CHAPTER X.

METAMMAH — DIFFICULTY OF FINDING CAMELS TO CROSS THE BAHIOUDA DESERT. — WRETCHED STATE OF THE PEASANTS WHEN ATTACKED BY ILLNESS. — INTERMITTENT FEVERS. — COSTUMES OF METAMMAH. — WOMEN OF HIGH RANK. — THEIR LONG NAILS, MANNER OF INCREASING THEIR LENGTH. — BAHIOUDA DESERT. — WELLS AT ABOULAY. — REFLECTIONS ON THE DESERT LIFE. — SHAGEEA TRIBE. — WELLS CALLED GAGDOOL. — SIGNOR B. UNWELL. — HASSANYEH TRIBE. — ANIMALS OF THE DESERT. — GREYHOUND DOG. — WELL OF MAGAGA. — DANGEROUS ILLNESS OF SIGNOR B. — WELL OF DELICIOUS WATER CALLED HALESS. — BEAUTY OF THE SCENERY. — SHEPHERD BOYS. — CHARACTER OF THE ROCKS. — WELLS OF GOOD WATER CALLED HANNEK AND PRASOLI. — THE MANNER THE SHAGEEA SALUTE. — COPTIC CHRISTIAN CHURCH. — ARRIVAL AT THE TOWN OF MEROUEH. — HIEROGLYPHICS ON A SLAB IN THE CASTLE.

_Metammah.—March_ 13. A sufficient number of good camels, or rather dromedaries, being difficult to find, I was detained the whole of the day near this miserable little town, where there is nothing to be seen. The country, even at this season, is not free from malaria. Several peasants suffering from intermittent fever applied to me for relief. Some I saw wretchedly ill, lying on their angoureebs, without any advice, or, apparently, any person to attend them, left to live or die according to the violence of the attack or the strength of their constitutions. When the rains extend to this place, which is not always the case, fevers are very prevalent: dysentery also is very common: I have had an attack myself, and two of my servants suffered severely from it. I used successfully a powerful dose of opium and calomel. To my servant, who was very ill, I gave six grains of calomel and one of opium at a time.

Once a week, in each of these small towns and villages, there is a bazaar; a curious scene, on account of the different costumes of the Arabs who resort to them from the country. At Metammah many of the inhabitants have adopted the fashion of their conquerors, and shaved their heads. The costumes of some of the women of high rank are said to be very beautiful, but it is difficult to obtain a sight of them; and I must confess I have not enjoyed that good fortune. My dragoman, however, an impudent fellow, contrived, upon some pretext, to enter the harem of the present melek of Shendy, whose wife is daughter of the celebrated Nimr, who murdered Ismael Pasha. Her husband has gone to the war with Hourshid Bey. The intruder found this queen, as he called her, in a large room reposing in a most dignified manner on a beautiful angoureeb, covered with the fine mats of the country. She was reclining at full length; her head was supported by a wooden pillow of about the width of a hoop, and of a semicircular form to admit the head, and sustained by a column 4 to 6 inches high with a broad flat base, [Symbol]. They are almost exactly similar to those often found in the ancient tombs of the Egyptians, and which, notwithstanding their apparent discomfort, are now very generally used in every part of Upper Nubia. The ladies of Shendy, however, value them highly, since, being so narrow, they do not disarrange their hair; a serious consideration, if it be true, as I am informed, that the _coiffure_ of the Shendyan beauties requires nine hours’ work to be quite _comme il faut_. This lady’s hair was very curiously dressed, beautifully plaited, and bushy at each side, projecting behind and flat above the forehead. On this flat part were two plates of gold, one above the other, and in the centre of her forehead was a large gold ring. She wore two handsome gold earrings, and bracelets of massive gold on her arms, and the same above her ankles. She wore the cotton dress of the country, but finer than usual, and over her neck was a beautiful shawl of Souakim with a broad silk border. He represented her features as being extremely small and delicate; her eyes very large and fine, and her complexion much fairer than that of the women of the country in general. He described her as the most beautiful woman he had seen since leaving Cairo, and doubted if, in his life, he had observed any one superior to her. She looked, he said, like a queen.

In a circle, squatted on the ground beneath, were about twenty female slaves, some very beautiful, busily employed in pounding and preparing spices for the ointment with which they perfume their persons and soften their skins. Her nails were extremely long; a decided indication, in this country, of high rank, as proving that the person never condescends to employ her fingers in any work. To promote their growth, they are held over small fires of cedar wood. This is an ancient custom, and Cailliaud mentions having observed, at Naga, a representation of a queen with long nails; and it still prevails among the Chinese of the highest rank. This wife, or queen, of the melek, possesses a large fortune, said to amount to 50,000_l._ sterling; an enormous amount for a country like this. She increases it daily by commerce, keeping constantly in her employ Arab merchants, who trade in caravans on her account to Abyssinia, Kordofan, Sennaar, and Cairo. Their chief traffic now is in slaves. Two of her merchants were in the room when my dragoman entered. She eyed him at first fiercely and haughtily, and asked him whether he was one of the Christians just arrived, and how he dared to enter there? Being a clever insinuating fellow, with the advantage of being a Mahometan, he soon ingratiated himself into her favour, and had some dinner ordered for him. As she was the first queen he had ever seen, and the daughter of the celebrated Nimr, he examined her very attentively. The reader will perhaps be dissatisfied with a description thus given upon hearsay; but I should state that, from numerous enquiries, I have found it perfectly applicable to the great ladies in this country; and my dragoman, although an Arab, is the most intelligent clever servant I have met with any where. The account of this great lady may remind the reader of Bruce’s Sittina.

_March_ 14. We started this morning at noon; and now, thank Heaven, my face is toward the north, and every day will bring me nearer England. I have still a journey of nearly 1600 miles before I even reach Alexandria, with deserts to pass and hardships to undergo.[23] We have suffered already very severely from heat and fatigue. For some time past the thermometer, between eleven and four, has been 96° to 100° in the shade; on one day as high as 104°, and another, 110°. The wind blows almost every day very strong from the north; but in the interior deserts of Africa, the atmosphere soon becomes so heated, by the scorching sun, that the wind which, in other regions, braces and invigorates man, is felt as hot and oppressive. It is refreshing at night, and near the river; but in the desert, for a great part of the day, almost insupportable. Our umbrellas, with which we sheltered ourselves from the sun, have been all broken by the wind, and others we had constructed met to-day a similar fate; but we protect ourselves with our sheets as well as we can. There is no apparent ascent from the Nile into the desert. After five hours’ journey we encamped for the night. The desert is slightly covered with sand, but not so much as to impede the camels: in other respects it almost resembles a park, covered, to a great extent, with trees and herbage, though the latter has rather a burnt appearance. The trees are chiefly acacias, bearing full yellow flowers, and in their forms sometimes resembling small oaks, others the tops of the Italian pine trees.

_March_ 16. We have been ten hours _en route_ this day. As we advanced into the desert, I observed not quite so many trees, and also less herbage. After five hours’ journey—that is, ten after leaving the Nile—we arrived at a spot called Aboulay, where numerous wells occur. The Arabs filled their water-skins; and, had I not been well provided from the Nile, I should have drunk of it without hesitation, as it seemed tolerably sweet and wholesome.

On this journey I could not escape from some serious and even painful reflections. However the traveller may be fascinated with this kind of life,—free from the restraints and passions of the world; living in the patriarchal style; mounted on his dromedary; sleeping under a tent, and sometimes without one; covered with no other canopy than the blue sky;—exquisite as may be the pleasure of exploring unfrequented lands, treading unbeaten paths, and leading his caravan over these terrible wildernesses; still, there are thoughts, not to be resisted, which crowd upon the mind, and unnerve even the strongest. This is not the land of our birth; we are strangers to the customs, manners, language, and religion of the people: their hospitality and civility are merely the effort of their benevolence, and the performance of a duty. No tie of relationship, no chain of affection, no sympathy of ideas, no bond of union, exists between us. The dissimilarity of our colour, of the climate and aspect of the country, as compared with ours, is not more complete than that of our habits and feelings. All that we love, all that we care for, is separated from us by immense tracts of desert sands; and we have to pass rivers, seas, and several thousand miles before we reach the land of our home. I can also assure my fair countrywomen that it is no trifling deprivation to see and converse with none but these swarthy savage beauties, from whose society no man of any refinement can derive the slightest gratification. My Italian artist, who sings remarkably well, entertains me sometimes with the favourite airs from Rossini’s and Bellini’s operas, and he talks to me so much of “la bella Italia,” that I long to be again there—_but on my way to England_.

My camel-drivers, with the exception of two Ababdes, whom I met and engaged as they had passed the Nubian desert with me, are of the tribe of the Shageea—fine tall warlike-looking fellows, with their hair dressed almost like the Ababdes; but the Shageea generally wear beards and mustachios. Their complexion is decidedly darker than that of the Ababdes, which is a dark brown; but theirs is a darker brown, and sometimes approaches almost to a black, but still very different from the cold colour of the negroes. The Shageea have occasionally wider nostrils than we should think correct, and rather thick lips, otherwise their features would resemble exactly the European. We have seen numbers of gazelles, and several flocks of sheep, and passed many isolated hills: the sand is firm, and not fatiguing for the camels. Six inches below the surface is sandstone rock.

_March_ 17. We have been ten hours on the road. Had it not been for the extreme heat, and my health being indifferent, I should have enjoyed my journey through this desert; for, although not picturesque, the abundance of acacias makes it extremely beautiful. We have passed several isolated hills; and on the sand yesterday, as well as to-day, I observed many of the round balls of iron-flint, or iron-glance, sometimes of a red, but generally of almost a black, colour. A distinguished mineralogist has informed me that they are common sand, agglutinated by oxide of iron, such as may be seen on Hampstead Heath, &c., rolled by water. They are similar to those observed during my first two or three days’ journey in the great Nubian desert.

_March_ 18. After four hours’ ride I arrived at a range of mountains, the crust of which consists of quartz and decomposed granite; but the basis of most of the rocks in this quarter is sandstone. At a distance I fancied we were approaching a passage cut through the mountains; but on arriving it proved a deep recess in the rock, having the appearance of being worn by a torrent, and now forming a well, or rather cistern, almost entirely protected from the rays of the sun by a projecting rock. During the winter, and when the tropical rains extend so far north, the water is above five times its present depth, which is only eight feet. It is now green, and disagreeable to the taste; but, fortunately, my stock of Nile water is not finished, as I must confess I should not have relished to quench my thirst, under a burning sun, with this beverage. My satisfaction was the greater when I observed that my camel-drivers, when they had filled their water-skins, bathed and washed themselves in the pool; doubtless the usual custom of the caravans. We expected to find flocks here, and procure an additional supply of meat. My artist being extremely unwell, and wishing for soup, I gave a backsheesh of ten piastres to one of the camel-men, who mounted an unloaded dromedary, and went out of the road, towards the west, to a source of water, where he said there were Arabs of the tribe of the Hassanyeh: he joined us after three hours, having succeeded in purchasing a goat for five, and an excellent gazelle for two, piastres. We have seen numerous herds, of five or six each, of the latter, but have never been able to approach within shot of them. At a short distance from hence, they tell me that there are antelopes (Arabic, _buggera el Atmoor_). It is singular that, on this side of the river, ferocious animals are rare. There are some few hyenas, but the panthers and lions seem confined chiefly to the Island of Meroe.

This reservoir of water, called Gagdool, is out of the direct road; we went from it due west for a short time, and then resumed our course towards the north-west. I should have made a drawing of these rocks, but I was really so unwell that I felt unequal to the exertion. At noon we reposed for a short time under our tent. There are abundance of acacias, but they afford little shade; whence the Arab proverb, “The friendship of man is like the shade of the acacia.” At Shendy I bought a splendid greyhound dog; perhaps of a larger species than ours, stronger, and with more bone, but showing much breeding. I was surprised to find the true race of greyhound dog in the centre of Africa; but, in fact, there is a representation of it on the walls of a tomb at Thebes, forming part of magnificent offerings received from Ethiopia. (See Plate XLVI.) I should have been glad to have brought him to England, but he died in consequence of the heat, added to his fatigue in following the camel, and perhaps not having sufficient water, although I spared him as much as I could out of my own individual stock[24], in order that I might save him. I placed him on the back of a camel; but he would not remain.

_March_ 19. Nine hours this day. We arrived at eleven at a well, in a valley at the commencement of a range of granite rocks of the usual round formation by which they are always known: quartz nodules were scattered in the valley. The water of this well is the best we have tasted since we left the Nile, yet not what I should like to drink. The Arabs say that we shall arrive at a better to-morrow. The source is called Magaga. We encamped earlier than usual this evening, my artist being unable to go any farther. Last night he had a severe attack of bilious fever. Calomel is the best remedy for that complaint in this climate. I gave him a dose of six grains, and this morning he was wonderfully better, but the fatigue and heat of the day have brought on a relapse. He wants spirit to assist in throwing off the disease, is afraid of dying in the desert, and thinks it impossible he shall live to see the Nile again. He fancies that without plenty of sustenance he cannot exist; and therefore forces his appetite, instead of living abstemiously, as he ought. I have given him six grains more this evening, but have found great difficulty in inducing him to take them, although he is sensible of the benefit he derived from the others. I am exceedingly anxious about the effect of the medicine, from the responsibility I feel in having brought him into the deserts. His reproaches on the subject are harassing, although unjust; for he was engaged under the condition of making this journey.

_March_ 20. My artist was exceedingly ill the early part of last night, but at last he fell into a profuse perspiration, after which he dropped asleep, and awoke this morning quite relieved. He allows a certain merit to the pills, but much more to his having vowed to present wax candles to the Madonna on his return to Italy: he has made other promises of the same kind for deliverance from various dangers. An hour after starting this morning, we arrived at a well called Haless, situated, like the one we passed yesterday, in a valley. The water is most delicious, quite equal to that of the Nile. We emptied all our geerbahs of the water they contained, which, from the extreme heat, had become black and bad, and filled them from this delicious fountain. I never enjoyed any luxury so much as this cold, clear, fresh draught.

We encamped after nine hours’ ride. Although the scenery is not sufficiently bold to be termed picturesque, it is impossible to conceive a more beautiful desert; valleys and rocks with mountains, whose forms are varied, broken, sometimes conical, but never monotonous. The low grounds are covered with sweet-smelling acacias. The herbage has certainly, at this season, a very burnt appearance; but had there been a greensward, instead of these yellow sands and this long discoloured grass, few spots would be more lovely than the Desert of Bahiouda.

_March_ 21. We rode ten hours to-day. The plains are rather more extensive, but still beautiful. We met, this morning, shepherd boys with geerbahs on their arms, containing their provision of water, and they had a few loaves of dourah bread tied in their garment. In this way they conduct their flocks to the pasturages distant from the well, and return when their stock of provision is consumed. I observed, several times, this morning, traces of torrents. The mountains in this desert are generally of grey and pink-coloured granite, often of the description called syenite; many are of sandstone, hornblende, and conglomerates; while others are of decomposed granite and decomposed felspar. At eleven o’clock we passed a well of good water called Hennek, now forty feet deep and proportionally wide. There are no traces of its being recently excavated, nor any thing to mark it as ancient, but it is too great an undertaking for the Arabs of the present age to have accomplished. We are encamped near another source of rain water, called Prasoli. There are about twenty houses or sheds scattered around, inhabited by peasants and their flocks. We have met two caravans of merchants from Dongolah. The manner the Shageea salute, leaning their right arms over the breasts and shoulders of each other, has a very dignified and noble appearance, and is quite in harmony with that frank sincerity and honest affection, which characterise the Arabs of the desert.

_March_ 22. We set out, as usual, at seven, and, at twelve o’clock of the eighth day from Metammah, arrived again at the river. A short distance from the Nile, in a wild solitary situation, we passed some fine ruins of a large Coptic church. It is built of stone covered with cement. There are several windows, and naves in the interior. There are also several doors, and over them the Maltese cross. At the top of the building are remains of an Egyptian cornice and beading, but the plan of the interior is evidently that of a church. It was built, probably, of the materials of a temple, of which the peasants inform me that the traces were recently visible, but are now entirely buried by the encroaching sands of the desert. I went to the place where it was said to have existed, but could find no vestiges of it. We were detained some time on the south side of the Nile, but, after firing repeatedly, a boat came over for us.

Immediately on arriving at the town of Meroueh, I paid a visit to the katshef who has the command of this district. I found him very anxious to be of service to us; and his assistance was most useful in enabling me to procure a fresh supply of bread; a thing difficult to be had in a country where very little of any grain except dourah is either raised or eaten. I was fortunate in obtaining as much rice as I was in need of from the soldiers, who were very willing to sell their rations. Our sugar and tea is consumed: the latter, of course, is not to be procured in such a region as this. In this village, or rather little capital of the province of Dar Shageea, and in the country around, we could only find one loaf of sugar, which was black, and the owner made me pay ten times its value.

We left the camels, which brought us across the desert, on the other side of the river: we, therefore, cannot go on to Gibel el Birkel this evening, since no other camels can be found to carry the luggage. As the distance is more than an hour’s walk, I have not time to go and return before dark, and am therefore obliged to restrain my curiosity until to-morrow.

Meroueh is an ill-built miserable place. In the fortress where the katshef resides, and which formerly belonged to Melek Shoush, is a pedestal of basalt, on which are two ovals, with names and titles on them, which I could not copy, on account of the accumulation of filth that covered them. I had it washed, and traced sufficient of the hieroglyphics to perceive that the name is the same as that of an Ethiopian king I afterwards found on the great temple at Gibel el Birkel. In the court of the same castle is a fragment of a statue of the same material, the sculpture of which is good. The coincidence between the modern name of Meroueh and the ancient capital Meroe is curious. Was this the commencement of the kingdom of which Meroe was the metropolis?