The Akabah Quarrel 441 



frequent it. The talk, therefore, of this shore as having been at any time 

 administered has really no meaning. The commandant of the fort of 

 Akabah would no doubt have dealt with any disturbance at the head of the 

 Gulf threatening the pilgrim road either at Tabah or elsewhere, but the 

 disturbance would not have come from the Peninsula, but from the Bedouin 

 tribes north and east. There was no military force westwards nearer than 

 Nakhl, eighty miles away. The contention, therefore, of the Ottoman 

 Government that Tabah, within seven miles of the fort, is included in the. 

 military radius of Akabah is perfectly correct. 



" The same year, 1876, I went on from Akabah north-westwards to the 

 neighbourhood of El Arish, Rafeh, and Gaza. The few tribes I met on 

 the road, Azazimeh, Teaha, and Terrabin, belonged to Syria, if to any 

 settled Government. In the year 1881 I again visited this Northern 

 district, which was then almost unknown, travelling eastward from 

 Ismailia across the sand-dunes to the hills of Magara, Hellal, Yellak, and 

 the rest. I found Jebel Magara, which lies west of Wady Arish, occupied 

 by the Aiaide tribe, a section of which is to be found in Egypt, and so 

 having a certain connection with the Nile valley, but beyond the Wady, 

 which, it may be mentioned, is held to be identical with the river of Egypt 

 mentioned in the Bible as the boundary of ancient Egypt, the tribes owned 

 no such connection. Jebel Hellal, almost due south of El Arish, was 

 certainly considered by the Bedouins as within the district of Palestine. 

 They lived, it is true, under their tribal law, and were at chronic war with 

 each other, but taxes had at times been levied on their casual crops by 

 the Turkish Caimakam of Gaza, and the Sheikhs of two of the tribes had 

 been recently imprisoned by him at Jerusalem. Jebel Hellal, it may be 

 noted, was a long way west of a line drawn from Akabah to El Arish, 

 and still more of one to Rafeh. Certainly no part of the district had ever 

 been administered from Egypt. 



" It seems to me, therefore, that when the Sultan withdrew Akabah in 

 1892 from the military garrisoning by the Khedive he logically withdrew 

 also the military control, and with it all territorial right to its uninhabited 

 neighbourhood. The truth is that the garrisoning of Forts Akabah and 

 Nakhl had no administrative character in a territorial sense, and had been 

 merely entrusted to the Viceroys of Egypt in connection with the pilgrim- 

 age, and that the land pilgrimage having now been abandoned, the raison 

 d'etre of the garrison at either place had ceased. I am quite sure that if 

 you will make further inquiries you will find this to be the case. 



" I am convinced also that it is a mistake to suppose ill-faith in the 

 present instance on the Sultan's part. The Sultan is doubtless a master of 

 diplomatic craft, and I have never been his apologist or admirer; my sym- 

 pathies having always been, on the contrary, with liberal as opposed to 

 reactionary Islam. But I am sincerely of opinion that he has been guilty 

 here of no trick. He is deeply interested in all matters connected with the 

 pilgrimage, and I do not for an instant believe that his recent occupation 

 of Tabah had any other motive than to secure the anchorage of Akabah 

 from the possible occupation of a hostile Christian Power. He considers, 

 doubtless, and rightly so, that the present Government of Egypt is no 



