A thousand miles up the Nile

by Amelia B. Edwards

Thus dismantled, the dahabeeyah becomes, in fact, a galley. Her oars are now her chief motive power; and a crew of steady rowers (having always the current in their favor) can do thirty miles a day. When, however, a good breeze blows from the south, the small sail and the current are enough to carry the boat well along; and then the men reserve their strength for rowing by night, when the wind has dropped. Sometimes, when it is a dead calm and the rowers need rest, the dahabeeyah is left to her own devices and floats with the stream—now waltzing ludicrously in the middle of the river; now drifting sidewise like Mr. Winkle’s horse; now sidling up to the east bank; now changing her mind and blundering over to the west; making upon an average about a mile and a half or two miles an hour, and presenting a pitiful spectacle of helpless imbecility. At other times, however, the head wind blows so hard that neither oars nor current avail; and then there is nothing for it but to lie under the bank and wait for better times.

This was our sad case in going back to Abou Simbel. Having struggled with no little difficulty through the first five-and-twenty miles, we came to a dead-lock about halfway between Faras and Gebel-esh-Shems. Carried forward by the stream, driven back by the wind, buffeted by the waves, and bumped incessantly by the rocking to and fro of the felucca, our luckless Philæ, after oscillating for hours within the space of a mile, was run at last into a sheltered nook, and there left in peace till the wind should change or drop.

Imprisoned here for a day and a half, we found ourselves, fortunately, within reach of the tumuli which we had already made up our minds to explore. Making first for those on the east bank, we took with us in the felucca four men to row and dig, a fire-shovel, a small hatchet, an iron bar, and a large wicker basket, which were the only implements we possessed. What we wanted both then and afterward, and what no dahabeeyah should ever be without, were two or three good spades, a couple of picks, and a crowbar.

Climbing to the top of one of the highest of these hillocks, we began by surveying the ground. The desert here is firm to the tread, flat, compact, and thickly strewn with pebbles. Of the fine yellow sand which characterizes the Libyan bank, there is little to be seen, and that little lies like snow in drifts and clefts and hollows, as if carried thither by the wind. The tumuli, however, are mounded of pure alluvial mold, smooth, solid, and symmetrical. We counted thirty-four of all sizes, from five to about five-and-thirty feet in height, and saw at least as many more on the opposite side of the river.

Selecting one of about eight feet high, we then set the sailors to work; and although it was impossible, with so few men and such insufficient tools, to cut straight through the center of the mound, we at all events succeeded in digging down to a solid substratum of lumps of crude clay, evidently molded by hand.

Whether these formed only the foundation of the tumulus, or concealed a grave excavated below the level of the desert, we had neither time nor means to ascertain. It was something at all events, to have convinced ourselves that the mounds were artificial.[126]

As we came away, we met a Nubian peasant trudging northward. He was leading a sorry camel; had a white cockerel under his arm; and was followed by a frightened woman, who drew her shawl over her face and cowered behind him at sight of the Ingleezeh.

We asked the man what the mounds were, and who made them; but he shook his head, and said they had been there “from old time.” We then inquired by what name they were known in these parts; to which, urging his camel forward, he replied hesitatingly that they had a name, but that he had forgotten it.

Having gone a little way, however, he presently turned back, saying that he now remembered all about it, and that they were called “The Horns of Yackma.”

More than this we could not get from him. Who Yackma was, or how he came to have horns, or why his horns should take the form of tumuli, was more than he could tell or we could guess.