I Enquired Particularly Whether The Gulf
Did Not Form Two Branches At This Extremity, As It Has Always Been Laid
Down In The Maps, But I Was Assured That It Had Only A Single Ending, At
Which The Castle Is Situated.
[P.511] To the north of Akaba, in the mountain leading up to Tor Hesma,
is a Wady known by the name of Wady Ithem [Arabic].
I was told that at a
certain spot this valley is shut up by an ancient wall, the construction
of which is ascribed by the Arabs to a king named Hadeid, whose
intention in erecting it was to prevent the tribe of Beni Helal of
Nedjed from making incursions into the plain. By this valley a road
leads eastwards towards Nedjed, following, probably, a branch of the
mountain which extends towards the Akaba of the Syrian Hadj route, where
the pilgrims coming from Damascus descend by a steep and difficult pass
into the lower plains of Arabia. I believe this chain of mountains
continues in a direct and uninterrupted line from the eastern shore of
the Dead sea to the eastern shore of the Red sea, and from thence to
Yemen. Makrizi, the Egyptian historian, says, in his chapter on Aila
(Akaba); “It is from hence that the Hedjaz begins; in former times it
was the frontier place of the Greeks; at one mile from it, is a
triumphal arch of the Caesars. In the time of the Islam it was a fine
town, inhabited by the Beni Omeya.
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