After we had left on our right two islands, we halt at the foot of the second one, at about three o’clock, with the same intention. The shallow island is only elevated a little above the level of the water, of a sandy nature, but full of a species of large and small grass, conclusive of the splendid pastures of the surrounding country, of which the herds afford the best proof. We navigate further, and have immediately a small island on our right. For amusement we go awhile upon the sand, soon get off again, and have on the left another island with shallow sand-heads at the side. The whole left shore lies flat, and makes its appearance beautifully wooded; over it Mount Nerkanjin, concealed in mist and by the distance, rises to the west. I take leave of it and of all the mountains, which are so delightful to my heart, and have contributed so much to my convalescence by their fresh air, and by bringing before me pictures of home. We go to the north. A poor little hamlet, surrounded and shaded by trees, on the left shore. Right and left the vessels squat, and accident alone makes us take the middle road. At the right, two small islands, distinguished, as usual here, by nothing except their succulent grass or reeds. Yet our vessel, proud at the start already gained, goes smack on the flat left shore, as if Nature did not shew shallows there to the most inexperienced mariner. One shock, and—we stick fast. Once more tokuls peep through the trees of the left shore at some distance; negroes are collecting on the shore.
We are navigating through a tract of countries, touching whose original formation and populations we exhaust ourselves in fruitless conjectures. Monuments do not tell us, history is silent, and the annals of the people live only in meagre traditions, which may possibly extend to two or three generations. We could not learn any thing even of these, and the past is repeated in a perpetual present. We throw a sorrowful glance at the youth of these nations, and do not understand how it happens that a people could always remain young.
The other vessels pass us, whilst we are calling, “Eh lissa!” Most of the men are only seemingly exerting themselves in the water, to hoist the vessel, without answering the Abu Hashis passing by and mocking at us. The natives must love the shade, for they remain with their wives under the trees. The shaven heads, and mostly turned in noses of the latter seem to do homage to the principle of beauty being in man. If this decided type of the feminine formation of countenance afford the plastic proof of the primitive natural distinction of the sexes, then not woman, but man, stands here as the master-piece of Nature, similar to what is generally the case in the animal creation. Woman is the weaker being in such a state of nature as this,—the beast of burden, in whom the germ for the improvement of the character is suppressed, though it must be considered as her inalienable birthright.
After a quarter of an hour, we work ourselves off, and row, as fast as our bodies, dripping with perspiration, will allow us, in order to gain a deeper water-course. On the left we notice a forest-hamlet, and on the right an island, which is a quarter of an hour in length. Another island ends, the upper part of which I had not remarked. A long bright water-basin, from the back ground of which two little islands, like green hills, cheerfully look up, stretches before us in N.N.E. The negroes dance and jump no more; they stand melancholy on the shore, because they lose their glass-bead men.
Half-past three o’clock. After the lapse of some minutes we navigate through a narrow canal, and leave the broad water on our right behind the island close to us. At the end of this island we first drive furiously against the shore, and then against another vessel, so that there is cracking and breaking aloft, and a flood of curses discharged. The men jump into the water, bawl, and make a row on all sides, to push the vessels off the sand. We get loose, have an island immediately before us, and try to go into the narrow arm, which separates it from the right shore. The island is covered over and over with luxuriant creeping beans, and is half an hour long. Some of the vessels try their luck on the other side of the island. A number of goats and sheep are pasturing there, and among the latter, rams with horns twisted back, and manes. We keep the main direction of the river, N.N.E., but there is neither direction nor order among the vessels, “Allah kerim!”
A beautiful verdant island below seems to wish to block up our road. Suddenly a second island appears at our side, separated from the former one by only fifty paces of water. We stop at it, because most of the vessels have taken the deceptive broad path, and got upon the sand. The current is strong here, and amounts to two miles. Although our men are at home on the Nile, yet they have no idea at all that where there are precipitous broken shores, and where the shoot of the water falls, there, on the average, the greater depth is to be found.
Suliman Kashef’s beautiful slave has hitherto not yet come out of her narrow back cabin, often as I have begged him to let her. O thou land of the East and jealousy! An unexpected emancipation of the eastern wives and maidens would give an extremely surprising result, judging from analogy with all the circumstances occurring in the hárims, notwithstanding the trifling grade of cultivation, in which these beautiful domestic animals stand, and their quaint notions of the honestum atque decorum.
Four o’clock.—The last island, where we stopped only a short time, and repaired in some measure our broken helm, is immediately followed by two islands, lying close to one another, the nearest of which extends a long way. It is covered with much larger tobacco plantations than we have been accustomed hitherto to see. A hedge defends it against the beasts of the water, and over the young plants reed-roofs have been placed to protect them against the heat of the sun. But what we had not hitherto seen, is a little watchhouse raised on stakes, from which the field-guard peeps out;—a police establishment, which might be placed here more on account of human beings than of beasts.
We leave those islands, as well as the two small reed-islands previously named, together with the broad water at the left, for another island of an hour in length joins on to the latter one, and promises a deeper water-course. The steeply broken shores of these islands, like those of the right side of the river, are stratified in horizontal layers, which consist of mould, sand, and a reddish-coloured substratum of iron-ochre. We go here with the right shore to E. A broad gohr comes into the river from the right side: therefore, what I just now called a right shore, is taken for a large island, the head of which, however, no one pretends to have seen. At last, we again advance, although not for any length of time, in a bed of the stream destitute of islands, and from pure magnanimity we order the oars to rest, so as not to stave in the ribs of another vessel. On the right, a village and some scattered tokuls under the trees. We make a bend to N.N.E. The right shore is thickly covered with trees, but there appears to be little shade there except under the solitary trees having broad boughs. On the left shore are seen, on the contrary, few trees, and the real forest may be further up the country.
Six villages are observed from the deck on the right, and three villages on the left shore. Before us, to N.E., rises a small mountain, to which we perhaps shall approach still closer, for it was not remarked previously in our ascent. On the shore, we have right and left a village; at the left side two more villages immediately follow. From the deck we see here seven other villages; to the right, in the forest, a large village, and closer to us a small one on the shore, whilst on the left again, other tokul-tops peep forth beyond the shore. Solitary huts are scattered on all sides, and the country seems to be extraordinarily populous. Nevertheless, we remark very few people; the others may be employed somewhere in the interior harvesting, catching fish, or elephant-hunting; or state affairs, perhaps, keep them back.