Sennaar caravan as soon as I expected. A small caravan, coming from
the south, arrived at Daraou at the end of May. The merchants had
been stripped on the road by the chief of Mograt, through whose
territory they are obliged to pass. That chief had espoused the
cause of the Mamelouks, and declared war against the Egyptian
slave-traders. The party of the latter, with whom I intended to
set out from Daraou, where they had already assembled, were now
afraid to proceed on their journey in small numbers, and they put
off their departure, until they might be joined by several other
parties, in order to form a large caravan, capable of fighting its
way through, if the robber of Mograt should attack them. I profited
by the interval to return to Siout, from whence I sent a messenger
to Cairo, for my purse was almost exhausted.
I shall write to you once more before I set out from hence, which
I hope will be in three weeks. If the departure and arrival of the
caravans, were as well regulated in Africa, as they are in Syria,
this vast continent would soon be explored. But the difficulties
and delays are great, and can only be overcome by patience.
The plague is said to have ceased at Cairo, but it still continues
in some parts of Lower Egypt, after having almost depopulated
Alexandria and Damietta. It had reached a village only two hours
distant from here, but made no farther progress. But great fears
are entertained that it will increase and spread next winter, over
the whole country, which is generally the case whenever it has not
completely subsided towards the end of June.
_Extract of a letter from Esne, October 14th,_ 1813.
The great Djelabe traders from Sennaar who have just arrived
here, have at length put an end to the impediment caused by the
chief of Mograt, by killing him and his principal men in his own
house at Mograt. But another difficulty has occurred. There is
a great scarcity of provisions in the Nile countries, from Gous
up to Sennaar, occasioned by the locusts, who devoured entirely
the last winter crops. The envoys sent last year by Mohammed Aly,
to the King of Sennaar, who have returned with the late caravans,
describe the state of the inhabitants as most deplorable; they kill
each other for a measure of Dhourra, and neither law nor government
is any more attended to. Under such circumstances the caravans
assembled at Daraou, in the neighbourhood of Assouan, have not
thought proper to leave Egypt, where every kind of provision is at
the lowest price. They have wisely resolved to defer their departure
until the new Dhourra grain should have been reaped in the southern
countries, when as the inundation of the Nile has been very copious
this year, plenty will have returned to those districts. I shall
thus start in their company in about three weeks from this time,
and have little doubt, provided I remain in good health, that I
shall reach Massuah in safety, by taking my road straight across
the mountains from Damer towards Massuah.
From Massuah I mean to cross over to the Arabian coast, and to
return to Cairo by the Hedjaz; I hope the Committee of the African
Association will not object to this extension of my travels. I keep
my ultimate object well in view, and after my return to Cairo,
I shall be ready to put it in execution. But I think that the
discovery of the interior parts of Nubia is well worth a year’s
labour and the expense attending it. My journey through Arabia may
probably qualify me better than any thing else, to future perilous
travels in the Mohammedan world, nor will it, I hope, be devoid of
some advantages to science.
I have collected some information on the interior parts of Africa,
from the Soudan pilgrims, of whom I have seen great numbers in
Upper Egypt. But I wish to improve upon it, before I transmit it to
the Association. These pilgrims go here by the name of Tekaýrne
(sing. Tekroury, from the verb تكرر: meaning to renew,
improve and purify, that is to say, their faith and learning by
the pilgrimage. It is probably from this name of Tekroury, that
the Arabian geographers have placed a country called Tekrour,
between Timbuctou and Kashna; none of these travellers knew of any
such country.) Such of them as are most distinguished for skill in
writing and reading, style themselves “Fokara,” (from فقير:
a poor man, i. e. before the Lord) which name is given in Upper
Egypt to the whole class of learned men. Most of the Tekaýrne come
from Darfour; some from Bornou and the country of Wady el Ghazal,
between Bornou and Darfour; others from Bagherme and Borgho. I have
not met with a single man from Wangara, nor could I ever find any
whose native country was west of Wangara. The road they take is from
Darfour to Kordofan and Sennaar, from whence they follow the course
of the Nile through Dóngola and Nubia, to Egypt. Those only who
can afford to buy camels and provisions, cross the desert from the
Nile to Souakin, the others live upon alms, and upon the selling of
amulets. I understand that there is a still more frequented pilgrim
road from Sennaar through Abyssinia to Massuah.
Upper Egypt enjoys at present perfect tranquillity, under the severe
but equitable government of Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mohammed Aly. The
taxes are moderate and the whole country is equally assessed;
no avanies are practised, and the soldiery is kept in strict
order. By secularizing a part of the revenues of the church, such
as the superfluous income of mosques, schools, public cisterns,
Olemas, village Shikhs, &c. the Pasha has of late considerably
enriched his treasury. The clerical interest is of course now
in opposition, although the Pasha has become the restorer of the
faith, by delivering the holy cities. The Mamelouks have no chance
of succeeding in any attempt upon Egypt, as long as Mohammed Aly
keeps in power; but if he should happen to fall, I conceive that
although their number is now reduced to three hundred fighting
men only, they would forthwith regain their lost seat in Egypt,
where their friends are still very numerous, especially among the
most daring adventurers, who greatly dislike the just and vigorous
measures of the actual government.
P. S. I am in good health, but have gone during the course of the
summer and autumn, through two very painful ophthalmic attacks,
from the latter of which I have just recovered.
The cause of delay mentioned in the preceding letter continued
to operate during the next four months, and it was not until
the 2nd of March, 1814, that the caravan finally quitted upper
Egypt. During the tedious intervals, which Mr. Burckhardt was under
the necessity of passing at Esne, he continued to wear his usual
disguise of a poor Mohammedan trader; taking care to be as little
known or noticed as possible. Among the jealous, treacherous, and
cruel Mussulman nations which he traversed, after leaving Daraou,
it was with difficulty that he seized opportunities of continuing
the journal of his remarks and proceedings. Still less was it in
his power to transmit any intelligence to the Association, until
after having arrived in safety at Souakin, a port of considerable
traffic on the African coast of the Red Sea, he crossed over from
thence to Djidda, in Arabia.
The following extract of a letter from Djidda will put the reader
in possession of the general direction of the route, together with
the most important heads of information acquired by Mr. Burckhardt
in his second Nubian journey. The detailed account of it, which
was not transmitted to the Association until the year 1816, forms
the subject of the greater part of the present volume.
_Extract of a Letter from Mr. Burckhardt to Sir Joseph Banks,
dated Djidda, 7th August,_ 1814.
I left Upper Egypt on the 2nd of March, and crossed the Nubian
desert during a journey of twenty three days, slow travelling;
nearly in the same route, by which Bruce returned from Abyssinia,
fifty years ago. Our caravan rejoined the Nile at Berber, in the
vicinity of Bruce’s Gooz, and after a fortnight’s stay among the
Arabs Meyrifab, and as much at Damer (two days south of Berber),
we reached Shendy, which is at present the principal market for
the slave-traders, from Egypt, Darfour, Kordofan, and Sennaar.
Its King is tributary to the King of Sennaar, as are likewise all
the petty rulers down the river as far as Dóngola; it would have
been easy for me to proceed to Sennaar, nine days journey distant
from Shendy, and from thence into Abyssinia, following Bruce’s
track. But I wished to visit unknown districts, and I was convinced,
from what I had already experienced, that a tour through those
countries would be attended with expenses, which I was little able
to bear. When I left Egypt, I had only sixty dollars, and an ass to
carry me; not having thought proper to lose the opportunity of the
caravan, for the sake of the supply of money which I expected from
Cairo. Twenty-five dollars were spent in the way to Shendy. I was
thus much straitened, and I had scarcely enough left to buy a slave,
a camel, and the necessary provisions for my journey to the Red
Sea. From Shendy I proceeded towards the river Atbara (Astaboras),
whose fertile banks are cultivated by the Arabs Bisharein. I followed
that river in a S. S. E. direction for about one hundred and twenty
miles as far as Goz-Radjeb, a place under the dominion of Sennaar,
five days journey distant from it. The course of the Astaboras, as
well as that of the Astapus (now called Mogren), is very erroneously
laid down upon the maps. From Goz I reached the country of Taka,
a low ground of four or five days journey in length, and two days
in breadth, which is regularly inundated by torrents, rushing down
from the Abyssinian mountains; and which produces a rich crop of
Dhourra. I had hoped to cross the mountains from hence to Massuah,
on the Abyssinian sea coast; but I found, notwithstanding the
information given to me at Shendy, that there is no commercial
intercourse between the two places. The infamous treachery of the
Arabs Hadendoa, Melykenab, and Hallenga, who inhabit Taka and the
southern mountains, renders it impossible to proceed alone, with
any baggage of the smallest value, and the total want of hospitality
among all the Arabs of these parts forbids any attempt to travel as a
Derwish or beggar. After a ten days stay amongst the Arabs Hadendoa,
I left Taka for Souakin, which place draws its whole supply of corn
from Taka. The rains began to set in; a high chain of mountains,
midway between Taka and Souakin, divides the climate; to the south
of this chain, we had every night heavy showers, to the north, the
season of the hot winds had begun, and the rains were not expected
until September. Thirteen days from Taka we reached Souakin. The
Turkish governor of that place was going to seize me, supposing me
to belong to the Mamelouks of Dóngola; fortunately I had an old
Firman of the Pasha of Egypt with me, the producing of which saved
me from prison, and procured me a free passage on board a country
boat to Djidda, where I arrived in good health on the 20th of July.
It is now my intention to visit the principal places of the Hedjaz,
to perform the Hadj, or pilgrimage to Mekka, and then to return
to Cairo by land. I shall send to England the journal of my late
tour, together with that of the Hedjaz, after my return to Cairo,
not being at present at liberty to write much.
The Pasha of Egypt is in possession of all the principal towns of
the Hedjaz, but whenever he has endeavoured to push on into the
interior, he has constantly been defeated by the Wahabi Arabs,
amongst whom a female chief, called Ghalye, whose residence is
in Taraba, eight days journey S. E. of Mekka, has particularly
distinguished herself. The chances however seem at present to
be greatly in favour of the Pasha. Saoud, the Wahabi chief, died
three months ago of illness; his son Abdallah, and his brother of
the same name, have been fighting for the succession, and have
both been killed in the civil war. The treasure of Saoud is now
in possession of the younger sons of Saoud, who are besieged at
Derayeh, the capital of Nedjed, by other branches of their family,
and several great Arab Shikhs. Many powerful Wahabi chiefs have come
over to the Pasha, who has thus been led to undertake an expedition
against Derayeh, and the Nedjed itself. At the moment I am writing,
Tousoun Pasha, the son of Mohammed Aly, is proceeding from hence to
Medina, in order to command the expedition which will take place as
soon as the rains have set in, and there is some reason to believe
that he will succeed in his project, although it is hardly to be
expected that the Turkish troops will be able to keep possession,
for any length of time, of those inland countries.
I am under great difficulties for a supply of money, the letter
of credit which I brought from Cairo not having been honoured,
under the pretext that it was dated eighteen months ago; it must
be confessed also that my torn clothes did not speak much in my
favour. Disappointed in all my endeavours to sell a bill upon Cairo,
I have addressed myself to the Pasha, Mohammed Aly himself, who is
now at Tayf, five days journey from hence. He knows me well, and
when at Cairo had often expressed himself in my favour. If he does
not comply with my wishes I shall be obliged to return forthwith
to Egypt, without performing the Hadj: which will not take place
for three months, for the Hedjaz is not the country where a man can
hope to travel gratis. Every thing is enormously dear at all times,
and in the time of the pilgrimage the prices are still higher.
P. S. August 9th. I have been so fortunate as to procure a supply
of money, by the means of Yahya Effendi, the physician of Tousoun
Pasha, a man educated in Europe, and who had known me at Cairo. He
received me with singular kindness, and as he was departing with
the Pasha for Medina, he was anxious to see me furnished with money
before he set out. The answer from Mohammed Aly has not yet arrived.
Nearly a year elapsed before the Association received any further
advices from their traveller, his next letter being dated from Cairo,
upon his arrival in Egypt from Arabia. As the unfortunate state of
his health prevented him, upon this occasion, from entering into any
particulars of his Arabian journey, it is right to inform the reader,
that in the following year he transmitted to the Association the most
accurate and complete account of the Hedjaz, including the cities
of Mekka, and Medina, which has ever been received in Europe. His
knowledge of the Arabic language and of Mohammedan manners had now
enabled him to assume the Mussulman character with such success,
that he resided at Mekka, during the whole time of the pilgrimage,
and passed through the various ceremonies of the occasion, without
the smallest suspicion having arisen as to his real character. Upon
one occasion, when the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Aly, then holding
his head quarters at Tayf, to the eastward of Mekka, and who was
not altogether ignorant of Burckhardt’s connexion with England,
thought proper to put his qualifications as a Mussulman to the
test, by directing the two most learned professors of the law,
then in Arabia, to examine him upon his knowledge of the Koran,
and of the practical as well as doctrinal precepts of their faith,
the result was a complete conviction upon the minds of his hearers,
or at least of his two examiners, of his being not only a true
but a very learned Mussulman. It was his firm conviction, that the
title of Hadji, which his pilgrimage gave him the right to assume,
would be of the greatest use to him in his future travels in the
interior of Africa. Important however as were the experience and
information acquired by his journey in Arabia they were too dearly
purchased; for there can be little doubt, that his constitution
never recovered from the effects of that fatal climate, which has
always proved pernicious to Europeans.[9] The severe attacks of
fever and dysentery, which he suffered in Arabia, appear to have
been the ultimate cause of the fatal termination of the disorder
which, two years afterwards, in closing at once his labours and his
existence, destroyed the best founded hopes of success, in exploring
the unknown regions of Africa, which the Association had ever formed.
The following is an extract of the letter from Cairo, already
alluded to. It was dated the 25th June, 1815, and addressed to Sir
Joseph Banks.
A long interval has elapsed since I gave you in my letter of
August 1814, the news of my happy arrival at Djidda from my Nubian
journey. The difficulty of correspondence between the Hedjaz and
Egypt, arising from the jealous policy of the newly established
Turkish government, is one of the reasons which have prevented me
from sending you any account of the journey, which I have just
accomplished. Another is, I am sorry to say, repeated and long
continued attacks of illness. It is now eight days since I am
returned to this city, in a weak state of health, still suffering
from the effects of a fever which detained me three months at Medina,
and had nearly put a stop to all further travels. The receipt of your
obliging favour of the 10th September, 1814, and of a letter from
Mr. Hamilton, of the 4th June, of the same year, have contributed
more than medicines can do to revive my strength, and to exhilarate
my spirits. Indeed the assurance which these letters contain, of my
former labours having met with the approbation of my employers, has
been to me the source of most heartfelt joy, and the encouragement
which I have derived from it, has entirely banished from my mind
that despondency, which my bodily sufferings had caused.
My physicians will not permit me to write much, I can therefore
give you but a short sketch of my travels in the Hedjaz. On my
arrival at Djidda in August 1814, I remained there about a month,
principally employed in endeavouring to procure a supply of money,
a bill I had taken with me from Cairo, upon a person residing there,
not having been honoured. Having at last succeeded in obtaining a
temporary supply, sufficient until I should receive answers from
Egypt, I went to Tayf, five days journeys east of Djidda, where I
spent the Ramadhan and met the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Aly, who gave
me the most polite reception, having already seen me at Cairo. It had
been my wish to push on farther into the mountains of the Hedjaz,
but the whole country was over-run by parties of hostile Wahabi,
and the road itself from Tayf to Kolatsh, eight hours distant, where
the Turkish head quarters were, was continually infested by them. I
returned therefore from Tayf to Mekka, where I past the months
of September, October, and November, and after recovering from a
violent attack of dysentery, I performed on the 25th of November,
in the company of more than eighty thousand pilgrims, the Hadj to
Mount Arafat. In the beginning of January, I set out from Mekka to
Medina, a journey of ten or eleven days, mostly through deserts. My
project was to remain about three weeks at Medina, and to return
from thence over land to Egypt, in the hopes of being able to visit
on my road, some ruins at a place called Hedjer, six days north of
Medina, where I expected to meet with some specimens of the most
ancient Arabian monuments. Six days after my arrival at Medina,
I was attacked by a fever which kept me chained to my carpet until
April. The state of weakness to which I was then reduced obliged
me to give up all attempts to travel by land; fatigue would have
brought on a relapse, and I should have perished in some Bedouin
hut on the road. As soon as I could support the motion of a camel,
I left Medina and descended to the sea coast at Yembo. The plague, an
evil hitherto unknown to Arabia, had lately made its appearance here
as well as at Djidda, and its ravages soon became so great that all
the inhabitants left these towns, and I found Yembo almost deserted;
after a stay of fifteen days I embarked on board a country ship,
landed at the promontory of Ras Mohammed in the peninsula of Mount
Sinai, from whence I reached Tor, where I had a relapse of my fever,
which obliged me to remain there near a fortnight. I then took
the road of Suez, and arrived at Cairo on the nineteenth of June,
after an absence of nearly two years and a half.
I ascribe my bad health in the Hedjaz to the climate and water;
the latter, which in these countries is so important an article of
diet, is every where brackish and of bad taste, much endangering
the health of all strangers.
In a letter to the Secretary of the Association he adds,
Of the prosecution of my travels into the interior of Africa through
the Lybian deserts, I shall say nothing at present. Some time will
be required to recover my strength and to complete my journals;
when these are accomplished there will, I hope, be nothing to
prevent me from speedily commencing my final journey, for which I
trust that I am now qualified in such a manner as to authorise my
entertaining some hopes of success.
It is impossible for me to express the satisfaction I felt at
being apprized by you, that my labours had hitherto met with the
approbation of the African Association. I hope my employers will
not be disappointed in the favourable hopes they have conceived
of my future proceedings, and that the sense of gratitude which I
entertain for their having so liberally left to my entire disposal a
school time of upwards of six years, will be a pledge that I shall
use my utmost exertions in the final execution of those projects
for which I have been so long preparing myself.
My convalescence goes on slowly; the great heat of the present
season does not permit a rapid return of strength, and I can for
the same reason work only a few hours during the day.
The following is extracted from a private letter, written about
the same time, and obligingly communicated to the Association.
_Cairo, 20th July,_ 1815.
I returned to Egypt last month, in very bad health, for the Arabian
climate is of the worst kind, and has proved much more dangerous to
Mohammed Aly’s army than all the forces of the Wahabi. Mohammed
Aly himself, who had been in the Hedjaz for twenty months, returned
at the same time to his capital, after having completely defeated
and destroyed the power of his enemy from Medina southward as far
as Arabia Felix. Tousoun Pasha remains in the neighbourhood of
Medina to finish the war by taking Derayeh, the Wahabi capital;
he has with him about twenty-five hundred or three thousand Turks,
and eight or ten thousand Arabs. The hasty return of the Pasha to
his capital was probably owing in some measure to the great fears
lately prevailing at Cairo and Alexandria, of an expedition of the
Sultan against Egypt. The Kapoudan Pasha was equipping his fleet,
had taken on board a numerous corps of soldiers, and issued from
the Dardanelles without any body knowing the destination of his
expedition. Mohammed Aly continues to improve the state of Egypt,
and that of his finances. He has begun to exercise his troops in
the European manner, has established a large fabric of muskets at
Cairo, and possesses also two thousand muskets bought in London. An
Italian has set up a gunpowder manufactory where he has constantly
two hundred men at work: an Englishman is beginning to establish
a distillery of rum at the Pasha’s expense upon a very large
scale. About twenty ships belonging to the Pasha are trading
to Italy and Spain: six ships in the Red Sea trade to Yemen,
and it is in view to establish a direct commerce with the East
Indies. Immense sums have been spent during the last two years in
fortifying Alexandria and the Castle of Cairo, together with the
mountain behind it. But what secures to the Pasha the possession
of Egypt more than any thing else, is the death of three or four
thousand soldiers, the most rebellious and fiercest of his troops,
whom he constantly placed as vanguards against the Wahabi, and of
whom very few returned to Cairo.