THE GREAT NUBIAN DESERT.
The Curve of the Nile—Routes across the Desert—Our
Caravan starts—Riding on a Dromedary—The Guide and
Camel-drivers—Hair-dressing—El Biban—Scenery—Dead
Camels—An Unexpected Visit—The Guide makes my Grave—The
River without Water—Characteristics of the Mirage—Desert
Life—The Sun—The Desert Air—Infernal Scenery—The Wells of
Mûrr-hàt—Christmas—Mountain Chains—Meeting Caravans—Plains of
Gravel—The Story of Joseph—Djebel Mokràt—The Last Day in the
Desert—We see the Nile again.
“He sees the snake-like caravan crawl
O’er the edge of the Desert, black and small,
And nearer and nearer, till, one by one.
He can count its camels in the sun.”—LOWELL.
A glance at the map will explain the necessity of my Desert journey. The
Nile, at Korosko (which is in lat. 22° 38′), makes a sharp bend to the
west, and in ascending his current, one travels in a south-westerly
direction nearly to Dongola, thence south to Edabbe, in lat. 18°, after
which his course is north-east as far as lat. 19° 30′, where he again
resumes the general southern direction. The termini of this immense
curve, called by the ancients the “elbows” of the Nile, are Korosko and
Abou-Hammed, in southern Nubia. About ninety miles above the former
place, at Wadi Haifa, is the second cataract of the Nile, the Southern
Thule of Egyptian tourists. The river, between that point and Dongola, is
so broken by rapids, that vessels can only pass during the inundation,
and then with great difficulty and danger. The exigencies of trade
have established, no doubt since the earliest times, the shorter route
through the Desert. The distance between Korosko and Abou-Hammed, by
the river, is more than six hundred miles, while by the Desert, it is,
according to my reckoning, only two hundred and forty-seven miles. The
former caravan route led directly from Assouan to Berber and Shendy, and
lay some distance to the eastward of that from Korosko. It is the same
travelled by Bruce and Burckhardt, but is now almost entirely abandoned,
since the countries of Soudân have been made tributary to Egypt. It
lies through a chain of valleys, inhabited by the Ababdeh Arabs, and
according to Burckhardt, there are trees and water, at short intervals,
for the greater part of the way. The same traveller thus describes the
route from Korosko: “On that road the traveller finds only a single well,
which is situated midway, four long days distant from Berber and as many
from Sebooa [near Korosko]. A great inconvenience on that road is that
neither trees nor shrubs are anywhere found, whence the camels are much
distressed for food, and passengers are obliged to carry wood with them
to dress their meals.”
On the morning of the 21st of December, the water-skins were filled
from the Nile, the baggage carefully divided into separate loads, the
unwilling camels received their burdens, and I mounted a dromedary for
the first time. My little caravan consisted of six camels, including
that of the guide. As it was put in motion, the Governor and Shekh
Abou-Mohammed wished me a safe journey and the protection of Allah.
We passed the miserable hamlet of Korosko, turned a corner of the
mountain-chain into a narrow stony valley, and in a few minutes lost
sight of the Nile and his belt of palms. Thenceforth, for many days,
the only green thing to be seen in all the wilderness was myself. After
two or three hours’ travel, we passed an encampment of Arabs, where my
Bishàrees added another camel for their own supplies, and two Nubians,
mounted on donkeys, joined us for the march to Berber. The first day’s
journey lay among rugged hills, thrown together confusedly, with no
apparent system or direction. They were of jet black sandstone, and
resembled immense piles of coke and anthracite. The small glens and
basins inclosed in this chaos were filled with glowing yellow sand,
which in many places streamed down the crevices of the black rocks, like
rivulets of fire. The path was strewn with hollow globes of hard, black
stones, precisely resembling cannon-balls. The guide gave me one of the
size of a rifle-bullet, with a seam around the centre, as if cast in a
mould. The thermometer showed a temperature of eighty degrees at two P.
M., but the heat was tempered by a pure, fresh breeze. After eight hours’
travel, I made my first camp at sunset, in a little hollow inclosed by
mountains, where a gray jackal, after being twice shot at, came and
looked into the door of the tent.
I found dromedary-riding not at all difficult. One sits on a very lofty
seat, with his feet crossed over the animal’s shoulders or resting on
his neck. The body is obliged to rock backward and forward, on account
of the long, swinging gait, and as there is no stay or fulcrum except a
blunt pommel, around which the legs are crossed, some little power of
equilibrium is necessary. My dromedary was a strong, stately beast, of a
light cream color, and so even a gait, that it would bear the Arab test:
that is, one might drink a cup of coffee, while going on a full trot,
without spilling a drop. I found a great advantage in the use of the
Oriental costume. My trowsers allowed the legs perfect freedom of motion,
and I soon learned so many different modes of crossing those members,
that no day was sufficient to exhaust them. The rising and kneeling of
the animal is hazardous at first, as his long legs double together like
a carpenter’s rule, and you are thrown backwards and then forwards, and
then backwards again, but the trick of it is soon learned. The soreness
and fatigue of which many travellers complain, I never felt, and I
attribute much of it to the Frank dress. I rode from eight to ten hours a
day, read and even dreamed in the saddle, and was at night as fresh and
unwearied as when I mounted in the morning.
My caravan was accompanied by four Arabs. The guide, Eyoub, was an old
Ababdeh, who knew all the Desert between the Red Sea and the Nile, as far
south as Abyssinia. The camel-drivers were of the great Bishàree tribe,
which extends from Shendy, in Ethiopia, through the eastern portion of
the Nubian Desert, to the frontiers of Egypt. They owned the burden
camels, which they urged along with the cry of “Yo-ho! Shekh Abd-el
Kader!” and a shrill barbaric song, the refrain of which was: “O Prophet
of God, help the camels and bring us safely to our journey’s end!”
They were very susceptible to cold, and a temperature of 50°, which we
frequently had in the morning, made them tremble like aspen leaves, and
they were sometimes so benumbed that they could scarcely load the camels.
They were proud of their enormous heads of hair, which they wore parted
on both temples, the middle portion being drawn into an upright mass,
six inches in height, while the side divisions hung over the ears in a
multitude of little twists. These love-locks they anointed every morning
with suet, and looked as if they had slept in a hard frost, until the
heat had melted the fat. I thought to flatter one of them as he performed
the operation, by exclaiming “Beautiful!”—but he answered coolly: “You
speak truth: it is very beautiful.” Through the central mass of hair a
wooden skewer was stuck, in order to scratch the head without disturbing
the arrangement. They wore long swords, carried in a leathern scabbard
over the left shoulder, and sometimes favored us with a war-dance, which
consisted merely in springing into the air with a brandished sword and
turning around once before coming down. Their names were El Emeem,
Hossayn and Ali. We called the latter Shekh Ali, on account of his hair.
He wore nothing but a ragged cotton clout, yet owned two camels, had a
tent in the Desert, and gave Achmet a bag of dollars to carry for him. I
gave to El Emeem, on account of his shrill voice, the nickname of _Wiz_
(wild goose), by which he was thenceforth called. They were all very
devout, retiring a short distance from the road to say their prayers,
at the usual hours and performing the prescribed ablutions with sand,
instead of water.
On the second morning we passed through a gorge in the black hills, and
entered a region called _El Biban_, or “The Grates.” Here the mountains,
though still grouped in the same disorder, were more open and gave room
to plains of sand several miles in length. The narrow openings, through
which the road passes from one plain to another, gave rise to the name.
The mountains are higher than on the Nile, and present the most wonderful
configurations—towers, fortresses, walls, pyramids, temples in ruin, of
an inky blackness near at hand, but tinged of a deep, glowing violet hue
in the distance. Towards noon I saw a mirage—a lake in which the broken
peaks were reflected with great distinctness. One of the Nubians who was
with us, pointed out a spot where he was obliged to climb the rocks, the
previous summer, to avoid being drowned. During the heavy tropical rains
which sometimes fall here, the hundreds of pyramidal hills pour down such
floods that the sand cannot immediately drink them up, and the valleys
are turned into lakes. The man described the roaring of the waters, down
the clefts of the rocks, as something terrible. In summer the passage of
the Desert is much more arduous than in winter, and many men and camels
perish. The road was strewn with bones and carcasses, and I frequently
counted twenty dead camels within a stone’s throw. The stone-heaps which
are seen on all the spurs of the hills, as landmarks for caravans, have
become useless, since one could find his way by the bones in the sand. My
guide, who was a great believer in afrites and devils, said that formerly
many persons lost the way and perished from thirst, all of which was the
work of evil spirits.
My next camp was in the midst of a high circular plain, surrounded by
hundreds of black peaks. Here I had an unexpected visit. I was sitting
in my tent, about eight o’clock, when I heard the tramp of dromedaries
outside, and a strange voice saying: _ana wahed Ingleez_ (I am an
Englishman). It proved to be Capt. Peel, of the British Navy, (son of
the late Sir Robert Peel), who was returning from a journey to Khartoum
and Kordofan. He was attended by a single guide, and carried only a
water-skin and a basket of bread. He had travelled nearly day and night
since leaving Berber, and would finish the journey from that place to
Korosko—a distance of four hundred miles—in seven days. He spent an hour
with me, and then pushed onward through “The Gates” towards the Nile. It
had been his intention to penetrate into Dar-Fūr, a country yet unvisited
by any European, but on reaching Obeid, the Capital of Kordofan, his
companion, a Syrian Arab, fell sick, and he was himself attacked with
the ague. This decided him to return, and he had left his baggage and
servants to follow, and was making for England with all speed. He was
provided with all the necessary instruments to make his travel useful in
a scientific point of view, and the failure of his plans is much to be
regretted. I was afterwards informed by M. Linant that he met Capt. Peel
on the following day, and supplied him with water enough to reach the
Nile.
Towards noon, on the third day, we passed the last of the “Gates,”
and entered the _Bahr bela Ma_ (River without Water), a broad plain
of burning yellow sand. The gateway is very imposing, especially
on the eastern side, where it is broken by a valley or gorge of
Tartarean blackness. As we passed the last peak, my guide, who had
ridden in advance dismounted beside what seemed to be a collection of
graves—little ridges of sand, with rough head and foot stones. He sat
by one which he had just made. As I came up he informed me that all
travellers who crossed the Nubian Desert, for the first time, are here
expected to pay a toll, or fee to the guide and camel-men. “But what if
I do not choose to pay?” I asked. “Then you will immediately perish, and
be buried here. The graves are those of persons who refused to pay.” As
I had no wish to occupy the beautiful mound he had heaped for me, with
the thigh-bones of a camel at the head and foot, I gave the men a few
piastres, and passed the place. He then plucked up the bones and threw
them away, and restored the sand to its original level.[1]
The _Bahr bela Ma_ spread out before us, glittering in the hot sun. About
a mile to the eastward lay (apparently) a lake of blue water. Reeds
and water-plants grew on its margin, and its smooth surface reflected
the rugged outline of the hills beyond. The Waterless River is about
two miles in breadth, and appears to have been at one time the bed of
a large stream. It crosses all the caravan routes in the desert, and
is supposed to extend from the Nile to the Red Sea. It may have been
the outlet for the river, before its waters forced a passage through
the primitive chains which cross its bed at Assouan and Kalabshee. A
geological exploration of this part of Africa could not fail to produce
very interesting results. Beyond the _Bahr bela Ma_ extends the broad
central plateau of the Desert, fifteen hundred feet above the sea. It
is a vast reach of yellow sand, dotted with low, isolated hills, which
in some places are based on large beds of light-gray sandstone of an
unusually fine and even grain. Small towers of stone have been erected on
the hills nearest the road, in order to guide the couriers who travel by
night. Near one of them the guide pointed out the grave of a merchant,
who had been murdered there two years previous, by his three slaves. The
latter escaped into the Desert, but probably perished, as they were never
heard of afterwards. In the smooth, loose sand, I had an opportunity of
reviving my forgotten knowledge of trackography, and soon learned to
distinguish the feet of hyenas, foxes, ostriches, lame camels and other
animals. The guide assured me that there were devils in the Desert, but
one only sees them when he travels alone.
On this plain the mirage, which first appeared in the Biban, presented
itself under a variety of wonderful aspects. Thenceforth, I saw it
every day, for hours together, and tried to deduce some rules from the
character of its phenomena. It appears on all sides, except that directly
opposite to the sun, but rarely before nine A. M. or after three P. M.
The color of the apparent water is always precisely that of the sky,
and this is a good test to distinguish it from real water, which is
invariably of a deeper hue. It is seen on a gravelly as well as a sandy
surface, and often fills with shining pools the slight depressions in
the soil at the bases of the hills. Where it extends to the horizon
there is no apparent line, and it then becomes an inlet of the sky,
as if the walls of heaven were melting down and flowing in upon the
earth. Sometimes a whole mountain chain is lifted from the horizon and
hung in the air, with its reflected image joined to it, base to base.
I frequently saw, during the forenoon, lakes of sparkling blue water,
apparently not a quarter of a mile distant. The waves ripple in the wind;
tall reeds and water-plants grow on the margin, and the Desert rocks
behind cast their shadows on the surface. It is impossible to believe
it a delusion. You advance nearer, and suddenly, you know not how, the
lake vanishes. There is a grayish film over the spot, but before you
have decided whether the film is in the air or in your eyes, that too
disappears, and you see only the naked sand. What you took to be reeds
and water-plants probably shows itself as a streak of dark gravel. The
most probable explanation of the mirage which I could think of, was, that
it was actually a reflection of the sky upon a stratum of heated air,
next the sand.
I found the Desert life not only endurable but very agreeable. No matter
how warm it might be at mid-day, the nights were always fresh and cool,
and the wind blew strong from the north-west, during the greater part of
the time. The temperature varied from 50°-55° at 6 A. M. to 80°-85° at 2
P. M. The extremes were 47° and 100°. So great a change of temperature
every day was not so unpleasant as might be supposed. In my case, Nature
seemed to make a special provision in order to keep the balance right.
During the hot hours of the day I never suffered inconvenience from
the heat, but up to 85° felt sufficiently cool. I seemed to absorb the
rays of the sun, and as night came on and the temperature of the air
fell, that of my skin rose, till at last I glowed through and through,
like a live coal. It was a peculiar sensation, which I never experienced
before, but was rather pleasant than otherwise. My face, however, which
was alternately exposed to the heat radiated from the sand, and the
keen morning wind; could not accommodate itself to so much contraction
and expansion. The skin cracked and peeled off more than once, and I
was obliged to rub it daily with butter. I mounted my dromedary with a
“shining morning face,” until, from alternate buttering and burning, it
attained the hue and crispness of a well-basted partridge.
I soon fell into a regular daily routine of travel, which, during all
my later experiences of the Desert, never became monotonous. I rose at
dawn every morning, bathed my eyes with a handful of the precious water,
and drank a cup of coffee. After the tent had been struck and the camels
laden, I walked ahead for two hours, often so far in advance that I lost
sight and hearing of the caravan. I found an unspeakable fascination in
the sublime solitude of the Desert. I often beheld the sun rise, when,
within the wide ring of the horizon, there was no other living creature
to be seen. He came up like a god, in awful glory, and it would have been
a natural act, had I cast myself upon the sand and worshipped him. The
sudden change in the coloring of the landscape, on his appearance—the
lighting up of the dull sand into a warm golden hue, and the tintings of
purple and violet on the distant porphyry hills—was a morning miracle,
which I never beheld without awe. The richness of this coloring made
the Desert beautiful; it was too brilliant for desolation. The scenery,
so far from depressing, inspired and exhilarated me. I never felt the
sensation of physical health and strength in such perfection, and was
ready to shout from morning till night, from the overflow of happy
spirits. The air is an elixir of life—as sweet and pure and refreshing
as that which the first Man breathed, on the morning of Creation. You
inhale the unadulterated elements of the atmosphere, for there are no
exhalations from moist earth, vegetable matter, or the smokes and steams
which arise from the abodes of men, to stain its purity. This air, even
more than its silence and solitude, is the secret of one’s attachment
to the Desert. It is a beautiful illustration of the compensating care
of that Providence, which leaves none of the waste places of the earth
without some atoning glory. Where all the pleasant aspects of Nature are
wanting—where there is no green thing, no fount for the thirsty lip,
scarcely the shadow of a rock to shield the wanderer in the blazing
noon—God has breathed upon the wilderness his sweetest and tenderest
breath, giving clearness to the eye, strength to the frame, and the most
joyous exhilaration to the spirits.
Achmet always insisted on my taking a sabre as a protection against the
hyenas, but I was never so fortunate as to see more than their tracks,
which crossed the path at every step. I saw occasionally the footprints
of ostriches, but they, as well as the giraffe, are scarce in this
Desert. Towards noon, Achmet and I made a halt in the shadow of a rock,
or if no rock was at hand, on the bare sand, and took our breakfast.
One’s daily bread is never sweeter than in the Desert. The rest of the
day I jogged along patiently beside the baggage camels, and at sunset
halted for the night. A divan on the sand, and a well-filled pipe,
gave me patience while dinner was preparing, and afterwards I made the
necessary entries in my journal. I had no need to court sleep, after
being rocked all day on the dromedary.
At the close of the third day, we encamped opposite a mountain which
Eyoub called _Djebel Khattab_ (the Mountain of Wood). The _Bahr Khattab_,
a river of sand, similar to the Bahr bela Ma, and probably a branch
of it, crossed our path. I here discovered that the water-skins I had
hired from Shekh Abou-Mohammed were leaky, and that our eight skins were
already reduced to four, while the Arabs had entirely exhausted their
supply. This rendered strict economy necessary, as there was but a single
well on the road. Until noon the next day we journeyed over a vast plain
of sand, interrupted by low reefs of black rock. To the south-east it
stretched unbroken to the sky, and looking in that direction, I saw two
hemispheres of yellow and blue, sparkling all over with light and heat,
so that the eye winked to behold them. The colocynth (called by the Arabs
_murràr_), grew in many places in the dry, hot sand. The fruit resembles
a melon, and is so intensely bitter that no animal will eat it. I made
breakfast under the lee of an isolated rock, crowned with a beacon of
camel-bones. We here met three Ababdehs, armed with long spears, on
their way to Korosko. Soon after mid-day the plain was broken by low
ranges of hills, and we saw in front and to the east of us many blue
mountain-chains. Our road approached one of them—a range, several miles
in length, the highest peak of which reached an altitude of a thousand
feet. The sides were precipitous and formed of vertical strata, but the
crests were agglomerations of loose stones, as if shaken out of some
enormous coal-scuttle. The glens and gorges were black as ink; no speck
of any other color relieved the terrible gloom of this singular group of
hills. Their aspect was much more than sterile: it was infernal. The name
given to them by the guide was _Djilet e’ Djindee_, the meaning of which
I could not learn. At their foot I found a few thorny shrubs, the first
sign of vegetation since leaving Korosko.
We encamped half an hour before sunset on a gravelly plain, between two
spurs of the savage hills, in order that our camels might browse on the
shrubs, and they were only too ready to take advantage of the permission.
They snapped off the hard, dry twigs, studded with cruel thorns, and
devoured them as if their tongues were made of cast-iron. We were now
in the haunts of the gazelle and the ostrich, but saw nothing of them.
Shekh Ali taught me a few words of the Bishàree language, asking for the
English words in return, and was greatly delighted when I translated okam
(_camel_), into “O camel!” “Wallah!” said he, “your language is the same
as ours.” The Bishàree tongue abounds with vowels, and is not unmusical.
Many of the substantives commence with _o_—as _omek_, a donkey; _oshà_,
a cow; _ogana_, a gazelle. The plural changes _o_ into _a_, as _akam_,
camels; _amek_, donkeys, &c. The language of the Ababdehs is different
from that of the Bishàrees, but probably sprang from the same original
stock. Lepsius considers that the Kenoos dialect of Nubia is an original
African tongue, having no affinity with any of the Shemitic languages.
On the fifth day we left the plain, and entered a country of broken
mountain-ranges. In one place the road passed through a long, low hill
of slate rock, by a gap which had been purposely broken. The strata were
vertical, the laminæ varying from one to four inches in thickness, and
of as fine a quality and smooth a surface as I ever saw. A long wady,
or valley, which appeared to be the outlet of some mountain-basin, was
crossed by a double row of stunted doum-palms, marking a water-course
made by the summer rains. Eyoub pointed it out to me, as the half-way
station between Korosko and Abou-Hammed. For two hours longer we threaded
the dry wadys, shut in by black, chaotic hills. It was now noonday, I was
very hungry, and the time allotted by Eyoub for reaching _Bir Mûrr-hàt_
had passed. He saw my impatience and urged his dromedary into a trot,
calling out to me to follow him. We bent to the west, turned the flank
of a high range, and after half an hour’s steady trotting, reached a
side-valley or cul-de-sac, branching off from the main wady. A herd of
loose camels, a few goats, two black camel’s-hair tents, and half a dozen
half-naked Ababdehs, showed that we had reached the wells. A few shallow
pits, dug in the centre of the valley, furnished an abundance of bitter,
greenish water, which the camels drank, but which I could not drink. The
wells are called by the Arabs _el morra_, “the bitter.” Fortunately,
I had two skins of Nile-water left, which, with care, would last to
Abou-Hammed. The water was always cool and fresh, though in color and
taste it resembled a decoction of old shoes.
[Illustration: The Wells of Mûrr-hàt.]
We found at the wells Capt. Peel’s Syrian friend, Churi, who was on his
way to Korosko with five camels, carrying the Captain’s baggage. He left
immediately after my arrival, or I might have sent by him a Christmas
greeting to friends at home. During the afternoon three slave-merchants
arrived, in four days from Abou-Hammed. Their caravan of a hundred and
fifty slaves was on the way. They were tall, strong, handsome men,
dark-brown in complexion, but with regular features. They were greatly
pleased with my sketch-book, but retreated hastily when I proposed making
a drawing of them. I then called Eyoub into my tent, who willingly enough
sat for the rough sketch which heads this chapter. Achmet did his best
to give me a good Christmas dinner, but the pigeons were all gone, and
the few fowls which remained were so spiritless from the heat and jolting
of the camel, that their slaughter anticipated their natural death by a
very short time. Nevertheless, I produced a cheery illumination by the
tent-lanterns, and made Eyoub and the Bishàrees happy with a bottle of
arakee and some handfulls of tobacco. The wind whistled drearily around
my tent, but I glowed like fire from the oozing out of the heat I had
absorbed, and the Arabs without, squatted around their fire of camel’s
dung, sang the wild, monotonous songs of the Desert.
We left Mûrr-hàt at sunrise, on the morning of the sixth day. I walked
ahead, through the foldings of the black mountains, singing as I went,
from the inspiration of the brilliant sky and the pure air. In an hour
and a half the pass opened on a broad plain of sand, and I waited for
my caravan, as the day was growing hot. On either side, as we continued
our journey, the blue lakes of the mirage glittered in the sun. Several
isolated pyramids rose above the horizon, far to the East, and a purple
mountain-range in front, apparently two or three hours distant, stretched
from east to west. “We will breakfast in the shade of those mountains,”
I said to Achmet, but breakfast-time came and they seemed no nearer,
so I sat down in the sand and made my meal. Towards noon we met large
caravans of camels, coming from Berber. Some were laden with gum, but the
greater part were without burdens, as they were to be sold in Egypt. In
the course of the day upwards of a thousand passed us. Among the persons
we met was Capt. Peel’s _cawass_, or janissary (whom he had left in
Khartoum), on his return, with five camels and three slaves, which he had
purchased on speculation. He gave such a dismal account of Soudân, that
Achmet was quite gloomy for the rest of the day.
The afternoon was intensely hot, the thermometer standing at 100°, but
I felt little annoyance from the heat, and used no protection against
it. The sand was deep and the road a weary one for the camels, but the
mountains which seemed so near at hand in the morning were not yet
reached. We pushed forward; the sun went down, and the twilight was over
before we encamped at their base. The tent was pitched by the light of
the crescent moon, which hung over a pitchy-black peak. I had dinner
at the fashionable hour of seven. Achmet was obliged to make soup of
the water of Mûrr-hàt, which had an abominable taste. I was so drowsy
that before my pipe was finished, I tumbled upon my mattress, and was
unconscious until midnight, when I awoke with the sensation of swimming
in a river of lava. Eyoub called the mountain _Kab el Kafass_—an absurd
name, without meaning—but I suspect it is the same ridge which crosses
the caravan route from Shendy to Assouan, and which is called Djebel
Shigre by Bruce and Burckhardt.
The tent was struck in the morning starlight, at which time the
thermometer stood at 55°. I walked alone through the mountains, which
rose in conical peaks to the height of near a thousand feet. The path
was rough and stony until I reached the outlet of the pass. When the
caravan came up, I found that the post-courier who left Korosko two days
after us, had joined it. He was a jet-black, bare-headed and barelegged
Bishàree, mounted on a dromedary. He remained with us all day, and liked
our company so well that he encamped with us, in preference to continuing
his journey. On leaving the mountain, we entered a plain of coarse
gravel, abounding with pebbles of agate and jasper. Another range, which
Eyoub called Djebel Dighlee, appeared in front, and we reached it about
noon. The day was again hot, the mercury rising to 95°. It took us nearly
an hour to pass Djebel Dighlee, beyond which the plain stretched away to
the Nile, interrupted here and there by a distant peak. Far in advance
of us lay Djebel Mokràt, the limit of the next day’s journey. From its
top, said Eyoub, one may see the palm-groves along the Nile. We encamped
on the open plain, not far from two black pyramidal hills, in the flush
of a superb sunset. The ground was traversed by broad strata of gray
granite, which lay on the surface in huge boulders. Our camels here found
a few bunches of dry, yellow grass, which had pierced the gravelly soil.
To the south-east was a mountain called by the Arabs _Djebel Nogàra_ (the
Mountain of the Drum), because, as Eyoub declared, a devil who had his
residence among its rocks, frequently beat a drum at night, to scare the
passing caravans.
The stars were sparkling freshly and clearly when I rose, on the morning
of the eighth day, and Djebel Mokràt lay like a faint shadow on the
southern horizon. The sun revealed a few isolated peaks to the right
and left, but merely distant isles on the vast, smooth ocean of the
Desert. It was a rapture to breathe air of such transcendent purity and
sweetness. I breakfasted on the immense floor, sitting in the sun, and
then jogged on all day, in a heat of 90°, towards Djebel Mokràt, which
seemed as far off as ever. The sun went down, and it was still ahead of
us. “That is a _Djebel Shaytan_,” I said to Eyoub; “or rather, it is no
mountain; it is an afrite.” “O Effendi!” said the old man, “don’t speak
of afrites here. There are many in this part of the Desert, and if a man
travels alone here at night, one of them walks behind him and forces him
to go forward and forward, until he has lost his path.” We rode on by the
light of the moon and stars—silently at first, but presently Shekh Ali
began to sing his favorite song of “_Yallah salaàmeh, el-hamdu lillàh
fôk belàmeh_,” and one of the Kenoos, to beguile the way, recited in a
chanting tone, copious passages from the Koran. Among other things, he
related the history of Joseph, which Achmet translated to me. The whole
story would be too long to repeat, but portions of it are interesting.
“After Joseph had been thrown into the well,” continued the Kenoos, “a
caravan of Arabs came along, and began to draw water for the camels, when
one of the men said: ‘O Shekh, there is something in the well.’ ‘Well,’
said the Shekh, ‘if it be a man, he belongs to me, but if it be goods,
you may have them.’ So they drew it up, and it was Joseph, and the Shekh
took him to Cairo and sold him to Azeez (Potiphar).’ [I omit his account
of Potiphar’s wife, which could not well be repeated.] When Joseph was in
prison, he told what was the meaning of the dreams of Sultan Faraoon’s
baker and butler, who were imprisoned with him. The Sultan himself soon
afterwards had a dream about seven fat cows eating seven lean ones, which
nobody could explain. Then the jailer went to Faraoon, and said: ‘Here
is Joseph, in jail—he can tell you all about it.’ Faraoon said: ‘Bring
him here, then.’ So they put Joseph in a bath, washed him, shaved his
head, gave him a new white turban, and took him to the Sultan, who said
to him: ‘Can you explain my dream?’ ‘To be sure I can,’ said Joseph, ‘but
if I tell you, you must make me keeper of your magazines.’ ‘Very well:’
said Faraoon. Then Joseph told how the seven fat cows meant seven years
when the Nile would have two inundations a year, and the seven lean cows,
seven years afterwards when it would have no inundation at all; and he
said to Faraoon that since he was now magazine-keeper, he should take
from all the country as far as Assouan, during the seven fat years,
enough wheat and dourra and beans, to last during the seven lean ones.”
The narrator might have added that the breed of fat kine has never been
restored, all the cattle of Egypt being undoubted descendants of the lean
stock.
Two hours after sunset, we _killed_ Djebel Mokràt, as the Arabs say: that
is, turned its corner. The weary camels were let loose among some clumps
of dry, rustling reeds, and I stretched myself out on the sand, after
twelve hours in the saddle. Our water was nearly exhausted by this time,
and the provisions were reduced to hermits’ fare—bread, rice and dates.
I had, however, the spice of a savage appetite, which was no sooner
appeased, than I fell into a profound sleep. I could not but admire
the indomitable pluck of the little donkeys owned by the Kenoos. These
animals not only carried provisions and water for themselves and their
masters, the whole distance, but the latter rode them the greater part of
the way; yet they kept up with the camels, plying their little legs as
ambitiously the last day as the first. I doubt whether a horse would have
accomplished as much under similar circumstances.
The next morning we started joyfully, in hope of seeing the Nile, and
even Eyoub, for the first time since leaving Korosko, helped to load
the camels. In an hour we passed the mountain of Mokràt, but the same
endless plain of yellow gravel extended before us to the horizon. Eyoub
had promised that we should reach Abou-Hammed in half a day, and even
pointed out some distant blue mountains in the south, as being beyond the
Nile. Nevertheless, we travelled nearly till noon without any change of
scenery, and no more appearance of river than the abundant streams of
the mirage, on all sides. I drank my last cup of water for breakfast, and
then continued my march in the burning sun, with rather dismal spirits.
Finally, the Desert, which had been rising since we left the mountain,
began to descend, and I saw something like round granite boulders lying
on the edge of the horizon. “Effendi, see the doum-trees!” cried Eyoub.
I looked again: they _were_ doum-palms, and so broad and green that they
must certainly stand near water. Soon we descended into a hollow in the
plain, looking down which I saw to the south a thick grove of trees, and
over their tops the shining surface of the Nile. “Ali,” I called to my
sailor-servant, “look at that great _bahr shaytan_!” The son of the Nile,
who had never before, in all his life, been more than a day out of sight
of its current, was almost beside himself with joy. “Wallah, master,”
he cried, “that is no river of the Devil: it is the real Nile—the water
of Paradise.” It did my heart good to see his extravagant delight. “If
you were to give me five piastres, master,” said he, “I would not drink
the bitter water of Mûrr-hàt.” The guide made me a salutation, in his
dry way, and the two Nubians greeted me with “a great welcome to you, O,
Effendi!” With every step the valley unfolded before me—such rich deeps
of fan-like foliage, such a glory in the green of the beans and lupins,
such radiance beyond description in the dance of the sunbeams on the
water! The landscape was balm to my burning eyes, and the mere sight of
the glorious green herbage was a sensuous delight, in which I rioted for
the rest of the day.