Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 4/Book 8/Chapter 7
CHAP. VII.
Arrival at Beyla—Friendly reception there, and after, amongst the Nuba—Arrival at Sennaar,
WHEN we got a few miles into the plain, my servant delivered me a message from the Moullah, that he would join us the next day at Beyla; that we were not to trust to the king's servant in any thing, but entirely to that of the Shekh Adelan; and if these two had any dispute together, to take no share in it, but leave them to settle it between themselves; that, upon no account whatever, we should suffer any companions to join us upon the road to Beyla, but drive them off by harsh words, beat them if they did not go away, and, if they still persisted, to shoot them, and make our way good by force; that between Teawa and Beyla was a place, the inhabitants of which had withdrawn themselves from their allegiance to the king of Sennaar, who could not there protect us; therefore we were to trust to ourselves, and admit of no parley; for if we passed, we should pass with applause, as if the king's force had concluded us; and if we miscarried, the blame would be laid upon ourselves, as having ventured, so thinly attended, through a country laid waste by rebel Arabs, expressly in defiance of government. He added, that he did not believe it was in Shekh Fidele's power, from want of time, to do us any injury upon the roads; that the people in Teawa were in general well-affected to us, and afraid we should bring Yasine and the Daveina upon them, and so were the Jehaina; and as for the pack of graceless soldiers that were then about the Shekh, their belief that we had really no money with us, and the last exhibition I had shewn them on horse-back, had perfectly cured them of venturing their lives for little, against people so much superior to them in the management of arms; yet he wished us to be active and vigilant like men, and trust in nothing till we had seen the Shekh of Beyla, and not to lose a moment on the road.
Our journey, for the first seven hours, was through a barren, bare, and sandy plain, without finding a vestige of any living creature, without water, and without grass, a country that seemed under the immediate curse of Heaven. At twelve o'clock at night we turned a little to the eastward of south, to enter through very broken ground into a narrow defile, between two hills of no considerable height. This pass is called Mattina. One of our camel-drivers declared that he saw two men run into the bushes before him, upon which our people took all to their slings, throwing many stones before them into the bushes, directed nearly to a man's height. At their earnest desire I ordered Ismael to fire our large ship-blunderbuss, with fifty small bullets in it among the bushes, in the direction of the road-side; but we neither saw nor heard any thing of those people there after, if there really were any, nor did I, at the time, indeed, believe the camel- driver had seen any one but through the medium of his own fears; for the Arabs never attack you till near sun-set, if they are doubtful of their own superiority, or at dawn of day, if they think they have the advantage, that they may have time to pursue you.
We, however, all continued on foot, from four till the grey of the morning of the 19th of April. Indeed, so violent an inclination to sleep had fallen upon me, that I was forced to walk, for fear of breaking my neck by a fall from my camel, till eight o'clock, when we halted in a wood of ebony bushes, growing like the birch tree in many shoots from the old stems, which had been cut down for fear of harbouring the fly, and totally deprived of their leaves afterwards, by the burning of grass, from the fame reason. This place is called Abou Jehaarat, and is the limit between, the government of Teawa and Beyla. After such a very fatiguing journey, we rested at Abou Jehaarat till the afternoon. The sun was very hot, but fortunately some shepherds caves were dug in the bank, and to these we fled for shelter from the intense heat of the sun, where the ebony trees, though in a very thick wood, could afford us no shade for the reasons already given.
At three o'clock in the afternoon we set out from Abou Jehaarat, in a direction west, and at eight in the evening we arrived at Beyla. There is no water between Teawa and Beyla. Once, Imgededema, and a number of villages, were supplied with water from wells and had large crops of Indian corn sown about their possessions. The curse of that country, the Arabs Daveina, have destroyed Imgededema, and all the villages about it, filled up their wells, burnt their crops, and exposed all the inhabitants to die by famine.
We found Beyla to be in lat. 13° 42' 4"; that is, about eleven miles west of Teawa, and thirty-one and a half miles due south. We were met by Mahomet, the Shekh, at the very entrance of the town. He said, he looked upon us as risen from the dead; that we must be good people, and particularly under the care of Providence, to have escaped the many snares the Shekh of Atbara had laid for us. Mahomet, the Shekh, had provided every sort of refreshment possible for us; and, thinking we could not live without it, he had ordered sugar for us from Sennaar. Honey for the most part hitherto had been its substitute. We had a good comfortable supper; as fine wheat-bread as ever I ate in my life, brought from Sennaar, as also rice; in a word, everything that our kind landlord could contribute to our plentiful and hospitable entertainment.
Our whole company was full of joy, to which the Shekh greatly encouraged them; and if there was an alloy to the happiness, it was the feeing that I did net partake of it. Symptoms of an aguish disorder had been hanging about me for several days, ever since the diarrhoea had left me. I found the greatest repugnance, or nausea, at the smell of warm meat; and, having a violent headach, I insisted upon going to bed supperless, after having drank a quantity of warm water by way of emetic. Being exceedingly tired, I soon fell found asleep, having first taken some drops of a strong spirituous tincture of the bark which I had prepared at Gondar, resolving, if I found any remission, as I then did, to take several good dozes of the bark in powder on the morrow, beginning at day-break, which I accordingly did with its usual success.
On the 20th of April, a little after the dawn of day, the Shekh, in great anxiety, came to the place where I was lying, upon a tanned buffaloe's hide, on the ground. His sorrow was soon turned into joy when he found me quite recovered from my illness. I had taken the bark, and expressed a desire of eating a hearty breakfast of rice, which was immediately prepared for me.
The Shekh of Beyla was an implicit believer in medicine. Seeing me take some drops of the tincture before coffee, he insisted upon pledging me, and I believe would have willingly emptied the whole bottle. After baring suffered great agony with his own complaint, he had passed some small stones, and was greatly better, as he said, for the soap-pills. I put him in a way to prepare these, as also his lime-water. It was impossible to have done any favour for him equal to this, as his agony had been so great. He told me our Moullah was arrived from Teawa and had left Shekh Fidele still repining at our departure, without leaving him the piastres. As for the eclipse, he said he did not care a straw, nor for what they did or knew at Mecca, for he had no interest there. I understood our friend Mahomet, Shekh of Beyla, had been under great uneasiness at the eclipse, when it advanced in the immersion, and became total, Some time before this, as he said, THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 413
rRere had been another, but not fo great, on the day the Daveina burnt Imgededema, with above thirty other villa- ges, and difperfed or deilroyed about two thoufand inhabi- tants of Atbara.
It vi^as now the time to give the Shekh a prefent, and I had prepared one for him, fuch as he very well deferved ; but no intreaty, nor any means I could ufe, could prevail upon him to accept of the mereft trifle. On the contrary, he folemnly fwore, that if I importuned liim further he would get upon his horfe and go into the country. All that he defired, and that too as a favour, was, that, when I had reiled at Sennaar, he might come and confult me fur- ther as to his complaints, for which he promifcd he fliould bring a recompence with him. We then fettled to give his prefent to the Moullah, with which he v/as very well plea- fed, and which he took without any of thofe oifficul- ties the Shekh of Beyla had flarted when it was oiFered to him,.
All being friends now, and contented, the day was given to repofe and joy. The king's fervant came and told me, by way of fecret, that we could not do lefs to pjeafe the Shekh than ilay with him a week at Beyia, and I believe it would not have difpleafed him ; but after fo much co- ming and going, fo much occafif?n for talk relative to me, r was refolved to follow Hagi Bclal's advice, and prefs on to Sennaar before affairs there were in a defperate fituation, or fome fcheme of mifchief jQioiild be contrived by Fiddle. One thing Shekh Adeian's fervant told us, that he had, by his mailer's orders, taken from Fidele the prefent I had given him, though he had already made it up into a gown,.
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or robe, for himfelf. " He is a poor wretch, fays the Shekh of Beyla ; he has fpent two years of the king's revenues from Atbara, and nobody has fupported him except Shekh Adelan, whofe daughter he married, but he now has given him up fmce he has fully known him ; and, if our troubles do not follow quickly, I fuppofe one of thefe days I lliall have him here in his way to Sennaar, never to re- turn ; for everybody knows now that it was in hatred to him, and for the many faithlefs and bad adions he was guilty of, that the Arabs have deftroyed all that part of the country, though they have not burnt a flraw about Beyla."
We had again a large and plentiful dinner, and a quan- tity of bouza ; venifon of feveral different fpecies of the antelope or deer-kind, and Guinea-fowls, boiled with rice, the beft part of our fare, for the venifon fmelled and tail- ed ftrongly of mufk. This was the provifion made by the Shekh's two fons, boys about fourteen or fifteen years old, who had got each of them a gun with a match-lock and whofe favour I fecured to a very high degree, by giving them fome good gunpowder, and plenty of fmall leaden bullets.
In the afternoon we walked out to fee the village, which is a very pleafant pne, fituated upon the bottom of a hill, covered with wood, all the refl flat before it. Through this plain there are many large timber trees, planted in rows, and joined with high hedges, as in Eu- rope, forming inclofures for keeping cattle ; but of thefe we faw none, as they had been moved to the Dender for ifear of the flies. There is no water at Beyla but what is
4 ^at THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 415^
got from deep wells. Large plantations of Indian corn are everywhere about the town. The inhabitants are in con^ tinual apprehenfion from the Arabs Daveina at Sim Sim, about 40 miles fouth-eaft from them ; and from another powerful- race called Wed abd el Gin, /. e. Son of tbeJJaves of the Devil, who live to the fouth-weft of them, between tho Dender and the Nile. Beyla is another frontier town of Sennaar, on the fide of Sim Sim ; and between Teawa and this, on the Sennaar fide, and Ras el Feel, Nara, and Tchelgaj upon the Abyffinian fide, all is defert and wafte, the Arabs only fufFering the water to remain there without villages- near it, that they and their flocks may come at certain feafons while the grafs grows, and the pools or fprings fill elfewhere. .
Although Iwent early to bed with full determination to fet out by day-break, yet I found it was impoffible to puc my defign in execution, or get from the hands of our kind landlord. One of our girbas feemed to fail, and needed to be repaired. Nothing good, as he truly faid, could come from the Shekh of Atbara. A violent difpute had arifen in the evening, after I was gone to bed, over their bouza, be- tween the king's fervant and that of Shekh Adelan. It was about dividing their fees which they had received from Shekh Fidele. This was carried a great length, and it was at laft a- greed that it fliould be determined by the Shekh of Beyla in the morning, when both of them, as might be fuppofed^ Ihould have cooler heads. For my part, 1 took no thought or concern about it, as no circumftance of its origin had been notified to me ; but it took up fo much of our time, that it was after dinner before we were. ready. 4i6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
On the 21ft of April we kftBeyla at three o'clock in the afternoon, our diredion foiuh-weR, through a very plea- fanr,fiat countr}', but without water ; there had been none in our way nearer than the river Rahad. About eleven at night we al ghted in a wood : The place is called Bahene, as near as we could compute, nine miles from Bey la.
On the 22d, at half paft -five o'clock in the morning we left Baherie, iiill continuing weftward, and at nine we came to the banks of the Rahad. The ford is called Tchir Chaira. The river itfelf was now Handing in pools, the water foul, {linking, and covered with a green mantle ; the bottom foft and muddy, but there was no choice. The water at Bcyla was fo bad, that we took only as much as was ab- folutely necelTary till we arrived at running water from the Rahad. We continued half an hour travelling along the river at N. W. and W. N. W. till three quarters pail ten. At noon we agaia met the river Rahad, which now had turned to the wellward of north, and by its fides we pitch- ed our tents near the huts of the Arabs, called Cohala, a ilationary tribe, that do not live in tents, but are tributary to the Mek, and regularly pay all the taxes and exadlions the government of Sennaar lays upon them, and from thefe, therefore, we were not under any apprehenfion.
On the 23d, at fix o'clock in the morning we left the Co- hala, continuing along the river Rahad, wiuch here rins a very little to the eallward of north. At three o'clock we alighted at Kumar, another ftacion of the fame Arabs of Co- hala, on the river fide. This river, here called Rahad, or Thunder, winds the moll of any ftream in Abyffinia, It begins not far fiom Tchclga, pajQTes between Kuara and 2 Sennaar, THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 417
Sennaar, feparating Abyllinia from Nubia, and making, with the river Atbara, the Allaboras or Tacazze, and the Nile, a perfedl ifland, whereas before it was only a peninfula. It feems to intercept all the fprings that would go down to the middle of the peninfula, frorn the high country of Abyffinia, and is probably the reafon of the great dearth of water there. While it is in Abyffinia it is called Shimfa. It falls into the Nile at Habharras, about thirty-eight miles north of Sennaar.
The quarrel between our two conductors was fo little made up, that the king's fervant would not travel with us, but always went half a day before, and we joined him when we encamped in the evening. We did not pay him the compliment of afking him why he did this, but allowed him to take his own way, which he feemed not to be plea- fed with, giving many hints at night, that he had, all his life, been averfe to the having any thing to do with white people.
We fet out at five in the afternoon from Kumar, and in the clofe of the evening met feveral men, on horfcback and on foot, coming out from among the bufhes, who en- deavoured to carry off one of our camels. We indeed were foraewhat alarmed, and were going to prepare for refift- ance. The camel they had taken a way had on it the king's and Shekh Adelan's prefents, and fome other things for our fu- ture need. Our clothes too, books, and papers, were upon the fame camel. Adelan's fervant, though he was at firfl furprifed, did not lofe his prefence of mind ; he foon knew thefe Arabs could not be robbers, and gueffed it to be a piece of malice of the king's fervant to frighten us, and ex- tort money from us, in order to obtain reftitution of the camel. He therefore rode up to one of the villages of the
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Arabs, to aflc them who thofe were that had ^ taken away ourcamcL
In one of the huts he found the king's fervant regaling himfelf ; upon which he faid to him, " I fuppofe, Mahomet; you have taken charge of that camel, and will hring it with you to Sennaar; it has your mafter's prefctits, and mine alfo, upon it:" and faying this, he rode off to join us, and to punilh thofe that had taken the camel, who, we were fure after this notification, muft follow us. We kept on at a verv briflc pace, for it was eleven o'clock before they came up to where we were encamped for the night, bring- ing our camel, which they had taken, along with them, with an Arab on horfebaek, attended with two on foot, and with them the king's fervant. I did not fcem at all to have underftood the affair, only that robbers had taken away our camel. But it did not fit fo eafy upon the Arabs, who did not know there wa& any with us but the king's fervant, and v/ho wanted to frighten us for not making them a pre- fent for eating their grafs and drinking their water. At jEirft, Adelan's fervant refufed to take the camel again upon any terms, infifting that the Cohala ffiould carry it to vSen^ naar ; but, after a great many words, I determined to make peace, upon condition they fliould furnifh us with milk, wherever they had cattle, till we arrived at Sennaar. This was very readily confented to ; and as this affair probably was owing to the malice of the king's fervant, lb it ended: without further trouble.
On the 24th, we fet out at half after five in the morfi> ing, and paffed through fevcral fmall villages of Cohala on the right and on the left, till at eleven- we came to the ri- ver THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 419
•verDender, Handing now in pools, but by the vail widenefs of its banks, and the great deepnefs of its bed, all of white fand, it fliould feem that in time of rain it will contain near- ly as much water as the Nile. The banks are everywhere thick overgrown with the rack and jujeb tree, efpecially the latter. The wood, which had continued moftly from Beyla, here failed us entirely, and reached no further towards Sen- naar. Thefe two forts of trees, however, were in very great beauty, and of a prodigious fize. Here we found the main body of Cohala, with all their cattle, living in perfe6t le- curity both from Arabs and from the plague of the fly. They were as good as their word to us in fupplying us plentifully with excellent milk, which we had fcarcelyever tailed fince we left Gondar.
At fix o'clock in the evening of the 24th we fet out from a fliady place of repofe on the banks of the Dender, through a large plain, with not a tree before us ; but we prefently found ourfelves encompalTed with a number of villages, nearly of a fize, and placed at equal diftances in form of a femi-circle, the roofs of the houfes in fliape of cones, as are all thofe within the rains. The plain was all of a red, foapy earth, and the corn juft fown. This whole country is in perpetual cultivation, and though at this time it had a bare look, would no doubt have a magnificent one when waving with grain. At nine we halted at a village of Pagan Nuba. 1 hefe are all foldiers of the Mek of Sennaar, cantoned in thefe villages, which, at the dillance of four or five miles, furround the whole capital. They are either purchafed or taken by force from Fazuclo, and the provin- ces to the fouth upon the mountains Dyre and Tegla. Ha- ving fettlcmcnts and provifions given them, as alfo arms
3 G 2 put put in their hands, they never wish to desert, but live a very domestic and sober life. Many of them that I have conversed with seem a much gentler sort of negro than those from Bahar el Aice, that is, than those of whom the Funge, or government of Sennaar, are composed.
These have small features likewise, but are woolly-headed, and flat-nosed, like other negroes, and speak a language rather pleasant and sonorous, but radically different from many I have heard. Though the Mek, and their masters at Sennaar, pretend to be Mahometans, yet they have never attempted to convert these Nuba; on the contrary, they entertain, in every village, a certain number of Pagan priests, who have soldiers pay, and assist them in the offices of their religion. Not knowing their language perfectly, nor their customs, it is impossible to say any thing about their religion. Very few of the common sort of them speak Arabic. A false account, in these cases, is always worse than no account at all. I never found one of their priests who could speak so much Arabic as to be able to give any information about the objects of their worship in distinct and unequivocal terms; but this was from my not understanding them, and their not understanding me, not from any desire of concealment, or shyness on their part; on the contrary, they seemed always inclined to agree with me, when they did not comprehend my meaning, and there is the danger of being misinformed.
They pay adoration to the moon; and that their worship is performed with pleasure and satisfaction, is obvious every night that she shines. Coming out from the darkness of
their huts, they say a few words upon seeing her brightness, and testify great joy, by motions of their feet and hands, at the first appearance of the new moon. I never saw them pay any attention to the sun, either rising or setting, advancing to or receding from the meridian; but, as far as I could learn, they worship a tree, and likewise a stone, tho' I never could find out what tree or stone it was, only that it did not exist in the country of Sennaar, but in that where they were born. Their priests seemed to have great influence over them, but through fear only, and not from affection. They are distinguished by thick copper bracelets about their wrists, as also sometimes one, and sometimes two about their ancles.These villages are called Dahera, which seems to me to be the same word as Dashrah, the name given to the Kabyles, or people in Barbary, who live in fixed huts on the mountains. But not having made myself master enough of the Kabyles language when in Barbary, and being totally ignorant of that of the Nuba we are now speaking of, I cannot pretend to pursue this resemblance farther. They are immoderately fond of swine's flesh, and maintain great herds of them in their possession. The hogs are of a small kind, generally marked with black and white, exceedingly prolific, and exactly resembling a species of that kind common in the north of Scotland. The Nuba are not circumcised. They very rarely turn Mahometans, but the generality of their children do. Few of them advance higher than to be soldiers and officers in their own corps. The Mek maintains about twelve thousand of these near Sennaar, to keep the Arabs in subjection. They are very quiet, and scarcely ever known to be guilty
of any robberies or mutinous disorders, declaring always for the master, that is, the great one set over them. There is no running water in all that immense plain they inhabit, it is all procured from draw-wells. We saw them cleaning one, which I measured, and was nearly eight fathoms deep. In a climate so violently hot as this, there is very little need of fuel, neither have they any, there being no turf, or any thing resembling it, in the country, no wood, not even a tree, since we had palled the river Dender. However, they never eat their meat raw as in Abyssinia; but with the stalk of the dora, or millet, and the dung of camels, they make ovens under ground, in which they roast their hogs whole, in a very cleanly, and not disagreeable manner, keeping the skins on till they are perfectly baked. They had neither flint nor steel wherewith to light their fire at first, but do it in a manner still more expeditious, by taking a small piece of stick, and making a sharp point to it, which they hold perpendicular, and then make a small hole of nearly the same size in another piece of stick, which they lay horizontal; they put the one within the other, and, between their two hands, they turn the perpendicular stick, (in the same manner that we do a chocolate mill) when both these sticks take fire, and flame in a moment upon the friction; so perfectly dry and prepared is everything here upon the surface to take fire, notwithstanding they are every year subject to six months rain.ON the 25th, at four o'clock in the afternoon we set out from the villages of the Nuba, intending to arrive at Basboch, where is the ferry over the Nile; but we had scarcely advanced two miles into the plain, when we were inclosed THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 423
■ \ By a violent wliirlwind, or what is called at fea the water-
fpout. The plain was red earth, which had been plentiful^ ly moiilened by a Ihower in the n ght-time. The unfortu- nate camel that had been taken by ihe Cohala feemed to be nearly in the center of its vortex It was lifted and thrown down at a confiderable diftance, and feveral of its ribs bro- ken. Although, as far as I could guefs, I was not- near the center, it whirled me off my feet, and threw me down upoa my face, fo as to make my nofe gufli out with blood. Two of the fervants likewifc had the fame fate. It plaiftered us all over with mud, almoft as fmoothly as could have been done with a. troweL It took away my fenfe and breathing for an inftant, and my motuh and nofe were full of mud when I recovered. I guefs the fphere of its a6lion to be about 200 feet. It demoliihed one half of a fmall hut as if it had been cut through with a knife, and difperfed the ma- terials all over the plain, leaving; the other half Handing,
As foon as we recovered ourfelves, we took refuge in a village, from fear only, for we faw no veftige of any other ■whirlwind. It involved a great quantity of rain, which the Nuba of the villages told us was very fortunate, and por- tended good luck to us, and a profperous journey ; for they faid, that had duft and fand arifen with the whirlwind, in the fame proportion it would have done had not the earth been moiftened, we lliould all infallibly have been fu£- focated ; and they cautioned us, by faying, that tem- pefts were very frequent in the beginning and end of the rainy feafon, and whenever we fhould fee one of them co- ming, to fall down upon our faces, keeping our lips clofe to the ground, and lb let it pafs ; and thus it would neither
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have power to carry us off our feet, nor fuffocate us, which was the ordinary cafe.
Our kind landlords, the Nuba, gave us a hearty welcome, and helped us to wafh our clothes firft, and then to dry them. When I was ftripped naked, they faw the blood ninning from my nofe, and faid, they could not have thought that one fo white as me could have been capable of bleeding. They gave us a piece of roafted hog, which we ate, (except Ifmael and the Mahometans) very much to the fatisfa(5tion of the Nuba. On the other hand, as our camel was lame, we ordered one of our Mahometan fervants to kill it, and take as much of it as would ferve themfelves that night; we alfo provided againft wanting ourfelves the next day. The reft we^ave among our new-acquired acquaintance, the Nu- ba of the village, who did not fail to make a feaft upon it for feveral days after ; and, in recompence for our liberality, they provided us with a large jar of bouza, not very good, indeed, but better than the well-water. This I repaid by tobacco, beads, pepper, and ftibium, which I faw plain- ly was infinitely more than they expedled. Although we had been a good deal furprifed at the fudden and violent effedis of the whirlwind of that day, and feverely felt the bruifes it had occafioned, yet we paffed a very focial and agreeable evening ; thofe only of the Nuba who had been any time at Sennaar fpeak a bad kind of Arabic, as well as their own language. I had feldom, in my life, upon a journey, pafifed a more comfortable night. I had a very neat, clean hut, entirely to myfelf, and a Greek fervant that fat near me. Some of the Nuba watched for us all night, and took care of our beafts and baggage. They fung and 3 replied THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 425
replied to one another alternately, In notes full of pleafant melody,
Ei can tare pares Sff refpondere paral't —
Virgil.
till I fell fall afleep, involuntarily, and with regret, for, tho' bruifed, we were not fatigued, but rather difcouraged, ha- ving gone no further than two miles that day.
The landlord of the hut where I was afleep having pre- pared for our fafety and that of our baggage, thought him- felf bound in duty to go and give immediate information to the prime minifter of the unexpedled guells that then oc- cupied his houfe. He found Adelan at fupper, but was im- mediately admitted, and a variety of quellions afked him, which he anfwered fully. He defcribed our colour, our number, the unufual lize and number of our fire-arms, the poornefs of our attire, and, above all, our great chearful- nefs, quietnefs, and affability, our being contented with eat- ing any thing, and in particular mentioned the hogs flefh. One man then prefent, teflifying abhorrence to this, Adelan faid of me to our landlord, " Why, he is a foldier and a Kafr like yourfelf. A foldier and a Kafr, when travelling in a ftrange country, fliould eat every thing, and fo does every other man that is wife ; has he not a fervant of mine with him ?" He anfwered, " Yes, and a fervant of the king too ; but he had left them, and was gone forward to Sennaar." " Go you with them, fays he, and flay with them at Baf- boch till I have time to fend for them to town." He had returned from Aira long before we arofe^ and told us the converfation, which was great comfort to us all, for we
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were not much pleafed with the king's fervant going be- fore, as we had every reafon to think he was difaiFecftcd to- wards us.
On the 26th, at fix o'clock in the morning, we fet out from this village of Nuba, keeping fomething to the wcfl- ward of 8. W. our way being ftill acrofs this immenfe plain. All the morning there were terrible llorms of thunder and lightning, fome rain, and one fliower of fo large drops that it wet us to the fkin in an inflant. It was quite calm, and every drop fell perpendicularly upon us. I think I never in my life felt fo cold a rain, yet it was not difa- greeable ; for the day was clofe and hot, and we fliould have wiflied every now and then to have had fo moderate a refrigeration ; this, however, was rather too abundant. The villages of the Nuba were, on all fides, throughout this plain. At nine o'clock we arrived at Baiboch, which is a large collection of huts of thefe people, and has the ap- pearance of a town.
The governor, a venerable old man of about feventy, who was fo feeble that he could fcarcely walk, received us with great complacency, only faying, when I took him by the hand, " O Chriftian ! what dofl thou, at fuch a time, in fuch a country ?" I was furprifed at the politcnefs of his fpeech, when he called me Nazarani, the civil term for Chriftian in the eaft ; whereas Infidel is the general term among thefe brutifli people; but it feems he had been fe- veral times at Cairo. I had here a very clean and comfort- able hut to lodge in, though we were fparingly fupplied with provifions all the time we were there, but never were fuiTercd to faft a whole day together.
Basboch THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 4^7
Basboch is on the eallern bank of the Nile, not a quarter of a mile-from the ford below. The river here runs north and fouth ; towards the fides ir is fliallow, but deep in the middle of the current, and in this part it is much infefted with crocodiles. Sennaar is two miles and a half S. S. W. of it. We heard the evening drum very diftinctly, and not with- out anxiety, when we refleiSted to what a brutilh people, ac- cording to all accounts, we were about to truft ouifclves. The village of Aira, where the vizir Adelan had then his quarters, was three miles fouth and by well.
Next morning, the 27th, Shekh Adelan's fervant left us to the charge of the Nuba, to give his mailer an account of his journey, and our fafe arrival. He found Mahomet, the king's fervant, our other guide, before him there, and Adelan well informed of all that had pafled relating to Fi- dele, though not from Mahomet ; for as loon as he began to mention that he had found us at Teawa, Adelan faid in a very angry lliie, " Will no one fave me the difgrace of hang- ing that wretch ?" Adelan fent back his fervant to inform us, that, two days afterwards, we fliould be admitted. Ma- homet, the king's fervant, too, came back with him, and fiaid till the evening ; then he returned to Sennaar ; but he did not give us the fatisfa(ftion to tell us one word of what the king had faid to him about us, or how we were likely to be received, leaving us altogether in fuf- pence.
On the 29th, leave was fcnt us to enter Sennaar. It was not without fome difficjiilty that we got our quadrant and heavy baggage fafely carried down the hill, for the banks are very fteep to the edge of the water. The intention of
3 H 2 our 428 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
our afTiftants was to Hide the quadrant down the hill, in its cafe, which would have utterly deftroyed it ; and as our boat was but a very indifferent embarkation, it was obliged to make feveral turns to and fro before we got all our feveral packages landed on the weftern fide. This aflemblage, and, the paffage of our camels, feemed to have excited the appe- tite, or the curiofity, of the crocodiles. One, in particu- lar, fwam feveral times backwards and forwards along the fide of the boat, without, however, making any attack upon any of us ; but, being exceedingly tired of fuch com- pany, upon his fecond or third venture over, I fired at him with a rifle- gun, and fliot him diredlly under his fore fhoul-. der in the belly. The wound was undoubtedly mortal, and; Very few animals could have lived a moment after recei- ving it. He, however, dived to the bottom, leaving the wai- ter deeply tinged with his blood. Nor did we fee him again at that time ; but the people at the ferry brought him to me the] day after, having found him perfe6lly dead. He was about twelve feet long ; and the boatmen told me that thefe are by much the mofl: dangerous, being more fierce and ac-- tivc than the large ones. The people of Sennaar eat the crocodile, efpecially the Nuba. I never tailed it myfelf, but it looks very much like Congor eel..
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