Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 47

Mount St. Catherine, S.E. 1/2 E.

Om Shomar, S.S.E.

Daghade, [Arabic], a fertile valley in the mountains, issuing into the plain of Kaa, S.W.

The direction of Deir Sigillye was pointed out to me S. b. E. or S.S.E.

This is a ruined convent on the S.E. side of Serbal, near the road which leads up to the summit of the mountain. It is said to be well built and s.p.a.cious, and there is a copious well near it. It is four or five hours distant by the shortest road from Feiran, and lies in a very rocky district, at present uninhabited even by Bedouins.

I found great difficulty in descending. If I had had a plentiful supply of water, and any of us had known the road, we should have gone down by the steps; but our water was nearly exhausted, and in this hot season, even the hardy Bedouin is afraid to trust to the chance only of finding a path or a spring. I was therefore obliged to return by the same way which I had ascended

WADY ALEYAT

[p.611] and by crawling, rather than walking, we reached the lower platform of Serbal just about noon, and reposed under the shade of a rock. Here we finished our stock of milk and of water; and Hamd, who remembered to have heard once that a well was in this neighbourhood, went in search of it, but returned after an hour?s absence, with the empty skin. I was afterwards informed, that in a cleft of the rock, not far from the stone tank, which I have already mentioned, there is a small source which never dries up. We had yet a long journey to make, Hamd, therefore, volunteered to set out before me, to fill the skin in the valley below, and to meet me with it at the foot of the cleft; by which we had entered the mountain. He departed, leaping down the mountain like a Gazelle, and after prolonging my siesta I leisurely followed him, with the other Arab. When we arrived, at the end of two hours and a half, at the point agreed upon, we found Hamd waiting for us with the water, which he had brought from a well at least five miles distant. A slight shower of rain which had fallen, instead of cooling the air appeared only to have made it hotter.

Instead of pursuing, from our second halting-place, the road by which we had ascended in the morning from Ain Rymm, we took a more western direction, to the left of the former, and reached by a less rapid descent, the Wady Aleyat [Arabic], which leads to the lower parts of Wady Feiran. After a descent of an hour, we came to a less rocky country.

At the end of an hour and a half from the foot of Serbal, where Hamd had waited for us, we reached the well, situated among date-plantations, where he had filled the skins; its water is very good, much better than that of Feiran. The date-trees are not very thickly planted; amongst them I saw several Doum trees, some of which I had already observed in other parts of the peninsula. This valley is inhabited by Bedouins during the date-harvest,

WADY MAKTA

[p.612] and here are many huts, built of stones, or of date-branches, which they then occupy.

In the evening we continued our route in the valley Aleyat, in the direction N.W. To our right was a mountain, upon the top of which is the tomb of a Sheikh, held in great veneration by the Bedouins, who frequently visit it, and there sacrifice sheep. It is called El Monadja [Arabic]. The custom among the Bedouins of burying their saints upon the summits of mountains accords with a similar practice of the Israelites; there are very few Bedouin tribes who have not one or more tombs of protecting saints (Makam), in whose honour they offer sacrifices; the custom probably originated in their ancient idolatrous wors.h.i.+p, and was in some measure retained by the sacrifices enjoined by Mohammed in the great festivals of the Islam.

In many parts of this valley stand small buildings, ten or twelve feet square, and five feet high, with very narrow entrances. They are built with loose stones, but so well put together, that the greater part of them are yet entire, notwithstanding the annual rains. They are all quite empty. I at first supposed them to be magazines belonging to the Arabs, but my guides told me that their countrymen never entered them, because they were Kobour el Kofar, or tombs of infidels; perhaps of the early Christians of this peninsula. I did not, however, meet with any similar structures in other parts of the peninsula, unless those already mentioned in the upper part of Wady Feiran, are of the same cla.s.s. At half an hour from the spring and date-trees, we pa.s.sed to our left a valley coming from the southern mountains, called Wady Makta [Arabic], and half an hour farther on, at sunset, we reached Wady Feiran, at the place where the date plantations terminate, and an hour?s walk below the spot from whence we set out yesterday upon this excursion.

WADY ALEYAT

[p.613] In the course of my descent from the cleft at the foot of Mount Serbal, through the Wady Aleyat, I found numerous inscriptions on blocks by the side of the road, those which I copied were in the following order; some I did not copy, and many were effaced.

1. Upon a flat stone in the upper extremity of the Wady, descending from the foot of Serbal towards the well with date-trees: [not included]

2. Upon a small block lower down: [not included]

3. Upon a small rock still lower down: [not included]

4. 5. Still descending: [not included]

6. Near the spring: [not included]

[p.614]

7. Upon a large rock beyond the spring, and towards Wady Feiran: [not included]

8. Further down, upon a rock, being one of the clearest inscriptions which I saw: [not included] On many stones were drawings of goats and camels. This was once probably the main road to the top of Serbal, which continued along its foot, and turned by Deir Sigillye round its eastern side, thus pa.s.sing the cleft and the road by which we had ascended, and which nowhere bears traces of having ever been a regular and frequented route.

After my departure in the morning for Mount Serbal, the messenger dispatched by the Arabs a.s.sembled in Sheikh Szaleh, arrived at Wady Feiran, and forbad the people from guiding me to the top of Serbal; the news of this order had spread along the whole valley, so that on our reaching the first habitations under the date-trees, where I intended to rest for the night, all the Arabs

WADY FEIRAN

[p.615] a.s.sembled, and became extremely clamorous as well against me, as against Hamd for having accompanied me. I cared but little for their insolent language, which I knew how to reply to, but I was under some apprehensions for my servant and baggage, and therefore determined to rejoin them immediately. We ascended the valley, by a gentle slope, and reached Hamd?s garden late at night, greatly fatigued, for we had been almost the whole day upon our legs. We here met the Bedouins and their girls occupied in singing and dancing, which they kept up till near midnight.

June 2d.?When I awoke I found about thirty Arabs round me, ready to begin a new quarrel about my pursuits in their mountains. When they saw that I paid little attention to their remonstrances, and was packing up my effects, in order to proceed on my journey, they then asked me for some victuals and coffee. After having observed to them that I was more easily prevailed upon by civility than harshness, I distributed among the poorest such provisions as I should not want on my way back to Suez, together with some coffee-beans and soap. This immediately put them into good humour, and in return, they brought me some milk, cuc.u.mbers, and a quant.i.ty of Bsyse, or ground Nebek. I purchased from them a skinful of dates reduced to a paste, and one of them joined us for the sake of travelling in our company to Suez, where he intended to sell a load of charcoal; we then set out, leaving every body behind us well satisfied.

We followed the same road by which we had ascended last night, and halted again where the date trees terminate. Here the same Arabs whom we had found yesterday evening, having been informed that I had made some presents where I had slept, thought, no doubt, that by being vociferous they would obtain something. In this, however, they were mistaken, for I gave them nothing, telling them they might seize my baggage if they chose, but this they

[p.616] prudently declined to do. Ten years ago I should hardly have been able to extricate myself in this manner.

The valley of Feiran widens considerably where it is joined by the Wady Aleyat, and is about a quarter of an hour in breadth. Upon the mountains on both sides of the road stand the ruins of an ancient city. The houses are small, but built entirely of stones, some of which are hewn and some united with cement, but the greater part are piled up loosely. I counted the ruins of about two hundred houses. There are no traces of any large edifice on the north side; but on the southern mountain there is an extensive building, the lower part of which is of stone, and the upper part of earth. It is surrounded by private habitations, which are all in complete ruins. At the foot of the southern mountain are the remains of a small aqueduct. Upon several of the neighbouring hills are ruins of towers, and as we proceeded down the valley for about three quarters of an hour, I saw many small grottos in the rocks on both sides, hewn in the rudest manner, and without any regularity or symmetry; the greater part seemed to have been originally formed by nature, and afterwards widened by human labour. Some of the largest which were near the ruined city had, perhaps, once served as habitations, the others were evidently sepulchres; but few of them were large enough to hold three corpses, and they were not more than three or four feet high. I found no traces of antiquity in any of them.

At half an hour from the last date-trees of Feiran, I saw, to the right of the road, upon the side of the mountain, the ruins of a small town or village, the valley in the front of which is at present quite barren. It had been better built than the town above described, and contained one very good building of hewn stone, with two stories, each having five oblong windows in front. The roof

[p.617] has fallen in. The style of architecture of the whole strongly resembles that seen in the ruins of St. Simon, to the north of Aleppo, the mountains above which are also full of sepulchral grottos, like those near Feiran. The roofs of the houses appear to have been entirely of stone, like those in the ruined towns of the Haouran, but flat, and not arched. There were here about a hundred ruined houses.

Feiran was formerly the seat of a Bishopric. Theodosius was bishop during the Monothelite controversy. From doc.u.ments of the fifteenth century, still existing in the convent of Mount Sinai, there appears at that time to have been an inhabited convent at Feiran. Makrizi, the excellent historian, and describer of Egypt; who wrote about the same time, gives the following account of Feiran, which he calls Faran.[The present Bedouins call it Fyran or Feiran [Arabic], and thus it is spelt wherever it occurs in the Arabic doc.u.ments in the convent. Niebuhr calls it Faran, and I have heard some Bedouins p.r.o.nounce it as if it were written [Arabic, giving it nearly the sound of Fyran.]]

?It is one of the towns of the Amalakites, situated near the borders of the sea of Kolzoum, upon a hill between two mountains; on each of which are numberless excavations, full of corpses. It is one day?s journey distant [in a straight line] from the sea of Kolzoum, the sh.o.r.e of which is there called ?the sh.o.r.e of the sea of Faran;? there it was that Pharaoh was drowned by the Almighty. Between the city of Faran and the Tyh are two days journey. It is said that Faran is the name of the mountains of Mekka, and that it is the name of other mountains in the Hedjaz, and that it is the place mentioned in the books of Moses. But the truth is, that Tor and Faran are two districts belonging to the southern parts of Egypt, and that it is not the same as the Faran (Paran) mentioned in the books of Moses. It is stated, that the mountains

[p.618] of Mekka derive their name from Faran Ibn Amr Ibn Amalyk. Some call them the mountains of Faran others Fyran. The city of Faran was one of the cities belonging to Midian, and remained so until the present times. There are plenty of palmtrees there, of the dates of which I have myself eaten. A large river flows by. The town is at present in ruins; Bedouins only pa.s.s there.?

Makrizi is certainly right in supposing that the Faran or Paran mentioned in the Scriptures is not the same as Feiran; an opinion which has been entertained also by Niebuhr, and other travellers. From the pa.s.sage in Numbers xiii. 26, it is evident that Paran was situated in the desert of Kadesh, which was on the borders of the country of the Edomites, and which the Israelites reached after their departure from Mount Sinai, on their way towards the land of Edom. Paran must therefore be looked for in the desert west of Wady Mousa, and the tomb of Aaron which is shewn there. At present the people of Feiran bury their dead higher up in the valley, than the ancient ruins in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Abou Taleb. There is no rivulet, but in winter time the valley is completely flooded, and a large stream of water collected from all the lateral valleys of Wady el Sheikh empties itself through Wady Feiran into the gulf of Suez near the Birket Faraoun.

We rode for one hour from Feiran, and then stopped near some date trees called Hosseye [Arabic], where are several Arab huts, and where good water is found. Here I remained the rest of the day, as I felt very much the effect of yesterday?s exertions. In the evening all the females quitted the huts to join in the Mesamer, in which I also partic.i.p.ated, and we kept it up till long after midnight. My servant[This was the same man who had accompanied me during my journey to Upper Egypt, as far as a.s.souan. I again engaged him in my service after my return fro[m] the Hedjaz.] attempted to join the party, but the proud

WADY ROMMAN

[p.619] Arabs told him that he was a Fellah, not of good breed, and would not permit him to mix in the dance. He met with the same repulse last night at Feiran.

June 3d.?We followed the valley by a slight slope through its windings W.N.W. and N.W. Many tamarisk trees grow here, and some manna is collected. The fertility of these valleys is owing chiefly to the alluvial soil brought down from the mountains by the torrents, and which soon acquires consistence in the bottom of the Wady; but if a year pa.s.ses without rain these alluvia are reduced to dust, and dispersed by the winds over the mountains from whence they came. The surface was covered with a yellow clay in which a variety of herbs was growing. At two hours the valley, for the length of about an hour, bears the name of Wady el Beka [Arabic], or the valley of weeping, from the circ.u.mstance, as it is related, of a Bedouin who wept because his dromedary fell here, during the pursuit of an enemy, and he was thus unable to follow his companions, who were galloping up the valley to wards Feiran. The rock on the side of the road is mostly composed of gneiss. At three hours and a half we pa.s.sed to our right Wady Romman [Arabic]. I was told that in the mountains from which it descends is a fine spring, and some date- trees about four hours distant. The road now turned N.W. b. W.; the granite finishes and sand-stone begins; among the latter rock-salt is found. At five hours we halted under a large impending sandstone rock, where the valley widens considerably, and continues in a W. direction down to the sea-side. Leaving this valley to the left, we rode in the afternoon N.W. b. W. ascending slightly over rocky ground, until we reached an upper plain at the end of

WADY MOKATTEB

[p.620] six hours. The chain of granite mountains continued to our right, parallel with the road, which was overspread with silex, and farther on we met with a kind of basaltic tufa, forming low hills covered with sand. We then descended, and at six hours and a half entered the valley called Wady Mokatteb [Arabic]. The appellation of Djebel Mokatteb, which several travellers have applied to the neighbouring mountains, is not in use. To the north of the entrance of this valley near the foot of the higher chain, is a cl.u.s.ter of magazines of the Bedouins, at a spot called El Bedja [Arabic].

The Wady Mokatteb extends for three hours march in the direction N.W.; in the upper part it is three miles across, having to the right high mountains, and to the left a chain of lower sandrocks. Half way down, it becomes narrower, and then takes the name of Seyh Szeder [Arabic]. In most places the sand-rocks present abrupt cliffs, twenty or thirty feet in height. Large ma.s.ses have separated themselves from the cliffs and lie at their feet in the valley. These cliffs and rocks are thickly covered with inscriptions, which are continued with intervals of a few hundred paces only, for at least two hours and a half; similar inscriptions are found in the lower part of the Wady, where it narrows, upon the sand-stone rocks of the opposite, or north-eastern side of the valley. To copy all these inscriptions would occupy a skilful draughtsman six or eight days; they are all of the same description as those I have already mentioned, consisting of short lines, written from right to left, and with the singular character represented in p. 479, invariably at the beginning of each. Some of them are on rocks at a height of twelve or fifteen feet, which must have required a ladder to ascend to them. They are in general cut deeper than those on the granite in the upper country, but in the same careless style. Amongst them are many in Greek; containing, probably, like the others, the names of those who

WADY BADERA

[p.621] pa.s.sed here on their pilgrimage to the holy mountain. Some of the latter contain Jewish names in Greek characters. There is a vast number of drawings of mountain goats and of camels, the latter sometimes represented as loaded, and with riders on their backs. Crosses are also seen, indicating that the inscribers were Christians. It should be observed that the Mokatteb lies in the princ.i.p.al route to Sinai, and which is much easier and more frequented than the upper road by Naszeb, which I took in my way to the convent; the cliffs also are so situated as to afford a fine shade to travellers during the mid-day hours. To these circ.u.mstances may undoubtedly in great measure be attributed the numerous inscriptions found in this valley.

We rested for the night, after a day?s march of nine hours and a quarter, near the lower extremity of the Seyh Szeder, and just beyond the last of the inscriptions. The bottom of the valley is here rocky, and as flat as if the rock had been levelled by art.

June 4th.?At a few hundred paces below the place where we had slept, the valley becomes very narrow, the mountains to the right approach, and a defile of granite rocks is entered in a direction W. by S. called Wady Kenna [Arabic], where the tomb of a saint of the name of Wawa [Arabic]

stands. I was told afterwards at Cairo, by some Sinai Bedouins, that lower down in Wady Kenna there is a very deep cavern in the rock. At three quarters of an hour we pa.s.sed to the right of the defile, and turned N.W. into a valley called Badera [Arabic]. The valley of Badera consists of sand rock, and the ground is deeply covered with sand. We ascended gently in it, and in an hour and three quarters reached its summit, from whence we descended by a narrow difficult path, down a cliff called Nakb Badera [Arabic], into an open plain between the mountains; we crossed the plain, and at two hours and a quarter entered Wady Sh.e.l.lal [Arabic], so called from

WADY Sh.e.l.lAL

[p.622] the number of cataracts which are formed in the rainy season, by the torrents descending from the mountains. A great number of acacia trees grow here, many of which were completely dried up; during the whole of our morning?s journey not a green herb could be discovered. We here met several Bedouins on foot, on their way from Suez to Feiran.