The ancient place of the same name lies half an hour further up the river, and consists but of a few huts. The houses where we landed belong to a number of factories instituted four years ago, in conjunction with the late Ahmed Pasha, by Nureddin Effendi, a Catholic Koptic Egyptian, who has gone over to Islâm, and which yield a rich profit. A simple, honest, un-Oriental German, named Bauer, has erected a soap and brandy factory, which he himself conducts. A sugar and indigo factory is kept by an Arab. Bauer is the southernmost resident European that we have found in Mohammed Ali’s territories, and we were glad to find so excellent a conclusion to the long, little pleasing chain of Europeans, generally deteriorated in civilization, who preferred the government of Turks to their native country.[72] He has an old German housekeeper named Ursula, & funny, good-natured body, for whom it was a no less festal occasion to see German guests than for him. With joyful hurry she got out what European crockery she had, and the forks that were yet in being, and set baked chicken, vegetables, sausages, and excellent wheaten bread before us; at last, too, a cherry pie of baked European cherries (for our fruits do not grow in Egypt), in short, a native meal, such as we had never expected in this ultima Thule.
Before Bauer’s house we found the most southern Egyptian sculpture that we have seen, on a pedestal, a seated statue of Osiris, somewhat destroyed, done in a late style, in black granite, with the usual attributes, about two and a half feet high, which was discovered in Soba, and is not without interest, as the only monument of Egyptian art from that city.
The European furniture of Bauer’s room made a strange impression upon one here in the south among the black population. A wooden clock, made in the Black Forest, ticked regularly on the wall; some half-broken European stools were ranged round the strong table, behind which a small book-shelf was put up, with a selection of German classics and histories, by the corner of a Turkish divan, which was also not wanting. Over the great table, and opposite the canopy-bed in the other corner, hung bell-pulls, leading to the kitchen. A curious Nesnas ape sometimes peeped in through the lattice by the door, and on the other side of the little court, one could see the busy Ursula in her purple, red-flowered gown, toddling backward and forward among the little, naked, black slaves, arranging this, that, and the other, with a somewhat scolding voice, and looking into the bubbling pots in the adjoining kitchen. We did not see her the whole morning, not even at the dinner, that she had prepared so well and tastily; after dinner, she first presented herself, with many curtsies, to receive our praises. She complained of the forlorn state of her cooking apparatus, and grumbled sadly at Herr Bauer for not leaving this horrid, dirty, and hot country, although he promised year after year to do it. She had accompanied him hither, had been eleven years in the country, and four at Kamlîn. Bauer intends in a year to go to Germany, and settle in Steiermark or Thüringen, with his savings, and turn farmer, like his father.
After table, the son of Nureddin Effendi sent us a complete Turkish dinner of from twelve to fifteen dishes, which we left, however, to the attendants after our European meal. We had also inspected the factories in the morning, and tasted the fine brandy (called Marienbad), which Bauer chiefly prepares from the sugar-cane and dates. Business seemed to be in the best order, and the unusual cleanliness of the places, the vessels, and utensils, attest the care with which the establishment, only worked by slaves, is conducted. The pleasant impression that this visit made upon us was heightened by the discovery that Bauer possessed a second piece of the marble inscription already alluded to,[73] which had been found in the ruins of Soba. He presented me with the fragment, which was easily put together with the other piece, although even then the inscription was not perfected. The fragment exhibits on one side traces of twelve lines, on the other of nine. Here, too, the writing is easy to be read, but only the name
is comprehensible. It is either a very barbarous Greek, or a peculiar language, spoken in former times at Soba. In fact, we know from Selim that the inhabitants of Soba possessed their sacred books in the Greek language, but also translated them into their own.
After paying the son of Nureddin Effendi a visit, we left with the promise to stay on our return.
From Kamlîn the shores run on at equal elevations. The character of a fluvial valley is lost. The deposited black earth has ceased; the steep high shores are composed of original earth and calcareous conglomerate, which, according to Bauer, is well capable of being burnt to lime.
On the morning of the 21st we came to a considerable bend in the river to the east; the wind became so unfavourable through it, that our khawass landed, to impress the people of the vicinity to draw it. I went along the western shore for several hours to Arbagi, a deserted village, built of black bricks, but standing on the remains of another more ancient one, as I saw from the structures of burnt bricks. This place was once the chief centre of the trade of the Sudan, which has since turned itself to Messelemîeh. Soon after we found the two northern baobàb trees, which are here called hómara. These giant trees of creation (andansonia digitata) are found from here southward more and more frequently, and from Sero they belong to the usual trees of the region. One trunk which I paced round measured more than sixty feet in circumference, and certainly does not belong to the greatest of the kind, as they are here not so frequent.[74] At this season of the year they were leafless, and stretched their bare, death-like boughs far over the surrounding green trees, which look like low bushes beneath it. Their fruit, called gungulês,[75] I found here and there among the Arabs; they resemble pear-shaped melons, with a hairy surface. If the hard, tough shell be broken, a number of seeds are found inside, which are surrounded with a dry, acid, but well-tasted mass. The leaves are five-fingered.
On the 22nd of February we arrived on the western shore by a little village, where the inhabitants, mere women and children, fled through the sandy plain to the woods, from fear of our appearance, probably as they expected to be impressed for the purpose of drawing the bark. On the opposite shore lay another village, whence we saw a stately procession of finely-dressed men in Arab and Turkish dresses, and some handsomely caparisoned horses, proceed to the river. It was the Kashef and the most noble sheiks of Abu Háras, to whom we had been announced by Ahmed Pasha, as we had determined to proceed hence with camels and guides into the desert of Mandera. The horses were destined for us, and we therefore rode to the house of the Kashef, to inquire again about the antiquities of Mandera and Qala. As the desert route to the coast of the Red Sea leads hence from those places, we found several persons who had been near them. From all their tales, however, I could but find that at these two places there are only fortress-like mounds, or at most roughly built walls, as a refuge for caravans, without any buildings or hieroglyphical inscriptions. At Qala there may be some camels and horses scratched in the rock by the Arabs, or some other people, like those we had seen in the great desert at the wells of Murhad.