Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
DEBBET ER RAMLEH.
Hitherto our course had lain through a region in which limestone was the prevalent formation, either rising into hills and escarpments, or forming the solid floor, and underlying more recent deposits. But now we were about to enter one composed of more ancient rocks, rising from beneath the limestone beds, and consequently producing a variety of scenery differing from that we had hitherto witnessed. The first of these older formations consisted of red and variegated sandstone, already referred to as the "Desert Sandstone," which with the "Nubian Sandstone" forms a wide belt of comparatively level country along the base of the limestone escarpment of the Tîh for a distance of about one hundred miles. Commencing on the west with the Debbet er Ramleh, and stretching eastwards along the line of the Wâdy Zelegah, W. Biyar, and W. el Ain, to the margin of the Arabah Valley, it terminates along the line of a great dislocation (or "fault") against the hills of porphyry, which there bound the Gulf of Akabah on the western side.
This extensive tract of sandstone, so rich in its colouring, so peculiar in its rock sculpturing, separates the limestone plateau of the Tîh on the north from the mountainous region of the Sinaitic peninsula on the south, which culminates in the rocky heights of Jebel Serbal, Jebel Mûsa, and Jebel Katarina, formed of gneiss, granite, and porphyry. We were now about to enter on the elevated sandstone district of Debbet er Ramleh;[1] and, near the head of Wâdy Hamr, the spot where the limestone gives place to the sandstone can be clearly determined, as the latter formation may be observed rising from beneath the former on the northern slopes of this deep glen.
We camped for our noonday meal on the Ramleh Plain, over which were scattered beautiful little round pebbles of quartz, jasper, and agate, of divers colours. In full view was the limestone escarpment of the Tîh, which several miles to the north of our position stretched with a bold, nearly unbroken, front, from Jebel Wutáh on the west to Jebel Emreikeh on the east. Below us, towards the east, lay the deep depression of the Wâdy Suwig, and its branch the Wâdy Nasb. Beyond rose the dark terraces and scarped cliffs of the desert sandstone, sloping at a gentle angle northwards towards the base of the Tîh escarpment, and through a gap we could distinguish in the blue distance the rugged outlines of Serbal. The heat was intense, as there was no shade, and the flies, as usual on such occasions, proved excessively noxious. Our tent was at an elevation of about 1,700 feet above the sea, but the thermometer registered 90° Fahr. in the shade, and this in the latter part of November! That evening we pitched in the Wâdy Nasb, one of the few spots where wells permanently supplied with water are to be found, and therefore a favourite camping ground.[2] Our thirsty camels, after getting rid of their loads, proceeded up the valley about three miles to the well. Major Kitchener, my son, and I also followed, weary as we were, in hopes of finding the fossiliferous limestone. The limestone we found, but not the fossils on this occasion; and we were glad to sit down on the well side and get a draught of the cool waters. The presence of water here is doubtless due to the fissure, or fault,[3] which traverses this valley, and owing to which the sandstone is elevated to a higher level on the east side than on the west.
The next morning, accompanied by my son, I climbed the cliffs above our camp, and we were rewarded by the discovery of a good number of fossils—both of shells, corals, and echinoderms, in a rather imperfect condition, but which it is believed will serve to determine beyond question the geological age of this great formation—the “Desert Sandstone.”[4]
Later in the day we started along the Wâdy Suwig, which stretches in an easterly direction, skirting the granitic and sandstone districts, and leading us in the direction of Mount Sinai. The scenery was interesting, from the numerous examples of castellated cliffs and isolated tors of the sandstone strata, perched on bases of granite or porphyry. Amongst the most remarkable of these are the two great pyramids, of which the larger is called Jebel el Malah. Of this, perhaps, the finest view is that obtained when looking south. They are formed of horizontal courses of red sandtone resting on granite; and that to the left has a quadrangular form, the faces of the pyramid being well defined.
Fig. 3.—Pyramids of Red Sandstone resting on granite and porphyry.
View from the Wâdy Suwig.
After winding for several miles along the sandy bottom of the Wâdy Suwig—often diversified by lovely green patches of the desert melon (Citrullus colocynthus)[5] and other plants—we at length came to the foot of Serabit el Khadim, a massive pyramidal mountain of red and white sandstone in horizontal courses, and perforated by numerous caves and fissures, the retreat of wild animals, and often of equally wild men. A large number of eagles were soaring about its cliffs; but upon our approach they rose higher and higher into the air, and performed their gyrations beyond the reach of our guns or rifles. Looking northwards, the cliffs of sandstone in the foreground are seen to be cut into forms resembling walls, buttresses, and sometimes isolated tors. These were in places lit up by the rosy tints of the western sun, or thrown deeply into the shade; while far in the distance to the north the white escarpment of the Tîh bounded the horizon in the direction of El Nakel.[6] This mountain is now celebrated as the site of an Egyptian temple.[7] Turquoise mines have been worked from ancient times, and within the last few years Major Macdonald employed the Arabs in blasting the rock for these gems, having built himself a house and living in the midst of his workpeople.
Saturday 17th November.—We camped to-day in the Wâdy Kamileh at the base of some cliffs of sandstone bearing "inscriptions," but of so indefinite a character that to me they seemed well calculated to afford materials for equally indefinite speculation. In this place Palmer and Drake spent a Christmas Day; caught a Cerastes, and entertained the Arabs somewhat in the manner of the Egyptian magicians.[8] The locality furnishes a favourite camping ground for the Towâra as there is a perennial spring, and the overhanging cliffs afford shelter from the sun by day, and from the dew by night. Further on, the sides of the valley opened out and the sandstone cliffs on either side afforded interesting forms of terraces with scarped sides, projecting headlands, tors, and castellated masses.
We had been passing for several days through a district containing both large and small game; but except for the tracks in the sand, and a glimpse of some sand partridges, we might have been ignorant of the fact. Bears, hyænas, gazelles, ibexes, besides hares, jerboas, and other small rodents, are said, with much probability, to abound. It is wonderful how these wild animals manage to conceal themselves from the eye of man. Long before he sees them they see him; or scent him from afar;—and off they go. The bear and hyæna lie close within dens or under thickets; the ibex disappears over a precipice; the gazelle vanishes across the plain; the hare or partridge crouches close to the ground, which they exactly resemble in colour; and the little jerboa drops like a shot into its burrow hole. I was reminded, when travelling through this country, of a tour I had made some years previously through the northern highlands of Scotland in a district where there were thousands of red and roe deer, but only on two occasions had we an opportunity of seeing a pair of antlers. This, however, was in early summer time, when these animals betake themselves into the high solitudes of the mountains.
- ↑ Or "Plain of Sand."
- ↑ Professor Palmer gives an amusing account of his camping experiences in the W. Nasb, and of the entomological pests of the place, loc. cit. p. 195.
- ↑ This fault was first described by Mr. H. Bauerman, “Ord. Survey Sinai,” with figure.
- ↑ Some of the fossils from the Wâdy Nasb Limestone collected by Wilson and Bauerman are decidedly of Carboniferous age, and are figured in the Report of the Ordnance Survey of Sinai. Those we collected bear out this view. I am glad to be able to state that Professor Sollas, of Trinity College, Dublin, has kindly undertaken to prepare an account of the fossils collected by our party. The results will appear in the Scientific Report of our Expedition.
- ↑ Otherwise called "The Vine of Sodom" (Deut. xxxii, 32).
- ↑ Along this road Ibraham, our dragoman, conducted the late Lord Talbot-de-Malahide and his daughter.
- ↑ These remains were originally discovered by Niebuhr; for a recent account see Palmer's "Desert of the Exodus," p. 191, &c.
- ↑ "Desert of the Exodus," p. 250.