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Title: Incidents on a journey through Nubia to Darfoor
Author: F. Sidney Ensor
Release date: April 23, 2026 [eBook #78526]
Language: English
Original publication: London: W. H. Allen & Co, 1881
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78526
Credits: Galo Flordelis (This file was produced from images generously made available by Google Books)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INCIDENTS ON A JOURNEY THROUGH NUBIA TO DARFOOR ***
[Illustration: Map of ROUTE from OLD DONGOLA TO EL FASHER]
INCIDENTS
ON A
JOURNEY THROUGH NUBIA
TO
DARFOOR.
F. SIDNEY ENSOR, C.E.
LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE.
* * * * *
1881.
(_All rights reserved._)
LONDON
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13. WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
TO
JOHN FOWLER, ESQUIRE,
(CIVIL ENGINEER),
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
AS A MARK
OF RESPECT AND GRATITUDE.
INTRODUCTION.
* * * * *
Darfoor is an oasis, or rather a cluster of oases, in the south-eastern
part of the great desert of Sahara. The country was annexed to the
Egyptian dominions at the close of the year 1874; and, in the following
year, owing to reports of its extraordinary fertility, it was decided by
Ismael Pasha, then Khedive of Egypt, that a survey should be made for a
proposed line of railway to El Fasher, or Tendelti, its capital town.
Previous to 1874 there had been only three available routes to El Fasher
from Egypt or Nubia.
One from Sioot on the Nile, about two hundred and ten miles above Cairo.
This route, throughout its entire length, is in the desert; the wells
are sometimes ten days’ journey apart, and in other respects it is quite
impracticable for the purposes of a railway.
A second from Dabbe, latitude 18° N., on the upper Nile, across the
desert to El Obeid, capital of Khordofan, and thence into Darfoor, over
rough and generally unfavourable ground.
A third from Khartoom, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, to
El Obeid, and thence by the route last mentioned.
A fourth route by the Wady Milkh, said to be very superior to any of the
other three, existed, however, from near Old Dongola on the Upper Nile,
almost in a straight line, right into Darfoor.
The “Wady Milkh”[1] signifies “Inalienable Valley”; it is so called
because since the reign of Achmet Bokr, Sultan of Darfoor (1682-1722),
who extended his frontiers as far as the Nile, and beyond to the Atbara,
the Sultans of Darfoor claimed the sole right to use it. The route,
moreover, was said to be unsafe, owing to the predatory habits of the
Arab tribes dwelling in different parts of its length.
It was along this newly acquired “Wady Milkh,” or Inalienable Valley,
that the surveys and levels for the proposed line of railway, on which I
was engaged, were to be made.
The adventures that I met with while on the journey from the second
cataract of the Nile, and afterwards at El Fasher, and the description
of the country, form the subject of this book.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
PAGE
CHAPTER I.—Wady Halfa to New Dongola 1
CHAPTER II.—The Temple of Semneh 13
CHAPTER III.—New Dongola 21
CHAPTER IV.—Old Dongola 30
CHAPTER V.—Taking Stock 42
CHAPTER VI.—From Old Dongola to Sotaire 50
CHAPTER VII.—From Sotaire to Bagghareeyeh 61
CHAPTER VIII.—From Bagghareeyeh to Om-Badr 72
CHAPTER IX.—Om-Badr 84
CHAPTER X.—From Om-Badr to Karnac 95
CHAPTER XI.—Karnac to Ergoodt 107
CHAPTER XII.—Ergoodt 120
CHAPTER XIII.—Descriptive 131
CHAPTER XIV.—History 142
CHAPTER XV.—El Fasher 153
CHAPTER XVI.—At El Fasher 163
CHAPTER XVII.—At El Fasher 173
CHAPTER XVIII.—A Ride to Kobbe 183
CHAPTER XIX.—Back to Ergoodt 197
CHAPTER XX.—Back to Om-Badr 206
CHAPTER XXI.—Back to Sotaire 217
* * * * *
ERRATA.
* * * * *
Page 14, _line_ 17, _after_ “boy” _insert_ “is.”
„ 15, _line_ 18, _for_ “Madeline” _read_ “Madeleine.”
„ 25, „ 24, _for_ “like” _read_ “live.”
„ 86, „ 14, „ “equally” _read_ “equalling.”
INCIDENTS ON A JOURNEY
THROUGH
NUBIA TO DARFOOR.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
* * * * *
I saw another land
Fast by the land of Life, the land of Death;
More drear than where, outcast, Cain flew accursed,
And built with blood-stained hands his godless home.
* * * * *
WADY HALFA TO NEW DONGOLA.
Arrival at the second cataract of the Nile. — The desert beyond. —
Resting-places. — A distressed traveller. — Green fields again. — Asleep
on a horse. — The river from the second to the third cataract. —
Irrigation beyond.
ON 13th November 1875 we started up the Nile from Cairo; our expedition
consisted of eight civil engineers and one doctor, besides native
assistants, soldiers and servants. Our object was to prospect and survey
for a line of railway from Aboo Goossi to El Fasher, or Tendelti,[2] the
capital of Darfoor. Aboo Goossi is a considerable village six miles
higher up the Nile than Old Dongola, and is on the line of the proposed
Soudan railway, on the survey of which I had been engaged in a
subordinate capacity some years before. There was also to be a branch
line surveyed from Sotaire, or Sotahl, to Khartoom. Sotaire, or Sotahl,
is the site of two wells about eighty miles from Aboo Goossi on the
proposed line to El Fasher.
Two steamers and one large barge were told off to carry the members of
the expedition to the first cataract; one steamer was occupied by the
engineers and doctor, the other by the native assistants, and the barge
by the soldiers and stores. At Assouan we left our steamers and barge
and proceeded by a recently constructed railway, nine miles in length,
to the top of the first cataract; here we found two other steamers
waiting for us and boats for the soldiers. His Excellency, Mustapha
Fehmy Pacha, then newly appointed Director-General of the Railways of
Upper Egypt, including the Soudan railway at that time in course of
construction, accompanied us from Cairo as far as Wady Halfa.
Wady Halfa, “valley of grass,” is a village at the foot of the second or
Great Cataract on the right bank of the Nile, at a distance of about a
thousand miles from the Mediterranean; it is at the commencement of the
Soudan railway. We disembarked on the left bank of the river opposite
the village; the camels for our journey, to the number of three hundred
and fifty, were in the neighbourhood, some on one side of the Nile, some
on the other. The section of our expedition whose destination was
Khartoom were ready to go the day before us, and we wished them good-bye
to meet again in the Sahara some months after and a thousand miles away.
On the following day we paid our farewell visit to Mustapha Pacha and
started on our journey.
Tourists from Europe and America, visiting Egypt, seldom proceed further
up the Nile than the first cataract; Philæ at its upper end is usually
the limit of their travels; some few go as far as the second cataract,
but I fancy their numbers may be counted by twos and threes.
Indisputable evidence of this may be found in the state of the ruined
temples of the Nile valley; below the first cataract Brown, Jones and
Robinson may be seen carefully carved on their walls, as also some
greater names which the world will hardly remember the longer, or esteem
the more, for being in such company. Above Philæ this is rarely the
case; time and the elements are left to do their work unaided.
The route generally taken by travellers to Khartoom and the White or
Blue Niles starts from Korosco, about eighty miles below Wady Halfa. The
route crosses the eastern desert of the Bishareen and Ababdeh Arabs, and
joins the Nile again at Aboo Hamed, whence boats may be obtained to
Khartoom and beyond, or the journey may be continued on camels.
This is the route that has been taken by all the great explorers; that
portion of the Nile between Wady Halfa and Aboo Hamed is consequently
little, if at all, known to Europeans.
A complete change occurs in the Nile valley as soon as the second
cataract is reached; below this the desert, with its rock and its sand,
only comes down to the river in places; above, the river is bounded
closely by the lifeless wilderness. From Wady Halfa to the island of
Say, I should doubt whether the whole cultivable border on the west bank
of the Nile is much larger than Hyde Park; this is a distance of one
hundred and twenty miles. Every ten or twenty miles little patches of
deposited mud are to be met with, some of them no bigger than a table-
cloth; every inch of these is cultivated, generally with beans or
lentils. In some places the area is larger, then a little “doura”[3] is
grown. Sometimes even in these happy secluded spots a few palm-trees
give life to the landscape; two or three mud-houses, with a few families
possessing fowls, goats, sheep, and perhaps a donkey, are erected in
their shade. The donkey is used for carrying to head-quarters the
products of the outlying little bits of land, and, in many cases, so
small is the yield that the donkey eats it all up before he gets home.
The people living here are happy and undisturbed, scarcely any caravans
move up or down through their trackless world, and a few boats, only
when the Nile is at its highest, pass to and fro in many years. Their
intercourse with the outer world, limited as it is, is, however,
sufficient to sharpen their wits and to teach them the value of money.
They know what a sovereign is worth as well as anyone in London, perhaps
better; once they have become possessed of it they never part with it.
They are not averse to trade. A sheep seldom exceeds one dollar in price
and fowls in proportion, but I fancy that if a few hungry Englishmen
were to take up their quarters in this district prices would very soon
go up. The waste that bounds these simple homes is almost devoid of
vegetation; small tufts of dry yellow grass may be occasionally met
with; they are not, however, sufficiently numerous to give sustenance to
even a very small number of camels. The “hammals,” or camel-drivers,
generally manage to collect a supply of dry grass before starting to
help the more weakly animals through their journey; well-fed and healthy
animals, some time out of work, will easily travel for five or six days
with only an occasional mouthful.
The usual distance travelled per day by a caravan is twenty miles, and
the rate two and a half miles per hour. If towards the end of a day’s
journey there should be no approach to the river, the drivers will
either stop shorter or go on a little further. They always go down to
the river at night. If there should be a patch of cultivated ground at
the resting-place, and no guardians near, the drivers help themselves to
a meal of the produce, and often the camels, if not properly looked
after, finish up the remainder. In those parts of the journey which are
distant from the river, little mud-huts roofed over with palm-branches
and doura-stalks are occasionally found. Inside is a raised divan of mud
from one end to the other, and two or three large vases filled with
water are half buried in the ground. These huts are resting-places for
weary travellers. Coming to one of them one day, I asked one of the
drivers, who placed them there? His reply was “Allah.” I wondered at the
time, from the ingenuous simplicity of his answer, whether he really
believed that the house and the water had been placed there through some
miraculous interposition of Providence. On questioning him again I
learned that “Allah” had made the hearts of good men to do it. “Allah
brought the water”; or, what was the same thing, “He made the good men
bring it.” His philosophy seemed to resolve itself into _qui facit per
alium facit per se_, a doctrine not entirely unknown amongst ourselves.
I decided to avail myself of the shade provided by the good men. I went
in and spread my rug on the divan, my Arab friend sat on the ground
near; I drank of the cool Nile water mixed with brandy, my friend drank
it neat—not the brandy, but the water. We lighted my long “chibook” and
shared it between us in alternate puffs, and discussed in calm and
enlightened terms his theological proposition. I came to the conclusion
that in the simple heart of this wandering son of the sand there was a
pure and earnest faith which, if properly laid out, might have started
many a poor curate in a good way of business and yielded fair returns.
May he reap his profits.
One day our party was stopping for lunch in one of these cool and shady
resting-places, when we were joined by a poor shoeless traveller,
footsore, ragged, and unwashed. He was an Italian who had not succeeded
in business. He had walked all the way from Khartoom, following the bank
of the Nile, a distance of about eight hundred miles, and, although
never very far from the river, had, apparently, not once availed himself
of the facilities its waters afforded for taking a bath. He had started
without money, and had lived on the hospitality of the natives dwelling
on his long and weary route. This kindness, he told us, had never once
been refused. At night shelter was always provided for him, dates and
doura, or other simple fare, were given him for his breakfast, and more
was always offered him for his day’s journey. Let it be remembered, this
kind unquestioning hospitality was given to a Christian by Mohammedans
who, in England we believe, would rather see a Christian die in a ditch
than lift one finger to help him. In our own country he would have been
locked up as a rogue and a vagabond, which he certainly was. The story
he told us was a sad one. His partner, with the sum they had between
them, was to have purchased spirits and beer, to be sold at a profit in
Khartoom. He had certainly purchased the spirits and beer, but only
retail, by the glass, “to be drunk on the premises”; there were
consequently no profits. We were determined not to be behindhand in our
hospitality; we gave him some cold lunch, a glass or two of claret,
followed by a few cigars and a drop of brandy and water. The cold lunch,
the glasses of claret, the cigars, and the drop of brandy and water,
opened his poor suffering and disappointed soul—he wept. We raised five
dollars between us and gave them to him. One of us, more generous than
the rest, gave him an old worn coat, for which he had no further use,
and which, as we were in the tropics, was not likely to be of much
service to our unfortunate rogue and vagabond. He wept again; this
unexampled generosity completely unmanned him. As work was at that time
going on briskly at Wady Halfa for the Soudan railway, we referred him
by letter to the engineer-in-chief, an esteemed friend of mine, who has
since gone to South America in charge of an important railway in course
of construction in the Brazils. He placed the letter in the pocket of
the nice, warm, moth-eaten old coat, thus putting his handsome present
to some use. No arrangement was come to with the engineer at Wady Halfa;
the terms were not sufficiently high. He might have earned in one month
enough to keep him in idleness for six. Perhaps, however, he was
ambitious, and wished to realize a rapid fortune. I found him, on my way
back, in a grog shop at Assouan in a state of intoxication but little
removed from absolute torpidity.
This melancholy and profitless part of the earth offers no food for man
unless it be food for reflection. There can, however, be no pleasure in
dreaming about sterile rock and sand; I shall therefore endeavour to
describe its loneliness as quickly as possible. There is no better
simile than the face of the full moon, beautiful from our far-off
distance, but in reality a rocky, waterless, lifeless, scorched-up
world. The surface of this desert is waterworn by countless rivers and
smaller streams, which may have flowed through a smiling land when, long
ago, the earth was a little child, but which are now all dried up, old
and gray.
On reaching the neighbourhood of the island Say, green fields of doura
and a fringe of date-trees along the banks of the river make a pleasing
change from the scorching desert. There is a much-prized salt mine not
far off, which is a source of great wealth to its owners. Its produce
forms a subject of brisk barter and trade in the district. Two and a
half days beyond Say is the fine temple of Pthur, in a very good state
of preservation, and seemingly of the Greek or Roman period, light and
graceful in design, and, with the exception of the island temple of Isis
at Philæ, with its rocky scenery, unsurpassed for beauty and sublimity
in any other part of the Nile; and of rock-hewn Aboo-Simbel, with its
four sitting giant figures, perfect types of Semitic beauty, it is
certainly the finest to be found in Nubia.
Kohe, where it was proposed to bridge the river in order to carry over
the Soudan railway, is about one hour’s ride above this temple. Here the
route leaves the bank and crosses thirty miles of desert, and joins the
Nile again at Fakeer Bender. It is always necessary to travel over this
distance in one day, as water is only carried in sufficient quantity for
drinking on the road. It is a dreary journey of twelve hours, and
throughout the length scarcely a rock is found large enough to cast
shadow for a rest and lunch. I once rode over this stretch of desert on
horseback, starting shortly before sundown, as no horse could travel
through it in the day-time. The natural pace of these miserable, sore-
backed, Nubian horses is only two and a half miles an hour, and their
gait is like that of the camel, moving two legs on one side at once, the
result, I suppose, of pacing with the caravans. Long before morning I
was fast asleep in the saddle, and my poor horse must have been sleeping
too, for he rolled over and woke me. Finding it useless to persuade him
to go further at that time, we lay down and slept side by side for two
or three hours, and only reached the tents next morning in time for a
late breakfast.
A day’s journey beyond Fakeer Bender is Hannek, which gives its name to
the third cataract, at the upper end of which stands Haffeer, where the
Nile again becomes navigable.
Although those portions of the Nile in the vicinity of Wady Halfa and
Hannek are called respectively the second and third cataracts, it would
be more correct to describe the whole length of the river between those
places as one long series of rapids, in some parts rougher than in
others, and with an occasional stretch of smooth water intervening, but
generally unnavigable, unless it be at extreme high Nile, and then only
for small boats.
On our first expedition into the Soudan in 1871, it was decided in
Cairo, owing to insufficient information, that we should proceed up this
part of the river in boats. We disembarked at Wady Halfa, took camels
for ten miles to Amka, at the top of the cataract, and re-embarked at
that place in open native boats (nuggahs). Although all the available
natives living along each bank were requisitioned to tow us, the voyage
to Kohe, a distance of one hundred and fifty odd miles, took us nearly a
month. At times the north wind would fail us, and we were more than once
becalmed for several days, tied to a rock in the middle of the river.
Fortunately the atmosphere above the seething and whirling waters is
always free from pests in the shape of flies and mosquitoes, &c., or,
unprotected by the bed and window curtains which are fixed in the
travellers’ “dahabeeahs” below the rapids, we must have suffered, in our
anything but convenient boats, more than I care to think about. We had
enough of this sort of travelling by the time we reached Kohe. We sent
the boats on by themselves, and took horses to New Dongola.
Above Haffeer the struggles between the water and the rocks are over,
or, rather, I should more correctly say, have not yet commenced. The
Nile flows again, peaceful and smooth, through broad banks of some of
the richest land in the world. So wide are these always cultivated banks
that the province of Dongola, although so much of it is included in the
sandy and stony tract of country I have endeavoured to describe, is
certainly one of the richest, if not the richest, in the dominions of
the ruler of Egypt. At every short distance along the banks, sometimes
as near together as twenty feet, are “zakeeyehs,” or chain and bucket
pumps, worked by a vertical and a horizontal wheel, turned by two stout
oxen under the charge of a child, boy or girl, seldom more than six or
seven years old. The child sits on the shaft and sleeps half the day to
the harsh music which the wheels are purposely constructed to grind out
of their axles. Sometimes the oxen stop; the child then wakes up and
shouts, and if they do not go on briskly, or if they stop again, they
are simply unyoked and driven home to feed, others are brought, and the
grinding and raising of water goes on as before. This system of
irrigation is carried on day and night, and, although simple and rude,
is sufficient to render the inhabitants almost entirely independent of
the rise and fall of the Nile. When the river is low, they lengthen the
rope and fasten on a few more buckets, and as the water rises the extra
buckets are removed, and the rope is shortened. At extreme high Nile the
wheel stops, the oxen have a rest, and the child goes home to play.
On 2nd January we reached New Dongola, the capital of Lower Nubia,
having been delayed a week in our journey from Wady Halfa, by stopping
to take a series of soundings for the bridge across the Nile at Kohe.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER II.
* * * * *
Facing the sea of life, upon its shores
There stood a temple proud.
* * * * *
THE TEMPLE OF SEMNEH.
Visitors to temples. — The German. — The Frenchman. — The Englishman. —
The American. — Description of the temple.
ON the banks of the Nile, forty miles from Wady Halfa, stands the small
temple of Semneh.
A visit to a temple has always afforded me instruction and matter for
reflection, not less, perhaps, on account of the temple itself than on
account of the tourists from different parts of the world, whom, at the
right season and in frequented parts, one is likely to find there. Each
nationality has its unmistakable peculiarities; each is a study in
itself.
The proceedings of the German are, perhaps, most calculated to excite
attention. He is a little fat man with a huge red moustache adorning an
energetic and determined-looking face. He wears a helmet which he
evidently thinks has a national and military appearance; it is, however,
always either much too small or much too large, generally the latter,
when it hides all his face from view, excepting only the end of his nose
and the huge red moustache. The rest of his costume consists of a pair
of low shoes, the laces often untied, a pair of very baggy trousers,
much too short, made of white duck or brown holland; his coat is of the
same material and equally ample; beneath it is his waistcoat with many
pockets and of as many hues as the famous coat that Joseph wore and
which formed the envy of his brothers. He generally goes to a temple on
a donkey, and the pace at which he trots away, and the ease and elegance
with which he sits his saddle, are strong evidence that he is not
unfamiliar with the control of a nobler quadruped. He despises all
guides, the donkey-boy is his only attendant; he takes with him, tied to
the back of the donkey, a camp-stool on which he intends to climb to get
a better view of the hieroglyphics on the walls of the temple. His white
umbrella is under his arm, and the boy trots behind and now and then
prods or wallops the donkey. Arrived at his destination he places his
stool close to the wall and sits down, while the boy holds the umbrella
over his head to keep off the sun. Having carefully blown over the
surface of the stone, to dislodge any loose sand that may be there, he
takes from his pocket a note-book, a measure, a pair of spectacles, and
a lead-pencil; he then measures, with great care and accuracy, the
height and breadth of a hieroglyphic, and gets the depth by inserting
the end of the pencil; this he does two or three times to be quite sure
that there is no mistake. After making notes of all these measurements
he moves the camp-stool two or three yards back and mounts to the top,
steadied by the boy; an opera-glass is produced from his pocket, and he
scans, from end to end, the whole wall of the temple. His observations
are now concluded; the glass, note-book, spectacles, measure, and pencil
are replaced, and, after a draught of refreshment from a bottle of beer,
which has evidently been opened and partly emptied before, he rides back
as he came. When he gets home to Germany he writes an exhaustive
pamphlet on the temples of Egypt and their hieroglyphics.
The Frenchman goes to see a temple in a different way and for an
entirely different purpose; he is generally accompanied by two or three
friends. When he gets there he says, “Mon Dieu!” and if he makes any
further remark it will be to compare the temple with the “Madeleine,”
the “Arc de Triomphe,” or with some other building for which he has
special and patriotic admiration. He and his friends then repair to
breakfast, champagne and cigars, into the shadiest corner of the ruin;
the conversation will be lively and on various subjects, not one of
which, however, will have anything to do with the object of the visit.
When breakfast is finished he will go home amused and delighted with his
excursion, and will talk graphically about the temple for the rest of
his life, but will only know as much as our friend the German who wrote
the pamphlet.
Before an Englishman visits a temple he reads up _Murray’s Guide_ for
the previous six months, and, when he goes, he takes a copy under his
arm, and a hammer and chisel in his pocket. He always travels in a large
party of fellow-countrymen and women. In the party there are sure to be
at least two wise men and, perhaps, as many wise ladies, who make it
their business to impart knowledge concerning every particular of the
temple, historical and archæological, to their listening companions.
When the information of one of the authorities differs from that of the
other, there is always much warm argument, until the party is divided
into two parties, in a parliamentary sense, who continue the debate
until their arrival at the temple, when each party finding itself
absurdly wrong, a general silence is the result. The silence, however,
does not last long, and our tourist remarks that the temple is
“wonderful.” Conversation becomes general and enthusiastic; he feels
bound to admire the manner in which the masonry is put together, and to
express his approval of the exquisite carving of the hieroglyphics;
then, quite forgetting his _Murray_, he speculates on the age of the
temple and on the effect that the arts and sciences of the ancient
Egyptians may have had upon the civilisation of modern nations, of which
England is the greatest. He then seeks a prominent place in the wall and
carves his name on what may, perhaps, be the most interesting cartouche
on the temple, and which, if properly interpreted, may be capable of
furnishing all the information which he professes himself so anxious to
acquire. After the achievement of this, the principal object of his
visit, he will, like the Frenchman, sit down to lunch; his conversation
will not, like his, be lively, but it will certainly have reference to
the temple and to nothing else. On the ride home he will converse much,
soon become argumentative, and ultimately quarrelsome, and will go to
bed determined never to see another temple. There is one thing, however,
which is quite certain, that the English tourist knows much more about a
temple before he has seen it than ever he does after, and this is,
perhaps, a somewhat singular circumstance.
The American is again different, as a tourist he is unique; he goes to a
temple not with the object of going there and of seeing it, but with the
object of having been there and of having seen it. He is very erratic in
his movements, sometimes he makes his journey alone, sometimes with
other Americans, but more frequently he joins a party of Englishmen; he
converses fluently about the temple, but it is evident to all that he
knows nothing whatever on the subject; perhaps he has not even heard of
its name until the day before; his object is to obtain all the
information he can from the conversation of the _Murray’s-Guide_-filled
Englishmen; he always succeeds, and on his return journey is often in a
position to satisfactorily decide any question about which there may be
a difference. He is amiable and generous and well supplied with
excellent cigars, which he freely distributes. On arrival at the temple,
he invariably knocks a piece of stone off a corner, and tells his
attendant to carry it to his hotel; when he gets there himself, he
labels it and puts it with many others in a large box marked “Geological
Specimens.” On arrival in America he calls them his “rocks,” and gives
them to his friends, who value them much. An American tourist is
peculiar in other ways: he will sometimes, if hot and tired, only go
part of the way to the temple, where he will sit down and wait till the
return of his friends, one of whom will certainly have been commissioned
to bring his “rock.” When he starts alone to see a temple, he very
seldom goes all the way, but picks up a “rock” in the desert, and makes
that answer every purpose. He has always plenty of money, and buys
nearly all things that are offered to him, paying six times as much as
an Englishman, twenty times as much as a Frenchman, and forty times as
much as a German. He has at his hotel a trunk full of relics of all
shapes, and amongst them several hundred scarabæi, one or two of which
may, perhaps, be genuine; in the States he lectures on the collection,
and makes the money he has spent on their purchase, and, very often, a
great deal more besides.
It has never been my happiness to meet an Italian on a visit to a
temple; but I have reason to believe that his proceedings are like those
of the gentlemen mentioned above, characterized by dignity, propriety,
and fitting veneration for the monuments of an extinct race.
Individuals of different peoples differ, of course, considerably among
themselves; but those I have described may, I think, be regarded as fair
and often-met-with types.
My visit to Semneh was only short and hurried, and offered me no
prospect of meeting with any chance tourist. The temple is much too far
removed from the beaten track; its walls are not rich in carvings,
ancient Egyptian or modern English, and no “rocks” have been knocked
from the corners.
It is about twelve feet in height, and contains but one chamber, thirty
feet by eleven. Thothmes III. is said to be the monarch by whom it was
erected; he was one of the most famous kings of the eighteenth dynasty,
which lasted, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, from 1520 B.C. to 1340
B.C., according to Bunsen from 1625 B.C. to 1409 B.C., and according to
Mariette from 1703 B.C. to 1462 B.C. It will thus be seen that, at the
lowest computation, the temple of Semneh must be more than three
thousand years old.
During the reign of Thothmes III., Egypt, in the language of the
hieroglyphics, “placed its frontiers where it pleased.” He carried his
victorious arms far into Western Asia. Had there been Parliamentary
government in those early times, there is no doubt that, by the leaders
of His Majesty’s Opposition, he would have been characterised as a
regular old Egyptian “jingo.” On the pillars of the temple, Thothmes
III. is represented in company with Totouôn and other deities. Osirtasen
III., an ancestor, is represented as a god; he was one of the few known
kings of the twelfth dynasty, lasting, according to Sir G. Wilkinson,
from 2080 B.C. to 1900 B.C., according to Bunsen from 2781 B.C. to 2634
B.C., and according to Mariette from 3064 B.C. to 2851 B.C.; to his
reign belong the obelisk at On, or Heliopolis, the tombs of Beni Hassan,
the famous Labyrinth, and Lake Mœris, excavated to collect the waters of
the Nile for irrigation purposes.
For the above particulars I am indebted to _Murray’s Guide_, which, on
the occasion of my visit to the temple of Semneh, I, as a matter of
course, faithfully took with me under my arm.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER III.
* * * * *
“A table richly spread, in regal mode,
With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort
And savour.”
MILTON.
“_Servant_ The dancing-girl, and with her the musicians
Your grace was pleased to order, wait without.
_Archbishop_ Bid them come in. Now shall your eyes behold
In what angelic yet voluptuous shape
The devil came to tempt Saint Anthony.”
LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
NEW DONGOLA.
The Bazaar. — The silversmith. — The soldiers. — A Mohommedan festival.
— Our cook in prison. — An accident at a dinner. — Dancing-girls. —
Traffic. — Camels for the journey. — Population.
NEW DONGOLA, called by the natives Oordeh, is the first place on the
banks of the Nile after entering Nubia which deserves the name of a
town, and then only of a very shabby one indeed. It contains a bazaar.
The few goods usually exposed for sale are Spanish olives, cloves, raw
coffee, coarsely-made slippers, and some few unimportant sundries such
as nails, needles, and matches; these, with one or two swords and,
perhaps, an old flint pistol or musket, form the stock-in-trade of the
entire place, which consists of twenty-five or thirty shops.
There is a tailor and dealer in inferior Manchester goods just outside
the bazaar; we employed him to repair and alter one or two of our tents.
This he did to our satisfaction, but without impressing us with the
conviction that he was so finished an artist as would warrant our
trusting to his skill the mending of any of our wearing apparel. I was
taken to see a worker in silver, who lived in one of the intricate lanes
of the town. His implements were a pair of pincers, a few pillar
dollars, a fire, and two stones—the one an anvil, the other a hammer.
The things he turned out were very beautiful and well made, in rough
imitation of Maltese work. His fame had extended to Cairo, and so proud
were the Egyptian Commissioners of this really clever worker in silver,
that they had sent him to the Paris Exhibition of 1867, but I did not
hear of his having carried off any gold medals. I purchased a cigar or
cigarette holder, and left with him three five-franc pieces to be
manufactured into two similar holders by my return. These he faithfully
finished and left at the Government House, to be given to me on payment
of the cost of his labour. He himself had changed his quarters to
Berber.
Dongola is a garrison town, and is the first telegraph station after
Wady Halfa. The troops stationed here are not drawn from the
neighbourhood, but are mostly negroes from the White Nile. Their duties
are not overwhelming; they consist chiefly in firing off a cannon at
sunrise and sunset in the month of Ramadan, and in mounting guard at the
Governor’s residence, where they present arms to everyone, above the
rank of a donkey-boy, who has business inside. They are armed with
“Remington” breech-loaders, and make a very fair appearance at weekly
drill under their officers from the army at Cairo.
The 7th January was a Mohommedan festival, and the principal inhabitants
of the town put on all their clean clothes. Our soldiers were paraded in
full-dress uniform in the square before our tents, and gave us three
cheers. They shook hands all round with us, as well as with everybody
else they could find. This harmless excitement seemed to afford them
considerable delight. They wandered all day through the town shaking
hands with every available inhabitant, young or old, and returned at
dark to their tents. After repeating the performance with us, and
finally, as a climax, all round amongst themselves, they lay down to
sleep happy and contented, and at peace with all the world.
Two of our Abyssinian servants also enjoyed the festival. By some means,
legitimate or otherwise, they obtained a bottle of spirits; in a
peaceful and secluded spot they drank its contents in harmony and
friendship. Friendship, however, does not last for ever, and when the
bottle was empty that which had contained the cause of their
friendliness and peace became suddenly a weapon of war; the bottle was
hurled—with, fortunately, not unerring aim—by the hand of one at the
head of the other. Twenty-five lashes with the “korbatch” was the prompt
reward of each, and the principal delinquent, after his flogging, was
consigned to the town jail. Being our best cook he was, however,
unavoidably let loose next day, and each succeeding day during our stay,
to cook our dinner, and was committed afresh to prison when his duty was
done. To eat bad dinners was, we thought, a greater sacrifice than we
ought to be called upon to make, even in the interest of justice and
law.
On our return journey from the Bahiuda desert in 1872 we were invited by
one of the native officials, who had accompanied us on our expedition,
to dine or sup with him at his residence. The house, although one of the
most considerable in the town, consisted of one room only on the ground
floor (there are no storeys above this in New Dongola) with enclosures
at the back for the wife and family, and a court-yard for the goats and
fowls. We brought, as requested, our own chairs and knives and forks, as
well as some bottles of claret. Our dragomans and servants attended us
into the saloon, and remained to share the amusements to be provided
after the repast. The host and his sons waited upon us, and could not be
prevailed upon to sit down and join us. The dinner consisted of soup, to
which we helped ourselves, as is the custom, with wooden spoons from the
tureen, a sheep roasted whole, and various side dishes and sweets. After
the removal of the soup the remaining courses were placed all at once on
the tray, which, only resting on a small three-legged stool, was,
unfortunately, capsized in our clumsy and simultaneous endeavours to
carve, and the whole of the contents rolled over, greasy and hot, on to
the muddy floor. Our poor host, who, I have no doubt, had for a long
time in his wanderings in the desert looked forward to the pleasure we
were to confer on him by our presence at his table, was for a moment
disconcerted, but for a moment only; his hand, which, just as the tray
and its contents lost their balance, was occupied in conveying a piece
of sheep’s kidney, highly seasoned, into the mouth of one of my dearest
friends, was for a second arrested in its course; a second more, the
delicate morsel reached its hungry and open destination, and our host’s
face regained its wonted calmness and dignity. He was equal to the
occasion; the tray and the fallen dinner were carried into the yard and
returned again in less than a minute, apparently none the worse for the
mishap. Our plates and their contents, being on our knees, escaped the
fall, and we continued our meal after an occurrence which, in a more
civilised land, would have disturbed the equanimity of a more
experienced, but certainly not politer host. The dinner over, our hands
washed, and the tray and stool cleared away, we bestowed our thanks on
our generous entertainer, praising extravagantly all the dishes, whether
eaten or left untasted (we were put up to this sort of thing by the
dragomans). His reply was that if we would only condescend to honour his
humble roof with our esteemed presence, as long as we might live, he
would strive, “Inshallah,” to entertain us every day better than the
preceding; and if only, on the last day of all, we were satisfied, he
would die happy. We could not hope to match this speech, which threw all
our efforts, single and united, into the shade, and we therefore
subsided into discreet silence.
The entertainment after dinner consisted of music and dancing, but not
such music and dancing as we understand. The band was a kind of tom-tom.
The dancing was performed by two Shillook girls, not very young and as
ugly as sin, or, as one of my friends who was present, and who is a
recognised _connoisseur_, said, much uglier. Their ungainly limbs,
hardly concealed by a single thickness of semi-transparent muslin, and
reeking with the odour of stale castor-oil, were moved to the sound of
the tom-tom, in bad imitation of the ungraceful dancing, so called,
which may at any time be seen in the villages of the lower Nile. Their
antics and grimaces, intended to fascinate, only produced disgust. Out
of politeness we sat through the unsavoury festivities, smoking our
“chibooks” and finishing our claret, and were escorted by our host and
his sons, with lanterns, home to the boats at a late hour.
The bank of the river at New Dongola is always lined with many craft
coming from the Blue and White Niles, laden with gum, senna, and ivory.
Ostrich feathers are also brought down in small numbers, and are as
dear, or dearer, than at home, ranging as high as seventy guineas a
pound for fine feathers. The boats go on as far as Haffeer, where they
discharge, and their cargoes are carried overland to Wady Halfa, in most
cases, along the right bank, which over this distance is less
inhospitable than the left. A not inconsiderable traffic reaches the
town by a camel-track from Zeghawa, the site of natron springs on the
main-line of desert trade between Sioot and Darfoor, and, if boats are
plentiful, it follows the same route as the last. A certain portion of
this traffic, however, finds its way down the left bank of the river by
the desert through which we travelled.
As the journey before us was a long one we were advised to provide
ourselves with fresh camels, and to engage at least fifty more than the
number absolutely required, in order to supply any deficiencies from
accident or death on the way.
There are two different classes of proprietors who let out camels for
hire, and with each class separate arrangements have to be made. The
largest proprietors are undoubtedly the nomadic Arabs, and their camels
are the best. The Wady el Kab, a large oasis with many wells, extending
more than a hundred miles parallel to this part of the Nile, at an
average distance of fifty miles to the west, forms the place of
congregation of many thousands in the dry season. Their owners are,
however, not very anxious to let them out for long distances, especially
if they are required to go to parts out of the regular tracks. The price
at which they are compelled to supply them for Government purposes is
less than they can get from the travelling _jelâbs_ or merchants by
making their own bargains. This is the only tax levied upon these
outlying tribes, and, though their camels are sometimes not required by
the Government for several years in succession, they are never given
willingly, and there is always more or less grumbling on the way. The
price to Darfoor is fifteen dollars, or three pounds, per camel; this
includes one driver for every six camels. The second class of
proprietors is only semi-nomadic, being formed of Arabs who have partly
settled down on the banks of the river, intermarried with the fixed
population, and devoted themselves for the greater part of the year to
agriculture and respectability. This class, being taxed in the same way
as the settled inhabitants, is at liberty to make the best bargains it
can with the Government as with private individuals. The price was
twenty-two dollars, or four pounds eight shillings. The number of camels
thus obtainable is, however, only limited, and, in our case, had to be
reluctantly supplemented by others from the desert. It was arranged that
the fresh camels should assemble, as soon as possible, opposite to Old
Dongola, about eighty miles up the river.
To arrive at even an approximate estimate of the population of a town
like New Dongola is a difficult matter. A large proportion of the houses
along the Nile, for a distance of five miles up and down on each side,
are owned by its so-called residents, who consider themselves as such
whether residing in the town or staying away for months, or even years,
at a time, on their distant farms. No two inquiries I made of the
authorities agreed within considerable limits. From my own calculation
of the area and of the number of houses, which are closely packed
together and are very densely crowded,[4] I estimate that the town, when
all its houses are occupied, must contain fifteen thousand or sixteen
thousand inhabitants. The simultaneous presence of them all is, however,
an event which never, or very rarely, happens. More than half of them
are always away, and the population, constantly shifting, seldom, I
believe, exceeds six thousand or seven thousand. The Arabs of both
classes come here in large numbers to idle away a great deal of their
time. They take up their quarters in the houses temporarily vacated by
the owners, and are never interfered with until the return of the
latter—hospitality, particularly if to one of the orthodox faith, being
an inexorable law of the Korân. This circumstance adds, of course, to
the difficulty of arriving at any conclusion, and the figures above must
be interpreted accordingly.
We left New Dongola on the 13th of January, having been engaged since
our arrival on the 2nd, on work in connection with soundings we had
taken for the bridge across the Nile at Kohe.
There is a marked improvement in the villages after New Dongola is
passed. The houses, some of which have a second storey, are often built
of concrete, and present, from a little distance, quite a handsome
appearance.
Our resting-places were Sahabeh, Sohri, and Bakri, a short distance
beyond which last is Handak or Khandak, one of the best-built towns in
Nubia. On the fourth day, the 16th, we arrived opposite Old Dongola, and
pitched our tents in a plain on the borders of the desert at the back of
the village.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER IV.
* * * * *
Where proud men knelt in all the pomp of prayer.
* * * * *
OLD DONGOLA.
A deserted town. — The Coptic church. — The priest. — His admiration for
England. — The books I gave him. — A search for a bed. — A long swim. —
The opposite bank of the river. — White ants. — Started.
THE town of Old Dongola (Dongola Agooss), formerly the capital of the
province, is situated at the summit of a high rock on the right bank of
the Nile; its houses are almost all in ruins, and the streets or lanes
between them are choked with sand which is continually drifting from the
desert, and no attempt is made by the inhabitants to arrest the progress
of what must, before many years, lead to their miserable town being
entirely overwhelmed. Scarcely one house in ten is occupied, and it is
possible to perambulate the town from end to end without meeting a
single soul; even a dog is a rarity. Having been originally built,
seemingly for military purposes, on a rock far above the level of high
Nile, there is no vegetation in the town; every drop of water and every
bit of food have to be carried up the steep and sandy slopes from the
cultivated ground below; the inhabitants are year by year moving over to
the opposite bank, and building themselves abodes in a more suitable
soil. At the back of the town is an extensive graveyard with some large,
well-built stone tombs, showing that at one remote period the place had
importance and contained greater and richer population than its present
area and wretchedness would lead one to suppose; and here is also a
Coptic church, erected on the highest part of the rock, from the top of
which a far-extending view of the desert and green-fringed river may be
obtained. This church is quite destitute of architectural beauty, and
is, I was told, of great antiquity. The walls are ornamented with
paintings, some of which had apparently been lately restored; the
designs are of the crudest description, scarcely excelling, in merit,
the drawings which a very young child might make on a slate. The
attendant priest, whom I saw and with whom I entered into conversation,
was attired in the ordinary costume of the country; his clothes,
however, were black, instead of white or blue, the colours worn by the
Mohommedans; another distinction was that he did not wear a “tarboosh,”
or head-covering, of any kind. His hair, of which he had a great
profusion, was black, long and ragged, and, although he was a young man,
it was slightly tinged with gray. He was engaged in wiping down, with an
old rag, the saintly pictures on the walls, and appeared to take an
interest in their preservation which, I thought, their artistic worth
did not seem to warrant. His sallow face was melancholy, handsome and
highly intelligent, certainly of the priestly type, but without the
fixed and self-satisfied air of unreasoning conviction so generally
discernible in that class of countenance. He was the only occupant of
the building, and seldom ventured beyond its walls; water and dates, on
which he exclusively lived, were daily supplied to him by some member of
the Coptic faith in the neighbourhood. He had but one book, a bible in
the Amharic language, issued, as I saw on reference to its title-page,
by the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts”;
this was well-thumbed and in parts scarcely readable. Service, he told
me, had not been held in the church for many years, and when a marriage,
baptism, or burial was to take place, a superior had to be sent for from
Khartoom, or sometimes from Gondar in Abyssinia, he not being yet
qualified to undertake such duties. He volunteered to show me over the
church, which, however, presented no objects of interest. The pictures,
about which I specially inquired, were, I was given to understand,
copies of others in Axum, the holy city of Abyssinia; when, or by whom
painted he was unable to say, but his opinion was that they had not been
renovated for the last hundred years. Seated on the roof of the
building, we conversed on various subjects. He was certainly ignorant,
as a man so secluded from the civilised world would necessarily be. His
thirst after knowledge was proportionately intense. The questions he put
were mostly about Europe and the state of Christianity among the
different peoples, and their relative power in war. England was the
object of an admiration amounting almost to worship. The bible he read
all day long, and half through the night by the light of the stars,
came, he knew, from England; it had been given to him by his father
previous to his leaving his home in Gondar, with strict injunctions to
think of England in his prayers whenever he read it. He remembered the
Abyssinian war and the release of the missionaries, and although King
Theodore had been his countryman and a good Christian, he heard of his
downfall without regret as he had been the enemy of England. If Queen
Victoria would only visit Abyssinia the whole nation would receive her
on its knees, such was the admiration of the goodness and power of
England and of her Queen. Beyond all things he was anxious to study the
English language. Had I any old books to lend? he would faithfully
return them on our way back. I promised that I would send him over an
English-Arabic dictionary, and collect some books for him in our camp.
Various was the collection I made: a church service, _Mr. Midshipman
Easy_, and _Artemus Ward, His Book_. The latter work I considered hardly
suitable for a priestly student of the English language, owing to its
generally frivolous nature and incorrect spelling, but was overruled by
the generous donor, who argued that it would afford a good sample of
American literature and taste. There was, of course, a legend about the
church; a story of love and religion, conflicting duties and long pain,
relieving death and a miracle; just such a legend as may be heard any
day on the Rhine in its castles and churches. I cannot remember it; let
the reader be grateful. I wished my friend good-night, and walked
through the sandy lanes of the town to the landing-place on the bank of
the river, to find the only boat Old Dongola possessed on the opposite
side. The Nile at this point being more than two thousand feet wide, I
had no means of communicating to the crew my wish to be ferried across,
and returned to the church to get a night’s lodging. The priest offered
his “angereb,” or sleeping-couch, which he brought from some secret
corner, into the body of the church, saying he would go and read by the
moonlight outside; but not liking the look of the “angereb” nor, I must
confess, the solitude of the place, I thanked him much and went into the
town to seek other quarters. After calling loudly at the doorless
entrances of twenty or more vacant huts, I at last found one inhabited
by a lonely old woman. She offered me dates and water, and was making me
up a bed when, from our conversation, she learned the predicament in
which I was placed; she at once went out, and in a few minutes returned
with a young boy and told me to go down to the river with him. The boy
stript off his clothes on the bank, and proceeded to swim across. In
about an hour the boat was alongside, and I was not sorry to get over
the river to supper and to bed after willingly paying a dollar, as
agreed, to the boy for his trouble.
The houses on the opposite side of the river to Old Dongola differ in no
respect, except in being more numerous, from those which stretch in
almost unbroken line from Haffeer to Ambukol, the furthest point I have
visited on the bank of the Nile. In addition to the various kinds of
grains and fruits, the inhabitants cultivate cotton in large quantities.
This product requiring an abundant supply of water, a rude canal, the
only one I have seen beyond Wady Halfa, has been constructed,
communicating with the Nile above and below the village; at low Nile,
when the canal is dry, water is conveyed across it in numerous small
aqueducts, built on timber uprights, to the cotton-fields beyond. None
of this cotton finds its way to Lower Egypt; the trade is exclusively
carried on with the population living along the banks and with the
wandering Arabs, nearly all of whom wear clothes made in Old Dongola.
There are many looms in the town, of the most primitive description. The
width of the cloth is fifteen inches, and is usually made in lengths of
ten feet; a piece of this width and length forms, with a pair of
drawers, the dress of an Arab. It is rolled round his loins and
shoulders without fastenings of any kind, and generally lasts him for
five or six years, and if he is careful often much longer. I purchased
some lengths of this cotton cloth, and had them made by one of our
soldiers into trousers. They certainly long out-lasted the duck and
brown holland which I had brought from England.
Many of the children, when not engaged in minding the everlasting
Zakeeyahs, are employed in fishing; they use the hook, but more
frequently a trap. The fish they catch are similar to those obtainable
in the markets of the native town at Cairo—the shall, the bultee, and
the kharmoot; they are considered edible, but are certainly not worth
eating. Enough fish to furnish a dinner for four persons for three days
can be bought for fourpence. The flavour of one kind resembles the
flavour of another. A very watery plaice with a strong taste of mud
gives a very good idea of Nile fish. A market is held twice weekly,
Tuesday and Friday. There is always a good attendance, and brisk trade
in doura, beans, lentils, tobacco (green), coffee, clothes, French
cigarette papers, German or Swedish matches, olives, water-melons,
fowls, turkeys, sheep, oxen, &c.; beef, but not mutton, is also sold in
pieces, without bones, for the benefit of the classes who cannot afford
a whole ox. We were always suspicious about these anything-but-inviting-
looking bits of beef, and formed a conclusion, perhaps without
justification, that they had been cut from animals who had come to their
end by means other than the butcher’s knife. When we wanted beef for
dinner we invariably bought a living animal, and as the meat will not
keep more than for two days, we were often in a position to offer a
feast of good beef to a large number of the inhabitants. My share of the
expenses in camp, including those of my servant, were, I find, on
reference to accounts, three pounds five shillings for the month of
January, just half of which was passed here, the remainder of the month
being spent in New Dongola and in travelling. Prices, however, do not
vary much, and our consumption was very regular. This outlay included
the purchase of beef and mutton, turkeys, fowls, eggs, milk, coffee,
lentils for soup, onions, charcoal, water-melons, and butter for
cooking, the last an expensive item.
On the 25th we received letters and papers from England dated December
10th, forty-five days on the way out, sent by special messenger from New
Dongola; the latter place is the last postal station on this route. The
main line goes by Korosco and Aboo Hamed to Khartoom, Kordofan and
Darfoor. The delivery, every ten days, is pretty punctual, and the
postage from England is one piastre (twopence halfpenny). The letters
after reaching Cairo are carried by rail to Sioot, and thence by
runners, the shiekhs of the villages on the road being responsible for
their immediate despatch at any hour of the day or night. Before leaving
New Dongola we made arrangements for a special post to bring our letters
once a month up to a certain date, after which they were to go round by
Khartoom to meet us in Darfoor.
In Old Dongola white ants abound. Anything placed on the ground so as to
exclude the light, brings them from their hidden depths in the earth to
eat up all that lies in their way. A pair of boots or a travelling-bag
may be rendered quite useless in a single day. The tarpaulin, covered
with green baize, which we used for the floors of the tents, they were
especially fond of, and holes, as big as the palm of the hand, were
eaten out in a very short time. Perfect immunity from their attacks may,
however, be secured by raising all edible property, such as chairs and
tables, trunks and portmanteaus, a little above the ground, on stones,
and placing them in the light as much as possible. The habits of the
white ants vary much in different parts of the world. In Southern Africa
they construct conical hills, from three to eight feet high, of the
hardest possible red clay mixed with woody fibres, and a waxy secretion
from their bodies. Schweinfurth, travelling in Central Africa amongst
the Niam-Niam, describes the nest of one class as of mushroom shape, and
of similar materials to the last mentioned, while another class
suspended their nests in the form of a cask from the branches of trees,
using the bark and leaves as building-material. This great traveller was
obliged to have recourse to the ants as food, and from his account
seemed, after long abstinence, to have enjoyed them much. Fortunately
none of our party was ever reduced to such extremities, and I am
therefore not in a position to say anything about their flavour. In
Venezuela, in the forests of which I have passed some considerable time,
their architecture is again different. The nests are egg-shaped and
honey-combed on the exterior surface as well as inside. They are often a
yard long by eighteen inches in diameter, and are attached to the bark
of a tree, sometimes near the root and sometimes as high as fifty feet
above the ground, close under the first branches. The incessant feeding
of the ants on the timber in the proximity of the nest causes the upper
part of the tree to topple over, leaving a branchless column for which
the traveller has often been puzzled to account. In Nubia they burrow in
the earth until they come to moisture, and in the cultivable banks of
the river, where they abound most, may be said to rise and fall with the
Nile. In the desert, below 18° latitude, within the limits of the
tropical rains, they only come to the surface in the wet season to feed
upon and destroy the interior of the hardest trees, leaving only the
bark standing till the gale comes and blows it away.
We were delayed in Old Dongola for seventeen days, waiting for the
camels; the portion of our expedition which had gone on to Khartoom, had
engaged a large number, and there was consequently a scarcity. Strict
injunctions had been sent by the authorities in Cairo that only camels
of the best class should be furnished to us, and this circumstance, in a
great measure, tended also to lengthen our stay, as many animals had to
be rejected as weak and unfit before our required number was complete.
The character of the camel has formed the subject of various writers of
more or less experience; by some he has been described as, under all
circumstances, patient, good-tempered, and long-suffering; by others as
always surly, ferocious, malicious, and obstinate. Each is an extreme
view; he is a mixture of all these qualities, good and bad; his virtues
are exhibited on his journey, his vices directly he comes into camp. He
is essentially a traveller, rest for him is an abnormal condition. As
long as he is moving, whether fairly loaded or not, he will go on
unmurmuring without rest, food, or water, if necessary, till he dies,
and the less the driver interferes with him the better. Directly the
day’s journey is over, and he has to stop, he begins to growl, to snarl,
and sometimes to bite; it is the kneeling down, the sudden fall on the
front knees, that he objects to. The climax of his ill-nature is reached
in the morning when he is again brought into camp to receive his load;
the noise he makes is like that of many angry lions. Once on his legs
again, and started on his journey, he is quiet and happy. He is utterly
unsympathetic, and no amount of kindness will elicit the least spark of
gratitude, or even of recognition. I much doubt whether he knows his
driver from another similarly dressed. Our European attire seemed at
first to disconcert him, but he soon learned to look upon it with
indifference. It takes a great deal to alarm him: a rifle may be fired
from his back, and, although this may never have been done before, he
will give no evidence of even having heard it; a beast of prey may start
from its lair, within a yard or two from his track, and he will not
deign to notice it. At certain seasons, however, the females are
restless and dangerous to ride; they will get scared without cause, and
bolt, only coming to a stop when quite exhausted. The seat in the
saddle, under these circumstances, is, as I know to my cost, very
difficult to keep. The male is much the safer animal to choose. The
Egyptian camel has one hump.[5] Some of the better class of animals are
trained for riding purposes, and often attain to a speed of seven or
eight miles an hour; these “hygeems” are, however, rare. The difference
between a “hygeem,” or dromedary, and a baggage-camel, is that which is
between the race-horse and the cart-horse.
There have been many different statements printed respecting the number
of days during which a camel will endure without water. The whole
question is entirely dependent upon how much work he does, and upon the
heat of the climate in which he works. In the month of February 1872, I
rode a camel for two hours a day, from the 3rd to the 19th, sixteen
days, and during the whole of that time he never drank. The temperature
seldom exceeded 70° Fahr., and the nights were cold, the thermometer
falling to 40° Fahr. On arrival at his destination he was certainly
thirsty, and his potations lasted for at least half an hour, during
which time he must have consumed eighteen or twenty gallons. In the
month of June on our present expedition in Darfoor, when the daily
maximum reached 100° Fahr. or more, in the shade, the camels were often
without water for ten days, and were kept pretty well worked without
seeming to suffer. These were picked animals, and not a death occurred
amongst them. Generally, however, camels will work better if allowed to
drink every five or seven days. To choose a camel for a long journey is
difficult; the best plan is simply to leave the matter in the hands of
the guide, who, if you treat him properly, will do his best to be your
friend, and will certainly find a better camel than any European, after
all the instructions that have ever been printed.
On the morning of the 3rd of February all the camels were brought into
camp, and after the loads had been fairly apportioned, amidst much
squabbling on the part of the drivers, and growling on the part of the
camels, we were ready to start by 11 o’clock, and left Old Dongola, and
the white ants, without regret after our long and weary stay.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER V.
TAKING STOCK.
Native assistants. — Soldiers. — Servants. — Drivers. — Water-tins and
skins. — Tents. — Stores, wines, &c. — Estimate for travellers.
BEFORE beginning our journey into the desert it may not be uninteresting
to the general reader, and more especially to travellers intending to
undertake journeys into this part of Africa, to give some account of the
people and things wherewith we had provided ourselves for the
expedition.
The European staff consisted of four engineers and one doctor; four of
us, including the doctor, of considerable experience in African travel
and exploration; all of us tolerable shots, and the doctor in this
respect first-rate. To his excellence in this acquirement I firmly
believe we attached more importance than to his higher qualifications,
which we, fortunately, had very seldom to call into requisition.
The higher native officials were:—
Mohommed Effendi Ameen, lieutenant of engineers.
Mohommed Effendi Abd-el-Fattáh, lieutenant in command of the troops.
Mohommed Effendi Radjai, Public Works Department, Cairo.
Mohommed Effendi, chief Mahound in general charge of the caravan and
water arrangements.
Mohommed Effendi, second Mahound in charge.
Let it not be supposed from the circumstance of these personages all
bearing the same first name that there is no other first name in Egypt
or Nubia; it was simply a coincidence. Many of our soldiers and drivers
had other names, but a call of Mohommed from the door of a tent would
always bring not one, but many willing servants to do our bidding. The
result was the Mohommeds got all the odd work to do; and this was not
forgotten in the distribution of rewards at the end of our journey, when
it was unanimously decided that each Mohommed should receive just twice
as much “backsheesh” as anyone blessed only with a less universal and
exalted name.
Under the charge of Mohommed Effendi Abd-el-Fattáh were two corporals
and sixteen soldiers, each armed with a Remington rifle and a revolver,
and all supplied with an ample number of cartridges.
We had five servants: Risk and Jacoob, cooks; and Petrus, Ibrahim, and
Ibrahim gene al attendants; all, with the exception of the last Ibrahim,
natives of Abyssinia, devout Christians, and fervent haters of all
Mohommeds and Mohommedans.
The number of camels was two hundred and thirty-four, with about forty
drivers; these last, with the owners of the camels, brought the total
number of persons composing our “hamleh” or caravan to about eighty-
five.
For carrying water we had fourteen iron tanks, measuring eight inches by
one foot six inches by two feet, and each holding about twelve gallons;
twenty-four smaller tins holding three gallons each, and about one
hundred water skins, holding each from two to twenty gallons. Good
water-skins keep the water cool in the hottest sun, but necessarily lose
a great deal by evaporation, and, moreover, impart to it a strong
leathery flavour, as well as a worse taste of the pitch and bad oil with
which they are prepared in order to preserve them.
For long journeys the iron tanks are incomparably the best; the water
certainly gets unpleasantly warm, but if transferred, immediately on
arrival at the camping ground, to good and clean skins and hung up in
the wind, it becomes cool in a quarter of an hour.
The camel-drivers are bound to take their own supply of water, but
seldom do so in sufficient quantity, and ignorance of their careless
habits may sometimes lead to their great suffering and death from thirst
on the road.
We had in all about sixteen tents of various sizes. Some of them we had
taken with us from England, and others, by far the most comfortable, had
been supplied to us by the authorities in the War Office at Cairo. The
latter were of cotton canvas, and only single, but we remedied the
defect by fitting over the tops of them other and smaller tents of the
same material, leaving about a foot’s space between the two.
With respect to tent-furniture, we had carpets, beds, tables, chairs,
and complete canteens. In personal luggage we did not restrict
ourselves; our native assistants had no personal luggage to be
restricted.
For each party of two engineers we took with us from London the
following stores, supplied by Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell:—
£ _s._ _d._
White crushed sugar, 1 cwt. 2 qrs. 8 lbs. at 40_s._ 3 2 11
Kiln-dried flour, 200 lbs. at 3_d._ 2 10 0
Best Java rice, 50 lbs. at 6_d._ 1 5 0
Fine Congou tea, 42 lbs. at 2_s._ 8_d._ 5 12 0
Huntley and Palmer’s cabin biscuits, 174 lbs. at 2 18 0
4_d._
Assorted pickles, 2 doz. pints at 10_s._ 1 0 0
Assorted sauces, 4 doz. ½-pints, various 1 17 8
Durham mustard, ½ doz. bottles at 17_s._ 0 8 6
White vinegar, ½ doz. quarts at 8_s._ 0 4 0
Cayenne pepper, ¼ doz. bottles at 3_s._ 6_d._ 0 0 11
Lime juice, 3 doz. quarts at 15_s._ 2 5 0
Jams and marmalade, 15 dozen lbs. 7 2 6
Cocoa and milk, 4 doz. ½-lbs. at 6_s._ 1 4 0
Bottled fruits (various) 8 doz. 3 15 10
Salmon, 4 doz. lbs. at 19_s._ 3 16 0
Lobster, 3 doz. lbs. at 10_s._ 1 10 0
Assorted vegetables, 10 doz. lbs. 4 17 6
Oysters, 3 doz. lbs. at 6_s._ 6_d._ 0 19 6
Sardines, 5 doz. ¼-lbs. at 9_s._ 6_d._ 2 7 6
Borwick’s baking powder, 1 doz. 0 12 0
Soda-water powders, 3 doz. boxes at 7_s._ 6_d._ 1 2 6
White pepper, ½ doz. pints at 10_s._ 0 5 0
Salt, 1 doz. bottles 0 4 6
Curry powder, ½ doz. ½-pints at 7_s._ 6_d._ 0 3 9
Arrowroot, 1½ doz. lbs. at 10_s._ 6_d._ 0 15 9
Opening knives, ½ doz. at 6_s._ 6_d._ 0 3 3
Windsor soap, 2 lbs. at 1_s._ 6_d._ 0 3 0
Swiss milk, 4 doz. tins at 8_s._ 1 12 0
Stearine candles, 50 lbs. at 11_d._ 2 5 10
Cases, tins, &c. 6 9 8
--------------
£60 14 1
--------------
41 cases, weighing 1 ton, 4 cwts. 2 qrs. 18 lbs.
From the above list it is advisable to omit the salt. Salt is a monopoly
in Egypt, and the Custom laws are very severe. It may be procured in
Cairo at a trifling extra cost, where it is refined from the deposited
sea-salt in the dried-up lakes on the borders of the Mediterranean. Lake
Mareotis is the chief source of supply.
We also took with us claret at the rate of two bottles per day each, and
brandy at the rate of one third of a bottle a day each, making for the
two persons for six months—
£ _s._ _d._
Claret, 60 doz. at 19_s._ 57 0 0
Martell’s Three Star Brandy, 10 doz. at 40_s._ 20 0 0
--------------
£77 0 0
--------------
These were, of course, purchased in bond.
To some persons these quantities may seem rather large, and to
teetotallers perfectly appalling; but it must be considered that in the
desert thirst is incessant, and the water seldom drinkable without
sophistication of some kind. We had, moreover, to ride nearly every day
from twenty to thirty miles and to work hard, to allow for breakages and
other losses, and to count upon the possibility of the work lasting
longer than the estimated time.
Previous to leaving Cairo for up country we had had about three or four
months’ work in the Delta on the surveys and levels of a proposed canal
for the general improvement and extension of the irrigation. Our supply
of stores on which we had been living was therefore diminished to about
that extent. Estimating that what was left would last three months, and
that the expedition would take nine months, it was necessary to get a
further six months’ supply. These we obtained in Cairo at the
establishment of Messrs. Ablitt and Sons, in the Mooskee. The list is
materially different from the last, and contains many things which it is
not necessary to bring from England because easily procurable in Cairo,
but which, of course, are not to be got in the desert. It is as
follows:—
£ _s._ _d._
232 rottles[6] sugar, at 4½_d._ 4 7 0
20 packets chocolate at 10_d._ 0 16 8
4 doz. lbs. cocoa and milk at 1_s._ 8_d._ 4 0 0
20 lbs. Parmesan cheese at 1_s._ 4_d._ 1 6 8
4 hams at 1_s._ 6_d._ per lb. 3 15 9
240 tins of soup at 1_s._ 4_d._ 16 0 0
24 tins of Liebeg’s Extract at 2_s._ 2 8 0
24 packets salt at 10_d._ 1 0 0
24 bottles mint at 1_s._ 6_d._ 1 16 0
36 „ salad oil at 2_s._ 6_d._ 4 10 0
24 „ vinegar at 1_s._ 1 4 0
48 „ raspberry vinegar at 1_s._ 3_d._ 3 0 0
24 „ capers at 9_d._ 0 18 0
232 rottles rice at 3½_d._ 5 7 8
400 „ flour at 3½_d._ 5 16 8
80 lbs. macaroni at 4½_d._ 1 10 0
24 „ corn flour at 1_s._ 6_d._ 1 16 0
16 „ barley at 9_d._ 0 12 0
20 „ tapioca at 9_d._ 0 15 0
20 packets rice-powder at 1_s._ 1 0 0
24 lbs. sago at 1_s._ 1 4 0
96 tins preserved milk at 1_s._ 4 16 0
112 lbs. soap at 5_d._ 2 6 8
100 „ candles at 1_s._ 5 0 0
12 tins wax matches at 2_s._ 1 4 0
8 doz. Bryant & May’s matches at 1_s._ 0 8 0
12 Bath bricks at 6_d._ 0 6 0
24 packets baking powder at 1_s._ 1 4 0
8 tin openers at 1_s._ 3_d._ 0 10 0
36 tins biscuits at 2_s._ 9_d._ 4 19 0
12 packets julienne at 2_s._ 1 4 0
2 tins knife-powder at 3_s._ 0 6 0
8 bottles spices at 1_s._ 6_d._ 0 12 0
12 bottles curry-powder at 1_s._ 3_d._ 0 15 0
6 doz. tins meat at 1_s._ 4_d._ 4 16 0
12 bottles chutnee at 1_s._ 9_d._ 1 1 0
80 tins asparagus at 2_s._ 3_d._ 9 0 0
84 „ turnips at 1_s._ 4_d._ 5 12 0
96 „ carrots at 1_s._ 4_d._ 6 8 0
8 bottles sauces at 1_s._ 6_d._ 0 12 0
20 lbs. raisins at 6_d._ 0 10 0
14 „ currants at 6_d._ 0 7 0
4 doz. Old Tom gin at 20_s._[7] 4 0 0
4 „ whisky at 26_s._ 5 4 0
16 „ Medoc at 20_s._ 16 0 0
Cases and tins 4 4 0
---------------
£142 8 1
---------------
This list of stores was, as before, for a party of two engineers. In
some cases a few additional things were subsequently added, of which,
however, no record was kept.
From these details, and from the prices paid for the hire of the camels,
mentioned in the last chapter, it is easy to arrive at an approximate
estimate of the cost of a year’s _comfortable_ travelling for, say, two
persons undertaking an expedition into the deserts of Nubia.
The hire of a camel, per month, may be taken at two pounds, and this is
the price we paid on our return journey from El Fasher.[8] Fifty camels
for the party is a safe estimate if others are easily procurable on the
journey, but if not, in order to allow for deaths, &c., it is not
advisable to travel with less than sixty.
_Estimate for Twelve Months’ Travelling in the Desert for Two Persons,
with Servants, &c._
£ _s._ _d._
60 camels, per month £2 1,440 0 0
Stores (London List) 137 14 1
„ (Cairo „ ) 142 8 1
2 cooks, each at £5 per month 120 0 0
2 men to help pitch tents, &c. at £1 10_s._ per 36 0 0
month
Tents, beds, furniture, canteens, &c. 100 0 0
Expenses for sheep, milk, fruits, charcoal, &c. 100 0 0
-----------------
£2,076 2 2
-----------------
The above includes everything but water-skins, which may be had at a
very trifling expense. From the estimate it will be seen that the cost
is about three pounds per head per day, and that to travel in comfort,
as we did, is as dear, or dearer, in Nubia than in any part of Europe.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER VI.
* * * * *
Two bubbles floating o’er the sea of Life,
Wind-driven, meet, and are at once but one.
Then came the hour of parting and the tears,
The thousand vows of faith and no distrust,
The warm embrace of ecstasy and pain,
And the long kiss of sorrow and of love;
And then the last firm grasp of hands, and then
Eternal separation, and the gaze
Upon the slow-retreating form, then years—
In moments—of wild anguish and despair,
And nights of prayers, and days without a smile.
* * * * *
FROM OLD DONGOLA TO SOTAIRE.
Started. — Commotion in camp. — Welcome news. — Festivities. — The
gazelle. — Mohommed Effendi’s diary. — A deserted donkey. — Mahtool. —
Wady Milkh. — Sotaire. — A polite shiekh. — Tribes. — A legend. — Feuds.
— A fantasia. — Rebecca. — A sad story.
BEFORE starting on our journey I desired Mohommed Effendi, Lieutenant of
Engineers, to make ample notes of the nature of the country through
which we were about to travel. We left our camp at Old Dongola at 11
o’clock and travelled for six hours. Our usual hour for stopping was 4
o’clock, but having been unavoidably compelled to start late, we were
anxious to make up for the delay.
After two hours’ journey, when we were about a mile ahead of the camels,
we were somewhat startled to observe, from the summit of a low hill we
had ascended in order to get a view of the country round, a general
commotion in the caravan behind. Its march was arrested, and the sound
reached us of rifle-firing, for which we were utterly unable to account.
A few of the swiftest riders were seen coming at full speed across the
desert in our direction, evidently with something of importance to
communicate. The Arabs were flourishing their spears, and some of them
their swords, and one or two of the soldiers who were with them were
firing their rifles and revolvers in every direction. With many shouts
and other demonstrations of joy, we were informed on their arrival that
the favourite wife of Mohommed, the chief Mahound, had three days before
given birth to an heir, an event to which the family had looked forward
for years. A special messenger had been sent on from New Dongola, and
had fortunately overtaken the caravan, where the joy was universal. We
expressed our unbounded delight, and waited for the camels to come up,
when we congratuled the Mahound on his good fortune, and promised him a
pot of jam for the festivities which, he smilingly and exultingly told
us, would take place that very night, when our travelling was ended. A
fantasia was kept up all that evening with music, dancing, shouting,
screaming, and firing of rifles and pistols. The happy, blushing father
bore the honours done him with dignity, and presided over the
entertainment to the unquestioned satisfaction of all concerned.
After the enthusiasm had quieted down, Mohommed Effendi came into my
tent with his day’s report. It was as follows:—
“General character of ground sand and stones, similar to Bahiuda desert,
no vegetation.
“5 P.M., moving sand-hills.
“Om Medhayr (no water).”
His report was correct except in saying “like Bahiuda desert.” In that
desert large quantities of fossil wood are found, occasionally even
entire trees, in addition to volcanic fragments and much lava, although
no craters of extinct volcanoes exist in the country.
All through this day’s journey we saw troops of gazelles, from two to
four in number, but never near enough to give us a shot. In a large
tract of desert country like that through which we were travelling,
where even the small quantity of grass which grows in the rainy season
is, for the greater part of the year, dried up and incapable of
affording the necessary moisture for food, it is somewhat difficult to
account for the presence, in large numbers, of so considerable an animal
as the gazelle. It is never seen in the cultivated parts, which it would
necessarily have to traverse in order to get down to the Nile to drink,
and all the wells in the neighbourhood are many feet below the surface
of the ground. The great speed of the gazelle enables it to travel over
vast distances in a comparatively short space of time, and those we see
to-day scampering over the sand and stones, may within a week be many
miles away to the south, in a region where the vegetation is, all
through the year, green and sufficiently moist to give them proper
sustenance. They are caught by the Arabs throughout these parts by a
foot-trap, to which a log of wood is attached, not heavy enough to fix
them to the spot, but only forming an impediment to their rapid flight,
when they may be easily run down by a dog or an active man. Sometimes
they are found starved to death with the trap and log attached to the
foot. That they travel far is evidenced by the circumstance of their
being occasionally taken with marks on them of their having escaped from
traps used in the distant country of the Shillooks, where, in addition
to the method of catching them described above, they are also trapped by
the neck, a trap never used by the Arabs, as the animal sometimes dies
by strangulation, rendering it unfit for the food of a good and pious
Mohommedan. Their flesh is excellent eating, resembling venison, and, if
prepared for the table in the same manner, is in no way inferior.
On the second day we travelled for nine hours and fifteen minutes. On
arrival in camp Mohommed Effendi furnished me with the following notes
of the journey:—
“Small stones, little sparse grass, and rolling sand till 11 o’clock.
“Rolling sand and stones till 12.
“Level, sandy, with stones and rock till 1.30.
“Rock to right and left till 2.
“Flat, sandy, till 3.40.
“Rocky till 5.10—end of journey. Few trees, no water, uninhabited. Met a
donkey.”
Than these few short notes of the Lieutenant, it is impossible to give a
better description of this desert.
The deserted donkey we found on the road offered us matter for as much
speculation as the watch that Dr. Paley invites his readers to suppose
they might find on a heath. We concluded it had not been there for ever,
but how it got there at all was to us a puzzle. It was standing on the
top of a slight rise, fixed and motionless, with its head hanging down
to the ground, as though grazing, and was visible to us for nearly two
hours before we reached it; but presenting only an end view, we could
make nothing of its appearance at all. We supplied it with water and
half a dozen Abernethy biscuits. It became a grateful friend and a
useful servant, but the mystery of its existence we were never able to
unravel.
After travelling for two hours on the following day we arrived at
Mahtool on the border of the Wady Milkh, or Royal valley, a large
extinct river, from ten to thirty miles wide, along the bed of which we
proposed to travel to Darfoor. Its deepest part, for a width of two or
three miles, contains a few thorn-trees and shrubs. Its sides are formed
by a more or less interrupted series of sandstone rocks, marked and
water-worn into picturesque and castellated forms. The outlet of this
dried-up valley is at Dabbe, seventeen or eighteen miles higher up the
Nile than Old Dongola. The last five miles of its ancient course have
been entirely choked and obliterated by the rolling sand, so that at
Dabbe no traces of this once gigantic tributary of the Nile are now
discernible. The quantity of rain which falls on its area is never
sufficiently large to give it a current in any part of its course; the
water lies about in pools only in the rainy season, but wells sunk to a
depth of thirty or forty feet will, I was told, always surely find it.
The wells at Mahtool are only two in number, but, unlike many others in
the desert, never run dry and are always abundantly supplied with water,
which is, however, brackish. They are situated in a small plain, about
two hundred feet long by eighty feet wide, surrounded on all sides by
sand-hills. There are no habitations near, the site being too near the
latitude of the rainless district. The vegetation in the centre of the
valley is very sparse, and the surrounding desert is, as I have
described it, almost barren. We stayed here two days, in order to give
the camels, which had fasted since our departure, an opportunity of
feeding in the valley and of having a drink. On the morning of the 7th,
having replenished our water-skins, we started again, following the Wady
Milkh. The trees in the centre, consisting only of the thorniest
varieties of the mimosa, became almost hourly more numerous and the
scattered tufts of yellow grass more plentiful. Gazelles were running
about in numbers, affording us good sport, and the sheep we had brought
with us from Old Dongola were now sadly at a discount. On the second day
we arrived at Sotaire, two wells in a little valley buried among the
mountains about a mile distant to the east. The vegetation in the Wady
Sotaire, though much greener and denser than that below, affords not a
tree nor a blade of any kind of grass which the sheep, or even the
camels, will eat, and our animals, after watering, had to be taken down
into the Wady Milkh to feed. We pitched our tents in the neighbourhood
of the wells, and decided to empty away all the brackish water we had
brought from Mahtool, and refil the tanks and skins with the more
palatable element of Sotaire.
Several wandering Arabs were stationed in the district, some of whom
were drawing water for the large flocks of sheep, goats and cattle they
had brought with them. The shiekh came into our camp shortly after our
arrival and, after salaaming, said that he and his family and every one
of his people wished to be our servants and our servants’ servants while
we remained, and would draw water for us all. Yacoob brought coffee and
cigarettes, which we drank and smoked with the venerable old shiekh,
father of many families. He intended remaining for the dry season at
Sotaire and should water run short, which it was sure to do, his sons
and his oxen, his wives and his daughters (camels he had none) would
leave daily for Mahtool, and bring up the necessary supplies.
Mohommed Effendi procured the names of the sub-tribes, some of each of
whom were staying round the wells:
Welled Ochbeh.
Otoobeh.
El Khawachleh.
Barharrha.
Mahadeed.
Saragahbeh.
Horhab.
All of these belong to the great tribe of the Khababbeesh, the western
limits of whose happy hunting-grounds is only reached on the borders of
Darfoor.
It was a great gathering of the clans. For long years there had been an
irreconcilable feud between the families of the Welled Ochbeh and the
Otoobeh. Many years ago (the Lieutenant, who had been out among the
people to learn the story, said a thousand, but I subsequently
discovered it was only ten), a young girl of the Welled Ochbeh, while
driving home an ox late at evening, had been suddenly set upon by a very
bad man of the Otoobeh, who had beaten her and taken away her ox. She
had, of course, cried very much, but was, nevertheless, determined to
have revenge. All through the night she had tracked the spoiler, and
seeing him, next morning, leaning over a well to draw water, she had
crept stealthily behind him and, making a sudden rush, had fairly pushed
him over into the well. Since then murders had constantly been taking
place. The families with their relatives, from all parts of the desert,
were now met for the purpose of reconciliation, to kill the fatted calf
and hold a grand _fantasìa_. I wandered away from our tents after dinner
and dark to the site of the Arab encampment, about half a mile distant
among the stony mountains. The tents consisted only of four upright
sticks in the sand, with a piece of rush matting spread over as a
protection from the sun by day and the moon by night; they were about
thirty in number, most of them placed in a semicircle—those of the
meaner members of the society being on the outside. The women were
nearly all still at work grinding corn; few of the men had arrived, and
these were hunting up their musical instruments for the _fantasìa_, in
which everyone, high and low, was to take part.
Among the crowd of Arabs, men and women, boys and girls, whom we found
on our arrival round the wells, was a young girl about fourteen or
fifteen years of age, and of extreme beauty. I named her in my mind
“Rebecca,” and, like Abraham’s servant to Rebecca of old, introduced
myself by begging her to draw me some water from the well; this she did,
and gave me to drink from the gourd which she wore suspended from her
neck. I found her again in the Arab camp surrounded by her friends
grinding corn; the offer of my cigarette-case, for most Arab girls love
to smoke, was sufficient excuse for sitting down next to them.
The _fantasìa_ commenced soon after. The old men with the shiekh in
their centre seated themselves in a semi-circle smoking their
“chibooks.” The musicians and singers were three boys with rude cane
pipes giving forth two notes, or three at most; they placed themselves
in a row in front of the shiekh, and alternately advanced and receded a
few paces, playing on the pipes or singing. Melody or tune, to my
untutored ear, there was none; the old men, however, as well as the rest
of the audience, listened apparently entranced. Silence prevailed
through the whole camp; only the shiekh, and occasionally one or two of
the elders, ventured at intervals to whisper, “Teiyib, teiyib” (Good,
good). The boys at length were tired, and, without saying a word, simply
went away into the outer circle, and sat down and joined the spectators.
Other three boys came forward after the lapse of two or three minutes,
and repeated the performance with the same instruments, without varying
the monotony in the least.
Throughout the long tedium of this terrible _fantasìa_ my lovely Arab
friend was seated near me on the sand. Each of us was equally absorbed,
she in intently watching the movements of the three droning musicians, I
in contemplating the beauty of her dreaming moonlit face. I disturbed
her from time to time to give her a cigarette, which I always previously
lighted, as is the custom from a servant to a superior, or when the
giver is desirous of doing honour to the person who accepts.
The _fantasìa_ continued until 10 or 11 o’clock, when a middle-aged
woman, probably her mother, reminded the girl that the goats and sheep
were still scattered abroad. She rose, and, wrapping her ten feet of Old
Dongola cloth more closely round her form, proceeded to execute her
mother’s commission. I took my departure shortly after, as all my
interest in the _fantasìa_, which was interrupted only for a time, was
now at an end. Half a mile distant I overtook her, directed to her
presence by the sound of her voice, calling to collect the flocks, which
was certainly more musical than the strains to which I had listened in
the camp above. I expressed my appreciation of the _fantasìa_, and
congratulated her upon the termination of the long feud which had
existed between the Welled Ochbeh and the Otoobeh. Her sudden
exclamation was, “La, la, la, la!” (No, no, no, no), and she
energetically waved her forefinger in front of her face in order to
emphasize her negative. _Fantasìas_ as great, or greater, even with six
boys singing, and two men making additional music on tomtoms, had been
held three or four times every year, as long as she could remember, with
the object of reconciling the families; but this had always failed, the
quarrel still remained, and would remain for ever. When the great shiekh
was away, either a murder or some other outrage would be committed; then
the shiekh would come back and cause another fantasia to be held, which
would end, as all the others had ended, in effecting friendship only for
a very short time.
The sheep and goats collected round her in obedience to her calls, and
we wended our way slowly back to the neighbourhood of the camp. The
music had recommenced, and sounded somewhat better from the distance.
We parted with many expressions of friendship and good-will, and I
walked thoughtfully home to dream of the nut-brown Kabbabbeesh maid,
whose like, for beauty and purity of face and soul, it has not been my
lot to meet again in this or any other land.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER VII.
* * * * *
I hear the moan
Of winds that wake the desert from its dream.
* * * * *
FROM SOTAIRE TO BAGGHAREEYEH.
A Cheap ox. — Gebel Ain. — A sick camel. — Ordeal by fire. — Windy
nights. — Delinquents. — The disciplinarian. — Judgment and sentence. —
Hares. — Foxes. — Sand-storm.
ON the following morning at sunrise, when the cattle came down to drink,
we selected a fine ox, made a bargain with the old shiekh, and paid him
three Maria Theresa dollars, or twelve shillings, for it. We were
advised to let it drink before slaughtering, and the steak we had that
morning for breakfast was equal to any I have eaten in the famous grill-
rooms in London, and was certainly much cheaper.
As our journey was now to follow along the proposed line of the Darfoor
railway, we decided to make, while travelling, a sketch-survey by
triangulation with prismatic compass. We divided ourselves into two
sections, one to follow the sinuosities of the low part of the valley,
which skirted the eastern line of rocks, and I to travel nearer to the
western side; we should thus obtain a general survey of the whole
valley, accurate enough to enable us to lay down an appropriate centre
line for the guidance of the Khartoom party, who, on their return to
Sotaire, would carry their work along the Wady Milkh in order to meet us
as we worked back from El Fasher. We devoted this day and the next to
making a plan of the country round Sotaire to a distance of ten miles in
every direction, and on the morning of 11th February, after paying a
farewell visit to the shiekh and other friends, we parted, each section
of our party to pursue its intended journey, and to meet again four days
after at the well of Gebel Ain.
As the Wady Milkh has very seldom been used by caravans as a highway
into Darfoor, there is no discernible track. I instructed the Mahound in
charge to keep about midway between the vegetation on the left and the
wall of Sandstone rock on the right. My companion and myself,
accompanied by Mohommed Gadderâb, the guide, and by Mohommed Rhanum, the
soldier in command of the lunch camel, wandered about in every direction
making the sketch-survey, sometimes to the base of the water-worn hills,
at others far away to the left, on the borders of the thorny mimosa-
trees in the bottom of the valley. At evening we generally reached the
camp at 7, or half-past, to find it pitched precisely as on the previous
day, with the beds and furniture arranged in the same manner in the
tent, and the cloth laid, and the dinner ready to be served in its
special tent as soon as we had completed our toilets. In the event of
our being late, the soldiers would spread themselves about and discharge
a few rifle-shots to indicate by the sound the whereabouts of the camp.
The desert through which we travelled afforded few features of interest;
occasional ridges of granite, trap, or quartz broke the even sameness of
its face. Little dried-up watercourses stretched, few and far between,
down to the hollow; some of them contain a few trees, and we generally
seized the opportunity of resting an hour for lunch beneath their
grateful shade. Grass was only found here and there in patches, but in
quantities large enough to afford pasture for the camels and sheep. Of
gazelles, throughout the four days’ journey, we saw none; they were,
however, numerous enough in the valley below, and our friends who took
that route, more fortunate than ourselves, were plentifully supplied, as
we correctly augured from hearing, in the far distance, the report of
the doctor’s generally unerring rifle. Each day the wind blew
continually from the north, and although during the hottest part of the
day the thermometer reached 90° in the best shade we could obtain, the
atmosphere was so exquisitely pure and dry that we never suffered in the
least degree from heat or oppression; our health was perfect in every
respect; the mere breathing of the bright exhilarating air was a
pleasure which a dweller in a moist climate like that of England can
hardly conceive. At night, which, like the day, was absolutely
cloudless, the north wind would sometimes cease to blow, and we would
then remove our beds outside on to the sand, and could often lie down to
read, before going to sleep, in the dead calm, with an unsheltered
candle burning in the open air. Generally, however, the wind continued
to blow all night, sometimes so severely as to necessitate our having to
call up the soldiers to drive the tent-pegs more firmly into the ground.
The thermometer at night mostly fell to 50° Fahr. and rose on those
nights when the wind ceased to 60° or 65° Fahr.
The ground was generally so smooth and rose so gradually as to offer no
obstacles for the construction of a railway; the rails might have been
laid on their sleepers on the surface, and neither cutting nor
embankment was in any case necessary over this distance.
Insects of any kind there were none, with the exception of flies which
had followed us from Old Dongola, and which never left us. All our
efforts to abolish them were in vain, and they remained with us,
increasing as we journeyed until we returned to the Nile. Each village
we came to further on added to their numbers, and they eventually became
as numerous as in the worst season of the year in Lower Egypt.
On the afternoon of 14th the caravan, shortly afterwards followed by
that of the other section, reached the well, or rather spring, of Ain-
Hamed. The Gebel Ain is a long, almost perpendicular wall of rock
forming the western boundary of the Wady Milkh. On its top is an
extensive plain, reaching as far as we could see, and only here and
there broken by extinct watercourses. The boundary of the valley on the
eastern side is less regular, but the general level of the high land is
about the same as the top of the Gebel Ain, namely, four hundred and
fifty or five hundred feet above the valley below. The spring, which is
of excellent water, is situated, as we enter, on the left side of a vast
chasm in the rock.
On our arrival within about half a mile of the camp, which had been
pitched right in the centre of the rocky chasm, we found one of our
baggage camels standing stiff and motionless, still loaded and
apparently deserted. Some few severe blows from our guide were not of
any use to induce it to move. After a time two of the drivers arrived
and commenced to light a charcoal fire; heating to white heat an iron,
used for the purpose, they pressed it quickly and remorselessly to the
hind-quarters of the camel, which, however, never stirred nor uttered a
sound; the process was performed a second time ineffectually, but on the
third application the poor beast sent forth so unutterable a wail of
agony as I shall ever remember. After a great shake of his body and
limbs he trotted off, quite refreshed, to join his companions at the
spring. Camels are subject to fits of seeming lifelessness of this
description, and have consequently to be sometimes abandoned, when they
of course die of thirst. Nothing but very severe measures are of use,
and, notwithstanding the pain this generally effectual remedy produces,
they are fit for work next day and seem none the worse for the
treatment.
The spring is at the bottom of an artificial hole, about ten feet cube,
excavated in the base of the rock; the water is excellent in quality and
abundant for the greater part of the year, but in the weeks preceding
the commencement of the rainy season runs nearly dry. During our stay
here we were fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a new animal
for the table; its shape and horns resemble those of an ibex, and its
flesh is somewhat like beef. I cannot find it mentioned in any of the
books, and was unfortunately not able to learn its Arab name. The
specimen we had for dinner was seen early one morning leaping among the
fragment of rocks at the back of the ravine. He had evidently descended
from above to drink, but, finding the spring occupied, had, while on the
way back to his plains, fallen a victim to the doctor’s rifle. I cannot
speak very favourably of the flesh of this animal, but it, nevertheless,
formed a desirable change from that of the gazelle, of which we all, in
course of time, grew somewhat tired.
Our camp being pitched in the narrow ravine, in no part more than one
hundred yards across from top to top, we were much inconvenienced by the
wind which, both by day and night, blew down from the heights above, in
one awful and continuous storm. On the third night of our arrival my
tent was carried away and split from top to bottom with a report as
though the rocks on either side of the chasm had fallen down. Several of
the other tents shared the same fate, and the first hours of the
following morning were occupied in general repairs throughout the camp.
We remained at the spring for three days, long enough to allow all the
camels to drink, which was a tedious process, there being only one
source of supply. After plotting our sketch-surveys and trial
barometrical section from Sotaire, we continued our journey on the
morning of the 18th, travelling as before in two sections. We were
rather late in getting away as, as I mentioned above, several of the
soldiers and servants were engaged for some time in sewing up the
tatters which the storm of the night had made in many of our tents. My
route was to be a direct line, on a bearing of about S.W., to the wells
of Bagghareeyeh; the other section descended again into the hollow
which, making a great sweep, we crossed on the second day of our
journey, and got our camels a little mixed with those of the other
caravan, which reached our crossing-place at the same time as ourselves.
We had now passed the Gebel Ain, which came to an abrupt end shortly
after the spring. The valley was wider, but sloping more unevenly down
from the high ground on each side. Numerous tributary valleys flowed—
or, rather, at one time had flowed—into the central main Wady Milkh,
some of them as much as twenty or thirty miles long and a mile broad.
The surface of the ground in the immediate vicinity of the low part of
the valley was, however, sufficiently smooth to enable us to choose a
centre-line for the railway which would involve no works of importance.
On arrival in camp rather late in the evening of this day we found
Mohommed Effendi, lieutenant in command of the troops, pacing
impatiently to and fro in front of our tent, with a gigantic “korbatch,”
or whip of hippopotamus hide, in his hand, a whip capable of inflicting
a punishment compared with which that inflicted by the prison “cat” can
only be agreeable titillation. I was rather surprised, as, with the
exception of on one occasion, when two of our servants at New Dongola
were guilty of theft and drunken brawling in the camp, we had never once
had to complain of the conduct of any of the men. I learned that two of
the camel-drivers had been fighting, and had wounded each other
severely. Mohommed Effendi, evidently a strict disciplinarian, was
waiting for my sanction to leather them well with his pet “korbatch.”
The two men were produced; they had quarrelled and fought with stones,
and their faces were disfigured with blood and bruises, but there
appeared to be nothing dangerous in the wounds which either of them had
received. The quarrel had arisen in the partition of some dry wood they
had collected in the valley in order to have a fire to warm themselves
at night. Thinking the punishment each had already received was
sufficient for the offence, I told him that it was not the custom in
Egypt, or elsewhere, to flog idiots or madmen, which it was evident they
must be to fight about so ridiculous a matter, and that when, in future,
there was anything to divide, one of them should portion it into two
heaps, and the other choose which of the heaps he pleased, and so avoid
all quarrelling. They must, however, take something to cool their heated
brains—an ounce of salts each, with a little senna, the whole stirred up
with two or three lumps of sugar. Each went away under the impression
that he had had a fit of temporary insanity, and that the nauseous
medicine would effectually prevent a recurrence. After this drastic
treatment there was no more fighting in camp throughout our expedition.
Mohommed Effendi, however, was evidently disappointed, and probably
cursed me in his soul for preventing him from executing what he
considered justice in such a breach of discipline.
On the first two days of our journey from Gebel Ain, previous to
crossing to the southern and eastern side of the Wady Milkh, we met with
no gazelles, but started a few hares and saw one fox. The hares were
smaller than those in England, but not inferior in flavour; the fox was
of rather paler hue. After crossing the Wady the vegetation became
sensibly denser; trees and shrubs were not now confined to the centre of
the valley, but were scattered pretty frequently over the surrounding
country; different varieties of grass, some of them exquisitely scented,
nearly covered the beds of the many hollows. The common boxwood tree, of
very stunted growth, was first seen by us on the third day. Gazelles
were now very numerous, in herds of from twenty to thirty.
On this day, from the summit of an isolated sandstone hill, two or three
hundred feet above the level of the ground, I saw one of the sublime and
appalling sights of the desert. Away to the west, distant two miles,
across the brown-green trees in the valley at my feet, seven lofty
pillars of sand were travelling swiftly along the undulating plain. The
centre one of these was vertical, and those surrounding it, at a
distance of two or three hundred yards, leaned slightly towards it; a
smaller eighth column, about half a mile behind the others, was inclined
towards them at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and was fast
overtaking them. The sand at the base of the columns was lashed by the
furious whirlwind into a surging sea; trees of the hardest wood were
torn up with their roots and whirled hundreds of yards away and high up
into the air; even the grass that grew in the path of that terrible
storm was shorn clean away from its roots. The summits of the seven
columns at length joined and then burst forth, from their united tops, a
yellow gigantic cloud of sand of such magnitude and density as to
obscure from me, in my remoteness, the face of the bright afternoon sun.
The whirlwind or sand-spout, called by the natives “zobahah,” shortly
after subsided, but the cloud of sand and grass, which had been raised
high in the heavens, continued to darken the setting sun for more than
another hour. The smaller column behind travelled, increasing, until it
reached the site of the break-up of the others, and then added its mite
to the universal destruction and confusion.
With my sextant, as I stood in security, I measured the height of the
centre column of sand; it was eight hundred and fifty feet. The others
round it rose, during the time I observed them (about a quarter of an
hour), from six hundred feet to a height equal to or greater than that
of the centre column. When the junction of them all took place, the
sudden eruption of sand and leaves and grass reached to a total height
of over three thousand foot, but this was only an approximate
calculation.
Storm sand-spouts are rarely so severe in any part of the desert as that
which I have described; isolated “zobahahs,” more or less clearly
defined, reaching to the height of a thousand feet, are, however, very
common, and woe betide the tent that happens to stand in their way. Ten
yards from the column the air may be perfectly calm, but within the
small circumscribing circle there rages such a tempest as will carry
away a tent, however firmly fixed in the ground, into the regions of the
upper air as easily as an ordinary gust of wind will blow away a piece
of paper. An Arab will always know whether one of these approaching
“zobahahs” is likely to come upon him, and will take down his tent, or
temporary house, to meet its convenience. It appears that their usual
method of travelling is in the arc of a wide circle, and the direction
of the centre of the circle is almost invariably from south to north.
Late on the evening of the fifth day we reached the wells of
Bagghereeyeh. Both caravans were already there, and the tents were
pitched. Our friends of the other section had not yet arrived, and we
ordered the dry grass to be ignited to show a light to enable them to
find their way home, where dinner was waiting, to which we were both
anxious to sit down.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER VIII.
* * * * *
The clear blue sky had lost its regent moon,
The pale red rose had lent the east its bloom,
Gilding the azure of the blended hues,
The glorious orb rose proud upon his reign.
Poised in the dome of still transparent air
A marble cloud hung streaked with the sun’s gold,
With rose-leaves showered o’er its snow-white sides;
And that day’s noon was sunless, and at night
There was a fearful storm.
* * * * *
FROM BAGGHAREEYEH TO OM-BADR.
A trapped gazelle. — A lost camel. — The warning of the storm. — The
storm. — Arab prowlers. — The plain of Om-Badr. — A crowd. — An
unfriendly shiekh. — A conversation.
AT Bagghareeyeh there are about a hundred and fifty wells, all in the
centre of the valley, varying from ten to thirty feet in depth. The
shallow wells, however, only contain water during the fall of the rains.
A short distance below a ridge of quartz crosses the valley, which
tending to retain the water, has evidently led to the selection of this
site for the wells.
While, on the day following our arrival, we were devoting ourselves to
the contemplation of the heavens in order to fix our position on the
earth, we were disturbed in our labours by a sight which, though common
among the Arabs, was certainly new, not to say disagreeable, to me. A
gazelle, caught during the night in an ordinary foot-trap laid by our
Arabs, passed near us, dragging, in its frantic endeavours to escape, a
large thorny branch to which the trap had been tied. Four men were
pursuing it, and overtook it close to where we were stationed. Their
knives, which they carry in sheaths fastened to the left arm a little
above the elbow, were quickly drawn. One cut was made across the throat,
and, while the animal was still breathing, its stomach was half cut,
half torn open, and the green and yellow partly-digested contents were
ravenously devoured in handsful. One of the Arabs, his hands and mouth
reeking with the blood of the gazelle, rushed to us, and, in his
politest and most winning way, stretched forth a handful of the
disgusting mass of chewed leaves and grass, and begged us to set to
while it was still warm. We did not eat it, we told him we had already
breakfasted. The Arab, however, knowing the flavour better, and
consequently appreciating more, soon showed us that the good things of
this world were not to be despised. The flesh of the gazelle was
speedily disposed of; large lumps were torn off by hands and teeth, and
swallowed whole. When the meal was finished, and the blood wiped from
the hands and faces of those who had partaken of it, nothing remained
but the sucked and marrowless bones scattered about on the ground. The
skin was taken away to be cured, and the entrails to be dried and
presented at some future period, as ornaments or for stringing beads, to
the sweethearts and wives of the fortunate captors of the unhappy
gazelle.
On the morning of the 26th we continued our journey, my companion and
myself starting on a bee line for Om-Badr, and the other section
following the centre of the valley. We got away early, leaving the
caravan to follow, and rested for lunch about twelve o’clock some ten
miles on the route along which the camels would have to travel. One
o’clock came and no caravan was in sight; two o’clock, and still no
caravan. I sent Mohommed Gadderâb back to ascertain what the matter was,
and with instructions that under any circumstances the caravan was to
get on as fast as possible. On its late arrival I learned that one of
the laden camels was lost, and that all the drivers had searched for
miles round in vain; and, moreover, that Mohommed the Mahound had been
much concerned and had prayed, and that his efforts had been equally in
vain. I first inquired whether the camel was laden with my property.
With many protestations the unhappy “Mahound” assured me that it was
not; the camel was laden with two large sacks of soldiers’ bread. I
eased his mind by telling him that very likely there was plenty of bread
to be had at El Fasher, where a body of troops was stationed, and that,
should none be obtainable there, we had plenty of rice and flour in our
stores, and could, if necessary, make up the loss. I suggested to him
that it was highly probable that the camel had by mistake walked off
with the other caravan, and that one of the guides could ride over to-
morrow, or, if he preferred it, at once, and find out if such were the
case. This idea of the camel’s having got mixed up with those of the
other section had never occurred to our friend the “Mahound.” Its
probability struck him immediately, and a smile lighted up his hitherto
forlorn-looking face. He told me I knew everything; he would at once
despatch a guide to bring back the missing camel and bread. I pointed
out to him, eight or ten miles away, what I fortunately knew was the
site fixed upon by the other section for the first day’s resting-place.
The camel and bread were safely brought back late at night, and a
_fantasìa_ was immediately inaugurated. I had earned the reputation of
being a wise man, but at the dear cost of being kept awake half the
night by the music and shouting of that long-lasting _fantasìa_.
Our route after leaving Bagghareeyeh was along the western side of the
Wady Milkh. The boundary of the valley was very indefinite, and the
rocks were scattered about in all directions. To our right lay a dismal
mountain region very high above the level of the valley, but without a
marked line of beginning and, from aught we could see from some of the
highest peaks we ascended, without approachable end. On the rough and
waterworn highland, stretching away to the remote west, not a particle
of vegetation was to be seen; but an hour’s journey on foot—it was too
rough even for the camels—disclosed some few low-lying parts whence a
few thorn-bushes and some grass climbed for a little height up the
perpendicular sides of the bare rocks. A few ibex-like animals were
feeding in the hollows, and some might be seen leaping about like
chamois, seemingly for exercise only, on the highest summits of the
barren peaks.
The distance from Bagghareeyeh to Om-Badr is rather more than four days’
journey. The delay of three hours, occasioned by the temporary loss of
the camel at starting, was more than made up by travelling for two hours
longer on the two succeeding days; and on the fourth day I gave
instructions to the “Mahound” to go right on to Om-Badr, and not to
stop, as on the preceding days, at sunset. At about two o’clock one of
the head-men of the camel-drivers rode up to me and asked whether the
caravan might not stop at four o’clock, as on that night there would be
a great storm of wind, which was likely to be worse at Om-Badr, as that
place was high up in the mountains. His meteorological knowledge
surprised me not a little, as the sky appeared to me to be as clear as
usual. He was, however, positive, and said it would be well to choose
the camp early, and if possible to get into a valley and tie the tent-
ropes to the trees, as he was sure the tent pegs would not hold them. On
my expressing some doubts as to his prescience, he energetically took
hold of my wrist and walked me off to the top of a low hill, when,
extending his finger towards the south, he told me to look. I looked and
looked again, and continued looking, but could see nothing, and told him
so. He seemed to pity my helpless blindness. Mohommed Gadderâb, my own
guide, came up shortly after, and pointing, as the other man had
pointed, to the south, told me to look, as a storm was to come that
night. He described the cloud as resting on the horizon, white at its
centre and fading towards its sides into the pale blue of the air. He
had seen it since the morning, when it was fainter still. I felt now in
a state of utter bewilderment. After partial recovery I decided,
however, to have a good long and thoroughly exhaustive gaze: to my eyes
there was still nothing to be seen. After my blinding stare I came to
the conclusion it was a hoax got up by the Arabs in order to enable them
to have a good night’s rest, or even perhaps another _fantasìa_. At five
o’clock, however, a cloud began to show itself in the south, and rapidly
assumed proportions portending a furious wind. The guide called my
attention to it; should he ride on and stop the caravan? I told him
“Yes.” He sped like lightning across the desert and overtook the
caravan. Its march was arrested, and the camp pitched in the deepest
_findable_ hollow; the tent-ropes were tied to the trees, or, where this
was not feasible, heavy lumps of rock were brought and placed so as to
give additional power of resistance to the tent-pegs.
The whole of the southern sky was now filled with vapoury clouds, some
of them floating slowly towards us near the low-lying ground, others
chasing each other fast, like the waves of a furious sea, along the tops
of the rocks on our distant right, and, over all, one mass of gray dense
cloud tearing through the heavens at tempest speed, and promising soon
to fill up the whole of the north with darkness as it had already filled
the south. Our camp was soon in total obscurity; the host of
impenetrable cloud was above us. Swiftly as it moved, the air beneath
was calm or nearly so. A few little vapour-clouds rolled slowly over the
site of the camp, moistening the walls of the tents, but there was no
perceptible wind. Before the horizon to the north was completely hidden
from view, a small light began to show itself towards the south. Soon
the southern sky again became visible, and within half an hour the whole
dome of the heavens was free from the hideous clouds, and full of the
beautiful light of the stars. Late on into the night a hot and
suffocating wind blew from the south, not severely enough to endanger
the stability of the tents, but preventing anything like comfortable
sleep. The terrors of the storm itself were spent on the upper air; we
had fortunately escaped them.
On the next morning about twenty Arabs, some on horseback, some on foot,
were scattered round the camp at about a mile distant, evidently night
prowlers from Om-Badr out on a camel-lifting adventure. We had been
warned about these people, and had taken precautions to keep our camels
in bounds. A short time previous to the acquisition of Darfoor by the
Egyptians, Munzinger Pacha, in charge of an expedition, had been
attacked here, and in an affray had lost his second in command, and had
been compelled to retrace his steps without being permitted to fill up
his water-skins.
This tribe of Arabs, the Hamr, were represented as the most warlike and
thievish of all the tribes in Darfoor, and were, moreover, reported to
be well-armed with double-barrelled guns. We rode up to them after
breakfast, and found them an ill-bred and surly lot of fellows, but
certainly not of very warlike appearance. Their horses were of the most
miserable description, half-starved and sore-backed. Only a few of the
riders had saddles, and none of these had girths. The men sat their
horses, which seemed only capable of a walking pace, as a tailor sits
his board when at work. Those on foot stood leaning on their spears,
with the sole of the right foot pressed close against the shin of the
left leg—a posture, I believe, purely African, common amongst the
Kaffirs of the south, and, from Sir Samuel Baker’s drawings, common
amongst the negroes in Central Africa. The Hamr are, however, the only
Arab tribe whom I have seen adopt it. The report concerning their arms
turned out to be nonsense. Only one of the Arabs, either of those
prowling round our camp, or of those we found at Om-Badr itself,
possessed a fire-arm, a single-barrelled flint musket, marked with a
crown and “G. R. Tower.” Half-way down the barrel was a circular hole,
evidently caused by a refractory bullet which, not having been able to
find its way out by the muzzle, had forcibly made an aperture for
itself. The value of this formidable weapon must, however, have been
considerably diminished, owing to the circumstance of its possessor
having no ammunition. These amiable and warlike Arabs refused to give us
any information or to enter into conversation at all. Mohommed Gadderâb
called them by the name of an animal to which all Mohommedans have an
invincible repugnance: they only grunted, and this circumstance, I have
no doubt, tended to confirm him in his opinion.
In about an hour, from one of the high summits we could see the plain,
up among the rocks, where the wells of Om-Badr were situated.
The plain, only half a mile distant from the foot of the mountain on
which we stood, presented an interesting sight. Its surface as far as we
could see was crowded with animals. Flocks of black sheep and goats, and
large herds of brown cattle mixed with white and gray of the thousands
of camels, gave the scene a piebald and variegated appearance. Through a
gorge leading from the higher plains to the westward, a long and
continuous stream of camels was slowly descending, its white continuity
broken, here and there, by strings of cattle and sheep. Several large
tents were visible on some low sand-hills at the top of the pass along
which our own caravan was approaching from the valley below, soon to add
its little mite to the numbers on the plain. Before long a row of our
tents began to appear, and we came down from our height and were soon in
the midst of the crowd.
Mohommed Effendi, the lieutenant of Engineers, had started off with his
note-book directly on his arrival, glad of the opportunity to
distinguish himself in collecting statistics, the more especially as his
services had not been required since our departure from Sotaire. The
following were the notes he made and handed to me soon after I came into
camp:—
“Men, 1,050; women, 2,100; boys and girls, 3,000; horses, 50; oxen, 150;
sheep, 2,400; goats, 1,350; camels, 50,000—every day 10,000 come down to
drink; wells, 500.
“Races of Arabs—Hamr, Maganeen, Beni-Hamran.”
I thanked him for the information, which I took every means of
verifying, and found pretty correct.
The name Beni-Hamran, “sons of the Hamran,” struck me as rather
singular. The home of the Hamran Arabs is on the other side of the Nile,
bordering on Abyssinia. Sir S. Baker alludes to them as the “Sword
Hunters,” and speaks in terms of admiration of their unrivalled
dexterity in hunting all kinds of beasts with the sword only. I
mentioned this circumstance to Mohommed Effendi, and pointed out on the
map the site of the Hamran or Sword Hunter Arabs. He suggested we should
go and have a talk with the shiekh. We found the old man squatted on the
ground smoking his “chibook,” and surrounded with camels and cattle,
some of them at times so close that there was scarcely room for us to
seat ourselves without fear of being trampled upon. As we came up and
saluted he did not rise, a very unusual thing in an Arab. The fact was,
our caravan was attended by Arabs of the Kabbabbeesh tribe, with whom
the Hamr and the allied sub-tribes had long carried on bitter war. The
old gentleman did not like the company in which we travelled. We,
however, selected comfortable places by his side, and Mohommed Effendi
started the following conversation:
“Salaam Aleycoom.”
“Aleycoom es salaam.”
“There are many peoples round the wells, very rich and powerful.”
“Yes, three tribes, all powerful and strict followers of the Prophet. He
(the speaker) was the father of one of the tribes.”
“Did the people wander much over the earth?”
“Yes, over the whole earth, to Darfoor, to Wadai, and further to the
west; to Khordofan and far to the south, where Allah was not known, to
the Kafrs (heathen) for slaves.”
“Did they ever go to the north among the Khabbabbeesh as far as the
river?”
“They had had many great wars with the Khabbabbeesh, but they were now
brothers. Yes, they went to the river, but very seldom.”
“Where were the fathers of the Beni-Hamran?”
“The fathers were with Allah.”
I told him a great traveller had seen the Hamran tribe on the far side
of the river on the borders of the Habeshi.
“Was the great traveller a Beni-Hamran?”
“No.”
“Was he a friend of mine?”
“No.”
“Then he must be wrong. The Hamran Arabs did not cross the river. How
could the camels cross? and what would be the good of crossing? There
was plenty of food for the camels here.”
“But as the Hamran were at this day on the other side of the river,
perhaps the Beni-Hamran had left their fathers many years ago to be
independent.”
“The Beni-Hamran had always been independent and free, and owners of
many slaves; and no Arab quarrels with his fathers.”
At this point the conversation came to an abrupt termination. The old
man rose from his seat, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and, without
wishing either of us “good-day,” walked slowly off, and, winding his
course among the crowd of camels, was soon lost to our sight.
The question of genealogy which I was so anxious to solve remained, as
far as I was concerned, a question still. Whether other of the shiekhs
_knew_ anything of the matter is more than I can tell; but all of whom I
made inquiries _told_ me about as much as the unceremonious old boor who
had just walked off, and that was—_nothing_.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER IX.
* * * * *
“Little Bo Peep _he_ lost _his_ sheep.”
NURSERY RHYMES.
* * * * *
OM-BADR.
Confiding animals. — A threat. — Our reply. — The Hamr Arabs. — The
Hakeem. — Hard bargains. — His patients. — His farm. — Serenading. —
Travelling merchants. — The Hamr camp. — A prescription. — A long ride.
BY one o’clock or half-past on the morning of our arrival at Om-Badr the
ten thousand camels and other animals, having finished their potations,
had all cleared away from the wells to the valleys among the rocks to
the west, and we saw no more of them until morning, at sunrise, when
they again came down to drink.
We had pitched our camp on the plain not very far from the wells, but
the camels arriving fast and numerous began to incommode us by too close
proximity to the tent-ropes, tumbling over them and endangering the
perpendicularity of the tents. The goats and sheep were even more
troublesome; many of them walked right into the tent to share with us
the shelter from the sun, while others sought the shade outside and lay
down close against the canvas. As we required our tents for our own use
and not for that of these confiding animals, we decided to move quarters
to a more desirable locality, for all our efforts to keep out the goats
and sheep, or to drive off the camels, were not of the least avail. As
soon as the crowd had moved away we selected a site on the north side of
the plain, and shifted camp a short distance up the gentle slope of a
hill where we were not likely to be molested.
In the course of the afternoon a large number of Arabs, armed with
spears and swords, came down in a body, and sent word by one of our
drivers that we must depart that night, and that they would prevent our
drinking at their wells. As this was a matter of life or death to us, it
can easily be conceived that we did not comply with their demand: it
was, however, necessary to come to an immediate understanding on a fixed
and satisfactory basis. We sent back word that we did not wish to be
interfered with or to interfere with them, but that if they attempted to
annoy us we should be compelled to take measures in our own defence, and
should prevent _them_ and _their_ animals from using the wells during
the time of our stay; nevertheless, if the shiekhs of the tribe would
come to the camp we should be glad to talk the matter over. Meantime our
sixteen soldiers and the two sergeants were drawn up in martial array,
with Mohommed, the commander-in-chief, strutting about in the front.
Their appearance was dangerous and produced its effect; the shiekhs came
into camp, we invited them into the tents, gave them good coffee and
tolerable cigars, and they informed us, with perfect gravity, that they
had only sent word that we were not to drink _all_ the water. To this
condition, with gravity less perfect than theirs, we unhesitatingly
agreed, and a lasting friendship was at once begun and continued as long
as we remained in the neighbourhood. I noticed, however, that my old
friend, the shiekh of the Beni-Hamran, did not put in an appearance; he
was, it afterwards appeared, thoroughly ashamed of himself.
The Hamr are the richest of all the nomads in this part of Africa, far
exceeding in numbers the nomad portion of the Kabbabbeesh, and almost
equalling the whole of that tribe including the settlers on the banks of
the Nile. They also roam over a great extent of territory. The
Kabbabbeesh seldom go further south than Bagghareeyeh, although, in
peaceful times, they are not considered trespassers at Om-Badr. The
Hamr, however, fix their temporary homes sometimes at Om-Badr, sometimes
in the west of Darfoor, and sometimes in the extreme south of Khordofan,
where much intermarrying and concubinage with the negro tribes still
further to the south has markedly impaired their purity as an Arab race.
Om-Badr has always been a favourite resting-place. Until the year before
our arrival it was outside Egyptian territory and free from taxation;
the altered state of affairs, consequent on the annexation of Darfoor,
had only been practically communicated to the Hamr round the wells
shortly before our arrival, and the disagreeable frame of mind in which
we found them may have been mainly due to this cause. Their ill-feeling
towards us did not, however, last long. Through some channel the
knowledge reached them that a “Hakeem” was with us in the camp, and this
fact at once secured for us the friendship of the whole tribe.
A doctor in the East, especially among Mohommedans, moves about in a
surrounding of respect amounting almost to adoration. An ignorant and
abject worship equal to that which the illiterate of the dark ages
offered to a priesthood almost as illiterate as themselves is, in the
East, now lavished ten times over upon any Bob Sawyer who elects to
wander away sufficiently far from civilisation. In Lower Egypt which,
without doing violence to truth, may be said to be not far removed from
a state approaching semi-civilisation, Bob Sawyer is to a very great
extent played out. Amongst the Fellaheen, with their thousand different
kinds of ills, he is still a great personage, and may, perhaps, reap a
tolerable harvest; but in Cairo and Alexandria, and the larger towns, he
is estimated at his just value, and only meets with the same courtesy
that is vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. It is in the far-off desert
among the wondering and superstitious Arabs that the word “Hakeem”
exercises its magic power. Often sick, often diseased, or maimed by
accident, the only resource the poor Arab has is prayer. Perhaps if the
shiekh, or any father of the tribe, is able to read, he may select from
the Koran a suitable passage and give it to the patient, copied out on a
piece of consecrated paper, to chew and swallow; other treatment there
is none.
The advent of a doctor at Om-Badr was therefore a great event, and on
the morning following our arrival patients flocked in crowds to his
tent. The “Hakeem Ingleesi” ranks amongst the Arabs before all others.
Two pairs of Aberdeen tartan trousers, hanging on the tent-ropes to air,
suggested to these benighted people no hint that the “Hakeem” was,
perhaps, not strictly entitled to be called “Ingleesi,” and the offer of
two or three dozen empty bottles marked “Glenlivat whisky,” offered in
exchange for as many fowls, or an equivalent in sheep, afforded them no
information that he hailed from that part of the British kingdom whose
inhabitants are famed alike for driving hard bargains, and for
distilling and drinking the mellow fluid which had not long ago formed
the contents of the bottles.
Trade commenced at once and very briskly; each bottle was carefully held
up to the light to see that it contained no flaw. The corks, which had
been religiously preserved, as they materially enhance the value of the
bottles, were alternately fitted in and withdrawn; and the beauties of
the labels, radiant in silver and gold, were duly pointed out by the
doctor, and expatiated upon in eloquent language, which elicited an
admiration almost bordering on the unbounded. The scrutiny at length
complete, an equal number of fowls was brought, and, after minute
examination of them each, the bargain was concluded.
The patients were nearly all women, all of the semi- or full negro type,
more or less pronounced. The Hamr keep their thoroughbred Arab wives at
home in seclusion; they have not many of them, and they prize them
accordingly; they treat them with tenderness and regard, and in every
respect like ladies. To be a Hamr wife is a lot envied by many of the
women of other tribes.
Most of the patients brought their encumbrances, infants in arms—not in
arms—strapped to the back; children, of from one to two years old, held
by the hand, walking barefooted over the stones, and grown girls of
eleven or twelve who came down with their mothers to see the “Hakeem
Ingleesi.”
The story of the pains of all these people was long and varied: many of
their ailments were real, some imaginary; some mentionable, others not;
some curable, others past hope; some known, others never hitherto heard
of.
One of the women at a time was admitted into the tent; the fee per visit
was half a sheep, half a goat, or nine fowls; no dead meat to be
considered legal tender. Two women, the one ailing, the other not,
possessed of a sheep between them, would club their halves together and
hand over the united living fee for the pleasure of seeing and of being
treated by the “Hakeem.”
The treatment was not much varied; one woman had a wen, another was
lame, a third suffered much from toothache; a dose of castor-oil, a
little pyretic saline, or a few pills, sent them away relieved, if not
in body, at least in mind.
The doctor was rapidly accumulating a large farm.
Later on in the afternoon the patients came down with their musical
instruments and serenaded their benefactor; their theme was his praise,
the song the usual monotonous drone. Mohommed Effendi made, at my
request, some notes of the words, which I give as literally as possible
below:
“The Hakeem came among us;
The Hakeem is good and wise;
The Hakeem will do us good;
Allah sent us the Hakeem.
We see the Hakeem’s face;
His face is as the moon;
He will always be remembered;
Our children see his face.
The Hakeem came from far,
From the ‘Bahr’[9] to cure our pain;
We cannot forget his face;
Allah sent us the Hakeem.
The sun shines on his path,
The moon on his tent at night;
He will always be remembered,
He has done our children good.”
The lieutenant read very much more in the same primitive and not
unpoetic strain. He devoted all the afternoon to listening to and
reporting the song, which was by no means continuous; it was, of course,
“impromptu,” and, although the same ideas occurred many times over, no
two sets of lines were precisely similar.
The professional visits were repeated next morning, and every following
morning; each afternoon was devoted to music and song, while the Hakeem
sat smiling in his tent, smoked his long “chibook,” and did his utmost
to empty a bottle, which he afterwards exchanged for a fowl. By the time
we were ready to proceed on our journey, he had earned by bottles and
fees so many sheep, goats, and fowls, that it was quite impossible for
us to carry water for them to drink; he was therefore constrained to
leave them behind in charge of one of the shiekhs. Neither the doctor,
nor any one of us, ever again saw that shiekh, or those sheep, goats,
and fowls.
Little Bo Peep had lost his sheep.
The tents, which, as I mentioned in chapter viii., were pitched on the
sand-hills at the top of the pass by which our caravan approached from
the Wady Milkh, belonged to travelling merchants from Old Dongola, on
the way to El Fasher, who had followed the same route as ourselves. The
merchants, whose camels had only been hired to carry them as far as Om-
Badr, had been here for fifty days haggling with the Hamr about the
price of others. The value of time counted with them for nothing, and
they told us they intended, if necessary, to remain fifty days longer,
on the chance of finding camels going that way. Fourteen dollars was the
price they offered per camel to El Fasher; this, however, the Arabs
refused to accept, although they were willing to sell camels at ten
dollars a piece. What arrangement was ultimately come to I do not know;
but, from their not arriving at El Fasher during the time we were there,
I have reason to believe that they continued at Om-Badr for three weeks
or a month at least.
The camp, or temporary village, where the Hamr had made their home, two
or three miles away, consisted of tents, probably a thousand in number,
extending for a length of more than a mile on each side of two nearly
parallel valleys, both debouching into the plain of Om-Badr. The tents
were erected with more view to comfort and seclusion than those of the
Kabbabbeesh at Sotaire; three rows of poles, the highest in the centre,
formed the supports, and the covering was securely fastened down on
three sides to pegs in the ground. The outline of the roof, two hanging
curves, gave the tents the form which has influenced the architecture of
many eastern nations, seen in the pagodas of the Mongols in China, and
in the kiosks of the Turks in Europe, and sometimes imitated in the
roofs of the summer-houses in our gardens at home.
For miles round the camp in all directions, the large herds, attended by
the children, browsed on the slopes of the hills, and in the hollows and
valleys. On the occasion of my visit one afternoon, only three or four
camels, and as many cattle, were in the camp, left at home invalided, in
charge of a mouldering Arabess learned in pathology. Charms were hung
from the necks of the sick animals, and a mess of crushed “duchn” (a
grain grown in Darfoor), prepared with milk, was given them for food, in
which a verse from the Korân, cut into little bits, was stirred up to
ensure the speedy and lasting efficacy of the treatment. The old lady
repeated to me the verse used on this occasion, and assured me it had
never been known to fail in curing all diseases to which camels and
cattle are subject. I give the translation I made at the time: “Thanks
to Allah, for He made the whole world, the earth, and the sky, and the
light, and the darkness. Those who know not Allah consider other gods
the same. He has made you of clay, and has written how long you shall
live. Only He knows how long; you know not, and do not believe.” I was
afterwards informed that the above lines form the commencement of
chapter vi. of the Korân, and that that chapter is specially devoted to
the subject of cattle.
In my wanderings through the camp I was well received by all, the
general desire evidently being to atone for their previous bad
behaviour. In one case I was pressed to share in a repast, the
inducement offered being a large piece of roast beef; but knowing that,
except on occasions of great festivities—such as a marriage or a
funeral—an ox is never killed by these Arabs, unless to save it from a
speedily approaching natural end, I declined the proffered kindness, and
walked home to the tents to partake of my own humble meal.
On March 6th we finished our sketch-map from Sotaire, the barometrical
readings were reduced, and the proposed centre-line was drawn on for the
guidance of the Khartoom party, who would be expected to carry their
work as far as Om-Badr, where we should join them with our own work on
our way back. One of our Arabs, whose “hygeem” we knew to be a good one,
was despatched with the map, and with letters for England, back to
Sotaire, thence to travel in a straight lines towards Khartoom, to find,
if possible, the party which was then working on that branch line. He
went away alone with a skin of water on one side of his camel, and a
skin of “doura” on the other. He reached Sotaire, a distance of nearly
three hundred miles, in five days, and in two days more discovered those
of whom he had been sent in quest, about a hundred miles further on,
midway between Sotaire and Khartoom. Resting a day for a reply to our
message, he rode in two days to Khartoom, a further distance of eighty
miles, posted our letters to England, and started off on his return
journey. He joined us in El Fasher, twenty-seven days after his
departure from Om-Badr, having travelled in that time a distance of over
eleven hundred miles on the same animal. He had not once replenished his
skin of “doura,” which held about three gallons, and which still
contained two or three handfuls on his arrival at El Fasher on the
afternoon of 2nd April.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER X.
* * * * *
“I’ll tell you a story
Of Jack and Manory.”
* * * * *
FROM OM-BADR TO KARNAC.
A rough journey. — A shot at an ostrich. — Mohommed Gadderâb. — Mohommed
Rhanem. — A strange story. — A narrow escape. — Karnac. — The school. —
The tame ostrich. — Cultivation.
ON the morning of March 7th we continued our journey in two sections,
each on its way to meet again at Orgoodt, where the routes join.
The Wady Milkh may correctly be described as beginning in the plain
opposite Om-Badr. Three valleys here unite to form it: the “Wady Amees”
from the south, the “Wady Zancore” from the south-west, and the “Wady
Arredeeb” from the west. Two ranges of rocks, the Zancore on the east,
and the Zayenat on the west, divide the central of these valleys from
the other two, which are of less importance than the Wady Zancore, and
rise only ten or fifteen miles before the junction of them all three
takes place.
The route I followed with my companion skirted the northern slope of the
Zayenat, and the other section travelled by Fogah, Mushanger, and
Massarah.
On our left was the range of rocks, varying from five to ten miles in
width and from one hundred to four hundred feet in general height, and
broken up into a thousand beautiful and fantastic shapes. Seven lofty
summits, Zaint Om-Badr, Zaint Anooba, Zaint er Rhannam, Zaint Atshan,
Zaint es Semhah, Zaint Om-Sharb, and Zaint Adderb or Megzaam, each about
a thousand feet high, nearly equi-distant, and closely resembling each
other in appearance, form a very imposing feature in the landscape, and
give the name to the Zayenat range, which terminates in the last-named
mountain, and joins the Seroog range, a continuation of the Zancore, at
a distance of about forty-five miles from Om-Badr. At the top of Zaint
Atshan is a natural reservoir, whence the name of the mountain, “Atshan”
or “thirsty.” It fills during the rains, and the water lasts for some
time after, and is frequently resorted to by the cattle and camels
feeding at that season in the Wady Zancore, whence it is easily
approachable.
On my right, after we had crossed the Wady Arredeeb, stretched, as far
as we could see, a rough expanse of country, intersected by numerous low
ridges of granite and quartz, and broken up by as many “khors,” or dry
watercourses, with directions towards every point of the compass, and
leading nowhere but into the sand. All this ground was pretty thickly
covered with mimosas of various kinds, the “kitter” with its claw-like
thorns being the most plentiful. On the sides of some of the larger
“khors,” where the brown bushes were thickest, a solitary “ziraffa” tree
sometimes reared its pale green head, or a small cluster of leafless
“gangalooses,” though of stunted growth, towered higher still, and
somewhat broke the monotonous and ugly evenness.
Our journey over this part of the route was slow. To avoid the almost
impassable bush below, the caravan travelled, when possible, on the
stony slopes of the rocks where, however, the bushes were perhaps only a
little less dense. When a descent was unavoidable, which was not seldom
the case, many a load was dragged by the interlaced branches from the
camels’ backs, causing delay and serious damage; and, what was worse,
many a water-skin was torn and the precious contents lost. The camels
suffered much, many from sore feet, many from lacerated sides, but all
went on unmurmuringly. Not so the drivers, who, though they took care of
their own skins, growled at the injury done to their water-skins. The
loss of the water itself they did not care for, they helped themselves
to that which was in our tins. As they were thirsty, it was under the
circumstances, perhaps, pardonable. I was not sorry when on the morning
of the fourth day we reached the camel-track from Fogah to Karnac—the
first sign of a camel-track we had seen since our departure from Old
Dongola.
Late in the afternoon of the second day of this journey, while in the
neighbourhood of Zaint Atshan, we saw, about three hundred yards off,
two stately full-grown ostriches walking slowly, side by side, in the
sandy bed of one of the numerous “khors.”
My companion stalked them to within about a hundred and fifty yards and
fired. The shot was a fraction of a second too late; they saw him, and
away they went, running, leaping, flapping their wings, stumbling
blindly against the trees, falling down, standing for a moment still,
then rushing off in another direction, and sometimes making directly for
us, when, discovering their mistake, they would turn and go off again
faster and more madly than ever, jumping over the bushes and rolling
over each other as they fell on the other side. I watched them for a
long time, during which they never ceased their wild and headlong
flight, and they were only hidden from my view when the horizontal rays
fell directly on their path, which was towards the setting sun.
From a professed ostrich-hunter whom I afterwards met at El Fasher, I
learned that these birds when first scared shut their eyes and run in
any direction, sometimes even towards the object of their dread,
stumbling over anything that may be in their way, and that when after a
short time they partially recover their scattered senses, and open their
eyes, they invariably make for some prominent object, such as a mountain
or a tree, or often towards the sun when near the horizon; something
seems to be necessary for them on which to fix their eyes to enable them
to keep anything like a direct line. This circumstance is taken
advantage of by the hunters, who, if in the open country there is
nothing likely to afford a guide for the birds on which to direct their
flight, will erect some striking-looking object for the purpose, where
some of the hunting party, concealed near it, make an easy bag of the
valuable prey.
The camel-track was well trodden and, though in parts not quite free
from “kitter” bushes and larger trees, had evidently been used from time
immemorial. It lay through that part of the country where the vegetation
was densest, and on each of its sides the trees and scrub formed an
almost impenetrable wall. Only at occasional intervals could anything of
the surrounding country be seen, and I was forced, for hours together,
to give up all idea of making sketches, and walked my camel slowly
behind those of the guide and lunch soldier, who rode side by side and
chatted as they went.
Each of these men was, in his way, a character. Mohommed Gadderâb, the
guide, was of the Khabbabbeesh tribe, and a settler on the banks of the
Nile not far from Old Dongola, where he possessed a little land, a small
house, a wife, and two little girls, three cows, a few sheep, and a
mother who looked after the wife and children, and was responsible to
him for their proper behaviour during his absence. In addition to these
evidences of prosperity he owned some ten or twelve camels, which we had
hired of him for the journey to El Fasher, and for which he received a
little extra pay in consideration of his knowing the road and serving as
guide. Unlike the generality of Arabs, who wear their heads bare, he
wore a date basket tied by the handles under the chin with a rope not
less than half an inch in diameter; the long ends were thrown over his
shoulders, and mingled gracefully with the folds of his drapery. The
object of this head-dress was not protection from the sun, but to keep
his head warm and to prevent him from catching cold. He suffered much
from an ominous consumptive cough, and seemed to know that he was not
long for this world, for when on our return to Old Dongola after the
work was done, I expressed a hope that we should see each other again at
some unknown future time, he pointed to the graves on the borders of the
desert, and said: “You must go and look for me there.” He was very
intelligent, faithful, honest, and regular in his devotions. Each
morning, when he came to my tent with the riding-camels ready to start,
his forehead was marked with a patch of sand about the size of half-a-
crown, showing that he had prayed and had bowed his head down to the
very earth in strict obedience to the injunctions of his Prophet. He had
only once before made the journey from Old Dongola to El Fasher, and
although the route was often very intricate, he was never at fault. He
knew the names not only of the districts and principal mountain ranges
and valleys, but of nearly every single hill possessed of a designation
at all, and when it had none, did not obligingly invent one for it, as
guides often do, probably thinking that one name is as good as another.
Mohommed Rhannem, as far as intelligence was concerned, was a complete
contrast to the guide, and for dull stolid stupidity, without doing any
injustice to my numerous friends and acquaintances, I may indisputably
award him the first place. To say he was dishonest would be a wide
departure from the truth, but to call him an honest man, in the active
sense of the word “honest,” would be almost as absurd as to speak of an
honest ostrich, an honest mule, or an honest camel. Similarly he was
faithful only in the sense of not being faithless. In addition to these
estimable qualities he possessed a remarkable fondness for hearing
himself talk, and the channel in which his loquacity usually flowed was
the narration of stories, partly imagined, partly remembered, and wholly
absurd. In camp or on his journey he would seek out an audience, whether
of twenty or thirty or of one only was to him immaterial; he would then
commence a narrative as interminable as it was inconsistent, until he
got so inextricably mixed up that he was fain to leave off suddenly and
commence another, equally confused and ridiculous.
On the present occasion, as I rode behind him and the guide, he was as
usual telling a story to which the guide listened and put an occasional
question when the subject interested him, and to which I, having nothing
better to do, listened too. The story went something like this:—
“A very great number of years ago”—
“How many?”
“A million—there lived a great and glorious Sultan.”
“Where?”
“Perhaps Cairo. He had many wives.”
“How many?”
“Four thousand.” Here he commenced giving their names, and had
enumerated about a dozen when the guide told him to go on with the
story.
“Many as were his wives he had more children still given to him by
Allah, and slaves from all parts of the world to serve him and his wives
and his children.”
“Go on.”
“Some of the children were boys and some were girls; the boys were all
strong and warlike, and the girls beautiful, and married to kings who
were subjects of the great Sultan. Numerous as were his children, they
were not to be compared in numbers with his army, which marched
conquering over all the earth. It was armed with cannons and rifles, and
none of the Christian nations could stand against it.”
Here there was an interruption of the story. Mohammed Rhannem leant over
the camel and unstrapped the Remington rifle slung at its side, inserted
a cartridge, and proceeded to explain the superiority of the breech-
loading system, and finished by handing it over to the guide to examine
and approve of. The latter handled the weapon in such an extraordinary
manner that I began to be afraid lest some accident should occur, and
shouted:
“Take care, O foolish son of a mad buffalo.”
The soldier snatched the rifle from him, and turning sharply round fired
it off without looking. The ball passed within six inches, more or less,
of my helmet, and indisposed me to listen to any more of the story.
After using some language which, until quite recent times, would have
been considered unparliamentary, and which moreover the soldier could
not understand, I ordered him off his camel and told him to serve up
lunch.
During lunch and afterwards the story went on, mixed up with a thousand
extraneous and incongruous incidents. It seemed to resolve itself into
a history of the Crimean war from a Mohommedan point of view. Three
Christian vassal-states helped the Sultan to chastise a fourth, who was
rebellious and insolent. The chastisement completed, the tribute
reimposed and the rejoicings finished, the faithful vassal states were
suitably rewarded, and to each of their loyal rulers presents were
sent—twenty of the most beautiful wives of the great, good, wise and
powerful Sultan. One of the states being, however, ruled by a queen,
the twenty wives were presented to her Grand Vizier. I could scarcely
help smiling at this extraordinary termination. As Lord Palmerston was
Premier at that time, I suppose the twenty beautiful ladies fell to his
envied lot, and, from his well-known generosity, have no doubt that he
distributed them fairly amongst his successful commanders in the field
and the members of his cabinet who aided him in his war against Holy
Russia for the benefit of the “irreclaimable and unspeakable Turk.” I
sincerely trust all these recipients of his bounty may live long to
enjoy his gift.
After two or three hours’ journey on the morning of the 11th, we
reached Karnac, the first village we had yet come to which contained a
settled population. We were all, more or less, in a state of
dilapidation. I especially had not escaped. My camel, a half-bred
“hygeem,” irritated by the constant tearing of the thorns at his sides,
had made a sudden turn with me into the thickest part of the bush,
whence I was not extricated without great trouble and considerable
injury to my face and hands.
The well at Karnac (there is but one) is, like those at Om-Badr,
situated in a plain surrounded on all sides by hills of various
heights; those on the west, towards which our route now lay, are the
highest, and form the commencement of an extensive plateau trending
westward and northward. The village is built on the northern slopes of
the plain, and consists of “tuckles,” beehive-shaped huts, constructed
of the branches of trees deeply set into the ground in a circle of ten
or twelve feet in diameter, drawn together, and fastened at the top,
and firmly interlaced with “duchn” stalks.[10] The interior affords
perfect protection from the sun and rain, and the most violent storm of
wind can seldom do more than temporarily bend the structure before its
blast. In addition to these “tuckles,” there are a few square
structures—upright sticks, interlaced with stalks and loosely covered
with mats or skins sewn together.
From personal inquiries, made in the village, I am able to lay before
the reader the following valuable statistics relating to this important
place:—
Men, 58; women and girls, 177; boys, 43; donkeys, 25; sheep, 433; cows,
134.
The people are of the Sayadeeyeh race of Arabs, and, being settlers,
own no camels.
The village possesses a school—one of the square structures—to which I
paid a visit. There was no schoolmaster and only one pupil—who, when I
saw him, was engaged in copying a verse from the Korân written in large
characters on a wooden tablet of the same size and shape as our common
school-slates. He was writing in ink with an ordinary stylus on a tablet
like that on which the original was traced; his copy was fairly good,
but his progress was very slow, each word taking many minutes to form.
That he was ignorant of what he was writing, I was convinced from the
fact of the original and his own work being both upside down. He seemed
melancholy and stupid, and had been sent to school as a punishment, the
only reason, I was given to understand, for which pupils ever attend.
The inference is obvious, those in Darfoor who can read and write must
have misconducted themselves in their childhood, and, from the paucity
of those possessed of these accomplishments, the conclusion follows that
the youth of this nation are generally well behaved.
In a cage, adjacent to the school, and differing from it only in having
no covering, was an ostrich stripped of its plumes. These birds are kept
for the profit that the sale of their feathers yields, and are generally
quite tame, wandering about as they please. This one, however, was
jumping and flapping his featherless wings in his endeavours to get out
of the cage, and seemed extremely melancholy and stupid, like the poor
pupil in the school next door. From the circumstance of the bird’s
having not a vestige of a feather on his body, I concluded, perhaps not
without reason, that the time for plucking was shortly before our
arrival, namely, about January or February. There are generally two or
three of these birds in each village; they are one of the chief sources
of wealth to the inhabitants.
The ground round the village, as well as that on the southern side of
the plain, is planted with “duchn,” only the stubble of which remained,
the grain having been gathered in shortly after the termination of the
rainy season. With the exception of one or two small patches grown with
cotton, there seemed to be no other crop.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XI.
* * * * *
“This is the house that Jack built.”
* * * * *
KARNAC TO ORGOODT.
The well at Karnac. — Boota. — Friendly ostriches, — Broosh. — The
shiekh and the frying-pan. — A visit to a “tuckle.” — A novel banking
account. — “Tobes.” — “Merissa.” — An universal genius. — A little
letter. — My victory. — Abiad. — Hyenas. — Vultures. — Scorpions. —
Spiders.
THE well at Karnac is the widest and deepest in Darfoor. With the
exception of twelve feet of superimposed sandy soil, it is sunk through
solid sandstone rock; its width is from nine to ten feet, and its depth,
to the surface of the water, two hundred and eighty feet. When and by
whom made, is a mystery; it is however certain that the present
inhabitants of Darfoor have neither the energy nor the skill for such a
piece of work, and, moreover, they do not possess the necessary tools.
The well itself bears evidence of age; the four timbers, trunks of
trees, originally placed flat one on each of the four edges of what was
once the top of the well, are still there, and are worn in many parts
nearly through by the friction of the ropes used in drawing the water.
As each set of timbers in course of time became useless another set was
placed above it, to be in turn sawn nearly through in a hundred
different places. There are fifteen of these sets, one above the other,
each of which has served its time for several years. The wood used is
the hardest gum tree (sont), on which a sharp knife will scarcely make a
mark. Supposing each set of timbers to last only for twenty years, the
minimum age of the well would be three hundred years. I have, however,
been told that this wood will easily stand for fifty years.
The soldiers and some of the drivers sat on the ground round the well,
mending the water-skins with needles and pack-thread. The remainder of
the men, assisted by the villagers, drew water for the camels; there
being, however, but one well, the process was slow, and only about half
the number of the animals had drunk before night. As food was very
scarce in the neighbourhood, owing to so much of the ground having been
cleared for cultivation, I decided to go on with our journey next day to
Boota, only three hours distant, where the remainder of the camels could
drink, and where food for them was plentiful. Our road lay to the west,
over a spur of the mountains, up one valley and down another, the Wady
es Sayal, at the bottom of which lies Boota, very picturesquely placed,
with the rocks, Gebel Bobei, on the north covered to their tops with
thorn-bushes, and an extensive hummocky plain to the south. Like Karnac,
Boota has but one well, cut through the rock to a depth of one hundred
and fifty feet; and, judging from the number of timbers that have been
nearly worn through by the friction of the ropes, of even greater
antiquity. That part of it between the lowest timbers and the surface of
the sandstone, a depth of twenty feet, is built in with stone, not
cemented, but extremely well laid and certainly very different from
anything the people seem able to do at present, when their architecture
reaches the limit of its splendour in the “tuckle” and the mud walls of
the Sultan’s palace at El Fasher. The number of inhabitants in Boota is
three hundred and fifteen, possessing among them two hundred and forty
sheep, one hundred and fifty cows, and one tame ostrich. In addition to
“duchn” they grow “doura” and cotton, and have two looms in the village,
where a cloth similar to that of Old Dongola is woven.
On the following morning we left Boota early, as the journey before us
was a long one. The camels travelled light, as we were not now compelled
to carry water for more than a day, the villages on our route being not
more than a day’s journey apart. From the rocks on the right, which we
often climbed, we saw one or two villages among the scrub hidden from
view while we were on the path below. Twice on the path we came upon a
featherless ostrich from a neighbouring village, out on a foraging
expedition. One of these joined our caravan and marched side by side
with the camels; finding it impossible to drive him away, we were
obliged to give him in charge of the authorities on our arrival at
Broosh the same evening.
Broosh lies a little off the track among the scattered rocks to the
right. It has three wells, and is larger than any village we had yet
come to. The population is three hundred and eighty-two, with cattle,
sheep, donkeys and ostriches amounting to nearly fifteen hundred. A
market is held twice a week, and is resorted to by the dwellers in the
few villages scattered over the plain. Business was not quite finished
on my arrival; nothing, however, remained to be sold but about half an
ounce of green tobacco and some six or seven dry bamias (small
vegetables), the property of a supremely hideous old woman, whose
ghastly and withered face had probably frightened away the customers.
Returning to the tents, I went to hurry up the cook about the dinner, as
it was already past our time and no cloth was yet laid. I found him in
the midst of his labours entertaining a handsome and stalwart Foorawee.
The latter, the shiekh of the village, was examining with intense
curiosity every utensil in the kitchen, and at the moment of my arrival
his admiring gaze was riveted on a frying-pan which he held in his hand.
He first played on it with the fingers of his right hand, and not
satisfied with the tone elicited, he next handled it as though it were a
club, and finally laid it down evidently divided in his mind as to
whether it was a musical instrument or a weapon of war. He rose and
bowed, and told me he had brought a present, two kid skins filled with
tobacco. These I accepted and offered my hand, which he at first refused
to take, saying his own was _black_ from having handled the frying-pan.
He washed it very carefully with water that Jacoob gave him, and after
drying it on his wearing apparel gave it to me to shake.
I invited him into the tent and begged him to sit down. This he at once
did on the carpet, on which I offered him a chair. It was quite a novel
pleasure to watch his child-like delight at everything he saw in the
tent. His questions were as numerous as bewildering; the folding chairs,
and, above all, the folding bedsteads, afforded him matter for great
marvel and a hundred questions. He examined everything carefully, and
after many inquiries concerning each article, invariably finished up by
asking whether I had made it. I could only say “No,” and after each “no”
I felt that I sank lower in his estimation until the end of the
examination, when it was evident he only looked upon me as a very
ordinary kind of individual. Dinner arrived shortly, and he rose to
retire, his last question being, did I make the knives and forks? He
begged me to come, after dinner, to his “tuckle” to taste his “merissa”
and tobacco, which he assured me were very good, and that he should
esteem it a great honour if I would accept his invitation.
After dinner I walked over. I had been much amused by his conversation,
and it was now my turn to put questions, and to learn what I could of
the manners and customs of the people at Darfoor. The entrance to the
tuckle was about three feet high, and two feet wide, and getting inside
necessitated going down on hands and knees in a very undignified
position. The interior was in perfect darkness, and I suggested some
candles; these he volunteered to go and tell Jacoob to bring, as well as
a table and chairs, cigars, &c. &c. The furniture of the tuckle was not
sumptuous; it consisted of an “angereb,” on which was seated his wife, a
girl of about sixteen, nursing an infant; a few earthenware pots
containing sour milk, water, and “merissa”; a skin or two filled with
“duchn,” and two stones for grinding it. Besides these there was piled
up on one side a heap of dirty blue rags, which by no means added to the
elegance of the appartment, or to the purity of its atmosphere. These
were current coin of the realm, they were never made into clothes, or
converted to any other use; and, until the Egyptian occupation, the
people had known no other kind of money. The rags varied in size from
half a yard wide, and two or three yards long, to small pieces about the
size of a sheet of foolscap; these last counted in the market for two
piastres tariff, or nearly fivepence, and, from the magnitude of the
heap, I could readily believe my host’s assertion, that this odoriferous
banking account represented two hundred dollars, or £40. The cloth was
not of English manufacture, but was such as is woven in Bombay, and had
found its way into Darfoor through Massowah and Khartoom. Behind the
“angereb,” between it and the wall, was a heap of “tobes,” rolls of
Manchester cotton cloth of the poorest possible kind, such as is never
seen in Europe, manufactured solely for the “Oriental market”; the trade
mark of the firm was stamped outside, and in many cases the gilt-edged
paper ticket was still attached. The “tobe” is the money standard, and
had always served as a dollar; now, however, it fluctuated materially,
and he complained bitterly of his loss. The introduction of real silver
dollars, and the rejection of the “tobe” in exchange by the new comers,
had caused its value to diminish, and in some parts of Darfoor it had
fallen to a sixth part of its former value. In Broosh it had already
reached a third, and was falling still lower every day. As he had
already lost so much, I advised him to part with his blue rags, and
convert them into silver money, which, I told him, always fetched its
value in every part of the world. This proposition of mine was, however,
by no means warmly received; he firmly believed they must keep up their
value, the people would never do without them. He brought an armful from
the heap on to the table, and commenced expatiating on the fineness and
strength of the texture. Not wishing to get an attack of typhoid fever,
I told him to put them away; the lady, moreover, had commenced to put in
serious objections to parting with the family property, and was becoming
very voluble. She politely suggested that I should mind my own business,
which I did, and begged her to try a cigar; after this we were soon very
good friends.
The young shiekh now sat down and ordered his wife to serve up some
“merissa.” The flavour was as of sour milk mixed with rum, and, although
the heat of the spirit was mellowed by the milk, I could easily tell
that it must be very intoxicating. This, with the circumstance of its
surface being ornamented with several dead flies, and numerous legs and
wings of other insects, and covered with dust, prevented my indulging in
it copiously, which, however, my host and his lady did, occasionally
giving the infant a drop to quiet it. He entered into his affairs
voluntarily; he told me he had been shiekh only three months, having on
the death of his predecessor, been appointed, owing to his wealth, by
Ismail Pasha Ayoob, then Governor of Darfoor. He had just returned from
El Obeid, the capital of Khordofan, where he had been offered the
contract for the erection of the telegraph posts for the new line of
wires to El Fasher. The result of his visit was that he had refused the
contract; he could not understand the business of the telegraph. When
its use was explained, and the working of the instrument shown him, he
had come to the conclusion that some kind of sorcery must be connected
with it, and had come home in a state of great consternation, determined
never again to go anywhere in sight of a telegraph post. The contract
was accepted by the shiekh of the Hamr Arabs at Om-Badr, who emigrated
with half his tribe to El Obeid, and successfully put up the posts.
My host now asked me whether it was true, as he had been told, that far
away across the great sea to the north—further away than he could
say—but, at least, as far as the moon, there was a land whose people
were very learned, and knew everything, and could make everything;
whether I came from that land, and how it was I could not make the
wonderful things like the other people there? I told him there were such
lands, and that I came from one of them which was a long way off, but
not so far as the moon, and that the inhabitants were skilled workers,
and made the wonderful things he had seen in the tent, and many other
far greater things besides.
His emulation was excited; he pointed to his “angereb,” and told me he
had made that; then to the cloth he wore, he had woven it; the
“merissa,” too, he made himself, as well as the earthenware pots in
which it was kept; and his delight and pride reached their height when,
looking up and pointing to the top of his “tuckle,” he assured me that
he, unassisted, had built that also. It was fearfully and wonderfully
made; the earth rammed hard, not only inside, but for a yard or more on
the outside; the circle struck with geometrical accuracy; the upright
sticks, sought with great care and labour, fixed firm at equal distances
of three or four inches, and interwoven neatly and exactly, with the
longest obtainable stalks of “duchn”; the little interstices, where any
appeared, jealously filled with warm cotton, to keep the wind away from
his wife and child, and the whole, pulled tightly together at the top,
and securely fastened, and resembling in all but size and material, the
beautiful dome of St. Paul’s. Even this was not all; he had not
forgotten dangers other than the storms. He took me outside to show me
an old piece of blue plate he had fastened into the wall, about three
feet above the doorway; this was to keep away the evil eye, and the
“afreets,” or evil genii, who might otherwise come in the night and
swallow his child, drink up all his “merissa,” run away with his wife,
or commit other atrocities as appalling or unpleasant.
Here, then, was a man who not only made his own furniture, pots, and
clothes, and brewed his own drink, but built his own house, and
successfully insured it against all dangers, whether of the natural or
of the supernatural kind. I must confess that, compared to him, I felt
myself rather a helpless creature in the world. What could I say or do
to rival such universal ability? I might certainly tell him of
Shakespere, of Milton, of Martin Tupper, of Walter Scott, of the
“Pickwick Papers,” of “Robinson Crusoe”; of our great artists,
philosophers, and inventors; of our stupendous Lord Mayor; of our
boundless empire on which the sun never sets; of London itself, the
capital of the world, on which it never shines; of our invincible army;
of our matchless iron fleet demonstrating about in every nook and corner
of the globe, and of a thousand other wonderful persons and things that
form the envy of every foreign nation privileged to behold, or to read
about them; but no glory or light from these was reflected from me. I
was about to candidly and humiliatingly admit my inferiority, when
Jacoob came in with a short note in pencil: “Come and have a game at
double-dummy, the water is boiling.”
This little note, simple in its simplicity, was the victory of
civilisation over barbarism.
My host asked me whether I could read and write. I answered in the
affirmative. My superiority was at once established; his admiration knew
no bounds, I had overwhelmed him, he was completely dumbfounded; he had
no idea he was entertaining so exalted a personage. My victory was
absolute, and the rout of the enemy utter. Not wishing to lose my
advantage, I determined to beat a retreat, and left him to finish his
“merissa” alone. The lady had already succumbed to its influence, and,
after dropping her baby once or twice on the ground, had finally gone to
sleep on the “angereb.”
Next morning we passed, on the track, two villages each about the size
of Broosh—Om-es-Shay-es-Shat and Om-es-Seraydeh. After reaching the
latter the camel track turns northward over the rocks towards Abiad, the
only place about here where the wells are sufficiently numerous to
afford facilities for watering large caravans. We rested this night at
the small village of Welled Ghindi, near the Wady Ghindi. The scenery
towards the head of the valley is strikingly grand, the rocks assuming
every conceivable form, each of them in my imagination resembled some
temple, church, or palace with which my memory was familiar. At about
one o’clock next day we descended from the heights into the Wady Abiad,
and after four hours travelling due north along its bed, with the nearly
perpendicular wall of rocks on our right hand, we came to Abiad at the
top of the valley.
Abiad (white) is about half a mile from the wells among the mountains.
As villages go in Darfoor it is a very large one, and may be said to
rank as a town. The population amounts to thirteen hundred and fifty,
with large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, and many donkeys and
ostriches. The architecture of the buildings is, however, in no way
varied from that of those I have described at Karnac. We remained here
one day to allow the camels to drink, and started next morning towards
Ergoodt along the track which, like that approaching Karnac, is bounded
on each side by thick bush. After about an hour’s journey I came upon a
gorged hyena gracefully reposing under a tree on the path. The camel
took no notice of him, but the hyena moved off a few yards into the bush
and lay down again to sleep. These animals are nearly as tame as the
ostriches. There are generally two or three round a village, into which
they are allowed free entry, all live stock being perfectly safe from
their depredations. Once or twice a week, during the nights, they pay
their visits and surfeit themselves on the offal which has accumulated
since they were last there. They are perfect scavengers, and the
inhabitants look upon them with favour accordingly. Vultures are more
numerous, but less regular in their attendance; they seem able to pick
up a good living in the country round, and never come to the villages
except on the occasion of an important death, such as that of a horse,
camel, or donkey, when they are always prompt to attend the funeral,
from whatever distance the duty may call them. It is the vulture that,
when in the desert a camel drops down under his load to die, picks its
bones clean, and leaves them whitening in the sun miles away from any
land in which the hyena can exist.
Insects, such as scorpions and hunting-spiders, are rather plentiful
about here; the latter, although their bite is poisonous, we never
interfered with. All evening and night, while the flies slept on the
inner surface of the tents, the spiders darted among them, destroying
hundreds. Of the two evils we preferred the spiders. To the scorpions,
however, we showed no mercy; they seem to be perfectly useless insects,
and possess no graces, either of appearance or character, to awaken
sympathy even in the most tender-hearted person. We sometimes found them
under the beds, and always thought it wise to carefully examine our
boots and clothes, and especially our hats, before induing them in the
morning. Fortunately I was never stung by one of them, and am
consequently not in a position to say whether their sting is fatal or
only painful, but judging from the unsightly and malicious aspect of the
bloated yellow insect, some two and a half inches in length, with the
small drop of purple venom visible in its transparent tail, I should
say, at least, that it was not pleasant. Of insects other than noxious,
with the exception of a few very large and beautifully-marked
grasshoppers, near Karnac, we had as yet not seen any. The bushes,
however, in this part, and for the preceding week of our travelling,
were thickly hung with tough white cocoons, about an inch and a half
long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. In some parts the scrub was
quite white with them, and from a distance it might easily be imagined
that a fall of snow had taken place.
At nine o’clock on the morning of March 19th, after passing Derrit
Homar, a considerable mountain with a ruined village at its foot,
deserted, owing to the wells having years ago dried up, we reached
Ergoodt, the capital of a governorship or small province, containing
twelve or fifteen hundred inhabitants.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XII.
* * * * *
“Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
A merry old soul was he,
He called for his pipe, he called for his bowl,
He called for his fiddlers three.”
OLD KING COLE.
* * * * *
ERGOODT.
A squabble. — Arrival of Ismail Pacha Ayoob. — His physician. — His
engineer. — Conversation with a pacha. — We invite him to dine. — Cora.
— Paul and Virginia. — Music. — A banquet in the desert. — A handsome
present. — A British subject. — We reach El Fasher.
NOT many of the habitations of Ergoodt are visible from the plain in
which the wells are sunk, but a walk of a few minutes in any direction
discloses among the trees numerous tuckles, as well as much cultivated
ground. Near the wells stands one large sycamore-tree, and this tree, I
found on my arrival, about an hour after the caravan, had been the
innocent cause of much squabbling, nearly resulting in blows, between
Mohommed Effendi, the lieutenant of the troops, and the village
authorities. The latter wanted the shade of the tree in which to build a
shed for the use of Ismail Pacha Ayoob, the Governor of Darfoor, who was
to arrive that afternoon. The officious and pugnacious little officer
claimed it, however, for us. By dint of obstinacy and threats he had
carried his point, and the shed had to be built in the sunshine.
Towards one o’clock every villager who possessed a horse rode out,
attired in his best apparel, to meet the pacha, who was reported near.
In half an hour more he arrived, surrounded by the villagers caracoling
their horses round his camel; he entered his shed, and the mob after a
time dispersed.
When all was quiet I put on a reserve shirt, and a pair of new red
slippers, and walked over the twenty or thirty yards that separated our
abodes to pay my respects. The pacha was sitting on his “angereb,” and
came out to meet me. His manner was dignified, but jovial; his
appearance good-natured, but determined. We entered the shed together,
and the inevitable coffee and “chibooks” soon made their appearance.
On a rush mat, spread on the floor, sat the two chief companions of his
travels. The one was his physician, a Greek in practice at Khartoom; a
short man with a shrewd and dirty face, and long black hair hanging from
under a very greasy tarboosh, down to his shoulders. He was very
loquacious, and, in saying everything he said, his object was evidently
to impress his hearers with the idea that he was a very learned and
superior person. The second occupant of the mat on the floor was an old
Egyptian engineer of the Public Works Department; fat, smooth, smiling,
silent, and humble, with, like the doctor, a dirty face. He held in his
hand a map he had made of his journey, and, with a pair of compasses,
from time to time made a measurement, with the object of seeming
engrossed in his work, just as a boy at school who has been idling his
time appears busy and absorbed in his book when the master is in the
schoolroom. He held the pacha in great awe, but his awe and humility
were only the result of judicious treatment. In the pacha’s youth the
engineer had been his tutor, but when, in after years, the pupil grew to
be the ruler of provinces, a pacha of many tails, and one of the most
powerful men in the country, he rebelled against the authority of his
former master. The latter, not relishing this exhibition of
independence, had proceeded to rate him soundly, using all the terms of
obloquy with which the Egyptian is familiar. The tables were, however,
now turned; the rod, or rather the “korbatch,” which the tutor had
formerly wielded over the pupil, was now wielded by the pupil over the
tutor, who, there and then, received sound personal chastisement at the
hands of the pacha. Since this little episode, which I afterwards
learned at El Fasher, matters had gone on smoothly: the arrogant master
was transformed into the obsequious slave; the pacha was happy in having
done a useful action, and, probably, further gratified at having taken
revenge for the numerous castigations he had, in youth, received at the
hands of his former tyrant.
A general reception now took place. The chiefs, and old men of the
village, the Egyptian officers, “mahounds,” and head-men of the camel-
drivers, all swarmed round the shed and entered one by one, eager for
the honour of kissing and slobbering the hand of the pacha. He bore it
all with becoming stoicism, and at the end of the ceremony called for
soap and water and washed his hands. Fresh “chibooks” and coffee were
brought, and conversation, in which the doctor joined, commenced in
French, which the pacha spoke fluently, incorrectly, and with an accent
I have never heard equalled, and which is, probably, only to be acquired
by long residence in Darfoor, Khordofan, and the still remoter confines
of Egyptian territory. He was going home, suddenly recalled, his
presence in Cairo being necessitated by the then impending Eastern
complications. He was full of his subject, and spoke without reserve of
the anticipated war with Russia, with a prescience which events have
since proved _not_ prophetic. By easy transition the subject passed to
Paul de Kock’s novels, and stories from the _Arabian Nights_,
interspersed with original and apposite remarks and jokes, too recondite
for me, but at which the Greek doctor, of course, laughed boisterously,
and the old engineer, although he understood not a word, laughed too,
nearly as loudly.
By this time the other section had arrived, and soon put in an
appearance, followed by the Egyptian officers, “mahounds,” &c. &c., when
fresh hand-kissing took place, necessitating a further use of soap and
water.
Altogether we spent a very lively and pleasant afternoon. After six
weeks travelling in the desert, where my liveliest companions were
certainly the flies and, latterly, the hunting-spiders, it can easily be
conceived that to meet so profound a statesman, so varied a reader, so
gifted a linguist, so accomplished a conversationalist, was a great
treat, and that I appreciated it accordingly.
It has been my lot in the course of my sojourn in Egypt to visit many
Egyptian officials of different ranks, but until it was my happiness to
meet with Ismail Pacha Ayoob, I never came across one who could or would
_converse_; some are too reticent and suspicious, and others, the
greater number, too ignorant to venture beyond their well-worn and
beaten track of staple and humdrum commonplace. With the generality of
Egyptian pachas, beys, and effendis conversation (I use the word because
I can find no other) always resolves itself into inquiries after your
health, and that of your father, mother, uncles, sisters, brothers, and
cousins, so persistently and earnestly reiterated, that it is nearly
impossible to avoid a surmise that the questioner is in league with some
quack-doctor, anxious to palm off upon you a patent medicine, or
universal ointment. The long spun-out series of kind inquiries finally
ended, congratulations upon your having escaped the ills of life, and
promises of daily prayer for a continuance of your immunity from every
kind of pain, follow in thick profusion, ending with complimentary and
personal remarks upon your robust and healthy appearance. Conversation,
as above described, may probably last, with occasional intervals of
coffee or sherbet, smoke and silence, during which the pacha strokes his
chin, for the whole of an afternoon, and any attempt on your part to
vary it, by the introduction of other topics, would only lead to
hopeless and inextricable confusion. I have no doubt that when the
English or Russian ambassador in Constantinople pays a visit to the
Sultan similar conversation takes place, on which telegraphic
intelligence of the event is despatched to all the capitals in Europe,
and articles, speculative, political, and learned, appear in the leading
journals, affording to all classes of society subject of comment for at
least a week, to be replaced at the expiration of that time by the
introduction of other matter of equal importance and of interest as
vital.
On one occasion when visiting a pacha, after I had acquired experience
of the tedium such a visit always entails, I determined to forestall
him, and on entering the room, prevented his firing-off the usual
battery of questions concerning my health and that of my relations by
telling him, at a sacrifice of truth, of course very reprehensible, but,
perhaps, pardonable in this extreme case, that I had been very ill,
still continued so, and did not hope to get better, and that, moreover,
I was a melancholy orphan, and possessed no relations worth mentioning.
This unexpected statement took him flat aback, and, as a full-rigged
ship, close-hauled, placed in a similar predicament by a sudden shift of
the wind ahead, settles down by the stern, slowly and silently, into the
fathomless depths of the ocean, so the pacha settled down in a similar
manner slowly and silently into the depths of the cushions on his divan.
As I had effectually dammed the usual outlet for the flood of his
stereotyped eloquence, I felt it incumbent upon me to open another
channel of conversation, and asked him, after an interval long enough to
admit of the subsidence of his sorrow for my misfortunes, whether he
thought that the Lualaba river, then recently discovered by Livingstone,
and since traced by Stanley to the Atlantic, and proved to be the Congo,
was in reality the Nile, as Livingstone thought. The subject was one
which interested him. Nilotic exploration was, at that time, popular in
Egypt. He replied, after having abstractedly stroked his chin for five
minutes, that he thought not, and the reason he gave for his opinion was
as original as it was astounding; the new river was on the other side of
the equator, and must necessarily have to _flow upwards_, which was an
impossibility, before it could reach it. As I was not prepared with maps
of the equatorial world to show that some rivers do cross the equator,
and would, moreover, have found it difficult to prove to my interlocutor
that such a thing was not absolutely impossible, I sank into silence and
took my leave after a cup of coffee, and on my way home congratulated
myself cordially upon having escaped an afternoon with a pacha.[11]
Our present host was very different, and, to use a forcible expression,
was in all respects as jolly as a sandboy. When we got back to our tents
we unanimously decided to invite him to dinner, and to give him such a
banquet as had never until that time been spread in Darfoor. The
invitation was accordingly despatched, begging him, when he came, to
bring his concomitants—the doctor and the engineer. Dinner was to be at
seven, but he came over at once, followed by the doctor, leaving,
however, the engineer behind, and sat down under the tree which had led
to so much squabbling in the morning. He brought with him as a present a
monkey, although a male, called “Cora,” and two banded ichneumons, Paul
and Virginia. The monkey soon grew to be fond of us all, and became a
general favourite; the ichneumons never evinced any special regard for
anything but eggs, and their method of breaking them, by lifting them up
with their fore-paws and dashing them on to the ground, afforded us
occasional diversion, which we sometimes enhanced by boiling the eggs
hard and serving them up hot. All the three animals were, on our return
to England, presented to the Zoological Society, and Cora, rechristened
in the label on his door, “Niss-Nass monkey,” became a subject of much
interest, and the recipient of many nuts, in the last cage on the right-
hand side of the monkey house in the gardens in Regent’s Park. He was
there well cared for, grew in stature and improved in appearance, but
lost his amiable disposition, and led the other occupant of his cage, a
smaller specimen of a different variety, a miserable and altogether
unenviable existence. He is now dead. Paul and Virginia, in the small
mammal house, flourished for a time, grew sleek and fat, their fur
became soft, silky, and handsome, and then they died. It is possible to
treat animals too carefully; while they were with us, running about in
camp, where they got decidedly more kicks than eggs, they enjoyed life
thoroughly, and, although they were not so fat, or their skins so soft,
they had perfect health, and under similar treatment might probably have
lived till now.
The monkey having been put through his antics, and Paul and Virginia
having received a regular “ovation,” the pacha suggested native music,
as a novelty, and sent over to the village for musicians. Three little
black musical boys soon appeared, bringing with them three pipes,
precisely similar to the pipes the three little boys, whom these much
resembled, had used on the occasion of the grand _fantasìa_ at Sotaire;
exactly as the others had done they arranged themselves in line,
advanced and receded, commenced the same lugubrious song, and blew from
the pipes the two or three identical notes. As we had all of us seen
this sort of _fantasìa_ many times before, we came to the conclusion
that it was not a novelty, and the boys were dismissed, receiving, as a
reward for their efforts to amuse us, two empty claret-bottles, and an
old pocket handerchief, which they tore into three equal parts, one for
each musician, before they made their final bow and took their
departure.
A few games at backgammom, a game very popular in Egypt, at which I lost
three sheep to the pacha, and about half a flock to the doctor, brought
us to dinner-time, when our two tables, together with sundry cases of
stores, were arranged side by side under a table-cloth, out in the open
beneath the tree. The banquet was shortly after served up, and the
“menu” was as follows:
Macaroni soup; lentil soup, seasoned with dry mint, resembling pea soup,
but far preferable.
Salmon and lobster sauce; Findon haddocks. This course passed off with
much _eclât_.
Curried gazelle chops; boiled mutton and caper sauce; carrots and
turnips.
Roast guinea fowl and roast doves; peas and asparagus.
Greengage tart, gooseberry tart, Dutch cheese; claret, brandy, whisky,
gin, and “invalid”[12] port.
Our banquet was a complete success. The guests, although they did not
say grace, looked it very forcibly. The face of the pacha bore an
expression of internal thankfulness that was very gratifying to behold,
and not at all surprising considering the length of time during which he
had lived on boiled “duchn,” grilled mutton, and soldier’s bread. The
Greek doctor was equally pleased, and his praises of all he ate and
drank were lavish and loud. He so repeatedly drank our healths, on each
occasion mixing his liquors, not in the generally accepted sense of the
word, but brandying his claret, and ginning his port, that towards the
close of the repast he became quite eloquent, and with his brother
physician across the table discussed in scientific and glowing terms the
characteristic of every disease which it had been his fortune to treat.
This was of course very instructive, and we all listened with profound
attention, and were very much interested. Short pipes and long pipes
were introduced after dinner, and their relative merits were descanted
upon. Most of us agreed that the long pipes were better in flavour, but
that the objection to them was that to light them without the assistance
of a servant was next to impossible. The unintentional hint was enough;
the pacha sent for his little slave-boy pipe-lighter, and begged the
astonished speaker’s acceptance of him as “backsheesh.” The boy was an
accomplished pipe-lighter, and, I am sorry to say, nearly as
accomplished a thief; but I wish it to be thoroughly understood that
nothing could be further from my intention than to hint, for a moment,
that this was the reason of the pacha’s sudden fit of somewhat
embarrassing generosity. He remained with us until we got back to Cairo,
and stole all our penknives; he was taken to our Consulate, and, after
receiving his “letters of marque” as a free and independent British
subject, he became, beneath the sheltering ægis of England’s wide and
beneficent power, an idle and homeless vagabond upon the face of the
earth, and thieved ten times worse than before.
More backgammon, and more lost sheep, brought us into the small hours;
and our, by this time, tired guests wished us good-bye, and went home to
their shed.
One day more at Ergoodt, then two days’ travelling across a range of
stony hills, the Sarghenat, brought us, amid the joyous songs of the
camel-drivers, to El Fasher, the stalk and mud metropolis of the ex-
Sultanate of Darfoor.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XIII.
DESCRIPTIVE.
Our rate of travelling. — Latitudes and longitudes. — Water. —
Temperature. — Geology. — Zoology.
THE day and the hour of our caravan’s arrival at El Fasher or Tendelty
was Wednesday, March 22nd, 2 o’clock p.m. We had left Old Dongola, as
will be remembered, at 11 o’clock on the morning of February 3rd, and,
as 1876 was leap-year, had been forty-eight days and three hours on our
journey.
The time during which the camels had marched was two hundred and thirty-
two hours and eighteen minutes, and the distance travelled by the route
I followed was five hundred and ninety-two miles, giving an average rate
of something over two and a half miles per hour. Our through rate per
day, including stoppages, was twelve miles and a third.
On short distances, if the state of the camels on arrival at the end of
their journey is a matter which cannot be taken into consideration, it
is sometimes possible to travel, on well-conditioned animals, at their
normal pace for sixteen hours a day; and journeys of two hundred and
fifty miles have sometimes been made at this rate. At the expiration of
that time, however, the camels will require a rest of ten or twelve days
before being again fit for work, and many of their number may, moreover,
have given in and died on the road. On long journeys, where it is
necessary to husband the strength of the camels and of the men, it is
always best to work them only for eight hours a day, and if the wells
are four or five days’ journey apart, to allow them to rest for two or
three days. Twelve miles per day, including stoppages at the wells and
delays from all causes whatever, is generally considered a fair rate of
travelling. A rate much exceeding this will fail to keep the camels in
health and fitness for long and continuous work.
The direction of El Fasher from Old Dongola is south-west. Below is
appended a tabulated list of the wells at which we stopped, with their
latitudes and longitudes and heights in feet above sea-level.
[M.: Number of miles travelled.
Avg. rate.: Average rate per hour in miles.
Alt.: Height above mean sea-level.]
+------------+--------------+--------------+---+---------+-----+-----+
| Place. | Latitude, | Longitude, | M.| Time |Avg. |Alt. |
| | N. | E. | |occupied.|rate.| |
+------------+--------------+--------------+---+---------+-----+-----+
| | ° ′ ″| ° ′ ″| | H. M.| | |
| | | | | | | |
|Old Dongola | 18 13 18| 30 41 35| — | — | — | 790|
| | | | | | | |
|Mahtool | 17 32 | 30 41 | 47| 17 13| 2·73| 899|
| | | | | | | |
|Sotaire | 17 0 | 30 37 | 44| 16 50| 2·61|1,030|
| | | | | | | |
|Ain Hamed | 16 31 | 29 34 | 80| 31 20| 2·55|1,188|
| | | | | | | |
|Bagghareeyeh| 15 20 | 28 48 |104| 39 20| 2·64|1,572|
| | | | | | | |
|Om-Badr | 14 14 | 28 4 | 92| 35 0| 2·63|1,949|
| | | | | | | |
|Karnac | 13 30 | 27 20 | 75| 32 55| 2·28|1,926|
| | | | | | | |
|Boota | 13 28 | 27 15 | 7| 3 30| 2·00|1,801|
| | | | | | | |
|Broosh | 13 35 | 27 2 | 18| 7 30| 2·33| — |
| | | | | | | |
|Abiad | 13 47 | 26 32 | 37| 15 15| 2·43|2,047|
| | | | | | | |
|Orgoodt | 13 28 | 26 0 | 45| 18 25| 2·66|2,260|
| | | | | | | |
|El Fasher | 13 36 45| 25 22 37| 43| 15 0| 2·87|2,418|
+------------+--------------+--------------+---+---------+-----+-----+
The latitudes and longitudes and heights above mean sea-level of Ain
Hamed, Om-Badr, and Abiad refer, not to the site of the wells, but to
the bottom of the valley, where the proposed railway crosses.
WATER.
An analysis of the water in some of the wells gave the following
results:—
+------------+--------+-----------------+-----------------+----------+
| — |Mahtool.| Karnac. | Bootah. | Orgoodt. |
+------------+--------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+
|Grains of | 73 |2·50 |2·45 |2·45 |40·1 |50·4 |50·3 |50·10|2·52|
|common salt | | | | | | | | | |
|per gallon | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | |
|Hardness by | 9° |8°·5 |8°·4 |8°·6 |17° |27° |21° |21° |23° |
|soap test | | | | | | | | | |
+------------+--------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+
The water in most of the other wells was soft and saltless to the taste,
and no analysis was made.
With the exception of the wells at Sotaire and Bagghareeyeh, none of
those we stopped at on our way to El Fasher ever become absolutely dry.
The year of our journey was unfortunate in the respect that the rainfall
of 1875 had been limited, and the quantity of water in the wells was not
so ample as it is in most years. We had, however, hitherto experienced
no scarcity. Ain Hamed has never been known to be dry, but just before
the rains the yield is so small that the well is useless for any caravan
but a very small one. Om-Badr, for several months after the rains,
supplies water enough, and to spare, for the ten thousand camels that
daily drink; but as the dry season advances, many of these have to
disperse to other wells, and, just before the rains again begin to fall,
there is sometimes not more than sufficient water for a thousand camels
to drink per day. It is, perhaps, needless to say that the yield of all
these wells might be largely increased and rendered permanent by sinking
them to a greater depth.
TEMPERATURE.
Although on a few occasions during the latter part of our journey the
thermometer had risen beyond 100° Fahr., we had never felt the heat
oppressive, had suffered no inconvenience, and all of us enjoyed perfect
health.
The average of the daily registered maxima during the month of March was
97° Fahr.;[13] on ten days in the month the temperature exceeded 100°;
on the 6th the maximum attained to 107°; and on the 27th and 28th, the
two hottest days in the month, to 109½°. On four days only the maximum
was less than 90°, 87° being the lowest. At night the minimum
temperature averaged 60°, varying pretty regularly between 55° and 65°,
once only descending below 50°, and twice not falling lower than 75°.
In February the average of the maxima was 87°; on five days only the
thermometer rose above 90°, and on one day did not rise above 80°. The
hottest part of the day in this month, as throughout the year, was
almost invariably from one to two o’clock, after which, till sunset, the
fall of the mercury was very regular, being, on many days, equal every
quarter of an hour. The nights were pleasant, and cool enough to
necessitate plenty of blankets. The temperature was registered every
night, and the average of the minima during the month was 55°, varying
from 51° to 61°.
During the months of December and January, when we were travelling on
the bank of the Nile, the temperature was somewhat lower, giving only
82° as an average of daily maximum, and 45° and 43° as the average of
the minima for the two months. The lowest temperature reached was on the
27th January, at Old Dongola, 36°, or only 4° above freezing point. On
our first expedition 31° was once registered in December 1871.
TABLE of DAILY MAXIMUM and MINIMUM TEMPERATURE between the Months of
April, May, June, and July.
+---+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| | April. | May. | June. | July. |
|No.|----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| |Min.|Max.|Min.|Max.|Min.|Max.|Min.|Max.|
+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| 1| 69| 111| 64| 111| 66| 110| 81| 104|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 2| 68| 113| 72| 111| 71| 115| 80| 112|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 3| 81| 110| 57| 112| 72| 115| 82| 110|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 4| 80| 110| 65| 113| 76| 107| 77| 115|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 5| 87| 110| 61| 117| 72| 105| 75| 112|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 6| 85| 116| 71| 110| 76| 101| 67| 110|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 7| 81| 110| 72| 106| 77| 101| 69| 109|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 8| 85| 110| 71| 106| 76| 112| 75| 106|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 9| 83| 107| 64| 105| 79| 111| 72| 101|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 10| 82| 104| 68| 112| 80| 113| 74| 107|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 11| 81| 104| 65| 113| 72| 101| 73| 105|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 12| 77| 101| 66| 115| 72| 102| 74| 110|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 13| 71| 100| 65| 113| 72| 103| 79| 115|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 14| 60| 99| 64| 110| 72| 101| 80| 113|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 15| 65| 97| 59| 101| 72| 105| 72| 106|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 16| 59| 100| 70| 112| 72| 104| 79| 111|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 17| 60| 101| 68| 112| 72| 104| 77| 110|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 18| 63| 98| 70| 111| 72| 104| 75| 109|
| | | | | | | | | |
| 19| 55| 101| 70| 112| 76| 109| 71| 106|
| | | | | | | | |
| 20| 55| 103| 69| 114| 76| 111| Arrived |
| | | | | | | | at |
| 21| 63| 104| 72| 115| 76| 107| Old |
| | | | | | | | Dongola |
| 22| 68| 110| 75| 116| 72| — | |
| | | | | | | | |
| 23| 62| 111| 77| 115| 64| 104| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 24| 63| 109| 78| 115| 68| 105| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 25| 75| 115| 82| 117| 62| 108| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 26| 69| 108| 75| 112| 70| 98| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 27| 65| 107| 79| 112| 70| 97| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 28| 59| 112| 69| 100| 75| 99| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 29| 64| 113| 69| 100| 78| 102| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 30| 67| 113| 74| 110| 78| 98| |
| | | | | | | | |
| 31| — | — | 79| 115| — | — | |
+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+---------+
GEOLOGY.
Concerning the geological character of the country through which we had
passed, I have already made some general remarks. Details may not,
however, be wholly uninteresting.
On both sides of the Wady Milkh, as far as the end of Gebel Ain, the
rocks consist of layers of sandstone alternating, sometimes, but very
rarely, with layers of limestone, and intersected by numerous volcanic
dykes of trap. The trap is much broken up by the action of the water in
bygone times; pieces of it cover and colour the whole area of the rocks,
even when sandstone or limestone forms the upper stratum. After passing
Gebel Ain a harder class of sandstone replaces the layers of soft
sandstone and limestone, and granite takes the place of the trap rock.
We collected many geological specimens on the journey, of which the
following table gives full particulars:—
No. 1. — Sandstone (quartz veined).
„ 2. — Granulite: component parts quartz and felspar. The latter
mineral decomposed and now represented by kaolin; the
specimen is bounded by cleavage.
„ 3. — Decomposing granulite or felspathic grit, much weathered.
„ 4. — Sandstone (iron-stained).
„ 5. — Talcose schist.
„ 6. — Altered sandstone (laminated).
„ 7. — „ „ „ and stained with ferric oxide.
„ 8. — Altered sandstone.
„ 9. — Specimen too much weathered to admit of determination.
„ 10. — Altered sandstone (quartz-veined).
„ 11. — Sandstone (greenish tint in parts).
„ 12. — Quartzite.
„ 13. — Granite: components, pink orthoclose, quartz, and
magnesian mica.
„ 14. — Fragment of quartz crystal.
„ 15. — Vein quartz.
„ 16. — Quartz, containing little grains of mica.
„ 17. — Probably a felspathic grit.
„ 18. }
}
„ 19. } Metamorphosed sedimentary rocks.
}
„ 20. }
„ 21. — Granulite or Felspathic grit—felspathic ingredients
converted into kaolin.
„ 22. — Granite.
„ 23. — Quartz, containing scales of mica and flecks of a dark
mineral (possibly hornblende).
„ 24. — Brown hematite.
„ 25. — Quartz, veined with brown hematite. Surface of specimen
worn and polished (probably by blown sand).
„ 26. — Brown jasper.
„ 27. — Laminated sandstone.
„ 28. — Quartzose conglomerate.
„ 29. — „ „
„ 30. — Sandstone.
„ 31. — „
„ 32. — Mica schist.
An eminent geologist, attached to the Geological Survey of England and
Wales, to whom the above specimens were subsequently submitted,
observed, “They are all very poor specimens, and I should have thought
were not worth collecting.” In reply, I can only say that they were all
we could find, and that had there been any better we should certainly
have brought them. The fact is we were travelling through a second-hand
and worn-out part of the world.
ZOOLOGY.
Nearly all the animals found in Darfoor are common to both sides of the
Nile in the same latitudes.
_The Gazelle_ (_Dorcas)_ was more or less plentiful along the whole of
our route, but abounded most near Bagghareeyeh.
_The Ariel_ (_Oryx)_ were first seen after passing the Wady Sotaire.
They are generally alone; but in pairing time, early in the year, they
are met with in small herds.
_Antelopes_ are chiefly confined to the district between Om-Badr and El
Fasher, but in the rainy season they come further north.
_Wash-el-Baggher._—This name, signifying “wild cow,” is given in Darfoor
to an animal with very long slightly-curved horns. In shape it somewhat
resembles the ox tribe, but is not larger than a donkey. The name is,
however, used by the Arabs dwelling in other parts of Northern Africa to
designate the _Alcephalus bubalis_ which has horns resembling the two
prongs of a pitchfork (Figuier). Near Om-Badr, shortly after the first
rains, small herds of these animals were seen; only one or two specimens
were met with in the dry season.
_Giraffe._—Two of these animals were seen but in the woody parts, near
the hills, tracks are very numerous. A tree (Ziraffa), an acacia, is
named after it; it has a tall slender stem and branches at the top only,
and its leaves are quite out of the reach of any other animal.
_Lions._—Tracks of these were noticed, but none were seen or heard. The
camel-drivers say that as near as the spring of Ain Hamed the lion is
occasionally found.
_Leopards_ are rare, and their skins are much prized. The Arabs eat the
flesh, under the impression that it conduces to strength and courage.
_Hyenas._—No wild hyenas were seen but in the neighbourhood of El Fasher
and of many of the larger villages there are always several prowling
about. In Darfoor they are almost looked upon as domestic animals.
_Hares_ are plentiful after Gebel Ain.
_Porcupines._—Burrows of these were found after passing Orgoodt; beyond
El Fasher they are more numerous.
_Jerboas_ were occasionally seen after passing Bagghareeyeh.
_Foxes_, after passing Gebel Ain.
_Ichneumons._—One was seen after passing Karnac.
_Cattle, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, camels_ are owned both by the
settled and nomadic population. There are a few scavenger-dogs in the
larger villages, some are also kept for hunting.
_Tortoises._—Several were seen, varying in size from six inches to one
foot six inches in length.
_Snakes_ are very scarce, the puff adder is the poisonous snake most
often seen.
_Python_, or _Boa Constrictor._—One was killed near Bagghareeyeh. It
measured fifteen feet five inches in length and one foot four inches in
girth.
_White ants_ are plentiful in the valleys where wood is abundant. In the
dry season they burrow deep into the earth to get to water; in the rains
they come to the surface and devour the moist trees. After passing Om-
Badr ant-hills were sometimes met with generally from one to two feet in
height.
_Locusts._—The first of these were found between Ergoodt and Gebel
Sarghenat on the journey up. On the return journey immense flights of
the brown locust were seen in the neighbourhood of Zancore and Om-Badr.
The Foorawees gather them and eat them.
_Scorpions and hunting-spiders_ are only found near the wells, where
they are pretty numerous.
Immediately after a shower of rain numbers of small spiders of a
brilliant carmine colour were found, generally on the ground; as they
are never seen except after the rains, the Arabs firmly believe that
they fall from the clouds.
_Stick insects_ and a few moths and beetles were seen between Ergoodt
and El Fasher.
_Common flies_ are thick in the villages.
_Caterpillars_, green in colour and about an inch and a quarter long,
swarmed during the month of June in the valleys near Om-Badr.
_Ostriches._—Only two were seen wild, but further west they are
numerous. They are kept tame in the villages, and their feathers are
plucked, on an average, once a year. The feathers are reckoned of
inferior value, those of the wild birds fetching a much higher price.
_Guinea-fowl_ are numerous between Karnac and El Fasher.
_Sand Grouse_ are found in the desert near the Nile, but nowhere else.
_Francolin_, a species of pheasant, were shot occasionally.
_Parrots_, green and small in size, were seen only near Mushanger.
_Hawks and Vultures_ were seen between Bagghareyeh and El Fasher.
_Turkey bustard_, in pairs, were seen, at rare intervals only, after Om-
Badr.
_Pigeons and doves_ frequent some of the wells, more especially
Mbombagallah and Ergoodt.
_Small birds_ of several varieties were found near the wells after
Karnac; their nests are built with a protecting cover.
_A large owl_ with very powerful claws was shot near Om-Badr.
_Snipe_ and _wild duck_ come down to drink at the pools after the rains.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XIV.
HISTORY.
European travellers. — Early inhabitants. — Delil or Dali. — Intestine
wars. — Sulieman Solon. — Meissa. — Achmet Bokr. — Mohommed Dowra. —
Omar Leyle. — Aboo-el-Ghassam. — Mohommed Tirab. — Abd-er-Rhannem el
Rasheed. — El Fasher made the capital. — Mohommed-el-Fadl. — Loss of
Khordofan. — Mohommed Hassim. — Brahim. — Annexation to Egypt. — Maps. —
Geography. — Products.
PREVIOUS to our visit to Darfoor only three European travellers had
visited the country; Browne in 1795, Dr. Cuny, a Frenchman, in 1850, and
Dr. Nachtigal in 1874.
Browne travelled from the north by the desert route from Siout on the
Nile, two hundred and ten miles above Cairo, and restricted his
exploration to El Fasher and Kobbe, a town about thirty miles distant to
the north-west. He had but limited opportunity of seeing much of the
country, and did not acquire much knowledge of the customs of the
people. Dr. Cuny died in the country, not unsuspected of having poisoned
himself. His effects and papers were packed and sealed by the generally
honest Sultan Mohommed Hassim, but when they came to be sought for, in
order to be sent to Egypt, the cases were found broken open and the
contents scattered and lost. Dr. Nachtigal, shortly after his return,
contributed, in 1875, a paper, accompanied by a map, to the German
Geographical Institute, to which paper I am indebted for the historical
information contained in this chapter.
Although the boundaries of Darfoor have never been ascertained with
precision, the country may be considered as lying within and nearly
filling the area bounded by the parallels 9° and 16° north latitude and
the degrees 22° and 28° east longitude. In shape it is a more or less
regular parallelogram, measuring about five hundred miles from north to
south and four hundred miles from east to west. In the centre stands
Gebel Marra, a range of mountains a hundred miles from north to south
and sixty miles from east to west, and varying in height from one
thousand to fifteen hundred feet above the general level of the
surrounding country. This mountain system is the cradle of the Foorawee
people; here they originally dwelt with the Dadyos, a people far less
numerous and important. On the arrival (when is not recorded) of the
Arabs, of whom the Tunyoor were the principal tribe, the Dadyos,
recognising their superior civilisation and moral codes, lived with them
in common, and finally became completely subject to them. The gain was,
however, not altogether on the side of the Tunyoor: in course of time
they not only forgot their origin but lost all recollection of the
Mohommedan religion, if, indeed, they had ever been acquainted with it.
About four hundred years ago, after a long series of troubles, they
allied themselves by marriage with the Foorawee, and in turn became a
subject race.
The first ruler sprung from this union, King Delil, generally known by
the people as Dali, was the true founder of the kingdom of Darfoor.
Although his dominion scarcely reached beyond the limits of the Gebel
Marra he subdivided his country and established the basis of regular
government. The fixed “laws of justice,” afterwards reduced to writing,
and generally known by the name of “Dali’s Book,” prove incontestably
that in his time Islamism was not known, or that it had, at least,
passed into nearly complete oblivion; they deviate throughout from the
principles which the Koran inculcates.
The reign of King Delil was followed, for a long number of years, by
struggles for the throne, and general intestine war. This period is
veiled in nearly impenetrable darkness; the chief occurrence was the
separation from the main body of one portion of the Foorawees, and its
expulsion from the central mountain home. This unhappy state of affairs
was for a long time continued by a war of succession carried on between
Tonsam and Koro, two grandsons of King Delil. At first Tonsam, the
elder, was, it seems, victorious, for we find Sulieman, called Solon,
son of Koro, fleeing to the Massabât, in the east of Darfoor, to which
tribe his mother belonged. Arrived at man’s estate, Solon elected to try
the fortune of war with his uncle; the warlike young man was victorious,
and by degrees drove Tonsam from the Gebel Marra. From this time dates
the separation, from the Foorawee stem, of the Massabât, who had lost
their native language and had adopted the manners and customs of the
Arabs. They gave the followers of Sulieman Solon considerable trouble,
and appear to have become at one time so powerful, that in some of the
lists of the kings of Darfoor the names of their chiefs or kings are
found intermingled with those of the legitimate rulers.
With the reign of Sulieman Solon (“Solon” in the Foorawee language
signifies “the red-skinned man of the Arabs”) the history of the country
becomes clearer. He firmly established the unity of the government,
carried on wars with success, and extended the area of his power. He
died after reigning forty-one years from 1596 to 1637. He introduced
Mohommedanism into his own family and the districts near, but the people
of the provinces looked upon this faith with very little favour.
The reign of his son Meissa was less illustrious; he reigned for forty-
five years till 1682, and was succeeded by his son Achmet Bokr, who
shares with Delil and Sulieman Solon the fame of a founder of the state.
Under him Mohommedanism became the universal religion. With the object
of civilising his country he offered inducements to foreigners to
settle, and from his time dates the arrival of the Fellâta, of the
Bornoos, and of the various tribes from Wadâi at present found in
Darfoor. He reigned for forty years till 1722 with undisputed sway, and
extended his empire as far as the Nile and even beyond to the banks of
the Atbâra.
After him came his son Mohommed Dowra, or Harot, a blood-thirsty tyrant,
who, on his accession, caused seventy-two of his relatives, most of them
his brothers, to be put to death. He, fortunately, only reigned ten
years.
In the time of his successors occurred the long wars between Darfoor and
Wadâi which had, however, been commenced in the glorious reign of Achmet
Bokr. They were now carried on with less good fortune. Omar Leyle, the
son and successor of Dowra, was taken prisoner in 1739, and was
succeeded by Aboo-el-Ghassam, his uncle, a son of Achmet Bokr. He also
was vanquished in battle and died of his wounds. He was followed by his
brother Mohommed Tirâb, who came to the throne in 1752. After a reign,
not undistinguished by certain success in war, he was killed in 1785,
after reigning thirty-three years, in a war-like expedition he was
carrying on against Khordofân. His brother, Abd-er-Rhannam, called El
Rasheed, was proclaimed king in the field by the military chiefs,
although his son, Ishâga, had been left behind as Sultan during Tirâb’s
absence. Tirâb, although he had some brilliant qualities, remarkable
learning, dexterity with his pen, and a knightly spirit, exhausted the
country by his extravagance and love of display, and his son, Ishâga,
promised to walk in the footsteps of his father. Abd-er-Rhannam, a poor
priest almost without descendants, was, on the other hand, a very plain,
learned, and upright man; but avaricious, suspicious, intriguing, and
vindictive. He it was who fixed Tendelti, or El Fasher, as the capital,
and in whose reign the Englishman Browne visited Darfoor. In civil war
he conquered and slew Ishaga, and died, after a reign of fourteen years,
in 1799.
His son Mohommed-el-Fadl, a minor, in whose time the famous Tunisian
shiekh, Sheriff Mohommed, lived in Darfoor, reigned at first under the
guardianship of the energetic eunuch Mohommed Korra, whose rank was that
of “Aboo shiekh,” or “Father of the shiekhs,” and who had been formerly
governor of Khordofân. As Mohommed-el-Fadl grew to manhood the grasping
ambition of the Aboo shiekh grew more and more evident; envy, mistrust,
and jealousy sprang up between them ultimately resulting in open war in
which, only by a combination of fortunate circumstances, Mohommed-el-
Fadl was victorious, and Mohommed Korra lost his life. From this time
Mohommed-el-Fadl ruled undisturbed till the year 1839, in all thirty-
nine years. In youth, although a high-spirited, thoughtless, and violent
man, he was mostly accessible to proper influences; in later years he
became a tyrannical, unjust, and blood-thirsty ruler. Like Mohommed
Dowra, he died of leprosy. In this reign took place the loss of
Khordofân, the inglorious victory over Wadâi, and the almost complete
extermination of the Arab tribe of Eregât. Of Mohommed-el-Fadl’s
numerous sons the third, Mohommed Hassim, succeeded his father, and,
after reigning thirty-five years, died blind in 1874 while Dr. Nachtigal
was in Wadai. He was an intelligent and well-intentioned man, prone to
peace, but paltry and covetous, and generally placed his private
advantage above that of the State. His wars were mostly waged against
the Ritsegât, in the south-east of Darfoor, against whom he equipped
fourteen different expeditions, with the only result that the few last
years of his life were passed in tolerably good relationship with this
restless and warlike Arab tribe. He was succeeded by his third and
youngest son, Brahim, on the whole a sensible and well-intentioned man,
who was, however, not equal to dealing with the complications which
arose with the Egyptian Government. He was misled, and allowed himself
to be persuaded into making an open attack on Zobaire Pacha, thus
provoking Egypt to war. He died in battle in the autumn of 1874 at
Menowâtshi.
After his death, his uncle, Prince Hassaballah, placed himself at the
head of such forces as he could collect, and withdrew into the
fastnesses of the Gebel Marra, mountains which had never hitherto been
successfully invaded from the plains, and which were looked upon as
inaccessible and impregnable.
While, however, Ismail Pacha Ayoob was fast succeeding, by peaceful
measures, in reconciling the inhabitants of the eastern provinces, and
of El Fasher, the bold adventurer Zobaire, penetrated, without delay,
into the mountains and established his head-quarters at Torra. The elder
brother of the late king, Abd-er-Rhannem Shatool, shortly after tendered
his submission, and in the spring of 1875 the news reached Cairo that
Prince Hassaballah, the last defender of the independence of Darfoor,
had voluntarily placed himself in the power of the conquerors, and that
Darfoor, the notoriously evil home of fanaticism, had been finally
pacified and annexed to the dominions of the Viceroy.
A work on Darfoor, with a map, was published in Cairo by Shiekh
Mohommed, the Tunisian, a learned Mohommedan, referred to above, who
resided for many years in the country in the reign of Mohommed-el-Fadl.
Although his pictures of the life and customs of the people are faithful
and graphic, his map is so confused and distorted as to be utterly
valueless. Another map was made by the, so-called, Sultan Tayima, the
Foorawee governor of Khordofân, previous to the conquest of the latter
dependency by Egypt, and all our hitherto published maps of Darfoor are
based upon it. The latitude and longitude of El Fasher, 13° 54′ N. and
28° 15′ E., given in this map, and copied in our atlases, place that
town nearly one hundred and eighty miles away from its true position,
and an estimate of its value may be formed from this circumstance.
Dr. Nachtigal himself places it a few minutes east of 26° E. longitude
from Greenwich, and 13° 45′ N. latitude, but adds that his calculations
can only be looked upon as preliminary, and that further examination
must modify them.[14] Our own calculations, the mean of nearly one
hundred astronomical observations, checked by the through chainage and
triangulation both from Wady Halfa and Khartoom, fix the town some
forty-five miles west by south of this position.
As the Gebel Marra has formed the political centre of the country’s
history, so it forms the centre whence all the rivers flow which water
Darfoor.
The greater proportion and the largest of these, such as the Sonot, the
Bargo, Baray, the Gheldâma, and, above all, the Adsom, with its many
affluents, flow towards the west and south-west. The smallest of these
are from two hundred to three hundred yards across; in the rainy season
they are perfect torrents, and, although their beds are dry soon after
the cessation of the rains, water is always to be found in abundance at
a depth of five or six feet. Two considerable streams, the Ghendi and
the Boolbul, flow towards the south, and uniting about a hundred miles
from the mountains, are said, in seasons of excessive rainfall, to reach
the Bahr el Arab, a perennial river flowing eastward between 9° and 10°
N. latitude into the Bahr el Gazâl, a large tributary of the White Nile.
Like all the other streams in Darfoor, these are dry in the dry season.
On the eastern side of the mountains rise the Wady el Kho, and the Wady
Amoor; the fall of the ground eastward towards the Nile being only very
gradual, their course is almost due south. Neither of them reach the
Bahr el Arab, but are finally lost in the sand about two hundred miles
to the south of El Fasher.
The goal of our own journey into Darfoor was the last-named town, and of
the country west of the mountains I am not able to speak from
experience. All the natives of whom I inquired, agreed in saying that it
is by far the richer and more densely populated half of the country;
that this should be so is easily conceivable. Every day of our journey
south-west from Old Dongola brought us perceptibly further away from the
utter desolation of the desert skirting the cultivated land on the banks
of the Nile. At Bagghareeyeh the ground in the low valleys is cultivable
in the rainy season, but is only capable of yielding “duchn” in limited
quantity, and of very inferior quality. In the neighbourhood of Om-Badr
the clearings are of greater extent. No grain had been sown in 1875 at
either of these places, but the short stubble remaining showed that in
more favourable years crops are raised. At Om-Badr the “Adansonia
digitata,” monkey-bread tree, or “gangaloos,” as the natives call it,
first grows, as also the “ziraffa,” or giraffe tree. These trees, as
well as numerous varieties of the sycamore, became plentiful on nearing
Karnac and Boota. In Ergoodt and El Fasher “duchn” is plentiful and
good, but I saw no signs of “doura.” Cotton, onions, garlic, senna,
hasheesh, melons, tomatos, lettuces, rice, and tobacco are produced near
El Fasher, but are of very inferior description. No perishable fruits or
vegetables are obtainable for any length of time after the rains. All
these products are credibly said to be yielded in much greater
profusion, and of much better quality, in the south and west of the
country; there “doura” is cultivated; the plane-tree is found, but is
scarce; and the “gangaloos” attains to a greater height and diameter
than it does in the north and east. The fruit of this tree, called
monkey-bread, is a yellowish-white pod, some five inches long by two and
a half inches or three inches wide, filled with large white seeds. The
outer part only is eaten; it is very hard, crisp, and dry, with a slight
acid taste not unpleasant, but it certainly cannot be considered a
delicacy. From the circumstance of the trunk of the tree forming a
reservoir, which retains considerable quantities of water after the
rains, it is highly valued by the natives, who are thus saved the
trouble of drawing what they require from the wells.
Dr. Nachtigal, in the pamphlet alluded to, states that wheat is grown in
Gebel Marra, and mentions it as a remarkable and, perhaps, isolated
instance of its cultivation in Central Africa.
Of that portion of Darfoor through which I have travelled, namely, from
Om-Badr to El Fasher, I estimate one-sixth part only to be cultivable,
of which sixth part, perhaps, one-hundredth part is cultivated. No
system of irrigation exists, and for the eight or nine dry months of the
year the ground is incapable of producing anything at all.
[Decoration]
[Illustration: MAP OF EL-FÂSHER.
_To face Page 153_]
CHAPTER XV.
* * * * *
“As sultry breezes blown o’er poppy fields,
Or as meanders Lethe’s sleepy stream,
So dreaming music comes in fainting notes,
And brings forgetfulness—that god-like joy.”
* * * * *
EL FASHER.
A blind sentinel. — Invitation to the palace. — Description of our
quarters there. — Population. — The painted chamber. — Hassan Pacha. —
Curaçoa and concert.
EL FASHER, or Tendelty, stands on the western bank of the Wady Tendelty,
in an angle formed by the junction of the latter with the far more
considerable Wady el Kho. The Tendelty partakes more of the character of
an inlet than of an independent wady, and has no current of its own; it
is filled, during the rains, by the overflow from the Kho, and a dam
constructed near the point of junction retains the water for a
considerable time; the wells which supply the town are all sunk in its
bed. The town consists almost entirely of “tuckles,” and of box-shaped
straw sheds, similar to those described at Karnac. On the eastern side
of the Tendelty, stands the palace of the late Sultan; a group of mud
huts, and a few “tuckles,” surrounded by a mud wall about twenty feet
high. In the neighbourhood of the palace are several mud huts formerly
occupied by the officials and nobles of the court, and all of the
poorest and meanest possible description. On the town side, directly
opposite the palace, the Egyptians have constructed a square fort with
bank and trench; one gun is posted on each angle to command the town,
and four sentries march up and down the top of the bank; one on each
side of the square.
On our arrival, we passed the palace on our left, and, crossing over to
the town, not without considerable danger of tumbling down some of the
numerous wells, which are scattered about in every direction in the
wady, we halted the caravan near the fort and commenced, amidst the
growling of the camels, to unload, and prepared to pitch the tents.
These suspicious proceedings on our part were, however, not unobserved;
the sentry pacing about on the bank saw us, and was evidently sorely
puzzled in his mind. He came to a dead stop in the middle of his march,
and grounded his “Remington”; then as a mariner on the pier at Ramsgate
lifts his hand to his eyes and gazes over the ocean to see if a ship be
in sight, so he raised his hand to his tarboosh to shelter his eyes from
the sun, and gazed at us earnestly, anxiously and long. We were only a
hundred yards off, and the truth at length dawned upon him; it was a
caravan, and its people were pitching their tents. His mind was made up
at once, action was taken, and the garrison was alarmed. By the time the
tents were all pitched and the beds made, a file of soldiers, headed by
an officer, came into our camp with orders that we must move, as our
presence there might afford cover for an attack on the fort from the
town.
In the nature of things it is impossible to imagine that such a request
could be heard by Mohommed Effendi, lieutenant of the troops, without
producing material effect on the equanimity of the mind of that
irascible little gentleman. He went raving mad on the spot. Had he not
been restrained, I am thoroughly persuaded that he would, there and
then, have torn the officer and whole file of soldiers into little bits.
That poor officer was pale with dread; panic was about to seize his men
which, spreading to the garrison, might have had disastrous results, and
left us helpless and unprotected in the heart of Darfoor, where we might
have fallen victims to our policy of aggression and imperialism. We saw
the danger, and peremptorily told Mohommed Effendi to shut up. We asked
the officer into our tent, and gave him a cup of coffee as a
restorative. By slow, but perceptible degrees, from deadly pale to
sickly yellow, from sickly yellow to whitey-brown, his face assumed its
normal hue, a smile of relief parted his lips, and he placed between
them one of our Hamburg cigars. We now inquired what the matter was, and
what all the row was about?
“Orders had been issued that no tents were to be pitched within a
certain distance of the fort, and he had come to our camp to tell us
so.”
This seemed to us reasonable enough, but we asked him why intimation was
not sent to us before the tents were all pitched?
“The vigilant sentry on the bank had been staring at us for at least
half-an-hour, leaning on his rifle, with his hand over his eyes
sheltering them from the sun; why not have let us know at once?”
“That soldier was nearly blind with ophthalmia.”
“Then why not send him into our camp? There was a ‘hakeem’ with us who
would be glad to treat him.”
The bright smile on the face of the warrior grew brighter still; it
seemed we were again to be saved by our all powerful medicine man.
“He would go and see what could be done.”
During his absence a message came from the palace begging us to take up
our quarters there while we were in El Fasher. This we decided at once
to do, and leaving orders for the tents to be struck, we walked over,
and never saw the officer again or heard what decision was come to in
the fort.
The message had come from Colonel Mason, an American officer, attached
to the staff at Cairo, who had accompanied, with Colonel Purdey, another
American officer, the Egyptian army of occupation; the latter officer
was away in Wadai, and it was not our pleasure to meet him. Colonel
Mason was an old friend whom more than one member of our expedition,
including myself, had known in Cairo and on the Nile in 1871-72. The
meeting was a joyous—almost a rapturous one. It is pleasant to meet an
old friend in a weary land remote from home. There are a thousand
questions to ask—a thousand to answer; adventures to listen
to—adventures to tell, many friends to inquire after, and many inquiries
after friends to reply to. After a time our friend offered to show us
the beauties of the palace, and to find quarters for us. Two of the
houses, or rooms, one on each side of the main entrance, had been fitted
up by Colonels Mason and Purdey for their own use; the height of the
walls had been increased by timber-work, and covered with matting; the
mud floor had been boarded with Norway pine planks, which had found
their way through England to Cairo, thence by river and desert to
Khartoom, and finally on the backs of camels through Khordofân to El
Fasher where, on arrival, they had probably cost the Egyptian taxpayer
about five pounds a yard run. The next room on the left, in which a
large table had been rudely constructed was the dining-room, and at the
back of an adjacent yard was the kitchen with grates, &c. already fixed.
All these improvements had, of course, been made since the arrival of
the Egyptians. Further to the back, in a court by itself, a one-roomed
house with a doorway, and no window or light-hole, was assigned to me.
This room, I was told, had been the chief dwelling of the chief wife of
the late Sultan; it was as well built as any house in the group; the
walls were thick, and the roof was formed by entire trees laid across,
thickly interlaced with straw, and utterly impervious to sun and rain.
The floor was hard and clean, and in the darkest corner was a mud
elevation on which I placed my camp bedstead. Colonel Mason, in
introducing me to these comfortable quarters, expressed for me his
profound regret that the former occupant was no longer there. I
appreciated his kindness and his politeness, but could not
conscientiously confess to any participation in the regret.
Our camp furniture had now arrived, and soon the apartment assumed quite
a comfortable appearance. The bath was placed in the centre of the room,
filled with water cool and fresh from the wells. While enjoying its
luxuries, and reading letters and papers from England, eight weeks old,
but whose news was as delightful and fresh to me as the water, the
lieutenant of engineers gave a grunt in the doorway, in lieu of knocking
at the door, and came in to impart such information concerning the
population of El Fasher, as he had been able to glean in the last hour
or two:—
Natives, 1,700.
Es Sâyadeeyeh, 300.
Es Sâbah, 250.
El Melhah, 400.
Total population, 55,000.
The study of numbers with the mazes of addition, multiplication, &c.,
has always afforded me much delight from my youth up even till now;
here, however, was a simple sum in addition which caused me more
perplexity and bewilderment than any example in the first four rules
which had previously come under my notice. I added up, in my bath, the
natives with the three Arab tribes of settlers, but was utterly unable
to make the amount agree with what the late Mr. Joseph Hume used to call
the “tottle of the whole.” I added it up again, first forwards and
backwards, then backwards and forwards, and finally laid it down to
await Mohommed Effendi’s explanation, and looked at the walls of my
chamber.
They were decorated, or disfigured; four colours were used in the
process, brick red, yellow ochre, black, and white; weird cabalistic
shapes, a black circle with a red patch in the centre, a white square
with a yellow patch in the centre, a straightish line in red over them
both, a red triangle, three waved lines in black, yellow and red; a
crooked line, then a square, then a triangle, then a circle, then more
lines, then all slightly varied over again; no taste, no beauty, no
symmetry, only grim, barbaric hideousness; a savage, angering,
geometrical, party-coloured nightmare. Like this my room was painted on
four walls from roof to ground. Furawee art!
Having finished my bathing, and toileted myself to my satisfaction, I
sought Mohommed Effendi and the explanation. The 55,000 related to the
province of El Fasher, which included villages distant twenty or thirty
miles in every direction, and which is in area about as large as our
county of Devonshire. All subsequent inquiries have failed to alter
materially the lieutenant’s statistics; some accounts make the
population of the town as high as three thousand, but the majority and
the best agree more nearly with his two thousand six hundred and fifty.
I was just sitting down to comfortably converse with my newly-discovered
old friend, when a message came to the palace begging us to come and
dine with Hassan Pasha, governor of Darfoor since the departure of
Ismael Pacha Ayoob. To go was not pleasant, to refuse was not polite, so
away we all marched. Hassan Pacha lived close to the fort, in a well-
built house recently constructed; he received us in his audience room,
which was furnished with a deal table and chairs in the European style.
Dinner was not ready, but on the table were several green and yellow
glass decanters, containing curaçoa, “Mousseline des Alpes,” and other
liqueurs of which we were requested to partake.
The Korân forbids the use of wine, but enlightened and thirsty
Mohommedans do not consider that the prohibition necessarily extends to
spirits, and much less to curaçoa, “Mousseline des Alpes,” and Angostura
bitters, which are, of course, not mentioned in that sacred book at all.
Hassan Pacha at once commenced the usual inquiries concerning the state
of our healths, and that of our relations. This lasted about an hour, at
the expiration of which time he had arrived at our remote and
problematical cousins, when two soldiers entered to lay the cloth, and
to place round the three-pronged iron forks, black-handled knives, and
blue willow-pattern cracked soup-plates, reserved for the use of
European guests. All this done, and a plate of bay salt and a pot of
black pepper placed on the table, a fine sheep, roasted whole, emitting
a grateful odour not surpassed by that which emanates from the grating
of any London eating-house, was carried in on a large tray by four
stalwart soldiers, who walked slowly, and mutually and kindly advised
each other as they proceeded to be very careful what they were about.
The Pacha took his place, and begged us to take ours; carving knife or
fork there was none, and each helped himself to the part he liked best
with his own black handled knife and three-pronged iron fork.
Here we were in the desert, two thousand miles distant from Cairo and
civilisation, and, with the exception of so much of the latter commodity
as sat at the table and mangled the sheep, no civilisation anywhere
nearer. Probably the last thing we should have thought of as likely to
be near to afford us delight and surprise was a first-class band of
music. I have used the words “delight” and “surprise,” but not these or
any other two words can mean the feeling with which I listened spelled
to the strains of the overture of Verdi’s latest opera, _Aïda_, which
the military band commenced to play just outside the door of the Pacha’s
house. I had seen the opera before in Cairo, and have seen it since in
Naples and in London, but not all the rich magnificence of San Carlo, or
“Her Majesty’s,” and not the lustrous eyes and glorious song of Patti,
produced anything like the sublimity of that music in the desert in the
middle of barbarism, where other music there was none but droning boys,
squeaking pipes, and monotonous tom-toms. The overture finished, we
heartily thanked the Pacha for his thoughtfulness;—the kind old man was
evidently pleased with our pleasure.
The sheep being finished with, the four soldiers made their appearance,
and, as before, advising each other to be very careful, lifted the tray
and remains bodily over our heads. Another tray was brought containing a
mass of “duchn,” which, having been boiled in a sheep-skin, nearly
retained the form of a sheep; a large bowl of brown sugar was emptied by
one of the soldiers over the pudding, and iron spoons were served round
to each of us. The duchn, in consistency and taste, was like blanc
mange, but not having been flavoured with any essence, was not
palatable, even with the brown sugar.
New music and more liqueurs, and “God save the Queen” brought the
evening to a close, and we walked over to the palace, pleased with the
Pasha and with his curaçoa and concert; and, notwithstanding the dream-
inspiring memories of boiled “duchn” and music, and the staring
talismanic horrors on the walls of my chamber, I slept dreamlessly,
superbly and well.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XVI.
* * * * *
“And woman’s holy love is as a star;
Though clouds may hide its brightness, still it shines;
The path it takes is sure, though all unknown,
And fixed and changeless as the march of time.”
“Black war—man’s mad mistake.”
* * * * *
EL FASHER.
A cavalcade. — Love. — Romance. — The market-place. — A big battle. —
Morality in Darfoor. — The town. — The Greek merchants. — A bottle of
beer. — Wealth. — Half a curiosity. — “Backsheesh.”
WE had much to do at El Fasher, in plotting our work from Om-Badr in
order to enable us to decide upon the relative merits of the two routes
over which we had travelled, and in taking and reducing our astronomical
observations. It was agreed that we should work until a certain hour
each day, after which we should wander about in the neighbourhood and
glean such information concerning the natives of the country and habits
of the people as might be of general interest.
On the day following our arrival, I told Mohommed, the lunch soldier, to
go into the town and bring back four donkeys; to hire them upon
reasonable terms and, if possible, to make the contract price payable in
money, and not in rags. After a time he arrived with four small, sore-
backed insignificant animals, without either bridle or saddle, all four
for one piastre (2½d.) per day, including a small boy. Mohommed Effendi,
Mohommed the guide, the lunch soldier, and myself were to form the
party, but before starting it was necessary to improvise a saddle of
some sort. The soldier brought my camel-saddle, which, being nearly as
large as the donkey itself, did not fit, and I told the soldier he might
use it himself. I was obliged to have recourse to my own powers of
invention; I first placed on the sore part of the donkey’s back a copy
of the _Illustrated London News_, and over that Mohommed Effendi’s large
flock bed, which he kindly lent me for the purpose, and which, being
more than six feet long and four feet wide, nearly reached to the ground
on either side, and overlapped to the extent of about a foot behind,
where the view closely resembled the gable end of a small cottage with
vast overhanging eaves. The saddle was in every respect comfortable, and
offered to the rider many conveniences; I could ride either in the usual
and orthodox manner, or could, if so inclined, sit facing either to the
near or off side, according as matters of interest arose to the right or
left of the path; or again, I could, without much difficulty, turn round
and ride facing the gable end of the donkey, and gaze upon the beauties
of the prospect through which we had passed. Everything was at length
ready, and we started, like Haroon-al-Rasheed, in search of adventures.
We proceeded in Indian file—I leading, with the donkey-boy walking at my
side holding over my head Mohommed Effendi’s huge white cotton umbrella.
The soldier came last, perched on the top of the camel-saddle, which
wabbled about very considerably, and caused the bottles and plates in
the lunch bag to rattle much, and to make music suitable to so imposing
a cavalcade. The officer and the guide rode between without saddles of
any kind; each, however, compensated himself for the deficiency by
smoking, as he travelled, a very long pipe; the stem rested on the
forehead of the donkey, between its ears, and the bowl reached to about
six inches below its nose; the smoke was wafted by the gentle breeze
into its nostrils, and the patient animal shared with the rider on its
mangy back the fragrant odour of the soothing weed.
We wended our way towards the market-place. On our right we passed a
young man and woman in earnest conversation at the door of a tuckle. I
could guess the subject of their talk; the eloquent look, the stars and
the diamonds sparkling in their coal-black eyes, told me it was love,
beautiful love.
“With love comes life we have not known before;
As o’er the infant world first fell the light
Of the warm sun and gave its beauty birth,
So o’er the soul first falls the light of love
And charms it into spring. Sweet is the dawn
Of love in youth ere passion’s glow has warmed
Its tenderness and soft its whispered tale.
Sweet then her words which tremulously fall,
And sweet the trembling half-reluctant kiss
Of first—of last—of love which cannot die;
And sweet in love is certainty, and sweet
The flames which rise of passion’s quenchless fire.”
Still in this young couple there was visible through all their love an
unmistakable look of anxiety, of fear, perhaps of guilt—it might be
crime. A knife was lying near with blood on its blade, and the man’s
hand was stained. Was this then, perhaps, an African romance, a pathetic
and soul-stirring story of first and youthful love, beginning in smiles
and black blushes pure as the moonlit Alpine snow, then little quarrels
about trifles, and secret tears and reconciliation paying for the pain,
then torrid and relentless tropical passion, and raging jealousy
culminating in insane crime and the blood of a murdered rival?
“Yah Mohommed! go and learn for me this story, and come back and say
whether it is, as I suppose, a story of love and of appalling crime.”
After a few minutes:
“O Effendim! The man is a butcher and has just killed a cow in the
market, and the woman is his neighbour’s wife, and her husband is in the
market selling duchn, and they have been into his tuckle and have drunk
much merissa.”
A few more yards brought us into the market, which is held in El Fasher
every day. There was none of the life, bustle, noise, and enterprise
usual in an English market-place; dead silence prevailed, and had it not
been for the bright light of the sun, the place would have been
burdening in its melancholy. The vendors, men, women, and children, sat
on the ground, and in front of each was a not ill-made yellow grass
tray, or dish, in which the wares for sale were exposed; in one tray
were, perhaps, about two pounds of duchn; in the next the same quantity
of cotton, still with the seeds; in the next half a pound of green
tobacco, or dry bamias, then, perhaps, a large piece of beef, about ten
or twelve pounds, covered with great flies, which every now and then
would all buzz from their feast into the air with hideous noise, and
return in a few seconds and settle down hungry as before. The offal from
the beasts which had been slaughtered, was in one mountain in the centre
of the market-place, and the congregation of black flies settled upon it
made it look, from a little distance, like a heap of cinders. Over this,
high in the sky, two or three vultures wheeled in circles on their
motionless wings, eager for the business of the day to be finished, that
they might get their share of the food before the hyenas came in the
night to swallow it all away.
From the direction whence we had come there came a great and sudden
noise of men in violent altercation. Some one had whispered
“Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your wife is at home”
into the ear of the man selling duchn, whose wife we had seen, a short
time before, outside the “tuckle” talking with the butcher. The two men
now entered the market shouting and gesticulating, and seemingly about
to begin a big battle. Foorawee love, with its imagined romance and real
ugliness, I had already seen; here was an opportunity of witnessing
Foorawee war. The opportunity was not to be lost, we turned the
cavalcade towards the angry and eager combatants.
“Five piastres to the man who wins!” I called in my enthusiasm to see a
real African fight. The eyes of each sparkled at the sum; the shouts
rose in loudness and in number, hands were clenched and held forth
defiantly, or swung round windmill fashion, but still came not in
contact with anything likely to arrest their progress; heads were
lowered ready to butt and to destroy, but still the maddened combatants
remained unharmed. As one advanced the other receded, until their
gyrations brought them into the centre of the market, and they chased
each other, first one, then the other, round the offal covered with the
flies.
Suddenly, chameleon-like, or like the transformation scene at a
pantomime, the heap changed from black to its true colours of “magenta”
and “solferino”; the flies left it, and swarmed, buzzing and angry, in
one dense cloud round the heads of the yelling and leaping fiends.
“A dollar to the man who wins, and half a dollar to the loser!”
It was too much; the men stood dead still, and ceased to yell, but the
flies still buzzed. The suffered injury, and the promised dollar, fired
the soul of the man who sold the duchn; he watched his opportunity,
lowered his head, and butted with all his weight full in the butcher’s
breast. It was a battering ram: the butcher was bowled clean over
backwards into the middle of the heap, and his adversary cast himself
upon him. The two men thumped, bawled, and bit each other, and sprawled,
kicked, and struggled about in the offal like two great fish floundering
and disporting themselves in the warm shallow water. Even the vultures,
wheeling slowly in the lofty air, became excited, flapped their wings
and increased the orbit of their flight, alarmed at seeing their
anticipated dinner kicked and scattered about in every direction. The
teeth were the principal weapons used by the combatants. In a few
minutes the butcher rose, bitten and bleeding. One horrible unearthly
shriek, a high leap over the “magenta” and “solferino” mountain, and
another over the heads of the still sitting and impassible market
people, and he bounded away, followed by a cloud of flies, out of sight
into the distant desert.
I gave the man his dollar, and, after spitting from his mouth the odds
and ends of his adversary, he gave me in return a proud exultant smile.
The wife, whom I had not yet observed, had arrived on the scene; they
conferred together for a few seconds, after which she approached me, and
asked for the half-dollar for the loser, she would give it him. I gave
it to her, and she and her husband went home rich in money and in
restored conjugal felicity.
Subsequent inquiry, observation, and reflection, have convinced me that
social morality in Darfoor is at as low an ebb as it is possible to be;
even the semblance of propriety is not regarded or expected. The last
page of our Prayer Book whose title is, “A Table of Kindred and Affinity
wherein whosoever are related are forbidden in Scripture and our laws to
marry together,” would, if printed without the only two _nots_ it
contains, represent a state of things, not which might arise, but which
absolutely exists in Darfoor. Only among the higher classes is the
ceremony of marriage ever performed; among the majority of the people it
is dispensed with altogether, and this circumstance, alone, prevents it
being said with truth that polygamy is general in the country.
A gentle walk round the market-place disclosed only a succession of such
wares as I have described, and nothing which the most inveterate
curiosity-monger could have purchased with a prospect of exciting the
interest of his friends. I bought a bag of “duchn,” and brought it home
with me to England, and planted some of it on the sunny-side of a back
garden; it has not, however, yet ever appeared above ground, although it
has had ample time to do so had it felt so disposed.
The town all round was lonely and hot, dirty, dusty and dull; “tuckles”
and sheds, black with smoke, rotten with filth and age, and whose
pristine not inelegant shape had been distorted and marred by the storms
and rains of a long succession of years, were scattered about in their
enclosures without attempt at arrangement or convenience. There was no
stir, no life, no signs of happiness, only sloth, apathy, and sleep and
flies. There was, however, one exception to all this; the shed of a
Greek merchant, which he had built himself as a storehouse and
residence. He had been here three years collecting ivory and ostrich
feathers, in exchange for his Manchester “tobes,” French wines, brandy,
and pale ale. He had been successful, and the shed was richly stored
with fine tusks, six to eight feet long, and heavy as a man could lift,
and with ostrich feathers, plentiful, long, and exquisitely white, and
worth from a pound to five-and-twenty shillings a-piece. To get these he
employed the natives of the country round at a piastre a day, and they
travelled for him, far and wide, to the west and south, and brought him
honestly all they took, and were satisfied if their earnings would
enable them to drink, every day for a week, as much French brandy or
bottled ale as they could swallow. We stopped the cavalcade opposite his
door, delighted to find a resting-place for lunch. Our jaded steeds were
our first care, and we gave them water, which they would not drink, and
“duchn,” which they voraciously ate, and wanted more, which they got.
The Greek came out, followed by other Greeks, all armed with pistols and
long knives, looking like cut-throats, but amiable and good-natured,
talkative and polite, and anxious to do business. Mohommed, the soldier,
brought the lunch bag; but alas the wabbling! the bottles were broken,
and the plates and the glasses, and the biscuits and bread were soft and
red with the wasted wine. The cold mutton with a vinous taste, the tin
of asparagus, the box of sardines, and the pot of jam were placed on the
table, and the good Greek lent us plates, gave us “duchn” cake, and by
invitation sat down to join Mohommed Effendi and myself. Something to
drink was needful. I had not tasted bottled beer since leaving Cairo,
more than four months ago. Tennant’s ale, in stone bottles for export,
was inside; I bought some, cool, refreshing, very much up, clear as a
topaz, and altogether surpassingly delicious, 4s. 2d. a bottle.
After lunch our host showed us over his store. Elephants’ tusks,
however, I was not in want of; and ostrich feathers, should I at any
time require those ornaments, are much cheaper in London already curled
and ready for use; but the mention of a rhinoceros horn, stowed away
somewhere, excited my cupidity and curiosity. The coveted horn was at
length found, but not entire. The slaughter of its original owner in
some remote southern jungle had been a joint-stock affair, and the
partners had divided the proceeds equally between them. The half offered
to me was about thirty inches long, one inch and a half broad at the
base, and tapering to a point fine as a needle. The whole original must
have been a tremendous weapon, calculated to make a hole right through
the body of an elephant. I was not, however, disposed to purchase, at a
fancy price, half a curiosity, and left it behind. When, later on, I
reached the palace and went to my room, I found it on my bed, with a
little note begging my acceptance of it as “backsheesh.” I much regret
to say that it was lost on our journey home.
This, my first ramble through the town of El Fasher, and the sight of
its poverty and misery, sin, sorrowfulness, and ugly dirt, did not
impress me much in its favour, and I determined, if ever I rambled
again, to go further and, perhaps, to fare worse.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XVII.
* * * * *
“’Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes, that is, I mean,
When both the teacher and the taught are young.
At least, this was the case where I have been;
They smile so when they’re right, and when they’re wrong
They smile still more, and then there intervene
Pressure of hands, and perhaps e’en a chaste kiss;
I learned the little that I know by this.”
BYRON.
* * * * *
AT EL FASHER.
An early visitor. — A bargain. — A bad boy. — A dilemma and a half. —
Deserted. — Welcome help. — My first lesson. — An incompetent tutor.
WITH the exception of the bed of the Wady el Kho, the country all round
El Fasher, for a distance of ten or fifteen miles, is utter desert, and
no villages are within that distance.
My wanderings in the town had afforded me neither pleasure nor profit,
and the suburban wilderness of sand and small stones offered even less
inducement for a stroll. In order to profitably occupy my spare time, I
determined, after due and long consultation with Mohommed Effendi, to
engage a Foorawee tutor and to acquire so much of the language as might
be useful immediately or in after life. My requirements were not many; I
wished only to learn a few words of the vocabulary, the alphabet (if any
existed), and to ascertain whether any written characters were in use.
The lieutenant, or, as he called himself, my _aide-de-camp_, kindly
volunteered to go out and endeavour to find a respectable and suitable
person capable of imparting the above information.
The Foorawee language is not much used in this eastern and northern part
of Darfoor; the constant intercourse with the numerous Arab tribes has
nearly killed the original language. Further west, however, it is, I
have been given to understand, universally spoken. Of all the men and
boys whom we afterwards employed in our field-work, only a small
proportion could speak Foorawee fluently, and only one, from another
part of the country, was ignorant of Arabic.
Mohommed Effendi was a long time absent, and did not return that day.
It was my custom, in the desert as well as here, when shelter from the
bright moonlight was to be had, to move my bed out of the tent or house
and to sleep in the open night. On the morning following Mohommed
Effendi’s departure, when I opened my eyes, as usual, just as the sun
was about to show himself above the horizon, I saw at my bedside, facing
me, about a yard off, a squatted hideous figure staring intently into my
eyes.
“Frankenstein” was the first word that came, not to my lips, but into my
mind. It was many years since I had read Mrs. Shelley’s awful book, and
I had not been dreaming, but the idea came at once, the picture was
irresistible. Of which sex the figure was I could not guess; the hands
were folded over the breast with the ragged garments to keep away the
cold, the shoulders were wide, and the arms long, hard, and muscular,
and evidently of almost superhuman strength. The figure standing must
have been at least six feet two or three inches. The head was small,
very small, scarcely larger than that of an infant; the nose was
prominent and sharp, but of chin there was almost none; the upper lip
was at least two inches long, and the mouth was wide with hardly visible
lips. The eyes were small, beady and black, cunning and remorseless.
Over the face the skin was tight, and glistened as though seared with a
hot iron, or like the scales of a serpent. Altogether the face was
utterly unlike anything I had ever seen before, and there was nothing
about it by which I could judge of its age; it might have been that of
an evil-minded half-deformed imp of a child, or it might have been that
of an aged person, half lunatic, half idiot.
After rubbing my eyes well I endeavoured to fix them upon those of the
creature, but found it impossible, the expression was too penetrating,
unearthly, and horrible. I asked:
“What’s the matter?”
“My husband is coming.”
The figure was therefore a woman. The voice was small and shrill, like
that of an angry, petulant, malignant child.
“What’s he coming for?”
“Here he is.”
The woman stood up, rising without moving her arms or feet, like a sort
of automaton. My estimate as to her height was not much wrong. The
husband, quite an ordinary mortal, came into the enclosure. He walked
straight up to me in bed and stretched out his hand to be shaken. The
woman then followed his example, and the clasp of the dry, cold, snake-
like figures I can plainly feel now, and shudder as I write. The two
squatted down side by side, and, as before, I asked:
“What’s the matter?”
The man replied: “I can teach you the Foorawee language.”
I asked: “How much a lesson?”
The pair looked at each other, without a word, for a few seconds, and
then rose and walked some distance beyond hearing. On their return they
sat down as before, and the man, always spokesman, said:
“You say how much.”
I replied: “A piastre.”
As before, after looking at each other, they retired, and on returning:
“Ten piastres.”
The margin was large between one piastre and ten, but in this struggle
with barbarism and its female demon ally I was determined not to be
beaten. I was becoming quite interested.
“Who is to teach me?” I asked.
“Sometimes I, sometimes my wife.”
I thought of Byron’s lines:
“’Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes, that is, I mean
When both the teacher and the taught are young;
At least this was the case where I have been.
They smile so when they’re right, and when they’re wrong
They smile still more, and then there intervene
Pressure of hands and, perhaps, even a chaste kiss;
I learned the little that I know by this”;
and smiled as they came to my recollection.
The additional inducement had its effect upon me, and I offered two
piastres per lesson, to last as long as I might like. The loving pair
again departed in silence, and returned to name another sum, I think
eight piastres. Suffice it to tell that, after many departures for the
purposes of conference, an agreement was at length come to for three
piastres a lesson.
I told them, if they liked, to go into the kitchen and ask for Jacoob,
he would give them some coffee; and that I would shortly appear to
arrange the time and place for the first lesson. They both rose and
shook hands again; the woman’s hand was warmer. So well do I remember
her two horrid shakes, that I could now almost tell the exact number of
degrees of increase of temperature of the second over the first; the
horrid warm was worse than the horrid cold.
After dressing myself, I found them in the kitchen sipping scalding hot
coffee and gnawing some cold bones which Jacoob had given them for
breakfast. It was arranged that I should come over to their tuckle, some
distance beyond the town, and which everybody knew, at two o’clock the
next afternoon to take my first lesson. At the appointed time, again
borrowing Mohommed Effendi’s bed, I called for my donkey-boy, who knew
where I wished to go, and, with an alarmed expression of face, told me
the woman was a witch, renowned in all the country, and that it would be
much better to stop where I was, and not to go and see her at all.
Everything was at length ready, and I started on my journey.
But in Darfoor, as in all other countries, _L’homme propose et Dieu
dispose_. I was not destined to reach the end of my journey that day.
The donkey-boy was evidently not pleased with the destination, and the
donkey, from sympathy or, as I verily believe, from being unkindly and
surreptitiously prodded behind, became restive in his gait, unstable in
his demeanour, and quite unhappy in his mind; I had much difficulty in
keeping my seat, and the saddle, already nearly reaching to the ground
on either side, became displaced, and trailed on one side in the dirt
and sand. It was necessary to alight and, with the aid of the donkey-
boy, to properly adjust it. Suddenly, as my right leg was lifted high in
the air ready to be thrown over the donkey’s back to remount, the boy
tossed off the saddle, Mohommed Effendi’s bed, into the dirt, and,
jumping professionally into what should have been my seat, before I had
time to realise the situation or to get my right leg into its normal and
perpendicular position, shouted “Yah, yah!” like a London halfpenny boy,
and galloped away with the speed of the wind.
I was now in a predicament. The bed belonged to Mohommed Effendi, and it
was necessarily a point of duty with me that it should be returned to
him in due time and in such proper condition that his night’s rest
should not be interfered with. To shout after the boy, or to attempt to
run after the donkey, would be not only futile, but utterly wanting in
the sombre dignity which it is so necessary to preserve in Eastern
lands. After mature consideration I came to the conclusion that there
were three courses open to me: I could walk into the distant town and
wander beseechingly from tuckle to tuckle, with only three piastres in
my pocket, the price of the lesson, and endeavour to find some one able
and willing to carry the bed back to its lawful owner; I could, like a
collier with a sack of coals, lift it on to my back, and so take it away
home; or I could, as a third course, wait where I was and sit quietly
down on the bed in the expectation of fortune sending me some one to
bring me out of my difficulty. To the first course the objection was
that I should be compelled to leave the bed in an unprotected state, and
that the prowling dogs and hyenas, attracted by so strange an appearance
in the desert, might pay it a visit and, perhaps, even venture to lie
down upon it and go to sleep. The objection to the second course was
that it was impossible. The bed was long and wide, and six inches thick,
and, from many years of long and happy sleep, by day and night, had
become heavy and conglomerated, and to carry it far was not in my power.
Of three courses, a dilemma and a half, I decided to adopt the third,
and, spreading the bed on the ground, sat down cross-legged upon it,
lighted a pipe, and watched, in peace and forgetfulness of my trouble,
the afternoon sun sink in slow splendour towards the purple serrated
tops of the distant Gebel Marra.
One pipe, many pipes—two hours, and I was still in oblivion and
contented helplessness. The sun was already taking off his golden and
gaudy superfluous apparel, and, more fortunate than I, preparing for
comfortable nightly repose, which for myself I could see no prospect of
obtaining.
Out of the west two tall figures, like coming events casting their
shadows before, approached towards where I sat. I rose and hastened
towards them, to secure if possible their much needed assistance. The
one was my friend of the morning, and the other evidently her sister,
her counterpart; as tall, as muscular, as demoniacal, the two seemingly
twins. The sole difference, striking and horrible, was a white cataract,
opalescent in the light of the rising moon, in the eye of sister number
two. Each carried a jar on her head, and the husband, with another jar,
was a short distance behind. They had all three been on foot to the
slopes of the Gebel Marra to purchase a supply of duchn, and had not
comprehended my arrangement for two o’clock, hours, in Darfoor, not
being known, time being computed by days. I was not, however, disposed
to quarrel with them for their breach of engagement; I was too overjoyed
to see them. The circumstance of the flight of the donkey-boy, and the
consequent plight to which I had been reduced, inspired the sisters with
just indignation, and the three little black beads of eyes sparkled
dangerously. They thought the boy ought to be killed, and I have no
doubt that for a good-sized cotton pocket-handkerchief the two would
have joyfully departed on an errand of murder, and would have strangled
the unhappy boy that very night. There was yet an hour before dinner,
and I thought the time could not be better employed than in taking my
first lesson. I sat down on the bed, and the man squatted on the ground
in front of me with the three jars ranged behind him; the two women
nestled lovingly and close to me, one on each side—I was evidently
already a pet of theirs.
I have alluded to the individual who was to impart to me the rudiments
of the Foorawee language as a “tutor,” but did not wish to imply that
giving instruction in languages was his profession. He was simply, like
all the other inhabitants of El Fasher, a tiller of the soil and a
vendor of its produce. His engagement with me was his first undertaking
to teach, and, most probably, his last. I was aware of this, and, of
course, did not expect much. The few questions, which I had now time to
put, had reference only to the existence of letters, of an alphabet, and
of written characters. Of such things he knew nothing whatever, and to
my every query his reply was a sound with the lips as of a soft
administered kiss, which, in Foorawee, as in the Arabic as spoken in
these latitudes, means “no.” This sound, vigorously echoed every time by
the two women nestled close against me, although resuscitative of
memories long dormant and not destitute of pleasure, began to make this,
my first introductory three-piastres-worth of lesson, somewhat tedious
and strictly monotonous.
Louder, shriller and more frequent came the kiss-like “noes”; closely
and more closely to my either side pressed the hideous twins, hot and
damp; night, with a million poet stars filling its eloquent immensity,
fell lustrous over the face of the dead and boundless desert, and Nature
whispered, softly but unmistakably, “Jacoob is laying the cloth.”
It was necessary to start homewards. I gave the man his three piastres,
and, after wishing me good-bye, he departed with the sister. The wife
rolled up the bed, and taking it under her arm, accompanied me in
silence to the palace. The boy who had served me so scurvy a trick was
there in fear and trembling, sent back by his parents.
On the following day I repaired to the tutor’s tuckle. It was distant,
and the interior was dirty and hot; there was but one “angereb,” and we
sat as before, the damp twins one on each side of me, and the man on the
ground in front. Every five or ten minutes they emptied between them a
gourd of “merissa,” holding nearly a quart. The attentions of the ladies
grew in two senses warm, and I made no progress. They grew jealous of
each other, and squabbled over every word. The man grew jealous of me,
and my position was becoming uncomfortable. I cancelled the contract,
refused to drink a gourd of “merissa,” jumped on to my donkey, and rode
home as ignorant of the Foorawee language as if it had never been my
good fortune to go to El Fasher.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XVIII.
* * * * *
“The blue impillared vault of naked heaven
Had been his temple; God had taught him prayer.”
“This note was written upon gilt-edged paper
With a neat little crow-quill slight and new.”
BYRON.
* * * * *
A RIDE TO KOBBE.
A conclave. — Hyenas. — Mohommed’s love. — Mohommed’s prayer. — Its
effect. — A runaway camel. — A search for a lion. — The wake of the
“ship of the desert.” — A welcome supper. — Two scientific men. — Kobbe.
— A scrap of paper.
AS our work in El Fasher drew towards its close, a very serious
discussion arose among the members of the staff, involving a question of
no less importance than the very essence of the Fourth Commandment. The
Mohommedan Sabbath is Friday, and all our officers and men were
naturally very anxious that this day should, during our work in the
field, be kept as a day of rest to enable them to say the orthodox
number of prayers, and to take the requisite number of hours’ sleep in
order that they might be fit, both spiritually and temporally, for the
resumption of work on the following day. Our own Sabbath was of course
Sunday, and our anxiety that the day should be becomingly honoured by
grateful repose was not less heartfelt than that of the Mohommedans. For
ourselves to abstain from work on Sunday and let the men work would be
simply preposterous, as they could do nothing without our guidance; for
us to work on the Friday while the men were resting and praying, would
be, perhaps, more preposterous still, as we could do nothing without
their assistance. The question, therefore, arose—on which day should we
rest from our labour. Some were in favour of Sunday, others in favour of
Friday. To recapitulate the arguments adduced by the learned theologians
composing this conclave would be foreign to the nature of this work,
which is not theological. Happily an agreement was at length come to.
Mutual concessions, creditable to both sides, were made, and it was
resolved _nem. con._ that we should rest from our labours both on the
Friday and on the Sunday.
This arrangement was satisfactory to all parties concerned.
Availing myself of the opportunity thus presented, I determined late on
Thursday evening to set out that night on a journey to Kobbe, to
consider the intervening Saturday a _dies non_, and to return by the
following Sunday night or early on Monday morning. I had no map of the
country, but from inquiries judged the town, which was in the Wady el
Kho, to be distant between thirty and forty miles in a north-westerly
direction.
I made up my mind to go without a guide, as at that late hour, when
everyone in El Fasher was fast asleep, it would be impossible to find
one.
Mohommed Gadderâb was to accompany me; he had never been to Kobbe
before, but neither of us anticipated any difficulty in finding the way.
Our arrangements, two skins of water and one of cabin biscuits, were
soon completed, and we left the palace at about midnight. Passing
through the silent town we disturbed several hyenas, hard at work in the
market-place, making disgusting noises in their efforts to masticate and
gorge some delicate morsels too tough for their teeth and too large for
their throats. We soon left the last houses behind us, and, after
crossing the Wady el Kho, started across the trackless wilderness.
The night, like all the nights, was indescribably beautiful but more
than usually cold, and Mohommed pulled the date-basket more closely over
his ears, and rolled the ropes three or four times round his neck to
protect it from the air. We trotted gently side by side, and my faithful
friend and guide, generally, like all Arabs, so reticent, chatted gaily
as we went, and opened his heart, and, though I was younger than he,
called me his father. He told me of his mother and children, and how he
loved them, and of his wife whom he venerated and loved more than all
the others put together, and how there was only one thing more in the
whole world he wished for, and that was, when he grew rich, to marry
again—a beautiful daughter of a wealthy shiekh. When our expedition was
over and he obtained his money, an event he by no means considered a
certainty, he intended to do this, to give up guiding, and to settle
down in peace and contentment for the rest of his days—if the two wives
did not quarrel _much_. I liked the man, and he, I believe, was
sincerely devoted to me. I promised him, on our safe return to Old
Dongola, a substantial “backsheesh,” with the hope that it might help
him in carrying out his matrimonial projects. They were, however, never
realised, but abandoned before he reached his home, when his thoughts
had reference less to a second wife in this world than to the diviner
houris he anticipated meeting in the next.
The deep indigo of the night changed to the pale grey of the dawn, the
stars faded one by one in the sky,
“Till in the east a solitary orb
Was left the herald of approaching day.”
Venus’s light was soon put out, and in five more minutes the sun rose
and changed the whole of the heavens to blue and gold. Mohommed Gadderâb
unrolled the rope from his neck, loosened the date-basket on his head,
made his camel kneel down, and then, turning towards the rising sun,
knelt down too, and said from his simple heart his simple prayer.
The genuflexions, the sudden rises and falls, the many bowings down of
the head and date-basket and ropes into the sand in adoration of Allah
and of the Great Prophet Mohommed, produced in my camel, who was not in
the habit of witnessing so extraordinary a performance, a sudden and
great fear, and, with me on his back, he bolted, mad with terror, across
the desert.
This conduct on the part of my camel astonished me very considerably;
with the exception of one occasion, when he turned with me into the
thorny bush, his behaviour had always been irreproachable. He had
travelled for six hundred miles, and had met with many sudden surprises.
Thorns had entered his feet and had torn his sides; storm sand-spouts
had risen under his very nose; foxes and hares had started from between
his feet, and once a hyena, a horrid vision, rose only a yard before his
eyes; still he never flinched, but brought me safely to the end of my
journey. Mohommed’s prayer and the bobbing basket were, however, too
much for him; he became unsettled, his mind lost its balance,
“And Reason reeled down drunken from its throne.”
My position on the back of the terror-stricken and wildly-galloping
camel was one of pain and much anxiety. Properly to convey an idea of
the motion would be impossible, but a tolerably good imitation might, I
think, be obtained by mounting astride of two large rocking-horses, each
made to rapidly rock in such a manner that when the head of one was in
its zenith, the head of the other should be in its nadir.
First away went my hat, my Thresher and Glenny helmet, price thirty
shillings, on which I prided myself much, next the folded rug and the
jaguar-skin I had brought from South America, and placed on the saddle
to soften the seat and make it comfortable. My red morocco slippers
followed my jaguar-skin’s example, and at length, worst of all, the
little case-bottle, which I had always carried to meet any emergency
that might arise, jumped like a living thing from my breast pocket, and
fell shattered into the stones. The water in the skin hanging to one
side of the camel, and the cabin biscuits in the skin on the other side,
made much rattling noise in their respective receptacles, and, for aught
I know to the contrary, tended materially to increase the terror of the
already maddened beast. As luck would have it, my camel was running
square on to the dense mass of thorn-trees and scrubs that fringed the
banks of the Wady el Kho. They would not have stopped him, and had he
gone in amongst them, the very flesh would to a certainty have been torn
from my bones. With my left hand I clutched the upright wooden pommel of
the saddle, and with my right pulled with the strength of fear the rope
that served as bridle, in order to turn him towards a low sand-hill half
a mile off on the right. In this I was fortunately successful; he came
to a stop a little way up the slope of the hill, turned suddenly round,
and started off in another direction as madly, or more madly, than
before. The second bolt was a long one. He must have galloped over the
flat, sandy, and stony desert for at least two miles. Finally, when he
was exhausted, he came to a walk, snorting. I watched my opportunity,
lifted my right leg over the high pommel, and jumped, truly thankful, on
to the ground.
The whole of the skin from the palm of my left hand had gone, owing to
the friction of the rough wooden top of the pommel which I had clutched.
Other than this I had sustained no bodily injury, but the implicit
confidence which I had placed in my camel was irretrievably lost.
This fact of the loss of part of my palm leads me to tell how easy it is
in the dry air of the desert for the skin to be torn off, and how
quickly it again comes. The hands coming in contact with anything in the
least rough will at once cause an abrasure, and, happily, but very
little pain. My dear friend and colleague, with whom I had travelled to
El Fasher, had always kindly volunteered to look after the stores, and
every evening on our arrival in camp his good-nature necessitated his
using a hammer and chisel to open the cases, and nails to shut them up
again. His hands from the use of these tools became in many places
destitute of their usual covering, which, however, as quickly appeared
again. The Arabs do not suffer in the same way, for the two reasons that
they never do any manual labour, and that their skin, although they
drink but little water, is always moist; but throughout the European
members of our staff the circumstance was universally noticed.
Mohommed rode up in a few minutes with my personal furniture, my thirty-
shilling Thresher and Glenny helmet, my two slippers, my rug and jaguar-
skin, the stopper of my case-bottle, and the elegant little tin drinking
cup which had so conveniently fitted on to its end, and from which, on
many happy occasions, I had taken a grateful draught of Martell’s three-
star brandy, properly diluted, to the health of my friends at home in
England.
“O Mohommed, why did you pray? You see the effect of your prayer. You
have for ever spoiled the temper of my camel,—and look at the palm of my
hand!”
“O Effendim! why did you not pray? Had you got down from the camel and
prayed to your God as I did to mine, it would not have happened; the
camel would have rested, and your hand would still have been as God has
made it.”
Mohommed had very much the best of the argument. I was soon ready to go
on, but took the wise precaution to change camels with Mohommed, in the
natural fear lest my animal should take it into his head to stampede
again.
The ground through which we now travelled was in many parts susceptible
of being cultivated, but no signs of any past or present cultivation
existed.
There were numerous porcupine-burrows, with many quills scattered about
their entrances. Now and then we came upon a large tortoise, about a
foot high and the same breadth and length, pursuing its slow and
melancholy way with, perhaps, a destination in the wady below which, at
its present pace, it might reach in the course of about six months.
Gazelles, ariels (Oryx), and antelopes, resembling the koodoo of Natal,
sometimes trotted playfully out of the trees in the valley, saw us, and
trotted hastily back. We saw the marks of giraffes and of ostriches, and
of many beetles, and occasionally the smooth track of a snake in the
sand, but none of the animals, insects, or reptiles themselves.
When at twelve o’clock our shadows had hidden themselves under the
camels, we turned into the valley, and sat down in desirable shade to
lunch on cabin biscuits and lukewarm water. After lunch we wandered
about on foot, and struck into one of the many tributary “khors.” Here I
found the footmarks of some wild animal, which Mohommed told me were
those of a lion. My curiosity was aroused. I had never seen a lion in a
wild state, and with Mohommed’s help I tracked them up the “khor” for
about an hour.
Mohommed suddenly came to a stop in our search and said: “Suppose we
find the lion?”
This was a contingency which had not yet occurred to my mind. I was
anxiously looking for something which I had no desire whatever to find.
We were neither of us armed, and to have suddenly come upon an angry,
hungry lion guarding his cubs in his lair, might have had results the
reverse of conducive to the success of our expedition to Darfoor.
I said: “It is time to proceed on our journey. We will go back to the
camels.”
On our further journey we crossed the valley and rode on the north-
eastern side. When the night came the bushes were pretty thick all over
the land, and we completely lost sight of the dark-green line by which
we had hitherto been guided.
I judged, from the time we had travelled, that we were not far from
Kobbe, and turned due west. After an hour the country became again quite
open and free from trees. A long distance ahead stretched a bright white
line, to the right and to the left, as far as we could see. It seemed on
the dark expanse of the desert as seems the Milky Way on the dark
expanse of the sky. To me it was a mystery, but to Mohommed it imparted
certain and welcome information.
We reached it soon; it was the camel-track from Kobbe northward to
Sioot, on the Nile, two hundred and fifty miles above Cairo. We had
passed Kobbe by a long distance, and we retraced our steps southwards.
The remote reaching track to the north was like the white wake of a ship
speeding in the night and moon over the face of the ocean: it was the
wake of the “ship of the desert.” The powdered and bleached bones of
myriads of camels, that for the last many thousand years had dropped
under their weights to slowly die, had been trodden into the earth and
mixed with the sand: it was Death itself acting as our guide, and
charitably showing us the road to our destination. We followed
gratefully the spectre on his pale gray horse, and at length reached
Kobbe at about midnight. The town was fast asleep. I got off my camel,
hobbled one of his legs, and sent him to graze on the scanty tufts of
yellow grass in the land of Death, and lay down on my rug and went fast
asleep in the bone-dust. Mohommed went into the town to try and find us
a more lively lodging.
He was not long absent, but returned in about an hour accompanied by two
Greeks, merchants, whom he had found awake in their store, at supper. In
ten more minutes I was a welcome guest, eating hot mutton, black olives,
Dutch cheese, truffles, and duchn cake, and drinking pale ale and red
wine, strongly imbued with the flavour of the leather skin in which it
had been brought down from the mountains in the “Isles of Greece.”
Supper ended, a back-gammon board, about the size of a whist-table was
introduced, and the two Greeks sat down to play, with men as large as
Bath buns, and dice as big as the grains of the cubic powder used in
charging the eighty-ton gun at Shoeburyness. I retired to rest in an
adjoining apartment, but the rattle of the huge dice and the banging
about of the Bath buns, rendered sleep impossible. I rose and took a
seat by the side of one of the players. The men were playing high—five
pounds a game and twenty pounds for the gammon.
Backgammon is an ingenious game, much played by the clergy in England,
but I doubt whether the most experienced English parson would stand any
chance with a really skilled Greek. The players throw the dice with the
hand, and not from a cup as we do. To play properly is quite a science.
Should the thrower want an ace, or any other number, he drops one of the
dice on to the board; if it turns up an ace, or the other required
number, the second die immediately follows, and the throw remains; if,
on the other hand, the wished-for number should not come up, the die is
picked up as though accidentally dropped, and the player throws again. A
very skilful player will, in the critical parts of the game, perhaps
repeat this once or twice, generally with ultimate success. The two
players in question were both scientific in the highest degree, but it
was Greek meeting Greek, and in every case their efforts were at once
detected, and no harm was done. To their request that I should play I
gave a polite negative.
To tell about Kobbe, in which town I spent some hours next day, would be
only again to tell what I have told about El Fasher. There was the same
dust and age, and the same tumble-down grimy tuckles and sheds. The
people, however, are perhaps a shade less sleepy and slothful. The town
stands on the high camel-track from Sioot southwards, through the oasis
of Khargeh, the alum mines of Sheb, the salt district of Selimah, and
the natron lakes at Zeghawa, whence on through Kobbe to lake Tchad, in
the very heart of Africa. It is, however, only a resting-place; itself
has little or no trade. When a caravan goes through the town the
inhabitants wake up, and when it has passed they go to sleep again.
Beyond this they have no life. In the town there was but the one
merchant firm, the two Greeks I have mentioned, and their business was
the collection of feathers and tusks.
On Saturday afternoon, at about three o’clock, when the sun’s heat began
to grow less, Mohommed and myself started back on an estimated bee-line.
The two kind Greeks pressed upon us a bottle of black Spanish olives and
a tin of French truffles, to eat on the way. In about fourteen hours we
struck El Fasher exactly, arriving just in time for breakfast.
On the afternoon of this day, the 2nd of April, the messenger whom we
had despatched with letters from Om Badr to the Khartoom party, rode
gaily into the enclosure of the palace, returned from his long ride of
more than one thousand one hundred miles. When he had delivered his
letters, happily reporting all well, he looked carefully at each of us,
as though in search of some one whom he could only find from a
description he had received. His eyes at length rested on me, and after
gazing for some seconds, he beckoned me to follow him outside.
In a secluded corner,
“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,”
he unrolled from his loins the old Dongola cloth, his entire wardrobe,
and, after untying a knot in one of its remote corners, handed to me a
piece of coarse paper, in shape and size resembling a walnut; opened out
as large as the palm of my hand. Signature, or seal, the usual method of
signing in Egypt, there was none, and the bad and blotted writing was
quite illegible to me. Whence did it come? An old woman at Sotaire had
given it to him. What was it about? He did not know. On what subject
could an old woman at Sotaire or anywhere else write to me? old women
are not my usual correspondents. I had paid all my debts for sheep and
oxen and milk. There was a mystery in this little note. A surmise came
from my heart into my mind. Might it be from the good and beautiful
Rebecca who had drawn the water from the well for me to drink, and who,
in the solitude of the starlit night, had told me all about the strife
and sorrow of her people. She could not write, that was impossible, but
she might have employed the old woman to do so for her; old women will
do these things. In my vanity I thought so, and, let me be forgiven, I
think so now, and have ever since treasured the torn and crumpled piece
of paper with its illegible writing. On our return to Sotaire the tribe
was no longer there. The secret remains divided between the paper in my
desk and the hearts of the writer and of the sender, wandering over the
desert thousands of miles away. I have looked at the paper many times
since, I am looking at it now; some of the letters seem clearer, and one
word, one word only, has grown from month to month into life—“Fantasia.”
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XIX.
* * * * *
“Death was a monarch crowned when Abel fell.”
* * * * *
BACK TO ERGOODT.
Farewell music. — Arrangements for the week. — Pleasant meeting. — A
strange guest. — A lonely grave.
BEFORE starting with our work on the way home, it was necessary to weed
out from our two hundred and thirty-four camels, none of which we had
lost, all such as were weak, sickly, knock-kneed, sorebacked, or
otherwise afflicted with the ills to which camel flesh, after long
journeys, is heir. These, after minute inspection, amounted in number to
fifty. None of the Arab tribes, Es Sayadeeheh, Es Sabah or El Melhah,
settlers at El Fasher, are possessed of many camels; to obtain fifty was
a difficulty. A contract was, however, at length signed with the shiekh
of the Sayadeeyeh, who sent for them into the Sahara, where there were
brothers of his tribe, still wanderers, possessed of large herds. The
terms per camel were six piastres per day, and the condition of hire was
that they were not to be taken into the limits of the wanderings of the
Hamr Arabs, who would steal them, as the latter and the Sayahdeeyeh were
at constant enmity and war. This necessitated our being obliged to give
them up shortly after passing Karnac.
Our sketch map of the country over which we had travelled on our
respective routes from Om-Badr to El Fasher was now complete, and a
trial line was traced upon it. Considerable deviations from the routes
we had followed were found to be necessary in order to avoid crossing
the range of rocky hills, the Serghenat, over which the track passed on
the last day of our journey. By running a line in a south-easterly
direction near the eastern bank of the Wady el Kho, for about fifteen
miles we reached the extreme southern point of the Serghenat, where it
terminates in two conical rocky peaks, some six or seven hundred feet
high, named the “Sergain,” or two saddles. From this point to Ergoodt a
fairly good and nearly straight line was obtainable. From Ergoodt we
found it desirable to run the line north-easterly in order to pass the
Derrit Homar mountains on its northern side, whence, with the object of
avoiding the mountains that form the eastern bank of the Wady Abiad, we
bore in a direction slightly south of east, and passed the Wady Abiad on
our left at the place where it becomes lost in the plain. From this
point, still in the same general direction, all was plain sailing,
through Broosh, as far as Boota, about seven miles west of Karnac. The
short length of seven miles between Boota and Karnac was the roughest
part of our line, and for a short distance we judged, from the
barometrical section, that a gradient of one in fifty would be
unavoidable. Both at Boota and at Karnac the line was sketched on close
to the wells. From the latter place to Gebel Megzaam, the last mountain
of the Zayenât range, the ground was easy and flat, but from Megzaam to
Om-Badr we found it impossible to sketch on a satisfactory line. The
route I had followed to the north of the Zayenât was virtually
impracticable, and the route followed by the other section to the south
of the Zancore-Seroog range was only a little better. It was decided to
leave this part of the line, about forty-five miles, out of our present
calculations, and, on reaching Karnac, to make inquiries from the
natives as to other routes that might exist to Om-Badr, or, if
necessary, to undertake further explorations so as to include the space
between the Zayenât and the Zancore-Seroog ranges.
On Saturday, 8th April, we were ready to start work on our slow way
homewards. The next day was devoted by the drivers to collecting the
camels from their wanderings in the Wady el Kho, to giving them to
drink, and to filling the skins and tanks. By sunset the camels were all
in the palace enclosure, the skins and tanks were all full, and
everything was ready for our early start on Monday morning. On Sunday
afternoon Hassan Pacha sent word over requesting us to eat our last
dinner under his humble roof. We were, however, compelled to decline;
the fact that we had a very much better dinner at home assisted us, I
have no doubt, in coming to the decision to refuse his kind hospitality.
The good-natured pacha was, however, not to be baulked; he sent over his
military band to do us honour and afford us pleasure. All that Sunday
evening we listened to delightful airs from the various operas,
interspersed with lively English popular melodies, the concert
concluding appropriately, but, I believe, accidentally, with “We won’t
go home till morning.”
The plan we adopted in carrying out our work was to commence as shortly
as possible after daybreak and breakfast, leaving the camels and camp
behind to follow when all was packed. On their reaching us, at about
nine or ten o’clock, we gave the Mahounds instructions what direction to
take and how much longer time to travel before pitching the tents. When
the heat of the day, about twelve or one o’clock, grew so intense as to
forbid our continuing at work, we would make for the tents, which, owing
to our management, we generally found ready pitched not far from the end
of our day’s work.
My portion of the work was to make the “section,” or, to those not
familiar with professional terms, to take the “levels.” One of the
officers, sometimes Mohommed Effendi Ameen and at other times Mohommed
Effendi Radjai, assisted me by superintending the chainage. Four
soldiers worked with us; two Mohommeds—one of them my old friend the
lunch soldier—and two Suliemans; the Mohommeds chained—which is heavy
work—one day, and held the levelling staffs the next thus alternating
their labour with the two Suliemans. This plan had two great advantages;
it prevented quarrelling and dissatisfaction about unequal division of
labour, and, moreover, avoided confusion in the field. A call to a
Mohommed when holding the staff could not be misunderstood by a Sulieman
at the chain, or a call to one of the latter at the chain could not
endanger a staff being unnecessarily moved when held by a Mohommed. One
day “Mohommed” signified the staff and “Sulieman” the chain, and the
next Mohommed signified the chain and Sulieman the staff. In addition to
these five willing and valuable assistants I had with me two young
Foorawees, Achmet and Abd-el-Benât (slave of the women), the former
sharp as a needle, the latter nearly as much the reverse as it is
possible to be. Their alternate duties were to carry my level, and to
look after the camel which carried water for us to drink. At one o’clock
luncheon was ready in the tent, and we ourselves were generally ready,
too, to do it ample justice. In the afternoon we reduced our levels, and
put everything in order for work next day.
Dinner was punctually served at half-past six o’clock, and after a game
of cards and a glass, perhaps two, of hot spirit and water, we retired
to rest at about nine o’clock.
At first the work progressed but slowly. It took some time for the
soldiers and natives to get into the clockwork regularity to which they
afterwards attained. In the open country all went easily and well, but
when it was necessary to run through the scrub and thorn-bushes, our
real unpleasantnesses began. We all got more or less torn by the thorns.
The hard trees, which had to be cut down several times, tried the temper
not only of the axes, but of the men who wielded them. Of such labour we
had a continuous thirty miles between “Sergain” and Ergoodt. The land is
such as is called by the natives “Goze”; it consists of sand mixed only
with a small proportion of clay in powder, and is, to a certain extent,
cultivable, but only yields the poorest results. This part of the line
through which we had to cut our way was a hummocky plain, in most parts
densely covered with mimosas, the “sont,” the “thundub,” the “merkh,”
the “mochert,” sometimes the “egleek,” and, near the wells, the “esher,”
or vegetable silk tree.
Between El Fasher and Ergoodt, forty four-miles by the route we came, we
passed three villages: El Feraysh, consisting of three tuckles, with a
cleared space round them for sowing “duchn”; Hellit Showar, a place of
about the same importance; and a village, half-way between Sergain and
Ergoodt, containing as many tuckles as the other two put together. Each
of these villages had but one well, which was fast drying up, and the
inhabitants were preparing to leave for El Fasher to await the advent of
the next season’s rains. Our camels were kept constantly at work going
to and fro to El Fasher and afterwards to Ergoodt, in order to keep us
well supplied with water. The skins they carried soon became lacerated,
and we had to send to El Fasher for others; they were supplied, but so
old, torn, and full of holes, as to be perfectly useless, and we had to
content ourselves with such as we already had.
The Sabbatic arrangement we had come to at El Fasher, although so
satisfactory to the disputing parties, was soon found to work quite the
reverse of well. The difficulty of keeping us all supplied with water
when far from the wells, and the necessity of allowing the camels to
drink in proper turn, obliged us to hasten the work as much as possible.
A second conclave was at once resolved upon and assembled to settle the
vital point as to whether the day of rest should be Friday or Sunday. To
endanger our hereafter felicity by the violation every seven days of the
Fourth Commandment was a contingency requiring very grave consideration;
whereas to selfishly ensure our own salvation at the expense of the
everlasting happiness of our poor Mohommedan followers would certainly
be a proceeding, to say the least, very unchristian-like. It was
determined, after proper examination of this highly important question
by the members of the European and native staffs as were well qualified
to give a learnedly orthodox opinion, that it was right to be impartial.
We should all, Christian and Mohommedan alike, take our chance, whether
of mercy or of eternal wrath. After this the work went on better, and
until its termination we never rested for a single day.
On 21st April we reached Ergoodt, and pitched our camp on a clearing in
the village where the tuckles were far apart. Almost in the same hour we
were surprised, needless to say agreeably, by the arrival of Major
Prout, an American officer of the Cairo staff, accompanied by Dr. Pfund,
a German physician of eighty years of age, who had passed many years of
his long life in wandering about Khordofan, and who, I regret to say,
has left no record of his experiences. They were on their way to El
Fasher, and had travelled _viâ_ Khartoom and El Obeid, capital of
Khordofân and Fogah, thence by the general track over the Zancore-Seroog
range along the valley dividing it from the Zayenât. Fortunately Major
Prout was in a position to report favourably to us upon the nature of
the ground between the two ranges, that portion of the country through
which we had not passed on our way from Om-Badr to Karnac. We decided to
adopt that route for our proposed line of railway, and were thus saved
an infinity of labour in further exploration.
We passed a pleasant evening. The old doctor regaled us with many
anecdotes of his African life. He brought with him into our tent to
dinner a strange but not unwelcome guest—a tame leopard he had reared
from its early youth. Although no longer young, it was sociable,
amiable, and sportive as a kitten. Its food was anything it could
get—raw meat or, failing that, soldiers’ bread, boiled duchn and milk.
At our table it ate macaroni cheese, hot curried mutton, and jam tarts,
and although in appearance somewhat fierce and formidable, it was as
well-conducted an animal as any with which it has been my lot to become
personally acquainted. Its caresses were not lavished only upon its
master, it was equally friendly and playful with us all.
Dr. Pfund is since dead; he died three months after our parting on the
morning of next day. His remote and lonely grave is under the rocks on
the eastern slopes of the Gebel Marra; no engraven stone, no “storied
urn or animated bust” marks the site. The Arabs who travel in Khordofân
knew him well. He had lived among them and was loved. He had often
relieved them when in pain and sickness, and had saved many of them from
death. To these poor wandering children of the desert the sun seemed to
shine more brightly when he was near; many of them shed tears of real
sorrow when later I told them he was dead. They say that the light of
the full moon falls more softly and more sweetly on the spot where the
well-loved stranger sleeps his last sleep; may it always so shine,
“A fitting and eternal monument
Upon his chosen monumentless grave.”
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XX.
* * * * *
“I heard the deep moan of the wild storm-war.”
“The venomed snake groped deeper in his hole,
And closed his eyes and trembling hissed his fear.”
* * * * *
BACK TO OM-BADR.
A journey for water. — “What’s in a name?” — A gust of wind. — The camp
blown away. — Bad water. — Snake-bites. — An efficient cure. — We meet
the Khartoom party. — Om-Badr deserted.
BETWEEN fifteen and sixteen miles past Orgoodt the line reaches its
highest point, sixty-nine feet above the starting point at El Fasher and
two thousand four hundred and eighty-seven feet above mean sea-level.
After this we had between forty and fifty miles more of hard work
cutting down thorn-trees, and we made but slow progress.
During this part of the line, while we were in the scrub, distant about
twenty or twenty-five miles both from Orgoodt and Abiad, an incident
occurred which might have had disastrous results had it taken place
when, as on some parts of the work, we were still further away from the
wells. The camels which had been sent for water to Abiad failed to find
us, and on one evening we were startled to learn that there were only
four skins of water in the camp. The camels were loaded at once with
only such _impedimenta_ as was absolutely necessary, and, leaving four
soldiers behind to take care of the tents, we rode, wearied and sleepy,
due north, through the forest of thorns, in order to strike, as soon as
possible, the track from Abiad to Orgoodt. We reached the former town
early in the morning, all of us very thirsty, but thankful that the
mishap had had no worse consequences than making us all thoroughly
tired, and delaying the work for two or three days.
When opposite Obah, about a hundred miles from El Fasher, I ran some
levels up to the village in order to ascertain the level of the water in
the wells. Abd-el-Benât, Achmet, and my usual assistants accompanied me.
Round the wells (there were three about sixty feet deep) half-a-dozen
women were drawing water; some old, some young, and all ugly. My work
being ended I called to Abd-el-Benât, whose duty it was, on that day, to
carry my level. His name—“slave of the women”— produced an immediate and
magical effect upon the whole of the half-dozen women assembled at the
well; they pricked up their ears, opened their eyes wide, and, with
sweet smiles, simultaneously advanced to meet him; they took hold of his
hands and arms, clung round his waist, and finally each gave him, one or
several, hearty and affectionate kisses. All this was, of course, very
pleasant for Abd-el-Benât. Neither of Mohommed Effendi, the soldiers,
nor of poor Achmet, nor of my unfortunate self, did they deign to take
any notice whatever; we could only look on, envious, silent, and
helpless. The caresses they had so profusely lavished upon the owner of
the pet name came, at length, like all things, to an end, after which
the women wished to carry him off bodily to the village, to give him
some “merissa”; this, however, I was not disposed to permit, as I did
not wish my level to be dropped and perhaps broken upon our way home.
After all, there is something in a name; had his name been Achmet,
Sulieman, or Mohommed, he would not have had all those bright smiles,
soft caresses, and warm kisses bestowed so freely and lavishly upon him,
and the kind offer of the—to him—delicious “merissa” would not have been
made. Romeo himself, with all his romantic love and his beautiful and
poetic name, would have stood no chance. O Abd el-Benât, Abd-el-Benât,
wherefore art thou Abd-el-Benât?
On reaching Om-es-Seraydeh, a few miles beyond Obah, we came out into
the open country, bordering the camel-track, and sped along at the rate
of six or seven miles a day, making up for the slow progress we had made
while cutting through the bush. After passing Boota, we turned the line
up the “Khor-es-Sayal,” following the route we had traced on the sketch
plan. Here the minimum radius, five hundred metres or five hundred and
forty-seven yards, and one in fifty the steepest gradient allowed, was
rendered, for the first time, necessary over any considerable distance.
One evening, as we sat at dinner in our tent, pitched in the valley
midway between the steep and lofty rocks on either side, we were
startled in our pleasant occupation by the terrible sound of a
tremendous wind-storm close upon us. Before we had time to express any
wonder as to what it could be, or to swallow what we had already
inserted into our respective mouths for that purpose, the tent was
carried clean and far away from above our dinner, the candles were blown
out, and the two tables, placed side by side, were upset, and the whole
of the first course was gone. It was a fearful tempest; all the tents,
with the exception of one placed fortunately under the shelter of a
great rock, were torn from the pegs, and whirled along the ground until
stopped by the trees; a gangaloos standing very near us, after bending
once or twice before the blast, was laid, with a horrid crash, low on to
the earth. There were no clouds in the sky—the air all round was
clear—it was simply an awful and angry rush of wind up the gorge, such
as we had already experienced, in a very minor degree, in the gorge at
the spring of Gebel Ain.
It has fallen within my experience to witness two such other sudden and
destroying blasts of air. Once a “white squall” off the African coast, a
few miles to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar. Two full-rigged
ships, a mile to windward of us, did not observe the warning these
squalls always give, and remained, in the calm, with all sail set; their
masts were shorn from their decks, and when the squall, in three or four
minutes, had passed away, they were floating in a helpless and pitiable
condition upon the surface of the sea, still smooth. Our own ship, whose
sails we had furled, bent low before the storm, and after resting on her
beam ends until it had passed, righted, and proceeded uninjured on her
course. The second occasion was off Columbo, in Ceylon. The wind was
light, and blowing from all the points of the compass. Three or four
ships, within a distance of a few miles, were sailing with both sheets
aft—that is, with the wind dead astern, in as many different directions.
Suddenly, without a warning in the sky, the terrible gust came down upon
us; we all suffered; sails were scattered to the wind, and yards were
blown broken away; we all, however, fortunately preserved our masts.
Neither of these two squalls equalled or approached in intensity the
sudden rush up the Khor-es-Sayal; all we could do was to hold on to
anything we could find, lest we should share the unhappy fate of our
tents and of all the loose furniture, such as hats, blankets, sheets,
carpets, &c. &c., which, a few minutes before, had rested comfortably
and securely within them. I, myself, hung desperately on to the handle
of my largest trunk, and lay down flat, to avail myself of the shelter
it afforded. One attempt to look over the top of the trunk to windward,
to see what the sky was like, resulted literally in a blow in the face,
which nearly knocked my head off. To this day I am thankful that, since
that storm, it retains its original and normal position; for this
circumstance I am indebted to my large trunk, and am grateful
accordingly.
The hurricane lasted only for five or six minutes, after which all was
calm and beautiful as before. Our dinner, however, had been destroyed;
the sundry pots and frying-pans on the fire were capsized, and the very
coals in the grate were blown away and scattered red hot to the winds.
The next hour was devoted to finding and pitching anew the tents, and to
recovering such of our blankets and sheets as had been arrested by the
neighbouring trees. Shortly after, we sat down to a new and welcome
dinner, quite as good as that which had been so unceremoniously taken
away, and, in a few minutes, were quite forgetful of our sudden, but not
happy, windfall. Many articles were not recovered until the light came
on the following day, many were never recovered at all—amongst the last,
my half rhinoceros horn, which, it may be remembered, the Greek at El
Fasher had sent to the palace for me as “backsheesh.” Severe as was the
storm, I am not prepared to certify that the horn was blown away; it was
heavy, and could offer but little resisting surface to the wind. I think
it more probable that it may have been buried by the sand that came
blowing along the valley, and so, half or quite hidden, was forgotten in
the general confusion of our moving next day.
A few days later, May 23rd, we reached Karnac, one hundred and forty-one
miles from El Fasher. We found the level of the water in the well about
twelve feet higher than when we had measured it on March 11th. Up to
this time we had had no rain, but at Karnac, and for some distance to
the east, a very heavy fall had evidently taken place. All over the
plain in which the well is sunk, the ground is always covered by the
refuse of the numerous animals that daily come down to drink, and, the
rain draining through it, the water in the well is, after the first few
heavy falls of the season, necessarily rendered very impure and
dangerous to drink. Several slight cases of dysentery occurred in our
camp, but the use of Dover’s powders cured them in a few days. After
this, we always took the precaution to mix with the water we drank a
small portion of permanganate of potash, just sufficient to very
slightly colour it, with the result that we never again suffered in a
similar way.
Another few miles through the thorns, and we entered the camel-track to
Gebel Megzaam. After passing the latter mountain we followed the Wady
Seroog, or Ermil as it is also called, and the Wady Zancore, to where it
debouches into the plain, and obtained a fairly good line.
One afternoon, while in the Wady Ermil, an Arab was borne upon the
shoulders of two or three of his companions into the doctor’s tent.
There were two little punctures in his heel; he had been bitten by a
snake, and was almost insensible. The doctor pronounced the bite to be
that of a cobra. The sufferer was treated with ammonia, and with
whiskey, and was consequently in a state of dead drunkenness for about a
week. He at length recovered, was grateful to the doctor, liked the
treatment, and wished for some more. After this case, snakes of a
poisonous nature began to abound in the valley. I did not see any
myself, but was given to understand by the Arabs that they were hidden
under every stone, lurked behind every blade of grass, and were
absolutely twined in huge clusters round the branches of every tree.
Many Arabs, punctured in exactly the same part of the heel as the first
victim, were brought, to be treated, into the doctor’s tent. There were
no fatal cases; after the use of the prescribed amount of ammonia, and
the consumption of two or three bottles of whiskey, each was pronounced
cured. With so many snake-bites occurring every day, the stock of
ammonia ultimately gave out, and whiskey remained the only specific.
Still the snakes came more numerous than before. In due course the
whiskey—so necessary in treating cases of poisonous snake-bites—began to
get very scarce; there were but a few bottles left, and another system
of treatment became imperatively necessary. This new treatment should be
made universally known; it was much more efficacious than the ammonia
and whiskey. Instead of languishing in a state of insensibility for
several days, the patient was cured at once. The virtues of this potent
medicine were, strange to say, not limited to effecting a cure only,
they absolutely acted as a preventive; after this there were no more
snake-bites. An Arab, himself one of the sufferers, afterwards imparted
to me confidentially that the new medicine had acted as a charm, and had
driven all the snakes out of the valley into fits.
Much as I should wish to impart to the scientific world and to the
general public the nature of the treatment that had such surprising
results, I am not in a position to do so from my own personal knowledge.
I have, however, strong reasons to believe that representations were
made to the doctor, by his best friend, that if he gave all the whiskey
away there would, as a natural consequence, be none left, and that he
himself would be a sufferer; he was advised to adopt another system—to
put on a good thick pair of boots, and, when the next victim presented
himself, to swiftly and vigorously apply the right foot to that part of
his body where the bite would, in all probability, be, had it been the
patient’s unhappy fortune to sit suddenly down upon an angry and
venomous snake. This medicine is not to be found in the London
pharmacopœia; if, as I was told, it was really used, I am in a position
to testify that its therapeutic properties are vastly superior to those
either of whiskey or ammonia or of the two combined, the method usually
adopted in treating cases of snake-bites.
On June 13th, two of the Khartoom party rode into our camp; we were
delighted to see them. They were looking well, although, perhaps, a
trifle ragged like ourselves. They had levelled over and surveyed on the
main line and branch to Khartoom, a total distance of five hundred and
thirty-four miles, and had completed their work to opposite Om-Badr the
day before. In coming to pay us their visit, they had not been unmindful
to bring with them such creature comforts as they thought it possible we
might require, viz. three bottles of brandy and a dozen of claret. This
kind forethought made them doubly, perhaps trebly, welcome; we had,
owing to having left a large stock of wines, &c. at New Dongola,
exhausted our own supply about a week before, and the snakes had drunk
up all our whiskey. Three hours later, while we were sitting in our tent
recounting adventures, and sympathising with each others’ joys and
troubles, a messenger rode into camp full speed from Om-Badr; one of the
engineers was taken suddenly and seriously ill. The doctor, after
packing up such medicines as he was likely to want, departed on his
errand of mercy. The case proved, fortunately, to be not so serious as
we had all supposed. The patient had, from his early boyhood, lavished
all the love in his soul upon boiled potatoes; the potatoes were,
however, at length all eaten up, and the barren desert could provide no
others. He languished for his love. Fickle by nature, in the absence of
the old love he courted a new one—strawberry jam. The affection was,
however, not mutual, and he grew sick, and pined slowly away. On that
day he had lunched “not wisely but too well.” The doctor soon put him to
rights, and left for his future guidance only one prescription—“Do not
eat more than one pot of strawberry jam per day.”
On the morning of June 15th, we effected the junction of our work in the
Wady Milkh, near the foot of Gebel Shay Kaab, about seven miles east of
Om-Badr. We had levelled over two hundred and twenty-one miles, and had
made a map of the country from Sotaire to El Fasher, a length of more
than five hundred miles, varying from twenty to fifty miles in width. In
a few hours our tents were pitched on the old site in the plain of Om-
Badr, near to those of our friends. The place was otherwise deserted;
not a human being, nor a camel from which to obtain delicious milk, was
anywhere near; not a sheep, nor a goat, nor a fowl was to be had for
love or money or rags. The old shiekh of the tribes, Shiekh Biddeh, to
whose safe-keeping the Hakeem had confided his hard-earned farm, had
departed with the rest, and, what was worse, had absconded with all the
sheep and goats and fowls. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth;
all the doctor’s little ones were gone, and he refused to be comforted.
Beyond having to fill up the water-skins there was nothing to detain us
at Om-Badr, and we started on 19th June for Bagghareeyeh. Our work was
done.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER XXI.
* * * * *
“And have you ever in the midnight hour
All lonely sought in after days the spot
Where first you met and after wooed and won
The being loved, the being Death loved too?”
* * * * *
BACK TO SOTAIRE.
One of our party missed. — A dreadful night. — Found at last. — Dry
wells. — We change our route. — An insolent guide. — Kadjah. — Stolen
camels. — An Arab shiekh made prisoner. — The beginning of the rains. —
The clouds. — Sotaire. — Solitude. — Good-bye!
SINCE leaving Old Dongola we had consumed more than four months’ stores,
and our camels were all light; we were, therefore, in a position to give
up without much inconvenience the fifty camels we had hired at El
Fasher. The Khartoom party not having had to cut their way through so
many thorns or to travel over such rough ground, had preserved their
full number of camels in unimpaired health, and were fortunately able to
assist us with such few as we required, as well as with some water-
skins, many of our own having long since been rendered useless.
On our homeward journey we travelled with the Wady Milkh near on our
right. There was plenty of game in the valley, and our table was kept
well supplied with gazelles, ariels, antelopes, &c.; we scarcely felt
the want of sheep and fowls.
On the evening of the second day we had been an hour in camp, when we
discovered that one of our party was missing. He had been last seen,
shortly after lunch, in the Wady Milkh with his gun on his shoulder,
followed by Mohommed Rhannem, the lunch soldier, the last man in the
world likely to be of the slightest assistance to him in finding his way
about the desert. The ground, owing to the recent rains, had become
consolidated, and then quickly drying under the burning sun was hard,
and our camels had left no traces of their march. His position was one
of real danger. Darkness came down soon upon our fears, still he came
not. Grass, wherewith to make a blaze round the camp, there was none;
and the thorn-bushes, quickened into sudden life by the water that had
fallen, burned, when ignited, very slowly, and gave no light to bring
him home. The soldiers were ordered out, and at intervals of every ten
minutes every rifle in camp was fired in volley, making the night ring
with the noise of war. We had six rockets in the camp; one of these was
discharged every half-hour high into the sky; the stars were, however,
too bright for them to shed much light at a distance. All the means
known to travellers for bringing stray wanderers home were exhausted; he
could not be within several miles of us. Our hearts were growing sick
with fear.
That night there was no sleep in camp. We sat over the table, each of us
pale, wearied, and anxious, either in helpless silence or making
suggestions to be abandoned as soon as made. To give us hope, the rifles
fired all through the night every ten minutes till early dawn, but the
sound was only thrown away on the air. At length the morning came to
bring new life and hope into our hearts. The whitest tent on the camp
was packed on to a camel, and sent off to be pitched on the summit of
the highest mountain near, in the hope that it might afford him some
indication that help was near. Every Arab at all familiar with the
desert, each with a rifle to fire, was sent off on the way we had come,
not to go together, but to spread themselves right and left over a width
of ten or twelve miles, and to proceed in that order until he was
brought back. We had water in camp only for three days; we were three
days from Bagghareeyeh and two from Om-Badr. If he was not found that
day it would be necessary to proceed on our journey the next. We knew
that he had but a little water with him, and the doctor said, and he
spoke from experience, that wandering about under the sun for two days
without water would inevitably lead to the death of anyone but an Arab.
Learning this the light had brought us no solace; it only served to make
the fears of each more distinctly visible in his face, and to tell us
that with every hour that passed hope was drawing to an end.
He came into camp late in the night; Mohommed Gadderab had found him. He
was lying on the sand ten miles away, powerless to move; his tongue was
thick and dry in his mouth; his unconscious camel was browsing near on
the thorny trees, with the parched water-skins hanging at his side.
Mohommed Gadderab had taken water with him, and in a few minutes my poor
friend was restored. Mohommed Rhannem was about a hundred yards behind
in as bad a predicament. He, too, after a gallon or so of water, was
brought back to such elementary senses as niggardly nature had bestowed
upon him. He held, tightly clutched in his hand, the bridle-rope of his
camel, and as he lay dying of thirst on the ground, the stately brute
stood motionless, like a statue of stone, peering into the desert. When
our friend, a favourite in all the camp, came back, we dined; we had not
dined the day before. He was the hero of the dinner, and never, in all
my experience, did ever one of us enjoy a dinner more.
On the morning of the 21st, one day beyond our last melancholy site,
while we were performing our early ablutions, a few Arabs wandering in
the Wady Milkh, told us that the wells at Bagghareeyeh were dry, and
that it would be perfectly useless to continue our journey in that
direction.
After the late rains there were, in parts, many pools of water which the
sun had not yet dried up. These were, however, only known to the Arabs,
the Hamr, living in this desert, and for us to have proceeded on our
journey on the mere chance of finding them, would have involved a risk
of life which none of us were willing to encounter. Kadjah, in
Khordofan, two days’ journey distant in a south-easterly direction, was,
we were told, the nearest place where wells containing water were likely
to be found, and even these wells in some seasons were dried up. We had
now but one day’s water; that which was poured out into our basins for
the purposes of ablution was poured carefully back into the tanks. It
was necessary to economise every drop. No one in our camp knew the road
to Kadjah; “would the shiekh who had imparted to us the information send
us a guide, we would pay him two dollars,” an enormous sum for an Arab,
who, under ordinary circumstances, would have to work for a month to
become possessed of a sheep. The shiekh complied with our request, and
shortly after the guide came into camp—a truculent, ugly, bumptious,
impudent Hamr Arab, insulting every one of the Kabbabbeesh he passed on
his way. He came to our tent, and in an insolent tone said he would
guide us for fifty dollars. I question whether we had fifty dollars in
camp. It was, however, not a time for haggling. A rope was tied round
his neck, and the other end was fastened to the back pommel of a
soldier’s saddle, a thick stick was placed behind his back, to which his
elbows were fastened, and his hands were drawn towards his breast and
firmly tied together. The soldier started on the camel on what we
supposed was the true direction. Had the guide stopped he must have been
strangled; had he led us the wrong way, he feared that the far end of
the rope might have been tied to a branch of the nearest tree, and that
his soul would have flown straight away to Allah to give an account of
his sin in refusing hospitality to the stranger in the desert. His
insulting spirit was curbed, he was now like a dog. He led us straight
to the wells of Kadjah, which we reached in two days.
The water in the Kadjah wells was very limited and very bad. One poor
Arab of our set was seized with cholera, and died in four hours.
A party of Arabs—a branch of the Hamr whom we had not met at Om-
Badr—stopped in their travels near us in the night. As a result four of
our camels were missing in the morning. These we could ill afford to
lose, as we were already short, and those that we had were heavily
laden; it was absolutely necessary to get the stolen camels back. As
soon as the discovery of the loss was made, a request was sent to the
shiekh of the tribe that he should come over to our camp. On his arrival
the circumstance was communicated to him.
“As Mohommed is in Heaven with Allah, this thing, O Effendim, is not
known to me. I speak the truth, I fear the judgment; there are no
dishonest men in my tribe.”
“O venerable shiekh of the rascally Hamr, we are travellers, and our
camels have been taken away by your people who are thieves. When the
camels are brought back you shall be allowed to return to your camp and
to your family and your friends. Until then, O venerable shiekh, you
will stop with us and we will take care of you.”
“Allah, O Effendim, is above us, I speak only the truth; none of my men
are bad. But I will go back and see if the camels are with us.”
To let the pious old thief go back until the camels were restored was,
however, not our intention. He was placed in charge of two soldiers, who
carefully guarded him with loaded rifles and revolvers. That night we
slept with arms under our beds, ready to meet any sudden surprise from
the hostile Hamr, who were four or five times as numerous as ourselves.
No attack was, however, made. Next day six camels were brought into our
camp, not those that had been stolen from us, others equally good, or
rather better, which had evidently been stolen from some other people,
as the Hamr marks were not upon them. To have returned our own camels
would have been an admission of guilt, which the old shiekh feared might
have had serious consequences to himself. He was wise in his generation.
Our wrath was appeased. We gave him a cup of coffee, started him off
about his thieving business, and proceeded on our journey.
Shortly after this time the rains began to come down. A circumstance
that afforded me much surprise was the smallness of the different areas
over which they first fell. In travelling over the burning sand we would
come upon a patch, perhaps a mile, or less, square, over which a heavy
shower had recently fallen, and the ground on that part gave
unmistakable signs of being willing and anxious to put forth something
approaching in colour to green. In other parts we would suddenly come
upon a large pool of water, six inches or perhaps a foot deep, while the
ground all round was absolutely barren, and other hollows near were
perfectly dry. On some days a small cloud would begin to show itself in
the north. As we approached, and as it slowly travelled towards us, it
would hour by hour grow larger, thunder would at length be heard, and as
the evening began to fall, vivid forked lightning would dart fiercely
from its every side, upwards and downwards, to the right and to the
left; some great rocky mountain would at last exert its attracting
influence upon it, arrest its southward progress, and then down would
come its waters. In a few more minutes the cloud was no more, and the
sky was full of the moon, which served to show us that a few miles
behind the first another cloud was travelling slowly along with its
thunder and lightning, to empty its rains where those of its brother had
just before fallen.
We reached Sotaire on the 13th July. One of the wells had fallen in, the
other was dry. We were, however, fortunately not in want of water.
I walked over in the night to the site of the Arab camp and of the grand
“fantasia.” The place seemed very lonely; all the people with their
flocks and herds were gone; Rebecca was, of course, not there. I have
never seen her since; I could not hope that we should ever meet again.
She is for me now dead as much as though I had breathed her latest
sigh—as though her heart’s last throb had been echoed in my breast; as
though I had mingled my tears with Death’s icy dew on her brow; as
though I myself, full of anguish, had laid her deep into the grave. For
me she only exists in my long-enduring memory.
What though our home be fixed in sorrow’s reign,
It is through faithful recollection’s voice
Not wholly one of pain; for when the soul
Has lost that All for which God gave it birth,
There is a melancholy pleasure still
In memory of the past; I cannot deem
As sad Francesca deemed amidst her tears,
Shed in the memory of her guilty love,
“No greater pain than when we are in pain
The recollection of a time of joy.”
I love not as she loved, where joy has dwelt
In thought to dwell, at least to me, is joy.
Perhaps, however, Rebecca is now married, and lives with an unwashed
husband and three ophthalmic children in a grimy mud-hut on the banks of
the Nile, and sits all day on an “angereb” drinking much “merissa” full
of dead flies and beetles’ hind-legs.
I do not like to think of her like this, but as I saw her, simple-souled
and beautiful, as, half tearful, all absorbed, she sat and watched the
hideous fantasìa, and as, after that, when we were alone, she raised her
large dark eyes,
“With heaven all star-clad babied in their depths,”
and, holding forth her small and perfect hand for me to shake, said,
softly and sadly, “Good-bye!”
[Decoration]
APPENDIX.
* * * * *
Hours’
March.
1876. h. m.
Monday, June 19th. Left Om-Badr 6.0 }
}
20th. 8.0 }
}
21st. Did not move camp. }
} 116
22nd. 6.0 } miles
} = 2·7
23rd. Heard Baghareeyah wells were dry 5.0 } miles
} per
24th. Towards Kajah 10.0 } hour.
}
25th. Reached Kajah (started at 6.30 7.42 }
a.m.) }
}
26th. to 31st inclusive. Camped at Kajah }
(6 days). }
July 1st. Left camp 7.51 a.m. 6.20 }
}
2nd. „ 6.30 „ 8.15 }
} 120
3rd. „ 6.53 „ 7.45 } miles
} = 2·7
4th. „ 6.36 „ 8.0 } miles
} per
5th. „ 6.44 „ 8.30 } hour.
}
6th. „ 6.56 „ reached Sahfy 5.0 }
7th. „ 6.37 „ 8.0 }
}
8th. „ 7.4 „ 8.5 }
}
9th. „ 6.50 „ reached 2.25 }
Ed Dubbah } 124
} miles
10th & 11th. Camped at Ed Dubbah (2 days). } = 2·5
} miles
12th. Left camp 5.10 a.m. 8.30 } per
} hour.
13th. „ 3.56 „ 8.33 }
}
14th. 8.0 }
}
15th. Camped in Wady opp. Sotahl 6.0 }
16th. 8.0 } 88
} miles
17th. 8.0 } = 2·6
} miles
18th. 9.0 } per
} hour.
19th. Reached opp. Old Dongola at noon 9.0 }
* * * * *
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Or “Wady Malik,” “Royal Valley.”]
[Footnote 2: These are respectively the Arabic and native names of the
capital.]
[Footnote 3: A grain resembling maize.]
[Footnote 4: The single room, with its enclosures, where we dined, as
related above, was occupied by thirteen people, viz. the proprietor, his
two wives, four children (two each), two grown daughters, three grown
sons, and one man-servant to look after the goats and fowls, &c. but who
never slept inside.]
[Footnote 5: Mr. MacCoan, in _Egypt as it is_, says it has two humps.
This is only an optical illusion.]
[Footnote 6: A rottle is eleven-twelfths of a pound.]
[Footnote 7: These are the best spirits; the drawback at the English
Custom House enables them to be sold at this low price.]
[Footnote 8: In Cairo camel-hire is dear. I have myself paid as much as
six pounds five shillings per month.]
[Footnote 9: The Nile, or the sea.]
[Footnote 10: “An Andaman hut may be considered the rudest attempt of
the human species to secure shelter from the weather. It consists of a
few sticks, fastened together at the top, the other end being fixed in
the ground. A thatch composed of branches and leaves completes the
structure.”—“A Visit to the Andaman Islands,” _Good Words_, May 1866.
The similarity of the structures of two peoples so distant is somewhat
remarkable.]
[Footnote 11: Since writing the above, I learn that another traveller in
Egypt has alluded to a similar conversation; I have not read it. I can
only say that there is nothing surprising in the circumstance of two
Egyptian officials having but one geographical idea between them.]
[Footnote 12: From the doctor’s store.]
[Footnote 13: All the degrees given refer to Fahrenheit’s scale.]
[Footnote 14: “Fascher liegt nach meiner vorläufigen construktion einige
minuten östlich vom 26° O. L. v. Gr. und in einer Breite von 13° 45′.
Weitere Kritik muss dieses vorläufige Resultat modificiren.”—See paper
alluded to above.]
Transcriber's note:
In ERRATA, "Madeleino" changed to: "Madeleine"
Changes in the ERRATA have been made.
pg 3, Changed: "On the follow ng day we paid" to: "following"
pg 35, Changed: "kind, and generall lasts him for five" to:
"generally"
pg 48, Changed: "36 tins buscuits" to: "biscuits"
pg 75, Changed: "sides of the bare roeks" to: "rocks"
pg 85, Changed: "if the shiehks of the tribe" to: "shiekhs"
pg 177, Changed: "and which everbody knew" to: "everybody"
pg 184, Changed: "Monday morning, I had no map" to: "morning. I"
pg 187, Changed: "turned with me into into the thorny bush" to:
"me into the"
pg 201, Changed: "five willing and valuable asssistants" to:
"assistants"
Minor changes in punctuation have been done silently.
Other spelling inconsistencies have been left unchanged.
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