Very lofty tone, of my own importance at Cairo, and of
my friendship with the Pasha; concluding by telling him, that the next
time he went to Cairo I would have his camel seized by the soldiers.
When he found that he could not intimidate me, he accepted of my
invitation to be our guest for the night, and went in search of a
neighbouring friend of his, who brought us an earthen pot, in which we
cooked the goat.
May 25th.—At one hour below Merdoud we again fell in with Wady Owasz,
and returned by the former road to the convent. The monks were in the
greatest anxiety about me, for the Bedouins who had gone in search of
me, had sworn that they would shoot me; and had even refused a small
present offered to them by the Ikonómos to pacify them, expecting, no
doubt, to obtain much more from myself; but they now returned, and
obliged him to give them what he had offered them, pretending that it
was for his sake only that they had spared my life; nor would the monks
believe me when I assured them that I had been in no danger on this
occasion.
I passed the following four days in the convent, and in several gardens
and settlements of Djebalye at a little distance from it. I took this
opportunity to look over some of the records of the convent which are
written in Arabic, and I extracted several interesting documents
relative to the state of the Bedouins in former times, and their affrays
with the monks. In one, of the last century, is a
CONVENT OF MOUNT SINAI
[p.594] list of the Ghafeyrs of the convent, not belonging to the
Towara. These are,
El Rebabein [Arabic], a small tribe belonging to the great Djeheyne
tribe of the Hedjaz; a few families of the Rebabein have settled at
Moeleh on the Arabian coast, and in the small villages in the vicinity
of Tor. They serve as pilots in that part of the Red sea, and protect
the convent’s property about Tor.
El Heywat [Arabic], El Syayhe [Arabic], are small tribes living east of
Akaba, among the dwelling-places of the Omran. El Reteymat [Arabic], a
tribe about Ghaza and Hebron. El Omarein, or Omran. El Hokouk [Arabic],
the principal tribe of he Tyaha. El Mesayd [Arabic], a small tribe of
the Sherkieh province of Egypt. El Alowein, a strong tribe north of
Akaba. El Sowareka [Arabic], in the desert between Sinai and Ghaza. El
Terabein. El Howeytat. Oulad el Fokora [Arabic], the principal branch of
the tribe of Wahydat near Ghaza. Individuals of all these tribes are
entitled to small yearly stipends and some clothing, and are bound to
recover the property of the monks, when seized by any persons of their
respective tribes.
