after visiting the convent of Sinai, and its neighbouring mountains. After his return to Cairo, he went to Siwah, to examine the remains of the temple of Jupiter Ammon, carrying with him a small boat built at Cairo, for the purpose of exploring the lake and the island in it, mentioned by Browne. He experienced great vexations from the inhabitants of Siwah; and the boat was of no use to him, owing to the shallowness of the lake, so that after a residence of three days at the Oasis, where he seems to have made no discoveries, he returned to Cairo in the company of some Augila merchants. On his way he pa.s.sed the wood of petrified date trees discovered by Horneman; his route, I believe, was to the south of that of Horneman, and nearer the lesser Oasis. I had the pleasure of seeing him upon his return from Siwah, when I first arrived at Cairo. He remained two years in Egypt, and then continued his travels towards Syria, where he met with his death in 1816, in the mountainous district of the Nosayris, west of Hamah, having imprudently exposed himself with a great deal of baggage, in company only of his interpreter and servant, and without any native guide, to the robbers of that infamous tribe. He was a lover of truth, and a man of observation and enterprize; the public, therefore, and his own government, have to regret his death no less than his friends.] From this elevated peak a very extensive view opened before us, and the direction of the different surroundings chains of mountains could be distinctly traced. The upper nucleus of the Sinai, composed almost entirely of granite, forms a rocky wilderness of all irregular circular shape, intersected by many narrow valleys, and from thirty to forty miles in diameter. It contains the highest mountains of the peninsula, whose s.h.a.ggy and pointed peaks and steep and shattered sides, render it clearly distinguishable from all the rest of the country in view. It is upon this highest region of the peninsula that the fertile valleys are found, which produce fruit trees; they are princ.i.p.ally to the west and south-west of the convent at three or four hours distant.

[p.574] Water too is always found in plenty in this district, on which account it is the place of refuge of all the Bedouins when the low country is parched up. I think it very probable that this upper country or wilderness is, exclusively, the desert of Sinai so often mentioned in the account of the wanderings of the Israelites. Mount St. Catherine appears to stand nearly in the centre of it. To the northward of this central region, and divided from it by the broad valley called Wady El Sheikh, and by several minor Wadys, begins a lower range of mountains, called Zebeir, which extends eastwards, having at one extremity the two peaks called El Djoze [Arabic], above the plantations of Wady Feiran, and losing itself to the east in the more open country towards Wady Sal.

Beyond the Zebeir northwards are sandy plains and valleys, which I crossed, towards the west, at Raml el Moral, and towards the east, about Hadhra.This part i[s] the most barren and dest.i.tute of water of the whole country. At its eastern extremity it is called El Birka [Arabic].

It borders to the north on the chain of El Tyh, which stretches in a regular line eastwards, parallel with the Zebeir, beginning at Sarbout el Djeinel. On reaching, in its eastern course, the somewhat higher mountain called El Odjme [Arabic], it separates into two; one of its branches turns off in a right angle northward, and after continuing for about fifteen miles in that direction, again turns to the east, and extends parallel with the second and southern branch all across the peninsula, towards the eastern gulf. The northern branch, which is called El Dhelel [Arabic], bounds the view from Mount St. Catherine. On turning to the east, I found that the mountains in this direction, beyond the high district of Sinai, run in a lower range towards the Wady Sal, and that the slope of the upper mountains is much less abrupt than on the opposite side. From Sal, east and north-east, the chains intersect each other in many irregular ma.s.ses

[p.575] of inferior height, till they reach the gulf of Akaba, which I clearly distinguished when the sun was just rising over the mountains of the Arabian coast. Excepting the short extent from Noweyba to Dahab, the mountains bordering on the gulf are all of secondary height, but they rise to a considerable elevation between those two points. The country between Sherm, Nabk, and the convent, is occupied also by mountains of minor size, and the valleys, generally, are so narrow, that few of them can be distinguished from the point where I stood, the whole country, in that direction, appearing an uninterrupted wilderness of barren mountains. The highest points on that side appear to be above Wady Kyd, above the valley of Naszeb, and princ.i.p.ally the peaks called Om Kheysyn [Arabic] and Masaoud [Arabic].

The view to the south was bounded by the high mountain of Om Shomar [Arabic], which forms a nucleus of itself, apparently unconnected with the upper Sinai, although bordering close upon it. To the right of this mountain I could distinguish the sea, in the neighbourhood of Tor, near which begins a low calcareous chain of mountains, called Djebel Hemam (i.e. death), not Hamam (or bath), extending along the gulf of Suez, and separated from the upper Sinai by a broad gravelly plain called El Kaa [Arabic], across which the road from Tor to Suez pa.s.ses. This plain terminates to the W.N.W. of Mount St. Catherine, and nearly in the direction of Djebel Serbal. Towards the Kaa, the central Sinai mountains are very abrupt, and leave no secondary intermediate chain between them and the plain at their feet. The mountain of Serbal, which I afterwards visited, is separated from the upper Sinai by some valleys, especially Wady Hebran, and it forms, with several neighbouring mountains, a separate cl.u.s.ter terminating in peaks, the highest of which appears to be as high as Mount St. Catherine. It borders on the Wady Feiran and the chain of Zebeir.

[p.576] I took the following bearings, from the summit of Mount St.

Catherine. These, together with those which I took from the peak of Om Shomar and from Serbal, and the distances and direction of my different routes, will serve to construct a map of the peninsula more detailed and accurate than any that has yet been published.

El Djoze [Arabic], a rock distinguished by two peaks above that part of Wady Feiran where the date groves are, N.W. b. N.