EARLY RECORDS
Travellers’ Names inscribed on the Monuments — Poncet passes
through Kharga _en route_ for Ethiopia — Browne — Cailliaud’s
Extensive Researches — Drovetti — Sir Archibald Edmonstone,
Bart., discovers Dakhla Oasis — Hoskins — Exaggerated Opinions of
Ancients regarding the Oases — Names of Explorers on the Walls of
Hibis — Rohlfs’ Expedition — Zittel’s Geological Work —
The words ‘Oasis,’ ‘Wah,’ ‘Otu,’ and ‘Set-ament’
— A Theban Myth — Dr. Schweinfurth — Brugsch Bey — Captain
H. G. Lyons — Government Survey of the Oases — Dr. John Ball.
Inscribed on the walls of the ancient monuments in the oasis one
frequently comes across the names of travellers who visited the
same scenes fifty, a hundred, or even two hundred years ago. Many
of these explorers wrote descriptions of their travels and
experiences, and such early records are naturally of the greatest
interest and importance; unfortunately they are now out of print
and somewhat difficult to procure, so that I make no apology for
briefly referring to those which I have been able to examine. Most
of these early records are extremely quaint, and although they are
chiefly descriptive of the personal experiences and impressions of
the writers, in some cases numerous observations are recorded in
a sufficiently exact manner to be of permanent scientific value.
A French physician, Monsieur Poncet, who passed through Kharga
in 1698, _en route_ for Abyssinia, appears to have been the
only traveller who left any written records of the Great Oasis
between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. A translation
of the account of his travels was published in English in 1709
(‘A Voyage to Æthiopia’). Accompanied by one Hagi Ali, an
officer of the Abyssinian Emperor, and by a Jesuit missionary,
Father Charles Francis Xaverius de Brevedent, Poncet set out from
the town of Manfalut in the Nile Valley, and travelled along the
Derb el Arbaîn, the well-known caravan route to the south. His
description of this portion of the journey is as follows:
“We set forward on the 2d of October early in the Morning, and
from that very Day we enter’d a frightful Desart. These Desarts
are extremely dangerous, because the Sands being moving are rais’d
by the least Wind which darken the Air, and falling afterwards in
Clouds, Passingers are often buried in them, or at least lose the
Route, which they ought to keep.”
Poncet refers to the oasis as ‘Helaoue,’ but although his caravan
rested there four days, before proceeding to Dongola, via Shebb
and Selîma, he makes no reference to the antiquities; in fact, his
remarks on this region are extremely meagre. To quote his own words:
“We Arriv’d on the 6th of October at Helaoue; ’Tis a pretty
large Borough, and the last that is under the Grand Signior’
Jurisdiction. There is a Garrison in it of 500 Janisaries and 300
Spahi’s under the Command of an Officer whom in that Country they
call Kachif. Helaoue is very pleasant, and answers fully its Name,
which signifies a Country of Sweetness. Here are to be seen a great
Number of Gardens water’d with Brooks, and a World of Palm-trees,
which preserve a continual Verdure, Coloquintida is to be found
there, and all the Fields are fill’d with Senna, which grows upon
a Shrub, about three Foot High. This Drug which is so esteem’d
in Europe, is of no use in the Country hereabouts. The Inhabitants
of Helaoue in their Illnesses, make only Use of the Root of Ezula,
which for a whole Night they infuse in Milk, and take the day after,
having first Strain’d it thro’ a Sieve. This Medicine is very
Violent, but ’tis what they like and commend very much. The Ezula
is a thick Tree, the Blossom of which is blue; it grows into a sort
of Ball, of an Oval Figure, full of Cotton, of which the People of
that Country make pretty fine Cloth.”
Referring to the deserts which surround the oases, Poncet remarks:
“Those vast Wildernesses, where there is neither to be found Bird,
nor wild Beast, nor Herbs, no nor so much as a little Fly, and where
nothing is to be seen but Mountains of Sand, and the Carcasses,
and Bones of Camels, Imprint a certain horrour in the Mind, which
makes this Voyage very tedious and disagreeable. It wou’d be a
hard matter, to Cross those frightful Desarts without the Assistance
of Camels. These Animals will continue six or seven Days, without
either eating or drinking, which I cou’d never have believ’d,
if I had not observ’d it very particularly.” Poncet further
relates that he was assured by a venerable old gentleman of his
caravan that camels had been known to cover a desert journey of
forty days and nights without either food or water. Although it is
to be feared that the ‘ship of the desert’ at the present day is
scarcely so abstemious as formerly, we must admit that Poncet’s
description of the sterility of the Libyan Desert is little, if at
all, exaggerated. One may, indeed, travel for hours without seeing
bird, beast, or herb; and even ‘the little fly,’ which seldom
fails to make known its presence for some time after leaving the
inhabited districts, generally forsakes one before the caravan has
proceeded far into the depths of the desert.
W. G. Browne traversed the same route nearly a hundred years later,
passing through the oasis in June, 1793. He relates how he entered
the depression at the northern extremity, at the pass known as El
Ramlia, and camped at Ain Dizé (probably in the neighbourhood of
the modern Ain el Qasr), eight hours’ march from Kharga. Browne
passed through the depression from north to south, visiting Kharga,
Bulaq, Beris, and Maks, whence he followed the usual route to
Shebb and Selîma. Like his predecessor, he makes no mention of
the antiquities.
Cailliaud, a young French mineralogist, explored Kharga in 1818,
and to him we owe the earliest published detailed descriptions
and illustrations of the chief antiquities of the oasis. As the
existence of important monuments in the oasis was at that time quite
unsuspected, Cailliaud’s work attracted considerable attention,
and his drawings and descriptions were purchased and published
by the French Government and dedicated to the King. Cailliaud set
out from Esna in the Nile Valley and crossed the Libyan plateau to
the village of Jaja. After visiting the most southerly villages of
Dush and Beris, he journeyed northwards to Kharga, then, as now,
the chief village, whence, on the completion of his researches, he
returned to Farshut on the Nile, via Dêr el Ghennîma and the Wadi
Samhûd. Cailliaud’s observations are almost entirely confined
to the archæology of the oasis, and his writings yield little
information regarding the villages, wells, and cultivated lands.
The Chevalier Drovetti, French Consul-General in Egypt, visited
Kharga the same year as Monsieur Cailliaud. He started from Beniâdi,
following the Derb el Arbaîn caravan route southwards, and entered
the depression at the northern extremity. Drovetti traversed the
oasis from north to south, and proceeded thence to Dongola. Later,
on his return journey, he crossed the depression in the opposite
direction, eventually returning to the Nile Valley by way of the
oasis of Dakhla and the Derb el Tawîl.
[Illustration: A PASS INTO THE OASIS.]
In 1820 Cailliaud again passed through Kharga. He had explored
the oasis of Siwa the previous year, whence he travelled, via
Baharia and Farafra, to Dakhla, and thence past Ain Amûr to Kharga
village. On this occasion no further researches were undertaken in
the depression.
Sir Archibald Edmonstone, Bart., accompanied by two friends, visited
Dakhla and Kharga in 1819, and constructed a rough but fairly
accurate map, showing the relative position of the two oases,
with their bounding escarpments and principal villages. Their
situation in the Libyan Desert, with regard to the Nile Valley,
is, however, greatly in error, being shown fully a degree too far
west and nearly half a degree too far north. Edmonstone followed
the Derb el Tawîl route from Beniâdi in the Nile Valley to the
village of Belat in Dakhla, returning by the Ain Amûr road to
Kharga, and thence to Farshut. The major portion of the account
of his travels refers to Dakhla, of which oasis he must, indeed,
be regarded as the modern discoverer.
Hoskins explored Kharga in 1835, and published a most valuable
and engaging account of his travels a couple of years later. This
work, entitled ‘Visit to the Great Oasis of the Libyan Desert,’
contains a number of illustrations depicting the scenery, the chief
monuments and their hieroglyphics, etc., made from original drawings
and paper casts. Many of the inscriptions are given in full, both
in the original and translated into English, and the work of all
previous writers and explorers is carefully summarized. In some cases
I have verified the accuracy of Hoskins’ drawings by comparing
them with photographs taken from the same points, and have been
much struck with the insignificant amount of decay which some of
the buildings have undergone during the course of over seventy years.
Rizagat, near Thebes, was Hoskins’ starting-point, and he entered
the depression by the Bulaq pass, crossing the oasis-floor to the
eminence known as El Gorn el Gennâh. Surveying the oasis from
this point of vantage, Hoskins remarks that the attractions of the
cultivated portions of the depression, those
“Tufted isles that verdant rise amid the Libyan waste,”
are apt to be exaggerated, owing to their great contrast to the
surrounding deserts. “The fair appearance then of this oasis is
in a great measure fictitious; and has chiefly its origin in the
relief afforded to the mind, wearied by the monotony and dreariness
of the surrounding wastes. It seems to me therefore, that the only
rational way of accounting for the exaggerated epithets which the
ancient writers and some modern travellers have applied to this
district, is to attribute them to their surprise, at finding in
such a fearful region any verdure, any habitable spot, and to the
exhilarating effect on the spirits of this agreeable contrast to
the dreary deserts which they have just crossed. But comfortless as
was my journey through the wilderness, and beautiful as the woods of
palm-trees, doums, and acacias in the Oasis certainly are, still the
vivid recollection of the superior loveliness of the banks of the
Nile, prevents my consenting to call these regions ‘the Gardens
of the Hesperides’; and sadly must the oasis have diminished in
beauty, if it ever merited the praise which Herodotus bestowed upon
the place, in calling it ‘the Island of the Blessed.’”
Hoskins, who was accompanied by two other Englishmen, made splendid
use of the fortnight spent in the oasis, although unfortunately, just
before the termination of his visit, he sustained a violent attack
of fever. Their departure is thus described: “After ascending
the mountain which bounds the Oasis, we lingered some time at the
summit, to take, I may certainly say, our last view of the place;
for having, as the Arabs say, got all its antiquities on paper,
and having providentially once escaped its pestilential atmosphere,
we shall never, I think, by any possibility, have the slightest
inclination to revisit such a baneful region.”
Most of these early explorers found time to cut their names on
the walls of the temple of Hibis, and Cailliaud must have spent
hours in this occupation, as he has left a long and neatly executed
inscription recording himself as the original and genuine discoverer
of that noble edifice. The names of these explorers, who in some
cases suffered considerable hardships in visiting the oases, are,
however, quite overshadowed by the numberless scrawls made in
recent years by a host of otherwise unknown petty officials of the
Government, who have had to take their turn of duty and banishment
in the greatly dreaded desert. The dated names cut in the walls of
the temple are of some value, as an examination of them frequently
yields reliable evidence of the rate of weathering of the stone
since the time at which they were inscribed.
It was not until after the winter of 1873-74, when the great German
expedition, under the leadership of Rohlfs, with Zittel, Jordan,
and Ascherson as geologist, topographer, and botanist respectively,
visited all the chief oases of the eastern portion of the Libyan
Desert, that any connected scientific observations of importance,
other than those dealing with archæology, were published. The Rohlfs
expedition astronomically determined the positions of selected
points in each oasis, and produced a map on which the principal
villages and the approximate limits of the depressions were correctly
shown. Zittel at the same time worked out the general relations of
the different geological formations found in the country, described
their main divisions, and indicated approximately the areas occupied
by them. So thoroughly, indeed, did this expedition accomplish its
mission that its results have formed a sound basis for all later
scientific work in this part of Egypt.
As the voluminous memoirs recording the observations of the members
of the Rohlfs expedition are easily obtainable at the present day,
it is unnecessary here to do more than briefly refer to a few of
their more general remarks on the oasis of Kharga. In his ‘Three
Months in the Libyan Desert,’ Gerhard Rohlfs states that he and
his companions travelled from Dakhla Oasis by the Ain Amûr road,
and were greeted at Kharga village by Schweinfurth, who was for the
time being residing in a disused alum factory. Rohlfs spent only
two or three days in the neighbourhood of Kharga, and remarks that
the expedition did not undertake detailed work on the antiquities,
as the latter had already been so competently described by Hoskins
and other previous explorers; a few corrections and amendments of
published accounts of the temple were, however, made. The splendid
preservation of the Christian necropolis, with its mausolea of
unburnt brick, is remarked upon, and Rohlfs adds that, in beauty
and ingenious arrangement, this burial-ground can only be excelled
by the necropolis of Cyrene.
Rohlfs describes Kharga village as being pretty from a distance, but
remarks that the narrow dirty alleys are the pictures of laziness
and poverty; the streets are covered in for protection against the
rays of the sun, a common practice throughout the Sahara.
The word ‘oasis’ is old Egyptian, as also is the Arabic
‘wah,’ the latter word being also found in Coptic, and signifying
an inhabited place; nevertheless, the word ‘wah’ was never used
by the ancient Egyptians to designate the oases. These they called
‘otu,’ which means a place where bodies are embalmed. ‘Otu’
has its origin in the Theban myth, according to which Seth, the
murderer of Osiris, was pursued by Horus to Koptos, where he was
captured and thrown into a dungeon. His corpse was afterwards
found by his friends, and taken to the oases for burial.[1] The
inscriptions on the temple of Hibis in Kharga refer to the oases
under the comprehensive name ‘Set-ament,’ the ‘Western
Lands.’
About the same time Dr. Schweinfurth, whose services to Egypt in
so many branches of science stand pre-eminent, published important
contributions on some of the archæological remains. Two or three
years later Brugsch Bey brought out an account of the antiquities
of the oasis, with translations of a number of the inscriptions on
the temples of Nadûra and Hibis. The antiquities will be briefly
referred to in my account of the history of the oasis under the
Persians and the Romans, and for fuller details the reader is
referred to the publications of Cailliaud, Hoskins, Schweinfurth,
Brugsch, and some still later writers.
In 1893-94 Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., in the course of a military
patrol, undertaken in order to ascertain the measures necessary
to protect the inhabitants of the oasis from possible Dervish
raids, made valuable geological observations on the Eocene and
Cretaceous systems, especially in relation to the connection of
folding and water-supply. These he discussed in a paper read before
the Geological Society of London in 1894, and it was mainly due to
the interest it aroused, and to his initiative in pointing out to
the Egyptian authorities the importance of having a comprehensive
examination of the country carried out, that the Geological Survey
of Egypt was established in 1896.
The detailed survey of the Libyan Desert was taken up in October,
1897, and completed in June of the following year, the four
oases being mapped on the scale of 1 to 50,000 by plane-table
triangulation, checked and adjusted by numerous astronomical
observations. Direct measurements by measuring-wheel were also
employed to a considerable extent. Baharia Oasis was the first to be
taken in hand, Mr. Leonard Gorringe and I taking the western side,
and my colleagues, Messrs. Ball and Vuta, the eastern. This plan of
splitting up an oasis-depression between two surveying parties was
not, however, found satisfactory, and on the completion of Baharia
it was decided that Ball should take up the oasis of Kharga, while
Farafra and Dakhla fell to my lot. The results of this survey are
published in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Egypt.
During the last three years I have been fortunate in having had
opportunities of studying in some detail the topography, geology, and
water-supply of the oasis of Kharga. This detailed examination has
enabled me to revise and amplify pioneer work, and has, in certain
instances, forced me to differ from the opinions expressed by my
predecessors in the same field, views which, in the light of the
evidence available at the time, were doubtless well justified. In
the same way may future research necessitate the modification or
alteration of the conclusions herein expressed, and for many years
to come the region of the oases will offer a vast field for further
scientific work.
Before concluding this brief account of the literature on the oasis
of Kharga, I should like to take the opportunity of expressing my
high appreciation of the energy and purpose of my former colleague,
Dr. John Ball, who, in spite of the many hardships and difficulties
inseparable from scientific work in the Libyan Desert, in such a
short time accomplished so much.