Chapter XXX: Letter XXVII: Philæ, the 1st September, 1844

I am only now able to finish my journal from Korusko, whence we set sail on the evening of the 18th August for SEBÛA.

From this point, as far as Philæ, the valley is called WADI KENÛS, “the valley of the BENI KENSI,” a tribe of which we read much in the Arabic accounts. The upper valley of Korusko, as far as Wadi Halfa, is called on all the maps WADI NUBA, a name which has indeed been already used by Burckhardt, but which must originate in some mistake. Neither our Nubian servant, Ahmed, a native of the district of Derr, nor the people who are settled in the country, are acquainted with this name; and even Hassan Kaschef, above seventy years of age, who governed the country before the Egyptian conquest, could give no answers to my particular inquiries about this name. They all agree in stating that the lower district has always been called WADI KENÛS. Afterwards, near Korusko, follows the WADI EL ARAB, so called from the Arabs of the desert, who have encroached as far as this spot; then WADI IBRÎM; and lastly, WADI HALFA. But since the conquest the official name for the whole province between the two cataracts is GISM HALFA, the province of Halfa.

In Korusko I found a Bischâri, by name ALI, whose animated and pleasant deportment determined me at once to make him my instructor in this important language. He was quite satisfied with my invitation for him to accompany us, and now every moment that is at liberty is employed in preparing a grammar and vocabulary of this language. He comes from the interior of the country, from Beled Ellâqi, which is eight days distant from the Nile, and twenty from the Red Sea, and gives a name to the remarkable Wadi Ellâqi, which extends, without interruption, through the very midst of the extensive range of country between the Nile and the Red Sea. He calls the country of the Bischâri tribes EDBAI, and their language, _Midâb_ to _Beg´auîe_, the Beg´a language, from which may be traced its identity with the language of the mighty Beg´a nations, so often mentioned in the middle ages.

From Korusko we next sailed to SEBÛA, where we spent four days; then by DAKKEH (Pselchis) and KUBÁN (Contra Pselchis) to GERF HUSSÊN, with its rock-temple dedicated by Ramses to Ptah. This place is frequently called by earlier travellers GIRSCHE, a confusion with the village situated on the farther eastern bank, which is called by the Arabs QIRSCH, by the Nubians KISCH or KISCHIGA, and which is situated near some considerable ruins of an ancient city which bear the name of SABAGÛRA. The 25th August we spent in the temple of DENDÛR, first built under the Roman dominion; and the following day in KALABSCHEH, the ancient TALMIS, whose temple likewise contains only the Shields of Cæsar (Augustus). Talmis was for a long time a capital of the BLEMYES, whose inroads into Egypt gave the Romans plenty of employment. On one of the columns of the great outer court there is engraved the interesting inscription of Silco, who calls himself a βασιλίσκος Νουβάδων καὶ ὅλων τῶν Αἰθιόπων.[52] In it he boasts of his victories over the Blemyes, who I hold to be a branch of the Meröitic Ethiopians, the Bischâri of the present day. It seems that the demotic Ethiopian inscriptions, one of which is remarkable by its length, and perhaps forms a counterpart to the Greek inscription of the Nubian King, can only be ascribed to these Blemyes. I have discovered another very late inscription on the wall to the back of the temple, but in such barbarous Greek that it is almost inexplicable. I send it to Böckh for him to decipher.

On the 30th August we reached DEBÔT, and the following day PHILÆ, where we immediately took possession of the enchanting temple-terrace, which, since that time, has been our chief quarters, and will remain so for several weeks longer. The great temple-buildings, although the most ancient of them date only as far back as NECTANEBUS, present an unusual number of hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek inscriptions, and, to my surprise, I have also found here a whole chamber in one of the pylones which contains nothing but ETHIOPIAN representations and inscriptions.