THE VALLEY OF HAMMAMÁT
We left Lakéta at dawn the next day. Being on higher ground and so
much further in the desert, we felt the cold more than on the previous
morning, and it was hard to realise that we should be seeking a shady
spot for our luncheon at midday. We trotted our camels faster than
previously, as if in a hurry to get nearer the luminous red disk which
was peering over the distant hills.
The desert so far was hard surfaced, and not the sandy waste one is
given to expect. When I attempted to make Laura go at more than a fast
trot, I soon looked anxiously about for soft places below, and I was
lucky in having kept my seat till she caught up with the rest of the
party, when she as usual took her pace from that of the leader.
We passed nothing of exceptional interest during the first ten miles.
The valley we followed would widen out to a mile or more, and sometimes
contract to a few hundred feet. The rows of camel tracks, marked here
and there by the skeleton of one which had fallen on the way, showed
that this was still an important highway. I counted over twenty of
these skeletons during one hour’s ride. Some may have been bleaching
there for many years, but a few were of sufficiently recent date to
make it advisable to keep on the windward side of them. The hackneyed
camel ribs in the foregrounds of pictures of desert incidents are not
the stage property I used to think they might be.
The Kasr el-Benat, or ‘the Castle of the Maidens,’ was the first object
of real archæological interest we reached. It is a Roman station
known formerly as the Hydreuma, and is still in a very fair state of
preservation. No new builders have been at work near here since, to
use it as a quarry with ready-cut stones; and Time in the desert deals
gently with the structures of bygone ages. Roman soldiers in charge of
gangs of quarrymen have used the little vaulted chambers within the
large rectangular enclosing wall.
A huge rock close by was covered with inscriptions and rude drawings,
dating from the early dynasties to the times when Arab traders began
to use this highway to the coast. Drawings and photographs were duly
taken of these records; and during most of that day we zigzagged across
the valley to wherever a smooth rock surface showed any likelihood of
inscriptions being found. We were seldom disappointed, and on one rock
in particular our interest was particularly excited, for the graffiti
here threw some light on the much vexed question as to the age of
Akhnaton when he first came to the throne. I have described elsewhere
our excitement at Thebes when, during the previous season, the royal
tomb of Queen Thiy was discovered; how, after the body had been bereft
of its royal casing, the archæological world was startled to find that
the body was that of a young man.
Since then Weigall has made out a strong case in favour of the
mummy being that of the heretic Queen’s son, Ammonhotep IV. (_vide_
the October number of _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for 1907). This same
Ammonhotep, when secure of his throne, at the instigation of his
mother, proclaimed the worship of Aton--the one supreme God whose
earthly manifestation was the sun’s disk--and, so as to sever every tie
with the worship of Ammon and the lesser divinities of that pantheism,
the young Pharaoh changed his name from Ammonhotep to Akhnaton, _i.e._
the Beloved of Aton.
The weak point in Weigall’s contention was the youth of the mummy,
which Dr. Elliot Smith declared could not have exceeded some
five-and-twenty years of age, and it was doubtful whether he could have
inaugurated and carried out a great religious revolution had he died at
so early an age.
The three cartouches on this rock face are: one of Queen Thiy, one of
her son as Ammonhotep IV., and one of the same prince under the name
of Akhnaton. The symbols of royalty are placed beneath each cartouche,
while the rays of the sun’s disk embrace the three from above. This
clearly proves that the Pharaoh was still a child when he came to the
throne, and that his mother ruled in fact if not in name, otherwise
the royal cartouches would not have been united as here they are; and
it also proves that the worship of Aton had begun while the prince was
still under the tutelage of his mother.
As the images of Ammon and the lesser divinities were destroyed during
the youth of Akhnaton, so did the priests of Ammon, when the old
religion was restored, deface the inscriptions relating to the newer
creed. The cartouches here of both Thiy and Akhnaton were partly
erased; but the rays, terminating in hands, from the disk above were
left intact as if the workmen, sent to obliterate the ‘marks of the
beast,’ feared to desecrate the divine symbol. Thus after three and
a half millenniums this rock gives an echo of the religious movement
which caused the fall of the eighteenth dynasty.
I have so far encroached on a subject fully treated by Weigall because
I had devoted a chapter to it in _Below the Cataracts_ and sent this
into print before the subject had been so fully thrashed out, and while
speculation was rife as to whom to ascribe the mummy found in the royal
sarcophagus of the great Queen Thiy.
Shortly after losing sight of the tell-tale rock and the Roman
Hydreuma, our path lay through a narrowing valley which contracted
to a pass between imposing masses of granite, now known as el-Mutrak
es-Salâm. It was an awe-inspiring pass. These gigantic and shiny black
rocks which rose up on each side of us, deprived as they were of every
vestige of growth, seemed hardly terrestrial, and suggested some
landscape in the moon. There was no difficulty in finding a shady place
for our midday meal and rest; but I was glad when we moved on, for
there was something as oppressive in the aspect of the pass as there
was in the atmosphere. More graffiti were found and duly photographed;
but wishing to get into a more open country I pushed on ahead. I was
safe not to lose my way as long as I followed the tracks of previous
caravans, which were plainly visible. After a couple of hours of this
pass the black shiny rocks became hateful to me, and when I emerged
into a wide valley again my spirits rose rapidly.
Ranges of sandstone rock were to the right and left of me, and though
not as beautiful in form as the limestone cliffs of Der el-Bahri, they
were congenial in colour, and set off the intense blue of the distant
mountains.
My solitary ride had to come to an end when the road branched off on
two sides of a range of hills on both of which were camel tracks,
though not in equal quantities. There is no risking a wrong route in
a wilderness such as this, so I chose a shady place, and felt proud
when I induced my camel to go down on its knees. I tied up its foreleg
in the approved fashion to stop its running away in case I might fall
asleep. My companions might easily fail to see me, but they would be
sure to catch sight of the camel.
I tried to analyse the charm of the desert, the ‘Call of the Desert,’
as Hichens aptly names it; for while I rested here its inexplicable
charm pervaded my whole being. I am fond of my fellow-creatures and
am in no wise cut out for the life of a hermit; besides, many lonely
places exist far removed from desert wastes where solitude can still
be enjoyed. It was not, therefore, the feeling of solitude that could
alone explain the desert’s attraction, now that I had left behind me
the oppressive blackness of the Mutrak es-Salam pass. A drowsiness soon
began to displace my futile analysis, when a slight tickling of my
ankle prevented me from felling asleep. My presence was being resented
by a colony of ants whose operations I was impeding. I had to shift my
position, and there being room enough for them as well as for myself
in this vast desert, I returned those, which were exploring my leg, to
their companions.
We were some fifty miles from any cultivation, except the little oasis
where we had last camped, so what on earth could have induced these
ants to choose this spot? The inexplicable charm of the desert would
soon fizzle out were we cut off from water and provisions; and where
could these ants have found either? I followed the trails, which
started from the nest, to discover what means of subsistence they had,
and found that some camel’s dung, buried beneath the sand-drift, was
the ‘call’ which had attracted them so far.
Hardly an hour had passed since we left the Nile valley but we had seen
some animal life. Birds follow the camel tracks and flies and beetles
infest the _Mabwala_, or stations, where the caravans rest. These are
often in the only shady places, and they often obliged us to take our
midday meals in the blazing sun; for we could hardly add a tent to the
load which was carried on Selim’s longsuffering camel. We had seen two
butterflies that very morning, and accounted for them as having been
carried here by the prevailing wind. A poor look-out for them, for the
desert reaches to the Red Sea coast. The ants puzzled me, for I saw no
signs of any organic matter when I chose my resting-place.
Meditations in this climate soon end in sleep, and I became unconscious
of my surroundings till I heard my name being shouted. I looked up,
and behold, my camel was gone, and following the track in the loose
sand I saw Laura hobbling on three legs, about half a mile away, and
making for the guide who rode the leading camel; my companions in the
meanwhile were zigzagging across the valley to find me. When I caught
the beast up and satisfied my friends that I was not lost, I made Laura
go down on her knees to allow me to mount, and now all the cussedness
of her camel nature showed itself. I had to undo the end of the halter
which tied the foreleg into its bent position and also keep at a safe
distance from Laura’s teeth. The instant I got it undone, up she would
jump before I had a chance of getting my seat. She did this several
times, till I was obliged to hang on to her as best I could and climb
into my saddle while she moved off.
Canon Tristram says: ‘The camel is by no means an amiable animal, and
its owner never seems to form any attachment to his beast, nor the
animal to reciprocate kindness in any degree. I never found one camel
valued above his fellow for intelligence or affection. A traveller
always makes a friend of his horse, most certainly of his ass,
sometimes of his mule, but never of his camel. I have made a journey
in Africa for three months with the same camels, but never succeeded
in eliciting the slightest token of recognition from one of them, or a
friendly disposition for kindness shown.’ Canon Tristram never wrote
truer words. Laura was a beast! I would do my best to get something
for her to feed on, other than on her hump, when we should reach
Kosseir; but no corner of my eye would moisten when Laura and I should
part company.
When we got to a further reach in the valley, we were surprised
to see some gazelle. This was more surprising than the ants, for
surely gazelle could find neither fodder nor water here. That the
poor creatures had been frightened further and further away from the
cultivation was probable, but until they returned there nothing but a
long fast awaited them; if they were making for the coast, nothing to
feed on awaited them there. We were near enough to have shot some with
a rifle, but I am glad to say that none of us had a rifle; we had even
packed up our revolvers with the baggage. We regretted the latter for a
moment the next day, but of this anon.
We reached a second Roman station as the shadows were lengthening; it
was considerably smaller than the Hydreuma of the morning, and was also
in a worse state of repair. We heeded it little beyond using one of the
walls for our backs while Selim brewed us some tea. The guide climbed
one of the hills to see if there was any sign of the baggage, and on
his reporting that none was visible, we could take the next ten or
twelve miles to Bîr Hammamât at our ease. The colour of the landscape
took extraordinary combinations as the sun declined, and as we again
approached the blackish hills which contracted the caravan route.
The lower-lying sandstone hills turned a greyish violet, except where
a roseate light caught their summits, and purple black hung about
the base of the Hammamât mountains. The altitude of the latter being
considerably more than any we had so far seen, the heights still
reflected the light from the setting sun--a flame-colour split up in
violet patches of shade. It was wonderful, but was it beautiful? Where
strange combinations of colour and form are first seen, this question
is often difficult to answer. We watched the dark shades rise and
spread over these mountains till they told black against an ash-grey
sky. The Rehenu Valley of the Egyptians was a spooky place to enter.
Our path wound through great masses of breccia rock, and it contracted
in places so that we could hardly ride abreast. The darkness increased
till the camels of my companions were lost in the gloom, and the white
helmets rising and falling with the motion of the beasts were soon all
that I could see of our party.
Our track becoming quite invisible, there was just a chance that our
Ababdi guide might take a wrong turning, and if once well out of the
beaten road, in a wilderness such as this, it is doubtful whether we
could find our way before our water-supply gave out.
The longed-for moon showed herself at last, and by her light we pursued
our way to the well where we had settled to camp for the night. The
valley opens up here to a considerable width, and the well, known as
Bîr Hammamât, is a conspicuous object in the centre. There was nothing
now to do but to wait for our baggage camels, and to keep ourselves as
warm as we could.
Our guide rode back to reconnoitre, and when we could distinguish an
answer to his calls, other than the echo, we were filled with a sense
of relief.
Lakéta is only thirty miles from Bîr Hammamât, but with our crossing
and recrossing the valleys in search of graffiti we must have ridden
half again as far. Dinner and sleep, and an easy day to follow, were
pleasant things to contemplate.