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The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, And Explorations of the Nile Sources

by Sir Samuel White Baker · English · Gutenberg #3668 · 1,023,574 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, And Explorations of the Nile Sources

Author: Sir Samuel White Baker


        
Release date: January 1, 2003 [eBook #3668]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

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Credits: Etext prepared by Garry Gill and the distributed proofreading team of Charles Franks


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The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile
And Explorations of the Nile Sources.

by Sir Samuel W. Baker, M.A., F.R.G.S.

Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society.




To Her Most Gracious Majesty
THE QUEEN
I dedicate, with Her permission,
THIS BOOK,
Containing the Story of the Discovery of the Great Lake
From which the NILE ultimately flows,
And which,
As connected so intimately,
As a NILE SOURCE, with the VICTORIA LAKE,
I have ventured to name
"THE ALBERT N'YANZA,"
In Memory of the Late Illustrious and Lamented
PRINCE CONSORT.




PREFACE.

In the history of the Nile there was a void: its Sources were a mystery.
The Ancients devoted much attention to this problem; but in vain. The
Emperor Nero sent an expedition under the command of two centurions, as
described by Seneca. Even Roman energy failed to break the spell that
guarded these secret fountains. The expedition sent by Mehemet Ali
Pasha, the celebrated Viceroy of Egypt, closed a long term of
unsuccessful search.

The work has now been accomplished. Three English parties, and only
three, have at various periods started upon this obscure mission: each
has gained its end.

Bruce won the source of the Blue Nile; Speke and Grant won the Victoria
source of the great White Nile; and I have been permitted to succeed in
completing the Nile Sources by the discovery of the great reservoir of
the equatorial waters, the ALBERT N'YANZA, from which the river issues
as the entire White Nile.

Having thus completed the work after nearly five years passed in Africa,
there still remains a task before me. I must take the reader of this
volume by the hand, and lead him step by step along my rough path from
the beginning to the end; through scorching deserts and thirsty sands;
through swamp, and jungle, and interminable morass; through
difficulties, fatigues, and sickness, until I bring him, faint with the
wearying journey, to that high cliff where the great prize shall burst
upon his view--from which he shall look down upon the vast ALBERT LAKE,
and drink with me from the Sources of the Nile!

I have written "HE!" How can I lead the more tender sex through dangers
and fatigues, and passages of savage life? A veil shall be thrown over
many scenes of brutality that I was forced to witness, but which I will
not force upon the reader; neither will I intrude anything that is not
actually necessary in the description of scenes that unfortunately must
be passed through in the journey now before us. Should anything offend
the sensitive mind, and suggest the unfitness of the situation for a
woman's presence, I must beseech my fair readers to reflect, that the
pilgrim's wife followed him, weary and footsore, through all his
difficulties, led, not by choice, but by devotion; and that in times of
misery and sickness her tender care saved his life and prospered the
expedition.

   "O woman, in our hours of ease
    Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
    And variable as the shade
    By the light quivering aspen made;
    When pain and anguish wring the brow,
    A ministering angel thou!"

In the journey now before us I must request some exercise of patience
during geographical details that may be wearisome; at all events, I will
adhere to facts, and avoid theory as much as possible.

The Botanist will have ample opportunities of straying from our path to
examine plants with which I confess a limited acquaintance. The
Ethnologist shall have precisely the same experience that I enjoyed, and
he may either be enlightened or confounded. The Geologist will find
himself throughout the journey in Central Africa among primitive rocks.
The Naturalist will travel through a grass jungle that conceals much
that is difficult to obtain: both he and the Sportsman will, I trust,
accompany me on a future occasion through the "Nile tributaries from
Abyssinia," which country is prolific in all that is interesting. The
Philanthropist,--what shall I promise to induce him to accompany me? I
will exhibit a picture of savage man precisely as he is; as I saw him;
and as I judged him, free from prejudice: painting also, in true
colours, a picture of the abomination that has been the curse of the
African race, the SLAVE TRADE; trusting that not only the
philanthropist, but every civilized being, will join in the endeavour to
erase that stain from disfigured human nature, and thus open the path
now closed to civilization and missionary enterprise. To the
Missionary,--that noble, self-exiled labourer toiling too often in a
barren field,--I must add the word of caution, "Wait"! There can be no
hope of success until the slave trade shall have ceased to exist.

The journey is long, the countries savage; there are no ancient
histories to charm the present with memories of the past; all is wild
and brutal, hard and unfeeling, devoid of that holy instinct instilled
by nature into the heart of man--the belief in a Supreme Being. In that
remote wilderness in Central Equatorial Africa are the Sources of the
Nile.



CONTENTS.


INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I.

THE EXPEDITION.

Programme--Start from Cairo--Arrive at Berber--Plan of Exploration--
The River Atbara--Abyssinian Affluents--Character of Rivers--Causes
of Nile Inundations--Violence of the Rains--Arrival at Khartoum--
Description of Khartoum--Egyptian Authorities--Taxes--The Soudan--
Slave-Trade of the Soudan--Slave-Trade of the White Nile--System of
Operations--Inhuman Proceedings--Negro Allies--Revelations of
Slave-Trade--Distant Slave Markets--Prospects of the Expedition--
Difficulties at the Outset--Opposition of the Egyptian Authorities--
Preparations for Sailing--Johann Schmidt--Demand for Poll-Tax--
Collision before starting--Amiable Boy!--The Departure--The Boy Osman
--Banks of White Nile--Change in Disposition of Men--Character of the
River--Misery of Scene--River Vegetation--Ambatch Wood--Johann's
Sickness--Uses of Fish-skin--Johann Dying--Johann's Death--New Year
--Shillook Villages--The Sobat River--Its Character--Bahr Giraffe--
Bahr el Gazal--Observations--Corporal Richarn--Character of Bahr el
Gazal--Peculiarity of River Sobat--Tediousness of Voyage--Bull
Buffalo--Sali Achmet killed--His Burial--Ferocity of the Buffalo--
"The Clumsy" on the Styx--Current of White Nile--First View of Natives
--Joctian and his Wife--Charming Husband--Natron--Catch a
Hippopotamus--"Perhaps it was his Uncle"--Real Turtle is Mock
Hippopotamus--Richarn reduced to the Ranks--Arrival at the Zareeba--
Fish Spearing--The Kytch Tribe--White Ant Towers--Starvation in the
Kytch Country--Destitution of the Natives--The Bull of the Herd--Men
and Beasts in a bad Temper--Aboukooka--Austrian Mission Station--Sale
of the Mission-House--Melancholy Fate of Baron Harnier--The Aliab
Tribes--Tulmuli of Ashes--The Shir Tribe--The Lotus Harvest--Arrival
at Gondokoro--Discharge Cargo


CHAPTER II.

BAD RECEPTION AT GONDOKORO.

Reports of Speke and Grant--The Bari Tribe--Description of the Natives
--Effects of poisoned Arrows--Hostility of the Bari Tribe--Atrocities
of the Trading Parties--Lawlessness at Gondokoro-A Boy shot--The first
Mutiny--Decision of my Wife--The Khartoum Escort--Arrival of Speke
and Grant--Gladness at meeting them--Their Appearance--Speke and
Grant's Discoveries--Another Lake reported to exist--Speke's
Instructions--Arrange to explore the Luta N'zige--Scarcity at
Gondokoro--Speke and Grant depart to Khartoum


CHAPTER III.

GUN ACCIDENT.

Gun Accident--Birds ruin the Donkeys--Arrangement with Mahommed--His
Duplicity--Plot to obstruct my Advance--The Boy Saat--History of Saat
--First Introduction to Saat--Turned out by Mistake--Saat's Character
--Something brewing--Mutiny of Escort--Preparation for the worst--
Disarm the Mutineers--Mahommed's Desertion--Arrangement with Koorshid
Aga--The last Hope gone--Expedition ruined--Resolution to advance--
Richarn faithful--Bari Chief's Report--Parley with Mutineers--
Conspiracy again--Night Visit of Fadeela--"Quid pro Quo"--"Adda," the
Latooka--Arrange to start for Latooka--Threats of Koorshid's People--
Determination to proceed--Start from Gondokoro--My own Guide.


CHAPTER IV.

FIRST NIGHT'S MARCH.

Bivouacking--Arrival at Belignan--Attempts at Conciliation--I shame
my Men--The March--Advantages of Donkeys--Advice for Travellers--
Want of Water--A forced March--Its Difficulties--Delays on the Road--
Cleverness of the Donkeys--Party dead-beat--Improvidence of Monkey--
We obtain Water--Native Tit-Bits--Surrounded by Natives--
Cross-Examination--Recognition of the Chief--Interest of Natives--The
Monkey Wallady--We leave Tollogo--The Ellyria Pass--A Race for
Ellyria--Ellyrian Villages palisaded--Outmarched by the Turks--
Ibrahim and his Men--Attempt at Reconciliation--Diplomacy--Peace
established--Arrive at Ellyria--Legge, the Chief of Ellyria--Presents
to Ibrahim--Legge's Intemperance--Violent Storm--No Supplies--
Formation of Skulls.


CHAPTER V.

LEAVE ELLYRIA.

We leave Ellyria--Brutality towards the Women--Order of March--
Bellaal--Drainage towards the Sobat--Game at Wakkala--Delightful
Scenery--Latooka Thieves--Stalking Antelopes--Chase after Waterbuck--
Good Service of Rifle--The Turks' Salute--Treacherous Welcome--
Mahommed Her--Quarrelling among the Traders--The Latooka Mutiny--
Settle the Ringleader--Stop the Mutiny--I pursue a Fugitive, and
interpose on his behalf--Held in some Estimation--Desertion of Men--
The Natives of Latooka--Their probable Origin--Tribes hard to
distinguish--Tarrangolle--Native Architecture--Exhumation of the Dead
--Coiffure of Natives--Hair Helmets of Latooka--Fighting Bracelets--
The Latooka Women--The Chief's Introduction--"Moy" and his Ladies--
Bokke proposes to improve Mrs. Baker--Bokke and Daughter--Extraction
of the front Teeth--The Value of Wives--Cows of more value than Women
--Destruction of Mahommed Her's People--Death of my Deserters--My
Prophecy realized--Apprehensive of an Attack--The Turks insult the
Women--Ill Conduct of the Turks--Well done, Bokke!--Results of the
Turks' Misconduct--Interview with Commoro--Awkward Position--The
Latooka War Signal--Preparations for Defence--We await the Attack--
Parley--Too "wide awake"--Camp at Tarrangolle--Scarcity in view of
Plenty--Wild Duck Shooting--The Crested Crane, &c.--Adda's Proposal--
Obtuseness of Natives--Degraded State of Natives.


CHAPTER VI.

THE FUNERAL DANCE.

A Funeral Dance--Bari Interpreters--Commoro, the Lion--Conversation
with Commoro--"Where will the Spirit live?"--"Good and bad all die"--
Failure of the religious Argument--Further Conversation--The Camel
poisoned--Habits of the Camel--Camel's peculiar Constitution--The
Hygeen, or riding Dromedary--Loss of Camel a Misfortune--Dirty Donkeys


CHAPTER VII.

LATOOKA.

Herds of the Latookas and Game--Storm--Effects of Rain upon Natives--
Native Blacksmiths--Their Tools--Elephants--Elephant Hunt--Tetel, my
old Hunter--Charged by a herd of Elephants--Cowardly Followers--Track
the wounded Elephant--Nearly caught--Tetel distressed--Return to Camp
--African and Indian Elephants--Height of Elephants--Food of Elephants
--African and Ceylon Elephants--Difference in Formation of Brain--
Rifles and Bullets for heavy Game--Character of Country and its Sports
--The "Baby"--Method of killing Elephants--Elephant Pitfalls--
Circling them with Fire--Native Hunting--The Bagara Hunters--Danger
of Elephant Hunting


CHAPTER VIII.

IBRAHIM's RETURN.

The African Black--Comparison between Whites and Blacks--Varieties in
Creation--The Negro--Character of the Negro-Originated African Slave
System--Indisposition to Work--Negro Slave Hunters--Ibrahimawa; or,
Sinbad the Sailor--Makkarika Cannibals--My daily Employments--
Quarrels with the Latookas--Parley with Latooka Chiefs--The Latookas
seize a Gun--Helplessness in an Advance--Hope to the South--Journey
to Obbo--Uncomfortable Night--Enter the Mountains--Beautiful Scenery
--Arrive at Obbo--Natives of Obbo--Butter Nuts and Fruits--Pottery
and Utensils--Natural Features of Obbo--Katchiba, Chief of Obbo--
Entertained with a Dance--Women of Obbo--Languages of Tribes--
Katchiba's Diplomacy--Katchiba "always at Home"--Family Government--
The great Magician--Reconnaissance to the South--Mrs. Baker's Dwelling
--An Upset--Loss of Filfil--My Bivouac--Ceremony of Welcome at
Farajoke--Elevated Country at Farajoke--Stopped by the Asua--Return
to Obbo--Gallantry of Katchiba--Katchiba determines to ride--First
Attempts at Horsemanship--Recover the lost Horse--Ceremony at parting
with Katchiba--Return to Latooka--Discovery of supposed Yams--Beware
of Botanists--Baboons--The Maharif Antelope--The Giraffe--Hunting
Giraffes--Unsuccessful Hunt--Benighted--Regain the Party--
Bread-baking on the March--Sickness; Small-pox--Wani, the Interpreter
--First Clue to the Lake--Brown Men are called White


CHAPTER IX.

THE TURKS ATTACK KAYALA.

The "Pleasant Robber" killed--Division of the Spoil--Discord among the
Natives--The Life of Women spared in War--Scarcity of Salt, among the
Latookas--Another Cause of Alarm--The Turks murder a Native--Country
disturbed--Good Sport--Two Thieves--Ibrahimawa's Reminiscences of
England--Party recalled to Obbo--White Ants--Destructiveness of Birds
--Cattle Stealers at Night--A Thief shot--My Wife ill with Fever--
March to Obbo--Great Puff Adder--Poison-fangs of Snakes--Violent
Storm--Arrive again at Obbo--Hostility caused by the Turks--The M.D.
attends us--Death of "Mouse"--Marauding Expedition--Saat becomes
scientific--Saat and Gaddum Her--Will England suppress the Slave
Trade?--Filthy Customs of the Natives--The Egyptian Scarabaeus--
Bacheeta, the Unyoro Slave--Intelligence of the Lake--Its probable
Commercial Advantages--Commerce with the Interior--Obbo the Clothing
Frontier--Death of my last Camel--Excellent Species of Gourd--A
Morning Call in Obbo--Katchiba's Musical Accomplishments--Loss of
remaining Donkey--Deceived by the Turks--Fever--Symptoms--Dismal
Prospect, "Coming Events," &c.


CHAPTER X.

LIFE AT OBBO.

Physician in General--Influence gained over the People--Katchiba is
applied to for Rain--"Are you a Rainmaker?"--Katchiba takes Counsel's
Opinion--Successful Case--Night-watch for Elephants--Elephant killed
--Dimensions of the Elephant--Wild Boars--Start for the South--Mrs.
Baker thrown from her Ox--The Asua River--Stalking Mehedehet Antelope
--A Prairie Fire--Tracking an Antelope--Turks' Standard-bearer killed
--Arrival at Shooa--The Neighbourhood of Shooa--Fruitfulness of Shooa
--Cultivation and Granaries--Absconding of Obbo Porters--"Wheels
within Wheels"--Difficulty in starting South--Departure from Shooa--
Fatiko Levee--Boundless Prairies--Fire the Prairies--Deceit of the
Guide--Arrive at the Victoria Nile--Arrive at Rionga's Country--Start
for Karuma--The Karuma Falls--Welcome by Kamrasi's People--Passage of
the River forbidden--To await Reply of Kamrasi--The Natives' Dread of
Kamrasi--They hold a Conference--Resolve to cross the River alone--
The Ferry of Atada--Reception by Keedja--I lull the Suspicions of the
Natives--Appellations of Speke and Grant--Freemasonry of Unyoro--
Native Curiosity--The Bark Cloth of Unyoro--Comparative Civilization
of Unyoros--Native Pottery--The Bottle Gourds used as Models--"Great
Men never in a Hurry to pay Visits"--Pronounced to be Speke's Brother--
The Escort cross the River--Neatness of the Natives in packing--Native
Manufactures--March parallel with the Victoria Nile--Severe Illness of
Mrs. Baker--March to the Capital--Kamrasi suspects Treachery--Arrive
at last at the Capital--Imprisoned on the Marsh--Expectation of an
Attack--Kamrasi makes a State Visit--Conversation with the King--His
Reception of my Presents--Another Interview with Kamrasi--Exchange
Blood and become Friends--Avarice of the King--Permitted to leave our
Fever-bed--Ibrahim and Party return North--Sulkiness of Bacheeta--
Attempt to barter for Speke's Rifle--Rapacity of the Chiefs.


CHAPTER XI.

THE START FOR THE LAKE.

Despicable Conduct of the King--Pertinacity of Kamrasi--Kamrasi's
Infamous Proposal--Resentment of the King's Insolence--The King's
Apology--Expectation of a Fight--Kamrasi's Satanic Escort--The Rout
at a Gun-shot--A disagreeable Escort--Passage of the Kafoor--Mrs.
Baker receives a Sun-stroke--Dismissal of the brutal Escort--Misery
and Distress--Return to Consciousness, but afflicted with Brain-fever


CHAPTER XII.

RECOVERED.

The Sugarcane indigenous--Unyoro People clean Feeders--Close to the
Lake--Discovery of the Albert N'yanza--Gratitude to Providence--
Denominate it "The Albert N'yanza"--Fishing Tackle--The Lake declared
to be the Sea--Feast in honour of the Discovery--Survey of the Lake--
Geography of the Lake--Countries bordering the Lake--The Great Basin
of the Nile--Sources of the Nile--Affluents of the Albert Lake--Our
whole party Fever-stricken--Yearning for Home--Arrange Canoes for Lake
Voyage--Start from Vacovia--Voyage upon the Lake--Shore Encampment--
Deserted by the Boatmen--No Pilot--Endeavour to civilize the Canoes--
Adapt a Scotch Plaid for a Sail--Natives volunteer as Boatmen--Storm
on the Lake--Nearly swamped--Land safely on Shore--Falls of the
Kaiigiri River--Shoot a Crocodile--Taste of Crocodile Flesh--
Discomforts of Lake Voyage--Elephants in the Lake--Inhospitable
Natives--Procure Supplies--The Lake changes its character--Arrival at
Magungo--Embouchure of the Somerset River--Fish and Fishing--The
Baggera and Lepidosiren Annecteus--Native Fishing Arrangements--Exit
of the Nile from the Lake--Nile navigable from Lake to Madi--The
Victoria Nile at Magungo--Determination to settle Nile Question--Nobly
seconded by Mrs. Baker--Leave Magungo--Voyage up the Victoria Nile--
Stricken again with Fever--Guided by Waterplants--Numerous Crocodiles
--The Murchison Falls--Hippopotamus charges the Canoe--Narrow Escape
from Crocodiles--Arrival of Oxen, but not the Guide--Loss of Oxen from
Fly-bite--Sickness on the March--The Island of Patooan--Information
about Ibrahim--Difference in the Level--Difference in Observations--
Altitudes


CHAPTER XIII.

TREACHEROUS DESIGNS OF THE NATIVES.

Confined in the Country--Determine to proceed--Deserted by the Natives
--Discovery of a "Tullaboon" Granary--Misery at Shooa Moru--Hard Fare
--Preparation for Death--Kamrasi's Tactics--The Bait takes--We are
carried to the King's Camp--Rejoin the Turks' Detachment--Their
Welcome--Kamrasi seeks my Alliance--Deception of Kamrasi--M'Gambi has
impersonated the King--The real Kamrasi--Prefer seeing Meat to a King
--The begging Envoy--Carried to the Camp of Kamrasi--Introduction to
the real King--Description of Kamrasi--The Native Court


CHAPTER XIV.

AT HOME IN KISOONA.

System of Fattening--Native Preparations of Food--Native Manufactures
--Knavery of Native Butter-dealers--Vapour Bath for Fever--State Visit
from the King--Mendicancy again--The King in love with a Tooth-comb--
Effect of concave Mirror--Attempts at Ancient History--Kamrasi's
Request--Kamrasi affronted--Sudden Invasion of the Country--Alarm and
Cowardice of Kamrasi--The British Flag protects Unyoro--Diplomatic
Arrangement--Conference with Debono's Party--Settle authoritatively
all Objections--Retreat of the Invaders.


CHAPTER XV.

KAMRASI BEGS FOR THE BRITISH FLAG.

The pertinacious Beggar--Summary Justice for High Treason--Arrival of
Ivory for the Turks--Frightful Barbarities upon Captives--The Female
Captives--Treacherous Murder of Sali--Disputes with Kamrasi--Advice
to Kamrasi--The Turks begin to bully--Eddrees refused Admittance at
Court--Communicate with Ibrahim--Drunkenness among the Unyoros--
Native Sorcerers--Implicit Belief in Sorcerers--Invasion of the M'Was
--Consulted by the King in the Extremity--Kamrasi will not Fight--An
invigorating little Difficulty--Mock Valour by Unyoros--Kamrasi's
Retreat--We are Deserted--Prepare for Retreat--Leave Kisoona--Arrive
at Deang--No Water--Deserted again by the Porters--Richarn missing--
Richarn reported as killed--The M'Was' Drums beat--March to Foweera--
The Night Retreat--Lose the Road--At a Loss for direct Route--Capture
a Native--Recover the Route--Exhaustion of Mrs. Baker--Arrive at
Foweera--Well prepared--Refuse to assist Kamrasi--Richarn's Return--
Richarn's Story--The King in Distress--Arrival of Ibrahim with
Reinforcements--Receive Letters and Papers from Home--Kamrasi "is
himself again"--Invasion of the Langgo Country--The Whisky Distillery
--Kamrasi tries the Whisky--Butcheries by Kamrasi--Kamrasi orders the
Murder of Kalloe--Attempt to save Kalloe--Pursuit and Capture of Kalloe
--I intercede on his behalf--Death of a Headman--Shot by order of
Kamrasi--The Warning--The Bodyguard


CHAPTER XVI.

KAMRASI'S ADIEU,

Begging to the last--We quit Kamrasi's Territory--March to Shooa--
Arrive at Shooa--The Lira Tribe--Resemblance of Natives' and Lawyers'
Wigs--Result of the Turks' Razzias--Loss of Cattle by the Turks--The
Fight with Werdella--Courage of Werdella--Werdella defeats the Turks--
Murder of a Native--Runaway slaves recaptured--Brutality of the Turks
--Little Abbai--The Children of the Camp--Pleasant Time with the
Children--Shoot a Crocodile--The Black Rhinoceros--The Lira
Head-dress--Native Use of Donkeys


CHAPTER XVII.

THE NATIVES IN MOURNING.

Results of the Ivory Campaign--Preparations for starting Homeward--
Part regretfully with the Children--The Traveller's Tree--View of the
Nile--Koshi and Madi--Gebel Kookoo--On Speke and Grant's Route--
Changes in the Nile--The Asua River--Suspicious Movements of the
Natives--Attacked in the Pass--Night in a hostile Country--Camp
surrounded by Natives--Poisoned Arrows shot into Camp--Sight Belignan
--Approach Gondokoro--Arrive at Gondokoro--Neither Letters nor
Supplies--Disappointment.


CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LATEST NEWS FROM KHARTOUM.

Intelligence from Khartoum--Retreat of the Slaves--Influence gained
over Traders' People--Sail from Gondokoro--The Nile cleared of its
Mystery--The Victoria Source--Ptolemy's Theory--Rainfall--Affluents
of the White Nile--Action of the Abyssinian Rivers--Colonization
impossible--Slavery the Curse of Africa--Impotence of European Consuls
--Impossibility of convicting a Trader--Central Africa opened to
Navigation--Tribes of Central Africa--Vestiges of a Pre-Adamite
Creation--Geological Formation--Hypothesis of Equatorial Lakes--Sir
Roderick Murchison's Theories confirmed--Sir Roderick Murchison's
Address


CHAPTER XIX.

THE BLACK ANTELOPE.

Antelope shooting--Arrive at Junction of Bahr el Gazal--Arrive at the
Nile Dam--Character of the Obstruction--Passage through the Dam--The
Plague breaks out--Saat smitten by the Plague--Entertained by Osman
Bey--Saat dies--Burial of Saat--Arrival at Khartoum--Albert Lake
Reservoir of Nile--Destruction by the Plague--A Darkness that might be
felt--Horrible Slave Cargo--Meet with Mahommed Her--Mahommed Her
punished--Nearly wrecked--Stranded among Cataracts--Clear the Danger
--Start from Berber to Souakim--A Row in the Desert--Combat with the
Arabs--"Bravo, Zeneb!"--Disarm the Arabs--Cross the Mountains--First
View of the Sea--Souakim--Arrival at Suez--Farewell to Africa--
Exertions appreciated



    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

    General Map of Country, Nile Basin
    Arms and Instruments of various Tribes
    Nuehr Natives coming to the Boats
    Joctian, Chief of the Nuehr Tribe
    Chief of Kytch and Daughter
    Starving boy of Kytch Tribe begging
    The Boys who have begged
    A Homestead of the Bari Tribe-The usual Attitudes of the Men
    Legge the Chief
    Commoro running to the Fight
    Bokke-Wife of Moy, Chief of Latooka
    Drake's Head
    Crimson-headed Spur-winged Goose
    The Latooka Funeral Dance
    Latooka Blacksmiths
    The last Charge
    Head-dress of Obbo (1) and Shoggo (2)
    Women of Obbo
    Katchiba's eldest Son
    Katchiba and his Hebe on a Journey
    Overhauling the Giraffes
    The Obbo War Dance
    Mehedehet Antelope
    Natives of Lira (1) and Madi (2) in the Camp at Shooa
    My Examination by the Chiefs on entering Unyoro-Resolved,
    that I am Speke's Brother
    The Start from the M'rooli for the Lake with Kamrasi's Satanic
    Escort
    The Storm on the Albert Lake
    The Baggera
    Lepidosiren Annecteus
    The Murchison Falls, about 120 ft. high from the Victoria Nile
    or Somerset River to the Level of the Albert Lake
    The Welcome on our Return to the Camp at Shooa
    Head of Black Rhinoceros
    The Chief of the Lira Tribe
    Skirmish with the Natives



INTRODUCTION.

The primary object of geographical exploration is the opening to general
intercourse such portions of the earth as may become serviceable to the
human race. The explorer is the precursor of the colonist; and the
colonist is the human instrument by which the great work must be
constructed--that greatest and most difficult of all undertakings--the
civilization of the world.

The progress of civilization depends upon geographical position. The
surface of the earth presents certain facilities and obstacles to
general access; those points that are easily attainable must always
enjoy a superior civilization to those that are remote from association
with the world.

We may thus assume that the advance of civilization is dependent upon
facility of transport. Countries naturally excluded from communication
may, through the ingenuity of man, be rendered accessible; the natural
productions of those lands may be transported to the seacoast in
exchange for foreign commodities; and commerce, thus instituted, becomes
the pioneer of civilization.

England, the great chief of the commercial world, possesses a power that
enforces a grave responsibility. She has the force to civilize. She is
the natural colonizer of the world. In the short space of three
centuries, America, sprung from her loins, has become a giant offspring,
a new era in the history of the human race, a new birth whose future
must be overwhelming. Of later date, and still more rapid in
development, Australia rises, a triumphant proof of England's power to
rescue wild lands from barrenness; to wrest from utter savagedom those
mighty tracts of the earth's surface wasted from the creation of the
world,--a darkness to be enlightened by English colonization. Before the
advancing steps of civilization the savage inhabitants of dreary wastes
retreated: regions hitherto lain hidden, and counting as nothing in the
world's great total, have risen to take the lead in the world's great
future.

Thus England's seed cast upon the earth's surface germinates upon soils
destined to reproduce her race. The energy and industry of the mother
country become the natural instincts of her descendants in localities
adapted for their development; and wherever Nature has endowed a land
with agricultural capabilities, and favourable geographical position,
slowly but surely that land will become a centre of civilization.

True Christianity cannot exist apart from civilization; thus, the spread
of Christianity must depend upon the extension of civilization; and that
extension depends upon commerce.

The philanthropist and the missionary will expend their noble energies
in vain in struggling against the obtuseness of savage hordes, until the
first steps towards their gradual enlightenment shall have been made by
commerce. The savage must learn to WANT; he must learn to be ambitious;
and to covet more than the mere animal necessities of food and drink.
This can alone be taught by a communication with civilized beings: the
sight of men well clothed will induce the naked savage to covet
clothing, and will create a WANT; the supply of this demand will be the
first step towards commerce. To obtain the supply, the savage must
produce some article in return as a medium of barter, some natural
production of his country adapted to the trader's wants. His wants will
increase as his ideas expand by communication with Europeans: thus, his
productions must increase in due proportion, and he must become
industrious; industry being the first grand stride towards civilization.

The natural energy of all countries is influenced by climate; and
civilization being dependent upon industry, or energy, must accordingly
vary in its degrees according to geographical position. The natives of
tropical countries do not progress: enervated by intense heat, they
incline rather to repose and amusement than to labour. Free from the
rigour of winters, and the excitement of changes in the seasons, the
native character assumes the monotony of their country's temperature.
They have no natural difficulties to contend with,--no struggle with
adverse storms and icy winds and frost-bound soil; but an everlasting
summer, and fertile ground producing with little tillage, excite no
enterprise; and the human mind, unexercised by difficulties, sinks into
languor and decay. There are a lack of industry, a want of intensity of
character, a love of ease and luxury, which leads to a devotion to
sensuality,--to a plurality of wives, which lowers the character and
position of woman. Woman, reduced to that false position, ceases to
exercise her proper influence upon man; she becomes the mere slave of
passion, and, instead of holding her sphere as the emblem of
civilization she becomes its barrier. The absence of real love
engendered by a plurality of wives, is an absolute bar to progress; and
so long as polygamy exists, an extension of civilization is impossible.
In all tropical countries polygamy is the prevailing evil: this is the
greatest obstacle to Christianity. The Mahommedan religion, planned
carefully for Eastern habits, allowed a plurality of wives, and
prospered. The savage can be taught the existence of a Deity, and become
a Mussulman; but to him the hateful law of fidelity to one wife is a bar
to Christianity. Thus, in tropical climates there will always be a
slower advance of civilization than in more temperate zones.

The highest civilization was originally confined to the small portion of
the globe comprised between Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy. In those
countries was concentrated the world's earliest history; and although
changed in special importance, they preserve their geographical
significance to the present day.

The power and intelligence of man will have their highest development
within certain latitudes, and the natural passions and characters of
races will be governed by locality and the temperature of climate.

There are certain attractions in localities that induce first
settlements of man; even as peculiar conditions of country attract both
birds and animals. The first want of man and beast is food: thus fertile
soil and abundant pasture, combined with good climate and water
communication, always ensure the settlement of man; while natural
seed-bearing grasses, forests, and prairies attract both birds and
beasts. The earth offers special advantages in various positions to both
man and beast; and such localities are, with few exceptions, naturally
inhabited. From the earliest creation there have been spots so
peculiarly favoured by nature, by geographical position, climate, and
fertility, that man has striven for their occupation, and they have
become scenes of contention for possession. Such countries have had a
powerful influence in the world's history, and such will be the great
pulses of civilization,--the sources from which in a future, however
distant, will flow the civilization of the world. Egypt is the land
whose peculiar capabilities have thus attracted the desires of conquest,
and with whom the world's earliest history is intimately connected.

Egypt has been an extraordinary instance of the actual formation of a
country by alluvial deposit; it has been CREATED by a single river. The
great Sahara, that frightful desert of interminable scorching sand,
stretching from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, is cleft by one solitary
thread of water. Ages before man could have existed in that inhospitable
land, that thread of water was at its silent work: through countless
years it flooded and fell, depositing a rich legacy of soil upon the
barren sand until the delta was created; and man, at so remote a period
that we have no clue to an approximate date, occupied the fertile soil
thus born of the river Nile, and that corner of savage Africa, rescued
from its barrenness, became Egypt, and took the first rank in the
earth's history.

For that extraordinary land the world has ever contended, and will yet
contend.

From the Persian conquest to the present day, although the scene of
continual strife, Egypt has been an example of almost uninterrupted
productiveness. Its geographical position afforded peculiar advantages
for commercial enterprise. Bounded on the east by the Red Sea, on the
north by the Mediterranean, while the fertilizing Nile afforded inland
communication, Egypt became the most prosperous and civilized country of
the earth. Egypt was not only created by the Nile, but the very
existence of its inhabitants depended upon the annual inundation of that
river: thus all that related to the Nile was of vital importance to the
people; it was the hand that fed them.

Egypt depending so entirely upon the river, it was natural that the
origin of those mysterious waters should have absorbed the attention of
thinking men. It was unlike all other rivers. In July and August, when
European streams were at their lowest in the summer heat, the Nile was
at the flood! In Egypt there was no rainfall--not even a drop of dew in
those parched deserts through which, for 860 miles of latitude, the
glorious river flowed without a tributary. Licked up by the burning sun,
and gulped by the exhausting sand of Nubian deserts, supporting all
losses by evaporation and absorption, the noble flood shed its annual
blessings upon Egypt. An anomaly among rivers; flooding in the driest
season; everlasting in sandy deserts; where was its hidden origin? where
were the sources of the Nile?

This was from the earliest period the great geographical question to be
solved.

In the advanced stage of civilization of the present era, we look with
regret at the possession by the Moslem of the fairest portions of the
world,--of countries so favoured by climate and by geographical
position, that, in the early days of the earth's history, they were the
spots most coveted; and that such favoured places should, through the
Moslem rule, be barred from the advancement that has attended lands less
adapted by nature for development. There are no countries of the earth
so valuable, or that would occupy so important a position in the family
of nations, as Turkey in Europe, Asia Minor, and Egypt, under a
civilized and Christian government.

As the great highway to India, Egypt is the most interesting country to
the English. The extraordinary fertility being due entirely to the Nile,
I trust that I may have added my mite to the treasury of scientific
knowledge by completing the discovery of the sources of that wonderful
river, and thereby to have opened a way to the heart of Africa, which,
though dark in our limited perspective, may, at some future period, be
the path to civilization.

I offer to the world my narrative of many years of hardships and
difficulties, happily not vainly spent in this great enterprise: should
some un-ambitious spirits reflect, that the results are hardly worth the
sacrifice of the best years of life thus devoted to exile and suffering,
let them remember that "we are placed on earth for a certain period, to
fulfil, according to our several conditions and degrees of mind, those
duties by which the earth's history is carried on." (E. L. Bulwer's
"Life, Literature, and Manners.")


THE ALBERT N'YANZA.

CHAPTER I.

THE EXPEDITION

In March, 1861, I commenced an expedition to discover the sources of the
Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition of Captains
Speke and Grant, that had been sent by the English Government from the
South via Zanzibar, for that object. I had not the presumption to
publish my intention, as the sources of the Nile had hitherto defied all
explorers, but I had inwardly determined to accomplish this difficult
task or to die in the attempt. From my youth I had been inured to
hardships and endurance in wild sports in tropical climates, and when I
gazed upon the map of Africa I had a wild hope, mingled with humility,
that, even as the insignificant worm bores through the hardest oak, I
might by perseverance reach the heart of Africa.

I could not conceive that anything in this world had power to resist a
determined will, so long as health and life remained. The failure of
every former attempt to reach the Nile source did not astonish me, as
the expeditions had consisted of parties, which, when difficulties
occur, generally end in difference of opinion and retreat: I therefore
determined to proceed alone, trusting in the guidance of a Divine
Providence and the good fortune that sometimes attends a tenacity of
purpose. I weighed carefully the chances of the undertaking. Before
me--untrodden Africa; against me--the obstacles that had defeated the
world since its creation; on my side--a somewhat tough constitution,
perfect independence, a long experience in savage life, and both time
and means which I intended to devote to the object without limit.
England had never sent an expedition to the Nile sources previous to
that under the command of Speke and Grant. Bruce, ninety years ago, had
succeeded in tracing the source of the Blue or Lesser Nile: thus the
honour of that discovery belonged to Great Britain; Speke was on his
road from the South; and I felt confident that my gallant friend would
leave his bones upon the path rather than submit to failure. I trusted
that England would not be beaten; and although I hardly dared to hope
that I could succeed where others greater than I had failed, I
determined to sacrifice all in the attempt. Had I been alone it would
have been no hard lot to die upon the untrodden path before me, but
there was one who, although my greatest comfort, was also my greatest
care; one whose life yet dawned at so early an age that womanhood was
still a future. I shuddered at the prospect for her, should she be left
alone in savage lands at my death; and gladly would I have left her in
the luxuries of home instead of exposing her to the miseries of Africa.

It was in vain that I implored her to remain, and that I painted the
difficulties and perils still blacker than I supposed they really would
be: she was resolved, with woman's constancy and devotion, to share all
dangers and to follow me through each rough footstep of the wild life
before me. "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return
from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go, and where
thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my
God: where thou diest will I die; and there will I be buried: the Lord
do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."

Thus accompanied by my wife, on the 15th April 1861, I sailed up the
Nile from Cairo. The wind blew fair and strong from the north, and we
flew towards the south against the stream, watching those mysterious
waters with a firm resolve to track them to their distant fountain.

On arrival at Korosko, in Lat. 22 degrees 44 minutes, in twenty-six days
from Cairo, we started across the Nubian desert, thus cutting off the
western bend of the Nile, and in seven days' forced camel march we again
reached the river Abou Hamed. The journey through that desert is most
fatiguing, as the march averages fifteen hours a day through a
wilderness of scorching sand and glowing basalt rocks. The simoom was in
full force at that season (May), and the thermometer, placed in the
shade by the water skins, stood at 114 degrees Fahrenheit.

No drinkable water was procurable on the route; thus our supply was
nearly expended upon reaching the welcome Nile. After eight days' march
on the margin of the river from Abou Hamed through desert, but in view
of the palm trees that bordered the river, we arrived at Berber, a
considerable town in lat. 17 degrees 58 minutes on the banks of the
Nile.

Berber is eight days' camel march from Khartoum (at the junction of the
White and Blue Niles, in lat. 15 degrees 30 minutes), and is the regular
caravan route between that town and Cairo.

From the slight experience I had gained in the journey to Berber, I felt
convinced that success in my Nile expedition would be impossible without
a knowledge of Arabic. My dragoman had me completely in his power, and I
resolved to become independent of all interpreters as soon as possible.
I therefore arranged a plan of exploration for the first year, to
embrace the affluents to the Nile from the Abyssinian range of
mountains, intending to follow up the Atbara river from its junction
with the Nile in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes (twenty miles south of
Berber), and to examine all the Nile tributaries from the southeast as
far as the Blue Nile, which river I hoped ultimately to descend to
Khartoum. I imagined that twelve months would be sufficient to complete
such an exploration, by which time I should have gained a sufficient
knowledge of Arabic to enable me to start from Khartoum for my White
Nile expedition. Accordingly I left Berber on the 11th June, 1861, and
arrived at the Atbara junction with the Nile on the 13th.

There is no portion of the Nile so great in its volume as that part
situated at the Atbara junction. The river Atbara is about 450 yards in
average width, and from twenty-five to thirty feet deep during the rainy
season. It brings down the entire drainage of Eastern Abyssinia,
receiving as affluents into its main stream the great rivers Taccazy (or
Settite), in addition to the Salaam and Angrab. The junction of the
Atbara in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes N. is thus, in a direct line from
Alexandria, about 840 geographical miles of latitude, and, including the
westerly bend of the Nile, its bed will be about eleven hundred miles in
length from the mouth of its last tributary, the Atbara, until it meets
the sea. Thus, eleven hundred miles of absorption and evaporation
through sandy deserts and the delta must be sustained by the river
between the Atbara junction and the Mediterranean: accordingly there is
an immense loss of water; and the grandest volume of the Nile must be
just below the Atbara junction.

It is not my intention in the present work to enter into the details of
my first year's exploration on the Abyssinian frontier; that being so
extensive and so completely isolated from the grand White Nile
expedition, that an amalgamation of the two would create confusion. I
shall therefore reserve the exploration of the Abyssinian tributaries
for a future publication, and confine my present description of the
Abyssinian rivers to a general outline of the Atbara and Blue Nile,
showing the origin of their floods and their effect upon the inundations
in Lower Egypt.

I followed the banks of the Atbara to the junction of the Settite or
Taccazy river; I then followed the latter grand stream into the
Abyssinian mountains in the Base country. From thence I crossed over to
the rivers Salaam and Angrab, at the foot of the magnificent range of
mountains from which they flow direct into the Atbara. Having explored
those rivers, I passed through an extensive and beautiful tract of
country forming a portion of Abyssinia on the south bank of the river
Salaam; and again crossing the Atbara, I arrived at the frontier town of
Gellabat, known by Bruce as "Ras el Feel." Marching due west from that
point I arrived at the river Rahad, in about lat. 12 degrees 30 minutes;
descending its banks I crossed over a narrow strip of country to the
west, arriving at the river Dinder, and following these streams to their
junction with the Blue Nile, I descended that grand river to Khartoum,
having been exactly twelve months from the day I had left Berber.

The whole of the above-mentioned rivers--i.e. the Atbara, Settite,
Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, and Blue Nile--are the great drains of
Abyssinia, all having a uniform course from southeast to northwest, and
meeting the main Nile in two mouths; by the Blue Nile at Khartoum, 15
degrees 30 minutes, and by the Atbara, in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes.
The Blue Nile during the dry season is so reduced that there is not
sufficient water for the small vessels engaged in transporting produce
from Sennaar to Khartoum; at that time the water is beautifully clear,
and, reflecting the cloudless sky, its colour has given it the
well-known name of Bahr el Azrak, or Blue River. No water is more
delicious than that of the Blue Nile; in great contrast to that of the
White river, which is never clear, and has a disagreeable taste of
vegetation. This difference in the quality of the waters is a
distinguishing characteristic of the two rivers: the one, the Blue Nile,
is a rapid mountain stream, rising and falling with great rapidity; the
other is of lake origin, flowing through vast marshes. The course of the
Blue Nile is through fertile soil; thus there is a trifling loss by
absorption, and during the heavy rains a vast amount of earthy matter of
a red colour is contributed by its waters to the general fertilizing
deposit of the Nile in Lower Egypt.

The Atbara, although so important a river in the rainy season of
Abyssinia, is perfectly dry for several months during the year, and at
the time I first saw it, June 13, 1861, it was a mere sheet of glaring
sand; in fact a portion of the desert through which it flowed. For
upwards of one hundred and fifty miles from its junction with the Nile,
it is perfectly dry from the beginning of March to June. At intervals of
a few miles there are pools or ponds of water left in the deep holes
below the general average of the river's bed. In these pools, some of
which may be a mile in length, are congregated all the inhabitants of
the river, who as the stream disappears are forced to close quarters in
these narrow asylums; thus, crocodiles, hippopotami, fish, and large
turtle are crowded in extraordinary numbers, until the commencement of
the rains in Abyssinia once more sets them at liberty by sending down a
fresh volume to the river. The rainy season commences in Abyssinia in
the middle of May, but the country being parched by the summer heat, the
first rains are absorbed by the soil, and the torrents do not fill until
the middle of June.

From June to the middle of September the storms are terrific; every
ravine becomes a raging torrent; trees are rooted up by the mountain
streams swollen above their banks, and the Atbara becomes a vast river,
bringing down with an overwhelming current the total drainage of four
large rivers--the Settite, Royan, Salaam, and Angrab--in addition to its
own original volume. Its waters are dense with soil washed from most
fertile lands far from its point of junction with the Nile; masses of
bamboo and driftwood, together with large trees, and frequently the dead
bodies of elephants and buffaloes, are hurled along its muddy waters in
wild confusion, bringing a rich harvest to the Arabs on its banks, who
are ever on the look-out for the river's treasures of fuel and timber.

The Blue Nile and the Atbara receiving the entire drainage of Abyssinia,
at the same time pour their floods into the main Nile in the middle of
June. At that season the White Nile is at a considerable level, although
not at its HIGHEST; and the sudden rush of water descending from
Abyssinia into the main channel, already at a fair level from the White
Nile, causes the annual inundation in Lower Egypt.

During the year that I passed in the northern portion of Abyssinia and
its frontiers, the rains continued with great violence for three months,
the last shower falling on the 16th September, from which date there was
neither dew nor rain until the following May. The great rivers expended,
and the mountain torrents dried up; the Atbara disappeared, and once
more became a sheet of glaring sand. The rivers Settite, Salaam, and
Angrab, although much reduced, are nevertheless perennial streams,
flowing into the Atbara from the lofty Abyssinian mountains; but the
parched, sandy bed of the latter river absorbs the entire supply, nor
does one drop of water reach the Nile from the Atbara during the dry
season. The wonderful absorption by the sand of that river is an
illustration of the impotence of the Blue Nile to contend unaided with
the Nubian deserts, which, were it not for the steady volume of the
White Nile, would drink every drop of water before the river could pass
the twenty-fifth degree of latitude.

The principal affluents of the Blue Nile are the Rahad and Dinder,
flowing, like all others, from Abyssinia. The Rahad is entirely dry
during the dry season, and the Dinder is reduced to a succession of deep
pools, divided by sandbanks, the bed of the river being exposed. These
pools are the resort of numerous hippopotami and the natural inhabitants
of the river.

Having completed the exploration of the various affluents to the Nile
from Abyssinia, passing through the Base country and the portion of
Abyssinia occupied by Mek Nimmur, I arrived at Khartoum, the capital of
the Soudan provinces, on the 11th June, 1862.

Khartoum is situated in lat. 15 degrees 29 minutes, on a point of land
forming the angle between the White and Blue Niles at their junction. A
more miserable, filthy, and unhealthy spot can hardly be imagined. Far
as the eye can reach, upon all sides, is a sandy desert. The town,
chiefly composed of huts of unburnt brick, extends over a flat hardly
above the level of the river at high water, and is occasionally flooded.
Although containing about 30,000 inhabitants, and densely crowded, there
are neither drains nor cesspools: the streets are redolent with
inconceivable nuisances; should animals die, they remain where they
fall, to create pestilence and disgust. There are, nevertheless, a few
respectable houses, occupied by the traders of the country, a small
proportion of whom are Italians, French, and Germans, the European
population numbering about thirty. Greeks, Syrians, Copts, Armenians,
Turks, Arabs, and Egyptians, form the motley inhabitants of Khartoum.

There are consuls for France, Austria, and America, and with much
pleasure I acknowledge many kind attentions, and assistance received
from the two former, M. Thibaut and Herr Hansall.

Khartoum is the seat of government, the Soudan provinces being under the
control of a Governor-general, with despotic power. In 1861, there were
about six thousand troops quartered in the town; a portion of these were
Egyptians; other regiments were composed of blacks from Kordofan, and
from the White and Blue Niles, with one regiment of Arnouts, and a
battery of artillery. These troops are the curse of the country: as in
the case of most Turkish and Egyptian officials, the receipt of pay is
most irregular, and accordingly the soldiers are under loose discipline.
Foraging and plunder is the business of the Egyptian soldier, and the
miserable natives must submit to insult and ill-treatment at the will of
the brutes who pillage them ad libitum.

In 1862, Moosa Pasha was the Governor-general of the Soudan. This man
was a rather exaggerated specimen of Turkish authorities in general,
combining the worst of Oriental failings with the brutality of a wild
animal. During his administration the Soudan became utterly ruined;
governed by military force, the revenue was unequal to the expenditure,
and fresh taxes were levied upon the inhabitants to an extent that
paralyzed the entire country. The Turk never improves. There is an Arab
proverb that "the grass never grows in the footprint of a Turk," and
nothing can be more aptly expressive of the character of the nation than
this simple adage. Misgovernment, monopoly, extortion, and oppression,
are the certain accompaniments of Turkish administration. At a great
distance from all civilization, and separated from Lower Egypt by the
Nubian deserts, Khartoum affords a wide field for the development of
Egyptian official character. Every official plunders; the
Governor-general extorts from all sides; he fills his private pockets by
throwing every conceivable obstacle in the way of progress, and
embarrasses every commercial movement in order to extort bribes from
individuals. Following the general rule of his predecessors, a new
governor upon arrival exhibits a spasmodic energy. Attended by cavasses
and soldiers, he rides through every street of Khartoum, abusing the
underlings for past neglect, ordering the streets to be swept, and the
town to be thoroughly cleansed; he visits the marketplace, examines the
quality of the bread at the bakers' stalls, and the meat at the
butchers'. He tests the accuracy of the weights and scales; fines and
imprisons the impostors, and institutes a complete reform, concluding
his sanitary and philanthropic arrangements by the imposition of some
local taxes.

The town is comparatively sweet; the bread is of fair weight and size,
and the new governor, like a new broom, has swept all clean. A few weeks
glide away, and the nose again recalls the savory old times when streets
were never swept, and filth once more reigns paramount. The town
relapses into its former state, again the false weights usurp the place
of honest measures, and the only permanent and visible sign of the new
administration is the local tax.

From the highest to the lowest official, dishonesty and deceit are the
rule--and each robs in proportion to his grade in the Government
employ--the onus of extortion falling upon the natives; thus, exorbitant
taxes are levied upon the agriculturists, and the industry of the
inhabitants is disheartened by oppression. The taxes are collected by
the soldiery, who naturally extort by violence an excess of the actual
impost; accordingly the Arabs limit their cultivation to their bare
necessities, fearing that a productive farm would entail an extortionate
demand. The heaviest and most unjust tax is that upon the "sageer," or
water wheel, by which the farmer irrigates his otherwise barren soil.

The erection of the sageer is the first step necessary to cultivation.
On the borders of the river there is much land available for
agriculture; but from an almost total want of rain the ground must be
constantly irrigated by artificial means. No sooner does an enterprising
fellow erect a water wheel, than he is taxed, not only for his wheel,
but he brings upon himself a perfect curse, as the soldiers employed for
the collection of taxes fasten upon his garden, and insist upon a
variety of extras in the shape of butter, corn, vegetables, sheep, &c.
for themselves, which almost ruin the proprietor. Any government but
that of Egypt and Turkey would offer a bonus for the erection of
irrigating machinery that would give a stimulus to cultivation, and
multiply the produce of the country; but the only rule without an
exception is that of Turkish extortion. I have never met with any
Turkish official who would take the slightest interest in plans for the
improvement of the country, unless he discovered a means of filling his
private purse. Thus in a country where Nature has been hard in her
measure dealt to the inhabitants, they are still more reduced by
oppression. The Arabs fly from their villages on the approach of the
brutal tax-gatherers, driving their flocks and herds with them to
distant countries, and leaving their standing crops to the mercy of the
soldiery. No one can conceive the suffering of the country.

The general aspect of the Soudan is that of misery; nor is there a
single feature of attraction to recompense a European for the drawbacks
of pestilential climate and brutal associations. To a stranger it
appears a superlative folly that the Egyptian Government should have
retained a possession, the occupation of which is wholly unprofitable;
the receipts being far below the expenditure, "malgre" the increased
taxation. At so great a distance from the seacoast and hemmed in by
immense deserts, there is a difficulty of transport that must nullify
all commercial transactions on an extended scale.

The great and most important article of commerce as an export from the
Soudan, is gum arabic: this is produced by several species of mimosa,
the finest quality being a product of Kordofan; the other natural
productions exported are senna, hides, and ivory. All merchandise both
to and from the Soudan must be transported upon camels, no other animals
being adapted to the deserts. The cataracts of the Nile between Assouan
and Khartoum rendering the navigation next to impossible, the camel is
the only medium of transport, and the uncertainty of procuring them
without great delay is the trader's greatest difficulty. The entire
country is subject to droughts that occasion a total desolation, and the
want of pasture entails starvation upon both cattle and camels,
rendering it at certain seasons impossible to transport the productions
of the country, and thus stagnating all enterprise. Upon existing
conditions the Soudan is worthless, having neither natural capabilities
nor political importance; but there is, nevertheless, a reason that
first prompted its occupation by the Egyptians, and that is in force to
the present day. THE SOUDAN SUPPLIES SLAVES. Without the White Nile
trade Khartoum would almost cease to exist; and that trade is kidnapping
and murder. The character of the Khartoumers needs no further comment.
The amount of ivory brought down from the White Nile is a mere bagatelle
as an export, the annual value being about 40,000 pounds.

The people for the most part engaged in the nefarious traffic of the
White Nile are Syrians, Copts, Turks, Circassians, and some few
EUROPEANS. So closely connected with the difficulties of my expedition
is that accursed slave trade, that the so-called ivory trade of the
White Nile requires an explanation.

Throughout the Soudan money is exceedingly scarce and the rate of
interest exorbitant, varying, according to the securities, from
thirty-six to eighty percent; this fact proves general poverty and
dishonesty, and acts as a preventive to all improvement. So high and
fatal a rate deters all honest enterprise, and the country must lie in
ruin under such a system. The wild speculator borrows upon such terms,
to rise suddenly like a rocket, or to fall like its exhausted stick.
Thus, honest enterprise being impossible, dishonesty takes the lead, and
a successful expedition to the White Nile is supposed to overcome all
charges. There are two classes of White Nile traders, the one possessing
capital, the other being penniless adventurers; the same system of
operations is pursued by both, but that of the former will be evident
from the description of the latter.

A man without means forms an expedition, and borrows money for this
purpose at 100 percent after this fashion. He agrees to repay the lender
in ivory at one-half its market value. Having obtained the required sum,
he hires several vessels and engages from 100 to 300 men, composed of
Arabs and runaway villains from distant countries, who have found an
asylum from justice in the obscurity of Khartoum. He purchases guns and
large quantities of ammunition for his men, together with a few hundred
pounds of glass beads. The piratical expedition being complete, he pays
his men five months' wages in advance, at the rate of forty-five
piastres (nine shillings) per month, and he agrees to give them eighty
piastres per month for any period exceeding the five months advanced.
His men receive their advance partly in cash and partly in cotton stuffs
for clothes at an exorbitant price. Every man has a strip of paper, upon
which is written by the clerk of the expedition the amount he has
received both in goods and money, and this paper he must produce at the
final settlement.

The vessels sail about December, and on arrival at the desired locality,
the party disembark and proceed into the interior, until they arrive at
the village of some negro chief, with whom they establish an intimacy.
Charmed with his new friends, the power of whose weapons he
acknowledges, the negro chief does not neglect the opportunity of
seeking their alliance to attack a hostile neighbour. Marching
throughout the night, guided by their negro hosts, they bivouac within
an hour's march of the unsuspecting village doomed to an attack about
half an hour before break of day. The time arrives, and, quietly
surrounding the village while its occupants are still sleeping, they
fire the grass huts in all directions, and pour volleys of musketry
through the flaming thatch. Panic-stricken, the unfortunate victims rush
from their burning dwellings, and the men are shot down like pheasants
in a battue, while the women and children, bewildered in the danger and
confusion, are kidnapped and secured. The herds of cattle, still within
their kraal or "zareeba," are easily disposed of, and are driven off
with great rejoicing, as the prize of victory. The women and children
are then fastened together, the former secured in an instrument called a
sheba, made of a forked pole, the neck of the prisoner fitting into the
fork, secured by a cross piece lashed behind; while the wrists, brought
together in advance of the body, are tied to the pole. The children are
then fastened by their necks with a rope attached to the women, and thus
form a living chain, in which order they are marched to the headquarters
in company with the captured herds.

This is the commencement of business: should there be ivory in any of
the huts not destroyed by the fire, it is appropriated; a general
plunder takes place. The trader's party dig up the floors of the huts to
search for iron hoes, which are generally thus concealed, as the
greatest treasure of the negroes; the granaries are overturned and
wantonly destroyed, and the hands are cut off the bodies of the slain,
the more easily to detach the copper or iron bracelets that are usually
worn. With this booty the traders return to their negro ally: they have
thrashed and discomfited his enemy, which delights him; they present him
with thirty or forty head of cattle, which intoxicates him with joy, and
a present of a pretty little captive girl of about fourteen completes
his happiness.

But business only commenced. The negro covets cattle, and the trader has
now captured perhaps 2,000 head. They are to be had for ivory, and
shortly the tusks appear. Ivory is daily brought into camp in exchange
for cattle, a tusk for a cow, according to size--a profitable business,
as the cows have cost nothing. The trade proves brisk; but still there
remain some little customs to be observed--some slight formalities, well
understood by the White Nile trade. The slaves and two-thirds of the
captured cattle belong to the trader, but his men claim as their
perquisite one-third of the stolen animals. These having been divided,
the slaves are put up to public auction among the men, who purchase such
as they require; the amount being entered on the papers (serki) of the
purchasers, to be reckoned against their wages. To avoid the exposure,
should the document fall into the hands of the Government or European
consuls, the amount is not entered as for the purchase of a slave, but
is divided for fictitious supplies--thus, should a slave be purchased
for 1,000 piastres, that amount would appear on the document somewhat as
follows:

    Soap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Piastres.
    Tarboash(cap) . . . . . . . . . 100
    Araki . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
    Shoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
    Cotton Cloth . . . . . . . . .  150
    Total                         1,000

The slaves sold to the men are constantly being changed and resold among
themselves; but should the relatives of the kidnapped women and children
wish to ransom them, the trader takes them from his men, cancels the
amount of purchase, and restores them to their relations for a certain
number of elephants' tusks, as may be agreed upon. Should any slave
attempt to escape, she is punished either by brutal flogging, or shot or
hanged, as a warning to others.

An attack or razzia, such as described, generally leads to a quarrel
with the negro ally, who in his turn is murdered and plundered by the
trader--his women and children naturally becoming slaves.

A good season for a party of a hundred and fifty men should produce
about two hundred cantars (20,000 lbs.) of ivory, valued at Khartoum at
4,000 pounds. The men being paid in slaves, the wages should be nil, and
there should be a surplus of four or five hundred slaves for the
trader's own profit--worth on an average five to six pounds each.

The boats are accordingly packed with a human cargo, and a portion of
the trader's men accompany them to the Soudan, while the remainder of
the party form a camp or settlement in the country they have adopted,
and industriously plunder, massacre, and enslave, until their master's
return with the boats from Khartoum in the following season, by which
time they are supposed to have a cargo of slaves and ivory ready for
shipment. The business thus thoroughly established, the slaves are
landed at various points within a few days' journey of Khartoum, at
which places are agents, or purchasers; waiting to receive them with
dollars prepared for cash payments. The purchasers and dealers are, for
the most part, Arabs. The slaves are then marched across the country to
different places; many to Sennaar, where they are sold to other dealers,
who sell them to the Arabs and to the Turks. Others are taken immense
distances to ports on the Red Sea, Souakim, and Masowa, there to be
shipped for Arabia and Persia. Many are sent to Cairo, and in fact they
are disseminated throughout the slave-dealing East, the White Nile being
the great nursery for the supply.

The amiable trader returns from the White Nile to Khartoum; hands over
to his creditor sufficient ivory to liquidate the original loan of
1,000 pounds, and, already a man of capital, he commences as an
independent trader.

Such was the White Nile trade when I prepared to start from Khartoum on
my expedition to the Nile sources. Every one in Khartoum, with the
exception of a few Europeans, was in favor of the slave trade, and
looked with jealous eyes upon a stranger venturing within the precincts
of their holy land; a land sacred to slavery and to every abomination
and villany that man can commit.

The Turkish officials pretended to discountenance slavery: at the same
time every house in Khartoum was full of slaves, and the Egyptian
officers had been in the habit of receiving a portion of their pay in
slaves, precisely as the men employed on the White Nile were paid by
their employers. The Egyptian authorities looked upon the exploration of
the White Nile by a European traveller as an infringement of their slave
territory that resulted from espionage, and every obstacle was thrown in
my way.

Foreseeing many difficulties, I had been supplied, before leaving Egypt,
with a firman from H. E. Said Pasha the Viceroy, by the request of H. B.
M. agent, Sir R. Colquhoun; but this document was ignored by the
Governor-general of the Soudan, Moosa Pasha, under the miserable
prevarication that the firman was for the Pasha's dominions and for the
Nile; whereas the White Nile was not accepted as the Nile, but was known
as the White River. I was thus refused boats, and in fact all
assistance.

To organize an enterprise so difficult that it had hitherto defeated the
whole world required a careful selection of attendants, and I looked
with despair at the prospect before me. The only men procurable for
escort were the miserable cutthroats of Khartoum, accustomed to murder
and pillage. in the White Nile trade, and excited not by the love of
adventure but by the desire for plunder: to start with such men appeared
mere insanity. There was a still greater difficulty in connection with
the White Nile. For years the infernal traffic in slaves and its
attendant horrors had existed like a pestilence in the negro countries,
and had so exasperated the tribes, that people who in former times were
friendly had become hostile to all comers. An exploration to the Nile
sources was thus a march through an enemy's country, and required a
powerful force of well-armed men. For the traders there was no great
difficulty, as they took the initiative in hostilities, and had fixed
camps as "points d'appui;" but for an explorer there was no alternative
but a direct forward march without any communications with the rear. I
had but slight hope of success without assistance from the authorities
in the shape of men accustomed to discipline; I accordingly wrote to the
British consul at Alexandria, and requested him to apply for a few
soldiers and boats to aid me in so difficult an enterprise. After some
months' delay, owing to the great distance from Khartoum, I received a
reply enclosing a letter from Ishmael Pasha (the present Viceroy), the
regent during the absence of Said Pasha, REFUSING the application.

I confess to the enjoyment of a real difficulty. From the first I had
observed that the Egyptian authorities did not wish to encourage English
explorations of the slave-producing districts, as such examinations
would be detrimental to the traffic, and would lead to reports to the
European governments that would ultimately prohibit the trade; it was
perfectly clear that the utmost would be done to prevent my expedition
from starting. This opposition gave a piquancy to the undertaking, and I
resolved that nothing should thwart my plans. Accordingly I set to work
in earnest. I had taken the precaution to obtain an order upon the
Treasury at Khartoum for what money I required, and as ready cash
performs wonders in that country of credit and delay, I was within a few
weeks ready to start. I engaged three vessels, including two large
noggurs or sailing barges, and a good decked vessel with comfortable
cabins, known by all Nile tourists as a diahbiah.

The preparations for such a voyage are no trifles. I required forty-five
armed men as escort, forty men as sailors, which, with servants, &c.,
raised my party to ninety-six. The voyage to Gondokoro, the navigable
limit of the Nile, was reported to be from forty-five to fifty days from
Khartoum, but provisions were necessary for four months, as the boatmen
would return to Khartoum with the vessels, after landing me and my
party. In the hope of meeting Speke and Grant's party, I loaded the
boats with an extra quantity of corn, making a total of a hundred urdeps
(rather exceeding 400 bushels). I had arranged the boats to carry
twenty-one donkeys, four camels, and four horses; which I hoped would
render me independent of porters, the want of transport being the great
difficulty. The saddles, packs, and pads were all made under my own
superintendence; nor was the slightest trifle neglected in the necessary
arrangements for success. In all the detail, I was much assisted by a
most excellent man whom I had engaged to accompany me as my head man, a
German carpenter, Johann Schmidt. I had formerly met him hunting on the
banks of the Settite river, in the Base country, where he was
purchasing living animals from the Arabs, for a contractor to a
menagerie in Europe; he was an excellent sportsman, and an energetic and
courageous fellow; perfectly sober and honest. Alas! "the spirit was
willing, but the flesh was weak," and a hollow cough, and emaciation,
attended with hurried respiration, suggested disease of the lungs. Day
after day he faded gradually, and I endeavoured to persuade him not to
venture upon such a perilous journey as that before me: nothing would
persuade him that he was in danger, and he had an idea that the climate
of Khartoum was more injurious than the White Nile, and that the voyage
would improve his health. Full of good feeling, and a wish to please, he
persisted in working and perfecting the various arrangements, when he
should have been saving his strength for a severer trial.

Meanwhile, my preparations progressed. I had clothed my men all in
uniform, and had armed them with double-barrelled guns and rifles. I
had explained to them thoroughly the object of my journey, and that
implicit obedience would be enforced, so long as they were in my
service; that no plunder would be permitted, and that their names were
to be registered at the public Divan before they started. They promised
fidelity and devotion, but a greater set of scoundrels in physiognomy I
never encountered. Each man received five months' wages in advance, and
I gave them an entertainment, with abundance to eat and drink, to enable
them to start in good humor.

We were just ready to start; the supplies were all on board, the donkeys
and horses were shipped, when an officer arrived from the Divan, to
demand from me the poll tax that Moosa Pasha, the Governor-general, had
recently levied upon the inhabitants; and to inform me, that in the
event of my refusing to pay the said tax for each of my men, amounting
to one month's wages per head, he should detain my boats. I ordered my
captain to hoist the British flag upon each of the three boats, and sent
my compliments to the Government official, telling him that I was
neither a Turkish subject nor a trader, but an English explorer; that I
was not responsible for the tax, and that if any Turkish official should
board my boat, under the British flag, I should take the liberty of
throwing him overboard. This announcement appeared so practical, that
the official hurriedly departed, while I marched my men on board, and
ordered the boatmen to get ready to start. Just at that moment, a
Government vessel, by the merest chance, came swiftly down the river
under sail, and in the clumsiest manner crashed right into us. The oars
being lashed in their places on my boat, ready to start, were broken to
pieces by the other vessel, which, fouling another of my boats just
below, became fixed. The reis, or captain of the Government boat that
had caused the mischief, far from apologizing, commenced the foulest
abuse; and refused to give oars in exchange for those he had destroyed.
To start was impossible without oars, and an angry altercation being
carried on between my men and the Government boat, it was necessary to
come to closer quarters. The reis of the Government boat was a gigantic
black, a Tokrouri (native of Darfur), who, confident in his strength,
challenged any one to come on board, nor did any of my fellows respond
to the invitation. The insolence of Turkish Government officials is
beyond description--my oars were smashed, and this insult was the
reparation; so, stepping quickly on board, and brushing a few fellows on
one side, I was obliged to come to a physical explanation with the
captain, which terminated in a delivery of the oars. The bank of the
river was thronged with people, many were mere idlers attracted by the
bustle of the start, and others, the friends and relatives of my people,
who had come to say a last good-bye, with many women, to raise the Arab
cry of parting. Among others, was a tall, debauched-looking fellow,
excessively drunk and noisy, who, quarrelling with a woman who attempted
to restrain him, insisted upon addressing a little boy named Osman,
declaring that he should not accompany me unless he gave him a dollar to
get some drink. Osman was a sharp Arab boy of twelve years old, whom I
had engaged as one of the tent servants, and the drunken Arab was his
father, who wished to extort some cash from his son before he parted;
but the boy Osman showed his filial affection in a most touching manner,
by running into the cabin, and fetching a powerful hippopotamus whip,
with which he requested me to have his father thrashed, or "he would
never be gone." Without indulging this amiable boy's desire, we shoved
off; the three vessels rowed into the middle of the river, and hoisted
sail; a fair wind, and strong current, moved us rapidly down the stream;
the English flags fluttered gaily on the masts, and amidst the shouting
of farewells, and the rattling of musketry, we started for the sources
of the Nile. On passing the steamer belonging to the Dutch ladies,
Madame van Capellan, and her charming daughter, Mademoiselle Tinne, we
saluted them with a volley, and kept up a mutual waving of handkerchiefs
until out of view; little did we think that we should never meet those
kind faces again, and that so dreadful a fate would envelope almost the
entire party. [The entire party died of fever on the White Nile,
excepting Mademoiselle Tinne. The victims to the fatal climate of
Central Africa were Madame la Baronne van Capellan, her sister, two
Dutch maidservants, Dr. Steudner, and Signor Contarini.]

It was the 18th December, 1862, Thursday, one of the most lucky days for
a start, according to Arab superstition. In a few minutes we reached the
acute angle round which we had to turn sharply into the White Nile at
its junction with the Blue. It was blowing hard, and in tacking round
the point one of the noggurs carried away her yard, which fell upon deck
and snapped in half, fortunately without injuring either men or donkeys.
The yard being about a hundred feet in length, was a complicated affair
to splice; thus a delay took place in the act of starting which was
looked upon as a bad omen by my superstitious followers. The voyage up
the White Nile I now extract verbatim from my journal.

Friday, 19th Dec.--At daybreak took down the mast and unshipped all the
rigging; hard at work splicing the yard. The men of course wished to
visit their friends at Khartoum. Gave strict orders that no man should
leave the boats. One of the horsekeepers absconded before daybreak; sent
after him. The junction of the two Niles is a vast flat as far as the
eye can reach, the White Nile being about two miles broad some distance
above the point. Saati, my vakeel (headman), is on board one noggur as
chief; Johann on board the other, while I being on the diahbiah I trust
all the animals will be well cared for. I am very fearful of Johann's
state of health: the poor fellow is mere skin and bone, and I am afraid
his lungs are affected; he has fever again today; I have sent him
quinine and wine, &c.

20th Dec.--The whole of yesterday employed in splicing yard, repairing
mast, and re-rigging. At 8.30 A.M. we got away with a spanking breeze.
The diahbiah horridly leaky. The "tree," or rendezvous for all boats
when leaving for the White Nile voyage, consists of three large mimosas
about four miles from the point of junction. The Nile at this spot about
two miles wide--dead flat banks--mimosas on west bank. My two cabin
boys are very useful, and Osman's ringing laugh and constant
impertinence to the crew and soldiers keep the boat alive; he is a
capital boy, a perfect gamin, and being a tailor by trade he is very
useful: this accounts for his father wishing to detain him. The horses
and donkeys very snug on board. At 1 p.m. passed Gebel Ouli, a small
hill on south bank--course S.W. 1/2 S. At 8.30 p.m. reached Cetene, a
village of mixed Arabs on the east bank--anchored.

21st Dec.--All day busy clearing decks, caulking ship, and making room
for the camels on the noggurs, as this is the village to which I had
previously sent two men to select camels and to have them in readiness
for my arrival. The men have been selecting sweethearts instead; thus I
must wait here tomorrow, that being the "Soog" or market day, when I
shall purchase my camels and milch goats. The banks of the river very
uninteresting--flat, desert, and mimosa bush. The soil is not so rich
as on the banks of the Blue Nile--the dhurra (grain) is small. The Nile
is quite two miles wide up to this point, and the high-water mark is not
more than five feet above the present level. The banks shelve gradually
like the sands at low tide in England, and quite unlike the
perpendicular banks of the Blue Nile. Busy at gunsmith's work. The
nights and mornings are now cold, from 60 degrees to 62 degrees F.
Johann makes me very anxious: I much fear he cannot last long, unless
some sudden change for the better takes place.

22d Dec.--Selected two fine camels and shipped them in slings with some
difficulty. Bought four oxen at nine herias each (l5s.); the men
delighted at the work of slaughtering, and jerking the meat for the
voyage. Bought four milch goats at 9 ps. each, and laid in a large stock
of dhurra straw for the animals. Got all my men on board and sailed at
4.30 p.m., course due west; variation allowed for. I have already
reduced my men from wolves to lambs, and I should like to see the
outrageous acts of mutiny which are the scapegoats of the traders for
laying their atrocities upon the men's shoulders. I cannot agree with
some writers in believing that personal strength is unnecessary to a
traveller. In these savage countries it adds materially to the success
of an expedition, provided that it be combined with kindness of manner,
justice, and unflinching determination. Nothing impresses savages so
forcibly as the _power_ to punish and reward. I am not sure that this
theory is applicable to savages exclusively. Arrived at Wat Shely at 9
P.M. 23d Dec.--Poor Johann very ill. Bought two camels, and shipped them
all right: the market at this miserable village is as poor as that at
Getene. The river is about a mile and a half wide, fringed with mimosas;
country dead flat; soil very sandy; much cultivation near the village,
but the dhurra of poor quality. Saw many hippopotami in the river. I
much regret that I allowed Johann to accompany me from Khartoum; I feel
convinced he can never rally from his present condition.

24th Dec.--Sailed yesterday at 4.5 P.M., course south. This morning we
are off the Bagara country on the west bank. Dead flats of mimosas, many
of the trees growing in the water; the river generally shallow, and many
snags or dead stumps of trees. I have been fortunate with my men, only
one being drunk on leaving Wat Shely; him we carried forcibly on board.
Passed the island of Hassaniah at 2.20 P.M.; the usual flats covered
with mimosas. The high-water mark upon the stems of these trees is three
feet above the present level of the river; thus an immense extent of
country must be flooded during the wet season, as there are no banks to
the river. The water will retire in about two months, when the
neighbourhood of the river will be thronged with natives and their
flocks. All the natives of these parts are Arabs; the Bagara tribe on
the west bank. At Wat Shely some of the latter came on board to offer
their services as slave-hunters, this open offer confirming the general
custom of all vessels trading upon the White Nile.

25th Dec.--The Tokroori boy, Saat, is very amiable in calling all the
servants daily to eat together the residue from our table; but he being
so far civilized, is armed with a huge spoon, and having a mouth like a
crocodile, he obtains a fearful advantage over the rest of the party,
who eat the soup by dipping kisras (pancakes) into it with their
fingers. Meanwhile Saat sits among his invited guests, and works away
with his spoon like a sageer (water-wheel), and gets an unwarrantable
start, the soup disappearing like water in the desert. A dead calm the
greater portion of the day; the river fringed with mimosa forest. These
trees are the Soont (Acacia Arabica), which produce an excellent tannin:
the fruit, "garra," is used for that purpose, and produces a rich brown
dye: all my clothes and the uniforms of my men I dyed at Khartoum with
this "garra." The trees are about eighteen inches in diameter and
thirty-five feet high; being in full foliage, their appearance from a
distance is good, but on a closer approach the forest proves to be a
desolate swamp, completely overflowed; a mass of fallen dead trees
protruding from the stagnant waters, a solitary crane perched here and
there upon the rotten boughs; floating water-plants massed together, and
forming green swimming islands, hitched generally among the sunken
trunks and branches; sometimes slowly descending with the sluggish
stream, bearing, spectre-like, storks thus voyaging on nature's rafts
from lands unknown. It is a fever-stricken wilderness--the current not
exceeding a quarter of a mile per hour--the water coloured like an
English horse-pond; a heaven for mosquitoes and a damp hell for man.
Fortunately, this being the cold season, the winged plagues are absent.
The country beyond the inundated mimosa woods is of the usual sandy
character, with thorny Kittur bush. Saw a few antelopes. Stopped at a
horrible swamp to collect firewood. Anchored at night in a dead calm,
well out in the river to escape malaria from the swamped forest. This is
a precaution that the men would neglect, and my expedition might suffer
in consequence. Christmas Day!

26th Dec.--Good breeze at about 3 A.M.; made sail. I have never seen a
fog in this part of Africa; although the neighbourhood of the river is
swampy, the air is clear both in the morning and evening. Floating
islands of water-plants are now very numerous. There is a plant
something like a small cabbage (Pistia Stratiotes, L.), which floats
alone until it meets a comrade; these unite, and recruiting as they
float onward, they eventually form masses of many thousands, entangling
with other species of water-plants and floating wood, until they at
length form floating islands. Saw many hippopotami; the small hill in
the Dinka country seen from the masthead at 9.15 A.M.; breeze light, but
steady; the banks of the river, high grass and mimosas, but not forest
as formerly. Water lilies in full bloom, white, but larger than the
European variety. In the evening the crew and soldiers singing and
drumming.

27th Dec.--Blowing hard all night. Passed the Dinka hill at 3.30 A.M.
Obliged to take in sail, as it buried the head of the vessel and we
shipped much water. Staggering along under bare poles at about five
miles an hour. The true banks of the river are about five hundred yards
distant from the actual stream, this space being a mass of floating
water-plants, decayed vegetable matter, and a high reedy grass much
resembling sugarcanes; the latter excellent food for my animals. Many
very interesting water-plants and large quantities of Ambatch wood
(Anemone mirabilis)--this wood, of less specific gravity than cork, is
generally used for rafts; at this season it is in full bloom, its bright
yellow blossoms enlivening the dismal swamps. Secured very fine
specimens of a variety of helix from the floating islands. In this spot
the river is from 1500 yards to a mile wide; the country, flat and
uninteresting, being the usual scattered thorn bushes and arid plains,
the only actual timber being confined to the borders of the river.
Course, always south with few turns. My sponging-bath makes a good
pinnace for going ashore from the vessel. At 4.20 P.M. one of the
noggurs carried away her yard--the same boat that met with the accident
at our departure; hove to, and closed with the bank for repairs. Here is
an affair of delay; worked with my own hands until 9 p.m.; spliced the
yard, bound it with rhinoceros thongs, and secured the whole splice with
raw bull's hide. Posted sentries--two on each boat, and two on shore.

28th Dec.--At work at break of day. Completed the repair of yard, which
is disgracefully faulty. Re-rigged the mast. Poor Johann will die, I
much fear. His constitution appears to be quite broken up; he has become
deaf, and there is every symptom of decay. I have done all I can for
him, but his voyage in this life is nearly over. Ship in order, and all
sailed together at 2:15 p.m. Strong north wind. Two vessels from
Khartoum passed us while repairing damages. I rearranged the donkeys,
dividing them into stalls containing three each, as they were such
donkeys that they crowded each other unnecessarily. Caught a curious
fish (Tetrodon physa of Geof.), that distends itself with air like a
bladder; colour black, and yellow stripes; lungs; apertures under the
fins, which open and shut by their movement, their motion being a
semi-revolution. This fish is a close link between fish and turtle; the
head is precisely that of the latter, having no teeth, but cutting jaws
of hard bone of immense power. Many minutes after the head had been
severed from the body, the jaws nipped with fury anything that was
inserted in the mouth, ripping through thin twigs and thick straw like a
pair of shears. The skin of the belly is white, and is armed with
prickles. The skin is wonderfully tough. I accordingly cut it into a
long thong, and bound up the stock of a rifle that had been split from
the recoil of heavy charges of powder. The flesh was strong of musk, and
uneatable. There is nothing so good as fish skin--or that of the
iguana, or of the crocodile--for lashing broken gun-stocks. Isinglass,
when taken fresh from the fish and bound round a broken stock like a
plaster, will become as strong as metal when dry. Country as usual--
flat and thorny bush. A heavy swell creates a curious effect in the
undulations of the green rafts upon the water. Dinka country on east
bank; Shillook on the west; course south; all Arab tribes are left
behind, and we are now thoroughly among the negroes.

29th Dec.--At midnight the river made a bend westward, which continued
for about fifteen miles. The wind being adverse, at 5 A.M. we found
ourselves fast in the grass and floating vegetation on the lee side. Two
hours' hard work at two ropes, alternately, fastened to the high grass
ahead of the boat and hauled upon from the deck, warped us round the
bend of the river, which turning due south, we again ran before a
favourable gale for two hours; all the boats well together. The east
bank of the river is not discernible--a vast expanse of high reeds
stretching as far as the eye can reach; course P.M. W.S.W. At 4 P.M. the
"Clumsy," as I have named one of our noggurs, suddenly carried away her
mast close by the board, the huge yard and rigging falling overboard
with the wreck, severely hurting two men and breaking one of their guns.
Hove to by an island on the Shillook side, towed the wreck ashore, and
assembled all the boats. Fortunately there is timber at hand; thus I cut
down a tree for a mast and got all ready for commencing repairs
tomorrow. Poor Johann is, as I had feared, dying; he bleeds from the
lungs, and is in the last stage of exhaustion. Posted six sentries.

30th Dec.--Johann is in a flying state, but sensible; all his hopes,
poor fellow, of saving money in my service and returning to Bavaria are
past. I sat by his bed for some hours; there was not a ray of hope; he
could speak with difficulty, and the flies walked across his glazed
eyeballs without his knowledge. Gently bathing his face and hands, I
asked him if I could deliver any message to his relatives. He faintly
uttered, "I am prepared to die; I have neither parents nor relations;
but there is one--she--" he faltered. He could not finish his sentence,
but his dying thoughts were with one he loved; far, far away from this
wild and miserable land, his spirit was transported to his native
village, and to the object that made life dear to him. Did not a shudder
pass over her, a chill warning at that sad moment when all was passing
away? I pressed his cold hand, and asked her name. Gathering his
remaining strength he murmured, "Krombach" [Krombach was merely the name
of his native village in Bavaria.] . . . "Es bleibt nur zu sterben."
"Ich bin sehr dankbar." These were the last words he spoke, "I am very
grateful." I gazed sorrowfully at his attenuated figure, and at the now
powerless hand that had laid low many an elephant and lion, in its day
of strength; and the cold sweat of death lay thick upon his forehead.
Although the pulse was not yet still, Johann was gone.

31st Dec.--Johann died. I made a huge cross with my own hands from the
trunk of a tamarind tree, and by moonlight we laid him in his grave in
this lonely spot.

   "No useless coffin inclosed his breast,
    Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
    But he lay like a pilgrim taking his rest,
    With his mantle drawn around him."

This is a mournful commencement of the voyage. Poor fellow, I did all I
could for him although that was but little; and hands far more tender
than mine ministered to his last necessities. This sad event closes the
year 1862. Made sail at 8.30 p.m., the repairs of ship being completed.

1863, Jan. 1st, 2 o'clock a.m.--Melancholy thoughts preventing sleep,
I have watched the arrival of the new year. Thank God for His blessings
during the past, and may He guide us through the untrodden path before
us! We arrived at the village of Mahomed Her in the Shillook country.
This man is a native of Dongola, who, having become a White Nile
adventurer, established himself among the Shillook tribe with a band of
ruffians, and is the arch-slaver of the Nile. The country, as usual, a
dead flat: many Shillook villages on west bank all deserted, owing to
Mahomed Her's plundering. This fellow now assumes a right of territory,
and offers to pay tribute to the Egyptian Government, thus throwing a
sop to Cerberus to prevent intervention. Course S.W. The river in clear
water about seven hundred yards wide, but sedge on the east bank for a
couple of miles in width.

2d Jan.--The "Clumsy" lagging, come to grief again, having once more
sprung her rotten yard. Fine breeze, but obliged to wait upon this
wretched boat--the usual flat uninteresting marshes: Shillook villages
in great numbers on the terra firma to the west. Verily it is a pleasant
voyage; disgusting naked savages, everlasting marshes teeming with
mosquitoes, and the entire country devoid of anything of either common
interest or beauty. Course west the whole day; saw giraffes and one
ostrich on the east bank. On the west bank there is a regular line of
villages throughout the day's voyage within half a mile of each other;
the country very thickly populated. The huts are of mud, thatched,
having a very small entrance--they resemble button mushrooms. The
Shillooks are wealthy, immense herds of cattle swarm throughout their
country. The natives navigate the river in two kinds of canoes-one of
which is a curious combination of raft and canoe formed of the Ambatch
wood, which is so light, that the whole affair is portable. The Ambatch
(Anemone mirabilis) is seldom larger than a man's waist, and as it
tapers naturally to a point, the canoe rafts are quickly formed by
lashing the branches parallel to each other, and tying the narrow ends
together.

3d Jan.--The "Clumsy's" yard having been lashed with rhinoceros' hide,
fortunately holds together, although sprung. Stopped this morning on the
east bank, and gathered a supply of wood. On the west bank Shillook
villages as yesterday during the day's voyage, all within half a mile of
each other; one village situated among a thick grove of the dolape palms
close to the river. The natives, afraid of our boats, decamped, likewise
the fishermen, who were harpooning fish from small fishing stations
among the reeds.

The country, as usual, dead flat, and very marshy on the east bank, upon
which side I see no signs of habitations. Course this morning south.
Arrived at the river Sobat junction at 12.40 P.M., and anchored about
half a mile within that river at a spot where the Turks had formerly
constructed a camp. Not a tree to be seen; but dead flats of prairie and
marsh as far as the eye can reach. The Sobat is not more than a hundred
and twenty yards in breadth.

I measured the stream by a floating gourd, which travelled 130 yards in
112 seconds, equal to about two miles and a half an hour. The quality of
the water is very superior to that of the White Nile--this would suggest
that it is of mountain origin. Upward course of Sobat south, 25 degrees
east. Upward course of the White Nile west, 2 degrees north from the
Sobat junction.

4th Jan.--By observation of sun's meridian altitude, I make the latitude
of the Sobat junction 9 degrees 21 minutes 14 seconds. Busy fishing the
yard of the "Clumsy," and mending sails. The camels and donkeys all
well--plenty of fine grass--made a good stock of hay. My reis and
boatmen tell me that the Sobat, within a few days' sail of the junction,
divides into seven branches, all shallow and with a rapid current. The
banks are flat, and the river is now bank-full. Although the water is
perfectly clear, and there is no appearance of flood, yet masses of
weeds, as though torn from their beds by torrents, are constantly
floating down the stream. One of my men has been up the river to the
farthest navigable point; he declares that it is fed by many mountain
torrents, and that it runs out very rapidly at the cessation of the
rains. I sounded the river in many places, the depth varying very
slightly, from twenty-seven to twenty-eight feet. At 5 P.M. set sail
with a light breeze, and glided along the dead water of the White Nile.
Full moon--the water like a mirror; the country one vast and apparently
interminable marsh--the river about a mile wide, and more or less
covered with floating plants. The night still as death; dogs barking in
the distant villages, and herds of hippopotami snorting in all
directions, being disturbed by the boats. Course west.

5th Jan.--Fine breeze, as much as we can carry; boats running at eight
or nine miles an hour--no stream perceptible; vast marshes; the clear
water of the river not more than 150 yards wide, forming a channel
through the great extent of water grass resembling high sugarcanes,
which conceal the true extent of the river. About six miles west from
the Sobat junction on the north side of the river, is a kind of
backwater, extending north like a lake for a distance of several days'
boat journey: this is eventually lost in regions of high grass and
marshes; in the wet season this forms a large lake. A hill bearing north
20 degrees west so distant as to be hardly discernible.

The Bahr Giraffe is a small river entering the Nile on the south bank
between the Sobat and Bahr el Gazal--my reis (Diabb) tells me it is
merely a branch from the White Nile from the Aliab country, and not an
independent river. Course west, 10 degrees north, the current about one
mile per hour. Marshes and ambatch, far as the eye can reach.

At 6.40 P.M. reached the Bahr el Gazal; the junction has the appearance
of a lake about three miles in length, by one in width, varying
according to seasons. Although bank-full, there is no stream whatever
from the Bahr el Gazal, and it has the appearance of a backwater formed
by the Nile. The water being clear and perfectly dead, a stranger would
imagine it to be an overflow of the Nile, were the existence of the Bahr
el Gazal unknown. The Bahr el Gazal extends due west from this point for
a great distance, the entire river being a system of marshes, stagnant
water overgrown by rushes, and ambatch wood, through which a channel has
to be cleared to permit the passage of a boat. Little or no water can
descend to the Nile from this river, otherwise there would be some
trifling current at the embouchure. The Nile has a stream of about a
mile and a half per hour, as it sweeps suddenly round the angle,
changing its downward course from north to east. The breadth in this
spot does not exceed 130 yards; but it is impossible to determine the
actual width of the river, as its extent is concealed by reeds with
which the country is entirely covered to the horizon.

The White Nile having an upward course of west 10 degrees north,
variation of compass 10 degrees west, from the Sobat to the Bahr el
Gazal junction, now turns abruptly to south 10 degrees east. From native
accounts there is a great extent of lake country at this point. The
general appearance of the country denotes a vast flat, with slight
depressions; these form extensive lakes during the wet season, and
sodden marshes during the dry weather; thus contradictory accounts of
the country may be given by travellers according to the seasons at which
they examined it. There is nothing to denote large permanent lakes; vast
masses of water plants and vegetation, requiring both a wet and dry
season, exist throughout; but there are no great tracts of deep water.
The lake at the Bahr el Gazal entrance is from seven to nine feet deep,
by soundings in various places. Anchored the little squadron, as I wait
here for observations. Had the "Clumsy's" yard lowered and examined. Cut
a supply of grass for the animals.

Jan. 6th.--Overhauled the stores. My stock of liquor will last to
Gondokoro; after that spot "vive la misere." It is curious in African
travel to mark the degrees of luxury and misery; how, one by one, the
wine, spirits bread, sugar, tea, etc., are dropped like the feathers of
a moulting bird, and nevertheless we go ahead contented. My men busy
cutting grass, washing, fishing, etc.

Latitude, by meridian altitude of sun, 9 degrees 29 minutes. Difference
of time by observation between this point and the Sobat junction, 4 min.
26 secs., 1 degree 6 minutes 30 seconds distance. Caught some perch, but
without the red fin of the European species; also some boulti with the
net. The latter is a variety of perch growing to about four pounds'
weight, and is excellent eating.

Sailed at 3 P.M. Masses of the beautiful but gloomy Papyrus rush,
growing in dense thickets about eighteen feet above the water. I
measured the diameter of one head, or crown, four feet one inch. _ Jan.
7th.--Started at 6 A.M.; course E. 10 degrees S.; wind dead against us;
the "Clumsy" not in sight. Obliged to haul along by fastening long ropes
to the grass about a hundred yards ahead. This is frightful work; the
men must swim that distance to secure the rope, and those on board
hauling it in gradually, pull the vessel against the stream. Nothing can
exceed the labor and tediousness of this operation. From constant work
in the water many of my men are suffering from fever. The temperature is
much higher than when we left Khartoum; the country, as usual, one vast
marsh. At night the hoarse music of hippopotami snorting and playing
among the high-flooded reeds, and the singing of countless myriads of
mosquitoes--the nightingales of the White Nile. My black fellow,
Richarn, whom I had appointed corporal, will soon be reduced to the
ranks; the animal is spoiled by sheer drink. Having been drunk every day
in Khartoum, and now being separated from his liquor, he is plunged into
a black melancholy. He sits upon the luggage like a sick rook, doing
minstrelsy, playing the rababa (guitar), and smoking the whole day,
unless asleep, which is half that time: he is sighing after the merissa
(beer) pots of Egypt. This man is an illustration of missionary success.
He was brought up from boyhood at the Austrian mission, and he is a
genuine specimen of the average results. He told me a few days ago that
"he is no longer a Christian." There are two varieties of convolvolus
growing here; also a peculiar gourd, which, when dry and divested of its
shell, exposes a vegetable sponge, formed of a dense but fine network of
fibers; the seeds are contained in the center of this fiber. The bright
yellow flowers of the ambatch, and of a tree resembling a laburnum, are
in great profusion. The men completely done: I served them out a measure
of grog. The "Clumsy" not in sight.

Jan. 8th.--Waited all night for the "Clumsy." She appeared at 8 A.M.,
when the reis and several men received the whip for laziness. All three
vessels now rounded a sharp turn in the river, and the wind being then
favorable, we were soon under sail. The clear water of the river from
the Bahr el Gazal to this point, does not exceed a hundred and twenty
yards in width. The stream runs at one and three-quarter miles per hour,
bringing with it a quantity of floating vegetation. The fact of a strong
current both above and below the Bahr el Gazal junction, while the lake
at that point is dead water, proves that I was right in my surmise, that
no water flows from the Bahr el Gazal into the Nile during this season,
and that the lake and the extensive marshes at that locality are caused
as much by the surplus water of the White Nile flowing into a
depression, as they are by the Bahr el Gazal, the water of the latter
river being absorbed by the immense marshes.

Yesterday we anchored at a dry spot, on which grew many mimosas of the
red bark variety; the ground was a dead flat, and the river was up to
the roots of the trees near the margin; thus the river is quite full at
this season, but not flooded. There was no watermark upon the stems of
the trees; thus I have little doubt that the actual rise of the
water-level during the rainy season is very trifling, as the water
extends over a prodigious extent of surface, the river having no banks.
The entire country is merely a vast marsh, with a river flowing through
the midst. At this season last year I was on the Settite. That great
river and the Atbara were then excessively low.

The Blue Nile was also low at the same time. On the contrary, the White
Nile and the Sobat, although not at their highest, are bank-full, while
the former two are failing; this proves that the White Nile and the
Sobat rise far south, among mountains subject to a rainfall at different
seasons, extending over a greater portion of the year than the rainy
season of Abyssinia and the neighbouring Galla country.

It is not surprising that the ancients gave up the exploration of the
Nile when they came to the countless windings and difficulties of the
marshes; the river is like an entangled skein of thread. Wind light;
course S. 20 degrees W. The strong north wind that took us from Khartoum
has long since become a mere breath. It never blows in this latitude
regularly from the north. The wind commences at between 8 and 9 A.M.,
and sinks at sunset; thus the voyage through these frightful marshes and
windings is tedious and melancholy beyond description. Great numbers of
hippopotami this evening, greeting the boats with their loud snorting
bellow, which vibrates through the vessels.

Jan. 9th.--Two natives fishing; left their canoe and ran on the approach
of our boats. My men wished to steal it, which of course I prevented; it
was a simple dome palm hollowed. In the canoe was a harpoon, very neatly
made, with only one barb. Both sides of the river from the Bahr el Gazal
belong to the Nuehr tribe. Course S.E.; wind very light; windings of
river endless; continual hauling. At about half an hour before sunset,
as the men were hauling the boat along by dragging at the high reeds
from the deck, a man at the mast-head reported a buffalo standing on a
dry piece of ground near the river; being in want of meat, the men
begged me to shoot him. The buffalo was so concealed by the high grass,
that he could not be seen from the deck; I therefore stood upon an
angarep (bedstead) on the poop, and from this I could just discern his
head and shoulders in the high grass, about a hundred and twenty yards
off. I fired with No. 1 Reilly rifle, and he dropped apparently dead to
the shot. The men being hungry, were mad with delight, and regardless of
all but meat, they dashed into the water, and were shortly at him; one
man holding him by the tail, another dancing upon him and brandishing
his knife, and all shouting a yell of exultation. Presently up jumped
the insulted buffalo, and charging through the men, he disappeared in
the high grass, falling, as the men declared, in the deep morass. It was
dusk, and the men, being rather ashamed of their folly in dancing
instead of hamstringing the animal and securing their beef, slunk back
to their vessels.

Jan. 10th.--Early in the morning the buffalo was heard groaning in the
marsh, not far from the spot where he was supposed to have fallen. About
forty men took their guns and knives, intent upon beefsteaks, and waded
knee-deep in mud and water through the high grass of the morass in
search. About one hour passed in this way, and, seeing the reckless
manner in which the men were wandering about, I went down below to beat
the drum to call them back, which the vakeel had been vainly attempting.
Just at this moment I heard a distant yelling, and shot fired after
shot, about twenty times, in quick succession. I saw with the telescope
a crowd of men about three hundred yards distant, standing on a white
ant-hill raised above the green sea of high reeds, from which elevated
point they were keeping up a dropping fire at some object
indistinguishable in the high grass. The death-howl was soon raised, and
the men rushing down from their secure position, shortly appeared,
carrying with them my best choush, Sali Achmet, dead. He had come
suddenly upon the buffalo, who, although disabled, had caught him in the
deep mud and killed him. His gallant comrades bolted, although he called
to them for assistance, and they had kept up a distant fire from the
lofty ant-hill, instead of rushing to his rescue. The buffalo lay dead;
and a grave was immediately dug for the unfortunate Sali. My journey
begins badly with the death of my good man Johann and my best
choush--added to the constant mishaps of the "Clumsy." Fortunately I did
not start from Khartoum on a Friday, or the unlucky day would have borne
the onus of all the misfortunes.

The graves of the Arabs are an improvement upon those of Europeans. What
poor person who cannot afford a vault, has not felt a pang as the clod
fell upon the coffin of his relative? The Arabs avoid this. Although
there is no coffin, the rude earth does not rest upon the body. The hole
being dug similar in shape to a European grave, an extra trench is
formed at the bottom of the grave about a foot wide. The body is laid
upon its side within this trench, and covered by bricks made of clay
which are laid across;-thus the body is contained within a narrow vault.
Mud is then smeared over the hastily made bricks and nothing is visible;
the tomb being made level with the bottom of the large grave. This is
filled up with earth, which, resting on the brick covering of the trench
cannot press upon the body. In such a grave my best man was laid--the
Slave women raising their horrible howling and my men crying loudly, as
well explained in the words of Scripture, "and he lifted up his voice
and wept." I was glad to see so much external feeling for their comrade,
but the grave being filled, their grief, like all loud sorrow, passed
quickly away and relapsed into thoughts of buffalo meat; they were soon
busily engaged in cutting up the flesh. There are two varieties of
buffaloes in this part of Africa--the Bos Caffer, with convex horns,
and that with flat horns; this was the latter species. A horn had
entered the man's thigh, tearing the whole of the muscles from the bone;
there was also a wound from the centre of the throat to the ear, thus
completely torn open, severing the jugular vein. One rib was broken, the
breast-bone. As usual with buffaloes, he had not rested content until he
had pounded the breath out of the body, which was found embedded and
literally stamped tight into the mud, with only a portion of the head
above the marsh. Sali had not even cocked his gun, the hammer being down
on the nipples when found. I will not allow these men to come to grief
in this way; they are a reckless set of thoughtless cowards, full of
noise and bluster, fond of firing off their guns like children, and
wasting ammunition uselessly, and in time of danger they can never be
relied upon; they deserted their comrade when in need, and cried aloud
like infants at his death; they shall not again be allowed to move from
the boats.

In the evening I listened to the men conversing over the whole affair,
when I learnt the entire truth. It appears that Richarn and two other
men were with the unfortunate Sali when the brute charged him, and the
cowards all bolted without firing a shot in defense. There was a large
white ant-hill about fifty yards distant, to which they retreated; from
the top of this fort they repeatedly saw the man thrown into the air,
and heard him calling for assistance. Instead of hastening in a body to
his aid, they called to him to "keep quiet and the buffalo would leave
him." This is a sample of the courage of these Khartoumers. The buffalo
was so disabled by my shot of yesterday that he was incapable of leaving
the spot, as, with a broken shoulder, he could not get through the deep
mud. My Reilly No. 10 bullet was found under the skin of the right
shoulder, having passed in at the left shoulder rather above the lungs.
The windings of this monotonous river are extraordinary, and during dead
calms in these vast marshes the feeling of melancholy produced is beyond
description. The White Nile is a veritable "Styx." When the wind does
happen to blow hard, the navigation is most difficult, owing to the
constant windings; the sailors being utterly ignorant, and the rig of
the vessel being the usual huge "leg of mutton" sail, there is an amount
of screaming and confusion at every attempt to tack which generally ends
in our being driven on the lee marsh; this is preferable to a capsize,
which is sometimes anything but distant. This morning is one of those
days of blowing hard, with the accompaniments of screaming and shouting.
Course S.E. Waited half a day for the "Clumsy," which hove in sight just
before dark; the detentions caused by this vessel are becoming serious,
a quick voyage being indispensable for the animals. The camels are
already suffering from confinement, and I have their legs well swathed
in wet bandages.

This marsh land varies in width. In some portions of the river it
appears to extend for about two miles on either side; in other parts
farther than the eye can reach. In all cases the main country is a dead
flat; now blazing and smoking beyond the limit of marshes, as the
natives have fired the dry grass in all directions. Reeds, similar in
appearance to bamboos but distinct from them, big water-grass, like
sugarcanes, excellent fodder for the cattle, and the ever-present
ambatch, cover the morasses. Innumerable mosquitoes.

Jan. 12th--Fine breeze in the morning, but obliged to wait for the
"Clumsy", which arrived at 10 A.M. How absurd are some descriptions of
the White Nile, which state that there is no current! At some parts,
like that from just above the Sobat junction to Khartoum, there is but
little, but since we have left the Bahr el Gazal the stream runs from
one and three-quarters to two and a half miles per hour, varying in
localities. Here it is not more than a hundred yards wide in clear
water. At 11.20 A.M. got under weigh with a rattling breeze, but
scarcely had we been half an hour under sail when crack went the great
yard of the "Clumsy" once more. I had her taken in tow. It is of no use
repairing the yard again, and, were it not for the donkeys, I would
abandon her. Koorshid Aga's boats were passing us in full sail when his
diahbiah suddenly carried away her rudder, and went head first into the
morass. I serve out grog to the men when the drum beats at sunset, if
all the boats are together.

Jan. 13th.--Stopped near a village on the right bank in company with
Koorshid Aga's two diahbiahs. The natives came down to the boats--they
are something superlative in the way of savages; the men as naked as
they came into the world; their bodies rubbed with ashes, and their hair
stained red by a plaster of ashes and cow's urine. These fellows are the
most unearthly-looking devils I ever saw--there is no other expression
for them. The unmarried women are also entirely naked; the married have
a fringe made of grass around their loins. The men wear heavy coils of
beads about their necks, two heavy bracelets of ivory on the upper
portion of the arms, copper rings upon the wrists, and a horrible kind
of bracelet of massive iron armed with spikes about an inch in length,
like leopard's claws, which they use for a similar purpose. The chief of
the Nuehr village, Joctian, with his wife and daughter, paid me a visit,
and asked for all they saw in the shape of beads and bracelets, but
declined a knife as useless. They went away delighted with their
presents. The women perforate the upper lip, and wear an ornament about
four inches long of beads upon an iron wire; this projects like the horn
of a rhinoceros; they are very ugly. The men are tall and powerful,
armed with lances. They carry pipes that contain nearly a quarter of a
pound of tobacco, in which they smoke simple charcoal should the loved
tobacco fail. The carbonic acid gas of the charcoal produces a slight
feeling of intoxication, which is the effect desired. Koorshid Aga
returned them a girl from Khartoum who had been captured by a
slave-hunter; this delighted the people, and they immediately brought an
ox as an offering. The "Clumsy's" yard broke in two pieces, thus I was
obliged to seek a dry spot for the necessary repairs. I left the village
Nuehr Eliab, and in the evening lowered the "Clumsy's" yard; taking her
in tow, we are, this moment, 8.30 P.M., slowly sailing through clouds of
mosquitoes looking out for a landing-place in this world of marshes. I
took the chief of the Nuehrs' portrait, as he sat in my cabin on the
divan; of course he was delighted. He exhibited his wife's arms and back
covered with jagged scars, in reply to my question as to the use of the
spiked iron bracelet. Charming people are these poor blacks! as they are
termed by English sympathisers; he was quite proud of having clawed his
wife like a wild beast. In sober earnest, my monkey "Wallady" looks like
a civilized being compared to the Nuehr savages. The chiefs forehead was
tattooed in horizontal lines that had the appearance of wrinkles. The
hair is worn drawn back from the face. Both men and women wear a bag
slung from the neck, apparently to contain any presents they may
receive, everything being immediately pocketed. Course S.S.E.

Jan. 14th.-All day occupied in repairing the yard; the buffalo hide of
the animal that killed Sali Achmet being most serviceable in lashing.
Sailed in the evening in company with a boat belonging to the Austrian
mission. River about 120 yards of clear water; current about two miles
per hour. Found quantities of natron on the marshy ground bordering the
river.

Had a turkey for dinner, a "cadeau" from Koorshid Aga, and, as a great
wonder, the kisras (a sort of brown pancake in lieu of bread) were free
from sand. I must have swallowed a good-sized millstone since I have
been in Africa, in the shape of grit rubbed from the moorhaka, or
grinding-stone. The moorhaka, when new, is a large flat stone, weighing
about forty pounds; upon this the corn is ground by being rubbed with a
cylindrical stone with both hands. After a few months' use half of the
original grinding-stone disappears, the grit being mixed with the flour;
thus the grinding-stone is actually eaten. No wonder that hearts become
stony in this country!

Jan. 15th.-We were towing through high reeds this morning, the men
invisible, and the rope mowing over the high tops of the grass, when the
noise disturbed a hippopotamus from his slumber, and he was immediately
perceived close to the boat. He was about half grown, and in an instant
about twenty men jumped into the water in search of him, thinking him a
mere baby; but as he suddenly appeared, and was about three times as
large as they had expected, they were not very eager to close. However,
the reis Diabb pluckily led the way and seized him by the hind leg, when
the crowd of men rushed in, and we had a grand tussle. Ropes were thrown
from the vessel, and nooses were quickly slipped over his head, but he
had the best of the struggle and was dragging the people into the open
river; I was therefore obliged to end the sport by putting a ball
through his head. He was scored all over by the tusks of some other
hippopotamus that had been bullying him. The men declared that his
father had thus misused him; others were of opinion that it was his
mother; and the argument ran high, and became hot.

These Arabs have an extraordinary taste for arguments upon the most
trifling points. I have frequently known my men argue throughout the
greater part of the night, and recommence the same argument on the
following morning. These debates generally end in a fight; and in the
present instance the excitement of the hunt only added to the heat of
the argument. They at length agreed to refer it to me, and both parties
approached, vociferously advancing their theories; one half persisting
that the young hippo had been bullied by his father, and the others
adhering to the mother as the cause. I, being referee, suggested that
"perhaps it was his UNCLE." Wah Illahi sahe! (By Allah it is true!) Both
parties were satisfied with the suggestion; dropping their theory they
became practical, and fell to with knives and axes to cut up the cause
of the argument. He was as fat as butter, and was a perfect godsend to
the people, who divided him with great excitement and good humour.

We are now a fleet of seven boats, those of several traders having
joined us. The "Clumsy's" yard looks much better than formerly. I cut
off about ten feet from the end, as it was topheavy. The yard of this
class of vessel should look like an immense fishing-rod, and should be
proportionately elastic, as it tapers gradually to a point. Course S.E.
I hear that the Shillook tribe have attacked Chenooda's people, and that
his boat was capsized, and some lives lost in the hasty retreat. It
serves these slave-hunters right, and I rejoice at their defeat. Exodus
xx. 16: "And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found
in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."

Jan. 16th.--A new dish! There is no longer mock-turtle soup--REAL
turtle is MOCK HIPPOPOTAMUS. I tried boiling the fat, flesh, and skin
together, the result being that the skin assumes the appearance of the
green fat of the turtle, but is far superior. A piece of the head thus
boiled, and then soused in vinegar, with chopped onions, cayenne pepper,
and salt, throws brawn completely in the shade. My men having revelled
in a cauldron of hippopotamus soup, I serve out grog at sunset, all
ships being together. Great contentment, all appetites being satisfied.
The labour of towing through swamps, tugging by the long grass, and
poling against a strong current, is dreadful, and there appears to be no
end to this horrible country. "On dit," that during the dry season there
is plenty of game near the river, but at present boundless marshes
devoid of life, except in the shape of mosquitoes, and a very few
water-fowl, are the only charms of the White Nile. The other day I
caught one of the men stealing the salt; Richarn having been aware of
daily thefts of this treasure, and having failed to report them, the
thief received twenty with the coorbatch, and Richarn is reduced to the
ranks, as I anticipated. No possibility of taking observations, as there
is no landing-place. Jan. 17th.-As usual, marshes, mosquitoes, windings,
dead flats, and light winds; the mosquitoes in the cabin give no rest
even during the day. Stream about two miles per hour. Course S.E.; the
river averaging about one hundred and ten yards in width of clear water.
Jan. 18th.-Country as usual, but the wind brisker. In company with
Koorshid Aga's boats. I have bound the stock of Oswell's old gun with
rhinoceros hide. All guns made for sport in wild countries and rough
riding, should have steel instead of iron from the breech-socket,
extending far back to within six inches of the shoulder-plate; the
trigger-guard should likewise be steel, and should be carried back to an
equal distance with the above rib; the steel should be of extra
thickness, and screwed through to the upper piece; thus the two, being
connected by screws above and below, no fall could break the stock.

Jan,. 19th.-At 8 A.M. we emerged from the apparently endless regions of
marsh grass, and saw on the right bank large herds of cattle, tended by
naked natives, in a country abounding with high grass and mimosa wood.
At 9.15 A.M. arrived at the Zareeba, or station of Binder, an Austrian
subject, and White Nile trader; here we found five noggurs belonging to
him and his partner. Binder's vakeel insisted upon giving a bullock to
my people. This bullock I resisted for some time, until I saw that the
man was affronted. It is impossible to procure from the natives any
cattle by purchase. The country is now a swamp, but it will be passable
during the dry season. Took equal altitudes of sun producing latitude 7
degrees 5' 46". The misery of these unfortunate blacks is beyond
description; they will not kill their cattle, neither do they taste meat
unless an animal dies of sickness; they will not work, thus they
frequently starve, existing only upon rats, lizards, snakes, and upon
such fish as they can spear. The spearing of fish is a mere hazard, as
they cast the harpoon at random among the reeds; thus, out of three or
four hundred casts, they may, by good luck, strike a fish. The harpoon
is neatly made, and is attached to a pliable reed about twenty feet
long, secured by a long line. Occasionally they strike a monster, as
there are varieties of fish which attain a weight of two hundred pounds.
In the event of harpooning such a fish, a long and exciting chase is the
result, as he carries away the harpoon, and runs out the entire length
of line; they then swim after him, holding their end of the line, and
playing him until exhausted. The chief of this tribe (the Kytch) wore a
leopard-skin across his shoulders, and a skull-cap of white beads, with
a crest of white ostrich-feathers; but the mantle was merely slung over
his shoulders, and all other parts of his person were naked. His
daughter was the best-looking girl that I have seen among the blacks;
she was about sixteen. Her clothing consisted of a little piece of
dressed hide about a foot wide slung across her shoulders, all other
parts being exposed. All the girls of this country wear merely a circlet
of little iron jingling ornaments round their waists. They came in
numbers, bringing small bundles of wood to exchange for a few handfuls
of corn. Most of the men are tall, but wretchedly thin; the children are
mere skeletons, and the entire tribe appears thoroughly starved. The
language is that of the Dinka. The chief carried a curious tobacco-box,
an iron spike about two feet long, with a hollow socket, bound with
iguana-skin; this served for either tobacco-box, club, or dagger.
Throughout the whole of this marshy country it is curious to observe the
number of white ant-hills standing above the water in the marshes: these
Babel towers save their inmates from the deluge; working during the dry
season, the white ants carry their hills to so great a height (about ten
feet), that they can live securely in the upper stories during the
floods. The whole day we are beset by crowds of starving people,
bringing small gourd-shells to receive the expected corn. The people of
this tribe are mere apes, trusting entirely to the productions of nature
for their subsistence; they will spend hours in digging out field-mice
from their burrows, as we should for rabbits. They are the most pitiable
set of savages that can be imagined; so emaciated, that they have no
visible posteriors; they look as though they had been planed off, and
their long thin legs and arms give them a peculiar gnat-like appearance.
At night they crouch close to the fires, lying in the smoke to escape
the clouds of mosquitoes. At this season the country is a vast swamp,
the only dry spots being the white ant-hills; in such places the natives
herd like wild animals, simply rubbing themselves with wood-ashes to
keep out the cold.

Jan. 20th.--The river from this spot turns sharp to the east, but an
arm equally broad comes from S. 20 degrees E. to this point. There is no
stream from this arm. The main stream runs round the angle with a rapid
current of about two and a half miles per hour. The natives say that
this arm of dead water extends for three or four days' sailing, and is
then lost in the high reeds. My reis Diabb declares this to be a mere
backwater, and that it is not connected with the main river by any
positive channel.

So miserable are the natives of the Kytch tribe, that they devour both
skins and bones of all dead animals; the bones are pounded between
stones, and when reduced to powder they are boiled to a kind of
porridge; nothing is left even for a fly to feed upon, when an animal
either dies a natural death, or is killed. I never pitied poor creatures
more than these utterly destitute savages; their method of returning
thanks is by holding your hand and affecting to spit upon it; which
operation they do not actually perform, as I have seen stated in works
upon the White Nile. Their domestic arrangements are peculiar. Polygamy
is of course allowed, as in all other hot climates and savage countries;
but when a man becomes too old to pay sufficient attention to his
numerous young wives, the eldest son takes the place of his father and
becomes his substitute. To every herd of cattle there is a sacred bull,
which is supposed to exert an influence over the prosperity of the
flocks; his horns are ornamented with tufts of feathers, and frequently
with small bells, and he invariably leads the great herd to pasture. On
starting in the early morning from the cattle kraal the natives address
the bull, telling him "to watch over the herd; to keep the cows from
straying; and to lead them to the sweetest pastures, so that they shall
give abundance of milk," &c.

Jan. 21st.--Last night a sudden squall carried away Koorshid Aga's
mast by the deck, leaving him a complete wreck. The weather to-day is
dull, oppressive, and dead calm. As usual, endless marshes, and
mosquitoes. I never either saw or heard of so disgusting a country as
that bordering the White Nile from Khartoum to this point. Course S.E.
as nearly as I can judge, but the endless windings, and the absence of
any mark as a point, make it difficult to give an accurate course--the
river about a hundred yards in width of clear water; alive with floating
vegetation, with a current of about two miles per hour.

Jan. 22d.--The luxuries of the country as usual--malaria, marshes,
mosquitoes, misery; far as the eye can reach, vast treeless marshes
perfectly lifeless. At times progressing slowly by towing, the men
struggling through the water with the rope; at other times by running
round the boat in a circle, pulling with their hands at the grass, which
thus acts like the cogs of a wheel to move us gradually forward. One of
my horses, "Filfil," out of pure amusement kicks at the men as they
pass, and having succeeded several times in kicking them into the river,
he perseveres in the fun, I believe for lack of other employment.

Hippopotami are heard snorting in the high reeds both day and night, but
we see very few. The black women on board are daily quarrelling together
and fighting like bull-dogs; little Gaddum Her is a regular black toy
terrier, rather old, wonderfully strong, very short, but making up in
spirit for what she lacks in stature; she is the quintessence of vice,
being ready for a stand-up fight at the shortest notice. On one occasion
she fought with her antagonist until both fell down the hold, smashing
all my water jars; on another day they both fell into the river. The
ennui of this wretched voyage appears to try the temper of both man and
beast; the horses, donkeys, and camels are constantly fighting and
biting at all around.

Jan. 23d.--At 8 a.m. arrived at Aboukooka, the establishment of a
French trader. It is impossible to describe the misery of the land; in
the midst of the vast expanse of marsh is a little plot of dry ground
about thirty-five yards square, and within thirty yards of the river,
but to be reached only by wading through the swamp. The establishment
consisted of about a dozen straw huts, occupied by a wretched
fever-stricken set of people; the vakeel, and others employed, came to
the boats to beg for corn. I stopped for ten minutes at the charming
watering-place Aboukooka to obtain the news of the country. The current
at this point is as usual very strong, being upwards of two and a half
miles per hour; the river is quite bank-full although not actually
flooding, the windings endless; one moment our course is due north, then
east, then again north, and as suddenly due south; in fact, we face
every point of the compass within an hour. Frequently the noggurs that
are far in the rear appear in advance; it is a heartbreaking river
without a single redeeming point; I do not wonder at the failure of all
expeditions in this wretched country. There is a breeze to-day, thus the
oppressive heat and stagnated marsh atmosphere is relieved. I have
always remarked that when the sky is clouded we suffer more from heat
and oppression than when the day is clear; there is a weight in the
atmosphere that would be interesting if tested by the barometer.

The water is excessively bad throughout the White Nile, especially
between the Shillook and the Kytch tribes; that of the Bahr Gazal is
even worse. The reis Diabb tells me that the north wind always fails
between the Nuehr and the upper portion of the Kytch. I could not
believe that so miserable a country existed as the whole of this land.
There is no game to be seen at this season, few birds, and not even
crocodiles show themselves; all the water-animals are hidden in the high
grass; thus there is absolutely nothing living to be seen, but day after
day is passed in winding slowly through the labyrinth of endless marsh,
through clouds of mosquitoes.

At 4.20 a.m. arrived at the Austrian mission-station of St. Croix, and
I delivered a letter to the chief of the establishment, Herr Morlang.

Jan. 24th.--Took observations of the sun, making latitude 6 degrees
39'.

The mission-station consists of about twenty grass huts on a patch of
dry ground close to the river. The church is a small hut, but neatly
arranged. Herr Morlang acknowledged, with great feeling, that the
mission was absolutely useless among such savages; that he had worked
with much zeal for many years, but that the natives were utterly
impracticable. They were far below the brutes, as the latter show signs
of affection to those who are kind to them; while the natives, on the
contrary, are utterly obtuse to all feelings of gratitude. He described
the people as lying and deceitful to a superlative degree; the more they
receive the more they desire, but in return they will do nothing.

Twenty or thirty of these disgusting, ash-smeared, stark naked brutes,
armed with clubs of hard wood brought to a point, were lying idly about
the station. The mission having given up the White Nile as a total
failure, Herr Morlang sold the whole village and mission-station to
Koorshid Aga this morning for 3,000 piastres, 30 pounds! I purchased a
horse of the missionaries for 1,000 piastres, which I christened
"Priest" as coming from the mission; he is a good-looking animal, and
has been used to the gun, as the unfortunate Baron Harnier rode him
buffalo-hunting. This good sportsman was a Prussian nobleman, who with
two European attendants, had for some time amused himself by collecting
objects of natural history and shooting in this neighbourhood. Both his
Europeans succumbed to marsh fever.

The end of Baron Harnier was exceedingly tragic.  Having wounded a
buffalo, the animal charged a native attendant and threw him to the
ground; Baron Harnier was unloaded, and with great courage he attacked
the buffalo with the butt-end of his rifle to rescue the man then
beneath the animal's horns. The buffalo left the man and turned upon his
new assailant. The native, far from assisting his master, who had thus
jeopardized his life to save him, fled from the spot. The unfortunate
baron was found by the missionaries trampled and gored into an
undistinguishable mass; and the dead body of the buffalo was found at a
short distance, the animal having been mortally wounded. I went to see
the grave of this brave Prussian, who had thus sacrificed so noble a
life for so worthless an object as a cowardly native. It had been well
cared for by the kind hands of the missionaries and was protected by
thorn bushes laid around it, but I fear it will be neglected now that
the mission has fallen into unholy hands. It is a pitiable sight to
witness the self-sacrifice that many noble men have made in these
frightful countries without any good results. Near to the grave of Baron
Harnier are those of several members of the mission, who have left their
bones in this horrid land, while not one convert has been made from the
mission of St. Croix.

The river divides into two branches, about five miles above this
station, forming an island. Upon this is a fishing-station of the
natives; the native name of the spot is Pomone. The country is swampy
and scantily covered with bushes and small trees, but no actual timber.
As usual, the entire country is dead flat; it abounds with elephants a
few miles inland. Herr Morlang describes the whole of the White Nile
traders as a mere colony of robbers, who pillage and shoot the natives
at discretion. On the opposite side of the river there is a large
neglected garden, belonging to the mission. Although the soil is
extremely rich, neither grapes nor pomegranate will succeed; they bear
fruit, but of a very acrid flavour. Dates blossom, but will not fruit.

Jan. 25th.--Started at 7 A.M. Course S.E.

Jan. 26th.--The Bohr tribe on the east bank. No wind. The current
nearly three miles per hour. The river about a hundred and twenty yards
wide in clear water. Marshes and flats, as usual. Thermometer throughout
the journey, at 6 A.M., 68 degrees Fahr., and at noon 86 to 93 degrees
Fahr.

Jan. 27th.--One day is a repetition of the preceding.

Jan. 28th.--Passed two bivouacs of the Aliab tribe, with great herds
of cattle on the west bank. The natives appeared to be friendly, dancing
and gesticulating as the boats passed. The White Nile tribe not only
milk their cows, but they bleed their cattle periodically, and boil the
blood for food. Driving a lance into a vein in the neck, they bleed the
animal copiously, which operation is repeated about once a month.

Jan. 29th.--Passed a multitude of cattle and natives on a spot on the
right bank, in clouds of smoke as a "chasse des moustiques." They make
tumuli of dung, which are constantly on fire, fresh fuel being
continually added, to drive away the mosquitoes. Around these heaps the
cattle crowd in hundreds, living with the natives in the smoke. By
degrees the heaps of ashes become about eight feet high; they are then
used as sleeping-places and watch-stations by the natives, who, rubbing
themselves all over with the ashes, have a ghastly and devilish
appearance that is indescribable. The country is covered with old tumuli
formed in this manner. A camp may contain twenty or thirty such, in
addition to fresh heaps that are constantly burning. Fires of cow-dung
are also made on the leveled tops of the old heaps, and bundles of green
canes, about sixteen feet high, are planted on the summit; these wave in
the breeze like a plume of ostrich feathers, and give shade to the
people during the heat of the day.

JAN. 30TH.--Arrived at the "Shir" tribe. The men are, as usual in
these countries, armed with well-made ebony clubs, two lances, a bow
(always strung), and a bundle of arrows; their hands are completely full
of weapons; and they carry a neatly-made miniature stool slung upon
their backs, in addition to an immense pipe. Thus a man carries all that
be most values about his person. The females in this tribe are not
absolutely naked; like those of the Kytch, they wear small lappets of
tanned leather as broad as the hand; at the back of the belt, which
supports this apron, is a tail which reaches to the lower portions of
the thighs; this tail is formed of finely-cut strips of leather, and
the costume has doubtless been the foundation for the report I had
received from the Arabs, "that a tribe in Central Africa had tails like
horses." The women carry their children very conveniently in a skin
slung from their shoulders across the back, and secured by a thong round
the waist; in this the young savage sits delightfully. The huts
throughout all tribes are circular, with entrances so low that the
natives creep both in and out upon their hands and knees. The men wear
tufts of cock's feathers on the crown of the head; and their favorite
attitude, when standing, is on one leg while leaning on a spear, the
foot of the raised leg resting on the inside of the other knee. Their
arrows are about three feet long, without feathers, and pointed with
hard wood instead of iron, the metal being scarce among the Shir tribe.
The most valuable article of barter for this tribe is the iron hoe
generally used among the White Nile negroes. In form it is precisely
similar to the "ace of spades." The finery most prized by the women are
polished iron anklets, which they wear in such numbers that they reach
nearly half-way up the calf of the leg; the tinkling of these rings is
considered to be very enticing, but the sound reminds one of the
clanking of convicts' fetters.

All the tribes of the White Nile have their harvest of the lotus seed.
There are two species of water-lily--the large white flower, and a
small variety. The seed-pod of the white lotus is like an unblown
artichoke, containing a number of light red grains equal in size to
mustard-seed, but shaped like those of the poppy, and similar to them in
flavour, being sweet and nutty. The ripe pods are collected and strung
upon sharp-pointed reeds about four feet in length. When thus threaded
they are formed into large bundles, and carried from the river to the
villages, where they are dried in the sun, and stored for use. The seed
is ground into flour, and made into a kind of porridge. The women of the
Shir tribe are very clever at manufacturing baskets and mats from the
leaf of the dome palm. They also make girdles and necklaces of minute
pieces of river mussel shells threaded upon the hair of the giraffe's
tail. This is a work of great time, and the effect is about equal to a
string of mother-of-pearl buttons.

Jan. 31st.--At 1.15 P.M. sighted Gebel Lardo, bearing S. 30 degrees
west. This is the first mountain we have seen, and we are at last near
our destination, Gondokoro. I observed to-day a common sand-piper
sitting on the head of a hippopotamus; when he disappeared under water
the bird skimmed over the surface, hovering near the spot until the
animal reappeared, when he again settled.

Feb. 1st.--The character of the river has changed. The marshes have
given place to dry ground; the banks are about four feet above the
water-level, and well wooded; the country having the appearance of an
orchard, and being thickly populated. The natives thronged to the boats,
being astonished at the camels. At one village during the voyage the
natives examined the donkeys with great curiosity, thinking that they
were the oxen of our country, and that we were bringing them to exchange
for ivory.

Feb. 2nd--The mountain Lardo is about twelve miles west of the river.
At daybreak we sighted the mountains near Gondokoro, bearing due south.
As yet I have seen no symptoms of hostility in this country. I cannot
help, thinking that the conduct of the natives depends much upon that of
the traveller. Arrived at Gondokoro. By astronomical observation I
determined the latitude, 4 degrees 55 minutes North, Longitude 31
degrees 46 minutes East. Gondokoro is a great improvement upon the
interminable marshes; the soil is firm and raised about twenty feet
above the river level. Distant mountains relieve the eye accustomed to
the dreary flats of the White Nile; and evergreen trees scattered over
the face of the landscape, with neat little native villages beneath
their shade, form a most inviting landing-place after a long and tedious
voyage. This spot was formerly a mission-station. There remain to this
day the ruins of the brick establishment and church, and the wreck of
what was once a garden; groves of citron and lime-trees still exist, the
only signs that an attempt at civilization has been made--"seed cast
upon the wayside." There is no town. Gondokoro is merely a station of
the ivory traders, occupied for about two months during the year, after
which time it is deserted, when the annual boats return to Khartoum and
the remaining expeditions depart for the interior. A few miserable grass
huts are all that dignify the spot with a name. The climate is unhealthy
and hot. The thermometer from 90 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit at noon in the
shade.

I landed the animals from the boats in excellent condition all rejoicing
in the freedom of open pasturage.



CHAPTER II.

BAD RECEPTION AT GONDOKORO

All were thankful that the river voyage was concluded; the tedium of the
White Nile will have been participated by the reader, upon whom I have
inflicted the journal, as no other method of description could possibly
convey an idea of the general desolation.

Having landed all my stores, and housed my corn in some granaries
belonging to Koorshid Aga, I took a receipt from him for the quantity,
and gave him an order to deliver one-half from my depot to Speke and
Grant, should they arrive at Gondokoro during my absence in the
interior. I was under an apprehension that they might arrive by some
route without my knowledge, while I should be penetrating south.

There were a great number of men at Gondokoro belonging to the various
traders, who looked upon me with the greatest suspicion; they could not
believe that simple travelling was my object, and they were shortly
convinced that I was intent upon espionage in their nefarious ivory
business and slave-hunting.

In conversing with the traders, and assuring them that my object was
entirely confined to a search for the Nile sources, and an inquiry for
Speke and Grant, I heard a curious report that had been brought down by
the natives from the interior, that at some great distance to the south
there were two white men who had been for a long time prisoners of a
sultan; and that these men had wonderful fireworks; that both had been
very ill, and that one had died. It was in vain that I endeavoured to
obtain some further clue to this exciting report. There was a rumour
that some native had a piece of wood with marks upon it that had
belonged to the white men; but upon inquiry I found that this account
was only a report given by some distant tribe. Nevertheless, I attached
great importance to the rumour, as there was no white man south of
Gondokoro engaged in the ivory trade; therefore there was a strong
probability that the report had some connexion with the existence of
Speke and Grant. I had heard, when at Khartoum, that the most advanced
trading station was about fifteen days' march from Gondokoro, and my
plan of operations had always projected a direct advance to that
station, where I had intended to leave all my heavy baggage in depot,
and to proceed from thence as a "point de depart" to the south. I now
understood that the party were expected to arrive at Gondokoro from that
station with ivory in a few days, and I determined to wait for their
arrival, and to return with them in company. Their ivory porters
returning, might carry my baggage, and thus save the backs of my
transport animals.

I accordingly amused myself at Gondokoro, exercising my horses in riding
about the neighbourhood, and studying the place and people. The native
dwellings are the perfection of cleanliness; the domicile of each family
is surrounded by a hedge of the impenetrable euphorbia, and the interior
of the enclosure generally consists of a yard neatly plastered with a
cement of ashes, cow-dung, and sand. Upon this cleanly-swept surface are
one or more huts surrounded by granaries of neat wicker-work, thatched,
resting upon raised platforms. The huts have projecting roofs in order
to afford a shade, and the entrance is usually about two feet high. When
a member of the family dies he is buried in the yard; a few ox-horns and
skulls are suspended on a pole above the spot, while the top of the pole
is ornamented with a bunch of cock's feathers. Every man carries his
weapons, pipe, and stool, the whole (except the stool) being held
between his legs when standing. These natives of Gondokoro are the Bari:
the men are well grown, the women are not prepossessing, but the
negro-type of thick lips and flat nose is wanting; their features are
good, and the woolly hair alone denotes the trace of negro blood. They
are tattooed upon the stomach, sides, and back, so closely, that it has
the appearance of a broad belt of fish-scales, especially when they are
rubbed with red ochre, which is the prevailing fashion. This pigment is
made of a peculiar clay, rich in oxide of iron, which, when burnt, is
reduced to powder, and then formed into lumps like pieces of soap; both
sexes anoint themselves with this ochre, formed into a paste by the
admixture of grease, giving themselves the appearance of new red bricks.
The only hair upon their persons is a small tuft upon the crown of the
head, in which they stick one or more feathers. The women are generally
free from hair, their heads being shaved. They wear a neat little
lappet, about six inches long, of beads, or of small iron rings, worked
like a coat of mail, in lieu of a fig-leaf, and the usual tail of fine
shreds of leather or twine, spun from indigenous cotton, pendant behind.
Both the lappet and tail are fastened on a belt which is worn round the
loins, like those in the Shir tribe; thus the toilette is completed at
once. It would be highly useful, could they only wag their tails to
whisk off the flies which are torments in this country.

The cattle are very small; the goats and sheep are quite Lilliputian,
but they generally give three at a birth, and thus multiply quickly. The
people of the country were formerly friendly, but the Khartoumers
pillage and murder them at discretion in all directions; thus, in
revenge, they will shoot a poisoned arrow at a stranger unless he is
powerfully escorted. The effect of the poison used for the arrow-heads
is very extraordinary. A man came to me for medical aid; five months ago
he bad been wounded by a poisoned arrow in the leg, below the calf, and
the entire foot had been eaten away by the action of the poison. The
bone rotted through just above the ankle, and the foot dropped off. The
most violent poison is the produce of the root of a tree, whose milky
juice yields a resin that is smeared upon the arrow. It is brought from
a great distance, from some country far west of Gondokoro. The juice of
the species of euphorbia, common in these countries, is also used for
poisoning arrows. Boiled to the consistence of tar, it is then smeared
upon the blade. The action of the poison is to corrode the flesh, which
loses its fiber, and drops away like jelly, after severe inflammation
and swelling. The arrows are barbed with diabolical ingenuity; some are
arranged with poisoned heads that fit into sockets; these detach from
the arrow on an attempt to withdraw them; thus the barbed blade, thickly
smeared with poison, remains in the wound, and before it can be cut out
the poison is absorbed by the system. Fortunately the natives are bad
archers. The bows are invariably made of the male bamboo, and are kept
perpetually strung; they are exceedingly stiff, but not very elastic,
and the arrows are devoid of feathers, being simple reeds or other light
wood, about three feet long, and slightly knobbed at the base as a hold
for the finger and thumb; the string is never drawn with the two
forefingers, as in most countries, but is simply pulled by holding the
arrow between the middle joint of the forefinger and the thumb. A stiff
bow drawn in this manner has very little power; accordingly the extreme
range seldom exceeds a hundred and ten yards.

The Bari tribe are very hostile, and are considered to be about the
worst of the White Nile. They have been so often defeated by the
traders' parties in the immediate neighborhood of Gondokoro, that they
are on their best behavior, while within half a mile of the station; but
it is not at all uncommon to be asked for beads as a tax for the right
of sitting under a shady tree, or for passing through the country. The
traders' people, in order to terrify them into submission, were in the
habit of binding them, hands and feet, and carrying them to the edge of
a cliff about thirty feet high, a little beyond the ruins of the old
mission-house: beneath this cliff the river boils in a deep eddy; into
this watery grave the victims were remorselessly hurled as food for
crocodiles. It appeared that this punishment was dreaded by the natives
more than the bullet or rope, and it was accordingly adopted by the
trading parties.

Upon my arrival at Gondokoro I was looked upon by all these parties as a
spy sent by the British Government. Whenever I approached the
encampments of the various traders, I heard the clanking of fetters
before I reached the station, as the slaves were being quickly driven
into hiding-places to avoid inspection. They were chained by two rings
secured round the ankles, and connected by three or four links. One of
these traders was a Copt, the father of the American Consul at Khartoum;
and, to my surprise, I saw the vessels full of brigands arrive at
Gondokoro, with the American flag flying at the mast-head.

Gondokoro was a perfect hell. It is utterly ignored by the Egyptian
authorities, although well known to be a colony of cut-throats. Nothing
would be easier than to send a few officers and two hundred men from
Khartoum to form a military government, and thus impede the slave-trade;
but a bribe from the traders to the authorities is sufficient to insure
an uninterrupted asylum for any amount of villany. The camps were full
of slaves, and the Bari natives assured me that there were large depots
of slaves in the interior belonging to the traders that would be marched
to Gondokoro for shipment to the Soudan a few hours after my departure.
I was the great stumbling-block to the trade, and my presence at
Gondokoro was considered as an unwarrantable intrusion upon a locality
sacred to slavery and iniquity. There were about six hundred of the
traders' people at Gondokoro, whose time was passed in drinking,
quarrelling, and ill-treating the slaves. The greater number were in a
constant state of intoxication, and when in such a state, it was their
invariable custom to fire off their guns in the first direction prompted
by their drunken instincts; thus, from morning till night, guns were
popping in all quarters, and the bullets humming through the air
sometimes close to our ears, and on more than one occasion they struck
up the dust at my feet. Nothing was more probable than a ball through
the head by ACCIDENT, which might have had the beneficial effect of
ridding the traders from a spy. A boy was sitting upon the gunwale of
one of the boats, when a bullet suddenly struck him in the head,
shattering the skull to atoms. NO ONE HAD DONE IT. The body fell into
the water, and the fragments of the skull were scattered on the deck.

After a few days' detention at Gondokoro, I saw unmistakeable signs of
discontent among my men, who had evidently been tampered with by the
different traders' parties. One evening several of the most disaffected
came to me with a complaint that they had not enough meat, and that they
must be allowed to make a razzia upon the cattle of the natives to
procure some oxen. This demand being of course refused, they retired,
muttering in an insolent manner their determination of stealing cattle
with or without my permission. I said nothing at the time, but early on
the following morning I ordered the drum to beat, and the men to fall
in. I made them a short address, reminding them of the agreement made at
Khartoum to follow me faithfully, and of the compact that had been
entered into, that they were neither to indulge in slave-hunting nor in
cattle-stealing. The only effect of my address was a great outbreak of
insolence on the part of the ringleader of the previous evening. This
fellow, named Eesur, was an Arab, and his impertinence was so violent,
that I immediately ordered him twenty-five lashes, as an example to the
others.

Upon the vakeel (Saati) advancing to seize him, there was a general
mutiny. Many of the men threw down their guns and seized sticks, and
rushed to the rescue of their tall ringleader. Saati was a little man,
and was perfectly helpless. Here was an escort: these were the men upon
whom I was to depend in hours of difficulty and danger on an expedition
in unknown regions; these were the fellows that I had considered to be
reduced "from wolves to lambs!"

I was determined not to be done, and to insist upon the punishment of
the ringleader. I accordingly went towards him with the intention of
seizing him; but he, being backed by upwards of forty men, had the
impertinence to attack me, rushing forward with a fury that was
ridiculous. To stop his blow, and to knock him into the middle of the
crowd, was not difficult; and after a rapid repetition of the dose, I
disabled him, and seizing him by the throat, I called to my vakeel Saati
for a rope to bind him, but in an instant I had a crowd of men upon me
to rescue their leader. How the affair would have ended I cannot say;
but as the scene lay within ten yards of my boat, my wife, who was ill
with fever in the cabin, witnessed the whole affray, and seeing me
surrounded, she rushed out, and in a few moments she was in the middle
of the crowd, who at that time were endeavoring to rescue my prisoner.
Her sudden appearance had a curious effect, and calling upon several of
the least mutinous to assist, she very pluckily made her way up to me.
Seizing the opportunity of an indecision that was for the moment evinced
by the crowd, I shouted to the drummer boy to beat the drum. In an
instant the drum beat, and at the top of my voice I ordered the men to
"fall in." It is curious how mechanically an order is obeyed if given at
the right moment, even in the midst of mutiny. Two-thirds of the men
fell in, and formed in line, while the remainder retreated with the
ringleader, Eesur, whom they led away, declaring that he was badly hurt.
The affair ended in my insisting upon all forming in line, and upon the
ringleader being brought forward. In this critical moment Mrs. Baker,
with great tact, came forward and implored me to forgive him if he
kissed my hand and begged for pardon. This compromise completely won the
men, who, although a few minutes before in open mutiny, now called upon
their ringleader Eesur to apologize, and that all would be right. I made
them rather a bitter speech, and dismissed them.

From that moment I knew that my expedition was fated. This outbreak was
an example of what was to follow. Previous to leaving Khartoum I had
felt convinced that I could not succeed with such villains for escort as
these Khartoumers: thus I had applied to the Egyptian authorities for a
few troops, but had been refused. I was now in an awkward position. All
my men had received five months' wages in advance, according to the
custom of the White Nile; thus I had no control over them. There were no
Egyptian authorities in Gondokoro; it was a nest of robbers; and my men
had just exhibited so pleasantly their attachment to me, and their
fidelity. There was no European beyond Gondokoro, thus I should be the
only white man among this colony of wolves; and I had in perspective a
difficult and uncertain path, where the only chance of success lay in
the complete discipline of my escort, and the perfect organization of
the expedition. After the scene just enacted I felt sure that my escort
would give me more cause for anxiety than the acknowledged hostility of
the natives.

I made arrangements with a Circassian trader, Koorshid Aga, for the
purchase of a few oxen, and a fat beast was immediately slaughtered for
the men. They were shortly in the best humour, feasting upon masses of
flesh cut in strips and laid for a few minutes upon the embers, while
the regular meal was being prepared. They were now almost affectionate,
vowing that they would follow me to the end of the world; while the late
ringleader, in spite of his countenance being rather painted in the late
row, declared that no man would be so true as himself, and that every
"arrow should pass through him before it should reach me" in the event
of a conflict with the natives. A very slight knowledge of human nature
was required to foresee the future with such an escort:--if love and
duty were dependent upon full bellies, mutiny and disorder would appear
with hard fare. However, by having parade every morning at a certain
hour, I endeavoured to establish a degree of regularity. I had been
waiting at Gondokoro twelve days, expecting the arrival of Debono's
party from the south, with whom I wished to return. Suddenly, on the
15th February, I heard the rattle of musketry at a great distance, and a
dropping fire from the south. To give an idea of the moment I must
extract verbatim from my journal as written at the time.

"Guns firing in the distance; Debono's ivory porters arriving, for whom
I have waited. My men rushed madly to my boat, with the report that two
white men were with them who had come from the SEA! Could they be Speke
and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in reality. Hurrah for old
England! they had come from the Victoria N'yanza, from which the Nile
springs .... The mystery of ages solved. With my pleasure of meeting
them is the one disappointment, that I had not met them farther on the
road in my search for them; however, the satisfaction is, that my
previous arrangements had been such as would have insured my finding
them had they been in a fix .... My projected route would have brought
me vis-a-vis with them, as they had come from the lake by the course I
had proposed to take .... All my men perfectly mad with excitement:
firing salutes as usual with ball cartridge, they shot one of my
donkeys; a melancholy sacrifice as an offering at the completion of this
geographical discovery."

When I first met them they were walking along the bank of the river
towards my boats. At a distance of about a hundred yards I recognised my
old friend Speke, and with a heart beating with joy I took off my cap
and gave a welcome hurrah! as I ran towards him. For the moment he did
not recognize me; ten years' growth of beard and moustache had worked a
change; and as I was totally unexpected, my sudden appearance in the
center of Africa appeared to him incredible. I hardly required an
introduction to his companion, as we felt already acquainted, and after
the transports of this happy meeting we walked together to my diahbiah;
my men surrounding us with smoke and noise by keeping up an unremitting
fire of musketry the whole way. We were shortly seated on deck under the
awning, and such rough fare as could be hastily prepared was set before
these two ragged, careworn specimens of African travel, whom I looked
upon with feelings of pride as my own countrymen. As a good ship arrives
in harbor, battered and torn by a long and stormy voyage, yet sound in
her frame and seaworthy to the last, so both these gallant travelers
arrived at Gondokoro. Speke appeared the more worn of the two; he was
excessively lean, but in reality he was in good tough condition; he had
walked the whole way from Zanzibar, never having once ridden during that
wearying march. Grant was in honourable rags; his bare knees projecting
through the remnants of trowsers that were an exhibition of rough
industry in tailor's work. He was looking tired and feverish, but both
men had a fire in the eye that showed the spirit that had led them
through.

They wished to leave Gondokoro as soon as possible, en route for
England, but delayed their departure until the moon should be in a
position for an observation for determining the longitude. My boats were
fortunately engaged by me for five months, thus Speke and Grant could
take charge of them to Khartoum.

At the first blush on meeting them I had considered my expedition as
terminated by having met them, and by their having accomplished the
discovery of the Nile source; but upon my congratulating them with all
my heart, upon the honour they had so nobly earned, Speke and Grant with
characteristic candour and generosity gave me a map of their route,
showing that they had been unable to complete the actual exploration of
the Nile, and that a most important portion still remained to be
determined. It appeared that in N. lat. 2 degrees 17 minutes, they had
crossed the Nile, which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but the
river, which from its exit from that lake had a northern course, turned
suddenly to the WEST from Karuma Falls (the point at which they crossed
it at lat. 2 degrees 17 minutes). They did not see the Nile again until
they arrived in N. lat. 3 deg. 32 min., which was then flowing from the
W.S.W. The natives and the King of Unyoro (Kamrasi) had assured them
that the Nile from the Victoria N'yanza, which they had crossed at
Karuma, flowed westward for several days' journey, and at length fell
into a large lake called the Luta N'zige; that this lake came from the
south, and that the Nile on entering the northern extremity almost
immediately made its exit, and as a navigable river continued its course
to the north, through the Koshi and Madi countries. Both Speke and Grant
attached great importance to this lake Luta N'zige, and the former was
much annoyed that it had been impossible for them to carry out the
exploration. He foresaw that stay-at-home geographers, who, with a
comfortable armchair to sit in, travel so easily with their fingers on a
map, would ask him why he had not gone from such a place to such a
place? why he had not followed the Nile to the Luta N'zige lake, and
from the lake to Gondokoro? As it happened, it was impossible for Speke
and Grant to follow the Nile from Karuma:--the tribes were fighting
with Kamrasi, and no strangers could have got through the country.
Accordingly they procured their information most carefully, completed
their map, and laid down the reported lake in its supposed position,
showing the Nile as both influent and effluent precisely as had been
explained by the natives.

Speke expressed his conviction that the Luta N'zige must be a second
source of the Nile, and that geographers would be dissatisfied that he
had not explored it. To me this was most gratifying. I had been much
disheartened at the idea that the great work was accomplished, and that
nothing remained for exploration; I even said to Speke, "Does not one
leaf of the laurel remain for me?" I now heard that the field was not
only open, but that an additional interest was given to the exploration
by the proof that the Nile flowed out of one great lake, the Victoria,
but that it evidently must derive an additional supply from an unknown
lake as it entered it at the NORTHERN extremity, while the body of the
lake came from the south. The fact of a great body of water such as the
Luta N'zige extending in a direct line from south to north, while the
general system of drainage of the Nile was from the same direction,
showed most conclusively, that the Luta N'zige, if it existed in the
form assumed, must have an important position in the basin of the Nile.

My expedition had naturally been rather costly, and being in excellent
order it would have been heartbreaking to have returned fruitlessly. I
therefore arranged immediately for my departure, and Speke most kindly
wrote in my journal such instructions as might be useful. I therefore
copy them verbatim:

"Before you leave this be sure you engage two men, one speaking the Bari
or Madi language, and one speaking Kinyoro, to be your interpreters
through the whole journey, for there are only two distinct families of
languages in the country, though of course some dialectic differences,
which can be easily overcome by anybody who knows the family language.
. . . Now, as you are bent on first going to visit Kamrasi M'Kamma, or
King of Unyoro, and then to see as much of the western countries
bordering on the little Luta N'zige, or `dead locust' lake, as possible,
go in company with the ivory hunters across the Asua river to Apuddo
eight marches, and look for game to the east of that village. Two
marches further on will bring you to Panyoro, where there are antelopes
in great quantity; and in one march more the Turks' farthest outpost,
Faloro, will be reached, where you had better form a depot, and make a
flying trip across the White Nile to Koshi for the purpose of inquiring
what tribes live to west and south of it, especially of the Wallegga;
how the river comes from the south, and where it is joined by the little
Luta N'zige. Inquire also after the country of Chopi, and what
difficulties or otherwise you would have to overcome if you followed up
the left bank of the White river to Kamrasi's; because, if found easy,
it would be far nearer and better to reach Kamrasi that way than going
through the desert jungles of Ukidi, as we went. This is the way I
should certainly go myself, but if you do not like the look of it,
preserve your information well; and after returning to Faloro, make Koki
per Chougi in two marches, and tell old Chougi you wish to visit his
M'Kamma Kamrasi, for Chougi was appointed Governor-general of that place
by Kamrasi to watch the Wakidi who live between his residence and Chopi,
which is the next country you will reach after passing through the
jungles of Ukidi and crossing the Nile below Karuma Falls. Arrived at
Chopi, inquire for the residence of the Katikiro or commander-in-chief,
who will show you great respect, give you cows and pombe, and send
messengers on to Kamrasi to acquaint him of your intention to visit him.
This is the richest part of Kamrasi's possessions, and by a little
inquiry you will learn much about the lake. Kamrasi's brother Rionga
lives on a river island within one march of this. They are deadly
enemies and always fighting, so if you made a mistake and went to
Rionga's first, as the Turks would wish you to do, all travelling in
Unyoro would be cut off. Tell the Katikiro all your plans frankly, and
remark earnestly upon my great displeasure at Kamrasi's having detained
me so long in his country without deigning to see me, else he may be
assured no other white man will ever take the trouble to see him. We
came down the river in boats from Kamrasi's to Chopi, but the boatmen
gave much trouble, therefore it would be better for you to go overland.
Kamrasi will most likely send Kidgwiga, an excellent officer, to escort
you to his palace, but if he does not, ask after him; you could not have
a better man.

"Arrived at Kamrasi's, insist upon seeing all his fat wives and
brothers. Find out all you can about his pedigree, and ask for leave to
follow up the lake from its JUNCTION with the Nile to Utumbi, and then
crossing to its northern bank follow it down to Ullegga and Koshi. If
you are so fortunate as to reach Utumbi, and don't wish to go farther
south, inquire well about Ruanda, the M'Fumbiro mountains, if there is
any copper in Ruanda, and whether or not the people of those countries
receive Simbi (the cowrie shell) or any other articles of merchandise
from the west coast, guarding well that no confusion is made with the
trade of Karagwe, for Rumanika sends men to Utumbi ivory-hunting
continually. "Remember well that the Wahuma are most likely Gallas; this
question is most interesting, and the more you can gather of their
history, since they crossed the White Nile, the better. Formerly Unyoro,
Uganda, and Uddhu were all united in one vast kingdom called Kittara,
but this name is now only applied to certain portions of that kingdom.

"Nothing is known of the Mountains of the Moon to the westward of
Ruanda. In Unyoro the king will feed you; beyond that I suspect you will
have to buy food with beads."

Such was the information most kindly written by Speke, which, in
addition to a map drawn by Captain Grant, and addressed to the Secretary
of the Royal Geographical Society, was to be my guide in the important
exploration resolved upon. I am particular in publishing these details,
in order to show the perfect freedom from jealousy of both Captains
Speke and Grant. Unfortunately, in most affairs of life, there is not
only fair emulation, but ambition is too often combined with intense
jealousy of others. Had this miserable feeling existed in the minds of
Speke and Grant, they would have returned to England with the sole
honour of discovering the source of the Nile; but in their true devotion
to geographical science and especially to the specific object of their
expedition they gave me all information to assist in the completion of
the great problem--the "Nile Sources."

We were all ready to start. Speke and Grant, an their party of
twenty-two people, for Egypt, and I in the opposite direction. At this
season there were many boats at Gondokoro belonging to the traders'
parties, among which were four belonging to Mr. Petherick, three of
which were open cargo boats, and one remarkably nice diahbiah, named the
"Kathleen," that was waiting for Mrs. Petherick and her husband, who
were supposed to be at their trading station, the Niambara, about
seventy miles west of Gondokoro; but no accounts had been heard of them.
On the 20th February they suddenly arrived from the Niambara, with their
people and ivory and were surprised at seeing so large a party of
English in so desolate a spot. It is a curious circumstance, that
although many Europeans had been as far south as Gondokoro, I was the
first Englishman that had ever reached it. We now formed a party of
four.

Gondokoro has a poor and sandy soil, so unproductive that corn is in the
greatest scarcity and is always brought from Khartoum by the annual
boats for the supply of the traders' people, who congregate there from
the interior, in the months of January and February, to deliver the
ivory for shipment to Khartoum. Corn is seldom or never less than eight
times the price at Khartoum; this is a great drawback to the country, as
each trading party that arrives with ivory from the interior brings with
it five or six hundred native porters, all of whom have to be fed during
their stay at Gondokoro, and in many cases, in times of scarcity, they
starve. This famine has given a bad name to the locality, and it is
accordingly difficult to procure porters from the interior, who
naturally fear starvation.

I was thus extremely sorry that I was obliged to refuse a supply of corn
to Mr. Petherick upon his application--an act of necessity, but not of
ill-nature upon my part, as I was obliged to leave a certain quantity in
depot at Gondokoro, in case I should be driven back from the interior,
in the event of which, without a supply in depot, utter starvation would
have been the fate of my party. Mr. Petherick accordingly despatched one
of his boats to the Shir tribe down the White Nile to purchase corn in
exchange for molotes (native hoes). The boat returned with corn on the
11th of March. On the 26th February, Speke and Grant sailed from
Gondokoro. Our hearts were too full to say more than a short "God bless
you!" They had won their victory; my work lay all before me. I watched
their boat until it turned the corner, and wished them in my heart all
honor for their great achievement. I trusted to sustain the name they
had won for English perseverance, and I looked forward to meeting them
again in dear old England, when I should have completed the work we had
so warmly planned together.



CHAPTER III.

GUN ACCIDENT.

A DAY before the departure of Speke and Grant from Gondokoro, an event
occurred which appeared as a bad omen to the superstitions of my men. I
had ordered the diahbiah to be prepared for sailing: thus, the cargo
having been landed and the boat cleared and washed, we were sitting in
the cabin, when a sudden explosion close to the windows startled us from
our seats, and the consternation of a crowd of men who were on the bank,
showed that some accident had happened. I immediately ran out, and found
that the servants had laid all my rifles upon a mat upon the ground, and
that one of the men had walked over the guns; his foot striking the
hammer of one of the No. 10 Reilly rifles, had momentarily raised it
from the nipple, and an instantaneous explosion was the consequence. The
rifle was loaded for elephants, with seven drachms of powder. There was
a quantity of luggage most fortunately lying before the muzzle, but the
effects of the discharge were extraordinary. The ball struck the steel
scabbard of a sword, tearing off the ring; it then passed obliquely
through the stock of a large rifle, and burst through the
shoulder-plate; entering a packing-case of inch-deal, it passed through
it and through the legs of a man who was sitting at some distance, and
striking the hip-bone of another man, who was sitting at some paces
beyond, it completely smashed both hips, and fortunately being expended,
it lodged in the body. Had it not been for the first objects happily in
the route of the ball, it would have killed several men, as they were
sitting in a crowd exactly before the muzzle.

Dr. Murie, who had accompanied Mr. Petherick, very kindly paid the
wounded men every attention, but he with the smashed hip died in a few
hours, apparently without pain.

After the departure of Speke and Grant, I moved my tent to the high
ground above the river; the effluvium from the filth of some thousands
of people was disgusting, and fever was prevalent in all quarters. Both
of us were suffering; also Mr. and Mrs. Petherick, and many of my men,
one of whom died. My animals were all healthy, but the donkeys and
camels were attacked by a bird, about the size of a thrush, which caused
them great uneasiness. This bird is of a greenish-brown colour, with a
powerful red beak, and excessively strong claws. It is a perfect pest to
the animals, and positively eats them into holes. The original object of
the bird in settling upon the animal is to search for vermin, but it is
not contented with the mere insects, and industriously pecks holes in
all parts of the animal, more especially on the back. A wound once
established, adds to the attraction, and the unfortunate animal is so
pestered that it has no time to eat. I was obliged to hire little boys
to watch the donkeys, and to drive off these plagues; but so determined
and bold were the birds, that I have constantly seen them run under the
body of the donkey, clinging to the belly with their feet, and thus
retreating to the opposite side of the animal when chased by the
watch-boys. In a few days my animals were full of wounds, excepting the
horses, whose long tails were effectual whisks. Although the temperature
was high, 95 degrees Fahr., the wind was frequently cold at about three
o'clock in the morning, and one of my horses, "Priest," that I had
lately purchased of the Mission, became paralysed, and could not rise
from the ground. After several days' endeavours to cure him, I was
obliged to shoot him, as the poor animal could not eat.

I now weighed all my baggage, and found that I had fifty-four cantars
(100 lbs. each). The beads, copper, and ammunition were the terrible
onus. I therefore applied to Mahommed, the vakeel of Andrea Debono, who
had escorted Speke and Grant, and I begged his co-operation in the
expedition. These people had brought down a large quantity of ivory from
the interior, and had therefore a number of porters who would return
empty-handed; I accordingly arranged with Mahommed for fifty porters,
who would much relieve the backs of my animals from Gondokoro to the
station at Faloro, about twelve days' march. At Faloro I intended to
leave my heavy baggage in depot, and to proceed direct to Kamrasi's
country. I promised Mahommed that I would use my influence in all new
countries that I might discover, to open a road for his ivory trade,
provided that he would agree to conduct it by legitimate purchase, and I
gave him a list of the quality of beads most desirable for Kamrasi's
country, according to the description I had received from Speke.

Mahommed promised to accompany me, not only to his camp at Faloro, but
throughout the whole of my expedition, provided that I would assist him
in procuring ivory, and that I would give him a handsome present. All
was agreed upon, and my own men appeared in high spirits at the prospect
of joining so large a party as that of Mahommed, which mustered about
two hundred men.

At that time I really placed dependence upon the professions of Mahommed
and his people; they had just brought Speke and Grant with them, and had
received from them presents of a first-class double-barrelled gun and
several valuable rifles. I had promised not only to assist them in their
ivory expeditions, but to give them something very handsome in addition,
and the fact of my having upwards of forty men as escort was also an
introduction, as they would be an addition to the force, which is a
great advantage in hostile countries. Everything appeared to be in good
train, but I little knew the duplicity of these Arab scoundrels. At the
very moment that they were most friendly, they were plotting to deceive
me, and to prevent me from entering the country. They knew, that should
I penetrate the interior, the ivory trade of the White Nile would be no
longer a mystery, and that the atrocities of the slave trade would be
exposed, and most likely be terminated by the intervention of European
Powers; accordingly they combined to prevent my advance, and to
overthrow my expedition completely. The whole of the men belonging to
the various traders were determined that no Englishman should penetrate
into the country; accordingly they fraternised with my escort, and
persuaded them that I was a Christian dog, that it was a disgrace for a
Mahommedan to serve; that they would be starved in my service, as I
would not allow them to steal cattle; that they would have no slaves;
and that I should lead them--God knew where--to the sea, from whence
Speke and Grant had started; that they had left Zanzibar with two
hundred men, and had only arrived at Gondokoro with eighteen, thus the
remainder must have been killed by the natives on the road; that if they
followed me, and arrived at Zanzibar, I should find a ship waiting to
take me to England, and I should leave them to die in a strange country.
Such were the reports circulated to prevent my men from accompanying me,
and it was agreed that Mahommed should fix a day for our pretended start
IN COMPANY, but that he would in reality start a few days before the
time appointed; and that my men should mutiny, and join his party in
cattle-stealing and slave-hunting. This was the substance of the plot
thus carefully concocted.

My men evinced a sullen demeanour, neglected all orders, and I plainly
perceived a settled discontent upon their general expression. The
donkeys and camels were allowed to stray, and were daily missing, and
recovered with difficulty; the luggage was overrun with white ants
instead of being attended to every morning; the men absented themselves
without leave, and were constantly in the camps of the different
traders. I was fully prepared for some difficulty, but I trusted that
when once on the march I should be able to get them under discipline.
Among my people were two blacks: one, "Richarn," already described as
having been brought up by the Austrian Mission at Khartoum; the other, a
boy of twelve years old, "Saat." As these were the only really faithful
members of the expedition, it is my duty to describe them. Richarn was
an habitual drunkard, but he had his good points; he was honest, and
much attached to both master and mistress. He had been with me for some
months, and was a fair sportsman, and being of an entirely different
race to the Arabs, he kept himself apart from them, and fraternised with
the boy Saat.

Saat was a boy that would do no evil; he was honest to a superlative
degree, and a great exception to the natives of this wretched country.
He was a native of "Fertit," and was minding his father's goats, when a
child of about six years old, at the time of his capture by the Baggera
Arabs. He described vividly how men on camels suddenly appeared while he
was in the wilderness with his flock, and how he was forcibly seized and
thrust into a large gum sack, and slung upon the back of a camel. Upon
screaming for help, the sack was opened, and an Arab threatened him with
a knife should he make the slightest noise. Thus quieted, he was carried
hundreds of miles through Kordofan to Dongola on the Nile, at which
place he was sold to slave-dealers, and taken to Cairo to be sold to the
Egyptian government as a drummer-boy. Being too young he was rejected,
and while in the dealer's hands he heard from another slave, of the
Austrian Mission at Cairo, that would protect him could he only reach
their asylum. With extraordinary energy for a child of six years old, he
escaped from his master, and made his way to the Mission, where he was
well received, and to a certain extent disciplined and taught as much of
the Christian religion as he could understand. In company with a branch
establishment of the Mission, he was subsequently located at Khartoum,
and from thence was sent up the White Nile to a Mission-station in the
Shillook country. The climate of the White Nile destroyed thirteen
missionaries in the short space of six months, and the boy Saat returned
with the remnant of the party to Khartoum, and was re-admitted into the
Mission. The establishment was at that time swarming with little black
boys from the various White Nile tribes, who repaid the kindness of the
missionaries by stealing everything they could lay their hands upon. At
length the utter worthlessness of the boys, their moral obtuseness, and
the apparent impossibility of improving them, determined the chief of
the Mission to purge his establishment from such imps, and they were
accordingly turned out. Poor little Saat, the one grain of gold amidst
the mire, shared the same fate.

It was about a week before our departure from Khartoum that Mrs. Baker
and I were at tea in the middle of the court-yard, when a miserable boy
about twelve years old came uninvited to her side, and knelt down in the
dust at her feet. There was something so irresistibly supplicating in
the attitude of the child, that the first impulse was to give him
something from the table. This was declined, and he merely begged to be
allowed to live with us, and to be our boy. He said that he had been
turned out of the Mission, merely because the Bari boys of the
establishment were thieves, and thus he suffered for their sins. I could
not believe it possible that the child had been actually turned out into
the streets, and believing that the fault must lay in the boy, I told
him I would inquire. In the meantime he was given in charge of the cook.

It happened that, on the following day, I was so much occupied that I
forgot to inquire at the Mission; and once more the cool hour of evening
arrived when, after the intense heat of the day, we sat at table in the
open court-yard; it was refreshed by being plentifully watered. Hardly
were we seated, when again the boy appeared, kneeling in the dust, with
his head lowered at my wife's feet, and imploring to be allowed to
follow us. It was in vain that I explained that we had a boy, and did
not require another; that the journey was long and difficult, and that
he might perhaps die. The boy feared nothing, and craved simply that he
might belong to us. He had no place of shelter, no food; had been stolen
from his parents, and was a helpless outcast.

The next morning, accompanied by Mrs. Baker, I went to the Mission and
heard that the boy had borne an excellent character, and that it must
have been BY MISTAKE that he had been turned out with the others. This
being conclusive, Saat was immediately adopted. Mrs. Baker was shortly
at work making him some useful clothes, and in an incredibly short time
a great change was effected. As he came from the hands of the
cook--after a liberal use of soap and water, and attired in trowsers,
blouse, and belt--the new boy appeared in a new character.

From that time he considered himself as belonging absolutely to his
mistress. He was taught by her to sew; Richarn instructed him in the
mysteries of waiting at table, and washing plates, &c.; while I taught
him to shoot, and gave him a light double-barrelled gun. This was his
greatest pride.

In the evening, when the day's work was done, Saat was allowed to sit
near his mistress; and he was at times amused and instructed by stories
of Europe and Europeans, and anecdotes from the Bible adapted to his
understanding, combined with the first principles of Christianity. He
was very ignorant, notwithstanding his advantages in the Mission, but he
possessed the first grand rudiments of all religion--honesty of purpose.
Although a child of only twelve years old, he was so perfectly
trustworthy that, at the period of our arrival at Gondokoro, he was more
to be depended upon than my vakeel, and nothing could occur among my
mutinous escort without the boy's knowledge: thus he reported the
intended mutiny of the people when there was no other means of
discovering it, and without Saat I should have had no information of
their plots.

Not only was the boy trustworthy, but he had an extraordinary amount of
moral in addition to physical courage. If any complaint were made, and
Saat was called as a witness--far from the shyness too often evinced
when the accuser is brought face to face with the accused--such was
Saat's proudest moment; and, no matter who the man might be, the boy
would challenge him, regardless of all consequences. We were very fond
of this boy; he was thoroughly good; and in that land of iniquity,
thousands of miles away from all except what was evil, there was a
comfort in having some one innocent and faithful, in whom to trust.

We were to start upon the following Monday. Mahommed had paid me a
visit, assuring me of his devotion, and begging me to have my baggage in
marching order, as he would send me fifty porters on the Monday, and we
would move off in company. At the very moment that he thus professed, he
was coolly deceiving me. He had arranged to start without me on the
Saturday, while he was proposing to march together on the Monday. This I
did not know at the time.

One morning I had returned to the tent after having, as usual, inspected
the transport animals, when I observed Mrs. Baker looking
extraordinarily pale, and immediately upon my arrival she gave orders
for the presence of the vakeel (headman). There was something in her
manner, so different to her usual calm, that I was utterly bewildered
when I heard her question the vakeel, "Whether the men were willing to
march?" Perfectly ready, was the reply. "Then order them to strike the
tent, and load the animals; we start this moment." The man appeared
confused, but not more so than I. Something was evidently on foot, but
what I could not conjecture. The vakeel wavered, and to my astonishment
I heard the accusation made against him, that, "during the night, the
whole of the escort had mutinously conspired to desert me, with my arms
and ammunition that were in their hands, and to fire simultaneously at
me should I attempt to disarm them." At first this charge was
indignantly denied until the boy Saat manfully stepped forward, and
declared that the conspiracy was entered into by the whole of the
escort, and that both he and Richarn, knowing that mutiny was intended,
had listened purposely to the conversation during the night; at daybreak
the boy reported the fact to his mistress. Mutiny, robbery, and murder
were thus deliberately determined.

I immediately ordered an angarep (travelling bedstead) to be placed
outside the tent under a large tree; upon this I laid five
double-barrelled guns loaded with buck shot, a revolver, and a naked
sabre as sharp as a razor. A sixth rifle I kept in my hands while I sat
upon the angarep, with Richarn and Saat both with double-barrelled guns
behind me. Formerly I had supplied each of my men with a piece of
mackintosh waterproof to be tied over the locks of their guns during the
march. I now ordered the drum to be beat, and all the men to form in
line in marching order, with their locks TIED UP IN THE WATERPROOF. I
requested Mrs. Baker to stand behind me, and to point out any man who
should attempt to uncover his locks, when I should give the order to lay
down their arms. The act of uncovering the locks would prove his
intention, in which event I intended to shoot him immediately, and take
my chance with the rest of the conspirators. I had quite determined that
these scoundrels should not rob me of my own arms and ammunition, if I
could prevent it.

The drum beat, and the vakeel himself went into the men's quarters, and
endeavoured to prevail upon them to answer the call. At length fifteen
assembled in line; the others were nowhere to be found. The locks of the
arms were secured by mackintosh as ordered; it was thus impossible for
any man to fire at me until he should have released his locks.

Upon assembling in line I ordered them immediately to lay down their
arms. This, with insolent looks of defiance, they refused to do. "Down
with your guns this moment," I shouted, "sons of dogs!" And at the sharp
click of the locks, as I quickly cocked the rifle that I held in my
hands, the cowardly mutineers widened their line and wavered. Some
retreated a few paces to the rear; others sat down, and laid their guns
on the ground; while the remainder slowly dispersed, and sat in twos, or
singly, under the various trees about eighty paces distant. Taking
advantage of their indecision, I immediately rose and. ordered my vakeel
and Richarn to disarm them as they were thus scattered. Foreseeing that
the time had arrived for actual physical force, the cowards capitulated,
agreeing to give up their arms and ammunition if I would give them their
written discharge. I disarmed them immediately, and the vakeel having
written a discharge for the fifteen men present, I wrote upon each paper
the word "mutineer" above my signature. None of them being able to read,
and this being written in English, they unconsciously carried the
evidence of their own guilt, which I resolved to punish should I ever
find them on my return to Khartoum.

Thus disarmed, they immediately joined other of the traders' parties.
These fifteen men were the "Jalyns" of my party, the remainder being
Dongolowas: both Arabs of the Nile, north of Khartoum. The Dongolowas
had not appeared when summoned by the drum, and my vakeel being of their
nation, I impressed upon him his responsibility for the mutiny, and that
he would end his days in prison at Khartoum should my expedition fail.

The boy Saat and Richarn now assured me that the men had intended to
fire at me, but that they were frightened at seeing us thus prepared,
but that I must not expect one man of the Dongolowas to be any more
faithful than the Jalyns. I ordered the vakeel to hunt up the men, and
to bring me their guns, threatening that if they refused I would shoot
any man that I found with one of my guns in his hands.

There was no time for mild measures. I had only Saat (a mere child), and
Richarn, upon whom I could depend; and I resolved with them alone to
accompany Mahommed's people to the interior, and to trust to good
fortune for a chance of proceeding.

I was feverish and ill with worry and anxiety, and I was lying down upon
my mat, when I suddenly heard guns firing in all directions, drums
beating, and the customary signs of either an arrival or departure of a
trading party. Presently a messenger arrived from Koorshid Aga, the
Circassian, to announce the departure of Mahommed's party without me;
and my vakeel appeared with a message from the same people, that "if I
followed on their road (my proposed route), they would fire upon me and
my party, as they would allow no English spies in their country."

My vakeel must have known of this preconcerted arrangement. I now went
to the Circassian, Koorshid, who had always been friendly personally. In
an interview with him, I made him understand that nothing should drive
me back to Khartoum, but that, as I was now helpless, I begged him to
give me ten elephant-hunters; that I would pay one-half of their wages,
and amuse myself in hunting and exploring in any direction until the
following year, he to take the ivory; by which time I could receive
thirty black soldiers from Khartoum, with whom I should commence my
journey to the lake. I begged him to procure me thirty good blacks at
Khartoum, and to bring them with him to Gondokoro next season, where I
arranged to meet him. This he agreed to, and I returned to my tent
delighted at a chance of escaping complete failure, although I thus
encountered a delay of twelve months before I could commence my
legitimate voyage. That accomplished, I was comparatively happy; the
disgrace of returning to Khartoum beaten would have been insupportable.

That night I slept well, and we sat under our shady tree by the
tent-door at sunrise on the following morning, drinking our coffee with
contentment. Presently, from a distance, I saw Koorshid, the Circassian,
approaching with his partner. Coffee and pipes were ready instanter:
both the boy Saat and Richarn looked upon him as a friend and ally, as
it was arranged that ten of his hunters were to accompany us. Before he
sipped his coffee he took me by the hand, and with great confusion of
manner he confessed that he was ashamed to come and visit me. "The
moment you left me yesterday," said he, "I called my vakeel and headman,
and ordered them to select the ten best men of my party to accompany
you; but instead of obeying me as usual, they dec

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