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| Title | Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, Vol. 2 |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Publisher | D. Appleton and Company |
| Date | 1883 |
| Description | Index: Phoenicia and Lebanon / by the Rev. H. W. Jessup -- The Phoenician plain / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- Acre, the key of Palestine, Mount Carmel and the river Kishon, Maritime cities and plains of Palestine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Lydda and Ramleh, Philistia / By Lt. Col. Warren -- The south country of Judaea / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- The southern borderland and Dead Sea / by Professor Palmer -- Mount Hor and the cliffs of Edom, The convent of St. Catherine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Sinai / by the Rev. C. P. Clarke -- The land of Goshen, Cairo, Memphis, Thebes, Edfu and Philae / by S. Lane-Poole. |
| Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Location | DS107 .W73 v.2 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b1703789~S11 |
| Digital Collection | Exotic Impressions: Views of Foreign Lands |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/exotic |
| Repository | Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/william-r-jenkins-architecture-art-library |
| Use and Reproduction | No Copyright - United States |
| Identifier | exotic_201304_015 |
| Title | Page 288 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | exotic_201304_015_312.jpg |
| Transcript | 288 PICTURESQUE PALESTLNE. Wady Bab'a and Wady Shellal (see page 295) are both picturesque, and their rock scener is a relief after the tamer formations of the cretaceous mountains which immediately bound th plain El Markha. Following up Wady Bab'a, which trends a little to the left some two or three miles from the entrance of Seih Bab'a, we feel at last that we have reached the long-wished-for mountain district, whose forms and colouring have been so frequently described. The vallev contracts after one or two bends into a wondrous gorge, guarded by a stupendous mass of rock some forty or fifty feet high, which seems to have been splintered from the mountain but yesterday. The walls of the gorge are sometimes only eight feet apart, and are so lofty that the sunlight scarcely penetrates through the narrow chasm. Farther on there is a barrier of great boulders, which almost forces one to climb the side of the valley to a ledge where some ruined huts look as though they may have been a military guard-house to prevent egress from the upper parts of the valley—a region yet to be explored. Then there is a narrow gut to be threaded, reminding one of the defiles at Bad-Pfeffers. A small stream of brackish water finds its way through, and here and there is a stunted palm or a patriarchal seyal tree. To this gorge a more open valley succeeds, flat and desolate, and then the track leads into the wady by which the sanctuary and the mines at Sarabit el Khadim were approached by us. From the appearance of a great bank—which almost looks artificial—of rounded water- worn stones at its mouth, the stream of Wady Shellal (the name means " Valley of Cataracts ") at a far distant period may have broken through, like an impetuous cataract, the mountain ridges which enclosed it, and—reinforced by the drainage from Nagb Buderah (which the Arabs describe as the "stair-way" called up by Lord Moses in order to extricate the children of Israel from these valleys)—may have scooped out a course for itself through the soft limestone to the Seih Bab'a. To the crown of the pass of Nagb Buderah from Seih Bab'a is a distance of seven or eight miles. Wild and solitary is the road, and the silence is only broken by the whirr of a covey of partridges disturbed by the noise of the caravan, or the timid rustle of a light-coloured hare. The zigzag camel-track up the front of the pass deserves the name of a road, and was constructed, or re-constructed, by the late Major Macdonald, who lived at Magharah and worked the mines. Access to the sea is obtained by it, and many a weary mile is saved by using it instead of going through Wadies Mukatteb and Feiran. The plain, opening out when the top of the pass is reached, is marked by confused heaps, looking like the refuse of old mines worked quite near the surface. Maybe we shall have pushed on before our baggage, and have caught sight of the morning glow on the mountain world through which we are passing. The sunbeams striking on the various heights of white and red remind us, as Dean Stanley suggests, of the effect which must have been produced on the children of Israel as the vast encampment broke up dawn by dawn in these mountains with the shout, " Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee " (Numbers x. 35). Through the Wady Nagb Buderah the track leads into the Seih Sidreh (see page 291). There is on the left a small wady called Umm Themain, and in the side of this wady is a |