[Illustration: AIN ESTAKHERAB, GENNAH]
AN EGYPTIAN OASIS
AN ACCOUNT OF THE OASIS OF KHARGA
IN THE LIBYAN DESERT, WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO ITS HISTORY, PHYSICAL
GEOGRAPHY, AND WATER-SUPPLY
BY H. J. LLEWELLYN BEADNELL
F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Assoc.Inst.M.M.
FORMERLY OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF EGYPT
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1909
TO THE
MEMORY OF A FRIEND AND FELLOW-GEOLOGIST,
THOMAS BARRON,
WHO LOST HIS LIFE IN THE SUDAN
IN FEBRUARY, 1906
PREFACE
The inhabited depressions of the Libyan Desert, called by Herodotus
the ‘Islands of the Blest,’ are interesting alike to the
archæologist, to the geographer and geologist, and to the tourist
who wishes to wander from the well-beaten tracks, and perhaps
none more so than the Oasis of Kharga, lying 130 miles west of
Luxor—the site of ancient Thebes—and recently connected by
railway with the Nile Valley.
Descended from the ancient Libyans, the inhabitants of the Egyptian
oases (numbering over 30,000 souls) are quite distinct from the
Fellahin and Bedawin of the Nile Valley. Isolated by arid and
desolate wastes, these communities occupy quaint walled-in towns
and villages, tucked away among groves of palms, interspersed
with smiling gardens and fields of corn. Rain is almost unknown,
and rivers are non-existent, the trees and crops being irrigated
by bubbling wells, deriving their waters from deep-seated sources.
Kharga—the subject of the present memoir—formed part of the Great
Oasis of ancient days, and was governed in turn by the Pharaohs, the
Persian Monarchs, and the Roman Emperors. Through it the ill-fated
army of Cambyses is recorded to have marched, and in it is to be
seen the most important Persian monument in Egypt, the temple of
Hibis. But most interesting of all is the wonderfully preserved Early
Christian necropolis, dating from the time of Bishop Nestorius, who
was banished to Kharga in A.D. 434. Juvenal, Athanasius, and other
celebrities likewise appear to have made unwilling acquaintance
with this portion of the Roman Empire.
The character of the people at the present day—a curious mixture
of stupidity, apathy, and shrewdness—seems to reflect in great
measure their past history, as well as the peculiar conditions
under which they still live. A history of the inhabitants since
the withdrawal of the Roman garrisons would resolve itself into
an account of an endless combat with Nature, which, with sand and
wind as its chief agents, has never abated its efforts to recover
those tracts which the Ancients, by the exercise of much skill and
industry, wrested from the desert.
As a member of the Geological Survey of Egypt from 1896 to 1905,
I spent nearly nine years in survey and exploration work in the
Egyptian deserts, and for the past three years I have been in
charge of extensive boring and land-reclamation operations in the
particular oasis with which this book deals, so that I have had
exceptional opportunities of studying at first hand a region of
peculiar interest. Among other questions dealt with are the vast
systems of subterranean aqueducts constructed by the Romans; the
extensive lakes which occupied the floor of the oasis-depression
well into historic times; the rate and mode of movement of desert
sand-dunes; the formation and gradual elevation of the cultivated
terraces by the constant accumulation of wind-borne material; and
the deep-seated water-supplies, a subject which, in view of recent
discussions as to the origin of the artesian waters of arid regions,
is of more than local interest.
Some portions of the book, more especially those dealing with
geology and water-supply, have already been published in somewhat
different form in the Geological Magazine, and I am indebted to
Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., for permission to reproduce them, as
well as the plate showing Bore No. 39 and the geological section
across the oasis.
The illustrations are reproduced from photographs taken by
me at different times during the last few years. The maps,
showing the relative positions of the oasis and the Nile Valley,
the caravan roads, and the geology, have been compiled from all
available published material, chiefly the work of Dr. John Ball and
myself. Some portions of these, as well as the plan showing the
subterranean aqueducts of Um El Dabâdib, are now published for
the first time. The caravan routes, while shown with sufficient
accuracy for all practical purposes, have not been surveyed with
the same degree of exactness as the other details shown on the maps.
H. J. LLEWELLYN BEADNELL.
LONDON,
_March_, 1909.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LIBYAN DESERT AND ITS OASES 1
II. EARLY RECORDS 12
III. THE ROADS LEADING TO THE OASIS 25
IV. TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY 45
V. THE NORTHERN VILLAGES 61
VI. THE SOUTHERN VILLAGES 75
VII. THE OASIS UNDER PERSIAN AND ROMAN RULE 86
VIII. THE EXTINCT LAKES OF THE OASIS 110
IX. THE UNDERGROUND WATER-SUPPLY 123
X. FLOWING WELLS: SOME EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS 139
XI. THE ORIGIN OF THE ARTESIAN WATERS 154
XII. THE ANCIENT SUBTERRANEAN AQUEDUCTS 167
XIII. BORING METHODS: ANCIENT AND MODERN 186
XIV. THE CONTEST BETWEEN MAN AND WIND- BORNE SAND 198
XV. SOME ECONOMICAL ASPECTS OF THE OASIS 212
XVI. SOME NOTES ON SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY 224
APPENDIX: LITERATURE ON THE OASIS OF KHARGA 234
INDEX 237
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. AIN ESTAKHERAB, GENNAH _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
2. A PASS INTO THE OASIS 16
3. THE RAILWAY DESCENDING INTO THE OASIS THROUGH THE 38
CHALK FORMATION
4. THE CHRISTIAN NECROPOLIS AND JEBEL TER 46
{A STREET IN KHARGA }
5.{ }66
{KHARGA VILLAGE }
6. ENCROACHMENT OF SAND-DUNES AT MEHERIQ 70
{A PTOLEMAIC TEMPLE (QASR EL GHUATA) }
7.{ }73
{DOUM-PALMS NEAR QASR EL GHUATA }
8. AIN DAKHAKHIN 78
9. DUSH VILLAGE 84
10. THE TEMPLE OF HIBIS, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST 92
11. THE TEMPLE OF HIBIS (INTERIOR) 96
12. THE CHRISTIAN NECROPOLIS 103
13. BIBLICAL SCENES IN A TOMB OF THE NECROPOLIS 104
14. LACUSTRINE DEPOSITS AT EL GALA, NEAR BULAQ 110
{COFFIN MASKS FROM BELLAIDA }
15.{ }116
{ANCIENT POTTERY FROM THE LACUSTRINE DEPOSITS }
16. FLINT IMPLEMENTS 120
17. AN ARTESIAN WELL (BORE NO. 39) 124
{BORE NO. 5 }
18.{ }142
{BORE NO. 14 }
19. LANDS UNDER RECLAMATION AT BORE NO. 39 156
20. AIN AMUR, ON THE UPPER DAKHLA ROAD 165
21. QASR LEBEKHA AND THE NORTHERN ESCARPMENT OF THE OASIS 169
22. RUINS AT UM EL DABADIB 172
{A STEAM BORING RIG }
23.{ }196
{A HAND BORING RIG }
24. A BELT OF DUNES NEAR QASR LEBEKHA 200
25. SAND EROSION ON SUMMIT OF JEBEL TARIF 206
26. THE CORPORATION’S HOMESTEAD (HEADQUARTERS) 208
27. DOUM-PALMS AT AIN GIRM MESHIM 218
{A WADI IN JEBEL TARIF }
28.{ }222
{A RIVER OF SAND NEAR UM EL DABADIB }
MAPS AND SECTIONS
I. THE CARAVAN ROUTES TO THE OASIS OF KHARGA 26
II. SKETCH-MAP SHOWING THE GEOLOGY AND THE ANCIENT LAKES 50
OF THE OASIS OF KHARGA
III. GEOLOGICAL SECTION ACROSS THE OASIS, FROM JEBEL 56
TARIF TO THE EASTERN ESCARPMENT
IV. THE SUBTERRANEAN AQUEDUCTS OF UM EL DABADIB 176
AN EGYPTIAN OASIS
CHAPTER I
THE LIBYAN DESERT AND ITS OASES
Contrast of Libyan Desert and Nile Valley — Area and Geographical
Position — Barrenness — Dunes and Sand-submerged Areas —
Underlying Water-charged Sandstones — Early History of Oases —
Condition in Prehistoric Times — Cultivated Lands and Wells.
No more striking contrast can be imagined than that between the
intensely cultivated Valley of the Nile and the barren deserts on
either side. There are arid wastes in many parts of the world—in
Australia, in the Western States of America, in Asia—but in
point of desolateness, in the absence of animal and vegetable life,
there is probably nothing to rival the greater portion of the Libyan
Desert, on the west side of the Nile. Its barrenness is aggressive;
it is not necessary to travel far to make its acquaintance; so sharp
is the junction that, in a single step, one may pass from the richly
cultivated alluvial soil of the Nile to the bare sandy plains which
skirt the more rocky interior of the desert. Along the borders of the
Egyptian wastes one generally looks in vain for the Persian poet’s
“Strip of herbage strown,
That just divides the desert from the sown.”
Geographically the Libyan Desert is the eastern and most inhospitable
portion of the Sahara, or Great Desert of Africa. On the north and
east its boundaries are clearly defined by the Mediterranean Sea and
the Valley of the Nile; on the south it is bounded by the Darfur
and Kordofan regions of the Egyptian Sudan; to the south-west its
limits may be regarded as coterminous with the elevated districts
of Tibesti; while on the west it stretches to the outlying oases
of Fezzan and Tripoli. Its area is about 850,000 square miles,
or approximately seven times that of the British Isles.
With the exception of a narrow belt fringing the Mediterranean, the
region is, to all intents and purposes, rainless, the occasional
thunderstorms being extremely local, and seldom breaking over
the same district in two consecutive years. In the more elevated
deserts on the eastern side of the Nile rains appear to be of
sufficiently frequent occurrence to maintain a water-supply in the
isolated water-holes and valley-springs, and to allow of the growth
of a fairly permanent though scanty herbage in the more favoured
areas. The Eastern desert does, therefore, to some extent, support
a migratory Arab population. On the other hand, the greater portion
of the Libyan Desert is quite devoid of vegetation and water-holes,
and is, in consequence, uninhabited even by nomad tribes. At the
same time, the extreme barrenness of the region as a whole is in
great measure counterbalanced by a number of isolated fertile oases,
in which there is a permanent resident population, deriving its
water-supplies entirely from underground sources.
The term ‘oasis,’ an ancient Egyptian word signifying a
resting-place, in its strict sense means a fertile spot in a desert,
but in Egypt has usually been applied to a depression as a whole,
each individual cultivated area being known by the name of the
well from which its water is derived. The chief groups of oases in
the Libyan Desert are the Siwan on the north, that of Kufra on the
west, and the Egyptian, including the four large oases of Baharia,
Farafra, Dakhla, and Kharga, on the east. The present volume deals
more especially with the last of these.
The Libyan Desert is primarily divisible into two entirely
different parts, distinguished by the presence or absence of
surface accumulations of blown sand. Extensive dunes are confined
to the western portion, where areas of hundreds of square miles
are literally buried under deep seas of sand, blown into more
or less parallel dunes of great height, lying N.N.W. and S.S.E.,
in the direction of the prevailing winds. In this country it is
almost impossible to travel in a latitudinal direction, so that the
sand-covered area forms an effective barrier between the Egyptian
oases and Kufra, one of the strongholds and, at any rate until
recently, the headquarters of the powerful Senussi sect. It is
probable that, within the last century, the area of this sand has
extended considerably to the south, as an old caravan road trending
westwards, and believed to have originally connected the oases of
Dakhla and Kufra, is now lost in the dunes. As long ago as 1874
some of the members of the Rohlfs expedition made an attempt to
penetrate westwards from Dakhla, but on reaching the edge of the
great sand-region, about 170 kilometres W.S.W. of Qasr Dakhl, were
compelled to turn northwards and travel in a direction parallel
to the lines of dunes, from which they emerged, after a long and
wearisome journey of 400 kilometres, in the neighbourhood of the
oasis of Siwa. Outlying portions of this sand invade the Egyptian
oases; for instance, the depression of El Daila, lying to the west
of Farafra, is to a great extent filled with blown sand, while an
extensive area in the south of Farafra itself is buried under dunes.
On the eastern portion the sand is for the most part confined to
isolated lines of dunes, the most remarkable being that known as
the Abu Mohariq. This commences in latitude 29° 45′ north, at
Arûs el Buqar, some 50 kilometres south-west of the Mogara swamp,
in the low country to the south of the great east and west Miocene
escarpment. From Arûs el Buqar the Abu Mohariq sand-belt runs in
an almost straight and unbroken line across the Libyan plateau to
the oasis of Kharga, through which it continues into the desert
to the south. The average breadth of this line of dunes is only
some 6 or 7 kilometres, whereas its length cannot be less than
650. Less extensive accumulations of blown sand are found in the
oases themselves, in the depressions of Gharaq and Muailla to the
south of the Fayûm, and encroaching on the cultivated lands of
the Nile Valley between Bahnessa and Mellawi.
The eastern part of the Libyan Desert, in which are situated
the Egyptian oases, is itself divisible into three areas having
essentially different characters, the northern being an undulating
rolling country of sandstones, grits, and gravels; the central
consisting of bare elevated limestone plateaux; the southern a
lower-lying expanse of rugged sandstone, broken only occasionally
by ridges and bosses of granite and other crystalline rocks.
The Egyptian oases are deep and broad hollows or depressions in the
Libyan Desert plateau. In position they appear to coincide with areas
where rocks of comparative softness became exposed at the surface
during the gradual lowering of the country by denudation. At such
points the general rate of weathering must have become greatly
accelerated, with the result that those vast depressions, which
form such conspicuous features in the configuration of the country
at the present day, were eventually cut out.
Underlying the greater part of the Libyan Desert are porous
sandstones, and these, when pierced by deep borings put down from the
lower-lying parts of the floors of the depressions, yield abundant
supplies of water of remarkable purity. As these sandstones, as
well as the shales with which they are associated, have a general
dip or inclination from south to north, we are led to infer that
they outcrop or come to the surface to the south, so that in all
probability the water with which they are so highly charged has
its origin in that direction. Whether the water obtains access to
the sandstones by direct infiltration of the rains of Abyssinia or
the Sudan, from the swamps of the sudd region of the Upper Nile,
or from the Nile itself in the Nubian reaches, has not yet been
decided with certainty. Recent observations, however, show that far
more water is lost in some reaches of the Nile than can be accounted
for by irrigation and evaporation, and it seems probable, therefore,
that the excess disappears by infiltration into these sandstones.
Little is known of the early history of the oases, though the
remains of ancient towns and cemeteries are abundant, and only await
systematic excavation by Egyptologists to bring our knowledge of
this part of Egypt into line with that of the Nile Valley. That
the oases were inhabited in prehistoric times is evident from the
occurrence of flint implements of Palæolithic types, both on the
margins of the surrounding plateaux and within the depressions,
though there is not at present sufficient evidence to enable us to
affirm that the makers and users of these flints were contemporaneous
with Palæolithic man in Europe. Implements of Neolithic type,
often of finished workmanship, are, moreover, common in places on
the floors of the depressions, but it is probable that these were
in use well into the historic period.
In historic times the oases, according to Sayce, were governed by
Egyptian Kings in the eighteenth dynasty (1545-1350 B.C.), and the
oldest monuments as yet found in the oases-depressions date from this
period. The most important of the earlier remains belong, however,
to the Persian epoch, notably the temple of Hibis near the modern
village of Kharga, which was built by Darius. Ptolemaic remains
are also known in Kharga, but the greater number of the historical
monuments date from the time of Roman occupation, when the oases
appear to have attained a considerable degree of prosperity, which
continued to Coptic times. Since the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt
they have fallen into a state of neglect, and with the consequent
diminution of the water-supply the population has decreased, and
large areas of formerly fertile country have been absorbed by the
surrounding desert.
It is interesting to speculate on the conditions which obtained
in Kharga before the first borings were made, as at the present
day we cannot point, so far as I am aware, to a single natural
efflux of water on the floor of the depression. Surface-water,
of quite a different character from the deep-seated water, is
met with at comparatively shallow depths in various localities,
and may either represent drainage water from the flowing wells
and cultivated tracts, or be water which has escaped from the
underground sandstones and found its way to the surface through
fissures. Probably it is derived from both sources. In prehistoric
times natural springs fed through fissures may have existed here
and there within the depressions; and in any case it is probable
that prehistoric man obtained sufficient supplies by sinking wells
into the upper sandstones, which in some parts of the oasis occur at
or near the surface, and contain large quantities of sub-surface or
sub-artesian water. Nothing is known as to when flowing wells were
first obtained, or by whom the original deep borings were made,
and no traces of the implements used have been discovered. Many of
these ancient wells, frequently over 120 metres in depth, continue
to flow at the present day, although in most cases with a greatly
diminished output; a few, however, are still running day and night
at the rate of several hundred gallons a minute.
In some parts of the oases water-bearing sandstones occur at
or near the surface, and from these beds the Romans obtained
additional supplies by the excavation of underground collecting
tunnels. Subterranean works of this description are found in all the
oases, the most remarkable being in Baharia and at Um el Dabâdib
and Jebel Lebekha in Kharga. They are frequently of great length,
cut throughout in solid rock, and connected with the surface above
by numerous vertical air-shafts. Many of the latter measure from 30
to 50 metres in depth, so that the construction of these and the
horizontal carrying channels must have involved an immense amount
of labour.
In Roman times water-stations appear to have been maintained
at frequent intervals on the desert roads between the oases and
the Nile Valley, and a great development of the water-supply took
place. After the Arab invasion, however, no attention seems to have
been given to irrigation works, the wells, owing to silting, becoming
gradually choked up. As the result of this neglect the water-supply
diminished to such an extent that a large portion of the population
was compelled to emigrate to the Nile Valley, and even the remaining
inhabitants were scarce able to raise sufficient supplies for their
maintenance. Within the last fifty years a considerable number of
new wells have been made by means of simple hand-boring appliances
sent out by the Egyptian Government; most of the new bores have
been very successful, but latterly, through want of effective
supervision, a great deal of harm has been done by promiscuous
boring. Moreover, a very large amount of water is wasted owing to
the wells not being fitted with regulating and closing appliances;
the water, when not required for irrigation, continues to run,
finding its way to the low-lying lands, and forming swamps which
furnish ideal breeding-grounds for fever-carrying mosquitoes.
Within the last year or two this part of Egypt has received renewed
attention; extensive boring operations and land reclamation works
have been commenced, and the oasis of Kharga has been brought into
railway communication with the rest of Egypt.
The floor-level of the oases varies considerably, but in general the
cultivated lands lie between 30 and 120 metres above sea-level. The
exact area under cultivation is only known very approximately,
but it is certain that with an increased water-supply it could
be very much augmented. The existing water-supply is totally
insufficient to irrigate the available lands, and such portions of
the latter as are tilled are generally left fallow in alternate
years, and in many cases are only under crops once every four or
five years. Now that an attempt is being made to restore the oases
to their former prosperity, the question of ownership of land has
become of the greatest importance, and it is one bristling with
difficulties. As a general rule the wells are owned collectively,
the different proprietors having the right to utilize the flow
for periods corresponding to the extent of their holdings in
the well. Individual shares may amount to as much as one-third
or one-half of the well, or be only the merest fraction; in the
latter case the small holders combine so as to obtain control of
the flow for an appreciable period. Frequently the whole of the
land irrigated by a well is cultivated collectively, the crop on
reaping being divided among the owners in portions corresponding to
their shares of the water. The question of ownerships is further
complicated by there being persons who own water but no land,
and by others who claim land but own no water.