Although they are more lively and excitable than the Turks and Egyptians, the Nubians exhibit a more decided idleness and dislike to work than either of them; hence proceeds that utter want of order and regularity in their households which is so conspicuous everywhere, and to overcome which would require more energy than they are ever likely to display. It is true that they are free from some of the more revolting vices of the Turks, such for instance as opium-eating, but they indulge in the same lascivious excesses, and have the same hankering after stimulants when their physical powers flag or fail to answer to those demands of an insatiable imagination, which have become a second nature in the degenerate nations of the East.

EXCURSION TO EGYPTIAN CAMP.

My condition was somewhat ameliorated, but I was still in want of many common necessaries. Hitherto I had been quite unable to find anything that could compensate for the boots and shoes I had lost. In the hope, therefore, of obtaining some of the things I so much required from amongst the effects of the deceased Turkish Sandjak, I resolved to make an excursion to the Egyptian camp. A series of settlements belonging to various Khartoomers would be passed along the route, and by stopping at these I might not only break my journey, but might get an opportunity in addition of gaining information about that portion of the frontier of the Upper Nile territory.

The camp of the Government was situated close to the chief settlement of the most powerful of all the Khartoom Seriba owners, Seebehr Rahama, who himself resided there. His territory included the western portion of the district occupied by the Khartoomers, and was immediately adjacent to the most southerly outposts of the Sultan of Darfoor. A few days before I started on this little journey to the west, a circumstance had occurred that had thrown all the inhabitants of this Seriba into a great commotion, and which did not augur altogether well for my projected tour. A conflict had broken out between the black Government troops and Seebehr’s Nubian soldiers, and twenty Nubians as well as many of the negroes had lost their lives in the fray. The Turkish bazibozuks, instead of remaining neutral, had joined in the affair and taken part against the blacks. The reason of this coalition between the Egyptian Turks and the Nubian settlers was, that the Turkish commander had given orders that their common enemy, Hellali, should be seized and imprisoned. This Hellali, it will be remembered, was the man who had been appointed to the special command of the black troops of the Government, and who had represented himself as the owner of the copper-mines in the south of Darfoor, stating that they had to pay him 4000 dollars annually. He was really the cause of the present quarrel, and the events that led to his imprisonment will not take long to describe.

Hellali had drawn upon himself the odium of all the Khartoomers, because, by alleging himself to be the owner of the land in the south of Darfoor, he threw doubt upon their legal right to the soil on which they had founded their Seribas; he was consequently summoned to Khartoom to give an account of his conduct. All the representations by which he had induced the Viceroy to undertake the expedition to the Gazelle had turned out to be nothing but the fraudulent devices of a swindler; Hellali had never possessed land in this district at all, and much less had received any grant of territory from the Sultan of Darfoor. For months it had been rumoured that he intended to retire with his black troops to that part of the country, and in spite of his appeal to the seal and signature of his Highness, by virtue of which he claimed possession of the lands, the suspicion against him increased to such an extent that the Turkish commander appeared to be justified in proceeding to violent measures against the alleged favourite of the Viceroy. The conflict that now arose determined the matter; Hellali had been the mainspring of the quarrel with Seebehr’s people, and thus, as I have said, his capture brought about a reconciliation between the Turks and the Nubians.

HELLALI.

The immediate cause of the disagreement may now be related. Hellali had ordered his soldiers to make requisitions of corn upon the natives under Seebehr’s jurisdiction, who had hitherto been accustomed to furnish contributions to none but their own master. The strange troops were proceeding by violence to appropriate to themselves the contents of the granaries, when the Nubian soldiers, with Seebehr himself at their head, sallied out from the Seriba, and attempted to drive off the intruders. Hellali’s people immediately opened fire upon the Nubians, and the very first shot wounded Seebehr in the ankle. This was the signal for a general battle, and many lives were lost on either side. For the first few days the Egyptian camp, so near the Seriba as it was, was in imminent danger, and could with difficulty hold its own against the ever-increasing numbers of antagonists, for of course all the neighbours hastened to the assistance of Seebehr, whose fighting force already amounted to more than a thousand. In this dilemma the Turkish commander was obliged to resort to the diplomatic measure to which I have referred, so as to avert the serious consequences that threatened himself and his troops.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] The Turkish name is properly pronounced Kutshook Aly, but I give the words as I believe they are more generally written.

[59] The negro races of Central Africa also, without any notion of hours as a division of time, are able to indicate the time of day by the same method, which for the equinoctial regions may be considered quite practical.