DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5073#0050
TUB DESERT.
39
the desert, was more tempting still. Aclmiet had been
to see the Sheikh of the Cataract, and learned that he
was already engaged to take three boats up before our
turn would come, and he stoutly refused to take up any
dahabieh as large as the Wandering Maiden in less
than two days; we migbt therefore expect to be detained
five days at least before we reached the other side of the
Cataract: and in returning we knew very well that she
would be, proportionably to her weight, slower in descend-
ing the river. So we determined to see if any boat was
to be had above the Cataract, and accordingly we started
early in the morning for Mahatta, — a desert ride of an
hour and half. But what a different desert from one's
nursery imaginations! the flat expanse of yellow sand
had no place here — two or three hundred yards of white
sand strewed with white stones, with banks of stones
and lumps of granite piled up loosely on each side, as
if " put away " by giants playing at bricks and suddenly
called home to supper, — strange, fantastic shapes,
sometimes like cairns, sometimes like walls, chiefly
white, and yet shading into delicate hues of lilac and
pale grey, with now and then a dash of purple. Solemn
and stern it looked, seeming to close down upon one's
heart with an almost tangible pressure as we journeyed
on, the only living things in the whole way, save one
hyena and some black and white vultures, slowly sailing
to and fro, some keeping watch while others picked at the
bones of a dead camel, which it required no vulturine
organ to scent at a good distance. A wely of some Sheikh
was the only sign of man, save the remains of an ancient
wall or dyke, built by the Romans, some say, or by an
Egyptian queen in the days long gone by. After leav-
ing Assouan, the road commences with a cemetery of the
most ancient converts to Mahommedanism, with very
D 4
39
the desert, was more tempting still. Aclmiet had been
to see the Sheikh of the Cataract, and learned that he
was already engaged to take three boats up before our
turn would come, and he stoutly refused to take up any
dahabieh as large as the Wandering Maiden in less
than two days; we migbt therefore expect to be detained
five days at least before we reached the other side of the
Cataract: and in returning we knew very well that she
would be, proportionably to her weight, slower in descend-
ing the river. So we determined to see if any boat was
to be had above the Cataract, and accordingly we started
early in the morning for Mahatta, — a desert ride of an
hour and half. But what a different desert from one's
nursery imaginations! the flat expanse of yellow sand
had no place here — two or three hundred yards of white
sand strewed with white stones, with banks of stones
and lumps of granite piled up loosely on each side, as
if " put away " by giants playing at bricks and suddenly
called home to supper, — strange, fantastic shapes,
sometimes like cairns, sometimes like walls, chiefly
white, and yet shading into delicate hues of lilac and
pale grey, with now and then a dash of purple. Solemn
and stern it looked, seeming to close down upon one's
heart with an almost tangible pressure as we journeyed
on, the only living things in the whole way, save one
hyena and some black and white vultures, slowly sailing
to and fro, some keeping watch while others picked at the
bones of a dead camel, which it required no vulturine
organ to scent at a good distance. A wely of some Sheikh
was the only sign of man, save the remains of an ancient
wall or dyke, built by the Romans, some say, or by an
Egyptian queen in the days long gone by. After leav-
ing Assouan, the road commences with a cemetery of the
most ancient converts to Mahommedanism, with very
D 4