Chapter XI: Book I (5)

The 17th we took leave of our friendly Shekh of Luxor, and sailed with a very fair wind, and in great spirits. The liberality of the Shekh of Luxor had extended as far as even to my Rais, whom he engaged to land me here upon my return.--I had procured him considerable ease in some complaints he had; and he saw our departure with as much regret as in other places they commonly did our arrival.

On the eastern shore are Hambdé, Maschergarona, Tot, Senimi, and Gibeg. Mr Norden seems to have very much confused the places in this neighbourhood, as he puts Erment opposite to Carnac, and Thebes farther south than Erment, and on the east side of the Nile, whilst he places Luxor farther south than Erment. But Erment is fourteen miles farther south than Thebes, and Luxor about a quarter of a mile (as I have already said) farther south on the East side of the river, whereas Thebes is on the West.

He has fixed a village (which he calls [132]Demegeit) in the situation where Thebes stands, and he calls it Crocodilopolis, from what authority I know not; but the whole geography is here exceedingly confused, and out of its proper position.

In the evening we came to an anchor on the eastern shore nearly opposite to Esné. Some of our people had landed to shoot, trusting to a turn of the river that is here, which would enable them to keep up with us; but they did not arrive till the sun was setting, loaded with hares, pigeons, gootos, all very bad game. I had, on my part, staid on board, and had shot two geese, as bad eating as the others, but very beautiful in their plumage.

We passed over to Esné next morning. It is the ancient Latopolis, and has very great remains, particularly a large temple, which, though the whole of it is of the remotest antiquity, seems to have been built at different times, or rather out of the ruins of different ancient buildings. The hieroglyphics upon this are very ill executed, and are not painted. The town is the residence of an Arab Shekh, and the inhabitants are a very greedy, bad sort of people; but as I was dressed like an Arab, they did not molest, because they did not know me.

The 18th, we left Esné, and passed the town of Edfu, where there is likewise considerable remains of Egyptian architecture. It is the Appollinis Civitas Magna.

The wind failing, we were obliged to stop in a very poor, desolate, and dangerous part of the Nile, called Jibbel el Silselly, where a boom, or chain, was drawn across the river, to hinder, as is supposed, the Nubian boats from committing piratical practices in Egypt lower down the stream. The stones on both sides, to which the chain was fixed, are very visible; but I imagine that it was for fiscal rather than for warlike purposes, for Syene being garrisoned, there is no possibility of boats passing from Nubia by that city into Egypt. There is indeed another purpose to which it might be designed; to prevent war upon the Nile between any two states.

We know from Juvenal[133], who lived some time at Syene, that there was a tribe in that neighbourhood called Ombi, who had violent contentions with the people of Dendera about the crocodile; it is remarkable these two parties were Anthropophagi so late as Juvenal’s time, yet no historian speaks of this extraordinary fact, which cannot be called in question, as he was an eye-witness and resided at Syene.

Now these two nations who were at war had above a hundred miles of neutral territory between them, and therefore they could never meet except on the Nile. But either one or the other possessing this chain, could hinder his adversary from coming nearer him. As the chain is in the hermonthic nome, as well as the capital of the Ombi, I suppose this chain to be the barrier of this last state, to hinder those of Dendera from coming up the river _to eat_ them.

About noon we passed Coom Ombo, a round building like a castle, where is supposed to have been the metropolis of Ombi, the people last spoken of. We then arrived at Daroo[134], a miserable mansion, unconscious that, some years after, we were to be indebted to that paltry village for the man who was to guide us through the desert, and restore us to our native country and our friends.

We next came to Shekh Ammer, the encampment of the Arabs [135]Ababdé, I suppose the same that Mr Norden calls Ababuda, who reach from near Cosseir far into the desert. As I had been acquainted with one of them at Badjoura, who desired medicines for his father, I promised to call upon him, and see their effect, when I should pass Shekh Ammer, which I now accordingly did; and by the reception I met with, I found they did not expect I would ever have been as good as my word. Indeed they would probably have been in the right, but as I was about to engage myself in extensive deserts, and this was a very considerable nation in these tracts, I thought it was worth my while to put myself under their protection.

Shekh Ammer is not one, but a collection of villages, composed of miserable huts, containing, at this time, about a thousand effective men: they possess few horse, and are mostly mounted on camels. These were friends to Shekh Hamam, governor of Upper Egypt for the time, and consequently to the Turkish government at Syene, as also to the janissaries there at Deir and Ibrim. They were the barrier, or bulwark, against the prodigious number of Arabs, the Bishareen[136], and others, depending upon the kingdom of Sennaar.

Ibrahim, the son, who had seen me at Furshout and Badjoura, knew me as soon as I arrived, and, after acquainting his father, came with about a dozen of naked attendants, with lances in their hands to escort me. I was scarce got into the door of the tent, before a great dinner was brought after their custom; and, that being dispatched, it was a thousand times repeated, how little they expected that I would have thought or inquired about them.

We were introduced to their Shekh, who was sick, in a corner of a hut, where he lay upon a carpet, with a cushion under his head. This chief of the Ababdé, called Nimmer, _i. e. the Tiger_ (though his furious qualities were at this time in great measure allayed by sickness) asked me much about the state of Lower Egypt. I satisfied him as far as possible, but recommended to him to confine his thoughts nearer home, and not to be over anxious about these distant countries, as he himself seemed, at that time, to be in a declining state of health.

Nimmer was a man about sixty years of age, exceedingly tormented with the gravel, which was more extraordinary as he dwelt near the Nile; for it is, universally, the disease with those who use water from draw-wells, as in the desert. But he told me, that, for the first twenty-seven years of his life, he never had seen the Nile, unless upon some plundering party; that he had been constantly at war with the people of the cultivated part of Egypt, and reduced them often to the state of starving; but now that he was old, a friend to Shekh Hamam, and was resident near the Nile, he drank of its water, and was little better, for he was already a martyr to the disease. I had sent him soap pills from Badjoura, which had done him a great deal of good, and now gave him lime-water, and promised him, on my return, to shew his people how to make it.

A very friendly conversation ensued, in which was repeated often, how little they expected I would have visited them! As this implied two things; the first, that I paid no regard to my promise when given; the other, that I did not esteem them of consequence enough to give myself the trouble, I thought it right to clear myself from these suspicions.

“Shekh Nimmer, said I, this frequent repetition that you thought I would not keep my word is _grievous_ to me. I am a Christian, and have lived now many years among you Arabs. Why did you imagine that I would not keep my word, since it is a principle among all the Arabs I have lived with, inviolably to keep theirs? When your son Ibrahim came to me at Badjoura, and told me the pain that you was in, night and day, fear of God, and desire to do good, even to them I had never seen, made me give you those medicines that have eased you. After this proof of my humanity, what was there extraordinary in my coming to see you in the way? I knew you not before; but my religion teaches me to do good to all men, even to enemies, without reward, or without considering whether I ever should see them again.”

“Now, after the drugs I sent you by Ibrahim, tell me, and tell me truly, upon the _faith_ of an _Arab_, would your people, if they met me in the _desert_, do me any wrong, more than _now_, as I have eat and drank with you to-day?”

The old man Nimmer, on this rose from his carpet, and sat upright, a more ghastly and more horrid figure I never saw. “No, said he, Shekh, cursed be those men of _my people_, or _others_, that ever shall lift up their hand against you, either in the _Desert_ or the _Tell_, _i. e._ the part of Egypt which is cultivated. As long as you are in this country, or between this and Cosseir, my son shall serve you with heart and hand; one night of pain that your medicines freed me from, would not be repaid, if I was to follow you on foot to Messir, that is Cairo.”

I then thought it a proper time to enter into conversation about penetrating into Abyssinia that way, and they discussed it among themselves in a very friendly, and at the same time in a very sagacious and sensible manner.

“We could carry you to _El Haimer_, (which I understood to be a well in the desert, and which I afterwards was much better acquainted with to my sorrow.) We could conduct you so far, says old Nimmer, under God, without fear of harm, all that country was Christian once, and _we_ Christians like yourself[137]. The _Saracens_ having nothing in their power there, we could carry you safely to Suakem, but the Bishary are men not to be trusted, and we could go no farther than to land you among them, and they would put you to death, and laugh at you all the time they were tormenting you[138]. Now, if you want to visit Abyssinia, go by Cosseir and Jidda, there _you Christians_ command the country.”

“I told him, I apprehended, the _Kennouss_, about the second cataract, above Ibrim, were bad people. He said the Kennouss were, he believed, bad enough in their hearts, but they were wretched slaves, and servants, had no power in their hands, would not wrong any body that was with his people; if they did, he would extirpate them in a day.”

“I told him, I was satisfied of the truth of what was said, and asked him the best way to Cosseir. He said, the best way for me to go, was from Kenné, or Cuft, and that he was carrying a quantity of wheat from Upper Egypt, while Shekh Hamam was sending another cargo from his country, both which would be delivered at Cosseir, and loaded there for Jidda.”

“All that is right, Shekh, said I, but suppose your people meet us in the desert, in going to Cosseir, or otherwise, how should we fare in that case? Should we fight?” “I have told you Shekh already, says he, Cursed be the man who lifts his hand against you, or even does not defend and befriend you, to his own loss, were it Ibrahim my own son.”

I then told him I was bound to Cosseir, and that if I found myself in any difficulty, I hoped, upon applying to his people, they would protect me, and that he would give them the word, that I was _yagoube_, a physician, seeking no harm, but doing good; bound by a vow, for a certain time, to wander through deserts, from fear of God, and that they should not have it in their power to do me harm.

The old man muttered something to his sons in a dialect I did not then understand; it was that of the _Shepherds_ of Suakem. As that was the first word he spoke, which I did not comprehend, I took no notice, but mixed some lime-water in a large Venetian bottle that was given me when at Cairo full of _liqueur_, and which would hold about four quarts; and a little after I had done this the whole hut was filled with people.

There were _priests_ and _monks_ of their religion, and the heads of families, so that the house could not contain half of them. The great people among them came, and, after joining hands, repeated a kind of [139]prayer, of about two minutes long, by which they declared themselves, and their children, accursed, if ever they lifted their hands against me in the _Tell_, or Field in the _desert_, or on the river; or, in case that I, or mine should fly to them for refuge, if they did not protect us at the risk of their lives, their families, and their fortunes, or, as they emphatically expressed it, to the death of the last male child among them.

Medicines and advice being given on my part, faith and protection pledged on theirs, two bushels of wheat and seven sheep were carried down to the boat, nor could we decline their kindness, as refusing a present in that country (however it is understood in ours,) is just as great an affront, as coming into the presence of a superior without a present at all.

I told them, however, that I was going up among Turks who were _obliged_ to maintain me, the consequence therefore will be, to save their own, that they will take your sheep, and make my dinner of them; you and I are _Arabs_, and know what _Turks_ are. They all muttered curses between their teeth at the name of Turk, and we agreed they should keep the sheep till I came back, provided they should be then at liberty to add as many more.

This was all understood between us, and we parted perfectly content with one another. But our Rais was very far from being satisfied, having heard something of the seven sheep; and as we were to be next day at Syene, where he knew we were to get meat enough, he reckoned that they would have been his property. To stifle all cause of discontent, however, I told him he was to take no notice of my visit to Shekh Ammer, and that I would make him amends when I returned.

CHAP. VII.

_Arrives at Syene--Goes to see the Cataract--Remarkable
Tombs--the situation of Syene--The Aga proposes a Visit to Deir
and Ibrím--The Author returns to Kenné._

We sailed on the 20th, with the wind favouring us, till about an hour before sun-rise, and about nine o’clock came to an anchor on the south end of the palm groves, and north end of the town of Syene, nearly opposite to an island in which there is a small handsome Egyptian temple, pretty entire. It is the temple of[140]_Cnuphis_, where formerly was the Nilometer.

Adjoining to the palm trees was a very good comfortable house, belonging to Hussein Schourbatchie, the man that used to be sent from that place to Cairo, to receive the pay of the janissaries in garrison at Syene, upon whom too I had credit for a very small sum.

The reasons of a credit in such a place are three: First, in case of sickness, or purchase of any antiquities: Secondly, that you give the people an idea (a very useful one) that you carry no money about with you: Thirdly, that your money changes its value, and is not even current beyond Esné.

Hussein was not at home, but was gone somewhere upon business, but I had hopes to find him in the course of the day. Hospitality is never refused, in these countries, upon the slightest pretence. Having therefore letters to him, and hearing his house was empty, we sent our people and baggage to it.

I was not well arrived before a janissary came, in long Turkish cloaths, without arms, and a white wand in his hand, to tell me that Syene was a garrison town, and that the Aga was at the castle ready to give me audience.

I returned him for answer, that I was very sensible it was my first duty, as a stranger, to wait upon the Aga in a _garrisoned_ town of which he had the command, but, being bearer of the Grand Signior’s Firman, having letters from the Bey of Cairo, and from the Port of Janissaries _to him in particular_, and, at present being indisposed and fatigued, I hoped he would indulge me till the arrival of my landlord; in which interim I should take a little rest, change my cloaths, and be more in the situation in which I would wish to pay my respects to him.

I received immediately an answer by two janissaries, who insisted to see me, and were accordingly introduced while I was lying down to rest. They said that Mahomet Aga had received my message, that the reason of sending to me was not either to hurry or disturb me; but the earlier to know in what he could be of service to me; that he had _a particular letter_ from the Bey of Cairo, in consequence of which, he had dispatched orders to receive me at Esné, but as I had not waited on the Cacheff there, he had not been apprised.

After giving coffee to these very civil messengers, and taking two hours rest, our landlord the Schourbatchie arrived; and, about four o’clock in the afternoon, we went to the Aga.

The fort is built of clay, with some small guns mounted on it; it is of strength sufficient to keep people of the country in awe.

I found the Aga sitting in a small kiosk, or closet, upon a stone-bench covered with carpets. As I was in no fear of him, I was resolved to walk according to my privileges; and, as the meanest Turk would do before the greatest man in England, I sat down upon a cushion below him, after laying my hand on my breast, and saying in an audible voice, with great marks of respect, however, _Salam alicum!_ to which he answered, without any of the usual difficulty, _Alicum salam! Peace be between us_ is the salutation; _There is peace between us_ is the return.

After sitting down about two minutes, I again got up, and stood in the middle of the room before him, saying, I am bearer of a hatésherriffe, or royal mandate, to you, Mahomet Aga! and took the firman out of my bosom, and presented it to him. Upon this he stood upright, and all the rest of the people, before sitting with him likewise; he bowed his head upon the carpet, then put the firman to his forehead, opened it, and pretended to read it; but he knew well the contents, and I believe, besides, he could neither read nor write any language. I then gave him the other letters from Cairo, which he ordered his secretary to read in his ear.

All this ceremony being finished, he called for a pipe, and coffee. I refused the first, as never using it; but I drank a dish of coffee, and told him, that I was bearer of a _confidential message_ from Ali Bey of Cairo, and wished to deliver it to him without witnesses, whenever he pleased. The room was accordingly cleared without delay, excepting his secretary, who was also going away, when I pulled him back by the cloaths, saying, “Stay, if you please, we shall need you to write the answer.” We were no sooner left alone, than I told the Aga, that, being a stranger, and not knowing the disposition of his people, or what footing they were on together, and being desired to address myself only to him by the Bey, and our mutual friends at Cairo, I wished to put it in his power (as he pleased or not) to have witnesses of delivering the small _present_ I had brought him from Cairo. The Aga seemed very sensible of this delicacy; and particularly desired me to take no notice to my landlord, the Schourbatchie, of any thing I had brought him.

All this being over, and a _confidence_ established with _government_, I sent his present by his own servant that night, under pretence of desiring horses to go to the cataract next day. The message was returned, that the horses were to be ready by six o’clock next morning. On the 21st, the Aga sent me his own horse, with mules and asses for my servants, to go to the cataract.

We passed out at the south gate of the town, into the first small sandy plain. A very little to our left, there are a number of tomb-stones with inscriptions in the Cufic character, which travellers erroneously have called _unknown_ language, and letters, although it was the only letter and language known to Mahomet, and the most learned of his sect in the first ages.

The Cufic characters seem to be all written in capitals, which one might learn to read much more easily than the modern Arabic, and they more resemble the Samaritan. We read there--Abdullah el Hejazi el Ansari--Mahomet Abdel Shems el Taiefy el Ansari. The first of these, Abdullah el Hejazi, is Abdullah born in Arabia Petrea. The other is, Mahomet the slave of the sun, born in Taief. Now, both of these are called _Ansari_, which many writers, upon Arabian history, think, means, _born in Medina_; because, when Mahomet fled from Mecca, the night of the hegira, the people of Medina received him willingly, and thenceforward got the name of [141]Ansari, or Helpers. But this honourable name was extended afterwards to all those who fought under Mahomet in his wars, and after, even to those who had been born in his lifetime.

These of whose tombs we are now speaking, were of the army of Haled Ibn el Waalid, whom Mahomet named, Saif Ullah, the ‘Sword of God,’ and who, in the califat of Omar, took and destroyed Syene, after losing great part of his army before it. It was afterwards rebuilt by the _Shepherds_ of Beja, then Christians, and again taken in the time of Salidan, and, with the rest of Egypt, _ever since_ hath belonged to Cairo. It was conquered by, or rather surrendered to, Selim Emperor of the Turks, in 1516, who planted two advanced posts (Deir and Ibrim) beyond the cataract in Nubia, with small garrisons of janissaries likewise, where they continue to this day.

Their pay is issued from Cairo; sometimes they marry each others daughters, rarely marry the women of the country, and the son, or nephew, or nearest relation of each deceased, succeeds as janissary in room of his father. They have lost their native language, and have indeed nothing of the Turk in them, but a propensity to violence, rapine, and injustice; to which they have joined the perfidy of the Arab, which, as I have said, they sometimes inherit from their mother. An Aga commands these troops in the castle. They have about two hundred horsemen armed with firelocks; with which, by the help of the Ababdé, encamped at Shekh Ammer, they keep the Bishareen, and all these numerous tribes of Arabs, that inhabit the Desert of Sennaar, in tolerable order.

The inhabitants, merchants, and common people of the town, are commanded by a cacheff. There is neither butter nor milk at Syene (the latter comes from Lower Egypt) the same may be said of fowls. Dates do not ripen at Syene, those that are sold at Cairo come from Ibrim and Dongola. There are good fish in the Nile, and they are easily caught, especially at the cataract, or in broken water; there are only two kinds of large ones which I have happened to see, the binny and the boulti. The binny I have described in its proper place.

After passing the tomb-stones without the gate, we come to a plain about five miles long, bordered on the left by a hill of no considerable height, and sandy like the plain, upon which are seen some ruins, more modern than those Egyptian buildings we have described, They seem indeed to be a mixture of all kinds and ages.

The distance from the gate of the town to Termissi, or Marada, the small villages on the cataract, is exactly six English miles. After the description already given of this cataract in some authors, a traveller has reason to be surprised, when arrived on its banks, to find that vessels sail up the cataract, and consequently the fall cannot be so violent as to deprive people of their hearing[142].

The bed of the river, occupied by the water, was not then half a mile broad. It is divided into a number of small channels, by large blocks of granite, from thirty to forty feet high. The current, confined for a long course between the rocky mountains of Nubia, tries to expand itself with great violence. Finding, in every part before it, opposition from the rocks of granite, and forced back by these, it meets the opposite currents. The chafing of the water against these huge obstacles, the meeting of the contrary currents one with another, creates such a violent ebullition, and makes such a noise and disturbed appearance, that it fills the mind with confusion rather than with terror.

We saw the miserable Kennouss (who inhabit the banks of the river up into Nubia, to above the second cataract) to procure their daily food, lying behind rocks, with lines in their hands, and catching fish; they did not seem to be either dexterous or successful in the sport. They are not black, but of the darkest brown; are not woolly-headed, but have hair. They are small, light, agile people, and seem to be more than half-starved. I made a sign that I wanted to speak with one of them; but seeing me surrounded with a number of horse and fire-arms, they did not choose to trust themselves. I left my people behind with my firelock, and went alone to see if I could engage them in a conversation. At first they walked off; finding I persisted in following them, they ran at full speed, and hid themselves among the rocks.

Pliny[143] says, that, in his time, the city of Syene was situated so directly under the tropic of Cancer, that there was a well, into which the sun shone so perpendicular, that it was enlightened by its rays down to the bottom. Strabo[144] had said the same. The ignorance, or negligence, in the Geodesique measure in this observation, is extraordinary; Egypt had been measured yearly, from early ages, and the distance between Syene and Alexandria should have been known to an ell. From this inaccuracy, I do very much suspect the other measure Eratosthenes is said to have made, by which he fixed the sun’s parallax at 10 seconds and a half, was not really made by him, but was some old Chaldaic, or Egyptian observation, made by more instructed astronomers which he had fallen upon.

The Arabs call it Assouan, which they say signifies _enlightened_; in allusion, I suppose, to the circumstance of the well, enlightened within by the sun’s being stationary over it in June; in the language of Beja its name signifies a circle, or portion of a circle.

Syene, among other things, is famous for the first attempt made by Greek astronomers to ascertain the measure of the circumference of the earth. Eratosthenes, born at Cyrene about 276 years before Christ, was invited from Athens to Alexandria by Ptolemy Evergetes, who made him keeper of the Royal Library in that city. In this experiment two positions were assumed, that Alexandria and Syene were exactly 5000 stades distant from each other, and that they were precisely under the same meridian. Again, it was verified by the experiment of the well, that, in the summer solstice at mid-day, when the sun was in the tropic of Cancer, in its greatest northern declination, the well[145] at that instant was totally and equally illuminated; and that no style, or gnomon, erected on a perfect plane, did cast, or project, any manner of shadow for 150 stades round, from which it was justly concluded, that the sun, on that day, was so exactly vertical to Syene, that the center of its disk immediately corresponded to the center of the bottom of the well. These preliminaries being fixed, Eratosthenes set about his observation thus:--

On the day of the summer solstice, at the moment the sun was stationary in the meridian of Syene, he placed a style perpendicularly in the bottom of a half-concave sphere, which he exposed in open air to the sun at Alexandria. Now, if that style had cast no shade at Alexandria, it would have been precisely in the same circumstance with a style in the well in Syene; and the reason of its not casting the shade would have been, that the sun was directly vertical to it. But he found, on the contrary, this style at Alexandria did cast a shadow; and by measuring the distance of the top of this shadow from the foot of the style, he found, that, when the sun cast no shadow at Syene, by being in the zenith, at Alexandria he projected a shadow; which shewed he was distant from the vertical point, or zenith, 7⅕°=7° 12´, which was 1/50th of the circumference of the whole heavens, or of a great circle.

This being settled, the conclusion was, that Alexandria and Syene must be distant from each other by the 50th part of the circumference of the whole earth.

Now 5000 stades was the distance already assumed between Alexandria and the well of Syene; and all that was to be done was to repeat 5000 stades fifty times, or multiply 5000 stades by 50, and the answer was 250,000 stades, which was the total of the earth’s circumference. This, admitting the French contents of the Egyptian stadium to be just, will amount to 11,403 leagues for the circumference of the earth sought; and as our present account fixes it to be 9000, the error will be 2403 leagues in excess, or more than one-fourth of the whole sum required.

This observation surely therefore is not worth recording, unless to shew the insufficiency or imperfection of the method; it cannot deserve the encomiums[146] that have been bestowed upon it, if justice has been done to Eratosthenes’ geodesique measures, which I do not, by any manner of means, warrant to be the case, because the measure of his arch of the meridian seems to have been conducted with a much greater degree of success and precision than that of his base.

On the 22d, 23d, and 24th of January, being at Syene, in a house immediately east of the small island in the Nile (where the temple of Cnuphis is still standing, very little injured, and which [147]Strabo, who was himself there, says was in the ancient town, and near the well built for the observation of the solstice) with a three-foot brass quadrant, made by Langlois, and described by [148]Monsieur de la Lande, by a mean of three observations of the sun in the meridian, I concluded the latitude of Syene to be 24° 0´ 45´´ north.

And, as the latitude of Alexandria, by a medium of many observations made by the French academicians, and more recently by Mr Niebuhr and myself, is beyond possibility of contradiction 31° 11´ 33´´, the arch of the meridian contained between Syene and Alexandria, must be 7° 10´ 48´´, or 1´ 12´´ less than Eratosthenes made it. And this is a wonderful precision, if we consider the imperfection of his instrument, in the probable shortness of his radius, and difficulty (almost insurmountable) in distinguishing the division of the penumbra.

There certainly is one error very apparent, in measuring the base betwixt Syene and Alexandria; that is, they were not (as supposed) under the same meridian; for though, to my very great concern afterwards, I had no opportunity of fixing the longitude at this first visit to Syene, as I had done the latitude, yet on my return, in the year 1772, from an eclipse of the first satellite of Jupiter, I found its longitude to be 33° 30´; and the longitude of Alexandria, being 30° 16´ 7´´, there is 3° 14´ that Syene is to the eastward of the meridian of Alexandria, or so far from their being under the same meridian as supposed.

It is impossible to fix the time of the building of Syene; upon the most critical examination of its hieroglyphics and proportions, I would imagine it to have been founded some time after Thebes, but before Dendera, Luxor, or Carnac.

It would be no less curious to know, whether the well, which Eratosthenes made use of for one of the terms of the geodesique base, and his arch of the meridian, between Alexandria and Syene, was coeval with the building of that city, or whether it was made for the experiment. I should be inclined to think the former was the case; and the placing this city first, then the well under the tropic, were with a view of ascertaining the length of the solar year. In short, this point, so material to be settled, was the constant object of attention of the first astronomers, and this was the use of the dial of Osimandyas; this inquiry was the occasion of the number of obelisks raised in every ancient city in Egypt. We cannot mistake this, if we observe how anxiously they have varied the figure of the top, or point of each obelisk; sometimes it is a very sharp one; sometimes a portion of a circle, to try to get rid of the great impediment that perplexed them, the penumbra.

The projection of the pavements, constantly to the northward, so diligently levelled, and made into exact planes by large slabs of granite, most artificially joined, have been so substantially secured, that they might serve for the observation to this day; and it is probable, the position of this city and the well were coeval, the result of intention, and both the works of these first astronomers, immediately after the building of Thebes. If this was the case, we may conclude, that the fact of the sun illuminating the bottom of the well in Eratosthenes’s time was a supposed one, from the uniform tradition, that once it had been so, the periodical change of the quantity of the angle, made by the equator and ecliptic, not being then known, and therefore that the quantity of the celestial arch, comprehended between Alexandria and Syene, might be as erroneous from another cause, as the base had been by assuming a wrong distance on the earth, in place of one exactly measured.

There is at Axum an obelisk erected by Ptolemy Evergetes, the very prince who was patron to Eratosthenes, without hieroglyphics, directly facing the south, with its top first cut into a narrow neck, then spread out like a fan in a semicircular form, with a pavement curiously levelled to receive the shade, and make the reparation of the true shadow from the penumbra as distinct as possible.

This was probably intended for verifying the experiment of Eratosthenes with a larger radius, for, by this obelisk, we must not imagine Ptolemy intended to observe the obliquity of the ecliptic at Axum. Though it was true, that Axum, by its situation, was a very proper place, the sun passing over that city and obelisk twice a-year, yet it was equally true, that, from another circumstance, which he might have been acquainted with, at less expence of time than building the obelisk would have cost him, that he himself could not make any use of the sun’s being twice vertical to Axum; for the sun is vertical at Axum about the 25th of April, and again about the 20th of August; and, at both these seasons, the heaven is so overcast with clouds, and the rain so continual, especially at mid-day, that it would be a wonder indeed, if Ptolemy had once seen the sun during the months he staid there.

Though Syene, by its situation should be healthy, the general complaint is a weakness and soreness in the eyes; and this not a temporary one only, but generally ending in blindness of one, or both eyes; you scarce ever see a person in the street that sees with both eyes. They say it is owing to the hot wind from the desert; and this I apprehend to be true, by the violent soreness and inflammation we were troubled with in our return home, through the great Desert, to Syene.

We had now finished every thing we had to do at Syene, and prepared to descend the Nile. After having been quiet, and well used so long, we did not expect any altercation at parting; we thought we had contented every body, and we were perfectly content with them. But, unluckily for us, our landlord, the Schourbatchie, upon whom I had my credit, and who had distinguished himself by being very serviceable and obliging to us, happened to be the _proprietor_ of a boat, for which, at that time, he had _little_ employment; nothing would satisfy him but my hiring that boat, instead of returning in that which brought us up.

This could by no means be done, without breaking faith with our Rais, Abou Cuffi, which I was resolved not to do on any account whatever, as the man had behaved honestly and well in every respect. The janissaries took the part of their brother against the stranger, and threatened to cut Abou Cuffi to pieces, and throw him to the crocodiles.

On the other part, he was very far from being terrified. He told them roundly, that he was a servant of Ali Bey, that, if they attempted to take his fare from him, their pay should be stopped at Cairo, till they surrendered the guilty person to do him justice. He laughed most unaffectedly at the notion of cutting him to pieces; and declared, that, if he was to complain of the usage he met when he went down to Lower Egypt, there would not be a janissary from Syene who would not be in much greater danger of crocodiles, than he.

I went in the evening to the Aga, and complained of my landlord’s behaviour, I told him positively, but with great shew of respect, I would rather go down the Nile upon a _raft_, than set my foot in any other boat but the one that brought me up. I begged him to be cautious how he proceeded, as it would be _my story_, and not _his_, that would go to the Bey. This grave and resolute appearance had the effect. The Schourbatchie was sent for, and reprimanded, as were all those that sided with him; while privately, to calm all animosities against my Rais, I promised him a piece of green cloth, which was his wish; and so heartily were we reconciled, that, the next day, he made his servants help Abou Cuffi to put our baggage on board the boat.

The Aga hinted to me, in conversation, that he wondered at my departure, as he heard my intention was to go to Ibrim and Deir. I told him, those garrisons had a bad name; that a Danish gentleman, some years ago, going up thither, with orders from the government of Cairo, was plundered, and very nearly assassinated, by Ibrahim, Cacheff of Deir. He looked surprised, shook his head, and seemed not to give me credit; but I persisted, in the terms of Mr Norden’s [149]Narrative; and told him, the brother of the Aga of Syene was along with him at the time. “Will any person, said he, tell me, that a man who is in my hands once a month, who has not an ounce of bread but what I furnish him from this garrison, and whose pay would be stopt (as your Rais truly said) on the first complaint transmitted to Cairo, could assassinate a man with Ali Bey’s orders, and my brother along with him? Why, what do you think he is? I shall send a servant to the Cacheff of Deir to-morrow, who shall bring him down by the beard, if he refuses to come willingly.” I said, “Then times were very much changed for the better; it was not always so, there was not always at Cairo a sovereign like Ali Bey, nor at Syene a man of his prudence, and capacity in commanding; but having no business at Deir and Ibrim, I should not risk finding them in another humour, exercising other powers than those he allowed them to have.”

The 26th we embarked at the north end of the town, in the very spot where I again took boat above three years afterwards. We now no longer enjoyed the advantage of our prodigious main-sail; not only our yards were lowered, but our masts were taken out; and we floated down the current, making the figure of a wreck. The current, pushing against one of our sides, the wind directly contrary, pressing us on the other, we went down _broad side foremost_; but so steadily, as scarce to be sensible the vessel was in motion.

In the evening I stopt at Shekh Ammer, and saw my patient Nimmer, Shekh of the Ababdé. I found him greatly better, and as thankful as ever; I renewed my prescriptions, and he his offers of service.

I was visited, however, with a pretty smart degree of fever by hunting crocodiles on the Nile as I went down, without any possibility of getting near them.

On the 31st of January we arrived at Negadé, the fourth settlement of the Franciscan friars in Upper Egypt, for the pretended mission of Ethiopia. I found it to be in lat. 25° 53´ 30´´. It is a small neat village, covered with palm-trees, and mostly inhabited by Cophts, none of whom the friars have yet converted, nor ever will, unless by small pensions, which they give to the poorest of them, to be decoy-ducks· to the rest.

Opposite to Negadé, on the other side of the river about three miles, is Cus, a large town, the Appollonis Civitas Parva of the ancients. There are no antiquities at this place; but the caravan, which was to carry the corn for Mecca, across the desert to Cosseir, was to assemble there. I found they were not near ready; and that the Arabs Atouni had threatened they would be in their way, and would not suffer them to pass, at any rate, and that the guard commanded to escort them across the desert, would come from Furshout, and therefore I should have early warning.

It was the 2d of February I returned to Badjoura, and took up my quarters in the house formerly assigned me, greatly to the joy of Shekh Ismael, who, though he was in the main reconciled to his friend, friar Christopher, had not yet forgot the wounding of the five men by his miscalculating ramadan; and was not without fears that the same inadvertence might, some day or other, be fatal to him, in his pleurisy and asthma, or, what is still more likely, by the operation of the tabange.

As I was now about to launch into that part of my expedition, in which I was to have no further intercourse with Europe I set myself to work to examine all my observations, and put my journal in such forwardness by explanations, where needful, that the labours and pains I had hitherto been at, might not be totally lost to the public, if I should perish in the journey I had undertaken, which, every day, from all information I could procure, appeared to be more and more desperate.

Having finished these, at least so far as to make them intelligible to others, I conveyed them to my friends Messrs Julian and Rosa at Cairo, to remain in their custody till I should return, or news come that I was otherwise disposed of.

CHAP. VIII.

_The Author sets out from Kenné--Crosses the Desert of the
Thebaid--Visits the Marble Mountains--Arrives at Cosseir, on
the Red Sea--Transactions there._

It was Thursday, the 16th of February 1769, we heard the caravan was ready to set out from Kenné, the Cæne Emporium of antiquity. From Kenné our road was first East, for half an hour, to the foot of the hills, which here bound the cultivated land; then S. E. when, at 11 o’clock in the forenoon, we passed a very dirty small village called Sheraffa. All the way from Kenné, close on our left, were desert hills, on which not the least verdure grew, but a few plants of a large species of Solanum, called Burrumbuc.

At half past two we came to a well, called Bir Ambar, the well of spices, and a dirty village of the same name, belonging to the Azaizy, a poor inconsiderable tribe of Arabs. They live by letting out their cattle for hire to the caravans that go to Cosseir, and attending themselves, when necessary. It got its name, I suppose, from its having formerly been a station of the caravans from the Red Sea, loaded with this kind of merchandise from India. The houses of the Azaizy are of a very particular construction, if they can be called houses. They are all made of potter-clay, in one piece, in shape of a bee-hive; the largest is not above ten feet high, and the greatest diameter six.

There are no vestiges here of any canal, mentioned to have been cut between the Nile and the Red Sea. The cultivated land here is not above half a mile in extent from the river, but the inundation of the Nile reaches much higher, nor has it left behind it any appearance of soil. After passing Bir Ambar, we pitched our tent about four o’clock at Gabba[150], a short mile from Cuft, on the borders of the desert--here we passed the night.

On the 17th, at eight o’clock in the morning, having mounted my servants all on horseback, and taken the charge of our own camels, (for there was a confusion in our caravan not to be described, and our guards we knew were but a set of thieves) we advanced slowly into the desert. There were about two hundred men on horseback, armed with firelocks; all of them lions, if you believed their word or appearance; but we were credibly informed, that fifty of the Arabs, at first sight, would have made these heroes fly without any bloodshed.

I had not gone two miles before I was joined by the Howadat Arab, whom I had brought with me in the boat from Cairo. He offered me his service with great professions of gratitude, and told me, that he hoped I would again take charge of his money, as I had before done from Cairo. It was now for the first time he told me his name, which was Mahomet Abdel Gin, “the Slave of the Devil, or the Spirit.” There is a large tribe of that name, many of which come to Cairo from the kingdom of Sennaar; but he had been born among the Howadat, opposite to Metrahenny, where I found him.

Our road was all the way in an open plain, bounded by hillocks of sand, and fine gravel, perfectly hard, and not perceptibly above the level of the plain country of Egypt. About twelve miles distant there is a ridge of mountains of no considerable height, perhaps the most barren in the world. Between these our road lay through plains, never three miles broad, but without trees, shrubs, or herbs. There are not even the traces of any living creature, neither serpent nor lizard, antelope nor ostrich, the usual inhabitants of the most dreary deserts. There is no sort of water on the surface, brackish or sweet. Even the birds seem to avoid the place as pestilential, not having seen one of any kind so much as flying over. The sun was burning hot, and, upon rubbing two sticks together, in half a minute they both took fire, and flamed; a mark how near the country was reduced to a general conflagration!

At half past three, we pitched our tent near some draw-wells, which, upon tasting, we found bitterer than soot. We had, indeed, other water carried by the camels in skins. This well-water had only one needful quality, it was cold, and therefore very comfortable for refreshing us outwardly. This unpleasant station is called Legeta; here we were obliged to pass the night, and all next day, to wait the arrival of the caravans of Cus, Esné, and part of those of Kenné, and Ebanout.

While at the wells of Legeta, my Arab, Abdel Gin, came to me with his money, which had increased now to nineteen sequins and a half. “What! said I, Mahomet, are you never safe among your countrymen, neither, by sea nor land?” “Oh, no, replied Mahomet; the difference, when we were on board the boat, was, we had three thieves only; but, when _assembled here_, we shall have above three thousand.--But I have an advice to give you.”--“And my ears,” said I, “Mahomet, are always open to advice, especially in strange countries.”--“These people,” continued Mahomet, “are all afraid of the Atouni Arabs; and, when attacked, they will run away, and leave you in the hands of these Atouni, who will carry off your baggage. Therefore, as you have nothing to do with their corn, do not kill any of the Atouni if they come, for that will be a bad affair, but go aside, and let me manage. I will answer with my life, though all the caravan should be stripped stark-naked, and you loaded with gold, not one article belonging to you shall be touched.” I questioned him very particularly about this intimation, as it was an affair of much consequence, and I was so well satisfied, that I resolved to conform strictly to it.

In the evening came twenty Turks from Caramania, which is that part of Asia Minor immediately on the side of the Mediterranean opposite to the coast of Egypt; all of them neatly and cleanly dressed like Turks, all on camels, armed with swords, a pair of pistols at their girdle, and a short neat gun; their arms were in very good order, with their flints and ammunition stowed in cartridge-boxes, in a very soldier-like manner. A few of these spoke Arabic, and my Greek servant, Michael, interpreted for the rest. Having been informed, that the large tent belonged to an Englishman, they came into it without ceremony. They told me, that they were a number of neighbours and companions, who had set out together to go to Mecca, to the Hadje; and not knowing the language, or customs of the people, they had been but indifferently used since they landed at Alexandria, particularly somewhere (as I guessed) about Achmim; that one of the Owam, or swimming thieves, had been on board of them in the night, and had carried off a small portmanteau with about 200 sequins in gold; that, though a complaint had been made to the Bey of Girgé, yet no satisfaction had been obtained; and that now they had heard an Englishman was here, whom they reckoned their _countryman_, they had come to propose, that we should make a common cause to defend each other against all enemies.--What they meaned by _countryman_ was this:--

There is in Asia Minor, somewhere between Anatolia and Caramania, a district which they call Caz Dagli, corruptly Caz Dangli, and this the Turks believe was the country from which the English first drew their origin; and on this account they never fail to claim kindred with the English wherever they meet, especially if they stand in need of their assistance.

I told them the arrangement I had taken with the Arab. At first, they thought it was too much confidence to place in him, but I convinced them, that it was greatly diminishing our risk, and, let the worst come to the worst, I was well satisfied that, armed as we were, on foot, we were more than sufficient to beat the Atouni, after they had defeated the clownish caravan of Egypt, from whose courage we certainly had nothing to expect.