A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar Part 3

On the 22d, at the rising of the moon, the camp proceeded, and halted in the forenoon on the beach of the river, opposite Halfya, a very large village on the easterly bank. We stayed here till the twenty-sixth to obtain durra from this territory, whose chief brought, as a present to the Pasha, some fine horses and many camels, and received, in return, some valuable presents. Our side of the river is desert, and covered with trees and bushes. During our stay opposite Halfya, the Nile, on the night of the 23d, rose suddenly about two feet, and inundated some parts of the sandy flats where we were encamped; the water entering the tents of several, my own among others, and wetting my bed, arms, and baggage.[46] It had risen a little shortly after the equinox, while the army was in Berber, and afterwards subsided more than it had risen.

We find the sky every day more and more overcast; distant thunder and lightning, accompanied with violent squalls, (which have overset my tent twice,) are, within a few days, frequent, and drops of rain have fallen in our camp.

On the 26th, at one hour after noon, we proceeded to the Bahar el Abiud, about five hours march above our present position, where the Pasha intends to cross into the territory of Sennaar. The camp arrived at sunset at a position a little above where the Nile falls into the Bahar el Abiud, and stopped. Immediately on my arrival, I drank of this river, being, probably, the first man of Frank origin that ever tasted its waters.

The Nile is not half as broad as the Bahar el Abiud, which is, from bank to bank, one mile higher than where the Nile joins it, about a mile and a quarter in breadth. It comes, as far as we can see it, from the west-south-west. The Nile of Bruce must, therefore, after the expedition of Ismael Pasha, be considered as a branch of a great and unexplored river, which may possibly be found to be connected with the Niger.

On the 27th, early in the morning, the Pasha commenced transporting the army over the Bahar el Abiud, by means of nine small boats, which had been able to pa.s.s the third Cataract, and follow the army. The country on our side of the Bahar el Abiud, is uncultivated, and apparently without inhabitants. The army is encamped by the side of the river, on a beautiful plain of good soil, extending a considerable distance back towards the desert. During the inundation, this plain becomes evidently an island, as there is a channel worn by water, in the rear of it, at this season dry. The tracks of the hippopotamus are found throughout this plain.

By the 29th, in the afternoon, i.e. in two days and a half, the Pasha had finished transporting into Sennaar the whole of his camp, consisting of about six thousand persons, with the artillery, ammunition, tents, baggage, horses, camels, and a.s.ses, by the aid of nine boats, none of them large, an expedition, I believe, unparalleled in the annals of Turkish warfare.[47]

During our stay on the other side of the Bahar el Abiud, it was reported in the camp that some of the Mogrebin soldiers, gone out to shoot gazelles, had killed in the desert which lies off from the river, an animal, resembling a bull, except that its feet were like those of a camel. I did not see this animal, but the story was affirmed to me by several.

The army, on its crossing the Bahar el Abiud, encamped on the point of land just below which the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile join each other.

The water of the Bahar el Abiud is troubled and whitish, and has a peculiar sweetish taste. The soldiers said that "the water of the Bahar el Abiud would not quench thirst." This notion probably arose from the circ.u.mstance that they were never tired of drinking it, it is so light and sweet. The water of the Nile is at present perfectly pure and transparent, but by no means so agreeable to the palate as that of the Bahar el Abiud, as I experimented myself, drinking first of the Bahar el Abiud, and then walking about two hundred yards across the point, and drinking of the Nile, the water of which appeared to me hard and tasteless in comparison.

Nothing of the kind could be easier than to ascend the Bahar el Abiud from the place where we are. A canja, well manned and armed, and accompanied by another boat containing provisions for four or six months, and both furnished with grapnels to enable them at night to anchor in the river, might, in my opinion, ascend and return securely: as the tribes on its borders have great dread of fire-arms, and will hardly dare to meddle with those who carry them.

We stayed on the Sennaar side of the Bahar el Abiud till the 1st of Ramadan, when the army commenced its march for Sennaar, the capital, proceeding by the bank of the Nile.[48]

The army reached Sennaar in thirteen days. The signal for striking the tents and loading the camels was generally fired about two hours after midnight. One hour was allowed for loading the baggage, when a second cannon was fired, and the march of the army commenced, and was continued each day till about two or three hours before noon, when the camp reposed till about two hours after midnight of the same day. The army suffered severely during this march; nothing was given to the troops for subsistence but durra, unground, which the soldiers were frequently in great distress to obtain the means of making into meal, in order to bake a little miserable bread, which was all they had to eat.[49] For myself, I was reduced to great extremity. The camel, carrying my provisions and culinary utensils, and several other articles, was lost by the carelessness of a domestic. I was consequently left without any thing to eat, or the means of preparing what I might obtain. I threw myself under the hospitable shade of the tent of Mr. Caillaud, (then only occupied by Mr. Constant, his companion,) the gentleman I have mentioned in the Preface with so much well merited esteem, where I stayed till my arrival at Sennaar.

The country we traversed is that part of the kingdom of Sennaar which lies between the Nile and the Bahar el Abiud. It is an immense and fertile plain, occupied by numerous villages, some of them very large; that of "Wahat Medinet," for instance, containing, probably, four or five thousand inhabitants. What country we saw was, at this season, perfectly naked of gra.s.s, consisting generally of immense fields which, in the season past, had been planted with durra. Acacia trees, and bushes in the country far back from the river, (which is sandy,) were abundant, but no herbage was visible; I did not see throughout our route a single waterwheel;[50] and I believe that the country is only cultivated when the inundation has retired.

The houses of the villages are built in the following manner. A circle of stakes is planted in the ground, a conical frame of poles attached to these stakes below, and meeting and fastened at the top of the cone, forms the roof. This roof, and the sides of the house, are then covered with thatched straw, which suffices to exclude the rains.

Some of the houses, however, belonging to the chiefs are of a stronger fabric, being composed of thick walls made of bricks dried in the sun, and having terraced roofs. In the thatched cottages I have mentioned, the air and light come in by the doorway and four small holes pierced in the walls of the house. This scanty ventilation renders these cottages very hot and close: the difference between the temperature of an inhabited house and that of the air outside being, in my judgment, almost as great as that of the undressing room of a bath at Cairo, and that of the pa.s.sage just outside of the bath itself. This circ.u.mstance alone is almost sufficient to account for the great mortality in Sennaar, during the rainy season, when whole families are shut up in these close cottages; and every one who goes abroad must necessarily go with his pores in a condition expressly adapted to make him catch a cold or a fever.

Six days before the army reached Sennaar, the Pasha was met by an amba.s.sador from the Sultan; he had an audience of his Excellence, and returned the next day to Sennaar. He was a handsome young man, accompanied by a numerous suite mounted on dromedaries. The army pursued its route, steadily marching in order of battle, the infantry in the centre, the cavalry on the wings; the artillery in advance of the centre and the baggage in the rear, with Shouus' cavalry and the dromedary corps of Abbadies scouring our front and flanks to a great distance. Two days after it was reported in the camp that the Sultan of Sennaar was on his way to meet us with a strong force, preceded by numerous elephants and great herds of cattle, collected in order to receive and exhaust the fire of our troops. The Pasha proceeded however steadily on with the army in order of battle, and equally prepared for peace or war. Two days before the arrival of the army in Sennaar, as I was riding near the Topgi Bashi, who was in front of the army with the artillery, I saw a great number of armed men approaching, mounted on horses and dromedaries. Presently the Malek of Shendi (who had accompanied the Pasha)[51], rode up to the Pasha and informed him that the strangers approaching were the princ.i.p.al officers of the Sultan of Sennaar, and their suite, who had come to demand terms of peace.

I saw these personages when they arrived. They were two, one a tall thin elderly man of a mulatto complexion, dressed in green and yellow silks of costly fabric, with a cap of a singular form, something resembling a crown, made of the same materials, upon his head. The other was the same young man who had come a few days past to the Pasha. He was dressed to-day in silks like the other, except that his head was bare of ornament. They were accompanied by a fine lad about sixteen, who was, it is said, the son of the predecessor of the present Sultan. All three were mounted on tall and beautiful horses, and accompanied by about two hundred soldiers of the Sultan, mounted on dromedaries, and armed with broadswords, lances and shields.

When the Pasha was informed of their approach by the Malek of Shendi, he ordered a halt. The tent of the Pasha was pitched, and the amba.s.sadors were introduced. They were treated with great attention and liberality by the Pasha, who, during the day and the course of the evening following, gave them opportunities enough to be convinced of the immense superiority of our arms to theirs. During the evening, some star rockets and bombs were thrown for their amus.e.m.e.nt and edification. No language can do justice to their astonishment at the spectacle, which undoubtedly produced the effect intended by the Pasha--humility and a sense of inferiority. The next morning at an early hour the army pursued its march, accompanied by the amba.s.sadors from Sennaar.

About the hour of noon, the outscouts announced to the Pasha that the Sultan of Sennaar himself was approaching to salute his Excellence. On his approach, the army received him with the honors due to his rank. He was conducted to the tent of the Pasha, by the amba.s.sadors he had sent, where he remained in audience with his Excellence a long time. When the audience was finished, he and the personages he had before sent to the Pasha were splendidly habited in the Turkish fashion, and presented with horses, furnished with saddles and bridles embroidered with gold.[52]

It was on the morning following that the army reached the capital. We marched in order of battle. The Pasha, accompanied by the Sultan of Sennaar and his chief servants, in front. On approaching the city, the army saluted this long wished for town, where they imagined that their toils and privations would cease, at least for a time, with repeated and continued volleys of cannon and musquetry, accompanied with shouts of exultation. But these shouts subsided on a nearer approach, on finding this once powerful city of Sennaar to be almost nothing but heaps of ruins, containing in some of its quarters some few hundreds of habitable but almost deserted houses. After the camp was pitched, and I had refreshed myself with a little food, I took a walk about the town. At almost every step I trod upon fragments of burnt bricks, among which are frequently to be found fragments of porcelain, and sometimes marble. The most conspicuous buildings in Sennaar are a mosque, and a large brick palace adjoining it. The mosque, which is of brick, is in good preservation; its windows are covered with well wrought bronze gratings, and the doors are handsomely and curiously carved. The interior was desecrated by uncouth figures of animals, portrayed upon the walls with charcoal. This profanation had been perpetrated by the Pagan mountaineers who inhabit the mountains thirteen days march south of Sennaar, and who, at some period, not very long past, had taken the town, and had left upon the walls of the mosque these tokens of possession.

The palace is large, but in ruins, except the centre building, which is six stories high, having five rows of windows.[53] By mounting upon its roof you have the best possible view of the city, the river, and the environs, that the place can afford. I judged that Sennaar was about three miles in circ.u.mference. The greater part of this s.p.a.ce is now covered with the ruins of houses, built of bricks either burnt or dried in the sun. I do not believe that there are more than four hundred houses standing in Sennaar and of these one-third or more are round cottages, like those of the villages. Of those built of bricks, the largest is the house of the Sultan. It is a large enclosure, containing ranges of low but well built habitations of sun-dried bricks, with terraced roofs, and the interior stuccoed with fine clay. What struck me the most, was the workmanship of the doors of the old houses of Sennaar, which are composed of planed and jointed planks, adorned frequently with carved work, and strengthened and studded with very broad headed nails; the whole inimitable by the present population of Sennaar. These houses are very rarely of more than one story in height, the roofs terraced with fine and well beaten clay spread over mats laid upon rafters, which form the roof.

The city of Sennaar is of an oblong form, its longest side opposite the river. It stands not at any distance from the river, but directly upon its west bank, which consists hereabouts of hard clay.

The river is now rising,[54] but exhibits itself at present to the view as narrow and winding, as far as the eye can reach, between sand flats, which will shortly be covered by its augmenting waters. The bed of the Nile opposite Sennaar may be reckoned at about half a mile broad.

The environs of Sennaar are wide plains, containing large and populous villages. A long ragged mountain, the only one visible, stands about fifteen miles to the west of the town. Below the town is a small but pretty island, whose inhabitants thrive by raising vegetables for the market of Sennaar; and the opposite bank of the river, presents several verdant patches of ground devoted to the same object.[55] Beyond these spots, the country on the other bank appeared to be mostly covered with trees and bushes, among which I saw four elephants feeding.

I could not find any remains of any very ancient building in Sennaar during my stay, and I believe that none exists there. Such is the present appearance of a town which has evidently been once rich, comfortable and nourishing, but which, for eighteen years past, as I have been informed, has been the lacerated prey of War and Confusion.

On the day after our arrival the conditions of the accord between the Pasha and the Sultan of Sennaar were arranged and sealed; by which the latter recognized himself as subject and feudatory of the Grand Seignor, and surrendered his dominions to the supremacy and sway of the Vizier of the Padischah, Mehemmed Ali Pasha. The next day the Tchocadar Aga of his Highness the Viceroy of Egypt, who had arrived in our camp two months past, embarked in the canja of the Pasha Ismael to carry the doc.u.ments of this important transaction to Cairo.

For several days after our arrival at Sennaar, our camp was incommoded by furious squalls of wind, accompanied with thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain. The Pasha therefore determined to caserne the troops in the houses of the town, and to stay there during the rainy season. In ten days after our arrival, the army was distributed throughout the town and in the villages on the opposite bank of the river. The Pasha himself took up his quarters in a large house of the Sultan of Sennaar, which had been prepared for his accommodation.

A few days after our arrival, a slave informed the Pasha that the Sultan of Sennaar, before our arrival, had thrown into the river some cannon.

The Pasha ordered search to be made; four iron guns were discovered by divers, and were dragged on sh.o.r.e. They appeared to me to be ordinary ship guns; no mark or inscription was found on them to enable me to judge where they were fabricated. I believe them however to have been originally obtained of the Portuguese by the Abyssinians, from whom the people said the Sultan of Sennaar had taken them in some ancient war between the two kingdoms.

On the 19th of Ramadan, a party of Bedouins were ordered by the Pasha to go in pursuit of some hundred black slaves of the Sultan of Sennaar, who some time before our arrival had run away, taking with them some of his best horses. On the 23d they returned, bringing with them between five and six hundred negroes of both s.e.xes. But on Malek Shouus going to the Pasha and representing to him that these people were not the fugitives in question, the Pasha ordered them to be immediately released and to return to their respective villages.

About the same time the Pasha detached Cogia Achmet with thirteen hundred cavalry and three pieces of artillery to the upper country of Sennaar between the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile to secure its submission.[56] And on the 26th of the moon the Divan Effendi was sent with three hundred men across the Nile, to secure that part of the kingdom of Sennaar which lies on the east side of the Nile.[57]

Seven days after our arrival in Sennaar I put in execution a resolution the state of my health obliged me to determine on, and demanded of the Pasha permission to return to Cairo. I represented to him, that all the critical operations of the campaign were now happily concluded, and crowned with the fullest success; and that, therefore, he could have no particular need of me any longer. I stated to him that repeated sickness during the campaign had rendered my health very infirm, and that a residence of four months at Sennaar, during the rainy season, would probably destroy me; and as my presence for that time at least could be no ways necessary, I requested him to grant the permission demanded, telling him that if, after the rainy season was finished, he should think proper to recall me to camp that I would obey the summons. The Pasha hesitated, and for several days declined granting my request; but on its being represented to him that the reasons I had stated were really just and sufficient causes for my return, his Excellence finally told me, that on the return of Cogia Achmet he should dispatch a courier to Cairo, and that I should accompany him.

On the third day of the Feast of Bairam I saw the Sultan of Sennaar parade the town in great ceremony. He was mounted on a superb horse, and clothed in green and yellow silks, but his head was bare of every thing but its natural wool. Over his head an officer carried a large umbrella of green and yellow silks in alternate stripes. He was accompanied by the officers of his palace, and his guard, beautifully mounted, and followed by the native population of Sennaar, both men and women, who uttered shrill cries, which were now and then interrupted by the sound of a most lugubrious trumpet which preceded the Sultan, and which was blown by a musician who, judging from the tones he produced, seemed to be afflicted with a bad cough.

On the 7th of the moon Shawal, the Divan Effendi returned to Sennaar, having crushed all attempts to oppose the establishment of the Pasha's authority in the eastern part of the kingdom of Sennaar, and bringing with him three of the chiefs of the refractory, and three hundred and fifty prisoners, as slaves. The events of this expedition were related to me as follows: "We marched without resistance for eight days, in the direction of the rising sun, through a country fine, fertile, and crowded with villages, till we came to some larger villages near a mountain called 'Catta,' where we found four or five hundred men posted in front of them to resist our march They were armed with lances, and presented themselves to the combat with great resolution. But on experiencing the effects of our fire-arms, they took to flight toward the mountain; two hundred of them were hemmed in, and cut to pieces, and three of their chiefs were taken prisoners, as well as all the inhabitants we could find in their villages; after which we returned."

On my demanding if water was plentiful at a distance from the river, my informant replied, that "there were wells in abundance in all the numerous villages, with which the country abounds; and also numerous rivulets and streams, which at this season descend from the mountains.

The troops, he said, had forded two small rivers (probably the Ratt and the Dandar); he added, that the country abounded in beautiful birds and insects, one of the latter he brought with him; it was a small scarabeus, covered with a fine close crimson down, exactly resembling scarlet velvet. The people of the country he described as very harmless, and exceedingly anxious to know what had brought us to Sennaar to trouble them."

Two of these Chiefs taken prisoners the Pasha ordered to be impaled in the market-place of Sennaar. They suffered this horrid death with great firmness. One of them said nothing but "there is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and Mohammed is his Apostle," which he frequently repeated before impalement; while the other, named Abdallah, insulted, defied, and cursed his executioners, calling them "robbers and murderers," till too weak to speak, when he expressed his feelings by spitting at them.[58] The third Chief was detained prisoner, in order to be sent to Cairo.

During my stay in Sennaar, I endeavored to get information of the people of the country, and of the few caravan merchants found in the market-place of Sennaar, relative to the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile.

The information I received was as follows: "The source of the Adit (so the people of Sennaar call the river that runs by their city) is in the Gibel el Gumara, (i.e. that great range of mountains called the Mountains of the Moon,) about sixty days march of a camel from Sennaar.

in a direction nearly south. It receives, at various distances above Sennaar, several smaller rivers which come from Abyssinia and from the mountains south of Sennaar. The general course of the Bahar el Abiud (they said) was nearly parallel with that of the Adit, but its source was much farther off, among the Gibel el Gumara, than that of the Adit.

The Bahar el Abiud, they said, appears very large at the place where the Pasha's army crossed it, because it is augmented from the junction of three other rivers, one from the south-west, and two others from the east, running from the mountains south of Sennaar."[59] On my asking them, "whether the Bahar el Abiud was open and free of sh.e.l.lals or rapids?"

they said, "that at a place called Sulluk, about fifteen days march above its junction with the Adit, (i.e. above the place where we crossed the Bahar el Abiud,) there was a sh.e.l.lal, which they believed that boats could not pa.s.s.[60] On my asking whether, by following the banks of the Bahar el Abiud and the river that empties into it from the west, it was not possible to reach a city called Tombut or Tombuctoo?" They said, that "they knew nothing of the city I mentioned, having never been farther west than Kordofan and Darfour."

This was all I could learn: but I am disposed to believe, that the main stream of the Bahar el Abiud cannot have its source in the same lat.i.tude with that of the Adit, because it commenced its rise, at least, this year, about twenty days sooner than did the Adit, and the different color of its waters proves that it flows through a tract differing in quality of soil from that through which pa.s.ses the Adit. The interesting question, "whether the Niger communicates with the Bahar el Abiud?"

will, however, very probably be determined before the close of another year, as the Pasha will probably send an expedition up that river.

Secondly, I am further disposed to believe that the main stream of the Adit, or Nile of Bruce, does not take its rise in Abyssinia, but in the mountains a.s.signed as the place of its origin by the people of Sennaar.

For on viewing the ma.s.s of water that runs by Sennaar even now, when the river has not attained two-thirds of the usual magnitude it acquires during the rainy season, I can by no means believe that the main source of such a river is only about three hundred miles distant from Sennaar.

The tract of country included between the Adit and the Bahar el Abiud is called El Gezira, i.e. the island: because, in the season of the rains, many rivers running from the mountains in the south into the Bahar el Abiud and the Adit, occasion this tract to be included by rivers.

I am disposed to believe, that the representations made of the climate of this country are much exaggerated; as, except during the rainy season, and immediately after it, the country is a high and dry plain,[61]

by no means excessively hot, because the level of the countries on the Nile being constantly ascending from Egypt, occasions Sennaar to be many hundred feet higher than the level of Egypt, which is proved by the rapid descent of the waters of the Nile toward the latter country. The east and south winds also are, in Sennaar, cool breezes; because they come either from the mountains of Abyssinia, or the huge and high ranges which compose the Gibel el Gumara. I was in Sennaar at Midsummer, and at no time found the heat very uncomfortable, provided I was in the open air, and under a shade. In the cottages and houses, indeed, on account of their want of ventilation, the heat was excessive.

I made during my stay in Sennaar frequent inquiries about the fly mentioned by Bruce; the people of Sennaar said they knew nothing of it;[62] but, in reply to my inquiries, referred to a worm, which they say comes out of the earth during the rainy season, and whose bite is dangerous.

The reptile species in Sennaar are numerous. The houses are full of lizards, which, if you lie on the floor, you may feel crawling or running over you all night. I saw at Sennaar a serpent of a species, I believe, never before mentioned. It was a snake of about two feet long, and not thicker than my thumb, striped on the back, with a copper colored belly, and a flat head. This serpent had four legs, which did not appear to be of any use to him, as they were short and hanging from the sides of his belly. All his motions, which were quick and rapid, were made in the usual manner of serpents, i.e. upon its belly.[63]

I do not feel authorized to give an opinion as to the national character of the people inhabiting the kingdom of Sennaar; but I am obliged to consider the inhabitants of the capital as a very detestable people.

They are exceedingly avaricious, extortionate, faithless, filthy and cruel.[64] The men are generally tall and well shaped, but the females are, almost universally, the ugliest I ever beheld; this is probably owing to their being obliged to do all sorts of drudgery.

The children of these people, and indeed of all the tribes on the Upper Nile, go quite naked till near the age of p.u.b.erty. A girl unmarried is distinguished by a sort of short leather ap.r.o.n, composed of a great number of leather thongs hanging like ta.s.sels from a leather belt fastened round the waist: and this is all her clothing, being no longer than that of our mother Eve after her fall. The married women, however, are generally habited in long coa.r.s.e cotton clothes, which they wrap round them so as to cover their whole person, except when they are at work, when they wrap the whole round the waist.

As to the manufactures of the people of the Upper Nile, they are limited, I believe, to the following articles, Earthenware for domestic uses and bowls for pipes; cotton cloths for clothing; knives, mattocks, hoes and ploughs, for agriculture, water-wheels for the same; horse furniture, such as the best formed saddles I ever rode on, very neatly fabricated; stirrups in the European form, made of silver for the chiefs, and not like those of the Turks; large iron spurs, bits with small chains for reins, to prevent them from being severed by the stroke of an enemy's broadsword; long and double edged broadswords, with the guard frequently made of silver; iron heads for lances, and shields made of the hide of the elephant; to which may be added, that the women fabricate very beautiful straw mats.

There is a general resemblance, in domestic customs, among all the peoples who inhabit the borders of the Nile from a.s.suan to Sennaar. They differ, however, somewhat in complexion and character. The people of the province of Succoot are generally not so black as the Nubian or the Dongolese. They are also frank and prepossessing in their deportment.

The Dongolese is dirty, idle, and ferocious. The character of the s.h.a.geian is the same, except that he is not idle, being either an industrious peasant or a daring freebooter. The people on the third cataract are not very industrious, but have the character of being honest and obliging. The people of Berber are by far the most civilized of all the people of the Upper Nile. The inhabitants of the provinces of Shendi and Halfya are a sullen, scowling, crafty, and ferocious people; while the peasants of Sennaar inhabiting the villages we found on our route, are a respectable people in comparison with those of the capital. Throughout the whole of these countries there is one general characteristic, in which they resemble the Indians of America, namely, courage and self-respect. The chiefs, after coming to salute the Pasha, would make no scruple of sitting down facing him, and converse with him without embarra.s.sment, in the same manner as they are accustomed to do with their own Maleks, with whom they are very familiar. With the greatest apparent simplicity they would frequently propose troublesome questions to the Pasha, such as, "O great Sheck, or O great Malek; (for so they called the Pasha) what have we done to you, or your country, that you should come so far to make war upon us? Is it for want of food in your country that you come to get it in ours?" and others similar.