The Nile tributaries of Abyssinia, and the sword hunters of the Hamran arabs, Sir Samuel White Baker [open ebook TXT] 📗

hard life;--it was the haven of a pilgrim, rest!

While we were enjoying a few months' repose, the elements were hard at work. Every day, without exception, and generally for several hours of the night, the lightning flashed and thunder roared with little intermission, while the rain poured in such torrents that the entire country became perfectly impassable, with the exception of the hard ground of the Atbara valley. The rich loam of the table land had risen like leavened dough, and was knee-deep in adhesive mud; the grass upon this surface grew with such rapidity that in a few weeks it reached a height of nine or ten feet. The mud rushed in torrents down the countless watercourses, which were now in their greatest activity in hurrying away the fertile soil of Egypt; and the glorious Atbara was at its maximum.


CHAPTER VIII.

THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

TIME glided away smoothly at our camp amidst the storms of the rainy season. The Arabs had nothing to do, and suffered much from the absence of their herds, as there was a great scarcity of milk. The only animals that had not been sent to the north were a few goats; these were so teased by the flies that they produced but a small supply. Fever had appeared at the same time with the flies, and every one was suffering more or less, especially Florian, who was seriously ill. I was in full practice as physician, and we congratulated ourselves upon the healthiness of our little isolated camp, when suddenly my wife was prostrated by a severe attack of gastric fever, which for nine days rendered her recovery almost hopeless. At length the fever gave way to careful attendance, and my Arab patients and Florian were also in a fair way towards recovery. The plagues of Egypt were upon us; the common house-flies were in billions, in addition to the cattle-tormentor. Our donkeys would not graze, but stood day and night in the dense smoke of fires, made of sticks and green grass, for protection.

The plague of boils broke out, and every one was attacked more or less severely. Then came a plague of which Moses must have been ignorant, or he would surely have inflicted it upon Pharaoh. This was a species of itch, which affected all ages and both sexes equally; it attacked all parts of the body, but principally the extremities. The irritation was beyond description; small vesicles rose above the skin, containing a watery fluid, which, upon bursting, appeared to spread the disease. The Arabs had no control over this malady, which they called "coorash," and the whole country was scratching. The popular belief attributed the disease to the water of the Atbara at this particular season: although a horrible plague, I do not believe it to have any connexion with the well-known itch or "scabies" of Europe.

I adopted a remedy that I had found a specific for mange in dogs, and this treatment became equally successful in cases of coorash. Gunpowder, with the addition of one-fourth of sulphur, made into a soft paste with water, and then formed into an ointment with fat: this should be rubbed over the whole body. The effect upon a black man is that of a well-cleaned boot--upon a white man it is still more striking; but it quickly cures the malady. I went into half mourning by this process, and I should have adopted deep mourning had it been necessary; I was only attacked from the feet to a little above the knees. Florian was in a dreadful state, and the vigorous and peculiar action of his arms at once explained the origin of the term "Scotch fiddle," the musical instrument commonly attributed to the north of Great Britain.

The Arabs are wretchedly ignorant of the healing art, and they suffer accordingly. At least fifty per cent. of the population in Sofi had a permanent enlargement of the spleen, which could be felt with a slight pressure of the hand, frequently as large as an orange; this was called "Jenna el Wirde" (child of the fever), and was the result of constant attacks of fever in successive rainy seasons.

Faith is the drug that is supposed to cure the Arab; whatever his complaint may be, he applies to his Faky or priest. This minister is not troubled with a confusion of book-learning, neither are the shelves of his library bending beneath weighty treatises upon the various maladies of human nature; but he possesses the key to all learning, the talisman that will apply to all cases, in that one holy book the Koran. This is his complete pharmacopoeia: his medicine chest, combining purgatives, blisters, sudorifics, styptics, narcotics, emetics, and all that the most profound M.D. could prescribe. With this "multum in parvo" stock-in-trade the Faky receives his patients. No. 1 arrives, a barren woman who requests some medicine that will promote the blessing of childbirth. No. 2, a man who was strong in his youth, but from excessive dissipation has become useless. No. 3, a man deformed from his birth, who wishes to become straight as other men. No. 4, a blind child. No. 5, a dying old woman, carried on a litter; and sundry other impossible cases, with others of a more simple character.

The Faky produces his book, the holy Koran, and with a pen formed of a reed he proceeds to write a prescription; not to be made up by an apothecary, as such dangerous people do not exist, but the prescription itself is to be SWALLOWED! Upon a smooth board, like a slate, he rubs sufficient lime to produce a perfectly white surface; upon this he writes in large characters, with thick glutinous ink, a verse or verses from the Koran that he considers applicable to the case; this completed, he washes off the holy quotation, and converts it into a potation by the addition of a little water; this is swallowed in perfect faith by the patient, who in return pays a fee according to the demand of the Faky. Of course it cannot be supposed that this effects a cure, or that it is in any way superior to the prescriptions of a thorough-bred English doctor; the only advantage possessed by the system is complete innocence, in which it may perhaps claim superiority. If no good result is attained by the first holy dose, the patient returns with undiminished confidence, and the prescription is repeated as "the draught as before," well known to the physic-drinkers of England, and in like manner attended with the bill. The fakeers make a considerable amount by this simple practice, and they add to their small earnings by the sale of verses of the Koran as talismans.

As few people can read or write, there is an air of mystery in the art of writing which much enhances the value of a scrap of paper upon which is written a verse from the Koran. A few piastres are willingly expended in the purchase of such talismans, which are carefully and very neatly sewn into small envelopes of leather, and are worn by all people, being handed down from father to son.

The Arabs are especially fond of relics; thus, upon the return from a pilgrimage to Mecca, the "hadji," or pilgrim, is certain to have purchased from some religious Faky of the sacred shrine either a few square inches of cloth, or some such trifle, that belonged to the prophet Mahomet. This is exhibited to his friends and strangers as a wonderful spell against some particular malady, and it is handed about and received with extreme reverence by the assembled crowd. I once formed one of a circle when a pilgrim returned to his native village: we sat in a considerable number upon the ground, while he drew from his bosom a leather envelope, suspended from his neck, from which he produced a piece of extremely greasy woollen cloth, about three inches square, the original colour of which it would have been impossible to guess. This was a piece of Mahomet's garment, but what portion he could not say. The pilgrim had paid largely for this blessed relic, and it was passed round our circle from hand to hand, after having first been kissed by the proprietor, who raised it to the crown of his head, which he touched with the cloth, and then wiped both his eyes. Each person who received it went through a similar performance, and as ophthalmia and other diseases of the eyes were extremely prevalent, several of the party had eyes that had not the brightness of the gazelle's; nevertheless, these were supposed to become brighter after having been wiped by the holy cloth. How many eyes this same piece of cloth had wiped it would be impossible to say, but such facts are sufficient to prove the danger of holy relics, that are inoculators of all manner of contagious diseases.

I believe in holy shrines as the pest spots of the world. We generally have experienced in Western Europe that all violent epidemics arrive from the East. The great breadth of the Atlantic boundary would naturally protect us from the West, but infectious disorders, such as plague, cholera, small-pox, &c. may be generally tracked throughout their gradations from their original nests; those nests are in the East, where the heat of the climate acting upon the filth of semi-savage communities engenders pestilence.

The holy places of both Christians and Mahometans are the receptacles for the masses of people of all nations and classes who have arrived from all points of the compass; the greater number of such people are of poor estate; many, who have toiled on foot from immense distances, suffering from hunger and fatigue, and bringing with them not only the diseases of their own remote countries, but arriving in that weak state that courts the attack of any epidemic. Thus crowded together, with a scarcity of provisions, a want of water, and no possibility of cleanliness, with clothes that have been unwashed for weeks or months, in a camp of dirty pilgrims, without any attempt at drainage, an accumulation of filth takes place that generates either cholera or typhus; the latter, in its most malignant form, appears as the dreaded "plague." Should such an epidemic attack the mass of pilgrims debilitated by the want of nourishing food, and exhausted by their fatiguing march, it runs riot like a fire among combustibles, and the loss of life is terrific. The survivors radiate from this common centre, upon their return to their respective homes, to which they carry the seeds of the pestilence to germinate upon new soils in different countries. Doubtless the clothes of the dead furnish materials for innumerable holy relics as vestiges of the wardrobe of the Prophet; these are disseminated by the pilgrims throughout all countries, pregnant with disease; and, being brought into personal contact with hosts of true believers, Pandora's box could not be more fatal.

Not only are relics upon a pocket scale conveyed by pilgrims, and reverenced by the Arabs, but the body of any Faky, who in lifetime was considered extra holy, is brought from a great distance to be interred in some particular spot. In countries where a tree is a rarity, a plank for a coffin is unknown; thus the reverend Faky, who may have died of typhus, is wrapped in cloths and packed in a mat. In this form he is transported, perhaps, some hundred miles, slung upon a camel, with the thermometer above 130 degrees Fahr. in the sun, and he is conveyed to the village that is so fortunate as to be honoured with his remains. It may be readily imagined that with a favourable wind, the inhabitants are warned of his approach some time before his arrival. Happily, long before we