On the 13th it was so excessively hot that it was impossible to suffer the burning sun. The poisonous simoom blew likewise as if it came from an oven. Our eyes were dim, our lips cracked, our knees tottering, our throats perfectly dry, and no relief was found from drinking an immoderate quantity of water. The people advised me to dip a spunge in vinegar and water, and hold it before my mouth and nose, and this greatly relieved me. In the evening I went to Sittina. Upon entering the house, a black slave laid hold of me by the hand, and placed me in a passage, at the end of which were two opposite doors. I did not well know the reason of this; but had staid only a few minutes when I heard one of the doors at the end of the passage open, and Sittina appeared magnificently dressed, with a kind of round cap of solid gold upon the crown of her head, all beat very thin, and hung round with sequins; with a variety of gold chains, solitaires, and necklaces of the same metal, about her neck. Her hair was plaited in ten or twelve small divisions like tails, which hung down below her waist, and over her was thrown a common cotton white garment. She had a purple silk stole, or scarf, hung very gracefully upon her back, brought again round her waist, without covering her shoulders or arms. Upon her wrists she had two bracelets like handcuffs, about half an inch thick, and two gold manacles of the same at her feet, fully an inch diameter, the most disagreeable and aukward part of all her dress. I expected she would have hurried through with some affectation of surprise. On the contrary, she stopt in the middle of the passage, saying, in a very grave manner, "Kifhalec,"—how are you? I thought this was an opportunity of kissing her hand, which I did, without her shewing any sort of reluctance. "Allow me as a physician, said I, Madam, to say one word." She bowed with her head, and said, "Go in at that door, and I will hear you." The slave appeared, and carried me through a door at the bottom of the passage into a room, while her mistress vanished in at another door at the top, and there was the screen I had seen the day before, and the lady sitting behind it.
She was a woman scarcely forty, taller than the middle size, had a very round, plump face, her mouth rather large, very red lips, the finest teeth and eyes I have seen, but at the top of her nose, and between her eye-brows, she had a small speck made of cohol or antimony, four-corner'd, and of the size of the smallest patches our women used to wear; another rather longer upon the top of her nose, and one on the middle of her chin.
Sittina. "Tell me what you would say to me as a physician."—Ya. "It was, Madam, but in consequence of your discourse yesterday. That heavy gold cap with which you press your hair will certainly be the cause of a great part of it falling off." Sitt. "I believe so; but I should catch cold, I am so accustomed to it, if I was to leave it off. Are you a man of name and family in your own country?" Ya. "Of both, Madam." Sitt. "Are the women handsome there?" Ya. "The handsomest in the world, Madam; but they are so good, and so excellent in all other respects, that nobody thinks at all of their beauty, nor do they value themselves upon it." Sitt. "And do they allow you to kiss their hands?" Ya. "I understand you, Madam, though you have mistaken me. There is no familiarity in kissing hands, it is a mark of homage, and distant respect paid in my country to our sovereigns, and to none earthly besides." Sitt. "O yes! but the kings." Ya. "Yes, and the queens, too, always on the knee, Madam; I said our sovereigns, meaning both king and queen. On her part it is a mark of gracious condescension, in favour of rank, merit, and honourable behaviour; it is a reward for dangerous and difficult services, above all other compensation." Sitt. "But do you know that no man ever kissed my hand but you?" Ya. "It is impossible I should know that, nor is it material. Of this I am confident it was meant respectfully, cannot hurt you, and ought not to offend you." Sitt. "It certainly has done neither, but I wish very much Idris my son would come and see you, as it is on his account I dressed myself to-day." Ya. "I hope, Madam, when I do see him he will think of some way of forwarding me safely to Barbar, in my way to Egypt." Sitt. "Safely! God forgive you! you are throwing yourself away wantonly. Idris himself, king of this country, dares not undertake such a journey. But why did not you go along with Mahomet Towash? He set out only a few days ago for Cairo, the same way you are going, and has, I believe, taken all the Hybeers with him. Go call the porter", says she to her slave. When the porter came, "Do you know if Mahomet Towash is gone to Egypt?" "I know he is gone to Barbar, says the porter, the two Mahomets, and Abd el Jelleel, the Bishareen, are with him." "Why did he take all the Hybeers?" says Sittina. "The men were tired and discouraged, answered the porter, by their late ill-usage from the Cubba-beesh, and, being stripped of every thing, they wanted to be at home." Sitt. "Somebody else will offer, but you must not go without a good man with you; I will not suffer you. These Bishareen are people known here, and may be trusted; but while you stay let me see you every day, and if you want any thing, send by a servant of mine. It is a tax, I know, improperly laid upon a man like you, to ask for every necessary, but Idris will be here, and he will provide you better." I went away upon this conversation, and soon found, that Mahomet Towash had so well followed the direction of the Mek of Sennaar, as to take all the Hybeers of note with him on purpose to disappoint me.
This being the first time I have had occasion to mention this useful set of men, it will be necessary I should here explain their office and occupation. A Hybeer is a guide, from the Arabic word Hubbar, to inform, instruct, or direct, because they are used to do this office to the caravans travelling through the desert in all its directions, whether to Egypt and back again, the coast of the Red Sea, or the countries of Sudan, and the western extremities of Africa. They are men of great consideration, knowing perfectly the situation and properties of all kinds of water to be met on the route, the distance of wells, whether occupied by enemies or not, and, if so, the way to avoid them with the least inconvenience. It is also necessary to them to know the places occupied by the simoom, and the seasons of their blowing in those parts of the desert, likewise those occupied by moving sands. He generally belongs to some powerful tribe of Arabs inhabiting these deserts, whose protection he makes use of to assist his caravans, or protect them in time of danger, and handsome rewards were always in his power to distribute on such occasions; but now that the Arabs in these deserts are everywhere without government, the trade between Abyssinia and Cairo given over, that between Sudan and that metropolis much diminished, the importance of that office of Hybeer, and its consideration, is fallen in proportion, and with these the safe conduct; and we shall see presently a caravan cut off by the treachery of the very Hybeers that conducted them, the first instance of the kind that ever happened.
One day, sitting in my tent musing upon the very unpromising aspect of my affairs, an Arab of very ordinary appearance, naked, with only a cotton cloth around his middle, came up to me, and offered to conduct me to Barbar and thence to Egypt. He said his house was at Daroo on the side of the Nile, about twenty miles beyond Syene, or Assouan, nearer Cairo. I asked him why he had not gone with Mahomet Towash? He said, he did not like the company, and was very much mistaken if their journey ended well. Upon pressing him further if this was really the only reason, he then told me, that he had been sick for some months at Chendi, contracted debt, and had been obliged to pawn his cloaths, and that his camel was detained for what still remained unpaid. After much conversation, repeated several days, I found that Idris (for that was his name) was a man of some substance in his own country, and had a daughter married to the Schourbatchie at Assouan. He said that this was his last journey, for he never would cross the desert again. A bargain was now soon made. I redeemed his camel and cloak; he was to shew me the way to Egypt, and he was there to be recompensed, according to his behaviour.
Chendi, by repeated observations of the sun and stars, made for several succeeding days and nights, I found to be in lat. 16° 38´ 35´´ north, and at the same place, the 13th of October, I observed an immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter, from which I concluded its longitude to be 33° 24´ 45´´ east of the meridian of Greenwich. The highest degree of the thermometer of Fahrenheit in the shade was, on the 10th of October, at one o'clock P. M. 119°, wind north; the lowest was on the 11th, at midnight, 87°, wind west, after a small shower of rain.
I prepared now to leave Chendi, but first returned my benefactress Sittina thanks for all her favours. She had called for Idris, and given him very positive instructions, mixt with threats, if he misbehaved; and hearing what I had done for him, she too gave him an ounce of gold, and said, at parting, that, for knowledge of the road through the desert, she believed Idris to be as perfect as any body; but in case we met with the Bishareen, they would neither shew to him nor to me any mercy. She gave me, however, a letter to Mahomet Abou Bertran, Shekh of one of the tribes of Bishareen, on the Tacazzé, near the Magiran, which she had made her son write from the Howat, it not being usual, she said, for her to write herself. I begged I might be again allowed to testify my gratitude by kissing her hand, which she condescended to in the most gracious manner, laughing all the time, and saying, "Well, you are an odd man! if Idris my son saw me just now, he would think me mad."
On the 20th of October, in the evening, we left Chendi, and rested two miles from the town, and about a mile from the river; and next day, the 21st, at three quarters past four in the morning we continued our journey, and passed through five or six villages of the Jaheleen on our left; at nine we alighted to feed our camels under some trees, having gone about ten miles. At this place begins a large island in the Nile several miles long, full of villages, trees, and corn, it is called Kurgos. Opposite to this is the mountain Gibbainy, where is the first scene of ruins I have met with since that of Axum in Abyssinia. We saw here heaps of broken pedestals, like those of Axum, all plainly designed for the statues of the dog; some pieces of obelisk, likewise, with hieroglyphics, almost totally obliterated. The Arabs told us these ruins were very extensive; and that many pieces of statues, both of men and animals, had been dug up there; the statues of the men were mostly of black stone. It is impossible to avoid risquing a guess that this is the ancient city of Meroë, whose latitude should be 16° 26´; and I apprehend further, that in this island was the observatory of that famous cradle of astronomy. The Ethiopians cannot pronounce P; there is, indeed, no such letter in their alphabet. Curgos, then, the name of the island, should probably be Purgos, the tower or observatory of that city.
There are four remarkable rivers mentioned by the ancients as contributing to form the island of Meroë. The first is the Astusaspes, or the river Mareb, so called from hiding itself under ground in the sand, and again immerging in the time of rain, and running to join the Tacazzé.
The next is the Tacazzé, as I have said, the Siris of the ancients, by the natives called Astaboras, which forms, as Pliny has said, the left channel of Atbara, or, as the Greeks have called it, the island of Meroë.