Vexatious delay. — Lose the track. — Short commons in the
Desert. — Genuine Arab hospitality. — En route for Siwah. —
Sand valleys. — Scene of desolation. — Signs of volcanic
action. — Approach Siwah. — Sepulchral caves. — Arrive
at Siwah.
January 13.—My messenger returned several days ago from Benghazi;
and Sheikh Othman had a fortnight before assured me that the camels
were ready to start with me at a moment’s warning; and then again,
after several days’ delay, had promised them for this morning,
but I saw nothing of them. At length, on Saturday morning, Othman,
accompanied by several other persons, came to see the baggage
tied up and weighed—a long operation, which I hastened as much
as I could, being anxious to get away from a place of which I was
heartily tired. Where were the camels all this time? They were at
the other end of the town, and would be brought up immediately; but
as soon as all seemed in order for starting, my friend Othman went
off, saying, that we should start with the dawn next morning. I was
completely in his power, and had nothing for it but to take patience,
and the more so, since I now found that the camel owners—with whom
I had only communicated through my trusty friend, and to whom he,
in his anxiety to serve me, had promised an exorbitant hire on my
part—were, in fact, himself and one of his friends. I consoled
myself with the idea of taking it out of him by suppressing the
backshish I had intended to give him; but this was poor consolation
for the previous days thus lost.
_Sunday, Jan._ 16.—The sun had been up for more than three hours
before the camels came, and then there were only six instead of
nine. These I had loaded and dispatched by a little after midday,
having been promised that the others should be sent to me in half an
hour. Hour after hour went by, and I sat fretting among the remains
of my baggage; at length the day wearing on, I determined to follow
the camels which had already started, leaving a servant to come on
with the rest as soon as they arrived. I had found out from the
people of the place, that the men with whom the original bargain
was made had been sent away, as the Sheikh, finding he could make
so profitable an investment, had determined to supply the greater
number of camels himself; he had not, however, yet purchased them
all—and hence the delay.
Half an hour before sunset, no camels appearing, I mounted my
horse and rode off alone, to seek for my caravan, and—what I was
beginning to feel a great want of—my dinner. The road was over
gravelly sand, and as long as daylight lasted it was easy enough
to follow the tracks of the camels; but as night closed in, and the
sky became overcast with fleecy clouds, which obscured the moon and
stars, the track gradually grew invisible, and I could only guess at
the right path; so keeping my horse’s head as straight as possible,
I rode on. There was no appearance of fire in any direction, and
after four hours I found myself among palm-trees, which I recognised
as those of Jalo. It would have been folly to attempt to return to
find the road I had deviated from, in the darkness, and it was too
late to ask for hospitality in Jalo; I, therefore, tied my horse to
a tree, and lay down supperless and hungry under a palm-bush near
him. I was soon asleep; but, tormented with thirst, I dreamed of the
gurgling streams of Damascus, and the water-sellers in the streets
of Cairo, with their leaf-crowned jars of cool water. Their cry,
“God’s fountain for the thirsty,” awoke me, and the first
sound I heard was the rumbling of water in a vase. “Oh, man,”
I cried, “bring water.” There was no answer, as my voice fell
echoless in the still night, and I turned again to sleep, thinking
I had dreamed; but in another moment I again heard the sound, and
this time I was sure I was awake. I sat up and listened; presently
the noise was repeated, and then I heard the pawing of my horse,
and felt the branches of the bush I was lying under shaken. I rose,
and found that my horse, thirsty as his master, and more sagacious
than he, had nosed out a vase of _lagby_ among the branches; the
booming noise which had awoke me being caused by his ineffectual
attempts to get his head into a jar which had an orifice of about
an inch. My thirst in the meantime had increased with my dream,
and setting aside all sense of the impropriety of theft. I took a
draught of the cool palm-juice, which, for the first time, seemed
to me a pleasant beverage, and again lay down, after replacing the
jar and tying my horse in a position to prevent his repeating his
vain addresses to the bottle.
In the gray of the morning, I mounted with the intention of retracing
my steps and joining my caravan, but just as I emerged from the palm
trees, I saw two men and a camel coming from Augila. At this sight
my malignant star suggested to me the idea of saving time, and not
returning on my way—a bad omen in the beginning of a journey; so
I rode up to the new comers, asking if either would accompany me to
the Wadi, the place of rendezvous for caravans starting to Siwah;
and one of them saying he knew the way, agreed to guide me. I knew
that my servant, when he saw the camels arrive without me, would at
once conclude that I had ridden straight to the Wadi, and without a
misgiving I rode on. I had eaten nothing since an early breakfast on
the previous day, and when midday came and we were still far from
the Wadi, I turned to see what store of good things my saddlebags
contained. I found in them only a single sea-biscuit. Of this I gave
half to my conductor, and, unable to make any impression on what
remained, I reserved it till my arrival in the Wadi. We reached
it at half-past two, but there was no appearance of the Cafilah,
and I now began to contemplate with some dismay the possibility
of the Ottoman having again broken his word, and having another
day to wait with my not abundant store of provisions. There was at
least water here, and this was all I had to give my horse and dog;
my tarboush served to draw it, and for them to drink out of. The
Wadi was here and there dotted with tufts of a bright-looking thorny
grass, and to enable him to pick up a few mouthfuls, and at the same
time prevent him from going far off, I tied my horse’s forelegs
together, and sent him to look for his dinner.
Meantime my guide had made me a fire, which he lighted from the
smouldering embers left by a caravan, which must have started a
few hours before we came up; and I then dismissed him, showing
the half biscuit which remained, as a good reason for his not
staying with me, while I assured him that my people could not be
long in coming up. Evening was fast approaching, so I ate half the
remainder of my biscuit soaked in water, gathered sticks to feed
my fire, and choosing the sheltered side of a palm-bush, looked
to my arms and arranged my saddle and saddle-cloth, so as to make
something which I persuaded myself was a bed. I had not even a
cloak, as in a fit of carefulness for my steed I had removed it to
save him the weight, never reckoning on such a contingency as the
present; the only additional covering I had to the white trowsers
and jacket I wore, was one of those light india-rubber overcoats,
bearing a barbarously meaningless name, such as the classic public
of the Strand delights in. The sky was bright and clear, and the
air proportionately cold. I had no provisions, no wine, no brandy,
no covering, not even a cigar, but I had a chronometer, a sextant,
a compass, a thermometer, a telescope, in fact a whole observatory
of instruments to console me for the want of a dinner, and I was
thus enabled to certify, that at dawn the thermometer marked 43°;
and the sharp air, contrasted with the heat of the sun during the
previous day, made this seem still more piercingly cold.
In one point at least I am a true Englishman, for I can brook
anything better than the want of my “victuals;” next to this the
most painful feeling I know is that of inaction. I had had enough of
my two days’ fast, and in the morning I thought to avoid further
endurance of either evil by mounting my poor horse and going back,
somewhere or other; my ambition in fact was to keep moving. The
old gray, knowing my temper pretty well, after an eight months’
acquaintance, had probably foreseen this; he woke me half a dozen
times during the night by rubbing his nose against my legs, by way
of asking how I felt, and at last getting some cross words for
disturbing me, had made himself scarce. As far as the telescope
could command he was not to be seen, and I was in no humour for
a tramp in search of him through the loose sand. The morning wore
heavily, a quarter of my biscuit still remained, but I reserved it
with an idea of keeping rather than eating my cake, while from time
to time I took a look to see if “anybody was coming.” At last
I saw a spot moving in the distance, a single man, but so wrapped
in his borneau that I could not distinguish him. He came straight
towards me, and then I recognised him as my guide of the previous
day, who had brought me a basket of dates, some corn for my horse,
and two pieces of stick to kindle a fire. I sat down on the sand with
the basket before me, he sitting in true Arab style of hospitality
at a little distance to see me eat, and while I picked out a few
dates without relish (appetite was gone, and I fancied them dirty),
he told me why he had returned. It was midnight when he reached
his cottage in Jalo; his mother got up, made him a fire, and gave
him something to eat while he told her how he had spent his day. He
then lay down to sleep, but his mother said to him, “My son, this
is no time for sleep; my heart is troubled for the man in the Wadi;
rise and go to him, for he is alone, and I fear robbers; carry him
these dates, for he is hungry.” Abd-er-rahman started afresh and
reached me about ten in the morning, having hardly rested during
forty-eight hours. When he had seen me eat, he went to the well
and washed, and then employed himself in gathering date-stones in
the sand round the fire-places of previous caravans. I was puzzled
to see him thus groping in the earth, and visions of truffles,
which I had read of in Theophrastus as being found in this desert,
rose before me. Were I given to the vice of _gourmandise_, as those
whose palates are not gifted with discrimination call the sense of
taste, I could not have hastened with more alacrity to join in the
search; but my disappointment was great, when I found that he was
only gathering old date-stones, which he pounded and then gave,
mixed with straw and water, to his cousin’s cow.
In about four hours, the caravan and my horse, which had gone to
join it, arrived, and I learned, as I had anticipated, that this
fresh delay was due to my Sheikh, from whom, however, I thought
that I was now pretty safe. But he had still a trick of villany in
store for me, for when the camels came to load (and they carried
less weight on account of the water I should require during the
first days), his people refused to carry water unless I paid half
a dollar a skin extra. I had no resource, as I was still too near
Jalo to force them to move on against their will, but to submit,
which I did with secret vows to have them punished in Siwah for
the imposition. I little guessed what would be my reception there.
It was twelve when I started from the Wadi after filling a dozen
skins at its well, whose water is “sweet as those of heaven,”
as Abd-er-rahman poetically called rain, though the sand from which
it springs is mixed with crystals of common salt, admirably white
and pure. For an hour and a half the ground is dotted thickly with
hillocks of the Tumaran, of which each camel received a bundle
in passing, as during some days little or no wood is to be found
on the road. This is a low-growing woody plant with spare short
fleshy leaves, whose thick twisted roots creep over the sand near
its surface, forming low mounds. It is thornless, is easily torn up
in large pieces, and though alive and in leaf, burns with a clear
bright flame. Much of the petrified wood found in parts of the desert
is formed of Tumeran, which even in its living state seems to be
undergoing the process of petrifaction, as long veins of red brown
earth run through its roots. Six hours after starting, travelling
through fine loose sand in a N.E. direction, we reached a lofty
sand-hill, the ground at whose base is sprinkled for a considerable
distance with dark gravel and fragments of black half-vitrified
stone. Many parts of this desert, seen in a bright sun, seemed
perfectly flat, but as day closed in, and the shadows lengthened,
the gentle undulations of the sand became visible. For ten hours
we continued our course over a nearly flat country, gradually
trending to the north, when we came to a long line of low hills,
among which we were soon engaged. It is here that the two roads
to Siwah separate; that which I took is the longer, but is easier
for the camels; the other is the one more usually followed by the
slave-dealers, and the same followed by Hornemann; it is preferred
as being further removed from the haunts of the Aoulad Ali Arabs.
In gentle swells, these hills ultimately reach a considerable
height. Journeying over such ground is singularly fatiguing, for the
sand offers no variety to the eye, which is pained by the intense
glare which it reflects, and the horse sinks in it to the fetlocks
at every step. Nothing marked the road, which is very rarely used,
and a slight wind suffices to obliterate every trace of former
travellers. No caravan had passed this way to Mecca for three
years, in consequence of disturbances among the Tuarick, to whom
this country principally belongs. Thus we continued during fifteen
hours and a quarter, constantly ascending between two lines of low
hills, which rose on either side like waves driven from opposite
directions. By this I mean that they rise on one side in long gentle
swells and fall very suddenly on the other, forming an angle of
about 70°, while eight or ten feet of their crests are on this,
one would say the lee side, perfectly perpendicular. But the action
of the wind, to which this appearance is doubtless due, is such,
that in this place the lee side of each sand-wave faces that of
the other, forming a valley between them, bounded on each side by
steep sand. My greyhounds enjoyed themselves famously in running
along the crests of these hills, and then rolling and tumbling
down their steep sides; but after a couple of days of such gambols,
the sand began to distress their feet, and they were glad to mount
a camel during the greater part of the remaining journey.
It was on the afternoon of the third day, that, sending on the
servant who had waited on me at luncheon, I stayed behind to smoke a
chibouque, and having a supply of tobacco beside me I thoughtlessly
protracted this amusement beyond a due time. When I at last started
I rode straight for the passage, between some distant hills, where
I had last seen the caravan, but soon I found that I had lost the
track. At the height I had then reached, the wind blew so strongly,
that, in exposed places, the footsteps were speedily effaced,
and for an hour I wandered sufficiently to convince me how easy it
would be to lose oneself in the sand. Evening was not far distant,
and I was on the point of returning to my noon-day resting-place,
but determined first to try one cast more. With this intent I rode
directly at right angles to my course, and happily came upon the
tracks of the camels. I soon reached the base of a peak round which
they had gone, and, turning it, I beheld the most extraordinary
scene of desolation.
I found myself standing on the ledge of an oval basin, some five
or six miles long, whose sides were formed of stratified rocks,
of a bluish gray colour, in their horizontal layers; across ran
low dykes of the same laminar construction, the upper layers being
generally of a blackish stone, but all bearing the appearance of
vitrifaction. The dykes ran in lines parallel to the minor axis of
the ellipse, and one might almost have supposed it the ruins of
a construction on a gigantic scale, like that called Solomon’s
Pool, near Bethlehem. Excepting at points where the rocks crop out,
the bottom of the basin was filled with sand; piles of stones,
memorials of former caravans, erected on the dykes; many skeletons,
both of men and camels, bleached white as the purest ivory, pointed
out the path which I must follow. Night closed in while I was still
in this lonely valley; and it was with some pleasure that I heard
the signal guns, which were fired from time to time, to direct
me to the halting place. At sunset, as I had not been seen for
six hours, the caravan was halted, although it had only made ten
hours and a half journey that day. The Arabs call this place the
Gerdobiah, or Little Gerdebah, قردبه, to distinguish it from
the great range of this name, which commences two hours and a half
further on. A ridge of round-backed sandhills forms the separation
between the Gerdobiah and the immense range of low dark hills and
table-lands which here presents itself. A low line of sandstone
rocks, with nearly perpendicular sides, bound the line of road,
sometimes closing upon it, sometimes leaving a wide plain on either
side. In the basins thus formed rocks rise frequently, in the form
of low truncated cones, generally in two steps, one rising from the
other, so like diminutive craters, that in referring to this day’s
journey my servant always calls them, “_les Vesuves_.” The black
appearance of the ground is caused by numberless fragments of flat,
dark, flint-like, coarse, broken glass, with which the sand and rocks
are covered; among them are many pieces of petrified palm-wood; and,
in some places, I found four or five feet of the trunk of the tree
still standing erect as it grew: while, in more than one instance,
large fragments of the tree, like the _débris_ of a broken column,
lay scattered round. In one spot, I found the trunk of such a tree
(judging from its form at the base) in the position and place
where it grew, and lying alongside of it, fragments of its stem,
in all more than twenty feet long; the fractures of each of these
corresponded to those on either side of it. It would seem from
this that the trees were petrified as they grew, and that their
general prostration is due to some convulsion which followed
the withdrawal of the petrifying waters in which they had been
immersed. I believe these trees to be, many of them, date palms,
such as grow in the oases at the present day; they are similar in
appearance; and so were some petrified date-stones, which I found,
to their stones. It took in all twenty-six hours to traverse this
line, which, judging from the cold, must be at a very considerable
elevation. The south wind blew so bleakly that even at midday a
cloak was a welcome addition to the borneau. In the mornings and
evenings the thermometer was rarely above 43°, and at midday,
notwithstanding the bright sun, I twice found it only 45°.
Towards the last part of the Gerdebah I observed large masses
of beautifully-marked agate, of a coarse crystalline grain, with
colours more vivid than the Sicilian. Descending into a plain of
sand, the next landmark is a lofty cone, called Gar Hhot, خوت,
some sixty or seventy feet high, which rising abruptly from the
level, is seen at a great distance. It was formerly a stronghold
of the Aoulad Ali, who from it descended to pillage the Majabra
caravans. The tombs of seven or eight Majabra, who were killed in
one of their raids some forty years ago, are at the base of the hill;
but this was the robbers’ last exploit, for the Majabra are said to
have come in overwhelming numbers, and to have overpowered them. I
will not answer for the truth of the story which was told me by my
guide, whose grandfather was among the slain; for in my experience
of timid people, I must do the Majabra of the present generation
the justice to say, that I never met with any who had so strong a
regard for their personal safety. Along this line they never light
fires during the night, for fear of attracting the Arabs, and for
the same reason they frequently diverge from the direct line of
journey; their cargoes of human merchandise being, it is said, very
attractive to the Arabs. However this may be, I have no complaint to
make of the dangers of the road: every night two large fires were
kindled in my encampment, yet I was never molested, nor during the
whole journey saw the trace of man, excepting in the case of one
small slave caravan, which I came up with the day after passing
Gar Hhot, at the first well we reached, called Maten Et-Tarfawy,
طرفاوي. It is seventy-four hours from the well of the Wady.
This place was visited by Hornemann, and is the only spot in which
my route (which is the one followed by the great pilgrim caravans)
coincides with the more southerly one. The slave caravan, which I
came up with here, continued to follow Hornemann’s route. Near the
place I found some palm trunks upright, imbedded in reddish, coarsely
crystallised flint. The sand is in great part composed of _débris_
of small marine shells, and the limestone rocks from here to Siwah
are filled with fossils. A considerable descent from the high
ground we had been traversing, crossing several hills and valleys,
which grow gradually more sandy as we advanced, leads to a valley
clothed with gum bushes. From it rises a platform of soft, white
limestone rock; and it is in this that the wells of brackish water
called Et-Tarfawy are pierced. The white platform is picturesquely
crowned with a garland of the bright-green ’ajrum bushes, which
grow somewhat like a broom. Here we watered our camels, and then
went an hour and a half further to a hattych (a copse) called Bou
el Lawah, لاوه. The wind, which had blown for several days
constantly from the south, shifted for a few hours to the north,
and was gratefully warm; heavy rains speedily followed, during
which it again veered to the south.
From here to Siwah I was six days on the road, but one day I was
only able to travel five hours; in fact, I never again got a fair
day’s work out of my camels, for Sheikh Othman, after making me
pay so dearly for them, sent them with so small a supply of food,
that they successively dropped off, one after another, exhausted
from sheer hunger. I cannot, therefore, state the distance exactly,
but as nearly as I can calculate, from Et-Tarfawy to Siwah is
forty-eight hours. The road runs through a succession of small oases,
of which the first is Faredrah, فغيدره, twelve hours from
Et-Tarfawy. Among sandhills one descends very suddenly into a long
basin, which is occupied by a dark brown morass, like that which I
met with at Augila; it is bounded on three sides by time-worn rocks,
which rise perpendicularly round it, a fringe of palm trees growing
about their base. The Arabs pointed out a place in the rocks, on
the other side of the morass, in which they said the ruins of a
castle were to be seen. Now this, like the other spots of the same
nature which I passed through, is uninhabited. The largest and
prettiest of these is Caicab, twelve hours further on. Here the
rocks of variegated limestone assume a bolder appearance, rising
from forty to a hundred feet in fantastic masses, looking in the
distance sometimes like noble cities, sometimes like extensive
ruins. There is one valley where columns, with their capitals of
gigantic proportions, rise from mounds of sand—half buried palaces
and temples seemed in the moonlight to make the former the abode
of giants. From the uniform abruptness of the sides of the rocks,
though weather-worn and varied in colour by the different strata,
it would seem that these morasses had been formed by a suddenly
falling in of the crust; for the flat tops of all the surrounding
rocks have the same level with the desert and with each other, and
the wall of rock is only found on the side turned to the morass. In
a Wady some twelve hours further on I found wells of a clear water,
in very small quantity, but which, after the first draught had been
taken from it, filled again by rapid infiltration from the sand,
but this second supply had a strong sulphurous smell and taste, which
were not perceptible in the first. The morass, the universal feature
of these oases, was here a wide lake of a deep blue, inclosed in a
ring of brown crust, overgrown with rushes, and a tall, rank grass,
of which the camels eagerly plucked the flowering tops. The name
of this place is El Ghazalieh, the Gazelle Ground, and though now
deserted, it must in ancient times have been inhabited. Sepulchral
chambers, entirely devoid of ornament, but well and regularly
cut, are hollowed out in the faces of the rocks. Each opening,
of about four feet square, corresponds to a cubical aperture
of seven feet, in two sides of which—in that facing the door,
and in that generally to the left—are cut receptacles for the
dead. I counted twenty-three; but there may be many more, which,
being sanded up, escaped my observation. Most of them are as empty
as if they had never been occupied; but in some of these deserted
abodes of death the wild bee has stored her sweets. We made a long
halt in this place, for the camels had to be watered, and I had to
dress as well as to breakfast, for the guide having lost his way,
we had gone supperless to bed, being unprovided with either wood or
water. This had twice occurred to me, and each time I had promised
myself never again to be without at least one skin of water; but
though my orders were no doubt attended to during the first few
days, it always happened that, when the precaution would have proved
useful, it had been neglected. In my luggage I had wherewithal to
supply every deficiency but this; and the want of this, however
little I care for the pure fluid, is fatal to all hopes of supping.
This was the last day before reaching Siwah; and, again, I was sadly
delayed through the miserable condition of the camels supplied by my
rascally sheikh of Augila. One after another they dropped, unable to
proceed, and I was obliged to leave them, and the boxes they carried,
in the sand. Unable to get further, we slept on a hill, at whose foot
I beheld next morning a garden-like expanse—a real island of the
blest. A stream, the first running water I had seen since quitting
the Rhone, flowed down its centre; the ground on either side was
green with young crops, among which rose clumps of date-trees and
flowering mimosas. Some cabins dotted the extensive plain, and men
and children were busily employed in irrigating the fields; the
very water, perfectly sweet, after the thirst-exciting draughts to
which we had been for some time condemned, seemed delicious; and,
perhaps, by contrast with the barren sand we had so tediously
journeyed through, this valley, towards Moragah, مراقه,
seemed one of the loveliest spots I had ever visited. I welcomed
the exhilarating impression which it made upon me, as a foretaste of
the enjoyment reserved for me in Siwah, from which we were now only
six hours distant, and I began to believe my Majabra guide might
not be wrong in his daily assurances that it was a Belad Mabruk,
an abode of blessedness.
After leaving Moragah, the loose sand again reappears for about
an hour, leading to the lofty rocks of Kamisah, at whose base are
the ruins called ’Amu-dein, which consist of two lofty masses
of brick work, the façade of a temple, or perhaps of a church,
for the style of building betrays a late date. One of the two salt
lakes of the oasis lies at the foot of Kamisah, and I stopped for
an hour at a well of sweet water which springs at its edge, to rest
the last of Othman’s camels, which here threatened to drop. The
hill of the mummies, Garah-el-Musabberin, and the village of Gharmy,
where the principal ruins are, were visible from here, as well as
the position, though not the town, of Siwah. I sent on the camels,
retaining only one servant with me; soon following them, I found that
one of the camels had again lagged behind the others. I therefore
stopped, and spreading a carpet in the shade of a tree, I sat down,
having first sent a servant into the town to Sheikh Yusuf, whom my
slave-dealer acquaintance had named to me as the chief man of the
place, to obtain donkeys to transport the luggage of the camel. Here
I sat alone for two hours, until the sun had set, and began at
length to reflect on the uncertainty of Arab accounts of distances;
the town might still be two or three hours off, and with a strong
determination to dine to-night, having been on short commons for the
last four days, I left the camel where it was, and rode towards the
town. Night closed in before I had come upon any well-marked path,
and I was beginning to feel some perplexity as to the road, when
I luckily came upon the servant I had dispatched to Yusuf’s, and
one of the men who accompanied him turned to guide me to my tent,
while he went back to bring up the remainder of the luggage.