We descended into a deep gorge, in which the rocks were broken squarely down the face, exhibiting strata of red, white, and variegated sandstone; the gorge was a Wady that ran far back into the country among the mountains; we followed it down to a belt of sunt acacias and palms on the river. This wady was full of rocks, like a mountain stream at home; a great torrent running long in it, had worn the rocks into fantastic shapes, cutting punch-bowls and the like, and water had recently dried in the hollows. But it had not rained on the river.
This morning we are awakened by loud talking and wrangling on deck, that sounds like a Paris revolution. We have only stopped for milk! The forenoon we spend among the fashionable ladies of Derr, the capital of Nubia, studying the modes, in order that we may carry home the latest. This is an aristocratic place. One of the eight-hundred-years-old sycamore trees, of which we made mention, is still vigorous and was bearing the sycamore fig. The other is in front of a grand mud-house with latticed windows, the residence of the Kashefs of Sultan Selim whose descendants still occupy it, and, though shorn of authority, are said to be proud of their Turkish origin. One of them, Hassan Kashef, an old man in the memory of our dragoman, so old that he had to lift up his eyelids with his finger when he wanted to see, died only a few years ago. This patriarch had seventy-two wives as his modest portion in this world; and as the Koran allows only four, there was some difficulty in settling the good man's estate. The matter was referred to the Khedive, but he wisely refused to interfere. When the executor came to divide the property among the surviving children, he found one hundred and five to share the inheritance.
The old fellow had many other patriarchal ways. On his death-bed he left a legacy of both good and evil wishes, requests to reward this friend, and to “serve out” that enemy, quite in the ancient style, and in the Oriental style, recalling the last recorded words of King David, whose expiring breath was an expression of a wish for vengeance upon one of his enemies, whom he had sworn not to kill. It reads now as if it might have been spoken by a Bedawee sheykh to his family only yesterday:—“And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim; but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David.”
We call at the sand-covered temple at A'mada, and crawl into it; a very neat little affair, with fresh color and fine sculptures, and as old as the time of Osirtasen III. (the date of the obelisk of Heliopolis, of the Tombs of Beni Hassan, say about fifteen hundred years before Rameses II.); and then sail quickly down to Korosko, passing over in an hour or so a distance that required a day and a half on the ascent.
At Korosko there are caravans in from Kartoom; the camel-drivers wear monstrous silver rings, made in the interior, the crown an inch high and set with blood-stone. I bought from the neck of a pretty little boy a silver “charm,” a flat plate with the name of Allah engraved on it. Neither the boy nor the charm had been washed since they came into being.
The caravan had brought one interesting piece of freight, which had just been sent down the river. It was the head of the Sultan of Darfoor, preserved in spirits, and forwarded to the Khedive as a present. This was to certify that the Sultan was really killed, when Darfoor was captured by the army of the Viceroy; though I do not know that there is any bounty on the heads of African Sultans. It is an odd gift to send to a ruler who wears the European dress and speaks French, and whose chief military officers are Americans.
The desolate hills behind Korosko rise a thousand feet, and we climbed one of the peaks to have a glimpse of the desert route and the country towards Kartoom. I suppose a more savage landscape does not exist. The peak of black disintegrated rocks on which we stood was the first of an assemblage of such as far as we could see south; the whole horizon was cut by these sharp peaks; and through these thickly clustering hills the caravan trail made its way in sand and powdered dust. Shut in from the breeze, it must be a hard road to travel, even with a winter sun multiplying its rays from all these hot rocks; in the summer it would be frightful. But on these summits, or on any desert swell, the air is an absolute elixir of life; it has a quality of lightness but not the rarity that makes respiration difficult.
At a village below Korosko we had an exhibition of the manner of fighting with the long Nubian war-spear and the big round shield made of hippopotamus-hide. The men jumped about and uttered frightening cries, and displayed more agility than fight, the object being evidently to terrify by a threatening aspect; but the scene was as barbarous as any we see in African pictures. Here also was a pretty woman (pretty for her) with beautiful eyes, who wore a heavy nose-ring of gold, which she said she put on to make her face beautiful; nevertheless she would sell the ring for nine dollars and a half. The people along here will sell anything they have, ornaments, charms to protect them from the evil-eye,—they will part with anything for money. At this village we took on a crocodile ten feet long, which had been recently killed, and lashed it to the horizontal yard. It was Abd-el-Atti's desire to present it to a friend in Cairo, and perhaps he was not reluctant, when we should be below the cataract, to have it take the appearance, in the eyes of spectators, of having been killed by some one on this boat.
We obtained above Korosko one of the most beautiful animals in the world—a young gazelle—to add to our growing menagerie; which consists of a tame duck, who never gets away when his leg is tied; a timid desert hare, who has lived for a long time in a tin box in the cabin, trembling like an aspen leaf night and day; and a chameleon.
The chameleon ought to have a chapter to himself. We have reason to think that he has the soul of some transmigrating Egyptian. He is the most uncanny beast. We have made him a study, and find very little good in him. His changeableness of color is not his worst quality. He has the nature of a spy, and he is sullen and snappish besides. We discovered that his color is not a purely physical manifestation, but that it depends upon his state of mind, upon his temper. When everything is serene, he is green as a May morning, but anger changes him instantly for the worse. It is however true that he takes his color mainly from the substance upon which he dwells, not from what he eats; for he eats flies and allows them to make no impression on his exterior. When he was taken off an acacia-tree, this chameleon was of the bright-green color of the leaves. Brought into our cabin, his usual resting-place was on the reddish maroon window curtains, and his green changed muddily into the color of the woollen. When angry, he would become mottled with dark spots, and have a thick cloudy color. This was the range of his changes of complexion; it is not enough (is it?) to give him his exaggerated reputation.