This report I shall send with other letters by an express messenger to Qeneh.
LETTER XVI.
Korusko.
January 5, 1844.
With not a little sorrow, I announce to you that we shall probably have to give up the second principal object of our expedition,—our Ethiopian journey, and return northward hence. We have waited here in vain since the 17th of November, for the promised but never-coming camels, which are to bring us to Berber, and there seems to be no more chance of our getting them now than at first. What we heard on our arrival, I am sorry to say, is confirmed; the Arab tribes, who are the sole managers of traffic, are dissatisfied with Mohammed Ali’s reduction of the rate from 80 to 60 piastres per camel hence to Berber; they have agreed among themselves to send no more camels hither; and no firman, no promises, no threats, will obviate this evil. A great number of trunks with munition for Chartûm, have been lying here for ten months, and cannot be sent on any further. We hoped for the assistance of Ahmed Pasha Menekle,[68] the new Governor of the Southern Provinces, which he has also promised us in the most friendly and unbounded manner. The officer who has remained with the munition, received definite orders from him to retain the first camels which arrived here, for our use. Notwithstanding that, we shall scarcely attain our end. The Pasha himself could hardly get on further, although he required but few camels. Some he had brought from the north, and some he had assembled by force. Yet he was ill-furnished enough on his departure, and half of his animals are said to have become ill, or perished in the desert.
On the 3rd of December, as no camels came, although the Pasha must have passed the province Berber, whence he was going to send us the necessary number, I sent our own trustworthy and excellent khawass, Ibrahim Aga, through nine days wilderness, to Berber, with Mohammed Ali’s firman. In the meantime, we went on to Wadi Halfa to the second cataract, visited the numerous monuments in that neighbourhood, and returned hither in three weeks, with a rich harvest.
It is thirty-one days this morning, since our khawass has departed, and some time since I received a letter from the Mudhir of Berber, in which I learn that the camels cannot be collected, although immediately on the arrival of our khawass, and the delivery of the letter from the Mudhir of this place, he sent out soldiers to get together the necessary number of sixty camels. Matters are just the same there as here. The authorities can do nothing against the ill-will of the Arabs.
On the sudden death, by poison, of Ahmed Pasha,[69] the governor of the whole Sudan, at Chartûm, who, it is said, had for some time been meditating an independence of Mohammed Ali, the south is divided into five provinces, and placed under five pashas, who are to be installed by Ahmed Pasha Menekle. One of them, Emir Pasha, was formerly Bey under Ahmed Pasha, at Chartûm, whom he seems to have betrayed. Three others arrived at Korusko, soon after Ahmed Pasha Menekle. Of these, the most powerful, Hassan Pasha, is gone by water to Wadi Halfa, in his province of Dongola; he was almost unattended, and required but a few camels to get on farther. The second, Mustaffa Pasha, intended for Kordofan, has seized on a trade caravan returning from Berber. The Arabs report, however, that of these tired animals, a part have already become useless before arriving at the wells, which lie at about four day’s journey into the wilderness; there he found some merchants, eight of whose camels he seized; the remainder of the caravan has not arrived here, but had taken another road to Egypt for fear of being stopped again. The third, Pasha Ferhât, is waiting here, at the same time with ourselves, and tries every plan that he can think of, to procure a few camels from the north or south. But every hope of ours thus becomes fainter and fainter, as we cannot set the insignificant power of the authorities so mightily to work as he, and have not now either khawass or firman with us. Everyone, and the pashas most particularly, endeavours to comfort us from day to day; but, meantime, the winter, the only time when we can do anything in the Upper Country, elapses. To this must be added, that the Mudhir of Lower Nubia, with whom we had become friendly, has been accused to Mohammed Ali by the Nubian sheikh of his province, and had just been summoned away by the viceroy, This region has been provisionally placed under the jurisdiction of the Mudhir of Esneh, from whose lieutenant, a young, and otherwise well-disposed man, there is nothing to be obtained by us.
I have, therefore, made up my mind to the only practicable step. I will myself go to Berber with Abeken upon a few camels, and leave Erbkam with the rest of the company and all the luggage here. There I shall be able to look into the matter myself, and try what can be done, with the aid of the khawass (whose authority I miss here much) and the firman. We were received here by Ahmed Pasha Menekle in the most friendly manner, and are assured of his most strenuous co-operation by the assistance of his physician, our friend and countryman, Dr. O. Koch. Perhaps money or threats will bring us sooner or later to our end. By a mere chance, I have myself been able to secure six camels. Two more are wanting to complete our little caravan. These two, however, the lieutenant of the Mudhir cannot procure for us, even with the best desire. We have been awaiting them three days, and know not whether we shall obtain them.
LETTER XVII.
E’ Damer.
January 24, 1844.