The Unknown Lands South of the HismáRuins of Shuwák and Shaghab.
We have now left the region explored by Europeans; and our line
to the south and the south-east will lie over ground wholly new.
In front of us the land is no longer Arz Madyan: we are entering
South Midian, which will extend to El-Hejáz. As the march might
last longer than had been expected, I ordered fresh supplies from
El-Muwaylah to meet us in the interior viâ Zibá. A very small boy
acted dromedary-man; and on the next day he reached the fort,
distant some thirty-five and a half direct geographical miles
eastward with a trifling of northing.
We left the Jayb el-Khuraytah on a delicious morning (6.15 a.m.,
February 26th), startling the gazelles and the hares from their
breakfast graze.
The former showed in troops of six; and the latter were still
breeding, as frequent captures of the long-eared young proved.
The track lay down the Wady Dahal and other influents of the
great Wady Sa'lúwwah, a main feeder of the Dámah. We made a
considerable détour between south-south-east and south-east to
avoid the rocks and stones discharged by the valleys of the
Shafah range on our left. To the right rose the Jibál el-Tihámah,
over whose nearer brown heights appeared the pale blue peaks of
Jebel Shárr and its southern neighbour, Jebel Sa'lúwwah.
At nine a.m. we turned abruptly eastward up the Wady
el-Sulaysalah, whose head falls sharply from the Shafah range.
The surface is still Hismá ground, red sand with blocks of ruddy
grit, washed down from the plateau on the left; and, according to
Furayj, it forms the south-western limit of the Harrah. The
valley is honeycombed into man-traps by rats and lizards, causing
many a tumble, and notably developing the mulish instinct. We
then crossed a rough and rocky divide, Arabicè a Majrá, or, as
the Bedawin here pronounce it, a "Magráh,"[EN#1] which takes its
name from the tormented Ruways ridge on the right. After a hot,
unlively march of four hours (= eleven miles), on mules worn out
by want of water, we dismounted at a queer isolated lump on the
left of the track. This Jebel el-Murayt'bah ("of the Little
Step") is lumpy grey granite of the coarsest elements, whose
false strata, tilted up till they have become quasi-vertical, and
worn down to pillars and drums, crown the crest like gigantic
columnar crystallizations. We shall see the same freak of nature
far more grandly developed into the "Pins" of the Shárr. It has
evidently upraised the trap, of which large and small blocks are
here and there imbedded in it. The granite is cut in its turn by
long horizontal dykes of the hardest quadrangular basalt,
occasionally pudding'd with banded lumps of red jasper and
oxydulated iron: from afar they look like water-lines, and in
places they form walls, regular as if built. The rounded forms
result from the granites flaking off in curved laminæ, like
onion-coats. Want of homogeneity in the texture causes the
granite to degrade into caves and holes: the huge blocks which
have fallen from the upper heights often show unexpected hollows
in the under and lower sides. Above the water we found an immense
natural dolmen, under which apparently the Bedawin take shelter.
After El-Murayt'bah the regular granitic sequence disappears, nor
will it again be visible till we reach Shaghab (March 2nd).
About noon we remounted and rounded the south of the block,
disturbing by vain shots two fine black eagles. I had reckoned
upon the "Water of El-Murayt'bah," in order to make an
exceptional march after so many days of deadly slow going. But
the cry arose that the rain-puddle was dry. We had not brought a
sufficient supply with us, and twenty-two miles to and from the
Wady Dahal was a long way for camels, to say nothing of their
owners and the danger of prowling Ma'ázah. In front water lay
still farther off, according to the guides, who, it will be seen,
notably deceived us. So I ordered the camp to be pitched, after
reconnoitering the locale of the water; and we all proceeded to
work, with a detachment of soldiers and quarrymen. It was not a
rain-puddle, but a spring rising slowly in the sand, which had
filled up a fissure in the granite about four feet broad; of
these crevices three were disposed parallel to one another, and
at different heights. They wanted only clearing out; the produce
was abundant, and though slightly flavoured with iron and
sulphur, it was drinkable. The thirsty mules amused us not a
little: they smelt water at once; hobbled as they were, all
hopped like kangaroos over the plain, and with long ears well to
the fore, they stood superintending the operation till it was
their turn to be happy.
Our evening at the foot of El-Ruways was cheered, despite the
flies, the earwigs, and the biting Ba'úzah beetle, which here
first put in an appearance, by the weird and fascinating aspect
of the southern Hismá-wall, standing opposite to us, and distant
about a mile from the dull drab-coloured basin, El-Majrá. Based
upon mighty massive foundations of brown and green trap, the
undulating junction being perfectly defined by a horizontal white
line, the capping of sandstone rises regular as if laid in
courses, with a huge rampart falling perpendicular upon the
natural slope of its glacis. This bounding curtain is called the
Taur el-Shafah, the "inaccessible part of the Lip-range." Further
eastward the continuity of the coping has been broken and
weathered into the most remarkable castellations: you pass mile
after mile of cathedrals, domes, spires, minarets, and pinnacles;
of fortresses, dungeons, bulwarks, walls, and towers; of
platforms, buttresses, and flying buttresses. These Girágir
(Jirájir), as the Bedawin call them, change shape at every new
point of view, and the eye never wearies of their infinite
variety. Nor are the tints less remarkable than the forms. When
the light of day warms them with its gorgeous glaze, the
buildings wear the brightest hues of red concrete, like a certain
house near Prince's Gate, set off by lambent lights of lively
pink and balas-ruby, and by shades of deep transparent purple,
while here and there a dwarf dome or a tumulus gleams sparkling
white in the hot sun-ray. The even-glow is indescribably lovely,
and all the lovelier because unlasting: the moment the red disc
disappears, the glorious rosy smile fades away, leaving the pale
grey ghosts of their former selves to gloom against the gloaming
of the eastern sky. I could not persuade M. Lacaze to transfer
this vividity of colour to canvas: he had the artist's normal
excuse, "Who would believe it?"
The next morning saw the Expedition afoot at six a.m., determined
to make up for a half by the whole day's work so long intended.
The track struck eastward, and issued from the dull hollow, Majrá
el-Ruways, by a made road about a mile and a half long, a cornice
cut in the stony flanks of a hill whose head projected southwards
into the broad Wady Hujayl ("the Little Partridge"). This line
seems to drain inland; presently it bends round by the east and
feeds the Wady Dámah. Rain must lately have fallen, for the earth
is "purfled flowers," pink, white, and yellow. The latter is the
tint prevailing in Midian, often suggesting the careless European
wheat-field, in which "shillock" or wild mustard rears its
gamboge head above the green. Midian wants not only the charming
oleander and the rugged terebinth, typical of the Desert; but
also the "blood of Adonis," the lovely anemone which lights up
the Syrian landscape like the fisherman's scarlet cap in a
sea-piece. This stage introduced us to the Hargul (Harjal, Rhazya
stricta), whose perfume filled the valley with the clean smell of
the henna-bloom, the Eastern privet--Mr. Clarke said
"wallflowers." Our mules ate it greedily, whilst the country
animals, they say, refuse it: the flowers, dried and pounded,
cure by fumigation "pains in the bones." Here also we saw for the
first time the quaint distaff-shape of the purple red Masrúr
(Cynomorium coccineum, Linn.), from which the Bedawi "cook
bread." It is eaten simply peeled and sun-dried, when it has a
vegetable taste slightly astringent as if by tannin, something
between a potato and a turnip; or its rudely pounded flour is
made into balls with soured milk. This styptic, I am told by Mr.
R. B. Sharpe, of the British Museum, was long supposed to be
peculiar to Malta; hence its pre-Linnaean name (Fungus
Melitensis).[EN#2] Now it is known to occur through the
Mediterranean to India. Let me here warn future collectors of
botany in Midian that throughout the land the vegetable kingdom
follows the rule of the mineral: every march shows something new;
and he who neglects to gather specimens, especially of the
smaller flowers, in one valley, will perhaps find none of them in
those adjoining.
A denser row of trees lower down the Wady Hujayl led to the water
of Amdán (Mídán?), about an hour and a half from our last
nighting-place; yesterday it had been reported six hours distant.
High towering on our left (north) rose three huge buttresses of
the Girágir. In front stood a marvellous background of domes and
arches, cones and ninepins, all decayed Hismá, blurred and broken
by the morning mist, which could hardly be called a fog; and
forming a perspective of a dozen distances. Now they curve from
north-east to south-west in a kind of scorpion's tail, with
detached vertebrae torn and wasted by the adjacent plutonic
outcrops; and looking from the west they suggest blood-red islets
rising above the great gloomy waves of trap and porphyry. This
projection will remain in sight until we reach Shuwák; and in
places we shall see it backed by the basalts and lavas of the
straightlined Harrah.
Presently turning sharp to the right (south-east), we struck
across a second divide, far more shallow than the first; and fell
into the northern basin of the great Dámah valley, also known as
El-Rahabah, "the Open;"--the Rehoboth ("spaces") of the Hebrews.
Like yesterday's, the loose red sand is Hismá; and it is also
scattered with Harrah lava. After a four hours' ride we halted to
enable the caravan to come up. Our Shaykhs were bent upon making
twelve miles the average day's work; and their "little game" was
now to delay as much as possible. Here we again found flocks of
sheep and goats tended by young girls, who ran away like
ostriches, and by old women who did not: on the contrary, Sycorax
enjoyed asking the news and wrangling over a kid. The camels
throughout this country seem to be always under the charge of men
or boys.
Here began our study of the great Wady Da'mah, whose fame as an
Arabian Arcadia extends far and wide, and whose possession has
caused many a bloody battle. We now see it at its best, in early
spring morning, when
"The landscape smiles
Calm in the sun, and silent are the hills
And valleys, and the blue serene of air."
This notable feature is a Haddúdah ("frontier divider"), which in
ancient days separated the Ukbíyyah ("Ukbah-land") to the north
from the Balawi'yyah ("Baliyy-land") south. The latter still
claim it as their northern limit; but the intrusive Egypto-Arabs
have pushed their way far beyond this bourne. Its present Huwayti
owners, the Sulaymiyyín, the Sulaymát, the Jeráfín, and other
tribes, are a less turbulent race than the northerns because they
are safe from the bandit Ma'ázah: they are more easily managed,
and they do not meet a fair offer with the eternal Yaftah
Allah--"Allah opens."[EN#3]
The head of the Dámah, a great bay in the Hismá-wall to the east,
is now in sight of us; and we shall pass its mouth, which
debouches into the sea below Zibá. This tract is equally abundant
in herds (camels), flocks, and vegetation: in places a thin
forest gathers, and the tree-clumps now form a feature in the
scenery. The sole, a broad expanse of loose red arenaceous
matter, the washings of the plateau, is fearfully burrowed and
honeycombed; it is also subject, like its sister the Sadr, to the
frequent assault of "devils," or sand-pillars. That it is
plentifully supplied with water, we learn from the presence of
birds. The cries of the caravane, the "knock-kneed" plover of
Egypt, yellow-beaked and black-eyed, resounded in the more barren
belts. A lovely little sun-bird (Nectarinia ose?), which the
Frenchmen of course called colibri, with ravishing reflections of
green and gold, flashed like a gem thrown from shrub to shrub:
this oiseau mouche is found scattered throughout Midian; we saw
it even about El-Muwaylah, but I had unfortunately twice
forgotten dust-shot. The Egyptian Rakham (percnopter), yellow
with black-tipped wings; a carrion-eater, now so rare, and the
common brown kite, still so common near civilized Cairo, soared
in the sky; while the larger vultures, perching upon the
rock-ridges, suggested Bedawi sentinels. The ravens, here as
elsewhere, are a plague: flights of them occupy favourite places,
and they prey upon the young lambs, hares, and maimed birds.
We advanced another five miles, and crossed to the southern side
of the actual torrent-bed, whose banks, strewed with a quantity
of dead flood-wood entangling the trees, and whose flaky clays,
cracked to the shape of slabs and often curling into tubes of
natural pottery, show that at times the Hismá must discharge
furious torrents. We camped close to the Dámah at the foot of the
Jebel el-Balawi; the water, known as Máyat el-Jebayl ("of the
Hillock"), lay ahead in a low rocky snout: it was represented as
being distant a full hour, and the mules did not return from it
till three had passed; but thirty minutes would have been nearer
the truth. The Nile-drinkers turned up their fastidious noses at
the supply, but Lieutenant Amir, who had graduated in the rough
campaigning-school of the Súdán, pronounced it "regular."
The nighting-place on the Dámah was as pretty and picturesque as
the Majrá was tame and uncouth. While the west was amber clear,
long stripes of purpling, crimson, flaming cloud, to the south
and the east, set off the castled crags disposed in a semicircle
round the Wady-head; and the "buildings" appeared art-like
enough to be haunted ground, the domain of the Fata Morgana, a
glimpse of the City of Brass built by Shaddaá, son of Ad. When
the stars began to glitter sharp and clear, our men fell to
singing and dancing; and the boy Husayn Ganinah again
distinguished himself by his superior ribaldry. Our work was more
respectable and prosaic, firing a mule with a swollen back.
Within a mile or so of us stood some Bedawi tents, which we had
passed on the march: they were deserted by the men, here
Sulaymát, who drive their camels to the wilds sometimes for a
week at a time. An old wife who brought us a goat for sale, and
who begged that Husayn, the Básh-Buzúk, might pass the night with
her, in order to shoot an especially objectionable wolf, had a
long tale to tell of neighbouring ruins. She also reported that
near the same place there is a well with steps, into which the
Arabs had descended some seven fathoms; presently they found
houses occupying the galleries at the bottom, and fled in terror.
Lieutenant Amir was sent to sketch and survey the site next
morning; and he was lucky enough to be guided by one Sa'id bin
Zayfullah, the Sulaymi, whose prime dated from the palmy days of
the great Mohammed Ali Pasha. He acknowledged as his friends the
grandfather, and even the father, of our guide Furayj; but the
latter he ignored, looking upon him as a mere Walad ("lad").
Moreover, he remembered the birth of Shaykh Mohammed Afnán,
chief of the Baliyy, which took place when he himself had already
become a hunter of the gazelle.[EN#4] According to him, the
remains are still known as the Dár ("house") or Diyár ("houses")
El-Nasárá--"of the Nazarenes," that is, of the Nabathaeans. The
former term is retained here, as in Sinai, by popular tradition;
and the latter is clean forgotten throughout Midian.[EN#5]
Riding down the Wady Dámah to the southwest, Lieutenant Amir came
upon a spring in a stone-revetted well near the left bank: this
Ayn el-Bada' is not to be confounded with the Badí' water, or
with the Badá plain, both of which we shall presently visit. A
strew of broken quartz around it showed the atelier, and
specimens of scattered fragments, glass and pottery, were
gathered. The settlement-ruins, which the guide called
El-Kantarah, lie further down upon a southern influent of the
main line: they are divided into two blocks, one longer than the
other. Lieutenant Amir made a careful plan of the remains, and
then pushed forward to Shuwák by the direct track, westward of
that taken by the caravan. He arrived in camp, none the worse for
a well-developed "cropper;" his dromedary had put its foot in a
hole, and had fallen with a suddenness generally unknown to the
cameline race.
By way of geographical exercitation, we had all drawn our several
plans, showing, after Arab statement, the lay of Shaghab and
Shuwák, the two ruins which we were about to visit. Nothing could
be more ridiculous when the sketch-maps came to be compared. This
was owing to the route following the three sides of a long
parallelogram; whilst the fourth is based upon the Wady Dámah,
causing considerable complication. And, the excursus ended, all
were convinced that we had made much southing, when our furthest
point was not more than five miles south of Zibá (north lat. 27°
20').
We quitted the great valley at six a.m. (February 28th), and
struck up the Wady Shuwák, an influent that runs northwards to
the Dámah's left bank. On the stony ground above the right side
of this Fiumara lay six circles of stones, disposed in a line
from north-east to south-west: they may have been ruins of Hufrah
("water-pits"). As we rose the Nullah surface was pied with white
flowers, the early growth which here takes the place of
primroses. I had some difficulty in persuading our good friend
Furayj, who had not seen the country for fifteen years, to engage
as guide one of the many Bedawin camel-herds: his course seemed
to serpentine like that of an animal grazing--he said it was
intended to show the least stony road--and, when he pointed with
the wave of the maimed right hand, he described an arc of some
90°. The Sulaymi lad caught the nearest camel, climbed its sides
as you would a tree, and, when the animal set off at a lumbering
gallop, pressed the soles of his feet to the ribs, with exactly
the action of a Simiad; clinging the while, like grim Death, to
the hairy hump.
After some six miles we attempted a short cut, a gorge that
debouched on the left bank of the Shuwák valley. It showed at
once a complete change of formation: the sides were painted with
clays of variegated colours, crystallized lime and porphyritic
conglomerates, tinted mauve-purple as if by manganese. Further
on, the path, striking over broken divides and long tracts of
stony ground, became rough riding: it was bordered by the usual
monotonous, melancholy hills of reddish and greenish trap, whose
slaty and schist-like edges in places stood upright. On the
summit of the last Col appeared the ruins of an outwork, a large
square and a central heap of boulder-stones. Straight in front
rose the block that backs our destination, the Jebel el-Sáni', or
"Mountain of the Maker," the artificer par excellence, that is,
the blacksmith: it is so called from a legendary shoer of horses
and mules, who lived there possibly in the days before Sultán
Selim. It is remarkable for its twin peaks, sharp-topped blocks,
the higher to the east, and called by the Bedawin Naghar and
Nughayr. The guides spoke of a furnace near the summit of these
remarkable cones; excellent landmarks which we shall keep in
sight during several marches. At length, after ten miles of slow
work, we saw before us, stretched as upon a map, the broad valley
with its pink sands; the Daum-trees, the huge Ushr or "Apple of
Sodom," the fan-palm bush, and the large old Jujubes--here an
invariable sign of former civilization--which informed us that
there lay fair Shuwák.
The dull gorge introduced us to what was then a novelty in
Midian; but we afterwards found it upon the cold heights of the
Shárr, where it supplied us with many a dainty dish. This was the
Shinnár[EN#6] (caccabis), a partridge as large as a pheasant, and
flavoured exactly like the emigrant from Phasis.
The coat, the clock! clock! and the nimble running over the
rocks, ever the favourite haunt, denote the "perdix." The head is
black, as in the C. melanocephala of Abyssinia, and the legs and
feet are red like the smaller "Greek" caccabis that inhabits the
Hismá; the male birds have no spurs, and they are but little
larger than their mates. There seems to be no difficulty in
keeping them; we bought a hen and chicks caged at El-Wijh, but
whether they lived or not I neglected to note. Here, too, we
learned the reason why the falcons and the hawks (Falco milvus,
F. gentilis, etc.) are so fierce and so well-fed. The tyrant of
the air raises the partridge or the quail by feinting a swoop,
and, as it hurries away screaming aloud, follows it leisurely at
a certain distance. Finally, when the quarry reaches the place
intended--at least, the design so appears--the falcon stoops and
ends the chase. The other birds were ring-doves, turtles, and the
little "butcher" impaling, gaily as a "gallant Turk," its live
victim upon a long thorn.
Shuwák, which lies in about north lat. 27° 15', can be no other than
the <Greek> placed by Ptolemy (vi. 7) in north lat. 26° 15'; and, if
so, we must add one degree to his latitudes, which are sixty miles
too low.[EN#7] According to Sprenger ("Alt. Geog.," p. 25), <Greek>
and <Greek> do not fit into any of the Alexandrian's routes; and
were connected only with their ports Rhaunathos (M'jirmah?) and
Phoenicon Vicus (Zibá?). But both these cities were large and
important centres, both of agriculture and of mining industry,
forming crucial stations on the great Nabathæan highway, the
overland between Leukè Kóme and Petra. The line was kept up by the
Moslems until Sultán Selim's superseded it; and hence the modern
look of the remains which at first astonished us so much. The
tradition of the Hajj-passage is distinctly preserved by the
Bedawin; and I have little doubt that metal has been worked here as
lately, perhaps, as the end of the last century. But by whom, again,
deponent ventures not to say, even to guess.
The site of Shuwák is a long island in the broad sandy Wady of
the same name, which, as has been remarked, feeds the Dámah. Its
thalweg has shifted again and again: the main line now hugs the
southern or left bank, under the slopes and folds of the Jebel
el-Sáni'; whilst a smaller branch, on the northern side, is
subtended by the stony divide last crossed. At the city the lay
of the valley is from north-east to south-west, and the altitude
is about seventeen hundred feet (aner. 28.28). The head still
shows the castellations of the Hismá. Looking down-stream, beyond
the tree-dotted bed and the low dark hills that divide this basin
from the adjoining Wady to the south, we see the tall grey tops
of the Jebel Zigláb (Zijláb) and of the Shahbá-Gámirah--the
"ashen-coloured (Peak) of Gámirah"--the latter being the name of
a valley. Both look white by the side of the dark red and green
rocks; and we shall presently find that they mark the granite
region lying south and seaward of the great trap formations. We
were not sorry to see it again--our eyes were weary of the gloomy
plutonic curtains on either side.
At Shuwák we allowed the camels a day of rest, whilst we planned
and sketched, dug into, and described the ruins. A difficulty
about drinking-water somewhat delayed us. The modern wells, like
those of the Haurán, are rudely revetted pits in a bald and shiny
bit of clay-plain below the principal block of ruins: only one in
the dozen holds water, and that has been made Wahsh ("foul") by
the torrent sweeping into it heaps of the refuse and manure
strewed around. The lower folds of the Sáni' block also supply
rain-pools; but here, again, the Arabs and their camels had left
their marks. The only drinkable water lies a very long mile down
the southern (left) bank, above the old aqueduct, in a deep and
narrow gorge of trap. The perennial spring, still trickling down
the rocks, was dammed across, as remnants of cement show us, in
more places than one. There are also signs of cut basins, which
the barrages above and below once divided into a series of tanks.
Up the rough steps of the bed the camel-men drove their beasts;
and the name of a Gujráti maker, printed upon a sack of
Anglo-Indian canvas, had a curious effect among such Bedawi
surroundings.
At last we sank a pit some five feet deep in a re-entering angle
of the northern or smaller branch; we lined it with stone
down-stream, where the flow made the loose sand fall in, and we
obtained an ample and excellent supply. Doubtless it was spoiled,
as soon as our backs were turned, by the half-Fellah
Jeráfín-Huwaytát, to whom the place belongs. The sea-breeze
during the day was high and dust-laden, but we passed a cool
delicious night upon the clean sweet sand, which does not stick
or cling. At this altitude there is no fear of bugs and
fleas--the only dread is Signor "Pediculus."
We will begin, with our surveyors, at the valley head, and note
the ruins as we stroll down. This section, Shuwák proper, is
nearly a mile and a half long, and could hardly have lodged less
than twenty thousand souls. But that extent by no means
represents the whole; our next march will prolong it along the
valley for a total of at least four miles. The material is
various--boulders of granite and syenite; squares of trap and
porphyry; the red sandstones of the Hismá; the basalts of the
Harrah; and the rock found in situ, a brown and crumbling grit,
modern, and still in process of agglutination. The heaps and
piles which denote buildings are divided by mounds and tumuli of
loose friable soil, white with salt,--miniatures of Babylon,
Nineveh, and Troy. On either flanks of the river-holm the
periodical torrents have done their worst, cutting up the once
regular bank into a succession of clay buttresses. On the right
side we find a large fort, half sliced away, but still showing
the concrete flooring of a tower. About the centre of the length
are the remnants of a round Burj; blocks of buildings, all
levelled to the foundations, lie to the north-west, and on the
west appear signs of a square. Perhaps the most interesting
discovery is that of catacombs, proving a civilization analogous
to Magháir Shu'ayb, but ruder, because more distant from the
centre. The "caves" are hollowed in a long reef of loose breccia,
which, fronting eastward, forms the right bank of the smaller
branch. They are now almost obliterated by being turned into
sheep-folds; the roofs have fallen in, and only one preserves the
traces of two loculi.
The arrangements touching fuel and water in this great
metal-working establishment are on a large scale. The biggest of
the Afrán ("furnaces") lies to the north-west, near the right
bank of the valley: all are of the ordinary type, originally some
five or six feet high, to judge from the bases. They are built of
fire-brick, and of the Hismá stone, which faces itself into a
natural latex. We dug deep into several of them; but so careful
had been the workmen, or perhaps those who afterwards ransacked
these places, that not the smallest tear of metal remained: we
found only ashes, pottery, and scoriae, as usual black and green,
the latter worked sub-aerially; many of them had projections like
stalactite. Round the furnaces are strewed carbonate of lime,
stained black with iron, like that of Sharmá; and a quantity of
the chlorite-enamelled serpentine still used in the Brazil as a
flux.
Quartz was absent, and we were at a loss to divine what stone had
been worked. At last we observed near the catacombs sundry heaps
of pinkish earth, evidently washed out; and our researches in the
South Country afterwards suggested that this may have been the
remains of the micaceous schist, whose containing quartz was so
extensively worked at Umm el-Haráb. Moreover, a short study of
Shaghab threw more light on the matter.
Water also had been stored up with prodigious labour. We could
easily trace the lines of half a dozen aqueducts, mostly
channelled with rough cement, overlying a fine concrete; some of
them had grooved stones to divert the stream by means of lashers.
The Fiskíyyah or "tanks," as carefully built, were of all sizes;
and the wells, which appeared to be mediaeval, were lined with
stones cut in segments of circles: we shall see the same curve in
Sultán Selim's work near Zibá. The greatest feat is an aqueduct
which, sanded over in the upper part, subtends the left side of
the valley. It is carefully but rudely built, and where it
crosses a gully, the "horizontal arch" is formed of projecting
stone tiers, without a sign of key. This magnum opus must date
from the days when the southern part of the Wady was nearly what
it is now.
About a mile and a quarter below our camp, the Wady, which
broadens to a mile, shows on the left bank a wall measuring a
thousand metres long, apparently ending in a tank of 110 feet
each way. Around it are ruined parallelograms of every size,
which in ancient times may have been workshops connected with the
buildings in the island higher up. The torrents have now washed
away the continuation, if ever there was any; and, though the
lower remnants are comparatively safe upon their high ledge, the
holm is evidently fated to disappear.
I did not learn till too late that a single day's march
southwards from the Wady Shuwák, along the old main line of
traffic, leads to the Wady Nejd, upon whose upper course is the
plain of Badá; and which, after assuming four different names,
falls, as will be seen, into the sea about thirty-five miles
north of El-Wijh.
We left Shuwák considerably posed, puzzled, and perplexed by what
it had shown us. A little pottery had been picked up, but our
diggings had not produced a coin or even a bit of glass. The
evidences of immense labour are the more astonishing when
compared with the utter absence of what we call civilization. The
Greek and Latin inscriptions of the Hauranic cities declare their
origin: these, absolutely unalphabetic, refuse a single hint
concerning the mysterious race which here lived and worked, and
worked so nobly. And, finally, who were the Moslems that
succeeded them in a later day, when the Hajj-caravan, some three
centuries and a half ago, ceased to march by this road? How is it
that the annalists say nothing of them? that not a vestige of
tradition remains concerning any race but the Nazarenes?
From Shuwák to the Wady Dámah there are two roads, a direct and
an indirect; the latter passing by the ruins of Shaghab. The
caravan begged hard to take the former, but was summarily
refused. At six a.m. we rode down the Shuwák valley, again noting
its huge constructions, and then striking away from it to the
left, we passed over a short divide of brown hill, where the
narrow Pass was marked only by Bedawi graves. The morning showed
a peculiar rainbow, if a bow may be called so when no rain
appeared; a perpendicular stripe, brilliant enough, and lasting
at least twenty minutes. The cloud behind it had no skirt, no
droop in fact, no sign of dissolution; and what made it the
stranger was that this "bull's-eye" lay north of, and not
opposite to, but quite near, the rising sun. We shall note
another of these exceptional rainbows at El-Badá.[EN#8]
After marching some seven miles to the south with westing, we saw
inform heaps to the left: half an hour afterwards,
boulder-encircled pits of a brighter green on the right, the
Themáil el-Má ("artificial cisterns") of the Arabs, announced
that we were reaching Shaghab. The caravan punished us by wasting
five hours on the way, in order to force a halt; and by camping
at the wrong place, when I objected to the delay. It brought with
it, however, a fine young Beden (ibex), killed by one of the
Bedawin; and we determined to stuff, to bury, and to bake it,
Arab fashion, under the superintendence of the Básh-Buzúk Husayn.
Unfortunately it was served to us on the next day cold, whereas
it should have been eaten at once, piping hot. The meat was dark,
with a beefy rather than a gamey flavour, palatable, but by no
means remarkable. There were loud regrets that a cuisse de
chevreuil had not been marinée; in fact, an infect odour of the
Quartier Latin everywhere followed us; and when a guide told us
the pattern lie, that we should not reach Umm Amir before the
fourth day, the poor "Frogs" croaked, and croaked audibly as
dismally. Their last bottle of ordinaire was finished; Gabr, the
Kázi, had come into camp, bearing a long official Arabic document
from Lieutenant Yusuf, but not a single Journal de Genève; there
was no news of a steamer being sent with rations and forage from
Suez: briefly, c'était embetant--to use the milder of the two
favourite synonyms.
The ruins of Shaghab are built upon a more complicated site than
those of Shuwák. The position is charming. The Wady Shaghab,
flowing to the south, here spreads out in a broad bulge or basin
open to the west. Down-stream we see a "gate" formed by the
meeting of two rocky tongue-tips, both showing large works.
Beyond these narrows the valley bends to the south-west and feeds
the Wady Aznab, which falls into the sea south of the Dámah. The
mass of the ruined city lies upon the left bank, where a high and
artificial-looking remblai of earth masks an eastern influent,
the Wady el-Aslah (Athlah), or "of the Kali-plant." It drains the
mountain of the same name, and the Jebel Zigláb (Zijláb), the
cones of pale granite visible from Shuwák; and upon its broad
mouth the old settlement stood à cheval. A little north of west
rises profiled the great Shárr, no longer a ridge with a coping
of four horns, but a tall and portly block, from whose summit
spring heads and peaks of airy blue-pink. Slightly east of north
the twins Naghar and Nughayr, combining to form the "Mountain of
the Maker" (Jebel el-Sáni'), tower in the shape of a huge
pyramid. Lastly, a regular ascent, the Majrá el-Wághir, fronts
the city, sloping up to the west-north-west, and discloses a view
of the Jibál el-Tihámah: this broad incline was, some three
centuries ago, the route of the Hajj-caravan.
We walked down the Shaghab valley-bed, whose sides, like those of
the Dámah, are chevaux de frise of dead wood. The characteristic
rock is a conglomerate of large and small stones, compacted by
hard silicious paste, and stained mauve-purple apparently by
manganese: we had seen it on the way to Shuwák; and the next
day's march will pave the uplands with it. The wells in the sole
are distinctly Arab, triangular mouths formed and kept open by
laying down tree-trunks, upon which the drawer of water safely
stands. On the right bank up-stream no ruins are perceptible;
those on the left are considerable, but not a quarter the size of
Shuwák. Here again appear the usual succession of great squares:
the largest to the east measures 500 metres along the sides; and
there are three others, one of 400 metres by 192. They are
subtended by one of many aqueducts, whose walls, two feet thick,
showed no signs of brick: it is remarkable for being run
underground to pierce a hillock; in fact, the system is rather
Greek or subterranean, than Roman or subaerial. Further down are
the remains apparently of a fort: heaps of land-shells lie about
it; they are very rare in this region, and during our four
months' march we secured only two species.[EN#9]
Still descending, we found the ancient or mediaeval wells,
numbering about a dozen, and in no wise differing from those of
Shuwák. At the gorge, where the Wady escapes from view,
Lieutenant Amir planned buildings on the lower right bank, and on
the left he found a wall about half a mile long, with the remains
of a furnace and quartz scattered about it. This stone had
reappeared in large quantities, the moment we crossed the divide;
the pale grey of the Jebel Zigláb and its neighbours was
evidently owing to its presence; and from this point it will be
found extending southwards and seawards as far as El-Hejaz. He
brought with him a hard white stone much resembling trachyte, and
fragments of fine green jasper.
A cursory inspection of Shaghab removed some of the difficulties
which had perplexed us at Shuwák and elsewhere. In the North
Country signs of metal-working, which was mostly confined to the
Wadys, have been generally obliterated; washed away or sanded
over. Here the industry revealed itself without mistake. The
furnaces were few, but around each one lay heaps of Negro and
copper-green quartz, freshly fractured; while broken handmills of
basalt and lava, differing from the rubstones and mortars of a
softer substance, told their own tale.
At Shaghab, then, the metalliferous "Marú" brought from the
adjacent granitic mountains was crushed, and then transported for
roasting and washing to Shuwák, where water, the prime necessary
in these lands, must have been more abundant. Possibly in early
days the two settlements formed one, the single <Greek> of
Ptolemy; and the south end would have been the headquarters of
the wealthy. Hence the Bedawin always give it precedence--Shaghab
wa Shuwák; moreover, we remarked a better style of building in
the former; and we picked up glass as well as pottery.
As a turkey buzzard (vulture) is the fittest emblem for murderous
Dahome, so I should propose for Midian, now spoiled and wasted by
the Wild Man, a broken handmill of basalt upon a pile of spalled
Negro quartz.