THE ROUTE OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL 



1033 



A BEAUTIFUL FOUNTAIN IN EDOM, WITH BEDOUIN WOMEN FILLING WATER SKINS 



roth through a series of sublime valleys 

 to the shore of the Gulf of Akaba, at 

 Nuweiba, where we met another surprise 

 in the shape of an Egyptian fort built 

 about 1 6 years ago, when the boundary 

 question between Egypt and Turkey was 

 causing friction. It stands in an oasis of 

 palm trees which fringe the shore of a 

 beautiful little bay. The building is about 

 200 feet square and a well of good, but 

 brackish water in the courtyard. Five 

 years ago it contained some 200 soldiers 

 of the Egyptian army, but after the set- 

 tlement of the boundary in 1906, it was' 

 left in the charge of two forlorn guards, 

 who hoist the Egyptian flag daily and 

 waylay passers-by for tobacco and with 

 messages to their families in Akaba. 



Two days' ride along the shell-strewn 

 shore carried us to the boundaries of 

 Egypt as fixed in 1906, after the sharp 

 encounter between Great Britain and 

 Turkey, when Great Britain put her fleets 

 in motion and notified Turkey that if the 

 Turkish troops then within the disputed 

 territory were not removed at a certain 

 date there would be war. After the 

 withdrawal by Turkey a commission 

 fixed the boundary by erecting a line of 



stone and steel pillars from below Akaba 

 on the gulf across the desert to the Med- 

 iterranean Sea at el-Arish. The first of 

 these pillars stands on a high bluff, 100 

 feet above the sea, beyond the little fort- 

 ress-crowned Island of Pharaoh, and is 

 visible for many miles overland and far 

 out at sea. It is a mute but impressive 

 token of the power which, from its island 

 home, controls so much of the blue waves 

 and the winding shores of the habitable 

 earth. Beyond this line of pillars we en- 

 tered the Turkish Empire and an hour 

 later struck the Egyptian caravan route 

 which takes the straight course across the 

 Peninsula from Suez to the Abaka arm 

 of the Red Sea. 



EGYPT IS LEFT BEHIND 



For two days and more we had been 

 looking over the water from Africa into 

 Asia, and now we were .approaching 

 another turning point in our pilgrimage. 

 Nothing could have been more beautiful 

 than the sunlight playing over those quiet 

 waters and upon the barren mountains 

 beyond, into which as yet no Christian 

 travelers have ever been allowed to go 

 except by stealth. We swung round the 



