The sun had gone down for a long time, and the negroes had run home as quickly as possible, to shew their wives, whom I had already seen, their magnificent presents, when we sailed S.S.E. The village in which I had been was called Pagnaù. We soon go to the S., where a lake gleamed on the right. Towards E., we got aground in an arm of the Nile, close by a peninsula; again go back, and in a short time, from S. to N., and again in S. and N., and cast anchor in the middle of the river.
31st December.—In spite of the coolness, or rather warmth of 15° Reaumur, we are even plagued this morning with gnats. We go N.N.W. If the river had for some days a decided southerly direction, now I really do not know what will become of it. Where the shores do not fall away precipitously, they are always covered with reeds; and the frequent lagoons, although mostly dry and deeply split and cracked, run close to the river, and may form beneficent conduits in these level regions.
9 o’clock.—Always advancing with Libàhn, owing to which we have scarcely made two miles and a quarter, for the rope gets continually entangled in the reeds, and we cannot tow on this side the margin, or but very seldom. The river winds here from E. to S.E. by E., to go again immediately to N., where a little village is seen on the right shore. It is cold, and yet the thermometer shews 20° in the cabin itself.
We halt because Feïzulla Capitan has given our Ombashi (subaltern officer) a box on the ear, and the latter has complained to the commander. This officer, our Abu Hashis, had laid aside for himself a cow’s skin, which here, as well as in all Egypt, is a monopoly of the Belik (government). Feïzulla Capitan had remarked this by accident, and reproached him for it, which ended in a box on the ears. The fact of the peculation was attested. The commander feared the crew. The Egyptians, stung by gnats, were discontented with the voyage itself, because they had again got into their heads the idea of Njam-Njam, or cannibals. They were also afraid of a conspiracy among our negroes, whom they still always call “Abit.” This is the cause why attention was paid to the Egyptian subordinate. He was quietly allowed to complain, and just as quietly to retire. Nothing was said to Feïzulla Capitan, because the Insbashi, or captain of the plaintiff, neglected to support his complaint; in vain, therefore, had this officer caught hold very eagerly of the ship’s towing-rope, when he jumped overboard after receiving the box on the ears. We must not think that esprit du corps, or wounded honour, which seldom or ever presents itself to the Fellahs, prompted him to this not very dangerous jump, but the screamer thought that he must open his mouth before the others. He was removed to his Insbashi’s vessel.
My servants will not get accustomed, or attend only in a very careless manner, to the shifting of my specimens of marsh plants, which cannot be too frequently done in such a damp atmosphere. They can understand stuffing (osluk) birds and other animals, for the purpose of exhibiting them in Europe for money; but to preserve gesh (grass), that is beyond their comprehension.—One o’clock. We have come from the northern direction slowly again to S.S.W., sail at half-past one o’clock round a corner of the reeds S.W., and go at two o’clock E. with the rope. At three o’clock to S., with sails, and in five minutes again Libàhn towards E. Our course became, by this eternal change, almost reduced to nothing; had it been otherwise, we might have made a good tract with the east wind.
It occurred to me that it was Sylvester’s day, and I brought before my wretched mind the different Sylvester nights; how I had sometimes passed them joyfully, sometimes melancholy or quietly, ever according to the circumstances and situations in which I was placed at the time. I shouted to Thibaut, who was just passing by me, that it was Sylvester’s day, that we ought to keep the anniversary of our honest patron as a festival, and invited him to my vessel. He was afraid, however, of Feïzulla, who, reclined upon his carpet on deck, resting from his tailoring, and had one Fingàn (small cup) of date brandy after another handed to him, as if he wanted to solemnise Sylvester’s evening in his own way. I went down, therefore, to Thibaut; we drank maraschino and grog, having a coal-dish between us, over the fire of which we laid green brushwood, to protect us, in some measure, against the impudent gnats. We related anecdotes of our previous journeys in Greece, and how we, being then young, looked at the world with perfectly different eyes, and had now become old fellows, whose highest destiny would be to get an old maid or widow for a wife, on our return to our native country, and how we had lost the so-called happiness when it was thrown in our way. The usual Jeremiads of incipient old bachelors. After four o’clock we sailed S.W., and then generally more to the S.
It was eight o’clock when I summoned my Dahabie to come close, but as if the devil had seized the helm, it went at the very same moment bang against the vessel in which the Frenchmen were; a fearful row and mutual abuse then took place, especially as all the vessels were thrown together by wind and the current, into the corner where the river makes a sudden bend from S. to S.W. It was only with much trouble that we worked ourselves loose with oars, poles, and sails, to stop about N.W. with the north-east wind. At sunset we cast anchor, north latitude 6° 52′, east longitude from Paris 28° 33′.
1st January, 1841.—Welcome new year! Oh ye beautiful past times! Dance and the girls—Wine and friends.—I could not sleep; the sentinels sang, and told stories of spirits, snakes, and unbelievers, accompanied by abuse of the gnats. I thought of my brother in Taka, who at the present moment did not even know it was Sylvester’s evening, for there we had lost the computation of time, both having different dates in our journals. This was also the case with the Italian physician, Dr. Bellotti, who took the greatest delight however in the new moon, because the arrears of his salary increased with it. It occurred to me that my brother and I, when we had nearly lost our memory, after a severe illness, had even contended about the date of the year. Midnight had long passed, and I was just on the point of falling asleep, when Thibaut, who had continued his libations in honour of St. Sylvester, shouted out a “Happy New Year to you!”
We sailed from sun-rise to seven o’clock, in a southern direction, with a faint north-east wind. We halt on the left side of that large island, near which Selim Capitan returned the evening before yesterday, to navigate the left instead of the right arm. Here, on the right shore, our stream takes up in S.S.E. by E., a small, but strongly-flowing river, or an arm of the Nile; in the latter signification it is called, without any further ceremony, a gohr. Ash-grey negroes come to the shore and bring us some cattle. Both their chiefs or Sheiks are called Arwor and Albisùg: their neighbouring village bears, to my astonishment, the name of Bonn. We presented them with glass beads, and threw some on the ground for the others, without their quarrelling or fighting for them. The stream we traverse is called by them Kir, and the arm before mentioned Muts; the former is said to be very circuitous. A little before ten o’clock we sail with a good north-east wind to S.E., and immediately to S. As we see here, the arm of the Nile comes from the east.
Our high road has scarcely thirty paces breadth for a short tract, because the giant rushes and the everlasting blooming ambaks advance deeply in the water from the left shore. At half-past ten o’clock in a bend to S.S.W., then S.S.E., and S.S.W. The shores are only two feet high on the left hand, and therefore the burning away of the half-dried reeds is of no consequence. Still, before eleven o’clock, round a corner to E.S.E., where we perceive, on the right shore towards E., a large lake at half an hour’s distance, whilst we sail to S.S.W. Both shores are here scarcely elevated one foot above the river, which again is more than three hundred paces broad. There lies yonder a herdsman’s village; the natives step to the right shore, but run away, however, when we begin to beat the drum; yet they approached soon afterwards, and without weapons. Each had adorned himself according to his fancy, with feathers or the skin of a wild beast. I have remarked also that all these inhabitants of the marshes have very bad teeth, notwithstanding their otherwise personal advantages. They came on the left shore with a cow, but we did not think it worth the trouble to accept such an insignificant sacrifice. Only a gun-shot distance to the N., then again to S.E. and S.