Fig. 6. A Suakin Mosque
(Photo by W. H. Lake, Esq.)
We do not expect much noise of traffic in the city of our fairyland, nor much display in the public buildings of our desert city. True this ancient and religious city is full of white-washed mosques, and of domes over the tombs of shêkhs, but their minarets are often no higher than the surrounding houses, and marble pillars give place to painted wood, but the minarets, short and free from carving and other ornament though they be, are quaintly graceful; they are neither Turkish nor Egyptian, but purely Arabian in design ([Plate IV])[7]. One would not wish to alter the stern yet peacegiving simplicity of the places where generations of men of the desert and sea have prayed, for the more ornate buildings of richer lands.
Well do I remember waking at sunrise after a night spent under the stars on a flat house-roof, to a scene of beauty that does much to reconcile me to the monotony and loneliness of exile in Suakin, and help me to bear the terrible heat of summer days. Sunrise over the sea, a great blaze of gold following the pearly pinks which made the sky like the inside of a lovely shell. Houses and mosques purest white, no stain shewing in that fresh light. Over the grey plain I cannot tell whether what I see is mere gravel or a layer of grey morning mist, from which rise the deep red foot-hills, and beyond are the high mountains in perfect clearness, first purple then ruddy, all detail visible, yet with no loss of aerial perspective. From the harbour below come the voices of sailors, “Al-lah, Al-lah” is the word distinct among the babel as they call upon God and His Prophet for help in the task in hand. But one who has come in from a sojourn of weeks in the desert rests his eye with infinite pleasure on a spot in the near distance, the oasis of Shâta, where, just beyond the embankment between two of the forts which were built to keep Suakin from the dervishes, the tops of green trees nestle. One promises oneself a walk out there to the trees and gardens in the afternoon, when it is not cool indeed, but still a little cooler. Meanwhile though the sun has risen not half an hour it is scorching already, and one must seek shelter from it and prepare for the day’s work.
A history of Suakin would be worth reading, but it remains mostly unwritten; though since the times of Gordon it might be extracted from reports and newspapers. Gordon was once Governor-General of the Red Sea, and the “Mudiria,” or Government House of Suakin, was his official headquarters. Traces of the railway begun for his relief in Khartûm, but never finished, the outlying forts once attacked by dervish fanatics, are within easy reach, and the nearer ones for the defence of the Shâta Wells and the town itself are close at hand. Even the rifle trenches, the barbed wire entanglements and such temporary defences, though nothing has been done for their preservation, are still present to shew how near, in Suakin, we are to those famous fights.
Plate V
Fig. 7. Suakin. The causeway and town gate (A on plan)
Fig. 8. Suakin. One of Kitchener’s forts (B on plan)
