the ravine where was the rain-water, and I and Abeken mounted our
donkeys, to accompany them to these natural cisterns. Over a wild and
broken path and cutting stones, we came deeper and deeper into the
gorge; the first wide basins were empty, we therefore left the camels
and donkeys behind, climbed up the smooth granite wall, and thus
proceeded amidst these grand rocks from one basin to another; they were
all empty; behind there, in the furthest ravine, the guide said there
must be water, for it was never empty: but there proved to be not a
single drop. We were obliged to return dry. The numerous herds which had
been driven from the Sudan to Egypt in the previous year, had consumed
it all. We had now only three skins of water, and therefore it was
necessary to do something. Higher up the pass, there were said to be
other cisterns; behind this ravine I proposed to climb the mountain with
the guide, but he considered it too dangerous; we therefore turned back
and rode to the camp, and at sundown the camels had to set forth again
to the northern mountains in search of water reported to exist at an
hour’s distance, and they returned late, bringing with them four
skins--the water was good and tasted well. Sheikh Ahmed, however, did
not return this night also, and we now hoped to meet him at the wells,
whither he might have hasted by a more southerly track.
We set out on the fifth day soon after sunrise, and entered the great
mountain passes of Roft, the uniform strata of which were first in
layers of slate, then more in blocks, and afterwards very rich in
quartz. The heat of the day was more oppressive in the mountains than in
the plains, where the continual north-wind created some degree of
coolness. Except the various sorts of rock, there was nothing of very
great attractiveness. I found a great ant-hill in the midst of the
desolate waste, and looked at it for a long time; they were small and
large shining black ants, who carried away all the grosser earthy
particles they could manage, and left the stones for walls; the larger
ones had heads comparatively twice as large as the others, and did not
work themselves, but acted as overseers, by giving a push to every
little ant who did not help to carry, which drove it forward and
instigated it to labour.
It is difficult to keep up a conversation on the clumsy camels, which
cannot be kept side by side so easily as horses or donkeys. If you have
a good dromedary (_heggîn_), and travel without luggage, or with very
little, the animal remains in trot. This is easy and not very tiring,
while it requires some time to accustom oneself to the slouching step of
the usual burthen-camel; this, however, we managed to lighten, by
occasionally mounting our donkeys, and often walked long distances early
in the morning and late at night.
I return to our fifth day in the desert, on which we set forth early,
about eight o’clock, from the little valley E’ Sufr, where we had
pitched our tent under some gum or sont-trees, and arrived at half-past
twelve, after we had left the road about half an hour, and turned to the
left into a wide valley, at the brackish wells of Wadi Murhad. Here we
had concluded about half of our journey; we saw a few huts built of
small stones and sedge, near which a couple of thin goats sought
fruitlessly for some food; our black host led us into an arbour of
bulrushes, where we made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would
permit.
In this valley we had for some time observed the snow-white surface of
the natron on the sand, which makes the water in the valley brackish.
Toward the end of the valley, where it divides into two branches, there
are the standing waters, five or six feet below the surface, which have
been dug out into eight wells. The furthest wells have a greenish, salt,
and ill-tasting water, which, however, serves the camels very well; the
three front ones, however, have brighter water, which we could have
drunk very well, if it had been necessary. This is a government station
usually occupied by six people; at this time four were on an excursion
and only two in the place. Two ways led hence to Korusko, a western and
an eastern one; Ibrahim Aga had unfortunately chosen the former, by
which we had missed him, having ourselves taken the latter. Sheikh
Ahmed was not to be found here; probably he had only reached our camels
on the second day, and we were therefore obliged to proceed without him.
The Abâbde Arabs, with whom we had now everywhere to do, are a true and
trustworthy people, from whom one has less to fear than from the cunning
thievish Fellahs of Egypt. To the north-east of them are the Bishari
tribes, who speak a peculiar language, and are now at bitter feud with
the Abâbde, because they waylaid and murdered some Turkish soldiers two
years ago in the little valley, where we stayed the night, and for which
Hassan Chalif, the superior sheikh of the Abâbde, to whose care the
highway between Berber and Korusko is committed, had nearly forty of the
Bishari executed. With the aid of the Abâbde, too, Ismael Pasha had been
able four-and-twenty years before to bring his army though the desert
and seize the Sudan. Guides are only posted by government along the road
by which we were coming, but not on the longer but better watered line
from Berber to Assuan, which is now little used.
At half-past four we rode away from the wells, after we had examined
some _hagr mektub_ (written stones, for which we everywhere inquired),
on some rocks in the neighbourhood, where a number of horses, camels,
and other animals had been rudely scratched, at some by no means modern
period, in the same manner as we had often seen in Nubia. At half-past
nine we halted for the night, after we had left the mountains an hour
and a half. On the morning of the sixth day we passed the wide plain of
Múndera, to which another high mountain range called Abu Sihha joins;
the southern frontier of this plain, by those mountains, they call
Abdêbab; the southern part of the Roft mountains behind us, Abu Senejât.
At three o’clock we left the plain, and entered the mountains again,
which, like the former ranges, were of granite. Half an hour later we
halted for a noontide rest. After two hours we rode on and encamped
about midnight, after passing through another little plain, and the
mountains of Adar Auîb into the next plain, comprehended under the same
designation, which stretches to the last mountains of this desert, Gebel
Graibât.
On the seventh day we set forth at the early hour of half-past seven,
and came at last beyond Gebel Graibât, into a great and boundless plain,
Adererât, which we did not leave until our arrival at Abu Hammed. To the
south-west the little mountain El Farût, and the higher range Mograd,
were in sight; in the far-east there joins another mountain to Adur
Auîb, that of Abu Nugâra. South-easterly there are the other mountain
chains of Bishari, the names of which were unknown to our Abâbde guides.
The beginning of the plain of Adererât was quite covered for hours with
beautiful pure flint, which sometimes jutted out of the sand, as rock,
although the principal sort of rock continued to be black granite, which
was intersected about noon by a broad vein of red granite. Early in the
day a small caravan of merchants passed us at some distance.
We saw the most beautiful _mirages_ very early in the day; they most
minutely resemble seas and lakes, in which mountains, rocks, and
everything in their vicinity, are reflected like in the clearest water.
They form a remarkable contrast with the staring dry desert, and have
probably deceived many a poor wanderer, as the legend goes. If one be
not aware that no water is there, it is quite impossible to distinguish
the appearance from the reality. A few days ago I felt quite sure that I
perceived an overflowing of the Nile, or a branch near El Mechêref, and
rode towards it, but only found Bahr Sheitan, “Satan’s water,” as the
Arabs call it.
By day the caravan road cannot easily be missed, even when the sand has
destroyed every trace of it; it is marked by numberless camels’
skeletons, of which several are always in sight; I counted forty-one
within the last half-hour before sunset, on the previous day. Of our
camels, however, although they had not long rested in Korusko, and got
scarcely anything to eat or drink on the way, none were lost. Mine, in
whose mouth I had occasionally put a bit of biscuit, used to stretch
back his long neck in the middle of the march, until it laid its head
with its large tender eyes in my lap, in order to get some more.
We halted at about four o’clock in the afternoon for two hours, and then
proceeded till eleven, when we pitched our camp in the great plain. The
wind, however, was so violent, that it was impossible to fasten up our
tents. Notwithstanding the ten iron rings which are prepared for keeping
it up, it fell three times before it was quite finished; we, therefore,
let it lie, laid our own selves down behind a little wall, that the
guide had constructed of camel saddles as a shelter, and slept _à la
belle étoile_.
On the eighth day we might have arrived at Abu Hammed late in the
evening, but we resolved to stay the night at an hour’s distance from
that place, that we might reach the Nile by day. The birds of prey
increased in the neighbourhood of the river; we scared away thirty
vultures from the fresh carcase of a camel; the day before I had shot a
white eagle, and some desert partridges, which were seeking _durra_
grains on the caravan road. We only saw traces of wild beasts by the
carcases; they did not trouble us at night, as in the camp at Korusko,
where we had shot a hyæna, and several jackals. In the afternoon we met
a slave caravan. The last encampment before reaching Abu Hammed was less
windy, but our coals were exhausted, and the servants had forgotten to
gather camel’s dung for the fire; therefore we were obliged to drink the
last brown skin-water without boiling it, to quench our thirst. The
donkeys could not be spared any of it.
We ascended the high thrones of our camels on the 16th of January, at
half-past seven o’clock in the morning, and looked down thence towards
the Nile. It was, however, only visible shortly before our arrival. The
stream here does not flow through a broad valley, but runs along a bare
rock-channel, that stretches through the flat wide plain of rock. On the
other side of the river only was there any appearance of the valley, and
on an island formed there stood a few dûm-palms. A little way from the
shores we met another train of 150 camels, which had just left Abu
Hammed. Then came an extensive earthwork, with a few towers like
fortifications, which had been erected by the great Arab sheikh Hassan
Chalif, for government stores. A little ravine contains five huts, one
of stones and earth, another of tree trunks, two of mats, and one of
_bus_ or _durra_ straw; then a wider place opened, surrounded with
several poor-looking houses, one of which was prepared for us. A brother
of Hassan Chalif, who resides here, came to receive us, led us into the
house, and offered us his services. A few _anqarêb_ (cane bed-places),
which are much used here, on account of the creeping vermin, were
brought in, and we established ourselves for that day and the following
night; we felt that we must give the camels so much grace.
A great four-cornered space surrounded us, thirty feet on every side,
the walls formed of stone and earth; a couple of trees, forked at the
top, bore a great trunk for an architrave, above which there were again
other roof-branches laid, and bound up and covered with mats and
hurdles. It reminded me much of a primeval architecture which we had
found imitated on the rock caves of Beni-hassan; there were the same
pillars, the same network of the roof, through which, except by the
door, as at those caves, the light only entered by one four-cornered
opening in the middle, at the top, and no windows. The door-posts were
composed of four short trunks, of which the upper one quite resembled
the lintel in the graves of the pyramid era. We hung up a curtain before
the door, to protect us from the wind and dust; at the opposite corner,
a doorway led into a space that was used as a kitchen. The day was
windy, and the air unpleasantly filled with sand, so that we could
scarcely get out of doors. We refreshed ourselves, however, with pure,
cool Nile water, and an excellent dinner of mutton. The great desert was
behind us, and we had only four days more to El Mechêref, the chief,
town of Berber, following the course of the river. We learned that Ahmed
Pasha Menekle was in our neighbourhood, or would soon arrive, in order
to make a military expedition from Dâmer, a short day’s journey on the
other side of El Mechêref, up the Atbara, to the province of Taka, where
some of the Bishari tribes had revolted.
When we came forth the next morning, our Arabs had all anointed
themselves and put on good clothes; but what more particularly surprised
us was the sight of their stately white wigs, making them look quite
reverend. It is a part of their “dress,” to comb the hair into a high
_toupé_, which is sprinkled with peculiar finely drifted butter, shining
white, as if with powder. In a little while, however, when the sun is
risen higher, this fat snow melts, and then the hair looks all covered
with innumerable pearly dew-drops, till these, too, disappear, and run
down their shoulders and neck from their dark brown hair, spreading a
light upon their well-burned limbs, like antique bronze statues.
We set forward the next morning at eight o’clock, with a new camel that
we had found opportunity to exchange for a tired one. The valley becomes
broader and more fertile the nearer we come to the island of Meroë; the
desert itself became more rank and wild, like steppes. The first station
was Geg, where we spent the night in an open space; the air is very,
very warm; at half-past five in the afternoon we had 25° Reaumur. The
second night we stayed on the other side of Abu Hashîn, in the
neighbourhood of a village, which is in reality no station, as we
desired to pass the five usual stations in four days; the third day we
stopped out in the air by a cataract of the Nile. On the fourth day from
Abu Hammed, we kept a little further away from the river in the desert,
but still within the limits of the original valley, if I may so call a
yellow earth, which is not covered by the inundations, but is dug out by
the villagers immediately below the sand, in order to mend their fields.
We halted in the evening at the village of El Chôr, an hour from El
Mechêref, and arrived in the metropolis of the province of Berber early
on the fifth day.
I sent the dragoman forward to announce us, and to demand a house, which
we received, and immediately entered upon. The Mudhir of Berber was in
Dâmer; his vakeel, or lieutenant, visited us, and soon came Hassan
Chalif, the chief Arab sheikh, who promised us better camels to Dâmer,
was rejoiced to hear good tidings of his and our friends, Linant and
Bonomi, and amused himself with our own books of plates, in which he
found portraits of his relations and ancestors. We had scarcely arrived,
ere we received intelligence that Hassan Pasha had entered the town on
another side. He had journeyed from Korusko to his province of Dongola,
and now returned from Edabbe, on the southern boundaries of Dongola,
right through the desert of El Mechêref, where Enrin, the new Pasha of
Chartûm, had come to meet him. The rencontre caused some disturbance in
our plans; but we managed to travel southward on the next morning, the
22nd of January, soon after Hassan Pasha’s departure, after leaving two
camels, no longer wanted for water-carrying, behind, and exchanging
three others for better ones.
We rode off towards noon, and stayed in the evening at the last village,
before the river Mogrân, the ancient Astaboras, which we had to pass
before reaching Dâmer. It is called in the maps Atbara, evidently a
corruption of Astaboras; but this designation seems to be applied to the
upper river, from the place of that name, and not to the lower one. Next
morning we passed the river near its _embouchment_. Even here it was
very narrow in its great bed, which it entirely fills in the rainy
season, while for two months it is only prevented from disappearing
entirely by some stagnating water. On the other side of the river, we
landed on the island of Meroë of Strabo, by which name the land between
the Nile and Astaboras was designated. Yet two hours and we reached
Dâmer.
The houses were too poor to take us in; I therefore sent Jussuf to Emin
Pasha, in whose province we now were, and who had encamped, with Hassan
Pasha, on the shore of the river. He sent a _khawass_ to meet us, and to
invite us to dine with him. I, however, judged it more expedient to
pitch our tent at some distance, and to change our travelling costume.
Immediately the Mudhir of Berber paid us his visit, to ask after our
wishes, and soon after Emin Pasha sent an excellent dinner to our tent,
consisting of four well-prepared dishes, and besides that, a lamb
roasted whole upon the spit and filled with rice, and a flat cake filled
with meat.
Toward Asser (three o’clock in the afternoon) we had our visit
announced; just as we were about to proceed to it, we heard the singing
of sailors; two boats came swimming down the stream with red flags and
crescents: it was Ahmed Pasha Menekle returning from Chartûm. The Pasha
and the Mudhir immediately proceeded on board, and they did not separate
till late; our friend, Dr. Koch, was unfortunately not expected from
Chartûm for two days. I had received a note from Erbkam at an early
period after my arrival, in which he informed me, by the medium of a
passing _khawass_, that he had left Korusko with Ibrahim Aga, on the
15th of January; he wrote from their first camp. The _khawass_ had
ridden with incredible swiftness from Cairo to Berber, in fourteen days,
and brought Ahmed Pasha the desired permission to raise the government
price for the camels from Korusko to Berber, from sixty piasters to a
higher price than before, _i. e._ ninety piasters.
January 26th. The day before yesterday we made our visit to Ahmed Pasha,
which he returned yesterday. He will do everything to facilitate our
further journey. He informed us, that he, in accordance with his former
promise, had sent an officer from Abu Haras to Mandera, three days into
the desert, and had obtained the information from him that great ruins
were existing there. The same was told us yesterday in a letter by Dr.
Koch, and confirmed to-day by his word of mouth. After dinner he will
bring us Musa Bey, who has been there. He also announced to us that some
letters had arrived for us, and were deposited at Chartûm, and that the
artist sent for from Rome had arrived at Cairo.
For our fellow-travellers a bark is prepared at El Mechêref; but I shall
precede them with Abeken. Ahmed Pasha sends me word, that in an hour a
courier will leave for Cairo, who shall bear these letters.
POSTSCRIPT.--The magnificent news from Mandera does not seem to be
confirmed on closer inquiry. It will hardly be worth while to go
thither.
LETTER XVIII.
ON THE BLUE RIVER, PROVINCE OF SENNÂR.
13° North Latitude, _March 2, 1844_.
To-day we reach the southernmost boundary of our African journey.
To-morrow we go northward and homeward again. We shall come as far as
the neighbourhood of Sero, the frontier between the provinces of Sennâr
and Fasoql. Our time will not admit of more stay. I have travelled from
Chartûm hither with Abeken only. We gave up the desert journey to
Mandera, the rather as the eastern regions are now unsafe by reason of
the war in Taka. I now employ the time in learning the nature of the
river, and the neighbouring country some days’ journey beyond Sennâr.
The journey is worth the trouble, for the character of the whole land
decidedly changes in soil, vegetation, and animals, on passing Abu
Haras, between Chartûm and Sennâr, at the _embouchure_ of the Rahad. It
was necessary for me to gain as much personal knowledge of the whole
Nile valley, as far up as possible, since the nature of this country, so
limited in its width, has more influence than anything else upon the
progress of its history.
On the White River one cannot journey for more than a few days to the
frontier of Mohammed Ali’s conquests, without peculiar preparations and
precautions. There are found the Shilluk on the western shore, and on
the eastern, the Dinka, both native negro people, who are never the
best friends with the northern folk. The Blue River is accessible to a
much higher extent, and was, and is now, historically, of more
consequence than the White, as it is the channel of communication
between the north and Abyssinia. I should like to have proceeded into
the province of Fasoql, the last under Egyptian dominion; but that will
not tally with our reckoning; so we shall put a period to our southern
journey to-night.
But I return in my reports to Dâmer, where I embarked on the 27th of
January with Abeken, in the bark of Musa Bey, Ahmed Pasha’s first
adjutant, who had kindly placed it at our disposal. We stopped for the
night at about eight o’clock in the evening, near the island of Dal
Haui. We had obtained a _khawass_ from Emin Pasha, the same who had come
hither on the conquering of the country with Ismael Pasha, who had
accompanied the Defterdar Bey to Kordofan, (or, according to his
pronunciation, Kordifal), who had then journeyed with the same on his
errand of vengeance to Shendi for the murder of Ismael, and since then
had traversed the whole Sudan in every direction for three and twenty
years. He has the most perfect map of these countries in his head, and
possesses an astounding memory for names, bearings, and distances, so
that I have based two charts upon his remarks, which are not without
geographical interest in some parts. He has also been to Mekka, and
therefore likes to be addressed as Haggi Ibrahim (Pilgrim Ibrahim.) In
other things, too, he has much experience, and will be very useful to
us by reason of his long and extended acquaintance with the land.
On the twenty-eighth of January, we stopped about noon at an island
called Gomra, as we heard that there were ruins in the vicinity which we
should like to see. We had to proceed through a flat arm of the Nile,
and ride for an hour on the eastern shore to the north. There at last we
found, after passing the villages of Motmár and El Akarid, between a
third village, Sagâdi, and a fourth, Genna, the inconsiderable ruins of
a place built of bricks, and strewn with broken tiles.
We returned but little satisfied amidst the noon-day heat, and arrived
with our bark only just before sunset in Begerauîe, in the neighbourhood
of which are situated the pyramids of Meroë. It is remarkable that this
place is not mentioned by Cailliaud. He only speaks of the pyramids of
Assur, _i.e._ Sûr, or e’Sûr. The whole plain in which the ruins of the
city and the pyramids lie bears the same name; and, besides this, a
portion of Begerauîe, which, probably by a slip of the pen, is called
Begromi by Hoskins.
Although it was already dark, I rode with Abeken to the pyramids, which
stand a short hour’s ride inland, upon the slopes of the low hills that
stretch along eastward. The moon alone, which was in its first quarter,
sparingly lighted the plain, covered with stones, low underwood, and
rushes. After a sharp ride, we came to the foot of a row of pyramids,
which rose before us in the form of a crescent, as was rendered
necessary by the ground. To the right joins another row of pyramids, a
little retreating; a third group lies more to the south in the plains,
too far off to be distinguished in the dim moonlight. I tied the bridle
of my donkey round a post, and climbed up the first mound of ruins.
The single pyramids are not so exactly placed as in Egypt; yet the
ante-chambers, which are here built on to the body of the structures
themselves, all lie turned away from the river toward the east,
doubtless for the same religious reason which actuated the Egyptians
also to turn the entrance of the detached temples before their pyramids
to the east, thus river-ward at Gizeh and Saqâra, but the tombs toward
the west.