BOOK VIII. (continued 6)

But had the centurions gone to Gojam, they would have passed a hundred miles of a more verdant and more beautiful country before arriving there. The psittaci aves, or the paroquets, which they very properly observed were first seen in Meroë, that is, in Atbara, would have been sought for in vain in Gojam, a cold country; whereas the paroquet's delight is in the low, or hot country, where there is always variety of fruit; neither could Ptolemy's observation, nor those two just mentioned by Pliny, be admitted, after any sort of modification whatever.

Strabo remarks of the situation of Meroë, that it was placed upon the verge of the tropical rains; and, with his usual accuracy and good sense, he wonders the regularity of these tropical rains, as to their coming and duration, was not known earlier, when so many occasions had offered to observe them at Meroë before his time. The same author says, that the sun is vertical at Meroë forty-five days before the summer solstice; so that this too will place that island in lat. 16° 44´, very little different from the latitude that Ptolemy gives it. From all which circumstances we may venture to maintain, that very few places in ancient geography have their situations more strictly defined, or by a greater variety of circumstances, than the island of Atbara or Meroë. But supposing the case were otherwise, there is not one of these circumstances that I know of, that could be adduced with any effect to prove Gojam to be Meroë, as Le Grande and the Jesuits have vainly asserted.

At half past eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the 21st of October, having spent the whole day in winding through vallies, and the bare hills of the Acaba, we alighted in a wood about a mile from the river. This side of the Nile, along which we travelled to-day, is quite bare, the other full of trees and corn, where are several large villages.

On the 22d, in the afternoon, we left this place, which is called Hor-Gibbaity, and passed through several villages of the Macabrab, named Dow-Dowa, and three miles further came to Demar, a town belonging to Fakir Wed Madge Doub, who is a saint of the first consequence among the Jaheleen. They believe that he works miracles, and can strike whom he pleases with lameness, blindness, or madness; for which reason they stand very much in awe of him, so that he passes the caravans in safety through this nest of robbers, such as the Macabrab are, and always have been, though there are caravans who chuse rather to pass unseen under the cloud of night, than trust to the veneration these Jaheleen may have of Wed Madge Doub's sanctity. After these are Eliab, their habitation four miles on our left at Howiah.

On the 25th, at three quarters past six in the morning we left Demar, and at nine came to the Tacazzè, five short miles distant from Demar, and two small villages built with canes and plaistered with clay, called Dubba-beah; these are allies of the Macabrab, as coming from Demar. They took it in their heads to believe that we were a caravan going to Mecca, in which they were confirmed by a son of Wed Madge Doub, whom I brought with me, and it was neither my business nor inclination to undeceive them, but just the contrary.

The Tacazzé is here about a quarter of a mile broad, exceedingly deep, and they have chosen the deepest part for the ferry. It is clear as in Abyssinia, where we had often seen it. It rises in the province of Angot, in about lat. 9°, but has lost all the beauty of its banks, and runs here thro' a desert and barren country. I reflected with much satisfaction upon the many circumstances the sight of this river recalled to my mind; but still the greatest was, that the scenes of these were now far distant, and that I was by so much the more advanced towards home. The water of the Tacazzé is judged by the Arabs to be lighter, clearer, and wholesomer than that of the Nile. About half a mile after this ferry it joins with that river. Though the boats were smaller, the people more brutish, and less expert than those at Halifoon, yet the supposed sanctity of our characters, and liberal payment, carried us over without any difficulty. These sons of Mahomet are very robust and strong, and, in all their operations, seemed to trust to that rather than to address or flight. We left the passage at a quarter after three, and at half past four arrived at a gravelly, waste piece of ground, and all round it planted thick with large trees without fruit. The river is the boundary between Atbara and Barbar, in which province we now are. Its inhabitants are the Jaheleen of the tribe of Mirifab.

On the 26th, at six o'clock, leaving the Nile on our left about a mile, we continued our journey over gravel and sand, through a wood of acacia-trees, the colour of whose flowers was now changed to white, whereas all the rest we had before seen were yellow. At one o'clock we left the wood, and at 40 minutes past three we came to Gooz, a small village, which nevertheless is the capital of Barbar. The village of Gooz is a collection of miserable hovels composed of clay and canes. There are not in it above 30 houses, but there are six or seven different villages. The heat seemed here a little abated, but everybody complained of a disease in their eyes they call Tishash, which often terminates in blindness. I apprehend it to be owing to the simoom and fine sand blowing through the desert. Here a misfortune happened to Idris our Hybeer, who was arrested for debt, and carried to prison. As we were now upon the very edge of the desert, and to see no other inhabited place till we should reach Egypt, I was not displeased to have it in my power to lay him under one other obligation before we trusted our lives in his hands, which we were immediately to do. I therefore paid his debt, and reconciled him with his creditors, who, on their part, behaved very moderately to him.

When trade flourished here, and the caravans went regularly, Gooz was of some consideration, as being the first place where they stopped, and therefore got the first offer of the market; but now no commerce remains, nor is it worth while for stated guides to wait there to conduct the caravans through the desert, as they did formerly. Gooz is situated fifteen miles from the junction of the two rivers, the Nile and Tacazzé. By many observations of the sun and stars, and by a mean of these, I found it to be in lat. 17° 57´ 22´´; and by an immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter observed there the 5th of November, determined its longitude to be 34° 20´ 30´´ east of the meridian of Greenwich. The greatest height of Fahrenheit's thermometer was, at Gooz, the 28th day of October, at noon, 111°.

Having received all the assurances possible from Idris that he would live and die with us, after having repeated the prayer of peace, we put on the best countenance possible, and committed ourselves to the desert. There were Ismael the Turk, two Greek servants besides Georgis, who was almost blind and useless. Two Barbarins, who took care of the camels, Idris, and a young man, a relation of his, who joined him at Barbar, to return home; in all nine persons, eight only of whom were effective. We were all well-armed with blunderbusses, swords, pistols, and double-barrelled guns, except Idris and his lad, who had lances, the only arms they could use. Five or six naked wretches of the Tucorory joined us at the watering place, much against my will, for I knew that we should probably be reduced to the disagreeable necessity of seeing them die with thirst before our eyes; or by assisting them, should any accident happen to our water, we ran a very great risk of perishing with them.

It was on the 9th of November, at noon, we left Gooz, and set out for the sakia, or watering-place, which is below a little village called Hassa. All the west side of the Nile is full of villages down to Takaki, but they are all Jaheleen, without government, and perpetually in rebellion. At half past three in the afternoon we came to the Nile to lay in our store of water. We filled four skins, which might contain altogether about a hogshead and a half. As for our food, it consisted in twenty-two large goats skins stuffed with a powder of bread made of dora here at Gooz, on purpose for such expeditions. It is about the size and shape of a pancake, but thinner. Being much dried, rather than toasted at the fire, it is afterwards rubbed between the hands into a dust or powder, for the sake of package; and the goat's skin crammed as full as possible, and tied at the mouth with a leather thong. This bread has a sourish taste, which it imparts to the water when mingled with it, and swells to six times the space that it occupied when dry. A handful, as much as you could grasp, put into a bowl made of a gourd sawed in two, about twice the contents of a common tea-bason, was the quantity allowed to each man every day, morning and evening; and another such gourd of water divided, one half two hours before noon, the other about an hour after. Such were the regulations we all of us subscribed to; we had not camels for a greater provision. The Nile at Hassa runs at the foot of a mountain called Jibbel Ateshan, or the Mountain of Thirst; the men, emphatically enough, considering that those who part from it, entering the desert, take there the first provisions against thirst, and there those that come to it from the desert first assuage theirs.

On the 11th, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon we left Hassa. It required a whole day to fill our skins, and soak them well in the water, in order to make an experiment, which was of the greatest consequence of any one we ever made, whether these skins were water-tight or not. I had taken the greatest care while at Chendi to dawb them well over with grease and tar, to secure their pores on the outside; but Idris told us this was not enough, and that soaking the inside with water, filling them choak-full, and tying their mouths as hard as possible, was the only way to be certain if they were water-tight without.

While the camels were loading, I bathed myself with infinite pleasure for a long half hour in the Nile, and thus took leave of my old acquaintance, very doubtful if we should ever meet again. We then turned our face to N. E. leaving the Nile, and entering into a bare desert of fixed gravel, without trees, and of a very disagreeable whitish colour, mixed with small pieces of white marble, and pebbles like alabaster. At a quarter past four we alighted in a spot of high bent grass, where we let our camels feed till eight o'clock, and at three quarters past ten we halted for the night in another patch of grass; the place is called Howeela. Jibbel Ateshan bore S. W. and by W. of us, the distance about seven miles. I inquired of Idris, if he knew, to point out to me, precisely where Syene lay, and he shewed me without difficulty. I set it by the compass, and found it to be N. and by W. very near the exact bearing it turned out upon observation afterwards. He said, however, we should not keep this tract, but should be obliged to vary occasionally in search of water, as we should find the wells in the desert empty or full.

On the 12th, at seven o'clock in the morning we quitted Howeela, continuing our journey through the desert in the same direction, that is to the N. E.; our reason was, to avoid as much as possible the meeting any Arab that could give intelligence of our being on our journey, for nothing was so easy for people, such as the Bishareen, to way-lay and cut us off at the well, where they would be sure we must of necessity pass. At twenty minutes past eight we came to Waadi el Haimer, where there are a few trees and some bent grass, for this is the meaning of the word Waadi in a desert. The Arabs, called Sumgar, are here on the west of us, by the river side. At half past twelve we alighted on a spot of grass. Takaki from this distance will be twenty-four miles, between the points N. W. and N. N. W. and from Takaki to Dongola ten short days journeys, I suppose 180 miles at most. We are now in the territory of the Bishareen, but they were all retired to the mountains, a high even ridge, that is something above two days distance from us, and runs parallel to our course, on the right hand of us, all the way into Egypt.

At half past eight we alighted in a sandy plain without trees or grass. Our camels, we found, were too heavily loaded, but we comforted ourselves that this fault would be mended every day by the use we made of our provisions; however, it was very much against them that they were obliged to pass this whole night without eating. This place is called Umboia. We left Umboia, still stretching farther into the desert at N. E. At nine we saw a hill called Assero-baybe, with two pointed tops N. of us, which may be about twelve or fourteen miles distant, perhaps more. This is the next Hybeer's mark, by which he directs his course. On the east is Ebenaat, another sharp-pointed rock, about ten miles distant. All this day, and the evening before, our road has been through stony, gravelly ground, without herb or tree. Large pieces of agate and jasper, mixt with many beautiful pieces of marble, appear everywhere on the ground.

At two o'clock in the afternoon we came to Waadi Amour, where we alighted, after we had gone six hours this day with great diligence. Waadi Amour has a few trees and shrubs, but scarce enough to afford any shade, or night's provision for our camels. Being now without fear of the Arabs who live upon the Nile, from which we were at a sufficient distance, we with the same view to safety, declined approaching the mountains, but held our course nearly N. to a small spot of grass and white sand, called Assa-Nagga. Here our misfortunes began, from a circumstance we had not attended to. Our shoes, that had needed constant repair, were become at last absolutely useless, and the hard ground, from the time we passed Amour, had worn the skin off in several places, so that our feet were very much inflamed by the burning sand.

About a mile north-west of us is Hambily, a rock not considerable in size, but, from the plain country in which it is situated, has the appearance of a great tower or castle, and south of it two hillocks or little hills. These are all land-marks of the utmost consequence to caravans in their journey, because they are too considerable in size to be covered at any time by the moving sands. At Assa Nagga, Assiro-baybe is square with us, and with the turn which the Nile takes eastward to Korti and Dongola. The Takaki are the people nearest us, west of Assa Nagga, and Assero-baybe upon the Nile. After these, when the Nile has turned E. and W. are the Chaigie, on both sides of the river, on to Korti, where the territory called the kingdom of Dongola begins. As the Nile no longer remains on our left, but makes a remarkable turn, which has been much misrepresented in the maps, I put my quadrant in order, and by a medium of three observations, one of Procyon, one of Rigel, and one of the middle star of the belt of Orion, I found the latitude of Assa Nagga to be 19° 30´, which being on a parallel with the farthest point of the Nile northward, gives the latitude of that place where the river turns west by Korti towards Dongola, and this was of great service to me in fixing some other material points in my map.

On the 14th, at seven in the morning we left Assa Nagga, our course being due north. At one o'clock we alighted among some acacia-trees at Waadi el Halboub, having gone twenty-one miles. We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from W. and to N. W. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on with a majestic slowness; at intervals we thought they were coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm us; and small quantities of sand did actually more than once reach us. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from us with a wind at S. E. leaving an impression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry us out of this danger, and the full persuasion of this rivetted me as if to the spot where I stood, and let the camels gain on me so much in my state of lameness, that it was with some difficulty I could overtake them.

The effect this stupendous sight had upon Idris was to set him to his prayers, indeed rather to his charms; for, besides the name of God and Mahomet, all the rest of the words were mere gibberish and nonsense. This created a violent altercation between him and Ismael the Turk, who abused him for not praying in the words of the Koran, maintaining, with apparent great wisdom at the same time, that nobody had charms to stop these moving sands but the inhabitants of Arabia Deserta.

The Arabs to whom this inhospitable spot belongs are the Adelaia. They, too, are Jaheleen, or Arabs of Beni Koreish. They are said to be a harmless race, and to do no hurt to the caravans they meet; yet I very much doubt, had we fallen in with them they would not have deserved the good name that was given them. We went very slowly to-day, our feet being sore and greatly swelled. The whole of our company were much disheartened, (except Idris) and imagined that they were advancing into whirl-winds of moving sand, from which they should never be able to extricate themselves; but before four o'clock in the afternoon these phantoms of the plain had all of them fallen to the ground and disappeared. In the evening we came to Waadi Dimokea, where we passed the night, much disheartened, and our fear more increased, when we found, upon wakening in the morning, that one side was perfectly buried in the sand that the wind had blown above us in the night.

From this day, subordination, though not entirely ceased, was fast on the decline; all was discontent, murmuring, and fear. Our water was greatly diminished, and that terrible death by thirst began to stare us in the face, and this was owing in a great measure to our own imprudence. Ismael, who had been left centinel over the skins of water, had slept so soundly, that this had given an opportunity to a Tucorory to open one of the skins that had not been touched, and serve himself out of it at his own discretion. I suppose that, hearing somebody stir, and fearing detection, he had withdrawn himself as speedily as possible, without taking time to tie the mouth of the girba, which we found in the morning with scarce a quart of water in it.

On the 15th, at a quarter past seven in the morning we left Waadi Dimokea, keeping a little to the westward of north, as far as I could judge, just upon the line of Syene. The same ridge of hills being on our right and left as yesterday, in the center of these appeared Del Aned. At twenty minutes past two o'clock in the afternoon we came to an opening in the ridge of rocks; the passage is about a mile broad, through which we continued till we alighted at the foot of the mountain Del Aned. The place is called Waadi Del Aned.

The same appearance of moving pillars of sand presented themselves to us this day in form and disposition like those we had seen at Waadi Halboub, only they seemed to be more in number, and less in size. They came several times in a direction close upon us; that is, I believe, within less than two miles. They began, immediately after sun-rise, like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun: His rays shining through them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of fire. Our people now became desperate: The Greeks shrieked out, and said it was the day of judgment. Ismael pronounced it to be hell, and the Tucorories, that the world was on fire. I asked Idris if ever he had before seen such a sight? He said he had often seen them as terrible, though never worse; but what he feared most was that extreme redness in the air, which was a sure presage of the coming of the simoom. I begged and entreated Idris that he would not say one word of that in the hearing of the people, for they had already felt it at Imhanzara in their way from Ras el Feel to Teawa, and again at the Acaba of Gerri, before we came to Chendi, and they were already nearly distracted at the apprehension of finding it here.

At half past four o'clock in the afternoon we left Waadi Del Aned, our course a little more to the westward than the direction of Syene. The sands which had disappeared yesterday scarcely shewed themselves at all this day, and at a great distance from the horizon. This was, however, a comfort but of short duration. I observed Idris took no part in it, but only warned me and the servants, that, upon the coming of the simoom, we should fall upon our faces, with our mouths upon the earth, so as not to partake of the outward air as long as we could hold our breath. We alighted at six o'clock at a small rock in the sandy ground, without trees or herbage, so that our camels fasted all that night. This place is called Ras el Seah, or, by the Bishareen, El Mout, which signifies death, a name of bad omen.

On the 16th, at half past ten in the forenoon we left El Mout, standing in the direction close upon Syene. Our men, if not gay, were however in better spirits than I had seen them since we left Gooz. One of our Barbarins had even attempted a song; but Hagi Ismael very gravely reproved him, by telling him, that singing in such a situation was a tempting of Providence. There is, indeed, nothing more different than active and passive courage. Hagi Ismael would fight, but he had not strength of mind to suffer. At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated with great pleasure the rugged top of Chiggre, to which we were fast approaching, and where we were to solace ourselves with plenty of good water, Idris cried out, with a loud voice, Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom. I saw from the S. E. a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten suffocation. For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it, nor was I free of an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, near two years afterwards.

An universal despondency had taken possession of our people. They ceased to speak to one another, and when they did, it was in whispers, by which I easily guessed their discourse was not favourable to me, or else that they were increasing each others fears, by vain suggestions calculated to sink each others spirits still further, but from which no earthly good could possibly result. I called them together, and both reprimanded and exhorted them in the strongest manner I could; I bade them attend to me, who had nearly lost my voice by the simoom, and desired them to look at my face, so swelled as scarcely to permit me to see; my neck covered with blisters, my feet swelled and inflamed, and bleeding with many wounds. In answer to the lamentation that the water was exhausted, and that we were upon the point of dying with thirst, I ordered each man a gourd full of water more than he had the preceding day, and shewed them, at no great distance, the bare, black, and sharp point of the rock Chiggre, wherein was the well at which we were again to fill our girbas, and thereby banish the fear of dying by thirst in the desert. I believe I never was at any time more eloquent, and never had eloquence a more sudden effect. They all protested and declared their concern chiefly arose from the situation they saw me in; that they feared not death or hardship, provided I would submit a little to their direction in the taking a proper care of myself. They intreated me to use one of the camels, and throw off the load that it carried, that it would ease me of the wounds in my feet, by riding at least part of the day. This I positively refused to do, but recommended to them to be strong of heart, and to spare the camels for the last resource, if any should be taken ill and unable to walk any longer.

This phænomenon of the simoom, unexpected by us, though foreseen by Idris, caused us all to relapse into our former despondency. It still continued to blow, so as to exhaust us entirely, though the blast was so weak as scarcely would have raised a leaf from the ground. At twenty minutes before five the simoom ceased, and a comfortable and cooling breeze came by starts from the north, blowing five or six minutes at a time, and then falling calm. We were now come to the Acaba, the ascent before we arrived at Chiggre, where we intended to have stopt that night, but we all moved on with tacit consent, nor did one person pretend to say how far he guessed we were to go.

At thirteen minutes past eight we alighted in a sandy plain absolutely without herbage, covered with loose stones, a quarter of a mile due north of the well, which is in the narrow gorge, forming the southern outlet of this small plain. Though we had travelled thirteen hours and a quarther this day, it was but at a slow pace, our camels being famished, as well as tired, and lamed likewise by the sharp stones with which the ground in all places was covered. The country, for three days past, had been destitute of herbage of any kind, entirely desert, and abandoned to moving sands. We saw this day, after passing Ras el Seah, large blocks and strata of pure white marble, equal to any in colour that ever came from Paros.

Chiggre is a small narrow valley, closely covered up and surrounded with barren rocks. The wells are ten in number, and the narrow gorge which opens to them is not ten yards broad. The springs, however, are very abundant. Wherever a pit is dug five or six feet deep, it is immediately filled with water. The principal pool is about forty yards square and five feet deep; but the best tasted water was in the cleft of a rock, about 30 yards higher, on the west side of this narrow outlet. All the water, however, was very foul, with a number of animals both aquatic and land. It was impossible to drink without putting a piece of our cotton girdle over our mouths, to keep, by filtration, the filth of dead animals out of it. We saw a great many partridges upon the face of the bare rock; but what they fed upon I could not guess, unless upon insects. We did not dare to shoot at them, for fear of being heard by the wandering Arabs that might be somewhere in the neighbourhood; for Chiggre is a haunt of the Bishareen of the tribe of Abou Bertran, who, though they do not make it a station, because there is no pasture in the neighbourhood, nor can any thing grow there, yet it is one of the most valuable places of refreshment, on account of the great quantity of water, being nearly half way, when they drive their cattle from the borders of the Red Sea to the banks of the Nile; as also in their expeditions from south to north, when they leave their encampments in Barbar, to rob the Ababdé Arabs on the frontiers of Egypt.

Our first attention was to our camels, to whom we gave that day a double feed of dora, that they might drink for the rest of their journey, should the wells in the way prove scant of water. We then washed in a large pool, the coldest water, I think, I ever felt, on account of its being in a cave covered with rock, and was inaccessible to the sun in any direction. All my people seemed to be greatly recovered by this refrigeration, but from some cause or other, it fared otherwise with the Tucorory; one of whom died about an hour after our arrival, and another early the next morning.

Subordination, if now not entirely gone, was expiring, so that I scarcely expected to have interest enough with my own servants to help me to set up my large quadrant: Yet I was exceedingly curious to know the situation of this remarkable place, which Idris the Hybeer declared to be halfway to Assouan. But it seems their curiosity was not less than mine; above all, they wanted to prove that Idris was mistaken, and that we were considerably nearer to Egypt than we were to Barbar. While Idris and the men filled the skins with water, the Greeks and I set up the quadrant, and, by observation of the two bright stars of Orion, I found the latitude of Chiggre to be 20° 58´ 30´´ N.; so that, allowing even some small error in the position of Syene in the French maps, Idris's guess was very near the truth, and both the latitude and longitude of Chiggre and Syene seemed to require no further investigation.

During the whole time of the observation, an antelope of a very large kind, went several times round and round the quadrant; and at the time when my eyes were fixed upon the star, came so near as to bite a part of my cotton cloth which I had spread like a carpet to kneel on. Even when I stirred, it would leap about two or three yards from me, and then stand and gaze with such attention, that it would have appeared to by-standers (had there been any) that we had been a long time acquainted. The first idea was the common one, to kill it. I easily could have done this with a lance; but it seemed so interested in what I was doing, that I began to think it might perhaps be my good genius which had come to visit, protect, and encourage me in the desperate situation in which I then was.

CHAP. XII. Distresses in the Desert—Meet with Arabs—Camels die—Baggage abandoned—Come to Syene.

On the 17th of November, at half past ten in the forenoon, we left the valley and pool of Chiggre. Ismael, and Georgis the blind Greek, had complained of shivering all night, and I began to be very apprehensive some violent fever was to follow. Their perspiration had not returned but in small quantity ever since their coming out of the water, and the night had been excessively cold, the thermometer standing at 63°. The day, however, was insufferably hot, and their complaints insensibly wore off to my great comfort. A little before eleven we were again terrified by an army (as it seemed) of sand pillars, whose march was constantly south, and the favourite field which they occupied was that great circular space which the Nile makes when opposite to Assa Nagga, where it turns west to Korti and Dongola. At one time a number of these pillars faced to the eastward, and seemed to be coming directly upon us; but, though they were little nearer us than two miles, a considerable quantity of sand fell round us. I began now to be somewhat reconciled to this phænomenon, seeing it had hitherto done us no harm. The great magnificence it exhibited in its appearance, seemed, in some measure, to indemnify us for the panic it had first occasioned: But it was otherwise with the simoom; we all of us were firmly persuaded that another passage of the purple meteor over us would be attended with our deaths.

At half past four we alighted in a vast plain, bounded on all sides by low sandy hills, which seemed to have been transported hither lately. These hillocks were from seven to thirteen feet high, drawn into perfect cones, with very sharp points and well-proportioned bases. The sand was of an inconceivable fineness, having been the sport of hot winds for thousands of years. There could be no doubt that the day before, when it was calm, and we suffered so much by the simoom between El Mout and Chiggre, the wind had been raising pillars of sand in this place, called Umdoom; marks of the whirling motion of the pillars were distinctly seen in every heap, so that here again, while we were repining at the simoom, Providence was busied keeping us out of the way of another scene, where, if we had advanced a day, we had all of us been involved in inevitable destruction.

On the 18th we left Umdoom at seven in the morning, our direction N. a little inclined to W.; at nine o'clock we passed through a sandy plain, without trees or verdure. About 300 yards out of our way, to the left, among some sandy hillocks, where the ground seems to be more elevated than the rest, Idris the Hybeer told me, that one of the largest caravans which ever came out of Egypt, under the conduct of the Ababdé and the Bishareen Arabs, was there covered with sand, to the number of some thousands of camels. There are large rocks of grey granite scattered through this plain. At ten o'clock we alighted at a place called Erboygi, where are some trees, to feed our camels. The trees I have so often mentioned in our journey thro' the desert are not timber, or tall-growing trees; there are none of these north of Sennaar, except a few at Chendi. The trees I speak of, which the camels eat, are a kind of dwarf acacia, growing only to the height of bushes; and the wood spoken of likewise is only of the desert kind, ate almost bare by the camels. There are some high trees, indeed, on the banks of the Nile. At half past one o'clock we left Erboygi, and came to a large wood of doom (Palma cuciofera). Here, for the first time, we saw a shrub which very much resembled Spanish broom. The whole ground is dead sand, with some rocks of reddish granite. Exactly at five o'clock we alighted in the wood, after having travelled a moderate pace. The place is called El Cowie, and is a station of the Bishareen in the summer months; but these people were now east of us, three days journey, towards the Red Sea, where the rains had fallen, and there was plenty of pasture. At forty minutes past twelve we left El Cowie, and at five o'clock in the evening alighted in a wood, called Terfowey, full of trees and grass. The trees are the tallest and largest we had seen since leaving the Nile. We had this day enjoyed, as it were, a holiday, free from the terrors of the sand, or dreadful influence of the simoom. This poisonous wind had made several attempts to prevail this day, but was always overpowered by a cool breeze at north.

On the 19th we left the west end of the wood, or rather continued the whole length of it, and at a quarter past eight in the evening arrived at the well. It is about four fathoms deep, but the spring not very abundant. We drained it several times, and were obliged to wait its filling again. These last two days, since we were at El Cowie, we had seen more verdure than we had altogether since we left Barbar. Here, particularly at Terfowey, the acacia-trees are tall and verdant, but the mountains on each side appear black and barren beyond imagination.

As soon as we alighted at Terfowey, and had chosen a proper place where our camels could feed, we unloaded our baggage near them, and sent the men to clean the well, and wait the filling of the skins. We had lighted a large fire. The nights were excessively cold, though the thermometer was at 53°; and that cold occasioned me inexpressible pain in my feet, now swelled to a monstrous size, and everywhere inflamed and excoriated. I had taken upon me the charge of the baggage, and Mahomet, Idris's young man, the care of the camels; but he too was gone to the well, though expected to return immediately.

A doubt had arisen in my mind by the way, which was then giving me great uneasiness. If Syene is under the same meridian with Alexandria, (for so Eratosthenes conceived when he attempted to measure the circumference of the earth), in this case, Alexandria being supposed to lye in long. 30°, Syene must be in 30° likewise; but Gooz being in 34°, it is impossible that Syene can be within a trifle north of Gooz; and therefore we must have a much greater quantity of westing to travel than Idris the Hybeer imagines, who places Syene a very little west of the meridian of Gooz, or immediately under the same meridian, and due north from it.

Our camels were always chained by the feet, and the chain secured by a padlock, lest they should wander in the night, or be liable to be stolen and carried off. Musing then upon the geographical difficulties just mentioned, and gazing before me, without any particular intention or suspicion, I heard the chain of the camels clink, as if somebody was unloosing them, and then, at the end of the gleam made by the fire, I saw distinctly a man pass swiftly by, stooping as he went along, his face almost to the ground. A little time after this I heard another clink of the chain, as if from a pretty sharp blow, and immediately after a movement among the camels. I then rose, and cried in a threatening tone, in Arabic, "I charge you on your life, whoever you are, either come up to me directly, or keep at a distance till day, but come that way no more; why should you throw your life away?" In a minute after, he repassed in the shade among the trees, pretty much in the manner he had done before. As I was on guard between the baggage and the camels, I was consequently armed, and advanced deliberately some steps, as far as the light of the fire shone, on purpose to discover how many they were, and was ready to fire upon the next I saw. "If you are an honest man, cried I aloud, and want any thing, come up to the fire and fear not, I am alone; but if you approach the camels or the baggage again, the world will not be able to save your life, and your blood be upon your own head." Mahomet, Idris's nephew, who heard me cry, came running up from the well to see what was the matter. We went down together to where the camels were, and, upon examination, found that the links of one of the chains had been broke, but the opening not large enough to let the corresponding whole link through to separate it. A hard blue stone was driven through a link of one of the chains of another camel, and left sticking there, the chain not being entirely broken through; we saw, besides, the print of a man's feet on the sand. There was no need to tell us after this that we were not to sleep that night; we made therefore another fire on the other side of the camels with branches of the acacia-tree, which we gathered. I then sent the man back to Idris at the well, desiring him to fill his skins with water before it was light, and transport them to the baggage where I was, and to be all ready armed there by the dawn of day; soon after which, if the Arabs were sufficiently strong, we were very certain they would attack us. This agreed perfectly with Idris's ideas also, so that, contenting themselves with a lesser quantity of water than they first intended to have taken, they lifted the skins upon the camels I sent them, and were at the rendezvous, near the baggage, a little after four in the morning.

The Barbarins, and, in general, all the lower sort of Moors and Turks, adorn their arms and wrists with amulets; these are charms, and are some favourite verse of the Koran wrapt in paper, neatly covered with Turkey leather. The two Barbarins that were with me had procured for themselves new ones at Sennaar, which were to defend them from the simoom and the sand, and all the dangers of the desert. That they might not soil these in filling the water, they had taken them from their arms, and laid them on the brink of the well before they went down. Upon looking for these after the girbas were filled, they were not to be found. This double attempt was an indication of a number of people being in the neighbourhood, in which case our present situation was one of the most desperate that could be figured. We were in the middle of the most barren, inhospitable desert in the world, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, from day to day, we could carry wherewithal to assuage our thirst. We had with us the only bread it was possible to procure for some hundred miles; lances and swords were not necessary to destroy us, the bursting or tearing of a girba, the lameness or death of a camel, a thorn or sprain in the foot which might disable us from walking, were as certain death to us as a shot from a cannon. There was no staying for one another; to lose time was to die, because, with the utmost exertion our camels could make, we scarce could carry along with us a scanty provision of bread and water sufficient to keep us alive.

That desert, which did not afford inhabitants for the assistance or relief of travellers, had greatly more than sufficient for destroying them. Large tribes of Arabs, two or three thousand, encamped together, were cantoned, as it were, in different places of this desert, where there was water enough to serve their numerous herds of cattle, and these, as their occasion required, traversed in parties all that wide expanse of solitude, from the mountains near the Red Sea east, to the banks of the Nile on the west, according as their several designs or necessities required. These were Jaheleen Arabs, those cruel, barbarous fanatics, that deliberately shed so much blood during the time they were establishing the Mahometan religion. Their prejudices had never been removed by any mixture of strangers, or softened by society, even with their own nation after they were polished; but buried, as it were, in these wild deserts, if they were not grown more savage, they had at least preserved, in their full vigour, those murdering principles which they had brought with them into that country, under the brutal and inhuman butcher Kaled Ibn el Waalid, impiously called The Sword of God. If it should be our lot to fall among these people, and it was next to a certainty that we were at that very instant surrounded by them, death was certain, and our only comfort was, that we could die but once, and that to die like men was in our own option. Indeed, without considering the bloody character which these wretches naturally bear, there could be no reason for letting us live: We could be of no service to them as slaves; and to have sent us into Egypt, after having first rifled and destroyed our goods, could not be done by them but at a great expence, to which well-inclined people only could have been induced from charity, and of that last virtue they had not even heard the name. Our only chance then remaining was, that their number might be so small, that, by our great superiority in fire-arms and in courage, we might turn the misfortune upon the aggressors, deprive them of their camels and means of carrying water, and leave them scattered in the desert, to that death which either they or we, without alternative, must suffer.

I explained myself to this purpose, briefly to the people, on which a great cry followed, "God is great! let them come!" Our arms were perfectly in order, and our old Turk Ismael seemed to move about and direct with the vigour of a young man. As we had no doubt they would be mounted on camels, so we placed ourselves a little within the edge of the trees. The embers of our two fires were on our front; our tents, baggage, and boxes, on each side of us, between the opening of the trees; our camels and water behind us, the camels being chained together behind the water, and ropes at their heads, which were tied to trees. A skin of water, and two wooden bowls beside it, was left open for those that should need to drink. We had finished our breakfast before day-break, and I had given all the men directions to fire separately, not together, at the same set of people; and those who had the blunderbusses to fire where they saw a number of camels and men together, and especially at any camels they saw with girbas upon them, or where there was the greatest confusion.

The day broke; no Arabs appeared; all was still. The danger which occurred to our minds then was, left, if they were few, by tarrying we should give them time to send off messengers to bring assistance. I then took Ismael and two Barbarins along with me, to see who these neighbours of ours could be. We soon traced in the sand the footsteps of the man who had been at our camels; and, following them behind the point of a rock, which seemed calculated for concealing thieves, we saw two ragged, old, dirty tents, pitched with grass cords.

The two Barbarins entered one of them, and found a naked woman there. Ismael and I ran briskly into the largest, where we saw a man and a woman both perfectly naked, frightful, emaciated figures, not like the inhabitants of this world. The man was partly sitting on his hams; a child, seemingly of the age to suck, was on a rag at the corner, and the woman looked as if she wished to hide herself. I sprung forward upon the man, and, taking him by the hair of the head, pulled him upon his back on the floor, setting my foot upon his breast, and pointing my knife to his throat; I said to him sternly, "If you mean to pray, pray quickly, for you have but this moment to live." The fellow was so frightened, he scarce could beg us to spare his life; but the woman, as it afterwards appeared, the mother of the sucking child, did not seem to copy the passive disposition of her husband; she ran to the corner of the tent, where was an old lance, with which, I doubt not, she would have sufficiently distinguished herself, but it happened to be entangled with the cloth of the tent, and Ismael felled her to the ground with the butt-end of his blunderbuss, and wrested the lance from her. A violent howl was set up by the remaining woman like the cries of those in torment. "Tie them, said I, Ismael; keep them separate, and carry them to the baggage till I settle accounts with this camel-stealer, and then you shall strike their three heads off, where they intended to leave us miserably to perish with hunger; but keep them separate." While the Barbarins were tying the woman, the one that was the nurse of the child turned to her husband, and said, in a most mournful, despairing tone of voice, "Did I not tell you, you would never thrive if you hurt that good man? did not I tell you this would happen for murdering the Aga?"

Our people had come to see what had passed, and I sent the women away, ordering them to be kept separate, out of the hearing of one another, to judge if in their answers they did not prevaricate. The woman desired to have her child with her, which I granted. The little creature, instead of being frightened, crowed, and held out its little hands as it passed me. We fastened the Arab with the chain of the camels, and so far was well; but still we did not know how near the Bishareen might be, nor who these were, nor whether they had sent off any intelligence in the night. Until we were informed of this, our case was little mended. Upon the man's appearing, all my people declared, with one general voice, that no time was to be lost, but that they should all be put to death as soon as the camels were loaded, before we set out on our journey; and, indeed, at first view of the thing, self-preservation, the first law of nature, seemed strongly to require it. Hagi Ismael was so determined on the execution that he was already seeking a knife sharper than his own. "We will stay, Hagi Ismael, said I, till we see if this thief is a liar also. If he prevaricates in the answers he gives to my questions, you shall then cut his head off, and we will consign him with the lie in his mouth, soul and body to hell, to his master whom he serves." Ismael answered, "The truth is the truth; if he lies, he can deserve no better."

The reader will easily understand the necessity of my speaking at that moment in terms not only unusual for a Christian, but even in any society or conversation; and if the ferocity and brutality of the discourse should shock any, especially my fair readers, they will remember, that these were intended for a good and humane purpose, to produce fear in those upon whom we had no other tie, and thereby extort a confession of the truth; which might answer two purposes, the saving the effusion of their blood, and providing for our own preservation. "You see, said I, placing the man upon his knees, your time is short, the sword is now drawn which is to make an end of you, take time, answer distinctly and deliberately, for the first trip or lie that you make, is the last word that you will utter in this world. Your wife shall have her fair chance likewise, and your child; you and all shall go together, unless you tell me the naked truth. Here, Ismael, stand by him, and take my sword, it is, I believe, the sharpest in the company."

"Now I ask you, at your peril, Who was the good man your wife reproached you with having murdered? where was it, and when, and who were your accomplices?" He answered trembling, and indistinctly, through fear, "It was a black, an Aga from Chendi." "Mahomet Towash, says Ismael; Ullah Kerim! God is merciful!" "The same," says the Bishareen. He then related the particulars of his death in the manner in which I shall have occasion to state afterwards. "Where are the Bishareen? continued I; where is Abou Bertran? how soon will a light camel and messenger arrive where he now is?" "In less than two days; perhaps, says he, in a day and a half, if he is very diligent and the camel good." "Take care, said I, you are in danger. Where did you and your women come from, and when?" "From Abou Bertran, says he; we arrived here at noon on the 5th day[50], but the camels were all she-camels; they are favourite camels of Shekh Seide; we drove them softly; the two you saw at the tents are lame; besides there were some others unsound; there were also women and children." "Where did that party, and their camels, go to from this? and what number of men was there with them?" "There were about three hundred camels of all sorts, and about thirty men, all of them servants; some of them had one lance, and some of them two; they had no shields or other arms." "What did you intend last night to do with my camels?" "I intended to have carried them, with the women and child, to join the party at the Nile." "What must have become of me in that case? we must have died?" He did not answer. "Take care, said I, the thing is now over, and you are in my hands; take care what you say." "Why, certainly, says he, you must have died, you could not live, you could not go anywhere else." "If another party had found us here, in that case would they have slain us?" He hesitated a little, then, as if he recollected himself, said, "Yes, surely, they murdered the Aga, and would murder any body that had not a Bishareen with them." A violent cry of condemnation immediately followed. "Now attend and understand me distinctly, said I, for upon these two questions hangs your life: Do you know of any party of Bishareen who are soon to pass here, or any wells to the north, and in what number? and have you sent any intelligence since last night you saw us here?" He answered, with more readiness than usual, "We have sent nobody anywhere; our camels are lame; we were to follow, as soon as they could be able to travel, to join those at the Nile. The parties of the Bishareen are always passing here, sometimes more, sometimes less; they will not come till they hear from the Nile whether the grass is grown. They have with them two dromedaries, who will carry the news from the Nile in three days, or they will come in small parties like the last, for they have no fear in these parts. The wells to the north belong to the Ababdé. When they pass by them with cattle they are always in great numbers, and a Shekh along with them; but those wells are now so scanty they have not water for any number, and they must therefore all pass this way."

I got up, and called on Ismael. The poor fellow thought he was to die. Life is sweet even to the most miserable. He was still upon his knees, holding his hands clasped round the back of his neck, and already, I suppose, thought he felt the edge of Ismael's knife. He swore that every word he had spoken was truth; and if his wife was brought she could not tell another story.

I thereupon left him, and went to his wife, who, when, she saw Hagi Ismael with a drawn sword in his hand, thought all was over with her husband, and fell into a violent fit of despair, crying out, "That all the men were liars and murderers, but that she would have told the truth if I had asked her first." "Then go, Hagi Ismael, said I, tell them not to put him to death till I come, and now you have your chance, which if you do not improve by telling the truth, I will first slay your child with my own hand before your face, and then order you all to be cruelly put to death together." She began with great earnestness to say, "She could not tell who killed Mahomet Towash, for she only heard it in conversation from her husband, who was there, after he had come home." I then, word for word, put those questions to her that I had done to her husband, and had precisely the same answers. The only difference was, that she believed a party of the Ababdé would pass Chiggre soon; but seeing me rise to go away, she burst out into a flood of tears, and tore her hair in the most violent excess of passion; shrieking out, to have mercy upon her, and pressing the little child to her breast as if to take leave of it, then laying it down before me, in great agony and bitterness of heart, she again shrieked out, "If you are a Turk, make it a slave, but do not kill my child, and spare my husband."

Though I understood Arabic well, I did not, till that day, know it had such powers, or that it contained expressions at once so forcible and so simple. I found myself so much moved, and my tears came so fast, that it was in vain to endeavour to carry on a farce under such tragical appearances, "Woman, said I, I am not a Turk, nor do I make slaves, or kill children. It is your Arabs that force me to this; it was you that attacked me last night, it was you that murdered Mahomet Towash, one of your own religion, and busied in his duty. I am a stranger, seeking my own safety, but you are all murderers and thieves."—"It is true, says she, they are all murderers and liars, and my husband, not knowing, may have lied too. Only let me hear what he told you, and I will tell you whether it is truth or not." Day was now advancing apace, and no resolution taken, whilst our present situation was a very unsafe one. We carried the three prisoners bound, and set George, the Greek, centinal over them. I then called the people together.

I stated fairly, in a council held among ourselves, the horror of slaughtering the women and child, or even leaving them to starve with hunger by killing their camels, from whom they got their only sustenance; for, though we should not stain our hands with their blood, it was the same thing to leave them to perish: that we were strangers, and had fallen upon them by accident, but they were in their own country. On the contrary, suppose we only slew the man, any of the women might mount a camel, and, travelling with diligence, might inform the Bishareen, who would send a party and cut us off at the next well, where we must pass, and where it would be impossible to escape them. I must say, there was a considerable majority for sparing the women and child, and not one but who willingly decreed the death of the man, who had confessed he was endeavouring to steal our camels, and that he intended to carry them to his party at the Nile; in which case the loss of all our lives was certain, as we should have been starved to death, or murdered by the Arabs.

The very recital of this attempt so enraged Hagi Ismael that he desired he might have the preference in cutting off his head. The Barbarins, too, were angry for the loss of their bracelets. Indeed every one's opinion was, that the Arab should die, and especially since the account of their behaviour to Mahomet Towash, whose death I, for my own part, cannot say I thought myself under any obligation to revenge. "Since you are differing in your opinions, and there is no time to lose, said I, allow me to give you mine. It has appeared to me, that often, since we began this journey, we have been preserved by visible instances of God's protection, when we should have lost our lives if we had gone by the rules of our own judgment only. We are, it is true, of different religions, but all worship the same God. Suppose the present case should be a trial, whether we trust really in God's protection, or whether we believe our safety owing to our own foresight and courage. If the man's life be now taken away, to-morrow we may meet the Bishareen, and then we shall all reflect upon the folly of our precaution. For my own part, my constant creed is, that I am in God's hands, whether in the house or in the desert; and not in those of the Bishareen, or of any lawless spoiler. I have a clear conscience, and am engaged in no unlawful pursuit, seeking on foot my way home, feeding on bread and water, and have done, nor design, wrong to no man. We are well armed, are nine in number, and have twice as many firelocks, many of these with double-barrels, and others of a size never before seen by Arabs, armies of whom have been defeated with fewer: we are ragged and tattered in our clothes, and no prize to any one, nor do I think we shall be found a party of pleasure for any set of wild young men, to leave their own homes, with javelins and lances to way-lay us at the well for sport and diversion, since gain and profit are out of the question. But this I declare to you, if ever we meet these Arabs, if the ground is such as has been near all the wells we have come to, I will fight the Bishareen boldly and chearfully, without a doubt of beating them with ease. I do not say my feelings would be the same if my conscience was loaded with that most heinous and horrid crime, murder in cold blood; and therefore my determination is to spare the life even of this man, and will oppose his being put to death by every means in my power."

It was easy to see, that fear of their own lives only, and not cruelty, was the reason they sought that of the Arab. They answered me, two or three of them at once, "That it was all very well; what should they do? should they give themselves up to the Bishareen, and be murdered like Mahomet Towash? was there any other way of escaping?" "I will tell you, then, since you ask me what you should do: You shall follow the duty of self-defence and self-preservation, as far as you can do it without a crime. You shall leave the women and the child where they are, and with them the camels, to give them and their child milk; you shall chain the husband's right hand to the left of some of yours, and you shall each of you take him by turns till we shall carry him into Egypt. Perhaps he knows the desert and the wells better than Idris; and if he should not, still we have two Hybeers instead of one; and who can foretell what may happen to Idris more than to any other of us? But as he knows the stations of his people, and their courses at particular seasons, that day we meet one Bishareen, the man that is chained with him, and conducts him, shall instantly stab him to the heart, so that he shall not see, much less triumph in, the success of his treachery. On the contrary, if he is faithful, and informs Idris where the danger is, and where we are to avoid it, keeping us rather by scanty wells than abundant ones, on the day I arrive safely in Egypt I will cloath him anew, as also his women, give him a good camel for himself, and a load of dora for them all. As for the camels we leave here, they are she-ones, and necessary to give the women food. They are not lame, it is said, but we shall lame them in earnest, so that they shall not be able to carry a messenger to the Bishareen before they die with thirst in the way, both they and their riders, if they should attempt it."

An universal applause followed this speech; Idris, above all, declared his warmest approbation. The man and the women were sent for, and had their sentence repeated to them. They all subscribed to the conditions chearfully; and the woman declared she would as soon see her child die as be an instrument of any harm befalling us, and that, if a thousand Bishareen should pass, she knew how to mislead them all, and that none of them should follow us till we were far out of danger.

I sent two Barbarins to lame the camels effectually, but not so as to make them past recovery. After which, for the nurse and the child's sake, I took twelve handfuls of the bread which was our only food, and indeed we could scarecly spare it, as we saw afterwards, and left it to this miserable family, with this agreeable reflection, however, that we should be to them in the end a much greater blessing than in the beginning we had been an affliction, provided only they kept their faith, and on their part deserved it.

On the 20th, at eleven o'clock we left the well at Terfowey, after having warned the women, that their chance of seeing their husband again depended wholly upon his and their faithful conduct. We took our prisoner with us, his right hand being chained to the left of one of the Barbarins. We had no sooner got into the plain than we felt great symptoms of the simoom, and about a quarter before twelve, our prisoner first, and then Idris, cried out, The Simoom! the Simoom! My curiosity would not suffer me to fall down without looking behind me. About due south, a little to the east, I saw the coloured haze as before. It seemed now to be rather less compressed, and to have with it a shade of blue. The edges of it were not defined as those of the former, but like a very thin smoke, with about a yard in the middle tinged with those colours. We all fell upon our faces, and the simoom passed with a gentle rustling wind. It continued to blow in this manner till near three o'clock, so we were all taken ill that night, and scarcely strength was left us to load the camels and arrange the baggage. This day one of our camels died, partly famished, partly overcome with extreme fatigue, so that, incapable as we were of labour, we were obliged, for self-preservation's sake, to cut off thin slices of the fleshy part of the camel, and hang it in so many thongs upon the trees all night, and after upon the baggage, the sun drying it immediately, so as to prevent putrefaction.

At half past eight in the evening we alighted at a well called Naibey, in a bare, sandy plain, where there were a few straggling acacia-trees. We had all this day seen large blocks of fossile salt upon the surface of the earth where we trod. This was the cause, I suppose, that both the spring at Terfowey, and now this of Naibey, were brackish to the taste, and especially that of Naibey. We found near the well the corpse of a man and two camels upon the ground. It was apparently long ago that this accident happened, for the moisture of the camel was so exhaled that it seemed to weigh but a very few pounds; no vermin had touched it, as in this whole desert there is neither worm, fly, nor any thing that has the breath of life.

On the 21st, at six in the morning, having filled the girbas with water, we set out from Naibey, our direction due north, and, as we thought, in a course almost straight upon Syene. The first hour of our journey was through sharp-pointed rocks, which it was very easy to foresee would very soon finish our camels. About eight we had a view of the desert to the westward as before, and saw the sands had already begun to rise in immense twisted pillars, which darkened the heavens. The rising of these in the morning so early, we began now to observe, was a sure sign of a hot day, with a brisk wind at north; and that heat, and the early rising of the sands, was as sure a sign of its falling calm about mid-day, and its being followed by two hours of the poisonous wind. That last consideration was what made the greatest impression, for we had felt its effects; it had filled us with fear, and absorbed the last remnant of our strength; whereas the sand, though a destruction to us if it had involved us in its compass, had as yet done us no other harm than terrifying us the first days we had seen it.

It was this day more magnificent than any we had as yet seen. The sun shining through the pillars, which were thicker, and contained more sand apparently than any of the preceding days, seemed to give those nearest us an appearance as if spotted with stars of gold. I do not think at any time they seemed to be nearer than two miles. The most remarkable circumstance was, that the sand seemed to keep in that vast circular space surrounded by the Nile on our left, in going round by Chaigie towards Dongola, and seldom was observed much to the eastward of a meridian, passing along the Nile through the Magiran, before it takes that turn; whereas the simoom was always on the opposite side of our course, coming upon us from the south-east.

A little before twelve our wind at north ceased, and a considerable quantity of fine sand rained upon us for an hour afterwards. At the time it appeared, the description of this phænomenon in Syphax's speech to Cato was perpetually before my mind:—

These lines are capital, and are a fine copy, which can only appear tame by the original having been before our eyes, painted by the great master, the Creator and Ruler of the world.

The simoom, with the wind at S. E. immediately follows the wind at N. and the usual despondency that always accompanied it. The blue meteor, with which it began, passed over us about twelve, and the rustling wind that followed it continued till near two. Silence, and a desperate kind of indifference about life, were the immediate effects upon us; and I began now, seeing the condition of my camels, to fear we were all doomed to a sandy grave, and to contemplate it with some degree of resignation. At half past eight in the evening we alighted in a sandy flat, where there was great store of bent grass and trees which had a considerable degree of verdure, a circumstance much in favour of our camels. We determined to stop here to give them an opportunity of eating their fill where they could find it.

On the 22d, at six o'clock we set out from the sandy flat, and one of the Tucorory was seized with a phrenzy or madness. At first I took it for a fit of the epilepsy, by the distortions of his face, but it was soon seen to be of a more serious nature. Whether he had been before afflicted with it I know not. I offered to bleed him, which he refused; neither, though we gave him water, would he drink, but very moderately. He rolled upon the ground, and moaned, often repeating two or three words which I did not understand. He refused to continue his journey, or rise from where he lay, so that we were obliged to leave him to his fortune. We went this day very diligently, not remarkably slow nor fast; but though our camels, as we thought, had fared well for these two nights, another of them died about four o'clock this afternoon, when we came to Umarack.

I here began to provide for the worst. I saw the fate of our camels approaching, and that our men grew weak in proportion; our bread, too, began to fail us, altho' we had plenty of camels flesh in its stead; our water, though in all appearance we were to find it more frequently than in the beginning of our journey, was nevertheless brackish, and scarce served the purpose to quench our thirst; and, above all, the dreadful simoom had perfectly exhausted our strength, and brought upon us a degree of cowardice and languor that we struggled with in vain; I therefore, as the last effort, began to throw away every thing weighty I could spare, or that was not absolutely necessary, such as all shells, fossiles, minerals, and petrefactions that I could get at, the counter-cases of my quadrant, telescopes, and clock, and several suchlike things.

Our camels were now reduced to five, and it did not seem that these were capable of continuing their journey much longer. In that case, no remedy remained, but that each man should carry his own water and provisions. Now, as no one man could carry the water he should use between well and well, and it was more than probable that distance would be doubled by some of the wells being found dry; and if that was not the case, yet, as it was impossible for a man to carry his provisions who could not walk without any burden at all, our situation seemed to be most desperate.

The Bishareen alone seemed to keep up his strength, and was in excellent spirits. He had attached himself, in a particular manner, to me, and with a part of that very scanty rag which he had round his waist he had made a wrapper, very artificially, according to the manner his countrymen the Bishareen practice on such occasions. This had greatly defended my feet in the day, but the pain occasioned by the cold in the night was really scarce sufferable. I offered to free him from the confinement of his left hand, which was chained to some one of the company night and day; but he very sensibly refused it, saying, "Unchain my hands when you load and unload your camels, I cannot then run away from you; for tho' you did not shoot me, I should starve with hunger and thirst; but keep me to the end of the journey as you began with me, then I cannot misbehave, and lose the reward which you say you are to give me."

At forty minutes past three o'clock we saw large stratas of fossile salt everywhere upon the surface of the ground. At five we found the body of Mahomet Towash, on the spot where he had been murdered, stript naked, and lying on his face unburied. The wound in the back-sinew of his leg was apparent; he was, besides, thrust through the back with a lance, and had two wounds in the head with swords. We followed some footsteps in the sand to the right, and there saw three other bodies, whom Idris knew to be his principal servants. These, it seemed, had taken to their arms upon the Aga's being first wounded, and the cowardly, treacherous Bishareens had persuaded them to capitulate upon promise of giving them camels and provision to carry them into Egypt, after which they had murdered them behind these rocks.

At six o'clock we alighted at Umarack, so called from a number of rack-trees that grow there, and which seem to affect a saltish soil; at Raback and Masuah I had seen them growing in the sea. When I ordered a halt at Umarack, the general cry was, to travel all night, so that we might be at a distance from that dangerous, unlucky spot. The sight of the men murdered, and fear of the like fate, had got the better of their other sensations. In short, there was nothing more visible, than that their apprehensions were of two sorts, and produced very different operations. The simoom, the stalking pillars of sand, and probability of dying with thirst or hunger, brought on a torpor, or indifference, that made them inactive; but the discovery of the Arab at Terfowey, the fear of meeting the Bishareen at the wells, and the dead bodies of the Aga and his unfortunate companions, produced a degree of activity and irritation that resembled very much their spirits being elevated by good news. I told them, that, of all the places in the desert through which they had passed, this was by far the safest, because fear of being met by troops from Assouan, seeking the murderers of Mahomet Towash would keep all the Bishareen at a distance. Our Arab said, that the next well belonged to the Ababdé, and not the Bishareen, and that the Bishareen had slain the Aga there, to make men believe it had been done by the Ababdé. Idris contributed his morsel of comfort, by assuring us, that the wells now, as far as Egypt, were so scanty of water, that no party above ten men would trust their provision to them, and none of us had the least apprehension from marauders of twice that number. The night at Umarack was excessively cold as to sensation; Fahrenheit's thermometer was however at 49° an hour before day-light.

On the 23d we left Umarack at six o'clock in the morning, our road this day being between mountains of blue stones of a very fine and perfect quality, through the heart of which ran thick veins of jasper, their strata perpendicular to the horizon. There were other mountains of marble of the colour called Isabella. In other places the rock seemed composed of petrified wood, such as we had seen in the mountains near Cosseir. At a quarter past eleven, going due N. we entered a narrow valley, in which we passed two wells on our left, and following the windings through this valley, all of deep sand, we came to a large pool of excellent water, called Umgwat, sheltered from the rays of the sun by a large rock which projected over it, the upper part of which was shaped like a wedge, and was composed all of green marble, without the smallest variety or spot of other colour in it.

Through this whole valley, to-day, we had seen the bodies of the Tucorory who had followed Mahomet Towash, and been scattered by the Bishareen, and left to perish with thirst there. None of them, however, as far as we could observe, had ever reached this well. In the water we found a bird of the duck kind called Teal, or Widgeon. The Turk Ismael was preparing to shoot at it with his blunderbuss, but I desired him to refrain, being willing, by its flight, to endeavour to judge something of the nearness of the Nile. We raised it therefore by sudden repeated cries, which method was likely to make it seek its home straight, and abandon a place it must have been a stranger to. The bird flew straight west, rising as he flew, a sure proof his journey was a long one, till at last, being very high and at a distance, he vanished from our sight, without descending or seeking to approach the earth; from which I drew an unpleasant inference that we were yet far from the Nile, as was really the case.

Here we threw away the brackish water that remained in our girbas, and filled them with the wholesome element drawn from this pool of Umgwat. I could not help reproaching Idris with the inaccuracy of the information he had pretended to give us the day before, that no party above ten men could meet us at any of these wells, as none of them could supply water for more; whereas in this pool there was certainly enough of excellent water to serve a whole tribe of Arabs for a month. He had little to say, further than that Haimer, though near, was a scanty well, and perhaps we should not find water there at all. He trusted, however, if our people would take heart, we were out of all danger from Arabs, or any thing else.

At a quarter past three we left the well, and continued along a sandy valley, which is called Waadi Umgwat. This night it was told me that Georgis, and the Turk Ismael, were both so ill, and so desponding, that they had resolved to pursue the journey no farther, but submit to their destiny, as they called it, and stay behind and die. It was with the utmost difficulty I could get them to lay aside this resolution, and the next morning I promised they should ride by turns upon one of the camels, a thing that none of us had yet attempted. They had, indeed, often desired me to do so, but I well knew, if I had set them that example, besides destroying the camels, it would have had the very worst effect upon their dastardly spirits; and, indeed, we very soon saw the bad effects of this humane consideration for the two invalids.

On the 24th, at half past six in the morning we left Umgwat, following the windings of sandy valleys between stony hills. At half past nine we found Mahomet Aga's horse dead. The poor creature seemed, without a guide, to have followed exactly enough the tract of the wells and way to Egypt, and had survived all his fellow-travellers. At eleven o'clock we came to some plains of loose, moving sand, and saw some pillars in motion, which had not wind to sustain them for any time, and which gave us, therefore, little concern. At one we alighted near the well Mour, which was to the N. E. of us. At four we left the well Mour: At forty minutes after four passed the well itself, which was then dry; and at a quarter past six we found a dead man, whose corpse was quite dry, and had been so a considerable time. At seven o'clock in the evening we alighted at El Haimer, where are the two wells in a large plain of sand. The water is good. There is another well to the west of us, but it is bitter and saltish, though more abundant than either of the other two, which, by filling our skins, we had several times drained.

On the 25th, at half past seven in the morning we left the well El Haimer, and at ten o'clock alighted among some acacia-trees, our camels having ate nothing all night, except the dry bitter roots of that drug, the senna. While we were attending the camels, and resting ourselves on the grass, we were surprised at the appearance of a troop of Arabs all upon camels, who looked like a caravan, each camel having a small loading behind him. They had two gentle ascents before they could arrive at the place where we were. The road is between two sandy hills, at the back of which our camels were feeding in a wood; and near the road was the well El Haimer, where our skins were lying full of water. It was necessary then to understand one another before we allowed them to pass between the sandy hills. Upon the first alarm, my people all repaired to me, bringing their arms in their hands, as well those that they carried upon them, as the spare arms, all of which were primed and charged.

The first question was, what to do with the Bishareen? None of us had any suspicion of him. We unchained him from the Barbarin, and fastened his other hand, then gave him to the Tucorory, and made them stand behind to increase the appearance of our number. I then advanced to the edge of the hill, and cried out with a loud voice, "Stop! for you cannot pass here." Whether they understood it I do not know, but they still persisted in mounting the hill. I again cried, shewing my firelock, "Advance a step farther and I'll fire." After a short pause they all dismounted from their camels, and one of them, with his lance in his hand, came forward till within twenty yards, upon which Idris immediately knew them, and said, they were Ababdé. "Ababdé or not, said I, they are seventeen men, and Arabs, and I am not of a disposition, without further surety, to put myself in their hands as Mahomet Aga did. I am sure they are perfectly in our power now, as long as they stand where they are." Idris then told me that he was married to one of the Ababdè of Shekh Ammer, and he would go and get a sure word from them. Tell them from me, said I, that I, too, am the friend of Nimmer their Shekh, and his two sons, and of Shekh Hammam of Furshout; that I am going into Egypt, have been followed by the Bishareen, and trust nobody; have twenty men armed with firelocks, and will do them no harm, provided they consent to pass, one by one, and give a man for a hostage.

Idris, without arms, having joined the man who had advanced towards us, went down with him to the body of strangers, and the treaty was soon agreed to. Two of the principal men among them approaching me without their lances, and the compliment of peace, "Salam Alicum! and Alicum Salam!" was given and returned by both sides. They seemed, however, startled at seeing the Bishareen with both his hands chained; but I told them, that had no regard to them, and desired Idris to order their camels to go on; and one of the Barbarins in the meantime brought them a gourd full of water, and bread, for eating together is like pledging your faith. They had not heard of the fate of Mahomet Aga, and seemed very ill-pleased at it, saying, that Abou Bertran was a thief and a murderer. All the camels being past, I asked them whither they were going? They said to Atbieh, west of Terfowey, to gather senna for the government of Cairo. I would very fain have had them to sell or exchange with me a couple of camels. They said theirs were not strong; that before they could reach home they would be much in the same condition with our own; that they were obliged to load them very heavily, as indeed the bags they had behind them to carry the senna seemed to indicate their profit was but small, so that the death of one camel was a most serious loss.

I thought myself obliged in humanity to introduce our prisoner to the two Ababdé that had remained with us. They said, they intended to take water at Terfowey, and we told them briefly the accident by which we came in company with the Bishareen. They, on the contrary, thought that we had been a party of soldiers from Assouan who apprehended the Arab. Immediately after which they conversed in the language of Beja, which is that of the Habab, Suakem, and Masuah. I told them plainly, that, though I knew that language, I would not suffer them to speak any but Arabic, understood by us all. They immediately complied, and then inquired about the position of Abou Bertran and his tribe of Bishareen. This, too, I would not suffer the Arab to inform them of, but charged them, as he did also, to tell his wives that he was well, and ate and drank as we had done, and was within two days of arriving at Assouan, whence he should be returned to them with the rewards promised. I then desired him to lay a lance in a manner that the point should be towards Syene, which they accordingly did, and with a long needle of 12 inches in a brass box, having an arch of a few degrees marked on it, I, with the utmost attention, took the direction from Haimer to Syene N. N. W. or more northerly. I would very willingly have had it in my power to have made an observation of latitude, but noon was past; I contented myself, therefore, with keeping my route as distinctly as possible till the evening.

At 40 minutes past one o'clock we left Haimer, and our friends, the Ababdé, continued their route, after giving us great praise, as well for our civility, as our keeping the watch like men, as they expressed it. At half past eight we alighted at Abou Ferege, a place where there was very little verdure of any kind. Here, for the first time on our journey, we met with a cloudy sky, which effectually disappointed my observation of latitude; but every noon and night I described, in a rough manner, my course through the day, carrying always a compass, with a needle about five inches radius, round my neck, by a lace, and resting in my pocket. I thus found that we had kept the line directly upon Syene, which the Ababdé Arab had shewed us.

On the 26th, at half after six in the morning we set out from Abou Ferege, continuing nearly in the same direction upon Syene till eleven o'clock, when, for the purpose of observation only, I alighted at a place called Abou Heregi, without water, grass, or food for our camels. We were exceedingly averse to exertions, and became so weak and spiritless, that it was not possible to prevail upon our people to take the large quadrant out of its chest to put it together, and prepare it for observation. I therefore took a Hadley's quadrant, with a mixture I had made, which served me better than quick-silver, and made my observation by reflection at Abou Heregi, and found it in lat. 23°, from which I inferred, with some degree of comfort to myself, that the longitude of Syene in the French maps is ill laid down, and that we were now in the direction upon Syene, had no westing to run down, but the journey must finish in a very few days.

At two o'clock in the afternoon we left Abou Heregi, and at four had an unexpected entertainment, which filled our hearts with a very short-lived joy. The whole plain before us seemed thick-covered with green grass and yellow daisies. We advanced to the place with as much speed as our lame condition would suffer us, but how terrible was our disappointment, when we found the whole of that verdure to consist in senna and coloquintida, the most nauseous of plants, and the most incapable of being substituted as food for man or beast. At nine o'clock in the evening we alighted at Saffieha, which is a ridge of craggy mountains to the S. E. and N. W. The night here was immoderately cold, and the wind north. We were now very near a crisis, one way or the other. Our bread was consumed, so that we had not sufficient for one day more; and though we had camels flesh, yet, by living so long on bread and water, an invincible repugnance arose either to smell or taste it. As our camels were at their last gasp, we had taken so sparingly of water, that, when we came to divide it, we found it insufficient for our necessities, if Syene was even so near as we conceived it to be.

Georgis had lost one eye, and was nearly blind in the other. Ismael and he had both become so stiff by being carried, that they could not bear to set their feet to the ground; and I may say for myself, that, though I had supported the wounds in my feet with a patience very uncommon, yet they were arrived at that height as to be perfectly intolerable, and, as I apprehended, on the point of mortification. The bandage, which the Bishareen had tied about the hollow of my foot, was now almost hidden by the flesh swelling over it. Three large wounds on the right foot, and two on the left, continued open, whence a quantity of lymph oozed continually. It was also with the utmost difficulty we could get out the rag, by cutting it to shreds with scissars. The tale is both unpleasant and irksome. Two soles which remained from our sandals, the upper leathers of which had gone to pieces in the sand near Gooz, were tied with a cotton cloth very adroitly by the Bishareen. But it seemed impossible that I could walk further, even with this assistance, and therefore we determined to throw away the quadrant, telescopes, and time-keeper, and save our lives, by riding the camels alternately. But Providence had already decreed that we should not terminate this dangerous journey by our own ordinary foresight and contrivance, but owe it entirely to his visible support and interposition.