ELDJY.
420
Mousa, distant five hours and a half from where we had set out
in the morning. Upon the summit of the mountain near the
spot where the road to Wady Mousa diverges from the great
road to Akaba, are a number of small heaps of stones, indicating
so many sacrifices to Haroun. The Arabs who make vows
to slaughter a victim to Haroun, think it sufficient to proceed as
far as this place, from whence the dome of the tomb is visible
in the distance; and after killing the animal they throw a heap
of stones over the blood which flows to the ground. Here my
guide pressed me to slaughter the goat which I had brought with
me from Shobak, for the purpose, but I pretended that I had
vowed to immolate it at the tomb itself. Upon a hill over the
Ain Mousa the Arabs Lyathene () were encamped, who
cultivate the valley of Mousa. We repaired to their encampment, -
but were not so hospitably received as we had been the
night before.
Ain Mousa is a copious spring, rushing from under a rock at
the eastern extremity of Wady Mousa. There are no ruins near
the spring; a little lower down in the valley is a mill, and above
it is the village of Badabde (), now abandoned. It was inhabited ¬
till within a few years by about twenty families of Greek
Christians, who subsequently retired to Kerek. Proceeding from
the spring along the rivulet for about twenty minutes, the valley
opens, and leads into a plain about a quarter of an hour in length
and ten minutes in breadth, in which the rivulet joins with another ¬
descending from the mountain to the southward. Upon
the declivity of the mountain, in the angle formed by the junction
of the two rivulets, stands Eldjy (), the principal village of
Wady Mousa. This place contains between two and three hundred -
houses, and is enclosed by a stone wall with three regular
gates. It is most picturesquely situated, and is inhabited by the
