THE BATN EL-HADJAR.
The Batn El-Hadjar, or Belly of Stone—Ancient Granite
Quarries—The Village of Dal—A Ruined Fortress—A Wilderness of
Stones—The Hot Springs of Ukmé—A Windy Night—A Dreary Day in
the Desert—The Shekh’s Camel Fails—Descent to Samneh—The Temple
and Cataract—Meersheh—The Sale of Abou-Sin—We Emerge from the
Belly of Stone—A Kababish Caravan—The Rock of Abou-Seer—View
of the Second Cataract—We reach Wadi-Halfa—Selling my
Dromedaries—Farewell to Abou-Sin—Thanksgiving on the
Ferry-boat—Parting with the Camel-men.
On the sixth day after leaving Dongola I passed through Sukkôt, and
reached the commencement of Batn El-Hadjar—The Belly of Stone—as the
savage mountain country for a hundred miles south of the Second Cataract
is termed. With each day the road became more rough and toilsome, and
my camels moved more languidly. In spite of the fatigue which we all
endured, I felt so much strengthened by our free life and so much
interested in the remarkable country through which we were passing, that
I felt something like regret on approaching the southern limit of travel
on the Nile. Not so my dragoman and servant, who could not enough thank
God and the Prophet for having taken them in safety through countries
which they deemed the verge of the world. Achmet positively declared he
would never make the trip again, for no second journey could be equally
fortunate. My camel-men, I found, had never before travelled to Wadi
Halfa by the western bank, but by a wonderful Arab instinct, they never
went astray from the road.
The Batn El-Hadjar marks its commencement by a range of granite hills,
which break the river into a foaming cataract. After leaving camp, our
road lay along the Nile, behind some high sand-hills. In front of us
appeared Djebel Ufeer, a peak about fifteen hundred feet in height,
its naked sides tinted of a deep, rich purple hue by the glowing air.
The Nile flows directly towards its base, making a slight curve, as if
to pass it on the eastern side, but finding the granite rocks heaped
together too thickly, changes its course and washes the western foot of
the mountain. The granite lies scattered about in vast masses, taking
all sorts of quaint and fanciful shapes. The hills themselves are merely
collections of boulders of all sizes, from three to twenty feet in
diameter, piled on an enormous bed or stratum of the same. Intermixed
with this are beds of a rich yellowish-red granite, which crops out under
the piles of gray, and has been worked, wherever it appears in large
masses. The traces of the ancient quarrymen still remain, in the blocks
bearing marks of the wooden wedges by which they were split. In one place
I noticed two fragments of a column, similar to those in the palace at
Old Dongola. The granite is equal in quality and still more abundant than
that at Assouan, but was only quarried to a limited extent. The aspect
of the country is rugged in the highest degree, and how the Nile gets
through it became more and more a wonder to me. His bed is deep-sunken
between enormous stone-piles, back of which are high stone mountains, and
wherever there is a hollow between them, it is filled with sand. The only
vegetation was a few bunches of miserable grass, and some of those desert
shrubs which grow at the very doors of Tartarus, so tenacious of life are
they. A narrow shelf, on the opposite bank, high above the river, bore
the renowned palm of Sukkôt, and frequently in the little coves I saw
the living green of the young wheat. The steep banks were planted with
lupins, as the people there had nothing to fear from the hippopotami.
While I was breakfasting off a great granite table, a man who rode by
on a donkey cheered me with the news that the village of Dal was but a
short distance ahead. I had fixed upon this as our resting-place for the
night, but on finding it so near, resolved to push on to some natural hot
springs and ruins of ancient baths, which the camel-men had informed me
were about four hours further, to the right of the caravan track. At Dal,
however, a difficult _akaba_ commences, and my camels already marched so
slowly and wearily that I judged it best to stop and give them a little
rest. About the village there are some scattering doum and date-palms,
which lead a hard existence, half buried in sand and choked with the old
leaves, which the natives are too idle to prune. The people were in the
fields, cutting some wheat which was just ripe, and two sakias, shaded by
clusters of palms, watered a few patches of cotton. I made inquiries, but
had much difficulty in finding the location of the hot springs. Finally,
one of the men consented to become my guide in the morning, and conducted
us to a camping-ground, where there was a little grass for the camels.
Lured by the promise of backsheesh, he brought me the leanest of young
sheep, which I purchased for eight piastres. The night was calm, cool and
delicious, and steeped my whole frame in balm, after the burning day. The
moon, nearly full, shone with a gray and hazy lustre, and some insect
that shrilled like a tree-toad, reminded me of home.
Our Dallee guide, Hadji Mohammed, as he was called, from having made two
pilgrimages to Mecca, was on hand before sunrise. Starting in advance
of the caravan, I walked along the river-bank, towards a castellated
building on an eminence which I had noticed the previous evening, while
sketching the landscape. My path was over huge beds of gray granite, from
which the old Egyptians might have cut obelisks of a single block, not
only one hundred, but five hundred feet in length. The enormous masses
which had been separated from these beds and rolled into rounded masses
by the chafing of primeval floods, lay scattered on the surface, singly,
or piled in fantastic groups. The building was a large fortress of stones
and clay, with massive walls, on the summit of an island-like peak
overhanging the river, and separated from the bank by a deep chasm, which
is filled with water during the inundations, but was then dry, and its
sides green with wheat and beans. Wild doum-palms, hanging heavy with
green fruit, grew in the patches of soil among the rocks and overhung
the ravine. The fortress was a very picturesque object, with its three
square towers, backed by the roaring flood and the dark violet-blue crags
of Djebel Mémé behind. The forms of the landscape—except the palms—were
all of the far North, but the coloring was that of the ripe and glowing
South. I was so absorbed in the scene, that the caravan passed unnoticed,
having taken a path further from the river. After wandering about for
some time, I climbed one of the granite piles and scanned the country
in all directions, but could see nothing. Finally I descried a distant
trail, and on reaching it, recognized the tracks of my camels. I hurried
on, and in half an hour met Hadji Mohammed and one of my camel-men,
coming back in great tribulation, fearful that I was lost.
Near the Cataract of Dal, an akaba commences, which extends to the
village of Ukmé, in the Batn el-Hadjar, a distance of about fifteen
miles. We passed behind some peaks of black porphyry, whose shoulders
were covered with steep, sliding drifts of yellow sand, and travelled
on through a wilderness of stones. All the refuse odds and ends of
Creation—the pieces left after the rocks and mountains of the rest of
the world were fashioned—have been thrown together here. It was a sea of
black stone-mounds, out of which rose occasional peaks of still blacker
stone. Through this we passed into a region of gray stone and then into
another of red stone, journeying for four hours up one mound and down
another, by paths and no paths, which were most laborious for our camels.
I began to be fearful we should never get out of the geological labyrinth
into which the hadji conducted us, but the majestic range of Djebel
El-Lamool, beyond the Nile, served him as a guide. He looked occasionally
towards a bastion-like projection in the sheer walls of porphyry, and
at last, when I was quite tired and famished, took us up a ridge whence
I saw the river again below us. The road into the valley was next to
impracticable, but our camels stumbled and scrambled and slid till they
reached the ledge of halfeh overhanging the river. Below us was a square
mass of burnt brick, about ten feet in height—part of a building long
since destroyed. “Here is the bath,” said the hadji. We dismounted, and
he conducted us to the foot of the ruin, where, in a hole in the earth, a
spring of water bubbled up profusely, and trickled away, through a trough
of stones. There was an end of my anticipations of a refreshing bath, for
which I had come prepared. The water was hot enough, in truth (131°),
and I could not bear my hand below the surface. Under the bank, a dozen
springs with a smaller flow of water, oozed through the soil, which was
covered with a whitish deposit in places. To atone for my disappointment,
I took breakfast in the shadow of the ruined wall, while my camel-men
bathed themselves in the water, with many exclamations of “_Bismillàhi!_”
(In the name of God). The hadji then left us, and we followed the Nile
past the cataracts of Song and Tangoori, which latter we heard all night,
roaring grandly between the gusts of wind.
During the night the wind blew violently, and I had great fears that
my tent would come down about my ears. I heaped the sand against it
on the outside, for further protection, but every thing within was so
covered that its original color could no longer be discerned. The moon
shone between wild and stormy clouds, and all signs betokened a gust
of rain. We took more than ordinary precautions in the disposition of
our baggage, as this part of the road was much infested with marauding
bands of Kababish, who came from the side of Dar-Fūr and plundered the
inhabitants along the river, as well as small caravans. I trusted in the
protection afforded by my tent, which, from its appearance, would be
taken as belonging to an officer of the government.
On the eighth day we rose—for the first time in all my African travel—in
a cold, raw and cloudy dawn. Fortunately for us, a company of merchants,
bound for Wadi-Halfa, passed at daybreak, for we entered on an _akaba_ of
unknown length, and the wind had blown so violently within the last few
days that the old caravan trail was not to be found. The country was a
wilderness even more drear than those we had passed. On climbing the long
stony surges, I sometimes flattered myself with the hope of seeing beyond
the Desert; but no—I had only a more extended horizon. Long, shadowy
streaks of rain swept along the eastern horizon, and the mountain-chains
which lay against them were colored the darkest and intensest shade of
violet—precisely that of the lower leaves of the pansy. As we advanced,
the air grew colder, and a shower of large, scattering drops passed over
us. The camels shrank and trembled, and my men crept behind them for
shelter. Though it was a satisfaction to know that those African skies
_can_ rain sometimes, I was soon so benumbed as to need my capote. The
temperature was perhaps not lower than 60°, yet I felt it severely.
About ten o’clock, the shekh’s camel, which had before shown symptoms of
fatigue, lay down and refused to go further. As it was impossible to stop
in the Desert, I distributed its load among the other four, and ordered
him to drive it loose behind us. This, however, was of no avail, and at
last he concluded to wait till it had rested a little. I gave him the
water-skin, and we pushed on. Half an hour afterwards, when I was eating
breakfast under the lee of a sand-hill, Ali, who had remained behind with
him, came up saying they had examined the camel and decided that it was
sick. The shekh thereupon wept most vehemently, fearing it would die,
and turned about with it to make his way home. Ali lent him a dollar and
promised to take him the rest of the money due him. The other men were
quite downcast by the shekh’s misfortune. There was nothing to be done,
however, but to push ahead, as the other camels were well nigh worn out.
We kept on all the afternoon, with the cold wind blowing in our faces,
and occasionally a shower of colder rain dashed upon us. The road
ascended until towards noon, when we passed through a gateway between
two peaks of granite, whose loose masses threatened to topple down the
sides and crush us. Then for three or four hours we travelled over more
elevated ranges, from the crests of which we had wide glimpses over the
terrible tract, yet could see nothing but sand and stones—stones and
sand. In the east a long mountain-range lay dark and distant, under the
shadow of the rain-clouds, and it was some comfort to know that it was
beyond the Nile. As night approached, I feared we should be obliged
to camp in the akaba, and without water, but after ten hours of most
wearisome travel, we reached a ridge, whence we looked into a vast
basin of rocky hills, between us and the mountains, whose long chain of
jagged peaks, touched with the full yellow light of the setting sun,
stood against the black gust that rolled away beyond them into the
Great Nubian Desert. The Nile was not to be seen, yet deep in the centre
of this landscape, I caught a glimpse of some thorny bushes, which our
further descent showed to be near the village and cataract of Samneh. The
bed of the river was filled with masses of black rock, and the cataract,
just below the village, roared magnificently all through the night. The
wind blew again, and so violently, that I awoke with my ears, mouth and
nostrils filled with sand.
The morning was cold, with a violent wind, but I strengthened my camels
with an abundant feed of bean-vines and dourra, and set off early. I
walked ahead to the temple of Samneh, which stands on a rocky eminence
above the cataract. The hill is surrounded with the remains of a massive
brick wall, and there are traces of a road leading to the summit. The
temple is quite small, and of simple though graceful design, containing
only one chamber, at the end of which a headless statue lies on its
back. From the little portico in front there is a fine view of the gorge
through which the river breaks. A broad stratum of porphyry crosses his
bed, broken only in the centre by a gap or flood-gate, not twenty yards
across. Through this the whole force of his current is poured, and at
the time of my visit, when the water was low, he seemed but a pigmy
flood. In fact, for a mile or two below this cataract, there is scarcely
any point in all his tortuous and difficult course where one might not
throw a stone across. After leaving the temple, our road led over the
desolate stony hills, high above the river’s bed. We looked down into
the deep and narrow defile through which he flows, and which his waters
scarcely brightened or cheered, for there was no vegetation on his banks
except now and then a bunch of halfeh grass or a few stunted thorns.
The air was so bracing that I felt no more fatigue, but only regret,
that the journey was so near its close. Old Mohammed walked ahead,
singing his accustomed song: “_Koolloo nasee fee djennatee, tefoddhel, ya
er-rakhman!_” (O Most Merciful, grant that all my people may enter thy
Heavens!) Thus we travelled all day, and towards evening came down to the
Nile again at the little village of Meersheh.
This place is a beautiful little oasis in the midst of the savage Belly
of Stone. The Nile has a more gentle current, and his banks have room
enough for some groves of luxuriant date-trees, and fields of wheat and
cotton. My tent was pitched beside the rustling palms, and I sat down
with a glad heart and a full pipe, on the last night of my long and
toilsome journey by land. During the evening one of the natives took a
fancy to my Abou-Sin, and made numerous small offers for the purchase of
him. I refused, preferring to send him on to Assouan, but in the morning
the man came again, and at last, with many struggles, raised his price
to one hundred and ninety piastres, whereupon I thought it best to sell
and so avoid all further trouble. I stipulated, however, that Abou-Sin
was to be delivered to him at Wadi-Halfa, and that he should accompany us
thither on the morrow. The night was intensely cold, although the air was
probably not below 60°. I could hardly bear the coldness of the water in
the morning. It stung my burnt face like fire, and increased the pains
of my unfortunate cracked nose. The Barabras brought me some milk for
my coffee in a basket of closely-plaited grass, smeared with grease on
the inside. It precisely resembled those baskets made by the Indians of
California, which will carry water. The milk, however, had a taste of
the rancid grease, which prevented me from drinking much of it.
We arose shivering in the early dawn, and for the last time put the loads
on our fagged and unwilling camels. Soon after starting, I saw ahead,
through a gateway of black porphyry rocks, the long, yellow sand-hills of
the Libyan Desert, like those which line the western bank of the Nile,
from Assouan to Korosko. This was a joyful token that we had reached
the end of the savage Batn El-Hadjar. As we were travelling over the
rolling upland of yellow sand, enjoying the view of the wild frontier
of the Belly of Stone, out of which we had just issued, a large caravan
of Kababish Arabs, returning towards Dar-Fūr with empty camels, met us.
There were upwards of fifty camels and thirty men—half-naked savages,
with projecting features, wild eyes, and a wilderness of hair on their
heads. The Kababish were easily distinguished by their long plaits, laid
close to the head, and smeared with fat. The others, who had enormous
masses of wool, standing out in all directions for a foot or more, were
probably Howoweet, from the side of Dar-Fūr. We asked the distance to
Wadi Halfa, and were answered with the universal “_hassa_,” (just now!)
whereby these people designate any indefinite period of time.
After three or four hours, I began to look out for Abou-Seer, a lofty
cliff to which travellers repair for a bird’s-eye view of the Second
Cataract—to them the turning point of their Nile journey, to me the
termination of my long mid-African rambles, and the commencement of my
return to the living world. Our road was a mile or two behind the river,
and as Achmet had only visited the mountain from the side of Wadi Halfa,
he could not serve as a guide. I turned into the hills, taking him,
Mohammed and Ali, and leaving the other man to go on with the baggage
camels. We wandered for some time over the rough ridges, and at last
reached a spur of the hills which Achmet took to be Abou-Seer, but which
was not it. I was so hungry that I stopped for breakfast, and before I
had finished, Ali, who was overflowing with joy at the idea of reaching
Wadi Halfa, came to me with the news that he had been climbing a high
point, whence he could see the end of the mountains. The Nile, beyond, he
said, was broad and smooth, and there were more date-trees than he had
seen since leaving Sukkôt. I left him to ride my Abou-Sin, and walked
on to the peak he had climbed. As I reached its base, however, I saw
that the true headland projected still further beyond, terminating in a
cone-like summit. As I came out from among the hills behind it, the view
suddenly opened before me far to the north and east, and I saw the long
date-groves of Wadi Halfa apparently at my feet.
Abou-Seer is a cliff of calcareous rock, and its base is completely
covered with the names of tourists who have visited it. Achmet wanted
me to add my name to theirs, but as I had brought no hammer and chisel
from Cairo, like most travellers, I could not gratify him. A few steps
took me to the summit of the cliff, which drops on the eastern side in
a sheer precipice to the water’s edge. It is at least three hundred
feet in perpendicular height, and as it forms the corner of the range,
the view on three sides is uninterrupted for many leagues. The panorama
is truly grand, and probably unlike any other in the world. To the
south the mountains of the Batn El-Hadjar rise like a black wall,
out of which the Nile forces its way, not in a broad sheet, but in a
hundred vexed streams, gurgling up amid chaotic heaps of rocks as if
from subterranean sources, foaming and fretting their difficult way
round endless islands and reefs, meeting and separating, seeking every
where an outlet and finding none, till at last, as if weary of the long
contest, the rocks recede, and the united waters spread themselves out,
sluggish and exhausted, on the sands below. It is a wonderful picture of
strife between two material forces, but so intricate and labyrinthine
in its features, that the eye can scarcely succeed in separating them,
or in viewing it other than as a whole. The streams, in their thousand
windings, appear to flow towards all points of the compass, and from
their continual noise and motion on all sides, the whole fantastic
wilderness of rock seems to heave and tug, as it is throttled by the
furious waters. This is the last great struggle and triumph of the Nile.
Henceforth, his tortured waters find repose. He goes down to Egypt as a
conquerer, crowned with a double majesty after all his toils. Is it to be
wondered at, that the ancient race which existed by his bounty, should
worship him as a God?
But by this time we saw our baggage-camels, like specks on the sand,
approaching Wadi Halfa. Ali, unable to contain himself, started off on a
run, and we soon lost sight of him. I mounted my faithful big dromedary,
Abou-Sin, and after two more hours on his lofty hump, dismounted at the
ferry-place, opposite Wadi Halfa, never, alas! to mount him again. A boat
with a company of merchants from Cairo had just arrived, and the sailors
were unloading their packages of merchandise. The merchants came up and
saluted me, and could scarcely believe that I had been so far as the
White Nile. They were bound for Dongola, and one of them, learning that
my brown dromedary was for sale, offered to buy it. Achmet conducted the
business for me, for the bargaining lasted at least two hours, before
the purchaser succeeded in slowly struggling up to a decent price. The
Baràbra who had bought Abou-Sin was also on hand, to ratify the bargain,
and I was thus saved from the necessity of sending the animals to the
markets of Assouan. I must do both the men the justice to say that they
afterwards made every exertion to cheat me, in the way of counting money
and offering bad pieces, and at last gave a large pile of copper coin,
which, when it was counted, lacked two piastres of the right amount. When
all was finished, I delivered Abou-Sin into the hands of his rascally
new master, with a sorrowful heart, for the old fellow and I were good
friends. Had he known we were to be separated, I am sure those large
black eyes of his would have dropped a few tears, and that capacious
throat gurgled out a sound of lamentation. Achmet threw his arms around
the beast’s big head and kissed him tenderly. I was about to do the same
thing, when I remembered that the never-sweating skin of a dromedary
exhales not the freshest of odors, and preferred caressing him with my
hand rather than my lips. So farewell to Abou-Sin, and may he never want
dourra and bean-vines, nor complain under too heavy loads: and should he
die soon (for he is waxing in years), may some son of his strong loins be
there to carry me, when next I visit Central Africa!
My arrival at Wadi Halfa terminated the journey of thirty-four days from
Khartoum. In that time my little caravan had travelled between eight and
nine hundred miles, and at least half of it as rough travelling as can
be found in Africa. Now we were beyond danger and done with fatigue,
and could look forward to seeing Cairo in another month. Not until we
were all seated in the ferry-boat, crossing from the opposite bank, did
I fairly realize that our severe journey was over. The camels were left
behind, the baggage piled up on board, and as we were rowed slowly across
the river, it suddenly flashed through my mind that the same gentle
motion of oars and waves was thenceforth to rock me all the way to Cairo.
I drew a long breath, and fervently ejaculated: “_el hamdu lillàh!_”
to which the others, as in duty bound, responded. Achmet, who usually
postponed his prayers until he reached home, recited a chapter from the
Koran, and Ali, who never prayed, broke into sailor-songs by starts, and
laughed continually, from inward delight.
After my tent was pitched on the beach, I called my camel-men, Ali and
Mohammed, who had crossed with me, and gave them each the forty piastres
still due, with a Maria Theresa dollar—_abou-zeràr_, or the Father of
Buttons, as this coin is called in Central Africa, from the button which
clasps the drapery on the Empress’s shoulder—as backsheesh. The men were
delighted, and kissed my hand, in token of gratitude. I gave them also
the money for the shekh, and took leave of them with the exclamation:
“May God grant you a prosperous return to your country!” They replied,
warmly: “May God prolong your days, O Effendi!” and as they moved away,
I overheard old Mohammed again declare to Achmet; “Wallah, but this is a
good Frank! He certainly has Islam in his heart!”