[p.496] present level of the plain. Our main direction was E.N.E. At
four hours and three quarters from the time we set out in the morning,
we entered Wady Rahab [Arabic], a fine valley with many Syale trees,
where the sands terminate. Route E. At five hours and a half we entered
another valley, broader than the former, where I again found an
alternation of sand-stone and granite. The barrenness of this district
was greater than I had yet witnessed in my travels, excepting perhaps
some parts of the desert El Tyh; the Nubian valleys might be called
pleasure grounds in comparison. Not the smallest green leaf could be
discovered; and the thorny mimosa, which retains its verdure in the
tropical deserts of Nubia, with very little supply of moisture, was here
entirely withered, and so dry that it caught fire from the lighted
cinders which fell from our pipes as we passed. We continued to descend
by a gentle slope, and at six hours and a half entered Wady Samghy
[Arabic], coming from the south, in which we descended N.E. At the end
of eight hours and a half we left this valley and turned E. into a side
one, called Boszeyra [Arabic]; where we halted for the night, at eight
hours and three quarters.
We had met in Wady Samghy two old Bedouins of the Mezeine tribe, who
belong to the Towara nation: they were fishermen, on their way to the
sea to exercise their profession. One of them carried in a small sack a
measure of meal which was to serve for their food on shore, the other
had a skin of water upon his shoulder; they were both half naked, and
both approaching to seventy years of age. One of them was deaf, but so
intelligent that it was easy to talk with him by signs; he had
established a vocabulary of gestures with his companion, who had been
his fishing partner for ten years, and who was one of the shrewdest and
hardiest Bedouins I had ever seen; in his younger days he had been a
noted robber,
[p.497] and in attempting to carry off the baggage of a French officer
in the Sherkyeh province in Egypt, he was seized, laid under the stick,
and so severely beaten, that his back had from that time become bent;
but notwithstanding this misfortune and his age, he had lost none of his
spirits, and his robust constitution still enabled him to cross these
mountains on foot, and to exert his activity whenever it was required.
These two men partook this evening of my supper; they of course asked me
where I was going, and shook their heads when I told them I was bound
for Akaba. None of my guides knew what business I had there, but they
supposed that I had some verbal message to deliver to the Turkish Aga,
who was at the head of the garrison. Ayd es Szaheny [Arabic], the old
robber, soon found out that my guide Szaleh knew little of the road, and
still less of the Arab tribes before us. He plainly told him that he
would not be able to ensure either my safety or his own, in passing
through their districts, and reproached him for having deluded me with
false assurances. There appeared to be so much good faith and sense in
all the old man said, and I found him so well informed respecting the
country, that I soon determined to engage him to join us; but as we were
to descend the next morning by the same road to the sea-shore, I
deferred making him any overtures till we should arrive there.
The Wady Boszeyra is enclosed by gray granite rocks, out of which the
Towara Arabs sometimes hew stones for hand mills, which they dispose of
to the northern Arabs, and transport for sale as far as Khalyl. It is
very seldom that any Arabs pasture in the district we had traversed,
from Wady Sal. The Towara find better pasturage in the southern and
south-western parts of the peninsula, and as its whole population is
very small, the more barren parts of it are abandoned, and especially
this side, where very few wells are found.