Chapter III

“A table richly spread, in regal mode,

With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort

And savour.”

MILTON.

“_Servant_ The dancing-girl, and with her the musicians

Your grace was pleased to order, wait without.

_Archbishop_ Bid them come in. Now shall your eyes behold

In what angelic yet voluptuous shape

The devil came to tempt Saint Anthony.”

LONGFELLOW.

* * * * *

NEW DONGOLA.

The Bazaar. — The silversmith. — The soldiers. — A Mohommedan festival. — Our cook in prison. — An accident at a dinner. — Dancing-girls. — Traffic. — Camels for the journey. — Population.

NEW DONGOLA, called by the natives Oordeh, is the first place on the banks of the Nile after entering Nubia which deserves the name of a town, and then only of a very shabby one indeed. It contains a bazaar. The few goods usually exposed for sale are Spanish olives, cloves, raw coffee, coarsely-made slippers, and some few unimportant sundries such as nails, needles, and matches; these, with one or two swords and, perhaps, an old flint pistol or musket, form the stock-in-trade of the entire place, which consists of twenty-five or thirty shops.

There is a tailor and dealer in inferior Manchester goods just outside the bazaar; we employed him to repair and alter one or two of our tents. This he did to our satisfaction, but without impressing us with the conviction that he was so finished an artist as would warrant our trusting to his skill the mending of any of our wearing apparel. I was taken to see a worker in silver, who lived in one of the intricate lanes of the town. His implements were a pair of pincers, a few pillar dollars, a fire, and two stones—the one an anvil, the other a hammer. The things he turned out were very beautiful and well made, in rough imitation of Maltese work. His fame had extended to Cairo, and so proud were the Egyptian Commissioners of this really clever worker in silver, that they had sent him to the Paris Exhibition of 1867, but I did not hear of his having carried off any gold medals. I purchased a cigar or cigarette holder, and left with him three five-franc pieces to be manufactured into two similar holders by my return. These he faithfully finished and left at the Government House, to be given to me on payment of the cost of his labour. He himself had changed his quarters to Berber.

Dongola is a garrison town, and is the first telegraph station after Wady Halfa. The troops stationed here are not drawn from the neighbourhood, but are mostly negroes from the White Nile. Their duties are not overwhelming; they consist chiefly in firing off a cannon at sunrise and sunset in the month of Ramadan, and in mounting guard at the Governor’s residence, where they present arms to everyone, above the rank of a donkey-boy, who has business inside. They are armed with “Remington” breech-loaders, and make a very fair appearance at weekly drill under their officers from the army at Cairo.

The 7th January was a Mohommedan festival, and the principal inhabitants of the town put on all their clean clothes. Our soldiers were paraded in full-dress uniform in the square before our tents, and gave us three cheers. They shook hands all round with us, as well as with everybody else they could find. This harmless excitement seemed to afford them considerable delight. They wandered all day through the town shaking hands with every available inhabitant, young or old, and returned at dark to their tents. After repeating the performance with us, and finally, as a climax, all round amongst themselves, they lay down to sleep happy and contented, and at peace with all the world.

Two of our Abyssinian servants also enjoyed the festival. By some means, legitimate or otherwise, they obtained a bottle of spirits; in a peaceful and secluded spot they drank its contents in harmony and friendship. Friendship, however, does not last for ever, and when the bottle was empty that which had contained the cause of their friendliness and peace became suddenly a weapon of war; the bottle was hurled—with, fortunately, not unerring aim—by the hand of one at the head of the other. Twenty-five lashes with the “korbatch” was the prompt reward of each, and the principal delinquent, after his flogging, was consigned to the town jail. Being our best cook he was, however, unavoidably let loose next day, and each succeeding day during our stay, to cook our dinner, and was committed afresh to prison when his duty was done. To eat bad dinners was, we thought, a greater sacrifice than we ought to be called upon to make, even in the interest of justice and law.

On our return journey from the Bahiuda desert in 1872 we were invited by one of the native officials, who had accompanied us on our expedition, to dine or sup with him at his residence. The house, although one of the most considerable in the town, consisted of one room only on the ground floor (there are no storeys above this in New Dongola) with enclosures at the back for the wife and family, and a court-yard for the goats and fowls. We brought, as requested, our own chairs and knives and forks, as well as some bottles of claret. Our dragomans and servants attended us into the saloon, and remained to share the amusements to be provided after the repast. The host and his sons waited upon us, and could not be prevailed upon to sit down and join us. The dinner consisted of soup, to which we helped ourselves, as is the custom, with wooden spoons from the tureen, a sheep roasted whole, and various side dishes and sweets. After the removal of the soup the remaining courses were placed all at once on the tray, which, only resting on a small three-legged stool, was, unfortunately, capsized in our clumsy and simultaneous endeavours to carve, and the whole of the contents rolled over, greasy and hot, on to the muddy floor. Our poor host, who, I have no doubt, had for a long time in his wanderings in the desert looked forward to the pleasure we were to confer on him by our presence at his table, was for a moment disconcerted, but for a moment only; his hand, which, just as the tray and its contents lost their balance, was occupied in conveying a piece of sheep’s kidney, highly seasoned, into the mouth of one of my dearest friends, was for a second arrested in its course; a second more, the delicate morsel reached its hungry and open destination, and our host’s face regained its wonted calmness and dignity. He was equal to the occasion; the tray and the fallen dinner were carried into the yard and returned again in less than a minute, apparently none the worse for the mishap. Our plates and their contents, being on our knees, escaped the fall, and we continued our meal after an occurrence which, in a more civilised land, would have disturbed the equanimity of a more experienced, but certainly not politer host. The dinner over, our hands washed, and the tray and stool cleared away, we bestowed our thanks on our generous entertainer, praising extravagantly all the dishes, whether eaten or left untasted (we were put up to this sort of thing by the dragomans). His reply was that if we would only condescend to honour his humble roof with our esteemed presence, as long as we might live, he would strive, “Inshallah,” to entertain us every day better than the preceding; and if only, on the last day of all, we were satisfied, he would die happy. We could not hope to match this speech, which threw all our efforts, single and united, into the shade, and we therefore subsided into discreet silence.

The entertainment after dinner consisted of music and dancing, but not such music and dancing as we understand. The band was a kind of tom-tom. The dancing was performed by two Shillook girls, not very young and as ugly as sin, or, as one of my friends who was present, and who is a recognised _connoisseur_, said, much uglier. Their ungainly limbs, hardly concealed by a single thickness of semi-transparent muslin, and reeking with the odour of stale castor-oil, were moved to the sound of the tom-tom, in bad imitation of the ungraceful dancing, so called, which may at any time be seen in the villages of the lower Nile. Their antics and grimaces, intended to fascinate, only produced disgust. Out of politeness we sat through the unsavoury festivities, smoking our “chibooks” and finishing our claret, and were escorted by our host and his sons, with lanterns, home to the boats at a late hour.

The bank of the river at New Dongola is always lined with many craft coming from the Blue and White Niles, laden with gum, senna, and ivory. Ostrich feathers are also brought down in small numbers, and are as dear, or dearer, than at home, ranging as high as seventy guineas a pound for fine feathers. The boats go on as far as Haffeer, where they discharge, and their cargoes are carried overland to Wady Halfa, in most cases, along the right bank, which over this distance is less inhospitable than the left. A not inconsiderable traffic reaches the town by a camel-track from Zeghawa, the site of natron springs on the main-line of desert trade between Sioot and Darfoor, and, if boats are plentiful, it follows the same route as the last. A certain portion of this traffic, however, finds its way down the left bank of the river by the desert through which we travelled.

As the journey before us was a long one we were advised to provide ourselves with fresh camels, and to engage at least fifty more than the number absolutely required, in order to supply any deficiencies from accident or death on the way.

There are two different classes of proprietors who let out camels for hire, and with each class separate arrangements have to be made. The largest proprietors are undoubtedly the nomadic Arabs, and their camels are the best. The Wady el Kab, a large oasis with many wells, extending more than a hundred miles parallel to this part of the Nile, at an average distance of fifty miles to the west, forms the place of congregation of many thousands in the dry season. Their owners are, however, not very anxious to let them out for long distances, especially if they are required to go to parts out of the regular tracks. The price at which they are compelled to supply them for Government purposes is less than they can get from the travelling _jelâbs_ or merchants by making their own bargains. This is the only tax levied upon these outlying tribes, and, though their camels are sometimes not required by the Government for several years in succession, they are never given willingly, and there is always more or less grumbling on the way. The price to Darfoor is fifteen dollars, or three pounds, per camel; this includes one driver for every six camels. The second class of proprietors is only semi-nomadic, being formed of Arabs who have partly settled down on the banks of the river, intermarried with the fixed population, and devoted themselves for the greater part of the year to agriculture and respectability. This class, being taxed in the same way as the settled inhabitants, is at liberty to make the best bargains it can with the Government as with private individuals. The price was twenty-two dollars, or four pounds eight shillings. The number of camels thus obtainable is, however, only limited, and, in our case, had to be reluctantly supplemented by others from the desert. It was arranged that the fresh camels should assemble, as soon as possible, opposite to Old Dongola, about eighty miles up the river.

To arrive at even an approximate estimate of the population of a town like New Dongola is a difficult matter. A large proportion of the houses along the Nile, for a distance of five miles up and down on each side, are owned by its so-called residents, who consider themselves as such whether residing in the town or staying away for months, or even years, at a time, on their distant farms. No two inquiries I made of the authorities agreed within considerable limits. From my own calculation of the area and of the number of houses, which are closely packed together and are very densely crowded,[4] I estimate that the town, when all its houses are occupied, must contain fifteen thousand or sixteen thousand inhabitants. The simultaneous presence of them all is, however, an event which never, or very rarely, happens. More than half of them are always away, and the population, constantly shifting, seldom, I believe, exceeds six thousand or seven thousand. The Arabs of both classes come here in large numbers to idle away a great deal of their time. They take up their quarters in the houses temporarily vacated by the owners, and are never interfered with until the return of the latter—hospitality, particularly if to one of the orthodox faith, being an inexorable law of the Korân. This circumstance adds, of course, to the difficulty of arriving at any conclusion, and the figures above must be interpreted accordingly.

We left New Dongola on the 13th of January, having been engaged since our arrival on the 2nd, on work in connection with soundings we had taken for the bridge across the Nile at Kohe.

There is a marked improvement in the villages after New Dongola is passed. The houses, some of which have a second storey, are often built of concrete, and present, from a little distance, quite a handsome appearance.

Our resting-places were Sahabeh, Sohri, and Bakri, a short distance beyond which last is Handak or Khandak, one of the best-built towns in Nubia. On the fourth day, the 16th, we arrived opposite Old Dongola, and pitched our tents in a plain on the borders of the desert at the back of the village.

[Decoration]