THE BEYOODA DESERT.
Entering the Desert—Character of the Scenery—Wells—Fear of
the Arabs—The Laloom Tree—Effect of the Hot Wind—Mohammed
overtakes us—Arab Endurance—An unpleasant Bedfellow—Comedy
of the Crows—Gazelles—We encounter a Sand-storm—The Mountain
of Thirst—The Wells of Djeekdud—A Mountain Pass—Desert
Intoxication—Scenery of the Table-land—Bir Khannik—The
Kababish Arabs—Gazelles again—Ruins of an Ancient Coptic
Monastery—Distant View of the Nile Valley—Djebel Berkel—We come
into Port.
“He sees the red sirocco wheeling
Its sandy columns o’er the waste,
And streams through palmy valleys stealing,
Where the plumed ostrich speeds in haste.”—FREILIGRATH.
We left El Metemma at noon, on the tenth of February. Crossing the low
ridge of red sand, at the foot of which the town is built, the wind came
fresh to meet us, across the long, level savanna of yellow grass and
shrubs which stretched away to the west and north, without a bound. The
prospect was exhilarating, after the continual hem of thorns, which had
lined our road from Khartoum. It was a great relief to turn the eye from
the bare, scorching mud walls of the town, to the freshness and freedom
of the Desert. I took a last look at the wheat-fields of the Nile, and
then turned my face northward, towards the point where I expected to
meet his current again. The plain was very level, and the road excellent
for our camels. In places where there was a slight depression of the
soil, a long, slender species of grass grew in thick tufts, affording
nourishment to the herds of the wandering Arab tribes. There were also
narrow belts of white thorn and a curious shrub, with leaves resembling
the jasmine. In two hours we reached a well, where some Kababish were
drawing water for their goats and asses. It was about twenty feet deep,
and the water was drawn in skins let down with ropes. We kept on until
sunset, when we encamped in an open, gravelly space, surrounded with
patches of grass, on which the camels browsed. The hot weather of the
past two or three days had called into life a multitude of winged and
creeping insects, and they assailed me on all sides.
The next morning, after travelling more than two hours over the plain, we
reached a series of low hills, or rather swells of the Desert, covered
with black gravel and fragments of porphyritic rock. They appeared to be
outlying spurs of a mountain range which we saw to the north-west. From
the highest of them we saw before us a long, shallow valley, opening far
to the north-east. It was thickly covered with tufts of yellowish-green
grass, sprinkled with trees of various kinds. The merchant pointed out a
grove in the distance as the location of Bir Abou-leer, the first well on
the road. His sharp eye discerned a company of Arabs, who were encamped
near it, and who, seeing Achmet and myself in our Turkish dresses, were
preparing to fly. He urged his dromedary into a fast trot and rode ahead
to reassure them. They were a tall, wild-looking people, very scantily
dressed; the men had long black hair, moustaches and beards, and carried
spears in their hands. They looked at us with suspicion, but did not
refuse the customary “hab-bab-ba!” The wells were merely pits, not more
than four or five feet deep, dug in the clayey soil, and containing at
the bottom a constant supply of cool, sweet water. We watered our camels
in basins scooped for that purpose in the earth, and then took breakfast
under the thorns. Among the trees in the wady was one resembling the
nebbuk in foliage, and with a fruit similar in appearance, but larger and
of different flavor. The Arabs called it _laloom_, and gathered some of
the fruit for me to taste. It has a thin, brittle outer rind, containing
a hard stone, covered with a layer of gummy paste, most intensely sweet
and bitter in the mouth. It has precisely the flavor of the medicine
known to children as Hive Syrup.
We resumed our course along the wady, nearly to its termination at the
foot of the mountains, when the road turned to the right over another
succession of hard, gravelly ridges, flanked on the west by hills of
coal-black porphyry. During the afternoon the wind was sometimes as hot
as a furnace-blast, and I felt my very blood drying up in its intensity.
I had no means of ascertaining the temperature, but it could not have
been less than 105°. Nevertheless, the sky was so clear and blue, the
sunshine so perfect, and the Desert so inspiring that I was in the most
exulting mood. In fact, the powerful dry heat of the air produced upon me
a bracing effect, similar to that of sharp cold. It gave me a sensation
of fierce, savage vigor, and I longed for an Arab lance and the fleet
hoofs of the red stallion I had left in Khartoum. At times the burning
blasts were flavored with a strong aromatic odor, like that of dried
lavender, which was as stimulating to the lungs as herb-tea to the
stomach. Our provisions soon felt the effects of this continual dry heat.
Dates became as pebbles of jasper, and when I asked my servant for bread,
he gave me a stone.
As we were journeying along over the plain, we spied a man on a camel
trotting behind us, and in half an hour, lo! Mohammed the guide. The old
scamp came up with a younger brother behind him, whom he had brought
without asking permission, and without bringing food for him. This made
eight persons I was obliged to feed, and as our bread and meat were only
calculated for six, I put them on allowance. Mohammed had his hair newly
plaited and covered with a layer of mutton-fat, a quarter of an inch
thick. I saw very little of the vaunted temperance of the Arabs. True,
they will live on dates—when they can get nothing else; and they will go
without water for a day—when they have none. I found a quart of water
daily amply sufficient for my own needs, notwithstanding the great heat
we endured; but I do not think one of the men drank less than a gallon in
the same time, and as for their eating, Achmet frequently declared that
they would finish a whole sheep before getting to “el hamdu lillàh!”—the
usual Arabic grace after meat.
Towards sunset we reached an open space of ground which had not been
touched since the rains of the previous summer. The soil had been washed
smooth and then dried away in the sun, leaving a thin, cracked crust,
like that which frequently forms after a light snow-fall. Our camel’s
feet broke through at every step, making the only trails which crossed
it, except those of gazelles and vultures. Achmet was about to pitch my
tent near some snaky-looking holes, but I had it moved to a clearer spot.
I slept without interruption, but in the morning, as he was about to
roll up my mattrass, he suddenly let it drop and rushed out of the tent,
exclaiming: “Oh master, come out! come out! There is a great snake in
your bed!” I looked, and truly enough, there was an ugly spotted reptile
coiled up on the straw matting. The men heard the alarm, and my servant
Ali immediately came running up with a club. As he was afraid to enter
the tent, he threw it to me, and with one blow I put the snake beyond the
power of doing harm. It was not more than two feet long, but thick and
club-shaped, and with a back covered with green, brown and yellow scales,
very hard and bright. The Arabs, who by this time had come to the rescue,
said it was a most venomous creature, its bite causing instant death.
“_Allah kereem!_” (God is merciful!) I exclaimed, and they all heartily
responded: “God be praised!” They said that the occurrence denoted long
life to me. Although no birds were to be seen at the time, not ten
minutes had elapsed before two large crows appeared in the air. After
wheeling over us once or twice, they alighted near the snake. At first,
they walked around it at a distance, occasionally exchanging glances, and
turning up their heads in a shrewd manner, which plainly said: “No you
don’t, old fellow! want to make us believe you’re dead, do you?” They
bantered each other to take hold of it first, and at last the boldest
seized it suddenly by the tail, jumped backward two or three feet and
then let it fall. He looked at the other, as much as to say: “If he’s not
dead, it’s a capital sham!” The other made a similar essay, after which
they alternately dragged and shook it, and consulted some time, before
they agreed that it was actually dead. One of them then took it by the
tail and sailed off through the air, its scales glittering in the sun as
it dangled downward.
On the third day we left the plain and entered on a region of black,
stony ridges, with grass and thorns in the long hollows between them. The
sky was so clear that the moon (in her last quarter) was visible until
nearly noon. About ten o’clock, from one of the porphyry hills, I caught
sight of Djebel Attshàn, or the Mountain of Thirst, which crosses the
middle of the Beyooda. It was in the north and north-west, apparently
about thirty miles distant. During the morning I saw four beautiful
gazelles, not more than a stone’s throw distant. One of them was lame,
which induced me to believe that I could catch it. I got down from my
camel and crept stealthily to the crest of the ridge, but when I looked
down the other side, no gazelle was to be seen. Half a dozen narrow
gullies branched away among the loose mounds of stones, and further
search would have been useless.
At noon we reached another and different region. The grass and thorns
disappeared, and the swells of black gravel gave place to long drifts of
bright yellow sand which extended on all sides as far as the eye could
reach. We toiled on, over drift after drift, but there was still the
same dreary yellow waste, whitening in the distance under the glare of
the sun. At first, the air was so tremulous with the radiated heat, that
the whole landscape glittered and wavered like the sea, and the brain
became giddy from gazing on its unsteady lines. But as the wind began
to blow more violently, this disappeared. The sky then became obscured
nearly to the zenith, with a dull purple haze, arising from the myriads
of fine grains of sand with which the air was filled. The sun became
invisible, although there were no clouds in the sky, and we seemed to be
journeying under a firmament of rusty copper. The drifts were constantly
forming and changing shape, and the sand vibrated along their edges or
scudded in swift ripples over the plain, with that dry, sharp sound one
hears in winter, when the “North-wind’s masonry” is going on. The air
was withering in its fierce heat and occasioned intense thirst, which,
fortunately, we were able to relieve. The storm grew more violent and
the burning labyrinths of sand more intricate, as we advanced. The path
was hidden under drifts five or six feet in height, and the tall yellow
walls were creeping every minute nearer, to cover it completely. The
piles of stones, however, which the Arabs have made on the tops of the
ridges and replace as often as they are thrown down, guided us, and after
three hours and a half in a spot which might serve as the fourth circle
of Dante’s Hell, we emerged on the open plain and saw again the Mountain
of Thirst, which had been hidden all this time. The camels, which were
restless and uneasy in the sand, now walked more cheerily. The sun came
out again, but the sky still retained its lurid purple hue. We all drank
deeply of the brown leathery contents of our water-skins and pushed
steadily onward till camping-time, at sunset. While the storm lasted,
the Arabs crouched close under the flanks of the camels and sheltered
themselves from the sand. Achmet and the Dongolese merchant unrolled
their turbans and muffled them around their faces, but on following their
example I experienced such a stifling sensation of heat that I at once
desisted, and rode with my head exposed as usual.
We halted in a meadow-like hollow, full of abundant grass, in which the
weary camels made amends for their hardships. The wind howled so fiercely
around my tent that I went to sleep expecting to have it blown about my
ears before morning. Djebel Attshàn was dimly visible in the starlight,
and we saw the light of fires kindled by the Arabs who live at the wells
of Djeekdud. Saïd was anxious to go on to the wells and have a carouse
with the natives, and when I refused threatened to leave me and go on
alone to Merawe. “Go!” said I, “just as soon as you like”—but this was
the very thing he did not want. The heat which I had absorbed through the
day began to ooze out again as the temperature of the air fell, and my
body glowed until midnight like a mass of molten metal. On lifting up my
blanket, that night, a large scorpion tumbled out, but scampered away so
quickly that we could not kill him.
We were up betimes the next morning, and off for Bir Djeekdud. At ten
o’clock we entered a wide valley extending to the southern base of
the mountains. It was quite overgrown with bushy tufts of grass and
scattering clumps of trees. Herds of goats and sheep, with a few camels
and donkeys, were browsing over its surface, and I saw the Arab herdsmen
at a distance. The wells lie in a narrow wady, shut in by the mountains,
about two miles east of the caravan track. We therefore halted in the
shade of a spreading mimosa, and sent Saïd and the guide’s brother with
the water-skins. I took my breakfast leisurely, and was lying on my back,
half lulled to sleep by the singing of the wind, when the Dongolese
arrived. He gave us to drink from his fresh supply of water, and informed
us that the wells in the valley were not good, but that there was a
deposit in the rocks above, which was pure and sweet. I therefore sent
Ali off in all haste on one of my dromedaries, to have my skins filled
from the latter place, which occasioned a further delay of two hours. An
Arab family of the small Saūrat tribe, which inhabits that region, was
encamped at a little distance, but did not venture to approach.
Ali described the well as a vast natural hollow in the porphyry rock, in
the centre of a basin, or valley, near the top of the mountain. The water
is held as in a tank; it is from twenty to thirty feet deep, and as clear
as crystal. The taste is deliciously pure and fresh. If I had known this
in time, I should have visited the place. The valley of Djeekdud is about
two miles broad, inclosed on the north by the dark-red porphyry rocks of
the Mountain of Thirst, and on the south by a smaller group of similar
formation. It is crossed in two places by broad strata of red granite. As
water can readily be obtained in any part of it by digging, the whole of
it is capable of cultivation.
Leaving our halting place, we journeyed westward through a gate of the
mountains into a broader valley, where numerous herds of sheep were
feeding. I saw but few Arabs, and those were mostly children, who had
charge of the herds. The tribe resides principally in the mountains, on
account of greater security against the attacks of enemies. The afternoon
was hot like all preceding ones, and my Arabs drank immense quantities
of water. We kept on our course until five o’clock, when we encamped
opposite a broad valley, which broke into the mountains at right angles
to their course. It was a wild spot, and the landscape, barren as it was,
possessed much natural beauty. During the afternoon we left the high road
to Ambukol, and took a branch track leading to Merawe, which lay more to
the northward.
The next morning, after skirting the porphyry range for several hours,
we entered a narrow valley leading into its depths. The way was stony and
rough, and we travelled for three hours, constantly ascending, up the dry
bed of a summer stream. The mountains rose a thousand feet above us in
some places. Near the entrance of the valley, we passed an Arab watering
a large flock of sheep at a pool of green water which lay in a hollow of
the rocks. After ascending the pass for nearly four hours, we crossed
the summit ridge and entered on a high table-land, eight or ten miles in
length and entirely surrounded by branches of the mountain chain. The
plain was thinly covered with grass, mimosas and nebbuk, among which a
single camel was browsing. At night we reached the opposite side, and
encamped at the foot of a lofty black spur of the mountains, not far from
a well which Mohammed called Bir Abou-Seray.
During the night I was troubled with a heavy feeling in the head,
and found it almost impossible to sleep. I arose with a sensation of
giddiness, which continued all day. At times I found it very difficult
to maintain my seat on the dromedary. It required a great effort to keep
my eyes open, as the sunshine increased the symptoms. This condition
affected my mind in a singular manner. Past scenes in my life revived,
with so strong an impression of reality, that I no longer knew where I
was. The hot, yellow landscape around me, was a dream; the cries of my
camel-drivers were fantastic sounds which my imagination had conjured
up. After a most bewildering and fatiguing day, I drank several cups
of strong tea, rolled myself in a thick cotton quilt, and sweat to
distraction until morning. The moisture I lost relieved my head, as a
shower clears a sultry sky, and the symptoms gradually left me. Whether
they were caused by breathing a more rarefied atmosphere,—for the plain
was nearly fifteen hundred feet above the Nile level—in a heat more than
usually intense, or by an attack of that malady which Richardson aptly
calls the “intoxication of the Desert,” I cannot decide.
After leaving Bir Abou-Seray, we continued our slow descent of the
northern side of the mountain range, by a winding valley, following
the dry bed of a summer river. The mountains were a thousand feet
high and linked in regular ranges, which had a general north-east and
south-west direction. The landscapes of the day were all exceedingly
wild and picturesque. The vegetation was abundant along the banks of
the river-bed, the doum-palm appearing occasionally among the groves of
thorn and nebbuk. In some places the river had washed the bases of the
mountains and laid bare their huge strata of rock, whose round black
masses glittered in the sunshine, showing the gradual polish of the
waves. Towards noon the pass enlarged into a broad plain, six miles
in diameter, and entirely bounded by mountains. To the north-east it
opened into another and larger plain, across whose blue surface rose the
pyramidal peaks of a higher mountain chain than I had yet seen. Some
of them were upwards of two thousand feet in height. The scenery here
was truly grand and imposing. Beyond the plain we passed into a broader
valley, girdled by lower hills. The river-bed, which we crossed from time
to time, increased in breadth and showed a more dense vegetation on its
banks. We expected to have reached another well, but there was no sign of
it at sunset, and as I had already found that my guide, Mohammed, knew
nothing of the road, I encamped at once.
We arose by daybreak, hoping to reach the Nile. After somewhat more than
two hours’ journey, we met a caravan of about three hundred camels, laden
with bales of cotton drillings, for the clothing of the new regiments of
soldiers then being raised in Soudân. The foremost camels were a mile
from Bir Khannik, while the hindmost were still drinking at the well. The
caravan had Kababish drivers and guides—wild, long-haired, half-naked
Arabs, with spears in their hands and shields of hippopotamus hide on
their shoulders. They told us we were still a day and a half from Merawe.
We rode on to the well, which was an immense pit, dug in the open plain.
It was about fifty feet deep, and the Arabs were obliged to draw the
water in skins let down with ropes. The top curved into the well like a
shallow bowl, from the earth continually crumbling down, and the mouth of
the shaft was protected by trunks of trees, on which the men stood while
they drew the water. Around the top were shallow basins lined with clay,
out of which the camels drank. The fierce Kababish were shouting and
gesticulating on all sides as we rode up—some leading the camels to kneel
and drink, some holding the water-skins, and others brandishing their
spears and swords in angry contention. Under the hot sun, on the sandy
plain, it was a picture truly mid-African in all its features. The water
had an insipid, brackish taste, and I was very glad that I had prevented
my Arabs from drinking all we had brought from the porphyry fountain of
Djeekdud. We watered our camels, however, which detained us long enough
to see a fight between two of the Kababish guides. There were so many
persons to interfere that neither could injure the other, but the whole
group of actors and sympathizers struggling on the brink of the well,
came near being precipitated to the bottom.
Our road now turned to the north, through a gap in the low hills and
over a tract of burnt, barren, rolling wastes of white sand and gravel.
Towards evening we came again to the river-bed, here broad and shallow.
This part of the Desert is inhabited by the Saūrat and Huni tribes, and
we saw large herds of sheep and goats wherever the halfeh grass abounded.
At sunset there were no signs of the Nile, so I had the tent pitched in
the middle of the dry river-channel. In front of us, on a low mound, the
red walls of a ruined building shone in the last rays of the sun.
The next day—the eighth since leaving El Metemma—was intensely hot and
sultry, without a breath of air stirring. While walking towards the
ruins, I came upon two herds of gazelles, so tame that I approached
within thirty yards, and could plainly see the expression of surprise
and curiosity in their dark eyes. When I came too near, they would
bleat like lambs, bound away a little distance and then stop again. The
building, which stood on the stony slope of a hill, was surrounded with
loose walls, in a dilapidated condition. The foundation, rising about
six feet above the earth, is stone, above which the walls are of brick,
covered with a thin coating of cement. The building is about eighty feet
in length by forty in breadth, but the walls which remain are not more
than twenty feet high. It is believed to have been an ancient Coptic
monastery, and probably dates from the earlier ages of Christianity. The
ruins of other houses, built of loose stones, surround the principal
edifice, which was undoubtedly a church and the ground around is strewn
with fragments of burnt brick and pottery. There is a churchyard near at
hand, with tombstones which contain inscriptions both in Greek and Coptic.
We rode slowly down the broad river-bed, which gradually widened, and
after two or three hours saw far in advance a line of red, glowing
sand-hills, which I knew could not be on the southern side of the Nile.
Still we went on, under the clear, hot sky, the valley widening into a
plain the while, and I sought anxiously for some sign that the weary
Desert was crossed. Finally, I saw, above the endless clusters of thorns,
a line of darker, richer green, far away in the burning distance, and
knew it to be a grove of date-palms—the glorious signal of the Nile.
This put new life into me, and thenceforth I felt the scorching heat no
longer. To the north, beyond the palms, appeared an isolated mountain of
singular form—the summit being flat and the sides almost perpendicular.
It must be Djebel Berkel, I thought, and I told Mohammed so, but he said
it was not. Just then, I saw an Arab herdsman among the thorns and called
out to him to know the name of the mountain. “Djebel Berkel,” said he.
He then accosted Mohammed: “Where are you going?” “To Merawe.” “Are you
the guide?” he again inquired, bursting into a loud laugh. “You are a
fine guide; there is Merawe!” pointing in a direction very different from
that we were going. This completed the old fellow’s discomfiture. We were
still five or six miles distant from the river and took a random path
over the plain, in the direction indicated by the herdsman. The palms
rose higher and showed a richer foliage; mud walls appeared in their
shade, and a tall minaret on the opposite bank of the river pointed out
the location of the town. I rode down out of the drear, hot sand—the
sea where I had been drifting for seven wearisome days—to the little
village of Abdôm, embowered in a paradise of green; palms above, dazzling
wheat-fields, dark cotton-fields and blossoming beans below. A blessed
resting-place!