THE WADY FOWAKIYEH AND BÎR HAGI SULIMAN
We slumbered till the sun beat down on our tents. There was enough
water obtainable to fill our collapsible baths to the brim, and good
enough for the camels to drink--poor brackish stuff we should have
found it, had we depended on it for our own consumption.
The well seemed an immense depth, and had a spiral staircase down it,
though it was dangerous to descend more than a few yards. A mining
company had of late years partially restored the building which stood
over it, and for the first time since we left Luxor we saw the names
of some fellow-countrymen who had put this well in workable order.
Unfinished sarcophagi lay near by, with some flaws in the stone to
account for their having been left here by the workmen of one of the
Ptolemies.
We did not propose to travel more than a few miles that day, for the
Wady Fowakiyeh, as the natives call it, is that part of the Hammamât
valley where Lepsius and other former explorers made their greatest
finds.
Now, as Mr. Weigall devotes to this valley many pages in his _Travels
in Upper Egyptian Deserts_, I shall not attempt to describe what he has
so ably given to the public. I will quote what he says of our arrival
there, and of the earliest inscription which was found: ‘Amidst these
relics of the old world our tents were pitched, having been removed
from Bîr Hammamât as soon as breakfast had been finished; and with
camera, note-book, and sketching apparatus, the four of us dispersed
in different directions, my own objective, of course, being the
inscriptions. The history of Wady Fowakiyeh begins when the history of
Egypt begins, and one must look back into the dim uncertainties of the
archaic period for the first evidences of the working of the quarries
of the valley. Many beautifully made bowls and other objects of this
tuff are found in the graves of Dynasty I., fifty-five centuries ago;
and my friends and I scrambling over the rocks were fortunate enough to
find in a little wady leading northwards from the main valley a large
rock-drawing and inscriptions of this date. A “vase-maker” here offers
a prayer to the sacred barque of the hawk-god Horus, which is drawn so
clearly that one may see the hawk standing upon its shrine in the boat,
an upright spear set before the door; and one may observe the bull’s
head, so often found in primitive countries, affixed to the prow; while
the barque itself is shown to be standing upon a sledge in order that
it might be dragged over the ground.’
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE AT KOSSEIR]
By the modern German school of computation, which Mr. Weigall accepts,
the period of the Shepherd Kings was but of two centuries’ duration;
but according to the reckoning of the majority of Egyptologists, this
period lasted a millennium longer. Should the latter be right these
graffiti would date back sixty-five centuries; and from that remote
period (with the exception of the dark ages known as that of the
Hyksos or Shepherd Kings) some signs of human activity were visible
in this valley, telling us something of the various peoples who ruled
Egypt until the three Englishmen scratched their names with a penknife
shortly after the British occupation.
Every collection of Egyptological objects will have some specimens of
sculptured stone quarried out of these tufa and breccia rocks.
I found a large smooth surface of stone, forming the back wall of a
hollow quarried out of a gigantic mass of breccia, which, in Ptolemaic
times, had been made to serve as a shrine to the god Min of Koptos, the
protecting deity of the Upper Egyptian deserts. There were signs that
this shady nook had recently been used as an Arab encampment, and it
suggested a delightful subject to paint. I was torn with conflicting
emotions: whether to secure so good a background for a figure subject,
or whether to join my companions in their search for archæological
treasure. The background won the day. A faint hope that we might spend
a second morning here on our return journey, which would make it
possible to complete my study, finally decided me.
The smooth stone at the back of the hollow was decorated with very
delicately incised Ptolemaic work. The spacing of the panels containing
the deities was most artistically done, and the figures were chiselled
with a delicacy and style not usually seen in work of that period.
I had seen little Ptolemaic sculpture on any other material than
on sandstone, and this was bound to look coarse compared to the
eighteenth dynasty work on the finer grained limestone. The hard
breccia rock surface gave the sculptor a chance; and though it lacked
the distinction of earlier work, it compared well as to delicacy of
treatment. Greek influence seemed more apparent than ever. Hathor
looked less of a goddess, and was possibly more charming as a pretty
little mortal; Ammon Ra without his headdress would have passed for
a lithe and well-proportioned Greek slave; but the god Min, owing
to his conventional pose, combined the Hellenic sensuosity with the
severer Egyptian traditions. The Ptolemy who made offerings to the
above trilogy was a Greek grandee in the pose and apparel of a Pharaoh.
The figures measured about two feet high except that of an attendant
priest, who, as modesty demanded, was a few inches shorter. There were
one or two more panels in which Min figured conspicuously.
The bold forms of the massive rock which overhung this wall may have
helped to emphasise the delicacy of the sculpture. The colour of the
rock formation is as extraordinary as its drawing: the untouched
portions are a chocolate brown, and those parts exposed by the work of
the quarrymen vary from green to a bluish black.
When the sun shifted to where I sat, the effect changed so much that
it seemed hardly worth risking sunstroke by continuing my study. My
companions calling out their several discoveries tempted me to join in
the hunt. So much of interest was crowded into the one day spent at
Wady Fowakiyeh that the thirteenth day of November 1908 will remain as
a landmark in my somewhat varied existence.
One long inscription, which Mr. Weigall interpreted, tells us of 10,000
men who were sent during the eleventh dynasty to work the quarries.
Amongst this army of quarrymen there were miners, artists, draughtsmen,
stone-cutters, gold-workers, and officials, and full directions were
given as to the work they were sent to do. When one thought of the
voices of this host of men, awakening the echoes of the cliff-bound
valley, the present silence became almost oppressive. As the shades
deepened with the declining sun, the impressiveness of our surroundings
seemed to have got hold even of our escort. We could just hear them
muttering their evening prayer, and when that was over nothing but the
crackling of the fire, round which they sat, disturbed the stillness of
the night.
Till this point in our journey, the road we trod is sufficiently hard
and smooth to allow a motor-car to do it in three or four hours. We had
now reached the highest part of the desert highway, but the incline is
so imperceptible that only the aneroid could prove that we were on a
greater altitude than when we left Qús. No motor-car could, however,
cross the mile or two of boulders which choked up the road on which
we made an early start the following morning. Most of this we did on
foot, jumping from boulder to boulder, the men leading the camels a
serpentine route or assisting them over the rocks which blocked the
way. We followed up a narrow pass in the mountains to inspect the
abandoned workings of the gold-mines. We soon came across some huts
used by miners who had in quite recent years come here to glean where
the early Egyptians had reaped a good harvest. The huts were already in
worse repair than many we saw at the Roman Hydreuma. From what I have
heard since, the modern working of these mines had soon been abandoned
as a hopeless task. There are, however, other mines north of these
which are now worked at a profit.
We decided to continue on this pass and join the main route to Kosseir
a few miles further on, the baggage train, of course, following the
usual caravan road. Our guide declared that he knew the road, so there
seemed nothing to apprehend. Nevertheless we took the precaution of
leaving a trail behind us, as boys do on a paperchase, for there were
tracks in the sand of other camels than our own, and the road, such as
it was, split up into several winding passes through the hills. As one
of our party had chosen to follow the baggage, we decided to send back
Selim to the main highway to tell him when and where we expected to
join him, and Selim had also instructions to prepare our midday meal at
that spot.
The landscape became more extraordinary than ever when we left the tuff
and breccia rocks behind us. On either side of us rose sandstone cliffs
worn into the most fantastic shapes. It is difficult to associate
rain with such a country as the one we were in, yet rain and nothing
else could have worn this stone into the shapes we now beheld. An
inscription which Weigall had carefully copied described a torrential
shower which descended on the quarrymen in early dynastic times, and
which they considered a good omen of a successful issue to their
labours. Rain descends at long intervals, but during periods as counted
by geologists an immense amount of water had fashioned these sandstone
rocks into their unearthly shapes, for no growth is here to impede the
action of the torrential streams.
We wound amongst these hills for two or three hours, and I was
delighted when we regained the highway and returned to less strange,
though more beautiful scenery. But where was Selim? We fortunately
could see our companion in the distance, while the baggage camels which
he followed were disappearing round an angle in the range of hills. We
managed to make him hear, and he rode back to meet us. He had neither
seen nor heard anything of our cook, and had the latter followed the
trail he should have joined the main body a couple of hours ago. Our
guide went back to try to find the lost cook, and as he was born to the
desert, we had little fear of losing him. After a hunt of a couple of
hours the guide returned, hoping that Selim might have found his way to
us by the main road. There was nothing to be done but to send the guide
back to try some of the passes which he had considered too unlikely for
the cook to have taken.
It was awkward to lose the man on whom depends your midday meal. But
worse than a long day’s fast was the possibility that the man had
completely lost his bearings, in which case, his bones and those of
his mount might, at the time I am writing, be bleaching in the desert
surrounded by his pans and kettles as well as by our sketching and
photographic paraphernalia.
About four o’clock a clatter, clatter awoke us from a doze we had
indulged in under the shade of a projecting rock. The cook had turned
up at last, still trembling with the danger of being lost which he had
experienced, and also expecting a blowing up for being so late with our
lunch. A puff of wind had, it appeared, blown some of our paper trail
over a low hillock into a pass which we had not taken, and seeing camel
tracks there he followed it up and got lost in the labyrinth amongst
the sandstone cliffs. Though he rode his camel well, his practice had
hitherto been confined to the cultivated land where he could hardly go
a quarter of a mile without meeting some one to direct his way.
We made a hasty meal, for we had a long ride before we could reach
our night’s camping-place. We passed two more Roman stations, but
could not give them much time. The scenery increased in grandeur and
beauty, for the Hammamât mountains we had left behind us are in truth
more extraordinary than beautiful. A high range of limestone mountains
caught the evening light, while the meaner hills in the foreground were
lost in a subtle grey-violet shade.
Twilight is of short duration, and not long after admiring the
after-glow on the limestone heights, we had to trace our way in no
other light than that from the starlit sky.
When we reached our halting-place for the night we found our tents
pitched, table set, and our meal ready to be served up. Selim had
got over his fright, and was anxious to do his best to make up for
the inconvenience he had put us to during the day; the Ababdi guide
likewise arrived before we turned in for the night. Our camp was near
another Roman station, known by the name of the well close by, Bîr Hagi
Suliman. Whatever else of interest there may be in a desert highway,
the vital importance of water (even though it be brackish) is such that
the name of the supply is the name the district is known by. Beer runs
this close in London, judging from the names of public-houses being so
conspicuous on any omnibus route. Should you ask an Ababdi Arab where
the Hydreuma was he would shrug his shoulders; but if you mention a
well, _el Bîr_, anywhere within fifty miles, he will be able to direct
you. The similarity in the name of their water-supplies to that of the
British favourite drink is a curious coincidence.
The domed enclosure of the Bîr Hagi Suliman was in good repair, and a
tablet in the wall bore these three names and a date: ‘Briggs, Hancock,
and Wood, 1832.’ Probably the names of three Englishmen who were
prospecting for gold in these regions.
We decided the next morning to follow the caravan road, and that we
should return from Kosseir by a second route which joins this one
near the well. No archæological find was as welcome as the first rays
of sun which fell on our perishing bodies. To get out of the cold
wind and creep along the rocks which first caught the morning sun was
our only thought. One is obliged to dress in thin summer clothes, as
these valleys are very hot by the time the sun is high in the heavens.
I strapped enough blankets round me to give me the appearance of a
well-packed breakable object stowed on the top of a camel, and I kept
near the useful Selim, so as to enable him to catch the blankets as
I shed them. I had hardly got down to my cotton suit when we arrived
at another Roman station. It seemed as difficult to avoid Roman ruins
here as to get away from trippers in the Nile valley. Some Cufic
inscriptions on a doorpost interested us the most, as an indication
of this route being used soon after the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt.
Our ornithologist had his sketch-book out to note the flight of some
sandgrouse which rose from amongst the ruins as we entered them.
We had met but one or two nomad Arabs since we left the oasis of
Lakéta, so that our interest was considerably excited when we perceived
a considerable caravan advancing towards us in the distance. They
were undoubtedly Arabs from the Hedjaz who had crossed the Red Sea to
barter their camels in the Nile valley--queer customers for so small a
party to meet in this lonely place. We were miles ahead of our baggage
train, and I found that my companions had, as I had done, packed their
revolvers in their kit-bags. We consoled ourselves with the thought
that our want of precaution would not be suspected by the people we
were approaching, and I was more anxious to get a shot at them with
a hand camera than with any more deadly weapon. They were a most
picturesque lot, and might have posed for a group of Hyksos invaders,
or, to come to modern times (which only their long-barrelled guns
suggested), they might have been a small host of the Midianite Arabs
who plunder the pilgrims on the Mecca road. Some of their womenfolk
were with them, but enclosed in litters on the camels’ humps.
[Illustration: DOORWAY IN THE TEMPLE OF ISIS]
I managed with difficulty to get a couple of snapshots: the head of
my own camel had to be avoided, and I wished not to attract too much
attention from the evil-looking men, who greeted neither us nor the two
Arab servants in our party--a most unusual occurrence anywhere in the
Near East.
The first bit of news we heard, when we got back to Luxor, was that a
party of three Egyptians had been attacked by Arabians travelling from
Kosseir to Keneh, and the date given was that of the day after we had
met these people. One Egyptian had been killed, and the two others
had managed to escape. The attacking party could have been no other
than the one we passed. Whether they were ever brought to justice, or
whether they were able to recross the Red Sea and get safe back to the
Hedjaz, I was never able to ascertain. Little news, except that which
an occasional European paper gave us, reached my camp at Der el-Bahri
when I was reinstalled there.
We halted at midday at a well in an open plain. Bîr el-Ingliz, as this
well is called, and also the names of two Frenchmen, on a rock near by,
and dated 1799, vaguely recalled some incidents in the fight between
France and England during the Napoleonic wars. Desaix, who commanded
the French troops in Upper Egypt 1799, must have sent his men by this
route to garrison the still existing fort at Kosseir. We know of no
record that the young French general was ever at Kosseir himself;
but we know that in January 1800 both Desaix and Kleber signed the
convention of el-Arish, six months after Buonaparte had left Egypt. The
two Frenchmen, Forcard and Materon, whose names we find near the well,
were therefore in all probability returning with a detachment from
Kosseir to join Desaix before he went north to el-Arish. The English
could not have restored this well till two years later, as it was
not till May 1801 that an Anglo-Indian force, under Baird, landed at
Kosseir and drove the garrison back into the desert.
Though the well is known as Bîr el-Ingliz, it is probable that the
English put an already existing one into working order, and built the
well-house as a protection to it. Some of its slightly brackish water
may have been the cause of these Frenchmen resting here.
A magnificent range of limestone cliffs, which came into view soon
after our rest, shut us off from any glimpse we might have had of
the sea. These were the finest mountains I had seen in Egypt; their
formation is very similar to that of the Der el-Bahri cliffs, but they
were more imposing from their greater altitude.
As we approached the northern extremity of the range, a patch of vivid
green had a singular attraction for us, and hastened the trot of our
camels. It could not be a mirage, for the form that phenomenon took, as
far as our experience went, was that of reflecting, in what appeared
water, objects above our horizon. Our Ababdi guide knew it as the Bîr
Ambagi. We had been only a few days in the desert; but we felt some
of the excitement of pilgrims in the wilderness who, after a prolonged
journey, catch their first glimpse of a land of Canaan. Our oasis
turned out to be nothing more than a mass of rushes surrounding some
pools of water; it was, however, a refreshing sight to our eyes, and
possibly more refreshing to the stomachs of our camels--there was not
much left of Laura’s hump when I had last taken observations.
A half-dozen goats--sole milk-supply of Kosseir, as we later on
found out--grazed peacefully here, while the young goat-herds stared
round-eyed at the newcomers.
The air we breathed was different, and though no air is purer than that
of the desert, there was something singularly exhilarating in that
which was here. The sea, which we could not yet catch a glimpse of, had
sent its breezes to welcome us to its shores.
On remounting our camels we followed the dry bed of a river--a
wash-out,--and after descending it for a few miles, we turned the
corner of some low-lying sand-hills, and the Red Sea was before us.
How intensely blue it looked! I had not at that time gone down the
Red Sea, or I might have been prepared for its being no redder than a
blue band-box. It is just as well that its colour was no other, for no
sight could have given us greater pleasure. We kept our camels at the
trot, and it looked as if we should be there in half an hour. The low
white houses of Kosseir were on our left horizon, with some huge ugly
erection over-topping them. In a couple of hours we cleared the sandy
waste, and jumped off our camels on the strand.
One of our party threw off his clothes to have a swim, in spite of our
warning him that the water might be infested with sharks. ‘I’ll risk it
anyhow,’ he called out, and we watched him splashing about with mixed
feelings of sour grapes. Weigall sent our guide with a note to the
_Mudir_ to tell him of our arrival, and Selim lighted the spirit lamp
to prepare our tea. We strolled some way along the beach, when we came
on the body of a young shark, with its throat cut, lying on the edge
of the water, and our looks at our venturesome companion silenced his
boastings of how he had enjoyed his bathe.