On The Plain We Fell In With The Great Road From Tor To Suez, But Soon
Quitted It To The Right, And Turned To The North In Search Of A Natural
Reservoir Of Rain, In Which The Bedouins Knew That Some Water Was Still
Remaining.
At the end of five hours and a half, we reached a narrow
cleft in the mountain, where we halted, and my guides went a mile up in
it to fill the skins.
This is called Wady
MORKHA
[p.623] el Dhafary [Arabic]; it is sometimes frequented by the Arabs,
because it furnishes the only sweet water between Tor and Suez, though
it is out of the direct road, and the well of Morkha is at no great
distance. Some rain had fallen here in the winter, and water was
therefore met with in several ponds among the rocks. This is the lowest
part of the primitive chain of mountains, and, I believe, the only
place, on the road between Tor and Suez, where they approach the sea,
which is only three miles distant, with a stony plain ascending from it.
A slave of a Towara Bedouin here partook of our breakfast; he had been
sent to these mountains by his master several weeks ago, to collect wood
and burn charcoal, which he was doing quite alone, with no other
provision than a sack of meal. Charcoal, commonly called Fahm in Arabic,
is by these Bedouins called Habesh, a term which I never heard given to
it by any other Arabs; this word may perhaps be the origin of the name
of Abyssinia, which may have been called Habesh by the Arabs from the
colour of its inhabitants. Travellers will do well to enquire for the
Dhafary, in their way to Feiran, as the water of the Morkha is of the
very worst kind; this memorandum would be particularly useful to any
person intending to copy the inscriptions of Wady Mokatteb.
We reached Morkha, [Arabic], which bears from Dhafary N.W. b. N. in half
an hour, the road leading over level but very rocky ground. Morkha is a
small pond in the sand-stone rock, close to the foot of the mountains.
Two date-trees grow near its margin. The bad taste of the water seems to
be owing partly to the weeds, moss, and dirt, with which the pond is
filled, but chiefly, no doubt, to the saline nature of the soil around
it. Next to Ayoun Mousa, in the vicinity of Suez, and Gharendel, it is
the principal station on this road. After watering our camels, which was
our only motive for coming to the Morkha, we returned to the
BAY OF BIRKET FARAOUN
[p.624] sea-shore, one hour distant N.W. We followed the shore for three
quarters of an hour in a N.W. b. N. direction, and then halted close by
the sea, where the maritime level is greatly contracted by a range of
chalk hills which in some places approaches close to the water. Before
us extended the large bay of Birket Faraoun, so called, from being,
according to Arab and Egyptian tradition, the place where the Israelites
crossed the sea, and where the returning waves overwhelmed Pharaoh and
his host. There is an almost continual motion of the waters in this bay,
which they say is occasioned by the spirits of the drowned still moving
in the bottom of the sea; but which may also be ascribed to its being
exposed on three sides to the sea, and to the sudden gusts of wind from
the openings of the valleys. These circumstances, together with its
shoals, render it very dangerous, and more ships have been wrecked in
the Bay of Birket Faraoun than in any other part of the gulf of Tor,
another proof, in the eyes of the Arabs, that spirits or demons dwell
here.
This evening and night we had a violent Simoum. The air was so hot, that
when I faced the current, the sensation was like that of sitting close
to a large fire; the hot wind was accompanied, at intervals with gusts
of cooler air. I did not find my respiration impeded for a moment during
the continuance of the hot blast. The Simoum is frequent on this low
coast, but the advantage of sea bathing renders it the less distressing.
June 5th.—We rode close by the shore, at the foot of sandy cliffs; but
as the road was passable only at low water, we were obliged, as the tide
set in, to take a circuitous route over the mountain. At the end of an
hour we again reached the sea, and then proceeded north over a wide
sandy plain. Towards the mountain is a tract of low grounds several
miles in breadth, in which the shrubs Gharkad and Aszef were growing in
great plenty. At the end of two hours and a half, having reached a very
conspicuous
WADY WARDAN
[p.625] promontory, of the mountain, over which lies the road to the
Hammam Mousa, or hot-wells of Moses, we turned, on its south side, into
a fine valley called Wady el Taybe [Arabic], inclosed by abrupt rocks,
and full of trees, among which were a few of the date, now completely
withered. Want of rain is much more frequent in the lower ranges of the
peninsula, than in the upper. At four hours and a half we passed Wady
Shebeyke, reached soon afterwards the top of Wady Taybe, and then fell
in with the road by which I had passed on my way to the convent from
Suez. We rested in Wady Thale, under a rock, in the shade of which, at 2
P.M. the thermometer rose to 107°. After a march of eleven hours we
halted in Wady Gharendel.
June 6th.—We continued in the road described at the beginning of this
journal, and at six hours and a half reached Wady Wardan. Here we turned
out of the great road to Suez, in a more western direction, towards the
sea, in order to take in water at the well of Szoueyra, which we came to
in three hours from Wardan.
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