Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/49

Elevation.		Months.
Gradual decrease	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	January. February. March. April.

On Monday, 5th November, our Arabs and camels mustered for inspection in an open space of ground not far from our hotel, and we went out to visit them and to have our first experience of bestriding a camel's back. There were about forty in all—some with saddles for riding, these being slight and young-looking; the others with nets and ropes for baggage. The men belonged to the Towâra tribe, of whom the head Sheikh, Ibu Shedid, resides permanently in Cairo.^[1] I liked the faces of the men, which were open and good-humoured, and felt confident we should be perfectly safe under their charge;—a confidence not misplaced by subsequent events. The Towâras occupy the whole of the Sinaitic promontory south of the Tih plateau. They are divided into five branches, of which the Szowaleha is the largest; next the Aleygats, then the El-Mezeine, the Ulad Soleiman who live near the town of Tor; and last, the Beni Wassel, a very small branch near the south-east coast.

The Towâras are a peaceable tribe, friendly to travellers, and had no part in the murder of Professor Palmer and Lieutenant Gill. Their Sheikh, on the contrary, was instrumental in bringing four of the culprits to justice, and accompanied Sir C. Warren into the desert to effect their capture.^[2]

The negociations for our escort had been effected between Messrs. T. Cook and Son’s agent at Cairo and the Abbot of the Monastery of St. Catherine. By him our men and camels were sent over to Cairo, from their home in the Wâdy Feirân, in order to receive their baggage loads, and to pass inspection; and they had arrived outside the city the evening

1. Not by choice, probably, but by constraint, as a hostage for the good behaviour of the tribe.
2. It had originally been intended that we should have an escort of the Egyptian Camel Corps, which had been kindly granted by Cheriff Pasha at the request of Major Kitchener, of the Egyptian Cayahy, but the proposal was afterwards abandoned for very good reasons; first, it could not accompany us further than Akabali, beyond which station the services of an escort were only expected to be of value; and secondly, we felt there was no necessity, as we had full confidence in the good faith of our convoy.