500
AKABA.
Akaba was not far distant from the spot from whence we returned. ¬
Before sun-set I could distinguish a black line in the
plain, where my sharp-sighted guides clearly saw the date-trees
surrounding the castle, which bore N. E. 1 E. ; it could not be more
than five or six hours distant. Before us was a promontory called
Ras Koreye (&), and behind this, as I was told, there is another, ¬
beyond which begins the plain of Akaba. The castle is
situated at an hour and a half or two hours from the western chain,
down which the Hadj route leads, and about the same distance
from the eastern chain, or lower continuation of Tor Hesma, a
mountain which I have mentioned in my journey through the
northern parts of Arabia Petræa. The descent of the western
mountain is very steep, and has probably given to the place its
name of Akaba, which in Arabic means a cliff or a steep declivity;
it is probably the Akabet Aila of the Arabian geographers ; Makrizi -
says that the village Besak stands upon its summit. In Numbers, ¬
xxxiv. 4, the “ ascent of Akrabbim” is mentioned, which
appears to correspond very accurately to this ascent of the western -
mountain from the plain of Akaba. Into this plain, which
surrounds the castle on every side except the sea, issues the
Wady el Araba, the broad sandy valley which leads towards the
Dead sea, and which I crossed in 1812, at a day and a half, or
two days journey from Akaba. At about two hours to the south of
the castle the eastern range of mountains approaches the sea. The
plain of Akaba, which is from three to four hours in length, from
west to east, and, I believe, not much less in breadth northward,
is very fertile in pasturage. To the distance of about one hour
from the sea it is strongly impregnated with salt, but farther north
sands prevail. The castle itself stands at a few hundred paces
from the sea, and is surrounded with large groves of date-trees.
It is a square building, with strong walls, erected, as it now
