STEAMING THROUGH THE LAND OF CUSH
For the last two days I have been steaming through one of the oldest
lands of the globe. I have been travelling up the Nile through the
country which belonged to Noah’s grandson, Cush, who was Ham’s eldest
son, and which was known to the Greeks and Romans in later days as
Ethiopia. The Egyptians called it Nubia, from their word _noub_, which
means gold, and it is known that a large part of the gold of ancient time
came from it.
Ancient Nubia had a considerable population, and was noted for its
riches and power. It was already a flourishing country about the time
of the Pyramid builders, while in the most prosperous days of Old Egypt
it had large towns and magnificent temples dedicated to the worship of
the Egyptian gods. On my way here I passed Abu Simbel, a great temple
on the bank of the Nile, which was cut out of the rocks by Rameses II,
the Pharaoh of the Bible. Farther down the river lies the Temple of the
Lions, where that same old king was himself worshipped as a god.
Until 1100 B.C. this country was a dependency of the Pharaohs. It then
became independent, and later its armies overran and conquered Egypt.
As other nations came into this part of the Nile valley they sent
their armies against the Nubians, but were driven back, and at the
time the Romans came the country was ruled by a succession of queens
named Candace, one of whom made war upon the Romans. The Nubian people
very early adopted Christianity, but later, when the Mohammedans took
possession of Egypt and the Upper Nile valley, they were converted to
Islam. They are still followers of the Prophet, and were among the
boldest soldiers of the fanatical Mahdi in his fights against the troops
of Egypt and Great Britain.
A land with such a history ought to be a rich one. The Nubia of to-day is
about as barren as any country on earth. With the exception of a narrow
band along the Nile, it is altogether desert. Beginning in the sands of
Libya, it extends several hundred miles eastward to the Red Sea, but only
in a few places has the soil enough moisture to furnish even a scanty
pasturage for camels and sheep. The bulk of the desert population is made
up of Bisharin Bedouins, living in tents made of matting and moving about
from place to place with their flocks. Each tribe has a certain number of
wells, and water is the principal part of its visible wealth. The British
officials of the Sudan have surveyed these wells and investigated their
depth and the quality of the flow of the water. The government has also
sunk some new wells and found water at a depth of about one hundred feet.
Nubia is now a part of the Upper Nile valley, a cultivated strip, in
places only a quarter of a mile wide, winding its way like a snake from
north to south as far as from New York City to Detroit, and extending on
both sides of the river. It is of irregular width, for in some places the
desert comes close to the river, while in others the stream winds through
black rocky hills which rise straight above it a thousand feet. Farther
on, one sees yellow sand, spotted with black rocks, which show signs of
volcanic origin, and then at a low bend in the river the water may be
conducted out over the sands and create a cultivated patch three miles in
width.
The Nile is so walled in by hills that its waters have to be lifted
in order to flow over any level place. This is done chiefly by the
_sakiehs_, of which there are something like four thousand on the Nubian
Nile. The great wheels, moving in cogs, can be seen high up on the banks,
with their strings of buckets hanging to them. As the buckets descend,
each dips into the water and carries to the top a few quarts at a time.
In some places men raise the water in baskets or buckets, and in others,
the river slopes at such an angle that they carry it up by hand and water
little patches twenty or thirty feet wide. Every low place along the
river is farmed, and when the Nile falls, the sand banks and islands are
planted to crops.
Wherever there is a stretch of cultivated land, a village of mud and
stone huts has grown up, and such villages spot the banks for hundreds
of miles. At times there is no green except between village and river,
and one wonders how men can be born and live and die there. Nevertheless,
there are more than one hundred thousand people to whom this region is
the centre of the world.
Though much of this Nile border is too narrow for profitable cultivation,
it is very fertile and raises excellent cotton. At present the other
chief crops are wheat, barley, and millet, and the chief fruit is dates,
which are sweeter and larger than those grown farther down the Nile
valley. Indeed, the date trees that one sees almost everywhere along the
banks are a source of revenue for the government, which taxes them at the
rate of ten cents per tree.
[Illustration: “On the _Ibis_ we make about six miles an hour as our
dusky Nubian pilot corkscrews up the Nile. Fortunately we are almost free
from the myriad flies, the modern plague of Egypt.”]
[Illustration: Though the Aswan Dam has been of inestimable benefit to
Egypt, the whole world shares regret that when the sluice gates are
closed the water backs up and submerges Pharaoh’s Bed and other ancient
ruins on the Island of Philæ.]
The steamer _Ibis_, on which I have been travelling, is one of the little
vessels of the Sudan government which go twice a week from Shellal,
just above the Aswan Dam, to Wady Halfa, where the railroad across the
desert begins. The ship is a sternwheeler, much like those on some of our
rivers. It is about twenty feet wide, one hundred and fifty feet long,
and draws only six inches. We make about six miles per hour, and our
pilot, a dark-faced, short-bearded Nubian in turban and gown, corkscrews
his course from one side of the river to the other as we wind our way up
the stream.
We fly the Egyptian and Sudanese flags, but the steamer belongs to the
government of the Sudan which means it is British. The captain, however,
is a German, and the rest of the crew are Nubians, most of whom are as
black as your shoes. The captain speaks German, French, English, and
Arabic. He attends to everything connected with the steamer, even to the
meals and the proper table service. Our waiters are black-faced Nubians
in long white gowns and sashes of bright red. They wear white turbans,
and their feet are either bare or shod in red slippers.
I find the steamer comfortable and the company agreeable. The boat has
two decks. On the lower one are thirty cabins and the dining room, where
our meals are served table d’hôte. Over the upper deck an awning is
stretched, so that we can sit and watch the scenery as we go up the river.
Our party consists of several commercial travellers, bound for the Sudan
and Central Africa; two missionaries who are going up the Sobat River;
a capitalist, largely interested in land development enterprises about
Khartum, and several people who are on their way to the Blue Nile to
hunt big game. Although we are far away in the wilds of Nubia, with
nothing but desert on each side, most of us appear in evening clothes
at dinner. Our meals are served in courses with half-a-dozen changes of
plates, knives, and forks.
Here is our bill of fare for one day. At seven this morning, while I
was yet in bed, my black boy appeared and handed me a cup of hot tea,
with two sweet crackers on each side of the saucer. At eight o’clock the
bell rang for breakfast in the dining room. The meal consisted of fried
fish fresh from the Nile, bacon and eggs, bread and butter and jam, with
tea or coffee. At one o’clock came luncheon, a bountiful meal of rice,
giblets, chicken, mutton chops, and fruit, with bread and butter and
cheese. Coffee, of course. At eight o’clock we had dinner, and the menu
was as follows: An excellent soup, then a boiled fish just out of the
Nile, followed by a salmi of pigeons, roast lamb and mint sauce, with
potatoes and string beans. Then there was a course of tomato salad, and
after that a pudding and fruit.
I do not find travel in Africa at all cheap. If one travels along the
Nile he must expect to spend about fifteen dollars a day, the cost
increasing as he goes up the river. My trip from Shellal to Khartum and
back by rail and steamer, a distance not very much greater than from New
York to Chicago, will be one hundred and fifteen dollars, or about six
cents per mile, and I shall pay at Khartum a hotel rate of at least five
dollars per day.
If one attempts to travel economically he must expect many discomforts.
On this boat first-class passengers only are carried. We have some
second- and third-class passengers, but they stay on a low barge which
we tow alongside. This barge has a flat deck of rough boards covered by a
roof. The people carry their own bedding and lay it down on the boards.
They must supply their own food, and as the servants of the first-class
passengers, and natives, who are far from clean, travel in that way, the
company is not desirable. Besides, it is very cold at night, and those
who sleep on the decks have the desert breezes blowing over them all
night long. It is cooler here than in Egypt, although we are nearer the
Equator. I have a woollen blanket on my bed, with a heavy travelling rug
on top of that, but still I am none too warm. In the early morning I wear
an overcoat on deck, although at noon it is so hot out of the breeze that
I would fain take off my flesh and sit in my bones.
Sailing up the Nubian Nile we are almost free from the flies such as are
found by millions in Egypt, but Nubia has a little fly of its own which
is almost unbearable. This is known as the _nimetta_, a small midge,
which appears in myriads during the winter season. Its bite causes a
slight fever, and the natives sometimes wear bunches of smouldering grass
twisted about their heads to keep it away.
The flies of Egypt are probably the descendants of those which the Lord
sent to afflict Pharaoh when he would not let the Children of Israel go.
They look not unlike the common fly of our country, but they are bolder
and hungrier. Their feet stick to one as though they were glued and they
will not move until forcibly brushed off, but the Egyptian peasants have
become so used to them that they let them stick at will. Their favourite
feeding place seems to be on one’s eyes. This is especially true of
the children, and it is a common sight to see a child with its eyes so
fringed with flies that it seems to have double eyelashes. The flies
cover the meat in the markets, they roost on the buffaloes, camels, and
donkeys, and attack the tourist to such an extent that the selling of
fly brushes has become an Egyptian industry. The brushes are tassel-like
affairs with long strings similar to the hairs of a horse’s tail.
Everyone knows that flies carry disease and many of the troubles of the
Egyptians are due to them. Ophthalmia is especially prevalent. There
are blind people everywhere, while one-eyed men and women are common.
Diseases of the eye are so universal that one of the charities of Lower
Egypt is a company of travelling eye doctors, who are supported by a rich
Englishman. The doctors go from village to village, carrying their tents
with them. As they enter a town, word goes out that the poor will be
treated without charge, and crowds come to their tents to have their eyes
examined and cured. They remain in one town for a month or so, serving
the poor without money and without price. The institution does great good.
The port of Shellal, where I took the steamer for Wady Halfa, lies
opposite the island of Philæ, and during my stay there I made several
trips to the island to take photographs of the ruined temples, which have
already been more or less affected by the backing up of the water of the
Aswan Dam. When the Aswan Dam was first proposed a great outcry came from
the savants and archæologists of the world on account of the injury that
it would do to Philæ, but the material results have been so valuable
to Egypt that the dam went ahead, regardless of the preservation of
these ancient ruins. Something like one hundred thousand dollars was
spent in fortifying the structure during the building of the dam, and it
is probable that twice this amount would have sufficed to take up the
temples and carry them to the mainland, or even transport them to Cairo,
where all the world might see them.
The island of Philæ, which is on the edge of lower Nubia in the centre
of the Nile just above the first cataract, is reached by ferry boat from
Shellal or from Aswan and the dam. It is about fifteen hundred feet long
and five hundred feet wide, and almost covered with temples built by the
Ptolemies and others two or three centuries before Christ.
The chief deity of Philæ was the goddess Isis, though Osiris, Hathor, and
the gods of the cataracts were also worshipped there. Under the Roman
emperors the temples were enlarged, but when Egypt was converted to
Christianity, the hermits and other fanatics made their way into Nubia
and took possession of it. They turned some of the temples into Christian
churches and their mutilations of the splendid carvings made in honour of
the gods of Old Egypt can be plainly seen at low water.
The ruins are well worth a visit. Some of the structures have a forest
of columns about them. The Kiosk, which is known as Pharaoh’s Bed, is
one of the most beautiful of the Egyptian temples. The stones are all
of great size. They probably came from the Aswan quarries, or it may be
from the granite rocks that abound in the desert. That region is almost
all granite. I rode over it for thirty miles on donkey back, making my
way through the desert around and about granite boulders worn smooth by
the sandstorms of thousands of years. The rocks are of all shapes and
are piled, one upon another, as if by the hands of a race of Titans.
Here one stands high over those surrounding it, as though on a pedestal;
there others are massed like fortifications; in another spot they rise in
towers.
I visited the Aswan quarries, the great stone yards from which the
obelisks were taken, and from which came the mighty statues of Rameses
and the massive blocks of the greatest of the Theban temples. The
quarries to-day are much the same as they were when the Egyptians left
them two or three thousand years ago. One can see the marks of their
wedges on the rocks and the markings of the old stone-cutters are plain.
In one place there is an obelisk half finished, lying on its side, just
as the masons of the Pharaohs left it ages ago. When the granite was
taken out for the Aswan Dam, the Italian workmen used many of the blocks
that the ancient Egyptian mechanics had begun to cut; indeed, that great
granite structure was made in partnership by two sets of mechanics born
thousands of years apart.