The Pasha Of Egypt, Keeps Here A Garrison Of About Thirty
Soldiers, To Guard The Provisions Deposited For The Supply Of The Hadj,
And For The Use Of The Cavalry On Their Passage By This Route To Join
The Army In The Hedjaz.
Cut off from Cairo, the soldiers of the garrison
often turn rebellious; three years ago an Aga made himself independent,
and whenever a corps of troops passed he shut the gates of the castle,
and prepared to defend it.
He had married a daughter of the chief of the
Omran, and thus secured the assistance of that tribe. Being at last
attacked by some troops sent against him from Cairo he fled to his
wife’s tribe, and escaped into Syria.
It appears that the gulf extends very little farther east than the
castle, distant from which one hour, in a southern direction, and on the
eastern shore of the gulf, lies a smaller and half-ruined castle,
inhabited by Bedouins only, called Kaszer el Bedawy. At about three
quarters of an hour from Akaba, and the same distance from Kaszer el
Bedawy, are ruins in the sea, which are visible only at low water: they
are said to consist of walls, houses, and columns, but cannot easily be
approached, on account of the shallows. This information was not given
to me by my guides, but after my return to Cairo, by some French
Mamelouks, in the army of Mohammed Ali Pasha, who had formerly been for
several weeks in garrison at Akaba; they, however, had never seen the
ruins except from a distance. I enquired particularly whether the gulf
did not form two branches at this extremity, as it has always been laid
down in the maps, but I was assured that it had only a single ending, at
which the castle is situated.
[p.511] To the north of Akaba, in the mountain leading up to Tor Hesma,
is a Wady known by the name of Wady Ithem [Arabic]. I was told that at a
certain spot this valley is shut up by an ancient wall, the construction
of which is ascribed by the Arabs to a king named Hadeid, whose
intention in erecting it was to prevent the tribe of Beni Helal of
Nedjed from making incursions into the plain. By this valley a road
leads eastwards towards Nedjed, following, probably, a branch of the
mountain which extends towards the Akaba of the Syrian Hadj route, where
the pilgrims coming from Damascus descend by a steep and difficult pass
into the lower plains of Arabia. I believe this chain of mountains
continues in a direct and uninterrupted line from the eastern shore of
the Dead sea to the eastern shore of the Red sea, and from thence to
Yemen. Makrizi, the Egyptian historian, says, in his chapter on Aila
(Akaba); “It is from hence that the Hedjaz begins; in former times it
was the frontier place of the Greeks; at one mile from it, is a
triumphal arch of the Caesars.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 338 of 453
Words from 176013 to 176519
of 236498
