Chapter XIX

“Death was a monarch crowned when Abel fell.”

* * * * *

BACK TO ERGOODT.

Farewell music. — Arrangements for the week. — Pleasant meeting. — A strange guest. — A lonely grave.

BEFORE starting with our work on the way home, it was necessary to weed out from our two hundred and thirty-four camels, none of which we had lost, all such as were weak, sickly, knock-kneed, sorebacked, or otherwise afflicted with the ills to which camel flesh, after long journeys, is heir. These, after minute inspection, amounted in number to fifty. None of the Arab tribes, Es Sayadeeheh, Es Sabah or El Melhah, settlers at El Fasher, are possessed of many camels; to obtain fifty was a difficulty. A contract was, however, at length signed with the shiekh of the Sayadeeyeh, who sent for them into the Sahara, where there were brothers of his tribe, still wanderers, possessed of large herds. The terms per camel were six piastres per day, and the condition of hire was that they were not to be taken into the limits of the wanderings of the Hamr Arabs, who would steal them, as the latter and the Sayahdeeyeh were at constant enmity and war. This necessitated our being obliged to give them up shortly after passing Karnac.

Our sketch map of the country over which we had travelled on our respective routes from Om-Badr to El Fasher was now complete, and a trial line was traced upon it. Considerable deviations from the routes we had followed were found to be necessary in order to avoid crossing the range of rocky hills, the Serghenat, over which the track passed on the last day of our journey. By running a line in a south-easterly direction near the eastern bank of the Wady el Kho, for about fifteen miles we reached the extreme southern point of the Serghenat, where it terminates in two conical rocky peaks, some six or seven hundred feet high, named the “Sergain,” or two saddles. From this point to Ergoodt a fairly good and nearly straight line was obtainable. From Ergoodt we found it desirable to run the line north-easterly in order to pass the Derrit Homar mountains on its northern side, whence, with the object of avoiding the mountains that form the eastern bank of the Wady Abiad, we bore in a direction slightly south of east, and passed the Wady Abiad on our left at the place where it becomes lost in the plain. From this point, still in the same general direction, all was plain sailing, through Broosh, as far as Boota, about seven miles west of Karnac. The short length of seven miles between Boota and Karnac was the roughest part of our line, and for a short distance we judged, from the barometrical section, that a gradient of one in fifty would be unavoidable. Both at Boota and at Karnac the line was sketched on close to the wells. From the latter place to Gebel Megzaam, the last mountain of the Zayenât range, the ground was easy and flat, but from Megzaam to Om-Badr we found it impossible to sketch on a satisfactory line. The route I had followed to the north of the Zayenât was virtually impracticable, and the route followed by the other section to the south of the Zancore-Seroog range was only a little better. It was decided to leave this part of the line, about forty-five miles, out of our present calculations, and, on reaching Karnac, to make inquiries from the natives as to other routes that might exist to Om-Badr, or, if necessary, to undertake further explorations so as to include the space between the Zayenât and the Zancore-Seroog ranges.

On Saturday, 8th April, we were ready to start work on our slow way homewards. The next day was devoted by the drivers to collecting the camels from their wanderings in the Wady el Kho, to giving them to drink, and to filling the skins and tanks. By sunset the camels were all in the palace enclosure, the skins and tanks were all full, and everything was ready for our early start on Monday morning. On Sunday afternoon Hassan Pacha sent word over requesting us to eat our last dinner under his humble roof. We were, however, compelled to decline; the fact that we had a very much better dinner at home assisted us, I have no doubt, in coming to the decision to refuse his kind hospitality. The good-natured pacha was, however, not to be baulked; he sent over his military band to do us honour and afford us pleasure. All that Sunday evening we listened to delightful airs from the various operas, interspersed with lively English popular melodies, the concert concluding appropriately, but, I believe, accidentally, with “We won’t go home till morning.”

The plan we adopted in carrying out our work was to commence as shortly as possible after daybreak and breakfast, leaving the camels and camp behind to follow when all was packed. On their reaching us, at about nine or ten o’clock, we gave the Mahounds instructions what direction to take and how much longer time to travel before pitching the tents. When the heat of the day, about twelve or one o’clock, grew so intense as to forbid our continuing at work, we would make for the tents, which, owing to our management, we generally found ready pitched not far from the end of our day’s work.

My portion of the work was to make the “section,” or, to those not familiar with professional terms, to take the “levels.” One of the officers, sometimes Mohommed Effendi Ameen and at other times Mohommed Effendi Radjai, assisted me by superintending the chainage. Four soldiers worked with us; two Mohommeds—one of them my old friend the lunch soldier—and two Suliemans; the Mohommeds chained—which is heavy work—one day, and held the levelling staffs the next thus alternating their labour with the two Suliemans. This plan had two great advantages; it prevented quarrelling and dissatisfaction about unequal division of labour, and, moreover, avoided confusion in the field. A call to a Mohommed when holding the staff could not be misunderstood by a Sulieman at the chain, or a call to one of the latter at the chain could not endanger a staff being unnecessarily moved when held by a Mohommed. One day “Mohommed” signified the staff and “Sulieman” the chain, and the next Mohommed signified the chain and Sulieman the staff. In addition to these five willing and valuable assistants I had with me two young Foorawees, Achmet and Abd-el-Benât (slave of the women), the former sharp as a needle, the latter nearly as much the reverse as it is possible to be. Their alternate duties were to carry my level, and to look after the camel which carried water for us to drink. At one o’clock luncheon was ready in the tent, and we ourselves were generally ready, too, to do it ample justice. In the afternoon we reduced our levels, and put everything in order for work next day.

Dinner was punctually served at half-past six o’clock, and after a game of cards and a glass, perhaps two, of hot spirit and water, we retired to rest at about nine o’clock.

At first the work progressed but slowly. It took some time for the soldiers and natives to get into the clockwork regularity to which they afterwards attained. In the open country all went easily and well, but when it was necessary to run through the scrub and thorn-bushes, our real unpleasantnesses began. We all got more or less torn by the thorns. The hard trees, which had to be cut down several times, tried the temper not only of the axes, but of the men who wielded them. Of such labour we had a continuous thirty miles between “Sergain” and Ergoodt. The land is such as is called by the natives “Goze”; it consists of sand mixed only with a small proportion of clay in powder, and is, to a certain extent, cultivable, but only yields the poorest results. This part of the line through which we had to cut our way was a hummocky plain, in most parts densely covered with mimosas, the “sont,” the “thundub,” the “merkh,” the “mochert,” sometimes the “egleek,” and, near the wells, the “esher,” or vegetable silk tree.

Between El Fasher and Ergoodt, forty four-miles by the route we came, we passed three villages: El Feraysh, consisting of three tuckles, with a cleared space round them for sowing “duchn”; Hellit Showar, a place of about the same importance; and a village, half-way between Sergain and Ergoodt, containing as many tuckles as the other two put together. Each of these villages had but one well, which was fast drying up, and the inhabitants were preparing to leave for El Fasher to await the advent of the next season’s rains. Our camels were kept constantly at work going to and fro to El Fasher and afterwards to Ergoodt, in order to keep us well supplied with water. The skins they carried soon became lacerated, and we had to send to El Fasher for others; they were supplied, but so old, torn, and full of holes, as to be perfectly useless, and we had to content ourselves with such as we already had.

The Sabbatic arrangement we had come to at El Fasher, although so satisfactory to the disputing parties, was soon found to work quite the reverse of well. The difficulty of keeping us all supplied with water when far from the wells, and the necessity of allowing the camels to drink in proper turn, obliged us to hasten the work as much as possible. A second conclave was at once resolved upon and assembled to settle the vital point as to whether the day of rest should be Friday or Sunday. To endanger our hereafter felicity by the violation every seven days of the Fourth Commandment was a contingency requiring very grave consideration; whereas to selfishly ensure our own salvation at the expense of the everlasting happiness of our poor Mohommedan followers would certainly be a proceeding, to say the least, very unchristian-like. It was determined, after proper examination of this highly important question by the members of the European and native staffs as were well qualified to give a learnedly orthodox opinion, that it was right to be impartial. We should all, Christian and Mohommedan alike, take our chance, whether of mercy or of eternal wrath. After this the work went on better, and until its termination we never rested for a single day.

On 21st April we reached Ergoodt, and pitched our camp on a clearing in the village where the tuckles were far apart. Almost in the same hour we were surprised, needless to say agreeably, by the arrival of Major Prout, an American officer of the Cairo staff, accompanied by Dr. Pfund, a German physician of eighty years of age, who had passed many years of his long life in wandering about Khordofan, and who, I regret to say, has left no record of his experiences. They were on their way to El Fasher, and had travelled _viâ_ Khartoom and El Obeid, capital of Khordofân and Fogah, thence by the general track over the Zancore-Seroog range along the valley dividing it from the Zayenât. Fortunately Major Prout was in a position to report favourably to us upon the nature of the ground between the two ranges, that portion of the country through which we had not passed on our way from Om-Badr to Karnac. We decided to adopt that route for our proposed line of railway, and were thus saved an infinity of labour in further exploration.

We passed a pleasant evening. The old doctor regaled us with many anecdotes of his African life. He brought with him into our tent to dinner a strange but not unwelcome guest—a tame leopard he had reared from its early youth. Although no longer young, it was sociable, amiable, and sportive as a kitten. Its food was anything it could get—raw meat or, failing that, soldiers’ bread, boiled duchn and milk. At our table it ate macaroni cheese, hot curried mutton, and jam tarts, and although in appearance somewhat fierce and formidable, it was as well-conducted an animal as any with which it has been my lot to become personally acquainted. Its caresses were not lavished only upon its master, it was equally friendly and playful with us all.

Dr. Pfund is since dead; he died three months after our parting on the morning of next day. His remote and lonely grave is under the rocks on the eastern slopes of the Gebel Marra; no engraven stone, no “storied urn or animated bust” marks the site. The Arabs who travel in Khordofân knew him well. He had lived among them and was loved. He had often relieved them when in pain and sickness, and had saved many of them from death. To these poor wandering children of the desert the sun seemed to shine more brightly when he was near; many of them shed tears of real sorrow when later I told them he was dead. They say that the light of the full moon falls more softly and more sweetly on the spot where the well-loved stranger sleeps his last sleep; may it always so shine,

“A fitting and eternal monument

Upon his chosen monumentless grave.”

[Decoration]