Burckhardt, John Lewis, 1784-1817; Nile River Valley -- Description and travel; Nubia -- Description and travel
The Ababde chief of the caravan being acquainted with my misfortunes,
sent for me just as we were on the point of departure, and having
made some severe reflections upon the cruelty of the Egyptians
towards me, made me a present of a sufficient quantity of water
to fill one of the smaller skins. I was of course very sincere in
my protestations of thanks and of gratitude, although I well saw
that his anxiety for my welfare was not so great as his wish to
mortify the Egyptians. We left Shigre in the course of the morning;
it took us four hours to cross the chain of mountains, which bear
the name of Djebel Shigre (جِبال شِقر). They appeared to
me the highest points of Western Nubia, but their most elevated
summit is not more than eight hundred or one thousand feet above
the plain. All these mountains are of granite, and are every where
as wild in their shape as those about the well. After four hours
march, we issued from the mountains, and by a slight descent reached
a sandy plain, covered with sharp stones. Our road S. 1° W. At five
hours, passed Wady Kabkaba (وادي قَبقَبه); at seven hours,
passed Wady Zeynatyb (وادي زَينَاتيب). Trees are very
scarce in these Wadys, which are nothing but low grounds with some
shrubs. We marched until late at night, and halted in the plain,
after a day’s journey of about eleven hours. The country we
passed over, after quitting the mountains of Shigre, is one great
sandy flat, occasionally interrupted by gravelly ground, with small
pebbles of quartz. We likewise passed several districts of moving
sands. From Daraou as far as Shigre we had constantly followed a
broad beaten path, where it is almost impossible for any one who has
once performed the journey to go astray. The road seldom varies in
its direction, and the prominent features of the mountains on both
sides serve to the traveller as a guide at the few places where
the sandy ground prevents any lasting impression of the footsteps
of former caravans. From Shigre southward we found no beaten path,
and there being no longer any mountains in view, it requires the
eye and experience of a Bedouin to keep the caravan in a proper
direction, especially during the day time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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