He can count its camels in the sun.”—Lowell.
A glance at the map will explain the necessity of my Desert journey. The Nile, at Korosko (which is in lat. 22° 38′), makes a sharp bend to the west, and in ascending his current, one travels in a south-westerly direction nearly to Dongola, thence south to Edabbe, in lat. 18°, after which his course is north-east as far as lat. 19° 30′, where he again resumes the general southern direction. The termini of this immense curve, called by the ancients the “elbows” of the Nile, are Korosko and Abou-Hammed, in southern Nubia. About ninety miles above the former place, at Wadi Haifa, is the second cataract of the Nile, the Southern Thule of Egyptian tourists. The river, between that point and Dongola, is so broken by rapids, that vessels can only pass during the inundation, and then with great difficulty and danger. The exigencies of trade have established, no doubt since the earliest times, the shorter route through the Desert. The distance between Korosko and Abou-Hammed, by the river, is more than six hundred miles, while by the Desert, it is, according to my reckoning, only two hundred and forty-seven miles. The former caravan route led directly from Assouan to Berber and Shendy, and lay some distance to the eastward of that from Korosko. It is the same travelled by Bruce and Burckhardt, but is now almost entirely abandoned, since the countries of Soudân have been made tributary to Egypt. It lies through a chain of valleys, inhabited by the Ababdeh Arabs, and according to Burckhardt, there are trees and water, at short intervals, for the greater part of the way. The same traveller thus describes the route from Korosko: “On that road the traveller finds only a single well, which is situated midway, four long days distant from Berber and as many from Sebooa [near Korosko]. A great inconvenience on that road is that neither trees nor shrubs are anywhere found, whence the camels are much distressed for food, and passengers are obliged to carry wood with them to dress their meals.”
On the morning of the 21st of December, the water-skins were filled from the Nile, the baggage carefully divided into separate loads, the unwilling camels received their burdens, and I mounted a dromedary for the first time. My little caravan consisted of six camels, including that of the guide. As it was put in motion, the Governor and Shekh Abou-Mohammed wished me a safe journey and the protection of Allah. We passed the miserable hamlet of Korosko, turned a corner of the mountain-chain into a narrow stony valley, and in a few minutes lost sight of the Nile and his belt of palms. Thenceforth, for many days, the only green thing to be seen in all the wilderness was myself. After two or three hours’ travel, we passed an encampment of Arabs, where my Bishàrees added another camel for their own supplies, and two Nubians, mounted on donkeys, joined us for the march to Berber. The first day’s journey lay among rugged hills, thrown together confusedly, with no apparent system or direction. They were of jet black sandstone, and resembled immense piles of coke and anthracite. The small glens and basins inclosed in this chaos were filled with glowing yellow sand, which in many places streamed down the crevices of the black rocks, like rivulets of fire. The path was strewn with hollow globes of hard, black stones, precisely resembling cannon-balls. The guide gave me one of the size of a rifle-bullet, with a seam around the centre, as if cast in a mould. The thermometer showed a temperature of eighty degrees at two P. M., but the heat was tempered by a pure, fresh breeze. After eight hours’ travel, I made my first camp at sunset, in a little hollow inclosed by mountains, where a gray jackal, after being twice shot at, came and looked into the door of the tent.
I found dromedary-riding not at all difficult. One sits on a very lofty seat, with his feet crossed over the animal’s shoulders or resting on his neck. The body is obliged to rock backward and forward, on account of the long, swinging gait, and as there is no stay or fulcrum except a blunt pommel, around which the legs are crossed, some little power of equilibrium is necessary. My dromedary was a strong, stately beast, of a light cream color, and so even a gait, that it would bear the Arab test: that is, one might drink a cup of coffee, while going on a full trot, without spilling a drop. I found a great advantage in the use of the Oriental costume. My trowsers allowed the legs perfect freedom of motion, and I soon learned so many different modes of crossing those members, that no day was sufficient to exhaust them. The rising and kneeling of the animal is hazardous at first, as his long legs double together like a carpenter’s rule, and you are thrown backwards and then forwards, and then backwards again, but the trick of it is soon learned. The soreness and fatigue of which many travellers complain, I never felt, and I attribute much of it to the Frank dress. I rode from eight to ten hours a day, read and even dreamed in the saddle, and was at night as fresh and unwearied as when I mounted in the morning.
My caravan was accompanied by four Arabs. The guide, Eyoub, was an old Ababdeh, who knew all the Desert between the Red Sea and the Nile, as far south as Abyssinia. The camel-drivers were of the great Bishàree tribe, which extends from Shendy, in Ethiopia, through the eastern portion of the Nubian Desert, to the frontiers of Egypt. They owned the burden camels, which they urged along with the cry of “Yo-ho! Shekh Abd-el Kader!” and a shrill barbaric song, the refrain of which was: “O Prophet of God, help the camels and bring us safely to our journey’s end!” They were very susceptible to cold, and a temperature of 50°, which we frequently had in the morning, made them tremble like aspen leaves, and they were sometimes so benumbed that they could scarcely load the camels. They were proud of their enormous heads of hair, which they wore parted on both temples, the middle portion being drawn into an upright mass, six inches in height, while the side divisions hung over the ears in a multitude of little twists. These love-locks they anointed every morning with suet, and looked as if they had slept in a hard frost, until the heat had melted the fat. I thought to flatter one of them as he performed the operation, by exclaiming “Beautiful!”—but he answered coolly: “You speak truth: it is very beautiful.” Through the central mass of hair a wooden skewer was stuck, in order to scratch the head without disturbing the arrangement. They wore long swords, carried in a leathern scabbard over the left shoulder, and sometimes favored us with a war-dance, which consisted merely in springing into the air with a brandished sword and turning around once before coming down. Their names were El Emeem, Hossayn and Ali. We called the latter Shekh Ali, on account of his hair. He wore nothing but a ragged cotton clout, yet owned two camels, had a tent in the Desert, and gave Achmet a bag of dollars to carry for him. I gave to El Emeem, on account of his shrill voice, the nickname of Wiz (wild goose), by which he was thenceforth called. They were all very devout, retiring a short distance from the road to say their prayers, at the usual hours and performing the prescribed ablutions with sand, instead of water.
On the second morning we passed through a gorge in the black hills, and entered a region called El Biban, or “The Grates.” Here the mountains, though still grouped in the same disorder, were more open and gave room to plains of sand several miles in length. The narrow openings, through which the road passes from one plain to another, gave rise to the name. The mountains are higher than on the Nile, and present the most wonderful configurations—towers, fortresses, walls, pyramids, temples in ruin, of an inky blackness near at hand, but tinged of a deep, glowing violet hue in the distance. Towards noon I saw a mirage—a lake in which the broken peaks were reflected with great distinctness. One of the Nubians who was with us, pointed out a spot where he was obliged to climb the rocks, the previous summer, to avoid being drowned. During the heavy tropical rains which sometimes fall here, the hundreds of pyramidal hills pour down such floods that the sand cannot immediately drink them up, and the valleys are turned into lakes. The man described the roaring of the waters, down the clefts of the rocks, as something terrible. In summer the passage of the Desert is much more arduous than in winter, and many men and camels perish. The road was strewn with bones and carcasses, and I frequently counted twenty dead camels within a stone’s throw. The stone-heaps which are seen on all the spurs of the hills, as landmarks for caravans, have become useless, since one could find his way by the bones in the sand. My guide, who was a great believer in afrites and devils, said that formerly many persons lost the way and perished from thirst, all of which was the work of evil spirits.
My next camp was in the midst of a high circular plain, surrounded by hundreds of black peaks. Here I had an unexpected visit. I was sitting in my tent, about eight o’clock, when I heard the tramp of dromedaries outside, and a strange voice saying: ana wahed Ingleez (I am an Englishman). It proved to be Capt. Peel, of the British Navy, (son of the late Sir Robert Peel), who was returning from a journey to Khartoum and Kordofan. He was attended by a single guide, and carried only a water-skin and a basket of bread. He had travelled nearly day and night since leaving Berber, and would finish the journey from that place to Korosko—a distance of four hundred miles—in seven days. He spent an hour with me, and then pushed onward through “The Gates” towards the Nile. It had been his intention to penetrate into Dar-Fūr, a country yet unvisited by any European, but on reaching Obeid, the Capital of Kordofan, his companion, a Syrian Arab, fell sick, and he was himself attacked with the ague. This decided him to return, and he had left his baggage and servants to follow, and was making for England with all speed. He was provided with all the necessary instruments to make his travel useful in a scientific point of view, and the failure of his plans is much to be regretted. I was afterwards informed by M. Linant that he met Capt. Peel on the following day, and supplied him with water enough to reach the Nile.