A journey to Central Africa

by Bayard Taylor

The oldest names found at Napata are those of Amenoph III. and Remeses II. (1630 B. C. and 1400 B. C.) both of whom subjected Nubia to their rule. The remains of Ethiopian art, however, go no further than King Tirkaka, 730 B. C.—the Ethiopian monarch, who, in the time of Hezekiah, marched into Palestine to meet Sennacherib, King of Assyria. Napata, therefore, occupies an intermediate place in history between Thebes and Meroë, showing the gradual southward progress of Egyptian art and civilization. It is a curious fact that the old religion of Egypt should have been here met face to face, and overthrown, by Christianity, which, starting in the mountains of Abyssinia, followed the course of the Nile northward. In the sixth century of our era, Ethiopia and Nubia were converted to Christianity and remained thus until the fourteenth century, when they fell beneath the sword of Islam.

We rode back to the town on our uneasy donkey saddles. As I wanted small money, the shekh proposed my calling on Achmedar Kashif, the Governor of Merawe and Ambukol, and asking him to change me some medjids. We accordingly rode under the imposing stone piles of the old kings to the residence of the Kashif, a two-story mud house with a portico in front, covered with matting. It was the day for the people of the neighborhood to pay their tulbeh, or tax, and some of his officers were seated on the ground in the shade, settling this business with a crowd of Arabs. I went up stairs to the divan, and found the Kashif rolling himself in his shawl for dinner, which his slaves had just brought up. He received me cordially, and I took my seat beside him on the floor and dipped my fingers into the various dishes. There was a pan of baked fish, which was excellent, after which came a tray of scarlet watermelon slices, coffee, pipes, and lastly a cup of hot sugar syrup. He readily promised to change me the money, and afterwards accepted my invitation to dinner.

I stayed an hour longer, and had an opportunity of witnessing some remarkable scenes. A woman came in to complain of her husband, who had married another woman, leaving her with one child. She had a cow of her own which he had forcibly taken and given to his new wife. The Kashif listened to her story, and then detaching his seal from his buttonhole, gave it to an attendant, as a summons which the delinquent dare not disobey. A company of men afterwards came to adjust some dispute about a water-mill. They spoke so fast and in such a violent and excited manner, that I could not comprehend the nature of the quarrel; but the group they made was most remarkable. They leaned forward with flashing teeth and eyes, holding the folds of their long mantles with one hand, while they dashed and hurled the other in the air, in the violence of their contention. One would suppose that they must all perish the next instant by spontaneous combustion. The Kashif was calmness itself all the while, and after getting the particulars—a feat which I considered marvellous—quietly gave his decision. Some of the party protested against it, whereupon he listened attentively, but, finding no reason to change his judgment, repeated it. Still the Arabs screamed and gesticulated. He ejaculated imshee! (“get away!”) in a thundering tone, dealt the nearest ones a vigorous blow with his fist, and speedily cleared the divan. The Kashif offered to engage camels and a guide for New Dongola, in case I chose to go by the Nubian Desert—a journey of three or four days, through a terrible waste of sand and rocks, without grass or water. The route being new, had some attractions, but I afterwards decided to adhere to my original plan of following the course of the river to Ambukol and Old Dongola.

I made preparations for giving the Kashif a handsome dinner. I had mutton and fowls, and Achmet procured eggs milk and vegetables, and set his whole available force to work. Meanwhile the shekh and I sat on the divan outside the door, and exchanged compliments. He sold me a sword from Bornou, which he had purchased from an Arab merchant who had worn it to Mecca. He told me he considered me as his two eyes, and would give me one of his sons, if I desired. Then he rendered me an account of his family, occasionally pointing out the members thereof, as they passed to and fro among the palms. He asked me how many children I had, and I was obliged to confess myself wholly his inferior in this respect. “God grant,” said he, “that when you go back to your own country, you may have many sons, just like that one,” pointing to a naked Cupidon of four years old, of a rich chocolate-brown color. “God grant it,” I was obliged to reply, conformably to the rules of Arab politeness, but I mentally gave the words the significance of “God forbid it!” The shekh, who was actually quite familiar with the ruins in Ethiopia, and an excellent guide to them, informed me that they were four thousand years old; that the country was at that time in possession of the English, but afterwards the Arabs drove them out. This corresponds with an idea very prevalent in Egypt, that the temples were built by the forefathers of the Frank travellers, who once lived there, and that is the reason why the Franks make a hadj, or pilgrimage to see them. I related to the shekh the history of the warlike Queen Candace, who once lived there, in her capital of Napata, and he was so much interested in the story that he wrote it down, transforming her name into Kandasiyeh. Some later traveller will be surprised to find a tradition of the aforesaid queen, no doubt with many grotesque embellishments, told him on the site of her capital.

Dinner was ready at sunset, the appointed time, but the Kashif did not come. I waited one hour, two hours; still he came not. Thereupon I invited Achmet and the shekh, and we made an excellent dinner in Turkish style. It was just over, and I was stretched out without jacket or tarboosh, enjoying my pipe, when we heard the ferrymen singing on the river below, and soon afterwards the Kashif appeared at the door. He apologized, saying he had been occupied in his divan. I had dinner served again, and tasted the dishes to encourage him, but it appeared that he had not been able to keep his appetite so long, and had dined also. Still, he ate enough to satisfy me that he relished my dishes, and afterwards drank a sherbet of sugar and vinegar with great gusto. He had three or four attendants, and with him came a Berber merchant, who had lately been in Khartoum. I produced my sketch-book and maps, and astonished the company for three hours. I happened to have a book of Shaksperean views, which I had purchased in Stratford-on-Avon. The picture of Shakspere gave the Kashif and shekh great delight, and the former considered the hovel in which the poet was born, “very grand.” The church in Stratford they thought a marvellous building, and the merchant confessed that it was greater than Lattif Pasha’s palace in Khartoum, which he had supposed to be the finest building in the world.

The next morning the shekh proposed going with me to the remains of a temple, half an hour distant, on the eastern bank of the river; the place, he said, where the people found the little images, agates and scarabei, which they brought to me in great quantities. After walking a mile and a half over the sands, which have here crowded the vegetation to the very water’s edge, we came to a broad mound of stones, broken bricks and pottery, with a foundation wall of heavy limestone blocks, along the western side. There were traces of doors and niches, and on the summit of the mound the pedestals of columns similar to those of El Berkel. From this place commenced a waste of ruins, extending for nearly two miles towards the north-west, while the breadth, from east to west, was about equal. For the most part, the buildings were entirely concealed by the sand, which was filled with fragments of pottery and glass, and with shining pebbles of jasper, agate and chalcedony. Half a mile further, we struck on another mound, of greater extent, though the buildings were entirely level with the earth. The foundations of pillars were abundant, and fragments of circular limestone blocks lay crumbling to pieces in the rubbish. The most interesting object was a mutilated figure of blue granite, of which only a huge pair of wings could be recognized. The shekh said that all the Frank travellers who came there broke off a piece and carried it away with them. I did not follow their example. Towards the river were many remains of crude brick walls, and the ground was strewn with pieces of excellent hard-burnt bricks. The sand evidently conceals many interesting objects. I saw in one place, where it had fallen in, the entrance to a chamber, wholly below the surface. The Arabs were at work in various parts of the plain, digging up the sand, which they filled in baskets and carried away on donkeys. The shekh said it contained salt, and was very good to make wheat grow, whence I inferred that the earth is nitrous. We walked for an hour or two over the ruins, finding everywhere the evidence that a large capital had once stood on the spot. The bits of water jars which we picked up were frequently painted and glazed with much skill. The soil was in many places wholly composed of the debris of the former dwellings. This was, without doubt, the ancient Napata, of which Djebel Berkel was only the necropolis. Napata must have been one of the greatest cities of Ancient Africa, after Thebes, Memphis and Carthage. I felt a peculiar interest in wandering over the site of that half-forgotten capital, whereof the ancient historians knew little more than we. That so little is said by them in relation to it is somewhat surprising, notwithstanding its distance from the Roman frontier.

In the afternoon, Achmet, with great exertion, backed by all the influence of the Kashif, succeeded in obtaining ten piastres worth of bread. The latter sent me the shekh of the camels, who furnished me with three animals and three men, to Wadi Halfa, at ninety-five piastres apiece. They were to accompany my caravan to Ambukol, on the Dongolese frontier where the camels from Khartoum were to be discharged. I spent the rest of the day talking with the shekh on religious matters. He gave me the history of Christ, in return for which I related to him that of the Soul of Mahomet, from one hundred and ten thousand years before the Creation of the World, until his birth, according to the Arab Chronicles. This quite overcame him. He seized my hand and kissed it with fervor, acknowledging me as the more holy man of the two. He said he had read the Books of Moses, the Psalms of David and the Gospel of Christ, but liked David best, whose words flowed like the sound of the zumarra, or Arab flute. To illustrate it, he chanted one of the Psalms in a series of not unmusical cadences. He then undertook to repeat the ninety attributes of God, and thought he succeeded, but I noticed that several of the epithets were repeated more than once.

The north wind increased during the afternoon, and towards night blew a very gale. The sand came in through the door in such quantities that I was obliged to move my bed to a more sheltered part of my house. Numbers of huge black beetles, as hard and heavy as grape-shot, were dislodged from their holes and dropped around me with such loud raps that I was scarcely able to sleep. The sky was dull and dark, hardly a star to be seen, and the wind roared in the palms like a November gale let loose among the boughs of a Northern forest. It was a grand roar, drowning the sharp rustle of the leaves when lightly stirred, and rocked my fancies as gloriously as the pine. In another country than Africa, I should have predicted rain, hail, equinoctial storms, or something of the kind, but there I went to sleep with a positive certainty of sunshine on the morrow.

I was up at dawn, and had breakfast by sunrise; nevertheless, we were obliged to wait a long while for the camels, or rather the pestiferous Kababish who went after them. The new men and camels were in readiness, as the camel-shekh came over the river to see that all was right. The Kashif sent me a fine black ram, as provision for the journey. Finally, towards eight o’clock, every thing was in order and my caravan began to move. I felt real regret at leaving the pleasant spot, especially the beautiful bower of palms at the door of my house. When my effects had been taken out, the shekh called his eldest son Saad, his wife Fatima, and their two young sons, to make their salaams. They all kissed my hand, and I then gave the old man and Saad my backsheesh for their services. The shekh took the two gold medjids readily, without any hypocritical show of reluctance, and lifted my hand to his lips and forehead. When all was ready, he repeated the Fatha, or opening paragraph of the Koran, as each camel rose from its knees, in order to secure the blessing of Allah upon our journey. He then took me in his arms, kissed both my cheeks, and with tears in his eyes, stood showering pious phrases after me, till I was out of hearing. With no more vanity or selfishness than is natural to an Arab, Shekh Mohammed Abd e’-Djebàl had many excellent qualities, and there are few of my Central African acquaintances whom I would rather see again.