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

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.

The most renowned chief of the mutinous tribes of Taka, the conqueror of the Turks under Churdschid Bascha, was Mohammed Din, Grand-Schech of the Haddenda. This personage, awed by the approach of Achmet's formidable force, sent his son to the advancing Bascha, as a hostage for his loyalty and submission. Achmet sent the young man back to his father as bearer of his commands. The next day the army crossed the frontier of Taka, which is not very exactly defined, left the Atbara in their rear, and, moving still eastwards, beheld before them, in the far distance, the blue mountains of Abyssinia. The Bascha's suite was now swelled by the arrival of numerous Schechs, great and small, with their esquires and attendants. The route lay through a thick forest, interwoven with creeping plants and underwood, and with thorny mimosas, which grew to a great height. The path was narrow, the confusion of the march inconceivably great and perilous, and if the enemy had made a vigorous attack with their javelins, which they are skilled in throwing, the army must have endured great loss, with scarcely a possibility of inflicting any. At last the scattered column reached an open space, covered with grass, and intersected with deep narrow rills of water. The Bascha, who had outstripped his troops, was comfortably encamped, heedless of their fate, whilst they continued for a long time to emerge in broken parties from the wood. Mr Werne's good opinion of his generalship had been already much impaired, and this example of true Turkish indolence, and of the absence of any sort of military dispositions under such critical circumstances, completely destroyed it. The next day there was some appearance of establishing camp-guards, and of taking due precautions against the fierce and numerous foe, who on former occasions had thrice defeated Turkish armies, and from whom an attack might at any moment be expected. In the afternoon an alarm was given; the Bascha, a good soldier, although a bad general, was in the saddle in an instant, and gallopping to the spot, followed by all his cavalry, whilst the infantry rushed confusedly in the same direction. The uproar had arisen, however, not from Arab assailants, but from some soldiers who had discovered extensive corn magazines —silos, as they are called in Algeria – holes in the ground, filled with grain, and carefully covered over. By the Bascha's permission, the soldiers helped themselves from these abundant granaries, and thus the army found itself provided with corn for the next two months. In the course of the disorderly distribution, or rather scramble, occurred a little fight between the Schaïgië, a quarrelsome set of irregulars, and some of the Turks. Nothing could be worse than the discipline of Achmet's host. The Schaïgiës were active and daring horsemen, and were the first to draw blood in the campaign, in a skirmish upon the following day with some ambushed Arabs. The neighbouring woods swarmed with these javelin-bearing gentry, although they lay close, and rarely showed themselves, save when they could inflict injury at small risk. Mr Werne began to doubt the possibility of any extensive or effectual operations against these wild and wandering tribes, who, on the approach of the army, loaded their goods on camels, and fled into the Chaaba, or forest district, whither it was impossible to follow them. Where was the Bascha to find money and food for the support of his numerous army? – where was he to quarter it during the dangerous Chariff, or rainy season? He was very reserved as to his plans; probably, according to Mr Werne, because he had none. The Schechs who had joined and marched with him could hardly be depended upon, when it was borne in mind that they, formerly the independent rulers of a free people, had been despoiled of their power and privileges, and were now the ill-used vassals of the haughty and stupid Turks, who overwhelmed them with imposts, treated them contemptuously, and even subjected them to the bastinado. "Mohammed Din, seeing the hard lot of these gentlemen, seems disposed to preserve his freedom as long as possible, or to sell it as dearly as may be. Should it come to a war, there is, upon our side, a total want of efficient leaders, at any rate if we except the Bascha. Abdin Aga, chief of the Turkish cavalry, a bloated Arnaut; Sorop Effendi, a model of stupidity and covetousness; Hassan Effendi Bimbaschi, a quiet sot; Soliman Aga, greedy, and without the slightest education of any kind; Hassan Effendi of Sennaar, a Turk in the true sense of the word (these four are infantry commanders); Mohammed Ladjam, a good-natured but inexperienced fellow, chief of the Mograbin cavalry: amongst all these officers, the only difference is, that each is more ignorant than his neighbour. With such leaders, what can be expected from an army that, for the most part, knows no discipline – the Schaïgiës, for instance, doing just what they please, and being in a fair way to corrupt all the rest – and that is encumbered with an endless train of dangerous rabble, idlers, slaves, and women of pleasure, serving as a burthen and hindrance? Let us console ourselves with the Allah kerim! (God is merciful.)" Mr Werne had not long to wait for a specimen of Turkish military skill. On the night of the 7th April he was watching in his tent beside his grievously sick brother, when there suddenly arose an uproar in the camp, followed by firing. "I remained by our tent, for my brother was scarcely able to stir, and the infantry also remained quiet, trusting to their mounted comrades. But when I saw Bimbaschi Hassan Effendi lead a company past us, and madly begin to fire over the powder-waggons, as if these were meant to serve as barricades against the hostile lances, I ran up to him with my sabre drawn, and threatened him with the Bascha, as well as with the weapon, whereupon he came to his senses, and begged me not to betray him. The whole proved to be mere noise, but the harassed Bascha was again up and active. He seemed to make no use of his aides-de-camp, and only his own presence could inspire his troops with courage. Some of the enemy were killed, and there were many tracks of blood leading into the wood, although the firing had been at random in the darkness. As a specimen of the tactics of our Napoleon-worshipping Bascha, he allowed the wells, which were at two hundred yards from camp, to remain unguarded at night, so that they might easily have been filled up by the enemy. Truly fortunate was it that there were no great stones in the neighbourhood to choke them up, for we were totally without implements wherewith to have cleared them out again." Luckily for this most careless general and helpless army, the Arabs neglected to profit by their shortcomings, and on the 14th April, after many negotiations, the renowned Mohammed Din himself, awed, we must suppose, by the numerical strength of Achmet's troops, and over-estimating their real value, committed the fatal blunder of presenting himself in the Turkish camp. Great was the curiosity to see this redoubted chief, who alighted at Schech Defalla's tent, into which the soldiers impudently crowded, to get a view of the man before whom many of them had formerly trembled and fled. "Mohammed Din is of middle stature, and of a black-brown colour, like all his people; his countenance at first says little, but, on longer inspection, its expression is one of great cunning; his bald head is bare; his dress Arabian, with drawers of a fiery red colour. His retinue consists, without exception, of most ill-looking fellows, on whose countenances Nature seems to have done her best to express the faithless character attributed to the Haddenda. They are all above the middle height, and armed with shields and lances, or swords." Next morning Mr Werne saw the Bascha seated on his angarèb, (a sort of bedstead, composed of plaited strips of camel-hide, which, upon the march, served as a throne,) with a number of Shechs squatted upon the ground on either side of him, amongst them Mohammed Din, looking humbled, and as if half-repentant of his rash step. The Bascha appeared disposed to let him feel that he was now no better than a caged lion, whose claws the captor can cut at will. He showed him, however, marks of favour, gave him a red shawl for a turban, and a purple mantle with gold tassels, but no sabre, which Mr Werne thought a bad omen. The Schech was suffered to go to and fro between the camp and his own people, but under certain control – now with an escort of Schaïgiës, then leaving his son as hostage. He sent in some cattle and sheep as a present, and promised to bring the tribute due; this he failed to do, and a time was fixed to him and the other Shechs within which to pay up arrears. Notwithstanding the subjection of their chief, the Arabs continued their predatory practices, stealing camels from the camp, or taking them by force from the grooms who drove them out to pasture.

Mr Werne's book is a journal, written daily during the campaign but, owing to the long interval between its writing and publication, he has found it necessary to make frequent parenthetical additions, corrective or explanatory. Towards the end of April, during great sickness in camp, he writes as follows: – "My brother's medical observations and experiments begin to excite in me a strong interest. He has promised me that he will keep a medical journal; but he must first get into better health, for now it is always with sickening disgust that he returns from visiting his patients; he complains of the insupportable effluvia from these people, sinks upon his angarèb with depression depicted in his features, and falls asleep with open eyes, so that I often feel quite uneasy." Then comes the parenthesis of ten years' later date. "Subsequently, when I had joined the expedition for the navigation of the White Nile, he wrote to me from the camp of Kàssela-el-Lus to Chartum, that, with great diligence and industry, he had written some valuable papers on African diseases, and was inconsolable at having lost them. He had been for ten days dangerously ill, had missed me sadly, and, in a fit of delirium, when his servant asked him for paper to light the fire, had handed him his manuscript, which the stupid fellow had forthwith burned. At the same time, he lamented that, during his illness, our little menagerie had been starved to death. The Bascha had been to see him, and by his order Topschi Baschi had taken charge of his money, that he might not be robbed, giving the servants what was needful for their keep, and for the purchase of flesh for the animals. The servants had drunk the money intended for the beasts' food. When my brother recovered his health, he had the fagged, (a sort of lynx,) which had held out longest, and was only just dead, cut open, and so convinced himself that it had died of hunger. The annoyance one has to endure from these people is beyond conception, and the very mildest-tempered man – as, for instance, my late brother – is compelled at times to make use of the whip."

Whilst Mohammed Din and the other Shechs, accompanied by detachments of Turkish troops, intended partly to support them in their demands, and partly to reconnoitre the country, endeavoured to get together the stipulated tribute, the army remained stationary. But repose did not entail monotony; strange incidents were of daily occurrence in this singular camp. The Wernes, always anxious for the increase of their cabinet of stuffed birds and beasts, sent their huntsman Abdallah with one of the detachments, remaining themselves, for the present at least, at headquarters, to collect whatever might come in their way. The commander of the Mograbins sent them an antelope as big as a donkey, having legs like a cow, and black twisted horns. From the natives little was to be obtained. They were very shy and ill-disposed, and could not be prevailed upon, even by tenfold payment, to supply the things most abundant with them, as for instance milk and honey. In hopes of alluring and conciliating them, the Bascha ordered those traders who had accompanied the army to establish a bazaar outside the fence enclosing the camp. The little mirrors that were there sold proved a great attraction. The Arabs would sit for whole days looking in them, and pulling faces. But no amount of reflection could render them amicable or honest: they continued to steal camels and asses whenever they could, and one of them caught a Schaigie's horse, led him up to the camp, and stabbed him to death. So great was the hatred of these tribes to their oppressors – a hatred which would have shown itself by graver aggressions, but for Achmet's large force, and above all, for their dread of firearms. Within the camp there was wild work enough at times. The good-hearted, hot-headed Werne was horribly scandalised by the ill-treatment of the slaves. Dumont, the French apothecary, had a poor lad named Amber, a mere boy, willing and industrious, whom he continually beat and kicked, until at last Mr Werne challenged him to a duel with sabres, and threatened to take away the slave, which he, as a Frenchman, had no legal right to possess. But this was nothing compared to the cruelties practised by other Europeans, and especially at Chartum by one Vigoureux, (a French corporal who had served under Napoleon, and was now adjutant of an Egyptian battalion,) and his wife, upon a poor black girl, only ten years of age, whom they first barbarously flogged, and then tied to a post, with her bleeding back exposed to the broiling sun. Informed of this atrocity by his brother, who had witnessed it, Mr Werne sprang from his sickbed, and flew to the rescue, armed with his sabre, and with a well-known iron stick, ten pounds in weight, which had earned him the nickname of Abu-Nabut, or Father of the Stick. A distant view of his incensed countenance sufficed, and the Frenchman, cowardly as cruel, hastened to release his victim, and to humble himself before her humane champion. Concerning this corporal and his dame, whom he had been to France to fetch, and who was brought to bed on camel-back, under a burning sun, in the midst of the desert, some curious reminiscences are set down in the Feldzug, as are also some diverting details of the improprieties of the dissipated gunner Topschi Baschi, who, on the 1st May, brought dancing-girls into the hut occupied by the two Germans, and assembled a mob round it by the indecorous nature of his proceedings. Regulations for the internal order and security of the camp were unheard of. After a time, tents were pitched over the ammunition; a ditch was dug around it, and strict orders were given to light no fire in its vicinity. All fires, too, by command of the Bascha, were to be extinguished when the evening gun was fired. For a short time the orders were obeyed; then they were forgotten; fires were seen blazing late at night, and within fifteen paces of the powder. Nothing but the bastinado could give memory to these reckless fatalists. "I have often met ships upon the Nile, so laden with straw that there was scarcely room for the sailors to work the vessel. No matter for that; in the midst of the straw a mighty kitchen-fire was merrily blazing."

On the 6th of May, the two Wernes mounted their dromedaries and set off, attended by one servant, and with a guide provided by Mohammed Defalla, for the village of El Soffra, at a distance of two and a half leagues, where they expected to find Mohammed Din and a large assemblage of his tribe. It was rather a daring thing to advance thus unescorted into the land of the treacherous Haddendas, and the Bascha gave his consent unwillingly; but Mussa, (Moses,) the Din's only son, was hostage in the camp, and they deemed themselves safer alone than with the half company of soldiers Achmet wanted to send with them. Their route lay due east, at first through fields of durra, (a sort of grain,) afterwards through forests of saplings. The natives they met greeted them courteously, and they reached El Soffra without molestation, but there learned, to their considerable annoyance, that Mohammed Din had gone two leagues and a half farther, to the camp of his nephew Shech Mussa, at Mitkenàb. So, after a short pause, they again mounted their camels, and rode off, loaded with maledictions by the Arabs, because they would not remain and supply them with medicine, although the same Arabs refused to requite the drugs with so much as a cup of milk. They rode for more than half an hour before emerging from the straggling village, which was composed of wretched huts made of palm-mats, having an earthen cooking-vessel, a leathern water-bottle, and two stones for bruising corn, for sole furniture. The scanty dress of the people – some of the men had nothing but a leathern apron round their hips, and a sheep-skin, with the wool inwards, over their shoulders – their long hair and wild countenances, gave them the appearance of thorough savages. In the middle of every village was an open place, where the children played stark naked in the burning sun, their colour and their extraordinarily nimble movements combining, says Mr Werne, to give them the appearance of a troop of young imps. Infants, which in Europe would lie helpless in the cradle, are there seen rolling in the sand, with none to mind them, and playing with the young goats and other domestic animals. In that torrid climate, the development of the human frame is wonderfully rapid. Those women of whom the travellers caught a sight in this large village, which consisted of upwards of two thousand huts and tents, were nearly all old and ugly. The young ones, when they by chance encountered the strangers, covered their faces, and ran away. On the road to Mitkenàb, however, some young and rather handsome girls showed themselves. "They all looked at us with great wonder," says Mr Werne, "and took us for Turks, for we are the first Franks who have come into this country."