22 Degrees 44 Minutes, In Twenty-Six Days
From Cairo, We Started Across The Nubian Desert, Thus Cutting Off The
Western Bend Of The Nile, And In Seven Days' Forced Camel March We Again
Reached The River Abou Hamed.
The journey through that desert is most
fatiguing, as the march averages fifteen hours a day through a
wilderness of scorching sand and glowing basalt rocks.
The simoom was in
full force at that season (May), and the thermometer, placed in the
shade by the water skins, stood at 114 degrees Fahrenheit.
No drinkable water was procurable on the route; thus our supply was
nearly expended upon reaching the welcome Nile. After eight days' march
on the margin of the river from Abou Hamed through desert, but in view
of the palm trees that bordered the river, we arrived at Berber, a
considerable town in lat. 17 degrees 58 minutes on the banks of the
Nile.
Berber is eight days' camel march from Khartoum (at the junction of the
White and Blue Niles, in lat. 15 degrees 30 minutes), and is the regular
caravan route between that town and Cairo.
From the slight experience I had gained in the journey to Berber, I felt
convinced that success in my Nile expedition would be impossible without
a knowledge of Arabic. My dragoman had me completely in his power, and I
resolved to become independent of all interpreters as soon as possible.
I therefore arranged a plan of exploration for the first year, to
embrace the affluents to the Nile from the Abyssinian range of
mountains, intending to follow up the Atbara river from its junction
with the Nile in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes (twenty miles south of
Berber), and to examine all the Nile tributaries from the southeast as
far as the Blue Nile, which river I hoped ultimately to descend to
Khartoum. I imagined that twelve months would be sufficient to complete
such an exploration, by which time I should have gained a sufficient
knowledge of Arabic to enable me to start from Khartoum for my White
Nile expedition. Accordingly I left Berber on the 11th June, 1861, and
arrived at the Atbara junction with the Nile on the 13th.
There is no portion of the Nile so great in its volume as that part
situated at the Atbara junction. The river Atbara is about 450 yards in
average width, and from twenty-five to thirty feet deep during the rainy
season. It brings down the entire drainage of Eastern Abyssinia,
receiving as affluents into its main stream the great rivers Taccazy (or
Settite), in addition to the Salaam and Angrab. The junction of the
Atbara in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes N. is thus, in a direct line from
Alexandria, about 840 geographical miles of latitude, and, including the
westerly bend of the Nile, its bed will be about eleven hundred miles in
length from the mouth of its last tributary, the Atbara, until it meets
the sea. Thus, eleven hundred miles of absorption and evaporation
through sandy deserts and the delta must be sustained by the river
between the Atbara junction and the Mediterranean: accordingly there is
an immense loss of water; and the grandest volume of the Nile must be
just below the Atbara junction.
It is not my intention in the present work to enter into the details of
my first year's exploration on the Abyssinian frontier; that being so
extensive and so completely isolated from the grand White Nile
expedition, that an amalgamation of the two would create confusion. I
shall therefore reserve the exploration of the Abyssinian tributaries
for a future publication, and confine my present description of the
Abyssinian rivers to a general outline of the Atbara and Blue Nile,
showing the origin of their floods and their effect upon the inundations
in Lower Egypt.
I followed the banks of the Atbara to the junction of the Settite or
Taccazy river; I then followed the latter grand stream into the
Abyssinian mountains in the Base country. From thence I crossed over to
the rivers Salaam and Angrab, at the foot of the magnificent range of
mountains from which they flow direct into the Atbara. Having explored
those rivers, I passed through an extensive and beautiful tract of
country forming a portion of Abyssinia on the south bank of the river
Salaam; and again crossing the Atbara, I arrived at the frontier town of
Gellabat, known by Bruce as "Ras el Feel." Marching due west from that
point I arrived at the river Rahad, in about lat. 12 degrees 30 minutes;
descending its banks I crossed over a narrow strip of country to the
west, arriving at the river Dinder, and following these streams to their
junction with the Blue Nile, I descended that grand river to Khartoum,
having been exactly twelve months from the day I had left Berber.
The whole of the above-mentioned rivers - i.e. the Atbara, Settite,
Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, and Blue Nile - are the great drains of
Abyssinia, all having a uniform course from southeast to northwest, and
meeting the main Nile in two mouths; by the Blue Nile at Khartoum, 15
degrees 30 minutes, and by the Atbara, in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes.
The Blue Nile during the dry season is so reduced that there is not
sufficient water for the small vessels engaged in transporting produce
from Sennaar to Khartoum; at that time the water is beautifully clear,
and, reflecting the cloudless sky, its colour has given it the
well-known name of Bahr el Azrak, or Blue River. No water is more
delicious than that of the Blue Nile; in great contrast to that of the
White river, which is never clear, and has a disagreeable taste of
vegetation. This difference in the quality of the waters is a
distinguishing characteristic of the two rivers: the one, the Blue Nile,
is a rapid mountain stream, rising and falling with great rapidity; the
other is of lake origin, flowing through vast marshes.
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