Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851

A CAMPAIGN IN TAKA

Feldzug von Sennaar nach Taka, Basa, und Beni-Amer, mit besonderem Hinblick auf die Völker von Bellad-Sudan.– [Campaign from Sennaar to Taka, Basa, and Beni-Amer; with a particular Glance at the Nations of Bellad-Sudan.] – Von Ferdinand Werne. Stuttgart: Königl. Hofbuchdruckerei. London: Williams and Norgate. 1851.

Africa, the least explored division of the globe's surface, and the best field for travellers of bold and enterprising character, has been the scene of three of the most remarkable books of their class that have appeared within the last ten years. We refer to Major Harris's narrative of his Ethiopian expedition – to the marvellous adventures of that modern Nimrod, Mr Gordon Cumming – to Mr Ferdinand Werne's strange and exciting account of his voyage up the White Nile. In our review of the last-named interesting and valuable work,¹ we mentioned that Mr Werne, previously to his expedition up the Nile, had been for several months in the Taka country, a region previously untrodden by Europeans, with an army commanded by Achmet Bascha, governor-general of the Egyptian province of Bellad-Sudan, who was operating against refractory tributaries. He has just published an account of this campaign, which afforded him, however, little opportunity of expatiating on well-contested battles, signal victories, or feats of heroic valour. On the other hand, his narrative abounds in striking incidents, in curious details of tribes and localities that have never before been described, and in perils and hardships not the less real and painful that they proceeded from no efforts of a resolute and formidable foe, but from the effects of a pernicious climate, and the caprice and negligence of a wilful and indolent commander.

It was early in 1840, and Mr Werne and his youngest brother Joseph had been resident for a whole year at Chartum, chief town of the province of Sudan, in the country of Sennaar. Chartum, it will be remembered by the readers of the "Expedition for the Discovery of the Sources of the White Nile," is situated at the confluence of the White and Blue streams, which, there uniting, flow northwards through Nubia and Egypt Proper to Cairo and the Mediterranean; and at Chartum it was that the two Wernes had beheld, in the previous November, the departure of the first expedition up Nile, which they were forbidden to join, and which met with little success. The elder Werne, whose portrait – that of a very determined-looking man, bearded, and in Oriental costume – is appended to the present volume, appears to have been adventurous and a rambler from his youth upwards. In 1822 he had served in Greece, and had now been for many years in Eastern lands. Joseph Werne, his youngest and favourite brother, had come to Egypt at his instigation, after taking at Berlin his degree as Doctor of Medicine, to study, before commencing practice, some of the extraordinary diseases indigenous in that noxious climate. Unfortunately, as recorded in Mr Werne's former work, this promising young man, who seems to have possessed in no small degree the enterprise, perseverance, and fortitude so remarkable in his brother, ultimately fell a victim to one of those fatal maladies whose investigation was the principal motive of his visit to Africa. The first meeting in Egypt of the two brothers was at Cairo; and of it a characteristic account is given by the elder, an impetuous, we might almost say a pugnacious man, tolerably prompt to take offence, and upon whom, as he himself says at page 67, the Egyptian climate had a violently irritating effect.

"Our meeting, at Guerra's tavern in Cairo, was so far remarkable, that my brother knew me immediately, whilst I took him for some impertinent Frenchman, disposed to make game of me, inasmuch as he, in the petulance of his joy, fixed his eyes upon me, measuring me from top to toe, and then laughed at the fury with which I rushed upon him, to call him to an account, and, if necessary, to have him out. We had not seen each other for eight years, during which he had grown into a man, and, moreover, his countenance had undergone a change, for, by a terrible cut, received in a duel, the muscle of risibility had been divided on one side, and the poor fellow could laugh only with half his face. In the first overpowering joy of our meeting in this distant quarter of the globe, we could not get the wine over our tongues, often as my Swiss friend De Salis (over whose cheeks the tears were chasing each other) and other acquaintances struck their glasses against ours, encouraging us to drink… I now abandoned the hamlet of Tura – situated in the desert, but near the Nile, about three leagues above Cairo, and whither I had retreated to do penance and to work at my travels – as well as my good friend Dr Schledehaus of Osnabruck, (then holding an appointment at the military school, now director of the marine hospital of Alexandria,) with whom my brother had studied at Bonn, and I hired a little house in the Esbekie Square in Cairo. After half an hour's examination, Joseph was appointed surgeon-major, with the rank of a Sakulagassi or captain, in the central hospital of Kasr-el-Ain, with a thousand piastres a month, and rations for a horse and four servants. Our views constantly directed to the interior of Africa, we suffered a few months to glide by in the old city of the Khalifs, dwelling together in delightful brotherly harmony. But our thirst for travelling was unslaked; to it I had sacrificed my appointment as chancellor of the Prussian Consulate at Alexandria; Joseph received his nomination as regimental surgeon to the 1st regiment in Sennaar, including that of physician to the central hospital at Chartum. Our friends were concerned for us on account of the dangerous climate, but, nevertheless, we sailed with good courage up the Nile, happy to escape from the noise of the city, and to be on our way to new scenes."

A stroke of the sun, received near the cataract of Ariman in Upper Nubia, and followed by ten days' delirium, soon convinced the younger Werne that his friends' anxiety on his behalf was not groundless. During the whole of their twelvemonth's stay at Chartum, they were mercilessly persecuted by intermittent fever, there most malignant, and under whose torturing and lowering attacks their sole consolation was that, as they never chanced both to be ill together, they were able alternately to nurse each other. At last, fearing that body or mind would succumb to these reiterated fever-fits, and the first expedition up the White Nile having, to their great disgust and disappointment, sailed without them, they made up their minds to quit for ever the pestiferous Chartum and the burning steppes of Bellad-Sudan. Whilst preparing for departure, they received a visit from the chief Cadi, who told them, over a glass of cardinal – administered by Dr Werne as medicine, to evade his Mahomedan scruples – that Effendina (Excellency) Achmet Bascha was well pleased with the brotherly love they manifested, taking care of each other in sickness, and that they would do well to pay their respects occasionally at the Divan. This communication was almost immediately followed by the arrival at Chartum of Dr Gand, physician to Abbas Bascha. This gentleman had been a comrade of Ferdinand Werne's in Greece, and he recommended the two brothers to Achmet, with whom he was intimate, in true Oriental style, as men of universal genius and perfect integrity, to whom he might intrust both his body and his soul. The consequence of this liberal encomium was, that Achmet fixed his eyes upon them to accompany him, in the capacity of confidential advisers, upon a projected campaign. Informed of this plan and of the advantages it included, the Wernes joyfully abandoned their proposed departure. Joseph was to be made house-physician to Achmet and his harem, as well as medical inspector of the whole province, in place of Soliman Effendi, (the renegade Baron di Pasquali of Palermo,) a notorious poisoner, in whose hands the Bascha did not consider himself safe. Ferdinand Werne, who had held the rank of captain in Greece, was made bimbaschi or major, and was attached, as engineer, to Achmet's person, with good pay and many privileges. "At a later period he would have made me bey, if I – not on his account, for he was an enlightened Circassian, but on that of the Turkish jackasses – would have turned Mussulman. I laughed at this, and he said no more about it." Delighted to have secured the services of the two Germans, Achmet ordered it to be reported to his father-in-law, Mehemet Ali, for his approval, and took counsel with his new officers concerning the approaching campaign. Turk-like, he proposed commencing it in the rainy season. Mr Werne opposed this as likely to cost him half his army, the soldiers being exceedingly susceptible to rain, and advised the erection of blockhouses at certain points along the line of march where springs were to be found, to secure water for the troops. The Bascha thought this rather a roundabout mode of proceeding, held his men's lives very cheap, and boasted of his seven hundred dromedaries, every one of which, in case of need, could carry three soldiers. His counsellors were dismissed, with injunctions to secresy, and on their return home they found at their door, as a present from the Bascha, two beautiful dromedaries, tall, powerful, ready saddled for a march, and particularly adapted for a campaign, inasmuch as they started not when muskets were fired between their ears. A few days later, Mr Werne was sent for by Achmet, who, when the customary coffee had been taken, dismissed his attendants by a sign, and informed him, with a gloomy countenance, that the people of Taka refused to pay their tulba, or tribute. His predecessor, Churdschid Bascha, having marched into that country, had been totally defeated in a chaaba, or tract of forest. Since that time, Achmet mournfully declared, the tribes had not paid a single piastre, and he found himself grievously in want of money. So, instead of marching south-westward to Darfour, as he had intended, he would move north-eastward to Taka, chastise the stubborn insolvents, and replenish the coffers of the state. "Come with me," said he, to Mr Werne; "upon the march we shall all recover our health," (he also suffered from frequent and violent attacks of fever;) "yonder are water and forests, as in Germany and Circassia, and very high mountains." It mattered little to so restless and rambling a spirit as Mr Ferdinand Werne whether his route lay inland towards the Mountains of the Moon, or coastwards to the Red Sea. His brother was again sick, and spoke of leaving the country; but Mr Werne cheered him up, pointed out to him upon the map an imaginary duchy which he was to conquer in the approaching war, and revived an old plan of going to settle at Bagdad, there to practise as physician and apothecary. "We resolved, therefore, to take our passports with us, so that, if we chose, we might embark on the Red Sea. By this time I had seen through the Bascha, and I resolved to communicate to him an idea which I often, in the interest of these oppressed tribes, had revolved in my mind, namely, that he should place himself at their head, and renounce obedience to the Egyptian vampire. I did subsequently speak to him of the plan, and it might have been well and permanently carried out, had he not, instead of striving to win the confidence of the chiefs, tyrannised over them in every possible manner. Gold and regiments! was his motto."

Meanwhile the influential Dr Gand had fallen seriously ill, and was so afflicted with the irritability already referred to as a consequence of the climate, that no one could go near him but the two Wernes. He neglected Joseph's good advice to quit Chartum at once, put it off till it was too late, and died on his journey northwards. His body lay buried for a whole year in the sand of the desert; then his family, who were going to France, dug it up to take with them. Always a very thin man, little more than skin and bone, the burning sand had preserved him like a mummy. There was no change in his appearance; not a hair gone from his mustaches. Strange is the confusion and alternation of life and death in that ardent and unwholesome land of Nubia. To-day in full health, to-morrow prostrate with fever, from which you recover only to be again attacked. Dead, in twenty-four hours or less corruption is busy on the corpse; bury it promptly in the sand, and in twelve months you may disinter it, perfect as if embalmed. At Chartum, the very focus of disease, death, it might be thought, is sufficiently supplied by fever to need no other purveyors. Nevertheless poisoning seems a pretty common practice there. Life in Chartum is altogether, by Mr Werne's account, a most curious thing. During the preparations for the campaign, a Wurtemberg prince, Duke Paul William of Mergentheim, arrived in the place, and was received with much pomp. "For the first time I saw the Bascha sit upon a chair; he was in full uniform, a red jacket adorned with gold, a great diamond crescent, and three brilliant stars upon his left breast, his sabre by his side." The prince, a fat good-humoured German, was considerably impressed by the state displayed, and left the presence with many obeisances. The next day he dined with the Bascha, whom he and the Wernes hoped to see squatted on the ground, and feeding with his fingers. They were disappointed; the table was arranged in European fashion; wine of various kinds was there, especially champagne, (which the servants, notwithstanding Werne's remonstrances, insisted on shaking before opening, and which consequently flew about the room in foaming fountains;) bumper-toasts were drunk; and the whole party, Franks and Turks, seem to have gradually risen into a glorious state of intoxication, during which they vowed eternal friendship to each other in all imaginable tongues; and the German prince declared he would make the campaign to Taka with the Bascha, draw out the plan, and overwhelm the enemy. This jovial meeting was followed by a quieter entertainment given by the Wernes to the prince, who declared he was travelling as a private gentleman, and wished to be treated accordingly; and then Soliman Effendi, the Sicilian renegade, made a respectful application for permission to invite the "Altezza Tedesca," for whom he had conceived a great liking. A passage from Mr Werne is here worth quoting, as showing the state of society at Chartum. "I communicated the invitation, with the remark that the Sicilian was notorious for his poisonings, but that I had less fear on his highness' account than on that of my brother, who was already designated to replace him in his post. The prince did not heed the danger; moreover, I had put myself on a peculiar footing with Soliman Effendi, and now told him plainly that he had better keep his vindictive manœuvres for others than us, for that my brother and I should go to dinner with loaded pistols in our pockets, and would shoot him through the head (brucciare il cervello) if one of us three felt as much as a belly-ache at his table. The dinner was served in the German fashion; all the guests came, except Vaissière (formerly a French captain, now a slave-dealer, with the cross of the legion of honour.) He would not trust Soliman, who was believed to have poisoned a favourite female-slave of his after a dispute they had about money matters. The dinner went off merrily and well. The duke changed his mind about going to Taka, but promised to join in the campaign on his return from Fàszogl, and bade me promise the Bascha in his name a crocodile-rifle and a hundred bottles of champagne."

Long and costly were the preparations for the march; the more so that Mr Werne and his brother, who saw gleaming in the distance the golden cupolas of Bagdad, desired to take all their baggage with them, and also sufficient stores for the campaign – not implicitly trusting to the Bascha's promise that his kitchen and table should be always at their service. Ten camels were needed to carry the brothers' baggage. One of their greatest troubles was to know how to dispose of their collection of beasts and birds. "The young maneless lion, our greatest joy, was dead – Soliman Effendi, who was afraid of him, having dared to poison him, as I learned, after the renegade's death, from one of our own people." But of birds there were a host; eagles, vultures, king-cranes, (grus pavonina, Linn.;) a snake-killing secretary, with his beautiful eagle head, long tail, and heron legs; strange varieties of water-fowl, many of which had been shot, but had had the pellets extracted and the wounds healed by the skill of Dr Werne; and last, but most beloved, "a pet black horn-bird, (buceros abyss. L.,) who hopped up to us when we called out 'Jack!' – who picked up with his long curved beak the pieces of meat that were thrown to him, tossed them into the air and caught them again, (whereat the Prince of Wurtemberg laughed till he held his sides,) because nature has provided him with too short a tongue; but who did not despise frogs and lizards, and who called us at daybreak with his persevering 'Hum, hum,' until we roused ourselves and answered 'Jack.'" Their anxiety on account of their aviary was relieved by the Bascha's wife, who condescendingly offered to take charge of it during their absence. Mehemet Ali's daughter suffered dreadfully from ennui in dull, unwholesome Chartum, and reckoned on the birds and beasts as pastime and diversion. Thus, little by little, difficulties were overcome, and all was made ready for the march. A Bolognese doctor of medicine, named Bellotti, and Dumont, a French apothecary, arrived at Chartum. They belonged to an Egyptian regiment, and must accompany it on the chasua.² Troops assembled in and around Chartum, the greater part of whose garrison, destined also to share in the campaign, were boated over to the right bank of the Blue Nile. Thence they were to march northwards to Damer – once a town, now a village amidst ruins – situated about three leagues above the place where the Atbara, a river that rises in Abyssinia, and flows north-westward through Sennaar, falls into the Nile. There the line of march changed its direction to the right, and took a tolerably straight route, but inclining a little to the south, in the direction of the Red Sea. The Bascha went by water down the Nile the greater part of the way to Damer, and was of course attended by his physician. Mr Werne, finding himself unwell, followed his example, sending their twelve camels by land, and accompanied by Bellotti, Dumont, and a Savoyard merchant from Chartum, Bruno Rollet by name. There was great difficulty in getting a vessel, all having been taken for the transport of provisions and military stores; but at last one was discovered, sunk by its owner to save it from the commissariat, and after eleven days of sickness, suffering, and peril – during which Mr Werne, when burning with fever, had been compelled to jump overboard to push the heavy laden boat off the reef on which the stupid Rëis had run it – the party rejoined headquarters. There Mr Werne was kindly received by Achmet, and most joyfully by his brother. Long and dolorous was the tale Dr Joseph had to tell of his sufferings with the wild-riding Bascha. Three days before reaching Damer, that impatient chieftain left his ship and ordered out the dromedaries. The Berlin doctor of medicine felt his heart sink within him; he had never yet ascended a dromedary's saddle, and the desperate riding of the Bascha made his own Turkish retinue fear to follow him. His forebodings were well-founded. Two hours' rough trot shook up his interior to such an extent, and so stripped his exterior of skin, that he was compelled to dismount and lie down upon some brushwood near the Nile, exposed to the burning sun, and with a compassionate Bedouin for sole attendant, until the servants and baggage came up. Headache, vomiting, terrible heat and parching thirst – for he had no drinking vessel, and the Bedouin would not leave him – were his portion the whole day, followed by fever and delirium during the night. At two o'clock the next day (the hottest time) the Bascha was again in the saddle, as if desirous to try to the utmost his own endurance and that of his suite. By this time the doctor had come up with him, (having felt himself better in the morning,) after a six hours' ride, and terrible loss of leather, the blood running down into his stockings. Partly on his dromedary, partly on foot, he managed to follow his leader through this second day's march, at the cost of another night's fever, but in the morning he was so weak that he was obliged to take boat and complete his journey to Damer by water. Of more slender frame and delicate complexion than his brother, the poor doctor was evidently ill-adapted for roughing it in African deserts, although his pluck and fortitude went far towards supplying his physical deficiencies. Most painful are the accounts of his constantly recurring sufferings during that arduous expedition; and one cannot but admire and wonder at the zeal for science, or ardent thirst for novelty, that supported him, and induced him to persevere in the teeth of such hardship and ill-health. At Damer he purchased a small dromedary of easy paces, and left the Bascha's rough-trotting gift for his brother's riding.

At three in the afternoon of the 20th March, a cannon-shot gave the signal for departure. The Wernes' water-skins were already filled and their baggage packed; in an instant their tents were struck and camels loaded; with baggage and servants they took their place at the head of the column and rode up to the Bascha, who was halted to the east of Damer, with his beautiful horses and dromedaries standing saddled behind him. He complained of the great disorder in the camp, but consoled himself with the reflection that things would go better by-and-by. "It was truly a motley scene," says Mr Werne. "The Turkish cavalry in their national costume of many colours, with yellow and green banners and small kettle-drums; the Schaïgië and Mograbin horsemen; Bedouins on horseback, on camels, and on foot; the Schechs and Moluks (little king) with their armour-bearers behind them on the dromedaries, carrying pikes and lances, straight swords and leather shields; the countless donkeys and camels – the former led by a great portion of the infantry, to ride in turn – drums and an ear-splitting band of music, The Chabir (caravan-leader) was seen in the distance mounted on his dromedary, and armed with a lance and round shield; the Bascha bestrode his horse, and we accompanied him in that direction, whilst gradually, and in picturesque disorder, the detachments emerged from the monstrous confusion and followed us. The artillery consisted of two field-pieces, drawn by camels, which the Bascha had had broken to the work, that in the desert they might relieve the customary team of mules.

"Abd-el-Kader, the jovial Topschi Baschi, (chief of the artillery,) commanded them, and rode a mule. The Turks, (that is to say, chiefly Circassians, Kurds, and Arnauts or Albanians,) who shortly before could hardly put one leg before the other, seemed transformed into new men, as they once more found themselves at home in their saddles. They galloped round the Bascha like madmen, riding their horses as mercilessly as if they had been drunk with opium. This was a sort of honorary demonstration, intended to indicate to their chief their untameable valour. The road led through the desert, and was tolerably well beaten. Towards evening the Bascha rode forwards with the Chabir. We did not follow, for I felt myself unwell. It was dark night when we reached the left bank of the Atbara, where we threw ourselves down amongst the bushes, and went to sleep, without taking supper."

The campaign might now be said to be beginning; at least the army was close upon tribes whose disposition, if not avowedly hostile, was very equivocal, and the Bascha placed a picket of forty men at the only ford over the Atbara, a clear stream of tolerable depth, and with lofty banks, covered with rich grass, with mimosas and lofty fruit-laden palm-trees. The next day's march was a severe one – ten hours without a halt – and was attended, after nightfall, with some danger, arising partly from the route lying through trees with barbed thorns, strong enough to tear the clothes off men's bodies and the eyes out of their heads, and partly from the crowding and pressure in the disorderly column during its progress amongst holes and chasms occasioned by the overflowing of the river. Upon halting, at midnight, a fire was lighted for the Bascha, and one of his attendants brought coffee to Mr Werne; but he, sick and weary, rejected it, and would have preferred, he says, so thoroughly exhausted did he feel, a nap under a bush to a supper upon a roasted angel. They were still ascending the bank of the Atbara, a winding stream, with wildly beautiful tree-fringed banks, containing few fish, but giving shelter, in its deep places, to the crocodile and hippopotamus. From the clefts of its sandstone bed, then partially exposed by the decline of the waters, sprang a lovely species of willow, with beautiful green foliage and white umbelliferous flowers, having a perfume surpassing that of jasmine. The Wernes would gladly, have explored the neighbourhood; but the tremendous heat, and a warm wind which played round their temples with a sickening effect, drove them into camp. Gunfire was at noon upon that day; but it was Mr Werne's turn to be on the sick-list. Suddenly he felt himself so ill, that it was with a sort of despairing horror he saw the tent struck from over him, loaded upon a camel, and driven off. In vain he endeavoured to rise; the sun seemed to dart coals of fire upon his head. His brother and servant carried him into the shadow of a neighbouring palm-tree, and he sank half-dead upon the glowing sand. It would suffice to abide there during the heat of the day, as they thought, but instead of that, they were compelled to remain till next morning, Werne suffering terribly from dysentery. "Never in my life," he says, "did I more ardently long for the setting of the sun than on that day; even its last rays exercised the same painful power on my hair, which seemed to be in a sort of electric connection with just as many sunbeams, and to bristle up upon my head. And no sooner had the luminary which inspired me with such horror sunk below the horizon, than I felt myself better, and was able to get on my legs and crawl slowly about. Some good-natured Arab shepherd-lads approached our fire, pitied me, and brought me milk and durra-bread. It was a lovely evening; the full moon was reflected in the Atbara, as were also the dark crowns of the palm-trees, wild geese shrieked around us; otherwise the stillness was unbroken, save at intervals by the cooing of doves. There is something beautiful in sleeping in the open air, when weather and climate are suitable. We awoke before sunrise, comforted, and got upon our dromedaries; but after a couple of hours' ride we mistrusted the sun, and halted with some wandering Arabs belonging to the Kabyle of the Kammarabs. We were hospitably received, and regaled with milk and bread."³

When our two Germans rejoined headquarters, after four days' absence, they found Achmet Bascha seated in the shade upon the ground in front of his tent, much burned by the sun, and looking fagged and suffering – as well he might be after the heat and exposure he had voluntarily undergone. Nothing could cure him, however, at least as yet, of his fancy for marching in the heat of the day. Although obstinate and despotic, the Bascha was evidently a dashing sort of fellow, well calculated to win the respect and admiration of his wild and heterogeneous army. Weary as were the two Wernes, (they reached the camp at noon,) at two o'clock they had to be again in the saddle. "A number of gazelles were started; the Bascha seized a gun and dashed after them upon his Arabian stallion, almost the whole of the cavalry scouring after him like a wild mob, and we ourselves riding a sharp trot to witness the chase. We thought he had fallen from his horse, so suddenly did he swing himself from saddle to ground, killing three gazelles with three shots, of which animals we consumed a considerable portion roasted for that night's supper." The river here widened, and crocodiles showed themselves upon the opposite shore. The day was terribly warm; the poor medico was ill again, suffering grievously from his head, and complaining of his hair being so hot; and as the Salamander Bascha persisted in marching under a sun which, through the canvass of the tents, heated sabres and musket-barrels till it was scarcely possible to grasp them, the brothers again lingered behind and followed in the cool of the evening, Joseph being mounted upon an easy-going mule lent him by Topschi Baschi, the good-humoured but dissolute captain of the guns. They were now divided but by the river's breadth from the hostile tribe of the Haddenda, and might at any moment be assailed; so two hours after sunset a halt was called and numerous camp-fires were lighted, producing a most picturesque effect amongst the trees, and by their illumination of the diversified costumes of the soldiery, and attracting a whole regiment of scorpions, "some of them remarkably fine specimens," says Mr Werne, who looks upon these unpleasant fireside companions with a scientific eye, "a finger and a half long, of a light colour, half of the tail of a brown black and covered with hair." It is a thousand pities that the adventurous Mrs Ida Pfeiffer did not accompany Mr Werne upon this expedition. She would have had the finest possible opportunities of curing herself of the prejudice which it will be remembered she was so weak as to entertain against the scorpion tribe. These pleasant reptiles were as plentiful all along Mr Werne's line of march as are cockchafers on a summer evening in an English oak-copse. Their visitations were pleasantly varied by those of snakes of all sizes, and of various degrees of venom. "At last," says Mr Werne, "one gets somewhat indifferent about scorpions and other wild animals." He had greater difficulty in accustoming himself to the sociable habits of the snakes, who used to glide about amongst tents and baggage, and by whom, in the course of the expedition, a great number of persons were bitten. On the 12th April "Mohammed Ladham sent us a remarkable scorpion – pity that it is so much injured – almost two fingers long, black-brown, tail and feet covered with prickly hair, claws as large as those of a small crab… We had laid us down under a green tree beside a cotton plantation, whilst our servants unloaded the camels and pitched the tents, when a snake, six feet long, darted from under our carpet, passed over my leg, and close before my brother's face. But we were so exhausted that we lay still, and some time afterwards the snake was brought to us, one of Schech Defalla's people having killed it." About noon next day a similar snake sprang out of the said Defalla's own tent; it was killed also, and found to measure six feet two inches. The soldiers perceiving that the German physician and his brother were curious in the matter of reptiles, brought them masses of serpents; but they had got a notion that the flesh was the part coveted (not the skin) to make medicine, and most of the specimens were so defaced as to be valueless. Early in May "some soldiers assured us they had seen in the thicket a serpent twenty feet long, and as thick as a man's leg; probably a species of boa – a pity that they could not kill it. The great number of serpents with dangerous bites makes our bivouac very unsafe, and we cannot encamp with any feeling of security near bushes or amongst brushwood; the prick of a blade of straw, the sting of the smallest insect, causes a hasty movement, for one immediately fancies it is a snake or scorpion; and when out shooting, one's second glance is for the game, one's first on the ground at his feet, for fear of trampling and irritating some venomous reptile." As we proceed through the volume we shall come to other accounts of beasts and reptiles, so remarkable as really almost to reconcile us to the possibility of some of the zoological marvels narrated by the Yankee Doctor Mayo in his rhapsody of Kaloolah.⁴ For the present we must revert to the business of this curiously-conducted campaign. As the army advanced, various chiefs presented themselves, with retinues more or less numerous. The first of these was the Grand-Shech Mohammed Defalla, already named, who came up, with a great following, on the 28th March. He was a man of herculean frame; and assuredly such was very necessary to enable him to endure in that climate the weight of his defensive arms. He wore a double shirt of mail over a quilted doublet, arm-plates and beautifully wrought steel gauntlets; his casque fitted like a shell to the upper part of his head, and had in front, in lieu of a visor, an iron bar coming down over the nose – behind, for the protection of the nape, a fringe composed of small rings. His straight-bladed sword had a golden hilt. The whole equipment, which seems to correspond very closely with that of some of the Sikhs or other warlike Indian tribes, proceeded from India, and Defalla had forty or fifty such suits of arms. About the same time with him, arrived two Schechs from the refractory land of Taka, tall handsome men; whilst, from the environs of the neighbouring town of Gos-Rajeb, a number of people rode out on dromedaries to meet the Bascha, their hair quite white with camel-fat, which melted in the sun and streamed over their backs. Gos-Rajeb, situated at about a quarter of a mile from the left bank of the Atbara, consists of some two hundred tokul (huts) and clay-built houses, and in those parts is considered an important commercial depot, Indian goods being transported thither on camels from the port of Souakim, on the Red Sea. The inhabitants are of various tribes, more of them red than black or brown; but few were visible, many having fled at the approach of Achmet's army, which passed the town in imposing array – the infantry in double column in the centre, the Turkish cavalry on the right, the Schaïgiës and Mograbins on the left, the artillery, with kettledrums, cymbals, and other music, in the van – marched through the Atbara, there very shallow, and encamped on the right bank, in a stony and almost treeless plain, at the foot of two rocky hills. The Bascha ordered the Shech of Gos-Rajeb to act as guide to the Wernes in their examination of the vicinity, and to afford them all the information in his power. The most remarkable spot to which he conducted them was to the site of an ancient city, which once, according to tradition, had been as large as Cairo, and inhabited by Christians. The date of its existence must be very remote, for the ground was smooth, and the sole trace of buildings consisted in a few heaps of broken bricks. There were indications of a terrible conflagration, the bricks in one place being melted together into a black glazed mass. Mr Werne could trace nothing satisfactory with respect to former Christian occupants, and seems disposed to think that Burckhardt, who speaks of Christian monuments at that spot, (in the neighbourhood of the hill of Herrerem,) may have been misled by certain peculiarly formed rocks.