Inscribed Rock at the head of the Elephantine Road.]
Above these rocks one steps on to the hard surface of the desert,
and the eye may travel over the broken ground to the north for many
a mile, and may follow the road by which Herkhuf carried home his
pigmy, and Sabna his father’s body, until the brown rocks meet
the blue sky. To the south-west the second portion of the highway,
leading on to Aam, may be followed; but the point at which it
descends again to the river has not been identified though one may
safely say that the terminus, lay between Abu Simbel and the Second
Cataract. Here the country has a different aspect. On the west bank
of the Nile the sand lies thickly, and humps itself into low hillocks
covered with scrub. Between these one may walk in the cool shade of
groves of sunt and tamarisk, where flocks of goats stand dreaming
on the pathway and birds sing overhead. On the east bank isolated
hills of sandstone rise suddenly from the plain, and are reflected
in the river as in a flawless mirror. The land of Aam is as beautiful
as that of Arthet, though altogether different in character.
The later history of the highway cannot be traced in much
detail. From the VIIth to the XIIth Dynasties the Egyptian
Government was seldom strong enough at home to attempt to look
after affairs abroad, and Lower Nubia relapsed into a state
of independence. Amonemhat, the founder of the XIIth Dynasty,
about 2000 B.C., was thus obliged to reconquer the country; but
his expedition seems to have travelled up the Nile and not across
the desert. A few reigns later a fortress was built at the modern
Anâybeh, in the land of Arthet, a few miles above the terminus of
the highway from Elephantine; and the road must now have been used
continuously as the express route from the city to the fortress. This
stronghold is so much ruined and sand-covered that it has escaped
observation up till now, although its position had been ascertained
from inscriptions. Mention is made of a fortress named Taray, and its
distance from a certain known place is given, which exactly locates
it at Anâybeh. At about the same date a large fortress was built
on the west bank at the Second Cataract, and at the extreme north
end of the highroad the walls of Elephantine were now strengthened.
Above the Second Cataract lay the land of Kush, and as civilisation
advanced southwards the territory of the Ghosts had perforce to
retreat before it. The Egyptians now knew that very human negroes
inhabited the country beyond Aam; but they could still ask themselves
in whispers what manner of bogies dwelt to the south of Kush. While
the immortals were falling back, however, the mortals from above the
Second Cataract were surely pushing forward. The people of Aam were
slowly being displaced by them, and in consequence were hustling the
tribes of Arthet. During the reign of Senusert III. (1887 B.C.) the
incursions of the negroes of Kush assumed the proportions of an
invasion, and the Egyptians were obliged to wage an expensive and
lengthy war upon them. When at last they were driven back beyond
the Second Cataract, the Pharaoh set up a boundary-stone there;
and the words which he ordered to be inscribed upon it show plainly
enough what a surprise it was to him to find that his enemies had
possessed none of those superhuman powers which his subjects had
attributed to them.
“Why,” he says, “they are not a mighty people after all;
they are poor and broken in heart. My majesty has seen them; it is
not an untruth. I captured their women, I carried off their subjects,
went forth to their wells, smote their bulls. I reaped their grain,
and set fire thereto. I swear as my father lives for me I speak in
truth, without a lie therein coming out of my mouth.”
The last sentence tells of the king’s fear lest tradition should
conquer proven fact, and his soldiers should endow the negroes of
Kush with those mysterious powers of which their close proximity
to the Land of the Ghosts and the end of the world gave them the use.
During the XVIIIth Dynasty (1580-1350 B.C.) the highroad was used
continuously both by the troops which were being launched against
the Sudân, and by the officials who came to collect the taxes or
to administer the laws. Great changes had taken place since the
old days. The Land of the Ghosts had disappeared almost entirely
from the geography, though still it might exist somewhere above
Khartûm. The people of Aam, now more correctly called Emaam,
had entirely absorbed Arthet, and Sethu had fallen to the share of
Wawat. Persons travelling by the highroad, and descending to the
river at Tomâs or near the Second Cataract, found themselves in the
sphere of influence of Emaam at either place. One obtains some idea
of the inhabitants of this once mysterious land from a painting in
the tomb of Huy, the viceroy of the south, at Thebes. Here one sees
a procession of negro princes who have come to do homage to the
Pharaoh’s representative. They have evidently travelled by the
highroad, for the Prince of Emaam rides in a heavy chariot drawn
by two bulls, while his retinue walk behind him. A prince of Wawat
is also shown; while the chieftains of Kush are there in numbers,
bringing with them the produce of their country. Their clothes are
more or less Egyptian in style, and their wealth in gold is such
as an Egyptian’s eyes might stare at. In this sober, prosperous
company one looks in vain for a sign of that savage ferocity which
made them the terror of Elephantine.
In the XIXth Dynasty (1350-1205 B.C.), when the armies of Rameses
the Great and his successors passed up to the wars in the Sudân,
the Elephantine road must have been one of the main routes of
communication. The name of Rameses the Great is writ large upon the
rocks of Tomâs, in contrast to the modest little records of those
infinitely greater men of the early days. Not so long afterwards
it was the people of the Sudân who were using the road to march
on Egypt, and soon the Egyptians were obliged to bow the knee to a
negro Pharaoh. Later, when they were once more the masters of their
own affairs, the tax-gatherers returned to Emaam, and the names of
some have been left on the road.
At this time Elephantine had become a city of considerable wealth and
importance. Splendid temples rose amidst the houses and the trees,
and fortified walls around the south end of the island frowned
down upon the swift river. Priests, soldiers, and nobles walked
the streets amongst the throng of the townspeople, or sailed to
and fro over the broken waters. At the foot of the western hills,
the bay from which the Nubian highway ran must have often been
the scene of the busy loading and unloading of pack-donkeys; and
at this time there may have been a masonry landing-stage at the
river’s edge to terminate worthily the paved causeway.
Then came the Greeks and the Romans, and one may picture perspiring
legionaries hastening along the highroad to join Petronius in his
chase of the one-eyed queen Candace and her flying Ethiopians. One
may see the agents of Shems-ed-Dulah, the brother of Saladin,
passing along to rout out Christianity from Nubia; and presently
come the barbaric Mamelukes, driven before the armies of Ibrahim
Pasha. The last great scene in the long history of this most ancient
highroad was enacted a score of years ago. The Dervishes,—the
modern inhabitants of the Land of the Ghosts,—marching on Egypt
from the Sudân, picked up the road at the Second Cataract, at
its early terminus, and headed towards Tomâs. An English force,
travelling southwards, met and utterly defeated them some seven
miles back from the river, behind the village of Tôshkeh, not
far from Abu Simbel. And if one journeys direct from the ancient
land of Arthet to the land of Aam, the bones of the dead and the
_débris_ of their camp will be found strewn to right and left over
the surface of the highway.
Travelling in Egypt one sees so many remains of the solemn religious
ceremonies of the ancient Egyptians, and reading at home one meets
with so many representations of the sacred rites, that it is a
real relief to come across some relic, such as this highroad,
of human energy and toil. In the courts of the temples one has
pictured the processions of the priests and the kneeling throng of
the people. One has heard in the imagination the rhythmic chants,
has smelt the heavy incense, and has seen the smoke of the sacrifice
rising to the roof. Glum Pharaohs have stalked across the picture,
raising their stiff hands to the dull gods; and rows of bedraggled
prisoners have been led to the sanctuary, roped in impossible
contortions. One has visited, or has read of, a thousand tombs; and
the slow funerals have passed before one in depressing array. But
here on this highroad over the western hills, where the north wind
blows free and the kites circle and call above one, where there comes
vigour into the limbs and ambition into the heart, these relics
of old adventures appeal with wonderful force. Here there are no
mysteries except the mystery of the land to the south, and there
are no prayers save the asking of a successful journey, and the
piling of four stones to the honour of the gods. One does not pace
through holy places whispering “How weird!” but stick in hand,
and whistling a tune down the wind, one follows in the footsteps
of the bold caravan-masters of the past; and one thanks them from
the bottom of one’s heart for having played a man’s part on
their page of the world’s history to serve for all time as an
example. When the amusements of the luxurious hotels have given out,
and the solemnity of the ancient ruins has begun to pall, the spirits
of Herkhuf and of Sabna, of the captains and the caravan-conductors,
are always to be found waiting on the breezy hill-tops behind the
island of Elephantine, at the head of the Nubian highway.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The various rock-inscriptions of Lower Nubia mentioned in this chapter were found during a tour which I made in that country in the autumn of 1906, and are recorded in my ‘Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia and their Condition in 1906-7,’ published for the Egyptian Government by the University Press, Oxford. The evidence for the locating of the various tribes is also given there.]
[Footnote 2: I can hardly suppose that I am the first to observe this road, and yet I can find no reference to it in any publication.]
Transcriber's note:
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pg 101 Changed: migatory to: migratory
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