On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
MARAH, ELIM, AND THE CAMP BY THE RED SEA.
It needs no blast of a trumpet to waken the traveller on the desert. Even the heaviest sleeper must open his eyes when the sun, rising over the level waste, as over the sea, strikes on the white tents. But we had another morning summons to tell us when it was day. In the provisioning of our camp, our dragoman had laid in a large supply of poultry. A spacious hencoop, which crowned like a tower the hump of one of our camels, carried a flock of chickens and pigeons, which were let out at night to pick up the meal that was thrown to them on the sand, and made a pretty home picture as they cackled about, after which, with true domestic instinct, they went to roost on the top of the coop, giving to our camp a little of the appearance of a farmyard. With these more quiet fowls were a couple of roosters that did all the crowing for us that was necessary, and never forgot to waken us early in the morning. We were sure of having "the cock's shrill clarion," if we had not "the echoing horn," to "rouse us from our lowly beds." Nor was it a bad thing to be roused, as the morning is the time to march. A wise traveller will always start early, even if he has to take several hours of rest at noon. On the desert, if nowhere else, "the morning and the evening" are "the day."
Soon after sunrise all hands were astir. The breaking up of camp is always an animated scene, and few sights are prettier than the striking of the tents. But when it comes to loading up the camels, the scene is not only animated, but sometimes too much so. The Arabs are an excitable race, and the cameleer who finds that his beast is overloaded in the distribution of the burdens of the march, is apt to give utterance to his wrath in loud words and fierce gesticulations. This morning I was startled at hearing the voices of the men; they fairly shrieked with anger — I have no doubt they swore by the Prophet, but as I did not understand Arabic, I was happily spared their imprecations — and I thought they were coming to blows, and that we should have a battle of the Bedaween. But if this were like a thunderclap, it was not followed by much of a shower. After a few minutes of this war of words, they relapsed into silence, and went quietly to work loading up their camels, and marched off as if nothing had happened. This first experience was of use to me afterwards, and when I heard the loud voices of the men, I paid no more attention to them than to the growling of the camels.
In the order of march, my companion and I always started in advance, and started on foot. For this there was a double reason. The hour of sunrise was so inspiring that we were eager to be abroad. It seemed as if the sun was not merely new risen on the world, but risen on a new world. Old things had passed away with the shadows of the night, and all things had become new. The exquisite purity of the atmosphere made it a luxury to breathe, and we could not wait a moment in camp when we were ready for a walk on the desert. Besides this, Dr. Post had a special motive to quicken his steps. He is an enthusiastic botanist, and has already collected twelve thousand species of plants, which he has in the Museum of the College at Beirut, and one object he had in accompanying me to Mount Sinai was to make a collection of the Flora of the Desert. It seemed a strange place in which to look for flowers. But he proved by observation that what is so beautiful in poetry is true in fact ; that
"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on tho desert air.”
In one month on the desert he collected over three hundred and fifty species of plants, most of which were unknown in Syria.
We had not gone far when we descried in the distance @ caravan approaching. What could it be? Pilgrims from Mecca? But this was not the road to Mecca. As we drew nearer, it proved to be a company of Russian pilgrims returning from Mount Sinai — thirty-two of them, of whom only two were men. The greater number of women suggested that it was perhaps in performance of a vow that they had made a pilgrimage to the Convent of St. Catherine, which is a favorite shrine with the Russian peasants. Recognizing in us pilgrims bound to the same destination, they looked down upon us from the height of their camels with smiles of pleasure, and kept bowing and smiling till their camels had borne them past, and they quickly disappeared on the horizon of the desert.
These pilgrims were followed by a company of Bedaween, bound in the same direction, but on an errand of business instead of a pilgrimage of devotion. Bestriding their camels were huge sacks laden with charcoal, which the Arabs make from the few shrubs or stunted trees which they find in the mountains, and which form almost the only article which they can produce, for which they can obtain money, or anything which must be bought with money. They were now bound for Suez to sell their charcoal. To go and return would take them a week’s time, and as the fruit of their journey and their labor, a camel’s load would bring perhaps twenty francs, with which they would purchase probably a sack of grain for their families, and a few ounces of tobacco for themselves.
After these two encounters, we saw no man that day. We marched on quite alone, and began to feel more and more the loneliness of the desert. Not only was there no man in sight, but not a living thing. The utter absence of life affected us strangely, as it brought the sense not only of solitude, but of silence. Even while it was yet broad day, there fell on us a silence as of the night. The earth grew calm and still, as if suddenly the course of nature had stopped, and all things had ceased to live. Although the Red Sea still gleamed in the distance, yet as we moved away from it, we could no longer hear the lapping of its waves; and there was no sign of life on sea or land, or in the sky. Not a bird wheeled in the air; not even an insect's hum broke the stillness of the desert. Even nature seemed to have hushed her voice; no murmuring brook made music in our ears; no sough of the wind in the pines whispered to us in the gloaming. The only sound that fell on the ear was the steady step of the camel crunching through the hard crust; and when we passed through long stretches of soft sand, even that seemed muffled, as the broad foot, soft and springy as the tiger's, sank under us almost without a sound. So oppressive was the stillness that it was a relief to hear the song of the cameleer, though it had little music in it, for is was always in the minor key, and low and feeble, as if he trembled to hear the sound of his own voice in the deep solitude. It seemed as if we had gone out of the world, and entered the Halls of Eternal Silence, and were moving on into a mysterious realm, where the sound of human voices would be heard nevermore.
In studying the geography of the desert, the first lesson to be learned is to know what is meant by a wady. Destitute as these broad stretches of barrenness are of springs, or running brooks, yet at times they are swept by terrific storms, when torrents dash down the mountain side, and plow deep furrows in the sandy waste. The dry beds which they leave behind are wadies. These wadies, depressed below the level of the surrounding plain, are the favorite places for pitching tents, as the banks on either side furnish a shelter from the winds that sweep over the desert. Several of these we crossed to-day, in which the half-dried mud showed that there had been recent rains. Wherever the moisture had touched, there were signs of vegetation. Dr. Post, who is always on the lookout for such treasures, found twenty new species of plants in one day, which he displayed with the delight of a discoverer, pointing out how nature had provided sustenance for them by furnishing them with thick leaves or long roots or little warts, which the microscope showed to be so many minute cells or sacs for water. Every traveller will have his attention called by his camel, if not by his guide, to a thorny bush of which the camel is very fond. Nor will the rider, if he be wise, urge on the poor beast which stops a moment to crop its leaves, for it is very aromatic, and sends up a fragrant smell into his face. Another bush which is common is the juniper — more properly the "broom" of the desert — under which we often found a shade for our midday meal.
Twice to-day were we reminded that we were on the track of the Israelites — once at Marah, the spring whose very name tells of its bitterness, and which, however sweetened by Moses, still disappoints the traveller, for indeed it is almost dried up. We found in it no flowing water at all; only digging in the sand, we discovered where a hidden spring was oozing away. A much larger spring, or group of springs, we found at Wady Ghurundel, the Elim of the Scriptures, where we camped for the night. In these desert marches it is always an object to pitch one's tent near a spring. We were indeed supplied with water, which we took in at Suez, from the Sweet Water Canal, which brings it from the Nile. From this were filled the casks, which were slung on the backs of our camels. These are so precious that when unloaded for the night, and set up on end, they are kept locked lest the men should snatch forbidden draughts. Water for themselves they carry in water-skins. But though we were provided so as to be in no danger of dying by thirst, yet in the desert there is something refreshing even in the sight of flowing water. How could we fail to camp at a spot where Moses had arrested his march because he found, as he tells us, twelve springs and seventy palm-trees? Moses is gone, but the springs are still here. "Men may come and men may go, but they flow on forever." The Arab still comes to find water for himself and his camels at the same spring which quenched the thirst of the Israelites. On the very spot where the great Hebrew leader pitched his tent, we camped at the end of our second day's march. In the morning I went down to the springs, and found them hardly worthy of their ancient fame, or of the place which they still hold in sacred poetry, where "the shade of Elim's palm" is the type of almost heavenly rest. Neither in water nor in shade does Elim approach the Wells of Moses. Instead of a running brook or bursting fountains, one finds only a sluggish rivulet melting away in the sand, with a few straggling palms along its brink. Yet slender as it is, and although the water is somewhat brackish, it may be the very water of life on the desert. The Arabs came from the camp, and filled their water-skins, which they slung over their shoulders, and then threw on the backs of their camels. I bent down to the stream to drink, and though it was not like putting my lips to "the moss-covered bucket that hung in the well," still there was a pleasure in drinking of the very springs of which Moses drank more than three thousand years ago.
But the traveller on the desert must not linger by bubbling streams or under palm-trees. While we had been here, the camels had been got ready, and we must up and away. To-day's march brought a change of scene, as we left behind the flat or rolling sandy plain, and entered into a region more wild and rugged. We found that this Peninsula was not an unbroken plain, stretching to the base of Sinai, but that "the wilderness" was a wilderness of mountains, through which one could make his way only by following the wadies that wound about in every direction, forming a perfect labyrinth, and that sometimes assumed the character of mountain defiles. This afternoon we pursued our course along these river beds till we came into one where a torrent in the course of ages had cut through successive strata of rock, cleaving them to the base of the hills, and forming a gorge almost like a cañon of the Rocky Mountains. This we followed in all its windings for several hours, till suddenly the cliffs opened, and before us lay the Red Sea, beyond which was a range of mountains, the line of which was broken by peaks shooting up here and there, like the cliffs of Capri, or the islands of the Greek Archipelago. It was now five o'clock, and the sun was sinking in the west, so that every point of that long serrated ridge stood up sharp and clear against the sky. Here was a scene which no artist could transfer to canvas. We had before us at once the mountains and the sea, and mountains on both sides of the sea. Enchanted and almost bewildered by the scene, as we came out upon a wide stretch of beach, we dismounted to walk, for the greater freedom of motion, and that we could stop and turn to every point of the horizon. Can I ever forget that heavenly hour, and how soft was the light on the African mountains! As the sunset shone across the sea, it lighted up also the Arabian hills, above which there was a soft violet tint in the sky, which gradually faded away, and was succeeded by an intense blue, while high up in the heavens hung the moon, only two days to the full. Again we mounted our camels, and rode on for a mile or two, till rounding a point we discovered our tents in a little cove or inlet in the sandy hills, but a few rods from the shore. The spot seemed made for a camp, as it was sheltered from the winds, and the sand was firm and hard, so that the tent floor was smooth and clean. Here Moses camped by the Red Sea, and following the illustrious example, we camped, as it were, on the very shore, where in our waking moments all night long we heard the waters as they came rippling up the beach.
As our camp was by the sea, the temptation was irresistible, as we rose the next morning, to take a bath. One must have been three days on the desert to taste the sweetness of such a dip, as he lies down and lets the cool waters ripple over him. So keen was the pleasure of this new experience, that when we set out for our morning's tramp, as our way led along the beach (indeed in one or two places the rocks were so close that the camels had to step in the water, and in storms caravans are sometimes detained two or three days), I could not resist the impulse to walk for some distance in the edge of the sea, now and then dashing out to catch the foam of the breakers as they came rolling in. Of course it was not a very prudent thing to do. But nature will out. Boys will be boys, and I suppose an old boy may have the same privilege as a young one. At the moment I felt "glorious," although the Doctor thought me a little daft. Looking at me with his keen medical eye, he warned me that I was running a great risk. My feet were soaked; my hob-nailed shoes, bought in Cairo for mountain climbing, were badly water-logged; and altogether I was in a bedraggled condition. But my spirits were so high that they kept me from any ill effect of this rashness. Mounting my camel, I threw my dripping legs over the pommel of the saddle, and thus hung them up to dry, leaving shoes and socks and trousers to take care of themselves. I found the enthusiasm of a march, which keeps the blood almost at fever heat, better than quinine to ward off the danger of taking cold.
And now appeared in the distance another welcome sight — a couple of camels, with Arabs at their side, and following on foot, with gun in hand, a solitary traveller! Meeting a traveller on the desert is an event, like hailing a ship at sea. We addressed the stranger in English and French, and to the latter he returned an answer. He proved to be an Italian, who had been for months in the mountains, searching for precious stones, and was now returning to Suez. "Would he take letters for us?" "With the greatest pleasure." In an instant down went the camels, and two travellers were standing beside them, pencil in hand, writing a few words to those who were far away. A moment more, and the traveller was gone. We did not see him again, but weeks after we learned that the letters thus written on the desert had reached their destinations at Beirut and Florence, and given great relief, as they carried the first tidings of our safety.
The sandy beach, which lies here between the sea and the mountains, broadens into a plain, and stretches on for some miles, so that it took us over two hours to cross it. As nowhere on the desert had we found more utter desolation, and nowhere did the sun blaze down with a fiercer heat, I am afraid some of my countrymen, passing over the "burning marl," have found that, in the temptations it offered to cursing, there was a special appropriateness in the name it bears of the Wilderness of Sin! From this withering heat we found no refuge till we were once more in the gorges of the mountains, under the shelter of the overhanging cliffs. The day before we had come out of the mountains, and now our course led back into them. Turning to take a last look at the Red Sea (which we should not see again except at a great distance, from the top of Serbal and of Sinai), we entered a narrow pass called the Throat of the Morsel, which opened a way into the heart of the mountains, that grew more wild and grand as we advanced. Often we seemed to be shut in by walls, and had to come up to their very base before they opened their iron gates for us to pass through. The geological structure of the country had changed. We had been in a region of limestone, where the mountains were almost as white and glaring as the sand of the desert; but now the eye rested, with a sensation of relief, on huge masses of old red sandstone, the effect of whose rich colors was heightened by the outline of the cliffs and crags, which took on all fantastic shapes, looking like old castles and towers. One can imagine how they stand out against the sky when the sunset strikes upon them. We pitched our tents in a little valley that was set in an amphitheatre of mountains. Hard by we scaled the cliffs to penetrate the old turquoise mines of Maghara, that were worked in the time of the Pharaohs. The rocks still bear inscriptions graven upon them in one of the earlier dynasties. These take us far back in the ages, but the impression they give of long tracts of time is quite effaced by the mountains themselves. Our camp was at the foot of a peak which was one solid mass of old red sandstone, compared to the age of which the Pyramids of Egypt are but of yesterday.