May I introduce myself by sharing with you a visit to one of the most exotic and now lonely spots on Earth, Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha in the Sinai Massif.
Chapter 95 of the Qur'an (Koran) begins, "By the Figtree and the Olive, Mount Sinai, and this Safe Countryside; ..." My introduction to the "fig tree and the olive" came in 1989. In January of that year I went to Ismailia on the Suez Canal for the first time, eager to begin field work and research in the Sinai. In my naivete I was quite unaware that the transfer of my Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship from the University of Alexandria to Suez Canal University had been manipulated by Dr. Ahmed Ismail Khodeir, who was President of Suez Canal University and dominant member of the Fulbright Selection Committee in Egypt. President Khodeir had viewed my training in physical geography, soils and water resources and decided to put me to work helping set up the laboratory and field research programs for the new Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Resources at the El Arish Campus of Suez Canal University. This was a great bit of serendipity which facilitated a wide exposure to the geography and resources of Sinai. I am indeed indebted to Dr. Khodeir for this opportunity and his personal encouragement which was offered along the way.So now for the first story which takes us away from dusty plains, unmapped mine fields and unexploded ordinance to a seemingly safer and culturally fulfilling experience.
It was January and the high base of the Sinai Massif was cold, but we did not expect snow. We met our Bedouin camel herders at Wadi Sudud some four miles northeast of Gebel Musa (Mountain of Moses), better known to we Westerners as Mount Sinai.
Bedouin Herder
Next came the ordeal of matching beasts to barbarians and a few urban Arabs from Cairo. I was assigned a tall dark camel with a single leather thong tied through the outside of his nostril. Alverta was matched up with a smaller light colored beast with three leather thongs piercings. The number of thongs was indicative of the beast's intransigence. Now if you have ever seen an American pack saddle, you get the picture of a Bedouin's idea of comfort. With crossed sticks in front and crossed sticks behind, apparently spaced with an American fourth grader in mind.
The saddle was affixed to the single hump of the Arabian camel, like a crown on the head of a monarch. Each step of the lumbering dromedaries was exaggerated by the high center of gravity. The forward extension of the beast's foreleg threw the rider forward, effectively poking the front crosspiece into the gut. The next step threw the rider back against the other cross sticks.
The Bedouin herders had little faith in we barbarian's ability to control the camels so on the outward trip they walked and led the beasts we rode. Nor did they trust the citified Arabs from Cairo who accompanied us. Our caravan of some fifteen camels was gently led southward along the Qa of Sudud. The slow progress gave us ample opportunity to view some of the most historic sites on Earth.
The pink and red granites of Ras Sufsafa took on an ominous gray in the lowering cloud cover. The massive bluffs of the Ras comprise the north face of Gebel Musa hence in common reference it is the "Brow of Moses." In both Christian and Islamic tradition, this is where Moses broke the first set of laws given by God. To some believers the second set of laws call the Law of Moses was promulgated from this cliff face to the Host of Israel gathered on the Rahah northward. Moses must have had a powerful set of lungs. The Rahah is still called the "Plain of the Promulgation of the Law."
Further west at the margin of the Rahah we were able to see Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha, the Mountain of the Palace of Abbas Pasha.
Without getting into the convolutions of pasha successions, let me merely say that Abbas, the grandson as well as the nephew of Mohammed Ali, succeeded to power in Egypt, in late 1848. The incapacitated Mohammed died in August 1849.
If the reclusive six year rule of Abbas was frustrating to would be European interlopers wanting to construct the Suez Canal, it was brutal to his subjects who slaved to accomplish his demented undertakings. To escape the unwanted secularism of Cairo he fled to Sinai. With slave labor he hacked out a carriage road up the south side of Gebel Musa. One of the pilgrim trails to the Mount Sinai Summit still uses part of the so-called "Pasha's Road."
As the project approached the summit, Abbas changed his mind. Gebel Samr el Tinia, some seven miles to northwest was higher and more isolated, especially from holy pedestrians of non-Islamic bent. He shifted his hoards of Bedouin Conscripts to the new mountain. Once again a carriage road was hacked out of the syenite granite all the way to the summit. Here Abbas built his Qasr, palace, and since that time there is scarce a Badawi in Sinai who would recognize the Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha by the old name, Gebel Samr el Tinia.
Abbas Pasha in Miltary Regalia
Abbas died late in July of 1854. It had been an exceptionally hot summer. The Bedouins said, "it was because the Devil had been most dilligent in stoking the fires of Hell to receive our khedive."
The trek continue and we gradually lost sight of the Brow of Musa and the Qasr of Abbas. Now blowing snow swirled about us making the ride downright uncomfortable. The lady trekers were anxiously looking forward to the trail's end at the improbable "Blue Mountain" where our Bedouin hosts were preparing a meal of round bread and grilled lamb.
Blue Mountain? In Sinai only great distance lends a touch of blue to the gebels. Mountain colors, close-up range from gray to brown, pink, red and even black, but only blue in the distance. Through the drifting snow we rode right up to the face of an improbable Blue Mountain. It was an obvious paint job where a French artist had used thousands of gallons of bright blue paint to cover the brown monolith.
With hot bread, succulent lamb and scalding kardade' tea, we all felt better. Even so the ladies and most of the men, except three Egyptians male employees of Fulbright and myself, elected to ride the Peugeots back to base.
The four of us gently forced the herders to give us control of our mounts. We played Lawrence of Arabia across the eight mile trip back.
For more about Sinai see Ned Greenwood, The Sinai: A Physical Geography. In 1999 it was selected for Choice's 35th annual Outstanding Academic Books list.
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