A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar: Under the Command of His Excellence Ismael Pasha, undertaken; by Order of His Highness Mehemmed Ali Pasha, Viceroy of; Egypt, By An American In The Service Of The Viceroy — John Shaqi
A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar: Under the Command of His Excellence Ismael Pasha, undertaken; by Order of His Highness Mehemmed Ali Pasha, Viceroy of; Egypt, By An American In The Service Of The ViceroyEnglish, George Bethune
History
A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar: Under the Command of His Excellence Ismael Pasha, undertaken; by Order of His Highness Mehemmed Ali Pasha, Viceroy of; Egypt, By An American In The Service Of The Viceroy
English, George Bethune
Dunqulah (Sudan) -- History; Sennar (Sudan) -- History; Sudan -- History -- 1821-1881; Sudan -- History -- To 1821
out, the Selictar found himself obliged to order a halt for the rest of
the night. It was his intention to have marched till morning, by which
time our guides told us that we should arrive at the river. We threw
ourselves on the ground to sleep a few hours, but by sunrise we were
called to mount and away. We proceeded till about noon, when we came
in view of the beneficent river, whose beauty and value cannot be duly
appreciated by any who have not voyaged in the deserts through which it
holds its course. It was on the eighth of the moon when we arrived on
its borders. I had expected that our toilsome forced march would end
here, and had promised myself some repose, which I greatly needed, as
I had suffered much from the heat of the sun, which had burned the skin
off my face;--from fatigue and want of sleep;--from hunger, as we had
barely time to prepare a little rice and bread once in twenty-four
hours;--and from the exasperation of my ophthalmia, which had never
entirely quitted me since I was attacked by it at Wady Halfa, on the
second cataract. The Selictar, however, did not indulge us with more
than half a day's and one night's repose on the bank of the river, which
we found well cultivated by the inhabitants of numerous villages in
sight. On the morning of the ninth day of the moon, we were again called
to proceed. For this day our march lay near the bank of the river, and
through and by fine fields of barley, cotton, and wheat. The day after,
our route lay over a narrow space of rocky land, lying between the river
and the hills of the desert. We saw this day but a few cultivated spots.
On the 11th we commenced our march before sunrise, animated by the
information that we should be at the Pasha's camp by noon or the middle
of the afternoon. Our road lay this day on the edge of the Desert, just
where it touches the cultivable soil deposited by the Nile, which is
indicative of the point to which the inundations of the river extend
in this country. On both sides of tills road was an almost continued
succession of villages, which are built here in order to be out of the
reach of the overflowing of the river, which almost every year here
overspreads the country for one or two miles from its banks. The land
liable to this inundation is in part cultivated as well as any portion
of Egypt, and in part devoted to feeding great numbers of fine horses,
camels, dromedaries, kine, sheep, and goats, with which the country of
the Berbers is abundantly stocked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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