sont or gum trees were scarce here; the somra was the most frequent,
which always spreads out into several strong branches on the ground, and
ends in an even crown of thin twigs and little green leaves, so that it
often resembles a regularly formed cone overturned, frequently attaining
a height of fifteen feet. By it grows the heglik, with branches all
round the trunk, and single groups of leaves and twigs like the
pear-tree. The unprickly serha, on the contrary, has all its branches
surrounded with very small green leaflets like moss, and the tondûb has
no leaves at all, but instead of them little green branchlets, growing
irregularly, almost as thick as foliage, while the sálame-bush consists
of long slender switches, which are beset with green leaflets and long
green thorns.
After four o’clock we set out, and came down very gradually from the
heights. In the Wadi Kalas there are again a number of wells,
twenty-five feet deep, with very good rain-water. Here we encamped for
the night, although we had only arrived there shortly after sunset. The
animals were watered and the skins filled. The whole plateau is rich in
trees and bushes, and is inhabited by men and animals.
Our road on the following day retained the same character, as long as we
journeyed between the beautiful and wildly rising walls of porphyry.
After two hours we arrived at two other springs also called Kalas, with
little but good water. Hence a road leads north-eastward to the well
Meroë in the Wadi Abu Dôm, probably so denominated from a white rock.
Three hours farther, passing by Gebel Abrak, we entered the great Wadi
Abu Dôm, which we pursued in a W.N.W. direction. This remarkable valley
runs from the Nile by Mechêref along an extended mountain chain to the
village of Abu Dôm, which is situated opposite Mount Barkal, in a
slanting direction. If it be considered that the upper north-east mouth
of this valley, crossing the whole peninsula and its mountains, is
almost opposite the confluence of the Atbara, which runs into the Nile
in the same direction above Mechêref, the idea may be entertained that
at one time, though not in historical times, there was here a water
communication which cut off the greater part of the eastern reach of
the Nile, which now exists through the circumstance that the rocky
plateau near Abu Hammed turns the stream southernward for a degree and a
half against its general direction. The name of the valley is taken from
the single _dôm_ palms that are found scattered up and down in it. The
mountain chain running north of the valley is distinctly different from
the mountains which we had formerly passed. With our entrance into this
valley, we lost the hard mountain soil, and the flying sand again
predominated, without, however, overcoming the still not scarce
vegetation.
After we had passed a side valley, Om Shebah, containing well-water, in
the afternoon, on the left, we encamped at about nine o’clock for the
night. Next morning we came to the deep well, Hanik. I stopped about
noon at a second, called Om Sarale, after the tree of the same name.
Here I left the caravan with Jussuf, to reach Barkal by a circuit to
Nuri, lying somewhat higher up the river on this shore. After an hour
and a half, we came to the very considerable ruins of a great Christian
convent in Wadi Gazâl; so named from the gazelles, who scrape here in
the _Chor_ (valley-bed), for water in great numbers. The church was
built of white unhewn sand-stone up to the windows, and, above them, of
unburnt brick; the walls covered with a strong coating of gypsum, and
painted inside. The vaulted apse of the tri-naved basilica, lies as
usual to the eastward, the entrance behind the western transept to the
north and south; all the arches of the doors, windows, and pillar niches
are round. Koptic, more or less ornamented, crosses are frequently
placed over the door, the simplest form of which, ✠ is easily comparable
to the ancient Egyptian symbol of life. The whole is a true type of all
the Koptic churches which I have seen, and I therefore add the little
ground-plan, which Erbkam took of it.
[Illustration]
The building is about eighty feet long, and exactly half as broad. The
north wall is ruined. The church is surrounded by a great court, the
outer walls of which, as also the numerous partly vaulted convent cells,
still well preserved, are built of rude blocks. Before the western
entrance of the church, separated only by a little court, lies the
largest building, forty-six feet in length, probably the house of the
prior, from which a particular side entrance led into the church. On the
south side of the convent are two church-yards; the western one, about
forty paces from the church, contained a number of graves, which were
simply erected of black stones collected together. Nearer to the
buildings was the eastern one, which was remarkable for a considerable
number of grave-stones, partly inscribed in Greek and partly in Koptic,
which will cause me to make a second visit to this remarkable convent
before our departure from Barkal. I counted more than twenty inscribed
stones, of which some had of course suffered extremely, and as many
slabs of baked earth, with inscriptions scratched upon them, almost all,
however, broken to pieces. They contain the most southern Greek
inscriptions which have yet been discovered in the Nile regions, with
the exception of the inscription of Adulis and Axum in Abyssinia; and
though it be not doubtful that the Greek language after the promulgation
of Christianity, the traces of which we can detect in architectural
remains farther than Soba, was used and understood by the natives in all
the flourishing countries up to Abyssinia, at least for religious
purposes; yet these epitaphs, (among which, on a cursory examination, I
could find none in the Ethiopian,) seemed to point to immigrating
Græco-Koptic inhabitants of the old convent.
I left my comrades here, who went direct to Abu Dôm at five o’clock, and
proceeded to Nuri. Soon there gleamed towards us the blue heights of
Mount Barkal, which rises alone with steep sides and a broad platform
from the surrounding plain, and immediately attracts attention by its
peculiar shape and situation. At six o’clock, the Nile valley lay before
us in its whole and somewhat broad extent; a sight long desired, after
the desert, and which excites the attention of travellers as much as the
nearing coasts after a sea-voyage.
Our road turned, however, to the right, and proceeded through the
mountains, which still consist of masses of porphyry. When we reached
Barkal, right opposite us, I observed on our left a number of black,
round, or pyramidal grave-hillocks, with which I had been acquainted
from Meroe. Probably it was the general burying-place of Napata, still
the metropolis of the Ethiopian kings in the time of Herodotus, and
situated on the opposite shore; there must then have also been a
considerable city on the left bank of the Nile, by which the position of
the pyramids of Nuri on the same side is explained. Yet I have not been
able to discover any ruined mounds answering to such a conjecture. Only
behind the village of Duêm, and near Abu Dôm, I saw such, which were
called Sánab, but they were not of any considerable extent. We did not
come into the neighbourhood of this important group of pyramids until
half-past seven, and we quartered ourselves for the night with the
sheikh of the village.
Before sunrise I was already at the pyramids, of which I counted about
twenty-five. They are partially statelier than those of Meroe, but built
of soft sandstone, and therefore much disintegrated; a few only have any
smooth casing left. The largest exhibits the same principle of structure
within which I have discovered in those of Lower Egypt; a smaller inner
pyramid was enlarged in all directions by a stone casing. At one part of
the west side the smoothened surface of the innermost structure was
distinctly visible within the eight foot thick, well-joined, outer
mantle. Little is to be found here of ante-chambers, as at Meroe and the
pyramids of Barkal; I believe I have only found the remains of two; the
rest, if they existed, must have been quite ruined or buried in the
rubbish. Some pyramids stand so close before one another, that by their
position it would be impossible for an ante-chamber to exist, at least
on the east side, where they were to be expected. For the rest, the
pyramids are built quite massively, of free-stone; I could only find
that the most eastern of all was filled up with black, unhewn stones. A
pyramid with a flaw, like that of Dahhshur, is also here; but here the
lower angle was probably originally intended, as there the upper one, as
it is too inconsiderable for a structure in steps. Although I could,
unfortunately, find no inscriptions, with the exception of one single
fragment of granite, yet several things combine to assure me that this
is the elder group, that of Barkal the younger.
I arrived at Abu Dôm after ten o’clock, where I found my companions. The
crossing of the Nile occupied us the whole day, and we first came to
Barkal at sunset.
Georgi had, to my great joy, arrived here some days ago from Dongola.
His assistance is doubly welcome to us, as everything must be drawn here
that is discovered. The Ethiopian residence of King Tahraka, who also
reigned in Egypt, and left architectural remains behind him,--the same
who went forth to Palestine in Hiskias’ time against Sanharib,--is too
important for us not to becoming completely exhausted.
LETTER XXIII.
MOUNT BARKAL.
_May 28, 1844._
I expect every moment the transport-boats requested of Hassan Pasha,
which set out eleven days ago, and are to take up our Ethiopian
treasures, and bring ourselves to Dongola. The results of our researches
at this place are not without importance. On the whole, it is perfectly
settled that Ethiopian art is only a later branch of the Egyptian. It
does not begin under native rulers until Tahraka. The little which yet
remains to us of a former age belongs to the Egyptian conquerors and
their artists. It is wholly confined here, at least, to one temple,
which Ramses the Great erected to Amen-Ra. Certainly the name of
Amenophis III. has been found on several granite rams, as upon the
London lions of Lord Prudhoe;[87] but there are good grounds for
suspecting that these stately colossi did not originally belong to a
temple here. They were transported hither at a later period from Soleb,
as it would seem, probably by the Ethiopian king whose name is found
engraven on the breast of the lions above mentioned, and which has, on
account of the erroneous omission of a sign, been hitherto read Amen
Asru, instead of Mi Amen Asru.
But I have found these rams so remarkable, chiefly on account of their
inscriptions, that I have resolved to take the best of them with us.
The fat sheep may weigh 150 cwt. Yet he had been drawn to the shore on
rollers within three hot days by ninety-two fellahs, where he awaits his
embarkation. Several other monuments are to accompany us hence, the
weight of which we need not fear, now we have the deserts behind us. I
only mention an Ethiopian altar four feet high, with the cartouches of
the king erecting it; a statue of Isis, on the back pillar of which
there is an Ethiopian demotic inscription in eighteen lines, and another
from Méraui; as also the peculiar monument bearing the name of Amenophis
III., which was copied by Cailliaud, and taken for a foot, but in
reality is the underpart of the sacred sparrow-hawk. All these monuments
are of black granite.[88]
The city of Napata, the name of which I have often found
hieroglyphically, and already on Tahraka’s monuments, was doubtless
situated somewhat lower down the river by the present place Méraui,
where considerable mounds testify for such a conjecture. In the
neighbourhood of the mountain the temples and pyramids only were
situated. In the hieroglyphical inscriptions, this remarkable rock-mass
bears the name of the “holy mountain,” [Illustration: hieroglyphs]. The
God more especially venerated here was Ammon-Ra.
On the 18th of May we carried out our long-intended second visit to the
Wadi Gazâl, took impressions of all the Greek and Koptic inscriptions
of the burial-place, and took away with us what appeared yet legible.
We are now more sensible than before of the meaning of the summer-season
in the torrid zone; the thermometer usually rises in the afternoon to
37° and 38° Reaumur; indeed, occasionally, above 40° in the shade. The
glowing sand at my feet I often found to be 53°, and whatever is made of
metal can only be touched with a cloth round it in the open air. All our
drawings and papers are richly bedewed with pearly drops of
perspiration. But the hot wind is the most annoying, which drives
oven-heat in our faces, instead of coolness. The nights are scarcely
more refreshing. The thermometer falls to 33° towards evening, and
towards morning to 28°. Our only refreshment is continual Nile-baths,
which, however, would be considered warm-baths in Europe. We have
several times had storms with violent sand-filled hurricanes, and a few
drops of rain. Yesterday a whirlwind beat down our tent, and at the same
time our arbour of strong trunks and palm-branches fell upon us from its
violence, while we were eating; the meal was scarcely eatable on account
of the strong spice of sand. It would seem that violent gusts of wind
are peculiar to this clime or country, for one often sees four or five
high sand-pillars at the same time at different distances, dashing
heavenward like mighty volcanoes. There are few serpents here; but a
great number of scorpions, and ugly great spiders more feared by the
natives than the scorpions. We therefore sleep on _anqarebs_ brought
from the village, on account of these malicious vermin.
LETTER XXIV.
DONGOLA.
_June 15, 1844._
Before our departure from Barkal, I undertook an excursion up the Nile
into the district of the cataracts, which we had cut off in our desert
journey. I also wished to learn the character of this part of the
country, the only portion of the valley of the Nile which we had not
traversed with the caravan. We went by water to Kasinqar, and remained
there the night. From here arise wild masses of granite, which form
numerous islands in the rivers, and stop the navigation.
With much trouble we arrived the next day, before the camels were ready,
at the island of Ishishi, surrounded by violent and dangerous eddies. We
here found ruins of walls and buildings of brick, sometimes of stone,
both hewn and unhewn, which leads us to the conclusion that they must
have served as fortifications to the island at different times; yet
there were no inscriptions, excepting one in a few unintelligible signs.
We did not mount our camels at Kasinqar until after nine o’clock, and
rode along the right hand shore, between the granite rocks, which leave
but very little room for a scanty vegetation. The eye is relieved almost
wholly in the numerous, and generally smaller islands, by green clumps
of trees and cultivated spots multifariously intersected by the black
crags. There is scarcely room for larger villages among these rocks;
few, indeed, could find sustenance among them. The villages consist of
single and small rows of houses stretching along at a great distance,
yet, bearing the same name, however, to a certain extent. The plain of
Kasinqar ended with a beautiful group of palms. Then we entered the
district of Kû’eh, followed by the long tract of Hamdab, to which
belongs the island of Mérui or Méroe, more than a quarter of an hour in
length. Here, too, the name is explained by the situation. It is very
high, sometimes forty feet above the water-level; the one now among the
larger islands is wholly barren and uninhabited, and excepting the black
crags periodically washed by the waters, it is completely white. This is
occasioned principally by the dazzling sand-drifts which cover it; but
strangely enough, the rocks jutting out of the sand are also white,
either from the broad veins of quartz, in the same manner as another
peculiar white rock which I had seen in the province of Robatât, lying
on the way, and which was called by the camel-drivers Hager Mérui, or
because the weather-beaten granite here has contracted this colour. The
name of the village of Méraui, near Barkal, has, perhaps, the same
origin; here the white precipices, running from Méraui to the river, and
which attracted my attention on our departure, have suggested the name
by their colour.
On the opposite shore the Gebel Kongêli, comes near to the river, also
called Gebel Mérui; from the island as well as the rushing cataract a
little above the island, which has received the name of Shellâl Mérui.
At four o’clock we arrived at the ruin Hellet el Bib, which from a
distance has quite the appearance of a castle of the middle ages. It
rises on low rocks, the ridge of which traverses the court and the
building itself, so that a part of it appears like an upper story. The
whole edifice is built of unburnt, but good and carefully-formed bricks,
cemented with a small quantity of mortar, and covered with a coating of
the same. Within are various large and small rooms, some with half-round
niches in them and arched doorways. The walls of the west side were
fifteen feet high. The outer wall of the court of unhewn stone, but
carefully built up to about five to eight feet, enclosed a tolerably
regular square, the side of which was about sixty-five paces long.
This small castle, but still respectable for the neighbourhood, reminds
one, by its niches and arched doors, of the Christian architecture of
former centuries, but it does not appear to have been destined for any
religious purpose. Perhaps in its prime it belonged to the powerful and
warlike tribes of the Shaiqîeh, which, according to tradition,
immigrated from Arabia into this neighbourhood some centuries ago. At
the time of the Egyptian conquest the country was under the dominion of
three Shaiqîeh princes; probably one of them resided here. The
surrounding country was also more favoured by nature, the shore flatter,
beset with bushes, here and there bordered by a fertile piece of land.
After I had sketched the plan of the building, we set off at nine
o’clock in the evening, by the light of a full moon, on our way back,
which we shortened considerably by taking the road from the island of
Saffi through the desert, where we passed the night, on an open sand
plain, in the great granite field. About five o’clock, between moonshine
and morning dawn, we were again on our way, and by nine o’clock we had
reached our ship at Kasinqar.
Near this place I met with a tree quite new to me, in a little Wadi,
which led to the river. It was called Bân, and does not grow anywhere
but in this Wadi, which is called Chôr el Bân from it, and in another,
near Méraui.[89] A strong white-barked stem, not unlike that of our
walnut-tree, with some more stems round it, and short white branches,
grew short and knotty out of the ground. The branches were now almost
naked, a few only had leaves, if we can call the great bunches of
switches by that name. The fruit is a long, round fluted ball, which
splits into three pieces, when the five to ten black-shelled nuts (of
about the size of a hazel-nut) which it contains, are ripe; the white
sweet, though rather sharp, oily kernel is not unpleasant; but it is
mostly used by the inhabitants to press oil from. The bloom of the tree
is yellow, and grows in bunches.
At noon the Sheikh of Nuri came to our boat, from whom I obtained some
more information as to the cataract country. There are in the province
of Shaiqîeh and the adjoining one of Monassir eight especial cataracts:
the first, Shelâl Gerêndid, near the island Ishishi; Shelâl Terâi, near
Kû’eh; Shelâl Mérui; Shelâl Dabák, near the island Uli; Shelâl el
Edermîeh, e’Kabenât, e Tanarâi, and Om Derás. From hence a rocky
district stretches to El Kâb, whence the stream flows to Shelâl Mogrât,
in the great reach to Berber.
There is nothing now spoken in this whole neighbourhood but Arabic; but
there is still a recollection of the former Nubian population, as there
are yet a number of villages distinguished from the others as Nuba
villages. Above the province Dongola, the following were pointed out to
me as such:--Gebel Maqál and Zûma on the right shore, and near the
island Massaui, which also bears the Nubian name of Abranârti; then on
the left hand Belled e’ Nûba, between Debbe and Abu Dôm, Haluf or Nuri,
and Bellel, opposite Gerf e’ Sheikh and Kasinqar. Then the account
springs over to Chôsh e’ Gurûf, a little below the island of Mogrât, and
towards Salame and Darmali, two villages between Mechêref and Dârmer;
and finally, there is a Belled e’ Nûba, north of Gôs Burri, in the
province Metamme.
At last, on the 4th of June, we quitted Barkal, after we had loaded the
Ram and the other heavy monuments in two transport vessels.
We remained the first night in Abu Dôm on the left shore. I had heard of
a Fakir, belonging to this place, who was said to possess manuscript
notes on the tribe of Shaiqîeh Arabs. He was an intelligent, and for
this country, a learned man, and I found him quite ready, not to give me
the original of the few sheets he possessed, but to set to work
immediately and copy them for me.
The next morning we landed first in Tanqássi, about the distance of an
hour and a half from Abu Dôm, where we were to find ruins. The Fakir
Daha, who belonged to the Korêsh, the tribe of the Prophet, accompanied
us to the now inconsiderable mounds of bricks. We passed by his
hereditary tomb, a little cupola building erected by his grandfather,
which already had not only received him, but also his father and several
other relations. From hence I espied some hills in the distance, which
the Fakir declared to be natural. Nevertheless we rode up to them, and
found, at about half an hour’s distance from the river, more than twenty
tolerably large pyramids, now apparently formed of nothing but black
mud, but originally built of Nile bricks. Single stones lay round about,
and on the east side, at some distance, there were always two little
heaps of stones, which appeared to have belonged to a kind of
ante-chamber, and perhaps were connected with the pyramid by brick
walls. Nowhere, however, were there any hewn stones or inscriptions to
be found. On the opposite shore, near Kurru, we also found a field of
pyramids, but very few ruins of towns were to be discovered. The
largest of the two most considerable pyramids, named Quntûr, was about
thirty-five feet high, and towards the south-east were the remains of an
antechamber. Around these two were grouped twenty-one smaller ones, of
which four, like the largest pyramid, were built entirely of sandstone,
but are now mostly in ruins; others consisted only of black basalt.
Finally, westward of all the ground plan of a large apparently quite
massive and consequently completely ruined pyramid was to be seen, whose
foundation was in the rock. It appears also that this pyramid, which by
its solid architecture was distinguished from all the surrounding ones,
belonged to a royal dynasty of Napata; thus it was easier to account for
the want of city ruins here than on the opposite side.
Three quarters of an hour down the stream on the right, lies the little
village of Zûma. Near it, towards the mountains, rises an old fortress,
with towers of defence, called Kárat Négil, the outer walls of which
were ruined and destroyed about fifty or sixty years ago, when the
present inhabitants of Zûma settled here. The name is derived from that
of an old king of the country, called Négil, in whose time the
surrounding land, which is now barren, was still reached and fertilized
by the Nile.
The first discovery on the road to the fortress was another number of
pyramids, of which eight were yet about twenty feet high; including the
ruined ones, which seemed to have been as usual the most massive, there
were altogether thirty; to the south-west the old quarries are yet to
be seen, which had furnished the materials for the pyramids.