The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [60]
Reggie took a folded paper from his pocketbook and spread it out on the packing case that served as a table. The paper was thin but tough onionskin, upon which the newly drawn lines stood out with far greater clarity than they had upon the original. (I append a copy of the map, in order to facilitate the Reader’s understanding of the ensuing description; but I feel it necessary to warn said Reader that certain details have been deliberately altered or omitted. The reasons for this will become apparent as my narrative proceeds.)
Along the right-hand edge of the paper a sweeping loop indicated the great bend of the Nile. Two points along the river were labeled with initials only: “G.B.” and “M.” A dotted line that roughly paralleled the straight northern section of the river had been marked “Darb el A.,” and another line running southwest from the southernmost part of the loop bore the identification “Wadi el M.” Near the left-hand margin of the page a roughly shaped arrow accompanied to the word “Darfur.”
These features were known to me from modern maps. “G.B.” stood for Gebel Barkal, the great mountain across the river from our present location. “M.” could only be the ancient Meroë. The Wadi el Melik or Milk, one of the canyonlike depressions cut by watercourses long since vanished, struck off from the river into the southwestern desert. The other scrawled set of initials must indicate a portion of the fabled “Forty Days’ Road” (Darb el Arba’ in), the caravan route from Egypt followed by the gallant traders of the ancient Egyptian kingdom. And Darfur, of course, was that western province of Nubia which had been the terminus of the caravan route.
The other lines and markings on the paper could be found on no known map. Some had been traced by Emerson over a decade earlier, and he now proceeded to explain the reasoning that had produced certain of them.
“There must have been an overland route between Napata and Meroë,” he said, indicating the line that connected the dots marked “M.” and “G.B.” “My own excavations at the latter site, hasty though they were, indicate that it was already a city of some importance when Napata was the royal seat. To go between the two by water would take considerable time and necessitate traversing the Fifth Cataract. The country was less arid at that time—”
“Agreed, Emerson, agreed,” I exclaimed. “You need not justify your reasoning. But what is this line, leading southwest from Meroë toward the Wadi el Melik?”
“Pure hypothesis,” said Emerson somberly. “I am convinced that caravans traveled from Meroë, and from Napata, to the fertile oases of Darfur. Traces of ancient remains have been found along certain desert routes, and in Darfur itself. The first part of this line”—he pointed with the stem of his pipe—“is based on some of those finds. I assumed that the routes from Meroë and Napata met at a certain point, possibly near or along the Wadi el Melik, and followed a common path farther westward. If the last survivors of the royal house of Cush fled Meroë when the city fell, they would, one presumes, have followed that road, since only along it could they depend on finding wells and water holes. And yet…”
His voice trailed off as he bent his frowning gaze upon the map. Someone had obviously disagreed with his reasoning, for the line that struck off at an angle, almost due south from Gebel Barkal, had been added to his original sketch in the same thick black ink used to write the message on the scrap of papyrus Lord Blacktower had shown us. It was divided into segments each marked by a Roman numeral, from one (nearest the river) to thirteen, at the point where the line ended in a curious little picture-drawing. At intervals along this route were scrawled numbers, not Roman but the ordinary Arabic numerals in common usage, and several odd little signs that resembled ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
I lost no time in proclaiming the obvious conclusions. “The numbers along the route must indicate travel time, don’t you think, Emerson?