DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4996#0054
42 WADY MAGHAEA.
evenino- fire ; he reposes in its shade, and revels in the sweetness
that breathes from its perfumed though scanty foliage. Here
and there is seen a tuft of long wild broom, the retem, or juniper of the
Bible, beneath which, in ancient days, prophet and patriarch have
rested ; and to him who shall pore, in busy idleness, among the fine
sand, many minute plants and flowers, before overlooked, prove that
even here God has not left himself without a witness, sad and deso-
late as is the aspect of the monotonous wilderness.
But though, in penetrating these solemn defiles, one feels as if it
were the first time that their recesses had ever been explored, yet
we soon perceived that others had been before us, and had left me-
morials, although rude and hasty, of their brief pilgrimage : wher-
ever the smooth face of a rock offered the temptation, appeared some
of those mysterious Sinaitic characters which, till lately, had baffled
the research of the learned, and whose writers are even now unascer-
tained. It was about here that I expected to find the entrance to
Wady Maghara, which contains some remarkable hieroglyphics, and
where I had been told by Dr. Lepsius that I should see on the rocks
a portrait of king Cheops, the founder of the great pyramid. Such
a memorial, in the heart of this wilderness, might well possess a
mysterious attraction, and I was proportionately anxious to see it.
But when I asked Umbarak and my Arabs to halt at the entrance
of this Wady, to my utter surprise, all the answer I received was,
" Maghara ma fish ;" There is no Maghara ! not one of them had
ever heard of such a place in the entire peninsula !
This was provoking enough ; to be in the vicinity of the most
interesting object of the whole route, and to miss it from the
stupidity of one's guide, if, indeed, it were not an affected ignorance
to prevent me from stopping, which I at first suspected it was, and
that the savoury thought of the lamb expected at Wady Peiran, upon
which a hungry Bedouin might feed his imagination for days before,
was hurrying them along, and rendering even an hour's delay insup-
portable. Internally I resolved that their mouths should water in
vain; but I began to doubt at length, whether they really knew
where they were, as this is not the usual road taken by the Tor Arabs
evenino- fire ; he reposes in its shade, and revels in the sweetness
that breathes from its perfumed though scanty foliage. Here
and there is seen a tuft of long wild broom, the retem, or juniper of the
Bible, beneath which, in ancient days, prophet and patriarch have
rested ; and to him who shall pore, in busy idleness, among the fine
sand, many minute plants and flowers, before overlooked, prove that
even here God has not left himself without a witness, sad and deso-
late as is the aspect of the monotonous wilderness.
But though, in penetrating these solemn defiles, one feels as if it
were the first time that their recesses had ever been explored, yet
we soon perceived that others had been before us, and had left me-
morials, although rude and hasty, of their brief pilgrimage : wher-
ever the smooth face of a rock offered the temptation, appeared some
of those mysterious Sinaitic characters which, till lately, had baffled
the research of the learned, and whose writers are even now unascer-
tained. It was about here that I expected to find the entrance to
Wady Maghara, which contains some remarkable hieroglyphics, and
where I had been told by Dr. Lepsius that I should see on the rocks
a portrait of king Cheops, the founder of the great pyramid. Such
a memorial, in the heart of this wilderness, might well possess a
mysterious attraction, and I was proportionately anxious to see it.
But when I asked Umbarak and my Arabs to halt at the entrance
of this Wady, to my utter surprise, all the answer I received was,
" Maghara ma fish ;" There is no Maghara ! not one of them had
ever heard of such a place in the entire peninsula !
This was provoking enough ; to be in the vicinity of the most
interesting object of the whole route, and to miss it from the
stupidity of one's guide, if, indeed, it were not an affected ignorance
to prevent me from stopping, which I at first suspected it was, and
that the savoury thought of the lamb expected at Wady Peiran, upon
which a hungry Bedouin might feed his imagination for days before,
was hurrying them along, and rendering even an hour's delay insup-
portable. Internally I resolved that their mouths should water in
vain; but I began to doubt at length, whether they really knew
where they were, as this is not the usual road taken by the Tor Arabs