I have not been able to ascertain whence the Shilluks and other tribes derive the little rice, which is also a species of grass. A specimen of the fruit is also in my possession; it comes up, perhaps, like wheat. The Shilluks do not seem to be very much afraid: they are ready to engage in barter, although they do not come quite close to us. Perhaps they think to drive us away first, by not supplying us with meat.
30th March.—There was an enlightened assembly yesterday evening, on board Suliman Kashef’s vessel: all the lanterns of the Turks were lighted, and were fixed around it. There is nothing done now without light; we are recalled, therefore, from the chase by lanterns, even if it be only dusk. I proposed, yesterday, either to present ourselves in propriâ personâ to the Mek, at his residence close by (said to be only two hours distant), or to receive him in the open air, if he could be persuaded to come, and not to invite him on board the vessels, according to the favourite custom, because in that case, he might probably turn back. They agreed with me, and—there the matter ended. The boats of the Shilluks exceed in size and solidity those of all the other tribes. This people also frequently place two trees together, and bind them together at the bottom by ropes. Their boats have long peaks, and carry twenty to thirty men, sitting in a line behind one another. The different colour of the bark of the talles—I had seen them previously red, and now of a palish green—seems to depend on the nature of the soil.
The royal cranes, so often mentioned, are in extraordinary quantities here, and we provide ourselves abundantly with them, but got very few other birds. They keep together in flocks, and walk now on the dry old river-bed, which consists of the most fruitful earth, and extends at two hundred paces distant from the Nile. This ancient, flat, and choked-up bed of the Nile, being subject to inundations, is perhaps the place between which and the country beyond the vigorous forest was planted; for I remarked yesterday, that the forest stands more under the horizontal line than on the rising of the shores.
Just now Fadl and Sale came from the Shilluks, some of whom have encamped at a tolerable distance from the river. I did not accompany them, because the natives would infallibly have gone away again, if they had seen a white countenance, as that is connected in their minds with a Turkaui. A broad spear could not be procured from them; they said that every one had his spear, and ought to keep it: moreover, they gave my men to understand that their Mek would not appear until we had also a sultan on board, and that we ourselves had come to their land as spies. Two of them were tolerably conversant in the Arabic language, but very few of the others understood it. One of them possessed a small elephant’s tooth, as my servants further related, but the glass beads I had given them were not sufficient to purchase it, nor a sheep. They do not despise ornaments, and were presented with abundance of white, thick glass beads (the blue are not esteemed); but they prefer, however, objects of real value, and wanted, for example, half a ferda for the sheep. They said that they were frequently visited by Gelabis (slave-dealers, merchants), and that even the day before yesterday, they (the Shilluks) had been visited by some of them, who had come from Khartùm on camels, and brought cotton goods, ferdas, beads, &c., which they had exchanged for cows, teeth, honey, simsim, and kurbàks. A cow costs a ferda, and such a piece of cotton stuff is valued as money, for we never see them clothed in it.
It is a striking circumstance, that a merchant is esteemed by them almost a sacred person; however, I would not recommend any white man to undertake this business here, if he does not wish to be murdered as a much-beloved Turkaui.
31st March.—We leave our landing-place at three o’clock, without having seen the sultan of one of the largest, if not the very largest nation of the White Nile. Another fellow, however, who came, pretended to be the Sheikh-el-Bellet (according to him, a son or relation of the sultan and his envoy), and was presented with pearls and a piece of calico conformably to the Turkish policy. We halt for the night at the left shore. A very large number of black ibes are remarked on the trees: their flesh has a fine flavour.
1st April.—Now that I know something of the country of the Shilluks, which on the whole, perhaps, only amounts to a tract of shore, the conquest of it, as well as of the land of the Dinkas, does not appear to me very difficult from this side, even if the Shilluks were determined to offer real resistance. The army could defile (that is, in the dry season) along the shores up the stream, and cover the towing-path, which is necessary here, owing to the south winds, and the vessels could carry the provisions; there is no Haba either to fear here, as in Taka. Certainly such an expedition would be only to press soldiers, or perhaps also to subdue the whole country; for as to other treasures, they are not to be acquired, except the large herds, from which the future tribute might be drawn. If Ahmed Basha, however,—for I have him in my eye,—could once raise an army of these black devils of Shilluks and Dinkas, whom he himself allows to possess the greatest courage, then he might think of other and more profitable conquests.
That broad, choked-up gohr, of which I spoke previously, seems to continue, and perhaps does so always with the old high shores, which, however, may be distant enough. They are now invisible on both sides, and the new shores are mutually of the same height as they have been for some days. Notwithstanding this, I must still assert that the Dinka land lies higher than that of the Shilluks, and that both the barrenness of the former and the dense wood of the country on the left shore are derived from this cause. On the other hand I have altered the opinion expressed on the ascent, that we ought to keep in view only the old or high shores, in composing a map; although it would be extremely instructive to mark them on the charts, for the present shores are high enough here at least—about five or six, and up to ten feet at our landing-place—to be considered as shores.
We make the bend from N.E. to E., and the Gebl-el-Dinka or Defafaùngh seems to peep forth down the river before us, but it is only a delusion. The villages, or rather the long-tailed city of the Shilluks, Jemmati, Gennap, called by the Arabs therefore perhaps Dennap, advances with its groups of houses and forest to the margin of the river, and crowds of people have collected shortly below our landing-place. We halt at the left shore a little before sunset, which is at present charmingly decorated with grass and trees; the former, however, only below on the flat strand.
2nd April.—Some Shilluks from the neighbouring village were on the shore, but drew back a short distance when they saw me coming. I had experienced a violent perspiration in the night, for we had yesterday evening 30° Reaumur in our cabin, where not a breath of air was stirring, and therefore, being in a perspiration, I had just now thrown over me my burnus, under which certainly a gun might be very easily concealed. The Shilluks are not generally timid, especially if they be in a body. It were, in truth, too much to expect that they should prove their courage, in a small troop and armed merely with shield and spear, against guns that hit at a distance, and send invisible and inevitable death.