Caravans
for Suez often depart; it is also the resort of smugglers from Suez and
Syria.
April 21st.—We set out from Kayt Beg in the course of the morning, in
the company of a caravan bound for Suez, comprising about twenty camels,
some of which belonged to Moggrebyn pilgrims, who had come by sea from
Tunis to Alexandria; the others to a Hedjaz merchant, and to the
Bedouins of Mount Sinai, who had brought passengers from Suez to Cairo,
and were now returning with corn to their mountains. As I knew the
character of these Bedouins by former experience, and that the road was
perfectly
DERB EL ANKABYE
[p.459] safe, at least as far as the convent, I did not think it
necessary this time to travel in the disguise of a pauper. Some few
comforts may be enjoyed in the desert even by those who do not travel
with tents and servants; and whenever these comforts must be
relinquished, it becomes a very irksome task to cross a desert, as I
fully experienced during several of my preceding journeys.
The Bedouins of Sinai, or, as they are more usually denominated, the
Towara, or Bedouins of Tor, formerly enjoyed the exclusive privilege of
transporting goods, provisions, and passengers, from Cairo to Suez, and
the route was wholly under their protection. Since the increased power
of the Pasha of Egypt, it has been thrown open to camel-drivers of all
descriptions, Egyptian peasants, as well as Syrian and Arabian Bedouins;
and as the Egyptian camels are much stronger, for a short journey, than
those of the desert, the Bedouins of Mount Sinai have lost the greater
part of their custom, and the transport trade in this route is now
almost wholly in the hands of the Egyptian carriers. The hire of a
strong camel, from Cairo to Suez, was at this time about six or eight
Patacks, from one and a half to two Spanish dollars.
The desert from Cairo to Suez is crossed by different routes; we
followed that generally taken by the Towara, which lies mid-way between
the great Hadj route, and the more southern one close along the
mountains: 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.
