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Updated: May 2, 2025
We had left the Sharm Yaharr on March 21st, and returned to it on April 13th; a total of twenty-four days. The length is represented by 170 miles in round numbers: as usual, this does not include the various offsets and the by-paths explored by the members; nor do the voyages to El-Wijh and El-Haura, going and coming, figure in the line of route.
Here Aelius Gallius disembarked his troops from Egypt. Thence the imports were passed on to Phoenicia and Egypt: these pages have shown why the journey would be preferred to the voyage northward. El-Haura, like most of the ruined settlements upon this coast, shows two distinct "quarters;" a harbour-town and what may be called a country-town.
The size of the oval is about nine statute miles from north to south, where the main watercourse breaks; and twelve miles from east to west, giving an area of some 108 square miles. The general aspect of the basin suggests that of El-Haura; the growth is richer than the northern, but not equal to that of the southern country.
Thence the regular coralline bank, whose beach is the Bab, runs some distance down coast, allowing passage to our ugly old friend, Wady Salma. It would appear that this "'Amud" represents the "Wady el-'Aunid," a name utterly unknown to the modern Arabs, citizens and Bedawin, at least as far south as El-Haura.
They were apparently deserted; at least, only two women appeared upon the shore, but sundry Katirahs and canoes warned us that fishermen were about. We ran for safety a mile and three-quarters north of the exposed Ras el-Haura; and at 1.30 p.m. El-Haura' is not found either in the charts, or in Ptolemy's and Sprenger's maps.
Lastly, we shall sight, behind El-Haura, the Abu Ghurayr and a number of blocks which, like the former, are laid down, but are not named, in the Chart. Beyond El-Haura the chain stretches southwards its mighty links with smaller connections. This was hardly probable in Bruce's day, and now it is impossible.
MM. Marie and Philipin, with Lieutenant Yusuf, Cook Giorji, and Body-servant Ali Marie, were directed to march along the shore southwards. Meanwhile, the rest of us would proceed in the Sinnar to El-Haura, a roundabout cruise of a hundred miles to the south.
About El-Haura, I have said, the volcanic formations, some sixty miles inland on the parallel of El-Muwaylah, approach the coast. We were guided to the ruins by the shouts of sundry Arabs defending their harvest against a dangerous enemy, the birds rattles and scarecrows were anything but scarce. Apparently the sand contains some fertilizing matter.
On the day after our return from El-Haura the venerable old man paid us a visit aboard Sinnar. He declares that he was a boy when the Wahhabi occupied Meccah and El-Medinah that is, in 1803-4. Yet he has wives and young children. His principal want is a pair of new eyes; and the train of thought is, "I can't see when older men than myself can."
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