Chapter 24

HALAIB AND SAWAKIN KADIM

It is hard to imagine anything more squalid than the Egyptian fortress of Halaib, as it is spelt on the map, or Halei as it is pronounced, which was our next halting-place, and from which we succeeded in getting a little way inland. The governor, Ismael, has been there seven years; he and his family inhabit some wicker cages near the small white fort, and gathered round them are the huts of his soldiers and the cabins of a few Bisharin, who live under the immediate protection of the fort. Ismael is possessed of the only patch of cultivated land that we saw during the whole of our expedition, where he grows gourds, peas, and aubergines or brinjols. The man of most authority in the place is Mohammed Ali Tiout, head of the Bisharin tribe of Achmed Orab. He appointed his son, a fine, intelligent young fellow of five-and-twenty, called _the batran_ in the local dialect, to act as our guide and protector during our exploration of the Shellal range, which rises some miles inland at the back of Halaib.

The people of this portion of the Soudan between the coast and the Nile Valley, who do not own allegiance to the Khalifa, belong to the Morghani confraternity of Mohammedans; their young religious sheikh, a self-possessed, clever lad of about twenty, lives at Sawakin, and his influence amongst the tribes not affecting Mahdism is supreme. He is devoted to British interests, and no doubt in the present condition of affairs his co-operation will be of great value. The Egyptian Government instructed him to write to the sheikhs around Halaib and Mohammed Gol to insure our safety, and to this fact I am convinced we owe the immunity from danger we enjoyed, and the assistance given to us in penetrating inland from Mohammed Gol. The Morghani have the three cicatrices on either cheek, and as a confraternity they are not in the least fanatical, and are well disposed to Christians; very different to the Arabs we met in the Hadhramout, and very different to the Dervishes with whom they are on such hostile terms.

While at Halaib I paid several visits to the wife and family of the mamour or governor. They were very civil always, and used to kiss me. They looked quite as unsettled in their airy brushwood arbours as if they had not resided there steadily for seven years.

There were three huts about 12 feet by 8 feet, one being a kitchen. There is a brushwood fence all round, part having a shed for the stores and water jars. The wife is a Turk, and has one plain grown-up daughter. There was an old lady who made coffee, and a black maid slightly draped in a sheet once white, but now of a general deep grey, pure black in some parts. I liked getting coffee and ginger best. The first day I had to swallow, smiling, tea boiled and a little burnt.

All the furniture I saw was a 3-foot bed, three Austrian chairs, a very common wooden table, and a little iron one with a new and tight pink cotton cover and petticoat to the ground. All was very clean but the maid.

The kind lady thought her dwelling so superior to mine that she begged me to come and sleep in the bed with her in shelter from the wind; tents, she said, were only fit for men. I did not envy her her home in the drenching rain we had all night and half one day. She wore a string round under one arm, with seven or eight charms like good-sized pincushions or housewifes of different coloured silks.

We made two expeditions from Halaib; the first was to the ruins now known as Sawakin Kadim, which are on the coast twelve miles north of Halaib. As only six camels could be obtained we went by boat ourselves, leaving the camels for the baggage. For this purpose we deserted the _Taisir_ and hired a smaller _kattira_, and having gone as near as we could to land, and been in considerable danger from coral reefs, on which we ran suddenly, nearly capsizing, we took to the houri that we had towed astern. It was very like sitting in a bath, and, after the houri, we had to be carried a long way. We encamped not far from the shore, and had to endure a dreadful _khamsin_ and dust-storm from the south, with such violent wind that I was blown down, and Matthaios dug our beds out twice with a trowel; and the next day we found the north wind nearly as bad. Why it did not raise the sand I do not know.

Sawakin Kadim is like Berenice, nothing but a mass of mounds, but it must at some time or another have been a much larger place. We excavated one of these mounds, but found nothing earlier than Kufic remains, unless the graves, which were constructed of four large blocks of madrepore sunk deep into the ground, may be looked upon as a more ancient form of sepulture. We opened several, but unfortunately they contained nothing but bones. Originally this town must have been built on an island, or an artificial moat must have been dug round it to protect it on the mainland side; this is now silted up, but is traceable all along. Three large cisterns for water are still in a fair state of preservation, and I am told that a Kufic inscription was found here some years ago. There seems no doubt that this town is the one mentioned by the Arab geographers, Abou'lfida and Edrisi, by the name of Aydab, which was a place of considerable importance between Ras Bernas and Sawakin. There are no traces elsewhere along this coast of any other town, consequently we can fairly place it here. Abou'lfida says: 'Aydab is a town in the land of Bedja; it is politically dependent on Egypt, though some say it is in Abyssinia. This is the meeting-place for the merchants of Yemen and the pilgrims, who, leaving Egypt, prefer the sea route and embark for Yedda. In other respects Aydab has more the aspect of a village than a town, and it is seven days' march north of Sawakin, where the chief of the Bedjas lives.' Counting a day's march at twenty-five miles, this would place it near Halaib, which is 170 miles north of Sawakin. Hitherto on our maps Aydab has been placed near Mohammed Gol, but, as there are no traces of ruins there except the towers to which we shall presently allude, this position for an ancient town is untenable.

Edrisi tells us: 'At the extremity of the desert and on the borders of the salt sea is Aydab, whence one crosses to Yedda in one day and one night. Aydab has two governors, one appointed by the chief of the Bedja, and the other by the princes of Egypt.' From the fact that Aydab is mentioned by none of the earlier geographers it would appear not to have been one of the Ptolemaic settlements, but a town of purely Arab origin. The people of Bedja, so often alluded to by these Arabian geographers, seem to have had considerable power, and to have occupied all the Soudan and as far north as Berenice, being probably the precursors of the Bisharin Amara tribes, which wander now over this desert country. They were the recognised guardians of the old gold-mines which existed in this district, and concerning which I have more to say presently; and though vassals of the Egyptian kaliphs, nevertheless they seem to have had considerable local authority, and to have carried on wars on their own account.

It is a curious fact that in the Aksumite inscriptions we come across an account of wars and victories by the old Ethiopian monarchs over the peoples of Kasuh and Bega to the north of Abyssinia, which peoples Professor D. H. Müller identifies with the people of Kush and the Bedja alluded to by the Arab geographers.

In course of time the Bedjas seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth and left nothing but their tombs and a few ruined towns behind them; and for some centuries it would appear that the coast of the Red Sea north of Sawakin was uninhabited until in later years came fresh colonists from the Nile Valley, whose descendants still occupy it.

The tribal traditions of the district are all that we have now to rely upon regarding the immigration of new inhabitants, and they state that two brothers with their families, one named Amer and the other Amar, came from the Nile Valley near Wadi Halfa, and settled along the coast of the Red Sea; from them are descended the Beni Amer and Amara tribes of Bedouin. These brothers were followed in due course by four other brothers, Ali, Kourb, Nour, and Gueil, from whom the tribes and sub-tribes of the Aliab, Kourbab, Nourab, and Gueilior are respectively descended. These tribes have never been anything but pastoral nomads, living in miserable mat huts, and spreading themselves over the district at wide intervals in search of pasture for their flocks. They entirely disown having anything to do with the remains of buildings and tombs found in their midst.