88

TUALEB, CHIEF OF THE TAWARAS

CHAPTER IX.

CAIRO TO SUEZ.-ROUTE OF THE ISRAELITES.

Preparation for Departure.-Tualeb.-Striking a Bargain.-Loading Camels.-Departure from Cairo.-View from Besatin.-Difficulty of determining the Route of Israel.-Valley of the Wanderings.-Petrified Forest.Gebel Rhiboun.-Probable Point of Israel's Departure.-Position of Rameses.-Of Zoan.--Inferences from the Narrative in Exodus.-Length of the Journeys not decided by the Narrative.-Etham.

We had now finished our rambles in the neighbourhood of Cairo, and began to think of tracing the Israelites to Mount Sinai. It was important that we should have suitable guides and servants, together with camels, tents, furniture, and provisions. Mr. Leider assisted us much by despatching a messenger on a swift camel to the encampment of Tualeb, the chief of the Tawaras, whose tents were pitched, for the time, on the edge of the Desert near Belbeis. On the arrival of the old chief, Mr. L. brought him to our hotel, and upon entering, he put off his sandals at the door. He was dressed in a long red robe falling down to his ankles, with loose sleeves open to the elbows, and wore a long, rude, wooden-handled sword, girded on with a leather belt. Upon being introduced to me, he kissed my hand and applied it to his forehead. Mr. Leider talked with him in Arabic, and during the conversation he evinced quickness of perception, and expressed himself with vehemence and much action. He did not waver in his price, which was 150 piastres (about seven dollars) for each camel from Cairo direct by Suez to Mount Sinai, and 100 for each from Mount Sinai to Akaba; but as we had de

STRIKING A BARGAIN.

89

termined to take the southern or Besatin route to Suez, which no American, and but few Englishmen had travelled, we had to pay twenty piastres more for each camel; and as we determined also to take the southern route from Suez to Mount Sinai, through the wilderness of Sin and Wady* Feiran, we had to add ten piastres more, making 180 piastres for each camel from Cairo to Mount Sinai. This paid for the camel and his driver, and the subsistence of both. The bargain being concluded, I gave Tualeb 158 piastres, and upon taking leave of us, he insisted upon kissing our cheeks, at the same time engaging to meet us next day at the American consul's to execute the writings. He came at the appointed hour. Two copies of an agreement were made in Arabic, and after it was read to him, he took a small seal from his bosom, and covering its face with a little thick ink, impressed it on the papers: I added my name, and the agreement was complete. One copy was left with the consul, in order to bind Tualeb, for he knew well enough that he would lose his head if he should fail in his agreement, and the consul should complain to the Pacha.† The other copy we took with us.

Besides our own servant George, the Greek, we took with us also an Arab, Said, who had twice made the pilgrimage to Mount Sinai and Jerusalem. A venerable French physician from Lyons, about seventy-six years old, making his fifth pilgrimage to Jerusalem, under a vow to visit the Holy City every five years, joined our party under our contract, and had also a servant with

* Wady is the Arabic word for Valley.

† About ten years before this, Tualeb and his companions had been condemned by the governor of Suez to be shot for some little infidelities to Alexandre Dumas, while travelling in the Desert, and was saved only by the intercession of the Frenchman and his suite.

him. In addition to six riding camels for our own party, and three for the aged Frenchman's, we took two to carry water, two for the tents and baggage, one for Tualeb, and two for tenders, messengers, or guards, as the case might be, so that our entire caravan consisted of sixteen camels.

Knowing that Derb el-Besatin did not abound with comfortable hotels, like a European road, we made good provision for our wanderings; and, like Israel, went not out from Egypt "empty, but rich and full."

Our own tent was a large, gay marquee of different colours, furnished with matting, mattresses, and quilts; a smaller one answered for the servants and the kitchen. The skins of two young buffaloes contained water for cooking and washing; and two new oaken casks, each two thirds the size of a barrel, water for drinking. Two huge cane panniers, of the shape and nearly the size of the China crates of commerce, received our provisions, coffee, tea, sugar, rice, macaroni, bread, hams, dried tongues and apricots, pepper, salt, &c., together with wine enough to afford one bottle a day for the whole company. Each of us was provided with an iron plate, cup, and spoon, and a rough knife and fork. Our portmanteaus were sent back to Malta, and replaced by large Turkish saddlebags, made of coarse cotton canvass lined with oilcloth, and defended outside by a covering of red leather.

Our departure was fixed for Monday morning immediately after breakfast; and although we had complained of the number of camels which Tualeb had insisted on our taking, when our effects were all collected in the court of the hotel, we began to believe he was right, and even yielded without much persuasion to his demand for another beast. At ten o'clock the Arabs and their camels assembled in front of the hotel, and the

VIEW FROM BESATIN.

91

loading commenced, and with it loud and violent contentions between the camel-owners, each one objecting to his beast being overburdened. The timely and prudent interference of the old sheikh finally prevailed at every point where the conflict was the sharpest, and at two o'clock all the burden-camels were on their feet, and their drivers standing under their lofty necks, with halters in hand. We threw our saddle-bags over the high wooden pack-saddles, which had already received large sacks of provender, spread our quilts over all, and with a bound seated ourselves aloft, amid the hurrah of the Bedouins. Our caravan was immediately in motion, and issuing from the gate at the northwest, we swept around the city to the eastward, passing behind the citadel, and among the tombs; and a little after four o'clock pitched our tents near the miserable little village of Besatin, about five miles south of Cairo. In front of us, to the west, flowed the mighty Nile, beyond which, in full view were the pyramids of Ghizeh and Sakhara, looking down upon the site of Memphis, which once stretched along the opposite bank of the river. Behind us, on the east, the dark ranges of Mount Mokattam, and of Gebel* et Tih, approached each other as they receded from the river, leaving a comparatively narrow defile between them, called Derb el-Besatin. We were encamped in the mouth of this defile, where it opened out like a funnel suddenly and widely towards the river, enclosing a large desert plain, which joined the cultivated land at the village. A slight inspection of a good map will show that the great highway from Memphis to Suez, and thence to Syria and the East, lay through Derb elBesatin. It was the shortest and least sandy, and even * Gebel, Arabic for Mountain.

† Even at present the caravans occasionally take this route from Cairo to Suez.

92

ROUTE OF THE ISRAELITES.

now has good water on the route. There is reason, indeed, to believe it was once well watered and inhabited.

When the traveller departs from Egypt for Mount Sinai, he feels a strong desire to follow the route of Israel, who went out more than 3000 years ago, under the conduct of Moses and of God. But from what point shall he depart, and where will he find the path? The point of departure will depend chiefly upon the residence of Pharaoh at the time, but somewhat also upon the point on the Red Sea where the waters were divided. If these two can be determined, the route may be considered as settled. I do not pretend to say that these questions can be satisfactorily answered. Difficulties attach to all the extant theories as to the route of the Exode, and the arguments in regard to them can be at best but a balancing of probabilities. Deferring, for the present, a formal examination of the different opinions which are held in regard to the way of the Israelites, I shall now merely indicate the reasons which led me to pursue the southern route in preference to the northern.

The route by Derb el-Besatin had, since the travels of Sicard and Shaw, in the early part of the last century, been regarded as the road of the Israelites, until within a few years past. This fact, together with the strong representations of Mr. Leider, who had recently explored the route under the guidance of the Bedouins, and whose mind seemed entirely made up on the question, induced me to examine it for myself. I must acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Leider for his valuable communications, although the views which I shall present in regard to the route will be found to differ considerably from those of Sicard and Shaw, which Mr.