After A Descent Of An Hour, We Came To A Less Rocky
Country.
At the end of an hour and a half from the foot of Serbal, where Hamd had
waited for us, we reached the well, situated among date-plantations,
where he had filled the skins; its water is very good, much better than
that of Feiran.
The date-trees are not very thickly planted; amongst
them I saw several Doum trees, some of which I had already observed in
other parts of the peninsula. This valley is inhabited by Bedouins
during the date-harvest,
WADY MAKTA
[p.612] and here are many huts, built of stones, or of date-branches,
which they then occupy.
In the evening we continued our route in the valley Aleyat, in the
direction N.W. To our right was a mountain, upon the top of which is the
tomb of a Sheikh, held in great veneration by the Bedouins, who
frequently visit it, and there sacrifice sheep. It is called El Monadja
[Arabic]. The custom among the Bedouins of burying their saints upon the
summits of mountains accords with a similar practice of the Israelites;
there are very few Bedouin tribes who have not one or more tombs of
protecting saints (Makam), in whose honour they offer sacrifices; the
custom probably originated in their ancient idolatrous worship, and was
in some measure retained by the sacrifices enjoined by Mohammed in the
great festivals of the Islam.
In many parts of this valley stand small buildings, ten or twelve feet
square, and five feet high, with very narrow entrances. They are built
with loose stones, but so well put together, that the greater part of
them are yet entire, notwithstanding the annual rains. They are all
quite empty. I at first supposed them to be magazines belonging to the
Arabs, but my guides told me that their countrymen never entered them,
because they were Kobour el Kofar, or tombs of infidels; perhaps of the
early Christians of this peninsula. I did not, however, meet with any
similar structures in other parts of the peninsula, unless those already
mentioned in the upper part of Wady Feiran, are of the same class. At
half an hour from the spring and date-trees, we passed to our left a
valley coming from the southern mountains, called Wady Makta [Arabic],
and half an hour farther on, at sunset, we reached Wady Feiran, at the
place where the date plantations terminate, and an hour’s walk below the
spot from whence we set out yesterday upon this excursion.
WADY ALEYAT
[p.613] In the course of my descent from the cleft at the foot of Mount
Serbal, through the Wady Aleyat, I found numerous inscriptions on blocks
by the side of the road, those which I copied were in the following
order; some I did not copy, and many were effaced.
1. Upon a flat stone in the upper extremity of the Wady, descending from
the foot of Serbal towards the well with date-trees:
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