At Djidda the Souakin merchants purchase all the Indian goods wanted for the African markets, together with those articles of luxury which are in demand in Souakin; such as dresses and ornaments for the women, household utensils, and several kinds of provision for the table, such as Indian sugar, coffee beans, onions, and particularly dates, which are not produced in any part of Eastern Nubia. A good deal of iron is likewise imported from Djidda, for lances and knives; they are manufactured by common smiths, who are the only artisans I saw in Souakin, except masons and carpenters, and who furnish these weapons to all the Bedouins in a circuit of fifteen days journey.
Few foreign vessels, as I was informed, ever enter the harbour of Souakin except from stress of weather. The trade by sea is carried on principally with ships belonging to people of Souakin and Djidda, who are almost entirely occupied in sailing between the two coasts. No week passes without some vessel arriving from Djidda, or sailing for that port. During my stay only one ship sailed for Hodeyda, and another for Mokha, and nine for Djidda; the ship for Mokha was laden with a considerable part of the slaves who had come with us in the caravan from Shendy, for natives of Souakin are settled in most of the towns of the Yemen, where they act as agents for their countrymen. One ship arrived from Djidda, and a small boat from Loheya; there were besides four or five vessels in the harbour, bound for the Arabian coast. These ships are often manned by Bedouins, who are as expert in handling the rigging, as they are in tying the ropes of their camels loads; but the greater part of the sailors are Somaulys from the African coast lying between Abyssinia and Cape Guardafui, and who are the most active mariners in the Red Sea. The pilot is usually a man from Djidda or Yemen. The people of Souakin are active fishermen, and have a dozen small fishing boats constantly at sea. Fish is always found in the market, but very few Bedouins will touch it. Pearls are sometimes found in the neighbourhood by the fishermen. Souakin, upon the whole, may be considered as one of the first slave-trade markets in Eastern Africa; it imports annually from Shendy and Sennaar from two to three thousand slaves, equalling nearly in this respect Esne and Siout in Egypt, and Massouah in Abyssinia, where, as I afterwards learnt at Djidda, there is an annual transit from the interior of about three thousand five hundred slaves. From these four points, from the southern harbours of Abyssinia, and from the Somauly and Mozambik coast, it may be computed that Egypt and Arabia draw an annual supply of fifteen or twenty thousand slaves brought from the interior of Africa.
The market of Souakin is held in the Geyf, in an open space surrounded by huts, where almost the same articles are exposed for sale as at Shendy. All the surrounding Bedouins take from hence their supplies of Dhourra and Dammour, in exchange for hides; the selling of Dhourra to the northern Bedouins is very advantageous to the Hadherebe and Hadendoa, who have an exclusive intercourse with Taka. At the market of El Geyf I saw for the first time after four months, Dhourra loaves for sale; these with butter form the only food of the poor classes in the town. In all small concerns, the currency is Dhourra, which is measured by handfuls or with the same sized Moud as at Shendy: for greater bargains dollars are used. Neither the piastre, nor the para, nor the gold coins of Turkey are taken: but they have old paras cut into four parts, which are paid for articles of little value. Sales to a large amount are paid by Wokye, or the ounce of gold, which has its fixed value in dollars.
The manners of the people of Souakin are the same as those I have already described in the interior, and I have reason to believe that they are common to the whole of Eastern Africa, including Abyssinia, where the character of the inhabitants, as drawn by Bruce, seems little different from that of these Nubians. I regret that I am compelled to represent all the nations of Africa which I have yet seen, in so bad a light. Had I viewed them superficially I might have been scrupulous in giving so decided an opinion, but having travelled in a manner which afforded me an intimate acquaintance with them, I must express my conviction that they are all tainted more or less deeply with ill faith, avarice, drunkenness, and debauchery. The people of Souakin partake of these vices with their neighbours of the desert, and in cruelty surpass them. My not being ill treated by the Souakin merchants in the caravan must not be adduced as a proof of their kindness of disposition. The secret fears of the Turks, which the entrance of Mohammed Aly into the Hedjaz had generally inspired, together with the apprehension of being brought to an account, if it should be known at Souakin and Djidda, that an Osmanlyi[71] had been ill-treated by them, were probably a powerful protection to me, although not a motive sufficient to induce them to shew me the smallest kindness on the route. I do not recollect a single instance of their condescending to assist me in loading my camel, or filling my water skin, of interpreting for me, or of rendering me any of those little services which travellers are in the habit of interchanging: on the contrary, they obliged me, on different occasions, to furnish them with provisions and water; and in the evening their slaves were often sent to me to ask for a part of my supper for their masters, or to demand permission for the slave to eat with mine, under pretence that he had not had time to cook his supper. The intimacy of the people of Souakin with the Nubian Bedouins, and the unsettled state of their own government, have been the principal causes of their degenerating from the character of their Arabian ancestors. They have every where on the coast of the Red Sea, the character of avarice and ingratitude, or, to use the expression of an Arab of Yembo: “Though you give them water from the holy well of Zemzem to drink when they are thirsty, yet they will suffer you to choke with thirst even when their own wells are full” (حَتَّي اذا سقينهم من مأ زمزم فليخّلوك تموت من الظما و لو كان بير هم مليان); and this character is confirmed by the testimony of all those who have had an opportunity of observing them in their houses. At Souakin, the law of the strongest alone is respected, and it is impossible to carry on business without purchasing the protection of some powerful Hadherebe. Every day some bloody quarrel takes place among them. Their bodies, principally their backs, are covered with scars; and a man, far from being reproached as a murderer, prides himself in the number of persons he has slain in private quarrels, and the sums he has paid as the price of blood. Three or four years ago a slave belonging to one of the chiefs of the Hadherebe spread terror through the whole town. He was superior to every body in strength, as well as in courage and enterprise; and after committing the most horrible crimes, and murdering upwards of twenty persons, he quitted his master, who through fear still continued to protect him. He was at last killed by a youth, whose mother he had attempted to ravish. While I was sitting one day with the Aga, a poor sailor entered with a fresh sword-wound in his side, begging the Aga to protect him from a Hadherebe, who was attempting his life. The Aga advised him to make up the matter amicably, and gave him two measures of Dhourra to console him. Hospitality is as little known here as at Taka. Bouza huts and public women are as common as in any part of Nubia; but I do not believe that any Hadherebe woman dares openly to prostitute herself. The druggists shops in the market are kept exclusively by public women, who are Abyssinian slaves restored by their masters to liberty. All the women in El Geyf go unveiled; those who reside on the island are veiled, and clothed like the women of Arabia.
There is one coffee-house on the island, where all matters of importance are settled among the towns-people and the Hadherebe. The coffee is paid for in Dhourra. The communication between the Geyf and the island is by rafts; a handful of Dhourra is paid to the man who manages the raft; but even this trifling fare the Souakin people are seldom willing to pay; they strip, and fastening their cloak, sandals, and sword upon their head, they swim across the channel, in the same manner as the Egyptians cross the Nile. They are the most expert swimmers I ever saw, and are particularly skilful in keeping the body, as high as the top of the shoulder, in an upright posture in the water, while they work their way with their lower extremities, as if they were walking on firm ground, and almost as fast.i[72]
The Bisharye language is generally spoken at Souakin; the Arabic, though understood by every one in the Geyf, is spoken there with a bad accent, but the inhabitants of the town speak it as their native language, and with the Djidda pronunciation. Among the neighbouring Hadendoas, who bring butter and sheep to the market of El Geyf, I saw many individuals entirely ignorant of Arabic.
The people on the island have a Kadhi, a Mufti, a public school, and two or three persons belonging to the corps of Olemas. The chief and richest man amongst them had filled the office of Aga during the time of the Sherif; he was now at the head of an opposition against the actual Aga, who was of Mohammed Aly’s appointment, and whose official acts his opponent had sufficient cause to censure. Before I left Souakin the Kadhi secretly called me to his house, and gave me a letter, which he entreated me to carry to the Hedjaz, and to deliver into Mohammed Aly’s own hands; it contained a statement of complaints against Yemak, and the Hadherebe; wherein the latter were described as rebels, and as having proved themselves to be such by not permitting the coin of Mohammed Aly and the piastres of Cairo to pass current in the place, and by not attending the Friday’s devotions, when public prayers were added for the Sultan and the Pasha. The complaints against Yemak were, that he made the Turkish name ridiculous, that he stood in too much fear of the Bedouins, and that he disgraced his office by his unnatural propensities.i[73] The letter was altogether a curious composition; the most ridiculous titles were given in it to the Pasha; among others, he was styled Asad el barr wa fil el bahr (اسد البرّ و فيل البحر), the lion of the earth and the elephant of the sea. It was signed and sealed by a dozen supplicants; and although I did not deliver it myself in the Hedjaz, I took care that it was duly forwarded to the Pasha.
The inhabitants of Souakin use very few fire-arms, and few individuals in the Geyf dare fire a gun. They carry the same weapons as the Nubians, a sword, a lance, a target, and a knife. About a dozen horses are kept in the town; in war, the bravest men mount upon dromedaries and surprise the enemy. Almost every house in the Geyf possesses a dromedary. The Bedouins of the Geyf are as indifferent about religion as those of the desert; very few of them would be found, upon inquiry, to know how to pray in the Mohammedan form; and I was told that even the fast of Ramadhan is little attended to. In the town the inhabitants are as strict in their religious duties as sea-faring people usually are.
I calculate the whole population of Souakin at about eight thousand souls, of whom three thousand live upon the island, and the rest in the Geyf.
The cattle of the Souakin Bedouins are extremely numerous; they are kept in the neighbourhood only during the months immediately following the rainy season, when the surrounding plains produce some pasture; during the rest of the year they are pastured, under the care of shepherds, in the encampments of the Hadendoa, in the mountains of Dyaab, or Langay. An active and daily intercourse is kept up between the town and all these neighbouring Bedouins.