Chapter IV: The Daily Life of the People

At first sight, the country seems to be one from which no human being could extract the barest subsistence. The usual explanation, that the natives live by stealing, did not help me to an understanding, as that is no more an economic possibility than the story of the two old women who lived by taking in each other’s washing. The fact is, the Sudan sheep, goats and camels, have a marvellous tenacity of life, and on their sufferings the native exists. I once had acquaintance with a British donkey to whom corn was given on a piece of stiff brown paper, to prevent waste. When the corn was done, the donkey proceeded to eat the brown paper before going to his desert of thistles. What luxury a diet of brown paper and thistles would be to a Sudan goat! After nibbling dry sticks all day in the desert, they come and eat resinous shavings from my workshops, or pick up single grains of corn from the sand where our camels have been fed, shewing that a day’s feeding leaves them ravenous beyond all the British donkey’s idea of hunger.

My particular village is richer than most places on the coast in possessing a few square miles of scattered acacias which bear a few little leaves when all else fails. There are some salt woody plants too (Arabic, _hamid_ = sour) and some low trees (“Asal” or “adlîb”) which are a vivid green all the year round, the latter of which, however, all animals, except camels, refuse.

The goats spend much of their day on their hind-legs, supporting themselves with their fore-legs on the lower branches of the acacias while reaching as high as their necks will stretch to nibble the little leaves from among the inch-long and needle-sharp thorns. I have even seen goats standing with all four feet on boughs several feet above the ground. This is a fairly uncomfortable way of living, indeed I should think the most diligent browsing, and the most callous disregard of the contact of lips and tongue with thorns, would scarcely keep a healthy goat’s stomach full. But it is better than the alternative, the hurried pacing with short stops just long enough to eat the single blades of dry grass, which is the only food should the locusts come down and clear every leaf off the acacias. I speak glibly of single blades of dry grass, but I am far too optimistic in my terms. A scrap of woody salt herb, or a bit of grass-stick, something like slender bamboo, is all that is visible to the human eye. For some months they graze on hope, air and dust, and are given a very minute ration of “dûra” corn on their return home in the afternoon. (This dûra, _Sorghum vulgare_, is called darri seed at home, and is used only for fowls I believe.) Why is the camel the only type of endurance? Surely the goat is his equal? As for drinking, goats are not watered oftener than camels, and in both cases water too salt and filthy for human beings is good enough for them.

_Plate XIV_

In the winter and spring, if it rain, things are better; a little thin grass appears, single blades which last only a week or two, and the grey-brown tufts of sticks, which are the remains of last year’s grass hummocks, put forth scanty leaves and long wiry stems, a little less dry than those they spring from. The sour “hamid” becomes brilliant and luxuriant, and the acacias more leafy than usual. The beds of the torrents, which contain water only for a short time immediately after rain, become in some places almost full of grass, though at the best there is always much more sand and gravel than vegetation to be seen, except in the most favoured spots.

A large number of annuals of the clover tribe appear in some places, for instance in the valleys of the raised coral ground of Rawaya peninsula; in consequence, after it has rained, there is a small exodus from our village, and boats are employed to convey families, tents and animals across the bay, to stay there so long as the water supply will last.

It is astonishing that the acacias and “hamid” can struggle through the climatic conditions and the incessant persecution of the animals. Think of their young trees wholly at the mercy of the famishing goats, who every year eat even the hamid nearly to bare sticks. The women again beat the trees to obtain the leaves which are out of reach of the animals, and collect particularly the flowers and green seed pods in this way. Somehow the acacia still struggles on, producing leaves and flowers even after a rainless winter. The hamid seems to be able to live on dew, for it puts forth new shoots and becomes green in the spring independently of rain.

Very few natives are so tied down to any village as to be dependent on a local rainfall. If rain is seen to fall for an hour or so in any direction for several days in succession, they have only to make a bundle of their tent and cooking-pot and be off to the favoured spot. Even beyond the limits of their tribal districts the whole desert is home; there are no fixtures in it other than the wells. Inland there are no permanent villages; indeed, in the north country, it is rare to see more than two or three tents together. Even in the fixed villages of the coast and the considerable suburbs of Suakin about Shâta, the majority of the habitations are tents, and most of their owners are there only for part of the year to buy corn until the rain comes again[27].

Every year my men have leave to go, one or two at a time, to visit their relatives. A hundred miles’ journey to search for persons whose whereabouts he knows extremely vaguely, and who are continually moving, is nothing to the native, even though he may do all, or nearly all, afoot. Only once has a man come back to report that he had tramped all his three weeks’ leave away without coming across those he sought. Not family affection only prompts these visits, though I believe that feeling is strong in most cases. They desire to drink milk, as they put it, rightly believing that a diet of rice and dûra needs the addition of milk for a month or two in the year if health is to be preserved. This is especially the case with the men in my employ who are often either those who possess few animals or who have made over their flocks to relatives.

This desert is a great camel-breeding area. For travel or military purposes the camel bred in Egypt and fed on juicy clover is obviously useless, so, every spring, representatives of the Coast Guards and Slavery Repression Department come down from Egypt to buy. As a good camel is worth £12 to £18 the man who has a couple to sell is sure of enough money for himself and his family to live on for a year. The milk of the females is a source of food.

An article made in considerable quantities in the country is butter, so called, or samin to give it its native name. It is a whitish liquid with a powerful cheesy smell, repulsive to the European. The native regards it as one of the necessities of life; I have known sailors leaving for a week’s voyage to turn up next day with “we forgot our samin” as their excuse for returning. This is, to their minds, as good a reason as if they had forgotten the rice, the water, and the matches as well[28].

The nomads’ tents are illustrated opposite the next page. Externally they are made of palm-leaf matting[29], in colour as well as in shape suggesting haycocks. The sheets of this material are stretched over long, bent sticks and fastened together with wooden skewers. The doorway of the tent is on the less steeply-sloping side and though only two or three feet high is partly curtained with a piece of sacking or other cloth. They are invariably built with their backs to the north, that is, against the prevailing wind. This is the case even in the summer, when to be out of the wind is torture to the European. If the wind changes to the south, the door is closed up and the wall propped up a little on the north side. In all, except the poorest, the house is divided into two parts, even though the whole space is generally only about 10 feet square. The larger division is formed by the erection of a kind of second tent of goat’s hair cloth within that of matting. This is entirely closed in by a curtain from the low space by the doorway where the cooking is done, and where visitors sit on their heels.

The inner compartment is really a sort of four-poster family bed, the bed and bedding consisting of some boards arranged as a flooring a few inches above the ground, on which is spread a mat made of the split midribs of palm-leaves placed parallel to each other and tied together with thin strips of leather. This is known as the “serîr,” a word which in Egypt denotes a bedstead. For bedding there is perhaps a hard leather pillow, or a piece of rough log will serve this purpose. I have seen odd ends of squared poles thrown away from some carpenter’s shop used thus, for sharp angles in the pillow are not regarded by men whose idea of comfort is a plank bed minus blankets.

If a regular bedstead be part of the furniture of a town house, it is an “angarîb” made of cords stretched over a frame. This, if large and well made, is very comfortable, judged even by European standards.

Of the other objects to be seen in the house the most conspicuous is the master’s shield, with dagger belt and sword, and the most essential is a large water jar. To one of the upright sticks supporting the tent are hung various utensils containing the family larder, e.g., the bowls and skins of milk (which is generally sour and evil smelling). The milk bowls are curious, being either closely woven, water-tight baskets of palm-leaf, gourds[30], or bottles hollowed out of solid blocks of hard wood. Some of these latter are great works of art, being perfectly round and nearly as thin as porcelain vessels, though cut out of a dark red wood entirely by the unaided hand. The practical advantages of enamelled iron ware appeal to the natives; the brass cooking pots of antique design, such as shewn in Fig. 50 on Plate XXIII, and the fellows of which may be seen at Pompeii, are being replaced by this prosaic material. For cups, empty meat tins, cleaned and the edges straightened, are most commonly used if an European lives near. A stock of samin butter may be kept in a four-gallon paraffin tin.

_Plate XV_

Of all the kindly fruits of the earth the onion is the greatest boon to us desert dwellers. Its portability and keeping qualities enable it to arrive fresh and wholesome even at this end-of-the-world village, and after weeks of rice and dûra diet the value of a dish flavoured with onions is immense. It is the only vegetable ever used, water-melons being the only fruit, and those but rarely seen even in the winter.

Smoking is rather rare, chewing universal. Pipes or “hubble-bubbles” I have not seen except in the hands of Egyptians or Arabians, the tobacco being burnt by natives in the end of a piece of sheep’s marrow-bone, or as cigarettes. All love to chew a kind of brown snuff which seems to be a great solace during work and in the intervals of pearl diving.

Tea is taken after every meal and oftener. A half-pint teapot suffices for half a dozen men as it is sipped, saturated with sugar, from tiny glass tumblers. Its flavour, poor to begin with, is utterly spoiled by the brackish water and of course by the excess of sugar.

Coffee is not so much used in our village, though in the South I was told by a resident Egyptian official, “These people do not complain if they have no food. They are used to that, but if they have no coffee they become as though mad.” Coffee is made in the following manner:—Glowing charcoal is placed in a thick wooden bowl (_a_) of Fig. 31, the “beans[31]” laid upon it, and the whole shaken occasionally to keep the charcoal alight and yet prevent burning. When roasted, the berries are pounded in a wooden mortar (_b_) with a stone pestle (_c_). The wooden case and its cover (_d_), like the rest, is cut out of solid wood and contains the fragile earthenware coffee pot. The coffee is boiled in this until it froths up, when the pot is removed until it subsides, when it is replaced on the fire and removed until it has frothed up three times. After it has been allowed to settle for a minute or two it is ready to sip[32].

Incense is used, not only during religious performances, but also for scenting the clothes and body. The man or woman desiring this luxury squats over a smouldering censer, which he covers with the clothes he is wearing, so that all the smoke is collected within them.

Some form of citron oil is used very extensively as a scent, indeed so much so that the odour of it seems characteristic of natives. Possibly some of its favour is due to its usefulness in keeping off mosquitoes.

Except for the liberal anointing of the hair with mutton fat, the natives are very cleanly in their persons, and quite free from vermin. The sailor population is so much in the sea as well as on it that they could hardly be dirty; but I believe all natives will wash when they can. Inland, I am informed, things are very different, but there the preciousness of water is an all sufficient excuse. It is one recognised by their religion, which permits dry sand to be used for water in the ablutions necessary before prayer in the desert.

_Plate XVI_

_d_ _b_ _a_
_c_

Fig. 31. A coffee set, and some women’s rings]

_Plate XVII_

Set forms of amusement seem to be few. As already mentioned, the performance of the Mûled is both a religious exercise and an entertainment, and a peculiar “dance” is indulged in with much relish on all occasions, though the performance seems pointless and monotonous in the extreme. The photograph was taken at a wedding, the bundle of dried palm leaves on the extreme left set up on the ridge pole of the tent being here, where no palm trees grow, the symbol of wedded prosperity. The women guests form a rough semicircle and provide music by chanting and clapping the hands together. The men stand in a group opposite at a little distance, and at intervals one or two of them run forward towards the women, jump into the air as high and as often as they can, and then return to their fellows. The photograph shews two men at the top of their jump together.

The sword dance illustrated was a really fine display, made by the captain and crew of a merchant _sambûk_ which was in harbour. Hearing a considerable noise in the village one night, I strolled out to see what it might be, and found complete silence and darkness! Enquiring at the house of one of my sailors, I found the whole party in his tiny hut; I told them there was not the least objection to their dance provided it went on no longer than midnight, and that I should much enjoy seeing it. I was rewarded by a really interesting display, instead of the tame performance I expected; sticks being used in place of swords. So I arranged for another performance, which is depicted on Plate XVII, by daylight, and gave leave for real swords to be brought from the _sambûk_. The principal dancers each had a sword and its scabbard in their hands, the crew, negro and Arab, forming the lines between which the dancers marched, turned and whirled to the sound of song, clapping and drum. It was desperately hot work by daylight, but the enjoyment of all is visible even in the photograph.

Sham fights are sometimes performed, with apparent fury, by natives armed with sword and shield; but this is a much lower thing than the symbolic expression of emotion given by the Arabians’ dance. The ordinary negro dancing is absolutely stupid in appearance, and I could not find that the performers attached any meaning to it. Two of these men, however, can give a good sham fight with sticks, but it is that and nothing more, the emotions dramatised being of the crudest. Throwing their heavy curved walking sticks at another which is stuck vertically into the sand, is one of the minor amusements for boys and men. Sides are chosen, the losers’ penalty is to carry the winners on their backs over the range, or this may be compounded for by the losers standing cups of tea. This is really practising a useful art, as hares &c. are killed in this way. There is also a game in which two men move white and black pebbles over a draughtboard in which holes are cut to contain the pebbles, or the board may be merely a series of little holes in the sand. There is a good deal of gambling over cards, the ordinary European cards, and those of good quality too, being very cheap. I was at pains to discover the game, but found it so elementary and uninteresting that I straightway forgot it again. Perhaps this is why it is played for money; without serious gambling interest the game would not be worth playing, even to a native.