MOHAMMED GOL

At Mohammed Gol, to which port our dhow next conducted us, our prospects of getting well into the interior were much brighter, and our ultimate results beyond comparison more satisfactory than they had been at Halaib. Mohammed Gol is distinctly a more lively place than Halaib, possessing more huts, more soldiers, and actually a miniature bazaar where, strange to relate, we were able to buy something we wanted.

The houses at Mohammed Gol are larger than those at Halaib, and one can stand up in some parts of nearly all of them.

The fort is surrounded by a very evil-smelling moat, and the village situated on a damp plain, white with salt. When we made a camp on shore later we went well beyond this plain.

In the summer season, when the waters of the Red Sea are low, traders come to Mohammed Gol for salt. The salterns are situated on the narrow spit of land called Ras Rowaya; consequently, the people about here are more accustomed to the sight of Europeans, and Mohammed Effendi, the governor, or mamour of the little Egyptian garrison, who is young and energetic, seems far more in touch with the world than Ismael of Halaib. He complained much of the dulness of his post, and passed his weary hours in making walking-sticks out of ibex horns, a craft he had learnt from the Bedouin of Mount Erba, who soften the horns in hot water, grease them, pull them out and flatten them with weights and polish them, using them as camel sticks. The governor gave us several of these sticks, and also presented an ibex-horn head-scratcher to me, remarking as he did so, with a polite gesture, that it was a nice thing to have by me when my head itched. He was a little and very dark man, with a pleasant, honest face, and three transverse scars across his cheeks, each about two inches long. His secretary was yet smaller, and decorated in the same way. The chief of the police was a very fat, good-humoured man, with two little perpendicular cuts beside each eye. These are tribal marks.

There was great palavering about our journey into the interior. Though several travellers had visited the Red Sea side of the massive group of Mount Erba on holidays from Sawakin in search of sport, no one had as yet been behind it, and thither we intended to go. The governor had summoned three sheikhs from the mountains, into whose hands he confided us. The day we first landed I thought I never had beheld such scowling, disagreeable faces, but afterwards we became good friends. My husband and I went ashore the second day, and sat in a sort of audience-arbour near the madrepore pier, and many maps were drawn on the ground with camel-sticks, and we were quite proud that my husband was able to settle it all with no interpreter.

Sheikh Ali Debalohp, the chief of the Kilab tribe, was to take us to his district, Wadi Hadai and Wadi Gabeit, some way inland at the back of the Erba mountains, which group we insisted on going entirely round. He was a tall, fine specimen of a Bishari sheikh, with his neck terribly scarred by a burn, to heal which he had been treated in hospital at Sawakin. He is, as we learnt later, a man of questionable loyalty to the Egyptian Government, and supposed to be more than half a Dervish; this may be owing to the exigencies of his position, for more than half his tribe living in the Wadi Hayet are of avowed allegiance to the Khalifa, and Debalohp’s authority now only extends over the portion near the coast. As far as we could see his intentions towards us were strictly honourable, and he treated us throughout our expedition in a much more straightforward manner than either of the other two.

Sheikh number two was Mohammed, the son of Ali Hamed, head sheikh of a branch of the great Kurbab tribe. As his father was too old and infirm to accompany us, he took his place. He was an exceedingly dirty and wild-looking fellow, with a harsh, raucous voice, and his statements were not always reliable. We have reason to believe that his father is much interested in the slave-trade, and therefore not too fond of Europeans; but these sheikhs by the coast are generally obliged to be somewhat double in their dealings, and, when anything can be gained by it, affect sincere friendship for the English.

Sheikh number three bore the name of Hassan Bafori, and is wagdab or chief of another branch of the Kurbabs, and his authority extends over the massive group of Mount Erba and Kokout. He is a man who seems to revel in telling lies, and we never could believe a word he said. Besides these head-men we had several minor sheikhs with us, and two soldiers sent by the mamour from his garrison at Mohammed Gol to see that we were well treated. Hence our caravan was of considerable dimensions when we took our departure from Mohammed Gol on February 6.

He of the Kilab tribe, Ali Debalohp, was the most important of them, and he took one of his wives with him; all had their servants and shield-bearers, and most of them were wild, unprepossessing looking men, with shaggy locks and lard-daubed curls, and all of them were, I believe, thorough ruffians, who, as we were told afterwards, would willingly have sold us to the Dervishes had they thought they would have gained by the transaction. These things officials told us when we reached Sawakin; but, to do our guides justice, I must say they treated us very well, and inasmuch as we never believed a word they said, the fact that they were liars made but little difference to us.

Some of the men had very fine profiles, and one was very handsome. Their hair is done something like the Bisharin’s that is, with a fuz standing up on the top, but the hanging part is not curled; the white tallow with which they were caked, made them look as if their heads were surrounded with dips.

I asked why the tallow was put on. One said to make one strong, another to make one see far, and a third reason was that the hair might not appear black.

We had fourteen camels for ourselves and two for the police who came with us. The mamour was in European uniform, with a red shawl wound round his head, and sat on a very smart inlaid saddle which came up to his waist in front and reached to his shoulder-blades. The chief of the police did not come, he being, as he told us, far too fat.

We were to fill all our waterskins from a remarkably fine well of particularly sweet water at Hadi, so we took only a couple of skinfuls with us.