The Aga ordered the master of the ship to give me a free passage, and to put on board some provisions for me, consisting of dates and sugar, the best articles of his own store-room. We embarked in the evening of the 6th of July. When I saw the great number of people assembled on board, I repented having taken my passage in this ship; but I soon understood that from this time till the month of the Hadj (November) every vessel that sailed from Souakin would be equally crowded with passengers. My old companions the Black merchants were too numerous including their slaves, to find room in this vessel, they therefore determined to wait till another opportunity; they arrived at Djidda about three weeks after me. Our ship, or rather boat, for it was not more than between thirty and forty feet long, and nine feet broad in the widest part, had only one sail, and was quite open, without either deck or awning. It had taken in Dhourra as ballast; the basketsi[76] were covered with several layers of mats and hides, upon which one hundred and four persons, including the crew, were to be accommodated; of these fifty were Tekaýrne men and women, and fifty were slaves, belonging either to Black or to Souakin merchants, who were on board. During the night, about fifteen persons were sent on shore, to whom the Reis returned their fare, which they had paid in advance, but there were still eighty-nine persons in the ship when we sailed the next morning. The avidity of the masters in thus overloading their vessels often causes their ruin; about six months ago, two ships on their way from Djidda to Souakin, with a number of Negroe pilgrims on board, were wrecked on the coast at a short distance to the north of Souakin; a few lives only were saved, and the cargoes were entirely lost. No year passes without accidents of this sort happening; but the Arab sailor says—“Allah is great!”—and follows the practice of his predecessors.
PASSAGE FROM SOUAKIN TO DJIDDA.
July 7th.—We remained in port the whole of the morning, waiting for a supply of water. The Tekaýrne and their slaves pay one dollar a head for their passage; each of them has his water-skin suspended over the side of the vessel. Provisions of water for the master and crew, and for the Souakin merchants, for three days, are kept in a few large jars standing on the prow. The sailors and Souakin people dealt heavy blows among the blacks, who were fighting with each other for room in the vessel. We sailed in the evening, and anchored after midnight, at the mouth of the bay of Souakin, where a small ruined bastion or watch tower stands. Here the pilot who had brought us out of the channel left us, to return by land to El Geyf.
July 8th. We sailed after sun-rise, with a good wind; the course was northward along the coast, at the distance of four or five miles, amongst rocks and coral-reefs. At three o’clock P. M. we entered a very narrow creek, of dangerous access, called Dagoratag; the breadth, at the entrance, was hardly sufficient to allow a ship of any size to veer round, but the depth of water was considerable, except close in-shore. The beach is sandy and gravelly, with some trees and shrubs growing upon it. The Bedouin inhabitants, who are of the tribe of Amarer, soon ran down to demand their harbour dues, which consist of about one dollar’s worth of Dhourra, and must be paid by all ships touching at this harbour. They sold us at the same time, some milk. All these anchorages are called by the Arabs, Merasy (مراسي).
July 9th. We sailed after sunrise; it is the practice in all parts of the Red Sea to sail at this hour, and to anchor in a port in the afternoon; the mariners never depart from this custom till they are obliged to stand over to the opposite coast. The ignorance of the Arabians in navigation obliges them to proceed with great caution in this dangerous sea. Conscious of their want of skill, and of the insufficiency of their vessels, they avoid encountering an open sea or an adverse wind. The smaller ships have neither logs nor compasses on board, or if they have, never make much use of them. Our captain’s plan was to proceed along shore as far as Djebel Mekouar. This is the common route of the Souakin vessels during the prevalence of the northerly breezes, as the wind from thence is usually fair for stretching across to Djidda. Ships bound from Souakin to Mokha generally proceed southward along the African coast, anchoring in some port every evening, till they reach Massouah, from whence they cross over to the Arabian shore. In the northern part of the Red Sea, the vessels bound from Kosseir to Djidda cross over to the nearest point of the opposite coast, and then proceed along shore to Djidda. On the contrary, those from Djidda to Kosseir follow the coast as high as the latitude of Moyla, or Ras Mohammed, and cross from thence, by the help of the northerly winds. These coasting voyages are still more necessary to the Souakin slave vessels, because they are generally so full of passengers and slaves as to be obliged to take in a daily supply of water.
We had a fair westerly wind this morning. The Blacks were all sick, no person had room sufficient to stretch out his limbs, and we were confined the whole day in the same position, exposed to the heat of the sun; the sailors were obliged to walk over the passengers to do their work, and the whole vessel was a scene of confusion and quarrelling. In the course of the morning we passed the tomb of a Shikh named Berghout (شيخ برغوت), with a cupola over it, built upon the beach by Souakin sailors, who revere him as the protector of mariners. We saw a great number of dolphins, of the same size and shape as those seen on the coast of Egypt, near the mouths of the Nile; the sailors would not allow me to throw a lance at them; to wound one of them they think will be attended with disaster to the voyage. Soon after mid-day we anchored in the bay of Gayayá; we had sailed almost the whole morning among rocks just appearing above water. In sailing into the bay we ran ashore, an accident which often happens; the sailors are in the habit of entering these creeks in full sail; when at a certain distance from the beach, they suddenly furl the sail, and let the vessel run up to the anchorage; but they often mistake the distance, and as they have no anchor in these small vessels, she is aground before she can veer round. The moment the sail is lowered three or four men jump overboard, with ropes fastened to grappling-irons, which they make fast to some coral rock or tree on shore. The passengers go on shore every evening, and often pass the night there. As we had no boat, and the vessel could not always be brought close in shore, we were sometimes obliged to wade or swim to the beach.i[77] The Negroes encamped every afternoon in the same manner as they had done when crossing the desert. This evening I observed the whole beach to be covered with shells, and in the water among the coral rocks were numberless fishes of various shapes and colours. I was shewn the shell of the Sorombak, the fish of which is eaten by the Arabs all along the coasts of the Red Sea, and particularly in this part. Among the calcined shells, I saw those of the lobster. A party of Amarer Bedouins came to the beach to sell water, sheep (three fat sheep for a dollar’s worth of Dhourra), shell-fish, boiled fish, and some hares,i[78] and to receive the usual presents from the master of the vessel. These people were entirely ignorant of the Arabic language, and although we were in much greater numbers than themselves, they appeared to think very lightly of us, and behaved with little ceremony or civility. The bay of Gayayá is one of the best anchorages on this coast; even large ships might find shelter here in stress of weather.
July 10th. A good wind carried us before mid-day to the bay of Deroura, where we anchored, knowing that there is a copious well in the neighbourhood. We passed yesterday, as well as to-day, several other bays frequented by country ships. Every pilot (رُبّان Robban) knows their situation, but long practice is wanted not to mistake the entrance, which is always through a labyrinth of shoals. The Tekaýrne went and filled their water-skins at the well, and after their return the captain obliged them to go a second time, to bring a sufficient quantity for the ship’s company. These poor people were, on all occasions, extremely ill-treated, although not one of them owed his passage to the captain’s charity; the Souakin people and sailors cursed and beat them repeatedly in the course of the day, and obliged them to do the ship’s work, while they themselves sat at their ease smoaking their pipes: the water and provisions of the poor pilgrims were constantly pilfered by the crew, and they were crowded into as narrow a space as three persons would be in the seat of a carriage intended to carry but two. The ship’s company and the merchants had every morning and evening fresh Dhourra bread, baked in a small oven on the prow, while the Negroes, who were never allowed to make use of the oven, fasted the whole day, till they could cook their supper on shore. If any of them attempted to take out a leaf of his papers, or to read or write his prayers, some Souakiny was sure to throw water over him, and spoil his book. At Souakin the Tekaýrne, before they embark, are exposed to another inconvenience: instances having been known of black traders dressing their slaves like pilgrims in order to elude the duties levied upon them, the Aga has made it a pretext for exacting duties upon free-born pilgrims, by insisting that they are slaves in disguise, and thus taking two dollars from each, though they may be able to prove the contrary. For three or four months previous to the time of the Hadj Souakin is always full of Tekaýrne, and they would be much more numerous were it not for the ill treatment they meet with from the people of Souakin, and the dangers of the passage across the Red Sea; the dread of which, more than of the journey to the coast, discourages great numbers from coming.
July 11th. The wind was adverse, and we found ourselves greatly entangled among rocks. We passed a ruined castle, or large tower, situated two miles in-land. The Souakin people told me that it had been built by an ancient Pasha of Souakin, near a well, and that it was a halting-place on the road, once frequented, between Kosseir and Souakin. The former existence of such a route through the mountains of Nubia had already been mentioned to me by the people of Upper Egypt, and the Pasha of Souakin, it was said, always travelled by this route from Egypt to his government. The Souakin people farther informed me, that at every halting place a similar tower was found; but this they knew only by report, none of them having ever travelled the road.
In the mountains to the eastward of Daraou in Upper Egypt, three journeys from that village towards the Red Sea, is a plain with wells of sweet water, which is called Shikh Shadely (شيخ شادلي) from the tomb of a holy man, who is said to have died there, on the road from Kosseir to Souakin; which passes by the wells. The tomb is held in great veneration by the Egyptians; one of the Mamelouk Begs built a cupola over it, and people frequently make vows to visit the Shikh’s tomb, and there sacrifice a sheep in his honour. The surrounding valleys are full of trees; and according to the statements of my informants there are some remains of buildings, and caverns cut in the rocks. The mountain has long had the reputation of containing emeralds, and most of the Arabian geographers confirm the opinion by their writings. Mohammed Aly Pasha having been informed of the tradition, sent in 1812 a party of soldiers to Shikh Shadely, accompanied by a Greek jeweller of Cairo, who was supposed to understand something of precious stones. They carried several hundred peasants with them, and after digging in the rocky ground, and in the plain near the tomb, in a place were a Mamelouk Beg had been reported to have found a stone of inestimable value, they happened, by a singular accident, to dig up a piece of green opaque glass, about eight cubic inches in size, with something of an emerald hue; this was immediately declared to be the true stone, and carried as such in triumph to Cairo. When the jeweller passed through Esne, I had just arrived there, and saw the supposed treasure at the governor’s house; but I took care not to damp the joy of the officer of the detachment, who no doubt considered that his fortune was made. I heard afterwards that the news of the lucky discovery reached Cairo before the arrival of the treasure; that the discoverers received a handsome present from the Pasha; and that it was not till long afterwards that some connoisseur had the courage to assure his highness that the supposed emerald was nothing but a piece of glass. It had been dug out of a thick bed of gypsum, between ancient walls; and I have little doubt that a glass manufactory was anciently established on the spot. The surrounding mountains are very well wooded, and the Ababde Arabs burn there a large quantity of charcoal from the acacia trees, which they carry to the Nile, from whence it is shipped by the merchants to Cairo. The herbs Shieh (شيح), and Rothe (روثه), from which the best Kelhy or soda is made are common in the same mountain, and sand is found in plenty in the valleys; this, therefore, was a most convenient spot to establish a manufactory of glass. No doubt can be entertained that the ancient Egyptians made use of glass vessels; fragments of which, of the most varied shapes and colours, are found in the ruins of all their towns. It is even evident that they must have attained to considerable skill in this art, and that they had attempted to imitate precious stones in glass; for during my stay at Esne, several small pieces of glass were dug up amongst the ruins of Edfou (Apollinopolis Magna), which were perfect imitations of the amethyst and topaz.
Before mid-day we entered the bay of Fedja (فجع)i[79]; its entrance is easy, and the anchorage spacious. The ship’s yard was injured this morning through the unskilfulness of the sailors in tacking; nothing, indeed, can be more awkward than the manner in which these country ships are navigated; none of the crew has any particular duty assigned to him, and every manœuvre creates general confusion. The captain has no real command over his men, who generally do only what they like, without attending either to his or the pilot’s orders; but as they are great cowards, the consequences of their ignorance prove less frequently fatal to the vessel than might be supposed. Whenever a fresh breeze springs up, the Arabian sailor instantly furls his sails, and runs his vessel ashore, where he remains till it abates; if the ship reaches the neighbourhood of a bay before noon, and doubts are entertained from the state of the wind, of the possibility of reaching the next bay before sun-set, the first is at once entered, and the whole afternoon is passed in idleness; for after the ship is made fast, there they remain, however favourable the wind may prove.