Some of the Tekaýrne of Darfour and Kordofan are possessed of considerable property, and trade during their journey. At Djidda I met with a man from Darfour with three or four female attendants, and half a dozen female slaves, which formed his household, besides the slaves he carried with him for sale; but the greater part of them are quite destitute, and find their way to Mekka, and back to their own country, by begging, and by what they can earn by their manual labour on the road. The equipments of all these pilgrims are exactly alike, and consist of a few rags tied round the waist, a white woollen bonnet, a leathern provision sack, carried on a long stick over the shoulder, a leathern pouch containing a book of prayers, or a copy of a few chapters of the Koran, a wooden tablet, one foot in length, by six inches in breadth, upon which they write charms, or prayers, for themselves or others to learn by heart, an inkstand formed of a small gourd, a bowl to drink out of, or to collect victuals in from the charitable, a small earthen pot for ablution, and a long string of beads hanging in many turns round the neck. The Tekaýrne seldom travel alone, at least they never set out alone upon their journey; they generally form parties of about half a dozen, and as opportunity offers, join some caravan on the road, or proceed by themselves. Their usual route to Mekka is by Siout, by Sennaar, or by Shendy. Those from the most western countries meet at Darfour; after which, such only as can afford to travel with the Darfour caravan, (which requires capital sufficient to buy camels and provisions for the journey through the desert), repair to Siout, from whence they proceed to Djidda, by the way of Kosseir. The pilgrims who go by Sennaar come from Kordofan, and pursue their journey by three different routes; viz. 1, through the interior of Abyssinia, by Gondar and Axum, to Massouah; 2, along the Nile from Sennaar to Shendy; and, 3, from Sennaar to Taka, by the way of Ras el Fil, and from thence to Hallenga, by which they escape the journey through the desert. Those who travel by the first route complain of being ill-treated by the Christians of Abyssinia, of never being allowed to enter any house, or even court-yard, and of being fed like dogs (as they express it) before the threshold. They, however, always obtain a copious evening meal. At Massouah they remain a few weeks, till they earn by their labour sufficient to pay their passage-money by sea either to the nearest coast of Yemen, which is one dollar, or to Djidda, which is two dollars. Their usual rendezvous is Hodeyda, the sea-port of Yemen, from whence they proceed to Mekka, by land, passing through the hospitable tribes of Bedouins in the mountains of the Hedjaz. I estimate the number of Negroe pilgrims who pass by this route annually to Mekka at about one hundred and fifty, or two hundred. Many Tekaýrne are settled in the sea-ports of Yemen, as well as at Djidda and Mekka. The third route is preferred by all pilgrims who are able to make a common purse in order to buy a camel for the transport of water and provisions; and they are sure of finding at Taka, after a short stay, some merchants from Souakin, in whose company they can proceed to that place.
The route most frequented by them is that from Darfour or Kordofan straight to Shendy. The latter part only of this route presents any difficulty; in the inhabited districts they everywhere find hospitable people, who pride themselves in giving alms to the poor Fakiha. But from the limits of the dominions of Kordofan to Shendy is a journey of five days through a desert, without water, the dread of which often induces them to take either the circuitous route by Sennaar, or to wait at Kordofan for the rainy season, when water is found in plenty in the barren tract. At Shendy they generally remain some time to recruit their strength, visiting every evening the residence of the foreign merchants, and sitting down without ceremony to their supper. In general, the Tekroury is under little anxiety; wherever he finds himself comfortably situated there he will remain for weeks together; and he prefers taking a circuitous road of fourteen days through a country where he knows that he will find charitable inhabitants, to passing a desert or inhospitable tract of only two days. From Shendy they all proceed to Damer, and this road is never unfrequented by parties, consisting of half a dozen or a dozen of them. On arriving at a village they disperse among its families, and re-assemble again in the evening to partake in common of the victuals which the charity of the inhabitants has provided for them.
At Damer the two principal pilgrim routes separate, and they either proceed along the Nile towards Egypt, or ascend the banks of the Mogren and Atbara, as far as Goz Radjeb, from whence they cross over to Taka and to Souakin. The former is a long but a less fatiguing journey; and the nearer they approach Egypt the more charity they find among the inhabitants on the Nile. The Arabs Sheygya pique themselves on their bounty to the Tekaýrne, in return for which the pilgrim is sure to be stripped of every thing of value that he may possess. Their little property is tolerably secure on the road from Darfour to Shendy, where they are protected by the government; but from thence they are in a very different predicament. At Shendy they usually exchange whatever they possess for gold, as they can secrete it with greater facility than any other article of value; but as this is known to be their practice, they are frequently ill-treated on the road, in consequence of it. I have been assured by many, that among the Bedouins of Atbara and Taka, as well as among the Sheygya, they are often stripped to the skin, in search of their gold, and that all their books, and even their inkstands, are examined, no means being left untried to rob them of the little cash or gold they may have about them. The Sheygya compensate, in some degree, for their rapacity, by their otherwise hospitable conduct; but the Bedouins on the Atbara and at Taka are as uncharitable as they are greedy of booty, and subject the poor travellers to great hardships.
The pilgrims who follow the course of the Nile, stop a short time in the villages of Upper Egypt, in many of which are foundations annexed to the revenues of the mosques,i[65] for the entertainment of the passing Tekaýrne during three days. At Esne every one receives one piaster from the mosque, at parting. If they are entirely destitute of money they endeavour, by manual labour, or by writing charms, to collect as much as will pay, at the time of the Hadj their passage from Kosseir to Djidda, otherwise they rely on the charity of some Turkish Hadji, to pay it for them. The Kosseir route is most usually followed by them; few visit Cairo, although there is a public foundation in the mosque El Azhar, in which a small number of them, not exceeding, I think, forty (for more than that number seldom unite together, except in the time of the Hadj), are fed daily with bread and broth. Those who pass Cairo follow the great pilgrim caravan to Mekka, and the Emir el Hadj has strict orders from the Sultan, to furnish with food and water all the Negroes who have no beasts of burthen of their own.
The route most frequented by the Negroe pilgrims is that from Damer along the Mogren to Taka, and from thence to Souakin; I do not over-rate the number who pass this way at five hundred annually; as I have before said, they never travel in large parties; but a few are seen almost daily passing along the banks of the river. At Damer, such as can possibly afford it, buy asses, and load them with Dhourra meal for their provisions on the road; these proceed in parties of twenty, and make with their sticks a determined resistance when assailed by robbers in the open country; in the villages or encampments they are certain of protection from the chief, at least that they shall not be robbed of their beasts and provision. From Taka they proceed with the caravans to Souakin, where they wait till they find a ship to convey them to Djidda. The usual fare is from one to two dollars. While I was at Souakin, a party of at least fifty returned to Taka, because the masters of the vessels, then lying in the harbour, refused to take less than two dollars for each passenger; they offered one dollar, and this being refused, they quitted Souakin with the intention, after reaching Taka, of proceeding to Massouah, where they were certain that one dollar, which was all they could afford, would provide them a conveyance to the coast of the Yemen; for the sake of this advantage they entered upon a journey of at least thirty days, and reckoned that on so well frequented a road they should be able to defray their expenses by labour or by begging. Distance is scarcely ever taken into consideration by these pilgrims, nor indeed by any Bedouins or traders in those countries; fatigue they care little about; loss of time still less; one object only occupies their attention, under the two forms of a direct gain and the saving of expense. When I come to speak of Souakin, I shall have an opportunity of adding some further remarks on the conveyance of these pilgrims by sea; and in my description of my journey in the Hedjaz, I shall have occasion to recur to the subject, and to describe the proceedings of the Tekaýrne after their arrival in Arabia.
It will readily be conceived that the danger and fatigue incident to the journey prove fatal to great numbers of the pilgrims; perhaps one-sixth fall victims to their zeal; the greater part of the diseases by which they are attacked on the road arise from their being almost destitute of clothing; many perish in the deserts through want and fatigue, and others are murdered; but as all who die on the road are looked upon as martyrs, these contingencies have little effect in diminishing the annual numbers, or in diverting others from their purpose. Although the greater number of the pilgrims are stout young men, yet it is not rare to see women following their husbands to the Hadj; and almost incredible as it may seem, one of the men who joined our caravan at Taka was blind. He had come from Borgho, to the west of Darfour, in company with three others, and was continually led by a stick, which one of his companions held in his hands as he marched before him; I saw this man afterwards begging in the mosque at Mekka, and again at Medina, sitting on the threshold of the temple, exclaiming, as he appealed to the charity of the Hadjis, “I am blind, but the light of the word of God, and the love of his prophet, illumine my soul, and have been my guide from Soudan to this tomb!” He received very liberal alms, and would probably return to his home richer than he left it.
Some of the Tekaýrne are men of power and wealth in their own country, but travel as paupers, in order to escape the dangers attendant on riches in the journey. During our encampment in the plain near Souakin, I saw a young Tekroury sleeping in a lonely spot, while another, kneeling by him, kept off the flies from his face. On enquiry, I learnt from the other Negroes, that he was the son of a great chief in Dar Saley, who had been educated with the Fakys, and had set out upon this journey, with a camel, and one servant only. At Shendy he had exchanged the camel for an ass; the servant had become his friend and companion, and both mixed in the crowds of the poorest pilgrims. It is principally owing to a few examples such as these, that the generality of the inhabitants of the countries through which the pilgrims pass are so uncharitable and cruel to them; they think that every Tekroury is a king of Soudan in disguise, with abundance of gold about him. During the Mamelouk government in Egypt, the Begs were very liberal in their donations to the Tekaýrne; but the present government shows little compassion to them, and no Tekroury is permitted to embark at Kosseir, without first paying a fixed rate for his passage to the masters of the ships, which almost all belong to the government. In Africa, as well as in Arabia, the country people, wherever the black Fakys pass, are eager to procure amulets of their writing, which are supposed to possess greater virtue than those of any other class of pilgrims. There lives at present, in Cairo, near the Kara-meydan, a Tekroury, who has been for many years famous for his amulets, and who makes large sums of money by writing them. In general the Negroe pilgrims are industrious, and rarely ask for charity where they can procure a subsistence by their own labour.
The routes of the Negroe caravans from Kordofan to Dongola or Berber, laid down in the Maps of Africa, are at present quite unfrequented. There is no direct communication whatever between Kordofan and Berber, and that between Kordofan and Dóngola has only been established since the arrival of the Mamelouks in those parts. The route from Berber to Souakin is seldom chosen by the Hadjis, from their dread of the merciless Bisharein, and from the little chance they have of joining caravans of traders, who very seldom pass this way.
To return to our march, we crossed this morning a tract of flat country. At the end of two hours we came to a small pool of water, the effect of the rain that had fallen here occasionally for the last fortnight, and of which we had several showers during our stay at Taka. At about four hours distance on our right was a chain of mountains extending in a S. E. direction, and as I computed, from two to three thousand feet in height; I was told that they are all inhabited by Hadendoas, and that they abound in pasturage. We here met a caravan from Souakin, loaded with salt, one of the principal articles in the Taka trade; it is brought from Souakin and exported by the merchants of Taka towards the Atbara, and among the Bedouin tribes in the neighbourhood, where no salt whatever is found. After a march of four hours we came to a Wady full of trees and shrubs; further on we crossed several other valleys that bore traces of violent torrents rushing through them during the rainy season. At the end of five hours we stopped in one of the Wadys during the mid-day hours. The soil is in general sandy; a species of low oak tree, very much resembling the Balout of Syria, grows here; the Oshour also abounds. In the afternoon we entered upon rocky uneven ground, where I found fine rose-coloured quartz in thick layers among the sand-stone. The chain of mountains seen in the morning was no longer visible. At the end of eight hours we halted at Wady Lado, a low ground extending in a westerly direction. Here are a great many Doum trees, and the valley is full of excellent pasturage; it is inhabited by the Bedouins Hadendoa. In summer, they procure their water from several wells; but when we passed plenty of rain water was found among the clusters of rocks which are dispersed through the Wady. A chain of hills runs from hence eastward. We alighted early in the evening, that our cattle might enjoy the pasture.
June 17th.—In riding along a gravelly plain, thickly covered with thorny trees, we started several female ostriches, which are known from the males by the darker colour of their plumage; they at first ran off, without appearing to be much frightened; but followed the caravan for upwards of an hour, at the distance of about two gun-shots. High mountains were seen far to our right. At the end of two hours we came to a large pond of rain water. In five hours we reached Wady Ody, where are wells and rain water, with thorny shrubs and Doum trees in great plenty. Here was a large encampment of Hadendoa, just breaking up in order to retire to the eastern mountains, on account of the incursions of the Bisharein. We continued our march in this Wady the whole evening; it is three or four miles in breadth, the soil very fertile, and well irrigated by winter torrents. It is not enclosed by hills, but is called a Wady from the flatness of the ground, which in winter becomes the bed of a torrent. Our course was N. N. E. The Hadendoa here cultivate Dhourra, and a little cotton, the latter apparently with more care, than I had any where witnessed since quitting the banks of the Nile. The verdure was richer than I had seen it even at Atbara; the ground was covered with Senna Mekke. The black merchants told me that this shrub is very common in Kordofan, where it grows to the height of four or five feet. A large hedge-hog was found here, which the Tekaýrne skinned, and ate in the evening. We halted late at night, near the extremity of the Wady, by a pond of water, after a long day’s march of ten hours.