Ayd Had Seen On The Shore
The Footsteps Of A Man, Which He Knew To Be Those Of A Fisherman, A
Friend Of His Who Had Probably Passed In The Course Of This Day.
Had we
met with him he might have served as our guide, but not a soul was any
where to be seen.
Under these circumstances I reluctantly determined to
retrace my steps the next day, but, instead of proceeding by the shore,
to turn off into the mountains, and return to the convent by a more
western route.
[p.509] Akaba was not far distant from the spot from whence we returned.
Before sun-set I could distinguish a black line in the plain, where my
sharp-sighted guides clearly saw the date-trees surrounding the castle,
which bore N.E. 1 E.; it could not be more than five or six hours
distant. Before us was a promontory called Ras Koreye [Arabic], and
behind this, as I was told, there is another, beyond which begins the
plain of Akaba. The castle is situated at an hour and a half or two
hours from the western chain, down which the Hadj route leads, and about
the same distance from the eastern chain, or lower continuation of Tor
Hesma, a mountain which I have mentioned in my journey through the
northern parts of Arabia Petraea. The descent of the western mountain is
very steep, and has probably given to the place its name of Akaba, which
in Arabic means a cliff or a steep declivity; it is probably the Akabet
Aila of the Arabian geographers; Makrizi says that the village Besak
stands upon its summit. In Numbers, xxxiv. 4, the “ascent of Akrabbim”
is mentioned, which appears to correspond very accurately to this ascent
of the western mountain from the plain of Akaba. Into this plain, which
surrounds the castle on every side except the sea, issues the Wady el
Araba, the broad sandy valley which leads towards the Dead sea, and
which I crossed in 1812, at a day and a half, or two days journey from
Akaba. At about two hours to the south of the castle the eastern range
of mountains approaches the sea. The plain of Akaba, which is from three
to four hours in length, from west to east, and, I believe, not much
less in breadth northward, is very fertile in pasturage. To the distance
of about one hour from the sea it is strongly impregnated with salt, but
farther north sands prevail. The castle itself stands at a few hundred
paces from the sea, and is surrounded with large groves of date-trees.
It is a square building, with strong walls, erected, as it now
[p.510] stands, by Sultan el Ghoury of Egypt, in the sixteenth century.
In its interior are many Arab huts; a market is held there, which is
frequented by Hedjaz and Syrian Arabs; and small caravans arrive
sometimes from Khalyl. The castle has tolerably good water in deep
wells. The Pasha of Egypt, keeps here a garrison of about thirty
soldiers, to guard the provisions deposited for the supply of the Hadj,
and for the use of the cavalry on their passage by this route to join
the army in the Hedjaz. Cut off from Cairo, the soldiers of the garrison
often turn rebellious; three years ago an Aga made himself independent,
and whenever a corps of troops passed he shut the gates of the castle,
and prepared to defend it. He had married a daughter of the chief of the
Omran, and thus secured the assistance of that tribe. Being at last
attacked by some troops sent against him from Cairo he fled to his
wife’s tribe, and escaped into Syria.
It appears that the gulf extends very little farther east than the
castle, distant from which one hour, in a southern direction, and on the
eastern shore of the gulf, lies a smaller and half-ruined castle,
inhabited by Bedouins only, called Kaszer el Bedawy. At about three
quarters of an hour from Akaba, and the same distance from Kaszer el
Bedawy, are ruins in the sea, which are visible only at low water: they
are said to consist of walls, houses, and columns, but cannot easily be
approached, on account of the shallows. This information was not given
to me by my guides, but after my return to Cairo, by some French
Mamelouks, in the army of Mohammed Ali Pasha, who had formerly been for
several weeks in garrison at Akaba; they, however, had never seen the
ruins except from a distance. I enquired particularly whether the gulf
did not form two branches at this extremity, as it has always been laid
down in the maps, but I was assured that it had only a single ending, at
which the castle is situated.
[p.511] To the north of Akaba, in the mountain leading up to Tor Hesma,
is a Wady known by the name of Wady Ithem [Arabic]. I was told that at a
certain spot this valley is shut up by an ancient wall, the construction
of which is ascribed by the Arabs to a king named Hadeid, whose
intention in erecting it was to prevent the tribe of Beni Helal of
Nedjed from making incursions into the plain. By this valley a road
leads eastwards towards Nedjed, following, probably, a branch of the
mountain which extends towards the Akaba of the Syrian Hadj route, where
the pilgrims coming from Damascus descend by a steep and difficult pass
into the lower plains of Arabia. I believe this chain of mountains
continues in a direct and uninterrupted line from the eastern shore of
the Dead sea to the eastern shore of the Red sea, and from thence to
Yemen. Makrizi, the Egyptian historian, says, in his chapter on Aila
(Akaba); “It is from hence that the Hedjaz begins; in former times it
was the frontier place of the Greeks; at one mile from it, is a
triumphal arch of the Caesars.
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