HALAIB AND SAWAKIN KADIM
It is hard to imagine anything more squalid than the Egyptian fortress of
Halaib, as it is spelt on the map, or Halei as it is pronounced, which
was our next halting-place, and from which we succeeded in getting a
little way inland. The governor, Ismael, has been there seven years; he
and his family inhabit some wicker cages near the small white fort, and
gathered round them are the huts of his soldiers and the cabins of a few
Bisharin, who live under the immediate protection of the fort. Ismael is
possessed of the only patch of cultivated land that we saw during the
whole of our expedition, where he grows gourds, peas, and aubergines or
brinjols. The man of most authority in the place is Mohammed Ali Tiout,
head of the Bisharin tribe of Achmed Orab. He appointed his son, a fine,
intelligent young fellow of five-and-twenty, called _the batran_ in the
local dialect, to act as our guide and protector during our exploration
of the Shellal range, which rises some miles inland at the back of
Halaib.
The people of this portion of the Soudan between the coast and the Nile
Valley, who do not own allegiance to the Khalifa, belong to the Morghani
confraternity of Mohammedans; their young religious sheikh, a
self-possessed, clever lad of about twenty, lives at Sawakin, and his
influence amongst the tribes not affecting Mahdism is supreme. He is
devoted to British interests, and no doubt in the present condition of
affairs his co-operation will be of great value. The Egyptian Government
instructed him to write to the sheikhs around Halaib and Mohammed Gol to
insure our safety, and to this fact I am convinced we owe the immunity
from danger we enjoyed, and the assistance given to us in penetrating
inland from Mohammed Gol. The Morghani have the three cicatrices on
either cheek, and as a confraternity they are not in the least fanatical,
and are well disposed to Christians; very different to the Arabs we met
in the Hadhramout, and very different to the Dervishes with whom they are
on such hostile terms.
While at Halaib I paid several visits to the wife and family of the
mamour or governor. They were very civil always, and used to kiss me.
They looked quite as unsettled in their airy brushwood arbours as if they
had not resided there steadily for seven years.
There were three huts about 12 feet by 8 feet, one being a kitchen. There
is a brushwood fence all round, part having a shed for the stores and
water jars. The wife is a Turk, and has one plain grown-up daughter.
There was an old lady who made coffee, and a black maid slightly draped
in a sheet once white, but now of a general deep grey, pure black in some
parts. I liked getting coffee and ginger best. The first day I had to
swallow, smiling, tea boiled and a little burnt.
All the furniture I saw was a 3-foot bed, three Austrian chairs, a very
common wooden table, and a little iron one with a new and tight pink
cotton cover and petticoat to the ground. All was very clean but the
maid.
The kind lady thought her dwelling so superior to mine that she begged me
to come and sleep in the bed with her in shelter from the wind; tents,
she said, were only fit for men. I did not envy her her home in the
drenching rain we had all night and half one day. She wore a string round
under one arm, with seven or eight charms like good-sized pincushions or
housewifes of different coloured silks.
We made two expeditions from Halaib; the first was to the ruins now known
as Sawakin Kadim, which are on the coast twelve miles north of Halaib. As
only six camels could be obtained we went by boat ourselves, leaving the
camels for the baggage. For this purpose we deserted the _Taisir_ and
hired a smaller _kattira_, and having gone as near as we could to land,
and been in considerable danger from coral reefs, on which we ran
suddenly, nearly capsizing, we took to the houri that we had towed
astern. It was very like sitting in a bath, and, after the houri, we had
to be carried a long way. We encamped not far from the shore, and had to
endure a dreadful _khamsin_ and dust-storm from the south, with such
violent wind that I was blown down, and Matthaios dug our beds out twice
with a trowel; and the next day we found the north wind nearly as bad.
Why it did not raise the sand I do not know.
Sawakin Kadim is like Berenice, nothing but a mass of mounds, but it must
at some time or another have been a much larger place. We excavated one
of these mounds, but found nothing earlier than Kufic remains, unless the
graves, which were constructed of four large blocks of madrepore sunk
deep into the ground, may be looked upon as a more ancient form of
sepulture. We opened several, but unfortunately they contained nothing
but bones. Originally this town must have been built on an island, or an
artificial moat must have been dug round it to protect it on the mainland
side; this is now silted up, but is traceable all along. Three large
cisterns for water are still in a fair state of preservation, and I am
told that a Kufic inscription was found here some years ago. There seems
no doubt that this town is the one mentioned by the Arab geographers,
Abou'lfida and Edrisi, by the name of Aydab, which was a place of
considerable importance between Ras Bernas and Sawakin. There are no
traces elsewhere along this coast of any other town, consequently we can
fairly place it here. Abou'lfida says: 'Aydab is a town in the land of
Bedja; it is politically dependent on Egypt, though some say it is in
Abyssinia. This is the meeting-place for the merchants of Yemen and the
pilgrims, who, leaving Egypt, prefer the sea route and embark for Yedda.
In other respects Aydab has more the aspect of a village than a town, and
it is seven days' march north of Sawakin, where the chief of the Bedjas
lives.' Counting a day's march at twenty-five miles, this would place it
near Halaib, which is 170 miles north of Sawakin. Hitherto on our maps
Aydab has been placed near Mohammed Gol, but, as there are no traces of
ruins there except the towers to which we shall presently allude, this
position for an ancient town is untenable.
Edrisi tells us: 'At the extremity of the desert and on the borders of
the salt sea is Aydab, whence one crosses to Yedda in one day and one
night. Aydab has two governors, one appointed by the chief of the Bedja,
and the other by the princes of Egypt.' From the fact that Aydab is
mentioned by none of the earlier geographers it would appear not to have
been one of the Ptolemaic settlements, but a town of purely Arab origin.
The people of Bedja, so often alluded to by these Arabian geographers,
seem to have had considerable power, and to have occupied all the Soudan
and as far north as Berenice, being probably the precursors of the
Bisharin Amara tribes, which wander now over this desert country. They
were the recognised guardians of the old gold-mines which existed in this
district, and concerning which I have more to say presently; and though
vassals of the Egyptian kaliphs, nevertheless they seem to have had
considerable local authority, and to have carried on wars on their own
account.
It is a curious fact that in the Aksumite inscriptions we come across an
account of wars and victories by the old Ethiopian monarchs over the
peoples of Kasuh and Bega to the north of Abyssinia, which peoples
Professor D. H. Müller identifies with the people of Kush and the Bedja
alluded to by the Arab geographers.
In course of time the Bedjas seem to have disappeared from the face of
the earth and left nothing but their tombs and a few ruined towns behind
them; and for some centuries it would appear that the coast of the Red
Sea north of Sawakin was uninhabited until in later years came fresh
colonists from the Nile Valley, whose descendants still occupy it.
The tribal traditions of the district are all that we have now to rely
upon regarding the immigration of new inhabitants, and they state that
two brothers with their families, one named Amer and the other Amar, came
from the Nile Valley near Wadi Halfa, and settled along the coast of the
Red Sea; from them are descended the Beni Amer and Amara tribes of
Bedouin. These brothers were followed in due course by four other
brothers, Ali, Kourb, Nour, and Gueil, from whom the tribes and
sub-tribes of the Aliab, Kourbab, Nourab, and Gueilior are respectively
descended. These tribes have never been anything but pastoral nomads,
living in miserable mat huts, and spreading themselves over the district
at wide intervals in search of pasture for their flocks. They entirely
disown having anything to do with the remains of buildings and tombs
found in their midst.