Incidents on a journey through Nubia to Darfoor

"Incidents on a journey through Nubia to Darfoor" by F. Sidney Ensor is a travel narrative written in the late 19th century. It follows a British civil engineer surveying a railway route from the Nile to El Fasher via the Wady Milkh, mixing route-finding with keen observations on desert geography, local societies, and the demands of caravan life. Expect practical detail, dry wit, and vivid sketches of people and places rather than romantic adventure.

The opening of the work sets the mission: after Darfur’s incorporation into Egyptian rule, a railway survey is ordered, with the Wady Milkh proposed as the most direct line. The party moves up the Nile to Wady Halfa and beyond, where Ensor contrasts barren, rock-strewn reaches and rapids with the fertile, irrigated banks of Dongola, pausing for wry episodes—a destitute Italian drifter, sleepy donkey-boys, and the hazards of desert stages. In New Dongola he sketches a meagre bazaar, a gifted silversmith, easygoing soldiers, and a chaotic but generous dinner with dancing-girls, before turning to the ruins of Old Dongola and a memorable Coptic priest who lives on dates and Scripture. He details markets, white ants, camel behavior, and the formidable logistics of water, tents, and provisions, even costing the expedition. Setting out along the Wady Milkh, the caravan celebrates a birth with a fantasia, encounters gazelles and a stray donkey, and reaches the wells of Mahtool and Sotaire, where Khababbeesh clans gather for a tentative reconciliation. The section closes with a moonlit village performance and a tender portrait of a young herdswoman as the survey lines are laid toward the interior.