_I.--On the Eastern Bank of the Nile_
John Lewis Burckhardt was born at Lausanne, Switzerland,
Nov. 24, 1784. He declined a diplomatic appointment in
Germany, and came to England in 1806, bringing with him
letters of introduction to Sir Joseph Banks, from
Professor Blumenbach, the celebrated naturalist of
Göttingen. He tendered his services as an explorer to the
Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior
Parts of Africa. His offer was accepted, and Burckhardt
left England on March 2, 1809, and proceeded to Syria,
where, disguised as an Indian Mohammedan merchant, he
spent two and a half years, learning among Arab tribes
different dialects of Arabic. In 1812, he went to Egypt,
intending to join a caravan for Fezzan in order to explore
the sources of the Niger; but, being frustrated in that,
he made his two expeditions into Nubia which form the
subject of the present epitome. In June, 1815, he returned
to Cairo, and prepared his journals for publication. After
making a tour to Suez and Sinai in 1816, he was suddenly
cut off by dysentery in Cairo on October 15, 1817.
Although he did not learn English until he was twenty-four
years of age, Burckhardt's journals are written with
remarkable spirit, more especially considering that his
notes had all to be taken secretly.
I left Assouan on February 24, 1813, to make my journey through Nubia.
Assouan is the most romantic spot in Egypt, but little deserving the
lofty praise which some travellers have bestowed upon it for its
antiquities and those of the neighbouring island of Elephantine. I
carried with me nothing but my gun, sabre, and pistol, a provision bag,
and a woollen mantle, which served either for a carpet or a covering
during the night. I was dressed in the blue gown of the merchants of
Upper Egypt. After estimating the expense I was likely to incur in
Nubia, I put eight Spanish dollars into my purse in conformity with the
principle I have consistently acted upon during my travels--viz., that
the less the traveller spends while on the march, and the less money he
carries with him, the less likely are his travelling projects to
miscarry.
After crossing the mountain opposite Philæ, I passed the night in the
house of a sheikh at Wady Debot, where I first tasted the country dish
which during my journey became my constant food--viz., thin unleavened
and slightly-baked cakes of dhourra, served with sweet or sour milk.
From here to Dehmyt, the grand chain of mountains on the east side of
the Nile is uninterrupted; but from the latter place to the second
cataract, beyond Wady Halfa, the mountains are of sandstone, except some
granite rocks above Talfa. The shore widens at Korosko, and groves of
date-trees adorn the banks all the way past Derr to Ibrim. The rich
deposit of the river on the eastern bank yields large crops of dhourra
and cotton. It is different on the western shore, where the desert
sands, blown by the north-west winds, are swept up to the very brink of
the river.
It is near Derr that occurs the most ancient known temple, entirely hewn
out of the sandstone rock. The gods of Egypt seemed to have been
worshipped here long before they were lodged in the gigantic temples of
Karnac and Gorne. At Ibrim there is an aga, independent of the governors
of Nubia, and the inhabitants pay no taxes. They are descendants of
Bosnian soldiers who were sent by the great Sultan Selym to garrison the
castle of Ibrim, now a ruin, against the Mamelouks. In no parts of the
Eastern world have I ever found property in such perfect security as in
Ibrim. The Ababde Arabs between Derr and Dongola are very poor. They
pride themselves on the purity of their race and the beauty of their
women, and refuse to intermarry with the Nubians.
Beyond Wady Halfa is the second cataract, and the foaming waters dashing
against the black-and-green rocks, or forming quiet pools and lakes, so
that the Nile expands to two miles in breadth, is a most impressive
sight. The rapids render navigation impossible between here and Sukkot,
a distance of a hundred miles, and the river is hemmed in sometimes by
high banks, as at Mershed, where I could throw a stone over to the
opposite side. The rock, which had been sandstone hitherto, changes its
nature at the second cataract to granite and quartz.
At Djebel Lamoule, which we reached on March 9, we had to follow a
mountain track, and, on approaching the river again, the Arab who acted
as guide tried to extract from me a present by collecting a heap of
sand, and placing a stone at each extremity to indicate that a
traveller's tomb is made. I immediately alighted from my camel, and
began to make another tomb, telling him that it was intended for his own
sepulchre, for, as we were brethren, it was but just that we should be
buried together. At this he began to laugh. We mutually destroyed each
other's labour, and in riding along he exclaimed from the Koran: "No
mortal knows the spot on earth where his grave shall be digged." In the
plain of Aamara, which begins the district of Say, there is a fine
Egyptian temple, the six columns of which are of calcareous stone--the
only specimen of that material to be met with, those in Egypt being all
sandstone.
On March 13 we reached the territory of Mahass, and at the castle of
Tinareh I visited the camp of Mohammed Kashefs, a Mamelouk chief who had
captured the castle from a rebel cousin of the Mahass king. He behaved
like a madman, got very drunk on palm wine, and threatened to cut off my
head on suspicion of my being an agent of the pasha of Egypt, who was
the enemy of the Mamelouks. Had it not been for the arrival of the
nephew of the governor of Sukkot, the threat would in all probability
have been carried into execution.
_II.--Discoveries in Egyptian Temples_
On March 15 my guide and I escaped from the Mamelouk's camp, and at
Kolbé crossed to the west side of the river by swimming at the tail of
our camels, each beast having an inflated goatskin tied to its neck. I
thought it wise to return down the Nile to Assouan, and we pushed on as
hard as our camels could proceed. Passing the cataracts at Wady Samme
and Wady Halfa, we came to Wady Fereyg, where there is a mountain on
both sides of the Nile. At the bottom of that, on the west side, is a
hitherto undiscovered temple named Ebsambal. The temple stands about
twenty feet above the surface of the water, entirely cut out of the
almost perpendicular rocky side of the mountain, and is in complete
preservation. In front of the entrance are six erect colossal figures
representing juvenile persons, three on each side of the entrance, in
narrow recesses. Their height from the ground to the knee is about 6½
feet. The spaces of the smooth rock between the niches are covered with
hieroglyphics, as are also the walls of the interior. The statues
represent Osiris, Isis, and a youth, and each has small figures beside
it four feet high.
I was about to climb the mountain to rejoin my guide and the camels,
when I fell in with what is yet visible of four immense colossal statues
cut out of the rock at a distance of 200 yards from the temple. They
stand in a deep recess excavated in the mountain, and are almost
entirely buried beneath the sands, which are blown down here in
torrents. The entire head and part of the breast and arms of one of the
statues are yet above the surface. The head has a most expressive
youthful countenance, approaching nearer to the Grecian model of beauty
than that of any ancient Egyptian figure I have seen. Indeed, were it
not for a thin, oblong beard, it would pass for a head of Pallas. This
statue measures seven yards across the shoulders, and could not, if in
an upright posture, be less than sixty-five or seventy feet in height.
The ear is one yard and four inches in length.
On the wall of the rock in the centre of the four statues is a figure of
the hawk-headed Osiris, surmounted by a globe; beyond which, I suspect,
could the sand be cleared away, a vast temple would be discovered, to
the entrance of which the colossal figures serve as ornaments. I should
pronounce these works to belong to the finest period of Egyptian
sculpture, and that the hieroglyphics are of the same age as those on
the temple of Derr.
I continued my journey along the west bank of the Nile, and in the
course of several days inspected the ruins of all the known ancient
temples and early Greek churches. Summing up my impressions of the
temples, I would say that we find in Nubia specimens of all the
different eras of Egyptian architecture and history, which indeed can
only be traced in Nubia; for all the remaining temples in Egypt, that of
Gorne, perhaps, excepted, appear to have been erected in an age when the
science of architecture had nearly attained to perfection.
_III.--Across the Nubian Desert_
I reached Assouan on March 30, after an absence of thirty-five days,
having travelled at the rate of ten hours each day. On April 9, I
proceeded to Esné, which I had made my headquarters in Upper Egypt.
I remained at Esné till the spring of 1814, waiting for an opportunity
to start with a caravan of slave-traders towards the interior parts of
Nubia in a more easterly direction than I had been in my journey towards
Dongola. At the end of February I heard that a caravan was on the point
of starting from Daraou, three days' journey north of Esné, for the
confines of Sennaar, and I determined to accompany it and try my
fortune on this new route without any servant and in the garb of a poor
trader.
The start was made on March 2, 1814, and from the first day of our
departure my companions treated me with neglect, and even with contempt.
Although they had no idea I was a Frank, they imagined that I was of
Turkish origin, an opinion sufficient to excite the ill-treatment of
Arabs, who bear the most inveterate hatred to the Osmanli. From the
small quantity of merchandise I had, they considered I was a trader
running away from my creditors, but I succeeded in convincing them that
I was travelling in search of a lost cousin who had made an expedition
to Darfour and Sennaar in Nubia, in which the whole of my property was
engaged.
At Wady el Nabeh, the wells of which have a great repute all through
Nubia, and which we reached on March 14, we met a band of Ababdes
driving thirty slaves before them, which they were taking to sell in
Egypt. In general, I found the dreaded Nubian deserts--as far as Shigré,
at least, which we reached on March 16 with difficulty, on account of
shortage of water--of much less dreary appearance than the great Syrian
desert, and still less so than the desert of Suez and Tyh. The high
mountains of Shigré consist of huge blocks of granite heaped upon one
another in the wildest confusion.
During the whole march we were surrounded on all sides by lakes of
mirage, called by the Arabs "serab." Its colour was of the purest azure,
and so clear that the shadows of the mountains which bordered the
horizon were reflected on it with the greatest precision, and the
delusion of its being a sheet of water was thus rendered still more
perfect. We experienced great suffering from the reckless waste of water
and the dryness of the wells which were expected to yield supplies; and
so serious did it become that twelve of the strongest of the camels
were selected to hasten forward to fetch a supply of water from the
nearest part of the Nile. They returned the following morning from their
desperate mission, bringing with them plentiful supplies of the
delicious water of the Nile, in which we revelled, enabling us to reach
Berber on March 23, the whole desert journey having taken us twenty-two
days.
The governor of Berber, which consists of four villages, is called the
mek, and is nominated by the king of Sennaar. He, however, exercises a
feeble authority over the Arabs. The people of Berber are a handsome
race. The men are taller, larger-limbed, and stronger than the
Egyptians, and red-brown in colour. The features are not those of the
negro, the face being oval, and the nose perfectly Grecian. They say,
"We are Arabs, not negroes." The practice of drunkenness and debauchery
is universal, and everything discreditable to humanity is found in their
character.
I remained a fortnight in Berber, and on April 7 our caravan, reduced to
two-thirds of its original numbers, set out for Shendy. Three days
afterwards we came to Damer, a town of 500 houses, neat and clean, with
regular tree-shaded streets. The inhabitants are Arabs of the tribe of
Medja-ydin, and the greater part of them are Fokera, or religious men.
They have a pontiff called El Faky El Kebir (the great faky), who is
their chief and judge. In the mosque there is a famous school attended
by young men from Darfour, Sennaar, Kordofan, and other parts of the
Soudan; and the affairs of this little hierarchical state appeared to be
conducted with great prudence. From Damer we passed on to Shendy, where
we arrived on April 18.
This is a place of 1,000 houses, and the present mek owns large
salt-works near the town, where the ground is largely impregnated with
salt. Merchants from Sennaar buy up the salt and trade it as far as
Abyssinia. Next to Sennaar and Cobbé in Darfour, Shendy is the largest
town in the Eastern Soudan. Debauchery and drunkenness are as
fashionable here as in Berber. The people are better dressed, and the
women have rings of gold in their noses and ears. Shendy is the centre
of considerable trade, but its principal market is for slaves, who are
chiefly negroes, stolen from the interior.
The Abyssinian slave-women are reckoned the best and most faithful of
all, and are bought for the harems of the Arab chiefs. As to the
slave-traffic as a whole, laudable as the efforts of England have been
to abolish this infamous trade in Western and South-western Africa,
there does not appear to be the smallest hope of the abolition of
slavery in Africa itself. It is not from foreign nations that the blacks
can hope for deliverance. This great work must be effected by
themselves, and this can only be done by the education of the sons of
Africa in their own country and by their own countrymen.
_IV.--Among Savage Arab Tribes_
In the caravan for Souakin, which left Shendy on May 17, I joined myself
as a poor man to a party of black traders from Western Africa. After
five days spent in traversing sandy and gravelly plains, we came to the
Atbara river, which has a greater variety of natural vegetation than I
had seen anywhere on the banks of the Nile in Egypt. Having crossed the
Atbara, our route lay to the S.E., and we soon entered the country of
the Bisharein Arabs--a bold and handsome race.
The moral character of both sexes is wholly bad. They are treacherous,
cruel, avaricious, and revengeful, and are restrained in the indulgence
of their passions by no laws either human or divine. However, they have
a dread, especially the women, of a white man, and the latter shriek at
the sight of what they consider an out-cast of nature, saying, "God
preserve us from the devil." On May 31 the caravan broke into two parts,
one taking the direct road through the desert to Souakin, the other
proceeding by Taka; and I determined to accompany the latter. We
followed the course of the Atbara, and, after crossing stretches of the
desert, came, on June 3, to the village of Goz Radjeb, the centre of the
country of the Hadendoa, a tribe of the Bisharein. A Hadendoa seldom
scruples to kill his companion on the road in order to possess himself
of the most trifling article of value, but a retaliation of blood exists
in full force. They are not given to hospitality, as other Arabs are,
and they boast of their treachery. On June 6, we came to the district of
Taka, fertile and populous owing to the regular inundation of the Atbara
and its tributaries. A valley in the eastern mountains is noted for its
splendid breed of cattle and fine dhourra. The Bisharein here eat the
blood of animals coagulated over the fire, and the liver and kidneys
raw.
In an adjoining valley we encountered another tribe of Bisharein called
the Hallenga, who draw their origin from Abyssinia. They have a horrible
custom in connection with the revenge of blood. When the slayer has been
seized by the relatives of the deceased, a family feast is proclaimed,
at which the murderer is brought into the midst of them, bound upon an
angareyg, and while his throat is slowly cut with a razor, the blood is
caught in a bowl and handed round amongst the guests, every one of whom
is bound to drink of it at the moment the victim breathes his last.
A stay was made at Filik, the principal town of Taka, till June 15, when
the caravan struck N.E. by N., and marched alternately through sandy and
fertile country, across mountains of no great height, and plains with
herds of ostriches and fine cattle. The low grounds were frequently
intersected by the beds of torrential streams. One day, we crossed a
rocky plain with the soil strongly impregnated with salt, and pastured
by large herds of camels which the Arabs here keep for their milk and
flesh alone, seldom using them as beasts of burden.
On June 26 we arrived at El Geyf, an environ of Souakin--the town
itself, which consists of 600 houses, being on one of the islands in the
bay of Souakin. The inhabitants of Souakin are a motley race, and are
governed by the Emir el Hadherebe, a chief of the Bisharein tribe on the
neighbouring mainland, who is chosen by the five first families of the
tribe, but is nominally dependent upon the pasha of Djidda.
The manners of the people partake of the vices of their neighbours in
the desert, and in cruelty surpass them, and the law of the strongest is
alone respected. I was ill-treated by the aga, the representative of the
Turkish Government, until I produced the firmans which I had concealed
in a secret pocket, given me by Mohammed Aly, the viceroy of Egypt, and
by Ibrahim Pasha, his son. When the aga saw these with their handsome
seals, he regarded me as a great personage; but I refused to take up my
abode in his house, which hospitality he offered, and continued to live
in the camp of the black merchants on the mainland.
I had intended proceeding to Mokha by ship and then on to Sana, the
capital of the Yemen, from which place to make the pilgrimage to Mekka.
However, having heard of the war in the Hedjaz in Arabia, I abandoned my
project, and sailed from Souakin, on July 6, for Djidda, where I arrived
on July 16, and afterwards joined Mohammed Aly.