The Land of Midian (Revisited) Volume II Part 9

We took the track which crosses the Bujat-Bada to the south-east.

For a short way it was vilely rat-eaten; presently it issued upon good, hard, stony ground; and, after four miles, it entered the Wady el-Marwat. This gorge, marked by the Jebel Wasil, a round head to the north, is a commonplace affair of trap and white clay; broad, rough, and unpicturesque. The sole shows many piles of dry stone, ruins of "boxes," in which the travelling Arab pa.s.ses the night, whilst his camels are tethered outside. The watercourse heads in a Khuraytah, the usual rock-ladder; we reached it after eleven miles' riding. Naji, the sea-lawyer of the party, a.s.sured us that we had not finished a third of the way, when two-thirds would have been nearer the truth.

The Wady sides and head showed traces of hard work, especially where three veins of snowy quartz had been deeply cut into. The summit of the Col, some 2100 feet above sea-level, carried a fine reef of "Maru," measuring eight feet at the widest, and trending 332 (mag.) Around it lay the usual barbarous ruins, mere bas.e.m.e.nts, surrounded by spalled stone: from this place I carried off a portable Kufic inscription. The view down the regular and tree-dotted slope of the Wady el-Marwat, as far as the flats of Bada, was charming, an Argelez without its over-verdure.

From the Col two roads lead to our day's destination. The short cut to the right was reported stony: as most of our mules were casting their irons and falling lame, I avoided it by the advice of Furayj, thereby giving huge offence to old ?Afnan. We followed the long slope trending to the Wady el-Kurr, which drains the notable block of that name. Seeing the Wakil, and the others in front, cutting over the root to prevent rounding a prodigiously long tongue-tip, I was on the qui vive for the normal dodge; and presently the mulatto Abdullah screamed out that the Nakb must be avoided, as it was all rock. We persisted and found the path almost as smooth as a main road. The object was to halt for the night at a neighbouring water-hole in the rocks; and, when their trick failed, the Baliyy with a naive infantine candour, talked and laughed over their failure, sans vergogne and within earshot.

Despite the many Zawabahs ("dust-devils"), this was one of our finest travelling days. After the usual ante-meridian halt, we pushed on down the valley, meeting only a few donkey-drivers. At 2.15 p.m. (seven hours = twenty miles and a half), we reached the beautiful ?Ayn el-Kurr, some ten direct miles east of the Wady Rabigh; and the caravan was only one hour behind us. This Wady is a great and important affluent of the Wady el-Miyah already mentioned. The reach where we camped runs from north to south; and the "gate" of porphyritic trap, red, green, yellow, and white with clay, almost envelops the quartz-streaked granite. The walls are high enough to give shade between eight a.m. and 2.15 p.m.; and the level sole of the cleanest sand is dotted, near the right side, with holes and pools of the sweetest water. Here "green grow the rushes," especially the big-headed Kasba (Arundo donax); the yellow-tipped Namas or flags (Scirpus holoschaenus) form a dense thicket; the ?Ushr, with its cork-like bark which makes the best tinder, is a tree, not a shrub; and there are large natural plantations of the saffron-flowered, tobacco-like Verbasc.u.m, the Arab's Uzn el-Humar ("Donkey's Ear"). Add scattered cl.u.s.ters of date-trees, domineering over clumps of fan-palm; and, lastly, marvellous to relate, a few hundred feet of greensward, of regular turf--a luxury not expected in North-Western Arabia--a paradise for frogs and toads (Bufo vulgaris), gra.s.shoppers, and white pigeons; and you will sympathize with our enjoyment at the ?Ayn el-Kurr. In such a place extensive ruins of the "Old Ones"

were to be expected. Apparently there is no trace of man beyond Wasm on the rocks; a few old Bedawi graves in a dwarf Wady inflowing from the west; a rude modern watercourse close above its mouth, and Arab fences round the trimmed dates and newly set palm shoots.

During the afternoon the Shaykhs came to us with very long faces.

At this season, and as long as the Baliyy are in the Shafah uplands, the almost deserted frontier districts, which we are about to enter, suffer from the Gaum, or razzia, of the neighbouring ?Anezah and the Juhaynah;--the two tribes, however, not mixing. The bandits, numbering, they say, from fifty to sixty, mounted on horses and dromedaries, only aspire to plunder some poor devil-shepherd of a few camels, goats, and muttons.

They never attack in rear; they always sleep at night, save when every moment is precious for "loot"-driving; and their weapons, which may be deadly in the narrows, are despicable in the open country.

I suspected at first that this was another "dodge" to enhance the services of our Arabs, but the amount of risk we were to run was soon found out by consulting Furayj. He said that we must march in rear of the caravan for a day or two; and that such attacks were possible, but only once in a hundred cases. There might have been treachery in camp; the Egyptian officers suggested that a Baliyy scout could have been sent on to announce the approach of a rich caravan. Accordingly, I ordered an evening review of our "Remingtons;" and chose a large mark purposely, that the Bedawi lookers-on might not have cause to scoff. The escort redeemed many a past lache, by showing that their weapons had been kept bright and clean, and by firing neatly enough. The Baliyy, who had never seen a breech-loader, were delighted; but one of our party so disliked the smell of powder, that he almost quarrelled with me for bringing him into such imminent deadly risk. He was hardly to be blamed; his nerves had been terribly shaken by a viper killed in his tent.

Next morning (April 6th) saw the most unpleasant of our marches.

The young Shaykh Sulayman, accompanied by his cousin Salim, set out in the dark as eclaireurs: they were supposed to lead eight or ten of the best matchlock-men, whereas I doubt whether the whole camp contained that total. Presently it appeared that they were alone, and the farce was hardly kept up through the next day. At 5.15 a.m. we followed them, marching militairement, as my friend Sefer Pasha had strongly advised at Cairo. It is no joke to follow starveling beasts whose best speed seldom attains two miles and a half per hour. However, the effect was excellent: never had there been so little straggling; never had the halting-places been reached in such good time and good order.

A pleasant surprise awaited us in the grandest display of quartz that we had yet seen. The descent of the Wady el-Kurr seemed to be as flat, stale, and profitless as possible, when "Mara"

appeared on the left side in mounds, veins, and strews. Presently we turned south, and pa.s.sed the brackish well, El-Hufayrah ("the Little Pit"), in a bay of the left bank, distant about eight miles from our last camp. Here the whole Wady, some two miles broad, was barred with quartz, in gravel of the same rock, and in veins which, protruding from the dark schist, suggested that it underlies the whole surface. Nothing more remarkable than the variety of forms and tints mingling in the mighty ma.s.s--the amorphous, the crystallized, the hyaline, the burnt; here mottled and banded, there plain red and pink, green and brown, slaty and chocolate, purple, kaolin-white; and, rarest of all, honeycomb-yellow. The richest part was at the Majra el-Kabsh ("Divide of the Ram"), where we alighted and secured specimens.

From this point the Wady el-Kurr flows down the right side of its valley, and disappears to the west; while the far side of the Majra shows the Wady Gamirah (Kamirah), another influent of the Wady el-Miyah. Various minor divides led to the Wady el-Laylah, where ruins were spoken of by our confidant, ?Audah, although his information was discredited by the Shaykhs. Quartz-hills now appeared on either side, creamy-coated cones, each capped by its own sparkle whose brilliancy was set off by the gloomy traps which they sheeted and topped. In some places the material may have been the usual hard, white, heat-altered clay; but the valley-sole showed only the purest "Maru." The height of several hills was nearly double that of the northern Jebel el-Abyaz; and the reef-crests were apparently unworked.

After the march had extended to seven hours (= 18 miles), there were loud complaints about its length, the venerable ?Afnan himself begging us to spare his camels--which, being interpreted, meant spoiling our pockets. I therefore gave orders to camp in the broad and open Wady Laylah. We were far from water, but the evening was pleasant, and the night was still more agreeable.

At five a.m. next day (April 7th) we rode up the Wady Laylah, which gave us another surprise, and an unexpected joy, in the s.h.i.+fting scenery of the Jibal el-Safhah. The "Mountains of the Plain," so called because they start suddenly from a dead level, are a section of the Tihamat-Balawiyyah range; yet they are worthy links of a chain which boasts of a Sharr. Rising hard on our left, beyond the dull traps that hem in the Wadys, these blocks, especially the lower features, the mere foot-hills, a.s.sume every quaintest nuance of hue and form. The fawn-grey colour, here s.h.i.+ning as if polished by "slickensides," there dull and roughened by the rude touch of Time, is a neutral ground that takes all the tints with which sun and moon, mist and cloud, paint and glaze the world: changeable as the chameleon's, the coating is never the same for two brief hours. The protean shape, seen in profile and foreshortened from the north or south, appears a block bristling with "Pins" and points, horns and beaks. Viewed from the east the range splits into a double line, whose ranks have never been "dressed" nor sized; whilst a diagonal prospect so alters their forms and relations that they apparently belong to another range.

The background, lying upon the most distant visible plane, is the white-streaked and regular wall of the Jebel el-Ward, which we have already seen from the sea. Its northern foot-ranges are the pale-white and jagged ?Afayr, whose utter isolation makes it interesting; and the low and long, the dark and dumpy Jebel Tufayyah. It is separated by a broad valley from its southern neighbour, the Jebel el-Ughlub, or El-Ghalab as some call it.

This typical block consists chiefly of a monstrous "Parrot's Beak" of granite, continued by a long dorsum to the south. Its outliers number four. These are, first, the Umm Natash, two sets of perpendicular b.u.t.tresses pressed together like sausages or cigars. Then comes the Talat Muhajjah, a broken saddleback, whose cantle from the south-east appears split into a pair of steeple-like boulders--an architect of Alexander the Great's day would have easily cut and trimmed them into such towers as the world has never seen. Follows the Umm el-Natakah, bristling like the fretful porcupine, and apparently disdaining to receive the foot of man; while the last item, the Jebel el-Khausilah, has outlines so thoroughly architectural that we seem to gaze upon a pile of building.

About five miles behind or south of El-Khausilah runs the Wady Hamz. Thus the two blocks, El-Ward and El-Ughlub, form the Safhah proper. The line is continued, after a considerable break, by the two blue and conical peaks in the Tihamat-Jahaniyyah, known as the Jebelayn el-Ral. They are divided and drained to the Wady Hamz by the broad Wady el-Sula'; and the latter is the short cut down which the Egyptian Hajj, returning northwards from El-Medinah, debouches upon the maritime plain of South Midian.

The Wady Laylah, draining both the Shafah and the Tihamah ranges, including the block El-Ward, a.s.sumes, as usual, various names: we shall follow it till it is received into the mighty arms of the Wady Hamz, some three miles from the sea. After riding eight hours, we sighted the long line of Daum-palms which announce the approach to El-Birkah, "the Tank." Here the huge Fiumara, sweeping grandly from north-east to south-west, forms a charming narrow and a river-like run about a mile and a half long--phenomenal again in sun-scorched Arabia. The water, collecting under the ma.s.ses of trap which wall in the left bank, flows down for some distance in threads, a ciel ouvert, and finally combines in a single large blue-green pool on the right side. A turquoise set in enamel of the brightest verdure, it attracts by its dense and shady beds of rushes a variety of water-fowl--one of our Bedawin killed a black-headed duck with a bullet, which spoilt it as a specimen. About the water-run are dwarf enclosures, and even water-melons were sown; unhappily the torrent came down and carried all away.

We halted near the upper spring at 8.20 a.m., after the usual accident which now occurred daily about that hour. On this occasion Lieutenant Yusuf's shoe stuck in the stirrup when he was dismounting from an unsteady mule; the animal threw him, and he had a somewhat narrow escape from being dragged to death. Man and beast would have lingered long over the pleasures of watering and refection, but I forced them onwards at nine a.m., whilst the hot sun-rays were still tempered by the cool land-breeze. The threads of water and the wet ground extended some two kilometres beyond the Birkat. Further on was another fine "gate," whose eastern or right jamb was the Jibal el-Tibgh, fronting the Wady M'jirmah.

The narrows showed two Arab wells, with the usual platform of dry trunks that make a footing round the mouth. There was no break in the continuity of the quartz: the black trap enclosed, here sheets, there veins, and there almonds in puddings.

At the halting-place a "cerastes" (Echis carinata, Merr.), so called from the warty hollows over the eyes (?), was brought to me in a water-bag; the bearer transferred it to the spirit-bottle by neatly thrusting a packing-needle through the head. The pretty specimen of an amiable, and much oppressed, race did not show an atom of vice. I cannot conceive what has caused the absurd prejudice against snakes, even the most harmless. Perhaps we must trace it to the curious resemblance of the profile, with the flattened forehead, the steely bright eye, the formidable biting apparatus, and the vanis.h.i.+ng chin, to the genus woman, species Lorette. It is hard to imagine that this little beast, which some one called a "Cleopatra's hasp," could be fatal: its small bag can hardly contain a couple of drops. Yet the vox populi is distinctly against me.

The Shaykhs were anxious to push on for another half-hour, where, they declared, a rain-hole is found in the next ravine, the Sha'b el-Kahafah. But we had been privily told of another further down the valley, at the Sha'b el-Harr; and, although we much wanted a bottleful for photography, we determined to run the risk. The result is curious, showing how jealously water-secrets are kept in these lands. The next thing I heard was that the water had waxed salt; then it had dried up; and, lastly, it was in the best condition, the truth being that there was none at all.

Consequently we were compelled to send back four camels and two cameleers from our next camping-ground to the Kahafah. Venerable ?Afnan made many a difficulty, and an uncommon favour, of risking the plundering of the dromedaries and the lives of his caterans by a razzia. The fellows set off after nightfall towards the upper ravine, distant some two hours' slow march: they must there have had a pleasant, refres.h.i.+ng sleep; and they did not return, doubtless by order, till late next morning. This gave the Shaykhs a good opportunity of fearing greatly for the safety of their people, and of delaying our march as much as possible.

Resuming the road at 2.30 p.m., we entered the western prolongation of the Wady el-Birkah. Here it becomes the Wady Aba'l-?Agag (?Ajaj), and preserves that name till it anastomoses with the Hamz. There have been some wells in the bed; but all are now filled up, and water must be carried from El-Birkah. We camped at a n.o.ble reach, garnished with a mimic forest of old tamarisks, whose small voices, united in chorus, pa.s.sably imitated the mighty murmur of the sea. Our day's march had covered a score of miles; hard work, considering the condition of the mules.

After a splendid night, we set out London-wards at five a.m., April 8th, delayed, as has been said, by the politike of the Shaykhs. Moreover, one of the party, whose motto should have been halt's maul, had remarked that the camels appeared fewer than before--another reason for stopping to count them. Half an hour placed us at a lower and a grander carrefour, abounding in fuel and seducing with tamarisk-shade: its water is known as the Mayat el-Badi'ah. Presently the hilly encas.e.m.e.nt of the Wady el-?Ajaj ended with El-?Adra, a red b.u.t.te to the left, and the Jebel el-Yakhmum on the right. This k.n.o.b was copiously veined with quartz, of which a prodigious depot, explored on the next day, exists in the heights behind it. The Wady now flares out; we have done with the Tihamah Mountains, and we are again in maritime South Midian.

Although we were standing some four hundred feet above the wa.s.sersspiegel, there was no view of the sea, and we had to cross a wave of ground before we pulled off our hats to Father Neptune, as he lay smiling in front of us. There was nothing monotonous in the scene. The mirage raised high in air the yellow mound of Ras Kurk.u.mah ("Turmeric Head"), which bounded the water-line to the south. Nearer, but still far to the left, ran the high right bank of the Wady Hamz, sweeping with a great curve from north-east to west, till it stood athwart our path. k.n.o.bby hills were scattered over the plain; and on our right rose El-Juwayy, a black mound with white-sided and scarred head, whose peculiar shape, a crest upon a slope, showed us once more the familiar Secondary formation of North-Western Arabia. Thus the gypsum has been traced from the Sinaitic sh.o.r.e as far south as the Wady Hamz.

We rode sharply forwards, impatient to see the cla.s.sical ruins, leaving the caravan to follow us. The Girdi ("sand-rat") had ceased to burrow the banks; but the jerboa had made regular rabbit-warrens. At half-past seven we crossed a winding and broad-spreading track, the upper Hajj-road, by which the Egyptian Mahmal pa.s.ses when returning from El-Medi'nah via the Wady Hamz.

A few yards further on showed us a similar line, the route taken by the caravan when going to Meccah via Yambu', now distant five marches. The two meet at the Wady Wafdiyyah, to the north-east of the Aba'l-Maru range, which we shall visit to-morrow.

Shortly after 10 a.m. we crossed the deepest vein of the Wady Hamz, urged the mules up the *stiff* left bank, and sprang from the saddle to enjoy a first view of the Gasr (Kasr) Gurayyim Sa'id.

Chapter XIX.

The Wady Hamz--the Cla.s.sical Ruin--Aba'l-Maru, the Mine of "Marwah"--Return to El-Wijh--Resume of the Southern Journey.

Before describing the Palace of Sa'id the Brave, I must devote a few lines to a notice of the Wady Hamz. The Wady Hamz, which has been mentioned as the southern frontier of Egyptian Midian, and the northern limit of the Ottoman Hejaz, is the most notable feature of its kind upon the North-Western Arabian sh.o.r.e. Yet Wallin has unjustifiably described and inscribed it "Wady Nejd,"

confusing it with a northern basin, whose mouth, the Salbah (Thalbah), we pa.s.sed before reaching Sharm Dumayghah. He appears to identify it with the cla.s.sical Wady el-Kura. Sprenger clean ignores the name, although he mentions its branches; and of course it is utterly neglected by the Hydrographic Chart. This main approach to the Arabian interior is not a fissure, like the vulgar Wadys, but rather an opening where the Ghats, or maritime chain, break to the north and south. Distant one long or two short marches from El-Wijh, its mouth is in north lat. 25 55'; and it is said to head fifteen days inland, in fact beyond El-Medinah, towards which it curves with a south-easterly bend.

It receives a mult.i.tude of important secondary valleys; amongst which is the Wady el-?Uwaynid, universally so p.r.o.nounced. I cannot help thinking that this is El-?Aunid of El-Mukaddasi, which El-Idrisi (erroneously?) throws into the sea opposite Nu'ma'n Island. If my conjecture prove true, we thus have a reason why this important line has been inexplicably neglected.

Another branch is the Wady el-?Is, Sprenger's "Al-?Ys" (pp. 28, 29), which he calls "a valley in the Juhaynah country," and makes the northern boundary of that tribe.

Ethnologically considered, the lower Wady Hamz is now the southern boundary of the Balawiyyah (Baliyy country), and the northern limit of the Jahaniyyah, or Juhaynah-land: the latter is popularly described as stretching down coast to Wady Burmah, one march beyond Yambu' (?). Higher up it belongs to the Alaydan-?Anezahs, under Shaykh Mutlak--these were the Bedawin who, during our stay at the port, brought their caravan to El-Wijh. Both tribes are unsafe, and they will wax worse as they go south. Yet there is no difficulty in travelling up the Hamz, at least for those who can afford time and money to engage the escort of Shaykh Mutlak. A delay of twelve days to a fortnight would be necessary, and common prudence would suggest the normal precaution of detaining, as hostage in the seaboard settlement, one of his Alaydan cousins. Water is to be found the whole way, and the usual provisions are to be bought at certain places.

The following notes upon the ruins of the Wady Hamz were supplied to me by the Baliyy Bedawin and the citizens of El-Wijh. Six stages up the lower valley, whose direction lies nearly north-east, lead to El-?Ila, Wallin's "Ela," which belongs to the ?Anezah. Thence a short day, to the north with easting, places the traveller at Madain (not Madyan nor Medinat) Salih--"the cities of Salih." The site is described to be somewhat off the main valley, which is here broken by a Nakb (?); and those who have visited both declared that it exactly resembles Nabathaean Maghair Shu'ayb in extensive ruins and in catacombs caverning the hill-sides.

Also called El-Hijr, it is made by Sprenger (p. 20) the capital of Thamuditis. This province was the head-quarters of the giant race termed the "Sons of Anak" (Joshua xi. 21); the Thamudeni and Thamudae of Agatharkides and Diodorus; the Tamudaei of Pliny; the Thamyditae of Ptolemy; and the Arabian Tamud (Thamud), who, extinct before the origin of El-Islam, occupied the seaboard between El-Muwaylah and El-Wijh. Their great centre was the plain El-Bada; and they were destroyed by a terrible sound from heaven, the Beth-Kol of the Hebrews, after sinfully slaughtering the miraculously produced camel of El-Salih, the Righteous Prophet (Koran, cap. vii.). The exploration of "Salih's cities" will be valuable if it lead to the collection of inscriptions sufficiently numerous to determine whether the Tamud were Edomites, or kin to the Edomites; also which of the two races is the more ancient, the Horites of Idumaea or the Horites in El-Hijr.

And now to inspect the Gasr. The first sensation was one of surprise, of the mental state which gave rise to the Italian's--

"Dear Columns, what do you here?

?Not knowing, can't say, Mynheer!'"

And this incongruous bit of Greece or Rome, in the Arabian wild, kept its mystery to the last: the more we looked at it, the less we could explain its presence. Not a line of inscription, not even a mason's mark--all dark as the grave; deaf-dumb as "the olden G.o.ds."

The site of the Gasr is in north lat. 25 55' 15";[EN#70] and the centre of the Libn block bears from it 339 (mag.). It stands upon the very edge of its Wady's left bank, a clifflet some twenty-five feet high, sloping inland with the usual dark metal disposed upon loose yellow sand. Thus it commands a glorious view of the tree-grown valley, or rather valleys, beneath it; and of the picturesque peaks of the Tihamat-Balawiyyah in the background. The distance from the sea is now a little over three miles--in ancient days it may have been much less.

The condition of the digging proves that the remains have not long been opened: the Baliyy state less than half a century ago; but exactly when or by whom is apparently unknown to them. Before that time the locale must have shown a mere tumulus, a mound somewhat larger than the many which pimple the raised valley-bank behind the building. A wall is said to have projected above ground, as at Uriconium near the Wrekin.[EN#71] This may have suggested excavation, besides supplying material for the Bedawi cemetery to the south-west. The torrent waters have swept away the whole of the northern wall, and the treasure-seeker has left his mark upon the interior. Columns and pilasters and bevelled stones have been hurled into the Wady below; the large pavement-slabs have been torn up and tossed about to a chaos; and the restless drifting of the loose yellow Desert-sand will soon bury it again in oblivion. The result of all such ruthless ruining was simply null. The imaginative Naji declared, it is true, that a stone dog had been found; but this animal went the way of the "iron fish," which all at El-Muwaylah a.s.serted to have been dug up at El-Wijh--the latter place never having heard of it. Wallin (p. 316) was also told of a black dog which haunts the ruins of Karayya, and acts guardian to its hidden treasures.

Years ago, when I visited the mouth of the Volta river on the Gold Coast, the negroes of Cape Coast Castle were pleased to report that I had unearthed a silver dog, at whose appearance my companion, Colonel de Ruvignes, and myself fell dead. But why always a dog? The "Palace" is a Roman building of pure style; whether temple or nymphaeum, we had no means of ascertaining. The material is the Rugham or alabaster supplied by the Secondary formation; and this, as we saw, readily crumbles to a white powder when burnt. The people, who in such matters may be trusted, declare that the quarries are still open at Abu Makharir, under the hills embosoming Aba'l-Maru. We should have been less surprised had the ruin been built of marble, which might have been transported from Egypt; but this careful and cla.s.sical treatment of the common country stone, only added to the marvel.

It must have been a bright and brilliant bit of colouring in its best days--hence, possibly, the local tradition that the stone sweats oil. The whole building, from the pavement to the coping, notched to receive the roof-joists, is of alabaster, plain-white and streaked with ruddy, mauve, and dark bands, whose mottling gives the effect of marble. Perhaps in places the gypsum has been subjected to plutonic action; and we thought that the coloured was preferred to the clear for the bases of the columns. The exposed foundations of the eastern and western walls, where the torrent has washed away the northern enceinte, show that, after the fas.h.i.+on of ancient Egypt, sandstone slabs have been laid underground, the calcaire being reserved for the hypaethral part.

The admirable hydraulic cement is here and there made to take the place of broken corners, and flaws have been remedied by carefully letting in small cubes of sound stone. There are also cramp-holes for metal which, of course, has been carried off by the Bedawin: the rusty stains suggest iron.

The building is square-shaped, as we see from the western wall, and it evidently faced eastward with 25 (mag.) of southing. This orientation, probably borrowed from the Jews, was not thoroughly adopted in Christendom till the early fifth century, when it became a mos. The southern wall, whose bas.e.m.e.nt is perfect, shows everywhere a thickness of 0.95 centimetre, and a total length of 8 metres 30 centimetres. At 2 metres 87 centimetres from the south-western corner is a slightly raised surface, measuring in length 2 metres 15 centimetres. Mr. James Fergusson supposes that this projection, which directly fronts the eastern entrance, was the base of the niche intended for the image. On each side of the latter might have been a smaller colonette, which would account for the capital carried off by us to Egypt. Thus, adding 2 metres 87 centimetres for the northern end swept into the valley, we have a length of 7 metres 89 centimetres; and the additional half thickness of the east wall would bring it to a total of 8 metres 30 centimetres.

The shrine was not in antis, and the site hardly admits of a peristyle; besides which, excavations failed to find it. That it might have had a small external atrium is made probable by the peculiarity of the entrance. Two rounded pilasters, worked with the usual care inside, but left rough in other parts because they could not be seen, were engaged in the enceinte wall, measuring here, as elsewhere, 0.95 centimetre in thickness. Nothing remained of them but their bases, whose lower diameters were 0.95 centimetre, and the upper 0.65; the drums found elsewhere also measured 0.65. The interval between the lowest rings was 1 metre 63 centimetres; and this would give the measure of the doorway, here probably a parallelogram. Lying on the sand-slope to the north, a single capital showed signs of double brackets, although both have been broken off:[EN#72] the maximum diameter across the top was 0.60 centimetre, diminis.h.i.+ng below to 0.50 and 0.44, whilst the height was 0.40. The encircling wall was probably adorned with pilasters measuring 0.62 centimetre below, 0.45 above, and 0.11 in height: they are not shown in the plan; and I leave experts to determine whether they supported the inside or the outside surface. Several stones, probably copings, are cut with three mortice-joints or joist-holes, each measuring 0.15 centimetre, at intervals of 0.14 to 0.15.

In the tossed and tumbled interior of this maison carree the pavement-slabs, especially along the south-western side, appear in tolerable order and not much disturbed; whilst further east a long trench from north to south had been sunk by the treasure seeker. The breadth of the free pa.s.sage is 1 metre 92 centimetres; and the disposal suggested an inner peristyle, forming an impluvium. Thus the cube could not have been a heroon or tomb. Four bases of columns, with a number of drums, lie in the heap of ruins, and in the torrent-bed six, of which we carried off four. They are much smaller than the pilasters of the entrance; the lower tori of the bases measure 0.60 centimetre in diameter, and 0.20 in height (to 0.90 and 0.25), while the drums are 0.45, instead of 0.65. It is an enormous apparatus to support what must have been a very light matter of a roof. The only specimen of a colonette-capital has an upper diameter of 0.26, a lower of 0.17, and a height of 0.16.

Although the Meccan Ka'bah is, as its name denotes, a "cube,"

this square alabaster box did not give the impression of being either Arab or Nabathaean. The work is far too curiously and conscientiously done; the bases and drums, as the sundries carried to Cairo prove, look rather as if turned by machinery than chiselled in the usual way. I could not but conjecture that it belongs to the days of such Roman invasions as that of aelius Gallus. Strabo[EN#73] tells us of his unfortunate friend and companion, that, on the return march, after destroying Negran[EN#74] (Pliny, vi. 32), he arrived at Egra or Hegra (El-?Wijh), where he must have delayed some time before he could embark "as much of his army as could be saved," for the opposite African harbour, Myus Hormus. It is within the limits of probability that this historical personage[EN#75] might have built the Gasr, either for a shrine or for a nymphaeum, a votive-offering to the Great Wady, which must have cheered his heart after so many days of "Desert country, with only a few watering-places." Perhaps an investigation of the ruins at Ras Kurk.u.mah and the remains of Madain Salih may throw some light upon the mystery. In our travel this bit of cla.s.sical temple was unique.

Mr. Fergusson, whose authority in such matters will not readily be disputed, calls the building a small shrine; and determines that it can hardly be a tomb, as it is hypaethral. The only similar temple known to him is that of "Soueideh" (Suwaydah), in the Hauran (De Vogue, "Syrie Centrale," Plate IV.). The latter, which is Roman, and belonging to the days of Herod Augustus, has a peristyle here wanting: in other respects the resemblance is striking.