Ii. P. 147) Is
The Last Stage Of The Eastern-Syrian Hadj Route.
To the South-east or
East-south-east of Wady Lymoun is another fertile valley, called Wady
Medyk, where some sherifs are settled, and where Sherif Ghaleb
possessed landed property.[FN#1]” In the commentary on the Qacyda Rod.,
[P.407] Wady Nakhla, as far as the road to Meccah runs through it, is
described as follows: From the ridges with whose declivity the Western
watershed begins, you descend into Wady Baubat; it is flanked on the
left side by the Sarat mountains, on which Tayif stands, and contains
Qarn-almanazil (once the capital of the Minaeans, the great trading
nation of antiquity). Three or four miles below Qarn is Masjid Ibrahym,
and here the valley assumes the name of Wady Nakhla. At no great
distance from the Masjid there rise on the left-hand side of the Wady
two high peaks called Jebel Yasum and Jebel Kafw. Both were the refuge
of numerous monkeys, who used to invade the neighbouring vineyards. As
you go down Wady Nakhla the first place of importance you meet is
al-Zayma. Close to it was a garden which, during the reign of Moqtadir,
belonged to the Hashimite Prince Abd Allah, and was in a most
flourishing condition. It produced an abundance of henna, plantains,
and vegetables of every description, and yielded a revenue of five
thousand Dinar-mithqals (about £2,860) annually. A canal from Wady (the
river) Nakhla feeds a fountain which jets forth in the midst of the
garden, and lower down a tank. In the garden stood a fort (which in a
dilapidated condition is extant to this day, and spoken of by
Burckhardt). It was built of huge stones, guarded for the defence of
the property by the Banu Sa’d, and tenanted by the servants and followers
of the proprietor. Below al-Zayma is Sabuha, a post-station where a
relay of horses was kept for the transport of Government Despatches. To
give an idea of the distances, I may mention that the post-stages were
twelve Arabic miles asunder, which on this road are rather larger than
an English geographical mile. The first station from Meccah was
Moshash, the second Sabuha, and the third was at the foot of the hill
Yasum. The author of the commentary from which I derive this
information leaves Wady Nakhla soon after Sabuha, and
[p.408] turns his steps towards the holy city. He mentions “the steep
rocky Pass” up which Burton toiled with difficulty, and calls it Orayk.
Though he enters into many details, he takes no notice of the hill-girt
plain called Sola. This name occurs however in an Arabic verse, apud
Yacut, vol. ii. p. 968: “In summer our pasture-grounds are in the country
of Nakhla, within the districts of al-Zayma and Sola.”
In W[a]dy Fatima, Burckhardt found a perennial rivulet, coming from the
Eastward, about three feet broad and two feet deep. It is certain that
Wady Fat?ima, formerly called Wady Marr, is a continuation of Wady
Nakhla, and Yacut considers in one passage Nakhla as a subdivision of
Marr, and in another Marr as part of Wady Nakhla; but we do not know
whether the rivulet, which at al-Zayma seems to be of considerable
size, disappears under the sand in order to come forth again in W[a]dy
Marr, or whether it forms an uninterrupted stream. In ancient times the
regular Baghdad-Meccah Road did not run down from Dzat-Irq by the
Northern Nakhla which Burton followed, but it crossed this Wady near
its Northern end and struck over to the Southern Nakhla as far as Qarn
almarazil, which for a long time was the second station from Meccah,
instead of Dzat-cIrq.
[FN#1] Medyq is Burton’s El-Mazik, the spelling in Arabic being [Arabic]
Madhyq. Burckhardt’s account leads us to think that the village now
called Madhyq, or Wady Laymun, lies on the left bank of the Fiumara,
and is identical with Bostan Ibn ’Amir, which is described by Yacut as
situated in the fork between the Northern and Southern Nakhlas, and
which in ancient times had, like the village Wady Laymun, the name of
the valley of which it was the chief place, viz., Batn Nakhla. Burton
gives no information of the position of the village, but he says: “On the
right bank of the Fiumara stood the Meccan Sharif’s state pavilion.” Unless
the pavilion is separated from the village by the Fiumara there is a
discrepancy between the two accounts, which leads me to suspect that
“right” is an oversight for “left.” Anciently [Arabic] was pronounced Nakhlat,
and, if we suppress the guttural, as the Greeks and Romans sometimes
did, Nalat. Strabo, p. 782, in his narrative of the retreat of Aelius
Gallus, mentions a place which he calls Mal?tha, and of which he says
it stood on the bank of a river—a position which few towns in Arabia
have. The context leaves no doubt that he means Batn Nakhla, and that
Maltha is a mistake for Naltha.
[p.409]APPENDIX VIII.
THE MECCAH PILGRIMAGE.
HAVING resolved to perform the Meccah pilgrimage, I spent a few months
at Cairo, and on the 22nd of May embarked in a small steamer at Suez
with the “mahmil” or litter, and its military escort, conveying the “kiswah” or
covering for the “kabah.” On the 25th the man at the wheel informed us that
we were about to pass the village of Rabikh, on the Arabian coast, and
that the time had consequently arrived for changing our usual
habiliments for the “ihram,” or pilgrim-costume of two towels, and for
taking the various interdictory vows involved in its assumption: such
as not to tie knots in any portion of our dress, not to oil the body,
and not to cut our nails or hair, nor to improve the tints of the
latter with the coppery red of henna.
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