The village of Derr stands in a grove of date trees, and consists of about two hundred houses. Hassan Kashef and his two brothers have each a good house. The greater part of the inhabitants are Turks, the descendants of the Bosnian soldiers who were sent by Sultan Selym to take possession of the country.i[23]
March 2d. I departed from Derr with an old Arab, named Mohammed Abou Saad (محمّد ابو سَعد), one of the Bedouins called Kerrarish (قراريش). These Bedouins, a remote branch of the Ababde, pasture their cattle on the uninhabited banks of the river, and on its islands, from Derr southward, as far as Mahass and Dongola, where they are said to be more numerous than in Nubia. They are poor; their tents are formed of mats made of the leaves of palm-trees, with a partition in the middle to separate the women’s apartment; but, notwithstanding their poverty, they refuse to give their daughters in marriage to the Nubians, and have thus preserved their race pure. They pride themselves, and justly, in the beauty of their girls. The Kerrarish are, for the most part, in the service of the governors of Nubia, to whom they are attached as a corps of guards, and guides, and accompany them in their journies through their dominions. Whilst the father and grown up sons are absent, the mother and daughters remain in their solitary tent; for they generally live in separate families, and not in encampments. These Bedouins receive occasional presents from the chiefs of Nubia, and such of them as cultivate the islands in the river are exempted from taxes. They are a very honest and hospitable people, and more kind in their dispositions, than any of the inhabitants of Nubia whom I met with. Those who are not in the employ of the governors, gain their livelihood either by acting as guides, or in collecting the senna in the eastern mountain, which they sell to the merchants of Esne at about £1. per camel’s load (from four to five hundred weight). Numbers of them also travel from Wady Halfa, on the Nile, three days journies into the western desert, and collect there the Shabb, (شبّ) or nitre, which they exchange with the same merchants for Dhourra; giving two measures of the former for three equal measures of the latter. The nitre is found on digging only a few inches deep, and covers a space of several miles in extent. This is, however, a perilous traffic, as the inhabitants of Kubbanýe, a village about twelve miles north of Assouan, also engage in it; these are eleven days in reaching the nitre pits, and whenever the two parties meet, a bloody conflict ensues. Between Wady Halfa and the Shabb, one day’s distance from the latter, is a spring where is some verdure, and where a few Doum trees grow North of the Shabb, one day, in the direction of the great Oasis, is a similar spring, called Nary (ناري), with many date trees growing round it.
After having rode along by the date groves, and well built peasants houses, for about half an hour from Derr, we ascended the eastern mountain, the road along the river side being interrupted by the rocks. On the top of the mountain is a wide plain, covered with small fragments of loose sand-stone; and bordered on the east, at about two hours distance, by a higher range of mountains. We continued along this plain in the direction of W. S. W., until two hours and a half from Derr, when we descended again to the banks of the river, near the village Kette (قتّه), where we crossed the dry bed of a branch of the stream, and alighted on an island, at the tent of my guide, where I remained for the night. These people, who all speak Arabic as well as the Nouba language, are quite black, but have nothing of the Negro features. The men generally go naked, except a rag twisted round their middle; the women have a coarse shirt thrown about them. Both sexes suffer the hair of the head to grow; they cut it above the neck, and twist it all over in thin ringlets, in a way similar to that of the Arab of Souakin, whose portrait is given by Mr. Salt in Lord Valentia’s Travels. Their hair is very thick, but not woolly; the men never comb it, but the women sometimes do; the latter wear on the back part of the head, ringlets, or a small ornament, made of mother of pearl and Venetian glass beads. Both men and women grease their head and neck with butter whenever they can afford it; this custom answers two purposes; it refreshes the skin heated by the sun, and keeps off vermin. The young boys go quite naked; but the grown up girls tie round their waist a string of leather tassels, much resembling the feather ornaments worn for a like purpose by the south sea islanders.
March 3d. I sent my guide back to Derr, to purchase more Dhourra, in order that we might give some of it to the camels, in those places where no wild herbs grow; and on his return we set out. Our road lay along a grove of date trees, and an uninterrupted row of houses, for two hours, when the perpendicular rock reached close to the river. At the height of about sixty or eighty feet above the footpath, I observed from below, the entrance to an apartment hewn in the rock, but without any road leading to it, the rock being there quite perpendicular. In like manner I have seen sepulchres cut in the rock of Wady Mousa in Arabia Petræa, which can only be approached by means of ladders, forty or fifty feet in height. In two hours and a half we reached the castle of Ibrim (ابريم), which is now completely in ruins, the Mamelouks having sustained a siege in it last year, and in their turn besieged the troops of Ibrahim Beg, in the course of which operations, the walls were battered with the few cannon that were found in the castle, and many of the houses of the village levelled with the ground.
Ibrim is built upon an insulated rocky hill, just above the river, and is surrounded by barren mountains entirely incapable of cultivation, on the tops of which are many ancient tombs of Turkish saints. The houses are constructed of loose sand-stone, as is the modern wall which surrounds the town. On the west side are some remains of the ancient wall; this had been built of hewn stones cemented together with great neatness: the stones are rather small. It appeared to me to be an erection of the Lower Empire. Within the area of the town are the remains of two public buildings, probably Greek churches, built in the same style as the ancient wall. The castle is about fifteen minutes walk in circumference. A small gray granite column was the only remnant of antiquity it contained.
The castle of Ibrim, with its territory, which commences half an hour south of Derr, and extends as far as Tosko,i[24] is in the hands of the Aga of Ibrim, who is independent of the governors of Nubia; the inhabitants being thus freed from taxes, and paying nothing to their own Aga, had in the course of years acquired, by the annual sale of their dates, great wealth both in money and cattle; but the Mamelouks, in their retreat last year, destroyed in a few weeks the fruits of a century. They took from the Wady Ibrim about twelve hundred cows, all the sheep and goats, imprisoned the most respectable people, for whose ransom they received upwards of 100,000 Spanish dollars; and on their departure, put the Aga to death; their men having eaten up or destroyed all the provisions they could meet with. This scene of pillage, was followed by a dreadful famine, as I have already mentioned.i[25]
The people of Ibrim are often at war with the governors of Nubia, and although comparatively few in number, are a match for the latter; being all well provided with fire arms. They are white, compared with the Nubians, and still retain the features of their ancestors, the Bosnian soldiers who were sent to garrison Ibrim by the great Sultan Selym. They all dress in coarse linen gowns, and most of them wear something like a turban: “We are Turks,” they say, “and not Noubas.” As they are not under absolute subjection to their Aga, and independant of every other power, quarrels are very frequent among them. They have a hereditary Kady: blood is revenged by blood; no commutation in money being accepted for it when death ensues; but all wounds have their stated fines, according to the parts of the body upon which they are inflicted. A similar law prevails among the Syrian Bedouins. When a Turk of Ibrim marries, he presents his wife with a wedding dress, and gives her besides, a written bond for three or four hundred piastres, half of which sum is paid to her in case of a divorce. Divorces, however, are very rare. At a wedding a cow or a calf is killed; for to eat mutton upon such an occasion would be a great scandal to the spouse.
In no part of the Eastern world, in which I have travelled, have I ever found property in such perfect security as in Ibrim. The inhabitants leave the Dhourra in heaps on the field, without a watch, during the night; their cattle feed on the banks of the river without any one to tend them; and the best parts of the household furniture are left all night under the palm-trees around the dwelling; in short, the people agreed in saying, that theft was quite unknown in their territory. It ought, however, to be added, that the Nubians, in general, are free from the vice of pilfering.
From Ibrim we crossed the mountain, and at one hour’s distance from it descended to the river side, at Wady Shubak (شُباق), whither most of the inhabitants of Ibrim retired, after the passage of the Mamelouks. We slept here, at the house of the children of the Aga whom the Mamelouks murdered. Wherever I alighted, a number of peasants assembled, in the evening, at the house; I always gave out that I had business of a public nature with the two chiefs, who were stationed to the south of Sukkot, and being accompanied by a man known to be attached to the Kashefs, no one dared to create the least obstacle to my journey. Indeed, travellers in Nubia, in general, have little to fear from the ill will of the peasants; it is the rapacious spirit of the governors that is to be dreaded.
March 4th. The grove of date trees continues to the south of Shubak. I found many of the houses abandoned; and at every step were graves. The Nubians place an earthen vessel by the side of every grave, which they fill with water at the moment the deceased is interred, and leave it there: the grave itself is covered with small pebbles of various colours, and two large palm leaves are stuck into the ground at either extremity; the symbol of victory thus becoming, in Nubia, that of death. Near Shubak are some mounds of hewn stones, indicating the remains of an ancient edifice. One hour from Ibrim brought us to Wady Bostan (وادي بُستان). The soil, fit for culture, is here very narrow; the eastern mountain is distant about one hour; between it and the plain is a rising spot of ground covered with loose sand-stones. The shape of the insulated mountains which compose this part of the chain, is remarkable; most of them resembling cones flattened on the top, or perfect pyramids; and when viewed from afar, they appear so regular, that they seem to be the work of man. In two hours and a half we came to the village of Tosko (تسقه), the southern limits of Wady Ibrim. In the rocky plain east of Tosko stands an insulated, shattered rock, with several sepulchres excavated in it; these are supported on the inside by low square pillars: in one of them, a vaulted passage leads out to a back entrance. They are of very rude workmanship; and have no sculptures upon the walls, except the figure of the cross. Near the rock are considerable mounds of rubbish. It is matter of surprise, that these are the only sepulchres met with in the eastern hills, from Assouan to this place: the sand-stone rock might have easily been excavated, as has been done in numerous places in Egypt. Tosko continues for about one hour. Three hours and a half, passed over the mountain. Four and a half, Ermenne (ارمنّه), a fine village, belonging to the territory of Nubia. Our road had been till now, in the direction of S. W. From hence, southward, we travelled W. S. W. Five hours and a half, again passed over the mountain, which is close to the river. Six hours, Formundy (فرمندي), a poor village, extending for several miles. The Nubians here grow a little cotton, small plantations of which are every where met with from Kenne, in Upper Egypt, as far as Dongola. The women weave the cotton into coarse shirts, or sell it for Dhourra to the merchants of Derr. Seven hours and a half, we passed the ruins of a Greek church, which had been used in later times as a mosque. Its walls, for half their height, are constructed of small stones, and the upper part of bricks burnt in the sun; there are many names of visitors written on the white plaister; the writing is of the latest time of the Lower Empire. The river here has many windings; and this part of it is reputed a favourite haunt of the crocodile. I saw myself half a dozen of them lying close together on a sand-bank. All the Nubians, as well as the people of Upper Egypt, eat the flesh of this animal whenever they can catch it, which is, however, very seldom.i[26]