* * * * *
I hear the moan
Of winds that wake the desert from its dream.
* * * * *
FROM SOTAIRE TO BAGGHAREEYEH.
A Cheap ox. — Gebel Ain. — A sick camel. — Ordeal by fire. — Windy
nights. — Delinquents. — The disciplinarian. — Judgment and sentence. —
Hares. — Foxes. — Sand-storm.
ON the following morning at sunrise, when the cattle came down to drink,
we selected a fine ox, made a bargain with the old shiekh, and paid him
three Maria Theresa dollars, or twelve shillings, for it. We were
advised to let it drink before slaughtering, and the steak we had that
morning for breakfast was equal to any I have eaten in the famous grill-
rooms in London, and was certainly much cheaper.
As our journey was now to follow along the proposed line of the Darfoor
railway, we decided to make, while travelling, a sketch-survey by
triangulation with prismatic compass. We divided ourselves into two
sections, one to follow the sinuosities of the low part of the valley,
which skirted the eastern line of rocks, and I to travel nearer to the
western side; we should thus obtain a general survey of the whole
valley, accurate enough to enable us to lay down an appropriate centre
line for the guidance of the Khartoom party, who, on their return to
Sotaire, would carry their work along the Wady Milkh in order to meet us
as we worked back from El Fasher. We devoted this day and the next to
making a plan of the country round Sotaire to a distance of ten miles in
every direction, and on the morning of 11th February, after paying a
farewell visit to the shiekh and other friends, we parted, each section
of our party to pursue its intended journey, and to meet again four days
after at the well of Gebel Ain.
As the Wady Milkh has very seldom been used by caravans as a highway
into Darfoor, there is no discernible track. I instructed the Mahound in
charge to keep about midway between the vegetation on the left and the
wall of Sandstone rock on the right. My companion and myself,
accompanied by Mohommed Gadderâb, the guide, and by Mohommed Rhanum, the
soldier in command of the lunch camel, wandered about in every direction
making the sketch-survey, sometimes to the base of the water-worn hills,
at others far away to the left, on the borders of the thorny mimosa-
trees in the bottom of the valley. At evening we generally reached the
camp at 7, or half-past, to find it pitched precisely as on the previous
day, with the beds and furniture arranged in the same manner in the
tent, and the cloth laid, and the dinner ready to be served in its
special tent as soon as we had completed our toilets. In the event of
our being late, the soldiers would spread themselves about and discharge
a few rifle-shots to indicate by the sound the whereabouts of the camp.
The desert through which we travelled afforded few features of interest;
occasional ridges of granite, trap, or quartz broke the even sameness of
its face. Little dried-up watercourses stretched, few and far between,
down to the hollow; some of them contain a few trees, and we generally
seized the opportunity of resting an hour for lunch beneath their
grateful shade. Grass was only found here and there in patches, but in
quantities large enough to afford pasture for the camels and sheep. Of
gazelles, throughout the four days’ journey, we saw none; they were,
however, numerous enough in the valley below, and our friends who took
that route, more fortunate than ourselves, were plentifully supplied, as
we correctly augured from hearing, in the far distance, the report of
the doctor’s generally unerring rifle. Each day the wind blew
continually from the north, and although during the hottest part of the
day the thermometer reached 90° in the best shade we could obtain, the
atmosphere was so exquisitely pure and dry that we never suffered in the
least degree from heat or oppression; our health was perfect in every
respect; the mere breathing of the bright exhilarating air was a
pleasure which a dweller in a moist climate like that of England can
hardly conceive. At night, which, like the day, was absolutely
cloudless, the north wind would sometimes cease to blow, and we would
then remove our beds outside on to the sand, and could often lie down to
read, before going to sleep, in the dead calm, with an unsheltered
candle burning in the open air. Generally, however, the wind continued
to blow all night, sometimes so severely as to necessitate our having to
call up the soldiers to drive the tent-pegs more firmly into the ground.
The thermometer at night mostly fell to 50° Fahr. and rose on those
nights when the wind ceased to 60° or 65° Fahr.
The ground was generally so smooth and rose so gradually as to offer no
obstacles for the construction of a railway; the rails might have been
laid on their sleepers on the surface, and neither cutting nor
embankment was in any case necessary over this distance.
Insects of any kind there were none, with the exception of flies which
had followed us from Old Dongola, and which never left us. All our
efforts to abolish them were in vain, and they remained with us,
increasing as we journeyed until we returned to the Nile. Each village
we came to further on added to their numbers, and they eventually became
as numerous as in the worst season of the year in Lower Egypt.
On the afternoon of 14th the caravan, shortly afterwards followed by
that of the other section, reached the well, or rather spring, of Ain-
Hamed. The Gebel Ain is a long, almost perpendicular wall of rock
forming the western boundary of the Wady Milkh. On its top is an
extensive plain, reaching as far as we could see, and only here and
there broken by extinct watercourses. The boundary of the valley on the
eastern side is less regular, but the general level of the high land is
about the same as the top of the Gebel Ain, namely, four hundred and
fifty or five hundred feet above the valley below. The spring, which is
of excellent water, is situated, as we enter, on the left side of a vast
chasm in the rock.
On our arrival within about half a mile of the camp, which had been
pitched right in the centre of the rocky chasm, we found one of our
baggage camels standing stiff and motionless, still loaded and
apparently deserted. Some few severe blows from our guide were not of
any use to induce it to move. After a time two of the drivers arrived
and commenced to light a charcoal fire; heating to white heat an iron,
used for the purpose, they pressed it quickly and remorselessly to the
hind-quarters of the camel, which, however, never stirred nor uttered a
sound; the process was performed a second time ineffectually, but on the
third application the poor beast sent forth so unutterable a wail of
agony as I shall ever remember. After a great shake of his body and
limbs he trotted off, quite refreshed, to join his companions at the
spring. Camels are subject to fits of seeming lifelessness of this
description, and have consequently to be sometimes abandoned, when they
of course die of thirst. Nothing but very severe measures are of use,
and, notwithstanding the pain this generally effectual remedy produces,
they are fit for work next day and seem none the worse for the
treatment.
The spring is at the bottom of an artificial hole, about ten feet cube,
excavated in the base of the rock; the water is excellent in quality and
abundant for the greater part of the year, but in the weeks preceding
the commencement of the rainy season runs nearly dry. During our stay
here we were fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a new animal
for the table; its shape and horns resemble those of an ibex, and its
flesh is somewhat like beef. I cannot find it mentioned in any of the
books, and was unfortunately not able to learn its Arab name. The
specimen we had for dinner was seen early one morning leaping among the
fragment of rocks at the back of the ravine. He had evidently descended
from above to drink, but, finding the spring occupied, had, while on the
way back to his plains, fallen a victim to the doctor’s rifle. I cannot
speak very favourably of the flesh of this animal, but it, nevertheless,
formed a desirable change from that of the gazelle, of which we all, in
course of time, grew somewhat tired.
Our camp being pitched in the narrow ravine, in no part more than one
hundred yards across from top to top, we were much inconvenienced by the
wind which, both by day and night, blew down from the heights above, in
one awful and continuous storm. On the third night of our arrival my
tent was carried away and split from top to bottom with a report as
though the rocks on either side of the chasm had fallen down. Several of
the other tents shared the same fate, and the first hours of the
following morning were occupied in general repairs throughout the camp.
We remained at the spring for three days, long enough to allow all the
camels to drink, which was a tedious process, there being only one
source of supply. After plotting our sketch-surveys and trial
barometrical section from Sotaire, we continued our journey on the
morning of the 18th, travelling as before in two sections. We were
rather late in getting away as, as I mentioned above, several of the
soldiers and servants were engaged for some time in sewing up the
tatters which the storm of the night had made in many of our tents. My
route was to be a direct line, on a bearing of about S.W., to the wells
of Bagghareeyeh; the other section descended again into the hollow
which, making a great sweep, we crossed on the second day of our
journey, and got our camels a little mixed with those of the other
caravan, which reached our crossing-place at the same time as ourselves.
We had now passed the Gebel Ain, which came to an abrupt end shortly
after the spring. The valley was wider, but sloping more unevenly down
from the high ground on each side. Numerous tributary valleys flowed—
or, rather, at one time had flowed—into the central main Wady Milkh,
some of them as much as twenty or thirty miles long and a mile broad.
The surface of the ground in the immediate vicinity of the low part of
the valley was, however, sufficiently smooth to enable us to choose a
centre-line for the railway which would involve no works of importance.
On arrival in camp rather late in the evening of this day we found
Mohommed Effendi, lieutenant in command of the troops, pacing
impatiently to and fro in front of our tent, with a gigantic “korbatch,”
or whip of hippopotamus hide, in his hand, a whip capable of inflicting
a punishment compared with which that inflicted by the prison “cat” can
only be agreeable titillation. I was rather surprised, as, with the
exception of on one occasion, when two of our servants at New Dongola
were guilty of theft and drunken brawling in the camp, we had never once
had to complain of the conduct of any of the men. I learned that two of
the camel-drivers had been fighting, and had wounded each other
severely. Mohommed Effendi, evidently a strict disciplinarian, was
waiting for my sanction to leather them well with his pet “korbatch.”
The two men were produced; they had quarrelled and fought with stones,
and their faces were disfigured with blood and bruises, but there
appeared to be nothing dangerous in the wounds which either of them had
received. The quarrel had arisen in the partition of some dry wood they
had collected in the valley in order to have a fire to warm themselves
at night. Thinking the punishment each had already received was
sufficient for the offence, I told him that it was not the custom in
Egypt, or elsewhere, to flog idiots or madmen, which it was evident they
must be to fight about so ridiculous a matter, and that when, in future,
there was anything to divide, one of them should portion it into two
heaps, and the other choose which of the heaps he pleased, and so avoid
all quarrelling. They must, however, take something to cool their heated
brains—an ounce of salts each, with a little senna, the whole stirred up
with two or three lumps of sugar. Each went away under the impression
that he had had a fit of temporary insanity, and that the nauseous
medicine would effectually prevent a recurrence. After this drastic
treatment there was no more fighting in camp throughout our expedition.
Mohommed Effendi, however, was evidently disappointed, and probably
cursed me in his soul for preventing him from executing what he
considered justice in such a breach of discipline.
On the first two days of our journey from Gebel Ain, previous to
crossing to the southern and eastern side of the Wady Milkh, we met with
no gazelles, but started a few hares and saw one fox. The hares were
smaller than those in England, but not inferior in flavour; the fox was
of rather paler hue. After crossing the Wady the vegetation became
sensibly denser; trees and shrubs were not now confined to the centre of
the valley, but were scattered pretty frequently over the surrounding
country; different varieties of grass, some of them exquisitely scented,
nearly covered the beds of the many hollows. The common boxwood tree, of
very stunted growth, was first seen by us on the third day. Gazelles
were now very numerous, in herds of from twenty to thirty.
On this day, from the summit of an isolated sandstone hill, two or three
hundred feet above the level of the ground, I saw one of the sublime and
appalling sights of the desert. Away to the west, distant two miles,
across the brown-green trees in the valley at my feet, seven lofty
pillars of sand were travelling swiftly along the undulating plain. The
centre one of these was vertical, and those surrounding it, at a
distance of two or three hundred yards, leaned slightly towards it; a
smaller eighth column, about half a mile behind the others, was inclined
towards them at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and was fast
overtaking them. The sand at the base of the columns was lashed by the
furious whirlwind into a surging sea; trees of the hardest wood were
torn up with their roots and whirled hundreds of yards away and high up
into the air; even the grass that grew in the path of that terrible
storm was shorn clean away from its roots. The summits of the seven
columns at length joined and then burst forth, from their united tops, a
yellow gigantic cloud of sand of such magnitude and density as to
obscure from me, in my remoteness, the face of the bright afternoon sun.
The whirlwind or sand-spout, called by the natives “zobahah,” shortly
after subsided, but the cloud of sand and grass, which had been raised
high in the heavens, continued to darken the setting sun for more than
another hour. The smaller column behind travelled, increasing, until it
reached the site of the break-up of the others, and then added its mite
to the universal destruction and confusion.
With my sextant, as I stood in security, I measured the height of the
centre column of sand; it was eight hundred and fifty feet. The others
round it rose, during the time I observed them (about a quarter of an
hour), from six hundred feet to a height equal to or greater than that
of the centre column. When the junction of them all took place, the
sudden eruption of sand and leaves and grass reached to a total height
of over three thousand foot, but this was only an approximate
calculation.
Storm sand-spouts are rarely so severe in any part of the desert as that
which I have described; isolated “zobahahs,” more or less clearly
defined, reaching to the height of a thousand feet, are, however, very
common, and woe betide the tent that happens to stand in their way. Ten
yards from the column the air may be perfectly calm, but within the
small circumscribing circle there rages such a tempest as will carry
away a tent, however firmly fixed in the ground, into the regions of the
upper air as easily as an ordinary gust of wind will blow away a piece
of paper. An Arab will always know whether one of these approaching
“zobahahs” is likely to come upon him, and will take down his tent, or
temporary house, to meet its convenience. It appears that their usual
method of travelling is in the arc of a wide circle, and the direction
of the centre of the circle is almost invariably from south to north.
Late on the evening of the fifth day we reached the wells of
Bagghereeyeh. Both caravans were already there, and the tents were
pitched. Our friends of the other section had not yet arrived, and we
ordered the dry grass to be ignited to show a light to enable them to
find their way home, where dinner was waiting, to which we were both
anxious to sit down.
[Decoration]