Opposite to the large island is a gohr on the left shore, forty to fifty feet wide, apparently in connection with a lake behind the Haba. Half-past eight o’clock. S.W., but in a curve to S. I hear a shot before us, and they tell me that Suliman Kashef has killed, at one shot, a large crocodile on the sandy promontory of the right shore, so that it never moved from the spot after being struck. We tarry there till half-past nine o’clock, for Suliman Kashef presents the skin of the beast to Arnaud; but the latter scarcely retains the back-shield. As there is plenty of other meat, the men scorn to cut off its tail, and eat it according to the custom of the country. My servants, however, who knew that I had already tasted this sort of meat in Khartùm, as also in Taka, a snake, which a dervish had dressed himself, cut off a slice for me. Even had I not been ill, the smell of musk it exhaled, and which was not lost, though cooked with hay, was so repulsive to me, that they were obliged to throw it over board immediately. At first it appeared to me incredible that mariners should scent from afar the presence of a crocodile; but on my journey from Káhira to Sennaar, my own olfactories, when they offered me in Korusko a young one for sale, had become very sensitive to the odour of this beast.
At our entrance into the Blue Stream, I could smell the crocodiles, lying at a distance of six hundred paces off upon a sand-bank at the mouth of the White Stream, before I had seen them. The glands containing a secretion like musk, are situated in the hinder part, as in the civet-cats, (viverra civetta), domesticated in Bellet Sudàn, known here by the name of sabàt. These animals are kept in cages for the purpose of collecting the favourite perfume, called here musk or moschus.
Ten o’clock. S. by W. The river winds to the left; on the right an island with a village, separated by a narrow arm from the left side of the river. We sail with a good north-east wind, and make four miles. The poor negroes run as fast as they can to obtain a few beads, but in vain. On the left also an island.
Four o’clock. S.S.E. A short tract to S., and again to the left, S.E. We do not see the Haba of the left shore from the cabin; on the right it is divided from the river by a fore-shore. Soon afterwards, on the left shore, a village, with a solitary dhelleb-palm; the houses with a little pointed roof of straw, as in the tokuls; but the wall protruding in the centre, like a thick cask standing upright—another nation, therefore—that of the Elliàbs. At half-past eleven, again S.E.
15th January.—These are the days of trial; what avails good will, and a firm heart? I am still very weak, and cannot sit up. The negroes, since daybreak, have been singing their bold songs, and continue their war-dances, with quick or slow evolutions, in columns: their leaders are at their head, making threatening motions, wildly and freely, and inflaming the courage of their men by sudden broken chaunts, which the chorus then takes up. They clearly want to pay us respect by these manœuvres, for their rapid march is not directed against us; they do not appear to me to be the enemies we were informed of some days since, for they try with all their might to gain our friendship, and bring a number of cows to us.
I look at my journal, and thought I had been so ill since yesterday at noon that I was not able to continue it to the evening. To my most supreme astonishment, however, I hear from Feïzulla Capitan and my servants, that this yesterday dates from the 12th of January, and that they believed I was going to die. I remember very well, however, that I once saw Thibaut sitting on Feïzulla Capitan’s bed, and conjured him solemnly to send the doctor to bleed me. I sent out also my men to look, for one of them told me that Thibaut had not gone on board the doctor’s vessel, but on that of the Frenchmen. The doctor appeared, a perfectly black Shaigië, who had received the finishing stroke, as an accomplished alipta, under Clot Bey. Arnaud came immediately afterwards, to try on me his sleight of hand in phlebotomy. As I had got my brother to mark the point where to lance, so that I might do it myself in case of necessity, and had touched up the same with ink, every now and then, I allowed Arnaud more willingly to perform the operation, the black doctor having already worried me with his chattering. I trembled too much myself to undertake it with my own hand. I lay there at night, and a feeling came over me as if my whole body were pulsating, and I was myself moved up and down by the pulses. I did not dare to close my eyes, for fear of being tormented by those indescribable phantasies; I perceived only too well that Arnaud had not taken away sufficient blood. Willingly would I have had now a helping hand, but every one was asleep, and I could not call because I had lost my voice. I therefore undid the bandage, moved my arm vigorously about, and let the blood flow out of window; I felt I was much better, but was afraid of falling in a swoon and bleeding to death, when all at once a bright thought struck me: I took one of the large ivory rings lying near me, drew it over the hand, and so tight over the compress, which I had again put on, that they were obliged in the morning to cut it to pieces on my arm.
To my great consolation I heard that we had remained from twelve o’clock at noon in a south-easterly direction on the average, and at five o’clock had landed on a place where we remained till four o’clock yesterday evening, and then had come on as far as here, said to be only a short tract. Selim Capitan told me that we had only made on the 12th fifteen miles. The Frenchmen do not wish me to annoy myself about this gap in my diary, and promised me all possible éclaircissement from their own journals; but they found, however, subsequently, excuses to shuffle off, and I must therefore survey this tract more accurately on the return voyage. Suliman Kashef also had fallen sick in the very same hour I did, and was just as long delirious; on his account, therefore, the crew had kept quiet. I hear, to my astonishment, that Arnaud is accused of having tried to poison the Kashef and myself out of one and the same goblet, on the day before our simultaneous illness, because he himself had drank from another the last time we were with him. It was only with difficulty that I could persuade Suliman Kashef to divest himself of this unhappy idea; and it was by the following means I principally effected it:—I took precipitate powder from Arnaud, in water, before his face.
We go S.S.E., and after sun-rise S.E. On the left the head of an island discloses itself, if the gohr going to the N.E. is a Nile arm. Here also the people have collected, singing, and jumping backwards and forwards, in three files, as far as their strength will allow them, for they have not got a rag of clothes on their backs. A land promontory, jutting out from the right shore, brings us at last, after much labour, from S.E. to E. by N. A hippopotamus has just injured our doctor’s vessel so much that it would have sunk if it had not been aground on the sand. Yesterday evening also, when we were lying at anchor, a similar river-buffalo struck our large vessel with such force, that not being in the best condition, it made an uncomfortable motion, and roused immediately all our attention to examine the hold. We advance a little, and suddenly there is a cry that there is no water-course before us. I take this statement to be a knavish trick of the Reïs, whose duty it is to sound, and who pretend this in order to get back the sooner to their wives at Khartùm. I have expressed this opinion to Feïzulla Capitan, and begged of him to go to the two commanders.
I have good reason to fear that the invalid Suliman Kashef would rather be waited upon in his hàrim, at Kàrreri, than here by his Turks, although he has a young Circassian girl in the second cabin, who durst not leave the narrow space she is confined in, notwithstanding my intercession. The second time I was on board Suliman Kashef’s vessel, I was looking at his arrangements, just as the eunuch standing in the corner had gone out to fetch water; quite by accident, I opened the door of the second cabin, and saw there this pale, but beautiful girl, lying on the carpet, in a gauze chemise and trowsers. Suliman Kashef called out as if the devil possessed him, “Hàrim! Hàrim!” on which excusing myself, I naturally retreated, and he burst out into a loud laugh. Thus this poor creature sat in a cage, in which there was hardly room for her bed. The air entering but sparingly through the closed Venetian blinds, was obliged to suffice her day and night, for she was not even allowed to look out at the scenery.
There are several negroes on the right shore, who have a different language to that of the Elliàbs, and are called Tshièrrs. They sing and shout as much as they can, to induce us to receive their presents of cattle.