Chapter XXIV: Letter XXII

BARKAL. _May 9, 1844._

The desert of Gilif, which we traversed on our way hither, in order to cut off the great eastern bend of the Nile, takes its name from the principal mountain lying in the midst of it. On the maps it is confused with the desert of Bahiûda, joining it on the south-east, and through which lies the road from Chartûm to Ambukôl and Barkal. Our direction was at first due east to a well, then north-west through the Gilif mountains to the great Wadi Abû Dôm, which then conducted us in the same direction to the westerly bend of the Nile.

The general character of the country here is not that of a desert, like that between Korusko and Abu Hammed, but rather of a sandy steppe. It is almost everywhere overgrown with gesh (reed bushes), and not unusually with low trees, mostly sont-trees. The rains, which fall here at certain seasons of the year, have washed down considerable masses of earth into the levels, that might well be cultivated, and are occasionally broken by rain-streams three to four feet deep. The earth is yellow, and formed of a clayey sand. The species of rock in the soil and all the mountains, with the exception of the high Gilif chain, is sandstone. The ground is much covered with hard black blocks of the same, the road uneven and undulating. Numerous gazelles and great white antelopes, with only one brown stripe down the spine, find a rich subsistence in these plains, which are also visited in the rainy season by herds of camels and goats.

We departed from the river on the 29th of April; yet this was only a trial of strength, as is very customary with greater caravans, like that of birds of passage, before their great migration. After two hours’ journey up to Gôs Burri, lying off from the river, the guide again permitted the uneasy swarm to settle; the camel-drivers lacked provisions, a few more animals were obtained, some changed. Thus we were not in order and full readiness until the following noon. We stayed the night at Wadi Abu Hommed, where we had Gebel Omarda on the right.

The third day we left early, passed Gebel Qermâna, and came to the well Abu Ilêh, which turned our road far to the east, and detained us several hours beyond noon. Hence we crossed a broad plain in seven hours, and encamped about ten o’clock at night near Gebel Sergên. On the 2nd of May we arrived, after four hours, at a woody district to the right of Gebel Nusf, the “Mountain of the half,” situated half-way between the wells of Abu Tlêh and Gaqedûl, which, in the desert, always form the hour of the desert clock.

The Arabs from the district of Gôs Burri, who guide us, are of the ’Auadîeh race; they are far more considerable than the Ababde, have a hasty indistinct utterance, and seem altogether to have little capacity. They have commingled much with the Fellahîn of the country, who here call themselves Qaleâb, Homerâb, and Gaalin. Shaiqîeh Arabs also exist here, probably since the Egyptian conquest; they have shields and spears like the Ababde. The rich sheikh Emîn, of Gôs Burri, had given us his brother, the Fakîr Fadl Allah, as a guide, and his own son, Fadl Allah, as overseer of the camels; but even the nobles of the people here make a poor and evanescent impression in comparison with our conductors of Korusko. The order of the day here was this, that we generally set out about six o’clock in the morning, and continued going on until ten o’clock; then the caravan rested during the noonday heat till about three, when it journeyed again until ten or eleven o’clock at night.

The whole afternoon we rode through the extensive plain, El Gôs, probably so called from the great sand-downs, so characteristic of this region, and which assume, in the southern districts, a peculiar form. They have almost all the form of a crescent, opening toward the south-west, so that one looks from the road into a number of amphitheatres, the steep sand-walls of which rise ten feet with the north wind, which blows inside, and clears away the sand, which would otherwise rapidly fill the cavity, from the inner field. How quickly these moveable sand structures change their place, is shown by the traces of the caravan road, often lost beneath high sand-hills. Toward eight in the evening we left the Gebel Barqugrês to the left, and stopped for the night at a short distance from the Gilif mountains.

On the 3rd of May we passed through the Wadi Guâh el ’âlem, much overgrown with trees, into the mountains, principally porphyritical, and like all original mountains, containing more vegetation than the sandy plains, by the longer holding of the precipitated damp and scarce rains. After three hours we came into Wadi G’aqedûl, luxuriantly overrun with gesh and prickly trees of every kind--sont, somra, and serha. We here found grazing herds of camels and goats, particularly in the neighbourhood of the water, which has also attracted numerous birds, among them ravens and pigeons. In the wide, deep-lying grotto, which may be 300 feet in diameter, and is enclosed by high walls of granite, the water is said to remain three years without requiring replenishment. It was, however, so foul and bad smelling, that it was even despised by my thirsty ass. The drinkable water lies farther up the mountain, and is difficult to be obtained.

We here forsook the northerly direction, which the wells after Gebel Nusf had obliged us to take, and went westerly by the Gilif mountains, in Wadi el Mehêt, crossed the dry Chôr el Ammer, whence the way to Ambukôl branches off, and encamped at night after ten o’clock in the Wadi el Uêr, called by others the Wadi Abu Harôd. From this place the Gilif mountains retreated eastward again for some time, and only left sand-hills in the foreground, by which we travelled on the following morning. To the W.N.W. we saw another chain, no longer called Gilif; a single projecting double-pointed mountain was called Miglik. The great creek of the Gilif chain, filled with sand-rock, is two hours’ journey broad; then the way leads northward into these mountains, which is called Gebêl el Mágeqa after the well of Mágeqa.

Before the entrance into these mountains we came to a place covered with heaps of stones, which might be taken for grave tumuli, but under which no one lies buried. When the date-merchants, whom we encountered on the following day with their large round wicker-baskets, come this way, they are here asked for money by their camel-driver. Whoever will not give them anything has such a cenotaph raised from its stones, as a memorial of his hardheartedness. We also found a similar place in the desert of Korusko. After nine o’clock we got to the well; we did not however stop, but ascended a wild valley to a considerable height, where we encamped towards noon.

The whole road was well-wooded, and thus offered a pleasant variety. The sont or gum trees were scarce here; the somra was the most frequent, which always spreads out into several strong branches on the ground, and ends in an even crown of thin twigs and little green leaves, so that it often resembles a regularly formed cone overturned, frequently attaining a height of fifteen feet. By it grows the heglik, with branches all round the trunk, and single groups of leaves and twigs like the pear-tree. The unprickly serha, on the contrary, has all its branches surrounded with very small green leaflets like moss, and the tondûb has no leaves at all, but instead of them little green branchlets, growing irregularly, almost as thick as foliage, while the sálame-bush consists of long slender switches, which are beset with green leaflets and long green thorns.

After four o’clock we set out, and came down very gradually from the heights. In the Wadi Kalas there are again a number of wells, twenty-five feet deep, with very good rain-water. Here we encamped for the night, although we had only arrived there shortly after sunset. The animals were watered and the skins filled. The whole plateau is rich in trees and bushes, and is inhabited by men and animals.

Our road on the following day retained the same character, as long as we journeyed between the beautiful and wildly rising walls of porphyry. After two hours we arrived at two other springs also called Kalas, with little but good water. Hence a road leads north-eastward to the well Meroë in the Wadi Abu Dôm, probably so denominated from a white rock.

Three hours farther, passing by Gebel Abrak, we entered the great Wadi Abu Dôm, which we pursued in a W.N.W. direction. This remarkable valley runs from the Nile by Mechêref along an extended mountain chain to the village of Abu Dôm, which is situated opposite Mount Barkal, in a slanting direction. If it be considered that the upper north-east mouth of this valley, crossing the whole peninsula and its mountains, is almost opposite the confluence of the Atbara, which runs into the Nile in the same direction above Mechêref, the idea may be entertained that at one time, though not in historical times, there was here a water communication which cut off the greater part of the eastern reach of the Nile, which now exists through the circumstance that the rocky plateau near Abu Hammed turns the stream southernward for a degree and a half against its general direction. The name of the valley is taken from the single _dôm_ palms that are found scattered up and down in it. The mountain chain running north of the valley is distinctly different from the mountains which we had formerly passed. With our entrance into this valley, we lost the hard mountain soil, and the flying sand again predominated, without, however, overcoming the still not scarce vegetation.

After we had passed a side valley, Om Shebah, containing well-water, in the afternoon, on the left, we encamped at about nine o’clock for the night. Next morning we came to the deep well, Hanik. I stopped about noon at a second, called Om Sarale, after the tree of the same name.

Here I left the caravan with Jussuf, to reach Barkal by a circuit to Nuri, lying somewhat higher up the river on this shore. After an hour and a half, we came to the very considerable ruins of a great Christian convent in Wadi Gazâl; so named from the gazelles, who scrape here in the _Chor_ (valley-bed), for water in great numbers. The church was built of white unhewn sand-stone up to the windows, and, above them, of unburnt brick; the walls covered with a strong coating of gypsum, and painted inside. The vaulted apse of the tri-naved basilica, lies as usual to the eastward, the entrance behind the western transept to the north and south; all the arches of the doors, windows, and pillar niches are round. Koptic, more or less ornamented, crosses are frequently placed over the door, the simplest form of which, ✠ is easily comparable to the ancient Egyptian symbol of life. The whole is a true type of all the Koptic churches which I have seen, and I therefore add the little ground-plan, which Erbkam took of it.

The building is about eighty feet long, and exactly half as broad. The north wall is ruined. The church is surrounded by a great court, the outer walls of which, as also the numerous partly vaulted convent cells, still well preserved, are built of rude blocks. Before the western entrance of the church, separated only by a little court, lies the largest building, forty-six feet in length, probably the house of the prior, from which a particular side entrance led into the church. On the south side of the convent are two church-yards; the western one, about forty paces from the church, contained a number of graves, which were simply erected of black stones collected together. Nearer to the buildings was the eastern one, which was remarkable for a considerable number of grave-stones, partly inscribed in Greek and partly in Koptic, which will cause me to make a second visit to this remarkable convent before our departure from Barkal. I counted more than twenty inscribed stones, of which some had of course suffered extremely, and as many slabs of baked earth, with inscriptions scratched upon them, almost all, however, broken to pieces. They contain the most southern Greek inscriptions which have yet been discovered in the Nile regions, with the exception of the inscription of Adulis and Axum in Abyssinia; and though it be not doubtful that the Greek language after the promulgation of Christianity, the traces of which we can detect in architectural remains farther than Soba, was used and understood by the natives in all the flourishing countries up to Abyssinia, at least for religious purposes; yet these epitaphs, (among which, on a cursory examination, I could find none in the Ethiopian,) seemed to point to immigrating Græco-Koptic inhabitants of the old convent.

I left my comrades here, who went direct to Abu Dôm at five o’clock, and proceeded to Nuri. Soon there gleamed towards us the blue heights of Mount Barkal, which rises alone with steep sides and a broad platform from the surrounding plain, and immediately attracts attention by its peculiar shape and situation. At six o’clock, the Nile valley lay before us in its whole and somewhat broad extent; a sight long desired, after the desert, and which excites the attention of travellers as much as the nearing coasts after a sea-voyage.

Our road turned, however, to the right, and proceeded through the mountains, which still consist of masses of porphyry. When we reached Barkal, right opposite us, I observed on our left a number of black, round, or pyramidal grave-hillocks, with which I had been acquainted from Meroe. Probably it was the general burying-place of Napata, still the metropolis of the Ethiopian kings in the time of Herodotus, and situated on the opposite shore; there must then have also been a considerable city on the left bank of the Nile, by which the position of the pyramids of Nuri on the same side is explained. Yet I have not been able to discover any ruined mounds answering to such a conjecture. Only behind the village of Duêm, and near Abu Dôm, I saw such, which were called Sánab, but they were not of any considerable extent. We did not come into the neighbourhood of this important group of pyramids until half-past seven, and we quartered ourselves for the night with the sheikh of the village.

Before sunrise I was already at the pyramids, of which I counted about twenty-five. They are partially statelier than those of Meroe, but built of soft sandstone, and therefore much disintegrated; a few only have any smooth casing left. The largest exhibits the same principle of structure within which I have discovered in those of Lower Egypt; a smaller inner pyramid was enlarged in all directions by a stone casing. At one part of the west side the smoothened surface of the innermost structure was distinctly visible within the eight foot thick, well-joined, outer mantle. Little is to be found here of ante-chambers, as at Meroe and the pyramids of Barkal; I believe I have only found the remains of two; the rest, if they existed, must have been quite ruined or buried in the rubbish. Some pyramids stand so close before one another, that by their position it would be impossible for an ante-chamber to exist, at least on the east side, where they were to be expected. For the rest, the pyramids are built quite massively, of free-stone; I could only find that the most eastern of all was filled up with black, unhewn stones. A pyramid with a flaw, like that of Dahhshur, is also here; but here the lower angle was probably originally intended, as there the upper one, as it is too inconsiderable for a structure in steps. Although I could, unfortunately, find no inscriptions, with the exception of one single fragment of granite, yet several things combine to assure me that this is the elder group, that of Barkal the younger.

I arrived at Abu Dôm after ten o’clock, where I found my companions. The crossing of the Nile occupied us the whole day, and we first came to Barkal at sunset.

Georgi had, to my great joy, arrived here some days ago from Dongola. His assistance is doubly welcome to us, as everything must be drawn here that is discovered. The Ethiopian residence of King Tahraka, who also reigned in Egypt, and left architectural remains behind him,--the same who went forth to Palestine in Hiskias’ time against Sanharib,--is too important for us not to becoming completely exhausted.