The enigma which I had vainly endeavoured to unriddle, and which neither Cailliaud nor Hoskins had explained, as to how it was possible to build a city and sustain it in the midst of the desert so far from the river, was first solved in the vicinity of the temple. The whole valley of Auatêb is still cultivated land. We found it covered far and wide with durra stubble. The inhabitants of Shendi, Ben Naga, Fadnîe, Sélama, Metamme, thus of both sides of the Nile, come hither to cultivate the land, and to harvest durra. The tropical rain is sufficient to fertilise the soil of this flat but extensive level, and in ancient times it is probable that more was obtained from this region by greater care. For the dry season there were no doubt large artificial cisterns, like those we found at the most distant ruins north of Naga, although without water.
The ruins lie at the end of a mountain chain which extends for several hours, having received the name of Gebel e’ Naga, and running from north to south; Wadi Auatêb passes along its western side toward the river. After an uninterrupted ride, we arrived at about half-past five. By the way we saw the road covered with the traces of gazelles, wild asses, foxes, jackals, and ostriches. Lions, too, sometimes come hither, but we saw no signs of them.
Before the coming of night I visited the three principal temples, which all belong to a very late period, and do not admit of a single idea concerning any antiquity, which Cailliaud and Hoskins imagined they perceived. A fourth temple stand besides the three principal temples in Egyptian architecture, the well turned, and not unpleasingly selected Egyptian ornamental style of which, not only manifests the time of the universal dominion of the Romans, but also the presence of Roman builders. This has no inscriptions. Of the three others, the two southernmost are built by one and the same king; on both he is accompanied by a representation of the same queen. There is behind them yet another royal personage, bearing different names on the two temples. The name of the king has again the cartouch of Sesurtesen I. added, although he does not appear to be the same with the king at the pyramids of Sûr; and the two other persons have also old Egyptian cartouches, which might easily lead to mistakes.
The third and northern temple has suffered much, and had but little writing now, yet a king is mentioned on the door lintels, who is different from the builder of the two others.
The forms of the gods are almost Egyptian, yet there is on the southern temple a shape unknown in Egypt, with three lions’ heads (perhaps there is a fourth behind) and four arms. This may be the barbarous god mentioned by Strabo, which the Meroites revered beside Herakles, Pan, and Isis.
Next morning, the 2nd of February, we visited the three temples again, took a few paper impressions, and then went our way to the third group of monuments, named Mesaurât, by Cailliaud. This is, however, a designation employed for all three groups of ruins, and which signifies “pictures,” or “walls decked with pictures.” The ruins of Ben Naga are called Mesaurât el Kirbegân, because they lie in the Wadi el Kirbegân; only the southern-most group, it seems, has retained its ancient name Naga or Mesaurât e’ Naga; the third toward Shendi, called Mesaurât e’ Sofra, from the mountain-crater where it lies, and which is named e’ Sofra, the table.
We followed the mountain chain, Gebel e’ Naga, in the valley Auatêb, for two hours in a northward direction. Then, at about half-past twelve o’clock, we passed through the first ravine, opening to the right into a more elevated valley, e’Siléha, which becoming wider behind the hills, overgrown with grass and bushes, opens (in the direction of S.S.W. to N.N.E.) after an hour and a half, to the left into the valley of Auatêb, and in front toward another smaller valley, from which it is separated by the Gebel Lagâr. This little valley it is which is called e’Sofra, from its round form; here too lie the ruins which Hoskins saw, though he did not penetrate to Naga. At a quarter past two we arrived, and had therefore consumed not quite four hours from Naga hither. As we were going to take a rapid survey of the whole, we walked through the extensive ruins of the principal building, which Cailliaud had taken for a great school, Hoskins for a hospital; and we perceived from the few sculptures, unaccompanied by inscriptions, that we had before us also here late monuments, probably younger than those of Sûr and Naga. Then we went to the little temple near (on the pillars of which we found riders on elephants and lions, and other strange barbaric representations), looked at the large artificial cistern, now called Wot Mahemût, which must have taken the place of the river during the dry season, and rode back again to Ben Naga, at four o’clock.
When we came forth from the mountains, we met great herds of wild asses, which always stopped a little in front of us, as if inviting us to chase them. They are grey or reddish grey, with a white belly, and all have a strongly marked black stripe down the back; the tip of the tail, too, is usually black. Many are caught when young, but are not fit for carriage or riding then. The next generation is only to be employed for these purposes. Almost all the domesticated donkeys in the south, above the Ass Cataract (Shellâl homâr), in Berber, are of the race of these wild asses, and have the same colour and marks.
We pitched our tents in the rank-grown plain soon after sundown. The camel-drivers and our khawass were terribly afraid of the lions in this desert, until a great fire was lighted, which they carefully kept up the whole night through. When a lion lets his voice be heard in the vicinity of a caravan, sounding indeed deeply and dreadly through the whole wilderness, all the camels run away like mad, and are difficult of being secured, often not until they have suffered and done some injury. Some days ago a camel was strangled by a lion in our vicinity, although on the opposite side of the river; a man that was there saved himself on the next tree.
On the 3rd of February, we rode off again at seven o’clock, leaving the two Buêrib, the great “blue” one and the little “red” one, a good distance to the left, and came into the valley El Kirbegân shortly before nine o’clock. This we followed for half an hour riverward, seeing the Mesaurât el Kirbegân to the right; but we now stopped on the hills, until we arrived at Ben Naga, a little after eleven o’clock, and half an hour at our landing place.