[p.420] Mousa, distant five hours and a half from where we had set out
in the morning. Upon the summit of the mountain near the spot where the
road to Wady Mousa diverges from the great road to Akaba, are a number
of small heaps of stones, indicating so many sacrifices to Haroun. The
Arabs who make vows to slaughter a victim to Haroun, think it sufficient
to proceed as far as this place, from whence the dome of the tomb is
visible in the distance; and after killing the animal they throw a heap
of stones over the blood which flows to the ground. Here my guide
pressed me to slaughter the goat which I had brought with me from
Shobak, for the purpose, but I pretended that I had vowed to immolate it
at the tomb itself. Upon a hill over the Ain Mousa the Arabs Lyathene
(Arabic) were encamped, who cultivate the valley of Mousa. We repaired
to their encampment, but were not so hospitably received as we had been
the night before.
Ain Mousa is a copious spring, rushing from under a rock at the eastern
extremity of Wady Mousa. There are no ruins near the spring; a little
lower down in the valley is a mill, and above it is the village of
Badabde (Arabic), now abandoned. It was inhabited till within a few
years by about twenty families of Greek Christians, who subsequently
retired to Kerek. Proceeding from the spring along the rivulet for about
twenty minutes, the valley opens, and leads into a plain about a quarter
of an hour in length and ten minutes in breadth, in which the rivulet
joins with another descending from the mountain to the southward. Upon
the declivity of the mountain, in the angle formed by the junction of
the two rivulets, stands Eldjy (Arabic), the principal village of Wady
Mousa. This place contains between two and three hundred houses, and is
enclosed by a stone wall with three regular gates. It is most
picturesquely situated, and is inhabited by the