Notes from Egypt

My dear E

Behold me once more on board our snug little boat gliding down the mighty stream towards Cairo, which we hope to reach about the last week of the now approaching month of May. Mr. Pengelly and myself arrived at Korosko on the evening of the 24th, after an absence from the boat of ninety-nine days, since the 16th of January, when we quitted it at Wady Halfeh for New Dongola (Ourdeh) by camels. These hundred days have been full of incident; of much pleasure mingled with much inconvenience; and sometimes with much discomfort from the dirt, dust, heat, cold, bad lodging, and worse diet, which it was our lot to put up with at various times. Still these would have been light and transient evils, worthy only of being forgotten as soon as passed, — and indeed they mostly served as subjects for merriment to us at the moment, — but it pleased the Almighty to throw a deep gloom over the latter part of our Ethiopian journey, by removing one of our little party of three by death. Our young friend and fellowtraveller, Mr. Lakes, died at Berber on the 6th of this month, after an illness of ten days, caused by a malignent eruptive fever of the country, called Jiddereh or Jeddereh, and very analogous in its symptoms to the small pox. At Khartoun we occupied the house of the inspecting surgeon to the troops there, M. Pennay, then absent on a professional visit to Kordafan; and in a part of the premises adjacent to those we inhabited, was a black man in the worst stage of this most loathsome malady, whom, however, we left on the 21st of March, on quitting Khartoun, far advanced towards recovery, and quite out of danger. This man was all we saw, and there can be little doubt, that from him poor Mr. Lakes caught the infection.

The passage from Khartoun to Berber was made in a boat of the country, an ill-built, leaky, confined craft, literally swarming with rats, cockroaches, and bugs, the former two running over our beds at night, they being only formed by our mattrasses spread on the floor of the cabin, which was merely large enough to contain two of the party, the third being obliged to sleep outside. The cabin just sufficiently high to sit upright in, and with a narrow space of about a foot between the beds, was covered with dirt of all kinds. To add to our discomfort, the strong north wind blowing in through the crazy panelling, deposited a thick layer of drift sand from the contiguous desert, on our clothes, beds, and other baggage, and which it was impossible to prevent mingling with our food whilst being dressed, and afterwards when served up on the dirty floor between the mattrasses. By night, the wind blew in upon us cold and furious, without our having any means of excluding it; and our crew of Ethiopians stunned us whilst at their oars with their barbarous, vociferous, and monotonous chanting, sometimes for half the night together; but it is not well to interdict this amusement, as they cease to pull with energy, if not allowed to sing while rowing. We repassed Metammeh, inspected Shendy, and on the 27th visited the highly curious and interesting pyramids and site of ancient Meroe, a day 's sail below Shendy. Many of these pyramids are in 1 admirable preservation; their number is immense, and their porches are adorned with well wrought sculptures | and hieroglyphics. Very few Europeans, comparatively, I have viewed these curious monuments (commonly 1 known now as the pyramids of Assour from a village in their vicinity), as well as those of Neuri, and Gebel Berkel Napata near Merouwah.

Up to this date (March 27th) Mr. Lakes appeared in his usual state of health, which had been improving since we left Cairo, but on the 28th he felt very unwell, and expressed his fear to me that he was about to have an attack of fever: I gave him the only medicines I had at hand, proper for such a complaint, some castor-oil which I bought at Cairo, and a dose of Dover's powder on going to bed. The numerous discomforts I have just mentioned must have greatly aggravated his complaints: but he bore them with the most exemplary patience till we arrived at Berber on the 1st of April, when he was too ill to walk or ride into the town from the boat, and was of necessity carried on one of our travelling pallet bedsteads or Ungereels to our lodgings. In this wretched town of Berber there is but a single European resident, a worthy Frenchman, M. Lafargue, who carries on the usual commerce of the country in gum, ivory, ebony, &c. Mr. Pengelly and myself immediately waited on this gentleman, and stating our distressing condition, he at once reported our arrival to the no less worthy Turkish Governor, who instantly ordered one of the most airy and commodious houses m the place to be got ready for us, and into which poor Mr. Lakes was forthwith removed from the rats and vermin of the boat, already covered from head to foot with an eruption like the small-pox, and which speedily assumed the appearance of that which we had seen on the black man at Khartoun, but still fuller, and far more confluent. Had Mr. Lakes not assured me that he had been vaccinated, I should have supposed that he laboured under small-pox in its most malignant shape, but I never saw even in that disease, an eruption so frightful.

I was sorely puzzled how to act, without any medicine but castor-oil, and a little compound powder of Ipecacuanha. M. Lafargue was no doctor, but assisted me with the means of administering castor-oil. I allowed Mr. Lakes nothing but a little barley-water, and endeavoured to keep him as cool as possible in a room the temperature of which was but little below 100°, and out of doors, still higher. Strange to say, with so confluent an eruption, there was not one urgent or alarming symptom, the pulse was strong to the last, and the fever very moderate, the head not at all affected till within a few hours of his death. In this way he went on for eight days, and as I hoped even improving, notwithstanding the intense heat of the weather (which the absolute want of the commonest conveniences of life in this barbarous and poverty stricken land, made it impossible to mitigate), and the tormenting swarms of flies which it required instant attention to drive away from his face and arms.

At this time we received a visit from a native Arab doctor, employed as medical inspector of the few wretched troops in garrison here, at Shendy, and other places in the provinces; who stated that he called in consequence of the reports he had received of a European being ill at Berber, and to offer his services if acceptable. As this man had studied medicine in Egypt under the celebrated Clot Bey, I consented, after consulting with Mr. Pengelly and M. Lafargue, to let him see Mr. Lakes; when he instantly pronounced his case to be Jeddereh in a worse form than he had ever met with in any native subject; indeed our poor young friend presented a spectacle truly distressing, scarcely a feature in his mild and rather handsome countenance being recognisable. In this perplexing state of things, we all agreed that it would be advisable to leave the management of an unknown disease in the hands of a native practitioner who held a position of trust and responsibility. This man's treatment was confined to the application of a large bread poultice to the stomach, and simply administering elder or orange-flower water, keeping the patient as before on barley-water; but, instead of allowing the access of as much fresh and cool air as the weather and imperfect ventilation would admit of, he ordered Mr. Lakes to be enclosed under mosquito curtains, — alleging, on my venturing to hint the expediency of a cooler regimen, that it was the invariable custom in this complaint to keep the patient warm, because, as I understood him to say, free exposure to so dry an air as that of Africa, tended to repel the eruption: he pronounced his patient to be going on taib keteer (very well), and said that the crisis usually took place on the tenth day from the first symptoms appearing.

On the 6th, Mr. Lakes seemed, if not improved, at least not at all worse, excepting that I perceived a slight confusion, or rather slowness in his answers, which I attributed to exhaustion from heat and want of nourishment; his pulse was still strong, and he actually got of his close confined couch, and walked into our room with his pillow under his arm at a steady pace, intending to seek for coolness on our pallet bedstead; the fever was moderate, but his face swollen and disfigured. We persuaded him easily to return to his bed: the doctor called early in the forenoon, gave a favourable opinion, and said that he should return in an hour, which he never did. Soon afterwards, Mr. Lakes fell into a quiet sleep, from which, being in hourly expectation of the doctor's return, we did not of course wish him to wake; the latter however not making his appearance even till long past noon, and Mr. Lakes continuing unusually quiet, I went to his bedside to see if he were awake, or wanted anything. Something, I hardly know why, misgave me, as I lifted the mosquito curtains, and perceived he was gone. Mr. Lakes was only twenty-one years of age, of a most mild, placid disposition, and during the whole of his illness not a single complaint escaped his lips; suffering as he must have done from the intense heat, and the privations of a barbarous country, in which nothing like European comforts could be procured. His remains were interred the same evening, by the permission of the few Coptic Christians resident in Berber, in their cemetery on the desert, a short mile out of the town; the grave was lined and roughly vaulted with crude bricks, set with mud instead of mortar. The body was simply wrapped in folds of new calico; for had the weather allowed time for making a coffin, the place could not have afforded wood for its construction, and a workman would have required several days to get it finished after having procured the wood and nails; so slothful are the people, and so destitute of even the commonest tools and materials of civilized society, in this degenerated country.

The Copts are usually held to be an exceedingly bigoted sect, proudly intolerant of all other Christian denominations; and therefore their liberality in freely permitting a member of a widely different church to lie in their own consecrated ground, we felt very gratefully; their example might be imitated with advantage by many much nearer home. These worthy Copts even themselves assisted as bearers in carrying poor Mr. Lakes to his last earthly resting place; and our Moslem attendants and acquaintances shewed no religious antipathy in their visits of condolence, or by refusing to perform any little office necessitating contact with the deceased.

Nothing could exceed the kindness of Mr. Lafargue, and the liberal attentions of the amiable and enlightened Turkish governor, Ali Hasseab Bey, who sent us his own private bath, and twice supplied us with Castor oil, for which he was obliged to send a janissary to search the town. In countenance, address, and suavity of deportment, he would have passed as a perfect gentleman at any European court; he invited us, ( Mr. Pengelly and myself), to dine with him the day after our arrival a la Turc, and although he spoke but very little French, and still less Italian, I could perceive that he was a man of superior mind.

I may here remark that since leaving Wady Halfeh, French has been of immense use to me, as we have been thrown almost entirely into the society of foreigners, the few Europeans we have met having been either French, Italians, or Greeks. I am glad to say that very few indeed of our own countrymen are to be found engaged in the business of merchant adventurers, most of whom are slave dealers, besides their other occupations, and renegadoes who have abjured the habits, and thrown off the claims of their native country, adopting the demi-civilization of the higher class of the land of their continued sojourn, for trading purposes. One such however, there is, who divides his time between Khartoun p and Kordofan, Mr. -Petherick: he has been made British consular agent at the former place. The few fellow countrymen we have seen in business have been chiefly in Egypt, plain, respectable men, holding stationary ofhces in the pay of the Pasha as superintendents of gardens, public or private works, &c. Mr. Trail, for instance, and Mr. Fox of Ernout, and Mr. Eainsford of Rhoda.

The little society to be found at Khartoun consists entirely of the few merchant adventurers settled there, (and who are always on the move backwards and forwards to and from Cairo, Kordofan, Fay, &c), with the Turkish authorities. Military officers, &c. of the place. The Europeans fall in completely with the semi-civilized life of the Turks, and a detestable, demoralized state of society is the result, as dull and unintellectual as can be conceived; everything below this small select circle, such as it is, is utter barbarism, destitution, or oppression. No lady has been visible in any house we have entered since leaving Egypt, all the Europeans are understood to have their harem; and to enquire after the lady of the house would be considered a great breach of decorum, supposing, as is sometimes the case, any woman entitled to that distinction on strictly connubial grounds, to be really at the head of the household. I should however be most ungrateful to our temporary friends at Khartoun were I to omit acknowledging their uniform hospitality, and desire to make our stay amongst them agreeable by every means in their power; and to say the truth, there was no lack of amusing incidents, and we gained an excellent insight into Turkish ways and habits of living during our stay. I shall have a fund of odd anecdotes ' and adventures to amuse you with on my return.

There is something very prepossessing in the manners of the Turks of the higher class: we paid our respects severally to the governors of Ourdeh ( New Dongola) Khartoun, and Berber, and found them all men of the world, polite, affable, and gentlemanly. The governor of Khartoun, Latif Pasha, received us most courteously, and gave us a government order as ruler of the province, on the governor of Berber, for camels to Abou Hamed and Korosko; yet this man, only two or three months before, murdered his own wife, and it is supposed that his conduct may be still made a subject of judicial enquiry at Constantinople, unless he can buy off the investigation, which no doubt he can do, as the salaries of such governors are enormous, and regularly paid, which is not the case with those of inferior functionaries. Latif Pasha appeared to us to be perfectly at his ease, and conversed in Arabic and Italian with my fellowtravellers and myself.

Poor Mr. Lakes is the second Englishman who has died within three months in this barbarous corner of the world. You must I imagine have read in the papers, or otherwise heard of the sudden death of Mr. M., a wealthy Liverpool merchant, which happened in the desert between Berber El Maghyr and Abou Hamed, in January last, about a day's journey by camels short of the latter place. Mr. M. who was considerably past sixty years of age, conceived the singular idea of making a tour from Cairo to the junction of the Blue and White rivers with his family, consisting of himself, Mrs. M. his daughter and two sons, all grown up. They pursued exactly the same route and plan as ourselves; left their boat at Wady Halfeh with instructions to drop down the river to Korosko 3 there to await their return. On passing that place about the 10th or 12th of January, we saw the boat which had come from Wady Halfeh a few days before. Mr. M. seems to have travelled en prince throughout, with a great train of camels and servants. This family taking as I have said the same route as ourselves, by Old and New Dongola, Metummeh, Shendy, &c. visiting the pyramids of Neuri, Gebel Berkel, and Meroe (Assouan,) by the way, arrived safely on their return as far as Berber; but on traversing the desert between Berber and Abou Hamed, Mr. M. was suddenly taken ill; accounts vary as to whether it was fever, or a coup de soleil, probably the latter, which is said to be more prevalent during the winter than the summer months, on account of the increased excitability of the system by the vast difference of temperature between the day and night at that season; the latter being as we experienced, bitterly cold, whilst the thermometer will be at 90° or even 100° in the shade at noon the twelve hours following. Mr. M. died in six days; the head of a family, and of an extensive mercantile firm, cut off in an African desert, with his family indeed around him, but without the least medical aid at hand, and with no greater comfort than a tent could afford, or at best, a mud hovel, into which I believe he was ultimately removed; as his death took place not far from a small hamlet where we had bivouacked for the night on traversing the same ground about a fortnight before.

This part of the road is far from being pure desert, having small trees, and occasionally a few huts here and there, and the track lies near the river all the way from Berber to Abou Hamed, Mr. M's. remains were interred beside the main (camel) track, on a spot over which a memorial of crude brick has been raised perhaps three ; feet above the level of the ground. The distress of his , family, and their embarrassment at this sudden stroke, — left in so remote a place, with the body of a husband and a father, may be easily conceived. Nothing however could be done but to make the best of their way across the Great desert to Korosko, where we have since heard they arrived safely.

We were extremely fortunate in our passage of the Great desert between Abou Hamed and Korosko, a distance of 250 miles, which was accomplished on camels in ten days, travelling mostly by night, and resting during a great part of the day, when we spread our mattrasses in some cave, or on a projecting ledge of rock, and so slept away the most sultry hours.

Our fare during this time was very scanty and innutritious; no meat, milk, or vegetables to be had; a little boiled rice or maccaroni, with a few dates, a kind of rusk called Baksumet, almost uneatable from its bitterness and staleness, with a cup of coffee, — such was our desert fare; our drink, water, out of filthy skins.

This desert is indeed a great and terrible wilderness, and every one we spoke with concerning it, gave it a bad character. We left Abou Hamed on the 15th April, and reached Korosko late on the 24th, and, though in so advanced a season, strange to say, we felt more inconvenience from the cold of the desert at night than from the heat by day. Such was the chilliness of the nights, that I have shivered under my blanket as I lay on the mattrass spread on the stony and sandy ground, although wrapped in a thick pilot cloth coat; whilst we could sleep soundly under a rock by day, when the lifeless landscape of red and yellow sand, out of which everywhere rose hills like huge heaps of half burnt coals, or molten iron, was glowing, as if actually on fire; our camels all the while lying around our bivouac, fully exposed to the sun at a temperature of 150° or more. About 2 p.m. whilst the heat was still | intense, we mounted, and pursued our journey till about half-past six, then rested for about an hour, took coffee, remounted, and continued our way till 11 or 12, when we spread our mattrasses on the ground and slept till 3; we then resumed our journey till sun-rise, after which we halted till 2 in the afternoon as before, for breakfast, dinner, and rest. Occasionally when circumstances called for the change, we altered these arrangements in some degree; but the above were the usual hours for rest and travelling. This desert is the very acme of lifelessness and sterility, and is strewed at intervals throughout its whole length with the skeletons of camels and even occasionally of human beings that have perished in its solitudes. The number of unfortunate animals that succumb to fatigue under their burdens is incredible. We calculated that one, two, or even three skeletons of camels occurred on an average of every fifty yards of distance. The bones remain entire, and become bleached by the sun and air to the whiteness of the finest ivory; the bodies are rapidly destroyed, not by the usual process of decomposition, but by vultures, and hysenas (of the latter we saw the tracks repeatedly), which devour the flesh and soft parts: the little they leave, together with the skin, shrivelling up quickly under the sun and parching air. We noticed one human skull, and many skeletons of oxen and horses as well as of camels.

No one who has not seen it, can form the least idea of the intensely savage features of an Ethiopian desert, or of the fearfully awful solitude and silence which reign in it. Providentially, nearly half way across this wilderness occurs a fine rocky reservoir of the purest rain water, which the camels cannot approach near enough to defile, on account of the blocks of stone which lie around it, This water has not in the slightest degree that peculiarly unpleasant taste which distinguishes rain water in other countries, because it descends through an atmosphere perfectly free from animal or vegetable bodies; and no such substances are to be found in a state of decomposition in the natural basin at El Medinet, as the spot is called. Of course we replenished our waterskins and zemzemeers with this excellent water, which I found greatly superior to the flat insipid fluid so much praised under the name of Nile water. Our zemzemeers were a great comfort on our desert travelling from Khartoun: each of us carried one suspended from the saddle of the camel we rode. As I intend taking mine into Syria, and bringing it home to England, I shall only observe, that it is a large leathern bag, combining the forms of a bottle and of a bucket, such as you see hung up in churches and public buildings for serving fire engines. It has two mouths closed with painted wooden stoppers attached to the zemzemeer by thongs of leather; the whole being suspended by a broad strap of the same material, to any object from which you wish to hang it. The zemzemeers being of a porous kind of leather the water slowly exudes, and by the rapid absorption into the air intensely dry and heated, the water within is cooled down to a most refreshing point of refrigeration. The air of the desert has an extraordinarily vivifying influence on the human frame, which the intense heat during the day-time seems unable to counteract. It has passed almost into a proverb, that no one ever falls sick in the desert, which, if not literally true, is in the main correct, and certainly an African desert, if only well supplied with water, would be the best, though not the most agreeable site, for a Sanitarium in the world. Even with the system lowered as it was on starting from Abou Hamed, and with little to sustain or repair it on the road, the powerful stimulus of the desert atmosphere almost took away the feeling of debility which had hung on Mr. Pengelly and myself for many weeks past, consequent on the want of the good nourishing diet we had been accustomed to in Egypt. The bread and meat in Nubia and Ethiopia, with very few and rare exceptions, were execrable: the latter, I always ate with loathing, so hard, tough, dry, and tasteless, or else so soft, flabby and strong was it, whether of goat, sheep, or ox. Poultry and eggs are not to be had much above Wady Halfeh; the Nubian eggs are remarkably small, and the poultry lean and stringy to the last degree. When in Egypt and Lower Nubia our guns furnished us with an excellent daily dinner of doves, which swarm in the date and doum groves; but as we advanced southwards, the finely flavoured Egyptian dove began to be replaced by the Debbas of the upper and southern country, a much larger, but in flavour far inferior species of the same bird. In the desert these failed us, but we obtained occasionally a few desert partridges, and in the Isle of Argo, the Ethiopian hare; but both these are very far inferior to the English species of the same animals, in flavour and nutritious qualities. When in the towns, we could seldom procure our accustomed meal of doves, and fish is nowhere to be had along the valley of the Nile; the occupation of fisherman is almost unknown, and old Nile's finny inhabitants, which are well noted for their extreme insipidity, and in some cases for qualities positively injurious as food, are abandoned to the crocodiles and other river monsters.

Ever my dear E., Your affectionate Brother, William Arnold Bromfield.