I had already been in the morning on a shooting expedition, but was obliged to return, in order to clean my gun, which Sale, in spite of my constant admonitions, only very carelessly attends to, because he is always hoping that it will not miss fire. It was now determined that the deserters should be pursued, and First Lieutenant Hüssein Agà commanded on this occasion. In order to see something of the country, I joined with two of my servants, though I wished the blacks, who had only run away from slavery, a happy return to their native country. Even Hüsseïn Agà, though a Turk, agreed with me, for he did not wish to come upon them. The sun rose higher and higher, and we left the Haba, affording us here and there for a moment a shady tree. I determined not to expose myself any more to this forced march, and to return; but Hüsseïn would not let me go from him, because he must be answerable for my safety;—however, he offered me half of his men as a protection on my road back, which I refused, not believing that there was any danger. When the ground permitted, I stayed behind with my huntsmen in a dry gohr, and followed it upwards; whilst Hüsseïn, with his Egyptians, who would have murdered without mercy the run-away soldiers, or rather the slaves seeking again their freedom, was soon out of our sight with his long legs.
We saw two villages, and repaired to the larger one to get water or milk. There were no men to be seen, but they had left their wives behind, who shewed themselves very friendly towards us. They were of moderate stature, and two of pleasing physiognomy. This indeed was not improved by the four lower incisors, and here and there another tooth, being wanting, and also the hair of the head being kept quite short. The circumstance of two upper incisors being wanting to the first Kek, was only an accident, as I had already remarked in those we had seen since. Their foreheads were tattoed by three strokes, or rather incisions, rising horizontally from a vertical cut in the middle of the forehead, and extending to the temples. They had also a hole in their ear-laps, but neither a little stick nor anything else in it. They wore iron rings around the hand, and skins covered their hips. Some had a circle of the bark of trees round their heads. They spoke confusedly, much, and in a loud tone, and might have related many pretty things, of which, however, we understood nothing. One passed her hand over my countenance, then looked at it, and wetting her finger with her saliva, she tried my skin to see if it were coloured. She fetched us black bread, of a somewhat sweetish taste; also green tobacco, and gave us water in a gourd-shell.
I was surprised at not seeing either children or marriageable maidens; but whilst the women were occupied with me, as with a white man browned by the sun, Sale had discovered a tokul where the girls were shut up together. It was with difficulty that I could keep him back from opening the low door closed by split trunks of trees;—the women recognised this conduct of mine very gratefully by their gestures and dances. It appeared to me, moreover, unadvisable to awaken mistrust; for they might only too easily have taken us for kidnappers; and the men, who carried bows with poisoned arrows, were perhaps nearer than we imagined, and might even have been concealed in the tokul.
I was sorry that I had, in my hurry, omitted to bring a glass bead or two with me, in order that I might have made these good women quite happy. The walls of the tokuls were low, and plastered with clay, though the pointed roofs were, as usual, of straw. Skins were lying on the ground, and gourd-shells and vessels of black clay standing around, but there was neither merissa nor milk to be discovered in them; and I must say, I laughed not a little, when Sale, who is so devoted to merissa, put a gara to his mouth, in the greatest delight, thinking he had found some. It was urine, which they are in the habit of collecting from cows, and mixing with milk, as a drink, which I learned subsequently from our blacks. This is considered wholesome, as there is no salt here. A number of short stakes were driven into the ground near the village, for the cattle to be fastened to; and the women made us understand by signs that the beasts were a long distance from here. An immense number of birds were perched around the pools; amongst them also ducks and sand-pipers, but we could not get within shot of them. The latitude 6° 34′, east longitude, from Paris 28° 32′. The thermometer in the morning 16°, and at noon, 25°.
The women must have reported well of our friendly intentions; for when we returned to the vessels, we found there some natives, who had probably washed the ashes from themselves, for they were quite black. Very little notice was taken of them by the Turks, because they had not brought with them any cattle. These people were more like trees than men; I perceived with them also the artificial wrinkles on the forehead, being the insignia of the nation of the Keks, which I had overlooked in the former visitors, owing either to the dirt or the ashes. At three o’clock the drum beat, and I really thought that it was a joke; but it was not so, for it was supposed that there was reason to believe all our negroes intended to desert. We towed our vessels, therefore, further to the S.; for Hüsseïn Aga had also returned with his fifty men without having effected his object.
At four o’clock we had, on the left, a long village, the tokul roofs of which were without under-walls. The right shore is elevated here four to five feet above the height of the Nile, and has only scanty grass, for the Nile appears not to have inundated it. A wood at a distance, losing itself under the horizon, on the left shore; the Haba close at hand, wherein I had shot yesterday, runs with the river to the south. A faint east wind has set in, with which we slowly sail S.S.E., and make one mile. Two lakes, of which the former one is not inconsiderable, are in a line with each other between the before-named Haba and the river; the forest, with a margin of reeds before it, approaches then to the border of the river.
At five o’clock, to S.E. by E., where again there is a similar half-finished summer or herdsman’s village. The hills of ashes, from their being covered with the mud of the preceding year, and not by the water, incline us to believe that the Nile has not ascended above four feet; yet, behind this temporary settlement, the surface of the earth seems to lie a little deeper, for we remark there a green vegetation.
A vessel has sprung a leak; it is affirmed that this accident has been caused by a hippopotamus. We halt, owing to this circumstance, at half-past five o’clock, at the left shore. According to the superstitious notions of the Reïs, hippopotami recognise us as the dangerous enemy with the fiery claw, and therefore attack our ships with their hard skulls; for it is quite certain that a Sheitàn is concealed under their form. The surface of the earth rises here only two feet above the river, and is a fertile slime soil. The Keks who came this morning to the ships, return, and bring three goats and one calf, for which some glass beads were presented to them. These glass beads are called by the Keks and Iengähs, Gòd or Guòd; by the Arabs, on the contrary, Sug-Sug; so, also, the two former nations call the Nile “Kidi or Kiti.”
Several more Keks came, and amongst them two old men, dressed in stiff cobblers’ aprons; these reached over the breast, and were very well curried. Two of the men who were of gigantic stature, like all the rest, might have been called really handsome; it was only a pity that they were covered with a crust of ashes, even in the orbits, and in every part where the perspiration had not found its way through. They wore ornaments of feathers or skins, according to their fancy, on their heads; earrings of red copper, strips of leather round their necks, and iron rings, both on the right and on the left arm. Owing to the short hair, we could see how the incisions on the forehead, previously referred to, run above the ears, even to the occiput. There were only some who had a longer tuft of hair.
It is wonderful that they do not quarrel and fight for the beads thrown on the ground, as these ornaments are of higher value to them than gold and jewels.