Ayd Had Seen On The Shore
The Footsteps Of A Man, Which He Knew To Be Those Of A Fisherman, A
Friend Of His Who Had Probably Passed In The Course Of This Day.
Had we
met with him he might have served as our guide, but not a soul was any
where to be seen.
Under these circumstances I reluctantly determined to
retrace my steps the next day, but, instead of proceeding by the shore,
to turn off into the mountains, and return to the convent by a more
western route.
[p.509] Akaba was not far distant from the spot from whence we returned.
Before sun-set I could distinguish a black line in the plain, where my
sharp-sighted guides clearly saw the date-trees surrounding the castle,
which bore N.E. 1 E.; it could not be more than five or six hours
distant. Before us was a promontory called Ras Koreye [Arabic], and
behind this, as I was told, there is another, beyond which begins the
plain of Akaba. The castle is situated at an hour and a half or two
hours from the western chain, down which the Hadj route leads, and about
the same distance from the eastern chain, or lower continuation of Tor
Hesma, a mountain which I have mentioned in my journey through the
northern parts of Arabia Petraea. The descent of the western mountain is
very steep, and has probably given to the place its name of Akaba, which
in Arabic means a cliff or a steep declivity; it is probably the Akabet
Aila of the Arabian geographers; Makrizi says that the village Besak
stands upon its summit. In Numbers, xxxiv. 4, the “ascent of Akrabbim”
is mentioned, which appears to correspond very accurately to this ascent
of the western mountain from the plain of Akaba. Into this plain, which
surrounds the castle on every side except the sea, issues the Wady el
Araba, the broad sandy valley which leads towards the Dead sea, and
which I crossed in 1812, at a day and a half, or two days journey from
Akaba. At about two hours to the south of the castle the eastern range
of mountains approaches the sea. The plain of Akaba, which is from three
to four hours in length, from west to east, and, I believe, not much
less in breadth northward, is very fertile in pasturage. To the distance
of about one hour from the sea it is strongly impregnated with salt, but
farther north sands prevail. The castle itself stands at a few hundred
paces from the sea, and is surrounded with large groves of date-trees.
It is a square building, with strong walls, erected, as it now
[p.510] stands, by Sultan el Ghoury of Egypt, in the sixteenth century.
In its interior are many Arab huts; a market is held there, which is
frequented by Hedjaz and Syrian Arabs; and small caravans arrive
sometimes from Khalyl. The castle has tolerably good water in deep
wells.
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