ARNAUD’S IGNORANCE AND SELIM CAPITAN’S CUNNING. — HATRED OF THE THREE FRENCHMEN TO EACH OTHER. — THE ENDERÀB TREE. — THE POISON TREE HARMLESS. — REMARKS ON THE LAKES IN CONNEXION WITH THE WHITE NILE. — THE WOOD OF THE AMBAK TREE. — FONDNESS OF THE ARABS FOR NICK-NAMES. — THE AUTHOR DEFENDED FROM GNATS BY A CAT. — INTERVIEW WITH A KÈK. — HUSSEÏN AGA’S DRINKING BOUTS WITH FEÏZULLA CAPITAN. — DESCRIPTION OF A SUN-RISE. — VISIT OF THE KÈKS. — SOLIMAN KASHEF AND THE LOOKING-GLASS.
25th December.—We are still waiting for the Kawàss and Sandal. A man had been given to each of these ships to assist them; but we have gained nothing by it; and therefore Selim Capitan intends to tow both of them. Thibaut and I visited the invalid, Sabatier, who scarcely knew how to keep himself from laughing when Selim-Capitan took upon himself to give lessons anew to the learned Arnaud, who very boldly asserted in our presence, that the “altitudine” and “amplitudine” of the sun were one and the same thing. As we then well understood, Selim Capitan wants Arnaud and he to agree in their calculations, and grudges no instruction to the latter for that purpose. He tells us, that such a coincidence with the French engineer is the more necessary, because the Viceroy would sooner credit the reckonings of a scientific Frenchman than of a Turk, who had never seen Frankestàn. According to Sabatier, Arnaud has not made yet a single calculation, because he is not capable of doing so, but loads his back with these burdens, notwithstanding Sabatier’s feverish state of health. Unfortunately, this appears to be exactly the case, for Arnaud always agrees with Selim-Capitan, who is exceedingly reserved in speech; and therefore it is really fortunate that the Turk, being a naval officer, understands something at least of these matters.
The three French gentlemen mutually conceal their journals, in which one abuses the other; but they each fetch them out from their hiding-places, in order to read them to me, and I am obliged to listen to them. Arnaud lies, as usual, and relates in his journal, that he bought a beautiful slave from a captain—although the black girl belonged to a sailor, and Thibaut, in my presence, played the interpreter when she was sold. He pretends to have been a pupil of the Polytechnic School at Paris, and yet is not capable of writing three lines of French correctly. “In Egypt one must be everything,” Dr. Gand used to say, who studied in Germany, and who, in 1822, was in Greece with me, and the physician in ordinary of Abbas Basha. Europeans appear generally to know this, and therefore exhibit no shame in getting themselves appointed, in Egypt, to situations for which they were never brought up. “Exempla sunt odiosa.”
Still mist this morning, and the hygrometer stood, at eight o’clock, at 78°. We advance about ten o’clock, with a gentle east wind, towards the west. About eleven o’clock, direction S.S.E., one mile’s rapidity of course, and half a mile rapidity of current. Half an hour later we sail westward, in which direction Suliman Kashef has already gone ahead of us. At midday the east wind strengthened and passed over into S.E. We sail for scarcely half an hour S.S.W.; then a very short track to S., where we approach the trees of the Haba, and immediately, W. by N., making three miles and a half in the hour. We remained scarcely five minutes in this direction, as the river winds S.E. A small lake with reed banks, sharply separated from it, lies to the right shore, in this encroaching corner. Probably the river ran formerly through this lake in a straight line, and the angle from S.W. to N.E. was cut off. The S.E. wind is contrary for us, wishing to go S.S.E.; but fortunately this neck of land is dry, and so we take to libàton. Our Dinkas and Mariàn assert that the land here still belongs to the Dinkas, who continue on the right shore still higher up, whilst the Kèks possess the left shore. We go southwards, and anchor at the right shore to fell wood.
In spite of the hot exhalations of the ground, which I felt indeed in my feet and legs, and notwithstanding the heat of 28°, I go a little into the interior of the country. The usual clay soil was under the humus, for the whole surface of the earth was open to it, and full of deep holes or foot-prints of the colossal animals running here. The trees have a sickly appearance, and are old dwarf trees standing upon and round about the ant-hills. These trees are called Enderàbs. The bark is smooth on the old trunk and has nearly fallen off; on the young straight shoots it is rough, and a brownish grey, like in the hazel-tree; the leaf is lanceolated similar to that of the Oleander’s, but light green and slender, with sharply indented borders. The wood is, on the whole, soft, and may be compared to the linden wood. The greatest part of the Haba consists of these trees, which, however, had also previously appeared. The reed-grass was eaten away and trodden down by the beasts. It might, in former times, have caught fire, and contributed to the destruction of this forest.
Four o’clock.—Already the drum has beaten three times for departure; but everything in our vessel remains in the most beautiful state of tranquillity; because the wood-hewers, scattered in the Haba, must be waited for.
The Nile makes here also a circular stream, which is stronger than in the preceding curve, where we were driven, in spite of sailing and rowing, on to Selim Capitan’s vessel. So likewise Suliman Kashef comes upon us, as if he were going to board us, whilst we were lying quite peaceably at the shore. The current of the river is far stronger, and receives below a check by the lake, which may give it additional water, for the islands floating there dance a waltz in front of us before going further. There must be some cause for that. I advance, and see, on the left, another small lake, and succulent green grass, from its shore even to the Nile. This lake stretches from N.E. to S.W. The river makes a bend from our landing-place, which we leave soon after four o’clock, from W. to S.S.W. I am inclined to believe, judging from the yellow reed-grass, that this lake, like the former one, where the crew, when towing, were able to go over the dam, separating it from the river, is closed at its heading, whilst the river flows by it. I remark also, up the country, green tracks of vegetation, possibly covering for a short time, or for ever, the vital veins of the lake. The Haba loses itself, and only solitary trees denote still the right side of the Nile, whilst W.N.W. to S.W. a tract, rich in trees, bounds the horizon. The south extends before us, from S.W. to S.E., without a tree, and perhaps, therefore, has the river-bed in its centre.
The trees of the left side are unfortunately too far for us to distinguish them. The crew think, however, that they must be a kind of date-palms (naghel; the fruit, however, is called tammer, or bellàgh). But Mariàn says that there are many trees on that side belonging to the palm species, but bearing large, beautiful fruit, containing milk, which, he thought, were a species of cocoa-palm. These trees rise with a straight shaft similar to the date and dhellèb-palms; but the top appears to be entirely flat, like an extended fan, or a round table. I had seen also, from the ship, in that forest, some poison-trees: now, I heard dreadful things told of them, that even the scent of their flowers, or a thorn, nearly invisible on them, falling on one’s hand, is certain death, and that the natives poison their arrows with it. This Shudder el Simm is called, in the language of the Nubas, Auer, and I was curious to see the tree somewhat nearer.
With the before-mentioned short course from W. to S.S.W., we came again to the right shore, and to the Haba, where we halted again. I sprang on the shore, which is only two and a half to three feet above the water, as in the preceding place, under the very same appearances, and I found in the poison-tree an old acquaintance of mine at Taka; but with this difference, however, that it might be called here a tree, whilst there it was only a shrub. Both of them are Euphorbias. I had, in Taka, cut off such a cactus-like plant, with its blue-reddish flowers, similar to those of the ushàr (Asclepias procera), and crushed it in my hand, when I punished in the Haba the stubbornness of my donkey, who wanted to join his brothers grazing in the meadow. I had involuntarily touched my lips and the tip of my tongue with the hand wet with the poisonous sap. Notwithstanding all the washing, I for two days found the taste of it quite abominable, without alarming myself the least about it, for I did not consider it more poisonous than the ushàr, the leaves of which are eaten by goats. These leaves, well-known from their intoxicating quality, are laid upon funnel-shaped sieves, in order to strain merissa through them, by which the milk, gushing from the leaves, mixes with the liquor itself.
I made no ceremony of cutting off a branch from a poison-tree fifteen feet high, with the fruit, which are little round knobs, and had not yet come to maturity. The crew were somewhat angry when I came on board with it, and avoided me, till they saw that I laid it close to me on my bed, without the least evil consequences arising from it. Mariàn told me that they prepared the poison from this tree by boiling its milk and the sap, pressed between two stones; when this has become thick, like asside (meal-pap), the arrows are dipped into it.