A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar | Page 2

people of these countries have been evident. All have seen that those who have preferred peace before war have had peace without war, and that those who preferred war before peace have not had peace but at the price of ruin.
The destruction or disarmament of the brigands, who have heretofore pillaged those countries with impunity--the establishment of order and tranquility--the security now assured to the peasants and the caravans--and the annexment of so many fine provinces and kingdoms to the sway of the Viceroy of Egypt,[2] are not the only consequences of this expedition that will give him glory.
This expedition has laid open to the researches of the geographer and the antiquarian a river and a country highly interesting, and hitherto imperfectly known to the civilized world. The Nile, on whose banks we have marched for so many hundred miles, is the most famous river in the world, for the uncertainty of its source and the obscurity of its course. At present this obscurity ceases to exist, and before the return of the Pasha Ismael this uncertainty will probably be no more. The countries we have traversed are renowned in history and poetry as the land of ancient and famous nations, which have established and overthrown mighty empires, and have originated the religions, the learning, the arts, and the civilization of nations long since extinct; and who have been preceded by their instructors in the common road which every thing human must travel.
This famous land of Cush and Saba, at present overawed by the camps of the Osmanii, has presented to our observation many memorials of the power and splendor of its ancient masters. The remains of cities once populous--ruined temples once magnificent--colossal statues of idols once adored, but now prostrated by the strong arms of time and truth--and more than a hundred pyramids, which entomb the bodies of kings and conquerors once mighty, but whose memory has perished, have suspended for awhile the march of our troops--have attracted the notice of the Franks, who voyage with the army with the favor and the protection of the Pasha,[3] and which doubtless ere long, by engaging the attention and researches of men of learning, will unite the names of Mehemmed Ali and Ismael his son with the history and monuments of this once famous and long secluded land, in a manner that will make the memory of both renowned and inseparable.
That the further progress of the Pasha Ismael southward of his present position will be successful, there is every reason to believe; and I derive great pleasure from the reflection, that his success will still further augment the glory of the man whom the Sultan delights to honor, and who has done so much for the honor of the Mussulmans.
The Reader will find that I have sometimes, in the course of this Journal, included the events of several days in the form of narrative, particularly in my account of the Second Cataract. Wherever I have so done, it has been occasioned by paroxysms of a severe ophthalmia, which afflicted me for fifteen months, and rendered me at times incapable of writing.

A NARRATIVE
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I arrived at the camp at Wady Haifa on the Second Cataract, on the 16th of the moon Zilhadge, in the year of the Hegira 3255,[4] where I found about four thousand troops,[5] consisting of Turkish cavalry, infantry and artillery, and a considerable proportion of Bedouin cavalry and Mogrebin foot soldiers, besides about one hundred and twenty large boats loaded with provisions and ammunition, and destined to follow the march of the army to the upper countries of the Nile.
17th of Zilhadge. Presented myself to his Excellency the Pasha Ismael, by whom I was received in a very nattering manner, and presented with a suit of his own habiliments.
On my asking his Excellency if he had any orders for me, he replied, that he was at present solely occupied in expediting the loading and forwarding the boats carrying the provisions of the army, but that when that was finished he would send for me to receive his commands.
I employed this interval in noticing the assemblage that composed the army. The chiefs and soldiers I found well disposed to do their duty, through attachment to their young commander and through fear of Mehemmed Ali. They were alert to execute what orders they received, and very busy in smoking their pipes when they had nothing else to do.
On the 19th I was sent for by the Pasha, with whom I remained in private audience for an hour.
On the 21st of the moon Zilhadge was attacked by that distressing malady the ophthalmia. In two days the progress of the disorder was such that my eyes were closed up and incapable of supporting the light, and occasioned me such acute anguish that