Khartùm forms, in every respect, the capital of Belle-Sudan; it has a mixed population of about 30,000 souls, and lies, according to Duke Paul William Von Würtemberg, (who visited this country in the spring of 1840, and went as far as Facharne, near the Geb’l Kassan, three or four days’ journey above Fazogl), under the 15th° 41′ 25″ north latitude, on the northern point of the land of Sennaar, between the Nile and the White Stream. It is called Khartùm (point of land) from this position. Only a few fishing huts marked, some thirty years ago, the place where gardens and fields extend on the narrow neck of land running from the city northward towards the mouth of the White Stream, from whence the colony, advancing upwards in the direction of the Blue Stream to the south-east, turns the greatest part of its numerous gardens to its principal side, whilst the miserable huts of the Baràbras lie scattered about the level margin of the White Stream. The small group of houses standing in the place of the fishing huts I have mentioned, is called el Belled, meaning village here, in opposition to Helle (city). Khurdshid Basha is, properly speaking, the founder of Khartùm, for he fixed his residence here, erected more public buildings, and even established a dock on the White and another on the Blue Stream. Except the dyami (mosque) and the bassàr (bazaar), all the houses are built of lathes, or air stones, the fabrication of which is so slight in the new buildings, that very noxious standing pools are formed, which, at the first rains, are immediately peopled with frogs, said to come out of the earth. Ahmed Basha understood these disadvantages to health so much the more, because he himself was subject to frequent fevers, and wished, in order to obviate the noxious evil of the unhealthy situation of the city, not only to fill up these ditches, by pulling down the houses nearest to them, but also for the sake of a better draught of air, to have wide streets formed. To render the city secure against any danger from water, he was to have made the shore of the Blue Nile an angle of 45°, and the earth removed thereby, with the ruins of the houses taken down, was to have been employed to make a broad dam;—this dam to be planted with trees.
In like manner, a long wall was to have been raised along the White River, and an extensive sandy country would have been laid under cultivation. We spoke on this subject in Taka, and he immediately wanted a drawing of a plan, which was easily made, even at so great a distance, because, excepting the mosque and the new bazaar, no heed was to be taken even of his palace. Ahmed Basha had really much practical sense, and thought that every one ought to be, by instinct, a bit of a Hakim and Maendes, (physician and engineer).
The departure of the expedition was fixed for the 23rd November, and yet three cannon shots, unexpected by any one, resounded to-day about l’Asser, (three o’clock in the afternoon), as an imperative signal, although it had been long wished for by me. I sprang to the window and heard myself summoned, from the ship which was to convey me, to come immediately. Now there arose an indescribable swarm of people and clatter on the shore, a crying, howling, and leave-taking, so that I was glad to be able to squeeze through the crowd to the cabin. Sounding above every thing arose the shrill treble of women, that inimitable and horrible quavering cry, “Kullelullullulu,” by which they give vent to every lively emotion of the heart in pain, joy, and misery, with different modulations which a foreign ear can only distinguish by frequently hearing them. This time it was a farewell cry, for every one flocked to the shore to give the parting greeting, and some rushed even into the Nile to the side of the vessels. There were women, daughters, sisters, brothers, and the chorus of black, brown, and white dancing girls, who nimbly drew from large round vessels of clay (burma) more merissa, and passed this parting drink round in gourd shells (gara) among their acquaintances, gratis. These dancing women, or filles de joie (guavàsi, sing., ghasië), are never wanting here at any feast, whether with Turks or Christians, and break, at least, the monotony of such comfortless society where woman is always excluded.
If we few Europeans had not perhaps dragged ourselves very quickly to the vessels, with an occasional curse at the climate on our lips, the Turks, certainly, did not move more actively; nay, they were even more enervated by the influence of the climate, and the discomforts attending it. They came therefore surlily, sluggishly, and unattended, having left behind their attendants in the harims. It was only the coloured people that suffered nothing; they were in their native element. Our black soldiers embraced one another, shouting for joy, because they were going to the south, to their free fatherland, from which they had been inhumanly torn by Chasuas or Dshellabs (slave-hunts or slave-dealers). Inspired by Merissa, they shouted, in their language, to their different countrymen, who, partly in chains, were carrying water, and many a plan for the recovery of their freedom, and the destruction of their oppressors, may have been awakened in their rude minds. Belle-Sudàn means not so much Land of the Blacks, as Land of Men of Colour, for assuet denotes black, and sud smutty or dingy, as the word is used here; for example, in dirty linen. According to the colour, the name might have been used as beginning from Assuan, but the northern boundary of Belle-Sudàn is formed by the two rocks of Assul, on the right shore of the Nile, a declivity of the Achaba Shangull. That Achaba with its rocks crosses the Nile, and its natural gates also are the boundaries of the Mamùr of Berber. But here, where the poor, fair child of man, not excepting even the Arabs and Kopts, totters about and fades away, weak, and feverish as if he were affected with the Marasmus senilis; here upon his native soil, we ought to see this dark people, how boldly and freely, nay wantonly and flexibly—again, how angularly and awkwardly they move their limbs under this glowing sun;—how they stamp with inconceivable pleasure, fury, and perseverance, upon the hot ground in the wild dance, till the earth trembles again. Here it is that we must see the Blacks, when they have drowned their grief for their lost freedom, and the home-sickness which kills most of them, in sparkling Merissa, if we would know them thoroughly, with all their peculiarities, and in their entire bestial beauty. From this muddy soil of the shallow lakes of the inner countries fermenting under the hot sun, such a dark-coloured and black breed as the Dinkas could alone spring, with the primitive forms of human monsters, yet with plastic frames, without being masters, in our sense, of their mass of limbs. With what ease and purity the naturalized dark-brown Arab and Baràbra, and the black Nuba move here:—how secure their tread on the vessels, in comparison with our Egyptian lubbers, who, like the Pachydermata, cannot renounce the Fellah.
The line of the vessels unwound itself into a curve from the shore of the blue stream; the cannons thundered, all the guns were repeatedly discharged, the drums (trombet) beat a flourish; here and there arose a noise and contention for places; the Arabs sang to the stroke of the oar with the accompaniment of the tarabùka (pot drum), the Baràbras struck up songs with their tambùr (guitar, Arabic, Rabàba) at the same time: here one blew the double flute (argùl), there sounded the sumàra (pastoral pipe). All this was done chiefly to stun themselves and to lighten their agitated hearts. Scarcely had I by signs taken my leave, than there came over me a feeling of separation, as if I had left my brother Joseph in Khartùm. Many days journey indeed he was from me, and in a campaign that I knew, from being previously present at it, was dangerous. At Gohr et Gash, I had jumped on a dromedary without first embracing him: we had both regarded it as a good omen, but now our separation was first definitively decided. In Khartùm I had, at times, received intelligence or letters from the camp; here we had so often afforded brotherly assistance to each other on a sick bed, and mutually saved one another’s lives. What dangers, what adventures awaited him and me between the present and the moment of meeting again!—but—we shall yet see one another.
Sailing down the blue stream, we soon neared the wooded island of Tuti, inhabited by the Baràbras, rising gently like a little Delta, at the conflux of the two arms of the Nile. This island is said to be the oldest colony of the Baràbras in these parts, on account of which they bury their dead there from the whole surrounding country, just as the Arab tribes, and the other inhabitants of the banks of the Nile carry their dead to the village of Hubba, lying opposite to Khartùm, upon the right side of the Blue River, because in both places highly revered Sheikhs or saints have their tombs in lofty, cupola-shaped vaults, gradually diminishing upwards to a conical form, and called Hubba, (not Kubba, which means the plague, a disease entirely unknown here). The White River, flowing to the north-east, rolls in an unbroken stream along the north-west side of the island of Tuti, whilst the Blue River, whose current is more than twice as strong, bounds against this straight, whitish stream of water, as well as against the south-east side of the island, and winding through between the latter and its right shore, which juts out, makes a bend, deserts its former direction to the north-west, and turns in a north-easterly one, with the White Stream.
Here, once, both streams met and became united in a lake, which might have formed a triangle, according to the direction of the White Downs, above Khartùm from the Blue River, near the village of Gos Burri, the smallest angle of which went towards the south into the White River. At that time, the Blue Stream exercised quite a different dominion, and did not condescend to the before-named bend at the Island of Tuti, from which bend the traveller is firmly convinced that the Blue Stream flows into the White. The inhabitants of the banks, however, assert the contrary, for the former, as being the Nile, is considered, as it were, sacred, from its superior water and its more beautiful colour; although they allow that both streams spring from one source. This likewise redounds to its fame, that it is said to flow five times quicker than the White Stream, which latter indeed is nearly stagnant in the dry season. With all its good qualities, the Blue Stream displays a destructive activity towards Khartùm. If it had extended this activity before, more towards its right shore on the east, and spared the low ground heaped up by it towards the west, to be the foundation of a future city, and formed by its alluvial deposit a dam against the White Stream, its waves would now wash up more against its west shore, exactly opposite to the principal side of Khartùm. It is very certain that it is not necessary to go back into the ages before history, to speak of a land-draining of the northern point of Sennaar, since the expression “fok el Bachr,” points plainly to the old river’s edge by the Mosque; and likewise, not a single brick has been found in all this lake soil of Khartùm, except on the hill near Burri, which also must be considered merely as a new shore of the lake. As I have said before, the Blue Stream always extends more towards the mouth of the White, which it has already pressed down against the edge of the rock, in the desert near Omdurman, whilst it extended itself, like a lake, immediately from Hubba in the extensive low country east of Halfaia, until it closed the road there with the hilly alluvial deposit upon which this city is partly built.
If the lake ground at Khartùm was principally governed by the White Stream, and its deep, clayey site overlaid with sand, the blue stream has heightened its lake at Halfaia with a fruitful soil, which yet enjoys at high water its blessed waves, that impart, however, only a soft green to the forest.
Near Wud, or Wolled Hüsseïn, four hours’ east of Halfaia, a natural canal is seen in the rocks, with a steep fall, which even now is active as a Gohr, and might have made an outlet once for the lake on this side. The immediate cause, however, why the blue stream, by Khartùm, presses against its left shore, and flows almost under the houses of Khartùm, lies in the fact, that it has thrown up so much sand within these few years, against its east shore from Hubba to the island of Tuti, that the inhabitants of that great village are forced, when the water has somewhat subsided, to go far over the sand of the heightened bed of the river to the water, and that the inhabitants of the island there wade through the Nile to the right shore, on a sandbank ominously forming itself. If this last current of the blue river shall eventually be dammed up, its mass of water will rush with the strength of a powerful mountain torrent against the mouth of the white stream, and raise it, because its last strength is already expended, even at a moderate height of water, by the projecting rocks and the islands impeding its mouth. Then Khartùm will be lost, and the water will not only regain its former territory below Djami, but the blue stream will also break through above the whole city, as I sufficiently convinced myself a short time ago, at high water, when the city, notwithstanding the miserable Turkish precautions, was saved as if by a miracle, and the blue stream looked into my window, over the narrow dam of earth, which is about three or four feet high.
On this occasion, I saw five gazelles at the south-west end of the city, near the hospital, gazing with wonder on the mirror of the water of the wide white stream passing over into its old lake basin, which was driving them towards the city. A stupid Topshi (cannoneer), who was at too great a distance, without further ceremony scared them away immediately by a heavy shot from the powder magazine, whilst I, with my servant, had made a long circuit through the water, in vain. On such an inevitable swelling of the river, which must lead to the destruction of Khartùm, the old double lake that has ebbed away, will come to life for some time, and not only wash away the island of Tuti even to its rocky base, but also the whole margin of the left shore of the united stream up to Kàrreri, which, however, possesses in its rocky mountain, about three hours’ distant from Khartùm, a breakwater reaching from the desert of Baguda.