Letter XV…

Letter XV

Korusko, the 20th November, 1843.[28]

Our journey from the Faiûm, through Egypt, was necessarily very much hastened owing to the advanced season. We have, therefore, rarely remained longer at a place than was requisite for a hasty survey, and have chiefly confined ourselves, during the past three months, to keeping an exact register of what exists, and to increasing our important collection of impressions upon paper of the most interesting inscriptions.

On our rapid journey as far as Wadi Halfa, we have collected from three to four hundred impressions, or exact copies, of Greek inscriptions alone. They often confirm Letronne’s acute conjectures, but also not unfrequently correct the unavoidable mistakes of such a difficult work as his. In the inscription from which, without any foundation, it was proposed to settle the position of the town of Akoris, his conjecture, ΙΣΙΔΙ ΛΟΧΙΑΔΙ, is not verified: L’Hôte had read ΜΟΧΙΑΔΙ, but it is ΜΩΧΙΑΔΙ, and before ΕΡΩΕΩΣ, not ΕΡΕΕΩΣ.

The dedicatory inscription of the Temple of PSELCHIS (as it is given in the inscription, in accordance with Strabo, instead of Pselcis) is almost as long again as Letronne assumes it to be, and the first line does not end with ΚΛΕΟΠΑΤΡΑΣ, but with ΑΔΕΛΦΗΣ, so that we must probably restore it thus:

Ὑπὲρ βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου καὶ βασιλίσσης Κλεοπάτρας τῆς ἀδελφῆς Θεῶν Εὐεργετῶν.[29] ... [30]

At the end of the second line ΤΩΙΚΑΙ, therefore, is confirmed. The surname of Hermes, which follows in the third line, however, has been ΠΑΟΤΠΝΟΥΦΙ (ΔΙ) differing from the writing in other later inscriptions, where he is called ΠΑΥΤΝΟΥΦΙΣ. The same surname is also not unfrequently found in hieroglyphics, and then sounds Tut en Pnubs, that is to say, Thoth of, or Lord of Πνούψ, a town, the site of which is still uncertain. I have already met with this Thoth in temples of earlier date, where he frequently appears beside the Thoth of Schmun, i. e. Hermopolis Magna. In the popular language it was called Pet-Pnubs; from this, it became Paot-Pnuphis.

The interesting problem about the owner of the name, Εὐπάτωρ, which Letronne endeavours to solve in a new manner, by means of the inscriptions on the obelisk of Philæ, appears to be decided by the hieroglyphic inscriptions, where the same circumstances recur, but lead to other conjectures.[31] I have found several very perfect series of the Ptolemies, the longest down to Neos Dionysos, and his consort Cleopatra, who, according to the hieroglyphic inscriptions, was surnamed, by the Egyptians, TRYPHÆNA.[32] A fact worthy of consideration is connected with this, namely, that in this Egyptian list of the Ptolemies, the first king is never Ptolemy Soter I., but PHILADELPHUS. In Qurna, where Euergetes II. worships his predecessors, not alone Philometor, the brother of Euergetes is wanting, which is easily explained, but also Soter I., and Rosellini is mistaken when he regards the king who is worshipped under the title of Philadelphus, about whom Champollion was still doubtful, as Soter I. instead of Euergetes I. It appears that the son of Lagus, although he assumed the title of king from the year 305, was yet not acknowledged as such by the Egyptians, as his shields do not appear on a single monument which was erected by him. So much the more do I rejoice that I have nevertheless found his name mentioned once, in an inscription of Philadelphus, as the father of Arsinoë II. But here, we must observe, Soter has, indeed, the royal ring round his name, and also a peculiar Throne-shield name, but quite contrary to the usual Egyptian custom, no king’s title stands before either of the shields, although his daughter is called “royal daughter” and “royal lady.”[33]

It is astonishing how little Champollion seems to have attended to the monuments of the Old Monarchy. During his whole journey through Central Egypt, as far as Dendera, he only found the rock-tombs of Benihassan worthy of notice, and these also, he considered to be works of the 16th and 17th Dynasties, therefore belonging to the New Monarchy. He also mentions Zauiet el Meitîn and Siut, but hardly notices them.

So little has been said by others, besides, on most of the monuments of Central Egypt, that almost everything that we here found was new to me. I, therefore, was not a little astonished when we discovered in ZAUIET EL MEITÎN a series of nineteen rock-tombs, all of them bearing inscriptions, which informed us who were their inhabitants, and belonging to the old time of the 6th Dynasty, therefore extending almost to the period of the great Pyramids. Five among them contain, more than once, the Shield of Makrobioten Apappus Pepi, who is said to have lived to the age of a hundred and six years, and to have reigned a hundred years; in another, Cheops is mentioned. Apart from these there is also a single grave from the period of Ramses.

In BENIHASSAN, I have had a complete drawing made of an entire rock-tomb; it is to give a specimen of the magnificent style of architecture and artistic skill, from the second flourishing period of the Old Monarchy, during the powerful 12th Dynasty.[34] I think it will excite some attention among the Egyptologists, when they shortly learn from Bunsen’s work, why I make a division in the tablet of Abydos, and why I ventured to transfer SESURTESEN and AMENEMHA, these well-known Pharaohs of Heliopolis, the Faiûm, Benihassan, Thebes, and as far as Wadi Halfa, from the New, to the Old Monarchy. It must have been a brilliant period in Egypt at that time, which these magnificent halls for the dead alone testify. At the same time, among the rich representations on the walls, which exhibit a high standard of the peaceful arts, as well as the refined luxury of the great at that period, it is interesting even then to meet with the prognostics of that great adverse destiny, which brought Egypt for several centuries under the power of her northern enemies. Gladiatorial games, which form a characteristic representation of frequent recurrence, in many tombs occupy entire walls, by which we may conclude they were extensively practised at that period, but afterwards almost disappeared. Among these we frequently find amidst the red or dark-brown people of the Egyptian race, and of those races dwelling more to the south, a very light-coloured people, standing singly or in small divisions, who have usually a different costume, and most of them have the hair of the head and beard red, and have blue eyes. They also sometimes appear among the domestics of persons of rank, and are manifestly of northern, probably of Semetic, origin. We find victories of the kings over the Ethiopians and Negroes mentioned on the monuments of that period; therefore it is not surprising to see black slaves and attendants. We learn nothing of wars against the northern neighbours, but it appears that the migrations of people from the north-east had already begun at that time, and that many emigrants sought a home in the fruitful land of Egypt, in exchange for service, or other useful employments.

I here allude particularly to the remarkable scene in the tomb of the royal relative NEHERA-SI-NUMHOTEP, the second tomb approaching from the north, which gives an animated idea of the entrance of Jacob with his family, and which might tempt us really to connect these circumstances, if Jacob had not come at a much later period, and if we were not compelled to acknowledge that such immigrations of single families could never have been a rare event. These, however, were the predecessors of the Hyksos, and assuredly in many respects paved the way for them. As it is only painted, and is still in very good preservation, I have traced through the whole representation, which is about eight feet long, and one and a half high. The royal scribe NEFRUHOTEP, who introduces the company before the high official, to whom the tomb belongs, hands him a sheet of papyrus. Upon this, the sixth year of King Sesurtesen II. is mentioned, when that family of thirty-seven persons came to Egypt. Their chief, and lord, was called ABSCHA, they themselves AAMU, a popular name, which we meet with again associated with the same light-coloured race; this, with three other races, is frequently represented in the royal tombs of the 19th Dynasty, and formed one of the four principal families of the human race known to the Egyptians. Champollion, when he was in Benihassan, regarded them as Greeks; he was not then aware of the extreme age of the monuments which were before him. Wilkinson considers them to be prisoners; this is contradicted by their appearing with weapons and lyres, with women, children, asses, and baggage. I view them as a migrating Hyksos family, who pray to be received into the blessed land, and whose descendants, perhaps, opened the gates of Egypt to the Semetic conquerors, allied to them by race.

The town, to which the rich rock-necropolis of Benihassan belonged, and which is named in the hieroglyphic inscriptions NUS, must have been of considerable size, and, doubtless, lay opposite, on the left bank of the Nile, where ancient mounds exist even at the present time, and are marked upon the French maps. That no more of this town of NUS was known in the geography of the Greeks and Romans than of many other towns of the Old Monarchy, ought not to surprise us, if we consider that the dominion of the Hyksos intervened, which lasted five hundred years. It is thought that the sudden fall of the Monarchy, and of this flourishing town, may be traced, even now, to have happened at the end of the 12th Dynasty by this circumstance—that only eleven of the numerous rock-tombs have inscriptions, and that among these, three alone were quite completed. Special roads of considerable width led to these last, ascending direct from the bank of the river, which near the steep upper part ended in steps cut out of the rock.

Benihassan, however, is not the only place where we became acquainted with the works of the 12th Dynasty. At BERSCHEH, a little to the south of the great plain, where the Emperor Hadrian, in honour of his favourite, who was there drowned, built the town of ANTINOE, with its splendid streets, even now partly passable, and encompassed with hundreds of columns, a narrow valley opens to the east, where we again found a series of splendidly executed rock-tombs of the 12th Dynasty, most of which, unfortunately, were mutilated by recent quarrying. In the tomb of Ki-si-Tuthotep there is a representation of the transport of the great Colossus, which has been already published by Rosellini, but without the accompanying inscriptions; from these we perceive that it was formed of limestone (here, for the first time, I learned the hieroglyphic term for this), and that it was 13 Egyptian ells high, which is about 21 feet.[35] A series of still older tombs are hewn into the face of the rock on the southern side of the same valley, but with very few inscriptions; to judge by the style of the hieroglyphics, and the titles of the deceased, they belong to the 6th Dynasty.

Some hours farther to the south there is another group of tombs, which also belong to the 6th Dynasty; here, likewise, King Cheops is occasionally mentioned, whose name we several times met with before, in a hieratic inscription in Benihassan. We found tombs from the 6th Dynasty, though with few inscriptions, in two other places situated, between the valley EL AMARNA, which contains the very remarkable tomb-grottoes of King Bech-en-Aten, and Siut. Perring, the measurer of the Pyramids, a short time ago seriously endeavoured, in an essay, to maintain the strange opinion, which, however, I also met with while in Cairo, that the monuments of El Amarna were derived from the Hyksos; others, on account of their striking, though not inexplicable peculiarities, would even carry them back to the time before Menes. While still in Europe I had recognised the builder of these monuments, and some other allied kings, to be antagonistic kings of the 18th Dynasty.

Rock-tombs of vast size open on the side of the valley behind SIUT, in which, even from a distance, we recognised the imposing style of the 12th Dynasty. Here also, unfortunately, many of these splendid remains have been destroyed of late, as it was found more convenient to break away the walls and columns of the grottoes, than to hew out building stones from the rock itself.

I learned from Selîm Pascha, the Governor of Upper Egypt, who received us in a most friendly manner in Siut, that the Bedouins had a short time ago discovered some alabaster quarries in the eastern range of mountains, between two and three hours distant, the working of which had been committed to him by Mohammed Ali; and I heard from his dragoman, that in that place also there was an inscription on the rock. I therefore determined to start the following day, accompanied by the two Weidenbachs, our dragoman and Kawass, on this hot ride, on the Pascha’s horses, which he had sent to El Bosra for the purpose. We found there a little colony of eighteen labourers, thirty-one souls altogether, in the lonely, sultry, rocky defile, occupied in working the quarries. On the side of the rock, behind the tent of the overseer, the name and titles of the wife, so highly venerated by the Egyptians of the first Amasis, the head of the 18th Dynasty which expelled the Hyksos, were preserved in distinct, sharp-cut hieroglyphics, the remains of an inscription that had been formerly longer. These are the first alabaster quarries the age of which is proved by an inscription. Not far from that place there have been others also, which, however, had been worked out in ancient times. Above three hundred blocks have been already obtained from the one now re-opened during the last four months, the largest of which are eight feet long and two feet thick. The Pascha informed me, through his dragoman, that on our return I should find a slab, whose size and form I might myself determine, of the best quality in the quarry, and which I might accept, as a token of the pleasure he had derived from our visit. The alabaster quarries which have hitherto been discovered in this neighbourhood, are all between Berscheh and Gauâta; we might be inclined, therefore, to view El Bosra as the ancient Alabastron, if the passage in Ptolemy could be reconciled with it. At any rate, Alabastron has certainly nothing to do with the ruins in the valley of El Amarna, for which it has hitherto been taken, which does not either agree with the statement of Ptolemy, and with which it appears to have a totally different relation. The hieroglyphic name of these ruins frequently appears in the inscriptions.

In the rocky chain of GEBEL SELÎN there are some more very early tombs belonging to the Old Monarchy, probably to the 6th Dynasty, but with few inscriptions.

Opposite to old PANOPOLIS, or CHEMMIS, we climbed up to the remarkable rock-grotto of Pan (Chem). It was founded by another rival king of the 18th Dynasty, whose tomb we have since visited in Thebes. The holy name of the city frequently appears in the inscriptions here—“The Habitation of CHEM,” i. e. Panopolis. Whether the popular name Chemmis, now Echmim, originated from this, is perhaps doubtful. I have always found two different names for Siut, Dendera, Abydos, and other towns; the holy and the popular name. The first is taken from the chief god of the local temple; the second has nothing to do with this. My hieroglyphic geography increases nearly with every new monumental locality. In ABYDOS we came to the first of the larger temple structures. The last interesting tombs of the Old Monarchy we found at QASR E’ SAIAT; they go as far back as the 6th Dynasty. In DENDERA we visited the imposing Temple of Hathor, perhaps the best preserved in all Egypt.

We spent twelve overwhelming and astounding days in Thebes, which were scarcely sufficient to enable us to thread our way among the palaces, temples, and tombs, whose royal gigantic splendour fills this wide plain. We celebrated the birthday of our beloved king with a feu de joie, and waving of banners, with chorus songs and heartfelt toasts, which we pledged in a glass of genuine German Rhine wine, in the jewel of all the splendid buildings of Egypt—the palace of Ramses-Sesostris: it was erected by this greatest of the Pharaohs to “Ammon-Ra, the King of the Gods,” the tutelar patron of the royal city of Ammon, situated on a terrace of gentle elevation, calculated to command the wide plain on both sides of the majestic river, and was worthy of himself and of the god. I need scarcely say that on such an occasion we also thought of you with a full heart. When night came, we kindled a kettle of pitch above the outer entrance between the Pylones, on both sides of which our banners were planted, and then made a great fire flame up from the flat roof of the Pronaos (or vestibule), which exhibited the beautiful proportions of the hall of columns in splendid relief; for the first time since thousands of years we again restored this to its original destination as a festive hall—the saloon of “panegyrics.”[36] The two mighty Memnon Colossi, calmly reposing on their thrones, were also magically lighted up in the distance.

We have reserved all great undertakings for our return; but it will be difficult to select from the inexhaustible materials for our particular object, and with reference to what has been already communicated in other works. On the 10th of October we quitted Thebes. HERMONTHIS we saw in passing. The great hall of ESNEH was several years ago excavated down to the foundation by order of the Pascha, and afforded us a magnificent spectacle. We remained three days in EL KAB, the ancient EILEITHYIA. Still more wonderful than the different temples of this once mighty place, are its rock-tombs, most of which date from the commencement of the Egyptian War of Freedom against the Hyksos, and throw much light on the relations between the Dynasties of that period. Several distinguished persons, buried there, bear the strange title of Masculine Nurse of a Royal Prince, by the well-known group mena, and the determinative of the female breast, in the Coptic tongue expressed ⲙⲟⲡⲓ. The deceased is represented with the prince upon his lap.

The Temple of EDFU is also among those which are in best preservation; it was dedicated to Horus and to Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, who is here in one place called “The Queen of Men and Women.” Horus, as a child, is represented naked, as are all children on the monuments, and with his finger on his mouth. I had before explained the name of HARPOKRATES from it, which now I have found represented and written here complete, as HAR-PE-CHROTI, i. e. “Horus the child.” The Romans misunderstood the Egyptian gesture of the finger, and out of the child who cannot yet speak, they made the God of Silence who will not speak. The most interesting inscription, hitherto neither noticed nor mentioned by any one, is on the outer eastern wall of the temple built by Ptolemy Alexander I. It contains several dates, of the kings Darius, Nectanebus, and of the falsely so-called Amyrtæus, and refers to the landed estates which belonged to the temple. The intense heat of the day we spent there caused me to postpone, till our return, a closer examination, and taking the paper impression of this wall.[37] GEBEL SILSILIS is one of the places most abundant in historical inscriptions, which are chiefly connected with the vast workings of the sandstone quarries.

I was rejoiced to find a third canon of the proportions of the human body, in OMBOS, differing very distinctly from both the older Egyptian canons which I had before met with in many examples. The second canon is closely connected with the first, and oldest, of the time of the Pyramids, from which it differs only in being brought to greater perfection, and being differently applied. The foot, as the unit, is the foundation of both, this taken six times, corresponded to the height of the body when upright; but it must be observed, from the sole of the foot, not as far as the crown of the head, but only to the top of the forehead. That portion from where the hair begins to grow on the upper part of the forehead, to the crown of the head, did not come into the calculation at all, and occupies sometimes three-quarters, sometimes the half, sometimes still less of a fresh square. The difference between the first and the second canon chiefly rests on the position of the knee. In the Ptolemaic canon, however, the division has itself been altered. The body was no longer divided into 18 parts, as in the second canon, but into 21¼ parts, to the top of the forehead, or into 23 parts, up to the crown of the head. This is the division which DIODORUS gives, in the last chapter of his first book. In the lower part of the body the proportions of the second and third canon remain the same; on the other hand, those of the upper part of the body are essentially altered, the contours become altogether more extravagant, and the previous beautiful simplicity and chasteness of the forms, in which consisted both its grand and peculiarly Egyptian character, yielded to the imperfect imitation of an uncomprehended foreign style of art. The proportion of the foot to the length of the body remains the same, but the foot is no longer placed for the basis as unit.

At ASSUAN we were obliged to change our boat, on account of the Cataracts, and for the first time for six months past, or longer, we had the home enjoyment of heavy rain, and a violent thunderstorm, which gathered on the farther side of the Cataracts, crossed with a mighty force the granite girdle, and then, amidst the most violent explosions, rolled down the valley as far as Cairo, and (as we have since heard) covered it with floods of water, such as had been scarcely remembered before. So we may say, with Strabo and Champollion, “In our time it rained in Upper Egypt.” Rain is, indeed, so rare here, that our guards never remembered to have beheld such a spectacle, and our Turkish Kawass, who is in all respects perfectly acquainted with the country, continued to leave his own things untouched; while we long before had been carrying our chests into the tents, and having them better secured, he quietly repeated abaden moie, “never rain,” a word which since then he has often been compelled to hear, as he was thoroughly drenched, and caught a violent, feverish cold, for which he was obliged to wait patiently in Philæ.

The situation of PHILÆ is as charming as it is interesting by its monuments. Some of the most delightful recollections of our journey are associated with our eight days’ residence on this holy island. We used to assemble before dinner, after the scattered work of the day, on the elevated temple terrace, which rises abruptly from the river, on the eastern shore of the island; we there watched the shadow of the temple (which is in good preservation, and built of sharply cut, deep-coloured glowing blocks of sandstone) steal over the river, and mingle with the black volcanic masses of rock, towering above each other, between which the golden yellow sand pours into the valley like streams of fire. The island appears only to have become holy to the Egyptians at a late period, for the first time under the Ptolemies. Herodotus, who during the rule of the Persians ascended as far as the Cataracts, does not mention Philæ at all; it was at that time inhabited by the Ethiopians, who were also in possession of half of the island of Elephantine. The oldest buildings now to be found upon the island were erected on the southern point by Nectanebus, the last king but two of Egyptian origin, almost a hundred years after the journey of Herodotus. There are no traces of earlier remains, not even of any that were destroyed or built up into other buildings. Many older inscriptions are to be found upon the large neighbouring island of Bigeh, named in hieroglyphics SENMUT. As early as the Old Monarchy, it was adorned with Egyptian monuments; for we have found a granite statue of King Sesurtesen III. from the 12th Dynasty. The little rocky island KONOSSO, named in hieroglyphics KENES, also contains very old inscriptions, engraved upon the rock, in which a new and hitherto wholly unknown King of the Hyksos period is also named. Hitherto the hieroglyphic name of the island of Philæ was read Manlak. I have found the name undoubtedly more than once written Ilak; hence with the article, PHILAK became in the mouth of the Greeks PHILAI. The sign which Champollion read “man,” in other groups changes into i, thence the expression I-lak, P-i-lak, Memphitic Ph-i-lak, is now established.

We have made a valuable discovery in the court of the great Temple of Isis, of two bilingual decrees of the Egyptian priests, that is to say, drawn up in the Hieroglyphic and Demotic characters; they are tolerably rich in words, and one of them contains the same text as the decree of the Rosetta stone. I have, at least, up to the present moment, compared the last seven lines, which correspond with the inscription of Rosetta, not only in their contents, but also in the length of each single line; the inscription must be copied before I can say more about it; at all events, it is no inconsiderable advantage to Egyptian philology, if only a portion of the fragmentary decree of Rosetta can, through this, be completed. The whole of the first portion of the Rosetta inscription which precedes the decree, is here wanting. Instead of this, there is a second decree beside it, which refers to the same Ptolemy Epiphanes; in the introduction, the “Fortress of Alexander,” i. e. the town of Alexandria, is mentioned for the first time, on the monuments which have hitherto become known. Both decrees conclude, like the Rosetta inscription, with the intention to set up the inscription in Hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek characters. Nevertheless, the Greek is wanting here; unless, perhaps, it was written down in red, and rubbed out when Ptolemy Lathyrus cut his hieroglyphic inscriptions over the earlier ones.[38]

The hieroglyphic succession of the Ptolemies, which appears here, begins again with Philadelphus; whereas, in the Greek text of the Rosetta inscription, it begins with Soter. Another very remarkable fact is, that Epiphanes is here called, the son of Ptolemy Philopator and Cleopatra, while, by the historical accounts, the only wife of Philopator was Arsinoë, and she is besides so named in the Rosetta inscription, and on other monuments. She is also certainly called Cleopatra in one passage of Pliny, but this might have been considered a mistake of the author, or of the manuscript, if a hieroglyphic, and, indeed, an official document did not even now present the same change of names. There are now, therefore, no longer any grounds to place the mission by the Roman Senate of Marcus Atilius, and Marcus Acilius to Egypt, to negotiate a new alliance on account of the Queen Cleopatra, who is mentioned by Livy, under Ptolemy Epiphanes, as is done by Champollion Figeac, instead of under Ptolemy Philopator as other authors relate. We must rather assume now, either that the wife and sister of Philopator bore both names, which, indeed, even then would not quite remove the difficulties; or that the project mentioned by Appian, of a marriage between Philopator and the Syrian Cleopatra, who afterwards became the wife of Epiphanes, was carried into effect after the murder of Arsinoë, though the authors give us no account of it. Here, naturally, I am without the means of making this point perfectly clear.[39]

The multitude of Greek inscriptions in Philæ is incalculable, and it will interest Letronne to hear, that on the base of the second obelisk, which still exists in its original place and position, of which only a portion has travelled with the other obelisk to England, I have found the remains of a Greek inscription, written in red, difficult indeed to decipher, which, perhaps, was at one time also gilt, similar to the two last discovered upon the base in England. I have already written to Letronne, that the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the obelisk, which, together with the Greek one of the base, I myself copied in Dorsetshire, and which I afterwards published in my “Egyptian Atlas,” have nothing to do with the Greek inscription, and were not even set up simultaneously; but it still remains a question, whether the inscription of the second base was not in connexion with that of the first; the correspondence of the three known inscriptions certainly appears exclusively confined to themselves.

The chief temple of the island was dedicated to Isis. She is called by preference “The Lady of Philek.” Osiris was only θεὸς σύνναος, which has its peculiar hieroglyphic expression, and he is only sometimes exceptionally called “Lord of Philek;” on the other hand, he was “Lord of Ph-i-uêb,” i. e. Abaton, and Isis, who was there σύνναος, is only exceptionally called “The Lady of Ph-i-uêb.” Even from this, we may infer, that the famous tomb of Osiris, on his own island of Phiuêb, was not upon Philek. Both places were expressly designated by their determinatives as Islands. There is, therefore, no question that the Abaton of inscriptions and authors was not a particular place upon the island of Philæ; it was itself an island. Diodorus and Plutarch both say so, in distinct terms, as they place it πρὸς Φιλαις. Diodorus expressly designates the island with the tomb of Osiris, as a peculiar island, which, on account of this tomb, was called ἱερὸν πεδίον, “the sacred plain.” This is a translation of PH-I-UEB, or PH-IH-UEB (for the h is also found in the hieroglyphics), in the Coptic tongue ⲫ-ⲓⲁϩ-ⲟⲩⲏⲃ, PH-IAH-UEB, “the sacred field.” This sacred plain was an Abaton, inaccessible except to the priests.

On the 6th of November we left the enchanting island, and began our Ethiopian journey. Even in DEBÔD, the next temple we came to towards the south, in hieroglyphics called Tabet (in Coptic, perhaps, ⲧⲁ ⲁⲃⲏⲧ), we found the sculptures of an Ethiopian king, ARKAMEN the ERGAMENES, of the authors, who reigned at the same time as Ptolemy Philadelphus, and probably was in very friendly relations with Egypt. There is great confusion in the French work on Champollion’s expedition (I have not got Rosellini at hand). Many sheets which belong to Dakkeh are attributed to Debôd, and vice versâ: we collected nearly sixty Greek inscriptions in GERTASSI. Letronne, who knew them, through Gau, has perhaps already published them; I am eager to learn what he has made out of γόμοι, whose priests play an important part in these inscriptions, as also out of the new gods, Σρούπτιχις and Πουρσεπμοῦνις.

The Inscriptions of TALMIS offer a new instance how incorrectly the Egyptian names were often comprehended by the Greeks, who name the same god MANDULIS, who in the hieroglyphic language was distinctly called MERULI, and was the local god of Talmis. It is striking that the name of Talmis, which is frequently found in this temple, never appears in the rock-temple of Bet el Ualli, certainly of much older date, which is situated in its immediate neighbourhood. DENDÛR also had a peculiar protecting patron, the god PETISI, who never appears anywhere else, and has also the surname of Peschir Tenthur; Champollion’s sheets are here, also, in wonderful disorder, since the representations and inscriptions are erroneously combined.

The Temples of GERF HUSSÊN and SEBÛA are especially worthy of notice, because Ramses Sesostris, by whom they were built, appears here both as a contemplative divinity and worshipping himself as such, with Phtha and Ammon, the two chief divinities of this temple. In the first, he is even one time called “Ruler of the Gods.”

Champollion has already remarked, with justice, that indeed all the temples of the Ptolemies, and of the Roman emperors in Nubia, were only restorations of former sanctuaries, which, in more ancient times, had been erected by the Pharaohs of the 18th and 19th Dynasties, and had been destroyed by the Persians. Thus also the Temple of PSELCHIS was first built by Tuthmosis III. Besides the scattered fragments of stone belonging to this first building, which, however, was not dedicated to Thoth, as Champollion believes, but to Horus, and thus at a later period altered its destination; we have found others, likewise, of Sethôs I. and Menephthes. It also appears that the axis of the first plan was not parallel with the river, like the later one, but similar to almost all other temples, its entrance was towards the river.

At the Temple of KORTE the entrance door alone is inscribed with hieroglyphics, and those of the worst style. Yet even this small amount was sufficient to inform us that the sanctuary was dedicated to Isis, who is named “The Lady of Kerte.” Here also we discovered some blocks that had been used in later buildings, which had escaped the notice of former travellers; they belonged to an ancient temple, erected by Tuthmosis III., and the foundation walls may still be recognised.

In HIERASYKAMINOS we reaped the last harvest of Greek inscriptions. As far as this place Greek and Roman travellers were protected by the garrison of Pselchis, and by another strong position MEHENDI, which is not given on the maps, but was situated some hours to the south of Hierasykaminos. PRIMIS seems only to have had a temporary garrison after the campaign of Petronius. MEHENDI, whose name, indeed, seems only to designate in Arabic the buildings, the fortress, is the best preserved Roman camp that I have ever seen. It lies upon a tolerably steep eminence, and from that commands the river, and a small valley, which passes upwards from the river, to the south side of the fortress; the caravan road, also, here branches off into the desert, and does not redescend to the river till near Medik. The wall of the town encloses a square, which, towards the east, passes down the hill a short way, and measures 175 paces from north to south, and 125 from east to west. Four corner towers, and four central towers, spring up at regular intervals from the walls; among the last, those lying to the north and south were also the gates, which, for greater security, did not lead straight into the town, but with a bend. The southern gate, and all the southern portion of the fortress, which encompassed about 120 houses, are in excellent preservation. Immediately behind the gate you enter a straight street, sixty-seven paces long, which, with but little interruption, is still completely arched over; several narrow side streets lead off on both sides, and are also, as well as all the houses of that whole portion of the town, covered over with arched roofs, made of Nile bricks. The street leads to a somewhat large open place in the middle of the town, near to which was situated, upon the highest point of the ridge of the rock, the largest, and best built house, doubtless that of the commander, with a semicircular niche at the eastern end. The walls of the town are built out of unhewn stones; the gate alone, which supports a well-constructed Roman arch, is built of sharply-cut square stones, amongst which several built into it, have sculptures of the genuine Egyptian style, although of late date; a proof that before the erection of the fortress, there was an Egyptian or Ethiopian sanctuary, probably a chapel to Isis. We discovered a head of Osiris, and two heads of Isis, in one of which we could still recognise the red-marked proportion square of the third canon.

The last monument that we visited, before our arrival in Korusko, was the Temple of Ammon in WADI SEBÛA (the Lion Valley), so called from the row of Sphinxes, which are now scarcely visible above the sea of sand which has buried nearly the whole temple, as far as it stood out alone. Even the western portion of the temple, hewn in the rock, is filled up high with sand, and we were compelled to summon the whole crew of our boat to open an entrance into this part of it. We here encountered a new and very peculiar combination of divine and human nature, in a group of four divinities. The first of which was called “PHTHA OF RAMSES, in the house of Ammon;” the second, PHTHA, with other customary surnames; the third, RAMSES, in the house of Ammon; the fourth, HATHOR. In another inscription, “AMMON OF RAMSES, in the house of Ammon,” was named. It is difficult to explain this combination.[40]

I was no less astonished to find a posterity of King Ramses-Miamun in the outer court of this Temple of Ammon, consisting of a hundred and sixty-two children, represented with their names and titles, most of which, indeed, were scarcely legible, as they are very much destroyed; others are covered with rubbish, and at present could only be estimated by the distances of the spaces. Hitherto, only twenty-five sons and ten daughters of this great king were known. He did not take the two legitimate wives which appear upon the monuments simultaneously, but the one after the death of the other. To-day we had a visit from the old, blind, but powerful and rich Hassan Kaschef, of Derr, who formerly was independent regent of Lower Nubia; he had no less than sixty-four wives, of whom forty-two still remain; twenty-nine sons and seventeen daughters are still living. He has, probably, never taken the trouble to reckon how many of them he has lost, but by the usual proportion here, he must have had about four times the number of those living, therefore about two hundred children.

KORUSKO is an Arabian place, in the centre of the land of the NUBIANS, or Barâbra (plural of Bérberi), which includes the Nile valley from Assuan to beyond Dongola. They are an intelligent and honest race; peaceful, but of a disposition anything but slavish, with well-formed bodies, and a skin of a light, reddish-brown colour. The occupation of Korusko by the Arabs of the race of the Ababde, who inhabit the whole of the eastern desert from Assuan as far as Abu Hammed, is explained by the important situation of the place, being the commencement of the great caravan road, which leads direct to the province of Berber, and cuts off the great-western curvature of the Nile.

The Arabic tongue—in which we have now learnt, at least to give orders and to ask questions, indeed, also to carry on a little conversation of civilities, or on the news of the day—had become so familiar to our ears in Egypt, that the Nubian language attracted us, even by its novelty. It is divided, as far as I have been hitherto able to learn, into a northern and a southern dialect, which meet near Korusko.[41] The language has a distinct character from the Arabic, even in its first elements in the system of consonants and vowels. It is much more euphonous, as it has hardly any accumulation of consonants, no hard guttural sounds; it has little sibilance, and many simple vowels, differing more distinctly from one another than in the Arabic, and generally parted by a consonant, thus again avoiding an effeminate accumulation of vowels. It has no accordance, either with the Semitic languages or with the Egyptian, in any part of the grammatical forms, or the radical words, much less with our own, and therefore surely belongs to the original African tongue, without any immediate connexion with the present language of the Ethiopian-Egyptian race, although the people may have been often comprehended by the ancients under the name of Ethiopians, and were, perhaps, less strangers to them by descent. They are not a trading people, and therefore can only reckon up to twenty in their own language; they borrow the higher decades from the Arabic language, yet they use a peculiar word for one hundred—imil. The grammatical distinction between the genders exists almost solely throughout the language in the personal pronouns when they stand alone; they make a distinction between “he” and “she,” but not between “he gives” and “she gives.” They conjugate more by additional actual flexions, as in our languages, than by alteration of accent, and change of vowel, as in the Semitic. They form the ordinals by the addition of iti; the plural, by îgi; they do not possess a dual. The connexion of the pronouns with the verb is both prefix and affix, but it is simple and natural; they distinguish between the present and the preterite; they express the future by a particle; they have also a peculiar form for the passive voice. The root of the negation is m, usually succeeded by an n; perhaps the only agreement more than accidental with the roots of most other languages. Their original wealth of ideas is very limited. They have, indeed, peculiar words for the sun, the moon, and the stars; but they borrow terms from the Arabic for time, year, month, day, and hour; water, sea, and river, are all essi; but it is remarkable that they designate the Nile by a particular word—Tossi. They have peculiar words for all native animals, tame and wild; Arabic words for everything connected with house-building, and even navigation; it is only the boat they themselves call kub, which, most likely, has nothing to do with the Arabic mérkab. They have only one word—béti (fenti)—for the date-fruit and the date-tree, which are expressed by different terms in Arabic—bellah and nachele. The sycamore-tree they call by an Arabic name: but it is remarkable, that they designate the sont (acacia) tree by the same word as tree generally—g’ôui. Spirit, God, slave, the ideas of relationship, the different parts of the body, weapons, the produce of the field, and all that belongs to the preparation of bread, have Nubian names; on the other hand, servant, friend, enemy, temple, to pray, believe, read, is Arabic. It is striking that they have special words for writing, and book; but not for style, ink, paper, letter. They call all the metals by Arabic names, with the exception of iron. They are rich, in the Berber tongue; poor, in Arabic; and, in fact, they are all rich in their miserable home, which they cling to like the Swiss, and, devoid of wants, they despise the Arabic gold, which they might earn in Egypt, where their services are much sought for, as house watchmen, and in all confidential posts.

We are now waiting for the arrival of the camels, to commence our desert journey. Till we reach Abu Hammed, eight days hence, we shall only once find water fit to drink. We shall travel four days longer on camels, as far as Berber; there, by the arrangement of Achmed Pascha, we shall find boats ready for us. We must go to Kartûm, to supply ourselves again with provisions; if we may believe Linant, to go still higher up as far as Abu Haras, and thence to Mandera, in the eastern desert, will scarcely repay us; but Achmed Pascha has promised to send an officer to Mandera, to test once more the statements of the natives.

I shall send this report, with other letters, by an express messenger to Qeneh.

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Letter XVI

Korusko, the 5th January, 1844.

It is with no small regret that I have to inform you that we shall, perhaps, be compelled to give up our Ethiopian journey, the second principal task of our expedition, and return to the north from this spot. We have waited, in vain, since the 17th November for the camels, always promised, but never appearing, that were to take us to Berber, and we have still no more prospect of seeing them than at the beginning. I am sorry to say that what we heard on our arrival is confirmed; the Arab tribes, who alone manage the transport, are discontented with Mohammed Ali’s reduction of the charge from eighty to sixty piastres for each camel from hence to Berber; they have agreed among each other to send no more camels here, and no Firman, no promises, no threats, are of any avail. A great number of chests, with ammunition, destined for Chartûm, have been lying here these ten months past, and they are unable to convey them any farther. We had hoped for the assistance of Achmed Pascha Menekle, the new governor of the Southern Provinces, as he had been most friendly and unbounded in his promises. The officer, who remained behind here with the ammunition, received a direct order from him to detain the first camels that should arrive, for our use; nevertheless, we are not at all nearer to our object. The Pascha himself had scarcely means to pursue his journey onward, although he required but few camels. He had brought some of them with him from the north, and he caused some to be forcibly driven together here. Notwithstanding this, he was very ill-provided on his departure, and it is said that half of his beasts either died, or fell sick in the desert.

On the 3rd December, as no camels had yet come, though the Pascha must have passed the province of Berber, from whence he was to send us the requisite number, I sent our own excellent and trustworthy Kawass, Ibrahim Aga, with Mohammed Ali’s Firman, across the desert of nine days’ journey, to Berber. Meanwhile, we went up as far as Wadi Halfa, to the second Cataract, and visited the numerous monuments which are to be found in this region, returning here, three weeks afterwards, with a rich harvest.

It is now thirty-one days since our Kawass set out on his journey, and a few days ago I received a letter from the Mudhir of Berber, by which I learn that he was still unable to furnish me with camels, although, after the arrival of our Kawass, and the reception of the letter of the Mudhir in this place, he had immediately despatched soldiers, in order to collect the necessary number of sixty camels. Thus they are in the same situation there, as we here; the authorities can do nothing in opposition to the ill-will of the Arabs.

Since the sudden death by poison, at Chartûm, of Achmed Pascha, who had been placed at the head of the whole Sudan, and who, as it is asserted, has for some time past been engaged in a conspiracy, in order to make himself independent of Mohammed Ali, the Southern Kingdom has been divided into five provinces, and placed under five Paschas, who are to be installed in their several offices by Achmed Pascha Menekle. One of their number, Emir Pascha, has been hitherto Bey at Chartûm, under Achmed Pascha, who, it appears, he betrayed. Three others arrived at Korusko soon after Achmed Pascha Menekle. The most powerful of them, Hassan Pascha, went to his province of Dongola by water, as far as Wadi Halfa; he had scarcely any attendants, and wanted but few camels to proceed on his journey. The second, Mustaffa Pascha, who is destined for Kordofan, has seized by force a mercantile caravan returning from Berber. However, by the Arabs’ report, some of the wearied beasts became unserviceable when they reached the well, which is situated about four days’ journey in the desert; there he found some merchants, whom he robbed of eight camels; the rest of this caravan did not make its appearance here, fearing probably that it would be again detained, it has taken another route to Egypt. The third Pascha, Ferhât, is still waiting here with us, and uses all the means in his power to collect some camels from the north or the south for himself. Hence our last hope has vanished with respect to this province, as we are less capable than he to arouse the small force of the authorities; and at this moment we have neither Firman nor Kawass with us. Every one, and the Paschas more than all, endeavour to console us in the most friendly manner from day to day; but meanwhile the winter is passing away, the only season when we can work in the upper country. In addition to this, the Mudhir, till now of Lower Nubia, with whom we were on friendly terms, has been complained of by the Nubian Sheikh of his province to Mohammed Ali, and has just been recalled by him. This part of the country has, therefore, been temporarily placed under the Mudhir of Esneh, whose deputy is a young, but otherwise well-disposed man, not however yet acquainted with the province, so we must expect still less from him.

I have, therefore, at length made up my mind for the last course which remains open to me. I shall, myself, go to Berber with Abeken, and a very few camels, and leave Erbkam here, with the rest of our party, and all the baggage. There I shall be better able to see the state of affairs on the spot, and, by aid of the Firman and the Kawass, whose authority I am much in want of here, I shall try what can be done. We were received here, by Achmed Pascha Menekle, with the greatest courtesy, and are already assured of his most efficient support, through the interposition of his body-physician, our countryman and personal friend, Dr. Koch. Perhaps money and threats, even though late in the day, may carry our point. By mere chance I have myself been able to procure six camels. Two more are still absolutely necessary for the completion of our little caravan; but the deputy of the Mudhir, with the best will towards us, cannot even procure these two camels. We have already been waiting three days for them, and still do not know whether we shall receive them.

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Letter XVII

E’ Dâmer, the 24th January, 1844.

Our difficulties, though at a late hour, are terminated. I arrived here yesterday with Abeken, still two days’ journey from the Pyramids of Meröe, and probably the whole of our camp also arrived yesterday at the southern extremity of the Great Desert at Abu Hammed. After my last discouraging account from Berber, I set out on the 8th January, about mid-day, with Abeken, the dragoman Jussuf Scherebîeh, a cook, and our little Nubian boy Auad. We had eight camels, two of them, however, scarcely in a fit state to make the journey, and two asses. As the promised guide was not at hand, I compelled the Sheikh of the camels, Achmed, to accompany us himself, as he might be of service to us, on account of his reputation among the tribes of the Ababde Arabs dwelling here. We had besides these, another guide, Adâr, who had been given us instead of the promised one, and five camel-drivers; and soon after our departure several other foot-passengers joined our party, besides two people with asses, who availed themselves of this opportunity to return to Berber. We took with us ten water-skins, some stores of rice, macaroni, biscuit, and cold meat, besides a light tent, our coverlets on which to ride and sleep, the requisite changes of linen, and a few books; and, in addition, a proper supply of good courage, of which I scarcely ever feel the want in starting on a journey. Our friends accompanied us a short way into the rocky valley, which very soon entirely concealed the neighbouring banks of the river, and its pleasant palm-trees.

The valley was both wild and monotonous, nothing but sandstone rock, the surface of which was burnt as black as coal, but in every quarry, and every hollow, this changed into a brilliant golden yellow; from these a multitude of streams of sand, like streams of fire out of black dross, trickled down, and filled the valleys. We were preceded by the guides; they had simple folds of drapery round their shoulders and hips; in their hands were either one or two spears, made of firm, but light wood, provided with iron points and shafts; a round, or lightly carved shield, with a very prominent boss made of giraffe skin covered their naked backs; their other shields were oblong in form, and usually made of hippopotamus skin, or of the dorsal hide of the crocodile. During the night, and often in the daytime also, they bound sandals under their feet, the thongs of which, not unfrequently cut out of one piece with the sole, are drawn between the great toe and the second toe, and then surround the foot in the manner of a skate.

Sheikh Achmed was a magnificent man, youthful, but tall and noble in stature; he had extremely supple limbs, of a brilliant brown-black colour, his features were very expressive of emotion, a brilliant dark eye, which had both a gentle and sly look, and his mode of speech was so incomparably beautiful, with such harmonious expression, that I liked to have him constantly beside me, although we had a continual contest with him in Korusko, as he was bound to furnish the camels and all appurtenances, and on account of circumstances he neither would nor could procure them. He gave us a proof in the desert of his agility and the elasticity of his limbs, for taking a long run on the sandy ground, peculiarly unfavourable for leaping, he made a bound of 14½ feet in width; I measured the distance between the footmarks with his lance, which was rather more than two metres long (6 feet 7 inches English). Adâr, our second guide, alone ventured to make the leap after him, but he did not nearly reach the same distance.

The first day we had started early, about eleven o’clock in the morning, and we rode on till about five; we then stopped for an hour and a half, and went on again till about half-past twelve. We then pitched our tents on the hard ground, and laid down to sleep, after a march of twelve hours. The most refreshing thing, after these hot and fatiguing days’ journeys, was our tea in the evening; we were, however, obliged to habituate ourselves to the leathery taste of the water, which we perceived even through the tea and coffee. The second day we were fourteen hours on our camels; starting about eight in the morning, we halted about four o’clock in the afternoon to eat something, proceeded on our journey about half-past five, and about half-past twelve we struck our encampment for the night, having left the hills, and about ten o’clock, with the rising moon, descended into a vast plain. Hitherto we had not seen a tree, nor a blade of grass, not even a creature, except some white eagles and ravens, who fed upon the carrion of the camels which had fallen. On the third day, after setting off early in the morning, we met a troop of one hundred and fifty camels, which had been purchased by the Government, to be sent into Egypt. The Pascha is anxious to import several thousand camels from Berber, that he may thereby, in some measure, repair the consequences of the cattle-disease of last year. A great number had already passed through Korusko, without our venturing to make use of them, as they are the private property of the Pascha; we could not have mounted them besides, as they had no saddles.

The guide of the troop, whom we met to-day, brought us at last the long desired intelligence that our Kawass, Ibrahim Aga, had left Berber with sixty camels, and was already marching quite close to us, but on another route, which led across the desert a little more to the west. Sheikh Achmed was sent after him, that he might bring us three good camels, in place of our feeble ones; and also to gain some further intelligence about him. He said that he should overtake us the following night, or at latest the second. I sent a couple of lines to Erbkam, by the Chabîr (guide) of the troop. We halted about half-past five, and remained all night, hoping to see Sheikh Achmed arrive sooner. Towards evening we saw the first scanty vegetation of the desert; the yellowish-grey dry blades of grass, which were hardly visible when near, in the distance gave a pale greenish-yellowish colour to the ground, which alone called my attention to it.

We ought to have arrived the fourth day at the well of brackish water, fit however for the camels to drink; but that we might not hasten on too quickly before Sheikh Achmed, we terminated our day’s journey as early as four o’clock, about four hours distant from the well. At length, about mid-day, we left the great plain BAHR BELA MA (the River without Water), which unites with the mountain chain of EL BAB, two days’ journey in length, and which we had entered coming out of Korusko, and we now approached other chains. Hitherto we had seen nothing but sandstone rocks, both beneath and around us; it was therefore really a joyful event, when looking down from my tall camel upon the sand, I saw the first Plutonic Rock. I immediately glided down from my saddle, and broke off a fragment; it was a greyish green stone of very fine grain, and undoubtedly of the nature of granite. The preceding chains of mountains were also chiefly composed of species of porphyry and granite of different colours, not unfrequently associated with broad veins of red syenite, such as appears so abundantly on the surface at Assuan, and which was so extensively worked by the ancient Egyptians. Farther in the mountains, quartz was sometimes very prevalent, and the appearance was very singular when, here and there at different heights, the snow-white silicious veins appeared on the surface of the black mountains issuing like a spring from a point in the mountain, and flowing into the valley, where its white rolled fragments spread out like a lake. I carried away with me some small specimens of the different kinds of rocks. After we had passed behind a low mountain defile and a small valley, BAHR ʾHATAB (the Wood River, on account of the wood, which is said to grow somewhat farther away on some neighbouring mountains), and another valley, WADI DELAH, inclining to the northern side of the principal mountain which succeeds it, we reached the rocky hollow, E’ SUFR, where we expected to find rain water, and to re-fill our shrunken water-skins (girbe, pl. geràb). During one month of the year, about May, there is usually some rain in this high mountain of primitive rock. The huge granite basins in the hollow valleys are then filled, and retain the water throughout the entire year. Some vegetation was to be seen on this Plutonic Rock, resulting from the rain, and because the granite itself seems to contain more fertilising matter than the barren loose sand, almost wholly composed of small grains of quartz. In WADI DELAH, which evidently has water in the rainy season, we came to a long continuous row of Doum Palms; the circular form of their leaves, and their bushy growth, has a less bare appearance than the long slender-leaved date palm; the latter cannot stand the rain, and therefore cannot live in Berber, while the Doum Palm appears in Upper Egypt for the first time, quite isolated, and the farther we travel south, we see them in greater numbers, larger in size, and of more luxuriant growth. If their fruit drop off when unripe and dry, the small portion of pulp round the stony kernel tastes like a coating of sugar; if they ripen, the yellowish woody pulp may be chewed; it has a good taste, and some of their fruit had an aroma almost similar to the pine-apple. They are sometimes as large as the largest apples.

About four o’clock we pitched our camp, the camels were sent into the hollow, situated behind, to the rain water, and Abeken and I got upon our asses, to accompany them to these natural reservoirs. Riding over coarse gravel and sharp stones we penetrated deeper and deeper into the ascending defile; the first large basins were empty, we left our asses and camels behind, clambered up the smooth granite sides of the rock, and stepped from one basin to another amidst these huge masses of rock. All were empty; the guide said there must be water in the fissure which lay farthest back, that there it was never exhausted; but even in that spot not a drop was to be found, so we were obliged to return without any success, as dry as we came. The numerous herds of cattle, which during the past year had been driven out of the Sudan into Egypt, had consumed it all. Only three skins of water had remained over for our party, and we were therefore compelled to find out some means to procure more. Other cisterns were said to exist higher up in the mountains behind this defile. I was anxious to climb up the rocks with the guide, but he considered it too dangerous an undertaking. We turned round, rode back to the encampment, and with the setting sun, the camels were forced to start once more in search of water among the hills lying to the north, about an hour distant from this spot. They returned at a late hour with four skins full; the water was good, and pleasant to the taste. Sheikh Achmed, however, did not either return this night, and we now hoped to find him at the well, whither he might have preceded us by the southern road.

We started soon after sunrise, on the fifth day, and penetrated deeper into the great mountain chain of ROFT, which always exhibited the same rock, at first slaty in texture, then more in the form of blocks, afterwards abounding in quartz. The heat of the day was more oppressive in the mountains than in the plains, where the north wind blowing almost continuously, produces greater coolness. With the exception of the different kinds of rock, there was little around to attract our notice. I met with a great ant-hill in the middle of the barren desert, and I looked at it for a long time; there were smaller and larger bright black ants, who were carrying all the small pieces of earth which they were able to lift out of their building, so that the coarser little stones alone remained, and formed solid walls; the larger ants were distinguished by their heads being in proportion to their size, twice as thick as the others, and they did not themselves work, but led the regiment, and gave a push to each of the smaller ants, who were carrying nothing, drove them forwards, and kept them more diligently at work.

The difficulty to converse when riding on the hard-pacing camel is so much the greater because it is not easy to make them keep the step beside each other, as with the horse or ass. When upon a good dromedary (Heggîn), and travelling without, or with but very little baggage, the creature keeps in a trot. This is an easy pace, and is not very fatiguing, but it is difficult to get accustomed to the long step of the ordinary baggage-camel, which throws the high load backwards and forwards. Yet even this was alleviated by our being sometimes able to dismount from our camels and get upon our asses, and we often went on foot for a considerable distance both early in the morning and in the evening.

I now return to the fifth day of our desert journey. We started about eight o’clock in the morning from the little valley of E’ Sufr, where we had encamped under some gum, or sont-trees, and about half-past twelve, after turning to our left into a flat valley for the distance of about half an hour from our road among the hills, we reached the brackish well in WADI MURHAD. Here we had accomplished about half our desert journey. We saw some huts built of small stones and reeds, and near them a couple of starved goats were fruitlessly searching for some pasture; our black host led us into a reed arbour, where we made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the shade.

In this rocky valley we had been struck for some time by the snow-white crust of Natron, frequently appearing above the sand which makes the water of the well brackish. Towards the end of the valley, where it divides into two branches, the water is to be found between five and six feet beneath the surface, and has been discovered by digging eight wells. The water in the wells which lie farthest back, is greenish, rather salt, and has a bad taste, which, however, satisfies the camels; the three in front, on the contrary, yield clear water, which might very well have been drank by us in a case of necessity. There is a government station here, usually inhabited by six persons, but at the present moment four of them had been sent out on an excursion, and only two remained behind. From this spot there are two roads to Korusko, a western and an eastern one. Ibrahim Aga had chosen the former road, we the latter, and we had, therefore, unfortunately missed each other. Sheikh Achmed was also not to be found here; probably he had not overtaken our camels before the second day, and we were compelled to proceed on our journey without him.

The ABABDE ARABS, with whom we have now everywhere to deal, are an honest and trustworthy people, from whom we have less to fear than from the crafty and thievish Fellahs in Egypt. To the north-east of their territory, the races of the BISCHÂRI are spread over the country, who have a peculiar language, and are now in bitter enmity with the Ababde Arabs, because more than two years ago when they had attacked and murdered some Turkish soldiers in the little valley where we had spent the night, Hassan Chalif, the superior Sheikh of the Ababdes, to whose protection the road of communication between Berber and Korusko had been confided, caused forty of the Bischâris to be put to death. Besides, by aid of the Ababdes, more than four-and-twenty years ago, Ismael Pascha succeeded in bringing his army across the desert, and taking possession of the Sudan. It is only upon the road that we are now pursuing that guides are maintained by government; there are none on the longer road, from Berber to Assuan, which is, however, better supplied with water, though now but little used. About half-past four we rode away from the well, after we had inspected some hagr mektub (stones with inscriptions) for which we inquire everywhere, viz., some rocks in the neighbourhood, on which, in somewhat modern times, a number of horses, camels, and other creatures have been roughly scratched, similar to what we had already often seen in Nubia. About half-past nine we halted for the night, after having quitted the high chain of mountains an hour and a half previously. On the morning of the sixth day, we crossed the wide plain MUNDERA, to which another lofty chain, ABU SIHHA, is attached, at the farther side; the southern frontier of this plain, where it inclines towards that chain, is called ABDEBAB; the southern portion of the large chain of Roft laying behind us is called ABU SENEJAT.

About three o’clock we left the plain behind us, and again entered the mountain range, which, like the others, is composed of granite. Half an hour afterwards, we halted for our mid-day’s repose. In a couple of hours we rode on farther, and encamped towards midnight, after we had traversed another small plain, and from the stony range ADAR AUÎB which succeeds it, entered a new plain, comprehended under the same appellation, which extends as far as the last chain of mountains belonging to this desert of GEBEL GRAIBÂT.

On the following day, the seventh of our journey, we started about half-past seven in the morning, and at length, beyond Gebel Graibât, we reached the great boundless plain of ADERERÂT, which we did not quit again till we arrived at ABU HAMMED. To the south-west we now kept in view the small hill EL FARÛT and the larger range of MOGRAD; to the east, far distant, another mountain chain, ABU NUGARA, joins that of Adar Auîb. Then to the south-east there were other Bischâri chains of mountains, whose names were unknown to our Ababde guides. The commencement of the great plain of Adererât was covered for whole hours together with beautiful, pure quartz, sometimes rising up out of the sand in the form of solid rock, although the predominant kind of rock continued to be black granite, which towards the south was traversed by a broad vein of red granite. Early in the day a small caravan of merchants passed us at some little distance.

At a very early hour in the day we saw the most beautiful mirages, both near us and at a distance, exhibiting a very deceptive resemblance to lakes and rivers, in which the mountains, blocks of stone, and everything around is reflected, as if in clear water. They form a strange contrast with the hard arid desert, and, as it is related, must have often bitterly deceived many a poor wanderer. When we are not aware that no water can be there, it is often totally impossible to distinguish the semblance from the reality. Only a few days ago, in the neighbourhood of EL MECHÊREF, I felt perfectly certain that I saw either Nile water which had overflowed, or a branch of the river, and I rode up, but only found BAHR SCHEITAN, “The water of Satan,” as it is called by the Arabs.

Even though the sand may have obliterated all traces of the caravan road, it cannot easily be missed during the day, as it is sufficiently marked by innumerable skeletons of camels, several of which are always in view; yesterday I counted forty-one, which we passed during the last half hour before sunset. We did not lose one of our own camels, although they had not rested long in Korusko, and had had scarcely anything to eat or drink on the road. My own camel, into whose mouth I had sometimes put a piece of biscuit, used to look round in the middle of the march when it heard me biting, or twist round its long neck, till it laid its head, with its soft large eyes on my lap, to get something more.

About four o’clock in the afternoon we stopped for about two hours, and then went on again till about eleven o’clock, when we went in search of a place for our night’s encampment in the great plain. The wind however blew so violently that it was impossible to secure our tent. In spite of the ten iron pegs which fasten it all the way round, it was three times overthrown, before it was completely pitched; we allowed it therefore to remain as it was, and laid ourselves down behind a little wall, which the guide had made out of the saddles of the camels, to protect us from the wind, and we slept à la belle étoile.

On the eighth day we might have arrived at Abu Hammed late that evening, but determined to halt for the night, one hour sooner, that we might reach the Nile by daylight. The birds of prey increased in number as we approached the river; we frightened away about thirty vultures from the fresh carcase of a camel, and only the day before I had shot a white eagle in the desert, as well as some desert partridges, that were in search of stray grains of Durra[42] on the caravan road. We only saw the footsteps of beasts of prey, round the skeletons of the camels; they did not disturb us in the night, as they did in the camp at Korusko, where we killed a hyæna, besides several jackals. Towards mid-day we met a caravan of slaves. The last encampment for the night before we reached Abu Hammed was in a less windy position, yet our supply of charcoal was exhausted, and our people had forgotten to collect camels’ dung on the road for fuel; therefore, to appease our thirst, we were obliged to be contented to drink the last brown water of the skins unboiled. We could give no more to the asses.

On the 16th January we mounted our camels about half-past seven in the morning, and looked forth from our high thrones towards the Nile. It was, however, only visible a very short time before we reached it. The river does not cut through any broad valley at this spot, but flows in a bare, rocky channel, passing almost unperceived through the slightly elevated and wide rocky plain. On the farther side of the river the ground had more the character of a plain, and some Doum Palms grew upon an island that had formed there. Shortly before we reached the bank, we met a troop of 150 camels, which had just started from Abu Hammed. A great circular embankment of earth then became visible with some towers upon it like a fortress, which had been erected by the great Arab Sheikh Hassan Chalif, for the government stores. A small hollow contains five huts, one made of stones and earth, another of trunks of trees, two of mats, one of bus, or durra-straw; a more open space then spread before us surrounded by several wretched houses, one of which was prepared for our reception. A brother of Hassan Chalif who lives here came out to meet us; he led us into the house, and proffered his services. Some anqarebs (reed bedsteads), which on account of the creeping vermin are much in use here, were brought within doors, and we settled ourselves for the day, and the following night, for we were obliged to allow the camels at least so much time for repose.

We were surrounded by a great square space, thirty feet wide on every side, the walls were made of stone and earth, two thick trunks of trees, branching like a fork, supported a large architrave, above which the other joists were placed, which were covered and joined together by mats and wickerwork. It strongly reminded me of some very ancient architecture which we had seen represented in the rock-grottoes of Benihassan; the columns, the network of the ceiling, through which as in that instance the only light except what was admitted by the door entered by a square opening in the centre, there was no window. The door was composed of four short trunks of trees, of which the uppermost one was exactly like the ornamented door-posts in the tombs of the time of the Pyramids. We hung a canvas curtain before the door to protect us from the wind and dust; another door led at the opposite corner into a side-room, which was arranged for the kitchen. It was a windy day, and the wind was disagreeably charged with sand, so that we went very little out of doors. But we refreshed ourselves with some pure and fresh Nile water, and a meal of well-dressed mutton. The Great Desert lay behind us; and we were only four days’ journey from El Mechêref, the capital of Berber, during which time we should follow the course of the river. We learned that Achmed Pascha Menekle was in our neighbourhood, or that he would soon arrive, in order to lead a military expedition from Dâmer, a short day’s journey beyond El Mechêref, up the Atbara to the province of TAKA, where some of the tribes of the Bischâris had revolted.

When we stepped out of doors the following morning, our Arabs had all anointed themselves most beautifully, and had put on clean clothes; but what most astonished us, was the appearance of their magnificent white powdered wigs, which gave quite a venerable appearance to their faces. To make their toilet complete, they are in the habit of combing up their great heads of hair into a high toupie, which is sprinkled over with fine, flaky, shining, white butter, like powder, expressly prepared for this purpose. But in a short time, when the sun rises higher, this greasy snow melts, and the hair seems then as if it was covered with innumerable pearls of dew, till even these gradually disappear, and dripping over the neck and shoulders, spread a gloss over the pliant dark brown skin, which gives their well-built figures the appearance of antique bronze statues.

We started the next morning, about eight o’clock, with a fresh camel, which we had had an opportunity of obtaining in exchange for a tired one. The nearer we approach the island of Meröe, the valley becomes so much the wider, and more fertile, and the desert even becomes more like a steppe. The first station was GEG, where we passed the night in an open space of ground; the air is very warm; about half-past five in the afternoon it was still 25° R. (87° Fahr.). The second night we halted beyond ABU HASCHIN, close to a village, which in fact is not really a station, as we were anxious to get through the five ordinary stations in the space of four days; the third night we halted in the open air, near a cataract of the Nile. On the fourth day from Abu Hammed we removed somewhat farther from the river into the desert, yet we always remained on the soil of the ancient valley, if I may so designate a yellowish earth which is now no longer overflowed by the river, but which was turned up by the inhabitants of the village directly from beneath the sand; that they might improve their fields with it. We stopped in the evening at the village of EL CHÔR, one hour distant from El Mechêref, and the fifth day we arrived at an early hour at the capital of the province of Berber.

I sent the dragoman forward to announce our arrival, and to ask for a house, which was given up to us, and we took possession of it immediately. The Mudhir of Berber was in Dâmer, but his Wakil, or representative, visited us, and soon after Hassan Chalif, the principal Arab Sheikh, who promised us better camels to take us to Dâmer; he was rejoiced to hear some tidings of his and our friends, Linant and Bonomi, and was much pleased in looking over our picture books, among which he found likenesses of some of his own relations and ancestors. We had scarcely arrived, before we received news that Hassan Pascha had arrived at the same time as ourselves, from a different quarter. He had travelled from Korusko to his province of Dongola, and now came from Edabbe, on the southern frontier of Dongola, right across the desert to El Mechêref, whither Emin, the new Pascha of Chartûm, had gone to meet him. This meeting caused us some inconvenience with respect to the arrangements of our journey; nevertheless, we so far advanced our object, that on the following morning, the 22nd of January, soon after Hassan Pascha had again set out on his journey, we were also enabled to depart for the south, leaving two camels behind, which we did not require any longer as water-carriers, and exchanging three others for better ones.

We rode away about mid-day, and stopped in the evening at the last village before reaching the river Mogrân, the ancient ASTABORAS, which we had to cross before getting to DÂMER. It is called on the maps ATBARA, which is evidently derived from Astaboras; yet this name does not appear now to be used for the lower, but for the upper river, beginning from the place of the same name. On the following morning we crossed the river close to its mouth. Even at this point it was now very narrow in its great bed, which in the rainy season is entirely filled, and two months hence it is only prevented from being wholly dried up by a little stagnant water. On the farther side of the river we entered the (Strabonic) island of MERÖE, by which appellation the land between the Nile and the Astaboras was designated. Two hours more and we arrived at Dâmer.

The houses were too wretched to receive us. I despatched Jussuf to Emin Pascha, in whose province we now are, and who has encamped in tents with Hassan Pascha on the bank of the river. He sent a Kawass to meet us, and invited us to dismount and to dine with them. I however preferred to have our tent pitched at some little distance, and first of all to change our travelling costume. The Mudhir of Berber immediately visited us to ask what we might require, and soon after Emin Pascha sent a sumptuous dinner for us to our tent: four well cooked dishes, and, besides, a whole sheep stuffed with rice and roasted on the spit, with a flat cake of puff paste stuffed with meat.

About three o’clock in the afternoon, about the time of Asser, we announced that we were going to pay our visit; just as we were making our arrangements to set out we heard some sailors’ songs, and saw two boats with red flags, and the crescent, floating down the river; it was Achmed Pascha Menekle, who was returning from Chartûm. The Paschas and the Mudhir immediately repaired to his boat, and it was late before they separated; our friend, Dr. Koch, unfortunately, was not expected to arrive from Chartûm for two days later. I had received a letter from Erbkam very soon after our arrival, in which he announced to me, through a passing Kawass, that he had left Korusko on the 15th January with Ibrahim Aga; he wrote from their first night’s encampment. The Kawass had ridden with incredible speed in fourteen days from Cairo to Berber, and he brought Achmed Pascha the permission which had been earnestly requested, to raise the government charge for the camels between Korusko and Berber from sixty to ninety piastres above what it was before.

26th January.—The day before yesterday we paid an early visit to Achmed Pascha, which he returned yesterday. He will do all in his power to accelerate our journey onwards. He communicated to us that, as he had before promised, he had sent an officer from Abu Haras to Mandera, three days into the desert, and had heard it reported by him that some great ruins were still extant on that spot. A letter from Chartûm, which we received yesterday from Dr. Koch, mentioned the same thing, and it was verbally confirmed by himself this morning. After dinner he is going to introduce us to Mûsa Bey, who has been on the spot. At the same time he informed us that he had received some letters addressed to us, and that they were left in Chartûm; also that the draughtsman who had been engaged from Rome had arrived in Cairo.

A boat is ready in El Mechêref for our travelling companions. I myself, however, intend to ride on before with Abeken. Achmed Pascha has sent me word that in an hour’s time a courier departs for Cairo, who will take this letter with him.

Postscript.—The glowing accounts about Mandera, upon closer inquiry, seem to want confirmation. It will hardly be worth our while to go there.

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Letter XVIII

On the Blue River, Province of Sennâr, Lat. 13°, 2nd March, 1844.

To-day we reach the most southern limit of our African journey. To-morrow we again turn towards the north and homewards. We shall go as far as the neighbourhood of SERO—a place on the boundary between the provinces of Sennâr and Fasokl, for our time will not allow us to do more. From Chartûm I have ascended the river as far as this spot, with Abeken alone. We relinquished the desert journey to Mandera, the rather as the eastern territories are at present insecure from the war in Taka; and we now employ the time, in travelling several days farther across Sennâr, to gain some information about the character of the river and the adjacent country. This journey is worth the trouble, for, from Abu Haras, situated at the influx of the Rahad, between Chartûm and Sennâr, the character of the whole country is completely altered in its soil, vegetation, and animals. I then thought I should like to obtain a view of the Nile valley itself, as far up the river as possible, as the character of this narrow strip of country has had a greater influence on the course of history than any other spot in the whole world.

It is impossible, without incurring danger, or making peculiar preparations, to travel up the White River beyond a few days’ journey, as far as the boundaries of Mohamed Ali’s conquests. After this, there are the SCHILLUKS on the western bank, the DINKAS on the eastern, both native negro nations, who are not very friendly to Northern guests. The Blue River is navigable still farther up, and in historical times, as well as at the present day, was of much greater importance than the White River, as it was the means of communication between the North, and Abyssinia. I should have liked to have penetrated as far as the province of Fasokl, the last under Egyptian rule; but it cannot be combined with the calculation of our time. This evening, therefore, we shall terminate our southern journey.

But I must go back in my reports to Dâmer, where, on the 27th January, I embarked with Abeken upon a boat belonging to Mûsa Bey, the first adjutant of Achmed Pascha, who politely placed it at our disposal. About eight o’clock in the evening we halted for the night at the island of DAL HAUI. We had received a Kawass from Emin Pascha, who came here with Ismael Pascha at the time of the conquest of the country, went with Defterdar Bey to Kordofan (or, as he expresses it, Kordifal), then accompanied him on his avenging march to Schendi, in consequence of the murder of Ismael, and since that time has, for three-and-twenty years, roamed over the whole of the Sudan in all directions. He carries in his head the most complete map of these countries, and has a marvellous memory for names, directions, and distances; so that I have drawn two maps according to his statements, particular parts of which may not be without geographical interest. He has also been in Mecca, and therefore likes to be called Haggi Ibrahim (The Pilgrim Ibrahim). He has great experience in other matters also, and will be extremely useful to us from his long and extensive knowledge of the country.

On the 28th January we halted about mid-day at an island called GOMRA, as we heard that there were some ruins in the vicinity which we were anxious to see. We were obliged to go through a shallow arm of the Nile, and to ride back an hour northwards on the eastern bank. At length, after passing the villages of Motmar and El Akarid, between a third village, SAGADI, and a fourth, GENNA, we found the insignificant ruins of an ancient place, constructed of bricks and strewed over with potsherds.

We returned in the mid-day heat, not in the very best humour, and did not reach BEG´ERAUÎEH in our boat before sunset, near which the Pyramids of Meröe are situated. It is singular that Cailliaud does not mention this spot; he only speaks of the Pyramids of ASSUR, i. e. SÛR, or E’ SÛR. This is the name of the whole plain in which the ruins of the town and Pyramids are situated, and also a single portion of Beg´erauîeh, which last, by wrong spelling, is called, in Hoskins, BEGROMI.

Although it was already dark, I nevertheless rode to the Pyramids with Abeken. They are situated a short hour inland, on the first elevation of the low hills which run along in an easterly direction. The moon, which was in its first quarter, feebly illuminated the plain, covered with stones, low bushes, and clumps of reeds. After a rapid ride, we at length reached the foot of a row of Pyramids, closely crowded together, which rose before us in a crescent, as the form of the narrow elevation rendered necessary. To the right, a little behind, another group of Pyramids joined these; a third lies more to the south, and rather more forward in the plain, but too distant to be seen by half moonlight. I fastened the bridle of my donkey-steed to a block of stone, and clambered up the first mound of ruins.

Although the individual Pyramids are not accurately placed according to the quarters of the heavens, as they are in Egypt, nevertheless all the ante-chambers here attached to the Pyramids themselves are turned away from the river, towards the east, doubtless on the same religious grounds which induced the Egyptians to place the unattached temples standing in front of their Pyramids also towards the east; therefore, in Gizeh and Sagâra, towards the river, while their sepulchral chambers are towards the west.

Half looking, half feeling, I found some sculptures on the outer walls of the small sepulchral temple, and I also felt figures and writing on the inner walls. It occurred to me that I had the end of a candle in my saddle-pocket; I lighted this, and then examined several ante-chambers. There I immediately encountered the Egyptian gods, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Atmu, &c., with their names in the known hieroglyphic character. I also found the name of a king in the first chamber. One of the two Rings contained the emblems of a great Pharaoh of the Old Monarchy, Sesurtesen I., the same which had been adopted by two later Egyptian monarchs, and I here found them, for the fourth time, as the Throne-Name of an Ethiopian king. The sculptures on the remaining sides were not completed. I found some Royal Shields this evening also in another ante-chamber, but not very legible. The inscriptions and representations had altogether been much damaged. The Pyramids have also all of them lost their summits, as in Egypt, and many have been destroyed down to the ground.

Our new Kawass, who did not like to leave us alone in the night time, had immediately followed us. He had a perfect knowledge of the locality, as he had been here a long time with FERLINI, and had assisted him in his researches among the Pyramids. He showed us the spot in which Ferlini, in 1834, had found immured the rich treasure of gold and silver rings.

I also discovered, the same evening, a cased Pyramid, according to the principle of the Egyptian Pyramids, which were afterwards enlarged by superimposed layers of stone. According to the inscriptions and representations of the ante-chambers, these Pyramids were most of them built solely for kings, some of them, perhaps, for their wives and children. Therefore, their great number indicates a tolerably long succession of kings, and a well-established Monarchy, which probably must have remained in a state of tranquillity for a series of centuries.

The event of most importance in this moon and torchlight survey, was not, however, exactly the most cheering. I was unavoidably convinced that on this most renowned spot of ancient Ethiopia, I had nothing before me but the remains, proportionately speaking, of a very late period of art. Even earlier than this, the drawings of Ferlini’s monuments, which I saw for the first time in Rome, and the monuments themselves, which I had just seen in London, impressed me with the opinion that they had been, indeed, sculptured in Ethiopia, but certainly not previous to the first century before the birth of Christ, therefore about the same period to which certain genuine Greek and Roman works belong, which were discovered simultaneously with the Ethiopian treasure. I must now make the same remark upon the monuments in general, which are found not only here but throughout the whole island of Meröe, as well as of all the Pyramids at Beg´erauîeh, and of the temples of Ben Naga, of Naga, and in the Wadi e’ Sofra (the Mesaurât of Cailliaud), which we have since then seen. The representations and inscriptions do not leave the smallest doubt of this, and it will in future be a fruitless task to endeavour to support the favourite supposition of an ancient, brilliant, and renowned Meröe, whose inhabitants were at one time the predecessors and the instructors of the Egyptians in civilisation, by the demonstration of monumental remains from that old period.

This conviction is besides of no small scientific value, and seems even now to throw some light on the historical connection between Egypt and Ethiopia, the importance of which can be only thoroughly demonstrated by the monuments of Barkal. There, I have no doubt, will be found the oldest Ethiopian monuments, although, perhaps, not earlier than the period of Tahraka, who reigned simultaneously over Egypt and Ethiopia in the seventh century before Christ.

The next morning at sunrise we rode back to the Pyramids, and discovered fifteen different kings’ names, some of them, however, in very bad preservation.

We had just completed our survey of the two groups of Pyramids lying to the north-east, and were riding on to the third, which is situated in the plain, not far from the ruins of the town, and is, perhaps, the oldest Necropolis, when we heard shots from the bank, and saw white sails fluttering over the river. Soon afterwards Erbkam, the two Weidenbachs, and Franke, came walking across the plain, and hailed us from a great distance. We had not expected them to arrive so soon, and, therefore, rejoiced still more to see them again. We could now pursue our journey to Chartûm together.

We sailed away about two in the afternoon, and the next morning about ten o’clock reached SCHENDI. We proceeded in the afternoon, spent the night on the island of HOBI, and the following morning arrived at BEN NAGA. Here, we first visited the ruins of two small temples; the one lying towards the west, had Typhonic pillars, instead of columns, but no inscription was to be found on the few remains; in the other temple to the east, some sculptures were preserved on the low remains of the walls of the temple; and also some writing on several circular fragments of columns, but too little to take away any connected ideas from them. Had we made some excavations, we might probably have discovered some kings’ names, but it was impossible to make such an experiment till our return.

We procured some camels for the following day, and about nine o’clock in the morning I started with Abeken, Erbkam, and Max Weidenbach, for NAGA. Such is the name given to the ruins of a town and several temples, which are situated in the eastern desert, between seven and eight hours distant from the Nile. From our landing-place in the vicinity of the only group of palm-trees in the surrounding country, it was only one half hour to the village of BEN NAGA, which is in WADI TERESIB. One hour eastward down the river (for it here flows in a direction from west to east) are the above-mentioned ruins, in WADI EL KIRBEGÂN, near to which we had disembarked the previous day; we left them now on our left hand, and rode in a south-easterly direction into the desert, having here and there some parched bushes; we traversed the valley of El Kirbegân, which, as far as this point, runs outwards from the river, in which we found an encampment of the Ababde Arabs.

Four hours and a half from Ben Naga we came to a single hill in the desert called BUÊRIB. It was on the water-shed between the smaller south-western Wadis (so even the flattest depressions of the ground are called, in which the water runs off, and which we should scarcely call valleys) and the great, broad WADI AUATÊB, which we were now descending, after having left Buêrib at a short distance on our left. In three hours and three-quarters from Buêrib we arrived at the ruins of NAGA.

It was not till we approached the temple that I solved the enigma, which I had hitherto sought in vain to interpret, and on which neither Cailliaud nor Hoskins could offer any explanation; namely, how had it been possible to found and to maintain a large city in the midst of the desert, so far removed from the river. The whole valley of Auatêb is even now cultivated land. We found it far and wide covered with the stubble of Durra. The inhabitants of Schendi, Ben Naga, Fadniê, Selama, Metamme, consequently of both banks of the Nile, come as far as this to cultivate the land and to gather in the Durra. The water of the tropical rains suffices to fertilise this flat but extensive tract of low ground, and in ancient times, when more care was bestowed upon it, a still greater profit must have been derived from this region. During the dry season of the year they must undoubtedly have had large artificial reservoirs, such as we found even now, though without water, near the more remote ruins to the north-west of Naga.

The ruins stand on a projection of a mountain range several hours long, which from them has taken the name of GEBEL E’ NAGA, and stretches out from the south, northwards. WADI AUATÊB passes along its western side towards the river. We arrived about half-past five o’clock, after an uninterrupted ride. On the road we saw the path covered with the marks of gazelles, wild asses, foxes, jackals, ostriches. Lions are also met with here, but we did not see any of their tracks.

I visited the three principal temples before nightfall, all of which belong to a very late period, and do not suggest the ideas of very ancient art, as Cailliaud and Hoskins thought they could recognise. There is, besides, a fourth temple by the side of the three principal temples, of Egyptian architecture, whose well-joined arches, not unpleasantly combined with Egyptian ornaments, not only presupposes them to have been erected when the Roman dominion extended over the world, but even that Roman architects were on the spot. This last temple has no inscriptions. With respect to the three others, the two lying to the south were built by one and the same king; in the representations in both temples he is accompanied by the same queen. But a third royal personage appears behind them having a different name in the two temples. The Throne-Shield of Sesurtesen I. is again attached to the name of the king, although he does not appear to be the same as the King of the Pyramids of Sûr. Besides, both those other personages have assumed old Egyptian Throne-Shields, which might easily mislead us.

The third most northern temple has sustained much injury, and very little writing remains upon it, yet a king is mentioned on the door-posts who differs from the builder of both the other temples.

The figures of the gods are almost wholly Egyptian, but on the southern temple there is a figure unknown in Egypt, with three lions’ heads (a fourth may perhaps be supposed behind) and four arms. This may be the barbaric god specially mentioned by Strabo, whom the Meröites worshipped besides Hercules, Pan, and Isis.

The next morning, the 2nd of February, we again visited the three temples, took some impressions on paper, and then started for the third group of monuments, named by Cailliaud MESAURÂT. This, however, is a term which is here employed to designate all the three groups of ruins, and which only means pictures, or walls furnished with pictures. The ruins of Ben Naga are called MESAURÂT EL KIRBEGÂN, because they are situated in WADI EL KIRBEGÂN; it appears that the second group only has retained its old name of NAGA, or MESAURÂT E’ NAGA; the third group situated towards Schendi is called MESAURÂT E’ SOFRA from the mountain basin in which it lies, which is called E’ SOFRA, the table.

We first pursued, for the space of two hours, in a northerly direction the mountain chain of Gebel e’ Naga, in the valley of Auatêb. Then, about half-past twelve, we ascended through the first defile which opens to the right, into a valley situated somewhat higher, E’ SELEHA; it becomes broader behind the first low fore-range, and is luxuriantly overgrown with grass and shrubs; after extending for an hour and a quarter in the direction of S.S.W. to N.N.E., it opens on the left hand into the valley of Auatêb, and straight on into another smaller valley, from which it is separated by Gebel Lagâr. It is this small valley, which from its circular form is called E’ SOFRA; here are the ruins which were also seen by Hoskins, who did not, however, advance as far as Naga. We arrived about a quarter past two, and had not, therefore, been quite four hours coming from Naga to this spot. As we only wished to take a passing hasty survey, we walked through the widely-scattered ruins of the principal building, which Cailliaud held to be a great school, and Hoskins an hospital; and we saw in the few sculptures, which are unaccompanied by inscriptions, that here also we had before us monuments of a late period, probably still more recent than those in Sûr and Naga. We then went to a small temple in the neighbourhood, with pillars on which are represented riders upon elephants, lions, and other strange barbarous scenes. We looked at the huge artificial cisterns, now called Wot Mahemût, which in the dry season must have compensated the inhabitants for the want of the river; and about four o’clock we returned to Ben Naga.

As we emerged from the hills, we met great troops of wild asses, which always kept at a little distance from us, as if they would invite us to hunt them. They are of a grey or greyish-red colour, with white bellies; they all have a black stripe drawn distinctly across the back, and the tip of the tail is also generally black. Many of them are caught when young, but they cannot then even be used for riding or carrying burdens. It is only the next generation which can be employed in that manner. Almost all the tame asses in the south, which come from the Ass Cataract (Schellâl homâr) in Berber, are got from this wild breed, and have the same colour and similar marks.

We encamped soon after sunset in a plain, overgrown with bushes. The camel-drivers and our Kawass were in great terror of lions in this desert till a large fire was kindled, which they kept most carefully alive throughout the night. If a lion only lets his voice be heard near a caravan, which really does sound deep and awful across the wide desert, all the camels run away on every side as if they were mad, and it is difficult to catch them again, frequently not before they have sustained and done much injury. Human beings are not, however, easily attacked. A few days ago a camel was strangled by a lion in our neighbourhood, but on the farther side of the river. A man who was present saved himself on the nearest tree.

On the 3rd of February we again set out about seven in the morning; we left the two Buêribs, the great “blue” and the little “red,” at a considerable distance on our left hand, and shortly before nine o’clock arrived in the valley of El Kirbegân, which we followed for half an hour in the direction of the river. We saw the Mesaurât el Kirbegân in its whole extent on our right, but kept upon the hills till a little after eleven, when we arrived at Ben Naga, and half an hour afterwards once more at our landing-place.

Two hours afterwards we continued our journey in our boat. We made, however, little progress with a strong adverse wind, and saw nothing new, except for the first time a hippopotamus swimming in the water. The next morning we disembarked on the western bank, opposite the village of GÔS BASABIR, to see the ruins of the walls of an old fortress, with towers of defence, which surrounded the summit of a hill. The space enclosed was about 300 paces in diameter. In the afternoon we approached the Schellâl (the Cataract) of GERASCHAB, the higher mountain ranges lying before us, closed in upon each other, and at length formed a mountain hollow, seemingly without any outlet; this was, however, to our surprise, near at hand, for we turned to our left into a narrow defile, which widened into a high and wild rocky valley; we followed it for nearly an hour before again emerging on the other side into another plain. The eruptive granite ranges of QIRRE pass on the eastern side of the river into RAUIÂN, “the thirsty quenched;” while to the west, some distance from the river, there is ATSCHAN “the thirsty,” also rising up in a detached form.

The 5th February we landed about eleven in the morning at TAMANIÂT. Mohammed Saïd, the former treasurer of the late Achmed Pascha, whose acquaintance we had made in Dâmer, had given us a letter to one of the sub-officials there, which contained instructions to him to deliver to us the fragment of an inscription which had been found in Soba. It belonged to the centre of a marble table, which was inscribed on both sides with Greek or Coptic letters of a late period. The signs, which were not difficult to read, neither contained Greek nor Coptic words; only the name ⲅⲉⲱⲣⲅⲓⲟ.. could be deciphered. The same evening we arrived in CHARTÛM. This name signifies an elephant’s trunk, and probably was derived from the form of the narrow tongue of land on which the town is situated, between the two Nile rivers which unite at this spot.

My first visit with Abeken was to Emin Pascha, who had reached Chartûm before us. He received us in a very friendly manner, and would not allow us to leave him the whole morning.

A magnificent breakfast, consisting of thirty dishes, which we partook of at his house, gave us a most curious insight into the secrets of the Turkish culinary art; as I learned from our highly-fed Pascha, it resembles the most accomplished systems of the latest French kitchens, in obeying the refined regulations of a fastidious taste in the preparation and arrangement of food. Soon after the first dishes, mutton, roasted on the spit, is brought in, which cannot be dispensed with at any Turkish meal. Then follow various courses of dishes of meats and vegetables, solid and liquid, sour and sweet, and a certain repetition of changes is observed in the successive dishes, in order to keep up the keenness of the appetite. Pillau, boiled rice, always forms the conclusion.

The external preparations for such an entertainment are somewhat as follows. A great, round, metal tray, with a flat border, about three feet in diameter, is placed on a low frame, and serves as a table, round which five or six persons seat themselves on cushions or coverlets; the legs vanish beneath the body, in the ample folds of the dress; as to the hands, the left must be invisible, it would be quite improper to let it ever be seen during meals. The right hand must alone be active. No such thing as a plate is to be seen, no more than knives and forks. The table is covered with deeper or shallower, covered or uncovered dishes, which are constantly changed, so that but a very few morsels can be taken from each. Particular dishes, however, such as roast meat, cold milk with cucumbers, &c., remain longer on the table, and one returns to them more frequently. Both before and after dinner, the hands are of course washed. A servant, or slave, kneeling, holds in one hand a metal basin, in the middle of which lies a piece of soap, in a little projecting saucer, expressly used for the purpose; with the other he pours water from a metal pitcher over the hands, and a fine, ornamentally embroidered towel hangs over his arm for drying them.

After dinner the pipe is immediately presented, coffee handed round, and then one may retire. The Turks are in the habit of making this the period of their mid-day repose, till Asser. But before we parted from our host, a number of weapons were brought, belonging to the savage nations living farther up the country, lances, bows, arrows, clubs, and a king’s sceptre, which he sent to the boat for me, as a present to his guest.

We afterwards visited our countryman, NEUBAUER, the apothecary of the province, who has been very unfortunate: a short time since, he was removed from his post by the late Achmed Pascha; but he has now been again appointed apothecary by Achmed Pascha Menekle, through the intercession of Dr. Koch. We then went to a Pole who has settled here—Hermanovich, the head-physician of the province, who, in consequence of an order from the Pascha, offered us his house, to which we went the following day; it had lately been newly fitted up; there was a garden beside it, and a great court-yard, which was very useful for unpacking and repairing our chests and tents.

The next day the Pascha returned our visit. He came on horseback. We handed him coffee, pipes, sherbet, and showed him some drawings and pictures from Egypt, in which he was interested merely from curiosity. He is a large, corpulent man, a Circassian by birth, and therefore, like most of his countrymen, better informed than the Turks in general. I saw a rich collection of all kinds of birds of the Sudan, at the house of a Syrian, IBRAHIM CHÊR; there were about 300 different species, and between twenty and thirty choice specimens of each.

On one of the following days, I took a walk with Abeken and Erbkam to the opposite bank of our tongue of land on the WHITE RIVER, which we then followed up to its junction with the Blue; its waters are in fact whiter, and have a less pleasant taste than those of the Blue, because at a higher point it flows slowly through several lakes, the standing water of which imparts an earthy and less pure taste to it. I have filled some bottles with the water of the Blue, and White Rivers, which I shall take away with me sealed up.

On the occasion of a more recent and friendly visit of the Pascha, we met the brother of the former Sultan of Kordofan (who was himself also called Mak or Melek) and the Vizier of the Sultan NIMR (Tiger) of Schendi. The latter still lives in Abyssinia, whither he fled, after having, in the year 1822, burned the conqueror of his country, ISMAEL PASCHA, a son of Mohammed Ali, and all his officers, after a nocturnal banquet which he had prepared for him in a somewhat lonely house.

On the 14th, we made an excursion up the WHITE RIVER, but were soon obliged to turn back, because it has so little current, that, on account of the north wind which of late has constantly been blowing, our return threatened to be tedious. The banks of the White River are barren, and the few trees which formerly stood in the neighbourhood of Chartûm are now cut down, and have been used for building or fuel. There is a larger mass of water in the White River than in the Blue, and even after its junction it preserves its course, so that the Blue River must be viewed as the secondary river, but the White as the true Nile. Their different waters can be distinguished beside each other for a long time after their junction.

On the 16th February, I sent for some DINKA slaves, to interrogate them about their language. They were, however, so dull of apprehension, that I could only with difficulty get out of them the words for numbers up to a hundred, and a few separate pronouns. The languages of the Dinkas and the Schilluks, who dwell several days’ journey distant up the White River, the former on the eastern bank, the latter on the western, are as little known grammatically as most of the other languages of Central Africa; I therefore requested the Pascha to procure me some intelligent persons who were well acquainted with those languages. This was impossible for the present, but we shall attend to it on our return.

Meanwhile our purchases and repairs being completed, I hurried on the departure as much as possible. The house of Hermanovich will also be at our disposal on our return; it is built in a convenient manner, and is very airy. I had a prospect of the oldest house in the town from my window, whose pointed straw roof peeped over our wall. These pointed straw huts, called TUKELE, are the characteristic buildings of this country, and are found almost exclusively in the south. But as Chartûm is a new town, the small number of old huts have disappeared, with the exception of this one, and all the houses are built of unburnt bricks.

About mid-day, on the 17th February, we embarked on board our boats. I sailed to the south with Abeken up the Blue River, partly to become acquainted with its natural character, partly to view the ruins of Soba and Mandera; our other travelling companions, who had nothing to occupy them farther up, sailed northwards back to Meröe, in order to sketch the monuments there.

The following day we landed on the eastern bank, where great heaps of red bricks, destined for exportation, proclaimed the vicinity of the ruins of SOBA. At the present day, unburnt bricks alone are made throughout the country, therefore all the ruins of burnt stones must have belonged to an earlier period. This material for building is transported in great quantities from Soba as far as Chartûm, and beyond it.

We disembarked, and had scarcely got beyond the thorny bushes nearest to the bank, when we perceived the overturned mounds of bricks, covering a large plain, possibly an hour in circumference. Some larger heaps might be the remains of the Christian churches which are described by Selîm of Assuan (in Macrizi), in the tenth century, as magnificently decorated with gold, when Soba was still the capital of the kingdom of ALOA. We were shown the spot where some time ago a stone lion is said to have been discovered, which is now in the possession of Churshid Pascha, in Cairo. Nowhere could walls, nor the form of buildings, be recognised; it was only on the mound to the south, at a little distance off, that we found some hewn yellow blocks of sandstone, and a low wall; on another heap lay several rough slabs of a black slaty stone.

The country round Soba, like this, is flat both far and wide to the base of the hills in front of the Abyssinian range, and the ground, especially at this season, is arid and black; the denser vegetation is confined to the bank of the river; farther off there are nothing but single trees, now in greater, now in fewer numbers.

I promised the sailors a sheep, on condition that we should reach KAMLÎN betimes, for there was a strong wind, which made us very slow in our progress; our boat, besides, is not a fast one, the sailors are inexperienced, and from the low state of the water, the boat easily sticks fast in the sand; we sailed on almost the whole night through, and reached Kamlîn about eight in the morning.

The ancient place of the same name lies one half-hour farther up the river, and is composed of a few huts. The houses near which we landed belong to a number of factories, which Nureddin Effendi, a Coptic Catholic Egyptian, who went over to Islam, established, in common with the late Achmed Pascha, more than four years ago, and which yield a rich profit. A simple, homely German, who has never given way to the bad customs of the East, born in the neighbourhood of Würzburg, by name Bauer, has established a Soap and Brandy Manufactory, of which he takes the management himself. A Sugar and Indigo Factory is conducted by an Arab. Bauer has settled farther to the south than any European we have ever met with in Mohammed Ali’s dominions, and we were rejoiced to find such a good termination to the long but not very agreeable chain of Europeans, most of them degenerated in civilisation, who have preferred the Turkish government to that of their Fatherland.[43]

He has an old German housekeeper with him, Ursula, a comical, good-natured soul, to whom it was no less a holiday to receive German guests again, than it was to himself. With joyful alacrity she rummaged out some European utensils, and the only fork that was still in preservation, and served up fried chickens, saurkraut, and some small sausages, with excellent wheaten bread; at last actually a cherry cake, of baked European cherries (for our fruits do not grow in Egypt), in short, a home repast such as we never expected to see in this Ultima Thule.

On a pedestal in front of Bauer’s house we found the most southern Egyptian sculpture which we have met with: a sitting statue of OSIRIS, with the usual attributes, carved out of black granite; a portion of it is mutilated, and it is of a late style, about 2½ feet high; it had been found in SOBA, and is not devoid of interest, being the only monument of Egyptian art from this town.

The European arrangement of Bauer’s rooms made a strange impression on us, here in the midst of the black population in the south. A wooden Black Forest house-clock, with weights, beat in regular time; some half-broken European chairs stood round the fixed table, a small book-shelf was placed behind it, with a selection of the German classics and historical works; in the corner the Turkish divan, which could not be dispensed with even here. Above the great table, and beside the canopied bed in the opposite corner, hung bell-pulls, which communicated with the kitchen. An inquisitive Nesnas ape looked in at the grated window next the door; and across the little court-yard we saw the busy Ursula, in a crimson-flowered gown, tripping hither and thither among little naked black slave-boys and girls, ordering them to do this and that with a somewhat scolding voice, and peeping into the steaming-pots in the adjoining kitchen. We saw nothing of her the whole morning; not even during the excellent and savoury repast which she had prepared for us; it was only after dinner that she presented herself, with many curtseys, to receive our commendations. She lamented over the insufficiency of her cooking apparatus, and vehemently reproached Herr Bauer because he had no intentions of leaving this detestable, dirty, hot country, although he had promised her to do so from one year to the other. She came hither with Bauer, and has been eleven years in the country, and four years in Kamlîn. He intends to return to Germany in another year, to settle in Styria or Thuringia with his savings, and, like his father, to be a peasant again.

After rising from table, the son of Nureddin Effendi also sent us a Turkish dinner, ready cooked, of twelve to fifteen dishes, which however, after our European repast, we left to the servants. We had also seen the factories that morning, and had tasted the fine brandy (called Marienbad), which Bauer prepares chiefly from sugar-cane and dates. The business seemed to be in the best order, and even the cleanliness, so unusual in this country, of the rooms, the vessels, and utensils, were proofs of the solid basis upon which this factory, worked by slaves alone, is conducted. The pleasant impression made upon us by this visit was also considerably increased by discovering that Bauer possessed a second piece of the above-mentioned marble inscription, which had been discovered in the ruins of Soba. He presented me with the fragment, which was easily joined with the other piece, though we had still not got the complete inscription. The fragment shows the traces of twelve lines on the one side, and of nine on the other. The characters can be distinctly read here also; but the name ⲓⲁⲕⲱⲃ is alone intelligible. It is either very barbarous Greek, or a peculiar language formerly spoken in Soba. In fact, we know, through Selîm, that the inhabitants of Soba had their sacred books in the Greek language, but translated them also into their own.

After we had also paid a visit to the son of Nureddin Effendi, we started with the promise to call upon him again on our return.

From Kamlîn the banks continue at an equal elevation. The character of a river valley is lost. There is no longer a deposit of black earth; the precipitous and high banks consist of a primitive soil, and a calcareous conglomerate, which, by Bauer’s account, can be easily burnt into plaster.

On the morning of the 21st we came to a considerable bend of the river towards the east; the wind became, on that account, so unfavourable, that our Kawass disembarked, to press into our service people from the neighbourhood to draw our boat along. I walked for several hours along the western bank, as far as ARBAGI, a deserted village, built of black bricks, but on the remains of a still older place, as I discovered from the walls of burnt bricks. This place was formerly the chief centre of the commerce of the Sudan, which, at a later period, was transferred to Messelemîeh. Soon after this we saw the two most northerly growing BAOBABS, which here are called HÓMARA. These giant trees of the creation (Adansonia digitata) become more and more frequent, south of this spot, and at Sero they are among the common trees of the country. One of the stems which I paced round, measured above 60 feet in circumference, and was certainly not one of the largest of its kind, as they are still not numerous here. At this season they were leafless, and stretched out their bare branches far above the surrounding green trees, which looked like low bushes beside them. I found their fruit, which is called GUNGULES,[44] here and there among the Arabs; they resemble small gourds, in the form of pears, and have a light hairy surface. If the hard, tough shell is broken, a number of kernels are found inside, which are surrounded by a dry, sweetish, sourish pulp, which is nevertheless pleasant to the taste. The leaves are digitate.

On the 22nd of February we arrived on the western bank, at a small village, whose inhabitants, men, women, and children, fled with terror at our approach across the sandy plain to the wood, probably because they were afraid of being pressed to draw the boat on farther. On the opposite bank there was another village, and from it we saw a magnificent procession of men, dressed out in the Arabian and Turkish costume, march down to the river with some beautifully bridled horses. It was the Kaschef, and the principal Sheikh of ABU HARAS, who had heard about us from Achmed Pascha, as we had intended to go from this spot into the desert to Mandera with camels and guides. The horses were intended for us, and we therefore rode to the house of the Kaschef, to make some more inquiries about the antiquities of Mandera and Qala. As the desert road to the shore of the Red Sea leads from here by that place, we found several people who had passed near it. However, by what I gathered from all the accounts, there seem to be only some hills in the form of a kind of fortress at both these places, or, at the most, some roughly-built walls, intended to protect the caravans, but no ancient buildings or hieroglyphic inscriptions. In Qala there might be some camels and horses, also, scratched into the rock by Arabs or other people, such as we have frequently seen in the Great Desert near the well of Murhad, and in other places.

We therefore determined to relinquish this desert journey, and to go farther up the river instead, that we might become acquainted, as far as our time permitted, with the natural character of the Nile river, its banks, and neighbouring inhabitants.

After a short quarter of an hour from Abu Haras, we came to the mouth of the RAHAD, which, in the rainy season, conveys a considerable mass of water into the Nile, but was now nearly dry, and had only a little stagnant water, which next month may perhaps also disappear.

I left the boat as often as possible, to get acquainted with the banks. To go farther inland was of itself interdicted chiefly by the wood, which clothes both sides of the river, and is nearly impenetrable. There, in luxuriant splendour, grow the shady, high-domed tamarind-tree, the tower-like hómara (Baobab), the many-branched gemús (sycamore-tree), and the various kinds of the brittle, gum-yielding sont-trees. Creeping plants, often the thickness of a man’s body, climb up their branches like gigantic serpents, in innumerable windings, to their very summits, and down again to the ground, where, along with the low shrubs, they fill up every gap between the huge stems. In addition to this, scarcely one of ten among the trees or shrubs has not thorns, which renders any attempt to penetrate the close thicket not only dangerous, but impossible. Several among them—for instance, the sittere-tree—have thorns placed together in pairs, and in such a manner, that one thorn bends forwards, the other back; if any one, therefore, approaches the branches carelessly, he may be sure that his clothes will carry away with them some unavoidable signs, not to be obliterated here without difficulty, and then imperfectly. Some other thorny trees look extremely ornamental, and growing in more open situations, they rise like slender young birches. We distinguished two species which are usually joined together, and can only be known from one another because the bark of the one stem is of a brilliant red colour up to the outermost little branches, like a growth of blood-vessels, while that of the other is of a dark black colour. Both of them have glistening long white thorns, which, with the little green leaves, rise up with a sharp outline, as if they had been painted with the brush.

Scarcely one of the birds, which frequently hovered around us in large numbers, were known to me, even in Egypt. I shot many of them, and had them stuffed by our cook, Siriân. Among them were some beautiful silver-grey falcons (suqr schikl), guinea-fowls (gedâd el wadi), with knobs of horn on the nose, and blue lappets on both sides of the head; black and white rhinoceros birds (abu tuko) with huge beaks; some birds quite black, with a bright crimson breast (abu labba); large brown and white eagles (abu tôk), one of which, with outspread wings, measured six feet; smaller brown eagles, the hedâja, and black and white ones, which are called ráchama. These last, which are much more numerous towards Egypt, are the same which we are in the habit of seeing among the hieroglyphics. On the bank there are also great numbers of black and white plovers, furnished with black curved spines on their wing-joints, and the long-legged, completely white, abu baqr (cow-birds), who are in the habit of grazing on the backs of the buffaloes and cows.

We saw great bats frequently flying about in broad daylight; their long golden-brown wings look bright through the branches, and suddenly they hang head downwards on the branches like great yellow pears, and can then easily be shot. They have long ears, and a strange trumpet-like nose.

We also hunted the MONKEYS, but from their agility they were very difficult to reach. One day we found an immense tree, quite full of monkeys; some of them hastily came down on our approach, and fled to a distant thicket; others hid themselves among the foliage, quite at the top; but some of them who considered both methods of escape dangerous, sprang with inconceivably bold leaps from the uppermost branches of the tall tree, which might have been about 100 feet high, to the smaller trees standing near, whose thorny branches bent down beneath their weight without letting them fall; they thus gained their end, and escaped my gun.

The CROCODILES become more numerous the farther south we go. The tongues of the sandy islands are often covered with them. They generally lie in the sun, close to the edge of the water, open their mouths, and seem to sleep, but do not allow any one to approach them; but even if they are hit by the shot they immediately dive into the river. It is therefore very difficult to obtain one. Our Kawass only once made such a good shot at a young crocodile, about three feet long, that it was unable to get back to the water. It was brought to the boat, where it lived for several days afterwards, to the terror of our little Nesnas monkey, Bachît.

It is no less difficult to approach the HIPPOPOTAMI, which we have sometimes seen in great numbers, but with their heads alone above the water. Once only a young hippopotamus stood quite clear out of the water on a sandy island; it allowed us to come unusually near. The Kawass shot, and hit it, naturally without the ball penetrating the thick hide, whereupon the clumsy creature, with its unshapely head, its fat belly, and short elephant legs, galloped off in a most comical manner to reach the water close beside him, and immediately disappeared. They generally are in the habit of coming on land only in the night, and they do much injury in the fields of Durra and other plantations, by treading down and devouring. It is not known that a hippopotamus was ever caught alive here.

We saw no lions, but we heard their roaring in the distance throughout the starlight night; there is something very solemn in the deep and sonorous voice of this royal beast.

The 24th of February we came to a second tributary river of the Nile, the DENDER, which is larger than the Rahad. I went up part of it to see (which was impossible at its mouth) whether the water was still flowing, and farther up I discovered that, where the still water had collected into small canals, certainly a very feeble current yet existed; in the rainy season the Dender must rise more than twenty feet, as may be seen by its bed; I found its banks were cultivated with cotton bushes, gourds, and other useful plants.

The heat is not excessive, in the morning about eight o’clock it is usually 23° R.; about mid-day till about five o’clock, 29°; and about eleven o’clock at night it is 22° (83¾°, 97¼°, 81½° Fahr.).

We spend our evenings in our boat; here I make our Kawass, Hagi Ibrahim, inform us about the geography; or I take some Nubian sailors into my cabin to learn their language. I have already made a long vocabulary in the Nubian language; comparing it with other lists in Rüppell and Cailliaud, I found many words in the Koldági language spoken in the southern territories of Kordofan which agree with them; this proves there is an intimate connection between the two languages. The Arabs are in the habit of calling the Nubian language lisân rotâna, which I at first supposed to be its actual name; but it only means a foreign tongue different from the Arabic. They do not, therefore, only speak of a Rotâna Kenûs, Mahass, Donqolaui, when they mean to designate the three Nubian dialects, but also of a Rotâna Dinkaui, Schilluk—even of a Rotâna turki and franki, thus likewise of Turkish and French; i. e. of European gibberish. The same error is the cause of the now received designation of the Nubian as the Berber, and of their language as the Berber language; for this is not the name of the people, nor of their language, as is generally thought, but originally means only the people speaking a foreign tongue, the Barbaros.

On the 25th of February we disembarked at SABA DOLEB; I searched for ruins, but only found high domes in the form of bee-hives, built well and solidly of bricks, about 20 feet high, and closely resembling the Greek Thesauri, constructed of horizontal layers, lapping over inwardly. They are tombs of holy Arab Sheikhs of a late period; the inhabitants of the village could not tell us the date of their erection. Beneath the cupola, and in the centre of the building, which is between 15 and 18 feet wide, there is the long narrow tomb of the saint, surrounded with larger stones, and covered with a number of small stones, which, according to a superstition, must necessarily amount to a thousand; I found six domes similar to these, most of them half, some wholly fallen to pieces; two, however, in very good preservation, which are even still visited; a seventh, probably the most recent, was built of unburnt bricks.

At WAD NEGUDI, a village situated to the west of the Nile, we found the first DILÊB PALMS, with slender naked stems and small bushy crowns, resembling, at a distance, the Date Palm, but when near, from their leaves, like the Doum Palm. Their fruit is round, like that of the Doum Palm, but of a larger size. These trees are said to be very abundant on the tributary rivers towards the east; but here, on the Nile, they are only to be found within a very small tract of land. The leaves are regularly divided like a fan into a great number of connected folds, and the leaf-stalk has strong serrated notches. The Rais of our boat, who was with me, sawed off another leaf with one of these leaf-stalks; I had it brought to the boat, to take it away with us. It is divided into sixty-nine points, and is five feet and a quarter long, from that part of the stalk where the fan begins, although it is still young, and therefore its fan is still completely closed. Another larger one, which had just unfolded itself, we set up in the boat as an umbrella, and sat beneath its shade. We were obliged to make a path to those palm-trees through gigantic woods of grass, which shoot up stiff and thick like corn-fields, and cover large plains. The points of the blades towered up five or six feet above our heads, and even the tall camels, which are bred here, could hardly look over it.

On the 26th February we arrived at the village of ABU EL ABAS, on the eastern bank. It is a chief town of this district, and the Kaschef who lives here is placed over 112 villages. I there purchased a dog-ape from a Turkish Kawass for a few piastres. This is the holy ape of the ancient Egyptians, the Cynocephalus, which was dedicated to Thoth and the Moon, and appears as the second among the four Gods of Death. It is interesting to me to have a creature about me for some little time, which I have seen innumerable times upon the monuments, and thereby to observe the faithful apprehension and representation of its essential and characteristic appearances in the ancient Egyptian sculpture. It is remarkable that this ape, so peculiar to Egypt in ancient times, is now only found in the south, and even there, it is not very common. How many species of animals and plants, even manners and customs of men, with which we become acquainted through the monuments of Egypt, can only now be found in the most southern parts of ancient Ethiopia, so that now many representations, for instance in the tombs of Benihassan, seem to delineate scenes in this country rather than in Egypt. There is no special name here for the Cynocephalus, only the general one, qird (large monkey). Its head, hair, and colour, are not unlike those of a dog, and hence its Greek name. Sometimes also it barks and snarls like a dog. It is still young, and very good-natured, but far more intelligent than Abeken’s pretty little Nesnas ape. It is extremely ludicrous when it wishes to get something good to eat, which we have in our hands; it then lays back its ears on its head, and knows how to express the utmost delight, but remains sitting quiet like a good child, only chattering with the lips, like an old wine-bibber. At the sight of the crocodile, however, all the hair of its body bristled up; it uttered piercing shrieks, and could scarcely be held down from terror.

On the 27th February we reached SENNÂR, the celebrated ancient capital of the Sudan, whose king, before the conquest of the country by Ismael Pascha, had dominion as far as Wadi Halfa, and ruled over a number of smaller kings who paid him tribute. One would not suspect, from the present aspect of the place, that only a short time since it was such a powerful royal residence. Between six and seven hundred pointed straw huts, Tukele, surrounded the piles of red-brick ruins, where formerly the royal mansion stood. These bricks are now employed for building an abode for Solimân Pascha, who is to reside in Sennâr; it was already so far complete that the Wakil[45] of the absent Pascha was able to hold his divan within it. We found him there, just as he was sitting in judgment. Many other people, Sheikhs and Turks, were present; among them the Sheikh Sandalôba, the chief of the Arabian merchants, and a relative of the Sultâna Nasr, whose acquaintance we afterwards made in the village of Sorîba, which she makes her royal residence. We paid a visit to this distinguished man in his own house, with which honour he seemed much gratified. His principal apartment is a dark, lofty hall, with a roof resting on two pillars and four pilasters, upon which we mounted to obtain a view over the town.

Meanwhile an anqareb was prepared for us, to sit upon in the court-yard; they brought us mead (honey with water), and led a hyæna out of the stable, here called Marafil, and two young lions, the largest of which, belonging to Solimân Pascha, and two wethers, were taken to the boat, as a present from his Wakil. I had the creature fastened down in the hold, and as a welcome immediately received a violent scratch on my hand from his sharp claws. His body is now above two feet long, and his voice has already become a strong tenor. There is a most tumultuous scene now every morning on our, not very large, boat, when we drink our tea at an early hour in front of the cabin; on each side of the door, a monkey is making its merry leaps, and when the lion is released from the hold of the vessel, and on the deck, which is given to him during the day, we are obliged to place our cups and pitchers in safety, as he endeavours to reach them with his clumsy, but already strong claws.

On the 29th of February, about nine in the morning, we arrived at ABDÎN. The 1st of March the wind was unfavourable to us, and we made very little progress, so that we had plenty of time at our disposal for shooting birds. Towards evening I came to a village romantically situated in a creek formed by the river, spreading out at this point. Many huts, built of straw, extended their pointed roofs upwards between the branches and thick foliage of the trees. Narrow crooked paths, forming a real labyrinth, led from one hut to the other, between thorns and trunks of trees; within the huts, and in front of them, the black families were lying, the children playing by a feeble lamp-light. I asked for some milk, but was told to apply at an Arab village in the neighbourhood, to which I was led by a man armed with a spear, the universal weapon of the country. Making our way through thin shrubs and tall grass, we reached the large troops of cattle belonging to the Arabs, who had raised their mat huts round the pasture ground. The Fellahs who have settled here are much browner than the wandering Arabs, though they are not negroes, but they appear by race to be connected with the Nubian stock.

The 2nd of March we landed on an island close to the eastern bank. At a short distance from the landing-place the Rais discovered a broken crocodile egg, at a spot where there was some newly turned up ground. He dug down with his hands, and found forty-four eggs lying beside each other three feet deep in the sand. They were still covered with a slimy coat, as they had been only laid the previous day or during the night. Crocodiles prefer coming out of the river on a windy night, they bury their eggs in the ground, cover them over, and the wind soon disperses all traces of the disturbed earth. A few months afterwards the young ones creep out. The eggs are like large goose’s eggs, but as much rounded off at both ends as these are only at the blunt end. I had some of them boiled, they are eatable, but have a disagreeable taste; therefore I willingly left them to the sailors, who devoured them with a hearty appetite.

We landed at the forsaken village of DÁHELA on the eastern bank, from which I proceeded alone a distance of about three-quarters of an hour inland. The character of the vegetation continues the same. The ground is dry and level, the small hills and valleys which intersect it are not the original forms of the ground, but seem only to have been produced by rain. The farthest point I aimed at was a great tamarind-tree which towered up splendidly from the lower trees and bushes, and round which were fluttering a number of green and red birds hitherto unknown to me.

On my road, I first came to a settlement, Kumr betá Dáhela, where the inhabitants of the village I mentioned above are accustomed to keep their villeggiatura. They only remain here during the dry months, and wander back in the beginning of the rainy season to their more solidly built village on the bank of the river. The last village that I reached is called ROMÂLI, a little above the place which is marked SERO on the map, and which is situated at the 13° of north latitude. On the hot and fatiguing road back, I was present at a burial; silent and serious, without sound or lamentation, two corpses wrapped in white cloths were borne by men on anqarebs, and were laid in a grave several feet deep, in the wood, close to the passing road. Perhaps they had died of the cholera-like plague, which we hear has broken out with virulence in these southern parts.

We would willingly have gone up, as far as Fazoql, into the last province in Mohammed Ali’s dominions, to become acquainted with the complete change in the character of the country, which then again occurs, beginning at Rosêres, and exhibiting so many phenomena, plants and animals, peculiar to the tropics; but our time had come to an end.

The Rais received orders to lower the sails and masts; by which the boat at once lost its dignified appearance, and it floated down with the current of the river like a wreck. Soon the agreeable silence in the vessel, which had hitherto hastened on as if of its own accord, was interrupted by the shrill and discordant singing of the rowers, struggling against the wind.

On the 4th of March we again arrived at Sennâr, and on the morning of the 8th reached Wed Médineh. This place is almost as important as Sennâr. A regiment of soldiers is here in garrison with the only band of music in the Sudan, and with two cannons. We were immediately visited by the chief clerk of the regiment, Seïd Haschim, one of the most distinguished people of the place, with whom we had formerly become acquainted in Chartûm.

We determined to go from this on a visit to the Sultâna Nasr (Victoria) in SORÎBA, which is about an hour and a half inland, partly to learn something of the character of the country farther removed from the river, partly to gain some notion of the court of an Ethiopian princess. Seïd Haschim offered his dromedaries and asses, and to accompany us himself on this expedition. We therefore set out with him in the afternoon over the hot, black plain, where only a few trees were scattered here and there, and soon got over the uninteresting ground on our active animals.

NASR is the sister of the most powerful and the richest King (Melek) in the Sudan, the IDRIS WED (i. e. WELLED, the son or descendant of) ADLÂN, who now indeed is under the supremacy of Mohammed Ali, but yet rules over several hundred villages in the province of El Fungi; his title is Mak el Qulle, King of the Qulle Mountains. One of his ancestors was called ADLÂN, and the whole family at present is named after him; his father was the same Mohammed (Wed) Adlân, who at the period of the victorious campaign of Ismael Pascha, appropriated to himself the greater part of the power belonging to the legitimate but feeble Bâdi, King of Sennâr, but who afterwards, at the instigation of a second Pretender, Reg´eb, was murdered. When Ismael approached, and Reg´eb had fled with his adherents into the Abyssinian mountains, King Bâdi joined the children and the party of Mohammed Adlân, and submitted to the Pascha, who made him a Sheikh over the country, had the murderers of Mohammed Adlân empaled, and bestowed great power and riches on his children Reg´eb and Idris Adlân. Their sister Nasr was also treated with great respect, which was still more increased because she was descended, on the mother’s side, from the legitimate royal house itself. On that account she is also called Sultâna, Queen. Her first husband was Mohammed Sandalôba, a brother of Hassan Sandalôba, whom we had visited in Sennâr. He died a long time ago, but by him she had a daughter, Dauer (the Light), who married a great Sheikh, Abd el Qader, but she was afterwards separated from him, and now always resides with her mother in Sorîba. The second husband of Nasr is Mohammed Defalla, the son of one of her father’s viziers. He was just then with Ahmed Pascha Menekle, on the campaign (Ghazua, out of which the French have made Razzia) in Taka. But even when he is at home, on account of her noble birth, she continues mistress in the house.

A great preference for the female sex seems to have been a very universal custom since ancient times in these southern countries. We must recollect how frequently we find reigning Queens of Ethiopia mentioned. In the campaigns of Petronius, Candace is well known, a name which, according to Pliny, was given to all the Ethiopian Queens; according to others, only to the mother of the King. In the pictures at Meröe, also, we sometimes see very warlike, and doubtless reigning, Queens represented. According to Makrizi, the genealogies of the Beg´as, who I consider to be the direct descendants of the Meröitish Ethiopians, and the ancestors of the present Bischâris, were not counted by the men, but by the women; and the inheritance did not go to the son of the deceased, but to the son of the sister, or of the daughter of the deceased. In like manner, according to Abu-Sela, among the Nubians, the sister’s son always had the preference of his own son in the succession to the throne; and, according to Ibn Batuta, the same custom existed among the Messofites, a negro people lying to the west. Even now the household and chief offices belonging to the courts of several southern princes are wholly filled by women. Ladies of distinction are in the habit of allowing their nails to grow an inch long, as a sign that their duty consists in commanding, and not in working; a custom we have lately seen in the representations of the unshapely and corpulent Queens of Meröe.

When we arrived in SORÎBA, we stepped through a peculiar gate-house into the great square court-yard, which passes round the principal building, and then into an open lofty hall, the roof of which rested on four pillars, and four pilasters. The narrow beams of the ceiling jut out several feet above the simple architrave, and form the immediate support of the flat roof; the whole entrance reminded me much of the open façades of the tombs of Benihassan. In the hall there stood some beautiful furniture of Indian work in ebony, some broad anqarebs, with frames for the fly-nets. Magnificent coverlets were immediately brought in, and sherbet, coffee, and pipes handed round; the vessels were made of gold and silver. Black slave girls in light white dresses, which are fastened round the hips, and drawn over the bosom and shoulders, handed the refreshments, and looked most strange with their half-braided, half-combed wigs. The Queen did not however appear; perhaps she shrank from showing herself to Christians; we were only able to see some women who were standing behind a half-opened door, which re-closed, and to whom we ourselves might have been an object of curiosity. I therefore sent word to the Sultâna, through Seïd Haschim, that we had come to pay a visit to herself, and we now begged we might be permitted to pay our respects to her. Upon which, soon afterwards, a strong wooden door, cased with metal, which led from the inner chambers to the hall, opened wide, and Nasr, with free and dignified steps, walked in. She was wrapped in long, finely-woven linen, with coloured borders, and underneath she wore wide, party-coloured trousers of a darker hue. The female household followed her, eight or ten girls in white dresses, bordered with red, and ornamented sandals. Nasr sat down before us in a friendly and natural manner; she only sometimes drew her dress before her mouth and the lower part of her face, an Oriental custom which is universal in Egypt among women, but which is less practised in this country. She replied to the salutations which I addressed to her through the Dragoman, with an agreeable voice, but only remained a short time with us, and then again retired through the same door.

We were now permitted to see the interior of the house, with the exception of her own apartments, which were in a small adjoining house; and we got upon the roof to have a view over the village. We afterwards took a walk through the place, saw the well, which is lined with bricks to the depth of 60 feet, and supplies a lukewarm water, which is more insipid than that of the Nile, from which Nasr always has her own drinking water fetched. We then turned back, intending to start, but Nasr invited us to spend the night in Sorîba, as it was already too late to return to Wed Médineh by daylight. We accepted the invitation, and immediately a repast of cooked food was brought in, which was only a preparation for the magnificent supper. The Sultâna, however, did not allow herself to be seen again the whole evening. We remained in the hall, and slept on the same cool cushions which had served us during the day as a divan. The next morning, however, we were invited to visit her in her own rooms. She was more willing to talk to-day than yesterday, had European chairs placed for us, while her attendants and slave girls squatted down round us. We told her about her name-sister, the Sultâna Nasr of England, and exhibited her portrait to her on an English gold coin, which she regarded with much curiosity. Nevertheless, she showed very little desire to see with her own eyes that distant world beyond the northern ocean.

About eight o’clock we rode back to Wed Médineh. Soon after our arrival Seïd Haschim received a letter from Nasr, in which she asked him confidentially whether I would accept a little slave girl from her, as a gift to the stranger. I sent a message to inform her that this was contrary to our customs, but that there would be no difficulty if, instead of a slave girl, she would select a slave boy; and, after the removal of some scruples, as this seemed to her less becoming, she really sent a little slave boy, who was brought to me in our boat.

He had been the playmate of the Sultâna’s little grandson, the son of her daughter Dauer, and was handed over to me with the name of REHÂN (the Arabic designation for the sweet-scented basilicum). I was also informed that he was born in the district of Makâdi, on the frontier of Abyssinia, which generally furnishes the most intelligent and faithful slaves. This district is under Christian domination, and is inhabited both by Christians and Mohammedans, who are separated into different villages. The former call themselves Nazâra (Nazarenes), or Amhâra (Amharic Christians); the latter Giberta. Amongst the latter, children of their own race, or that of their neighbours, are frequently stolen and sold to Arabian slave-dealers; for in the central parts of Abyssinia the slave trade is strictly interdicted. However, this account of the boy has since proved incorrect, and perhaps was only meant to remove the obstacle which some might find in offering me a Christian boy, while on the other hand it would appear still more doubtful to hand over to me a native Mohammedan. The boy himself first communicated to our Christian cook, and afterwards to myself, that he was born of Christian parents, that he had here for the first time received the name of Rehân, and that his real name was Gabre Máriam, i. e. in Abyssinian, “the slave of Mary.” He was born near Gondar, the capital of Amhâra. He appears to have belonged to a family of some distinction, for the place called Bamba, which is stated by Bruce to be in the neighbourhood of Lake Tzana, by his accounts belonged to his grandfather; and his father, who now is dead, possessed many herds, which the boy often drove, with others, to the pasture. One day, above three or four years ago, when on such an expedition, at a considerable distance from his dwelling-place, he was stolen by some mounted Bedouins, carried off to the village of Waldakarel, and then sold to King Idris Adlân; by him he was afterwards presented to his sister Nasr. He is a pretty boy, very dark, and may be now between eight and nine years old; but much more advanced than a child of this age would be with us. The girls here marry from eight years old upwards. He wears his hair in a peculiar manner, in innumerable little braids; these must, at least once every month, be re-braided and daubed with grease, by a woman skilled in the art; and his body also must from time to time be well rubbed with grease. His entire clothing consists in a great white cloth, which he binds round his hips, and throws upwards over the shoulders. I call him now by his Christian name, and shall take him to Europe with me.

Seïd Haschim did all in his power to keep us some days longer in Wed Médineh. The first evening he invited us to his house, with the Turks of most distinction, and had a number of dancing-girls to show us the national dances in these parts; they chiefly consist in contortions of the upper part of the body and the arms, similar to what are represented on the Egyptian monuments; but differ from the Egyptian dances of the present day, which are chiefly limited to very ungraceful gestures.

A good-natured and very comical old man led on the dances, while he at the same time sang some Arabic songs, with a piercing but not disagreeable voice, which had reference to the assembled company, or to persons of repute, such as Nasr, Idris Adlân, Mak (i. e. Melek), Bâdi, &c.; and with his left hand touched the chords of a five-stringed lyre, passing the plectrum over them in time with his right. His instrument only embraced six tones of the octave. The first string on the right hand had the highest tone, C, to be struck with the thumb, the string immediately succeeding, the lowest tone, E; then followed the third, F; the fourth, A; the fifth, B. The instrument is called RABABA, and the performer on it REBÂBI. This man had been instructed by an old celebrated Rebâbi in Schendi; he had made his instrument himself, after the model of that belonging to his master, and had also acquired from him his talent for making verses, and thus became the favourite black bard of Wed Médineh. All the poetry of his songs had been composed by himself; they were sometimes improvised, and whoever disobliged him or his patrons, would probably be made the object of his satire.

I made him come to me the following morning, and, through Jussuf, write down four of his poems in Arabic: one on Mohammed, the son of Mak Mesâʾd, who resides in Metammeh; one upon King Nimr, who burnt Ismael Pascha, and is still living in Abyssinia; a third on Nasr; and lastly, a song of homage to pretty girls.[46] It is impossible to render these melodies in our notes. I have only written down a small portion of them, which in some measure approaches our mode of singing. They are generally half recited, half carried down, with quivering tones, from the highest notes to a deep and long-sustained tone. These are their most peculiar characteristics, but they are quite incapable of being noted down. Each verse contains four rhymes; the voice is retained lightly on each of them, on the second more than on the first and third; but longest on the last rhyme. The music always sinks at this point, and the same deep tone recurs, which gives a certain character to the progressing song. A particular recurrence of the melody may, indeed, also be noticed, but this is impossible for a European ear to remember. I purchased the instrument from the good-natured old man. He gave it unwillingly, although I let him name his own price; and several times after he had taken the money, and had laid down his instrument for it, an air of anxious sorrow came over his expressive countenance. The following day I bid him come to me again. He was depressed, and told me his wife had given him a sound beating for having given his instrument away. Here it is no disgrace for a man to be beaten by his wife, but it is so perhaps in the reverse case. A woman who has been beaten goes at once to the Cadi to complain; she then generally obtains justice, and the husband is punished.

In Wed Médineh we were also present at a funeral ceremony, which seemed a strange enough one to us. A woman had died three days before; the day succeeding her death, the third, the seventh, and several days afterwards are peculiarly solemnised. In front of the house, an hour before sunset, above a hundred women and children had collected, and more were constantly coming in, and cowered down beside the others. Two daughters of the deceased were present, whose richly ornamented and grease-besmeared heads they had already strewed with ashes, and had rubbed the whole of the upper part of their bodies white with them, so that their eyes and mouths alone shone forth clean, and, as it were, set into the white mask. The women wore long cloths round their hips; the young girls and children the Ráhat, a girdle composed of five strips of leather, hanging down close together; this is usually bound round the loins by a cord, prettily ornamented with shells and pearls, and it falls half-way down the leg. There was a great wooden bowl with ashes, which was repeatedly filled again with fresh ones. Female musicians cowered down close on either side of the door uttering shrill screams, which pierced our ears; they now clapped their hands together in time; now struck the sounding DARA-BUKA (a kind of hand kettle-drum, called here in the Sudan DALUKA); and now beat with sticks on some hollow gourds floating in tubs of water. The two daughters, about eighteen or twenty years of age, and the nearest relations, began, two and two, to move at first slowly towards the door in a narrow passage between the constantly increasing crowds; then suddenly shrill screams, clapping of hands, and loud shrieks burst from them all at once; whereupon they turned round, and began their fearfully contorted dancing. Bending the upper part of their body in convulsive and strained twistings and turnings, and slowly balancing themselves, they moved their feet forwards, then suddenly threw their breasts upwards with violence and their heads back on their shoulders, which they stretched out in all directions, and thus, with half-closed eyes, gradually glided forwards. In this manner they went down a slight incline of fifteen and twenty paces, where they threw themselves on the ground, covered themselves with dust and earth, and turned back again to re-commence the same dance. The younger of the two daughters had a beautiful slight figure, with wonderful elasticity, and when she stood quietly erect, or was lying on the ground with her sunken head, her regular and gentle, though inanimate features, even during the dance, and the classical form of her body, was exactly like an antique statue. This dancing procession was repeated over and over again. Each of the mourners is compelled at least to go through this once, and the nearer the relationship so much the more frequently is it repeated. Whoever cannot immediately force her way up to the vessel of ashes, takes them from the head of her neighbour to strew it on her own head. In front of this squatting assembly some women are cowering, who understand how to sob loudly and to shed profuse tears, which leave long black streaks on their white-rubbed cheeks. The most striking, and the most repelling, part of this spectacle is, that nothing is done from unrestrained sorrow, but all with deliberation, with a degree of pathos, and evidently studied; children as young as four and five years old are placed in the procession, and if they perform the difficult and unnatural movements well, their mothers, who are cowering behind, call out to them taib, taib—i. e. bravo! well done! In the second act, however, of this ceremony, rendered peculiarly stunning by its continual clapping, screaming, and shrieking, all the dancers throw themselves into the dust, and tumble down the hill; but this they also do slowly, and with deliberation, carefully drawing up their knees to their bodies, to hold their dresses with them, and also crossing their arms; they then roll down, over knees and back. This ceremony begins one hour before sunset, and lasts till night.

The unnatural feeling pervading the whole proceeding makes an indescribable impression, which is rendered still more disagreeable by seeing nothing in all of it but an inherited and perverted custom, an empty spectacle; not a trace of individual truth and natural sentiment can be perceived in the persons who participate; and yet the comparison between this and certain descriptions and representations of similar festivals among the ancients, teaches us to understand much, of which judging by our own manner of life, we can never form a correct notion, till we have once seen with our eyes such caricatures of metamorphoses as are here and there exhibited in the East.

The following day we visited the hospital, which we found very cleanly, and in good order; it holds a hundred patients, but there were then only eight-and-twenty within it. We then went to the barracks, in the large court-yard of which the men are exercised. The commanding officer ordered out the band of music, and they played several pieces before us. The first was the Parisienne, which sounded most strangely in this country, as well as the succeeding pieces, most of them French, and known to me; they were, however, tolerably well executed. The musicians performed almost solely on European instruments, and have also admitted the name of our trumpet into their Arabic musical language, but have transferred it to the drum, which they call trumbêta, while for the trumpet they have a peculiar name of their own, nafir; they call their great flute sumára, the small one sufára, and the great drum tabli. There were only twelve hundred soldiers present belonging to the regiment, which consists of four thousand men, almost all negroes, whose black faces staring out of their white linen uniform and red-tasselled caps, made them look like dressed-up monkeys, only much more unhappy and oppressed. The negroes are incapable of any military discipline and regular exertion, and generally sink beneath the imposed yoke. We did not, however, suspect that these same people would two days afterwards rebel in a body, and set off to their hills.

Emin Pascha was expected hourly. But on the 13th I received in the morning a letter from him, from Messelemîeh, between four and five hours distant from this place, in which he wrote that he should not come to Wed Médineh before the following day, and hoped to find us still there. He at the same time informed me that the war in Taka was over, and that all had submitted. Several hundred natives had been killed in skirmishes; the morning before the chief battle, all the Sheikhs of the tribes from Taka had come to the Pascha to sue for pardon, which he had granted them, on condition that no fugitive should venture to remain in the great wood, which was their chief place of refuge. The following morning he had the wood searched, and as nobody was discovered in it, he had it set on fire, and entirely burnt to the ground. On his journey back, he intends to pass through the eastern districts to Katârif, on the Abyssinian frontier, and thence to go to the Blue River. We had scarcely read this news from Taka, when we heard the sound of cannon in front of the barracks announcing the victorious message to the population round.

In another letter, which had gone to Emin Pascha instead of me, Herr von Wagner gave me the pleasing intelligence that our new companion, the painter Georgi, had arrived from Italy, and had already started for Dongola, where he waits for further orders. I shall write to him to come as far as Barkal to meet us.

As we were certain by this letter of finding the Pascha still in Messelemîeh, we started for that place about mid-day; and as the town is situated an hour and a half distant from the Nile, we made the journey by land.

The boat, meanwhile, was to follow us to the harbour of Messelemîeh, that is to say, to the nearest landing-place of this most important of the commercial towns of the whole Sudan. Besides Jussuf, we took with us the Kawass and Gabre Máriam, who sat behind me on the dromedary, where there is always left a small place for a servant, like a coach-box behind the carriage; he sits on the narrow hinder part of the animal, and holds on to the saddle with both his hands. It was hot, and the ground was parched up. The few birds which I saw were different from those which habitually inhabit the banks of the river.

Half-way we came to TÂIBA, a village which is only inhabited by FUKARA (plur. of FAKIR). These are the sages, the holy men of the people, a kind of priest, without however having priestly functions to perform; they can read and write; they do not permit any music, dancing, or festivals among them, and therefore have a great reputation for sanctity. The chief of this village is the greatest Fakir of the whole surrounding neighbourhood. Every one believes in him like a prophet; whatever he predicts, happens. The late Achmed Pascha, one month before his death, caused him to be imprisoned. “God will punish you for this,” was his answer to the order, and one month afterwards the Pascha died. He is a very rich man, and possesses several villages. We went in quest of him, and found him in his house at dinner; about twenty people were sitting round a colossal wooden bowl, which was filled with a gruel of boiled Durra and milk. The bowl was pushed in front of us, but we could not eat any of this food. We amused ourselves with the old Fakir, who joined in our conversation with easy, friendly, and pleasing manners, and then inquired our names, and the object of our journey. Every one who entered, our servants among the number, approached him reverently, and touched his hand with their mouth and forehead. The dignity of Sheikh is hereditary in his family; his son is looked up to almost as much as himself, and in this way we can understand how a village like this, when the Sheikh has once been himself a Fakir, can become altogether a priest-village. E’ Dâmer, on the island of Meröe, was formerly a Fakir place similar to this. The inhabitants of Tâiba, probably of Arabic race, call themselves ARAKIN. There are a number of such local names here, whose origin it is difficult to make out.

When we had smoked out our pipes, we left the congregation of holy men, and rode away. One half hour before we reached Messelemîeh, we came to a second village called Hellet e’ Solimân, where we dismounted at a house which had been built by the late Mak, or Melek Kambal, of Halfaï, when he married the daughter of Defalla, to whom the village belonged; it now belongs to his brother’s son, Mahmûd welled Schauîsch, who has besides the title of Melek, but is really only the guardian of Kambal’s little son, Melek Beshîr. It is easy to see what is now thought here of the old reverential title of Melek, or King. Mahmûd was not at home, as he had accompanied Ahmed Pascha on his campaign. Nevertheless, we were entertained in his house according to the hospitable custom of this country. Coverlets were spread out, milk and fresh baked Durra bread in thin slices, which has by no means a bad taste, was brought in; added to this, another simple, but refreshing beverage, abréq, fermented sourish Durra water. Soon after Asser we reached Messelemîeh. Emin Pascha received us very kindly, and communicated to us the intelligence that Mohammed Ali’s first minister, Boghos Bey, whom I had visited in Alexandria, was dead, and that Artim Bey, a man of elegant manners, and a shrewd politician, had been appointed in his place.

We declined the Pascha’s invitation to supper, and offer of a night’s lodging, and soon rode away towards the river, where we hoped to find our boat. As it had not yet arrived, we spent the night on anqarebs in the open air. We were not able to start for Kamlîn till the following morning, the 15th March, and reached it towards evening. The next day we spent agreeably with our countryman, Herr Bauer. On the 17th, having paid a visit to Nureddin Effendi, in Wad Eraue, several hours distant from Kamlîn, we arrived on the following day at SOBA, where I immediately sent for one of the vases which had been found in the ruins of the ancient city, and which was said to be kept by the brother of the Sheikh. After waiting a long time, it was brought to us. It was an ancient vessel for incense, made of bronze in filigree work. The sides of the vessel, which was of a roundish form, and about nine inches high, and of similar width, consisted solely of open-work Arabesques; the swinging chains had been fastened to the upper border by three little hooks, one of which, however, has broken away, so that the most interesting part of the whole, an inscription running round beneath the border, and like the Arabesques carved à jour, in rather large letters, thereby is unfortunately incomplete. This is of peculiar importance, as the writing is again in the Greek, or rather in the Coptic character, as on the stone-tablet; but the language is neither of these, but doubtless the ancient vernacular tongue of Soba, the capital of the mighty Kingdom of Alŏa. Short as it is, it is distinguished from the stone inscription by containing the Coptic signs ϣ (sch) and ϯ (ti), which are not to be found in the latter. I purchased the vessel for a few piastres. This is now the third monument of Soba which we take away with us, for I must mention, in addition, that at the house of Seïd Haschim, in Wed Médineh, we also saw a small Venus of Greek workmanship, carved in pure style, and about a foot high, which had likewise been found in Soba, and was presented to me by its owner. At length, on the 19th March, we again entered the house of Herr Hermanovich, in Chartûm, later than our original calculations had led us to expect, for which reason I had already communicated our delay to Erbkam, in a letter from Wed Médineh.

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Letter XIX

Chartûm, the 21st March, 1844.

Here, for the first time, we received more exact intelligence of the military revolt in Wed Médineh, which was of a most serious nature, and would have infallibly thrown us into the greatest danger had we remained two days longer in that town. All the black soldiers revolted while Emin Pascha was residing there. The drill-sergeant and seven white soldiers were killed immediately; the Pascha was besieged in his own house, which was briskly fired into; his negotiators were repelled, and the powder magazine seized. All the arms and ammunition, with the two cannons, fell into the hands of the negroes, who then selected six leaders for themselves, and set out in six divisions on the road to Fazoql to take refuge in their mountains. The regiment in this place, which has about 1500 blacks in it, was at once disarmed, and will be kept within the barracks. The most serious consequences are dreaded, as Ahmed Pascha Menekle has been so inconsiderate as to take almost all the white troops along with him to Taka; otherwise I should rejoice at the desertion of the blacks, as they are treated in the most revolting manner by their Turkish masters. Yet the insurrection may easily bring the whole country into a state of disorder, and then, also, have an injurious influence on our expedition. The blacks will undoubtedly endeavour on their road to draw over to their own party whatever country people they meet, especially the troops of Solimân Pascha in Sennâr, and of Selîm Pascha in Fazoql. The whites are far too few to offer them effectual resistance. News has just arrived that between five and six hundred slaves of the late Ahmed Pascha, belonging to the indigo factory at Tamaniât, a little to the north of this, have fled with their wives and children to the Sudan, and intend to join the soldiers; the same is reported of the factory at Kamlîn, so that we necessarily feel anxious about our friend Bauer, who was not, indeed, cruel as the Turks are, but yet was a strict master.

26th March.—The news is spread that the troops in Sennâr and the people belonging to Melek Idris Adlân, have put the negroes to the sword. It is also said, that the slaves of Tamaniât have been overtaken by the Arnauts, and murdered or dragged back, and that the revolt in Kamlîn has been suppressed. Still we cannot build much on this, as the intelligence reached me through our Kawass from the people belonging to the Pascha, and the desire was also expressed that I should spread the news still farther, and write about it to Cairo.

Yesterday, as we were walking in the dusk of the evening, in the large and beautiful garden belonging to Ibrahim Chêr, in whose cheerful and pleasantly-situated house I write this letter, we saw tall dark clouds of sand rise like a wall on the horizon. A violent east wind has also been blowing to-night ever since, and still blows, enveloping all the trees and buildings in a disagreeable sandy atmosphere, which almost takes away our breath. I have closed the window-shutters firmly, and barricaded the door with stones, to be in some measure secured from the first assault; nevertheless, I am constantly obliged to cleanse the sheet of letter paper from the covering of sand which is incessantly thrown down on it.

I returned in such a tattered condition from my hunting excursion to Sennâr, that I was at length obliged to assume the Turkish costume, which I cannot now soon exchange again. It has its advantages for the customs of this country, especially for sitting on coverlets, or low cushions; but the Tarbusch, which lies so flat upon the head, is very ill-adapted to this sunny sky, and the fastening of the innumerable buttons and hooks is daily a most wearisome trial of patience.

30th March.—We intend to leave Chartûm as soon as this packet of letters is handed over to the Pascha. The revolution is now completely suppressed in all parts. It would doubtless have had a far worse result had it not, from a particular cause, broken out in Wed Médineh several days too soon. It had been planned and secretly arranged for a long time past in the whole of the south, and was not to have broken out before the 19th of this month simultaneously in Sennâr, Wed Médineh, Kamlîn, Chartûm, and Tamaniât. The precipitate movement in Wed Médineh had, however, disarranged the whole plan, and had especially given time to Emin Pascha to send messengers to Chartûm, by which means the negro soldiers here were consigned and disarmed before news of the outbreak had reached their ears. Emin Pascha, however, seems himself to have been totally helpless. The victory is said to be solely due to the courage and presence of mind of a certain Rustan Effendi, who with 150 devoted soldiers, chiefly whites, pursued the negroes, who were 600 strong, overtook them beyond Sennâr, and after attacking them three times, defeated them, with great loss of life. Above a hundred of the fugitives have surrendered, and have been taken to Sennâr in irons; the remaining number were killed in the action, or leapt into the river and were drowned there.

But the news arrived here at the same time, that an insurrection had also broken out on account of the taxes in Lower Nubia, in Kalabsche, and another village, that both villages had on that account been immediately destroyed by Hassan Pascha, who is to come to Chartûm in place of Emin Pascha, and that the inhabitants had been killed or driven away.

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Letter XX

The Pyramids of Meröe, 22nd April, 1844.

We quitted Chartûm on the 30th March, towards evening, and proceeded half the night by moonlight.

The following day we arrived at TAMANIÂT. Almost the whole of the large village had disappeared, and only one vast burning plain was to be seen. The slaves in their revolt had laid everything in ashes, the walls of the factory are alone left standing. As I had quitted the boat and arrived on foot, I was unexpectedly startled near the still smoking ruins by a horrible spectacle, for I suddenly found myself in an open piece of garden, which was completely covered by the mutilated corpses of blacks. The greatest proportion of the slaves who had been recaptured were here shot down in masses.

We stopped at sunset in Surîe Abu Ramle, before a cataract, which we were unable to pass during the night.

The 1st of April we again started long before daybreak, and thought we should make a good step in advance. But the wind rose with the sun, and as the boat could not be towed at this point on account of the rocky banks, a few hours afterwards we were compelled to halt again, and to lie quiet in the heavy, dense atmosphere of sand. In front of us lay the insulated range of Qirre, detached from which, Aschtân (the Thirsty) on our left hand, Rauiân (the Thirsty assuaged) on our right, stand forth from the plain like watch-posts; the former, however, at a greater distance from the river.

Rauiân was only about three-quarters of an hour distant from our boat. I set out with my gun, traversed the bare stony plain, and climbed the mountain, during the inundation season almost entirely surrounded by water, for which reason we were always told that it stood upon an island. The rock of which it is composed is granite, of a mixed coarse and fine grain, with much quartz. On the road back, I passed the village of Meláh, the huts of which lie hidden behind large mounds of upturned earth, formed by the inhabitants when they dig for salt (malh). A great deal of it is found in the surrounding country (thus Meláh is the Arabic translation of salt-work, or Sulza). Towards evening we sailed on a little farther, in the midst of the range, and lay to, in a little rocky creek. The following day, also, we made but little progress. We saw some black slaves wandering about like chamois, on the eastern summits of the wild granitic rocks, who have perhaps escaped from Tamaniât, but their miserable life will not probably be much longer prolonged. They disappeared immediately again behind the jagged summits, our Kawass having indulged in the brutal jest of firing at them in the air. I climbed up the western mountains with Abeken; they rise precipitously for about 200 or 300 feet from the bank. It is evident here, by the natural walls of rock, to what height the river rises and deposits its mud at high-water. I measured nearly 8 metres (26 feet English) from that point to the surface of the water at the present moment, and the river will continue to sink about 2 feet more.

From the summit of the mountain we saw the wide desert extending behind the farthest eminences, and soon after passing Méraui, we shall be wandering across it. We quitted the picturesque range of mountains with regret, which form such an agreeable interruption to the flat banks of this far and wide level country.

On the morning of the 4th April, we at length reached our group of palm-trees at BEN NAGA, and immediately went to the ruins in the Wadi el Kirbegân, where we found a portion of a pillar, and several altars in the south-eastern temple which had been newly-excavated by Erbkam; the same Royal Shields were upon them as upon the principal temples of Naga in the desert, besides several others which had not previously appeared. Of the three altars that had been excavated, the central one, of very hard sandstone, was in excellent preservation. On the western side there was a representation of the King, on the eastern, of the Queen, with their names, and on both the other sides were two goddesses. On the northern side the hieroglyphic group of the North was also inscribed, and on the southern that of the South. Both the other altars exhibited the same figures. All three were still standing on their original site, and were let into a smooth floor, which was composed of square slabs of stone covered with plaster. Unfortunately I had not then the means of carrying away the best of these altars, which weighed at least 50 cwt., and I had, therefore, to plan a special excursion from Meröe for the purpose.

On Good Friday, the 5th April, we arrived at Schendi. We entered the widely-scattered but depopulated town, saw the ruins of the palace of King Nimr, in which he had burnt Ismael Pascha, after a nocturnal festival which he had prepared for him, and many houses which still bore traces of the balls of Defterdar Bey, who was sent by Mohammed Ali to revenge the death of his son. The dwelling of King Nimr, which now also lay in ruins, used to stand in the centre of the town on an artificial eminence. The suburb, built for the present military garrison, is at a little distance up the river, and separated from the town. We then returned to the boat, which had put in near the fortress-like house of Churshid Pascha, where the military commander now resides.

On the same day we arrived, shortly before sunset, at Beg´erauîeh, and immediately rode to the Pyramids, where we once more found Erbkam and the remainder of the party safe and sound. They have been diligently drawing in Naga and Wadi Sofra, and the rich costume of the kings and gods, as well as the representations belonging to these Ethiopian temples in general, devoid of style indeed, but ornamental, look very well on paper, and will make a splendid show in our sketch-books. Much had been done in this spot also, and many new things had come to light in clearing out the ante-chambers, which had been full of rubbish. Abeken thought, even, during our first visit, that he had found the name of the Queen KENTAKI (CANDACE). Now, indeed, we see that the Shield is not written

𓍹𓐼𓎡𓈖𓍘𓐱𓇋𓎡𓇌𓐱𓐷𓏏𓐰𓆇𓐸𓐽𓍺 but 𓍹𓐼𓎡𓈖𓍘𓐱𓇋𓎱𓇌𓐱𓐷𓏏𓐰𓆇𓐸𓐽𓍺

which would read KENTAHEBI; nevertheless it seems to me to have meant that famous name, and that the questionable sign merely has been changed by the ignorant scribes. The determinative signs 𓏏𓆇 prove, at least, that it is the name of a Queen. The name of CANDACE was known even at an earlier period as that of a private person. The name of ERGAMENES is likewise found, and this also written sometimes correctly, sometimes with mistaken variation.

We kindled Easter bonfires on the evenings of the succeeding holidays. Our tents are situated between two groups of Pyramids in a small hollow of the valley, which is everywhere covered with dry tufts of a woody grass. We lighted this all about us; it blazed up high, and flung the whirling flames upwards into the dark starry night. The spectacle of fifty or sixty such fires burning at once in the valley was beautiful; they threw a ghost-like light on the half-crumbled Pyramids of the old kings ranged on the eminences round, and on our airy tent-pyramids rising in the foreground.

We were surprised on the 8th of April by seeing a magnificent cavalcade of horses and camels, which appeared within our camp. It was OSMAN BEY, who, as the chief in command, is leading back the army of 5000 men from Taka. The French military surgeon, Peney, was in his suite, besides the Chief Sheikh Ahmed welled ʾAuad. The troops had encamped near Gabuschié, one hour farther up the river, and were to pass through Beg´erauîeh in the evening. The visit to our camp had, however, another object, which was soon disclosed in the course of conversation. Osman Bey was desirous of making treasure-diggers out of his pioneers, and of ordering some battalions to come hither, to pull down a number of Pyramids. The discovery of Ferlini is still remembered by most people, and has since that time caused the ruin of many Pyramids. They were also full of it at Chartûm, and more than one European, besides the Pascha himself, imagined they might still find treasures there. I constantly endeavoured to prove to them all, that the discovery of Ferlini was pure chance, that he had not found the gold rings in the sepulchral chambers with the mummies, where they alone might reasonably have been searched for with any hope of success, but walled up in the stone, in which place they had been concealed by a whim of the owner. I endeavoured to convince Osman Bey of this also, who even offered me the aid of his companies of soldiers to conduct the work of destruction. I naturally declined this, though perhaps I should have accepted it for the sake of laying open to view the sepulchral chambers, which necessarily must have their entrance in front of the Pyramids in the natural rock, had I not feared that here also we might not arrive at any brilliant result, and even if our own expectations were not so, yet those of the credulous general might be bitterly disappointed. I succeeded in diverting him from his idea, and thus for the present, at least, the existing Pyramids have been saved. The soldiers have departed without having made war on the Pyramids.

I invited the three gentlemen to dine with us, which placed the old Sheikh in some embarrassment, for he was always trying to cut the meat with the back of his knife, till at length I myself laid aside the European implements, and began to eat in good Turkish fashion; my example was soon followed willingly by the rest of the company, especially by our excellent dark-skinned guest, who did not fail to observe my polite attention. After dinner they again mounted their sumptuously-caparisoned animals, and the procession hastened towards the river.

On the 9th of April, I sent Franke and Ibrahim Aga to Ben Naga, with stone-saws, hammers, and ropes, to transport the great altar to this spot. I myself rode with Jussuf to Gabuschié, partly to return the visit of Osman Bey, who had intended to give the soldiers a day of rest in our neighbourhood, partly to take advantage of the presence of the distinguished Sheikh Ahmed, through whose interest I hoped to procure boats to carry us across the river, and camels for the desert journey that we had in prospect. The army had, however, already decamped, and had passed the first places on the road. I therefore rode after them with Jussuf in a brisk trot, and soon overtook the 400 Arnauts who formed the rear. They were not, however, able to inform us how far Osman Bey was in advance. The Arnauts are the soldiers most dreaded in the whole country for brutality and cruelty, who at the same time are treated with most indulgence by their leaders, because they are the only troops who serve voluntarily, and the only foreigners taken into pay. It is but a few months ago since they were sent to the late Ahmed Pascha by Mohammed Ali, under an officer who was peculiarly feared, with the order, as it is said, to bring the Pascha, dead or alive, to Cairo. The sudden death of the Pascha at all events released him from his commission. The name of that officer is Omar Aga, but he is known through the whole country by the not very flattering appellation of Tomus Aga (Commandant Cochon) which was once given him by Ibrahim Pascha, and which, since that time, he himself thinks it an honour to bear. His own attendants, when we overtook his horses and baggage, and inquired after their master, called him by this name. After riding briskly for about five or six hours in the most oppressive heat, we at length reached the camp at the village of Bêida.

We had by degrees gone more than half-way to Schendi, and were rejoiced at the near prospect of finding some refreshment, after the exhaustion of the hot ride; for we had already made up our minds to fast, till our return in the evening, as there was absolutely nothing that we could eat in the villages between; there was not even milk to be had.

Osman Bey and Hakîm Peney were as much surprised as delighted at my visit; some bowls of Suri were immediately brought for our refreshment—a beverage which undergoes a slow and troublesome process of preparation, from half-fermented Durra; it is an agreeable acid, and, especially with sugar, has a most excellent and refreshing taste. After our breakfast, I went through the camp with Peney. The tents were pitched along the river in the most picturesque variety of groups, on a great space of ground here and there scattered over with trees and thicket, and completely surrounded by it. An Egyptian army, composed half of blacks and half of whites, most of them in tatters, returning in forced marches from a depredatory expedition against the poor natives, presents, indeed, a very different aspect from what we are accustomed to witness at home. Although the intimidated population of Taka, for the most part innocent of individual revolt, had already sent messengers to the Pascha, to avert his vengeance, and moreover, on the approach of the troops, had not offered the slightest resistance, nevertheless, several hundred unarmed men and women, who either would not, or could not fly, were murdered by that notorious troop of Arnauts; and Ahmed Pascha caused a number of other men, who were believed to have been concerned in the insurrection, as they were each led before him, to be beheaded in front of his tent. Then, after all the conditions that were imposed had been fulfilled, and the heavy contributions which had been required from them under every variety of pretext had been also correctly paid, the Pascha caused all the Sheikhs to assemble at once, as if for a fresh conference, but forthwith had them all put in fetters, together with 120 other people, and led away as prisoners. The young and strong men were to be placed among the troops, the women handed over to the soldiers as slaves; the Sheikhs were reserved for punishment till a later day.

This was the glorious history of the Turkish campaign against Taka, as it was related to me by the European eye-witnesses. Already twelve among the forty-one Sheikhs who were carried away, and were nearly sinking under the fatigue of the marches, have been shot on the road. The others were exhibited to me singly. Each of them carried before him the stem of a tree as thick as a man’s arm, about five or six feet long, which terminated in a fork, into which the neck was fixed. The prongs of the fork were bound together by a cross-piece of wood, fastened with a strap. Some of their hands, also, were tied fast to the handle of the fork, and in this condition they remain day and night. During the march, the soldier who is specially appointed to overlook the prisoner, carries the end of the pole: in the night most of them have their feet also pinioned together. All of them had had their black curls shaven off. The Sheikhs alone still wore their large head-dress of braids or curls. Most of them looked very depressed and miserable; they had been the most distinguished of their nation, and had been accustomed to be treated by those they commanded, with the greatest reverence. They almost all spoke Arabic, beside their own language, and mentioned to me the tribes to which they severally belonged. But the most distinguished of all of them was a Fakir, who was held sacred; his word had been regarded like that of a prophet throughout the whole land, and, by his oracular sayings and exhortations, he had been chiefly instrumental in causing the whole revolution. He was called Sheikh MÛSA EL FAKIR, and was of the tribe of the Mitkenâbs. I found him an old, blind, broken-down, hoary man, with a few snow-white hairs; his body was already more like a skeleton; he was obliged to be raised up by others, and was scarcely able to hear and answer the questions which were addressed to him. His little, shrivelled face, was incapable of any new expression corresponding to the present circumstances. He looked forwards with a fixed and indifferent stare, and I was surprised how such a shadow could have still exercised so much influence on the minds of his fellow-countrymen as to excite a revolution. Yet it is remarkable that, both in Egypt and everywhere about here, blind people have an especial reputation for sanctity, and are held in great respect as Prophets.

After breakfast I had one of the captured Sheikhs, Mohammed welled Hammed, brought to the tent of Osman, that I might question him about his language, of which I was still perfectly ignorant. He was an intelligent, well-spoken man, who at once took advantage of the opportunity which I readily granted him, to relate his history to Osman Bey and Sheikh Ahmed, and to assure them of his innocence of the revolutionary events. He belonged to the tribe of the HALENKA, from the village of KASSALA. I made him give me the lists of the forty-one Sheikhs and their tribes, and had them written down. Six tribes had taken part in the insurrection—the Mitkenâb, Halenka, Kelûli, Mohammedîn, Sobeh, Sikulâb, and Hadenduwa (plur. from Henduwa).

All the tribes of Taka speak the same language; but only a few of them also understand the Arabic. I suspect that it is the same as that of the Bischâri tribes. It has many, and well-distributed vowels, and is very euphonous, as it is without the hard guttural sound of the Arabs. On the other hand, it has a peculiar alphabetical letter, which to our ear seems to stand between r, l, and d; a cerebral d, which, like the Sanscrit, is pronounced by throwing back the point of the tongue upwards.

After our examination of the Sheikh it had become too late to set out again; night would have overtaken me, and especially on camel-back, it is impossible to avoid the dangerous branches of the thorny trees. I therefore complied with the invitation to spend the night in the camp, till the rising of the moon; Osman Bey would then at the same time start in the opposite direction with the army. A whole sheep was roasted on the spit, which we ate with a hearty appetite.

I learnt from Osman Bey about many interesting customs of the most southern provinces, as for the last sixteen years he has been living here in the south, and has an accurate knowledge of the country, to the extreme limits of Mohammed Ali’s government. It is still the custom in Fazoql to hang a king who is no longer beloved, which occurred only a few years ago to the father of the present reigning monarch. His relatives and ministers assemble round him, and announce to him that as he no longer pleases the men and women of the country, the oxen, asses, and fowls, &c., &c., but is detested by all, it is better that he should die. Once upon a time, when a king did not wish to submit to this practice, his own wife and mother made the most pressing remonstrances to him, not to load himself with still greater disgrace, upon which he yielded to his fate. Diodorus narrates exactly the same resignation to death in those who in Ethiopia were to die by judicial verdict; a person who had been condemned, and who had at first intended to save himself by flight, had nevertheless allowed himself to be strangled without resistance by his mother, who had obstructed him in his design. Osman Bey has only lately, he assures me himself, abolished the custom there of burying old people alive, when they become feeble. A pit used to be dug and a horizontal passage at the end of it, and the body laid within, like that of a dead person, firmly swathed in cloths; by his side they placed a bowl with merisa, fermented Durra water, a pipe, and a hoe, to cultivate the land; also, according to the wealth of the individual, one or two ounces of gold, to pay the ferryman who must convey the deceased across the great river which flows between heaven and hell. The entrance is then filled up with rubbish. Indeed, according to Osman, the whole legend of Charon, even with a Cerberus, appears still to exist here.

This custom of burying old people alive also exists, as I afterwards heard, among the negro tribes to the south of Kordofan. Invalids and cripples, those especially who have an infectious malady, are there also put to death in a similar manner. The family complains to the sick man, that because of him, no one will come near them any longer; that he himself is wretched, and death would be only a gain for him; that he would again find his relations in the other world, and would be in health and happiness there. They charge him with kind messages to all the deceased, and then bury him either as they do in Fazoql, or standing upright in a pit. Besides merisa, bread, a hoe, and a pipe, he is there given a sword and two pairs of sandals, for the deceased live in the other world just as they do here on earth, only in greater happiness.

The dead are buried with loud lamentations, while their actions and good qualities are extolled. Nothing is there known of a river and ferryman of the lower world, but they are acquainted with the old Mohammedan legend of the invisible angel Asrael, or as he was here called Osraîn. He is commissioned by God, as they say, to receive the souls of the dead, and to conduct the good to the place of reward, the bad to that of punishment. He dwells upon a tree, el Ségerat Mohàna (the Tree of Completion), which has as many leaves as there are living men. There is a name upon every leaf, and a new one grows whenever a child is born. If any one sickens, his leaf fades, and should he die, Osraîn breaks it off. In former times he used to come in a visible form to those whom he was going to carry away from the earth, and thereby put them in a great fright. Since the days of the Prophet he has been invisible, for when he came to fetch the soul of Mohammed, the latter told him that it was not good that he should terrify mankind by his visible appearance; they might then easily die of fright without having previously prayed; for he himself, although very courageous, and a man of enlarged mind, had been terrified by his appearance. The Prophet, therefore, prayed to God that he would make Osraîn invisible, and the prayer was heard.

Osman Bey told me that among some other tribes in Fazoql, the king was obliged to administer justice daily beneath a certain tree. If on account of sickness, or from any other mishap, which renders him unfit, he does not make his appearance for three whole days, he is hung up. Two razors are placed in the noose, and when this is drawn tight, they cut the throat across.

The meaning of another of their customs is quite obscure. At a certain time of the year they have a kind of carnival, where every one does what he likes best. Four ministers of the king then bear him on an anqareb out of his house to an open space of ground; a dog is fastened by a long cord to one of the feet of the anqareb. The whole population collects round the place, streaming in on every side. They then throw darts and stones at the dog, till he is killed, after which the king is again borne into his house.

Amidst these and other tales and accounts of those tribes, which were besides confirmed by the old Chief Sheikh Ahmed, we feasted on the roasted sheep in the open air in front of the tent. Night was somewhat advanced, and the near and distant camp-fires, with the people busy around them, either squatting about, or walking up and down between groups of trees, had an extremely picturesque and unique effect. Gradually they all became extinguished, with the exception of the watch-fire; the poor prisoners scattered here and there, had their legs fastened still more tightly together, and it became quieter in the camp.

Osman Bey is a strong, cheerful man, with natural manners, and at the same time a strict and valued officer. He promised to give me a slight proof of the discipline and good order among his soldiers, whose external appearance did not prejudice me very much in their favour by an unexpected reveillé. I was sleeping on an anqareb in the open tent, covered with a soldier’s cloak. About three o’clock in the morning I was awoke by a slight noise; Osman Bey, who lay beside me on the ground, got up, and ordered the nearest drummer of the chief watch to beat the reveillé. He made a few, short, interrupted beats of the drum, quickly sinking again into silence. These were immediately repeated at the post of the next regiment, then at the third, fourth, and fifth, in various, always more distant, positions of the camp; and suddenly the whole mass of 5000 men rose up and stood to their arms. Nothing was to be heard but a soft whispering and rustling of the soldiers, who were rousing each other, and the faint clank of the weapons, which were cautiously separated from one another. I went through the camp with Dr. Peney, who came across to me from the adjoining tent, and in a very few minutes we found the whole army under arms, arranged in ranks, the officers marching up and down in front. On our return, after we had related to Osman Bey the wonderfully punctual execution of his commands, he allowed the soldiers to separate again, and did not give the signal for the breaking up of the camp before four o’clock. That produced a very different effect: all were quickly in movement and activity; the abominable gurgling and miserable roaring of the camels was heard above everything during the packing up; the tents were taken down, and in less than half an hour the army marched southwards with pipe and drum.

I started in an opposite direction. The early morning with the bright moonlight was very refreshing; the birds awoke with the dawn of day, a cool wind rose, and we trotted quickly through the thorny sont-trees. Soon after sunrise we met a magnificent procession of well-dressed men, and attendants, on camels and asses. It was the King Mahmûd welled Schauîsch, whose father, the warlike Schauîsch, King of the Schaiqies, is well known in the conquering expedition of Ismael Pascha, to whom he did not submit for a long time, and at whose house in Hellet e’ Solimân, near Messelemîeh, we had stopped a few weeks ago. He had gone with Ahmed Pascha Menekle to Taka, and followed the army to Halfaï, where he now usually resides. About half-past nine we again reached the Pyramids. My camel, a young one, and very difficult to manage, shortly before, took fright in the plain, and ran round in a circle with me as if it was mad; at length, stumbling over a tall bunch of grass, it fell on one knee, and hurled me far over its head, happily without doing me any serious injury.

On my return I occupied myself, without interruption, with the Pyramids and their inscriptions. I had several more chambers excavated, and made an exact description of each individual Pyramid. Altogether, I have found about thirty different names of Ethiopian kings and queens. I have certainly not yet been able to bring them into any chronological order, but from a comparison of the different inscriptions, I have learnt much about the manner of the succession, and form of government. The King of MERÖE (whose name in one of the most southern Pyramids is written MERU, or MÉRUA,) was at the same time first Priest of Ammon; if his consort survived him, she succeeded him in the government, and the male heirs to the throne only took the second place beside her; if the reverse happened, the son, as it appears, succeeded, who, even in the lifetime of his father, bore the royal shields and titles, and was second Priest of Ammon. Thus we still see here the domination of the priests, which is spoken of by Diodorus and Strabo, and the pre-eminence of the worship of Ammon, which is even mentioned by Herodotus.

The inscriptions on the Pyramids show that, at the period of their erection, the hieroglyphic writing was no longer perfectly understood, and that the hieroglyphic signs were often only added as a customary ornament, without wishing to express anything by them. Even the kings’ names are thereby rendered uncertain, and this for a long time prevented me from recognising the three royal personages who built the chief temples in Naga, Ben Naga, and in Wadi Temêd, and who undoubtedly belonged to one of the most brilliant periods of the Meröitic Monarchy. I am now convinced that the Pyramids with Roman arched ante-chambers, in the brick-work of which Ferlini found the treasure concealed, in spite of slight alterations in the name, belonged to the same mighty and warlike queen who appears in Naga with her rich decorations, and her pointed nails almost an inch long. By the circumstance of their having belonged to a well-known, and, as it appears, the greatest of all the queens of Meröe, who built almost all the temples still in tolerable preservation on the island, Ferlini’s jewels become infinitely more valuable for the history of Ethiopian art, in which they now occupy a fixed position. The purchase of that remarkable discovery is a most important acquisition to our museum.

An Ethiopian-demotic writing was more in use at that period, and more generally understood than hieroglyphics. It was similar to the Egyptian-demotic in its characters, although consisting of a very limited alphabet of between twenty-five and thirty signs. The writing, like the latter, is read from right to left, but is distinguished by a constant separation of the words by two strongly-marked points. I have already found six-and-twenty similar demotic inscriptions; some of them on steles and libation-tablets; some of them in the ante-chambers of the Pyramids, over the persons belonging to the processions, who usually go to meet the deceased king with palm-branches; some of them on the smooth surfaces of the Pyramids; and indeed always in such a state, that they are clearly proved to have belonged originally to the representations, and not to have been added at a later period. On a closer examination of this writing, it will not perhaps be difficult to decipher, and we should then obtain the first certain sounds of the Ethiopian language spoken here at that period, and could decide on its true relation to the Egyptian language, while the almost perfect agreement between the Ethiopian and Egyptian hieroglyphics have hitherto yielded no conclusive evidence that there is an equal accordance between the two languages. It seems, on the contrary, and with respect to the later Meröitic period may be safely affirmed, that the hieroglyphics, as the sacred monumental writing, were adopted from Egypt without alteration, but also without being perfectly understood. The few signs which constantly recur, prove that the Ethiopian-demotic writing is purely alphabetic, which must very much facilitate the deciphering of it. The separation in the words has perhaps been borrowed from the Roman writing. But its analogy with the Egyptian development of writing went still further; for next to this Ethiopian-demotic writing there is an Ethiopian-Greek, at a later period, which may be perfectly compared with the Coptic, and it has borrowed certain letters directly from it. It is found in the inscriptions of Soba, and in some others on the walls of the temple-ruins of Wadi e’ Sofra. We have therefore now, as in the case in Egypt, two modes of writing, which no doubt sprang up one after the other, and really contain the actual Ethiopian dialect of the country. It is now usual to call the ancient Abyssinian Geez language the Ethiopian, which, with the characteristics of a Semetic language that has immigrated from Arabia, has only a local, but no ethnographic claim on our attention. A Geez inscription, which I have found in the chamber of a Pyramid, has evidently been written down at a later period.

I hope that we shall obtain many important results from studying the native inscriptions, as well as the present living languages. The Ethiopian name comprehended much that was dissimilar among the ancients. The ancient population of the whole Nile valley as far as Chartûm, and perhaps, also, along the Blue River, as well as the tribes of the desert to the east of the Nile, and the Abyssinian nations, were in former times probably more distinctly separated from the Negroes than now, and belonged to the Caucasian race. The Ethiopians of Meröe (according to Herodotus, the parent-state of all Ethiopia) were a red-brown people, similar to the Egyptians, but darker, as they are at the present day. The monuments also prove this, on which I have more than once found the red colour of the skin in the kings and queens preserved. In Egypt, especially in the Old Monarchy, before the mixture with the Ethiopian race, at the period of the Hyksos, the women were always painted yellow; and the Egyptian women even now, who are blanched in the harem, incline to the same colour. But red women appear even after the 18th Dynasty, and the Ethiopian women were always so represented. It appears that much Ethiopian blood is mingled with the nation of the so-called Barâbras, so widely distributed at the present day, and this perhaps will also one day appear still more distinctly from their language. This, no doubt, is the ancient Nubian, and has been still retained in somewhat distant regions to the south-west under this name; for the Nuba languages in and round Kordofan, as can be proved, are partly related to the Berber language. I have also found indications in the local names that this last, which is only now spoken from Assuan to Dar Schaiqîeh, south of Dongola, in the Nile valley, predominated for a long while also in the province of Berber, and still higher up.

MARÛGA, DANQELEH, and E’ SÛR, are close to the ruins of the city of Meröe, and are situated along the river from south to north; all three are comprehended under the name of BEGERAUÎEH, so that we scarcely ever hear anything but this last name mentioned. Five minutes to the north of e’ Sûr lies the village of Qala, and ten minutes farther on El Guês, both of which are comprehended under the name of Ghabîne. One hour down the river there are two other villages, not far apart, called MARÛGA, which were deserted even before the conquest of the country; and still more to the north, close to the Omarâb Mountains, which project towards the river on the eastern bank, there is a third village called GEBEL (mountain village) inhabited only by Fukaras. Cailliaud knew only the most southern of the three MARUGAS, situated near the largest temple-ruins. He was struck by the name, on account of its similarity with that of Meröe. The similarity becomes still more evident when it is known that the real name is MARU, since -GA is only the universal termination to names, and is always either added or omitted, according to the grammatical combination, for it does not belong to the root of the word. In the dialect of Kenûs and Dongola this termination is -GI; in the dialect of Mahass and Sukkôt it is -GA. When I ran over the different local names of the upper countries with one of our Berber servants, I learnt that in one dialect maro or marôgi, in the other maru or marûga, means “mounds of ruins,” “destroyed temples;” thus, for example, the ruins of ancient Syene, or those on the island of Philæ, are called marôgi. There is another Berber word quite distinct from this, mérua, which is also pronounced méraui, by which all white rocks, white stones, are designated; as, for example, such a rock as occurs in the neighbourhood of Assuan, on the eastern side of the Nile, at the village of El Gezîret. By this it is evident that the appellation Marûga has nothing to do with the name of Meröe, as a town would not be called when first founded “ruin city.” On the other hand, the name of Mérua, Méraui (in German, Weissenfels, white rock), would be very appropriate for a town, if its local position gave occasion to it, as at Mount Barkal, but which, again, is not really the case here.

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Letter XXI

Keli, opposite Meröe, the 29th April.

Franke did not return from his expedition to Ben Naga before the 23rd instant. He brought the altar here, on a boat, in sixteen blocks. All the stones taken together, which we must carry along with us on the difficult journey of six or seven days across the desert, form a load for about twenty camels, so that our train will be considerably longer than before. Unfortunately, on account of the difficulty of the means of transport, we have been unable to take anything away with us from NAGA in the desert, except a Roman inscription, mentioned above, and a great Clavis Nilotica, peculiarly carved. Some very strange representations are to be seen there; among others, a figure sitting frontways, a crown of rays over the floating hair, the left arm raised at a right angle, and the fore-finger and middle-finger of the hand stretching upwards, as is represented in the old Byzantine figures of Christ. The right hand holds a long staff resting on the ground, as John the Baptist usually holds it. This figure is totally different from the Egyptian representations, and no doubt is borrowed elsewhere, as well as another god who frequently appears, also represented frontwise, with a richly curling beard; he might at first sight be compared to a Jupiter, or Serapis, in bearing and appearance. The mixture of the religions had made great progress at that period, evidently of very late date, and it would not surprise me if it should be proved by later researches that the Ethiopian kings had adopted Christ and Jupiter also, among their various kinds of gods. The god with the three or four lions’ heads is probably not a native invention, but obtained from some other quarter.

On the 25th we crossed the Nile in boats, in order to set out on the left bank, on our road across the desert to Gebel Barkal. There seemed to be difficulties again about procuring camels, but my threat, that if they would not come to a private agreement I should, on the ground of my Firman, settle the matter, not with the Sheikh but with the Government, had such a rapid effect, that, even the following morning, we were enabled to set out with eighty camels from Gôs Burri in the immediate neighbourhood, across the desert.

Here, in Keli, I had again an opportunity of witnessing a funeral ceremony—this time, for a deceased Fellah—for which purpose about two hundred people had collected, the men separate from the women. The men were seated, two and two opposite, embracing each other; they laid their heads on their shoulders, raised them up again, beat themselves, clapped their hands, and wept as much as they were able. The women moaned, sang songs of lamentation, strewed themselves with ashes, walked about in procession, and threw themselves on the ground; everything very similar to what we saw in Wed Médineh, except that their dance more resembled, in its violent movements, that of the Dervishes. The remainder of the inhabitants of Keli sat round in groups under the shade of the trees, sighing and lamenting, with their heads bent down.

As we were obliged to wait for the camels, I once more crossed over to Beg´erauîeh, to search for certain ruins, which were said to be situated somewhat more to the north. Starting from EL GUÊS, I arrived in three-quarters of an hour, upon my ass, at the two villages of Marûga, not far removed from each other. To the eastward of the first, on the low eminences running along in that direction, there are a number of mounds of tombs, which from a little distance looked like a group of Pyramids standing out from the sky. The elevation turns backwards, in the form of a crescent, towards the south, and is covered with these circular-thrown-up mounds, composed of black desert stone; standing on a large mound in the centre I counted fifty-six of them.

Five minutes farther on in the desert there is a second group of similar mounds, twenty-one in number; but many others lie near it, scattered on single small pieces of ground. Situated in a still lower position, and even within the limit of the thicket, I discovered a third group, to the south of the two former ones, containing about forty tombs, in some of which we could still clearly recognise their original square form. The tomb in best preservation was between 15 and 18 feet wide on every side; like many others, it had been excavated in the centre, and had been filled up with mud deposited by the rain, in which a tree was growing; a great square wall of 24 paces enclosing it on every side, was still remaining of another tomb, the lowest layers were built up solidly of small black stones, and a mound seemed to have been erected within, but not in the centre. Another still stronger circumvallation, in good preservation, was not much smaller in circumference, but appeared to have been completely filled up with a Pyramid. Nothing was to be seen of an actual casing. The mounds continued still more to the south amidst the thicket, and altogether there might be about two hundred which could be distinguished. Perhaps, also, they continue still farther on the border of the desert, in the direction of Meröe, whither I would have ridden back had I not sent the boat too far down the river, in quest of which I now was obliged to hasten. It appears, therefore, that this was the actual cemetery of Meröe, and that pyramidal, or, in default of smooth sides, conical mounds of stones, were the usual forms of the tombs, even of private individuals, at that period.

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Letter XXII

Barkal, the 9th May, 1844.

The desert of GILIF, which we traversed on our road hither, to cut off the great eastern bend of the Nile, derives its name from the principal mountain range which lies in the centre of it. On the maps it is confounded with the desert BAHIUDA, which bounds it to the south-east, and across which runs the road from Chartûm to Ambukôl and Barkal. Our direction was first due east as far as a well, afterwards to the north-west, and in the midst of the Gilif range to the great Wadi Abu Dôm, which then led us across in the same direction to the western bend of the Nile.

The general character of the country here, is not so much that of a desert as between Korusko and Abu Hammed, but more that of a sandy steppe. It is almost everywhere covered with Gesch (tufts of reed-grass), and not unfrequently with low trees, chiefly Sont-trees. The rains which fall here at certain seasons of the year, have deposited considerable masses of earth on the low grounds, which might be profitably cultivated, and this is sometimes traversed, to the depth of three or four feet, by torrents occasioned by the rain. The soil is yellow, and composed of a clayey sand. The rock forming the subsoil, and the whole of the mountains, with the exception of the lofty Gilif range, is a sandstone. The ground is covered to a considerable extent with hard, black blocks of sandstone, the road is generally uneven, and undulating. Numerous gazelles, and large white antelopes with only a brown stripe down their backs, are to be found on these plains, which are also frequented in the rainy season by herds of camels and of goats, on account of the plentiful supply of pasture.

On the 29th April we left the river, but, as is very customary in caravans of any considerable size, this was only a first start—a trial of our travelling powers, such as birds of passage make before their long migration. We had only been two hours on the road when the guide allowed the restless swarm to encamp again, just beyond GÔS BURRI, at a little distance from the river; the camel-drivers were without their provisions; some single beasts were still procured, others were exchanged. It was not before the following day at twelve o’clock that we got into perfect order and in full march. We spent the night in the WADI ABU HAMMED, at which point GEBEL OMARDA was on our right hand.

The third day we started very early; passed GEBEL QERMANA, and arrived at the well of ABU TLÊH, which took us far to the east, and detained us several hours after mid-day. From this point we were seven hours traversing a wide plain, and encamped about ten at night near GEBEL SERGEN. The 2nd May, after proceeding four hours, we reached a district well supplied with trees, to the right of GEBEL NUSF, the “Mountain of the Half,” which is situated half-way between the well of Abu Tlêh and Gaqedûl, as on all these journeys the wells are the real indicators of the hour in the desert-clock.

The Arabs from the district of Gôs Burri, who are our guides, belong to the tribe of the ʾAuadîeh; they are not nearly as respectable as the Ababde Arabs, have a rapid and indistinct mode of speech, and altogether seem to have very little capacity. They may have already intermingled much with the Fellahîn of the country, who here call themselves Qaleâb, Homerâb, Gaalîn. There are also some Schaiqîeh Arabs here, probably only from the time of the conquest of the country by the Egyptians; they carry shields and spears like the Ababde Arabs. The wealthy Sheikh, Emin, of Gôs Burri, had given us his brother, the Fakir Fadl Allah, as our guide, and his own son, Fadl Allah, as overseer to his camels; but even the best among these people make but a miserable and starved appearance in comparison with our desert companions of Korusko. The order of the day here was as follows: that in general we should start about six in the morning, and keep moving till ten o’clock; after that, the caravan rested during the mid-day heat till about three o’clock, and we then proceeded again till about ten or eleven at night.

We rode across the large plain of EL GÔS the whole afternoon, so called, probably, from the great sand dunes, which are characteristic of this part of the country, and which, more especially towards the south, assume a peculiar form. They are almost all in the shape of a crescent, which opens towards the south-west, so that from the road on our right hand we look into a number of tunnels, or semi-theatres, whose precipitous walls of sand rise nearly ten feet from the ground, while the north wind, passing over the field within, clears it completely from the sand, which would gradually fill up the cavity. But the rapidity with which this moveable sand-architecture alters its position is manifested by the single tracks on the caravan-road, which are frequently lost under the very centre of the highest sand-hills. About eight o’clock in the evening we left GEBEL BARQUGRES on our left hand, and halted for the night, about ten o’clock, at a short distance from the Gilif range.

The 3rd May we marched through the WADI GUAH EL ʾALEM, which is covered with a great many trees, into the heart of the mountains, which are chiefly composed of porphyritic rock, and like all primitive mountains, on account of their longer retention of the precipitated humidity and the small amount of rain, are more covered with vegetation than the sandy plains. In three hours we reached the WADI GAQEDÛL, thickly covered with Gesch and thorny trees of every description, Sont, Somra, and Serha. We met some herds of camels and goats grazing here, especially near the water, which had also attracted numerous birds, among others ravens and pigeons. The water is said to be retained for the space of three years, without any fresh accession in this broad, low-situated grotto, about 300 feet in diameter, surrounded, and for the most part covered in, by lofty walls of granite. It was, however, so dirty, and had such an abominable smell, that it was even despised by my thirsty ass. The drinkable water is situated higher up in the mountains, and is difficult of access.

We here quitted the northerly direction into which we had been led by the well, since leaving Gebel Nusf, and continued for several hours very much to the west along the Gilif range, into the WADI EL MEHET, then traversing the perfectly dry bed of the valley (Chôr) of EL AMMER, from which the road to Ambukôl diverges, we halted past ten o’clock at night in the WADI EL UER, which was named by others the WADI ABU HAROD. From this point, the Gilif range retreated for some distance farther towards the east, and only left a succession of sandstone hills in the foreground, along which we rode the following morning. In the W.N.W. we saw other mountain ranges, which are no longer called Gilif; one single two-pointed mountain among them, which stood out from the rest, was called MIGLIK. The great inlet of the Gilif chain, filled with sandstone rock, is two hours broad;[47] the road then continues to lead in a more northerly direction, into the midst of the range itself, which is here called GEBEL EL MÁGEQA, after the well of MÁGEQA.

Before entering this mountain range, we came to a place covered with heaps of stones, which might be supposed to be barrows, though no one lies buried beneath them. Whenever the date merchants come this road, many of whom we met the following morning, with their large round plaited straw baskets, their camel-drivers at this spot demand a trifle from them. He who will give nothing, has a cenotaph such as this erected to him, out of the surrounding stones, as a bad omen for his hard-heartedness. We met with a similar assemblage of tombs in the desert of Korusko. We reached this well soon after nine o’clock, but without halting ascended a wild valley to a considerable height, where we encamped about mid-day.

The whole road was amply supplied with trees, and thereby offered an agreeable variety. The Sont, or gum-trees, were rare here; the Somra appeared most frequently, which begins to spread out directly from the ground in several strong branches, and terminates with a flat covering of thinly-scattered boughs and small green leaves, so that it often forms a completely regular inverted cone, which at this spot sometimes attains to about the height of fifteen feet. Near it grows the HEGLIK, with irregular boughs round the stem, and single tufts of leaves and twigs, like the pear-tree. The thornless SERHA, on the other hand, has all the branches surrounded with quite small green leaves, like moss, and the TONDUB has no leaves at all, but in their place only small green little twigs, growing zig-zag, and almost as close as foliage, while the Sálame shrub consists of long flexible twigs covered with green leaves and long green thorns.

About four o’clock we set out, and descended very gradually from the heights. There are also a number of wells in the WADI KALAS, with very good rain water, about twenty feet in depth; we pitched our encampment for the night at this spot, although we arrived there soon after sunset. The animals were watered, and the skins filled. The whole of the plateau is well supplied with trees and shrubs, and inhabited by men and animals.

Our road on the following day preserved the same character, as long as we were wandering between the beautiful and rugged escarpments of porphyry. After proceeding a couple of hours farther, we came to two other wells, also called KALAS, with little, but good water. From this spot, a road diverged in a north-easterly direction to the well of MERÖE, in the Wadi Abu Dôm, probably so called also from a white rock.

Three hours farther, having passed GEBEL ABRAK, we entered the great WADI ABU DÔM, which we now pursued in a west north-west direction. This remarkable valley passes uninterruptedly by the side of a long mountain chain from the Nile at El Mechêref to the village of Abu Dôm, which is situated obliquely opposite Mount Barkal. When we consider that the upper north-eastern opening of this valley, which traverses the whole Peninsula and its mountain ranges, lies nearly opposite the mouth of the Atbara, which flows into the Nile in the same direction above Mechêref, we cannot help suspecting that once, though perhaps not in historical times, there must have been a connection by water, which cut off the largest portion of the great eastern bend of the Nile, now formed by the rocky elevated plateau at Abu Hammed, driving back the stream above a degree and a half towards the south, contrary to its common direction. The name of the valley is derived from the single Dôm Palms, which are here and there found in it. The mountain chain, which passes along the north of the valley, is completely separated from the range, through which we had hitherto come. At the entrance of this valley we left the solid ground of which the mountain is composed, and the loose sands again prevailed, without however overpowering the still far from scanty vegetation.

In the afternoon, after leaving on our left hand a side valley, OM SCHEBAK, which contains well-water, we encamped for the night as early as nine o’clock. The following morning we came to the deep well of HANIK, and halted about mid-day at a second well, which was called OM SAIALE, after the tree of that name.

At this spot, I left the caravan with Jussuf, to reach Barkal by a circuitous road by NURI, situated on this side of the river somewhat higher up. In an hour and a half we arrived at some considerable ruins of a large Christian convent in the WADI GAZÂL, so called from the gazelles, which dig in great numbers for water here in the Chôr (bed of the valley). The church was built as high as the windows of white, well-hewn sandstone, and above that of unburnt bricks. The walls are covered with a strong coating of plaster, and are painted in the interior. The vaulted apse of the three-naved Basilica is situated, as usual, towards the east, the entrances behind the western transept are towards the north and south; all the arches of the doors, the windows, and between the pillars, are round: above the doors, Coptic crosses are frequently exhibited, more or less ornamented, whose most simple form ✙ may be compared with the ancient Egyptian symbol of Life. The whole church is a genuine type of all the Coptic churches which I have seen in ruins, and I therefore add the small ground plan just as Erbkam took it down.

The building is above eighty feet long, and exactly half as broad. The outer wall to the north has fallen in. The church is surrounded by a great court, whose walls of enclosure, as well as the numerous convent cells, some of which have vaulted roofs, are built of rough blocks, and are in good preservation; the largest of them, a dwelling forty-six feet long, is situated in front of the western side of the church, and is only separated from it by a small narrow court; no doubt it belonged to the prior, and a special side-entrance led from it into the church. Two churchyards are situated on the southern side of the convent; that to the west, about forty paces removed from the church, contained a number of tombs, which consisted simply of a collection of black stones heaped up together. The eastern churchyard was situated nearer to the buildings, and was remarkable from possessing a considerable amount of tombstones with inscriptions, partly in Greek, partly in Coptic, which will induce me to pay a second visit to this remarkable convent before we leave Barkal. I counted more than twenty stones with inscriptions, some of which had sustained much injury, and about as many tablets in burnt earth, with inscriptions scratched into them, though most of them were broken to pieces. They contain the most southern Greek inscriptions which have been hitherto known in the Nile region, with the exception of those of Adulis and Axum in Abyssinia. There is no doubt that the Greek language following in the wake of Christianity, and the traces of which we might have ourselves pursued in structural remains even beyond Soba, was at one time employed and understood, at least for religious objects, by the natives in the flourishing districts, even as far as the interior of Abyssinia; nevertheless these monumental inscriptions (none of them, as far as I could see in a hasty survey, in the Ethiopian language) allow us to infer that the inhabitants of the convent were Greek Coptics who had immigrated.

About five o’clock I left my companions, who went direct to Abu Dôm, and I immediately set out for NURI. We soon saw MOUNT BARKAL shining blue in the distance; it rises singly and precipitously from the surrounding plain, and has a broad platform, and, by its peculiar form and position, at once attracts attention; about six o’clock the Nile valley, which is here of considerable breadth, lay spread out before us, a sight always longed for after the desert journey, and which, like the approaching misty coast after a sea voyage, keeps the attention of the traveller in a state of joyful expectation.

Our road, however, now turned towards the right, and led among the mountains, which stretch out into the plain, and are still composed of masses of porphyry. When we stood directly in front of Barkal, I observed on our left hand a great number of black barrows, either round, or pyramidal in form, similar to those I previously saw at Meröe. It was probably the general cemetery of NAPATA, which even in the time of Herodotus was the royal residence of the Ethiopian kings, and was situated on the farther bank; a considerable town must therefore at one time have been placed on the left bank of the Nile, which would also explain the position of the Pyramids of NURI on the same side of the river. Nevertheless, I have not been able to discover any mound of ruins in accordance with this surmise. I only saw some similar to these, though not of considerable extent, behind the village of Duêm and at Abu Dôm, which were called SANAB. It was not before half-past seven that we arrived in the neighbourhood of this considerable group of Pyramids, and we quartered ourselves for the night in the house of the Sheikh of the village.

Before sunrise I was already at the Pyramids, of which I counted twenty-five. They are some of them grander than those at Meröe, but are built of soft sandstone, and, therefore, have suffered much from exposure to the weather; only very few of them had a portion of the smooth casing preserved. The largest shows, again, the same structure in the interior which I have referred to in the Pyramids of Lower Egypt; a smaller internal Pyramid was enlarged in all its dimensions by a superimposed stone casing. In one place, on the west side, the smoothed upper surface of the internal structure was most clearly disclosed beneath the well-joined external covering, which is eight feet thick. Little is to be seen here of ante-chambers such as there are in Meröe and at the Pyramids of Barkal; I think I have only found the remains of two; the rest, if they ever existed, must have been completely demolished, or buried beneath the rubbish. Some of the Pyramids, however, stand so immediately against each other, that, on that account alone, an ante-chamber, at least on the last side where it might have been expected, could not have existed. Besides this, the Pyramids are generally built quite massively of square blocks; I could only perceive, on the one situated most to the east, that it was filled up with black unhewn stones. There is also a truncated Pyramid like that of Daschûr; but here the lower, and not, as in that instance, the upper angle of inclination, must have been the one originally intended, as the former is scarcely sufficient for a series of steps. Although, unfortunately, I had been unable to discover any inscriptions, with the exception of one single small fragment of granite, yet much seems to favour the idea that this group of Pyramids is of an older date, while those of Barkal are more recent.

Soon after ten o’clock I reached ABU DÔM, where I found my companions already arrived. The whole of the next day was occupied in crossing the Nile, and we did not reach Barkal before sunset. Georgi, to my delight, had arrived here some days previously from Dongola. We now more than ever require his assistance, because drawings must be made of whatever we meet with here. The Ethiopian royal residence of King TAHRAKA, who reigned at the same time in Egypt, and left buildings behind him, the same who in the time of Hezekiah marched to Palestine against Sennacherib, is too important for us not to exhaust it, if possible, of its treasures.

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