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

Two of these Chiefs taken prisoners the Pasha ordered to be impaled in the market-place of Sennaar. They suffered this horrid death with great firmness. One of them said nothing but "there is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Apostle," which he frequently repeated before impalement; while the other, named Abdallah, insulted, defied, and cursed his executioners, calling them "robbers and murderers," till too weak to speak, when he expressed his feelings by spitting at them.[58] The third Chief was detained prisoner, in order to be sent to Cairo.

During my stay in Sennaar, I endeavored to get information of the people of the country, and of the few caravan merchants found in the market-place of Sennaar, relative to the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile. The information I received was as follows: "The source of the Adit (so the people of Sennaar call the river that runs by their city) is in the Gibel el Gumara, (i.e. that great range of mountains called the Mountains of the Moon,) about sixty days march of a camel from Sennaar. in a direction nearly south. It receives, at various distances above Sennaar, several smaller rivers which come from Abyssinia and from the mountains south of Sennaar. The general course of the Bahar el Abiud (they said) was nearly parallel with that of the Adit, but its source was much farther off, among the Gibel el Gumara, than that of the Adit. The Bahar el Abiud, they said, appears very large at the place where the Pasha's army crossed it, because it is augmented from the junction of three other rivers, one from the south-west, and two others from the east, running from the mountains south of Sennaar."[59] On my asking them, "whether the Bahar el Abiud was open and free of shellals or rapids?" they said, "that at a place called Sulluk, about fifteen days march above its junction with the Adit, (i.e. above the place where we crossed the Bahar el Abiud,) there was a shellal, which they believed that boats could not pass.[60] On my asking whether, by following the banks of the Bahar el Abiud and the river that empties into it from the west, it was not possible to reach a city called Tombut or Tombuctoo?" They said, that "they knew nothing of the city I mentioned, having never been farther west than Kordofan and Darfour."

This was all I could learn: but I am disposed to believe, that the main stream of the Bahar el Abiud cannot have its source in the same latitude with that of the Adit, because it commenced its rise, at least, this year, about twenty days sooner than did the Adit, and the different color of its waters proves that it flows through a tract differing in quality of soil from that through which passes the Adit. The interesting question, "whether the Niger communicates with the Bahar el Abiud?" will, however, very probably be determined before the close of another year, as the Pasha will probably send an expedition up that river.

Secondly, I am further disposed to believe that the main stream of the Adit, or Nile of Bruce, does not take its rise in Abyssinia, but in the mountains assigned as the place of its origin by the people of Sennaar. For on viewing the mass of water that runs by Sennaar even now, when the river has not attained two-thirds of the usual magnitude it acquires during the rainy season, I can by no means believe that the main source of such a river is only about three hundred miles distant from Sennaar.

The tract of country included between the Adit and the Bahar el Abiud is called El Gezira, i.e. the island: because, in the season of the rains, many rivers running from the mountains in the south into the Bahar el Abiud and the Adit, occasion this tract to be included by rivers.

I am disposed to believe, that the representations made of the climate of this country are much exaggerated; as, except during the rainy season, and immediately after it, the country is a high and dry plain,[61] by no means excessively hot, because the level of the countries on the Nile being constantly ascending from Egypt, occasions Sennaar to be many hundred feet higher than the level of Egypt, which is proved by the rapid descent of the waters of the Nile toward the latter country. The east and south winds also are, in Sennaar, cool breezes; because they come either from the mountains of Abyssinia, or the huge and high ranges which compose the Gibel el Gumara. I was in Sennaar at Midsummer, and at no time found the heat very uncomfortable, provided I was in the open air, and under a shade. In the cottages and houses, indeed, on account of their want of ventilation, the heat was excessive.

I made during my stay in Sennaar frequent inquiries about the fly mentioned by Bruce; the people of Sennaar said they knew nothing of it;[62] but, in reply to my inquiries, referred to a worm, which they say comes out of the earth during the rainy season, and whose bite is dangerous.

The reptile species in Sennaar are numerous. The houses are full of lizards, which, if you lie on the floor, you may feel crawling or running over you all night. I saw at Sennaar a serpent of a species, I believe, never before mentioned. It was a snake of about two feet long, and not thicker than my thumb, striped on the back, with a copper colored belly, and a flat head. This serpent had four legs, which did not appear to be of any use to him, as they were short and hanging from the sides of his belly. All his motions, which were quick and rapid, were made in the usual manner of serpents, i.e. upon its belly.[63]

I do not feel authorized to give an opinion as to the national character of the people inhabiting the kingdom of Sennaar; but I am obliged to consider the inhabitants of the capital as a very detestable people. They are exceedingly avaricious, extortionate, faithless, filthy and cruel.[64] The men are generally tall and well shaped, but the females are, almost universally, the ugliest I ever beheld; this is probably owing to their being obliged to do all sorts of drudgery.

The children of these people, and indeed of all the tribes on the Upper Nile, go quite naked till near the age of puberty. A girl unmarried is distinguished by a sort of short leather apron, composed of a great number of leather thongs hanging like tassels from a leather belt fastened round the waist: and this is all her clothing, being no longer than that of our mother Eve after her fall. The married women, however, are generally habited in long coarse cotton clothes, which they wrap round them so as to cover their whole person, except when they are at work, when they wrap the whole round the waist.