| Mills, per day.[59] | |
|---|---|
| Responsible sheikhs in charge of all Arabs | 200 |
| Skilled guides (also employed as beacon builders) | 150 |
| Postmen journeying regularly to and from the Nile Valley | 150 |
| Baggage camels, each to carry 300 pounds’ load, with one driver to every two camels, the drivers to act as general labourers at a camp and to collect wood and water and to carry supplies up the mountains when required | 120 |
| Riding camels | 120 |
| Porters | 70 to 80 |
A small amount of agriculture is practised in the Wadi Di-ib, slightly south of the Sudan frontier, but there is none actually within the district here described. My camels were fed for some time on durra (Indian corn) brought from Wadi Di-ib.
A little fishing is carried on near Berenice and at Mersa Shab and Halaib, but only for the food of the fishermen, who subsist almost entirely on it, and thus recall the Ichthyophages of Ptolemy. When I had abundance of excellent fish at Shab and Halaib, I noticed that but few of my Bisharin cared to partake of what was to me a very welcome change of diet.
Halaib is the only permanent village, and even it is merely a miserable collection of wooden huts and tents, where trade is confined to dates, fat, corn, sugar, and such like necessaries; supplies are brought by boat from Suakin and sold to the local Arabs.
Communications.
There are numerous camel-roads connecting the various wells with each other and with the Nile, the principal of which are indicated on [Plate III] (p. 26). The most usual starting points from the valley are Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswân, Dakka, and Berber. The roads lie mostly along wadis, and are far from being very direct, being necessarily so chosen as to pass water supplies and to avoid very steep places. From Aswân or Kom Ombo, Berenice can be reached in about seven or eight days by luggage camels, and the roads are fairly good; water is least scarce on the Kom Ombo road, which takes advantage of the wells of Qoleib and Abu Hashim. Between any two wells, there are generally several possible roads. The one taken by any particular traveller is naturally that which his guides happen to know best, or that along which the most camel food is to be found at the time; hardly any two Europeans have journeyed by precisely the same road. A “road” in desert parlance is only a track by which camels have passed at some time or other; there is nothing of the nature of a made road, even along the ancient routes mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary; and the tracks are sometimes obliterated by sand. Since the opening up of Port Sudan, the Elba district is most easily reached from that place, whence it is about 340 kilometres distant, by two roads of nearly equal length, one skirting the coast and the other more inland; the latter passes good wells at about two days’ intervals.[60] To reach Elba from the valley, a camel journey of more than 500 kilometres is necessary whether Aswân, Dakka, or Berber be the starting point. The ports of Berenice, Shab, and Halaib are only touched occasionally and irregularly by coasting boats and Coast Guard steamers. News is passed orally among the wandering Arabs with remarkable rapidity, but naturally it frequently gets somewhat modified in transit.
Government.
The geographical frontier between Egypt and the Sudan is the 22nd parallel of north latitude. But for administrative purposes it has been found convenient to consider all Bisharin Arabs as under the Sudan Government, and all Ababda under that of Egypt. The administrative frontier therefore runs between the districts of the two main tribal divisions, along a zigzag line from Gebel Muqsim, via Gebel Um el Tiur el Foqani, Gebel Niqrub el Foqani, and Bir Meneiga, to Bir Shalatein on the coast.[61] A territory of some 16,000 square kilometres in the extreme south-east corner of Egypt is thus placed for purposes of government under the Sudan mudiria of Berber, under which arrangement a moawin and small police force are maintained in the fort of Halaib. The remainder of the area is administered by the Egyptian mudir of Aswân. In Egypt, the Arabs are not taxed except in respect of any lands they may own in the Nile Valley. In the Sudan a tax is levied on each tribe in return for police protection and other advantages; the tax is paid very willingly, for the Bisharin are less poor than the Ababda, and thoroughly appreciate the advantage of good government, while they have unbounded faith in the justice of Anglo-Egyptian officials in settling their disputes. One of the incidents which most strongly impressed itself on my remembrance during my travels in the district was the meeting near Gebel Korabkansi of an English inspector from Berber, to whom a number of Bisharin Arabs engaged in disputes stated their rival claims quietly and reasonably, both sides having the utmost confidence that the judgment given would be just and fair. In Egypt, the Arabs are less friendly in their feelings towards the government, and prefer to settle their differences among themselves; a circumstance no doubt due to the fact that Egyptian governors have had their hands full with matters connected with the valley, and have had no time to become acquainted with Bedouin ideas and customs, while the Arabs, independent for centuries and very poor, are afraid of misunderstanding and taxation. It would, I think, be unfair to tax the true desert Arabs of Egypt, even to the moderate extent which is done for the Arabs of the Sudan, for their country is much more barren than that of the Bisharin, and their sources of income are consequently fewer. In a year of little or no rainfall, there is not enough vegetation to feed their animals, so that many are lost, and the only way a tax could be raised at such times would be by cutting down trees for charcoal; but, as already mentioned, any encouragement of the charcoal industry would soon impoverish the country still further, the thorny acacia trees being the principal reserve camel food in rainless years. That so many Ababda are settled in and near the Nile Valley is possibly in part due to their having been driven from the desert by the growing scarcity of trees consequent on the prosecution of the charcoal industry in the past.
[33]The mountains and hills will be found described in fuller detail in [Chapter VI.]