CHAPTER XX.
FROM SHENDY TO KHARTOUM.
Arrival at Shendy—Appearance of the Town—Shendy in Former Days—We Touch at El Metemma—The Nile beyond Shendy—Flesh Diet vs. Vegetables—We Escape Shipwreck—A Walk on Shore—The Rapids of Derreira—Djebel Gerri—The Twelfth Cataract—Night in the Mountain Gorge—Crocodiles—A Drink of Mareesa—My Birth-Day—Fair Wind—Approach to Khartoum—The Junction of the Two Niles—Appearance of the City—We Drop Anchor.
The morning after visiting the ruins of Meroë I reached the old Ethiopian town of Shendy. It lies about half a mile from the river, but the massive fort and palace of the Governor are built on the water’s edge. Several spreading sycamore trees gave a grace to the shore, which would otherwise have been dull and tame. Naked Ethiopians were fishing or washing their clothes in the water, and some of them, as they held their long, scarlet-edged mantles above their heads, to dry in the wind and sun, showed fine, muscular figures. The women had hideous faces, but symmetrical and well developed forms. A group of Egyptian soldiers watched us from the bank before the palace, and several personages on horseback, one of whom appeared to be the Governor himself, were hailing the ferry boat, which was just about putting off with a heavy load of natives.
We ran the boat to the shore, at a landing-place just above the palace. The banks of the river were covered with fields of cucumbers and beans, the latter brilliant with white and purple blossoms and filled with the murmuring sound of bees. Achmet, the raïs and I walked up to the capital—the famous Shendy, once the great mart of trade for the regions between the Red Sea and Dar-Fūr. On the way we met numbers of women with water-jars. They wore no veils, but certainly needed them, for their faces were of a broad, semi-negro character, and repulsively plain. The town is built in a straggling manner, along a low, sandy ridge, and is upwards of a mile in length, though it probably does not contain more than ten thousand inhabitants. The houses are mud, of course, but rough and filthy, and many of them are the same circular tokuls of mats and palm-sticks as I had already noticed in the smaller villages. The only decent dwelling which I saw had been just erected by a Dongolese merchant. There was a mosque, with a low mud minaret, but neither in this nor in any other respect did the place compare with El Mekheyref. The bazaar resembled a stable, having a passage through the centre, shaded with mats, and stalls on either side, some of which contained donkeys and others merchants. The goods displayed were principally blue and white cotton stuffs of coarse quality, beads, trinkets and the like. It was market-day, but the people had not yet assembled. A few screens of matting, erected on sticks, were the only preparations which had been made. The whole appearance of the place was that of poverty and desertion. Beyond the clusters of huts, and a mud wall, which ran along the eastern side of the town, the Desert extended to the horizon—a hot, white plain, dotted with clumps of thorns. On our return to the boat, the raïs pointed out the spot where, in 1822, Ismaïl Pasha and his soldiers were burned to death by Mek Nemr (King Leopard), the last monarch of Shendy. The bloody revenge taken by Mohammed Bey Defterdar (son-in-law of Mohammed Ali), for that act, sealed the fate of the kingdom. The seat of the Egyptian government in Soudân was fixed at Khartoum, which in a few years became also the centre of trade, and now flourishes at the expense of Shendy and El Metemma.
Burckhardt, who visited Shendy during the reign of King Leopard, devotes much space to a description of the trade of the town at that time. It was then in the height of its prosperity, and the resort of merchants from Arabia, Abyssinia, Egypt, and even Syria and Asia Minor. It was also one of the chief slave-marts of Central Africa, in which respect it has since been superseded by Obeid, in Kordofan. The only commerce which has been left to Shendy is that with Djidda and the other Arabian ports, by way of Sowakin, on the Red Sea—a caravan journey of fourteen days, through the country of Takka, infested by the wild tribes of the Hallengas and Hadendoas. Mek Nemr, according to Burckhardt, was of the Djaaleyn tribe, who are descendants of the Beni Koreish, of Yemen, and still retain the pure Arabian features. I was afterwards, during my stay in Khartoum, enabled to verify the declaration of the same traveller, that all the tribes of Ethiopia between the Nile and the Red Sea are of unmixed Arab stock.
The palace of the Governor, which was a building of considerable extent, had heavy circular bastions, which were defended by cannon. Its position, on the bank of the Nile, was much more agreeable than that of the city, and the garrison had settled around it, forming a small village on its eastern side. The white walls and latticed windows of the palace reminded me of Cairo, and I anticipated a pleasant residence within its walls, on my return to Shendy. As I wished to reach Khartoum as soon as possible I did not call upon the Governor, but sent him the letter of recommendation from Yagheshir Bey. From Shendy, one sees the group of palms which serves as a landmark to El Metemma, the capital of a former Ethiopian Kingdom, further up the Nile, on its opposite bank. This is the starting point for caravans to Merawe and Dongola through the Beyooda Desert. We passed its port about noon, and stopped a few minutes to let the raïs pay his compliments to the owner of our vessel, who was on shore. He was a little old man, with a long staff, and dressed like the meanest Arab, although he was shekh of half a dozen villages, and had a servant leading a fine Dongolese horse behind him. The boat of Khalim Bey, agent of the Governor of Berber and Shendy, was at the landing place, and we saw the Bey, a tall, handsome Turk in a rich blue and crimson dress, who sent a servant to ask my name and character.
The scenery of the Nile, southward from Shendy, is again changed. The tropical rains which fall occasionally at Abou-Hammed and scantily at Berber, are here periodical, and there is no longer the same striking contrast between desert and garden land. The plains extending inward from the river are covered with a growth of bushes and coarse grass, which also appears in patches on the sides of the mountains. The inhabitants cultivate but a narrow strip of beans and dourra along the river, but own immense flocks of sheep and goats, which afford their principal sustenance. I noticed many fields of the grain called dookhn, of which they plant a larger quantity than of dourra. Mutton, however, is the Ethiopian’s greatest delicacy. Notwithstanding this is one of the warmest climates in the world, the people eat meat whenever they can get it, and greatly prefer it to vegetable food. The sailors and camel-drivers, whose principal food is dourra, are, notwithstanding a certain quality of endurance, as weak as children, when compared with an able-bodied European, and they universally attribute this weakness to their diet. This is a fact for the lank vegetarians to explain. My experience coincided with that of the Ethiopians, and I ascribed no small share of my personal health and strength, which the violent alternations of heat and cold during the journey had not shaken in the least, to the fact of my having fared sumptuously every day.
After leaving Shendy, the Nile makes a bend to the west, and we went along slowly all the afternoon, with a side-wind. The shores were not so highly cultivated as those we had passed, and low hills of yellow sand began to show themselves on either hand. The villages were groups of mud tokuls, with high, conical roofs, and the negro type of face appeared much more frequently among the inhabitants—the result of amalgamation with slaves. We saw numbers of young crocodiles which my sailors delighted to frighten by shouting and throwing sticks at them, as they sunned themselves on the sand. Wild geese and ducks were abundant, and the quiet little coves along the shore were filled with their young brood. During the day a large hawk or vulture dashed down to within a yard of the deck in the attempt to snatch a piece of my black ram, which Beshir had just killed.
The next morning we had a narrow escape from shipwreck. The wind blew strong from the north, as we reached a twist in the river, where our course for several miles lay to the north-west, obliging the men to take in sail and tow the vessel. They had reached the turning-point and the sail was blowing loose, while two sailors lay out on the long, limber yard, trying to reef, when a violent gust pulled the rope out of the hands of the man on shore, and we were carried into the stream. The steersman put the helm hard up, and made for the point of an island which lay opposite, but the current was so strong that we could not reach it. It blew a gale, and the Nile was rough with waves. Between the island and the southern shore lay a cluster of sharp, black rocks, and for a few minutes we appeared to be driving directly upon them. The raïs and sailors, with many cries of “O Prophet! O Apostle!” gave themselves up to their fate; but the strength of the current saved us. Our bow just grazed the edge of the last rock, and we were blown across to the opposite shore, where we struck hard upon the sand and were obliged to remain two hours, until the wind abated. I was vexed and impatient at first, but remembering the effect of a pipe upon a similar occasion, I took one, and soon became calm enough to exclaim: “it is the will of Allah!”
While the boat was making such slow headway, I went ashore and walked an hour or two among the fields of beans and dourra. The plains for several miles inland were covered with dry grass and thorn-trees, and only needed irrigation to bloom as a garden. The sun was warm, the bean-fields alive with bees, and the wind took a rich summer fragrance from the white and purple blossoms. Near one of the huts, I accosted a woman who was weeding among the dourra. She told me that her husband had deserted her and taken another wife, leaving her the charge of their two children. He had also taken her three cows and given them to his new wife, so that her only means of support was to gather the dry grass and sell it in the villages. I gave her a few piastres, which she received gratefully. In the afternoon we passed the main bend of the river, and were able to make use of the wind, which by this time was light. The sailor who had been left ashore during the gale overtook us, by walking a distance of eight or ten miles and swimming one of the smaller arms of the river. The western bank of the river now became broken and hilly, occasionally overhung by bluffs of gravelly soil, of a dark red color. On the top of one of the hills there was a wall, which the raïs pointed out to me as kadeem (ancient), but it appeared too dilapidated to repay the trouble of a visit.