CHAPTER XV.
THE ETHIOPIAN FRONTIER.
A Draught of Water—Abou-Hammed—The Island of Mokràt—Ethiopian Scenery—The People—An Ababdeh Apollo—Encampment on the Nile—Tomb of an Englishman—Eesa’s Wedding—A White Arab—The Last Day of the Year—Abou-Hashym—Incidents—Loss of my Thermometer—The Valley of Wild Asses—The Eleventh Cataract—Approach to Berber—Vultures—Eyoub Outwitted—We reach El Mekheyref—The Caravan Broken up.
Achmet and I began to feel thirst, so we hurried on in advance, to the mud hamlet of Abou-Hammed. We dismounted on the bank of the river, where we were received by a dark Ababdeh, who was officiating in place of the Governor, and invited me to take possession of the latter’s house. Achmet gave him a large wooden bowl and told him to fill it from the Nile, and we would talk to him afterwards. I shall never forget the luxury of that long, deep draught. My body absorbed the water as rapidly as the hot sand of the Desert, and I drank at least a quart without feeling satisfied. I preferred my tent to the Governor’s house, and had it pitched where I could look out on the river and the palms. Abou-Hammed is a miserable village, inhabited by a few hundred Ababdehs and Bishàrees; the Desert here extended to the water’s edge, while the opposite banks were as green as emerald. There was a large mud fortress, with round bastions at the corners, to the west of the village. It formerly belonged to an Ababdeh Shekh, but was then deserted.
The Tent-Door, at Abou-Hammed.
In the afternoon I crossed to the island of Mokràt, which lies opposite. The vessel was a sort of a canoe, made of pieces of the doum-palm, tied together with ropes and plastered with mud. My oarsmen were two boys of fifteen, half-naked fellows with long, wild hair, yet very strong and symmetrical limbs and handsome features. I landed in the shade of the palms, and walked for half an hour along the shore, through patches of dourra and cotton, watered by the creaking mills. The whole island, which is upwards of twenty miles long, is level and might be made productive, but the natives only cultivate a narrow strip along the water. The trees were doum and date palm and acacia, and I saw in the distance others of a rich, dark green, which appeared to be sycamore. The hippopotamus is found here, and the boatmen showed me the enormous tracks of three, which had made havoc among their bean-patches the day before. As I was returning to the boat I met three natives, tall, strong, stately men. I greeted them with “Peace be with you!” and they answered “Peace be with you,” at the same time offering their hands. We talked for some time in broken Arabic, and I have rarely seen such good-will expressed in savage features. In fact, all the faces I now saw were of a superior stamp to that of the Egyptians. They expressed not only more strength and independence, but more kindness and gentleness.
I procured a lean sheep for eight piastres, and after Achmet had chosen the best parts for my dinner, I gave the remainder to Eyoub and the Bishàrees. The camels were driven down to the river, but only three drank out of the six. I took my seat in the shade of the tent, and looked at the broad blue current of the Nile for hours, without being wearied of the scene. Groups of tall Bishàrees stood at a respectable distance, gazing upon me, for a Frank traveller was no common sight. In the evening I attempted to reduce my desert temperature by a bath in the river, but I had become so sensitive to cold that the water made me shudder in every nerve, and it required a double portion of pipes and coffee to restore my natural warmth.
I left Abou-Hammed at noon the next day, having been detained by some government tax on camels, which my Bishàrees were called upon to pay. Our road followed the river, occasionally taking to the Desert for a short distance, to cut off a bend, but never losing sight of the dark clumps of palms and the vivid coloring of the grain on the western bank. The scenery bore a very different stamp from that of Egypt. The colors were darker, richer and stronger, the light more intense and glowing, and all forms of vegetable and animal life penetrated with a more full and impassioned expression of life. The green of the fields actually seemed to throb under the fiery gush of sunshine, and the palm-leaves to thrill and tremble in the hot blue air. The people were glorious barbarians—large, tall, full-limbed, with open, warm, intelligent faces and lustrous black eyes. They dress with more neatness than the Egyptian Fellahs, and their long hair, though profusely smeared with suet, is arranged with some taste and clothes their heads better than the dirty cotton skull-cap. Among those I saw at Abou-Hammed were two youths of about seventeen, who were wonderfully beautiful. One of them played a sort of coarse reed flute, and the other a rude stringed instrument, which he called a tambour. He was a superb fellow, with the purest straight Egyptian features, and large, brilliant, melting black eyes. Every posture of his body expressed a grace the most striking because it was wholly unstudied. I have never seen human forms superior to these two. The first, whom I named the Apollo Ababdese, joined my caravan, for the journey to Berber. He carried with him all his wealth—a flute, a sword, and a heavy shield of hippopotamus hide. His features were as perfectly regular as the Greek, but softer and rounder in outline. His limbs were without a fault, and the light poise of his head on the slender neck, the fine play of his shoulder-blades and the muscles of his back, as he walked before me, wearing only a narrow cloth around his loins, would have charmed a sculptor’s eye. He walked among my camel-drivers as Apollo might have walked among the other shepherds of King Admetus. Like the god, his implement was the flute; he was a wandering minstrel, and earned his livelihood by playing at the festivals of the Ababdehs. His name was Eesa, the Arabic for Jesus. I should have been willing to take several shades of his complexion if I could have had with them his perfect ripeness, roundness and symmetry of body and limb. He told me that he smoked no tobacco and drank no arakee, but only water and milk—a true offshoot of the golden age!
Abebdeh Flute and Tambour Players.