Abou Hassan el Masoudy[136] relates:—The Bakt is the annual tribute of slaves which has been imposed upon the Noubas, and is received from them and carried to Egypt. It consists in three hundred and sixty five head of slaves to the public treasury, according to the tenour of the articles of peace between the Noubas and the Moslims. Besides these, the governor of Egypt receives forty head; his representative, who resides at Assouan, and collects the Bakt, twenty head; the governor of Assouan, who, together with him, is present at the collecting of the Bakt, five head, and the twelve trusty witnesses of the people of Assouan, who are to accompany the governor on this business, twelve head; the whole, according to the stipulations of the Bakt, when the Moslims and Noubas first concluded their treaty.

El Beladiry, in his work entitled El Tetouhat,[137] says: “the amount of the renewed tribute of the Noubas is four hundred slaves, for which they take in return victuals, that is to say, grain. The Emir of the true Believers, El Mohdy Mohammed Ibn Aly Djafar el Mansour,[138] obliged them to pay three hundred and sixty head of slaves, and a Giraffa. The mischievous and troublesome behaviour of Daoud (David) the king of the Noubas, was principally manifested in the year of the Hejira 674. After he had committed great excesses at Aidab, he came with his army nearly as far as Assouan, and there burnt many water wheels. The governor of Kous marched against Daoud, but not meeting with him, laid hold of the Lord of the Mountain, and numbers of Noubas, whom he carried before the Sultan Daher Bybars el Bondokdary, at the Castle of Cairo, where their bodies were severed in two. Shekendy,[139] the son of the King of Nouba’s sister, then came to implore assistance against the injustice which he had experienced from his uncle Daoud. The Sultan ordered the Emir Shams-eddyn Ak Soukor el Farekany, the intendant of his household,[140] with the Emir Djandar Emir Oz-eddyn Aybek el Afram,[141] to march together with Shekendy against Daoud, with a large army composed of the provincial horsemen,[142] and of the Arabs of southern Egypt, and of lancers, bowmen, and fire-men.[143] They left Cairo on the first of the month of Sheban. Upon their arrival in Nouba the enemy met them, mounted upon camels, armed with lances, and covered with black Dekadek.[144] Both parties fought bravely, and the Noubas fled. El Afram now fell upon Kallat Addo,[145] where he killed and took prisoners many of them. El Farakany penetrated into the interior of Nouba by land and by the river, killing or enslaving every body. He took an innumerable quantity of cattle, and alighted at the island of Mykayl, at the top of the cataracts;[146] from whence he obliged the Nouba ships to retreat, while the Nouba themselves fled to the islands. He then wrote a promise of safe conduct to Kamr el Doula,[147] the lieutenant of Daoud, who swore allegiance to the Shekendy, and brought back all the people of Merys, and the fugitives; after which El Afram crossed over a shallow part of the river, to a tower built in the water, which he besieged until he took it. Two hundred men were killed there, and a brother of Daoud was taken prisoner; Daoud fled, and was closely pursued for three days by the soldiers, who killed and took prisoners a great number on the road, until the people submitted. The mother and sister of Daoud were taken, but he himself escaped. Shekendy was now confirmed in his stead, and agreed to pay an annual personal tribute of three elephants, three giraffas, five female Fahed, one hundred camels of good race, and four hundred chosen cows,[148] and that the soil of Nouba should thenceforward be divided into two parts;[149] one half for the Sultan, and the other to be appropriated to the fertilizing and guarding of the country; excepting the territory of the cataracts, which was to belong entirely to the Sultan, on account of its vicinity to Assouan: this alone was about one-fourth of Nouba.[150] Farther, that the dates and the cotton of this part, as well as the ancient customary duties, should be carried off, and that as long as they should remain Christians, they should pay the Djezye, or annual Om Dinar in cash, for every grown up person.[151] There was a form of oath written out concerning these articles, by which Shekendy bound himself, and there was another by which his subjects swore. The two commanders destroyed the churches of Nouba,[152] and carried away whatever they found in them. They seized about twenty of the chiefs of Nouba, and liberated the Moslims of Assouan and Aidab, who were captives in the hands of the Noubas. Shekendy was crowned, and seated on the throne of his kingdom, after he had taken his oath. He was obliged to send the property of Daoud, and that of all those who were killed or taken captives, whether money or cattle, to the Sultan, together with the usual Bakt. This consisted in an annual payment of a giraffa and of four hundred slaves, of whom three hundred and sixty were for the Khalif, and forty for his lieutenant at Cairo, with the condition that he should send them in return, upon the full receipt of the Bakt, one thousand Erdeybs of wheat to the king of Nouba, and three hundred to his delegates.[153]

Description of the Town of Assouan.[154]

It begins with some remarks on the etymology of the word Assouan, which is said to mean a person in grief. Assouan lies on the extremity of the territories of Sayd. It is one of the harbours of this province, and divides Nouba from the country of Egypt. In former times a great plenty of wheat, grain, fruits, vegetables, and pot herbs, was found here, together with abundance of camels, cows, and sheep, whose flesh is of peculiar good flavour and fatness. The prices of provisions were always very low. Goods and articles of trade were found here, that were transported to the country of Nouba. To the east there is not any Moslim country bordering on Assouan: to the south there is a mountain, in which are the mines of emeralds, in an insulated barren country. At fifteen days journey from Assouan are the gold mines.[155] To the westward are the Oases. From Assouan a road leads to Aidab, from whence is the passage to the Hedjaz, and Yemen, and India. Masoudy relates: Assouan is inhabited by people of the Arabs Kahtan, Nezar Ibn Rabya, Modher, and Arabs of Koreysh, most of them transplanted from the Hedjaz.[156] The town has abundance of date trees; it is fertile and rich. The date stone is put into the ground, and the tree grows out of it, and after (a certain number of) years they eat the fruit.[157] The people of Assouan possess many villages within the confines of Nouba, the duties on which they pay to the king of Nouba. These villages were bought from the Noubas in the time of the Islam, during the reign of Beni Omeya and Beni Abbas. When El Mamoun arrived in Egypt, the king of Nouba asked for his protection against these people of Assouan, by means of emissaries whom he dispatched to Fostat. They complained to El Mamoun, that some villages of Nouba had been sold to their neighbours of Assouan; that these villages belonged to the king of Nouba, and that those who sold them were the king’s slaves, who possessed no property, and whose only business it was to take care of the cultivation. Mamoun referred them to the governor of Assouan, to the learned men, and Shikhs of that town. The people of Assouan who had bought the villages, perceiving that they were in danger of losing them, had recourse to a stratagem against the king of Nouba. They proposed to the Noubas who had sold the villages, when they appeared before the governor, to deny that they were slaves of the king, and to say, “the same relation exists between us and our king, O Moslims, as between you and your king. We owe him only submission, and are bound only not to contravene his orders. If you, therefore, are the slaves, and the property of your king, then we are the same.” They spoke other similar things, to which they had been prompted, and thus the sale was confirmed, and so it has remained until our times. The possession of these villages, in the territory of Merys in the country of Nouba, was transmitted by inheritance, and the Noubas, the subjects of the king, now became divided into two classes; the one, as we have stated, freemen, not slaves, and the other part slaves.[158] The latter were those who did not dwell in this territory of Merys, which is in the neighbourhood of Assouan.

Masoudy relates,[159] that the Noubas were divided into two branches. The one dwelt on the two banks of the Nile; their territory bordered upon the territory of the Copts of Upper Egypt, and extended far up the river; they built, as the seat of their government, the large city of Dóngola. The other race of the Noubas is called Aloa, and they have built the large town of Serfeta.[160] The country of Nouba, the territory of which borders upon the soil of Assouan, is called Merys, from which the Merysan wind takes its name.[161]

On the east side of Upper Egypt is a large mountain of marble, from whence the ancients cut columns, and pedestals, and capitals, which the Egyptians call Assouanye, (the same name they also give to the mill-stones). The ancients wrought these things many hundred years before the appearance of Christianity, and among them are to be reckoned the columns of Alexandria.

In the month of Zol Hadj, in the year 344, the king of Nouba attacked Assouan, and killed many Moslims. In the month of Moharran 345, marched against him Mohammed Ibn Abdallah, the treasurer of the Egyptian army of El Wodjour, Ibn el Ak Shedy (king of Egypt), by land and by sea.[162] He sent back many prisoners of the Noubas, who were beheaded at Cairo, after the king of Nouba had likewise met with his fate. He continued his march until he conquered Ibrim, and reduced its inhabitants to captivity, and he returned to Cairo with 150 prisoners, and many heads, in the middle of the month of Djomad el Awal, 345.[163]

The Kadhy el Fadhel states, that in the year 585, the income of the port of Assouan was 25,000 Dinars.[164] Djaafar el Edfouy relates:[165] at Assouan are 80 officers of the tribunal of justice, and Assouan produced in one year 30,000 Erdeybs of dates. Somebody informed me that he had met with a writing that contained the names of 40 Sherifs of the purest race (of Assouan) and another in which there were 60, besides the rest. And (El Edfouy) says: “I have met with a writing, dated in the year 620, that mentioned the names of 40 authors of Assouan.”

At Assouan were settled the Beni el Kenz, a tribe of Rabya, very praiseworthy people, celebrated by many verses. El Fadhel el Sedyd Abou el Hassan Ibn Aram has written their history. When Salah eddyn Ibn Ayoub[166] sent an army against Kenz el Doula[167] and his party, they left this territory.[168] The soldiers entered their houses, and found therein verses of those who had sung their praises, and among the rest a poem of Mohammed el Hassan Ibn Zebeyr, in which was this passage:

For which the author received 1000 Dinars, and a water-wheel (with its field) was entailed upon him, worth 1000 Dinars.[169] regular armed garrison had always been stationed at Assouan, to guard the harbour against the inroads of the Nouba, and the blacks. When the reign of the Fatimites terminated,[170] this port was neglected. The king of Nouba, with 10,000 men, fell then again upon the island opposite Assouan,[171] and took prisoners all its Moslim inhabitants.[172] After this period the affairs of this harbour declined. After the year 790, the tribe of El Kenz became masters of it. They behaved vilely, and had many wars with the governors of this town, until the destructive epoch of 806.[173] Upper Egypt was then ruined and depopulated, the Sultan drew off his hand from Assouan, and he no longer kept a governor there. It remained in a deserted state for many years. In the month of Moharram, of the year 815, the Arabs Howara[174] proceeded to Assouan and attacked the Beni Kenz, and obliged them to fly.[175] They killed many of them, and reduced to slavery all the women and children whom they took prisoners.[176] They destroyed the walls of Assouan, departed with their captives, and left the city in ruins, without inhabitants. In this state the town remained, of which Selym el Assouany relates, that when Abd el Hamyd el Amry took the mines, he wrote to Assouan to demand from the merchants to supply him with provisions, upon which one man of the name of Othman Ibn Hauthale el Temymy, carried to him 1000 loads of provisions and corn. (Here follows a few other notices on Assouan of little interest.)

Belak.

Belak is the last fortified place of the Moslims. It is an island in the neighbourhood of the cataract, surrounded by the Nile, with a large town upon it, well inhabited, with a number of date trees, and a Mambar (pulpit) in a mosque.[177] Between this and the city called Kaszer, which is the first town of Nouba, is one mile, and between Assouan and Belak four miles. Between Assouan and Belak are cataracts in the river, over which the ships cannot pass but with great caution, and guided by the fishermen of these parts, who are acquainted with the passage. At the Kaszer is a garrison post, and it is a gate towards Nouba.

On the Desert of Aidab or Aizab.

The pilgrims from Egypt and Barbary remained upwards of 200 years without taking any other road to Mekka, may God honour her, than by the desert of Aidab. They embarked on the Nile at the plain of Fostat, and ascended as far as Kous. From thence they mounted camels, and crossed this desert to Aidab, where they afterwards embarked in vessels for Djidda, on the coast of Mekka. In the same manner the merchants of India, and Yemen, and Habesh, arrived by this sea at Aidab, reached through this desert the town of Kous, and from thence Mesr. This desert continued to be peopled and frequented by caravans of merchants and of pilgrims going and coming, in so much that loads of spices and drugs, as pepper, cinnamon, and others were found on the road, while caravans were ascending and descending, and nobody touched them until their owner took them away.[178] The pilgrims in going to Mekka and returning from thence, continued to frequent that road more than 200 years, from the year 453 and upwards, to the year 663 and upwards, at which time happened the great misfortune during the reign of the Khalif Mostanser b’illah Aly Temim Mad Ibn el Dhaher,[179] and the pilgrim caravans were interrupted by land and by sea until the Sultan Dhaher Roken eddyn Bybars el Bondokdary clothed again the Kaba, and made a key to it. A caravan then departed by land in the year 66—.[180] But the passage of pilgrims through this desert became less frequent, although it continued to be the road by which the merchandises were carried from Aidab to Kous, until the year 760, when it was abandoned, after which the affairs of Kous declined. This desert from Kous to Aidab is seventeen days journey across, during which no water is found for three, and once for four, successive days.[181] Aidab is a town on the coast of the sea of Djidda. It has no walls, and most of its houses are built of mats.[182] It was formerly one of the first harbours of the world, because the ships from India and Yemen brought here their merchandise, and set sail again in company with the ships of the pilgrims that passed to and fro. When the Indian and Yemen ships ceased to arrive at this place, then Aden, of the Yemen, became the great harbour, until after 820 and upwards, Djidda became the first harbour of the world, and likewise Hormuz, which is a fine anchoring place. Aidab is situated in a desert devoid of any vegetation; all the provisions, even the water, are imported. Its inhabitants derived immense gains from the merchants and the pilgrims; they had certain established dues from every camel’s load belonging to the pilgrims,[183] and hired their ships to them to cross over the sea to Djidda, and from thence back to Aidab; by which they accumulated great riches. There was no inhabitant of Aidab who had not one or more ships, in proportion to the amount of his property. In the sea of Aidab, at some islands in the vicinity of it, is a pearl fishery.[184] The divers issue from Aidab every year at a fixed period, in small boats. Arrived at the island, they remain there some time, and come back with whatever has fallen to their good fortune. They find the pearls in water of little depth.

The people of Aidab live like brutes. They resemble in their character wild beasts more than human beings. The pilgrims are exposed during their sea voyage to terrible adventures. They usually meet with strong winds in distant and desert anchoring places to the south.[185] The Bedja people then come down to them from their mountains and hire to them their camels, with which they travel without any supply of water.[186] Many of them die from thirst, and the Bedjas take whatever they had with them. Others lose their road, and likewise die from thirst, and he who escapes reaches Aidab as if risen out of his winding sheet, and entirely altered in features and in body. No where perish more pilgrims than in these anchoring places. To others, but the smaller number, the wind is propitious, and carries them to Aidab. In the ships that carry the pilgrims, are no nails whatsoever. They sew the planks with the Kombar, which is made of the cocoa tree,[187] and drive into them wooden pegs made of the date tree; after which they pour butter over them, or the oil of the Kheroa,[188] or the fat of the Kersh,[189] which is a very large sea fish that swallows up the drowned. The sails of these ships are made of the mats of the tree Mokel.[190] The inhabitants of Aidab use all kind of devilish practices with the pilgrims. Anxious for the fare, they load their ships with passengers one above the other, and never care about what may happen to them at sea, saying, on the contrary: “to us belongs the care of the ships, and to the pilgrims that of their own selves.”[191] The inhabitants of Aidab are of the Bedja, and have a king of that nation, and a governor named by the Sultan of Egypt. I have seen myself their Kadhy at Cairo, a man of black colour. The Bedjas have no religion, and are people of no understanding. Their males and females go constantly naked, with some rags round their loins, but many of them have no covering whatever. The heat is very great at Aidab, on account of the burning Simoum. (V. note b at the end.)