Part 57

It begins with some remarks on the etymology of the word Assouan, which is said to mean a person in grief. Assouan lies on the extremity of the territories of Sayd. It is one of the harbours of this province, and divides Nouba from the country of Egypt. In former times a great plenty of wheat, grain, fruits, vegetables, and pot herbs, was found here, together with abundance of camels, cows, and sheep, whose flesh is of peculiar good flavour and fatness. The prices of provisions were always very low. Goods and articles of trade were found here, that were transported to the country of Nouba. To the east there is not any Moslim country bordering on Assouan: to the south there is a mountain, in which are the mines of emeralds, in an insulated barren country. At fifteen days journey from Assouan are the gold mines.[155] To the westward are the Oases. From Assouan a road leads to Aidab, from whence is the passage to the Hedjaz, and Yemen, and India. Masoudy relates: Assouan is inhabited by people of the Arabs Kahtan, Nezar Ibn Rabya, Modher, and Arabs of Koreysh, most of them transplanted from the Hedjaz.[156] The town has abundance of date trees; it is fertile and rich. The date stone is put into the ground, and the tree grows out of it, and after (a certain number of) years they eat the fruit.[157] The people of Assouan possess many villages within the confines of Nouba, the duties on which they pay to the king of Nouba. These villages were bought from the Noubas in the time of the Islam, during the reign of Beni Omeya and Beni Abbas. When El Mamoun arrived in Egypt, the king of Nouba asked for his protection against these people of Assouan, by means of emissaries whom he dispatched to Fostat. They complained to El Mamoun, that some villages of Nouba had been sold to their neighbours of Assouan; that these villages belonged to the king of Nouba, and that those who sold them were the king’s slaves, who possessed no property, and whose only business it was to take care of the cultivation. Mamoun referred them to the governor of Assouan, to the learned men, and Shikhs of that town. The people of Assouan who had bought the villages, perceiving that they were in danger of losing them, had recourse to a stratagem against the king of Nouba. They proposed to the Noubas who had sold the villages, when they appeared before the governor, to deny that they were slaves of the king, and to say, “the same relation exists between us and our king, O Moslims, as between you and your king. We owe him only submission, and are bound only not to contravene his orders. If you, therefore, are the slaves, and the property of your king, then we are the same.” They spoke other similar things, to which they had been prompted, and thus the sale was confirmed, and so it has remained until our times. The possession of these villages, in the territory of Merys in the country of Nouba, was transmitted by inheritance, and the Noubas, the subjects of the king, now became divided into two classes; the one, as we have stated, freemen, not slaves, and the other part slaves.[158] The latter were those who did not dwell in this territory of Merys, which is in the neighbourhood of Assouan.

Masoudy relates,[159] that the Noubas were divided into two branches. The one dwelt on the two banks of the Nile; their territory bordered upon the territory of the Copts of Upper Egypt, and extended far up the river; they built, as the seat of their government, the large city of Dóngola. The other race of the Noubas is called Aloa, and they have built the large town of Serfeta.[160] The country of Nouba, the territory of which borders upon the soil of Assouan, is called Merys, from which the Merysan wind takes its name.[161]

On the east side of Upper Egypt is a large mountain of marble, from whence the ancients cut columns, and pedestals, and capitals, which the Egyptians call Assouanye, (the same name they also give to the mill-stones). The ancients wrought these things many hundred years before the appearance of Christianity, and among them are to be reckoned the columns of Alexandria.

In the month of Zol Hadj, in the year 344, the king of Nouba attacked Assouan, and killed many Moslims. In the month of Moharran 345, marched against him Mohammed Ibn Abdallah, the treasurer of the Egyptian army of El Wodjour, Ibn el Ak Shedy (king of Egypt), by land and by sea.[162] He sent back many prisoners of the Noubas, who were beheaded at Cairo, after the king of Nouba had likewise met with his fate. He continued his march until he conquered Ibrim, and reduced its inhabitants to captivity, and he returned to Cairo with 150 prisoners, and many heads, in the middle of the month of Djomad el Awal, 345.[163]

The Kadhy el Fadhel states, that in the year 585, the income of the port of Assouan was 25,000 Dinars.[164] Djaafar el Edfouy relates:[165] at Assouan are 80 officers of the tribunal of justice, and Assouan produced in one year 30,000 Erdeybs of dates. Somebody informed me that he had met with a writing that contained the names of 40 Sherifs of the purest race (of Assouan) and another in which there were 60, besides the rest. And (El Edfouy) says: “I have met with a writing, dated in the year 620, that mentioned the names of 40 authors of Assouan.”

At Assouan were settled the Beni el Kenz, a tribe of Rabya, very praiseworthy people, celebrated by many verses. El Fadhel el Sedyd Abou el Hassan Ibn Aram has written their history. When Salah eddyn Ibn Ayoub[166] sent an army against Kenz el Doula[167] and his party, they left this territory.[168] The soldiers entered their houses, and found therein verses of those who had sung their praises, and among the rest a poem of Mohammed el Hassan Ibn Zebeyr, in which was this passage:

They help him whom the times have betrayed or oppressed;

People they are, who never dwell where dishonour abides;

When they grant their protection, no man under the stars fears;

When they dispense with their generosity, no want remains upon the earth’s surface.

For which the author received 1000 Dinars, and a water-wheel (with its field) was entailed upon him, worth 1000 Dinars.[169] regular armed garrison had always been stationed at Assouan, to guard the harbour against the inroads of the Nouba, and the blacks. When the reign of the Fatimites terminated,[170] this port was neglected. The king of Nouba, with 10,000 men, fell then again upon the island opposite Assouan,[171] and took prisoners all its Moslim inhabitants.[172] After this period the affairs of this harbour declined. After the year 790, the tribe of El Kenz became masters of it. They behaved vilely, and had many wars with the governors of this town, until the destructive epoch of 806.[173] Upper Egypt was then ruined and depopulated, the Sultan drew off his hand from Assouan, and he no longer kept a governor there. It remained in a deserted state for many years. In the month of Moharram, of the year 815, the Arabs Howara[174] proceeded to Assouan and attacked the Beni Kenz, and obliged them to fly.[175] They killed many of them, and reduced to slavery all the women and children whom they took prisoners.[176] They destroyed the walls of Assouan, departed with their captives, and left the city in ruins, without inhabitants. In this state the town remained, of which Selym el Assouany relates, that when Abd el Hamyd el Amry took the mines, he wrote to Assouan to demand from the merchants to supply him with provisions, upon which one man of the name of Othman Ibn Hauthale el Temymy, carried to him 1000 loads of provisions and corn. (Here follows a few other notices on Assouan of little interest.)

_Belak._

Belak is the last fortified place of the Moslims. It is an island in the neighbourhood of the cataract, surrounded by the Nile, with a large town upon it, well inhabited, with a number of date trees, and a Mambar (pulpit) in a mosque.[177] Between this and the city called Kaszer, which is the first town of Nouba, is one mile, and between Assouan and Belak four miles. Between Assouan and Belak are cataracts in the river, over which the ships cannot pass but with great caution, and guided by the fishermen of these parts, who are acquainted with the passage. At the Kaszer is a garrison post, and it is a gate towards Nouba.

_On the Desert of Aidab or Aizab._

The pilgrims from Egypt and Barbary remained upwards of 200 years without taking any other road to Mekka, may God honour her, than by the desert of Aidab. They embarked on the Nile at the plain of Fostat, and ascended as far as Kous. From thence they mounted camels, and crossed this desert to Aidab, where they afterwards embarked in vessels for Djidda, on the coast of Mekka. In the same manner the merchants of India, and Yemen, and Habesh, arrived by this sea at Aidab, reached through this desert the town of Kous, and from thence Mesr. This desert continued to be peopled and frequented by caravans of merchants and of pilgrims going and coming, in so much that loads of spices and drugs, as pepper, cinnamon, and others were found on the road, while caravans were ascending and descending, and nobody touched them until their owner took them away.[178] The pilgrims in going to Mekka and returning from thence, continued to frequent that road more than 200 years, from the year 453 and upwards, to the year 663 and upwards, at which time happened the great misfortune during the reign of the Khalif Mostanser b’illah Aly Temim Mad Ibn el Dhaher,[179] and the pilgrim caravans were interrupted by land and by sea until the Sultan Dhaher Roken eddyn Bybars el Bondokdary clothed again the Kaba, and made a key to it. A caravan then departed by land in the year 66—.[180] But the passage of pilgrims through this desert became less frequent, although it continued to be the road by which the merchandises were carried from Aidab to Kous, until the year 760, when it was abandoned, after which the affairs of Kous declined. This desert from Kous to Aidab is seventeen days journey across, during which no water is found for three, and once for four, successive days.[181] Aidab is a town on the coast of the sea of Djidda. It has no walls, and most of its houses are built of mats.[182] It was formerly one of the first harbours of the world, because the ships from India and Yemen brought here their merchandise, and set sail again in company with the ships of the pilgrims that passed to and fro. When the Indian and Yemen ships ceased to arrive at this place, then Aden, of the Yemen, became the great harbour, until after 820 and upwards, Djidda became the first harbour of the world, and likewise Hormuz, which is a fine anchoring place. Aidab is situated in a desert devoid of any vegetation; all the provisions, even the water, are imported. Its inhabitants derived immense gains from the merchants and the pilgrims; they had certain established dues from every camel’s load belonging to the pilgrims,[183] and hired their ships to them to cross over the sea to Djidda, and from thence back to Aidab; by which they accumulated great riches. There was no inhabitant of Aidab who had not one or more ships, in proportion to the amount of his property. In the sea of Aidab, at some islands in the vicinity of it, is a pearl fishery.[184] The divers issue from Aidab every year at a fixed period, in small boats. Arrived at the island, they remain there some time, and come back with whatever has fallen to their good fortune. They find the pearls in water of little depth.

The people of Aidab live like brutes. They resemble in their character wild beasts more than human beings. The pilgrims are exposed during their sea voyage to terrible adventures. They usually meet with strong winds in distant and desert anchoring places to the south.[185] The Bedja people then come down to them from their mountains and hire to them their camels, with which they travel without any supply of water.[186] Many of them die from thirst, and the Bedjas take whatever they had with them. Others lose their road, and likewise die from thirst, and he who escapes reaches Aidab as if risen out of his winding sheet, and entirely altered in features and in body. No where perish more pilgrims than in these anchoring places. To others, but the smaller number, the wind is propitious, and carries them to Aidab. In the ships that carry the pilgrims, are no nails whatsoever. They sew the planks with the Kombar, which is made of the cocoa tree,[187] and drive into them wooden pegs made of the date tree; after which they pour butter over them, or the oil of the Kheroa,[188] or the fat of the Kersh,[189] which is a very large sea fish that swallows up the drowned. The sails of these ships are made of the mats of the tree Mokel.[190] The inhabitants of Aidab use all kind of devilish practices with the pilgrims. Anxious for the fare, they load their ships with passengers one above the other, and never care about what may happen to them at sea, saying, on the contrary: “to us belongs the care of the ships, and to the pilgrims that of their own selves.”[191] The inhabitants of Aidab are of the Bedja, and have a king of that nation, and a governor named by the Sultan of Egypt. I have seen myself their Kadhy at Cairo, a man of black colour. The Bedjas have no religion, and are people of no understanding. Their males and females go constantly naked, with some rags round their loins, but many of them have no covering whatever. The heat is very great at Aidab, on account of the burning Simoum. (V. note _b_ at the end.)

NOTES.

* * * * *

(1.) This work of Ibn Selym I have in vain searched for in Egypt. Its title is well known; at Assouan and at Derr in Nubia, I found that some people knew it by name, but I never could find any body who had seen it.

(1.*) (see p. 494). I am led to believe, from different circumstances, that the Mokel here meant is the Doum. Wahyshe speaks of a tree called the blue Mokel, or Mokel el Azrek, which he says resembles the quince tree, has no fruit or flower, but emits from its trunk a fluid that has a good odour, and is used as a perfume. This tree, he adds, is principally found in Barbary. Of the Mokel simply so called, Wahyshe says that it produces a gum which is used by the Arabs as a mixture with perfumes, and that it grows in Arabia. He no farther describes the tree. I am ignorant whether the Doum produces a gum.

(2.) Selt (سلت) is a species of barley. In an abridgment of Ibn Wahyshe’s translation of the Agriculture of the Nabateans,[192] it is said that the Selt requires a hard stony soil and little water. (The country of Bedja would therefore be well fitted for it.) The bread made of it is of difficult digestion.

(3.) The expression of the author (فيعتقبون الارض لفيقها) may likewise mean, that the first cultivator makes room for another, who sows in the same spot after him.

(4.) Djawars or Djawarsh (جاورس or جاورش). A grain unknown to me, and, I believe, unknown in Egypt. The above cited author says that it requires a well watered soil to prosper; and that it is like Dhourra.

(5.) I find this name spelt Bedjrash, Bahrash, Narash, Bakhrash, Nadjrash. The two first occur most frequently.

(6.) The sense of this passage is not clear in my MSS. من قال حتي ان عظيمهم اذا جزبها و قف به المسلمي و اوهم افه يفتّش عليه حتي يجد الطريق الي و لده او وزيره و من دو نهما.—In another copy I find اذا حاربها و قف بها.

(7.) The Sembad is a stone still used in Egypt by jewellers and goldsmiths to give a polish; but it is imported from India and not from Nubia.

(8.) This ruin of Say I have not seen myself, as I could find no boat to carry me over. But I saw from a distance an ancient castle-like edifice among the palm groves.

(9.) This corresponds to the country of Mahass.

(10.) I find this word written Yonso, Benso, Noso. Perhaps Mosho, the frontier town of Dóngola is meant. The extent of the Merysy language is perfectly well indicated here.

(11.) I find it spelt likewise Yaoun (يعون). The description of this country agrees well with the present state of the country of Dóngola.

(12.) Taghtit and Nouby are, I believe, different species of the parrot. The term Babagh (ببغ), which I have translated here by parrot, is given to a small green parrot of the size of a black-bird. The Sennaar caravans bring them to Cairo. Some of them are found at Sennaar, but the greater part come from the neighbourhood of Shilluk, on the Nil el Abyadh. I never saw any wild parrots in any part of Nubia.

(13.) I find this written likewise Sendykal and Sefdabkal (سنديقل, سفدبقل).

(14.) The Sant is a well known species of Mimosa, very common in Upper Egypt and all over Nubia. The wood Sadj is of a dark brown colour, and very hard. Articles of furniture are manufactured from it at Bombay and Surat, and are exported to Djidda, from whence they are sent to Cairo. According to Masoudy, in his Golden Meadows (مروج الزهب), the Sadj is a very large tree, larger than the palm or the walnut tree.[193]

(15.) The Arabic reads ولقد رايت علي بعضها علامة عربية, and another copy has: علامة غريبة, which would mean, I have seen myself on several of them very curious signs of workmanship.

(16.) Instead of Shenka and Shenkyr, I find these words also written Sheka, Shekfyr, and Shenfyr.

(17.) This name is written in a different manner, every time that it occurs. Nadha, Nasza, Madha, Badha (ناضع, ناصع, ماضع, باضع). Shultens, in the extracts he gives from Masoudy in his Monumenta, has adopted the reading of Nasza, which he calls Nazoa. It is no doubt a harbour on the coast of Abyssinia, or on the coast between Souakin and Dahlak. If on the coast of Abyssinia, the names of Massouah, or as it may likewise be written, Masōa (مصوع), or Madyr, in the bay of Amphila, two days journey south of Massouah, which, according to Mr. Salt, is a much frequented port, are the nearest corresponding to it in sound. If, on the contrary, a harbour is meant north of Massouah or Dahlak, it seems, from Capt. Court’s map, that the only good harbour on that coast is Port Mornington, of which it is to be regretted that we are not acquainted with the native name.

(18.) The Beni Omeya and Koreysh, who fled from Mekka into Abyssinia, are meant here.

(19.) I find this city spelt Maafa, Naka, Yafa (معافة, ناقه, يافه); in Arabic MSS. the points over the consonants of proper names are very often misplaced. I read here Tafa (تافة), because, at one long day’s journey from Assouan is a ruined town of that name, which I have mentioned in my journal. More considerable remains of private habitations are seen there than any where else between the cataracts, and likewise several small temples. Descendants of ancient Christian families are still found here among the tribe of Kenz, who inhabit these parts.

(20.) Of this word are different readings. I find it spelt Nara in two copies, and Zonara in one: (from the latter word Sennaar might perhaps be derived.) نارة, زناره.

(21.) These pigeons are called Narein or Bazein (نارين or بازين). I prefer the former name, as being derived from the name of Nara.

(22.) The Bekam is a dye wood that comes to Cairo by the way of the Red Sea, from India and the Somauly coast. I believe it to be the logwood.

(23.) The Kena (قناة, plur. قنا) is the cane of which the shafts of lances are made.

(24.) The Arabic name of سرداب, is applied to cellars, caverns, grottos, and subterraneous passages, the work of men and not of nature.

(25.) To place Meroe between the Nile and the Atbara, where Shendy lays, is totally inconsistent with the nature of the ground. For, instead of the fertile island, we find there only a narrow border of cultivated ground, close by the river, while the whole country from thence to the Atbara is a desert, barren soil. I believe that the distances given by Herodotus will be found to agree very well with the position of the island described by Selym.

(26.) This theory of the rise of the Nile is certainly more natural than the theory of Herodotus, Strabo, or Diodorus Siculus. The remarkable fact that the Nile rises every where at the same time is universally believed in Egypt, and the first day after the Khamseyin, or the 18th-20th of June is stated all over Egypt as the day of rise. To make exact researches on that subject would require several observers stationed in different spots, and making their observations on the rise of the river at the same time. I am ignorant whether the French savants have done it.

(27.) The explanation which I have given of this passage appears to me the only reasonable one. I do not find the term of Ras Hofra applied to the Cape of Guardafui by the Arabian geographers, who usually call this promontory Djebel Mandeb. But I find in Edrisy a passage that supports my opinion of this cape being designated here by the name of Ras Hofra. He says (Geog. Nub. i. 6.) in speaking of the Djebel Mandeb: “on the back of this mountain is a cave, which if once entered, none comes out again, on account of some beast that devours him, or on account of pits (Hofer, the plural of Hofra), into which he falls.”[194]

(28.) Northwards is here rendered by the word بحري, Bahry, which is the usual word applied to the north by the Egyptians, who have the Mediterranean or el Bahr always to the north.

(29.) The different readings of this name are, Souba, Souya, (سوية, سوبة). I strongly suspect it to be the same city which is called below Serfeta, Serketa, Serkya (سرقيه, سرقته, سرفته), as a copyist might easily make that mistake.

(30.) Edrys, in describing Nubia, speaks of a town called Ghaloa (غلوه), which he places much farther down the Nile than this Aloa, although I believe that the latter is meant. The point over the ع makes the sole difference.

(31.) This I find written Korsa, Kortyna, and Koroma (كرما, كرتينا, كرسا). I have chosen the latter appellation, because it is an Arabic word, meaning “the generous,” an epithet that might well be given to the Meroe shepherds.

(32.) This town is likewise spelt Zerla (زرلا). I prefer (زلا), as similarly corresponding in sound to Zeyla; and if under the country of Kanem we must understand here the whole of the middle part of northern Africa, the author is quite right in stating that the nearest place to Egypt is Zela, (or Zeyla) because this was no doubt the nearest place on the caravan road, although it might not be so in a straight direction.

(33.) This is likewise spelt Wandy (وندي, دندي).

(34.) I find this name written likewise Djezye or Herye (جزية, حريه, خربه).

(35.) The work of Djaheth alluded to here, is probably his natural history.

(36.) The existence of these emerald mines has lately been authenticated by an European traveller. (V. note 82.)

(37.) هذا عرش فُلان, may mean “this is the tent covering, or the tent pole, or the panoply, of such a man.” In one of the MSS. it is written عرس; which would mean, “this is the wedding of such a one.” But the allusion to the tent is preferable, because it was therein that the guest was defrauded or ill treated.

(38.) I am not acquainted with the tree Shohat (شوحظ), but I find in the dictionary that it is a kind of yew tree. Wahyshe, in the above cited work, says that it is a fine looking tree which grows to a considerable height, with yellow leaves, shaped like those of the apple tree; its wood is of a spotted colour, black and white, of which the Persians and Arabs formerly made great use.

(39.) In a small minerological treatise of Tyfashy (خواص الاحجار ليو سف التيفاشي), I find the Hamest mentioned as a stone used in polishing sword blades, and other arms, and likewise to cut with. It is added, that this stone is principally found in the valley of Szafra, in the Hedjaz.