We halted for the night near the village of Gerrari. I slept but indifferently, with the heavy head and gloomy spirits I had brought from Khartoum; but the free life of my tent did not fail of its usual effect, and I rose the next morning fresh, strong, and courageous. We were obliged to travel slowly, on account of the nature of the road, which, for the greater part of the distance to El Metemma, lay in the Desert, just beyond the edge of the cultivated land. For the first day or two, we rode over dry, stony plains, covered with thickets of the small thorny mimosa and patches of long yellow grass. The country is crossed by deep gullies, through which the streams formed by the summer rains flow to the Nile. Their banks are lined with a thick growth of sont, nebbuk, and other trees peculiar to Central Africa, in which many lions make their lairs and prey upon the flocks of the Arabs. One bold, fierce fellow had established himself on the island of Musakar Bey, just below the junction of the Nile, and carried off nightly a sheep or calf, defying the attempts of the natives to take him. Our view was confined to the thorns, on whose branches we left many shreds of clothing as mementoes of the journey, and to the barren range of Djebel Gerrari, stretching westward into the Desert. Occasionally, however, in crossing the low spurs which ran out from this chain, the valley of the Nile—the one united Nile again—lay before us, far to the east and north-east, the river glistening in the sun as he spread his arms round island after island, till his lap could hold no more. The soil is a poor, coarse gravel, and the inhabitants support themselves by their herds of sheep and goats, which browse on the thorns. In places there are large thickets of the usher, or euphorbia, twenty feet high. It grows about the huts of the natives, who make no attempt to exterminate it, notwithstanding the poisonous nature of its juice. Every mile or two we passed a large Arab burying-ground, crowded with rough head and foot-stones, except where white pennons, fluttering on poles, denoted a more than ordinary sanctity in the deceased. The tomb of the Shekh, or holy man of Merreh, was a conical structure of stones and clay, about fifteen feet in breadth at the base, and twenty feet high. The graves are so numerous and the dwellings so few, that one has the impression of travelling in a country depopulated by the pestilence; yet we met many persons on the road—partly Kababish, and partly natives of Dongola and Màhass. The men touched their lips and foreheads on passing me, and the women greeted me with that peculiar “hab-bab-ba!” which seems to be the universal expression of salutation among the various tribes of Central Africa.
My guide, Mohammed, was a Kababish, and the vainest and silliest Arab I ever knew. He wore his hair in long braids, extending from the forehead and temples to the nape of the neck, and kept in their places by a layer of mutton-fat, half an inch thick, which filled up the intervening spaces. His hollow cheeks, deep-sunken eyes, thin and wiry beard, and the long spear he carried in his hand made him a fair representative of Don Quixote, and the resemblance was not diminished by the gaunt and ungainly camel on which he jogged along at the head of my caravan. He was very devout, praying for quite an unreasonable length of time before and after meals, and always had a large patch of sand on his forehead, from striking it on the ground, as he knelt towards Mecca. Both his arms, above the elbows, were covered with rings of hippopotamus hide, to which were attached square leathern cases, containing sentences of the Koran, as charms to keep away sickness and evil spirits. The other man, Saïd, was a Shygheean, willing and good-natured enough, but slow and regardless of truth, as all Arabs are. Indeed, the best definition of an Arab which I can give, is—a philosophizing sinner. His fatalism gives him a calm and equable temperament under all circumstances, and “God wills it!” or “God is merciful!” is the solace for every misfortune. But this same carelessness to the usual accidents of life extends also to his speech and his dealings with other men. I will not say that an Arab never speaks truth: on the contrary, he always does, if he happens to remember it, and there is no object to be gained by suppressing it; but rather than trouble himself to answer correctly a question which requires some thought, he tells you whatever comes uppermost in his mind, though certain to be detected the next minute. He is like a salesman, who, if he does not happen to have the article you want, offers you something else, rather than let you go away empty-handed. In regard to his dealings, what Sir Gardner Wilkinson says of Egypt, that “nobody parts with money without an effort to defraud,” is equally true of Nubia and Soudân. The people do not steal outright; but they have a thousand ways of doing it in an indirect and civilized manner, and they are perfect masters of all those petty arts of fraud which thrive so greenly in the great commercial cities of Christendom. With these slight drawbacks, there is much to like in the Arabs, and they are certainly the most patient, assiduous and good-humored people in the world. If they fail in cheating you, they respect you the more, and they are so attentive to you, so ready to take their mood from yours—to laugh when you are cheerful, and be silent when you are grave—so light-hearted in the performance of severe duties, that if you commence your acquaintance by despising, you finish by cordially liking them.
On a journey like that which I was then commencing, it is absolutely necessary to preserve a good understanding with your men and beasts; otherwise travel will be a task, and a severe one, instead of a recreation. After my men had vainly tried a number of expedients, to get the upper hand of me, I drilled them into absolute obedience, and found their character much improved thereby. With my dromedary, whom I called Abou-Sin, (the Father of Teeth), from the great shekh of the Shukoree Arabs, to whom he originally belonged, I was soon on good terms. He was a beast of excellent temper, with a spice of humor in his composition, and a fondness for playing practical jokes. But as I always paid them back, neither party could complain, though Abou-Sin sometimes gurgled out of his long throat a string of Arabic gutturals, in remonstrance. He came up to my tent and knelt at precisely the same hour every evening, to get his feed of dourra, and when I was at breakfast always held his lips pursed up, ready to take the pieces of bread I gave him. My men, whom I agreed to provide with food during the journey, were regaled every day with mutton and mareesa, the two only really good things to be found in Soudân. A fat sheep cost 8 piastres (40 cents), and we killed one every three days. The meat was of excellent flavor. Mareesa is made of the coarse grain called dourra, which is pounded into flour by hand, mixed with water, and heated over a fire in order to produce speedy fermentation. It is always drunk the day after being made, as it turns sour on the third day. It is a little stronger than small beer, and has a taste similar to wheat bran, unpleasant on the first trial and highly palatable on the second. A jar holding two gallons costs one piastre, and as few families, however poor, are without it, we always found plenty of it for sale in the villages. It is nutritious, promotive of digestion, and my experience went to prove that it was not only a harmless but most wholesome drink in that stifling climate. Om bilbil, the mother of nightingales, which is made from wheat, is stronger, and has a pungent flavor. The people in general are remarkably temperate, but sailors and camel-men are often not content without arakee, a sort of weak brandy made from dates. I have heard this song sung so often that I cannot choose but recollect the words. It is in the Arabic jargon of Soudân:
“El-toombak sheràboo dowaïa,
Oo el karafeen ed dowa il ’es-sufaïa,
Oo el àrakee legheetoo monnaïa,
Om bilbil bukkoosoo burraïa.”
[Tobacco I smoke in the pipe; and mareesa is a medicine to the sufaïa; (i. e. the bag of palm fibres through which it is strained), but arakee makes me perfectly contented, and then I will not even look at bilbil].
The third day after leaving Khartoum, I reached the mountains of Gerri, through which the Nile breaks his way in a narrow pass. Here I hailed as an old acquaintance the island-hill of Rowyàn (the watered, or unthirsty). This is truly a magnificent peak, notwithstanding its height is not more than seven hundred feet. Neither is Soracte high, yet it produces a striking effect, even with the loftier Apennines behind it. The Rowyàn is somewhat similar to Soracte in form. There are a few trees on the top, which shows that there must be a deposit of soil above its barren ramparts, and were I a merchant of Khartoum I should build a summer residence there, and by means of hydraulics create a grove and garden around it. The akaba, or desert pass, which we were obliged to take in order to reach the river again, is six hours in length, through a wild, stony tract, covered with immense boulders of granite, hurled and heaped together in the same chaotic manner as is exhibited in the rocks between Assouan and Philæ. After passing the range, a wide plain again opened before us, the course of the Nile marked in its centre by the darker hue of the nebbuks and sycamores, rising above the long gray belts of thorn-trees. The mountains which inclose the fallen temples of Mesowuràt and Naga appeared far to the east. The banks of the river here are better cultivated than further up the stream. The wheat, which was just sprouting, during my upward journey, was now two feet high, and rolled before the wind in waves of dark, intense, burning green. The brilliancy of color in these mid-African landscapes is truly astonishing.
The north-wind, which blew the sand furiously in our faces during the first three days of the journey, ceased at this point and the weather became once more intensely hot. The first two or three hours of the morning were, nevertheless, delicious. The temperature was mild, and there was a June-like breeze which bore far and wide the delicate odor of the mimosa blossoms. The trees were large and thick, as on the White Nile, forming long, orchard-like belts between the grain-fields and the thorny clumps of the Desert. The flocks of black goats which the natives breed, were scattered among these trees, and numbers of the animals stood perfectly upright on their hind legs, as they nibbled off the ends of the higher branches.