Chapter VII: General Provisions (5)

And now, in passing from Abu-Hammed to Kartoum, we have a grand secret of the Nile. For twelve hundred miles above its mouth that mysterious river receives no tributary on the right hand nor on the left. It may be traced like a ribbon of silver with a narrow fringe of green, winding in great folds through a hot and thirsty desert and under the full blaze of a sun that drinks its waters but returns nothing in the shape of rain. And man also exacts a heavy tribute for purposes of irrigation. Whence its supply? Look for a partial answer to the Atbara, whose mouth is in the east bank of the Nile, half way from Abu-Hammed to Kartoum. Here light begins to break on the exhaustless stores of the Nile. During the greater part of the year the Atbara is dry. Not a hopeful source of supply, you say at once. The sources of the Atbara are away off to the east in the mountains of Abyssinia, whose great buttresses are now visible from the Nile Valley, and whose projections push to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. There also are a Lake Region and Nile sources, whose discovery by Bruce a century ago gave the scientific world quite a stir. His account of this Abyssinian country, so unique in physical features, social life, history, religion and ancient remains, read so much like romance that it was not believed. But Beke, De Cosson, James Bruce and the great Livingstone, have since verified all and given him his proper place among accurate observers and intrepid travellers.

But it was Sir Samuel Baker, on his first journey up the Nile in 1861, who pointed out the importance of the Abyssinian rivers as Nile tributaries. He turned aside from his southward route and followed the dry bed of the Atbara for a double purpose. First, to watch the great annual flooding of this Nile feeder. Second, to enjoy the sport of capturing some of the big game, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffe and lion, known to abound in the thick jungles covering the lower slopes of the adjacent hills.

The Atbara, or “Black Nile,” was simply a vast wady or furrow, thirty feet deep and 400 yards to half a mile across, plowed through the heart of the desert, its edges marked by a thin growth of leafless mimosas and dome palms. The only trace of water was here and there a rush-fringed pool which the impetuous torrent had hollowed out in the sudden bends in the river’s course, and where disported themselves hippopotami, crocodiles, and immense turtles, that had long ago adjusted their relations on a friendly footing on the discovery that none of them could do harm to the others. On the 23 of June, the simoom was blowing with overpowering force; the heat was furnace-like, and the tents of travellers were covered with several inches of drifted sand. Above, in the Abyssinian mountains, however, the lightnings were playing and the rains were falling as if the windows of heaven had been opened. The monsoon had set in; the rising streams were choking their narrow channels in their frantic rush to the lowlands, and were tearing away huge masses of the rich dark soil, to be spread a month hence over the flat plains of Egypt. The party encamped on the Atbara heard through the night a sound as if of distant thunder; but it was “the roar of the approaching water.”

Wonder of the desert! Yesterday there was a barren sheet of glaring sand with a fringe of withered bush and tree. All nature was most poor. No bush could boast a leaf. No tree could throw a shade. In one night there was a mysterious change——wonders of the mighty Nile! An army of waters was hastening to the wasted river. There was no drop of rain, no thunder cloud on the horizon to give hope. All had been dry and sultry. Dust and desolation yesterday; to-day a magnificent stream five hundred yards wide and twenty feet deep, dashing through a dreary desert. Bamboos, reeds, floating matter of all kinds, hurry along the turbid waters. Where are all the crowded inhabitants of the pools? Their prison-doors are open, the prisoners are released, and all are rejoicing in the deep sounding and rapid waters of the Atbara.

Here is the clue to one part of the Nile mystery——its great annual inundations, source of fertilizing soil and slime. The Blue Nile, further on, and with its sources in the same Abyssinian fastnesses, contributes like the Atbara, though in a secondary degree, to the annual Nile flood and to Egypt’s fertility, with this difference, that it flows all the year round.

At Kartoum, as already seen, we reach the junction of the White and Blue Nile, the frontier of two strongly contrasted physical regions, and the dividing line between the nomadic barbarism of the north and the settled barbarism of the south. The secret that has still to be unveiled is the source of that unfailing flow of water which perpetually resists the influences of absorption, evaporation and irrigation, and carries a life giving stream through the heart of Egypt at all seasons of the year.

Kartoum has ingrafted all the vices of its northern society on the squalor and misery of its southern. A more miserable, filthy and unhealthy spot can hardly be imagined. Yet it is not uninteresting, for here, up to a recent period, was the “threshold of the unknown.” It has been the starting point of numberless Nile expeditions since the days of the Pharaohs. Mehemet Ali, first viceroy of Egypt, pushed his conquest of the Soudan, a little south of it in 1839. He found the climate so unhealthy that he established a penal colony a little way up the White Nile, banishment to which was considered equivalent to death.

Says Sir Samuel Baker of Kartoum, on his second visit in 1869: “During my first visit in 1861, the population was 30,000. It is now reduced one-half, and nearly all the European residents have disappeared. And the change in the country between Berber and Kartoum is frightful. The river’s banks, formerly verdant with heavy crops, have become a wilderness. Villages, once crowded, have entirely disappeared. Irrigation has ceased. The nights, formerly discordant with the croaking of waterwheels, are now silent as death. Industry has vanished. Oppression has driven the inhabitants from the soil. It is all due to the Governor General of Soudan who, like a true Mohammedan, left his government to Providence while he increased the taxes. The population of the richest province of Soudan has fled oppression and abandoned the country. The greater portion have taken to the slave trade of the White Nile where, in their turn, they might trample on the rights of others, where, as they had been plundered, they might plunder.”

The wilderness of fever-stricken marshes that line the White Nile long baffled the attempts of the most determined explorers to penetrate to the southward. At length “dry land” was reached again at Gondokoro, only five degrees from the equator. It in turn became an advanced position of Egyptian authority, a centre of mission enterprise, a half-way house where the traveller rested and equipped himself for new discoveries. From the base of Gondokoro, Petherick pursued his researches into the condition of the negro races of the Upper Nile; the Italian traveller, Miani, penetrated far towards the southwest, into the countries occupied by the Nyam-Nyam tribes, that singular region of dwarfs and cannibals; and Dr. Schweinfurth, Colonel Long, and Mdlle. Tinné followed up the search with magnificent results. Mdlle. Tinné, a brave Dutch lady, deserves special notice as having been perhaps the first European woman who encountered the terrible hardships and perils of the explorer’s life in the cause of African discovery. She is far, however from being the last. The wives of two of the greatest pioneers in the work——Mrs. Livingstone and Lady Baker——accompanied with a noble-minded resolution the steps of their husbands, the one along the banks of the Zambesi, and the other on the White Nile. Mdlle. Tinné and Mrs. Livingstone paid with their lives for their devotion, and are buried by the streams from whose waters they helped to raise the veil. Lady Baker has been more fortunate. Only a girl of seventeen when she rode by her husband’s side from Gondokoro, she lived to return to Europe where her name is inseparably linked with two great events of African history——the discovery of one of the great lakes of the Nile and the suppression of the slave traffic.

As already intimated, the Egyptian conquest and annexation of the Soudan country, and the bad government of it which followed, made the region of the White Nile the great man-hunting ground of Africa. The traffic was general when the modern travellers began their struggle to reach the equatorial lakes. Arab traders were the chief actors in these enterprises and they were joined by a motley crew of other races, not excepting most of the white and Christian races. If they were not directly under the patronage of the Egyptian authorities at Kartoum, they made it worth while for those authorities to keep a patronizing silence, by throwing annually into their treasury something handsome in the shape of cash.

Kartoum marks pretty distinctly the limit of the Arab races and the influence of the Mohammedan religion. Beyond, and toward the equator and Nile sources, are the negro and pagan. Fanaticism and race hatred, therefore, helped to inflame the evil passions which the slave trade invariably arouses. The business of the miscreants engaged in this detestable work was simply kidnapping and murder. The trade of the White Nile was purely slave-hunting. The trifling traffic in ivory and gums was a mere deception and sham, intended to cover the operations of the slaver. A marauding expedition would be openly fitted out at Kartoum, composed of some of the most atrocious ruffians in Africa and south-western Asia, with the scum of a few European cities. Their favorite mode of going to work was to take advantage of one of those wars which are constantly being waged between the tribes of Central Africa. If a war were not going on in the quarter which the slave-hunters had marked out for their raid, a quarrel was purposely fomented——at no time a difficult task in Africa. At dead of night the marauders with their black allies would steal down upon the doomed village. At a signal the huts are fired over the heads of the sleeping inmates, a volley of musketry is poured in, and the gang of desperadoes spring upon their victims. A scene of wild confusion and massacre follows, until all resistance has been relentlessly put down, and then the slave-catcher counts over and secures his human spoils. This is the first act of the bloody drama. Most probably, if the kidnappers think they have not made a large enough “haul,” they pick a quarrel with their allies, who are in their turn shot down, or overpowered and, manacled to their late enemies, are soon floating down the Nile in a slave dhow, on their way to the markets of Egypt or Turkey. The waste of human life, the stoppage of industry and honest trade, the demoralization of the whole region within reach of the raiders, the detestable cruelties and crimes practised on the helpless captives on the journey down the river, on the caravan route across the desert, or in the stifling dens where they are lodged at the slave depots and markets, represent an enormous total of human misery.

Many will remember the efforts of Colonel Gordon, whom the Khedive made a Pasha, and also a Governor General of the Soudan, at the capital Kartoum, to suppress this nefarious traffic. And it will also be remembered how in the late revolt against Egyptian authority, led by El Mahdi, Colonel Gordon again headed a forlorn hope to Kartoum, with the hope that he could stay the rising fanatical tide, or at least control it, so as to prevent a fresh recognition of slave stealers. He fell a victim to his philanthropic views, and was murdered in the streets of the city he went to redeem.

We have already made the reader acquainted with the heroic and more successful efforts of Colonel Baker, Pasha, in the same direction. He was not so much of a religious enthusiast as Colonel Gordon, did not rely on fate, but thought an imposing, organized force the best way to strike terror into these piratical traders, and at the same time inspire the negro races with better views of self protection. In the long and brilliant record which Colonel Baker made in Africa, the honors he gathered as a military hero bent on suppressing the slave trade will ever be divided evenly with those acquired as a dauntless traveller and accurate scientific observer.

Let it not be thought that slave catching and selling is now extinct. True, the care exercised in the waters of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, makes it difficult to run slave cargoes into Arabia and the further east. True, Baker’s expedition broke up a force of some two thousand organized kidnappers on the Upper White Nile, but these piratical adventurers are still abroad in more obscure paths and compelled to rely more on guile and cunning than on force for securing their prey.

But let us pursue our journey from Kartoum toward the “Springs of the Nile.” We do not take the Blue Nile. That comes down from the east, and the Abyssinian mountains. We take the White Nile, which is the true Nile, and comes up from the south or southwest. And we must suppose we are going along with Colonel Baker on his first journey, which was one in search of the Nile sources. It was a scientific tour, and not an armed one like his second expedition.

Entering the White Nile, we plunge into a new world——a region whose climate and animal and vegetable life, in brief, whose whole aspect and nature, are totally unlike those of the desert which stretches up to the walls of Kartoum. We are within the zone of regular rainfall, an intermediate region that extends to the margin of the great lakes, where we meet with the equatorial belt of perennial rains. Henceforth we have not only heat but moisture acting upon the face of nature.

One may determine which of the two climates is the more tolerable by considering whether he would prefer to be roasted or stewed. The traveller would find it hard to decide whether the desert or the swamp is the greater bar to his advance. Every mile of progress marks an increase of dampness and of warmth. First of all, we pass through the great mimosa forest, which extends, belt-like, almost across the continent, marking the confines of the Sahara and the Soudan. The reader must not imagine a dense girdle of tall trees and tangled undergrowth, but a park-like country, with wide glades between clumps and lines of thorny shrubbery. The mimosa, or Arabian acacia——the tree from which the gum-arabic of commerce is extracted——has assigned to it the out-post duty in the struggle between tropical luxuriance and desert drought. By and by it gives place to the ambatch as the characteristic tree of the Nile. The margin of the river becomes marshy and reedy. The water encroaches on the land and the land on the water. The muddy stream rolls lazily along between high walls of rank vegetation, and bears whole islands of intertwisted leaves, roots and stems on its bosom, very much as an Arctic strait bears its acres of ice floes. It breaks up into tortuous channels that lead everywhere and nowhere. A nearly vertical sun shines down on the voyager as he slowly toils up stream. Scarcely a breath of air stirs to blow away the malarious mists or fill a drooping sail. Mosquitoes are numerous, and insatiate for blood.

Day thus follows day with nothing to break the monotony except now and then the appearance of a hippopotamus, rising snortingly to the surface, a crocodile with his vicious jaws, or, where the land is solid, a buffalo pushing his head through the reeds to take a drink. The true river margin is invisible except from the boat’s masts over the head of the tall papyrus. Even could we reach it, we would wish ourselves back again, for of all the growth of this dismal swamp man is the most repulsive. The Dinka tribes of the White Nile are among the lowest in the scale of human beings. They are naked, both as to clothing and moral qualities. The Shillooks are a finer race physically, but inveterate pirates and murderers.

In the midst of this swampy region the Nile receives another important tributary from the mountains of Southern Abyssinia. It is the Sobat which, Speke says, “runs for a seven days’ journey through a forest so dense as to completely exclude the rays of the sun.”

Above its mouth we must be prepared to meet the greatest of all the obstructions of the Nile. Here are many small affluents from both east and west, and here is a vast stretch of marsh through which the waters soak as through a sponge. In the centre of this “sponge” tract is a small lake——Lake No. But to reach it or emerge from it again, by means of the labyrinthine channels, is a work of great difficulty. The “sponge” is a thick coating of roots, grasses and stems matted together so as to conceal the waters, yet open enough for them to percolate through. It may be ventured upon by human feet, and in many places supports quite a vegetation. But the traveller is in constant danger of falling through, to say nothing of the danger from various animals. It was through this “sponge” that Colonel Baker, in his second Nile expedition, managed to cut a canal, through which was dragged the first steamer that ever floated on the head waters of the great river.

Having passed this obstacle the journey is easier to Gondokoro, where the land is firm. Twenty-three years ago Gondokoro was a collection of grass huts in the midst of an untrodden wilderness, and surrounded by barbarous and hostile tribes. It has since been made an Egyptian military station and named Ismailia.

Though the spot is not inviting except as it affords you rest after your hardships, yet it is the scene of an interesting episode in the history of African exploration. Speke and Grant had started on their memorable trip from Zanzibar in 1861. Colonel Baker and his wife had started up the Nile for its sources in the same year. Now it is February, 1863. A travel stained caravan, with two white men at its head, comes down the high ground back of the station. They quicken their pace and enter the village with shouts, waving of flags and firing of musketry. It is Speke and Grant on their return trip, with the secret of the Nile in their keeping.

On their long tramp they had visited strange peoples and countries, and by courage and tact had escaped unharmed from a number of difficulties and perils. They had traced the one shore of that vast reservoir of fresh water under the Equator which Speke had sighted on a previous expedition, and had named Victoria Nyanza. They had seen this beautiful equatorial reservoir discharging its surplus waters northward over the picturesque Ripon Falls, and knew that they were in possession of the secret which all the world had sought from the beginning.

Lower down, at the Karuma Falls, they were compelled to leave the stream, which they now felt sure was the Nile. Crossing to the right bank, they struck across the country, northward, and in a direct line for Gondokoro. Here they caught sight of the furthest outpost of Egyptian exploration, and again gladly looked on the river that was to bear them down to the Mediterranean.

By a curious coincidence, the first Englishman who had penetrated so far to the southward, was at that moment in Gondokoro. Samuel Baker and his wife were interrupted in their preparations for their journey to the Nile sources by the noise of the approaching party, and they rode out to see what all the hubbub meant. Four people from a distant nook of Europe met in the heart of Africa; and as they clasped hands, the hoary secret of the Nile was unriddled! All of them had numberless difficulties before as well as behind them; but their hearts were undismayed, and swelled only with pride at what had been accomplished for science and for their native land. The travellers from Zanzibar bore the marks of their long journey——“battered and torn, but sound and seaworthy.” “Speke,” Baker tells us, “appeared the more worn of the two; he was excessively lean, but in reality in good tough condition. He had walked the whole way from Zanzibar, never having once ridden during the weary march. Grant was in honorable rags, his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trousers that were an exhibition of rough industry in tailor-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.” The first greetings over, Baker’s earliest question was: Was there no leaf of the laurel reserved for him? Yes; there was. Below the Karuma Falls, Speke and Grant had been informed the stream from the Victoria Nyanza fell into and almost immediately emerged again from another lake, the Luta Nzigé. This therefore might be the ultimate reservoir of the Nile waters. No European had ever seen or heard of this basin before. Baker determined it should be his prize.

But now we meet a new class of obstacles as we undertake a land journey into intertropical Africa. There is no longer, as in the desert, danger from thirst and starvation, for game abounds, and we are in some degree out of the interminable swamps of river navigation. But a small army of porters must be got together. They must be drilled, and preparations must be made for feeding them. True, some explorers have gone well nigh alone. But it is not best. Stanley always travelled with one to two hundred natives, and quite successfully.

And these natives are by no means easy to handle. They are ready to make bargains, but are panicky and often desert, or, what is worse, take advantage of any relaxation of discipline to rise in mutiny. Their leader must be stern of will, yet kind and good-natured, wise as a serpent and watchful as a hawk. When a start is made, difficulties accumulate. You must expect incredible rainfalls, and an amazing growth of vegetation. Then in the dry season, which is hardly more than two to three months in a year, the shrubs and grasses are burned up far and wide.

Everywhere there is jungle of grass, reeds and bamboos, when the rivers are at their height; and amid the forests the great stems of the pandanus, banana and boabab are covered to their tops with a feathery growth of ferns and orchids, and festooned with wild vines and creeping plants. The native villages are almost smothered under the dark luxuriance of plant life, and lions and other beasts of prey can creep up unseen to the very doors of the huts. The whole country becomes a tangled brake, with here and there an open space, or a rough track marking where an elephant, rhinoceros or buffalo has crushed a way in the high grass.

Then ahead of us, and between Gondokoro and the lakes we seek, the country has been so raided by slave hunters, that every native can be counted on as an enemy. Or a native war may be in progress, and if so, great care must be taken to avoid siding with either party. We must retreat here and push on there, avoiding perils of this class as we value our lives. There is no road through Africa of one’s own choice, and none that may not entail an entire backward step for days, and perhaps forever.

At Gondokoro we are in the midst of the Bari tribe. Pagans before, contact with the Arab wanderers and slave stealers has made them savages. They live in low thatched huts, rather neat in appearance, and surrounded by a thick hedge to keep off intruders. The men are well grown and the women not handsome, but the thick lips and flat nose of the negro are wanting. They tattoo their stomachs artistically, and smear their bodies with a greasy pigment of ochre. Their only clothing is a bunch of feathers stuck in the slight tuft of hair which they permit to grow on their heads, and a neat lappet around the loins, of about six inches in depth, to which is appended a tail piece made of shreds of leather or cotton.

Every man carries his weapons, pipe and stool. The former are chiefly the bow and arrows. They use a poisoned arrow when fighting. The effect of the poison in the system is not to kill but to corrode the flesh and bone, till they drop away in pieces. The bows are of bamboo, not very elastic, and the archers are not dexterous.

It was while in Gondokoro, on this his first Nile journey, that Baker had opportunity to study, and occasion to feel, the enormities of the slave traffic. The Moslem traders regarded him as a spy on their nefarious operations. They manacled their slaves more closely and stowed them away securely in remote and secret stockades. Their conduct as citizens was outrageous, for they kept the town in a continual uproar by their drinking bouts, their brawls with the natives, and promiscuous firing of guns and pistols. One of their bullets killed a boy of Baker’s party. It was evident that these marauders were intent on compelling him to make a hasty departure, for they incited trouble among his men, and inflamed the natives against his presence.

As an instance of the trouble which grew out of this, his men asked the privilege of stealing some cattle from the natives for a feast. He denied their request. A mutiny was the result. Baker ordered the ringleader to be bound and punished with twenty-five lashes. The men refused to administer the punishment and stood by their ringleader. Baker undertook to enforce the order himself, when the black leader rushed at him with a stick. Baker stood his ground and knocked his assailant down with his fist. Then he booted him severely, while his companions looked on in amazement at his boldness and strength. But they rallied, and commenced to pelt him with sticks and stones. His wife saw his danger. She ordered the drums to be beaten and in the midst of the confusion rushed to the rescue. The clangor distracted the attention of the assailants, and a parley ensued. The matter was settled by a withdrawal of the sentence on the condition that the leader should apologize and swear fealty again.

Before Baker could complete his preparations for starting, the fever broke out in Gondokoro, and both he and his wife fell sick. In order to escape the effluvium of the more crowded village, he moved his tents and entire encampment to the high ground above the river. While the animals were healthy, the donkeys and camels were attacked by a greenish brown bird, of the size of a thrush, with a red beak and strong claws. It lit on the beasts to search for vermin, but its beak penetrated the flesh, and once a hole was established, the bird continually enlarged it to the great annoyance of the animal which could neither eat nor sleep. The animals had to be watched by boys continually till their wounds were healed.

An Arab guide, named Mohammed, had been engaged, and the expedition was about to move. Mrs. Baker had brought a boy along from Kartoum, by the name of Saat. He had become quite attached to her, as had another servant named Richarn. The guide, Mohammed, said he had seventy porters ready and that a start could be made on Monday. But the fellow was in a conspiracy to start on Saturday without Baker. Mrs. Baker found it out through Saat and Richarn. She ordered the tents to be struck and a start to be made on the moment. This nonplussed Mohammed. He wavered and hesitated. She brought his accusers face to face with him when, to Baker’s astonishment, the plot came out, that the entire force of porters had conspired to desert as soon as they got the arms and ammunition in their hands, and to kill Baker in case resistance was offered.

Nothing was left but to disarm and discharge the whole force. He gave them written discharges, with the word “mutineer” beneath his signature, and thus the fellows, none of whom could read, went about bearing the evidences of their own guilt. Baker now tried in vain to enlist a new party of porters. The people had been poisoned against him. He applied to Koorschid, a Circassian chief, for ten elephant hunters and two interpreters, but the wily chief avoided him. It looked as if he would have to give over his contemplated journey for the season. But by dint of hard work he managed to gather seventeen men, whom he hoped to make true to him by kind treatment. At this juncture a party of Koorschid’s people arrived from the Latooka country with a number of porters. Their chief, Adda, a man of magnificent proportions, took a fancy to Baker and invited him to visit the Latookas. He was given presents, and his picture was taken, which pleased him greatly. His followers came and were similarly treated and delighted. They agreed to accompany Baker back to their country, but a body of Turkish traders were also going thither. They not only declared that Baker should not have the escort of these people, but actually pressed them into their own service. And then, to make things worse, they threatened to incite the tribes through which they had to pass against him should he dare to follow.

Baker thought he could meet any mischief of this kind by dealing liberally in presents, and so resolved to follow the traders. He loaded his camels and donkeys heavily, and started with his seventeen untried men. Mrs. Baker was mounted on a good Abyssinian horse, carrying several leather bags at the pommel of the saddle. Colonel Baker was similarly mounted and loaded. They had neither guide nor interpreter. Not one native was procurable, owing to the baleful influence of the traders. Their journey began about an hour after sunset, and Colonel Baker, taking the distant mountains of Balignan as his landmark, led the way.

If we are now amid the hardships of an African journey, we are also amid its excitements. Can we outstrip the Turkish traders? If so it will be well, for then they cannot stir up the tribes against us. We will try. But our camels are heavily loaded, and their baggage catches in the overhanging bramble. Every now and then one of those most heavily top laden is swung from his path, and even rolls into a steep gulch, when he has to be unpacked and his load carried up on to the level before being replaced. It is tantalizing for those in a hurry. But the traders are also travelling slowly for they are buying and selling.

Presently two of their Latookas come to us, having deserted. They are thirsty, and direct us to a spot where water can be had. While we are drinking, in comes a party of natives with the decayed head of a wild boar, which they cook and eat, even though the maggots are thick in it. The health of these people does not seem to be affected by even the most putrid flesh.

These Latooka deserters now become guides. They lead the way, with Colonel and Mrs. Baker. The country is that of the Tolloga natives. While we halt under a fig tree to rest and await the rearward party with the laden animals, the Tollogas emerge from their villages and surround us. There are five or six hundred of them, all curious, and especially delighted at sight of our horses. They had never seen a horse before. We inquire for their chief, when a humped-backed little fellow asked in broken Arabic who we were.

Colonel Baker said he was a traveller.

“Do you want ivory?” asked the hunchback.

“We have no use for it.”

“Ah, you want slaves?”

“No we do not want slaves.”

At this there was a shout of laughter, as though such thing could not be. Then the hunchback continued:

“Have you got plenty of cows?”

“No, but plenty of beads and copper.”

“Where are they?”

“With my men. They will be here directly.”

“What countryman are you?”

“An Englishman.”

He had never heard of such a people.

“You are a Turk,” he continued.

“All right; anything you like.”

“And that is your son?” pointing to Mrs. Baker.

“No, that is my wife.”

“Your wife! What a lie! He is a boy.”

“Not a bit of it. This is my wife who has come along with me to see the women of your country.”

“What a lie!” he again exclaimed.

Mrs. Baker was dressed precisely like her husband, except that her sleeves were long while the Colonel’s arms were bare.

Soon Tombe, the chief of the tribe, put in an appearance. He is propitiated with plenty of beads and copper bracelets and drives his importunate people away. The hunchback is employed as interpreter, and now our party is away over a rough road, determined to beat the Turks through the Ellyrian tribe beyond. But it is too late. Their advance is ahead. Their centre passes us in disdain. Their leader, Ibrahim, comes up, scowls and passes on. Mrs. Baker calls to the Colonel to stop him and have a friendly talk. He does so, tells him they need never clash as they are after two entirely different objects. Then he shows him how he could either punish or befriend him once they were back at Kartoum. The old villain listens, and is moved. Baker then gives him a double-barreled gun and some gold. Both parties now march into Ellyria together, glad to escape the rocky defiles which had to be threaded on the last stages of the journey, where many a trader has lost his life.

We here meet with Legge, the chief, who demands blackmail. Baker gives liberally of beads and bracelets, but Legge gives nothing in return, except some honey. Our men have to draw for food on the reserve stores of rice, which they no sooner boil and mix with the honey than along comes Legge and helps himself, eating like a cormorant till he can hold no more. We can only stay here one day, for the people are very annoying and will part with nothing except their honey. So we leave these bullet-headed natives, and start again toward Latooka, over a level country and an easier road.

Old Ibrahim and Colonel and Mrs. Baker now lead the way.

The wily old Arab gets confidential, and informs the Colonel that his men intend to mutiny as soon as they get to Latooka. This news gives the Colonel time to prepare. In two days we enter the Wakkula country, rich in pasturage and abundant in water, literally filled with big game, such as elephants, rhinoceri, buffalo, giraffes, wild boars and antelope. A buffalo is found in a trap, and partly eaten by a lion. The men make a feast of the remainder. It is the first meat they have eaten since they left Gondokoro, and it is a great relish. A hunt by the Colonel brings in several fine antelope, enough to last till Latooka is reached.

And now we are among the Latooka villages. There are Turkish traders there already, for they are gathered in Latome, a border village. They fire off guns, and forbid Ibrahim and his party to pass, claiming an exclusive right to trade there. There is a row between the Moslem traders, in which poor Ibrahim is almost strangled to death. The Colonel observes a strict neutrality, as the time had not come for him to take sides.

After wrangling for hours all retired to sleep. The next morning he calls his men to resume the march. Four of them rise in mutiny, seize their guns and assume a threatening attitude. Belaal, the leader, approaches and says:——

“Not a man shall go with you. Go where you will with Ibrahim, but we won’t move a step. You may employ niggers to load the camels, but not us.”

“Lay down your gun, and load the camels!” thunders the Colonel.

“I won’t,” was the defiant reply.

“Then stop right here!” As quick as a flash the Colonel lands a blow on his jaw, and the ringleader rolls in a heap among the luggage, the gun flying in the opposite direction. There is a momentary panic, during which the Colonel seizes a rifle and rushes among the mutineers, insisting on their going to work and almost dragging them to their places. They obey mechanically. The camels are soon loaded and we are off again. But Ibrahim and his party have been gone for some time.

Belaal and four others soon after desert. The Colonel declares the vultures will soon pick their bones. Four days after, word comes that the deserters have been killed by a party of savages. The rest of the party think it came about in accordance with the Colonel’s prophecy, and credit him with magical powers.

Thirteen miles from Latome is Tarrangolle, the largest Latooka village, where Moy, the chief, resides. Here Ibrahim stopped to collect his ivory and slaves. Crowds came out of the village to meet us, but their chief attraction was Mrs. Baker and the camels. These Latookas are, doubtless, the finest made savages in all Africa. They are tall, muscular and beautifully proportioned. They have high foreheads, large eyes, high cheek bones, small mouths, and full, but not thick lips. Their countenances are pleasing, their manners civil. They are frank but warlike, merry yet always ready for a fight. Tarrangolle has 3000 houses, surrounded by palisades; and each house is fortified by a stockade. The houses are very tall and bell shaped. They are entered by a low door not over two feet high. The interior is clean but unlighted by windows. Their cattle are kept in kraals and are very carefully tended. Their dead, who are killed in war, are allowed to lie on the field as food for vultures. Those who die at home are lightly buried for a time. Then they are exhumed, the flesh stripped off, and the bones put into an earthen jar, which is deposited in the common pile or mound outside of the village. Every village has its burial pile, which is a huge collection of jars. They wear no clothes, but bestow great attention on their hair. Their weapons are the lance, an iron-head mace, a long bladed knife, and an ugly iron bracelet armed with knife blades four inches long. The women are not as finely shaped as the men. They are large, heavy limbed creatures, used to drudgery.

Chief Moy visits us and looks for the first time on a white person. The Colonel makes presents of beads, bracelets, and a necklace of pearls for Bokke, the chief’s favorite wife. “What a row there will be in the family when my other wives see Bokke’s present,” says the wily old chief. The Colonel takes the hint and gives him three pounds of beads to be divided between his wives. Next day, Bokke comes to the Colonel’s hut, all covered with beads, tatooed on her cheeks, and with a piece of ivory hanging in her lower lip. She is not bad looking, and her daughter is as comely a savage as you ever saw.

Horrid word comes that a party of Turkish traders have been massacred in a Latooka village which they had tried to destroy and to make slaves of the inhabitants. All is now excitement. Ibrahim’s party and our own are in imminent danger. But Moy intercedes for his white guests and appeases the angry natives. Though rich in cattle, our party cannot get a pound of beef from these Latookas. But ducks and geese are plenty in a stream close by, and we are allowed to kill all we want.

Let us look in upon a Latooka funeral dance in honor of a dead warrior. What grotesque dresses the dancers appear in! Ostrich feathers adorn their helmets of hair, leopard and monkey skins hang from their shoulders, bells dangle at a waist belt, an antelope horn is hung round the neck, which is blown in the midst of the excitement. The dancers rush round and round in an “infernal galop,” brandishing lances and maces, and keeping pretty fair time. The women keep outside the lines, dance awkwardly and scream like catamounts. Beyond them are the children, greasy with red ochre and ornamented with beads, keeping time with their feet to the inward movement. One woman runs into the midst of the men and sprinkles ashes promiscuously on all from a gourd. She is fat and ugly, but evidently an important part of the occasion.

These people are bright, and argue in favor of their materialistic belief with great shrewdness. The Colonel tried to illustrate his belief by placing a grain of corn in the ground and observing:——“That represents you when you die.” Covering it with earth, he continued, “The grain will decay, but from it will arise a plant that will reproduce it again in its original form.”

“Precisely,” said old Comorro, brother of Moy, “that I understand. But the original grain does not rise again; it rots like the dead man and is ended; so I die, and am ended; but my children grow up like the fruit of the grain. Some have no children; some grains perish; then all is ended.”

Here we remain for two weeks, waiting till Ibrahim comes back from Gondokoro, whither he had gone with ivory, and whence he has promised to bring a supply of ammunition. Meanwhile we must enjoy a hunt, for evidences of game are plenty. We are soon out among the long grasses, when suddenly a huge rhinoceros bolts from the copse close at hand. The Colonel calls on his companions to bring a gun, but instead of obeying they set up a cry, which is to call attention to a herd of bull elephants in the forest at the end of the grassy plain. Two of the herd spy him and come bearing down upon him. He dismounts to get a shot, but the beasts see the dusky Latookas and rush off again to join their companions. The Colonel quickly mounts and dashes after them, but his horse falls into a buffalo hole and throws him. Mounting again, he pursues, but his game has gotten well into the forest. On he goes after the herd, to find himself in close quarters with a huge beast that comes tearing along, knocking down everything in his track. Firing unsteadily from the saddle, he lodges a bullet in the animal’s shoulder. It turns and makes directly for its assailant, bellowing like a demon. The Colonel puts spurs to his horse, and makes his escape. Arming himself with a heavier gun, he returns to the attack and soon sees the herd again, moving toward him. One princely fellow has a splendid pair of tusks. This he singles out for his game. The elephants at first flee on his approach, but on finding themselves pursued they turn and give battle. There is no safety there, and again he retreats. A third trial brings him upon the beast he has wounded. It is maddened with pain and dashes at him. Trusting to his horse he rushes out of the tangle. The beast does not give up pursuit but follows on. His horse is jaded, and the riding is dangerous owing to the buffalo holes. The beast gains, and the Colonel’s cowardly companions give no help. A moment more and the beast will be on him. He suddenly wheels his horse, and hears the swish of the elephant’s trunk past his ears, as the monster beast plunges on in its direct course. It gives over the chase, and keeps on up the hill. It is found dead next morning from the effects of the bullet wound. Elephant meat is highly prized by the natives, and the fat also. With the latter they mix the pigments for their bodies. Their favorite method of capturing the animal is by pits, dug very deep in the animal’s path and covered over with light brambles and grasses. They seldom attack with spears, except when they fire the grasses. Then they take advantage of the panic which ensues and attack at close quarters.

Ibrahim returns with plenty of ammunition and reports that he is going to the Obbo country. We are delighted, for it is directly on our way to the “Lakes of the Nile.” So we all go together. The country between Latooka and Obbo, a distance of forty miles, is very beautiful. It abounds in mountains on whose impregnable peaks native villages are seen, and in green valleys filled with game. Wild fruit and nuts are also found in plenty. The journey is easy and quick. The chief of Obbo is Katchiba, an old clownish man who did not beg, for a wonder. He gives a dance in our honor, which is really an artistic affair. The dusky dancers kept excellent time to their drums and sang a wild chorus with considerable effect. The Obbo men wear dresses of skin slung around their shoulders, but the women are nearly naked——the unmarried girls entirely so.

The secret of Chief Katchiba’s power over his tribe is sorcery.

When his people displease him he threatens to curse their goats or wither their flocks. Should rain fail to fall, he tells them he is sorry they have behaved so badly toward him as to merit such a punishment. Should it rain too much, he threatens to pour lightning, storm and rain on them eternally, if they don’t bring him their contribution of goats, corn and beer. They always receive his blessing before starting on a journey, believing it will avert evil. In sickness he is called to charm away the disease. And the old fellow receives so many presents of daughters that he is able to keep a harem in every village of his tribe. He counts 116 living children. Each village is ruled by a son, so that the whole government is a family affair.

The fine old fellow treats us like princes, and gives us much information about the country to the south. The Colonel leaves his wife in the old chief’s care, and we take a little trip, with eight men, to test the accuracy of the old chief’s story about the high water in the river Ashua. We pass through a magnificent country and find the river a roaring torrent. The chief’s story was true. We return to find Mrs. Baker in excellent health and spirits having been kindly cared for during our absence. But the old chief has fared rather badly. He wanted some chickens to present to Mrs. Baker. His people proved stingy, and Katchiba, who could not walk much on account of his infirmities, the chief of which was a head always befuddled with beer, came to ask for the loan of a horse, that he might appear on his back among his people and thus strike terror into them. His former method of travel had been to mount on the back of his subjects, and thus make his state journeys, followed by one of the strongest of his wives, bearing the inevitable beer pitcher.

Though warned by Mrs. Baker of the danger attending such an experiment as he proposed, he persisted, and one of the blooded Abyssinian animals was brought out equipped for a ride. The old chief mounted and told his horse to go. The animal did not understand and stood still. “Hit him with your stick,” said one of the attendants. Thwack! came the chief’s staff across the animal’s shoulders. Quick as lightning a pair of heels flew into the air, and the ancient specimen of African royalty shot over the horse’s head and lay sprawling on the ground. He picked himself up, considerably bruised and sprained, took a wondering look at the horse, and decided that riding a beast of that kind, where one had so far to fall, was not in his line.

Since we cannot go on with our journey till the rivers to the south of us fall, it is best to go back to Latooka, where supplies are more abundant. Katchiba sends us off amid a noisy drum ceremony and with his blessing, his brother going along as a guide. There is a new member of the party, one Ibrahimawa, who had been to all the ends of the earth, as soldier and adventurer. He was of Bornu birth, but had been captured when a boy, and taken into the service of the Sultan of Turkey. Even now he was connected with the Turkish garrison, or squad of observation, at Latooka. He got the whole party into a pretty mess the second day after starting back for Latooka, by bringing in a basketful of fine yams, which happened to be of a poisonous variety. On eating them, all got sick, and had to submit to the penalty of a quick emetic, which brought them round all right.

We now journey easily through the great Latooka, where game is so abundant. In sight is a herd of antelope. The Colonel dismounts to stalk them, but a swarm of baboons spy him and at once set up such a chattering and screeching that the antelope take the alarm and make off. One of the baboons was shot. It was as large as a mastiff and had a long brown mane like a lion. This was taken by the natives for a body ornament. That same evening the Colonel goes out in quest of other game. A herd of giraffes appear, with their long necks stretched up toward the leaves of the mimosa trees, on which they are feeding. He tries to stalk them, but the wary beasts run away in alarm. He follows them for a long way in vain chase. They were twice as fleet as his horse.

We are back again at Latooka. But how changed the scene. The small pox is raging among both natives and Turks. We cannot encamp in the town. Mrs. Baker falls sick with fever. Two horses, three camels and five donkeys die for us. King Moy had induced the Turks to join him in an attack on the Kayala tribe, and the combined forces had been beaten. Thus more enemies had been made. It was no place to stay. So we must back to Obbo, and the old chief Katchiba.

But here things are even worse. The small pox is there ahead of us, carried by careless natives or dirty, unprincipled Moslem traders, and the whole town is in misery. A party of roving traders had raided it and carried off nearly the whole stock of cows and oxen. Our horses all die, and most of our other animals, under the attacks of the dreadful tsetse fly. Both the Colonel and Mrs. Baker fall sick with fever, and the old chief comes in to cure them by enchantment. It rains nearly all the time, and rats and even snakes seek the huts out of the wet. Our stay of two months here is dreary enough, and the wonder is that any of us ever get away.

As soon as the Colonel and Lady Baker can go out they pay a visit to Katchiba, which he appreciates, and invites them into his private quarters. It is only a brewery, where his wives are busy preparing his favorite beer. The old chief invites them to a seat, takes up something which passes for a harp, and asks if he may sing. Expecting something ludicrous, they consent, but are surprised to hear a really well sung and neatly accompanied air. The old fellow is evidently as expert in music as in beer drinking.

Waiting is awful in any African village during the rainy or any other season, and especially if the low fevers of the country are in your system. We have really lost from May to October, on account of the fullness of the streams south of us. Our stock of quinine is nearly gone; our cattle are all dead. Shall we go on? If so, it must be afoot. And afoot it shall be, for we have met an Unyoro slave woman who tells as well as she can about a lake called Luta N’Zige, very nearly where we expect to find the Albert Nyanza.