Part 52

Mount St. Catherine, S.E. 1/2 E.

Om Shomar, S.S.E.

Daghade, [Arabic], a fertile valley in the mountains, issuing into the plain of Kaa, S.W.

The direction of Deir Sigillye was pointed out to me S. b. E. or S.S.E. This is a ruined convent on the S.E. side of Serbal, near the road which leads up to the summit of the mountain. It is said to be well built and spacious, and there is a copious well near it. It is four or five hours distant by the shortest road from Feiran, and lies in a very rocky district, at present uninhabited even by Bedouins.

I found great difficulty in descending. If I had had a plentiful supply of water, and any of us had known the road, we should have gone down by the steps; but our water was nearly exhausted, and in this hot season, even the hardy Bedouin is afraid to trust to the chance only of finding a path or a spring. I was therefore obliged to return by the same way which I had ascended

WADY ALEYAT

Instead of pursuing, from our second halting-place, the road by which we had ascended in the morning from Ain Rymm, we took a more western direction, to the left of the former, and reached by a less rapid descent, the Wady Aleyat [Arabic], which leads to the lower parts of Wady Feiran. After a descent of an hour, we came to a less rocky country.

At the end of an hour and a half from the foot of Serbal, where Hamd had waited for us, we reached the well, situated among date-plantations, where he had filled the skins; its water is very good, much better than that of Feiran. The date-trees are not very thickly planted; amongst them I saw several Doum trees, some of which I had already observed in other parts of the peninsula. This valley is inhabited by Bedouins during the date-harvest,

WADY MAKTA

In the evening we continued our route in the valley Aleyat, in the direction N.W. To our right was a mountain, upon the top of which is the tomb of a Sheikh, held in great veneration by the Bedouins, who frequently visit it, and there sacrifice sheep. It is called El Monadja [Arabic]. The custom among the Bedouins of burying their saints upon the summits of mountains accords with a similar practice of the Israelites; there are very few Bedouin tribes who have not one or more tombs of protecting saints (Makam), in whose honour they offer sacrifices; the custom probably originated in their ancient idolatrous worship, and was in some measure retained by the sacrifices enjoined by Mohammed in the great festivals of the Islam.

In many parts of this valley stand small buildings, ten or twelve feet square, and five feet high, with very narrow entrances. They are built with loose stones, but so well put together, that the greater part of them are yet entire, notwithstanding the annual rains. They are all quite empty. I at first supposed them to be magazines belonging to the Arabs, but my guides told me that their countrymen never entered them, because they were Kobour el Kofar, or tombs of infidels; perhaps of the early Christians of this peninsula. I did not, however, meet with any similar structures in other parts of the peninsula, unless those already mentioned in the upper part of Wady Feiran, are of the same class. At half an hour from the spring and date-trees, we passed to our left a valley coming from the southern mountains, called Wady Makta [Arabic], and half an hour farther on, at sunset, we reached Wady Feiran, at the place where the date plantations terminate, and an hour’s walk below the spot from whence we set out yesterday upon this excursion.

WADY ALEYAT

1. Upon a flat stone in the upper extremity of the Wady, descending from the foot of Serbal towards the well with date-trees: [not included]

2. Upon a small block lower down: [not included]

3. Upon a small rock still lower down: [not included]

4. 5. Still descending: [not included]

6. Near the spring: [not included]

7. Upon a large rock beyond the spring, and towards Wady Feiran: [not included]

8. Further down, upon a rock, being one of the clearest inscriptions which I saw: [not included] On many stones were drawings of goats and camels. This was once probably the main road to the top of Serbal, which continued along its foot, and turned by Deir Sigillye round its eastern side, thus passing the cleft and the road by which we had ascended, and which nowhere bears traces of having ever been a regular and frequented route.

After my departure in the morning for Mount Serbal, the messenger dispatched by the Arabs assembled in Sheikh Szaleh, arrived at Wady Feiran, and forbad the people from guiding me to the top of Serbal; the news of this order had spread along the whole valley, so that on our reaching the first habitations under the date-trees, where I intended to rest for the night, all the Arabs

WADY FEIRAN

June 2d.—When I awoke I found about thirty Arabs round me, ready to begin a new quarrel about my pursuits in their mountains. When they saw that I paid little attention to their remonstrances, and was packing up my effects, in order to proceed on my journey, they then asked me for some victuals and coffee. After having observed to them that I was more easily prevailed upon by civility than harshness, I distributed among the poorest such provisions as I should not want on my way back to Suez, together with some coffee-beans and soap. This immediately put them into good humour, and in return, they brought me some milk, cucumbers, and a quantity of Bsyse, or ground Nebek. I purchased from them a skinful of dates reduced to a paste, and one of them joined us for the sake of travelling in our company to Suez, where he intended to sell a load of charcoal; we then set out, leaving every body behind us well satisfied.

We followed the same road by which we had ascended last night, and halted again where the date trees terminate. Here the same Arabs whom we had found yesterday evening, having been informed that I had made some presents where I had slept, thought, no doubt, that by being vociferous they would obtain something. In this, however, they were mistaken, for I gave them nothing, telling them they might seize my baggage if they chose, but this they

The valley of Feiran widens considerably where it is joined by the Wady Aleyat, and is about a quarter of an hour in breadth. Upon the mountains on both sides of the road stand the ruins of an ancient city. The houses are small, but built entirely of stones, some of which are hewn and some united with cement, but the greater part are piled up loosely. I counted the ruins of about two hundred houses. There are no traces of any large edifice on the north side; but on the southern mountain there is an extensive building, the lower part of which is of stone, and the upper part of earth. It is surrounded by private habitations, which are all in complete ruins. At the foot of the southern mountain are the remains of a small aqueduct. Upon several of the neighbouring hills are ruins of towers, and as we proceeded down the valley for about three quarters of an hour, I saw many small grottos in the rocks on both sides, hewn in the rudest manner, and without any regularity or symmetry; the greater part seemed to have been originally formed by nature, and afterwards widened by human labour. Some of the largest which were near the ruined city had, perhaps, once served as habitations, the others were evidently sepulchres; but few of them were large enough to hold three corpses, and they were not more than three or four feet high. I found no traces of antiquity in any of them.

At half an hour from the last date-trees of Feiran, I saw, to the right of the road, upon the side of the mountain, the ruins of a small town or village, the valley in the front of which is at present quite barren. It had been better built than the town above described, and contained one very good building of hewn stone, with two stories, each having five oblong windows in front. The roof

Feiran was formerly the seat of a Bishopric. Theodosius was bishop during the Monothelite controversy. From documents of the fifteenth century, still existing in the convent of Mount Sinai, there appears at that time to have been an inhabited convent at Feiran. Makrizi, the excellent historian, and describer of Egypt; who wrote about the same time, gives the following account of Feiran, which he calls Faran.[The present Bedouins call it Fyran or Feiran [Arabic], and thus it is spelt wherever it occurs in the Arabic documents in the convent. Niebuhr calls it Faran, and I have heard some Bedouins pronounce it as if it were written [Arabic, giving it nearly the sound of Fyran.]]

“It is one of the towns of the Amalakites, situated near the borders of the sea of Kolzoum, upon a hill between two mountains; on each of which are numberless excavations, full of corpses. It is one day’s journey distant [in a straight line] from the sea of Kolzoum, the shore of which is there called “the shore of the sea of Faran;” there it was that Pharaoh was drowned by the Almighty. Between the city of Faran and the Tyh are two days journey. It is said that Faran is the name of the mountains of Mekka, and that it is the name of other mountains in the Hedjaz, and that it is the place mentioned in the books of Moses. But the truth is, that Tor and Faran are two districts belonging to the southern parts of Egypt, and that it is not the same as the Faran (Paran) mentioned in the books of Moses. It is stated, that the mountains

Makrizi is certainly right in supposing that the Faran or Paran mentioned in the Scriptures is not the same as Feiran; an opinion which has been entertained also by Niebuhr, and other travellers. From the passage in Numbers xiii. 26, it is evident that Paran was situated in the desert of Kadesh, which was on the borders of the country of the Edomites, and which the Israelites reached after their departure from Mount Sinai, on their way towards the land of Edom. Paran must therefore be looked for in the desert west of Wady Mousa, and the tomb of Aaron which is shewn there. At present the people of Feiran bury their dead higher up in the valley, than the ancient ruins in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Abou Taleb. There is no rivulet, but in winter time the valley is completely flooded, and a large stream of water collected from all the lateral valleys of Wady el Sheikh empties itself through Wady Feiran into the gulf of Suez near the Birket Faraoun.