i DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT, ETHIOPIA, AND THE PENINSULA OF SINAI. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/discoveriesinegy00leps_0 Nrrw Burlington IRS2 DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT, ETHIOPIA, AND THE PENINSULA OF SINAI, IN THE YEARS 1842-1845, DURING TH E MISSION SENT OCT BV HIS MAJESTY FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA. By DR. RICHARD LEPSIUS. EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE. MEROE. SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, ©ublisfjer in ©r&inarg to I£rr fHajcstg. 1853. TO ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT WITH THE DEEPEST RESPECT AND GRATITUDE. / 7 ' — — AUTHOR’S PREFACE. The purpose of the Scientific Expedition, sent out in 1842 by his Majesty the King, was an historical and antiquarian research into, and collection of the ancient Egyptian monuments, in the valley of the Nile, and the peninsula of Sinai. It was by royal munificence provided with the means for remaining three years ; it rejoiced in the favour and interest of the highest person in the realm, as well as in the most active and kindly assistance of Alexander Von Humboldt ; and under such a rare combination of fortunate circumstances, it completed its intended task as fully as could have been hoped. A “ Prefa- tory account of the expedition, its results, and their publication,” (Berlin, 1849, 4to.) was published with the first parts of the great monumental work, which is brought out at the command of his Majesty, in a manner corresponding to the impor- tance of the treasures brought back, and contains a short abstract of the more important results of the Expedition. The work, there announced, “ The Monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia,” will contain more than 800 plates, of the largest size, of which half are already prepared, and 240 plates already published, will lay before the public these results, as far as concerns the sculptures, the topography, viii AUTHORS PREFACE. and architecture, while the accompanying text will explain them more fully. It however, appeared necessary (without taking the purely scientific labours into account), to lay before a larger circle of readers a picture of the external events of the expedition, of the relative operations of its members, of the obstacles, and the favourable circumstances of the journey, the condition of the countries through which it passed, and their effect upon the actual design of the under- taking; finally to offer a few observations on the remarkable monuments of that most historical of all countries, as must continually recur to the well prepared traveller, and which might rouse others who have already perceived the importance of the newly founded science, to a more active interest. If, besides, it be of the greatest utility for a just understanding of these scientific labours which are gradually coming to the light, and which have been caused by the journey ; that the circumstances under which the materials for them were collected, I think that the publication of the following letters requires no farther excuse, as they make no preten- sion to any particular literary perfection, or descrip- tive power, or, on the other hand, to be a strictly scientific work. The letters are almost in the original form as they were written, sometimes as a report direct to his Majesty the King, sometimes to his Excellency, the then Minister of Instruction, Eichhorn, or to other high patrons and honoured men, as A. Von Hum- boldt, Bunsen, Von Olfers, Ehrenberg, and some- times to my father, who followed my progress with author’s preface. IX the most lively interest. Several of them were im- mediately printed in the papers on their arrival in Europe, particularly in the Preussische Staatszeitung , and thence in other papers. The unessential changes mostly relate to the editing. All the additions or enlargements have been added as notes ; and among these belong particularly the arguments and grounds as to the true position of Sinai, which, since then has been proved in various quarters, and again dis- proved, and again concurred in. The thirty-sixth letter, on the arrangement of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, turns certainly from the subject; but we may allow the exception, as this point is not alone interesting to Berlin, but in all points the examina- tion is worth while, where there is any resemblance to or comparison with modern art. It is proposed to add a second part to these letters, in which several treatises, written during the expedition, or on different points relating to Egyp- tian art or history, will be published. Berlin, 2nd June , 1852 . CON T E N T S. IiKTTEH I. On UOARD THE ORIENTAL StEAMEH, SeI'T. 5, 1842 Page 1 Sea voyage to Alexandria. Letter II. — Alexandria, Sei*t. 23, 1842 ... ... (> Malta. — Gobat. — Isenberg. — K rapf. — A lexan- dria. — Molianinied Ali. Letter III. — Cairo, Oct. 16, 1842 ... ... ... 11 Alexandria. — Ponipey’s Pillar. — Cleopatra’s Needle. — Collection of Werne. — Departure from Alexandria. — Sais. — Nabarieh. — Cairo. — Helio- polis. — The king’s birth-day kept at the pyramids. — View from the pyramid of Cheops. Letter IV. — At the foot of tiik Great Pyramid, Jan. 2, 1843 24 Pyramids of Gizeb. — Private tombs. — Sphinx. — Storm of rain. — Christmas. — Life in the Camp. Letter V. — Pyramids of Gizeh, Jan. 17, 1843 ... 32 The hieroglypliical tablet on the pyramid of Cheops. — Historical gain. Letter VI. — Pyramids of Gizeh, Jan. 28, 1843 ... 37 The oldest royal dynasties. — Tomb of Prince Merhet. — Private tombs. — Destruction by the Arabs. — Oldest obelisk. Letter VII. — Saqara, March 18, 1843 ... ... 44 Pyramids of Meidum. — Architecture of the pyra- mids. — The Riddle of the Sphinx. — Locust. — Comet. Xll CONTENTS. Letter VIII. — Saqara, April 13, 1843 51 H. R. II. Prince Albrecht of Prussia. — Rejoicings in Cairo.— Return of Pilgrims. — Mulid e' Nebbi. — Doseh. — Visit of the prince to the pyramids. — Oldest use of the pointed arch in Cairo. — Oldest round arch in Egypt. — Night attack at Saqara. — Judgment day. Letter IX. — Cairo, April 22, 1843 ... ... ... 64 Situation of the fields of pyramids. — Cairo. Letter X. — Ruins of the Labyrinth, May 31, 1843. 67 Departure for the Faium. — Camels and drome- daries. — Lisht. — Mcidurn. — Illa.h un. — Labyrinth. — Arab music. — Bedouins. — Turkish kliawass. Letter XI. — Labyrinth, June 25, 1843 78 Ruins of the Labyrinth. — Its first builders. — • Pyramid. — Lake Mceris. Letter XII. — Labyrinth, July 18, 1843 85 Excursion through the Faium. — Mceris embank- ments. — Birqet el Qorn. — Dimeli. — Qasr Qerun. Letter XIII. — Cairo, August 14, 1843 ... ... 91 Departure of Frey. — Ethiopian manuscripts. Letter XIV. — Thebes, Oct. 13, 1843 ... ... 93 Nile passage to Upper Egypt. — Rock-cave of Surarieh. Tombs of the sixth dynasty in Middle Egypt, of the twelfth at Benihassan, Sint, Ber- sheh. — Arrival at Thebes. — Climate. — Departure. Letter XV. — Korusko, November 20, 1843 ... ... 100 Greek inscriptions. — Benihassan. — Bersheh. Tombs of the sixth dynasty. — El Amarna. — Siut — Alabaster quarries of El Bosra. — Echmin (Cheru- mis). — Thebes. — El Kab (Eileithyia). — Edfu. — Ombos. — Egyptian Canon of Proportion. — Assuan. — Philae. — Hieroglyphic demotic inscriptions. — Scries of Ptolemies. — Entrance in Lower Nubia, — Debod. — Gertassi. — Kalabsheh (Talmis). — Dondur. — Dakkeli (Psclchis). — Kortc. — Ilicrasy- kaminos. — Mchcndi. — Scbua. — Korusko. — N ubian language. CONTENTS. Xlll Letter XVI. — Korusko, January 5, 184 1 ... 133 Scarcity ofcaniels. — Wadi Haifa. — A limed Paslia Menekle and the new Pashas of the Sudan. Letter XVII. — E’Damer, January 21, 1844 ... 137 Nubian desert. — Roft mountains. — Wadi E’Snfr. — Wadi Murhad. — Ababde Arabs. — Abu Ham- med. — Berber. — El Mecheref. — Mogran or Atbara (Astaboras). — E’Damer. — Mandera. Letter XVIII. — On the Blue River, Province op Sennar, 13° North Latitude, March 2, 1844 155 Hagi Ibrahim. — Meroe. — Bcgerauic. — Pyramids. — Bounds of the tropical climate. — Khawass. — — Ferlini. — Age of the monuments. — Shorn! i. — Ben Naga. — Naga in the desert. — Mesaurat e’ Sofia. — Tamaniat. — Chart um. — Bahrel Abiad (the White River). — Dinka and Shilluk. — Soba. — Kamlin. — Bauer. — Marble inscription. — Baobab. — Abu Harras. — Raliad. — Nature of the country. — Dcnder. — Dileb-palms. — Sennar. — Abdin. — Ro- nnili. — Sero. — Return northward. — Wed M4dineh. — Soriba. — Sultana Nasr. — Gabre Mariam. — Re- babi. — Funeral. — Military. — Emin Pasha. — Taiba. — Messelemieh. — Kamlin. — Soba. — Urn and in- scription. Letter XIX. — Chartum, March 21, 1844 ... ... 207 Military revolt in Wed M6dineh. — Insurrec- tion of slaves. Letter XX. — Pyramids of Meroe, April 22, 1844 ... 211 Tamaniat. — Qirre mountains. — Meroe. — Return of the Turkish army from Taka. — Osman Bey. — Prisoners from Taka. — Language of the Bishari from Taka. — Customs of the South. — Pyramids of Meroe. — Ethiopian inscriptions. — Name of Meroe. Letter XXI.— Keli, April 29, 1844 233 Departure from Meroe. — Groups of tombs north of Meroe. XIV CONTENTS. Letter XXII. — Barkal, May 9, 1844 ... ... 237 Desert of Gilif. — Gos Burri. — Wadi Gaqedul. — Mageqa. — Desert trees. — Wadi Abu Dom. — Wadi Gazal. — Koptic church. — Greek inscriptions. — Pyramids of Nuri. — Arrival at Barkal. Letter XXIII. — Mount Barkal, May 28, 1844 ... 248 Ethiopian kings. — Temple of Ramses II. — Napata. — Meraui. — Climate. Letter XXIY. — Dongola, June 15, 1844 ... ... 251 Excursion into the district of cataracts. — Ban. — Departure from Barkal. — Pyramids of Tanqassi, Kurru, and Zuma. — Churches and fortresses of Bachit, Magal, Gebel Deqa. — Old Dongola. — N ubian language. Letter XXV. — Dongola, June 23, 1844 ... .. 282 Isle of Argo. — Kerma and Defufa. — Tombos. — Inscriptions of Tuthmosis I. — Languages of Darfur. Letter XXVI. — Korusko, August 16, 1844 ... ... 264 Fakir Fenti. — Sese. — Soleb. — Gebel Doshe. Sedeinga. — Amara. — Isle of Sai. — Sulphur-springs of Okmeh. — Semneh. — Elevation of the Nile, under Amenemha (Mceris). — Abu Simbel. — Greek in- scription under Psammeticus I. — Ibrim (Priinis). — Anibis. — Korusko. Letter XXVII. — Philae, September 1, 1844 ... 271 Wadi Ken us. — Bega language of Bishari. — Talmis. — Philae. — Meroitic-Ethiopian inscrip- tions. Letter XXVIII. — Thebes, Qurna, Nov. 24, 1844 ... 274 Excavations in the Temple and Rock-tomb of Ramses II. — Sudan languages. — Ethiopian history and civilisation. Letter XXIX. — Thebes, Qurna, Jan. 8, 1845 ... 277 Removal of monuments and plaster casts. Letter XXX. — Thebes, February 25, 1845 ... ... 279 Descriptiou of Thebes. — Temple of Karnaknnd its history. — Luqsor. — El Asasif. — Statue of Memnon. — Memnoniuin. — Temple of Ramses II. — Medinet CONTENTS. XV Ilabu. — The Royal Tombs. — Private tombs of the time of Psammetichu8. — Time of the Caesars. — Koptic convent and church. — The present Kopts. — Revenge of the Arabs. — Dwelling in Abd el Qurna. — Visit from travellers. Letter XXXI. — On the Red Sea, March 21, 1845... 313 Immigrations from Qurna to Karnak. — Journey to the Sinai peninsula. — Qenneh. — Seid Ilussen. — Stone bridge and inscriptions of Hamamat. — Gebcl Fatireh. — Lost in the desert. — Quarries of por- phyry at Gebel Dochan. — Gebcl Zeit. Letter XXXII. — Convent of Sinai, March 24, 1845. 333 Landing in Tor. — Gebel Hammam. — Wadi Ile- bran. — Convent. — Gebel Musa. — Gebel Sefsaf. Letter XXXIII. — On the Red Sea, April 6, 1845... 338 Departure from the convent. — Wadi e’ Sheikh. — Ascension ofSerbal. — Wadi Firan. — Wadi Mokat- teb. — Copper-mines of Wadi Magliara. — Rock inscriptions of the fourth dynasty. — Sarbut el Chadem. — Slag-lulls. — Wadi Nash. — Harbour of Zelimeh. — True situation of Sinai. — Monkish tradi- tions. — Local and historical relations. — Eliin near Abu Zelimeh. — Mara in Wadi Gharandel. — Desert of Sin. — Sinai, the Mountain of Sin. — The moun- tain of God. — Sustenance of the Israelites. — Rap- hidim near Pharan. — Sinai-Choreb, near Raphidim. — Review of the Sinai question. Letter XXXIV. — Thebes, Karnak. May 4, 1845 ... 372 Return to Thebes. — Revenge. Letter XXXV. — Cairo, July, 10, 1845 374 Dendera. — El Amarna. — Dr. Bethmann — Taking down the tombs near the pyramids. Letter XXXVI. — Cairo, July 11, 1845 ... ... 376 The Egyptian Museum in Berlin. — Wall paint- ings. Letter XXXVII. — Jaffa, October 7, 1845 389 Journey through the Delta. — San (Tanis). — Arrival in Jaffa. XVI CONTENTS. Letter XXXYIII. — Nazareth, November !), 1845... Jerusalem. — Nablus (Sichem). — Tabor. — Naza- reth. — Lake of Tiberias. Letter XXXIX. — Smyrna, December 7, 1845 Carmel. — Lebanon. — Berut. — Journey to Da- mascus. — Zahleh. — Tomb of Noah. — Barada. — Abel’s tomb. — Inscriptions at Barada. — Tomb of Seth. — Balbek. — Ibrahim. — Cedars of Lebanon. — Egyptian and Assyrian Rock-sculptures at Nalir el Kclb. Appendix Index 391 394 420 449 E GY FT, tvut the higher Xite Countries LEl'Sirs'S LETTERS FROM EGYPT A- ETHIOPIA. lHf.2 L E T T E R S from EGYPT, ETHIOPIA, ANT) THE PENINSULA OF SINAI. LETTER I. On hoard the Oriental Steamer. September 5, 1842. All our endeavours were taxed to the utmost to render our departure on the 1st of September possible ; one day’s delay would have cost us a whole month, and this month it was necessary to gain hv redoubled activity. My trip to Paris, where I arrived in thirty hours from London, was unavoidable; two days were all that could be spared for the necessary purchases, letters, and notes, after which I returned richly laden from that city, ever so interesting and instructive to me. In London I obtained two other pleasant travelling companions, Bonomi and Wild, who had readily resolved to take part in the expedi- tion. The former, long well known as a traveller in Egypt and Ethiopia, is not only full of prac- tical knowledge of life in that country, but is also a fine connoisseur of Egyptian art, and a master in Egyptian drawing ; the latter, a young genial- B 2 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. minded architect, enthusiastically seeks in the Orient new materials for his rich woof of com- bination. At length everything was bought, prepared, packed, and we had said farewell to all our friends. Bunsen only, with his usual kindness and untiring friendship, accompanied us to Southampton, the place of embarkation, where he spent the evening with us. As one usually arrives at a sudden, scarce comprehensible quietude, on entering a harbour from the stormy sea, after long and mighty excite- ment, and yet seems to feel the earth swimming beneath one, and to hear the breakers dashing around, so did it happen to me in a contrary manner, when, from the whirl of the last days and weeks in the haven, from the immeasurable world-city, I entered on the uniform desert of the ocean, in the narrow-hounded, soon-traversed house of planks. And now there was nothing more to be provided, nothing to be hurried ; our long row of packages, more than thirty in num- ber, had vanished, box by box, into the murky, hold ; our sleeping-places required no preparation, as they would scarcely hold more than our persons. The want of anxiety caused for some time a new and indefinite uneasiness, a solicitude without any object of solicitude. Among our fellow-passengers I mention only the missionary Licder, who, a German by birth, is returning with his English wife to Cairo. There he has founded and conducted a school si net; 1828, under the auspices of the English Missionary So- SEA VOYAGE TO ALEXANDRIA. 3 cietv, which is now destined exclusively for the children of the Ivoptic Christians. Lieder has introduced into this school the study of the Koptic tongue, and thus once more brought into honour that remarkable and most ancient lan- guage of the country, which for several centuries has been totally superseded among the people by the Arabic. The Scriptures are, however, yet extant in the Koptic tongue, and even used in the service, but they are only intoned, and no longer understood. On the 1st of September, at 10 o’clock, we left Southampton. We had the wind against us, and therefore did not reach Falmouth for four and twenty hours, where our vessel awaited the Lon- don post, to take the letters. There we remained several hours at anchor in a charming bay, at each side of the entrance of which an old castle lies upon the heights, while the town, situated in the background, form a most picturesque group. About 3 o’clock we went to sea again ; the wind took us sideways, and caused much sickness amongst the passengers. I esteem myself for- tunate, that in no passage, however stormy, have I had to complain of this disagreeable condition, which has, for the unsharing spectator, a comical aspect. It is, however, remarkable, that the very same movement that cradles every child to soft slumber, and forms the charm of a sail down the river, causes, by its protracted pendulum-like motion, unconquerable suffering, prostrating the strongest heroes, without, however, bringing them into any very serious danger. b 2 4 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. Next day we reached the Bay of Biscay, and ploughed laboriously through the long deep waves that rolled to us from the far-off shore. Sunday morning, the 4th, we had a very small company at breakfast. About 11 o’clock we assembled to prayers, notwithstanding the continual motion. Over the pulpit the English flag was spread, as the most sacred cloth on board. Herr Lieder preached, simply and well. Toward 4 o’clock we began to see the Spanish coast, in light misty out- lines. The nearer we approached it, the shorter the waves became, as the wind blew from the shore. The air, the heavens, and the ocean, were incomparably beautiful. Cape Einisterre and the neighbouring coast line came out more and more prominently. Gradually the whole company, even the ladies, assembled on deck. The sea smoothed itself to a bright mirror ; the whole afternoon we kept the Spanish coast in sight. The sun set magnificently in the sea; the evening-star was soon followed by the whole host of heavenly stars, and a glorious night rose above us. Then it was that the most splendid spectacle commenced that I have ever beheld at sea. The ocean began to sparkle; all the combs of the breaking waves burnt in emerald-green fire, and from the paddles of the vessel dashed a bright greenish-white torrent of flame, which drew behind it, for a great distance, a broad flashing stripe amidst the darkling waters. The sides of the vessel and our downward-looking faces were shone upon as if by moonbeams, and I could road print with the greatest ease by this water-fire. When OCEAN INFUSORIA. 5 the blazing mass, which, according to Blirenberg’s researches, is caused by infusoria, was most in- tense, we saw flames dancing over the waves to the shore, so that it seemed as if we were travers- ing a more richly-starred heaven than the one we beheld above us. I have also beheld the ocean- light in the Mediterranean, but never in such extraordinary perfection as this time : the scene was magical. Suddenly I saw new living fire-forms among the waves, that fled radiantly from the sides of the vessel. Like two giant serpents, which, judging from the length of the vessel, must have been from sixty to eighty feet long, they went trailing along beside the ship, crossing the waves, dipping in the foam of the wheels, coming forth again, retreating, hurrying, and losing themselves at last in the distance. Lor a long time I could assign no cause for this phenomenon. I recol- lected the old and oft-told tales of monstrous sea- snakes that are seen from time to time. What I here beheld could not have resembled them more than it did. At length I thought that it might only be fishes, w ho, running a race with the steamer, and breaking the uniform surface of the water, caused the long streams of light behind them by their rapid motions. Still the eye was as much deceived as ever ; I could discover nothing of the dark fishes, nor guess their probable size, but I contented myself at length with my suppo- sition. 6 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. LETTER II. ALEiANJDEIA. September 23, 1842. My last letter I posted on the 7th of Septem- ber, at Gibraltar, where we employed the few hours allotted to us in examining the fortress. The African continent lay before us, a bright stripe on the horizon ; on the rocks beneath me climbed monkeys, the only ones in Europe in a wild state, for which reason they are preserved. In Malta, where we arrived on the eleventh of September, we found the painter Prey, from Basle, whose friendship I had made at Rome. He brought me intelligence by word of mouth that he would take part in the expedition, and for that purpose ho had arrived several days before from Naples. We had to wait almost three days for the Marseilles post at this place. This gave us, at all events, the opportunity to visit the curi- osities of the island, particularly the Cyclopean walls discovered some years before in the neigh- bourhood of La V alette, and also to make some purchases. Through Lieder I made the ac- quaintance of Gobat,* who until now had been the principal person at the Maltese station of the * On the sudden death, soon after our departure from Pales- tine, of Bishop Alexander, Gobat was selected by H.M. the King of Prussia as the Protestant bishop of Jerusalem, which post ho has filled with good success since 184G. ALEXANDRIA. 7 English Missionary Society, hut who was now awaiting some new destination, as pecuniary cir- cumstances had caused the Society to give up this station altogether. I had great pleasure in knowing so distinguished a person. From Malta we were accompanied by the missionary Isenberg, who resided for a long time with Gobat in Abyssinia, and who is favourably known to philologists by his grammar of the Amliaric language. Under his protection there was a young lady of Basle, Rosine Dietrich, the bride of the missionary Krapf, who has married her here, and will now return to the English missionary station at Slioa, by the next Indian steamer, with her and his colleagues, Isenberg and Muhleisen. lie was married in the English chapel, and I was present as a witness at the solemnity, which was celebrated in a simple and pleasing manner. On our arrival, on the 18th of September, we found Erbkam, Ernst Weidenbach, and Franke, who had been awaiting us for some days. Mohammed Ali had sailed out in the fleet, as he looked anxiously forward to the arrival of Sami Bey, who was to bring him the desired reduction in tribute : instead of it he obtained the appointment of Grand Vizier. The Swedish General Consul D’Anastasi, who manages the Prussian Consulate for our absent Consul Von "Wagner, and who interests himself zealously in our behalf, presented us to-day to the Viceroy, and we have just returned from the audience. The Pasha expressed great pleasure at 8 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. the vases which I had brought him in the name of His Majesty. Still more did he feel himself honoured by the letter of the King, of which he immediately had a translation prepared, reading it very attentively through in our presence. He signified to me his intention of giving us the reply when we again left the country. He received and dismissed us standing, had coffee presented, and showed us other attentions, which were afterwards carefully explained to me by D’Anastasi. Bogho.s Bey, his confidential minister, was the only person present, nor did he seat himself. Mohammed Ali showed himself brisk and youthful in his motions and conversation ; no weakness was to be seen in the countenance and flashing eye of the old man of tliree-and-seventy springs. He spoke with, interest of his Nile expeditions, and assured us that he should continue them until he had disco- vered the sources of the White Biver. To my question concerning his museum in Cairo, he replied that it was not yet very considerable ; that many unjust requisitions were made of him in Europe, in desiring rapid progress in his under- takings, for which lie had first to create the foun- dation, that had been prepared long since with us in Europe. I touched but slightly on our excava- tions, and took his permission for granted in con- versation, expecting it to be soon given me in duo form.* * The firman of the Viceroy, with the most unlimited per- mission to carry on all excavations that 1 should think desir- able, with a recommendation addressed to the local govern- ments to support me, was given to me before my departure from T1IE PRUSSIAN EXPEDITION. 9 Alexandria. All the work-people and tools that were necessary for the formation and transportation of our collection of anti- quities, were demanded for wages by the Khawass given us by the government, under the authority of the firman, from tho Sheikh of the next village, and nowhere refused. The monuments from the southern provinces were transported in government barks from Mount Barkal to Alexandria, and to them were added three tombs from the neighbourhood of the great Pyramid of Gizeh, which, with the assistance of the four workmen pur- posely sent from Berlin, were carefully taken to pieces, and embarked opposite Old Cairo. At my departure from Egypt, a written permission was given me to export the collection, and the articles were formally presented to his Majesty the King of Prussia by the Viceroy. These peculiar favours, at a time when all private travellers, antiquarian speculators, and even diplomatists, were especially interdicted by the Egyptian government from obtaining and taking away antiquities, did not fail to gain our expedition some unfavourable opinions. AVe were particularly blamed for having a destructive energy, which, under the ascribed circum- stances, would have taken for granted a species of peculiar barbarism among our company. For, as we did not, like many of our rivals, dig out and remove the monuments, which had mostly been hidden below the surface, in haste by night, and with bribed assistance, but at our leisure, and with the open co- operation of the authorities, as well as under the eyes of many travellers — every carelessness with respect to these monuments left behind us, of which they had formed a part, would have been the more reprehensible, the easier such carelessness was to be avoided. But on the value of the monuments, we might esteem ourselves to have a more just judgment than the greater number of the generality of travellers or collectors usually possess ; and we were not in danger of allowing it to be dulled by self-interest, as we did not select the monuments for our- selves, but as the agents of our government, for the Royal Museum at Berlin, and therefore for the benefit of science and an inquiring public. The collection, which, principally by its historical value, may be compared with the most extensive in Europe, was, imme- diately upon its arrival, incorporated with the royal collections, 10 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. without my being placed in any official connection with it. It is already opened and accessible to the public. A careful exa- mination of it will conduce more than anything to place the remarks of later tourists, — among whom there are even Germans, — in their true light; who have even goye so far, as in the case of a Herr Julius Braun, in the General Augsburg Journal ( Allge - meine Augsburger Zeitung ) , to ascribe to us the mutilation of the gods in the temple at El Kab, done 3,000 years ago ! Besides, it would show a total ignorance of present Egyptian relations, or that which gives the actual interest to the monu- ments of antiquity, if any one did not wish to see the as pre- cious as unestimated and daily destroyed treasures of those lands, preserved in European museums as much as possible. ALEXANDRIA. 11 LETTER III. Caiuo. October 1(5, 1842. We were detained nearly fourteen days in Alexandria. The whole time went in preparations for our journey ; the Pasha I saw several times more, and I found him ever favourably disposed towards our expedition. Our scientific researches were inconsiderable. We visited the Pompeian pillar, which, however, stands in no relation to Pompey, but, as the Greek inscription on the base informs us, was erected to the Emperor "Diocletian by the Prefect Publius. The blocks of the foundation are partly formed of the fragments of older buildings ; on one of them the throne-cartouche of the second Psammetichus was yet distinguishable. , The two obelisks, of which the one still standing is named Cleopatra’s Needle, are much disinte- grated on the weather side, and in parts have become quite illegible.* They were erected by Tuthmosis III. in the sixteenth century a.c. ; at a later period, Eamses Miamun has inscribed [ # In the first edition of this work I lamented that due care was not bestowed upon this obelisk, and that “ our own pro- perty ” was abandoned to the wind and the rain, the sand, and — worse than all — the Arab. Now, however, I have the - satisfaction to be able to state that the Crystal Palace Com- pany are about to do what our Government, with a surplus of £1,000,000, could not afford. — K. E. H. M. 2nd edit.] 12 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. himself ; and still later, on the outermost edges, another King, who was found to be one, till now, totally unknown, and who was therefore greeted by me with great joy. I must yet mention an interesting collection of ethnographical articles and specimens of natural history of every kind which have been collected by a native Prussian, Werne,* on the second Nile expedition of the Pasha to the White Itiver, in countries hitherto quite unknown, and have been transported to Alexandria but a few months ago. It appeared to me to he so important and so unique of its kind that I have purchased it for our museum. While we were yet there it was packed up for transport. I think it will be welcome in Berlin. At length the bujurldis (passports) of the Pasha were ready, and now we made haste to quit Alexandria. We embarked the same day that I received them (on the 30th of September), on the Mahmoudieh canal. Darkness surprised us ere we could finish our preparations. At 9 o’clock we left our hotel, in the spacious and beautiful Prank’s Place, in M. D’Anastasi’s two carriages ; before us were the customary runners with torches. The gate was opened at the word that was given us; our packages had been transported to the bark several hours before upon camels, so that we could soon depart in the roomy vessel which I * The diary of this Nile expedition has since been made public under the title of “ Expedition to discover the Sources of the White Nile” (1840-1841), by Ferdinand Werne; with a preface by Carl Ritter. Berlin, 1848. [The work 1ms since been published iu English, under the auspices of Mr. Bentley, in two volumes. — K. R. II. M.] SAlS. NAHARiEH. 13 had liircd in the morning. The Nile, into which we ran at Atfeli, rolled somewhat considerable waves, as there was a violent and unfavourable wind. Sailing is not without danger here, parti- cularly in the dark, as the two customary pointed sails, like the wings of a bee, are easily blown down at every gust ; therefore I advised the sailors to stop, which they did every night when it was stormy. Next day, the 2nd of October, we landed at Sd cl Hager to visit the remains of ancient Sais, that city of the Psammetiche so celebrated for its temple ‘to Minerva. Scarcely anything exists of it but the walls, built of bricks of Nile earth, and the desolate ruins of the houses : there are no remains of any stone buildings with inscriptions. We paced the circumference of the city and took a simple plan of the locality. In the north- western portion of the city her Acropolis once stood, which is still to be distinguished by higher mounds of rubbish. We stopped the night at Nekleh. I have the great charts of the Description cle VEgypte with me, on which we could follow almost every step of our trips. We found them, till now, very faithful everywhere. On the 3rd we landed on the western bank, in order to see the remains of the ancient canal of Rosetta, and afterward spent nearly the whole of the afternoon in examining the ruins of an old city near Naharieh ; no walls are now visible, only rub- bish-mounds remain; but we found in the houses of the new town several stones bearing inscrip- tions, and mostly used for thresholds, originally 14 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. belonging to a temple of King Psammeticlms I. and Apries (Hophre). Next night, we stopped on the western shore near Teirieh, and landed there the next morning, to seek for some ruins situated at about an hour’s distance, but from which we obtained nothing. The Libyan desert approaches quite close to the Nile here, for the first time, and gave us a novel, well-to-be- remembered prospect. On the following morning we first perceived the great pyramids of Memphis rising up above the horizon : I could not turn my eyes away from them for a long time. We were still on the Rosetta branch; at noon we came to the so-called Cow’s Belly, where the Nile divides into its two principal anus. Now, for the first time, could we overlook the stately, wonderful river, resem- bling no other in its utmost grandeur, which rules the lives and manners of the inhabitants of its shores by its fertile and well-tasting waters. Toward the beginning of October it attains its greatest height. But this year there is an inun- dation like nolle that has been known for gene- rations. People begin to be afraid of the dykes bursting, which would be the second plague brought upon Egypt in this year, after the great cattle murrain, which down to last week had carried off forty thousand head of cattle. About five o’clock in the evening we arrived at Bulaq, the port of Cairo ; we rode immediately from the harbour to the city, and prepared for a longer residence in this place. By-the-by, that we should say Cairo, and the French le Cnire, is a CAIRO. 15 manifest error. The town is now never called by any name butMas’r by the Arabs, and so also the country ; it is the ancient Sometic, more eupho- nious for us in the dual Mis’raim. First, at the foundation of the present city in the tenth century, New Mas’r was distinguished from the ancient Mas’r el Atigeli, the present Old Cairo, by the addition of El Qahirch, i. e. “ the Victorious.” The Italians omitted the h, unpronounceable in their language, took the Arabic article el for their masculine if, and so considered the whole word, by its ending too, a masculine. The holy month of the Mohammedans, the Ramadan, was just beginning, during which they take no sustenance throughout the day, nor do they drink water or “ drink smoke and accept no visits, but begin all the business of life after sundown, and thus interchange day and night, which caused us no little trouble on account of our Arab servants. Our Khawass (the honorary guard of the Pasha that had been given us), who had missed the time for embarking at Alexandria, joined us here. As our Prussian Vice-consul was unwell, I addressed myself to the Austrian Consul, Herr Champion, to whom I had been recom- mended by Ehrenberg, regarding our presentations to the representative of the Pasha at this place. He interested himself for us with the greatest alacrity and zeal, and obtained us a good reception everywhere.. The official visits, at which Erbkam and Bonomi mostly accompanied me, had to be made in the evening at about 8 o’clock, on account of the Ramadan. Our torch-bearers ran first, 16 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. then came, on donkeyback, first the Dragoman of the Consul and the Khawass of the Pasha, and lastly ourselves in stately procession. We nearly traversed the whole town, through the Arab-filled streets, picturesquely lighted by our firebrands, to the citadel, where we first visited Abbas Pasha,* a grandson of Mahomet Ali ; he is the governor of Cairo, though seldom in residence. Prom him we proceeded to Sherif Pasha, the lieutenant of Abbas, and then to the war minister, Ahmet Pasha. Everywhere we were received with great kind- ness. The day after my arrival I received a diploma as an honorary member of the Elder Egyptian Society, of which the younger one, that had sent me a similar invitation while in London, was a branch. Both had meetings, but I could only attend the sittings of one, in which an interesting memoir by Krapf, on certain nations of Central Africa, was read. The particulars had been given him by a native of the Enarea country, who had travelled into the Doko country in commercial pursuits, and who described the people in much the same way that Herodotus does the Libyan dwarf-nation, after the narrations of the Nasamo- neans, viz., as little people of the size of children of ten or twelve years of age. One w ould think that monkeys were spoken of. As the geographical notices of the till now almost unknown Doko country arc of interest, I have had the whole paper copied, to send it, together with the little * Since Ibrahim Pasha’s death, in 1848, viceroy of Egypt. HELIOPOLIS. 17 map that belongs to it, to our honoured friend Ritter.* On the 13th of October we made a trip to the ruins of Heliopolis, the Biblical On, whence Joseph took his wife Asnath, the daughter of a priest. Nothing remains of this celebrated city, which prided itself on possessing the most learned priesthood next to Thebes, but the walls, which resemble great banks of earth, and an obelisk standing upright, and perhaps in its proper position. This obelisk possesses the peculiar charm of being by far the most ancient of all known obelisks ; for it was erected during the Old Empire by King Scsurtesen I., about 2,300 e.c. ; the broken obelisk in the Eaium near Crodilopolis, bearing the name of the same king, being rather an obelisk-like long-drawn stele. Boghos Bey has obtained the ground on which the obelisk stands as a present, and has made a garden round it. The flowers of the garden have attracted a quantity of bees, and these could find no more commodious lodging than in the deep and sharply cut hieroglyphics of the obelisk. Within the year they have so covered the in- scriptions of the four sides, that a great part has become quite illegible. It had, however, already been published, and our comparison of it pre- * This treatise, “Eeport of the Eiver Goshop, and the countries of Enarea, Cafla, and Doko, by a native of Enarea,” has been translated by Bitter, read in the Geographical Society of Berlin, on the 7th of January, 1843, and printed in the monthly reports of that institution, in the fourth year, pp. 172-188. C 18 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. sentecl few difficulties, as three sides bear the same inscription, and the fourth is only slightly varied. Yesterday, the 15th of October, was His Ma- jesty’s birthday. I had determined on this day for our first visit to the great pyramid. There we would hold a festival in remembrance of our king and country with a few friends. We invited the Austrian -Consul Champion, the Prussian Consul Bokty, our learned countryman Dr. Pruner, and MM. Lieder, Isenberg, Mulileisen, and Krapf to this party, at which, however, it is to be regretted that some were not able to assist. The morning was indescribably beautiful, fresh, and festal. We rode in long procession through the quiet streets, and along the green alleys and gardens that are planted outside it. Almost in every place where there were well-tended planta- tions, we found that they had been laid out by Ibrahim Pasha. By all accounts, he appears to adorn and repair every portion of the country. They were incomparable minutes, those, when we came forth from among the dates and acacias ; the sun rising to the left behind the Moqattam Mountains, and illumining the heads of the pyramids opposite, that lay before in the plain like giant mountain crystals. All of us were enraptured by the glory and greatness of this morning scene, and solemnly impressed by it. At Old Cairo we were ferried across the Nile to the village of Gizcli, whence the larger pyra- mids receive the name of llaram el Gizeli. Prom here one may ride to the pyramids in the dry THE GREAT PYRAMID. ' 19 season in a direct line for an hour or little more. As, however, the inundation is now at its highest point, we were obliged to make a great circuit upon long embankments, coming almost up to Saqara, and did not arrive at the foot of the great pyramid for live and a half hours. The long and unexpected ride gave a relish to the simple breakfast that we immediately took in one of the tombs cut in the rock here about five thousand years ago, in order to strengthen us for the ascent. Meanwhile a spacious gaily- decked tent came down, which I had hired in Cairo. I had it pitched on the north side of the pyramid, and had the great Prussian stan- dard, the black eagle with a golden sceptre and crown, and a blue sword, on a white ground, which had been prepared by our artists within these last few days, planted before the door of the tent. About thirty Bedouins had assembled around us in the interval, and awaited the moment when we should commence the ascent of the pyramid, in order to assist us with their powerful brown arms to climb the steps, about three to four feet in height. Scarcely had the signal for departure been given, ere each of us was surrounded by several Bedouins, who tore us up the rough steep path to the apex like a whirlwind. A few minutes afterward our flag floated from the top of the oldest and highest of all the works of man with which we are acquainted, and we saluted the Prussian eagle with three cheers for oui- king. Flying toward the south, the eagle turned c 2 20 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. its crowned head homeward to the north, whence a fresh breeze was blowing, and diverting the effects of the hot rays of the noontide sun. We too, looked homeward, and each remembered, aloud, or quietly within his own heart, those whom he had left behind, loving and beloved. Next, the prospect at our feet enchained our attention. On one side is the valley of the Nile, a wide ocean of inundated waters, which, inter- sected by long and serpentine embankments, broken now and then by island-like high-lying villages, and overgrown tongues of land, filled the whole plain of the vale, and reached to the opposite mountain chain of Moqattam, on the most northerly point of which the citadel of Cairo rises above the town lying beneath. On the other side, the Libyan desert, a still more wonderful ocean of sand and desolate rock-hills, boundless, colourless, soundless, animated by no beast, no plant, no trace of human presence, not even by graves ; and between both is the desecrated Necropolis, the general plan and the particular outlines of which unfolded themselves sharply and plainly, as upon a map. What a landscape ! and with our view of it what a flood of reminiscences ! When Abraham came to Egypt for the first time, lie saw these pyramids which had been built many centuries before his arrival ; in the plain before us lay ancient Memphis, the residence of those kings on whose graves we were standing ; there lived Joseph, and ruled the land under one of the mightiest and wisest Pharaohs of the New Em- VIEW FROM TIIE PYRAMID OF ClIEOPS. 21 pire. Farther on, to the left of the Moqattam Mountains, where the fertile plain borders the eastern arm of the Nile, on the other side of Heliopolis, distinguishable by its obelisk, begins the fruitful country of Goshen, whence Moses led his people forth to the Syrian wilderness. Indeed, it would not be difficult to recognise from our position, that ancient fig-tree, on the way to Heliopolis, by Matarieh, beneath the shade of which, according to the legends of the land, Mary rested with the Holy Child. IIow many thousands of pilgrims from all nations have sought these wonders of the world before our days, — we, the youngest in time, and yet only the predecessors of many thousands more who will come after us, and behold, and climb these pyramids, -with astonishment. I will describe no farther the thoughts and feelings that came flood- ing in at those moments ; there, at the aim and end of the wishes of many long years, and yet at the actual commencement of our expedition; there, on the apex of the Pyramid of Cheops, to which the first link of our whole monumental his- tory is fastened immoveably, not only for Egyp- tian, but for universal history; there, where I saw beneath the remarkable grave-field whence the Moses-rod of science summons forth the shadows of the ancient dead, and lets them pass before us in the mirror of history, according to rank and age, with their names and titles, with all their peculiarities, customs, and associations. After I had narrowly scanned the surrounding graves, with the intention of selecting some spots 22 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. for future excavations, we descended once more to the entrance of the pyramid, procured lights, entered the slanting shaft with some guides, like miners, and reached the gallery by ways I well knew by drawings, and at the so-called King’s Chamber. Here we admired the infinitely fine joinings of the monster blocks, and examined the geological formation of the passages and spaces. Then we commenced our Prussian national hymn in the spacious saloon, the floor, Avails, and ceiling of which are built of granite, and therefore return a sounding metal echo; and so poAverful and solemn was the harmony, that our guides after- ward reported to the other Bedouins outside, that Ave had selected the innermost recesses of the pyra- mid, in order to give forth a loud and universal prayer. We then visited the so-called Queen’s Chamber, and then left the pyramid, reserving the examination of the more intricate passages for a future and longer visit. In the mean time our orientally-decked tent had been put in order, and a dinner prepared within, in which Prussians only took part, Avitli the exception of our two English companions. That our first toast here Avas “ Ilis Majesty and the Itoyal family ” need not be told ; and no great eloquence Avas necessary to render all hearts enthusiastic in drinking it. The rest of the day passed in gay, festal, and hearty reminiscences and conversations, till the time of our departure arrived. We had yet to Avait a quarter of an hour after sunset, to give our attendants, donkey-drivers, and the rest of RETURN TO CAIRO. 23 our Arab suite, time to eat their frugal dinner, which they had not yet taken, despite all the beat and labour of the day, in consequence of the Ramadan. Then the bright full moon guided us in the cool still night over the sand and water ocean, through villages and plantations of date- trees, back to the city. We did not arrive there until about midnight. 24 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. LETTER IV. At tiie Foot oe the Gueat Pyramid. January 2, 1843. Still here ! in full activity since the 9th of November, and perhaps to continue so for some w-eeks of the new year ! IToav could I have anti- cipated from the accounts of previous travellers, what a harvest we were to reap here, — here, on the oldest stage of the chronologically definable history of mankind. It is remarkable how little this most-frequented place of all Egypt has been examined hitherto. But I will not quarrel with our predecessors, since we inherit the fruits of their inactivity. I have been obliged the rather to restrain our curiosity to see more of this wonder-land, as we may half solve the problem at this place. On the best charts of former times, two graves have peculiar designations, beside the pyramids. Rosellini has only ex- amined one grave more, and Champollion says in his letters, “ II y a pen a faire ici , et lorsqu’ou aura copie cles scenes de la vie domestique, sculp- ttes dans un tombeau , je regagnerai nos embar- cations !” [There is little to be done here, and when they have copied the scenes of domestic life sculptured in one tomb, I shall regain our vessels.] We have given in our exact topo- graphical plan of the whole Necropolis forty-live graves, with whose inmates I have become ae- PYRAMIDS OF GIZEIl. 25 quaintcd by their inscriptions, and I have enu- merated eighty-two in all, which seemed worthy of notice on account of their inscriptions, or some other peculiarities.* Of these but few belong to the later time ; nearly all of them were erected during or shortly after the building of the great pyramid, and therefore present us with an in- estimable series of dates for the knowledge of the oldest definable civilisation of the races of man. The architecture of that age, concerning which I could formerly offer only a few speculations,! now lies before me in the fullest circumstantiality. Nearly all the branches of architecture are to be found developed ; sculptures of complete figures of all dimensions, in liaut-relief and bas-relief, present themselves in the most astonishing variety. The style is very marked and finely executed, but it is clear that the Egyptians had not then that peculiar canon of proportion which we find universally at a later period. | The painting on the fine plaster is often more beau- tiful than could be expected, and occasionally exhibits the freshness of yesterday in perfect preservation. The subjects on the walls arc usually representations of scenes from the life of departed persons, and seem mostly intended to * At our departure for Upper Egypt we had examined 130 private tombs, and discovered the remains of 67 pyramids. t See my essay, “ Sur V Ordre des Colonnes-piliers en Egypte, et ses rapports avec le second Ordre Egyptien et la Colonne Grceque ( avec deux planches ),” in the ninth volume of the Annales de V Inst it ut de Corresp. Archeol. Rome. 1838. f See Letter XV., p. 117. 26 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. place their riches, cattle, fish, boats, hunts, and servants, before the eves of the observer. Through them we become acquainted with every particular of their private life. The numerous inscriptions describe or name these scenes, or they set forth the often widely-extended family of the departed, and all his offices and titles, so that I could almost write a Court and State Directory of the time of King Cheops, or Clie- phren. The most stately tombs or rock graves belonged chiefly to the princes, relations, or highest officers of those kings near whose pyra- mids they are situated; and not unfrequently I have found the graves of father, son, grandson, and even great-grandson; so that whole gene- alogies of those distinguished families, the nobility of the land fifty centimes ago, may be formed. The most beautiful of the tombs, which I have discovered among many others in the all-burying sand, belongs to a prince* of King Cheops. I employ forty to sixty people every day in excavations and similar labours. Also before the great Sphinx I have had excavations made to bring to light the temple between its paws, and to lay open the colossal stele formed of one block of granite, eleven feet high and seven feet broad, serving as a back wall to the temple, and covered [* The Athenaeum, in a late review of this work, questions the word “ prince,” and proposes to read “son;” now, in a subsequent letter (p. 39), Lepsius himself conjectures that this Prince Merliet was the son of Cheops, which the reviewer .appears to have overlooked in his excellent remarks. — K. It. H. M.] WINTER RAIN AT THE PYRAMIDS. 27 to about its own height with sand. It is one of the few memorials here of the great Pharaohs of the New Empire, after the expulsion of the Hyksos. I have had a plaster cast taken of it. The Egyptian winter is not always so spring- like as one occasionally imagines in Europe. At sunrise, when every one hurries to work, we have already had +5° Reaumur, so that the artists could hardly use their fingers. Winter began with a scene that null ever remain impressed upon my memory. I had ridden out to the excavations, and as I observed a great black cloud coming up, I sent an attendant to the tents, to make them ready against it, hut soon followed him myself, as it began to rain a little. Shortly after my arrival, a storm began, and I therefore had the tent ropes made fast ; soon, however, there came a pouring rain, that frightened all our Arabs, and sent them trooping to the rock-tomb, where our kitchen is situated. Of our party, Erhkam and Eranke were only present. Suddenly the storm grew to a tremendous hurricane, such as I have never seen in Europe, and hail fell upon us in such masses, as almost to turn day into night. I had the greatest difficulty in hunting our Arabs out from the cavern, to bring our things to the tombs under shelter, as we might expect the destruction of our tents at any moment ; and it was no long time ere first our common tent broke down, and then, as I hurried from it into my own, to sustain it from the inside, that also broke down above my head. When I had crept 28 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. out, I found that my things were tolerably well covered by the tents, so that I could leave them for the present, but only to run a greater risk. Our tents be in a valley, whither the plateau of the pyramids inclines, and are sheltered from the worst winds from the north and west. Presently I saw a dashing mountain flood hurrying down upon our prostrate and sand-covered tents, like a giant serpent upon its certain prey. The prin- cipal stream rolled on to the great tent ; another arm threatened mine, without quite reaching it. But everything that had been washed from our tents by the shower was torn away by the two streams, which joined behind the tents, and carried into a pool behind the Sphinx, where a great lake immediately formed, which fortunately had no outlet. Just picture this scene to yourself! our tents, dashed down by the storm and heavy rain, lying between two mountain torrents, thrusting them- selves in several places to the depth of six feet into the sand, and depositing our books, drawings, sketches, shirts, and instruments — yes, even our levers and bon crowbars ; in short, every thing they could seize, in the dark, foaming, mud ocean. Besides this, ourselves wet to the skin, without hats, fastening up the weightier things, rushing after the lighter ones, wading into the lake to the waist to fish out what the sand had not yet swallowed ; and all this was the work of a quarter of an hour, at the end of which the sun shone radiantly again, and announced the end of this Hood by a bright and glorious rainbow. SANDSTORMS. 29 It was difficult to sec at once what we had lost, and where we ought to begin to bring things into order again. The two Weidenbachs and Frey had observed the whole scene from the tombs where they were at work, as a mighty drama of nature, and without even dreaming of the mischances that had happened to us, until I sent for them to assist in preparing for the quickly-approaching night. For several more davs we fished and dug for our things. Some things were lost, many were spoilt ; the greater part of all the things that were not locked up inside chests or trunks bore at least more or fewer marks of this flood. After all, there was nothing of much importance lost ; I had first secured the great portfolios, together with my manuscripts and books ; in short, after a few days the whole thing took the form of a remarkable picture, leaving no unpleasant reminiscence, and of which I should grudge my memory the loss. Since then, we have suffered much from violent gales, that occasionally so fill the atmosphere with sand that respiration is rendered difficult, painting with colours is totally precluded, and drawing and writing paper is continually covered with a most disagreeable, ever-renewed dust. This fine sand penetrates one’s clothes, enters all our boxes, even when most closely shut, fills one’s nose, ears, hair, and is the unavoidable pepper to every dish and drink. January 5. On the evening of the first Christ- mas holiday, I surprised my companions by a large bonfire, which I had lighted at the top of the greatest pyramid. The flame shone magni- 30 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. ficently upon the two other pyramids, as well as on the Necropolis, and threw its light far over the dale to Cairo. That was a Christmas pyramid ! I had only confided the secret to Abeken, who had arrived, with his ever merry humour and his animated and instructive conversation, upon the 10th of December. With his assistance I prepared something for the following night, in the Koval Chamber of the Great Pyramid. We planted a young palm-tree in the sarcophagus of the ancient king, and adorned it with lights and little presents that I had sent for from the city for us children of the wilderness. Saint Sylvester also must receive due honour. On New Year’s eve, at midnight, there arose mighty flames from the heights of the three great pyramids, and an- nounced, far and wide in the regions of Islam, at their feet, the change of the Christian year.* [* As a further illustration of this scene, but briefly passed over by the originator of it, the following observations of Mr. Gliddon will be found very interesting. “ Mr. Gliddon hoped, that besides the day view, the Prussians would add their night scene of New Tear’s Eve, 1842, when the blaze of bonfires, lighted on the top of each of the three pyramids, cast a lurid glare on every side, bringing out the craggy peaks of the long desecrated mausolea of Memphite Pharoahs, tinting that drear wilderness of tombs with a light, emblematical of Lepsius’ vindication of their inmates’ memories, and leaving the shadows of funereal gloom to symbolize the fifty centuries of historic night, now broken by the hierologists : — “ ‘ Dark has been thy night, Oh Egypt, but the flame Of new-born science gilds thine ancient name.’ ” — Gliddon’s Olia Egi/ptiaca ; Lecture II. Burke’s Ethnological Journal, No. VI. p. 265. — K. R, H. M.] LIFE AT T1IE PYRAMIDS. 31 1 consider it a proper mental diet for our com- pany to break and interrupt our laborious, and, for the artists, very monotonous occupations, not only by the hebdomadal rest of Sunday, but also by pleasant parties of pleasure and gay festivals, as often as opportunity will admit. As yet, the harmony and good humour of our society have not been disturbed by the slightest echo of dis- cord ; and they gain new strength every day, as 'well by the fulness of our novel impressions and the reciprocal tastes and natures of our com- panions, as by the obstacles and hardships of this Bedouin life. How manifold the elements of our community arc, you may perceive by the true Babel of lan- guages in which we are ever moving. The English language is sufficiently represented by our com- panions, Wild and Bonomi ; French and Italian serve as a medium of communication with the authorities, our chance guests, and the Levantine merchants ; in Arabic we command, eat, and tra- vel; and in very capital German we consult, chatter, sing, and live. As long as it is day we are generally each alone, and uninterruptedly at work. The morning coffee is drunk before sun- rise ; after sunset, dinner is served ; and we break- fast while at work. Thus our artists have been already enabled to prepare a hundred great folio leaves, partly executed in lead, partly finished off in colours, for our swelling portfolios. 32 LETTERS FROM EGYPT LETTER V. Pyramids of Gizeii. January 17 , 1843 . The inscription composed in commemoration of the birthday festival of Ilis Majesty has become a stone tablet, after the manner of the ancient steles and proscynemata. Here it is : — o©)K .Dfisfc t&ir fin fK&0®)S HiliTLrSg ■B HdSIO 'SDK li/E? 1 ? O D ^ Tm 5 5 s >J°o /\ m\*?'A 0 ICO- Df^TTfS 1ST n )oco — o . 1 5COO 03- Ti =o \ LI 1 1 1 1 1 u ODJ u ) \ Z5 3 <3 'S > - 3 'a -s _ / — ZD 'd O no a}? | Ejb & \ o D )!£! ®OOS 1 3 ^ a la = 3 "Z3 O -33 r> — Q — — ^ .* Z 33 /S i> — Q r\V = 33 ix — 0 O D i l3§3 D f ■^ ==> | — 3 e c>j{. ^ -O [) &IV. S' Dg)^ room ^ 1 INSCRIPTION ON THE PYRAMID OF CIIEOPS. 33 and its contents, which, the more they assimilate with the Egyptian style, become proportionately awkward in the German, are as follows : — “ Thus speak the servants of the King, whose name is the Sun and Rock of Prussia, Lepsius the scribe, Erbkam the architect, the brothers Weidenbach the painters, Frey the painter, Eranke the former, Bonomi the sculptor, Wild the architect : — Hail to the Eagle, Sheltcrer of the Cross, the King, the Sun and llock of Prussia, the son of the Sun, freer of the land, Frederick William the Fourth, the Philopator, his country’s father, the gracious, the favourite of wisdom and history, the guardian of the Rhine stream, chosen by Germany, the giver of life. May the highest God grant the King and his wife, the Queen Elisabeth, the life-rich one, the Pliilometor, her country’s mother, the gracious, a fresh-springing life on earth for long, and a blessed habitation in Heaven for ever. In the year of our Saviour 18-12, in the tenth month, and the fifteenth dav, on the seven and fortieth birthday of His Majesty, on the pyramid of King Cheops ; in the third year, the fifth month, the ninth day of the Government of His Majesty ; in the year 3164 from the commencement of the Sotliis period under King Menephthes.” Upon a large and expressly hewn and prepared stone, at some height, by the entrance to the Pyramid of Cheops, we have left the hierogly- phical inscription upon a space of five feet in breadth, and four feet in height, painted in with oil-colours. D 34 LETTERS PROM EGYPT. It seemed good to me, that the Prussian Expe- dition, while it dedicated this tablet to the mucli- respected prince who had sent the Expedition hither, should leave some trace of its activity in this field, where it had been reserved for that enterprise to gather in the plenteous materials for the first chapter of all scientific history. I)o not imagine, however, that these are the weighty labours that have kept us so long here. It is from the advantage which we possess over former travellers that places like these have the right to detain us until we have exhausted them. We already know that the grand ruins of the Thebaic plain cannot discover anything to us of similar interest to the Memphitic period of the Old Empire. At some time we must of course leave off, and then always with the certainty that we leave much behind us, of the greatest interest, that has still to he won. I had already determined upon our departure some days since, when a row of tombs were discovered of a new period, a new architec- ture, a new style in the figures and hieroglyphics, with other titles, and, as it might have been ex- pected, with other royal names. Our historical gain is by no means perfected, nor is it even general. I was quite right in giving up the task of reconstructing the third dynasty after monuments, while in Europe. Nor have I yet found a single cartouche that can he safely as- signed to a period previous to the fourth dynasty. The builders of the Great Pyramid seem to assert their right to form the commencement of monu- CLASSIFICATION OF THE PYRAMIDS. 35 mental history, even if it he clear that they were not the first builders and monumental writers. We have already found some hitherto unknown cartouches and variants of others, such as : — u u li B Keka. Heraku. • I(AI), varying from the spelling in other subsequent in- scriptions, where he is called nATTNOTd>IS. The same name is found not unfrequently hiero- glypliically, and is then Tut en JPnubs, i. e. Thoth of, or lord of IIvou\|/,* a city, the position of which is yet obscure. I have already encountered this Thoth in earlier temples, where he often appears besides the Thoth of Slionun, i. e. Heliopolis magna. In the language of the people it was pronounced Pct-Pnubs, whence Paot-Pnupliis. The interesting problem concerning the owner of the name Eu-n-armp, whichLetronne endeavoured to solve in a new way in connection with the in- scriptions of the obelisk of Philae, seems to be de- termined by the hieroglyphica! inscriptions, where the same circumstances occur, but lead to other conclusions. + I have discovered several very per- therefore be referred with the same probability to the years between 145 and 135 B.C. [ # See Bunsen, vol. i. pp. 393 — 395. — K. R. H. M.] f Compare Letronne Jtecueil des Inscription Grecques de V Ec/ypte, tome i. pp. 3G3 sqq. Ptolemaeus Eupator is not mentioned by the historians. The name was first discovered in a Greek Papyrus at Berlin, written under Soter II. in the year 105 B.C., and indeed foisted in between Philometor and Euergctes. Bockh, who published the Papyrus (1821), referred the surname of Euergctes to Soter IT. and his wife, and held Eupator to be a surname of the deified Euei’getes II. In the same year Champollion-Figeac treated of this papyrus, and endeavoured to prove that Eupator was that son of Philo- meter put to death by Euergctes 11. on his accession. This view was afterwards accepted bv St. Martin, Bockh, aud EUPATOR. 103 feet series of Ptolemies, the longest coming clown to Neos Dionysos and liis wife Cleopatra, who Letroime ( Rech . pour serv. a V Hist, de I'Eg. p. 124). In the meantime the name Eupator had been found in a second papy- rus of the reign of Soter II., as also in a letter of Nuineuius upon tho Phileusiau obelisk of Ilerr Bankes of the time of Euergetes II. Eupator was named in both inscriptions, but did not stand behind, but before Philometor, and therefore could not be his son. Letronne now conjectured ( Recueil des Inscr. tome i. p. 305) that Eupator was another surname of Philometor. Then, however, it should have been cat deov Ei/Jraropog rov cal 4>t\opi'/ropoc, and not cat Oeov Ei/miropog cat deoii i\r>fji/Topoe. In a letter to Letronne of the 1st December, 1844, from Thebes, which has been printed in the Revue Archeol. tome i. pp. 678 sqq., I iuformed him that I had also found in several hieroglyphical inscriptions the name Eupa- tor, and always before Philometor. The same reasons that I alleged against Letronne’s interpretation of the Greek name (that portion of the letter was not printed in the Revue), i. e. the simple recurrence of the 0 eov, did also not allow Eupator to be considered another name of Philometor in the hieroglyphical lists. He must have been a Ptolemy recognized for a short time as king, but not mentioned by the historians ; and as Franz ( Corp . Inscr. vol. iii. p. 285) and Letronne ( Rec . vol. ii. p. 536) have recognized an elder brother of Philometor, who died in a few months, and was therefore omitted in the Ptolemaic canon. The son of Philometor and his sister Cleopatra II., however, mentioned by Justin and Josephus, in which it was formerly thought that the Eupator of the Berlin papyrus had been found, is particularly mentioned in the hieroglyphical inscrip- tions and of the other Ptolemies, in his place between Philometor and Euergetes, and we thus learn his name, which the histo- rians had not added. He is sometimes called Philopator, some- times Neos Philopator, and is therefore to be referred to in the series of reigned Ptolemies, as Philopator II. Of fourteen hieroglyphical lists which come down to Euergetes II., seven mention Philopator II. ; in four other lists in which he might 104 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. was surnamed Tryphaena by the Egyptians, ac- cording to the hieroglyphic inscriptions.* A fact of some importance is also that in this Egyptian list of Ptolemies, the first King is never Ptole- maeus Soter I. but Philadelphus. In Qurna, where Euergetes II. is adoring his ancestors, not only Pliilometor, the brother of Euergetes, is have been mentioned he is passed over, and these seem all to belong to the first year of Euergetes II., his murderer, which readily explains the cause. That he does not appear in the canon is quite natural, because his reign did not extend over the change of the Egyptian year ; but, as might be expected, he is named in the protocolls of the Demotic Papyrus, where those Ptolemies receiving divine honours are enumerated, and in which Young had already properly seen Eupator. In fact, he is mentioned here in all the lists known to me (five in Ber- lin of the years 114, 103, 103, 90, 89 B.C., and one in Turin of the year 89 B.C.) which are later than Euergetes II., as also in a Berlin papyrus of the fifty-second year of Euergetes him- self (therefore in 188 B.C.). A comparison of the Demotic lists manifests that the interchange of the names Eupator aud Pliilometor in the Greek papyrus of the year 105 B.C. (not 106, as Eranz, Corp. Inscr. p. 285 writes), is not only a mis- take of the copyist, as these and similar interchanges are also not uncommon hi the Demotic papyrus. The different purposes of the hieroglyphic and demotic lists render it comprehensible, that in the former such variations were not admissible, as in the latter. * Wilkinson ( Modern Egypt and Thebes, vol. ii. p.275) con- siders this Cleopatra Tryphocna to be the famous Cleopatra, daughter of Neos Dionysos ; Champollion ( Lettrcs d’Egypte, p. 110) to be the wife of Philometor ; but the cartouche com- bined with her name belong neither to Ptolemams XIV., the elder son of Neos Dionysos, nor to Ptolomams VI. Philometor, but to Ptolemams XIII. Neos Dionysos or Auletes, who is always Philopator Philadelphus, on the monuments. Cleopatra Tryphama was therefore the wife of Ptolemams Auletes. EUPATOR. 105 wanting, which may easily be accounted for, but also Soter I., and it is an error of Itosselini, if lie look upon tlie king beneath Philadelphia as Soter I. instead of Euergetes I. It seems that the son of Lagus, although he assumed the title of King from 305 B.C., was not recognized by the Egytians as such, as his cartouches do not appear upon any monument erected by him. The rather, therefore, do I rejoice, that I have not yet found his name once upon an inscription of Philadelplius, as the father of Arsinoe II. But here, it must be observed, Soter certainly has the Royal Kings about his names, and a peculiar cartouche ; but before both cartouches, contrary to the usual Egyptian custom, there stands no royal title, although his daughter is called “ royal daughter,” and “ Queen.” * * Tlie inscription referred to is in the rock-cave of Eehmin, and was, without doubt, first engraved under Ptolemams Phi- ladelphus, with double cartouches and the usual royal titles, but without the surname of Soter ; he is mentioned on a stele in Vienna which was erected under Philopator. Here, how- ever, he has another cartouche than at Eehmin, and moreover, in a remarkable manner, the same as that which Pliilippus Aridaeus and Alexander II., under whom Ptolemaeus Lagus was Viceroy in Egypt, bore before liis time. In like manner he is named on a statue of the king in the ruins of Memphis, where the Horus-name of the king may be found, and which may probably have been made during his reign. Finally, the Soters are sometimes only mentioned by their surnames, at the head of the honoured ancestors of later kings, as in the inscription of Rosetta, and in the bilingual Decrees of Philae written *jpj TI' ’ W ^ e ^°* er II- i s always written nj p. nuter enti nehem, which would answer to the Koptic 106 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. It is remarkable how little Champollion seems to have attended to the monuments of the Old n.MO'JfTe GT- H€£,JUl, deus servator. In the Demotic inscriptions, too, the first Soters are designated bj nehem, and in the singular, by the Greek word^.swter. Although it is not to be doubted that the Soters, who, ac- cording to the Demotic papyrus, had a peculiar cultus with the rest of the Ptolemies, not only in Alexandria and Ptole- mais, but also in Thebes, were looked upon as the chiefs of the Ptolemaic dynasty, it is more remarkable that till now no building has been discovered which was erected under Ptole- mseus Soter as king, although he continued twenty years in this capacity. To this must be added that the above-mentioned hieroglyphic lists of Ptolemies, without exception, do not begin the series with Soters, but with the Adelphi, as said at Echmin, his cartouches have no royal titles, and that in Karuak, under Euergetes II., Philadelphus is represented as King, and Soter, answering to the same period, not as king. Also in the Demotic king lists of the papyrus, the Alexandrian series passes over the Soters down to Philometor, and lets the Adelphi immediately follow Alexander the Great. The Soters have come before me at the earliest in a papyrus of the seven- teenth year of Philopator (210 B.C.), the oldest in the Berlin collection ; the Thebaic cultus of the Ptolemies seems to have excluded the Soters altogether. Although, therefore, the be- ginning of the royal government in the year 305 B.C., as the Canon asserts, is an ascertained fact, and is incontestably confirmed by the hieroglyphic stele in Vienna, which has been cited for it by my friend M. Pinder ( Beitr . zur altcren ATunz leunde, Band I. p. 201) in his instructive essay “ On the era of Philippus on coins,” it seems to authorize another legitimate view, according to which, not Ptolemams Logi, but Philadelphus, the eldest king’s son (even though not Porphyrogenitus), was the head of the Ptolemies. Thus it may also be explained, that we find under Euergetes I. an astronomical era employed, that of the otherwise unknown Dionysius, which took its beginning from the year 285 B.C. the first of Philadelphus, while the coins of Philadelphus neither count from his own accession, BENIIIASSAN. 107 Empire. In Iiis whole journey through Middle Egypt up to Deudera, he only found the rock graves of Benihassan worthy of remark, and these, too, he assigns to the sixteenth and seventeenth dynasty, therefore to the New Empire. lie men- tions Zauiet el Meitin and Siut, but scarcely makes any remark about them. So little has been said by others of most of the monuments of Middle Egypt, that almost every- thing was new to me that we found here. My astonishment was not small, when we found a series of nineteen rock tombs at Zauiet el Meitin, which were all inscribed, gave the names of the departed, and belong to the old time of the sixth dynasty, thus almost as far back as the pyramid builders.* Five of them contain, several times repeated, the cartouche of the Macrobiote Apappus-Pepi, who is reported to have lived one hundred and six years, and reigned one hundred ; in another, Cheops is mentioned. On one side is a single tomb, of the time of Ramses. At Benihassan I have had a complete rocktomb perfectly copied ; it will serve as a specimen of the grandiose style of architecture and art of the second flourishing time of the Old Empire, during the mighty twelfth dynasty.f I think it Mill cause nor from the year 305 B.C., but from the year of the decease of Alexander the Great, or the beginning of the viceroyship of Ptolemaeus, as the beginning point of a new era. (See Pinder, p. 205). [* Manetho in Bunsen, Egypt’s Place, vol i. p. 620. Nitocris is the last of this dynasty. K. B. H. M.] t Benkmaler aus AEgypten und AEthiopien, Abth. II. Blatt. 123-133 108 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. some surprise among Egyptologers, when they learn from Bunsen’s work,* why I have divided the tablet of Abydos, and have referred Sesurtesen and Amenemlia, these Pharaohs, well known through Heliopolis, the Faium, Benihassan, Thebes, and up to Wadi Haifa, from the New Empire into the Old. It must then have been a proud period for Egypt — that is proved by these mighty tombs alone. It is interesting, likewise, to trace in the rich representations on the walls, "which put before our eyes the high advance of the peaceful arts, as well as the refined luxury of the great of that period ; also the foreboding of that great misfortune which brought Egypt, for several centuries, under the rule of its northern enemies. In the represen- tations of the warlike games, which form a charac- teristically recurring feature, and take up whole sides in some tombs, which leads to a conclusion of their general use at that period afterwards dis- appearing, we often find among the red or dark- brown men, of the Egyptian and southern races, very light-coloured people, who have, for the most part, a totally different costume, and gene- rally red-coloured hair on the head and beard, and blue eyes, sometimes appearing alone, sometimes in small divisions. They also appear in the trains of the nobles, and are evidently of northern, probably Semitic, origin. We find victories over the Ethio- pians and negroes on the monuments of those times, and therefore need not be surprised at the recur- rence of black slaves and servants. Of wars against the northern neighbours we learn nothing ; but it [ # Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p. 45. K. It. II. M.J SCENE IN A TOMB. 109 seems that the immigration from the north-east was already beginning, and that many foreigners sought an asylum in fertile Egypt in return for service and other useful employments. I have more in mind the remarkable scene in the tomb of the royal relation, Nehera-si-Numhotep, the second from the north, which places the immigra- tion of Jacob and his family before our eyes in a most lively manner, anj which would almost induce us to connect the two, if Jacob had not really entered at a far later period, and if we were not aware that such immigrations of single families could not be unfrequent. These, however, were the precursors of the Hyksos, and prepared the way for them in more than one respect. I have traced the whole representation, which is about eight feet long, and one-and-a-half high, and is very well pre- served through, as it is only painted. The Royal Scribe, Nefruhotep, who conducts the company into the presence of the high officer to whom the grave belongs, is presenting him a leaf of papyrus. Upon this the sixth year of King Sesurtesen II. is men- tioned, in which that family of thirty-seven persons came to Egypt. Their chief and lord was named Absha, they themselves Aama, a national designa- tion, recurring with the light-complexioned race, often represented in the royal tombs of the nine- teenth dynasty, together with three other races, and forming the four principal divisions of mankind, with which the Egyptians were acquainted. Cham- pollion took them for Greeks when he was in Benihassan, but he was not then aware of the extreme antiquity of the monuments before him. 110 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. Wilkinson considers them prisoners, but this is confuted by their appearance with arms and lyres, with wives, children, donkeys and luggage ; I hold them to be an immigrating Hyksos-family, which begs for a reception into the favoured land, and whose posterity perhaps opened the gates of Egypt to the conquering tribes of their Semetic relations. The city to which the rich rock-Necropolis of Benihassan belonged, and which is named Nus in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, must have been very considerable, and without doubt lay opposite on the left bank of the Nile, where old mounds are still existing, and were marked on the French maps. That the geography of the Greeks and Romans knows nothing of this city, Nus, as indeed was true of many other cities of the Old Empire, is not very astonishing, if it be considered that the five hundred years of Hyksos dominion intervened. The sudden fall of the Empire and of this flourishing city, at the end of the twelfth dynasty, is recognised by some in the circumstance, that of the numerous rock-tombs, only eleven bear inscriptions, and of these but three are completely finished. To these last, broad pathways led directly up from the banks of the river, which, at the steep upper end, were changed into steps. Benihassan is, however, not the only place where works of the twelfth dynasty were found. Near Bersheh, somewhat to the south of the great plain, in which the Emperor Hadrian built, to the honour of his drowned favourite, the city of Antinoe, with its magnificently and even now partially passable streets, with hundreds of pillars, a small valley opens to the east, where we again found a series of splendidly-made rock-tombs of the twelfth dynasty, TOMBS NEAR BERSHEH. Ill of which the greater portion are unfortunately injured. In the tomb of Ivi-si-Tuthotep the trans- portation of the great colossus is represented, which was already published by Rosellini, but without the accompanying inscriptions; from the latter it is certain that it was formed of limestone (the hiero- glyphic word for which I first ascertained here), and was about thirteen Egyptian ells, that is circa twenty-one feet, in height.* In the same valley, on the southern rock wall, there is hewn a series of still older, but very little inscribed tombs, which, to judge from the style of the hieroglyphics, and the titles of the deceased, belong to the sixth dynasty. A few hours more to the southward comes another group of graves, also belonging to the sixth dynasty ; here King Cheops is incidentally mentioned, whose name already appeared several times in an hieratic inscription at Benihassan. At two other places, between the valley of El Amarna, where the very remarkable rock-tombs of King Bech-en-Aten is situated, and Siut, we found graves of the sixth dynasty, but preseutiug few inscriptions. Perring, the pyramid measurer, has, in a recent publication, attempted to establish the strange notion, which I found also existed in Cairo, that the monuments of El Amarna were the work of the Hyksos : others wished to refer them to a period anterior to that of Menes, by reason of their certainly, but not inex- plicable, peculiarities ; I had already explained them in Europe as contemporaneous kings f of the eigh- teenth dynasty. * Denkmaler, Abth. II. Bl. 134. t [I. e., the cartouches of contemporaneous kings. — K.R.H.M.] 112 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. In the rock wall behind Siut, mighty tombs are gaping, in which we could recognize the grand style of the twelfth dynasty already from a distance. Here too, unfortunately, much has been lately destroyed of these precious remnants, as it was found easier to break down the walls and pillars of the grottoes, than to hew out the stones from the mass. I learnt from Selim Pasha, the Governor of Upper Egypt, who received us at Siut in the most friendly manner, that the Bedouins had some time since dis- covered quarries of alabaster two or three hours’ journey into the eastern mountains, the proceeds of which Mahommed Ali had presented him, and from his dragoman I ascertained that there was an inscrip- tion on the rocks. I therefore determined to under- take the hot ride upon the Pasha’s horses, which he had sent to El Bosra for this purpose, from El Bosra thither, in company with the two Weiden- bachs, our dragoman and the kliawass. There we found a little colony of eighteen workmen, with their families, altogether thirty-one persons, in the lonely, wild, hot rock gorge, employed in the excavation of the alabaster. Behind the tent of the overseer there were preserved, in legible, sharply-cut hieroglyphics, the names and titles of the wife, so much re- vered by the Egyptians, of the first Amasis, the head of the eighteenth dynasty, who expelled the Ilyksos, the remains of a formerly much larger inscription. These are the first alabaster quarries, the age of which is certified by an inscription. Not far from the place were others, which were already exhausted in antiquity ; from those now reopened they have extracted within the last four months more than FANOPOLIS. 113 three hundred blocks, of which the larger ones are eighty feet long and two feet thick. The Pasha informed me, through his dragoman, that on our return I should find a piece, the size and form of which I was myself to determine, of the best quality the quarry afforded, which he desired me to ac- cept as a testimonial of his joy at our visit. The alabaster quarries discovered in this region are all situated between Bersheh and Gauata ; one would be inclined, therefore, to consider El Bosra as the ancient Alabastron, if its position could be recon- ciled with the account of Ptolemams ; at any rate, Alabastron has certainly nothing to do with the ruins in the valley of El Amarna, as hitherto thought, to which also the relation of Ptoleinams does not answer, and which seems to be quite different. The hieroglyphical name of these ruins recurs continually in the inscriptions. In the rock chains of Gebel Selin there are again very early, but little inscribed, graves of the Old Empire, apparently of the sixth dynasty. Opposite ancient Panopolis, or Chemtnis, we climbed the remarkable rock cave of the ithyphallic Pan (Chem).* It is dedicated by another contem- poraneous king of the eighteenth dynasty, whose grave w 7 e have since visited in Thebes. The holy name of the city often occurs in the inscriptions, — “ Dwelling-place of Chem,” i. e. Panopolis. Whether this, however, w r as the origin of the popular name, Chemmis, now* Echmin, is much to be doubted. I have always found at Siut, Dendera, Abydos, and other [* See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p. 373, where an account of this deity is given. — K. B. H. M.] I 114 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. have cities, two distinct names, the sacred eno and the popular name ; the first is taken from the principal god of the local temple, the other has nothing to do with it.* My hieroglyph ical geography* is extended almost with every new monument. At Abydos we came to the first greater temple building. The last interesting tombs of the Old Empire we found at Qasr e’ Saiat ; they belong to the sixth dynasty. At Dendera we visited the imposing temple of Hathor, the best preserved per- haps in all Egypt. f In Thebes we stayed for twelve over-rich, astonish- ing days, which were hardly sufficient to learn to find our way among the palaces, temples, and tombs, whose royal giant magnificence fills this spacious plain. In the jewel of all Egyptian buildings, in the palace of Ramses Sesostris, which this greatest of the Pharaohs erected in a manner worthy of himself and the god, to “ Ammon-Ra, King of the Gods,” the guardian of the royal city of Ammon, on a gently-rising terrace, calculated to overlook the wide plain on this side, and on the other side of the ma- jestic river, we kept our beloved King’s birthday with salutes and flags, with chorus singing, and with hearty toasts, that we proclaimed over a glass of pure German Rhine wine. That we thought of you with full hearts on this occasion I need not say. [ # This resembles, in fact, the system of calling parishes after the names of the Saints, to commemorate whose martyr- dom the church was erected ; as, for instance, the church and parish of St. Alphege, in the town of Greenwich. — K.K. H. M.] [t Sec Bunsen, vol. i. p. 400, for an account of this deity. — K. E. II. M.] TOMBS OF EL KAB. 115 When night came we first lighted a pitch kettle, over the outer entrances between the py!ones,on both sides of which our flags were planted ; then we let a green fire flame up from the roof of the Pronaos, which threw out the beautiful proportions of the pillared halls, now first restored to their original destination by us, as festal halls; “Hall of the Panegyrics,” ever since thousands of years ; and even magically animated the two mighty peace thrones of the colossi of the Memuon. We have put off more extensive research till our return; but to select from the inexhaustible matter for our end, and with relation to what has already been given in other works, will be difficult. On the 18th of October we quitted Thebes. Hermonthis we saw en passant. The great hall of Esneli was some years ago excavated by command of the Pasha, and presented a magnificent appearance. At El Kab, the ancient Eileithyia, we remained three days. Still more remarkable than the different temples of this once mighty place are its rock- tombs, which belong chiefly to the beginning of the War of Liberation against the Hyksos, and throw much light upon the relation of the several dynas- ties of that period. Several persons of consideration buried there bear the curious title of a male nurse of a royal prince, expressed by the well known group of mena , with the determinative of the female breast in Coptic, JULoru;* the deceased is repre- sented with the prince in his lap. [* Bunsen, vol. i. p. 470. Egyptian Vocabulary, No. 294, and Determinative sign, No. 58. p. 542, the author there refers 116 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. The temple of Edfu is also among the best pre- served of them ; it was dedicated to Horus and Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, who is once named here “ Queen of men and women.” Horus, as a child, is represented, as all children are on the monuments, as naked, with his finger to his lips ; I had already explained from it the name of Har- pocrates, which I have now found completely repre- sented and written as Harpe-chroti, i. e. “ Horus the Child.”* The Romans misunderstood the Egyptian gesture of the finger, and made of the child that can not speak, the God of Silence, that will not speak. The most interesting inscription, unre- marked and unmentioned as yet by any one, is found on the eastern outer wall of the temple, built by Ptolemaeus Alexander I. It contains several dates of King Darius, of Nectanebus, and the falsely named Amyrtscus, and has reference to the lands belonging to the temple. The glowing heat of that day caused me to postpone the more careful exami- nation and the paper impression of this inscription till our return.f Gebel Silsilis is one of the richest places in historical inscriptions, which generally bear some reference to the ancient working of the sandstone quarries. At Ombos, I was greatly rejoiced to discover a to Champollion, Grammairc, and Roscllini, Monumenti Reali, cxlii. 1.— K. E. H. M.] [ # Bunsen (vol. i. p. 434, n. 333,) says, “ The discovery of the meaning of Harpocrates is mine ; but I explained it as Her-pe-schrc (Horus the child), and adopted Lepsius’s cor- rection.” In the text it is given IIer-pa-xhuti. — K. B. H. M.] t Denkmalcr, Abth. IV. Bl. 38, 39. A special essay is prepared on these inscriptions. CANON OF PROPORTIONS. 117 third canon of proportions of the human body, which is very different to the two older Egyptian canons that I had found in many examples before. The second canon is intimately connected with the first and oldest of the pyramid period, of which it is only a farther completion and different application. The foot is the unit of both of them, which, taken six times, makes the heighth of the upright body ; but it must be remarked, not from the sole to the crown, but only as far as the forehead. The piece from the roots of the hair, or the forehead to the crown, did not come into the calculation at all, and oc- cupies sometimes three-quarters, sometimes half, sometimes less of another square. The difference between the first and second canons concerns mostly the position of the knees. In the Ptolemaic canon, however, the division itself is altered. The body was not divided into 18 parts, as in the second canon, but into 21£ parts to the forehead, or into 23 to the crown. This is the division which Dio- dorus gives us in the last chapter of his first book. The middle, between forehead and sole, falls be- neath the hips in all the three divisions. Thence downward, the proportions of the second and third canons remain the same, but those of the upper part of the body differ exceedingly ; the head is larger, the breast falls deeper, the abdomen higher ; on the whole, the contour becomes more licenti- tious, and loses the earlier simplicity and modesty of form, in which the grand and peculiar Egyp- tian character consisted, for the imperfect imitation of a misunderstood foreign style of art. The pro- portion of the foot to the length of the body remains, 1 18 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. but it is no longer the unit on which the whole calculation is based. We were obliged to change boat at Assuan, on account of the Cataracts, and had, for the first time for six months or more, the homeish greeting of a violent shower and blustering storm, that gathered beyond the Cataracts, surmounted the granite girdle, and burst with the most thundering explosions into the valley down to Cairo, which (as we have since learnt) it deluged with water in a manner scarcely recollected before. Thus we too may say with Strabo and Champollion : — “ In our time it rained in Upper Egypt.” Rain is, in fact, so unusual here, that our guards remembered no similar scene, and our Turkish Khawass, who is intimately acquainted with the land in every respect, when we had long had our packages brought into the tents and fastened up, never laid a hand to his own things, but quietly repeated, abaden moie, “ never rain,” a word, that he had since been often obliged to hear, as he was thoroughly drenched, and got a tremendous fever, that he was obliged to suffer patiently at Philae. Philae is as charmingly situated as it is interest- ing for its monuments. The week spent on this holy island belongs to the most delightful reminis- cences of our journey. We were accustomed to assemble before dinner, when our scattered work was done, on the elevated terrace of the temple, which rises steeply above the river on the eastern shore of the island, to observe the shades of the well-preserved temple, built of sharply-cut, dark-glowing blocks of sandstone, which grow across the river and mingle PHILAE. 110 with the black volcanic masses of rock, piled wildly one upon another, and between which the golden- hued sand pours into the valley like fire-floods. The island appears to have become sacred at a late period among the Egyptians, under the Ptolemies. Hero- dotus, who went up to the Cataracts in the time of the Persians, does not mention Philae at all ; it was then inhabited by Ethiopians, who had also half Elephantine in their possession. The oldest build- ings, now to be found on the island, were erected nearly a hundred years subsequent to the journey of Herodotus, by King Nectanebus, the last but three of the kings of Egyptian descent, upon the southern point of the island. There is no trace of any earlier buildings, not even of destroyed or built-up remains. Inscriptions of much older date are to be found on the great island of Bigeh close by, called hierogly- phically Senmut. It was already adorned with Egyptian monuments during the Old Empire ; for we found there a granite statue of King Sesur- tesem III., of the twelfth dynasty. The little rock- islet Konossa, hieroglvphically Kenes, has also very ancient inscriptions on the rocks, in which a new, and hitherto quite unknown, king of the Hyksos period is named. The hieroglyphical name of the island of Philae has generally been read Manlak. I have found it several times undoubtedly written Ilak. This, with the article, becomes Philak, in the mouths of the Greeks Philai. The sign read “man” by Champollion also interchanges in other groups with “ i,” thus the pronunciation 1-lak, P-i- lak, Memphitic Ph-i-lak is confirmed. We have made a precious discovery in the court 120 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. of the great temple of Isis, two somewhat word-rich bilingual, i. e. hieroglyphical and Demotic decrees of the Egyptian priests, of which one contains the same text as the decree of the Rosetta stone. At least, I have till now compared the seven last lines, which not only correspond with the Rosetta in the contents but in the length of each individual line ; the inscription must first be copied, ere I can say more about it ; in any case the gain for Egyptian philology is not inconsiderable, if only a portion of the broken decree of Rosetta can be restored by it. The whole of the first part of the inscription of Rosetta, which precedes the decree, is wanting here. Instead of it, a second decree is there, which relates to the same Ptolemaeus Epiphanes ; in the beginning the “ fortress of Alexander,” i. e. the city of Alex- andria, is mentioned, for the first time, upon any of the monuments hitherto made known. Both decrees close, like the inscription of Rosetta, with the de- termination to set up the inscription in hierogly- phical, Demotic, and Greek writing. But the Greek inscription is wanting, if it were not written in red and rubbed out when Ptolemy Latliyrus engraved his hieroglyphic inscriptions over earlier ones.* * The first news of the discovery of this important inscription, which had also not been noticed by the Franco-Tuscan Expedi- tion, made some commotion. Simultaneously with the more circumstantial account in the Preussische Staatszeitung, a careless English notice appeared, in which the discovery of a second specimen of the inscription of Eosetta was spoken of, and the place assigned was Meroe. Later, when M. Ampere had brought an impression of the inscription to Paris, the Academician, M. do Saidcy, contrariwise put forth an argument on the opposite side asserting that the inscription had some BILINGUAL DECREE AT PIIILAE. 121 The hieroglyphic series of Ftolemics, which oc- curs here, again begins with Philadelphus, while it boffins with Soter in the Greek text of the Rosetta inscription. Another very remarkable circumstance is, that Epiphanes is here called the son of Philo- pator Ptolemseus, and Cleopatra is mentioned, while according to the historical accounts the only wife of Philopator was named Arsinoe, and is so named in the Rosetta inscription and on other mo- numents. She is certainly also named Cleopatra in one passage of Pliny ; this would have been taken for an error of the author or a mistake of the manu- scripts, if a hieroglyphic and indeed official document did not present the interchange of names. There is consequently no farther reason to place, as Champollion-Figeac does, the embassy of Marcus Atilius and Marcus Acilius from the Roman Senate to Egypt to settle a new treaty concerning the Queen Cleopatra mentioned by Livy, in the time of Ptolemscus Epiphanes, instead of under Ptole- maeus Philopator, as other authors inform us. We must rather conceive, either that the wife and sister of Philopator had both names, which would not obviate all the difficulties, or that the project which Appian mentions of a marriage of Philopator with resemblance to that of Rosetta, and referred it to Ptolemaeus Philometer. I therefore took occasion to prove, in two letters to M. Letronne (Rev. Archeol. vol. iv. p. 1 sqq. andp. 240 sqq.) as also in an essay in the Transactions of the German Oriental Society (vol. i. p. 264 sqq.), that the document in question was prepared in the twenty-first year of Ptolemaeus Epiphanes, and contained a repetition of the Rosetta inscription, the provisions of which were extended to Queen Cleopatra I., who had come to the throne in the meantime. 122 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. the Syrian Cleopatra, who afterwards became the wife of Epiplianes, was carried out after the murder of Arsinoe, without mention of it by the historians. Here naturally means are wanting to me in order to bring this point clearly out.* The quantity of Greek inscriptions at Philae is innumerable, and Letronne will be interested to hear that I have found on the base of the second obelisk, still in its own place, of which a portion only went to England with the other obelisk, the remains of a Greek inscription written in red, and perhaps once gilt, like those lately discovered on the base in England, but which is, of course, extremely difficult to decipher. That the hiero- glyphical inscriptions of the obelisks, which I myself copied in Dorsetshire, besides the Greek on the base, and subsequently published in my Egyptian Atlas, have nothing to do with the Greek inscrip- tions, and were also not contemporaneously set up, I have already stated in a letter to Letronne ; but whether the inscription on the second base had not * The name Cleopatra, in place of Arsinoe, in the hieroglyphic inscriptions appears to rest wholly upon an error of the scribe, which is avoided in the Demotic, for Arsinoe is here correctly mentioned. The hieroglyphic text of the inscription of Rosetta is less correct than the Demotic. [If the hieroglyphic be the text, then it is decidedly the Demotic that is in error. Tho hieroglyphic seems to have been engraven first, and in that case it would be the text. Probably, however, at this late period, G reek was the language in which tho inscriptions of the time were composed, thus tho question would lie not between the hieroglyphic and Demotic, i.e. the archaico-Egyptian (but little understood) and the modern, but between the Greek and the hieroglyphic modes of expression. — K. E. H. M.] TEMPLE OF ISIS. 123 some connection with that of the first is still a question ; the correspondence of the three known inscriptions seems certainly to be settled. The principal temple of the island was dedicated to Isis. She alone is named “Lady of Philck;” Osiris was only 0eoy a-uwaog, which is peculiarly expressed in the hieroglyphics, and is only excep- tionally called “ Lord of Philek but he was “ Lord of Ph-i-ueb,” i.e. Abaton, and Isis, who was (ruvvaog there, is only occasionally called “ Lady of Ph-i-ueb.” From this it is evident that the famous grave of Osiris was upon his own island of Phiueb, and not on Philek. Both places are distinctly indicated as islands by their determinations. It is therefore not to be thought that the Abaton of the inscriptions and historians was a particular place on the island of Philae ; it was an island in itself. So also do Diodorus and Plutarch intimate by their expression 7T£0£ Diodorus decidedly refers to the island with the grave of Osiris as a distinct island, which was named Uqbv tt sBiov, “ the holy field,” by reason of this grave. This is a translation of Ph-i-ueb, or Ph-ih-ueb (for the h is also found expressed hiero- glvphically), Koptic Ph-iah-ueb, “ the sacred field.”* This consecrated place was an Aba- ton, and unapproachable except for the priests. [ # It is well to remark the structure of the word 4>-l«L£,- OTfR&. Ph-iali-ueb “the field of Jah, or Jao,” as the Rev. Charles Forster reads the Hamyaritic name of God, in the Wady Mokatteb inscriptions. It serves as a collateral proof of the Koptic origin of the language of the inscriptions deciphered by that learned investigator. The form of the letters being similar also proves a cognate origin. — K. R. II. M.] 124 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. On the sixth of November we quitted the charm- ing island, and commenced our Ethiopian journey. Already at Debod, the next temple lying to the south, hieroglyphically Tabet (in Koptic perhaps T-L a.^ht), we found the sculptures of an Ethi- opian King Arkamen, the Ergamenes of the his- torians, \rho reigned at the time of Ptolemocus Philadelphia, and stood probably in very friendly relations with Egypt. In the French work on Cham- pollion’s Expedition (I have notRosellini’s work with me) there is great confusion here. Several plates, be- longing to Dakkeh, are ascribed to Debod, and vice versd. At Gertassi we collected nearly sixty Greek inscriptions. Letronne, who knew them through Gau, has perhaps already published them ; I am anxious to know what he had made of the yopoi, the priests of whom play a conspicuous part in these inscriptions, and of the new Gods and lieu pcrsTToov ig . With what inaccuracy the Greeks often caught up the Egyptian names is again shown by the inscriptions of Talmis, which call the same god Mandulis, which is distinctly enough in the hiero- glyphic Meruli, and was the local deity of Talmis. It is remarkable that the name of Talmis, so fre- quently occurring in this temple, nowhere appears in the neighbouring, though certainly much more ancient, the rock temple of Bet el Ualli. Dcn- dur, also, had a peculiar patron, the God Pctisi, who appears nowhere else, and is usually named Peshir Tenthur ; Champollion’s plates are here again in strange disorder, the representations and the inscriptions being wrongly put together. LATE ORIGIN OF THE TEMPLE OF NUBIA. 125 The temples of Gcrf Hussen and Sebua are peculiarly remarkable, because Ramses-Sesostris, who built them, here appears as a deity, and is adorning himself, beside Phtha and Ammon, the two chief deities of this temple. In the first, he is even once called “ Ruler of the Gods.” Champollion has well remarked, that all the temples of the Ptolemies and Roman emperors in Nubia were probably only restorations of earlier sanctuaries, which were erected in the old time by the Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. That was the temple of Pselchis, first built by Tuthmosis III. Beside the scattered frag- ments of this first building, which, however, was not dedicated to Thoth, as Champollion thinks, but to Horus, and therefore underwent a later change, we have found others of Sethos I. and Menephthcs : also, it appears that the earlier erection did not have its axis parallel with the river like the later one, but, like almost all other temples, had its entrances toward the river. At the temple of Korte, the doorway only is inscribed with hieroglyphics of the worst style.' But these few were sufficient to inform us that it was a sanctuary of Isis, here denominated “ Lady of Kerte.” We also found blocks rebuilt in the walls, which has escaped former travellers, belong- ing to an earlier temple erected by Tuthmosis III., the foundations of which may still be traced. We gathered our last harvest of Greek inscrip- tions at Hierasykaminos. To this place, the Greek and Roman travellers were protected by the garrison of Pselchis ; and by a fixed camp called Meliendi, 126 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. some hours southerly from Hierasykaminos, which is not mentioned in the maps. Primis seems only to have had a temporary garrison during the campaign of Petronius. Mehendi — which name probably only signifies the structure, the camp in Arabic — is the best preserved Roman encampment that I have ever seen. It lies upon a somewhat steep height, and thence commands the river and a little valley ex- tending on the south side of the camp from the Nile, and turns the caravan road into the desert, which comes back to the side of the river again at Medik. The wall of the town encloses a square running down the hill a little to the east, and measuring one hundred and seventy-five paces from south to north, and one hundred and twenty-five from east to west. From the walls there rise regularly four corner and four middle towers ; of the latter, the south and north formed also the gates, which, for the sake of greater security, led into the city with a bend, and not in a direct line. The southern gate, and the whole southerly part of the fortress, which comprehended about one hundred and twenty houses, are excellently preserved. Immediately behind the gate, one enters a straight street, sixty-seven paces long, which is even now, with but little interruption, vaulted ; several narrow by-streets lead off on both sides, and are covered, like all the houses of the district, with vaults of Nile bricks. The street leads to a great open place in the middle of the city, by which lay, on the highest point of the hill, the largest and best-built house — no doubt belonging to the commandant — with a semicircular niche at the eastern end. The TEMPLE OF AMMON AT KORUSKO. 12- city walls are built of unhewn stone ; the gateway only, which has a well-turned Roman arch, is erected of well-cut freestone, among the blocks of which several are built in, bearing sculptures of pure Egyptian, though late style, as a proof that there was an Egyptian or Ethiopian sanctuary here (pro- bably an Isis chapel) before the building of the fortress. We discovered ail Osiris head and two Isis heads; one of which still distinctly bore the red marks of the third canon of proportion. The last monument we visited before our arrival in Korusko, was the temple of Ammon in the Wadi Sebua (Lion’s Dale); so called from the rows of sphinxes which .just peep out of the sand ocean that fell and covered the whole temple as far as it was exposed. Even the western portion of the temple, hewn in the rock, is filled with sand ; and w r e had to summon the whole crew of our bark to assist in obtaining an entrance into this part. We encountered a novel and very peculiar combination of divine and human natures in a group of four deities, the first of whom is called “ Phtlia of Ramses in the house of Ammon ;” the second, “ Phtlia,” with other usual cognomens ; the third, “ Ramses in the house of Ammon ;” and the fourth, “ Hatlior.” In another inscription “Ammon of Ramses in the house of Ammon” was named. It is difficult to explain this combination.* * Similar designations occur at an earlier period ; thus, in Thebes, an “Ammon of Tuthmosis (III.)” is mentioned; it would seem to infer a newly-instituted worship of these gods brought about by these kings. Ramses II. dedicated to the three highest gods of Egypt (see my essay “ On the Primeval 128 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. I was not less astonished to find in the front court of the temple of Ammon a representation of the posterity of the King Ramses-Miamun, in number one hundred and sixty children, with their names and titles, of which the greater part are scarcely to be read, as they are very much destroyed, and others are covered with rubbish, and can only be reckoned by the space they occupy. There were but twenty-five sons and ten daughters of this great king previously known. The two legitimate wives whose images appear on the monuments, he did not have at the same time, but took the second at the death of the first. To-day we were visited by the old, blind, but powerful and rich, Hassan Kachef, of Derr, who was formerly the independent regent of Lower Nubia ; he has had no less than sixty-four wives, of which forty-two are yet remaining ; twenty-nine of his sons and seventeen daughters are yet living; how many have died, he has probably never troubled himself to count, but, according to the usual pro- portion of this country, they must have been about Circle of Egyptian Gods,” in the papers of the Berlin Academy, 1851), Ra, Phtlia, and Ammon, three great rock temples, in Lower Nubia, at Derr, Gerf Ilussen, and Selma* and called the contemporaneously -founded places after these gods, this in Greek Heliopolis, Hephaistopolis, and Diospolis. A fourth mighty and fortified residence was founded by the same king in Abusimbel, and was named after himself, Ramessopolis, or “ The Fortification of Ramessopolis,” as he also founded two cities in the Delta, and called them after himself. No doubt it is this new worship, in reference to which the gods honoured there were named Ammon of Ramses, and Phtlia of Ramses. The king was himself adored in those rock temples, particularly in that of Abusimbel, in common with those deities. THE NUBIAN LANGUAGE. . 129 four times the number of the living ones; therefore, about two hundred children. Korusko is an Arab place, in the midst of the land of the Nubians, or Barabra (plural of Bdrberi), who occupy the valley of the Nile from Assuan to the other side of Dongola. This is an intelligent and honest race, of peaceable, though far from slavish dispo- sition, of handsome stature, and with shining reddish brown skin.* The possession of Korusko by Arabs of the Ababde tribes, who inhabit the whole of the eastern desert, from Assuan down to Abu Ilammed, may be accounted for by the important position of the place, as the point whence the great caravan road, leading directly to the province of Berber, departs, thus cutting off the whole western bend of the Nile. The Arabic language, in which we could now, at any rate, order and question, and carry on a little conversation of politeness, had grown so familiar to our ear in Egypt, that the Nubian language was attractive on account of its novelty. It is divided, as far as I have yet been able to ascertain, into a northern and a southern dialect, which meet at Korusko. f The language is totally distinct in cha- racter to the Arabic, even in the primary elements the consonantal and vocalic systems. It is much more euphonious, as it has scarcely any doubling of consonants, no harsh guttural tones, few sibilating Q* See Pickering’s Races of Man and their Geographical Distribution, chap. x. The Ethiopian race, Nubians, and Bara- bra of the Nile, p. 211-215. — K. R. H. M.] + A grammar and vocabulary of the Nubian language, and a translation of St. Mark into Nubian, is prepared for publication. . K 130 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. sounds, and many simple vowels, more distinctly separated tlian in Arabic, by which an effeminate mixture of vowels is also avoided. It has not the slightest connection in any part of its gramma- tical constitution, or in the roots, either with the Semetic languages, nor with the Egyptian, or with our own ; and therefore, certainly belongs to the original African stock, unconnected with the Ethiopic-Egyptian family, though the nation may be comprehended by the ancients under the general name of Ethiopians, and though their physical race may stand in a nearer relation to them. They are not a commercial people, and therefore can only count up to twenty in their language ; the higher numbers are borrowed from the Arabic, although they employ a peculiar term for one hundred, imil* Genders scarcely exist in the language, except in personal pronouns, standing alone ; they distinguish “ he ” and “ she,” but not “ he gives ” and “ she gives.” They use suffixed inflections, as in our lan- guages, rather than changes of accent, like the Semetic. The ordinals are formed by the termina- tion iti, the plural by igi ; they have no dual. The union of the verb with the pronoun is both by prefix and affix, but is simple and natural ; they distinguish the present tense and the preterite ; the future is expressed by a particle, even for the passive they have a peculiar formation. The root of negation is “ m,” usually with the following “ n,” The following arc some of the terms for one hundred among the African tribes, JIienoga, Island of Corisco, ' Nkama , Jf.d a a, Jjeje; Jgberra, Obere ; Kanoa country, Sy district, Momlu bandi. — K. R. If. M.] TIIE NUBIAN LANGUAGE. 131 the single affinity, probably more than accidental with other families of language. Their original number of roots is very limited. They have cer- tainly distinct words for sun, moon, and stars ; but the expressions for year, month, day, hour, they borrow from the Arabic ; water, ocean, river, are all signified by the same words with essi, yet it is remarkable, that they designate the Nile by a peculiar term tossi. For all native tamed wild animals, they have native names, for houses, and even all that concerns shipping, they use Arabic terms ; the boat only they call kub, which has no very apparent connection with the Arabic merkab. For date-fruit and date-tree, which have different designations in Arabic, bellah and nachele, they have only one word, beti (fenti ) ; the sycamore-tree they name in Arabic, but it is remarkable, that they designate the sont-tree by the word for tree in general. Spirit, God, slave, the ideas of rela- tionship, the parts of the body, weapons, field fruits, and what relates to the preparation of bread, have Nubian names; while the words servant, friend, enemy, temple, to pray, to believe, to read, are all Arabic. It is curious that they have sepa- rate "words for writing and book, but not for stylus, ink, paper, letter. The metals are all named in Arabic, with the exception of iron. Rich are they in Berber, poor in Arabic, and in fact they are all rich in their poor country, to which they cling like Switzers, and despise the Arab gold, that they might win in Egypt, where their services, as guards and all posts of confidence, are much sought. W e now r only stay for the arrival of the camels to k 2 132 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. begin our desert journey. Hence to Abu Hammed, an eight days’ journey, we shall only find drinkable water once, and then we shall continue our camel ride for four more days to Berber. There we shall find barks, according to the arrangements of Ahmed Pasha. We must then continue on to Chartum, in order to provision ; to proceed higher up, to Abu Haras, and thence to Mandera, in the eastern desert, will scarcely be worth while, if we may believe Linant; but Ahmed Pasha has promised to send an officer to Mandera, in order to test again the reports of the native. This report I shall send with other letters by an express messenger to Qeneli. KORUSKO. 133 LETTER XVI. Korosko. January 5, 1844. With not a little sorrow, I announce to you that we shall probably have to give up the second prin- cipal object of our expedition, — our Ethiopian jour- ney, and return northward hence. We have waited here in vain since the 17th of November, for the promised but never-coming camels, which are to bring us to Berber, and there seems to be no more chance of our getting them now than at first. What we heard on our arrival, I am sorry to say, is confirmed ; the Arab tribes, who are the sole managers of traffic, are dissatisfied with Mohammed Ali’s re- duction of the rate from 80 to 60 piastres per camel hence to Berber ; they have agreed among them- selves to send no more camels hither; and no firman, no promises, no threats, will obviate this evil. A great number of trunks with munition for Chartum, have been lying here for ten months, and cannot be sent on any further. We hoped for the assistance of Ahmed Pasha Menekle,* the new Governor of the Southern Provinces, which he has also promised us in the most friendly and unbounded manner. The officer who has remained with the munition, received definite orders from him to retain the first camels which arrived here, for our use. Notwithstanding that, we shall scarcely attain our end. The Pasha Q* Menekle signifies “great ear.” — K.R.H.M.J 134 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. himself could hardly get on further, although he required but few camels. Some he had brought from the north, and some he had assembled by force. Yet he was ill-furnished enough on his departure, and half of his animals are said to have become ill, or perished in the desert. On the 3rd of December, as no camels came, although the Pasha must have passed the province Berber, whence he was going to send us the necessary number, I sent our own trustworthy and excellent khawass, Ibrahim Aga, through nine days wilderness, to Berber, with Mohammed Ali’s j firman. In the meantime, we went on to Wadi Haifa to the second cataract, visited the numerous monuments in that neighbourhood, and returned hither in three weeks, with a rich harvest. It is thirty-one days this morning, since our kha- wass has departed, and some time since I received a letter from the Mudhir of Berber, in -which I learn that the camels cannot be collected, although imme- diately on the arrival of our khawass, and the delivery of the letter from the Mudhir of this place, he sent out soldiers to get together the necessary number of sixty camels. Matters are just the same there as here. The authorities can do nothing against the ill-will of the Arabs. On the sudden death, by poison, of Ahmed Pasha,* the governor of the whole Sudan, at Chartum, who, it is said, had for some time been meditating an independence of Mohammed Ali, the south is divided into five provinces, and placed under five pashas, [* For :i character of Almicd Pasha, sec Werne’s White Nile, vol. i. p. 33. The author was acquainted with him. — K. R. II. M. j SCARCITY OF CAMELS. 135 who are to be installed by Ahmed Pasha Menekle. One of them, Emir Pasha, was formerly Bey under Ahmed Pasha, at Chartum, whom he seems to have betrayed. Three others arrived at Ivorusko, soon after Ahmed Pasha Menekle. Of these, the most powerful, Ilassan Pasha, is gone by water to Wadi Haifa, in his province of Dongola ; he was almost unattended, and required but a few camels to get on farther. The second, Mustaffa Pasha, intended for Kordofan, has seized on a trade caravan returning from Berber. The Arabs report, however, that of these tired animals, a part have alreadybecome useless before arriving at the wells, which lie at about four day’s journey into the wilderness ; there he found some merchants, eight of whose camels he seized; the remainder of the caravan has not arrived here, but had taken another road to Egypt for fear of being stopped again. The third, Pasha Ferhat, is waiting here, at the same time with ourselves, and tries every plan that he can think of, to procure a few camels from the north or south. But every hope of ours thus becomes fainter and fainter, as we cannot set the insignificant power of the authorities so mightily to work as he, and have not now either khawass ox firman with us. Everyone, and the pashas most particularly, endeavours to comfort us from day to day; but, meantime, the winter, the only time when we can do anything in the Upper Coun- try, elapses. To this must be added, that the Mudhir of Lower Nubia, with whom we had become friendly, has been accused to Mohammed Ali by the Nubian sheikh of his province, and had just been summoned 136 LETFERS FROM EGYPT. away by the viceroy, This region has been provi- sionally placed under the jurisdiction of the Mudliir of Esneh, from whose lieutenant, a young, and other- wise well-disposed man, there is nothing to be obtained by us. I have, therefore, made up my mind to the only practicable step. I will myself go to Berber with Abeken upon a few camels, and leave Erbkam with the rest of the company and all the luggage here. There I shall be able to look into the matter myself, and try what can be done, with the aid of the khawass (whose authority I miss here much) and the firman. We were received here by Ahmed Pasha Menekle in the most friendly man- ner, and are assured of his most strenuous co-opera- tion by the assistance of his physician, our friend and countryman, Dr. 0. Koch. Perhaps money or threats will bring us sooner or later to our end. By a mere chance, I have myself been able to secure six camels. Two more are wanting to complete our little caravan. These two, however, the lieutenant of the Mudhir cannot procure for us, even with the best desire. We have been awaiting them three days, and know not whether we shall obtain them. JOURNEY TO E’ DAMER. 137 LETTER XVII. E’ Damf.r. January 24, 1844. Our trouble has at last come to an end, though at a late period. Yesterday 1 arrived here with Abekeii, yet two days’ journey from the pyramids of Meroe, and our whole camp probably was also yesterday pitched near Abu Hammed, at the southern end of the great desert. After the last little en- couraging communication from Berber, I set out on the 8th of January about noon, with Abeken, the dragoman Juffuf Sherebieh, a cook, and ’Auad, our Nubian lad. We had eight camels, of w r hom tw r o were scarcely in condition for the journey, and two donkeys. As the promised guide was not at his post, I made the camel-driver Sheikh Ahmed him- self accompany us, as he would be of service in con- sequence of the high estimation in which lie was held among the tribes of the resident Ababde-Arabs. We had beside these, a guide, Adar, who was sent us instead of the one promised, five camel-drivers ; and soon after our departure several foot-travellers joined us, besides two people with donkeys, who took this opportunity of returning to Berber. We took with us ten water-skins, some provision of rice, maccaroni, biscuit, and cold meat, also a light tent, our coverlets to ride upon and sleep in, the most necessary linen, and a few books ; to this must be added a tolerable stock of courage, which never 138 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. fails me on a journey. Our friends accompanied us for some distance into the rock valley, which soon deprived us of all idea of the proximity of the shore and its friendly palms. The dale was wild and monotonous, nothing- but sandstone rock, the surfaces of which were burnt as black as coals, but turned into burning golden yellow at every crack, and every ravine, whence a number of sand-rivulets, like fire-streams from black dross, ran and filled the valleys. The guides preceded us, with simple garments thrown over their shoulders and around their hips, in their hands one or two spears of strong light wood with iron points and shaft-ends ; their naked backs were covered by a round, or carved shield, with a far-reaching boss of giraffe’s skin ; other shields were oblong, and they are generally made of the skin of the hippopotamus, or the back skin of the crocodile. At night, and often during the day, they bound sandals under their feet, the thongs of which are not unfrequently cut out of the same piece, and being drawn between the great and second toes, surround the feet like a skate. Sheikh Ahmed was a splendid man, still young, but tall and well grown, with peculiarly active limbs of shining black-brown hue, an expressive countenance, a piercing, but gentle and slyly-glancing eye, and an incomparably beautiful and harmonious pronunciation, so that I liked much to have him about me, although we were always in a contention at Korusko, as he was obliged to furnish the camels and their concomitants, and through circumstances, could not or would not, procure them. Of his DESERT MARCH. 139 activity and elasticity of limb he gave us a specimen in the desert, by taking a tremendous run on the sandy and most unfavourable soil, and leaping four- teen feet and a half ; I measured it with his lance, which was somewhat more than two metres in length. Ad&r only, our under guide, dared to try his powers after him, at my suggestion, but did not reach the same distance by far. We had departed on the first day early about eleven o’clock, and rode till five, stayed for an hour and a half, and went on till half-past twelve ; then we pitched our tent upon the hard soil, and laid ourselves down after a twelve hours’ march. The most interesting thing after the hot active days was the evening tea, but we were obliged to accustom ourselves to the leathery taste of the water, which was plainly to be perceived even through both tea and coffee. The second day we stopped for fourteen hours on our camels ; we set out at eight, stopped in the afternoon at four, to eat something, went on about half-past five, and pitched for the night at half-past twelve, after having issued from the moun- tains at about ten, at the rising of the moon, into a great plain. No tree, no tuft of grass had we yet seen, also no animals, except a few vultures and crows feeding on the carcase of the latest fallen camel. On the third day, after an early beginning, we met a herd of 150 camels, bought by govern- ment, to be taken to Egypt. The Pasha is going to import several thousand camels from Berber, in order to obviate the consequence of the murrain of last year ; many had already come through Korusko without our being able to avail ourselves of them, as 140 LETTERS EROM EGYPT. they are the private property of the Pasha ; we could not have ridden on them, too, as they had no saddles. The guide of the herd, whom we met, gave us the long desired intelligence that our khawass, Ibrahim Aga, had left Berber with a train of sixty camels, and was quite in our vicinity, but on a more wes- terly track. Sheikh Ahmed w 7 as sent after him, in order to bring in three good camels instead of our weak ones, and to obtain any further news from him. Next night, or at farthest in the following one, he •was to rejoin us. By the Chabir (leader) of the train, I sent a few lines to Erbkam. We stopped at half-past five, and stayed the night, in the hopes of seeing Sheikh Ahmed earlier. Towards evening we first beheld the scanty vegetation of the desert, thin greyish yellow dry stalks, hardly visible close by, but giving the ground a light greenish yellow tint in the distance, which alone drew my attention to it. On the fourth day we ought actually to have been at the wells of brackish but, for the camels, drink- able water; but in order not to go too fast for Sheikh Ahmed, we halted at four o’clock, still about four hours’ distance from the wells. At last, towards mid-day, we left the great plain Bahr Bela ma, (river without water,) which joins the two days’ long mountain range of El Bab, into which we had entered from Korusko, and now neared other moun- tains. Till now we had had nothing but uniform sandstone rocks beneath and around us, and it was a pleasing circumstance when I perceived, from the nigh back of the camel, the first plutonic rock in the sand. I slipped down immediately from my saddle, BAIIR BELA MA. 141 and knocked off a piece ; it was a grey green stone, of very fine texture, and without a doubt of graniti- cal nature. The other mountains also were mostly composed of species of porphyry and granite, with which the red syenite, so much employed by the ancient Egyptians, as so extensively seen at Assuan, not unfrequently appears in broad veins. Farther into the mountains quartz predominated, and it was somewhat peculiar to see the snow-white flint veins peeping at different heights from the black moun- tains, and flowing streamwise down into the valley, where the white extended somewhat after the fashion of a lake. I took small specimens, also some of the various kinds of rock. After we had passed, crossing a little ravine, the little valley Bahr H&tab, (Wood River, by reason of the wood somewhat farther in the mountains), and another Wadi Delah, on the north side of the moun- tains, we came to the rock-gorge of E’Sufr, where we expected to find rain-water, to replenish our shrunken water-bags (girbe pi. gerclb). In this high mountain it rains in one month of the year, about May. Then the mighty basins of granite in the val- leys are filled, and hold the water for the whole year. On this plutonic rock, there was some little vegetation to be seen, in consequence of the rain, and because the granite seems to contain a somewhat more fer- tile element than the sad-looking, brittle sand, com- posed almost wholly of particles of quartz. At Wadi Delah, which has water in the rainy season, we came to a long-continued row of dum-palms, the rounded leaves and bushy growth of which makes a less crude impression than the long slender-leaved 142 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. date-palms; the latter will not bear rain, and are therefore altogether wanting in Berber, while the dum -palms occur at first very singly in Upper Egypt, and become more numerous, more full, and more large, the farther they reach southward. When their fruit drops off unripe and dry, the little eatable matter about the stone tastes like sugar; when ripe, the yellow wood-flavoured meat may be eaten ; it tastes well* and some fruits had an aroma like the pine-apple. They sometimes grow to the size of the largest apples. At four o’clock we pitched our tent, the camels were sent behind into the ravine where was the rain- water, and I and Abeken mounted our donkeys, to accompany them to these natural cisterns. Over a wild and broken path and cutting stones, we came deeper and deeper into the gorge ; the first wide basins were empty, we therefore left the camels and donkeys behind, climbed up the smooth granite wall, and thus proceeded amidst these grand rocks from one basin to another; they were all empty; behind there, in the furthest ravine, the guide said there must be water, for it was never empty : but there proved to bo not a single drop. We were obliged to return dry. The numerous herds which had been driven from the Sudan to Egypt in the previous year, had consumed it all. We had now only three skins of water, and therefore it was necessary to do some- thing. Higher up the pass, there were said to be other cisterns ; behind this ravine I proposed to climb the mountain with the guide, but he con- sidered it too dangerous ; we therefore turned back and rode to the camp, and at sundown the camels ROFT MOUNTAIN'S. 143 had to set forth again to the northern mountains in search of water reported to exist at an hour’s dis- tance, and they returned late, bringing with them four skins — the water was good and tasted well. Sheikh Ahmed, however, did not return this night also, and we now hoped to meet him at the wells, whither he might have hasted by a more southerly track. We set out on the fifth day soon after sunrise, and entered the great mountain passes of Roft, the uni- form strata of which were first in layers of slate, then more in blocks, and afterwards very rich in quartz. The heat of the day was more oppressive in the mountains than if! the plains, where the continual north-wind created some degree of coolness. Ex- cept the various sorts of rock, there was nothing of very great attractiveness. I found a great ant-hill in the midst of the desolate waste, and looked at it for a long time ; they were small and large shining black ants, who carried away all the grosser earthy particles they could manage, and left the stones for walls ; the larger ones had heads comparatively twice as large as the others, and did not work themselves, but acted as overseers, by giving a push to every little ant who did not help to carry, which drove it forward and instigated it to labour. It is difficult to keep up a conversation on the clumsy camels, which cannot be kept side by side so easily as horses or donkeys. If you have a good dromedary (keggin), and travel without luggage, or with very little, the animal remains in trot. This is easy and not very tiring, while it requires some time to accustom oneself to the slouching step of the usual 144 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. burthen-camel ; this, however, we managed to lighten, by occasionally mounting our donkeys, and often walked long distances early in the morning and late at night. I return to our fifth day in the desert, on which we set forth early, about eight o’clock, from the little valley E’ Sufr, where we had pitched our tent under some gum or sont-trees, and arrived at half- past twelve, after we had left the road about half an hour, and turned to the left into a wide valley, at the brackish wells of Wadi Murhad. Here we had concluded about half of our journey ; we saw a few huts built of small stones and sedge, near which a couple of thin goats sought fruitlessly for some food ; our black host led us into an arbour of bul- rushes, where we made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit. In this valley w T e had for some time observed the snow-white surface of the natron on the sand, which makes the water in the valley brackish. Toward the end of the valley, where it divides into two branches, there are the standing waters, five or six feet below the surface, which have been dug out into eight wells. The furthest wells have a greenish, salt, and ill-tasting water, which, however, serves the camels very well ; the three front ones, however, have brighter water, which we could have drunk very well, if it had been necessary. This is a go- vernment station usually occupied by six people ; at this time four were on an excursion and only two in the place. Two ways led hence to Korusko, a western and an eastern one ; Ibrahim Aga had un- fortunately chosen the former, by which we had THR ABABDE ARABS. 14") missed him, having ourselves taken the latter. Sheikh Ahmed was not to be found here ; probably he had only reached our camels on the second day, and we were therefore obliged to proceed without him. The Ababde Arabs, with whom we had now every- where to do, are a true and trustworthy people, from whom one has less to fear than from the cunning thievish Fellahs of Egypt. To the north-east of them are the Bishari tribes, who speak a peculiar language, and are now at bitter feud with the Ababde, because they waylaid and murdered some Turkish soldiers two years ago in the little valley, where we stayed the night, and for which Hassan Chalif, the superior sheikh of the Ababde, to whose care the highway between Berber and Korusko is committed, had nearly forty of the Bishari exe- cuted. With the aid of the Ababde, too, Ismael Pasha had been able four-and-twenty years before to bring his army though the desert and seize the Sudan. Guides are only posted by government along the road by which we were coining, but not on the longer but better watered line from Berber to Assuan, which is now little used. At half-past four we rode away from the wells, after we had examined some hagr melctub (written stones, for which we everywhere inquired), on some rocks in the neighbourhood, where a number of horses, camels, and other animals had been rudely scratched, at some by no means modern period, in the same manner as we had often seen in Nubia. At half-past nine we halted for the night, after we had left the mountains an hour and a half. On the L 146 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. morning of the sixth day we passed the wide plain of Mundera, to which another high mountain range called Abu Sihha joins ; the southern frontier of this plain, by those mountains, they call Abdebab ; the southern part of the Roft mountains behind us, Abu Senejat. At three o’clock we left the plain, and entered the mountains again, which, like the former ranges, were of granite. Half an hour later we halted for a noontide rest. After two hours we rode on and encamped about midnight, after passing through another little plain, and the mountains of Adar Auib into the next plain, comprehended under the same designation, which stretches to the last mountains of this desert, Gebel Graibat. On the seventh day we set forth at the early hour of half-past seven, and came at last beyond Gebel Graibat, into a great and boundless plain, Adererat, which we did not leave until our arrival at Abu Hammed. To the south-west the little mountain El Farut, and the higher range Mograd, were in sight ; in the far-east there joins another mountain to Adur Auib, that of Abu Nugara. South-easterly there are the other mountain chains of Bishari, the names of which were unknown to our Ababde guides. The beginning of the plain of Adererat was quite covered for hours with beautiful pure flint, which sometimes jutted out of the sand, as rock, although the principal sort of rock con- tinued to be black granite, which was intersected about noon by a broad vein of red granite. Early in the day a small caravan of merchants passed us at some distance. MIRAGES. 147 We saw the most beautiful mirages very early in the (lav ; they most minutely resemble seas and lakes, in which mountains, rocks, and everything in their vicinity, are reflected like in the clearest water. They form a remarkable contrast with the staring dry desert, and have probably deceived many a poor wanderer, as the legend goes. If one be not aware that no water is there, it is quite impossible to distinguish the appearance from the reality. A few days ago I felt quite sure that I perceived an overflowing of the Nile, or a branch near El Mecheref, and rode towards it, but only found Bahr Slieitan, “ Satan’s water,” as the Arabs call it. By day the caravan road cannot easily be missed, even when the sand has destroyed every trace of it ; it is marked by numberless camels’ skeletons, of which several are always in sight ; I counted forty- one within the last half-hour before sunset, on the previous day. Of our camels, however, although they had not long rested in Korusko, and got scarcely anything to eat or drink on the way, none were lost. Mine, in whose mouth I had occasion- ally put a bit of biscuit, used to stretch back his long neck in the middle of the march, until it laid its head with its large tender eyes in my lap, in order to get some more. We halted at about four o’clock in the afternoon for two hours, and then proceeded till eleven, when we pitched our camp in the great plain. The wind, however, was so violent, that it was impossible to fasten up our tents. Notwithstanding the ten iron rings which are prepared for keeping it up, it fell l 2 148 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. three times before it was quite finished ; we, there- fore, let it lie, laid our own selves down behind a little wall, that the guide had constructed of camel saddles as a shelter, and slept a la belle etoile. On the eighth day we might have arrived at Abu Hammed late in the evening, but we resolved to stay the night at an hour’s distance from that place, that we might reach the Nile by day. The birds of prey increased in the neighbourhood of the river; we scared away thirty vultures from the fresh carcase of a camel ; the day before I had shot a white eagle, and some desert partridges, which were seeking durra grains on the caravan road. We only saw traces of wild beasts by the carcases ; they did not trouble us at night, as in the camp at Korusko, where we had shot a hyaena, and several jackals. In the afternoon we met a slave caravan. The last encampment before reaching Abu Ham- med was less windy, but our coals were exhausted, and the servants had forgotten to gather camel’s dung for the fire ; therefore we were obliged to drink the last brown skin-water without boiling it, to quench our thirst. The donkeys could not be spared any of it. We ascended the high thrones of our camels on the 16th of January, at half-past seven o’clock in the morning, and looked down thence towards the Nile. It was, however, only visible shortly before our arrival. The stream here does not flow through a broad valley, but runs along a bare rock-channel, that stretches through the flat wide plain of rock. On the other side of the river only was there any appearance of the valley, and on an island formed ARRIVAL AT ABU IIAMMED. 141) there stood a few dum-palms. A little way from the shores we met another train of 150 camels, which had just left Abo Hammed. Then came an extensive earthwork, with a few towers like fortifi- cations, which had been erected by the great Arab sheikh Hassan Chalif, for government stores. A little ravine contains five lints, one of stones and earth, another of tree trunks, two of mats, and one of bus or dun a straw ; then a wider place opened, surrounded with several poor-looking houses, one of which was prepared for us. A brother of Hassan Chalif, who resides here, came to receive us, led us into the house, and offered ns his services. A few aiKjareb (cane bed-places), which are much used here, on account of the creeping vermin, were brought in, and we established ourselves for that day and the following night ; we felt that we must give the camels so much grace. A great four-cornered space surrounded us, thirty feet on every side, the walls formed of stone and earth ; a couple of trees, forked at the top, bore a great trunk for an architrave, above which there were again other roof-branches laid, and bound up and covered with mats and hurdles. It reminded me much of a primeval architecture which we had found imitated on the rock caves of Beni-hassan ; there were the same pillars, the same net work of the roof, through which, except by the door, as at those caves, the light only entered by one four-cornered opening in the middle, at the top, and no windows. The door-posts were composed of four short trunks, of which the upper one quite resembled the lintel in the graves of the pyramid era. We hung up a curtain before the 150 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. door, to protect us from the wind and dust ; at the opposite corner, a doorway led into a space that was used as a kitchen. The day was windy, and the air unpleasantly filled with sand, so thatwe could scarcely get out of doors. We refreshed ourselves, however, with pure, cool Nile water, and an excellent dinner of mutton. The great desert was behind us, and we had only four days more to El Mecheref, the chief town of Berber, following the course of the river. We learned that Ahmed Pasha Menekle was in our neighbourhood, or would soon arrive, in order to make a military expedition from Darner, a short day’s journey on the other side of El Mecheref, up the Atbara, to the province of Taka, where some of the Bisbari tribes had revolted. When we came forth the next morning, our Arabs had all anointed themselves and put on good clothes ; but what more particulary surprised us was the sight of their stately white wigs, making them look quite reverend. It is a part of their “ dress,” to comb the hair into a high toupe , which is sprink- led with peculiar finely drifted butter, shining white, as if with powder. In a little while, however, when the sun is risen higher, this fat snowmelts, and then the hair looks all covered with innumerable pearly dew-drops, till these, too, disappear, and run down their shoulders and neck from their dark brown hair, spreading a light upon their well-burned limbs, like antique bronze statues. We set forward the next morning at eight o’clock, with a new camel that we had found opportunity to exchange for a tired one. The valley becomes broader and more fertile the nearer we come to the ARRIVAL AT KL MECHEREF. 151 island of Meroe; the desert itself became more rank and wild, like steppes. The first station was Geg, where we spent the night in an open space ; the air is very, very warm ; at half-past five in the afternoon we had 25° Reaumur. The second night we stayed on the other side of Abu Hashin, in the neighbourhood of a village, which is in reality no station, as we desired to pass the five usual stations in four days ; the third day we stopped out in the air by a cataract of the Nile. On the fourth day from Abu Hammed, we kept a little further away from the river in the desert, but still within the limits of the original valley, if I may so call a yellow earth, which is not covered by the inundations, but is dug out by the villagers immediately below the sand, in order to mend their fields. We halted in the even- ing at the village of El Clior, an hour from El Mecberef, and arrived rn the metropolis of the pro- vince of Berber early on the fifth day. I sent the dragoman forward to announce us, and to demand a house, which we received, and imme- diately entered upon. The Mudliir of Berber was in Darner ; his vakeel, or lieutenant, visited us, and soon came Hassan Chalif, the chief Arab sheikh, who promised us better camels to Damer, was re- joiced to hear good tidings of his and our friends, Linant and Bonomi, and amused himself with our own books of plates, in which he found portraits of his relations and ancestors. We had scarcely ar- rived, ere we received intelligence that Hassan Pasha had entered the town on another side. He had journeyed from Korusko to his province of Dongola, and now returned from Edabbe, on the 152 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. southern boundaries of Dongola, right through the desert of El Mecheref, where Enrin, the new Pasha of Chartum, had come to meet him. The rencontre caused some disturbance in our plans ; but we ma- naged to travel southward on the next morning, the 22nd of January, soon after Hassan Pasha’s depar- ture, after leaving two camels, no longer wanted for water-carrying, behind, and exchanging three others for better ones. We rode off towards noon, and stayed in the evening at the last village, before the river Mogran, the ancient Astaboras, which we had to pass before reaching Darner. It is called in the maps Atbara, evidently a corruption of Astaboras ; but this desig- nation seems to he applied to the upper river, from the place of that name, and not to the lower one. Next morning we passed the river near its cmbouch- ment. Even here it was very narrow in its great bed, which it entirely fills in the rainy season, while for two months it is only prevented from disappear- ing entirely by some stagnating water. On the other side of the river, we landed on the island of Meroe of Strabo, by which name the land between the Nile and Astaboras was designated. Yet two hours and we reached Darner. The houses were too poor to take us in ; I there- fore sent Jussuf to Emin Pasha, in whose province we now were, and who had encamped, with Hassan Pasha, on the shore of the river. lie sent a kha- wass to meet us, and to invite us to dine with him. I, however, judged it more expedient to pitch our tent at some distance, and to change our travelling costume. Immediately the Mudhir of Berber paid RETURN OF AHMED I’ASIIA MENEKLE 153 us his visit, to ask after our wishes, ami soon after Emin Pasha sent an excellent dinner to our tent, consisting of four well-prepared dishes, and besides that, a lamb roasted whole upon the spit and filled with rice, and a flat cake filled with meat. Toward Asser (three o’clock in the afternoon) we had our visit announced ; just as we were about to proceed to it, we heard the singing of sailors ; two boats came swimming down the stream with red flags and crescents : it was Ahmed Pasha Meneklc returning from Charthm. The Pasha and the Mud- hir immediately proceeded on board, and they did not separate till late; our friend, Dr. Koch, was un- fortunately not expected from Chartum for two days. I had received a note from Erbkam at an early period after my arrival, in which he informed me, by the medium of a passing khawass, that he had left Korusko with Ibrahim A^a, on the 15tli of Janu- ary; he wrote from their first camp. The Ichawass had ridden with incredible swiftness from Cairo to Berber, in fourteen days, and brought Ahmed Pasha the desired permission to raise the government price for the camels from Korusko to Berber, from sixty piasters to a higher price than before, i. e. ninety piasters. January 26th. The day before yesterday we made our visit to Ahmed Pasha, which he returned yester- day. He will do everything to facilitate our further journey. He informed us, that he, in accordance with his former promise, had sent an officer from Abu Haras to Mandera, three days into the desert, and had obtained the information from him that great ruins were existing there. The same was told 154 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. us yesterday in a letter by Dr. Koch, and confirmed to-day by his word of mouth. After dinner be will bring us Musa Bey. who has been there. He also announced to us that some letters had arrived for us, and were deposited at Chartum, and that the artist sent for from Rome had arrived at Cairo. For our fellow-travellers a bark is prepared at El Mecheref; but I shall precede them with Abeken. Ahmed Pasha sends me word, that in an hour a courier will leave for Cairo, who shall bear these letters. Postscript. — The magnificent news from Man- dera does not seem to be confirmed on closer inquiry. It will hardly be worth while to go thither. 155 LETTER XVIII. On tub Blue River, Province of Sennar. 13° North Latitude, March 2, 1844. To-day we reach the southernmost boundary of our African journey. To-morrow we go northward and homeward again. We shall come as far as the neighbourhood of Sero, the frontier between the provinces of Sennar and Fasoql. Our time will not admit of more stay. I have travelled from Chartum hither with Abeken only. We gave up the desert journey to Mandera, the rather as the eastern re- gions are now unsafe by reason of the war in Taka. 1 now employ the time in learning the nature of the river, and the neighbouring country some days’ jour- ney beyond Sennar. The journey is worth the trouble, for the character of the whole land deci- dedly changes in soil, vegetation, and animals, on passing Abu Haras, between Chartum and Sennar, at the embouchure of the Rahad. It w T as necessary for me to gain as much personal knowledge of the whole Nile valley, as far up as possible, since the nature of this country, so limited in its width, has more influence than anything else upon the progress of its history. On the White River one cannot journey for more than a few days to the frontier of Mohammed All’s conquests, without peculiar preparations and pre- cautions. There are found the Sliilluk on the western shore, and on the eastern, the Dinka, both 156 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. native negro people, who are never the best friends with the northern folk. The Blue River is accessi- ble to a much higher extent, and was, and is now, historically, of more consequence than the White, as it is the channel of communication between the north and Abyssinia. I should like to have pro- ceeded into the province of Fasoql, the last under Egyptian dominion ; but that will not tally with our reckoning ; so we shall put a period to our southern journey to-night. But I return in my reports to Damer, where I embarked on the 27th of January with Abeken, in the bark of Musa Bey, Ahmed Pasha’s first adju- tant, who had kindly placed it at our disposal. We stopped for the night at about eight o’clock in the evening, near the island of Dal Haui. We had ob- tained a khawass from Emin Pasha, the same who had come hither on the conquering of the country with Ismael Pasha, who had accompanied the Defterdar Bey to Kordofan, (or, according to his pro- nunciation, Kordifal), who had then journeyed with the same on his errand of vengeance to Shendi for the murder of Ismael, and since then had traversed the whole Sudan in every direction for three and twenty years. He has the most perfect map of these countries in his head, and possesses an astounding memory for names, bearings, and distances, so that I have based two charts upon his remarks, which are not without geographical interest in some parts. lie has also been to Mekka, and therefore likes to bo addressed as Ilaggi Ibrahim (Pilgrim Ibrahim.) In other things, too, he has much experience, and will be FIRST VISIT TO THE PYRAMIDS OF MF.ROE. 157 very useful to us by reason of bis long and extended acquaintance with the laud. On the twenty-eighth of January, we stopped about noon at an island called Gomra, as we heard that there were ruins in the vicinity which we should like to see. We had to proceed through a flat arm of the Nile, and ride for an hour on the eastern shore to the north. There at last we found, after passing the villages of Motmar and El Alcarid, between a third village, Sagadi, and a fourth, Genua, the inconsiderable ruins of a place built of bricks, and strewn with broken tiles. We returned but little satisfied amidst the noon- day heat, and arrived with our bark onlyjust before sunset in Begerauie, in the neighbourhood of which are situated the pyramids of Meroe. It is remark- able that this place is not mentioned by Cailliaud. lie only speaks of the pyramids of Assur, i.e. Sur, or e’Sur. The whole plain in which the ruins of the city and the pyramids lie bears the same name; and, besides this, a portion of Begerauie, which, probably by a slip of the pen, is called Begromi by Hoskins. Although it was already dark, I rode with Abeken to the pyramids, which stand a short hour’s ride in- land, upon the slopes of the low hills that stretch along eastward. The moon alone, which was in its first quarter, sparingly lighted the plain, covered with stones, low underwood, and rushes. After a sharp ride, we came to the foot of a row of pyramids, which rose before us in the form of a crescent, as was rendered necessary by the ground. To the right joins another row of pyramids, a little retreating ; a third group lies more to the south in 158 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. the plains, too far off to be distinguished in the dim moonlight. I tied the bridle of my donkey round a post, and climbed up the first mound of ruins. The single pyramids are not so exactly placed as in Egypt ; yet the ante-chambers, which are here built on to the body of the structures themselves, all lie turned away from the river toward the east, doubtless for the same religious reason which actuated the Egyptians also to turn the entrance of the detached temples before their pyramids to the east, thus river- ward at Gizeh and Saqara, but the tombs toward the west. Half looking, half feeling, I found some sculptures on the outer walls of the tomb temple, and also per- ceived figures and writing on the inner walls. I recollected that I had a candle-end in the wallet of my donkey ; this I lighted, and examined several ante-chambers. Then immediately the forms of the Egyptian Gods — Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Atmu, &c., came out with their names in the well-known hieroglyphics.* In the first chamber, too, I found the cartouche of a kinsf. One of the two ring-s con- tained the signs of a great Pharaoh of the Old Empire, Sesurtesen I. ; the same was assumed by two later Egyptian kings, and now encountered for the fourth time as the throne-name of an Ethiopian king. The sculptures on the other side were not ended. On the same evening, 1 also found royal names in another ante-chamber, but they were C* Bunsen has given these forms and hieroglyphics at the end of the English translation of his excellent Egypt’s Place, of which it is much to be regretted that the first volume only has hitherto appeared. — K. R. II. M.] MODERN DATE OF MEROE. 150 rather illegible. Both writing and representations had, in fact, suffered much. The pyramids, like those in Egypt, have lost their tops, and many are totally destroyed. Our new khatoass, who would not leave us in the night, had followed immediately. He knew the locality perfectly, as he had been here a long time with Ferlini, and had assisted him in the examination of the pyramids. He showed us the place in the pyramid where Ferlini, in 1834, discovered the rich treasure of gold and silver rings built in the wall. I also discovered a case-pyramid that evening, enlarged according to the principle of the Egyptian pyramids by a later mantle of stone. According to the inscriptions and representations in the ante- chambers, these pyramids are chiefly built for kings, and a few perhaps for their wives and children. The great number of them argues for a long series of kings, and a well-grounded empire that probably lasted for a number of centuries. The most important results of this examination by moon and candlelight was, however, not the most agreeable; I was fully convinced that I had before me here, on the most celebrated spot of ancient Ethiopia, nothing but the ruins of com- paratively recent art.* Already, at an earlier Q* Had Lepsius remembered that, by the determination of this most important fact, be set at rest the half-witted theories of a race of Indo-philologic dreamers, he would have rather rejoiced at the result than have regretted. These men, of whom Higgins, Faber, and Dupuis are fine specimens, with no accurate knowledge of any of the languages they so sapiently decided on, will find their favourite Mount Meru, Meroe, Menu, Manu, &e., 160 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. period, lmd I judged from the monuments of Fer- lini, drawings of which I had seen in Rome, and the originals in London, that they were certainly produced in Ethiopia, but not in any case earlier than the first century before the Christian era ; therefore, at about the same period to which a few veritable Greek and Roman works belong, which we discovered together with the Ethiopian treasure. And I must say the same now of all the monuments not only situated here, but upon the whole island of Meroe, as well of all the pyramids near Begerauie, as of the temples of Ben Naga, of Naga, and of the Wadi e’ Sofra (Cailliaud’s Me- &c., &c., here overthrown by an evident chronological fact. Such investigations are, however, useful for two reasons: — 1. That they collect an immense number of facts, and, in some degree, classify them, for the benefit of the race of investigators now arising, of whom Bunsen, Bopp, and others, are fine examples ; and 2. They show us what false scents we must avoid in following up so intricate an inquiry as the Archaeological history of the “ origenes " of mankind. Let it he understood, however, that I do not mean to assert that men like Higgins and Pococke are totally wrong ; far from it, they are often right, but the care which they should bestow on their researches is continually wanting, — the critical acumen to distinguish between nonsense and sense, — always. I can only repeat what I have said in another place, (Buckley’s Great Cities of the Ancient World, p. 314,) in a chapter on Scandinavian and general mythology, viz. : — That a new era is approaching in historical investigation, ■and, I may add, that we must not doubt, or we may never prove. There is plenty of time, and one fact established is worth many overthrown , when there is nothing to replace them. The great problem is susceptible of solution if we have only a little faith, at any rate, to preserve, even if only provisionally, what wo cannot see in the full clear light, that yesterday’s occurrences arc given in to-day’s Times. See, however, p. 22G. — K.R.II.M.J PYRAMIDS OF MEROE. 161 saurat), which we have subsequently seen. The representations ami inscriptions leave not the least doubt on the subject, and it will be for ever in vain to attempt the support of the much-loved idea of an ancient Meroe, glorious and famous, the inha- bitants of which were the predecessors and teachers of the Egyptians in civilisation, by referring to its monumental remains. Yet this conviction is of no little value, and appears to throw a certain degree of light upon the historical connection of Egypt and Ethiopia, the importance of which will first be fully developed at the monuments of Baikal. There, no doubt, will be found the oldest Ethiopian memorials, although perhaps not earlier than the time of Tarbaka, who reigned contemporaneously over Egypt and Ethi- opia, in the seventh century before Christ. We rode back to the pyramids the next morning with the sunrise, and found fifteen various royal names, but some in a very bad condition. We had just completed the survey of the two north-easterly groups of pyramids, and were riding towards the third, which lies in the plain not far from the ruins of the city, and is perhaps the oldest Necropolis, when we heard shots from the shore, and saw white sails fluttering on the river. Soon after Erbkam, the two Weidenbachs, and Franke came walking over the plain, and greeted us already from afar. We scarcely expected them so soon, and therefore the meeting was the more pleasant. We could now continue our journey to Chartum all together. At two o’clock in the afternoon we went off, and m - 162 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. reached Shendi at about ten the next morning. After dinner we went on, stayed the night on the island Hobi, and came the next morning early to Ben Naga. Here we first visited the ruins of two little temples, of which the west one had Typhon columns instead of pillars, but showed no writing on its few remains ; in the other eastern one there were a few sculptures preserved on the low wall, and writing on a few round pillars, but too little that anything connected might be gathered from it. Excavations might probably discover royal names ; but such an attempt is only possible on our return. Some camels were procured for the next morn- ing, and I rode off with Abeken, Erbkam, and Maximilian Weidenbach at nine o’clock for Naga. So are the ruins of a city and several temples named, which lie in the eastern wilderness, at a distance of seven or eight hours from the Nile From our landing-place, near the only palm group of the wdiole region, we only wanted half an hour to the village of Ben Naga, which lies in Wadi Teresib. One hour eastward, down the river (for it flows from west to east here), the ruins are situated, where we had landed the day before, in the Wadi el Kirbeg&n ; we now passed them on the left, and rode south-east into the wilderness, sparely grown with dry underwood, crossed the valley El Kir- began, which stretches hither from the river, and in which we found a camp of Ababde Arabs. After four and a half hours from Ben Naga, we arrived at a solitary mountain in the wilderness, named Buerib. This lay between the little south- western wadis (so they call even the most level RUINS OF NAGA. 163 sinkings of the plain, when the water runs off, and which we should scarcely call valleys) and the great wide Wadi Auateb, into which we now descended, after we had passed the Buerib at a little distance to the left. In three and three quarter hours from Buerib, we came to the ruins of Naga. The enigma which I had vainly endeavoured to unriddle, and which neither Cailliaud nor Hoskins had explained, as to how it was possible to build a city and sustain it in the midst of the desert so far from the river, was first solved in the vicinity of the temple. The whole valley of Auateb is still culti- vated land. We found it covered far and wide with durra stubble. The inhabitants of Shendi, Ben Naga, Fadnie, S^lama, Metamme, thus of both sides of the Nile, come hither to cultivate the land, and to harvest duwa. The tropical rain is sufficient to fertilise the soil of this flat but extensive level, and in ancient times it is probable that more was ob- tained from this region by greater care. For the dry season there were no doubt large artificial cisterns, like those we found at the most distant ruins north of Naga, although without water. The ruins lie at the end of a mountain chain which extends for several hours, having received the name of Gebel e’ Naga, and running from north to south; Wadi Auateb passes along its western side toward the river. After an uninterrupted ride, we arrived at about half-past five. By the way we saw the road covered with the traces of gazelles, wild asses, foxes, jackals, and ostriches. Lions, too, sometimes come hither, but we saw no signs of them. 164 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. ^Before the coming of night I visited the three principal temples, which all belong to a very late period, and do not admit of a single idea concerning any antiquity, which Cailliaud and Hoskins imagined they perceived. A fourth temple stand besides the three principal temples in Egyptian architec- ture, the well turned, and not unpleasingly selected Egyptian ornamental style of which, not only manifests the time of the universal dominion of the Romans, but also the presence of Roman builders. This has no inscriptions. Of the three others, the two southernmost are built by one and the same king ; on both he is accompanied by a representation of the same queen. There is behind them yet another royal personage, bearing different names on the two temples. The name of the king has again the cartouch of Sesurtesen I. added, although he does not appear to be the same with the king at the pyramids of Sur ; and the two other persons have also old Egyptian cartouches, which might easily lead to mistakes. The third and northern temple has suffered much, and had but little writing now, yet a king is men- tioned on the door lintels, who is different from the builder of the two others. The forms of the gods are almost Egyptian, yet there is on the southern temple a shape unknown in Egypt, with three lions’ heads (perhaps there is a fourth behind) and four arms. This may be the barbarous] god mentioned by Strabo, which the Meroites revered beside llerakles, Pan, and Isis. Next morning, the 2nd of February, we visited the three temples again, took a few paper impres- RUINS OF BEN NAGA. 1(35 sions, and then went our way to the third group of monuments, named Mesaurat, by Cailliaud. This is, however, a designation employed for all three groups of ruins, and which signifies “pictures,” or “ walls decked with pictures.” The ruins of Ben Naga are called Mesaurat el Kirbegan, because they lie in the Wadi el Kirbegan ; only the southern- most group, it seems, has retained its ancient name Naga or Mesaurat e’ Naga ; the third toward Shendi, called Mesaurat e’ Sofra, from the mountain-crater where it lies, and which is named e’ Sofra, the table. We followed the mountain chain, Gebel e’ Naga, in the valley Auateb, for two hours in a northward direction. Then, at about half-past twelve o’clock, we passed through the first ravine, opening to the right into a more elevated valley, e’Sileha, which becoming wider behind the hills, overgrown with grass and bushes, opens (in the direction of S.S.W. to N.N.E.) after an hour and a half, to the left into the valley of Auateb, and in front toward another smaller valley, from which it is separated by the Gebel Lagar. This little valley it is which is called e’Sofra, from its round form ; here too lie the ruins which Hoskins saw, though he did not penetrate to Naga. At a quarter past two we arrived, and had therefore consumed not quite four hours from Naga hither. As we were going to take a rapid survey of the whole, we walked through the extensive ruins of the principal building, which Cailliaud had taken for a great school, Hoskins for a hospital ; and we perceived from the few sculp- tures, unaccompanied by inscriptions, that w T e had before us also here late monuments, probably 166 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. younger than those of Sur and Naga. Then we went to the little temple near (on the pillars of which we found riders on elephants and lions, and other strange barbaric representations), looked at the large artificial cistern, now called Wot Ma- hemut, which must have taken the place of the river during the dry season, and rode back again to Ben Naga, at four o’clock. When we came forth from the mountains, we met great herds of wild asses, which always stopped a little in front of us, as if inviting us to chase them. They are grey or reddish grey, with a white belly, and all have a strongly marked black stripe down the back ; the tip of the tail, too, is usually black. Many are caught when young, but are not fit for carriage or riding then. The next generation is only to be employed for these purposes. Almost all the domesticated donkeys in the south, above the Ass Cataract (Shellal homar), in Berber, are of the race of these wild asses, and have the same colour and marks We pitched our tents in the rank-grown plain soon after sundown. The camel-drivers and our khawass were terribly afraid of the lions in this desert, until a great fire was lighted, which they carefully kept up the whole night through. When a lion lets his voice be heard in the vicinity of a caravan, sounding indeed deeply and dreadly through the whole wilderness, all the camels run away like mad, and are difficult of being secured, often not until they have suffered and done some injury. Some days ago a camel was strangled by a lion in our vicinity, although on the opposite side REMAINS OF A FORTRESS AT g6s BASABIR. 1G7 of the river ; a man that was there saved himself oil the next tree. On the 3rd of February, we rode off again at seven o’clock, leaving the two Buerib, the great “ blue ” one and the little “ red ” one, a good distance to the left, and came into the valley El Kirbegan shortly before nine o’clock. This we followed for half an hour riverward, seeing the Mesaurat el Kirbegan to the right; but we now stopped on the hills, until we arrived at lien Naga, a little after eleven o’clock, and half an hour at our landing place. After two hours we went on in our bark. With a strong contrary wind we made but little way, and saw nothing new, except a swimming hippopotamus. Next morning we landed on the western shore, opposite the village of Gos Basabir, to inspect the ruins of an old fortress wall with towers of defence, which encircled a hill top. The place was about three hundred paces in diameter. After mid-day, we neared the Shellal (cataracts) of Gerasliab ; the higher mountains before us came nearer, and at last formed a great pool, apparently without any outlet ; however, it was really close at hand, as we turned into a narrow gorge, widening into a high and wild rock valley, that we followed for almost an hour before we came into another plain on the opposite side. The Qirre granite mountains running through here, end on the eastern side of the river in a peak called the Rauian, “ the Satisfied while westward, at some distance from the river, standing equally alone, is the Atsh&n, “ the Thirsty.” On the 5th of February, we landed early at 168 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. Tamami&t, about 11 o’clock. Mohammed Said, the former treasurer of the deceased Ahmed Pasha, whose acquaintance we had made in Darner, had given us a letter to one of the under-officials there, containing directions to deliver to us the fragment of an inscription found at Soba. It was in the middle of a marble tablet, written on both sides with late Greek or Koptic letters. The signs, which were plainly visible, contained neither Greek nor Koptic words, only the name veoopno was decipherable. The same evening we arrived at Chai’tum. This name signified “ elephant’s trunk,” and is probably derived from the narrow tongue of land between its Niles, on which the city lies. My first visit with Abeken was to Emin Pasha, who had already reached Chartum before us. He received us very kindly, and would not let us leave him the whole morning. An excellent breakfast, comprising about thirty dishes, which we took with him, gave us a very interesting insight into the mysteries of Turkish cookery, which (as I learnt from our well- fed Pasha), in the matter of the preparation and arrangement of the dishes, like the systems of the latest French cookery, follow the rules of a more refined taste. Soon after the first dish comes lamb, roasted on the spit, which must never be wanting at any Turkish banquet. Then follow several courses of solid and liquid, sour and sweet dishes, in the order of which a certain kind of recurring change is observed, to keep the appetite alive. The pilau of boiled rice is always the concluding dish. The external adjuncts to such a feast as this, are A TURKISH DINNER. 1G9 these : — A great round plate of metal, with a plain edge of three feet in diameter, is placed on a low frame, and serves as a table, about which five or six people can repose on rugs, or cushions. The legs are hidden in the extensive folds which encircle the body. The left hand must remain invisible ; it would be very improper to expose it in any way while eating. The right hand alone is permitted to be active. There are no plates and knives or forks. The table is decked with dishes, deep and shallow, covered and uncovered ; these are continu- ally being changed, so that but little can be eaten from each. Some, however, as roast meat, cold milks and gerkins, &c., remain longer, and are often recurred to. Before and after dinner they wash their hands. An attendant or slave kneels with a metal basin in one hand, and a piece of soap on a little saucer, on the other ; with the other hand he pours water over the hands of the washer from a metal jug ; over his arm hangs an elegantly em- broidered napkin, for drying one’s hand upon. After dinner, pipes and coffee are immediately handed round, after which time one may withdraw. The Turks then take a sleep until Asser. But ere we parted from our host, he had a number of weapons, lances, bows, arrows, clubs, and a sceptre of the upper wild nations, sent to my bark, as a guest present. We then visited our countryman, Neubauer, the apothecary of the province, who had been very unfortunate. A short while before, he had been removed from his post by the deceased Ahmed Pasha, but was now again instituted apothecary by 170 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. Ahmed Pasha Menekle, through Dr. Koch’s interest. Then we went to the house of a resident Pole, named Hermanowitch, the principal physician of the province, who offered us his house in accordance with a command of the Pasha, whither we removed on the following day. It had just been repaired, and by it were a garden and court, very useful to us for the unpacking and mending of our chests and tents. Next day the Pasha returned our visit. He came on horseback. We offered coffee, pipes, and sher- bet, and showed him some pictures from Egypt, in which he took a lively interest. He is a man of tall and corpulent stature, a Circassian by birth, and therefore, like most of his countrymen, better in- formed than the Turks. At the house of a Syrian, Ibrahim Cher, I saw a rich collection of all the ornithological species of the Sudan, in number about three hundred ; of each twenty to thirty carefully selected specimens. A day or two after I took a walk with Abeken and Erbkam, to the opposite side of the promon- tory, toward the White River, which w r e followed to its union with the Blue River. Its water is, in fact, whiter, and tastes less agreeably than that of the Blue, because it runs slowly through several lakes in the upper countries, the standing waters of which lakes impart to it an earthy and impure taste. I have filled several bottles with the water of the Blue and the White Nile, which I shall bring home, sealed down. At a subsequent friendly visit of the Pasha, we met the brother of the former Sultan of Kordofan THE WHITE RIVER. 171 (who was himself also called Mak or Melek), and the Vizier of Sultan Nimr (Tiger), of Shendi. The latter still resides in Abyssinia, whither he fled after he had burned the conqueror of his country, Ismael I’asha, Mohammed Ali’s son, and all his officers, at a nightly banquet in 1822. We went up the White River on the 14th, but soon returned, as it has so weak a current that, by the present prevailing north wind, the way back is somewhat difficult. The shores of the White River are desolate, and the few r trees, which formerly- stood in the vicinity of Chartum, are now cut down and used for building or burning. The water mass of the White River is greater than that of the Blue, and retains its direction after their union, so the Blue River is to be looked upon rather as a tribu- tary, but the White River as the actual Nile. Their different waters may be distinguished long after their juncture. On the 16th of February, I sent for some Dinka slaves, to inquire into their language ; but they were so hard of comprehension, that I could only, with great trouble, obtain from them the names of the numbers up to one hundred, beside a few pro- nouns. The languages of the Dinka and the Sliilluk, who live several days’ journey up the White River, the former on the eastern, the latter on the western shore, are as little known in respect to their grammatical structure, as those of most of the Central African Nations ; and I therefore besought the Pasha to have some sensible people found who were acquainted with their language. This was not 172 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. possible at the time, but it is to be done against our return. In the meantime our purchases and repairs were completed, and I hastened our departure as much as possible. The house of Hermanowitcli remains at our disposal on our return ; it is conveniently and airily built, and from my windows I could see the oldest house in the town, the pointed straw roof of which looked over the walls. These pointed thatched houses, called Tukele, form the peculiar style of the country, and almost the only erections more to the south. But as Cliartum is a new city, the few old huts have all disappeared except that one, and the houses are built of burnt brick. At noon on the 17th of February we entered our barks. I sailed to the south with Abeken, up the Blue River, partly to learn its nature, partly to see the ruins of Soba, and those of Mandera ; the rest of our companions, for whom there was nothing to do in the south, went northward to Meroe, to draw the monuments of that place. Next day we landed on the eastern side, where great stacks of red burnt bricks, prepared for em- barkation, informed us that we were not far off the ruins of Soba. In the whole country unburnt bricks are now made, so that all ruins of burnt bricks must belong to an earlier period. From Soba, this building material is transported in great quantities both to Chartum and beyond it. We landed, and had scarcely left the bushes next to the shore behind us, ere we saw the violated mounds of bricks, which cover a great plain, an hour's ride in circumference ; some of the larger heaps might be the KAMLliV. 173 remains of the Christian churches, which are de- scribed by Selim of Assuan (by Macrizi) in the tenth century, when Soba was yet the capital of the empire of Alba, as magnificently decorated with gold. The place was shown us where, some time ago, a stone lion was discovered, now in the posses- sion of Churshid Pasha, at Cairo. Walls or build- ings were nowhere to be recognized, and on the southernmost and somewhat distant hill some sculp- tured yellow blocks of sandstone, and a low wall were all that we could find ; on another mound lay several rough slabs of a black, slatey stone. The country round Soba is level, as everywhere about here, to the foot of the Abyssinian mountains, and the soil, particularly at this season, dried up and black ; the thicker vegetation is confined to the river shore, farther on, there are only single trees, now more frequent, now seldom. I promised the sailors a sheep if we arrived early next morning at Kamlin ; for the wind was violent, and allowed us to make but little way. Our ship, too, does not go very fast, the sailors are not adroit, and, with the present low level of the water, the bark easily sticks in the sand-banks. We went almost the whole night, and arrived early at eight o’clock in Kamlin. The ancient place of the same name lies half an hour further up the river, and consists but of a few huts. The houses where we landed belong to a number of factories instituted four years ago, in conjunction with the late Ahmed Pasha, by Nureddin Effendi, a Catholic Koptic Egyptian, who has gone over to Islam, and which yield a rich profit. A simple, 174 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. honest, un-Oriental German, named Bauer, has erected a soap and brandy factory, which he himself conducts. A sugar and indigo factory is kept by an Arab. Bauer is the southernmost resident Euro- pean that we have found in Mohammed Ali’s terri- tories, and -we were glad to find so excellent a conclusion to the long, little pleasing chain of Europeans, generallydeteriorated in civilization, who preferred the government of Turks to their native country.* He has an old German housekeeper named Ursula, a funny, good-natured body, for whom it was a no less festal occasion to see German guests than for him. With joyful hurry she got out what European crockery she had, and the forks that were yet in being, and set baked chicken, vege- tables, sausages, and excellent wli eaten bread before us ; at last, too, a cherry pie of baked European cherries (for our fruits do not grow in Egypt), in short, a native meal, such as we had never expected in this ultima Thule. Before Bauer’s house we found the most southern Egyptian sculpture that we have seen, on a pedestal, a seated statue of Osiris, somewhat destroyed, done in a late style, in black granite, with the usual attributes, about two and a half feet high, which was discovered in Soba, and is not without interest, as the only monument of Egyptian art from that city. The European furniture of Bauer’s room made a strange impression upon one here in the south among the black population A wooden clock, made in the * I have since heard of the decease of Ilerr Bauer, which ensued in the following year. GERMAN ESTABLISHMENT IN ETHIOPIA. 175 Black Forest, ticket! regularly on the wall ; some half-broken European stools were ranged round the strong table, behind which a small book-shelf was put up, with a selection of German classics and histories, by the corner of a Turkish divan, which was also not wanting. Over the great table, and opposite the canopy-bed in the other corner, hung bell-pulls, leading to the kitchen. A curious Nesnas ape sometimes peeped in through the lattice by the door, and on the other side of the little court, one could see the busy Ursula in her purple, red-flowered gown, toddling backward and forward among the little, naked, black slaves, arranging this, that, and the other, with a somewhat scolding voice, and look- ing into the bubbling pots in the adjoining kitchen. We did not see her the whole morning, not even at the dinner, that she had prepared so well and tastily ; after dinner, she first presented herself, with many curtsies, to receive our praises. She complained of the forlorn state of her cooking apparatus, and grumbled sadly at Herr Bauer for not leaving this horrid, dirty, and hot country, although he promised year after year to do it. She had accompanied him hither, had been eleven years in the country, and four at Kamlin. Bauer intends in a year to go to Germany, and settle in Steierinark or Thiiringen, with his savings, and turn farmer, like his father. After table, the son of Nureddin Effendi sent us a complete Turkish dinner of from twelve to fifteen dishes, which we left, however, to the attendants after our European meal. We had also inspected the factories in the morning, and tasted the fine brandy (called Marienbad), which Bauer chiefly pre- 176 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. pares from the sugar-cane and dates. Business seemed to be in the best order, and the unusual cleanliness of the places, the vessels, and utensils, attest the care with which the establishment, only worked by slaves, is conducted. The pleasant impression that this visit made upon us w 7 as heightened by the dis- covery that Bauer possessed a second piece of the marble inscription already alluded to,* which had been found in the ruins of Soba. He presented me with the fragment, which was easily put together with the other piece, although even then the in- scription was not perfected. The fragment exhibits on one side traces of twelve lines, on the other of nine. Here, too, the writing is easy to be read, but only the name i < lku)& is comprehensible. It is either a very barbarous Greek, or a peculiar lan- guage, spoken in former times at Soba. In fact, we know from Selim that the inhabitants of Soba possessed their sacred books in the Greek language, but also translated them into their own. After paying the son of Nureddin Effendi a visit, we left with the promise to stay on our return. From Kamlin the shores run on at equal eleva- tions. The character of a fluvial valley is lost. The deposited black earth has ceased ; the steep high shores are composed of original earth and calcareous conglomerate, which, according to Bauer, is well capable of being burnt to lime. On the morning of the 21st we came to a con- siderable bend in the river to the east; the wind became so unfavourable through it, that our kha- Q* The author refers to the iuscription obtained at Tainan iat through the means of Mohammed Said. See p. 1(58. — K.R.II.M.] THE BAOBAB TREE. 177 trass landed, to impress the people of the vicinity to draw it. I went along the western shore for several horn's to Arbagi, a deserted village, built of black bricks, but standing on the remains of another more ancient one, as I saw from the structures of burnt bricks. This place was once the chief centre of the trade of the Sudan, which has since turned itself to Messelemieh. Soon after w’e found the two north- ern baobab trees, which are here called Honiara. These giant trees of creation ( andansonia digitata) are found from here southward more and more fre- quently, and from Sero they belong to the usual trees of the region. One trunk which I paced round measured more than sixty feet in circum- ference, and certainly does not belong to the greatest of the kind, as they are here not so fre- quent.* At this season of the year they were leaf- less, and stretched their bare, death-like boughs far over the surrounding green trees, which look like low bushes beneath it. Their fruit, called gun - gules , f I found here and there among the Arabs ; they resemble pear-shaped melons, with a hairy surface. If the hard, tough shell be broken, a number of seeds are found inside, which are sur- P* W erne, in his excellent work “ Expedition to discover the sources of the White Nile,” vol. i. p. 146, mentions baobab trees of the above dimensions, and states that, near Fazoql, there is said to be one 120 feet in circumference. I cannot too strongly call attention to this most able work, in the portable form in which it has been issued by my publisher, Mr. Bentley. — K. R. H. M.J t Russegger (Travels, vol. ii. Part II. p. 125,) found one of 95 feet in circumference. He erroneously calls the tree //angles ; this is homara , and the fruit gungules. N 178 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. rounded with a dry, acid, but well-tasted mass The leaves are five-fingered. On the 22nd of February we arrived on the western shore by a little village, where the inha- bitants, mere women and children, fled through the sandy plain to the woods, from fear of our appear- ance, probably as they expected to be impressed for the purpose of drawing the bark. On the opposite shore lay another village, whence we saw a stately procession of finely-dressed men in Arab and Turkish dresses, and some handsomely caparisoned horses, proceed to the river. It was the Kashef and the most noble sheiks of Abu Haras, to whom we had been announced by Ahmed Pasha, as we had determined to proceed hence with camels and guides into the desert of Mandera. The horses were destined for us, and we therefore rode to the house of the Kashef, to inquire again about the antiquities of Mandera and Qala. As the desert route to the coast of the Red Sea leads hence from those places, we found several persons who had been near them. From all their tales, however, I could but find that at these two places there are only fortress-like mounds, or at most roughly built walls, as a refuge for caravans, without any build- ings or hieroglyphical inscriptions. At Qala there may be some camels and horses scratched in the rock by the Arabs, or some other people, like those we had seen in the great desert at the wells of Murhad. We therefore determine to give up this journey, and instead of it go somewhat farther up the river, in order to learn the nature of the Nile stream, its LUXURIANT VEGETATION OF THE RIVER. 179 shores and inhabitants, as far as time would permit us. At a short half-hour distance from Abu H&ras we came to the mouth of the Rahad, which conveys a great quantity of water into the Nile in the rainy season, but was now almost dry, with only a little stagnant water, which may disappear altogether next month. I left the bark as often as possible, to know as much of the shore as I could. To proceed farther inland, is impossible, from the almost impassable forests which line both shores. There stand in luxuriant magnificence the shadowy high-domed tamarind, the tower-like homara (baobab) the multi-boughed genius (sycamore), and the many species of slender gumrick sont trees. On their branches run in innumerable windings, like giant serpents, the creeping plants ; to their highest bough and down to the earth agaiu, where they close every space between the mighty trunk in union with the low bushes. Besides this there is scarcely one thornless tree or bush in ten, by which every attempt to penetrate the thick underwood is dan- gerous, indeed impossible. Several of the plants — the sittera tree for instance — have the thorns placed in pairs, and in such a manner that one thorn is turned forward, the other back. If any one come too near these boughs, it is certain that his clothes will carry away some inevitable traces, imperfectly to be remedied amidst these wilds. In other places, the thorn trees are most elegant ; rising gracefully in the less thronged parts, like slender young birches. We distinguished n 2 180 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. two sorts of these standing mingled together, and only differing that in one the bark, extending from the trunk to the most distant twiglet, is coloured like a mass of shining red veins, while that of the other is black ; on both of them the long shining white thorns and green leaves come out in strong contrast. Of the birds, fluttering round in great numbers, I recognized not one Egyptian species. I shot many, and had them stuffed by our cook, Sirian. Among them were fine silver-grey falcons (suqr shikl); birds called geddd el wadi, with horns on the nose, and blue lappets on each side of the head ; black and white unicorn birds ( abu tuko ), with mighty beaks ; black birds, with purple breasts ( abu labba) ; great brown and white eagles ( abu tdk), of which one measured six feet with extended wings ; smaller brown eagles, called hedaja ; and black ones, called rachame. The latter, which are more numerous toward Egypt, are the same represented in the hiero- glyphics. The plover is principally found on the shore, with black crooked pricks at the joints of the wings, with the white long-legged abu baqr (Cow-bird), which is accustomed to sit on the backs of buffaloes and cows. We often see great bats flying about in .broad day ; their long golden wings glance gleamingly through the foliage, and suddenly they hang to the boughs, head downwards, like great yellow pears, and are easily shot ; they have long ears, and a curious trumpet-formed nose. Chase was also made on the monkeys, but they are difficult to catch from their agility. One day ANIMALS OF THE SUDAN. 181 we found a mighty tree full of monkeys. Some climbed quickly on our approach, and fled to the distant bushes ; others hid themselves in the upper boughs ; but some to whom both plans seemed hazardous, sprang with incredibly daring leaps from the highest branches of the tree, which was nearly a hundred feet in height, on to the little trees below, the thorny twigs of which bent low beneath their weight, without any of them falling ; they gained their point, and escaped my gun. The more south, the more crocodiles. The pro- montories of the islands are often covered with these animals. They usually lie in the sun, close to the edge of the water, opening their mouths and appear- ing to sleep, but they will not allow any one to approach them, but dive under the surface im- mediately, even if hit by the ball. Thus their capture is very difficult. Our khawass, however, struck a young one, only three feet in length, so well that it could not reach the waters. It was brought on board, where, to the horror of our Nesnas monkey, Bachit, it lived several days. Not less impracticable than the crocodiles are the hippopotami, which we have occasionally seen in great numbers, but only with their heads above water. Once only a young Nile horse stood exposed on a sand islet, and allowed us to approach un- usually near. The khawass shot and hit, but of course the ball did not penetrate the thick skin ; then the fat animal with its shapeless head, large body, and short, elephant-like legs, broke into a highly comic gallop, in order to gain the adjacent water, where it soon disappeared. They usually 182 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. only land at night, when they make terrible havoc in the durra-field and other plantations by stamping and eating. No one knew here of any hippopotamus ever being taken alive. We did not see any lions, but their roars were heard sounding through the moonlight nights ; there is something solemn in the deep sonorous voice of this royal animal. On the 24th of February we came to a second tributary of the Nile, the Dender, which is larger than the Rahad. I went some way up it, to see what was impossible to be seen at the embouchure, whether there was yet a stream, and found that above, where the water ran in little channels, there was still a current, but very weak ; in the rainy season the Dender swelled to the height of twenty feet, as its bed shows ; the shores were covered with cotton-bushes, pumpkins, and other useful plants. The heat is not inordinate; in the morning, at eight o’clock, usually 23° R. ; from noon, till about five o’clock, 29° ; and at eleven at night, 22°. The evenings we spend on board, then I have the geography explained to me by our khawass , Hagi Ibrahim, or take some Nubians to my camels, to learn their language. I have already prepared a long vocabulary of the Nubian language. On a comparison with other lists, in Riippell and Cail- liaud, I also found in Koldagi one of the languages spoken in the southernmost part of Kordofan, many similar words, which testify a narrow connection between the two languages. The Arabs call the Nubian language lisdn rotdna, which I at first took for its actual name; it signifies, however, only a SAltA DOLED. 183 foreign language, distinct from the Arabic. There- fore if the three Nubian dialects are spoken of, they are not only called ltotana Kenus, Mahass, or Don- qolaui, but also Rotana Dinkaui, Shilluk, even Turki and Franki, Turkish and Frank, i. e. European gib- berish. The same error is at the bottom of the now received designation of the Nubians as Berbers, and their language as the Berber language; for this is not their national name, or that of the language, as it is generally believed, but means originally the foreign-speaking persons, the Barbaros.* On the 25th of February we landed near Saba Doleb ; I sought for ruins, but only found tall, well- built cupolas of burnt brick, in the form of beehives, and erected in quite a similar manner to the Greek Thesauri, in horizontal layers. They are the graves of holy Arab sheikhs of a late era ; the villagers did not know what date to assign for their erection. Under the cupola, in the middle of the building of fifteen to eighteen feet iu diameter, is the long narrow grave of the saint, surrounded with larger stones and covered with a multitude of little ones, according to the- superstition one thousand in num- ber. I found six such domes, most of them half dismantled, some quite ruined, but two tolerably well preserved, and still visited; a seventh, probably the latest, was built of unburnt bricks. At Wad Negudi, a village to the west of the Nile, we found the first dileb-palms,'f' with slender naked Q* See an elaborate essay on the Berbers and their name, by Mr. Gliddon, in Burke’s Ethnological Journal, No. X. p. 439, as well as a paper by Mr. Nash on the Egyptian name of Egypt.— K. R. H M.] [t See Werne’s Expedition, vol.i. p. 194, where he observes: — 184 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. trunks and little bushy crowns, like date-palms in the distance, and dum-palms close to it, by reason of the leaves. The fruit is round, like that of the dum-palm, but larger. These trees are said to be more frequent on the eastern tributaries ; here, on the Nile, they are found but in a very small district. The leaves are regularly divided into fan-like folds one under the other, and the stem has strong saw- like notches. With such a stalk the Rais of our ves- sel sawed off another leaf, which I had brought to the bark, to take with me. It is divided into sixty-nine points, and measures five feet and a quarter from that part of the stem where the fan begins, although it is but young, and therefore keeps its fans quite shut as yet. Another one, still larger, which had already unfolded itself, we put up in the bark as a parasol, in the shade of which we sat. The way to those palms we had to make through the giant grass thickets, shooting up stiffly and closely like corn, and covering great plains. The ends of the stalks were five or six feet above our heads, and even the tall camels, bred in this place, could scarcely see above them. On the 26th of February, we arrived at the village “ I do not call them handsome trees, becauso they stand there in the green wilderness ; no, I find them really beautiful, for there is a peculiar charm in them. They rise like double gigantic flowers upon slender stalks, gently protruding in the middle, and not like those defoliated date-palms, which stand meagrely like large cabbage-stalks. It is impossible that the latter should delight my poor heart, full of the remembrance of shady trees, — the oaks and the beech trees of Germany ; the palms near Parnassus ; the cypress on the Bosphorus, and the chestnuts on the Asiatic Olympus.” The botany of these regions has been well treated by \\ r crne. — K. R. II. M.] THE KVNOKEPHLOAS. 185 Abu el Ab&s, on the eastern shore. This is the principal place of the neighbourhood, and the Kashef living here, has authority over 112 villages. I there purchased, for a few piasters, of a Turkish khairass a dog-ape. This is the holy ape of the ancient Egyptians, kynokephalos, dedicated to Thoth and the Moon, and appearing as the second of the four gods of the lower world.* It interests me to have this animal, which I have seen so innumerably represented on the monuments, about me for a time, and to observe the faithfully caught represen- tations of its striking and usual characteristics in old Egyptian art. It is remarkable that this ape, so peculiar to Egypt in ancient times, is now T only found in the south, and even there not very fre- quently. How many species of animals and plants, indeed manners and customs of men, with which the monuments of Egypt make us acquainted, are only to be found here in the farthest south of old Ethiopia, so that many representations, i. e. those of the graves of Benihassan, seem rather to picture scenes of this country than of Egypt. The kyno- kephalos has here no particular name, but only the general term gird (great ape). His head, hair, and colour, are not unlike those of a dog, whence his Greek appellation. Occasionally, too, he barks and Bunsen in Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. i. p. 430, refers them all to Osiris, and ranges them thus : — 1. The Genius with the Hawkhead, Kebhsen u.f. signifying “ the refresher of his brothers.” 2. The Jackal-head Tua-siutf, “the adorer of his mother.” 3. The Apehead, Hepi (Apis) “ Osiris the devoted.” 4. Amset, God, “ Osiris the devoted.” The different arrangement of Lepsius is caused by his counting from right to left, while Bunsen begins from left to right. — K. R. H. M.] 186 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. growls just like a dog. He is yet young, and very good-natured, but immeasurably cleverer than Abe- ken’s little dog and Nesnas monkey. He is very funny when he wants something good to eat, that he may see held in the hand. Then he lays his ears back, and knows how to express the greatest joy, but sits still, like a good child, and only smacks his lips like an old wine-taster. On seeing the croco- dile, however, his hair ruffled up on his whole body, he cried out lamentably, and was scarcely to be held in his terror. We arrived at the famous old metropolis of the Sudan, Sennar, Ofi the 27th of February, the king of which, before the conquering of the country by Ismael Pasha, ruled as far as Wadi Haifa, and was supreme over a number of lesser tribute-paying kings. The place does not look now 7 as if it had been so lately a royal city. Six or seven hundred pointed straw huts, ( tukele ) surround the ruins of red brick, where the'palace formerly stood. The bricks are now 7 used for the erection of a building for Soliman Pasha, w'ho is to reside in Sennar. It was so far finished, that the Vakil of the absent Pasha could hold his divan in it. We found him there, sitting in judgment. Many other people, Sheikhs and Turks were present ; among them the Sheikh Sandaloba, the chief of the Arab merchants, and a relation of Sultana Nasr, with whom we afterwards became acquainted in her capital village Soriba. We paid this distinguished man a visit in his house, at which honour he seemed much delighted. 1 1 is chief chamber was a dark though lofty saloon, with a roof resting on two pillars and four half pillars, on PRESENT OF A LION. 187 to which we mounted, in order to get a view of the city. In the meantime, an anqareb was prepared for us in the court; mead (honey and water) was brought, and from the stable an hyama, here called Morafil, and two young lions, of which the larger, actually the property of Soliinan Pasha, was led to our bark, together with a couple of sheep, as a present from the Vakil. I had the animal tied up in the hold, and received a tear in the hand from his sharp claws, as a welcome. His body is already more than two feet long, and his voice is a most powerful tenor. Every morning now there is a tre- mendous row on board our not over large vessel, when we are drinking tea before the cabin early ; the monkeys jumping merrily about, and the lion is let out from the hold on deck, which is given him during the day, and we are bringing the cups and pans into safety, which he tries to reach with his already strong and inquisitive claws. On the 29th of February we arrived at nine o’clock in Abdin. The wind was unfavourable on the 1st of March, and we proceeded but little, so that I had plenty of time for shooting birds. Toward evening I came to a village, lying very romantically in a creek of the river, which is here broader. Many huts built of straw poked their pointed roofs into the branches of thickly-leaved trees. Narrow tortuous paths, forming a real laby- rinth, led among thorns and trunks from one hut to another, in and before which the black families were lying and the children playing by a sparing light. I asked for milk, but was referred to an adjoining 188 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. Arab village, whither a man conducted me, armed with a lance, the general weapon of the country. By light brushwood and high grass we came to the great herds of cattle of the Arabs, who had pitched their mat huts about the grazing place. The Fellahs of this region are much browner than the wandering Arabs, although far from being negroes, and they seem to coincide with the Nubians in race. On the 2nd of March we anchored by an island, near the eastern shore. At a little distance from the landing-place, the Rais perceived a broken crocodile egg at a spot newly dug. He dug away "with his hands, and found forty-four eggs three feet down in the sand. They were still covered with a slimy substance, as they had only been laid the day before or in the past night. The crocodiles like to leave the river in a windy night, make a hole for the eggs, cover them up again, and the wind soon blows away every trace. In a few months the young ones creep out. The eggs are like great goose-eggs, but rounded off at both ends, as the latter are only at the large end. I had some boiled; they are eaten, but have an unpleasant taste, so I willingly yielded them up to the sailors, who ate them with a great appetite. We landed near the deserted village of D&liela, on the eastern shore, whence I proceeded alone inland for three-quarters of an hour. The character of the vegetation remains the same. The earth is dry and level ; the inconsiderable hills and dales that occur are not original, but seem to have been formed by the rain. My goal was a great tamarind tree, which rose mightily amidst the low trees and ETHIOPIAN FUNERAL. 189 bushes, and was encircled by a number of fluttering green and red birds, the species of which is yet unknown to me. I came on my way, first to a colony, by Kumr bet& Dahela, where the inhabitants of that village hold their villeggiatura ; for they stay here during the dry months, and return to their village on the river bank, at the beginning of the rainy season. The last village whither I came is called Rom&li, a little above that given in the map as Sero, which lies under the 13° N. latitude. On the hot and tiring way back I attended a burial. Silently and solemnly, without sound or sob, two corpses, wrapt in white cloths, were borne along on anqarebs by several men, and laid in a grave of some feet deep in the forest near the road. Perhaps they had perished of the cholera-like complaint, which has now broken out with great violence in the southern regions. We should have much liked to proceed to Fa- soql, in the last province of Mohammed Ali, to see the change in the character of the country beginning at Roseres, where so many novel forms of tropical vegetation and animal life present themselves ; but our time was expended. The Rais received the command to take down the masts and sails, by which the bark at once lost its stately appearance, and drove down the river with the current like a wreck. Soon the pleasant quiet of the vessel, that had seemed to fly along of itself, was interrupted by the yelling, ill-sounding songs of the rowers contending with the wind. By the 4th, we were again at Sennar, and on 190 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. the 8th, at an early hour, we reached Wed Me- dineli. This place is almost as important as Sennar. A regiment of soldiers lies in barracks here, with the only band in the Sudan, and two cannons. We were immediately visited by upper military scribe Seid Hashim, one of the most important persons of the place, whom we had already known in Char- turn. We determined to visit Sultana Nasr (Victoria) at Soriba, an hour and a half inland, partly to learn the character of the country further from the river, and partly to get some idea of the court of an Ethi- opian princess. Seid Hashim offered us his drome- daries and donkeys for this trip, and also his own society ; so we rode aw r ay that afternoon into the hot, black, but scantily treed plain, and soon accom- plished the uninteresting way on the sturdy ani- mals. Nasr is the sister of the mightiest and richest king ( melek ) in the Sudan, Idris wed (i. e. Welled , son or successor of) Adlan, who is certainly under Mohammed Ali’s supremacy now, but yet commands several hundred villages in the province El Fungi ; his title is Mak el Qulle, King of the Qulle moun- tains. Adlan was one of his ancestors, after whom the whole family now calls itself; his father was the same Mohammed (wed) Adlan, who, at the time of Ismael Pasha’s conquering campaign had taken most of the power of the legitimate but weak king of Sennar, Badi, but who was then murdered at the instigation of Rcg’eb, another pretender to the throne. When Ismael had arrived, and lieg’eb and his company had fled to the Abyssinian mountains. ANCIENT ESTIMATION OF WOMEN. 101 Kin» Badi united himself with the children and o party of Mohammed Adl&n, and submitted to the conqueror, who made him Sheikh of the country, had the murderers of Mohammed Adlan impaled, and gave his children, Reg’ehand Idris Adldn, great power and wealth. Nasr, their sister, also gained much consideration, which was, however, much in- creased, as she was allied to the legitimate royal family by her mother’s side. Therefore is she called SuMna, Queen. Iler first husband was named Mohammed Sandaldba, brother of Hassan Sanda- Idba, whom we had visited at Sennar. He has now been dead for a long time, but she has a daughter by him, named Dauer (Light), Mho married a great Sheikh, Abd-el Qader, but then parted from him, and noM* lives with her mother, in Soriba. The second son of Nasr is Mohammed Defalla, the son of one of her father’s viziers. He was then with Ahmed Pasha Menekle on the M r ar march ( ghazna , of which the French have made razzia ) in Saka. But even Mhen he is at home, she remains the principal per- son in the house, by reason of her noble birth. Since very ancient times, a great estimation of the female sex appears to be a very general custom. It must not be forgotten how often we find reigning queens of Ethiopia mentioned, From the campaign of Petronius, Kandake is M r ell knoM’n, a name which, according to Pliny, M'as bestoM’ed on all the Ethio- pian queens ; according to others, alM’ays on the mo- ther of the king. In the sculptures of Meroe, too, we occasionally find very M T arlike, and doubtless reign- ing, queens represented. According to Makrizi, the genealogies of the Beg’a, whom I consider the direct 192 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. descendants of the Meroetic Ethiopians, and for the ancestors of the Bishari of the present day, were not counted by the males, but by the females, and the inheritance did not devolve upon the son of the deceased, but upon the sister or the daughter. In the same way, according to Abu Selah, the sister’s son took precedence of the son among the Nubians, and Ibn Batuta reports the same custom to be ex- isting among the Messofites, a western negro race. Even - now, the court and upper minister of some southern princes are all women. Noble ladies allow their nails to grow an inch long, as a sign that they are there to command, and not to work, a custom which is found in the sculptures among the shapeless queens of Meroe. When we arrived at Soriba, we entered the square court-yard by a particular door, running round the principal building, and thence into an open, lofty hall, the roof of which rested on four pillars, and four half pillars. The narrow beams of the roof jut out several feet beyond the simple architrave, and form the foundation of the flat roofs ; the whole entrance reminded one much of the open faqades of the graves of Benihassan. In the hall there was fine ebony furniture, of Indian manufacture, broad an- qarebs, with frames for the mosquito nets. Fine cushions were immediately brought, sherbet, coffee, and pipes handed round. The vessels were made of gold and silver. Black female slaves, in light white garments, which, fastened at the hips, are drawn up over the bosom and shoulders, — handed round the refreshments, and looked very peculiar with their plaited hair. The Queen, however, did not come ; HOUSEHOLD OF QUEEN VICTORIA OF ETHIOPIA. 193 perhaps she was ashamed of showing herself to Christians; only a half-opened door, which soon closed again, allowed us to perceive several women behind, to whom we ourselves might be objects of curiosity. I therefore let the sultana know, through Said Hashim, that we were there to pay our visits, and now hoped that we might have the pleasure of seeing her. Upon this, the doors of strong wood cased with metal, opened wide, and Nasr entered with a free, dignified step. She was wrapped in long fine-woven cloths, with coloured borders, under which she wore wide gay trowsers of a somewhat darker shade. Behind her came the court, eight or nine girls in white clothes with red borders, and elegant sandals. Nasr sat down before us, in a friendly and unconstrained manner ; only now and then she drew her dress over her mouth and the lower part of the face, a custom of Oriental modesty, very general with women in Egypt, but much rarer in this country. She replied to the greetings I offered her through the Dragoman with a pleasant voice, but stayed only a short time, withdrawing through the same door. We examined the inner parts of the house, with the exception of her private rooms, which were in a small building close, and mounted the roof to have a view of the village. Then we took a walk through the place, saw the well, in depth more than sixty feet, and lined throughout with brick, whence Nasr always has her water fetched, though it is warm, and less nice than that of the Nile. Then we returned, and were about to depart, when Nasr sent us an invitation to remain the night in Soriba, as it was o 194 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. too late to get back to Wed Medineli by day. We accepted the offer, and a banquet of boiled dishes was immediately brought, only intended, however, as preparatory to supper. The sultana, however, did not show herself again the whole evening. We re- mained in the hall, and slept on the same cool pillows, which had served as a divan during the day. But the next morning we were invited by her to visit her in her own rooms. She was more commu- nicative to-day than yesterday, had European chairs brought for us, while her servants and slaves squat- ted on the ground about us. We told her of her namesake, the Sultana Nasr of England, and showed her her portrait on an English sovereign, which she looked at with curiosity. But she manifested little desire to see that far-off world beyond the northern water with her own eyes. About eight o’clock we rode back to Wed M6di- neh. Soon after our return, Said Hashim received a letter from Nasr, in which she asked him confiden- tially whether he thought I would receive a little female slave as a guest-present. I had expressed to her, in return, that this was against the custom of our country, but that the gift would be accepted if she would choose a male slave instead, and after some little hesitation, she really sent a young slave to me, who was brought to mo in the ship. He had been the playmate of the little grandson of Nasr, the son of her daughter Dauer, and was presented to me under the name of Reh&n, the Arabic name for the sweet-smelling basil. It was added, that he was from the district of Mak&di, on the Abyssinian frontier, whence the most intelligent CADRE MARIAM. 195 and faithful slaves generally came. This district is under Christian dominion, and is inhabited by Chris- tians and Mahommedans, in separate villages. The former call themselves Nazara (Nazarenes) or Am- liara (Amharic Christians), the latter Giberta. Of these Giberta children are often stolen from their own race and from among their neighbours, and sold to Arabic slave-dealers ; for, in the interior of Abyssinia, the slave trade is strictly prohibited. This account of the lad, however, was soon found to be untrue, and was only invented to preclude the blame of offering me a Christian slave ; while, on the contrary, it would seem much more wrong to deliver me a Mahommedan. The boy first told our Chris- tian cook, and then me, that he was of Christian parentage, had received the name Rehan here, and that his real name was Gabre Mariam, i.e. in Abys- sinian, “ Slave of Maria.” His birth-place is near Gondar, the metropolis of Amhara. He seems to belong to a distinguished family, for the place Bamba, which is denoted by Bruce in the vicinity of Lake Tzana, according to his story, belonged to his grandfather, and his father, who is now dead, had many flocks, which he himself had often driven to the pasturage. When he was somewhat far off his dwelling with them one day, about three or four years ago, he was stolen by mounted Bedouins, carried to the village of Waldakarel, and, after- wards sold to King Idris Adlan, who had given him to his sister Nasr. He is a handsome, but very uark-coloured boy, about eight or nine years of age, but much more advanced than a child of that age would be with us The girls marry here o 2 196 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. at the age of eight. He wears his hair in innumer- able little plaits, which must be redone and anointed at least once a month, by a woman understanding it; his body, too, is rubbed with fat from time to time. His whole clothing consists of a great wdiite cloth that he fastens round the hips, and throws over his shoulders. I now call him by his Christian name, and shall bring him to Europe with me. Said Hashim tried his utmost to induce us to remain a few more days in Wed Medineh. On the first evening he invited us to his house with a num- ber of the most considerable Turks, and had a number of female dancers to show us the national dances of the country, which consist chiefly in move- ments of the upper part of the body and the arms, as they are found on the Egyptian monuments, yet differing from the present Egyptian dances, which are made up of very ungraceful and lascivious move- ments and motions of the hips and legs. An old good humoured and very comic man led the dances, singing Arabic songs having reference to persons in the room or those known to them, such as Nasr, Idris Adlan, Male (/. e. Melek) Bikli, and others, with a piercing but not unpleasant voice, and at the same time struck a five-stringed lyre with his left hand, beating time with the plectrum in his right. His instrument only extended to six tones of the octave. The first string to the right had the highest tone C, struck with the thumb ; the next had the deepest E, then came the third with F, the fourth with A, the fifth with B. The instrument is called rabfiba, the player rebabi. This man had been instructed by an old famous rebabi at Shendi, ETHIOPIAN BARD OF WED MEDINEH. 107 had made his instrument just like that of his master, also learning all his art of versification, and thus had become the black favourite bard of Wed Medineh. All his songs were composed by himself, sometimes improvised, and whoever offended himself or his patron became the target of a pasquinading song. I sent for him the next day, and had four of his songs written down by Jussuf, one on Mohammed, son of the Mak Mesa’d, who lives at Metammeh, one on King Nimr, who burnt Ismael Pasha, and is now living in Egypt, a third on Nasr; and, lastly, a song in praise of pretty girls.* It is impossible to give these melodies in notes. A little only, ap- proaching our kind of music in somewise, have I written down. They are generally half recited, half sung, with wavering tones from the highest notes to the deepest tone long sustained. These are the most peculiar, but are utterly incapable of being ex- pressed. Every verse contains four rhymes, on each of which it is easy to keep the voice, on the second more than on the first and third ; but the longest on the final line, and to this always comes one of the same deep tones, giving the song a kind of dig- nified progression. A certain recurrence of the melody is first observable, but is not retainable for an European ear. I bought the friendly old man’s instrument, which he gave unwillingly, although I allowed him to fix the price himself, and several times a shade of sorrow passed over his expressive * The poems contain many unusual forms and expressions, and have been composed in very free and, it seems to me, incorrect forms. 198 LETTERS FROM FGYPT. countenance when he bad taken the money and laid the instrument in its place. Next day I sent for him again. He was cast down, and told me that his wife had beaten him thoroughly for parting with the in- strument. It is no shame for a man to be beaten by his wife, but vice versa. A beaten wife goes at once to the Kadi to complain, she generally obtains justice, and the husband is punished. At Wed Medineh we witnessed a funeral, which seemed odd enough to us. A woman had died three days before ; the first day after her decease, then the third, the seventh and later days have par- ticular ceremonies. An hour before sunset above a hundred women and children had assembled be- fore the house, and many more kept continually coming and cowering down beside them. Two daugh- ters of the deceased were there, who had already strewn their highly-ornamented heads, powdered with fat in the Arab manner, with ashes, and rubbed the whole upper part of the body white with them,* so that only the eyes and mouth gleam freshly and as if inlaid from the white mask. The women wore long cloths round their hips, the young girls and children the rah at, a girdle of close hang- ing straps of leather, generally bound about the loins, with a string prettily adorned with shells and pearls, and falling halfway down the thigh. A great wooden bowl of ashes was placed there, and conti- nually replenished. Close to the door, on both sides, crouched female musicians, who partly clapped their Q* Compare Herodotus, Euterpe, c. 85, for the ancient Egyptian mode of mourning, which is, however, uot very similar to this. — K. It. II. M.] ETHIOPIAN FUNERAL. 199 hands in time, with yelling, ear-piercing screams, partly beat the noisy darabiika (a kind of hand- drum, called here in the Sudan daluka), and partly struck hollow calabashes, swimming in tubs of "water, with sticks. The two daughters, from eighteen to twenty years of age, and the nearest relations, began to move slowly towards the door in pairs, by a narrow lane formed in the midst of the ever-increas- ing mob. Then suddenly they all began to scream, to clap their hands, and to bellow forth unearthly cries, upon which the others turned round and began their horrible dance of violent jerks. With convulsively strained windings and turnings of the upper part of the body, they pushed their feet on, quite slowly and measured ly, threw their bosoms up with a sudden motion, and turned the head back over the shoulders, which they racked in every direction, and thus wound themselves forward with almost closed eyes. In this way they went dowm a little hill, for fifteen or sixteen paces, wdien they threw themselves on the ground, buried themselves in dust and ashes, and then returned to begin the same dance anew. The younger of the two daugh- ters had a pretty slender figure, with an incredibly elastic body, and resembled an antique when stand- ing quietly upright or lying on the ground with the head down, with her regular and soft, but im- movable features and classical form, quite peaceably even during the dance. This dancing procession went on over and over again. Each of the mourn- ers must at least have gone through it once, and the nearer the relationship the oftener it is repeated. W hoever cannot get up to the ash-tub takes ashes 200 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. from the head of a neighbour to strew it on their own head. First, in this squatting assembly, some women crouch, who understand how to sob and to shed tears in quantities, which leave long black streaks on their whitened cheeks. The most pro- minent and disgusting feature of this scene is, how- ever, that unrestrained passion has nothing to do with it, and that everything is done slowly, patheti- cally, and with evidently practised motions ; chil- dren down to the ages of four or five years are put into the procession, and if they make the difficult and unnatural movements well, the mothers, cowering behind, .call out taib, taib, to them. “Bravo, well done !” The second act of this deafening cere- mony, by the continual clapping', cries, and screams, is that the whole company of dancers throw them- selves upon the ground and roll down the hill ; but even this is done slowly and premeditatedly, while they draw their knees up to keep hold of their dress, poke their arms in also, and then roll away on their backs and knees. This ceremony begins an hour before sunset and continues into the middle of the night. The whole of it causes, by its unnaturality sur- passing everything else, an indescribable impression, which is rendered the more disagreeable, as one perceives throughout the empty play, the inherited and spoilt custom, and can recognize no trace of individual truth and natural feeling in the persons taking part in it. And yet the comparison with certain descriptions and representations of similar ceremonies among the ancients, teaches us to un- derstand many things, of which, in our own life, wc MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE SUDAN. 201 shall never form a proper estimate, until we have seen with our own eyes such caricatures of uncivili- sation, occasionally shown to us by the Orient. Next day we visited the hospital, which we found very clean, and in good order; it contains one hun- dred patients, but there are only twenty-eight at the present time. Then we proceeded to the bar- racks, in the large court of which the exercises are gone through. The commanding officer assembled the band, and had several pieces of music played. The first was the Parisienne, which made a strange impression upon me amidst these scenes, as also the following pieces, which were mostly French, and known to me ; they are tolerably performed. The musicians had scarcely any but European instru- ments, and have incorporated in their Arabic musical vocabulary our word trumpet, applying it, however, to the drum which they call trumbeta, while they have for the trumpet a native name, najir ; the great flute they call sumara, the little one sufara, and the great drum tabli. There were only 1,200 men of the regiment (which consists of 4,000) present, almost all negroes, who poked out their black faces, hands, and feet, from their white linen clothes, and red caps like dressed-up monkeys, only looking much more miserable and oppressed than those ani- mals. Yet we did not suspect that in two days, these people would rebel, and go off to their mountains. Emin Pasha was hourly expected. On the 13th, however, I received a letter from him at Messelemieh, four or five hours hence, in which he stated that he should first come to Wed Medineh the next day, and hoped to find us still there. At the same time 202 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. he informed me that the war in Taka was at an end, and that all had submitted. Some hundred natives were killed in the skirmishes ; on the morn- ing before the decisive battle, all the Sheikhs of the Taka tribes came to the Pasha to beg for mercy, which was granted them on the condition, that no fugitive should remain in the forest, which had been their chief resort. Next day he had the forest searched, and as there was nobody found, it was set on fire, and burnt down altogether. He is going on his way back through the eastern districts to Katarif, on the Abyssinian frontier, and thence to the Blue River. Scarcely had we read these news from Taka, ere the cannons at the barracks thundered forth the news of victory to the popu- lation. In another letter, which Emin Pasha had received for me, Herr von Wagner gave me the pleasant news that our new comrade, the painter Georgi, had arrived from Italy, and had already left for Dongola, where he would aw r ait farther instructions. I shall write him to meet us at Barkal. As we were certain by the letter to find the Pasha still in Messelemieh, we departed thither at noon ; we went by land, as the city is an hour and a half distant from the Nile. The bark w r as meanwhile to follow us to the port of Messelemieh, i. c. to the landing place nearest to this principal trading place of the whole Sudan. Besides Jussuf w'e took the khawass and Gabre Miriam with us, who placed himself behind me on the dromedary, where there is always a little place left for an attendant, like the dickey of a conch ; he FUKARA VILLAGE OF TA1BA. 203 rides on the narrow back part of the animal, and holds on with his hands. The day was very hot and the ground burnt. The few birds which I saw were different from those inhabiting the banks of the river. At about half way we came to a village called TAiba, which is only inhabited by Fukara, (pi. of Fakir). These are the literati, the holy men of the nation, a kind of priests, without exercising sacer- dotal functions ; they can read and write, allow no music, no dancing, no feasting, and therefore stand iu great odour of sanctity. The Sheikh of this village is the supreme Fakir of the district. Every- body believes in him as a prophet ; what he has prophesied, happens. The deceased Ahmed Pasha had him locked up a month before his death ; “ God will punish thee,” he returned in answer to the de- cree, and a month afterward the Pasha died. This is a very rich man, and owns several villages. We looked him up and found him in his house at dinner ; about twenty persons were seated round a colossal wooden bowl, filled with boiled durra broth and milk. The bowl was pushed before us, but it was impossible for us to partake of this meal. We conversed with the old Fakir, who replied with free, friendly, and obliging dignity, and then asked our names, and our object in travelling. Every person who entered, even our servants, approached him reverently, and touched his hand with the lips and forehead. The office of Sheikh is hereditary in his family ; his son, therefore, obtains almost as much honour as himself, and thus it is explicable how, when the Sheikh is a Fakir, the whole place may 204 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. become a holy village. E’Damer, on the island of Meroe, was formerly such a Fakir place. The inha- bitants of Taiba, probably of Arabic race, call themselves Arakin. There are in this neighbour- hood a number of such local names, the origin of which is difficult to be assigned. When we had smoked out our pipes, we left this assembly of holy men, and rode off. Half an hour from Messelemieh, we came to a second village called Hellet e’ Soliman. We dismounted at a house built by the deceased Mak or Melek Kambal of Halfai, when he married the daughter of the Defalla, to whom the village belonged ; now it is the property of his brothers son Mahmud Welled Shanish, who is also called Melek, but is only guardian of Kambal’s little son, Melek Beshir. Thus we may see how it has fared here with the ancient honourable title of Melek (king). Mahmud was not at home, as he had accompanied Ahmed Pasha in his campaign. However, we were enter- tained in his house according to the hospitable custom of the country. Carpets were spread, milk and durra bread (which docs not taste ill) in thin cakes brought ; besides another simple but refresh- ing drink, abreq , fermented sour durra water. Soon after Asser we arrived in Messelemieh. Emin re- ceived us very kindly, and informed us Mohammed Ali’s prime minister, Boghos Bey, whom I had visited in Alexandria, was dead, and Artim Bey, a fine diplomatist of much culture, had been appointed to his place. We refused the Pasha’s invitation to supper and night’s lodging, and soon rode off to the river, where INCENSE URN FROM SODA. 205 we hoped to find our bark. As it had not arrived, we passed the night in the open air upon anqarebs. The next morning, the 15th of March, we pushed oft' for Kamlin, and arrived there toward evening. The following day we passed with our countryman, Herr Bauer. After we had visited Nureddin Effendi at Wad Eraue, some hours from Kamlin, we arrived the next day at Soba, where I immediately sent for a vessel found in the ruins of the ancient city, and preserved by the brother of the Sheikh. After waiting a long time it was brought. It proved to be an incense urn of bronze in open work ; the sides of the rounded vessel, about three-quarters of a foot in height and breadth, were worked in ara- besques ; on the upper edge the chains had been attached to three little hooks, of which one is broken away, so that the most interesting part of the whole — an inscription in tolerably large letters running round the top, and worked ajour, like arabesques — is imperfect. This is of the more importance, as the writing is again Greek, or rather Koptic, as on the stone tablet, but the language neither, but without doubt the ancient language of Soba, the metropolis of the mighty kingdom of Aloa. Notwithstanding its shortness, it is of more importance than the tablet, that it also contains the Koptic letters ctj (sh) and 'f" (ti), which are not to be found in the other. I bought the vessel for a few piasters. This is now the third monument of Soba that we bring with us, for I must add that we saw at Said Hashim’s, in Wed Medineh, a little Venus, of Greek workmanship, about a foot high, which had also been found in Soba, and was pre- 206 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. sented to me by the owner. On the 19th of March, we at length entered again the house of M. Hermanowitch at Chartum, at a later date, how- ever, than our former reckoning had settled, there- fore I had already announced our being later in a letter to Erbkam from Wed M^dineh. MILITARY INSURRECTION. 207 LETTER XIX. Chartum. March 21, 1844. Here we first obtained more particulars concern- ing the military revolt at Wed M^dineh, which was of the most serious nature, and we should have incurred great danger had we stopped two days longer in that city. The whole of the black soldiers have rebelled, owing to the stay of Emin Pasha. The drill-master and seven white soldiers were immediately killed, the Pasha besieged in his own house and shot at, his overtures disdained, the powder magazine seized. All the guns and ammu- nition fell into the hands of the negroes, who then chose six leaders, and went off on the road to Fazoql in six bodies to gain their mountain. The regiment here, in which there are at present about 1,500 blacks, was immediately disarmed, and con- fined to the barracks. The most serious appre- hensions are entertained for the future, as Ahmed Pasha Menekle was so imprudent as to take almost all the white troops with him to Taka. For the rest, I might be glad of the flight of the blacks, as they were frightfully ill used by their Turkish masters. Still the revolt can easily put the country into disorder, and then re-act on our expedition. The blacks will, no doubt, endeavour to draw all their countrymen who meet them to their side, par- ticularly the troops of Soliman Pasha, in Sennar, 208 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. and of Selim Pasha, in Fazoql ; the whites are far too few in number to offer any prolonged resistance. The news have just arrived that five or six hundred slaves of the deceased Ahmed Pasha at the indigo factory at Tamaniat, a little to the north of this place, have fled to the Sudan with their wives and children, and intend to join with the soldiers. The same is said to have occurred at the factory at Kamlin, so that we are in fear for our friend Bauer, who, though not. cruel like the Turks, is strict. March 26. A report is spreading that the troops at Sennar, and the people of Melek Idris Adlan, had overcome the negroes. The Tamaniat slaves are also said to have been pursued by the Arnauts, and killed or dragged back, while the rebellion in Kamlin has been suppressed. Little confidence can yet he placed in these reports, as the news came to me by our khawass from the people of the Pasha, and a wish was particularly expressed to me, that I should spread it further, and write it in my letters to Cairo. As we were yesterday evening walking in the large and beautiful garden of Ibrahim Cher, in whose airy well situated house, I write this letter, we saw lofty dark sand clouds rising up like a wall on the horizon. And in the night a violent east wind has arisen and is still blowing, and folds all the trees and buildings in a disagreeable atmosphere of sand, which almost impedes respiration. I fastened the windows and stopped the door with stones, for a sort of shelter from the first break of the storm ; nevertheless, it is necessary to keep MILITARY INSURRECTION. 209 wiping away the covering of sand which continually settles on the paper. I have come back so torn and tattered from my Sennar hunting parties, that I have been obliged at length to determine on adopting the Turkish cos- tume, which I shall not be able to change very soon. It has its advantages for the customs of this country, particularly in sitting on carpets or low cushions ; but the flat tarboosh is immensely unprac- tical under these sunny skies, and the innumerable buttons and hooks are a daily and very troublesome trial of patience. March 30. We are about to leave Chartum, as soon as this post of the Pasha is transmitted. The revolution is now definitely suppressed everywhere. It would, no doubt, have had a far worse ending, if it had not broken out some days too early in Wed Medineh. It had already been long planned and consulted on in secret, and was to have commenced simultaneously in Sennar, Wed Medineh, Kamlin, Chartum, and Tamaniat, on the 19th of this month. The precipitation at Wed Medineh, had, however, brought the whole conspiracy into con- fusion, and had given Emin Pasha time to send a courier to Chartum, by which the imprisonment and disarming of the negro soldiers here, was possible, ere the news of the insurrection had come to them. Emin Pasha, however, seems to have been quite incapable. The victory is to be ascribed to the courage and presence of mind of a certain Rustan Effendi, who pursued the six hundred negroes with one hundred and fifty determined soldiers, mostly white, reached them near Sennar, p 210 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. and beat them down, after three attacks and heavy loss. ' More than a hundred of the fugitives sur- rendered, and have been led off in chains to Sennar; the rest were killed in the fight or drowned in the river. But at the same time the news has arrived, that an insurrection has broken out in Lower Nubia, at Kalabshe, and another village, on account of the imposts ; and that therefore, both villages have been immediately razed by Hassan Pasha, who is coming to Chartum in the place of Emin Pasha, and the in- habitants killed or hunted away. TAMANIAT. 211 LETTER XX. . Pyramids of Meroe. April 22 , 1844 . We left Chartum on the 30th of March, toward evening, and sailed half the night by moonshine. On the next day we reached Tamaniat. Almost the whole village had disappeared, and only a single wide stretching ruin was to be seen. The slaves had laid everything in ashes on their revolt ; only the walls of the factory are yet standing. As I had left the bark on foot, I was quite unprepared to come in the neighbourhood of the still smoking ruins, upon a frightful scene, in an open meadow quite covered with black mangled corpses. The greater part of the slaves, who had been recaptured, had here been shot in masses. With sundown, we stopped near Surie Abu Ramie, at a cataract, which we could pass by night. On the first of April we went off long before dawn, and expected to get on a good distance. With the day broke, however, a heavy storm of wind, and as the ship could not be drawn near on account of the rocky shore, we were obliged to stop after a few hours, and lie still in the annoying thick sand air. Before us lay the single mountain chain of Qirre, whence, like sentinels, rose the Ashtan (the Thirsty) to the left, the Rauian (the Satisfied) to the right, from the plain, the former being, how- ever, more distant from the river. p 2 212 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. The Rauian only lay about three quarters of an hour away from our bark ; I went out with my gun, crossed the unfertile stony plain, and climbed the mountain, which is almost surrounded with water during the inundation, so that we were always told that the mount was on an island. The rock tex- ture is a mixture of coarse and fine granite, with much quartz. On the way back we came by the village of Melah, the huts of which lie concealed behind great mounds, formed by the excavations of the inhabitants for salt ( malh ), of which much is found in the neighbourhood. (Melah is, there- fore, the Arabic translation of Suiza.) Towards evening went farther into the mountains, and moored in a little creek. The succeeding day we also got on slowly. On the tops of the crags to the eastward, we perceived some black slaves, straying about like goats, who had probably escaped from Tamaniat, and will not long preserve their poor lives. They disappeared immediately on our kha- wass making the rude jest of firing into the air in their direction. I and Abeken climbed the western hills, which rose steeply from the shore to the height of two or three hundred feet. It is plainly to be seen on the rocks how high the river rises at high water, and deposits its earth. I measured thence to the present water-mirror, about eight metres, and the river will yet sink a couple of feet. From the mountain top we could see behind the last heights the wide desert which we should soon have to traverse towards M^raui. Reluctantly we quitted the picturesque mountains which had inter- TEMPLE AT BEN NAGA. 213 rupted the generally even aspect of the country in so pleasant a manner. On the morning of the 4th of April we at last reached our palm group at Ben Naga, and pro- ceeded at once to the ruins in Wadi el Kirbegan, where we found part of a pillar and several altars in the south-western temple, newly excavated by Erb- kam, upon which the same royal cartouches appeared as on those principal temples of Naga, in the wil- derness. Of the three altars the middle one, hewn in very hard sandstone, was excellently preserved. On the west side the King, on the east side the Queen, were represented, with their names; on the two other sides two goddesses. There was also, on the north side, the hieroglyphic of the north engraven ; and on the south side, that of the south. The two other altars showed the same representa- tions. All three were seen in their places, and let into a smooth pavement, formed of square slabs of stone, with plaster poured over them. The means were unfortunately wanting at present for the trans- portation of the best of these altars, which weighed at least fifty hundred weight ; I was, therefore, obliged to leave it for a particular expedition from Meroe. On Good Friday, the 5tli of April, we arrived at Shendi. We went into the spacious but very depopulated city; saw the ruins of the residence of King Nimr, in which, after a banquet he had pre- pared for Ismael Pasha, he had burnt him. Many bouses yet bear the traces of the shots of Defterdar Bey, whom Mohammed Ali sent to avenge the death of his son. In the middle of the city stood 214 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. on an artificial height the private dwelling of King Nimr, now also in ruins. Somewhat up the river, distinct from the town, lies the suburb built ex- pressly for the military garrison. We then returned to the bark, which had moored close by the fortress- like house of Churshid Pasha, where the Com- mandant now resides. The same day we reached Beg’erauie, shortly before sundoAvn, and immediately rode to the pyra- mids, where we found Erbkam and the rest all well. At Naga and Wadi Sofra they were very indus- trious, and the rich costume of the Kings and Gods, and the generally styleless, but ornamented repre- sentations of this Ethiopian temple look very well in the drawing, and will form a shining part of our picture-book. Here, too, much had been done, and on the cleaning out of the earth-filled ante-cham- bers several new things were discovered. Abeken thought he had discovered the name . of Queen Kentaki (Kandake) on our first visit. It now appears that the cartouche is not written pi ii but 'll' MS MS 2 which would be read Kentahebi;* it seems to me, [* The first Cartouche is as follows : — K (the bowl with a handle, Alphabetic No. 1, (Bunsen, vol. i. p. 561); N (the water,) Alphabetic No. 1, (p. 564) ; TA (bag and reed), Alphabetic No. 5, (p. 568); K=KNTAK. The reeds. Alpha- betic No. 3, p. 556,) occurs in the “ Todtenbuch ” (xxii. 63, 3,) as the sign for a noble, (Bunsen, p. 454), the heaven (p. 555) is KENTAKI AND KENTAHEBI. 215 however, that the famous name is nevertheless meant; and the questionable sign has been inter- changed by the ignorant scribes. The determinative signs £> ^ prove, in any case, that it is the name of a queen. Kandake was already known as a private name. The name Ergamenes is also found, and this, too, now properly written, sometimes with a misunderstood variant. On the following holidays, we lighted our Easter fire in the evening. Our tents lie between two groups of pyramids in a little valley, which is every- where overgrown with dry tufts of woody grass. These were set on fire, flamed up, and threw the whirling flames up into the dark star night. It was a pretty sight to see fifty or sixty such fires burning at once, and throwing a spectral light on the surrounding ruined pyramids of the ancient kings, and on our airy tent-pyramids rising in the fore- ground. On the eighth of April, we were surprised by a stately cavalcade on horses and camels, which entered our camp. It was Osman Bey, who is now leading the army of 5,000 men back from Taka. In his company were the French military physician Peney, and the High Sheikh Ahmed Welled ’Auad. The troops had encamped near Gabushie, at an hour’s distance up the river, and would pass through Begerauie in the evening. The visit to our camp the mark of the feminine gender, and the egg (Determinative No. 85, p. 545,) rank;=a Queen. The second Cartouche is the same, with the exception of the variant : — the sign of festivals (Determinative No. 110 p. 547,) HBI=KNTAHBI. — K. R. H. M.] 216 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. had, however, another end ; which came to light in the course of conversation. Osman Bey was desirous of making his pioneers into treasure finders, and sent some companies hither to tear down the pyramids. The discovery of Ferlini is in every- body’s head still, and had brought many a pyramid to ruin. In Chartum everybody was full of it ; and more than one European, and the Pasha also, thought still to find treasures there. I endeavoured to convince them all anew that the discovery of Fer- lini was the result of pure chance, that he did not find the gold rings in the tombs, the only place where such a search could be made with any reason, but in the rock, where they had been placed by the caprice of the owner. I tried to convince Osman Bey by the same arguments, who offered me his men for the purpose of commencing operations under my superintendence. Of course I refused, but should perhaps have taken advantage of the oppor- tunity to open the tomb-chambers, the entrance of which would be before the pyramids in the natural rock, had I not been afraid that I should arrive at no particularly shining result, and only disappoint the expectations of the credulous general, though not our own. I succeeded in diverting him from the idea ; and for the present at least, the yet exist- ing pyramids are saved. The soldiers have left us without making war against the pyramids. I invited the three gentlemen to dinner with us, at which the old Sheikh got into a mess, as he always wanted to cut the meat with the back of his knife, until I myself laid aside the European instrument, and began to eat in good old Turkish TIIE ARNAUTS. 217 style, when all soon followed me willingly, particu- larly my brave dark-skinned guest, who well saw my civility. After dinner, they mounted their stately horses again, and hurried to the river. On the 9th of April, I sent Franke and Ibrahim Aga to Ben Naga, with stone-saws, hammers, and ropes, to bring the great altar hither. I myself rode with Jussuf to Gabushie, partly to return the visit of Osman Bey — whose intention had been to give a day of rest in our neighbourhood — partly to take advan- tage of the presence of the respected Sheikh Ahmed, through whom I hoped to obtain barks for the trans- portation of our things across the river, and camels for our desert journey. The army had, however, already proceeded, and had passed the next places. I there- fore rode sharply on with Jussuf, and soon came up with the 400 Arnauts, forming the rear guard. They could not, however, inform us how far Osman Bey was in advance. The Arnauts are the most feared of all the military; as the rudest and most cruel of all, who are at the same time the best used by their leaders, as they are the only volunteers and foreign mercenaries. Some months ago, they were sent by Mahommed Ali, under a peculiarly dreaded officer, to the deceased Ahmed Pasha, with the command, as it was worded, to bring the Pasha alive or dead to Cairo. His sudden death, however, naturally put a period to their errand. That officer is named Omar Aga, but is well-known throughout the coun- try under the less flattering sobriquet of Tomas Aga ( commandant coclion), once bestowed on him by Ibrahim Pasha, and which he has since considered it an honour to bear ! His own servants so called 218 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. him, when we came up with his horses and baggage, and asked for their owner. After a sharp ride of five or six hours, under a most oppressive sun, we at length reached the camp near the village of Beida. We had gradually gone more than half-way to Shendi, and were rejoiced to find a prospect of re- freshment after the hot exhausting ride, as we pre- pared ourselves to remain fasting until our return in the evening, for there was nothing to be got in the intermediate villages, not even milk. Osman Bey and Hakim Peney were as astonished as delighted at my visit ; there w r ere immediately handed round some goblets of Suri, a drink of dif- ficult and slow preparation from half-fermented durra, having a pleasant acid taste, and a particu- larly refreshing restoring flavour with sugar. After breakfast I went through the camp with Peney, the tents of which were pitched in the most various and picturesque manner on a great place, partly overgrown and wholly surrounded with trees and bushes. An Egyptian army, half black, half white, torn and tattered, returning from a thieving incur- sion against the poor natives, is rather a different sight to anything that comes under our notice at home. Although the terrified inhabitants of Taka, mostly innocent of the partial revolt, had already sent ambassadors to the Pasha, in order to obviate his vengeance, and did not make the slightest resistance on the nearer approach of the troops, yet several hundred defenceless men and women who would not, or could not fly, were murdered by that notorious crew of ruffians, the Arnauts; an addi- MISERABLE CONDITION OF THE NATIVES. 211 ) tional number of persons, supposed to have been concerned in the rebellion, Ahmed Pasha had be- headed in front of his tent, as they were brought in. After all the conditions had been fulfilled, after the heaviest mulcts demanded of them, under every possible name, had been punctually paid, the Pasha had all the Sheikhs assembled as if for a new trial, and together with 120 more, led away in chains as prisoners. The young powerful men were con- demned to the army, the women were given up to the soldiers as slaves. The Sheikhs had yet to await their punishment. This was the glorious history of the Turkish campaign against Taka, as it was related to me by European witnesses. Twelve of the forty-one Sheikhs, who seemed as if they would not survive the fatigue of the forced march, have already been shot. The rest were shown to me. Each wore before him a club or bludgeon five or six feet in length, which ended in a fork, into which his neck was fastened. The ends of the fork were con- nected by a cross piece fastened by thongs. Some of them, too, had their hands tied to the handle of the fork. In this condition they continue day and night. During the march, the soldier under whose care the prisoner is placed, carries the club, and at night the greater part of them have their feet bound together. Their raven tresses were all cut off, and only the Sheikhs still retained their great plaited head- dress. Most of them looked very depressed and pitiful ; they had been the most respected of their tribe, and accustomed to the greatest reverence from their inferiors. Almost all of them spoke Arabic 220 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. besides their own language, and told me the tribes to which they belonged. The most respected, how- ever, of them all, was a Fakir, of holy repute, whose word was considered that of a prophet throughout the whole country. He had, by his words and demands, brought on the whole revolution. He was called Sheikh Musa el Fakir, and was of the race of Mitkenab, and his personal appearance was that of an aged, blind, broken elder, with a few snow-white hairs ; his body is now more like a skeleton, he had to be raised up by others, and was scarcely able to comprehend and answer the ques- tions addressed to him. His little shrivelled coun- tenance could not, under any circumstances, assume a new expression. He stared before him, fixedly and carelessly, and I wondered how such a scarecrow could have so much power over his countrymen as to cause the revolution. But it is to be remarked, that here, as in Egypt, all blind people stand in peculiar odour of sanctity, and in great repute as prophets. After breakfast I had one of the Sheikhs, Mo- hammed Welled Hammed, brought into Osman's tent, in order to ask him about his language, of which I knew nothing. He was a sensible eloquent man, who also employed the opportunity, which I readily granted him, to tell his history to Osman Bey and Sheikh Ahmed, and to declare his inno- cence with respect to the revolutionary movements. He was of the tribe of Ilalenka, of the village Kassala. I had the list of the forty-one Sheikhs and their tribes given me and copied. Six tribes had taken part in the revolt, the Mitkenab, Ilalenka, LANGUAGE OF TAKA. 221 Keluli Mohammedin, Sobeh, Sikul&b, and Iladen- duwa (plural of Henduwa). All the tribes of Taka speak the same language, but only some also understand the Arabic. I pre- sume that it is the same as that of the Bishari races. It has many words well put together, and ns very euphonious, as the hard gutterals of the Arabic are wanting. On the other hand, however, it has a peculiar letter, which seems to stand between r, I, and d, according to its sound, a cerebral d, which, like that of the Sanskrit, is pronounced with the tongue thrown upwardly back. The examination of the Sheikh had lasted too long to allow of a return ; night would have sur- prised me, when it would have been impossible, especially on camel-back, to avoid the dangerous branches of the prickly trees. I therefore was con- tent to accept the invitation to remain in the camp until moonrise ; then Osman Bey was going to start in the other direction with his army. A whole sheep was roasted on the spit, which we heartily enjoyed. From Osman Bey, who has lived sixteen years in the south, and is intimately acquainted with the land to the outermost limits of the government of Mohammed Ali, I learnt many interesting particu- lars of the southern provinces. In Fazoql the cus- tom of hanging up a king who is no longer liked, is still continued, and was done upon the person of the father of a king now reigning. His relations and ministers assembled about him, and informed him that as he did not please the men and women of the country, nor the oxen, asses, hens, &c. &c. any 222 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. longer, but every one hated him, it would be better for him to die. When a king once would not sub- mit to this treatment, his own wife and mother came to him, and made him the most urgent repre- sentations, not to load himself with more ignominy, on which he met his fate. Diodorus tells just the same story of those in Ethiopia who were to die by the condemnation of the judge, and a condemned person, who intended first to save himself by flight, yet allowed himself to be strangled by his mother, who frustrated his escape, without opposition. Osman Bey first put an end to the custom in the same province, of burying old people alive, who had grown weak. A pit was dug, and at the bottom of it a horizontal passage ; the body was laid in it, tightly wrapped in cloths, like that of a dead per- son ; beside him a saucer, with n erissa, fermented durra water, a pipe, and a hoe for the cultivation of land ; also one or two ounces of gold, according to the riches of the person, intended for the payment of the boatman who rows him over the great river, which flows between heaven and hell. Then the entrance is filled up. Indeed, according to Osman, the whole legend of Charon, even with a Cerberus, exists there. This usage of burying old people alive is also found, as I have subsequently heard, among the negro races of south Kordofan. There sick people, and particularly those with an infectious disease, are put to death in the same manner. The family com- plains to the invalid, that on account of him no one will come to them ; that after all, he is miserable, and death only a gain for him ; in the other world BELIEF IN TIIE ANGEL OSRAIN. 223 he would find his relations, and would be well and happy. Every one gives him greetings to the dead, and then they bury him as in Fazoql, or standing upright in a shaft. Besides merissa, bread, hoe and pipe, he there also receives a sword and a pair of sandals ; for the dead lead a similar life beyond the grave, only with greater pleasures. The departed are interred amidst loud lamenta- tions, in which their deeds and good qualities are celebrated. Nothing is known there of a river and boatman of the under world, but the old Mohamme- dan legend is there current, of the invisible angel Asrael, or as he is here called, Osrain. He, it is said, is commissioned by God to receive the souls of the dead, and lead the good to the place of reward, the bad to the place of punishment. He lives in a tree, el s^gerat moliana (the tree of fulfilling), which has as many leaves as there are inhabitants in the world. On each leaf is a name, and when a child is born a new one grows. If any one become ill, his leaf fades, and should he be destined to die, Osrain breaks it off.* Formerly he used to come visibly to those whom he was going to carry away, and thus put them in great terror. Since the Prophet’s time, however, he has been invisible ; for when he came to fetch Mohammed’s soul, he told him that it was not good that by his visible appearance he Q* A superstition exists among the Moravian Jews to this effect. At new moon a branch is held in its light, and the name of any person pronounced. His face will appear between the horns of the moon, and should he be destined to die, the leaves will fade. This is mentioned, as well^as I can remember, in Beau- mont’s Demonology. — K. R. H. M.] 224 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. should frighten mankind. They might then easily die of terror, before praying ; for he himself, although a courageous and spirited man, was somewhat per- turbed at his appearance. Therefore the Prophet begged Allah to make Osrain invisible, which prayer was granted. Of other tribes in Fazoql, Osman Bey told me, that with them the king should hold a court of justice every day under a certain tree. If he be absent three days by illness or any other reason that makes him unfit to attend to it, he is hanged : two razors are put in the noose, which cut his throat on the rope being tightened. The meaning of another of their customs is ob- scure. At a certain time of the year they have a kind of carnival, at which every one. does as he likes. Four ministers then carry the king from his house to an open place on an anqareb, to one leg of which a dog is tied. The whole population assemble from every quarter. Then they throw spears and stones at the dog till it dies, after which, the king is carried back to his house. Over these and other stories and particulars re- garding those races, which were also certified by the old High Sheikh Ahmed, we finished the roasted sheep in the open air, before the tent. Night had long commenced, and the camp fires near and far, with the people busy around them, sitting still or walking to and fro among the trees, was immensely picturesque and peculiar. Gradually they went out, all except the watch fires ; the poor prisoners were bound more tightly, and it grew quieter in the camp. DISCIPLINE OF OSMAN BEYS ARMY. 225 Osman Boy is a powerful, merry, and natural man, also a strict and esteemed officer. He pro- mised me a specimen of the discipline and good order among his soldiers, — whose outward appearance would not inspire any very favourable prejudice, — in having the reveilld beaten at an unprepared time. I slept with a military cloak about me on an anqareb in the open tent. About three o’clock 1 awoke, through a slight noise ; Osman, who lay beside me on the ground, rose and gave the order to beat the reveille to the nearest drummer of the principal guard. " He struck some broken and quickly silent notes on his drum. These were immediately repeated at the post of the next regi- ment, then at the third, fourth, fifth, and succeed- ing encampments ; and suddenly the whole mass of 5,000 men were under arms. A soft whispering and hissing of the soldiers waking each other, and the slight crackling sound caused by the muskets, was all that could be heard. I went through the camp with Dr. Peney, who came out of the neighbouring tent, and we found there the whole army in rank and file under arms, the officers going up and down in front. When we returned and told Osman Bey of the surprising punctuality in carrying out his com- mands, he allowed the soldiers to disperse again, and first gave the signal for departure at four o’clock. This had a very different effect. Everything was in activity and motion ; the camels raised their screaming voices and pitiful bleatings during the loading, the tents were taken down, and in less than half an hour the army marched off to the sound of fife and drum to the south. Q 226 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. I took my May in the contrary direction. The early morning and bright moonlight M as very refresh- ing ; the birds M r oke up with the grey dawn ; a fresh wind arose, and M 7 e trotted lustily along through the alleys of prickly sont-trees. Soon after sunrise Me met a stately procession of well-dressed men and servants with camels and donkeys. It was King Mahmud Welled Shauish, Mdiose father, the warlike Shauish, King of Shaiqie, is known from the history of the conquering campaigns of Ismael Pasha, to whom he succumbed at a late period, and at M’hose house at Hellet e’ Soliman, near Messelemleli, we had stayed some weeks before. He had gone with Ahmed Pasha Menekle to Taka, and followed the army to Halfa'i, where he now resides. At half-past nine, M T e again came to the pyramids, after my camel, yet young and very difficult to manage, had galloped round in a circle with me, and finally stumbling over a high mound of grass, fell down on one knee, and sent me far away over his head, fortunately without doing me any damage. After my return I employed myself continually on the pyramids and their inscriptions, had seve- ral chambers excavated, and drew out a careful description of each pyramid. Altogether I had found nearly thirty different names of Ethiopian kings and queens. I have not as yet brought them into any chronological order, but have in the com- parison of the inscriptions learned much on the kind of succession and the form of government. The King of Meroe * (which is written Meru or Compare Colonel Rawlinson’s Outline of Assyrian History, p. 23, where Sennacherib’s invasion of Meroe is mentioned. — K. R. H. M.] MEROE. 227 Merua in one of the southernmost pyramids) was at the same time High Priest of Ammon : if his wife outlived him she followed him in the government, and the male heir of the crown only occupied a second place by her ; under other circumstances, it seems, the son succeeded to the crown, having already, during his father’s lifetime, borne the royal cartouche and title, and held the post of second priest of Ammon. Thus we see here the priest government of which Diodorus and Strabo speak, and the precedence of the worship of Ammon already mentioned by Herodotus. The inscriptions on the pyramids show that at the time of their erection the hieroglyphic system of writing was no longer perfectly understood, and that the hieroglyphical signs were often put there for ornament, without any intended meaning. Even the royal names are rendered doubtful by this, and this prevented my recognizing for a long time the pyramids of the three royal personages who had built the principal temples in Naga, Ben Naga and in Wadi Temed, and belonged, no doubt, to the most shining period of the Meroitic Empire. I am now’ sure, that the pyramid, with antechamber arched in the Roman style, in the wall of which Ferlini found the treasure concealed, notwithstand- ing the slight change in the name, belonged to the same mighty and warlike queen who appears in Naga with her rich dress and her nails almost an inch long. Ferlini’s jew’ellery, by the circumstance that they belonged to a known, and, it seems to me, the greatest of all Meroitic queens, who built almost all the preserved temples of the island, acquired a far Q 2 228 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. greater importance tor the history of the Ethiopian art in which they now take a certain position. The purchase of that remarkable treasure is a consider- able gain for our Museum. At that time an Ethiopian demotic character, resembling the Egyptian demotic in its letters, although with a very limited alphabet of twenty-five to thirty signs, was more generally em- ployed and understood than the hieroglyphics. The writing is read from right to left as there, but always with a distinct division of the words by two strong points. I have already found twenty-six such demotic inscriptions, some on steles and libatory slabs, some in the antechambers of the pyramids over the figures in the processions (which are gene- rally proceeding towards the deceased king with palm-branches), some outside on the smooth sur- faces of the pyramids, and always plainly of the same date as the representations, and not added at a subsequent period. The decipherment of this writing will perhaps not be difficult on a narrower examination, and would then give us the first cer- tain sounds of the Ethiopian language spoken here at that time, and decide its relation to the Egyptian; while the almost perfect identity of the Ethiopian and Egyptian hieroglyphics would till now give decidedly no sanction to any conclusion as to a similar identity between the two languages. On the contrary, it seems, and may be safely asserted for the later Meroitic period, that the Egyptian hiero- glyphics were taken from Egypt as the sacred mo- numental writing, without change, but also without a full comprehension of their signification. The few continually recurring signs prove that the Etlii- THE ETHIOPIANS AND THE CUSTOMS. 220 opian-demotic writing is purely alphabetic, which must very much lighten the labour of decipherment. The partition of the words is perhaps taken from the Roman writing. The analogy with the develop- ment of writing in Egypt, however, proceeded still farther; for next to this Ethiopian-demotic there occurs at a later period, an Ethiopian-Greek, which may be fairly compared with the Koptic, and indeed has borrowed several letters from it. It is found in the inscriptions of Soba and in some others on the walls of the temple ruins of Wadi e’ Sofra. We have now therefore, as in Egypt, two doubtless succes- sive systems of writing, which contain the actual Ethiopian popular dialect. It is customary now to call the old Abyssinian-Geez language the Etliiopic, which has no right to this denomination in an eth- nographical point of view, as a Semetic language brought from Arabia, but only as a local term. A Geez inscription, which I have found in the chamber of a pyramid, has evidently been added at a later period. I hope that by the study of the native inscrip- tions, and the yet living languages, some important results may be obtained. The name Ethiopian with the ancients comprehended much of very various im- port. The ancient population of the whole Nile val- ley to Chartum, and perhaps along the Blue River, as also the tribes in the desert east of the Nile, and the Abyssinians, then probably were more broadly distinguished from the negroes than at present, and belonged to the Caucasian race ; the Ethiopians of Meroe (according to Herodotus, the mother state of all the Ethiopians) were reddish-brown people, like 230 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. the Egyptians, only darker, as at the present day. This is also proved by the monuments, on which I have more than once found the red skin of the kings and queens preserved.* In Egypt the women were always painted yellow, particularly during the Old Empire, before the Ethiopian mixture, at the time of the Hyksos ; and the Egyptian women of the present day, who have grown pale in the harems, incline to the same colour.f After the eighteenth dynasty, however, red women appear, and so it is certain the Ethiopian women were always repre- sented. It seems that the so-called Barabra nation has much Ethiopian blood mixed with it, and per- haps this may be more fully shown at some time by their language.^ It is no doubt the ancient Nubian, and has continued under that name in somewhat distant south-westerly regions ; for the languages of the Nubians in and about Kordofan are, to some extent, evidently related to the Berber language. That this last, which is now only spoken from Q* See Pickering’s Races of Man, p. 214, on the Ethiopian Race, and pp. 368 sqq., for further remarks on Egypt. This excellent work is well worthy the serious attention of the ethnologist in every way. — K. R. II. M.] Q+ I may here mention that an excellent term for the red- skinned race has been invented, though I forget by whom, though the person was an American archeologist, viz. cinnamon- coloured, applicable enough both to the red Mexican and the red Egyptian. In the picture chronicles of Mexican social life and history we also find that the women are painted yellow, a coincidence perhaps worthy of notice. — K. It. II. M.] QJ Pickering states that he first met with a mixed race of Barabra at Kenneb, thirty miles below the sito of ancient Thebes, but ho considers the boundary of tho races to be at Silsilis. P. 212— K. R. H.M.] NAME OF MEItOE. 231 Assuan to Dar Shaiqieh, south of Dongola, in the Nile valley, ruled for a time in the province of Berber, and still higher up, 1 have found enough proof in the names of the localities. Next to the ruins of Meroe are situated, along the river, from south to north, the villages of Ma- ruga, Danqeleh and e’ Sur, which are comprehended in the name Begerauieh, so that one almost always only hears the last name. Five minutes to the north of e’ Sur, lies the village of Qala, and ten minutes farther, el Gues, which are both included in the name Ghabine. An hour down the stream are two villages, called Maruga, already de^rted before the conquest of the country, but a little distant from each other, and still more northward, near the Oma- rab mountains, running to the river from the east, is a third village, called Gebel (Mount village), only inhabited by Fukara. Cailliaud was only acquainted with the southernmost of the three Marugas, lying by the great temple ruins. The name attracted his attention by its similarity to Meroe. The similarity is still greater when one knows that the actual name is Maru, as — ga is only the general noun ter- mination, which is added or omitted according to the grammar, and does not belong to the root. In the dialect of Kenus and Dongola this ending is — gi ; in the dialect of Mahass and Sukkot — ga. When I went through the different names of the upper countries with one of our Berber servants, I learned that maro, or marogi , in the one dialect, maru, or marfiga, in the other, signifies “ ruined mound, ruined temple;” thus are the ruins of ancient Syene, or those of the island Philse, called Ma- 232 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. rogi. Quite different from it is another Berber word, Merua, which is also pronounced M6raui, by which all white rocks, white stones, are dis- tinguished ; for instance, a rock near Assuan, on the east side of the Nile, by the village of el Geziret. By this it is clear that the name Maruga has nothing to do with the name Meroe, as it is not usual to call a city “ Ruin-town,” immediately on its foundation. On the other hand, the name Merua, Meraui (in Eng- lish “ white rock”), would be a very good name for a city, if the position of the place were favourable, as it is at Mount Barkal, although not here. SCULPTURES ON TIIE ALTAR OF BEN MAGA. 233 LETTER XXL Keli, opposite Meroe. April 29, 1844. Franke did not return from his expedition at Ben Naga until the 23rd. lie brought the altar hither in sixteen blocks, on a bark. The stones which we shall have to take hence, a wearisome journey of six or seven days through the wilderness, are a load for about twenty camels, so that our train will be considerably greater than before. Un- fortunately, we have been unable to bring away anything from Naga, in the desert, on account of the difficulty of transportation, except the already mentioned Roman inscription, and another large peculiarly carved work. There are on it some par- ticularly curious representations ; among others, a sitting figure in front, a nimbus round the hair, the left arm raised in a right angle, and the first and middle fingers of the hand pointing upward, as the old Byzantine figures of Christ are represented. The right hand holds a long staff resting on the ground, like that of John the Baptist. This figure is wholly strange to the Egyptian representation, and is doubtlessly derived from another source, as also another often-represented deity, also repre- sented in full front, with a richly curling beard, which one would be inclined to compare with a Jupiter or Serapis in posture and appearance. The mixture of religions at that evidently late era had 234 LETTERS FROM EGYPT obtained exceedingly, and I should not be asto- nished if later researches were ta show that the Ethiopian kings included Christ and Jupiter among their widely different classes of gods. The god with the three or four lions’ heads is probably not of ancient origin, but taken from somewhere else. On the 24th, we crossed the Nile in our bark, in order to take our way to Gebel Barkal by the desert. Camels again seemed to be difficult to procure, but the threat that I should not call the Sheikh, but the government to account, by virtue of my firman, if he would not manage to obtain the necessary animals, worked so fast, that we could already depart to the desert from Gos Burri with eighty camels. Here, at Keli, I had again opportunity to witness a funeral, this time for a deceased Fellah, at which nearly two hundred people were assembled, the men parted from the women. The men sat down oppo- site each other in pairs, embraced each other, laid their heads on their shoulders, raised them again, beat themselves, clapped their hands, and cried as much as they could. The women lamented, sang songs of misery, strewed themselves with ashes, went about in procession, and threw themselves on the ground, in a similar way to Wed Medineh, only their dance resembled rather the violent motions of the derwishes. The rest of the inhabitants of Keli sat around in groups, under the shadow of the trees, their heads down, sighing and complaining. While we were obliged to wait for the camels, I crossed to Begerauieh again, to seek some ruins, said to lie more to the north. From El Guos, I got GRAVE HILLOCKS. 235 to the two villages of Maruga, lying not very far from one another, in three-quarters of an hour. A great number of grave mounds lie to the east of the first of these, on the low heights, looking like a group of pyramids in the distance. The elevation runs along in a crescent-like form, and is covered with these round hillocks of black desert-stones, which were fifty-six in number, on my counting them from a large one in the centre. Five minutes farther into the desert is a second group of similar hillocks, twenty-one in number ; but many others are scattered around on small single plateaux. Still lower down and nearly by the bushes, I found to the south of both groups, another, consisting of forty graves, of which some still clearly showed their original four-cornered shape. The best grave had fifteen to eighteen feet on each side ; it had been, like several others, dug up in the middle, and had filled itself with pluvial earth, in which a tree was growing ; at another there was still a great four-cornered circumvallation of twenty-four paces to be seen; the undermost foundations were built of little black stones ; and a tumulus seems to have been erected inside the en- closure, though not in the middle. Another well- preserved stronger circumvallation had a little less extent, but seemed to have been quite filled up by a pyramid. Of an actual casing there was nothing to be seen anywhere. The hillocks went farther south into the bushes, and altogether they might be estimated at two hundred in number. Perhaps they continued to stretch along toward Meroe, at the edge of the desert, whither I should 236 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. have ridden, had I not sent the boat, which I had now to find in a hurry, too far down the river. It seems from this that here was the actual burial place of Meroe, and that pyramidal, or when flat sides were wanted, tumular hillocks of stone were the usual form of the graves of private persons also at that period. DESERT OF GILIF. 2137 LETTER XXII. Barkal. May 9, 1844. The desert of Gilif, which we traversed on our way hither, in order to cut off the great eastern bend of the Nile, takes its name from the principal mountain lying in the midst of it. On the maps it is confused with the desert of Bahiuda, joining it on the south-east, and through which lies the road from Chartum to Ambukdl and Barkal. Our direction was at first due east to a well, then north-west through the Gilif mountains to the great Wadi Abu Ddm, which then conducted us in the same direction to the westerly bend of the Nile. The general character of the country here is not that of a desert, like that between Korusko and Abu Hammed, but rather of a sandy steppe. It is almost everywhere overgrown with gesh (reed bushes), and not unusually with low trees, mostly sont-trees. The rains, which fall here at certain seasons of the year, have washed down considerable masses of earth into the levels, that might well be cultivated, and are occasionally broken by rain- streams three to four feet deep. The earth is yellow, and formed of a clayey sand. The species of rock in the soil and all the mountains, with the exception of the high Gilif chain, is sandstone. The ground is much covered with hard black blocks of the same, the road uneven and undulating. 238 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. Numerous gazelles and great white antelopes, with only one brown stripe down the spine, find a rich subsistence in these plains, which are also visited in the rainy season by herds of camels and goats. . We departed from the river on the 29th of April ; yet this was only a trial of strength, as is very customary with greater caravans, like that of birds of passage, before their great migration. After two hours’ journey up to Gos Burri, lying off from the river, the guide again permitted the uneasy swarm to settle ; the camel-drivers lacked pro- visions, a few more animals were obtained, some changed. Thus we were not in order and full readiness until the following noon. We stayed the night at Wadi Abu Hommed, where we had Gebel Omarda on the right. The third day we left early, passed Gebel Qer- mana, and came to the well Abu Ileh, which turned our road far to the east, and detained us several hours beyond noon. Hence we crossed a broad plain in seven hours, and encamped about ten o’clock at night near Gebel Sergen. On the 2nd of May we arrived, after four hours, at a woody district to the right of Gebel Nusf, the “ Mountain of the half,” situated half-way between the wells of Abu Tleli and Gaqedul, which, in the desert, always form the hour of the desert clock. The Arabs from the district of Gds Burri, who guide us, are of the ’Auadieh race ; they are far more considerable than the Ababde, have a hasty indistinct utterance, and seem altogether to have little capacity. They have commingled much with the Fellahin of the country, who here call them- EL G6s. ‘239 selves Qaleab, Ilomenlb, and Gaalin. Slmiqieli Arabs also exist here, probably since the Egyptian conquest; they have shields and spears like the Ababde. The rich sheikh Emin, of Gds Burri, had given us his brother, the Fakir Fadl Allah, as a guide, and his own son, Fadl Allah, as overseer of the camels ; but even the nobles of the people here make a poor and evanescent impression in comparison with our conductors of Korusko. The order of the day here was this, that we generally set out about six o’clock in the morning, and continued going on until ten o’clock ; then the caravan rested during the noonday heat till about three, when it journeyed again until ten or eleven o’clock at night. The whole afternoon we rode through the exten- sive plain, El Gos, probably so called from the great sand-downs, so characteristic of this region, and which assume, in the southern districts, a peculiar form. They have almost all the form of a crescent, opening toward the south-west, so that one looks from the road into a number of amphitheatres, the steep sand-walls of which rise ten feet with the north wind, which blows inside, and clears away the sand, which would otherwise rapidly fill the cavity, from the inner field. How quickly these moveable sand structures change their place, is shown by the traces of the caravan road, often lost beneath high sand-hills. Toward eight in the evening we left the Gebel Barqugres to the left, and stopped for the night at a short distance from the Gilif mountains. On the 3rd of May we passed through the Wadi Guah el ’alem, much overgrown with trees, into the 240 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. mountains, principally porphyritical, and like all original mountains, containing more vegetation than the sandy plains, by the longer holding of the pre- cipitated damp and scarce rains. After three hours we came into Wadi G’aqedul, luxuriantly overrun with gesh and prickly trees of every kind — sont, somra, and serha. We here found grazing herds of camels and goats, particulaidy in the neigh- bourhood of the water, which has also attracted numerous birds, among them ravens and pigeons. In the wide, deep-lying grotto, which may be 300 feet in diameter, and is enclosed by high walls of granite, the water is said to remain three years without requiring replenishment. It was, however, so foul and bad smelling, that it was even despised by my thirsty ass. The drinkable water lies farther up the mountain, and is difficult to be obtained. We here forsook the northerly direction, which the wells after Gebcl Nusf had obliged us to take, and went westerly by the Gilif mountains, in Wadi el Mehet, crossed the dry Chdr el Ammer, whence the way to Ambukdl branches off, and encamped at night after ten o’clock in the Wadi el Uer, called by others the Wadi Abu Ilardd. From this place the Gilif mountains retreated eastward again for some time, and only left sand-hills in the foreground, by which we travelled on the following morning. To the W.N.W. we saw another chain, no longer called Gilif; a single projecting double-pointed mountain was called Miglik. The great creek of the Gilif chain, filled with sand-rock, is two hours’ jour- ney broad ; then the way leads northward into these GEBEL EL MAGEQA. 241 mountains, which is called Gebel el Mageqa after the well of Migeqa. Before the entrance into these mountains we came to a place covered with heaps of stones, which might be taken for grave tumuli’, but under which no one lies buried. When the date-merchants, whom we encountered on the following day with their large round wicker-baskets, come this way, they are here asked for money by their camel- driver. Whoever will not give them anything has such a cenotaph raised from its stones, as a memo- rial of his hardheartedness. We also found a similar place in the desert of Korusko. After nine o’clock we got to the well ; we did not however stop, but ascended a wild valley to a considerable height, where we encamped towards noon. The whole road was well-wooded, and thus offered a pleasant variety. The sont or gum trees were scarce here ; the somra was the most frequent, w hich always spreads out into several strong branches on the ground, and ends in an even crown of thin twigs and little greeii leaves, so that it often re- sembles a regularly formed cone overturned, fre- quently attaining a height of fifteen feet. By it grows the heglik, with branches all round the trunk, and single groups of leaves and twigs like the pear-tree. The unprickly serha, on the contrary, has all its branches surrounded with very small green leaflets like moss, and the tondub has no leaves at all, but instead of them little green branch- lets, growing irregularly, almost as thick as foliage, while the salame-bush consists of long slender R 242 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. switches, which are beset with green leaflets and long’ green thorns. After four o’clock we set out, and came down very gradually from the heights. In the Wadi Kalas there are again a number of wells, twenty- five feet deep, with very good rain-water. Here we encamped for the night, although we had only arrived there shortly after sunset. The animals were watered and the skins filled. The whole pla- teau is rich in trees and bushes, and is inhabited by men and animals. Our road on the following day retained the same character, as long as we journeyed between the beautiful and wildly rising walls of porphyry. After two hours we arrived at two other springs also called Kalas, with little but good water. Hence a road leads north-eastward to the well Meroe in the AVadi Abu Dom, probably so denominated from a white rock. Three hours farther, passing by Gebel Abrak, we entered the great Wadi Abu Dom, which we pur- sued in a W.N.W. direction. This remarkable valley runs from the Nile by Mecheref along an extended mountain chain to the village of Abu Dom, which is situated opposite Mount Barkal, in a slanting direction. If it be considered that the upper north-east mouth of this valley, crossing the whole peninsula and its mountains, is almost oppo- site the confluence of the Atbara, which runs into the Nile in the same direction above Mecheref, the idea may be entertained that at one time, though not in historical times, there was here a water com- munication which cut off the greater part of the CHRISTIAN CONVENT. 243 eastern reach of the Nile, which now exists through the circumstance that the rocky plateau near Abu Hammed turns the stream southernward for a degree and a half against its general direction. The name of the valley is taken from the single dom palms that are found scattered up and down in it. The mountain chain running north of the valley is dis- tinctly different from the mountains which we had formerly passed. With our entrance into this valley, we lost the hard mountain soil, and the flying sand again predominated, without, however, over- coming the still not scarce vegetation. After we had passed a side valley, Oiu Shebah, containing well-water, in the afternoon, on the left, we encamped at about nine o’clock for the night. Next morning we came to the deep well, Hanik. I stopped about noon at a second, called Om Sarale, after the tree of the same name. Here 1 left the caravan with Jussuf, to reach Barkal by a circuit to Nuri, lying somewhat higher up the river on this shore. After an hour and a half, we came to the very considerable ruins of a great Christian convent in Wadi Gazal ; so named from the gazelles, who scrape here in the Chor (valley-bed), for water in great numbers. The church was built of white unhewn sand-stone up to the windows, and, above them, of unburnt brick ; the walls covered with a strong coating of gypsum, and painted inside. The vaulted apse of the tri-naved basilica, lies as usual to the eastward, the entrance behind the western transept to the north and south ; all the arches of the doors, windows, and pillar niches are round. Koptic, more or less orna- r 2 244 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. merited, crosses are frequently placed over the door, the simplest form of which, Op] is easily com- parable to the ancient Egyptian symbol of life. The whole is a true type of all the Koptic churches which I have seen, and I therefore add the little ground-plan, which Erbkam took of it. The building is about eighty feet long, and exactly half as broad. The north wall is ruined. The church is surrounded by a great court, the outer walls of which, as also the numerous partly vaulted convent cells, still well preserved, are built of rude blocks. Before the western entrance of the church, separated only by a little court, lies the largest building, forty-six feet in length, probably the house of the prior, from which a particular side entrance led into the church. On the south side of the convent are two church-yards ; the western one, about forty paces from the church, contained a number of graves, which were simply erected of black stones collected together. Nearer to the buildings was the eastern one, which was re- markable for a considerable number of grave- stones, partly inscribed in Greek and partly in Koptic, which will cause me to make a second visit to this remarkable convent before our departure from VIEW OF MOUNT BARKAL. 245 Barkal. I counted more than twenty inscribed stones, of which some had of course suffered extremely, and as many slabs of baked earth, with inscriptions scratched upon them, almost all, how- ever, broken to pieces. They contain the most southern Greek inscriptions which have yet been discovered in the Nile regions, with the exception of the inscription of Adulis and Axum in Abyssinia ; and though it be not doubtful that the Greek language after the promulgation of Christianity, the traces of which we can detect in architectural remains farther than Soba,was used and understood by the na- tives in all the flourishing countries up to Abyssinia, at least for religious purposes; yet these epitaphs, (among which, on a cursory examination, I could find none in the Ethiopian,) seemed to point to immigrat- ing Grneco-Ivoptic inhabitants of the old convent. I left my comrades here, who went direct to Abu Dom at five o’clock, and proceeded to Nuri. Soon there gleamed towards us the blue heights of Mount Barkal, which rises alone with steep sides and a broad platform from the surrounding plain, and immediately attracts attention by its peculiar shape and situation. At six o’clock, the Nile valley lay before us in its whole and somewhat broad extent; a sight long desired, after the desert, and which excites the attention of travellers as much as the nearing coasts after a sea-voyage. Our road turned, however, to the right, and pro- ceeded through the mountains, which still consist of masses of porphyry. When we reached Barkal, right opposite us, I observed on our left a number of black, round, or pyramidal grave-hillocks, with 246 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. which I had been acquainted from Meroe. Pro- bably it was the general burying-place of Napata, still the metropolis of the Ethiopian kings in the time of Herodotus, and situated on the opposite shore ; there must then have also been a consider- able city on the left bank of the Nile, by which the position of the pyramids of Nuri on the same side is explained. Yet I have not been able to discover any ruined mounds answering to such a coujecture. Only behind the village of Duem, and near Abu Dom, I saw such, which were called Sanab, but they were not of any considerable extent. We did not come into the neighbourhood of this important group of pyramids until half-past seven, and we quartered ourselves for the night with the sheikh of the village. Before sunrise I was already at the pyramids, of which I counted about twenty-five. They are par- tially statelier than those of Meroe, but built of soft sandstone, and therefore much disintegrated ; a few only have any smooth casing left. The largest exhibits the same principle of structure within which I have discovered in those of Lower Egypt ; a smaller inner pyramid was enlarged in all directions by a stone casing. At one part of the west side the smoothened surface of the innermost structure was distinctly visible within the eight foot thick, well-joined, outer mantle. Little is to be found here of ante-chambers, as at Meroe and the pyramids of Barkal ; I believe I have only found the remains of two ; the rest, if they existed, must have been quite ruined or buried in the rubbish. Some pyramids stand so close before one another, ABU DOM. 247 that by their position it would be impossible for an ante-chamber to exist, at least on the east side, where they were to be expected. For the rest, the pyramids are built quite massively, of free-stone ; I could only find that the most eastern of all was filled up with black, unhewn stones. A pyramid with a Haw, like that of Dahhslnir, is also here ; but here the lower angle was probably originally intended, as there the upper one, as it is too incon- siderable for a structure in steps. Although I could, unfortunately, find no inscriptions, with the excep- tion of one single fragment of granite, yet several things combine to assure me that this is the elder group, that of Barkal the younger. I arrived at Abu Dom after ten o’clock, where I found my companions. The crossing of the Nile occupied us the whole day, and we first came to Barkal at sunset. Georgi had, to my great joy, arrived here some days ago from Dongola. His assistance is doubly welcome to us, as everything must be drawn here that is discovered. The Ethiopian residence of King Tahraka, who also reigned in Egypt, and left architectural remains behind him, — the same who went forth to Palestine in Hiskias’ time against Sanharib, — is too important for us not to becom- pletely exhausted. 248 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. LETTER XXIII. Mount Barkal. May 28, 1844. I expect every moment the transport-boats requested of Hassan Pasha, which set out eleven days ago, and are to take up our Ethiopian treasures, and bring ourselves to Dongola. The results of our researches at this place are not without importance. On the whole, it is perfectly settled that Ethiopian art is only a later branch of the Egyptian. It does not begin under native rulers until Tahraka. The little which yet remains to us of a former ag-e belongs to the Egyptian conquerors and their artists. It is wholly confined here, at least, to one temple, which Ramses the Great erected to Amen- Ra. Certainly the name of Amenophis III. has been found on several granite rams, as upon the London lions of Lord Prudhoe ;* but there are good grounds for suspecting that these stately colossi did not originally belong to a temple here. They were transported hither at a later period from Soleb, as it would seem, probably by the Ethiopian king whose name is found engraven on the breast of the lions above mentioned, and which has, on account of the erroneous omission of a sign, been hitherto read Amen Asru, instead of Mi Amen Asru. But I have found these rams so remarkable, chiefly on account of their inscriptions, that I have Q* Now standing for many years at the entrance of the Egyp- tian saloon in the British Museum. — K. It. II. M.] NAPATA. 249 resolved to take the best of them with us. The fat sheep may weigh 150 cwt. Yet he had been drawn to the shore on rollers within three hot days by ninety-two fellahs, where he awaits his embarka- tion. Several other monuments are to accompany us lienee, the weight of which we need not fear, now we have the deserts behind us. I only men- tion an Ethiopian altar four feet high, with the car- touches of the king erecting it ; a statue of Isis, on the back pillar of which there is an Ethiopian de- motic inscription in eighteen lines, and another from Meraui ; as also the peculiar monument bearing the name of Amenopliis III., which was copied by Cailliaud, and taken for a foot, but in reality is the underpart of the sacred sparrow-hawk. All these monuments are of black granite.* The city of Napata, the name of which I have often found hieroglyphically, and already on Tah- raka’s monuments, was doubtless situated some- what lower down the river by the present place Meraui, where considerable mounds testify for such a conjecture. In the neighbourhood of the moun- tain the temples and pyramids only were situated. In the hieroglyphical inscriptions, this remarkable rock-mass bears the name of the “ holy mountain,” fj 5 . The God more especially venerated here was Amraon-Ra. On the 18th of May w r e carried out our long- intended second visit to the Wadi Gazal, took im- pressions of all the Greek and Ivoptic inscriptions of # All these monuments are now erected in the Egyptian Museum. See the Ram and the Sparrow-hawk in the “ Monu- ments from Egypt and Ethiopia,” Part III. plate 90. 250 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. the burial-place, and took away with us what appeared yet legible. We are now more sensible than before of the meaning of the summer-season in the torrid zone ; the thermometer usually rises in the afternoon to 37° and 38° Reaumur ; indeed, occasionally, above 40° in the shade. The glowing sand at my feet I often found to be 53°, and whatever is made of metal can onlybe touched with a cloth round it in the open air. All our drawings and papers are richly bedewed with pearly drops of perspiration. But the hot wind is the most annoying, which drives oven-heat in our faces, instead of coolness. The nights are scarcely more refreshing. The thermome- ter falls to 33° towards evening, and towards morn- ing to 28°. Our only refreshment is continual Nile-baths, which, however, Mould be considered warm-baths in Europe. We have several times had storms with violent sand-filled hurricanes, and a few drops of rain. Yesterday a whirlwind beat doMm our tent, and at the same time our arbour of strong trunks and palm-branches fell upon us from its violence, while we were eating ; the meal was scarcely eatable on account of the strong spice of sand. It would seem that violent gusts of M’ind are peculiar to this clime or country, for one often sees four or five high sand-pillars at the same time at different distances, dashing heavemvard like mighty volcanoes. There are few serpents here; but a great number of scorpions, and ugly great spiders more feared by the natives than the scor- pions. We therefore sleep on anqarebs brought from the village, on account of these malicious vermin. ISHISHI. 251 LETTER XXIV. Dongola. June 15, 1844. Before our departure from Barkal, I undertook an excursion up the Nile into the district of the cata- racts, which we had cut off in our desert journey. I also wished to learn the character of this part of the country, the only portion of the valley of the Nile which we had not traversed with the caravan. We went by water to Kasinqar, and remained there the night. From here arise wild masses of granite, which form numerous islands in the rivers, and stop the navigation. With much trouble we arrived the next day, before the camels were ready, at the island of Ishishi, surrounded by violent and dangerous eddies. We here found ruins of Avails and buildings of brick, sometimes of stone, both hewn and unhewn, which leads us to the conclusion that they must have served as fortifications to the island at different times ; yet there Avere no inscriptions, excepting one in a feAv unintelligible signs. We did not mount our camels at Kasinqar until after nine o’clock, and rode along the right hand shore, between the granite rocks, which leave but very little room for a scanty vegetation. The eye is relieved almost wholly in the numerous, and generally smaller islands, by green clumps of trees and cultivated spots multi- fariously intersected by the black crags. There is 252 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. scarcely room for larger villages among these rocks ; few, indeed, could find sustenance among them. The villages consist of single and small rows of houses stretching along at a great distance, yet, bearing the same name, however, to a certain extent. The plain of Kasinqar ended with a beautiful group of palms. Then we entered the district of Ku’eh, followed by the long tract of Hamdab, to which belongs the island of M£rui or M£roe, more than a quarter of an hour in length. Here, too, the name is explained by the situation. It is very high, some- times forty feet above the water-level ; the one now among the larger islands is wholly barren and unin- habited, and excepting the black crags periodically washed by the waters, it is completely white. This is occasioned principally by the dazzling sand-drifts which cover it ; but strangely enough, the rocks jutting out of the sand are also white, either from the broad veins of quartz, in the same manner as another peculiar white rock which I had seen in the province of Robatat, lying on the way, and which was called by the camel-drivers Hager Merui, or because the weather-beaten granite here has contracted this colour. The name of the village of Meraui, near Barkal, has, perhaps, the same origin ; here the white precipices, running from Mdraui to the river, and which attracted my attention on our departure, have suggested the name by their colour. On the opposite shore the Gebel Kongeli, comes near to the river, also called Gebel Merui ; from the island as well as the rushing cataract a little above the island, which has received the name of Shellal M(jru i. IIELLET EL RIB. 253 At four o’clock we arrived at the ruin Ilellet el Bib, which from a distance has quite the appear- ance of a castle of the middle ages. It rises on low rocks, the ridge of which traverses the court and the building itself, so that a part of it appears like an upper story. The whole edifice is built of unburnt, but good and carefully-formed bricks, cemented with a small quantity of mortar, and covered with a coating of the same. Within are various large and small rooms, some with half-round niches in them and arched doorways. The walls of the west side were fifteen feet high. The outer wall of the court of unhewn stone, but carefully built up to about five to eight feet, enclosed a tolerably regular square, the side of which was about sixty-five paces long 1 . This small castle, but still respectable for the neigh- bourhood, reminds one, by its niches and arched doors, of the Christian architecture of former cen- turies, but it does not appear to have been destined for any religious purpose. Perhaps in its prime it belonged to the powerful and warlike tribes of the Shaiqieh, which, according to tradition, immigrated from Arabia into this neighbourhood some centuries ago. At the time of the Egyptian conquest the country was under the dominion of three Shaiqieh princes ; probably one of them resided here. The surrounding country was also more favoured by na- ture, the shore flatter, beset with bushes, here and there bordered by a fertile piece of land. After I had sketched the plan of the building, we set off at nine o’clock in the evening, by the light of a full moon, on our way back, which we 254 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. shortened considerably by taking the road from the island of Saffi through the desert, where we passed the night, on an open sand plain, in the great gra- nite field. About five o’clock, between moonshine and morning dawn, we were again on our way, and by nine o’clock we had reached our ship at Kasin- qar. Near this place I met with a tree quite new to me, in a little Wadi, which led to the river. It was called Ban, and does not grow anywhere but in this Wadi, which is called Chor el Ban from it, and in another, near Meraui.* A strong white- barked stem, not unlike that of our walnut-tree, with some more stems round it, and short white branches, grew short and knotty out of the ground. The branches were now almost naked, a few only had leaves, if we can call the great bunches of switches by that name. The fruit is a long, round fluted ball, which splits into three pieces, when the five to ten black-shelled nuts (of about the size of a hazel-nut) which it contains, are ripe ; the white * From the pods and their contents Dr. Klotzsch recognised the Moringa arabica Pcrsoon {Hyper anther a peregruia For- skal. It seems that this tree was only previously known from Arabia, and is natural there. The single trees near Barkal, which are not mentioned by former travellers, might have been first introduced from Arabia. This is the more probable as the immigration of those tribes of the Shaiqieh Arabs from the Hegaz is now testified by manuscript authorities. QThis tree must therefore be added to the botanical list of Pickering, who, in his Races of Man, has collected all the introduced animals and plants of Egypt, India, America, Polynesia, South- ern Arabia, &c., and though the lists want classification, they are well worthy of attention. — K. R. II. M.] THE CATARACT DISTRICT. 255 sweet, though rather sharp, oily kernel is not un- pleasant ; but it is mostly used by the inhabitants to press oil from. The bloom of the tree is yellow, and grows in bunches. At noon the Sheikh of Nuri came to our boat, from whom I obtained some more information as to the cataract country. There are in the province ofShaiqieh and the adjoining one of Monassir eight especial cataracts : the first, Shelal Gerendid, near the island Ishishi ; Slielal Terai, near Ku’eh ; She- lal Merui ; Shelal Dahak, near the island Uli ; She- lal el Edermieh, e’Kabenat, e Tanarai, and Om Deras. From hence a rocky district stretches to El Kab, whence the stream flows to Shelal Mograt, in the great reach to Berber. There is nothing now spoken in this whole neigh- bourhood but Arabic ; but there is still a recollec- tion of the former Nubian population, as there are yet a number of villages distinguished from the others as Nuba villages. Above the province Don- gola, the following were pointed out to me as such : — Gebel Maqal and Zuma on the right shore, and near the island Massaui, which also bears the Nubian name of Abranarti ; then on the left hand Belled e’ Nuba, between Debbe and Abu Dorn, Haluf or Nuri, and Bellel, opposite Gerf e’ Sheikh and Kasinqar. Then the account springs over to Chdsh e’ Guruf, a little below the island of Mograt, and towards Salame and Darmali, two villages between Mecheref and Darmer ; and finally, there is a Belled e’ Nuba, north of Gos Burn, in the province Metamme. At last, on the 4tli of June, we quitted Barkal, 25G LETTERS FROM EGYPT. after we had loaded the Ram and the other heavy monuments in two transport vessels. We remained the first night in Abu Dom on the left shore. I had heard of a Fakir, belonging to this place, who was said to possess manuscript notes on the tribe of Shaiqieh Arabs. He was an intelli- gent, and for this country, a learned man, and I found him quite ready, not to give me the original of the few sheets he possessed, but to set to work immediately and copy them for me. The next morning we landed first in Tanqassi, about the distance of an hour and a half from Abu Dom, where we were to find ruins. The Fakir Daha, who belonged to the Koresh, the tribe of the Prophet, accompanied us to the now inconsiderable mounds of bricks. We passed by his hereditary tomb, a little cupola building erected by his grand- father, which already had not only received him, but also his father and several other relations. From hence I espied some hills in the distance, which the Fakir declared to be natural. Nevertheless we rode up to them, and found, at about half an hours distance from the river, more than twenty tolerably large pyramids, now apparently formed of nothing but black mud, but originally built of Nile bricks. Single stones lay round about, and on the east side, at some distance, there were always two little heaps of stones, which appeared to have belonged to a kind of ante-chamber, and perhaps were connected with the pyramid by brick walls. Nowhere, however, were there any hewn stones or inscriptions to be found. On the opposite shore, near Kurru, we also found a field of pyramids, but PYRAMID OF QUNTUR. 257 very few ruins of towns were to bo discovered. The largest of the two most considerable pyramids, named Quntur, was about thirty-five feet high, and towards the south-east were the remains of an ante- chamber. Around these two were grouped twenty- one smaller ones, of which four, like the largest pyramid, were built entirely of sandstone, but are now mostly in ruins; others consisted only of black basalt. Finally, westward of all the ground plan of a large apparently quite massive and consequently completely ruined pyramid was to be seen, whose foundation was in the rock. It appears also that this pyramid, which by its solid architecture was distinguished from all the surrounding ones, be- longed to a royal dynasty of Napata; thus it was easier to account for the want of city ruins here than on the opposite side. Three quarters of an hour down the stream on the right, lies the little village of Zuma. Near it, towards the mountains, rises an old fortress, with towers of defence, called Karat Negil, the outer walls of which were ruined and destroyed about fifty or sixty years ago, when the present inhabitants of Zuma settled here. The name is derived from that of an old king of the country, called N^giL, in whose time the surrounding land, which is now barren, was still reached and fertilized by the Nile. The first discovery on the road to the fortress was another number of pyramids, of which eight were vet about twenty feet high ; including the ruined ones, which seemed to have been as usual the most massive, there were altogether thirty ; to s 258 LETTERS FROM EGYFT. the south-west the old quarries are yet to be seen, which had furnished the materials for the pyra- mids. Whilst these three pyramid fields, Tanqassi, Kurru, and Zuma, or Karat N6gil, lying so near to each other, and whose situation has been carefully paced off and marked by Erbkam, show that the neighbourhood had a numerous and flourishing popu- lation in the heathen times, we discovered in the adjoining country and more or less through the whole province of Dongala, the remains of Christian churches. On the 7th of June we visited the three pyramids, at a little distance from each other, all on the right hand shore of the river. Two hours and a half distant from Zuma, Bachit is situated. Here the rock -wall of the desert extends to the river, and bears upon it a fortress, without doubt belonging to Christian times, with eighteen semi-circular projecting towers of defence. In the interior, under heaps of rubbish, were the ruins of a church, which appeared to have marked the centre of the fortress ; it was here only sixty-three feet long, and the whole nave rested on four columns and two wall pillars, nevertheless the plan completely answered to the universal type. The church of Magal, which is only half an hour further, must have been much larger, as we found among the ruins granite monolithic columns thirteen feet and a half high up to the divided capital of a foot and a half, and two feet in diameter ; it appeared to have had five naves. From here we arrived in an hour at Gebel Deqa. Strong, massive walls here also surrounded a Chris- PYRAMIDS. 259 tian fortress, which stood upon the projecting sand- stone rock, and within it the ruins of several large buildings, among which was a small church with three naves, similar to that at Bachit. This is the boundary of the province of Shaiqieh towards Dongola, the last place to the south whose inhabitants speak Arabic. Formerly the boundary of the Nubian population and speech extended without doubt as far as the cataracts above Barkal. This appears to have caused the numerous fortresses in this neighbourhood, and also the strong fortification of the island of Ishishi. The Nubians, to whom already, in the sixth cen- tury, Christianity had penetrated by way of Abys- sinia, were then a powerful people, till their Chris- tian priest-kings, in the fourteenth century, turned to Islamism. At this time the building of the numerous churches, wdiose ruins we found scattered through the whole province northwards from Wadi Gazfil, must have taken place. We went the same day to Ambukol, at the point of the western reach of the Nile, and remained there the night. The following day we reached Tifar, and again visited the ruins of a fortress, with the remains of a church. On the way we met Hassan Pasha’s boat, which was going to M6raui. We fired salutes, and ran alongside each other. The Pasha inquired earnestly about the treasures which he supposed would be in the pyramids of Barkal, and with the greatest com- plaisance promised us anything we desired in fur- therance of our journey and object. After he had s 2 260 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. immediately returned our visit, we parted, firing fresh salutes. On the 10th of June we reached Old Dongola, the former capital of this Christian kingdom. The immense ruins of the town show little more at pre- sent than its former great extent. Upon a moun- tain, near which commands a delightful prospect all round, stands a mosque. An Arabic inscription, on marble, shows that this was opened on the 20th Rabi el anel, in the year 717 (1st June, 1317), after the victory of Safeddin Abdallah e’ Nasir over the infidels. As we had discovered so few monumental re- mains since our departure from Barkal, to employ the leisure time which we had in our boat, I busied myself with making every possible research into and comparison with the present language and the Nubian. It offers very remarkable points in the science of language, but does not show the least similarity to the Egyptian. I consider that the whole race must have come at a late period out of the south-west into the valley of the Nile. We have now a servant from Derr, the capital of Lower Nubia, who speaks tolerably good Italian ; he is alert and intelligent, and is of great service to me on account of his knowledge of the Mahass dialects. I have sometimes tormented him with questions for five or six hours in a dav in the boat, as it is no small trouble to either of us to understand each other upon the forms and changes of grammar. He has, at any rate, acquired more respect for his own language, which everywhere here, when compared NEW DONGOLA. 261 with the Arabic, is reckoned bad and vulgar, and people are ashamed of being- obliged to speak it. When we arrived yesterday, after three days’ journey from Old Dongola here, in New Dongola, generally called El Orde (the camp) by the Arabs, we had the great pleasure of receiving the large packet of letters, of which we had already been informed by Hassan Pasha on the road. Since then we look forward with fresh courage to the last difficult part of our journey to the south, as we must here, alas ! leave our boats, and mount the far more uncomfortable ship of the desert. The cataract district, now lying before us, is only to be navigated at high water, and then not without danger. Our richly-laden stone boat we were obliged to submit to the dangerous trial, as land- carriage for the Ham and the other monuments was naturally not to be thought of. We shall not be able to set out from here so immediately, on account of the general reform which must take place in our preparations for the journey of the next five or six weeks. From our boat with the packages we must, however, separate ourselves, as it must seize upon the right moment of the high water, which will not be for some weeks. 262 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. LETTER XXV. Dongola. June 23 , 1844 . We returned yesterday from a four day’s trip to the next cataract, which we were able to reach with the boat. Our collection w 7 as unexpectedly rich We have found a great number of old monuments of the time of the Pharoahs, the only ones in the whole province of Dongola, and part of them very ancient. On the island of Argo we discovered the first Egyp- tian sculpture of the time of the Hyksos, and near Kerman on the right hand shore, traces of an exten- sive city, spread wide over the plain, with an im- mense burying-ground adjoining, in which two large monuments were conspicuous, one of which was called Kerman (like the village), the other Defufa. They are not pyramids, but oblong squares, the first 150 feet by 66, the second 132 feet by 66, and about 40 feet high, quite massive and strong, and built of good firm unburnt Nile bricks ; each has an out-building, resembling the ante-temple of the Pyramid. Many fragments of statues lying about, (in the best ancient style, partly covered with good hieroglyphics,) point out their great antiquity; so that we may judge this to be the oldest important Egyptian settlement on Ethiopian ground, which was probably rendered necessary through the in- crease of Egyptian power towards Ethiopia, during the supremacy of the Hyksos in Egypt. Without REMAINS ABOUT DONGOLA. 263 doubt, the enormous granite bridges which we found some hours north of Kerman at the entrance of the cataract district, opposite the island Tombos on the right hand shore, were belonging to this town. The rock inscriptions contain arms of the seventeenth dynasty, and an inscription of eighteen lines bears the date of the second year of Tuthmosis I. Here, in Dongola, I have also begun to study the Kong’ara language of Dar Fur. A negro soldier born in that feared and warlike land, with woolly hair and thick pouting lips, whom we brought with us during the last year from Ivorusko to Wadi Haifa, as orderly officer, instead of the one appointed by Ibrahim Pasha, sought us out again, and was given up to me by the Pasha to assist me in my philological studies. He began well, but in half an hour I w r as obliged to get the Nubian to interpret for me. The Kong’&ra is quite different from the Nubian, and appears to me in some points to have a strong analogy with certain South African lan- guages. It gave me great pleasure to see here the fortress built by Ehrenberg in 1822, it has certainly suf- fered from the inundations, but still serves Hassan Pasha as a dwelling. There will also remain a building in remembrance of us, as the Pasha begged Erbkam to give him the plan of a powder-tower, and to seek out a suitable spot for its erection. 264 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. LETTER XXVI. Koritsko. August 17, 1844. Our departure from Dongola did not take place till the 2nd July. We journeyed slowly down the west side of this river ; and on the same day we came to large fields of ruins, the inconsiderable re- mains of once flourishing cities whose names are lost. The first we found opposite Argonsene, others near Koi' and Mosh. On the following day we passed near Hannik, opposite Tombos, in the province of Mahas ; here begins the Cataract district and a new Nubian dialect, which extends to Derr and Korusko. The Nile takes a northerly course till it comes to a high mountain named after a former conqueror, Ali Bersi ; this we passed to the left early on the third day. It lies on the sudden turning of the river, from north-west to due east, where it is usual to avoid the greater part of the province of Mahas by a northerly desert road. We, however, followed the windings of the river, and came in the neigh- bourhood of old forts on the shore, to a grove of palm-trees, in whose shade we rested during the heat of mid-day. The nearest of these forts so ro- mantically situated among the rent rocks, I find dif- ferently named upon every map, as Fakir Effendi (Cailliaud), Fakir el Bint, from bint , the Maiden (Hoskins), Fakir Bender, from bender , the metro- polis (Arrowsmitli) ; it is, however, called Fakir TEMPLE OF AMENOPHIS III. 265 Fenti in the dialect of the country, or Fakir Benti in that of Dongola, and is so named from the palms at their foot ( Fenti , benti, means palms and dates). We arrived on the 4th of July at Sese, a moun- tain on which is the remains of a fortress. Our servant Ahmed (from Derr), informed us that after the death of every king, his successor was led to the top of this mountain, and decked with a peculiar royal head-dress. Such forts as Sese, of which from the high land we saw many both far and near, tell of a former numerous and warlike population, which has now almost disappeared. The ruins, lying about a quarter of an hour to the south of Mount Sese, are called Sesebi. Here stood an old temple, of which, however, only four columns, with palm capitals, re- main standing ; these bear the cartouches of Setlios I., the most southerly that we have found of this king. In the neighbourhood of these remains, are situated the ruins of a city, on an artificial platform, the regular circumvallation of which is still to be recognized. On the 6th of July we got to Solb (Soleb), the well-preserved and considerable temple of which was erected by Amenopliis III., to his own genius, the divine Ra-neb-ma (Amenopliis.)* The rich * The literal expression is, that he has huilt the temple ^ //“to his image, Ra-neb-ma, living on the earth.” The word client no longer exists in Koptic, but it is always translated eIkwv, on the Rosetta stone. The temple and the place belonging to it was also named after the king, but according to his Horus-name, “ Dwelling-place of Sha-em- ma ; this led to the recognition of the original position of the ram of Barkal and the lions in the British Museum. 2GG LETTERS FROM EGYTT. decorations of this temple, (the same to which our ram from Barkal, and the lions of Lord Prudhoe once belonged,) furnished us with employment for nearly five days. On the 11th of July we first departed again. Scarcely an hour hence to the northward lies Gebel Doshe ; a sandstone rock projecting to the river, in which a grotto is hewn on the river side, containing sculptures of Tuthmosis III. The same evening we got to Sedeinga, where Amenopliis III. built a temple to his own wife Tii. In the midst of the picturesque heap of ruins a single pillar stands up. To the west, a great grave-field extends. On the 13tli of July we stopped at a shdna (so are the Government station magazines called), opposite Mount Abir or Qabir, a little below the northern point of the island of Sai. Indirectly over the river, lies the village of Amara, and in its neigh- bourhood, the ruins of a temple. I was not a little astonished to recognize the stout queen of Naga and Meroe and her husband, on the columns, of which six are still remaining. This temple was built by them, an important testimony of the far extending government of that Ethiopian dynasty. On the grave-field to the south of the temple, I also re- marked fragments of inscriptions in the already mentioned Demotic-Ethiopian alphabet, of which I had also found some examples in the neighbourhood of Sedeinga. After we had paid a visit to the island of Sai, on the next day, where we had found the few remains of a temple with inscriptions of Tuthmosis III., and SULPHUR SPRINGS OF OKMGH. 267 Amenopliis II., besides the ruins of a town and a Koptic church, — we proceeded onward, and arrived on the 15th of July at Dal, which forms the frontier between the provinces of Sukkot and Batn el hag’er (Stonebelly). At night we encamped by the cataract of Kalfa. Hence our way led in the neighbourhood of the hot sulphur springs of Okmeh, whither I diverged rom the caravan with Abeken. The road led us from the Shona where we parted, along the craggy shore for above an hour, to a square tower, which has been erected over the fountain, and called Hamman Se'idna Soliman, after the architect. The tower, which is nine feet thick, and has an inward diameter of four feet, is now half full of sand and earth ; the water rushes out of the east side of the tower to the thickness of your wrist, and on the other side sixteen little springs rise out of the sand within the space of a square foot ; and here, where the water is at the hottest, it has not quite 44° Reaumur. The taste is sulphurous, and a white deposit lies all round the fountain on the ground. Every year the river rises above the spring, and indeed, above the tower, which stands at half the elevation of the shore. The water mirror had now risen to the height of a man, and had not yet reached the fountain. A rude hole is dug in the rubbish for the invalids that come hither, and is covered with rushes to keep off the steam. Some- what further down the river, another streamlet comes out, which retains 40° of warmth at its mouth in the open air. The legend goes, that Okaslie, a friend of the prophet, was killed in a 2G8 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. campaign to the south ; his body swam up hither and then disappeared in the rocks on the opposite shore. His grave is still pointed out there at some distance from the river; a tree marking the spot. On the 17th of July we encamped near the temple of Semneh. The village only consists of a few straw huts,* shaded by some date-trees ; yet the many fragments in the district show that there was once a much more considerable place here. The temple is surrounded by mighty ancient works of defence, the building of which goes as far back as the Old Empire, under Sesurtesen III., a king of the twelfth dynasty.f It seems that this king first extended the bounds of the Egyptian empire to this place; indeed, he is found at a later period worship- ped as a local divinity. The temple, built by Tuthmosis III., in the New Empire, is dedicated to him and the god Tetun conjointly. On the right shore too, near the village of Kummeh, old fortifications are found, and within them a still larger temple, already commenced by Tuthmosis II. The most important discovery that we made here (which I only mention cursorily, as I have at the same time sent a complete account of it to Ehren- berg), is a number of short rock inscriptions, which give the highest Nile levels for a series of years, under the government of Amenemha III. (Moeris), and hisdmmediate successors. These accounts are partly Q* For the straw huts down the Nile, and particularly beyond Chartum, see Werue’s White Nile, chapter i. vol. i. p. 28. — K. R. II. M.] Q+ See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p. 624. — K. R. II. M.J ROCK INSCRIPTIONS. 2fi.‘> valuable historically, as they brilliantly confirm my conjecture, that the Sebekhotep immediately fol- lowed the twelfth dynasty, and are partly of peculiar interest for the geological history of the Nile, as they prove that the river rose, four thousand years ago, nearly twenty-four feet higher than at present and, therefore, must have caused quite different pro- portions of inundation and soil for the upper and lower country. The examination of this curious locality, with its temples and rock inscriptions, em- ployed us for twelve days. On the 20th of July we went from Semneli to Abke, and visited on the next day the old fortress north of that place, which is called El Kenissa, (the church,) and therefore probably contained one at some period. From the top of this fortress we had the most magnificent prospect of the principal cataracts of the whole district. Three great falls were distinguishable in the broad rocky islet valley from the smaller ones ; several hundred islands passed under review to yonder black mountains, Toward the north, however, the wide plain stretched, which extend from Wadi Haifa to Philae. The gradual change in the geological construction of the rocks was plainly visible, as we descended from the last ridge of the shore crags into the great plain, from which but a few single sandstone cones arise from the bed of a dried up ocean. These are no doubt the sources of the endless sand, which, driven by the north wind into the mountains, rendered our journey to Semneh so difficult. On the 1st of August we quitted Wadi Haifa in three barks, and passed through districts already well- 270 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. known. Next morning we came to Abu Simbel, where we stopped nine days, in order to secure the rich representations of the two rock temples as complete as possible. I sought for a long time for the remarkable Greek inscription which Leake found on one of the four mighty Ramses-colossi, until I happily discovered it in the rubbish on the left leg of the second colossus from the south. I was obliged to have a great excavation made, in order to obtain a perfect impression on paper. There seem to me to be no grounds whatever not to take the inscription for that for which it proclaims itself, viz. for a memorial of the Greek mercenaries, who came hither with Psammetichus I. in pursuit of the rebel- lious warriors. Among the rest of the inscriptions of the colossus I find some Phoenician ones. After we had visited rock monuments on the op- posite shore, near Abahuda and Shataui, we left Abu Simbel, on the 11th of August, and next stopped on the right shore near Ibrim, the ancient Primis, the name of which I have found written hieroglypliically PRM. On the left bank, opposite Ibrim, lies Anibe, in the neighbourhood of which we found and drew a solitary, but well preserved private grave of the time of the twentieth dynasty. Then we went on to Derr, where we received the richest of post-bags, which filled us all with joy. With these treasures we hastened, by way of Amada, hither to Korusko ; the charming palm groups of which had become dear to us during our long though unwilling stay last year. To-day (Sun- day) we have, therefore, determined to celebrate the fortunate completion of our journey in the gayest reminiscences. Our barks lie quietly bv the shore. WADI KENUS. 271 LETTER XXVTI. PlIILAE. September 1 , 1844 . I am only now first able to end my report from Korusko, which we quitted on the evening of the 18th of August, to sail for Sebua. From thence to Philae the valley is called Wadi Kenus, “ the valley of Beni Kensi,” a tribe often mentioned in the Arabic accounts. The upper val- ley from Korusko to Wadi Haifa is generally called Wadi Nuba on all the maps, a name certainly used by Burckhardt, but which must rest on an error. Neither our Nubian servant Ahmed, born at Derr, nor any of the inhabitants know this name, and even the septuagenarian Hassen Kashef, who governed the country before the Egyptian conquest, could not return any replies to my careful questions. Accord- ing to their unanimous assertion, the lower district has always been called Wadi Kenus. Then follows near Korusko the Wadi el Arab, so called by the immigrated Arabs of the desert, then Wadi Ibrim, and lastly Wadi Haifa. The government designa- tion of the whole province between the two cata- racts is, however, since the conquest Gism Haifa, the province Haifa. In Korusko, I found a Bishari, named ’Ali, whose intelligent and pleasing manners determined me immediately to engage him as a teacher for this im- portant language. He accepted very willingly my 272 LETTERS FROM EGYPT. invitation to accompany us, and now every leisure moment was occupied in preparing a grammar and vocabulary. He was born in the interior of the dis- trict Beled Ellaqi, which is eight days distant from the Nile, and twenty from the Red Sea, and gives its name to the remarkable Wadi Ellaqi, which ex- tends without any interruption through the broad plains from the Nile to the sea. He calls the Bishari country Edbai and their language “ Midab to Beg’auie,” the Beg’a language : this shows its identity with the language of the powerful Beg’a people, celebrated during the middle ages. From Korusko we sailed to Sebua, where w 7 e remained four days ; then by Dakke (Pselchis) and Kuban (Contra-Pselchis) to G’erf Hussen, with its rock temple, dedicated by Ramses to Ptah. By former travellers this place has often been called Girshe, a corruption of the name of a village lying on the eastern shore, called by the Arabians Qirsh, and by the Nubians Kish or Kisliiga, and which lies in the neighbourhood of some important ruins, called Sabagura. The 25th August we passed in the temple of Dendur, built under the Roman em- pire, and the next day in Kalabslieh, the ancient Talmis, this temple also contains only the arms of Caesar (Augustus). Talmis was for a long time the capital of the Blemyer, whose incursions into Egypt caused much trouble to the Romans. Upon one of the pillars of the outer court the interesting inscription of Sileo is graven, who calls himself a (da.(ri'hl