The Land of Foam

by Ivan Yefremov

  The Prince of the South was thinking deeply, making calculations, and his lips quivered.

  “Het!” he said at last. “So let it be. A hundred and fifty slaves will be enough if they fight well. A hundred soldiers, twenty hunters and guides… You will take command of the whole party, Nehzi! Get busy making your arrangements at once. Senofri will select reliable soldiers and peaceful Negroes.”(* Peaceful Negroes — the name given by the Egyptians to Negroes who served in the army and police.)

  The Lord of the Hunt bowed.

  The officials left the chamber, making merry over Nehzi’s new appointment.

  Kabuefta seated the Scribe and began to dictate a letter to the governors of the prisons of the two towns at the Gates of the South, Neb and Swan.

  V. THE GOLDEN PLAIN

  At the foot of a staircase, leading down from a hill at the southern end of the Island of Neb, stood a crowd of slaves chained to huge bronze rings hanging from the granite pillars that rose above the lower terrace. All the hundred and fourteen survivors of the flight were there and another forty Negroes and Nubians with savage faces and bodies criss-crossed with the scars of old wounds. The crowd languished long in the blazing sun waiting to learn their fate.

  At last a man in white raiment, with the glitter of gold on his forehead, breast and on his black staff, appeared on the upper landing of the staircase. He walked slowly in the shade of two fans, carried by Nubian soldiers. Several other men, important officials, judging by their clothes, surrounded the Prince. This was Kabuefta, the Prince of the South.

  The soldiers quickly drew a cordon around the slaves; a prison scribe, who accompanied the captives, stepped forward and prostrated himself before the Prince.

  Kabuefta, calmly, never changing the expression on his immobile face, came down the stairs and advanced right up to the slaves. He cast a rapid, contemptuous glance over all those present. Turning to one of the officials he said something in careless tones, although there was a slight note of approval in his voice. The Prince of the South struck the ground with his staff, its bronze ferrule rang sharply on the stone pavement.

  “All of you look at me and listen! Let those who do not understand the language of Quemt be led aside; they will get an explanation later.”

  The soldiers hurriedly obeyed the order, taking away fifteen Negroes who did not understand the language.

  Kabuefta spoke loudly and slowly, in the language of the people, carefully selecting his words. It was obvious that the Prince of the South frequently had occasion to speak to foreigners.

  The Prince explained to the slaves-the matter in hand; he did not try to hide the fact that it meant death for many of them, but he promised liberty to the survivors. The majority of the captives expressed their agreement in exclamations of approval, the remainder kept a sullen silence, but nobody refused.

  “Het!” continued Kabuefta, “so let it be.” Again his glance swept over the lean and dirty bodies. “I’ll order that you be fed nourishing food and are given an opportunity to bathe. The journey through the five cataracts of the Hapi is a hard one, it will be easier to travel in light boats. I will give orders for you to be freed if you swear you will make no attempt to escape…” Cries of joy interrupted his speech. He waited until they subsided and then continued: “In addition to the oath I give the following order: for every one that runs away ten of his best comrades will be flayed, sprinkled with salt and cast bound on to the sandy banks of the Land of Nub. Those who show cowardice when tackling the animal and run away will be subjected to horrible tortures; I have warned the inhabitants of the Land of Nub and under threat of punishment they will track down all runaways.”

  The end of the Prince’s speech met with morose silence which Kabuefta paid no attention to as he again looked over the slaves. His experience helped him make a faultless choice.

  “Come here, you,” said the Prince to Cavius. “You will be in charge of the trappers and the mediator between my hunters and your companions.”

  Cavius made an unhurried bow to the Prince and his lips curved in a grim smile.

  “You are selling us liberty at a high price, O Prince, but we are willing to buy It,” said the Etruscan and turned to his comrades. “The savage beast is no worse than the gold mines, and we have greater hope…”

  Kabuefta left them and the slaves were returned to their prison. The Prince of the South kept his promise: the rebels were well fed; they were released from their chains and collars and twice a day were taken down to the Nile to bathe in coves fenced off to keep out the crocodiles. Two days later a hundred and fifty-four slaves were joined to a detachment of soldiers and hunters sailing upstream on light boats made of reeds.

  The journey was a long one. The inhabitants of the Black Land reckoned four million cubits from the Gates of the South to the Sixth Cataract of the Nile. The river flowed almost in a straight line through Wawat and Yer-thet but in the Land of Kush, situated higher upstream, it made two wide bends, one to the west and the other to the east. (Kush — the name given by Egyptian geographers to the part of the Nile Valley between the Second and Fifth Cataracts; it included the ancient lands of Jam and Karoi. Yerthet was the province south of the Second Cataract, Wawat between the First and Second.)

  The Lord of the Hunt was in a hurry: the journey would take two months; in nine weeks time the water would begin to rise and it would be more difficult to work their way upstream when the speed of the current increased. Then, again, it would only be possible to bring the huge animal in a heavy boat over the cataracts when the floods were at their highest. There would be but little time for the return journey.

  Throughout the long journey the slaves were well fed and they felt strong and healthy, despite the hard work they did every day rowing the boats against a current that was especially swift at the cataracts.

  They did not worry much about the hunt, that was still before them, since every man was certain that he would survive and gain his freedom. The contrast between the wild unknown lands through which they passed and the period of waiting in a black hole in anticipation of brutal punishment was too great for them. And the men now full of life and strong in mind and body worked with a will. The Lord of the Hunt was pleased with them and did not grudge them food — it was provided by all the towns and villages that lay on their way.

  Immediately on leaving the Island of Neb, Pandion and his comrades saw the First Cataract of the Nile. The river was squeezed between rocky cliffs and its swift current broke into separate streams of seething white water, that roared and raged down the slope amongst a tangled mass of black rocks. Hundreds of years before Pandion’s time many thousands of slaves, working under the guidance of Tha-Quem’s most skilled engineers, had built canals through the granite rocks so that even the big warships could pass the cataract easily. The light boats of the hunting expedition did not find any great difficulty in passing the first or any of the other cataracts. The slaves stood up to the waist in water,’ pushing the light boats from one rock to another. Sometimes they had to carry the boats on their shoulders along convenient ledges cut on the banks by the floodwaters. Day after day the hunters made their way farther and farther southwards.

  They passed a temple hewn out of living rock on the left bank of the — river. Pandion’s attention was drawn to four gigantic figures, each about thirty cubits high, standing in a niche. These gigantic statues of the conqueror, Pharaoh Ramses II, seemed to guard the entrance to the temple.

  The expedition passed the Second Cataract which stretched the length of a whole day’s journey. Still higher up the river they came to the Island of Uronartu with the rapids of Semne; a fortress had been built there nine centuries before on water-eroded granite cliffs by the Pharaoh who conquered Nubia and had been given the name of “Repulse of the Savages.” (Senusret III (the legendary Sesostris) 1887–1849 B.C., a Pharaoh of the Xllth Dynasty (2000–1788), famous for his huge building works.)

  The thick walls, twenty cubits high and built of sunbaked br
ick, were still in an excellent state of preservation; they were thoroughly overhauled every thirty years. On the cliffs there were stone tablets with inscriptions forbidding the Negroes to enter the Land of Tha-Quem.

  The gloomy grey fortress with square turrets at the corners and several other turrets facing the river, with narrow staircases leading from the river through the rocks, rose high above the surrounding country, a symbol of the proud might of Quemt. None of the slaves, however, suspected that the great days of mighty Quemt were past, that a country that had been built up by the labour of countless slaves was being rent asunder by constant rebellions and that she was threatened by the growing strength of new peoples.

  On their way they passed four other fortresses standing on rocky islands or cliffs on the river-bank. The boats then rounded an ox-bow in the river in the centre of which was situated the town of Hem-Aton, that had been built by the same heretic Pharaoh who had built the capital city amongst the ruins of which Pandion had found the statue of the mysterious girl. The inhabitants of the town were Egyptians who had either been exiled or had fled from the Black Land in times long past. At the end of the ox-bow the river turned at right angles, forced into its new course by high cliffs of dark sandstone. Here began the third narrow stretch of swift-flowing water almost a hundred thousand cubits in length which took the hunters four days to pass.

  The fourth stretch of the Nile, above the city of Napata, capital of the kings of Nub, was still longer — it took five days to navigate it. A further delay of two days was caused by negotiations between the Lord of the Hunt and the rulers of Kush. At the Fourth Cataract the hunters were overtaken by three boats carrying Nubians, who were sent ahead to locate the rhinoceros.

  Riverside settlements were fewer and farther apart than in Tha-Quem. The valley itself was much narrower and the cliffs that bounded the desert plateaux could be clearly discerned through the heat haze. Hundreds of crocodiles, some of them of enormous size, hid in the reed thickets or lay on the sand-banks exposing their greenish-black backs to the blazing sun. Several careless slaves and soldiers fell victims to the cunning attacks of the silent reptiles right before the eyes of their comrades.

  There were large numbers of hippopotamuses in these waters. Pandion, the Etruscans and other slaves from the northern countries were already familiar with these ugly animals that bore in Egyptian the name of hie. The hippopotamuses did not show any fear of people nor did they attack them without cause so that the slaves were able to pass quite close to them. A large number of blue patches in front of the green wall of rushes ahead of them showed the resting places of the hippopotamuses in the wider parts of the valley, where the river spread into a broad, smooth-surfaced lake. The wet skin of the animals had a bluish tinge. The ungainly monsters watched the boats pass, holding above the water their strange blunt heads, that looked as though the snouts had been chopped off. Very often the animals held their square jowls under the water so that the yellow, muddy stream flowed over the dark mounds of foreheads surmounted by tiny protruding ears. The eyes of the hippopotamuses, situated on bumps on the head and giving them an expression of ferocity, gazed at the passing boats in stupid persistence.

  In those places where the granite cliffs rose straight from the river-bed, forming cataracts and rapids, they came across deep holes between the crags filled with unruffled, transparent water. On one occasion, when the men were carrying the boats over a portage that ran along the edge of a granite cliff, they saw a huge hippopotamus walking along the bottom of one of these holes on his short stumpy legs. Under the water the bluish skin of the animal turned a deeper blue. Experienced Negroes explained to their comrades that the Me often walk along the beds of rivers in search of the roots of water-plants.

  The river valley changed its direction for the last time — at a big, densely populated and fertile island it turned almost due south and only a short distance divided them from their goal.

  The steep banks of the river grew lower, they were cut by wide, dry watercourses in which thick growths of thorny trees occurred. On the journey between the Fourth and Fifth Cataracts two boats overturned and eleven men, all of them poor swimmers, were drowned.

  After passing the Fifth Cataract they met the first tributary of the Nile. The wide mouth of the River of Perfumes, a right tributary of the Nile, joined the main stream in an extensive jungle of reeds and papyri. An impassable green wail, up to twenty cubits in height, intersected by the zigzags of streams and backwaters, barred the entrance to the river. The banks of the Nile had now become separate, clearly defined ranges of hills, on which groves of trees were becoming more frequent; their thorny trunks were higher and the long dark ribbons of the groves ran far into the interior of an unknown and unpopulated land. The slopes of the hills bristled with clumps of coarse grass that rustled in the wind. The time was drawing near when they would have to pay for their journey in freedom, without chains and without prisons, and a suppressed alarm filled the hearts of the slaves.

  (River of Perfumes — the Atbara, falling into the Nile from the East.)

  Soon the terrible trial will begin: some will be saved at the cost of the blood and sufferings of their comrades, others will remain for ever in this unknown land, having made the supreme sacrifice. Such were Cavius’ thoughts as he cast an involuntary glance over his companions, trying to imagine what the future held in store.

  As they sailed farther upstream, the country took on the character of a plain. Marshy banks framed the smooth surface of the water in a sharply defined line of dark grass that stretched away inland as far as the eye could reach. The star-shaped brushes of the papyrus plants hung over the river, breaking the monotonous line of the level banks. Grass-covered islets broke the stream into a labyrinth of narrow passages, where the deep water lay dark and mysterious between the green walls. In places where there was hard ground on the banks the travellers saw large patches of cracked, sun-baked clay bearing the footprints of many animals. Birds that looked like storks but were the height of a man amazed the slaves by their monstrous beaks. It looked to them as if the birds’ heads were surmounted by huge chests with the edges of the lids turned upwards. The monsters’ evil yellow eyes gleamed from under pendent orbits.

  After passing the point where the River of Perfumes entered the Nile, they journeyed for two days along a stretch of the river straight as a spear-shaft until they saw the faint smoke of two signal fires on a ledge of the bank. Here they were awaited by the hunters and Nubian guides who had gone ahead; the signal told them that the beast had been found. That night a hundred and forty slaves escorted by ninety soldiers marched westwards from the river. Warm, heavy rain poured down on the heated soil. The humidity made the men dizzy, for they had long forgotten what rain was like under the permanently cloudless sky of Tha-Quem.

  The hunters marched through coarse grass that grew waist-high, occasionally passing the black silhouettes of trees. Hyenas and jackals howled and barked on all sides, wild cats rent the air with their loud mewing and the raucous voices of night birds, calling to each other, had a particularly ominous sound. A new country, mysterious and indefinite in the darkness, opened up before the dwellers of Asia and the Northern Shores, a country teeming with life independent of man and unsubdued by him.

  Ahead of them appeared a huge tree whose gigantic crown covered half the sky; its trunk was thicker than any of the big obelisks of the Black Land. The people made camp under this tree and there spent the night that was to be the last for many of them. Pandion could not get to sleep for a long time — he was excited by thoughts of the coming tight and lay listening to the sounds of the African plain lands.

  Cavius sat by the camp-fire discussing plans of action for the next day with the hunters; then he, too, lay down with a heavy sigh as he looked over the restlessly dozing or sleepless figures of his comrades. He could not understand the carefree attitude of Kidogo who was calmly sleeping between Pandion and Remdus — throughout the journey the four friends had kept together. The
Negro’s unconcern seemed to him the very highest degree of bravery which even he, a soldier who had many times faced death, could not lay claim to.

  Morning came and the slaves were divided into three groups each headed by five hunters and two local guides. Every slave was provided with a long rope or thong with a noose at the end. Four men in each party carried a big net made of especially strong ropes, the mesh of which was a cubit across. Their task was to catch the monster with the ropes, entangle him in the nets and then bind his feet.

  In complete silence they set out across the plain, each group at some distance from the others. The soldiers stretched out in a long line, arrows held to their bows as they did not trust the slaves. Before Pandion and his comrades stretched a level plain overgrown with grass more than waist high and dotted here and there by trees with umbrella-shaped crowns. (The African acacia and certain varieties of mimosa.)Their grey trunks spread out into branches almost from the roots, forming a huge funnel so that the trees looked like inverted cones while their transparent, dull green foliage seemed to be floating in the air.

  Between the trees there were dark patches of tall, small-leaved shrubs, at times stretching along the scarcely perceptible depression of a temporary watercourse and at other times visible from the distance as a shapeless dark mass. Occasionally they came across trees with trunks of enormous thickness whose huge gnarled and knotted branches were covered with young leaves and bunches of white flowers. These massive trees stood out sharply in the plain, their far-spreading crowns casting huge patches of black shadow. Their fibrous bark had a metallic hue that looked like lead; their branches seemed to be cast from copper and the aroma spread by their flowers resembled that of almonds.