We Had Another Shower In The Night; Flying Showers Are Frequent During
The Summer, But They Are Never Sufficiently Copious In That Season To
Produce Torrents.
May 18th left the tent before dawn, and proceeded along a Wady and then
N.W. up an ascent, whose summit we reached in two hours.
From thence a
fine view opened upon a broad Wady called Sebaye [Arabic], and towards
the mountain of Tyh. We crossed Wady Sebaye, and then ascended the
mountain which commands the convent on the south side, and descending
again, reached the convent at the end of three hours and a half. Our
march during the whole of this journey had been slow, except on the day
of our flight from the robbers; for our camels were weak and tired, and
one of us usually walked. There is a more northern road from Sherm to
the convent, which branches off from that by which we came, at Wady
Orta; it passes by the two watering places of Naszeb [Arabic], and Ara-
yne [Arabic]; the former, which is in a fruitful valley, where date-
trees grow, must not be confounded with the western Naszeb, already
mentioned.
Hamd, afraid of being liable to pay the fine of blood, if it should
become known that the robber had fallen by his hand, had
CONVENT OF MOUNT SINAI
[p.540] made us all give him our solemn promise not to mention any thing
of the affair. When I discharged him and Ayd at the convent, I made them
both some presents, which they had well deserved, particularly Hamd;
this he was so imprudent as to mention to his uncle Szaleh, who was so
vexed at not receiving a present, that he immediately divulged all the
circumstances of our rencounter. Hamd in consequence was under the
greatest apprehensions from the relations of the robber, and having
accompanied me on my return to Cairo, he remained with me some time
there, in anxious expectation of hearing whether the robber’s blood was
likely to be revenged. Not hearing any thing, he then returned to his
mountain, four months after which a party of Omran, to whose tribe the
men had belonged, came to the tent of the Sheikh of the Towara to demand
the fine of blood. The man had died a few days after receiving the
wound, and although he was a robber and the first aggressor, the Bedouin
laws entitled his relations to the fine, if they waved the right of
retaliation; Hamd was therefore glad to come to a compromise, and paid
them two camels, (which the two principal Sheikhs of the Towara gave him
for the purpose), and twenty dollars, which I thought myself bound to
reimburse to him, when he afterwards called on me at Cairo. This was the
third man Hamd had killed in skirmish; but he had paid no fine for the
others, as it was never known who they were, nor to what tribe they
belonged.
Had Hamd, whom every one knew to be the person who had stabbed the
robber, refused to pay the fine, the Omran would sooner or later have
retaliated upon himself or his relations, or perhaps upon some other
individual of his tribe, according to the custom of these Bedouins, who
have established among themselves the law of “striking sideways.”[See my
remarks on the customs of blood-revenge, in the description of Bedouin
manners.]
[p.541] The convent of Mount Sinai is situated in a valley so narrow,
that one part of the building stands on the side of the western
mountain, while a space of twenty paces only is left between its walls
and the eastern mountain.
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