The Bedouin brought us large shell-fish in those great shells we see polished at home. When boiled the fish comes out. It is in shape like a camel's foot, and they call it ghemel. In taste it is like lobster and oyster combined, but as tough as pin-wire.
We had a great tossing for three days after leaving Berenice, and stopping every night.
CHAPTER XXIV
HALAIB AND SAWAKIN KADIM
It is hard to imagine anything more squalid than the Egyptian fortress of Halaib, as it is spelt on the map, or Halei as it is pronounced, which was our next halting-place, and from which we succeeded in getting a little way inland. The governor, Ismael, has been there seven years; he and his family inhabit some wicker cages near the small white fort, and gathered round them are the huts of his soldiers and the cabins of a few Bisharin, who live under the immediate protection of the fort. Ismael is possessed of the only patch of cultivated land that we saw during the whole of our expedition, where he grows gourds, peas, and aubergines or brinjols. The man of most authority in the place is Mohammed Ali Tiout, head of the Bisharin tribe of Achmed Orab. He appointed his son, a fine, intelligent young fellow of five-and-twenty, called the batran in the local dialect, to act as our guide and protector during our exploration of the Shellal range, which rises some miles inland at the back of Halaib.
The people of this portion of the Soudan between the coast and the Nile Valley, who do not own allegiance to the Khalifa, belong to the Morghani confraternity of Mohammedans; their young religious sheikh, a self-possessed, clever lad of about twenty, lives at Sawakin, and his influence amongst the tribes not affecting Mahdism is supreme. He is devoted to British interests, and no doubt in the present condition of affairs his co-operation will be of great value. The Egyptian Government instructed him to write to the sheikhs around Halaib and Mohammed Gol to insure our safety, and to this fact I am convinced we owe the immunity from danger we enjoyed, and the assistance given to us in penetrating inland from Mohammed Gol. The Morghani have the three cicatrices on either cheek, and as a confraternity they are not in the least fanatical, and are well disposed to Christians; very different to the Arabs we met in the Hadhramout, and very different to the Dervishes with whom they are on such hostile terms.
While at Halaib I paid several visits to the wife and family of the mamour or governor. They were very civil always, and used to kiss me. They looked quite as unsettled in their airy brushwood arbours as if they had not resided there steadily for seven years.
There were three huts about 12 feet by 8 feet, one being a kitchen. There is a brushwood fence all round, part having a shed for the stores and water jars. The wife is a Turk, and has one plain grown-up daughter. There was an old lady who made coffee, and a black maid slightly draped in a sheet once white, but now of a general deep grey, pure black in some parts. I liked getting coffee and ginger best. The first day I had to swallow, smiling, tea boiled and a little burnt.