Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/97

Rh the Sheikh undertook to have the camels and men ready for us early on Monday morning. When we met the following evening the document was read out by the notary, but a little hitch occurred at the article about the 36 dollars. We had understood this was toll for the whole party; the Sheikh asserted that he meant it was the sum for each of the six “hawajahs,” making 216 dollars. A long and angry discussion took place on this point; but as the Sheikh was firm, declaring that this amount had been settled by the Government at Cairo as the toll for travellers, we had to give in. At length the document having been agreed upon, our conductor produced the money bag, counted out the large silver pieces, which the Sheikh placed in little piles before him on the floor, amounting altogether to a sum equal to £135 sterling. Mohammed then proceeded to untie a corner of his inner garment, and from the folds thereof produced the important seal, which alone could give efficacy to the instrument. It was a small seal of white metal engraved with Arabic characters. This the notary took, and having wetted a space on the parchment impressed the seal with due solemnity. Before leaving home I had hunted out an old family seal, unused for many years, and had brought it with me for an occasion of this kind. This seal I now produced, and it was also impressed on the document. Finally, Bernhard Heilpern, as representing Messrs. T. Cook and Son, signed his name. We then broke up; and recollecting that sharks abounded in the waters of the gulf close by, I thought this fish a true representative of the man we had been dealing with, and I took this opportunity of dubbing the head of the Alowîn tribe by the style and title of “Sheikh Shark,” the name by which he is in future to be known.

It will be seen from the above account of our agreement with Sheikh Mohammed that the route was different from that marked out for us by the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, and which we had determined, if possible, to adhere to; namely, to make a reconnaissance down the whole length of the Wâdy el Arabah to the shores of the Salt Sea. This route Mohammed positively refused to undertake on the ground that his brother had killed a sheikh of the Tîhyaha, and that if he were to pass through their territory, which lay north of the road to Gaza, we might be