The Sheikh himself, an old man, seeing escape impossible, sat down
by the fire, when the leader of the Maazy came up, and cried out to him
to throw down his turban and his life should be spared.
The generous
Sheikh, rather than do what, according to Bedouin notions, would have
stained his reputation ever after, exclaimed, “I shall not uncover my
head before my enemies;” and was immediately killed with the thrust of a
lance. A low chain of sand-hills begins here to the west, near the sea;
and the eastern mountains approach the road. At nine hours and a half,
HOWARA
[p.472] S.S.E. the eastern mountains form a junction with the western
hills. At ten hours we entered a hilly country; at ten hours and three
quarters we rested for the night in a barren valley among the hills,
called Wady Amara [Arabic]. We met with nobody in this route except a
party of Yembo merchants, who had landed at Tor, and were travelling to
Cairo. The hills consist of chalk and silex in very irregular strata:
the silex is sometimes quite black; at other times it takes a lustre and
transparency much resembling agate.
April 27th.—We travelled over uneven hilly ground, gravelly and flinty.
At one hour and three quarters we passed the well of Howara [Arabic],
round which a few date trees grow. Niebuhr travelled the same route, but
his guides probably did not lead him to this well, which lies among
hills about two hundred paces out of the road. He mentions a rock called
Hadj er Rakkabe, as one German mile short of Gharendel; I remember to
have halted under a large rock, close by the road side, a very short
distance before we reached Howara, but I did not learn its name. The
water of the well of Howara is so bitter, that men cannot drink it; and
even camels, if not very thirsty, refuse to taste it.
From Ayoun Mousa to the well of Howara we had travelled fifteen hours
and a quarter. Referring to this distance, it appears probable that this
is the desert of three days mentioned in the Scriptures to have been
crossed by the Israelites immediately after their passing the Red sea,
and at the end of which they arrived at Marah. In moving with a whole
nation, the march may well be supposed to have occupied three days; and
the bitter well at Marah, which was sweetened by Moses, corresponds
exactly with that of Howara. This is the usual route to Mount Sinai, and
was probably therefore that which the Israelites took on their escape
from Egypt, provided it be admitted that they crossed the sea near Suez,
as Niebuhr, with good reason, conjectures. There is
WADY GHARENDEL
[p.473] no other road of three days march in the way from Suez towards
Sinai, nor is there any other well absolutely bitter on the whole of
this coast, as far as Ras Mohammed.
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