Toward the end of the campaign four colleagues--Messrs. Knight,
Gwynne, Scudamore, Maud--and myself, took this opportunity of
traversing a country very little known to the outside world, and a
route which no European had followed for fourteen years, from Berber
to Suakim. Moreover, there was a spice of adventure about it; there
was an uncertainty regarding an altogether peaceful time on the way--a
contingency which always appeals strongly to Englishmen of a roving
and adventurous disposition. Only quite recently raids organized by
the apparently irrepressible Osman Digna had been successfully carried
out a few miles north and south of Berber. At the moment General
Hunter, with two battalions of troops, was marching along the banks of
the River Atbara to hunt for Osman and his followers, but there was
much speculation as to whether five-and-twenty dervish raiders were
still this side of the river, and drawing their water from the wells
on the Suakim road.
I was hardly prepared for this journey--one, probably, of twelve
days--for my campaigning outfit, which I was compelled to leave on
board my nugger on the Nile, had not yet arrived in Berber.
Unfortunately, I could not wait for the gear, as the Sirdar insisted
on our departure at once, for the road would be certainly insecure
directly General Hunter returned from covering our right flank on the
Atbara. I had no clothes but what I stood up in, and I had been more
or less standing up in them without change for the last two weeks.
Our caravan of nineteen camels, with two young ones, quite babies,
following their mothers, and a couple of donkeys, about seven in the
evening of the 30th of October quitted the mud-baked town of Berber,
sleeping in the light of a new moon, and silently moved across the
desert toward the Eastern Star. Next morning at the Morabeh Well, six
miles from Berber, our camels having filled themselves up with water,
and our numerous girbas, or water skins, being charged with the
precious liquid--till they looked as if they were about to burst--our
loads were packed and we started on a journey of fifty-two miles
before the next water could be reached.
We made quite a formidable show trailing over the desert. Probably it
would have been more impressive if our two donkeys had restrained
their ambition, and kept in the rear instead of leading the van. But
animals mostly have their own way in these parts, and asses are no
exception to this rule. The two baby camels commenced "grousing" with
their elders directly we halted or made a fresh advance; they probably
had an inkling of what was in store for them. After all, the world
must seem a hard and unsympathetic place when, having only known it
for two or three weeks, you are compelled to make a journey of 240
miles to keep up with your commissariat. One of these babies was only
in its eighteenth day. In spite of its tender youth the little beast
trotted by the side of its mother, refreshing itself whenever we came
to a halt with a pull from her teats, and, to the astonishment of all,
arrived in Suakim safe and sound after twelve days' marching.
To the uninitiated regarding the "grousing" of camels, I should
explain that it is a peculiar noise which comes from their long funnel
necks early or late, and for what reason it is difficult to tell.
Sometimes the sound is not unlike the bray of an ass, occasionally it
reaches the dignity of the roar of a lion with the bleating of a goat
thrown in, then as quickly changes to the solemnity of a church organ.
It is altogether so strange a sound that nothing but a phonograph
could convey any adequate idea of it. It is a thing to be heard. No
pen can properly describe it. After a long march, and when you are
preparing to relieve the brute of his load, he begins to grouse. When
he is about to start in the morning he grouses. If you hit him, he
grouses; if you pat his neck gently, he grouses; if you offer him
something to eat, he grouses; and if you twist his tail, he makes the
same extraordinary noise. The camel evidently has not a large
vocabulary, and he is compelled to express all his various sensations
in this simple manner.
The first part of our journey was monotonous enough, miles and miles
of weary sandy plains, with alternate stretches of agabas or stony
deserts, scored with shallow depressions, where torrential rains had
recently soaked into the sand, leaving a glassy, clay-like surface,
which had flaked or cracked into huge fissures under the heat of the
fierce sun. And at every few hundred yards we came to patches of
coarse camel grass, which had evidently cropped up on the coming of
the rain, and, by its present aspect, seemed to feel very sorry that
it had been induced to put in an appearance, for its sustenance was
now fast passing into vapor, and its green young life was rapidly
dying out as the sun scorched the tender shoots to the roots. But
camels thrive on this parched-up grass, and our brutes nibbled at it
whenever one slackened the head-rope.
We traversed the dreary plain, marked every few yards by the bleached
bones of camels fallen by the way; the only living thing met with for
two days being a snake of the cobra type trailing across our path. The
evening of the second day we camped in a long wadi, or shallow valley,
full of mimosa trees, where our camels were hobbled and allowed to
graze. They delighted in nibbling the young branches of these prickly
acacias, which carry thorns at least an inch in length, that serve
excellently well for toothpicks. Yet camels seem to rejoice in
browsing off these trees, and chew up their thorns without blinking.
This I can partly understand, for the camel's usual diet of dry,
coarse grass must become rather insipid, and as we sometimes take
"sauce piquante" with our cold dishes, so he tickles his palate with
one inch thorns.
Climbing ridge after ridge of the dunes, we at last saw stretching
before us in the moonlight the valley of Obak, an extensive wadi of
mimosa and sunt trees. Our guides halted on a smooth stretch of sand,
and I wondered why we were not resting by the wells. Near were three
native women squatting round a dark object that looked to me, in the
faint light of the moon, like a tray. I walked up to them, thinking
they might have some grain upon it for sale, but found to my surprise
that it was a hole in the sand, and I realized at once that this must
be a well. One of the women was manipulating a leather bucket at the
end of a rope, which after a considerable time she began hauling up to
the surface. It was about half full of thick, muddy water. Further on
along the wadi I now noticed other groups of natives squatting on the
sand doing sentinel over the primitive wells. I never came across a
more slovenly method of getting water. The mouths of the holes were
not banked or protected; a rain storm or sand drift at any moment
might have blocked them for a considerable period.
Not being able to get water for the camels was a serious matter, as
our animals were not of the strongest, nor had they been recently
trained for a long journey without water. This was the evening of the
third day from Berber, and many of the poor brutes were showing signs
of weakness. We resolved, therefore, to hurry on at once to the next
well, that of Ariab; so we left the inhospitable wadi, and started at
three in the morning on our next stretch of fifty-three miles.
These night marches were pleasant enough; it was only the hour or two
before dawn when the heaviness of sleep troubled us; but just as we
began nodding, and felt in danger of falling off our camels, the keen
change in the temperature which freshens the desert in the early
morning braced us up, and, fully awake, we watched for the coming of
Venus. As she sailed across the heavens, she flooded the desert with a
warm, soft light, which in its luminosity equaled an English summer
moon, and shortly seemingly following her guidance, the great fiery
shield of the sun stood up from the horizon, and broad day swept over
the plain.
Toward the evening we found ourselves in a bowlder-strewn basin amid
rocky, sterile hills, evidently the offshoots and spurs of the
Jeb-el-Gharr, which stood out a purple serrated mass on our left, and
here we saw for the first time for many a month rain clouds piling up
above the rocky heights. Their tops, catching the rosy glow from the
declining sun, appeared in their quaint forms like loftier mountains
with their snowy summits all aglow. This was, indeed, a grateful sight
to us; the camels already pricked up their ears, for the smell of
moisture was in the air. We knew that the end of our waterless journey
was not far off; for where those clouds were discharging their
precious burdens the valley of Ariab lay. But many a weary ridge of
black rock and agaba must still be crossed before our goal was
reached.
We camped at six that evening till midnight, when we started on our
record march. Unfortunately at this time my filter gave out, owing to
the perishable nature of the rubber tubing; the remaining water in our
girbas was foul and nauseating from the strong flavor of the skins. I
resolved to try and hold out without touching the thick, greasy fluid,
and wait till the wells of Ariab were reached. As we advanced, the
signs of water became more and more apparent; the camel grass was
greener down by the roots, and mimosa and sunt trees flourished at
every few hundred yards. When morning came, for the first time we
heard the chirruping and piping of birds. The camels increased their
pace, and all became eager to reach our destination before the extreme
heat of the day. But pass after pass was traversed, and valley after
valley crossed, and yet the wadi of Ariab, with its cool, deep wells
of precious water, was still afar. It was not till past two o'clock in
the afternoon that a long, toilsome defile of rugged rock brought us
on the edge of a steep descent, and before us lay the winding Khor of
Ariab, with its mass of green fresh foliage throwing gentle shadows on
the silver sand of its dry watercourse. It seemed an age as we
traversed that extended khor before our guide pointed to a large tree
on our right, and said "Moja." We dismounted under the shadow of its
branches, and found awaiting us the sheikh of the valley, who pressed
our hands and greeted us in a most friendly way; but I was almost mad
with thirst, and asked for the well. I was taken to a mound a few
yards from our retreat, on the sides of which were two or three clay
scoop-outs, all dry but one, and this held a few gallons of tepid
water, from which camels had been drinking. The man took a gourd, half
filled it, and offered it to me to drink. "But the well, the well!" I
cried. "Oh! that's a little higher up," said he, and he led me to a
wide revetted well about fifty feet deep, at the bottom of which,
reflecting the sky, shone the water like a mirror. "That's the water I
want," said I. The man shook his head. "You cannot drink of that till
your baggage camels arrive; we have no means of reaching it." I almost
groaned aloud, and with the agony of the Ancient Mariner could well
cry, "Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink." There was no
help for it. I made my way back to the shadow of the tree, threw
myself on my blanket, and, racked with thirst, tried to wait patiently
for the coming of the camel men. Fortunately, the sheikh of the well
was inspired with hospitality, and after a while brought us some fresh
milk in a metal wash basin, a utensil which he evidently produced in
honor of our visit. I took a long draught, and though it was
associated with native ablutions, I shall always remember it with the
greatest satisfaction. We camped for 24 hours in the sylvan vicinity
of Ariab Wells--stretched ourselves in the broad shadows of its mimosa
trees, and drank of and bathed in its sweet, cool waters.
This long rest improved our camels wonderfully. By the bye, there was
much speculation between two of our party regarding the behavior of
these curious animals on arriving at the wells after their long
waterless march. A general impression was that for the last few miles
the camels would race for the waters, and thwart all endeavors to hold
them in. My experience of the strange beast was otherwise, and
subsequent events proved that I was right. When the Hamleh, as we
christened our caravan, arrived, the camels quietly waited awhile
after their burdens were taken from their humps. Then, as if an
afterthought had struck them, they slowly approached the scoop-outs
and with the most indifferent air would take a mouthful of the liquid,
then, stiffening their necks, they would lift their heads and calmly
survey the scenery around them, till their drivers would draw their
attention to the fact that there was at least another draught of water
in the pool. It should be remembered that these animals had just come
off a continuous journey of nearly fifteen hours, without a halt, and
had been for three whole days without water.
We left our camping ground as the sun began to dip behind the hills
shutting in the khor. Our way now lay in a more northeasterly
direction, and the sun threw the hills and valleys we were approaching
into a marvelous medley of glorious color, and more than one of us
regretted that we had not brought our color boxes with us. Sometimes
we seemed to catch a glimpse of the heather-clad Highlands of
Scotland. Then a twist in the khor we were traversing suggested the
rugged passes of Afghanistan. Gazelle and ariel stole among the foot
hills or stood gazing at us as near as a stone's throw. One of our
party, Mr. Gwynne, commenced stalking a gazelle, but, darkness setting
in, the beast got away. For the rest of the journey to Suakim,
however, he had good sport, and saved us many a time from going hungry
with his shooting for the pot.
About 34 miles from Ariab we came to one of the most interesting spots
of the whole journey--the extensive Valley of Khokreb, wherein lay the
deserted dervish dem, or stronghold. Here some followers of Osman
Digna used to levy toll on all caravans and persons moving toward
Suakim, or taking routes south. The dem consisted of a number of well
built tokuls, or straw huts, standing in their compounds, with
stabling for horses and pounds for cattle. The whole was surrounded
with a staked wall, in front of which was a zariba of prickly mimosa
bush, to stop a sudden onrush of an enemy. The place was intact, but
there was not a living soul within it, or in the vast valley in which
it stood, that we could see. In fact, our whole journey up to the
present seemed to be through a country that might have been ravished
by some plague or bore some fatal curse. As the light of the moon
prevailed, we came upon an extensive plain shelving upward toward
steep hills. Specks of bright light stood out against the distant
background, and we presently found that the moonlight was glinting on
spear heads, and soon a line of camels crept toward us, and marching
as escort was a small guard of Hadendowahs, with spear and shield.
We found the convoy to be a detachment of a caravan of 160 camel loads
of stores sent from Suakim to Berber by that enterprising Greek,
Angelo, of the former town. They had been on the road already eight
days, having to move cautiously owing to rumors of dervish activity,
but had arrived so far safely. We bivouacked for several hours in the
Wadi of Salalat, which was quite parklike with its fine growth of sunt
trees.
When we had crossed the frontier between Bisheren and Hadendowah
country we were in comparative safety regarding any molestation by the
natives, for we were escorted by the son of the sheikh of one of the
subtribes of the latter country. At all events, I must have been a
sore temptation for any evil disposed Fuzzy Wuzzy; for, owing to my
camel being badly galled by an ill-fitting saddle, I would find myself
for many hours entirely alone picking my way by the light of the moon,
the poor brute I was riding not being able to keep pace with the rest.
All the following day our route lay over stony plains of a bolder type
than any we had yet seen, and when in the heart of the Hadendowah
Hills we came suddenly upon a scene in its weirdness the most
extraordinary and most appallingly grand I had ever seen. A huge
wilderness lay before us like the dry bed of a vast ocean, whose
waters by some subterranean convulsion had been sucked into the bowels
of the earth, leaving in its whirling eddies the debris of submarine
mountains heaped up in rugged confusion or scattered over its sandy
bottom. Porphyry and black granite bowlders, in every conceivable form
and size, lay strewn over the plain. Sometimes so fantastic did their
shapes become that the least imaginative of our party could picture
the gigantic ruins of some mighty citadel, with its ramparts, bastions
and towering castle. For many hours we were traversing this weird and
desolate valley, and when the sun cast long shadows across our track
as he sank to rest, his ruddy light falling upon the dark bowlders,
polished with the sand storms of thousands of years, stray pieces of
red granite would catch his rosy glint, and sparkle like giant rubies
in a setting of black pearls.
We found more life in ten miles of the Hadendowah country than during
the whole of the first part of our journey. Flocks of sheep, goats and
oxen passed us coming to the wells, or going to some pasturage up in
the hills, but few natives came near us, and there were no signs of
habitation anywhere. The wells we now passed were mere water holes
similar to those met with up country in Australia. The flocks of the
natives would hurry down at eventide and drink up all the water that
had percolated through the sand during the day, befouling the pools in
every conceivable way. Natives seem to revel in water contaminated by
all kind of horrors. They wash the sore backs of their camels, bathe
their sheep and drink from the same pool. At one large hole round
which a number of natives were filling their girbas we halted, and
procured some of the liquid, which was muddy and tepid, but
wholesomer. A native caravan had camped near by and the Hadendowah
escort of spearmen crowded round us.
The Fuzzy Wuzzy is a much more pleasant object when seen through a
binocular than when he is close to you. His frizzy locks are generally
clotted with rancid butter, his slender garment is not over clean. He
is a very plucky individual, as we know, thrifty, and lives upon next
to nothing, but many live upon him. Several graybeards came up to
salute their sheikh, who was traveling with us, and this they did by
pressing his hand many times, and bowing low, but they glanced at us
with no amiable eyes, and suddenly turned away. There was no absolute
discourtesy; they simply did not want to be introduced. Probably they
remembered the incident at Tamai, where many of their friends were
pierced with British bullets. So they slung their shields, trailed
their spears and turned away.
My camel had much improved by gentle treatment and I was able to ride
on ahead. Just as I neared the narrow neck of the Tamai Pass, two men
and a boy climbed down toward us from a small guard house, on a lofty
rock to our left. My camel man and I instinctively came to a halt, for
the manner of the comers, who were fully armed, was impressive. They
confronted us and immediately began questioning my camel man, after
much altercation, during which I quietly leaned over my saddle and
unbuttoned my revolver case, for they looked truculent and somewhat
offensive. My camel man mysteriously felt about his waist belt, and
eventually handed something to the foremost native, whereat he and his
companions turned and began to reclimb the hill. As we went on our
way, I inquired the reason of the men barring our path. "Oh," my man
said, "it is simply a question of snuff." "Snuff," I exclaimed, in
astonishment. "Yes; that was all they wanted--a little tobacco powder
to chew." Here was a possible adventure that seemed as if it were
going to end in smoke, and snuff was its finale.
After all the Suakim-Berber road, that was looked upon as full of
dramatic incident--for even our military friends in Berber, when they
bid us goodby, said, "It was a very sporting thing to do. Great Scott!
They only wished they had the luck to come along"--was a highway
without even a highwayman upon it, and apparently for the moment as
pleasantly safe, minus the hostelries en route, as the road from
London to York. Prom the top of Tamai Pass, 2,870 feet--though of the
same name, not to be confounded with the famous battle which took
place further south--we began to make a rapid descent, and the last
sixty miles of our journey were spent in traversing some of the most
lovely mountain scenery I think I have ever visited. Sometimes one
might be passing over a Yorkshire moorland, with its purple backing of
hills, for the sky was lowering and threatened rain. Then the scene
would as quickly change to a Swiss valley, when, on rounding the base
of a spur, one would strike a weird, volcanic-torn country whose
mountains piled up in utter confusion like the waves of the stormy
Atlantic; and further on we would come out upon a plain once more
scattered with gigantic bowlders of porphyry and trap, out of which
the monoliths of ancient Thebes might have been fashioned.
On the morning of the tenth day out from Berber, we sighted the fort
and signal tower of the Egyptian post at Tambuk, on a lofty rugged
rock, standing out in the middle of an immense khor. This was
practically the beginning of the end of our long journey, and here we
rested a few hours, once more drinking our fill of pure sparkling
water from its revetted wells.
About half an hour in a northeasterly direction, after a continual
descent from the Egyptian fort, we noticed, at intervals between the
hills in front of us, a straight band of blue which sparkled in the
sunlight. At this sight I could not refrain from giving a cheer--it
was the Red Sea that glistened with the sun--for it meant so much to
us. Across its shining bosom was our path to civilization and its
attendant comforts, which we had been denied for many a month. Night
found us steadily descending to ward the seaboard, as we neared Otao,
in the vicinity of which we were to bivouac for the night. My camel
nearly stumbled over an old rusty rail thrown across my path, and
further on I could trace in the moonlight the dark trail of a crazy
permanent way, with its rails all askew.
We were passing the old rail head of the Suakim-Berber Railway, that
was started in 1885. I wondered, as I followed fifteen miles of this
rusty line, a gradual slope of 1,800 feet toward the sea, whether the
road I had only just traversed had ever been surveyed for a railway,
and whether anybody had the slightest notion of the difficulties to be
contended with in carrying out the scheme. Of course, modern
engineering, with such men as Sir Benjamin Baker at the fore, can
overcome any difficulty if money be no object, but who can possibly
see any return for the enormous outlay an undertaking of this kind
would entail?
To start with, there is one up grade of 2,870 feet within forty miles
from Suakim, and the khors, through which the railway must wind, are
sometimes raging torrents. To obviate this, if the line be built of
trestles (timber elevations), as with the Canadian Pacific Railway,
there is no wood in the country but for domestic purposes. Material,
for every detail, must be imported. A smaller matter, but also
somewhat important--though water apparently can be found in the khors
for the digging, it is a question whether a sufficient quantity can be
got at all times for the requirements of a railway. The natives
themselves are often very badly off for water, as in the case of the
Obak wells.
Wells run dry at odd times in this country, and can never be depended
upon. Of course, water can be condensed at Suakim and stored. Further,
a rival line is already in progress, which will connect Wady Halfa
with Berber early this year. European goods coming by that line from
Alexandria would be free of the Suez Canal dues, and certainly the
directors of that line would treat freights favorably if Suakim should
ever be connected with Berber by rail. As for the interior trade of
the country, nearly all the population have either died from recent
famine or have been killed off in the Mahdi's cause. There is no
commercial center or even market to tap from one end of the road to
the other.
The next morning we came in view of Suakim, the city of white coral,
with her surf-beaten opalesque reefs stretching as far as the eye
could follow. It seemed strange to me to be peacefully moving toward
her outlying forts, for when I was last in her vicinity one could not
go twenty yards outside the town without being shot at or running the
gauntlet of a few spears. But here I was, slowly approaching its
walls, accompanied by some of the very men who in those days would
have cut my throat without the slightest hesitation. Suakim had
changed much for the better; her streets were cleaner, and mostly free
from Oriental smells. But these sanitary changes always take place
when British officers are to the fore.
Surgeon Capt. Fleming is the medical officer responsible for the
health of the town, and he has been instrumental in carrying out great
reforms, especially in doing away with the tokuls and hovels, in which
the Arabs herded together, and removing them to a special quarter
outside the town.
The principal feature about Suakim to-day is its remarkable water
supply. In 1884 our troops had to depend on condensed sea water,
supplied from an old steamer anchored in the harbor, and the town folk
drew an uncertain supply from the few wells outside the town. But now
Suakim never wants for water, and that of the best. She even boasts of
a fountain in the little square opposite the governor's house.
Engineer Mason is responsible for this state of efficiency, to which
Suakim owes much of her present immunity from disease. During the last
twelve years immense condensing works have been erected on Quarantine
Station; but, better still, about two years ago Mr. Mason discovered
an apparently inexhaustible supply near Gemaiza, about three miles
from the town. There is a theory--which this water finding has made a
possible fact--that as coral does not grow in fresh water, the
channel which allows steamers to approach close up to the town,
through her miles of coral reefs, is caused by a fresh water current
running from the shore.
However, on this theory Mason set to work and found a splendid supply
at Fort Charter; an excavation in the khor there, about 200 feet long
and 40 deep, is now an immense cistern of sweet water, the result of
which the machines condensing 150 tons of water a day are now only
required to produce one-half the quantity, saving the Egyptian
government a considerable outlay.
The natives look upon Mason as a magician, the man who turns the salt
ocean into sweet water. But metal refuse, scraps of iron, old boiler
plates, under his magic touch, are also turned into the most useful
things. For instance, the steam hammer used in the government workshop
is rigged on steel columns from the debris of an engine room of a
wrecked vessel. The hammer is the crank of a disused shaft of a cotton
machine, the anvil is from an old "monkey," that drove the piles for
the Suakim landing stage in 1884; the two cylinders are from an effete
ice machine, and the steam and exhaust pipes come from a useless
locomotive of the old railway. A lathe, a beautiful piece of
workmanship, is fashioned out of one of the guns found at Tamai. And
the building which covers these useful implements was erected by this
clever engineer in the Sirdar's service, who had utilized the rails of
the old Suakim-Berber line as girders for its roof, and, in my humble
opinion, this is probably the very best purpose for which they can be
used.
* * * * *