White and Blue Nile: Travels and Research — E. de Pruyssenaere (Complete English EPUB)

I left Ḥarṭūm on 7 January 1859 aboard a barque belonging to the Italian trader Amabile, who himself led the expedition. The White River, along which the north wind never absent at this season drove us rapidly southward, is immensely broad. It raises high waves, and its appearance is far grander than that of the united Nile. The banks are flat and in places flooded, merging on one side into the river and on the other into the mirage, so that one imagines oneself on a vast sea. The shore is sandy and cultivated almost nowhere. The country through which the river flows is abundantly clothed with Harāz, Sant, Siyāla, Sērha and other trees, forming actual forests in places; the soil, however, is almost everywhere entirely sandy. The inhabitants are Arab herdsmen, whose numerous herds and huts built of straw and dung we catch sight of from time to time. They are among those handsome black Arabs of proud bearing and tall, strong, elegant build, with abundant curly but not woolly hair, which they wear divided into magnificent plaits. They recall the handsome Kababīsh east of the united Nile. During the night we reached the large village of El-Qetēna on the eastern bank.

8 January. At Qetēna both banks are cleared of forest and cultivated. After a lengthy halt we again set sail, passing through a Sant forest to Wadi Sēlai, a village on the eastern bank that, like Qetēna, is under a mazūn with a few soldiers and was then the last place occupied by the government. Like the preceding village it consists of a cluster of straw toqūl covered with dung, with an attached rekūba, the whole surrounded by an enclosure or zerība. The opposite bank is heavily wooded. A shipbuilding yard, or mangara, has therefore been established a little farther south.[1] The soil of Wadi Sēlai appeared sandy and uncultivated to us, but during the dry season it is irrigated with the help of water-lifting devices (sadūf).

9 January. In the evening we again set sail with a very strong north wind. The temperature seemed very cold to us, although in the early morning the thermometer showed 17° Réaumur and in the afternoon rose to 23°. Hyenas, hippopotamuses and cranes appeared.

10 January. After a good night’s run we landed at sunrise on an island to take on wood. A few Arab cultivators inhabited it; they also owned camels and goats. We passed other low islands likewise cultivated by means of sadūf. The soil on both banks was sandy, but they were thickly clothed with various familiar species of mimosa, to which must be added the Qaqamūt, which supplies good, solid building timber. The undergrowth consists, as farther north, of Tūndub, Sērha and so forth. On this day ammunition was distributed to the men and a regular watch organized. We continued between wooded banks: the eastern one sandier, the western low and wet, covered with grass and low scrub. In the evening we cut wood on the eastern bank, whose inhabitants are Alawīn Arabs, though we saw only a few wretched toqūl built of branches. Despite there being no living soul in sight, the men did not dare go far from the bank, because the inhabitants hidden in the forest often watch for an opportunity to plunder and massacre. The Baqqāra on the opposite bank are scarcely more trustworthy. They cultivate little land, keep much cattle, as their name itself indicates, and live largely by robbery. Since they can do nothing to the barques passing along their shore, they compensate by shouting abuse at them, which sometimes draws gunshots upon them.

The landscape of the White River, with its flat banks wooded exclusively with mimosas, is certainly even more monotonous than that of Egypt and Nubia, which are already highly so; yet the sight of it is less wearisome than Nubia’s, and especially Egypt’s. One is glad at last to escape the stiff uniformity of the date palm, and gladly lets the eye rest on trees grouped much as in our own forests. The bleached trunks of old dead trees lie amid the lush vegetation of the living green ones. Man disappears from this immense horizon, which thereby acquires a rare character of sombre grandeur. One knows only that these thickets shelter wild animals and human inhabitants resembling them. The bank itself is deserted by people but animated by countless flocks of water and shore birds, among which the beautiful Egyptian goose stands out for its incredible numbers.