At two o'clock in the afternoon we left Abou Heregi, and at four had an unexpected entertainment, which filled our hearts with a very short-lived joy. The whole plain before us seemed thick-covered with green grass and yellow daisies. We advanced to the place with as much speed as our lame condition would suffer us, but how terrible was our disappointment, when we found the whole of that verdure to consist in senna and coloquintida, the most nauseous of plants, and the most incapable of being substituted as food for man or beast. At nine o'clock in the evening we alighted at Saffieha, which is a ridge of craggy mountains to the S. E. and N. W. The night here was immoderately cold, and the wind north. We were now very near a crisis, one way or the other. Our bread was consumed, so that we had not sufficient for one day more; and though we had camels flesh, yet, by living so long on bread and water, an invincible repugnance arose either to smell or taste it. As our camels were at their last gasp, we had taken so sparingly of water, that, when we came to divide it, we found it insufficient for our necessities, if Syene was even so near as we conceived it to be.
Georgis had lost one eye, and was nearly blind in the other. Ismael and he had both become so stiff by being carried, that they could not bear to set their feet to the ground; and I may say for myself, that, though I had supported the wounds in my feet with a patience very uncommon, yet they were arrived at that height as to be perfectly intolerable, and, as I apprehended, on the point of mortification. The bandage, which the Bishareen had tied about the hollow of my foot, was now almost hidden by the flesh swelling over it. Three large wounds on the right foot, and two on the left, continued open, whence a quantity of lymph oozed continually. It was also with the utmost difficulty we could get out the rag, by cutting it to shreds with scissars. The tale is both unpleasant and irksome. Two soles which remained from our sandals, the upper leathers of which had gone to pieces in the sand near Gooz, were tied with a cotton cloth very adroitly by the Bishareen. But it seemed impossible that I could walk further, even with this assistance, and therefore we determined to throw away the quadrant, telescopes, and time-keeper, and save our lives, by riding the camels alternately. But Providence had already decreed that we should not terminate this dangerous journey by our own ordinary foresight and contrivance, but owe it entirely to his visible support and interposition.
On the 27th, at half past five in the morning we attempted to raise our camels at Saffieha by every method that we could devise, but all in vain, only one of them could get upon his legs, and that one did not stand two minutes till he kneeled down, and could never be raised afterwards. This the Arabs all declared to be the effects of cold; and yet Fahrenheit's thermometer, an hour before day, stood at 42°. Every way we turned ourselves death now stared us in the face. We had neither time nor strength to waste, nor provisions to support us. We then took the small skins that had contained our water, and filled them as far as we thought a man could carry them with ease; but after all these shifts, there was not enough to serve us three days, at which I had estimated our journey to Syene, which still however was uncertain. Finding, therefore, the camels would not rise, we killed two of them, and took so much flesh as might serve for the deficiency of bread, and, from the stomach of each of the camels, got about four gallons of water, which the Bishareen Arab managed with great dexterity. It is known to people conversant with natural history, that the camel has within him reservoirs in which he can preserve drink for any number of days he is used to. In those caravans, of long course, which come from the Niger across the desert of Selima, it is said that each camel, by drinking, lays in a store of water that will support him for forty days. I will by no means be a voucher of this account, which carries with it an air of exaggeration; but fourteen or sixteen days, it is well known, an ordinary camel will live, though he hath no fresh supply of water. When he chews the cud, or when he eats, you constantly see him throw, from this repository, mouthfuls of water to dilute his food; and nature has contrived this vessel with such properties, that the water within it never putrifies, nor turns unwholesome. It was indeed vapid, and of a bluish cast, but had neither taste nor smell.
The small remains of our miserable stock of black bread and dirty water, the only support we had hitherto lived on amidst the burning sands, and our spirits likewise, were exhausted by an uncertainty of our journey's end. We were surrounded among those terrible and unusual phænomena of nature which Providence, in mercy to the weakness of his creatures, has concealed far from their sight in deserts almost inaccessible to them. Nothing but death was before our eyes; and, in these terrible moments of pain, suffering, and despair, honour, instead of relieving me, suggested still what was to be an augmentation to my misfortune; the feeling this produced fell directly upon me alone, and every other individual of the company was unconscious of it.
The drawings made at Palmyra and Baalbec for the king, were, in many parts of them, not advanced farther than the outlines, which I had carried with me, that, if leisure or confinement should happen, I might finish them during my travels in case of failure of other employment, so far at least, that, on my return through Italy, they might be in a state of receiving further improvement, which might carry them to that perfection I have since been enabled to conduct them. These were all to be thrown away, with other not less valuable papers, and, with my quadrant, telescopes, and time-keeper, abandoned to the rude and ignorant hands of robbers, or to be buried in the sands. Every memorandum, every description, sketch, or observation since I departed from Badjoura and passed the desert to Cosseir, till I reached the present spot, were left in an undigested heap, with our carrion-camels, at Saffieha, while there remained with me, in lieu of all my memoranda, but this mournful consideration, that I was now to maintain the reality of these my tedious perils, with those who either did, or might affect, from malice and envy, to doubt my veracity upon my ipse dixit alone, or abandon the reputation of the travels which I had made with so much courage, labour, danger, and difficulty, and which had been considered as desperate and impracticable to accomplish for more than 2000 years.
I would be understood not to mean by this, that my thoughts were at such a time in the least disturbed with any reflection on the paltry lies that might be propagated in malignant circles, which has each its idol, and who, meeting, as they say, for the advancement of learning, employ themselves in blasting the fame of those who must be allowed to have surpassed them in every circumstance of intrepidity, forethought, and fair achievement. The censure of these lion-faced and chicken-hearted critics never entered as an ingredient in my sorrows on that occasion in the sadness of my heart; if I had not possessed a share of spirit enough to despise these, the smallest trouble that occurred in my travels must have overcome a mind so feebly armed. My sorrows were of another kind, that I should, of course, be deprived of a considerable part of an offering I meant as a mark of duty to my sovereign, that, with those that knew and esteemed me, I should be obliged to run in debt for the credit of a whole narrative of circumstances, which ought, from their importance to history and geography, to have a better foundation than the mere memory of any man, considering the time and variety of events which they embraced; and, above all, I may be allowed to say, I felt for my country, that chance alone, in this age of discovery, had robbed her of the fairest garland of this kind she ever was to wear, which all her fleets, full of heroes and men of science, in all the oceans they might be destined to explore, were incapable of replacing upon her brow. These sad reflections were mine, and confined to myself. Luckily my companions were no sharers in them; they had already, in their own sufferings, much more than their little stock of fortitude, philosophy, or education enabled them to bear.
About three o'clock in the afternoon of the 27th we saw two kites, or what are called Haddaya, very numerous in Egypt; about a quarter of an hour afterwards, another of the same sort, known to be carrion-birds, probably going in search of the dead camels. I could not conceal my joy at what I regarded as a happy omen. We went five hours and a half this day, and at night came to Waadi el Arab, where are the first trees we had seen since we left El Haimer.
On the 28th, at half past seven in the morning we left Waadi el Arab, and entered into a narrow defile, with rugged, but not high mountains on each side. About twelve o'clock we came to a few trees in the bed of a torrent. Ill as I was, after refreshing myself with my last bread and water, I set out in the afternoon to gain a rising ground, that I might see, if possible, what was to the westward; for the mountains seemed now rocky and high like those of the Kennouss near Syene. I arrived, with great difficulty and pain, on the top of a moderate hill, but was exceedingly disappointed at not seeing the river to the westward; however, the vicinity of the Nile was very evident, by the high, uniform mountains that confine its torrent when it comes out of Nubia. The evening was still, so that sitting down and covering my eyes with my hands, not to be diverted by external objects, I listened and heard distinctly the noise of waters, which I supposed to be the cataract, but it seemed to the southward of us, as if we had passed it. I was, however, fully satisfied that it was the Nile.
Just before I left my station the sun was already low, when I saw a flock of birds, which, in Syria, where they are plenty, are called the Cow Bird. In Egypt they are also numerous upon the Nile, but I do not know their name. They are a small species of the heron, about a third of the size of the common one, milk-white, having a tuft of flesh-coloured feathers upon their breast, of a coarser, stronger, and more hairy-like quality than the shorter feathers. A flock of these birds was flying in a straight line, very low, evidently seeking food along the banks of the river. It was not an hour for birds to go far from their home, nor does this bird feed at a distance from its accustomed haunt at any time. Satisfied then that, continuing our course N. W. we should arrive at or below Syene, I returned to join my companions, but it was now dark, and I found Idris and the Barbarins in some pain, endeavouring to trace me by my footsteps.
I communicated to them this joyful news, which was confirmed by Idris, though he did not himself know the just distance from this place (Abou Seielat) as his usual way had been to Daroo, not to Assouan, which he did not choose to approach, for fear of the vexations from the Turkish garrison. A cry of joy followed this annunciation. Christians, Moors, and Turks, all burst into floods of tears, kissing and embracing one another, and thanking God for his mercy in this deliverance, and unanimously in token of their gratitude, and acknowledgment of my constant attention to them in the whole of this long journey; saluting me with the name of Abou Ferege, Father Foresight, the only reward it was in their power to give.