156

THE FORTRESS OF AKABAH.

that our next meeting would indeed be in another world. A sadness came over us when they were gone; for, notwithstanding their very natural eagerness for gain, we had parted with those who had faithfully watched under the open heavens around our tents night after night, while we slept without apprehension. Judging from our experience thus far, the Bedouins are improving in their conduct towards Frank travellers. Perhaps the Franks deal more kindly with the Bedouins.

We now had time to look around us. The fortress is a quadrangle perhaps two hundred and fifty feet square, having walls of hewn stone some thirty feet high, with a bastion at each angle. The gateway on the north is a lofty and imposing arch, closed by heavily-ironed doors. On each side of the portal the walls are covered with Arabic inscriptions. The pavement is overspread with the remains of the nightly watchfires, whose smoke has begrimed the vault of the arch above. Around the court is a range of one-story stone buildings, constructed against the walls, and serving for magazines and useless lumber. Their roofs are flat and plastered with clay, and serve for the floors of a range of mud apartments running all round the interior, one story high, and covered with palm-branches. The windows, both above and below, are merely openings in the walls, sometimes a little blinded by a rude lattice-work of sticks or reeds. These fragile upper huts afford dwellings for the garrison and prisons for the women. The interior is an open unpaved court, containing an inexhaustible well of good water, and affording a playground for the children, cats, chickens, goats, pigeons, and what not, which go to make up this little magazine of life in this world of desolation. The garrison consists of a governor, gunner, commissary, and captain of

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the gate, together with some twenty or thirty trusty soldiers, who are usually from the upper Nile. The castle and garrison serve the double purpose of keeping the Bedouins in order, and of protecting and refreshing the annual caravans of pilgrims from Egypt and Syria.

Immediately without the gate, on the north, is a cluster of mud and stone huts of one story high, covered with palm-branches, windowless, and almost doorless too, inhabited by some two hundred Bedouins, who are dependants upon the fort. The women do not exhibit the signs of modesty peculiar to the East, for they sat at the doors unveiled, and not unfrequently half naked, and unblushingly clamoured for buksheesh as we passed. Occasionally a dusky maid was to be seen seated on the ground, grinding corn between two stones: this she did by dropping the corn through a hole in the centre of the upper stone, which she moved briskly on the lower one, the coarse meal falling from between the stones on a dirty cloth. Just beyond this hamlet are heaps of rubbish, such as are found in the vicinity of Cairo, and mark the site of the Elana of the Romans, the Eloth of Scripture. Close at hand, perhaps at the northwest angle of the gulf, was Ezion-geber: for in 1 Kings, ix., 26, it is said, "Ezion-geber is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom." On these plains the Israelites had encamped on their way to Canaan, and here Solomon built his fleets to trade to Ophir and Tarshish for gold, peacocks, and precious merchandise. Fleets and cities have long since disappeared. Not a fishing-boat is seen upon the beautiful expanse of water; and the caravans of pilgrims light their campfires, and the Bedouins bury, their dead amid the ruins of the ancient city. A magnificent palm-grove borders the sea, imbosoming the castle, and extending VOL. I.-O

158

MUSSULMEN AT THEIR DEVOTIONS.

for miles above and below it. Within it also are seen occasionally a little hut, with a small garden rudely enclosed. Rambling through the grove, I found a Bedouin family domiciled under a thick clump of palm-branches springing from the roots in the sand. They were partly sheltered to windward by a ragged cotton cloth stretched behind them, under the protection of which they were preparing their dinner. The old man had a little sickly wheat in a wooden bowl, the woman had watersoaked corn in another, and their daughter, about a dozen years old, was sitting on the ground, with a handmill between her naked knees, grinding some oats. Upon our approach she covered her face, holding the corner of the cloth between her teeth, and continued grinding.

At sunset on the third evening of our residence in the fort, I strolled out to the shore of the gulf, and, casting my eye southward along the water's edge, saw a dozen Mussulmen ranged along the beach at intervals of perhaps twenty yards, with their faces towards Mecca, silently performing their evening devotions. They stood upright, and bowed alternately, leaving the impress of their foreheads on the clean white sand. The waves, in which they had just bathed, broke upon the strand at their feet, and the full moon smiled upon them from the heavens. Concealed among the palms, I looked upon this simple and unostentatious worship of God by the children of the Desert, and felt a wish that it might be acceptable to the common God and Father of us all.

During our residence in the castle we pursued the same course towards its inhabitants as before towards the Bedouins. We mingled with them, sat down by their watchfire under the gate, greeted them with salamah (peace) and a touch of the forehead when we met them, exclaimed tieb (well) when any little incident

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pleased us, took every occasion to notice and caress their children, which is the nearest way to any peoples' heart, and occasionally, when the boys were playing ball, my young companions would join in their sport, to the infinite delight of the population, including the women, who came out in front of their huts and sat veiled, but now and then half unveiled themselves, the more fully to enjoy the skill with which the players eluded the well-aimed blow, or the merry laugh which followed a palpable hit. We bathed in the sea occasionally, and fired our pistols outside the walls at a mark. This set the men in the fort firing at the butt-end of a palm branch placed for a target on the top of one of the bastions. The distance was perhaps seventy yards, and the guns used were some of them ten feet long, with a musket bore. To their great surprise, I signified a wish to try my hand, and brought down the mark at the first shot. Tieb, tieb-bono, bono, resounded wild and high; while two or three of them expressed their admiration by thumping me on the back until I gasped for breath. After this exploit I was honoured with a seat beside the governor.

160

RETURN OF HUSSEIN.-BARGAINING.

CHAPTER XVII.

AKABAH TO PETRA.

Return of Hussein.-Bargaining.-A Delicate Negotiation.-Conclusion.Departure from Akabah.-Hussein the Alouin.-Valley of the Arabah.Encampment.-Jotbath.-A Surprise.-A Mountain Tomb.-Gebel Haroun.-Tomb of Aaron.-Ascent of the Mountain.-View from the Summit.-Descent from the Mountain.-Petra.

We had now been nearly a week in the fortress, and time began to pass heavily. Late in the afternoon, while lying in our tent, one of my young fellow-travellers was conjecturing that Hussein had heard of the English party just behind us, and was awaiting their arrival, in order to conduct us all in one caravan. Ere the expression died on his lips, Said thrust in his huge head, and exclaimed, "Hussein is come!" In a few minutes, he and his suite, together with the governor, were at the door, and having shuffled off their slippers and red boots, they entered with a grave and dignified salutation, and took their seats on our divan, made of quilts folded and laid around the tent. Knowing that we had a bargain to make under very unfavourable circumstances, we resolved to call in the aid of coffee and tobacco, and whatever else might propitiate the desert king, and incline him to have mercy on us. He drank our beverage and smoked our tobacco with great zest; and, casting a cool, calculating glance upon each of us, said he had informed the consuls at Cairo that he did not desire to conduct any more travellers through the Desert, because, if any mishap befell them, he would be blamed; adding that there was no grass for the