Pushing on by degrees, stopping at noon to eat, we came again in sight of the Nile, and put up at a station called Doro, within a short distance of the well-known hill Rijeb, where Nile voyagers delight in cutting their names. The country continued the same, but the grass was conspicuously becoming shorter and finer every day—so much so, that my men all declared it was a sign of our near approach to England. After we had settled down for the night, and the Turks had finished plundering the nearest villages, we heard two guns fired, and immediately afterwards the whole place was alive with Bari people. Their drums were beaten as a sign that they would attack us, and the war-drums of the villages around responded by beating also. The Turks grew somewhat alarmed at this, and as darkness began to set in, sent out patrols in addition to their nightly watches. The savages next tried to steal in on us, but were soon frightened off by the patrols cocking their guns. Then, seeing themselves defeated in that tactic, they collected in hundreds in front of us, set fire to the grass, and marched up and down, brandishing ignited grass in their hands, howling like demons, and swearing they would annihilate us in the morning.
We slept the night out, nevertheless, and next morning walked in to Gondokoro, N. Lat. 4° 54' 5", and E. long. 31° 46' 9", where Mahamed, after firing a salute, took us in to see a Circassian merchant, named Kurshid Agha. Our first inquiry was, of course, for Petherick. A mysterious silence ensued; we were informed that Mr Debono was THE man we had to thank for the assistance we had received in coming from Madi; and then in hot haste, after warm exchanges of greeting with Mahamed's friend, who was Debono's agent here, we took leave, to hunt up Petherick. Walking down the bank of the river—where a line of vessels was moored, and on the right hand a few sheds, one-half broken down, with a brick-built house representing the late Austrian Church Mission establishment—we saw hurrying on towards us the form of an Englishman, who, for one moment, we believed was the Simon Pure; but the next moment my old friend Baker, famed for his sports in Ceylon, seized me by the hand. A little boy of his establishment had reported our arrival, and he in an instant came out to welcome us. What joy this was I can hardly tell. We could not talk fast enough, so overwhelmed were we both to meet again. Of course we were his guests in a moment, and learned everything that could be told. I now first heard of the death of H.R.H. the Prince-Consort, which made me reflect on the inspiring words he made use of, in compliment to myself, when I was introduced to him by Sir Roderick Murchison, a short while before leaving England. Then there was the terrible war in America, and other events of less startling nature, which came on us all by surprise, as years had now passed since we had received news from the civilised world.
Baker then said he had come up with three vessels—one dyabir and two nuggers—fully equipped with armed men, camels, horses, donkeys, beads, brass wire, and everything necessary for a long journey, expressly to look after us, hoping, as he jokingly said, to find us on the equator in some terrible fix, that he might have the pleasure of helping us out of it. He had heard of Mahamed's party, and was actually waiting for him to come in, that he might have had the use of his return-men to start with comfortably. Three Dutch ladies27, also, with a view to assist us in the same way as Baker (God bless them), had come here in a steamer, but were driven back to Khartum by sickness. Nobody had even dreamt for a moment it was possible we could come through. An Italian, named Miani, had gone farther up the Nile than any one else; and he, it now transpired, was the man who had cut his name on the tree by Apuddo. But what had become of Petherick? He was actually trading at N'yambara, seventy miles due west of this, though he had, since I left him in England, raised a subscription of £1000, from those of my friends to whom this Journal is most respectfully dedicated as the smallest return a grateful heart can give for their attempt to succour me, when knowing the fate of the expedition was in great jeopardy.
Instead of coming up the Nile at once, as Petherick might have done—so I was assured—he waited, whilst a vessel was building, until the season had too far advanced to enable him to sail up the river. In short, he lost the north winds at 7° north, and went overland to his trading depot at N'yambara. Previously, however, he had sent some boats up to this, under a Vakil, who had his orders to cross to his trading depot at N'yambara, and to work from his trading station due south, ostensibly with a view to look after me, though contrary to my advice before leaving him in England, in opposition to his own proposed views of assisting me when he applied for help to succour me, and against the strongly-expressed opinions of every European in the same trade as himself; for all alike said they knew he would have gone to Faloro, and pushed south from that place, had his trade on the west of the Nile not attracted him there.
Baker now offered me his boats to go down to Khartum, and asked me if there was anything left undone which it might be of importance for him to go on and complete, by survey or otherwise; for, although he should like to go down the river with us, he did not wish to return home without having done something to recompense him for the trouble and expense he had incurred in getting up his large expedition. Of course I told him how disappointed I had been in not getting a sight of the Little Luta Nzige. I described how we had seen the Nile bending west where we crossed in Chopi, and then, after walking down the chord of an arc described by the river, had found it again in Madi coming from the west, whence to the south, and as far at least as Koshi, it was said to be navigable, probably continuing to be so right into the Little Luta Nzige. Should this be the case, then, by building boats in Madi above the cataracts, a vast region might be thrown open to the improving influences of navigation. Further, I told Baker of my contract with Kamrasi, and of the property I had left behind, with a view to stimulate any enterprising man who might be found at this place to go there, make good my promise, and, if found needful, claim my share of the things, for the better prosecution of his own travels there. This Baker at once undertook, though he said he did not want my property; and I drew out suggestions for him how to proceed. He then made friends with Mahamed, who promised to help him on to Faloro, and I gave Mahamed and his men three carbines as an honorarium.
I should now have gone down the Nile at once if the moon had been in "distance" for fixing the longitude; but as it was not, I had to remain until the 26th, living with Baker. Kurshid Agha became very great friends with us, and, at once making a present of a turkey, a case of wine, and cigars, said he was only sorry for his own sake that we had found a fellow-countryman, else he would have had the envied honour of claiming us as his guests, and had the pleasure of transporting us in his vessels down to Khartum.
The Rev. Mr Moorlan, and two other priests of the Austrian Mission, were here on a visit from their station at Kich, to see the old place again before they left for Khartum; for the Austrian Government, discouraged by the failure of so many years, had ordered the recall of the whole of the establishment for these regions. It was no wonder these men were recalled; for, out of twenty missionaries who, during the last thirteen years, had ascended the White river for the purpose of propagating the Gospel, thirteen had died of fever, two of dysentary, and two had retired broken in health, yet not one convert had been made by them.
The fact is, there was no government to control the population or to protect property; boys came to them, looked at their pictures, and even showed a disposition to be instructed, but there it ended; they had no heart to study when no visible returns were to be gained. One day the people would examine the books, at another throw them aside, say their stomachs were empty, and run away to look for food. The Bari people at Gondokoro were described as being more tractable than those of Kich, being of a braver and more noble nature; but they were all half-starved—not because the country was too poor to produce, but because they were too lazy to cultivate. What little corn they grew they consumed before it was fully ripe, and then either sought for fish in the river or fed on tortoises in the interior, as they feared they might never reap what they sowed.
The missionaries never had occasion to complain of these blacks, and to this day they would doubtless have been kindly inclined to Europeans, had the White Nile traders not brought the devil amongst them. Mr Moorlan remembers the time when they brought food for sale; but now, instead, they turn their backs upon all foreigners, and even abuse the missionaries for having been the precursors of such dire calamities. The shell of the brick church at Gondokoro, and the cross on the top of a native-built hut in Kich, are all that will remain to bear testimony of these Christian exertions to improve the condition of these heathens. Want of employment, I heard was the chief operative cause in killing the poor missionaries; for, with no other resource left them to kill time, they spent their days eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping, till they broke down their constitutions by living too fast.
Mr Moorlan became very friendly, and said he was sorry he could not do more for us. His headquarters were at Kich, some way down the river, where, as we passed, he hoped at least he might be able to show us as much attention and hospitality as lay in his power. Mosquitoes were said to be extremely troublesome on the river, and my men begged for some clothes, as Petherick, they said, had a store for me under the charge of his Vakil. The storekeeper was then called, and confirming the story of my men, I begged him to give me what was my own. It then turned out that it was all Petherick's, but he had orders to give me on account anything that I wanted. This being settled, I took ninety-five yards of the commonest stuff as a makeshift for mosquito-curtains for my men, besides four sailor's shirts for my head men.
On the 18th, Kurshid Agha was summoned by the constant fire of musketry, a mile or two down the river, and went off in his vessels to the relief. A party of his had come across from the N'yambara country with ivory, and on the banks of the Nile, a few miles north of this, were engaged fighting with the natives. He arrived just in time to settle the difficulty, and next day came back again, having shot some of the enemy and captured their cows. Petherick, we heard, was in a difficulty of the same kind, upon which I proposed to go down with Baker and Grant to succour him; but he arrived in time, in company with his wife and Dr James Murie, to save us the trouble, and told me he had brought a number of men with him, carrying ivory, for the purpose now of looking after me on the east bank of the Nile, by following its course up to the south, though he had given up all hope of seeing me, as a report had reached him of the desertion of my porters at Ugogo. He then offered me his dyabir, as well as anything else that I wanted that lay within his power to give. Suffice it to say, I had, through Baker's generosity, at that very moment enough and to spare; but at his urgent request I took a few more yards of cloth for my men, and some cooking fat; and, though I offered to pay for it, he declined to accept any return at my hands.
Though I naturally felt much annoyed at Petherick—for I had hurried away from Uganda, and separated from Grant at Kari, solely to keep faith with him—I did not wish to break friendship, but dined and conversed with him, when it transpired that his Vakil, or agent, who went south from the N'yambara station, came amongst the N'yam N'yam, and heard from them that a large river, four days' journey more to the southward, was flowing from east to west, beyond which lived a tribe of "women," who, when they wanted to marry, mingled with them in the stream and returned; and then, again, beyond this tribe of women there lived another tribe of women and dogs. Now, this may all seem a very strange story to those who do not know the negro's and Arab's modes of expression; but to me it at once came very natural, and, according to my view, could be interpreted thus:—The river, running from east to west, according to the native mode of expressing direction, could be nothing but the Little Luta Nzige running the opposite way, according to fact and our mode of expression. The first tribe of women were doubtless the Wanyoro—called women by the naked tribes on this side because they wear bark coverings—an effeminate appendage, in the naked man's estimation; and the second tribe must have been in allusion to the dog-keeping Waganda, who also would be considered women, as they wear bark clothes. In my turn, I told Petherick he had missed a good thing by not going up the river to look for me; for, had he done so, he would not only have had the best ivory-grounds to work upon, but, by building a vessel in Madi above the cataracts, he would have had, in my belief, some hundred miles of navigable water to transport his merchandise. In short, his succouring petition was most admirably framed, had he stuck to it, for the welfare of both of us.28
We now received our first letters from home, and in one from Sir Roderick Murchison I found the Royal Geographical Society had awarded me their "founder's medal" for the discovery of the Victoria N'yanza in 1858.
My journey down to Alexandria was not without adventure, and carried me through scenes which, in other circumstances, it might have been worth while to describe. Thinking, however, that I have already sufficiently trespassed on the patience of the reader, I am unwilling to overload my volume with any matter that does not directly relate to the solution of the great problem which I went to solve. Having now, then, after a period of twenty-eight months, come upon the tracks of European travellers, and met them face to face, I close my Journal, to conclude with a few explanations, for the purpose of comparing the various branches of the Nile with its affluences, so as to show their respective values.
The first affluent, the Bahr el Ghazal, took us by surprise; for instead of finding a huge lake, as described in our maps, at an elbow of the Nile, we found only a small piece of water resembling a duck-pond buried in a sea of rushes. The old Nile swept through it with majestic grace, and carried us next to the Geraffe branch of the Sobat river, the second affluent, which we found flowing into the Nile with a graceful semicircular sweep and good stiff current, apparently deep, but not more than fifty yards broad.
Next in order came the main stream of the Sobat, flowing into the Nile in the same graceful way as the Geraffe, which in breadth it surpassed, but in velocity of current was inferior. The Nile by these additions was greatly increased; still it did not assume that noble appearance which astonished us so much, immediately after the rainy season, when we were navigating it in canoes in Unyoro.
I here took my last lunar observations, and made its mouth N. lat. 9° 20' 48", E. long. 31° 24' 0". The Sobat has a third mouth farther down the Nile, which unfortunately was passed without my knowing it; but as it is so well known to be unimportant, the loss was not great.
Next to be treated of is the famous Blue Nile, which we found a miserable river, even when compared with the Geraffe branch of the Sobat. It is very broad at the mouth, it is true, but so shallow that our vessel with difficulty was able to come up it. It has all the appearance of a mountain stream, subject to great periodical fluctuations. I was never more disappointed that with this river; if the White river was cut off from it, its waters would all be absorbed before they could reach Lower Egypt.
The Atbara river, which is the last affluent, was more like the Blue river than any of the other affluences, being decidedly a mountain stream, which floods in the rains, but runs nearly dry in the dry season.
I had now seen quite enough to satisfy myself that the White river which issues from the N'yanza at the Ripon Falls, is the true or parent Nile; for in every instance of its branching, it carried the palm with it in the distinctest manner, viewed, as all the streams were by me, in the dry season, which is the best time for estimating their relative perennial values.
Since returning to England, Dr Murie, who was with me at Gondokoro, has also come home; and he, judging from my account of the way in which we got ahead of the flooding of the Nile between the Karuma Falls and Gondokoro, is of opinion that the Little Luta Nzige must be a great backwater to the Nile, which the waters of the Nile must have been occupied in filling during my residence in Madi; and then about the same time that I set out from Madi, the Little Luta Nzige having been surcharged with water, the surplus began its march northwards just about the time when we started in the same direction. For myself, I believe in this opinion, as he no sooner asked me how I could account for the phenomenon I have already mentioned of the river appearing to decrease in bulk as we descended it, than I instinctively advanced his own theory. Moreover, the same hypothesis will answer for the sluggish flooding of the Nile down to Egypt.
I hope the reader who has followed my narrative thus far will be interested in knowing how "my faithful children," for whose services I had no further occasion, and whom I had taken so far from their own country, were disposed of. At Cairo, where we put up in Shepherd's Hotel, I had the whole of them photographed, and indulged them at the public concerts, tableaux vivants, etc. By invitation, we called on the Viceroy at his Rhoda Island palace, and were much gratified with the reception; for, after hearing all our stories with marked intelligence, he most graciously offered to assist me in any other undertaking which would assist to open up and develop the interior of Africa.
I next appointed Bombay captain of the "faithfuls," and gave him three photographs of all the eighteen men and three more of the four women, to give one of each to our Consuls at Suez, Aden, and Zanzibar, by which they might be recognised. I also gave them increased wages, equal to three years' pay each, by orders on Zanzibar, which was one in addition to their time of service; an order for a grand "freeman's garden," to be purchased for them at Zanzibar; and an order that each one should receive ten dollars dowry-money as soon as he could find a wife.
With these letters in their hands, I made arrangements with our Consul, Mr Drummond Hay, to frank them through Suez, Aden, and the Seychelles to Zanzibar.
Since then, I have heard that Captain Bombay and his party missed the Seychelles, and went on to the Mauritius, where Captain Anson, Inspector-General of Police, kindly took charge of them and made great lions of them. A subscription was raised to give them a purse of money; they were treated with tickets to the "circus," and sent back to the Seychelles, whence they were transported by steamer to Zanzibar, and taken in charge by our lately-appointed Consul, Colonel Playfair, who appears to have taken much interest in them. Further, they volunteered to go with me again, should I attempt to cross Africa from east to west, through the fertile zone.
1 (return)[ The equator was crossed on the 8th February 1862.]
2 (return)[ The Wahuma are treated of in Chapter IX.]
3 (return)[ The list of my fauna collection will be found in an early Number of the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London."]
4 (return)[ Captain Burton, on receiving his gold medal at the hands of Sir Roderick I. Murchison, said, "You have alluded, sir, to the success of the last expedition. Justice compels me to state the circumstances under which it attained that success. To Captain Speke are due those geographical results to which you have alluded in such flattering terms. Whilst I undertook the history and ethnography, the languages, and the peculiarity of the people, to Captain Speke fell the arduous task of delineating an exact topography, and of laying down our positions by astronomical observations—a labour to which, at times, even the undaunted Livingstone found himself unequal."]
5 (return)[ Vol. iii. of A. D. 1801.]
6 (return)[ It was such an attack as I had on my former journey; but while mine ceased to trouble me after the first year, his kept recurring every fortnight until the journey ended.]
7 (return)[ It may be as well to remark here, that the figures both in latitude and longitude, representing the position of Kaze, computed by Mr Dunkin, accord with what appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, computed by myself, and in the R. G. S. Journal Map, computed by Captain George. This applies also to the position of Ujiji; at any rate, the practical differences are so trifling that it would require a microscope to detect them on the map.]
8 (return)[ The Jub is the largest river known to the Zanzibar Arabs. It debouches on the east coast north of Zanzibar, close under the equator.]
9 (return)[ The two first gold watches were given away at Zanzibar.]
10 (return)[ If one asked the name of a tree, and it happened to be the kind from which this cloth was made, the answer would be "mbugu." If, again, the question was as to the bark, the same answer; and the same if one saw the shirt, and asked what it was. Hence I could not determine whether the word had been originally the name of the tree, of its bark, or of the article made from the bark, though I am inclined to think it is the bark, as there are many varieties of these trees, which, being besides being called mbugu, had their own particular names.]
11 (return)[ Rumanika's present.—One block-tin box, one Raglan coat, five yards scarlet broadcloth, two coils copper wire, a hundred large blue egg-beads, five bundles best variegated beads, three bundles minute beads—pink, blue, and white.]
12 (return)[ Nnanaji's present.—One deole or gold-embroidered silk, two coils copper wire, fifty large blue egg-beads, five bundles best variegated beads, three bundles minute beads—pink, blue and white.]
13 (return)[ Since named by Dr P. L. Sclater "Tragelaphus Spekii." These nzoe have been drawn by Mr Wolf, from specimens brought home by myself.]
14 (return)[ Round arm, 1 ft. 11 in.; chest, 4 ft. 4 in.; thigh, 2 ft. 7 in.; calf, 1 ft. 8 in.; height, 5 ft. 8 in.]
15 (return)[ I.e. Dead Locust Lake,—Luta, dead—Nzige, locust.]
16 (return)[ In 'Blackwood's Magazine' for August 1859.]
17 (return)[ See p. 211.]
18 (return)[ 1 block-tin box, 4 rich silk cloths, 1 rifle (Whitworth's), 1 gold chronometer, 1 revolver pistol, 3 rifled carbines, 3 sword-bayonets, 1 box ammunition, 1 box bullets, 1 box gun-caps, 1 telescope, 1 iron chair, 10 bundles best beads, 1 set of table-knives, spoons, and forks.]
19 (return)[ The straight road down the Nile through Unyoro no one dares allude to at this time, as the two kings were always fighting.]
20 (return)[ Some say a group of forty islands compose Sese.]
21 (return)[ Named by Dr P. L. Sclater, Cosmetornis Spekii. The seventh pen feathers are double the length of the ordinaries, the eighth double that of the seventh, and the ninth 20 inches long. Bombay says the same bird is found in Uhiyow.]
22 (return)[ It is questionable whether or not this word is a corruption of Bahr (sea of) Ingo.]
23 (return)[ This obviously was an allusion to the way in which the first king of Uganda was countenanced by the great king of Kittara, according to the tradition given in Chapter IX.]
24 (return)[ 1 double rifle, 1 block-tin box, 1 red blanket, 1 brown do., 10 copper wire, 4 socks full of different-coloured minute beads, 2 socks full of blue and white pigeon eggs, 1 Rodgers's pen-knife, 2 books, 1 elastic circle, 1 red handkerchief, 1 bag gun-caps, 1 pair scissors, 1 pomatum-pot, 1 quart bottle, 1 powder flask, 7 lb. powder, 1 dressing-case, 1 blacking-box, 1 brass lock and key, 4 brass handles, 8 brass sockets, 7 chintz, 7 binders, 1 red bag, 1 pair glass spectacles, 1 lucifer-box.]
25 (return)[ It will appear shortly that is was actually not more than two marches to the northward of Faloro.]
26 (return)[ Dr Khoblecher, the founder of the Austrian Church Mission Establishment of Gondokoro, ascertained that the Nile reached its lowest level there in the middle of January.]
27 (return)[ The Baroness Miss A. van Capellan, and Mrs and Miss Tinne.]
28 (return)[ See Petherick's succouring petition, addressed to the Right Hon. Lord Ashburton, President of the Royal Geographical Society, in the Proceedings of that Society, date 10th June 1860.]