The Fishermen Are Very Poor And Visit The Coast Only
During The Summer Months; They Cure Their Fish With The
Salt which they
collect on the southern part of the coast, and when they have thus
prepared a sufficient quantity
Of fish, they fetch a camel and transport
it to Tor or Suez. At Tor a camel’s load of the fish, or about four
hundred pounds, may be had for three dollars. The fishermen prepare also
a sort of lard by cutting out the fat adhering to the fish and melting
it, they then mix it with salt, preserve it in skins, and use it all the
year round instead of butter, both for cookery and for anointing their
bodies. Its taste is not disagreeable. As the Bedouins prefer the upper
road, this road along the coast is seldom visited, except by poor
pilgrims who have been cut off from the caravan, or robbed by Bedouins,
and who being ignorant of the road across the desert to Cairo, sometimes
make the tour of the whole peninsula by the sea side, as they are thus
sure not to lose their way, and in winter-time seldom fail in finding
pools of water. Ayd told me that he had frequently met with stragglers
of this description, worn out with fatigue and hunger.
WADY MEZEIRYK
[p.505] From hence northwards the shore runs N.E. 1/2 N. Having doubled
the point of Om Haye, we found on the other side, after again passing
round a small bay, at five hours and three quarters, a bank of sand
running into the sea to a considerable distance, and several miles in
breadth; it is called Wady Mokabelat [Arabic], and is the termination of
a narrow Wady in the mountains to our left, from whence issues a torrent
which spreads in time of rain over a wide extent of ground, partly rocky
and partly sandy, where it produces good pasturage, and irrigates many
acacia trees. The view up this Wady or inlet of the mountain is very
curious: at its mouth it is nearly two miles wide, and it narrows
gradually upwards with the most perfect regularity, so that the eye can
trace it for five or six miles, when it becomes so narrow as to present
only the appearance of a perpendicular black line. At six hours and a
half we came again to a mountain forming a promontory, called Djebel
Sherafe [Arabic]. The mountains from Om Haye northward decline
considerably in height. The highest point of the chain appears to be the
summit above Noweyba, where we had descended to the shore.
Beyond Djebel Sherafe we found the road along the shore obstructed by
high cliffs, and were obliged to make a detour by entering a valley to
the west, called Wady Mezeiryk [Arabic]. We ascended through many
windings, entered several lateral valleys, and descended again to the
shore at the end of eight hours and a half, at a point not more than
half an hour distant from where we had turned out of the road.
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