The Latter Is Pursued Only By The Arabs Terabein, And Other
Syrian Bedouins.
The route we took is called Derb el Ankabye [Arabic].
We proceeded on a gentle ascent from Kayt Beg, and passed on the right
several low quarries in the horizontal layers of soft calcareous stone
of which the mountain of Mokattam, in the neighbourhood of Cairo, is
composed; it is with this stone that the splendid Mamelouk tombs of Kayt
Beg are built. At the end of
EL MOGAWA
[p.460] an hour, the limestone terminated, and the road was covered with
flints, petrosilex, and Egyptian pebbles; here are also found specimens
of petrified wood, the largest about a foot in length. We now travelled
eastward, and after a march of three hours halted upon a part of the
plain, called El Mogawa [Arabic], where we rested during the mid-day
heat. Beyond this spot, to the distance of five hours from Cairo, we met
with great quantities of petrified wood. Large pieces of the trunks of
trees, three or four feet in length, and eight or ten inches in
diameter, lay about the plain, and close to the road was an entire trunk
of a tree at least twenty feet in length, half buried in sand. These
petrifactions are generally found in low grounds, but I saw several also
on the top of the low hills of gravel and sand over which the road lies.
Several travellers have expressed doubts of their being really petrified
wood, and some have crossed the desert without meeting with any of them.
The latter circumstance is easily accounted for; the route we were
travelling is not that usually taken to Suez. I have crossed this desert
repeatedly in other directions, and never saw any of the petrifactions
except in this part of it. As to its really being petrified wood there
cannot be any reason to doubt it, after an inspection of the substance,
in which the texture and fibres of the wood are clearly distinguishable,
and perfectly resemble those of the date tree. I think it not
improbable, that before Nechos dug the canal between the Nile and the
Red sea, the communication between Arsinoe or Clysma and Memphis, may
have been carried on this way; and stations may have been established on
the spots now covered by these petrified trees; the water requisite to
produce and maintain vegetation might have been procured from deep
wells, or from reservoirs of rain water, as is done in the equally
barren desert between Djidda and Mekka. After the completion of the
canal, this route was perhaps neglected, the trees, left without a
EL MOGRAH
[p.461] regular supply of water, dried up and fell, and the sands, with
the winter rains and torrents, gradually effected the petrifaction. I
have seen specimens of the petrified wood of date trees found in the
Libyan desert, beyond the Bahr bala ma, where they were observed by
Horneman in 1798, and in 1812, by M. Boutin, a French officer, who
brought several of them to Cairo. They resemble precisely those which I
saw on the Suez road, in colour, substance, and texture. Some of them
are of silex, in others the substance seems to approach to hornblende.
We continued our route E. by S. over an uneven and somewhat hilly
country covered with black petrosilex; and after a day’s march of eight
hours and a quarter, we halted in a valley of little depth, called Wady
Onszary [Arabic], where our camels found good pasture. Close by are some
low hills, where the sands are seen in the state of formation into sand-
rock, and presenting all the different gradations between their loose
state and the solid stone. I saw a great quantity of petrified wood upon
one of these hills, amongst which was the entire trunk of a date tree.
April 22d.—From Onszary we travelled E. by S. for one hour, and then E.
At the end of three hours, the hilly country terminates, beyond which,
in this route, no petrified wood is met with; we then entered upon a
widely extended and entirely level plain, called by the Bedouins El
Mograh [Arabic], upon which we rested after a march of five hours and a
half. While we were preparing our dinner two ostriches approached near
enough to be distinctly seen. A shot fired by one of the Arabs
frightened them, and in an instant they were out of sight. These birds
come into this plain, from the eastward, from the desert of Tyh; but I
never heard that the Bedouins of this country take the trouble of
hunting them. The plain of Mograh is famous for the skirmishes which
have taken place there, for the caravans that have been plundered in
DAR EL HAMRA
[p.462] crossing it, and for the number of travellers that have been
murdered on it. In former times, when this desert was constantly over-
run by parties of robbers, the Mograh was always chosen by them as their
point of attack, because, in the event of success, no one could escape
them on a plain where objects can be distinguished in every direction to
the distance of several hours. Even at present, since the route has been
made more secure by the vigilance of the Pasha of Cairo, robberies
sometimes happen, and in the autumn of 1815 a rich caravan was plundered
by the Arabs Terabein.[These Arabs, under their Sheikh Abou Djehame
[Arabic], made an excursion about the same time over the mountains
towards Cosseir, and plundered a caravan of pilgrims and merchants who
were going to Kenne. The Sheikh was seized on his return by the Maazy
tribe and carried to Cairo, where he remained a year in close
confinement, and after having delivered part of his booty into the
treasury of the Pasha, was released a few days before I set out.]
The desert of Suez is never inhabited by Bedouin encampments, though it
is full of rich pasture and pools of water during winter and spring.
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