I
Engaged Hamd And His Brother With Two Camels, And Left The Convent
Before Dawn On The 30th, After Having Taken A Farewell
NAKB EL RAHA
[P.596] of the monks, and especially of the worthy Ikonómos, who
presented me at parting with a leopard’s skin, which he had lately
bought of the Bedouins; together with several fine specimens of rock
crystals, and a few small pieces of native cinnabar [Arabic]. The
crystals are collected by the Arabs in one of the mountains not far
distant from the convent, but in which of them I did not learn; I have
seen some six inches in length, and one and a half in breadth; the
greater part are of a smoky colour, with pyramidal tops. The cinnabar is
said, by the Bedouins, to be found in great quantities upon Djebel
Sheyger [Arabic], a few hours to the N.E. of Wady Osh, the valley in
which I slept, at an Arab encampment, two nights before I arrived at the
convent from Suez.
May 30th.—We issued from the narrow valley in which the convent stands,
into a broader one, or rather a plain, called El Raha, leaving on our
right the road by which I first reached the convent. We continued in El
Raha N.N.W. for an hour and an half, when we came to an ascent called
Nakb el Raha [Arabic], the top of which we reached in two hours from the
convent. I had chosen this route, which is the most southern from the
convent to Suez, in order to see Wady Feiran, and to ascend from thence
the mountain Serbal, which, with Mount Saint Catherine and Shomar, is
the highest peak in the peninsula. I had mentioned my intention to Hamd,
who it appears communicated it this morning to his brother, for the
latter left us abruptly at Nakb el Raha, saying that he had forgot his
gun, giving his camel in charge to Hamd, and promising to join us lower
down, as his tent was not far distant. Instead, however, of going home,
he ran straight to the Arabs assembled at Sheikh Szaleh, and acquainted
them with my designs. Their chiefs immediately dispatched a messenger to
Feiran to enjoin the people there to prevent me from ascending Serbal;
but,
WADY SOLAF
[p.597] fortunately, I was already on my way to the mountain when the
messenger reached Feiran, and on my return I had only to encounter the
clamorous and now fruitless expostulations of the Arabs at that place.
We began to descend from the top of Nakb el Raha, by a narrow chasm, the
bed of a winter torrent; direction N.W. by N. At the end of two hours
and a quarter we halted near a spring called Kanaytar [Arabic]. Upon
several blocks near it I saw inscriptions in the same character as those
which I had before seen, but they were so much effaced as to be no
longer legible.
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