[Illustration: Map of ROUTE from OLD DONGOLA TO EL FASHER]
INCIDENTS
ON A
JOURNEY THROUGH NUBIA
TO
DARFOOR.
F. SIDNEY ENSOR, C.E.
LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE.
* * * * *
1881.
(_All rights reserved._)
LONDON
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13. WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
TO
JOHN FOWLER, ESQUIRE,
(CIVIL ENGINEER),
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
AS A MARK
OF RESPECT AND GRATITUDE.
INTRODUCTION.
* * * * *
Darfoor is an oasis, or rather a cluster of oases, in the south-eastern
part of the great desert of Sahara. The country was annexed to the
Egyptian dominions at the close of the year 1874; and, in the following
year, owing to reports of its extraordinary fertility, it was decided by
Ismael Pasha, then Khedive of Egypt, that a survey should be made for a
proposed line of railway to El Fasher, or Tendelti, its capital town.
Previous to 1874 there had been only three available routes to El Fasher
from Egypt or Nubia.
One from Sioot on the Nile, about two hundred and ten miles above Cairo.
This route, throughout its entire length, is in the desert; the wells
are sometimes ten days’ journey apart, and in other respects it is quite
impracticable for the purposes of a railway.
A second from Dabbe, latitude 18° N., on the upper Nile, across the
desert to El Obeid, capital of Khordofan, and thence into Darfoor, over
rough and generally unfavourable ground.
A third from Khartoom, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, to
El Obeid, and thence by the route last mentioned.
A fourth route by the Wady Milkh, said to be very superior to any of the
other three, existed, however, from near Old Dongola on the Upper Nile,
almost in a straight line, right into Darfoor.
The “Wady Milkh”[1] signifies “Inalienable Valley”; it is so called
because since the reign of Achmet Bokr, Sultan of Darfoor (1682-1722),
who extended his frontiers as far as the Nile, and beyond to the Atbara,
the Sultans of Darfoor claimed the sole right to use it. The route,
moreover, was said to be unsafe, owing to the predatory habits of the
Arab tribes dwelling in different parts of its length.
It was along this newly acquired “Wady Milkh,” or Inalienable Valley,
that the surveys and levels for the proposed line of railway, on which I
was engaged, were to be made.
The adventures that I met with while on the journey from the second
cataract of the Nile, and afterwards at El Fasher, and the description
of the country, form the subject of this book.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
PAGE
CHAPTER I.—Wady Halfa to New Dongola 1
CHAPTER II.—The Temple of Semneh 13
CHAPTER III.—New Dongola 21
CHAPTER IV.—Old Dongola 30
CHAPTER V.—Taking Stock 42
CHAPTER VI.—From Old Dongola to Sotaire 50
CHAPTER VII.—From Sotaire to Bagghareeyeh 61
CHAPTER VIII.—From Bagghareeyeh to Om-Badr 72
CHAPTER IX.—Om-Badr 84
CHAPTER X.—From Om-Badr to Karnac 95
CHAPTER XI.—Karnac to Ergoodt 107
CHAPTER XII.—Ergoodt 120
CHAPTER XIII.—Descriptive 131
CHAPTER XIV.—History 142
CHAPTER XV.—El Fasher 153
CHAPTER XVI.—At El Fasher 163
CHAPTER XVII.—At El Fasher 173
CHAPTER XVIII.—A Ride to Kobbe 183
CHAPTER XIX.—Back to Ergoodt 197
CHAPTER XX.—Back to Om-Badr 206
CHAPTER XXI.—Back to Sotaire 217
* * * * *
ERRATA.
* * * * *
Page 14, _line_ 17, _after_ “boy” _insert_ “is.”
„ 15, _line_ 18, _for_ “Madeline” _read_ “Madeleine.”
„ 25, „ 24, _for_ “like” _read_ “live.”
„ 86, „ 14, „ “equally” _read_ “equalling.”
INCIDENTS ON A JOURNEY
THROUGH
NUBIA TO DARFOOR.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
* * * * *
I saw another land
Fast by the land of Life, the land of Death;
More drear than where, outcast, Cain flew accursed,
And built with blood-stained hands his godless home.
* * * * *
WADY HALFA TO NEW DONGOLA.
Arrival at the second cataract of the Nile. — The desert beyond. —
Resting-places. — A distressed traveller. — Green fields again. — Asleep
on a horse. — The river from the second to the third cataract. —
Irrigation beyond.
ON 13th November 1875 we started up the Nile from Cairo; our expedition
consisted of eight civil engineers and one doctor, besides native
assistants, soldiers and servants. Our object was to prospect and survey
for a line of railway from Aboo Goossi to El Fasher, or Tendelti,[2] the
capital of Darfoor. Aboo Goossi is a considerable village six miles
higher up the Nile than Old Dongola, and is on the line of the proposed
Soudan railway, on the survey of which I had been engaged in a
subordinate capacity some years before. There was also to be a branch
line surveyed from Sotaire, or Sotahl, to Khartoom. Sotaire, or Sotahl,
is the site of two wells about eighty miles from Aboo Goossi on the
proposed line to El Fasher.
Two steamers and one large barge were told off to carry the members of
the expedition to the first cataract; one steamer was occupied by the
engineers and doctor, the other by the native assistants, and the barge
by the soldiers and stores. At Assouan we left our steamers and barge
and proceeded by a recently constructed railway, nine miles in length,
to the top of the first cataract; here we found two other steamers
waiting for us and boats for the soldiers. His Excellency, Mustapha
Fehmy Pacha, then newly appointed Director-General of the Railways of
Upper Egypt, including the Soudan railway at that time in course of
construction, accompanied us from Cairo as far as Wady Halfa.
Wady Halfa, “valley of grass,” is a village at the foot of the second or
Great Cataract on the right bank of the Nile, at a distance of about a
thousand miles from the Mediterranean; it is at the commencement of the
Soudan railway. We disembarked on the left bank of the river opposite
the village; the camels for our journey, to the number of three hundred
and fifty, were in the neighbourhood, some on one side of the Nile, some
on the other. The section of our expedition whose destination was
Khartoom were ready to go the day before us, and we wished them good-bye
to meet again in the Sahara some months after and a thousand miles away.
On the following day we paid our farewell visit to Mustapha Pacha and
started on our journey.
Tourists from Europe and America, visiting Egypt, seldom proceed further
up the Nile than the first cataract; Philæ at its upper end is usually
the limit of their travels; some few go as far as the second cataract,
but I fancy their numbers may be counted by twos and threes.
Indisputable evidence of this may be found in the state of the ruined
temples of the Nile valley; below the first cataract Brown, Jones and
Robinson may be seen carefully carved on their walls, as also some
greater names which the world will hardly remember the longer, or esteem
the more, for being in such company. Above Philæ this is rarely the
case; time and the elements are left to do their work unaided.
The route generally taken by travellers to Khartoom and the White or
Blue Niles starts from Korosco, about eighty miles below Wady Halfa. The
route crosses the eastern desert of the Bishareen and Ababdeh Arabs, and
joins the Nile again at Aboo Hamed, whence boats may be obtained to
Khartoom and beyond, or the journey may be continued on camels.
This is the route that has been taken by all the great explorers; that
portion of the Nile between Wady Halfa and Aboo Hamed is consequently
little, if at all, known to Europeans.
A complete change occurs in the Nile valley as soon as the second
cataract is reached; below this the desert, with its rock and its sand,
only comes down to the river in places; above, the river is bounded
closely by the lifeless wilderness. From Wady Halfa to the island of
Say, I should doubt whether the whole cultivable border on the west bank
of the Nile is much larger than Hyde Park; this is a distance of one
hundred and twenty miles. Every ten or twenty miles little patches of
deposited mud are to be met with, some of them no bigger than a table-
cloth; every inch of these is cultivated, generally with beans or
lentils. In some places the area is larger, then a little “doura”[3] is
grown. Sometimes even in these happy secluded spots a few palm-trees
give life to the landscape; two or three mud-houses, with a few families
possessing fowls, goats, sheep, and perhaps a donkey, are erected in
their shade. The donkey is used for carrying to head-quarters the
products of the outlying little bits of land, and, in many cases, so
small is the yield that the donkey eats it all up before he gets home.
The people living here are happy and undisturbed, scarcely any caravans
move up or down through their trackless world, and a few boats, only
when the Nile is at its highest, pass to and fro in many years. Their
intercourse with the outer world, limited as it is, is, however,
sufficient to sharpen their wits and to teach them the value of money.
They know what a sovereign is worth as well as anyone in London, perhaps
better; once they have become possessed of it they never part with it.
They are not averse to trade. A sheep seldom exceeds one dollar in price
and fowls in proportion, but I fancy that if a few hungry Englishmen
were to take up their quarters in this district prices would very soon
go up. The waste that bounds these simple homes is almost devoid of
vegetation; small tufts of dry yellow grass may be occasionally met
with; they are not, however, sufficiently numerous to give sustenance to
even a very small number of camels. The “hammals,” or camel-drivers,
generally manage to collect a supply of dry grass before starting to
help the more weakly animals through their journey; well-fed and healthy
animals, some time out of work, will easily travel for five or six days
with only an occasional mouthful.
The usual distance travelled per day by a caravan is twenty miles, and
the rate two and a half miles per hour. If towards the end of a day’s
journey there should be no approach to the river, the drivers will
either stop shorter or go on a little further. They always go down to
the river at night. If there should be a patch of cultivated ground at
the resting-place, and no guardians near, the drivers help themselves to
a meal of the produce, and often the camels, if not properly looked
after, finish up the remainder. In those parts of the journey which are
distant from the river, little mud-huts roofed over with palm-branches
and doura-stalks are occasionally found. Inside is a raised divan of mud
from one end to the other, and two or three large vases filled with
water are half buried in the ground. These huts are resting-places for
weary travellers. Coming to one of them one day, I asked one of the
drivers, who placed them there? His reply was “Allah.” I wondered at the
time, from the ingenuous simplicity of his answer, whether he really
believed that the house and the water had been placed there through some
miraculous interposition of Providence. On questioning him again I
learned that “Allah” had made the hearts of good men to do it. “Allah
brought the water”; or, what was the same thing, “He made the good men
bring it.” His philosophy seemed to resolve itself into _qui facit per
alium facit per se_, a doctrine not entirely unknown amongst ourselves.
I decided to avail myself of the shade provided by the good men. I went
in and spread my rug on the divan, my Arab friend sat on the ground
near; I drank of the cool Nile water mixed with brandy, my friend drank
it neat—not the brandy, but the water. We lighted my long “chibook” and
shared it between us in alternate puffs, and discussed in calm and
enlightened terms his theological proposition. I came to the conclusion
that in the simple heart of this wandering son of the sand there was a
pure and earnest faith which, if properly laid out, might have started
many a poor curate in a good way of business and yielded fair returns.
May he reap his profits.
One day our party was stopping for lunch in one of these cool and shady
resting-places, when we were joined by a poor shoeless traveller,
footsore, ragged, and unwashed. He was an Italian who had not succeeded
in business. He had walked all the way from Khartoom, following the bank
of the Nile, a distance of about eight hundred miles, and, although
never very far from the river, had, apparently, not once availed himself
of the facilities its waters afforded for taking a bath. He had started
without money, and had lived on the hospitality of the natives dwelling
on his long and weary route. This kindness, he told us, had never once
been refused. At night shelter was always provided for him, dates and
doura, or other simple fare, were given him for his breakfast, and more
was always offered him for his day’s journey. Let it be remembered, this
kind unquestioning hospitality was given to a Christian by Mohammedans
who, in England we believe, would rather see a Christian die in a ditch
than lift one finger to help him. In our own country he would have been
locked up as a rogue and a vagabond, which he certainly was. The story
he told us was a sad one. His partner, with the sum they had between
them, was to have purchased spirits and beer, to be sold at a profit in
Khartoom. He had certainly purchased the spirits and beer, but only
retail, by the glass, “to be drunk on the premises”; there were
consequently no profits. We were determined not to be behindhand in our
hospitality; we gave him some cold lunch, a glass or two of claret,
followed by a few cigars and a drop of brandy and water. The cold lunch,
the glasses of claret, the cigars, and the drop of brandy and water,
opened his poor suffering and disappointed soul—he wept. We raised five
dollars between us and gave them to him. One of us, more generous than
the rest, gave him an old worn coat, for which he had no further use,
and which, as we were in the tropics, was not likely to be of much
service to our unfortunate rogue and vagabond. He wept again; this
unexampled generosity completely unmanned him. As work was at that time
going on briskly at Wady Halfa for the Soudan railway, we referred him
by letter to the engineer-in-chief, an esteemed friend of mine, who has
since gone to South America in charge of an important railway in course
of construction in the Brazils. He placed the letter in the pocket of
the nice, warm, moth-eaten old coat, thus putting his handsome present
to some use. No arrangement was come to with the engineer at Wady Halfa;
the terms were not sufficiently high. He might have earned in one month
enough to keep him in idleness for six. Perhaps, however, he was
ambitious, and wished to realize a rapid fortune. I found him, on my way
back, in a grog shop at Assouan in a state of intoxication but little
removed from absolute torpidity.
This melancholy and profitless part of the earth offers no food for man
unless it be food for reflection. There can, however, be no pleasure in
dreaming about sterile rock and sand; I shall therefore endeavour to
describe its loneliness as quickly as possible. There is no better
simile than the face of the full moon, beautiful from our far-off
distance, but in reality a rocky, waterless, lifeless, scorched-up
world. The surface of this desert is waterworn by countless rivers and
smaller streams, which may have flowed through a smiling land when, long
ago, the earth was a little child, but which are now all dried up, old
and gray.
On reaching the neighbourhood of the island Say, green fields of doura
and a fringe of date-trees along the banks of the river make a pleasing
change from the scorching desert. There is a much-prized salt mine not
far off, which is a source of great wealth to its owners. Its produce
forms a subject of brisk barter and trade in the district. Two and a
half days beyond Say is the fine temple of Pthur, in a very good state
of preservation, and seemingly of the Greek or Roman period, light and
graceful in design, and, with the exception of the island temple of Isis
at Philæ, with its rocky scenery, unsurpassed for beauty and sublimity
in any other part of the Nile; and of rock-hewn Aboo-Simbel, with its
four sitting giant figures, perfect types of Semitic beauty, it is
certainly the finest to be found in Nubia.
Kohe, where it was proposed to bridge the river in order to carry over
the Soudan railway, is about one hour’s ride above this temple. Here the
route leaves the bank and crosses thirty miles of desert, and joins the
Nile again at Fakeer Bender. It is always necessary to travel over this
distance in one day, as water is only carried in sufficient quantity for
drinking on the road. It is a dreary journey of twelve hours, and
throughout the length scarcely a rock is found large enough to cast
shadow for a rest and lunch. I once rode over this stretch of desert on
horseback, starting shortly before sundown, as no horse could travel
through it in the day-time. The natural pace of these miserable, sore-
backed, Nubian horses is only two and a half miles an hour, and their
gait is like that of the camel, moving two legs on one side at once, the
result, I suppose, of pacing with the caravans. Long before morning I
was fast asleep in the saddle, and my poor horse must have been sleeping
too, for he rolled over and woke me. Finding it useless to persuade him
to go further at that time, we lay down and slept side by side for two
or three hours, and only reached the tents next morning in time for a
late breakfast.
A day’s journey beyond Fakeer Bender is Hannek, which gives its name to
the third cataract, at the upper end of which stands Haffeer, where the
Nile again becomes navigable.
Although those portions of the Nile in the vicinity of Wady Halfa and
Hannek are called respectively the second and third cataracts, it would
be more correct to describe the whole length of the river between those
places as one long series of rapids, in some parts rougher than in
others, and with an occasional stretch of smooth water intervening, but
generally unnavigable, unless it be at extreme high Nile, and then only
for small boats.
On our first expedition into the Soudan in 1871, it was decided in
Cairo, owing to insufficient information, that we should proceed up this
part of the river in boats. We disembarked at Wady Halfa, took camels
for ten miles to Amka, at the top of the cataract, and re-embarked at
that place in open native boats (nuggahs). Although all the available
natives living along each bank were requisitioned to tow us, the voyage
to Kohe, a distance of one hundred and fifty odd miles, took us nearly a
month. At times the north wind would fail us, and we were more than once
becalmed for several days, tied to a rock in the middle of the river.
Fortunately the atmosphere above the seething and whirling waters is
always free from pests in the shape of flies and mosquitoes, &c., or,
unprotected by the bed and window curtains which are fixed in the
travellers’ “dahabeeahs” below the rapids, we must have suffered, in our
anything but convenient boats, more than I care to think about. We had
enough of this sort of travelling by the time we reached Kohe. We sent
the boats on by themselves, and took horses to New Dongola.
Above Haffeer the struggles between the water and the rocks are over,
or, rather, I should more correctly say, have not yet commenced. The
Nile flows again, peaceful and smooth, through broad banks of some of
the richest land in the world. So wide are these always cultivated banks
that the province of Dongola, although so much of it is included in the
sandy and stony tract of country I have endeavoured to describe, is
certainly one of the richest, if not the richest, in the dominions of
the ruler of Egypt. At every short distance along the banks, sometimes
as near together as twenty feet, are “zakeeyehs,” or chain and bucket
pumps, worked by a vertical and a horizontal wheel, turned by two stout
oxen under the charge of a child, boy or girl, seldom more than six or
seven years old. The child sits on the shaft and sleeps half the day to
the harsh music which the wheels are purposely constructed to grind out
of their axles. Sometimes the oxen stop; the child then wakes up and
shouts, and if they do not go on briskly, or if they stop again, they
are simply unyoked and driven home to feed, others are brought, and the
grinding and raising of water goes on as before. This system of
irrigation is carried on day and night, and, although simple and rude,
is sufficient to render the inhabitants almost entirely independent of
the rise and fall of the Nile. When the river is low, they lengthen the
rope and fasten on a few more buckets, and as the water rises the extra
buckets are removed, and the rope is shortened. At extreme high Nile the
wheel stops, the oxen have a rest, and the child goes home to play.
On 2nd January we reached New Dongola, the capital of Lower Nubia,
having been delayed a week in our journey from Wady Halfa, by stopping
to take a series of soundings for the bridge across the Nile at Kohe.
[Decoration]