The caravan, now reduced to about two-thirds of its original number, several of the merchants having returned to Egypt, while others remained at Berber to dispose of their goods, again put itself in motion on the 7th of April. Our traveller, who had hitherto attached himself to the merchant portion of the party, several of whom, previous to their leaving Egypt, had received benefits at his hands, was here driven by abuse and contumely to take refuge among the Ababde, who not only willingly received him as their companion, but exercised their influence, on more than one occasion, to protect him from violence. Pursuing a southerly direction for three days, they arrived at the town of Damer, which, under the government of a number of religious men, had attained a very high pitch of prosperity. Their sanctity, indeed, was considerably aided by their skill in magic, which, as Burckhardt was credibly informed, was so great that, on one occasion, the Faky el Kebir, or Great Fakir, caused a lamb to bleat in the stomach of the thief who had stolen, and afterward eaten it. There was no daily market at Damer, nor was there any thing whatever sold publicly, except on the weekly market-day. However, as our traveller needed a few measures of dhourra for his ass, and found it impracticable to purchase less than a dollar’s worth, which would have been more than he could carry, he was under the necessity of imitating his companions, and went from house to house with some strings of beads in his hands, offering them for sale at about four handfuls of dhourra for each bead. “I gained at this rate,” says he, “about sixty per cent. above the prime cost, and had at the same time an opportunity of entering many private houses. I repeated these walks every day during our stay. One afternoon, while crying my beads for sale, I was accosted by a faky, who asked me if I could read. On my answering in the affirmative, he desired me to follow him to a place where, he said, I might expect to get a good dinner. He then led me to a house where I found a great number of people, collected to celebrate the memory of some relative lately deceased. Several fakies were reading the Koran in a low tone of voice. A great faky afterward came in, whose arrival was the signal for reciting the Koran in loud songs, in the manner customary in the East, in which I joined them. This was continued for about half an hour, until dinner was brought in, which was very plentiful, as a cow had been killed upon the occasion. After a hearty meal, we recommenced our reading. One of the sheïkhs produced a basketful of white pebbles, over which several prayers were read. These pebbles were destined to be strewed over the tomb of the deceased in the manner which I had often observed upon tombs freshly made. Upon my inquiries respecting this custom, which I confessed to have never before seen practised in any Mohammedan country, the faky answered that it was a mere meritorious action: that there was no absolute necessity for it; but that it was thought that the soul of the deceased, when hereafter visiting the tomb, might be glad to find these pebbles, in order to use them as beads in addressing its prayers to the Creator. When the reading was over, the women began to sing and howl. I then left the room, and on taking my departure my kind host put some bones of roasted meat in my hand to serve for my supper.”
In proceeding from this place to Shendy the caravan was accompanied by several fakies, whose presence was found to be a sufficient protection against the Nubian Bedouins. They reached Shendy on the 17th of April, and this being, next to Sennaar and Kobbe, the largest town in eastern Soudan, they remained here a whole month, during which time Burckhardt enjoyed an ample opportunity of collecting materials for an account of this and the neighbouring countries. Crocodiles are numerous in this part of the Nile. They are much dreaded by the inhabitants, who, when repairing to its banks for water or to wash their linen, are in constant fear of these creatures. Burckhardt ate of the crocodile’s flesh, which he found of a dirty white colour, not unlike young veal, with a slight fishy smell. To bring its flesh into fashion as an article of food would be the most certain way of rendering it rare.
At this place Burckhardt abandoned all idea of proceeding farther south, and, in order to procure himself some little civility from his former companions, circulated the report that he intended to return directly to Egypt, where, by describing to the pasha their conduct towards him during the journey, he might do them considerable injury. This stratagem succeeded. Their civility and affected friendship now surpassed their former insolence. In the mean while, understanding that a caravan was about to set out for Suakin on the Red Sea, our traveller prevailed on the Ababde chief to introduce and recommend him as his own friend to its leader. Here he disposed of his merchandise, and purchased a slave-boy to attend upon him on the road; and having laid in the necessary quantity of provisions, joined the Suakin caravan, and departed from Shendy on the 17th of May. “After all my accounts were settled,” says he, “I had four dollars left; but the smallness of the sum occasioned me no uneasiness, for I calculated on selling my camel on the coast for as much as would defray the expenses of my voyage to Jidda, and I had a letter of credit on that place for a considerable sum, which I had procured at Cairo.”
The road now traversed by the caravan crossed the Atbara, the Astaboras of the ancients, on the banks of which they found numerous groves of trees, and the most luxuriant vegetation. At the sight of this, the imagination even of the slave-dealers was touched with enthusiasm; and in alluding to the dreary track over which they had travelled, one of them exclaimed, “After death comes paradise!” “There was a greater variety of natural vegetation here than I had seen anywhere on the banks of the Nile in Egypt. I observed different species of the mimosa, doom-trees of the largest size, whose luxuriant clusters of fruit excited the wishes of the slaves, the nebek-tree, with its fruit ripe; the allobé, of the size of the nebek, besides a great number of others unknown to me; to these may be added an abundance of wild herbage, growing on a rich fat soil, similar to that of Egypt. The trees were inhabited by great numbers of the feathered tribe, whose song travellers in Egypt very rarely hear. I saw no birds with rich plumage, but observed small ones of several different kinds. Some sweet notes struck my ears, which I had never before heard, and the amorous cooings of the turtle-dove were unceasing. We hastened to the river, and eagerly descended its low banks to allay our thirst. Several camels, at the sight of the water, broke the halters by which they were led, and in rushing or stumbling down the banks threw off their loads, and occasioned great clamour and disorder.”
In the vicinity of Goz Rajeb, Burckhardt saw on the summit of a hill the ruins of a huge fabric of ancient times, but was deterred from visiting it by the assertion of his companions that it was the haunt of banditti. On the 5th of June, while the caravan halted at an encampment of Hadendoa Bedouins, Burckhardt beheld the effects of a desert storm: “Towards evening we were visited by another hurricane, the most tremendous I ever remember to have witnessed. A dark blue cloud first appeared, extending to about 25° above the horizon; as it approached nearer, and increased in height, it assumed an ash-gray colour, with a tinge of yellow, striking every person in the caravan who had not been accustomed to such phenomena with amazement at its magnificent and terrific appearance; as the cloud approached still nearer, the yellow tinge became more general, while the horizon presented the brightest azure. At last, it burst upon us in its rapid course, and involved us in darkness and confusion; nothing could be distinguished at the distance of five or six feet; our eyes were filled with dust; our temporary sheds were blown down at the first gust, and many of the more firmly fixed tents of the Hadendoa followed; the largest withstood for a time the effects of the blast, but were at last obliged to yield, and the whole camp was levelled with the ground. In the mean time the terrified camels arose, broke the cords by which they were fastened, and endeavoured to escape from the destruction which appeared to threaten them; thus adding not a little to our embarrassment. After blowing about half an hour with incessant violence, the wind suddenly abated, and when the atmosphere became clear, the tremendous cloud was seen continuing its havoc to the north-west.”
Next day they reached Taka, a district famous for its fertility, where hares, gazelles, wolves, giraffes, and limes as large, it was said, as cows, were found in the woods. Hence, after a stay of several days, they departed for Suakin, and after a not unpleasant journey through a wild, picturesque country, approached the termination of their toils. On the morning of the last day they started before sunrise. “The eastern hills,” says Burckhardt, “terminate in this latitude; and the sun was just rising beyond them, when we descried its reflection at an immense distance in the sea, affording a pleasing sight to every individual in the caravan, but most of all to me.” At length, on the 26th of June, they reached Suakin, and pitched their little sheds at about twenty minutes’ walk from the town. Next day they were visited by the emir, who, understanding that our traveller’s camel was an excellent animal, determined on taking it as a part of the caravan dues; upon which Burckhardt insisted upon referring their difference to the Turkish custom-house officer. His wishes were quickly complied with, but the aga, instead of interfering to protect the stranger, immediately conceived the idea of uniting with the emir in seizing upon the whole of his property; and therefore, pretending to regard him as a Mameluke spy, began at once to overwhelm him with abuse. To all this Burckhardt returned no reply, but requested the aga to inform him whether the emir was entitled to his camel. “Not only thy camel,” replied the Turk, “but thy whole baggage must be taken and searched. We shall render a good account of them to the pasha, depend upon it. You shall not impose upon us, you rascal; and you may be thankful if we do not cut off your head!” Our traveller protested that he was nothing but an unfortunate merchant, and endeavoured, by a submissive deportment, to pacify his anger; but “he began cursing and swearing in Turkish,” says Burckhardt, “and then calling an old cripple, to whom he had given the title of waly, or police-officer, he ordered him to tie my hands, to put me in prison, and to bring my slave and baggage into his presence. I now thought it high time to produce my firmans, which I drew from a secret pocket in my thaboot; one of them was written in Turkish, upon a piece of paper two feet and a half in length, and one foot in breadth, and was sealed with the great seal of Mohammed Aly; the other, a smaller one, was written in Arabic, and bore the seal of Ibrahim Pasha, his son, in which Ibrahim termed me ‘Our man, Ibrahim, the Syrian.’ When Yemak saw the firmans unfolded, he became completely stupified, and the persons present looked at me with amazement. The aga could read the Arabic only; but he kissed them both, put them to his forehead, and then protested to me, in the most submissive terms, that it was the good of the public service alone that had led him to treat me as he had done, and for which he begged me a thousand pardons. Nothing more was said about the emir’s right to my camel, and he declared that I should pay no duty for my slave, though he was entitled to it.”
Burckhardt now disposed of his camel, and took his passage to Jidda in one of the country vessels. After tossing about the Red Sea for nearly a fortnight, visiting Macouar, and several points of the African coast, he arrived at Jidda on the 18th of July, 1814. His first care now was to present his letter of credit, which being of an old date, however, he was refused payment, though the merchant offered him a lodging at his house. This he accepted, but removed, two days afterward, to a public khan, where he was attacked by a fever, in which he lay delirious for several days. His recovery from this violent disorder, which he attributed to his indulging in the fine fruits of the Jidda market, seems to have been chiefly owing to the kindness of a Greek captain, who, having been his fellow-passenger from Suakin, attended him during one of his lucid intervals, and, at his own request, procured a barber, who bled him copiously.
Here our traveller was reduced to the hard necessity of parting with his slave, for whom he obtained forty-eight dollars, of which thirty-two were profit. With this he dressed himself in the guise of a reduced Egyptian gentleman, and determined to remain in the Hejaz until the time of the pilgrimage in the following November. However, as his funds were far too low to enable him to live independently until that period, he began to turn his thoughts towards manual labour; but first determined upon trying the effect of a direct application to Mohammed Aly, then at Tayef. He accordingly wrote to his highness’s Armenian physician, who was likewise at Tayef with his master, requesting him to learn from the pasha whether he would accept a bill upon Burckhardt’s correspondent at Cairo, and order his treasurer at Jidda to pay the amount of it. Before the result of this application could be known, he received an invitation to the house of Tousoun Pasha’s physician, who, upon being made acquainted with the state of his finances, kindly offered him the sum of three thousand piasters (about 100l.) for a bill upon Cairo payable at sight. Mohammed Aly, to whom his condition was accidentally made known, immediately despatched a messenger with two dromedaries, an order for five hundred piasters, and a request that he would repair immediately with the same messenger to Tayef. With this invitation, which was, in fact, equivalent to a command, he thought it necessary to comply, and accordingly set off on the same afternoon (24th of August) for the interior of the Hejaz.
They were accompanied during the first portion of the way by about twenty camel-drivers of the tribe of Harb, who were carrying money to Mecca for the pasha’s treasury. The road at first lay over a barren sandy plain, ascending slightly as it receded from the sea; it then entered the narrow gorges of a mountainous country, where they overtook a caravan of pilgrims, who were accompanying a quantity of goods and provisions destined for the army. The pasha, who, no doubt, suspected the sincerity of our traveller’s creed, had given orders to the guide to conduct him by a by-road to Tayef, which lay to the north of Mecca: “Just before we left Hadda,” says Burckhardt, “my guide, who knew nothing further respecting me than that I had business with the pasha at Tayef, that I performed all the outward observances of a Moslem pilgrim, and that I had been liberal to him before our departure, asked me the reason of his having been ordered to take me by the northern road. I replied that it was probably thought shorter than the other. ‘That is a mistake,’ he replied; ‘the Mecca road is quite as short, and much safer; and if you have no objection we will proceed by it.’ This was just what I wished, though I had taken care not to betray any anxiety on the subject; and we accordingly followed the great road, in company with the other travellers.”
On this occasion, however, Burckhardt saw but little of the sacred city, as the guide, who had no curiosity to gratify, hurried through the streets without allowing him time for observation. Continuing their journey, therefore, towards the east, they arrived, on the 27th of August, at Ras el Kora, where they passed the night. “This,” says our traveller, “is the most beautiful spot in the Hejaz, and more picturesque and delightful than any spot I had seen since my departure from Lebanon, in Syria. The top of Jebel Kora is flat, but large masses of granite lie scattered over it, the surface of which, like that of the granite rocks near the sacred cataract of the Nile, is blackened by the sun. Several small rivulets descend from this peak, and irrigate the plain, which is covered with verdant fields, and large shady trees, on the side of the granite rocks. To those who have only known the dreary and scorching sands of the lower country of the Hejaz, this scene is as surprising as the keen air which blows here is refreshing. Many of the fruit-trees of Europe are found here; figs, apricots, peaches, apples, the Egyptian sycamore, almonds, pomegranates; but particularly vines, the produce of which is of the best quality.” “After having passed through this delightful district for about half an hour, just as the sun was rising, when every leaf and blade of grass was covered with a balmy dew, and every tree and shrub diffused a fragrance as delicious to the smell as was the landscape to the eye, I halted near the largest of the rivulets, which, although not more than two paces across, nourishes upon its banks a green alpine turf, such as the mighty Nile, with all its luxuriance, can never produce in Egypt.”