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Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile, which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements for me.
The fact of this district bearing the name of Merawe had given rise to an opinion that in it was situated the ancient capital of Ethiopia. Cailliaud was enabled to show this to be erroneous. The French explorer, accompanying Ismail Pacha in the character of a mineralogist beyond Berber, on a quest for gold-mines, arrived at Shendy.
It is a pleasure to us Frenchmen when we can quote the name of a fellow-countryman amongst the many travellers who have risked their lives in the cause of geographical science. Without abating our critical acumen, we feel our pulse quicken when we read of the dangers and struggles of such travellers as Mollien, Caillié, De Cailliaud, and Letorzec.
I cried, "to eclipse Herodotus and Diodorus, not to mention Bruce and Cailliaud, and inscribe Herndonville on the arcanum of the Innermost! If the Americans should discover the origin of evil, they would run up penitentiaries all over the country, modelled to suit 'practical purposes." "I think that would pay," said Herndon, reflectively.
Cailliaud was the first explorer to penetrate from the north so near to the equator; Browne had turned back at 16 degrees 10 minutes, Bruce at 11 degrees.
Pressing on in a southerly direction between the 15th and 16th degrees of N. lat., Cailliaud next identified the mouth of the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile, visited the ruins of Saba, the mouth of the Rahad, the ancient Astosaba, Sennaar, the river Gologo, the Fazoele country, and the Toumat, a tributary of the Nile, finally reaching the Singue country between the two branches of the river.
The monuments of this Nubian kingdom, the temples of Jebel Barkal, the pyramids of Nure close by, the pyramids of Bagarawiya, the temples of Wadi Ben Naga, Mesawwarat en-Naga, and Mesawwarat es-Sufra ("Mesawwarat" proper), were originally investigated by Cailliaud and afterwards by Lepsius. During the last few years they and the pyramids excavated by Dr. E. A. Wallis-Budge, of the British Museum, for the Sudan government, have been again explored. As the results of his work are not yet fully published, it is possible at present only to quote the following description from Cook's Handbook for Egypt and the Sudan (by Dr. Budge), p. 6, of work on the pyramids of Jebel Barkal: "the writer excavated the shafts of one of the pyramids here in 1897, and at the depth of about twenty-five cubits found a group of three chambers, in one of which were a number of bones of the sheep which was sacrificed there about two thousand years ago, and also portions of a broken amphora which had held Rho-dian wine. A second shaft, which led to the mummy-chamber, was partly emptied, but at a further depth of twenty cubits water was found. The high-water mark of the reservoir when full is and, as there were no visible means for pumping it out, the mummy-chamber could not be entered." With regard to the Bagarawîya pyramids, Dr. Budge writes, on p. 700 of the same work,
To Cailliaud and Letorzec we owe many observations on latitude and longitude, some valuable remarks on the variation of the magnetic needle, and details of the climate, temperature, and nature of the soil, together with a most interesting collection of animals and botanical specimens. Lastly, the travellers made plans of all the monuments beyond the second cataract.
Clapperton's second journey Arrival at Badagry Yariba and its capital Katunga Boussa Attempts to get at the truth about Mungo Park's fate "Nyffé," Yaourie, and Zegzeg Arrival at Kano Disappointments Death of Clapperton Return of Lander to the coast Tuckey on the Congo Bowditch in Ashantee Mollien at the sources of the Senegal and Gambia Major Grey Caillié at Timbuctoo Laing at the sources of the Niger Richard and John Lander at the mouth of the Niger Cailliaud and Letorzec in Egypt, Nubia, and the oasis of Siwâh.
Frederic Cailliaud was born at Nantes in 1787, and arrived in Egypt in 1815, having previously visited Holland, Italy, Sicily, part of Greece, and European or Asiatic Turkey, where he traded in precious stones. His knowledge of geology and mineralogy won for him a cordial reception from Mehemet Ali, who immediately on his arrival commissioned him to explore the course of the Nile and the desert.
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