I Accordingly Determined To Arrange Our Winter
Quarters As Comfortably As Possible At Sofi For Three Months,
During Which Holiday
I should have ample time for gaining
information and completing my arrangements for the future.
Violent storms were now of
Daily occurrence; they had first
commenced at about 2 P.M., but they had gradually altered the
hour of their arrival to between 3 and 4. This night, 29th July,
we were visited at about 11 P.M. with the most tremendous tempest
that we had yet experienced, which lasted until the morning.
Fortunately the tent was well secured with four powerful
storm-ropes fastened from the top of the pole, and pinned about
twenty-five yards from the base to iron bars driven deep into the
hard ground; but the night was passed in the discomforts of a
deluge that, driven by the hurricane, swept through the tent,
which threatened every minute to desert us in shreds. On the
following morning the storm had passed away, and the small tent
had done likewise, having been blown down and carried many yards
from the spot where it had been pitched. Mahomet, who was the
occupant, had found himself suddenly enveloped in wet canvas,
from which he had emerged like a frog in the storm. There was no
time to be lost in completing my permanent camp; I therefore sent
for the sheik of the village, and proceeded to purchase a house.
I accompanied him through the narrow lanes of Sofi, and was
quickly shown a remarkably neat house, which I succeeded in
purchasing from the owner for the sum of ten piastres (two
shillings). This did not seem an extravagant outlay for a neat
dwelling with a sound roof; neither were there any legal expenses
in the form of conveyance, as in that happy and practical land
the simple form of conveyance is the transportation of the house
(the roof) upon the shoulders of about thirty men, and thus it is
conveyed to any spot that the purchaser may consider desirable.
Accordingly, our mansion was at once seized by a crowd of Arabs,
and carried off in triumph, while the sticks that formed the wall
were quickly arranged upon the site I had chosen for our camp. In
the short space of about three hours I found myself the
proprietor of an eligible freehold residence, situated upon an
eminence in park-like grounds, commanding extensive and romantic
views of the beautifully-wooded valley of the Atbara, within a
minute's walk of the neighbouring village of Sofi, perfect
immunity from all poor-rates, tithes, taxes, and other public
burthens, not more than 2,000 miles from a church, with the
advantage of a post-town at the easy distance of seventy leagues.
The manor comprised the right of shooting throughout the parishes
of Ahyssinia and Soudan, plentifully stocked with elephants,
lions, rhinoceroses, giraffes, buffaloes, hippopotami, leopards,
and a great variety of antelopes; while the right of fishing
extended throughout the Atbara and neighbouring rivers, that were
well stocked with fish ranging from five to a hundred and fifty
pounds; also with turtles and crocodiles.
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