Chapter 27

'DANCING ON TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND, PICKING UP GOLD'

Little did we dream when we left Mohammed Gol with our rather extensive caravan that behind that gigantic mountain, which though it only reaches an elevation of 7,500 feet, looks considerably higher from the sea as it rises almost directly out of the level plain, we were to find an ancient Egyptian gold-mine, the ruins in connection with which would offer us the first tangible comparison to the ruins which had exercised our minds so much in the gold-fields of South Africa.

Some miles inland on the plain behind Mohammed Gol are certain mysterious towers, some 20 feet high, of unknown origin. They have every appearance of belonging to the Kufic period, being domed and covered with a strong white cement. They have no doors, but have windows high up: some are hexagonal, some square, and they are apparently dotted all along the coast. Whether they were tombs, or whether they were landmarks to guide mariners to certain valleys leading into the mountains, will probably not be definitely proved until someone is energetic enough to excavate in one. They are found as far south as Massawa, but as far as we could ascertain those we saw were the most northern ones. In one we found two skeletons of modern date, with the scanty clothing still clinging to the bones, as they had lain in the agonies of death, poor sick creatures, who had climbed in to die.

The tower of Asafra, which marks the entrance to the Hadi Valley, is about 20 feet high, and is octagonal. It struck us, from its position at the entrance of the valley system to the north of Mount Erba, that its original object had been a landmark which would be seen from the sea; had it been a tomb it would not have had the windows, and had it been either a tomb or a fort it would have had a door. There we halted, and bade adieu to the governors and officials of Mohammed Gol, who had accompanied us thus far. Our parting was almost dramatic, and the injunctions to the sheikh to see to our safety were reiterated with ever additional vehemence, the mamour holding my husband's hand all the time.

Near the well of Hadi are numerous ancient structures of a different nature and more puzzling to account for. Circular walls, from 10 to 14 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, have been built, some in the valleys and some high up on the hills. The interiors of these have been filled with stones, the largest of which are in the centre, and in the middle of these large stones is a depression a foot or so deep. They certainly looked like tombs of some departed race, especially as they were generally placed in groups of two or three, and they resembled the tombs in the north of Abyssinia, except that those are filled with mounds of small stones, whereas these have larger stones and a depression in the centre. The water turned out to be rather like port wine to look at, full of little fish, tadpoles, and leeches. We put alum in a bucket to precipitate the worst mud, then filtered it without making it clear, but it was a tremendous improvement. I think there really was a better water-place near, but we did not find it. Bad as it was, water was taken for three days, as they said we should see none for that time. As a matter of fact, I think the people did not want us to know the water-places.

We had a very warm night at Hadi, our tent, beds, and even clothes swarmed with beetles.

On February 7 we started for Gumatyewa. All day we went among little pointed hills, some, indeed many, marked with most curious veins of ironstone, sometimes in cross-bars. We soon reached a place in the Wadi Gumatyewa, whence a camel to our surprise was sent for water, and was not very long away, so water cannot have been far off. The rest of the camels were unloaded, and we sat and waited under some trees. In fact, we could have camped near water each of the days which we took getting to Hadai.

The sheikhs generally encamped at a little distance from us, and as they were given to nocturnal conversations and monotonous noises which they called singing, we were glad they were not too near.

We gradually ascended as we followed the valleys inland, after the Wadi Iroquis, until on the fourth day we came to a curious narrow winding pass, about six miles long, which just left room between the rocks for our camels to walk in single file. This pass, which is called Todin, landed us on a small plateau about 2,000 feet above the sea-level, where we found a large number of the circular remains. Todin is one of the most important approaches into the Soudan on the north side of the Erba group, and is practicable the whole way for camels, from which we never once had occasion to dismount, though going down might not be so pleasant. Before reaching the pass of Todin we passed a most curious mountain, seeming to block up the valley. It looked rather like a rhinoceros feeding among the acacia-trees.

Taking this country generally, I can safely say it is as uninteresting and arid a country as any we have ever visited. Our way perpetually led through valleys winding between low brown mountains, the dry river beds of which were studded here and there with acacia-trees. Occasionally one got a glimpse of the majestic spurs of Erba, and occasionally a fantastic rock or a hill-slope a trifle greener than the rest would temporarily raise our spirits.

As for water, we had the greatest difficulty about it, and our guides always enveloped its existence with a shroud of mystery. Men would be sent off to the hills with a camel, and return to the camp with skins of water from somewhere, probably from gulleys where rain-water still lay; but until we reached Wadi Hadai, after a ride of six days, we never saw water with our own eyes after leaving Hadi. More water can be obtained by digging. There is a great deal of _Mesembryanthemum_ about, which probably supplies the place of water to most of the animals living in these regions. A good many doves came to drink at the water in the evening.

Two days more brought us to Wadi Hadai, where we were to halt awhile to rest the camels. On the hill immediately above us was the circular fort, with its door to the east, to which I shall later allude, and on the plain below was another and smaller Kufic tower, several round buildings, and large stones erected on several of the adjacent hills evidently to act as landmarks. Also here we saw many graves of the Debalohp family--neat heaps of white stones, with a double row of white stones forming a pattern around them, and a headstone towards Mecca, on one of which was a rude Arabic inscription. These tombs reminded us very forcibly of the Bogos tombs in Northern Abyssinia, and evidently point to a kinship of custom.

The place where we stayed in a wood of thorny trees was at the branching of two valleys. We always had cold nights, but our widely spread camp looked cheery enough with eight fires; there were so many different parties.

Once we got into Wadi Hadai we were in Debalohp's country. He was chief of the large and powerful Kilab tribe, half of which owns avowed allegiance to the Khalifa, and the other half, with their chief, is put down as wavering by the Government at Sawakin. Luckily we did not know this at the time, or otherwise I question if we should have ventured to put ourselves so entirely in his hands, with the horrors of a visit to Khartoum, as experienced by Slatin Pasha, so fresh in our memories.

At Hadai for the first time during the whole of our journey our interests were keenly aroused in certain antiquities we found--antiquities about which Debalohp had said a good deal, but about which we had never ventured to indulge any hopes.

Hard by the Debalohp mausoleum was another Kufic tower, though much smaller than those we had seen on the coast, and not covered with white cement, and in the same locality were several foundations of circular buildings very neatly executed in dry masonry, which appeared to have at either end the bases of two circular towers and curious bulges, which at once reminded us of our South African ruins. On climbing an adjacent hill we found a circular fort, evidently constructed for strategical purposes, with a doorway, the ends of the wall being rounded, quite a counterpart of the smaller ruin on the Lundi river in Mashonaland. The analogy was indeed curious, and we talked about it hesitatingly to ourselves, as yet unable to give any satisfactory reason for its existence. On various heights around were cairns erected as if for landmarks, and we felt that here at last we were in the presence of one of those ancient mysteries which it is so delightful to solve.

We had as interpreter from Arabic to Hadendowa, as none of our party understood that language, the sheikh whose name was Hassan Bafori. He brought three coursing dogs with him. We had also with us a certain Annibàle Piacentini as general odd man. He was really Italian, but had lived so long among Greeks in Suez that he was always called Annibale. He talked Greek with my husband, Mattaios, and me, and English with the others, besides Arabic.

We rested our camels and our men at Hadai, and drank of some fresh water from a little pool, the first we had seen in this barren country, which was supplied by a tiny stream that made its appearance for a few yards in a sheltered corner of the valley, a stream of priceless value in this thirsty land. Debalohp suggested to my husband that he knew of some ruins in a neighbouring valley to which he could take him, but it was not without considerable hesitation that he decided to go. A long day's ride in this hot country, supposed to be almost, if not quite, within the Dervish sphere of influence, was not lightly to be undertaken, more especially as he had been on so many fruitless errands in search of ruins at suggestions of the Bedouin, and returned disgusted, and when he mounted his camel next morning, without any hope of finding anything, and sure of a fatiguing day, had a reasonable excuse offered itself, he would probably not have gone. But the unexpected in these cases is always happening. The long ride turned out only to be one of three hours. Wadi Gabeit was somewhat more fertile and picturesque than any we had as yet seen, and as a climax to it all came the discovery of an ancient gold-mine, worked in ages long gone by doubtless by that mysterious race whose tombs and buildings we had been speculating upon.

Diodorus, in his account of an old Egyptian gold-mine, describes most accurately what my husband found in the Wadi Gabeit. For miles along it at the narrower end were the ruins of miners' huts; both up the main valley and up all the collateral ones there must have been seven or eight hundred of them at the lowest computation. Then there were hundreds of massive crushing-stones, neatly constructed out of blocks of basalt, which had been used for breaking the quartz, lying in wild confusion amongst the ruined huts, and by the side of what once was a stream, but is now only a sandy, choked-up river-bed. On a high rock in the middle of the valley he found a trifle of a Greek inscription scratched by a miner, who had evidently been working the rich quartz vein just below it.

On an eminence behind the valley was another of the circular forts in ruins, similar to the one on the hill above Wadi Hadai, intended evidently for a look-out post to protect the miners at work below. Burnt quartz and refuse of quartz lay around in all directions, and on either side of the valley, stretched for a mile or more, were seams of the auriferous quartz just as it had been laid bare by the ancient workers. There was no question for a moment that he had come across the centre of a great mining industry, lost in these desert valleys behind the mighty wall by which Mount Erba and its spurs shuts off this district from the Red Sea littoral.

Naturally he felt rather startled at being confronted with this unexpected discovery, and in the short space of time then available it was impossible to grasp it all. So he rode back joyfully to tell the news to his party at Hadai. He told Debalohp that he had decided that we should move our camp thither, and stay as long as it was possible.

Difficulties again confronted us. Our two Kourbab sheikhs did not want to go. Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hamid was anxious to get on to his own country, and Sheikh Hassan Bafori quite set his face against our going at all, and Debalohp himself had to be firmly spoken to. An extra present to him was what finally helped us, and at length we all made a start on the following day to my husband's new El Dorado.

We had become rather confused as to dates, and there was a difference of two days that we could not be in unity about. Before setting out for Wadi Gabeit we consumed for breakfast the artificial horizon that Captain Smyth had used for taking our latitude the night before. It was very good; it was golden syrup instead of quicksilver.

Wadi Gabeit was just a trifle better than the country we had passed through, having finer trees in the valley beds; and here we saw the first colony of natives since leaving Mohammed Gol, consisting only of three huts of pastoral Kilabs, which will give an idea of how sparsely this country is inhabited. Debalohp's huts were certainly somewhere in the vicinity of Hadai, not more than an hour away, but for some reason known only to himself he would not take us there, though he went there himself every night, and when he joined us on our way to Wadi Gabeit he brought with him another wife, having evidently had enough of the other's company on his journey from Mohammed Gol.

Their camping arrangements were never luxurious. The Mrs. Debalohp used to hoist a mat on a spear, to keep off the wind. Mr. Debalohp used to lie on another mat in the open, surrounded by his weapons.

The huts we saw were made of sail-cloth, and were very neat inside. There is a passage all round where pots and baskets are kept, and within that a square room made of matting with a mat floor. One side of this is the sleeping apartment, and is entirely hung round with meat-safes, dancing hats, and camel trappings, all adorned with shells and beads. The huts are so small that it must be difficult to lie at full length.

I bought a gazelle-trap from these people. It consisted of a circle of thin sticks, 6 or 7 inches across, bound round and round with bark. Between the bindings are set little thin sticks like a wheel, but crossing each other thickly in the middle. This is put under a tree over a hole, the noose of a long rope laid round it and the rope tied to the tree; the whole is covered with earth. When the gazelle comes to eat he steps into the hole. By the time he has disengaged himself from the trap he is caught in the noose, and a cross stick, 3 or 4 feet long, tied about a foot from the end of the rope, prevents him getting through bushes.

A short time before reaching our goal we were met by a small band of natives, who tried to stop our advance with menaces, which we were determined neither to understand nor recognise. Possibly they were some of the Kilab tribe, who owned allegiance to the Dervishes; possibly they were actuated by the inherent dread the Moslem has of Christian enterprise reaching their secluded vales. However, our show of firearms and determination to go on had the effect of intimidating them, and after a somewhat feeble hostile demonstration and many palavers, we found ourselves comfortably established in our tents in the heart of the ancient industry, and peacefully distributing medicines from our chest to our whilom foes.

The encounter was amusing to look back on afterwards, but by no means so at the time; the yelling and brandishing of spears and shields and the parleying of Hassan Bafori and Mohammed Ali Hamid, who went forward, and the earnest wishes for the presence of Sheikh Ali Debalohp, who had gone round by his home to join us later. We and our camels were led back, but we dismounted and went nearer in a body, and then our firearms were distributed, and my husband, saying he would wait no longer, went past them, we all following. He fortunately knew the way. After a bit our camels came, and we were soon in the Wadi Gabeit. Knowing where the water was, in a little rocky pool, my husband went straight over to it, and ordered that the water-skins should be filled at once, in case of any difficulties. My husband and I and Mr. Cholmley went for a little walk round a small hill, and then I said I would go back alone to the small, oval valley. Just round a corner I came face to face with all the enemy, on foot and on camels.

I walked smiling to the worst old man, grasped his hand, and wished him a happy day. He started back, wrenched away his hand, waving me away, though Hassan tried to make him shake hands. The soldiers rushed forward, and I sat on a rock laughing at him, and saying I wanted to look at them. They all seated themselves close by. Captain Smyth, who had gone around making a reconnaissance, now arrived, his servant Hamid having galloped back on a camel to fetch him. He thought I was the only survivor. I told him the story before them, and imitated the old gentleman, pointing him out, and they all laughed when I asked how we could be afraid of them when they were so much afraid of me.

They all shouted 'Peace! peace!' (salaam! salaam!) 'aman! aman!' (mercy!)--and subsequently came in a body to our tent to impress upon me that _I_ need fear no longer--we were friends.

The real truth was that we were now very near, if not quite in, the territory of that branch of the Kilab tribe which owns allegiance to the Dervishes; when Captain Smyth rode ahead next day to take observations from a hill called Darurba, Mohamed Ali Hamed, who accompanied him, made him dress up in a sheet and pretend to be an Arab woman when they came in sight of some people whom he declared to be Dervishes.

We were told of a native who had lately found a gold nugget whilst digging in the sand. The veins of quartz, particularly on the southern side of the valley, are very marked, and the chiselling by which the miners had followed up their veins could easily be seen; it would appear that the workings here had been of a very extensive character, and the output of gold in some remote period must have been very large.

We were conducted to a hill about two miles from our camp, where there are old cuttings in the quartz, some of them going a considerable depth underground, and blocks of quartz were still standing there ready to be broken up; also we saw several crushing-stones here, but there were no traces of miners' huts, so presumably the quartz was removed to the valley below.

On the rocks near the cuttings we saw many rude drawings, one of a parrot and several of gazelles, evidently done by the workmen with their chisels.

In referring to records of the ancient gold-mines of Egypt, we find that a mine existed in the Wadi Allaki, some days south of Komombo, in the Bishari district. This mine was visited and identified by MM. Linant and Bonomi; there they found an excavation 180 feet deep, handmills similar to ours, and traces of about three hundred miners' huts, also several Kufic inscriptions on a rock. The mines, Edrisi tells us, were twelve days inland from Aydab. We must therefore look elsewhere for a notice of another mine nearer the Red Sea. Edrisi makes two mentions of these mines of Allaki, in one of which he says they are in a deep valley at the foot of a mountain; in another he alludes to them as on an open plain. On turning to Abu'lfida, we find him relating 'that Allaki is a town of Bedja; the country of Bedja is in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea. One finds there pearl-fisheries which do not give much profit, but in the mountain of Allaki is a mine of gold, which covers the cost of working. The mountain of Allaki is very celebrated.' Hence it would seem that two different spots are alluded to both under the name of Allaki, from both of which gold was obtained, one inland and one near the Red Sea. Professor de Goeje, of Leyden, the greatest authority on early Arabian literature, pointed out to my husband further discrepancies in the distances from Aydab to the gold-mines of Allaki in early Arab geographers, and suggests that the mines found by MM. Bonomi and Linant and ours, though several hundred miles apart, may have belonged to the same reef, and have been known by the same name.

In M. Chabas' 'Inscriptions des Mines d'Or' we have a very interesting dissertation on an ancient Egyptian plan of a gold-mine on a papyrus in the museum of Turin, of the time of Seti I., which he thus describes: 'Unfortunately, the name of the locality, which the plan gives us under the form _Ti, ou, oi_, the phonetic signs of which form a confused combination, does not give us any clue. We must therefore limit ourselves to the conclusion that this map, the most ancient that exists in the world, represents to us an auriferous vein in a desert mountain situated to the east of Higher Egypt, and very near the Red Sea. The shells spread on the path leading to it are a proof that the sea is very near; we can only think of the Red Sea, the shores of which abound in coral, in sponge, and shells variegated with the most beautiful colours.'

There seems every probability that the mine discovered by my husband was the one illustrated by the most ancient plan in the world, and, curiously enough, the Greek inscription we found seems to give a combination of vowels closely resembling the name given on the plan. On Egyptian inscriptions we constantly read of the gold of Kush, and that the prince of Kush was always interfered with in his works by the want of water, and from the Arab geographers we learn that they were finally abandoned by the caliphs owing to the want of water for washing purposes, and as far back as the reign of Usertesen we get illustrations of their washing process. Diodorus gives us a vivid description of the gangs of captives and convicts employed in these mines, and the miserable cruelty with which they were goaded on to work until they died of fatigue. He also gives some interesting details as to the processes of abstracting gold, which tally well with what we saw on the spot. 'They burn the quartz and make it soft,' which will account for the quantity of burnt quartz which we saw; and again, 'they take the quarried stone and pound it in stone mortars with iron pestles.' Mr. Rudler examined the specimens of quartz we brought home, and describes it as 'vein quartz, more or less ochreous with oxide of iron suggestive of auriferous quartz,' and told us that, unless we were going to start a company, there was no necessity to get it assayed; for archæological purposes the presence of gold was sufficiently established.

Will this mine ever be available again for those in search of the precious mineral? is the first question that suggests itself. Unfortunately being no gold expert, I am absolutely unable to give an opinion as to the possibilities of the still existing quartz seams being payable or not, but there is abundance of it both in the Wadi Gabeit and in the collateral valleys, and it is improbable that the ancients with their limited knowledge of mining could have exhausted the place. Specimens of quartz that my husband picked up at haphazard have been assayed and found to be auriferous, with the gold very finely disseminated; an expert would undoubtedly have selected even more brilliant specimens than these. Against this the absence of water and labour seemed to us at the time to negative any possible favourable results; but, on the other hand, the mine is so conveniently near the sea, with comparatively easy road access, that labour might be imported; and such wonderful things are done nowadays with artesian wells that, if the experts report favourably upon it, there would be every chance of good work being done, and these desert mountains of the Soudan might again ring with the din of industry.

The morning after we reached Wadi Gabeit an express messenger reached us from Sawakin, bidding us return to the coast at once, as we were supposed to be in considerable danger. Dervish raids were expected in this direction, and the authorities were evidently afraid of complications. A solemn palaver forthwith took place, at which our three sheikhs showed that they thought little of the supposed danger, and said that, though we were nominally in Dervish country at the time, there was no armed force near of sufficient strength to attack us. So we decided, and backed up our decision with a promised bribe, to stay another night in Wadi Gabeit, and to continue our course round Mount Erba, as we had originally intended, and with us we kept the messenger of woe with his gun and spear as an additional protection.