The Land of Midian, vol 2 | Page 9

pyramid. Lastly, a regular ascent, the Majrá
el-Wághir, fronts the city, sloping up to the west-north-west, and
discloses a view of the Jibál el-Tihámah: this broad incline was, some
three centuries ago, the route of the Hajj-caravan.
We walked down the Shaghab valley-bed, whose sides, like those of
the Dámah, are chevaux de frise of dead wood. The characteristic rock
is a conglomerate of large and small stones, compacted by hard
silicious paste, and stained mauve-purple apparently by manganese: we
had seen it on the way to Shuwák; and the next day's march will pave
the uplands with it. The wells in the sole are distinctly Arab, triangular

mouths formed and kept open by laying down tree-trunks, upon which
the drawer of water safely stands. On the right bank up-stream no ruins
are perceptible; those on the left are considerable, but not a quarter the
size of Shuwák. Here again appear the usual succession of great
squares: the largest to the east measures 500 metres along the sides; and
there are three others, one of 400 metres by 192. They are subtended by
one of many aqueducts, whose walls, two feet thick, showed no signs
of brick: it is remarkable for being run underground to pierce a hillock;
in fact, the system is rather Greek or subterranean, than Roman or
subaerial. Further down are the remains apparently of a fort: heaps of
land-shells lie about it; they are very rare in this region, and during our
four months' march we secured only two species.[EN#9]
Still descending, we found the ancient or mediaeval wells, numbering
about a dozen, and in no wise differing from those of Shuwák. At the
gorge, where the Wady escapes from view, Lieutenant Amir planned
buildings on the lower right bank, and on the left he found a wall about
half a mile long, with the remains of a furnace and quartz scattered
about it. This stone had reappeared in large quantities, the moment we
crossed the divide; the pale grey of the Jebel Zigláb and its neighbours
was evidently owing to its presence; and from this point it will be
found extending southwards and seawards as far as El-Hejaz. He
brought with him a hard white stone much resembling trachyte, and
fragments of fine green jasper.
A cursory inspection of Shaghab removed some of the difficulties
which had perplexed us at Shuwák and elsewhere. In the North Country
signs of metal-working, which was mostly confined to the Wadys, have
been generally obliterated; washed away or sanded over. Here the
industry revealed itself without mistake. The furnaces were few, but
around each one lay heaps of Negro and copper-green quartz, freshly
fractured; while broken handmills of basalt and lava, differing from the
rubstones and mortars of a softer substance, told their own tale.
At Shaghab, then, the metalliferous "Marú" brought from the adjacent
granitic mountains was crushed, and then transported for roasting and
washing to Shuwák, where water, the prime necessary in these lands,
must have been more abundant. Possibly in early days the two
settlements formed one, the single of Ptolemy; and the south
end would have been the headquarters of the wealthy. Hence the

Bedawin always give it precedence--Shaghab wa Shuwák; moreover,
we remarked a better style of building in the former; and we picked up
glass as well as pottery.
As a turkey buzzard (vulture) is the fittest emblem for murderous
Dahome, so I should propose for Midian, now spoiled and wasted by
the Wild Man, a broken handmill of basalt upon a pile of spalled Negro
quartz.

Chapter XII.
From Shaghab to Zibá--ruins of El-Khandakí' and Umm Ámil--the
Turquoise Mine–Return to El-Muwaylah.

Leaving Lieutenant Amir to map the principal ruins, we followed the
caravan up the Majrá el-Wághir, the long divide rising to the
west-north-west. The thin forest reminded me of the wooded slopes of
the Anti-Libanus about El-Kunaytarah: there, however, terebinths and
holm-oaks take the place of these unlovely and uncomfortable
thorn-trees. They are cruelly beaten--an operation called El-Ramá--by
the Bedawi camel-man, part of whose travelling kit, and the most
important part too, here as in Sinai, is the flail (Murmár or Makhbat)
and the mat to receive the leaves: perhaps Acacias and Mimosas are not
so much bettered by "bashing" as the woman, the whelp, and the
walnut-tree of the good old English proverb. After three miles we
passed, on the left, ruins of long walls and Arab Wasm, with white
memorial stones perched on black. In front rose the tall Jebel Tulayh,
buttressing the right or northern bank of the Dámah; and behind it,
stained faint-blue by distance, floated in the flickering mirage the
familiar forms of the Tihámah range, a ridge now broken into half a
dozen blocks. I had ordered the caravan to march upon the Tuwayl