The Land of Midian, vol 2 | Page 5

clean forgotten throughout
Midian.[EN#5]
Riding down the Wady Dámah to the southwest, Lieutenant Amir came
upon a spring in a stone-revetted well near the left bank: this Ayn
el-Bada' is not to be confounded with the Badí' water, or with the Badá
plain, both of which we shall presently visit. A strew of broken quartz
around it showed the atelier, and specimens of scattered fragments,
glass and pottery, were gathered. The settlement-ruins, which the guide
called El-Kantarah, lie further down upon a southern influent of the
main line: they are divided into two blocks, one longer than the other.
Lieutenant Amir made a careful plan of the remains, and then pushed
forward to Shuwák by the direct track, westward of that taken by the
caravan. He arrived in camp, none the worse for a well-developed
"cropper;" his dromedary had put its foot in a hole, and had fallen with
a suddenness generally unknown to the cameline race.
By way of geographical exercitation, we had all drawn our several
plans, showing, after Arab statement, the lay of Shaghab and Shuwák,
the two ruins which we were about to visit. Nothing could be more
ridiculous when the sketch-maps came to be compared. This was owing
to the route following the three sides of a long parallelogram; whilst the
fourth is based upon the Wady Dámah, causing considerable
complication. And, the excursus ended, all were convinced that we had
made much southing, when our furthest point was not more than five

miles south of Zibá (north lat. 27° 20').
We quitted the great valley at six a.m. (February 28th), and struck up
the Wady Shuwák, an influent that runs northwards to the Dámah's left
bank. On the stony ground above the right side of this Fiumara lay six
circles of stones, disposed in a line from north-east to south-west: they
may have been ruins of Hufrah ("water-pits"). As we rose the Nullah
surface was pied with white flowers, the early growth which here takes
the place of primroses. I had some difficulty in persuading our good
friend Furayj, who had not seen the country for fifteen years, to engage
as guide one of the many Bedawin camel-herds: his course seemed to
serpentine like that of an animal grazing--he said it was intended to
show the least stony road--and, when he pointed with the wave of the
maimed right hand, he described an arc of some 90°. The Sulaymi lad
caught the nearest camel, climbed its sides as you would a tree, and,
when the animal set off at a lumbering gallop, pressed the soles of his
feet to the ribs, with exactly the action of a Simiad; clinging the while,
like grim Death, to the hairy hump.
After some six miles we attempted a short cut, a gorge that debouched
on the left bank of the Shuwák valley. It showed at once a complete
change of formation: the sides were painted with clays of variegated
colours, crystallized lime and porphyritic conglomerates, tinted
mauve-purple as if by manganese. Further on, the path, striking over
broken divides and long tracts of stony ground, became rough riding: it
was bordered by the usual monotonous, melancholy hills of reddish and
greenish trap, whose slaty and schist-like edges in places stood upright.
On the summit of the last Col appeared the ruins of an outwork, a large
square and a central heap of boulder-stones. Straight in front rose the
block that backs our destination, the Jebel el-Sáni', or "Mountain of the
Maker," the artificer par excellence, that is, the blacksmith: it is so
called from a legendary shoer of horses and mules, who lived there
possibly in the days before Sultán Selim. It is remarkable for its twin
peaks, sharp-topped blocks, the higher to the east, and called by the
Bedawin Naghar and Nughayr. The guides spoke of a furnace near the
summit of these remarkable cones; excellent landmarks which we shall
keep in sight during several marches. At length, after ten miles of slow
work, we saw before us, stretched as upon a map, the broad valley with
its pink sands; the Daum-trees, the huge ‘Ushr or "Apple of Sodom,"

the fan-palm bush, and the large old Jujubes--here an invariable sign of
former civilization--which informed us that there lay fair Shuwák.
The dull gorge introduced us to what was then a novelty in Midian; but
we afterwards found it upon the cold heights of the Shárr, where it
supplied us with many a dainty dish. This was the Shinnár[EN#6]
(caccabis), a partridge as large as a pheasant, and flavoured exactly like
the emigrant from Phasis.
The coat, the clock! clock! and the nimble running over the rocks, ever
the favourite haunt, denote the "perdix." The head is black, as in the C.
melanocephala of Abyssinia, and the legs and