IV.-Narrative of a Journey from Cairo to Medina and Mecca, by Suez, Arabá, Tawilá, al-Jauf, Jubbé, Háil, and Nejd, in 1845. By the late Dr. GEORGE AUGUSTUS WALLIN, Professor of Arabic at the University of Helsingfors in Finland.* Communicated by the SECRETARY. Read April 26, 1852. I HAD hired two Bedawies (Bedouins) of the Heiwy tribe to take me from the capital of Egypt to Al'akabá, from which place I intended to pursue my way across the Sherâ chain to the town of Algawf,† in the interior of the northern desert of Arabia. We started from Alkâhirá (Cairo) on the 12th of April, 1845, and following the high road of the Indian transit to Suweis (Suez), we arrived in two days at 'Agrood, the first station for the Egyptian pilgrims on their way to Mekká. The desert tract, through which this route leads, is too well known to need any mention here; I have crossed it five times in different seasons, but I never saw any nomads encamped there, nor any Bedawy tents pitched on its vast plains, nor, in fact, so much pasture on its sandy soil as would suffice for the subsistence of the smallest Arab tribe. But the communication with Suweis in late years having much increased, owing especially to the extended Indian transit, there is day and night a continual movement of karawâns and individuals going to and fro on this way, keeping the intercourse alive between Asia and Europe. The road has been cleared from stones and other impediments by the present Pâshâ of Egypt; a telegraphic line has been established between the two towns; European inns have arisen for the exclusive accommodation of European travellers, who now, in convenient carriages, make the journey of three days' camel-march in ten to twelve hours; and with awe and astonishment the poor Bedawies make mention of the rails, which, they are told, are going to be laid down by the restless and envious Frangis, in order to deprive them of the last scanty profit they still earn on this way by their camels. The castle of Agrood is larger and generally kept in better order than most of the others on the pilgrims' way, but the fresh water it contains, though abundant and, I believe, the only well in the whole district, is very brackish. On the 15th we continued our way from the castle. Leaving the pilgrims' path to our left, we traversed the desert, which surrounds Suweis on the land side, first in the direction of E. by S. In order to make this paper correspond in style and arrangement with a former one, already published in the twentieth volume of this Journal, it has been printed, as nearly as possible, in the author's own words.-ED. = Gawf.-R. The j is sounded like g in Egypt and Arabia. Jauf: during 2 hours, and then S.S.E. during 7 hours, until we reached the spring of Mab'ook, situated on a plain, upon whose scanty herbs and bushes a Bedawy woman grazed her sheep. The water of the spring is tepid, but, cooled in the skins so generally in use amongst the Arabs, it is sweet and excellent; and as it is the only spring of really good water in the environs of Suweis, the wealthier inhabitants take their supplies here, notwithstanding the great distance by which it is separated from the town. The common people of Suweis are generally supplied with water from a pond, called Gharkadé, situated at the foot of the mountains of the Sînâ peninsula, from whence it is first brought by Bedawies on camel-back in skins to the shore of the Red Sea, and then forwarded to the town in small boats. There is still another well, about one hour W. of Suweis, on the way to 'Agrood, but its water is so bad and brackish as to be scarcely drinkable. There are some remains of a decayed wall to be seen at Mab'ook, and in general small flocks of sheep pasturing around the spring. From hence we took the direction of N.E. towards the mountain of Alrâhá, and entered after a march of 24 hours a valley, called Ferâshât al shîh,* where the two species of the wormwood herb, Shîh and 'Ubeitherân', grew in rich abundance. The valley extends between Alrâhá on the right and the lower mountain of Humeirá on the left hand. On the 16th we reached the end of the valley after a march of 11 hour. Here commenced a narrow defile, called Bal'îm Almaghârbé, which took of an hour to pass. After a march of 4 hours more over open desert plains, we issued again upon the Egyptian pilgrim-way. The road we had followed from the castle of 'Agrood is the way which the Maghrabiés, the pilgrims from northern Africa, generally take to Mekká, and which, after them, is called Darb Almaghârbé. We made a march of 3 hours more in a valley called Hashm Alfarwá, which may be regarded as a continuation of the valley through which our way had led from Mab'ook. It opens here in a vast plain, called Wâdî Alburook, surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. We passed at the foot of a mountain, which, from a natural cistern in its rocks, where, during the rainy season, a scanty water sometimes is found, has received the name of Semîlet Alderâwish. Our course on the plain was E.S.E. b. S. during 3 hours towards a solitary mountain called Gebel Hasan. On the 17th we took the direction of S.E. from the mountain, and arrived, after a march of 9 hours over the same plain, to the second station on the Egyptian pilgrim-way, the castle of Alnakhil, situated nearly in the centre of the extensive plain on a * Wormwood carpets.-R. low hill, at the foot of which there stood now only one small house, erected by a man of the garrison.* The castle contains only one well, whose brackish water is raised by the hydraulic machine generally used in Egypt, and known by the name of Sâkiié, and is then led into two larger basins and a smaller one on the outside of the walls. Thus we had taken 33 hours from 'Agrood to Alnakhil; a journey which the pilgrim-karawân generally makes in 30; but the latter does not pass by Mab'ook. The Bedawies, who generally arrive at Wâdî Alburook, are tribes of Teiâhâ, Terâbîn, Huweitât, and 'Alâwîn; but as this year for want of rain the pasture was scanty and withered, the land was abandoned. The Teiâhâ are the largest tribe in this neighbourhood, and occupy all the land between Älnakhil, Ghazzé, and Wâdî Al'araba. They pretend to derive their origin from the renowned tribe of Benoo Hilâl, who, when emigrating from Negd to Egypt and northern Africa, they tell us, fell short of water in this desert. In this dilemma, three young men, with as many girls, separated themselves from the karawân, with empty skins carried by three donkeys, in order to seek for water in Wâdî Sadr, a valley which, under different names, has been stated to me to descend from 'Arîsh, along the mountain range on the western coast of the Sînâ peninsula. They missed their way (tâh) in the desert, and not being able to rejoin the karawân, they saw themselves obliged to remain in the land and take up their abodes with its inhabitants. But who those aboriginal inhabitants were the present Teiâhâ cannot tell us. The three young couples, called Wird Benî Hilâl, lived and multiplied in the land, and the Teiâhâ regard them as the ancestors of their tribe and the authors of their name, which signifies "one who loses his way. The principal clans of the tribe are Ibnn Alrashîd, to whom the Sheikh family belongs, and Hukook, who generally cultivate corn-fields in the neighbourhood of Alghazzé and Nassâr, and who keep nearer to the castle of Alnakhil. To this tribe belongs the right of convoying the pilgrim-karawân and travellers as far as Al'akabá on one side, and to Ghazzé on the other, or some other Syrian place, generally Aldhâhirigé, where their relations with the neighbouring tribes allow them to enter. In consequence of this we generally find, during the winter and especially about Easter time, when the European tourists and the yearly karawân of Christian pilgrims of Kopts set off from Egypt to Jerusalem, the Teiâhâ Bedawies encamped in the neighbourhood of Alnakhil, or sometimes even received and lodged in the castle itself, in order to await the chance of meeting travellers. They are, next to Huweitât, the largest and mightiest Bedawy tribe in these lands, and *When here again in 1847 I found to my surprise, that in two years a hamlet of twelve houses had sprung up around the castle. unquestionably of a nobler and purer race, still clinging to the laws and customs of nomadic life more strictly than any of their neighbours. The Terâbîn are very much dispersed amongst other tribes, nomadizing on the boundaries of Egypt, and commence by degrees to disappear from the desert and mingle with the peasants of Egyptian and Syrian villages. They are found in the environs of 'Arîsh, on the W. coast of the Red Sea and in the mountains on its eastern shore; but everywhere they are despised by their neighbours as a low and miserable tribe, of the same origin as the Heteim. Neither of this tribe nor of the Teiâhâ have I found any mention made by the Arabic authors. The Huweitât live chiefly in Wâdî Tîh and the land of 'Egmé, and in the neighbourhood of Alakabá. They are, no doubt, the Bedawies, whom Alkalkashendy mentions in his genealogical work on the Arab tribes under the name of Benoo Hay. Alhamdâny, quoted in that work, states this tribe to be descendants of the formerly so renowned Syrian tribe of Faal, without enumerating the intermediate degrees of their lineage or giving any other notice of them. The author of Alkâmoos likewise mentions Bedawies of this name, without any further information. The 'Alâwîn generally keep to Wâdî Al'arabá, where they live intermingled with their kindred tribe of Huweitât. During my stay in the castle of Alnakhil there arrived a Heiwy sheikh of the Ghureikân clan, in company with a civil officer of the Egyptian Pâshâ, who, after a short circuit amongst the Bedawies of these lands, was now about to return to the capital. As this sheikh was going to return to his family in Wâdî Tîh with two unloaded camels, my guides made an agreement with him to take me to Al'akabá, which was only one day distant from his home. The Egyptian officer hired my Bedawies to take him to Alkâhirá; and all parties being agreed about the exchange, I started with my new guide on the 18th from the castle of Alnakhil, and made a march of 4 hours in a S.S.E. direction on the plain of Wâdî Alburook. On the 19th our course was more S.E. on the same open land, though the ground by degrees commences to undulate in hillocks of sand, and the plain to be intersected by low mountain ranges of lime and sandstone. A few hours from the castle the district assumes the name of Kureïs, and there are by the side of the pilgrim-way some old wells, surrounded by remains of decayed walls, which the people told us point out the place where the old castle of Alnakhil had originally been erected. After a march of 9 hours through this undulating land, we changed our course to a more easterly direction and entered into the higher and more regular mountains of Kureïs. Following the course of deep valleys in various directions, we descended lower and lower from one floor of the calcareous mountains to another during 24 hours. On the 20th we arrived, after a march of 1 hour, at the wells of Kureïs, situated on a white chalky ground in a deep valley, which extends from N.W. to S.E. They are about six in number, but the water, though abundant, is very brackish in all of them. After a march of 8 hours from these wells over an undulating mountainous country, we reached Wâdî Tîh. Here our way lay for two hours in various directions; sometimes we followed the course of narrow deep dales, sometimes rugged paths on the mountain-tops, until we found the encampment of the clan of which my guide was the sheikh. Though nomadizing now in their own country with all their camels and their herds, they lived in the open air without any tents, as is the custom with these nomads during the spring. As the tents would be a great encumbrance on their incessant and almost daily removals from place to place during this season, they either suspend them in acacia trees, as the Tuwarâ Bedawies in the interior of the Sînâ peninsula do, where they remain untouched until the owner comes to fetch them away, or they keep them, every tribe in its respective village, as do the Heiwy nomads in Al'akabá, where a warehouse or a shop in the castle is generally allowed to every more important sheikh of the neighbouring tribes. This I never have found to be the case with the tribes in the interior of Arabia, who never live in the open air, and never leave their tents in the custody of villagers. Here they do pretty well without them, as they find for themselves and their naked children, a sufficient shelter against the heat of the sun and casual rains in the numerous grottos and vaults, formed in the limestone rocks of the high mountains, which on all sides surround their deep valley. During a delay of some days which I made, I consulted my host about the best and surest way to take to Algawf. Dissuading me from going to Alakabá, he suggested another shorter way, leading over the 'Arabá valley across the Sherâ chain to Ma'ân, and he promised to bring me himself to an acquaintance of his own, a chief sheïkh of the 'Umrân tribe, encamped then on the eastern slopes of the last-mentioned mountains. Though wholly unacquainted with the roads of the district through which I had to pass, and totally ignorant of the relations prevailing between the different tribes I might meet on my way, and, moreover, suspecting that nothing but hope of profit dictated the advice my host gave me, I could not but regard it as an advantage to avoid as much as possible every communication with people settled in towns and villages, as I had already been taught the maxim of the Bedawies, "always to keep with them," and, therefore, I readily accepted his proposal. |