CHAPTER XX.IN DINKA-LAND.The native information as to my route was decidedly discouraging, but knowing by now the value of native information, it was with reasonable hopes of success that I disposed of my bed and other luxuries, and put the first of three hundred miles behind me. As I started late, I camped at the first large village that I met, a distance of six miles from Bohr. Here there was an enormous population living round the extensive lagoons that stretched in all directions, and after the first few minutes of suspense, a brisk trade started in fish and grain, and eventually in milk. On the following day we succeeded in dodging several lagoons, but had to wade up to our necks and cross another nearly a mile wide on a very treacherous layer of vegetation. Skirting the edge of the water, we came on a herd of twenty elephant, and I dropped a good bull with a couple of .303's in the head. The quantities of goats and sheep possessed by the natives were extraordinary, enormous herds grazing in every direction in the rich vegetation growing in the swamps. After cutting off meat from the elephant, I followed one of the numerous paths which led inland, and meeting hundreds of natives on the way, arrived at a large, scattered village, where we camped.The main population, which is very dense, lives in the bush at a distance of sometimes several miles from the river, and water is one of the most expensive supplies, though, except in seasons of severe drought, such as when I passed through, there are evidently numerous pools scattered all over the bush. Owing to the drought there was no grain obtainable, and the natives were eating the seeds of a water-plant resembling a crown-artichoke (the nenuphar) and the kernels of the before-mentioned plums. A very affable and intelligent gentleman, who had accompanied me for some miles, offered his services as guide, which I gladly accepted, and after marching for an hour I arrived at another extensive village. Here, as elsewhere, all the huts were isolated and surrounded by a fence of thorns to ward off the lions, which were very numerous. On the path we met hundreds and hundreds of natives, many of enormous stature, 6 ft. 4 to 6 ft. 6, who were going to cut up the elephant, and they were all very friendly. At the village I waited for my boys to close up, but after some time one was still missing, and as boys whom I sent back told me that they could not find him, I packed my people and belongings into one of the thorn-fences, and went back with one soldier and some Dinkas whom I persuaded to accompany me.About a mile away I met my headman and my guide of the morning returning with the delinquent, who was none other than the criminal lunatic. It appears that he had decided to return home, and, as a preliminary, had distributed my blankets, mosquito-curtain, and clothes amongst the natives. By an extraordinary stroke of luck I recovered them intact, with the trivial exception of one of my two shirts; it was due to my guide, and he and the two men who brought them in were handsomely rewarded; so was the runaway. The flies by day, the mosquitoes by night, rendered life well-nigh impossible, and with visions of impassable swamps, waterless deserts, and famine in front, I heartily wished myself quit of Africa and all its abominations, as I have so often done before, and shall no doubt so often do again. In the afternoon, at the urgent request of many hungry Dinkas, I sallied forth and slew a good bull elephant. I had chased him for several miles, pouring in lead whenever I could see him, till at last he stood. This gave me my chance, and he dropped to a shot in the head. But as I was going up to inspect him, he suddenly rose and sloped away. I fired four shots from the 10-bore at him as he passed. At the fourth he stopped, turned his head towards me, and quite deliberately began to advance, examining carefully with his trunk every palm-bush. There was no unseemly haste about his action. He meant investigating the matter. My position was most uncomfortable, as, if I fired, I should give him my whereabouts, and certainly could not drop him; while, if I moved from the cover of the diminutive palm-tree behind which I was standing, he would immediately see me, and the country was too open to escape. So, for lack of another alternative, I waited. On he came quite quietly, that snake-like trunk writhing round every corner, till there were but two more palm-trees between him and me: out went that trunk once more; he stopped, swayed slowly to and fro, and fell with a mighty crash--dead. His tusks must have weighed about 60 lbs. apiece. It was heart-breaking to leave them lying there, and to think that I had had to kill such a magnificent beast for the sake of his meat. The natives were very much delighted, and evidently thought me a great institution, and for several days afterwards I was pestered with requests to shoot elephant, till I began to wish I had never seen such a beast. They promised to take the tusks of those I had slain to Bohr, and to give them to the steamer when she returned, but I don't suppose I shall see them again.[#][#] They turned up seven years later, the natives having kept them for me till a Government station was established.The river, which is here one vast sea of grass, the opposite bank being quite invisible even from an eminence of 20 ft., continually branches inland in the form of long, narrow, meandering lagoons, which, I suppose, are apologies for rivers in this part of the world. As some of them are several miles in length, progress is very difficult, and every moment I dreaded to see a new one. However, I successfully dodged most of them, but had some trouble with one a mile broad, which we eventually passed by wading, the water being in places up to my boys' necks. At one time my small boy, with my revolver, prismatic compass, and coat, disappeared completely, but was extricated by an obliging Dinka of about 6 ft. 7 in. The prevalence of crocodiles, and a slimy bottom pitted with elephant-holes, did not facilitate matters.Enormous numbers of Dinkas came to see me beaten by this obstruction; and after two hours' exhausting conversation in signs, during which I displayed all my remaining trade goods, I had still failed to induce a guide to show me the way across. In native fashion they all wanted to see what I would do. At last, utterly disgusted, I started to wade, intending to swim if we could not manage otherwise, as I dare not waste the two or three days that would be necessary to march round. When they saw that I was quite determined, several came with me and showed me the shallowest path across. They were hugely delighted when I presented them with a Jubilee medal and some beads, but said that they dare not go any further, as the next village was not their village, signifying that if they went they would be speared. A short march soon brought us to the village in question. The natives were rather nervous at first, but soon brought us plenty of rotten fish and a little milk. Here my surviving Ruanda man succumbed to the attacks of the mosquitoes, which defied description; he had been ailing for some time, and being too desperate to keep them off, he was literally sucked dry. It was absolutely necessary to turn in half an hour before sunset and to make all the preparations possible for the night. I piled all my belongings round the edge of my net, and kept a green wood fire burning at each end: then I lay inside, smoked native tobacco (of remarkable pungency), and prayed for morning. As soon as the sun went down they started operations. It was like having a tame whirlwind in one's tent. They could not possibly have been worse: had there been thousands more it would not have mattered, as not a single one more could have found room on any exposed part of one's anatomy. Every night two or three hundred contrived to enter my net; I have no idea how. The most pernicious and poisonous kind was a very small black mosquito, that might possibly have penetrated the mesh. I used to turn out in the morning feeling perfectly dazed from the amount of poison that had been injected during the night. The natives of the country obviate the nuisance by lining their huts with a deep layer of burnt cow-dung, in which they lie. They also smear a paste made of this ash and cow's urine all over their bodies. The women carefully collect all the dung and spread it out to dry. In the evening, when the cattle are brought in to be milked, they burn it. The smoke serves to keep the flies from the beasts during the milking. Then all the ash is collected and placed in the huts.Following the river, we made good progress till a halt was called by the presence of a stupendous old bull elephant with magnificent tusks, who was dozing on the path. We shouted to him to get out of the way, and he slowly turned round, stalked towards us, and when within fifty yards curled up his trunk, spread his ears, rumbled and came. Crash went every load, and I found myself in a medley of tent and boxes, pots and pans, with a double .303 loaded with soft-nosed bullets, looking at him in amazement; but the shot fortunately turned him, and away he went, screaming and trumpeting, giving my blankets a parting kick as he swung round. This is the only time I have seen one aggressive without due cause. Owing to the absence of water and the quantity of plum-trees, of which they are very fond, there were enormous numbers of elephant along the river-bank, and except where they were on the path we scarcely noticed them, every day passing several herds. I was wild when I thought of the prodigious but futile efforts that Sharp and I made round the volcanoes to find them, when we had porters galore, while now, having no porters, I looked upon them as a nuisance, owing to the delay they caused. Here, and for some days afterwards, close to the line of bush, there was a well-defined river with a stream of one and a half to two miles an hour, which would be navigable for flat-bottomed punts. The numbers of hippo were incredible, literally thousands and thousands. At every two hundred yards there was a great purple bank of twenty, fifty, or a hundred lying with their bodies half exposed, while others were wandering about in every direction on the vegetation, islands, and mud-banks. They practically ignored our presence, though we often passed within ten yards of them. Other game was scarce; I only saw a few waterbuck, bushbuck, and once the track of a giraffe, though plenty of guinea-fowl, and a few ducks and geese; but these were of little use, as, on opening my last box of shot-cartridges, they fell to pieces, being eaten through and through with rust. At one village a native produced a recent number ofBlack and White, carefully wrapped up in a piece of goatskin, and pointed out with great glee a picture of Dreyfus; as I had no interpreter, and the natives no longer understood my ten words of pigeon Arabic, I have not the remotest conception how it came into this outlandish spot. It was very difficult to obtain supplies, owing to the general famine, so I shot another elephant, which came down to water near camp, and made my boys smoke a three-days' supply of meat. The following day we saw two large herds of elephant, one mainly composed of good bulls. Some, showing splendid ivories, refused for a long time to leave the path. We were compelled to stone them. Then, making good progress, we camped opposite a ferry, which led to an island where I could see some natives. They quickly collected, and in a few minutes there was a crowd of several hundred, with a solid hedge of spears glinting in the sun. At first they were very doubtful; then, suddenly realizing that it was all right, they swarmed across, yelling and whooping, and in one minute my diminutive camp was one howling black mass. At first things looked rather anxious, but some slaps on the back and a long-winded repetition of arâm, which appears to be the local form of salaam, quickly spread a broad grin over the mass; they brought me a present of about thirty large fish, and there was soon a brisk trade in milk, of which they had an unlimited supply, so that all my men had a good wholesome feed. They proved very friendly, and I much regret that our conversation was strictly limited to arâm, which, however, appears to have considerable significance, being invariably responded to by much grunting and a peculiar clucking noise like the soliloquy of an old hen. Every one in Dinka-land carries a long-bladed spear, a pointed fish-spear, and a club made of a heavy purple wood, while the important gentlemen wear enormous ivory bracelets round their upper arm; strict nudity is the fashion, and a marabout feather in the hair is the essence ofchic. They are all beautifully built, having broad shoulders, small waist, good hips, and well-shaped legs. The stature of some is colossal. It was most curious to see how these Dinkas, living as they do in the marshes, approximate to the type of the water-bird. They have much the same walk as a heron, picking their feet up very high, and thrusting them well forward. Their feet are enormous. Their colossal height is, of course, a great advantage in the reed-grown country in which they live. They are the complete antithesis of the pigmy, as the country in which they live is the complete antithesis of the dense forest that is the home of the dwarfs. Many of these strange African peoples form most interesting reading to a student of evolution. The adaptability of a race to its surroundings is wonderful. The favourite pose of a Dinka is in reality the favourite pose of a water-bird. It is most interesting to note that surroundings should produce a similar type in families as remote from one another as birds and men.My headman woke me in the morning with the pleasing information that my home-sick criminal had disappeared in the night, so the body of my tent had to go by the board, a severe loss, as afterwards transpired. During this day's march and a part of the next, the population changed entirely, the well-bred Dinkas giving place to a miserable fishing-folk, who are presumably the Woatsch spoken of, as reported to live here, by Sir S. Baker. They are an extraordinary people, of a very low stage of civilization, and showed abject terror at the sight of beads and cloth. I imagine they took me for a god, as each village, man, woman, and child, persisted in escorting me for a mile or so, doing the honours with a deafening chant, and continually pointing to the sun; this, though very flattering, hardly acted as a sedative on my fever, and I was heartily thankful to leave them behind; at one spot there must have been fully five hundred men who formed a solid phalanx round me, and sang at the top of their voices for a distance of two miles. They appeared not to have the remotest conception of barter, and hid their faces when I produced any of my trade goods, so that it was impossible to buy any food. Even during the night small bands approached to a respectful distance and chanted, and at one watering-place about a hundred loathsome hags danced a wild fandango around me, uttering the shrillest cries conceivable, and accompanying them with a measured flap-flap of their long pendant dugs; then, as a grand finale, all threw themselves on their faces at my feet, and with one ear-piercing shriek dispersed into the bush, leaving me under the impression that I was in the Drury Lane pantomime, outside two bottles of champagne. Never in all Africa had I met such embarrassing and impossible people. In the intervals of these trying performances I noticed that the country was slightly more elevated, and that there was a profusion of large trees. This would be the best position for a Government station. But it soon settled down again into the dismal flat of sun-baked clay, thorn, and palm-scrub, which in places recedes, leaving large plains that are flooded in ordinary seasons; here there were numbers of small buck, and I saw a beautiful maleCobus maria. It was a most handsome little beast, and was running with a large herd of other waterbuck, and had the same action as the Uganda kob. I was much disappointed, from lack of porterage, to lose the opportunity of procuring such a rare specimen. The variety of aquatic birds was enormous; amongst others, a beautiful black-and-white ibis; but I looked in vain forBalæniceps rex. The kites, marabouts, and vultures were a great nuisance. On several occasions a kite actually took my dinner out of the frying-pan on the fire while the cook's back was turned.After the singing gentry, it was with no little relief that I met some respectable Dinkas again with large herds of cattle; they, too, appeared to be ignorant of the elements of barter, and it was only after an hour's dumb-crambo business that they brought an antediluvian fish as a feeler; this I immediately bought at great price, and then they realized that there was something in the idea, and brought a good supply. They have absolutely none of the fear of, and respect for, the white man that one finds all over Africa except in the regions of Exeter Hall legislation, but merely regard one as a great joke, and, on the whole, not such a bad sort of fool. They are all the most inveterate, pertinacious, and annoying beggars, and evince the greatest astonishment when one refuses to distribute one's belongings gratis amongst them. One in particular amused me, a 6 ft. 4 giant, who took a fancy to my last pair of trousers, and when, pleading modesty, I refused his request, he stamped and howled like a spoilt child. He then proceeded to make himself very objectionable, and forced his way into my tent, refused to quit, and brandished his club. This was too much, so I suddenly took him by the scruff of the neck and the seat of where he wished my trousers to be, and, trusting in the superiority of a beef and beer diet over one of fish and thin milk, to his intense amazement, ran him out of camp, and imparted a final impetus with a double-barrelled drop-kick, backed by a pair of iron-shod ammunition boots. I was surprised to find how weak he was, despite his colossal stature. The others took it as a huge joke, and an hour afterwards he returned and behaved himself very well, on the morrow guiding me for some miles.From here the country changes completely, opening out into a limitless plain, dotted here and there with clumps of borassus palm, growing on small, flat-topped eminences which are the only possible camping-grounds. The channel (which I christened the Gertrude Nile, and which had never hitherto been more than half a mile from the bush) bends away to the west and spreads out into large marshes, though its course is still obvious, and the plain, which is a mass of matted, half-burnt reed, hippo and elephant holes, is scored with numerous channels of water and mud, and towards the bush, which is soon at least fifteen miles from the river, is covered with small ant-hills. There is an enormous population on these plains, with huge herds of cattle and goats, though it is impossible to say where they live, and they are wonderfully clever at hiding their cattle, and light smoke fires to prevent them from making a noise. I marched for hours without seeing a native, but when pitching camp I could see hundreds and hundreds advancing in Indian file from all directions, or if I took a line that led far from water, a group would appear like magic to put me right. There was something uncanny about knowing that one was watched by hundreds without ever seeing more than an occasional individual perched on one leg, the other foot resting on his knee, on the top of a far ant-hill, and looking like a long black stork. The first day that I camped in the plain I was visited by at least a thousand natives.With the exception of one or two slight fracas with my boys, they were well-behaved, and I bought a large supply of fish; but the second day about fifteen hundred turned up, and having nothing to sell, became very obstreperous. They tried to steal, so I ordered the vicinity of my tent to be cleared, and hustled several fairly roughly. One turned on me, and I knocked him down, cutting my hand badly on his teeth. They took my rough handling very well, but immediately resented any movement of my boys, and one silly young blood danced a dangerous war-dance, brandishing his spear round one of my Askaris, till I broke it for him, and gave him two or three reminders with a heavy hippo-whip. They then became very much excited, and I spent the rest of the afternoon with my hand on my revolver, momentarily expecting a generalémeute, when, no doubt, we should have fared badly. Fortunately, there were two respectable old gentlemen who did their best to keep the younger blades quiet. One man bolted with a bit of cloth; a miss-fire from my .303 saved his life, and one of the old gentlemen, not knowing that I had pulled the trigger, signed to me to hold, and had the cloth fetched back; he then succeeded in clearing the camp of about half the turbulent rabble, for which I was very thankful. They then began to slowly file off, but about a hundred, including some of the most noisy ruffians, remained; these I quickly cleared with a heavy whip in one hand and my revolver in the other. They did not like the whip and smiled at the revolver, evidently thinking it a sort of club, till I shot a confiding marabout which was watching the proceedings, when there was a race for first place to less dangerous quarters.On the march we came upon a belated hippo out on the plain, and there was a great hunt, about two hundred natives chasing him and plunging their spears into his body, till at last, covered with blood, he turned to bay, when I finished him off with a shot in the head.A few miles further on I shot a Senegal hartebeeste, which gave us a supply of meat. On the third day we succeeded in shaking off our too attentive friends, and although we marched for six hours only made seven miles, owing to the necessity of feeling one's way round the swamps and the difficult nature of the ground. In many places the burnt vegetation was of the consistency of coke, and severely cut my boys' feet. The plain still widened, and the Gertrude Nile tended more decidedly towards the west. The bush was no longer visible, but to the west of the swamps there appeared to be a slight ridge with a dense covering of borassus.We camped near a cattle village, and the people seemed friendly, though, as usual, somewhat turbulent. Two came into the camp after dark, evidently to see if we were on the alert, and were summarily ejected. In the morning about a hundred came and gave considerable trouble, and persisted in following us on the march. I noticed that two or three were closing round each of my boys, while at the same time about twenty were packing behind me. I turned round to drive them off, when my fools of Watonga were suddenly seized with a panic, and, throwing their loads down, ran towards me, shouting, "We are all lost!" Of course that started the game, and my best Congo soldier fell, stabbed to the heart, and two more went down with cracked skulls. I took the chief and his right-hand man with a double barrel, then turning round, found my boy had bolted with my revolver. At the same moment a Dinka hurled his spear at me; I dodged it, but he rushed in and dealt me a swinging blow with his club, which I fortunately warded with my arm, receiving no more damage than a wholesome bruise. I poked my empty gun at his stomach, and he turned, receiving a second afterwards a Dum-dum in the small of his back. Then they broke and ran, my army with eight guns having succeeded in firing two shots. I climbed up a high ant-hill that was close, and could see them watching at about three hundred yards for our next move, which was an unexpected one, for I planted a Dum-dum apparently in the stomach of one of the most obtrusive ruffians, whom I recognized by his great height. They then hurried off and bunched at about seven hundred yards, and another shot, whether effectual or not I could not see, sent them off in all directions, and the battle was finished. It was all over in a shorter time than it takes to tell the tale, but while it lasted it was fairly warm. I never expected to see my happy home again, nor did I feel much happier when I had time to look round. I was alone; at my feet lay my Congo Askari, in the last spasmodic shudder of death; a few yards away lay three more of my men, streams of blood slowly trickling from gaping wounds in their heads. The distorted figures of the three Dinkas, shot at close quarters, were the only other breaks in the dismal monotony of the marsh. I shouted, and slowly--one by one--my miserable curs emerged from patches of reed and bog-holes. Then the three wounded came-to from their swoon; one was very slightly hurt, but the other two were quite mad for days after. It was necessary, therefore, to throw away still more of our belongings. There was only one thing that could go, and that was Sharp's 60g. Holland and Holland paradox, half of which is peacefully reposing under some scrub, while the other half is at the bottom of a mud-hole. After dressing the heads of the two soldiers, who, with the trifling exception of insanity, did not seem much the worse, one for a gash 2 in. long and down to the bone on his temple, and the other for two gaping holes on the top of his skull, we hurried on, fearing the Dinkas might returnen masse. But they contented themselves with watching us, and when I dropped the topmost man of a bunch of five on an ant-hill at six hundred yards, they only made further observations at a distance of a mile.The news spread like wildfire, for, several miles further on, when passing within half a mile of a village, a band of ten old men came towards me, waving their arms in the air to show that they were unarmed. I went to meet them, and when quite close they started the old singing business, so I hurried off, after treating them to several arâms with an attempted pacific intonation. They then sent milk after me, but I waved them off, thinking it advisable to try by forced marches to break the line of communication.Shortly afterwards, crossing a swamp on a dangerous bridge of weed burnt to the water level, I saw a specimen ofBalæniceps rexstanding quite close to me. I was on the point of firing, when a hippo put his head through the bridge at about ten yards, and regretfully I had to shoot him instead for his beef. Half a dozen Dinkas appeared, and, after making a great pacific demonstration, approached and helped to finish him off. He took several shots, and each time I fired they ran to a distance of at least two hundred yards, so they had evidently heard of the morning's proceedings. After cutting off some meat we continued our march, and it was not till 4 p.m. that I found another place where it was possible to camp, having buried most of my beads on the road to further lighten the loads. For the same purpose, in the evening I made a distribution of cloth and burnt a quantity, together with all my boys' rags.[image]THERE WERE NUMBERS OF DINKAS FISHING HERE.The night passed peacefully, though I thought it advisable to put on a double sentry, and on the morrow, weary of swamps, I struck east towards the great burnt plain, and then marched due north, trusting to luck for water. I found numerous holes where the water had not quite dried up, and met many isolated groups of desponding natives spearing a loathsome four-legged reptile or fish, some of which, for lack of more delicate fare, I had to eat; and after marching for about fifteen miles, I again came on extensive swamps which stretched far to the east, and seemed likely to give me much trouble, if not to effectually prevent me going further. Being totally ignorant of the country, and without means of asking the simplest question of the natives, I had been fearing all along that I should arrive at some impassable obstacle. I was very anxious on this point, as it would have been impossible to return. Arriving unexpectedly on the edge of the first pool, I found it one mass of small duck, with a spur-winged goose standing up in the middle. I fired at him with my .303, and he dropped, the bullet striking him with most unusual noise. My boy, wading in, returned not only with the goose, but also two duck. The bullet had struck the goose's back, removing his intestines and half his breast, then cut off the head and broken the wing of No. 1 duck, and neatly cleaned No. 2. It was a Dum-dum, and must have exploded like a shell. I have often noticed that the bullets with the most penetration, such as the solid, nickel-coated, and the Dum-dum, shatter small animals and birds more effectually than the more expansive bullets, such as the Jeffrey and the lead-nose. This stroke of luck provided a very welcome change to my mournful diet of doubtful fish, occasional milk flavoured with cow's urine, which is used for washing the dairy utensils, and a strange cheese of my own manufacture.We camped on the top of a layer of burnt vegetation overlying a morass, and my tent nearly disappeared in the night, while I was seized with furious bouts of vomiting, caused by the quantity of salt in the water. To make matters more cheerful, I discovered that my last two tins of tobacco were mouldy, and I only wished that I could enjoy it as much as the mosquitoes appeared to do, who settled in clouds on the rim of my pipe waiting their turn for a space on my epidermis. Several either climbed inside or bit me through a pair of ammunition boots. I had a severe cold and a stiff arm; my cook boy had dysentery; one of the Congo soldiers had a dreadful foot, which rendered walking a terrible torture; and the two gentlemen with cracked skulls were semi-delirious, so that, on the whole, we were a jovial party, our joviality being materially increased by the impossibility of making a fire, owing to lack of fuel.In the morning we repeated the same tactics, and after finding plenty of water early in the march, only reached a camping-place at sunset. The country became slightly more cheerful, several trees about the dimensions of a healthy cabbage appearing on the horizon, and I saw the spoor of several giraffe, though where the giraffe themselves contrived to hide was more than I could guess. Our camp was near a large village where there were at least one thousand five hundred head of cattle, besides sheep and goats, and the chief brought me a fine fat bull-calf, which settled the nervous question of food for two days. These people, too, had evidently heard of the fracas, and only approached my camp in small bands, for which I was very grateful.There were numbers of Dinkas fishing here. Their method is as follows: About a dozen men, each taking a large basket open at the bottom and with a hole at the top, advance in line through the shallow portions of the lagoon. Grasping the basket by the hole at the top, they dash it down on to the mud in front of them. I suppose if they catch a fish inside they pull it out of the hole at the top. I never saw them catch one, although they appeared to be quite hopeful.The styles of coiffure affected by the Southern Dinkas had now changed, the prevailing fashion being to wear the hair long and frizzed out like a mop, while some of the young exquisites caked it with a white clay brought out to a peak behind. The rambling village, with its groups of figures and long lines of home-coming cattle dimly seen in the smoke of a hundred fires as I approached at sunset, was very picturesque.CHAPTER XXI.IN NUERLAND.The following two days I still kept to the plain, on the first day finding plenty of water, and camping near a mud-trough where the water was flowing west; but on the second day we wandered into a waterless wilderness, and taking a north-west course marched for hours before we reached a stream. Our sufferings were intolerable, increased as they were by the salt nature of the water which we had been drinking for days. Half the boys fell by the road, and lay helpless till relieved by the water I sent back. I was beginning to despair of saving them, when from the only ant-hill for miles I saw a flight of birds, and after an hour's sharp burst I arrived at a large vlei, where to my joy I found that the water was flowing north, and was less salt. At an early stage of that day's march I had to leave yet another load. Soon after starting I saw a herd of at least four hundred hartebeeste, and on the vlei, where we camped, the numbers of ducks, geese, and pelicans were extraordinary. At my first shot I killed two large spurwings, and a few more rounds provided geese for all the camp, while I revelled in the luxury ofpâté de foie maigre; but the little plump teal, knowing that I had no shot-gun, kept flighting backwards and forwards in thousands. Two guns might have had an evening's sport that they would have remembered for a lifetime. A few miles from camp I met some Nuer who had come to meet me. The chief, who was very sociable, though, like all, an incorrigible beggar, had been to Fashoda in the old times, and again my classic Arabic came into play. He asked after Emin, and seemed surprised to hear of his death, and also after Wadelai and Lado, and was particularly anxious to know if there was still a zariba at Bohr. He laid great stress on this point, asking me over and over again, so I imagined he wished to verify reports he had received of the flight of the Dervishes.The following day I marched to the junction of the Kohr with the Bahr-el-Zaraf. In Justus Perthe's old map it is suggested that this Kohr is the outlet of the streams crossed by Lupton Bey in the hills east of Gondokoro. This cannot be so, as the natives at Bohr assured me that there was no water many days east; and if these streams are the feeders of this Kohr, they must, by the contour of the country, pass close to Bohr. Nor could the channel be dry, as the Kohr held plenty of water. Hence I am inclined to think that Lupton's streams either flow into the Nile south of Bohr, or pass down the other side of the watershed into the Pibro, the largest tributary of the Sobat. As Lupton went overland from Gondokoro to Bohr, and does not mark any significant feeder of the Nile, it is probable that the latter hypothesis is correct. That is, that they flow into the vast marsh recently located as the headwaters of the Pibro. If this is correct, the Kohr must also drain out of the Pibro marsh, in which case the country between the Sobat and the Bahr-el-Zaraf is an island.The whole length of the bank was cut up with giraffe and elephant spoor, and as I could see for miles and miles in every direction and never saw one, I suppose they come great distances for water. The Kohr, though evidently from the exposed mud-flats of considerable width in the rains, was here not more than twenty yards wide and four feet deep; and the numbers of hippo and clouds of pelicans and cranes made sleep almost impossible.The surrounding country assumed a little more character, long lines of palm-trees enlivening the awful monotony of that heart-breaking plain. The Nuer, though well-set-up, appear not to have the same unusual stature as the Dinkas; they wear circlets of cowries round their hair, which they grow long like a mop; the woolly buttons of the negroid, though visible from time to time up till now, have quite disappeared. Nothing impressed me so much as the vast flocks of birds. With five shots from a rifle I killed three geese, eight duck, and two pelicans, and that from camp: had I fired at some of the flocks I saw on the march I might have doubled the result.Following the river, which has a very devious course, I saw large numbers of natives, and they were all very friendly, insisting on indulging in the trying practice of spitting in one's hand or on one's chest, which signifies intense respect; the Dinkas have the same objectionable custom.For two days I saw numbers of natives with large herds of cattle and plenty of small palm-tree canoes, but a very limited supply of grain, and on the third day I came to a small Kohr with about a dozen large villages. Hundreds of natives came out to meet me, and I had some difficulty in driving them off, as, confident in their numbers, they were inclined to be boisterous.A few miles further on, one of my Congolese soldiers, who, against all orders, lagged behind a few minutes, mysteriously disappeared, and an exhaustive search failed to find any trace either of him or of natives. The country was very open, and he was carrying a rifle, so they must have spirited him away very cleverly. From here to the mouth of the Zaraf there is only one village, so that for food I was entirely dependent on my rifle. At first there was no difficulty, as the river swarmed with hippo, and there were numbers of hartebeeste, Mrs. Gray's waterbuck, leucotis, reedbuck, waterbuck, and roan. A magnificent bull of the latter species I at first took to be a sable, owing to the extraordinary length of his horns, and with the cussedness of his kind he stood and watched us all pass at a distance of thirty yards. But for several days afterwards I had the greatest difficulty in obtaining meat, subsisting entirely on pelicans, one day being even reduced to marabout soup, and it was not till within thirty miles of the mouth that I again came into a game country, where the bush comes down to the river. Here I saw numerous giraffe, and one day marched for hours through small herds of cow elephant. It was curious that I saw nothing but bulls on the Nile swamps, while on the Zaraf there were huge numbers of breeding cows, and I only saw the spoor of a very few bulls, and those were mostly small. For days the muddy tide rolls slowly on between banks of sun-baked mud, unrelieved by swamps or vegetation. The flocks of birds no more break the depressing monotony, naught but great, loathly crocodiles, that slip without a sound into the turgid flow, bald-pated marabouts, and screaming kites. No sign of hope; a vast reserve for God's foulest creatures, and a fitting one. Ye gods, what a land! The old boyhood's desire to shriek and break something that invariably recurred on Sunday morning broke out afresh, and I felt that I was near that indefinable boundary beyond which is madness.About thirty miles south of the Abiad an extensive Kohr, which was dry when I passed, flows into the Zaraf. Close by there is a small ridge a few feet above the level of the surrounding country; here I camped and saw a great variety of game. Four giraffe came and peered over a bush at me while I was having my bath, and thoroughly enjoyed the novel spectacle. They showed no inclination to move away, and I had a splendid chance of having a good look at them. The situation was quaint. It struck me as an admirable study for René Bull or Mr. Shepherd.Soon after sunset two grand old lions commenced calling to one another, and I could hear them gradually approaching across the plain. They met about a mile from my camp, and after a round of hearty greetings, settled down into silence. As the wind was in their direction, I ordered all my boys up close to my tent and made two large fires. They still remained silent, so I knew that they were near; but after waiting some time I concluded that they did not mean business, and turned in. I had only just crept inside my mosquito-curtain when the sentry called out to me that they were in camp. I scrambled out, but was just too late! They had calmly strolled past in the full light of the fire, and I saw a tail disappear round the corner of a bush. Snatching up a blazing log, we dashed out, but, of course, never saw them, as there was too much bush; however, they were not in a hurry, and an occasional sniff showed that they were still inspecting, but they would not show in the firelight again, and, whenever I went out, sneaked off, till, getting tired of the game, they strolled away grumbling across the plain, and treated me to a farewell roar that will long linger in my ears as Savage Africa's farewell!For on the morrow my troubles ended. We were plodding wearily along, wondering how to tide over the next four days, which I had estimated as the time necessary to reach the Sobat, when I saw in the far distance a curved pole swaying in the wind. For a long time it puzzled me; then I realized that it must be the mast of a boat, but dared not believe it, though certain that no palm-stem could swing to that angle. Presently I saw figures moving to and fro, and then one in white cloth, and soon we had evidently been noticed. A short council of war took place, and then an unmistakable Soudanese soldier came out to meet me, carefully inserting a cartridge in his rifle as he approached. Throwing my rifle on to my left shoulder, with a conciliatory and pacific smile I advanced with outstretched hand, and evidently convinced him that I was at least harmless, for with a 3 ft. 6 grin he drew his cartridge and shook the proffered hand with vigour. I learned that Captain Dunn, R.A.M.C., was up the Zaraf for a few days' shooting, and that he was expected back in camp in a few minutes.I could scarcely believe that it was all over, that my troubles were ended! Those four days, that I imagined still remained, had been a nightmare to me. All my men were sick; the majority of them had to be pushed along at the point of the spear, to prevent them from lying down and giving up the struggle. There were no more hippo and very little game: all our grain had long been exhausted, and but two pipefuls of sour tobacco remained. And then, at a sudden bend of the river, all this nightmare was dispelled! It was over! From being so long without vegetables, my hands had begun to turn black, and the continual anxiety of the last month, day and night, had told its tale on my nerves. With what unspeakable content I sat down and waited for Dunn's arrival it would be impossible to describe. I had not to wait long, for a few minutes later Captain Dunn emerged from the bush. The following conversation ensued:--Captain Dunn: "How do you do?"I: "Oh, very fit, thanks; how are you? Had any sport?"Dunn: "Oh, pretty fair, but there is nothing much here. Have a drink? You must be hungry; I'll hurry on lunch. Had any shooting? See any elephant?"Then we washed, lunched, discussed the war, and eventually Dunn asked where the devil I had come from, saying that at first he had taken me for another confounded Frenchman, and was trying to hunt up some French. All this six hundred odd miles from anywhere in the uttermost end of the earth--the Nile swamps. Verily we are a strange people. How De Tonquedec, the Frenchman, laughed at the tale!Then we dropped slowly down-stream in the boat, and in the light of the myriad stars discussed the strange world into which the Father Nile was slowly carrying me. A whirl of thoughts made sleep impossible, and as I pondered over many things I thought long on the Fashoda incident. In the course of a chequered career I have seen many unwholesome spots; but for a God-forsaken, dry-sucked, fly-blown wilderness, commend me to the Upper Nile; a desolation of desolations, an infernal region, a howling waste of weed, mosquitoes, flies, and fever, backed by a groaning waste of thorn and stones--waterless and waterlogged. I have passed through it, and have now no fear for the hereafter. And for this choice spot thousands of homes might have been wrecked, and the whole of civilization rushed into a cockpit of mutual slaughter. Let me recommend France to send the minister responsible for the Marchand expedition for a short sojourn in the land: no fitter punishment could be found. What a sensible idea it would be if ministers of rival nations, foreseeing a dispute, were to buy in a large store of choice wines and cigars, leave them at home, and decide to spend the time, till the dispute should be amicably settled, in the bone of contention.CHAPTER XXII.THE SOBAT TO CAIRO.I awoke in the morning to find the gyassa[#] moored off the base camp of Major Peake's sudd-cutting expedition. Close by lay a trim, smart-looking gun-boat. AH was bustle and stir on board, and it was obvious that they were getting up steam. I drank in the sight, momentarily expecting to see it fade before my eyes, and to find myself once more wearily plodding through those maddening swamps. The transition from ceaseless anxiety and hungry misery to full-bellied content and tobacco-soothed repose had been so sudden; I was as a man who, after long time staggering in the dark, is suddenly thrust into the full glare of sunlight, and could hardly grasp that it was at last all over. Nothing to do but sit and be carried along towards clean shirts, collars, glasses, friends--all that makes life a thing of joy. How many people realize what all these things mean? How many people have ever caught the exquisite flavour of bread-and-butter? the restful luxury of clean linen? the hiss of Schweppe's? One must munch hippo-meat alone, save one's sole shirt from contact with water as from a pestilence lest it fall to pieces, and drink brackish mud for days, to realize all this. Sensations are but contrasts, and in the strong picture contrasts must be strong. We all have our allotted portions of black and white paint; how we lay it on is a question of temperament. One mixes the pigments carefully and paints his life an even grey. Another dashes in the light and shade with a palette-knife. Such an one is the wanderer in strange climes.[#] Nile sailing-boat.Captain Hayes-Sadler, the Governor of Fashoda, was in command of the gunboat, and kindly offered to take me down to Khartoum. They told me that Captain Gage, Dr. Milne, Commandant Henri, Lieut. Bertrand, and Lieut. de Tonquedec had all passed about four days before. De Tonquedec, a most delightful and entertaining man, was the last Frenchman to evacuate the Nile. He had been sent up to supplement the occupation begun by Marchand, and had done by far the finest work of all. No undertaking has ever been more absurdly overrated than Marchand's expedition to Fashoda. It was seized upon by the military party, and boomed to the echo as a set-off to the Dreyfusards. As a matter of fact, he never touched an inch of new country, but merely carried out successfully a very able bit of transport organization with everything in his favour--sound lieutenants, unlimited funds, and one of the best-equipped expeditions that ever set foot in Africa, supported by excellent native troops in his Senegalese. All the labour of the country was retained for him, and compulsion used where there was any difficulty in obtaining carriers. Hundreds of miles of navigable water took his goods almost to the Congo-Nile divide, and thence it was simply a question of moving from post to post till the watershed was crossed, and he could place his boats on the navigable waters of the Nile. The only real difficulty, that of reoccupying the Bahr-el-Ghazal posts, had been already accomplished by the Belgians, whom the French kicked out. Once on the navigable Nile, they had but to go with the current till they reached Fashoda; the waters of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Lake No happening to be comparatively free from sudd obstructions. They were strong enough to defy resistance at the hands of the Shilluks, who have nothing but ambatch canoes, and once entrenched at Fashoda they would have been poor creatures if they could not have beaten off a handful of Dervishes. As an able example of African transport it stands in the van of similar undertakings, but as a daring or dangerous feat it does not stand in the same class as Gage and Milne's descent of the Nile, or De Tonquedec's performance. His duty was a most hazardous one, as, with nothing but a handful of Senegalese and a sous-officier, he penetrated overland through the terrible Dinkas to the Upper Nile, and occupied Gaba Shambeh. Marchand is a world-word. When I arrived at Marseilles and inquired after De Tonquedec, nobody had ever heard of him.Fortune favoured me when I started on the descent of the Nile. I knew that Khartoum had fallen, but nothing more. I had imagined that the Redjaf Dervishes were still occupying Bohr and the Upper Nile, and that the Khalifa was still at large on the Fashoda district of the Nile. But shortly after I started the Dervishes fled from Bohr before the advance of the Belgians, and while I was wearily plodding along, Sir Francis Wingate killed the Khalifa, and annihilated the Dervish army at Om Debrikat. The Abyssinians had finally retired from the Sobat, and by this happy combination of luck I had a clear route, though I did not know it, and my anxiety lest I should unexpectedly stroll into a Dervish or Abyssinian camp was considerable. Captain C. G. Steward, R.A., D.S.O., was in command of the base camp, and was sadly fretting at having had his orders to proceed to South Africa cancelled.There were several gunboats employed on the sudd-cutting operations. Many of the Dervish prisoners had been sent south for the work, and were looking uncommonly well, which speaks volumes for the efficient transport system. The method of procedure was as follows:--The sudd, which at times is 30 ft. thick and sufficiently solid for the elephant to pass over, was cut into large blocks. A wire hawser was then attached, and the mass was pulled away by two steamers. When it floated clear it was cut up, and allowed to drift away with the stream. Many of these floating masses had accumulated opposite the base camp, and bade fair to form another sudd obstruction. In places where a portion was cut out, the water from the pressure caused by the pent-up river surged forth like a wave, bringing up water-logged canoes, bloated crocodiles, and various other unexpected apparitions. The fish rose in incredible swarms to these breathing-places. At one place the men took off their loose trousers, tied the ends, and baled out over four hundred large fish in less than an hour. The work was so hard that no one had time to get fever, and the health of the expedition had been excellent. After several months of desperate toil, the undertaking is now happily completed, and there is a clear riverway from Khartoum to Redjaf; and Fort Berkeley, the outpost of the Uganda Protectorate, instead of being nearly four months from Mombasa, is now within one month of Cairo. A weekly service of steamers should effectually prevent the sudd from re-forming. By judicious treatment, possibly on the lines that I have suggested in a subsequent chapter, the waterway might be made permanent, and its navigable facilities greatly improved. There is, undoubtedly, as pointed out by Gordon, the great difficulty of fuel, but probably in the near future oil will obviate this.A few hours' steaming took us past the Sobat junction, where there is now but a small post of Soudanese under a native officer, and to the world-famed Fashoda. Here I handed over the first trans-continental post-bag, which I had brought through with me, to Captain Hayes-Sadler, who stamped the post-cards with the gorgeous red seal of Fashoda. Here, too, I received the first letter that had reached me for eighteen months, in which I learned that my oldest friend had fallen at Glencoe, at the very beginning of the war--to wit, Lieut. John Taylor, of the King's Royal Rifles. Curiously enough, the last letter that I had received on leaving civilization had been from him. Verily Africa is an accursed land. Many of the good friends whom I had met during our journey have already gone, and again and again I hear of fresh gaps in the chain.I went and looked at the little French fort built of bricks that were taken from the ruined buildings of Fashoda. It is a very insignificant structure, and I should have been very sorry to be inside with a seven-pounder playing on the fort. There are still a few pawpaw trees planted by Marchand, the shrivelled fruit of which we took on board, and utilized as vegetable marrows. The Rek or King of the Shilluks lives near Fashoda; he is the descendant of a hundred kings, or something of that kind. I am not sure that his pedigree does not go back to the time of the Pharaohs. I had the pleasure of seeing his mop-headed Majesty ride past, attended by numerous courtiers. The Shilluk villages are about a mile away from the channel of the Nile, to avoid being flooded during the rains. The Dervishes kidnapped many thousands of the flower of their youth for military service. The Rek is a delightful old gentleman, and presented Captain Hayes-Sadler with an order not unconnected with crocodiles. The Shilluks are a most moral people, and live contentedly under an ample code of laws admirably suited to their social condition and mode of life. Any attempt to interfere with the belief and customs of such a people seems unwise. In view of the appalling misery and want at home, it is difficult to justify the large sums of money spent in upsetting the, in many cases, admirable existing state of society in Africa. Centuries have evolved a state of society most suitable to the surroundings and conditions of life. Why try to upset it? On the voyage down to Fashoda I saw many Shilluk fishermen wading in the shallow water, and endeavouring to spear fish. The spear used is of great length, and the pointed end is tied back to form a bow, by which means the point is induced to run along the top of, instead of sticking into, the mud. It seemed an unprofitable business, but, like most natives, they appear quite hopeful. They train their hair into gigantic mops, and dye it red with cow-dung. Many of the men have splendid features, and are extremely handsome. They hunt the hippo with great daring, pursuing the beasts in tiny ambatch canoes, which are often broken up by the infuriated bulls. They plunge a barbed spearhead into the skin, and then paddle ashore with the end of the attached rope; every one lends a hand, and the struggling brute is eventually hauled ashore and despatched.North of Fashoda we saw many herds of waterbuck, hartebeeste (Senegalensis?), and roan grazing on the flats which lie between the marshy banks and the bush. One evening I was standing on deck, and noticed ahead of the steamer an animal sitting on the top of the bank watching us. As we passed alongside, it moved, and we saw that it was a splendid leopard. It strolled away quite unconcernedly, watching us round its shoulder, and slowly swishing its long tail to and fro; then it went and sat under a tree, whence it lazily regarded us till we were out of sight. At Djebel Ain we had to leave the gunboat, as the extraordinarily low Nile prevented steamers from crossing the ford, and we were forced to proceed to the next navigable stretch in a large gyassa or native boat. Djebel Ain is the end of the northern telegraph line, and I could at last wire and relieve the anxiety of my friends and relations. It was just fourteen months since I had left the end of the southern, or Mr. Rhodes's, section. Hayes-Sadler's Soudanese orderly, who looked after me, was a most delightful old gentleman. He could not quite understand me, and was continually demanding explanations of me: "Whence comes he, this man?" "Is he a soldier?" Hayes-Sadler explained that I was not, but was travelling for the pleasure of seeing the country. "Ah! you are a strange people, you English Effendis: how comes it that he wears not the moustache even as the other Effendis?" He was informed that I was of a slightly different ginss (tribe) to the others, and was quite satisfied at the explanation. After that he referred to me as "the Great White Effendi from the South." "He is a strange man, and verily comes from afar; yet I like that man--I look upon him as the apple of my eye," he informed his master. He was a splendid fellow, and I much enjoyed his polite and gentlemanly attentions after the dirty creatures with whom I had so long been in contact.At the northern end of the ford we found the steamer waiting for us, and I first met Captain Gage and Dr. Milne, of whom I had heard so much. We were a numerous and jolly party on board, and with the exception of a morning's sand-grouse shooting, in the course of which eight guns bagged something over one hundred and fifty brace in a couple of hours, we arrived without further incident at Omdurman. Here we were bewildered with true Egyptian Army hospitality, and our time was spent in wildly flying from mess to mess.The Sirdar gave a great dinner, at which he invited all the British and Egyptian commanding officers to meet the "tourists" from the south. Our simultaneous arrival was an extraordinary coincidence: Milne and Gage from the east, De Tonquedec, Bertrand, and Henri from the west, I from the south, and Hayes-Sadler from the north, and that in what was almost the uttermost end of the earth. After the dinner there was a great Soudanese dance; all the battalions broke up into their tribes and danced their tribal dances by torchlight: the spectacle was most weird. Sir Francis Wingate kindly asked me to stay with him at the Palace, which is already nearly completed.The Soudan railway soon carried us down to Wady Halfa, thence a steamer to Assuan, and again the railway, and we once more stood in the roar of multitudes at the station in Cairo. And now it is all over. A few dangers avoided, a few difficulties overcome, many disappointments, many discomforts, and those glorious days of my life are already dim in the haze of the past. Here I stand, in the prosaic land of certainty and respectability! But far, far away, on those Urema flats, where the night-wind sighs to the grazing herds, my thoughts soar to the plaintive wail of the fish-eagle, and my heart throbs in unison with the vast sob-sob of the grandest of all created beasts, that mighty sound that is the very spirit of the veld, the great untrammelled field of Nature, far from all carking cares, pettiness, hypocrisy, and cant: where men may stretch themselves in generous emulation, find their apportioned level, and humbly worship at the great shrine of creation.
CHAPTER XX.
IN DINKA-LAND.
The native information as to my route was decidedly discouraging, but knowing by now the value of native information, it was with reasonable hopes of success that I disposed of my bed and other luxuries, and put the first of three hundred miles behind me. As I started late, I camped at the first large village that I met, a distance of six miles from Bohr. Here there was an enormous population living round the extensive lagoons that stretched in all directions, and after the first few minutes of suspense, a brisk trade started in fish and grain, and eventually in milk. On the following day we succeeded in dodging several lagoons, but had to wade up to our necks and cross another nearly a mile wide on a very treacherous layer of vegetation. Skirting the edge of the water, we came on a herd of twenty elephant, and I dropped a good bull with a couple of .303's in the head. The quantities of goats and sheep possessed by the natives were extraordinary, enormous herds grazing in every direction in the rich vegetation growing in the swamps. After cutting off meat from the elephant, I followed one of the numerous paths which led inland, and meeting hundreds of natives on the way, arrived at a large, scattered village, where we camped.
The main population, which is very dense, lives in the bush at a distance of sometimes several miles from the river, and water is one of the most expensive supplies, though, except in seasons of severe drought, such as when I passed through, there are evidently numerous pools scattered all over the bush. Owing to the drought there was no grain obtainable, and the natives were eating the seeds of a water-plant resembling a crown-artichoke (the nenuphar) and the kernels of the before-mentioned plums. A very affable and intelligent gentleman, who had accompanied me for some miles, offered his services as guide, which I gladly accepted, and after marching for an hour I arrived at another extensive village. Here, as elsewhere, all the huts were isolated and surrounded by a fence of thorns to ward off the lions, which were very numerous. On the path we met hundreds and hundreds of natives, many of enormous stature, 6 ft. 4 to 6 ft. 6, who were going to cut up the elephant, and they were all very friendly. At the village I waited for my boys to close up, but after some time one was still missing, and as boys whom I sent back told me that they could not find him, I packed my people and belongings into one of the thorn-fences, and went back with one soldier and some Dinkas whom I persuaded to accompany me.
About a mile away I met my headman and my guide of the morning returning with the delinquent, who was none other than the criminal lunatic. It appears that he had decided to return home, and, as a preliminary, had distributed my blankets, mosquito-curtain, and clothes amongst the natives. By an extraordinary stroke of luck I recovered them intact, with the trivial exception of one of my two shirts; it was due to my guide, and he and the two men who brought them in were handsomely rewarded; so was the runaway. The flies by day, the mosquitoes by night, rendered life well-nigh impossible, and with visions of impassable swamps, waterless deserts, and famine in front, I heartily wished myself quit of Africa and all its abominations, as I have so often done before, and shall no doubt so often do again. In the afternoon, at the urgent request of many hungry Dinkas, I sallied forth and slew a good bull elephant. I had chased him for several miles, pouring in lead whenever I could see him, till at last he stood. This gave me my chance, and he dropped to a shot in the head. But as I was going up to inspect him, he suddenly rose and sloped away. I fired four shots from the 10-bore at him as he passed. At the fourth he stopped, turned his head towards me, and quite deliberately began to advance, examining carefully with his trunk every palm-bush. There was no unseemly haste about his action. He meant investigating the matter. My position was most uncomfortable, as, if I fired, I should give him my whereabouts, and certainly could not drop him; while, if I moved from the cover of the diminutive palm-tree behind which I was standing, he would immediately see me, and the country was too open to escape. So, for lack of another alternative, I waited. On he came quite quietly, that snake-like trunk writhing round every corner, till there were but two more palm-trees between him and me: out went that trunk once more; he stopped, swayed slowly to and fro, and fell with a mighty crash--dead. His tusks must have weighed about 60 lbs. apiece. It was heart-breaking to leave them lying there, and to think that I had had to kill such a magnificent beast for the sake of his meat. The natives were very much delighted, and evidently thought me a great institution, and for several days afterwards I was pestered with requests to shoot elephant, till I began to wish I had never seen such a beast. They promised to take the tusks of those I had slain to Bohr, and to give them to the steamer when she returned, but I don't suppose I shall see them again.[#]
[#] They turned up seven years later, the natives having kept them for me till a Government station was established.
The river, which is here one vast sea of grass, the opposite bank being quite invisible even from an eminence of 20 ft., continually branches inland in the form of long, narrow, meandering lagoons, which, I suppose, are apologies for rivers in this part of the world. As some of them are several miles in length, progress is very difficult, and every moment I dreaded to see a new one. However, I successfully dodged most of them, but had some trouble with one a mile broad, which we eventually passed by wading, the water being in places up to my boys' necks. At one time my small boy, with my revolver, prismatic compass, and coat, disappeared completely, but was extricated by an obliging Dinka of about 6 ft. 7 in. The prevalence of crocodiles, and a slimy bottom pitted with elephant-holes, did not facilitate matters.
Enormous numbers of Dinkas came to see me beaten by this obstruction; and after two hours' exhausting conversation in signs, during which I displayed all my remaining trade goods, I had still failed to induce a guide to show me the way across. In native fashion they all wanted to see what I would do. At last, utterly disgusted, I started to wade, intending to swim if we could not manage otherwise, as I dare not waste the two or three days that would be necessary to march round. When they saw that I was quite determined, several came with me and showed me the shallowest path across. They were hugely delighted when I presented them with a Jubilee medal and some beads, but said that they dare not go any further, as the next village was not their village, signifying that if they went they would be speared. A short march soon brought us to the village in question. The natives were rather nervous at first, but soon brought us plenty of rotten fish and a little milk. Here my surviving Ruanda man succumbed to the attacks of the mosquitoes, which defied description; he had been ailing for some time, and being too desperate to keep them off, he was literally sucked dry. It was absolutely necessary to turn in half an hour before sunset and to make all the preparations possible for the night. I piled all my belongings round the edge of my net, and kept a green wood fire burning at each end: then I lay inside, smoked native tobacco (of remarkable pungency), and prayed for morning. As soon as the sun went down they started operations. It was like having a tame whirlwind in one's tent. They could not possibly have been worse: had there been thousands more it would not have mattered, as not a single one more could have found room on any exposed part of one's anatomy. Every night two or three hundred contrived to enter my net; I have no idea how. The most pernicious and poisonous kind was a very small black mosquito, that might possibly have penetrated the mesh. I used to turn out in the morning feeling perfectly dazed from the amount of poison that had been injected during the night. The natives of the country obviate the nuisance by lining their huts with a deep layer of burnt cow-dung, in which they lie. They also smear a paste made of this ash and cow's urine all over their bodies. The women carefully collect all the dung and spread it out to dry. In the evening, when the cattle are brought in to be milked, they burn it. The smoke serves to keep the flies from the beasts during the milking. Then all the ash is collected and placed in the huts.
Following the river, we made good progress till a halt was called by the presence of a stupendous old bull elephant with magnificent tusks, who was dozing on the path. We shouted to him to get out of the way, and he slowly turned round, stalked towards us, and when within fifty yards curled up his trunk, spread his ears, rumbled and came. Crash went every load, and I found myself in a medley of tent and boxes, pots and pans, with a double .303 loaded with soft-nosed bullets, looking at him in amazement; but the shot fortunately turned him, and away he went, screaming and trumpeting, giving my blankets a parting kick as he swung round. This is the only time I have seen one aggressive without due cause. Owing to the absence of water and the quantity of plum-trees, of which they are very fond, there were enormous numbers of elephant along the river-bank, and except where they were on the path we scarcely noticed them, every day passing several herds. I was wild when I thought of the prodigious but futile efforts that Sharp and I made round the volcanoes to find them, when we had porters galore, while now, having no porters, I looked upon them as a nuisance, owing to the delay they caused. Here, and for some days afterwards, close to the line of bush, there was a well-defined river with a stream of one and a half to two miles an hour, which would be navigable for flat-bottomed punts. The numbers of hippo were incredible, literally thousands and thousands. At every two hundred yards there was a great purple bank of twenty, fifty, or a hundred lying with their bodies half exposed, while others were wandering about in every direction on the vegetation, islands, and mud-banks. They practically ignored our presence, though we often passed within ten yards of them. Other game was scarce; I only saw a few waterbuck, bushbuck, and once the track of a giraffe, though plenty of guinea-fowl, and a few ducks and geese; but these were of little use, as, on opening my last box of shot-cartridges, they fell to pieces, being eaten through and through with rust. At one village a native produced a recent number ofBlack and White, carefully wrapped up in a piece of goatskin, and pointed out with great glee a picture of Dreyfus; as I had no interpreter, and the natives no longer understood my ten words of pigeon Arabic, I have not the remotest conception how it came into this outlandish spot. It was very difficult to obtain supplies, owing to the general famine, so I shot another elephant, which came down to water near camp, and made my boys smoke a three-days' supply of meat. The following day we saw two large herds of elephant, one mainly composed of good bulls. Some, showing splendid ivories, refused for a long time to leave the path. We were compelled to stone them. Then, making good progress, we camped opposite a ferry, which led to an island where I could see some natives. They quickly collected, and in a few minutes there was a crowd of several hundred, with a solid hedge of spears glinting in the sun. At first they were very doubtful; then, suddenly realizing that it was all right, they swarmed across, yelling and whooping, and in one minute my diminutive camp was one howling black mass. At first things looked rather anxious, but some slaps on the back and a long-winded repetition of arâm, which appears to be the local form of salaam, quickly spread a broad grin over the mass; they brought me a present of about thirty large fish, and there was soon a brisk trade in milk, of which they had an unlimited supply, so that all my men had a good wholesome feed. They proved very friendly, and I much regret that our conversation was strictly limited to arâm, which, however, appears to have considerable significance, being invariably responded to by much grunting and a peculiar clucking noise like the soliloquy of an old hen. Every one in Dinka-land carries a long-bladed spear, a pointed fish-spear, and a club made of a heavy purple wood, while the important gentlemen wear enormous ivory bracelets round their upper arm; strict nudity is the fashion, and a marabout feather in the hair is the essence ofchic. They are all beautifully built, having broad shoulders, small waist, good hips, and well-shaped legs. The stature of some is colossal. It was most curious to see how these Dinkas, living as they do in the marshes, approximate to the type of the water-bird. They have much the same walk as a heron, picking their feet up very high, and thrusting them well forward. Their feet are enormous. Their colossal height is, of course, a great advantage in the reed-grown country in which they live. They are the complete antithesis of the pigmy, as the country in which they live is the complete antithesis of the dense forest that is the home of the dwarfs. Many of these strange African peoples form most interesting reading to a student of evolution. The adaptability of a race to its surroundings is wonderful. The favourite pose of a Dinka is in reality the favourite pose of a water-bird. It is most interesting to note that surroundings should produce a similar type in families as remote from one another as birds and men.
My headman woke me in the morning with the pleasing information that my home-sick criminal had disappeared in the night, so the body of my tent had to go by the board, a severe loss, as afterwards transpired. During this day's march and a part of the next, the population changed entirely, the well-bred Dinkas giving place to a miserable fishing-folk, who are presumably the Woatsch spoken of, as reported to live here, by Sir S. Baker. They are an extraordinary people, of a very low stage of civilization, and showed abject terror at the sight of beads and cloth. I imagine they took me for a god, as each village, man, woman, and child, persisted in escorting me for a mile or so, doing the honours with a deafening chant, and continually pointing to the sun; this, though very flattering, hardly acted as a sedative on my fever, and I was heartily thankful to leave them behind; at one spot there must have been fully five hundred men who formed a solid phalanx round me, and sang at the top of their voices for a distance of two miles. They appeared not to have the remotest conception of barter, and hid their faces when I produced any of my trade goods, so that it was impossible to buy any food. Even during the night small bands approached to a respectful distance and chanted, and at one watering-place about a hundred loathsome hags danced a wild fandango around me, uttering the shrillest cries conceivable, and accompanying them with a measured flap-flap of their long pendant dugs; then, as a grand finale, all threw themselves on their faces at my feet, and with one ear-piercing shriek dispersed into the bush, leaving me under the impression that I was in the Drury Lane pantomime, outside two bottles of champagne. Never in all Africa had I met such embarrassing and impossible people. In the intervals of these trying performances I noticed that the country was slightly more elevated, and that there was a profusion of large trees. This would be the best position for a Government station. But it soon settled down again into the dismal flat of sun-baked clay, thorn, and palm-scrub, which in places recedes, leaving large plains that are flooded in ordinary seasons; here there were numbers of small buck, and I saw a beautiful maleCobus maria. It was a most handsome little beast, and was running with a large herd of other waterbuck, and had the same action as the Uganda kob. I was much disappointed, from lack of porterage, to lose the opportunity of procuring such a rare specimen. The variety of aquatic birds was enormous; amongst others, a beautiful black-and-white ibis; but I looked in vain forBalæniceps rex. The kites, marabouts, and vultures were a great nuisance. On several occasions a kite actually took my dinner out of the frying-pan on the fire while the cook's back was turned.
After the singing gentry, it was with no little relief that I met some respectable Dinkas again with large herds of cattle; they, too, appeared to be ignorant of the elements of barter, and it was only after an hour's dumb-crambo business that they brought an antediluvian fish as a feeler; this I immediately bought at great price, and then they realized that there was something in the idea, and brought a good supply. They have absolutely none of the fear of, and respect for, the white man that one finds all over Africa except in the regions of Exeter Hall legislation, but merely regard one as a great joke, and, on the whole, not such a bad sort of fool. They are all the most inveterate, pertinacious, and annoying beggars, and evince the greatest astonishment when one refuses to distribute one's belongings gratis amongst them. One in particular amused me, a 6 ft. 4 giant, who took a fancy to my last pair of trousers, and when, pleading modesty, I refused his request, he stamped and howled like a spoilt child. He then proceeded to make himself very objectionable, and forced his way into my tent, refused to quit, and brandished his club. This was too much, so I suddenly took him by the scruff of the neck and the seat of where he wished my trousers to be, and, trusting in the superiority of a beef and beer diet over one of fish and thin milk, to his intense amazement, ran him out of camp, and imparted a final impetus with a double-barrelled drop-kick, backed by a pair of iron-shod ammunition boots. I was surprised to find how weak he was, despite his colossal stature. The others took it as a huge joke, and an hour afterwards he returned and behaved himself very well, on the morrow guiding me for some miles.
From here the country changes completely, opening out into a limitless plain, dotted here and there with clumps of borassus palm, growing on small, flat-topped eminences which are the only possible camping-grounds. The channel (which I christened the Gertrude Nile, and which had never hitherto been more than half a mile from the bush) bends away to the west and spreads out into large marshes, though its course is still obvious, and the plain, which is a mass of matted, half-burnt reed, hippo and elephant holes, is scored with numerous channels of water and mud, and towards the bush, which is soon at least fifteen miles from the river, is covered with small ant-hills. There is an enormous population on these plains, with huge herds of cattle and goats, though it is impossible to say where they live, and they are wonderfully clever at hiding their cattle, and light smoke fires to prevent them from making a noise. I marched for hours without seeing a native, but when pitching camp I could see hundreds and hundreds advancing in Indian file from all directions, or if I took a line that led far from water, a group would appear like magic to put me right. There was something uncanny about knowing that one was watched by hundreds without ever seeing more than an occasional individual perched on one leg, the other foot resting on his knee, on the top of a far ant-hill, and looking like a long black stork. The first day that I camped in the plain I was visited by at least a thousand natives.
With the exception of one or two slight fracas with my boys, they were well-behaved, and I bought a large supply of fish; but the second day about fifteen hundred turned up, and having nothing to sell, became very obstreperous. They tried to steal, so I ordered the vicinity of my tent to be cleared, and hustled several fairly roughly. One turned on me, and I knocked him down, cutting my hand badly on his teeth. They took my rough handling very well, but immediately resented any movement of my boys, and one silly young blood danced a dangerous war-dance, brandishing his spear round one of my Askaris, till I broke it for him, and gave him two or three reminders with a heavy hippo-whip. They then became very much excited, and I spent the rest of the afternoon with my hand on my revolver, momentarily expecting a generalémeute, when, no doubt, we should have fared badly. Fortunately, there were two respectable old gentlemen who did their best to keep the younger blades quiet. One man bolted with a bit of cloth; a miss-fire from my .303 saved his life, and one of the old gentlemen, not knowing that I had pulled the trigger, signed to me to hold, and had the cloth fetched back; he then succeeded in clearing the camp of about half the turbulent rabble, for which I was very thankful. They then began to slowly file off, but about a hundred, including some of the most noisy ruffians, remained; these I quickly cleared with a heavy whip in one hand and my revolver in the other. They did not like the whip and smiled at the revolver, evidently thinking it a sort of club, till I shot a confiding marabout which was watching the proceedings, when there was a race for first place to less dangerous quarters.
On the march we came upon a belated hippo out on the plain, and there was a great hunt, about two hundred natives chasing him and plunging their spears into his body, till at last, covered with blood, he turned to bay, when I finished him off with a shot in the head.
A few miles further on I shot a Senegal hartebeeste, which gave us a supply of meat. On the third day we succeeded in shaking off our too attentive friends, and although we marched for six hours only made seven miles, owing to the necessity of feeling one's way round the swamps and the difficult nature of the ground. In many places the burnt vegetation was of the consistency of coke, and severely cut my boys' feet. The plain still widened, and the Gertrude Nile tended more decidedly towards the west. The bush was no longer visible, but to the west of the swamps there appeared to be a slight ridge with a dense covering of borassus.
We camped near a cattle village, and the people seemed friendly, though, as usual, somewhat turbulent. Two came into the camp after dark, evidently to see if we were on the alert, and were summarily ejected. In the morning about a hundred came and gave considerable trouble, and persisted in following us on the march. I noticed that two or three were closing round each of my boys, while at the same time about twenty were packing behind me. I turned round to drive them off, when my fools of Watonga were suddenly seized with a panic, and, throwing their loads down, ran towards me, shouting, "We are all lost!" Of course that started the game, and my best Congo soldier fell, stabbed to the heart, and two more went down with cracked skulls. I took the chief and his right-hand man with a double barrel, then turning round, found my boy had bolted with my revolver. At the same moment a Dinka hurled his spear at me; I dodged it, but he rushed in and dealt me a swinging blow with his club, which I fortunately warded with my arm, receiving no more damage than a wholesome bruise. I poked my empty gun at his stomach, and he turned, receiving a second afterwards a Dum-dum in the small of his back. Then they broke and ran, my army with eight guns having succeeded in firing two shots. I climbed up a high ant-hill that was close, and could see them watching at about three hundred yards for our next move, which was an unexpected one, for I planted a Dum-dum apparently in the stomach of one of the most obtrusive ruffians, whom I recognized by his great height. They then hurried off and bunched at about seven hundred yards, and another shot, whether effectual or not I could not see, sent them off in all directions, and the battle was finished. It was all over in a shorter time than it takes to tell the tale, but while it lasted it was fairly warm. I never expected to see my happy home again, nor did I feel much happier when I had time to look round. I was alone; at my feet lay my Congo Askari, in the last spasmodic shudder of death; a few yards away lay three more of my men, streams of blood slowly trickling from gaping wounds in their heads. The distorted figures of the three Dinkas, shot at close quarters, were the only other breaks in the dismal monotony of the marsh. I shouted, and slowly--one by one--my miserable curs emerged from patches of reed and bog-holes. Then the three wounded came-to from their swoon; one was very slightly hurt, but the other two were quite mad for days after. It was necessary, therefore, to throw away still more of our belongings. There was only one thing that could go, and that was Sharp's 60g. Holland and Holland paradox, half of which is peacefully reposing under some scrub, while the other half is at the bottom of a mud-hole. After dressing the heads of the two soldiers, who, with the trifling exception of insanity, did not seem much the worse, one for a gash 2 in. long and down to the bone on his temple, and the other for two gaping holes on the top of his skull, we hurried on, fearing the Dinkas might returnen masse. But they contented themselves with watching us, and when I dropped the topmost man of a bunch of five on an ant-hill at six hundred yards, they only made further observations at a distance of a mile.
The news spread like wildfire, for, several miles further on, when passing within half a mile of a village, a band of ten old men came towards me, waving their arms in the air to show that they were unarmed. I went to meet them, and when quite close they started the old singing business, so I hurried off, after treating them to several arâms with an attempted pacific intonation. They then sent milk after me, but I waved them off, thinking it advisable to try by forced marches to break the line of communication.
Shortly afterwards, crossing a swamp on a dangerous bridge of weed burnt to the water level, I saw a specimen ofBalæniceps rexstanding quite close to me. I was on the point of firing, when a hippo put his head through the bridge at about ten yards, and regretfully I had to shoot him instead for his beef. Half a dozen Dinkas appeared, and, after making a great pacific demonstration, approached and helped to finish him off. He took several shots, and each time I fired they ran to a distance of at least two hundred yards, so they had evidently heard of the morning's proceedings. After cutting off some meat we continued our march, and it was not till 4 p.m. that I found another place where it was possible to camp, having buried most of my beads on the road to further lighten the loads. For the same purpose, in the evening I made a distribution of cloth and burnt a quantity, together with all my boys' rags.
[image]THERE WERE NUMBERS OF DINKAS FISHING HERE.
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THERE WERE NUMBERS OF DINKAS FISHING HERE.
The night passed peacefully, though I thought it advisable to put on a double sentry, and on the morrow, weary of swamps, I struck east towards the great burnt plain, and then marched due north, trusting to luck for water. I found numerous holes where the water had not quite dried up, and met many isolated groups of desponding natives spearing a loathsome four-legged reptile or fish, some of which, for lack of more delicate fare, I had to eat; and after marching for about fifteen miles, I again came on extensive swamps which stretched far to the east, and seemed likely to give me much trouble, if not to effectually prevent me going further. Being totally ignorant of the country, and without means of asking the simplest question of the natives, I had been fearing all along that I should arrive at some impassable obstacle. I was very anxious on this point, as it would have been impossible to return. Arriving unexpectedly on the edge of the first pool, I found it one mass of small duck, with a spur-winged goose standing up in the middle. I fired at him with my .303, and he dropped, the bullet striking him with most unusual noise. My boy, wading in, returned not only with the goose, but also two duck. The bullet had struck the goose's back, removing his intestines and half his breast, then cut off the head and broken the wing of No. 1 duck, and neatly cleaned No. 2. It was a Dum-dum, and must have exploded like a shell. I have often noticed that the bullets with the most penetration, such as the solid, nickel-coated, and the Dum-dum, shatter small animals and birds more effectually than the more expansive bullets, such as the Jeffrey and the lead-nose. This stroke of luck provided a very welcome change to my mournful diet of doubtful fish, occasional milk flavoured with cow's urine, which is used for washing the dairy utensils, and a strange cheese of my own manufacture.
We camped on the top of a layer of burnt vegetation overlying a morass, and my tent nearly disappeared in the night, while I was seized with furious bouts of vomiting, caused by the quantity of salt in the water. To make matters more cheerful, I discovered that my last two tins of tobacco were mouldy, and I only wished that I could enjoy it as much as the mosquitoes appeared to do, who settled in clouds on the rim of my pipe waiting their turn for a space on my epidermis. Several either climbed inside or bit me through a pair of ammunition boots. I had a severe cold and a stiff arm; my cook boy had dysentery; one of the Congo soldiers had a dreadful foot, which rendered walking a terrible torture; and the two gentlemen with cracked skulls were semi-delirious, so that, on the whole, we were a jovial party, our joviality being materially increased by the impossibility of making a fire, owing to lack of fuel.
In the morning we repeated the same tactics, and after finding plenty of water early in the march, only reached a camping-place at sunset. The country became slightly more cheerful, several trees about the dimensions of a healthy cabbage appearing on the horizon, and I saw the spoor of several giraffe, though where the giraffe themselves contrived to hide was more than I could guess. Our camp was near a large village where there were at least one thousand five hundred head of cattle, besides sheep and goats, and the chief brought me a fine fat bull-calf, which settled the nervous question of food for two days. These people, too, had evidently heard of the fracas, and only approached my camp in small bands, for which I was very grateful.
There were numbers of Dinkas fishing here. Their method is as follows: About a dozen men, each taking a large basket open at the bottom and with a hole at the top, advance in line through the shallow portions of the lagoon. Grasping the basket by the hole at the top, they dash it down on to the mud in front of them. I suppose if they catch a fish inside they pull it out of the hole at the top. I never saw them catch one, although they appeared to be quite hopeful.
The styles of coiffure affected by the Southern Dinkas had now changed, the prevailing fashion being to wear the hair long and frizzed out like a mop, while some of the young exquisites caked it with a white clay brought out to a peak behind. The rambling village, with its groups of figures and long lines of home-coming cattle dimly seen in the smoke of a hundred fires as I approached at sunset, was very picturesque.
CHAPTER XXI.
IN NUERLAND.
The following two days I still kept to the plain, on the first day finding plenty of water, and camping near a mud-trough where the water was flowing west; but on the second day we wandered into a waterless wilderness, and taking a north-west course marched for hours before we reached a stream. Our sufferings were intolerable, increased as they were by the salt nature of the water which we had been drinking for days. Half the boys fell by the road, and lay helpless till relieved by the water I sent back. I was beginning to despair of saving them, when from the only ant-hill for miles I saw a flight of birds, and after an hour's sharp burst I arrived at a large vlei, where to my joy I found that the water was flowing north, and was less salt. At an early stage of that day's march I had to leave yet another load. Soon after starting I saw a herd of at least four hundred hartebeeste, and on the vlei, where we camped, the numbers of ducks, geese, and pelicans were extraordinary. At my first shot I killed two large spurwings, and a few more rounds provided geese for all the camp, while I revelled in the luxury ofpâté de foie maigre; but the little plump teal, knowing that I had no shot-gun, kept flighting backwards and forwards in thousands. Two guns might have had an evening's sport that they would have remembered for a lifetime. A few miles from camp I met some Nuer who had come to meet me. The chief, who was very sociable, though, like all, an incorrigible beggar, had been to Fashoda in the old times, and again my classic Arabic came into play. He asked after Emin, and seemed surprised to hear of his death, and also after Wadelai and Lado, and was particularly anxious to know if there was still a zariba at Bohr. He laid great stress on this point, asking me over and over again, so I imagined he wished to verify reports he had received of the flight of the Dervishes.
The following day I marched to the junction of the Kohr with the Bahr-el-Zaraf. In Justus Perthe's old map it is suggested that this Kohr is the outlet of the streams crossed by Lupton Bey in the hills east of Gondokoro. This cannot be so, as the natives at Bohr assured me that there was no water many days east; and if these streams are the feeders of this Kohr, they must, by the contour of the country, pass close to Bohr. Nor could the channel be dry, as the Kohr held plenty of water. Hence I am inclined to think that Lupton's streams either flow into the Nile south of Bohr, or pass down the other side of the watershed into the Pibro, the largest tributary of the Sobat. As Lupton went overland from Gondokoro to Bohr, and does not mark any significant feeder of the Nile, it is probable that the latter hypothesis is correct. That is, that they flow into the vast marsh recently located as the headwaters of the Pibro. If this is correct, the Kohr must also drain out of the Pibro marsh, in which case the country between the Sobat and the Bahr-el-Zaraf is an island.
The whole length of the bank was cut up with giraffe and elephant spoor, and as I could see for miles and miles in every direction and never saw one, I suppose they come great distances for water. The Kohr, though evidently from the exposed mud-flats of considerable width in the rains, was here not more than twenty yards wide and four feet deep; and the numbers of hippo and clouds of pelicans and cranes made sleep almost impossible.
The surrounding country assumed a little more character, long lines of palm-trees enlivening the awful monotony of that heart-breaking plain. The Nuer, though well-set-up, appear not to have the same unusual stature as the Dinkas; they wear circlets of cowries round their hair, which they grow long like a mop; the woolly buttons of the negroid, though visible from time to time up till now, have quite disappeared. Nothing impressed me so much as the vast flocks of birds. With five shots from a rifle I killed three geese, eight duck, and two pelicans, and that from camp: had I fired at some of the flocks I saw on the march I might have doubled the result.
Following the river, which has a very devious course, I saw large numbers of natives, and they were all very friendly, insisting on indulging in the trying practice of spitting in one's hand or on one's chest, which signifies intense respect; the Dinkas have the same objectionable custom.
For two days I saw numbers of natives with large herds of cattle and plenty of small palm-tree canoes, but a very limited supply of grain, and on the third day I came to a small Kohr with about a dozen large villages. Hundreds of natives came out to meet me, and I had some difficulty in driving them off, as, confident in their numbers, they were inclined to be boisterous.
A few miles further on, one of my Congolese soldiers, who, against all orders, lagged behind a few minutes, mysteriously disappeared, and an exhaustive search failed to find any trace either of him or of natives. The country was very open, and he was carrying a rifle, so they must have spirited him away very cleverly. From here to the mouth of the Zaraf there is only one village, so that for food I was entirely dependent on my rifle. At first there was no difficulty, as the river swarmed with hippo, and there were numbers of hartebeeste, Mrs. Gray's waterbuck, leucotis, reedbuck, waterbuck, and roan. A magnificent bull of the latter species I at first took to be a sable, owing to the extraordinary length of his horns, and with the cussedness of his kind he stood and watched us all pass at a distance of thirty yards. But for several days afterwards I had the greatest difficulty in obtaining meat, subsisting entirely on pelicans, one day being even reduced to marabout soup, and it was not till within thirty miles of the mouth that I again came into a game country, where the bush comes down to the river. Here I saw numerous giraffe, and one day marched for hours through small herds of cow elephant. It was curious that I saw nothing but bulls on the Nile swamps, while on the Zaraf there were huge numbers of breeding cows, and I only saw the spoor of a very few bulls, and those were mostly small. For days the muddy tide rolls slowly on between banks of sun-baked mud, unrelieved by swamps or vegetation. The flocks of birds no more break the depressing monotony, naught but great, loathly crocodiles, that slip without a sound into the turgid flow, bald-pated marabouts, and screaming kites. No sign of hope; a vast reserve for God's foulest creatures, and a fitting one. Ye gods, what a land! The old boyhood's desire to shriek and break something that invariably recurred on Sunday morning broke out afresh, and I felt that I was near that indefinable boundary beyond which is madness.
About thirty miles south of the Abiad an extensive Kohr, which was dry when I passed, flows into the Zaraf. Close by there is a small ridge a few feet above the level of the surrounding country; here I camped and saw a great variety of game. Four giraffe came and peered over a bush at me while I was having my bath, and thoroughly enjoyed the novel spectacle. They showed no inclination to move away, and I had a splendid chance of having a good look at them. The situation was quaint. It struck me as an admirable study for René Bull or Mr. Shepherd.
Soon after sunset two grand old lions commenced calling to one another, and I could hear them gradually approaching across the plain. They met about a mile from my camp, and after a round of hearty greetings, settled down into silence. As the wind was in their direction, I ordered all my boys up close to my tent and made two large fires. They still remained silent, so I knew that they were near; but after waiting some time I concluded that they did not mean business, and turned in. I had only just crept inside my mosquito-curtain when the sentry called out to me that they were in camp. I scrambled out, but was just too late! They had calmly strolled past in the full light of the fire, and I saw a tail disappear round the corner of a bush. Snatching up a blazing log, we dashed out, but, of course, never saw them, as there was too much bush; however, they were not in a hurry, and an occasional sniff showed that they were still inspecting, but they would not show in the firelight again, and, whenever I went out, sneaked off, till, getting tired of the game, they strolled away grumbling across the plain, and treated me to a farewell roar that will long linger in my ears as Savage Africa's farewell!
For on the morrow my troubles ended. We were plodding wearily along, wondering how to tide over the next four days, which I had estimated as the time necessary to reach the Sobat, when I saw in the far distance a curved pole swaying in the wind. For a long time it puzzled me; then I realized that it must be the mast of a boat, but dared not believe it, though certain that no palm-stem could swing to that angle. Presently I saw figures moving to and fro, and then one in white cloth, and soon we had evidently been noticed. A short council of war took place, and then an unmistakable Soudanese soldier came out to meet me, carefully inserting a cartridge in his rifle as he approached. Throwing my rifle on to my left shoulder, with a conciliatory and pacific smile I advanced with outstretched hand, and evidently convinced him that I was at least harmless, for with a 3 ft. 6 grin he drew his cartridge and shook the proffered hand with vigour. I learned that Captain Dunn, R.A.M.C., was up the Zaraf for a few days' shooting, and that he was expected back in camp in a few minutes.
I could scarcely believe that it was all over, that my troubles were ended! Those four days, that I imagined still remained, had been a nightmare to me. All my men were sick; the majority of them had to be pushed along at the point of the spear, to prevent them from lying down and giving up the struggle. There were no more hippo and very little game: all our grain had long been exhausted, and but two pipefuls of sour tobacco remained. And then, at a sudden bend of the river, all this nightmare was dispelled! It was over! From being so long without vegetables, my hands had begun to turn black, and the continual anxiety of the last month, day and night, had told its tale on my nerves. With what unspeakable content I sat down and waited for Dunn's arrival it would be impossible to describe. I had not to wait long, for a few minutes later Captain Dunn emerged from the bush. The following conversation ensued:--
Captain Dunn: "How do you do?"
I: "Oh, very fit, thanks; how are you? Had any sport?"
Dunn: "Oh, pretty fair, but there is nothing much here. Have a drink? You must be hungry; I'll hurry on lunch. Had any shooting? See any elephant?"
Then we washed, lunched, discussed the war, and eventually Dunn asked where the devil I had come from, saying that at first he had taken me for another confounded Frenchman, and was trying to hunt up some French. All this six hundred odd miles from anywhere in the uttermost end of the earth--the Nile swamps. Verily we are a strange people. How De Tonquedec, the Frenchman, laughed at the tale!
Then we dropped slowly down-stream in the boat, and in the light of the myriad stars discussed the strange world into which the Father Nile was slowly carrying me. A whirl of thoughts made sleep impossible, and as I pondered over many things I thought long on the Fashoda incident. In the course of a chequered career I have seen many unwholesome spots; but for a God-forsaken, dry-sucked, fly-blown wilderness, commend me to the Upper Nile; a desolation of desolations, an infernal region, a howling waste of weed, mosquitoes, flies, and fever, backed by a groaning waste of thorn and stones--waterless and waterlogged. I have passed through it, and have now no fear for the hereafter. And for this choice spot thousands of homes might have been wrecked, and the whole of civilization rushed into a cockpit of mutual slaughter. Let me recommend France to send the minister responsible for the Marchand expedition for a short sojourn in the land: no fitter punishment could be found. What a sensible idea it would be if ministers of rival nations, foreseeing a dispute, were to buy in a large store of choice wines and cigars, leave them at home, and decide to spend the time, till the dispute should be amicably settled, in the bone of contention.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE SOBAT TO CAIRO.
I awoke in the morning to find the gyassa[#] moored off the base camp of Major Peake's sudd-cutting expedition. Close by lay a trim, smart-looking gun-boat. AH was bustle and stir on board, and it was obvious that they were getting up steam. I drank in the sight, momentarily expecting to see it fade before my eyes, and to find myself once more wearily plodding through those maddening swamps. The transition from ceaseless anxiety and hungry misery to full-bellied content and tobacco-soothed repose had been so sudden; I was as a man who, after long time staggering in the dark, is suddenly thrust into the full glare of sunlight, and could hardly grasp that it was at last all over. Nothing to do but sit and be carried along towards clean shirts, collars, glasses, friends--all that makes life a thing of joy. How many people realize what all these things mean? How many people have ever caught the exquisite flavour of bread-and-butter? the restful luxury of clean linen? the hiss of Schweppe's? One must munch hippo-meat alone, save one's sole shirt from contact with water as from a pestilence lest it fall to pieces, and drink brackish mud for days, to realize all this. Sensations are but contrasts, and in the strong picture contrasts must be strong. We all have our allotted portions of black and white paint; how we lay it on is a question of temperament. One mixes the pigments carefully and paints his life an even grey. Another dashes in the light and shade with a palette-knife. Such an one is the wanderer in strange climes.
[#] Nile sailing-boat.
Captain Hayes-Sadler, the Governor of Fashoda, was in command of the gunboat, and kindly offered to take me down to Khartoum. They told me that Captain Gage, Dr. Milne, Commandant Henri, Lieut. Bertrand, and Lieut. de Tonquedec had all passed about four days before. De Tonquedec, a most delightful and entertaining man, was the last Frenchman to evacuate the Nile. He had been sent up to supplement the occupation begun by Marchand, and had done by far the finest work of all. No undertaking has ever been more absurdly overrated than Marchand's expedition to Fashoda. It was seized upon by the military party, and boomed to the echo as a set-off to the Dreyfusards. As a matter of fact, he never touched an inch of new country, but merely carried out successfully a very able bit of transport organization with everything in his favour--sound lieutenants, unlimited funds, and one of the best-equipped expeditions that ever set foot in Africa, supported by excellent native troops in his Senegalese. All the labour of the country was retained for him, and compulsion used where there was any difficulty in obtaining carriers. Hundreds of miles of navigable water took his goods almost to the Congo-Nile divide, and thence it was simply a question of moving from post to post till the watershed was crossed, and he could place his boats on the navigable waters of the Nile. The only real difficulty, that of reoccupying the Bahr-el-Ghazal posts, had been already accomplished by the Belgians, whom the French kicked out. Once on the navigable Nile, they had but to go with the current till they reached Fashoda; the waters of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Lake No happening to be comparatively free from sudd obstructions. They were strong enough to defy resistance at the hands of the Shilluks, who have nothing but ambatch canoes, and once entrenched at Fashoda they would have been poor creatures if they could not have beaten off a handful of Dervishes. As an able example of African transport it stands in the van of similar undertakings, but as a daring or dangerous feat it does not stand in the same class as Gage and Milne's descent of the Nile, or De Tonquedec's performance. His duty was a most hazardous one, as, with nothing but a handful of Senegalese and a sous-officier, he penetrated overland through the terrible Dinkas to the Upper Nile, and occupied Gaba Shambeh. Marchand is a world-word. When I arrived at Marseilles and inquired after De Tonquedec, nobody had ever heard of him.
Fortune favoured me when I started on the descent of the Nile. I knew that Khartoum had fallen, but nothing more. I had imagined that the Redjaf Dervishes were still occupying Bohr and the Upper Nile, and that the Khalifa was still at large on the Fashoda district of the Nile. But shortly after I started the Dervishes fled from Bohr before the advance of the Belgians, and while I was wearily plodding along, Sir Francis Wingate killed the Khalifa, and annihilated the Dervish army at Om Debrikat. The Abyssinians had finally retired from the Sobat, and by this happy combination of luck I had a clear route, though I did not know it, and my anxiety lest I should unexpectedly stroll into a Dervish or Abyssinian camp was considerable. Captain C. G. Steward, R.A., D.S.O., was in command of the base camp, and was sadly fretting at having had his orders to proceed to South Africa cancelled.
There were several gunboats employed on the sudd-cutting operations. Many of the Dervish prisoners had been sent south for the work, and were looking uncommonly well, which speaks volumes for the efficient transport system. The method of procedure was as follows:--The sudd, which at times is 30 ft. thick and sufficiently solid for the elephant to pass over, was cut into large blocks. A wire hawser was then attached, and the mass was pulled away by two steamers. When it floated clear it was cut up, and allowed to drift away with the stream. Many of these floating masses had accumulated opposite the base camp, and bade fair to form another sudd obstruction. In places where a portion was cut out, the water from the pressure caused by the pent-up river surged forth like a wave, bringing up water-logged canoes, bloated crocodiles, and various other unexpected apparitions. The fish rose in incredible swarms to these breathing-places. At one place the men took off their loose trousers, tied the ends, and baled out over four hundred large fish in less than an hour. The work was so hard that no one had time to get fever, and the health of the expedition had been excellent. After several months of desperate toil, the undertaking is now happily completed, and there is a clear riverway from Khartoum to Redjaf; and Fort Berkeley, the outpost of the Uganda Protectorate, instead of being nearly four months from Mombasa, is now within one month of Cairo. A weekly service of steamers should effectually prevent the sudd from re-forming. By judicious treatment, possibly on the lines that I have suggested in a subsequent chapter, the waterway might be made permanent, and its navigable facilities greatly improved. There is, undoubtedly, as pointed out by Gordon, the great difficulty of fuel, but probably in the near future oil will obviate this.
A few hours' steaming took us past the Sobat junction, where there is now but a small post of Soudanese under a native officer, and to the world-famed Fashoda. Here I handed over the first trans-continental post-bag, which I had brought through with me, to Captain Hayes-Sadler, who stamped the post-cards with the gorgeous red seal of Fashoda. Here, too, I received the first letter that had reached me for eighteen months, in which I learned that my oldest friend had fallen at Glencoe, at the very beginning of the war--to wit, Lieut. John Taylor, of the King's Royal Rifles. Curiously enough, the last letter that I had received on leaving civilization had been from him. Verily Africa is an accursed land. Many of the good friends whom I had met during our journey have already gone, and again and again I hear of fresh gaps in the chain.
I went and looked at the little French fort built of bricks that were taken from the ruined buildings of Fashoda. It is a very insignificant structure, and I should have been very sorry to be inside with a seven-pounder playing on the fort. There are still a few pawpaw trees planted by Marchand, the shrivelled fruit of which we took on board, and utilized as vegetable marrows. The Rek or King of the Shilluks lives near Fashoda; he is the descendant of a hundred kings, or something of that kind. I am not sure that his pedigree does not go back to the time of the Pharaohs. I had the pleasure of seeing his mop-headed Majesty ride past, attended by numerous courtiers. The Shilluk villages are about a mile away from the channel of the Nile, to avoid being flooded during the rains. The Dervishes kidnapped many thousands of the flower of their youth for military service. The Rek is a delightful old gentleman, and presented Captain Hayes-Sadler with an order not unconnected with crocodiles. The Shilluks are a most moral people, and live contentedly under an ample code of laws admirably suited to their social condition and mode of life. Any attempt to interfere with the belief and customs of such a people seems unwise. In view of the appalling misery and want at home, it is difficult to justify the large sums of money spent in upsetting the, in many cases, admirable existing state of society in Africa. Centuries have evolved a state of society most suitable to the surroundings and conditions of life. Why try to upset it? On the voyage down to Fashoda I saw many Shilluk fishermen wading in the shallow water, and endeavouring to spear fish. The spear used is of great length, and the pointed end is tied back to form a bow, by which means the point is induced to run along the top of, instead of sticking into, the mud. It seemed an unprofitable business, but, like most natives, they appear quite hopeful. They train their hair into gigantic mops, and dye it red with cow-dung. Many of the men have splendid features, and are extremely handsome. They hunt the hippo with great daring, pursuing the beasts in tiny ambatch canoes, which are often broken up by the infuriated bulls. They plunge a barbed spearhead into the skin, and then paddle ashore with the end of the attached rope; every one lends a hand, and the struggling brute is eventually hauled ashore and despatched.
North of Fashoda we saw many herds of waterbuck, hartebeeste (Senegalensis?), and roan grazing on the flats which lie between the marshy banks and the bush. One evening I was standing on deck, and noticed ahead of the steamer an animal sitting on the top of the bank watching us. As we passed alongside, it moved, and we saw that it was a splendid leopard. It strolled away quite unconcernedly, watching us round its shoulder, and slowly swishing its long tail to and fro; then it went and sat under a tree, whence it lazily regarded us till we were out of sight. At Djebel Ain we had to leave the gunboat, as the extraordinarily low Nile prevented steamers from crossing the ford, and we were forced to proceed to the next navigable stretch in a large gyassa or native boat. Djebel Ain is the end of the northern telegraph line, and I could at last wire and relieve the anxiety of my friends and relations. It was just fourteen months since I had left the end of the southern, or Mr. Rhodes's, section. Hayes-Sadler's Soudanese orderly, who looked after me, was a most delightful old gentleman. He could not quite understand me, and was continually demanding explanations of me: "Whence comes he, this man?" "Is he a soldier?" Hayes-Sadler explained that I was not, but was travelling for the pleasure of seeing the country. "Ah! you are a strange people, you English Effendis: how comes it that he wears not the moustache even as the other Effendis?" He was informed that I was of a slightly different ginss (tribe) to the others, and was quite satisfied at the explanation. After that he referred to me as "the Great White Effendi from the South." "He is a strange man, and verily comes from afar; yet I like that man--I look upon him as the apple of my eye," he informed his master. He was a splendid fellow, and I much enjoyed his polite and gentlemanly attentions after the dirty creatures with whom I had so long been in contact.
At the northern end of the ford we found the steamer waiting for us, and I first met Captain Gage and Dr. Milne, of whom I had heard so much. We were a numerous and jolly party on board, and with the exception of a morning's sand-grouse shooting, in the course of which eight guns bagged something over one hundred and fifty brace in a couple of hours, we arrived without further incident at Omdurman. Here we were bewildered with true Egyptian Army hospitality, and our time was spent in wildly flying from mess to mess.
The Sirdar gave a great dinner, at which he invited all the British and Egyptian commanding officers to meet the "tourists" from the south. Our simultaneous arrival was an extraordinary coincidence: Milne and Gage from the east, De Tonquedec, Bertrand, and Henri from the west, I from the south, and Hayes-Sadler from the north, and that in what was almost the uttermost end of the earth. After the dinner there was a great Soudanese dance; all the battalions broke up into their tribes and danced their tribal dances by torchlight: the spectacle was most weird. Sir Francis Wingate kindly asked me to stay with him at the Palace, which is already nearly completed.
The Soudan railway soon carried us down to Wady Halfa, thence a steamer to Assuan, and again the railway, and we once more stood in the roar of multitudes at the station in Cairo. And now it is all over. A few dangers avoided, a few difficulties overcome, many disappointments, many discomforts, and those glorious days of my life are already dim in the haze of the past. Here I stand, in the prosaic land of certainty and respectability! But far, far away, on those Urema flats, where the night-wind sighs to the grazing herds, my thoughts soar to the plaintive wail of the fish-eagle, and my heart throbs in unison with the vast sob-sob of the grandest of all created beasts, that mighty sound that is the very spirit of the veld, the great untrammelled field of Nature, far from all carking cares, pettiness, hypocrisy, and cant: where men may stretch themselves in generous emulation, find their apportioned level, and humbly worship at the great shrine of creation.