The Land of Midian (Revisited) — Volume 1Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Science
The Land of Midian (Revisited) — Volume 1
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890; Hejaz (Saudi Arabia) -- Description and travel
On the next day (February 22nd) we left the "Nagwah" at seven
instead of six a.m., and passed to the right a granitic outcrop
in the Wady bed, a reduced edition of the Burj. After an hour's
slow walking we were led by a Bedawi lad, Hasan bin Husayn, to a
rock-spur projected northwards from the left side and separating
two adjacent Sayls or "torrent-beds," mere bays in the bank of
mountains. A cut road runs to the top of the granite tongue,
which faces the westernmost or down-stream outbreaks of the huge
porphyritic masses on the other side of the Wady Sadr. The ridge
itself is strewed with spalled stone, quartz broken from the
veins that seam the granite, and with slag as usual admirably
worked. Not a trace of human habitation appears, nor is there any
tradition of a settlement having existed here; consequently we
concluded that this was another atelier of wandering workmen.
Below the rock-tongue we found for the first time oxydulated iron
and copper, either free or engaged in trap and basaltic dykes:
the former metal, also attached in layers to dark-red vermeilled
jasper, here appears streaked with white quartz.
Resuming our ride, we dismounted, after four miles, at the
half-way Mahattah ("halting-place"): it is a rond-point in the
Wady Sadr, marked from afar by a tall blue pyramid, the Jebel
el-Ga'lah (Jálah). We spent some time examining this interesting
bulge. Here the Jibál el-Tihámah end, and the eastern parallel
range, the Jibál el-Shafah, begins. The former belong to the
Huwaytát and to Egypt; the latter, partly to the Ma'ázah and to
Syria. The geographical frontier is well marked by two large
watercourses disposed upon a meridian, and both feeding the main
drain, the Sadr-Tiryam. To the north the Wady Sawádah divides the
granitic Harb from the porphyritic Jebel Sawádah; while the
southern Wady Aylán separates the Dibbagh from the Jebel Aylán, a
tall form distinctly visible from the Upper Shárr. The rest of
our eastward march will now be through the Shafah massif. It
resembles on a lower scale the Tihámah Gháts; but it wholly wants
their variety, their beauty, and their grandeur. The granites
which before pierced the porphyritic traps in all directions, now
appear only at intervals; and this, I am told, is the case
throughout the northern, as we found it to be in the southern,
prolongation of the "Lip"-range. At the same time there is no
distinct geographical separation between the two parallels; and
both appear, not as if parted by neutral ground, but rather as
topographical continuations of each other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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