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Hence the Bedawin always give it precedence Shaghab wa Shuwak; moreover, we remarked a better style of building in the former; and we picked up glass as well as pottery. From Shaghab to Ziba ruins of El-Khandaki' and Umm Amil the Turquoise Mine-Return to El-Muwaylah.
A cursory inspection of Shaghab removed some of the difficulties which had perplexed us at Shuwak and elsewhere. In the North Country signs of metal-working, which was mostly confined to the Wadys, have been generally obliterated; washed away or sanded over. Here the industry revealed itself without mistake.
At last we observed near the catacombs sundry heaps of pinkish earth, evidently washed out; and our researches in the South Country afterwards suggested that this may have been the remains of the micaceous schist, whose containing quartz was so extensively worked at Umm el-Harab. Moreover, a short study of Shaghab threw more light on the matter.
How is it that the annalists say nothing of them? that not a vestige of tradition remains concerning any race but the Nazarenes? From Shuwak to the Wady Damah there are two roads, a direct and an indirect; the latter passing by the ruins of Shaghab. The caravan begged hard to take the former, but was summarily refused.
The ruins of Shaghab are built upon a more complicated site than those of Shuwak. The position is charming. The Wady Shaghab, flowing to the south, here spreads out in a broad bulge or basin open to the west. Down-stream we see a "gate" formed by the meeting of two rocky tongue-tips, both showing large works.
He arrived in camp, none the worse for a well-developed "cropper;" his dromedary had put its foot in a hole, and had fallen with a suddenness generally unknown to the cameline race. By way of geographical exercitation, we had all drawn our several plans, showing, after Arab statement, the lay of Shaghab and Shuwak, the two ruins which we were about to visit.
Presently the quartz made way for long lines and broad patches of a yellow-white, heat-altered clay, often revetted with iron, and passably aping the nobler rock: from one reef I picked up what appeared to be trachyte, white like that of Shaghab.
We brought back details concerning the three great parallel Wadys; the Salma, the Damah, that "Arabian Arcadia," and the 'Aslah-Aznab. We dug into, and made drawings and plans of, the two principal ruined cities, Shuwak and Shaghab, which probably combined to form the classical <Greek>; and of the two less important sites, El-Khandaki and Umm Amil.
At Shaghab, then, the metalliferous "Maru" brought from the adjacent granitic mountains was crushed, and then transported for roasting and washing to Shuwak, where water, the prime necessary in these lands, must have been more abundant. Possibly in early days the two settlements formed one, the single <Greek> of Ptolemy; and the south end would have been the headquarters of the wealthy.
Along the eastern side are huge standing slabs of the coarse new sandstone with which the tank is lined: these may be remains of a conduit. Around the cistern lies a ruined graveyard, whose yawning graves supplied a couple of skulls. The mining industry could not have been a prominent feature at Bada, or we should have found, as in Shaghab and Shuwak, furnaces and scoria.
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