Champollion has well remarked, that all the temples of the Ptolemies and Roman emperors in Nubia were probably only restorations of earlier sanctuaries, which were erected in the old time by the Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. That was the temple of Pselchis, first built by Tuthmosis III. Beside the scattered fragments of this first building, which, however, was not dedicated to Thoth, as Champollion thinks, but to Horus, and therefore underwent a later change, we have found others of Sethos I. and Menephthes: also, it appears that the earlier erection did not have its axis parallel with the river like the later one, but, like almost all other temples, had its entrances toward the river.
At the temple of Korte, the doorway only is inscribed with hieroglyphics of the worst style. But these few were sufficient to inform us that it was a sanctuary of Isis, here denominated “Lady of Kerte.” We also found blocks rebuilt in the walls, which has escaped former travellers, belonging to an earlier temple erected by Tuthmosis III., the foundations of which may still be traced.
We gathered our last harvest of Greek inscriptions at Hierasykaminos. To this place, the Greek and Roman travellers were protected by the garrison of Pselchis; and by a fixed camp called Mehendi,some hours southerly from Hierasykaminos, which is not mentioned in the maps. Primis seems only to have had a temporary garrison during the campaign of Petronius. Mehendi—which name probably only signifies the structure, the camp in Arabic—is the best preserved Roman encampment that I have ever seen. It lies upon a somewhat steep height, and thence commands the river and a little valley extending on the south side of the camp from the Nile, and turns the caravan road into the desert, which comes back to the side of the river again at Medik. The wall of the town encloses a square running down the hill a little to the east, and measuring one hundred and seventy-five paces from south to north, and one hundred and twenty-five from east to west. From the walls there rise regularly four corner and four middle towers; of the latter, the south and north formed also the gates, which, for the sake of greater security, led into the city with a bend, and not in a direct line. The southern gate, and the whole southerly part of the fortress, which comprehended about one hundred and twenty houses, are excellently preserved. Immediately behind the gate, one enters a straight street, sixty-seven paces long, which is even now, with but little interruption, vaulted; several narrow by-streets lead off on both sides, and are covered, like all the houses of the district, with vaults of Nile bricks. The street leads to a great open place in the middle of the city, by which lay, on the highest point of the hill, the largest and best-built house—no doubt belonging to the commandant—with a semicircular niche at the eastern end. Thecity walls are built of unhewn stone; the gateway only, which has a well-turned Roman arch, is erected of well-cut freestone, among the blocks of which several are built in, bearing sculptures of pure Egyptian, though late style, as a proof that there was an Egyptian or Ethiopian sanctuary here (probably an Isis chapel) before the building of the fortress. We discovered an Osiris head and two Isis heads; one of which still distinctly bore the red marks of the third canon of proportion.
The last monument we visited before our arrival in Korusko, was the temple of Ammon in the Wadi Sebùa (Lion’s Dale); so called from the rows of sphinxes which just peep out of the sand ocean that fell and covered the whole temple as far as it was exposed. Even the western portion of the temple, hewn in the rock, is filled with sand; and we had to summon the whole crew of our bark to assist in obtaining an entrance into this part. We encountered a novel and very peculiar combination of divine and human natures in a group of four deities, the first of whom is called “Phtha of Ramses in the house of Ammon;” the second, “Phtha,” with other usual cognomens; the third, “Ramses in the house of Ammon;” and the fourth, “Hathor.” In another inscription “Ammon of Ramses in the house of Ammon” was named. It is difficult to explain this combination.[64]
I was not less astonished to find in the front court of the temple of Ammon a representation of the posterity of the King Ramses-Miamun, in number one hundred and sixty children, with their names and titles, of which the greater part are scarcely to be read, as they are very much destroyed, and others are covered with rubbish, and can only be reckoned by the space they occupy. There were but twenty-five sons and ten daughters of this great king previously known. The two legitimate wives whose images appear on the monuments, he did not have at the same time, but took the second at the death of the first. To-day we were visited by the old, blind, but powerful and rich, Hassan Kachef, of Derr, who was formerly the independent regent of Lower Nubia; he has had no less than sixty-four wives, of which forty-two are yet remaining; twenty-nine of his sons and seventeen daughters are yet living; how many have died, he has probably never troubled himself to count, but, according to the usual proportion of this country, they must have been aboutfour times the number of the living ones; therefore, about two hundred children.
Korusko is an Arab place, in the midst of the land of the Nubians, or Barâbra (plural of Bérberi), who occupy the valley of the Nile from Assuan to the other side of Dongola. This is an intelligent and honest race, of peaceable, though far from slavish disposition, of handsome stature, and with shining reddish brown skin.[65]The possession of Korusko by Arabs of the Ababde tribes, who inhabit the whole of the eastern desert, from Assuan down to Abu Hammed, may be accounted for by the important position of the place, as the point whence the great caravan road, leading directly to the province of Berber, departs, thus cutting off the whole western bend of the Nile.
The Arabic language, in which we could now, at any rate, order and question, and carry on a little conversation of politeness, had grown so familiar to our ear in Egypt, that the Nubian language was attractive on account of its novelty. It is divided, as far as I have yet been able to ascertain, into a northern and a southern dialect, which meet at Korusko.[66]The language is totally distinct in character to the Arabic, even in the primary elements the consonantal and vocalic systems. It is much more euphonious, as it has scarcely any doubling of consonants, no harsh guttural tones, few sibilatingsounds, and many simple vowels, more distinctly separated than in Arabic, by which an effeminate mixture of vowels is also avoided. It has not the slightest connection in any part of its grammatical constitution, or in the roots, either with the Semetic languages, nor with the Egyptian, or with our own; and therefore, certainly belongs to the original African stock, unconnected with the Ethiopic-Egyptian family, though the nation may be comprehended by the ancients under the general name of Ethiopians, and though their physical race may stand in a nearer relation to them. They are not a commercial people, and therefore can only count up to twenty in their language; the higher numbers are borrowed from the Arabic, although they employ a peculiar term for one hundred,imil.[67]Genders scarcely exist in the language, except in personal pronouns, standing alone; they distinguish. “he” and “she,” but not “he gives” and “she gives.” They use suffixed inflections, as in our languages, rather than changes of accent, like the Semetic. The ordinals are formed by the terminationiti, the plural byîgi; they have no dual. The union of the verb with the pronoun is both by prefix and affix, but is simple and natural; they distinguish the present tense and the preterite; the future is expressed by a particle, even for the passive they have a peculiar formation. The root of negation is “m,” usually with the following “n,” the single affinity, probably more than accidental with other families of language. Their original number of roots is very limited. They have certainly distinct words for sun, moon, and stars; but the expressions for year, month, day, hour, they borrow from the Arabic; water, ocean, river, are all signified by the same words withessi, yet it is remarkable, that they designate the Nile by a peculiar termtossi. For all native tamed wild animals, they have native names, for houses, and even all that concerns shipping, they use Arabic terms; the boat only they callkub, which has no very apparent connection with the Arabicmérkab. For date-fruit and date-tree, which have different designations in Arabic,bellahandnachele, they have only one word,béti(fentί); the sycamore-tree they name in Arabic, but it is remarkable, that they designate the sont-tree by the word for tree in general. Spirit, God, slave, the ideas of relationship, the parts of the body, weapons, field fruits, and what relates to the preparation of bread, have Nubian names; while the words servant, friend, enemy, temple, to pray, to believe, to read, are all Arabic. It is curious that they have separate words for writing and book, but not for stylus, ink, paper, letter. The metals are all named in Arabic, with the exception of iron. Rich are they in Berber, poor in Arabic, and in fact they are all rich in their poor country, to which they cling like Switzers, and despise the Arab gold, that they might win in Egypt, where their services, as guards and all posts of confidence, are much sought.
We now only stay for the arrival of the camels tobegin our desert journey. Hence to Abu Hammed, an eight days’ journey, we shall only find drinkable water once, and then we shall continue our camel ride for four more days to Berber. There we shall find barks, according to the arrangements of Ahmed Pasha. We must then continue on to Chartûm, in order to provision; to proceed higher up, to Abu Haras, and thence to Mandera, in the eastern desert, will scarcely be worth while, if we may believe Linant; but Ahmed Pasha has promised to send an officer to Mandera, in order to test again the reports of the native.
This report I shall send with other letters by an express messenger to Qeneh.
Korusko.January 5, 1844.
Withnot a little sorrow, I announce to you that we shall probably have to give up the second principal object of our expedition,—our Ethiopian journey, and return northward hence. We have waited here in vain since the 17th of November, for the promised but never-coming camels, which are to bring us to Berber, and there seems to be no more chance of our getting them now than at first. What we heard on our arrival, I am sorry to say, is confirmed; the Arab tribes, who are the sole managers of traffic, are dissatisfied with Mohammed Ali’s reduction of the rate from 80 to 60 piastres per camel hence to Berber; they have agreed among themselves to send no more camels hither; and nofirman, no promises, no threats, will obviate this evil. A great number of trunks with munition for Chartûm, have been lying here for ten months, and cannot be sent on any further. We hoped for the assistance of Ahmed Pasha Menekle,[68]the new Governor of the Southern Provinces, which he has also promised us in the most friendly and unbounded manner. The officer who has remained with the munition, received definite orders from him to retain the first camels which arrived here, for our use. Notwithstanding that, we shall scarcely attain our end. The Pashahimself could hardly get on further, although he required but few camels. Some he had brought from the north, and some he had assembled by force. Yet he was ill-furnished enough on his departure, and half of his animals are said to have become ill, or perished in the desert.
On the 3rd of December, as no camels came, although the Pasha must have passed the province Berber, whence he was going to send us the necessary number, I sent our own trustworthy and excellentkhawass, Ibrahim Aga, through nine days wilderness, to Berber, with Mohammed Ali’sfirman. In the meantime, we went on to Wadi Halfa to the second cataract, visited the numerous monuments in that neighbourhood, and returned hither in three weeks, with a rich harvest.
It is thirty-one days this morning, since ourkhawasshas departed, and some time since I received a letter from the Mudhir of Berber, in which I learn that the camels cannot be collected, although immediately on the arrival of ourkhawass, and the delivery of the letter from the Mudhir of this place, he sent out soldiers to get together the necessary number of sixty camels. Matters are just the same there as here. The authorities can do nothing against the ill-will of the Arabs.
On the sudden death, by poison, of Ahmed Pasha,[69]the governor of the whole Sudan, at Chartûm, who, it is said, had for some time been meditating an independence of Mohammed Ali, the south is divided into five provinces, and placed under five pashas,who are to be installed by Ahmed Pasha Menekle. One of them, Emir Pasha, was formerly Bey under Ahmed Pasha, at Chartûm, whom he seems to have betrayed. Three others arrived at Korusko, soon after Ahmed Pasha Menekle. Of these, the most powerful, Hassan Pasha, is gone by water to Wadi Halfa, in his province of Dongola; he was almost unattended, and required but a few camels to get on farther. The second, Mustaffa Pasha, intended for Kordofan, has seized on a trade caravan returning from Berber. The Arabs report, however, that of these tired animals, a part have already become useless before arriving at the wells, which lie at about four day’s journey into the wilderness; there he found some merchants, eight of whose camels he seized; the remainder of the caravan has not arrived here, but had taken another road to Egypt for fear of being stopped again. The third, Pasha Ferhât, is waiting here, at the same time with ourselves, and tries every plan that he can think of, to procure a few camels from the north or south. But every hope of ours thus becomes fainter and fainter, as we cannot set the insignificant power of the authorities so mightily to work as he, and have not now eitherkhawassorfirmanwith us. Everyone, and the pashas most particularly, endeavours to comfort us from day to day; but, meantime, the winter, the only time when we can do anything in the Upper Country, elapses. To this must be added, that the Mudhir of Lower Nubia, with whom we had become friendly, has been accused to Mohammed Ali by the Nubian sheikh of his province, and had just been summonedaway by the viceroy, This region has been provisionally placed under the jurisdiction of the Mudhir of Esneh, from whose lieutenant, a young, and otherwise well-disposed man, there is nothing to be obtained by us.
I have, therefore, made up my mind to the only practicable step. I will myself go to Berber with Abeken upon a few camels, and leave Erbkam with the rest of the company and all the luggage here. There I shall be able to look into the matter myself, and try what can be done, with the aid of thekhawass(whose authority I miss here much) and thefirman. We were received here by Ahmed Pasha Menekle in the most friendly manner, and are assured of his most strenuous co-operation by the assistance of his physician, our friend and countryman, Dr. O. Koch. Perhaps money or threats will bring us sooner or later to our end. By a mere chance, I have myself been able to secure six camels. Two more are wanting to complete our little caravan. These two, however, the lieutenant of the Mudhir cannot procure for us, even with the best desire. We have been awaiting them three days, and know not whether we shall obtain them.
E’ Damer.January 24, 1844.
Ourtrouble has at last come to an end, though at a late period. Yesterday I arrived here with Abeken, yet two days’ journey from the pyramids of Meroë, and our whole camp probably was also yesterday pitched near Abu Hammed, at the southern end of the great desert. After the last little encouraging communication from Berber, I set out on the 8th of January about noon, with Abeken, the dragoman Juffuf Sherebîeh, a cook, and ’Auad, our Nubian lad. We had eight camels, of whom two were scarcely in condition for the journey, and two donkeys. As the promised guide was not at his post, I made the camel-driver Sheikh Ahmed himself accompany us, as he would be of service in consequence of the high estimation in which he was held among the tribes of the resident Abâbde-Arabs. We had beside these, a guide, Adâr, who was sent us instead of the one promised, five camel-drivers; and soon after our departure several foot-travellers joined us, besides two people with donkeys, who took this opportunity of returning to Berber. We took with us ten water-skins, some provision of rice, maccaroni, biscuit, and cold meat, also a light tent, our coverlets to ride upon and sleep in, the most necessary linen, and a few books; to this must be added a tolerable stock of courage, which neverfails me on a journey. Our friends accompanied us for some distance into the rock valley, which soon deprived us of all idea of the proximity of the shore and its friendly palms.
The dale was wild and monotonous, nothing but sandstone rock, the surfaces of which were burnt as black as coals, but turned into burning golden yellow at every crack, and every ravine, whence a number of sand-rivulets, like fire-streams from black dross, ran and filled the valleys. The guides preceded us, with simple garments thrown over their shoulders and around their hips, in their hands one or two spears of strong light wood with iron points and shaft-ends; their naked backs were covered by a round, or carved shield, with a far-reaching boss of giraffe’s skin; other shields were oblong, and they are generally made of the skin of the hippopotamus, or the back skin of the crocodile. At night, and often during the day, they bound sandals under their feet, the thongs of which are not unfrequently cut out of the same piece, and being drawn between the great and second toes, surround the feet like a skate.
Sheikh Ahmed was a splendid man, still young, but tall and well grown, with peculiarly active limbs of shining black-brown hue, an expressive countenance, a piercing, but gentle and slyly-glancing eye, and an incomparably beautiful and harmonious pronunciation, so that I liked much to have him about me, although we were always in a contention at Korusko, as he was obliged to furnish the camels and their concomitants, and through circumstances, could not or would not, procure them. Of hisactivity and elasticity of limb he gave us a specimen in the desert, by taking a tremendous run on the sandy and most unfavourable soil, and leaping fourteen feet and a half; I measured it with his lance, which was somewhat more than two metres in length. Adâr only, our under guide, dared to try his powers after him, at my suggestion, but did not reach the same distance by far.
We had departed on the first day early about eleven o’clock, and rode till five, stayed for an hour and a half, and went on till half-past twelve; then we pitched our tent upon the hard soil, and laid ourselves down after a twelve hours’ march. The most interesting thing after the hot active days was the evening tea, but we were obliged to accustom ourselves to the leathery taste of the water, which was plainly to be perceived even through both tea and coffee. The second day we stopped for fourteen hours on our camels; we set out at eight, stopped in the afternoon at four, to eat something, went on about half-past five, and pitched for the night at half-past twelve, after having issued from the mountains at about ten, at the rising of the moon, into a great plain. No tree, no tuft of grass had we yet seen, also no animals, except a few vultures and crows feeding on the carcase of the latest fallen camel. On the third day, after an early beginning, we met a herd of 150 camels, bought by government, to be taken to Egypt. The Pasha is going to import several thousand camels from Berber, in order to obviate the consequence of the murrain of last year; many had already come through Korusko without our being able to avail ourselves of them, asthey are the private property of the Pasha; we could not have ridden on them, too, as they had no saddles.
The guide of the herd, whom we met, gave us the long desired intelligence that ourkhawass, Ibrahim Aga, had left Berber with a train of sixty camels, and was quite in our vicinity, but on a more westerly track. Sheikh Ahmed was sent after him, in order to bring in three good camels instead of our weak ones, and to obtain any further news from him. Next night, or at farthest in the following one, he was to rejoin us. By the Chabîr (leader) of the train, I sent a few lines to Erbkam. We stopped at half-past five, and stayed the night, in the hopes of seeing Sheikh Ahmed earlier. Towards evening we first beheld the scanty vegetation of the desert, thin greyish yellow dry stalks, hardly visible close by, but giving the ground a light greenish yellow tint in the distance, which alone drew my attention to it.
On the fourth day we ought actually to have been at the wells of brackish but, for the camels, drinkable water; but in order not to go too fast for Sheikh Ahmed, we halted at four o’clock, still about four hours’ distance from the wells. At last, towards mid-day, we left the great plain Bahr Bela ma, (river without water,) which joins the two days’ long mountain range of El Bab, into which we had entered from Korusko, and now neared other mountains. Till now we had had nothing but uniform sandstone rocks beneath and around us, and it was a pleasing circumstance when I perceived, from the high back of the camel, the first plutonic rock in the sand. I slipped down immediately from my saddle,and knocked off a piece; it was a grey green stone, of very fine texture, and without a doubt of granitical nature. The other mountains also were mostly composed of species of porphyry and granite, with which the red syenite, so much employed by the ancient Egyptians, as so extensively seen at Assuan, not unfrequently appears in broad veins. Farther into the mountains quartz predominated, and it was somewhat peculiar to see the snow-white flint veins peeping at different heights from the black mountains, and flowing streamwise down into the valley, where the white extended somewhat after the fashion of a lake. I took small specimens, also some of the various kinds of rock.
After we had passed, crossing a little ravine, the little valley Bahr Hátab, (Wood River, by reason of the wood somewhat farther in the mountains), and another Wadi Delah, on the north side of the mountains, we came to the rock-gorge of E’Sufr, where we expected to find rain-water, to replenish our shrunken water-bags (girbepl.geràb). In this high mountain it rains in one month of the year, about May. Then the mighty basins of granite in the valleys are filled, and hold the water for the whole year. On this plutonic rock, there was some little vegetation to be seen, in consequence of the rain, and because the granite seems to contain a somewhat more fertile element than the sad-looking, brittle sand, composed almost wholly of particles of quartz. At Wadi Delah, which has water in the rainy season, we came to a long-continued row of dûm-palms, the rounded leaves and bushy growth of which makes a less crude impression than the long slender-leaveddate-palms; the latter will not bear rain, and are therefore altogether wanting in Berber, while the dûm-palms occur at first very singly in Upper Egypt, and become more numerous, more full, and more large, the farther they reach southward. When their fruit drops off unripe and dry, the little eatable matter about the stone tastes like sugar; when ripe, the yellow wood-flavoured meat may be eaten; it tastes well, and some fruits had an aroma like the pine-apple. They sometimes grow to the size of the largest apples.
At four o’clock we pitched our tent, the camels were sent behind into the ravine where was the rain-water, and I and Abeken mounted our donkeys, to accompany them to these natural cisterns. Over a wild and broken path and cutting stones, we came deeper and deeper into the gorge; the first wide basins were empty, we therefore left the camels and donkeys behind, climbed up the smooth granite wall, and thus proceeded amidst these grand rocks from one basin to another; they were all empty; behind there, in the furthest ravine, the guide said there must be water, for it was never empty: but there proved to be not a single drop. We were obliged to return dry. The numerous herds which had been driven from the Sudan to Egypt in the previous year, had consumed it all. We had now only three skins of water, and therefore it was necessary to do something. Higher up the pass, there were said to be other cisterns; behind this ravine I proposed to climb the mountain with the guide, but he considered it too dangerous; we therefore turned back and rode to the camp, and at sundown the camelshad to set forth again to the northern mountains in search of water reported to exist at an hour’s distance, and they returned late, bringing with them four skins—the water was good and tasted well. Sheikh Ahmed, however, did not return this night also, and we now hoped to meet him at the wells, whither he might have hasted by a more southerly track.
We set out on the fifth day soon after sunrise, and entered the great mountain passes of Roft, the uniform strata of which were first in layers of slate, then more in blocks, and afterwards very rich in quartz. The heat of the day was more oppressive in the mountains than in the plains, where the continual north-wind created some degree of coolness. Except the various sorts of rock, there was nothing of very great attractiveness. I found a great ant-hill in the midst of the desolate waste, and looked at it for a long time; they were small and large shining black ants, who carried away all the grosser earthy particles they could manage, and left the stones for walls; the larger ones had heads comparatively twice as large as the others, and did not work themselves, but acted as overseers, by giving a push to every little ant who did not help to carry, which drove it forward and instigated it to labour.
It is difficult to keep up a conversation on the clumsy camels, which cannot be kept side by side so easily as horses or donkeys. If you have a good dromedary (heggîn), and travel without luggage, or with very little, the animal remains in trot. This is easy and not very tiring, while it requires some time to accustom oneself to the slouching step of the usualburthen-camel; this, however, we managed to lighten, by occasionally mounting our donkeys, and often walked long distances early in the morning and late at night.
I return to our fifth day in the desert, on which we set forth early, about eight o’clock, from the little valley E’ Sufr, where we had pitched our tent under some gum or sont-trees, and arrived at half-past twelve, after we had left the road about half an hour, and turned to the left into a wide valley, at the brackish wells of Wadi Murhad. Here we had concluded about half of our journey; we saw a few huts built of small stones and sedge, near which a couple of thin goats sought fruitlessly for some food; our black host led us into an arbour of bulrushes, where we made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit.
In this valley we had for some time observed the snow-white surface of the natron on the sand, which makes the water in the valley brackish. Toward the end of the valley, where it divides into two branches, there are the standing waters, five or six feet below the surface, which have been dug out into eight wells. The furthest wells have a greenish, salt, and ill-tasting water, which, however, serves the camels very well; the three front ones, however, have brighter water, which we could have drunk very well, if it had been necessary. This is a government station usually occupied by six people; at this time four were on an excursion and only two in the place. Two ways led hence to Korusko, a western and an eastern one; Ibrahim Aga had unfortunately chosen the former, by which we hadmissed him, having ourselves taken the latter. Sheikh Ahmed was not to be found here; probably he had only reached our camels on the second day, and we were therefore obliged to proceed without him.
The Abâbde Arabs, with whom we had now everywhere to do, are a true and trustworthy people, from whom one has less to fear than from the cunning thievish Fellahs of Egypt. To the north-east of them are the Bishari tribes, who speak a peculiar language, and are now at bitter feud with the Abâbde, because they waylaid and murdered some Turkish soldiers two years ago in the little valley, where we stayed the night, and for which Hassan Chalif, the superior sheikh of the Abâbde, to whose care the highway between Berber and Korusko is committed, had nearly forty of the Bishari executed. With the aid of the Abâbde, too, Ismael Pasha had been able four-and-twenty years before to bring his army though the desert and seize the Sudan. Guides are only posted by government along the road by which we were coming, but not on the longer but better watered line from Berber to Assuan, which is now little used.
At half-past four we rode away from the wells, after we had examined somehagr mektub(written stones, for which we everywhere inquired), on some rocks in the neighbourhood, where a number of horses, camels, and other animals had been rudely scratched, at some by no means modern period, in the same manner as we had often seen in Nubia. At half-past nine we halted for the night, after we had left the mountains an hour and a half. On themorning of the sixth day we passed the wide plain of Múndera, to which another high mountain range called Abu Sihha joins; the southern frontier of this plain, by those mountains, they call Abdêbab; the southern part of the Roft mountains behind us, Abu Senejât.
At three o’clock we left the plain, and entered the mountains again, which, like the former ranges, were of granite. Half an hour later we halted for a noontide rest. After two hours we rode on and encamped about midnight, after passing through another little plain, and the mountains of Adar Auîb into the next plain, comprehended under the same designation, which stretches to the last mountains of this desert, Gebel Graibât.
On the seventh day we set forth at the early hour of half-past seven, and came at last beyond Gebel Graibât, into a great and boundless plain, Adererât, which we did not leave until our arrival at Abu Hammed. To the south-west the little mountain El Farût, and the higher range Mograd, were in sight; in the far-east there joins another mountain to Adur Auîb, that of Abu Nugâra. South-easterly there are the other mountain chains of Bishari, the names of which were unknown to our Abâbde guides. The beginning of the plain of Adererât was quite covered for hours with beautiful pure flint, which sometimes jutted out of the sand, as rock, although the principal sort of rock continued to be black granite, which was intersected about noon by a broad vein of red granite. Early in the day a small caravan of merchants passed us at some distance.
We saw the most beautifulmiragesvery early in the day; they most minutely resemble seas and lakes, in which mountains, rocks, and everything in their vicinity, are reflected like in the clearest water. They form a remarkable contrast with the staring dry desert, and have probably deceived many a poor wanderer, as the legend goes. If one be not aware that no water is there, it is quite impossible to distinguish the appearance from the reality. A few days ago I felt quite sure that I perceived an overflowing of the Nile, or a branch near El Mechêref, and rode towards it, but only found Bahr Sheitan, “Satan’s water,” as the Arabs call it.
By day the caravan road cannot easily be missed, even when the sand has destroyed every trace of it; it is marked by numberless camels’ skeletons, of which several are always in sight; I counted forty-one within the last half-hour before sunset, on the previous day. Of our camels, however, although they had not long rested in Korusko, and got scarcely anything to eat or drink on the way, none were lost. Mine, in whose mouth I had occasionally put a bit of biscuit, used to stretch back his long neck in the middle of the march, until it laid its head with its large tender eyes in my lap, in order to get some more.
We halted at about four o’clock in the afternoon for two hours, and then proceeded till eleven, when we pitched our camp in the great plain. The wind, however, was so violent, that it was impossible to fasten up our tents. Notwithstanding the ten iron rings which are prepared for keeping it up, it fellthree times before it was quite finished; we, therefore, let it lie, laid our own selves down behind a little wall, that the guide had constructed of camel saddles as a shelter, and sleptà la belle étoile.
On the eighth day we might have arrived at Abu Hammed late in the evening, but we resolved to stay the night at an hour’s distance from that place, that we might reach the Nile by day. The birds of prey increased in the neighbourhood of the river; we scared away thirty vultures from the fresh carcase of a camel; the day before I had shot a white eagle, and some desert partridges, which were seekingdurragrains on the caravan road. We only saw traces of wild beasts by the carcases; they did not trouble us at night, as in the camp at Korusko, where we had shot a hyæna, and several jackals. In the afternoon we met a slave caravan. The last encampment before reaching Abu Hammed was less windy, but our coals were exhausted, and the servants had forgotten to gather camel’s dung for the fire; therefore we were obliged to drink the last brown skin-water without boiling it, to quench our thirst. The donkeys could not be spared any of it.
We ascended the high thrones of our camels on the 16th of January, at half-past seven o’clock in the morning, and looked down thence towards the Nile. It was, however, only visible shortly before our arrival. The stream here does not flow through a broad valley, but runs along a bare rock-channel, that stretches through the flat wide plain of rock. On the other side of the river only was there any appearance of the valley, and on an island formedthere stood a few dûm-palms. A little way from the shores we met another train of 150 camels, which had just left Abu Hammed. Then came an extensive earthwork, with a few towers like fortifications, which had been erected by the great Arab sheikh Hassan Chalif, for government stores. A little ravine contains five huts, one of stones and earth, another of tree trunks, two of mats, and one ofbusordurrastraw; then a wider place opened, surrounded with several poor-looking houses, one of which was prepared for us. A brother of Hassan Chalif, who resides here, came to receive us, led us into the house, and offered us his services. A fewanqarêb(cane bed-places), which are much used here, on account of the creeping vermin, were brought in, and we established ourselves for that day and the following night; we felt that we must give the camels so much grace.
A great four-cornered space surrounded us, thirty feet on every side, the walls formed of stone and earth; a couple of trees, forked at the top, bore a great trunk for an architrave, above which there were again other roof-branches laid, and bound up and covered with mats and hurdles. It reminded me much of a primeval architecture which we had found imitated on the rock caves of Beni-hassan; there were the same pillars, the same network of the roof, through which, except by the door, as at those caves, the light only entered by one four-cornered opening in the middle, at the top, and no windows. The door-posts were composed of four short trunks, of which the upper one quite resembled the lintel in the graves of the pyramid era. We hung up a curtain before thedoor, to protect us from the wind and dust; at the opposite corner, a doorway led into a space that was used as a kitchen. The day was windy, and the air unpleasantly filled with sand, so that we could scarcely get out of doors. We refreshed ourselves, however, with pure, cool Nile water, and an excellent dinner of mutton. The great desert was behind us, and we had only four days more to El Mechêref, the chief, town of Berber, following the course of the river. We learned that Ahmed Pasha Menekle was in our neighbourhood, or would soon arrive, in order to make a military expedition from Dâmer, a short day’s journey on the other side of El Mechêref, up the Atbara, to the province of Taka, where some of the Bishari tribes had revolted.
When we came forth the next morning, our Arabs had all anointed themselves and put on good clothes; but what more particularly surprised us was the sight of their stately white wigs, making them look quite reverend. It is a part of their “dress,” to comb the hair into a hightoupé, which is sprinkled with peculiar finely drifted butter, shining white, as if with powder. In a little while, however, when the sun is risen higher, this fat snow melts, and then the hair looks all covered with innumerable pearly dew-drops, till these, too, disappear, and run down their shoulders and neck from their dark brown hair, spreading a light upon their well-burned limbs, like antique bronze statues.
We set forward the next morning at eight o’clock, with a new camel that we had found opportunity to exchange for a tired one. The valley becomes broader and more fertile the nearer we come to theisland of Meroë; the desert itself became more rank and wild, like steppes. The first station was Geg, where we spent the night in an open space; the air is very, very warm; at half-past five in the afternoon we had 25° Reaumur. The second night we stayed on the other side of Abu Hashîn, in the neighbourhood of a village, which is in reality no station, as we desired to pass the five usual stations in four days; the third day we stopped out in the air by a cataract of the Nile. On the fourth day from Abu Hammed, we kept a little further away from the river in the desert, but still within the limits of the original valley, if I may so call a yellow earth, which is not covered by the inundations, but is dug out by the villagers immediately below the sand, in order to mend their fields. We halted in the evening at the village of El Chôr, an hour from El Mechêref, and arrived in the metropolis of the province of Berber early on the fifth day.
I sent the dragoman forward to announce us, and to demand a house, which we received, and immediately entered upon. The Mudhir of Berber was in Dâmer; his vakeel, or lieutenant, visited us, and soon came Hassan Chalif, the chief Arab sheikh, who promised us better camels to Dâmer, was rejoiced to hear good tidings of his and our friends, Linant and Bonomi, and amused himself with our own books of plates, in which he found portraits of his relations and ancestors. We had scarcely arrived, ere we received intelligence that Hassan Pasha had entered the town on another side. He had journeyed from Korusko to his province of Dongola, and now returned from Edabbe, on thesouthern boundaries of Dongola, right through the desert of El Mechêref, where Enrin, the new Pasha of Chartûm, had come to meet him. The rencontre caused some disturbance in our plans; but we managed to travel southward on the next morning, the 22nd of January, soon after Hassan Pasha’s departure, after leaving two camels, no longer wanted for water-carrying, behind, and exchanging three others for better ones.
We rode off towards noon, and stayed in the evening at the last village, before the river Mogrân, the ancient Astaboras, which we had to pass before reaching Dâmer. It is called in the maps Atbara, evidently a corruption of Astaboras; but this designation seems to be applied to the upper river, from the place of that name, and not to the lower one. Next morning we passed the river near itsembouchment. Even here it was very narrow in its great bed, which it entirely fills in the rainy season, while for two months it is only prevented from disappearing entirely by some stagnating water. On the other side of the river, we landed on the island of Meroë of Strabo, by which name the land between the Nile and Astaboras was designated. Yet two hours and we reached Dâmer.
The houses were too poor to take us in; I therefore sent Jussuf to Emin Pasha, in whose province we now were, and who had encamped, with Hassan Pasha, on the shore of the river. He sent akhawassto meet us, and to invite us to dine with him. I, however, judged it more expedient to pitch our tent at some distance, and to change our travelling costume. Immediately the Mudhir of Berber paidus his visit, to ask after our wishes, and soon after Emin Pasha sent an excellent dinner to our tent, consisting of four well-prepared dishes, and besides that, a lamb roasted whole upon the spit and filled with rice, and a flat cake filled with meat.
Toward Asser (three o’clock in the afternoon) we had our visit announced; just as we were about to proceed to it, we heard the singing of sailors; two boats came swimming down the stream with red flags and crescents: it was Ahmed Pasha Menekle returning from Chartûm. The Pasha and the Mudhir immediately proceeded on board, and they did not separate till late; our friend, Dr. Koch, was unfortunately not expected from Chartûm for two days. I had received a note from Erbkam at an early period after my arrival, in which he informed me, by the medium of a passingkhawass, that he had left Korusko with Ibrahim Aga, on the 15th of January; he wrote from their first camp. Thekhawasshad ridden with incredible swiftness from Cairo to Berber, in fourteen days, and brought Ahmed Pasha the desired permission to raise the government price for the camels from Korusko to Berber, from sixty piasters to a higher price than before,i. e.ninety piasters.
January 26th. The day before yesterday we made our visit to Ahmed Pasha, which he returned yesterday. He will do everything to facilitate our further journey. He informed us, that he, in accordance with his former promise, had sent an officer from Abu Haras to Mandera, three days into the desert, and had obtained the information from him that great ruins were existing there. The same was toldus yesterday in a letter by Dr. Koch, and confirmed to-day by his word of mouth. After dinner he will bring us Musa Bey, who has been there. He also announced to us that some letters had arrived for us, and were deposited at Chartûm, and that the artist sent for from Rome had arrived at Cairo.
For our fellow-travellers a bark is prepared at El Mechêref; but I shall precede them with Abeken. Ahmed Pasha sends me word, that in an hour a courier will leave for Cairo, who shall bear these letters.
Postscript.—The magnificent news from Mandera does not seem to be confirmed on closer inquiry. It will hardly be worth while to go thither.
On the Blue River, Province of Sennâr.13° North Latitude,March 2, 1844.
To-day we reach the southernmost boundary of our African journey. To-morrow we go northward and homeward again. We shall come as far as the neighbourhood of Sero, the frontier between the provinces of Sennâr and Fasoql. Our time will not admit of more stay. I have travelled from Chartûm hither with Abeken only. We gave up the desert journey to Mandera, the rather as the eastern regions are now unsafe by reason of the war in Taka. I now employ the time in learning the nature of the river, and the neighbouring country some days’ journey beyond Sennâr. The journey is worth the trouble, for the character of the whole land decidedly changes in soil, vegetation, and animals, on passing Abu Haras, between Chartûm and Sennâr, at theembouchureof the Rahad. It was necessary for me to gain as much personal knowledge of the whole Nile valley, as far up as possible, since the nature of this country, so limited in its width, has more influence than anything else upon the progress of its history.
On the White River one cannot journey for more than a few days to the frontier of Mohammed Ali’s conquests, without peculiar preparations and precautions. There are found the Shilluk on the western shore, and on the eastern, the Dinka, bothnative negro people, who are never the best friends with the northern folk. The Blue River is accessible to a much higher extent, and was, and is now, historically, of more consequence than the White, as it is the channel of communication between the north and Abyssinia. I should like to have proceeded into the province of Fasoql, the last under Egyptian dominion; but that will not tally with our reckoning; so we shall put a period to our southern journey to-night.
But I return in my reports to Dâmer, where I embarked on the 27th of January with Abeken, in the bark of Musa Bey, Ahmed Pasha’s first adjutant, who had kindly placed it at our disposal. We stopped for the night at about eight o’clock in the evening, near the island of Dal Haui. We had obtained akhawassfrom Emin Pasha, the same who had come hither on the conquering of the country with Ismael Pasha, who had accompanied the Defterdar Bey to Kordofan, (or, according to his pronunciation, Kordifal), who had then journeyed with the same on his errand of vengeance to Shendi for the murder of Ismael, and since then had traversed the whole Sudan in every direction for three and twenty years. He has the most perfect map of these countries in his head, and possesses an astounding memory for names, bearings, and distances, so that I have based two charts upon his remarks, which are not without geographical interest in some parts. He has also been to Mekka, and therefore likes to be addressed as Haggi Ibrahim (Pilgrim Ibrahim.) In other things, too, he has much experience, and will bevery useful to us by reason of his long and extended acquaintance with the land.
On the twenty-eighth of January, we stopped about noon at an island called Gomra, as we heard that there were ruins in the vicinity which we should like to see. We had to proceed through a flat arm of the Nile, and ride for an hour on the eastern shore to the north. There at last we found, after passing the villages of Motmár and El Akarid, between a third village, Sagâdi, and a fourth, Genna, the inconsiderable ruins of a place built of bricks, and strewn with broken tiles.
We returned but little satisfied amidst the noon-day heat, and arrived with our bark only just before sunset in Begerauîe, in the neighbourhood of which are situated the pyramids of Meroë. It is remarkable that this place is not mentioned by Cailliaud. He only speaks of the pyramids of Assur,i.e.Sûr, or e’Sûr. The whole plain in which the ruins of the city and the pyramids lie bears the same name; and, besides this, a portion of Begerauîe, which, probably by a slip of the pen, is called Begromi by Hoskins.
Although it was already dark, I rode with Abeken to the pyramids, which stand a short hour’s ride inland, upon the slopes of the low hills that stretch along eastward. The moon alone, which was in its first quarter, sparingly lighted the plain, covered with stones, low underwood, and rushes. After a sharp ride, we came to the foot of a row of pyramids, which rose before us in the form of a crescent, as was rendered necessary by the ground. To the right joins another row of pyramids, a little retreating; a third group lies more to the south inthe plains, too far off to be distinguished in the dim moonlight. I tied the bridle of my donkey round a post, and climbed up the first mound of ruins.
The single pyramids are not so exactly placed as in Egypt; yet the ante-chambers, which are here built on to the body of the structures themselves, all lie turned away from the river toward the east, doubtless for the same religious reason which actuated the Egyptians also to turn the entrance of the detached temples before their pyramids to the east, thus river-ward at Gizeh and Saqâra, but the tombs toward the west.
Half looking, half feeling, I found some sculptures on the outer walls of the tomb temple, and also perceived figures and writing on the inner walls. I recollected that I had a candle-end in the wallet of my donkey; this I lighted, and examined several ante-chambers. Then immediately the forms of the Egyptian Gods—Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Atmu, &c., came out with their names in the well-known hieroglyphics.[70]In the first chamber, too, I found the cartouche of a king. One of the two rings contained the signs of a great Pharaoh of the Old Empire, Sesurtesen I.; the same was assumed by two later Egyptian kings, and now encountered for the fourth time as the throne-name of an Ethiopian king. The sculptures on the other side were not ended. On the same evening, I also found royal names in another ante-chamber, but they wererather illegible. Both writing and representations had, in fact, suffered much. The pyramids, like those in Egypt, have lost their tops, and many are totally destroyed.
Our newkhawass, who would not leave us in the night, had followed immediately. He knew the locality perfectly, as he had been here a long time with Ferlini, and had assisted him in the examination of the pyramids. He showed us the place in the pyramid where Ferlini, in 1834, discovered the rich treasure of gold and silver rings built in the wall.
I also discovered a case-pyramid that evening, enlarged according to the principle of the Egyptian pyramids by a later mantle of stone. According to the inscriptions and representations in the antechambers, these pyramids are chiefly built for kings, and a few perhaps for their wives and children. The great number of them argues for a long series of kings, and a well-grounded empire that probably lasted for a number of centuries.
The most important results of this examination by moon and candlelight was, however, not the most agreeable; I was fully convinced that I had before me here, on the most celebrated spot of ancient Ethiopia, nothing but the ruins of comparatively recent art.[71]Already, at an earlierperiod, had I judged from the monuments of Ferlini, drawings of which I had seen in Rome, and the originals in London, that they were certainly produced in Ethiopia, but not in any case earlier than the first century before the Christian era; therefore, at about the same period to which a few veritable Greek and Roman works belong, which we discovered together with the Ethiopian treasure. And I must say the same now of all the monuments not only situated here, but upon the whole island of Meroë, as well of all the pyramids near Begerauîe, as of the temples of Ben Naga, of Naga, and of the Wadi e’ Sofra (Cailliaud’sMesaurât), which we have subsequently seen. The representations and inscriptions leave not the least doubt on the subject, and it will be for ever in vain to attempt the support of the much-loved idea of an ancient Meroë, glorious and famous, the inhabitants of which were the predecessors and teachers of the Egyptians in civilisation, by referring to its monumental remains.
Yet this conviction is of no little value, and appears to throw a certain degree of light upon the historical connection of Egypt and Ethiopia, the importance of which will first be fully developed at the monuments of Barkal. There, no doubt, will be found the oldest Ethiopian memorials, although perhaps not earlier than the time of Tarhaka, who reigned contemporaneously over Egypt and Ethiopia, in the seventh century before Christ.
We rode back to the pyramids the next morning with the sunrise, and found fifteen various royal names, but some in a very bad condition.
We had just completed the survey of the two north-easterly groups of pyramids, and were riding towards the third, which lies in the plain not far from the ruins of the city, and is perhaps the oldest Necropolis, when we heard shots from the shore, and saw white sails fluttering on the river. Soon after Erbkam, the two Weidenbachs, and Franke came walking over the plain, and greeted us already from afar. We scarcely expected them so soon, and therefore the meeting was the more pleasant. We could now continue our journey to Chartûm all together.
At two o’clock in the afternoon we went off, andreached Shendi at about ten the next morning. After dinner we went on, stayed the night on the island Hobi, and came the next morning early to Ben Naga. Here we first visited the ruins of two little temples, of which the west one had Typhon columns instead of pillars, but showed no writing on its few remains; in the other eastern one there were a few sculptures preserved on the low wall, and writing on a few round pillars, but too little that anything connected might be gathered from it. Excavations might probably discover royal names; but such an attempt is only possible on our return.
Some camels were procured for the next morning, and I rode off with Abeken, Erbkam, and Maximilian Weidenbach at nine o’clock for Naga. So are the ruins of a city and several temples named, which lie in the eastern wilderness, at a distance of seven or eight hours from the Nile. From our landing-place, near the only palm group of the whole region, we only wanted half an hour to the village of Ben Naga, which lies in Wadi Teresîb. One hour eastward, down the river (for it flows from west to east here), the ruins are situated, where we had landed the day before, in the Wadi el Kirbegân; we now passed them on the left, and rode south-east into the wilderness, sparely grown with dry underwood, crossed the valley El Kirbegân, which stretches hither from the river, and in which we found a camp of Abâbde Arabs.
After four and a half hours from Ben Naga, we arrived at a solitary mountain in the wilderness, named Buêrib. This lay between the little southwestern wadis (so they call even the most levelsinkings of the plain, when the water runs off, and which we should scarcely call valleys) and the great wide Wadi Auatêb, into which we now descended, after we had passed the Buêrib at a little distance to the left. In three and three quarter hours from Buêrib, we came to the ruins of Naga.
The enigma which I had vainly endeavoured to unriddle, and which neither Cailliaud nor Hoskins had explained, as to how it was possible to build a city and sustain it in the midst of the desert so far from the river, was first solved in the vicinity of the temple. The whole valley of Auatêb is still cultivated land. We found it covered far and wide withdurrastubble. The inhabitants of Shendi, Ben Naga, Fadnîe, Sélama, Metamme, thus of both sides of the Nile, come hither to cultivate the land, and to harvestdurra. The tropical rain is sufficient to fertilise the soil of this flat but extensive level, and in ancient times it is probable that more was obtained from this region by greater care. For the dry season there were no doubt large artificial cisterns, like those we found at the most distant ruins north of Naga, although without water.
The ruins lie at the end of a mountain chain which extends for several hours, having received the name of Gebel e’ Naga, and running from north to south; Wadi Auatêb passes along its western side toward the river. After an uninterrupted ride, we arrived at about half-past five. By the way we saw the road covered with the traces of gazelles, wild asses, foxes, jackals, and ostriches. Lions, too, sometimes come hither, but we saw no signs of them.
Before the coming of night I visited the three principal temples, which all belong to a very late period, and do not admit of a single idea concerning any antiquity, which Cailliaud and Hoskins imagined they perceived. A fourth temple stand besides the three principal temples in Egyptian architecture, the well turned, and not unpleasingly selected Egyptian ornamental style of which, not only manifests the time of the universal dominion of the Romans, but also the presence of Roman builders. This has no inscriptions. Of the three others, the two southernmost are built by one and the same king; on both he is accompanied by a representation of the same queen. There is behind them yet another royal personage, bearing different names on the two temples. The name of the king has again the cartouch of Sesurtesen I. added, although he does not appear to be the same with the king at the pyramids of Sûr; and the two other persons have also old Egyptian cartouches, which might easily lead to mistakes.
The third and northern temple has suffered much, and had but little writing now, yet a king is mentioned on the door lintels, who is different from the builder of the two others.
The forms of the gods are almost Egyptian, yet there is on the southern temple a shape unknown in Egypt, with three lions’ heads (perhaps there is a fourth behind) and four arms. This may be the barbarous god mentioned by Strabo, which the Meroites revered beside Herakles, Pan, and Isis.
Next morning, the 2nd of February, we visited the three temples again, took a few paper impressions, and then went our way to the third group of monuments, named Mesaurât, by Cailliaud. This is, however, a designation employed for all three groups of ruins, and which signifies “pictures,” or “walls decked with pictures.” The ruins of Ben Naga are called Mesaurât el Kirbegân, because they lie in the Wadi el Kirbegân; only the southern-most group, it seems, has retained its ancient name Naga or Mesaurât e’ Naga; the third toward Shendi, called Mesaurât e’ Sofra, from the mountain-crater where it lies, and which is named e’ Sofra, the table.
We followed the mountain chain, Gebel e’ Naga, in the valley Auatêb, for two hours in a northward direction. Then, at about half-past twelve o’clock, we passed through the first ravine, opening to the right into a more elevated valley, e’Siléha, which becoming wider behind the hills, overgrown with grass and bushes, opens (in the direction of S.S.W. to N.N.E.) after an hour and a half, to the left into the valley of Auatêb, and in front toward another smaller valley, from which it is separated by the Gebel Lagâr. This little valley it is which is called e’Sofra, from its round form; here too lie the ruins which Hoskins saw, though he did not penetrate to Naga. At a quarter past two we arrived, and had therefore consumed not quite four hours from Naga hither. As we were going to take a rapid survey of the whole, we walked through the extensive ruins of the principal building, which Cailliaud had taken for a great school, Hoskins for a hospital; and we perceived from the few sculptures, unaccompanied by inscriptions, that we had before us also here late monuments, probablyyounger than those of Sûr and Naga. Then we went to the little temple near (on the pillars of which we found riders on elephants and lions, and other strange barbaric representations), looked at the large artificial cistern, now called Wot Mahemût, which must have taken the place of the river during the dry season, and rode back again to Ben Naga, at four o’clock.
When we came forth from the mountains, we met great herds of wild asses, which always stopped a little in front of us, as if inviting us to chase them. They are grey or reddish grey, with a white belly, and all have a strongly marked black stripe down the back; the tip of the tail, too, is usually black. Many are caught when young, but are not fit for carriage or riding then. The next generation is only to be employed for these purposes. Almost all the domesticated donkeys in the south, above the Ass Cataract (Shellâl homâr), in Berber, are of the race of these wild asses, and have the same colour and marks.
We pitched our tents in the rank-grown plain soon after sundown. The camel-drivers and ourkhawasswere terribly afraid of the lions in this desert, until a great fire was lighted, which they carefully kept up the whole night through. When a lion lets his voice be heard in the vicinity of a caravan, sounding indeed deeply and dreadly through the whole wilderness, all the camels run away like mad, and are difficult of being secured, often not until they have suffered and done some injury. Some days ago a camel was strangled by a lion in our vicinity, although on the opposite sideof the river; a man that was there saved himself on the next tree.
On the 3rd of February, we rode off again at seven o’clock, leaving the two Buêrib, the great “blue” one and the little “red” one, a good distance to the left, and came into the valley El Kirbegân shortly before nine o’clock. This we followed for half an hour riverward, seeing the Mesaurât el Kirbegân to the right; but we now stopped on the hills, until we arrived at Ben Naga, a little after eleven o’clock, and half an hour at our landing place.
After two hours we went on in our bark. With a strong contrary wind we made but little way, and saw nothing new, except a swimming hippopotamus. Next morning we landed on the western shore, opposite the village of Gôs Basabir, to inspect the ruins of an old fortress wall with towers of defence, which encircled a hill top. The place was about three hundred paces in diameter. After mid-day, we neared the Shellâl (cataracts) of Gerashâb; the higher mountains before us came nearer, and at last formed a great pool, apparently without any outlet; however, it was really close at hand, as we turned into a narrow gorge, widening into a high and wild rock valley, that we followed for almost an hour before we came into another plain on the opposite side. The Qirre granite mountains running through here, end on the eastern side of the river in a peak called the Rauiân, “the Satisfied;” while westward, at some distance from the river, standing equally alone, is the Atshân, “the Thirsty.”
On the 5th of February, we landed early atTamamiât, about 11 o’clock. Mohammed Said, the former treasurer of the deceased Ahmed Pasha, whose acquaintance we had made in Dâmer, had given us a letter to one of the under-officials there, containing directions to deliver to us the fragment of an inscription found at Soba. It was in the middle of a marble tablet, written on both sides with late Greek or Koptic letters. The signs, which were plainly visible, contained neither Greek nor Koptic words, only the name[Koptic]was decipherable. The same evening we arrived at Chartûm. This name signified “elephant’s trunk,” and is probably derived from the narrow tongue of land between its Niles, on which the city lies.
My first visit with Abeken was to Emin Pasha, who had already reached Chartûm before us. He received us very kindly, and would not let us leave him the whole morning.
An excellent breakfast, comprising about thirty dishes, which we took with him, gave us a very interesting insight into the mysteries of Turkish cookery, which (as I learnt from our well-fed Pasha), in the matter of the preparation and arrangement of the dishes, like the systems of the latest French cookery, follow the rules of a more refined taste. Soon after the first dish comes lamb, roasted on the spit, which must never be wanting at any Turkish banquet. Then follow several courses of solid and liquid, sour and sweet dishes, in the order of which a certain kind of recurring change is observed, to keep the appetite alive. Thepilauof boiled rice is always the concluding dish.
The external adjuncts to such a feast as this, arethese:—A great round plate of metal, with a plain edge of three feet in diameter, is placed on a low frame, and serves as a table, about which five or six people can repose on rugs, or cushions. The legs are hidden in the extensive folds which encircle the body. The left hand must remain invisible; it would be very improper to expose it in any way while eating. The right hand alone is permitted to be active. There are no plates and knives or forks. The table is decked with dishes, deep and shallow, covered and uncovered; these are continually being changed, so that but little can be eaten from each. Some, however, as roast meat, cold milks and gerkins, &c., remain longer, and are often recurred to. Before and after dinner they wash their hands. An attendant or slave kneels with a metal basin in one hand, and a piece of soap on a little saucer, on the other; with the other hand he pours water over the hands of the washer from a metal jug; over his arm hangs an elegantly embroidered napkin, for drying one’s hand upon.
After dinner, pipes and coffee are immediately handed round, after which time one may withdraw. The Turks then take a sleep until Asser. But ere we parted from our host, he had a number of weapons, lances, bows, arrows, clubs, and a sceptre of the upper wild nations, sent to my bark, as a guest present.
We then visited our countryman, Neubauer, the apothecary of the province, who had been very unfortunate. A short while before, he had been removed from his post by the deceased Ahmed Pasha, but was now again instituted apothecary byAhmed Pasha Menekle, through Dr. Koch’s interest. Then we went to the house of a resident Pole, named Hermanowitch, the principal physician of the province, who offered us his house in accordance with a command of the Pasha, whither we removed on the following day. It had just been repaired, and by it were a garden and court, very useful to us for the unpacking and mending of our chests and tents.
Next day the Pasha returned our visit. He came on horseback. We offered coffee, pipes, and sherbet, and showed him some pictures from Egypt, in which he took a lively interest. He is a man of tall and corpulent stature, a Circassian by birth, and therefore, like most of his countrymen, better informed than the Turks. At the house of a Syrian, Ibrahim Chêr, I saw a rich collection of all the ornithological species of the Sudan, in number about three hundred; of each twenty to thirty carefully selected specimens.
A day or two after I took a walk with Abeken and Erbkam, to the opposite side of the promontory, toward the White River, which we followed to its union with the Blue River. Its water is, in fact, whiter, and tastes less agreeably than that of the Blue, because it runs slowly through several lakes in the upper countries, the standing waters of which lakes impart to it an earthy and impure taste. I have filled several bottles with the water of the Blue and the White Nile, which I shall bring home, sealed down.
At a subsequent friendly visit of the Pasha, we met the brother of the former Sultan of Kordofan(who was himself also called Mak or Melek), and the Vizier of Sultan Nimr (Tiger), of Shendi. The latter still resides in Abyssinia, whither he fled after he had burned the conqueror of his country, Ismael Pasha, Mohammed Ali’s son, and all his officers, at a nightly banquet in 1822.
We went up the White River on the 14th, but soon returned, as it has so weak a current that, by the present prevailing north wind, the way back is somewhat difficult. The shores of the White River are desolate, and the few trees, which formerly stood in the vicinity of Chartûm, are now cut down and used for building or burning. The water mass of the White River is greater than that of the Blue, and retains its direction after their union, so the Blue River is to be looked upon rather as a tributary, but the White River as the actual Nile. Their different waters may be distinguished long after their juncture.
On the 16th of February, I sent for some Dinka slaves, to inquire into their language; but they were so hard of comprehension, that I could only, with great trouble, obtain from them the names of the numbers up to one hundred, beside a few pronouns. The languages of the Dinka and the Shilluk, who live several days’ journey up the White River, the former on the eastern, the latter on the western shore, are as little known in respect to their grammatical structure, as those of most of the Central African Nations; and I therefore besought the Pasha to have some sensible people found who were acquainted with their language. This was notpossible at the time, but it is to be done against our return.
In the meantime our purchases and repairs were completed, and I hastened our departure as much as possible. The house of Hermanowitch remains at our disposal on our return; it is conveniently and airily built, and from my windows I could see the oldest house in the town, the pointed straw roof of which looked over the walls. These pointed thatched houses, calledTukele, form the peculiar style of the country, and almost the only erections more to the south. But as Chartûm is a new city, the few old huts have all disappeared except that one, and the houses are built of burnt brick.
At noon on the 17th of February we entered our barks. I sailed to the south with Abeken, up the Blue River, partly to learn its nature, partly to see the ruins of Soba, and those of Mandera; the rest of our companions, for whom there was nothing to do in the south, went northward to Meroë, to draw the monuments of that place.
Next day we landed on the eastern side, where great stacks of red burnt bricks, prepared for embarkation, informed us that we were not far off the ruins of Soba. In the whole country unburnt bricks are now made, so that all ruins of burnt bricks must belong to an earlier period. From Soba, this building material is transported in great quantities both to Chartûm and beyond it.
We landed, and had scarcely left the bushes next to the shore behind us, ere we saw the violated mounds of bricks, which cover a great plain, an hour’s ride in circumference; some of the larger heaps might be theremains of the Christian churches, which are described by Selim of Assuan (by Macrizi) in the tenth century, when Soba was yet the capital of the empire of Alŏa, as magnificently decorated with gold. The place was shown us where, some time ago, a stone lion was discovered, now in the possession of Churshid Pasha, at Cairo. Walls or buildings were nowhere to be recognized, and on the southernmost and somewhat distant hill some sculptured yellow blocks of sandstone, and a low wall were all that we could find; on another mound lay several rough slabs of a black, slatey stone.