CHAPTER II.

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

* * * * *

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXXXI. SEPTEMBER, 1851. VOL. LXX.

CONTENTS.

A CAMPAIGN IN TAKA, 251

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART XIII, 275

DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE BOROUGHS, 296

PARIS IN 1851.--(_Continued_,) 310

MR RUSKIN'S WORKS, 326

PORTUGUESE POLITICS, 349

THE CONGRESS AND THE AGAPEDOME.--A TALE OF PEACE

AND LOVE, 359

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;

AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXXXI. September, 1851. VOL. LXX.

A CAMPAIGN IN TAKA.

_Feldzug von Sennaar nach Taka, Basa, und Beni-Amer, mit

besonderem Hinblick auf die Völker von Bellad-Sudan._--[Campaign

from Sennaar to Taka, Basa, and Beni-Amer; with a particular

Glance at the Nations of Bellad-Sudan.]--VON FERDINAND WERNE.

Stuttgart: Königl. Hofbuchdruckerei. London: Williams and

Norgate. 1851.

Africa, the least explored division of the globe's surface, and the

best field for travellers of bold and enterprising character, has

been the scene of three of the most remarkable books of their class

that have appeared within the last ten years. We refer to Major

Harris's narrative of his Ethiopian expedition--to the marvellous

adventures of that modern Nimrod, Mr Gordon Cumming--to Mr Ferdinand

Werne's strange and exciting account of his voyage up the White

Nile. In our review of the last-named interesting and valuable

work,[1] we mentioned that Mr Werne, previously to his expedition up

the Nile, had been for several months in the Taka country, a region

previously untrodden by Europeans, with an army commanded by Achmet

Bascha, governor-general of the Egyptian province of Bellad-Sudan,

who was operating against refractory tributaries. He has just

published an account of this campaign, which afforded him, however,

little opportunity of expatiating on well-contested battles,

signal victories, or feats of heroic valour. On the other hand,

his narrative abounds in striking incidents, in curious details of

tribes and localities that have never before been described, and

in perils and hardships not the less real and painful that they

proceeded from no efforts of a resolute and formidable foe, but from

the effects of a pernicious climate, and the caprice and negligence

of a wilful and indolent commander.

[1] _Blackwood's Magazine_, No. CCCXCIX., for January 1849.

It was early in 1840, and Mr Werne and his youngest brother Joseph

had been resident for a whole year at Chartum, chief town of the

province of Sudan, in the country of Sennaar. Chartum, it will be

remembered by the readers of the "Expedition for the Discovery of

the Sources of the White Nile," is situated at the confluence of

the White and Blue streams, which, there uniting, flow northwards

through Nubia and Egypt Proper to Cairo and the Mediterranean; and

at Chartum it was that the two Wernes had beheld, in the previous

November, the departure of the first expedition up Nile, which they

were forbidden to join, and which met with little success. The

elder Werne, whose portrait--that of a very determined-looking

man, bearded, and in Oriental costume--is appended to the present

volume, appears to have been adventurous and a rambler from his

youth upwards. In 1822 he had served in Greece, and had now been

for many years in Eastern lands. Joseph Werne, his youngest and

favourite brother, had come to Egypt at his instigation, after

taking at Berlin his degree as Doctor of Medicine, to study, before

commencing practice, some of the extraordinary diseases indigenous

in that noxious climate. Unfortunately, as recorded in Mr Werne's

former work, this promising young man, who seems to have possessed

in no small degree the enterprise, perseverance, and fortitude so

remarkable in his brother, ultimately fell a victim to one of those

fatal maladies whose investigation was the principal motive of his

visit to Africa. The first meeting in Egypt of the two brothers was

at Cairo; and of it a characteristic account is given by the elder,

an impetuous, we might almost say a pugnacious man, tolerably prompt

to take offence, and upon whom, as he himself says at page 67, the

Egyptian climate had a violently irritating effect.

"Our meeting, at Guerra's tavern in Cairo, was so far remarkable,

that my brother knew me immediately, whilst I took him for some

impertinent Frenchman, disposed to make game of me, inasmuch as he,

in the petulance of his joy, fixed his eyes upon me, measuring me

from top to toe, and then laughed at the fury with which I rushed

upon him, to call him to an account, and, if necessary, to have him

out. We had not seen each other for eight years, during which he

had grown into a man, and, moreover, his countenance had undergone

a change, for, by a terrible cut, received in a duel, the muscle of

risibility had been divided on one side, and the poor fellow could

laugh only with half his face. In the first overpowering joy of our

meeting in this distant quarter of the globe, we could not get the

wine over our tongues, often as my Swiss friend De Salis (over whose

cheeks the tears were chasing each other) and other acquaintances

struck their glasses against ours, encouraging us to drink.... I now

abandoned the hamlet of Tura--situated in the desert, but near the

Nile, about three leagues above Cairo, and whither I had retreated

to do penance and to work at my travels--as well as my good friend

Dr Schledehaus of Osnabruck, (then holding an appointment at the

military school, now director of the marine hospital of Alexandria,)

with whom my brother had studied at Bonn, and I hired a little house

in the Esbekie Square in Cairo. After half an hour's examination,

Joseph was appointed surgeon-major, with the rank of a Sakulagassi

or captain, in the central hospital of Kasr-el-Ain, with a thousand

piastres a month, and rations for a horse and four servants. Our

views constantly directed to the interior of Africa, we suffered

a few months to glide by in the old city of the Khalifs, dwelling

together in delightful brotherly harmony. But our thirst for

travelling was unslaked; to it I had sacrificed my appointment as

chancellor of the Prussian Consulate at Alexandria; Joseph received

his nomination as regimental surgeon to the 1st regiment in Sennaar,

including that of physician to the central hospital at Chartum. Our

friends were concerned for us on account of the dangerous climate,

but, nevertheless, we sailed with good courage up the Nile, happy

to escape from the noise of the city, and to be on our way to new

scenes."

A stroke of the sun, received near the cataract of Ariman in

Upper Nubia, and followed by ten days' delirium, soon convinced

the younger Werne that his friends' anxiety on his behalf was

not groundless. During the whole of their twelvemonth's stay at

Chartum, they were mercilessly persecuted by intermittent fever,

there most malignant, and under whose torturing and lowering attacks

their sole consolation was that, as they never chanced both to be

ill together, they were able alternately to nurse each other. At

last, fearing that body or mind would succumb to these reiterated

fever-fits, and the first expedition up the White Nile having, to

their great disgust and disappointment, sailed without them, they

made up their minds to quit for ever the pestiferous Chartum and the

burning steppes of Bellad-Sudan. Whilst preparing for departure,

they received a visit from the chief Cadi, who told them, over a

glass of cardinal--administered by Dr Werne as medicine, to evade

his Mahomedan scruples--that Effendina (Excellency) Achmet Bascha

was well pleased with the brotherly love they manifested, taking

care of each other in sickness, and that they would do well to pay

their respects occasionally at the Divan. This communication was

almost immediately followed by the arrival at Chartum of Dr Gand,

physician to Abbas Bascha. This gentleman had been a comrade of

Ferdinand Werne's in Greece, and he recommended the two brothers to

Achmet, with whom he was intimate, in true Oriental style, as men

of universal genius and perfect integrity, to whom he might intrust

both his body and his soul. The consequence of this liberal encomium

was, that Achmet fixed his eyes upon them to accompany him, in

the capacity of confidential advisers, upon a projected campaign.

Informed of this plan and of the advantages it included, the Wernes

joyfully abandoned their proposed departure. Joseph was to be

made house-physician to Achmet and his harem, as well as medical

inspector of the whole province, in place of Soliman Effendi, (the

renegade Baron di Pasquali of Palermo,) a notorious poisoner, in

whose hands the Bascha did not consider himself safe. Ferdinand

Werne, who had held the rank of captain in Greece, was made

_bimbaschi_ or major, and was attached, as engineer, to Achmet's

person, with good pay and many privileges. "At a later period he

would have made me bey, if I--not on his account, for he was an

enlightened Circassian, but on that of the Turkish jackasses--would

have turned Mussulman. I laughed at this, and he said no more about

it." Delighted to have secured the services of the two Germans,

Achmet ordered it to be reported to his father-in-law, Mehemet Ali,

for his approval, and took counsel with his new officers concerning

the approaching campaign. Turk-like, he proposed commencing it in

the rainy season. Mr Werne opposed this as likely to cost him half

his army, the soldiers being exceedingly susceptible to rain, and

advised the erection of blockhouses at certain points along the

line of march where springs were to be found, to secure water for

the troops. The Bascha thought this rather a roundabout mode of

proceeding, held his men's lives very cheap, and boasted of his

seven hundred dromedaries, every one of which, in case of need,

could carry three soldiers. His counsellors were dismissed, with

injunctions to secresy, and on their return home they found at their

door, as a present from the Bascha, two beautiful dromedaries,

tall, powerful, ready saddled for a march, and particularly adapted

for a campaign, inasmuch as they started not when muskets were

fired between their ears. A few days later, Mr Werne was sent

for by Achmet, who, when the customary coffee had been taken,

dismissed his attendants by a sign, and informed him, with a gloomy

countenance, that the people of Taka refused to pay their _tulba_,

or tribute. His predecessor, Churdschid Bascha, having marched into

that country, had been totally defeated in a _chaaba_, or tract of

forest. Since that time, Achmet mournfully declared, the tribes had

not paid a single piastre, and he found himself grievously in want

of money. So, instead of marching south-westward to Darfour, as he

had intended, he would move north-eastward to Taka, chastise the

stubborn insolvents, and replenish the coffers of the state. "Come

with me," said he, to Mr Werne; "upon the march we shall all recover

our health," (he also suffered from frequent and violent attacks of

fever;) "yonder are water and forests, as in Germany and Circassia,

and very high mountains." It mattered little to so restless and

rambling a spirit as Mr Ferdinand Werne whether his route lay inland

towards the Mountains of the Moon, or coastwards to the Red Sea. His

brother was again sick, and spoke of leaving the country; but Mr

Werne cheered him up, pointed out to him upon the map an imaginary

duchy which he was to conquer in the approaching war, and revived

an old plan of going to settle at Bagdad, there to practise as

physician and apothecary. "We resolved, therefore, to take our

passports with us, so that, if we chose, we might embark on the Red

Sea. By this time I had seen through the Bascha, and I resolved to

communicate to him an idea which I often, in the interest of these

oppressed tribes, had revolved in my mind, namely, that he should

place himself at their head, and renounce obedience to the Egyptian

vampire. I did subsequently speak to him of the plan, and it might

have been well and permanently carried out, had he not, instead of

striving to win the confidence of the chiefs, tyrannised over them

in every possible manner. Gold and regiments! was his motto."

Meanwhile the influential Dr Gand had fallen seriously ill, and

was so afflicted with the irritability already referred to as a

consequence of the climate, that no one could go near him but the

two Wernes. He neglected Joseph's good advice to quit Chartum at

once, put it off till it was too late, and died on his journey

northwards. His body lay buried for a whole year in the sand of the

desert; then his family, who were going to France, dug it up to take

with them. Always a very thin man, little more than skin and bone,

the burning sand had preserved him like a mummy. There was no change

in his appearance; not a hair gone from his mustaches. Strange is

the confusion and alternation of life and death in that ardent

and unwholesome land of Nubia. To-day in full health, to-morrow

prostrate with fever, from which you recover only to be again

attacked. Dead, in twenty-four hours or less corruption is busy on

the corpse; bury it promptly in the sand, and in twelve months you

may disinter it, perfect as if embalmed. At Chartum, the very focus

of disease, death, it might be thought, is sufficiently supplied by

fever to need no other purveyors. Nevertheless poisoning seems a

pretty common practice there. Life in Chartum is altogether, by Mr

Werne's account, a most curious thing. During the preparations for

the campaign, a Wurtemberg prince, Duke Paul William of Mergentheim,

arrived in the place, and was received with much pomp. "For the

first time I saw the Bascha sit upon a chair; he was in full

uniform, a red jacket adorned with gold, a great diamond crescent,

and three brilliant stars upon his left breast, his sabre by his

side." The prince, a fat good-humoured German, was considerably

impressed by the state displayed, and left the presence with many

obeisances. The next day he dined with the Bascha, whom he and the

Wernes hoped to see squatted on the ground, and feeding with his

fingers. They were disappointed; the table was arranged in European

fashion; wine of various kinds was there, especially champagne,

(which the servants, notwithstanding Werne's remonstrances, insisted

on shaking before opening, and which consequently flew about the

room in foaming fountains;) bumper-toasts were drunk; and the

whole party, Franks and Turks, seem to have gradually risen into

a glorious state of intoxication, during which they vowed eternal

friendship to each other in all imaginable tongues; and the German

prince declared he would make the campaign to Taka with the Bascha,

draw out the plan, and overwhelm the enemy. This jovial meeting

was followed by a quieter entertainment given by the Wernes to the

prince, who declared he was travelling as a private gentleman, and

wished to be treated accordingly; and then Soliman Effendi, the

Sicilian renegade, made a respectful application for permission to

invite the "_Altezza Tedesca_," for whom he had conceived a great

liking. A passage from Mr Werne is here worth quoting, as showing

the state of society at Chartum. "I communicated the invitation,

with the remark that the Sicilian was notorious for his poisonings,

but that I had less fear on his highness' account than on that of

my brother, who was already designated to replace him in his post.

The prince did not heed the danger; moreover, I had put myself on a

peculiar footing with Soliman Effendi, and now told him plainly that

he had better keep his vindictive manœuvres for others than us,

for that my brother and I should go to dinner with loaded pistols

in our pockets, and would shoot him through the head (_brucciare

il cervello_) if one of us three felt as much as a belly-ache at

his table. The dinner was served in the German fashion; all the

guests came, except Vaissière (formerly a French captain, now a

slave-dealer, with the cross of the legion of honour.) He would

not trust Soliman, who was believed to have poisoned a favourite

female-slave of his after a dispute they had about money matters.

The dinner went off merrily and well. The duke changed his mind

about going to Taka, but promised to join in the campaign on his

return from Fàszogl, and bade me promise the Bascha in his name a

crocodile-rifle and a hundred bottles of champagne."

Long and costly were the preparations for the march; the more so

that Mr Werne and his brother, who saw gleaming in the distance the

golden cupolas of Bagdad, desired to take all their baggage with

them, and also sufficient stores for the campaign--not implicitly

trusting to the Bascha's promise that his kitchen and table should

be always at their service. Ten camels were needed to carry the

brothers' baggage. One of their greatest troubles was to know how

to dispose of their collection of beasts and birds. "The young

maneless lion, our greatest joy, was dead--Soliman Effendi, who

was afraid of him, having dared to poison him, as I learned, after

the renegade's death, from one of our own people." But of birds

there were a host; eagles, vultures, king-cranes, (_grus pavonina_,

Linn.;) a snake-killing secretary, with his beautiful eagle head,

long tail, and heron legs; strange varieties of water-fowl, many

of which had been shot, but had had the pellets extracted and the

wounds healed by the skill of Dr Werne; and last, but most beloved,

"a pet black horn-bird, (_buceros abyss._ L.,) who hopped up to us

when we called out 'Jack!'--who picked up with his long curved beak

the pieces of meat that were thrown to him, tossed them into the air

and caught them again, (whereat the Prince of Wurtemberg laughed

till he held his sides,) because nature has provided him with too

short a tongue; but who did not despise frogs and lizards, and who

called us at daybreak with his persevering '_Hum, hum_,' until we

roused ourselves and answered 'Jack.'" Their anxiety on account of

their aviary was relieved by the Bascha's wife, who condescendingly

offered to take charge of it during their absence. Mehemet Ali's

daughter suffered dreadfully from ennui in dull, unwholesome

Chartum, and reckoned on the birds and beasts as pastime and

diversion. Thus, little by little, difficulties were overcome, and

all was made ready for the march. A Bolognese doctor of medicine,

named Bellotti, and Dumont, a French apothecary, arrived at Chartum.

They belonged to an Egyptian regiment, and must accompany it on the

_chasua_.[2] Troops assembled in and around Chartum, the greater

part of whose garrison, destined also to share in the campaign, were

boated over to the right bank of the Blue Nile. Thence they were

to march northwards to Damer--once a town, now a village amidst

ruins--situated about three leagues above the place where the

Atbara, a river that rises in Abyssinia, and flows north-westward

through Sennaar, falls into the Nile. There the line of march

changed its direction to the right, and took a tolerably straight

route, but inclining a little to the south, in the direction of the

Red Sea. The Bascha went by water down the Nile the greater part of

the way to Damer, and was of course attended by his physician. Mr

Werne, finding himself unwell, followed his example, sending their

twelve camels by land, and accompanied by Bellotti, Dumont, and a

Savoyard merchant from Chartum, Bruno Rollet by name. There was

great difficulty in getting a vessel, all having been taken for the

transport of provisions and military stores; but at last one was

discovered, sunk by its owner to save it from the commissariat, and

after eleven days of sickness, suffering, and peril--during which Mr

Werne, when burning with fever, had been compelled to jump overboard

to push the heavy laden boat off the reef on which the stupid Rëis

had run it--the party rejoined headquarters. There Mr Werne was

kindly received by Achmet, and most joyfully by his brother. Long

and dolorous was the tale Dr Joseph had to tell of his sufferings

with the wild-riding Bascha. Three days before reaching Damer, that

impatient chieftain left his ship and ordered out the dromedaries.

The Berlin doctor of medicine felt his heart sink within him; he had

never yet ascended a dromedary's saddle, and the desperate riding

of the Bascha made his own Turkish retinue fear to follow him. His

forebodings were well-founded. Two hours' rough trot shook up his

interior to such an extent, and so stripped his exterior of skin,

that he was compelled to dismount and lie down upon some brushwood

near the Nile, exposed to the burning sun, and with a compassionate

Bedouin for sole attendant, until the servants and baggage came up.

Headache, vomiting, terrible heat and parching thirst--for he had

no drinking vessel, and the Bedouin would not leave him--were his

portion the whole day, followed by fever and delirium during the

night. At two o'clock the next day (the hottest time) the Bascha was

again in the saddle, as if desirous to try to the utmost his own

endurance and that of his suite. By this time the doctor had come

up with him, (having felt himself better in the morning,) after a

six hours' ride, and terrible loss of leather, the blood running

down into his stockings. Partly on his dromedary, partly on foot,

he managed to follow his leader through this second day's march,

at the cost of another night's fever, but in the morning he was

so weak that he was obliged to take boat and complete his journey

to Damer by water. Of more slender frame and delicate complexion

than his brother, the poor doctor was evidently ill-adapted for

roughing it in African deserts, although his pluck and fortitude

went far towards supplying his physical deficiencies. Most painful

are the accounts of his constantly recurring sufferings during

that arduous expedition; and one cannot but admire and wonder at

the zeal for science, or ardent thirst for novelty, that supported

him, and induced him to persevere in the teeth of such hardship and

ill-health. At Damer he purchased a small dromedary of easy paces,

and left the Bascha's rough-trotting gift for his brother's riding.

[2] "The word _chasua_ signifies an expedition along the frontier,

or rather _across_ the frontier, for the capture of men and beasts.

These slave-hunts are said to have been first introduced here by the

Turks, and the word chasua is not believed to be indigenous, since

for war and battle are otherwise used _harba_ (properly a lance)

and _schàmmata_. _Chasua_ and _razzia_ appear to be synonymous,

corrupted from the Italian _cazzia_, in French _chasse_."--_Feldzug

von Sennaar_, &c., p. 17.

At three in the afternoon of the 20th March, a cannon-shot gave the

signal for departure. The Wernes' water-skins were already filled

and their baggage packed; in an instant their tents were struck and

camels loaded; with baggage and servants they took their place at

the head of the column and rode up to the Bascha, who was halted

to the east of Damer, with his beautiful horses and dromedaries

standing saddled behind him. He complained of the great disorder

in the camp, but consoled himself with the reflection that things

would go better by-and-by. "It was truly a motley scene," says

Mr Werne. "The Turkish cavalry in their national costume of many

colours, with yellow and green banners and small kettle-drums; the

Schaïgië and Mograbin horsemen; Bedouins on horseback, on camels,

and on foot; the Schechs and Moluks (little king) with their

armour-bearers behind them on the dromedaries, carrying pikes and

lances, straight swords and leather shields; the countless donkeys

and camels--the former led by a great portion of the infantry, to

ride in turn--drums and an ear-splitting band of music, The Chabir

(caravan-leader) was seen in the distance mounted on his dromedary,

and armed with a lance and round shield; the Bascha bestrode his

horse, and we accompanied him in that direction, whilst gradually,

and in picturesque disorder, the detachments emerged from the

monstrous confusion and followed us. The artillery consisted of two

field-pieces, drawn by camels, which the Bascha had had broken to

the work, that in the desert they might relieve the customary team

of mules.

"Abd-el-Kader, the jovial Topschi Baschi, (chief of the artillery,)

commanded them, and rode a mule. The Turks, (that is to say, chiefly

Circassians, Kurds, and Arnauts or Albanians,) who shortly before

could hardly put one leg before the other, seemed transformed

into new men, as they once more found themselves at home in their

saddles. They galloped round the Bascha like madmen, riding their

horses as mercilessly as if they had been drunk with opium. This

was a sort of honorary demonstration, intended to indicate to their

chief their untameable valour. The road led through the desert, and

was tolerably well beaten. Towards evening the Bascha rode forwards

with the Chabir. We did not follow, for I felt myself unwell. It was

dark night when we reached the left bank of the Atbara, where we

threw ourselves down amongst the bushes, and went to sleep, without

taking supper."

The campaign might now be said to be beginning; at least the army

was close upon tribes whose disposition, if not avowedly hostile,

was very equivocal, and the Bascha placed a picket of forty men at

the only ford over the Atbara, a clear stream of tolerable depth,

and with lofty banks, covered with rich grass, with mimosas and

lofty fruit-laden palm-trees. The next day's march was a severe

one--ten hours without a halt--and was attended, after nightfall,

with some danger, arising partly from the route lying through

trees with barbed thorns, strong enough to tear the clothes off

men's bodies and the eyes out of their heads, and partly from the

crowding and pressure in the disorderly column during its progress

amongst holes and chasms occasioned by the overflowing of the river.

Upon halting, at midnight, a fire was lighted for the Bascha, and

one of his attendants brought coffee to Mr Werne; but he, sick

and weary, rejected it, and would have preferred, he says, so

thoroughly exhausted did he feel, a nap under a bush to a supper

upon a roasted angel. They were still ascending the bank of the

Atbara, a winding stream, with wildly beautiful tree-fringed banks,

containing few fish, but giving shelter, in its deep places, to

the crocodile and hippopotamus. From the clefts of its sandstone

bed, then partially exposed by the decline of the waters, sprang a

lovely species of willow, with beautiful green foliage and white

umbelliferous flowers, having a perfume surpassing that of jasmine.

The Wernes would gladly, have explored the neighbourhood; but the

tremendous heat, and a warm wind which played round their temples

with a sickening effect, drove them into camp. Gunfire was at noon

upon that day; but it was Mr Werne's turn to be on the sick-list.

Suddenly he felt himself so ill, that it was with a sort of

despairing horror he saw the tent struck from over him, loaded upon

a camel, and driven off. In vain he endeavoured to rise; the sun

seemed to dart coals of fire upon his head. His brother and servant

carried him into the shadow of a neighbouring palm-tree, and he sank

half-dead upon the glowing sand. It would suffice to abide there

during the heat of the day, as they thought, but instead of that,

they were compelled to remain till next morning, Werne suffering

terribly from dysentery. "Never in my life," he says, "did I more

ardently long for the setting of the sun than on that day; even

its last rays exercised the same painful power on my hair, which

seemed to be in a sort of electric connection with just as many

sunbeams, and to bristle up upon my head. And no sooner had the

luminary which inspired me with such horror sunk below the horizon,

than I felt myself better, and was able to get on my legs and crawl

slowly about. Some good-natured Arab shepherd-lads approached our

fire, pitied me, and brought me milk and durra-bread. It was a

lovely evening; the full moon was reflected in the Atbara, as were

also the dark crowns of the palm-trees, wild geese shrieked around

us; otherwise the stillness was unbroken, save at intervals by the

cooing of doves. There is something beautiful in sleeping in the

open air, when weather and climate are suitable. We awoke before

sunrise, comforted, and got upon our dromedaries; but after a couple

of hours' ride we mistrusted the sun, and halted with some wandering

Arabs belonging to the Kabyle of the Kammarabs. We were hospitably

received, and regaled with milk and bread."[3]

[3] These Kammarabs possess a tract on the left or south bank of

the Atbara. The distribution of the different tribes, as well as

the line of march and other particulars, are very clearly displayed

in the appropriate little map accompanying Mr Werne's volume.

Opposite to the Kammarabs, "on the right bank of the Atbara, are the

Anafidabs, of the race or family of the Bischari. They form a Kabyle

(band or community) under a Schech of their own. How it is that the

French in Algiers persist in using _Kabyle_ as the proper name of a

nation and a country, I cannot understand."--_Feldzug von Sennaar_,

p. 32.

When our two Germans rejoined headquarters, after four days'

absence, they found Achmet Bascha seated in the shade upon the

ground in front of his tent, much burned by the sun, and looking

fagged and suffering--as well he might be after the heat and

exposure he had voluntarily undergone. Nothing could cure him,

however, at least as yet, of his fancy for marching in the heat of

the day. Although obstinate and despotic, the Bascha was evidently

a dashing sort of fellow, well calculated to win the respect and

admiration of his wild and heterogeneous army. Weary as were the

two Wernes, (they reached the camp at noon,) at two o'clock they

had to be again in the saddle. "A number of gazelles were started;

the Bascha seized a gun and dashed after them upon his Arabian

stallion, almost the whole of the cavalry scouring after him like

a wild mob, and we ourselves riding a sharp trot to witness the

chase. We thought he had fallen from his horse, so suddenly did he

swing himself from saddle to ground, killing three gazelles with

three shots, of which animals we consumed a considerable portion

roasted for that night's supper." The river here widened, and

crocodiles showed themselves upon the opposite shore. The day was

terribly warm; the poor medico was ill again, suffering grievously

from his head, and complaining of _his hair being so hot_; and as

the Salamander Bascha persisted in marching under a sun which,

through the canvass of the tents, heated sabres and musket-barrels

till it was scarcely possible to grasp them, the brothers again

lingered behind and followed in the cool of the evening, Joseph

being mounted upon an easy-going mule lent him by Topschi Baschi,

the good-humoured but dissolute captain of the guns. They were now

divided but by the river's breadth from the hostile tribe of the

Haddenda, and might at any moment be assailed; so two hours after

sunset a halt was called and numerous camp-fires were lighted,

producing a most picturesque effect amongst the trees, and by their

illumination of the diversified costumes of the soldiery, and

attracting a whole regiment of scorpions, "some of them remarkably

fine specimens," says Mr Werne, who looks upon these unpleasant

fireside companions with a scientific eye, "a finger and a half

long, of a light colour, half of the tail of a brown black and

covered with hair." It is a thousand pities that the adventurous Mrs

Ida Pfeiffer did not accompany Mr Werne upon this expedition. She

would have had the finest possible opportunities of curing herself

of the prejudice which it will be remembered she was so weak as to

entertain against the scorpion tribe. These pleasant reptiles were

as plentiful all along Mr Werne's line of march as are cockchafers

on a summer evening in an English oak-copse. Their visitations were

pleasantly varied by those of snakes of all sizes, and of various

degrees of venom. "At last," says Mr Werne, "one gets somewhat

indifferent about scorpions and other wild animals." He had greater

difficulty in accustoming himself to the sociable habits of the

snakes, who used to glide about amongst tents and baggage, and by

whom, in the course of the expedition, a great number of persons

were bitten. On the 12th April "Mohammed Ladham sent us a remarkable

scorpion--pity that it is so much injured--almost two fingers long,

black-brown, tail and feet covered with prickly hair, claws as large

as those of a small crab.... We had laid us down under a green tree

beside a cotton plantation, whilst our servants unloaded the camels

and pitched the tents, when a snake, six feet long, darted from

under our carpet, passed over my leg, and close before my brother's

face. But we were so exhausted that we lay still, and some time

afterwards the snake was brought to us, one of Schech Defalla's

people having killed it." About noon next day a similar snake sprang

out of the said Defalla's own tent; it was killed also, and found to

measure six feet two inches. The soldiers perceiving that the German

physician and his brother were curious in the matter of reptiles,

brought them masses of serpents; but they had got a notion that the

flesh was the part coveted (not the skin) to make medicine, and most

of the specimens were so defaced as to be valueless. Early in May

"some soldiers assured us they had seen in the thicket a serpent

twenty feet long, and as thick as a man's leg; probably a species

of boa--a pity that they could not kill it. The great number of

serpents with dangerous bites makes our bivouac very unsafe, and we

cannot encamp with any feeling of security near bushes or amongst

brushwood; the prick of a blade of straw, the sting of the smallest

insect, causes a hasty movement, for one immediately fancies it

is a snake or scorpion; and when out shooting, one's _second_

glance is for the game, one's _first_ on the ground at his feet,

for fear of trampling and irritating some venomous reptile." As

we proceed through the volume we shall come to other accounts of

beasts and reptiles, so remarkable as really almost to reconcile

us to the possibility of some of the zoological marvels narrated

by the Yankee Doctor Mayo in his rhapsody of Kaloolah.[4] For the

present we must revert to the business of this curiously-conducted

campaign. As the army advanced, various chiefs presented themselves,

with retinues more or less numerous. The first of these was the

Grand-Shech Mohammed Defalla, already named, who came up, with a

great following, on the 28th March. He was a man of herculean frame;

and assuredly such was very necessary to enable him to endure in

that climate the weight of his defensive arms. He wore a double

shirt of mail over a quilted doublet, arm-plates and beautifully

wrought steel gauntlets; his casque fitted like a shell to the upper

part of his head, and had in front, in lieu of a visor, an iron

bar coming down over the nose--behind, for the protection of the

nape, a fringe composed of small rings. His straight-bladed sword

had a golden hilt. The whole equipment, which seems to correspond

very closely with that of some of the Sikhs or other warlike Indian

tribes, proceeded from India, and Defalla had forty or fifty such

suits of arms. About the same time with him, arrived two Schechs

from the refractory land of Taka, tall handsome men; whilst, from

the environs of the neighbouring town of Gos-Rajeb, a number of

people rode out on dromedaries to meet the Bascha, their hair quite

white with camel-fat, which melted in the sun and streamed over

their backs. Gos-Rajeb, situated at about a quarter of a mile from

the left bank of the Atbara, consists of some two hundred _tokul_

(huts) and clay-built houses, and in those parts is considered

an important commercial depot, Indian goods being transported

thither on camels from the port of Souakim, on the Red Sea. The

inhabitants are of various tribes, more of them red than black

or brown; but few were visible, many having fled at the approach

of Achmet's army, which passed the town in imposing array--the

infantry in double column in the centre, the Turkish cavalry on the

right, the Schaïgiës and Mograbins on the left, the artillery, with

kettledrums, cymbals, and other music, in the van--marched through

the Atbara, there very shallow, and encamped on the right bank, in

a stony and almost treeless plain, at the foot of two rocky hills.

The Bascha ordered the Shech of Gos-Rajeb to act as guide to the

Wernes in their examination of the vicinity, and to afford them all

the information in his power. The most remarkable spot to which

he conducted them was to the site of an ancient city, which once,

according to tradition, had been as large as Cairo, and inhabited

by Christians. The date of its existence must be very remote, for

the ground was smooth, and the sole trace of buildings consisted in

a few heaps of broken bricks. There were indications of a terrible

conflagration, the bricks in one place being melted together into a

black glazed mass. Mr Werne could trace nothing satisfactory with

respect to former Christian occupants, and seems disposed to think

that Burckhardt, who speaks of Christian monuments at that spot, (in

the neighbourhood of the hill of Herrerem,) may have been misled by

certain peculiarly formed rocks.

[4] _Blackwood's Magazine_, No. CCCCIV., for June 1849.

The most renowned chief of the mutinous tribes of Taka, the

conqueror of the Turks under Churdschid Bascha, was Mohammed Din,

Grand-Schech of the Haddenda. This personage, awed by the approach

of Achmet's formidable force, sent his son to the advancing

Bascha, as a hostage for his loyalty and submission. Achmet sent

the young man back to his father as bearer of his commands. The

next day the army crossed the frontier of Taka, which is not

very exactly defined, left the Atbara in their rear, and, moving

still eastwards, beheld before them, in the far distance, the

blue mountains of Abyssinia. The Bascha's suite was now swelled

by the arrival of numerous Schechs, great and small, with their

esquires and attendants. The route lay through a thick forest,

interwoven with creeping plants and underwood, and with thorny

mimosas, which grew to a great height. The path was narrow, the

confusion of the march inconceivably great and perilous, and if

the enemy had made a vigorous attack with their javelins, which

they are skilled in throwing, the army must have endured great

loss, with scarcely a possibility of inflicting any. At last the

scattered column reached an open space, covered with grass, and

intersected with deep narrow rills of water. The Bascha, who had

outstripped his troops, was comfortably encamped, heedless of their

fate, whilst they continued for a long time to emerge in broken

parties from the wood. Mr Werne's good opinion of his generalship

had been already much impaired, and this example of true Turkish

indolence, and of the absence of any sort of military dispositions

under such critical circumstances, completely destroyed it. The

next day there was some appearance of establishing camp-guards,

and of taking due precautions against the fierce and numerous

foe, who on former occasions had thrice defeated Turkish armies,

and from whom an attack might at any moment be expected. In the

afternoon an alarm was given; the Bascha, a good soldier, although

a bad general, was in the saddle in an instant, and gallopping

to the spot, followed by all his cavalry, whilst the infantry

rushed confusedly in the same direction. The uproar had arisen,

however, not from Arab assailants, but from some soldiers who had

discovered extensive corn magazines--_silos_, as they are called

in Algeria--holes in the ground, filled with grain, and carefully

covered over. By the Bascha's permission, the soldiers helped

themselves from these abundant granaries, and thus the army found

itself provided with corn for the next two months. In the course of

the disorderly distribution, or rather scramble, occurred a little

fight between the Schaïgië, a quarrelsome set of irregulars, and

some of the Turks. Nothing could be worse than the discipline of

Achmet's host. The Schaïgiës were active and daring horsemen, and

were the first to draw blood in the campaign, in a skirmish upon

the following day with some ambushed Arabs. The neighbouring woods

swarmed with these javelin-bearing gentry, although they lay close,

and rarely showed themselves, save when they could inflict injury

at small risk. Mr Werne began to doubt the possibility of any

extensive or effectual operations against these wild and wandering

tribes, who, on the approach of the army, loaded their goods on

camels, and fled into the _Chaaba_, or forest district, whither

it was impossible to follow them. Where was the Bascha to find

money and food for the support of his numerous army?--where was

he to quarter it during the dangerous _Chariff_, or rainy season?

He was very reserved as to his plans; probably, according to Mr

Werne, because he had none. The Schechs who had joined and marched

with him could hardly be depended upon, when it was borne in mind

that they, formerly the independent rulers of a free people, had

been despoiled of their power and privileges, and were now the

ill-used vassals of the haughty and stupid Turks, who overwhelmed

them with imposts, treated them contemptuously, and even subjected

them to the bastinado. "Mohammed Din, seeing the hard lot of these

gentlemen, seems disposed to preserve his freedom as long as

possible, or to sell it as dearly as may be. Should it come to a

war, there is, upon our side, a total want of efficient leaders, at

any rate if we except the Bascha. Abdin Aga, chief of the Turkish

cavalry, a bloated Arnaut; Sorop Effendi, a model of stupidity and

covetousness; Hassan Effendi Bimbaschi, a quiet sot; Soliman Aga,

greedy, and without the slightest education of any kind; Hassan

Effendi of Sennaar, a Turk in the true sense of the word (these

four are infantry commanders); Mohammed Ladjam, a good-natured but

inexperienced fellow, chief of the Mograbin cavalry: amongst all

these officers, the only difference is, that each is more ignorant

than his neighbour. With such leaders, what can be expected from an

army that, for the most part, knows no discipline--the Schaïgiës,

for instance, doing just what they please, and being in a fair way

to corrupt all the rest--and that is encumbered with an endless

train of dangerous rabble, idlers, slaves, and women of pleasure,

serving as a burthen and hindrance? Let us console ourselves with

the _Allah kerim!_ (God is merciful.)" Mr Werne had not long to

wait for a specimen of Turkish military skill. On the night of the

7th April he was watching in his tent beside his grievously sick

brother, when there suddenly arose an uproar in the camp, followed

by firing. "I remained by our tent, for my brother was scarcely able

to stir, and the infantry also remained quiet, trusting to their

mounted comrades. But when I saw Bimbaschi Hassan Effendi lead a

company past us, and madly begin to fire over the powder-waggons,

as if these were meant to serve as barricades against the hostile

lances, I ran up to him with my sabre drawn, and threatened him

with the Bascha, as well as with the weapon, whereupon he came to

his senses, and begged me not to betray him. The whole proved to

be mere noise, but the harassed Bascha was again up and active.

He seemed to make no use of his aides-de-camp, and only his own

presence could inspire his troops with courage. Some of the enemy

were killed, and there were many tracks of blood leading into the

wood, although the firing had been at random in the darkness. As

a specimen of the tactics of our Napoleon-worshipping Bascha, he

allowed the wells, which were at two hundred yards from camp, to

remain unguarded at night, so that they might easily have been

filled up by the enemy. Truly fortunate was it that there were no

great stones in the neighbourhood to choke them up, for we were

totally without implements wherewith to have cleared them out

again." Luckily for this most careless general and helpless army,

the Arabs neglected to profit by their shortcomings, and on the 14th

April, after many negotiations, the renowned Mohammed Din himself,

awed, we must suppose, by the numerical strength of Achmet's troops,

and over-estimating their real value, committed the fatal blunder

of presenting himself in the Turkish camp. Great was the curiosity

to see this redoubted chief, who alighted at Schech Defalla's

tent, into which the soldiers impudently crowded, to get a view of

the man before whom many of them had formerly trembled and fled.

"Mohammed Din is of middle stature, and of a black-brown colour,

like all his people; his countenance at first says little, but,

on longer inspection, its expression is one of great cunning; his

bald head is bare; his dress Arabian, with drawers of a fiery red

colour. His retinue consists, without exception, of most ill-looking

fellows, on whose countenances Nature seems to have done her best

to express the faithless character attributed to the Haddenda.

They are all above the middle height, and armed with shields and

lances, or swords." Next morning Mr Werne saw the Bascha seated

on his _angarèb_, (a sort of bedstead, composed of plaited strips

of camel-hide, which, upon the march, served as a throne,) with a

number of Shechs squatted upon the ground on either side of him,

amongst them Mohammed Din, looking humbled, and as if half-repentant

of his rash step. The Bascha appeared disposed to let him feel that

he was now no better than a caged lion, whose claws the captor can

cut at will. He showed him, however, marks of favour, gave him a red

shawl for a turban, and a purple mantle with gold tassels, but no

sabre, which Mr Werne thought a bad omen. The Schech was suffered to

go to and fro between the camp and his own people, but under certain

control--now with an escort of Schaïgiës, then leaving his son as

hostage. He sent in some cattle and sheep as a present, and promised

to bring the tribute due; this he failed to do, and a time was

fixed to him and the other Shechs within which to pay up arrears.

Notwithstanding the subjection of their chief, the Arabs continued

their predatory practices, stealing camels from the camp, or taking

them by force from the grooms who drove them out to pasture.

Mr Werne's book is a journal, written daily during the campaign but,

owing to the long interval between its writing and publication, he

has found it necessary to make frequent parenthetical additions,

corrective or explanatory. Towards the end of April, during great

sickness in camp, he writes as follows:--"My brother's medical

observations and experiments begin to excite in me a strong

interest. He has promised me that he will keep a medical journal;

but he must first get into better health, for now it is always with

sickening disgust that he returns from visiting his patients; he

complains of the insupportable effluvia from these people, sinks

upon his _angarèb_ with depression depicted in his features, and

falls asleep with open eyes, so that I often feel quite uneasy."

Then comes the parenthesis of ten years' later date. "Subsequently,

when I had joined the expedition for the navigation of the White

Nile, he wrote to me from the camp of Kàssela-el-Lus to Chartum,

that, with great diligence and industry, he had written some

valuable papers on African diseases, and was inconsolable at having

lost them. He had been for ten days dangerously ill, had missed me

sadly, and, in a fit of delirium, when his servant asked him for

paper to light the fire, had handed him his manuscript, which the

stupid fellow had forthwith burned. At the same time, he lamented

that, during his illness, our little menagerie had been starved to

death. The Bascha had been to see him, and by his order Topschi

Baschi had taken charge of his money, that he might not be robbed,

giving the servants what was needful for their keep, and for the

purchase of flesh for the animals. The servants had drunk the money

intended for the beasts' food. When my brother recovered his health,

he had the _fagged_, (a sort of lynx,) which had held out longest,

and was only just dead, cut open, and so convinced himself that

it had died of hunger. The annoyance one has to endure from these

people is beyond conception, and the very mildest-tempered man--as,

for instance, my late brother--is compelled at times to make use of

the whip."

Whilst Mohammed Din and the other Shechs, accompanied by detachments

of Turkish troops, intended partly to support them in their demands,

and partly to reconnoitre the country, endeavoured to get together

the stipulated tribute, the army remained stationary. But repose

did not entail monotony; strange incidents were of daily occurrence

in this singular camp. The Wernes, always anxious for the increase

of their cabinet of stuffed birds and beasts, sent their huntsman

Abdallah with one of the detachments, remaining themselves, for the

present at least, at headquarters, to collect whatever might come

in their way. The commander of the Mograbins sent them an antelope

as big as a donkey, having legs like a cow, and black twisted

horns. From the natives little was to be obtained. They were very

shy and ill-disposed, and could not be prevailed upon, even by

tenfold payment, to supply the things most abundant with them, as

for instance milk and honey. In hopes of alluring and conciliating

them, the Bascha ordered those traders who had accompanied the army

to establish a bazaar outside the fence enclosing the camp. The

little mirrors that were there sold proved a great attraction. The

Arabs would sit for whole days looking in them, and pulling faces.

But no amount of reflection could render them amicable or honest:

they continued to steal camels and asses whenever they could, and

one of them caught a Schaigie's horse, led him up to the camp,

and stabbed him to death. So great was the hatred of these tribes

to their oppressors--a hatred which would have shown itself by

graver aggressions, but for Achmet's large force, and above all,

for their dread of firearms. Within the camp there was wild work

enough at times. The good-hearted, hot-headed Werne was horribly

scandalised by the ill-treatment of the slaves. Dumont, the French

apothecary, had a poor lad named Amber, a mere boy, willing and

industrious, whom he continually beat and kicked, until at last Mr

Werne challenged him to a duel with sabres, and threatened to take

away the slave, which he, as a Frenchman, had no legal right to

possess. But this was nothing compared to the cruelties practised

by other Europeans, and especially at Chartum by one Vigoureux, (a

French corporal who had served under Napoleon, and was now adjutant

of an Egyptian battalion,) and his wife, upon a poor black girl,

only ten years of age, whom they first barbarously flogged, and

then tied to a post, with her bleeding back exposed to the broiling

sun. Informed of this atrocity by his brother, who had witnessed

it, Mr Werne sprang from his sickbed, and flew to the rescue, armed

with his sabre, and with a well-known iron stick, ten pounds in

weight, which had earned him the nickname of Abu-Nabut, or Father

of the Stick. A distant view of his incensed countenance sufficed,

and the Frenchman, cowardly as cruel, hastened to release his

victim, and to humble himself before her humane champion. Concerning

this corporal and his dame, whom he had been to France to fetch,

and who was brought to bed on camel-back, under a burning sun,

in the midst of the desert, some curious reminiscences are set

down in the _Feldzug_, as are also some diverting details of the

improprieties of the dissipated gunner Topschi Baschi, who, on the

1st May, brought dancing-girls into the hut occupied by the two

Germans, and assembled a mob round it by the indecorous nature of

his proceedings. Regulations for the internal order and security of

the camp were unheard of. After a time, tents were pitched over the

ammunition; a ditch was dug around it, and strict orders were given

to light no fire in its vicinity. All fires, too, by command of the

Bascha, were to be extinguished when the evening gun was fired.

For a short time the orders were obeyed; then they were forgotten;

fires were seen blazing late at night, and within fifteen paces of

the powder. Nothing but the bastinado could give memory to these

reckless fatalists. "I have often met ships upon the Nile, so laden

with straw that there was scarcely room for the sailors to work

the vessel. No matter for that; in the midst of the straw a mighty

kitchen-fire was merrily blazing."

On the 6th of May, the two Wernes mounted their dromedaries and set

off, attended by one servant, and with a guide provided by Mohammed

Defalla, for the village of El Soffra, at a distance of two and a

half leagues, where they expected to find Mohammed Din and a large

assemblage of his tribe. It was rather a daring thing to advance

thus unescorted into the land of the treacherous Haddendas, and

the Bascha gave his consent unwillingly; but Mussa, (Moses,) the

Din's only son, was hostage in the camp, and they deemed themselves

safer alone than with the half company of soldiers Achmet wanted

to send with them. Their route lay due east, at first through

fields of _durra_, (a sort of grain,) afterwards through forests of

saplings. The natives they met greeted them courteously, and they

reached El Soffra without molestation, but there learned, to their

considerable annoyance, that Mohammed Din had gone two leagues and

a half farther, to the camp of his nephew Shech Mussa, at Mitkenàb.

So, after a short pause, they again mounted their camels, and rode

off, loaded with maledictions by the Arabs, because they would

not remain and supply them with medicine, although the same Arabs

refused to requite the drugs with so much as a cup of milk. They

rode for more than half an hour before emerging from the straggling

village, which was composed of wretched huts made of palm-mats,

having an earthen cooking-vessel, a leathern water-bottle, and two

stones for bruising corn, for sole furniture. The scanty dress of

the people--some of the men had nothing but a leathern apron round

their hips, and a sheep-skin, with the wool inwards, over their

shoulders--their long hair and wild countenances, gave them the

appearance of thorough savages. In the middle of every village

was an open place, where the children played stark naked in the

burning sun, their colour and their extraordinarily nimble movements

combining, says Mr Werne, to give them the appearance of a troop

of young imps. Infants, which in Europe would lie helpless in the

cradle, are there seen rolling in the sand, with none to mind them,

and playing with the young goats and other domestic animals. In that

torrid climate, the development of the human frame is wonderfully

rapid. Those women of whom the travellers caught a sight in this

large village, which consisted of upwards of two thousand huts and

tents, were nearly all old and ugly. The young ones, when they by

chance encountered the strangers, covered their faces, and ran away.

On the road to Mitkenàb, however, some young and rather handsome

girls showed themselves. "They all looked at us with great wonder,"

says Mr Werne, "and took us for Turks, for we are the first Franks

who have come into this country."

Mitkenàb, pleasantly situated amongst lofty trees, seemed to

invite the wanderers to cool shelter from the mid-day sun. They

were parched with thirst when they entered it, but not one of the

inquisitive Arabs who crowded around them would attend to their

request for a draught of milk or water. Here, however, was Mohammed

Din, and with him a party of Schaïgiës under Melek Mahmud, whom

they found encamped under a great old tree, with his fifty horsemen

around him. After they had taken some refreshment, the Din came to

pay them a visit. He refused to take the place offered him on an

_angarèb_, but sat down upon the ground, giving them to understand,

with a sneering smile, that _that_ was now the proper place for

him. "We had excellent opportunity to examine the physiognomy of

this Schech, who is venerated like a demigod by all the Arabs

between the Atbara and the Red Sea. 'He is a brave man,' they say,

'full of courage; there is no other like him!' His face is fat and

round, with small grey-brown, piercing, treacherous-looking eyes,

expressing both the cunning and the obstinacy of his character;

his nose is well-proportioned and slightly flattened; his small

mouth constantly wears a satirical scornful smile. But for this

expression and his thievish glance, his bald crown and well-fed

middle-sized person would become a monk's hood. He goes with his

head bare, wears a white cotton shirt and _ferda_, and sandals on

his feet.... We told him that he was well known to the Franks as

a great hero; he shook his head and said that on the salt lake,

at Souakim, he had seen great ships with cannon, but that he did

not wish the help of the Inglèb (English;) then he said something

else, which was not translated to us. I incautiously asked him, how

numerous his nation was. 'Count the trees,' he replied, glancing

ironically around him; (a poll-tax constituted a portion of the

tribute.) Conversation through an interpreter was so wearisome that

we soon took our leave." At Mitkenàb they were upon the borders

of the great forest (Chaaba) that extends from the banks of the

Atbara to the shores of the Red Sea. It contains comparatively few

lofty trees--most of these getting uprooted by hurricanes, when the

rainy season has softened the ground round their roots--but a vast

deal of thicket and dense brushwood, affording shelter to legions

of wild beasts; innumerable herds of elephants, rhinoceroses,

lions, tigers, giraffes, various inferior beasts, and multitudes

of serpents of the most venomous description. For fear of these

unpleasant neighbours, no Arab at Mitkenàb quits his dwelling after

nightfall. "When we returned to the wells, a little before sundown,

we found all the Schaïgiës on the move, to take up their quarters in

an enclosure outside the village, partly on account of the beasts

of prey, especially the lions, which come down to drink of a night,

partly for safety from the unfriendly Arabs. We went with them

and encamped with Mammud in the middle of the enclosure. We slept

soundly the night through, only once aroused by the hoarse cries of

the hyenas, which were sneaking about the village, setting all the

dogs barking. To insure our safety, Mohammed Din himself slept at

our door--so well-disposed were his people towards us." A rumour had

gained credit amongst the Arabs, that the two mysterious strangers

were, sent by Achmet to reconnoitre the country for the Bascha's own

advance; and so incensed were they at this, that, although their

beloved chief's son was a hostage in the Turkish camp, it was only

by taking bypaths, under guidance of a young relative of Schech

Mussa's, that the Wernes were able to regain their camp in safety.

A few days after their return they were both attacked by bad fever,

which for some time prevented them from writing. They lost their

reckoning, and thenceforward the journal is continued without dates.

The Bascha grew weary of life in camp, and pined after action. In

vain did the Schaïgiës toss the djereed, and go through irregular

tournaments and sham fights for his diversion; in vain did he

rattle the dice with Topschi Baschi; vain were the blandishments

of an Abyssinian beauty whom he had quartered in a hut surrounded

with a high fence, and for whose amusement he not unfrequently had

nocturnal serenades performed by the band of the 8th regiment; to

which brassy and inharmonious challenge the six thousand donkeys

assembled in camp never failed to respond by an ear-splitting bray,

whilst the numerous camels bellowed a bass: despite all these

amusements, the Bascha suffered from ennui. He was furious when

he saw how slowly and scantily came in the tribute for which he

had made this long halt. Some three hundred cows were all that had

yet been delivered; a ridiculously small number contrasted with

the vast herds possessed by those tribes. Achmet foamed with rage

at this ungrateful return for his patience and consideration. He

reproached the Schechs who were with him, and sent for Mohammed Din,

Shech Mussa, and the two Shechs of Mitkenàb. Although their people,

foreboding evil, endeavoured to dissuade them from obedience, they

all four came and were forthwith put in irons and chained together.

With all his cunning Mohammed Din had fallen into the snare. His

plan had been, so Mr Werne believes, to cajole and detain the Turks

by fair words and promises until the rainy season, when hunger

and sickness would have proved his best allies. The Bascha had

been beforehand with him, and the old marauder might now repent

at leisure that he had not trusted to his impenetrable forests

and to the javelins of his people, rather than to the word of a

Turk. On the day of his arrest the usual evening gun was loaded

with canister, and fired into the woods in the direction of the

Haddendas, the sound of cannon inspiring the Arab and negro tribes

with a panic fear. Firearms--to them incomprehensible weapons--have

served more than anything else to daunt their courage. "When the

Turks attacked a large and populous mountain near Faszogl, the

blacks sent out spies to see how strong was the foe, and how armed.

The spies came back laughing, and reported that there was no great

number of men; that their sole arms were shining sticks upon their

shoulders, and that they had neither swords, lances, nor shields.

The poor fellows soon found how terrible an effect had the sticks

they deemed so harmless. As they could not understand how it was

that small pieces of lead should wound and kill, a belief got abroad

amongst them, that the Afrite, Scheitàn, (the devil or evil spirit,)

dwelt in the musket-barrels. With this conviction, a negro, grasping

a soldier's musket, put his hand over the mouth of the barrel, that

the afrite might not get out. The soldier pulled the trigger, and

the leaden devil pierced the poor black's hand and breast. After

an action, a negro collected the muskets of six or seven slain

soldiers, and joyfully carried them home, there to forge them into

lances in the presence of a party of his friends. But it happened

that some of them were loaded, and soon getting heated in the fire,

they went off, scattering death and destruction around them." Most

of the people in Taka run from the mere report of a musket, but the

Arabs of Hedjàs, a mountainous district near the Red Sea, possess

firearms, and are slow but very good shots.

In the way of tribute, nothing was gained by the imprisonment of

Mahommed Din and his companions. No more contributions came in, and

not an Arab showed himself upon the market-place outside the camp.

Mohammed Din asked why his captors did not kill rather than confine

him; he preferred death to captivity, and keeping him prisoner would

lead, he said, to no result. The Arab chiefs in camp did not conceal

their disgust at the Bascha's treatment of their Grand-Shech, and

taxed Achmet with having broken his word, since he had given him the

Amàhn--promise of pardon. Any possibility of conciliating the Arabs

was destroyed by the step that had been taken. At night they swarmed

round the camp, shrieking their war-cry. The utmost vigilance was

necessary; a third of the infantry was under arms all night, the

consequent fatigue increasing the amount of sickness. The general

aspect of things was anything but cheering. The Wernes had their

private causes of annoyance. Six of their camels, including the two

excellent dromedaries given to them by the Bascha before quitting

Chartum, were stolen whilst their camel-driver slept, and could

not be recovered. They were compelled to buy others, and Mr Werne

complains bitterly of the heavy expenses of the campaign--expenses

greatly augmented by the sloth and dishonesty of their servants.

The camel-driver, fearing to face his justly-incensed employers,

disappeared and was no more heard of. Upon this and other occasions,

Mr Werne was struck by the extraordinary skill of the Turks in

tracing animals and men by their footsteps. In this manner his

servants tracked his camels to an Arab village, although the road

had been trampled by hundreds of beasts of the same sort. "If

these people have once seen the footprint of a man, camel, horse,

or ass, they are sure to recognise it amongst thousands of such

impressions, and will follow the trail any distance, so long as the

ground is tolerably favourable, and wind or rain has not obliterated

the marks. In cases of loss, people send for a man who makes this

kind of search his profession; they show him a footprint of the

lost animal, and immediately, without asking any other indication,

he follows the track through the streets of a town, daily trodden

by thousands, and seldom falls to hunt out the game. He does not

proceed slowly, or stoop to examine the ground, but his sharp eye

follows the trail at a run. We ourselves saw the footstep of a

runaway slave shown to one of these men, who caught the fugitive at

the distance of three days' journey from that spot. My brother once

went out of the Bascha's house at Chartum, to visit a patient who

lived far off in the town. He had been gone an hour when the Bascha

desired to see him, and the tschansch (orderly) traced him at once

by his footmarks on the unpaved streets in which crowds had left

similar signs. When, in consequence of my sickness, we lingered for

some days on the Atbara, and then marched to overtake the army, the

Schaïgiës who escorted us detected, amidst the hoof-marks of the

seven or eight thousand donkeys accompanying the troops, those of a

particular jackass belonging to one of their friends, and the event

proved that they were right." Mr Werne fills his journal, during

his long sojourn in camp, with a great deal of curious information

concerning the habits and peculiarities of both Turks and Arabs,

as well as with the interesting results of his observations on the

brute creation. The soldiers continued to bring to him and his

brother all manner of animals and reptiles--frogs, whole coils of

snakes, and chameleons, which there abound, but whose changes of

colour Mr Werne found to be much less numerous than is commonly

believed. For two months he watched the variations of hue of these

curious lizards, and found them limited to different shades of grey

and green, with yellow stripes and spots. He made a great pet of

a young wild cat, which was perfectly tame, and extraordinarily

handsome. Its colour was grey, beautifully spotted with black,

like a panther; its head was smaller and more pointed than that of

European cats; its ears, of unusual size, were black, with white

stripes. Many of the people in camp took it to be a young tiger, but

the natives called it a _fagged_, and said it was a sort of cat, in

which Mr Werne agreed with them. "Its companion and playfellow is a

rat, about the size of a squirrel, with a long silvery tail, which,

when angry, it swells out, and sets up over its back. This poor

little beast was brought to us with two broken legs, and we gave it

to the cat, thinking it was near death. But the cat, not recognising

her natural prey--and moreover feeling the want of a companion--and

the rat, tamed by pain and cured by splints, became inseparable

friends, ate together, and slept arm in arm. The rat, which was not

ugly like our house rats, but was rather to be considered handsome,

by reason of its long frizzled tail, never made use of its liberty

to escape." Notwithstanding the numerous devices put in practice

by the Wernes to pass their time, it at last began to hang heavy,

and their pipes were almost their sole resource and consolation.

Smoking is little customary in Egypt, except amongst the Turks and

Arabs. The Mograbins prefer chewing. The blacks of the Gesira make a

concentrated infusion of this weed, which they call _bucca_; take a

mouthful of it, and roll the savoury liquor round their teeth for a

quarter of an hour before ejecting it. They are so addicted to this

practice, that they invite their friends to "bucca" as Europeans do

to dinner. The vessel containing the tobacco juice makes the round

of the party, and a profound silence ensues, broken only by the

harmonious gurgle of the delectable fluid. Conversation is carried

on by signs.

"We shall march to-morrow," had long been the daily assurance of

those wiseacres, to be found in every army, who always know what

the general means to do better than the general himself. At last

the much-desired order was issued--of course when everybody least

expected it--and, after a night of bustle and confusion, the army

got into motion, in its usual disorderly array. Its destination was

a mountain called Kassela-el-Lus, in the heart of the Taka country,

whither the Bascha had sent stores of grain, and where he proposed

passing the rainy season and founding a new town. The distance was

about fourteen hours' march. The route led south-eastwards, at

first through a level country, covered with boundless fields of

tall _durra_. At the horizon, like a great blue cloud, rose the

mountain of Kassela, a blessed sight to eyes that had long been

weary of the monotonous level country. After a while the army got

out of the durra-fields, and proceeded over a large plain scantily

overgrown with grass, observing a certain degree of military

order and discipline, in anticipation of an attempt, on the part

of the angry Arabs, to rescue Mohammed Din and his companions in

captivity. Numerous hares and jackals were started and ridden

down. Even gazelles, swift as they are, were sometimes overtaken

by the excellent Turkish horses. Presently the grass grew thicker

and tall enough to conceal a small donkey, and they came to wooded

tracts and jungles, and upon marks of elephants and other wild

beasts. The foot-prints of the elephants, in places where the ground

had been slightly softened by the rain, were often a foot deep,

and from a foot and a half to two feet in length and breadth. Mr

Werne regrets not obtaining a view of one of these giant brutes.

The two-horned rhinoceros is also common in that region, and is

said to be of extraordinary ferocity in its attacks upon men and

beasts, and not unfrequently to come off conqueror in single combat

with the elephant. "Suddenly the little Schaïgiës cavalry set up

a great shouting, and every one handled his arms, anticipating an

attack from the Arabs. But soon the cry of 'Asset! Asset!' (lion)

was heard, and we gazed eagerly on every side, curious for the

lion's appearance. The Bascha had already warned his chase-loving

cavalry, under penalty of a thousand blows, not to quit their ranks

on the appearance of wild beasts, for in that broken ground he

feared disorder in the army and an attack from the enemy. I and

my brother were at that moment with Melek Mahmud at the outward

extremity of the left wing; suddenly a tolerably large lioness

trotted out of a thicket beside us, not a hundred paces off. She

seemed quite fearless, for she did not quicken her pace at sight

of the army. The next minute a monstrous lion showed himself at

the same spot, roaring frightfully, and apparently in great fury;

his motions were still slower than those of his female; now and

then he stood still to look at us, and after coming to within sixty

or seventy paces--we all standing with our guns cocked, ready to

receive him--he gave us a parting scowl, and darted away, with great

bounds, in the track of his wife. In a moment both had disappeared."

Soon after this encounter, which startled and delighted Dr Werne,

and made his brother's little dromedary dance with alarm, they

reached the banks of the great _gohr_, (the bed of a river, filled

only in the rainy season,) known as El Gasch, which intersects

the countries of Taka and Basa. With very little daring and still

less risk, the Haddendas, who are said to muster eighty thousand

fighting men, might have annihilated the Bascha's army, as it wound

its toilsome way for nearly a league along the dry water-course,

(whose high banks were crowned with trees and thick bushes,) the

camels stumbling and occasionally breaking their legs in the deep

holes left by the feet of the elephants, where the cavalry could

not have acted, and where every javelin must have told upon the

disorderly groups of weary infantry. The Arabs either feared the

firearms, or dreaded lest their attack should be the signal for

the instant slaughter of their Grand-Shech, who rode, in the midst

of the infantry, upon a donkey, which had been given him out of

consideration for his age, whilst the three other prisoners were

cruelly forced to perform the whole march on foot, with heavy chains

on their necks and feet, and exposed to the jibes of the pitiless

soldiery. On quitting the Gohr, the march was through trees and

brushwood, and then through a sort of labyrinthine swamp, where

horses and camels stumbled at every step, and where the Arabs again

had a glorious opportunity, which they again neglected, of giving

Achmet such a lesson as they had given to his predecessor in the

Baschalik. The army now entered the country of the Hallengas, and a

six days' halt succeeded to their long and painful march.

It would be of very little interest to trace the military operations

of Achmet Bascha, which were altogether of the most contemptible

description--consisting in the _chasuas_, or razzias already

noticed, sudden and secret expeditions of bodies of armed men

against defenceless tribes, whom they despoiled of their cattle

and women. From his camp at the foot of Kassela-el-Lus, the Bascha

directed many of these marauding parties, remaining himself safely

in a large hut, which Mr Werne had had constructed for him, and

usually cheating the men and officers, who had borne the fatigue and

run the risk, out of their promised share of the booty. Sometimes

the unfortunate natives, driven to the wall and rendered desperate

by the cruelties of their oppressors, found courage for a stout

resistance.

"An expedition took place to the mountains of Basa, and the troops

brought back a large number of prisoners of both sexes. The men

were almost all wounded, and showed great fortitude under the

painful operation of extracting the balls. Even the Turks confessed

that these mountaineers had made a gallant defence with lances and

stones. Of our soldiers several had musket-shot wounds, inflicted

by their comrades' disorderly fire. The Turks asserted that the

Mograbins and Schaïgiës sometimes fired intentionally at the

soldiers, to drive them from their booty. It was a piteous sight to

see the prisoners--especially the women and children--brought into

camp bound upon camels, and with despair in their countenances.

Before they were sold or allotted, they were taken near the tent of

Topschi Baschi, where a fire was kept burning, and were all, even

to the smallest children, branded on the shoulder with a red-hot

iron in the form of a star. When their moans and lamentations

reached our hut, we took our guns and hastened away out shooting

with three servants. These, notwithstanding our exhortations, would

ramble from us, and we had got exceedingly angry with them for so

doing, when suddenly we heard three shots, and proceeded in that

direction, thinking it was they who had fired. Instead of them, we

found three soldiers, lying upon the ground, bathed in their blood

and terribly torn. Two were already dead, and the third, whose whole

belly was ripped up, told us they had been attacked by a lion.

The three shots brought up our servants, whom we made carry the

survivor into camp, although my brother entertained slight hopes

of saving him. The Bascha no sooner heard of the incident than he

got on horseback with Soliman Kaschef and his people, to hunt the

lion, and I accompanied him with my huntsman Sale, a bold fellow,

who afterwards went with me up the White Nile. On reaching the spot

where the lion had been, the Turks galloped off to seek him, and I

and Sale alone remained behind. Suddenly I heard a heavy trampling,

and a crashing amongst the bushes, and I saw close beside me an

elephant with its calf. Sale, who was at some distance, and had just

shot a parrot, called out to know if he should fire at the elephant,

which I loudly forbade him to do. The beast broke its way through

the brushwood just at hand. I saw its high back, and took up a safe

position amongst several palm-trees, which all grew from one root,

and were so close together that the elephant could not get at me.

Sale was already up a tree, and told me the elephant had turned

round, and was going back into the chaaba. The brute seemed angry

or anxious about its young one, for we found the ground dug up for

a long distance by its tusk as by a plough. Some shots were fired,

and we thought the Bascha and his horsemen were on the track of the

lion, but they had seen the elephant, and formed a circle round

it. A messenger galloped into camp, and in a twinkling the Arnaut

Abdin Bey came up with part of his people. The elephant, assailed

on all sides by a rain of bullets, charged first one horseman, then

another; they delivered their fire and galloped off. The eyes were

the point chiefly aimed at, and it soon was evident that he was

blinded by the bullets, for when pursuing his foes he ran against

the trees, the shock of his unwieldy mass shaking the fruit from

the palms. The horsemen dismounted and formed a smaller circle

around him. He must already have received some hundred bullets, and

the ground over which he staggered was dyed red, when the Bascha

crept quite near him, knelt down and sent a shot into his left eye,

whereupon the colossus sank down upon his hinder end and died.

Nothing was to be seen of the calf or of the lion, but a few days

later a large male lion was killed by Soliman Kaschef's men, close

to camp, where we often in the night-time heard the roaring of those

brutes."

Just about this time bad news reached the Wernes. Their huntsman

Abdallah, to whom they were much attached by reason of his gallantry

and fidelity, had gone a long time before to the country of the

Beni-Amers, eastward from Taka, in company of a Schaïgië chief,

mounted on one of their best camels, armed with a double-barrelled

gun, and provided with a considerable sum of money for the

purchase of giraffes. On his way back to his employers, with a

valuable collection of stuffed birds and other curiosities, he was

barbarously murdered, when travelling, unescorted, through the

Hallenga country, and plundered of all his baggage. Sale, who went

to identify his friend's mutilated corpse, attributed the crime

to the Hallengas. Mr Werne was disposed to suspect Mohammed Ehle,

a great villain, whom the Bascha at times employed as a secret

stabber and assassin. This Ehle had been appointed Schech of the

Hallengas by the Divan, in lieu of the rightful Schech, who had

refused submission to the Turks. Three nephews of Mohammed Din (one

of them the same youth who had escorted the Wernes safely back

to camp when they were in peril of their lives in the Haddenda

country) came to visit their unfortunate relative, who was still a

prisoner, cruelly treated, lying upon the damp earth, chained to two

posts, and awaiting with fortitude the cruel death by impalement

with which the Bascha threatened him. Achmet received the young men

very coldly, and towards evening they set out, greatly depressed

by their uncle's sad condition, upon their return homewards. Early

next morning the Wernes, when out shooting, found the dead bodies

of their three friends. They had been set upon and slain after a

gallant defence, as was testified by their bloody lances, and by

other signs of a severe struggle. The birds of prey had already

picked out their eyes, and their corpses presented a frightful

spectacle. The Wernes, convinced that this assassination had taken

place by the Bascha's order, loaded the bodies on a camel, took

them to Achmet, and preferred an accusation against the Hallengas

for this shameful breach of hospitality. The Bascha's indifference

confirmed their suspicions. He testified no indignation, but there

was great excitement amongst his officers; and when they left the

Divan, Mr Werne violently reproached Mohammed Ehle, whom he was well

assured was the murderer, and who endured his anger in silence. "The

Albanian Abdin Bey was so enraged that he was only withheld by the

united persuasions of the other officers from mounting his horse

and charging Mohammed Ehle with his wild Albanians, the consequence

of which would inevitably have been a general mutiny against the

Bascha, for the soldiers had long been murmuring at their bad food

and ill treatment." The last hundred pages of Mr Werne's very

closely printed and compendious volume abound in instances of the

Bascha's treachery and cruelty, and of the retaliation exercised

by the Arabs. On one occasion a party of fifty Turkish cavalry

were murdered by the Haddendas, who had invited them to a feast.

The town of Gos-Rajeb was burned, twenty of the merchants there

resident were killed, and the corn, stored there for the use of

the army on its homeward march, was plundered. The Bascha had a

long-cherished plan of cutting off the supply of water from the

country of the Haddendas. This was to be done by damming up the

Gohr-el-Gasch, and diverting the abundant stream which, in the rainy

season, rushed along its deep gully, overflowing the tall banks

and fertilising fields and forests. As the Bascha's engineer and

confidential adviser, Mr Werne was compelled to direct this work.

By the labour of thousands of men, extensive embankments were made,

and the Haddendas began to feel the want of water, which had come

down from the Abyssinian mountains, and already stood eight feet

deep in the Gohr. Mr Werne repented his share in the cruel work,

and purposely abstained from pressing the formation of a canal

which was to carry off the superfluous water to the Atbara, there

about three leagues distant from the Gohr. And one morning he was

awakened by a great uproar in the camp, and by the shouts of the

Bascha, who was on horseback before his hut, and he found that a

party of Haddendas had thrashed a picket and made an opening in the

dykes, which was the deathblow to Achmet's magnificent project of

extracting an exorbitant tribute from Mohammed Din's tribe as the

price of the supply of water essential to their very existence.

The sole results of the cruel attempt were a fever to the Bascha,

who had got wet, and the sickness of half the army, who had been

compelled to work like galley-slaves under a burning sun and upon

bad rations. The vicinity of Kassela is rich in curious birds

and beasts. The mountain itself swarms with apes, and Mr Werne

frequently saw groups of two or three hundred of them seated upon

the cliffs. They are about the size of a large dog, with dark brown

hair and hideous countenances. Awful was the screaming and howling

they set up of a night, when they received the unwelcome visit of

some hungry leopard or prowling panther. Once the Wernes went out

with their guns for a day's sport amongst the monkeys, but were soon

glad to beat a retreat under a tremendous shower of stones. Hassan,

a Turk, who purveyed the brothers with hares, gazelles, and other

savoury morsels, and who was a very good shot, promised to bring

in--of course for good payment--not only a male and female monkey,

but a whole camel-load if desired. He started off with this object,

but did not again show himself for some days, and tried to sneak

out of the Wernes' way when they at last met him in the bazaar. He

had a hole in his head, and his shoulder badly hurt, and declared

he would have nothing more to say to those _transformed men_ upon

the mountain. Mr Werne was very desirous to catch a monkey alive,

but was unsuccessful, and Mohammed Ehle refused to sell a tame one

which he owned, and which usually sat upon his hut. Mr Werne thinks

them a variety of the Chimpanzee. They fight amongst themselves

with sticks, and defend themselves fiercely with stones against the

attacks of men. Upon the whole the Wernes were highly fortunate in

collecting zoological and ornithological specimens, of which they

subsequently sent a large number, stuffed, to the Berlin museum.

They also secured several birds and animals alive; amongst these

a young lion and a civet cat. Regarding reptiles they were very

curious, and nothing of that kind was too long or too large for

them. As Ferdinand Werne was sitting one day upon his dromedary,

in company with the Bascha, on the left bank of the Gasch, the

animals shied at a large serpent which suddenly darted by. The

Bascha ordered the men who were working at the dykes to capture it,

which they at once proceeded to do, as unconcernedly as an English

haymaker would assail a hedge snake. "Pursued by several men, the

serpent plunged into the water, out of which it then boldly reared

its head, and confronted an Arab who had jumped in after it, armed

with a _hassaie_. With extraordinary skill and daring the Arab

approached it, his club uplifted, and struck it over the head, so

that the serpent fell down stunned and writhing mightily; whereupon

another Arab came up with a cord; the club-bearer, without further

ceremony, griped the reptile by the throat, just below the head;

the noose was made fast, and the pair of them dragged their prize

on shore. There it lay for a moment motionless, and we contemplated

the terribly beautiful creature, which was more than eleven feet

long and half-a-foot in diameter. But when they began to drag it

away, by which the skin would of course be completely spoiled,

orders were given to _carry_ it to camp. A jacket was tied over its

head, and three men set to work to get it upon their shoulders;

but the serpent made such violent convulsive movements that all

three fell to the ground with it, and the same thing occurred again

when several others had gone to their assistance. I accompanied

them into camp, drove a big nail into the foremost great beam of

our _recuba_, (hut,) and had the monster suspended from it. He

hung down quite limp, as did also several other snakes, which were

still alive, and which our servants had suspended inside our hut,

intending to skin them the next morning, as it was now nearly

dark. In the night I felt a most uncomfortable sensation. One of

the snakes, which was hung up at the head of my bed, had smeared

his cold tail over my face. But I sprang to my feet in real alarm,

and thought I had been struck over the shin with a club, when the

big serpent, now in the death agony, gave me a wipe with its tail

through the open door, in front of which our servants were squatted,

telling each other ghost stories of snake-kings and the like....

They called this serpent _assala_, which, however, is a name they

give to all large serpents. Soon afterwards we caught another, as

thick, but only nine feet long, and with a short tail, like the

_Vipera cerastes_; and this was said to be of that breed of short,

thick snakes which can devour a man." In the mountains of Basa,

two days' journey from the Gohr-el-Gasch, and on the road thither,

snakes are said to exist, of no great length, but as thick as a

crocodile, and which can conveniently swallow a man; and instances

were related to Mr Werne of these monsters having swallowed persons

when they lay sleeping on their angarèbs. Sometimes the victims had

been rescued _when only half gorged_! Of course travellers hear

strange stories, and some of those related by Mr Werne are tolerably

astounding; but these are derived from his Turkish, Egyptian, or

Arabian acquaintances, and there is no appearance of exaggeration

or romancing in anything which he narrates as having occurred to

or been witnessed by himself. A wild tradition was told him of a

country called Bellad-el-Kelb, which signifies the Country of Dogs,

where the women were in all respects human, but where the men had

faces like dogs, claws on their feet, and tails like monkeys. They

could not speak, but carried on conversation by wagging their tails.

This ludicrous account appeared explicable by the fact, that the men

of Bellad-el-Kelb are great robbers, living by plunder, and, like

fierce and hungry dogs, never relinquishing their prey.

The Hallengas, amongst whom the expedition now found itself, were

far more frank and friendly, and much less wild, than the Haddendas

and some other tribes, and they might probably have been converted

into useful allies by a less cruel and capricious invader than the

Bascha. But conciliation was no part of his scheme; if he one day

caressed a tribe or a chief, it was only to betray them the next.

Mr Werne was on good terms with some of the Hallenga sheiks, and

went to visit the village of Hauathi, about three miles from camp,

to see the birds of paradise which abounded there. On his road he

saw from afar a great tree covered with those beautiful birds,

and which glistened in the sunshine with all the colours of the

rainbow. Some days later he and his brother went to drink _merissa_,

a slightly intoxicating liquor, with one of the Fakis or priests

of the country. The two Germans got very jovial, drinking to each

other, student-fashion; and the faki, attempting to keep pace with

them, got crying-drunk, and disclosed a well-matured plan for

blowing up their powder-magazine. The ammunition had been stored in

the village of Kadmin, which was a holy village, entirely inhabited

by fakis. The Bascha had made sure that none of the natives would

risk blowing up these holy men, even for the sake of destroying his

ammunition, and he was unwilling to keep so large a quantity of

powder amidst his numerous camp-fires and reckless soldiery. But

the fakis had made their arrangements. On a certain night they were

to depart, carrying away all their property into the great caverns

of Mount Kassela, and fire was to be applied to the house that

held the powder. Had the plot succeeded, the whole army was lost,

isolated as it was in the midst of unfriendly tribes, embittered by

its excesses, and by the aggressions and treachery of its chief,

and who, stimulated by their priests, would in all probability have

exterminated it to the last man, when it no longer had cartridges

for its defence. The drunken faki's indiscretion saved Achmet and

his troops; the village was forthwith surrounded, and the next day

the ammunition was transferred to camp. Not to rouse the whole

population against him, the Bascha abstained for the moment from

punishing the conspirators, but he was not the man to let them

escape altogether; and some time afterwards, Mr Werne, who had

returned to Chartum, received a letter from his brother, informing

him that nine fakis had been hung on palm-trees just outside the

camp, and that the magnanimous Achmet proposed treating forty more

in the same way.

A mighty liar was Effendina Achmet Bascha, as ever ensnared a

foe or broke faith with a friend. Greedy and cruel was he also,

as only a Turkish despot can be. One of his most active and

unscrupulous agents was a bloodsucker named Hassan Effendi, whom

he sent to the country of the Beni-Amers to collect three thousand

five hundred cows and thirteen hundred camels, the complement of

their tribute. Although this tribe had upon the whole behaved

very peaceably, Hassan's first act was to shoot down a couple of

hundred of them like wild beasts. Then he seized a large number of

camels belonging to the Haddendas, although the tribe was at that

very time in friendly negotiation with the Bascha. The Haddendas

revenged themselves by burning Gos-Rajeb. In proof of their valour,

Hassan's men cut off the ears of the murdered Beni-Amers, and took

them to Achmet, who gave them money for the trophies. "They had

forced a slave to cut off the ears; yonder now lies the man--raving

mad, and bound with cords. Camel-thieves, too--no matter to what

tribe they belong--if caught _in flagranti_, lose their ears,

for which the Bascha gives a reward. That many a man who never

dreamed of committing a theft loses his ears in this way, is easy

to understand, for the operation is performed on the spot." Dawson

Borrer, in his _Campaign in the Kabylie_, mentions a very similar

practice as prevailing in Marshal Bugeaud's camp, where ten francs

was the fixed price for the head of a horse-stealer, it being

left to the soldiers who severed the heads and received the money

to discriminate between horse-stealers and honest men. Whether

Bugeaud took a hint from the Bascha, or the Bascha was an admiring

imitator of Bugeaud, remains a matter of doubt. "Besides many

handsome women and children, Hassan Effendi brought in two thousand

nine hundred cows, and seven thousand sheep." He might have been a

French prince returning from a razzia. "For himself he kept eighty

camels, _which he said he had bought_." A droll dog, this Hassan

Effendi, but withal rather covetous--given to sell his soldier's

rations, and to starve his servants, a single piastre--about

twopence halfpenny--being his whole daily outlay for meat for his

entire household, who lived for the most part upon durra and water.

If his servants asked for wages, they received the bastinado. "The

Bascha had given the poor camel-drivers sixteen cows. The vampire

(Hassan) took upon himself to appropriate thirteen of them." Mr

Werne reported this robbery to the Bascha, but Achmet merely replied

"_malluch_"--signifying, "it matters not." When inferior officers

received horses as their share of booty, Hassan bought them of them,

but always forgot to pay, and the poor subalterns feared to complain

to the Bascha, who favoured the rogue, and recommended him to the

authorities at Cairo for promotion to the rank of Bey, because, as

he told Mr Werne with an ironical smile, Hassan was getting very

old and infirm, and when he died the Divan would bring charges

against him, and inherit his wealth. Thus are things managed in

Egypt. No wonder that, where such injustice and rascality prevail,

many are found to rejoice at the prospect of a change of rulers.

"News from Souakim (on the Red Sea) of the probable landing of the

English, excite great interest in camp; from all sides they come

to ask questions of us, thinking that we, as Franks, must know

the intentions of the invaders. Upon the whole, they would not be

displeased at such a change of government, particularly when we tell

them of the good pay and treatment customary amongst the English;

and that with them no officer has to endure indignities from his

superiors in rank."

"I have now," says Mr Werne, (page 256,) "been more than half a

year away from Chartum, continually in the field, and not once

have I enjoyed the great comfort of reposing, undressed, between

clean white sheets, but have invariably slept in my clothes, on

the ground, or on the short but practical angarèb. All clean linen

disappears, for the constant perspiration and chalky dust burns

everything; and the servants do not understand washing, inasmuch as,

contrasted with their black hides, everything appears white to them,

and for the last three months no soap has been obtainable. And in

the midst of this dirty existence, which drags itself along like a

slow fever, suddenly 'Julla!' is the word, and one hangs for four or

five days, eighty or a hundred leagues, upon the camel's back, every

bone bruised by the rough motion,--the broiling sun, thirst, hunger,

and cold, for constant companions. Man can endure much: I have gone

through far more than I ever thought I could,--vomiting and in a

raging fever on the back of a dromedary, under a midday sun, more

dead than alive, held upon my saddle by others, and yet I recovered.

To have remained behind would have been to encounter certain death

from the enemy, or from wild beasts. We have seen what a man can

bear, under the pressure of necessity; in my present uniform and

monotonous life I compare myself to the camels tied before my tent,

which sometimes stand up, sometimes slowly stretch themselves on

the ground, careless whether crows or ravens walk over their backs,

constantly moving their jaws, looking up at the sun, and then, by

way of a change, taking a mouthful of grass, but giving no signs of

joy or curiosity."

From this state of languid indifference Mr Werne was suddenly and

pleasurably roused by intelligence that a second expedition was

fitting out for the White Nile. He and his brother immediately

petitioned the Bascha for leave to accompany it. The desired

permission was granted to him, but refused to his brother. There

was too much sickness in the camp, the Bascha said; he could not

spare his doctor, and lacked confidence in the Italian, Bellotti.

The fondly-attached brothers were thus placed in a painful dilemma:

they had hoped to pursue their wanderings hand in hand, and to pass

their lives together, and loth indeed were they to sunder in those

sickly and perilous regions. At last they made up their minds to the

parting. It has been already recorded in Mr Werne's former work,

how, within ten days of their next meeting, his beloved brother's

eyes were closed in death.

In various respects, Mr Werne's _Feldzug_ is one of the most

curious books of travel and adventure that, for a very long time,

has appeared. It has three points of particular attraction and

originality. In the first place, the author wanders in a region

previously unexplored by Christian and educated travellers, and

amongst tribes whose bare names have reached the ears of but few

Europeans. Secondly, he campaigns as officer in such an army as we

can hardly realise in these days of high civilisation and strict

military discipline,--so wild, motley, and grotesque are its

customs, composition, and equipment,--an army whose savage warriors,

strange practices, and barbarous cruelties, make us fancy ourselves

in presence of some fierce Moslem horde of the middle ages, marching

to the assault of Italy or Hungary. Thirdly, during his long sojourn

in camp he had opportunities such as few ordinary travellers enjoy,

and of which he diligently profited, to study and note down the

characteristics and social habits of many of the races of men that

make up the heterogeneous population of the Ottoman empire. Some

of the physiological and medical details with which he favours us,

would certainly have been more in their place in his brother's

professional journal, than in a book intended for the public at

large; and passages are not wanting at which the squeamish will be

apt to lay down the volume in disgust. For such persons Mr Werne

does not write; and his occasional indelicacy and too crude details

are compensated, to our thinking, by his manly honest tone, and by

the extraordinary amount of useful and curious information he has

managed to pack into two hundred and seventy pages. As a whole,

the _Expedition to the White Nile_, which contains a vast deal

of dry meteorological and geographical detail, is decidedly far

less attractive than the present book, which is as amusing as any

romance. We have read it with absorbing interest, well pleased with

the hint its author throws out at its close, that the records of his

African wanderings are not yet all exhausted.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

BOOK VII.--INITIAL CHAPTER.

"What is courage?" said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a

reverie into which he had fallen after the Sixth Book in this

history had been read to our family circle.

"What is courage?" he repeated more earnestly. "Is it insensibility

to fear? _That_ may be the mere accident of constitution; and, if

so, there is no more merit in being courageous than in being this

table."

"I am very glad to hear you speak thus," observed Mr Caxton, "for I

should not like to consider myself a coward; yet I am very sensible

to fear in all dangers, bodily and moral."

"La, Austin, how can you say so?" cried my mother, firing up; "was

it not only last week that you faced the great bull that was rushing

after Blanche and the children?"

Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and,

hanging over his shoulder, kissed his forehead.

MR CAXTON, (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries.)--"I don't deny

that I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened."

ROLAND.--"The sense of honour which conquers fear is the true

courage of chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking

on--no gentleman could."

MR CAXTON.--"Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood,

Captain. I should have run fast enough, if it had done any good. I

stood upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I

could, the only chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened

as myself."

BLANCHE.--"Ah, you did not think of that; your only thought was to

save me and the children."

MR CAXTON.--"Possibly, my dear--very possibly I might have been

afraid for you too;--but I was very much afraid for myself. However,

luckily I had the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth

in the animal's stupid eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the

biggest lines I could think of in the First Chorus of the 'Seven

against Thebes.' I began with ELEDEMNAS PEDIOPLOKTUPOS; and when I

came to the grand howl of Ἰὼ, ἰὼ, ἰὼ, ἰὼ--the beast stood appalled

as at the roar of a lion. I shall never forget his amazed snort

at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and went bolt

through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with Æschylus and the

umbrella, I remained master of the field; but (continued Mr Caxton,

ingenuously,) I should not like to go through that half minute

again."

"No man would," said the Captain kindly. "I should be very sorry to

face a bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even

though I had Æschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends."

MR CAXTON.--"You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman

with a sword in his hand?"

CAPTAIN.--"Of course not. Rather liked it than otherwise," he added

grimly.

MR CAXTON.--"Yet many a Spanish matador, who doesn't care a button

for a bull, would take to his heels at the first lunge _en carte_

from a Frenchman. Therefore, in fact, if courage be a matter of

constitution, it is also a matter of custom. We face calmly the

dangers we are habituated to, and recoil from those of which we have

no familiar experience. I doubt if Marshal Turenne himself would

have been quite at his ease on the tight-rope; and a rope-dancer,

who seems disposed to scale the heavens with Titanic temerity, might

possibly object to charge on a cannon."

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Still, either this is not the courage I mean,

or there is another kind of it. I mean by courage that which is

the especial force and dignity of the human character, without

which there is no reliance on principle, no constancy in virtue--a

something," continued my uncle gallantly, and with a half bow

towards my mother, "which your sex shares with our own. When the

lover, for instance, clasps the hand of his betrothed, and says,

'Wilt thou be true to me, in spite of absence and time, in spite of

hazard and fortune, though my foes malign me, though thy friends may

dissuade thee, and our lot in life may be rough and rude?' and when

the betrothed answers, 'I will be true,' does not the lover trust to

her courage as well as her love?"

"Admirably put, Roland," said my father. "But _apropos_ of what do

you puzzle us with these queries on courage?"

CAPTAIN ROLAND, (with a slight blush.)--"I was led to the inquiry

(though, perhaps, it may be frivolous to take so much thought of

what, no doubt, costs Pisistratus so little) by the last chapters

in my nephew's story. I see this poor boy, Leonard, alone with his

fallen hopes, (though very irrational they were,) and his sense of

shame. And I read his heart, I dare say, better than Pisistratus

does, for I could feel like that boy if I had been in the same

position; and, conjecturing what he and thousands like him must go

through, I asked myself, 'What can save him and them?' I answered,

as a soldier would answer, 'Courage!' Very well. But pray, Austin,

what is courage?"

MR CAXTON, (prudently backing out of a reply.)--"_Papæ!_ Brother,

since you have just complimented the ladies on that quality, you had

better address your question to them."

Blanche here leant both hands on my father's chair, and said,

looking down at first bashfully, but afterwards warming with the

subject, "Do you not think, sir, that little Helen has already

suggested, if not what is courage, what at least is the real essence

of all courage that endures and conquers, that ennobles, and

hallows, and redeems? Is it not PATIENCE, father?--and that is why

we women have a courage of our own. Patience does not affect to be

superior to fear, but at least it never admits despair."

PISISTRATUS.--"Kiss me, my Blanche, for you have come near to the

truth which perplexed the soldier and puzzled the sage."

MR CAXTON, (tartly.)--"If you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled

at all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience--it is a

virtue very much required in your readers. Nevertheless," added my

father, softening with the enjoyment of his joke--"nevertheless

Blanche and Helen are quite right. Patience is the courage

of the conqueror; it is the virtue, _par excellence_, of Man

against Destiny--of the One against the World, and of the Soul

against Matter. Therefore this is the courage of the Gospel; and

its importance, in a social view--its importance to races and

institutions--cannot be too earnestly inculcated. What is it that

distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from all other branches of the human

family, peoples deserts with his children, and consigns to them

the heritage of rising worlds? What but his faculty to brave, to

suffer, to endure--the patience that resists firmly, and innovates

slowly. Compare him with the Frenchman. The Frenchman has plenty of

valour--that there is no denying; but as for fortitude, he has not

enough to cover the point of a pin. He is ready to rush out of the

world if he is bit by a flea."

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"There was a case in the papers the other day,

Austin, of a Frenchman who actually did destroy himself because he

was so teased by the little creatures you speak of. He left a paper

on his table, saying that 'life was not worth having at the price of

such torments.'"[5]

[5] Fact. In a work by M. GIBERT, a celebrated French physician, on

diseases of the skin, he states that that minute troublesome kind

of rash, known by the name of _prurigo_, though not dangerous in

itself, has often driven the individual afflicted by it to--suicide.

I believe that our more varying climate, and our more heating drinks

and aliments, render this skin complaint more common in England than

in France, yet I doubt if any English physician could state that it

had ever driven one of his _English_ patients to suicide.

MR CAXTON, (solemnly.)--"Sir, their whole political history, since

the great meeting of the Tiers Etat, has been the history of men

who would rather go to the devil than be bit by a flea. It is

the record of human impatience, that seeks to force time, and

expects to grow forests from the spawn of a mushroom. Wherefore,

running through all extremes of constitutional experiment, when

they are nearest to democracy they are next door to a despot; and

all they have really done is to destroy whatever constitutes the

foundation of every tolerable government. A constitutional monarchy

cannot exist without aristocracy, nor a healthful republic endure

with corruption of manners. The cry of Equality is incompatible

with Civilisation, which, of necessity, contrasts poverty with

wealth--and, in short, whether it be an emperor or a mob that is to

rule, Force is the sole hope of order, and the government is but an

army.

"Impress, O Pisistratus! impress the value of patience as regards

man and men. You touch there on the kernel of the social system--the

secret that fortifies the individual and disciplines the million.

I care not, for my part, if you are tedious so long as you are

earnest. Be minute and detailed. Let the real human life, in its war

with Circumstance, stand out. Never mind if one can read you but

slowly--better chance of being less quickly forgotten. Patience,

patience! By the soul of Epictetus, your readers shall set you an

example!"

CHAPTER II.

Leonard had written twice to Mrs Fairfield, twice to Riccabocca, and

once to Mr Dale; and the poor proud boy could not bear to betray

his humiliation. He wrote as with cheerful spirits--as if perfectly

satisfied with his prospects. He said that he was well employed,

in the midst of books, and that he had found kind friends. Then he

turned from himself to write about those whom he addressed, and the

affairs and interests of the quiet world wherein they lived. He did

not give his own address, nor that of Mr Prickett. He dated his

letters from a small coffeehouse near the bookseller, to which he

occasionally went for his simple meals. He had a motive in this. He

did not desire to be found out. Mr Dale replied for himself and for

Mrs Fairfield, to the epistles addressed to these two. Riccabocca

wrote also. Nothing could be more kind than the replies of both.

They came to Leonard in a very dark period in his life, and they

strengthened him in the noiseless battle with despair.

If there be a good in the world that we do without knowing it,

without conjecturing the effect it may have upon a human soul, it is

when we show kindness to the young in the first barren footpath up

the mountain of life.

Leonard's face resumed its serenity in his intercourse with his

employer; but he did not recover his boyish ingenuous frankness.

The under-currents flowed again pure from the turbid soil and the

splintered fragments uptorn from the deep; but they were still too

strong and too rapid to allow transparency to the surface. And now

he stood in the sublime world of books, still and earnest as a seer

who invokes the dead. And thus, face to face with knowledge, hourly

he discovered how little he knew. Mr Prickett lent him such works as

he selected and asked to take home with him. He spent whole nights

in reading; and no longer desultorily. He read no more poetry, no

more Lives of Poets. He read what poets must read if they desire

to be great--_Sapere principium et fons_--strict reasonings on the

human mind; the relations between motive and conduct, thought and

action; the grave and solemn truths of the past world; antiquities,

history, philosophy. He was taken out of himself. He was carried

along the ocean of the universe. In that ocean, O seeker, study

the law of the tides; and seeing Chance nowhere--Thought presiding

over all--Fate, that dread phantom, shall vanish from creation, and

Providence alone be visible in heaven and on earth!