Expedition to discover the sources of the White Nile, in the years 1840, 1841, Vol. 1 (of 2)Werne, Ferdinand
History
Expedition to discover the sources of the White Nile, in the years 1840, 1841, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Werne, Ferdinand
Nile River
Gos Rajeb means the Hill of Rajeb, from a Sheikh or saint, who first
settled here. Though only appearing to our eyes a village, yet it
is esteemed in this country as an important commercial city, the
inhabitants of which are partly merchants from the Nile, and partly
Nomads of the family of the Shukuriës, Bisharis, and others. The
latter have renounced the rights of their race (gens, genus), and
left their peculiar alliance (Kabyle, from Kab’l); being, like
other wild animals who have been caught, dressed and also protected
by the halo of their founder. But their Sheikh asserts that the old
stock of the inhabitants is an indigenous people of the soil from
the earliest times (min aslu).
I lay there, towards evening, upon an angareb (a convenient bedstead,
made of thongs of camel-skin twisted cross or check wise), and looked
back towards the two rocky hills of Herrèrem, on the other side of
the river, where last night might have proved a bad one to us. These
rocks with their magnificent ruins had deceived us brothers before,
in the same manner as they did the learned Burckhardt, for the here
commonly called “Kenisse betal Kuf’r” (Church of Kafirs or
Unbelievers) composes chief of the fore part, so that we climbed up
with much labour. Moreover, the City of the Nazrani (Christians), said
(according to the statement of the Sheikh who accompanied me at this
time, by command of the Basha, from Gos Rajeb,) to have been larger
than Masr (Káhira), might have been very extensive, as I convinced
myself by the tombs, and especially the foundation-walls of cities,
and burnt masses on the north-east of Herrèrem; so that the word
Kenisse, which is here only applied to a Christian monument, is not
without significance in the mouth of the people. The market, as we see
at the time of the greatest height of the water, points also directly
to this uninhabited spot, as an ancient emporium between the tribes
of the inner countries and the Red Sea. On our present arrival at the
Atbara, I had remarked, about an hour’s walk to the south of this
rock, some three hundred paces from the right bank, not only tombs
and tiles, but also a tolerably large though low shelf of rocks,
of an oblong form, the sides of which shewed niches and cavities
seemingly made by the hands of men. I had just tied my obstinate
dromedary to a tree to graze, and had turned my back to him, when
he broke loose and started after the team, which had trotted before;
whereupon, the completely exhausted Archæologist no longer surveyed
his little Acropolis without pillars and temples, but ran after him,
and forgot everything.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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