Entering the Desert—Character of the Scenery—Wells—Fear of the Arabs—The Laloom Tree—Effect of the Hot Wind—Mohammed overtakes us—Arab Endurance—An unpleasant Bedfellow—Comedy of the Crows—Gazelles—We encounter a Sand-storm—The Mountain of Thirst—The Wells of Djeekdud—A Mountain Pass—Desert Intoxication—Scenery of the Table-land—Bir Khannik—The Kababish Arabs—Gazelles again—Ruins of an Ancient Coptic Monastery—Distant View of the Nile Valley—Djebel Berkel—We come into Port.
“He sees the red sirocco wheeling
Its sandy columns o’er the waste,
And streams through palmy valleys stealing,
Where the plumed ostrich speeds in haste.”—Freiligrath.
We left El Metemma at noon, on the tenth of February. Crossing the low ridge of red sand, at the foot of which the town is built, the wind came fresh to meet us, across the long, level savanna of yellow grass and shrubs which stretched away to the west and north, without a bound. The prospect was exhilarating, after the continual hem of thorns, which had lined our road from Khartoum. It was a great relief to turn the eye from the bare, scorching mud walls of the town, to the freshness and freedom of the Desert. I took a last look at the wheat-fields of the Nile, and then turned my face northward, towards the point where I expected to meet his current again. The plain was very level, and the road excellent for our camels. In places where there was a slight depression of the soil, a long, slender species of grass grew in thick tufts, affording nourishment to the herds of the wandering Arab tribes. There were also narrow belts of white thorn and a curious shrub, with leaves resembling the jasmine. In two hours we reached a well, where some Kababish were drawing water for their goats and asses. It was about twenty feet deep, and the water was drawn in skins let down with ropes. We kept on until sunset, when we encamped in an open, gravelly space, surrounded with patches of grass, on which the camels browsed. The hot weather of the past two or three days had called into life a multitude of winged and creeping insects, and they assailed me on all sides.
The next morning, after travelling more than two hours over the plain, we reached a series of low hills, or rather swells of the Desert, covered with black gravel and fragments of porphyritic rock. They appeared to be outlying spurs of a mountain range which we saw to the north-west. From the highest of them we saw before us a long, shallow valley, opening far to the north-east. It was thickly covered with tufts of yellowish-green grass, sprinkled with trees of various kinds. The merchant pointed out a grove in the distance as the location of Bir Abou-leer, the first well on the road. His sharp eye discerned a company of Arabs, who were encamped near it, and who, seeing Achmet and myself in our Turkish dresses, were preparing to fly. He urged his dromedary into a fast trot and rode ahead to reassure them. They were a tall, wild-looking people, very scantily dressed; the men had long black hair, moustaches and beards, and carried spears in their hands. They looked at us with suspicion, but did not refuse the customary “hab-bab-ba!” The wells were merely pits, not more than four or five feet deep, dug in the clayey soil, and containing at the bottom a constant supply of cool, sweet water. We watered our camels in basins scooped for that purpose in the earth, and then took breakfast under the thorns. Among the trees in the wady was one resembling the nebbuk in foliage, and with a fruit similar in appearance, but larger and of different flavor. The Arabs called it laloom, and gathered some of the fruit for me to taste. It has a thin, brittle outer rind, containing a hard stone, covered with a layer of gummy paste, most intensely sweet and bitter in the mouth. It has precisely the flavor of the medicine known to children as Hive Syrup.
We resumed our course along the wady, nearly to its termination at the foot of the mountains, when the road turned to the right over another succession of hard, gravelly ridges, flanked on the west by hills of coal-black porphyry. During the afternoon the wind was sometimes as hot as a furnace-blast, and I felt my very blood drying up in its intensity. I had no means of ascertaining the temperature, but it could not have been less than 105°. Nevertheless, the sky was so clear and blue, the sunshine so perfect, and the Desert so inspiring that I was in the most exulting mood. In fact, the powerful dry heat of the air produced upon me a bracing effect, similar to that of sharp cold. It gave me a sensation of fierce, savage vigor, and I longed for an Arab lance and the fleet hoofs of the red stallion I had left in Khartoum. At times the burning blasts were flavored with a strong aromatic odor, like that of dried lavender, which was as stimulating to the lungs as herb-tea to the stomach. Our provisions soon felt the effects of this continual dry heat. Dates became as pebbles of jasper, and when I asked my servant for bread, he gave me a stone.
As we were journeying along over the plain, we spied a man on a camel trotting behind us, and in half an hour, lo! Mohammed the guide. The old scamp came up with a younger brother behind him, whom he had brought without asking permission, and without bringing food for him. This made eight persons I was obliged to feed, and as our bread and meat were only calculated for six, I put them on allowance. Mohammed had his hair newly plaited and covered with a layer of mutton-fat, a quarter of an inch thick. I saw very little of the vaunted temperance of the Arabs. True, they will live on dates—when they can get nothing else; and they will go without water for a day—when they have none. I found a quart of water daily amply sufficient for my own needs, notwithstanding the great heat we endured; but I do not think one of the men drank less than a gallon in the same time, and as for their eating, Achmet frequently declared that they would finish a whole sheep before getting to “el hamdu lillàh!”—the usual Arabic grace after meat.
Towards sunset we reached an open space of ground which had not been touched since the rains of the previous summer. The soil had been washed smooth and then dried away in the sun, leaving a thin, cracked crust, like that which frequently forms after a light snow-fall. Our camel’s feet broke through at every step, making the only trails which crossed it, except those of gazelles and vultures. Achmet was about to pitch my tent near some snaky-looking holes, but I had it moved to a clearer spot. I slept without interruption, but in the morning, as he was about to roll up my mattrass, he suddenly let it drop and rushed out of the tent, exclaiming: “Oh master, come out! come out! There is a great snake in your bed!” I looked, and truly enough, there was an ugly spotted reptile coiled up on the straw matting. The men heard the alarm, and my servant Ali immediately came running up with a club. As he was afraid to enter the tent, he threw it to me, and with one blow I put the snake beyond the power of doing harm. It was not more than two feet long, but thick and club-shaped, and with a back covered with green, brown and yellow scales, very hard and bright. The Arabs, who by this time had come to the rescue, said it was a most venomous creature, its bite causing instant death. “Allah kereem!” (God is merciful!) I exclaimed, and they all heartily responded: “God be praised!” They said that the occurrence denoted long life to me. Although no birds were to be seen at the time, not ten minutes had elapsed before two large crows appeared in the air. After wheeling over us once or twice, they alighted near the snake. At first, they walked around it at a distance, occasionally exchanging glances, and turning up their heads in a shrewd manner, which plainly said: “No you don’t, old fellow! want to make us believe you’re dead, do you?” They bantered each other to take hold of it first, and at last the boldest seized it suddenly by the tail, jumped backward two or three feet and then let it fall. He looked at the other, as much as to say: “If he’s not dead, it’s a capital sham!” The other made a similar essay, after which they alternately dragged and shook it, and consulted some time, before they agreed that it was actually dead. One of them then took it by the tail and sailed off through the air, its scales glittering in the sun as it dangled downward.