Chapter XIX: Letter XVIII (1)

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 the _embouchure_ of 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, both native 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 a _khawass_ from 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 be very 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 in the 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 were rather 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 new _khawass_, 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 earlier period, 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’s Mesaurât), 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, and reached 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 level sinkings 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 with _durra_ stubble. The inhabitants of Shendi, Ben Naga, Fadnîe, Sélama, Metamme, thus of both sides of the Nile, come hither to cultivate the land, and to harvest _durra_. 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, probably younger 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 our _khawass_ were 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 side of 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 at Tamamiât, 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 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. The _pilau_ of boiled rice is always the concluding dish.

The external adjuncts to such a feast as this, are these:--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 by Ahmed 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 not possible 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, called _Tukele_, 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 the remains 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.

The country round Soba is level, as everywhere about here, to the foot of the Abyssinian mountains, and the soil, particularly at this season, dried up and black; the thicker vegetation is confined to the river shore, farther on, there are only single trees, now more frequent, now seldom.

I promised the sailors a sheep if we arrived early next morning at Kamlîn; for the wind was violent, and allowed us to make but little way. Our ship, too, does not go very fast, the sailors are not adroit, and, with the present low level of the water, the bark easily sticks in the sand-banks. We went almost the whole night, and arrived early at eight o’clock in Kamlîn.

The ancient place of the same name lies half an hour further up the river, and consists but of a few huts. The houses where we landed belong to a number of factories instituted four years ago, in conjunction with the late Ahmed Pasha, by Nureddin Effendi, a Catholic Koptic Egyptian, who has gone over to Islâm, and which yield a rich profit. A simple, honest, un-Oriental German, named Bauer, has erected a soap and brandy factory, which he himself conducts. A sugar and indigo factory is kept by an Arab. Bauer is the southernmost resident European that we have found in Mohammed Ali’s territories, and we were glad to find so excellent a conclusion to the long, little pleasing chain of Europeans, generally deteriorated in civilization, who preferred the government of Turks to their native country.[72] He has an old German housekeeper named Ursula, & funny, good-natured body, for whom it was a no less festal occasion to see German guests than for him. With joyful hurry she got out what European crockery she had, and the forks that were yet in being, and set baked chicken, vegetables, sausages, and excellent wheaten bread before us; at last, too, a cherry pie of baked European cherries (for our fruits do not grow in Egypt), in short, a native meal, such as we had never expected in this _ultima Thule_.

Before Bauer’s house we found the most southern Egyptian sculpture that we have seen, on a pedestal, a seated statue of Osiris, somewhat destroyed, done in a late style, in black granite, with the usual attributes, about two and a half feet high, which was discovered in Soba, and is not without interest, as the only monument of Egyptian art from that city.

The European furniture of Bauer’s room made a strange impression upon one here in the south among the black population. A wooden clock, made in the Black Forest, ticked regularly on the wall; some half-broken European stools were ranged round the strong table, behind which a small book-shelf was put up, with a selection of German classics and histories, by the corner of a Turkish divan, which was also not wanting. Over the great table, and opposite the canopy-bed in the other corner, hung bell-pulls, leading to the kitchen. A curious Nesnas ape sometimes peeped in through the lattice by the door, and on the other side of the little court, one could see the busy Ursula in her purple, red-flowered gown, toddling backward and forward among the little, naked, black slaves, arranging this, that, and the other, with a somewhat scolding voice, and looking into the bubbling pots in the adjoining kitchen. We did not see her the whole morning, not even at the dinner, that she had prepared so well and tastily; after dinner, she first presented herself, with many curtsies, to receive our praises. She complained of the forlorn state of her cooking apparatus, and grumbled sadly at Herr Bauer for not leaving this horrid, dirty, and hot country, although he promised year after year to do it. She had accompanied him hither, had been eleven years in the country, and four at Kamlîn. Bauer intends in a year to go to Germany, and settle in Steiermark or Thüringen, with his savings, and turn farmer, like his father.

After table, the son of Nureddin Effendi sent us a complete Turkish dinner of from twelve to fifteen dishes, which we left, however, to the attendants after our European meal. We had also inspected the factories in the morning, and tasted the fine brandy (called _Marienbad_), which Bauer chiefly prepares from the sugar-cane and dates. Business seemed to be in the best order, and the unusual cleanliness of the places, the vessels, and utensils, attest the care with which the establishment, only worked by slaves, is conducted. The pleasant impression that this visit made upon us was heightened by the discovery that Bauer possessed a second piece of the marble inscription already alluded to,[73] which had been found in the ruins of Soba. He presented me with the fragment, which was easily put together with the other piece, although even then the inscription was not perfected. The fragment exhibits on one side traces of twelve lines, on the other of nine. Here, too, the writing is easy to be read, but only the name is comprehensible. It is either a very barbarous Greek, or a peculiar language, spoken in former times at Soba. In fact, we know from Selim that the inhabitants of Soba possessed their sacred books in the Greek language, but also translated them into their own.

After paying the son of Nureddin Effendi a visit, we left with the promise to stay on our return.

From Kamlîn the shores run on at equal elevations. The character of a fluvial valley is lost. The deposited black earth has ceased; the steep high shores are composed of original earth and calcareous conglomerate, which, according to Bauer, is well capable of being burnt to lime.

On the morning of the 21st we came to a considerable bend in the river to the east; the wind became so unfavourable through it, that our _khawass_ landed, to impress the people of the vicinity to draw it. I went along the western shore for several hours to Arbagi, a deserted village, built of black bricks, but standing on the remains of another more ancient one, as I saw from the structures of burnt bricks. This place was once the chief centre of the trade of the Sudan, which has since turned itself to Messelemîeh. Soon after we found the two northern _baobàb_ trees, which are here called _hómara_. These giant trees of creation (_andansonia digitata_) are found from here southward more and more frequently, and from Sero they belong to the usual trees of the region. One trunk which I paced round measured more than sixty feet in circumference, and certainly does not belong to the greatest of the kind, as they are here not so frequent.[74] At this season of the year they were leafless, and stretched their bare, death-like boughs far over the surrounding green trees, which look like low bushes beneath it. Their fruit, called _gungulês_,[75] I found here and there among the Arabs; they resemble pear-shaped melons, with a hairy surface. If the hard, tough shell be broken, a number of seeds are found inside, which are surrounded with a dry, acid, but well-tasted mass. The leaves are five-fingered.

On the 22nd of February we arrived on the western shore by a little village, where the inhabitants, mere women and children, fled through the sandy plain to the woods, from fear of our appearance, probably as they expected to be impressed for the purpose of drawing the bark. On the opposite shore lay another village, whence we saw a stately procession of finely-dressed men in Arab and Turkish dresses, and some handsomely caparisoned horses, proceed to the river. It was the Kashef and the most noble sheiks of Abu Háras, to whom we had been announced by Ahmed Pasha, as we had determined to proceed hence with camels and guides into the desert of Mandera. The horses were destined for us, and we therefore rode to the house of the Kashef, to inquire again about the antiquities of Mandera and Qala. As the desert route to the coast of the Red Sea leads hence from those places, we found several persons who had been near them. From all their tales, however, I could but find that at these two places there are only fortress-like mounds, or at most roughly built walls, as a refuge for caravans, without any buildings or hieroglyphical inscriptions. At Qala there may be some camels and horses scratched in the rock by the Arabs, or some other people, like those we had seen in the great desert at the wells of Murhad.

We therefore determine to give up this journey, and instead of it go somewhat farther up the river, in order to learn the nature of the Nile stream, its shores and inhabitants, as far as time would permit us.

At a short half-hour distance from Abu Háras we came to the mouth of the Rahad, which conveys a great quantity of water into the Nile in the rainy season, but was now almost dry, with only a little stagnant water, which may disappear altogether next month.

I left the bark as often as possible, to know as much of the shore as I could. To proceed farther inland, is impossible, from the almost impassable forests which line both shores. There stand in luxuriant magnificence the shadowy high-domed tamarind, the tower-like _hómara_ (_baobàb_) the multi-boughed genius (sycamore), and the many species of slender gumrick sont trees. On their branches run in innumerable windings, like giant serpents, the creeping plants; to their highest bough and down to the earth again, where they close every space between the mighty trunk in union with the low bushes. Besides this there is scarcely one thornless tree or bush in ten, by which every attempt to penetrate the thick underwood is dangerous, indeed impossible. Several of the plants--the _sittera_ tree for instance--have the thorns placed in pairs, and in such a manner that one thorn is turned forward, the other back. If any one come too near these boughs, it is certain that his clothes will carry away some inevitable traces, imperfectly to be remedied amidst these wilds. In other places, the thorn trees are most elegant; rising gracefully in the less thronged parts, like slender young birches. We distinguished two sorts of these standing mingled together, and only differing that in one the bark, extending from the trunk to the most distant twiglet, is coloured like a mass of shining red veins, while that of the other is black; on both of them the long shining white thorns and green leaves come out in strong contrast.

Of the birds, fluttering round in great numbers, I recognized not one Egyptian species. I shot many, and had them stuffed by our cook, Sirian. Among them were fine silver-grey falcons (_suqr shikl_); birds called _gedâd el wadi_, with horns on the nose, and blue lappets on each side of the head; black and white unicorn birds (_abu tuko_), with mighty beaks; black birds, with purple breasts (_abu labba_); great brown and white eagles (_abu tôk_), of which one measured six feet with extended wings; smaller brown eagles, called _hedâja_; and black ones, called _ráchame_. The latter, which are more numerous toward Egypt, are the same represented in the hieroglyphics. The plover is principally found on the shore, with black crooked pricks at the joints of the wings, with the white long-legged _abu baqr_ (Cow-bird), which is accustomed to sit on the backs of buffaloes and cows.

We often see great bats flying about in broad day; their long golden wings glance gleamingly through the foliage, and suddenly they hang to the boughs, head downwards, like great yellow pears, and are easily shot; they have long ears, and a curious trumpet-formed nose.

Chase was also made on the monkeys, but they are difficult to catch from their agility. One day we found a mighty tree full of monkeys. Some climbed quickly on our approach, and fled to the distant bushes; others hid themselves in the upper boughs; but some to whom both plans seemed hazardous, sprang with incredibly daring leaps from the highest branches of the tree, which was nearly a hundred feet in height, on to the little trees below, the thorny twigs of which bent low beneath their weight, without any of them falling; they gained their point, and escaped my gun.

The more south, the more crocodiles. The promontories of the islands are often covered with these animals. They usually lie in the sun, close to the edge of the water, opening their mouths and appearing to sleep, but they will not allow any one to approach them, but dive under the surface immediately, even if hit by the ball. Thus their capture is very difficult. Our _khawass_, however, struck a young one, only three feet in length, so well that it could not reach the waters. It was brought on board, where, to the horror of our Nesnas monkey, Bachit, it lived several days.

Not less impracticable than the crocodiles are the hippopotami, which we have occasionally seen in great numbers, but only with their heads above water. Once only a young Nile horse stood exposed on a sand islet, and allowed us to approach unusually near. The _khawass_ shot and hit, but of course the ball did not penetrate the thick skin; then the fat animal with its shapeless head, large body, and short, elephant-like legs, broke into a highly comic gallop, in order to gain the adjacent water, where it soon disappeared. They usually only land at night, when they make terrible havoc in the durra-field and other plantations by stamping and eating. No one knew here of any hippopotamus ever being taken alive.

We did not see any lions, but their roars were heard sounding through the moonlight nights; there is something solemn in the deep sonorous voice of this royal animal.

On the 24th of February we came to a second tributary of the Nile, the Dender, which is larger than the Rahad. I went some way up it, to see what was impossible to be seen at the embouchure, whether there was yet a stream, and found that above, where the water ran in little channels, there was still a current, but very weak; in the rainy season the Dender swelled to the height of twenty feet, as its bed shows; the shores were covered with cotton-bushes, pumpkins, and other useful plants.

The heat is not inordinate; in the morning, at eight o’clock, usually 23° R.; from noon, till about five o’clock, 29°; and at eleven at night, 22°.

The evenings we spend on board, then I have the geography explained to me by our _khawass_, Hagi Ibrahim, or take some Nubians to my camels, to learn their language. I have already prepared a long vocabulary of the Nubian language. On a comparison with other lists, in Rüppell and Cailliaud, I also found in Koldági one of the languages spoken in the southernmost part of Kordofan, many similar words, which testify a narrow connection between the two languages. The Arabs call the Nubian language _lisân rotâna_, which I at first took for its actual name; it signifies, however, only a foreign language, distinct from the Arabic. Therefore if the three Nubian dialects are spoken of, they are not only called Rotâna Kenûs, Mahass, or Donqolaui, but also Rotâna Dinkaui, Shilluk, even Turki and Franki, Turkish and Frank, _i. e._ European gibberish. The same error is at the bottom of the now received designation of the Nubians as Berbers, and their language as the Berber language; for this is not their national name, or that of the language, as it is generally believed, but means originally the foreign-speaking persons, the Barbaros.[76]

On the 25th of February we landed near Saba Doleb; I sought for ruins, but only found tall, well-built cupolas of burnt brick, in the form of beehives, and erected in quite a similar manner to the Greek Thesauri, in horizontal layers. They are the graves of holy Arab sheikhs of a late era; the villagers did not know what date to assign for their erection. Under the cupola, in the middle of the building of fifteen to eighteen feet in diameter, is the long narrow grave of the saint, surrounded with larger stones and covered with a multitude of little ones, according to the superstition one thousand in number. I found six such domes, most of them half dismantled, some quite ruined, but two tolerably well preserved, and still visited; a seventh, probably the latest, was built of unburnt bricks.

At Wad Negûdi, a village to the west of the Nile, we found the first dilêb-palms,[77] with slender naked trunks and little bushy crowns, like date-palms in the distance, and dûm-palms close to it, by reason of the leaves. The fruit is round, like that of the dûm-palm, but larger. These trees are said to be more frequent on the eastern tributaries; here, on the Nile, they are found but in a very small district. The leaves are regularly divided into fan-like folds one under the other, and the stem has strong saw-like notches. With such a stalk the Rais of our vessel sawed off another leaf, which I had brought to the bark, to take with me. It is divided into sixty-nine points, and measures five feet and a quarter from that part of the stem where the fan begins, although it is but young, and therefore keeps its fans quite shut as yet. Another one, still larger, which had already unfolded itself, we put up in the bark as a parasol, in the shade of which we sat. The way to those palms we had to make through the giant grass thickets, shooting up stiffly and closely like corn, and covering great plains. The ends of the stalks were five or six feet above our heads, and even the tall camels, bred in this place, could scarcely see above them.

On the 26th of February, we arrived at the village Abu el Abás, on the eastern shore. This is the principal place of the neighbourhood, and the Kashef living here, has authority over 112 villages. I there purchased, for a few piasters, of a Turkish _khawass_ a dog-ape. This is the holy ape of the ancient Egyptians, _kynokephalos_, dedicated to Thoth and the Moon, and appearing as the second of the four gods of the lower world.[78] It interests me to have this animal, which I have seen so innumerably represented on the monuments, about me for a time, and to observe the faithfully caught representations of its striking and usual characteristics in old Egyptian art. It is remarkable that this ape, so peculiar to Egypt in ancient times, is now only found in the south, and even there not very frequently. How many species of animals and plants, indeed manners and customs of men, with which the monuments of Egypt make us acquainted, are only to be found here in the farthest south of old Ethiopia, so that many representations, _i. e._ those of the graves of Benihassan, seem rather to picture scenes of this country than of Egypt. The _kynokephalos_ has here no particular name, but only the general term _gird_ (great ape). His head, hair, and colour, are not unlike those of a dog, whence his Greek appellation. Occasionally, too, he barks and growls just like a dog. He is yet young, and very good-natured, but immeasurably cleverer than Abeken’s little dog and Nesnas monkey. He is very funny when he wants something good to eat, that he may see held in the hand. Then he lays his ears back, and knows how to express the greatest joy, but sits still, like a good child, and only smacks his lips like an old wine-taster. On seeing the crocodile, however, his hair ruffled up on his whole body, he cried out lamentably, and was scarcely to be held in his terror.

We arrived at the famous old metropolis of the Sudan, Sennâr, on the 27th of February, the king of which, before the conquering of the country by Ismaël Pasha, ruled as far as Wadi Halfa, and was supreme over a number of lesser tribute-paying kings. The place does not look now as if it had been so lately a royal city. Six or seven hundred pointed straw huts, (_tukele_) surround the ruins of red brick, where the palace formerly stood. The bricks are now used for the erection of a building for Soliman Pasha, who is to reside in Sennâr. It was so far finished, that the Vakil of the absent Pasha could hold his divan in it. We found him there, sitting in judgment. Many other people, Sheikhs and Turks were present; among them the Sheikh Sandalôba, the chief of the Arab merchants, and a relation of Sultana Nasr, with whom we afterwards became acquainted in her capital village Sorîba. We paid this distinguished man a visit in his house, at which honour he seemed much delighted. His chief chamber was a dark though lofty saloon, with a roof resting on two pillars and four half pillars, on to which we mounted, in order to get a view of the city.

In the meantime, an anqarêb was prepared for us in the court; mead (honey and water) was brought, and from the stable an hyæna, here called Morafil, and two young lions, of which the larger, actually the property of Soliman Pasha, was led to our bark, together with a couple of sheep, as a present from the Vakil. I had the animal tied up in the hold, and received a tear in the hand from his sharp claws, as a welcome. His body is already more than two feet long, and his voice is a most powerful tenor. Every morning now there is a tremendous row on board our not over large vessel, when we are drinking tea before the cabin early; the monkeys jumping merrily about, and the lion is let out from the hold on deck, which is given him during the day, and we are bringing the cups and pans into safety, which he tries to reach with his already strong and inquisitive claws.

On the 29th of February we arrived at nine o’clock in Abdîn. The wind was unfavourable on the 1st of March, and we proceeded but little, so that I had plenty of time for shooting birds. Toward evening I came to a village, lying very romantically in a creek of the river, which is here broader. Many huts built of straw poked their pointed roofs into the branches of thickly-leaved trees. Narrow tortuous paths, forming a real labyrinth, led among thorns and trunks from one hut to another, in and before which the black families were lying and the children playing by a sparing light. I asked for milk, but was referred to an adjoining Arab village, whither a man conducted me, armed with a lance, the general weapon of the country. By light brushwood and high grass we came to the great herds of cattle of the Arabs, who had pitched their mat huts about the grazing place. The Fellahs of this region are much browner than the wandering Arabs, although far from being negroes, and they seem to coincide with the Nubians in race.

On the 2nd of March we anchored by an island, near the eastern shore. At a little distance from the landing-place, the Rais perceived a broken crocodile egg at a spot newly dug. He dug away with his hands, and found forty-four eggs three feet down in the sand. They were still covered with a slimy substance, as they had only been laid the day before or in the past night. The crocodiles like to leave the river in a windy night, make a hole for the eggs, cover them up again, and the wind soon blows away every trace. In a few months the young ones creep out. The eggs are like great goose-eggs, but rounded off at both ends, as the latter are only at the large end. I had some boiled; they are eaten, but have an unpleasant taste, so I willingly yielded them up to the sailors, who ate them with a great appetite.

We landed near the deserted village of Dáhela, on the eastern shore, whence I proceeded alone inland for three-quarters of an hour. The character of the vegetation remains the same. The earth is dry and level; the inconsiderable hills and dales that occur are not original, but seem to have been formed by the rain. My goal was a great tamarind tree, which rose mightily amidst the low trees and bushes, and was encircled by a number of fluttering green and red birds, the species of which is yet unknown to me.