For the last two nights the gnats have been very troublesome, notwithstanding that a small cat, which I have not yet seen by daylight, seems to find particular pleasure in licking my face all the night through, pulling my beard, and purring continually, thus scaring away the gnats. The cats, however, in Belled-Sudàn are generally of a more savage nature, apparently arising from the unkind treatment of the people: they go even into the hen-roosts, and the strongest fowls are lacerated by them; but they meddle very little with rats and mice. The Baràbras, especially those of Dòngola, like them for eating; not so, however, the Arabs, who do not persecute them, because the cat is one of the favourite animals of their Prophet, but yet hold them unclean. The sky was cloudy to-day, as it was yesterday and the day before.
27th December.—Set out immediately after sunrise towards N.N.W. The sun rises of a dark red colour, exactly behind us, out of the river, into the red humid atmosphere, and yet there is the main direction of the river; we have, therefore, a real labyrinth of circuitous routes to work through. If yesterday, no object disclosed itself in the south, for the eye to rest upon, so now in the left, the arm flowing round the island is only to be seen; there is nothing besides but reeds, and the water which we are navigating. The high reeds may, it is true, here and there conceal from the eye a tree or a hut, because, on the whole, we go lower between the dried-up shores. The N.E. wind is slack, and we assist the sails by rowing in S.W., where, about eight o’clock, a small village of twelve tokuls starts up, on the left side of the river, the river coming from S.E. A dog barks from the neighbouring reeds, and betrays the hiding-place of the people who had fled, which the blacks, accustomed to similar signs, corroborated, and wanted even to shoot into the reeds. Our Abù Hashiss barked lustily against the animal, and it really appeared as if several large and small dogs were barking.
About an hour’s distance beyond the village some trees are to be seen; whilst, on the left, where the river now winds to S.E., we do not observe anything. This also appears to be a fishing village, for we do not remark any trace of the tread of cattle in the grass. These poor Icthyophagi have, according to their usual custom, wretched huts, and their tokuls are also partly plastered with Thin. This thin, or Nile slime, naturally affords a good material for plastering the reed walls. It would be good for airstones, if these should be generally considered a suitable building material in places where the violent periodical rains of the tropics only too often shew the contrary. I myself have experienced this in Khartum, where in one night some thirty houses fell. The storm of rain was so violent, that it broke through the wall of our bed-room, three feet thick, built of airstones, and in a short time tore an opening the size of a window. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I was able to save my brother (the servants being at a distance), by carrying him away. He was dangerously ill at the time, and, bursting out into a clear loud laugh, vigorously resisted my endeavours to lay him upon a table under the door-way, in order that he might not be buried by the fall of the roof.
The whole horizon is without a high tree; only the ambak covers, in small thickets, a great part of the island, which is still drawing nearer to us. The ambak appears here considerably higher and stronger, to which the warmer climate, together with the earlier inundation and the growth thereby produced, has mostly contributed. On the return voyage I will try to procure, at all events, seeds of it; for I am really curious to see, at some future day, this new species of tree, the ambak, in my own native country, even should it be in a hot-house. Although it may not thrive and grow as quickly with us as here, yet I am quite sure that its incredible productive powers will excite the more astonishment, because its many large flowers and great succulent acacia-like leaf, make it an ornamental tree.
The current of the river was tolerably strong this morning, and amounted to nearly one mile. This difference depends simply on the many windings of the river, a greater or less fall could be scarcely followed up in a single one. The medium for these parts may remain always half a mile. As we see here all the corners of the shore, without exception, still in the water with their reeds, it may be supposed that there is also a more shallow river-bed. Vegetation grows from beneath and the side into the river-bed, and the reeds advancing in out-and-in bending angles, make the first step to press and encroach on the river. Slime always sticks to the corners of these angles, and depositing and rising up from beneath, spreads again its own vegetation.
I see here water-thistles, with lanceolate leaves, and reddish flowers of the thickness of a finger, exactly as are seen in our fish-ponds. Green water-lentils cover the sides of the stream, and are a plain proof of the stagnating water flowing off in it. At half-past eight o’clock I hear from Fadl, at the mast, that we are sailing to the south; that there is a large lake with a village towards the E. and in the S.E.; also a large lake on the before-named island, of which the former is a quarter of an hour, and the other half an hour distant from the river. He is not able to see the other arm of the river along the right shore, and therefore it has either lessened in breadth, for previously at its conflux it was broader than our water-course, or it is very far distant; for Fadl remarks trees on the right shore, from two hours and a half to three hours distant, which may be standing indeed on the margin of the river, whilst its water may be concealed by the ambak thickets.
Yet it is said that this land approaches in a bend towards the south. Also on the left is seen, in the neighbourhood of the river, W. by N., a small lake and a large wood, stretching up the country. We go with our N.E. wind, at nine o’clock, from S. to E. The river forms here a broad bay, and we lay-to at the left shore, four hundred paces from which a village is found, containing about thirty tokuls, but indifferently built, because each individual erects his house to suit his own convenience, and takes no trouble to beautify it, but creeps through an oval hole—the general doors of the huts on the White Nile.
The reeds were burnt down all round, yet the thick green stalks had withstood the fire, although they were all covered with black ashes. One of the natives remained quietly standing on the shore, in order to accurately survey us strangers. Soon after a great number of our men collected around him, seeking to make use of him as their bearer, with a flag of truce, in their favourite meat transactions.
I sat down with Suliman Kashef and Selim Capitan on the ashes, with the negro, who was of a livid colour, owing to the ashes on which he had slept. He told us, with the assistance of our Dinkas, to whom he could make himself intelligible, that he had swam through the river, to visit his brother in the neighbouring village, from which every one had fled; that his hut was on the right shore, and that he was a Kèk, like these here. The crowd became too strong for him. The black looked about him, perplexed; but was, however, persuaded to come with us on board Selim Capitan’s vessel. When he approached the cabin, bending his body forward in a comically awkward and ape-like position, perhaps to denote subjection, he slid round on the ground, dropped on his knees, and crept into it, shouting repeatedly with all his might, “Waget tohn agèhn, agiht agiht-waget tohn agèhn, agiht agiht,” by which words he greeted us, and expressed his astonishment. He had several holes in the rims of his ears, containing, however, no other ornament than a single little stick. Strings of beads were brought out and hung about his neck; there was no end to his transports; he struck the ground so hard with his posteriors, that it resounded again, and raised his hand on high, as if praying. When I bound a string of beads round his wrist, he could not leave off jumping, at such an invaluable ornament, and never once kept still; he sprang up, and threw himself down again, to kiss the ground; again he rose, extended and contracted himself, held his hands over all our heads, as if to bless us, and sang a very pretty song, full of the simple melody of nature. He had a somewhat projecting mouth; his nose and forehead quite regular, as well as the cut of the face itself; his hair was sheared away short, to about the length of half an inch. He might have been about thirty years of age; an angular high-shouldered figure, such as we have frequently perceived among the Dinkas. There were two incisors wanting above, and four below, which is also the case with the Dinkas; they pull them out, that they may not resemble wild beasts. His attitude and gestures were very constrained, arising, perhaps, partly from the situation in which he found himself; his shoulders were raised, his head bent forward in unison with his bent back; his long legs, the calves of which were scarcely to be perceived, seemed as if broken at the joints of his knees; in short, his whole person hung together like an orang-outang’s. Added to this, he was perfectly naked, and no hair, except on his head, to be seen. His sole ornament consisted of leathern rings above the right hand. What a grade of humanity is here! This poor man of nature touched me with his childish joy, in which he certainly felt happier than any of us. He was instructed to go forward and tell his countrymen not to fly before us, honest people. Kneeling, sliding along, jumping, and kissing the ground, he let himself be led away by the hand like a child, and would certainly have taken it all for a dream, had not the glass-beads convinced him to the contrary.
Ten o’clock.—The east wind has splendidly freshened, and we sail S.E. by S. delightfully. We flew by a small village, of ten to twelve tokuls, on the island, and make six, or rather only three miles; this pleasure lasting only half an hour. The river winds towards E., and the crew again take to towing, one leading the choir, and the chorus repeating its usual “Ja Mohammet.” After eleven o’clock we sail, however, again, and with the assistance of oars, E.S.E.; soon S.S.E., and then W. by S., where we make five miles and a half. There is an everlasting tacking about, and with it bawling, abusing, and shouting. We turn, because we see the vessel a-head turning, without system and without advantage, for this terrible careening, with the tedious shifting of the sails every short distance, only wastes time. Feizulla is squatting again with Selim Capitan, who is not very delighted at his company. It is the devil to be shut up with such simpletons in a cabin, to undertake journeys with Turks, and, for my future recreation, to be obliged to converse with insipid men, whose spite at not being able to say just what they like in their journals, as they would do, were I not with the expedition, I plainly see.