Still descending, we found the ancient or mediaeval
wells, numbering about a dozen, and in no wise differing
from those of Shuwak. 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
Ziglab 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 Shuwak 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 “Maru”
brought from the adjacent granitic mountains was crushed,
and then transported for roasting and washing to Shuwak,
where water, the prime necessary in these lands, must
have been more abundant. Possibly in early days
the two settlements formed one, the single Greek
of Ptolemy; and the south end would have been the
headquarters of the wealthy. Hence the Bedawin
always give it precedence—Shaghab wa Shuwak;
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 Ziba—ruins
of El-Khandaki’ and Umm Amil—the
Turquoise Mine-Return to El-Muwaylah.
Leaving Lieutenant Amir to map the principal ruins,
we followed the caravan up the Majra el-Waghir, 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-Rama—by
the Bedawi camel-man, part of whose travelling kit,
and the most important part too, here as in Sinai,
is the flail (Murmar 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,
Copyrights
The Land of Midian — Volume 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
