Chapter XXIX: Letter XXVII

PHILAE. _September 1, 1844._

I am only now first able to end my report from Korusko, which we quitted on the evening of the 18th of August, to sail for Sebûa.

From thence to Philae the valley is called Wadi Kenûs, “the valley of Beni Kensi,” a tribe often mentioned in the Arabic accounts. The upper valley from Korusko to Wadi Halfa is generally called Wadi Nuba on all the maps, a name certainly used by Burckhardt, but which must rest on an error. Neither our Nubian servant Ahmed, born at Derr, nor any of the inhabitants know this name, and even the septuagenarian Hassen Kashef, who governed the country before the Egyptian conquest, could not return any replies to my careful questions. According to their unanimous assertion, the lower district has always been called Wadi Kenûs. Then follows near Korusko the Wadi el Arab, so called by the immigrated Arabs of the desert, then Wadi Ibrim, and lastly Wadi Halfa. The government designation of the whole province between the two cataracts is, however, since the conquest Gism Halfa, the province Halfa.

In Korusko, I found a Bishâri, named ’Ali, whose intelligent and pleasing manners determined me immediately to engage him as a teacher for this important language. He accepted very willingly my invitation to accompany us, and now every leisure moment was occupied in preparing a grammar and vocabulary. He was born in the interior of the district Beled Ellâqi, which is eight days distant from the Nile, and twenty from the Red Sea, and gives its name to the remarkable Wadi Ellâqi, which extends without any interruption through the broad plains from the Nile to the sea. He calls the Bishâri country Edbai and their language “Midâb to Beg’auîe,” the Beg’a language: this shows its identity with the language of the powerful Beg’a people, celebrated during the middle ages.

From Korusko we sailed to Sebûa, where we remained four days; then by Dakke (Pselchis) and Kubân (Contra-Pselchis) to G’erf Hussên, with its rock temple, dedicated by Ramses to Ptah. By former travellers this place has often been called Girshe, a corruption of the name of a village lying on the eastern shore, called by the Arabians Qirsh, and by the Nubians Kish or Kishiga, and which lies in the neighbourhood of some important ruins, called Sabagûra. The 25th August we passed in the temple of Dendûr, built under the Roman empire, and the next day in Kalabsheh, the ancient Talmis, this temple also contains only the arms of Cæsar (Augustus). Talmis was for a long time the capital of the Blemyer, whose incursions into Egypt caused much trouble to the Romans. Upon one of the pillars of the outer court the interesting inscription of Silco is graven, who calls himself a βασιλίσκος Νουβάδων καὶ ὅλων τῶν Αἰθιόπων. He boasts in it of his victories over the Blemyers, whom I consider a branch of the Meroitic-Ethiopian race, the present Bishâri. The Demotic-Ethiopian inscriptions, among which is one remarkable for its length, and which perhaps is a counterpart of the Greek ones of the Nubian kings, can only be referred to the Blemyers. I discovered at the back of the temple another inscription of very late date in Greek, but so corrupted as to be perfectly unintelligible. I send it to be deciphered by Böckh.

On the 30th of August we reached Debôt, and the following day Philae, where we immediately took possession of the charming temple terrace, which, since that time, has been our head-quarters, and will be so for some time yet. The great buildings of the temple, although its earliest erection only dates as far back as Nectanebus, offer an unusually rich harvest of hieroglyphical, demotic, and Greek inscriptions, and to my astonishment I have discovered a chamber in one of the pylones, which contains only Ethiopian sculptures and inscriptions.