The Bad Taste Of The Water Seems To
Be Owing Partly To The Weeds, Moss, And Dirt, With Which The Pond Is
Filled, But Chiefly, No Doubt, To The Saline Nature Of The Soil Around
It.
Next to Ayoun Mousa, in the vicinity of Suez, and Gharendel, it is
the principal station on this road.
After watering our camels, which was
our only motive for coming to the Morkha, we returned to the
BAY OF BIRKET FARAOUN
[p.624] sea-shore, one hour distant N.W. We followed the shore for three
quarters of an hour in a N.W. b. N. direction, and then halted close by
the sea, where the maritime level is greatly contracted by a range of
chalk hills which in some places approaches close to the water. Before
us extended the large bay of Birket Faraoun, so called, from being,
according to Arab and Egyptian tradition, the place where the Israelites
crossed the sea, and where the returning waves overwhelmed Pharaoh and
his host. There is an almost continual motion of the waters in this bay,
which they say is occasioned by the spirits of the drowned still moving
in the bottom of the sea; but which may also be ascribed to its being
exposed on three sides to the sea, and to the sudden gusts of wind from
the openings of the valleys. These circumstances, together with its
shoals, render it very dangerous, and more ships have been wrecked in
the Bay of Birket Faraoun than in any other part of the gulf of Tor,
another proof, in the eyes of the Arabs, that spirits or demons dwell
here.
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