Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 1/Book 1/Chapter 7
CHAP VII.
Arrives at Syene — Goes to see the Cataract— Remarkable Tombs — The Situation of Syene — The Aga proposes a visit to Deir and Ibrim — The Author returns to Kenné,
WE sailed on the 20th, with the wind favouring us, till about an hour before sun-rise, and about nine o'clock came to an anchor on the south end of the palm groves, and north end of the town of Syene, nearly opposite to an island in which there is a small handsome Egyptian temple, pretty entire. It is the temple of *[1] Cnuphis, where formerly was the Nilometer.
Adjoining to the palm trees was a very good comfortable house, belonging to Hussein Schourbatchie, the man that used to be sent from that place to Cairo, to receive the pay of the janissaries in garrison at Syene, upon whom too I had credit for a very small sum.
The reasons of a credit in such a place are three: First, in case of sickness, or purchase of any antiquities: Secondly, that you give the people an idea (a very useful one) that you carry no money about with you: Thirdly, that your money changes its value, and is not even current beyond Esné.
Hussein was not at home, but was gone somewhere upon business, but I had hopes to find him in the course of the day. Hospitality is never refused, in these countries, upon the slightest pretence. Having therefore letters to him, and hearing his house was empty, we sent our people and baggage to it.
I was not well arrived before a janissary came, in long Turkish cloaths, without arms, and a white wand in his hand, to tell me that Syene was a garrison town, and that the Aga was at the castle ready to give me audience.
I returned him for answer, that I was very sensible it was my first duty, as a stranger, to wait upon the Aga in a garrisoned town of which he had the command, but, being bearer of the Grand Signior's Firman, having letters from the Bey of Cairo, and from the Port of Janissaries to him in particular, and, at present being indisposed and fatigued, I hoped he would indulge me till the arrival of my landlord; in which interim I should take a little rest, change my cloaths, and be more in the situation in which I would wish to pay mv respects to him.
I received immediately an answer by two janissaries, who insisted to see me, and were accordingly introduced while I was lying down to rest. They said that Mahomet Aga had received my message, that the reason of sending to me was not either to hurry or disturb me; but the earlier to know in what he could be of service to me; that he had a particular letter from the Bey of Cairo, in consequence of which, he had dispatched orders to receive me at Esné, but as I had not waited on the Cacheff there, he had not been apprised.
After giving coffee to these very civil messengers, and taking two hours rest, our landlord the Schourbatchie arrived; and, about four o'clock in the afternoon, we went to the Aga.
The fort is built of clay, with some small guns mounted on it; it is of strength sufficient to keep people of the country in awe.
I found the Aga sitting in a small kioosk, or closet, upon a stone-bench covered with carpets. As I was in no fear of him, I was resolved to walk according to my privileges; and, as the meanest Turk would do before the greatest man in England, I sat down upon a cushion below him, after laying my hand on my breast, and saying in an audible voice, with great marks of respect, however, Salam alicum! to which he answered, without any of the usual difficulty, Alicum salam! Peace be between us is the salutation; There is peace between us is the return.
After sitting down about two minutes, I again got up, and stood in the middle of the room before him, saying, I am bearer of a hatésherriffe, or royal mandate, to you, Mahomet Aga! and took the firman out of my bosom, and presented it to him. Upon this he stood upright, and all the rest of the people, before sitting with him likewise; he bowed his head upon the carpet, then put the firman to his forehead, opened it, and pretended to read it; but he knew well the contents, and I believe, besides, he could neither read nor write any language. I then gave him the other letters from Cairo, which he ordered his secretary to read in his ear.
All this ceremony being finished, he called for a pipe, and coffee. I refused the first, as never using it; but I drank a dish of coffee, and told him, that I was bearer of a confidential message from Ali Bey of Cairo, and wished to deliver it to him without witnesses, whenever he pleased. The room was accordingly cleared without delay, excepting his secretary, who was also going away, when I pulled him back by the cloaths, saying, "Stay, if you please, we shall need you to write the answer." We were no sooner left alone, than I told the Aga, that, being a stranger, and not knowing the disposition of his people, or what footing they were on together, and being desired to address myself only to him by the Bey, and our mutual friends at Cairo, I wished to put it in his power (as he pleased or not) to have witnesses of delivering the small present I had brought him from Cairo. The Aga seemed very sensible of this delicacy; and particularly desired me to take no notice to my landlord, the Schourbatchie, of any thing I had brought him.
All this being over, and a confidence established with government, I sent his present by his own servant that night, under pretence of desiring horses to go to the cataract next day. The message was returned, that the horses were to be ready by six o'clock next morning. On the 21st, the Aga sent me his own horse, with mules and asses for my servants, to go to the cataract. We passed out at the south gate of the town, into the first small sandy plain, A very little to our left, there are a number of tomb-stones with inscriptions in the Cusic character, which travellers erroneously have called unknown language, and letters, although it was the only letter and language known to Mahomet, and the most learned of his sect in the first ages.
The Cusic characters seem to be all written in capitals, which one might learn to read much more easily than the modern Arabic, and they more resemble the Samaritan. We read there — Abdullah el Hejazi el Ansari — Mahomet Abdel Shems el Taiefy el Ansari. The first of thefe, Abdullah el Hejazi, is Abdullah born in Arabia Petrea. The other is, Mahomet the slave of the sun, born in Taief. Now, both of these are called Ansari which many writers, upon Arabian history, think, means, born in Medina; because, when Mahomet fled from Mecca, the night of the hegira, the people of Medina received him willingly, and thenceforward got the name of *[2] Ansari, or Helpers. But this honourable name was extended afterwards to all those who fought under Mahomet in his wars, and after, even to those who had been born in his lifetime.
These of whose tombs we are now speaking, were of the army of Haled Ibn el Waalid, whom Mahomet named, Saif Ullah, the 'Sword of God,' and who, in the califat of Omar, took and destroyed Syene, after losing great part of his army before it. It was afterwards rebuilt by the Shepherds of Beja, then Christians, and again taken in the time of Salidan, and, with the rest of Egypt, ever since hath belonged to Cairo. It was conquered by, or rather surrendered to, Selim Emperor of the Turks, in 1516, who planted two advanced posts (Deir and Ibrim) beyond the cataract in Nubia, with small garrisons of janissaries likewise, where they continue to this day.
{{sc|Their} pay is issued from Cairo; sometimes they marry each others daughters, rarely marry the women of the country, and the son, or nephew, or nearest relation of each deceased, succeeds as janissary in room of his father. They have lost their native language, and have indeed nothing of the Turk in them, but a propensity to violence, rapine, and injustice; to which they have joined the perfidy of the Arab, which, as I have said, they sometimes inherit from their mother. An Aga commands these troops in the castle. They have about two hundred horsemen armed with firelocks; with which, by the help of the Ababdé, encamped at Shekh Ammer, they keep the Bishareen, and all these numerous tribes of Arabs, that inhabit the Desert of Sennaar, in tolerable order.
The inhabitants, merchants, and common people of the town, are commanded by a cacheff. There is neither butter nor milk at Syene (the latter comes from Lower Egypt) the same may be said of fowls. Dates do not ripen at Syene, those that are sold at Cairo come from Ibrim and Dongola. There are good fish in the Nile, and they are easily caught, especially at the cataract, or in broken water; there are only two kinds of large ones which I have happened to see, the binny and the boulti. The binny I have described in its proper place.
After passing the tomb-stones without the gate, we come to a plain about five miles long, bordered on the left by a hill of no considerable height, and sandy like the plain, upon which are seen some ruins, more modern than those Egyptian buildings we have described. They seem indeed to be a mixture of all kinds and ages.
The distance from the gate of the town to Termissi, or Marada, the small villages on the cataract, is exactly six English miles. After the description already given of this cataract in some authors, a traveller has reason to be surprised, when arrived on its banks, to find that vessels sail up the cataract, and consequently the fall cannot be so violent as to deprive people of their hearing *[3].
The bed of the river, occupied by the water, was not then half a mile broad. It is divided into a number of small channels, by large blocks of granite, from thirty to forty feet high. The current, confined for a long course between the rocky mountains of Nubia, tries to expand itself with great violence. Finding, in every part before it, opposition from the rocks of granite, and forced back by these, it meets the opposite currents. The chafing of the water against these huge obstacles, the meeting of the contrary currents one with another, creates such a violent ebullition, and makes such a noise and disturbed appearance, that it fills the mind with confusion rather than with terror.
We saw the miserable Kennouss (who inhabit the banks of the river up into Nubia, to above the second cataract) to procure their daily food, lying behind rocks, with lines in their hands, and catching fish; they did not seem to be either dexterous or successful in the sport. They are not black, but of the darkest brown; are not woolly-headed, but have hair. They are small, light, agile people, and seem to be more than half-starved. I made a sign that I wanted to speak with one of them; but seeing me surrounded with a number of horse and fire-arms, they did not choose to trust themselves. I left my people behind with my firelock, and went alone to see if I could engage them in a conversation. At first they walked off; finding I persisted in following them, they ran at full speed, and hid themselves among the rocks.
Pliny *[4] says, that, in his time, the city of Syene was situated so directly under the tropic of Cancer, that there was a well, into which the sun shone so perpendicular, that it was enlightened by its rays down to the bottom. Strabo †[5] had said the same. The ignorance, or negligence, in the Geodsique measure in this observation, is extraordinary; Egypt had been measured yearly, from early ages, and the distance between Syene and Alexandria should have been known to an ell. From this inaccuracy, I do very much suspect the other measure Eratosthenes is said to have made, by which he fixed the sun's parallax at 10 seconds and a half, was not really made by him, but was some old Chaldaic, or Egyptian observation, made by more instructed astronomers which he had fallen upon.
The Arabs call it Assouan, which they say signifies enlightened; in allusion, I suppose, to the circumstance of the well, enlightened within by the sun's being stationary over it in June; in the language of Beja its name signifies a circle, or portion of a circle.
Syene, among other things, is famous for the first attempt made by Greek astronomers to ascertain the measure of the circumference of the earth. Eratosthenes, born at Cyrene about 276 years before Christ, was invited from Athens to Alexandria by Ptolemy Evergetes, who made him keeper of the Royal Library in that city. In this experiment two positions were assumed, that Alexandria and Syene were exactly 5000 stades distant from each other, and that they were precisely under the same meridian. Again, it was verified by the experiment of the well, that, in the summer solstice at mid-day, when the sun was in the tropic of Cancer, in its greatest northern declination, the well*[6] at that instant was totally and equally illuminated; and that no style, or gnomon, erected on a perfect plane, did cast, or project, any manner of shadow for 150 stades round, from which it was justly concluded, that the sun, on that day, was so exactly vertical to Syene, that the center of its disk immediately corresponded to the center of the bottom of the well. These preliminaries being fixed, Eratosthenes set about his observation thus : — On the day of the summer solstice, at the moment the sun was stationary in the meridian of Syene, he placed a style perpendicularly in the bottom of a half-concave sphere, which he exposed in open air to the sun at Alexandria. Now, if that style had cast no shade at Alexandria, it would have been precisely in the same circumstance with a style in the well in Syene; and the reason of its not casting the shade would have been, that the sun was directly vertical to it. But he found, on the contrary, this style at Alexandria did cast a shadow; and by measuring the distance of the top of this shadow from the foot of the style, he found, that, when the sun cast no shadow at Syene, by being in the zenith, at Alexandria he projected a shadow; which shewed he was distant from the vertical point, or zenith, 7 1/5° = 7° 12', which was 1/50th of the circumference of the whole heavens, or of a great circle.
This being settled, the conclusion was, that Alexandria and Syene must be distant from each other by the 50th part of the circumference of the whole earth.
Now 5000 stades was the distance already assumed between Alexandria and the well of Syene; and all that was to be done was to repeat 5000 stades fifty times, or multiply 5,000 stades by 50, and the answer was 250,000 stades, which was the total of the earth's circumference. This, admitting the French contents of the Egyptian stadium to be just, will amount to 11,403 leagues for the circumference of the earth sought; and as our present account fixes it to be 9000, the error will be 2403 leagues in excess, or more than one-fourth of the whole sum required. This observation surely therefore is not worth recording, unless to shew the insufficiency or imperfection of the method ; it cannot deserve the encomiums *[7] that have been bestowed upon it, if justice has been done to Eratosthenes' geodesique measures, which I do not, by any manner of means, warrant to be the case, because the measure of his arch of the meridian seems to have been conducted with a much greater degree of success and precision than that of his base.
On the 22d, 23d, and 24th of January, being at Syene, in a house immediately east of the small island in the Nile (where the temple of Cnuphis is still standing, very little injured, and which †[8] Strabo, who was himself there, says was in the ancient town, and near the well built for the observation of the solstice) with a three-foot brass quadrant, made by Langlois, and described by ‡[9] Monsieur de la Lande, by a mean of three observations of the sun in the meridian, I concluded the latitude of Syene to be 24° 0' 45" north.
And, as the latitude of Alexandria, by a medium of many observations made by the French academicians, and more recently by Mr Niebuhr and myself, is beyond possibility of contradiction 31° 11' 33", the arch of the meridian contained between Syene and Alexandria, must be 7° 10' 48", or 1' 12" less than Eratosthenes made it. And this is a wonderful precision, if we consider the imperfection of his instrument, in the probable shortness of his radius, and difficulty (almost insurmountable) in distinguishing the division of the penumbra.
There certainly is one error very apparent, in measuring the base betwixt Syene and Alexandria; that is, they were not (as supposed) under the same meridian; for though, to my very great concern afterwards, I had no opportunity of fixing the longitude at this first visit to Syene, as I had done the latitude, yet on my return, in the year 1772, from an eclipse of the first satellite of Jupiter, I found its longitude to be 33° 30'; and the longitude of Alexandria, being 30° 16' 7", there is 3° 14' that Syene is to the eastward of the meridian of Alexandria, or so far from their being under the same meridian as supposed.
It is impossible to fix the time of the building of Syene; upon the most critical examination of its hieroglyphics and proportions, I should imagine it to have been founded some time after Thebes, but before Dendera, Luxor, or Carnac.
It would be no less curious to know, whether the well, which Eratosthenes made use of for one of the terms of the geodesique base, and his arch of the meridian, between Alexandria and Syene, was coeval with the building of that city, or whether it was made for the experiment. I should be inclined to think the former was the case; and the placing this city first, then the well under the tropic, were with a view of ascertaining the length of the solar year. In short, this point, so material to be settled, was the constant object of attention of the first astronomers, and this was the use of the dial of Osimandyas; this inquiry was the occasion of the number of obelisks raised in every ancient city in Egypt. We cannot mistake this, if we observe how anxiously they have varied the figure of the top, or point of each obelisk; sometimes it is a very sharp one; sometimes a portion of a circle, to try to get rid of the great impediment that perplexed them, the penumbra.
The projection of the pavements, constantly to the northward, so diligently levelled, and made into exact planes by large slabs of granite, most artificially joined, have been so substantially secured, that they might serve for the observation to this day; and it is probable, the position of this city and the well were coeval, the result of intention, and both the works of these first astronomers, immediately after the building of Thebes. If this was the case, we may conclude, that the fact of the sun illuminating the bottom of the well in Eratosthenes's time was a supposed one, from the uniform tradition, that once it had been so, the periodical change of the quantity of the angle, made by the equator and ecliptic, not being then known, and therefore that the quantity of the celestial arch, comprehended between Alexandria and Syene, might be as erroneous from another cause, as the base had been by assuming a wrong distance on the earth, in place of one exactly measured.
There is at Axum an obelisk erected by Ptolemy Evergetes, the very prince who was patron to Eratosthenes, without hieroglyphics, directly facing the south, with its top first cut into a narrow neck, then spread out like a fan in a semicircular form, with a pavement curiously levelled to receive the shade, and make the separation of the true shadow from the penumbra as distinct as possible. This was probably intended for verifying the experiment of Eratosthenes with a larger radius, for, by this obelisk, we must not imagine Ptolemy intended to observe the obliquity of the ecliptic at Axum. Though it was true, that Axum, by its situation, was a very proper place, the sun passing over that city and obelisk twice a-year, yet it was equally true, that, from another circumstance, which he might have been acquainted with, at less expence of time than building the obelisk would have cost him, that he himself could not make any use of the sun's being twice vertical to Axum; for the sun is vertical at Axum about the 25th of April, and again about the 20th of August; and, at both these seasons, the heaven is so overcast with clouds, and the rain so continual, especially at mid-day, that it would be a wonder indeed, if Ptolemy had once seen the sun during the months he staid there.
Though Syene, by its situation should be healthy, the general complaint is a weakness and soreness in the eyes; and this not a temporary one only, but generally ending in blindness of one, or both eyes; you scarce ever see a person in the street that sees with both eyes. They say it is owing to the hot wind from the desert; and this I apprehend to be true, by the violent soreness and inflammation we were troubled with in our return home, through the great Desert, to Syene.
We had now finished every thing we had to do at Syene, and prepared to descend the Nile. After having been quiet, and well used so long, we did not expect any altercation at parting; we thought we had contented every body, and we were perfectly content with them. But, unluckily for us, our landlord, the Schourbatchie, upon whom I had my credit, and who had distinguished himself by being very serviceable and obliging to us, happened to be the proprietor of a boat, for which, at that time, he had little employment; nothing would satisfy him but my hiring that boat, instead of returning in that which brought us up.
This could by no means be done, without breaking faith with our Rais, Abou Cuffi, which I was resolved not to do on any account whatever, as the man had behaved honestly and well in every respect. The janissaries took the part of their brother against the stranger, and threatened to cut Abou Cuffi to pieces, and throw him to the crocodiles.
On the other part, he was very far from being terrified. He told them roundly, that he was a servant of Ali Bey, that, if they attempted to take his fare from him, their pay should be stopped at Cairo, till they surrendered the guilty person to do him justice. He laughed most unaffectedly at the notion of cutting him to pieces; and declared, that, if he was to complain of the usage he met when he went down to Lower Egypt, there would not be a janissary from Syene who would not be in much greater danger of crocodiles than he.
I went in the evening to the Aga, and complained of my landlord's behaviour. I told him positively, but with great shew of respect, I would rather go down the Nile upon a raft, than set my foot in any other boat but the one that brought me up. I begged him to be cautious how he proceeded, as it would be my story, and not his, that would go to the Bey. This grave and resolute appearance had the effect. The Schourbatchie was sent for, and reprimanded, as were all those that sided with him; while privately, to calm all animosities against my Rais, I promised him a piece of green cloth, which was his wish; and so heartily were we reconciled, that, the next day, he made his servants help Abou Cuffi to put our baggage on board the boat.
The Aga hinted to me, in conversation, that he wondered at my departure, as he heard my intention was to go to Ibrim and Deir. I told him, those garrisons had a bad name; that a Danish gentleman, some years ago, going up thither, with orders from the government of Cairo, was plundered, and very nearly assassinated, by Ibrahim, Cacheff of Deir. He looked surprised, shook his head, and seemed not to give me credit; but I persisted, in the terms of Mr Norden's *[10] Narrative; and told him, the brother of the Aga of Syene was along with him at the time. "Will any person, said he, tell me, that a man who is in my hands once a month, who has not an ounce of bread but what I furnish him from this garrison, and whose pay would be stopt (as your Rais truly said) on the first complaint transmitted to Cairo, could assassinate a man with Ali Bey's orders, and my brother along with him? Why, what do you think he is? I shall send a servant to the Cacheff of Deir to-morrow, who shall bring him down by the beard, if he refuses to come willingly." I said, "Then times were very much changed for the better; it was not always so, there was not always at Cairo a sovereign like Ali Bey, nor at Syene a man of his prudence, and capacity in commanding; but having no business at Deir and Ibrim, I should not risk finding them in another humour, exercising other powers than those he allowed them to have."
The 26th we embarked at the north end of the town, in the very spot where I again took boat above three years afterwards. We now no longer enjoyed the advantage of our prodigious main-sail; not only our yards were lowered, but our masts were taken out; and we floated down the current, making the figure of a wreck. The current, pushing against one of our sides, the wind directly contrary, pressing us on the other, we went down broad side foremost; but so steadily, as scarce to be sensible the vessel was in motion.
In the evening I stopt at Shekh Ammer, and saw my patient Nimmer, Shekh of the Ababdé. I found him greatly better, and as thankful as ever; I renewed my prescriptions, and he his offers of service.
I was visited, however, with a pretty smart degree of fever by hunting crocodiles on the Nile as I went down, without any possibility of getting near them.
On the 31st of January we arrived at Negadé, the fourth settlement of the Franciscan friars in Upper Egypt, for the pretended mission of Ethiopia. I found it to be in lat. 25° 55' 30". It is a small neat village, covered with palm-trees, and mostly inhabited by Cophts, none of whom the friars have yet converted, nor ever will, unless by small pensions, which they give to the poorest of them, to be decoy-ducks to the rest.
Opposite to Negadé, on the other side of the river about three miles, is Cus, a large town, the Appollonis Civitas Parva of the ancients. There are no antiquities at this place; but the caravan, which was to carry the corn for Mecca, across the desert to Cosseir, was to assemble there. I found they were not near ready; and that the Arabs Atouni had threatened they would be in their way, and would not suffer them to pass, at any rate, and that the guard commanded to escort them across the desert, would come from Furshout, and therefore I should have early warning,
It was the 2d of February I returned to Badjoura, and took up my quarters in the house formerly assigned me, greatly to the joy of Shekh Ismael, who, though he was in the main reconciled to his friend, friar Christopher, had not yet forgot the wounding of the five men by his miscalculating ramadan; and was not without fears that the same inadvertence might, some day or other, be fatal to him, in his pleurisy and asthma, or, what is still more likely, by the operation of the tabange.
As I was now about to launch into that part of my expedition, in which I was to have no further intercourse with Europe I set myself to work to examine all my observations, and put my journal in such forwardness by explanations, where needful, that the labours and pains I had hitherto been at, might not be totally lost to the public, if I should perish in the journey I had undertaken, which, every day, from all information I could procure, appeared to be more and more desperate.
Having finished these, at least so far as to make them intelligible to others, I conveyed them to my friends Messrs Julian and Rosa at Cairo, to remain in their custody till I should return, or news come that I was otherwise disposed of.
- ↑ * Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 944.
- ↑ * This word, improperly used and spelled by M. de Volney, has nothing to do with these Ansaris.
- ↑ * Cicero de Somnio Scipronis.
- ↑ * Pliny, lib. ii. cap.73.
- ↑ † Strabo, lib. xvii. p.944.
- ↑ * Strabo, lib. ii. p. 133.
- ↑ * Spectacle de la Nature.
- ↑ † Strabo, lib. 17. p. 944
- ↑ ‡ L'histoire d'astronomie, de M. de la Lande, vol.i. lib.2.
- ↑ * Vide Mr Norden's Voyage up the Nile.