From this place it required an energetic march of twenty leagues to reach the first well on the confines of the Nile-valley. The road, now formed by numerous pathways running closely side by side like cattle-ruts, crossed a great boulder flat in a W.S.W. direction. The pack-camels proceeded side by side in phalanx, as upon the open lands they rarely march in single file. There were sandy water-courses ever and again intersecting our way, and groups of hills meeting the eye in the horizon.
Aboo-Odfa.
MONUMENT OF NATURE.
On leaving O-Baek we had next to traverse the plains extending to the west of the wells; formed of the finest quicksand, blown up into hills often as high as a house, these sands were a considerable impediment to the camels. From the dreary waste of the plain with its loose black rocks, jutted up a solitary block of granite, to which the Bedouins give the suggestive name of “Eremit.” An hour’s journey further on there appeared, above the plain by the right of the road, another isolated mass of granite, one of those landmarks visible from afar, which, after the weariness of the desert journey, is ever greeted gratefully by the eye of the long-tried traveller. It is a natural stone obelisk, 35 feet high, in its singular shape resembling an inverted pear or fig. The block is narrow at the base, and evidently in the course of time has been worn away by the action of the sand as it has been driven by the wind.[5] This monument, the unhewn production of nature itself, is called by the natives Aboo-Odfa, Odfa being the name of a saddle covered with a canopy which is used for women on the camel. Smaller blocks of similar conformation are not unfrequently met with at other parts of the road.
On the grassy bottom of Aboo-Kolod, where, in consequence of the late rain, great pools had formed themselves, we made our last night camp but one. The slopes had all the characteristics of being on the level of the Nile at Berber, whilst the remainder of the road again ascends. The last wady is Aboo-Selem; it was at that time one unbroken sorghum-field, its fruitful soil was already cultivated by the industrious inhabitants of the Nile valley, although the recurrence of the rain would permit the culture only at intervals. At length on the 7th of October we entered the town of Berber. Without loss of time I found a boat on which to continue my journey to Khartoom.
Whilst I encamped at Berber, pending my embarkation on the Nile, I had been unconsciously put into a position of some jeopardy. The native of Dongola who accompanied me as my servant, in order to find the safest place he could to secure the prohibited wares of a Greek merchant from the eyes of the police, had, without my knowledge, concealed under my tent a considerable quantity of gunpowder and other explosive materials. Whilst the fellow was away on a visit to town, I had unsuspiciously kindled a fire on the loose sandy soil, in order to perform my cooking operations, little dreaming of the peril which happily I escaped.
HOSPITALITY.
My old acquaintance, M. Lafargue, who was settled in Berber as a merchant and presided over the French Vice-consulate, himself an experienced traveller on the Upper Nile, received me with that hearty hospitality which many other desert wanderers have proved besides myself. Sir Samuel Baker aptly compares such receptions to the oasis in the desert. No necessity of letters of introduction here as with us in Europe; no hollow forms of speech, exchanging courtesies which perchance mean the very reverse; no empty compliment of at best a tedious dinner; but here in Egypt the people receive us with free and genial amiability, all Europeans are fellow citizens and everything is true and hearty. “What pleases me the most is the ease with which you travel in this country; you come, you go, you return again, as though it were a walk.” Such were M. Lafargue’s cordial words to me. We parted well pleased with one another: I shall not see him again.