and others developed it, do indeed cross these boundaries without
hesitation, but they cannot possibly be regarded as giving a carefully
thought-out and authoritative judgment on the actual state of the case.
Satisfactory, not to say probable, as this doctrine is, it has not yet
risen above the level of an ingenious hypothesis; and incontrovertible
evidence for the correctness of this hypothesis has not yet been
produced. Variation within the limits of species and breed can be
proved, can even be brought about; but transformation of one species
into another cannot be established in any case. As long as this is so
we are justified in regarding man and apes as creatures of different
nature, and disputing the descent of one from the other. No attempt
to discover or establish a common ancestor, no undertaking to draw
up a pedigree for man, alters this in the slightest; for true natural
science is not satisfied with interpretative theories, it demands
proofs; it does not want to believe, but to know.[74]
So we may without scruple give the apes the place in the scale of being
which unprejudiced investigation points out. We may look upon them as
the animals most resembling ourselves, and as our nearest relatives
in the zoological sense; anything more than this we must deny. Much
that is characteristic of man is to be found in the apes also; but a
wide gulf still remains between them and true humanity. Physically and
mentally they have many of the characteristics of man, but by no means
all.
DESERT JOURNEYS.
On the fringe of the desert, under a thick group of palms, a small tent
is pitched. Around it is a motley collection of bales and boxes, built
into a sort of barricade. Outside this some Nubian boys are lounging
or squatting. They are in holiday garb, so to speak, for their glossy
skins have been freshly smeared with grease.
The travellers whom the tent shelters have come so far on a Nile boat,
but as the river now describes a huge curve and abounds in rocks and
rapids, they have decided to cut across the desert.
It is about noon. The sun stands almost vertically above the tent, in a
cloudless deep blue sky, and his scorching rays are but slightly warded
off by the loose open foliage of the date-palms. On the plain between
the river and the desert the heat is oppressive, and the strata of air
above the burning ground are heaving unsteadily, so that every picture
is distorted and blurred.
A troop of horsemen, evidently hailing from the desert, appears on the
horizon. They pay no heed to the village which lies further inland,
but make straight for the tent. The horses are thin, but plainly of no
ignoble breed; the riders are dark brown and poorly clad, with long
loose burnooses more gray than white. Reaching the cluster of palms
they dismount. One of them approaches the tent and enters with the
dignity of a king. He is the chief of the camel-drivers (Sheikh el
Djemali), to whom we, the travellers, had sent a messenger, asking him
to provide us with the necessary guides, drivers, and camels.
“Peace be with you,” he says on entering, and lays his hand on his
mouth, his forehead, and his heart.
“Peace be with thee, O Sheikh,” we answer, “the mercy of God and his
blessing.”
“Great has been my desire to see you, ye strangers, and to learn your
wishes,” he assures us, as he takes his seat on a cushion in the place
of honour at our right hand.
“May God, the Almighty, reward thy goodness, O Sheikh, and bless thee,”
we answer; and we order our servants to bring him coffee and a freshly
lit pipe before serving ourselves.
With half-shut eyes he comforts his mortal body with the coffee and
his immortal soul with the pipe; and thick clouds of smoke veil his
expressive features. There is almost perfect stillness in the tent,
which is pervaded with the fragrance of the exquisite Djebelit tobacco
and a thin smoke by no means unpleasant. At last we think that we
may venture to begin business without violating any of the rites of
hospitality.
“Is it well with thee, O Sheikh?”
“The Giver of all Good be praised, it is well with your servant. And
how is it with thee?”
“To the Lord of all be honour and glory, it is well with me. Great was
our longing to see thee, O Sheikh.”
“May God in His compassion fulfil your desire and bless you. Are ye in
your state of health well content?”
“Glory be to Allah and to His Prophet, on whom is His grace.”
“Amen, be it as thou hast said.”
Fresh pipes revive the immortal soul; renewed, almost interminable
courtesies are interchanged; and at last the rigid conditions of
etiquette have been fulfilled, and it is permissible to turn to
business matters.
“O Sheikh, with the help of the All-merciful, I would travel through
this stretch of desert.”
“May Allah give thee good speed.”
“Art thou in possession of camels both to run and to carry burdens?” we
ask.
“I am. Is it well with thee, my brother?”
“The Almighty be praised, it is well. How many camels canst thou
provide for me?”
Instead of an answer only countless clouds of smoke issue from the
Sheikh’s mouth, and it is not until we repeat our question that he lays
aside his pipe for some moments and says with dignity, “Sir, the number
of the camels of Beni Said is known to Allah alone; no son of Adam has
ever counted them.”
“Well, then, send me twenty-five beasts, and among them six trotters.
And I have besides need of ten large water-bags.”
The Sheikh smokes afresh without giving answer.
“Wilt thou send the beasts we desire?” we repeat with emphasis.
“I shall do so to serve thee,” he answers, “but their owners require a
high price.”
“How much?”
“At least four times the customary wages and hire will be necessary.”
“But Sheikh, Allah, the Most High, preserve thee: these are demands
which no one will be willing to grant. Praise the Prophet!”
“God, the Preserver of all, be glorified and His messengers blessed!
Thou art in error, my friend: the merchant who has his camp over there
has offered me double what I ask; only my friendship for thee has
allowed me to make so small a demand.”
In vain seems all haggling, all further business. Fresh pipes are
brought and are smoked; renewed courtesies are exchanged; the names of
Allah and His Prophet are freely misused on both sides; most precise
inquiries after health and comfort are made mutually; until at length
the studied courtesy of the native begins to waver and the traveller
from the North loses patience.
“Then know, Sheikh, that I am in possession of a letter authorizing a
demand for means of convoy from the Khedive and likewise one from the
Sheikh Soliman; here are both of them, what dost thou demand now?”
“But, sir, if thou holdest a safe-conduct from his high majesty, why
dost thou not demand the head of thy slave? It is at thy service, on
his orders. I take thy wishes on my eyes and on my head. Command and
thy servant obeys. Thou knowest the government prices. Allah protect
thee; in the morning I shall send thee men, beasts, and water-skins.”
If any one imagines that all the preparations for the desert journey
were thus brought to a satisfactory conclusion, he is indeed totally
ignorant of the manners and customs of the people. In the morning none
of the promised drivers or beasts had put in their appearance; only by
afternoon did they begin to come in; not even on the following morning,
but at soonest about the time of afternoon prayer, could one think of
starting. “Bukra inshallah--to-morrow, if God will”--is their motto,
and it baffles all commands. Indeed, there is much to do, much to
arrange, and much to be planned before the journey can be undertaken.
In course of time the tent is the centre of a gay and lively picture.
The sunburnt children of the desert bustle about among the baggage.
Their activity is unbusiness-like to a degree, but they seem to try to
make up for this by incredible noisiness. The baggage, which had been
arranged in a sort of barricade, is scattered about; individual pieces
are lifted and tested as regards both weight and bulk; one package is
compared with another, selected and then rejected, strapped together
and then pulled apart again. Each driver tries to outwit his neighbour,
each endeavouring to secure the lightest load for his own beast; each
one rushes about in opposition to the rest, and all are shouting and
roaring, screaming and scolding, swearing and cursing, entreating and
execrating. In anticipation of what is coming the camels also add to
the noise right lustily, and if, instead of roaring, and growling and
grumbling, they should keep silence for a while, that only means:
Our time has not yet come, but it is coming! Anyhow, with or without
the camels’ accompaniment, the stranger’s ear is harassed, literally
tortured, by all the medley of sounds which fall upon it at once. For
hours together the bustle, the racket, the uproar continues; the men
scold and quarrel over the loads until they have had enough or more
than enough; and at last the prelude comes to an end.
After peace is concluded they begin to twist the bast fibres of the
date-palm into cords and ropes. With these they sling the bales and
boxes cleverly together; they make hooks and eyes so that the two
bundles may be fastened quickly to the saddle and as quickly loosened;
they mend the ready-made nets which they have brought to hold the
smaller packages; and they test the large and small skin bags, patching
them where need be, and finally smearing them with ill-smelling varnish
of colocynth. Lastly, they examine the sun-dried flesh, fill several
bast bags with Kaffir-millet or dhurra, others with wood-charcoal, and
some perhaps with camels’ dung, rinse out the skin-bags and fill them
with water fresh from the stream. As the tedious business is brought to
a close one hears each utter a hearty “Thank God”--“El hamdu lillahi”.
To look after all these preparations is the duty of the _Chabir_ or
leader of the caravan. According to its importance is his rank, but in
all cases he must be what his title signifies--one who knows the way
and the existing conditions. Experience, honesty, cleverness, mettle,
and bravery are the requirements of his difficult, and not rarely
dangerous office. He knows the desert as a mariner the sea, he can read
the stars, he is familiar with every oasis and every spring on the
course of the journey, he is welcome to the tent of every Bedouin or
nomad chief, he understands all sort of precautions against break-down
or peril by the way, he can cure snake-bite and scorpion-sting, or at
least alleviate the sufferings of the injured, he wields the weapons
of the warrior and of the huntsman with equal skill, he has the word
of the Prophet not only on his lips but in his heart, he utters the
“_Fatiha_” at starting, and discharges the obligations of Mueddin
and Iman at the appointed times; in a word, he is the head of the
many-membered body which travels through the desert. In the solitudes
where nothing seems to point the way which other caravans have taken,
where the wind obliterates every track almost as soon as the last camel
has passed, he finds signs unseen by others which guide him aright.
When the dry, ill-boding dust of the desert hides the everlasting
heavens, his genius is his guiding star; he tests the drifting
sand, measures its waves, and estimates their direction; he reads the
points of the compass on a stem of grass. On him every caravan, every
traveller depends without mistrust. Ancient and in part most remarkable
laws, inscribed in no charter, yet known to all, make him responsible
for the welfare of the journey and for the life of each traveller,
except in so far as any inevitable dispensation of the Ordainer of
destiny may decree otherwise.
[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Caravan in the African Desert.]
At the sacred hour, the time of afternoon prayer, the leader announces
to travellers and drivers that all is ready for the start. The brown
men rush around, catching, leading, saddling, and loading the camels.
Resisting to the utmost the beasts are forced to obey; they seem to
have a vivid foreboding of a stretch of toilsome days. Their time has
now come. Roaring, screaming, snarling, and grumbling, in obedience to
the inimitable guttural commands of their masters and sundry gentle
hints from the whips, they sink down on their bended knees; bellowing
they adjust themselves to receive the unwelcome burden on their humped
backs, and still bellowing they rise with their load. Not a few kick
and bite in their efforts to resist being loaded, and it indeed
requires all the inexhaustible patience of the drivers to subdue the
obstinate creatures. But patience and tact master even camels. As soon
as the rebellious beast has consented to kneel, one of the drivers
stands up on its bent fore-legs, and with a quick grip seizes the upper
part of the muzzle so that by pressing the nose he can stop the camel’s
breathing; meanwhile two others from opposite sides lift the equally
poised burden on to the saddle; a fourth runs fastening pegs through
the loops of the ropes; and the fractious camel is loaded before he has
quite regained his senses. As soon as all are loaded, the march begins.
It is now the turn of the well-saddled trotting camels. Each traveller
fastens his weapons and indispensable personal luggage to the high,
trough-shaped saddle fixed over the hump. He then proceeds to mount
his steed. For the novice this is usually a critical business. With a
bold spring he must leap into the saddle, and, as soon as he touches
this, the camel bolts up. He rises backwards, first on his fore-knees,
immediately afterwards on his long hind-legs, and finally on his
fore-legs. To the second jerk the novice in camel-riding usually falls
a victim, he is hurled out of the saddle and either kisses mother
earth or falls on the beast’s neck and holds on tightly. The camel
is much too ill-humoured to treat this as a joke or an accident. An
angry cry bursts from its ugly lips; it flies into a passion with the
poor traveller, hanging in a most unenviable position on its neck, and
proceeds to shake itself free both of him and his baggage. It takes
some time before the traveller from the North learns to bend his body
forwards and backwards at the right moment so as to keep his seat as
the camel springs up.
For our own part, we swing ourselves into the saddle with the agility
of natives. Urging on our steed with a few strokes of the whip, and
keeping it in due check by means of a fine nose-rein, we hasten after
the leader. Our camel, a lank, loosely-built, long-legged creature,
falls at once into that uniform, persistent, long-stepping, and most
effective trot, to which it is trained from earliest youth, and which
raises it high above all beasts of burden, and closely follows the
leaders. The small head is stretched far in front; the long legs swing
quickly backwards and forwards; behind them sand and small stones rise
into the air. The burnooses of the riders flutter in the wind; weapons
and utensils clatter together; with loud calls we spur on the beasts;
the joy of travel seems to give our spirits wings. Soon we overtake
the caravan of baggage-camels which had preceded us; soon every trace
of human settlement disappears; and on all sides there stretches in
apparent infinitude--the desert.
Sharply defined all around, this immense and unique region covers
the greater part of North Africa, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic,
from the Mediterranean to the Soudan, including whole countries in
its range, embracing tracts of fertile land; presenting a thousand
varieties, and yet always and everywhere the same in its essential
features. In area, this wonderful region is nine or ten times larger
than the whole of the German Empire, and three or four times larger
than the Mediterranean. No mortal has thoroughly explored or even
traversed it; but every son of earth who has set foot on it and crossed
some part of it, is in his inmost heart impressed with its size and
grandeur, its charm and its horror. Even on the most matter-of-fact
Northerner who sojourns in the desert a lasting, ineffaceable
impression is left by the glowing splendour of the sunlight and the
parching heat of its days, by the heavenly peacefulness and the magical
phantoms of its nights, by the witchery of the radiant atmosphere, by
the dreadfulness of its mountain-moving storms; and many a one may have
experienced, what the children of the desert so acutely feel--a longing
to return, to breathe its air for a day, an hour, to see its pictures
again with the bodily eye, to experience again that “unutterable
harmony” whose echoes the desert awakens in the poetic soul. In short,
there is a home-sickness for the desert.
It is literally and truly “El Bahhr bela maa”--the sea without
water--the sea’s antithesis. To the sea the desert is not subject
as are other parts of the earth; the might of the vitalizing and
sustaining element is here annulled. “Water silently embraces all
things”--the desert alone excepted. Over the whole earth the winds bear
the clouds, the sea’s messengers, but these fade away before the glow
of the desert. It is rarely that one sees there even a thin, hardly
perceptible vapour; rarely can one detect on a leaf in the morning the
damp breath of the night. The flush of dawn and the red glow of sunset
are indeed seen, but only, as it were, in a breath which is scarce
formed when it passes away. Wherever water gains the mastery, the
desert changes into fertile land, which may, indeed, be poor enough,
but the limits between them are always sharply defined. Where the last
wave of the sacred Nile, raised above its level by man’s ingenuity,
loses itself in the sand, the contrast is seen; the traveller, whose
way lies from the river to the hills adjacent, may stand with one foot
on a field of sprouting grain, and with the other touch the desert. It
is not the sand itself which hinders the growth of plants, but solely
the scorching heat which radiates through it. For, wherever it is
irrigated or periodically watered, there, amid the otherwise plantless
desert, a green carpet of vegetation is spread, and even shrubs and
trees may grow.
[Illustration: Fig. 50.--An Encampment in the Sahara.]
Barren, pitifully barren is the desert, but it is not dead--not, at
least, to those who have eyes to see its life. Whoever looks with
a dull eye sees nothing but sandy plains and rocky cones, bare low
grounds and naked hills, may even overlook the sparse reed-like grasses
and shrubby trees of the deeper hollows, and the few animals which
occur here and there. But he who really wishes to see can discover
infinitely more. To the dull-eyed the desert is a land of horrors; they
allow themselves to be so depressed by the glowing heat of the day
that the blissfulness of the night brings them no comfort or strength;
they ride into the desert trembling, and leave it shuddering; their
sensations are all for the terrible, their feelings for the annoyances
attendant on the journey; for the infinite sublimity of the desert such
hearts are too small. But those who have really learned to know the
desert judge otherwise.
Barren the desert is, we confess, but it is not dead. Thus, although
the general aspect is uniform, the nature of the surface varies
greatly. For wide stretches the desert is like a rocky sea, with
strangely-shaped cones, abrupt precipitous walls, deeply-riven gorges,
sharp-angled ridges, and wondrous towering domes. Over these the
ceaselessly-blowing wind drifts the sand, now filling up hollows,
now emptying them again, but always grinding, polishing, hollowing
out, sharpening, and pointing. Black masses of sandstone, granite,
or syenite, more rarely of limestone or slate, and here and there
of volcanic rock glow in the sun, and rise in expressively-outlined
ranges. On one side the wind robs these of every covering, driving the
fine sand uninterruptedly over their summits, completely enveloping
them in a veil in times of storm, and leaving no particle of sand
at rest until it has been blown across the ridge. On the lee side,
protected from the wind, lie golden yellow beds of the finest rolled
sand, which form terraces one above another, each about a yard in
height. But they also are in ceaseless movement, continually displacing
one another from above downwards, and being renewed from the other
side of the range. Strikingly contrasted with the black walls of the
exposed side, these terraces of sand are visible from afar, and in
certain lights they sparkle like broad golden ribbons on the hills.
We may venture to call such ranges the regalia of the desert. No one
unacquainted with the glowing South can picture the marvellous wealth
of colour, the splendour and glamour, and the infinite charm which
the overflowing sunlight can create on the dreariest and wildest
mountains of the desert. Their sides are never clothed with the welcome
green of woodland, at most the highest peaks bear a scant covering of
bushes, to which the precipitation of vapour at this height allows a
bare subsistence and a stunted growth. One misses the whispering of
the beeches, and the rustling of the firs and pines; there is none of
the familiar murmuring, or joyous chatter, or echoing roar of running
water, which lays silver ribbons on our mountains at home, fringing
them here with verdure, while in another place the sun shining upon
rushing waterfall and whirlpool enhaloes them with rainbow colours;
there is no mantle of ice and snow which the sun can transfigure into
purple at dawn and sunset, or into glowing brightness at noon; and
there is no fresh green from any mead. In short, all the witchery and
charm of Northern mountain scenery is absent; and yet the desert
mountains are not deficient in wealth of colour, and certainly not
in majesty. Every individual layer and its own peculiar colour comes
into prominence and has its effect. And yet, brilliant as may be the
brightly-coloured and sometimes sharply-contrasted strata, it is on the
continuously sand-polished, grandly-sculptured cones, peaks, gullies,
and gorges that the light of heaven produces the finest play of colour.
The alternations of light and shade are so frequent, the flushing and
fading of colours so continuous, that a very intoxication of delight
besets the soul. Nor do the first and last rays of the sun fail to
clothe the desert mountains in purple; and distance sheds over them its
blue ethereal haze. They, too, live, for the light gives them life.
In other regions the desert is for wide stretches either flat or gently
undulating. For miles it is covered with fine-grained, golden-yellow
sand, into which man and beast sink for several centimetres. Here one
often sees not a single stem of grass nor living creature of any kind.
The uniformly blue sky roofs in this golden surface, and contributes
not a little to suggest the sea. In such places the track of the “ship
of the desert” is lost as it is made; they are pathless as the sea; for
them as for the ocean was the compass discovered. Less monotonous, but
not more pleasant, are those regions on which loose, earthy, or dusty
sand forms a soil for poisonous colocynth-gourds and the wholesome
senna. Long low hills alternate with shallow and narrow hollows, and
a carpet of the above-named plants, which from a distance seems green
and fresh, covers both alike. Such places are avoided by both man and
beast, for the camel and his driver often sink a foot deep into the
loose surface-soil. Other tracts are covered with coarse gravel or
flints, and others with hollow sand-filled balls, rich in iron, which
look almost as if they had been made by human hands, and whose origin
has not yet been very satisfactorily explained.[75] On such stretches,
where the camel-paths are almost like definite highways, thousands of
quartz crystals are sometimes exposed, either singly or in groups, like
clusters of diamonds set by an artist hand. With these the sun plays
magically, and such stretches gleam and sparkle till the dazzled eye is
forced to turn away from them. In the deepest hollows, finally, the
dust forms a soil, and there one is sure to find the reed-like, but
very hard, dry, sharp, dark-green alfa, umbrella-shaped mimosas, and
perhaps even tom-palms, pleasant assurances of life.