DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3989#0069
RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF AMARA, ETHIOPIA.
ROBABLY sixty or seventy boat-loads of travellers reach the Second Cataract (Wady Halfah)
every season; but very few indeed proceed beyond that point. The Cataract presents the first
of a long series of interruptions to the navigation of the river, and the further journey
must be performed upon camels as far as the most distant ancient remains, which are
found in the "Island" of Meroe, some five hundred miles south of Wady Halfah. By omitting
this journey I do not hesitate to say that the Nile tourist deprives himself of by far the most
j-Mtv1 delightful portion of the trip. Indeed it is my firm conviction that no other district in the world
affords such a combination of the true elements of adventure, romance and interest, coupled with the
entire absence of serious deprivation or danger. I will therefore commence my narrative of an
eighteen days' camel-ride in Ethiopia, with an earnest recommendation to all Nile travellers not to deprive
themselves, when it is within their reach, of the present pleasure and life-long recollection of this most
enchanting trip.
Our last illustrations were of the temples of Abou Simbel. A sail of forty miles then brings us to
Wady Halfah, an extensive Nubian village with a resident Turkish official, to whom on my arrival I applied
for his assistance in procuring dromedaries, a course which I should not recommend any future traveller to
adopt; for I afterwards learned from my camel-men that he pocketed fully half my money. From my
experience of these men, I would make my own bargain with them, and trust to their carrying it out
faithfully. Leaving my boat at Wady Halfah under the care of an invalid friend, I mounted my dromedary
for the south on the 8th of January, 1860. I took with me only my dragoman. and the Rais or captain
of our boat, an active and obliging little Nubian. Two of the owners of six dromedaries and a boy
accompanied us as guides and to take care of the animals. As I purposed travelling beyond a foot's-pace,
to which heavily laden camels are restricted, I carried as little luggage as possible—my photographic
" inpedimenta" being the chief of it—but my little black operating-tent served to cover me by night. My pro-
vision-chest contained biscuit, tea, sugar, and dates, with a few little luxuries which were soon exhausted, and
which are by no means a necessity of existence. One of the chief advantages of this trip is, that whilst
it gives as complete an experience of desert travelling as one can desire, there is no need to carry water—to
submit to an insufficient supply of an odious decoction of untanned goat-skins. Every evening the traveller
may arrange to camp on the banks of the grand old river, which nowdiere else inspires him with such
an exalted appreciation of its beauty and benevolence as in its course through these tremendous solitudes>
which would be dreadful and insupportable without his presence; for, by the consent of all experienced
travellers who have tried this " road," there is nowhere to be found a more savagely grand and gloomy
district than the Batn-el-Hadgar, or " Belly of Stone," as the country for one hundred miles south of the
Second Cataract is termed. It is thus described by that accomplished word-painter and ubiquitous traveller,
Bayard Taylor:—"All the refuse odds and ends of creation—the pieces left after the rest of the world
were fashioned—have been thrown together here. It is a sea of black stone-mounds, out of which rise
occasional peaks of still blacker stone. Through this we pass into a region of grey stone, and then into
another of red stone, up one mound and down another, by paths and no paths, most laborious for our camels."
On the second day we passed the Cataract and temples of Samneh. The latter contain some interesting
sculptures of the Second and Third Thothmes, but are architecturally insignificant. I could not obtain any
picturesque point of view for a photograph.
The Temple of Amara, which we have here illustrated, is the next ruin of importance. It is on
the eastern bank of the river, about one hundred miles south of Wady Halfah. There are only a
few columns standing; but they are very interesting, from the fact that they introduce us to a new style
of art, viz., the Ethiopian. The temple is thus mentioned by Lepsius:—"I was not a little surprised to
recognise directly on the columns the fat queen of Naga and Meroe with her husband. This temple
was built by them, an important testimony to the widely-extended dominion of that Ethiopian dynasty."
The plan was very simple. It consisted merely of an oblong court, 53 feet by 30, approached by a
gateway and short passage 19 feet wide. The Hall was ornamented by eight columns 3 feet 8 inches
in diameter. None of the capitals remain. A number of deities are represented upon the sculpture, but
the whole is greatly dilapidated, and appears never to have been of a good style.
ROBABLY sixty or seventy boat-loads of travellers reach the Second Cataract (Wady Halfah)
every season; but very few indeed proceed beyond that point. The Cataract presents the first
of a long series of interruptions to the navigation of the river, and the further journey
must be performed upon camels as far as the most distant ancient remains, which are
found in the "Island" of Meroe, some five hundred miles south of Wady Halfah. By omitting
this journey I do not hesitate to say that the Nile tourist deprives himself of by far the most
j-Mtv1 delightful portion of the trip. Indeed it is my firm conviction that no other district in the world
affords such a combination of the true elements of adventure, romance and interest, coupled with the
entire absence of serious deprivation or danger. I will therefore commence my narrative of an
eighteen days' camel-ride in Ethiopia, with an earnest recommendation to all Nile travellers not to deprive
themselves, when it is within their reach, of the present pleasure and life-long recollection of this most
enchanting trip.
Our last illustrations were of the temples of Abou Simbel. A sail of forty miles then brings us to
Wady Halfah, an extensive Nubian village with a resident Turkish official, to whom on my arrival I applied
for his assistance in procuring dromedaries, a course which I should not recommend any future traveller to
adopt; for I afterwards learned from my camel-men that he pocketed fully half my money. From my
experience of these men, I would make my own bargain with them, and trust to their carrying it out
faithfully. Leaving my boat at Wady Halfah under the care of an invalid friend, I mounted my dromedary
for the south on the 8th of January, 1860. I took with me only my dragoman. and the Rais or captain
of our boat, an active and obliging little Nubian. Two of the owners of six dromedaries and a boy
accompanied us as guides and to take care of the animals. As I purposed travelling beyond a foot's-pace,
to which heavily laden camels are restricted, I carried as little luggage as possible—my photographic
" inpedimenta" being the chief of it—but my little black operating-tent served to cover me by night. My pro-
vision-chest contained biscuit, tea, sugar, and dates, with a few little luxuries which were soon exhausted, and
which are by no means a necessity of existence. One of the chief advantages of this trip is, that whilst
it gives as complete an experience of desert travelling as one can desire, there is no need to carry water—to
submit to an insufficient supply of an odious decoction of untanned goat-skins. Every evening the traveller
may arrange to camp on the banks of the grand old river, which nowdiere else inspires him with such
an exalted appreciation of its beauty and benevolence as in its course through these tremendous solitudes>
which would be dreadful and insupportable without his presence; for, by the consent of all experienced
travellers who have tried this " road," there is nowhere to be found a more savagely grand and gloomy
district than the Batn-el-Hadgar, or " Belly of Stone," as the country for one hundred miles south of the
Second Cataract is termed. It is thus described by that accomplished word-painter and ubiquitous traveller,
Bayard Taylor:—"All the refuse odds and ends of creation—the pieces left after the rest of the world
were fashioned—have been thrown together here. It is a sea of black stone-mounds, out of which rise
occasional peaks of still blacker stone. Through this we pass into a region of grey stone, and then into
another of red stone, up one mound and down another, by paths and no paths, most laborious for our camels."
On the second day we passed the Cataract and temples of Samneh. The latter contain some interesting
sculptures of the Second and Third Thothmes, but are architecturally insignificant. I could not obtain any
picturesque point of view for a photograph.
The Temple of Amara, which we have here illustrated, is the next ruin of importance. It is on
the eastern bank of the river, about one hundred miles south of Wady Halfah. There are only a
few columns standing; but they are very interesting, from the fact that they introduce us to a new style
of art, viz., the Ethiopian. The temple is thus mentioned by Lepsius:—"I was not a little surprised to
recognise directly on the columns the fat queen of Naga and Meroe with her husband. This temple
was built by them, an important testimony to the widely-extended dominion of that Ethiopian dynasty."
The plan was very simple. It consisted merely of an oblong court, 53 feet by 30, approached by a
gateway and short passage 19 feet wide. The Hall was ornamented by eight columns 3 feet 8 inches
in diameter. None of the capitals remain. A number of deities are represented upon the sculpture, but
the whole is greatly dilapidated, and appears never to have been of a good style.