OLD DONGOLA AND NEW DONGOLA.
Appearance of the Country—Korti—The Town of Ambukol—The
Caravan reorganized—A Fiery Ride—We reach Edabbe—An
Illuminated Landscape—A Torment—Nubian Agriculture—Old
Dongola—The Palace-Mosque of the Nubian Kings—A Panorama
of Desolation—The Old City—Nubian Gratitude—Another
Sand-Storm—A Dreary Journey—The Approach to Handak—A House
of Doubtful Character—The Inmates—Journey to El Ordee (New
Dongola)—Khoorshid Bey—Appearance of the Town.
I left Abdôm on the morning of February twentieth. Our road lay
southward, along the edge of the wheat-fields, over whose waves we saw
the island-like groups of palms at a little distance. For several miles
the bank of the river was covered with a continuous string of villages.
After skirting this glorious garden land for two hours, we crossed a
sandy tract, overgrown with the poisonous euphorbia, to avoid a curve in
the river. During the whole of the afternoon, we travelled along the edge
of the cultivated land, and sometimes in the midst of it, obliging my
camels to stumble clumsily over the raised trenches which carried water
from the river to the distant parts of the fields. Large, ruined forts of
unburnt brick, exceedingly picturesque at a distance, stood at intervals
between the desert and the harvest-land.
The next morning was hot and sultry, with not a breath of air stirring.
I rose at dawn and walked ahead for two hours, through thickets of
euphorbia higher than my head, and over patches of strong, dark-green
grass. The _sakias_ were groaning all along the shore, and the people
every where at work in the fields. The wheat was in various stages of
growth, from the first thick green of the young blades to the full head.
Barley was turning a pale yellow, and the dookhn, the heads of which had
already been gathered, stood brown and dry. Djebel Deeka, on my right,
rose bold and fair above the lines of palms, and showed a picturesque
glen winding in between its black-purple peaks. It was a fine feature of
the landscape, which would have been almost too soft and lovely without
it.
Before nine o’clock we passed the large town of Korti, which, however, is
rather a cluster of small towns, scattered along between the wheat-fields
and the river. Some of the houses were large and massive, and with their
blank walls and block-like groups, over which the doum-tree spread
its arch and the date-palm hung its feathery crown, made fine African
pictures—admirable types of the scenery along the Nubian Nile. Beyond the
town we came upon a hot, dusty plain, sprinkled with stunted euphorbia,
over which I could see the point where the Nile turns westward. Towards
noon we reached the town of Ambukol, which I found to be a large
agglomeration of mud and human beings, on the sand-hills, a quarter of
a mile from the river. An extensive pile of mud in the centre denoted a
fortress or government station of some sort. There were a few lazy Arabs
sitting on the ground, on the shady side of the walls, and some women
going back and forth with water-jars, but otherwise, for all the life
it presented, the place might have been deserted. The people we met
saluted me with much respect, and those who were seated rose and remained
standing until I had passed. I did not enter the town, but made direct
for a great acacia tree near its western end. The nine camels and nine
men of my caravan all rested under the shade, and there was room for as
many more. A number of Arabs looked on from a distance, or hailed my
camel-men, to satisfy their curiosity regarding me, but no one came near
or annoyed us in any way. I took breakfast leisurely on my carpet, drank
half a gourd of mareesa, and had still an hour to wait, before the new
camels were laden. The Kababish, who had accompanied me from Khartoum,
wanted a certificate, so I certified that Saïd was a good camel-man and
Mohammed worthless as a guide. They then drank a parting jar of mareesa,
and we went from under the cool acacia into the glare of the fierce sun.
Our road all the afternoon was in the Desert, and we were obliged to
endure a most intense and sultry heat.
The next day I travelled westward over long _akabas_, or reaches of the
Desert, covered with clumps of thorns, nebbuk and the jasmine tree. The
long mountain on the opposite bank was painted in rosy light against
the sky, as if touched with the beams of a perpetual sunrise. My eyes
always turned to it with a sense of refreshment, after the weary glare
of the sand. In the morning there was a brisk wind from the north-east,
but towards noon it veered to the south-west, and then to the south,
continuing to blow all day with great force. As I rode westward through
the hot hours of the afternoon, it played against my face like a sheet
of flame. The sky became obscured with a dull, bluish haze, and the
sands of the Beyooda, on my left, glimmered white and dim, as if swept by
the blast of a furnace. There were occasional gusts that made the flesh
shrink as if touched with a hot iron, and I found it impossible to bear
the wind full on my face. One who has never felt it, cannot conceive the
withering effect of such a heat. The earth seems swept with the first
fires of that conflagration beneath which the heavens will shrivel up as
a scroll, and you instinctively wonder to see the palms standing green
and unsinged. My camel-men crept behind the camels to get away from it,
and Achmet and Ali muffled up their faces completely. I could not endure
the sultry heat occasioned by such a preparation, and so rode all day
with my head in the fire.
About three o’clock in the afternoon we approached the Nile again. There
was a grove of sont and doum-trees on the bank, surrounding a large
quadrangular structure of clay, with square towers at the corners.
Graveyards stretched for nearly a mile along the edge of the Desert, and
six large, dome-like heaps of clay denoted the tombs of as many holy men.
We next came upon the ruins of a large village, with a fort and a heavy
palace-like building of mud. Before reaching Edabbe, the terminus of the
caravan route from Kordofan, the same evening, I rode completely around
the bend of the Nile, so that my dromedary’s head was at last turned
towards Wadi Halfa. I was hot, tired, and out of temper, but a gourd of
cool water, at the first house we reached, made all right again. There
were seven vessels in the river, waiting for the caravans. One had just
arrived from Kordofan, and the packages of gum were piled up along the
shore. We were immediately followed by the sailors, who were anxious
that I should hire their vessels. I rode past the town, which does not
contain more than thirty houses in all, and had my tent pitched on the
river bank.
The Nile is here half a mile broad, and a long reach of his current is
visible to the north and south. The opposite bank was high and steep,
lined at the water’s edge with a belt of beans and lupins, behind which
rose a line of palms, and still higher the hills of pale, golden-hued
sand, spotted like a leopard’s hide, with clumps of a small mimosa.
The ground was a clear, tawny yellow, but the spots were deep emerald.
Below the gorgeous drapery of these hills, the river glittered in a
dark, purple-blue sheet. The coloring of the mid-African landscapes is
truly unparalleled. To me, it became more than a simple sense; it grew
to be an appetite. When, after a journey in the Desert, I again beheld
the dazzling green palms and wheat-fields of the Nile, I imagined that
there was a positive sensation on the retina. I felt, or seemed to feel,
physically, the colored rays—beams of pure emerald, topaz and amethystine
lustre—as they struck the eye.
At Edabbe I first made acquaintance with a terrible pest, which for many
days afterwards occasioned me much torment—a small black fly, as venomous
as the musquito, and much more difficult to drive away. I sat during the
evening with my head, neck and ears closely bound up, notwithstanding the
heat. After the flies left, a multitude of beetles, moths, winged ants
and other nameless creatures came in their place. I sat and sweltered,
murmuring for the waters of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, and
longing for a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon.
We were up with the first glimmering of dawn. The sky was dull and hazy,
and the sun came up like a shield of rusty copper, as we started. Our
path lay through the midst of the cultivated land, sometimes skirting
the banks of the Nile, and sometimes swerving off to the belts of sont
and euphorbia which shut out the sand. The sakias, turned by a yoke of
oxen each, were in motion on the river, and the men were wading through
the squares of wheat, cotton and barley, turning the water into them.
All farming processes, from sowing to reaping, were going on at the same
time. The cultivated land was frequently more than a mile in breadth,
and all watered from the river. The sakias are taxed four hundred and
seventy-five piastres each, notwithstanding the sum fixed by Government
is only three hundred. The remainder goes into the private treasuries
of the Governors. For this reason, many persons, unable to pay the tax,
emigrate into Kordofan and elsewhere. This may account for the frequent
tracts of the finest soil which are abandoned. I passed many fine fields,
given up to the halfeh grass, which grew most rank and abundant. My
dromedary had a rare time of it, cropping the juicy bunches as he went
along. The country is thickly settled, and our road was animated with
natives, passing back and forth.
About noon, we saw in advance, on the eastern bank of the Nile, a bold,
bluff ridge, crowned with a large square building. This the people
pointed out to us as the location of Old Dongola. As we approached
nearer, a long line of mud buildings appeared along the brow of the hill,
whose northern slope was cumbered with ruins. We left the caravan track
and rode down to the ferry place at the river, over a long stretch of
abandoned fields, where the cotton was almost choked out with grass, and
the beans and lentils were growing wild in bunches. After my tent had
been pitched in a cotton-patch, I took a grateful bath in the river, and
then crossed in the ferry-boat to the old town. The hill upon which it is
built terminates abruptly in a precipice of red sandstone rock, about a
hundred feet in height. Four enormous fragments have been broken off, and
lie as they fell, on the edge of the water. A steep path through drifts
of sliding yellow sand leads around the cliffs, up to the dwellings. I
found the ascent laborious, as the wind, which had veered to the west,
was as hot as on the previous day; but a boatman and one of my camel-men
seized a hand each and hauled me up most conveniently. At the summit, all
was ruin; interminable lines of walls broken down, and streets filled
up with sand. I went first to the Kasr, or Palace, which stands on the
highest part of the hill. It is about forty feet in height, having two
stories and a broad foundation wall, and is built mostly of burnt brick
and sandstone. It is the palace of the former Dongolese Kings, and a more
imposing building than one would expect to find in such a place. Near
the entrance is an arched passage, leading down to some subterranean
chambers, which I did not explore. It needed something more than the
assurance of an old Nubian, however, to convince me that there was an
underground passage from this place to Djebel Berkel. A broad flight of
stone steps ascended to the second story, in which are many chambers and
passages. The walls are covered with Arabic inscriptions, written in the
plaster while it was yet moist. The hall of audience had once a pavement
of marble, several blocks of which still remain, and the ceiling is
supported in the centre by three shafts of granite, taken from some old
Egyptian ruin. The floors are covered with tiles of burnt brick, but the
palm-logs which support them have given away in many places, rendering
one’s footing insecure. Behind the hall of audience is a passage, with a
niche, in each side of which is also an ancient pillar of granite. From
the tenor of one of the Arabic inscriptions, it appears that the building
was originally designed for a mosque, and that it was erected in the year
1317, by Saf-ed-deen Abdallah, after a victory over the infidels.
I ascended to the roof of the palace, which is flat and paved with
stones. The view was most remarkable. The height on which Old Dongola
is built, falls off on all sides, inland as well as towards the river,
so that to the east one overlooks a wide extent of desert—low hills of
red sand, stretching away to a dim, hot horizon. To the north, the hill
slopes gradually to the Nile, covered with the ruins of old buildings.
North-east, hardly visible through the sandy haze, rose a high, isolated
peak, with something like a tower on its summit. To the south and east
the dilapidated city covered the top of the hill—a mass of ashy-gray
walls of mud and stone, for the most part roofless and broken down,
while the doors, courts and alleys between them were half choked up with
the loose sand blown in from the Desert. The graveyards of the former
inhabitants extended for more than a mile through the sand, over the
dreary hills behind the town. Among them were a great number of conical,
pointed structures of clay and stones, from twenty to thirty feet in
height. The camel-men said they were the tombs of _rossool_—prophets, or
holy men. I counted twenty-five in that portion of the cemetery which
was visible. The whole view was one of entire and absolute desolation,
heightened the more by the clouds of sand which filled the air, and
which, in their withering heat, seemed to be raining ruin upon the land.
I afterwards walked through the city, and was surprised to find many
large, strong houses of stone and burnt brick, with spacious rooms,
the walls of which were plastered and whitewashed. The lintels of the
doors and windows were stone, the roofs in many places, where they still
remained, covered with tiles, and every thing gave evidence of a rich
and powerful city. Now, probably not more than one-fifth of the houses
are inhabited. Here and there the people have spread a roofing of mats
over the open walls, and nestled themselves in the sand. I saw several
such places, the doors, or rather entrances to which, were at the bottom
of loose sand-hills that constantly slid down and filled the dingy
dwellings. In my walk I met but one or two persons, but as we returned
again to the river, I saw a group of Dongolese women on the highest part
of the cliff. They were calling in shrill tones and waving their hands to
some persons in the ferry-boat on the river below, and needed no fancy to
represent the daughters of Old Dongola lamenting over its fall.
Some Dongolese _djellabiàt_, or merchants, just returned from Kordofan,
were in the ferry-boat. One of them showed me a snuff-box which he had
bought from a native of Fertit, beyond Dar-Fūr. It was formed of the
shell of some fruit, with a silver neck attached. By striking the head
of the box on the thumb-nail, exactly one pinch was produced. The raïs
took off his mantle, tied one end of it to the ring in the bow and stood
thereon, holding the other end with both hands stretched above his head.
He made a fine bronze figure-head for the boat, and it was easy to
divine her name: _The Nubian_. We had on board a number of copper-hued
women, whose eyelids were stained with _kohl_, which gave them a ghastly
appearance.
Soon after my tent had been pitched, in the afternoon, a man came riding
up from the river on a donkey, leading a horse behind him. He had just
crossed one of the water-courses on his donkey, and was riding on,
holding the horse’s rope in his hand, when the animal started back at the
water-course, jerking the man over the donkey’s tail and throwing him
violently on the ground. He lay as if dead for a quarter of an hour, but
Achmet finally brought him to consciousness by pouring the contents of a
leathern water-flask over his head, and raising him to a sitting posture.
His brother, who had charge of a sakia on the bank, brought me an angareb
in the evening, in acknowledgment of this good office. It is a good trait
in the people, that they are always grateful for kindness. The angareb,
however, did not prove of much service, for I was so beset by the black
gnats that it was impossible to sleep. They assailed my nose, mouth,
ears and eyes in such numbers that I was almost driven mad. I rubbed my
face with strong vinegar, but it only seemed to attract them the more. I
unwound my turban, and rolled it around my neck and ears, but they crept
under the folds and buzzed and bit until I was forced to give up the
attempt.
Our road, the next morning, lay near the river, through tracks of
thick halfeh, four or five feet high. We constantly passed the ruins
of villages and the naked frames of abandoned sakias. The soil was
exceedingly rich, as the exuberant growth of halfeh proved, but for
miles and miles there was no sign of life. The tyranny of the Turks
has depopulated one of the fairest districts of Nubia. The wind blew
violently from the north, and the sandy haze and gray vapor in the air
became so dense that I could scarcely distinguish the opposite bank of
the Nile. The river was covered with white caps, and broke on the beach
below with a wintry roar. As we journeyed along through the wild green
grass and orchards of sont, passing broken walls and the traces of old
water-courses, I could have believed myself travelling through some
deserted landscape of the North. I was chilled with the strong wind,
which roared in the sont and made my beard whistle under my nose like a
wisp of dry grass. Several ships passed us, scudding up stream under bare
poles, and one, which had a single reef shaken out of her large sail,
dashed by like a high-pressure steamer.
After two or three hours we passed out of this region. The Desert
extended almost to the water’s edge, and we had nothing but sand and
thorns. The wind by this time was more furious than ever, and the air
was so full of sand that we could not see more than a hundred yards on
either hand. The sun gave out a white, ghastly light, which increased
the dreariness of the day. All trace of the road was obliterated, and
we could only travel at random among the thorns, following the course
of the Nile, which we were careful to keep in view. My eyes, ears, and
nostrils were soon filled with sand, and I was obliged to bind my turban
so as nearly to cover my face, leaving only space enough to take a blind
view of the way we were going. At breakfast time, after two hours of
this martyrdom, I found a clump of thorns so thick as to shut off the
wind, but no sooner had I dismounted and crept under its shelter than I
experienced a scorching heat from the sun, and was attacked by myriads of
the black gnats. I managed to eat something in a mad sort of way, beating
my face and ears continually, and was glad to thrust my head again into
the sand-storm, which drove off the worse pests. So for hours we pursued
our journey. I could not look in the face of the wind, which never once
fell. The others suffered equally, and two of the camel-men lagged so,
that we lost sight of them entirely. It was truly a good fortune that
I did not take the short road, east of the Nile, from Merawe to New
Dongola. In the terrible wastes of the Nubian Desert, we could scarcely
have survived such a storm.
Nearly all the afternoon we passed over deserted tracts, which were once
covered with flourishing fields. The water-courses extend for nearly two
miles from the river, and cross the road at intervals of fifty yards. But
now the villages are level with the earth, and the sand whistles over the
traces of fields and gardens, which it has not yet effaced. Two hours
before sunset the sun disappeared, and I began to long for the town of
Handak, our destination. Achmet and I were ahead, and the other camels
were not to be seen any longer, so as sunset came on I grew restless
and uneasy. The palms by this time had appeared again on the river’s
brink, and there was a village on our left, in the sand. We asked again
for Handak. “Just at the corner of yon palms,” said the people. They
spoke with a _near_ emphasis, which encouraged me. The Arabic dialect of
Central Africa has one curious characteristic, which evidently springs
from the want of a copious vocabulary. Degree, or intensity of meaning
is usually indicated by accent alone. Thus, when they point to an object
near at hand they say: _henàk_, “there;” if it is a moderate distance
off, they lengthen the sound into “_hen-a-a-ak_;” while, if it is so
far as to be barely visible, the last syllable is sustained with a full
breath—“_hen-a-a-a-a-a-àk!_” In the same way, _saā_ signifies “an hour;”
_sa-a-a-ā_, “two hours,” &c. This habit of speech gives the language a
very singular and eccentric character.
We pushed on till the spot was reached, but as far ahead as the sand
would permit us to see, could discern no house. We asked again; the town
commenced at the next corner of the palms ahead of us. I think this thing
must have happened to us five or six times, till at last I got into that
peculiarly amiable mood which sees nothing good in Heaven or Earth. If
my best friend had come to meet me, I should have given him but a sour
greeting. My eyes were blinded, my head dull and stupid, and my bones
sore from twelve hours in the saddle. As it grew dark, we were overtaken
by four riders mounted on fine dromedaries. They were going at a sweeping
trot, and our beasts were ambitious enough to keep pace with them for
some time. One of them was a stately shekh, with a white robe and broad
gold border and fringe. From what the people said of him, I took him to
be the Melek, or King of Dongola.
Meanwhile, it was growing dark. We could see nothing of the town, though
a woman who had been walking beside us, said we were there already. She
said she had a fine house, which we could have for the night, since
it was almost impossible for a tent to stand in such a wind. As I had
already dipped into the night, I determined to reach Handak at all
hazards, and after yet another hour, succeeded. Achmet and I dismounted
in a ruined court-yard, and while I sat on a broken wall, holding the
camels, he went to look for our men. It was a dismal place, in the
gathering darkness, with the wind howling and the sand drifting on
all sides, and I wondered what fiend had ever tempted me to travel in
Africa. Before long the woman appeared and guided us to a collection of
miserable huts on the top of the hill. Her fine house proved to be a
narrow, mud-walled room, with a roof of smoked dourra-stalks. It shut
off the wind, however, and when I entered and found the occupants (two
other women), talking to each other by the light of a pile of blazing
corn-stalks, it looked absolutely cheerful. I stretched myself out on
one of the angarebs, and soon relapsed into a better humor. But I am
afraid we were not lodged in the most respectable house of Handak, for
the women showed no disposition to leave, when we made preparations for
sleeping. They paid no attention to my requests, except by some words of
endearment, which, from such creatures, were sufficiently disgusting,
and I was obliged to threaten them with forcible ejection, before they
vacated the house. The camel-men informed me that the place is notorious
for its harlotry.
As we had made a forced march of forty miles in one day, I gave the
caravan a rest until noon, and treated the men to mutton and mareesa.
Prices had already increased, since leaving Soudân, and I could not
procure a sheep for less than seventeen piastres. The women, who had
returned at sunrise, begged me to give them the entrails, which they
cut into pieces and ate raw, with the addition of some onions and salt.
The old woman told me a piteous tale of the death of her son, and her
own distress, and how King Dyaab (who had passed through Handak the day
previous, on his way to Dar El-Màhass) had given her two piastres, and
she hoped I would also give her something, that she might buy a new
dress. I gave her the same as King Dyaab, which she at once asked me to
take back again, as she expected at least nine piastres. Seeing I was
about to take her at her word, she made haste to secure the money. Her
youngest daughter, a bold, masculine thing, with hair cut close to her
head, now came to me for backsheesh. “Oh!” said I, “you are going to do
as the old woman did, are you?” “No,” she exclaimed; “if you will give
me two piastres, I will ask for no more. The old woman is a miserable
wretch!” and she spat upon the ground to show her disgust. “Go!” I said;
“I shall give nothing to a girl who insults her mother.”
From Handak to El Ordee is two days’ journey. The country presents the
same aspect of desertion and ruin as that in the neighborhood of Old
Dongola. Untenanted villages line the road during nearly the whole
distance. The face of the country is level, and there is no mountain to
be seen on either bank of the Nile. It is a melancholy, deserted region,
showing only palms growing wildly and rankly along the river, fields
covered with halfeh, water-courses broken down, sakias dismantled, and
everywhere dwellings in ruin. Here and there a few inhabitants still
lingered, tending their fields of stunted cotton, or watering some
patches of green wheat. The general aspect of desolation was heightened
by the strong north-wind, which filled the air with clouds of sand,
making the sunshine so cold and white, that all the color faded out of
the landscape. The palms were dull and dark, and the sand-hills beyond
the Nile a dead, lifeless yellow. All this district swarms with black
gnats, which seemed to have been sent as a curse upon its desertion, for
they never appeared where the country was thickly inhabited and all the
soil cultivated.
On the first day after leaving Handak, we passed the villages of Kiar,
Sori and Urub, and stopped at a place called Tetti. The wind blew so
violently during the night that every thing in my tent, my head included,
was thickly covered with dust. The next day we passed a large town called
Hannak. The greater part of it was levelled to the earth, and evidently
by violence, for the walls were of stone. It stood on a rocky rise, near
the river, and had on its highest part the remains of some defences, and
a small palace, in tolerable preservation. The hills behind were covered
for half a mile with the graves of the former inhabitants, among which
I noticed the cones and pyramids of several holy men. As we approached
El Ordee (by which name New Dongola is usually called), the appearance
of the country improved, although there was still as much deserted as
cultivated land. The people we met were partly Dongolese and partly Arabs
from the Desert, the latter with bushy hair, shining with grease, and
spears in their hands. They cheered us with the news that El Ordee was
not distant, and we would arrive there at _asser_—the time of afternoon
prayer, two hours before sunset. My camel-men rejoiced at the prospect of
again having mareesa to drink, and I asked old Mohammed if he supposed
the saints drank mareesa in Paradise. “Why!” he joyfully exclaimed; “do
you know about Paradise?” “Certainly;” said I, “if you lead a good life,
you will go straight there, but if you are wicked, Eblis will carry you
down into the flames.” “Wallah!” said the old fellow, aside to Achmet;
“but this is a good Frank. He certainly has Islam in his heart.”
About two o’clock, we descried the minaret of El Ordee, its sugar-loaf
top glittering white in the sun. The place was three or four miles
distant, and we did not reach it until after more than an hour’s travel.
As we approached, it presented the usual appearance of the Nubian towns—a
long line of blank mud walls, above which rise, perhaps, the second
stories of a few more ambitious mud houses; here a sycamore, there a
palm or two, denoting a garden within; a wide waste of sand round about,
some filthy people basking in the sun, and a multitude of the vilest
kind of dogs. Near the river there are some fine large gardens, as in
Khartoum. I had already decided to stop two days, to rest my caravan,
before commencing the long and toilsome march to Wadi-Halfa, but instead
of hiring a house I went around the town and pitched my tent on the
northern side, on a sandy plain, where I secured pure air and freedom
from molestation by the inhabitants.
The morning after my arrival, the Governor, Khoorshid Bey, called at
my tent, and I returned the visit in the afternoon. He was a stout,
fair-skinned and brown-bearded man of thirty-eight, and looked more like
an American than a Turk. I found him in the shop of a Turkish merchant,
opposite the door of the mosque, which is built in the centre of the
bazaar. Two soldiers were in attendance, and brought me coffee and
sherbet. The Bey was particularly anxious to know whether the railroad
from Alexandria to Cairo would be built, and how much it would cost.
While I was sitting with him, the _mollahs_ were chanting in the mosque
opposite, as it was the Moslem Sunday, and groups of natives were
flocking thither to say their prayers. Presently the voice of the muezzin
was heard from the top of the minaret, chanting in a loud, melodious,
melancholy cadence the call to prayer—a singular cry, the effect of
which, especially at sunset, is really poetic and suggestive. I took my
leave, as the Bey was expected to perform his devotions with the other
worshippers.
The town may be seen in an hour. It contains no sights, except the
bazaar, which has about twenty tolerable shops, principally stocked with
cottons and calicoes, and a great quantity of white shawls with crimson
borders, which the people here are fond of wearing over their shoulders.
Outside the bazaar, which has a roof of palm-logs covered with matting,
are a few shops, containing spices, tobacco, beads, trinkets and the like
small articles. Beyond this was the _soog_, where the people came with
their coarse tobacco, baskets of raw cotton, onions, palm-mats, gourds,
dates, faggots of fire-wood, sheep and fowls. In this market-place, which
ascended and descended with the dirt-heaps left from ruined houses,
there were four ostriches, which walked about, completely naturalized
to the place. One of them was more than eight feet high—a most powerful
and graceful creature. They were not out of place, among the groups of
wild-haired Kababish and Bishàree, who frequented the market.
Below the river-bank, which is high, upwards of twenty small trading
craft were lying. One had just arrived with a load of lime, which the
naked sailors were carrying up the bank in baskets, on their heads.
The channel of the Nile here is mainly taken up with the large, sandy
island of Tor, and the stream is very narrow. The shore was crowded
with women, washing clothes or filling their water-jars, men hoisting
full water-skins on the backs of donkeys, and boys of all shades, from
whity-yellow to perfect black, bathing and playing on the brink. The
northern part of the town appeared to be deserted, and several spacious
two-story buildings were falling into ruins. I noticed not more than half
a dozen houses which would be considered handsome in Berber or Khartoum.
El Ordee ranks next after those places, in all the Egyptian territory
beyond Assouan, but has the disadvantage of being more filthy than they.