A thousand miles up the Nile

by Amelia B. Edwards

It is hard, now that we are actually here, to realize that this is the end of our journey. The cataract—an immense multitude of black and shining islets, among which the river, divided into hundreds of separate channels, spreads far and wide for a distance, it is said, of more than sixteen miles—foams at our feet. Foams, and frets, and falls; gushing smooth and strong where its course is free; murmuring hoarsely where it is interrupted; now hurrying; now loitering; here eddying in oily circles; there lying in still pools unbroken by a ripple; everywhere full of life, full of voices; everywhere shining to the sun. Northward, where it winds away toward Abou Simbel, we see all the fantastic mountains of yesterday on the horizon. To the east, still bounded by out-liers of the same disconnected chain, lies a rolling waste of dark and stony wilderness trenched with innumerable valleys through which flow streams of sand. On the western side, the continuity of the view is interrupted by the ridge which ends with Abusîr. Southward the Libyan desert reaches away in a vast undulating plain; tawny, arid, monotonous; all sun; all sand; lit here and there with arrowy flashes of the Nile. Farthest of all, pale but distinct, on the outermost rim of the world, rise two mountain summits, one long, one dome-like. Our Nubians tell us that these are the mountains of Dongola. Comparing our position with that of the third cataract as it appears upon the map, we come to the conclusion that these ghostlike silhouettes are the summits of Mount Fogo[125] and Mount Arambo—two apparently parallel mountains situate on opposite sides of the river about ten miles below Hannek, and consequently about one hundred and forty-five miles, as the bird flies, from the spot on which we are standing.

In all this extraordinary panorama, so wild, so weird, so desolate, there is nothing really beautiful except the color. But the color is transcendent. Never, even in Egypt, have I seen anything so tender, so transparent, so harmonious. I shut my eyes and it all comes before me. I see the amber of the sands; the pink and pearly mountains; the cataract rocks, all black and purple and polished; the dull gray palms that cluster here and there upon the larger islands; the vivid verdure of the tamarisks and pomegranates; the Nile, a greenish-brown flecked with yeasty foam; over all, the blue and burning sky, permeated with light, and palpitating with sunshine.

I made no sketch. I felt that it would be ludicrous to attempt it. And I feel now that any endeavor to put the scene into words is a mere presumptuous effort to describe the indescribable. Words are useful instruments; but, like the etching needle and the burin, they stop short at form. They cannot translate color.

If a traveler pressed for time asked me whether he should or should not go as far as the second cataract, I think I should recommend him to turn back from Abou Simbel. The trip must cost four days; and if the wind should happen to be unfavorable either way, it may cost six or seven. The forty miles of river that have to be twice traversed are the dullest on the Nile; the cataract is but an enlarged and barren edition of the cataract between Assûan and Philæ; and the great view, as I have said, has not that kind of beauty which attracts the general tourist.

It has an interest, however, beyond and apart from that of beauty. It rouses one’s imagination to a sense of the greatness of the Nile. We look across a world of desert, and see the river still coming from afar. We have reached a point at which all that is habitable and familiar comes abruptly to an end. Not a village, not a bean-field, not a shâdûf, not a sakkieh, is to be seen in the plain below. There is no sail on those dangerous waters. There is no moving creature on those pathless sands. But for the telegraphic wires stalking, ghostlike, across the desert, it would seem as if we had touched the limit of civilization, and were standing on the threshold of a land unexplored.

Yet for all this, we feel as if we were at only the beginning of the mighty river. We have journeyed well-nigh a thousand miles against the stream; but what is that to the distance which still lies between us and the great lakes? And how far beyond the great lakes must we seek for the source that is even yet undiscovered?

We stayed at Wady Halfeh but one night and paid but one visit to the cataract. We saw no crocodiles, though they are still plentiful among these rocky islets. The M. B.’s, who had been here a week, were full of crocodile stories and of Alfred’s deeds of arms. He had stalked and shot a monster, two days before our arrival; but the creature had rushed into the water when hit, waving its tail furiously above its head, and had neither been seen nor heard of since.

Like Achilles, the crocodile has but one vulnerable spot; and this is a small unarmored patch behind the forearm. He will take a good deal of killing even there, unless the bullet finds its way to a vital part, or is of the diabolical kind called “explosive.” Even when mortally wounded, he seldom drops on the spot. With his last strength, he rushes to the water and dies at the bottom.

After three days the carcass rises and floats, and our friends were now waiting in order that Alfred might bag his big game. Too often, however, the poor brute either crawls into a hole, or, in his agony, becomes entangled among weeds and comes up no more. For one crocodile bagged, a dozen regain the river, and, after lingering miserably under water, die out of sight and out of reach of the sportsman.

While we were climbing the Rock of Abusîr our men were busy taking down the big sail and preparing the Philæ for her long and ignominious journey down-stream. We came back to find the mainyard laid along like a roof-tree above our heads; the sail rolled up in a huge ball and resting on the roof of the kitchen; the small aftersail and yard hoisted on the mainmast; the oars lashed six on each side; and the lower deck a series of yawning chasms, every alternate plank being taken up so as to form seats and standing places for the rowers.