A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar / Under the Command of His Excellence Ismael Pasha, undertaken / by Order of His Highness Mehemmed Ali Pasha, Viceroy of / Egypt, By An American In The Service Of The Viceroy

by George Bethune English

Some of the houses, however, belonging to the chiefs are of a stronger fabric, being composed of thick walls made of bricks dried in the sun, and having terraced roofs. In the thatched cottages I have mentioned, the air and light come in by the doorway and four small holes pierced in the walls of the house. This scanty ventilation renders these cottages very hot and close: the difference between the temperature of an inhabited house and that of the air outside being, in my judgment, almost as great as that of the undressing room of a bath at Cairo, and that of the passage just outside of the bath itself. This circumstance alone is almost sufficient to account for the great mortality in Sennaar, during the rainy season, when whole families are shut up in these close cottages; and every one who goes abroad must necessarily go with his pores in a condition expressly adapted to make him catch a cold or a fever.

Six days before the army reached Sennaar, the Pasha was met by an ambassador from the Sultan; he had an audience of his Excellence, and returned the next day to Sennaar. He was a handsome young man, accompanied by a numerous suite mounted on dromedaries. The army pursued its route, steadily marching in order of battle, the infantry in the centre, the cavalry on the wings; the artillery in advance of the centre and the baggage in the rear, with Shouus' cavalry and the dromedary corps of Abbadies scouring our front and flanks to a great distance. Two days after it was reported in the camp that the Sultan of Sennaar was on his way to meet us with a strong force, preceded by numerous elephants and great herds of cattle, collected in order to receive and exhaust the fire of our troops. The Pasha proceeded however steadily on with the army in order of battle, and equally prepared for peace or war. Two days before the arrival of the army in Sennaar, as I was riding near the Topgi Bashi, who was in front of the army with the artillery, I saw a great number of armed men approaching, mounted on horses and dromedaries. Presently the Malek of Shendi (who had accompanied the Pasha)[51], rode up to the Pasha and informed him that the strangers approaching were the principal officers of the Sultan of Sennaar, and their suite, who had come to demand terms of peace.

I saw these personages when they arrived. They were two, one a tall thin elderly man of a mulatto complexion, dressed in green and yellow silks of costly fabric, with a cap of a singular form, something resembling a crown, made of the same materials, upon his head. The other was the same young man who had come a few days past to the Pasha. He was dressed to-day in silks like the other, except that his head was bare of ornament. They were accompanied by a fine lad about sixteen, who was, it is said, the son of the predecessor of the present Sultan. All three were mounted on tall and beautiful horses, and accompanied by about two hundred soldiers of the Sultan, mounted on dromedaries, and armed with broadswords, lances and shields.

When the Pasha was informed of their approach by the Malek of Shendi, he ordered a halt. The tent of the Pasha was pitched, and the ambassadors were introduced. They were treated with great attention and liberality by the Pasha, who, during the day and the course of the evening following, gave them opportunities enough to be convinced of the immense superiority of our arms to theirs. During the evening, some star rockets and bombs were thrown for their amusement and edification. No language can do justice to their astonishment at the spectacle, which undoubtedly produced the effect intended by the Pasha—humility and a sense of inferiority. The next morning at an early hour the army pursued its march, accompanied by the ambassadors from Sennaar.

About the hour of noon, the outscouts announced to the Pasha that the Sultan of Sennaar himself was approaching to salute his Excellence. On his approach, the army received him with the honors due to his rank. He was conducted to the tent of the Pasha, by the ambassadors he had sent, where he remained in audience with his Excellence a long time. When the audience was finished, he and the personages he had before sent to the Pasha were splendidly habited in the Turkish fashion, and presented with horses, furnished with saddles and bridles embroidered with gold.[52]

It was on the morning following that the army reached the capital. We marched in order of battle. The Pasha, accompanied by the Sultan of Sennaar and his chief servants, in front. On approaching the city, the army saluted this long wished for town, where they imagined that their toils and privations would cease, at least for a time, with repeated and continued volleys of cannon and musquetry, accompanied with shouts of exultation. But these shouts subsided on a nearer approach, on finding this once powerful city of Sennaar to be almost nothing but heaps of ruins, containing in some of its quarters some few hundreds of habitable but almost deserted houses. After the camp was pitched, and I had refreshed myself with a little food, I took a walk about the town. At almost every step I trod upon fragments of burnt bricks, among which are frequently to be found fragments of porcelain, and sometimes marble. The most conspicuous buildings in Sennaar are a mosque, and a large brick palace adjoining it. The mosque, which is of brick, is in good preservation; its windows are covered with well wrought bronze gratings, and the doors are handsomely and curiously carved. The interior was desecrated by uncouth figures of animals, portrayed upon the walls with charcoal. This profanation had been perpetrated by the Pagan mountaineers who inhabit the mountains thirteen days march south of Sennaar, and who, at some period, not very long past, had taken the town, and had left upon the walls of the mosque these tokens of possession.

The palace is large, but in ruins, except the centre building, which is six stories high, having five rows of windows.[53] By mounting upon its roof you have the best possible view of the city, the river, and the environs, that the place can afford. I judged that Sennaar was about three miles in circumference. The greater part of this space is now covered with the ruins of houses, built of bricks either burnt or dried in the sun. I do not believe that there are more than four hundred houses standing in Sennaar and of these one-third or more are round cottages, like those of the villages. Of those built of bricks, the largest is the house of the Sultan. It is a large enclosure, containing ranges of low but well built habitations of sun-dried bricks, with terraced roofs, and the interior stuccoed with fine clay. What struck me the most, was the workmanship of the doors of the old houses of Sennaar, which are composed of planed and jointed planks, adorned frequently with carved work, and strengthened and studded with very broad headed nails; the whole inimitable by the present population of Sennaar. These houses are very rarely of more than one story in height, the roofs terraced with fine and well beaten clay spread over mats laid upon rafters, which form the roof.

The city of Sennaar is of an oblong form, its longest side opposite the river. It stands not at any distance from the river, but directly upon its west bank, which consists hereabouts of hard clay.

The river is now rising,[54] but exhibits itself at present to the view as narrow and winding, as far as the eye can reach, between sand flats, which will shortly be covered by its augmenting waters. The bed of the Nile opposite Sennaar may be reckoned at about half a mile broad.

The environs of Sennaar are wide plains, containing large and populous villages. A long ragged mountain, the only one visible, stands about fifteen miles to the west of the town. Below the town is a small but pretty island, whose inhabitants thrive by raising vegetables for the market of Sennaar; and the opposite bank of the river, presents several verdant patches of ground devoted to the same object.[55] Beyond these spots, the country on the other bank appeared to be mostly covered with trees and bushes, among which I saw four elephants feeding.