[p.473] no other road of three days march in the way from Suez towards
Sinai, nor is there any other well absolutely bitter on the whole of
this coast, as far as Ras Mohammed. The complaints of the bitterness of
the water by the children of Israel, who had been accustomed to the
sweet water of the Nile, are such as may daily be heard from the
Egyptian servants and peasants who travel in Arabia. Accustomed from
their youth to the excellent water of the Nile, there is nothing which
they so much regret in countries distant from Egypt; nor is there any
eastern people who feel so keenly the want of good water as the present
natives of Egypt. With respect to the means employed by Moses to render
the waters of the well sweet, I have frequently enquired among the
Bedouins in different parts of Arabia whether they possessed any means
of effecting such a change, by throwing wood into it, or by any other
process; but I never could learn that such an art was known.
At the end of three hours we reached Wady Gharendel [Arabic] which
extends to the N.E. and is almost a mile in breadth, and full of trees.
The Arabs told me that it may be traced through the whole desert, and
that it begins at no great distance from El Arysh, on the Mediterranean,
but I had no means of ascertaining the truth of this statement. About
half an hour from the place where we halted, in a southern direction, is
a copious spring, with a small rivulet, which renders the valley the
principal station on this route. The water is disagreeable, and if kept
for a night in the water skins, it turns bitter and spoils, as I have
myself experienced, having passed this way three times.
If we admit Bir Howara to be the Marah[Morra in Arabic means bitter.
Marah in Hebrew is bitterness.] of Exodus (xv. 23), then Wady
Gharendel is probably Elim, with its wells and date trees, an opinion
entertained by Niebuhr, who, however, did not
[p.474] see the bitter well of Howara on the road to Gharendel. The
nonexistence, at present, of twelve wells at Gharendel must not be
considered as evidence against the just-stated conjecture; for Niebuhr
says that his companions obtained water here by digging to a very small
depth, and there was a great plenty of it, when I passed; water, in
fact, is readily found by digging, in every fertile valley in Arabia,
and wells are thus easily formed, which are quickly filled up again by
the sands.
The Wady Gharendel contains date trees, tamarisks, acacias of different
species, and the thorny shrub Gharkad [Arabic], the Peganum retusum of
Forskal, which is extremely common in this peninsula, and is also met
with in the sands of the Delta on the coast of the Mediterranean. Its
small red berry, of the size of a grain of the pomegranate, is very
juicy and refreshing, much resembling a ripe gooseberry in taste, but
not so sweet. The Arabs are very fond of it, and I was told that in
years when the shrub produces large crops, they make a conserve of the
berries. The Gharkad, which from the colour of its fruit is also called
by the Arabs Homra delights in a sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in
the height of summer when the ground is parched up, exciting an
agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry
produced in the driest soil and season.[Might not the berry of this
shrub have been used by Moses to sweeten the waters of Marah? The words
in Exodus, xv. 25, are: And the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he
had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. The Arabic
translation of this passage gives a different, and, perhaps, more
correct reading: And the Lord guided him to a tree, of which he threw
something into the water, which then became sweet. I do not remember,
to have seen any Gharkad in the neighbourhood of Howara, but Wady
Gharendel is full of this shrub. As these conjectures did not occur to
me when I was on the spot, I did not enquire of the Bedouins whether
they ever sweetened the water with the juice of the berries, which would
probably effect this change in the same manner as the juice of
pomegranate grains expressed into it.] The bottom of the valley of
Gharendel swarms with ticks, which are extremely distressing both to men
and beasts, and on this account the caravans usually encamp on the sides
of the hills which border the valley.