Chapter XXVII: Letter XXV

DONGOLA. _June 23, 1844._

We returned yesterday from a four day’s trip to the next cataract, which we were able to reach with the boat. Our collection was unexpectedly rich. We have found a great number of old monuments of the time of the Pharoahs, the only ones in the whole province of Dongola, and part of them very ancient. On the island of Argo we discovered the first Egyptian sculpture of the time of the Hyksos, and near Kermân on the right hand shore, traces of an extensive city, spread wide over the plain, with an immense burying-ground adjoining, in which two large monuments were conspicuous, one of which was called Kermân (like the village), the other Defûfa. They are not pyramids, but oblong squares, the first 150 feet by 66, the second 132 feet by 66, and about 40 feet high, quite massive and strong, and built of good firm unburnt Nile bricks; each has an out-building, resembling the ante-temple of the Pyramid. Many fragments of statues lying about, (in the best ancient style, partly covered with good hieroglyphics,) point out their great antiquity; so that we may judge this to be the oldest important Egyptian settlement on Ethiopian ground, which was probably rendered necessary through the increase of Egyptian power towards Ethiopia, during the supremacy of the Hyksos in Egypt. Without doubt, the enormous granite bridges which we found some hours north of Kermân at the entrance of the cataract district, opposite the island Tombos on the right hand shore, were belonging to this town. The rock inscriptions contain arms of the seventeenth dynasty, and an inscription of eighteen lines bears the date of the second year of Tuthmosis I.

Here, in Dongola, I have also begun to study the Kong’âra language of Dar Fûr. A negro soldier born in that feared and warlike land, with woolly hair and thick pouting lips, whom we brought with us during the last year from Korusko to Wadi Halfa, as orderly officer, instead of the one appointed by Ibrahim Pasha, sought us out again, and was given up to me by the Pasha to assist me in my philological studies. He began well, but in half an hour I was obliged to get the Nubian to interpret for me. The Kong’âra is quite different from the Nubian, and appears to me in some points to have a strong analogy with certain South African languages.

It gave me great pleasure to see here the fortress built by Ehrenberg in 1822, it has certainly suffered from the inundations, but still serves Hassan Pasha as a dwelling. There will also remain a building in remembrance of us, as the Pasha begged Erbkam to give him the plan of a powder-tower, and to seek out a suitable spot for its erection.