We went and looked at his grave. The fresh-turned sand was only a little darker than the rest, and, but for the trampled foot-marks round about, we should scarcely have been able to distinguish the new mound from the old ones. All were alike nameless. Some, more cared for than the rest, were bordered with large stones and filled with variegated pebbles. One or two were fenced about with a mud wall. All had a bowl of baked clay at the head. Wherever we saw a burial-ground in Nubia we saw these bowls upon the graves. The mourners, they told us, mourn here for forty days; during which time they come every Friday with fresh water, that the birds may drink from it. The bowls on the other graves were dry and full of sand; but the new bowl was brimming full and the water in it was hot to the touch.
We found L—— and the happy couple standing at bay with their backs against a big lebbich tree, surrounded by an immense crowd and far from comfortable. Bent on “bazaaring,” they had probably shown themselves too ready to buy; so bringing the whole population, with all the mats, baskets, nose-rings, finger-rings, necklaces and bracelets in the place about their ears. Seeing the straits they were in, we ran to the dahabeeyah and dispatched three or four sailors to the rescue, who brought them off in triumph.
Even in Egypt it does not answer, as a rule, to go about on shore without an escort. The people are apt to be importunate and can with difficulty be kept at a pleasant distance. But in Nubia, where the traveler’s life was scarcely safe fifty years ago, unprotected Ingleezeh are pretty certain to be disagreeably mobbed. The natives, in truth, are still mere savages au fond—the old war-paint being but half-disguised under a thin veneer of Mohammedanism.
Some of the women who followed our friends to the boat, though in complexion as black as the rest, had light-blue eyes and frizzy red hair, the effect of which was indescribably frightful. Both here and at Ibrim there are many of these “fair” families, who claim to be descended from Bosnian fathers stationed in Nubia at the time of the conquest of Sultan Selim in A.D. 1517. They are immensely proud of their alien blood and think themselves quite beautiful.
All hands being safe on board, we pushed off at once, leaving about a couple of hundred disconsolate dealers on the bank. A long-drawn howl of disappointment followed in our wake. Those who had sold, and those who had not sold, were alike wronged, ruined, and betrayed. One woman tore wildly along the bank, shrieking and beating her breast. Foremost among the sellers, she had parted from her gold brow-pendant for a good price; but was inconsolable now for the loss of it.
It often happened that those who had been most eager to trade were readiest to repent of their bargains. Even so, however, their cupidity outweighed their love of finery. Moved once or twice by the lamentations of some dark damsel who had sold her necklace at a handsome profit, we offered to annul the purchase. But it invariably proved that, despite her tears, she preferred to keep the money.
The palms of Derr and of the rich district beyond were the finest we saw throughout the journey. Straight and strong and magnificently plumed, they rose to an average height of seventy or eighty feet. These superb plantations supply all Egypt with saplings and contribute a heavy tax to the revenue. The fruit, sun-dried and shriveled, is also sent northward in large quantities.
The trees are cultivated with strenuous industry by the natives and owe as much of their perfection to laborious irrigation as to climate. The foot of each separate palm is surrounded by a circular trench, into which the water is conducted by a small channel about fourteen inches in width. Every palm-grove stands in a network of these artificial runlets. The reservoir from which they are supplied is filled by means of a sakkieh, or water-wheel—a primitive and picturesque machine consisting of two wheels, the one set vertically to the river and slung with a chain of pots; the other a horizontal cog turned sometimes by a camel, but more frequently in Nubia by a buffalo. The pots (which go down empty, dip under the water, and come up full) feed a sloping trough which in some places supplies a reservoir, and in others communicates at once with the irrigating channels. These sakkiehs are kept perpetually going, and are set so close just above Derr, that the writer counted a line of fifteen within the space of a single mile. There were probably quite as many on the opposite bank.
The sakkiehs creak atrociously; and their creaking ranges over an unlimited gamut. From morn till dewy eve, from dewy eve till morn, they squeak, they squeal, they grind, they groan, they croak. Heard after dark, sakkieh answering to sakkieh, their melancholy chorus makes night hideous. To sleep through it is impossible. Being obliged to moor a few miles beyond Derr and having lain awake half the night, we offered a sakkieh-driver a couple of dollars if he would let his wheel rest till morning. But time and water are more precious than even dollars at this season; and the man refused. All we could do, therefore, was to punt into the middle of the river and lie off at a point as nearly as possible equidistant from our two nearest enemies.
The native dearly loves the tree which costs him so much labor, and thinks it the chef-d’œuvre of creation. When Allah made the first man, says an Arab legend, he found he had a little clay to spare; so with that he made the palm. And to the poor Nubian, at all events, the gifts of the palm are almost divine; supplying food for his children, thatch for his hovel, timber for his water-wheel, ropes, matting, cups, bowls and even the strong drink forbidden by the prophet. The date-wine is yellowish-white, like whisky. It is not a wine, however, but a spirit; coarse, fiery, and unpalatable.