Chapter II

We did not expect to receive a public welcome at Abou Harras, and were thoroughly surprised when the entire village, on the morning of the 12th, turned out to give us a reception. Women and men bore down on us, dancing and clapping their hands to a hideous accompaniment of tomtoms and drums. Many of them leaped and capered in the craziest fashion to emphasize the display of pleasure at our arrival. The women and children expressed their delight by a peculiar tremolo cry, which reminded me of that heard in Lower Egypt at marriage festivals.[7] One old man came on at a leisurely pace giving an exhibition of sword-play in our honour. He afterwards delivered a panegyric of the English, declaring that they were the saviours of his country, that the children of the Soudanese were now no longer torn from them, and so forth. I found that the young men were almost all absent from the village, doing military service on the Abyssinian frontier; the women who came out to show their delight officially by their shrilling were “the girls they left behind them.” This singular deputation had not approached very near, and presently retired a little way. Some of the slower movements of those who took part in the ceremony were by no means ungraceful, but the din was indescribably discordant. I went to inspect the procession at close quarters, supposing that it would shortly withdraw and disperse. But the “music” continued for fully an hour and a half, and it was more difficult to endure patiently during the latter part of the time as we were all busily writing letters for the homeward mail. A messenger had to carry them half a dozen miles and return immediately to rejoin, and he was waiting for our correspondence.

The point of junction of the river Rahad with the Blue Nile is half a mile distant from Abou Harras, and my companions walked to the spot later in the day. I attended to some odd jobs of the kind which a traveller always finds he has in arrear, and then I tried for fish, but caught nothing and lost my spinner. Many herons had taken their station on a strip of sand about a hundred yards from the place where I stood, and paid no heed to my presence.

On this day we had the good luck to receive two English visitors. The first was Mr. Wilson, the Moudir of Wad-el-Medani. We could only offer him a cup of rather muddy tea; but the village offered him the public reception, and the music was as loud as ever at the second performance. Our second guest was Bimbashi Gwynn, who landed from the sternwheeler which had left Khartoum on the 10th. He was on the way to Abyssinia to settle the boundary question. He had been in that country before, and as he was able to stay and dine with us, we had the benefit of many useful hints in the course of a pleasant chat in the evening.

_See p._ 14.]

At Abou Harras we parted company with our guide, drivers, and forty camels. There was no unhappiness at the leave-taking. We inspected the men and animals that we had hired in their place, and devoutly hoped we had made a better choice.

On the following morning the thermometer again sank to 43 degrees, and the atmosphere and the water seemed bitterly cold to us. We started on the road to Gedaref just before nine o’clock. Our new guide was a Greek, who had made the journey many times, and was said to know everything that need be known. I was sceptical.

Our route followed the course of the telegraph, and lay at first beside the Rahad. This river differs considerably in the dry season from the Blue Nile. In the latter we had found a fairly fast current flowing over a stony or sandy bed between banks composed of mud. The stream passed through a succession of shallows and deep pools. The Rahad, at the point of junction with the Nile, was entirely dry, and we proceeded some distance up the course before we found pools. The banks are high and steep.

I do not think that Sir Samuel Baker at all exaggerated the fertility and value of the land in this region. He wrote: “The entire country would be a mine of wealth were it planted with cotton.”[8] The Rahad, as he said, “flows through rich alluvial soil; the country is a vast level plain, with so trifling a fall that the current of the river is gentle.”[9] This circumstance would facilitate irrigation. Besides mimosa trees and much other timber, we found in this region matted growths of bushes and wide stretches of long grass now tangled on the ground—all bearing testimony to the quality of the soil.

I soon perceived that my hope of a better mount was vain. My new camel was a failure from the start. His paces were indescribable, and when he trotted I felt like a bad sailor in a small boat on a lively sea. In an hour’s time I had lost my temper and got rid of the camel. As the result, I was better served, and a beast was brought for me which shambled evenly, and allowed me to keep up with my companions.

We halted for lunch at a village called Hadeiba, where two sheikhs came out to receive us. They were very polite, but would neither eat nor smoke, as we were in the month of Ramadan. By-and-by they remembered that they ought to give us a present, and left us, saying that they would bring two sheep, according to the custom of the Soudan. Half an hour later we quitted the spot.

That night we camped at a place named Khor Abou Segeira, close to the Rahad. Near at hand was a muddy pool in the course of the river, and we had to draw our supply of liquor from it. As usual, we set our Berkfeld filters to work. A candle is a part of the apparatus through which the water filters, and we found that this incessantly became foul and required to be cleaned every three minutes. However, we replenished our stock of clear water sufficiently, and then went to bed by moonlight in the open.

We started at a quarter-past seven on the morning of the 14th. No tents had been pitched the night before, so none had to be struck, and our departure was earlier on this account. My companions and I took our guns into the bushy ground beside the river while the camels followed the track towards Gedaref. We were in search of guinea-fowl, which are found in great abundance on the banks of the Rahad. These birds run in flocks, and rise at about forty yards’ distance when one tries to approach them.

I lost sight of my companions in the thick, tangled vegetation, and after waiting where I was for a while in case they should chance to rejoin me, roamed on. I found no guinea-fowl, but pigeons and ringdoves were in great abundance, and there were hoopoes, hornbills, kingfishers, and numbers of other birds. A little later I came to the banks of the river. Here I saw a company of grivet monkeys. These, according to Mansfield Parkyns, are called “tota” or “waag” in Abyssinia. He described the species as “a beautiful little greenish-grey monkey, with black face and white whiskers.”[10] The natty little fellows whom I met by the Rahad just answered the description. They were clean and sleek, and looked as “spry” as cleverness could make them.

After following the course of the river for about half a mile I made towards the track and found it without difficulty, but I saw no sign of our baggage-train. However, one of our boys trotted up a few minutes later, and then I learned that the camels were some way behind. In fact, an hour and a half passed before they overtook me. When the others came up, I learned that they had supposed me to be lost and had scoured the country in all directions, and that the whole party had been detained till all the searchers were called in. I was intensely annoyed to find that I had been the cause of the needless delay.

We lunched beside another muddy pool in the course of the Rahad, and then moved forward to our camping-ground for the night, which was called Mesr-el-Ashir.

During the journey we had noticed that our escort were driving two sheep. We made inquiry about them, and were told that they had been purchased by the Greek guide on the previous day. We had a very strong suspicion that they were the animals which the Sheikhs had promised us at Hadeiba, and that the subtle Hellene had benefited by the gift. One of the sheep was killed in the evening, and we received “a present” of a leg, some chops, and a couple of kidneys. The meat was excellent.

Our route now left the course of the Rahad, and we turned eastward towards Gedaref.

Our beds were spread in the open again. Orion was straight above me as I lay, before falling asleep, and Sirius nearer to the southern horizon. I looked for the constellation and the star each night when I turned in, and had a sense of being in the presence of old friends while I gazed at them.

On the following morning, December 15, I again changed my mount for the better, and rode a smoothly trotting camel at last. Our day’s journey was a short one, and brought us to the last watering-place which a traveller on this road reaches before the wells of Fau. On the way my companions shot a couple of guinea-fowl, and we were glad to see them at dinner-time.

We camped at night close to a long range of hills of a granite formation called Gebal Arang. They rise to a height of three hundred or four hundred feet, and make a striking change in the landscape as one approaches them. I knew that our Berbereen boys had never seen such high ground, and watched them to observe what impression it made upon them. It made none. They are an apathetic race, philosophers of the _nil admirari_ school by temperament.

_See p._ 18.]

On these inland marches we carried water in tanks, and were obliged to hoard it. We had to go back in the morning to the allowance which had served us for washing purposes overnight. In all this region, every condition of life, important and unimportant, depends upon the rivers. At Gebel Arang we saw gazelles and the antelopes called ariels for the first time. We also caught sight of a large bustard, and my companion stalked it unsuccessfully. It is hard work to carry a gun in a hot country where every bush, and even the grass, grows thorns that “mean business,” and the man who fails is usually weary as well as disappointed.

Next day, December 16, we travelled at the foot of the hills. It was a pleasant journey, for there was verdure, and the tall mimosas threw shade on the track. Besides the flocks of guinea-fowl to which we were accustomed, we saw a hare—the first we had found in the Soudan. Before midday we reached the wells of Fau. The drinking-water here is of a fairly good quality, but not quite free from mud. Guinea-fowl again supplied our dinner. They are slow to rise, but not easy to shoot; for they run in the most nimble fashion among the thick covert, and to come within range, the “guns” have to run too. The sun is strong overhead, the thorns are strong all round, and the exercise is smart work, even for a man in sound condition.

In the evening a messenger from the Intelligence Department reached our camp. He brought us letters and papers, and I ascertained that he, on a fast camel and without baggage, had travelled in two and a half days a distance which we had covered in six.

Our halting-place was between two ranges of the hills. The wind blew hard during the night, and the current of it came racing down the valley where we lay. Great clouds of dust were carried with it, and the particles were driven thickly into every crevice and corner. Crawley and I tried to form a shelter by piling up our square boxes behind us, but this was of little avail. It was an excitement of a sort, but not pleasant to a sleepy man.

We lay later than usual next morning, December 17, as we did not intend to strike our camp till midday. My companions went to shoot the poultry, and I remained in my tent and nearly shot myself without expending a cartridge. Our plan for securing fizzing drinks was to put a sparklet in a bottle of water and screw in the top. I was busy upon this operation when the bottle which I was handling burst. As luck would have it, I received no injury, though I was peppered with fragments of glass. One particle entered the eye of my boy Achmet. I extracted it and found that no serious damage had been done to the organ. After this, we abandoned the use of sparklets, and fizzing drinks were things of the “dear, dead past,” and the uncertain future.

We left the camp at midday, after six guinea-fowl had been brought in, and struck into the waterless country between our halting-place and Gedaref. The distance is seventy-two miles. We were obliged to carry the drinking supply for the whole journey. Our route lay along a good track that follows the line of the telegraph.

The soil in this region is soft, friable earth, perfectly adapted for cotton cultivation. But the district is unhealthy in the rainy season, when malaria prevails and the country is a reeking swamp of dead and living vegetation. It was perfectly dry when we traversed it, and we ran no risk of disease. The tangle of desiccated tall grass lay upon the ground, as in so many tracts of this part of the Soudan, and our road was bordered by mimosa shrubs. They grow thickly in places, but were not high enough to give protection from the sun.

We halted for the night at five o’clock, and unpacked only our beds and such things as were strictly necessary, for we were to start at half-past four next morning.

I was very sleepy when I was roused at 3.30 a.m. on the 18th. We had a cup of cocoa, and then left our camping-ground at the appointed time by moonlight. The air was chilly even after the sun rose at six o’clock, and the warmth of the day did not make itself felt before eight. At half-past ten we halted for a _déjeuner à la fourchette_, and rested for a couple of hours.

Darkness had fallen by the time we reached our camping-ground at the place called Terras Wad-el-Fau. We had covered thirty-two miles of our journey since the morning. At this spot we rejoiced to find that an Egyptian soldier in charge of two _fantasses_ (watertanks) had been sent to meet us by the Inspector of Gedaref. Our camel-men with the baggage were some distance behind us, and we lighted a bonfire of mimosa wood to cheer them forward. They overtook us at their leisure, and our dinner of stewed guinea-fowl was not served till a quarter to ten.

We were out of bed by five o’clock next morning, December 19, and hastened the preparations for the start. We had to cover thirty miles in order to reach Gedaref in the evening. All this country—I cannot call it desert, though the conditions are not dissimilar—is comfortless for travellers, but our last day’s journey in it was the worst. The heat was intense; so much so that “resting” at lunch-time seemed less tolerable than movement on camel-back. To quench an incessant thirst we had only the water stored in our tanks, which was warm and far from colourless. Even the hint of shade given by the mimosa scrub had now disappeared, and our eyes were wearied by the monotonous stretches of land, in which nothing was seen but the dried and matted grass. It had been fired in places, accidentally I think; for though it is often kindled to clear the ground for crops, in this region there was no trace of agriculture. The flames had a ghostly, exhausted, unreal look in the burning sunshine. After a march that seemed interminable we beheld, from rising ground, three trees with verdure on them, and then we knew that we were near the boundary of this distressing district. A two miles’ journey brought us to the house of Mr. Flemming at Gedaref[11]—a square building made of sun-dried mud. At our countryman’s dwelling a warm welcome and cool drinks awaited us. Here we found Bimbashis Gwynn and Liddell. That evening Mr. Flemming gave us our Christmas dinner—and we reconciled ourselves to antedating it—with true British plum-pudding in the _menu_.

_See p._ 22.]

_See p._ 214.

_From a Photograph by Mr. C. E. Dupuis._]