[p.436] about eight hours to the N. of the Red sea. We have thus a
natural division of the country, which appears to have been well known
to the ancients, for it is probably to a part of this upper plain,
together with the mountains of Shera, Djebal, Kerek, and Belka, that the
name of Arabia Petræa was applied, the western limits of which must have
been the great valley or Ghor. It might with truth be called Petræa, not
only on account of its rocky mountains, but also of the elevated plain
already described, which is so much covered with stones, especially
flints, that it may with great propriety be called a stony desert,
although susceptible of culture: in many places it is overgrown with
wild herbs, and must once have been thickly inhabited, for the traces of
many ruined towns and villages are met with on both sides of the Hadj
road between Maan and Akaba, as well as between Maan and the plains of
Haouran, in which direction are also many springs. At present all this
country is a desert, and Maan (Arabic) is the only inhabited place in
it. All the castles on the Syrian Hadj route from Fedhein to Medina are
deserted. At Maan are several springs, to which the town owes its
origin, and these, together with the circumstance of its being a station
of the Syrian Hadj, are the cause of its still existing. The inhabitants
have scarcely any other means of subsistence than the profits which they
gain from the pilgrims in their way to and from Mekka, by buying up all
kinds of provisions at Hebron and Ghaza, and selling them with great
profit to the weary pilgrims; to whom the gardens and vineyards of Maan
are no less agreeable, than the wild herbs collected by the people of
Maan are to their camels. The pomgranates, apricots, and peaches of Maan
are of the finest quality. In years when a very numerous caravan passes,
pomgranates are sold at one piastre each, and every thing in the same
proportion. During
[p.437] the two days stay of the pilgrims, in going, and as many in
returning, the people of Maan earn as much as keeps them the whole year.
Maan is situated in the midst of a rocky country, not capable of
cultivation; the inhabitants therefore depend upon their neighbours of
Djebal and Shera for their provision of wheat and barley. At present,
owing to the discontinuance of the Syrian Hadj, they are scarcely able
to obtain money to purchase it. Many of them have commenced pedlars
among the Bedouins, and fabricators of different articles for their use,
especially sheep-skin furs, while others have emigrated to Tafyle and
Kerek. The Barbary pilgrims who were permitted by the Wahabi chief to
perform their pilgrimage in 1810, and 1811, returned from Medina by the
way of Maan and Shobak to Hebron, Jerusalem, and Yaffa, where they
embarked for their own country, having taken this circuitous route on
account of the hostile demonstrations of Mohammed Ali Pasha on the
Egyptian road. Several thousands of them died of fatigue before they
reached Maan. The people of this town derived large profits from the
survivors, and for the transport of their effects; but it is probable
that if the Syrian Hadj is not soon reestablished, the place will in a
few years be abandoned. The inhabitants considering their town as an
advanced post to the sacred city of Medina, apply themselves with great
eagerness to the study of the Koran. The greater part of them read and
write, and many serve in the capacity of Imams or secretaries to the
great Bedouin Sheikhs. The two hills upon which the town is built,
divide the inhabitants into two parties, almost incessantly engaged in
quarrels which are often sanguinary; no individual of one party even
marries into a family belonging to the other.
On arriving at the encampment of the Howeytat, we were informed that the
caravan was to set out on the second day; I had