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 The Nation’s Medical
Countermeasure Stockpile
Opportunities to Improve the Efficiency,
Effectiveness, and Sustainability of the
CDC Strategic National Stockpile

Workshop Summary

Anna Nicholson, Scott Wollek, Benjamin Kahn, and Jack Herrmann,

Rapporteurs

Board on Health Sciences Policy

Health and Medicine Division

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS

Washington, DC
www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

This activity was supported by Contract No. 200-2011-38807 with

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Any opinions,
findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this
publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization
or agency that provided support for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-44367-8

International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-44367-9
Digital Object Identifier: 10.17226/23532
Epub ISBN: 978-0-309-44370-8

Additional copies of this report are available for sale from the
National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Keck 360,
Washington, DC 20001; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313;
http://www.nap.edu.

Copyright 2016 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights

reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,

and Medicine. 2016. The nation’s medical countermeasure stockpile:
Opportunities to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and
sustainability of the CDC Strategic National Stockpile: Workshop
summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi:
10.17226/23532.
The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by
an Act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private,
nongovernmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to
science and technology. Members are elected by their peers for
outstanding contributions to research. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is
president.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964

under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to bring the
practices of engineering to advising the nation. Members are elected
by their peers for extraordinary contributions to engineering. Dr. C.
D. Mote, Jr., is president.

The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of

Medicine) was established in 1970 under the charter of the National
Academy of Sciences to advise the nation on medical and health
issues. Members are elected by their peers for distinguished
contributions to medicine and health. Dr. Victor J. Dzau is president.

The three Academies work together as the National Academies of

Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide independent,
objective analysis and advice to the nation and conduct other
activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy
decisions. The Academies also encourage education and research,
recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and increase
public understanding in matters of science, engineering, and
medicine.

Learn more about the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,

and Medicine at www.national-academies.org.
 PLANNING COMMITTEE FOR THE NATION’S
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURE STOCKPILE:
OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE THE
EFFICIENCY, EFFECTIVENESS, AND
SUSTAINABILITY OF THE CDC STRATEGIC
NATIONAL STOCKPILE—A WORKSHOP1

TARA O’TOOLE (Chair), Senior Fellow and Executive Vice President,

In-Q-Tel
ELLEN CARLIN, Principal, Carlin Communications
PERRY FRI, Executive Vice President, Industry Relations,
Membership and Education, Healthcare Distribution Management
Association
EMILY GORE, Director, Public Health and Preparedness Division,
Dallas County Health and Human Services
THOMAS INGLESBY, CEO and Director, Center for Health Security,
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
EVA LEE, Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
and Director, Center for Operations Research in Medicine and
Health Care, Georgia Institute of Technology
ERIN MULLEN, Subject-Matter Expert, Healthcare Ready
PAUL PETERSEN, Director, Emergency Preparedness Program,
Tennessee Department of Health
IRWIN REDLENER, Professor, Health Policy and Management and
Director, National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Mailman
School of Public Health, Columbia University

Health and Medicine Division Staff

JACK HERRMANN, Project Director
SCOTT WOLLEK, Program Officer
BENJAMIN KAHN, Research Assistant
THELMA COX, Administrative Assistant
ANDREW M. POPE, Director, Board on Health Sciences Policy

__________________
1 The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s planning
committees are solely responsible for organizing the workshop, identifying topics,
and choosing speakers. The responsibility for the published workshop summary
rests with the workshop rapporteurs and the institution.
 Reviewers

This workshop summary has been reviewed in draft form by

individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical
expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide
candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making
its published workshop summary as sound as possible and to ensure
that the workshop summary meets institutional standards for
objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The
review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to
protect the integrity of the process. We wish to thank the following
individuals for their review of this workshop summary:

JULIE ANN P. CASANI, North Carolina Department of Health

and Human Services
MICHAEL LOEHR, Washington State Department of Health
PAUL PETERSEN, Tennessee Department of Health
CHRISTOPHER G. SHIELDS, Chicago Department of Public
Health

Although the reviewers listed above have provided many

constructive comments and suggestions, they did not see the final
draft of the workshop summary before its release. The review of this
workshop summary was overseen by LINDA DEGUTIS, Henry M.
Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. She
was responsible for making certain that an independent examination
of this workshop summary was carried out in accordance with
institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully
considered. Responsibility for the final content of this workshop
summary rests entirely with the rapporteurs and the institution.
 Contents

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

1 INTRODUCTION, BACKGROUND, AND CONTEXT

SNS Standing Committee
SNS Challenges

2 THE STRATEGIC NATIONAL STOCKPILE: ORIGIN, POLICY

FOUNDATIONS, AND FEDERAL CONTEXT
Historical and Current Perspectives
SNS Policy Foundations
Congress and the SNS
SNS and the Federal Medical Countermeasures Enterprise: Federal
Program and Agency Partnerships

3 STUDIES AND REPORTS RELATED TO THE STRATEGIC

NATIONAL STOCKPILE
Anticipated Responsibilities of the SNS in the Year 2020
A National Blueprint for Biodefense: Leadership and Major Reform
Needed to Optimize Efforts
Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise
Review: A Strategic Report

4 POTENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR RESTRUCTURING

STRATEGIC NATIONAL STOCKPILE SCOPE, GOVERNANCE,
 AND DECISION MAKING
Potential Opportunity to Reexamine the Mission and Scope of SNS
Potential Opportunity for Promoting Visibility of the Public Health
Enterprise
Potential Opportunity for Implementing a Scientific Perspective for
Risk Analysis, Inventory, and Decision Making

5 REACHING THE LAST MILE: POTENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES

TO IMPROVE COORDINATION AND COMMUNICATION
AMONG LOCAL, STATE, AND FEDERAL AGENCIES
Perspectives of Public Health Departments at the State and Local
Levels
CDC Strategies for Ensuring Readiness at the Last Mile
MCM Challenges from the State and Local Perspectives
Potential Opportunity for Alternative Distribution and Dispensing
Models
Potential Opportunity for Improving Transparency and Coordination
Among Local, State, and Federal Agencies
Potential Opportunity for Improving Capacity to Reach the Last
Mile

6 POTENTIAL SUPPLY-CHAIN OPPORTUNITIES AND

LESSONS FROM THE COMMERCIAL SECTOR AND
GOVERNMENT PARTNERS
Strengthening the Public Health Response Supply Chain
Understanding and Leveraging Practices of the Commercial Supply
Chain: Lessons from Private-Sector Third-Party Logistics
Providers
Potential Opportunity for Better Engagement with the Commercial
and Pharmaceutical Industries
Potential Opportunity for Improved Electronic Data Interchange

7 WRAP-UP

REFERENCES
APPENDIXES
A Workshop Agenda
B Workshop Speaker Biographies
 Acronyms and Abbreviations

AMMA Army Medical Materiel Agreement

ASPR Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and
Response
ASTHO Association of State and Territorial Health
Officials

BARDA Biomedical Advanced Research and

Development Authority

CBRN chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDER Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
CERT Community Emergency Response Teams
CGMP Current Good Manufacturing Practice
CIADM Center for Innovation in Advanced
Development & Manufacturing
CONOPS concept of operations
CRI Cities Readiness Initiative
CTECS Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Coordination
Staff
DEA Drug Enforcement Agency
DHS Department of Homeland Security
DLA Defense Logistics Agency
DoD Department of Defense
DPHP Directors of Public Health Preparedness
DSLR Division of State and Local Readiness
DSNS Division of Strategic National Stockpile

EDI electronic data interchange

EID emerging infectious disease
ESC Enterprise Senior Council
EUA Emergency Use Authorization
EVD Ebola virus disease

FDA Food and Drug Administration

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

IDE investigational device exemption

IND investigational new drug
IPT Integrated Program Team
ITRA Integrated CBRN Terrorism Risk Assessment

LDS local distribution site

MCM medical countermeasure

MCMi Medical Countermeasures Initiative
MOU memorandum of understanding
NACCHO National Association of County and City Health
Officials
NBSB National Biodefense Science Board
NIH National Institutes of Health

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OPHPR Office of Public Health Preparedness and
Response
ORR Operational Readiness Review

PAHPRA Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness

Reauthorization Act
PHEMCE Public Health Emergency Medical
Countermeasures Enterprise
PHEP public health emergency preparedness
PHS Public Health Service
PI pandemic influenza
PIB POD in a box
POD point of dispensing
PPE personal protective equipment
PREP Act Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness
Act
PSMR Pre-Scripted Mission Request

RAMPEx Rapid Activation for Mass Prophylaxis Exercise

RFID radio-frequency identification
ROI return on investment
RSS receipt, storage, and staging
SIP Strategy and Implementation Plan
SLEP Shelf Life Extension Program
SLTT state, local, tribal, and territorial
SNS Strategic National Stockpile

TOPOFF top officials

VA Department of Veterans Affairs

VHA Veterans Health Administration
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heard the ferrymen singing on the river below, and soon afterwards
the Kashif appeared at the door. He apologized, saying he had been
occupied in his divan. I had dinner served again, and tasted the
dishes to encourage him, but it appeared that he had not been able
to keep his appetite so long, and had dined also. Still, he ate enough
to satisfy me that he relished my dishes, and afterwards drank a
sherbet of sugar and vinegar with great gusto. He had three or four
attendants, and with him came a Berber merchant, who had lately
been in Khartoum. I produced my sketch-book and maps, and
astonished the company for three hours. I happened to have a book
of Shaksperean views, which I had purchased in Stratford-on-Avon.
The picture of Shakspere gave the Kashif and shekh great delight,
and the former considered the hovel in which the poet was born,
“very grand.” The church in Stratford they thought a marvellous
building, and the merchant confessed that it was greater than Lattif
Pasha’s palace in Khartoum, which he had supposed to be the finest
building in the world.
The next morning the shekh proposed going with me to the
remains of a temple, half an hour distant, on the eastern bank of the
river; the place, he said, where the people found the little images,
agates and scarabei, which they brought to me in great quantities.
After walking a mile and a half over the sands, which have here
crowded the vegetation to the very water’s edge, we came to a
broad mound of stones, broken bricks and pottery, with a foundation
wall of heavy limestone blocks, along the western side. There were
traces of doors and niches, and on the summit of the mound the
pedestals of columns similar to those of El Berkel. From this place
commenced a waste of ruins, extending for nearly two miles towards
the north-west, while the breadth, from east to west, was about
equal. For the most part, the buildings were entirely concealed by
the sand, which was filled with fragments of pottery and glass, and
with shining pebbles of jasper, agate and chalcedony. Half a mile
further, we struck on another mound, of greater extent, though the
buildings were entirely level with the earth. The foundations of
pillars were abundant, and fragments of circular limestone blocks lay
crumbling to pieces in the rubbish. The most interesting object was
a mutilated figure of blue granite, of which only a huge pair of wings
could be recognized. The shekh said that all the Frank travellers who
came there broke off a piece and carried it away with them. I did
not follow their example. Towards the river were many remains of
crude brick walls, and the ground was strewn with pieces of
excellent hard-burnt bricks. The sand evidently conceals many
interesting objects. I saw in one place, where it had fallen in, the
entrance to a chamber, wholly below the surface. The Arabs were at
work in various parts of the plain, digging up the sand, which they
filled in baskets and carried away on donkeys. The shekh said it
contained salt, and was very good to make wheat grow, whence I
inferred that the earth is nitrous. We walked for an hour or two over
the ruins, finding everywhere the evidence that a large capital had
once stood on the spot. The bits of water jars which we picked up
were frequently painted and glazed with much skill. The soil was in
many places wholly composed of the debris of the former dwellings.
This was, without doubt, the ancient Napata, of which Djebel Berkel
was only the necropolis. Napata must have been one of the greatest
cities of Ancient Africa, after Thebes, Memphis and Carthage. I felt a
peculiar interest in wandering over the site of that half-forgotten
capital, whereof the ancient historians knew little more than we.
That so little is said by them in relation to it is somewhat surprising,
notwithstanding its distance from the Roman frontier.
In the afternoon, Achmet, with great exertion, backed by all the
influence of the Kashif, succeeded in obtaining ten piastres worth of
bread. The latter sent me the shekh of the camels, who furnished
me with three animals and three men, to Wadi Halfa, at ninety-five
piastres apiece. They were to accompany my caravan to Ambukol,
on the Dongolese frontier where the camels from Khartoum were to
be discharged. I spent the rest of the day talking with the shekh on
religious matters. He gave me the history of Christ, in return for
which I related to him that of the Soul of Mahomet, from one
hundred and ten thousand years before the Creation of the World,
until his birth, according to the Arab Chronicles. This quite overcame
him. He seized my hand and kissed it with fervor, acknowledging me
as the more holy man of the two. He said he had read the Books of
Moses, the Psalms of David and the Gospel of Christ, but liked David
best, whose words flowed like the sound of the zumarra, or Arab
flute. To illustrate it, he chanted one of the Psalms in a series of not
unmusical cadences. He then undertook to repeat the ninety
attributes of God, and thought he succeeded, but I noticed that
several of the epithets were repeated more than once.
The north wind increased during the afternoon, and towards night
blew a very gale. The sand came in through the door in such
quantities that I was obliged to move my bed to a more sheltered
part of my house. Numbers of huge black beetles, as hard and
heavy as grape-shot, were dislodged from their holes and dropped
around me with such loud raps that I was scarcely able to sleep. The
sky was dull and dark, hardly a star to be seen, and the wind roared
in the palms like a November gale let loose among the boughs of a
Northern forest. It was a grand roar, drowning the sharp rustle of
the leaves when lightly stirred, and rocked my fancies as gloriously
as the pine. In another country than Africa, I should have predicted
rain, hail, equinoctial storms, or something of the kind, but there I
went to sleep with a positive certainty of sunshine on the morrow.
I was up at dawn, and had breakfast by sunrise; nevertheless, we
were obliged to wait a long while for the camels, or rather the
pestiferous Kababish who went after them. The new men and
camels were in readiness, as the camel-shekh came over the river to
see that all was right. The Kashif sent me a fine black ram, as
provision for the journey. Finally, towards eight o’clock, every thing
was in order and my caravan began to move. I felt real regret at
leaving the pleasant spot, especially the beautiful bower of palms at
the door of my house. When my effects had been taken out, the
shekh called his eldest son Saad, his wife Fatima, and their two
young sons, to make their salaams. They all kissed my hand, and I
then gave the old man and Saad my backsheesh for their services.
The shekh took the two gold medjids readily, without any
hypocritical show of reluctance, and lifted my hand to his lips and
forehead. When all was ready, he repeated the Fatha, or opening
paragraph of the Koran, as each camel rose from its knees, in order
to secure the blessing of Allah upon our journey. He then took me in
his arms, kissed both my cheeks, and with tears in his eyes, stood
showering pious phrases after me, till I was out of hearing. With no
more vanity or selfishness than is natural to an Arab, Shekh
Mohammed Abd e’-Djebàl had many excellent qualities, and there
are few of my Central African acquaintances whom I would rather
see again.
 CHAPTER XXXIV.
OLD DONGOLA AND NEW DONGOLA.

Appearance of the Country—Korti—The Town of Ambukol—The Caravan

reorganized—A Fiery Ride—We reach Edabbe—An Illuminated
Landscape—A Torment—Nubian Agriculture—Old Dongola—The
Palace-Mosque of the Nubian Kings—A Panorama of Desolation—The
Old City—Nubian Gratitude—Another Sand-Storm—A Dreary Journey
—The Approach to Handak—A House of Doubtful Character—The
Inmates—Journey to El Ordee (New Dongola)—Khoorshid Bey—
Appearance of the Town.

I left Abdôm on the morning of February twentieth. Our road lay

southward, along the edge of the wheat-fields, over whose waves
we saw the island-like groups of palms at a little distance. For
several miles the bank of the river was covered with a continuous
string of villages. After skirting this glorious garden land for two
hours, we crossed a sandy tract, overgrown with the poisonous
euphorbia, to avoid a curve in the river. During the whole of the
afternoon, we travelled along the edge of the cultivated land, and
sometimes in the midst of it, obliging my camels to stumble clumsily
over the raised trenches which carried water from the river to the
distant parts of the fields. Large, ruined forts of unburnt brick,
exceedingly picturesque at a distance, stood at intervals between the
desert and the harvest-land.
The next morning was hot and sultry, with not a breath of air
stirring. I rose at dawn and walked ahead for two hours, through
thickets of euphorbia higher than my head, and over patches of
strong, dark-green grass. The sakias were groaning all along the
shore, and the people every where at work in the fields. The wheat
was in various stages of growth, from the first thick green of the
young blades to the full head. Barley was turning a pale yellow, and
the dookhn, the heads of which had already been gathered, stood
brown and dry. Djebel Deeka, on my right, rose bold and fair above
the lines of palms, and showed a picturesque glen winding in
between its black-purple peaks. It was a fine feature of the
landscape, which would have been almost too soft and lovely
without it.
Before nine o’clock we passed the large town of Korti, which,
however, is rather a cluster of small towns, scattered along between
the wheat-fields and the river. Some of the houses were large and
massive, and with their blank walls and block-like groups, over which
the doum-tree spread its arch and the date-palm hung its feathery
crown, made fine African pictures—admirable types of the scenery
along the Nubian Nile. Beyond the town we came upon a hot, dusty
plain, sprinkled with stunted euphorbia, over which I could see the
point where the Nile turns westward. Towards noon we reached the
town of Ambukol, which I found to be a large agglomeration of mud
and human beings, on the sand-hills, a quarter of a mile from the
river. An extensive pile of mud in the centre denoted a fortress or
government station of some sort. There were a few lazy Arabs sitting
on the ground, on the shady side of the walls, and some women
going back and forth with water-jars, but otherwise, for all the life it
presented, the place might have been deserted. The people we met
saluted me with much respect, and those who were seated rose and
remained standing until I had passed. I did not enter the town, but
made direct for a great acacia tree near its western end. The nine
camels and nine men of my caravan all rested under the shade, and
there was room for as many more. A number of Arabs looked on
from a distance, or hailed my camel-men, to satisfy their curiosity
regarding me, but no one came near or annoyed us in any way. I
took breakfast leisurely on my carpet, drank half a gourd of
mareesa, and had still an hour to wait, before the new camels were
laden. The Kababish, who had accompanied me from Khartoum,
wanted a certificate, so I certified that Saïd was a good camel-man
and Mohammed worthless as a guide. They then drank a parting jar
of mareesa, and we went from under the cool acacia into the glare
of the fierce sun. Our road all the afternoon was in the Desert, and
we were obliged to endure a most intense and sultry heat.
The next day I travelled westward over long akabas, or reaches of
the Desert, covered with clumps of thorns, nebbuk and the jasmine
tree. The long mountain on the opposite bank was painted in rosy
light against the sky, as if touched with the beams of a perpetual
sunrise. My eyes always turned to it with a sense of refreshment,
after the weary glare of the sand. In the morning there was a brisk
wind from the north-east, but towards noon it veered to the south-
west, and then to the south, continuing to blow all day with great
force. As I rode westward through the hot hours of the afternoon, it
played against my face like a sheet of flame. The sky became
obscured with a dull, bluish haze, and the sands of the Beyooda, on
my left, glimmered white and dim, as if swept by the blast of a
furnace. There were occasional gusts that made the flesh shrink as if
touched with a hot iron, and I found it impossible to bear the wind
full on my face. One who has never felt it, cannot conceive the
withering effect of such a heat. The earth seems swept with the first
fires of that conflagration beneath which the heavens will shrivel up
as a scroll, and you instinctively wonder to see the palms standing
green and unsinged. My camel-men crept behind the camels to get
away from it, and Achmet and Ali muffled up their faces completely.
I could not endure the sultry heat occasioned by such a preparation,
and so rode all day with my head in the fire.
About three o’clock in the afternoon we approached the Nile
again. There was a grove of sont and doum-trees on the bank,
surrounding a large quadrangular structure of clay, with square
towers at the corners. Graveyards stretched for nearly a mile along
the edge of the Desert, and six large, dome-like heaps of clay
denoted the tombs of as many holy men. We next came upon the
ruins of a large village, with a fort and a heavy palace-like building
of mud. Before reaching Edabbe, the terminus of the caravan route
from Kordofan, the same evening, I rode completely around the
bend of the Nile, so that my dromedary’s head was at last turned
towards Wadi Halfa. I was hot, tired, and out of temper, but a gourd
of cool water, at the first house we reached, made all right again.
There were seven vessels in the river, waiting for the caravans. One
had just arrived from Kordofan, and the packages of gum were piled
up along the shore. We were immediately followed by the sailors,
who were anxious that I should hire their vessels. I rode past the
town, which does not contain more than thirty houses in all, and had
my tent pitched on the river bank.
The Nile is here half a mile broad, and a long reach of his current
is visible to the north and south. The opposite bank was high and
steep, lined at the water’s edge with a belt of beans and lupins,
behind which rose a line of palms, and still higher the hills of pale,
golden-hued sand, spotted like a leopard’s hide, with clumps of a
small mimosa. The ground was a clear, tawny yellow, but the spots
were deep emerald. Below the gorgeous drapery of these hills, the
river glittered in a dark, purple-blue sheet. The coloring of the mid-
African landscapes is truly unparalleled. To me, it became more than
a simple sense; it grew to be an appetite. When, after a journey in
the Desert, I again beheld the dazzling green palms and wheat-fields
of the Nile, I imagined that there was a positive sensation on the
retina. I felt, or seemed to feel, physically, the colored rays—beams
of pure emerald, topaz and amethystine lustre—as they struck the
eye.
At Edabbe I first made acquaintance with a terrible pest, which for
many days afterwards occasioned me much torment—a small black
fly, as venomous as the musquito, and much more difficult to drive
away. I sat during the evening with my head, neck and ears closely
bound up, notwithstanding the heat. After the flies left, a multitude
of beetles, moths, winged ants and other nameless creatures came
in their place. I sat and sweltered, murmuring for the waters of
Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, and longing for a glass of
sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon.
We were up with the first glimmering of dawn. The sky was dull
and hazy, and the sun came up like a shield of rusty copper, as we
started. Our path lay through the midst of the cultivated land,
sometimes skirting the banks of the Nile, and sometimes swerving
off to the belts of sont and euphorbia which shut out the sand. The
sakias, turned by a yoke of oxen each, were in motion on the river,
and the men were wading through the squares of wheat, cotton and
barley, turning the water into them. All farming processes, from
sowing to reaping, were going on at the same time. The cultivated
land was frequently more than a mile in breadth, and all watered
from the river. The sakias are taxed four hundred and seventy-five
piastres each, notwithstanding the sum fixed by Government is only
three hundred. The remainder goes into the private treasuries of the
Governors. For this reason, many persons, unable to pay the tax,
emigrate into Kordofan and elsewhere. This may account for the
frequent tracts of the finest soil which are abandoned. I passed
many fine fields, given up to the halfeh grass, which grew most rank
and abundant. My dromedary had a rare time of it, cropping the
juicy bunches as he went along. The country is thickly settled, and
our road was animated with natives, passing back and forth.
About noon, we saw in advance, on the eastern bank of the Nile, a
bold, bluff ridge, crowned with a large square building. This the
people pointed out to us as the location of Old Dongola. As we
approached nearer, a long line of mud buildings appeared along the
brow of the hill, whose northern slope was cumbered with ruins. We
left the caravan track and rode down to the ferry place at the river,
over a long stretch of abandoned fields, where the cotton was
almost choked out with grass, and the beans and lentils were
growing wild in bunches. After my tent had been pitched in a cotton-
patch, I took a grateful bath in the river, and then crossed in the
ferry-boat to the old town. The hill upon which it is built terminates
abruptly in a precipice of red sandstone rock, about a hundred feet
in height. Four enormous fragments have been broken off, and lie as
they fell, on the edge of the water. A steep path through drifts of
sliding yellow sand leads around the cliffs, up to the dwellings. I
found the ascent laborious, as the wind, which had veered to the
west, was as hot as on the previous day; but a boatman and one of
my camel-men seized a hand each and hauled me up most
conveniently. At the summit, all was ruin; interminable lines of walls
broken down, and streets filled up with sand. I went first to the Kasr,
or Palace, which stands on the highest part of the hill. It is about
forty feet in height, having two stories and a broad foundation wall,
and is built mostly of burnt brick and sandstone. It is the palace of
the former Dongolese Kings, and a more imposing building than one
would expect to find in such a place. Near the entrance is an arched
passage, leading down to some subterranean chambers, which I did
not explore. It needed something more than the assurance of an old
Nubian, however, to convince me that there was an underground
passage from this place to Djebel Berkel. A broad flight of stone
steps ascended to the second story, in which are many chambers
and passages. The walls are covered with Arabic inscriptions, written
in the plaster while it was yet moist. The hall of audience had once a
pavement of marble, several blocks of which still remain, and the
ceiling is supported in the centre by three shafts of granite, taken
from some old Egyptian ruin. The floors are covered with tiles of
burnt brick, but the palm-logs which support them have given away
in many places, rendering one’s footing insecure. Behind the hall of
audience is a passage, with a niche, in each side of which is also an
ancient pillar of granite. From the tenor of one of the Arabic
inscriptions, it appears that the building was originally designed for a
mosque, and that it was erected in the year 1317, by Saf-ed-deen
Abdallah, after a victory over the infidels.
I ascended to the roof of the palace, which is flat and paved with
stones. The view was most remarkable. The height on which Old
Dongola is built, falls off on all sides, inland as well as towards the
river, so that to the east one overlooks a wide extent of desert—low
hills of red sand, stretching away to a dim, hot horizon. To the north,
the hill slopes gradually to the Nile, covered with the ruins of old
buildings. North-east, hardly visible through the sandy haze, rose a
high, isolated peak, with something like a tower on its summit. To
the south and east the dilapidated city covered the top of the hill—a
mass of ashy-gray walls of mud and stone, for the most part roofless
and broken down, while the doors, courts and alleys between them
were half choked up with the loose sand blown in from the Desert.
The graveyards of the former inhabitants extended for more than a
mile through the sand, over the dreary hills behind the town. Among
them were a great number of conical, pointed structures of clay and
stones, from twenty to thirty feet in height. The camel-men said
they were the tombs of rossool—prophets, or holy men. I counted
twenty-five in that portion of the cemetery which was visible. The
whole view was one of entire and absolute desolation, heightened
the more by the clouds of sand which filled the air, and which, in
their withering heat, seemed to be raining ruin upon the land.
I afterwards walked through the city, and was surprised to find
many large, strong houses of stone and burnt brick, with spacious
rooms, the walls of which were plastered and whitewashed. The
lintels of the doors and windows were stone, the roofs in many
places, where they still remained, covered with tiles, and every thing
gave evidence of a rich and powerful city. Now, probably not more
than one-fifth of the houses are inhabited. Here and there the
people have spread a roofing of mats over the open walls, and
nestled themselves in the sand. I saw several such places, the doors,
or rather entrances to which, were at the bottom of loose sand-hills
that constantly slid down and filled the dingy dwellings. In my walk I
met but one or two persons, but as we returned again to the river, I
saw a group of Dongolese women on the highest part of the cliff.
They were calling in shrill tones and waving their hands to some
persons in the ferry-boat on the river below, and needed no fancy to
represent the daughters of Old Dongola lamenting over its fall.
Some Dongolese djellabiàt, or merchants, just returned from
Kordofan, were in the ferry-boat. One of them showed me a snuff-
box which he had bought from a native of Fertit, beyond Dar-Fūr. It
was formed of the shell of some fruit, with a silver neck attached. By
striking the head of the box on the thumb-nail, exactly one pinch
was produced. The raïs took off his mantle, tied one end of it to the
ring in the bow and stood thereon, holding the other end with both
hands stretched above his head. He made a fine bronze figure-head
for the boat, and it was easy to divine her name: The Nubian. We
had on board a number of copper-hued women, whose eyelids were
stained with kohl, which gave them a ghastly appearance.
Soon after my tent had been pitched, in the afternoon, a man
came riding up from the river on a donkey, leading a horse behind
him. He had just crossed one of the water-courses on his donkey,
and was riding on, holding the horse’s rope in his hand, when the
animal started back at the water-course, jerking the man over the
donkey’s tail and throwing him violently on the ground. He lay as if
dead for a quarter of an hour, but Achmet finally brought him to
consciousness by pouring the contents of a leathern water-flask over
his head, and raising him to a sitting posture. His brother, who had
charge of a sakia on the bank, brought me an angareb in the
evening, in acknowledgment of this good office. It is a good trait in
the people, that they are always grateful for kindness. The angareb,
however, did not prove of much service, for I was so beset by the
black gnats that it was impossible to sleep. They assailed my nose,
mouth, ears and eyes in such numbers that I was almost driven
mad. I rubbed my face with strong vinegar, but it only seemed to
attract them the more. I unwound my turban, and rolled it around
my neck and ears, but they crept under the folds and buzzed and bit
until I was forced to give up the attempt.
Our road, the next morning, lay near the river, through tracks of
thick halfeh, four or five feet high. We constantly passed the ruins of
villages and the naked frames of abandoned sakias. The soil was
exceedingly rich, as the exuberant growth of halfeh proved, but for
miles and miles there was no sign of life. The tyranny of the Turks
has depopulated one of the fairest districts of Nubia. The wind blew
violently from the north, and the sandy haze and gray vapor in the
air became so dense that I could scarcely distinguish the opposite
bank of the Nile. The river was covered with white caps, and broke
on the beach below with a wintry roar. As we journeyed along
through the wild green grass and orchards of sont, passing broken
walls and the traces of old water-courses, I could have believed
myself travelling through some deserted landscape of the North. I
was chilled with the strong wind, which roared in the sont and made
my beard whistle under my nose like a wisp of dry grass. Several
ships passed us, scudding up stream under bare poles, and one,
which had a single reef shaken out of her large sail, dashed by like a
high-pressure steamer.
After two or three hours we passed out of this region. The Desert
extended almost to the water’s edge, and we had nothing but sand
and thorns. The wind by this time was more furious than ever, and
the air was so full of sand that we could not see more than a
hundred yards on either hand. The sun gave out a white, ghastly
light, which increased the dreariness of the day. All trace of the road
was obliterated, and we could only travel at random among the
thorns, following the course of the Nile, which we were careful to
keep in view. My eyes, ears, and nostrils were soon filled with sand,
and I was obliged to bind my turban so as nearly to cover my face,
leaving only space enough to take a blind view of the way we were
going. At breakfast time, after two hours of this martyrdom, I found
a clump of thorns so thick as to shut off the wind, but no sooner had
I dismounted and crept under its shelter than I experienced a
scorching heat from the sun, and was attacked by myriads of the
black gnats. I managed to eat something in a mad sort of way,
beating my face and ears continually, and was glad to thrust my
head again into the sand-storm, which drove off the worse pests. So
for hours we pursued our journey. I could not look in the face of the
wind, which never once fell. The others suffered equally, and two of
the camel-men lagged so, that we lost sight of them entirely. It was
truly a good fortune that I did not take the short road, east of the
Nile, from Merawe to New Dongola. In the terrible wastes of the
Nubian Desert, we could scarcely have survived such a storm.
Nearly all the afternoon we passed over deserted tracts, which
were once covered with flourishing fields. The water-courses extend
for nearly two miles from the river, and cross the road at intervals of
fifty yards. But now the villages are level with the earth, and the
sand whistles over the traces of fields and gardens, which it has not
yet effaced. Two hours before sunset the sun disappeared, and I
began to long for the town of Handak, our destination. Achmet and I
were ahead, and the other camels were not to be seen any longer,
so as sunset came on I grew restless and uneasy. The palms by this
time had appeared again on the river’s brink, and there was a village
on our left, in the sand. We asked again for Handak. “Just at the
corner of yon palms,” said the people. They spoke with a near
emphasis, which encouraged me. The Arabic dialect of Central Africa
has one curious characteristic, which evidently springs from the want
of a copious vocabulary. Degree, or intensity of meaning is usually
indicated by accent alone. Thus, when they point to an object near
at hand they say: henàk, “there;” if it is a moderate distance off,
they lengthen the sound into “hen-a-a-ak;” while, if it is so far as to
be barely visible, the last syllable is sustained with a full breath
—“hen-a-a-a-a-a-àk!” In the same way, saā signifies “an hour;” sa-a-
a-ā, “two hours,” &c. This habit of speech gives the language a very
singular and eccentric character.
We pushed on till the spot was reached, but as far ahead as the
sand would permit us to see, could discern no house. We asked
again; the town commenced at the next corner of the palms ahead
of us. I think this thing must have happened to us five or six times,
till at last I got into that peculiarly amiable mood which sees nothing
good in Heaven or Earth. If my best friend had come to meet me, I
should have given him but a sour greeting. My eyes were blinded,
my head dull and stupid, and my bones sore from twelve hours in
the saddle. As it grew dark, we were overtaken by four riders
mounted on fine dromedaries. They were going at a sweeping trot,
and our beasts were ambitious enough to keep pace with them for
some time. One of them was a stately shekh, with a white robe and
broad gold border and fringe. From what the people said of him, I
took him to be the Melek, or King of Dongola.
Meanwhile, it was growing dark. We could see nothing of the
town, though a woman who had been walking beside us, said we
were there already. She said she had a fine house, which we could
have for the night, since it was almost impossible for a tent to stand
in such a wind. As I had already dipped into the night, I determined
to reach Handak at all hazards, and after yet another hour,
succeeded. Achmet and I dismounted in a ruined court-yard, and
while I sat on a broken wall, holding the camels, he went to look for
our men. It was a dismal place, in the gathering darkness, with the
wind howling and the sand drifting on all sides, and I wondered
what fiend had ever tempted me to travel in Africa. Before long the
woman appeared and guided us to a collection of miserable huts on
the top of the hill. Her fine house proved to be a narrow, mud-walled
room, with a roof of smoked dourra-stalks. It shut off the wind,
however, and when I entered and found the occupants (two other
women), talking to each other by the light of a pile of blazing corn-
stalks, it looked absolutely cheerful. I stretched myself out on one of
the angarebs, and soon relapsed into a better humor. But I am afraid
we were not lodged in the most respectable house of Handak, for
the women showed no disposition to leave, when we made
preparations for sleeping. They paid no attention to my requests,
except by some words of endearment, which, from such creatures,
were sufficiently disgusting, and I was obliged to threaten them with
forcible ejection, before they vacated the house. The camel-men
informed me that the place is notorious for its harlotry.
As we had made a forced march of forty miles in one day, I gave
the caravan a rest until noon, and treated the men to mutton and
mareesa. Prices had already increased, since leaving Soudân, and I
could not procure a sheep for less than seventeen piastres. The
women, who had returned at sunrise, begged me to give them the
entrails, which they cut into pieces and ate raw, with the addition of
some onions and salt. The old woman told me a piteous tale of the
death of her son, and her own distress, and how King Dyaab (who
had passed through Handak the day previous, on his way to Dar El-
Màhass) had given her two piastres, and she hoped I would also
give her something, that she might buy a new dress. I gave her the
same as King Dyaab, which she at once asked me to take back
again, as she expected at least nine piastres. Seeing I was about to
take her at her word, she made haste to secure the money. Her
youngest daughter, a bold, masculine thing, with hair cut close to
her head, now came to me for backsheesh. “Oh!” said I, “you are
going to do as the old woman did, are you?” “No,” she exclaimed; “if
you will give me two piastres, I will ask for no more. The old woman
is a miserable wretch!” and she spat upon the ground to show her
disgust. “Go!” I said; “I shall give nothing to a girl who insults her
mother.”
From Handak to El Ordee is two days’ journey. The country
presents the same aspect of desertion and ruin as that in the
neighborhood of Old Dongola. Untenanted villages line the road
during nearly the whole distance. The face of the country is level,
and there is no mountain to be seen on either bank of the Nile. It is
a melancholy, deserted region, showing only palms growing wildly
and rankly along the river, fields covered with halfeh, water-courses
broken down, sakias dismantled, and everywhere dwellings in ruin.
Here and there a few inhabitants still lingered, tending their fields of
stunted cotton, or watering some patches of green wheat. The
general aspect of desolation was heightened by the strong north-
wind, which filled the air with clouds of sand, making the sunshine
so cold and white, that all the color faded out of the landscape. The
palms were dull and dark, and the sand-hills beyond the Nile a dead,
lifeless yellow. All this district swarms with black gnats, which
seemed to have been sent as a curse upon its desertion, for they
never appeared where the country was thickly inhabited and all the
soil cultivated.
On the first day after leaving Handak, we passed the villages of
Kiar, Sori and Urub, and stopped at a place called Tetti. The wind
blew so violently during the night that every thing in my tent, my
head included, was thickly covered with dust. The next day we
passed a large town called Hannak. The greater part of it was
levelled to the earth, and evidently by violence, for the walls were of
stone. It stood on a rocky rise, near the river, and had on its highest
part the remains of some defences, and a small palace, in tolerable
preservation. The hills behind were covered for half a mile with the
graves of the former inhabitants, among which I noticed the cones
and pyramids of several holy men. As we approached El Ordee (by
which name New Dongola is usually called), the appearance of the
country improved, although there was still as much deserted as
cultivated land. The people we met were partly Dongolese and partly
Arabs from the Desert, the latter with bushy hair, shining with
grease, and spears in their hands. They cheered us with the news
that El Ordee was not distant, and we would arrive there at asser—
the time of afternoon prayer, two hours before sunset. My camel-
men rejoiced at the prospect of again having mareesa to drink, and I
asked old Mohammed if he supposed the saints drank mareesa in
Paradise. “Why!” he joyfully exclaimed; “do you know about
Paradise?” “Certainly;” said I, “if you lead a good life, you will go
straight there, but if you are wicked, Eblis will carry you down into
the flames.” “Wallah!” said the old fellow, aside to Achmet; “but this
is a good Frank. He certainly has Islam in his heart.”
About two o’clock, we descried the minaret of El Ordee, its sugar-
loaf top glittering white in the sun. The place was three or four miles
distant, and we did not reach it until after more than an hour’s
travel. As we approached, it presented the usual appearance of the
Nubian towns—a long line of blank mud walls, above which rise,
perhaps, the second stories of a few more ambitious mud houses;
here a sycamore, there a palm or two, denoting a garden within; a
wide waste of sand round about, some filthy people basking in the
sun, and a multitude of the vilest kind of dogs. Near the river there
are some fine large gardens, as in Khartoum. I had already decided
to stop two days, to rest my caravan, before commencing the long
and toilsome march to Wadi-Halfa, but instead of hiring a house I
went around the town and pitched my tent on the northern side, on
a sandy plain, where I secured pure air and freedom from
molestation by the inhabitants.
The morning after my arrival, the Governor, Khoorshid Bey, called
at my tent, and I returned the visit in the afternoon. He was a stout,
fair-skinned and brown-bearded man of thirty-eight, and looked
more like an American than a Turk. I found him in the shop of a
Turkish merchant, opposite the door of the mosque, which is built in
the centre of the bazaar. Two soldiers were in attendance, and
brought me coffee and sherbet. The Bey was particularly anxious to
know whether the railroad from Alexandria to Cairo would be built,
and how much it would cost. While I was sitting with him, the
mollahs were chanting in the mosque opposite, as it was the Moslem
Sunday, and groups of natives were flocking thither to say their
prayers. Presently the voice of the muezzin was heard from the top
of the minaret, chanting in a loud, melodious, melancholy cadence
the call to prayer—a singular cry, the effect of which, especially at
sunset, is really poetic and suggestive. I took my leave, as the Bey
was expected to perform his devotions with the other worshippers.
The town may be seen in an hour. It contains no sights, except
the bazaar, which has about twenty tolerable shops, principally
stocked with cottons and calicoes, and a great quantity of white
shawls with crimson borders, which the people here are fond of
wearing over their shoulders. Outside the bazaar, which has a roof of
palm-logs covered with matting, are a few shops, containing spices,
tobacco, beads, trinkets and the like small articles. Beyond this was
the soog, where the people came with their coarse tobacco, baskets
of raw cotton, onions, palm-mats, gourds, dates, faggots of fire-
wood, sheep and fowls. In this market-place, which ascended and
descended with the dirt-heaps left from ruined houses, there were
four ostriches, which walked about, completely naturalized to the
place. One of them was more than eight feet high—a most powerful
and graceful creature. They were not out of place, among the
groups of wild-haired Kababish and Bishàree, who frequented the
market.
Below the river-bank, which is high, upwards of twenty small
trading craft were lying. One had just arrived with a load of lime,
which the naked sailors were carrying up the bank in baskets, on
their heads. The channel of the Nile here is mainly taken up with the
large, sandy island of Tor, and the stream is very narrow. The shore
was crowded with women, washing clothes or filling their water-jars,
men hoisting full water-skins on the backs of donkeys, and boys of
all shades, from whity-yellow to perfect black, bathing and playing
on the brink. The northern part of the town appeared to be
deserted, and several spacious two-story buildings were falling into
ruins. I noticed not more than half a dozen houses which would be
considered handsome in Berber or Khartoum. El Ordee ranks next
after those places, in all the Egyptian territory beyond Assouan, but
has the disadvantage of being more filthy than they.
 CHAPTER XXXV.
JOURNEY THROUGH DAR EL-MÀHASS AND
SUKKÔT.

We start for Wadi-Halfa—The Plague of Black Gnats—Mohammed’s Coffin

—The Island of Argo—Market-Day—Scenery of the Nile—Entering Dar
El-Màhass—Ruined Fortresses—The Camel-Men—A Rocky Chaos—
Fakir Bender—The Akaba of Màhass—Camp in the Wilderness—The
Charm of Desolation—The Nile again—Pilgrims from Dar-Fūr—The
Struggle of the Nile—An Arcadian Landscape—The Temple of Soleb—
Dar Sukkôt—The Land of Dates—The Island of Sai—A Sea of Sand—
Camp by the River—A Hyena Barbecue.

We left El Ordee or New Dongola, before sunrise on the twenty-

ninth of February. A boy of about fourteen years old came out from
the town, helped load the camels, and insisted on accompanying me
to Cairo. As my funds were diminishing, and I had no need of
additional service, I refused to take him, and he went home greatly
disappointed. We were all in fine health and spirits, from the two
days’ rest, and our ships of the Desert sailed briskly along the sands,
with the palmy coasts green and fair on our right. For some miles
from the town the land is tolerably well cultivated, but the grain was
all much younger than in the neighborhood of Old Dongola. Beyond
this, the country was again deserted and melancholy; everywhere
villages in ruin, fields given up to sand and thorns, and groves of
date trees wasting their vigor in rank, unpruned shoots. The edge of
the Desert was covered with graveyards to a considerable extent,
each one boasting its cluster of pyramids and cones, raised over the
remains of holy shekhs. Towards noon I dismounted for breakfast in
a grove of sont trees, but had no sooner seated myself on my
carpet, than the small black flies came in such crowds that I was
scarcely able to eat. They assailed my temples, ears, eyes and
nostrils, and it was utterly impossible to drive them away. I was half
crazy with the infliction, and at night my neck and temples were
swollen and covered with blotches worse than those made by
mosquito stings. In fact, mosquitoes are mild and merciful in
comparison. Had not my road been mostly in the Desert, away from
the trees, I could scarcely have endured the journey. The few
inhabitants along the river kindled fires of green wood and sat in the
smoke.
In the afternoon the monotony of the Desert on the western bank
was broken by a solitary mountain of a remarkable form. It precisely
resembled an immense coffin, the ends being apparently cut square
off, and as the effect of a powerful mirage lifted it above the horizon,
it seemed like the sarcophagus of the Prophet, in the Kaaba, to be
suspended between heaven and earth. The long island of Argo,
which I saw occasionally across an arm of the Nile, appeared rich
and well cultivated. It belongs mostly to Melek Hammed, King of
Dongola, who was expected at home the day I passed, on his return
from Cairo, where he had been three months or more, for the
purpose of representing to Abbas Pasha the distressed condition of
the country, and obtaining some melioration of the system of misrule
inflicted upon it. Near the town of Argo, on the opposite side of the
island my map indicated a ruined temple, and I made a strong effort
to see it; but at Binni, which was the nearest point, there was no
ferry, and the people knew nothing of the temple nor of any thing
else. I left the main road and followed the bank, but the terrible flies
drove me away, and so, maddened and disgusted, I came at last to
a sakia, where the people informed me that the ferry was still ahead
and the ruins already some distance behind me. They said this
deliberately and carelessly, sitting like black spectres in the midst of
thick smoke, while I was crazily beating my ears. “Tell the caravan to
go ahead,” I said to Achmet, at length, “and don’t talk to me of
temples until we have got away from these flies.”
The next morning Achmet had some difficulty in awaking me, so
wrapt was I in dreams of home. I sat shivering in the cool air, trying
to discover who and where I was, but the yellow glimmer of my
tent-lining in the dim light of dawn soon informed me. During the
day we passed through a more thickly settled country, and owing to
the partial cultivation of the soil, were less troubled by that Nubian
plague, which is always worse about the ruined villages and the
fields given up to halfeh grass. It was market-day at the village of
Hafier, and we met and passed many natives, some with baskets of
raw cotton and some with grain. I noticed one man riding a donkey
and carrying before him a large squash, for which he would possibly
get twenty paràs (2½ cents). My camel-men, who had neglected to
buy dourra in El Ordee, wanted to stop until noon in order to get it,
and as I would not wait, remained behind.
The scenery had a wild and picturesque air, from the isolated
mountain peaks, which now appeared on both sides of the river
Djebel Arambo, with its high, precipitous sides and notched summit,
stood steeped in soft purple vapor—a beautiful object above the
long lines of palms and the green level of the islands in the river.
The fields on the western bank were mostly taken up with young
wheat, though I saw a single one of ripe barley, which a black
Baràbra was reaping, cutting off the stalks about one-third of the
way below the heads, and depositing them in heaps. By noon, I
knew from the landmarks that we must be opposite the island of
Tombos, where there are some ruins. I made inquiries for it, but the
bank was almost deserted, and the few inhabitants I found gathered
in straw huts here and there among the rank palm-groves, could tell
me nothing about it. All agreed, however, that there was no ferry at
this part of the Nile, and to swim across was out of the question.
The crocodiles swarm here, and are quite delicate in their tastes,
much preferring white flesh to black. So my hope of Tombos
vanished like that of Argo.
Beyond the island is a little ruined village, called Hannek, and here
I took leave of Dar Dongola, in which I had been travelling ten days,
and entered Dar El-Màhass, the kingdom of my friend Melek Dyaab.
The character of the country changed on the very border. Long
ridges of loose blocks of sandstone and granite, as at Assouan and
Akaba Gerri, in Soudân, appeared in front, at first on the western
bank, but soon throwing their lines across the stream and forming
weirs and rapids in its current. The river is quite narrow, in some
places not a hundred yards broad, and leads a very tortuous course,
bearing away towards the north-west, until it meets the majestic
barrier of Djebel Foga, when it turns to the north-east. About two
hours after passing Djebel Arambo, which stands opposite the
northern extremity of Tombos, we reached the large and hilly island
of Mosul, where the river divides its waters and flows for several
miles through deep, crooked, rocky channels, before they meet
again. Here there is no cultivation, the stony ridges running to the
water’s edge. The river-bed is so crowded and jammed with granite
rocks, that from the shore it appears in some places to be entirely
cut off. At this point there are three castellated mud ruins in sight,
which at a distance resemble the old feudal fortresses of Europe.
The one nearest which we passed was quadrangular, with corner
bastions, three round and one square, all tapering inward towards
the top. The lower part of the wall was stone and the upper part
mud, while the towers were nearly fifty feet high. That on an island
in the river, strongly resembled an Egyptian temple, with its pylons,
porticoes, and walls of circuit. They were evidently built before the
Turkish invasion, and were probably frontier forts of the Kings of El-
Màhass; to prevent incursions from the side of Dongola.
We reached the eastern base of Djebel Foga about four o’clock,
and I thought it best to encamp, on account of the camel-men, who
had a walk of twenty-three miles with bags of dourra on their
shoulders, before they could reach us. I had no sooner selected a
place for my tent, on the top of a high bank overlooking the river,
than they appeared, much fatigued and greatly vexed at me for
leaving them in the lurch. I ordered my pipe to be filled, and smoked
quietly, making no reply to their loud complaints, and in a short time
the most complete harmony prevailed in our camp. The Nile at this
place flowed in the bottom of a deep gorge, filled with rocks. The
banks were almost perpendicular, but covered with a rich growth of
halfeh, which our camels greedily cropped, at the hazard of losing
their balance and tumbling down into the river. I fancied there was
already a taste of Egypt in the mountain air, and flattered myself
that I had breathed the last of the languid atmosphere of Soudân.
The next morning led us deeper into the rocky chaos. The bed of
the Nile was properly a gorge, so deep was it sunk among the stony
hills, and confined within such narrow limits. The ridges of loose
blocks of granite and porphyry roll after each other like waves, and
their crests assume the most fantastic variety of forms. They are
piled in heaps and balanced on each other, topped with round
boulders or thrown together in twos and threes, as if some brood of
Titan children had been at play in those regions and were frightened
away in the midst of their employment. It is impossible to lose the
impression that some freak of human or superhuman fancy gave the
stones their quaint grouping. Between the ridges are shallow
hollows, terminating towards the west in deep, rocky clefts, and
opening on the river in crescent-like coves, between the jaggy
headlands which tumble their boulders into its bed. High peaks, or
rather conical piles of porphyry rock, rise here and there out of this
sterile chaos. Toward the east, where the Nile winds away in a long
chain of mazy curves, they form ranges and show compact walls and
pinnacles. The few palms and the little eddies of wheat sprinkled
along both banks of the river, are of a glorious depth and richness of
hue, by contrast with the gray and purple wastes of the hills. In the
sweet, clear air of the morning, the scenery was truly inspiring, and
I rode over the high ridges in a mood the very opposite of that I had
felt the day previous.
The Nile makes a great curve through the land of Màhass, to avoid
which the road passes through an akaba, about forty miles in length.
At the corner, where the river curves at a right angle from west to
south, is a small ruined place called Fakir Bender. The high bank is a
little less steep here than at other places, and its sides are planted
with lupins. At the end of the village is an immense sont tree,
apparently very old. A large earthen water-jar, with a gourd beside
it, stood in the shade. The fakeer, or holy man, from whom the
place is named, was soon in attendance, and as our camels knelt
under the tree, presented me with a gourd of cool water, “in the
name of God.” I gave him ten paràs before we left, but he did not
appear to be satisfied, for these holy men have great expectations. I
ordered two water-skins filled, and after an hour’s delay, we entered
on the akaba.
Over rough and stony ridges, which made hard travelling for the
camels, we came upon a rolling plain, bounded in the distance by a
chain of hills, which we reached by the middle of the afternoon. The
path, instead of seeking a pass or gorge, led directly up the side,
which, though not very high, was exceedingly steep and covered
with loose sand, up which the camels could scarcely climb. The top
was a stratum of red porphyry, cropping out of the sand in immense
masses. Behind us the dreary Desert extended to Djebel Foga and
the mountains about the cataract: the palms of the Nile were just
visible in the distance. Crossing the summit ridge, we entered a
narrow plateau, surrounded by naked black peaks—a most savage
and infernal landscape. The northern slope was completely covered
with immense porphyry boulders, among which our path wound.
Nearly every rock had a pile of small stones heaped upon it, as a
guide to caravans, and merely for descending this ridge there were
at least two hundred of them. The plain now extended away to the
north and east, bounded by a confusion of black, barren mountains,
out of which rose two lofty peaks. Towards evening we met a Nubian
family, with their donkeys, on their way southward. They begged for
water, which we gave them, as their supply was entirely exhausted. I
found a bed of hard gravel large enough for my tent, but we had
great difficulty in driving the pegs. The camel-men selected the
softest places among the rocks for their beds, but the camels
stretched their long necks on all sides in the vain search for
vegetation. I sat at my tent door, and watched the short twilight of
the South gather over the stony wilderness, with that strange feeling
of happiness which the contemplation of waste and desolate
landscapes always inspires. There was not a blade of grass to be
seen; the rocks, which assumed weird and grotesque forms in the
twilight, were as black as ink; beyond my camp there was no life in
the Desert except the ostrich and the hyena—yet I would not have
exchanged the charm of that scene for a bower in the gardens of
the Hesperides.
The dawn was glimmering gray and cold when I arose, and the
black summits of the mountains showed dimly through a watery
vapor. The air, however, was dry, though cool and invigorating, and I
walked ahead for two hours, singing and shouting from the overflow
of spirits. I hoped to catch a glimpse of the Nile before mounting my
dromedary, but one long black ridge of stones rose after another,
and there was no sudden flash of green across the darkness of the
Desert. At last, towards noon, through a notch in the drear and
stony chaos, the double line of palms appeared in the north east.
The river came from the east, out of the black mountain wilderness.
The valley is very narrow, and cultivation is only possible in the
coves of soil embayed among the hills. I came down on one of them
—a meadow of halfeh, back of the little village of Koyee—and
stopped an hour to rest the camels. A caravan of merchants, bound
for Kordofan and Dar-Fūr, had just encamped there, to rest during
the hot hours, according to their custom. Among them were some
hadji, or pilgrims from Dar-Fūr, on their way home from Mecca, and
a negro from Fazogl, who had belonged to a European, and had
lived in Naples. He was now free and going home, wearing a shabby
Frank dress, but without money, as he came at once to beg of me. A
Nubian woman came from the huts near at hand, bringing me a
large gourd of buttermilk, which I shared with the camel-drivers.
I set the camels in motion again, and we entered a short akaba, in
order to cross a broad stony ridge, which advanced quite to the
river’s edge. The path was up and down the sides of steep hollows,
over a terrible waste of stones. Down these hollows, which shelved
towards the river, we saw the palms of the opposite bank—a single
dark-green line, backed by another wilderness, equally savage.
Through all this country of Màhass the Desert makes a desperate
effort to cut off the glorious old River. It flings rocks into its bed,
squeezes him between iron mountains, compels him to turn and
twist through a hundred labyrinths to find a passage, but he pushes
and winds his way through all, and carries his bright waters in
triumph down to his beloved Egypt. There was, to me, something
exceedingly touching in watching his course through that fragment
of the pre-Adamite chaos—in seeing the type of Beauty and Life
stealing quietly through the heart of a region of Desolation and
Death. From the stony slopes of the hills I looked down on his
everlasting palms with the same old joy new-created in my heart.
After passing the akaba, I came to a village which I took to be
Soleb, but on inquiring, the people pointed ahead. I rode on, around
a slight curve of the trees, and was startled by a landscape of most
unexpected interest and beauty. Before me, over the crest of a
black, rocky ridge, a cluster of shattered pillars stood around the
falling doorway of a temple, the whole forming a picturesque group,
cut clear against the sky. Its tint of soft yellow-gray, was finely
relieved by the dark green of the palms and the pure violet of some
distant jagged peaks on the eastern bank. Beyond it, to the west,
three peaks of white and purple limestone rock trembled in the fiery
glare from the desert sands. The whole picture, the Desert excepted,
was more Grecian than Egyptian, and was perfect in its forms and
groupings. I know of no other name for the ruin than the Temple of
Soleb. It was erected by Amunoph III. or Memnon, and the Arcadian
character of the landscape of which it is the central feature,
harmonized thoroughly with my fancy, that Amunoph was a poet.
The temple stands on the west bank, near the river, and from
whatever point it is viewed, has a striking effect. The remains consist
of a portico, on a raised platform, leading to a court once
surrounded by pillars. Then follows a second and more spacious
portico, with a double row of three pillars on each side. This opens
upon a second pillared court, at the opposite end of which is a
massive doorway, leading to the adyta of the temple, now
completely levelled to the earth. The entire length of the ruin is
about two hundred feet. There are nine pillars, with a single block of
their architrave, and portions of two of the porticoes still standing:
the remainder of the temple is a mass of ruins. The greatest pains
have been taken to destroy it completely, and all the mound on
which it stands is covered with huge blocks, thrown one over the
other in the wildest confusion. In one place, only, I noticed the
disjointed segments of a column, still lying as they fell. The
pedestals remain in many places, so that one can partially restore
the original order. When complete, it must have been a majestic and
imposing edifice. The material is the white limestone of the adjacent
mountains, veined with purple streaks, and now much decomposed
from the sun and rain. From the effect of this decomposition, the
columns which remain standing are cracked and split in many places,
and in the fissures thus made, numbers of little swallows and
starlings have built their nests, where they sit peeping out through
the sculptures of gods. The columns and doorways are covered with
figures, now greatly blurred, though still legible. I noticed a new
style of joining the portrait of a monarch with his cartouche, the
latter representing his body, out of which his head and arms issued,
like the crest of a coat of arms. The columns represent the stalks of
eight water-plants bound together, with a capital, or rather
prolonged abacus, like the Osiride column. They are thirty feet in
height, without the pedestal, and five feet in diameter. This is the
sum of my observations: the rest belongs to the antiquarian.
Before night, we passed a third akaba, to get around the
limestone ridge, which here builds a buttress of naked rock over the
Nile, and at sunset again saw the palms—but this time the renowned
palms of Dar Sukkôt, for we had crossed the border of Dar El-
Màhass. They lined the river in a thick grove of stems, with crowns
of leafy luxuriance. The village of Noolwee, scattered for half a mile
in their shade, was better built than any I saw in Dongola. Many of
the houses were inclosed in square courts, and had a second story,
the massive mud walls sloping towards each other like a truncated
pyramid. Achmet, Ali and myself bought about fifty piastres worth of
the celebrated dates of Sukkôt. They were the largest and best
flavored I ever saw, and are said to preserve their quality for years.
They are sold at a piastre for an earthen measure containing about
two hundred. When gathered, they are first slightly dried in the large
magazines, and then buried in the earth. The population of Sukkôt
subsists apparently on the profits of selling them, for little else is
cultivated along the river. Even here, nevertheless, where the people
are better able to bear the grinding rule of Egypt, one meets with
deserted fields and ruined dwellings. The King of El-Màhass informed
me, when in Khartoum, that his people were obliged to pay six
hundred piastres (thirty dollars) tax on each water-mill, being just
double the lawful amount, (which, alone, is very oppressive), and
that his country was fast becoming depopulated, in consequence.
On the following day I passed the large island of Sai. The country
here is more open and the Nile has a less vexed course. The
mountains, especially the lofty blue mass of Djebel Abyr, have not
the forced and violent forms common to the porphyry formation.
Their outlines are long, sloping, and with that slight but exquisite
undulation which so charmed me in the hills of Arcadia, in Greece,
and in Monte Albano near Rome. Their soft, clear, pale-violet hue
showed with the loveliest effect behind the velvety green of the thick
palm clusters, which were parted here and there by gleams of the
bright blue river. From the northern end of Sai, the river gradually
curves to the east. The western shore is completely invaded by the
sands, and the road takes a wide sweep inland to avoid the loose,
sliding drifts piled up along the bank. We had not gone far before we
found a drift of brilliant yellow sand thirty feet high and two hundred
yards in length, lying exactly across our road. It had evidently been
formed within a few days. It was almost precisely crescent-shaped,
and I could not account for the action of the wind in building such a
mound on an open plain, which elsewhere was entirely free from
sand. We rounded it and soon afterwards entered on a region of
sand, where to the west and north the rolling yellow waves extended
to the horizon, unbroken by a speck of any other color. It was a
boundless, fathomless sea of sand to the eye, which could scarcely
bear the radiated light playing over its hot surface. The day (for a
wonder) was somewhat overcast, and as the shadows of small
clouds followed one another rapidly over the glaring billows, they
seemed to heave and roll like those of the sea. I was forced to turn
away my head, faint and giddy with the sight. My camels tugged
painfully through this region, and after two hours we reached a
single sont tree, standing beside a well, and called sugger el-abd
(the Tree of the Slave). It was pointed out by the camel-men as
being half-way between El Ordee and Wadi Halfa.
We journeyed on all the afternoon through a waste of sandy and
stony ridges, and as night drew near, I became anxious to reach the
river, no trace of which could be seen. I rode up one of the highest
ridges, and lo! there were the tops of the date-groves in a hollow,
not a quarter of a mile distant, on my right. The camels’ heads were
soon turned in that direction, and I encamped at once on the bank,
where my beasts found sufficient grass and thorns for the first time
in three days. The river here flows in a deep channel, buried among
the hills, and there is neither cultivation nor population on the
western bank. On the opposite side there was a narrow strip of soil,
thickly planted with date-trees.
My camel-men kindled a fire in the splendid moonlight, and
regaled themselves with the hind-quarters of a hyena, which they
roasted in the coals and devoured with much relish. I had curiosity
enough to eat a small piece, which was well-flavored though tough.
The Nile roared grandly below our camp all night, in the pauses of
the wind.