One can scarcely form an idea of the continual and extraordinary windings of the river. Half an hour ago we saw, on the right, the Muscovite’s vessel, and on the left the other vessels a-head on a line with us, separated, however, by the high grass, from which their masts and sails joyfully peeped forth. I could scarcely persuade myself that we had proceeded from the one place, and shall steer to the other. There is something cheerful and tranquilizing in this life-like picture of ships seeking and finding each other again in the immeasurable grass-sea, which gives us a feeling of security. It must be a sight to the people of this region that they cannot comprehend, owing to the distance.
Those sixteen dhellèb-palms have at last approached to within gun-shot. I had counted them four times, and every time found another, so exactly does one trunk cover the other. I do not call them handsome trees, because they stand there in the green wilderness; no, I find them really beautiful, for there is a peculiar charm in them. They rise like double gigantic flowers upon slender stalks, gently protruding in the middle, and not like those defoliated date-palms, which stand meagerly, like large cabbage-stalks. It is impossible that the latter should delight my poor heart, full of the remembrance of shady trees,—the oaks and beech-trees of Germany; the planes near Parnassus; the cypress on the Bosphorus, and the chestnuts on the Asiatic Olympus. About three o’clock we landed on the left shore, and found it dry, to our astonishment, but still green, and covered with high grasses. Near the palms were four ant-hills, on the tops of which we found the wet blue clay worked up. Some miserable tokuls also stood around, but they were deserted by the inhabitants. To my sorrow, I see again a sürtuk destroyed, for the sake of some splinters of wood, merely to keep up a fire the whole night for amusement, on board the sandal,—not to drive away the gnats, for they let the fire burn in a clear flame. Wherever they have the opportunity of displaying their petulance, our blacks also are ever ready. They are not ever ashamed to have always in their mouths the word “Abit,” although they themselves are slaves, and will be so while they live, though clad in the soldier’s smock frock, for the Turkish soldiery have not yet qualified themselves for an honourable condition.
It shews a want of order, nautical policy, and tact, on the part of the commanders, to allow the poor inhabitants of the left shore to be injured. They are said for some days past to belong to the nation of the Nuèhrs. Suliman Kashef has made over some of his own crew to us, to assist in rowing our vessel; but Feïzulla plays tauola (tavola), or backgammon, with a Turk, and thinks, when he does not hear the stroke of the oar, that we are sailing. I had collected some pretty plants near those villages, and found wild cucumbers, without prickles, as well as a kind of aloe, seeming here to thrive on marshy soil. About five o’clock we had to be towed a short distance; then we took a little to our oars, and at sun-set joined the other ships in the east. The river has a depth of three fathoms and about three-quarters of a mile rapidity in the intersection. I appeal to Suliman Kashef to prevent the taking away and hewing up of sürtuks. He himself confesses that the Icthyophagi dwelling here in the reeds, being entirely cut off from the rest of the world, would be lost, as it were, without their fishing-boats, since they can neither swim nor wade through the marshes; he promises therefore to forbid it.
19th December.—We had cast anchor in the middle of the stream, and the right shore was raised above the grass, to the distance of a quarter of an hour; it was quite bare, notwithstanding its row of palm-trees. It is a dead calm, and we do not put ourselves in motion till half-past seven o’clock, assisting the slackened sails by rowing. We bend immediately to the W., and I see before me, to my astonishment, the sixteen palms again standing and the row of palms just mentioned behind us, as well as the vessels preceding us on the left towards the E. Near the palms of the right shore, we remarked not a family, but a small army of elephants, moving slowly here and there under the trees, apparently for the purpose of tasting the dhellèb-fruit. This is not yet grown to its full size, nor ripe; but perhaps they will shake it down by the weight of their body, as I have seen them in Taka, do with the doum-palms. Two elephants were previously shewn me in the country, where we saw the giraffes and ostriches, appearing in the far distance like hills, until they began to move.
At half-past eight o’clock, S.E. by E., north-east wind, but faint, and only one mile and a half course. In the space of half an hour, we shall be advancing to the south, where the other ships are already. The serpentine winding of the Nile would have a beautiful appearance from an air-balloon, striving, as it does, to break a road through the reeds in all directions.
The steersman would often be puzzled what direction to take if we did not push against the stream, which requires labour and exertion. If it were otherwise, they would let themselves drift with “Allah Kerim,” and most certainly would fall every moment with the high water into unknown paths among the reeds, and pass several islands by force, or remain sticking therein.
At half-past nine o’clock we proceed westwards, in order to go again southwards after a quarter of an hour, as we see by the vessels sailing before us. At eleven o’clock to S.W. two miles and a quarter, and at twelve o’clock only one mile and a quarter. At one o’clock the wind has almost entirely died away, when we again turn towards the south. The sixteen palms are still visible behind us, and we must have advanced in little curves, as we see by the vessels behind us, during my short sleep, caused by the nightly epileptic fits of Feïzulla Capitan. Wonderful to relate, we have sailed by them, the captain having roused himself, for a short time, from his apathy. Bushes of high reeds, and little forests of ambaks in Nile grass; before us a long group of palms, which, as Fadl at the mast-head thinks, belongs to the right shore.
From south we make a small bend towards east, and turn a little corner of the left shore of reeds to S.W., where we again derive some advantage from the nearly exhausted wind. I hear from the mast that the left shore winds back to south, and that the right again approaches the river in a semicircle.
For some days past the stream has appeared whitish or clouded to the superficial observer. Viewing it however, through the glass, we find it quite clear. It is also well tasted, which was not the case throughout the marshy lakes. If we find the river, having here a breadth of five hundred paces, and a depth of from three to four fathoms, we continue to ask the question, from whence does this enormous mass of water come?
We have already passed the limits wherein the Mountains of the Moon have been placed. It would almost seem the river is accumulated in a cauldron-shaped valley, the declivities of which encroach with long arms on the African world, and from which the discharge after the periodical rains would be also only periodical. Unless it has an immeasurable tributary stream as an unfailing source from a south-westerly ramification of the Abyssinian high lands, because the level ground, notwithstanding its tropical vegetation, has too little power of attraction to justify such an enormous power of throwing out water by the instrumentality of a lake, under the absorbing African sun.