When we arrived yesterday, after three days’ journey from Old Dongola here, in New Dongola, generally called El Orde (the camp) by the Arabs, we had the great pleasure of receiving the large packet of letters, of which we had already been informed by Hassan Pasha on the road. Since then we look forward with fresh courage to the last difficult part of our journey to the south, as we must here, alas! leave our boats, and mount the far more uncomfortable ship of the desert. The cataract district, now lying before us, is only to be navigated at high water, and then not without danger. Our richly-laden stone boat we were obliged to submit to the dangerous trial, as land-carriage for the Ram and the other monuments was naturally not to be thought of.
We shall not be able to set out from here so immediately, on account of the general reform which must take place in our preparations for the journey of the next five or six weeks. From our boat with the packages we must, however, separate ourselves, as it must seize upon the right moment of the high water, which will not be for some weeks.
LETTER XXV.
Dongola.
June 23, 1844.
We returned yesterday from a four day’s trip to the next cataract, which we were able to reach with the boat. Our collection was unexpectedly rich. We have found a great number of old monuments of the time of the Pharoahs, the only ones in the whole province of Dongola, and part of them very ancient. On the island of Argo we discovered the first Egyptian sculpture of the time of the Hyksos, and near Kermân on the right hand shore, traces of an extensive city, spread wide over the plain, with an immense burying-ground adjoining, in which two large monuments were conspicuous, one of which was called Kermân (like the village), the other Defûfa. They are not pyramids, but oblong squares, the first 150 feet by 66, the second 132 feet by 66, and about 40 feet high, quite massive and strong, and built of good firm unburnt Nile bricks; each has an out-building, resembling the ante-temple of the Pyramid. Many fragments of statues lying about, (in the best ancient style, partly covered with good hieroglyphics,) point out their great antiquity; so that we may judge this to be the oldest important Egyptian settlement on Ethiopian ground, which was probably rendered necessary through the increase of Egyptian power towards Ethiopia, during the supremacy of the Hyksos in Egypt. Without doubt, the enormous granite bridges which we found some hours north of Kermân at the entrance of the cataract district, opposite the island Tombos on the right hand shore, were belonging to this town. The rock inscriptions contain arms of the seventeenth dynasty, and an inscription of eighteen lines bears the date of the second year of Tuthmosis I.
Here, in Dongola, I have also begun to study the Kong’âra language of Dar Fûr. A negro soldier born in that feared and warlike land, with woolly hair and thick pouting lips, whom we brought with us during the last year from Korusko to Wadi Halfa, as orderly officer, instead of the one appointed by Ibrahim Pasha, sought us out again, and was given up to me by the Pasha to assist me in my philological studies. He began well, but in half an hour I was obliged to get the Nubian to interpret for me. The Kong’âra is quite different from the Nubian, and appears to me in some points to have a strong analogy with certain South African languages.
It gave me great pleasure to see here the fortress built by Ehrenberg in 1822, it has certainly suffered from the inundations, but still serves Hassan Pasha as a dwelling. There will also remain a building in remembrance of us, as the Pasha begged Erbkam to give him the plan of a powder-tower, and to seek out a suitable spot for its erection.
LETTER XXVI.
Korusko.
August 17, 1844.
Our departure from Dongola did not take place till the 2nd July. We journeyed slowly down the west side of this river; and on the same day we came to large fields of ruins, the inconsiderable remains of once flourishing cities whose names are lost. The first we found opposite Argônsene, others near Koï and Mosh. On the following day we passed near Hannîk, opposite Tombos, in the province of Máhas; here begins the Cataract district and a new Nubian dialect, which extends to Derr and Korusko. The Nile takes a northerly course till it comes to a high mountain named after a former conqueror, Ali Bersi; this we passed to the left early on the third day. It lies on the sudden turning of the river, from north-west to due east, where it is usual to avoid the greater part of the province of Máhas by a northerly desert road. We, however, followed the windings of the river, and came in the neighbourhood of old forts on the shore, to a grove of palm-trees, in whose shade we rested during the heat of mid-day. The nearest of these forts so romantically situated among the rent rocks, I find differently named upon every map, as Fakir Effendi (Cailliaud), Fakir el Bint, from bint, the Maiden (Hoskins), Fakir Bender, from bender, the metropolis (Arrowsmith); it is, however, called Fakir Fenti in the dialect of the country, or Fakir Benti in that of Dongola, and is so named from the palms at their foot (Fenti, benti, means palms and dates).