The
Appearance Of This Gulf, With The Mountains Enclosing It On Both Sides,
Reminded Me Of The Lake Of Tiberias And Of The Dead Sea; And The General
Resemblance Was Still Further Heightened By The Hot Season In Which I
Had Visited All These Places.
May 12th.—Our road lay S.S.W. along a narrow sandy plain by the sea
side.
In one hour and a half we reached Dahab [Arabic], a more extensive
cluster of date trees than I had before seen on this coast; it extends
into the sea upon a tongue of land, about two miles beyond the line of
the shore; to the north of it is a bay, which affords anchorage, but it
is without protection against northerly winds. Dahab is, probably, the
Dizahab mentioned in Deut. i. 1. There are some low hummocks covered
with sand close to the shore of the low promontory, probably occasioned
by the ruins of buildings. The plantations of date trees ar[e] here
enclosed by low walls, within many of which are wells of indifferent
water; but in one of them, about twenty-five feet deep, and fifty yards
from the sea, we found the best water I had met with on any part of this
coast in the immediate vicinity of the sea. About two miles to the south
of the date groves
[p.524] are a number of shallow ponds into which the sea flows at
hightide; here the salt is made which supplies all the peninsula, as
well as the fishermen for curing their fish; the openings of the ponds
being closed with sand, the water is left to evaporate, when a thick
crust of salt is left, which is collected by the Bedouins. Dahab is a
favourite resort of the fishermen, who here catch the fish called Boury
[Arabic] in great quantities.
The date trees of Dahab, which belong to the tribe of Mezeine and
Aleygat, presented a very different appearance to those of Egypt and the
Hedjaz, where the cultivators always take off the lower branches which
dry up annually; here they are suffered to remain, and hang down to the
ground, forming an almost impenetrable barrier round the tree, the top
of which only is crowned with green leaves. Very few trees had any fruit
upon them; indeed date trees, in general, yield a very uncertain
produce, and even in years, when every other kind of fruit is abundant,
they are sometimes quite barren. We met here several families of Arabs,
who had come to look after their trees, and to collect salt. In the
midst of the small peninsula of Dahab are about a dozen heaps of stones
irregularly piled together, but shewing traces of having once been
united; none of them is higher than five feet. The Arabs call them
Kobour el Noszara, or the tombs of the Christians, a name given by them
to all the nations which peopled their country before the introduction
of the Islam.
We remained several hours under the refreshing shade of the palm trees,
and there continued our road. In crossing the tongue of land I observed
the remains of what I conceived to be a road or causeway, which began at
the mountain and ran out towards the point of the peninsula; the stones
which had formed it were now separated from each other, but lay in a
straight line, so as to afford sufficient proof of their having been
placed here by the
WADY GHAYB
[p.525] labour of man. To the south of Dahab the camel road along the
shore is shut up by cliffs which form a promontory called El Shedjeir
[Arabic]; we were therefore obliged to take a circuitous route through
the mountains, and directed our road by that way straight towards Sherm,
the most southern harbour on this coast. We ascended a broad sandy
valley in the direction S.W.; this is the same Wady Sal in which we had
already travelled in our way from the convent, and which empties itself
into the sea. In the rocky sides of this valley I observed several small
grottos, apparently receptacles for the dead, which were just large
enough to receive one corpse; I at first supposed them to have been
natural erosions of the sand-stone rock; but as there were at least a
dozen of them, and as I had not seen any thing similar in other sand-
rocks, I concluded that they had been originally formed by man, and that
time had worn them away to the appearance of natural cavities.
We left the valley and continued to ascend slightly through windings of
the Wady Beney [Arabic] and Wady Ghayb [Arabic], two broad barren sandy
valleys, till, at the end of four hours, we reached the well of Moayen
el Kelab [Arabic], at the extremity of Wady Ghayb, where it is shut up
by a cliff. Here is a small pond of water under the shade of an
impending rock, and a large wild fig-tree. On the top of a neighbouring
part of the granite cliff, is a similar pond with reeds growing in it.
The water, which is never known to dry up, is excellent, and acquires
still greater value from being in the vicinity of a spacious cavern,
which affords shade to the traveller. This well is much visited by the
Mezeine tribe; on several trees in the valley leading to it, we found
suspended different articles of Bedouin tent furniture, and also entire
tent coverings. My guides told me that the owners left them here during
their absence, in order not to have the
MOFASSEL EL KORFA
[p.526] trouble of carrying them about; and such is the confidence which
these people have in one another, that no instance is known of any of
the articles so left having ever been stolen: the same practice prevails
in other parts of the peninsula. The cavern is formed by nature in a
beautiful granite rock; its interior is covered on all sides with
figures of mountain goats drawn with charcoal in the rudest manner; they
are done by the shepherd boys and girls of the Towaras.
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