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The natives of Upper Egypt go by Cosseir; likewise many negro pilgrims, after having followed the banks of the Nile from Sennar down to Genne. The usual fare for hadjys from Cosseir to Djidda, is from six to eight dollars.
It had now become possible with convenience and speed to send into the heart of the Soudan great armies independent of the season of the year and of the resources of the country; to supply them not only with abundant food and ammunition, but with all the varied paraphernalia of scientific war; and to support their action on land by a powerful flotilla of gunboats, which could dominate the river and command the banks, and could at any moment make their way past Khartoum even to Sennar, Fashoda, or Sobat.
For several months the garrison of Kassala under a gallant Egyptian maintained a desperate resistance, but at last famine forced them to surrender, and they shared the fate of the garrisons of El Obeid, Darfur, Sobat, Tokar, Sinkat, Sennar, and Khartoum. The evacuation of the Soudan was thus completed.
Yet it is famous for commerce with India, and the islands of the Indian sea; and merchants from Sennar, Arabia, and Persia, bring thither all sorts of silk and purple manufactures, hemp, cotton, flax, and Indian cloth, with plenty of wheat, barley, millet, and rice.
Many Syrians and Egyptians follow the same trade; but not so the Negroes. I have already stated in a former journal, that the latter reach the Hedjaz by the three harbours of Massouah, Souakin, and Cosseir. Those who come by Sennar and Abyssinia to Massoua, are all paupers. The small sum of one dollar carries them from Massoua to the opposite coast of Yemen; and they usually land at Hodeyda.
The others were either besieged, like Sennar, Tokar, and Sinkat, or cut off from the north, as in the case of the Equatorial Province, by the area of rebellion. The capital of the Soudan was, however, as yet unmolested; and as its Egyptian population exceeded the aggregate of the provincial towns, the first task of the Egyptian Government was obvious. Mr.
Still it is curious that, amongst the natives of Northern Africa, who lay hold of the Cerastes without fear or hesitation, impunity is ascribed to the use of a plant with the juice of which they anoint themselves before touching the reptile ; and Bruce says of the people of Sennar, that they acquire exemption from the fatal consequences of the bite by chewing a particular root, and washing themselves with an infusion of certain plants.
The north wind is driving a dozen sailing-boats, laden to the water's edge with merchandise, to the wharves. One of Gordon's old steamers lies moored by the bank. Another, worked by the crew that manned it in Egyptian days, is threshing up the Blue Nile, sent by the Khalifa to Sennar on some errand of State.
However, the bullet had found its billet, for two days afterwards he was a dead man. In Sennar, a province of the Egyptian Sudan, the Hammeg and Fungi enjoy the reputation of being powerful magicians who can turn themselves into hyaenas and in that guise scour the country at night, howling and gorging themselves. But by day they are men again.
Above the fifth cataract, above the meeting of rivers in Sennar, up the Bahr el Abiad, into the far unknown of Africa, I went. There, in the morning, a mountain blue as the sky flings a cooling shadow wide over the western desert, and, with its cascades of melted snow, feeds a broad lake nestling at its base on the east. The lake is the mother of the great river.
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