I could no longer refrain from asking, ‘How much farther is Khartoum?’ ‘Khartoum?’ said my guide in accents of horror at my want of appreciation of the magnificence around me. ‘Why, this is Khartoum!’
-Mansfield Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia, 1853
I suppose it is better to be surprised by day that you have arrived at the place you didn’t really care to see, than to be surprised that you have passed by night the place you really wanted to be, as did I, past the Mahtūl Well Flats, where KhairAllah promised we’d find cold water and fresh bread. For several days, after riding deep into the night, I’d asked him, When will we arrive?, and he’d said, Maybe tomorrow, If God Wills, until the day I asked again and he answered, We passed Mahtūl last night and did not stop, Didn’t you know? Luckily, the Nile and its bakeries and water were just two more days on.