June 8th.—A Caravan Was To Leave Suez This Day, But Its Departure Was
Delayed.
As I knew that the plague had subsided at Cairo, and thought
that the road was tolerably safe, I asked Hamd whether he would venture
with me alone upon the journey; fear seemed to be quite unknown to this
excellent young man, and he readily acquiesced in my proposal.
We left
Suez in the evening with some hopes of overtaking a caravan of Towaras,
which we were informed had this day passed to the north of Suez, in
their way to Cairo with charcoal. Towards sunset we came in sight of the
castle of Adjeroud, when Hamd having descried from afar some Bedouins on
foot, who, from the circumstance of their walking about in different
directions in a place where no road passed, and where Bedouins never
alight, appeared to him to be suspicious characters, we halted behind a
hill till it was dark, and took our supper. After sunset we saw several
fires at a distance, in the plain, which Hamd immediately concluded to
be those of the Towara caravan. Taking advantage of the darkness, to
avoid the observation of the suspected persons, we rode towards the
fires, which, instead of being those of the Towara, proved to belong to
a small party of Omran, encamped near the well in the Wady Emshash. Hamd
was much alarmed when he perceived his mistake, for he was well
acquainted with the bad character of the Omran,
CASTLE OF ADJEROUD
[p.627] and he dreaded them the more on account of the Arab of their
tribe whom he had killed near Akaba. They looked very greedily at my
travelling sack, but as I pretended to belong to the Pasha’s garrison at
Suez, they did not make any attempt upon it. They told us that in coming
here, they had found five Bedouins sitting near the well, who retired
when they approached it, and who were probably the men we saw. As we
thought it very likely that they would waylay us farther on, in the
narrow pass of Montala, we deemed it prudent to retire to Adjeroud, and
take shelter in the castle for the night. When we reached that place, it
was with great difficulty that I persuaded the officer to open the gates
and let us in; he was in no less fear of the robbers than ourselves; for
two days they had driven back his people from the well of Emshash, where
they were accustomed to fill their water skins, so that the garrison was
reduced to great distress, as they had no provision of sweet water, and
that of the castle well is scarcely drinkable. A Turkish officer, with
his wife and son, and eight peasants from the Sherkieh, formed the whole
garrison, and they trembled at the name and sight of the Bedouins as
much as the monks of the Sinai convent.
June 9th.—This morning I proposed to the officer that we should go out
in force and drive the robbers from the well, which was only half an
hour distant; but this he refused to do, saying that he had no orders to
leave the castle; he found it more convenient to seize my skins, which I
had filled at Suez, and to make use of their contents for his family.
Towards noon we saw several of the Bedouins hovering round the castle,
no doubt expecting us to issue from it.
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