As Every White-Skinned Person,
Who Makes His Appearance In The Desert, Is Supposed By The Arabs To Be
Attached To The Turkish Army, Or The Government Of Cairo, My
[P.486] going to Akaba without any recommendations would have given rise
to much suspicion, and I should probably
Have been supposed to be a
deserter from the Turkish army, attempting to escape by that circuitous
route to Syria; a practice which is sometimes resorted to by the
soldiers, to whom, without the Pasha’s passport, Egypt is closed both by
sea and land.
In the Wady Osh there is a well of sweet water. From hence upwards, and
throughout the primitive chain of Mount Sinai, the water is generally
excellent, while in the lower chalky mountains all round the peninsula,
it is brackish, or bitter, except in one or two places. The Wady Osh and
Wady Berah empty their waters in the rainy season into Wady el Sheikh,
above Feiran.
April 30th.—We did not leave our kind hosts till the afternoon, for they
insisted on my taking a dinner before I set out. I gave to their
children, who accompanied me a little way, some coffee beans to carry to
their mothers, and some Kammereddein, a sweetmeat made at Damascus from
apricots, of which I had laid in a large stock, and which is very
acceptable to all the Bedouins of Syria, Egypt, and the Hedjaz. The
offer of any reward to a Bedouin host is generally offensive to his
pride; but some little presents may be given to the women and children.
Trinkets and similar articles are little esteemed by the Bedouins; but
coffee is in great request all over the desert; and sweetmeats and sugar
are preferred to money, which, though it will sometimes be accepted,
always creates a sense of humiliation, and consequently of dislike
towards the giver. For my own part, being convinced that the hospitality
of the Bedouin is afforded with disinterested cordiality, I was in
general averse to making the slightest return. Few travellers perhaps
will agree with me on this head; but will treat the Bedouins in the same
manner as the Turks, and other inhabitants of the towns, who never
proffer their services or
WADY EL SHEIKH
[p.487] hospitality without expecting a reward; the feelings of
Bedouins, however, are very different from those of townsmen, and a
Bedouin will praise the guest who departs from him without making any
other remuneration than that of bestowing a blessing upon them and their
encampment, much more than him who thinks to redeem all obligations by
payment.
We returned from Wady Osh towards Wady Berah; but leaving the latter,
which here takes a direction towards Wady Feiran, we ascended by a
narrow valley called Wady Akhdhar [Arabic]. Here I again saw some
inscriptions on blocks of stone lying by the road side. A few hours to
the N.E. of Wady Osh is a mountain called Sheyger, where native cinnabar
is collected; it is called Rasokht [Arabic] by the Arabs, and is usually
found in small pieces about the size of a pigeon’s egg.
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