CHAPTER II
We did not expect to receive a public welcome at Abou Harras, and were thoroughly surprised when the entire village, on the morning of the 12th, turned out to give us a reception. Women and men bore down on us, dancing and clapping their hands to a hideous accompaniment of tomtoms and drums. Many of them leaped and capered in the craziest fashion to emphasize the display of pleasure at our arrival. The women and children expressed their delight by a peculiar tremolo cry, which reminded me of that heard in Lower Egypt at marriage festivals.[7] One old man came on at a leisurely pace giving an exhibition of sword-play in our honour. He afterwards delivered a panegyric of the English, declaring that they were the saviours of his country, that the children of the Soudanese were now no longer torn from them, and so forth. I found that the young men were almost all absent from the village, doing military service on the Abyssinian frontier; the women who came out to show their delight officially by their shrilling were “the girls they left behind them.” This singular deputation had not approached very near, and presently retired a little way. Some of the slower movements of those who took part in the ceremony were by no means ungraceful, but the din was indescribably discordant. I went to inspect the procession at close quarters, supposing that it would shortly withdraw and disperse. But the “music” continued for fully an hour and a half, and it was more difficult to endure patiently during the latter part of the time as we were all busily writing letters for the homeward mail. A messenger had to carry them half a dozen miles and return immediately to rejoin, and he was waiting for our correspondence.
The point of junction of the river Rahad with the Blue Nile is half a mile distant from Abou Harras, and my companions walked to the spot later in the day. I attended to some odd jobs of the kind which a traveller always finds he has in arrear, and then I tried for fish, but caught nothing and lost my spinner. Many herons had taken their station on a strip of sand about a hundred yards from the place where I stood, and paid no heed to my presence.
On this day we had the good luck to receive two English visitors. The first was Mr. Wilson, the Moudir of Wad-el-Medani. We could only offer him a cup of rather muddy tea; but the village offered him the public reception, and the music was as loud as ever at the second performance. Our second guest was Bimbashi Gwynn, who landed from the sternwheeler which had left Khartoum on the 10th. He was on the way to Abyssinia to settle the boundary question. He had been in that country before, and as he was able to stay and dine with us, we had the benefit of many useful hints in the course of a pleasant chat in the evening.
VILLAGE MUSICIANS AT ABOU HARRAS.
See [p. 14.]
At Abou Harras we parted company with our guide, drivers, and forty camels. There was no unhappiness at the leave-taking. We inspected the men and animals that we had hired in their place, and devoutly hoped we had made a better choice.
On the following morning the thermometer again sank to 43 degrees, and the atmosphere and the water seemed bitterly cold to us. We started on the road to Gedaref just before nine o’clock. Our new guide was a Greek, who had made the journey many times, and was said to know everything that need be known. I was sceptical.
Our route followed the course of the telegraph, and lay at first beside the Rahad. This river differs considerably in the dry season from the Blue Nile. In the latter we had found a fairly fast current flowing over a stony or sandy bed between banks composed of mud. The stream passed through a succession of shallows and deep pools. The Rahad, at the point of junction with the Nile, was entirely dry, and we proceeded some distance up the course before we found pools. The banks are high and steep.