It spelled lucrative trade for some and despair for others. Jenny Jobbins traces the steps of those who trod the Darb Al-Arba'in Mention of the Darb Al-Arba'in conjures visions of vast camel caravans, sometimes stretching for miles -- of chained and wretched slaves and of cargoes of ivory and fragrant spices. Forty days' march from Kobbé in Darfur to Assiut in the Nile Valley: 40 days, at best, of discomfort, and at worst of agony. The caravan -- the most romantic of all desert scenes, and the most terrible. The road was in use long before the Arabs gave it its best-known name, and the northern part is still much in use today. Now paved, it is the Assiut-Kharga highway and runs from the Nile Valley and through the length of Kharga to the southern tip of the oasis. The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and Romans used the road to administer their own provinces, as well as to trade with Africa. The Arabs instituted the great caravans which travelled up from Darfur with slaves, spices and ivory. The organisation and supervision of the Darb Al-Arba'in resembles almost a microcosm of the character of the successive rulers of Egypt. The Pharaohs built temples for worship along it. The Romans built fortresses to guard it. The Ottomans levied heavy duties on cargoes carried on it. And the British administration tried to close it as part of its crackdown on smuggling. While the theatre of the caravan changed its actors over the centuries, the setting remained much the same. Yet the Darb Al-Arba'in should not be thought of as a singular, straight track. The road was the most, or roughly the most, direct route to Cairo from Darfur in the Sudan, avoiding the wide, eastward swing of the Nile between the Third Cataract and Assiut. It came up through the desert, crossing into Egypt over a border that shifted back and forth over the years. However, it veered many miles from side to side to reach certain stations or forks in the road. Forks led this way and that: east to Dakhla Oasis and on to Kufra in Libya; west through various passes to the Nile Valley, and so on. The ancient Egyptians, who possessed only donkeys for transport, skirted the west side of the Nile Valley during the three or four months of the flood, and thus found themselves in the desert where they, too, travelled the "Darb Al-Arba'in". Merely heading in the general north/south direction seems to have conveyed the message that one was on the famous road. Most scholars agree that the dispute as to the exact track to follow if one wants to trace the old steps all the way to Sennar in Darfur -- as some adventurers have done -- is thus somewhat irrelevant. Although the route was used in the Old, Middle and New Kingdom Dynasties to carry cargoes of wheat to Africa in return for spices, gold and ivory, exotic plants and animals, there are few remains from this period in the desert and oases along what it loosely understood to be the Darb Al-Arba'in. Most of these early relics -- such as two scarabs inscribed with the name of Tuthmosis III, which were popular lucky charms -- were apparently brought from elsewhere. In the Late Period, however, the Persian Dynasties changed the fortune of the road in two ways. First, they introduced the camel to Egypt, and this, in time, led to the opening of the southern part of the route over the hot, arid desert. Second, they brought a new method of irrigation to Kharga Oasis -- the manafi or aqueduct system -- thus securing a stable water supply which in turn led to the establishment of thriving communities and temple building. The Persians built temples to Amun-Re and the Theban triad at Hibis and Al-Gweita (see box), while the Ptolemies built one to a local god at Al-Zayyan. The new communities were strategically placed to serve the trade routes. From the Late Period onwards, the northern part of the route was used by officials carrying out administrative duties in Kharga and Dakhla. Carts conveyed essentials that the largely self-sufficient oasis residents could not provide for themselves, and returned with dates and cereals. With their camels, the Persians, Greeks and Romans could negotiate the route to Africa over the desert without skirting the Nile Valley as their forefathers had done. The northern part of the road must have been especially well-trodden under the feet of the Roman legionaries, as well as by the convoys of ox- drawn carts transporting their supplies. The Romans modified the Persian and Ptolemaic settlements, adding mud-brick ramparts to the sandstone temples and turning them into fortress complexes. The Romans, who diverted Egypt's surplus wheat to Rome, added wild animals destined for the circus to their list of imports. Arab merchants began trading along the Darb Al-Arba'in soon after the invasion of Egypt in the seventh century, seeing it as a path to milk the human and other natural resources of Africa. They intensified the slave and spice trades, and initiated the mass movement of camels. To pay for their goods they carried luxuries from Europe, the Levant and Cairo. The heyday of trading began in the Middle Ages, and in the 1830s and 40s the caravans were still travelling in full swing. The profits they reaped made the 1,000-mile journey worthwhile in spite of the hardship and losses involved. The annual Darfur caravans were huge, numbering thousands of slaves and camels. They travelled in winter when the desert was more hospitable by day, though less at night when freezing temperatures claimed the lives of thousands of the scantily-clad and malnourished slaves. With long treks between watering holes the camels fared little better, and in certain locations the sand was white with their bones. Black slaves were destined for households in Egypt or the Levant, or even for shipment to America. They were purchased directly from kidnappers or from the Dongola slave market, and were assembled at Kobbé in Darfur and force-marched over the desert, only pausing to rest when the caravan reached an oasis town. In Civilisation in the Sands (Könemann, 2000) Pauline and Philippe de Flers quote the description by Eugène Daumas of the departure of a slave caravan: "We were about 2,100 men and 2,600 camels and other animals ... The constant surveillance we needed to exercise over our slaves left us no repose, even though they were chained together like beads on a rosary, the women in two pairs attached by the feet, the men eight or ten together, their necks pushed into iron collars, to which were attached smaller double chains to keep their hands at chest height... The signal for departure was given, and the first caravan moved off. At this moment, a confusion of cries and groans broke out that, passed from one slave to the next, reached ours: all were weeping and lamenting, calling to one another, saying their farewells." By the mid-18th century a typical slave caravan was said to be valued at 115,000 British pounds, a great sum at the time. Taxes had to be paid on all goods crossing the border. As the caravans approached the Egyptian customs posts in Kharga Oasis, the traders hid small boys in empty water skins to evade tax, but officials would beat the skins to thwart this ploy. The most valuable slaves were girls and young women, who were prized as concubines. According to E W Lane, who wrote about slaves in Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, which first appeared in 1836, slave-girls could be taken on a few days' trial. They were already "abominably corrupted" by the traders. Lane says: " ... there are very few of the age of eight or nine years who have not suffered brutal violence." On the long journey from Kobbé in Darfur, the first permanent water source they reached was Bir Natrun, 530 kilometres away. From there they continued for 260 kilometres across the sand, vulnerable to attack by local tribes. The next stop, Laqiya Al-Arba'in, had water but scant grazing for camels, while the next stage, the 280 kilometres to Selima Oasis, was one of the worst stretches of the journey, proving fatal for large numbers of slaves and animals. The last stage for those coming up from the south was the long (116 kilometres) but relatively comfortable march through Kharga Oasis. The green trees and fields of wheat and vegetables must have been a welcome sight for sore, sand-dusted eyes. Here they could obtain fresh water, food and rest. Feeding and sheltering thousands of men and camels provided a livelihood for many communities in the oasis as the caravans prepared for the last and one of the worst parts of the journey -- the barren desert crossing from Kharga to Assiut. In Assiut most of the traders sold their goods and bought fabrics, weapons, semi-precious stones and other luxuries for the return journey. The slaves and goods continued along the Nile Valley to Kerdassa, near Cairo, to await a final purchaser. Trade on the Darb Al-Arba'in was banned in 1884 after the Mahdist uprising. It reopened after some time, but never recovered and by the end of the 19th century it had ceased to exist as a trade route. Slavery in America had been abolished, and in Egypt the British were now in firm control. For long the route was used by smugglers, the bane of the British administration. At the northern end, Kerdassa retained the weaving and carpet home industries which supplied the caravans with camel saddles and blankets, and is now a centre for tourists buying galabiyas (traditional gowns). The New Valley scheme has brought fertile new riches to Kharga Oasis. But the memory lingers on. Today, every one of the indigenous residents of the oasis has heard of the Darb Al-Arba'in, and remembers the tales his grandfather told him of his grandfather who saw the caravans pass through.
