On the following day, the scenery became remarkably wild and picturesque. After passing the village of Derreira, on the right bank, the Nile was studded with islands of various sizes, rising like hillocks from the water, and all covered with the most luxuriant vegetation. The mimosa, the acacia, the palm, the sycamore and the nebbuk flourished together in rank growth, with a profusion of smaller shrubs, and all were matted together with wild green creepers, which dropped their long streamers of pink and purple blossoms into the water. Reefs of black rock, over which the waves foamed impetuously, made the navigation intricate and dangerous. The banks of the river were high and steep, and covered with bushes and rank grass, above which the rustling blades of the dourra glittered in the sun. The country was thickly populated, and the inhabitants were mostly of the Shygheean tribe—from Dar Shygheea, the region between Dongola and Berber. The sakias were tended by Dinka slaves, as black as ebony, and with coarse, brutish faces. At one point on the eastern shore, opposite the island of Bendi, the natives had collected all their live stock, but for what purpose I could not learn. The shore was covered with hundreds of camels, donkeys, sheep, cows and goats, carefully kept in separate herds.
After threading ten miles of those island bowers, we approached Djebel Gerri, which we had seen all day, ahead of us. The Nile, instead of turning westward around the flank of the mountain, as I had anticipated from the features of the landscape, made a sudden bend to the south, between a thick cluster of islands, and entered the hills. At this point there was a rapid, extending half-way across the river. The natives call it a shellàl (cataract), although it deserves the name no more than the cataracts of Assouan and Wadi-Halfa. Adopting the term, however, which has been sanctioned by long usage, this is the Twelfth Cataract of the Nile, and the last one which the traveller meets before reaching the mountains of Abyssinia. The stream is very narrow, compressed between high hills of naked red sandstone rock. At sunset we were completely shut in the savage solitude, and there we seemed likely to remain, for the wind came from all quarters by turns, and jammed the vessel against the rocks more than once.
The narrow terraces of soil on the sides of the mountains were covered with dense beds of long, dry grass, and as we lay moored to the rocks, I climbed up to one of these, in spite of the raïs’s warnings that I should fall in with lions and serpents. I lay down in the warm grass, and watched the shadows deepen in the black gorge, as the twilight died away. The zikzak or crocodile-bird twittered along the shore, and, after it became quite dark, the stillness was occasionally broken by the snort of a hippopotamus, as he thrust his huge head above water, or by the yell of a hyena prowling among the hills. Talk of the pleasure of reading a traveller’s adventures in strange lands! There is no pleasure equal to that of living them: neither the anticipation nor the memory of such a scene as I witnessed that evening, can approach the fascination of the reality. I was awakened after midnight by the motion of the vessel, and looking out of my shelter as I lay, could see that we were slowly gliding through the foldings of the stony mountains. The moon rode high and bright, over the top of a peak in front, and the sound of my prow, as it occasionally grated against the rocks, alone disturbed the stillness of the wild pass. Once the wind fell, and the men were obliged to make fast to a rock, but before morning we had emerged from the mountains and were moored to the bank, to await daylight for the passage of the last rapid.
In the mouth of the pass lies an island, which rises into a remarkable conical peak, about seven hundred feet in height. It is called the Rowyàn (thirst assuaged), while a lofty summit of the range of Gerri bears the name of Djebel Attshàn (the Mountain of Thirst). The latter stands on a basis of arid sand, whence its name, but the Rowyàn is encircled by the arms of the Nile. In the Wady Beit-Naga, some three or four hours’ journey eastward from the river, are the ruined temples of Naga and Mesowuràt, described by Hoskins. The date of their erection has been ascertained by Lepsius to be coeval with that of Meroë. We here saw many crocodiles, basking on the warm sand-banks. One group of five were enormous monsters, three of them being at least fifteen, and the other two twenty feet in length. They lazily dragged their long bodies into the water as we approached, but returned after we had passed. The zikzaks were hopping familiarly about them, on the sand, and I have no doubt that they do service to the crocodiles in the manner related by the Arabs.
The river was still studded with islands—some mere fragments of rock covered with bushes, and some large level tracts, flourishing with rich fields of cotton and dourra. About noon, we passed a village on the eastern bank, and I sent Ali and Beshir ashore to procure supplies, for my ram was finished. Ali found only one fowl, which the people did not wish to sell, but, Turk-like, he took it forcibly and gave them the usual price. Beshir found some mareesa, a fermented drink made of dourra, and for two piastres procured two jars of it, holding two gallons each, which were brought down to the boat by a pair of sturdy Dinka women, whose beauty was almost a match for Bakhita. The mareesa had an agreeable flavor and very little intoxicating property. I noticed, however, that after Beshir had drunk nearly a gallon, he sang and danced rather more than usual, and had much to say of a sweetheart of his, who lived in El-Metemma, and who bore the charming name of Gammerò-Betahadjerò. Bakhita, after drinking an equal portion, complained to me bitterly of my white sheep, which had nibbed off the ends of the woolly twists adorning her head, but I comforted her by the present of half a piastre, for the purpose of buying mutton-fat.
As the wind fell, at sunset, we reached a long slope of snowy sand, on the island of Aūssee. Achmet went to the huts of the inhabitants, where he was kindly received and furnished with milk. I walked for an hour up and down the beautiful beach, breathing the mild, cool evening air, heavy with delicious odors. The glassy Nile beside me reflected the last orange-red hues of sunset, and the evening star, burning with a white, sparry lustre, made a long track of light across his breast. I remembered that it was my birth-day—the fourth time I had spent my natal anniversary in a foreign land. The first had been in Germany, the second in Italy, the third in Mexico, and now the last, in the wild heart of Africa. They were all pleasant, but this was the best of all.
When I returned to the vessel, I found my carpet and cushions spread on the sand, and Ali waiting with my pipe. The evening entertainment commenced: I was listening to an Arabian tale, and watching the figures of the boatmen, grouped around a fire they had kindled in a field of dookhn, when the wind came up with a sudden gust and blew out the folds of my idle flag. Instantly the sand was kicked over the brands, the carpet taken up, all hands called on board, and we dashed away on the dark river with light hearts. I rose before sunrise the next morning, and found the wind unchanged. We were sailing between low shores covered with grain-fields, and a sandy island lay in front. The raïs no sooner saw me than he called my attention to the tops of some palm-trees that appeared on the horizon, probably six or eight miles distant. They grew in the gardens of Khartoum! We reached the point of the broad, level island that divides the waters of the two Niles, and could soon distinguish the single minaret and buildings of the city. A boat, coming down from the White Nile, passed us on the right, and another, bound for Khartoum, led us up the Blue Nile. The proper division between the two rivers is the point of land upon which Khartoum is built, but the channel separating it from the island opposite is very narrow, and the streams do not fully meet and mingle their waters till the island is passed.
The city presented a picturesque—and to my eyes, accustomed to the mud huts of the Ethiopian villages—a really stately appearance, as we drew near. The line of buildings extended for more than a mile along the river, and many of the houses were embowered in gardens of palm, acacia, orange and tamarind trees. The Palace of the Pasha had a certain appearance of dignity, though its walls were only unburnt brick, and his hareem, a white, two-story building, looked cool and elegant amid the palms that shaded it. Egyptian soldiers, in their awkward, half-Frank costume, were lounging on the bank before the Palace, and slaves of inky blackness, resplendent in white and red livery, were departing on donkeys on their various errands. The slope of the bank was broken at short intervals by water-mills, and files of men with skins, and women with huge earthen jars on their heads, passed up and down between the water’s edge and the openings of the narrow lanes leading between the gardens into the city. The boat of the Governor of Berber, rowed by twelve black slaves, put off from shore, and moved slowly down stream, against the north wind, as we drew up and moored the America below the garden of the Catholic Mission. It was the twelfth of January; I had made the journey from Assouan to Khartoum in twenty-six days, and from Cairo in fifty-seven.