Sudan, Idris wed (_i.e._ _Welled_, son or successor of) Adlân, who is
certainly under Mohammed Ali’s supremacy now, but yet commands several
hundred villages in the province El Fungi; his title is Mak el Qulle,
King of the Qulle mountains. Adlân was one of his ancestors, after whom
the whole family now calls itself; his father was the same Mohammed
(wed) Adlân, who, at the time of Ismael Pasha’s conquering campaign had
taken most of the power of the legitimate but weak king of Sennâr, Bâdi,
but who was then murdered at the instigation of Reg’eb, another
pretender to the throne. When Ismael had arrived, and Reg’eb and his
company had fled to the Abyssinian mountains, King Bâdi united himself
with the children and party of Mohammed Adlân, and submitted to the
conqueror, who made him Sheikh of the country, had the murderers of
Mohammed Adlân impaled, and gave his children, Reg’eb and Idris Adlân,
great power and wealth. Nasr, their sister, also gained much
consideration, which was, however, much increased, as she was allied to
the legitimate royal family by her mother’s side. Therefore is she
called Sultâna, Queen. Her first husband was named Mohammed Sandalôba,
brother of Hassan Sandalôba, whom we had visited at Sennâr. He has now
been dead for a long time, but she has a daughter by him, named Dauer
(Light), who married a great Sheikh, Abd-el Qader, but then parted from
him, and now lives with her mother, in Sorîba. The second son of Nasr is
Mohammed Defalla, the son of one of her father’s viziers. He was then
with Ahmed Pasha Menekle on the war march (_ghazua_, of which the French
have made _razzia_) in Saka. But even when he is at home, she remains
the principal person in the house, by reason of her noble birth.
Since very ancient times, a great estimation of the female sex appears
to be a very general custom. It must not be forgotten how often we find
reigning queens of Ethiopia mentioned. From the campaign of Petronius,
Kandake is well known, a name which, according to Pliny, was bestowed on
all the Ethiopian queens; according to others, always on the mother of
the king. In the sculptures of Meroë, too, we occasionally find very
warlike, and doubtless reigning, queens represented. According to
Makrizi, the genealogies of the Beg’a, whom I consider the direct
descendants of the Meroetic Ethiopians, and for the ancestors of the
Bishari of the present day, were not counted by the males, but by the
females, and the inheritance did not devolve upon the son of the
deceased, but upon the sister or the daughter. In the same way,
according to Abu Selah, the sister’s son took precedence of the son
among the Nubians, and Ibn Batuta reports the same custom to be existing
among the Messofites, a western negro race. Even now, the court and
upper minister of some southern princes are all women. Noble ladies
allow their nails to grow an inch long, as a sign that they are there to
command, and not to work, a custom which is found in the sculptures
among the shapeless queens of Meroë.
When we arrived at Sorîba, we entered the square court-yard by a
particular door, running round the principal building, and thence into
an open, lofty hall, the roof of which rested on four pillars, and four
half pillars. The narrow beams of the roof jut out several feet beyond
the simple architrave, and form the foundation of the flat roofs; the
whole entrance reminded one much of the open façades of the graves of
Benihassan. In the hall there was fine ebony furniture, of Indian
manufacture, broad _anqarêbs_, with frames for the mosquito nets. Fine
cushions were immediately brought, sherbet, coffee, and pipes handed
round. The vessels were made of gold and silver. Black female slaves, in
light white garments, which, fastened at the hips, are drawn up over the
bosom and shoulders,--handed round the refreshments, and looked very
peculiar with their plaited hair. The Queen, however, did not come;
perhaps she was ashamed of showing herself to Christians; only a
half-opened door, which soon closed again, allowed us to perceive
several women behind, to whom we ourselves might be objects of
curiosity. I therefore let the sultana know, through Saïd Hashim, that
we were there to pay our visits, and now hoped that we might have the
pleasure of seeing her. Upon this, the doors of strong wood cased with
metal, opened wide, and Nasr entered with a free, dignified step. She
was wrapped in long fine-woven cloths, with coloured borders, under
which she wore wide gay trowsers of a somewhat darker shade. Behind her
came the court, eight or nine girls in white clothes with red borders,
and elegant sandals. Nasr sat down before us, in a friendly and
unconstrained manner; only now and then she drew her dress over her
mouth and the lower part of the face, a custom of Oriental modesty, very
general with women in Egypt, but much rarer in this country. She replied
to the greetings I offered her through the Dragoman with a pleasant
voice, but stayed only a short time, withdrawing through the same door.
We examined the inner parts of the house, with the exception of her
private rooms, which were in a small building close, and mounted the
roof to have a view of the village. Then we took a walk through the
place, saw the well, in depth more than sixty feet, and lined throughout
with brick, whence Nasr always has her water fetched, though it is warm,
and less nice than that of the Nile. Then we returned, and were about to
depart, when Nasr sent us an invitation to remain the night in Sorîba,
as it was too late to get back to Wed Médineh by day. We accepted the
offer, and a banquet of boiled dishes was immediately brought, only
intended, however, as preparatory to supper. The sultana, however, did
not show herself again the whole evening. We remained in the hall, and
slept on the same cool pillows, which had served as a divan during the
day. But the next morning we were invited by her to visit her in her own
rooms. She was more communicative to-day than yesterday, had European
chairs brought for us, while her servants and slaves squatted on the
ground about us. We told her of her namesake, the Sultana Nasr of
England, and showed her her portrait on an English sovereign, which she
looked at with curiosity. But she manifested little desire to see that
far-off world beyond the northern water with her own eyes.
About eight o’clock we rode back to Wed Médineh. Soon after our return,
Saïd Hashim received a letter from Nasr, in which she asked him
confidentially whether he thought I would receive a little female slave
as a guest-present. I had expressed to her, in return, that this was
against the custom of our country, but that the gift would be accepted
if she would choose a male slave instead, and after some little
hesitation, she really sent a young slave to me, who was brought to me
in the ship.
He had been the playmate of the little grandson of Nasr, the son of her
daughter Dauer, and was presented to me under the name of Rehân, the
Arabic name for the sweet-smelling basil. It was added, that he was from
the district of Makâdi, on the Abyssinian frontier, whence the most
intelligent and faithful slaves generally came. This district is under
Christian dominion, and is inhabited by Christians and Mahommedans, in
separate villages. The former call themselves Nazâra (Nazarenes) or
Amhâra (Amharic Christians), the latter Giberta. Of these Giberta
children are often stolen from their own race and from among their
neighbours, and sold to Arabic slave-dealers; for, in the interior of
Abyssinia, the slave trade is strictly prohibited. This account of the
lad, however, was soon found to be untrue, and was only invented to
preclude the blame of offering me a Christian slave; while, on the
contrary, it would seem much more wrong to deliver me a Mahommedan. The
boy first told our Christian cook, and then me, that he was of Christian
parentage, had received the name Rehân here, and that his real name was
Gabre Mariam, _i. e._ in Abyssinian, “Slave of Maria.” His birth-place
is near Gondar, the metropolis of Amhâra. He seems to belong to a
distinguished family, for the place Bamba, which is denoted by Bruce in
the vicinity of Lake Tzana, according to his story, belonged to his
grandfather, and his father, who is now dead, had many flocks, which he
himself had often driven to the pasturage. When he was somewhat far off
his dwelling with them one day, about three or four years ago, he was
stolen by mounted Bedouins, carried to the village of Waldakarel, and,
afterwards sold to King Idris Adlân, who had given him to his sister
Nasr. He is a handsome, but very dark-coloured boy, about eight or nine
years of age, but much more advanced than a child of that age would be
with us. The girls marry here at the age of eight. He wears his hair in
innumerable little plaits, which must be redone and anointed at least
once a month, by a woman understanding it; his body, too, is rubbed with
fat from time to time. His whole clothing consists of a great white
cloth that he fastens round the hips, and throws over his shoulders. I
now call him by his Christian name, and shall bring him to Europe with
me.
Saïd Hashim tried his utmost to induce us to remain a few more days in
Wed Médineh. On the first evening he invited us to his house with a
number of the most considerable Turks, and had a number of female
dancers to show us the national dances of the country, which consist
chiefly in movements of the upper part of the body and the arms, as they
are found on the Egyptian monuments, yet differing from the present
Egyptian dances, which are made up of very ungraceful and lascivious
movements and motions of the hips and legs.
An old good humoured and very comic man led the dances, singing Arabic
songs having reference to persons in the room or those known to them,
such as Nasr, Idris Adlân, Mak (_i. e._ Melek) Bâdi, and others, with a
piercing but not unpleasant voice, and at the same time struck a
five-stringed lyre with his left hand, beating time with the plectrum in
his right. His instrument only extended to six tones of the octave. The
first string to the right had the highest tone C, struck with the thumb;
the next had the deepest E, then came the third with F, the fourth with
A, the fifth with B. The instrument is called rabâba, the player rebâbi.
This man had been instructed by an old famous rebâbi at Shendi, had
made his instrument just like that of his master, also learning all his
art of versification, and thus had become the black favourite bard of
Wed Médineh. All his songs were composed by himself, sometimes
improvised, and whoever offended himself or his patron became the target
of a pasquinading song.
I sent for him the next day, and had four of his songs written down by
Jussuf, one on Mohammed, son of the Mak Mesâ’d, who lives at Metammeh,
one on King Nimr, who burnt Ismael Pasha, and is now living in Egypt, a
third on Nasr; and, lastly, a song in praise of pretty girls.[79] It is
impossible to give these melodies in notes. A little only, approaching
our kind of music in somewise, have I written down. They are generally
half recited, half sung, with wavering tones from the highest notes to
the deepest tone long sustained. These are the most peculiar, but are
utterly incapable of being expressed. Every verse contains four rhymes,
on each of which it is easy to keep the voice, on the second more than
on the first and third; but the longest on the final line, and to this
always comes one of the same deep tones, giving the song a kind of
dignified progression. A certain recurrence of the melody is first
observable, but is not retainable for an European ear. I bought the
friendly old man’s instrument, which he gave unwillingly, although I
allowed him to fix the price himself, and several times a shade of
sorrow passed over his expressive countenance when he had taken the
money and laid the instrument in its place. Next day I sent for him
again. He was cast down, and told me that his wife had beaten him
thoroughly for parting with the instrument. It is no shame for a man to
be beaten by his wife, but _vice versá_. A beaten wife goes at once to
the Kadi to complain, she generally obtains justice, and the husband is
punished.
At Wed Médineh we witnessed a funeral, which seemed odd enough to us. A
woman had died three days before; the first day after her decease, then
the third, the seventh and later days have particular ceremonies. An
hour before sunset above a hundred women and children had assembled
before the house, and many more kept continually coming and cowering
down beside them. Two daughters of the deceased were there, who had
already strewn their highly-ornamented heads, powdered with fat in the
Arab manner, with ashes, and rubbed the whole upper part of the body
white with them,[80] so that only the eyes and mouth gleam freshly and
as if inlaid from the white mask. The women wore long cloths round their
hips, the young girls and children the _rahât_, a girdle of close
hanging straps of leather, generally bound about the loins, with a
string prettily adorned with shells and pearls, and falling halfway down
the thigh. A great wooden bowl of ashes was placed there, and
continually replenished. Close to the door, on both sides, crouched
female musicians, who partly clapped their hands in time, with yelling,
ear-piercing screams, partly beat the noisy _darabúka_ (a kind of
hand-drum, called here in the Sudan _dalúka_), and partly struck hollow
calabashes, swimming in tubs of water, with sticks. The two daughters,
from eighteen to twenty years of age, and the nearest relations, began
to move slowly towards the door in pairs, by a narrow lane formed in the
midst of the ever-increasing mob. Then suddenly they all began to
scream, to clap their hands, and to bellow forth unearthly cries, upon
which the others turned round and began their horrible dance of violent
jerks. With convulsively strained windings and turnings of the upper
part of the body, they pushed their feet on, quite slowly and
measuredly, threw their bosoms up with a sudden motion, and turned the
head back over the shoulders, which they racked in every direction, and
thus wound themselves forward with almost closed eyes. In this way they
went down a little hill, for fifteen or sixteen paces, when they threw
themselves on the ground, buried themselves in dust and ashes, and then
returned to begin the same dance anew. The younger of the two daughters
had a pretty slender figure, with an incredibly elastic body, and
resembled an antique when standing quietly upright or lying on the
ground with the head down, with her regular and soft, but immovable
features and classical form, quite peaceably even during the dance. This
dancing procession went on over and over again. Each of the mourners
must at least have gone through it once, and the nearer the relationship
the oftener it is repeated. Whoever cannot get up to the ash-tub takes
ashes from the head of a neighbour to strew it on their own head.
First, in this squatting assembly, some women crouch, who understand how
to sob and to shed tears in quantities, which leave long black streaks
on their whitened cheeks. The most prominent and disgusting feature of
this scene is, however, that unrestrained passion has nothing to do with
it, and that everything is done slowly, pathetically, and with evidently
practised motions; children down to the ages of four or five years are
put into the procession, and if they make the difficult and unnatural
movements well, the mothers, cowering behind, call out _taib, taib_, to
them. “Bravo, well done!” The second act of this deafening ceremony, by
the continual clapping, cries, and screams, is that the whole company of
dancers throw themselves upon the ground and roll down the hill; but
even this is done slowly and premeditatedly, while they draw their knees
up to keep hold of their dress, poke their arms in also, and then roll
away on their backs and knees. This ceremony begins an hour before
sunset and continues into the middle of the night.
The whole of it causes, by its unnaturality surpassing everything else,
an indescribable impression, which is rendered the more disagreeable, as
one perceives throughout the empty play, the inherited and spoilt
custom, and can recognize no trace of individual truth and natural
feeling in the persons taking part in it. And yet the comparison with
certain descriptions and representations of similar ceremonies among the
ancients, teaches us to understand many things, of which, in our own
life, we shall never form a proper estimate, until we have seen with
our own eyes such caricatures of uncivilisation, occasionally shown to
us by the Orient.
Next day we visited the hospital, which we found very clean, and in good
order; it contains one hundred patients, but there are only twenty-eight
at the present time. Then we proceeded to the barracks, in the large
court of which the exercises are gone through. The commanding officer
assembled the band, and had several pieces of music played. The first
was the _Parisienne_, which made a strange impression upon me amidst
these scenes, as also the following pieces, which were mostly French,
and known to me; they are tolerably performed. The musicians had
scarcely any but European instruments, and have incorporated in their
Arabic musical vocabulary our word trumpet, applying it, however, to the
drum which they call _trumbêta_, while they have for the trumpet a
native name, _nafir_; the great flute they call _sumára_, the little one
_sufára_, and the great drum _tabli_. There were only 1,200 men of the
regiment (which consists of 4,000) present, almost all negroes, who
poked out their black faces, hands, and feet, from their white linen
clothes, and red caps like dressed-up monkeys, only looking much more
miserable and oppressed than those animals. Yet we did not suspect that
in two days, these people would rebel, and go off to their mountains.
Emin Pasha was hourly expected. On the 13th, however, I received a
letter from him at Messelemîeh, four or five hours hence, in which he
stated that he should first come to Wed Médineh the next day, and hoped
to find us still there. At the same time he informed me that the war in
Taka was at an end, and that all had submitted. Some hundred natives
were killed in the skirmishes; on the morning before the decisive
battle, all the Sheikhs of the Taka tribes came to the Pasha to beg for
mercy, which was granted them on the condition, that no fugitive should
remain in the forest, which had been their chief resort. Next day he had
the forest searched, and as there was nobody found, it was set on fire,
and burnt down altogether. He is going on his way back through the
eastern districts to Katârif, on the Abyssinian frontier, and thence to
the Blue River. Scarcely had we read these news from Taka, ere the
cannons at the barracks thundered forth the news of victory to the
population.
In another letter, which Emin Pasha had received for me, Herr von Wagner
gave me the pleasant news that our new comrade, the painter Georgi, had
arrived from Italy, and had already left for Dongola, where he would
await farther instructions. I shall write him to meet us at Barkal.
As we were certain by the letter to find the Pasha still in Messelemîeh,
we departed thither at noon; we went by land, as the city is an hour and
a half distant from the Nile.
The bark was meanwhile to follow us to the port of Messelemîeh, _i. e._
to the landing place nearest to this principal trading place of the
whole Sudan. Besides Jussuf we took the _khawass_ and Gabre Máriam with
us, who placed himself behind me on the dromedary, where there is always
a little place left for an attendant, like the dickey of a coach; he
rides on the narrow back part of the animal, and holds on with his
hands. The day was very hot and the ground burnt. The few birds which I
saw were different from those inhabiting the banks of the river.
At about half way we came to a village called Tâiba, which is only
inhabited by _Fukara_, (pl. of _Fakir_). These are the literati, the
holy men of the nation, a kind of priests, without exercising sacerdotal
functions; they can read and write, allow no music, no dancing, no
feasting, and therefore stand in great odour of sanctity. The Sheikh of
this village is the supreme Fakir of the district. Everybody believes in
him as a prophet; what he has prophesied, happens. The deceased Ahmed
Pasha had him locked up a month before his death; “God will punish
thee,” he returned in answer to the decree, and a month afterward the
Pasha died. This is a very rich man, and owns several villages. We
looked him up and found him in his house at dinner; about twenty persons
were seated round a colossal wooden bowl, filled with boiled durra broth
and milk. The bowl was pushed before us, but it was impossible for us to
partake of this meal. We conversed with the old Fakir, who replied with
free, friendly, and obliging dignity, and then asked our names, and our
object in travelling. Every person who entered, even our servants,
approached him reverently, and touched his hand with the lips and
forehead. The office of Sheikh is hereditary in his family; his son,
therefore, obtains almost as much honour as himself, and thus it is
explicable how, when the Sheikh is a Fakir, the whole place may become
a holy village. E’Damer, on the island of Meroe, was formerly such a
Fakir place. The inhabitants of Tâiba, probably of Arabic race, call
themselves Arakin. There are in this neighbourhood a number of such
local names, the origin of which is difficult to be assigned.
When we had smoked out our pipes, we left this assembly of holy men, and
rode off. Half an hour from Messelemîeh, we came to a second village
called Hellet e’ Solimân. We dismounted at a house built by the deceased
Mak or Melek Kambal of Halfâi, when he married the daughter of the
Defalla, to whom the village belonged; now it is the property of his
brother’s son Mahmûd Welled Shanîsh, who is also called Melek, but is
only guardian of Kambal’s little son, Melek Beshîr. Thus we may see how
it has fared here with the ancient honourable title of Melek (king).
Mahmûd was not at home, as he had accompanied Ahmed Pasha in his
campaign. However, we were entertained in his house according to the
hospitable custom of the country. Carpets were spread, milk and durra
bread (which does not taste ill) in thin cakes brought; besides another
simple but refreshing drink, _abreq_, fermented sour durra water. Soon
after Asser we arrived in Messelemîeh. Emin received us very kindly, and
informed us Mohammed Ali’s prime minister, Boghos Bey, whom I had
visited in Alexandria, was dead, and Artim Bey, a fine diplomatist of
much culture, had been appointed to his place.
We refused the Pasha’s invitation to supper and night’s lodging, and
soon rode off to the river, where we hoped to find our bark. As it had
not arrived, we passed the night in the open air upon anqarebs. The next
morning, the 15th of March, we pushed off for Kamlîn, and arrived there
toward evening. The following day we passed with our countryman, Herr
Bauer. After we had visited Nureddin Effendi at Wad Eraue, some hours
from Kamlîn, we arrived the next day at Soba, where I immediately sent
for a vessel found in the ruins of the ancient city, and preserved by
the brother of the Sheikh. After waiting a long time it was brought. It
proved to be an incense urn of bronze in open work; the sides of the
rounded vessel, about three-quarters of a foot in height and breadth,
were worked in arabesques; on the upper edge the chains had been
attached to three little hooks, of which one is broken away, so that the
most interesting part of the whole--an inscription in tolerably large
letters running round the top, and worked _àjour_, like arabesques--is
imperfect. This is of the more importance, as the writing is again
Greek, or rather Koptic, as on the stone tablet, but the language
neither, but without doubt the ancient language of Soba, the metropolis
of the mighty kingdom of Aloa. Notwithstanding its shortness, it is of
more importance than the tablet, that it also contains the Koptic
letters [Illustration: Koptic] (sh) and [Illustration: Koptic] (ti),
which are not to be found in the other. I bought the vessel for a few
piasters. This is now the third monument of Soba that we bring with us,
for I must add that we saw at Saïd Hashim’s, in Wed Médineh, a little
Venus, of Greek workmanship, about a foot high, which had also been
found in Soba, and was presented to me by the owner. On the 19th of
March, we at length entered again the house of M. Hermanowitch at
Chartûm, at a later date, however, than our former reckoning had
settled, therefore I had already announced our being later in a letter
to Erbkam from Wed Médineh.
LETTER XIX.
CHARTUM.
_March 21, 1844._