Retrospect.

Before I proceed to describe our journey through the desert, it may be as well to take a glance at the country we have passed, and look once more at its people.

The Egyptian Fellah, who forms the staple of the population, rarely exceeds the middle stature. His head, and the whole of his face is generally shaved; of course leaving him neither moustache nor beard. He is not industrious; nature has not given him much to do, and he has scarcely energy to do that.

The land will annually produce, at least four times as much as is required for the subsistence of the people. With a rude instrument, not unlike the pointed stick with which cabbages and lettuces are planted in England, he bores a hole in the mud, on the islands left by the receding river, and the beans or lentil-seeds, which are dropped into it, will become ready for gathering without further attention. More labour is necessary to make the land, not immediately on the banks of the river, produce its wonted harvest, and shadoofs, so often spoken of in these pages, are requisite for its irrigation.

This is managed in the following way: the ground is parcelled out in beds about twelve feet square, which are raked in the most careful manner; while little acqueducts run round each, and a slate filling up the sluice, lets the water, ever running from the shadoofs, on and off, as it may be required.

As far as I could learn, these fields, if properly attended, will produce three crops annually. Pigeons, and sometimes hares, are devouring the seed as it is thrown into the prepared mud, or nibbling the cornsprouts as they raise themselves to the surface. Every two or three days, the little sluices are thrown open, and the flowerbeds covered with an inch or two of water.

As you walk along, you are struck with the great amount of population; five or six fellahs are working in each field, and their wives and children are assisting them, or play about, awaiting their return to the village. These villages, as I have already shown, are exceedingly pretty. Up to Ossioot they are all on the brink of the river, which flows tranquilly past. A dozen mud dwellings, a whitewashed mosque, with its tall minaret, and a grove of waving palms form the picture; and a very charming one it is. A few clumsily-built boats are lying moored against the high bank, and the gaudy blue and yellow dhabehee of the Cavaghi adds another feature to the scene.

In entering their humble dwellings, you must stoop low to pass through the doors. There are four or five rooms, all filled with smoke, from a miserable fire in the outer room, made of little cakes of dung and sand, emitting a most disagreable odour. A few old women, often as many as four or five, are warming their withered hands over the embers, or stirring the large cauldron in which the soup of lentils, or the mess of beans is preparing for the family repast. These ancient women almost suggest the question:

But they are not witches, and as they hurriedly drop their veils (I always thought they meant a kindness to the spectator), they resume the very domestic occupations of spinning, and nursing some little grandchild.

Around the outer room hang household utensils and agricultural implements; in the others, mats stretched on the ground, or little bedsteads covered with undressed sheepskins, constitute the only furniture. Dogs, sheep, and pigeons dispute every inch of territory, and the smoke soon forces you to retire.

Women, in their ever-graceful blue robes, carry up jars of water from the river side, while their children are playing on the shore, or swimming round the boat for backsheesh. I was particularly struck with the invariable good-humour of the little urchins on the Nile. They have not the sharp, impertinent look of the juvenile mendicants in our large towns, and are as far removed from the stolid stupidity of the youth of our rural and agricultural districts, who, as they open a gate not a mile distant from some large village, respond to your question as to its whereabouts, with a “Doan’t know,” or a long stare. They seem intelligent and bright; familiar, though always respectful. I never saw them ill-treating each other; might does not, in their estimation, essentially constitute right, nor did I ever observe any bigger boy bullying a weak or delicate child, as is too often done in England.

What I missed most in my visits to these people, was the affection and filial tenderness which should naturally subsist between children and their parents; but this, though not ostentatiously displayed, is not always wanting. The existence of such feelings was strikingly evinced in the behaviour of our Reis to his son.

The Reis had brought his son away from home, preferring the corrupting influences of boat life to the chances of his being torn from his mother’s care by the hateful conscription, and a parent more affectionate, or a child more dutiful, I never beheld. Said—so the boy was named—was about ten years old, and of most engaging appearance, with fine bright eyes, and a clear copper complexion, beautifully shaded. He was very intelligent, and from the day of his appearance amongst us, we dressed him in bright chintz, always clean.

We promoted him from the office of do-nothing to the very important one of gun-cleaner and pipe-bearer, and he always accompanied us on our shooting excursions, proving himself a capital retriever. On one occasion, he had broken some dinner knives of ours, and as far as I could learn had not confessed with his usual veracity, as he was a very honest boy. For this, he was most mercilessly punished—a duty his father evidently disliked; this clouded the harmony previously existing between them, as the son did not take the well-deserved chastisement in the way he probably would have done previously to the indulgence and independence he had enjoyed on board. The next night, as he was leaning over the prow of the boat, then darting forwards under a heavy gale, he fell overboard, and instantly disappeared beneath the waters. I was standing by his father, who was at the helm, on the top of the high cabin, and was a witness of the catastrophe. He would not, even to save his son, neglect his duty, which at that moment involved the safety of others, and it was left to strangers to rescue his only child from destruction. Quick as thought, however, three men dashed overboard; the boat was lowered to pull them up; and in a few minutes, the boy, though in a state of insensibility, was restored to his father. The latter neither exhibited deep anxiety at his threatened loss, nor intense gratitude at his child’s almost miraculous preservation; we were much surprised at his apparently stern indifference and apathy. But in his desire to conceal his feelings which nature had given him, he had overrated his strength; the same night he was taken very ill, and several days elapsed before he recovered his usual energy.

As I lay on the deck one night talking to Daireh, and enjoying the exquisite moonlight and soft cool air, among other stories which he told me was the following, accounting as he said in a curious manner for the origin of the three varieties of Arab character.

“When Noah was about to enter into the Ark, he went to the first shipwright then dwelling in the world, and asked him if he would build him a boat, according to the measurements he had prepared; but the man answered:

“‘You have asked God to make us equally rich, and as I am as rich as you, why should I build you a boat?’

“Noah answered:

“‘I will give you my beautiful daughter in marriage.’ Then the great builder of ships agreed, and built the Ark.

“But in its construction, they wanted the great worker in iron, and Noah offered him in vain heaps of that money which he possessed in as sufficient quantities as himself; and again the much-coveted daughter was promised as the price of the iron fittings. The Ark was built, but had to be furnished for its long voyage, and the corn merchant refused to stock the vessel with the requisite provisions, except at the already twice promised price of the beautiful daughter. This was agreed to, and now all was prepared, the ark was ready, and the three sons-in-law wended their way towards the embarrassed parent. The young maiden was carrying water from the ever-flowing well, as, every one being equally rich, no one would work for another; but her dog had strayed into her room, and as the father entered the house with the great ironmonger, he found a beautiful daughter where he had only left a dog, and the happy man departed with the miraculously changed animal. Then came the grain factor, and departed with an ass transformed into the shape of its mistress; and Noah felt relieved of the anxiety which his indiscreet promises had caused him. And now together approached the real daughter, conversing with the shipwright, and Noah joined their hands, and they all went into the Ark together, and when the waters rose, they sailed away.”

As Daireh finished his tale, he turned to the least intelligent of the sailors, and as he called him, and he answered with a long and stupid “What?” He said: “you see he come from the donkey mother; and that man which so quarrel with the other Reis, you see, he come from dog parent; and when you see our young lady, you no can doubt she descend from real Noah daughter.”

“But Daireh,” said I, “do you really believe that tale?”

“Why! clever Dervish tell it me.”

I was unable, by frequent conversations with the dragoman, to discover what position the Dervishes filled among the village people. An old grey-headed man was always to be seen smoking or idling about in the court-yard of the mosque; he, though having evidently no salaams, was attached to these Dervishes, who have the monopoly of professional begging, and are always wonderfully dressed in piles of clothes, of all ages and fashions, from European frock coats, to untanned tiger and lion skins. They made very free with our party, always laying their hands upon me, and invoking many blessings on my head, in which, if I am to trust the interpretations of Daireh, length of years and eternal youth figured conspicuously.

These are the real Dervishes, or priests, but all clever Arabs are called by the same title. We have a sailor on board one of the boats, or rather a man taken by the crew as a servant, who we were assured, “was quite real Dervish.” He was dressed as the rest of the crew, and used to read aloud from some dirty manuscript, which he kept in his hat, nearly every night; it was generally the “Arabian Nights,” but sometimes a more modern work. He wrote all the agreements, kept all the accounts of the other men, and prayed much more frequently than any of them.

The people pray on rising and on going to rest, and once or twice besides, in the middle of the day. In our boats, these devotions were very regularly performed; and nearly all day some one or other of the crew was prostrating himself on the roof, his face turned towards the city of his Prophet; or washing, previously to his devotions, in the little boat behind.

Most of the crew were married, and some had many children, though they all seemed to have lost a good number, whom they talked of meeting again in Heaven.

Women are invariably spoken of with great respect, and always treated with kindness. “He very bad man, beat his wife,” was Daireh’s severest censure; nor could I find any who had had more than one wife at a time. They divorce themselves, however, very easily; a quarrel, or even a difference of opinion, seems to constitute sufficient cause for a separation; while the wife can demand a divorce, in Egypt, because her husband does not give her as much sweet-smelling scents as she wishes, or in Nubia because he does not give her the quantity of oil and grease to which her rank, as his wife, entitles her.

I was surprised, under these circumstances, that divorces were not more frequent; but on Daireh’s explaining the manner in which the dowries are managed, I began to understand it without difficulty. At the wedding, the husband settles a dowry on his wife—perhaps a pigeon-house and its feathery occupants, or a few acres of land, or a diabeheeh, or some household utensils; and should he dismiss her, from whatever cause, except, of course, those which would seem sufficient in more civilized lands, he must hand over her dowry, which, as no odium is attached to the discarded wife, speedily procures her another husband.

The Arabs are very tenacious of property, and one can hardly guess how many matrimonial squabbles are happily prevented by the wholesome fear of losing the pigeon-house, or having to give up the diabeheeh.

Pigeon-houses, as the reader may have observed from my descriptions, are quite a feature in Nile scenery; and the upper story of every dwelling, in some villages, is crowded with pigeons and their nests. They are kept solely for their manure, and seem in themselves common property. We were always allowed, and even encouraged to kill as many as we liked, except close to the village, where the owners were afraid we should scare them. Not so the doves, which, as Abbas told me, “are not lucky for man to kill,” though, when killed, he appeared to have no objection to cooking them in the most approved style; and very good they were, our ladies preferring them to partridges.

I expected to have found the Arabs more superstitious than they are. Our servants were as much so as any one we met; our crews, wild and courageous, were the reverse. The most popular and deep-rooted prejudice was against Wednesday; and all the undertakings commenced on that day, were, they thought, sure to be disastrous. At Cairo, bricklayers will not begin a work, or finish it, on Wednesday; nor will native merchants be easily induced to buy or sell; business on Wednesdays, therefore, is “very dull,” and articles “heavy of sale.” On Friday, on the contrary, business is peculiarly “brisk,” as on that day there is a lucky hour, which is to be seized upon, as the unlucky one on Wednesday is, if possible, to be avoided.

It often occurred to me, that what was lucky to the seller might be unlucky to the buyer; but this does not seem to have struck the Egyptian, and he persists in being very prudent on Wednesdays, and very rash on Fridays.

Our crews were a constant source of amusement to us, they were always merry and good-humoured, and particularly so when the wind blew strong from the north, filling our huge sail; and then our Reis at the helm, telling his son some tale, in a low and monotonous voice, would leave the sailors free to amuse themselves as they liked. They had but one enjoyment, but it seemed never to fail. Gathering round the man whose duty it was to sit at the rope which held the mainsail, the drum was produced—a sheep-skin stretched over a kind of earthenware jar, open at the other end—and a pipe wonderfully constructed; and then commenced a concert, the airs being all in one key. They had but few songs; and some I recognised as having been thought worthy of translation. I insert two, the composition of a kind friend—

At the end of each verse, which is sung by one person, the crew join in, sometimes with a yell of horror, sometimes with a shout of delight, as the occasion may require, and sometimes only repeating the last line in chorus. That apathy which so especially distinguishes the Arab, disappears altogether when under the influence of music; and I have seen some of the men worked up to a state of wild enthusiasm, or fearful rage, by a well-sung account of their domestic circle going wrong during their absence. But Daireh had such an aversion to translating the words of their numerous effusions all to one tune, that I was obliged to conclude that there were but few of them adapted to “ears polite.” I have often thought, however, that Daireh was a very free translator. The first time I had any doubt about his veracity as an interpreter, was at Ossioot, where the following conversation ensued between the Governor and myself, through his agency.

“Daireh, tell his Excellency, that I could not pass through this city without having the honour of seeing him.”

“No, Herr George, I not say that, I say his having honour to see you: then give you pipe directly.”

The Pasha. “What are you saying?”

Daireh. “He say he very great man from England, come on purpose all the way to call upon very mighty Governor of Ossioot.”

The Pasha. “Taib, hat tchibouque.” (Good, bring a pipe for him.)

“Daireh,” I asked, “what did you tell him?”

“Oh! I tell him he ought to make much honour to see you. You very great man.”

“Undeceive him directly. Tell him I am an English traveller.”

Pasha (evidently uneasy about our prolonged “asides”.) “Is the Cavaghi come by himself?”

Daireh. “No; he have very big family on very fine boat.”

Pasha. “Taib” (and a long smoke ensued).

I now began to insist on a real translation of my speeches, and I made some progress in Oriental conversation. I think it was in this interview I discovered that crossing one’s legs whilst sitting in a divan or chair, and putting one’s hand’s in one’s pockets, were abominations to the Egyptians.

Itinerary for the Desert.

Our plan was to ride from Wady Halfa to Dongola, cutting off all the bends of the river, but endeavouring to sleep nightly on its banks. From Dongola, we intended to cross over to Gebel Berkel, passing through the desert of Argab-Teschagoa. We should cross the river at Merowah, and make our way through the desert of Bayiouda to Metamneh, or Wady Bashara, as our guides, in that country the supreme authorities, should direct. From this point, we should proceed to Khartoum, whence boats were to carry us to Berber, where we could procure camels to Korosko, about seventy miles above Assouan. No ladies had ever as yet succeeded in penetrating to the south of Dongola, and we by no means bound ourselves to that adventurous course.

Our three tents, and innumerable boxes were got out of the hold of the two boats: the Cairene water-skins, which of course all leaked, were repaired, and our small desert wardrobe was already stowed in our little carpet-bags. We then explained to the Reis that five weeks were to elapse before he left Wady Halfa, on his downward journey to Korosko, but Daireh took the word out of our lips, and said:

“You see the moon; when it go away, and come again big as now, you still wait till you have prayed seven times on the top of the cabin, in the night; and when the moon come small before it go, and you have had your prayer seven times, then turn the boat, and row.”

In my anxiety to try how a tent served for a bedroom, I carried up all my things, and pitched my canvass dwelling on the shore, regardless of a violent gale blowing at the time, I installed myself within; but my house was indeed founded on the sand, and about midnight, the whole fabric was blown down. I passed a very uncomfortable night indeed, but the morning broke at last, and we prepared for our first real day in the desert.

The annexed observations were made by my father up to the time of his death, and have been continued with, I hope, the same accuracy and attention.

We used an aneroid barometer, which we found had not varied the least during this long journey, when we compared it at Cairo on our return there. As the greater portion of the observations refer to the journey described in the first volume, they are introduced here, in preference to placing them at the end of the work.