The Complaints Of The Bitterness Of
The Water By The Children Of Israel, Who Had Been Accustomed To The
Sweet Water Of The Nile, Are Such As May Daily Be Heard From The
Egyptian Servants And Peasants Who Travel In Arabia.
Accustomed from
their youth to the excellent water of the Nile, there is nothing which
they so much regret in countries distant from Egypt; nor is there any
eastern people who feel so keenly the want of good water as the present
natives of Egypt.
With respect to the means employed by Moses to render
the waters of the well sweet, I have frequently enquired among the
Bedouins in different parts of Arabia whether they possessed any means
of effecting such a change, by throwing wood into it, or by any other
process; but I never could learn that such an art was known.
At the end of three hours we reached Wady Gharendel [Arabic] which
extends to the N.E. and is almost a mile in breadth, and full of trees.
The Arabs told me that it may be traced through the whole desert, and
that it begins at no great distance from El Arysh, on the Mediterranean,
but I had no means of ascertaining the truth of this statement. About
half an hour from the place where we halted, in a southern direction, is
a copious spring, with a small rivulet, which renders the valley the
principal station on this route. The water is disagreeable, and if kept
for a night in the water skins, it turns bitter and spoils, as I have
myself experienced, having passed this way three times.
If we admit Bir Howara to be the Marah[Morra in Arabic means “bitter.”
Marah in Hebrew is “bitterness.”] of Exodus (xv. 23), then Wady
Gharendel is probably Elim, with its wells and date trees, an opinion
entertained by Niebuhr, who, however, did not
[p.474] see the bitter well of Howara on the road to Gharendel. The
nonexistence, at present, of twelve wells at Gharendel must not be
considered as evidence against the just-stated conjecture; for Niebuhr
says that his companions obtained water here by digging to a very small
depth, and there was a great plenty of it, when I passed; water, in
fact, is readily found by digging, in every fertile valley in Arabia,
and wells are thus easily formed, which are quickly filled up again by
the sands.
The Wady Gharendel contains date trees, tamarisks, acacias of different
species, and the thorny shrub Gharkad [Arabic], the Peganum retusum of
Forskal, which is extremely common in this peninsula, and is also met
with in the sands of the Delta on the coast of the Mediterranean. Its
small red berry, of the size of a grain of the pomegranate, is very
juicy and refreshing, much resembling a ripe gooseberry in taste, but
not so sweet. The Arabs are very fond of it, and I was told that in
years when the shrub produces large crops, they make a conserve of the
berries.
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