Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/344

 one hundred kilometers, if between these two places there were two and not (as given by Codex Constantinopolitanus; ibid., p. 250, note b) three night halts (manâhel). As, however, a day’s march on the Pilgrim Route always amounts to about sixty kilometers, we must agree with the Constantinople codex and assign, not two, but three manâhel between Maʻân and Tebûk. If the author reckons four halting places from Tebûk to Tejma, he fixes a day’s march at about fifty-five kilometers and the same also for the march from Tejma to the valley of al-Ḳura’.

Al-Idrîsi, Nuzha (Brandel), p. 28, records more place names than his predecessors. These names, however, are recorded so incorrectly that it is difficult to locate the places. He asserts that the road from Damascus leads to the first halting place of al-Kiswe, which is situated on a hill on the western bank of the river al-Aʻwaǧ, which flows into a lake. To the east of al-Kiswe there stood a large khan in which travelers put up for the night. From al-Kiswe it is a day’s march to Zerʻa (Ezra, see below; in the text erroneously spelled Daʻa), and after a farther march the inhabited settlement of Ḏât al-Manâzel, which I identify with Ḏerʻât, is reached. From there onward the location of the various names occasions great difficulties. The name of the next halting place, Janûʻ or Banûʻ, is the usual erroneous transcription of the accurate Soṛar, which halting place is mentioned by all the early geographers. But from Ḏerʻât to Soṛar is more than three hundred kilometers, and al-Idrîsi does not refer to any halting places situated between them. From Soṛar it is a day’s march to al-Baṯanijje, but al-Idrîsi writes (Brandel, op. cit., p. 30) that Baṯanijje is identical with Ḏerʻât. After al-Baṯanijje follows the inhabited settlement of Damma (Dimne). We might locate this at the halting place of Ḏât al-Ḥâǧǧ, about forty kilometers south of Soṛar, near which terminates the šeʻîb of Dimne coming from the spring of the same name. Soṛar and Dimne in this order would agree with the next halting place, Tebûk. The farther halting places are the same as those given by the older authors, except that the name al-Ǧunejne is erroneously transcribed as al-Ḥanîfijje.

In the year 1313 A. D. Abu-l-Feda’ (Muḫtaṣar [Adler], Vol. 5, pp. 280 f.) made the journey on a camel from Mecca to Hama’ in twenty-five days. He estimated the time occupied by his stay at al-Medîna, al-ʻEla’, Birke Zîza, and Damascus as three days, so that he traversed the whole distance in twenty-two days but changed his animal on the journey. From Mecca to Ḥama’ is more than nine hundred kilometers, so that Abu-l-Feda’ must have traveled forty-five kilometers a day. As is clear from the halting stations mentioned by him, he also proceeded on the highroad of at-Tebûkijje.

When Ibn Baṭṭûṭa (Tuḥfa [Defrémery and Sanguinetti], Vol. 1, pp. 254 f.) set out on his pilgrimage in September, 1326 A. D., he proceeded with the pilgrims’ escort from Damascus to al-Kiswe, aṣ-Ṣanamejn, Zerʻa, Boṣra’, and thence by way of Zîza, al-Laǧǧûn, and al-Kerak to Maʻân.—Defrémery and Sanguinetti (loc. cit.) identify Zerʻa with Eḏdraʻât. This, however, is not correct, for Zerʻa corresponds to the settlement of Ezraʻ situated on the direct road from aṣ-Ṣanamejn to Boṣra’, while Eḏraʻât is to the west of it.

According to Ibn Baṭṭûṭa, Maʻân is situated on the border of Syria. To the south of Maʻân, beyond the halting place of ʻAḳabat aṣ-Ṣawwân