Our trouble has at last come to an end, though at a late period. Yesterday I arrived here with Abeken, yet two days’ journey from the pyramids of Meroë, and our whole camp probably was also yesterday pitched near Abu Hammed, at the southern end of the great desert. After the last little encouraging communication from Berber, I set out on the 8th of January about noon, with Abeken, the dragoman Juffuf Sherebîeh, a cook, and ’Auad, our Nubian lad. We had eight camels, of whom two were scarcely in condition for the journey, and two donkeys. As the promised guide was not at his post, I made the camel-driver Sheikh Ahmed himself accompany us, as he would be of service in consequence of the high estimation in which he was held among the tribes of the resident Abâbde-Arabs. We had beside these, a guide, Adâr, who was sent us instead of the one promised, five camel-drivers; and soon after our departure several foot-travellers joined us, besides two people with donkeys, who took this opportunity of returning to Berber. We took with us ten water-skins, some provision of rice, maccaroni, biscuit, and cold meat, also a light tent, our coverlets to ride upon and sleep in, the most necessary linen, and a few books; to this must be added a tolerable stock of courage, which never fails me on a journey. Our friends accompanied us for some distance into the rock valley, which soon deprived us of all idea of the proximity of the shore and its friendly palms.
The dale was wild and monotonous, nothing but sandstone rock, the surfaces of which were burnt as black as coals, but turned into burning golden yellow at every crack, and every ravine, whence a number of sand-rivulets, like fire-streams from black dross, ran and filled the valleys. The guides preceded us, with simple garments thrown over their shoulders and around their hips, in their hands one or two spears of strong light wood with iron points and shaft-ends; their naked backs were covered by a round, or carved shield, with a far-reaching boss of giraffe’s skin; other shields were oblong, and they are generally made of the skin of the hippopotamus, or the back skin of the crocodile. At night, and often during the day, they bound sandals under their feet, the thongs of which are not unfrequently cut out of the same piece, and being drawn between the great and second toes, surround the feet like a skate.
Sheikh Ahmed was a splendid man, still young, but tall and well grown, with peculiarly active limbs of shining black-brown hue, an expressive countenance, a piercing, but gentle and slyly-glancing eye, and an incomparably beautiful and harmonious pronunciation, so that I liked much to have him about me, although we were always in a contention at Korusko, as he was obliged to furnish the camels and their concomitants, and through circumstances, could not or would not, procure them. Of his activity and elasticity of limb he gave us a specimen in the desert, by taking a tremendous run on the sandy and most unfavourable soil, and leaping fourteen feet and a half; I measured it with his lance, which was somewhat more than two metres in length. Adâr only, our under guide, dared to try his powers after him, at my suggestion, but did not reach the same distance by far.
We had departed on the first day early about eleven o’clock, and rode till five, stayed for an hour and a half, and went on till half-past twelve; then we pitched our tent upon the hard soil, and laid ourselves down after a twelve hours’ march. The most interesting thing after the hot active days was the evening tea, but we were obliged to accustom ourselves to the leathery taste of the water, which was plainly to be perceived even through both tea and coffee. The second day we stopped for fourteen hours on our camels; we set out at eight, stopped in the afternoon at four, to eat something, went on about half-past five, and pitched for the night at half-past twelve, after having issued from the mountains at about ten, at the rising of the moon, into a great plain. No tree, no tuft of grass had we yet seen, also no animals, except a few vultures and crows feeding on the carcase of the latest fallen camel. On the third day, after an early beginning, we met a herd of 150 camels, bought by government, to be taken to Egypt. The Pasha is going to import several thousand camels from Berber, in order to obviate the consequence of the murrain of last year; many had already come through Korusko without our being able to avail ourselves of them, as they are the private property of the Pasha; we could not have ridden on them, too, as they had no saddles.
The guide of the herd, whom we met, gave us the long desired intelligence that our khawass, Ibrahim Aga, had left Berber with a train of sixty camels, and was quite in our vicinity, but on a more westerly track. Sheikh Ahmed was sent after him, in order to bring in three good camels instead of our weak ones, and to obtain any further news from him. Next night, or at farthest in the following one, he was to rejoin us. By the Chabîr (leader) of the train, I sent a few lines to Erbkam. We stopped at half-past five, and stayed the night, in the hopes of seeing Sheikh Ahmed earlier. Towards evening we first beheld the scanty vegetation of the desert, thin greyish yellow dry stalks, hardly visible close by, but giving the ground a light greenish yellow tint in the distance, which alone drew my attention to it.
On the fourth day we ought actually to have been at the wells of brackish but, for the camels, drinkable water; but in order not to go too fast for Sheikh Ahmed, we halted at four o’clock, still about four hours’ distance from the wells. At last, towards mid-day, we left the great plain Bahr Bela ma, (river without water,) which joins the two days’ long mountain range of El Bab, into which we had entered from Korusko, and now neared other mountains. Till now we had had nothing but uniform sandstone rocks beneath and around us, and it was a pleasing circumstance when I perceived, from the high back of the camel, the first plutonic rock in the sand. I slipped down immediately from my saddle, and knocked off a piece; it was a grey green stone, of very fine texture, and without a doubt of granitical nature. The other mountains also were mostly composed of species of porphyry and granite, with which the red syenite, so much employed by the ancient Egyptians, as so extensively seen at Assuan, not unfrequently appears in broad veins. Farther into the mountains quartz predominated, and it was somewhat peculiar to see the snow-white flint veins peeping at different heights from the black mountains, and flowing streamwise down into the valley, where the white extended somewhat after the fashion of a lake. I took small specimens, also some of the various kinds of rock.
After we had passed, crossing a little ravine, the little valley Bahr Hátab, (Wood River, by reason of the wood somewhat farther in the mountains), and another Wadi Delah, on the north side of the mountains, we came to the rock-gorge of E’Sufr, where we expected to find rain-water, to replenish our shrunken water-bags (girbe pl. geràb). In this high mountain it rains in one month of the year, about May. Then the mighty basins of granite in the valleys are filled, and hold the water for the whole year. On this plutonic rock, there was some little vegetation to be seen, in consequence of the rain, and because the granite seems to contain a somewhat more fertile element than the sad-looking, brittle sand, composed almost wholly of particles of quartz. At Wadi Delah, which has water in the rainy season, we came to a long-continued row of dûm-palms, the rounded leaves and bushy growth of which makes a less crude impression than the long slender-leaved date-palms; the latter will not bear rain, and are therefore altogether wanting in Berber, while the dûm-palms occur at first very singly in Upper Egypt, and become more numerous, more full, and more large, the farther they reach southward. When their fruit drops off unripe and dry, the little eatable matter about the stone tastes like sugar; when ripe, the yellow wood-flavoured meat may be eaten; it tastes well, and some fruits had an aroma like the pine-apple. They sometimes grow to the size of the largest apples.
At four o’clock we pitched our tent, the camels were sent behind into the ravine where was the rain-water, and I and Abeken mounted our donkeys, to accompany them to these natural cisterns. Over a wild and broken path and cutting stones, we came deeper and deeper into the gorge; the first wide basins were empty, we therefore left the camels and donkeys behind, climbed up the smooth granite wall, and thus proceeded amidst these grand rocks from one basin to another; they were all empty; behind there, in the furthest ravine, the guide said there must be water, for it was never empty: but there proved to be not a single drop. We were obliged to return dry. The numerous herds which had been driven from the Sudan to Egypt in the previous year, had consumed it all. We had now only three skins of water, and therefore it was necessary to do something. Higher up the pass, there were said to be other cisterns; behind this ravine I proposed to climb the mountain with the guide, but he considered it too dangerous; we therefore turned back and rode to the camp, and at sundown the camels had to set forth again to the northern mountains in search of water reported to exist at an hour’s distance, and they returned late, bringing with them four skins—the water was good and tasted well. Sheikh Ahmed, however, did not return this night also, and we now hoped to meet him at the wells, whither he might have hasted by a more southerly track.
We set out on the fifth day soon after sunrise, and entered the great mountain passes of Roft, the uniform strata of which were first in layers of slate, then more in blocks, and afterwards very rich in quartz. The heat of the day was more oppressive in the mountains than in the plains, where the continual north-wind created some degree of coolness. Except the various sorts of rock, there was nothing of very great attractiveness. I found a great ant-hill in the midst of the desolate waste, and looked at it for a long time; they were small and large shining black ants, who carried away all the grosser earthy particles they could manage, and left the stones for walls; the larger ones had heads comparatively twice as large as the others, and did not work themselves, but acted as overseers, by giving a push to every little ant who did not help to carry, which drove it forward and instigated it to labour.
It is difficult to keep up a conversation on the clumsy camels, which cannot be kept side by side so easily as horses or donkeys. If you have a good dromedary (heggîn), and travel without luggage, or with very little, the animal remains in trot. This is easy and not very tiring, while it requires some time to accustom oneself to the slouching step of the usual burthen-camel; this, however, we managed to lighten, by occasionally mounting our donkeys, and often walked long distances early in the morning and late at night.