[p.615] assembled, and became extremely clamorous as well against me, as
against Hamd for having accompanied me. I cared but little for their
insolent language, which I knew how to reply to, but I was under some
apprehensions for my servant and baggage, and therefore determined to
rejoin them immediately. We ascended the valley, by a gentle slope, and
reached Hamds garden late at night, greatly fatigued, for we had been
almost the whole day upon our legs. We here met the Bedouins and their
girls occupied in singing and dancing, which they kept up till near
midnight.
June 2d.When I awoke I found about thirty Arabs round me, ready to
begin a new quarrel about my pursuits in their mountains. When they saw
that I paid little attention to their remonstrances, and was packing up
my effects, in order to proceed on my journey, they then asked me for
some victuals and coffee. After having observed to them that I was more
easily prevailed upon by civility than harshness, I distributed among
the poorest such provisions as I should not want on my way back to Suez,
together with some coffee-beans and soap. This immediately put them into
good humour, and in return, they brought me some milk, cucumbers, and a
quantity of Bsyse, or ground Nebek. I purchased from them a skinful of
dates reduced to a paste, and one of them joined us for the sake of
travelling in our company to Suez, where he intended to sell a load of
charcoal; we then set out, leaving every body behind us well satisfied.
We followed the same road by which we had ascended last night, and
halted again where the date trees terminate. Here the same Arabs whom we
had found yesterday evening, having been informed that I had made some
presents where I had slept, thought, no doubt, that by being vociferous
they would obtain something. In this, however, they were mistaken, for I
gave them nothing, telling them they might seize my baggage if they
chose, but this they
[p.616] prudently declined to do. Ten years ago I should hardly have
been able to extricate myself in this manner.
The valley of Feiran widens considerably where it is joined by the Wady
Aleyat, and is about a quarter of an hour in breadth. Upon the mountains
on both sides of the road stand the ruins of an ancient city. The houses
are small, but built entirely of stones, some of which are hewn and some
united with cement, but the greater part are piled up loosely. I counted
the ruins of about two hundred houses. There are no traces of any large
edifice on the north side; but on the southern mountain there is an
extensive building, the lower part of which is of stone, and the upper
part of earth. It is surrounded by private habitations, which are all in
complete ruins. At the foot of the southern mountain are the remains of
a small aqueduct. Upon several of the neighbouring hills are ruins of
towers, and as we proceeded down the valley for about three quarters of
an hour, I saw many small grottos in the rocks on both sides, hewn in
the rudest manner, and without any regularity or symmetry; the greater
part seemed to have been originally formed by nature, and afterwards
widened by human labour. Some of the largest which were near the ruined
city had, perhaps, once served as habitations, the others were evidently
sepulchres; but few of them were large enough to hold three corpses, and
they were not more than three or four feet high. I found no traces of
antiquity in any of them.
At half an hour from the last date-trees of Feiran, I saw, to the right
of the road, upon the side of the mountain, the ruins of a small town or
village, the valley in the front of which is at present quite barren. It
had been better built than the town above described, and contained one
very good building of hewn stone, with two stories, each having five
oblong windows in front. The roof
[p.617] has fallen in. The style of architecture of the whole strongly
resembles that seen in the ruins of St. Simon, to the north of Aleppo,
the mountains above which are also full of sepulchral grottos, like
those near Feiran. The roofs of the houses appear to have been entirely
of stone, like those in the ruined towns of the Haouran, but flat, and
not arched. There were here about a hundred ruined houses.
Feiran was formerly the seat of a Bishopric. Theodosius was bishop
during the Monothelite controversy. From documents of the fifteenth
century, still existing in the convent of Mount Sinai, there appears at
that time to have been an inhabited convent at Feiran. Makrizi, the
excellent historian, and describer of Egypt; who wrote about the same
time, gives the following account of Feiran, which he calls Faran.[The
present Bedouins call it Fyran or Feiran [Arabic], and thus it is spelt
wherever it occurs in the Arabic documents in the convent. Niebuhr calls
it Faran, and I have heard some Bedouins pronounce it as if it were
written [Arabic, giving it nearly the sound of Fyran.]]
It is one of the towns of the Amalakites, situated near the borders of
the sea of Kolzoum, upon a hill between two mountains; on each of which
are numberless excavations, full of corpses. It is one days journey
distant [in a straight line] from the sea of Kolzoum, the shore of which
is there called the shore of the sea of Faran; there it was that
Pharaoh was drowned by the Almighty. Between the city of Faran and the
Tyh are two days journey. It is said that Faran is the name of the
mountains of Mekka, and that it is the name of other mountains in the
Hedjaz, and that it is the place mentioned in the books of Moses. But
the truth is, that Tor and Faran are two districts belonging to the
southern parts of Egypt, and that it is not the same as the Faran
(Paran) mentioned in the books of Moses. It is stated, that the
mountains
[p.618] of Mekka derive their name from Faran Ibn Amr Ibn Amalyk. Some
call them the mountains of Faran others Fyran. The city of Faran was one
of the cities belonging to Midian, and remained so until the present
times. There are plenty of palmtrees there, of the dates of which I have
myself eaten. A large river flows by. The town is at present in ruins;
Bedouins only pass there.
Makrizi is certainly right in supposing that the Faran or Paran
mentioned in the Scriptures is not the same as Feiran; an opinion which
has been entertained also by Niebuhr, and other travellers. From the
passage in Numbers xiii. 26, it is evident that Paran was situated in
the desert of Kadesh, which was on the borders of the country of the
Edomites, and which the Israelites reached after their departure from
Mount Sinai, on their way towards the land of Edom. Paran must therefore
be looked for in the desert west of Wady Mousa, and the tomb of Aaron
which is shewn there. At present the people of Feiran bury their dead
higher up in the valley, than the ancient ruins in the neighbourhood of
Sheikh Abou Taleb. There is no rivulet, but in winter time the valley is
completely flooded, and a large stream of water collected from all the
lateral valleys of Wady el Sheikh empties itself through Wady Feiran
into the gulf of Suez near the Birket Faraoun.
We rode for one hour from Feiran, and then stopped near some date trees
called Hosseye [Arabic], where are several Arab huts, and where good
water is found. Here I remained the rest of the day, as I felt very much
the effect of yesterdays exertions. In the evening all the females
quitted the huts to join in the Mesámer, in which I also participated,
and we kept it up till long after midnight. My servant[This was the same
man who had accompanied me during my journey to Upper Egypt, as far as
Assouan. I again engaged him in my service after my return fro[m] the
Hedjaz.] attempted to join the party, but the proud