Chapter III: Part 3

23d of Jamisalachar. This day arrived the Divan Effendi, from Shendi, accompanied by the Malek of that province, and the son of Malek Shouus, the chief of the fugitive Shageias. The Malek of Shendi was accompanied by a considerable suite, and two most beautiful horses, intended as a present to the Pasha.[35] On being introduced to his Excellence, he kissed his hand, and pressed it to his forehead, and told him that he had come to surrender himself and his country to his favor and protection. His Excellence received him graciously, presented him with splendid habiliments, and a horse richly caparisoned. After his presentation was finished, he was conducted to the tent of the Hasnardar, who was directed by the Pasha to treat him with due hospitality. The son of Malek Shouus came in behalf of his father, and other distinguished chiefs of the Shageias, to implore the mercy of the Pasha for these chiefs and the fugitive remnant of their followers, who were opposite Shendi, awaiting the decision of the Pasha, as to what was to be their fate. I was told that the determination of the Pasha continued in their regard the same, making the surrender of their arms and horses the sine qua non of peace between him and them. Three days after, the chief of Shendi returned home the friend of the Pasha.

On the 25th of the moon, I passed over to the eastern side of the river, to purchase camels; as there were many buyers at this time from our camp, I did not find any good enough for the exorbitant price demanded. I passed the greater part of the day, and the night following, at the town of Nousreddin, in the house of one of the principal chiefs of the Berbers. He bears the title of Malek, as do all the distinguished chiefs of Berber, Shageia, and Dongola. Their dignity is hereditary, generally passing from father to son. I have noticed that the families of the Maleks exceed the common people in respect of stature and stoutness. The Malek, in whose house I lodged, a man about 60 years of age, was near seven feet high, and very stout. His eldest son, a young man about 22 years of age, was about 6 feet 4 inches in stature, stout and well proportioned. I imagine, that this superiority in size is owing to the circumstance that they eat well and heartily, and have no work to do beside seeing that others work for them. The family of this Malek carried their hospitality towards me to a very extraordinary length for people professing Islam. I was offered, by the mother and mistress of the house, my choice of two of her daughters for a bedfellow. They were both young, and the handsomest women I have seen in Berber, but married to husbands whose houses were at the other end of the town. When I understood this circumstance, I told the mother, that a genuine Mussulman ought to regard lying with his neighbor's wife as a crime almost as bad as murdering him in his bed.[36] I am sorry to be obliged to say, that though the Berbers are a quiet and industrious people, very civil and disposed to oblige all for whom they have any regard, yet, with respect to their women, they appear to be unconscious that their conduct is quite irreconcilable with the precepts of the Koran, and the customs of their co-religionists. They suffer them to go about with the face exposed--to converse with the other sex in the roads, the streets, and the fields; and if the women are accustomed to grant their favors to their countrymen, as liberally and as frequently as they did to our soldiers, I should imagine that it must be more than commonly difficult, in this country, for a man to know his own father.[37]

On my return to camp, I was amused on the way by a dispute in connection with this subject, between the Malek I have mentioned and a soldier; it happened in the boat that brought me back to camp. The boat was heavily laden, and this gigantic Malek was stepping into it, when the soldier I have mentioned intimated a determination to exclude him, calling him by several opprobrious names, and among other terms, "a pimp." Upon this, I checked the soldier, telling him that this man was a considerable personage in his country, and extremely hospitable to the Osmanlis. This mollified the soldier, and the Malek took a place as well as he could. The Malek then addressed the soldier in a mild manner, and asked him why he had bestowed such appellations upon one who was a Mussulman, as well as himself. The soldier positively refused to allow the Malek's claims to this honorable appellation. The chief demanded upon what grounds the soldier denied it: "Because," said the soldier, "the women of your country are all whores, and the men all get drunk with bouza, araky, and other forbidden liquors, which you make out of durra and dates;" and turning to me, he demanded "whether he was not right?" The poor chief appeared to be much vexed that he was unable to reply to this accusation, and remained silent. The soldier, not content with humbling the unlucky Malek, pursued his advantage without mercy. "Come," said he to the chief, "I do not believe that you know any thing about your religion, and I will soon make you sensible of it" He then asked the chief how many prophets had preceded Mohammed? If he knew any thing about the history of Dhulkamein and Gog and Magog? and many others of a similar tenor: how to answer which the unfortunate Malek was obliged to own his ignorance. The soldier then told him that "the Commander of the Faithful,"[38] the chief of the Mussulmans, had authorized his Vizier, the Pasha Mehemmed Ali, to set the people on the upper parts of the Nile to rights, and that now the Osmanlis were come among them they would probably learn how to behave themselves. The Malek might, however, have had his revenge upon the edifying soldier, had he known as well as I did that he had gone over to the town of Nousreddin expressly to amuse himself with the women of the country, and had doubtless paid as much attention to the bouza as the most sturdy toper in Berber.

The country of the Berbers, after the best in formation I have been able to obtain, is small, not extending, from the upper end of the third cataract, more than eight days march in length on both sides of the Nile. The Bahar el Uswood, or Black river, bounds it (i.e. on the eastern bank) on the south, and separates it from the territory of Shendi. The cultivable land reaches generally to the distance of one or two miles from the river. It is overflowed generally at the inundation, and its produce is very abundant, consisting in durra, wheat, barley, beans, cotton, a small grain called "duchan," tobacco, and some garden vegetables similar to those of Egypt. Berber also raises great numbers of horned cattle, sheep, goats, camels, asses, and very fine horses. It is very populous, the succession of villages being almost continued along the road on both sides of the river. The houses are built of clay, covered with a flat roof of beams overlaid generally with straw; but the houses of the Maleks have generally terraced roofs of beaten clay, This manner of building is sufficient in a country where no great quantity of rain falls throughout the year. Some of the houses of the peasants are formed of trusses of cornstalks, and placed side by side in a perpendicular position, and lashed together, with roofs of the same materials. All the people sleep upon bedsteads, as they do also in Dongola and Shageia: these bedsteads are composed of an oblong frame of wood, standing on four short legs, the sides of the frame supporting a close network of leathern thongs, on which the person sleeps; it is elastic and comfortable.

Berber contains plenty of salt, which the natives find in some calcareous mountains between the desert and the fertile land. In its natural state, it is found mingled with a brown earth, with which the stone of those mountains is intermixed. This earth the natives dilute with water, which absorbs the salt and leaves the earth at the bottom; they then pour off the water into another vessel, and, by exposing it to the sun or fire, the water is evaporated and the salt remains.

The assemblage of villages which compose the capital of Nousreddin, contains houses enough for a population of five or six thousand souls, but I do not believe that the actual population of those villages is so great.

The language is Arabic, perfectly intelligible to the natives of Egypt, but containing some ancient words at present disused on the lower Nile; for instance, the Berber calls a sheep "Kebesh."[39'

As to the climate, the difference between the heat at two hours afternoon in the month of the vernal equinox, and at an hour before sunrise, has been as great as ten degrees of the thermometer of Reaumur, as I have been informed by one of the medical staff attached to the army, who was in possession of that instrument. It is at present the commencement of spring, and the heat at two hours after mid-day, at least to the sense, is as great as in the month of the summer solstice, in Cairo. I have seen no ferocious animals, either in Berber or the country below, and believe that they are rare.

5th of Regeb. The camp continues in Berber, awaiting the arrival of the remainder of the cannon, ammunition, provisions and troops, from the boats at the cataract. The reason why these have not been transported hither before this time, is the want of camels, a large part of the camels attached to the army having perished, by reason of having been over fatigued by the Pasha's forced march over the desert, and up the country of Berber. A considerable number of camels have been obtained from Berber and sent to the cataract, and more are expected to arrive from Shendi, to which place the Divan Effendi has accompanied the chief of that country when he left our camp, in order to receive them. Abdin Cacheff departed two days past for Dongola, with his division. He is charged, by Mehemmed Ali, with the government of the country between the second and third cataracts.[40] Twelve hundred men, under the command of Ibrihim Cacheff, are said to be on the way to replace the vacancy left in our camp by the departure of Abdin Cacheff. They are expected to arrive in a few days, if not delayed by the sickness of Ibrihim Cacheff, who, it is said in the camp, is dangerously ill on the road.

7th of Regeb. This day Nousreddin, the Malek of Berber, came to kiss the hand of the Pasha. He had been prevented from paying his homage to the conqueror heretofore by sickness. He brought with him, as a present to the Pasha, fifty fine horses, and fifty dromedaries of prime breed. He was well received by his Excellence, and his presents were returned by the Pasha, by others of great value. Nousreddin is a very tall and very large man, about sixty years of age. Two days after, having occasion to go to the other side of the river, I found Nousreddin upon the shore, awaiting the arrival of a boat to carry him and some of his chiefs over. I paid him some compliments relative to the handsome horses he had presented to the Pasha, which pleased him considerably; he invited me to come to his house and partake of his hospitality. I told him, if circumstances would admit it, I would visit him in a few days.

From the 10th of Regeb to the end of the moon, nothing worth notice took place, except the successive and gradual arrival of the remainder of the cannon,[41] ammunition, stores and troops from the cataract, which had been left there when the Pasha quitted it, for want of camels to transport them. On the last day of the month, arrived the cavalry of Ibrihim Cacheff from Egypt, consisting of four hundred excellent horsemen; one thousand infantry were yet far distant, but on their way to join us. Ibrihim Cacheff is at Wady Halfa, severely sick.

On the 2d of the moon Shaban, shortly after the hour of afternoon prayer, the signal was fired and the tents fell. We mounted our snorting horses, now lusty from long repose, and commenced our march to traverse the famous country of the Ethiopian shepherds, at present subject to the Malek of Shendi. We arrived opposite Shendi, by easy marches, in eight days, and encamped on the west side of the river, near a very large village called "Shendi el Garb," i.e. Shendi on the west bank.

Our route from Berber led us through a country consisting of immense plains of fertile soil, extending many miles from the river, and mostly covered with herbage; mountains or hills were rarely visible.[42]

We passed many large villages, most of which stood far off from the river, to be out of the reach of the inundation. The houses of these villages, particularly as we approached Shendi, were generally built with sloping roofs of thatched straw, which indicated that this is a country visited by the rains. We hardly ever, during our march, came in view of the river, except to encamp. We found it at this season narrow and shallow, though its bed was frequently a mile and a half broad. At every halt we made, the chiefs of the country came to salute the Pasha, and seemed to be well disposed towards the army, whose conduct was very exemplary.

On the 9th of the moon, I visited the town of Shendi el Garb, in the rear of our camp. It is large and well built, in comparison with the other villages I have seen on the Upper Nile. It contains about six thousand inhabitants, and has three market places, where the people of the country exchange dollars and durra for what they have need of. Our piasters they disliked, being ignorant of their value, but sometimes received them for fowls, vegetables, butter, and meat, and for durra, but for wheat they demanded dollars.

On the 10th of the moon, I went to Shendi on the east bank, which is the capital of the country. I traversed the town with some surprise; the houses are low, but well built of clay. Large areas, walled in for the reception of the merchandize brought by the caravans, are to be seen in various parts of the town, which is large, containing probably five or six thousand inhabitants; the streets are wide and airy, regular market places are found there, where, beside meat, butter,[43] grain and vegetables are also to be purchased, spices brought from Jidda, gum arabic, beads, and other ornaments for the women. The people of Shendi have a bad character, being both ferocious and fraudulent. Great numbers of slaves of both sexes, from Abyssinia and Darfour, are to be found here, at a moderate price, a handsome Abyssinian girl selling for about forty or fifty dollars. The chief of Shendi, the same who had come to our camp in Berber, has done his uttermost to promote a good disposition in his people towards the Osmanlis, and has made the Pasha a present of several hundreds of very fine camels, within the last two days. His house is not built of better materials than those of his people, and differs from them only in being larger. Shendi stands about half a mile from the easterly bank of the river. Its immediate environs are sandy; it derives its importance solely from being the rendezvous of the caravans of Sennaar and the neighboring countries going to Mecca or Egypt. The territory belonging to the chief of Shendi is said to be very large,[44] but by no means peopled in proportion to its extent. He can, however, in conjunction with the Malek of Halfya, bring into the field thirty thousand horsemen, mounted on steeds probably as beautiful as any found in any country in the world.

On the 14th of the moon, some soldiers, who went to a village in the neighborhood of the camp, to get their rations of durra from the magazine in this village, which had been formed there by its chief, for the service of the army, were insulted, maltreated, and two of them killed outright with lances, and others severely wounded by the inhabitants. On the news of this outrage reaching the camp, the soldiers took arms, and mounted, to proceed to this village, with the full determination to revenge the death of their comrades in the severest manner. In five minutes nearly all the camp was upon the march for this village, when the Pasha sent orders to stop them and leave the affair to him. It was however impossible to prevent the greater part of them from proceeding to the village, which they pillaged and destroyed, sacrificing to their fury many of its inhabitants. The plunder which they brought back was however seized by the Selictar, and by the Pasha's orders restored to its owners.

The conduct of his Excellence on this occasion was highly laudable, while it must be confessed that that of the soldiers was not much to be blamed. Durra--a miserable pittance of durra, scarcely sufficient to support nature, was all that was required from the people of these countries, money free; and this, in the instance mentioned, was refused by a people whose chief had already granted it--a people absolutely within our power, and who extorted from the starving soldiery enormous prices for every thing they sold us, and who frequently refused to sell us any thing at all with great ferocity and insolence.

On the 15th of the moon, at two hours before sunset, the signal was fired, and the camp of the Pasha rose to commence its march for Sennaar. We marched till midnight, and reposed, as usual, on the bank of the river till about the same hour of the afternoon of the 16th of the moon, when we pursued our march for five hours, and halted by the river. We stayed here till the 18th, in the afternoon, in order to obtain three days rations for the horses from the villages in the neighborhood, which are numerous and large, as the country through which our route would lie for that time, is destitute of inhabitants and cultivation.

It was on the 16th that Malek Shouus, the chief of the fugitive Shageias, who had fled as the army approached up the country, came at length to the camp to surrender himself to the discretion of the Pasha. He addressed the Pasha, as I have been informed, as follows: "I have fought against you to the utmost of my means and power, and am now ready, if you will, to fight under the orders of my conqueror." The courage this man had shown in battle, and his firmness in adversity, had engaged the respect of the Osmanlis, and he is as graciously received by the Pasha, who created him a Bimbashi, and received him, his companions, and followers, into his service. Malek Shouus is a large stout man, of a pleasing physiognomy though black, of about forty years of age, and was considered as the greatest warrior among the people of the Upper Nile, who all stood in awe of him.[45]

The 19th, 20th, and 21st of the moon, were employed in traversing the naked country before-mentioned, which is barren, rocky, and without cultivation. We marched for three days, from the middle of the afternoon till midnight. It was not till the second hour after midnight, however, of the third day, that we arrived at a country on the border of the Nile, containing several villages, where we remained till the middle of the afternoon of the 21st. On our arrival at these villages, the darkness and severe hunger engaged several of the soldiers to take, by force, sheep and goats from the inhabitants. The officers of the Pasha vigorously interposed to prevent this infraction of the orders of his Excellence, and several of the guilty were severely punished for taking forbidden means to gratify the demands of nature.

At the hour of afternoon prayer the signal was fired, and the camp proceeded onwards. We left the villages afore-mentioned, and passed through a sandy tract covered with bushes and the thorny acacia, which embarrassed our march, and, by occasioning several detours, caused the army to lose its way. After wandering about till midnight, the camp at length arrived on the bank of the Nile.

On the 22d, at the rising of the moon, the camp proceeded, and halted in the forenoon on the beach of the river, opposite Halfya, a very large village on the easterly bank. We stayed here till the twenty-sixth to obtain durra from this territory, whose chief brought, as a present to the Pasha, some fine horses and many camels, and received, in return, some valuable presents. Our side of the river is desert, and covered with trees and bushes. During our stay opposite Halfya, the Nile, on the night of the 23d, rose suddenly about two feet, and inundated some parts of the sandy flats where we were encamped; the water entering the tents of several, my own among others, and wetting my bed, arms, and baggage.[46] It had risen a little shortly after the equinox, while the army was in Berber, and afterwards subsided more than it had risen. We find the sky every day more and more overcast; distant thunder and lightning, accompanied with violent squalls, (which have overset my tent twice,) are, within a few days, frequent, and drops of rain have fallen in our camp.

On the 26th, at one hour after noon, we proceeded to the Bahar el Abiud, about five hours march above our present position, where the Pasha intends to cross into the territory of Sennaar. The camp arrived at sunset at a position a little above where the Nile falls into the Bahar el Abiud, and stopped. Immediately on my arrival, I drank of this river, being, probably, the first man of Frank origin that ever tasted its waters.

The Nile is not half as broad as the Bahar el Abiud, which is, from bank to bank, one mile higher than where the Nile joins it, about a mile and a quarter in breadth. It comes, as far as we can see it, from the west-south-west. The Nile of Bruce must, therefore, after the expedition of Ismael Pasha, be considered as a branch of a great and unexplored river, which may possibly be found to be connected with the Niger.

On the 27th, early in the morning, the Pasha commenced transporting the army over the Bahar el Abiud, by means of nine small boats, which had been able to pass the third Cataract, and follow the army. The country on our side of the Bahar el Abiud, is uncultivated, and apparently without inhabitants. The army is encamped by the side of the river, on a beautiful plain of good soil, extending a considerable distance back towards the desert. During the inundation, this plain becomes evidently an island, as there is a channel worn by water, in the rear of it, at this season dry. The tracks of the hippopotamus are found throughout this plain.

By the 29th, in the afternoon, i.e. in two days and a half, the Pasha had finished transporting into Sennaar the whole of his camp, consisting of about six thousand persons, with the artillery, ammunition, tents, baggage, horses, camels, and asses, by the aid of nine boats, none of them large, an expedition, I believe, unparalleled in the annals of Turkish warfare.[47]

During our stay on the other side of the Bahar el Abiud, it was reported in the camp that some of the Mogrebin soldiers, gone out to shoot gazelles, had killed in the desert which lies off from the river, an animal, resembling a bull, except that its feet were like those of a camel. I did not see this animal, but the story was affirmed to me by several.

The army, on its crossing the Bahar el Abiud, encamped on the point of land just below which the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile join each other. The water of the Bahar el Abiud is troubled and whitish, and has a peculiar sweetish taste. The soldiers said that "the water of the Bahar el Abiud would not quench thirst." This notion probably arose from the circumstance that they were never tired of drinking it, it is so light and sweet. The water of the Nile is at present perfectly pure and transparent, but by no means so agreeable to the palate as that of the Bahar el Abiud, as I experimented myself, drinking first of the Bahar el Abiud, and then walking about two hundred yards across the point, and drinking of the Nile, the water of which appeared to me hard and tasteless in comparison.

Nothing of the kind could be easier than to ascend the Bahar el Abiud from the place where we are. A canja, well manned and armed, and accompanied by another boat containing provisions for four or six months, and both furnished with grapnels to enable them at night to anchor in the river, might, in my opinion, ascend and return securely: as the tribes on its borders have great dread of fire-arms, and will hardly dare to meddle with those who carry them.

We stayed on the Sennaar side of the Bahar el Abiud till the 1st of Ramadan, when the army commenced its march for Sennaar, the capital, proceeding by the bank of the Nile.[48]

The army reached Sennaar in thirteen days. The signal for striking the tents and loading the camels was generally fired about two hours after midnight. One hour was allowed for loading the baggage, when a second cannon was fired, and the march of the army commenced, and was continued each day till about two or three hours before noon, when the camp reposed till about two hours after midnight of the same day. The army suffered severely during this march; nothing was given to the troops for subsistence but durra, unground, which the soldiers were frequently in great distress to obtain the means of making into meal, in order to bake a little miserable bread, which was all they had to eat.[49] For myself, I was reduced to great extremity. The camel, carrying my provisions and culinary utensils, and several other articles, was lost by the carelessness of a domestic. I was consequently left without any thing to eat, or the means of preparing what I might obtain. I threw myself under the hospitable shade of the tent of Mr. Caillaud, (then only occupied by Mr. Constant, his companion,) the gentleman I have mentioned in the Preface with so much well merited esteem, where I stayed till my arrival at Sennaar.

The country we traversed is that part of the kingdom of Sennaar which lies between the Nile and the Bahar el Abiud. It is an immense and fertile plain, occupied by numerous villages, some of them very large; that of "Wahat Medinet," for instance, containing, probably, four or five thousand inhabitants. What country we saw was, at this season, perfectly naked of grass, consisting generally of immense fields which, in the season past, had been planted with durra. Acacia trees, and bushes in the country far back from the river, (which is sandy,) were abundant, but no herbage was visible; I did not see throughout our route a single waterwheel;[50] and I believe that the country is only cultivated when the inundation has retired.

The houses of the villages are built in the following manner. A circle of stakes is planted in the ground, a conical frame of poles attached to these stakes below, and meeting and fastened at the top of the cone, forms the roof. This roof, and the sides of the house, are then covered with thatched straw, which suffices to exclude the rains.

Some of the houses, however, belonging to the chiefs are of a stronger fabric, being composed of thick walls made of bricks dried in the sun, and having terraced roofs. In the thatched cottages I have mentioned, the air and light come in by the doorway and four small holes pierced in the walls of the house. This scanty ventilation renders these cottages very hot and close: the difference between the temperature of an inhabited house and that of the air outside being, in my judgment, almost as great as that of the undressing room of a bath at Cairo, and that of the passage just outside of the bath itself. This circumstance alone is almost sufficient to account for the great mortality in Sennaar, during the rainy season, when whole families are shut up in these close cottages; and every one who goes abroad must necessarily go with his pores in a condition expressly adapted to make him catch a cold or a fever.

Six days before the army reached Sennaar, the Pasha was met by an ambassador from the Sultan; he had an audience of his Excellence, and returned the next day to Sennaar. He was a handsome young man, accompanied by a numerous suite mounted on dromedaries. The army pursued its route, steadily marching in order of battle, the infantry in the centre, the cavalry on the wings; the artillery in advance of the centre and the baggage in the rear, with Shouus' cavalry and the dromedary corps of Abbadies scouring our front and flanks to a great distance. Two days after it was reported in the camp that the Sultan of Sennaar was on his way to meet us with a strong force, preceded by numerous elephants and great herds of cattle, collected in order to receive and exhaust the fire of our troops. The Pasha proceeded however steadily on with the army in order of battle, and equally prepared for peace or war. Two days before the arrival of the army in Sennaar, as I was riding near the Topgi Bashi, who was in front of the army with the artillery, I saw a great number of armed men approaching, mounted on horses and dromedaries. Presently the Malek of Shendi (who had accompanied the Pasha)[51], rode up to the Pasha and informed him that the strangers approaching were the principal officers of the Sultan of Sennaar, and their suite, who had come to demand terms of peace.

I saw these personages when they arrived. They were two, one a tall thin elderly man of a mulatto complexion, dressed in green and yellow silks of costly fabric, with a cap of a singular form, something resembling a crown, made of the same materials, upon his head. The other was the same young man who had come a few days past to the Pasha. He was dressed to-day in silks like the other, except that his head was bare of ornament. They were accompanied by a fine lad about sixteen, who was, it is said, the son of the predecessor of the present Sultan. All three were mounted on tall and beautiful horses, and accompanied by about two hundred soldiers of the Sultan, mounted on dromedaries, and armed with broadswords, lances and shields.

When the Pasha was informed of their approach by the Malek of Shendi, he ordered a halt. The tent of the Pasha was pitched, and the ambassadors were introduced. They were treated with great attention and liberality by the Pasha, who, during the day and the course of the evening following, gave them opportunities enough to be convinced of the immense superiority of our arms to theirs. During the evening, some star rockets and bombs were thrown for their amusement and edification. No language can do justice to their astonishment at the spectacle, which undoubtedly produced the effect intended by the Pasha--humility and a sense of inferiority. The next morning at an early hour the army pursued its march, accompanied by the ambassadors from Sennaar.

About the hour of noon, the outscouts announced to the Pasha that the Sultan of Sennaar himself was approaching to salute his Excellence. On his approach, the army received him with the honors due to his rank. He was conducted to the tent of the Pasha, by the ambassadors he had sent, where he remained in audience with his Excellence a long time. When the audience was finished, he and the personages he had before sent to the Pasha were splendidly habited in the Turkish fashion, and presented with horses, furnished with saddles and bridles embroidered with gold.[52]

It was on the morning following that the army reached the capital. We marched in order of battle. The Pasha, accompanied by the Sultan of Sennaar and his chief servants, in front. On approaching the city, the army saluted this long wished for town, where they imagined that their toils and privations would cease, at least for a time, with repeated and continued volleys of cannon and musquetry, accompanied with shouts of exultation. But these shouts subsided on a nearer approach, on finding this once powerful city of Sennaar to be almost nothing but heaps of ruins, containing in some of its quarters some few hundreds of habitable but almost deserted houses. After the camp was pitched, and I had refreshed myself with a little food, I took a walk about the town. At almost every step I trod upon fragments of burnt bricks, among which are frequently to be found fragments of porcelain, and sometimes marble. The most conspicuous buildings in Sennaar are a mosque, and a large brick palace adjoining it. The mosque, which is of brick, is in good preservation; its windows are covered with well wrought bronze gratings, and the doors are handsomely and curiously carved. The interior was desecrated by uncouth figures of animals, portrayed upon the walls with charcoal. This profanation had been perpetrated by the Pagan mountaineers who inhabit the mountains thirteen days march south of Sennaar, and who, at some period, not very long past, had taken the town, and had left upon the walls of the mosque these tokens of possession.

The palace is large, but in ruins, except the centre building, which is six stories high, having five rows of windows.[53] By mounting upon its roof you have the best possible view of the city, the river, and the environs, that the place can afford. I judged that Sennaar was about three miles in circumference. The greater part of this space is now covered with the ruins of houses, built of bricks either burnt or dried in the sun. I do not believe that there are more than four hundred houses standing in Sennaar and of these one-third or more are round cottages, like those of the villages. Of those built of bricks, the largest is the house of the Sultan. It is a large enclosure, containing ranges of low but well built habitations of sun-dried bricks, with terraced roofs, and the interior stuccoed with fine clay. What struck me the most, was the workmanship of the doors of the old houses of Sennaar, which are composed of planed and jointed planks, adorned frequently with carved work, and strengthened and studded with very broad headed nails; the whole inimitable by the present population of Sennaar. These houses are very rarely of more than one story in height, the roofs terraced with fine and well beaten clay spread over mats laid upon rafters, which form the roof.

The city of Sennaar is of an oblong form, its longest side opposite the river. It stands not at any distance from the river, but directly upon its west bank, which consists hereabouts of hard clay.

The river is now rising,[54] but exhibits itself at present to the view as narrow and winding, as far as the eye can reach, between sand flats, which will shortly be covered by its augmenting waters. The bed of the Nile opposite Sennaar may be reckoned at about half a mile broad.

The environs of Sennaar are wide plains, containing large and populous villages. A long ragged mountain, the only one visible, stands about fifteen miles to the west of the town. Below the town is a small but pretty island, whose inhabitants thrive by raising vegetables for the market of Sennaar; and the opposite bank of the river, presents several verdant patches of ground devoted to the same object.[55] Beyond these spots, the country on the other bank appeared to be mostly covered with trees and bushes, among which I saw four elephants feeding.

I could not find any remains of any very ancient building in Sennaar during my stay, and I believe that none exists there. Such is the present appearance of a town which has evidently been once rich, comfortable and nourishing, but which, for eighteen years past, as I have been informed, has been the lacerated prey of War and Confusion.

On the day after our arrival the conditions of the accord between the Pasha and the Sultan of Sennaar were arranged and sealed; by which the latter recognized himself as subject and feudatory of the Grand Seignor, and surrendered his dominions to the supremacy and sway of the Vizier of the Padischah, Mehemmed Ali Pasha. The next day the Tchocadar Aga of his Highness the Viceroy of Egypt, who had arrived in our camp two months past, embarked in the canja of the Pasha Ismael to carry the documents of this important transaction to Cairo.

For several days after our arrival at Sennaar, our camp was incommoded by furious squalls of wind, accompanied with thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain. The Pasha therefore determined to caserne the troops in the houses of the town, and to stay there during the rainy season. In ten days after our arrival, the army was distributed throughout the town and in the villages on the opposite bank of the river. The Pasha himself took up his quarters in a large house of the Sultan of Sennaar, which had been prepared for his accommodation.

A few days after our arrival, a slave informed the Pasha that the Sultan of Sennaar, before our arrival, had thrown into the river some cannon. The Pasha ordered search to be made; four iron guns were discovered by divers, and were dragged on shore. They appeared to me to be ordinary ship guns; no mark or inscription was found on them to enable me to judge where they were fabricated. I believe them however to have been originally obtained of the Portuguese by the Abyssinians, from whom the people said the Sultan of Sennaar had taken them in some ancient war between the two kingdoms.

On the 19th of Ramadan, a party of Bedouins were ordered by the Pasha to go in pursuit of some hundred black slaves of the Sultan of Sennaar, who some time before our arrival had run away, taking with them some of his best horses. On the 23d they returned, bringing with them between five and six hundred negroes of both sexes. But on Malek Shouus going to the Pasha and representing to him that these people were not the fugitives in question, the Pasha ordered them to be immediately released and to return to their respective villages.

About the same time the Pasha detached Cogia Achmet with thirteen hundred cavalry and three pieces of artillery to the upper country of Sennaar between the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile to secure its submission.[56] And on the 26th of the moon the Divan Effendi was sent with three hundred men across the Nile, to secure that part of the kingdom of Sennaar which lies on the east side of the Nile.[57]

Seven days after our arrival in Sennaar I put in execution a resolution the state of my health obliged me to determine on, and demanded of the Pasha permission to return to Cairo. I represented to him, that all the critical operations of the campaign were now happily concluded, and crowned with the fullest success; and that, therefore, he could have no particular need of me any longer. I stated to him that repeated sickness during the campaign had rendered my health very infirm, and that a residence of four months at Sennaar, during the rainy season, would probably destroy me; and as my presence for that time at least could be no ways necessary, I requested him to grant the permission demanded, telling him that if, after the rainy season was finished, he should think proper to recall me to camp that I would obey the summons. The Pasha hesitated, and for several days declined granting my request; but on its being represented to him that the reasons I had stated were really just and sufficient causes for my return, his Excellence finally told me, that on the return of Cogia Achmet he should dispatch a courier to Cairo, and that I should accompany him.

On the third day of the Feast of Bairam I saw the Sultan of Sennaar parade the town in great ceremony. He was mounted on a superb horse, and clothed in green and yellow silks, but his head was bare of every thing but its natural wool. Over his head an officer carried a large umbrella of green and yellow silks in alternate stripes. He was accompanied by the officers of his palace, and his guard, beautifully mounted, and followed by the native population of Sennaar, both men and women, who uttered shrill cries, which were now and then interrupted by the sound of a most lugubrious trumpet which preceded the Sultan, and which was blown by a musician who, judging from the tones he produced, seemed to be afflicted with a bad cough.

On the 7th of the moon Shawal, the Divan Effendi returned to Sennaar, having crushed all attempts to oppose the establishment of the Pasha's authority in the eastern part of the kingdom of Sennaar, and bringing with him three of the chiefs of the refractory, and three hundred and fifty prisoners, as slaves. The events of this expedition were related to me as follows: "We marched without resistance for eight days, in the direction of the rising sun, through a country fine, fertile, and crowded with villages, till we came to some larger villages near a mountain called 'Catta,' where we found four or five hundred men posted in front of them to resist our march They were armed with lances, and presented themselves to the combat with great resolution. But on experiencing the effects of our fire-arms, they took to flight toward the mountain; two hundred of them were hemmed in, and cut to pieces, and three of their chiefs were taken prisoners, as well as all the inhabitants we could find in their villages; after which we returned."

On my demanding if water was plentiful at a distance from the river, my informant replied, that "there were wells in abundance in all the numerous villages, with which the country abounds; and also numerous rivulets and streams, which at this season descend from the mountains. The troops, he said, had forded two small rivers (probably the Ratt and the Dandar); he added, that the country abounded in beautiful birds and insects, one of the latter he brought with him; it was a small scarabeus, covered with a fine close crimson down, exactly resembling scarlet velvet. The people of the country he described as very harmless, and exceedingly anxious to know what had brought us to Sennaar to trouble them."

Two of these Chiefs taken prisoners the Pasha ordered to be impaled in the market-place of Sennaar. They suffered this horrid death with great firmness. One of them said nothing but "there is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Apostle," which he frequently repeated before impalement; while the other, named Abdallah, insulted, defied, and cursed his executioners, calling them "robbers and murderers," till too weak to speak, when he expressed his feelings by spitting at them.[58] The third Chief was detained prisoner, in order to be sent to Cairo.

During my stay in Sennaar, I endeavored to get information of the people of the country, and of the few caravan merchants found in the market-place of Sennaar, relative to the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile. The information I received was as follows: "The source of the Adit (so the people of Sennaar call the river that runs by their city) is in the Gibel el Gumara, (i.e. that great range of mountains called the Mountains of the Moon,) about sixty days march of a camel from Sennaar. in a direction nearly south. It receives, at various distances above Sennaar, several smaller rivers which come from Abyssinia and from the mountains south of Sennaar. The general course of the Bahar el Abiud (they said) was nearly parallel with that of the Adit, but its source was much farther off, among the Gibel el Gumara, than that of the Adit. The Bahar el Abiud, they said, appears very large at the place where the Pasha's army crossed it, because it is augmented from the junction of three other rivers, one from the south-west, and two others from the east, running from the mountains south of Sennaar."[59] On my asking them, "whether the Bahar el Abiud was open and free of shellals or rapids?" they said, "that at a place called Sulluk, about fifteen days march above its junction with the Adit, (i.e. above the place where we crossed the Bahar el Abiud,) there was a shellal, which they believed that boats could not pass.[60] On my asking whether, by following the banks of the Bahar el Abiud and the river that empties into it from the west, it was not possible to reach a city called Tombut or Tombuctoo?" They said, that "they knew nothing of the city I mentioned, having never been farther west than Kordofan and Darfour."

This was all I could learn: but I am disposed to believe, that the main stream of the Bahar el Abiud cannot have its source in the same latitude with that of the Adit, because it commenced its rise, at least, this year, about twenty days sooner than did the Adit, and the different color of its waters proves that it flows through a tract differing in quality of soil from that through which passes the Adit. The interesting question, "whether the Niger communicates with the Bahar el Abiud?" will, however, very probably be determined before the close of another year, as the Pasha will probably send an expedition up that river.

Secondly, I am further disposed to believe that the main stream of the Adit, or Nile of Bruce, does not take its rise in Abyssinia, but in the mountains assigned as the place of its origin by the people of Sennaar. For on viewing the mass of water that runs by Sennaar even now, when the river has not attained two-thirds of the usual magnitude it acquires during the rainy season, I can by no means believe that the main source of such a river is only about three hundred miles distant from Sennaar.

The tract of country included between the Adit and the Bahar el Abiud is called El Gezira, i.e. the island: because, in the season of the rains, many rivers running from the mountains in the south into the Bahar el Abiud and the Adit, occasion this tract to be included by rivers.

I am disposed to believe, that the representations made of the climate of this country are much exaggerated; as, except during the rainy season, and immediately after it, the country is a high and dry plain,[61] by no means excessively hot, because the level of the countries on the Nile being constantly ascending from Egypt, occasions Sennaar to be many hundred feet higher than the level of Egypt, which is proved by the rapid descent of the waters of the Nile toward the latter country. The east and south winds also are, in Sennaar, cool breezes; because they come either from the mountains of Abyssinia, or the huge and high ranges which compose the Gibel el Gumara. I was in Sennaar at Midsummer, and at no time found the heat very uncomfortable, provided I was in the open air, and under a shade. In the cottages and houses, indeed, on account of their want of ventilation, the heat was excessive.

I made during my stay in Sennaar frequent inquiries about the fly mentioned by Bruce; the people of Sennaar said they knew nothing of it;[62] but, in reply to my inquiries, referred to a worm, which they say comes out of the earth during the rainy season, and whose bite is dangerous.

The reptile species in Sennaar are numerous. The houses are full of lizards, which, if you lie on the floor, you may feel crawling or running over you all night. I saw at Sennaar a serpent of a species, I believe, never before mentioned. It was a snake of about two feet long, and not thicker than my thumb, striped on the back, with a copper colored belly, and a flat head. This serpent had four legs, which did not appear to be of any use to him, as they were short and hanging from the sides of his belly. All his motions, which were quick and rapid, were made in the usual manner of serpents, i.e. upon its belly.[63]

I do not feel authorized to give an opinion as to the national character of the people inhabiting the kingdom of Sennaar; but I am obliged to consider the inhabitants of the capital as a very detestable people. They are exceedingly avaricious, extortionate, faithless, filthy and cruel.[64] The men are generally tall and well shaped, but the females are, almost universally, the ugliest I ever beheld; this is probably owing to their being obliged to do all sorts of drudgery.

The children of these people, and indeed of all the tribes on the Upper Nile, go quite naked till near the age of puberty. A girl unmarried is distinguished by a sort of short leather apron, composed of a great number of leather thongs hanging like tassels from a leather belt fastened round the waist: and this is all her clothing, being no longer than that of our mother Eve after her fall. The married women, however, are generally habited in long coarse cotton clothes, which they wrap round them so as to cover their whole person, except when they are at work, when they wrap the whole round the waist.

As to the manufactures of the people of the Upper Nile, they are limited, I believe, to the following articles, Earthenware for domestic uses and bowls for pipes; cotton cloths for clothing; knives, mattocks, hoes and ploughs, for agriculture, water-wheels for the same; horse furniture, such as the best formed saddles I ever rode on, very neatly fabricated; stirrups in the European form, made of silver for the chiefs, and not like those of the Turks; large iron spurs, bits with small chains for reins, to prevent them from being severed by the stroke of an enemy's broadsword; long and double edged broadswords, with the guard frequently made of silver; iron heads for lances, and shields made of the hide of the elephant; to which may be added, that the women fabricate very beautiful straw mats.

There is a general resemblance, in domestic customs, among all the peoples who inhabit the borders of the Nile from Assuan to Sennaar. They differ, however, somewhat in complexion and character. The people of the province of Succoot are generally not so black as the Nubian or the Dongolese. They are also frank and prepossessing in their deportment. The Dongolese is dirty, idle, and ferocious. The character of the Shageian is the same, except that he is not idle, being either an industrious peasant or a daring freebooter. The people on the third cataract are not very industrious, but have the character of being honest and obliging. The people of Berber are by far the most civilized of all the people of the Upper Nile. The inhabitants of the provinces of Shendi and Halfya are a sullen, scowling, crafty, and ferocious people; while the peasants of Sennaar inhabiting the villages we found on our route, are a respectable people in comparison with those of the capital. Throughout the whole of these countries there is one general characteristic, in which they resemble the Indians of America, namely, courage and self-respect. The chiefs, after coming to salute the Pasha, would make no scruple of sitting down facing him, and converse with him without embarrassment, in the same manner as they are accustomed to do with their own Maleks, with whom they are very familiar. With the greatest apparent simplicity they would frequently propose troublesome questions to the Pasha, such as, "O great Sheck, or O great Malek; (for so they called the Pasha) what have we done to you, or your country, that you should come so far to make war upon us? Is it for want of food in your country that you come to get it in ours?" and others similar.