FOOTNOTES:
[1]I possess numerous notes and drawings of the antiquities in the lower valley of the Nile, selections from which I had some intention of publishing, as intimated several times in my journal. But I doubt much now if I shall enter on a field in which there are already so many competitors. Signor Rosellini’s magnificent work is already well known to the literary world. That of Champollion will, I believe, soon appear. Mr. Wilkinson’s invaluable work, “Thebes, and General View of Egypt,” with his most accurate map of that interesting city, are already before the public. The same author has promised us an account of the private life of the Egyptians; and such a subject could not be in more learned hands. I trust the result of Mr. Burton’s residence of above twelve years in that country will soon appear. Mr. Hay’s portfolio is the most magnificent which has ever been brought from that country. It comprises plans, sections, and detailed drawings, by eminent architects; also delineations of sculpture from the tombs and temples, by himself and able artists, whom he employed; with a complete series of picturesque views, entirely by his own pencil. Mr. Lane, Dr. Hogg, and others, are on the eve of publishing. In mentioning the interesting works which I hope will soon appear, I cannot refrain from expressing my regret, that the valuable labours and researches of the above English travellers in that classic soil have not been combined for the formation of a great national work,—an imperishable monument of public utility and individual enterprise.
I refer the reader, with great pleasure, to the fifth volume of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, in which there is a very interesting description of the peninsula of Sennaar, communicated by Sir John Barrow, from the memoranda of Lord Prudhoe. Had it been published before this volume was completed, I should have availed myself of the information which it contains; but I am glad to find that in many respects it confirms my statement.
[2]Lord Prudhoe and Major Felix are the only Englishmen who have seen the antiquities of the island of Meroe; and it is deeply to be regretted that they have not published their observations.
[3]In a work on Egypt, for which I have ample notes, and 400 drawings to select from, I may give a more detailed description of these places.
[4]The temples I mention in this volume, below the second cataract, I may perhaps describe at a future opportunity.
[5]It somewhat resembled, also, what Festus says of the Salian dancers: the præsaltor advanced “et amptruabat,” then all the rest came “et redamptruabant,” or danced and sang as he had done.—Sir Wm. Gell, T. R. vol. ii. p. 385.
[6]Part I. Canto II.
[7]The reader will have observed that my estimate of the pace of the camel differs from those of many travellers, and particularly from that of Mr. Burnes, the author of the justly celebrated work “Travels into Bokhara” (see vol. ii. p. 149.); but he must recollect that my camels were of the Bishareen race. My servants were all mounted; and the animals, even at starting, were not heavily laden with a stock of water, which diminished daily. There being only one well containing water, and that bad, in a distance of 250 miles, it was their interest to urge on their camels, which they did by singing in the manner I have described. I took great pains to ascertain the pace of these animals, observing not only theirs, but also that of the drivers walking by their side, dismounting repeatedly myself for that purpose. I had the gratification to find, on arriving at the Nile, that my calculations agreed, within two or three miles, with the observations of latitude. I have made many long journeys on camels, and I certainly think that animal, when well taken care of, and not overloaded, fully capable of marching ten or eleven hours per day, at the average rate of two miles and a half an hour in valleys or over rough roads, and three miles on plains, without being at all distressed. On the banks of rivers, and in districts where water and forage are plentiful, except urged on, the men are always inclined to move more slowly, and make a shorter day’s journey, not so much to save their camels as to lessen the fatigue to themselves: a few days more or less en route being generally a matter of indifference to them.
[8]Burckhardt calls them angareyg, and says the peculiar smell of the leather some of them are made of keeps them free from vermin. I conceive it to be rather the excessive heat of the climate that preserves the inhabitants of these latitudes from the plagues of Egypt.
[9]These flies also annoy the cattle; but neither here nor on the Mugrum (the Astaboras) have they the effect described by Bruce.
[10]The specimens which I brought to England have confirmed the accuracy of the description of them in Cailliaud’s work—“Cette coquille, bien reconnue aujourd-hui comme devant appartenir au genre éthérie, est remarquable par son talon, qui souvent semble s’accroître et présenter nombre de compartimens. J’avais conservé de ces valves d’éthéries qui avaient jusqu’à huit ou dix poules de longueur: la forme en est alongée et variée, la nacre blanche et feuilletée. Les deux attaches musculaires semblent être le seul motif qui jusqu’à present a fait placer ces éthéries avec les cames plutôt qu’avec les huîtres, dont elles ont du reste tout le caractère.”—Vol. ii. p. 222.
[11]“Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.”
[12]Pliny.
[13]Lib. ii. c. 29.
[14]See the Chapters on the [Commerce] and [Arts] of Meroe.
[15]See [Historical Appendix,] and [Account of the Ruins] of Gebel el Berkel, for further remarks on the arch.
[16]The first Egyptian edifice recorded is the pyramid built by Venephes, at Cochon; according to Eusebius from Manetho, the fourth king of the first dynasty. Africanus calls the town Cochomen. That valuable remark shows the great antiquity of this description of tomb.
[17]Virg. Georg. iv. 291.
[18]In the [Appendix] on the arts of Meroe I have mentioned many other reasons for this opinion.
[19]Assour, on the north side, I did not see.
[20]The Sheakhs and Meleks generally profess to be very religious, and observant of the laws of the Koran; but when they want another wife, and have already four, they divorce one of their old ones.
[21]They have some few wells, but generally send for water from the river.
[22]Agatharchides of Gnidos (Diod. lib. i.), and others in the time of the Ptolemies, seem to have divined the cause; and Homer (vide Odyssey, book iv. ver. 581.), when he describes the Nile as descending from heaven, apparently alludes to the rain in Ethiopia; but at the time of Herodotus it is certain that the Egyptians were not acquainted with the true cause; and Moses, in describing the promised land (Deut. ch. xi. ver. 10.), “not as the land of Egypt, but as a land of hills and valleys, which drinketh water of the rain of heaven,” that is, owed its fertility to the rain that fell from the clouds, would not have used those expressions, had he been exhorting a people aware that the rain in Ethiopia was the cause of the rising of the Nile; the source of the productiveness of the two countries being the same, although in the one more immediate, and therefore more apparent.
[23]As a boat would sail, following all the windings of the river and the islands, the distance from Shendy to Rosetta can scarcely be less than 1800 miles.
[24]In crossing this desert, to save anxiety, I gave each person his own provision of water to take care of, warning him, if that fell short, it was his own fault. This plan succeeded, each individual taking such care of his skins that none of them ran out.
[25]In calling it not very ancient, I, of course, mean, in comparison to some of the edifices in Ethiopia and Egypt. Tirhaka began to reign in the latter country about 700 years A.C.
[26]See Plates [LIII.] and [LIV.]
[27]The generality of the pyramids face a little to the south of south-east. I regret to state, that, from an error of the engraver’s, which I did not discover until all the copies were printed off, their direction is not correctly marked in the [General Plan;] but, as their position is accurately shown in the above [vignette,] I have considered it unnecessary to incur the expense of having the plate reprinted.
[28]I have not considered it necessary to publish a separate drawing which I made of this group.
[29]The Ethiopians are represented by Herodotus (vii. 69.) as carrying bows not less than four cubits in length.
[30]The arch at North Der is formed by approaching stones.
[31]I shall make some further remarks on this important subject in my [Appendix] on the arts of Meroe.
[32]Lib. xvi. p. 770.
[33]The okre consists of 2¾ rotles, or pounds of 12 ounces; and 150 rotles, or pounds, make a cantar.
[34]This Plate contains also an Ababde of the Desert, in the short drawers they sometimes wear.
[35]The bearings of the course of the river, and numerous other villages and islands, whose names I obtained, are marked in the [map.]
[36]About fifteen miles from the second cataract.
[37]The rotle consists of 12 ounces.
[38]He fell ill in Kordofan, but did not die until he arrived at Wady Modeen, on the Bahr el Azruk, where I believe he is buried.
[39]As regards the title of “melek,” this is the name given in Hebrew to the different chiefs: but it is invariably translated, in our version, “kings.”
[40]I have heard a song that describes this battle. The Arabs adopt very generally this method of preserving the recollection of any important event. There is a curious one about the Deftar Dar Bey, when he avenged the death of Ismael Pasha on the Shendyans. He is represented as coming as swift as the ostrich; “burning the fakeers,” and “killing the sheakhs.”
[41]The Ababde girl, in relating this tale, sang this part very sweetly, and several who were standing by joined in the chorus.
[42]The Ababde girl sang this.
[43]This man gave me the description of the customs, &c., which I have given, having found them to agree with other accounts. When I asked him whether I could be of any service to him in Cairo, he begged, as a favour, that I would send him a blank book, as he was anxious to make a copy of the Koran.
[44]“Le 17 Avril nous eûmes occasion de voir à Beit el Fakih un exemple du sangfroid et de la fermeté des Arabes. Le feu prit à une maison à l’extrémité méridionale, et, comme le vent soufflait du sud avec violence, en peu de tems la plus grande partie de la ville fut dévorée par les flammes: cependant les habitants restaient tranquilles: on n’entendait dans les rues ni cris, ni lamentations; et quand on plaignait leur sort, ils répliquaient, C’est la volonté de Dieu. Nous occupions une maison de pierre dans un quartier que les flammes épargnèrent: montés sur notre toit nous vîmes les toits des autres maisons, remplis de spectateurs, qui regardaient tranquillement l’incendie. Un savant pauvre, qui nous rendait souvent des visites, vint à nous voir après avoir mis en sûreté ses effets, et nous indiqua d’un air indifférent le moment où sa maison s’embrasa.”
[45]The title which all travellers, who remain any time in Egypt, generally take, is that of Effende. There are two great advantages in assuming a Turkish name:—it affords greater facility to the natives in recollecting it, and it likewise prevents your being called Howwajee, merchant, or, rather, pedler; and as that class of persons are, in this country, rarely respectable, either from their morals or station, an Englishman submitting to such a title, of course, lowers himself, both in the eyes of the Turks and natives. The Arabs, among themselves, often have other names for Europeans. I was called Abou Toweel, Father of the tall. Rosellini had a name in reference to his beard (Abou Dagan); Champollion (Abou Galeed), from his corpulency; and a noble traveller, who has surpassed us all in the extent of his journey up the Nile, was called, I am told, Abou Dagegah, or Father of the Minutes, from the report having spread that he had a dollar every minute. The Turks and Arabs of these provinces, where travellers are more rare, sometimes honour me with the title of Bey Zadé, or, Son of a Governor.
[46]My servant having broken my thermometer at Gibel el Birkel, I have, unfortunately, been unable to ascertain the heat here: I can only remark, that the temperature for these last three months has increased perceptibly every week. Some travellers have stated that the extreme heat in Nubia is in April. Such an observation, if not entirely an error, can only be applicable to that part where heavy tropical rains fall. On the 11th of March (see [p. 97.]) we had 110° in the shade; but although that was the commencement of the extreme heat, and for that reason more difficult to support, I did not experience so great an inconvenience from it as at present. The natives did not then complain as they do now, nor did my servants from Cairo and Thebes suffer so much. They were all ill at El Ourde, and I thought my Greek servant Ibrahim would have died.
[47]Mr. Waddington’s Travels in Ethiopia contain a view and plan of this temple, and also some views of Gibel el Birkel. I have avoided, as much as possible, the disagreeable task of swelling my text with criticisms on the observations and plates of Monsieur Cailliaud. It would, however, be unjust and ungenerous to make any observation on the views of Mr. Waddington, as he states candidly that he was no draughtsman; yet, as no other views had been published, he was, of course, justified in giving such as he possessed.
[48]The names of these two kings occurring together at Semneh, where Thothmes is represented worshipping his ancestor Osirtisen as a god, is confirmatory of the accuracy of the supposition that these are the names in the tomb at Doshe.
[49]See Bruce’s account of the reverence and adoration of the Agous at the source of the Nile.
[50]Inscription No. 1. is from the same portico, and opposite to a large figure, similar to the one in [Plate X.,] Sculpture, Meroe. No. 2. is before a figure presenting offerings. No. 4. before a figure of Anubis. No. 5. before a figure of Horus. The tablet, No. 3. is in the same portico, over a figure kneeling before a funeral boat, very much defaced, at the end of the portico. As will be seen by the [plate,] these inscriptions are very much injured; but, although the least perfect of any that I possess, I publish them, because they are the most important, being from the pyramids of Meroe. No. 6. is an inscription which was above the sculpture on one side of the first chamber excavated out of the rock of the Temple of Tirhaka, Gibel el Birkel. No 7. is another portion of this apparently dedicatory inscription, going round the whole of the room. The hieroglyphics are large, well executed, and very legible, except some which were quite defaced, and others almost covered with dirt. No. 8. are fragments from the large granite altar in the western corner of the great Temple, Gibel el Birkel. The first line is on the south-east side, the second on the north-east; the remainder of the hieroglyphics on this altar I have not been able to publish. [Plate LIII.] shows the two subjects on the altar in the sanctuary of the same temple. (See [Plate XXIV.]) I have alluded to them in my description of the ruins.
[51]His name is also found in the tomb near Solib, and on the rocks at Toumbos.
[52]Since I wrote the above, I have seen the two beautiful granite lions which were brought from Gibel el Birkel, and presented to the British Museum, by Lord Prudhoe. The sculpture is most beautiful. They appear to be of the same period, as their attitude is similar; otherwise, their forms are different. The one which is the most defaced, and has been apparently the most symmetrical, bears the name of Amunoph III., in deep intaglio. As the name of this king does not exist on any edifice at Gibel el Birkel, I think the circumstance of the lion bearing his name being found there, no decisive proof of his having penetrated so far south. The sculpture is too good to be Ethiopian, and the granite is not of a description I met with near there. Gibel el Birkel, whatever might be its ancient name, was evidently the capital and favoured city of Tirhaka, who might, on his abdication of the throne of Egypt, have brought away these splendid specimens of Egyptian art. The nomen and prænomen on the other are not Egyptian, but seem to be of a king called Amnasre, or Amun Asre.
[53]Lib. ii. cap. 110.
[54]Odys. Δ′. 184.
[55]Odys. Λ′. 522.
[56]Pausanias correctly states the vocal statue of Memnon at Thebes was by the natives called Phamenoph (that is, Amunoph III.), the name it actually bears; and it certainly is curious, that this is the very king whose name we find in Ethiopia at Solib, and on the lion, as I have stated, brought from Gibel el Birkel. That king may possibly have been master of a portion of Ethiopia, and styled himself, as was often the custom, king of the Upper and Lower Countries; but he could not have been the Ethiopian Memnon, who marched to the succour of Troy: for the king who reigned in Egypt at the time of the Trojan war was Osirei, or Menephtah II.; and Amunoph III. died more than a century and a half before that event. As no edifices remain bearing the name of this king south of Solib, which is not a hundred miles above the second cataract, I see no just reason, as I have said before, for supposing that he carried his arms to Gibel el Birkel, much less to Meroe.
[57]2 Chronicles, xii. 2, 3.
[58]2 Chronicles, xvi. 8.
[59]2 Chronicles, chap. xiv. l. 8-11.
[60]2 Chronicles, xiv. 12, 13.
[61]Lib. ii. 137.
[62]Lib. ii. 139.
[63]Major Felix’s account of the Egyptian dynasties was the first that showed us the great utility of the lapidary inscriptions. Although brief, it is so admirably arranged, the information it contains so valuable, and, notwithstanding the recent progress in the study of hieroglyphics, generally so correct, that it is very much to be regretted that the papers he lithographed at Cairo have not been more widely circulated by a reprint in England.
[64]2 Kings, chap. xviii.
[65]Rosellini, i Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia, lib. ii. chap. 7.
[66]Isaiah, xxxvii. 36-38.
[67]Lib. ii. 137.
[68]Page 1007.
Meroe. (See [Plate X.]) There is a fragment of a figure of a god, with the hieroglyphics before it; this is evidently the god Sebek, which, with the Greek termination, makes the Sevechus of Eusebius; but, although the name in the list and that of Eusebius and Africanus are made thus to agree with the name in the Bible, I have some doubts if Signor Rosellini is correct in the connection he supposes between the name of these hieroglyphics and the god Sevek; for the Ethiopians apparently wrote the name of that deity in the same manner as the Egyptians, and yet not one of the hieroglyphics used in writing the name of the god is employed in that of the king.
[70]Herodotus, lib. ii. 30. Diodorus states the number to have been more than 200,000; and assigns as the reason of their emigration, that in the expedition into Syria the post of honour was given to foreigners.—Lib. iii. vol. i. p. 175.
[71]Herodotus, lib. iii. 17. 20.
[72]Heliodorus, in his history of Ethiopia, or, rather, novel of Theagenes and Cariclia, relates the war of Hydaspes, king of the East and West Ethiopians, with the Egyptians, or rather the Persians, then in possession of Egypt, for the island of Philæ and the emerald mines. He gives also an account of the siege of Syene; and mentions the prisoners being bound with chains of gold, so that one of them, Theagenes, the hero of the tale, laughed, and said, that he was more richly decorated in prison than out.
[73]Heeren’s Afrikanische Völker, vol. i. ch. 3.
[74]Lib. iii. 102.
[75]The following description, extracted from the journal of my first voyage up the Nile, may amuse the reader:—
“April 8. 1832.—Our pilot afforded us a curious exhibition, although not, I believe, uncommon; but to us it was new. He pretended or believed that his saint, to whom he had been addressing his evening devotions, had entered his body, and he immediately fell into the most violent paroxysms, throwing his arms about, rolling his head, and twisting his body in a very outrageous manner: sometimes he held up his hands, and shook, as in the most dreadful convulsions, groaning most piteously, and gabbling forth all sorts of gibberish. The sailors made a circle round him, and continued making low obeisances, calling on Mahomet to assist him, for nearly two hours; they believe that, unless they did this, the saint would never leave him, and he would have probably died. The man, in his madness, seemed to have a great jealousy for his honour; one of the mariners was sleeping on board the boat, while the others were on the banks praying for them; on a sudden he darted into the boat, and, had he not been detained, would have roughly used the drowsy mariner. After all the Mahometans near him had joined the circle to pray for his recovery, he returned, by degrees, to his senses: when the fit was over, he lay for some time apparently quite exhausted. The man is remarkable at other times for the mildness of his manner, and is one of the finest looking Nubians I have seen, being above six feet high, with uncommonly handsome features. The people consider those who are thus possessed as peculiarly favoured, not one in a thousand being so fortunate. After death they are generally considered as saints, and have tombs erected to them by the government, which does this, no doubt, to gain popularity, or conciliate the people: but it is generally believed that the saint has appeared to the Pasha, ordering him to erect it.”
[76]Lib. xvii. p. 820.
[77]Lib. vi. chap. 29.
[78]See Letronne’s note on Strabo, l. xvii. vol. v. p. 435.
[79]See Acts, chap. vi. vii. 33.
[80]Lib. iii. c. 2.
[81]Except Rameses II., who certainly penetrated as far as Gibel el Birkel; but there is no other Egyptian name on any rocks or edifices south of Solib and Toumbos.
[82]Herodotus (Thalia, 114.) describes Ethiopia as the last of the inhabited regions of the earth, and possessed by men of very great stature, beautiful, and of very long life; adding, that it produces much gold, and very large elephants, with long teeth, wild trees of every description, and ebony.
[83]Diodorus (lib. iii. p. 105.) says, that near the confines of Egypt and the adjacent Ethiopia and Arabia, there is a place which abounds in rich gold mines, whence, at a great expense and toil of a great multitude of criminals, gold is dug. He speaks also of the manner they pounded the gold; and also mentions veins of white marble. It is a singular coincidence, that at the mines in the great Nubian desert, there are actually remaining mortars exactly such as he describes; and, with one exception, the only place I found white marble during this journey was in that desert, not far from the mines. The marble, however, may perhaps be the white quartz the gold is found in.
[84]On the road to Abou Hashim, in the kingdom of Berber, and other places, I found rocks of sandstone, much charged with iron, and beyond Sennaar, they say that there are iron mines.
[85]I regret that in some few of the impressions the caps were printed black. The reader must be aware, that the management of such engravings as these is excessively difficult. Four colours are impressed from separate stones—red, blue, black, and the ground. The others were put in by hand. I took great pains in superintending the mixing of the colours, to give the reader as exact a representation of an Egyptian painting as was in my power. I am indebted to Mr. Bonomi for having drawn for me on the stones these and the other plates of sculpture.
[86]The past and present condition of Ethiopia are so admirably described in the first two verses, chap. xviii. of Isaiah, and the prophecy so admirably fulfilled, that I cannot refrain from repeating them:—“Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!” Can the expression “shadowing with wings” allude to the winged globe on all the edifices in Egypt and Ethiopia? Vessels of bulrushes are highly characteristic of a wild tribe in the interior, almost similar ones being used at the present day; but the “nation, terrible from the beginning, meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled,” can only be Ethiopia.
[87]Strabo mentions that Coptos was the entrepôt, not only of the merchandise of Ethiopia, but also of India and Arabia.
[88]Isaiah (xlv. 14.) also mentions the “merchandise of Ethiopia.”
[89]Euterpe, 110.
[90]Plin. lib. vi. cap. xxix.
[91]Destruction of the library at Alexandria.
[92]No. CVI. p. 350.
[93]Euterpe, xv.
[94]This is no new doctrine of my own: Champollion, Rosellini, Heeren, and many other first-rate authorities have the same idea. I had expressed no opinion on the subject before going into the country; and, therefore, without prejudice, examined the evidence afforded by the monuments. At the same time that I deeply regret, that many learned travellers and geographers differ with me on this important point, I have not feared to express my own opinion; and I trust it will be candidly allowed, that in my topographical description I have not omitted any observation that might militate against my argument. I have stated, that in the latitude of Shendy it occasionally rains, (but Cailliaud is mistaken in supposing that it rains there three months in the year,) and that such rain would have a certain effect even on the solid mass of a pyramid. I have mentioned, also, that the stones are smaller, and often of a softer material, than the sandstone of Egypt; but we must consider that the pyramids are also smaller, that they have no rooms in the interior, and that the material of the least durable is harder than that of many of the pyramids of Memphis. Mr. Waddington did not reach the wonderful cemetery of the metropolis of Meroe, but the result of his comparison of the other pyramids of Ethiopia with those of Egypt agrees with mine, that is to say, as regards their relative antiquity; but from the discoveries in hieroglyphics, Mr. W. is found to be wrong in the dates he assigns to the monuments of Memphis and Thebes. But I cannot conclude this subject better than with an extract from his work.
He says (Journal of a Visit to some Parts of Ethiopia, p. 184), “Now, the utter destruction and shapelessness of many of the pyramids at Birkel and El Bellal (Nouri), attest their antiquity; while those of Egypt do not appear to have been erected above eleven or twelve hundred years before Christ, when that country had been frequently overrun by the Ethiopians;”—alluding to the statement of Herodotus, that eighteen of the kings of Egypt were Ethiopians; but Manethon and the monuments do not confirm this account, and, therefore, I have not mentioned it before. “The pyramids are of a later date than the ruins of Thebes. Thebes, which is known to have been founded by a colony of Ethiopians[a], was called Ammon No, Diospolis, or the city of Ammon. It follows, then, I think, very clearly, from the concurrence of these observations on the antiquities of Ethiopia, with the conclusions derived from historical evidence, that the origin of the Egyptian divinities, as well as that of their temples and their tombs, and of the sculptures, figures, and symbols, may be traced to Ethiopia. In the magnitude of their edifices, the imitators have, indeed, surpassed their masters; but, as far as we could judge from the granite and other sculptures at Argo and Gibel el Birkel, that art seems to have been as well understood, and carried to as high perfection, as it was afterwards by their scholars at Thebes and at Memphis.
[a]Bruce’s Travels, vol. i. p. 380. The words of Bruce are,—“We know that Thebes was a colony of Ethiopians, and probably from Meroe; but whether directly or not we are not certain.” There is, I believe, no passage distinctly stating this; but Bruce very correctly inferred it from the statements of Diodorus and Herodotus.
[95]Ludolf, lib. iii. chap. 2.