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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75534-0.txt b/75534-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..feaed75 --- /dev/null +++ b/75534-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10787 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75534 *** + + + + + +Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional +notes will be found near the end of this ebook. + + + + + THE STORY OF EXPLORATION + + EDITED BY + + J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., SEC. R.G.S. + + + THE NILE QUEST + + BY + + SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. + +[Illustration: + + [_Frontispiece_ + +SPEKE (from a Drawing by the Author).] + + + + + THE NILE QUEST + + A RECORD OF + THE EXPLORATION OF THE + NILE AND ITS BASIN + + + BY + SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. + (PRESIDENT OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY) + + + _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS AND + PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS_ + + + WITH MAPS BY J. G. BARTHOLOMEW + + + [Illustration] + + + LONDON + ALSTON RIVERS, LIMITED + ARUNDEL STREET, W.C. + 1906 + + + + +THE STORY OF EXPLORATION + + +Probably few of the stories that tell of the achievements due to the +curiosity of humanity have a wider or more lasting interest than that +which is concerned with the exploration of the lands and seas, which +give feature to the face of the earth. It is a long story, and would +be longer still, if the men in the remote past had left any record of +their wanderings. Even as it is, in the scanty and perplexing records +left behind them by ancient Egyptians, Phœnicians, Carthaginians, +Hebrews, and even Chinese, the story begins more than three thousand +years ago and, so far as the pioneer work of exploration is concerned, +may be taken to have practically concluded with the end of the +nineteenth century. It seems, therefore, an opportune time to recount +the leading episodes in this long record of incessant human effort, in +a manner which will appeal to, and interest, all intelligent readers. + +In the series of volumes, which will be issued under the general title +“The Story of Exploration,” it will be sought to make the narrative +circle round the personality of the men who had the leading share in +carrying on the adventurous work. + +Beginning with the earliest journeys of which we have any record, the +story will be carried down stage by stage to the present day, and it +is believed that, when complete, it will form what may be called a +biographical history of exploration. While the work of geographical +research in all parts of the globe will be seriously and adequately +treated, the adventures incident to such research, which add human +interest to it, will have due prominence given to them. In all cases +it will be sought to obtain the co-operation of men who are recognized +as authorities on the particular subjects with which they deal. Each +volume will be profusely illustrated, the illustrations being selected +for their appropriateness to the text, while every assistance will be +given to the reader by means of carefully executed maps. + + J. SCOTT KELTIE. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +When the author of this book was composing his recent work on the +Uganda Protectorate, he was led through the history of its discovery +into the general consideration of Nile exploration, since it was in the +search for the Nile sources that the territories now forming the Uganda +Protectorate were laid bare to the gaze of the civilised world. But as +anything like a detailed review of the exploration of the Nile basin +by the Caucasian race would have unduly extended a book dealing more +particularly with Uganda, he gladly took advantage of the suggestion +made by Dr. Scott Keltie (Editor of this series) that these studies +should be applied to the present volume, which is one of a series on +the history of great geographical discoveries. + +It is not for the author to say that his book on the Nile Quest will +prove interesting; but he has striven to make it as accurate as +possible, and he hopes it may be permanently useful as a faithful +record of the names and achievements of those who solved the greatest +geographical secret, after the discovery of America, which remained for +the Caucasian’s consideration. + + H. H. JOHNSTON. + + LONDON, 1903. + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + +The Editor and the Author desire to acknowledge, with thanks, the loan +of photographs, letters, or maps for the illustration of this book, +from Sir John Kirk, G.C.M.G., Mrs. Murdoch (_née_ Speke), Mr. J. F. +Cunningham, Mr. W. G. Doggett, Mr. Theodore Tinne, Mr. T. Douglas +Murray, Lady Baker, Mr. Oscar Neumann, Mr. J. E. S. Moore, Major Gwynn, +Major Austin, Mr. J. Thomson, The African Society, Mr. S. Crispin, and +Mr. Warry. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Chapter Page + I. The Dawn of Nile Exploration 1 + + II. The Greeks interest Europe in the Nile Question 14 + + III. Abyssinians and Jews 30 + + IV. Islamites and Italians 37 + + V. A Summary of the Ancients’ Knowledge of the Nile 42 + + VI. Portugal and Abyssinia 45 + + VII. French Inquiries and D’Anville’s Maps 65 + + VIII. Bruce and the Nile: Sonnini, Browne, and Bonaparte 73 + + IX. Muhammad Ali opens up the White Nile 91 + + X. Missionaries and Snow-Mountains 111 + + XI. Burton and Speke 115 + + XII. Speke and the Nile Quest 125 + + XIII. Speke in Uganda 150 + + XIV. From the Victoria Nyanza to Alexandria 160 + + XV. Samuel Baker and the Albert Nyanza 174 + + XVI. Alexandrine Tinne and Theodor von Heuglin 192 + + XVII. Schweinfurth and the Basin of the Bahr-al-Ghazal 201 + + XVIII. Schweinfurth’s Achievements and Descriptions 216 + + XIX. Stanley confirms Speke 223 + + XX. Gordon and his Lieutenants.--Junker and the Nile-Congo + Water-parting 230 + + XXI. Joseph Thomson, Mt. Elgon, and Kavirondo Bay 246 + + XXII. Emin Pasha 250 + + XXIII. Stanley discovers the Mountains of the Moon and Lake + Albert Edward.--The End of Emin 259 + + XXIV. German Explorers determine the Southern Limits of the + Nile Basin 265 + + XXV. Geographical Work in the Uganda Protectorate 269 + + XXVI. The Eastern Basin of the Nile 276 + + XXVII. Conclusion 293 + + XXVIII. The Geography of the Nile Basin 299 + + + APPENDIX I. The Roll of Fame of those who started on the Nile + Quest 319 + + APPENDIX II. Bibliography 322 + + INDEX 329 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + SPEKE (from a drawing by the author) _Frontispiece_ + + _Page_ + 1. The Nile and the Pyramids 4 + + 2. The Mountains of the Moon 23 + + 3. The Course of the Nile according to Ptolemy 24 + + 4. An Arab Trader (Maskati) 40 + + 5. Dapper’s Map (Amsterdam: 1686) giving the falsified results + of Portuguese explorations 58 + + 6. D’Anville’s Map of the Nile Basin 70 + + 7. The Branching _Hyphæne_ Palm 75 + + 8. Bruce’s Map of the Nile Sources 80 + + 9. Portrait of James Bruce 86 + + 10. Map of Africa by Williamson, London, 1800 90 + + 11. Blue Nile, twenty miles east of Fazokl 93 + + 12. Ferdinand Werne 96 + + 13. Whale-headed Stork (_Balæniceps rex_) 100 + + 14. John Petherick 102 + + 15. Map published in Penny Magazine of 1852 108 + + 16. The River Sobat 111 + + 17. Rev. Dr. J. Ludwig Krapf 112 + + 18. A Swahili Arab Trader 117 + + 19. Sketch Map by Burton and Speke, 1858 123 + + 20. John Hanning Speke, at the age of 17 126 + + 21. Burton’s idea of the Nile Sources, December, 1864 127 + + 22. James Augustus Grant 132 + + 23. A Mnyamwezi Porter 135 + + 24. A Hima of Mpororo near Karagwe 144 + + 25. Speke’s Tragelaph 146 + + 26. The Ripon Falls, from the west bank 151 + + 27. A View in Uganda 152 + + 28. The Nile at the Isamba Rapids, looking North 160 + + 29. Ripon Falls, from Bugunga 162 + + 30. View of Napoleon Gulf, from Jinja 163 + + 31. The last Map issued to illustrate Speke’s Theories, 1865 170 + + 32. Speke’s Handwriting 172 + + 33. Samuel Baker, 1865 176 + + 34. A Native of Unyoro 184 + + 35. Alexandrine Tinne 192 + + 36. On the Jur River: Sudd blocking the Channel 195 + + 37. Letter of Miss Tinne to her nephew 198 + + 38. Georg Schweinfurth, 1875 203 + + 39. Shiluks 211 + + 40. “Papyrus, fifteen feet high” 218 + + 41. A Path through the Forest 220 + + 42. Schweinfurth’s Map 223 + + 43. The Victoria Nyanza 226 + + 44. Stanley’s idea of the Victoria Nyanza, 1880 228 + + 45. The Victoria Nile flowing towards Lake Kioga 232 + + 46. Nuërr Village, Sobat River 241 + + 47. Joseph Thomson and Wilhelm Junker 242 + + 48. A Stern-wheel Steamboat forcing its way up the Jur (Sue) + or main affluent of the Bahr-al-Ghazal 245 + + 49. N.E. corner of Victoria Nyanza (with Samia Hills in + distance) 247 + + 50. Joseph Thomson 248 + + 51. Emin Pasha 252 + + 52. Raphia Palms by a Central African stream 257 + + 53. Sir Henry Stanley, G.C.B. 261 + + 54. Shores of the Victoria Nyanza near Emin Pasha Gulf 262 + + 55. Dr. Franz Stuhlmann 264 + + 56. A Native of Unyamwezi from near south shores of Victoria + Nyanza 267 + + 57. Sir Frederic D. Lugard 269 + + 58. G. F. Scott-Elliott 271 + + 59. Dr. Donaldson-Smith 272 + + 60. Cutting the Sudd 274 + + 61. Dr. C. Beke 281 + + 62. Natives of the Baro (Upper Sobat) 284 + + 63. Colonel J. B. Marchand 286 + + 64. Gorge of the River Baro (Upper Sobat) 287 + + 65. Berta Negroes 289 + + 66. A Berta Village in the Matongwe Mountains 291 + + 67. The Nile in Egypt 293 + + 68. Nubia: a “Washout” on the Sudan Railway 294 + + 69. Tropical Forest at Entebbe, on the northwest shores of the + Victoria Nyanza 295 + + 70. Napoleon Gulf, looking South 302 + + 71. The Birth of the Victoria Nile, at the Ripon Falls 304 + + 72. On Lake Albert Edward (North-west Coast) 305 + + 73. In the Libyan Desert 315 + + 74. Orographical Features of the Nile Basin 328 + + 75. Land Surface Features of the Nile Basin 328 + + + + +THE NILE QUEST + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE DAWN OF NILE EXPLORATION + + +The first men who entered Egypt and travelled up the valley of the +Nile came, almost unquestionably, from the east, and were part of +those radiations from the central focus of humanity, India. It is +possible that the first men who entered the valley of the Nile from +this direction may have been of so primitive, simian, and undetermined +a type--so “Neanderthaloid”--as not to belong definitely to any one +of the three main species of humanity. At that distant time, however +(let us say at the end of the Pleistocene period or beginning of the +Quaternary Epoch), there was undoubtedly a land connection over the +south as well as over the north end of the Red Sea, joining Arabia to +Ethiopia as well as to Egypt; and across this bridge came many types +of Asiatic mammals, also man,--possibly in the form of a low Negroid, +a type represented to-day (much changed and modified, of course) by +the Congo Pygmies and South African Bushmen. As regards the history +of humanity, however, the valley of the Nile has been divided into +two very distinct parts. The southern half of its basin--in common +with all Africa south of the Sahara and the fifteenth degree of north +latitude--was peopled from the east, through southern Arabia, and by +the Negro species in the main. Egypt proper and the adjoining regions +of Arabia once lay within the domain of the Negroid Pygmies, but +these indigenes were overwhelmed at a relatively early period by more +or less “negrified” branches of the Caucasian stock coming from the +direction of Syria or from Libya. Before the dawn of the historical +epoch--say nine thousand years ago--an element in the population of +Lower Egypt certainly showed Bushmen affinities. These steatopygous +Bushmen were perhaps Proto-negroes, who may have branched off from +the Nigritic stock when first that species reached the Mediterranean +regions. This Bushman element in Egypt was for some time distinct, +prior to the historical period, as the characteristic type of the +servile class. Following on these dwarfish people came races bearing +some slight resemblance to the Dravidians of India or the Brahuis of +Baluchistan,--a somewhat Australoid stock which has left traces in +Elam and around the shores of the Persian Gulf. Then came an aquiline +type of nearly pure Caucasian stock, usually known by Egyptologists as +the “Khafra” race. This probably arrived from Syria or Cyprus. But the +men of the northern half of the Nile basin who fathered the principal, +dominating type of ancient and modern Egyptian emigrated seemingly +from the direction of Galaland, Somaliland, or Abyssinia. In these +countries, or originally perhaps in southern Arabia, there was formed a +handsome race mainly of Caucasian stock, but which had mingled somewhat +considerably with the Proto-negroes and Dravidians in Arabia and in +northeast Africa, and so had acquired darker skins, and hair with +more or less tendency to curl. The men of this race, like the modern +Somali or Gala, and the inhabitants of southern Arabia, grew thin and +wedge-shaped beards. Their lips were full, their noses straight and +finely shaped. Their degenerate descendants continue to exist with but +little altered facial type in the Danākil, Somali, and Gala of the +present day; but in the northern half of the Nile valley they became +in time the main stock of the Egyptian population. They also, it would +seem, profoundly modified Negro Africa; for while on the one hand +they started out by a series of race movements and conquests from the +direction of Abyssinia to invade and mould Egypt, on the other (though +more faint-heartedly) they advanced in a southwesterly direction to +influence Negro Africa. They have formed aristocracies in the countries +round the head-waters of the White Nile. Their influence on the Negro +races has been widespread, permeating, even though faintly, in a +handsome physical type and remarkable form of language, to Zululand +on the south and perhaps westward across the continent to the Congo, +the Cross River, and the Atlantic coast. This Hamitic race (as it is +called for want of a better word), which made its first home--and +retains as its last--the highlands of Abyssinia and the plateaux and +arid coastlands of Afar, Somaliland, and the Gala countries, has +been the mainstay of Ancient Egypt, and also, together with its not +distantly related Libyan brethren, the main human agent in saving the +Negro from slipping back into the life of the anthropoid ape. + +[Illustration: THE NILE AND THE PYRAMIDS.] + +The valley of the Lower Nile, however, attracted many invasions from +Europe and Asia, and from Libya (northwest Africa), where the dominant +race was mainly of Iberian stock.[1] Dynasties rose and fell, often +coincident with the invasion of Egypt by one race of conquerors after +another. All these races (with the exception perhaps of the Hittites) +belonged to various types of the Caucasian species. The Hittites +possibly may have introduced a slight element of the Mongolian. In +the earliest historical period Egypt and the lower valley of the +Nile does not seem to have been markedly severed in its interracial +relations from the far greater portion of the Nile basin which lies +to the south of the fifteenth degree of north latitude. Egyptians +penetrated no doubt without much difficulty up the Nile valley into +and among the Negro tribes of the Central Sudan and Equatoria. The +Ancient Egyptians may have had--must have had--a certain proportion of +Negro or Negroid in their composition; beside the drop of Negro blood +in their Hamitic ancestors, they must have absorbed the earlier +Negroid population of their country and have imported and intermarried +with Negro slaves. But they were fully Caucasian in the vivid interest +they took in nature, and in their desire to depict all the striking +forms of life around them, especially when such forms had anything of +novelty. Prof. Flinders Petrie has, I believe, recently discovered a +vase of immeasurable antiquity of the “Pre-Dynastic” period in Lower +Egypt which is incised with a delineation of the Kudu antelope.[2] +Other and later relics would seem to show that the Egyptians were +acquainted with the chimpanzee of the Bahr-al-Ghazal regions, the +Pygmies who once inhabited the western part of the Upper Nile basin, +and many forms of the Tropical African fauna. But after these early +historical times there appears to have come about a severance of +relations between Egypt and the Upper Nile, though an overland route +to the Land of Punt (Somaliland) either through Abyssinia or to the +west of that elevated region nearly always existed unclosed to traffic. +It is noteworthy that the Ancient Egyptians themselves do not appear +ever to have penetrated up the main stream of the Nile much above its +junction with the Bahr-al-Ghazal, no doubt owing to the obstruction +of the sudd. Their traders may have travelled into many parts of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal region, and possibly even westward in the direction +of Lake Chad,--westward, it may be, even across the western Sudan +to the Niger,--yet there is not the slightest indication of their +ever having journeyed up the main White Nile to the snow-mountains +and the equatorial lakes. But they traded for thousands of years +with the men of Punt (Somaliland) by sea and by land; and there is +evidence to show that the peoples of Somaliland and Galaland (who had +by repeated prehistoric invasions permeated the Upper Nile basin and +left aristocracies behind them) traded anciently--say, in pre-Islamic +times--southwestward to Lake Rudolf, and round Lake Rudolf to the +present Turkana country, the neighbourhood of Mount Elgon, and even to +the northeastern shores of the Victoria Nyanza. + +The Ancient Egyptians seem to have known the main Nile as far as +Khartum, and the Blue Nile up to its source in Lake Tsana. They +exercised intermittently some kind of rule over the northern and +western escarpment of Abyssinia, and are said to have sent criminals +and political exiles to die of cold on the snowy heights of the Samien +range. But they appear to have displayed little knowledge or curiosity +concerning the ultimate source of the _White_ Nile. No doubt the vast +marshes and obstructions of the sudd which characterised the course of +the Nile above its confluence with the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the generally +hopeless nature of this country with its utter absence of anything +like high land, of minerals, or of a trading population, discouraged +the practical-minded Egyptians from pursuing their researches in that +direction. The Nile itself they called _Hapi_, which was also the name +of the Nile God. It was sometimes spoken of as _Pi Yuma_, or “the +River.”[3] Its valley they called Atr, Atur, Aur (Modern Coptic = +_Eiōr_).[4] + +Several foreign dynasties ruled over Ancient Egypt,--Arabian and +Libyan,--and for centuries at a time the energies of Egypt were mainly +concentrated on domestic work under these foreign task-masters or +insurrections to expel the hated rulers. The original civilisation of +Egypt rose rapidly to a great and wonderful height at a period which +may be as remote, historically, as about seven thousand years ago. The +main source of their civilisation seems to have been the introduction +into the country of copper implements instead of and in addition to +those of improved stone and flint manufacture. A wonderful development +of pictorial art occurred concurrently with this brilliant rise in +civilisation, and this early Egyptian art is of a realistic character +from which all subsequent Egyptian pictorial or sculptured art has been +a degeneration. At this time they easily impressed the Negroes of +the south and the Libyans of the west with their power, and it was no +doubt a matter of ease for Egyptian expeditions to penetrate into the +Sudan from the countries of Abyssinia and Galaland. Gold and precious +or gaudy stones were sought for in the east and southeast. Ivory, +slaves, gums, perfumes, and strange beasts were obtained from the south +and southwest. But no doubt Ancient Egyptians in their extensions of +political or commercial influence introduced amongst the Negro tribes +the knowledge of working metals. They also gave to them all those +domestic animals and cultivated plants now existing in Tropical Africa +which are not of a far later American or Indian origin (that is, +introduced by the Portuguese and Arabs). By instructing the Negroes +in this indirect manner in the arts of civilisation, and by spreading +among them, no doubt, the use of metal weapons (which were probably +as good as those used by the Egyptians themselves), there came a time +when--to use a term once much employed by the European pioneer--the +black men became “saucy” and objected to be harried, bullied, assessed, +and exploited by the lordly Egyptian. The Negro race at this time, too, +was becoming infiltrated by the same splendid stock--the Hamites--as +had so largely composed the ruling population of Egypt. Here and +there, no doubt, Negro tribes submitted willingly to be governed by +Hamitic princes (as has been the case in Uganda and Unyoro), and, thus +ruled, offered sharp opposition to Egyptian encroachments. Egyptian +interest, therefore, in the sources of the Nile died away, especially +as in the revival of native Egyptian power and in the expulsion of +foreign dynasties the thoughts of Egypt were all bent on the conquest +and retention of Syria, Asia Minor, and Cyprus. These lands were more +desirable in their eyes than the appalling wastes of the Sahara, the +sun-smitten Sudan, the cold mountains of Abyssinia, or the fetid +marshes of the Nile Negroes. + +Almost older than the civilisation of Egypt was that of Mesopotamia, +the reflex action of which on the Hamites of western Arabia and +Abyssinia and on the inhabitants of the Nile Delta may have provoked +the civilisation of Egypt. Empires rose, declined, fell, and were +revived in the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and their +influence over Arabia and Syria produced in those countries a stirring +of commerce and invention and a desire for distant enterprise. The +Phœnicians, who were originally an Arab people of the Persian Gulf, +forced their way across the barren wastes of northern Arabia to the +coasts of Syria, leaving behind, however, colonies of bold navigators +at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. The Phœnicians, by the +building of more seaworthy boats, and probably by the development of +sails, soon traversed the Mediterranean in all directions, passed +out through the Straits of Gibraltar, and even found their way to +Britain long before Julius Cæsar. Their most noteworthy action in +connection with Africa perhaps was the founding of Utica in 1100 B.C. +and Carthage in 820 B.C., these settlements being made at no great +distance from each other in that projection of North Africa which +constitutes the modern state of Tunis. The Carthaginian successors of +the Phœnicians carried on the work of discovery along the north and +west coasts of Africa until, in the memorable voyage of Hanno, they +had penetrated as far south in that direction as the existing colony +of Sierra Leone. The Phœnicians as bold navigators were enlisted in +the service of one of the last Egyptian sovereigns of a real Egyptian +dynasty,--Neku, son of Psametik I., who succeeded to the throne of +Egypt in 611 B.C. Evidently by this time the overland routes to the +regions of the Upper Nile and even to Somaliland had been closed by +hostilities with the Ethiopians and Negroes. A Phœnician expedition +was directed to sail down the Red Sea and along the coast to the Land +of Punt and the unknown territory beyond. According to tradition, +this expedition sailed round the whole continent of Africa and passed +through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, reaching Egypt +from that direction. + +Egypt, in her several thousand years of history, had been many times +conquered by foreign races or the leaders of foreign armies, and had +sometimes endured the domination of strangers for five hundred years at +a time, though Egyptian art, tradition, and religion either survived +concurrently alongside the habits and customs of the less civilised +rulers, or ended by Egyptianising the stranger. But there was to +come a time when the independence of Egypt was to disappear, when the +Egyptian language was to cease to be dominant, when, in fact, the Egypt +of the Pharaohs and the Pyramids, of the Hieroglyph and the Mummy, +of Ra and Aphis, Osiris, Isis, and Horus was to disappear--perhaps +for ever; for the potent race that had so long held aloft a +brightly-lighted lamp of civilisation has been so changed and degraded +by the infusion of Persian, Arab, Greek, Italian, Negro, Circassian, +Turkish, French, and Maltese blood, so often decimated by wars, +famines, and diseases, and renewed with the tainted blood of mercenary +armies, that, though the residuum of the population may still offer +great facial resemblances to the vanished Egyptian type, the majesty of +demeanour, the brilliant mental endowments of the old race have gone, +and the rulers of Egypt to-day under the indifferent English are the +descendants of Slavs and Turks, Arabs, Armenians, and Circassians. + +A ruler of Egypt, a usurper named Aahmes, had been raised to the +kingship over Egypt by a soldier’s mutiny. He had legitimised his +position by marrying a granddaughter of Psametik I. Carrying out a +series of successful expeditions, he once more opened a way to the +commerce of Nubia and the Upper Nile. He intervened in the affairs of +Asia Minor to support a small state there against encroachments by +the Persian conqueror Cyrus. The son of Cyrus the Great, whom we know +as Cambyses, but whose real name was probably in Persian Kambujiya, +resolved to punish Egypt for this interference. Aahmes, whom the +Greeks called Amasis, died before he could resist the invasion, and +his son, Psametik III., lost his throne and the independence of +Egypt in the battle of Pelusium. Cambyses became the conqueror, and +was crowned the legitimate King of Egypt. He seems to have been an +erratic and cruel conqueror, but, like Nero, somewhat fantastically +interested in science and exploration. He sent one great expedition +into the Libyan Desert which was never heard of again, and is supposed +to have perished in the sand; and he led a great army himself up the +Nile with some vague intention of conquering the Ethiopians. His +soldiers, however, had marched only a small distance into the desert +when their commissariat failed, and many perished, while others became +cannibals in their mad hunger. This disaster put a stop to any further +efforts on the part of the Persian Overlords of Egypt. For nearly +two hundred years Persia maintained her hold over Egypt, though for +brief intervals native dynasties arose in this part and that part and +flickered for a time in a state of semi-independence. Then happened +one of the great events in the history of Egypt and of the development +of Africa,--an event which may be paralleled by the descent on Egypt +of Napoleon Bonaparte two thousand one hundred and thirty-one years +later: Alexander the Great, continuing his war against the Persian +Empire, attacked that power in Egypt and won the day. Alexander left +in charge in Egypt one of his generals (who was perhaps also his +illegitimate half-brother), Ptolemy. After his death Ptolemy refused to +acknowledge the claims of Alexander’s posthumous son, and made himself +King of Egypt. He thus founded a Greek dynasty in that country which +lasted till the advent of the Cæsars and expired in the person of the +world-famed Cleopatra. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GREEKS INTEREST EUROPE IN THE NILE QUESTION + + +The second division of the Caucasian species of man (the Iberian being +the first) was the Aryan,--a race of golden-haired, pink and white +complexioned people, with eyes that are blue, gray, or violet.[5] +The Aryans first came into Greece as barbarians and destroyers, but +were soon conquered by the preceding Iberian Mykenæan civilisation, +on which they built up that Hellenic art and knowledge which are the +foundations of European civilisation at the present day. This Hellenic +spirit first made itself felt in Africa through the Greek colonies of +the Cyrenaica. Greece, when it became conscious of a world beyond its +peninsulas and islands, was strongly drawn towards Africa. The power +of Egypt long withstood attempts at Greek colonisation, though in +quite early days Hellenic or Hellenised Europeans were employed by the +rulers of Egypt as mercenary soldiers. Therefore, following the line +of least resistance, Greece planted her first African colonies between +Egypt on the east and the settlements of the Phœnicians (Carthage) on +the west. Due west of the narrow coast belt of Egypt is a remarkable +projection of North Africa into the Mediterranean,--the modern Barka, +the ancient Cyrenaica. This projection has been, several times in +geological history, a series of islands in a larger Mediterranean, or +it has grown into a bridge connecting Greece with Africa. The land now +rises to heights of three thousand feet, and there is a sufficiency of +rainfall in ordinary seasons to nourish a vegetation not much less rich +than that of southern Italy. South of the Cyrenaica lies the Sahara +Desert in its most aggravated form of well-nigh impassable sand dunes. +No Greek expedition that we know of ever succeeded in crossing the +Sahara from Cyrenaica and reaching the Sudan; but Greek influence and +inquiries were dimly felt in Phazania (Fezzan) to the southwest, and +the existence and prosperity of these Greek colonies in North Africa +aroused the interest of the Greeks in matters of African exploration. +In about 457 B.C. Herodotus (a native of Halicarnassus, a Hellenised +state in Asia Minor under Persian rule) visited Egypt, which from 650 +B.C. onwards had been more or less thrown open to Greek enterprise by +Psametik I. Herodotus himself travelled up the Nile as far as the First +Cataract, and collected with some industry information from Egyptians +and travelled Greeks as to the regions which lay beyond. From these he +learned that the origin of the Nile was unknown, but that the river +might come from the far west, from the region where we now know Lake +Chad to be; that there was a civilised city of Ethiopians in the great +bend of the Nile at Meroe (Merāwi of to-day), and that beyond this +nothing certain was known of the Nile course. Aristotle--the great +Greek philosopher, who was born in northern Greece in 384 B.C.--wrote +on African discovery and recorded the news that to the southwest of +the Nile were Pygmy races who frequently warred with the “cranes” (? +ostriches). + +In B.C. 276 was born at Cyrene, in North Africa, Eratosthenes, a Greek +geographer, who was made Librarian at Alexandria. From the information +he collected and collated (supplied, no doubt, by Greek traders) he, +first of all known geographers, sketched out with fair accuracy the +course of the Nile and its two great Abyssinian affluents as far +south as the modern Khartum. He hinted at the lake sources and first +mentioned the Nubians. + +It was the conquest of Egypt from Persian domination by Alexander the +Great which really did more to extend Greek commerce and civilisation +and the use of the Greek language over eastern Africa and western Asia +than has even been done at a far later date in other parts of the +world for German commerce, knowledge, and the German language by the +unification of Germany under Bismarck, William I., and William II. +Greek explorers visited the Nile as far south as the junction of the +Astapus (Blue Nile), and Greek settlements were made on the island of +Sokotra, and possibly at other points near the mouth of the Red Sea. +Greek traders even visited the East African coast as far as Pangani, +opposite Zanzibar. The Greeks revealed India to Europe, and the +commerce which sprung up there through Greek agencies on the Persian +Gulf and the Red Sea gave unwilling navigators, in those days before +steam force, some acquaintance with the eastern coast of Africa as far +south as Zanzibar. + +Yet the Greeks in all these regions were (as subsequently happened +with the Portuguese) but the followers of the Arabs and Phœnicians. +Some impulse, kindred in origin, no doubt, to the evolution of the +Phœnicians, had created an ancient civilisation in southern and western +Arabia which perhaps reached its climax in the lofty, well-watered, and +fertile country of Yaman. Much of southern Arabia, however, several +thousand years ago, was less arid than at the present day. The rainfall +was greater, and the already civilised inhabitants industriously +preserved the precious water by dams for purposes of irrigation. This +civilisation may be briefly styled Himyaritic or Sabæan,--perhaps the +last name is the more comprehensive. These Sabæan Arabs of south and +southwest Arabia, separately or in conjunction with their Phœnician +cousins, pursued their search for metals down the east coast of Africa, +along which they made settlements which are probably the sites of most +of the modern emporiums of commerce on the same coast. They had reached +the mouth of the Zambezi and ascended that river, and had penetrated +as far south as, let us say, Delagoa Bay. It was perhaps their +exploration of the Zambezi which led them to discover alluvial gold +in the vicinity of that river, though they afterwards found a shorter +route to the gold fields by way of Sofala. In this way they forestalled +by some twenty-five hundred years modern Rhodesian enterprise, and +gold was worked in the regions to the south of the Lower Zambezi and +a little to the north of that river by Arabs or people of allied +language and race almost continuously from an approximate period of +three thousand years ago down to the arrival of the Portuguese at the +beginning of the sixteenth century of this era. In the days before the +appalling religious disunion brought about by the conflicts between +Christianity and Islam there was no bitter feeling against the European +on the part of the Arab, and Greek adventurers and traders appear to +have penetrated freely up the Nile, and to have worked cordially with +the Sabæan Arabs whom they found established at various points between +India on the one hand and Zanzibar and the Red Sea on the other. The +Greek colony on the island of Sokotra no doubt traded industriously +with the opposite coast of Somaliland. + +Rome displaced Greece in Egypt in the same way that Greece had +displaced Persia, and that Persia had closed the five thousand years +of fighting between Libyan, Gala, Arab, and Nubian. In 168 B.C. Rome +extended her protection over Egypt. In 30 B.C. Egypt became a Roman +province. When the Romans really took over the administration of the +land, they too, like the Galas, Persians, and Greeks before them, and +the French, Turks, and English after them, began to be interested in +the quest for the Nile sources. Each newly-arrived race of Caucasian +conquerors in Egypt has felt the same interest. But much of the +exploring and recording work under Roman rule was done by Greeks. +Strabo, a native of Amasia in Pontus, on the southern shore of the +Black Sea, who was born somewhere about 50 B.C., became, when quite a +young man, a geographer of the Roman world. He accompanied in B.C. 24 +Ælius Gallus, the Roman Governor of Egypt, on a journey up the Nile as +far as Philæ (beyond Assuan and the First Cataract). Pliny the Elder, +writing some fifty years after the birth of Christ, shows us that just +before and just after that event Greek explorers (mainly from Asia +Minor) had been busy on the Nile above the First Cataract and perhaps +south of Khartum. These were Bion, Dalion, and Simonides. Aristocreon +and Basilis are also mentioned as authorities on Nile exploration, but +not necessarily explorers themselves. Simonides, above mentioned, lived +for five years in Meroe. Dalion is thought to have penetrated up the +river some distance beyond Khartum. The “Meroe” which is so constantly +mentioned by Greek and Roman writers from Herodotus to Ptolemy, was a +name given originally to an important and flourishing city on the south +or left bank of the Nile in Dongola,--the modern Merāwi. This place +was also known as Napata (Egyptian, Nepet), and was the residence +of Ethiopian (Abyssinian, Gala, Nubian) kings. Later the name Meroe +was also applied to a place on the right bank of the Nile about one +hundred miles south of that river’s confluence with the Atbara. +This is probably where the Greek Simonides stayed and beyond which +Dalion travelled. Finally, the term Meroe was applied to the “Island” +(peninsula) formed by the Atbara, the Blue Nile, and the White Nile, a +region formerly of great fertility. + +The Emperor Nero, though the Beast of the Apocalypse, had a certain +genial interest in geography. He despatched--or caused to be +despatched--an expedition under two centurions in about the year 66 +A.D., to discover, if possible, the source or sources of the White +Nile. Before dealing with Egypt the Romans had taken over control of +the old Greek colonies of the Cyrenaica and on the coast of Tripoli. +This had led (A.D. 19) to their having extensive relations with the +Berber kingdom of Fezzan, with whom and with the Tawareq people of +Garama to the south they maintained friendly relations. Through this +friendly co-operation a Roman expedition under Septimus Flaccus had in +the year 50 A.D. (perhaps) reached to some trans-Saharan place like +Bilma. Much later, about 150 A.D., another expedition under Julius +Maternus joined forces with the friendly Berber King of Garama, and +actually travelled to the vicinity of Lake Chad, or, as some think, +to the oasis of Air or Asben farther to the west. It was a country +which they called Agisymba, and abounded in rhinoceroses. From this +expedition the Romans derived some inkling of the possibilities, beyond +the sandy wastes and sun-smitten rocks of the Sahara Desert, of a +fertile Sudan, populated with an excellent material for slaves. But a +hundred years earlier they had realised the enormous difficulties which +attended any enterprise (in the days before camels were used in Africa) +across the Sahara Desert, and this gave them an added desire to follow +up the Nile and ascertain its practicability as a waterway into Negro +Africa. + +Nero’s two centurions were passed on by Roman prefects to friendly +Nubian chiefs, one of whom ruled the principality of Meroe along the +main Nile between Atbara and the Blue Nile confluence. Furnished with +boats which they later exchanged for dug-out canoes, they appear to +have ascended the Nile above Fashoda, and possibly above the confluence +between the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the Kir or White Nile. At any rate they +got far enough south to come in contact with the Great Marsh which +extends from the vicinity of Fashoda to the frontiers of the Uganda +Protectorate. Their passage was stopped by the accumulation of water +vegetation which we now know as the “sudd.” Some writers on ancient +geography believe that the two centurions penetrated as far south as +the sixth degree of north latitude, or the verge of the Bari country. +At any rate they got well into the land of the naked Nile Negroes. +Their discouraging reports seem to have put an end to any further Roman +enterprise in the matter. + +Greek traders in Egypt prospered greatly under the peace imposed by the +Roman Empire. Their commerce with Arabia, East Africa, and India grew +to a wonderful development in the first century after Christ. About 77 +A.D. was published by a Greek of Alexandria the celebrated “Periplus of +the Red Sea,” a pilot’s manual not unlike the modern Admiralty “sailing +directions.” This “Periplus” shows us that the Greeks by the middle of +the first century knew the Zanzibar coast very well under the name of +Azan or Azania. + +Among these Greek merchants trading with India was one Diogenes, +who, on returning from a voyage to India in about 50 A.D., landed on +the East African coast at Rhaptum (Pangani or the mouth of the river +Rufu?). Thence, he said, he “travelled inland for a twenty-five days’ +journey, and arrived in the vicinity of the two great lakes and the +snowy range of mountains whence the Nile draws its twin sources.” As +nothing is recorded about his return journey, it is more probable that +he merely conversed on the coast with Arab settlers and traders who +told him that at a distance of twenty-five days’ march in the interior +began a series of great lakes from two of which were derived the twin +sources of the White Nile; that farther to the south of the most +western of these two lakes was a range of mountains of great altitude +covered with snow and ice, and named for their brilliant appearance of +white the Mountains of the Moon. The Nile, he was told, united its twin +head-streams at a point to the north of these two great lakes, and +then flowed through marshes until it joined the River of Abyssinia (the +Blue Nile), and so reached the regions of the known. + +[Illustration: THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON: A GLIMPSE ON ONE OF +RUWENZORI’S HIGHEST PEAKS.] + +This story was told by Diogenes to a Syrian geographer called +Marinus of Tyre, who published it in his geographical works in the +first century of the Christian era. The writings of Marinus of Tyre +disappeared, probably with the dispersal of the Alexandrian Library, +but fortunately for us at the present day all that portion of them +dealing with the sources of the Nile was quoted almost _in extenso_ +by another geographer, Claudius Ptolemæus, a Greek-Egyptian, born at +Ptolemais in the Delta of the Nile, and resident at Alexandria (perhaps +in connection with the celebrated Library). Ptolemy (as he is currently +and incorrectly called) wrote in about the year 150 A.D., and therefore +to Ptolemy is commonly attributed the first clearly expressed theory +as to the main origin of the White Nile, the twin lakes (Victoria and +Albert), and the great snowy range called the Mountains of the Moon +(Ruwenzori).[6] Neither Marinus of Tyre nor Claudius Ptolemæus was the +first person to hint at this origin of the Nile. Besides Eratosthenes +and Pliny there are indications in various records of the two centuries +before Christ that the idea of the White Nile issuing from two great +lakes and passing through a vast marshy region before it reached +Ethiopia was vaguely known. The idea had perhaps even reached the ears +of Cambyses and of such of the earlier Ptolemies as may have cared for +geographical speculations. The bearers of the news would undoubtedly +have been men of the Gala (Abyssinian, Somali, Cushite) race, who at +that distant period of time seem to have freely penetrated through +the lands of the brutish and unarmed Negroes. No doubt many a Greek +adventurer in passing along the east coast of Africa brought back +tidings similar to those of Diogenes, but his grain fell among the +rocks, and the only definite record of the existence of this theory as +to the Nile’s origin is the story of Diogenes preserved through the +industry of Marinus of Tyre and Claudius Ptolemæus of Alexandria. + +[Illustration: THE COURSE OF THE NILE, ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY. + +From the oldest version of Ptolemy’s Map in existence, about 930 A.D., +preserved in Mount Athos Monastery.] + +The recording of travellers’ tales as to the twin lake sources of +the main Nile stream and the existence of a great snowy range called +the Mountains of the Moon was not the only contribution made by +Claudius Ptolemæus to Nile geography. The Egyptian Greek indeed was +a geographical giant compared with any of his predecessors, nor was +the height of his knowledge concerning the geography of Europe, Asia, +and Africa reached and passed until the fifteenth century of the +present era, some twelve hundred years after his death. The results +of the later Crusades, intercourse with the Arabs, and the journeys +of Marco Polo and other enterprising Venetians had brought in some +cases confirmation of Ptolemy’s theories, had corrected some of his +errors, and had filled up gaps in his information. But as regards the +geography of Africa more especially, Ptolemy remained ostensibly the +great authority until the end of the fifteenth century, although, as +already mentioned in a footnote, the latest editions of Ptolemy’s +maps (the latest ascribed to Ptolemy was published about 1485) show +that the geographers at the closing part of the fifteenth century, +consciously or unconsciously, touched up Ptolemy’s work by later +information received from Arabs, Italians, and Turks. Ptolemy discussed +with much detail the whole course of the Nile so far as it lay to any +extent within the regions of the known. He described the approximate +outline of its course about as far as the present site of Berber, +which district he describes as the Greater Primis, a name which Sir +E. H. Bunbury takes to be identical with the locality of Primnis[7] +rumoured by Strabo. Above this point Ptolemy applies the name of Meroe +(so often attributed to settlements or districts in Dongola) to that +great peninsula which is so nearly enclosed between the Atbara, the +main and the Blue Niles. Ptolemy indeed, and most writers of earlier +and later days, believed this district to be an actual island.[8] +The junction of the Blue and the White Niles is wrongly placed by +Ptolemy in latitude 12° north, instead of 15° 40′, and from this point +southwards Ptolemy’s proposed latitudes of places on the White Nile +became increasingly incorrect, so that by him the Nile system was +carried a little too far to the south of the equator. South of the site +of modern Khartum Ptolemy had but little information to go upon, other +than the account of the Centurions’ voyage; but from such suggestions +as he could obtain, together with the story of Diogenes, he guessed +that the twin sources of the White Nile joined their streams into one +river at 2° north latitude. This junction described with the knowledge +of later days would be equivalent to the exit of the Nile from Lake +Albert, the real latitude of this point being 2° 25′--an uncommonly +good guess on Ptolemy’s part. Ptolemy, however, imagined nothing quite +like Lake Albert, but thought that the waters coming respectively from +the two great equatorial lakes effected their junction at a point some +two hundred and fifty miles north of the western lake source (Lake +Albert); for he surmises that this lake lies approximately under the +sixth degree of south latitude (its southernmost extremity is in 1° 10′ +north of the equator). His hypothetical Lake Victoria lies under or +extends to the seventh degree of south latitude, instead of no farther +than about 3° 30′ south. Ptolemy, however, was careful to discriminate +between the lake sources of the White Nile and the lake (Tsana) from +which the Blue Nile issues in the highlands of Abyssinia. This sheet +of water he calls definitely Coloe, and states that it is the source of +the river Astapus (or Blue Nile). It is thought that Strabo also made +allusion to Lake Tsana under the name of Psebo. It is probable that +both Strabo and Ptolemy heard of this lake source of the Astapus or +Blue Nile from Greek traders who had penetrated Abyssinia; for, during +the first centuries after Christ, Axum (then called Auxuma) had become +an important trading-centre which was reached from Adulis (Adulis +being a port on the Red Sea not far from the modern Masawa). Ptolemy’s +location of Lake Tsana, however, like the equatorial lakes, is too far +to the south. His sketch of the main course of the Atbara (Astaboras) +on the one hand, and of the Blue Nile (Astapus) on the other, would not +be very incorrect, but for the fact that he makes these streams unite +somewhere in the latitude of Khartum and then separate again, their +northern separation enclosing the island of Meroe. The Græcicised names +of Astapos (Blue Nile) and Astaboras (Atbara) were recorded before +the days of Ptolemy by Eratosthenes, but were not applied in the same +definite way to the Blue Nile and the Atbara. Eratosthenes sometimes +applies the name of Astapos to the main stream of the Nile and not +specially to the Blue Nile. He also mentions that the main stream of +the Nile is called Astasobas. It is evident that in these words we have +corruptions of local names, possibly derived from Nubian, or it may be +from Hamitic languages. Astaboras needs but little identification with +the Atbara. Astapus (Greek = Astapos) is not clearly recognizable under +the modern Abyssinian name of the Blue Nile,--Abai. The second part of +Astasobas certainly recalls the name Sobat, which besides being applied +by the Sudanese Arabs to the Baro or Sobat is also sometimes given by +them or by the Nile Negroes to the main course of the White Nile south +of Khartum. Asta may have been some Ethiopian term meaning “river.” + +The present writer is unable to understand why that able geographer, +Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, has doubted the identification of Ruwenzori with +Ptolemy’s Mountains of the Moon. It must be obvious, when all facts +are considered, that Ruwenzori was the principal germ of this idea. +The Greek traders at Rhapta (Pangani) no doubt had some idea of the +existence of Kilimanjaro, but it is doubtful whether either the single +dome of Kilimanjaro or the gleaming pinnacle of Kenia would impress the +imagination so strongly as the whole brilliant range of Ruwenzori’s +four or five snow-peaks and thirty miles of glaciation. On such +occasions, as when this range is visible from a distance, and broadside +on, the dark blue forested slopes merge into the morning mists of the +lowlands, leaving the splendid phantasmagoria of cream-coloured snow +and gray rock floating in the sky like an exaggerated lunar landscape. +Ptolemy places this range, as he does his lakes, too far to the south, +and associates it more with the modern country of Unyamwezi than +with the region between the two lakes Albert and Victoria. But no +doubt then, as in Speke’s day, Ruwenzori and Lake Albert were reached +by Greek adventurers, by Sabæan Arabs, or by natives who served +as intermediaries, by way of the established trade route through +Unyamwezi. This word, which means “the Land of the Moon,” appears to +be rather old for a Bantu place name: Unyamwezi indeed seems in the +history of Bantu migrations to have played an important part, and to +have been one of those many sub-centres from which great dispersals of +the Bantu races took place. Indeed the Zulus (who were probably the +dreaded Mazimba or Bazimba spoken of by the Portuguese) seem to have +halted in their cannibal days in Unyamwezi before they descended on +South Africa in the sixteenth century. Ruwenzori is not, after all, +such a very long journey to the northwest of Unyamwezi, and it is very +possible that the returning travellers, having stated that they reached +the Nile sources and these wonderful snow-mountains through the Land of +the Moon thus caused this lunar name to be applied by Ptolemy to the +Ruwenzori range. + +Though not an explorer, Ptolemy stands (for his age) in the highest +rank of Nile geographers; but he had to wait something like seventeen +hundred and forty years before Sir Henry Stanley, by his discovery +of the Semliki, the Ruwenzori snow-range, and the last problems of +the Nile sources, did justice to that remarkable foreshadowing of the +main features of the Nile system due to the genius of the Alexandrian +geographer. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ABYSSINIANS AND JEWS + + +The race of the Greek kings who ruled over Egypt after the death of +Alexander the Great and until 30 B.C., and later, again, the Byzantine +Emperors of Eastern Rome did much to implant Hellenic civilisation and +the use of the Greek language in Egypt, and their influence extended +over Abyssinia, where the kings of Ethiopian race (Gala dashed with +Arab and Jew) admired and imitated them in much the same manner as +the second Emperor of the French was admired and imitated by the +lesser potentates of Germany. The history of Abyssinia--if it is to be +written with regard to truth--is still obscure. This country of lofty +mountains and temperate climate is bordered on the east by the land of +Afar, an inhospitable desert inhabited by fierce Hamites (Danākil). On +the south its mountains are connected by plateaux and ridges with the +highlands of East Africa, but are separated by much arid and parched +country from the regions of the modern Uganda protectorate. On the +west the mountains of Abyssinia descend in terraces to the plains of +the central Nile. Here the torrid climate is that of the Sudan, but +the country is better watered by the rivers which rise in Abyssinia, +and by a fairly regular rainfall. On the extreme north the Abyssinian +mountains almost overhang the coast of the Red Sea, and are no doubt +visible in clear weather from the opposite Arabian shore. The mountains +of Yaman are remarkably similar in many points to those of Abyssinia, +and the people of Yaman when they were seized with a desire to emigrate +in search of fresh homes were no doubt drawn to this distant land of +mountains just visible in the west. Originally no doubt Abyssinia was +peopled by the same dwarf Bushman race as that which formed the lowest +stratum of all the African populations. Then a portion of the country +came into the possession of the big black Negroes who still inhabit its +western flanks. These again are superseded and partially absorbed by +the superior race of the Hamites, the ancestors of the Gala, Somali, +and Ancient Egyptian. This Hamite race of Caucasian stock with some +Negroid intermixture forms the basis of the Abyssinian population at +the present day. But in the early days of Sabæan enterprise--say four +thousand to three thousand years ago--Abyssinia was conquered by Sabæan +Arabs from Yaman. At many subsequent periods Abyssinia and Yaman (the +Red Sea acting as no barrier) were governed by the same dynasty, and +when Yaman came under Persian influence that influence also penetrated +Abyssinia. In this manner Abyssinia early developed a trade with India, +and even served as an emporium for the introduction of Indian wares +into Egypt on the one hand and the remote parts of eastern equatorial +Africa on the other. The Queen of Saba (Sheba) is no doubt in many +respects a legendary personage, but if she had any real historical +existence she is another instance of an Arab ruler who governed both +Abyssinia and Yaman. She may or may not have visited Solomon, but there +is no doubt that in the time of that Jewish king some intercourse was +kept up between the kingdom of Israel in its brief flicker of power +and prosperity, and the coasts of the Red Sea and southern Arabia. +After the smashing up of the Hebrew state by the Assyrians there are +good reasons for assuming that a number of the dispersed Israelites +migrated to Abyssinia, as no doubt they did to other parts of the +Sabæan Empire. Jewish monotheism always had a certain fascination (in +the days before Christianity and Islam) for the peoples of Arabia and +of Mauritania. This influence was most felt after the final destruction +of Jerusalem by the Romans and the subsequent dispersal of the Jews +in all directions. Several princes in southwestern Arabia adopted +the Jewish faith, more or less, and the Jewish settlers in Abyssinia +also appear to have acted as missionaries in converting the savage, +nominally Semitic, partly Gala rulers of Abyssinia to the principles +of the Jewish faith, into which they wove Jewish legends, such as the +glory and power of Solomon. A similar influence impressed on the Arab +mind the Solomon of the legends. The real son of David was no doubt an +unimportant Semitic prince who borrowed a little civilisation from his +Phœnician, Egyptian, and Sabæan neighbours. But the Greek influence +emanating from Egypt displaced for a time the Persian and Jewish +culture in Abyssinia. In the northern parts of that (then) collection +of Arab and Gala kingdoms, Greek began to be used as a second language, +the speech of the Court itself being a foreign tongue (Ge’ez), derived +from the Himyaritic or some early south Semitic language. + +Auxuma--the modern Auxum--in the kingdom or province of Tigre +(northeastern Abyssinia) and near the more modern town of Adua, became +an important trade centre, frequented by many Greek merchants, some +of whom seem to have occasionally returned to their homes in Egypt by +way of the Atbara and the Nile. Others forestalled the Portuguese by +entering into trade relations or actually undertaking journeys which +revealed to them the existence of Lake Tsana and the upper waters of +the Blue Nile. + +Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Byzantine Greek, who traded with India in +the early part of the sixth century of our era, called at the port of +Adulis (near Masawa) in 520 A.D. He discovered at this place a monument +which contained two separate inscriptions. The monument was apparently +one erected at the orders of Ptolemy III. (Philadelphus), who reigned +in Egypt from 285 to 247 B.C. This Ptolemy led and sent expeditions +which made a partial conquest of the coast regions of northern +Abyssinia, and added to the Egyptian Empire of that day a good deal of +what now constitutes the modern Italian colony of Eritrea.[9] + +On the same monument some four hundred and seventy years later, in +about 127 A.D., a Semitic Abyssinian king (possibly Ela-Auda) recorded +in turn his own victories and extensions of rule. These conquests seem +to have done much to carry the Abyssinian (Semitic as distinct from +Hamitic) arms as far south as the ninth degree of north latitude. Other +indications would show that from this time onwards to about the tenth +century A.D. Abyssinian influence and conquests extended southward +intermittently to the vicinity of Lake Rudolf (the northern end of that +lake). Owing to these conquests, Christianity was carried as far south +as the modern province of Kaffa, and northwestwards along the course +of the Blue Nile to the site of the modern Khartum; for at one time +Abyssinian suzerainty or rule extended almost to the verge of Kordofan +on the west.[10] + +The introduction of Islam among the Somalis, among some of the Gala +tribes, and all round the north and west of Abyssinia in the centuries +that followed the eleventh, checked any further spread of Christianity, +and limited--even curtailed--the political aspirations of Abyssinia. +In the sixteenth century a Muhammadan ruler--Muhammad Granye--arose +in the Danākil country (Tajurra Bay), and practically smashed the +Ethiopian Christian power in Abyssinia, which did not recover from the +ravages of these Muhammadan (Arab and Somali) armies for a century or +more. Soon after the wars of Muhammad Granye the heathen Galas[11] +from the south and southwest entered Abyssinia in force, and it was a +long time before the Semitic rulers of that country could bring them +under control. The arrival of the Portuguese (to be described in the +next chapter) gave a fillip to the power of the Christian Semites of +Abyssinia, mainly through the introduction of guns and gunpowder. It is +possible, indeed, that at different times after the commencement of the +Christian era Abyssinian raiders may have ridden south on their slave, +ivory, and cattle-hunting expeditions as far as the vicinity of Mount +Elgon. At the present day their raiders come almost to the frontiers +of Busoga, for there is no tsetse fly in all the district between +Abyssinia and the Victoria Nyanza; therefore, as the Abyssinians have +possessed horses for several thousand years, there has been little to +stop their making rapid expeditions into the Land of the Blacks. In +this way they may have raided and traded as far south as the Victoria +Nyanza and as far west as the White Nile, bringing back with them +for the edification of the Greeks stories of the Great Lakes and +Snow-mountains, and assisting, perhaps, to distribute over the lands +now comprised within the Uganda Protectorate those remarkable blue +Egyptian beads of unknown antiquity which have been referred to by the +present writer in his book, “The Uganda Protectorate,” as being some +slight indication of ancient trading relations between the countries of +the Great Lakes and those under the dominion of Egypt. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ISLAMITES AND ITALIANS + + +When Egypt had become part of the Byzantine dominions, all interest in +the Nile sources had died away, and men’s minds were mainly centred on +religious controversies of greater or less violence. Greek Christianity +penetrated to Abyssinia and south of Abyssinia to countries not far +from the north end of Lake Rudolf. Most of the Nubian kingdoms became +nominally Christian, and Christianity was the religion of the people +on the Nile banks as far south as the confluence of the Blue and White +Niles. It is thought by the missionaries of the White Fathers’ Mission +to Uganda that the sign of the cross and the idea of baptism, with one +or two other practices found in the old heathen religions of Unyoro and +Uganda, may have reached those countries from Abyssinia. Greek and Arab +Christians in the first six centuries of the Christian era certainly +penetrated to the East African coast, but after the official adoption +of Christianity by the Roman Empire all mundane knowledge began to +decay. Christianity inspired a contempt for science, and the only ideas +of geography which floated about the world were connected with the +wanderings of propagandists or pilgrimages to the shrines of saints. +Arab enterprise, moreover, in these sad centuries suffered a curious +eclipse. Far to the south, in Zambezia, no doubt the invasion of the +country by the earlier and later sections of the Bantu Negroes brought +about the destruction of Sabæan power; and the somewhat degenerate +successors of the Sabæans from the south coast of Arabia only occupied +the coast emporiums dotted along the littoral from Somaliland to Sofala. + +Then came one of the great landmarks of the world’s history, a movement +productive of a little good and some harm to civilisation. Christianity +had first been organised as a socialistic religion, grafting on to +the beautiful and indisputable precepts of its Founder the reaction +of poor, ignorant, starved, and enslaved people against the unmoral +philosophy, unequal wealth, and excessive materialism of the time. It +then grew to be a somewhat dismal faith, taking no heed of the beauty +of this world and of mundane opportunities for happiness; and above +all it waged an active warfare with sexuality, not merely curbing +immorality, but (wisely or unwisely) opposing polygamy and advocating +celibacy. The Arab and the North African were not ripe for such a +faith, and Judaism had already biassed them against the polytheistic +tendencies of Greek Christianity. Muhammad, the prophet of western +Arabia, founded on a basis of phallic worship and animistic belief +the third great Semitic religion--Islam. His teaching was a direct +challenge to Christianity, and soon became iconoclastic in every sense +of the word. Though the Persian, Syrian, and Iberian elements of the +Arab Empire for a time revived and perpetuated in somewhat grotesque +aspect the science of Greece, the art of Persia, and the lore of India, +the Muhammadan religion sealed most parts of Africa to European and +Christian research. It is true, however, that the conquests of Islam +enabled Arabs to penetrate further into the interior of tropical Africa +than before, though from the dawn of civilisation they had been the +most constant explorers of the eastern part of that continent. + +The Arabs began to mention names connected with the Niger and the +western Sudan to the geographers of Italy and Sicily. Under the impulse +of Islamic, Persian, and Arab colonies the east coast of Africa and +the north coast of Madagascar came partially under Muhammadan rule in +the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Arabs there carrying on almost +continuously the commercial enterprise founded by their predecessors +and brothers, the Phœnicians and Sabæans. Invasion after invasion +crossed from Arabia, and passed over the lowlands surrounding Abyssinia +to the central Sudan; or higher up, through Egypt, to Mauritania. +But the Arabs who crossed the Nile in the latitudes of Khartum and +Assuan made no attempts to follow the White Nile, the Blue Nile, or +the Bahr-al-Ghazal to their sources,--left in fact all the Nile basin +above the confluence of the Blue and White rivers absolutely untouched +and unexplored. Egypt itself came under Arab rule in 640 A.D., and +subsequently formed an independent principality under the Fatimite +Khalifs. + +The Crusades brought French, Germans, and English, Aragonese and +Flemings to the Delta of the Nile in more or less disastrous +expeditions against the Saracen power,--a power which was fast becoming +that of the Turk. A curious relic of these crusading days in the Nile +Delta is or was (for the present writer is not aware if they still +exist) several Spanish (originally Aragonese) monasteries, which were +established with the consent of the Muhammadan rulers of Egypt in order +to mitigate the woes of Christian captives and to arrange terms for +their release. + +[Illustration: AN ARAB TRADER (MASKATI).] + +Venice, however,--which had somewhat held aloof from the religious +ardour of the Crusades in order to build up a great commerce with the +Muhammadan East,--Venice became during the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries the great neutral go-between for the trade of India, Persia, +Egypt, Arabia, and Syria with the Byzantine Empire and the rest of +Europe. Venetians (in Arab dress, of course) ran less risk than other +Europeans when travelling in Egypt in the days before the Portuguese +discoveries. Through the Venetians Europe became acquainted with +several strange African beasts which were brought from the Sudan +for public exhibition in Muhammadan Egypt, and in this way European +interest in the sources of the Nile was occasionally revived. It +is remarkable to reflect that the name of Venice will probably +never die out (as far as etymology is concerned) in the very heart +of Africa. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and perhaps +later, Venice manufactured in her arsenals improved types of guns. +She also acted as an intermediary in exchanging muskets (manufactured +elsewhere in Europe) with the Arabs and Turks, who at that time could +not construct these firearms for themselves. Thus the Turks and Arabs +became accustomed to call any improved type of musket a “Venetian” +(Bunduqi).[12] In this way the name of the most beautiful city in the +world has penetrated beyond the explorations of any European into +the very heart of Africa, as it has also circulated through all the +Muhammadan East. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A SUMMARY OF THE ANCIENTS’ KNOWLEDGE OF THE NILE + + +The next page in the history of the Nile Quest is marked by the coming +of the Portuguese; but before we proceed to consider what effect this +movement had on the revelation of Africa to the knowledge of the +Caucasian species, let us sum up briefly the purport of the foregoing +chapters:-- + +1. The lands through which the Nile flows were inhabited some ten +thousand years ago--let us say at a guess--by Pygmies in the north, +east, and southwest, and elsewhere by big black Negroes, these types +being offshoots from the original Negro Asiatic stem. + +At some such period as ten thousand years ago northeast Africa was +repeatedly invaded from Arabia by a branch of the Caucasian race--the +Hamites--which in Arabia had absorbed a certain proportion of early +Negro and Dravidian[13] blood. About the same time in Egypt itself +there were invasions of other Caucasian immigrants; some perhaps of +the Dravidian stock still met with in Baluchistan and India, and +others of Libyan (Iberian, Algerian) race. There had also been early +minglings between the big black Negroes on the Central Nile and Hamite +invaders which had resulted in further hybrids such as the Nubians or +“Ethiopians.” These Ethiopians constantly invaded and raided Egypt, +thus mingling with the Caucasian Egyptians, but also at other times +acted as middlemen between civilised Egypt and the utterly barbarous +countries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the Sudan; they brought to Egypt +knowledge of the Pygmies and such of the bigger beasts of Africa as had +become extinct in Egypt before the arrival of intelligent man. Through +these Nubians the Egyptians occasionally had glimmering ideas as to the +sources of the White Nile. + +2. The Egyptians kept up a fairly constant communication with Abyssinia +and Somaliland by sea and overland. They had a fair knowledge of the +geographical features of Abyssinia and of the origin and source of the +Blue Nile. Moreover, through the ancestors of the Galas and Somalis +they came slightly into contact with the peoples of Lake Rudolf and the +Victoria Nyanza. + +3. The Greeks, who began to travel in Egypt five hundred years before +Christ, expressed some curiosity about the origin of the Nile, and +communicated this inquiring spirit to the Romans. This resulted for a +time in the knowledge of the White Nile as far south as Fashoda. + +4. The Arabs of western and southern Arabia very early in the history +of civilisation developed a culture scarcely inferior to that of the +Egyptians, and entered into trading and colonising relations with +Abyssinia and Somaliland, and with the East African coastlands as far +south as the modern Rhodesia. From their settlements on the Zanzibar +coast (such as Mombasa) they probably journeyed inland on trading +expeditions, or else the natives, who came to trade with them at the +coast, gave them geographical information. In one or other way they +learnt the existence of great lakes and snow-mountains. These stories +the Arabs passed on to inquiring Greeks as far back as two thousand +years ago; and an account which was an uncommonly near guess at the +truth was given to the reading world during the first two centuries +after the birth of Christ by writers on geography like Marinus of Tyre +and Claudius Ptolemæus of Alexandria. + +5. This was the high-water mark of knowledge concerning the sources of +the White Nile for something like eighteen hundred years. Information +on the subject in the interval began to grow less rather than more. +The stories of the Nile lakes were, however, revived after the Arab +invasions of northeast Africa in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, +and were communicated to the European world of the Renaissance through +the intermediary of the Saracen writers of Sicily, the theologians of +Rome, and the merchants of Venice. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +PORTUGAL AND ABYSSINIA + + +Portugal was created by the crusading spirit. The King of Castile, who +had become the leading prince in the northern half of Spain, despatched +a young Burgundian adventurer, Count Henry, to advance on the Douro +from Galicia (in the northwest corner of the Spanish peninsula) and +to drive the Moors into the sea,--either the Atlantic Ocean or the +Straits of Gibraltar. Count Henry drove them at any rate half-way down +that western coastland of the Spanish peninsula which we now call +Portugal.[14] Lisbon was only eventually conquered from the Moors by +the help of a large party of English volunteers who stopped to aid +in this struggle with the Moslem while on their way to a Crusade in +the Holy Land. Steadily, bit by bit, Count Henry and his successors, +the kings of Portugal, drove the Moors southward into and out of the +little province of Algarve, and then, flushed with continuous success, +crossed the Straits, attacked them in Morocco, and added a large part +of the present Empire of Morocco to the possessions of the Portuguese +Crown.[15] These brilliant successes awoke a great spirit of discovery +in Portugal,--a spirit fomented and encouraged by that noble and +far-sighted man, Prince Henry the Navigator, who had himself shared in +the Morocco wars. Rapidly the limits of the Portuguese explorations +extended. First they rounded Cape Bojador on the northwest coast of +Africa. Then they reached Sierra Leone, the gold coast, Benin (where +they powerfully affected native art and industry), the Niger Delta, the +Cameroons, the Congo, Angola, and the Cape of Good Hope. Once having +passed this promontory, whence they had once retired baffled, their +great navigator, Vasco da Gama, carried on the exploration of the +coasts of Africa eastward and northward to Mombasa and thence to India. +Succeeding vessels explored the Red Sea, and the expeditions they +conveyed attempted to get into touch with Abyssinia, where, according +to the rumours brought home by crusaders and Italian merchants from +Egypt, there lay a Christian country ruled by a pious monarch, John +the Priest.[16] But before ever Vasco da Gama had rounded the Cape of +Good Hope, the Portuguese, by contact with the Moors, had heard of Arab +settlements on the East Coast of Africa, and of the insular character +of the great continent. Their government, therefore, in 1486 despatched +on a journey to Egypt, India, and eastern Africa Pero de Covilhaõ to +spy out the land. + +This was a very risky journey in those days when the jealousy of Venice +was added to the fanaticism of the Moslems. But Pero de Covilhaõ +fulfilled his mission. He visited Egypt, the Red Sea, and India. He +then, on his return journey, touched at many of the Arab ports on the +East African coast. Finally he disembarked at Masawa, and travelled +to Abyssinia, the first intelligent European to enter that country +for a very long period of time,--the first, in fact, since the Greek +merchants and missionaries who traded and travelled under the Byzantine +Empire. The King of Abyssinia was so delighted with the advent of this +white man, yet so suspicious of his country’s motives, that he was +detained as an unwilling guest in Abyssinia for several years, and +died when on his way home. But the Portuguese fleet came to Masawa in +1520 with an embassy which remained in the country of Abyssinia for +six years. In this embassy were the priests Bermudez and Francisco +Alvarez. Alvarez afterwards (about 1550) wrote an interesting account +of Abyssinia, describing more especially the province of Tigre, and +alluding to the Atbara (there known as the Takaze) as the main Nile. + +Bermudez became for a time the primate or patriarch of Abyssinia. The +Jesuit missionaries, for the most part Portuguese, strove hard to +replace the corrupt Greek Christianity of the country by the Latin +rite. This action not unnaturally set up against them a strong body of +opponents in the native Abyssinian priesthood. For a time, however, +the civilisation they introduced, and their trading connection with +India, made a great impression on the king and chieftains of Ethiopia, +until, as will be seen later on, the country became suspicious of +Portuguese intentions, observing the facility with which parts of +East Africa, India, and the shores of the Persian Gulf had been +conquered and occupied by the Portuguese. But before this jealousy +was to culminate in the expulsion of the Portuguese from Abyssinia +one hundred years later, the Christian rulers of that country were +forced to appeal to Portugal for help and armed intervention. As +already mentioned in Chapter V., an attack on Abyssinia had been made +by a Muhammadan chieftain of the Danakil country,--Muhammad Granye, +or Muhammad the Lame. This man was probably of Somali race, and ruled +the country round about Tajurra Bay,--the French Somaliland of to-day. +In alliance with the Arabs and Turks, he not only created the Somali +kingdom of Adel, but ravaged the greater part of Abyssinia. His policy +was distinctly anti-Christian, and it is conceivable that he might +have extinguished for ever the Christian Semite rule over Abyssinia +but for the intervention of the Portuguese. The Emperor David, about +1530, managed to send emissaries (probably Jesuit priests) to Lisbon +to implore the assistance of the King of Portugal. The result was that +Dom Estevaõ da Gama (son of the celebrated Vasco[17]) as Portuguese +Admiral entered the Red Sea with the Portuguese fleet, and landed +at Masawa four hundred Portuguese under the command of his brother +Christophoro da Gama. The Portuguese brought with them firearms, with +which apparently the Muhammadan invaders of Abyssinia were at first +unprovided. They threw into the struggle with the Somalis and Arabs +all the crusading ardour with which their ancestors had driven the +Moors out of Portugal. Christophoro da Gama was a heroic figure, a +very paladin. He excited the admiration of his Somali opponent, who +at one stage of the struggle offered him a safe conduct to the coast +and the means of departing from Abyssinia worth all the honours of +war. Nevertheless, the four hundred Portuguese inflicted reverse after +reverse on the thousands that followed the banner of Muhammad Granye, +who at that time was practically master even of the mountainous regions +of Abyssinia. Some of the Portuguese went to the assistance of the +fugitive Emperor of Abyssinia. Those that remained under Christophoro +da Gama, despite the constant defeats they inflicted on superior +numbers, gradually found themselves isolated and vastly outnumbered. +The Turks had taken alarm at Portuguese successes, and had sent to +Muhammad Granye’s assistance a train of artillery, while two thousand +Arabs with muskets crossed over from Mokha and joined the Somalis. Thus +reinforced, Muhammad Granye attacked the Portuguese entrenched camp, +which he ultimately carried, when the unfortunate Christophoro da Gama +had one arm broken and his knee shattered. A few of the Portuguese +escaped and joined the Abyssinians, but most of them were slaughtered +by Muhammad Granye. Christophoro da Gama, however, though wounded, +managed with ten of his men to escape on horseback to a forest. Here he +was captured by Muhammad Granye, who, after inflicting much torture on +him, offered, in admiration of his bravery, to set him at liberty and +assist him to return to India, if only he would abjure Christianity. +The blazing indignation with which he answered this proposal so enraged +Muhammad Granye that he struck off his head with a sword. The body of +Dom Christophoro was then cut into quarters and his remains buried in +separate places. Ultimately, however, the bones are supposed to have +been gathered together by Roman Catholic Abyssinians, and some seventy +years later the skull of the martyr was thought to have been found by +Jeronimo Lobo. + +Amongst the Portuguese who escaped slaughter at the hands of Muhammad +Granye was Pedro Leon, who had been body-servant to Christophoro da +Gama. Assisted by the advice of this little band of Portuguese heroes, +the Emperor of Abyssinia at last made a successful stand against the +Muhammadan invader. In the furious battle which ensued, the Portuguese +directed all their energies against that part of the Somali army +where Muhammad Granye was commanding. Pedro Leon, filled with a holy +rage, singled out the Somali king from amongst his men, and shot him +through the head with a musket. Muhammad Granye did not die at once, +but managed to escape for some distance from the battlefield, being +always, however, resolutely followed on horseback by Pedro Leon. At +last Muhammad fell down dead, and Leon, having satisfied himself of +the fact, cut off one of his ears to prove to the Emperor of Abyssinia +that it was he who had avenged Dom Christophoro. After the death of +their leader the Muhammadan forces melted away, and Christian Abyssinia +slowly recovered from the greatest crisis in its fortunes prior to the +Italian invasion of 1896. + +In 1615[18] a notable advance in Nile exploration was made. Father +Pedro Paez was shown by the Abyssinians the sources of the Blue Nile +on the Sagada or Sakala Mountain in the western part of the province +of Gojam. Paez mentions that the river, before it enters Lake Tsana, +is styled the Jemma, a term which scarcely differs from its name at +the present day. He also alludes to, though he does not describe very +carefully, Lake Tsana. + +In 1622 Father Jeronimo Lobo left Lisbon and proceeded to Goa, whence, +after staying for more than a year, he started for Abyssinia. News +had reached the Portuguese at Goa, from such of the missionaries as +remained in Abyssinia, that the Emperor of that country had decided to +join the Roman Church. A pressing demand was made for more Portuguese +missionaries to strengthen this conversion, and the missionaries +were advised to enter Ethiopia by way of the river Nile, through +Dongola and Sennar. Unfortunately the secretary to the missionaries +in Abyssinia mixed up the word Dancala (Dongola) with the country of +the Danakil (on the Red Sea),[19] and advised the Jesuits at Goa to +land at Zeila (Somaliland), and make their way through the Danakil +country to Abyssinia. It was attempted to carry out this unfortunate +advice. The eight missionaries who started from Goa were to divide +into two companies, one to go to Zeila, and the other to land at +Melinda (Malindi) on the Zanzibar coast, and thence make their way +overland to Abyssinia,--rather a “large order” at that date (to use +modern slang). Those that went by sea to Zeila were seized by the +Turks, though finally released at the intercession of the Emperor +of Abyssinia, who bribed the Turkish Pasha with the present of a +zebra.[20] The other four missionaries, among whom Lobo was one, were +again divided into two lots. Two of the fathers that were to attempt +entering southern Abyssinia from Somaliland were duly landed at Zeila. +A Muhammadan chieftain who was styled king of the country (probably in +the neighbourhood of Tajurra Bay) seized these unfortunate missionaries +and threw them into prison. In spite of the entreaties of the Emperor +of Abyssinia, this Muhammadan chieftain (some relation of the Muhammad +Granye who had been killed by the Portuguese when he invaded Abyssinia +seventy years previously) finally had the Jesuits beheaded. + +Father Lobo and a companion were conveyed by a Portuguese ship to the +island of Lamu on the Zanzibar coast. Thence with great difficulty +they made their way in a boat along the coast to the mouth of the Juba +River, where they came into contact with the “Galles,”[21] probably the +existing Ogadein Somalis. These boisterous people soon made it apparent +to the missionaries that any journey overland from Kismayu to Zeila +and Abyssinia was an impossibility; so, after many hardships, they +eventually made their way back to Mombasa and India. + +In 1625[22] Lobo and his companion once more started for Abyssinia, and +this time sailed past Sokotra Island and Cape Guardafui, and finally +landed at Baylur (Bailul), a port opposite Mokha, on the coast of +the little known Danakil country. Here they received a very friendly +reception, owing to the precautions taken by the Emperor of Abyssinia; +and the two Portuguese missionaries actually made their way through +the country of the fierce Danakil and across the salt deserts and +blazing steppes of that inhospitable region, which along the same route +has probably never since been traversed by Europeans. “Our clothes +tattered, and our feet bloody,” they climbed the Abyssinian mountains, +rejoicing at the cool temperature, running water, and singing birds, +and at length reached the Jesuit settlement of Fremona.[23] After +undergoing many risks and dangers owing to the hostility with which +the Abyssinians of Tigre regarded the Latin Christianity introduced +by the Jesuits, Lobo started for the kingdom of Damot, which is in +the southern part of Abyssinia proper, between the Blue Nile and Lake +Tsana. Prior to his crossing the Blue Nile, he had paid a ceremonial +visit to the Emperor of Abyssinia. He mentions that the Blue Nile +(which he not unnaturally considers to be the main stream) is called +by the Abyssinians Abavi. This may be an older form than Abai, and is +perhaps a little nearer to the Hellenised Astapus. The Blue Nile, he +found, as his predecessor Paez had declared, takes its rise on the +declivity of a mountain called Sakala (Sagada), some distance to the +south-southwest of Lake Tsana. The source of the Blue Nile he describes +as follows: “This spring, or rather these two springs, are two holes, +each about two feet in diameter, a short distance from each other. One +is about five feet and a half in depth.... The other, which is somewhat +less, has no bottom. We were assured by the inhabitants that none had +ever been found. It is believed here that these springs are the vents +of a great subterranean lake, and they have this circumstance to favour +their opinion: that the ground is always moist, and so soft that the +water boils up under foot as one walks upon it. This is more remarkable +after rain, for then the ground yields and sinks so much that I believe +it is chiefly supported by roots of trees that are interwoven one with +another.” Father Lobo declares that the infant Blue Nile (which bears +the name of Jimma) only enters Lake Tsana[24] on the southwest to +leave that lake not far from its entry, turning abruptly to the east +and south. It crosses Lake Tsana only at one end, “with so violent +a rapidity that the waters of the Nile may be distinguished through +all the passage, which is six leagues.” Fifteen miles from the point +where the Nile leaves Lake Tsana it “forms one of the most beautiful +waterfalls in the world,” under which Father Lobo rested himself “for +the sake of the coolness.” He was charmed “with the thousand delightful +rainbows which the sunbeams painted on the water in all their shining +and lovely colours. The fall of this mighty stream from so great a +height makes a noise which may be heard from a considerable distance, +and the mist rising from this fall of water may be seen much further +than the noise can be heard.” Father Lobo notes that at the cataracts +which succeeded this splendid fall there was a bridge of timber (logs) +over which the whole Abyssinian army had recently passed, but he goes +on to state that the Emperor had since built a bridge of one arch in +the same place, for which purpose masons were imported from India. This +stone bridge was the first erected in Abyssinia. + +Father Lobo makes a truthful observation regarding the source of the +Nile floods, believing them to arise rather from the excessive rainfall +on the high mountains of Abyssinia than from the melting of the snows +in the summer. He declares, in fact, that he only saw snow on the +Samien and Namera mountains, and in small quantity. + +As to the country of Damot, to the south of Lake Tsana, in which he +was sent to reside for a time, he expatiates enthusiastically on its +beauty, fertility, and perfect climate. He also describes here--first +of all Europeans--the wild banana, or Ensete, the name of which he +declares means “the tree for hunger,” though it is difficult to +understand, from our subsequent knowledge of the wild banana and from +Father Lobo’s description, how it can be used as an article of food, +as its fruit is almost inedible, while the leaves and watery trunk are +quite unfit for food. + +But Lobo’s residence in Damot was not lengthy, as, owing to the jealous +suspicions of the Abyssinians, he was sent back to reside with the +rest of the Jesuits in Tigre. Their settlement of Fremona, where +some hundred Portuguese priests and seminarists were established, +was attacked by the Abyssinians. The Portuguese defended themselves +bravely, and for a time there was a truce. The friendly Emperor of +Abyssinia had died, and the subsidiary chiefs all believed that +Portugal intended to invade and annex Abyssinia. The prowess of the +four hundred Portuguese who in the preceding century had, as the +allies of the Abyssinians, completely routed the Muhammadan invaders, +made them feel that a few thousand Portuguese warriors would soon add +Abyssinia to the Portuguese Empire. At this juncture the Portuguese +sent a strong expedition to chastise the Sultan of Tajurra who had +killed the missionaries. + +After attempting to flee from Abyssinia and make their way to the coast +of the Red Sea, the whole of the Portuguese colony of Fremona was +handed over to the Turks at Masawa, and by them sent to Suakin. They +underwent cruel sufferings at the hands of the Turks, but some of the +missionaries, including Father Lobo, were allowed to ransom themselves, +and return in a ship to India. Here Lobo endeavoured to induce the +Viceroy of Portuguese India to send an expedition against the Turks of +Suakin in order to release the priests that were left in their hands; +but the viceroy declined to take this step without the consent of the +Portuguese Government. Accordingly Father Lobo started for Lisbon, was +shipwrecked on the coast of Natal, fell into the hands of the Dutch, +but in spite of his extraordinary hardships, and difficulties wellnigh +insurmountable, actually returned to Portugal; whence he went to plead +at Rome the cause of Latin Christianity in Abyssinia. The missionaries +left in the hands of the Turks at Suakin were eventually ransomed, and +returned to India. The few Portuguese missionaries who for one cause or +another were left in Abyssinia were all killed by the Abyssinians. + +[Illustration: DAPPER’S MAP (AMSTERDAM, 1686). + +Giving the falsified results of Portuguese explorations in East Africa.] + +Portuguese contact with Abyssinia, the Portuguese conquest of Zanzibar +and long occupation of Mombassa very naturally led to this people +acquiring in their intercourse with Arabs and Abyssinians some idea +of the geography of inner Africa,--ideas which were added to by the +information collected on the West Coast. Nevertheless, strange to say, +they were less correct in their surmises than Claudius Ptolemæus. +The maps of the Nile and the geography of inner Africa which +they formed on the reports of their explorers and missionaries were +altogether misleading. Their delineation of the whole interior of +the western half of Africa bears absolutely no correspondence to +actuality in geographical features; moreover, they were so ignorant of +the simplest principles of hydrography as to make one lake give rise +to several great rivers.[25] The only element of truth in all their +guesses at the inner waterways of Africa lay in their delineation of +Abyssinia. They put down with some likeness to actuality the Blue +Nile, and they named correctly the principal countries that lie to the +south of Abyssinia proper. But this contribution was vitiated by the +exaggerations regarding distances,--exaggerations perpetrated chiefly +by map-makers,--so that the Blue Nile and its tributaries, and such +provinces as Gojam, Kaffa, Shoa, etc., instead of lying a considerable +distance north of the equator, were dragged far to the south of the +line, and these features were even made to encroach on the basin of +the Congo. A good idea of the extent of Portuguese knowledge and fable +concerning the geography of inner Africa may be obtained from a glance +at the celebrated Vatican map of Africa which, from information derived +from the Portuguese and from the Abyssinian converts, was painted +on one of the panels of a gallery at the Vatican in the seventeenth +century. + +Several Portuguese adventurers were despatched in the sixteenth century +across Africa from west to east to strike the Nile, but they were never +heard of any more. Credit must be given to the Portuguese Jesuits +for amassing much accurate knowledge regarding the scenery, people, +and products of Abyssinia. There is a wonderfully interesting and +very beautiful piece of tapestry in the Governor’s Palace at Valletta +(Malta), which it is supposed was executed early in the eighteenth +century from the information supplied by the Portuguese Jesuits. The +characteristic fauna and flora, domestic animals, houses, and natives +of Abyssinia are portrayed in this tapestry with great fidelity to +nature. Later in the eighteenth century Portugal began to take up with +some earnestness the scientific exploration of such African territories +as remained to her after the revolt and the attacks of the East Coast +Arabs, but these journeys and their results do not come within the +scope of the present volume. Portuguese influence over Abyssinia had +disappeared by the end of the seventeenth century, and almost all +that remains of it is the name which the civilised world applies to +this country. In the southeastern part of this powerful African state +is the river Hawash, or Habash, which attempts to reach the Red Sea +but finally expires in the barren sands of the Danakil country. The +name of this river had been applied by the Arabs to the Semiticised +people living north and west of its course. “Habash, Habshi”[26] was +transmuted through the Portuguese speech to Abessi, Abessim, Abessinia. +This in time was further misspelt in French and English as Abyssinie, +Abyssinia. + +The Turks had always viewed with a great deal of jealousy and anger +the attempts of Portugal to establish herself as mistress of the +navigation of the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and Arabian +Sea. Consequently the Turks occupied and held Masawa, and drove away +Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from easy contact +with Abyssinia, which between 1633 and 1769 was only visited by one +European, a French doctor named Poncet (1698). + +Several Abyssinian converts of the Portuguese missionaries who had +become devotedly attached to the Roman Catholic form of the Christian +faith had proceeded to Italy for further instructions. Indeed, all +through the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries +Abyssinians constantly journeyed to Italy. They were able to traverse +the Muhammadan countries of Nubia and Egypt very easily, either +disguised as Copts or affecting to be Muhammadans. From the ports of +Egypt they easily made their way to Venice or to Naples as traders. +Four of these Christian Abyssinians, one of them known as Gregory, were +established at Rome in the middle of the seventeenth century. + +At Erfurt in Saxony was born, in 1624, the celebrated Ludolf, whose +real name was Hiob Leutholf. Ludolf at an early age exhibited a +remarkable talent for acquiring languages, and he had a special bent +for the Semitic tongues. Having been entrusted with a secret mission +to Rome by the Swedish Ambassador at Paris, Leutholf, or Ludolf, +encountered in Rome these four Abyssinians. He spent three years in +enthusiastically studying Amharic, and also the older liturgical tongue +of Ethiopia, the Gez or Ge’ez. By the help of these Abyssinians he +compiled a grammar of the Amharic, and dictionaries of that tongue and +of the Ge’ez. He also wrote a history of Ethiopia; but, above all (as +far as this book is concerned), he did important work in elucidating +the geography of the northeastern portion of the Nile basin, and the +information he received from Gregory and the other Abyssinians he +carefully collated with the works of the Portuguese Jesuits. Although +Ludolf never visited even Egypt, he did a great deal to assist the +map-makers of his time to delineate the course of the Blue Nile and +of the Atbara with its various affluents. Ludolf passed a good many +years of his life in the diplomatic service of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha. +Curiously enough, he not only visited England repeatedly, but became +an Anglophil, and desired to establish trading connections between +England and Abyssinia. The troubles consequent on James II.’s reign, +and the jealous opposition of the Coptic Church in Egypt baulked his +scheme, which was much taken up in high quarters in England, and which +might, if it had been carried out, have strangely anticipated events +in northeast Africa by establishing British influence in Egypt and +Abyssinia at the end of the seventeenth century. + +Attracted towards the mystery of the Nile and of the so-called +Christian civilisation of Abyssinia, that Duke of Saxe-Gotha who had +taken Ludolf into his diplomatic service caused another Saxon, named +Michael Wansleb (born at Erfurt), to learn Amharic first of all from +Ludolf, and then to go to Abyssinia. Here he was expected to explore, +and also to collect liturgies and other books likely to throw light on +the Abyssinian version of Christianity, which the Duke believed would +be found to be in harmony with Lutheranism. Wansleb never succeeded in +getting to Abyssinia, but journeyed for some distance up the Nile and +wrote on the subject of Egypt, publishing also in London, between 1661 +and 1671, a number of Abyssinian liturgies and dissertations on the +Amharic language. + +In 1668 the then recently founded Royal Society in England took up +the question of the Portuguese explorations of the Nile sources, +and ordered that the translation of a Portuguese manuscript by Sir +Peter Wyche should be printed and published. This little work is +described as “A Short Relation of the River Nile, etc.: Writings by an +Eye-witness who lived many years in the Abyssine Empire.” Sir Peter +Wyche probably did little else than translate and collate what seemed +to him the most interesting extracts from the works of Paez and Lobo. +These works were seemingly written first of all in Portuguese, but +were never printed in that language. Paez’ manuscript was translated +into Latin and published at Rome in 1652 by the Jesuit Athanasius +Kircher. The Portuguese manuscript of Jeronimo Lobo was translated at +length into English, and published in London by the Jesuit father F. +Balthazar Tellez. Seemingly, however, this book was issued either in a +Portuguese or a Latin version at Lisbon in 1670. It was translated into +French from the original Portuguese manuscript by M. Le Grand in the +early part of the eighteenth century, and this translation, with some +additional matter, was rendered into English and published in London in +1735. + +The Royal Society’s paraphrase of which Sir Peter Wyche was author +contains no new matter, but its date is worthy of remark,--1668. +It would seem as though Sir Peter Wyche had had access to Lobo’s +manuscript, or to the joint works of Lobo and Paez, before the actual +publication of Lobo’s book in 1670. It is further remarkable as showing +the intelligent interest taken in these geographical questions at that +day by the cultivated classes in England. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +FRENCH INQUIRIES AND D’ANVILLE’S MAPS + + +Towards the close of the seventeenth century Louis XIV. of France +had begun to make the influence of his country widely felt in the +Mediterranean, though before his time Richelieu had cast an eye over +the Levant with the idea of supporting French commerce. Louis XIV. +even entered into an alliance with Turkey, in which he cut rather a +foolish figure, but which at any rate enabled him to send Frenchmen to +report on the trade of Egypt. It is stated that the result of these +inquiries was a scheme for the conquering and colonising of Egypt +which was laid before that monarch and remained in the archives of the +French government until it caught the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte +when he rose to power. Louis XIV. either did not notice the project +or put it aside; but nevertheless, during half of the seventeenth +and the whole of the eighteenth century Frenchmen were beginning to +interest themselves in the exploration of Egypt, Abyssinia, and the +Nile. When the Portuguese missionaries were irrevocably expelled from +Abyssinia, or were slaughtered in that country by Abyssinians, or died +under the hands of the Turks of Masawa or Suakin, it was suggested to +the Pope that perhaps French missionaries might prove more acceptable +to Ethiopia. Not a few Roman Catholic Abyssinians found their way +to Rome during the seventeenth century, where, as we know, they +imparted very valuable information to the learned Saxon philologist +Ludolf. These Ethiopians seem to have conveyed the idea to the Papal +Court that it was not so much Roman Christianity that was objected +to as the political ambitions of the Portuguese. But later on in the +seventeenth century _any_ missionaries teaching the Latin rite had +become unacceptable to the Abyssinians, and the project of sending +French Capuchins to take the place of the Portuguese Jesuits came to +nothing. But the Emperor of Abyssinia had one reason for regretting +the expulsion of the Jesuits,--an expulsion to which he personally +was less favourable than were his powerful vassal chiefs of Tigre and +Amhara,--he had relied on the Portuguese Jesuits for medical treatment. + +At the close of the seventeenth century an agent of the then ruler of +Abyssinia was suffering from stone, and stood in urgent need of a good +surgeon. His agent in Egypt (Haji Ali) was instructed to inquire for +the services of a European who could operate, and at first endeavoured +to find one amongst the Franciscan missionaries, who were Italians. +But the Consul of France at Alexandria, hearing of this, resolved to +obtain the post for a French physician, and eventually Jacques Charles +Poncet, a surgeon from the Franche Comté, was engaged, and it was +decided that he should journey to Abyssinia accompanied by Father +Brèvedent, a French Jesuit. They reached the country of Sennar in +1699. Soon afterwards Father Brèvedent died, but Poncet succeeded in +reaching Abyssinia, and afforded medical assistance to the Emperor. +But his arrival in the country, together with the rumour that he was +being followed by French Jesuit priests (who as a matter of fact were +massacred in Egypt), so aroused the animosities of the Abyssinian +clerics that he was hurried out of the country, and returned to Europe +(Rome) in 1700. Notwithstanding his experiences, he mixed himself up +with the intrigues of an Abyssinian agent and a priest at Rome for the +despatch of French missionaries to Abyssinia. The Pope was prudent in +the matter, and determined to find out the truth by a Maronite priest, +Gabriel, whom he despatched from Cairo. Poncet, however, returned to +Egypt in 1703, was joined by a Jesuit, and set out for Jidda in Arabia, +but the mission came to grief. He quarrelled with the Abyssinian envoy, +Murat, whose pretensions to represent the Abyssinian government were +probably mythical, but who had accompanied Poncet to Italy. Poncet +never succeeded in returning to Abyssinia, but instead drifted away to +Persia and died at Ispahan. + +Louis XIV. now took the matter up, urged to interference in the +affairs of Abyssinia by the French Consul at Alexandria. He decided +to despatch a mission to Ethiopia to open up diplomatic relations +with the Christian Emperor. Janus de Noir, le Sieur du Roule, was +appointed envoy and placed at the head of this mission. The consent +of the Turkish government was given to the passage through Egypt. +The expedition left France at the end of 1703, and after a stormy +voyage of four months (!) landed at Alexandria. Thence it pursued its +way to Cairo, and so on up the Nile and the Blue Nile to the country +of Sennar, a region at that time to a great extent under Abyssinian +political influence. Here the cupidity and suspicion of the local +chieftain were aroused. The mission was attacked, and M. du Roule was +massacred. The Emperor of Abyssinia expressed perfunctory regrets, and +then, to use a modern phrase, “the incident was closed,” Abyssinia +being in such an unattackable position as to make any French reprisals +impossible. + +Here perhaps may be mentioned a curious attempt at Nile exploration +which in an indirect way was connected with French enterprise at this +period. The failure of M. du Roule to reach Abyssinia made a great +impression on the mind of a Frenchman named Joseph le Roux, Count of +Desneval. This nobleman had been in the Danish navy for many years, +leaving that service in 1739 with the rank of Rear Admiral. All this +time he had been giving his attention with laborious stupidity to +the Nile problem, and was convinced that he “had found the proper +key to enter these regions,” by studying in Denmark the reports of +unsuccessful travellers. Accordingly, in 1739, he started with his wife +for Cairo, accompanied by Lieutenant Norden, a Dane. None of the party +knew a word of Arabic. The expedition first got into trouble at Cairo +through the haughty manners of the Countess, who, becoming involved +in a street row, slashed at the people right and left with a pair of +scissors. Count Desneval penetrated some distance into Nubia, and his +lieutenant, Norden, went as far (possibly) as Berber, which he mentions +under its older name of Ibrim. But the Count was obliged to turn back, +and Norden was imprisoned by the Turkish Governor, and barely escaped +to Egypt with his life. The Count then resolved on an extraordinary +expedition. He decided to obtain a commission from Spain and start with +a fleet of ships to circumnavigate Africa, enter the Red Sea, and so +proceed to Abyssinia. But becoming involved in the war which was then +raging between Spain and England, his ship was captured by the British, +and he was sent as a prisoner of war to Lisbon, where his projects of +Nile exploration came to an end. + +The Dutch in the seventeenth century, and some of the Rhenish +geographers of western Germany, had published remarkable maps of +Africa, but with the exception of the west and south, these maps, in +so far as the Nile basin was concerned, were based on the information +presented to the world by the Portuguese Jesuits Alvarez, Paez, and +Lobo, and on the interesting information concerning the geography of +Abyssinia collected by the Saxon philologist Ludolf when communing in +Italy with the Abyssinian envoys. These maps, as already related, did +injustice to the Portuguese by enormously exaggerating the area of +Abyssinia. In fact, Abyssinian geography was extended by these Dutch +interpreters of Portuguese travel notes far into the south and west of +Africa, so that Abyssinian place names such as Gojam, Kaffa, Enarea, +and the lakes and rivers of Abyssinia were pushed down to the vicinity +of the Zambezi, and right across the Congo basin. These maps, however, +continued to maintain European interest in African exploration, while +the French consuls in Egypt and early British travellers in that +country began to transmit information (derived for the most part from +Copts and Circassians) regarding the main course of the Nile. + +In 1772 a French cartographer of a much higher order than had hitherto +appeared--D’Anville--published a notable map of Africa, in which +he cleared away much of the fantastic geography which the Dutch +and Germans had developed from the explorations of the Portuguese. +D’Anville’s map of Africa marks an important stage in the exploration +of the Nile basin, as it approaches the maps of to-day much more +than any previous chart. The outline of the African coast is given +more correctly than heretofore, while D’Anville brushes away the +exaggerations of Dutch and Portuguese cartographers, who had gradually +extended the geography of Abyssinia till they had connected with the +Nile all the main rivers of Africa in an absurd system of natural +canalisation. + +[Illustration: D’ANVILLE’S MAP OF THE NILE BASIN. + +(Published 1729; Revised 1772.)] + +Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville was born at Paris in 1697. From +his boyhood he devoted himself to the study of geography, and met with +considerable encouragement from the learned societies of Paris and from +the Court. D’Anville’s geography of Abyssinia was mainly based on the +information collected by the Portuguese missionaries and by Ludolf. +The result is so strikingly like the map subsequently constructed by +Bruce as the result of his explorations, that it shows how very much +information had already been collected by the Portuguese. The last +edition of this map bears the date 1772, a date which is one year +before Bruce could make the result of his explorations known. Were +these dates not certain, it would almost have seemed as if D’Anville +had obtained access to Bruce’s information and used it in his geography +of Abyssinia. A great mistake in D’Anville’s map, however, is made in +the delineation of the course of the Nile in its great Dongola bend. +Here the Nile is made to approach the Red Sea at least a hundred miles +nearer than is the case. There is a fairly correct suggestion of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal (which is named) and the Bahr-al-Arab. The White Nile +above the confluence of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is indicated more timidly. +Its course passes through a somewhat vague lake, which may be due to a +rumour of Lake Albert. Beyond this lake the sources of the White Nile +are divided, and made to flow from two lakelets ten degrees north of +the equator. To the south of these ultimate sources is the range of the +Mountains of the Moon. + +On D’Anville’s map may be seen for the first time several modern place +and river names connected with the Nile, such as Shendi (spelled +Shanedi) and Bahr-al-Ghazal. Such other terms as Sennar, the Boran +Gala tribe, and the Shankala Negroes are also given; but these were +first mentioned by the Portuguese and by the Abyssinian teachers of +Ludolf one hundred years earlier. There is also a hint at the Unyamwezi +country south of the Victoria Nyanza under the name of Moenemuji, +though this also was first mentioned by the Portuguese. + +D’Anville, who followed to some extent the Sicilian maps of the +eleventh century in his delineation of the Nile and inner Africa, made +the opposite mistake to Ptolemy and the Portuguese. They carried the +main Nile and the geography of Abyssinia many degrees too far to the +south. D’Anville placed the sources of the Nile and the Bahr-al-Ghazal +something like ten degrees too far to the north. At the same time his +map marked a considerable advance in the correct delineation of Nile +geography as well as in that of the Niger and the Zambezi. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +BRUCE AND THE NILE: SONNINI, BROWNE, AND BONAPARTE + + +At the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a decline in +Muhammadan fanaticism which in the preceding centuries had so zealously +guarded the portals of African discovery. This was partly due to the +increase of friendliness and commercial relations between England and +France on the one hand and the Turkish Empire on the other. Consuls +were established to safeguard the interests of British merchants in +the tributary Turkish states of Barbary and in Egypt. Another stimulus +to friendly relations was the coffee trade. Coffee had been introduced +from Turkey into Europe in the seventeenth century. By the beginning of +the eighteenth the demand for it in the civilised countries of northern +and central Europe became so great that British and French ships began +to ply on the Red Sea and in the Levant merely for the transport of +coffee from the ports of southern Arabia to Suez, and thence (_via_ +Alexandria) to France and England. It became possible for Frenchmen +and Englishmen to travel in Turkish Egypt without undue risk of +maltreatment, especially if they obtained permission to do so through +their consuls. + +Almost the first English traveller to start on the Nile quest in the +eighteenth century was Richard Pococke, a learned divine (Doctor of +Laws and Fellow of the Royal Society), who afterwards became Bishop of +Meath. Pococke was remarkable for his knowledge of Greek. He travelled +a great deal in the Levant between 1737 and 1740, and made at least two +journeys to Egypt, during which he followed the Nile up to the First +Cataract. At that period the description of the journey from England to +Egypt has a rather modern sound. The traveller proceeds without much +difficulty overland from Calais to Leghorn, and from this Tuscan port +sails round Sicily to Alexandria, sometimes to Rosetta. + +The book in which Pococke describes his adventures and researches[27] +is also in advance of its times, and in printing and illustrations +might well have been credited to the beginning of the nineteenth +century. Pococke devoted himself mainly to making plans and drawings +of Egyptian monuments, Coptic churches, and Muhammadan mosques. +He collected a great many Greek inscriptions (amongst others, the +interesting Greek and Latin sentences scratched on the legs of Memnon), +and besides many plans and drawings of buildings which illustrate his +book, are some excellent pictures of plants characteristic of Egypt. +Especially noteworthy are the botanical drawings of the branching +Hyphæne palm. These etchings would not be out of place in the most +modern work on Africa. Pococke ascended the Nile to the First Cataract, +then the limit of Turkish rule. + +[Illustration: THE BRANCHING _Hyphæne_ PALM (_Hyphæne thebaica_). + +Taken from interior of Nasr Fort (R. Sobat).] + +One amusing feature in Pococke’s sumptuous volumes is the number of +dedications to British statesmen and notabilities of that date. The +book in general is dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, +“Groom of the Stole to His Majesty George II.” His careful map of the +Nile from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean is dedicated to Lord +Carteret, “First Secretary to the King.” The map of Cairo and its +environs (a very interesting one with reference to the modern growth +of the city) is inscribed to the Earl of Stafford. These dedications, +however, seem to foreshadow a growing interest on the part of English +noblemen in the problem of the Nile,--an interest which, as will now be +shown, played such a part in the expedition of Bruce. + +James Bruce was the first of the great group of notable British +explorers who between them in a century and a half have laid bare +to the world nearly every notable feature in the geography of the +Nile basin. This remarkable Scotchman was born at Kinnaird House, +Stirlingshire, in 1730. He was the son of a land-owner, and was +educated at Harrow. Soon after leaving school he was put (against his +will) into the wine trade with Spain and northern Portugal. In this +pursuit he visited Galicia and the northwest coast of the Spanish +peninsula. His trade, never very successful, was interrupted by the +war with Spain, which broke out in 1758. Bruce conceived a plan for +landing a British force at Ferrol, in Galicia, and to prosecute this +idea he obtained an introduction to the Earl of Halifax, then president +of the Board of Trade. George Montagu Dunk, second Earl of Halifax, +was a widely read man,[28] who took an interest in many subjects, +amongst others the mystery of the Nile. He is a curious link in that +chain of persons who have contributed efforts toward the revelation +to the civilised world of the whole course of this wonderful river. +Lord Halifax brushed aside the scheme for landing a force at Ferrol +as unnecessary and impracticable. But he began to consult Bruce about +the Nile Quest, as a man who had travelled considerably about Europe +even at that period--his travels having been undertaken to assuage +the grief caused by the loss of his wife. Bruce took up the matter +with energy. Lord Halifax, therefore, secured for him the appointment +of consul at Algiers, with the idea that this place and post would +enable Bruce to prepare for the exploration of the Nile by learning +Arabic and acquiring information concerning the interior of Africa. +Apparently the consulate at Algiers in those days was not harassed with +any restrictions regarding residence; indeed, Bruce’s consular duties +appear to have been merely nominal, for he was only a year at Algiers, +and spent it in the study of Arabic and Turkish.[29] In 1763 Bruce +started on a remarkable tour through Tunis and Tripoli, in which he +drew and measured (with the aid of a professional Italian draughtsman) +the wonderful Roman ruins in those countries. He then extended his +journeys to the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, and explored Syria and +Palestine. The greater part of the drawings which he made of buildings +in all these Mediterranean lands are now stored in the British Museum. + +At last, in the summer of 1786, Bruce landed at Alexandria, accompanied +by the Italian artist-assistant, Balugano. He ascended the Nile as +far as Assuan. Then, crossing the desert to the Red Sea coast, he +took ship and sailed to Jiddah, the port of the Hajaz. After four +months spent on the coast of Arabia, where apparently he met with +no fanaticism, he sailed over to Masawa, the port of Abyssinia, and +from this point travelled to the then capital, Gondar in Tigre. The +Emperor of Abyssinia received him with great favour, gave him military +rank, and enabled him to reach the course of the Blue Nile, which +Bruce always held to be the main stream. Striking the Blue Nile in +the country of Gojam near its exit from Lake Tsana, Bruce crossed the +stream by its masonry bridge and travelled due west of the source of +the river in the western part of Gojam. Bruce fixed with approximate +correctness the latitude of the source of the Blue Nile on Sagada +Mountain, and also the longitude, by observation of the first satellite +of Jupiter. The latitude he fixed at 10° 55′ 25″, the longitude at 36° +55′ 30″ east of Greenwich. The present writer is not aware that any +subsequent observations have much upset these computations of Bruce’s. +The latitude of the Blue Nile source is, therefore, approximately 11° +north. As the Jesuits guessed it at 12°, they were not so much out +in a surmise which, after all, was based on nothing but vague dead +reckoning, and one cannot sympathise with Bruce when he sneers at them +for their error. Bruce, in fact, was very bitter against the memory of +Paez and Lobo when he learned from D’Anville that these missionaries +had preceded him as discoverers of the Blue Nile sources. He admits the +genuineness of Paez’ reports, but endeavours to show that Lobo merely +copied Paez’ description, and did not himself visit the sources of the +Blue Nile. In this contention I think he is unjust. There is certainly +a great deal of correspondence between the accounts of Paez and Lobo, +but Lobo enters into more detail than Paez, and as, after all, he +is describing the same features, it is hardly surprising that his +description should so closely parallel that of the man who preceded him +by some ten years. As there is no doubt that Lobo was in the country +round about Lake Tsana in the year 1625 or 1626, it would be surprising +if he had not attempted to see the sources of the famous river. + +Bruce brings out as strongly as the Jesuits the fact that the river +Jimma, which rises on Sagada Mountain, flows with a strong observable +current in a circular course through the southern part of Lake Tsana. +Lake Tsana, indeed, would seem to be nothing but a huge volcanic +crater which has been filled up by the Blue Nile. He calculates the +approximate altitude of these sources at forty-eight hundred and +seventy feet. Near the village of Sakala or Sagada is a marsh at the +bottom of the Mountain of Gish. In this marsh there is a hillock of +a circular form a few feet above the surface of the marsh, a more or +less artificial altar raised by the people to the sources of their +Nile. In the middle of this hillock is a hole, artificially made, or +at least enlarged by the hand of man, and kept clear of grass or other +aquatic plants. The water in it is perfectly pure and limpid, but has +no ebullition or motion of any kind observable on its surface, though +it overflows into a shallow trench running round the mound and entering +the water in an eastward direction. The principal fountain of the +Blue Nile is only about three feet across. Ten feet distant from this +first source is another, only eleven inches broad. This would seem to +be the deepest of the three sources, and the one which was pronounced +unsoundable by Lobo. The water from these fountains is good, tasteless, +and intensely cold. + +Following by land the course of the Blue Nile down stream till he +reached the confluence with the White Nile at the site of Khartum, +Bruce then turned northwards and descended the main Nile to Berber. +From this point he travelled across the Nubian desert to Korosko, which +place he reached with the greatest difficulty, very many dying from +thirst on the way. Having been obliged to abandon his caravan in the +desert, he started back from Korosko with fresh camels and guides, and +recovered his baggage from the desert. Bruce’s journeys in Abyssinia +and along the course of the Nile had occupied him nearly three years, +from the middle of 1770 to the beginning of 1773. From Alexandria he +made his way to Marseilles during a brief interval of peace between +England and France. The cultivated Frenchmen of that day received him +with the greatest kindness and _empressement_, and he spent some time +in Paris conferring with Buffon and other scientific men. But in Paris +he learned to his great chagrin that he was not the original discoverer +of the source of the (Blue) Nile. D’Anville, the great map-maker, +was able to prove to him that Lake Tsana and the main course of the +Bahr-al-Azrak had been made known to Europe by the journeys of the +Jesuit priests Paez and Lobo. Moreover this geographer attempted to +convince Bruce that the Blue Nile was not the main stream, and that the +mystery of the Nile sources remained at least two-thirds unexplored. +It is curious, in fact, to reflect that D’Anville, by his industrious +gathering up of all floating information, especially from French +consuls in Egypt, was far more correct in his delineation of the Nile +basin than Bruce himself, though D’Anville had published his map a year +before Bruce’s arrival in Paris. + +[Illustration: BRUCE’S MAP OF THE NILE SOURCES.] + +On account of this chagrin, or for other reasons, Bruce delayed[30] +the publication of his travels for seventeen years after his return +to England. They were not published (in five volumes) until 1790. +Strange to say, Bruce’s admirable work, though so truthful[31] and +convincing as one reads it now, was received with universal incredulity +in Great Britain. Among the stories selected for special derision was +the account constantly repeated by Bruce of the Abyssinian custom +of bleeding cattle and drinking their blood, and, still more, of +cutting raw flesh off the living animal, which is then turned out to +graze (or at least that is the flippant rendering of the contemporary +critic). As a matter of fact, these customs had been already reported +by the Jesuits from one to two hundred years previously, nor is there +any reason to suppose that Bruce departed from the exact truth in +describing contemporary Abyssinian customs. A hundred years later East +African travellers like New, Von der Decken, Joseph Thomson, and the +author of this book, noticed similar customs as regards blood-drinking +on the part of the Masai and the Bantu races of Kilimanjaro and Kikuyu. +The same writers constantly make allusion to the love of raw flesh +on the part of most of the East African pastoral races, many of whom +are more or less related to the Galas in blood (the foundation of the +Abyssinian population is Gala). The actual truth about the cutting +of steaks from the living animal seems to be this. It was sometimes +customary (even if the custom has wholly died out at the present day) +to slaughter a beast by degrees. The great arteries and the vital parts +were avoided, and the palpitating, hot flesh was cut off strip by strip +and devoured. But in all probability the creature was not as a general +rule expected to live long after part of its flesh was removed. It was +generally finished within two or three hours. Bruce, if I remember +rightly, only relates one instance where, after two pieces of flesh +had been removed from the buttocks of a cow, the skin was fastened up +over the wound and the creature was driven on a little further to be +finished on a later occasion. A summarised extract from Bruce’s travels +gives a vivid description of the way the Abyssinians feasted on raw +meat:-- + + “In the capital, where one is safe from surprise at all times, or + in the country villages, when the rains have become so constant + that the valleys will not bear a horse to pass them, or that men + cannot venture far from home through fear of being surrounded by + sudden showers in the mountains; in a word, when a man can say + he is safe at home, and the spear and shield are hung up in the + hall, a number of people of the best fashion in the villages, of + both sexes, courtiers in the palaces or citizens in the town, meet + together to dine between twelve and one o’clock. A long table is + set in the middle of a large room, and benches beside it for a + number of guests who are invited. Tables and benches the Portuguese + introduced amongst them, but bull hides spread upon the ground + served them before, as they now do in the camp and country. + + “A cow or bull, one or more, as the company is numerous, is brought + close to the door and its feet strongly tied. The skin that hangs + down under its chin and throat is cut only so deep as to arrive at + the fat, of which it totally consists, and by the separation of + a few small blood-vessels six or seven drops of blood only fall + upon the ground. They have no stone bench or altar upon which + these cruel assassins lay the animal’s head in this operation. + The author, indeed, begs their pardon for calling them assassins, + as they are not so merciful as to aim at the life, but, on the + contrary, to keep the beast alive till he is nearly eaten up. + Having satisfied the Mosaic law, according to their conception, by + pouring these six or seven drops upon the ground, two or more of + them fall to work. On the back of the beast, and on each side of + the spine they cut skin deep; then, putting their fingers between + the flesh and the skin, they begin to strip the hide of the animal + half-way down his ribs, and so on to the buttock, cutting the skin + wherever it hinders them commodiously to strip the poor animal + bare. All the flesh on the buttocks is then cut off, and in solid, + square pieces, without bones, or much effusion of blood; and the + prodigious noise the animal makes is a signal for the company to + sit down to table. + + “There are then laid before every guest, instead of plates, + round cakes (if they may be so called) about twice as big as a + pancake, and something thicker and tougher. It is unleavened bread + of a sourish taste, far from being disagreeable, and very easily + digested, made of a grain called teff. It is of different colours, + from black to the colour of the whitest wheat bread. Three or four + of these cakes are generally put uppermost for the food of the + person opposite to whose feet they are placed. Beneath these are + four or five of ordinary bread and of a blackish kind. These serve + the master to wipe his fingers upon, and afterwards the servant + as bread for his dinner. Two or three servants then come, each + with a square piece of beef in their bare hands, laying it upon + the cakes of teff placed like dishes down the table, without cloth + or anything else beneath them. By this time all the guests have + knives in their hands, and their men have large crooked ones, which + they put to all sorts of uses during the time of war. The women + have small clasped knives, such as the worst of the kind made at + Birmingham, sold at a penny each. The company are so ranged that + one man sits between two women; the man with his long knife cuts + a thin piece, which would be thought a good beefsteak in England, + while you see the motion of the fibres yet perfectly distinct and + alive in the flesh. No man in Abyssinia, of any fashion whatever, + feeds himself or touches his own meat. The women take the steak + and cut it lengthways about the thickness of a little finger, then + crossways into square pieces something smaller than dice. This they + lay upon a piece of the teff bread strongly powdered with black + pepper, or Cayenne pepper, and mineral salt; they then wrap it up + in teff bread like a cartridge. + + “In the mean time, the man having put up his knife, with each hand + resting on his neighbour’s knee, his body stooping, his head low + and forward, and mouth open very like an idiot, he turns to the one + whose cartridge is first ready, who stuffs the whole of it into + his mouth, which is so full that he is in constant danger of being + choked. This is a mark of grandeur. The greater the man would seem + to be the larger piece he takes in his mouth; and the more noise he + makes in chewing it the more polite he is thought to be. They have + indeed a proverb that says, ‘Beggars and thieves only eat small + pieces or without making a noise.’ Having despatched this morsel, + which he does very expeditiously, his next female neighbour holds + another cartridge which goes the same way, and so on till he has + finished. He never drinks till he has finished eating; and, before + he begins, in gratitude to the fair one that fed him, he makes up + two small rolls of the same kind and form; each of his neighbours + open their mouths at the same time, while with each hand he puts + their portion into their mouths. He then falls to drinking out of + a large handsome horn; the ladies eat till they are satisfied, + and then all drink together. A great deal of mirth and jokes goes + round, very seldom with any mixture of acrimony or ill-humour. + + “During all this time the unfortunate victim at the door is + bleeding indeed, but bleeding little. As long as they can cut off + the flesh from his bones they do not meddle with the thighs or the + parts where the great arteries are. At last they fall upon the + thighs likewise, and soon afterwards the animal, bleeding to death, + becomes so tough that the cannibals, who have the rest of it to + eat, find it very hard work to separate the flesh from the bones + with their teeth, like dogs. + + “In the mean time those within are very much elevated; love + lights all its fires, and everything is permitted with absolute + freedom. There is no coyness, no delays, no need of appointments or + retirement to gratify their wishes; there are no rooms but one, in + which they sacrifice both to Bacchus and to Venus.” + +Bruce’s travels are as well worth reading to-day as they were in 1790. +A somewhat conveniently abridged edition was published in the same year +(1790) as the five volumes appeared, but all who are taking up the +subject of Abyssinia seriously are advised to work their way through +the original five volumes. A sumptuously illustrated edition in eight +volumes appeared after the author’s death, in 1805. Bruce was received +with some honour at court on his return, but was awarded no special +distinction. Dr. Johnson, amongst others, denounced the brilliant +young Scotch traveller as an unscrupulous romancer; Horace Walpole +pronounced his volumes “dull and dear.” Just as the African Association +sprang into being and directed its efforts toward the rehabilitating +of Bruce’s character as a truthful writer, Bruce himself died in the +most disappointing manner by falling down the stairs at his house and +breaking his neck. His death was occasioned by over-politeness. He was +rushing from his study to the hall in order to be able to escort a lady +to her carriage. + +Bruce was really a great traveller, an accurate observer, a splendid +sportsman,[32] and a far-sighted “Imperialist.” In 1775 he conceived +the need of the English rulers of India controlling the Egyptian +route, and actually obtained from the Turkish authorities in Egypt a +concession for the English on the shores of the Red Sea. + +[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JAMES BRUCE.] + +As has been already mentioned, Bruce had been accorded a magnificent +reception by the scientific men of France. Buffon especially was +incited by Bruce’s stories to urge the French government in the +direction of Nile exploration. Buffon had become interested in a +young man native to Alsace, Sonnini de Manoncourt. Sonnini was born +at Lunéville in 1751. He was the son of a Roman court official who +had followed King Stanislas of Poland to his residence in Lorraine. +Sonnini, the younger, who had travelled in French South America, had +conceived the idea of a journey through Africa from north to south, +from the Gulf of Sidra in Tripoli to the Cape of Good Hope. This +scheme, however, when recommended to the French Foreign Office official +who then had charge of the French establishments in the Levant, was +deemed impracticable, and Sonnini was invited to restrict his attempts +to a careful exploration of the Nile from Rosetta southward to the +limits of Egyptian rule. His travels did not extend much beyond Assuan, +but he brought back a great deal of detailed information about Upper +Egypt, its fauna, flora, and the habits and customs of its population +along the banks of the Nile. Sonnini’s work will always remain a useful +book of reference. For the period at which he wrote he took a great +interest in the question of the geographical distribution of mammals. +He attempted to collect information regarding the gradual disappearance +from civilised Egypt of the great fauna. In this he followed the +inspiration of Buffon. According to Sonnini and Buffon, hippopotamuses +only became extinct in the Lower Nile near the Mediterranean as late as +1658. Two hippopotamuses were killed at Damietta in 1600 by an Italian +surgeon named Federigo Zeringhi. + + * * * * * + +Nearly a hundred years before Cecil John Rhodes was brooding in his +studies at Oriel College over the advance of British South Africa +toward the equatorial regions, that same college at Oxford was +nurturing other dreams of African exploration in the mind of William +George Browne, a Londoner by birth (1768), who at seventeen became an +undergraduate at Oriel. Browne was fired by reading Bruce’s “Travels,” +and a year after those five volumes were published, when he was only +twenty-three (1791), he started for Alexandria, which he reached +after a month’s journey from England (not a bad record for those +days). Egypt proper prior to the descent of the French under Napoleon +must have been fairly free from Muhammadan fanaticism and distrust +of Europeans in the second half of the eighteenth century. Not a few +travellers--French, Italian, and English--were able to circulate in +the dominions governed by the Mameluks. Browne first of all visited +the oasis of Siwah. He spent a year and a half on this journey, and +examined the whole of Egypt proper and the peninsula of Sinai. Being at +Assiut in March or April, 1793, he heard of the caravan which, until +quite recently, left that place annually to travel across the desert +to Darfur. Following the same route, and in a measure attaching himself +to the caravan, he reached Darfur after a journey of considerable +difficulty. Here he found himself amongst such fanatical Muhammadans +that he was practically a prisoner, and it was only by invoking the aid +and sympathy of the Turkish authorities in Egypt that he induced the +Sultan of Darfur to allow him to return. Even then he was not allowed +to carry out his project of striking the White Nile from the direction +of Darfur, and thence crossing into Abyssinia. He was obliged to return +along the caravan route to Assiut. He then continued his travels in the +direction of Syria, and arrived in London in 1798. After publishing an +account of his travels, he again left England for the Levant. In 1812 +he started for Persia with the intention of exploring Central Asia. +Between Tabriz and Teheran his caravan was attacked by robbers, and he +was killed. + +The part of his book which deals with Egypt and Darfur is excellent, +much in advance of his age and very “modern” in its accuracy, +definiteness, and absence of gushing enthusiasm. Equally remarkable for +the age is the soundness of his orthography in spelling local names and +in transcribing dialects. Browne’s work still remains an authority on +Darfur. + +The eighteenth century closed with some advance in the direction of +the Nile Quest. At any rate interest in the Nile problem had revived +in Europe. The publication at the beginning of the century, in an +English translation from the Portuguese, of the travels undertaken by +the Jesuit Fathers in Abyssinia,--the fact that an English statesman +(Lord Halifax) under the second George made it possible for Bruce to +start on his great journeys, and, lastly, the creation of the African +Association, testified to the commencement of this interest in England. +In France the question had been receiving attention from the end of the +seventeenth century, but mainly for political reasons. It had occurred +to Louis XIV. and to the ministers of his successor that Egypt, so +loosely held by the Turk, would be an admirable base from which to +effect the conquest of India. These ideas were not lost on Napoleon +Bonaparte, and the eighteenth century closes with the invasion of Egypt +by the French, an event as wonderful to the full and as far-reaching +in its results as the conquest of the same country by the Greeks under +Alexander the Great 2131 years previously. Alexander’s conquest of +Egypt from the Persians, or rather from the several native Egyptian +dynasties who were ruling under Persian suzerainty, put an end to the +régime of Ancient Egypt and Hellenised the countries of the Lower Nile +and of Abyssinia. The invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte broke the power +of the Moslem, and prepared the way for the administration of Egypt +by Europeans and Christians. Rome profited by the exploits of the +Macedonians; England has succeeded to the task which was begun with +such amazing brilliance by Frenchmen. + +[Illustration: MAP OF AFRICA BY WILLIAMSON, LONDON, 1800. + +Giving results of Browne’s journey to Darfur, French exploration of +lower Nile, and much Arab information from Egypt, North Africa, and +Senegambia.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MUHAMMAD ALI OPENS UP THE WHITE NILE + + +In 1807 Jacotin published at Paris an “Atlas de l’Égypte,” which gave +a fairly accurate survey of the Nile from the Delta to Assuan. This +Atlas gave the results of the geographical work done by the French +army of occupation. The splendid volumes which illustrated the other +scientific results of Napoleon’s venture were not published until the +Bourbons had been restored to the throne of France. They aroused, +however, great interest in the valley of the Nile, especially by the +account they gave of its remarkable fauna. This interest was felt as +much in England as in France; one of the first English travellers to +explore the Nile (as far as Korosko) after the close of the Napoleonic +war was the Hon. Charles Leonard Irby, who, with James Mangles (both +of them naval commanders), travelled in Egypt in 1817–1818. When +Egypt had settled down under the iron rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the +French, who had begun to conceive the idea of supporting the power of +that adventurer, and so once more gaining control over Egypt, began +to resume their interest in Nile exploration. In 1819 a Frenchman +named Frederic Caillaud (of Nantes), who had been in Egypt under the +Napoleonic régime, returned under the patronage of Louis XVIII. and +explored the main Nile as far south as the present site of Khartum, +and gave the first accurate account of one of the several Meroes, +namely, that ancient Ethiopian capital which is situated on the right +bank of the Nile about one hundred miles south of the confluence of +the Atbara. Caillaud and his companion Letorzec also accompanied +a military expedition under Ibrahim Pasha. This expedition (which +resulted in the founding of Khartum[33] in 1823) explored the Blue Nile +for a considerable distance,--as far as Fazokl. French interest in +Nile exploration was to continue later on more merged in the service +of the Egyptian government. But British efforts in this direction +had not been lacking in the early part of the nineteenth century. A +young Swiss, John Ludwig Burckhardt, born in French Switzerland in +1784,[34] and a student of two German universities, came to England in +1806 with a letter of introduction to Sir Joseph Banks and the African +Association.[35] This Association accepted his proposals for African +exploration. Burckhardt then set himself to study first in London and +then at Cambridge, and during his residence in England attempted in the +thoroughgoing Teutonic manner to inure himself to hardships by exposing +himself to cold, fatigue, and hunger in many fashions. After his three +years’ residence in England he left for Malta, and reached Aleppo +in October, 1809. Here he thoroughly mastered Arabic, the contents +of the Koran, and much else that appertained to the practice of the +Muhammadan religion and the administration of its law. In 1812 he +started from Cairo with the intention of journeying across the desert +to Fezzan, but, changing his plans, followed the Nile to Korosko, and +thence travelled across the Nubian Desert to Berber and Shendi. From +this last place he travelled to Suakin and to Jiddah. From Jiddah he +made (the first of all European Christians) the pilgrimage to Mecca. +Returning again to Cairo and preparing once more to start for Fezzan +and the Niger, he was seized with an illness of which he died at Cairo. +His journeys had resulted in the collection of eight hundred volumes +of Oriental manuscripts, all of which he sent to Cambridge University. +All the works of this brilliant traveller and profound Orientalist were +published after his death. + +[Illustration: BLUE NILE, TWENTY MILES EAST OF FAZOKL.] + +In 1827 Adolphe Linant (Bey), a Belgian, who subsequently called +himself Linant de Bellefonds, took service under the British African +Association,[36] ascended the White Nile (first of all Europeans, so +far as we know, since Dalion the Greek), and reached a point (Al Ais) +nearly one hundred and fifty miles south of Khartum. + +But the next great blow at the Nile mystery was to be struck by the +orders of the Pasha of Egypt. Muhammad[37] Ali was the native of a +little Vlach (Wallach) town or settlement in Albania called Cavalla. +In appearance he might at any time have been mistaken for a Frenchman +of eastern France, a German, or an Englishman. He was born in 1768, +and was adopted as a son by the Governor of the town, who, as a reward +for his bravery as a soldier, gave him his daughter in marriage. His +three eldest sons, Ibrahim, Tusun, and Ismail, were born in Albania. +In 1801 he was sent to Egypt with the rank of a major, rising soon to +be colonel. When the French had evacuated Egypt, the Turks endeavoured +to gain direct control over the country by attacking the power of the +Mameluks or Circassian soldiery who had really ruled in the name of the +Turks. In 1803 the British evacuated Egypt, and gradually the situation +resolved itself into a struggle for power between the Albanian soldiery +under Muhammad Ali and the Turks. The Albanians allied themselves at +first with the Mameluk or Circassian party, the former rulers. At +length, after a civil war lasting for two years, the Turkish government +appointed Muhammad Ali to be Governor of Egypt. In 1807 the British +attempted to reoccupy Egypt, and took possession of Alexandria. This +action temporarily united Muhammad Ali with his enemies, the Circassian +Beys. The British expedition ended in disaster and withdrawal. At last, +by means of treachery and an appalling massacre, Muhammad Ali got rid +of the Circassian party and became the undisputed master of Egypt. +He then assisted the Porte to put down the Wahabi revolt in Arabia. +These expeditions resulting in many military successes, the ambition +of Muhammad Ali grew, and he desired to create for himself a perfectly +disciplined army. To this end he decided to employ his disaffected +troops who were opposed to innovations in discipline in conquering the +Sudan. He commenced with Nubia, Dongola, and Sennar. From the Sudan +were brought back numbers of the sturdy Negroes, who were drilled into +some kind of disciplined force by French officers at Assuan. Then came +the war with Turkey, which nearly resulted in Muhammad Ali capturing +Constantinople. But this led to the intervention of Europe, and the +ambition of Muhammad Ali was confined within the limits of Egypt and +the Sudan. + +In 1839 the ruler of Egypt despatched the first important conquering +and exploring expedition up the White Nile. It was accompanied by +a French officer, Thibaut,[38] who had become a Muhammadan. This +expedition reached as far south as north latitude 6° 30′. In 1841 a +second expedition, which was accompanied by two Frenchmen (D’Arnaud +and Sabatier), and by a German, Ferdinand Werne, reached the vicinity +of Gondokoro in north latitude 4° 42′. Werne wrote an interesting and +scientific account of this second expedition. His map of the White +Nile from Khartum to Gondokoro is a remarkably good piece of work. A +third expedition under the same Turkish commander (Selim Bimbashi), and +accompanied by D’Arnaud, Sabatier, and Thibaut also reached Gondokoro. +All these expeditions were made in sailing boats, and those that +reached farthest were stopped by the same obstacles,--the rapids at +Gondokoro. + +As far back as 1820 steamers had been introduced onto the Nile between +the Delta and the First Cataract, mainly through French enterprise. +Some of these steamers even plied between Cairo and Korosko. In 1846 +the first steamboat was put together on the White Nile above Khartum. +In 1845 a Frenchman (Brun-Rollet) ascended the White Nile in a sailing +vessel and founded a trading post in the Kich country. + +[Illustration: FERDINAND WERNE.] + +Between 1827 and 1830 a German, Prokesch von Osten, had made a correct +survey of the Nile between Assuan and Wadi Halfa, and in the later +forties this survey was continued under Baron von Müller as far south +as Ambukol in Dongola. During the forties great interest concerning +the Egyptian Sudan had arisen in Austria. Austria was not suspected +of political views in the direction of Egypt, and therefore no doubt +Muhammad Ali and his successors were more disposed to encourage +Austrian missionaries than those of France or England. The Pope +created a Bishop of Khartum in 1849, and Austrian missionaries[39] had +founded stations on the White Nile as far distant as Gondokoro by 1850, +in which year Dr. Ignatz Knoblecher, an Austrian missionary, extended +his explorations a few miles beyond Gondokoro to Mount Logwek. A +little, very little, information was collected as to the course of the +Nile above that seventy miles of rapids which cuts off the navigation +of the river between Nimule on the south and Gondokoro on the north. A +vague story was collected from the Bari to the effect that this great +river came from a considerable distance southwards and issued from a +lake. This, no doubt, was a correct hint as to the existence of Lake +Albert Nyanza. But at this point the information stopped. + +In other directions progress had been made in Nile exploration. Besides +the Austrian Roman Catholic Mission,[40] which established stations +chiefly in the Kich and Bari countries on the White or Mountain +Niles, the rapid opening up of the waterways into the heart of Africa +soon attracted pioneers of exploration, traders, and adventurers of +several European nationalities. Far ahead of the European and the +Turk, however, went the Nubian (the native of Dongola) and the Arab of +Upper Egypt. These men were the real pioneers of European exploration, +since they served as guides and transport agents to the Europeans who +followed along the routes they opened up. These Nubians started a +far-reaching trade in slaves, and were guilty of many barbarities. They +made such a deep impression on the minds of the Negroes in the Nile +basin from the Bahr-al-Ghazal to Uganda that to this day the natives +of the Egyptian Sudan are called “Nubi” or Nubian, even though they be +black Negroes from the equatorial regions. The Nubian slave-traders +laid the foundation of the Sudanese regiments which were to serve +Egypt and England in subduing and controlling Eastern Equatorial +Africa. As the Mountain Nile (thus the main stream is called, south +of its junction with the Bahr-al-Ghazal) led through excessively +swampy, despairing countries, and did not reach the habitable land +until it entered the Bari country near the rapids of Gondokoro, most +of the exploring enterprise for fifteen years, between 1840 and 1860, +preferred to follow the more easily navigable streams which unite to +form the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the great western tributaries of the Nile. + +Among the pioneers in Nile exploration at this stage was the forerunner +of the intelligent tourist, Mr. Andrew Melly, a member of a Liverpool +family, though born at Geneva. Mr. Melly actually started for Khartum +and the White Nile accompanied by his wife, two sons, and a daughter. +His main object seems to have been that of natural history collecting. +He took insufficient measures for living with health in a tropical +climate; fever attacked him on his return journey, and he died near +Shendi on his way back from Khartum. His son George wrote a book in +two volumes describing Khartum and the Nile between that place and the +First Cataract. This book was mainly based on the father’s journal. +The expedition seems to have been well equipped. The provisions +were furnished by Fortnum and Mason, who even in that early period +(1849–1850) supplied tinned salmon. + +The first of the long roll of European martyrs to African fever in the +opening up of the Sudan was Herr Baumgarten, a Swiss mining engineer, +educated in Austria, who died at Khartum in 1839 after returning with +Muhammad Ali, who at that period had penetrated as far south as Al +Ais, in the Shiluk country. Brun-Rollet, a Frenchman, was perhaps the +first European trader to establish himself on the White Nile. He ceased +trading, however, in 1850, after having established posts as far south +as the Bari country. + +In 1851 the mission station of Gondokoro was founded by Knoblecher and +Vinci of the Austrian Mission. A short distance beyond Gondokoro, on +the west bank of the Nile, near the modern Belgian station of Rejaf, +is a little stony hill called by the Bari Logwek. This hill was the +extreme point reached by the third expedition despatched from Khartum +at the orders of Muhammad Ali in 1841, and afterwards by the Austrian +missionary, Knoblecher, in 1848. Here the White Nile, approached from +the north, became unnavigable owing to the rapids which obstruct the +course of the stream during its thousand-feet fall from Dufile to +Gondokoro. For a long time Logwek (remarkable as being the first high +and stony land which is met with in ascending the White Nile after the +many hundred miles’ journey through the marshes) formed the limit of +European discovery coming from the north. + +About 1843 or 1844 D’Arnaud, one of the Frenchmen who accompanied the +exploring expeditions of the Egyptian government, published a map of +the White Nile which carried the course of the river as far south as 4° +42′ north latitude. Towards the end of the forties further explorations +were made from time to time west of the White Nile by a Frenchman, +De Malzac, who at the time of his death at Khartum, in 1859 (?), was +compiling a work on the Fauna of the White Nile. + +[Illustration: THE WHALE-HEADED STORK (_Balæniceps rex_).] + +In 1845 a Welsh[41] mining engineer named John Petherick entered the +service of Muhammad Ali, the Pasha of Egypt. He was employed for some +years in examining the countries of Upper Egypt, the coast of the Red +Sea, and Kordofan for coal and other minerals, apparently with little +or no success. In his interesting work, “Egypt, the Sudan, and Central +Africa,” he has left us, amongst other things, a remarkably interesting +account of Kordofan at the end of the forties of the last century, +some twenty-five years after its conquest by the Turks from the mild +rule of Darfur.[42] In 1848 Muhammad Ali died, and Petherick quitted +the service of the Egyptian government. Trade in the Sudan had now +ceased to be a government monopoly, partly owing to the efforts of +the English Consul-General at that time. Petherick therefore resided +at El Obeid in Kordofan for five years as a trader in gums and other +produce. In 1853 he resolved to go in for the ivory trade on the White +Nile and the Bahr-al-Ghazal. This great western feeder of the Nile was +beginning to be opened up by the Nubian traders already referred to. +For six years Petherick traded for ivory and explored some of the great +rivers which flowed into the Bahr-al-Ghazal,--chiefly the Jur and the +Yalo or Rōl. During the course of his explorations he was the first +European (unless De Malzac preceded him) to reach the Nyam-nyam country +(Mundo). He made some remarkable discoveries in natural history,--the +splendid _Cobus maria_ or Mrs. Gray’s Waterbuck, and the _Balæniceps +rex_ or Whale-headed Stork. Petherick’s skins of the _Balæniceps_ which +he gave to the British Museum in 1859 were the only specimens in that +collection for more than forty years, until they were reinforced by +the first Whale-headed Storks obtained on the Victoria Nyanza, which +were sent home by the author of this book. Petherick also captured +and brought to Europe a young hippopotamus. [It is interesting to +observe in his first book, “Egypt, the Sudan,” etc., published in 1859, +that the classification of his bird collections is made by Dr. P. L. +Sclater, then and until recently Secretary to the Zoölogical Society.] +Petherick’s return to Europe with a recital of such wonders obtained +for him considerable attention. He married in the early part of 1861, +and was invited to take charge of a relief expedition to be sent up the +Nile to meet Captain Speke and Grant, who were to attempt descending +the Nile from its supposed source at the north end of the Victoria +Nyanza. + +[Illustration: John Petherick.] + +During the latter period of Petherick’s experiences on the Nile (in +1858), he had been appointed consular agent for the British government +at Khartum. In 1861, before starting to return to the Sudan, he was +given the rank of consul. He left England in 1861 with his wife +and with an English youth named Foxcroft, who accompanied him as +bird-stuffer and natural history collector.[43] In 1861 he despatched +to Gondokoro, to await the arrival of Speke and Grant, an expedition +under the Turks and Arabs, with boats full of supplies. Petherick +and his wife, accompanied by Dr. Murie (who had joined them from +England) and by Foxcroft, then spent some years exploring the western +affluents of the Nile which unite in the Bahr-al-Ghazal. In this way +they revisited the Nyam-nyam country. Petherick seems to have been +partly trading and partly collecting information on the slave-trade and +prosecuting Maltese slave-traders; and these investigations seem to +have rather taken his attention from one of the objects of his mission, +which was to insure a proper relief to Speke and Grant. How far he +was to blame in the matter it is difficult to determine. People in +England seem to have doubted the effectiveness of his methods to insure +this relief, and amongst others who thought it necessary to forestall +Petherick was Mr. (afterwards Sir Samuel) Baker, who, in 1862–1863, got +ahead of the Pethericks (then deciding to go in person to the relief +of the explorers), and actually arrived at Gondokoro in time to afford +much needed assistance to the exhausted travellers. Speke appears to +have considered that Petherick had not acted up to the assurance he +had given to the Royal Geographical Society, who intrusted him with +the expenditure of the relief fund. This criticism, together with the +bitter animosity aroused by Petherick’s prosecution of slave-traders +and reports on the misgovernment of Egyptian officials, cost him +the confidence of the Foreign Office, and in 1864 his consulate was +abolished. It was actually alleged by some of his enemies that he +himself carried on a trade in slaves,--an allegation for which there +does not seem to have been the slightest foundation. In 1865 the +Pethericks returned to England. Petherick’s second book (“Travels in +Central Africa”) was not published until 1869. It is impossible, after +careful observation and a more than thirty years’ interval, to avoid +the impression that Petherick was treated by his country with some +ingratitude. He did a great deal to increase our knowledge of the Nile +basin and its remarkable fauna. His collections of beasts, birds, and +fishes enriched the British Museum. He took a number of astronomical +observations in order to fix important points on the White Nile and in +the region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal. He died in 1882. + +In 1840 a French Egyptian official, Clot Bey, engaged as private +secretary a young French doctor of medicine, Alfred Peney. For +something like fifteen years Dr. Peney carried on official medical +work in Egypt. He was gradually led, however, towards Nile exploration +through his official visits to Khartum, the Blue Nile, and Kordofan. +He was intensely interested in ethnology and in the study of the Nile +Negroes. French influence in Egypt during the fifties was in the +ascendency. De Lesseps and the various officials who served France +as agents and consuls-general at Cairo had known how to secure the +concession for the Suez Canal. They became jealous that France should +also secure for her citizens the glory of having discovered and traced +the course and the sources of the Upper Nile. This blue ribbon of +geographical discovery was already being sought for by Germans and +Englishmen. Dr. Peney especially was continually urging his superiors +in Cairo to organise, or induce the Viceroy Said to organise, a Nile +research expedition under French auspices. But the choice by the +French agent of a leader for this enterprise fell most unfortunately. +Hanging about Cairo was a Frenchman of a type not infrequently met +with at Levantine courts during the first eight decades of the +nineteenth century. This was the Count d’Escayrac de Lauture. Men of +this description were either Royalist refugees, or the sons of such, +or they were Napoleonic noblemen who had got into financial or social +difficulties. D’Escayrac, however, appears to have been an amiable +dilettante, who had some pretensions to be an Egyptologist. But he was +utterly unsuited to lead an expedition into Central Africa. He was +elderly, vain, pompous, and extravagant. The viceroy, wishing that the +expedition should not be too exclusively French, ordered d’Escayrac to +recruit part of his personnel in England, Germany, and Switzerland. +This was done, but the expedition never left Cairo for the Upper Nile. +D’Escayrac made himself perfectly ridiculous by strutting about in a +fantastic uniform, trailing a long sabre. His expensive scientific +instruments were badly packed, and arrived at Cairo injured. The whole +expedition was dissolved, owing to the bitter dislike which d’Escayrac +inspired among his staff. The only incident in the whole of Count +d’Escayrac’s preparations which shows him to have been in any way +enterprising or intelligent, was his desire to secure good photographic +views of the Upper Nile and its natives. He had provided the expedition +with the best apparatus which could be obtained at that period (1856). +It is curious to note that in the criticisms of his plans published at +the time, the critics animadvert more bitterly on the extravagance of +spending one hundred pounds on photography than on any other supposed +mistake in d’Escayrac’s preparations. + +Dr. Albert Peney was to have been medical officer to the expedition. +When it was dissolved, he started off for the White Nile on his +own account, attaching himself, whenever opportunity offered, to +such caravans as those of Andrea de Bono, the Maltese. Peney made a +remarkably good map (most interesting to place on record as showing +subsequent changes in the course of the Nile) between Bor and a place +which he calls Nieki, which was situated on the Mountain Nile very near +to the present site of Fort Berkeley. Peney, hearing rumours of great +rivers to the west, crossed the range of hills which flanks the western +bank of the Mountain Nile in the Bari country, and thus reached the +river Yie or Yeï. This river, as we know now, flows northwest nearly +parallel to the main Mountain Nile, and joins that river some distance +before its junction with the Bahr-al-Ghazal. But Peney exaggerated +the importance of this stream, and confused it with the accounts he +heard of the many great rivers that united to form the Bahr-al-Ghazal. +On his map he actually makes the Yie an effluent of the White Nile, +issuing from the main stream not far from the present post of Nimule, +and flowing northwestwards until it enters the Bahr-al-Ghazal. He thus +transformed the whole region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal into an enormous +island encircled by two branches of the Nile. Peney further visited the +country to the east of Gondokoro, and was probably the first explorer +to mention the name Latuka. This country he rightly designates Lotuka. +Latuka is the incorrect version given to the world by Emin Pasha. The +_Lo_ in this word is really the masculine article met with in so many +of the Masai group of languages to which the tongue of Latuka belongs. +The root _tuka_ (which should be properly spelled and pronounced +_tukă_) is evidently a racial name widespread among that Negroid group +resulting from an ancient intermixture of the Gala with the Negro, from +which groups the Latuka, Turkana, Masai, Nandi, and Elgumi descend.[44] + +Dr. Peney died of blackwater fever in July, 1861, at a point on the +Nile near Fort Berkeley. Andrea de Bono was with him at his death, +and records the characteristics of the disease from which Dr. Peney +died. Since the idea has been started that blackwater fever is quite a +new disease in these regions, it is interesting to know that from all +accounts several of the earliest European pioneers from 1848 to 1861 +appear to have died of this malady whilst exploring the Upper Nile. + +About the time that Peney was exploring the Mountain Nile, another +Frenchman, Lejean, was surveying with some correctness the +Bahr-al-Ghazal estuary, of which he published a map in 1862. + +[Illustration: MAP PUBLISHED IN PENNY MAGAZINE OF 1852. + +Which gives results of Nile exploration up to that date.] + +Not only Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans, but Italians and Maltese +had by this time appeared as explorers, traders, and naturalists on +the White Nile and its tributaries.[45] Some of these came as members +of the Austrian Roman Catholic Mission. Perhaps out of jealousy +of Austria, or with the idea of spreading North Italian trade and +influence, the then Kingdom of Sardinia appointed Signor Vaudet +(apparently a Piedmontese trader) Sardinian proconsul at Khartum. +Vaudet invited out his two nephews, the brothers Poncet (one of whom +published a book on the White Nile in 1863). Vaudet was killed by the +Bari tribe near Gondokoro about 1859. This Bari people, now so much +diminished by famine and by the raids of the Sudanese slave-traders +and Dervishes, was a far more serious bar to the prosecution of +exploration up the Mountain Nile in the direction of the great lakes +than the rapids above Gondokoro. The Bari, no doubt, were wronged by +the Europeans and Nubians, but they were nevertheless responsible for +the death of not a few European explorers. But for their determined +hostility, there is little doubt that the earlier French, Italian, +German, and English pioneers would have found their way to Lake Albert +long before its discovery by Baker. Indeed Giovanni Miani, a Venetian, +got as far south as Apuddo,[46] if not farther, in the prosecution +of his search for the rumoured lake. Miani subsequently explored the +regions of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the headwaters of the streams rising +in the Nyam-nyam country. He it was who, first of all explorers, +brought back those rumours of a watershed beyond the Nile system, with +a great river (the Welle) flowing to the west. + +There seems to have been little, if any, international jealousy in +this wonderful field of exploration between 1840 and 1860. Khartum was +the rendezvous, the principal depot of the Europeans, and throughout +all these years was under a Turkish governor. Life in Khartum between +1850 and 1860 was by no means devoid of attractions. Several of the +Europeans who made it their headquarters brought out their wives with +them. Others were married to handsome Abyssinian women. The houses +of Egyptian style were comfortable and cool. The place swarmed with +strange new beasts and birds; indeed, nearly every house included a +menagerie in one of its yards. A great slave-market brought before the +eyes of astonished and interested Europeans nearly all the principal +Negro types from as far west as Wadai and Darfur, from the confines +of Abyssinia on the east, from the lands of the naked Nile Negroes on +the south; stalwart, lighter-coloured, bearded Nyam-nyam cannibals +from the southwest, coal-black Madi, here and there an Akka Pygmy, +thin-shanked Dinka and Shiluk, sturdy Bongo, and handsome Gala. “There +ain’t no Ten Commandments” might with some justice have been said of +society at Khartum. At any rate it was much untrammelled as regards the +more wearisome conventions of civilised life. Nobody inquired if M. +Dubois was legally married to Mme. Dubois, and perhaps the treatment of +the doubtful Mme. Dubois as a respectable married woman by blue-eyed +strait-souled Mrs. Jones ended by Mme. Dubois becoming legally united +to her spouse later on at Cairo, and finishing the rest of her life +as a happy and perfectly respectable person. The air was full of +wonderment. Improvements made year by year in firearms resulted in +marvellous big-game shooting. Though there were bad fevers to be got in +the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the climate of Khartum itself was not necessarily +unhealthy. The post seems to have arrived across the desert on camels +at least once a month. The tyranny, social and administrative, of the +British military officer and his dame was not to come for many years; +the “smart” hotel was absent; provisions were good, plentiful, and +cheap. Those are times that the African explorer of to-day looks back +upon with something like a sigh. + +[Illustration: THE RIVER SOBAT.] + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MISSIONARIES AND SNOW-MOUNTAINS + + +Down to 1858 all that Europe knew of the Nile basin was this: The +course of the Blue Nile had been mapped to some extent from its source +in Lake Tsana; and the travels of Rüppell (1830–1831) (the great German +naturalist), of another German, Joseph Russegger, of the D’Abbadies +(the great French surveyors), of Sir William Cornwallis Harris (who +was sent on a mission to Shoa), Théophile Le Febvre, Mansfield Parkyns +(1840–1845), H. Dufton, and C. T. Beke had cleared up a good many blank +spaces in the geography of Abyssinia and of the various affluents of +the Nile flowing from the snow-mountains of that African Afghanistan +in the direction of the Atbara, the Blue Nile, and the Sobat. The +Sobat had been explored for a hundred miles or so, as far as steamers +could penetrate. The White Nile had been surveyed from Khartum to the +junction of the Bahr-al-Ghazal. South of that point, under the name +of Mountain Nile, it and some of its branches, such as the Giraffe +River, had also been explored, and the River of the Mountains, as the +Upper White Nile is called by the Arabs, had been ascended to a little +distance south of Gondokoro. The Bahr-al-Ghazal, the great western +feeder of the Nile, and several of its more important affluents, such +as the Jur, had been made known, and the existence of the Nyam-nyam +cannibal country ascertained. But the ultimate sources of the Nile +stream were still undiscovered. This problem was now to be attacked +from two very different directions. + +In 1829 the Church Missionary Society had resolved to attempt the +evangelisation of Abyssinia, and sent missionaries to the northern part +of that country. Amongst these missionaries, in 1840, was a Würtemberg +student named Ludwig Krapf, sent to prospect in northern Abyssinia. But +the Abyssinians eventually resented this missionary enterprise, and +Krapf and some others were expelled from the country in 1842. + +[Illustration: REV. DR. L. LUDWIG KRAPF.] + +Hearing good accounts of the more genial nature of the Zanzibar +Arabs and of their Maskat ruler, Krapf journeyed down the East Coast +of Africa and visited the Sayyid of Zanzibar (Majid); he obtained +permission from this Arab viceroy[47] to settle at Mombasa and +establish a Christian mission there. Krapf was soon joined by John +Rebman (another Würtemberger). Both were well-educated men, who had +been trained at Tübingen, at Basle, and in Rebman’s case at an English +missionary college. They acquired a knowledge of Arabic, and soon +added to it an intimate acquaintance with several African tongues. +Their intercourse with the Arabs and the Negroes at Mombasa and its +vicinity soon opened their ears to remarkable stories of the unknown +interior. Already the Arabs were pushing farther and farther inland +from these ports on the Zanzibar coast, and some of them had reached +Lake Tanganyika, while they had also heard rumours of the Victoria +Nyanza. The natives further told the missionaries of the wonderfully +high mountains distant from ten to thirty days’ march from the coast, +the tops of which were covered with “white stuff.” By 1850, through the +agency of the Church Missionary Society, Rebman and Krapf were able +to report from their own observation the existence of snow-mountains +nearly under the equator, Rebman having discovered Kilimanjaro in +1848, while in the following year Krapf not only confirmed this +discovery, but pushed his way far enough inland to catch a glimpse of +Mount Kenya, the distance of which from the coast he underestimated. +The missionaries also sent to Europe about the same time stories of +a great inland sea. They had gathered up the reports of Lake Nyasa, +Tanganyika, and the Victoria Nyanza, and had imagined these separate +sheets of water to be only parts of a huge, slug-shaped lake as big +as the Caspian Sea. They also reported the separate existence of Lake +Baringo. These stories they illustrated by a map (Erhardt and Rebman) +published in 1855. Their stories of snow-mountains in equatorial Africa +only drew down on them for the most part the ridicule of English +geographers, among whom was a wearisome person, Mr. Desborough Cooley, +who published fine-spun theories based on a fantastic interpretation +of African etymology; but their stories were believed in France, and +they were awarded a medal by the Paris Geographical Society. They also +impressed an American poet, Bayard Taylor, who in 1855 wrote some +stirring lines on Kilimanjaro:-- + + “Remote, inaccessible, silent, and lone-- + Who from the heart of the tropical fervours + Liftest to heaven thine alien snows.” + +These stories from the missionaries revived the interest in Ptolemy’s +Geography. The Nile lakes were once more believed in, especially as the +discovery of Kenya and Kilimanjaro appeared to confirm the stories of +the Mountains of the Moon. This idea indeed was additionally favoured +by the fact that the missionaries often referred to their hypothetical +lake as the Sea of Unyamwezi, which name they rightly explained as +meaning (we know not why) the “Land of the Moon.”[48] + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BURTON AND SPEKE + + +Nile exploration from the north had stopped in 1851 at the rapids south +of Gondokoro. It was now felt that the problem should be attacked +from other directions. In 1839 the British government had formally +annexed Aden at the southwestern corner of Arabia as a coaling station +for ships plying between Suez and India. Aden is opposite the Somali +coast, and has been for many centuries the outpost of civilisation +with which the Somali have traded. It was impossible to possess Aden +long without desiring to become acquainted with the character of the +African coast across the gulf, especially as Aden depended so much +on Somaliland for its supplies of meat, grain, and fodder, and the +ostrich feathers, ivory, and skins sold in the Aden bazaars. Aden +was, and is still, under the government of India, and officers of the +Indian army soon found their way across to Somaliland on authorised +or unauthorised surveys. Among these was Lieutenant Cruttenden, who +collected some new information about the sterile country beyond the +coast. In 1854 a remarkable man came to Aden as an officer in the +Indian garrison,--Lieutenant Richard Francis Burton, fresh from +his wonderful journey as a pilgrim to Mecca. Burton induced the +authorities to support him in a project for entering inner East Africa +through Somaliland, and thus perhaps striking at the sources of the +Nile. Another explorer in the bud, Lieutenant John Hanning Speke, +reached Aden soon afterwards, and obtained permission to join Burton’s +expedition. + +Whilst waiting for a time thought to be favourable for travelling +southwards into the Ogadein country, Burton went off alone on a +remarkably plucky journey to the mysterious city of Harrar, to-day a +frontier town of Abyssinia. Harrar, lying to the south of that Rift +valley, which can be traced after a few interruptions from the Gulf of +Tajurra right down into British and German East Africa, was a walled +city inhabited by a Semitic people, or rather a people still retaining +the use of a Semitic dialect akin to those of Abyssinia and South +Arabia. + +Speke did a good deal to increase our knowledge of the remarkable fauna +of Somaliland, but the Burton-Speke expedition into that country got no +great distance inland, and ended in disaster, owing to the suspicions +of the Somali. The expedition was attacked close to the seashore at +Berbera. One of the party, Lieutenant Stroyan, was killed. Speke was +severely, and Burton slightly wounded. Speke is of opinion that much +of this disaster was due to the mismanagement of Burton. He considers +that if, when the expedition was first organised, instead of fussing +about mysterious visits to Harrar and waiting for this thing and that +thing, the whole expedition had started off boldly for the interior, +the Somali would have had no time to cultivate suspicion, and would +have opposed no resistance. It is quite conceivable that Speke was +right, and that if the expedition had started with promptitude it might +have reached the confines of Shoa or the Gala country in the direction +of modern British East Africa. As it was, the attack on Burton’s +expedition closed for some thirty years any attempt at penetrating the +mysterious country of the Somali, with its remarkable mammalian fauna +and its as yet unexplained ruins.[49] + +[Illustration: A SWAHILI ARAB TRADER.] + +Burton’s attention was now drawn to the stories of the Mombasa +missionaries. With some difficulty he obtained from the Foreign Office, +the East India Company, and the Royal Geographical Society funds to +equip an expedition which should start from the Zanzibar coast in +search of the great lake. As Speke had lost over five hundred pounds +worth of private property in the disaster which fell on the Somali +expedition, Burton invited him to join this new expedition as his +lieutenant. Burton had been distracted for a time from this idea by +the Crimean War, but when peace was declared, he obtained the sanction +of the Geographical Society to his plans, and started with Speke for +India to smooth the difficulties placed in his way by the Indian +government. At the very end of 1856 the explorers reached Zanzibar. +While the expedition was being organised at Zanzibar, Burton and Speke +visited Pemba, Mombasa, and the mission station ten miles in the +interior. Fired by the stories of the snow-mountains and the rumour +of the great lake of Ukerewe,[50] Speke proposed that they should +bring their expedition to Mombasa and start for the lake by way of +Kilimanjaro. The Masai, however, were raiding the country right up +to within ten miles of Mombasa, and in consequence Burton was afraid +to take this route. The explorers visited the mountainous country of +Usambara, which is close to the coast, and then returned to Zanzibar. +The original instructions, however, of the Royal Geographical Society +(which had found the bulk of the funds) had been: “The great object +of the expedition is to penetrate inland, from Kilwa or some other +place on the East Coast of Africa, and make the best of its way to +the reputed Lake of Nyasa.” Burton found, however, that the Arabs of +Kilwa were strongly opposed to white men penetrating the interior +in that direction. He therefore decided to choose the line of least +resistance at Bagamoyo, and go along the now beaten track of the Arabs +to Ujiji. When Burton and Speke reached Unyamwezi (Kaze) at the close +of 1857, they were received with much kindness and courtesy by the +Zanzibar Arabs established there, especially by Sheikh Snay, who had +been the first Arab to reach Uganda. Snay promptly cleared up the +mystery of the missionaries’ great lake, telling the explorers that +it was three different lakes (Nyasa, Tanganyika, and Victoria) rolled +into one. The Arabs had also heard through the Banyoro rumours of +European vessels travelling up the White Nile to the Bari country. +Burton was continually prostrated with fever during this stay in +Unyamwezi, so that the command of the expedition and the solution of +its difficulties temporarily devolved on Speke. The main trouble, as +on all these expeditions, was with the question of transport. It was +very difficult to obtain porters to proceed in any direction north or +west of Unyamwezi. At last they induced a number of their paid-off men +who had accompanied them through the coast lands to rejoin and convey +the loads as far as Ujiji. In that way Burton and Speke discovered +Lake Tanganyika, and Speke thought (wrongly) that in the great tilted +plateau which they ascended on the east, and from which they looked +down on the beautiful blue waters of the lake, he had discovered the +Mountains of the Moon. + +After a somewhat half-hearted exploration of the northern portion +of Tanganyika in an Arab dau, during which they heard and partially +verified the fact that no river flowed out of Tanganyika on the north, +but that the Rusizi flowed _into_ the lake[51] in that direction, they +returned to Ujiji, and from this point made their way back to Kaze in +Unyamwezi. Here Burton again became ill. Speke with some difficulty +obtained from him permission to travel northwards in search of the Lake +of Bukerebe. Burton yielded his consent reluctantly, and appears to +have given but grudging assistance in the shape of men and guides. Full +of energy, however, Speke gathered together a caravan, which crossed +Unyamwezi and Usukuma, and on the 30th of July, 1858, he saw the Mwanza +creek, one of the southernmost gulfs of the Victoria Nyanza. The +extremity of this he named “Jordans Nullah.”[52] Travelling northwards +along this creek, on August 3d (1858), early in the morning, Speke +saw the open waters of a great lake with a sea horizon to the north. +Much of the horizon was shut in by great and small islands, but Speke +detected through their interstices the vast extent of open water which +stretched to the north. + +He realised to the full the wonder of his discovery, and the obvious +probability that this mighty lake would prove to be the main +headwaters of the White Nile. Even Speke, however, failed to appreciate +then or subsequently the full extent of the Nyanza’s area. He only +guessed its breadth at over one hundred miles, and its length from +north to south at under two hundred. Speke inquired from the natives +the name of this freshwater sea, and they replied “Nyanza,” which in +varying forms such as Nyanja, Nyasa, Mwanza, Kianja, Luanza (according +to prefix), is a widespread Bantu root for a large extent of water,--a +river or a lake. To this term Speke added the name of Victoria after +the Queen of England. The following extract from his book, “What Led to +the Discovery of the Source of the Nile,” gives his first impressions +of the great lake:-- + + “The caravan, after quitting Isamiro, began winding up a long but + gradually inclined hill [which, as it bears no native name, I shall + call Somerset] until it reached its summit, when the vast expanse + of the pale blue waters of the Nyanza burst suddenly upon my gaze. + It was early morning. The distant sea-line of the north horizon + was defined in the calm atmosphere between the north and the west + points of the compass; but even this did not afford me any idea + of the breadth of the lake, as an archipelago of islands, each + consisting of a single hill, rising to a height two hundred or + three hundred feet above the water, intersected the line of vision + to the left; while on the right the western horn of the Ukerewe + Island cut off any further view of its distant waters to the + eastward of north. A sheet of water--an elbow of the sea, however, + at the base of the low range on which I stood--extended far away + to the eastward, to where, in the dim horizon, a hummock-like + elevation of the mainland marked what I understood to be the south + and east angle of the lake. The important islands of Ukerewe and + Mzita, distant about twenty or thirty miles, formed the visible + north shore of this firth. The name of the former of these islands + was familiar to us as that by which this long-sought lake was + usually known. It is reported by the natives to be of no great + extent, and though of no considerable elevation, I could discover + several spurs stretching down to the water’s edge from its central + ridge of hills. The other island, Mzita, is of greater elevation, + of a hog-backed shape, but being more distant its physical features + were not so distinctly visible. + + “In consequence of the northern islands of the Bengal Archipelago + before-mentioned obstructing the view, the western shore of the + lake could not be defined: a series of low hill-tops extended in + this direction as far as the eye could reach; while below me, at + no great distance, was the _débouchure_ of the creek which enters + the lake from the south, and along the banks of which my last + three days’ journey had led me. This view was one which even in a + well-known and explored country would have arrested the traveller + by its peaceful beauty. The islands, each swelling in a gentle + slope to a rounded summit, clothed with wood between the rugged, + angular, closely-cropping rocks of granite, seemed mirrored in the + calm surface of the lake, on which I here and there detected a + small black speck,--the tiny canoe of some Muanza fisherman. On the + gently shelving plain below me blue smoke curled among the trees, + which here and there partially concealed villages and hamlets, + their brown thatched roofs contrasting with the emerald-green of + the beautiful aloes, the coral flower-branches of which cluster in + such profusion round the cottages, and form alleys and hedgerows + about the villages as ornamental as any garden shrub in England. + But the pleasure of the mere view vanished in the presence of those + more intense and exciting emotions which are called up by the + consideration of the commercial and geographical importance of the + prospect before me. + + “I no longer felt any doubt that the lake at my feet gave birth to + that interesting river, the source of which has been the subject + of so much speculation, and the object of so many explorers. + The Arabs’ tale was proved to the letter. This is a far more + extensive lake than the Tanganyika; ‘so broad that you could not + see across it, and so long that nobody knew its length.’ I had now + the pleasure of perceiving that a map I had constructed on Arab + testimony, and sent home to the Royal Geographical Society before + leaving Unyanyembe, was so substantially correct in its general + outlines I had nothing whatever to alter. Further, as I drew that + map after proving their first statements about the Tanganyika, + which were made before my going there, I have every reason to feel + confident of their veracity relative to their travels north through + Karagwe, and to Kibuga in Uganda.” + +[Illustration: SKETCH MAP BY BURTON AND SPEKE, 1858. + +From the Original in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society.] + +Unable to delay longer in his exploration of the southern shores of +the Victoria Nyanza, as he had promised to rejoin Burton by a certain +date, Speke returned to Kaze in Unyanyembe, to find his companion vexed +at the great discovery which he had made. Speke did not pursue the +argument as to the Victoria Nyanza being the main source of the Nile. +The two men journeyed together on more or less bad terms to Zanzibar, +where Burton remained to wind up the affairs of the expedition, Speke +returning direct to England. Here the wonderful news he brought +prompted the Royal Geographical Society to gather together the funds +for a fresh expedition, which was to enable Speke to make good his +discovery of the lake, and to prove to the satisfaction of the +scientific world that this sheet of water was the ultimate source of +the White Nile. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SPEKE AND THE NILE QUEST + + +John Hanning Speke was born on May 27, 1827, at Orleigh Court, +Bideford, North Devon. His father’s family had its seat in +Somersetshire, near the pretty old town of Ilminster, and was of +ancient descent. The name was spelled L’Espec in Norman times, and +apparently meant a spike or porcupine quill (the family crest was a +porcupine).[53] Speke’s mother was a Miss Hanning of Dillington Park, +also in Somerset. He was one of four sons, and had several sisters. As +his father (Mr. William Speke), after he came into the family place +of Jordans near Ilminster, had two church livings to dispose of, he +was desirous that two at least of his sons might be brought up to +the Church. John Hanning and Edward Speke (who was killed at Delhi) +declined such a career, however, and wished to go into the army. Speke +was a restless boy, who detested school, declaring that a sedentary +life made him ill. Whenever he could escape from his masters, he was +always out in the woods and on the heaths, displaying a great devotion +to natural history and sport. + +When only seventeen his mother, who was acquainted with the Duke of +Wellington, obtained for her two sons, John and Edward, commissions +in the Indian army. The Duke asked to see the boys, and congratulated +their mother on two such fine young fellows coming forward for service +in India. Edward Speke, as already mentioned, was killed during the +Indian mutiny at the siege of Delhi. John Hanning Speke himself, +between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, had seen a good deal of +military service in India, and took part in the last Sikh war, having +been at the battles of Ramnagar, Sedulapur, Chilianwala, and Guzerat. + +In 1849 he first entertained the idea of exploring equatorial Africa. +Prior to this date he had shot a great deal in India, and subsequently +explored southwestern Tibet. His first interest in Africa lay in +the possibility of amassing magnificent zoölogical collections to +illustrate the fauna of that wide stretch of country which lay between +South Africa and Abyssinia. He wished to supplement the researches of +Rüppell on the northeast and of Harris, Gordon Cumming, and others in +the far south. Even at that date Speke desired to land at some point on +the East African coast, and strike across to the Nile, descending the +Nile to Egypt with his zoölogical collections. + +[Illustration: JOHN HANNING SPEKE. + +At the age of 17, on first receiving his commission in the Indian Army.] + +He obtained furlough in the autumn of 1854, and proceeded to Aden +with the intention of landing on the opposite coast of Somaliland. +Arrived at Aden, his plans met with stubborn opposition from Colonel +Sir James Outram, the Resident, who not only opposed Speke’s journeys, +but even those which were officially ordered by the Bombay government +to be conducted by Richard Burton. But the Bombay government, in regard +to the latter plan, insisted on Sir James Outram withdrawing his +opposition. Sir James Outram then attached Speke to this expedition, +knowing him to be a good surveyor. Speke had in fact mapped a good deal +of southwestern Tibet, and was thoroughly at home with the sextant. The +results of this venture have been described in the preceding chapter. +The Somali expedition led to Speke’s accompanying Burton in 1857. + +Speke returned to England alone on the 8th of May, 1859. The day after +his arrival Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical +Society, decided that Speke was to be sent back as soon as possible to +substantiate his discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, and to ascertain its +connection with the Nile system. But although funds were soon secured +by public subscription, it was deemed advisable by Speke that the new +expedition should not start for nearly a year. Captain James Augustus +Grant, who had shot with Speke in India, begged leave to accompany him +as his lieutenant. + +[Illustration: BURTON’S IDEA OF THE NILE SOURCES, DEC. 1864.] + +Burton returned to England in 1859, somewhat chagrined to hear of +the enthusiasm with which Speke’s discovery of the Victoria Nyanza +had been received,--an enthusiasm which to some extent had put the +revelation of Lake Tanganyika in the shade. Burton nevertheless was +awarded, in 1860, the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, +and in returning thanks for this honour, he uttered a handsome +acknowledgment of Speke’s services as surveyor on this expedition +to the great lakes. But the two men were evidently on bad terms, +and though the fault of their disaccord may have lain with Burton’s +conduct, the world knew of it first through the writings of Speke in +“Blackwood’s Magazine,” and later (in 1864) in the republication of +these Blackwood articles with additions under the title of “What Led to +the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.” In these works Speke makes +certain stinging references to Burton. So far as an impartial verdict +can be arrived at, Speke in all probability spoke the truth; but he +was perhaps unduly hard on his companion, for whom he had evidently a +great personal dislike and some degree of contempt. In some respects +Speke’s own education had been defective (at least, we are told that he +was so much of a truant as to receive but little schooling before going +to India). He may, therefore, have been unable to appreciate to the +full Burton’s undoubted talents. Yet again, in reading Speke’s books +it would occur to no one to say that he was deficient in education. +He had become an admirable geographer, a keen naturalist; and whether +his writing was or was not without grace of style, it was certainly +pithy and to the point. His great book, the “Discovery of the Source +of the Nile,” is good reading all through, and strikes one who, like +the present writer, has been over much of the same ground, as being +singularly truthful. It is as good a book as any that Burton himself +ever wrote on Africa, not excepting even the excellent “Lake Regions.” +Speke was a fine figure of a man,--tall and handsome in an English +style, with blue eyes and a brown beard. There is no doubt that he +impressed the natives favourably wherever he went as being a man and +a gentleman. Yet there was a little hardness in his disposition, +something pitiless in his criticisms of Burton. Burton’s own attacks on +Speke scarcely appeared in a public form until four years after Speke +had returned to Africa. They were angry, and somewhat clumsy, but not +so incisive as Speke’s criticisms of Burton. Burton’s chief revenge lay +in endeavouring for many years to prove that Speke had made no very +great discovery; that his Victoria Nyanza was not the greatest lake in +Africa and the main source of the Nile, but a network of swamps and +lakelets. Burton hailed with delight Sir Samuel Baker’s description +of the Albert Nyanza as being the ultimate origin of the White Nile. +To meet this view he, against his own convictions, tried to make the +Rusizi River flow out of the north end of Tanganyika instead of flowing +into that lake, in the hope that Tanganyika was thus connected with +Lake Albert,--a fact which, if proved, would dwarf the discovery of +the Victoria Nyanza into insignificance. To this end he published a +map, and endeavoured to persuade every geographer who would listen +to him that the Victoria Nyanza was more than half a myth, and that +its contribution to the Nile waters was insignificant compared to the +supply received from the western chain of lakes. + +Speke’s character was that of many an officer in the British army. +Though his family claimed Norman descent, his physique was emphatically +Anglo-Saxon. Born almost without fear, he had perhaps too ready a +contempt for others of weaker nerve who could better weigh the chances +of danger and the counsels of prudence. Speke was a splendid shot, +and accurate in those astronomical observations necessary to the +determination of geographical positions. He had a good knowledge of +Hindustani,[54] but not that great readiness in picking up languages +which was Burton’s forte. Yet he was perfectly honest about this, as +about every talent which he possessed or lacked. On the other hand, his +great dislike of Burton sometimes made him unjust in denying to his +companion the qualities of mind he really possessed. Burton’s _résumé_ +of ethnological information concerning the East African tribes from the +Zanzibar coast to Uganda and the shores of Tanganyika is masterly, and +due to the most careful note-taking. It may not, perhaps, be out of +place if I quote a few lines from a letter written by Sir Samuel Baker +to a correspondent:[55]-- + + “Speke comes first as a geographer and African explorer. He was + superior to Burton as a painstaking, determined traveller, who + worked out his object for the real love of geographical research, + without the slightest jealousy of others.... But Burton excelled + Speke in cleverness and general information, though he was not so + reliable. Speke was a splendid fellow in every way.... Grant (his + companion) was one of the most loyal and charming creatures in the + world. Perfectly unselfish, he adored Speke, and throughout his + life he maintained an attitude of chivalrous defence of Speke’s + reputation.... They were all friends of mine.” + +There is little doubt that Burton, who had displayed such cool +courage on his journey to Mecca, had received a shock over the Somali +attack on his camp in 1854, from which he never wholly recovered. His +proceedings in connection with the Tanganyika journey were marked by +something approaching timidity. It is probable that had Speke been in +command of this expedition much more would have been done than was +actually accomplished. Feeling this very strongly, and realising that +he had contributed a good deal of his private funds to the resources +of this and the preceding Somali expedition, Speke considered himself +quite justified in hurrying home with the news of the expedition’s +discoveries, the more so because Burton had snubbed him for his pains +in connection with the Victoria Nyanza. I do not think it can be said +that he ever treated Burton unfairly, but there was perhaps in his +behaviour a touch of hardness and a lack of generosity. He heartily +disliked Burton, and that was the reason. + +[Illustration: JAMES AUGUSTUS GRANT.] + +In James Augustus Grant (as is indicated by the quotation from Sir +Samuel Baker’s letter) Speke had found a companion after his own heart. +Grant was a handsome Scotchman of the “Iberian” type,--black hair, +dark eyes, dark eyebrows, clear complexion. In later life the hair and +the beard turned white, but the face remained singularly youthful. Of +Grant Sir Samuel Baker writes: “He was the most unselfish man I ever +met; amiable and gentle to a degree that might to a stranger denote +weakness, but, on the contrary, no man could be more determined in +character or unrelenting when once he was offended.” Grant, like +Speke, was a sportsman; he was also--in a somewhat uninstructed way--a +zoölogist and a botanist. The botany of Africa, in fact, was his +principal hobby. He painted cleverly in water-colours, and did more +than anybody else, down to a quite recent date, to put before our +eyes some idea of the beautiful coloration of African wild flowers. +He published at his own expense, through the Linnæan Society, three +volumes illustrating the more notable features of his botanical +collections. Although most of these flowers were drawn for him by +scientific draughtsmen, his own sketches supplied the means for an +accurate coloration which could no longer be ascertained from the dried +specimens. In this particular Grant has made an important contribution +to African research. + +Before leaving England Speke made arrangements, through the British +consul at Zanzibar, to send on an instalment of porters and property +to Unyamwezi, intending to follow his old route to the Victoria +Nyanza. The Indian government, which has often done so much to assist +the opening up or the settlement of eastern Africa, gave to Speke’s +expedition fifty carbines and twenty thousand rounds of ammunition, and +lent him as many surveying instruments as were required. The government +of India also put at his disposal rich presents (gold watches) for such +Arabs as had assisted him on the former expedition. + +Petherick, whose explorations have been treated of in the previous +chapter, had recently arrived in England from the Upper Nile, and had +been promoted to be British Consul. Speke, before he left England, +made arrangements with Petherick to place boats at his disposal at +Gondokoro, and to send a party of men in the same direction to collect +ivory and to wait about in the vicinity of Gondokoro in order to +assist him when he should reach that part of the Nile. Petherick was +also invited to ascend the Asua River (then thought to be a branch of +the Nile instead of an affluent) in case it should be another means +of communication with the Victoria Nyanza. Speke and Grant journeyed +out by way of the Cape, and at Cape Town stayed for a while with the +great Sir George Grey, who, taking the greatest interest in their +undertaking, induced the Cape government to grant the sum of three +hundred pounds to be spent in buying baggage mules. With these mules +were sent ten Hottentot mounted police. From Cape Town the expedition +was conveyed on a gunboat to Zanzibar. At the commencement of October, +1860, Speke’s expedition was organised, and he started for the +interior. His expedition consisted of one corporal and nine privates +of the Hottentot police; one jemadar and twenty-five privates of the +Baluch soldiery of the Sultan of Zanzibar; one Arab caravan leader +and seventy-five freed slaves; one kirongozi or guide and one hundred +negro porters; two black valets, who had both been man-of-war’s men and +could speak Hindustani; Frij, the black cook (also from a man-of-war), +and the invaluable “Bombay,” who was interpreter and factotum. (The +expedition took with it twelve transport mules and three donkeys, also +twenty-two goats for milk and meat. The Hottentots soon broke down in +health, and took to riding the donkeys, the mules being loaded with +ammunition.) The white men, as a rule, had to walk. The Hottentots +were sometimes useful as camp cooks, but they suffered so much from +fever as to become a burden to the expedition. + +[Illustration: A MNYAMWEZI PORTER.] + + “My first occupation [writes Speke][56] was to map the country. + This is done by timing the rate of march with a watch, making + compass bearings along the road, or any conspicuous marks,--as, for + instance, hills off it,--and by noting the watershed,--in short, + all topographical objects. On arrival in camp every day came the + ascertaining, by boiling-point thermometer, of the altitude of the + station above the sea-level; of the latitude of the station by + the meridian altitude of a star taken with a sextant; and of the + compass variation by azimuth. Occasionally there was the fixing + of certain crucial stations at intervals of sixty miles or so, by + lunar observations ... for determining the longitude, by which the + original-timed course can be drawn out with certainty on the map by + proportion.... The rest of my work, besides sketching and keeping a + diary, which was the most troublesome of all, consisted in making + geological and zoölogical collections. With Captain Grant rested + the botanical collections and thermometrical registers. He also + undertook the photography. The rest of our day went in breakfasting + after the march was over,--a pipe, to prepare us for rummaging + the fields and villages to discover their contents for scientific + purposes,--dinner close to sunset, and tea and a pipe before + turning in at night.” + +Speke noticed in Uzegura deposits of pisolitic limestone in which +marine fossils are observable. He draws attention to the interesting +fact that a limestone formation occurs with a few breaks almost +continuously from the southwest coast of Portugal, through North +Africa, Egypt, and part of the Somali country, across Arabia to eastern +India.[57] In connection with this it may be mentioned as a point of +great interest that Mr. C. W. Hobley (Sub-Commissioner in the East +Africa Protectorate) discovered deposits of limestone in the Nyando +valley, about forty miles from the northeast corner of the Victoria +Nyanza. + +Speke’s expedition travelled on with little trouble as far as Usagara. +The complete harmony which existed at all times between Speke and Grant +contributed much to the smoothness of the arrangements. At Usagara, +however, they had trouble with one of their caravan leaders (Baraka). +The Hottentots became increasingly sick and helpless, and Captain Grant +was seriously ill with fever. However, they pushed on to that East +Coast range of terraced mountains which is nowadays dotted with not a +few mission and government stations. There is charming and fantastic +scenery in these mountains, which rise in parts to an altitude of seven +thousand feet. From Usagara were sent back some of the Hottentots, a +collection of natural history specimens, and the camera. Speke had +greatly desired to illustrate the scenery of equatorial Africa by means +of photography,--a most serious undertaking in the sixties. Grant +worked the apparatus, but was rendered so ill by the heat of the dark +tent that Speke decided to abandon photography and to rely instead on +his companion’s drawings. + +Ugogo, which is a rolling plateau to the west of the Usagara range, +gave the travellers some trouble. Here, as elsewhere, there was famine, +owing to the scarcity of water and the incessant raids on the part +of the Masai from the north or the Wahehe from the south. The Wagogo +themselves are a truculent people, who have given serious annoyance to +caravans during the last hundred years. They speak a Bantu language, +but have very much more the physical aspect of the Nilotic tribes to +the north, being, like them, very much addicted to nudity.[58] On the +plains of Ugogo Grant killed the largest and handsomest of all the +gazelles, which had henceforth borne his name.[59] + +In Ugogo Speke also records the existence of that strange archaic type +of dog, the _Otocyon_, a specimen of which he killed. On the western +frontier of Ugogo the expedition was menaced with serious trouble. The +rapacious native chief made increasing demands on them for taxes. A +number of their porters deserted, and their Wanyamwezi carriers who +had agreed to replace the missing men were scared away by the threats +of the Wagogo. In addition, the rainy season had come on, and was +unusually heavy, flooding the country in all directions. The expedition +would have come to grief but for the game shot by its leaders, which +kept the men from starvation. It was only got out of its difficulties +at last by the friendly help of the Arabs of Unyamwezi, who sent +seventy porters to the relief of the explorers. When Speke reached the +borders of Unyamwezi and took stock of his position, he found that +six of his Hottentots were dead or had been sent back to the coast +in charge of several free porters, that twenty-five of the Sultan of +Zanzibar’s slaves and ninety-eight of the original Wanyamwezi porters +had deserted, all the mules and donkeys were dead, and half of his +property had been stolen. + +Unyamwezi, “the Land of the Moon,” is a remarkable part of eastern +Africa. Practically it consists of nearly all the land lying between +the Victoria Nyanza on the north and the vicinity of Lake Rukwa on +the south. It is longer (from north to south) than it is broad. Prior +to the German occupation it had ceased to be a single kingdom, and +was divided into a number of small and mutually hostile states only +united by the common bond of the Kinyamwezi language. This varies a +good deal in dialect, though it has distinctive features of its own. +In Usukuma to the north it offers more resemblance to the languages +of the Uganda Protectorate; on the south it links on in some way with +the languages of the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau. How the country became +associated with the moon is not known; for the most part of it is an +undulating plateau, with occasional rift valleys that contain salt or +fresh water pools. A great part of its drainage goes towards Tanganyika +or Lake Rukwa. The language of its people is typically Bantu, but +they would seem to be a very mixed race physically. Some of them have +the ugly features of the Congo Pygmies; others again are strikingly +like the Galas and the Bahima. The bulk of the nation consists of tall +and very muscular Negroes, with thoroughly Negro features. They are +celebrated as porters, being able to carry burdens twice as heavy as +could be offered to any other carriers. They have also a keen instinct +for trade, and it is supposed that, first of all Bantu nations of the +East African interior, they opened up communications with the coast. +There has been trade going on between the Zanzibar coast and Unyamwezi +for at least five centuries,--a trade, however, which has been subject +to prolonged interruptions. The Zanzibar Arabs did not settle in the +country until a hundred years ago. + +Conversing with the Arabs of Unyamwezi, Speke again heard from them +of “a wonderful mountain to the northward of Karagwe[60] so high and +steep that no one could ascend it. It was seldom visible, being up in +the clouds, where white matter--snow or hail--fell on it.” The Arabs +also spoke of the other lake, which was salt and also called Nyanza, +but quite different from the Victoria.[61] From the Arabs Speke also +heard of the naked Nile Negroes to the north and east of Unyoro, and +of those of them (the Lango) who, like the Turkana farther east, wear +their hair in enormous bags down the back. They told him that Lake +Tanganyika was drained by the Marungu River.[62] Some of this knowledge +Speke perverted to fit in with erroneous and preconceived notions. At +this interval of time, however, one is surprised at the correctness +of geographical information given to Burton, Speke, and Baker by the +Arabs. One is still more surprised that the constant hints as to the +great snow-mountain range of Ruwenzori should have so often fallen on +deaf ears. + +In Unyamwezi Speke’s further progress was much delayed, owing to the +difficulty in getting porters. The country to the east from which he +had come was convulsed with wars between the Arabs and the natives. +In these wars figured, as a bandit leader of handsome appearance and +remarkable adventures, the celebrated Manwa Sera, a dispossessed +Unyamwezi chief. In the course of these wars Speke’s principal friends +amongst the Arabs were killed or disappeared. Amongst them was the +celebrated Snay, the first Arab to enter Uganda, and in fact the +first non-Negro to convey the news of the existence of Uganda to the +civilised world. On the northwest trouble was threatened by the warlike +country of Usui, whose chief, Suwarora, blocked the way to Karagwe by +his extortions. To the west and north also the country was being raided +by the Watuta, a mysterious race of warlike nomads who were said to +be of Zulu origin, and were, according to all accounts, the furthest +extension of the great Zulu invasion of East Africa, which took place +in the first half of the nineteenth century. + +Speke attempted to recruit porters in the northern parts of Unyamwezi, +but without success. He therefore returned to the headquarters of the +Arabs at Kaze, and from this point sent back the last of the Hottentots +to the coast. Speke, seeing that he could get no farther without +bringing some order into the country, negotiated a peace between Manwa +Sera and the Arabs. The peace with Manwa Sera broke down. Finally Speke +decided to leave Bombay and Grant behind in northern Unyamwezi with the +loads which it was impossible to transport. With such porters as he had +he pushed on to the northwest and entered Buzinza, the first country +ruled by Bahima chiefs.[63] Speke remarks rightly that specimens of +this Hamitic (Gala) aristocracy extend from the south shores of the +Victoria Nyanza southwards as far as the Fipa country and the edges of +the Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau. On pages 128 to 134 of his book[64] Speke +gives an excellent description of the maddening extortions of a petty +African chief. This behaviour on the chief’s part should be borne in +mind when the armchair geographer is inclined to lay all the blame on +the European and Arab for commencing wars with Negro tribes. + +From February to October Speke had the most trying experiences which +were to await him on this journey. He travelled backwards and forwards +from Kaze to Uzinza, endeavouring in all possible ways to get porters +to carry him to Usui. In these journeys he caught a severe cold, the +effects of which lasted for months in a most distressing cough, and +some disease of the chest which he could not diagnose. His caravans +were robbed, though the goods were sometimes recovered. Several of his +Swahili headmen turned traitors; Bombay alone was faithful. Grant, when +he had recovered from fever, marched and countermarched. But Speke +had fortunately managed months before to send on word of his coming +to Suwarora, Chief of Usui, who himself was a vassal of Rumanika, the +great Hima ruler of Karagwe. Suwarora sent an envoy with his mace to +invite Speke to proceed at once to his court. This intervention made a +good impression on the treacherous chief of Buzinza, Lumeresi. Much of +the stolen property was recovered, and the expedition obtaining a few +porters started for Usui in October, 1861. + +Grant was left behind with such of the property as could not be +removed. Speke, when he left Buzinza, “was a most miserable spectre in +appearance, puffing and blowing at each step he took, with shoulders +drooping and left arm hanging like a dead log, which he was unable to +swing.” At last, after incredible worries and trouble, occasioned by +the demands for “hongo” (tribute) on the part of every petty chief +whose territories they crossed, they reached the large country of +Usui or Busui at the southwest corner of the Victoria Nyanza. Usui is +“a most convulsed looking country of well-rounded hills composed of +sandstone.... Cattle were numerous, kept by the Wahuma (Bahima), who +would not sell their milk to us because we ate fowls and a bean called +_maharagwe_.” In Usui the caravan was incessantly worried at night +by the attacks of thieves until one of these was killed, whereupon +the Basui congratulated the expedition, saying that the slain man was +a wonderful magician. “They thought us wonderful men, possessed of +supernatural powers.” Suwarora and his fellow-chief Vikora were most +exacting in their demands for hongo. At last, after heart-breaking +delays, they got away out of Suwarora’s country. + +Between Usui and Karagwe was one of those no man’s lands, which at +times are such a relief to the harassed traveller,--a land in which +he can enjoy the beauty of the landscapes, the excitement of sport in +complete freedom from the harassing attentions of Negro tribes. In +this lovely wilderness they were greeted by officers sent to their +assistance by Rumanika, who said, “Rumanika has ordered us to bring +you to his palace at once, and wherever you stop a day, the village +officers are instructed to supply you with food at the King’s expense; +for there are no taxes gathered from strangers in the Kingdom of +Karagwe.” Speke noted the little lake of Urigi, and learned from the +natives that this was the remains of a much larger sheet of water. They +declared, in fact, that this lake had formerly extended far to the +southwards in the direction of Tanganyika, having been at one time a +considerable gulf of the Victoria Nyanza. + +For the first time since leaving the coast they travelled day after day +through beautiful and attractive scenery, in which rhinoceroses, both +“white” and black, and herds of hartebeest mingled with the splendid +long-horned cattle of the natives. Speke and Grant shot several +square-lipped “white” rhinoceroses. (Stanley subsequently did the same +in this country of Karagwe. Though it has since been shot on the Upper +Nile, this creature is now becoming extinct in East Equatorial Africa.) +“Leaving the valley of Uthenja, we rose over the spur of Nyamwara, and +found we had attained the delightful altitude of five thousand feet. +Oh, how we enjoyed it!--every one feeling so happy at the prospect +of meeting the good king Rumanika. Rumanika the king and his brother +Nyanaji were both of them men of noble appearance and size.... They had +fine oval faces, large eyes, and high noses, denoting the best blood +of Abyssinia. Having shaken hands in true English style, which is the +peculiar custom of the men of this country, the ever-smiling Rumanika +begged us to be seated on the ground opposite to him, and at once +wished to know what we thought of Karagwe, for it had struck him his +mountains were the finest in the world; and the lake, too, did we not +admire it?” + +[Illustration: A HIMA OF MPORORO, NEAR KARAGWE.] + +Speke subsequently went to see the queens and princesses of this +royal family, who, by means of a milk diet, were kept immoderately fat. +Of one of them he writes: “She could not rise; and so large were her +arms that between the joints the flesh hung down like large, stuffed +puddings. Then in came their children, all models of the Abyssinian +type of beauty, and as polite in their manners as thoroughbred +gentlemen.” + +Rumanika and his brothers received their presents with a graceful +gratitude which was striking after the ill manners of the Negro chiefs +in Unyamwezi and Usui. Rumanika begged Speke to remain a little while +in his country so that he might send on word of his coming to the +King of Uganda. Speke consented to do so, and when walking about +the vicinity of the king’s capital, descried the distant cone of +Mfumbiro. This he at once identified with the Mountains of the Moon +and with the story of the snow-capped peaks. It is curious, seeing how +friendly were all the Bahima, and what facilities were given to him for +travelling about the country of Karagwe, that he made no attempt to +enter Ruanda whilst waiting to go on to the north, and thus obtain a +nearer acquaintance with the Mountains of the Moon. Had he done so, he +might perchance have caught a glimpse of Ruwenzori. Grant’s drawing of +Mfumbiro and other volcanoes (since explored by many travellers) is a +truthful one. + +In Rumanika’s country Speke discovered the water tragelaph which now +bears his name (_Limnotragus spekei_). This creature has the hoofs +very much prolonged, so as to enable it to walk on floating vegetation +and marshy ground. Speke at once discerned that this creature was +closely allied to the water tragelaph found by Livingstone on Lake +Ngami. + +[Illustration: SPEKE’S TRAGELAPH (_Limnotragus spekei_).] + +The existence of this Bahima[65] aristocracy in the countries west +and south of the Victoria Nyanza was not reported for the first time +in Speke’s account of his second journey to the Victoria Nyanza. +First of all, in the early fifties, the Zanzibar Arabs brought to the +coast--either at Mombasa or Zanzibar--accounts of a race of “white” +men who lived on the Mountains of the Moon. Burton, analysing these +stories at Kaze in Unyamwezi, reduced them to accounts of Bahima, who +were believed to have the features and complexion of Abyssinians. +Speke’s arrival in Buzinza and Karagwe made us partially acquainted +with the facts. We now know that at some relatively remote period not +less than two thousand years ago the lands between the Victoria and +Albert Nyanzas were invaded from the northeast by a Caucasian race +allied to the Gala and the Egyptian. These ancestors of the Bahima +mingled to some extent with the indigenous Negroes, and so somewhat +darkened the colour of their skins and acquired hair more like the +Negro’s wool. This pastoral people brought with them herds of cattle +from the direction of Abyssinia or Galaland,--cattle with enormous +horns, sometimes over three feet in length. This breed of cattle is +found at the present day in southern and western Abyssinia. It is also +depicted--with other breeds on the Egyptian monuments. It is supposed +to be allied in origin to the stock which gave rise to the ordinary +humped cattle of India,--the Zebu type. These oxen with enormous +horns--horns which are not only very long but sometimes very large +in girth--are found westwards as far as the vicinity of Lake Chad, +and in a more degenerate type farther west still, to the sources of +the Niger. It might be thought that they were also related to the +long-horned cattle of South Africa, but it is sometimes asserted that +the long-horned South African cattle owe their main origin to the +introduction of Spanish breeds by the Portuguese, the cattle met with +by the first Europeans in South Africa having belonged to the humped +zebu type. + +The Bahima once founded an empire which stretched from the northern +limits of Unyoro and the Victoria Nile westward to the Congo Forest and +southward to the coast of Tanganyika. This ancient Empire of Kitara +split up into a number of states governed for the most part by Hima +dynasties, though in Uganda the native kings became more and more Negro +in aspect through their fathers’ intermarriage with Negro women. But +for the most part friendly relations subsisted between all the states +into which the Empire of Kitara was subdivided; it was only in more +recent times that the existing blood feud sprang up between Unyoro and +Uganda. The Bahima were reverenced and admired by the mass of the Negro +population as the descendants of supernatural beings who had brought +to these lands what little civilisation they possessed. Intermarriage +constantly took place between the dynasties of Buzinza, Usui, Karagwe, +Ruanda, Mpororo, Ankole, Unyoro, and Uganda. This and other causes for +intercommunication gave intelligent chiefs like Rumanika a considerable +grasp of African geography. These chiefs knew that their world was +bounded on the west by the impenetrable Congo Forest. They knew all +about Tanganyika, the Victoria Nyanza, the Masai countries, the course +of the Nile as far north as Gondokoro, and even the existence of Lake +Rudolf. Perhaps also they had a glimmering knowledge not only of +the “Turks” on the White Nile (which was the case), but also of the +existence of men like themselves in Galaland and Abyssinia. Speke and +subsequent travellers found these Hima sovereigns and their courts +very different to the petty Negro states of East Africa. Besides the +recognised king (a member of a long dynasty), there were regularly +established Court officials and functionaries, and an orderly system +of government. Travellers like Speke were not slow to appreciate the +influence which this Gala invasion of equatorial Africa had on the +Negro types. We now begin to feel that this Negrified Caucasian has +interpenetrated most parts of Negro Africa between the Cameroons and +Zanzibar, and between the northern limits of the Sudan and Natal. +In the western prolongation of Africa something like the same +infiltration of a superior race has been brought about by the Tawareqs +of the Sahara. This Libyan race is also of the Caucasian family, more +directly so indeed than the curly-haired Gala, who, mixing with the +Libyan, laid the foundation of Ancient Egyptian civilisation. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SPEKE IN UGANDA + + +Speke and Grant both seem to have taken the shape and existence of the +Victoria Nyanza for granted. No doubt from the highlands of Karagwe and +Buddu they occasionally caught glimpses of the distant Nyanza; besides +which the chiefs and the Arabs spoke of its existence as a fact which +could be ascertained by one or two days’ journey to the east. Speke was +more concerned himself with losing no time in getting to the point at +which the Nile left the Victoria Nyanza. He made little or no attempt +to delineate the coast line of that lake with any accuracy, and as +we know, he placed the west coast much too far to the east, reducing +the lake to almost two-thirds of its actual area. Seeing how near he +marched to the coast in Buddu, it is curious that he got no sight of +the large archipelago of the Sese Islands,[66] which can be sighted +from a distance of many miles. There is no indication of these islands +on his map. Apparently he made no attempts to check his computation +of the altitude of the Victoria Nyanza, which in 1858 he computed +at 3740 feet (an estimate not far off the correct one of 3775 feet). +All the other altitudes taken by his boiling-point thermometer seem to +be too low. His surmise that the Ripon Falls are only 3308 feet above +sea-level is more than four hundred feet too low; and if his altitudes +in northern Unyamwezi are correct (which I doubt), the waters of the +Victoria Nyanza must be a huge, pent-up dam which would flood large +tracts of German East Africa. + +[Illustration: THE RIPON FALLS FROM THE WEST BANK.] + +Grant had to be left behind in Karagwe, owing to an ulcerated leg. +Speke decided upon going to Uganda alone, but despatched the head-man +of his caravan, Baraka, with a companion to the north of Unyoro, +providing him with a letter to Petherick. He himself entered Uganda +(first of all Europeans to do so) on the 16th of January, 1862. +He travelled along the coast country of Buddu, and soon began to +appreciate the beauty of the land. + + “I felt inclined to stop here a month, everything was so very + pleasant. The temperature was perfect. The roads, as indeed they + were everywhere, were as broad as our coach roads, cut through the + long grasses, straight over the hills and down through the woods + in the dells,--a strange contrast to the wretched tracks in all + adjacent countries. The huts were kept so clean and so neat, not a + fault could be found with them; the gardens the same. Wherever I + strolled I saw nothing but richness, and what ought to be wealth. + The whole land was a picture of quiescent beauty, with a boundless + sea in the background. Looking over the hills, it struck the fancy + at once that at one period the whole land must have been at a + uniform level with their present tops, but that, by the constant + denudation it was subjected to by the frequent rains, it had been + cut down and sloped into those beautiful hills and dales which now + so much please the eye; for there were none of those quartz dykes + I had seen protruding through the same kind of aqueous formations + in Usui and Karagwe, nor were there any other sorts of volcanic + disturbance to distort the quiet aspect of the scene.” + +[Illustration: A VIEW IN UGANDA.] + +Speke found an Uganda not much smaller in area than that Negro kingdom +is to-day. It lacked the large slices of Unyoro which were cut off and +added to Uganda after the commencement of the British Protectorate, +but it probably wielded a political influence over Busoga on the east +and Toro on the west, since denied to it. The population of this +kingdom in those days was computed at not far under four millions. Its +administrators at the present time are doubtful if the same kingdom +possesses eight hundred thousand inhabitants. The roads then were as +broad and as well kept as they are now. It is sad to think that the +people were possibly happier. True, their despotic ruler--whom they +regarded with almost religious veneration--slaughtered and tortured +those who frequented his Court; but the people at large were little +affected by these deeds of cruelty, even if they did not regard them +with that disinterested admiration which the Negro always accords to a +display of force. Syphilis had wrought but slight ravages amongst them; +indeed, it was a disease of but recent introduction (coming from +the Nile).[67] No religious feuds had begun. The people believed their +monarch to be the mightiest on earth, and themselves to be the happiest +folk, living in a real paradise. For beauty the land can hardly be +matched elsewhere in Africa. The one indisputable flaw in the climate +is the frequency of dangerous thunderstorms. But for these reminders +of a harsher law the Baganda might well have looked back on their life +under Mutesa and his predecessors as one of ideal happiness. They had +plenty to eat. Their banana groves provided the staple of their diet +unfailingly. In addition, the rich soil grew such legumens and cereals +as they required. The rivers, lakes, and marshes swarmed with fish. +Cattle throve. Goats, sheep, and fowls were abundant. Bark cloth from +the fig-trees and carefully dressed skins provided the clothing they +were so scrupulous to wear; for they shuddered at open indecency, +and yet led the most licentious lives, licentiousness then paying no +penalty in the spread of malignant diseases. This would be the way in +which the average Muganda might look back on the past. Of course there +was another side to the picture, no doubt. The paradisaical, unmoral +lives of easy indulgence in their banana groves ill fitted them in the +long run to cope with the attacks of stronger races. Fate led them +under the British ægis after the country had been brought to something +like ruin by ten years of civil war, and ten years of wretched +misgovernment at the hands of a wicked sovereign. Had the British +Protectorate not been declared, it is futile to suppose the country +could have retained its independence. It would have been annexed by +Germany or France, have been added to the Congo Free State or to the +Egyptian Sudan.[68] If by some miracle it had escaped any one of these +masters, it would have fallen victim later on to the Abyssinian raiders +of the present day. + +Speke found the country governed by a worshipped despot, Mutesa, +who had just succeeded to a throne which had been in existence for +something like four hundred and fifty years in an unbroken dynasty +originally of Hima origin. This despot was a young man of agreeable +countenance, with somewhat negroid features but a yellowish-brown skin. +He had the large, liquid eyes characteristic of all the princes and +princesses of this family. He lived in palaces which, though built +of palm trunks, reeds, and grass were often imposing in appearance, +with roofs rising to fifty feet above the ground. The interior of +these dwellings had a raised floor of mud, hard as cement, and was +divided into compartments by reed screens. The floor would be strewn +with a soft carpet of fine fragrant grass, on which leopard skins and +beautifully dressed ox-hides were laid down. The towns consisted +mainly of collections of these straw-thatched dwellings surrounded by +large gardens and banana groves, and fenced off from the outer world +by tall reed fences so plaited as to produce an agreeably variegated +aspect. Speke and his companion, and the Swahili porters with them, +noticed the resemblance offered by this beautifully “tidy” country of +Uganda to the civilised coast belt of Zanzibar. Negro savagery was +far removed, especially in sanitary matters, where the arrangements +were quite equal to those in force in England one hundred years +ago. The religion of the country consisted of a worship paid to a +large number of Ba-lubari or spirits, some of which were obviously +ancestral, and others the personification of earth, air, or water +forces.[69] The ministers of this religion were the Ba-mandwa or +sorcerer-priests. Originally these priests were of the Bahima stock. +Indeed, this religion which prevails amongst so many tribes in western +and equatorial Africa seems to have had (like the Bahima aristocracy) +a Hamitic origin, and to have come originally from the regions east of +the White Nile. + +Mutesa’s Court was remarkable for its hierarchy of officials. The +principal minister is now the Katikiro, but was formerly styled +Kamuraviona. He was formerly the commander-in-chief, though now no +longer associated with such office. Some functions were hereditary, +such as the Pokino or Governor of Buddu; but these hereditary posts +were formerly the recognition of the existence of feudatory princes. +The Kimbugwe was formerly the guardian of the king’s navel string and +the keeper of his drums. The Mugema was the commissioner in charge +of the royal tombs; Kasuju was the guardian of the king’s sisters; +Mukwenda was his treasurer; Kauta was the steward of his kitchen; +Seruti his head brewer; and so forth. In course of time many of these +functions were purely honorary. The system seems to have come, like so +much else of the civilisation of Uganda, from the Hamitic invaders, and +it bears a curious resemblance to the origin of similar functionaries +in the courts of Europe. + +Society also was divided much as it is in our own world. There were +the Royal Family and its collateral branches, known as Balángira, or +princes. The princesses were called Bambeja. The Baronage was styled +Bakungu. Then there was an upper class of functionaries known as +Batongoli, while the peasants were classed as Bakopi. + +Speke--handsome, manly, kindly, and straightforward--became an immense +favourite with the volatile tyrant of Uganda, with the queens (for +there were several queens--dowagers, mothers, consorts--at once in +Uganda), with the nobles, and with the people. “My beard,” he writes, +“engrossed the major part of most conversations; all the Baganda +said they would come out in future with hairy faces.” The Royal +Family of Uganda, he also remarks, gave orders without knowing how +they were to be carried out, and treated all practical arrangements +as trifling details not worth their attention; so that Speke and his +caravan sometimes found themselves not very well off for food. The +king or the queen-mother had said, “Let them be fed,” but ministers +were not equally eager to see the royal largesse awarded. The handsome +young king was extremely trying to deal with, as he put a great many +questions and seldom waited for the answers. His slavish courtiers were +constantly on their bellies, uttering incessant expressions of “Thank +you very much” (“Niyanzi-ge”) for whatever their chief was pleased to +do, say, or show to them. Not infrequently Speke intervened to save +the lives of queens or pages who for a nothing were condemned to a +cruel execution. On one occasion a picnic on the shores of the Victoria +Nyanza was attended by the following incident. One of Mutesa’s wives,-- + + “a most charming creature, and truly one of the best of the lot, + plucked a fruit and offered it to the king, thinking, doubtless, + to please him greatly; but he, like a madman, flew into a towering + passion, said it was the first time a woman had ever had the + impudence to offer him anything, and ordered the pages to seize, + bind, and lead her off to execution. These words were no sooner + uttered by the king than the whole bevy of pages slipped their cord + turbans from their heads, and rushed like a pack of cupid beagles + upon the fairy queen, who, indignant at the little urchins daring + to touch her majesty, remonstrated with the king, and tried to + beat them off like flies, but was soon captured, overcome, and + dragged away, crying on the names of the Kamuraviona and ‘Mzungu’ + (myself) for help and protection; whilst Lubuga, the pet sister, + and all the other women clasped the king by his legs, and kneeling, + implored forgiveness for their sister. The more they craved for + mercy, the more brutal he became, till at last he took a heavy + stick and began to belabour the poor victim on the head. Hitherto I + had been extremely careful not to interfere with any of the king’s + acts of arbitrary cruelty, knowing that such interference, at an + early stage, would produce more harm than good. This last act of + barbarism, however, was too much for my English blood to stand; and + as I heard my name, ‘Mzungu,’[70] imploringly pronounced, I rushed + at the king, and staying his uplifted arm, demanded from him the + woman’s life. Of course I ran imminent risk of losing my own in + thus thwarting the capricious tyrant; but his caprice proved the + friend of both. The novelty of interference even made him smile, + and the woman was instantly released.” + +Speke had quitted Grant in January, 1862. The two travellers did +not meet again till the end of May in the same year. Grant had been +constantly ill, and had been unable to make any survey of the lake +shore. It was not till the 7th of July that Speke and Grant obtained +leave to quit the capricious king on their journey eastwards to the +Nile. The day before they started Speke notes:-- + + “On the way home one of the king’s favourite women overtook us, + walking, with her hands behind her head, to execution, crying + ‘Nyawo’ in the most pitiful manner. A man was preceding her, + but did not touch her; for she loved to obey the orders of her + king voluntarily, and in consequence of previous attachment was + permitted as a mark of distinction to walk free. Wondrous world! It + was not ten minutes since we parted from the king, yet he had found + time to transact this bloody piece of business.” + +On the following morning the king replied to Speke’s farewell remarks +“with great feeling and good taste.” The king followed him with his +courtiers in a procession to his camp, and exhorted the porters to +follow the travellers through fire and water. “Then, exchanging adieus +again, he walked ahead in gigantic strides up the hill, the pretty +favourite of his harem, Lubuga, beckoning and waving with her little +hands, and crying, ‘Bana! Bana!’[71] All showed a little feeling at the +severance. We saw them no more.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +FROM VICTORIA NYANZA TO ALEXANDRIA + + +On the 28th of July, 1862, Speke stood by the side of the Ripon Falls, +where the Victoria Nile leaves the great Nyanza at the head of Napoleon +Gulf. Grant had gone off with a portion of the expedition on the more +direct route to Unyoro. Speke had reached the Victoria Nile first of +all below its exit from the lake, and describes the scene as follows:-- + + “It was the very perfection of the effect aimed at in a highly + kept park, with a magnificent stream of from six to seven hundred + yards wide, dotted with islets and rocks,--the former occupied by + fishermen’s huts, the latter by birds and crocodiles basking in the + sun,--flowing between fine, high grassy banks, with rich trees and + plantains in the background, where herds of topi and hartebeest + could be seen grazing, while the hippopotami were snorting in the + water and bustards and guineafowl were rising at our feet.” + +[Illustration: THE NILE AT THE ISAMBA RAPIDS (looking North). + +Where Speke first struck it.] + +Marching up the left bank of the Nile towards the lake, he thus +describes that river at the Isamba rapids:-- + + “The water ran deep between its banks, which were covered with fine + grass, soft cloudy acacia, and festoons of lilac convolvuli, whilst + here and there, where the land had slipped above the rapids, + bared spaces of red earth could be seen, like that of Devonshire; + there, too, the waters, impeded by a natural dam, seemed like a + huge mill pond, sullen and dark, in which two crocodiles, lying + about, were looking out for prey. From the high banks I looked down + upon a line of sloping wooded islets lying across the stream, which + divide its waters, and, by interrupting them, cause at once both + dam and rapids. The whole was more fairy-like, wild, and romantic + than--I must confess that my thoughts took that shape--anything I + ever saw outside of a theatre. It was exactly the sort of place, + in fact, where, bridged across from one side-slip to the other, on + a moonlight night, brigands would assemble to enact some dreadful + tragedy. Even the Wangwana (Zanzibaris) seemed spellbound at the + novel beauty of the sight, and no one thought of moving till hunger + warned us that night was setting in, and we had better look out for + lodgings.” + +Speke describes the Ripon Falls, where the Nile leaves the lake, as by +far the most interesting sight he had ever seen in Africa. The falls +are stemmed by rocky islands and crowned by magnificent trees.[72] + + “It was a sight that attracted one to it for hours,--the roar of + the waters, the thousands of passenger-fish, leaping at the falls + with all their might, the Basoga and Baganda fishermen coming + out in boats and taking post on all the rocks with rod and hook, + hippopotami and crocodiles lying sleepily on the water, the ferry + at work above the falls, and cattle driven down to drink at the + margin of the lake. The scene made, in all, with the pretty nature + of the country,--small hills, grassy-topped, with trees in the + folds, and gardens on the lower slopes,--as interesting a picture + as one could wish to see.” + +This was Speke’s furthest point eastward in connection with Nile +discovery. He confesses in his book that he has missed much by not +going through Busoga to see the northeast corner of the lake. Had +he done so, he might have cleared up at the very beginning the most +disputed portion of that lake’s geography. At the northeast corner +of the Victoria Nyanza is a long and narrow gulf which we now term +Kavirondo Bay. This gulf figures on Speke’s map as a semi-independent +Lake Baringo. Stanley, in his circumnavigation, wholly overlooked it, +as its mouth is blocked by islands. Joseph Thompson read a quarter of +the riddle. One-half was guessed by Mr. C. W. Hobley, and the remaining +quarter was cleared up by an expedition under Commander Whitehouse. + +[Illustration: RIPON FALLS, FROM BUGUNGA, WHERE SPEKE FIRST SAW THEM.] + +These falls of the Nile were named after the Earl de Grey and Ripon, +then President of the Royal Geographical Society; and the gulf of +the Victoria Nyanza, from which the Nile issued, was called Napoleon +Channel after the then Emperor of the French. Speke and his party, with +their Baganda guides, got into canoes, and paddled some distance down +the Nile north of the Isamba rapids. But just as they were nearing Lake +Kioga (of whose existence Speke was ignorant) they passed an important +town on the left bank of the Nile which was an outpost of Unyoro, +under a semi-independent chief. Here the party was received with the +greatest hostility, and obliged to give up the river route. Speke +struck inland to the waters of the Luajali, which he wrongly believed +to be another outlet of the Victoria Nyanza, and shortly afterwards +met Grant, who was on his return journey from the capital of Unyoro. +After some hesitation they decided to join forces and march on Unyoro +overland. By this means they entirely lost count of the course of the +Victoria Nile for some distance, and of the existence of the great +lakes Kioga and Kwania. As they crossed the boundary line and entered +Unyoro, Speke writes:-- + + “This first march was a picture of all the country to its capital: + an interminable forest of small trees, bush, and tall grass, with + scanty villages, low huts, and dirty-looking people clad in skins; + the plantain, sweet potato, sesamum, and ulezi (millet) forming + the chief edibles, besides goats and fowls; whilst the cows, which + are reported to be numerous, were kept, as everywhere else where + pasture-lands are good, by the wandering, unsociable Wahuma, and + were seldom seen. No hills, except a few scattered cones, disturb + the level surface of the land, and no pretty views ever cheer + the eye. Uganda is now entirely left behind; we shall not see + its like again; for the further one leaves the equator, and the + rain-attracting influences of the Mountains of the Moon, vegetation + decreases proportionately with the distance.” + +[Illustration: VIEW OF NAPOLEON GULF, FROM JINJA.] + +Speke had sent on, many months in advance, his head-man, Baraka, to +await him in Unyoro, and possibly to convey letters to Petherick. But +for this action in all probability a peaceful entry into Unyoro would +have been refused, as the Baganda were much detested there for their +predatory raids. Kamurasi, King of Unyoro, was very nearly as big a +scoundrel and as inhospitable to strangers as his son Kabarega, who is +now residing in the Seychelles Islands. After innumerable difficulties +caused by the caprices of Mutesa and the jealousies subsisting between +the Baganda and Banyoro, and the fierce suspicions of Kamurasi, they +reached the capital of that monarch who considered himself to be the +legitimate emperor over all the lands once ruled by the Bahima race. +This capital was situated then on a peninsula between the Kafu River +and the Nile, on what is now the soil of Uganda. The Kafu River, which +is a broad, marshy stream rising not far from the Albert Nyanza, is the +present boundary between the two kingdoms. Speke wrongly believed it to +be another outlet of the Nile. + +For nine days Speke and his companion were kept waiting before the +suspicious king could make up his mind to see them. From the 9th of +September to the 9th of November the whole expedition was detained +at the Court of this greedy tyrant. At his Court they heard of the +existence of a large lake, “Lutanzige,” to the west,[73] and asked +permission to go and see it. This was refused, and thus another +opportunity of adding an important piece of information to Nile +discovery was denied to Speke, who could have travelled to and from +the coast of Lake Albert in three weeks instead of wasting two months +at Kamurasi’s Court. However, during this long stay Speke managed to +send Bombay with some of Kamurasi’s men down the Nile and through +the Lango and Acholi countries to Petherick’s outpost. After Bombay’s +return with this cheering news, Speke was more than ever impatient to +get away. Kamurasi attempted to delay the departure under one pretext +or another, no doubt with the object of bleeding the expedition of more +and more gifts. At last, on the 9th of November, they descended the +Kafu River to its junction with the Nile, and found themselves on the +broad Nile, still lake-like in extent, owing to the vicinity of Lake +Kioga. In this manner, some travelling by canoe and some by land, they +reached the Karuma Falls, from which point they left the Nile, marching +across the marshy and then steppe-like countries of the Acholi, and +came first into touch with the influence of Egypt at Faloro, on the +borders of the Madi country. Here they met a Sudanese named Muhammad +Wad-el-Mek,--quite black, but dressed like an Egyptian and talking +Arabic. Muhammad was in command of some two hundred Sudanese, who, +by their association with Egypt, were known as Turks by the natives. +Muhammad Wad-el-Mek at first professed to be Petherick’s employé, and +then confessed that he was really the head-man of a Maltese trader +named De Bono. These were the men that Petherick had arranged with De +Bono were to come into touch with Speke’s expedition. + +Here, however, they met with some disappointment. Instead of being +allowed to proceed directly to Gondokoro, Muhammad Wad-el-Mek sought +to detain them by alleging that no boats would be waiting for them +at Gondokoro at that season (December). The usual heart-breaking +delays took place. Speke decided from this point (Faloro) to send back +Kijwiga,--a fairly faithful Unyoro guide, who had been with him now, +one way and the other, about a year, having originally been sent to +greet him in Uganda. Meantime Muhammad, De Bono’s agent, went off to +the southward with his men to fight one African chief on behalf of +another so as to secure a large quantity of ivory. + +Speke was shocked, during his stay in Unyoro, at the abominable way +in which the “Turks” treated the inoffensive Madi natives. At last, +on the 12th of January, 1863, Speke, disgusted and hopeless at the +delay, started ahead to a village called Panyoro. He was followed +up by Muhammad’s men, and they arrived at the Nile near the modern +station of Afuddu (close to the junction of the river Asua and the +Nile). At this place they found a tree with the letters M. I. inscribed +on its bark. This was the remains of an attempt on the part of the +Venetian traveller Miani to carve his name on a tree so as to give some +information to Speke, who had long been expected in this direction. At +this place there was another halt, which Speke and Grant employed in +killing game, and giving a great deal of the meat thus acquired to the +natives. + +On the first of February they started again, Muhammad having procured +porters by the most arbitrary methods. They followed the Nile down to +the confluence of the Asua River. This stream Speke imagined to flow +out of what we now call Kavirondo Bay. It is strange that so great a +geographer should have had such elementary notions about hydrography. +He gives the Victoria Nyanza something like four principal outlets, +much as the Portuguese in earlier days provided lakes in the centre +of Africa which fed impartially the Congo, the Nile, and the Zambezi. +Crossing the Asua, they emerged along the Nile rapids until they +arrived at the verge of the Bari country. One serious attack was made +on them, but was met by the determined measures taken by Muhammad. + +At last, on the 15th of February, 1863, they walked into Gondokoro. +Here their first inquiry was for Petherick. “A mysterious silence +ensued; we were informed that Mr. De Bono was the man we had to thank +for the assistance we had received in coming from Madi.” Hurrying down +through the ruins of the abandoned Austrian Mission to the bank of the +river, where a line of vessels was moored, the explorers suddenly saw +Mr. Samuel Baker marching towards them. “What joy this was I cannot +tell. We could not talk fast enough, so overwhelmed were we both to +meet again.”[74] + +Mr. Samuel Baker had conceived the idea of going to meet Speke at the +head waters of the Nile. He and his wife (the present Lady Baker) +arrived at Khartum, and there received much information and assistance +from Petherick in the furtherance of their work. As to Petherick +himself, he arrived with his wife also a few days after Speke reached +Gondokoro. Speke seems to have been rather hard on this man. We know +that Petherick went up the river to Gondokoro in 1862, expecting to +get news of Speke, and not imagining that he could have lost something +like a year of travel by his delays in Unyamwezi, Uganda, and Unyoro. +Being unable to remain indefinitely at Gondokoro without news of the +travellers, he arranged with De Bono to send Muhammad and his men in +the direction of Unyoro to found a post where Speke might be awaited. +As we know, these orders were carried out. Petherick was naturally +obliged to think of his own means of livelihood, for he was an unpaid +consul. He therefore went on an ivory-trading expedition west of +the Mountain Nile, knowing, of course, that Baker would be awaiting +the travellers, and that runners from the direction of Gondokoro +would keep him advised as to their approach. He and his wife reached +Gondokoro only a few days after Speke had arrived there. Speke, +however, refused all assistance at their hands, and decided to return +to Khartum on Baker’s dahabiah. Speke’s adverse report on Petherick, +combined with the intrigues of the Turks, who disliked his opposition +to the slave-trade, practically ruined Petherick, as we have seen in a +previous chapter. + +The journey of this wonderful expedition from Gondokoro down the Nile +(Speke mistaking the origin and course of its affluents as he went +along, so that his map in this respect is very incorrect) was broken +at Khartum, whence the Europeans and Negroes travelled across the +desert to Egypt. Of the hundred-odd porters who left Zanzibar with this +expedition in 1860, nineteen (including Bombay) reached Cairo with +Speke and Grant, the remainder having deserted, died, or been sent back +from various points. These survivors were generously treated by Speke, +who gave them an extra year’s pay as a gratuity, and orders for land +and marriage portions on their reaching Zanzibar. He also provided for +their free passage from Suez to Zanzibar via the Seychelles Islands. +Somehow or other they went on by mistake to Mauritius, where they were +treated most generously by the little colony. Thence they were sent in +safety to Zanzibar. From this point several of these men subsequently +journeyed with Stanley and other African explorers. Bombay, “Captain +of the Faithful,” died in 1886 (?), having been in receipt during the +last years of his life of a regular pension from the Royal Geographical +Society. + +Speke and Grant returned to England in the spring of 1863. By December +in that year Speke had finished his great book, the “Discovery of the +Source of the Nile.” Speke, soon after his return, was received by the +present king. In the autumn of 1863 he was given an ovation in the +county of Somerset worthy of his achievements. “Punch” accorded him +a cartoon drawn by Tenniel, but the British government did _nothing_ +for him, unless there can be attributed to its influence the paltry +satisfaction of granting to him through the Heralds College supporters +and an additional motto to his coat of arms. By this grant his family +is now entitled to add a hippopotamus and a crocodile as supporters to +their shield, a crocodile to their crest, the flowing Nile to their +coat of arms, and the additional motto, “Honor est a Nilo.” + +[Illustration: THE LAST MAP ISSUED TO ILLUSTRATE SPEKE’S THEORIES, +1865.] + +Meantime Burton had become a British consul on the West Coast of +Africa, and was returning to England in 1864. Speke had published +articles in “Blackwood” and a book which, as already related, made +uncomplimentary references to his former companion. The two great +travellers were invited to meet at the British Association at Bath in +1864 and discuss their different views as to the Nile sources; for +Burton, as a tit-for-tat, had published a work in collaboration with +Petherick, in which he sought to prove that Speke’s discovery of the +Victoria Nyanza was unimportant. Taking advantage of the traveller’s +admission that he had touched but seldom the shores of this great +lake, he denied its existence, and reduced it to a mere assemblage of +pools and swamps. Speke, before quitting Baker at Gondokoro, had told +him much of the Luta Nzige or Western Lake which had some connection +with the Nile, and Baker (as will be subsequently set forth) had +followed Speke’s indications with success, and discovered and named +the Albert Nyanza. His exaggeration of the length of this sheet of +water had convinced Burton that Speke was altogether mistaken, and +that he himself was wrong in having earlier stated that the Rusizi +River flowed into and not out of the north end of Tanganyika. (Neither +Speke nor Burton actually saw the Rusizi.) Burton therefore turned +the Rusizi into an effluent of Tanganyika, and made it a connection +between that lake and the Albert Nyanza. Had he had any glimmerings +of lakes Kivu, Albert Edward, and the Semliki, he would no doubt have +been still more certain of his hypothesis. As it was, Speke’s theories +have been shown subsequently to have been very near the whole truth. +The Victoria Nyanza is the main source of the Nile, though that river +finds another reservoir in the great swampy lakes of Kioga and Kwania +(which again receive much of the drainage of Mount Elgon), and a most +important contribution from the Albert Nyanza; for this last lake +is the receptacle of all the drainage of the Ruwenzori snow range. +At the time, however, Speke’s theory was not sufficiently supported +by evidence, and was certainly open to attack, the more so because +he had blundered by giving the Victoria Nyanza so many outlets. The +two great men were to meet and discuss their differences, and every +one knew that underneath a mere dispute on geographical theories lay +deep-seated bitterness of feeling. It was said that Speke, who hated +quarrelling, and perhaps felt some compunction as to the frankness of +his remarks concerning Burton, looked forward to this public meeting +with great dislike, the more so as he was a poor and unready public +speaker. But the intended conference was never to come off; on the +21st of September, 1864, Speke, whilst out partridge-shooting on his +father’s land at Jordans, near Ilminster, was scrambling over a stile +with his gun at full-cock. It was just one of those little imprudences +that even the wariest of African travellers commits when he returns to +civilisation. Both barrels of the gun were discharged into his body, +and he died within a few hours. The news was received by the British +Association at Bath just as the meeting was about to commence, and +as Burton was seated awaiting the arrival of his old comrade. This +terrible event hushed the difference between them. Burton’s wife, a +gifted woman, who sometimes wrote very good poetry, inscribed some very +beautiful lines to the memory of Speke. + +[Illustration: SPEKE’S HANDWRITING. + +(Letter to Laurence Oliphant.)] + +We take leave here of one of the greatest of African explorers, the +second greatest only, if Stanley is to be accounted the first. Only a +man of extraordinary energy, determination, bravery, tact, and of iron +constitution could have struggled through the difficulties which beset +Speke on his route from Zanzibar to the Victoria Nyanza, and from the +Victoria Nyanza to the navigable Nile. The purport of the expedition +was wellnigh wrecked between Unyamwezi and the Victoria Nyanza; it +ran many risks from the caprices of Mutesa; several times Kamurasi +threatened it with failure in Unyoro; other dangers awaited it in the +Madi and Bari countries, but it finally resulted in affording us the +main solution of the Nile Quest. As the outcome of Speke’s journey, +the Victoria Nyanza was placed on the map with some approximate +correctness as to shape and area; the shape and size of Lake Albert +Nyanza were guessed at with extraordinary accuracy, and the course +of the White and Mountain Nile was foreshadowed with the same amount +of truth as in the case of the Albert Nyanza. The remarkable Hima +aristocracy of equatorial Africa and the barbaric court of Uganda were +revealed to the world. Speke broke the back of the Nile mystery, just +as Stanley did that of the Congo. It only remained henceforth to fill +up the minor details of the map. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SAMUEL BAKER AND THE ALBERT NYANZA + + +Samuel White Baker was born in London on the 8th June, 1821, and was +the second and eventually eldest son of Mr. Samuel Baker, a city +merchant, who possessed large properties and sugar plantations in +Jamaica and Mauritius. Samuel Baker, the elder, at one time maintained +a small fleet of sailing vessels. He also became one of the first +Directors of the Great Western Railway. His family and grandfather were +mainly settled at Bristol, and were much connected with the navy in +the eighteenth century. Further back still the Bakers were members of +Parliament and Court officials. They came originally from London, then +became a Kentish family, then moved to Dorsetshire, then to Bristol, +and finally back again to London. Samuel Baker, the younger, was a +typical English boy. His biographer, Mr. Douglas Murray, describes him +as having been “of the Saxon type; a noble-looking boy, of very fair +complexion, light hair, and fearless blue eyes.” He was “enterprising, +mischievous, for ever getting into scrapes, and leading others into +them; but he was never known to tell a lie or do a mean thing.” His +career was very nearly brought to a premature close when he was twelve +years old by an attempt to make fireworks. He ignited a small heap of +gunpowder on the kitchen table, and caused a terrible explosion, which +blew him to the far end of the room and burnt his arm severely. + +He hated school, and received most of his education from a private +tutor and by a residence at Frankfurt in Germany. His father attempted +to put him in his London office; and this work, though excessively +irksome, was endured for a time, as he had early fallen in love with +the daughter of a Gloucestershire rector, whom he married when he was +only twenty-two. Soon after his marriage he went out to Mauritius +with his wife, to attempt the management of his father’s estates in +that island. But he was restless and dissatisfied with this career; +moreover, his three children, born in three years, all died. He +therefore started for Ceylon, to which island he was attracted by the +stories of big-game shooting. His interest was excited in the splendid +mountain region of the interior of Ceylon, which presents considerable +areas for European occupations between six thousand and eight thousand +feet in altitude. Here for nine years he worked at founding an English +settlement of planters, which exists to this day in a flourishing +condition, some of the land-owners being members of the Baker family. +But his wife, who bore him many children, suffered greatly in health. +In 1855 he returned to England, and wrote a book on Ceylon. At the +end of that year his wife died, and Baker, after leaving his young +children to be brought up in England, started for Constantinople, which +he reached at the close of the Crimean War. His idea was to travel in +Circassia, and see what advance in that direction Russia was making +towards India; but he spent several years in a rather objectless +fashion, shooting, fishing, and exploring in Asia Minor and Turkey in +Europe. + +In 1859 he settled down as Manager-General of a British-made railway +from the Danube to the Black Sea. Whilst this railway was being made +he met in Hungary the lady who became his second wife.[75] The railway +was completed in 1860, and Baker once more became restless. Big-game +shooting in Asia Minor--splendid as it seems to have been at that +period, when he could shoot as many bears, boars, wolves, red deer, and +roe deer as he wished--did not content him; his thoughts turned towards +Africa and the Nile. He arrived at Cairo with Mrs. Baker in 1861, with +the idea of travelling up the Nile to meet Speke and Grant coming from +Zanzibar via the Victoria Nyanza. + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by Maull & Fox._] + +SAMUEL BAKER, 1865.] + +But Baker resolved, before attempting anything so difficult as the +exploration of the White Nile above Gondokoro, to learn something of +African travel and Sudanese Arabic. He therefore left the main Nile +at Berber and ascended the Atbara River, the last affluent which the +Nile receives on its way to the Mediterranean;[76] the first running +river encountered by the traveller ascending the Nile that can be said +to flow through tropical Africa,--the Africa with the typical Ethiopian +fauna and flora. + + “After a scorching march of about twenty miles we arrived at + the junction of the Atbara River with the Nile [writes Baker]; + throughout the route the barren sand stretched to the horizon + on the left, while on the right, within a mile of the Nile, + the soil was sufficiently rich to support a certain amount of + vegetation, chiefly dwarf mimosas and the _Asclepia gigantea_.... + The Atbara has a curious appearance; in no part was it less than + four hundred yards in width, while in many places this breadth + was much exceeded. The banks were from twenty-five to thirty feet + deep: these had evidently been overflowed during floods, but at + the present time the river was dead, not only partially dry, but + so glaring was the sandy bed that the reflection of the sun was + almost unbearable. Great numbers of the _Dum_ palm (_Hyphæne + thebaica_) grew upon the banks.... The only shade there is afforded + by the evergreen Dum palms.... Many pools were of considerable + size and great depth. In flood time a tremendous torrent sweeps + down the course of the Atbara, and the sudden bends of the river + are hollowed out by the force of the stream to a depth of twenty + or thirty feet below the level of the bed. Accordingly, these + hollows become reservoirs of water when the river is otherwise + exhausted.... These pools are full of life, huge fish, crocodiles + of immense size, turtles, and occasionally hippopotami.... The + animals of the desert gazelles, hyaenas, and wild asses--are + compelled to resort to these crowded drinking places.... + Innumerable doves, varying in species, throng the trees and seek + the shelter of the Dum palms; thousands of sand grouse arrive + morning and evening to drink and to depart.” + +In the pools of the Atbara Baker for the first time shot +hippopotamuses. He also started fishing with a rod and line, and on one +occasion caught an enormous “turtle.”[77] + +At the end of June they were nearly suffocated with the heat and dust +of the Sudan summer, but they were to experience the effects of the +melting of Abyssinian snows and of the descent of the tropical rains +on that African Switzerland. On the 24th of June Baker was lying half +asleep on his bed by the margin of the river when he fancied he heard a +rumbling sound like distant thunder. This roar increased in volume till +it awoke his Arabs, who rushed into the camp shouting, “The river! The +river!” + + “We were up in an instant, and my interpreter in a state of intense + confusion exclaimed that the river was coming down, and that the + supposed distant thunder was the roar of approaching water.... + Many of the people were sleeping on the clean sand of the river’s + bed, and were only just in time to reach the top of the steep + bank before the water was on them in the darkness.... The river + had arrived ‘like a thief in the night.’ When morning broke I + stood upon the banks of a noble river, the wonder of the desert! + Yesterday there was a barren sheet of glaring sand with a fringe of + withered bush and trees upon its borders.... No bush could boast + of a leaf, no tree could throw a shade: crisp gum crackled upon + the stems of the mimosas.... In one night there was a mysterious + change.... An army of water was hastening to the wasted river, + which had become a magnificent stream some five hundred yards + in width and fifteen to twenty feet in depth. Bamboos and reeds + with trash of all kinds were hurried along the muddy waters.... I + realised what had occurred: the rains were falling and the snows + were melting in Abyssinia. These were the main source of the Nile + floods.” + +Baker left the Atbara in a land of wild asses and gazelles, and +travelled to Kassala,--a fortress of the eastern Sudan since rendered +famous by the struggle for its possession between Dervishes and +Italians. Kassala is situated on the right bank of the river Mareb, +which rises close to the Red Sea on the northern slopes of the +Abyssinian plateau. The Mareb has every intention of reaching the Nile, +or rather the Atbara, and no doubt did so in past epochs; but at the +present time northwards of Kassala it loses itself in the desert. + + “There was an extraordinary change [writes Baker] in the appearance + of the river between Gozerajup and this spot. There was no longer + the vast sandy desert with the river flowing through its sterile + course on a level with the surface of the country, but after + traversing an apparently perfect flat of forty-five miles of rich + alluvial soil, we suddenly arrived upon the edge of a deep valley, + between five and six miles wide, at the bottom of which, about two + hundred feet below the general level of the country, flowed the + river Atbara. On the opposite side of the valley, the same vast + table-lands continued to the western horizon. + + “We commenced the descent towards the river; the valley was a + succession of gullies and ravines, of landslips and watercourses; + the entire hollow of miles in width had evidently been the work of + the river. How many ages had the rains and the stream been at work + to scoop out from the flat tableland this deep and broad valley? + Here was the giant labourer that had shovelled the rich loam upon + the delta of lower Egypt! Upon these vast flats of fertile soil + there can be no drainage except through soakage. The deep valley + is therefore the receptacle not only for the water that oozes from + its sides, but subterranean channels bursting as land-springs + from all parts of the walls of the valley, wash down the more + soluble portions of the earth, and continually waste away the + soil. Landslips occur during the rainy season; streams of rich mud + pour down the valley’s slopes, and as the river flows beneath in + a swollen torrent, the friable banks topple down into the stream + and dissolve. The Atbara becomes the thickness of pea-soup, as its + muddy waters steadily perform the duty they have fulfilled from age + to age. Thus was the great river at work upon our arrival on its + banks at the bottom of the valley. The Arab name, ‘Bahr-al-Aswad’ + (black river), was well bestowed. It was the black mother of Egypt, + still carrying to her offspring the nourishment that had formed the + Delta. + + “At this point of interest the journey had commenced; the deserts + were passed, all was fertility and life; wherever the sources of + the Nile might be, the Atbara was the parent of Egypt! This was my + first impression, to be proved hereafter.” + +Baker gives a fine description of the splendid type of Arab who is +still found in the regions of the Atbara:-- + + “He was the most magnificent specimen of an Arab that I have ever + seen. Although upwards of eighty years of age, he was as erect as + a lance, and did not appear more than between fifty and sixty; he + was of Herculean stature, about six feet three inches high, with + immensely broad shoulders and chest, a remarkably arched nose; eyes + like an eagle, beneath large, shaggy, but perfectly white eyebrows; + a snow-white beard of great thickness descended below the middle of + his breast. He wore a white turban, and a white cashmere abbai or + long robe, from the throat to the ankles. As a desert patriarch he + was superb, the very perfection of all that the imagination could + paint, if we would personify Abraham at the head of his people.” + +This fine old Sheikh brought ten of his sons, most of them as tall +as himself. He seems to have been the father of many children,--a +fortunate circumstance for the country, though no doubt nearly all +of his stalwart descendants were extirpated in the miserable wars +following on the Mahdi’s revolt. + +Baker ascended the Atbara to its upper waters, where it is known as the +Settit (higher up still as the Takaze). Here he had magnificent hunting +of big game amongst the Hamran Arabs, whose extraordinary prowess with +the sword he describes most vividly. They would follow up elephants and +hamstring them with a single blow of their long weapons, which were +like those of the Crusaders. (As a matter of fact, the generality of +the Hamran swords were manufactured at Sollingen in Germany.) In this +land Baker saw innumerable giraffes, and most of the big antelopes of +Central Africa, including Kudu and Oryx. The country about the Upper +Atbara below the Abyssinian highlands was exactly like an English park, +though the trees were mainly acacias. Here and there was a gigantic +baobab. In the waters of the river was found the now well-known +Lung-fish, the _Protopterus_. + +From the upper waters of the Atbara and its many tributaries Baker, +skirting the western terraces of Abyssinia, reached the river +Rahad,--an Egyptian affluent of the Blue Nile which flows nearly +parallel to the river Dinder. These two streams rise on the western +flanks of the Abyssinian tableland, and enter the Blue Nile about one +hundred miles southeast of Khartum. On his way down this river Baker, +in the country of Galabat, met two German lay missionaries proceeding +to Abyssinia in spite of the objection expressed to their presence by +King Theodore. “One of these preachers was a blacksmith, whose iron +constitution had entirely given way, and the little strength that +remained he exhausted in endless quotations of texts from the Bible, +which he considered applicable to every trifling event or expression.” + +In June, 1862, the Bakers reached Khartum. After a long stay at the +Pethericks’ house, Baker decided, as already related, to go in search +of Speke. His wife, the present Lady Baker, accompanied him. As already +related, she was a Hungarian lady of great beauty, and possessed of +extraordinary courage. Her fame as “_the_ Lady” (Es-sitt) still lingers +among the Nile Negroes. + +It has already been shown that Baker succeeded in being the first +European to greet Speke and Grant. He received from these travellers +the legacy to complete their task of ascertaining definitely the +existence of the western Nile lake (Albert), of which Speke had heard +under the name of Luta Nzige. On the 26th of March, 1863, the Bakers +left Gondokoro on this errand. + +Muhammad Wad-al-Mek, De Bono’s agent, and all the other Nubian Nile +traders, did their very utmost to prevent Baker returning along Speke’s +route through the Bari country. They incited his Khartum men to mutiny. +Baker, being unable to obtain porters, owing to the excessive hostility +of the slave-traders, employed the camels he had brought with him +from Khartum for his transport. As the slave-traders had threatened, +if he followed in their footsteps, to raise the natives about him, he +determined to reach the back country of Lotuka first, and therefore +deliberately strewed some of his goods in the way so as to delay the +slave-traders, who stopped to pick them up. He was outdone at his own +game, for a large caravan of “Turks” reached the Elliria country nearly +as soon as he did. The leader of this expedition was one Ibrahim. Mrs. +Baker resolved to see what could be done by a direct appeal to whatever +the man might possess of generosity. The Bakers threatened that if +he did them harm he would probably be hung at Khartum, while if he +assisted them to see this lake, they would see he was well rewarded. +The result was that a truce was patched up between the slave-traders +and Baker’s small expedition. Nevertheless, a mutiny happened among +Baker’s camel-men in the vicinity of Lotuka. Some of these men ran away +and joined a slave-trading party, which, however, was massacred by the +Lotuka. Henceforth Baker’s few men stuck to him faithfully, in terror +of what might happen to them from his evil eye. + +Baker journeyed southward through the splendid Lotuka country,--a +land of which we know even now scarcely more than he told us forty +years ago. The Lotuka people are a splendid race of Negroids, with a +good deal more Gala blood in their veins than is the case with the +Masai, to whom they are closely allied in language, but who dwell +very much farther to the east and south. Since the days of Baker’s +adventure some of the Lotuka have become Muhammadans, and they are +no longer completely nude in consequence. Their country is a very +mountainous one, and on the whole well watered. It will probably play +a considerable part in the future of the Uganda Protectorate. Working +steadily south through the Madi and Acholi countries, the Bakers forded +the Asua, the great southeastern tributary of the Mountain Nile. Here +nearly all their porters deserted, and as their camels had died in the +Madi country, they were obliged to abandon all loads which were not +absolutely necessary,--such as ammunition, and presents for Kamurasi. + +[Illustration: A NATIVE OF UNYORO.] + +At length they arrived at the Karuma Falls on the Victoria Nile, +and entered Unyoro. Their first reception in Unyoro was hostile, +because Muhammad Wad-al-Mek had preceded them, and had made the worst +impression by his treatment of the Banyoro. At first Baker desired to +follow the Nile down stream till it entered the Albert Nyanza, but the +Banyoro would not allow him to do anything of the kind, or to make +any journey off the main road along the Victoria Nile to Kamurasi’s +capital. Contrary to their anticipations, Kamurasi received the Bakers +well; and this was the more fortunate, as Mr. Baker was very nearly +dead with fever. But Kamurasi soon showed his evil nature. He refused +to allow Baker to proceed due west to the Albert Nyanza, declaring +that lake was distant a six months’ journey. Ibrahim, the slave and +ivory trader, had purchased all the goods he required, and had left +Unyoro. All Baker’s porters, except thirteen, had deserted. Finding, +however, there was nothing more to be got out of Baker, Kamurasi +relented, accepted a double-barrelled gun, and sent off the explorer +and his wife with two guides and an escort of three hundred men. This +escort, however, was soon sent back, owing to their unruly behaviour. +Somehow or other, with such porters as could be procured from village +to village, they managed, in the teeth of fearful misfortunes, to +reach the Albert Nyanza at a place called Mbakovia, on the southeast +coast. On this journey Mrs. Baker nearly died from sunstroke, and +Baker himself was frightfully ill. But on the 16th of March, 1864, +they had discovered a great lake “with a boundless sea-horizon to the +southwards,” which they named the Albert Nyanza. + +At the time of Baker’s visit no doubt (though he does not say so) +there was a good deal of mist about this lake,--a common feature. +The mist and the clouds seem to have prevented the travellers from +getting any glimpse of the mass of the Ruwenzori snow-range which lay +not many miles distant from them to the south. They also believed +(though they were then a day’s journey from the end of the lake) that +there was a boundless sea-horizon to the south. Their misapprehension +of the geography of this lake has often caused surprise; but apart +from a natural tendency to exaggerate the importance of their own +particular lake, in looking to the southward they were looking up the +broad valley of the Semliki, which was undoubtedly at one time--at any +rate for a distance of some fifty miles--a southern extension of the +Albert Nyanza. This valley was bordered on either side by cliff-like +mountains--plateau edges--continued northwards along the coasts of the +Albert Lake. To the west of Lake Albert the plateau tilts westwards +towards the Congo basin. Baker called the western cliffs and the +foothills of Ruwenzori the Blue Mountains,--a name they might very well +continue to bear, as there is no native designation for these heights, +which separate so abruptly and by only a few miles the basin of the +Congo from the basin of the Nile. + +After a short stay at Mbakovia, the Bakers got into canoes and coasted +along the Albert Nyanza to Magungo, where the lake is entered by the +Victoria Nile. They ascended the Victoria Nile and discovered the +Murchison Falls, “where the river drops in one leap one hundred and +twenty feet into a deep basin, the edge of which literally swarms with +crocodiles.” On their overland journey in the direction of the Karuma +Falls, their porters again deserted, and for two months they were +stranded, almost at death’s door, living with difficulty on wild herbs +and mouldy flour; occasionally, but rarely, obtaining fowls from the +natives. Once more they came within the persecution of Kamurasi, who +pestered Baker for his assistance in a war he was carrying on against +his relation, Fowuka. Whilst Baker was hesitating, the Nile was crossed +by one of De Bono’s caravans of ivory-traders, who had entered into an +alliance with Fowuka. They were just about to attack Kamurasi’s army +(and with their one hundred and fifty guns would have easily defeated +it) when Baker planted the British flag in Kamurasi’s camp, and +warned De Bono’s soldiers that the Unyoro king was now under British +protection. Overawed by Baker’s threats, the ivory-traders withdrew +to the north side of the Nile. The only return that he received from +Kamurasi for this service was that the latter placed every obstacle +in his way to prevent his leaving Unyoro. At the same time Mutesa of +Uganda, having heard of a white man’s arrival in Unyoro, and imagining +that Kamurasi was stopping his further journey to Uganda, sent a large +army to ravage Unyoro. Kamurasi fled to some islands in the Nile, +and left Baker to shift for himself, without provisions or beasts +of burden, at the Karuma Falls. From this point he managed to send +messages to Ibrahim, the slave and ivory trader, and the latter came +to his assistance. With the aid of Ibrahim, the Bakers, who had lost +everything except guns and ammunition, eventually managed to return +to Gondokoro, though they were nearly killed on the way by the Bari +tribe, which had risen against the slave-raiders. At Gondokoro their +troubles were not ended, for the sudd had begun to form, and obstructed +the passage of the White Nile. Plague also had broken out in Khartum. +But the travellers fought through all obstacles, any one of which +might have wrecked an expedition conducted by less intrepid people, +and reached Khartum in May, 1865. Here they remained two months to +recuperate, and during this time they managed to secure the banishment +of one of the slave-traders who had incited the mutiny of their men at +Gondokoro in 1863. + +From Khartum they travelled to Berber down the Nile, and then started +on camels to cross the desert to Suakin. They reached England in the +autumn of 1865. By this time perhaps African exploration had become +more interesting to the British government, for Baker received for his +discoveries a well-earned knighthood,--a distinction which might very +well have been accorded to Speke or to Grant. As a matter of fact, the +only reward given to the last-named traveller was a C.B., which was +awarded, not for his marvellous “Walk across Africa,” but for the +inconspicuous services which he rendered some years later in connection +with the Abyssinian War. + +As the result of the Speke and Baker explorations, so far as published +maps were concerned, our knowledge of the Nile basin in 1865 was +as follows: The shape and area of the Victoria Nyanza were roughly +indicated, together with the outlet of the Victoria Nile at the Ripon +Falls. The course of the Victoria Nile was mapped (with a good many +blanks) from the Ripon Falls to the north end of Lake Albert Nyanza. +Baker was able to show that there was a widening of the Victoria Nile +opposite the eastern frontier of Unyoro, but it was some years later +before this widening was discovered to consist of two large lakes +(Kioga and Kwania). Baker had given an extremely exaggerated size to +the Albert Nyanza. Speke, on the other hand, had sketched this lake +with remarkable accuracy merely from hearsay. The course of the Nile +from the north end of Lake Albert to its junction with the Asua River +was quite unexplored. The rest of the course of the Mountain Nile was +mapped as far as its junction with the Bahr-al-Ghazal, but very little +was known about one of its branches, the Giraffe River. No further +researches beyond those made by the Turks had taken place on the Sobat +River. + +As for Sir Samuel Baker, we take leave of him here as one of the great +explorers of the Nile. He returned to the regions of the great lakes in +1869, having been appointed for four years in charge of an expedition +to subdue and annex to the Egyptian Empire the equatorial regions of +the Nile basin. This object involved him in incessant fighting in +Unyoro, with the slave-traders between Unyoro and Gondokoro, and with +the Bari. Some of these conflicts were forced on him; others, it is +to be feared, he precipitated by his determination to enlarge the +territories of the Egyptian Sudan. His time would seem to have been +passed mainly in warfare with one enemy or another, or in laying very +solidly the foundations of a civilised administration. His stay in +Equatoria resulted in but little addition to our knowledge of the Nile +and its affluents. A good many of his efforts for the welfare of the +country were thwarted by the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartum, +and after his departure, in 1873, some of his worst enemies among the +slave-traders were reinstated. This much must always be recorded to +the credit of Sir Samuel Baker’s work on the Upper Nile: he inspired +universal respect among the fair-dealing natives; he, first of all, +broke the back of the immense slave-trading industry which had sprung +up on the Mountain Nile, in Unyoro, and in the Acholi countries; +throughout these regions the natives can remember but one great and +good administrator before the present régime, and that is Sir Samuel +Baker. “Gordoom” Pasha is but a name, and represents little to their +minds; Emin they only remembered as an enthusiastic naturalist, who +did but little to check the rapine and wrong-doing of his Sudanese +soldiers; but “Baker Basha” is, in the remembrance of the old +people, the one heroic White man they have known: terrible in battle, +scrupulously just, at all times kind and jovial in demeanour amongst +friends; a born ruler over a savage people. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ALEXANDRINE TINNE AND THEODOR VON HEUGLIN + + +The journeys of Petherick and Miani in the western Nile basin +have already been described. The very interesting region of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal, however, had been relatively neglected by scientific +explorers down to the beginning of the sixties of the last century. +Petherick’s own map of these regions was not published till 1869. There +were two obstacles to water travel in this direction: the sudd, and the +terrible fevers which attacked Europeans. The introduction of steamers +on the Upper Nile to some extent enabled Europeans to force their +way up streams which were not to be penetrated by sailing-vessels. +Quite a rendezvous had been created at a place called Mashra-ar-Rak, +where many great streams coming from the Nyam-nyam country enter the +Bahr-al-Ghazal, which, as a geographical term, applied to the western +lake-like affluent of the Nile, may be said to begin its course here. + +[Illustration: ALEXANDRINE TINNE.] + +Miss Tinne, who with her German companions Von Heuglin and Steudner was +to considerably increase our knowledge of these regions, had already, +in 1859 and 1860, ascended the White Nile in sailing-vessels to near +Gondokoro. In 1861 she organised a great expedition in steamers and +boats, which was accompanied by her mother, her aunt, and, later on, +by several scientific explorers,--such as Baron d’Ablaing, Theodor von +Heuglin, and Dr. Steudner. This expedition was intended to explore the +region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, to see how far the Nile basin extended +westward in the direction of Lake Chad, and also, if possible, to +discover a great lake in the very heart of Africa, of which rumours had +been brought back by Miani and others.[78] + +Alexandrine[79] Tinne was the daughter of Philip Frederic Tinne and +Henrietta, Baroness van Steengracht Capellen. Her father, Philip +Tinne, was a Dutchman, who settled in England during the wars of the +French Revolution, the French invasion of Holland having brought his +family into trouble. The Tinnes were of remote French Huguenot origin, +having emigrated to Holland from Calais. But further back still they +came from Saxony. A very far back ancestor went to the Crusades, and +distinguished himself at Rosetta (Egypt) by clambering onto the Saracen +battlements. He received therefrom the soubriquet of “Tinne” (in Low +Dutch, a battlement) and a coat of arms, still used by the family, +embodying battlements. It is remarkable that Miss Tinne’s remote +ancestor should have sprung into fame in the thirteenth century at +the _mouth_ of the Nile. Philip Tinne, who emigrated to England at the +end of the eighteenth century, returned to Holland after Napoleon’s +downfall, and married a Dutch heiress, the daughter of Admiral van +Capellen. He died when his daughter Alexandrine was only five years +old, leaving her the richest heiress in the Netherlands. It is said +that when a young girl she had a serious love disappointment, and +dismissed or lost her fiancé. To stifle her mental anguish, she +undertook a course of travel;[80] and after staying for some time +in the Levant and Egypt, ascended the Nile in dahabiahs to near +Gondokoro. This journey was followed by the great expedition to the +Bahr-al-Ghazal in 1861. It is said that this expedition was even +provided with European lady’s-maids. Probably no equally luxurious and +well-equipped undertaking ever started for equatorial Africa. Miss +Tinne commenced her second Nile journey by ascending the main stream as +far as Gondokoro, and then, returning, she explored a portion of the +Sobat River. She set out once more with the whole party from Khartum +in February, 1863, and entered the Bahr-al-Ghazal. This was ascended +as far as the mouth of the Bahr-al-Hamr. From this point a journey was +then made overland to the Jur and Kosango rivers, and to the mountains +on the borders of the Nyam-nyam country. On this exploration the +travellers suffered most severely from fever. Dr. Steudner and the +Baroness van Capellen eventually died of blackwater fever, and the +remainder of the party only managed with the greatest difficulty +to reach Khartum in July, 1864, where further deaths occurred. The +geographical results of this expedition were not published in full till +1869, though Miss Tinne’s cousin printed some notes on their expedition +at Liverpool in 1864. + +[Illustration: ON THE JUR RIVER: SUDD BLOCKING THE CHANNEL.] + +After four years spent in various places in Egypt, Algeria, and Tunis, +Miss Tinne started from Tripoli with a very large caravan to proceed to +Lake Chad, intending afterwards to journey from Lake Chad to the Upper +Nile. + +Miss Tinne took with her two Dutch sailors to assist in the +organisation of her caravan, several Algerian women-servants, and her +confidential old Negress, Saadah, who was originally a slave freed by +Miss Tinne in the Sudan. The Turkish authorities made no opposition to +her journeys, nor do they seem to have been in any way to blame for +the catastrophe that occurred. Unfortunately, Miss Tinne, in order +to provide for the comfort of her followers as well as for herself, +decided to take with her one or more iron tanks filled with water, +which were carried by the camels. These tanks attracted much attention +when the expedition halted for a time at Murzuk, the capital of Fezzan, +where Turkish authority was still maintained. The rumour that they +contained treasure in coin which was to accompany this wonderful +princess into the heart of Africa spread from the bazaars of Murzuk +to the Tawareq of the desert, ever on the lookout to plunder caravans +crossing the Sahara. + +Miss Tinne had taken all reasonable precautions to secure the +friendship of the Tawareq on this journey. She had sent messages to +Ghat, an important Saharan town, to the chief Ikenukhen, with presents, +and requests for guides. The chief replied that he would meet her +himself at a water place on the way to Ghat, and send her the guides. +These guides apparently concerted measures with the Arab and Tawareq +camel-drivers of her expedition, and plans were evidently laid for her +murder and the plunder of her goods. + +The expedition had halted at Wadi Aberjong to await the Tawareq chief +Ikenukhen. On the early morning of the 1st of August Miss Tinne, in +her tent, heard the Arab and Tawareq camel-drivers disputing about +arranging the saddles of the Algerian women-servants. She called to the +Dutch sailors to stop the noise, which had developed into a sham fight. +The Dutch sailors went amongst the men to get at their own luggage +and take their rifles. The camel-drivers stopped their sham fight and +endeavoured to prevent the Dutch sailors obtaining their arms. Miss +Tinne, hearing the continued clamour, came out of her tent to inquire +its meaning. She held up her right hand to command attention. Suddenly +there was a cry of “Strike,” and a Tawareq made a cut at her with a +sabre, which severed her right hand almost entirely through the wrist, +so that it hung only by tendons of skin. The poor girl endeavoured to +replace it in position, and staggered back to her tent, where she sat +on a box. At the same moment that the blow was aimed at her one of the +Dutch sailors, Cornelius, was pierced through the body by a spear. The +other, Jacobse, was killed by a sabre cut cleaving his head. Cornelius, +with the spear passing right through him, ran into the tent and fell +at Miss Tinne’s feet. A man followed him, pinned him to the ground +with another spear, and fired two pistol shots into his head. Another +Tawareq struck Miss Tinne with a sabre on the nape of the neck, which +cut through the foulard enveloping her head, and severed the long +plait of her hair, but did not cut through the spine. She fell forward +to the ground, stunned. Two men then tore off most of her clothing, +and, seizing her by the heels, dragged her out of the tent to a spot a +few yards away, where they left her lying on the sand in the blazing +sunshine. Her poor old Negress, Saadah, followed, and raising her head, +gently rested it on her knee; but the Tawareq tore her away, and drove +her back into the camp. The unfortunate Alexandrine Tinne lay where +she was left from eight o’clock in the morning to three o’clock in the +afternoon, when death at last ended her sufferings. At intervals she +called piteously on her people, one by one, to bring her water, but +none were allowed to approach her. One of her Arab servants was asked +afterwards why they behaved so callously. He replied, “We had no arms, +we were like women: they kept us in the tent, and threatened to kill us +if we came out.” + +Her baggage was ransacked by the Arabs and Tawareq, among whom +disputes then arose as to the allotment of the Algerian waiting-maids +and men-servants. Strange to say, this dispute ended by both parties +agreeing to make no slaves. The servants were each given a camel and a +dollar, and allowed to return to Murzuk. + +The Pasha of Murzuk sent soldiers out to bury the bodies. They laid a +strip of calico about thirty yards long on the sand, and wound it round +Miss Tinne’s body by rolling it over with sticks, to avoid touching +her. Then they put boards on each side loaded with stones, and piled +sand over all. The two bodies of the faithful sailors were laid on each +side of her. Men were afterwards sent out to mark the spot, but the +sand of the desert had in the interval been blown over the place, thus +hiding the grave of this beautiful and talented woman.[81] + +[Illustration: LETTER OF MISS TINNE TO HER NEPHEW JOHN. + +Written from Tripoli, 1869.] + +The leader of not a few exploring parties in Africa has been alone +to blame for disasters to his expedition, by committing himself or +allowing his followers to commit misdeeds sufficient to justify +native hostility. But wherever Miss Tinne and her expeditions went in +Africa, they left behind them nothing but the memory of considerate +treatment, kindness, and acts of sumptuous generosity. In all the +preparations which Miss Tinne made for crossing the Sahara, and so +reaching the western limits of the Nile basin, she showed a desire +to conciliate the suspicions of the people, and paid generously for +assistance afforded. The fierce Berber tribes which range over the +Sahara Desert from North Africa to the neighbourhood of Lake Chad, +almost alone of all African races, have earned sharp reprisals from +Europeans for their innumerable acts of causeless treachery to +explorers. If ever the French occupy the district of Ghat, as they will +eventually some day, it is to be hoped that they will bear in mind the +massacre of Alexandrine Tinne and avenge it. + +This woman was the romantic figure in Nile exploration. Young and +beautiful,[82] remarkably accomplished, a daring horsewoman, a charming +Diana; mistress of many tongues, including Arabic, and generous to a +fault, it is little wonder that the “Signorina” (as she was called in +the days when most dragomen were Italian or Maltese) has lingered as a +beautiful and gracious demi-goddess in the remembrance of such Arabs +and Nile Negroes of the Egyptian Sudan as were not exterminated by the +Mahdi’s revolt. + + * * * * * + +Theodor von Heuglin was a native of Würtemberg. He was a scientific +observer and a naturalist much in the style of Schweinfurth. His +interest in the exploration of the Nile basin was rather in the +direction of zoölogy and anthropology. He began to travel in these +regions in the fifties of the last century. With Munzinger, a Swiss +(afterwards Munzinger Pasha), and Dr. Steudner, a German, he explored +Kordofan, and the regions round Khartum. In 1862 Von Heuglin and +Steudner joined Miss Tinne’s Nile expedition, and as her guest or alone +on their own account, explored the affluents of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +and the main White Nile. After the death of Steudner and of Miss +Tinne’s aunt and mother from blackwater fever, Heuglin turned away +from these regions with some disgust, and devoted himself henceforth +to the exploration of the healthier regions along the upper waters +of the Blue Nile and of the Atbara. In all this part of western and +northern Abyssinia he made valuable collections of natural history. Von +Heuglin’s books are of very great interest, and are full of valuable +natural history notes. His writings were published between 1860 and +1875, generally in Germany. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SCHWEINFURTH AND THE BASIN OF THE BAHR-AL-GHAZAL + + +As already related down to 1869, but little had been placed on the map +concerning the western tributaries of the Nile in the region now styled +generally the Bahr-al-Ghazal Province. The Bahr-al-Ghazal itself is the +gathering up of some nine great rivers. These unite to form a marshy, +lake-like stream, which indeed widens out into a lake of variable +size (Lake No) at its junction with the main or Mountain Nile. The +great breadth of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is often disguised, and the open +water reduced to a mere thread by an immense floating vegetable growth +which we now know by the name of _sudd_. The name “Bahr-al-Ghazal” +simply means a “River of Antelopes,” and is a designation given to the +great western affluent of the Nile by the Sudanese Arabs. Rumours of +this important contribution coming to the Nile from the west (and the +tributary periodical streams known as the Bahr-al-Arab or Bahr-al-Hamr +extend the Nile basin as far west as the frontiers of Wadai) reached +even the Greek geographers two thousand years ago, and induced some +of them to believe that the main sources of the Nile lay far to the +west, near where Lake Chad is situated on the map. Then this was +forgotten, and it was not until Arabs and Nubians had begun to extend +their commerce into the Sudan, when Egypt was under Turkish rule, that +the existence of the Bahr-al-Ghazal was again mooted. This affluent of +the Nile was first sketched on the map with an approach to definiteness +in 1771, when D’Anville plainly indicates its existence. In a very +truncated form it appears on the maps of the Nile drawn from the +surveys of the Frenchmen who accompanied the three expeditions sent by +Muhammad Ali to conquer the Sudan between 1839 and 1841. In the forties +of the last century Nubian slave-traders started in numbers to explore +these regions, firstly to purchase ivory, and secondly to acquire +slaves. The strange Nyam-nyam cannibals began to be heard of at Khartum +about 1845. Petherick himself went in these directions in 1848. He was +followed, as has been related, by Miani the Venetian, and by Miss Tinne +and Von Heuglin. First of all Europeans, Miani had penetrated so far +south up these affluents of the Bahr-al-Ghazal as to have heard from +the Nyam-nyam people of the existence of the Welle River, which he +reported to Petherick, and through Petherick to Speke, as a great river +flowing steadily to the west. This was the first hint received of the +southwestern limits of the Nile basin. + +But little precise information about the southern portions of this +wonderful region had reached Europe until the work of Schweinfurth was +completed in 1871. + +[Illustration: GEORG SCHWEINFURTH (1875).] + +Georg Schweinfurth is a native of Riga in the Baltic Provinces of +Russia. He is consequently of German extraction. He was born in +1837, and in the early sixties spent much time in exploring for +botanical purposes Nubia, Upper Egypt, southwestern Abyssinia, and the +regions between these countries and the Red Sea coast. The tropical +luxuriance of the vegetation in the outlying districts of Abyssinia +attracted him to further journeys towards the equator. He conceived +the idea of visiting the then least known part of the Nile basin, the +Bahr-al-Ghazal province. For this purpose he obtained ample funds from +the Royal Academy of Science at Berlin. Apart from the fact that he was +a German by descent and speech, his great explorations of the Nile were +due entirely to German support, and must be considered one of Germany’s +many contributions towards the Nile Quest. + +Schweinfurth landed at Suakin in September, 1867. Before proceeding +on his voyage up the White Nile, he resolved to commence with a +preliminary exploration of the mountains to the south and west of +Suakin between the end of the Nubian Alps and the beginning of the +Abyssinian highlands. This elevated district lies for the most part +within the watershed of the Atbara’s tributaries, though it also sends +down intermittent torrents to the Red Sea. In the mountains to the +south of Suakin first appears to any traveller coming from Egypt and +the north the characteristic vegetation of tropical Africa, especially +such types as the dragon trees (_Dracænæ_) and arborescent euphorbias. +These types begin at an altitude of about two thousand feet, as at that +height they obtain some moisture, whereas lower down the country is +mostly an arid desert. The Nubian _Dracænæ_ and those of the slopes of +the Abyssinian tableland are relatively dwarfish (at most some twenty +feet high) compared to the giant forms of these tree-lilies which are +met with in equatorial Africa. Aloes, of course, grow in the same +districts as the euphorbia and the dracæna. “Found in company with them +is a wild, unearthly-looking plant called the ‘Karaib’ (_Bucerosia_), +of which the branches are like wings, prickly and jagged round the +edges like a dragon’s back. They produce clusters of brown flowers +as large as one’s fist, which exhale a noxious and revolting smell, +the plants themselves being swollen with a white and slimy poisonous +juice.” Another item in this harsh vegetation is the _Sanseviera_, a +plant belonging to the same group as the aloes, lilies, and dracænas, +with isolated, leathery leaves like sword blades, though sometimes with +rolled edges like a thick, leathery whip. Higher up, at altitudes of +from four thousand to six thousand feet, the trees are covered with +clusters of _Usnea_ lichen. On the northern spurs of the Abyssinian +highlands is found the wild olive tree, “of low bushy shape, with +box-like foliage.” The wild olive is found nowhere else in tropical +Africa beyond the Abyssinian region. + +All watercourses with a supply of moist soil under ground just +sufficient for a few months’ vegetation are comprehended within the +Arab designation _Wadi_. Cheerless through the dry season, after the +first rain their level sand flats are clothed with the most luxuriant +flora; fresh-springing grasses put forth their pointed leaves and +give the sward the appearance of being dotted with a myriad spikes; +then quickly come the sprouting blades, and the river bed is like a +waving field of corn. Half-way between Singat and Erkowit Schweinfurth +halted at a wady of this character, which bore the name of Sarrowi. He +writes:-- + + “What a prospect! How gay with its variety of hue,--green, red + and yellow! Nothing could be more pleasant than the shade of the + acacia, nothing more striking than the abundance of bloom of the + Abyssinian aloe, transforming the dreary sand beds into smiling + gardens. Green were the tabbes-grass and the acacias, yellow + and red were the aloes, and in such crowded masses, that I was + involuntarily reminded of the splendour of the tulip beds of the + Netherlands: but here the garden lay in a waste of gloomy black + stone. One special charm of a desert journey is that it is full + of contrasts, that it brings close together dearth and plenty, + death and life; it opens the eyes of the traveller to the minutest + benefits of nature, and demonstrates how every enjoyment is allied + to a corresponding deprivation.” + +When he reached the Nile, coming from Suakin, he was received at +Berber by an old acquaintance, M. Lafargue, who was settled in that +starting-point for Suakin as a merchant and French vice-consul. +Lafargue, himself an experienced traveller on the Upper Nile, received +the German explorers with that hearty hospitality “which many other +desert wanderers have proved besides myself.” + + “Sir Samuel Baker [writes Schweinfurth] aptly compares such + receptions to the oasis in the desert. No necessity for letters of + introduction here as with us in Europe, no hollow forms of speech, + exchanging courtesies which perchance mean the very reverse; no + empty compliment of at best a tedious dinner; but here in the + Egyptian Sudan we are received with free and genial amiability; all + Europeans are fellow-citizens, and everything is true and hearty. + ‘What pleases me the most is the ease with which you travel in this + country; you come, you go, you return again as though it were a + walk.’ Such were M. Lafargue’s cordial words to me. We parted well + pleased with one another; I shall not see him again.” + +About that part of the journey from Berber to Khartum by way of the +Nile Schweinfurth gives a vivid description. For the first part of the +voyage, as far as Shendi and Matammah, the only considerable towns in +this district, the shore offered nothing attractive. It reminded him +of the Egyptian valley of the Nile only in two places,--the mouth of +the Atbara, and one spot where the renowned pyramids of Meroe formed a +noble background. + +Matammah was then a populous town, but dull and unenterprising. The +buildings, constructed of Nile earth, were insignificant in themselves, +and irregularly crowded together in a mass like huge ant-hills; not a +single tree afforded shade in the dreary streets, which were filthy +with dirt. + +The Nile voyage below Shendi was, however, rich in the charms of +scenery. This was especially applicable to the views afforded by the +river islands. These islands were so many throughout the whole extent +of the sixth cataract between the island of Marnad and the lofty +mountain-island of Royān, “that no one pretends to know their precise +number, and the sailors call them in consequence the ninety-nine +islands.” The landscapes on shore afforded the traveller a treat “which +no other river voyage could surpass.” Splendid groups of acacias, in +three varieties, with groves of ‘holy-thorn,’ overgrown by the hanging +foliage of graceful climbers, made the profusion of islands set in +the surface of the water appear like bright green, luxuriant, and gay +tangles. + + “Wildly romantic on the contrary, reminding one of the Bingerloch + on the Rhine, are the narrow straits of Sablu where the Nile, + reduced to a deep mountain stream, flows between high, bare granite + walls that rise to several hundred feet. + + “So much the more surprising appeared the breadth which the Nile + exhibited above this cataract, where it displays itself in a + majesty which it has long lost in Egypt. Below their confluence, + the waters of the Blue and the White Nile are distinctly visible + many miles apart. It is highly probable that at certain times the + level of the streams might show a difference of several feet; the + proposed establishment of a Nilometer should therefore take place + below the confluence, in order that with the help of the telegraph + accurate intelligence of its condition might be remitted to Cairo.” + +Schweinfurth reached Khartum on the 1st of November, 1868. He left that +place in January, 1869, for the Bahr-al-Ghazal. Of his voyage up the +White Nile he writes:-- + + “As the morning sun fell upon the low, monotonous shores of + the flowing river, it seemed at times almost as though it were + illuminating the ocean, so vast was the extent of water where the + current ran for any distance in a straight and unwinding course.... + The districts along the shore mostly retained an unchanging aspect + for miles together. Rarely does some distant mountain or isolated + hill relieve the eye from the wide monotony.... The attention is + soon attracted by the astonishing number of geese and ducks which + are seen day after day. The traveller in these parts is so satiated + with them, fattened and roasted, that the sight creates something + akin to disgust. The number of cattle is prodigious: far as the eye + can reach they are scattered alike on either shore, whilst, close + at hand, they come down to the river-marshes to get their drink. + + “The stream, as wide again as the Nile of Egypt, is enlivened by + the boats belonging to the shepherds, who row hither and thither to + conduct their cattle, their dogs in the water swimming patiently + behind.” + +Early on the third day he reached Getina, a considerable village +inhabited by Hassaniah Arabs (long since wiped out by the Dervishes). +Getina was then a favourite rendezvous of the Nile boats. The flats +here were bright with the luxuriant green of sedges which in their +abundant growth imparted to the banks the meadow-like character of +European river-sides. Thousands of geese (_Chenalopex ægyptiacus_), in +no degree disconcerted by the arrival of humans, paced the greensward. +Although in places the right bank was bounded by sand-banks thirty +feet high, the left appeared completely and interminably flat, and +occasionally admitted the culture of sorghum. “This remarkable +difference which exists between the aspect of the two banks, and +which may be observed for several degrees, is to be explained by a +hydrographical law, which is illustrated not only here, but likewise +in the district of the Lower Nile. As rivers flow from southerly into +more northern latitudes, their fluid particles are set in motion with +increased velocity, the result of which is to drive them onwards so as +to wash away the eastern bank, leaving a continual deposit on the west.” + +About two hundred miles to the south of Khartum more signs of +Tropical Africa begin to appear. Graceful, shade-giving acacias (_A. +spirocarpa_) grew on the river banks, where also were seen great +masses of large-leaved shrubs, many of them covered with the beautiful +blossoms of the _Ipomœa_ convolvulus. Hippopotamuses were abundant, +lions were heard roaring at night, and the semi-Arab, somewhat Nubian +population was gradually replaced by the naked, black, and lanky Shiluk +Negroes. Great monitor lizards (_Varanus_) and snakes rustled in the +dry grass, while _Cercopithecus_ monkeys, crowned cranes, and handsome +red and white waterbuck diversified the aspect of the river-banks; +huge crocodiles lay on the foreshore. In Negro Nileland Schweinfurth +first noticed the ambatch. This is really a member of the bean tribe +(_Herminiera elaphroxylon_), which grows in shallow water. Its leaves +resemble those of the acacia, and its blossoms are bold, pea-like +flowers of bright orange. + + “The ambatch is distinguished for the unexampled lightness of its + wood, if the fungus-like substance of the stem deserves such a + name at all. It shoots up to fifteen or twenty feet in height, and + at its base generally attains a thickness of about six inches. + The weight of this fungus-wood is so insignificant that it really + suggests comparison to a feather. Only by taking it into his hands + could anyone believe that it were possible for one man to lift on + his shoulders a raft made large enough to carry eight people on + the water. The plant shoots up with great rapidity by the quiet + places on the shore, and since it roots merely in the water, whole + bushes are easily broken off by the force of the wind or stream, + and settle themselves afresh in other places. This is the true + origin of the grass-barriers so frequently mentioned as blocking up + the waters of the Upper Nile, and in many places making navigation + utterly impracticable. Other plants have a share in the formation + of these floating islands, which daily emerge like the Delos of + tradition; among them, in particular, the _Vossia_ grass and the + famous papyrus of antiquity, which at present is nowhere to be + found on the Nile either in Egypt or in Nubia.” + +Schweinfurth notices a remarkable extinct volcano called Defafang, one +thousand feet high, which is situated some five miles from the east +bank of the Nile, in about latitude 10° 50′ north. This extinct volcano +was first discovered by Ferdinand Werne, who collected specimens +of the rocks,--chiefly basaltic lava. Defafang for a long time was +the boundary on that side of the Nile between the territory of the +Negroes on the south and that of the more or less Arab shepherds on +the north. + +[Illustration: SHILUKS.] + +At the village of Kaka, on the east bank of the White Nile, +Schweinfurth observed ruins of a fort which had once been the +headquarters of a renowned robber chief, Muhammad Kher. This man, who +flourished between 1840 and 1855, was a Nubian, who gathered round him +a number of well-armed Baggara Arab horsemen. He was one of the first +of the slave-traders to show how, by means of fortified stations, it +was possible to intimidate the Negroes of the Sudan and bring them +into subjection. Muhammed Kher and his Arabs devastated the country +for hundreds of miles along the banks of the Nile, exterminating +the population in many places. At Kaka Schweinfurth found himself +greeted by a great crowd of naked Shiluks, who, prompted by curiosity, +assembled on the shore. + + “The first sight of a throng of savages suddenly presenting + themselves in their native nudity is one from which no amount of + familiarity can remove the strange impression; it takes abiding + hold upon the memory, and makes the traveller recall anew the + civilisation he has left behind.... Although these savages are + altogether unacquainted with the refined cosmetics of Europe, they + make use of cosmetics of their own; viz., a coating of ashes for + protection against insects. When the ashes are prepared from wood + they render the body perfectly gray; when obtained from cow-dung + they give a rusty red tint, the hue of red devils. This colour is + only donned by land-owners. Ashes, dung, and the urine of cows + are the indispensable requisites of the toilet. The item last + named affects the nose of the stranger rather unpleasantly when he + makes use of any of their milk vessels, as, according to a regular + African habit, they are washed with it, probably to compensate for + a lack of salt.... Entirely bare of clothing, the bodies of the men + would not of themselves be ungraceful, but through the perpetual + plastering over with ashes they assume a thoroughly diabolical + aspect. The movements of their lean bony limbs are so languid, and + their repose so perfect, as not rarely to give the Shiluks the + resemblance of mummies; and whoever comes as a novice amongst them + can hardly resist the impression that in gazing at these ash-gray + forms he is looking upon mouldering corpses rather than upon living + beings.” + +As to the Bahr-al-Ghazal, Schweinfurth opines that the volume of +water brought down by the Gazelle River to swell the Nile is still an +unsolved problem. “In the contention as to which stream is entitled +to rank as first born among the children of the great river god, the +Bahr-al-Ghazal has apparently a claim in every way as valid as the +Bahr-al-Jabl (Mountain Nile). In truth, it would seem to stand in the +same relation to the Bahr-al-Jabl as the White Nile does to the Blue. +At the season when the waters are highest the inundations of the Ghazal +spread over a wide territory; about March, the time of year when they +are lowest, the river settles down in its upper section into a number +of vast pools of nearly stagnant water, whilst its lower portion runs +off into divers narrow and sluggish channels. These channels, overgrown +as they look with massy vegetation, conceal beneath (either in their +open depths or mingled with the unfathomable abyss of mud) such volumes +of water as to be in some places nearly unsoundable by moderate lengths +of pole or cord.” + +At the commencement of the real Bahr-al-Ghazal, where that broad +lake-like stream is formed by the confluence of the Dyur (Jur) and +other rivers, there was, before the uprising of the Mahdi and the +consequent devastation of the Sudan, a large trading-station originally +founded by the Nubian, Arab, and Coptic merchants of Khartum. This +was named Mashra-ar-Rak--transcribed, in the mincing Turkish fashion, +“Meshra-er-Rek.” Here merchants and travellers generally started on +their land journeys into the Nyam-nyam countries. Miss Tinne had paused +a long time at Mashra-ar-Rak, and it was supposed that there her +expedition had contracted the severe malarial fevers which eventually +caused the death of five out of its nine Europeans. Mashra-ar-Rak was +situated on a lake-like swelling of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, which expanse +is partly covered by four wooded islands. All the surroundings of this +lake-like estuary are very low and swampy. In all directions the eyes +rest on jungles of papyrus, with the exception of the few trees on the +islands aforementioned. + +A short time before Schweinfurth reached this place with its dismal +record of disease amongst Europeans, he heard that a French predecessor +had died not far from the Bahr-al-Ghazal. This was Le Saint, a French +naval officer, who had been despatched by the Paris Geographical +Society to make that extended exploration of the whole of the region +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal which Fate had destined Schweinfurth himself to +accomplish.[83] + +Schweinfurth’s own expedition had to be conducted in a most economical +and unobtrusive fashion. He made most of his great journeys between +the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the Congo watershed on foot. Remembering that +his expedition was purely scientific, and was financed by a scientific +society, he very wisely concerned himself with no question of ethics +or reform such as had hitherto caused all English explorers of these +regions to be hindered as much as possible by Nubians, Arabs, and +Turks. He was not there to undertake crusades, but to make collections. +He thus won and retained the friendship and confidence of men of all +colours, some of them, no doubt, great ruffians, but all made equally +to subserve the interests of science by affording sympathetic support +to one of the greatest and most genial of African explorers, Georg +Schweinfurth. Schweinfurth was no sympathiser with the slave-trade and +the barbarities to which it gave rise. “Throughout my wanderings,” he +writes, “I was for ever puzzling out schemes for setting bounds to this +inhuman traffic. On one point (i.e. the abolition of the slave-trade) +all are unanimous,--that from Islam no help can be expected, and that +with Islamism no pact can be made.” His reports on the behaviour of the +slave-traders did a great deal to bring about the abolition of this +devastation by Gordon Pasha and his officers some years later. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +SCHWEINFURTH’S ACHIEVEMENTS AND DESCRIPTIONS + + +Dr. Schweinfurth spent three years exploring the regions of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal, and returned to Europe in the autumn of 1871. During +the course of his journeys he took no observation of latitude or +longitude, but kept a most accurate dead reckoning. He laid down with +astonishing accuracy much of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, of the courses of the +Rōl, the Roah and its affluents, the Dogoru and Tondi, the Jur, Nyenam, +Ji, Biri, Kuru, and Dembo tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the upper +waters of the Sue and Yabongo; lastly, he crossed the Nile watershed +and entered that of the Congo, thus discovering the upper waters of the +Welle River and its many affluents. Here he thought that he had entered +the basin of the Shari River, but, as we know now, he had discovered +the head streams of that most important affluent of the Congo, the +Welle-Ubangi. + +Dr. Schweinfurth gave the first true and particular account of the +Congo Pygmies under the name of Akka, whom he found in the thickly +forested region on the northern limits of the Congo watershed; he drew +our attention to those remarkable “gallery” forests,[84] and to the +existence in the Nile basin of the chimpanzee, the gray parrot,[85] +and other West African types. He discovered a slightly civilised race +on this Congo-Nile water-parting--the Mangbettu--speaking a language +which has no known relations, but leading a life singularly similar to +that of the other semi-civilised Negro states of Unyoro and Uganda. +The Mangbettu and their chiefs exhibit traces of former intermixture +with Hamitic people. Dr. Schweinfurth also told us much we did not know +before as to the Nyam-nyam,[86] the Bongo, and the Dinka tribes. + +Schweinfurth possessed many qualifications for writing a book on +African exploration. He was a scientific botanist, and knew a great +deal of zoölogy. He had a quick ear for languages, and wrote down +vocabularies of the important dialects. He collected invaluable +notes on ethnology and anthropology. Although he was unable to do +much photography, he was a skilled draughtsman, and his beautiful +drawings are apt illustrations of his book. As regards the value of the +information he collected, no such book as Schweinfurth’s had appeared +before, with the exception of Barth’s classical work on the Western +Sudan; but Schweinfurth’s book was far ahead of Barth’s in the matter +of illustrations. These are as accurate as photographs, and yet much +clearer. More than any previous traveller who had written on Africa, +Schweinfurth is able to bring to our mental vision the different +aspects of vegetation. He describes the tree-lilies (_Dracænæ_), +with their bouquets of leaves like bayonets and their short, woody +stems, the Candelabra euphorbias, the coral red aloes, the dragon-like +_Bucerosia_, the leathery _Sanseviera_, and the gigantic clumps of the +grass-green _Salvadora_, which characterise the northern flanks of +Abyssinia. + +[Illustration: “PAPYRUS, FIFTEEN FEET HIGH.”] + +In another place he describes acacia groves on the right bank of the +White Nile above Khartum, with their enormous white bulbous thorns,[87] +and their oozy lumps of amber-coloured gum. He notes the remarkable +fact that little, if any, of the floating vegetation of the Upper +Nile reaches Egypt. He describes the jungles of papyrus, “fifteen +feet high,” the floating grass barriers and the sudd (which he calls +_sett_); the _suf_ reeds, the water-ferns, the floating _Pistia +stratiotes_ (like a pale-green lettuce), the duck-weeds, the beautiful +white and blue waterlilies. When he reached the vicinity of the +water-parting between the Nile and the Congo, he had entered the forest +region of West-Central Africa. This mighty tropical forest has no great +reverence for geographical boundaries, but overlaps in several places +the watershed of the Nile, while of course it exists in patches in +the basins of the Shari, the Benue, the Niger, and on the coast belt +of Upper and Lower Guinea. Perhaps the most marked feature of it, the +clearest indication of its West African nature, is the existence of the +climbing _Calamus_ palm, which is never found in typical East Africa. +The wonderful “gallery”[88] forests are described as follows:-- + + “Trees with immense stems, and of a height surpassing all that we + had elsewhere seen (not even excepting the palms of Egypt), here + stood in masses which seemed unbounded, except where at intervals + some less towering forms rose gradually higher and higher beneath + their shade. In the innermost recesses of these woods one would + come upon an avenue like the colonnade of an Egyptian temple, + veiled in the leafy shade of a triple roof above. Seen from + without, they had all the appearance of impenetrable forests, but, + traversed within, they opened into aisles and corridors which + were musical with many a murmuring fount. Hardly anywhere was + the height of these less than seventy feet, and on an average it + was much nearer one hundred; yet, viewed from without, they very + often failed to present anything of that imposing sight which was + always so captivating when taken from the brinks of the brooks + within. In some places the sinking of the ground along which the + gallery-tunnels ran would be so great that not half the wood + revealed itself at all to the contiguous steppes, while in that + wood (out of sight as it was) many a ‘gallery’ might still exist.” + +Most of these gigantic trees, the size of whose stems exceeds any +European forest growth, belong to the order of the _Sterculiæ_, +_Boswelliæ_, _Papilionaceæ_, _Rosaceæ_, or _Cæsalpiniæ_; to the +_Ficaceæ_, the _Artocarpeæ_, the _Euphorbiaceæ_, and the varied order +of the _Rubiaceæ_. Amongst the trees of second and third rank are a +few _Araliacea_, large-leaved figs, brilliant-flowered Spathodeas, +Combretums, and Mussændas, as well as innumerable other rubiaceous or +papilionaceous plants. There is no lack of thorny shrubberies; “and +the _Oncoba_, the _Phyllanthus_, the _Celastrus_, and the _Acacia +ataxacantha_, cluster after cluster, are met with in abundance.” +“Thick creepers climbed from bough to bough, the _Modecca_ being the +most prominent of all; but the _Cissus_, with its purple leaf, the +_Coccinea_, the prickly _Smilax_, the _Helmiæ_, and the _Dioscoreæ_, +had all their part to play. Made up of these, the whole underwood +spread out its ample ramifications, its great twilight made more +complete by the thickness of the substance of the leaves themselves.” + +[Illustration: A PATH THROUGH THE FOREST.] + +Down upon the very ground, again, there were masses, all but +impenetrable, of plants (mainly _Zingeberaceæ_ or else Arums) growing +large gorgeously painted leaves which contributed to fill up the gaps +left in this mazy labyrinth of foliage. First of all there were the +extensive jungles of the _Amomum_ and the _Costus_, rising full fifteen +feet high, and of which the rigid stems (like those of stout reeds) +either bar out the progress of a traveller altogether, or admit +him, if he venture to force his way among them, only to fall into the +sloughs of muddy slime from which they grow. + + “And then there was the marvellous world of ferns, destitute + indeed of stems, but running in their foliage to some twelve feet + high. Boundless in the variety of the feathery articulations of + their fronds, some of them seemed to perform the graceful part of + throwing a veil over the treasures of the wood; and others lent a + charming contrast to the general uniformity of the leafy scene. + High above these there rose the large, slim-stemmed _Rubiaceæ_ + (_Coffeæ_), which by regularity of growth and symmetry of leaf + appeared to imitate, and in a measure to supply the absence of, the + arboraceous ferns. Of all the other ferns the most singular which + I observed was that which I call the elephant’s ear. This I found + up in trees at a height of more than fifty feet, in association + with the _Angræcum_ orchis and the long gray beard of the hanging + _Usnea_.” + +Whenever the stems of the trees failed to be thickly overgrown by some +of these different ferns, they were rarely wanting in garlands of the +crimson-berried pepper. Far as the eye could reach, it rested solely +upon green which did not admit a gap. The narrow paths that wound +themselves partly through and partly around the growing thickets were +formed by steps consisting of bare and protruding roots which retained +the light, loose soil together. Mouldering stems, thickly clad with +moss, obstructed the passage at wellnigh every turn. “The air was no +longer that of the sunny steppe, nor that of the shady grove; it was +stifling as the atmosphere of a palm-house. Its temperature might vary +from 70° to 80° Fahr., but the air was so overloaded with an oppressive +moisture exhaled by the rank foliage that the traveller could not feel +otherwise than relieved to escape.” + + * * * * * + +In the second volume of his work Schweinfurth adds:-- + + “The cumbrous stems are thickly overgrown with wild pepper, and + the spreading branches are loaded with bead moss (_Usnea_) and + with that remarkable lichen which resembles an elephant’s ear. + High among the boughs are the huge dwellings of the tree-termites + (white ants). Some stems already decayed serve as supports for + immense garlands of _Mucuna_ (a bean), and overhung by impenetrable + foliage, form roomy bowers, where dull obscurity reigns supreme. + Such is the home of the chimpanzee.” + +Schweinfurth might have extended his researches further into the +unknown but for a disastrous campfire in the Dyur country, which +destroyed the greater part of his collections, journals, drawings, and +instruments. Eventually, with such of his collections as he was able to +save from the conflagration, Schweinfurth turned his steps northward +again, and reached Europe in 1871. He subsequently did much to increase +our knowledge of the botany of Abyssinia and Arabia, but never resumed +the rôle of African explorer. + +[Illustration: SCHWEINFURTH’S MAP.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +STANLEY CONFIRMS SPEKE + + +Dr. Schweinfurth evidently shared Burton’s opinions on the subject +of the Victoria Nyanza. Speke’s great discovery may be said to have +reached its low-water mark of depreciation in the map issued in 1873 to +illustrate Schweinfurth’s book, “The Heart of Africa.” On this map a +fairly correct estimate of the shape and area of the Albert Nyanza is +given, together with some hint of the abrupt commencement of the Congo +watershed west of Lake Albert. But the mountainous character of Unyoro +is greatly exaggerated, and the area of the great Victoria Nyanza is +taken up by five lakes and lakelets. Speke was dead, and Grant was +tired of asseverating that the Victoria Nyanza was one huge continuous +sheet of water. + +In 1873, just as Dr. Schweinfurth’s book was being published, Henry +Moreton Stanley, an Americanised Welshman, had returned to London from +the discovery and relief of Dr. Livingstone. Soon after his return +arrived the news of Livingstone’s death. The sorrow over this loss, and +enthusiasm at the half-finished discoveries on the great mysterious +river which Livingstone believed to be the Nile and everyone else the +Congo, caused the “Daily Telegraph” and the “New York Herald” to unite +in furnishing funds for a great expedition which should attempt to +clear up many African problems. This expedition Stanley (who therefrom +rose to be the greatest of African explorers) commanded. + +Starting from the coast opposite Zanzibar, whence so many expeditions +had set forth since Maizen[89] and Burton had made the first attempts, +Stanley travelled by the Unyamwezi route to the Victoria Nyanza, the +south shore of which he reached at the end of February, 1875. On +the 8th of March in that year Stanley (having put together a boat +which he brought in sections, and which he named the _Lady Alice_) +started--accompanied by eleven of his men--on a most adventurous voyage +along the eastern and northern shores of the lake. He coasted and named +the important southeastern arm of the Victoria Nyanza, which is known +as Speke Gulf. Passing rather hurriedly along the northeast coast of +the lake, he made one great blunder, in that he overlooked the very +narrow entrance to Kavirondo Bay (which is almost a separate lake), and +created instead a broad northern gulf which he called Ugowe Bay. Ugowe +Bay actually is the native name of quite a small shallow inlet on the +Uyoma coast. Stanley skirted at some distance the much indented shores +of Busoga, passed through what is now known as Rosebery Channel, and +so on up Murchison Gulf to the native capital of Uganda, then called +Rubaga (now known as Mengo). Here he had a splendid reception from +Mutesa, and here he met Édouard Linant de Bellefonds,[90] a Belgian in +the Egyptian government, who had been sent by Gordon Pasha to report on +the state of affairs in Uganda. + +Mutesa having agreed to send a large fleet of canoes to transport +all Stanley’s expedition to Uganda, Stanley then resumed his +circumnavigation of the lake, following the western shore. Passing +between the mainland of Karagwe and the little island of Bumbiri, he +was fiercely and unprovokedly attacked by the natives of that island, +who were a savage people ruled over by light-coloured Bahima chiefs. +Narrowly escaping disaster, he rushed through the opposing savages, got +into the _Lady Alice_, and his men paddled off with boards which they +tore up from the bottom of the boat. Having rejoined his expedition, +which he had left at a place called Kagehi, near to the modern German +station of Muanza, Stanley made one more blunder in his configuration +of the lake (which he was the first to set right years afterwards). +Deceived by a chain of islands, he curtailed the Victoria Nyanza of its +southwestern gulf, which extension of the lake Stanley subsequently +named after Emin Pasha. + +Reinforced by Mutesa’s fleet of canoes, Stanley’s entire expedition +was saved the long march through the Hima kingdoms to the west of the +Victoria Nyanza. But on his return journey to Uganda he was obliged to +stop and give a severe lesson to the Bumbiri islanders. These warlike +people barred the passage with their canoes. Stanley had been warned of +this opposition by the natives of Iroba on the mainland. Stanley seized +the king and two chiefs of Iroba as hostages, who should negotiate a +peace between himself and the king of Bumbiri. These hostages caught +for him the king’s son. At this moment a large reinforcement of Baganda +canoes arrived, and volunteered to go to Bumbiri and negotiate. But +they were attacked, and driven off with some loss. Stanley, therefore, +was obliged to inflict punishment. On the 4th of August, 1875, he +attacked Bumbiri, and drove its natives to the interior of the island. +The expedition then pursued its way along the west and north coasts +until they entered Napoleon Gulf and arrived at the Ripon Falls, where +the Nile leaves the lake. Here they found Mutesa encamped with a large +army, engaged in one of his periodical wars with Unyoro. + +Stanley not only ascertained the approximate area and shape of the +Victoria Nyanza, but he was able to define with some approach to +accuracy its principal islands and archipelagoes. After his journey +there was no longer any doubt as to Speke’s great discovery. The +question was settled once and for ever. + +[Illustration: THE VICTORIA NYANZA: UGANDA GOVERNMENT STEAMER IN THE +OFFING.] + +Leaving Uganda in December, 1875, Stanley accompanied an expedition +sent by Mutesa to the countries then governed by the Banyoro at the +base of Ruwenzori. Amazing to relate, Stanley was actually encamped +under the Ruwenzori range (called, by the Baganda, Gambaragara), +and yet was unaware of the importance of his discovery. He guessed +that the mountain in front of him might be from fourteen to fifteen +thousand feet high, and he called it Mount Edwin Arnold. What is +so extraordinary about the matter is that he relates (as though he +disbelieved them) the stories of the natives to the effect that white +stuff and intense cold characterised the upper parts of this mountain +range, yet he evinced little or no curiosity to ascertain the truth of +these statements. Of course at the time of his visit all the thirty +miles of snow and glaciers were concealed under heavy clouds. + +From the vicinity of Ruwenzori the party made its way to Lake Dweru, +which Stanley named Beatrice Gulf. This he learned from the natives +was (as it is) but a loop of a much larger lake. Years afterwards +Stanley was to realise that he had discovered a portion of Lake Albert +Edward. Quitting these regions of mysterious lakes and mountains, he +journeyed much more prosaically past the volcanoes of Mfumbiro and the +Hima kingdoms of Karagwe to Lake Tanganyika, which he reached at Ujiji +on its northeast coast. On this portion of the journey Stanley added +a good deal to our information regarding the ultimate source of the +Nile, the Kagera, though he was somewhat misled by native information, +and perhaps by exaggerated swamps, into the creation of a non-existing +lake, which he called the Alexandra Nyanza. His subsequent route across +Africa from Tanganyika to the mouth of the Congo does not concern the +present narrative. + +One interesting result of Stanley’s explorations of the Victoria +Nyanza, Uganda, and Unyamwezi was that Mr. (now Sir Edwin) Arnold[91] +was inspired to propose a Cape-to-Cairo overland telegraph wire to pass +via the Zambezi, Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, to Uganda and the Egyptian +Sudan, thereby forestalling both Cecil Rhodes and the author of this +book in the advocacy of a continuous line of British communications +between South Africa and Egypt. + +[Illustration: STANLEY’S IDEA OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA.. 1880.] + +It has been mentioned that Stanley’s letter to the “Daily Telegraph,” +summoning missionaries to the court of Mutesa, decided the fate of +Uganda. This letter met with an immediate response, and in 1876 two +parties of English missionaries were sent out by the Church Missionary +Society. The Rev. G. Lichfield, Mr. C. W. Pearson, and Dr. R. W. Felkin +were despatched by the Nile route. They travelled from Suakin to +Khartum, and thence, by the help of Gordon Pasha, to the Albert Nyanza +and Uganda. The other half of the missionary party (Lieutenant Shergold +Smith, R.N., the Rev. C. T. Wilson, and, amongst others, Alexander +Mackay, a Scottish engineer) made the journey by way of Zanzibar and +Unyamwezi. Some of these missionaries were detained at the south +end of the Victoria Nyanza. Lieutenant Shergold Smith--a man of great +promise--journeyed across the lake in a boat and reached Uganda; but +soon after his return to the south end of the lake he was killed in an +attack made by the natives of Ukerewe (Bukerebe) on the Arab traders. +Leaving Mackay, Lichfield, and O’Neil in Uganda, C. T. Wilson and +R. W. Felkin decided to return to Europe, taking with them envoys +whom Mutesa wished to send to England. On their return journey they +were greatly troubled by the sudd, which then--as frequently before +and since--practically blocked the navigation of the main Nile. They +therefore made a very interesting overland journey through Darfur and +Kordofan, and thence back into Egypt. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +GORDON AND HIS LIEUTENANTS.--JUNKER AND THE NILE-CONGO WATER-PARTING + + +In 1874 Colonel Purdy and Colonel Colston (Englishmen) were despatched +by the Egyptian government respectively into Darfur and Kordofan +for surveying purposes. By their expeditions a good deal of the +country along these half-dry affluents of the Bahr-al-Arab and the +water-parting between the Shari and the Nile was explored and made +known. Their work was added to in some respects (1875–1876) by Sidney +Ensor, a civil engineer, who surveyed the route for a railway from Wadi +Halfa to Al Fasher, the capital of Darfur. + +The energetic work undertaken by Sir Samuel Baker of suppressing the +slave-trade in the Equatorial Province of the Egyptian Sudan was +carried much further by the celebrated Charles Gordon, who was destined +to die at Khartum under circumstances conferring on him lasting fame. +Gordon Pasha (as he subsequently became) had, as it is hardly necessary +to state, been an engineer officer. It was thought that his appointment +to the supreme government of the Egyptian Sudan (an appointment which +Baker had not held, since he worked with an Egyptian Governor-General +at Khartum) would--as it did--materially assist the improvement of +communications. Gordon made an interesting survey of the country +between Suakin and Berber on the Nile, and together with Lieutenants +Watson and Chippendall mapped the main Nile from Khartum to Gondokoro +and Lake Albert. He also caused the circumnavigation of that lake to be +effected. + +Soon after Gordon had taken up the work begun by Sir Samuel Baker, a +curious theory had been started concerning Lake Albert Nyanza. In those +days, when so much personal feeling was very naturally imported into +Nile exploration, and one great explorer vied with another, theories +were often started by A to minimise the work of B or to exaggerate +the results of A’s own discoveries. It has been already recounted how +Burton, piqued by Speke’s great discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, which +might have fallen to Burton’s own lot had he been less crippled with +fever, subsequently strove to prove the non-existence of that lake as +a continuous sheet of water. Speke in the most wonderful manner had +not only discovered the Victoria Nyanza, but had, by the collection +of native information and the deductions he drew therefrom, made, on +the whole, a remarkably accurate forecast of the Nile system in the +region of the equatorial lakes. He had put Lake Albert on the map, +merely from report, in a shape and position closely in accordance with +actuality. Not, however, being able to visit this lake himself, he +had handed the task over to Sir Samuel Baker, who had discovered the +Albert Nyanza, but had not been able to ascertain its area and shape. +Both Speke and Baker, however, assumed that the Victoria Nile entered +Lake Albert, and quitted that lake as the main stream of the White +Nile. Neither explorer, however, nor most that came after them, could +state positively that they had mapped the Victoria Nile along its whole +course from the Ripon Falls to Lake Albert, nor had they traced the +course of the Nile from Lake Albert northward to Gondokoro. Therefore +in the early seventies some theorist had started the ingenious idea +that Lake Albert belonged either to the system of the Congo or the +Shari, and that its waters drained away by an unknown river at the +south end, or else by an outlet to the north, which was not the Nile, +as generally assumed, but a river which flowed westward to the unknown. +The discovery about this time of Lake Kioga further confused notions +about the Nile system, and it was thought that the Victoria Nile +discovered by Speke did not enter Lake Albert, but in some tortuous way +joined the Asua, and so flowed on past Gondokoro, leaving Lake Albert +altogether out of its system. + +[Illustration: THE VICTORIA NILE FLOWING TOWARDS LAKE KIOGA.] + +To settle these doubts, Gordon resolved to despatch Romolo Gessi,[92] +who was then little more than a steamer engineer, though, having +been the mate of a Mediterranean steamer, he was able to take +astronomical observations. Gessi was therefore instructed to +circumnavigate Lake Albert. This task he carried out in 1876. He +ascertained positively that the Victoria Nile entered Lake Albert and +left it again, and he connected his rough survey of the Albertine Nile +with the work which was being carried on up stream from Gondokoro +by two English engineer officers in Gordon’s employ, Lieutenants +Watson[93] and Chippendall. In 1877 Colonel Mason (an American) took +advantage of the first steamer being placed on Lake Albert to make a +survey rather more careful than that of Gessi, but neither of these +explorers ascertained the existence of the Semliki River or of the +snow-range of Ruwenzori, though it is said that in some of Gessi’s +private letters mention was made of a strange apparition “like +snow-mountains” in the sky, which had appeared to some of his men at +the south end of Lake Albert,--a remark that attracted no attention at +the time. Gessi also records having seen the mouth of a large river at +the south end of Lake Albert, but it never seems to have occurred to +him that this river was probably of the greatest geographical interest. + +Nevertheless, when Gessi returned to Khartum to report the result of +his Albert Nyanza explorations to Gordon, the latter exclaimed, “What +a pity you are not an Englishman!” This remark is supposed to have +been made from pique that the two English officers despatched by Gordon +(Watson and Chippendall) had not arrived in time to accomplish what +a Levantine Italian had successfully performed. Gessi was already +somewhat offended, because he considered that he had done an excellent +piece of work, and he had only received as a reward a present of a few +hundred francs and the decoration of the Mejidieh, third class. He +therefore flung his fez at Gordon’s feet and tendered his resignation. +He journeyed to Italy, and was received with great distinction by the +Italian Geographical Society at Rome, who presented him with their Gold +Medal. He resolved, however, to return to work as an explorer, giving +particular attention to anthropological and zoölogical researches. He +engaged two Austrian-Italians--Giacomo Morch and Riccardo Buchta--to +accompany him. Buchta deserves special notice, as he was the first +careful photographer to visit the regions of the Upper Nile. His +photographs of the native types and scenery of these countries taken +between 1878 and 1882 are remarkably interesting. + +Soon after Gessi’s arrival in Egypt with all his stores, he was +informed that a fire had broken out at Suez railway station, resulting +in the complete destruction of all his goods, involving a monetary +loss of something like twelve hundred pounds. He therefore returned to +Italy, gave up the idea of exploring the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and instead +resolved to start for the river Sobat, and work his way from the upper +waters of that stream to the southern regions of Abyssinia, where +two Italians--Cecchi and Chiarini--were supposed to be wandering. His +second expedition was financed by generous Italians and by the late +King of Italy. He was accompanied by Dr. Pellegrino Matteucci, who was +subsequently to cross Africa from east to west and die at the end of +his journey. + +Ernst Marno, a Viennese, had attempted, in 1870, to ascend the Blue +Nile and then enter the country of the Galas to the south of it. After +penetrating, however, as far as Fadasi, he was obliged to turn back, +owing to the hostility of the people. The same obstacles turned back +Gessi and his companions, and the expedition to Kaffa was given up. +Returning to Khartum, Gessi was preparing to attempt the ascent of the +Sobat when Gordon returned to his post, from which he had been absent, +and invited Gessi to re-enter the service of the Egyptian government. +A serious revolt had occurred in the western part of the Egyptian +Sudan. The great slave-trader, Zubeir, who had conquered Darfur, had +become a danger to the Egyptian power. By dint of a wily invitation he +was lured to Cairo, and once in Egypt, was prevented by the Khedive +from returning to the Sudan. His son Suleiman, however, remained in +Darfur, and attempted to rise against the Egyptian government. His +attempt was frustrated by Gordon, who, however, pardoned him, and +appointed him sub-governor of his country with a handsome salary. But +in 1878 Suleiman openly espoused the cause of the Nubian and Arab +slave-traders whose devastations of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the White +Nile regions had been sternly suppressed by Baker and Gordon. Putting +himself at the head of these disaffected people, Suleiman practically +subjugated all the vast territory of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and proclaimed +his independence. Gessi proceeded with a small force on steamers to +Lado, on the White Nile, where he met Emin Pasha. From this point +he started for the Nyam-nyam country,[94] picking up on the way all +the soldiers he could obtain from the various stations of the Sudan +government. He found that Suleiman had proclaimed himself “Lord of +Bahr-al-Ghazal, Rōl, and Makarka.” At Dem Idris, in the most western +part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province, the great battle took place.[95] +The people of the country were on the side of Gessi and the Egyptian +forces, because of the incessant slave-raiding of Suleiman and his +men. Gessi had entrenched himself and his small force, which at the +outside amounted to seven thousand men, regulars and irregulars. He had +several pieces of artillery that fired grape-shot. His entrenchments +were assaulted by Suleiman’s forces, and as the result of this attack +Suleiman lost his flags, much of his ammunition, and most of his guns, +together with several thousand of his men. Nevertheless, in spite of +the recovery of Egyptian prestige throughout the Sudan, Suleiman’s +power was not yet at an end. He gathered up more forces, and continued +to attack Gessi. At last reinforcements arrived from the north which +enabled Gessi to take the offensive. He captured stronghold after +stronghold. In the spring of 1879 Suleiman was flying for his life with +only a thousand men. Gessi destroyed almost all the strongholds of +the slavers (some of which had existed for twenty-five years, and had +devastated all the country around) in the province of Bahr-al-Ghazal. + +Gordon Pasha had now come to Gessi’s assistance, and established +himself at Shakka on the Nile. He also invaded Darfur, reconquered +that country, and prevented reinforcements reaching Suleiman from that +direction. Eventually, after a hundred fights, Gessi succeeded in +tracking Suleiman to his last refuge. At the time he had no more than +two hundred men with him, whilst Suleiman had eight hundred. Taking +the camp entirely by surprise, he tried a game of bluff, and sent a +messenger to tell Suleiman that he had surrounded his place with a +large force, and that resistance was hopeless. Suleiman therefore +surrendered. Gessi tried him by court-martial, and had him shot in +November, 1879. This ended the first of the great rebellions which +menaced Anglo-Egyptian authority in the Sudan. Gessi was made a Pasha +for his services, and Governor of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province. He +slowly brought about peace among the distracted Negro tribes. + +During all the operations undertaken by Gordon and Gessi a good many +additions were made to the geography of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the +Bahr-al-Arab, and Darfur. After Gordon’s departure from the Sudan Gessi +found it impossible to work with the Egyptian Governor-General, Raiūf +Pasha. He was also extremely ill. He therefore decided to return to +Europe, but got no farther than Suez, where he died in 1881, having +uttered several premonitions as to the possibility of another revolt. +As a matter of fact, the Mahdi, who had just begun to make himself +known as a rebel, did little more than carry on the reaction against +the anti-slave-trading policy of the Anglo-Egyptian control. All the +elements of Suleiman’s revolt which had been destroyed by the splendid +valour of Gessi and Gordon gathered round the new leader, and brought +about that cataclysm which closed the area of Nile exploration for +fourteen years. + +Édouard Linant de Bellefonds, the Belgian official in Gordon’s +employment of whom mention was made in the previous chapter, and who +had met his death at the hands of the Bari, was avenged by the American +C. Chaillé-Long, who inflicted severe chastisement on the Bari and +allied tribes at and around Gondokoro. Chaillé-Long was made a colonel +by the Egyptian government. He was despatched by Gordon on a mission to +Uganda to spy out the land; but owing to the intervention of Sir John +Kirk from Zanzibar, the British government stayed the ambitious Khedive +from attempting to include Uganda in the Egyptian Sudan. Chaillé-Long +added a little to our knowledge of the Victoria Nile, and gave a more +detailed report of Lake Kioga than had been previously gleaned from +the unscientific journey of Piaggia. He named this lake “Ibrahim.” +Chaillé-Long also travelled to the west of the Mountain Nile in the +Nyam-nyam countries. His book (“Central Africa: Naked Truths of Naked +People”) is unfortunately marred by much incorrect information, and by +the erroneous spelling of native names. Mutesa, the ruler of Uganda, is +disguised as “M’tse;” Uganda becomes Ugunda, while preposterous plurals +are invented for the people of Uganda and Unyoro, who are called the +Ugundi, Unyori, etc. Chaillé-Long’s one practical contribution to Nile +exploration was the definite discovery of Lake Kioga, which had only +been hesitatingly reported by the unlearned Piaggia. + +Ernst Marno, the Viennese, surveyed a good deal of country west of +Lado and the Mountain Nile,--the valley of the Yei among other rivers. +Casati, an Italian officer, journeyed all over the lands of the +Egyptian Sudan; but as he was an unscientific observer and lost all +his journals in the troubles that followed on the Mahdi’s revolt, his +contributions to our knowledge of the Nile regions are practically +worthless. + +Dr. Gustav Nachtigal, one of the great African explorers, was born +at Eichstadt, near Magdeburg, in Germany. He was despatched on a +mission to Bornu by the King of Prussia. After years spent with great +advantage to science in the Sahara, round Lake Chad, and on the Shari +River, he passed from Wadai into the Nile basin in the country of +Darfur, and added somewhat to our geographical knowledge of this little +known part of the Nile basin. Nachtigal reached Khartum at the end of +1874. Another German was to contribute his share to the opening up of +the Nile basin. Dr. Wilhelm Junker was born at Moscow in 1840 of German +parents, and was educated in Germany. He started for Egypt in 1875 with +the intention of going to Darfur, but he spent some time examining +the Libyan Desert and the curious blocked outlet of the Nile in the +Fayūm. After exploring the Atbara as far as Kasala and journeying +thence across country to the Blue Nile, he travelled up the Sobat River +to Nasr (a point at which all exploration of the Sobat stopped for +many years), and then made his way to the White Nile and the Makarka +(Nyam-nyam) country. His journeys through the Bahr-al-Ghazal province +took him as far south as the Kibali or Welle River. After a visit to +Europe with his collections and notes, he returned to the Welle and +the Mangbettu country. He explored the Welle and its tributaries for +some distance eastward and westward. Munza, the celebrated king of the +Mangbettu, about whom Schweinfurth wrote so much, had been murdered by +the Nubian slave-traders, and the country about the Upper Welle was +much disordered. Junker reached the Nepoko River, which is an affluent +of the Aruwimi. His journeys westward to the Welle River near its +confluence with the Mbomu convinced him that this mysterious stream, +the existence of which had first been reported by Miani and Potagos (a +Greek trader), was after all the most northern affluent of the Congo, +and not the Upper Shari. Junker’s journeys were now interrupted by the +news of the Mahdi’s revolt. + +[Illustration: NUĒR VILLAGE, SOBAT RIVER.] + +Frank Lupton (Bey), a native of Essex, and once a mate on a small +steamer plying between the Red Sea ports, had entered Gordon’s service, +and had become in time Governor of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province. Lupton +added a good deal to our knowledge regarding the many affluents of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal. He unhappily fell into the hands of the Dervishes, +and eventually lost his life. Lupton managed to warn Junker of the +outbreak, and the Russo-German traveller then made his way across +country to Lado. There he stayed until the news arrived of the fall +of Khartum. He then started for Uganda, crossed the Victoria Nyanza +by the help of the English missionaries, and travelled to Zanzibar +by way of Unyamwezi. Junker brought home with him the invaluable +journals of Emin Pasha. His own two great works on the Nile basin are +full of interesting information concerning the natives. He added much +to our knowledge of the southern tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, +but the chief value and glory of his work lay in the Congo basin and +was concerned with the identification of the Welle-Kibali with the +Ubangi. He also discovered the important northern tributary of the +Welle, the Mbomu. Junker’s observations regarding natural history +are not altogether trustworthy or accurate. His work in this respect +is not to be compared with that of Schweinfurth or Emin. His books +are badly illustrated, the drawings of beasts and birds being seldom +recognisable, and the pictures of the people quite without any +scientific value. + +Two Italian officers, Massari and Matteucci, crossed the Nile +basin just before the uprising of the Dervishes closed the Sudan +to exploration for sixteen years. They passed through the northern +frontier lands of Abyssinia, descended the White Nile, and ascended +the Bahr-al-Ghazal, entered Darfur and quitted the Nile basin on the +borders of Wadai, which excessively hostile Muhammadan state they +actually traversed unharmed. From Wadai they reached the West Coast via +Bornu and the Niger, but only to die respectively in England and Italy +soon afterwards. For daring and courage the journey was a marvel; for +geography it was a nullity. + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by Maull & Fox._] + +JOSEPH THOMSON AND WILHELM JUNKER.] + +When the intensity of the Dervish rule was slackening, in the early +nineties of the last century various Belgian officers, such as +Lieutenant Van Kerckhoven, passed the Congo basin to the Bahr-al-Arab +and the westernmost tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and threw +a little fresh light on the still mysterious hydrography of the +Nile-Shari water-parting. They pointed the way, however, to Joseph +Marchand and his associates. This gallant band of Frenchmen, in +1897, made their way from the Mbomu River (Congo basin) down +the Jur (Sue) to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the White Nile, to face +England at Fashoda. Marchand was accompanied, amongst other European +officers and non-commissioned officers, by Lieutenants A. H. Dyé and +Tanguedec. Tanguedec remained till 1900 on the Mountain Nile near the +Bahr-az-Ziraf. Dyé gave, in 1902, some account of the explorations of +the Bahr-al-Ghazal region undertaken by the Marchand expedition. The +swamps which characterise the northeastern part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +province render the definite mapping of the lower courses of its great +rivers extremely difficult. Nevertheless, in the most systematic way, +Marchand and his companions, in their little steam launch _Faidherbe_, +surveyed the Sue or Jur (the longest stream flowing into the +Bahr-al-Ghazal estuary), the Bahr-al-Arab, Bahr-al-Hamr, the Tonj, and +Rōl. + +The Bahr-al-Ghazal itself, from Mashra-ar-Rak downwards, was carefully +surveyed, and many indications were found of the changes which have +taken place since the days of its early explorers, though M. Dyé +considers the sketch given by Lejean in 1862 as wonderfully correct in +its general outlines. + +After describing the ferruginous laterite plateau, which occupies +the whole southern part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province, as well as +adjoining parts on the Congo basin, Lieutenant Dyé sketches the +transition from this region, in which the streams flow in steep-sided +valleys to the sea of swamps which lies along the ninth parallel. It is +in about 7° 20′ north that the first change occurs, the river-banks +opening out and leaving between them an alluvial-flood plain, grassy +and intersected by swamps, through which the river winds in a tortuous +course, much choked by sand-banks. At the height of the rains this +is entirely flooded. Still lower, the rocky valley sides entirely +disappear, and the clayey banks sink below the mean water-level, the +rivers becoming more and more narrow, and diminishing in depth until +they are finally lost, each in its own belt of swamp, which forms a sea +of grass, “Um Suf” [fleecy reeds], and papyrus. + +Lieutenant Dyé, in his description, divides the estuary or drainage +channel of the Bahr-al-Ghazal below Mashra-ar-Rak into three sections, +each with its particular characteristics, the general trend of the +estuary, however, below Mashra-ar-Rak being north, then northeast, and +lastly east. The first section near Mashra-ar-Rak is at times of great +width, as at the expansion known as Lake Ambady or Ambach. There is +much floating vegetation, and the channels frequently change with the +winds. The depth is nowhere greater than thirteen feet in this section, +which is distinguished as the region of lakes, lagoons, and reed-beds. +In the second section, characterised by the growth of papyrus, the +channel becomes much narrower, and reaches depths of twenty feet and +more, though the figures given by former travellers seem somewhat +exaggerated. The width becomes greater again in the last section, +the banks of which are, as a rule, marked by ant-hills covered with +brushwood. Schweinfurth was mistaken in saying that the current +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is imperceptible, for, except in expansions +and side branches, some movement can always be traced, and in the +narrowest section it reaches a speed of one mile and a quarter an hour. +A remarkable characteristic of the region is the small variation of +water-level between the seasons, owing to the impounding of the water +in the marshes. The maximum flood-level occurs on the Bahr-al-Ghazal in +November and December, or two months later than that on the Sue, and +various facts are quoted showing the slight effect which a rise in the +upper courses of the streams has on the water-level of the swamp region. + +[Illustration: A STERNWHEEL STEAMBOAT. + +Forcing its way up the Jur (Sue) or main affluent of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal.] + +Given their resources and the distance they had to traverse (from +Loango on the West Coast to Fashoda on the Nile, and afterwards to +Abyssinia and Somaliland via the Congo, Ubangi, Mbomu, Sue, and +Bahr-al-Ghazal), the enemies they had to encounter, the allies they +had to win, the privations they had to endure: the journey of Marchand +and his companions is one of the most splendid feats in African +exploration, and well deserves the admiration accorded to it in France +and England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +JOSEPH THOMSON, MT. ELGON, AND KAVIRONDO BAY + + +It will be remembered that a remarkable turn was given to Nile +exploration when between 1849 and 1855 the German missionaries in the +employ of the Church Missionary Society at Mombasa reported their +explorations of inner East Africa,--explorations which revealed the +existence of snow-mountains, and which gathered reports of great lakes +in the interior. The outcome of these researches on the part of Krapf +and Rebman was the despatch of Speke and Burton in search of the Nile +lakes. We read that only Burton’s excessive prudence prevented this +first expedition to the lakes from starting inland from Mombasa and +following the trading route right through the Masai country to the +Victoria Nyanza. This was the route followed by Arab traders as far +back as 1850. The terror caused by the Masai led to great exaggerations +of the dangers of this direct journey. Its chief difficulty lay in the +fact that owing to the ravages of the Masai and the somewhat waterless +character of the intervening country, there were no inhabitants for +a distance of some two hundred miles between the coast regions on +the east and the fertile lands bordering the Victoria Nyanza on the +west. The missionaries, German and English, who were settled at or +near Mombasa, continued to collect information from Arab caravans. +In this way news arrived of the existence of the Rift valley, with +its chain of lakes, salt and fresh, and of some greater lake beyond +called “Samburu,” afterwards known as Lake Rudolf; also of the Nilotic +Negroes in the country of Kavirondo, on the northeast coast of the +Victoria Nyanza. Much of this information was industriously gathered up +by a most excellent missionary, the late Mr. Wakefield,[96] who sent +his notes and theories to an eminent geographer, E. G. Ravenstein. +Mr. Ravenstein prepared this information for the use of the Royal +Geographical Society, and in about 1880 had gathered together all that +was known from surveys and reports into maps illustrating Eastern +Equatorial Africa. + +[Illustration: N.E. CORNER OF VICTORIA NYANZA (WITH SAMIA HILLS IN +DISTANCE). + +Near where Joseph Thomson struck the lake shore at the end of his long +march, December, 1883.] + +As the result of the interest these maps inspired, the Royal +Geographical Society resolved, in 1882, to despatch on this search for +a direct route to the Victoria Nyanza, Joseph Thomson, a very young and +very brilliant African explorer, who had already performed a remarkable +journey to lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika. Joseph Thomson left Mombasa +in the spring of 1883, and after several checks and disappointments, +finally crossed Masailand (Dr. Fischer, a German, had discovered the +Rift valley and Lake Naivasha a year previously), settled at last the +existence of the much exaggerated Lake Baringo, and finally reached +the northeast coast of the Victoria Nyanza, in Kavirondo Bay, on the +borders of Busoga. So far as Nile exploration was concerned, the +chief immediate result of Joseph Thomson’s remarkable journey was +to draw attention to Stanley’s blunder about Ugowe Bay. But Thomson +himself only made a step towards the delineation of this gulf; his +work had subsequently to be finished by Mr. C. W. Hobley and Commander +Whitehouse. He discovered Mount Elgon, however (previously alluded to +by Stanley as Mount Masawa), and was, politically, the forefather of +the Uganda Railway. + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by Jamieson & Co._] + +JOSEPH THOMSON.] + +The present writer supplemented Thomson’s work in the neighbourhood of +the snow-mountain Kilimanjaro, and laid the foundations there of the +British Protectorate of East Africa. Bishop Hannington followed in an +attempt to repeat Thomson’s journey to the Victoria Nyanza, and thus +enter Uganda. The missionary bishop was murdered on the confines of +Uganda, and his plucky enterprise added nothing to our geographical +knowledge. Then came Count Samuel Teleki von Szek (a Hungarian) and +Lieutenant von Höhnel (an Austrian naval officer) in 1887. Although +the expedition led by these gentlemen never actually entered the Nile +basin, it achieved the most important results of discovering lakes +Rudolf and Stephanie, and thereby limiting the Nile basin on the +southeast. Ernest Gedge and F. J. Jackson crossed what is now British +East Africa in 1889–1890, and reached Elgon, the Victoria Nyanza, +and Uganda. Dr. Carl Peters made the same journey in 1890, but did not +add to our geographical knowledge in the basin of the Nile. All these +expeditions were the direct result of Joseph Thomson’s work. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +EMIN PASHA + + +The remarkable man whose name is given to this chapter was a German +Jew,--Eduard Schnitzer,--born in Silesia about 1830. Becoming a +doctor of medicine, he gradually drifted to Austria and thence to +Turkey, where he engaged in much medical service in the suite of high +officials. To some extent he adopted the religion of Islam, and changed +his name to Dr. Emin. Attracted by the mystery of Central Africa, he +found his way to Khartum, and from being a mere medical practitioner, +became a Bey in the service of the Egyptian government under General +Gordon. He did a great deal to add to our knowledge of the eastern +tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the western tributaries of the +Mountain Nile. He explored the Nile-Congo water-parting, and made very +interesting notes on Unyoro, Uganda, and the Albert Nyanza. He also +added considerably to our knowledge of the Latuka, Bari, and Acholi +countries. Strange to relate, though he lived so much between 1877 +and 1888 on the Albert Nyanza, he never once sighted the remarkable +snow-range of Ruwenzori. This extraordinary omission may have been +due to the fact that he was very short-sighted. He would, therefore, +not himself have noticed any remarkable appearance in the sky, and +probably the Negroes and Turks around him were too dull-witted to draw +his attention to the snow-peaks on the rare occasions on which they +were visible. In travelling along the west coast of Lake Albert Nyanza, +however, he discovered the Semliki River flowing into that lake, and +called it the river Dweru.[97] Emin Pasha’s journals and letters, which +were brought to England by Dr. Junker, were issued as a book in 1888. +Regarding this compilation, it may be classed as one of the few great +books that have ever been written about tropical Africa. It is full +of concise and valuable information on natural history, anthropology, +languages, and geography.[98] He gives a very interesting description +of the mountainous country of Lotuka (Latuka), and of the regions +further east. + +He had been received by Latome, “an elderly gentleman of medium height +and rather pleasing features,” who was the ruler of the nude and +handsome Lotuka Negroids:-- + + “Meantime a motley crowd assembled in the yard,--women and girls, + the former with leather aprons, the latter entirely nude; men + of different districts, all armed with shields and spears,--the + genuine Lotuka people, recognisable by their slight figures and + long faces,--all nude, and adorned with iron ornaments, ivory rings + on the upper arm, broad copper rings as necklaces, and helmets + of shining brass or copper plates, surmounted by waving ostrich + plumes. Some of them wore caps made of basket work. After our + reception was over, we visited the summit of the hill, whence a + splendid view is obtained, extending from Mount Loligono in the + Bēr country, northwards over the whole Lokoya range, to the west, + and to the high peaks of the Obbo Mountains, in the south and + southwest, where the horns of Jebel Asal tower up,--so named on + Baker’s map, but called by the Bari “Ekara,” and by the Lotuka + “Chufal,”--then away to the long lofty ranges of Molong and Killio, + the defile leading to Tarangole, with its hills rising up like + sentinels, and finally the long range of Lafit, which closes the + scene on the northeast,--a typical Alpine landscape.” + +The Lotuka people, it might be mentioned, are very similar in +appearance and language to the Elgumi tribe, which is much farther +south, in the vicinity of Mount Elgon. Both these peoples are nearly +related in origin to the Masai. They should properly be styled +Lotuka.[99] + +[Illustration: EMIN PASHA.] + +Of the Lotuka country Dr. Emin writes:-- + + “The sky was overclouded when we left Tarangole. Taking a + southeasterly course along Khor Kos,[100] through beautiful park + land, we reached the ford in about half an hour. The _khor_ was + here about twenty-two yards broad, and full of yellowish water, + which reached up to our thighs, and flowed over a sandy, rocky + bottom. We had a pleasant march over a good firm road, across + sandy country covered with open wood, the ground being rather wet + in some places; the predominance of acacias (_Acacia albida_, _A. + mellifera_, and _A. campylacantha_) and _Balanites_ gave a gray + tone to the scenery. Khor Oteng, now very insignificant, is said to + pour such large volumes of water into Khor Kos[101] in the rainy + season that the passage is often rendered impossible for hours. + The ford of Khor Kos is called Chuchur; a splendid forest of doleb + palms (_Borassus_) yielding an abundance of odorous fruits, skirts + the khor, copses of various other trees intervening. Large flat + blocks of friable granite, with white streaks, lie across the + road that leads direct to the foot of the hill of Loguren, which + is about four hundred feet high. Its summit is crowned with the + dome-shaped huts of the village bearing the same name. + + “Dum Palms (_Hyphæne thebaica_) grow here, as they do at the ford + of Khor Kos. It appears, therefore, that the southern limit of this + tree runs along the Bahr-al-Jabl between Bor and Lado, and then + advances farther to the south, no doubt owing to the sandy soil + which connects the Lotuka and Somal districts.[102] Picturesque + groups of rocks, inhabited by the restless Hyrax, well-tilled + fields, and here and there small clumps of doleb palms are seen + along the road to Elianga, where, on the edges of the rocks, + numerous clay vessels containing human bones seem to say ‘Memento + mori,’ a rather unnecessary warning in Central Africa.” + +Emin describes the Lotuka villages as being dreadfully dirty, in +contrast to the Bari settlements, which are always kept scrupulously +clean within, though their environments are filthy. Hundreds of rats +and mice infest the Lotuka huts. These latter are built upon round +substructures about four and one-half feet high, usually caulked +and overlaid with mud. The huts are surmounted by bell-shaped roofs +(sometimes peaked), which project considerably over the substructures. +A small doorway is left open, about two and a half feet high, which +must, of course, be entered on all fours. The interior is kept fairly +clean, but is quite dark. The thatch is generally made of grass; many +huts are covered with split leaves of the _Borassus_ palm, which are +more durable and compact,--a very desirable quality for withstanding +tropical rain. Sheep and goats are the only domestic animals kept here; +the former are long legged and of a superior breed. The Lotuka do not +seem to keep dogs. Agriculture, as is usual among hunting tribes, is +rather neglected, although the soil is excellent, and the Sudanese +soldiers stationed in Lotuka grew without difficulty durrah, maize, +ground-nuts, and splendid watermelons. + +Ostriches are caught when young, and are tamed in the Lotuka +settlements. Sometimes they are hatched from eggs buried in the sand. +Snakes of many kinds, especially viperine, frequent the Lotuka villages +unmolested by the people, and often making their way into the huts +after the rats. A poisonous species of _Echis_ is, however, much +dreaded. + +Okkela in the Lotuka country was a paradise for a natural history +collector like Emin. The belt of wood round this settlement was full +of treasures. There were many Colobus monkeys, whose white dorsal mane +and tail-tuft gleamed through the dark foliage, small families of them +being led by white-bearded old males which gazed fearlessly at the +stranger. Close by a brown baboon mother might be giving her offspring +rough lectures on good manners, which, to judge from the howling, were +not much appreciated; “tall, fox-coloured baboons, white on the under +side,[103] were chasing one another along the tree-tops, and barking +and yelping like hoarse dogs. A small mouse-coloured monkey with a +black face, and quite unknown to me, skulked away through the thick +bush; two varieties of _Funambulus_ squirrels ran up and down the long +tendrils of the creeping plants, and the graceful _Xerus leucumbrinus_ +squirrel roved about upon the ground. Small cats, ichneumons, rats, +and mice had also found a comfortable shelter in the woods, and other +creatures, quite unknown, to judge from the description, are said to +haunt it, especially at night.” + +Birds were even more numerous and striking. “Gorgeous blue kingfishers +(_Halcyon senegalensis_ and _H. semicærulea_) and beautiful bee-eaters +(_Merops bullockii_ and _M. albicollis_) were perched on the dry +boughs waiting for insects; a large gray cuckoo, probably a new +variety,[104] could be heard in the tree-tops, as also the handsome +_Cuculus capensis_, whose loud cry the Nile Negroes interpret by the +word _lashakong_ (my gourd), and a charming little falcon (_Nisus_ +sp.) joined them with a sharp chirp, which the natives call _lefit_, +a happy imitation of its cry. Snow-white _Terpsiphone_ and brilliant +golden cuckoos (_Chalcites cupreus_ and _C. clasii_) were swinging in +the green leafy bowers, and cunning barbets (_Pogonorhynchus rolleti_, +_P. diadematus_, and _P. abyssinicus_) came into sight for a moment, +to disappear again directly like woodpeckers. In the thick copsewood +_Bessornis heuglinii_ flew off at my approach with a sudden cry of +fear, and _Cichladusa guttata_ sang as loudly, but was not quite so +shy. An _Aedon_ warbled its beautiful song among the thickest briars, +and was accompanied by the tapping of numerous woodpeckers. I caught +_Picus nubicus_, the rarer _P. minutus_, and another kind which I +think is new; it closely resembles _P. schoensis_, and it is equally +handsome.” + +Animal life abounded also in the open country of Lotuka,--a land +covered with shrubs, with broad, grassy clearings and sandy flats. The +ground was strewn with the shells of _Achatina zebra_; small lizards +and snakes of various kinds--among them the rare _Typhlops_--glided +over the sand, and larger snakes hissed frightfully and retreated. +A concert of croaking frogs would arise from the reedy margins of +the half-dry rivers, and on the sandy islands of the Kos enormous +crocodiles were watching the children bathing close by. Herds of _Cobus +leucotis_[105] grazed on the young grass; large wart hogs issued +from holes in the ground. “They were,” writes Emin, “no despicable +antagonists, for they can make very good use of their huge tusks. Going +further into the bush, I saw the elegant form of a wild cat stealing +off with its tail in the air, and heard a loud growl from a leopard +which disapproved of my presence. Lions were most plentiful.” + +[Illustration: RAPHIA PALMS BY A CENTRAL AFRICAN STREAM.] + +A herd of zebras grazing on the fresh green grass is a pleasant +picture, whether surrounded by their frolicking young or running +away at a thundering gallop. One does not often meet with the +scaly ant-eater, _Manis temmincki_, still less with the earth-pig +(_Orycteropus æthiopicus_), but a fine example of the latter edentate +having fallen into a pitfall, Emin was able to attest its presence in +Nile land. + +Emin’s journeys in the region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and along the +water-parting between the basins of the Nile and the Congo added +greatly to our knowledge of those countries. The forests in these +regions he described as magnificent “gallery” woods, in which all the +marvels of vegetation unfolded themselves before the enchanted gaze of +the botanist. These forests border the streams, and exist only near to +running water. The region, however, of immense unbroken forests, in +which one may wander for hours without seeing a sunbeam, and where one +hears the rain beating upon the summits of the trees without feeling +a drop, commences only a little to the west of the Nyam-nyam (Zande) +country. There is no doubt that much of the Bahr-al-Ghazal region +was originally quite covered with forests, to judge from the remains +of virgin woods which still exist. The gradual disappearance of the +forest is to be attributed to the comparatively thick population, the +constant removal of villages and fields, and to the inroads of both +axe and fire. Emin saw the remains of many a gigantic and magnificent +forest-tree lying rotting on the ground, having been cut down, and +given to decay because it spread too much shade over the crops. After +many years of wandering among these regions, he was inclined to think +that in ancient times the true Central African forest region, that is, +the permanence of evergreen woods containing westerly species, extended +much farther to the north than it does to-day. Towards the east of the +Nyam-nyam country, as far as the district of Janda, he observed such +West African forms as _Artocarpus_ and _Anthocleista_, but he states +that the valley of the Mountain Nile throughout its whole length, as +far south as Lake Albert, is characterised by steppe vegetation, as is +also the entire eastern region of the Nile basin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +STANLEY DISCOVERS THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON AND LAKE ALBERT +EDWARD.--THE END OF EMIN + + +Two sets of circumstances now hindered further exploration of the Nile +basin,--the revolt of the Mahdi, with the disasters that followed at +Khartum; and the persecution of the Christians followed by civil war +in Uganda. Emin Pasha was left to govern Equatoria for four years, cut +off from all communication with Egypt. Dr. Junker, arriving with his +collections and journals in 1886, aroused a great wave of enthusiasm +in England and Germany. Stanley at once offered to lead a relief +expedition to the Equatorial provinces of the Nile. The great prestige +of this remarkable man made it impossible for any other candidate to +enter the field in England. Many, however, were in favour of entrusting +the expedition to Thomson, who believed in the practicability of +conducting it by a direct route from Mombasa to Mount Elgon, and so +across to the Nile. Whether he would have succeeded is a moot question, +owing to the fierceness of the Nile tribes between Elgon and Gondokoro, +and the jealousy and suspicion of Uganda and Unyoro; for the King +of Uganda, having had his fears aroused as to European aggression, +had already caused Bishop Hannington to be murdered for repeating +Thomson’s journey to Busoga. + +Stanley was precluded from following the old Unyamwezi route, owing +to German jealousy. He decided, therefore, to strike at the Upper +Nile by way of the Congo, and so found himself struggling through the +dense forests of the Congo basin between the navigable waters of the +Aruwimi and the cliffs of Lake Albert. This wonderful journey, which +he took for the relief of Emin Pasha, resulted in the discovery of +the real Mountains of the Moon [Ruwenzori], the complete course of +the Semliki River, Lake Albert Edward, and the southwesternmost gulf +of the Victoria Nyanza. Stanley added a great deal to our knowledge +of the Congo Pygmies, who in this direction stray over into the Nile +watershed; but his grand discovery on this occasion was Ruwenzori. On +May 24, 1888, about five miles from Nsabe, on the grassy mountains to +the southwest of Lake Albert Nyanza, + + “while looking to the southeast and meditating upon the events of + the last month, my eyes were directed by a boy to a mountain said + to be covered with salt, and I saw a peculiar shaped cloud of a + most beautiful silver colour, which assumed the proportions and + appearance of a vast mountain covered with snow. Following its form + downward, I became struck with the deep blue-black colour of its + base, and wondered if it portended another tornado; then as the + sight descended to the gap between the eastern and western plateaux + I became for the first time conscious that what I gazed upon was + not the image or semblance of a vast mountain, but the solid + substance of a real one, with its summit covered with snow.... + It now dawned upon me that this must be the Ruwenzori, which was + said to be covered with a white metal or substance believed to be a + rock, as reported by Kavali’s two slaves.” + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by John Fergus._] + +SIR HENRY STANLEY, G.C.B.] + +This view was obtained from a distance of seventy miles,--about the +distance of the chief snows of Ruwenzori from the south end of Lake +Albert Nyanza. The constant haze rising from the Semliki valley no +doubt keeps this mountain usually invisible from the waters of the +lake. It is, therefore, not so surprising that it was not hitherto seen +by the explorers of the Albert Nyanza, as it is that Stanley himself +should have camped at the very base of this mountain for some days +in 1875, and have been ignorant of its true character as the highest +ground and the most completely snow-and-glacier-covered range in the +whole of Africa. The name that he has given to it unfortunately does +not completely correspond with the native pronunciation; it should be +Runsororo. + +The discovery of this snowy range was soon followed by the realisation +of the Semliki River, another geographical name of Stanley’s giving +which it is most difficult to trace to any native source. (The Semliki, +in fact, is never called by any native tribe “Semliki.” It is known as +Dweru, Nyanja, Ituri, Isango, and other Bantu terms indicating _lake_ +or _river_. When first discovered by Emin Pasha, a short time before +Stanley’s arrival, it was known as the Dweru.) This stream is really +the Albertine Nile. Its existence had been surmised by Sir Samuel +Baker without much foundation (then) for his theory. Emin Pasha first +noted it in 1884 as a feeder of Lake Albert. Stanley, in 1889, traced +the Semliki up its course to its point of exit from Lake Albert Edward, +which sheet of water he was the first European to discover. Albert +Edward is connected by a narrow, winding channel[106] on the northeast +with a somewhat extensive, shallow lake, usually known as “Dweru.”[107] + +Dweru was discovered by Stanley in 1875, and named by him Beatrice +Gulf. Stanley now ascertained that the two lakes were connected. His +expedition crossed the Kafuru, as the connecting stream is called, +and entered the till then unvisited Hima kingdom of Ankole. Stanley’s +guess at the shape of the Albert Edward was incorrect, and it needed +subsequent expeditions to give us a truer idea of the form and area +of this sheet of water, the eastern shore of which still remains +unsurveyed. + +[Illustration: SHORES OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA, NEAR EMIN PASHA GULF.] + +Passing through Ankole, Stanley reached the southwestern extremity of +the Victoria Nyanza, which he named Emin Pasha Gulf. On his journeys of +circumnavigation in 1875, he had been deceived by a chain of islands +into an incorrect limitation of the area of the Victoria Nyanza in this +direction. He now realised that the lake extends much further to +the southwest than was previously thought by Speke and himself, and is +therefore not of the heart-shape assigned to it in the earliest maps; +it is, in fact, much longer from north to south than it is broad from +east to west. + +The rest of Stanley’s great journey took him out of the Nile watershed. + +But the discoveries which he made in the Albertine region of the Nile +basin whetted the curiosity of Emin Pasha, who longed to return to +these mysterious regions. + +He did so in 1890, as a German official. Accompanied by Dr. Franz +Stuhlmann, a very able explorer, he directed his steps to these regions +of fascinating interest, the Snow-mountains, and the Great Forest. In +1891 Dr. Stuhlmann made an ascent of the Ruwenzori range on its western +aspect nearly to the snow-line. He revealed the existence of its +remarkable Alpine vegetation of giant groundsels and lobelias. He also +attempted to discriminate between the many different snow-peaks of this +lofty range, though with only partial success, his failure in arriving +at a complete result, like that of subsequent travellers, being due to +the constant presence of clouds. Emin and Stuhlmann together added a +good deal to our knowledge of the Semliki, and to the clearing up of +geographical points connected with the line of watershed between the +Nile and the Congo systems immediately west of Lake Albert. Emin Pasha +resolved to return by way of the Congo, and was therefore left to do +so by Stuhlmann, who returned to his duties in German East Africa. +Re-entering the great Congo forest, and following a northern affluent +of the Ituri-Aruwimi, Emin was captured by one of the slave-trading, +Arabised Manyema who had recently invaded this region to secure ivory +and slaves. As a German official, Emin (together with other Germans) +had confiscated property belonging to these Manyema, had released +slaves, and had severely punished slave-raiders. From motives of +revenge, therefore, he was sentenced to death by his captor, and his +throat was cut in his house one day in October, 1892. + +[Illustration: DR. FRANZ STUHLMANN. + +(Deputy Governor of German East Africa.)] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +GERMAN EXPLORERS DETERMINE THE SOUTHERN LIMITS OF THE NILE BASIN + + +The acquisition by Germany of those interior regions of the Zanzibar +coast-line which now constitute German East Africa led to a +considerable development of exploration in the southernmost regions +of the Nile basin. Prior to 1890 there had been much discussion as to +what was the Nile’s furthest tributary,--what stream, in fact, was the +ultimate source of the Nile. Stanley’s journeys in search of Emin Pasha +had revealed the existence of the Semliki and of Lake Albert Edward, +and had thus extended considerably the length of the Albertine Nile +system. Later on Count Götzen had shown by his remarkable journeys +north from Tanganyika that Lake Kivu (the existence of which had been +already reported by Burton, Speke, and Stanley) was connected with +Tanganyika, and therefore with the Congo. This put a limit to the Nile +basin in that direction, and disposed for ever of the last vestige of +Livingstone’s wild dream, by which the main course of the Nile would +have risen far south of the equator in what we now know to be the basin +of the Congo, and have flowed through Lake Albert instead of through +the Victoria Nyanza. Speke had discovered the important Kagera River +(which he called the Kitangule), and Stanley had extended our knowledge +of this, the largest affluent of the Victoria Nyanza. Stanley had, +in fact, in 1875 christened it the Alexandra Nile, but he was very +much misled about its origin and course, and he made it issue from a +hypothetical lake, Akanyaru,[108] which has no existence, but which +was no doubt in part an exaggeration of swamps along the course of the +Kagera, and in part a confusion with the rumoured Lake Kivu. + +The Kagera is now acknowledged to be the extreme head-waters of the +Nile. A distinctly observable current passes across the Victoria +Nyanza from the mouth of the Kagera to the Ripon Falls. In 1891–1893 +Dr. Oscar Baumann, a German official, who had previously done some +good exploring work in West Africa, made extensive journeys through +southern Masailand and Unyamwezi to the sources of the Kagera River. +This stream (especially in its upper waters, where it is known as +Ruvuvu), was further explored in 1899–1900 by M. Lionel Dècle, a French +traveller, who had done a great deal to increase our knowledge of +Central Africa.[109] Dr. Kandt,[110] in 1898, and other Germans, have +also put on the map portions of the Kagera’s course, and our knowledge +of this stream has received contributions from Messrs. Racey, Mundy, +and R. W. Macallister, officials of the Uganda Protectorate. The Kagera +River has two principal sources, both of them almost within sight of +the waters of Tanganyika. The stream which is usually taken to be the +more important source rises in south latitude 3° in the country of +Ruziga, about fifteen miles due north of the north end of Tanganyika, +at an altitude of about 6,270 feet above sea-level. Some fifty miles +south-southeast of this point, however, there is another source, which +may be taken to be the southernmost extension of the Nile system. This +fountain, in south latitude 3° 45′, is on the eastern slope of the +Utembera or Kangozi Mountains, only ten miles east of Tanganyika. The +altitude is about 6,300 feet. This would seem to be the farthest source +of the Nile. + +[Illustration: A NATIVE OF UNYAMWEZI, FROM NEAR SOUTH SHORES OF +VICTORIA NYANZA.] + +Herr Baumann made another contribution of negative value to Nile +exploration. Stanley and some other travellers had believed that the +southernmost source of the Nile lay in the country of Unyamwezi, in +certain streams which flowed northward into the Victoria Nyanza, which +they entered under the name of the river Simiyu or Shimeyu. But in +these deductions they were wrong. Baumann showed that the river Simiyu +was an inconsiderable stream of short course, and that the waters much +further to the south which had been identified with this river really +flowed northeastwards into a largish salt lake, discovered by Baumann +and called Lake Eyasi. Eyasi has no outlet. It is situated in a rift +valley which joins the great Rift valley of Masailand. The journeys +of Baumann and of other Germans considerably curtailed the present +extent of the Nile basin in Unyamwezi. The waters of this somewhat arid +tableland, which apparently is almost below the surface of the Victoria +Nyanza, flow mainly to Tanganyika, to Lake Rukwa, and to Lake Eyasi and +other isolated pools of the rift valleys. + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by J. Thomson._] + +SIR FREDERIC D. LUGARD.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +GEOGRAPHICAL WORK IN THE UGANDA PROTECTORATE + + +Stanley’s relief of Emin Pasha led to the withdrawal of the latter’s +government from the equatorial regions, and after a brief interval of +hesitation, to the foundation of a British Protectorate over Uganda +and the adjoining territories. Preparations for this Protectorate were +made by Captain (now General Sir Frederic) Lugard, who, in the course +of his settlement of the disturbed country of Uganda, journeyed round +Ruwenzori to Lake Albert Edward.[111] Shortly afterwards (as already +related) Emin Pasha returned to this part of the world accompanied +by Dr. Stuhlmann. Mr. Scott-Elliott, a Scottish naturalist, came out +in 1893–1894 for the purpose of making natural history collections. +He drew a very neat and truthful little map of the eastern and +southern flanks of Ruwenzori,--a map which until quite recently has +been somewhat overlooked by those who have compiled charts of this +region. Scott-Elliott, Lugard, Stuhlmann, Grogan, J. E. Moore, Malcolm +Fergusson, and several Belgian officers, such as the late Lieutenant +Meura, were not slow to point out and correct serious errors on the +part of Stanley in his rough delimitation of Lake Albert Edward. Lake +Dweru or Beatrice Gulf was also redrawn with advantage. But curiously +enough, all these travellers--Stanley included--omitted to point out +that the connection between Lake Dweru and Lake Albert Edward was not +a broad channel, but a narrow and winding river between high banks. +It was left to the present writer to make this correction on the map. +The author also, together with Lieutenant Meura, redrew with greater +correctness the upper course of the Semliki River, and in 1900 added +somewhat to our knowledge of the configuration of the Ruwenzori range. + +The expedition of Sir Gerald Portal (especially through the work of his +brother Raymond, who died after doing excellent service in pacifying +Toro) added to the map of the countries between Ruwenzori on the west +and Kavirondo on the east. In 1895 the late Colonel Seymour Vandeleur +(when only a lieutenant in the army) made an excellent and systematic +survey of the Kingdom of Uganda and of much of Unyoro. The wars against +the Sudanese mutineers added to our geographical knowledge of these +districts. Colonel John Evatt and Captain H. Maddox, amongst others, +gave us for the first time something like the true shape of the marshy +lakes of Kioga and Kwania, which, in some respects, are huge backwaters +of the Victoria Nile. But the great addition to the geography of the +southern extremities of the Nile basin was made by the expedition +under Colonel J. R. L. Macdonald. This officer had accurately +mapped the regions bordering on the northwest coasts of the Victoria +Nyanza in 1894. About this period also Mr. F. J. Jackson,[112] Mr. +C. W. Hobley, and Mr. Ernest Gedge were filling up the map as regards +the configuration of the country along the northeastern watershed of +Victoria Nyanza and the slopes of Mount Elgon. Mount Elgon was ascended +to its highest peak (14,080 feet), for the first and only time, by +Messrs. Jackson and Gedge in 1895. + +[Illustration: G. F. SCOTT-ELLIOT.] + +Colonel Macdonald was despatched more with a political than with a +geographical object. He was to journey through the northeastern part +of the British sphere of interest in East Africa and make for the +Nile about Gondokoro, and so travel with the idea of forestalling any +possible French competitors; whilst General (Lord) Kitchener should +be defeating the Khalifa at Khartum with a view to recovering all +the provinces of the Egyptian Sudan. But the mutiny of the Sudanese +soldiers in Uganda and other causes threw great difficulties in the +way of Colonel Macdonald’s expedition. He succeeded however in mapping +himself, and with the aid of such officers on his staff as Majors +Austin, Bright, Hanbury-Tracey, and others, the regions to the north +of Mount Elgon. He filled up a considerable blank in the map between +what was known east of the Mountain Nile and the actual coast-line of +Lake Rudolf. Colonel Macdonald’s expedition first brought clearly to +our knowledge the remarkable mountain-ranges of Chemorongi, Nakwai, +Lobor, Lopala, Morongole, Agoro, and Harogo. He put on the map the +upper waters of the Asua River (an important eastern contributary of +the Mountain Nile) and its larger affluents. His work and that of the +late Captain Welby has enabled us to define more clearly the separation +between the waters of Lake Rudolf on the east and the Mountain Nile on +the west. Colonel Macdonald discovered Lake Kirkpatrick on the upper +Asua, and mapped more precisely Lake Salisbury and the northern slopes +and streams of Mount Elgon. + +Captain M. S. Wellby had travelled in 1899 round the east and south +shores of Lake Rudolf, and thence had penetrated westwards through +the Turkana and Karamojo countries to the Nile watershed, where he +discovered two streams flowing north, both of which he named Ruzi. +These he imagined to be the head-waters of the Sobat. Donaldson Smith +and H. H. Austin showed his theory to be wrong [?]. The Ruzis probably +flow into the rivers draining the Lotuka highlands and entering the +Bahr-az-Ziraf or Giraffe Nile. + +[Illustration: DR. DONALDSON-SMITH.] + +Colonel J. R. L. Macdonald (assisted by Captain Pringle) had previously +(1893), when first employed in Uganda, made an admirable survey of the +British coasts of the Victoria Nyanza, from Port Victoria in northern +Kavirondo, westwards to the German frontier at the Kagera River, and +for the first time put on record all or nearly all the islands, bays, +inlets, peninsulas, and rivers of the north and northwest coasts +of the Victoria Nyanza. Here and there his work in this direction has +been added to by Mr. C. W. Fowler and Commander Whitehouse. Whitehouse, +as already related, was the surveyor who finally amended Stanley’s +error of “Ugowe Bay,” and gave us for the first time the correct form +of the great northeastern gulf of the Victoria Nyanza (Kavirondo +Bay), together with the shape of the two large islands which mask +its entrance. Commander Whitehouse also surveyed the east coast of +the Victoria Nyanza down to the German frontier, and added a lot of +new material to the delineation of this eastern coast-line. In this +direction an interesting journey was made from Lake Naivasha to the +coast of Kavirondo Bay by Major E. Gorges in 1900. Mr. C. W. Hobley, +a Sub-Commissioner in the Uganda Protectorate, contributed a good +deal of information to fill up the blank places of the map between +Kavirondo Bay on the south and the northwestern flanks of Mount Elgon +on the north. Captain Pringle had already mapped these countries on the +railway survey. + +In 1900 Dr. Donaldson-Smith, an American, traversed the countries +which lie between the north end of Lake Rudolf and the Mountain Nile. +He crossed several dry river-beds, in a region of appalling drought +(extinct tributaries of the Sobat), and then reached the rivers +Oguelokur, Tu, and Kos which flow in a northwesterly direction towards +the Mountain Nile or its branch, the Giraffe River. The region between +the Giraffe and the Sobat remains to-day the only unexplored part of +the Nile Basin. + +In 1900 and 1901 Major C. Delmé Radcliffe made the first completely +accurate survey of the Nile from Lake Albert to Gondokoro, and put on +the map for the first time many new details concerning the Asua River +and its affluents, besides streams which rise in the hills of the +Acholi and Madi countries and enter that portion of the Nile between +Gondokoro and Lake Albert. + +From the Cape to Cairo was a watchword that, as an idea, first emanated +from the pen of Sir Edwin Arnold in 1876, and as a phrase took shape +in writings by the author of this book in 1888 and 1890, and as a +policy was finally adopted by Cecil Rhodes in 1892. The first person +to carry this idea into practical execution was Mr. Ewart Grogan, who +(accompanied part of the way by Mr. Sharp) travelled literally from the +Cape to Cairo via Lake Albert Edward and the Uganda Protectorate. His +contributions to Nile explorations are referred to in the next chapter. +He was followed in 1900 by Major A. St. Hill Gibbons and later by M. +Lionel Dècle. Between 1898 and 1902 Colonel E. A. Stanton surveyed the +eastern part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the intricate channels of the +lower Mountain Nile. + +[Illustration: CUTTING THE SUDD.] + +In the year 1900 a very notable achievement took place. The terrible +obstruction of the sudd which had intermittently blocked the Nile +navigation from the days of Nero’s two centurions (who could hardly +force their way through it in the year 66 A.D.) to our own times was +cut through resolutely by an expedition under Major Malcolm Peake. The +government of the Egyptian Sudan has for the last two years continued +to clear away this obstacle, and in all probability it will never be +allowed to form again. In fact, in this direction man will probably do +much to modify the subsequent history of the Nile. Sir William Garstin +has recently explored Lake Tsana and the Blue Nile as well as the White +Mountain Nile as far as Gondokoro, Lake Albert, and Lake Victoria, with +a view to ascertaining which of the two rivers contributes the most +valuable supply of water for the irrigation and fertilisation of Egypt. +So far, he has decided for the Blue Nile, a fact which lends increased +importance to the Empire of Abyssinia.[113] It may be, however, that +with the clearing of the sudd on the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the Mountain +Nile these branches of the great river may send down increasing +supplies of water to Egypt. In any case the clearing of the sudd will +permit of these waterways being used for penetrating in all directions +into the heart of Equatorial Africa. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE EASTERN BASIN OF THE NILE + + +We will now turn to the eastern part of the Nile basin--the first to +be explored, the last to be finished. It has been already related +how, alarmed at the rapid successes of the Portuguese in India, the +Persian Gulf, and East Africa, the Abyssinians resolutely ejected the +Portuguese missionaries from their country during the seventeenth +century, and how the attempts of Louis XIV. to supplant the Portuguese +by French influence resulted disastrously. Bruce had broken the spell +which rested on this strange country, so fascinating to Europeans, +because while being absolutely “Africa” it was ruled, and for the most +part inhabited, by more or less Caucasian races, its rulers having a +Semitic history which attached them to the fountains of civilisation. +Our previous review of exploration in Abyssinia ended with Bruce’s +journey, and with the attempts on the part of French and German +explorers during the early part of the nineteenth century to enter +Abyssinia up the course of the Blue Nile. Meantime the overland route +to the East had been conceived by Lieutenant Waghorn, the British +government had seized Aden in 1839, and a much greater interest than +heretofore was taken in the navigation of the Red Sea, which was +rapidly becoming the main route to India. Although Abyssinia then as +now had no acknowledged political control over any part of the Red +Sea littoral, it was early recognised that Abyssinia was an important +factor in the political problems governing the control of the Red Sea. +Even before the safety of the British route to India became a matter +of urgent importance, we had sought to enter into direct relations +with Abyssinia. In 1805 a British mission under Lord Valentia and +Consul Henry Salt was sent to conclude an alliance with Abyssinia +and obtain a port on the Danakil coast by means of which Britain +could, if necessary, convey troops to Abyssinia, and so take a French +Egypt in the rear. The writings of Henry Salt added greatly to our +knowledge of the peoples, languages, and fauna of Abyssinia and of the +Zanzibar coast, but did not contribute materially to the elucidation +of Nile problems. During the first part of the nineteenth century +Abyssinia was in the throes of civil war caused by the struggles +for supremacy between the ruler of Tigre (the northern province) +and the Ras or Governor of Amhara (the central province). The Ras +of Tigre--Sabagadis--threw open northern Abyssinia to the English, +cordially inviting missionaries, mechanics, and explorers to enter +his dominions. In this way the Church Missionary Society’s missions +to eastern Africa started by the despatch of Protestant missionaries +(mostly Germans in the pay of the Society) to Tigre. On the other +hand, the war between Tigre and Amhara having resulted in the death +of both the chiefs, a third potentate, the ruler of the lofty Samien +Mountains, annexed Tigre, and out of opposition to his predecessor’s +policy invited Frenchmen to develop the country. Captains Galinier and +Ferret accepted the commission to survey Tigre and Samien by careful +triangulation. This task was accomplished in 1842, and resulted in the +correct mapping of the affluents of the Atbara. Meantime the British +Protestant missionaries had penetrated into Amhara, while Tigre and +Samien came under French Roman Catholic influence. In fact, the history +of Uganda was given here on a larger scale. Simultaneously the southern +province of Ethiopia, Shoa, under the enlightened ruler Selasié had +attracted the attention of Europeans. Major (afterwards Sir William) +Harris was sent by the Indian government in 1841 to conclude a treaty +with Shoa, as it was thought that this country might eventually extend +its influence over Somaliland, and so come into direct contact with +the Indian government at Aden. This British mission was naturally +followed by a French one, and a French envoy applied to the Pope for +the starting of a Roman Catholic mission in Shoa. + +The work of Monseigneur Massaja, who was despatched by Pope Pius IX., +though it throws much interesting light on the structure of the Gala +language, hardly comes within the sphere of Nile exploration. Meantime +an adventurer named Kasa had arisen in Amhara, and had gradually made +himself master of the northern and western provinces of Abyssinia. +He had himself crowned King of Kings of Ethiopia under the name of +Theodore, and then proceeded to annex the province of Shoa to his +dominions. + +During the early part of Theodore’s reign the two brothers d’Abbadie +were at work surveying Abyssinia and collecting invaluable information +regarding the languages, literature, coins, inscriptions, and religions +of that assemblage of Semitic, Hamitic, and Negro states. Antoine +Thomson d’Abbadie and his brother Arnaud Michel were actually born in +Dublin, their father being French and their mother Irish. They were +however educated in France. Their bent for scientific exploration +was early recognised, for the French Academy sent the elder of the +two on a scientific mission to Brazil at the age of twenty-five. The +younger d’Abbadie explored Algeria. This leading his thoughts in the +direction of Abyssinia, he proposed to his brother a joint mission +of exploration, which commenced in 1838 by their landing at Masawa. +Besides carefully surveying the northern and central provinces of +Abyssinia they did work of special novelty and interest in the south. +Until the journeys of Cecchi and other Italians twenty years ago the +d’Abbadies’ information concerning the countries lying to the south +of Abyssinia represented all that we knew of Kaffa and Enarea,--names +indeed which had been cited by the Portuguese, but names unsupported +by geographical information. Antoine d’Abbadie penetrated the furthest +into Kaffa. He collected an immense amount of information regarding +the languages spoken in the vague south and southwest districts +inhabited mainly by races of Hamitic origin. The d’Abbadies closed +their survey of Abyssinia in 1848, though the younger brother paid the +country another short visit in 1853. They were in no hurry to give the +results of their explorations to the world; in fact, the “Géographie +de l’Éthiopie” (of which only one volume was published) did not appear +till 1890. Their actual surveys of Abyssinia were published between +the years 1860 and 1873. Their Ethiopian manuscripts came out also +during that period, but Antoine’s Dictionary of the Amharic tongue +was published no further back than 1881. Their twelve years’ work +in Abyssinia was the greatest contribution that has ever been made +to our knowledge of that country, but most of their labours do not +lie sufficiently within the field of Nile exploration to admit of an +adequate description in this book. Antoine d’Abbadie lived to the age +of eighty-seven (he died in 1897). About 1859 he found himself involved +in a somewhat acrid conflict of opinion with another Abyssinian +explorer, Dr. C. T. Beke, who visited Abyssinia in the forties of the +last century. D’Abbadie was naturally prejudiced in favour of the Blue +Nile being the main Nile, since that river and its southern affluents +had been the special object of his researches during twelve years. +On the other hand, Dr. Beke was hotly in favour of the White Nile, +especially after Speke’s discovery of the Victoria Nyanza. Dr. Beke was +right in his main contentions, but seems to have thrown unnecessary +aspersions on the genuineness of Antoine d’Abbadie’s explorations in +southern Abyssinia. We now know d’Abbadie’s work to have been perfectly +accurate. + +[Illustration: DR. C. BEKE.] + +Mansfield Parkyns, an Englishman, visited Abyssinia from 1843 to 1846, +wrote interestingly on the country in confirmation or correction of +Bruce’s statements, but did not add materially to our geographical +knowledge, though his book is still often quoted in regard to habits +and customs now dying out. + +Amongst the Protestant missionaries first despatched to the country +by the Church Missionary Society of London was the celebrated Krapf, +already alluded to in Chapter XI. as the joint discoverer of the East +African snow-mountains. Krapf penetrated far south into Shoa, and gave +considerable information, both interesting and true, regarding the +dwarfish Negro tribes found to the southwest of the Abyssinian Empire. + +Lij Kasa, who had become King of Kings of Ethiopia under the name of +Theodore III., showed himself, when he had consolidated his power, +very fond of the English, and encouraged English missionaries and +consuls to go to his court. He seems, however, to have pursued this +policy more with the idea of strengthening his prestige and improving +his kingdom by the spread of mechanical appliances and the manufacture +of superior arms and ammunition, than from any desire to encourage +missionary work. In the early sixties he became offended at a supposed +slight on the part of the British government, which left unanswered a +letter addressed to it by Theodore in 1863. His subsequent proceedings +in regard to the imprisonment of the consul and missionaries +eventually brought about the British expedition of 1868. A force of +sixteen thousand British and Indian soldiers under Sir Charles Napier +(afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) marched from Masawa up and along +the eastern escarpment of the Abyssinian plateau, and captured the +citadel of Magdala, which is situated within the basin of the Nile, +close to the northeasternmost tributary of that river. This expedition +was accompanied by Dr. W. T. Blanford, who compiled a valuable work on +the geology and zoölogy of Abyssinia, which was published in 1870. + +For ten years after the withdrawal of the British expedition, +in 1869, little advance was made in our knowledge of Abyssinian +geography. Theodore was succeeded by another adventurer, also called +Kasa,--a native of Tigre,--who afforded considerable help to the +British. By means of our indirect support he succeeded in getting +himself crowned as Yohannes (John), King of Kings of Ethiopia. Shoa +alone, where Menelik (the present emperor) was slowly recovering the +power of his father (who had lost the country to Theodore), was not +actually conquered by the Emperor John; for just as he was starting +to subdue Menelik, he himself was attacked by the Egyptian army +under Munzinger, the Swiss Governor of Masawa. Munzinger was urging +the Khedive’s government to occupy and annex Abyssinia, and Egypt +had, as a preliminary, seized the Bogos country, the greater part of +which still remains Egyptian. But in 1875 John inflicted a tremendous +defeat on the Egyptian army near the river Mareb, and in 1876 a second +defeat, still more disastrous to the Egyptian power. This brought +about the intervention of General Gordon, who, in 1876 and 1879, made +two attempts to come to a friendly understanding with Abyssinia. His +journeys added a little to our knowledge of the affluents of the Blue +Nile and the Atbara. + +In 1879 the Earl of Mayo (who subsequently travelled with the writer of +this book in southwest Africa) made an interesting journey along the +Takaze River, which is the upper waters of the Atbara. His sporting +expedition was followed by that of the brothers W. and F. L. James +(who subsequently explored Somaliland). The Italians began to take +an interest in Abyssinia at the end of the seventies, but the first +expeditions undertaken by their explorers have no connection with the +Nile basin. + +In 1839 or 1840 one of the most important affluents of the Nile was +discovered by the expedition of Turks and Europeans despatched by +Muhammad Ali to explore the White Nile. This was the Sobat (as it was +named by the Nile Arabs), which enters the White River under the ninth +degree of latitude. The word Sobat was evidently an ancient Nubian or +Ethiopian term which was in existence two thousand years ago, when it +was applied to the White Nile (Asta Sobas), in contradistinction to the +Blue Nile (Ast’apos). At the present day the Sobat is known by the +name of Kir[114] on its lower portion, and Baro on its upper course. +In subsequent years steamers ascended the Sobat from the Nile as far +as it was navigable, namely, to a point called Nasr. Johann Maria +Schuver, a Dutch traveller in the seventies of the last century, and +several Europeans in the service of the Egyptian government, collected +a little more information about the Sobat and its tributaries above +Nasr, but this river long remained one of the unsolved problems of +Nile geography. Schuver did much to explore the western Gala countries +between the Sobat and the Blue Nile. On some of these journeys he was +accompanied by the Italian explorer Piaggia[115] (who had discovered +Lake Kioga on the Victoria Nile). Piaggia, in endeavouring once more to +force his way towards the Sobat, died at Karkoj, on the Blue Nile, in +1882. + +[Illustration: NATIVES OF THE BARO (UPPER SOBAT) SKINNING HIPPOPOTAMUS.] + +The surcease of the Nile exploration which followed on the Mahdi’s +revolt in 1882, closed for a time the exploration of the Sobat and its +affluents. But one result of this revolt was to urge European inquirers +more and more towards Abyssinia, especially the southern provinces +of that empire. A French explorer, Jules Borelli, made remarkable +journeys to the south and southwest of Abyssinia at the close of the +eighties of the last century, and, besides discovering the river Omo, +which flows into Lake Rudolf, he gave much new information regarding +the source of the Sobat. The book which he published in 1890--“Ethiopie +Méridionale”--is one of the best and most beautifully illustrated works +which have appeared on Africa. + +Italy having assumed an unacknowledged protectorate over Abyssinia, +subsidised expedition after expedition, nominally for scientific +research. Among the best equipped of these undertakings, and the most +fruitful in geographical results, was an expedition under Vittorio +Bottego, L. Vannutelli, and C. Citerni, which explored the head-waters +of the Sobat (Baro, Akobo, etc.) in the southern Abyssinian highlands, +and also the waters of the Didessa (Dabessa), which is the southernmost +tributary of the Blue Nile. + +In 1898 the celebrated Captain (now Colonel) J. B. Marchand, who +had made a most remarkable journey across the Nyam-nyam country in +the western Nile basin from the Mbomu (a northern affluent of the +Welle-Ubangi), across the Nile watershed to the Sue River, and down the +Sue to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and Fashoda, left Fashoda[116] in consequence +of the agreement between France and Great Britain, and travelled to +Abyssinia more or less along the course of the Sobat River, thus, +first of all Europeans, practically connecting the southern provinces +of Abyssinia with the White Nile by a direct journey up the valley of +the Sobat or Baro. Marchand’s explorations were supplemented by those +of MM. de Bonchamps and Michel. + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by Pierre Petit & Fils._] + +COLONEL J. B. MARCHAND.] + +These explorers were soon followed in the same direction by the late +Captain M. S. Wellby. Captain Wellby also made a most interesting +journey from Abyssinia to Lake Rudolf, down the east coast of Lake +Rudolf to Lake Baringo and the Uganda Protectorate, and then northwest +through the Turkana country, which lies to the west of Lake Rudolf. +Here Captain Wellby found himself on the Nile-Rudolf water-parting. +To the west of the Turkana, in the Karamojo country, he crossed an +important stream named the Ruzi,[117] which was flowing in a general +way northwest. Farther north he encountered another river also named +Ruzi, which might or might not be the same, but which in doubt he +called Ruzi II. From the second of these Ruzis he eventually reached +the main Sobat. Thenceforth he believed that in one or other of the +Ruzis he had discovered the southernmost affluent, or perhaps the +headwaters of the Sobat River. His theory, however, was strongly +contested by Major H. H. Austin, who, in company with Major R. G. T. +Bright, travelled over the greater part of the Sobat system in +1900–1901, giving us for the first time a fairly accurate survey of +that river, and of its southern affluents, especially the Pibor-Akobo, +which for length of course, though not in volume, might lay claim to +be the main Sobat River. The Akobo rises in the mountains to the north +of Lake Rudolf, its source being very close to the stream of the Omo, +the principal feeder of Lake Rudolf. It does receive an affluent from +the south, which is named by Major Austin “Neubari,” but this stream +is at present unexplored in its lower course. It might turn out to be +one of the rivers named by Captain Wellby “Ruzi.” At the same time Dr. +Donaldson-Smith, who crossed this region in 1900, does not appear to +have encountered running water where the junction of the Ruzi and the +Neubari should have taken place. Probably the two Ruzis discovered +by Captain Wellby are two different streams, one of which flows +northwestward into the Nile and the other into the northwest corner of +Lake Rudolf. The countries to the south of Akobo and northwest of Lake +Rudolf are described by the few travellers who have visited them as +being a region of appalling drought. + +[Illustration: GORGE OF THE RIVER BARO (UPPER SOBAT).] + +Mr. Weld Blundell had succeeded the Bonchamps-Michel expedition +as an explorer of the Blue Nile, and of its interesting southern +affluent, the Didessa. Mr. Blundell made several interesting changes +in the delineation of the course of the Blue Nile westward of Gojam. +Blundell’s work was succeeded by the remarkable surveys of Major C. W. +Gwynn and Lieutenant L. C. Jackson, who contributed a map of the Blue +Nile from Roseires up stream to the Gubba country, on the frontiers of +Abyssinia. They also threw a little more light on the course of the +Didessa and Yabus affluents of the Blue Nile, and the upper waters of +the Rahad, which also flows (somewhat intermittently) into the Blue +Nile. From the Rahad they crossed the tiny stretch of mountainous +country (Galabat) to the Atbara. Here they showed that only a distance +of about five miles of mountains separates the affluents of the Atbara +from the affluents of the Rahad, which is a tributary of the Blue +Nile. But for this intervening ridge of five miles in breadth, the +systems of the Atbara and the Blue Nile would (as the ancients and +Arabs formerly believed) have turned the whole country of Sennar into a +huge island, in which form it was represented by most travellers down +to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Major Gwynn also explored +the head-waters of the river Garre, which is the northernmost affluent +of the Baro-Sobat, and also the Pibor. As to the country between the +Baro or the main upper Sobat and the Pibor, Major Gwynn describes it +as “a dried-up marsh covered with a thick choking layer of black ash +resulting from the burning of the grass.” The Nuers, one of the eastern +tribes of the Nilotic Negroes, he describes as a wonderfully fine +race physically, averaging nearly six feet in height. Of the work of +the earliest European pioneer in western Galaland Major Gwynn gives a +generous estimate:-- + + “Up to this point (the Lega-Gala country) we had been traversing + a land which had to a certain extent been explored by Schuver, + and his work had, on the whole, been found to be very accurate in + detail, though in the southern portions of his map a considerable + error in latitude had appeared.... Schuver was much liked and + respected throughout the country, and a great impression had been + produced by his dog, which must have been a big Newfoundland. (He + is still always spoken of by the Galas as Abu Sari, ‘the Father of + the Dog.’)” + +[Illustration: BERTA NEGROES.] + +On the middle of the Blue Nile, north of the country of Fazokl, the +aboriginal inhabitants are purely Negro--Berta and Barun. These Negro +races were probably first mentioned by Cailliaud, the French explorer, +and Ferdinand Werne, the German, who travelled on the Blue Nile between +1829 and 1843. Major Gwynn describes them as “a very black race, large, +well made, but slothful and stupid to a degree. Going up to their +villages in the hills, one finds them stretched out, sunning themselves +on the rocks, looking for all the world like great black snails. Funny +little black pigs and stringy fowls share the huts on equal terms.” + +An interesting journey was made by Mr. Oscar T. Crosby across southern +Abyssinia and down the Blue Nile in 1900. In an article by Mr. Crosby +in the “Geographical Journal” of July, 1900, an interesting description +is given of the deep gorge of the Blue Nile in the Gomar country +of Gojam. The level of the river at this point is 4,725 feet above +sea-level. The edge of the plateau above the river is 9,650 feet, and +this plateau descends nearly five thousand feet in a series of abrupt +steps or “benches.” + +At the beginning of 1900 Mr. Oscar Neumann, a German, already noted +for his explorations of the eastern part of the Uganda Protectorate, +reached Abyssinia by the now well-trodden route from Zeila to Harar, +and after visiting the Blue Nile in Gojam, explored the northern part +of the Rudolf basin, and then reached the Galo, which is one of the +rivers that might claim to be the head-waters of the Sobat, a river +rising in those lofty, snow-patched highlands to the southwest of +Enarea. From the Galo, Neumann crossed to the Akobo, and followed this +stream down to its confluence with the Pibor. At this confluence he +makes the Pibor such an important stream that it may well be Captain +Wellby’s Ruzi. In the country immediately to the south of Kaffa and +on the water-parting between the systems of the Nile and Lake Rudolf +Mr. Neumann claims to have discovered Negro races of the Bantu stock. +Apparently he means merely in physical type,--in other words, Negroes +of more or less West African affinities; but if he or any other +traveller should be able to support this statement by specimens of +the language of these Sheko and Binesho peoples which actually showed +affinities with the Bantu family, he would have thrown a remarkable new +light on the unsolved problem concerning the source of this interesting +family of African languages. The present writer has been able to show +that Bantu languages of the most archaic type exist at the present +day on the northwest slopes of Mount Elgon. This is the furthest +point to the northeast to which the Bantu family has been traced. +Thence southwards and westwards it spreads as the dominating family of +languages as far as Cape Colony and Fernando Po. + +[Illustration: A BERTA VILLAGE IN THE MATONGWE MOUNTAINS.] + +Almost the only large white spot now remaining unexplored in the +Nile basin is the district occupied by Nilotic Negroes (Dinka, Nuēr, +Shiluk), lying between the Sobat River on the northeast and the main +White Nile on the west and southwest. This region appears to be a flat +country of alternate marsh and arid steppe, producing few or no great +rivers of its own. On the west it is watered by the affluents of an +important river, vaguely known as the Oguelokur, some of which (such as +the Tu and Kos) rise in those high mountains of the Lotuka country in +the northernmost parts of the Uganda Protectorate. Mr. Ewart Grogan, +accompanied part of the way by Mr. Sharp, in 1899 and 1900, made a +remarkable journey, literally from the Cape to Cairo. He travelled from +the north end of Lake Tanganyika by way of lakes Kivu and Albert Edward +to the Albert Nyanza, and thence down the Nile to the sudd barriers +beyond Bor. After which, taking to the land, he traversed the unknown +country along that branch of the White Nile called Bahr-az-Ziraf or +the Giraffe River. He discovered another branch of the Mountain Nile +which joins the Bahr-az-Ziraf, and at the junction of these rivers he +notes the entry of a powerful tributary from the southeast, doubtless +the Oguelokur. It is sometimes supposed that the southernmost of the +Ruzi rivers discovered by Captain Wellby also joins the Oguelokur, and +not the Sobat, though the more northern Ruzi may be the head-waters of +the Pibor. Some distance to the west of the Pibor is a river called in +Sudanese Arabic “Khor Felus.” This river was practically discovered by +Captain H. H. Wilson in 1902. Starting southwards from the Sobat, not +far from its confluence with the main Nile, Captain Wilson followed +the Khor Felus up stream for a distance of some eighty-five miles in +a direct line due south. He describes the country traversed by this +winding river as being flat and uninteresting,--nothing but a vast +grassy plain, with hardly a tree to be seen. The river or khor was +not traced to its source, which indeed was said by the natives to be +the White Nile itself. If this be true, another branch of the White +Nile would start from near Bor and flow northeastwards into the Sobat; +further, more natural canals seem to connect the Khor Felus with the +Pibor or the Upper Sobat. If this is the case, then in that vast plain +lying between the Sobat and the Nile, which was once a portion of the +“Lake of Fashoda,” we have still remains of many old channels of the +Nile which, as the lake drained off to the northwards, meandered over +its drying bed. + +[Illustration: THE NILE IN EGYPT.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +CONCLUSION + + +The Nile quest is practically ended. It may be safely said that every +important branch or affluent or lake-source of this the longest river +in Africa (very nearly the longest in the world) has been discovered, +named, and partially or completely mapped. The only portion of the +Nile basin which presents any noticeable blank on the map is the +unknown district--some say of swamp alternating with arid steppe--which +stretches like a tongue of white in our charts between the tributaries +of the Mountain Nile and the Giraffe on the west, and the affluents +of the Sobat on the east. In all probability whilst these lines are +written and printed this blank is being filled up by industrious +surveyors sent out by the Anglo-Egyptian government of the Sudan. + +Fate has ordained that the entire basin of this river and its +tributaries (with the trifling exceptions of the upper waters of those +which rise within the political limits of Abyssinia, a portion of the +extreme source of the Nile (the Kagera), of Lake Albert Edward, and of +the Semliki) should come under the political control of Great Britain. +We have, therefore, cast our ægis over one of the most wonderful +regions, in some respects one of the most productive portions, of +Africa. + +On the north there is the oldest country in the world, so far as +history goes,--Egypt, with its ten millions of Egyptians, Arabs, +Europeans, and Nubians; its cotton and wheat, maize, barley, beans, +sugar-cane, dates, rice, and clover; its petroleum, gold, and emeralds +in the eastern desert, and its alum and soda in the Libyan wastes; +Egypt, with its European or Mediterranean fauna and flora. + +Then comes Nubia, producing little at present but fierce men of mixed +Hamitic, Semitic, and Negro blood; then the richer countries of Darfur, +Kordofan, Sennar, Bogos, Kasalá, and Galabat. Here there is no lack of +trade goods,--copper, camels, asses, and, above all, acacia gum. The +vegetation in these lands is no longer that of the Mediterranean. It +is African. On the hills above three thousand feet, appear dracænas +and euphorbias. In the lowlands there are baobabs, acacias, giant +fig-trees, wild-date palms, and the branching hyphæne. Here begins the +great fauna of Africa,--baboons, elephants, antelopes, lions, zebras, +cheetahs, leopards, spotted hyænas, wild asses, rhinoceroses, giraffes. + +[Illustration: NUBIA: A “WASHOUT” ON THE SUDAN RAILWAY.] + +Farther south comes the influence of the regular equatorial rains. The +steppe gives place to grasslands, and, above all, to marshes,--hopeless +marshes of papyrus, of Phragmites reeds, of the fleecy _Vossia_ grass, +of the floating _Pistia stratiotes_, the amaranth, the water-lily, +and the ambatch (a gouty bean with orange-coloured blossoms). In +these marshes swarm the hippopotamuses and crocodiles, long banished +from Egypt proper. Here strides and poses the extraordinary _Balæniceps +rex_ or Whale-headed stork. Sacred ibises, spoonbills, stilts, herons, +marabou storks, white storks, black storks, saddle-billed storks, +tantalus storks, Egyptian geese, spur-winged geese, knobnose geese, +ducks of many kinds frequent this dreary land, that, save to birds, +has no horizon; for everywhere the view is shut in with walls of reed +and rush and amphibious bush. Yet away beyond the marshes--marshes +which are really hidden lakes and mighty rivers with false banks of +floating vegetation--is a grassy country dotted with stony hillocks, +if one travels far enough from the river, and inhabited by naked Nile +Negroes. These are tall black men with long, thin shanks, and the gait +and attitudes of wading birds. They are cattle-keepers, above all, and +their vast unseen herds beyond the marsh lands breed and send forth +periodically for the devastation of Africa those cattle plagues which +recur at intervals of a few years. + +[Illustration: TROPICAL FOREST AT ENTEBBE, ON THE NORTH-WEST SHORES OF +VICTORIA NYANZA, + +(Now turned into Botanical Gardens.)] + +To the southwest of Marshland begins an attractive, even beautiful, +park-like country of rolling, grassy downs, interspersed with fine +trees of ample foliage, with belts of forest along the rivers. Beyond +the parklands rises that tremendous tropical forest which passes thence +uninterruptedly over the water-parting into the basin of the Congo. +This tropical forest, only to be rivalled in luxuriance by that of +the Amazons in South America, stretches in a crescent curve along +the southwestern edge of the Nile basin to Ruwenzori, and, with a few +interruptions, into Unyoro, Uganda, and the northern shores of the +Victoria Nyanza. On the plateaux lying to the northeast of the Victoria +Nyanza are other areas of dense forest, but not always tropical in +character,--forests consisting of great conifers and tree-heaths, which +reappear on the high mountains of Abyssinia. + +To the immediate south of the marshy country appears more parkland on +either side of the Mountain Nile, and in the countries of the Acholi, +the Lango, and the Lotuka. Beyond this parkland is the great area of +marshes between the Victoria Nile and Mount Elgon. North of Elgon +the parkland becomes more arid. East and west of the Victoria Nyanza +are beautiful and healthy plateaux ranging from six thousand to ten +thousand feet in altitude, and highly suggestive of Europe and the Cape +of Good Hope in their vegetation. + +Between the watershed of Rudolf and that of the White Nile are many +mountains, but as one proceeds northward in the direction of the Sobat, +the country is increasingly parched and sandy where it is not stagnant +marsh. + +Nileland contains within its limits the highest point of the African +continent,--the culminating peak (whichever it may be) of the Ruwenzori +range, a ridge which presents some thirty miles of snow and glaciers, +and perhaps attains twenty thousand feet in supreme altitude. South +of Ruwenzori, and still partly within the Nile watershed, is the +Mfumbiro group of volcanoes, two of which possibly exceed an altitude +of thirteen thousand feet. Away to the northeast of the Victoria +Nyanza is the great extinct volcano of Elgon, over fourteen thousand +feet in height, while the mountains of Abyssinia, where the Sobat, the +Blue Nile and its tributaries, and the Atbara take their rise, reach +in places to altitudes of sixteen thousand feet, and are capped with +patches of perpetual snow. Nileland, therefore, offers a wonderful +range of climate, temperature, and vegetation. + +Its fauna comprises the most interesting, the biggest, and the +handsomest of African beasts. And its human races include nearly every +type of Negro and Negroid,--Congo Pygmies, Turkana giants, Masai +like Greek athletes and Balega[118] like apes, long-shanked Dinka +and Shiluk, short-limbed Lendu, burly Baganda, handsome Bahima, ugly +Berta and Shangala, bearded Nyam-nyam and womanish Madi; the clothed, +curly-haired Galas and the absolutely nude Nilotic Negroes. In Egypt +are pure Caucasians; in Nubia and Abyssinia, in the lands between the +Nyanzas, are people of this regal stock variously mixed with antecedent +Negro. + +The Nile has been the main route by which in ancient times the +Caucasian invaded Negro Africa, the once exclusive path by which the +white man’s cultivated plants and domestic animals reached the torrid +lands and dense forests where the Negro, before the Caucasian touched +him, lived in the condition of the semi-beast. No Negro race cared +whence the Nile came or whither it flowed. Interest in geographical +problems, as it was remarked in the first chapter of this book, is +almost the exclusive heritage of the Caucasian. This is the human +race which for some three thousand years has felt first a flickering +curiosity, latterly an intense desire, to wrest the secret of the Nile +sources from the heart of Africa. Its aim is accomplished. The main +features of the Nile system are placed on the maps of civilised men, +are known to intelligent Egyptians, Arabs, Indians, and Abyssinians. + +The Nile has been the Caucasian’s first and easiest way across the +desert to Real Africa before the ocean could be navigated. The Nile +basin, moreover, offered to the more sensitive white man elevated +areas, oases in a land of malarial fever, wherein he could make +some home or settlement, south of the Tropic of Capricorn, not too +dissimilar in climate and temperature to the lands of temperate +Europe and Asia. From the vantage-ground of Abyssinia, of the Nandi +and Ankole plateaux, of the Mediterranean Delta of the Nile, the +Caucasian may still direct the education of the Nile Negroes and +permeate increasingly these black and bronze-skinned, woolly-haired +backsliders from human progress with Caucasian blood, energy, and love +of knowledge, till the Nile Negro himself grows interested in the past +history of Nile discovery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE NILE BASIN + + +Early in the geological history of the globe there appear to have been +rock-foldings, wrinkles in the earth’s surface in the eastern half of +Africa. Sometimes this puckering of the solid crust manifested itself +simply in longitudinal strips of raised plateaux of which Abyssinia +and the highlands east of the Victoria Nyanza, north and west of +Nyasaland, are remains. A sharper wrinkle than others produced the +remarkable snowy range of Ruwenzori, perhaps the greatest altitude of +the African continent. These lofty plateaux and mountain ranges from +Abyssinia on the north to Nyasaland on the south have no doubt in all +times attracted an unusually heavy rainfall from the moisture-laden +clouds which are blown inland off the Indian Ocean. The rainfall on the +Livingstone Mountains and the Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau drains south +and east to the Indian Ocean and west to the basin of the Congo; or +into Tanganyika, which is likewise connected with the Congo at the +present day.[119] North of the Tanganyika system, however,--that is to +say, approximately north of the third degree of south latitude,--the +rainfall flows either towards the Mediterranean down the valley of +the Nile, or else in a north-northeasterly direction into a string +of isolated lakes which apparently at one time communicated with the +Gulf of Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea. Supervening on the original +wrinkling of the true backbone of Africa (i.e. the elevated ridge +which extends from the Nubian Alps to the Cape of Good Hope or at any +rate to the Zambezi) came a series of profound volcanic disturbances, +elevating, depressing, cracking, and rending the eastern side of +this ancient continent. As a rule this volcanic action seems to +have proceeded along nearly parallel curved lines, running from the +latitudes of the Zambezi River in a north-northeasterly direction. The +first and widest of these faults due to volcanic action was seemingly +the sinking of the ground between Madagascar and East Africa. A nearly +parallel but much narrower rift valley was also formed up the trough of +Lake Nyasa, northwards[120] to the celebrated rift valley which lies +to the east of the Victoria Nyanza, and contains innumerable lakes, +large and small, salt and fresh. This valley, with some interruptions, +extends north and northeast till it reaches the shores of the Gulf +of Aden.[121] Westward again of this East African rift (which some +geologists believe to have been continued with a northwesterly +inflection up the Red Sea to the valley of the Jordan) is another less +clearly-defined fault, which may have produced the valleys of the +Kafue and of the Luapula, and was then continued northwards through +Tanganyika to the Albert Nyanza and the valley of the Nile. Various +upheavals and modifications broke up the continuity of this western +rift valley. The drainage of the Kafue was deflected to the Indian +Ocean; that of the Luapula and its lakes and of Tanganyika to the Congo +basin. North of Lake Kivu,[122] however, the drainage flowed northward +into a vast fresh-water inland sea, which, for want of a better name, +we may call the Lake of Fashoda. A parallel to this great circular, +shallow sheet of water existed not very anciently in the northern +basin of the Congo, and another is to be seen at the present day in +the Victoria Nyanza. This last is the largest existing lake in Africa. +So far as is known it is shallow compared to such deep troughs as +Tanganyika and Nyasa, and is possibly not a very ancient sheet of water +as geological age may be reckoned. + +[Illustration: NAPOLEON GULF, LOOKING SOUTH, NEAR THE OUTLET OF THE +RIPON FALLS. + +[Note the isolated rocks, the remains of a former barrier and fall.]] + +The Victoria Nyanza is in origin little but the widened course of the +river Kagera, which flowed along a curved depression to the eastward +of the Ruwenzori, Ankole, Mpororo, and Mfumbiro highlands. The Kagera, +in fact, at the present day may be regarded as the extreme source of +the Nile. It rises approximately under the fourth degree of south +latitude, only a few miles from the mountainous shores of northeast +Tanganyika. Many streams descending[123] from these Burundi mountains +unite to form the Kagera, which, after a zigzag northerly course +studded with not a few small lakes, turns, under the first degree of +south latitude, abruptly to the east (with one dip to the south) and +enters the Victoria Nyanza a little to the north of the first degree +of south latitude. The original course of the stream evidently lay +between the Sese Islands (the remains of high mountains) and the coasts +of Buddu and Uganda, and then through the Rosebery Channel into the +Napoleon Gulf, from which, over the Ripon Falls, it issues as the +acknowledged Nile. Apart from the Kagera the great Victoria Nyanza +receives few rivers of size or important volume. The only others worthy +to be mentioned are the Nzoia on the northeast, the Nyando and its +affluents, which form Kavirondo Bay, and four largish rivers which +enter the east coast of the lake. If the bed of the Victoria Nyanza +could be raised by some earth movement about two hundred and fifty +feet, it would be traversed by a converging network of river channels +uniting with the Kagera and the main stream of the Nile in what is at +present called Napoleon Gulf; and the geographical appearance of this +dried-up lake would be very similar to the present aspect on the map of +the many branches and affluents of the Nile and its tributaries which +converge (south of Fashoda) at the junction of the Sobat. The surface +area of the Victoria Nyanza may at one time have been considerably +greater than it is at the present day, and have covered a good deal of +the country of Unyamwezi. Perhaps at one time it had no outlet. The +highlands forming the eastern spine of the continent and stretching +along the eastern cliffs of the rift valley from Abyssinia to North +Nyasa prevented its overflowing towards the Indian Ocean; while the +Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau and the mountains bordering the Tanganyika +rift valley opposed any western escapement. Therefore the great inland +sea created by the drainage of Unyamwezi, of the Kagera, and the rivers +from the Nandi plateau was forced up against the ridge of highish land +(4,000 feet), forming the existing countries of Uganda, Busoga, and +Kavirondo. Attacking this ridge at its narrowest diameter, the pent-up +waters of the Victoria Nyanza slowly carved their way northwards down +the gorge now occupied by the Nile at the Ripon Falls. Nearly all the +drainage of the Uganda-Busoga Plateau runs northward, and does not +fall into the Victoria Nyanza. The tilt of this plateau is highest +round the northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza (four to five thousand +feet), and falls gradually till it reaches the somewhat low level (two +thousand feet) of the Upper Nile valley. The escaping waters of the +Victoria Nyanza formed another great lake (Kioga-Kwania) immediately +to the north on the other side of the Uganda ridge. This lake again +drained off eventually to the original (Albertine) Nile. The site of +its former bed is covered at the present day with vast marshes and with +the straggling, many-armed lake of Kioga-Kwania. + +[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF THE VICTORIA NILE, AT THE RIPON FALLS.] + +The Albertine Nile, which some geographers think was the original main +stream of the river, rises under the name of Ruchuru on the northern +slopes of that great volcanic mass called the Mfumbiro mountains. These +mountains have arisen in recent times in the middle of a rift valley +which, seemingly, included Lake Kivu. The same fault may also contain +the basin of Tanganyika, but this lies at a much lower level than Kivu. +From Kivu (which no doubt once drained towards the Nile before the +volcanic dam arose on the north) there would have been a gentle slope +downward and northward (only partially stemmed by the extraordinary +peninsula of Ruwenzori) to the basin of the Albert Nyanza. + +The Ruchuru enters Lake Albert Edward,--creates that lake, in +fact,--and the Albert Edward Nyanza has a northern gulf or +tributary lake known as Dweru, which receives much of the drainage +of Ruwenzori, and transmits the melted snows of this Central African +Caucasus to the basin of the Albert Edward. From the north end of +Albert Edward the Albertine Nile issues again under the conventional +name of the Semliki. The Semliki flows round the abrupt western +slopes of Ruwenzori into Lake Albert Nyanza, from the northern end of +which important basin (which lies at an altitude of 2,100 feet above +the sea), the Mountain Nile, formed by the great twin lakes, whose +existence was remotely known to the ancients, starts on its career. + +[Illustration: ON LAKE ALBERT EDWARD (NORTH-WEST COAST).] + +The Victoria Nile enters the north end of Lake Albert, and its waters +leave that lake almost uninfluenced by their volume; in fact, Lake +Albert has almost become a river, the Albertine Nile, when the water +coming from the Victoria Nyanza enters the river-like end of the Albert +at Magungo and then abruptly turns with full stream to the north. The +Mountain Nile,[124] after leaving Lake Albert, maintains a broad, +lake-like character until it enters the narrow rift valley north of +Nimule in the Madi country. Along this winding gorge, which exhibits +some of the finest scenery of Africa, the Nile flows over nearly a +hundred miles of cataracts and descends in all about five hundred feet. +At Lado (in about 5° north latitude), where it slackens and expands, +the altitude of the White or Mountain Nile is about fifteen hundred +feet above sea-level. At the beginning of this cataract region, north +of Nimule, the Nile receives a lengthy affluent from the southeast. +This is the river Asua, which drains the very mountainous but slightly +arid country west of the Rudolf watershed, and north of Mount Elgon. +The Asua attracted a great deal of attention in the early days of Nile +exploration, owing to Speke having thought that it was an additional +outlet of the Victoria Nyanza, flowing from (what is now called) +Kavirondo Bay. + +North of Lado the Nile enters an exceedingly marshy region, which is +perhaps three hundred miles from north to south and two hundred miles +from east to west. This area once certainly was the site of a lake at +one time as large or larger than the Victoria Nyanza. This lake was +mostly fed from the west by seven or eight important streams, which +to-day, with their many tributaries, unite to form that broad western +branch of the Nile known as the Bahr-al-Ghazal.[125] + +The Bahr-al-Ghazal is little else than a great estuary which receives +contributions from many big rivers. If, however, one of these is to +be selected as the main stream on account of general consistency of +direction, then the Bahr-al-Arab would be the upper waters of the +Gazelle. The furthest perennial source of this river is in the country +of Dar Fertit, on the verge of the northernmost limits of the Congo +basin, and within a few days’ journey of the Upper Shari. Other very +doubtful tributaries of the Bahr-al-Arab drain off what little water is +not evaporated in the somewhat arid country of Darfur. The Bahr-al-Arab +is fed by at least four important rivers, which flow northward from the +Congo water-parting in the Nyam-nyam countries. + +If volume of water is to be considered, then probably the main stream +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is the Jur or Dyur, which, in its upper waters, +is known as the Sue or Swe. The Sue-Jur rises in about 4° north +latitude, not many days’ journey to the east of Mbomu. (The Mbomu is +an important tributary of the Welle-Ubangi, which again is one of the +principal tributaries of the Congo.) There is nearly continuous steam +navigation up the Welle-Ubangi and the Mbomu to within a few days’ +journey of the Nile basin. It was up this stream (from the Congo) that +Marchand and his intrepid companions travelled in 1897. From the waters +of the Mbomu they carried their little steam-launch overland to the +Upper Sue. They were then able to descend this river for hundreds of +miles to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the main Nile. Near Mashra-ar-Rak, at +the commencement of what the Sudanese style the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the +Jur is joined by another important stream called, in its lower course, +the Tonj, which has many tributaries coming from the vicinity of the +Welle. Nearly parallel with this river to the east are the Roa and the +Rōl (or Yalo), both of which enter the Bahr-al-Ghazal not far from its +confluence with the main Nile. There is also a river Yei or Ayi, the +direction of which is not fully determined. This river, which flows +nearly parallel with the main Nile, some sixty miles to the west of +Lado, either enters the Rōl and thus the Bahr-al-Ghazal, or turns into +the main Nile not far from the bifurcation of the Bahr-az-Ziraf. + +The Bahr-az-Ziraf is an eastern branch of the main Nile, which leaves +the parental river near Bor (about latitude 6° 40′ north) and flows +very tortuously northwards, rejoining the White Nile about sixty miles +east of Lake No (Bahr-al-Ghazal). The Ziraf or Giraffe River has other +communicating channels with the main Nile, and also throws off sluggish +contributions to the Khor Felus,--a western tributary of the Lower +Sobat. The Giraffe River (so named by the Arabs for the many giraffes +once sighted from its banks) receives from the south an important +stream known (perhaps incorrectly) as the Oguelokur, which, through +its component rivers the Tu and Kos, drains the northern slopes of the +Lotuka Mountains. + +The lower part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is often lost in marshes or is +widened into lake-like expanses such as Lake No, at the confluence of +the White Nile. About a hundred miles to the east of this confluence +with the Kir or main White Nile (also called, south of this point, +the Bahr-al-Jabl or Mountain Nile), there enters a very important +affluent from the east, the Sobat (Baro), which is formed by a number +of streams flowing from the southwestern part of the Abyssinian Empire +and the vicinity of the Lake Rudolf basin.[126] After its confluence +with the Sobat the White Nile flows without any important tributary for +something like three hundred and fifty miles nearly due north through +a country which passes from a tropical luxuriance of vegetation to +the acacias and thin grass of the steppe region. The influence of the +Sahara Desert, in fact, begins to make itself felt,--that desert which +extends right across from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, interrupted +only by the exceptional mountain regions of Tibesti, Darfur, Abyssinia, +Yaman, and Jabl Akhdar. + +At Khartum, in about 15° 40′ north latitude, the Nile receives its most +important affluent, the Abai or Blue Nile (Bahr-al-Azrak). This river +rises on Sagada Mountain in the Abyssinian province of Gojam, passes +through the south end of Lake Tsana (a piece of water about the area of +Gloucestershire) in the western part of Central Abyssinia, and, after +curving to the east and south, turns west and north, and brings to the +Nile (it is said) that great increase of volume in the summer time +which causes the annual flooding of Lower Egypt. + +Lengthy as is the course of the White Nile from the Victoria and Albert +Nyanzas to Khartum, and infinitely greater though the mass of its +waters should be than the volume of the Blue Nile, the stream of the +White River has nevertheless been much attenuated before it reaches +Khartum by the waste of its volume in the region of vast swamps lying +between Fashoda on the north and Lado on the south, to say nothing +also of a similar waste and evaporation of water from the deflection +of the Victoria Nile into the backwaters and swamps of Kioga and +Kwania. Another contribution--though a much feebler one in volume of +water--comes from Abyssinia in the shape of the Atbara, which, in its +upper waters, is known as the Takaze.[127] This river, during the +dry season, almost ceases to flow in its lower portion, though it is +flooded during the summer months from the melting of the snows and the +heavy tropical rains on the northern Abyssinian mountains. The Atbara +is considered by Sir Samuel Baker to contribute the principal share of +the black mud which fertilises Egypt. + +After the confluence of the Atbara the Nile receives no other tributary +of running water during the whole remainder of its course, though +in former times of far greater rainfall it was joined by streams of +considerable volume flowing northeast from Kordofan. The Nile at +Ambukol seems to fall into another rift valley or series of faults, +along which, and over deserts of sandstone, granite, and limestone, it +pursues its way to the southeastern angle of the Mediterranean Sea. The +great river divides in the extreme lower part of its course into two +main branches, through which, and a number of other smaller streams and +artificial canals, it pours into the sea the attenuated volume of water +derived from the rainfall of Eastern Equatorial Africa, much having +been already spent in useless swamps, or evaporated as it passed over a +thousand miles of desert, or diverted by man to fertilise Lower Egypt. + +An interesting feature of the Nile basin, and one which was known more +or less vaguely to the ancient Egyptians and to the Sabæan Arabs of +two thousand years ago,[128] is the existence of snow-mountains at the +head-waters of the two principal rivers of the Nile system,--the White +and the Blue Niles. Ruwenzori[129] was probably known to the ancients +as the Mountains of the Moon. It is a mass of mainly Archæan rock some +eighty miles long, which runs from northeast to southwest between Lake +Albert and Lake Albert Edward. This marvellous range of snow-peaks and +glaciers--a glittering panorama nearly thirty miles in length--exhibits +a greater display of snow and ice (and that exactly under the equator) +than can be seen anywhere else in the African continent, and is of far +more imposing appearance than the isolated snow-capped summits of +Kenya and Kilimanjaro (extinct volcanoes). The entire drainage of the +Ruwenzori snows falls into the Albertine Nile, that is to say, into +Lake Edward, or the river Semliki, which connects that lake with Albert +Nyanza. The other heights crowned with perpetual snow in the basin of +the Nile are the high peaks of the Samien or Simen range in northern +Abyssinia, and one at least,[130] of the south Ethiopian (Kaffa) +highlands. Two of the Samien peaks rise to a little over fifteen +thousand feet in altitude and one (Buahit) to sixteen thousand feet. +They are part of a nearly circular rim of great heights which surround +Lake Tsana. To the south of Lake Tsana the mountains rise to heights +of eleven, twelve, and fourteen thousand feet, but have no permanent +snow. On the limits of the Nile basin, near the northeast corner of the +Victoria Nyanza, stands Mount Elgon, a mighty extinct volcano,--perhaps +the largest extinct volcano in the world. The crater rim of Elgon rises +in places to over fourteen thousand feet in altitude, but no snow +remains there permanently. Elsewhere than the Nile basin it is probable +that permanent snow and ice are only to be found on the adjacent +extinct volcanoes of Kenya and Kilimanjaro, and on the highest peaks of +the Atlas range far away in the west of Morocco.[131] + +The lower valley of the Nile, the country which we know as Egypt, has +undergone fluctuations of level since the beginning of the Tertiary +Epoch. In the secondary ages the last five hundred miles of the Nile +valley lay for a period of immense duration under the waters of the +ocean, where the limestone deposits were formed. In Eocene times this +limestone bed was slowly raised to the altitude of a tableland above +the Mediterranean, but always cut off from the direction of the Red Sea +by the continuous range of mountains which we know as the Nubian Alps. +It is possible that the drainage of the Central African rift valleys +and lakes and snow-mountains may, by the uprising of this tableland, +have been severed from its natural escape to the Mediterranean, and +that the Nile ran to waste in what is now the Libyan Desert. No doubt +the Nile formed lake after lake, and the overflow from these lakes +slowly bored a passage through the limestone tableland. Then in Miocene +times took place a further rise in the range of the Nubian Alps and +the adjoining land, which caused fractures to occur in the limestone +formation. Of this the Nile took advantage, though it filled up the +rifts to some extent with its debris. The Nile cut at one time a very +deep bed through the limestone; but then occurred fluctuations in +level, a sinking of the Nile valley which once more brought the waters +of the Mediterranean far inland, and covered the channel of the Nile +with rubble washed in by the sea. Previous to this the cracks and +folds which had occurred through the upheaval of the eastern highlands +had evidently caused volcanic disturbances by the water of the Nile +reaching through these cracks the heated strata below. The volcanic +outbursts left behind beds of basalt through which the persistent Nile +again cut a channel. In the later Tertiary ages Egypt was a country of +abundant rainfall, the very reverse of the absolute desert of to-day. +Heavy rains carved and scarped the surface of the country and nourished +a luxuriant forest. At this period the lands lying to the west of +Egypt, in what is now known as the Libyan Desert, were probably a bay +of the Mediterranean. + +After the Pliocene Epoch, when man first began to appear on the scene, +there was another lowering of the level of the Nile valley in Egypt, +and the Mediterranean extended its waters perhaps to the vicinity of +Assiut. At this time the Mediterranean was almost certainly connected +with the Red Sea across the Isthmus of Suez. The Nile stream was +probably rapid in its descent towards the extended Mediterranean, and +cut a deeper and deeper channel. Then another rise of the land took +place, separating the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, and sending back +the Mediterranean to something like its present limits; the upheaval +indeed may have made what is now the Delta of the Nile higher than it +is at the present day, while the river cut its way through a channel +many feet deeper than the existing bed. Gradually, however, the Lower +Nile became more sluggish as the land near the Mediterranean rose, and, +losing its rapidity, it deposited more and more thickly the detritus +brought down from Equatorial Africa, Abyssinia, and Nubia, and so +raised its bed to a higher level. It has also enlarged its delta by the +deposit of mud, though the fatuity of its work in this direction (in +the presence of earth waves) is shown by the fluctuations which have +occurred even within the last three thousand years. Not more than a +thousand years ago Lake Menzaleh was a fertile and richly cultivated +district. + +[Illustration: IN THE LIBYAN DESERT.] + +Some time after man penetrated into Egypt (probably from the east) +the countries to the west of the Lower Nile began to rise above the +sea, for much of the Libyan Desert was under the Mediterranean in the +Tertiary Epoch. This retreat of the sea coupled with other conditions +not clearly known to us brought about a marked change in the climate of +Africa north of the fifteenth degree of north latitude. The aridity of +the Sahara Desert and of Arabia began to exercise a potent influence +over the fate of northern Africa. Many of the lands, which as late +as the human period were still covered with plentiful vegetation and +were traversable by the apes, the elephants, and the antelopes of +to-day, began to dry up into their present condition, an aridity which, +from all we know, is increasing and extending. Only Egypt was kept +alive by the beneficent stream which, so abundantly nurtured by the +snow-mountains and equatorial rain-belt of eastern Africa, survived +even its passage of a thousand miles through the blazing desert, and +covered the narrow ribbon of Upper Egypt and the tassel of the Delta +with an ever fruitful soil of finely triturated mud. + +The Nile has a length of course of some four thousand miles +measured along the windings of the channel of its main stream,--the +Kagera-Victoria-Mountain-White Nile. It is still doubtful as to whether +the Missouri-Mississippi in North America is longer than the Nile, +and thus the longest river in length of course in the world. In any +case the Nile has the pre-eminence for actual length of basin, which, +in a straight line measured from the furthest source of the Kagera to +Rosetta on the Mediterranean, is about 2,490 miles. + +The area of the Nile basin is approximately 1,080,000 square +miles.[132] This falls short of the area of the Congo basin by some +400,000 square miles. The volume of water which the Nile pours into +the Mediterranean is trivial compared with the Congo’s contribution to +the ocean; but then the waters of the equatorial zone in East Africa +are evaporated from the surface of lakes, squandered in swamps, sucked +up by the desert winds, and finally are employed to irrigate Egypt; +so that no comparison with the output of the Congo would give a fair +idea of the catchment in the Nile basin. This, perhaps (including the +annual contribution to the Nile lakes), reaches to two-thirds of the +volume of water poured into the Atlantic by the Congo’s single mouth. + +This geographical sketch is intended to place before the reader the +main features in the geography of Nileland. It is the summing up of +the results of exploration during four or five thousand years. The +preceding chapters deal with the history of the way in which the +Caucasian has laid bare the secrets of the Nile to the curiosity of +the civilised. It is only the Caucasian race which has cared for +geography in the past,--the Caucasian in all his types as Dravidian, +Hamite, Semite, Iberian, and Aryan. The Mongol of Asia and America, the +Negro of Papua and Africa has never cared to ascertain whence rivers +flowed and whither, what lands lay beyond the ocean or the snow-peaks. +Some early cross with a Caucasian race sent the Polynesian cruising +about the Pacific and venturing over the Indian Ocean from Java to +Madagascar; but the more purely Mongoloid brother in China and Japan +did not care to trace the chain of Aleutian Islands to Alaska and +America, or if he did so by accident, felt the question of no interest, +sequence, or importance. Only the Caucasian, and mainly the White +Caucasian, has worried about the Nile problem. He has attacked it first +from the north (Hamite, Greek and Roman); then from the northeast and +east (Hamite and Semite, Greek, Portuguese, and British); once more +from the north (Arabs, Turks, French, British, Germans, Italians); +resolutely from the southeast (British and Germans); latterly from the +southwest (British, Belgians, and French); and, finally and completely, +from the north and northeast. + + + + +APPENDIX I + +THE ROLL OF FAME + +OF THOSE WHO STARTED ON THE NILE QUEST IN MODERN DAYS + + + NAME. NATIONALITY. + Francisco Alvarez Portuguese. + Pedro Paez ” + JERONIMO LOBO ” + Richard Pococke British (English). + JAMES BRUCE ” (Scottish). + William Browne ” (English). + Johann Ludwig Burckhardt Swiss. + Frederic Cailliaud French. + Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds Belgian. + Prokesch von Osten German. + Eduard Rüppell German. + Selim Bimbashi Turk. + Thibaut French. + D’Arnaud ” + FERDINAND WERNE German. + Brun-Rollet French. + Ignatz Knoblecher Austrian. + ANTOINE THOMSON D’ABBADIE French-Irish. + Arnaud d’Abbadie ” ” + Mansfield Parkyns British (English). + Charles T. Beke ” ” + De Malzac French. + John Petherick British (Welsh). + Alfred Peney French. + Lejean ” + Werner Munzinger Swiss. + Theodor von Heuglin German (Würtemberger). + Alexandrine Tinne Dutch. + JOHN HANNING SPEKE British (English). + JAMES AUGUSTUS GRANT ” (Scottish). + SAMUEL WHITE BAKER ” (English). + Florence Baker Hungarian. + Giovanni Miani Italian (Venetian). + GEORG SCHWEINFURTH Russo-German. + Piaggia Italian. + C. Chaillé-Long United States. + Édouard Linant de Bellefonds Belgian. + CHARLES GEORGE GORDON British (English). + HENRY MORETON STANLEY British (Welsh). + WILHELM JUNKER Russo-German. + C. T. Wilson British (English). + R. W. Felkin ” (Scottish). + Romolo Gessi Italian (Levantine). + C. M. WATSON British (English). + Mason (Bey) United States. + Johann Maria Schuver Dutch. + Ernest Marno Austrian. + EMIN (EDUARD SCHNITZER) German (Silesia). + JOSEPH THOMSON British (Scottish). + Frederick Dealtry Lugard ” (English). + Seymour Vandeleur ” (Irish). + G. F. Scott-Elliot ” (Scottish). + Franz Stuhlmann German. + Oscar Baumann ” + Vittorio Bottego Italian. + JAMES R. LENNOX MACDONALD British (Scottish). + A. H. Dyé French. + J. B. Marchand ” + De Bonchamps French. + M. S. Wellby British (English). + H. H. Austin ” ” + R. G. T. Bright ” ” + C. W. Hobley ” ” + Ewart Grogan ” ” + J. E. S. Moore ” ” + Malcolm Fergusson ” (Scottish). + Lionel Dècle French. + Donaldson Smith United States. + Malcolm Peake British (Scottish). + Weld Blundell ” (English). + Benjamin Whitehouse ” ” + G. W. Gwynn ” (Welsh). + Charles Delmé Radcliffe ” (English). + Oscar Neumann German. + H. H. Wilson British (English). + E. A. Stanton British (English). + William Garstin British (Irish). + +This Roll includes those only who added definitely and markedly to the +map of the Nile basin, not those who travelled through these countries +for other than geographical purposes. It comprises: 34 British (21 +English, 8 Scots, 3 Welsh, and 2 Irish); 10 Germans, 13 French, 4 +Italians, 3 Portuguese, 2 Dutch, 2 Belgians, 2 Americans, 2 Swiss, 3 +Austro-Hungarians, 1 Turk. + + + + +APPENDIX II + +BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS REFERRED TO OR CONSULTED IN THE COMPILATION OF +THIS BOOK + + + _Previous to 1840_ + + HISTORY OF ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY, by Sir E. H. Bunbury. London, 1879. + + LE NORD DE L’AFRIQUE DANS L’ANTIQUITÉ, by Vivien de St. Martin (full + of valuable and reliable information). Paris, 1863. + + GÉOGRAPHIE DU MOYEN AGE, by J. Lelewel. (Brussels, 1852.) + + DOCUMENTS SUR L’HISTOIRE DE L’AFRIQUE ORIENTALE, by Guillain. (Paris, + 1850.) + + GÉOGRAPHIE ANCIENNE, by D’Anville (the 1834 edition brought up to + date by Manne). Paris. + + DOCTRINA PTOLEMAEI, etc., by Berlioux. (Paris, 1871.) + + PTOLEMY AND THE NILE, by T. Desborough Cooley. (1854.) + + GÉOGRAPHIE DES ANCIENS, by P. F. G. Gosselin. Paris, 1798 to 1813. + + Various papers by Mr. E. G. Ravenstein in the Proceedings of the + Royal Geographical Society or in the GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE; also + privately written MS. + + HISTORY OF EGYPT FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES, by W. M. Flinders Petrie (4 + vols.). This and the same author’s article on (ANCIENT) EGYPT in + the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1902, are very + useful for ascertaining what information on the knowledge of the + Nile and the Land of Punt was prevalent in Ancient Egypt and at + the time of the Muhammadan invasion of the Nile countries. + + HISTORY OF EGYPT, Vol. 1 (1902), by Dr. Wallis Budge. + + PTOLEMY’S TOPOGRAPHY OF EASTERN EQUATORIAL AFRICA, by Dr. Schlichter + (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, September, 1891). + + PARTITION OF AFRICA, by Dr. J. Scott Keltie, Second Edition. 1895. + + A SHORT RELATION OF THE RIVER NILE, etc. Proceedings of the Royal + Society, London, Nov. 1, 1668. (Portuguese Jesuits’ travels.) + + TRAVELS OF THE JESUITS IN ETHIOPIA, by Bartholomeo Tellez. 1710. + + HISTORIA DA AFRICA ORIENTAL PORTUGUEZA, por José Joaquim Lopes de + Lima. Lisbon, 1862. + + A VOYAGE TO ABYSSINIA, by Father Jerome Lobo, Portuguese Jesuit, + from the French of LE GRAND. London, 1735. + + NARRATIVE OF THE PORTUGUESE EMBASSY TO ABYSSINIA, 1520–1527. (Hakluyt + Society’s publications, Vol. 44, 1881.) + + L’HYDROGRAPHIE AFRICAINE AU SEIZIÈME SIÈCLE, D’APRÈS LES PREMIÈRES + EXPLORATIONS PORTUGUAISES. (Lisbon, 1878.) + + A DESCRIPTION OF THE EAST and some other Countries, Vol. 1 (Egypt), + by Richard Pococke, LL.D., F.R.S. London, 1743. + + TRAVELS IN UPPER AND LOWER EGYPT, by C. S. Sonnini de Manoncourt + (translated by Henry Hunter). London, 1799. + + TRAVELS TO DISCOVER THE SOURCE OF THE NILE IN 1768, 1773, by James + Bruce, in 5 vols. Edinburgh, 1790. + + (Also an excellent abridgment in 1 vol., published in 1798.) + + A Second Edition in 7 vols., 1805, is considered the best and + fullest account of Bruce’s travels, with some of the errors + corrected. + + TRAVELS IN AFRICA, EGYPT, AND SYRIA, 1792–1798, by William George + Browne. London, 1800. (Darfur, Nubia.) + + THE SOURCES OF THE NILE, by Charles T. Beke. London, 1860. + + THE STORY OF AFRICA, by Dr. Robert Brown, Vols. 2 and 3, 1893, 1894. + (A most useful and trustworthy compilation.) London, Cassel. + + VOYAGE À MEROE, au Fleuve Blanc, etc., by Frederic Cailliaud. 4 vols. + Paris, 1826. + + A VOYAGE TO ABYSSINIA, by Henry Salt, 1814. + + JOURNAL OF NAVIGATION ON THE BAHR-EL-ABIAD OR THE WHITE NILE, by A. + Linant de Bellefonds, 1828. African Association, London. + + TRAVELS IN NUBIA, by John Louis Buckhardt. London, 1819. + + REISEN IN NUBIEN, KORDOFAN, etc., by Eduard Rüppell. Frankfurt a. m., + 1829. + + + _From 1840 to the Present Day_ + + PREMIER VOYAGE À LA RECHERCHE DES SOURCES DU BAHR-AL-ABIAD OU NIL + BLANC: Journal de Voyage par Selim Bimbashi. _Bulletin_, Société + de Géographie. Paris, 1840. + + DOCUMENTS ET OBSERVATIONS SUR LE COURS DU BAHR-AL-ABIAD, by D’Arnaud + Binbachi. Paris, 1843. + + KHARTUM AND THE BLUE AND WHITE NILES (Journeys of Andrew Melly), by + George Melly. London, 1851. 2 vols. + + EXPEDITION ZUR ENTDECKUNG DER QUELLEN DES WEISZEN NIL (1840, 1841), + by Ferdinand Werne. Berlin, 1848. (With admirable map of the + White Nile.) + + JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 17. (Brun-Rollet on + the Sobat River.) + + ANNALES DE VOYAGE(?), by Andrea de Bono. Paris, July, 1862. + + LE FLEUVE BLANC, by Jules Poncet. 1863. + + EGYPT, THE SUDAN, AND CENTRAL AFRICA, etc., by John Petherick. 1861. + + TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA AND EXPLORATION OF THE WESTERN NILE + TRIBUTARIES, 2 vols., by Mr. and Mrs. Petherick. 1869. + + DIE DEUTSCHER EXPEDITION IN OST AFRICA, 1861–1862, by Heuglin and + Munzinger, in Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen, No. 13. + + Heuglin also writes on Miss Tinne’s expedition in the same + periodical, No. 15, 1865, and gives further notes on the White + Nile. + + TRAVELS IN THE REGION OF THE WHITE NILE, by Alexandrine Tinne. 1869. + + GÉODÉSIE DE L’ÉTHIOPIE, by Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie. Paris, 1890. 1 + vol. + + LIFE IN ABYSSINIA, by Mansfield Parkyns. London, 1853. 2 vols. + + GEOLOGY AND ZOÖLOGY OF ABYSSINIA, by W. T. Blanford. 1870. + + THE NILE TRIBUTARIES OF ABYSSINIA, by S. W. Baker. 1867. + + JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 36, p. 2, article by + S. W. Baker. + + JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 36, pp. 1 to 18. + + THE ALBERT NYANZA, etc., by Sir Samuel Baker, M.A. 1866. + + THE ALBERT NYANZA, etc., by Sir Samuel Baker, M.A., New Edition. 1872. + + TRAVELS, RESEARCHES, AND MISSIONARY LABOURS, by Dr. J. L. Krapf. 1860. + + WHAT LED TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE NILE SOURCES, by Captain J. H. + Speke. 1864. + + THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA, by R. F. Burton. 1860. + + JOURNAL OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF THE NILE, by J. H. Speke. + 1864. + + A WALK ACROSS AFRICA, by J. A. Grant. 1865. + + REISE IN DAS GEBIET DES WEISSEN NIL und seine westlichen Zuflusse, + 1862–1864, von M. Theodor von Heuglin. Leipzig, 1869. + + THE HEART OF AFRICA, by Georg Schweinfurth. 2 vols. London, 1873. + + REISE IN NORDOST AFRICA, etc., von M. Theodor von Heuglin. Brunswick, + 1869. + + THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT, by H. M. Stanley. 2 vols. 1877. + + UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN, by C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin. 1879. + + SIR SAMUEL BAKER: a Memoir by T. Douglas Murray and A. Silva White. + London, 1895. + + ISMAILIA, by Sir Samuel W. Baker. London, 1874. + + REMARKS ON A PROPOSED LINE OF TELEGRAPH OVERLAND from Egypt to the + Cape of Good Hope, by (Sir) Edwin Arnold, Colonel J. A. Grant, + and others. London, 1876. + + COLONEL GORDON IN CENTRAL AFRICA, 1874–1879, by George Birkbeck Hill. + London, 1881. + + CENTRAL AFRICA: NAKED TRUTHS OF NAKED PEOPLE, by Colonel C. + Chaillé-Long. London, 1876. + + PROCEEDINGS OF THE KHÉDIVIAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF CAIRO, + 1860–1882. [Schuver, Marno and other travellers.] + + ARTICLES of Mr. E. G. Ravenstein on the researches of the Rev. C. + Wakefield in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 1875, + 1880. + + THROUGH MASAILAND, by Joseph Thomson. 1885. + + TRAVELS IN AFRICA DURING THE YEARS 1875–1878; 1879–1883; 1882–1886; + 1890, 1891, 1892. By Dr. Wilhelm Junker. + + SEVEN YEARS IN THE SUDAN, by Romolo Gessi Pasha. London, 1892. + + IN DARKEST AFRICA, by H. M. Stanley. 2 vols. 1890. + + MIT EMIN PASHA INS HERZ VON AFRICA, by Dr. Franz Stuhlmann. Berlin, + 1894. + + ÉTHIOPIE MÉRIDIONALE, by Jules Borelli. Paris, 1890. + + A NATURALIST’S WANDERINGS IN MID-AFRICA, by C. Scott Elliot. 1894. + + DURCH MASAILAND ZUR NIL QUELLE, by Oscar Baumann. Berlin, 1894. + + JOURNEYS TO THE NORTH OF UGANDA, by Colonel J. R. L. Macdonald and + Major H. H. Austin in Geographical Journal of August, 1899. + + (Also Blue Books giving reports of Major Macdonald’s expedition.) + + CAMPAIGNING ON THE UPPER NILE AND NIGER, by Seymour Vandeleur. 1899. + + THE CAPE TO CAIRO, by E. Grogan and A. Sharp. 1900. + + THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, by J. E. Moore. 1902. + + THE TANGANYIKA PROBLEM, by J. E. Moore. 1902. + + AMONG SWAMPS AND GIANTS IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA, by H. H. Austin. 1902. + + KING MENELIK’S DOMINIONS AND THE COUNTRY BETWEEN LAKE GALLOP (RUDOLF) + AND THE NILE VALLEY, by Captain M. S. Wellby. Geographical + Journal for September, 1900. London. + + THE STORY OF AFRICA, Vols. 2, 3, and 4, by Dr. Robert Brown + (1893–1895). + + THE UGANDA PROTECTORATE, by Sir Harry Johnston. 2 vols. 1902. + + THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL (London) for July and December, 1901; and + October, 1902. + + THE JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY (London) 1902, 1903. [Colonel + Stanton’s articles.] + + +[Illustration: OROGRAPHICAL FEATURES of the NILE BASIN] + +[Illustration: LAND SURFACE FEATURES of the NILE BASIN] + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] A superior type of dark-haired white man allied with Circassian and +Persian, and perhaps a direct development from the Dravidian. + +[2] The Kudu, which is a tragelaph rather than an antelope, exists at +the present day in the eastern part of the Egyptian Sudan, between +Abyssinia and the Nile, and its remains are found fossil in Algeria. It +may therefore have extended even within the historical period to near +the shores of the Mediterranean. + +[3] This word is the origin of the Arabised _Fayūm_, a name given to +the remains of a curious Nile reservoir, or backwater-lake, to the west +of the Nile, in the Libyan Desert. + +[4] The Biblical Yeôr. The Hebrews also called the Nile _Shikhor_, +or the “Black.” The earliest Greek name for the river and country is +_Aiguptos_ (the origin of “Egypt”). Later the name _Neilos_ (Nile) was +given to the river. This became the later Arab and European _Nilus_, +_Nil_, _Nile_, etc. The origin of the Greek names _Aiguptos_ and +_Neilos_ is unknown, but _Neilos_ may be derived from the Persian word +_nil_ = blue. + +[5] Needless to say, in all cases the iris of these eyes is actually +gray; but the gray almost verges on blue in some instances, while the +absence or presence of a dark rim round the eyes gives or withholds the +violet tinge to the gray. + +[6] Ptolemy’s original maps have disappeared, and we only know them +through the well-nigh innumerable copies that were made by Greek monks +between 600 and 900 A.D., by Arabs in the Islamic Renaissance, by +Latin monks and pilgrims, by Venetian and Catalan sailors, and Flemish +or German geographers. Latterly many of these copyists imported into +Ptolemy’s maps of the Nile much recent and modern information. + +[7] Even to-day the local (unofficial) name of Berber or any of the +districts round Berber is Ibrim. + +[8] This mistake is hardly surprising, seeing that at Matama, in the +country of Galabat, the most southern affluent of the Atbara approaches +to within five miles of the most eastern affluent of the Blue Nile. See +Chapter XXVI. + +[9] Ptolemy Philadelphus’ chief inducement to establish stations in +Abyssinia was to procure war elephants. Thus to these Egyptian Greeks +and Ethiopians the African elephant did not appear too intractable. + +[10] Dongola, the accepted name for the Nubian country north of +Kordofan, appears at one time to have been inhabited by a race speaking +a Hamitic rather than a Nubian language. Dongola (originally Dankala), +or its plural, Danagla, may be etymologically connected with Danākil of +the north Somali coast. + +[11] Gala and Somali are almost convertible terms. But in this book +Somali is used to indicate that section of the Gala peoples who have +become Muhammadans, and Gala is reserved as a general term for the +whole race or for its non-Islamite tribes. + +[12] The Arabic and Turkish name for Venice is, or was, Bunduq. This +was a clumsy rendering of the German Venedig, which again was a +corruption of the Latin Veneticum. Although the Arab _q_ (a very strong +_k_) is almost unpronounceable by most Europeans, it is nevertheless +constantly used by Arabs for translating the _k_-sound in European +words. + +[13] By “Dravidian” I mean that very early and little differentiated, +dark-coloured Caucasian of India who is only a few degrees, physically, +above the Australian race. + +[14] At the time of these exploits Oporto, now the second town of +Portugal, was of little account; the great port at the mouth of the +Douro was called in Latin Portus Calis, or, in the local dialect, +Portucal. This place, being the most important port in the district +recovered from the Moors by Count Henry, gave its name to the little +principality which he founded. + +[15] Algarve is simply a Portuguese softening of the Arabic words +Al Gharb, the Extreme West or place of sun-setting. At that time +Morocco, across the Straits, was also called Al Gharb for the same +reason. Therefore, after these conquests, the kings of Portugal styled +themselves “Kings of the Algarves, on this side and on the other side +of the sea.” The after-triumphs of the Portuguese in the path of +exploration, conquest, and colonisation were finally summed up in the +grandiose titles of their monarchs, which endure to the present day, +and which may well be allowed to endure with respect, seeing what the +world’s knowledge owes to the Portuguese navigators and conquistadores. +The titles run, “Rey de Portugal e dos Algarves, alem e aquem do Mar +na Africa; Senhor da Guiné e da conquista e da navegaçao d’Ethiopia, +Arabia, Persia e India” (King of Portugal and of the Algarves, on this +side and on the other side of the Sea in Africa; Lord of Guinea, and of +the conquest and navigation of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India). + +[16] Prester John. + +[17] It may be interesting to some to know that Vasco is a contraction +of Velasco, meaning “hairy,” and was a nickname often given to +Portuguese in early days. + +[18] In Lobo’s book the date is given as 1613, but Bruce shows with +some likelihood that, according to the native Abyssinian chronicles, +the date of Paez’ visit to the sources of the Blue Nile was probably +1615. In the Latin version of Paez’ account of his travels, published +at Rome in 1652 by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, the date given is the +21st of April, 1618. + +[19] See page 30. + +[20] Probably, from the description given, _Equus grevyi_; so that +this, the largest, rarest, and the latest described of all the zebras, +was probably the first example of the striped horse to receive that +name at the hands of the Portuguese, and become known to Europe. The +name is spelt “zevra” in Father Lobo’s account, in some versions +“zeura.” + +[21] The modern term, Gala or Galla, used to denominate that section of +the Hamite people closely akin to the Somalis yet heathen and dwelling +inland, is derived through the Portuguese from an Abyssinian cant term +meaning “wild,” “savage.” It is unrecognized by the “Gallas” themselves. + +[22] Father Lobo gives an excellent description of the coasts of the +Red Sea as known to the Portuguese at the beginning of the seventeenth +century. Among other places that are probably mentioned for the first +time is Suakin, which is written “Suaquem.” + +[23] Fremona, the first and principal seat of the Jesuits, was nine +or ten miles from Axum. It was originally called Maigoga, but the +name Fremona was given to it by the Portuguese Jesuits as being the +Abyssinian version of Frumentius, who was the so-called Apostle of +Abyssinia, and converted the rulers of that country to the Greek Church +in the fourth century. + +[24] Lake Tsana is usually styled by Lobo and the earlier Portuguese +travellers Dambia (Dembea); but they also give it the name of Sena, +which is obviously the same as Bruce’s version of Tsana. + +[25] Some of the blame undoubtedly must be laid on the shoulders of +the Dutch and Saxon map-makers, who used and distorted Portuguese +information. + +[26] _Habsh_, _Habshi_ is the name given to Negroes at the present day +in Hindustani. + +[27] A Description of the East and some other countries, Vol. I., by +Richard Pococke, LL.D., F. R. S. London, 1743. + +[28] He filled many posts between 1725 and his death in 1771. He +desired to be made Secretary of State for the West Indies, but George +II. refused. His efforts to foster British trade and colonial expansion +were much appreciated by merchants and colonials, and Halifax, in Nova +Scotia, is named after him. + +[29] Algeria was then practically a dependency of Turkey, governed by +Turks. + +[30] Though it is so stated, the delay was apparently caused by the +complete breakdown of Bruce’s health, a breakdown which obliged him +to spend some time at Italian sulphur baths (Poretta). Bruce, before +leaving Sennar and the regions of the Blue Nile, had received into his +system the germ of the Guinea worm. This creature developed in the +usual way. One day when Bruce was reading on a sofa at Cairo he felt +an itching on his leg, and soon afterwards through the pimple thus +raised appeared the head of the worm. Three inches of this parasite +were wound off round a piece of silk, but on the ship which conveyed +Bruce from Alexandria to Marseilles the surgeon clumsily broke off the +portion of the worm extruding from the body. The remainder of the worm +still in the leg caused the most terrible agony for thirty-five days, +which Bruce had to spend in the lazaretto at Marseilles. Here, however, +he received better surgical treatment. Nevertheless, for some time +afterwards his leg gave him considerable trouble, and apparently, in +1774, he had to visit Italian sulphur baths. + +[31] All except, perhaps, some of his stories of Nubia and Sennar. + +[32] It is curious to read of his using a “rifle” in Abyssinia and +thereby astonishing the princes. + +[33] The name of this notable African city is said to mean, in the +local Arabic, “elephant’s trunk,” as the long spit of sand on which it +was erected was supposed to resemble that feature. Other etymologies +are quoted. Apparently the name was that of a small fishing village of +grass huts which was selected by Ibrahim Pasha as a camp commanding +both the White and Blue Niles and easily defended. Khartum, from its +situation, rapidly became the metropolis of the Sudan. It was taken +and destroyed by the Mahdi in 1885. Its site was reoccupied by Lord +Kitchener’s victorious force in 1898. Khartum has since been rebuilt, +and will probably become one of the greatest cities of Africa. + +[34] The son of a Swiss soldier in the Swiss corps subsidised by +England in the Napoleonic wars. + +[35] Afterwards absorbed by the Royal Geographical Society. + +[36] As this journey was financed by the African Association, it may be +regarded as a British contribution to Nile exploration. + +[37] The name Muhammad is affectedly pronounced by the Turks Mehemet, +but is of course written by them Muhammad. + +[38] Afterwards for nearly forty years French consular agent at Khartum. + +[39] Mainly supported by the Archduchess Sophia. + +[40] The names of the principal members of this Austrian Roman Catholic +Mission, which finally abandoned its labors about 1862, owing to +the terribly unhealthy climate of the Upper Nile, were Knoblecher, +Beltrame, Morlang, Ueberbacher, Ryllo, and Dorvak. Of their numbers +(seventeen in all) fifteen died of fever or dysentery, and only two +returned to Europe. Beltrame wrote important works in Italian on +the Dinka language. Knoblecher, Ueberbacher, and Morlang collected +materials for the illustration of the Bari language, which were put +together by Mitterrützner. + +[41] Glamorgan. + +[42] It may be mentioned here that throughout the Sudan, from the +Albert Nyanza to Khartum, the Egyptians, as distinct from their +Sudanese soldiers, are always spoken of as Turki or Turūk. Kordofan, +once the home of the Nubians and of Negro races, was overrun by Arabs +for several centuries, and more than a hundred years ago formed part of +the half-Ethiopian kingdom of Sennar. It was then subdued by the mailed +horsemen of Darfur, and held by them until conquered by the Egyptian +army under Ibrahim Pasha in 1820. + +[43] Petherick in his last book writes in eulogistic terms of the +behaviour of this mere boy (so far as age went) throughout all the +trying experiences that the Pethericks underwent in their journeys up +and down the White Nile and the rivers of the Bahr-al-Ghazal. It would +be interesting to know what became of Foxcroft after so promising a +début in African travel. + +[44] Many of these tribes are known to us at the present day by foolish +nicknames. For instance, the Kamasia people, who dwell in the western +part of the Baringo district, really call themselves El Tūkan. Turkana +seems often pronounced Tukana. + +[45] Amabile, tried and sentenced to imprisonment by Petherick +for slave-trading, and Andrea de Bono, who, though ostensibly an +ivory-trader, was very unscrupulous in his methods. De Bono, however, +was the first European to explore the countries to the east of the +Mountain Nile, i.e., between the main Nile and the basin of Lake Rudolf. + +[46] Near the confluence of the Asua River. + +[47] Down to about 1860 the Arab ruler over East Africa was the Imam of +Maskat, the sovereign of the principality of Oman on the Persian Gulf. +For more than a hundred years, however, the Imam of Maskat deputed one +of his sons or kinsmen to be Sayyid of Zanzibar. + +[48] By its own people this country is called _Wu-nya-mwezi_. _Wu-_ is +a degenerate form of the Bantu _bu-_ prefix, which is often used to +indicate a country. _Nya_ is a particle, meaning “of,” or “concerning,” +and _mwezi_ = the moon. Unyamwezi is, however, so far away from +Ruwenzori on the one hand or Kilimanjaro on the other that it is +difficult to associate its name (which so far as we know has been in +existence for about four centuries) with that of the snow-mountains. + +[49] Speke and others are of opinion that there was a considerable +civilisation in Somaliland at one time, which completely disappeared +after the Muhammadanising of the country. The Somali (except those +of the far interior) were converted to Islam by Arab immigrants in +the fifteenth century. Prior to this they had been Christian to +some extent, a much degraded type of Christianity having penetrated +southwards from Abyssinia. It is hardly necessary to point out that the +Somali and Gala are practically one people in race and language. Gala +is only apparently a cant term originating in Abyssinia and unknown +to the people whom we call by that name. It is also interesting to +note that Speke and other explorers heard in Somaliland, in the “early +fifties,” of the existence of a great lake far in the interior which +was in all probability the Victoria Nyanza. The present writer has +endeavoured to show, in his book on the Uganda Protectorate, that in +ancient times considerable trading intercourse was kept up between +Somaliland and the northeast shores of the Victoria Nyanza. + +[50] Victoria Nyanza. Often so called in earlier days by the Arabs, +from Bukerebe, a large island near the south shore. + +[51] Though Burton subsequently recanted this opinion in order to +embarrass Speke’s theories, and declared that the Rusizi was the outlet +of Tanganyika. + +[52] After his Somersetshire home, and the Indian word for a +creek--_ălla_. + +[53] Walter L’Espec, in the reign of Henry I., founded three +abbeys,--Kirkham, Rivaulx, and Warden. In the thirteenth century the +L’Especs altered the spelling of their name to Speke. One Speke lost +property by faithfulness to Charles I.; another got into (and out of) +trouble in the reign of Charles II. by advocating the claims to the +succession of the Duke of Monmouth. + +[54] In one of his books Speke shows us how Burton and himself managed +to communicate with the natives. Neither of them--not even Burton--had +a sufficient knowledge of Kiswahili during their journey to Tanganyika +to talk direct with their porters. They conversed with “Bombay,” +their Swahili interpreter, in Hindustani. Burton also was able to +speak Arabic with the Arab traders. Both, perhaps, are a little too +inclined to overlook this language difficulty in describing their +conversations with native chiefs. In all cases these must have been +carried on in the following manner: The chief would probably speak +in his native language, which would be translated by somebody else +into Swahili, and this again would be translated by Bombay, or Frij, +or some other interpreter, into Hindustani or English; or, again, +Burton’s information might be rendered by some Arab in Arabic. Direct +communications no doubt were sometimes made by both parties in broken +Swahili. + +[55] Mr. T. Douglas Murray, who afterwards became Baker’s biographer. +This letter was written near the close of Sir Samuel Baker’s life, on +the 22d of August, 1893. + +[56] See his “Discovery of the Source of the Nile.” + +[57] Discovery of the Source of the Nile, p. 31. + +[58] Worthy of mention here as being the southernmost extension of +“Nilotic” influence among the East African races. + +[59] _Gazella granti_, the horns of which are far longer than is the +case with any other gazelle, the animal itself being about the size of +a fallow deer. + +[60] A Hima state, lying to the west of the Victoria Nyanza. + +[61] This, of course, was Lake Albert, the waters of which are slightly +brackish. But it is often called the Salt Lake by the Arabs, from the +large deposits of salt on its shores. + +[62] They meant, of course, the Rukuga, which flows through Marungu. + +[63] Hima or Huma is the commonest name applied locally to the Gala +aristocracy in East Equatorial Africa. + +[64] Journal of the Discovery of the Sources of the Nile. + +[65] Throughout the writings of Burton, Speke, and Stanley, this race +is called Wahuma. The most common term, however, by which they are +known and know themselves is Bahima (_hima_ being the root and _Ba-_ +the plural prefix). + +[66] This is the more curious because, on page 276 in the “Discovery of +the Source of the Nile,” Speke writes of “a long range of view of the +lake, and of the large island or group of islands called Sese, where +the king of Uganda keeps one of his fleets.” + +[67] According to the traditions of the natives, syphilis and smallpox +entered Uganda about the same time, and came originally from Unyoro. +Unyoro received these plagues from the first Nubian slave- and +ivory-trading caravans, which were the pioneers of Egyptian rule in the +forties of the last century. Syphilis and smallpox were also brought by +the Zanzibar trading caravans from Unyamwezi not many years later. + +[68] This, indeed, long before the British Protectorate, Gordon Pasha +meditated, and was only restrained therefrom by the intervention of Sir +John Kirk. + +[69] It is a question whether all these spirits were not in origin +deified chiefs or medicine-men, who after death were supposed to become +controllers of the lake, of the rain supply, of certain diseases, or +of certain functions. Speke considers that a small element of phallic +worship was mixed up with the old Uganda religion. + +[70] Muzungu, i.e., “White-man.” + +[71] This word is really a mis-hearing on Speke’s part for Bwana, +which, again, is a corruption of Abuna, the Arab word for “our father.” +Bwana is the respectful term, meaning “master,” which is applied in the +Swahili language to all persons of superior position. It was the name +by which Speke was known throughout his stay in Uganda, though it has +long since been discarded for “Sapiki.” + +[72] Since, by the unspeakable barbarism of the British Administration, +_cut down_! + +[73] Albert Nyanza. + +[74] Speke and Baker had met before in India. + +[75] Florence Ninian von Sass. Lady Baker survives her husband. + +[76] For something like twelve hundred miles, from the mouth of the +Atbara to the sea, the Nile receives no further contribution of water. + +[77] _Cycloderma_, the Leathery Fresh-water Turtle. + +[78] This great lake was in reality nothing but the lake-like course +of the Upper Congo. The words for river and lake in almost all African +languages are the same. + +[79] She usually signed herself Alexine. Her full name was Alexandrina +Petronella Francina Tinne. The name is spelt without an accented _e_, +and is pronounced as it would be in German. + +[80] Her nephew, Mr. John Tinne, however, informs the present writer +that his aunt once wrote to him saying that “ever since she was a +little girl doing lessons she had longed to see what there was on the +great blank spot on the map of Africa.” + +[81] This account of the death of Miss Tinne is derived from +information very kindly supplied to the author by her nephew, Theodore +F. S. Tinne, Esq., of Hawkhurst, Kent. + +[82] She was only thirty-three at the time of her death. + +[83] France was dogged with continual ill-luck in her attempts to +open up and explore the Nile basin. Expedition after expedition and +explorer after explorer, despatched directly or indirectly under French +auspices, failed (generally by death from fever) in grasping the great +discoveries which fell to more fortunate Germans and Englishmen. + +[84] They were, however, first mentioned by Piaggia. + +[85] Heuglin forestalled him, perhaps, as regards the Gray Parrot. + +[86] These people do not call themselves by the designation. It is one +applied to them by the Arabs as a nickname, indicating the gusto with +which they eat human flesh. They themselves acknowledge several names, +such as Azande and Makarka. + +[87] Pierced by the ants so that they become whistles played on by the +wind. + +[88] First of all revealed to our notice by the Italian explorer, +Piaggia, who succeeded Miani and preceded Dr. Schweinfurth. + +[89] A gifted French explorer who attempted to forestall other +expeditions in discovering the Central African lakes. He was murdered +about a hundred miles inland from Zanzibar. + +[90] Younger brother of Adolphe Linant, an early Nile explorer of 1827 +and 1828. + +[91] In a pamphlet written in conjunction with Mr. Kerry Nichols and +Colonel J. A. Grant, published in 1876, by William Clowes. + +[92] Romolo Gessi was a Levantine Italian, born at Constantinople in +1831, who had gradually drifted into the employment of the Egyptian +government. He became a Pasha after Gordon’s departure from the Sudan +in 1880. + +[93] Now Colonel Watson, R.E. In 1874–1875 Lieutenant C. M. Watson, +accompanied by Lieutenant Chippendall, made an admirable survey of +the main Nile from Khartum to Gondokoro, and later assisted Gordon in +completing this survey up to Lake Albert. + +[94] A portion of this is often called Makarka. + +[95] During this struggle Gessi was hard put to it for food, but he +quaintly notes that “Of all our troops only the Makarka and Nyam-nyam +remained healthy, owing to their feeding on human flesh. Directly +after a battle they cut off the feet of the dead, and consumed these, +together with their brains.” + +[96] Whose encyclopædic work on the Galas will soon be published. Mr. +Wakefield died in 1902. + +[97] Dweru, like Nyanza, is a very common Bantu word which is applied +equally to lake and river. It simply means “whiteness.” With different +prefixes it becomes Mweru, Jeru, and so forth. + +[98] In giving extracts from this as from other works of Nile explorers +the present writer often summarises. He also employs sometimes more +modern spelling in scientific nomenclature to avoid puzzling the reader +habituated to the most recent descriptions. + +[99] Vide chap. ix. p. 107. + +[100] This stream, joining others from farther east, enters the +Mountain Nile near the bifurcation of the Giraffe River.--H. H. J. + +[101] Khor Kos flows into the Oguelokur, and thus into the +Bahr-az-Ziraf. See chap. xxvi. + +[102] The distribution of the branching Hyphæne Fan palm is very +peculiar. It is found right across the Sahara, south of latitude 25°, +to the vicinity of the Atlantic. It avoids the better watered regions +of Nigeria and the Bahr-al-Ghazal, but on the east extends across +Somaliland and down the coast to Mombasa.--H. H. J. + +[103] Probably Emin refers to the lanky _Cercopithecus patas_. + +[104] Really a plantain-eater--_Schizorhis_ or +_Gymnoschizorhis_.--H. H. J. + +[105] The white-eared Kob antelope.--H. H. J. + +[106] The Kafuru. This was re-examined by the author of this book. +It is a narrow winding channel passing between high banks. In spite +of the author’s delineation of this feature in his book, “The Uganda +Protectorate,” map-makers still continue to draw it as a lake-like +straight arm connecting the Albert Edward with Dweru. + +[107] Dweru, as already explained, merely means a white surface or +sheet of water. + +[108] This word is the name of one of the tributaries of the Kagera. + +[109] M. Dècle travelled overland from the Cape of Good Hope to the +Victoria Nile in 1892–1894. + +[110] Dr. Kandt (who first correctly mapped Lake Kivu) traced the +course of the important Nyavarongo and Akanyaru tributaries of the +Kagera. This learned explorer died in 1901. + +[111] Lugard mapped much of the country between Uganda and Ruwenzori +and discovered Lake Wamala in western Uganda. + +[112] Mr Jackson’s magnificent zoölogical collections, especially in +mammals, birds, and butterflies, have, with those of Mr. Oscar Neumann, +done much to illustrate the fauna of southern Nileland. + +[113] It is said that the contribution to the Nile waters from the +great Victoria Nyanza is not more considerable than the maximum +discharge of one of the great canals in Egypt. Much of the volume +of the Victoria Nile is spread out to waste and evaporate in the +Kioga-Kwania Lake, which also receives the heavy rainfall of north and +west Elgon. + +[114] I should again like to point out how frequent amongst Nilotic +Negroes is the word Kir for a big river. This name is frequently +applied to the main Nile, and appears even to crop up again in the +Bantu languages of the Victoria Nyanza, for in Luganda the Nile is also +called Kiira. + +[115] Piaggia was originally an Italian mechanic, born at Alexandria. +He drifted to the Sudan in 1856, and generally attached himself as a +sort of caravan leader to the traders in the Bahr-al-Ghazal. In this +capacity he explored (quite unscientifically) the Nyam-nyam country in +1863–1865, and in 1876 he visited Lake Kioga and the Victoria Nile. + +[116] For various reasons not all Captain Marchand’s officers could be +brought away from the Nile immediately. Lieutenant Tanguedec was left +for some two years entirely isolated on the White Nile near Bor. + +[117] A name very suggestive of the Bantu languages. + +[118] Negroes of the Semliki valley and forest. + +[119] This lake is at present one of the unsolved African problems +as regards its history and affinities. Unlike other lakes of Central +Africa, its fauna has marine affinities, and would seem indeed to be +actually of marine origin. It is at the present day connected somewhat +intermittently with the Congo drainage, and therefore with the Atlantic +Ocean; and one assumption to explain the existence of its sponges, +shrimps, and jelly-fishes is that in Jurassic times it was connected +with a vast inlet of the Atlantic Ocean which occupied the northern +half of the low-lying Congo basin. Yet, when a relief map of Africa is +looked at, it strikes one at a glance that Tanganyika lies within the +same rift valley as Lakes Kivu, Albert Edward, Albert Nyanza, and the +Albertine Nile. Its southern end may also have been connected through +Lake Rukwa, with the rift valley of Lake Nyasa. It would be easy to +imagine the occurrence of a recent and slight upheaval which detached +this lake from the Nile system and sent its overflowing waters in the +direction of the Congo, but for the aforementioned marine fauna of +its waters. Its history, therefore, remains at the present moment an +unsolved problem. + +[120] With a bifurcated rift up Tanganyika. + +[121] See “L’Omo,” by L. Vannutelli and C. Citerni. + +[122] A small and very interesting lake which lies about sixty miles to +the north of Tanganyika, and communicates with that lake by the river +Rusizi. + +[123] Some rising as far south as Lat. 3° 50′ S. and within ten miles +of Tanganyika. + +[124] Bahr-al-Jabl, so called by the Turks and early French and German +explorers, because by following it up stream they came at last to +mountains after the thousand miles of marsh between Khartum and Bor. + +[125] “River of gazelles,” i.e., antelopes, the name given to it by the +Sudanese Arabs from the dense herds of game which were formerly to be +seen on its marshy shores. + +[126] The Ruzi River, which rises to the west of Lake Rudolf, under the +fourth degree of north latitude, was considered by the late Captain +Wellby to be the southernmost source of the Sobat, but this supposition +has not been verified. + +The Ruzi or the two Ruzis probably join the three big streams--the +Oguelokur, Tu, and Kos--which enter the Giraffe River. + +[127] This name means “the terrible,” from the violence with which it +sweeps down a winding chasm from an altitude of 7,000 feet in Abyssinia +to 2,500 feet in the Nubian plains. + +[128] Who transmitted the rumour to Greek travellers and merchants +visiting the coasts of the Red Sea and East Africa. These again handed +on the information to Greek and Roman geographers. + +[129] A corruption of Runsororo. + +[130] Wosho Mountain, approximately sixteen thousand feet. + +[131] Snow may perhaps occasionally lie for a few days on the highest +points of the volcanic Mfumbiro peaks (Sabinzi and Karisimbi), which +are over thirteen thousand feet and lie almost within the limits of +the Nile basin, to the south of Lake Albert Edward; and there may be a +little permanent snow perhaps on the peaks over eleven thousand feet in +height on the southeast of Basutoland in South Africa. + +[132] A little less perhaps than Dr. A. Bludan’s estimate. + + + + +INDEX + + + Aahmes, 11 + + Abbadie, Antoine Thomson d’, 111, 279, 280, 281, 319 + + Abbadie, Arnaud d’, 279, 319 + + Ablaing, Baron d’, 193 + + Abyssinia, 3, 298 _et seq._; + history of, 30 _et seq._, 46 _et seq._, 61, 112, 277 _et seq._; + geography of, 30, 57, 70, 87, 111, 179, 182, 203, 204, 279 _et + seq._; + people of, 31 _et seq._, 61, 82 _et seq._, + (raw-meat eating) 81–85, + (feasts) 82–85; + Christianity of, 48, 51, 58; + Emperor of, 49, 51, 57, 66, 77, 182, 278 _et seq._; + name of, 60, 61; + missionaries in, 112, 182, 278; + likeness to Bahima, 144; + Mother of the Nile, 179; + mountains, 297, 312 + + Acacia (gum) trees, 182, 205, 207, 209, 218, 220, 294 + + Acholi (Shuli), people, 165, 184, 253, 274, 296 + + Adel (Somaliland), 48 + + Aden, 115, 127, 276 + + Adua, 33 + + Adulis, 27, 33 + + Afar, 4, 30 + + Africa, East, 22, 44, 48, 133, 246 + + Africa, Negro, 21 + + Africa, North, 15, 38, 199 + + Africa, South, 134, 147 + + Africa, West, 148, 217, 219, 242, 245 + + African Association, 86, 90 + + African wild flowers, flora, 133, 177, 204, 205, 218, 257, 258 + + Agoro Mountains, 272 + + Ais, Al, 94, 99 + + Akka pygmies, 110, 216 + + Akobo River, 287, 290 + + Albania, Albanians, 94 + + Albert Edward, Lake, 171, 227, 260, 262, 269, 270, 304 + + Albert Nyanza, 26, 71, 97, 129, 164, 170, 173, 185 _et seq._, 231 _et + seq._, 250, 260 _et seq._, 304 + + Alexander the Great, 12, 13, 16, 90 + + Alexandra Nyanza, 228, 266 + + Alexandria, 16, 22, 23, 66, 80, 95 + + Algarve (southern province of Portugal), 46 + + Algiers, Algeria, 76 + + Aloes, 122, 204, 218 + + Alvarez, Francisco, 47, 69, 319 + + Ambach, or Ambady, 244 + + Ambatch (_Herminiera_), 209, 210, 294 + + Ambukol, 96, 310 + + America, Americans, 8, 233, 273, 317, 321 + + Amhara, 277, 278 + + Amharic language, 62, 63, 280 + + Ankole, 148, 262, 298 + + Antelopes, 182, 201, 209, 306 + + Anthropology, 200, 211, 212, 217, 251 + + Anville, D’, 70 _et seq._, 80, 202 + + Apes, anthropoid, 4, 5, 315 + + Apuddo (Apuddu), 109 + + Arabia, 1, 3, 7, 17, 95 + + Arabs, 17 _et seq._, 22, 39, 44, 50, 113, 119, 180, 181, 246, 317 + + Arabs of Zanzibar, their early knowledge of African geography, 139, + 140 + + Aragonese, 40 + + Aristocracy in Nileland, 156 + + Aristocreon, 19 + + Aristotle, 16 + + Arnaud, D’, 96, 100, 319 + + Arnold, Sir Edwin, 228, 274 + + Aruwimi River, 240, 260, 264 + + Aryan races, languages, 14 + + Asia Minor, 19 + + Assiut, 88 + + Assuan, 19, 39, 77, 87, 95, 96 + + Astaboras (Abbara, _see_) 21, 27 + + Astapus (Blue Nile), 16, 27 + + Astasobas, 27 + + Asua River, 109, 134, 166, 167, 232, 272, 306 + + Atbara, 20 _et seq._, 25, 48, 92, 176 _et seq._, 203, 240, 278, 288, + 310 + + Atlantic Ocean, 317 + + Austin, H. H., 271, 286, 287 + + Austria, Austrians, 96, 234, 248, 321 + + Austrian Mission on Mountain Nile, 97 _et seq._, 167 + + Author’s contributions to Nile geography, 248, 270 + + Auxuma, Axum, 27, 33 + + Azania, 22 + + + Baggara Arabs, 211 + + Bahr-al-Arab, 71, 201, 230, 238, 242, 243, 307 + + Bahr-al-Aswad, 180 + + Bahr-al-Azrak, _see_ Blue Nile + + Bahr-al-Ghazal River, 5, 6, 21, 43, 71, 72, 98, 100 _et seq._, 106 + _et seq._, 192 _et seq._, 201 _et seq._, 212 _et seq._, 234, + 236 _et seq._, 240, 241 _et seq._, 274, 285, 306 _et seq._ + + Bahr-al-Hamr, 194, 201, 243 + + Bahr-al-Jabl, _see_ White and Mountain Nile + + Bahr-az-Ziraf, _see_ Giraffe Nile + + Bailul, 54 + + Baker, Sir Samuel, 103, 129, 131, 167, 168; + birth and parentage, 174; + marriage and Ceylon, 175; + in Turkey, 176; + second marriage, 176; + commences Nile exploration, 176; + on the Atbara, 177 _et seq._; + starts for Albert Nyanza, 183 _et seq._; + deceived as to extent of this lake, 186; + knighted, 188; + results of his explorations, 189; + returns to Nileland, 190, 191; + character, 191, 320 + + Baker (Florence), Lady, 167, 176, 182, 320 + + _Balæniceps rex_, 101, 102, 295 + + Balega Negroes (Lendu), 297 + + Baltic provinces, 203 + + Baluchistan, Baluchi, 2, 43 + + Balugano (Italian draftsman), 77 + + Banana, the, 57, 153 + + Bantu languages, 114, 137, 138, 261, 284, 290, 291 + + Bantu Negro, 29, 38, 137, 290 + + Baobab tree, 182, 294 + + Bari country, people, 21, 97, 98, 108 _et seq._, 188, 190, 238 + + Baringo, Lake, 113, 162, 247 + + Baro (_see also_ Sobat), 284, 285, 288 + + Barth, Dr., 217 + + Basalt, 210, 314 + + Basilis (Greek explorer), 19 + + Bath, 170 + + Baumann, Oscar, 266, 267, 268, 320 + + Baumgarten (Swiss engineer), 99 + + Beads, Blue Egyptian, 36 + + Beatrice Gulf, 227, 262 + + Beke, Dr. C. T., 111, 280, 319 + + Belgium, Belgians, 225, 238, 242, 269, 318, 321 + + Beltrame, Father, 97 + + Benue River, 219 + + Berber (Primnis, Ibrim), 25, 69, 188, 205 + + Berbera, 116 + + Berbers, the, 199 + + Berkeley, Fort, 106 + + Berlin, 203 + + Bermudez, 47 _et seq._ + + Berta Negroes, 289, 297 + + Bilma, 20 + + Binesho tribe, 290 + + Bion (Greek explorer), 19 + + Birds, 208, 255, 295 + + Biri River, 216 + + Blackwater fever, 107, 195 + + Blackwood’s Magazine, 128, 170 + + Blandford, Dr. W. T., 282 + + Blood-drinking (Abyssinian, East African), 81, 82 + + Blundell, Weld, 287, 321 + + Bogos country, 283, 294 + + “Bombay” (Speke’s faithful), 130, 165, 169 + + Bonchamps, De, 286 + + Bongo tribe, 217 + + Bono, Andrea de, 106 _et seq._, 165, 168, 187 + + Bor, 106, 285, 291, 292 + + Boran Galas, 72 + + _Borassus_, palm (_Doleb_), 253, 254 + + Borelli, Jules, 285 + + Bornu, 239, 242 + + Botany, _see_ Flora + + Bottego, V., 285, 320 + + Brahuis (of Beluchistan), 2 + + Brèvedent, Father, 67 + + Bright, R. G. T., 271, 286, 321 + + British, the, 293, 317, 318, 319 _et seq._; + in Egypt, 94, 95; + in Uganda, 154, 161, 228, 269; + in Abyssinia, 282; + in Egypt and Sudan, 293 + + British Association, 170, 172 + + British government, its indifference to African exploration, 169, 188 + + Browne, Wm. Geo., 88, 89, 319 + + Bruce, James, 71, 75 _et seq._; + and the Guinea worm, 81; + raw-flesh eating, 81, 82; + death, 86; + work in Abyssinian history, 276, 319 + + Brun-Rollet, 96, 99, 319 + + _Bucerosia_, 204, 218 + + Buchta, Richard, 234 + + Buddu, 150, 151, 156 + + Buffon, Comte de (naturalist), 80, 87 + + Bumbiri, Island of, 225, 226 + + Bunbury, Sir E. H., 25 + + Burckhardt, J. L., 92, 93, 319 + + Burton, Sir Richard F., 115 _et seq._, 127 _et seq._ (relations with + Speke), 128 _et seq._, 170, 171, 172, (character) 131 _et seq._; + transference to West Africa, 170; + theories of geography, 171, 231; + hesitation to take Mombasa route, 246 + + Burton, Lady, 172 + + Bushmen (pygmies), 1, 31 + + Busoga, 35, 152, 162, 224, 260, 303 + + Byzantine Empire, 30, 37, 40 + + + Cæsar, Julius, 9 + + Cailliaud, Frederic, 91, 92, 289, 319 + + Cairo, 67 _et seq._, 75, 93 + + Cambridge, 93 + + Cambyses, 11, 12, 24 + + Camel, the, 21, 294 + + Camerons, 148 + + Cannibals, Cannibalism, 194, 202, 236 + + Cape of Good Hope, 47, 87, 134, 266 + + “Cape-to-Cairo,” phrase and telegraph, 228, 274 + + Capellen, Baroness Van, 193, 195 + + Carthage, 10, 15 + + Casabi (Italian explorer), 239 + + Cattle, breeds of African, 147; + abundant, 208, 295 + + Caucasian and Nile discovery, _prefatory note_, 19, 297, 298, 317 + + Caucasian, Caucasian race, 2, 14, 31, 42, 146, 148, 297, 317 + + Cecchi (Italian explorer), 235, 279 + + Centurions, Nero’s two, 20, 21, 26, 274 + + Ceylon, 175 + + Chad, Lake, 6, 15, 20, 147, 195, 199, 240 + + Chaillé-Long, Col., 238, 239, 320 + + Charles II., 125 + + Chemorongi Mountains, 272 + + Chiarini (Italian explorer), 235 + + Chimpanzee, the, 5, 217, 222 + + Chippendall, Capt., 231, 233, 234 + + Christianity, 34, 35,37 _et seq._, 48, 259 + + Church Missionary Society, 112, 113, 228, 246, 277, 281 + + Circassians, 11, 70, 94, 95 + + Citerni, C., 285 + + Civilisation, of Egypt, 7; + of Mesopotamia, 9; + of Greece, 14; + Himyaritic, 17 + + Coffee, 73 + + Colston, Col., 230 + + Congo forests, 147, 260 + + Congo Free State, 154 + + Congo River, 3, 46, 70, 193, 216, 218, 223, 228, 263, 299, 301, 316 + + Constantinople, 232 + + Consuls, 73, 76, 102, 282 + + Cooley, Mr. D., 114 + + Copper, 7, 294 + + Coptic language, Copts, 7, 61, 62, 70, 74 + + Cosmas Indicopleustes, 33 + + Covilhaō, Pero de, 47 + + Cow-dung, 211 + + Crocodiles, 209, 295 + + Crosby, Oscar T., 289 + + Cross River, 3 + + Crusades, 24, 40, 193 + + Cruttenden, Lieut., 115 + + Cyprus, 2, 9, 77 + + Cyrenaica, 14, 15, 16 + + + Dahabiahs on Nile, 168, 194 + + “Daily Telegraph,” the, 224, 228 + + Dalion (Greek explorer), 19, 20, 94 + + Damietta, 88 + + Damot, 54, 57 + + Danākil (land, people), 3, 30, 34, 48, 52, 54, 277 + + Danish explorers, 68, 69 + + Darfur, 88, 101, 229, 230, 235 _et seq._, 294, 307 + + De Bono, _see_ Bono, De + + Dècle, Lionel, 266, 274, 321 + + Defafang, extinct volcano on Nile, 210 + + Delmé-Radcliffe, Major C., 274, 321 + + Delta of Nile, _see_ Nile, delta; + _also_ 314, 315 + + Dem Idris, 236 + + Dembo River, 216 + + Dervishes (Mahdi’s adherents), 242 + + Desneval, Count of, 68, 69 + + Didessa, or Dabessa River, 285, 288 + + Dinder River, 182 + + Dinka people, language, country, 97, 110, 217, 297 + + Diogenes (Greek explorer), 22, 23, 26 + + Dogoru River, 216 + + Donaldson-Smith, 272, 273, 321 + + Dongola, 25, 34, 52, 71, 95 + + Dorvak, Father, 97 + + _Dracæna_ (Dragon trees), 203, 204, 218, 294 + + Dravidian race, 2, 42, 317 + + Dublin, 279 + + Dueru, or Dweru, Lake, 227, 251, 261, 262, 305 + + Dufton, H., 111 + + Dum Palm (_Hyphæne thebaica_), 74, 177, 253, 294 + + Dutch, the, 58, 69, 193, 195, 197, 284, 289, 321 + + Dyé, Lieut. A. H., 243, 244, 320 + + Dyur River, _see_ Jur + + + East Africa, British protectorate, 248 + + Edwin Arnold, Sir (_see_ Arnold) + + Edwin Arnold, Mount (Ruwenzori), 227 + + Egypt, 2, 294; + Persian conquest of, 11, 12; + Greek, 12, 13; + Roman, 18, 19; + French, 65, 90; + once a very rainy country, 314 + + Egyptian government, 230 + + Egyptian temple, resemblance to an, 219 + + Egyptians, ancient, 4 _et seq._, 8; + trading relations with Equatorial Africa, 36, 43 + + Eichstadt (Germany, Nachtigal’s birthplace), 239 + + Elam, 2 + + Elephants, 34, 294 + + Elgon, Mount, 6, 35, 171, 248, 252, 271, 272, 291, 312 + + Elgumi, 107, 252 + + Elliott, Scott, Dr. G. F., _see_ Scott-Elliott + + Emin (Pasha), Dr., 107, 190, 225, 236, 242, 320; + birth and early life, 250; + short-sightedness, 250; + journals, 251; + in Lotuka, 251 _et seq._; + description of birds, 255, 256; + beasts, 256; + in Bahr-al-Ghazal, 257; + the Congo forests, 258; + in Equatoria, 259 _et seq._; + journey with Stuhlmann, 263; + death, 264 + + Enarea, 70, 279, 290 + + England, English, the, 40, 45, 64, 91, 228, 245, 259, 281, 321 + + Ensor, Sidney, 230 + + Equatoria (Emin’s province), 259 + + Eratosthenes, 16, 23, 27 + + Erfurt, 61, 63 + + Erhardt (Rev.), 113 + + Eritrea, 34 + + Escayrac, Comte d’, 105, 106 + + Essex, 241 + + Ethiopia (_see also_ Abyssinia), 2, 48, 62, 278, 280 + + Ethiopians, Ethiopic language, 28, 30, 43, 280 + + Euphorbias, 204, 218, 220, 294 + + Euphrates, 9 + + Evatt, Col. John, 270 + + Eyasi, Lake, 267 + + + Fadasi, 235 + + “Faidherbe,” steamship, 243 + + Faloro, 165, 166 + + Fasher, Al, 230 + + Fashoda, 21, 43, 243, 245, 285, 292 + + Fashoda, Lake of, 301, 306 + + Fauna, Tropical African, 5, 87, 104, 177, 209, 253 _et seq._, 294, 297 + + Fayūm, 7, 240 + + Fazokl, Fazogli, 92, 289 + + Febore, Théophile Le, 111 + + Felkin, Dr. R. W., 228, 229, 320 + + Felus, _see_ Khor Felus + + Fergusson, Malcolm, 269, 321 + + Ferret, Capt., 278 + + Ferruginous laterite formations (Bahr-al-Ghazal), 243 + + Fezzan, 15, 93, 195 + + Fischer, Dr., 247 + + Flaccus, Septimus, 20 + + Flemings, Flemish, 40 + + Flora of Africa (Nileland), 133, 177, 204, 218 _et seq._, 220, 221, + 253, 257, 294 + + Foreign Office, 103 + + Forests, 204, 218 _et seq._, 220, 257 _et seq._, 295; + “gallery,” 217, 219, 257 + + Fortnum and Mason, 99 + + Fowler, C. W., 273 + + Foxcroft, Mount, 102 + + France, 65, 214, 245 + + Fremona, 54, 57 + + French, the, 40, 65, 66, 70 _et seq._, 80, 87, 95, 96, 104, 105, 199, + 202, 213, 224, 242, 278, 318, 321 + + + Gala people, Galas, 3, 6, 24, 31, 34 _et seq._, 43, 53, 72, 82, 146, + 148, 247, 297 + + Galabat, 25, 182 + + Galaland, 3, 147, 235, 284 + + Galinier, Capt., 278 + + Gallus, Ælius, 19 + + Galo River, 290 + + Gama, Christoforo da, 49 _et seq._ + + Gama, Estevaõ da, 49 + + Gamo, Vasco da, 46, 49 + + Garama, Garamentes, 20 + + Garstin, Sir William, 275, 321 + + Gazelle, Grant’s, 137 + + Gedge, Mr. Ernest, 248, 271 + + Geese, 208 + + Ge’ez (Ethiopic language), 62 + + Geographical Society, Italian (Rome), 234 + + Geographical Society, Khédivial, 326 + + Geographical Society, Paris, 114, 214 + + Geographical Society, Royal, 92, 103 + + Geology of Nile Basin, 135, 152, 243, 299, 304, 310, 311, 313 _et + seq._ + + George II., 75 + + Germany, Germans, 16, 40, 62, 69, 96, 112, 138, 200, 203, 240, 246, + 247, 250, 259, 260, 263, 264, 265, 268, 277, 318, 321 + + Gessi Pasha, 232 _et seq._, 237, 320 + + Ghat, 196, 199 + + Gibbons, Major A. St. H., 274 + + Giraffe River, 111, 243, 253, 273, 291, 308 + + Giraffes, 294, 308 + + Goa, 52 + + Gojam, 52, 59, 70, 77, 287, 289 + + Gold, 8, 18 + + Gondar, 77 + + Gondokoro, 96, 115, 133, 166 _et seq._, 183, 188, 192, 232, 233, 238, + 274 + + Gordon (Pasha), C. G., 190, 215, 225, 228, 230 _et seq._, 238, 250, + 283, 320 + + Gorges, Major, 273 + + Grand, Le, 64 + + Grant, James Augustus, 103, 127, 131, 132 _et seq._, 142, 151, 158, + 169, 188, 228, 320 + + Gray parrot, 217 + + Greece, 14 + + Greek Christianity, 48 + + Greek dynasties in Egypt, 13, 14 + + Greeks in Africa, 14 _et seq._, 16, 18, 43, 241, 311, 317 + + Gregory the Abyssinian, 61 + + Grogan, Ewart, 269, 274, 321 + + Gum (acacia), 101, 218 + + Gunpowder, 35 + + Guns, 41, (muskets) 50, 51 + + Gwynn, Major C. W., 287, 288, 289, 321 + + + Habash, Hawash, Habshi, 60 + + Halifax, Lord, 76, 90 + + Hamitic languages, 280 + + Hamitic race, Hamites, 3, 8, 31, 42, 217, 280, 317 + + Hanbury-Tracey, Major, 271 + + Hannington, Bishop, 248, 260 + + Harrar, 116 + + Harris, Sir William C., 111, 278 + + Harrow School, 75 + + Hebrews, 7, 32 + + Herodotus, 15 + + Heuglin, Baron von, 192, 199, 200, 217, 320 + + Hima, Ba- (Wahuma), 141, 142 _et seq._, 146 _et seq._, 148, 164, 173, + 225, 262, 297 + + Himyarite Arabs, 17, 33 + + Hippopotamus, 88, 102, 170, 177, 178, 209, 295 + + Hittites, 4 + + Hobley, C. W., 136, 162, 248, 271, 273, 321 + + Höhnel, Lieut. von, 248 + + Holland, 193 + + Hottentots, 134 + + Hungary, Hungarians, 248, 321 + + _Hyphæne_, Branching Palm, 74, 177, 253, 294 + + + Iberian race, 4, 14, 43 + + “Ibrahim,” Lake (Kioga), 239 + + Ibrahim Pasha, 92, 94 + + Ibrahim (slave-trader), 183, 188 + + India, 1, 8, 17, 31, 48, 56, 58, 118, (Speke in) 126, 277, 278 + + Irby, Hon. Charles Leonard, 91 + + Ireland, Irish, 279, 321 + + Islam (Muhammadanism), 18, 34 _et seq._, 37 _et seq._, 73, 215 + + Italy, Italians, 34, 47, 61, 108, 219, 232, 234, 235, 239, 242, 284, + 318, 321 + + Ivory, 8, 168, 202, 264 + + + Jaba River, 53 + + Jackson, F. J., 248, 271 + + Jackson, L. C., 287 + + Jacobin (map publisher), 91 + + James II., 62 + + James, W. and F. L. (brothers), 283 + + Jemma, or Jimma (Upper Blue Nile), 52, 55, 79 + + Jesuit missionaries, 48, 52 _et seq._, 66 _et seq._, 90, 278 + + Jews, in Abyssinia, 32, 33 + + Ji River, 216 + + Jidda, 67, 77 + + Jimma, _see_ Jemma + + John (Yohannes), Emperor of Abyssinia, 282, 283 + + Jordans Nullah, 120 + + “Jordans” (Speke’s home), 120, 172 + + Juba River, 53 + + Judaism, 38 + + Junker, Dr. William, 240, 241, 242, 259, 320 + + Jur, or Dyur, or Sue River, 101, 194, 213, 216, 222, 243, 307 + + + Kabarega, 164 + + Kabirondo (country), 247, 270, 272, 303; + (people) 247; + (bay or gulf) 162, 167, 224, 248, 273, 303 + + Kaffa, 34, 59, 235, 279, 290, 312 + + Kafu River, 164 + + Kafuru River, 262 + + Kagera River (extreme Upper Victoria Nile), 227, 266, 267, 302, 303, + 316 + + Kaka (on the White Nile), 211 + + Kamurasi, 164 _et seq._, 184 _et seq._, 187, 188 + + Kandt, Dr., 266 + + Karagwe, 139, 143, 147, 227 + + Karamojo, 272 + + Karuma Falls of Nile, 165, 187 + + Kasa, a name of several Abyssinian rulers before crowning, 281, 282 + + Kassalá, 179, 240 + + Katikiro, the, 155 + + Kaze, 123, 142 + + Keltie, Dr. J. Scott, _prefatory note_ + + Kenya Mountain, 28, 113, 114 + + Kerckhoven, Lieut. Van, 242 + + Khartum, 6, 16, 26, 34, 92 (founding of), 96, 102, 109, 110, 168, + 182, 188, 202, 230 + + Khedive of Egypt, 235 + + Khor Felus River, 292, 308 + + Khor Kos River, 252, 253, 273, 291, 308 + + Khor Oteng River, 253 + + Kibali River, 240 + + Kich (Kity), 96, 97 + + Kilimanjaro, Mt., 28, 113, 114, 118, 248 + + Kioga, Lake, 162, 171, 189, 232, 239, 270, 284, 304 + + Kir (name of Nile), 284 + + Kircher, Father Athanasius, 51, 64 + + Kirk, Sir John, 154, 238 + + Kirkpatrick, Lake, 272 + + Kitara, Empire of, 147 + + Kivu, Lake, 171, 265, 266, 301, 304 + + Knoblecher, Dr. Ignatz, 97, 99, 319 + + Kordofan, 34, 101, 102, 200, 229, 230, 294, 310 + + Korosko, 80, 91, 93 + + Kosango River, 194 + + Krapf, Dr. Ludwig, 112 _et seq._, 246, 281 + + Kudu, the (antelope), 5, 182 + + Kuru River, 216 + + Kwania, Lake, 171, 189, 270 + + + Lado, 236, 239, 305, 306 + + “Lady Alice,” the, 224, 225 + + Lafargue, Mons., 205, 206 + + Lakes, Nile, 16, 22 _et seq._, 26, 27, 44, 97, 113, 120 _et seq._ + (_see_ Victoria Nyanza), 164, 170, 189, 224, 301 _et seq._ + + Lango country and people (Bakedi), 140 296 + + Latin, 63 + + Latitudes, Ptolemy’s, 26; + Portuguese, 59, 78; + Bruce’s, 78 + + Latuka (Lotuka) country and people, 107, 183, 184, 251 _et seq._, 296 + + Lega, Ba-, _see_ Balega, 297 + + Leghorn, 74 + + Lejean, 108, 243, 320 + + Lendu tribe, 297 + + Leon, Pedro, 51 + + Letorzec, 92 + + Libya, Libyan race, 2, 8, 149 + + Libyan desert, 12, 240, 294, 313 _et seq._ + + Lichfield, Rev. G., 228, 229 + + Limestone formations, 135, 311, 313 + + Linant de Bellefonds, Adolphe, 93, 225, 319 + + Linant de Bellefonds, Édouard, 225, 238, 320 + + Lisbon, 45, 49, 58, 64, 69 + + Liturgies, Abyssinian, 63 + + Liverpool, 195 + + Livingstone, Dr., 265 + + Lobo, Father Jeronimo, 51 _et seq._, 58, 63, 64, 69, 78, 319 + + Lobor Mountains, 272 + + Logwek, Mount, 98 + + Long, Chaillé-, _see_ Chaillé-Long + + Lotuka, _see_ Latuka + + Lotuka Mountains, 252, 291 + + Luajali River (affluent of Victoria Nile), 163 + + Ludolf (Leutholf), Hiob, 61 _et seq._, 66, 69 + + Lugard, Sir F. D., 269, 320 + + Louis XIV., 65 _et seq._, 67 _et seq._, 90 + + Louis XVIII., 92 + + Lupton (Bey), Frank, 241 + + Lutanzige (Albert Nyanza), 164, 170, 183 + + + Macallister, R. W., 267 + + Macdonald, J. R. L., 270, 271, 272, 320 + + Mackay, Alexander, 228, 229 + + Madagascar, 300, 317 + + Maddox, Capt. H., 270 + + Madi country, people, 165, 166, 184, 274, 297 + + Magdala, 282 + + Magungo, 187, 305 + + Mahdi, the, 92, 181, 199, 238, 259, 284 + + Maizen (French explorer), 224 + + Makarka (Nyam-nyam), 236, 240 + + Malindi, 52 + + Malta, Maltese, 60, 103, 106, 108, 199 + + Malzac, De, 100, 101, 319 + + Mameluks, the, 88, 94 + + Mangbettu tribe, 217, 240 + + Mangles, James, 91 + + Manwa Sera, 140 + + Manyema tribe, 264 + + Maps, Ptolemy’s, 23, 25 _et seq._, 58; + Sicilian, 44, 72; + Vatican, 59; + Dutch and German, 59, 69; + Portuguese, 59; + French, 70 _et seq._, 91, 100; + Speke’s, 189 + + Marchand, Col. J., 242, 243, 243, 285, 320 + + Marco Polo, 24 + + Mareb River, 179, 283 + + Marinus of Tyre, 23, 24, 44 + + Marno, Ernst, 235, 320 + + Marseilles, 80, 81 + + Marshes, of the Nile, 21, 212, 213, 218, 243, 244, _et seq._, 294 + + Masai, 82, 107, 118, 137, 246, 247, 297 + + Masawa (Abyssinia), 27, 47, 49, 77, 282 + + Masawa, Mount (Elgon), 248 + + Mashra-ar-Rak, 192, 213, 243, 307 + + Maskat, Maskat Arabs, 112 + + Mason (Bey), 233, 320 + + Massaja, Monseigneur, 278 + + Massari (Italian explorer), 242 + + Matammah (on Desert Nile), 206 + + Maternus, Julius, 20 + + Matteucci, Dr. Pellegrino, 235, 242 + + Mauritania (Morocco, Algeria, Tunis), 39 + + Mauritius, 169, 174 + + Mayo, Earl of, 283 + + Mbakovia (on Lake Albert), 185, 186 + + Mbomu River, 241, 242, 285, 307 + + Mediterranean, 5, 9, 15, 77, 294, 300, 311, 313 _et seq._ + + Mehemet, _see_ Muhammad + + Melly, Andrew, 98, 99 + + Menelik of Abyssinia, 282 + + Mengo, 225 + + Menzalet, Lake, 315 + + Merāwi (Meroe), 16, 19, 21, 25, 92, 206 + + Metals, Metal-working, 8 + + Meura, Lieut. (Belgian), 269 + + Mfumbiro Mountains, 145, 227, 297, 304, 312 + + Miami, Giovanni, 109, 166, 192, 202, 219, 241 + + Michel (French traveller), 286 + + Missionaries, 52, 54, 65, 66, 97, 228, 277, 278, 281 + + Mitterrützner, Herr ----, 97 + + Mokha, 50, 54 + + Mombasa, 44, 54, 113, 117, 118, 146, 246, 247, 259 + + Mongolian races, 317 + + Monkeys, 209, 255 + + Moon, Land of, _see_ Unyamwezi; + Mountains of, _see_ Mountains + + Moore, J. E., 269, 321 + + Moors, Morocco, 45, 46, 49 + + Morch, Giacomo, 234 + + Morlang, Father, 97 + + Morongo Mountains, 272 + + Moscow, 240 + + Mountains, of the Moon, 23, 28, 114, 119, 146, 311; + of Lotuka, 252 + + Mpororo, 148, 302 + + Muhammad, 38 + + Muhammad Ali, 91, 94 _et seq._, 202, 283 + + Muhammad Granye, 35, 48 _et seq._ + + Muhammad Kher, 211 + + Muhammad Wad-el-Mek, 165, 183 + + Muhammadanism, _see_ Islam + + Muhammadans, 49, 184 + + Mundy, Lieut., 267 + + Munza, King, 240 + + Munzinger (Pasha), Werner, 200, 282, 320 + + Murat (Abyssinian), 67 + + Murchison Falls, 187 + + Murchison Gulf, 225 + + Murchison, Sir Roderick, 127 + + Murie, Dr., 103 + + Murray, Mr. T. Douglas, 131, 174 + + Murzuk, 195, 198 + + Museum, British, 77, 101, 104 + + Mutesa, 153 _et seq._; + his cruelties, 158, 225; + name, 239 + + Mwanza Creek, 120, 225 + + Mykenæan civilisation, 14 + + + Nachtigal, Dr., 239 + + Naivasha, Lake, 247, 273 + + Nakwai Mountains, 272 + + Nandi, people, country, 107, 298, 303 + + Napata, 20 + + Napier, Lord, 282 + + Napoleon Bonaparte, 12, 65, 90 + + Napoleon Gulf, 162, 302 + + Napoleon III., 162 + + Nasr (Sobat), 240, 284 + + Natal, 58 + + Neanderthaloid man, 1 + + Negro, the, 8 _et seq._, 31, 42, 210, 297, 317; + Nilotic, 9, 137, 211, 212, 247, 288, 291, 295; + West African, 290 + + Negroid races, 1, 43, 107, 183, 184, 251 + + Neil, O’ (Rev.), 229 + + Neku (King of Egypt), 10 + + Nepoko River, 240 + + Nero, 12, 20, 21, 274 + + Neumann, Oscar, 271, 290, 321 + + “New York Herald,” The, 224 + + Niger River, 219, 242 + + Nile alluvial mud (from Atbara River), 180, 315 + + Nile, Albertine, 233, 261, 274, 304, 305 + + Nile, Blue, 6, 16, 27, 33, 43, 51 _et seq._, 77 _et seq._, 92, 111, + 207, 275, 283, 287, 289, 309 + + Nile, Cataracts of, 74, 161, 187, 207, 305 + + Nile, Giraffe, 111, 189, 252, 253, 272, 273, 291, 308 + + Nile Mountains, 97, 98, 106, 189, 212, 239, 305 + + Nile Quest, the, _prefatory note_, 76, 89, 104; + stops for a time at Gondokoro, 115; + Speke discovers main source of White Nile, 160; + Baker’s explorations, 176 _et seq._; + Alexandrine Tinne the romantic figure of the, 199; + Schweinfurth’s share, 203 _et seq._; + close of, 293 + + Nile River, 1 _et seq._, 206 _et seq._, 293 _et seq._, 313; + names of, 7, 284; + delta of, 9, 40, 298, 315; + origin of, 15, 160, 267, 298; + ultimate sources of, 22, 51 _et seq._, 55, 79, 123, 124, 160, + (farthest source of all) 267; + floods of, 56, 178, 179, 245, 275; + basin of, area, 316; + length of, 316 + + Nile, Valley of the, 1 _et seq._; + like Rhine, 207 + + Nile, Victoria, 187, 189, 232 + + Nile, White, 6, 20, 22, 26, 43, 95, 207 _et seq._, 275, 292, 308 + + Nileland, 42, 177 _et seq._, 206 _et seq._, 293 _et seq._, 296 _et + seq._; + geography of, 299 _et seq._ + + Nilotic Negroes, 9, 21, 137, 209, 247, 288, 291, 295 + + Nimule, 97, 305 + + No, Lake, 201, 308 + + Nubia, Nubians, 11, 34, 43, 69, 98, 202, 235, 236, 295, 297 + + Nubian Alps, 203, 313 + + Nudity of Negroes, 137, 211, 251, 294, 297 + + Nuēr tribe, 288, 291 + + Nyam-nyam country and people, 103, 109, 112, 192, 194, 202, 217, 236, + 257 _et seq._, 297 + + Nyando valley, river, 136, 302 + + Nyanza, name of, 121, 261 + + Nyasa, Lake, 113, 118, 138, 300, 302 + + Nyenam River, 216 + + Nzoia River, 302 + + + Oguelokur River, 253, 273, 291, 292, 308 + + Olive, the wild, 204 + + Oman, 112 + + Omo River, 285 + + Ostriches, 16, 254 + + _Otocyon_ (long-eared fox), 137 + + Oxen, African, 147, 295 + + + Paez, Father Pedro, 51, 63, 78, 319 + + Palms, 219 + + Pangani, 22, 28 + + Papyrus, 210, 213, 218, 244, 294 + + Paris, 62, 71, 91, 114 + + Parklands, African, 182, 252, 295 + + Parkyns, Mansfield, 111, 319 + + Parrot, Gray, 217 + + Peake, Malcolm, 275, 321 + + Pearson, C. W., 228 + + Peney, Alfred, 104, 106 _et seq._, 320 + + Periplus of the Red Sea, 22 + + Persia, Persians, 12, 31, 67, 89 + + Persian Gulf, 2, 9, 48 + + Peters, Dr. Carl, 249 + + Petherick, John, 100 _et seq._, 104, 133, 163, 168, 170, 182, 192, + 202, 319 + + Petherick, Mrs., 103, 104 + + Petrie, Prof. Flinders, 5, 322 + + Phallic worship, 155 + + Phœnicians, the, 9 _et seq._ + + Photography, 106, 135, 234 + + Piaggia, 217, 219, 239, 284, 320 + + Pibor River, 287, 288, 292 + + _Pistia stratiotes_, 294 + + Pliny, 19, 23 + + Pococke, Richard, 74, 75, 319 + + Polynesians, 317 + + Poncet brothers, 108 + + Poncet (French doctor-explorer), 61, 66, 67 + + Pope, Papal Court, 66, 67, 97, 278 + + Portal, Capt. Raymond, 270 + + Portal, Sir Gerald, 270 + + Portugal, 45 + + Portuguese, 8, 18, 46 _et seq._, 65 _et seq._, 279, 317, 319, 321 + + Potagos (Greek traveller), 241 + + “Prester John,” 47 + + Primnis (Berber), 25 + + Pringle, Capt., 272, 273 + + Prokesch von Osten, 96, 319 + + _Protopterus_, fish, 182 + + Psametik, 10, 12, 15 + + Ptolemy (King), 13, 33, 34 + + Ptolemy, Ptolemæus, Claudius, 23, 24 _et seq._, 44, 58, 114 + + Punt, land of, 5, 6, 10 + + Purdy, Col., 230 + + Pygmies, Congo, 1, 216, 260, 297 + + Pygmy races, 5, 16, 42, 281 + + + Quartz, 152 + + Queen Victoria, 121 + + Queens, African, 144, 157 _et seq._ + + + Racey River, 267 + + Radcliffe, Delmé, Ch. (Major), 274, 321 + + Rahad River, 182, 288 + + Raiūf Pasha, 238 + + Ravenstein, Mr. E. G., 28, 247 + + Rebman, John, 112 _et seq._, 246 + + Red Sea, 1, 22, 46, 47, 49, 73, 86, 277, 300 + + Reeds, 294 + + Rejaf, 99 + + Religions, Negro, 155 + + Rhaptum, or Rhapta, 22, 28 + + Rhinoceros, the, 21, 144, 294 + + Rhodes, Cecil, 228, 274 + + Rhodesia, 44 + + Rifles, 86 + + Rift Valley (Great), 247, 267, 268, 300, 301 + + Rift valleys of Eastern Africa, 300 _et seq._, 310 + + Riga, 203 + + Ripon Falls of Nile, 160 _et seq._, 189, 266 + + Roa River, 216, 308 + + Rōl River, 101, 216, 243, 308 + + Roman Catholics, 50, 61, 278 + + Rome, Romans, 18, 44, 58, 62, 66, 317 + + Rosebery Channel, 225, 302 + + Roseires, 288 + + Rosetta, 74, 87, 316 + + Roule, le Sieur du, 68 + + Royal Geographical Society, 92, 103, 118, 123, 124, 127, 162, 247 + + Royal Society, 63, 64 + + Ruanda, 145, 148 + + Ruchuru River, 304 + + Rudolf, Lake, 6, 34, 37, 148, 247, 248, 271, 272, 286, 287 + + Rukwa, Lake, 138, 268, 300 + + Rumanika, King, 143 _et seq._, 148 + + Rüppell, Dr. (German naturalist), 111, 319 + + Rusizi River, 120, 129, 171 + + Russegger, J. I., 111 + + Ruvuvu River (Kagera), 266 + + Ruwenzori Mountains, 23, 28, 139, 171, 186, 227, 233, 250, 260, 261, + (Alpine vegetation) 263, 269, 296, 299, 311 + + Ruzi River, 272, 286, 287, 292, 308 + + Ryllo, Father, 97 + + + Saba (Sheba), Queen of, 32 + + Sabæan Arabs, 17, 31, 32 + + Sabatier, 96 + + Sagada Mountain, 51, 55, 78 + + Sahara Desert, 9, 15, 196, 199, 309, 315 + + Sailing ships, their effect on African discovery, 9 + + Saint, Le (French explorer), 213 + + Salisbury, Lake, 272 + + Salt, Consul Henry, 277 + + Samburu, Lake (_see_ Rudolf), 247 + + Samien Mountains, 6, 56, 278, 312 + + _Sanseviera_, plant, 204 + + Sardinian (i.e. N. Italian) travellers, 108 + + Saxony, Saxe Gotha (share in African exploration), 61, 63 + + Schuver, J. M., 284, 289 + + Schweinfurth, Dr. Georg, 199; + birth and nationality, 203; + starts for Suakin, 203; + describes botany of North Abyssinian terraces, 203, 204; + Berber to Khartum, 206 _et seq._; + White Nile scenery, 208 _et seq._; + Bahr-al-Ghazal, 212 _et seq._; + and the slave-trade, 214; + his achievements, 216 _et seq._; + anthropological discoveries, 217 _et seq._; + botany of Nileland, 218; + “gallery” forests, 219 _et seq._; + shares Burton’s opinions regarding Victoria Nyanza, 223 + + Sclater, Dr. P. L., 102 + + Scott-Elliott, G. F., 269, 320 + + Scottish, Scotland, 75, 132, 269, 321 + + Selim Bimbashi, 96, 319 + + Semitic influence, languages, 34, 49, 116, 317 + + Semliki River, 29, 171, 186, 233, 251, 260, 261, 305 + + Sennar, 52, 68, 95, 288 + + Sese Islands, 150, 302 + + Settit River (Atbara), 181 + + Shankala, Shangala, 72, 297 + + Shari River, 216, 232, 240, 242 + + Sharp, Mr., 274, 291 + + Sheko tribe, 290 + + Shendi, 72, 93, 99, 206 + + Shergold-Smith, R.N. Lieut., 228, 229 + + Shiluk people, country, 99, 209, 211, 212, 291, 297 + + Shoa, 59, 278, 282 + + Sicily, 44, 72, 74 + + Silesia, 250 + + Simiyu, or Shimeyu River, 267 + + Simonides (Greek explorer), 19, 20 + + Slaves, Slavery, 5, 8, 110 + + Slave-trade, Slave-traders, 103, 184, 190, 202, 214, 230, 235, 264 + + Slave-traders’ revolt, 235 _et seq._ + + Small-pox, 153 + + Snakes, 254, 256 + + Snay, Sheikh, 119, 140 + + Snow, Snow-mountains, 6, 22, 113, 114, 227, 233, 246, 247, 260, 290, + 296, 297, 312 + + Sobat River, 28, 111, 189, 194, 234, 240, 272, 283, 284, 285, 292, + 296, 297 + + Sofala, 18, 38 + + Sokotra, Island of, 16, 18, 54 + + Solomon, King, 32 + + Somali people, 3, 34, 117; language, 3 + + Somaliland, 3, 5 _et seq._, 48, 115 _et seq._ + + Somersetshire and Speke, 120, 121, 125 + + Sonnini de Manoncourt, 87 _et seq._ + + Sophia, Archduchess, 97 + + Spain, Spanish, 40, 45, 69, 75 + + Speke, John Hanning, 102, 103, 125, 320; + in Somaliland, 116 _et seq._; + starts for the Central Africa Lakes with Burton, 118 _et seq._; + discovers Victoria Nyanza, 120 _et seq._; + difference with Burton, 123 _et seq._; + returns to England, 124; + his birth and parentage, 125; + youth, 126; + character, 128, 129, 156, 170, 320; + second expedition with Grant, 133 _et seq._, 142; + in Uganda, 150 _et seq._; + returns to England, 158, 170, 171; + name in Uganda, 159; + discovers outlet of Victoria Nyanza, 160, 172; + honours, 169; + interview with King Edward, 169; + geographical theories, 171, 223; + death, 172 + + Speke Gulf, 224 + + Spekes, history of the, 125; + arms of the, 170 + + Stanley, Sir Henry, 29, 172, 223 _et seq._; + greatest African explorer, 172, 224; + confirms Speke, 223 _et seq._; + circumnavigates Victoria Nyanza, 225; + in Uganda, 226, 227; + mistake about Ugowe Bay, 248; + relieves Emin, 259 _et seq._; + discovers Ruwenzori, 260, 261 + + Stanton, E. A., 274, 321 + + Steamers on Nile, 96 + + Steudner, Dr., 192, 195, 200 + + Strabo, 19, 25, 27 + + Stroyan, Lieut., 116 + + Stuhlman, Dr. Franz, 263, 264, 269 + + Suakin, 54, 58, 93, 188, 203 + + Sudan, 4, 15, 96, 154, 190, 230, 235, 238, 275 + + Sudanese soldiers, 95, 190, 270; + races, 217, 297 + + Sudd, the, 5, 21, 188, 210, 274, 275, 294 + + Sue (Sive) River, 216, 243, 285, 307 + + Suez, 73, 234, 238 + + Suez Canal, 104, 314 + + Suleiman-bin-Zubeir, 235, 236 _et seq._ + + Switzerland, Swiss, 92, 99, 282, 321 + + Syphilis, 152, 153 + + Syria, Syrians, 2, 9, 77 + + + Tajarra Bay, 48, 53, 57, 116 + + Takaze River (Upper Atbara), 181, 283, 310 + + Tanganyika, Lake, 113, 119, 120, 129, 171, 265, 266, 267, 299, 300 + + Tanguedec, Lieut., 243, 285 + + Tarangole, 252 + + Tawareq (Tonareg), Tamasheq, 20, 149, 196 _et seq._ + + Teleki, Count S., 248 + + Tellez, F. Balthasar, 64 + + Tertiary Epoch, the Nile during the, 313 _et seq._ + + Theodore, King, 182, 279, 281, 282 + + Thibaud, or Thibaut (French explorer and consular agent), 95, 96, 319 + + Thomson, Joseph, 82, 162, 217, 248, 249, 259, 260, 320 + + Tibet (Speke in), 126, 127 + + Tigre (Abyssinia), 48, 57, 66, 277, 278 + + Tigris River, 9 + + Tinne, Miss A., 192; + names, 193; + origin of Tinne family, 193; + mother and aunt, 194; + first Nile journeys, 194, 195; + death of mother and aunt, 195; + starts from Tripoli to explore Sahara and reach Bahr-al-Ghazal from + N.W., 195; + treacherously slain near Murzuk by Tawareqs, 196 _et seq._; + character and appearance, 198, 199; + on the Roll of Fame, 320 + + Tinne, Theodore F. S., 198 + + Tondi River, 216 + + Tonj River, 243, 307 + + Toro, 152, 270 + + Trade, Traders, 5, 96, 101, 213, 294 + + Tragelaph, Speke’s, 146 + + Trees, great forest, 220, 258 + + Tripoli, 77, 87, 195 _et seq._ + + Tsana, Lake, 6, 26 _et seq._, 33, 52, 55 _et seq._, 77 _et seq._, + 309, 312 + + Tsetse fly, the, 35 + + Tu River, 273, 291 + + Tübingen, 112 + + Tunis, 77 + + Turkana, country, people, 6, 107, 272, 297 + + Turkey, 65, 73 + + Turks, the, 50, 53, 61, 65, 94, 95, 101, 195, 198, 318, 321 + + + Ubangi River, 216, 241, 285 + + Ueberbacher, Father, 97 + + Uganda, _prefatory note_, 8, 228, 259; + protectorate of, 35, 154; + aristocracy of, 35, 148, 156; + country of, 119, 148, 151 _et seq._; + people of, 148, 152 _et seq._, 297; + King of, 154 _et seq._, 226; + Stanley in, 225–228; + missionaries proceed to, 228, 229; + Gordon and, 238; + route, via Busoga, 248 + + Uganda Railway, 248 + + Ugogo, 137 + + Ugowe Bay, 224, 248, 273 + + Ujiji, 119, 120, 227 + + Ukerewe (Bukerebe), 118, 121, 229 + + “Um Suf” (_Vossia_) (reeds), 244, 294 + + Unyamwezi, 29, 72, 114, 120 _et seq._, 138, 224, 228, 260, 267, 303; + porters, 139 + + Unyanyembe, 123 + + Unyoro, 37, 119, 147, 152, 163, 187, 270, 296 + + Usagara, 136 + + Usambara, 118 + + _Usnea_, lichen, 204, 221, 222 + + Usui, 142 + + Utica, 9 + + + Valentia, Lord, 277 + + Vandeleur, Seymour, 270, 320 + + Vannutelli, L., 285, 301 + + Vaudet, Signor, 108 + + Venetians, Venice, 23, 24, 40, 41, 47, 202 + + Victoria Nyanza, 6, 23, 26, 35, 113, 117, 118; + discovery of, 120 _et seq._; + Burton’s depreciation of, 129; + Speke’s estimate of, 150 _et seq._, 162, 189; + Stanley’s circumnavigation, 224 _et seq._; + direct route to, from Mombasa, 246 _et seq._; + last discoveries of Stanley’s, 262; + surveyed (northern coast) by Col. J. R. L. Macdonald, 272; + by Whitehouse, Hobley, etc., 273; + general features of, 302 _et seq._ + + Vinci, 99 + + Volcanoes, 210, 227, 297, 304, 314 + + + Wadai, 201, 240, 242 + + Wadi Halfa, 96, 230 + + _Wadi_, or river-bed, 205 + + Waghorn, Lieut., 276 + + Wakefield, Rev. Mr., 247 + + Wales, Welsh, 100, 321 + + Wansleb, Michael, 63 + + Waterfalls, 56, 161, 187 + + Watson, Col. C. M., 231, 233 _et seq._, 320 + + Wellby, M. S., 272, 286, 287, 321 + + Welle River, 109, 202, 216, 240, 241, 307 + + Werne, Ferdinand, 96, 210, 289, 319 + + Whale-headed storks, _see_ _Balæniceps rex_ + + Whitehouse, Commissioner B., 162, 248, 273, 321 + + White man, _see_ Caucasian + + White Nile, _see_ Nile, White + + Wilson, Capt. H. H., 292, 321 + + Wilson, Rev. C. T., 228, 229, 320 + + Wosho Mountain (North Abyssinia), 312 + + Würtemberg, 112, 199 + + Wyche, Sir Peter, 63 + + + Yabongo River, 216 + + Yalo River, 101, 308 + + Yaman (Arabia), 17, 31, 309 + + Yei River, 106, 239, 308 + + + Zambezi River, 17, 18, 300 + + Zanzibar, 17, 58, 112, 118, 123, 133, 134, 146, 265 + + Zebra, 53, 257, 294 + + Zeila, 52, 54, 290 + + Zinza, U-, Bu-, 142, 148 + + Zubeir Pasha, 235 + + Zululand, Zulus, 3, 29, 140 + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + +Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed. + +Several words appear multiple times with and without accent marks. +These inconsistencies have not been changed. + +Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation +marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left +unbalanced. + +Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs +and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support +hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to +the corresponding illustrations. + +Page numbers in the List of Illustrations have been adjusted to match +the actual pages on which the illustrations appear in this eBook. + +Transcriber added references to two maps at the end of the List of +Illustrations. + +Printer’s notes indicating where to insert illustrations have been +removed from this eBook. + +Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them, +have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed near the end +of the book, just before the Index. + +The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page +references. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75534 *** diff --git a/75534-h/75534-h.htm b/75534-h/75534-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..364dba7 --- /dev/null +++ b/75534-h/75534-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14930 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Nile Quest | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> /* <![CDATA[ */ + +body { + margin-left: 2.5em; 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+ margin-left: 2%; + margin-right: 2%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + padding: .5em; +} + +.gesperrt { + letter-spacing: 0.2em; + margin-right: -0.2em; +} +.wspace {word-spacing: .3em;} + +span.locked {white-space:nowrap;} +.pagenum br {display: none; visibility: hidden;} +div.narrow1 {max-width: 67%; min-width: 20em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} +.taxonomy {font-style: italic;} + + /* ]]> */ </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75534 ***</div> + +<div class="transnote section"> +<p class="center larger">Transcriber’s Note</p> + +<p>Larger versions of most illustrations may be seen by right-clicking them +and selecting an option to view them separately, or by double-tapping and/or +stretching them. Higher-resolution versions of the maps and some other +detailed illustrations may be seen by clicking <i>Hi Res</i> below them.</p> + +<p><a href="#Transcribers_Notes">Additional notes</a> will be found near the end of this ebook.</p> +<div> </div> +</div> + +<figure id="cover-small" title="cover" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 20em;"> + <img src="images/cover-small.jpg" width="493" height="788" alt=""> +</figure> + +<div class="center section"> +<p class="p4 large">THE STORY OF EXPLORATION</p> + +<p class="p1"><span class="small">EDITED BY</span><br> + +<p>J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., <span class="smcap">Sec.</span> R.G.S.</p> + +<h1>THE NILE QUEST</h1> + +<p class="p1 small">BY</p> + +<p>SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.</p> +<div> </div> +</div> + +<div class="section"> +<figure id="i_frontis" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_0022.jpg" width="1290" height="1609" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="p0 floatr smaller l1">[<i>Frontispiece</i></p> + +<p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Speke</span> (from a Drawing by the Author).</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +<div> </div> +</div> + +<div class="chapter center section wspace p2"> +<p class="vspace"> +<span class="xxlarge">THE NILE QUEST</span><br> + +<span class="smaller">A RECORD OF</span><br> +<span class="large">THE EXPLORATION OF THE<br> +NILE AND ITS BASIN</span></p> + +<p class="p2 vspace"><span class="xsmall">BY</span><br> +SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.<br> +<span class="smaller">(<span class="smcap">President of the African Society</span>)</span></p> + +<p class="p2"><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS AND<br> +PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS</i></p> + +<p class="p1">WITH MAPS BY J. G. BARTHOLOMEW</p> + +<figure id="i_logo" title="logo" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 7em;"> + <img src="images/i_0025.jpg" width="390" height="403" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p class="p2 vspace">LONDON<br> +<span class="larger gesperrt">ALSTON RIVERS, <span class="smcap">Limited</span></span><br> +<span class="smcap">Arundel Street, W.C.</span><br> +1906 +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div> </div> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">v</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_STORY_OF_EXPLORATION">THE STORY OF EXPLORATION</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Probably</span> few of the stories that tell of the +achievements due to the curiosity of humanity +have a wider or more lasting interest than that which +is concerned with the exploration of the lands and +seas, which give feature to the face of the earth. It +is a long story, and would be longer still, if the men +in the remote past had left any record of their wanderings. +Even as it is, in the scanty and perplexing +records left behind them by ancient Egyptians, Phœnicians, +Carthaginians, Hebrews, and even Chinese, the +story begins more than three thousand years ago and, +so far as the pioneer work of exploration is concerned, +may be taken to have practically concluded with the +end of the nineteenth century. It seems, therefore, +an opportune time to recount the leading episodes in +this long record of incessant human effort, in a manner +which will appeal to, and interest, all intelligent +readers.</p> + +<p>In the series of volumes, which will be issued under +the general title “The Story of Exploration,” it will +be sought to make the narrative circle round the personality +of the men who had the leading share in +carrying on the adventurous work.</p> + +<p>Beginning with the earliest journeys of which we +have any record, the story will be carried down stage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">vi</span> +by stage to the present day, and it is believed that, +when complete, it will form what may be called a biographical +history of exploration. While the work of +geographical research in all parts of the globe will be +seriously and adequately treated, the adventures incident +to such research, which add human interest to it, +will have due prominence given to them. In all cases it +will be sought to obtain the co-operation of men who +are recognized as authorities on the particular subjects +with which they deal. Each volume will be profusely +illustrated, the illustrations being selected for their +appropriateness to the text, while every assistance will +be given to the reader by means of carefully executed +maps.</p> + +<p class="right"> +J. SCOTT KELTIE. +</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">vii</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFATORY_NOTE">PREFATORY NOTE</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">When</span> the author of this book was composing +his recent work on the Uganda Protectorate, +he was led through the history of its discovery into +the general consideration of Nile exploration, since +it was in the search for the Nile sources that the territories +now forming the Uganda Protectorate were +laid bare to the gaze of the civilised world. But as +anything like a detailed review of the exploration of +the Nile basin by the Caucasian race would have unduly +extended a book dealing more particularly with +Uganda, he gladly took advantage of the suggestion +made by Dr. Scott Keltie (Editor of this series) that +these studies should be applied to the present volume, +which is one of a series on the history of great geographical +discoveries.</p> + +<p>It is not for the author to say that his book on +the Nile Quest will prove interesting; but he has +striven to make it as accurate as possible, and he +hopes it may be permanently useful as a faithful +record of the names and achievements of those who +solved the greatest geographical secret, after the discovery +of America, which remained for the Caucasian’s +consideration.</p> + +<p class="right"> +H. H. JOHNSTON. +</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">London, 1903.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span></span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter narrow1"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS">ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</h2> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Editor and the Author desire to acknowledge, +with thanks, the loan of photographs, letters, or maps +for the illustration of this book, from Sir John Kirk, +G.C.M.G., Mrs. Murdoch (<i lang="fr">née</i> Speke), Mr. J. F. Cunningham, +Mr. W. G. Doggett, Mr. Theodore Tinne, +Mr. T. Douglas Murray, Lady Baker, Mr. Oscar Neumann, +Mr. J. E. S. Moore, Major Gwynn, Major Austin, +Mr. J. Thomson, The African Society, Mr. S. Crispin, +and Mr. Warry.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">xi</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table id="toc"> +<tr class="small"> + <td class="tdr">Chapter</td> + <td class="tdl"></td> + <td class="tdr">Page</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">I.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Dawn of Nile Exploration</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">II.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Greeks interest Europe in the Nile Question</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_14">14</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">III.</td> + <td class="tdl">Abyssinians and Jews</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_30">30</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">IV.</td> + <td class="tdl">Islamites and Italians</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_37">37</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">V.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Summary of the Ancients’ Knowledge of the Nile</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_42">42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">VI.</td> + <td class="tdl">Portugal and Abyssinia</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_45">45</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">VII.</td> + <td class="tdl">French Inquiries and D’Anville’s Maps</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_65">65</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">VIII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Bruce and the Nile: Sonnini, Browne, and Bonaparte</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_73">73</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">IX.</td> + <td class="tdl">Muhammad Ali opens up the White Nile</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_91">91</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">X.</td> + <td class="tdl">Missionaries and Snow-Mountains</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_111">111</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XI.</td> + <td class="tdl">Burton and Speke</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_115">115</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Speke and the Nile Quest</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_125">125</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XIII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Speke in Uganda</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_150">150</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XIV.</td> + <td class="tdl">From the Victoria Nyanza to Alexandria</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_160">160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XV.</td> + <td class="tdl">Samuel Baker and the Albert Nyanza</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_174">174</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XVI.</td> + <td class="tdl">Alexandrine Tinne and Theodor von Heuglin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_192">192</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XVII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Schweinfurth and the Basin of the Bahr-al-Ghazal</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_201">201</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XVIII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Schweinfurth’s Achievements and Descriptions</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_216">216</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XIX.</td> + <td class="tdl">Stanley confirms Speke</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_223">223</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XX.</td> + <td class="tdl">Gordon and his Lieutenants.—Junker and the Nile-Congo Water-parting</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_230">230</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">xii</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXI.</td> + <td class="tdl">Joseph Thomson, Mt. Elgon, and Kavirondo Bay</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_246">246</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Emin Pasha</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_250">250</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXIII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Stanley discovers the Mountains of the Moon and Lake Albert Edward.—The End of Emin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_259">259</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXIV.</td> + <td class="tdl">German Explorers determine the Southern Limits of the Nile Basin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_265">265</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXV.</td> + <td class="tdl">Geographical Work in the Uganda Protectorate</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_269">269</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXVI.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Eastern Basin of the Nile</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_276">276</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXVII.</td> + <td class="tdl">Conclusion</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_293">293</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">XXVIII.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Geography of the Nile Basin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_299">299</a></td> +</tr> +<tr class="tpad"> + <td class="tdr top"><span class="smcap">Appendix I.</span></td> + <td class="tdl">The Roll of Fame of those who started on the Nile Quest</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_319">319</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top"><span class="smcap">Appendix II.</span></td> + <td class="tdl">Bibliography</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_322">322</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> + <td class="tdl"> </td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_329">329</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">xiii</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</div> + +<table id="loi"> +<tr> + <td class="tdl norpad" colspan="3"><span class="smcap">Speke</span> (from a drawing by the author) +<span class="in4 fright smaller"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></span></td> +</tr> +<tr class="small"> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr"><i>Page</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">1.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Nile and the Pyramids</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_4">4</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">2.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Mountains of the Moon</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_23">23</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">3.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Course of the Nile according to Ptolemy</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_24">24</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">4.</td> + <td class="tdl">An Arab Trader (Maskati)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_40">40</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">5.</td> + <td class="tdl">Dapper’s Map (Amsterdam: 1686) giving the falsified results of Portuguese explorations</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_58">58</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">6.</td> + <td class="tdl">D’Anville’s Map of the Nile Basin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_70">70</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">7.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Branching <i class="taxonomy">Hyphæne</i> Palm</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_75">75</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">8.</td> + <td class="tdl">Bruce’s Map of the Nile Sources</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_80">80</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">9.</td> + <td class="tdl">Portrait of James Bruce</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_86">86</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">10.</td> + <td class="tdl">Map of Africa by Williamson, London, 1800</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_90">90</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">11.</td> + <td class="tdl">Blue Nile, twenty miles east of Fazokl</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_93">93</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">12.</td> + <td class="tdl">Ferdinand Werne</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_96">96</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">13.</td> + <td class="tdl">Whale-headed Stork (<i class="taxonomy">Balæniceps rex</i>)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_100">100</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">14.</td> + <td class="tdl">John Petherick</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_102">102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">15.</td> + <td class="tdl">Map published in Penny Magazine of 1852</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_108">108</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">16.</td> + <td class="tdl">The River Sobat</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_111">111</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">17.</td> + <td class="tdl">Rev. Dr. J. Ludwig Krapf</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_112">112</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">18.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Swahili Arab Trader</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_117">117</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">19.</td> + <td class="tdl">Sketch Map by Burton and Speke, 1858</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_123">123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">20.</td> + <td class="tdl">John Hanning Speke, at the age of 17</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_126">126</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">21.</td> + <td class="tdl">Burton’s idea of the Nile Sources, December, 1864</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_127">127</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">22.</td> + <td class="tdl">James Augustus Grant</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_132">132</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">23.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Mnyamwezi Porter</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_135">135</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">xiv</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">24.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Hima of Mpororo near Karagwe</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_144">144</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">25.</td> + <td class="tdl">Speke’s Tragelaph</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_146">146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">26.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Ripon Falls, from the west bank</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_151">151</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">27.</td> + <td class="tdl">A View in Uganda</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_152">152</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">28.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Nile at the Isamba Rapids, looking North</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_160">160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">29.</td> + <td class="tdl">Ripon Falls, from Bugunga</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_162">162</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">30.</td> + <td class="tdl">View of Napoleon Gulf, from Jinja</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_163">163</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">31.</td> + <td class="tdl">The last Map issued to illustrate Speke’s Theories, 1865</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_170">170</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">32.</td> + <td class="tdl">Speke’s Handwriting</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_172">172</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">33.</td> + <td class="tdl">Samuel Baker, 1865</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_176">176</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">34.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Native of Unyoro</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_184">184</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">35.</td> + <td class="tdl">Alexandrine Tinne</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_192">192</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">36.</td> + <td class="tdl">On the Jur River: Sudd blocking the Channel</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_195">195</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">37.</td> + <td class="tdl">Letter of Miss Tinne to her nephew</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_198">198</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">38.</td> + <td class="tdl">Georg Schweinfurth, 1875</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_203">203</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">39.</td> + <td class="tdl">Shiluks</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_211">211</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">40.</td> + <td class="tdl">“Papyrus, fifteen feet high”</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_218">218</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">41.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Path through the Forest</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_220">220</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">42.</td> + <td class="tdl">Schweinfurth’s Map</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_223">223</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">43.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Victoria Nyanza</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_226">226</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">44.</td> + <td class="tdl">Stanley’s idea of the Victoria Nyanza, 1880</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_228">228</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">45.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Victoria Nile flowing towards Lake Kioga</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_232">232</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">46.</td> + <td class="tdl">Nuërr Village, Sobat River</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_241">241</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">47.</td> + <td class="tdl">Joseph Thomson and Wilhelm Junker</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_242">242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">48.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Stern-wheel Steamboat forcing its way up the Jur (Sue) or main affluent of the Bahr-al-Ghazal</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_245">245</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">49.</td> + <td class="tdl">N.E. corner of Victoria Nyanza (with Samia Hills in distance)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_247">247</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">xv</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">50.</td> + <td class="tdl">Joseph Thomson</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_248">248</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">51.</td> + <td class="tdl">Emin Pasha</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_252">252</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">52.</td> + <td class="tdl">Raphia Palms by a Central African stream</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_257">257</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">53.</td> + <td class="tdl">Sir Henry Stanley, G.C.B.</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_261">261</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">54.</td> + <td class="tdl">Shores of the Victoria Nyanza near Emin Pasha Gulf</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_262">262</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">55.</td> + <td class="tdl">Dr. Franz Stuhlmann</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_264">264</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">56.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Native of Unyamwezi from near south shores of Victoria Nyanza</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_267">267</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">57.</td> + <td class="tdl">Sir Frederic D. Lugard</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_269">269</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">58.</td> + <td class="tdl">G. F. Scott-Elliott</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_271">271</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">59.</td> + <td class="tdl">Dr. Donaldson-Smith</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_272">272</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">60.</td> + <td class="tdl">Cutting the Sudd</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_274">274</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">61.</td> + <td class="tdl">Dr. C. Beke</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_281">281</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">62.</td> + <td class="tdl">Natives of the Baro (Upper Sobat)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_284">284</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">63.</td> + <td class="tdl">Colonel J. B. Marchand</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_286">286</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">64.</td> + <td class="tdl">Gorge of the River Baro (Upper Sobat)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_287">287</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">65.</td> + <td class="tdl">Berta Negroes</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_289">289</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">66.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Berta Village in the Matongwe Mountains</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_291">291</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">67.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Nile in Egypt</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_293">293</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">68.</td> + <td class="tdl">Nubia: a “Washout” on the Sudan Railway</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_294">294</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">69.</td> + <td class="tdl">Tropical Forest at Entebbe, on the northwest shores of the Victoria Nyanza</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_295">295</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">70.</td> + <td class="tdl">Napoleon Gulf, looking South</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_302">302</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">71.</td> + <td class="tdl">The Birth of the Victoria Nile, at the Ripon Falls</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_304">304</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">72.</td> + <td class="tdl">On Lake Albert Edward (North-west Coast)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_305">305</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">73.</td> + <td class="tdl">In the Libyan Desert</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_315">315</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">74.</td> + <td class="tdl">Orographical Features of the Nile Basin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_328">328</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr top">75.</td> + <td class="tdl">Land Surface Features of the Nile Basin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_328b">328</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_NILE_QUEST"><span class="large">THE NILE QUEST</span></h2> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"><span id="toclink_1"></span>CHAPTER I<br> + +<span class="subhead">THE DAWN OF NILE EXPLORATION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> first men who entered Egypt and travelled +up the valley of the Nile came, almost unquestionably, +from the east, and were part of those radiations +from the central focus of humanity, India. It +is possible that the first men who entered the valley +of the Nile from this direction may have been of +so primitive, simian, and undetermined a type—so +“Neanderthaloid”—as not to belong definitely to +any one of the three main species of humanity. At +that distant time, however (let us say at the end of +the Pleistocene period or beginning of the Quaternary +Epoch), there was undoubtedly a land connection +over the south as well as over the north end of the +Red Sea, joining Arabia to Ethiopia as well as to +Egypt; and across this bridge came many types of +Asiatic mammals, also man,—possibly in the form +of a low Negroid, a type represented to-day (much +changed and modified, of course) by the Congo +Pygmies and South African Bushmen. As regards +the history of humanity, however, the valley of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span> +Nile has been divided into two very distinct parts. +The southern half of its basin—in common with all +Africa south of the Sahara and the fifteenth degree of +north latitude—was peopled from the east, through +southern Arabia, and by the Negro species in the +main. Egypt proper and the adjoining regions of +Arabia once lay within the domain of the Negroid +Pygmies, but these indigenes were overwhelmed at +a relatively early period by more or less “negrified” +branches of the Caucasian stock coming from the +direction of Syria or from Libya. Before the dawn +of the historical epoch—say nine thousand years ago—an +element in the population of Lower Egypt certainly +showed Bushmen affinities. These steatopygous +Bushmen were perhaps Proto-negroes, who may +have branched off from the Nigritic stock when first +that species reached the Mediterranean regions. This +Bushman element in Egypt was for some time distinct, +prior to the historical period, as the characteristic +type of the servile class. Following on these +dwarfish people came races bearing some slight resemblance +to the Dravidians of India or the Brahuis of +Baluchistan,—a somewhat Australoid stock which +has left traces in Elam and around the shores of the +Persian Gulf. Then came an aquiline type of nearly +pure Caucasian stock, usually known by Egyptologists +as the “Khafra” race. This probably arrived from +Syria or Cyprus. But the men of the northern half of +the Nile basin who fathered the principal, dominating +type of ancient and modern Egyptian emigrated seemingly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span> +from the direction of Galaland, Somaliland, or +Abyssinia. In these countries, or originally perhaps +in southern Arabia, there was formed a handsome race +mainly of Caucasian stock, but which had mingled +somewhat considerably with the Proto-negroes and +Dravidians in Arabia and in northeast Africa, and +so had acquired darker skins, and hair with more or +less tendency to curl. The men of this race, like the +modern Somali or Gala, and the inhabitants of southern +Arabia, grew thin and wedge-shaped beards. +Their lips were full, their noses straight and finely +shaped. Their degenerate descendants continue to +exist with but little altered facial type in the Danākil, +Somali, and Gala of the present day; but in the +northern half of the Nile valley they became in time +the main stock of the Egyptian population. They +also, it would seem, profoundly modified Negro +Africa; for while on the one hand they started out +by a series of race movements and conquests from the +direction of Abyssinia to invade and mould Egypt, +on the other (though more faint-heartedly) they advanced +in a southwesterly direction to influence Negro +Africa. They have formed aristocracies in the countries +round the head-waters of the White Nile. Their +influence on the Negro races has been widespread, +permeating, even though faintly, in a handsome physical +type and remarkable form of language, to Zululand +on the south and perhaps westward across the +continent to the Congo, the Cross River, and the +Atlantic coast. This Hamitic race (as it is called<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span> +for want of a better word), which made its first +home—and retains as its last—the highlands of +Abyssinia and the plateaux and arid coastlands of +Afar, Somaliland, and the Gala countries, has been +the mainstay of Ancient Egypt, and also, together +with its not distantly related Libyan brethren, the main +human agent in saving the Negro from slipping back +into the life of the anthropoid ape.</p> + +<figure id="ip_4" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 35em;"> + <img src="images/i_0041.jpg" width="2189" height="1633" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Nile and the Pyramids.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The valley of the Lower Nile, however, attracted +many invasions from Europe and Asia, and from +Libya (northwest Africa), where the dominant race +was mainly of Iberian stock.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> Dynasties rose and +fell, often coincident with the invasion of Egypt by +one race of conquerors after another. All these races +(with the exception perhaps of the Hittites) belonged +to various types of the Caucasian species. The Hittites +possibly may have introduced a slight element of +the Mongolian. In the earliest historical period Egypt +and the lower valley of the Nile does not seem to have +been markedly severed in its interracial relations from +the far greater portion of the Nile basin which lies to +the south of the fifteenth degree of north latitude. +Egyptians penetrated no doubt without much difficulty +up the Nile valley into and among the Negro tribes +of the Central Sudan and Equatoria. The Ancient +Egyptians may have had—must have had—a certain +proportion of Negro or Negroid in their composition; +beside the drop of Negro blood in their Hamitic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span> +ancestors, they must have absorbed the earlier Negroid +population of their country and have imported and +intermarried with Negro slaves. But they were fully +Caucasian in the vivid interest they took in nature, +and in their desire to depict all the striking forms +of life around them, especially when such forms had +anything of novelty. Prof. Flinders Petrie has, I +believe, recently discovered a vase of immeasurable +antiquity of the “Pre-Dynastic” period in Lower +Egypt which is incised with a delineation of the +Kudu antelope.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> Other and later relics would seem +to show that the Egyptians were acquainted with the +chimpanzee of the Bahr-al-Ghazal regions, the Pygmies +who once inhabited the western part of the Upper +Nile basin, and many forms of the Tropical African +fauna. But after these early historical times there +appears to have come about a severance of relations +between Egypt and the Upper Nile, though an +overland route to the Land of Punt (Somaliland) +either through Abyssinia or to the west of that elevated +region nearly always existed unclosed to traffic. +It is noteworthy that the Ancient Egyptians themselves +do not appear ever to have penetrated up the +main stream of the Nile much above its junction +with the Bahr-al-Ghazal, no doubt owing to the obstruction +of the sudd. Their traders may have travelled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span> +into many parts of the Bahr-al-Ghazal region, +and possibly even westward in the direction of Lake +Chad,—westward, it may be, even across the western +Sudan to the Niger,—yet there is not the slightest +indication of their ever having journeyed up the +main White Nile to the snow-mountains and the equatorial +lakes. But they traded for thousands of years +with the men of Punt (Somaliland) by sea and by +land; and there is evidence to show that the peoples +of Somaliland and Galaland (who had by repeated +prehistoric invasions permeated the Upper Nile basin +and left aristocracies behind them) traded anciently—say, +in pre-Islamic times—southwestward to Lake +Rudolf, and round Lake Rudolf to the present Turkana +country, the neighbourhood of Mount Elgon, +and even to the northeastern shores of the Victoria +Nyanza.</p> + +<p>The Ancient Egyptians seem to have known the +main Nile as far as Khartum, and the Blue Nile up +to its source in Lake Tsana. They exercised intermittently +some kind of rule over the northern and +western escarpment of Abyssinia, and are said to have +sent criminals and political exiles to die of cold on +the snowy heights of the Samien range. But they +appear to have displayed little knowledge or curiosity +concerning the ultimate source of the <em>White</em> Nile. +No doubt the vast marshes and obstructions of the +sudd which characterised the course of the Nile above +its confluence with the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the generally +hopeless nature of this country with its utter absence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span> +of anything like high land, of minerals, or of a trading +population, discouraged the practical-minded Egyptians +from pursuing their researches in that direction. +The Nile itself they called <em>Hapi</em>, which was also the +name of the Nile God. It was sometimes spoken of +as <em>Pi Yuma</em>, or “the River.”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">3</a> Its valley they called +Atr, Atur, Aur (Modern Coptic = <i>Eiōr</i>).<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">4</a></p> + +<p>Several foreign dynasties ruled over Ancient Egypt,—Arabian +and Libyan,—and for centuries at a +time the energies of Egypt were mainly concentrated +on domestic work under these foreign task-masters +or insurrections to expel the hated rulers. +The original civilisation of Egypt rose rapidly to a +great and wonderful height at a period which may +be as remote, historically, as about seven thousand +years ago. The main source of their civilisation +seems to have been the introduction into the country +of copper implements instead of and in addition to +those of improved stone and flint manufacture. A +wonderful development of pictorial art occurred concurrently +with this brilliant rise in civilisation, and +this early Egyptian art is of a realistic character from +which all subsequent Egyptian pictorial or sculptured +art has been a degeneration. At this time they easily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span> +impressed the Negroes of the south and the Libyans +of the west with their power, and it was no doubt a +matter of ease for Egyptian expeditions to penetrate +into the Sudan from the countries of Abyssinia and +Galaland. Gold and precious or gaudy stones were +sought for in the east and southeast. Ivory, slaves, +gums, perfumes, and strange beasts were obtained +from the south and southwest. But no doubt Ancient +Egyptians in their extensions of political or commercial +influence introduced amongst the Negro tribes the +knowledge of working metals. They also gave to +them all those domestic animals and cultivated plants +now existing in Tropical Africa which are not of a far +later American or Indian origin (that is, introduced +by the Portuguese and Arabs). By instructing the +Negroes in this indirect manner in the arts of civilisation, +and by spreading among them, no doubt, the +use of metal weapons (which were probably as good +as those used by the Egyptians themselves), there +came a time when—to use a term once much employed +by the European pioneer—the black men +became “saucy” and objected to be harried, bullied, +assessed, and exploited by the lordly Egyptian. The +Negro race at this time, too, was becoming infiltrated +by the same splendid stock—the Hamites—as had +so largely composed the ruling population of Egypt. +Here and there, no doubt, Negro tribes submitted +willingly to be governed by Hamitic princes (as has +been the case in Uganda and Unyoro), and, thus +ruled, offered sharp opposition to Egyptian encroachments.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> +Egyptian interest, therefore, in the sources of +the Nile died away, especially as in the revival of +native Egyptian power and in the expulsion of foreign +dynasties the thoughts of Egypt were all bent on the +conquest and retention of Syria, Asia Minor, and +Cyprus. These lands were more desirable in their +eyes than the appalling wastes of the Sahara, the sun-smitten +Sudan, the cold mountains of Abyssinia, or +the fetid marshes of the Nile Negroes.</p> + +<p>Almost older than the civilisation of Egypt was +that of Mesopotamia, the reflex action of which on the +Hamites of western Arabia and Abyssinia and on the +inhabitants of the Nile Delta may have provoked +the civilisation of Egypt. Empires rose, declined, +fell, and were revived in the valleys of the Euphrates +and the Tigris, and their influence over Arabia and +Syria produced in those countries a stirring of commerce +and invention and a desire for distant enterprise. +The Phœnicians, who were originally an Arab +people of the Persian Gulf, forced their way across +the barren wastes of northern Arabia to the coasts +of Syria, leaving behind, however, colonies of bold +navigators at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. +The Phœnicians, by the building of more seaworthy +boats, and probably by the development of sails, soon +traversed the Mediterranean in all directions, passed +out through the Straits of Gibraltar, and even found +their way to Britain long before Julius Cæsar. Their +most noteworthy action in connection with Africa +perhaps was the founding of Utica in 1100 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span> +Carthage in 820 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, these settlements being made at +no great distance from each other in that projection +of North Africa which constitutes the modern state +of Tunis. The Carthaginian successors of the Phœnicians +carried on the work of discovery along the +north and west coasts of Africa until, in the memorable +voyage of Hanno, they had penetrated as far +south in that direction as the existing colony of Sierra +Leone. The Phœnicians as bold navigators were enlisted +in the service of one of the last Egyptian sovereigns +of a real Egyptian dynasty,—Neku, son of +Psametik I., who succeeded to the throne of Egypt in +611 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> Evidently by this time the overland routes +to the regions of the Upper Nile and even to Somaliland +had been closed by hostilities with the Ethiopians +and Negroes. A Phœnician expedition was +directed to sail down the Red Sea and along the coast +to the Land of Punt and the unknown territory beyond. +According to tradition, this expedition sailed +round the whole continent of Africa and passed +through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, +reaching Egypt from that direction.</p> + +<p>Egypt, in her several thousand years of history, +had been many times conquered by foreign races or +the leaders of foreign armies, and had sometimes endured +the domination of strangers for five hundred +years at a time, though Egyptian art, tradition, and +religion either survived concurrently alongside the +habits and customs of the less civilised rulers, or +ended by Egyptianising the stranger. But there was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span> +to come a time when the independence of Egypt was +to disappear, when the Egyptian language was to +cease to be dominant, when, in fact, the Egypt of the +Pharaohs and the Pyramids, of the Hieroglyph and +the Mummy, of Ra and Aphis, Osiris, Isis, and Horus +was to disappear—perhaps for ever; for the potent +race that had so long held aloft a brightly-lighted +lamp of civilisation has been so changed and degraded +by the infusion of Persian, Arab, Greek, Italian, +Negro, Circassian, Turkish, French, and Maltese +blood, so often decimated by wars, famines, and diseases, +and renewed with the tainted blood of mercenary +armies, that, though the residuum of the +population may still offer great facial resemblances +to the vanished Egyptian type, the majesty of demeanour, +the brilliant mental endowments of the old +race have gone, and the rulers of Egypt to-day under +the indifferent English are the descendants of Slavs +and Turks, Arabs, Armenians, and Circassians.</p> + +<p>A ruler of Egypt, a usurper named Aahmes, had +been raised to the kingship over Egypt by a soldier’s +mutiny. He had legitimised his position by marrying +a granddaughter of Psametik I. Carrying out a +series of successful expeditions, he once more opened a +way to the commerce of Nubia and the Upper Nile. +He intervened in the affairs of Asia Minor to support +a small state there against encroachments by +the Persian conqueror Cyrus. The son of Cyrus the +Great, whom we know as Cambyses, but whose real +name was probably in Persian Kambujiya, resolved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span> +to punish Egypt for this interference. Aahmes, whom +the Greeks called Amasis, died before he could resist +the invasion, and his son, Psametik III., lost his +throne and the independence of Egypt in the battle +of Pelusium. Cambyses became the conqueror, and +was crowned the legitimate King of Egypt. He +seems to have been an erratic and cruel conqueror, +but, like Nero, somewhat fantastically interested in +science and exploration. He sent one great expedition +into the Libyan Desert which was never heard +of again, and is supposed to have perished in the +sand; and he led a great army himself up the Nile +with some vague intention of conquering the Ethiopians. +His soldiers, however, had marched only a +small distance into the desert when their commissariat +failed, and many perished, while others became +cannibals in their mad hunger. This disaster put a +stop to any further efforts on the part of the Persian +Overlords of Egypt. For nearly two hundred years +Persia maintained her hold over Egypt, though for +brief intervals native dynasties arose in this part +and that part and flickered for a time in a state of +semi-independence. Then happened one of the great +events in the history of Egypt and of the development +of Africa,—an event which may be paralleled by the +descent on Egypt of Napoleon Bonaparte two thousand +one hundred and thirty-one years later: Alexander +the Great, continuing his war against the Persian +Empire, attacked that power in Egypt and won the +day. Alexander left in charge in Egypt one of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span> +generals (who was perhaps also his illegitimate half-brother), +Ptolemy. After his death Ptolemy refused +to acknowledge the claims of Alexander’s posthumous +son, and made himself King of Egypt. He thus +founded a Greek dynasty in that country which lasted +till the advent of the Cæsars and expired in the person +of the world-famed Cleopatra.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"><span id="toclink_14"></span>CHAPTER II<br> + +<span class="subhead">THE GREEKS INTEREST EUROPE IN THE NILE QUESTION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> second division of the Caucasian species +of man (the Iberian being the first) was the +Aryan,—a race of golden-haired, pink and white +complexioned people, with eyes that are blue, gray, +or violet.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">5</a> The Aryans first came into Greece as +barbarians and destroyers, but were soon conquered +by the preceding Iberian Mykenæan civilisation, on +which they built up that Hellenic art and knowledge +which are the foundations of European civilisation +at the present day. This Hellenic spirit first made +itself felt in Africa through the Greek colonies of the +Cyrenaica. Greece, when it became conscious of a +world beyond its peninsulas and islands, was strongly +drawn towards Africa. The power of Egypt long +withstood attempts at Greek colonisation, though in +quite early days Hellenic or Hellenised Europeans +were employed by the rulers of Egypt as mercenary +soldiers. Therefore, following the line of least resistance, +Greece planted her first African colonies between +Egypt on the east and the settlements of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span> +Phœnicians (Carthage) on the west. Due west of +the narrow coast belt of Egypt is a remarkable projection +of North Africa into the Mediterranean,—the +modern Barka, the ancient Cyrenaica. This projection +has been, several times in geological history, a +series of islands in a larger Mediterranean, or it has +grown into a bridge connecting Greece with Africa. +The land now rises to heights of three thousand feet, +and there is a sufficiency of rainfall in ordinary seasons +to nourish a vegetation not much less rich than that of +southern Italy. South of the Cyrenaica lies the Sahara +Desert in its most aggravated form of well-nigh impassable +sand dunes. No Greek expedition that we +know of ever succeeded in crossing the Sahara from +Cyrenaica and reaching the Sudan; but Greek influence +and inquiries were dimly felt in Phazania (Fezzan) to +the southwest, and the existence and prosperity of these +Greek colonies in North Africa aroused the interest +of the Greeks in matters of African exploration. In +about 457 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> Herodotus (a native of Halicarnassus, +a Hellenised state in Asia Minor under Persian rule) +visited Egypt, which from 650 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> onwards had been +more or less thrown open to Greek enterprise by +Psametik I. Herodotus himself travelled up the Nile +as far as the First Cataract, and collected with some +industry information from Egyptians and travelled +Greeks as to the regions which lay beyond. From +these he learned that the origin of the Nile was unknown, +but that the river might come from the far +west, from the region where we now know Lake Chad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span> +to be; that there was a civilised city of Ethiopians in +the great bend of the Nile at Meroe (Merāwi of to-day), +and that beyond this nothing certain was known +of the Nile course. Aristotle—the great Greek +philosopher, who was born in northern Greece in +384 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>—wrote on African discovery and recorded +the news that to the southwest of the Nile were +Pygmy races who frequently warred with the “cranes” +(? ostriches).</p> + +<p>In <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> 276 was born at Cyrene, in North Africa, +Eratosthenes, a Greek geographer, who was made +Librarian at Alexandria. From the information he +collected and collated (supplied, no doubt, by Greek +traders) he, first of all known geographers, sketched +out with fair accuracy the course of the Nile and its +two great Abyssinian affluents as far south as the +modern Khartum. He hinted at the lake sources and +first mentioned the Nubians.</p> + +<p>It was the conquest of Egypt from Persian domination +by Alexander the Great which really did more to +extend Greek commerce and civilisation and the use +of the Greek language over eastern Africa and western +Asia than has even been done at a far later date +in other parts of the world for German commerce, +knowledge, and the German language by the unification +of Germany under Bismarck, William I., and +William II. Greek explorers visited the Nile as far +south as the junction of the Astapus (Blue Nile), and +Greek settlements were made on the island of Sokotra, +and possibly at other points near the mouth of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span> +Red Sea. Greek traders even visited the East African +coast as far as Pangani, opposite Zanzibar. The +Greeks revealed India to Europe, and the commerce +which sprung up there through Greek agencies on the +Persian Gulf and the Red Sea gave unwilling navigators, +in those days before steam force, some acquaintance +with the eastern coast of Africa as far +south as Zanzibar.</p> + +<p>Yet the Greeks in all these regions were (as subsequently +happened with the Portuguese) but the followers +of the Arabs and Phœnicians. Some impulse, +kindred in origin, no doubt, to the evolution of the +Phœnicians, had created an ancient civilisation in +southern and western Arabia which perhaps reached +its climax in the lofty, well-watered, and fertile country +of Yaman. Much of southern Arabia, however, +several thousand years ago, was less arid than at the +present day. The rainfall was greater, and the already +civilised inhabitants industriously preserved the +precious water by dams for purposes of irrigation. +This civilisation may be briefly styled Himyaritic or +Sabæan,—perhaps the last name is the more comprehensive. +These Sabæan Arabs of south and southwest +Arabia, separately or in conjunction with their +Phœnician cousins, pursued their search for metals +down the east coast of Africa, along which they made +settlements which are probably the sites of most of the +modern emporiums of commerce on the same coast. +They had reached the mouth of the Zambezi and ascended +that river, and had penetrated as far south as,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span> +let us say, Delagoa Bay. It was perhaps their exploration +of the Zambezi which led them to discover alluvial +gold in the vicinity of that river, though they afterwards +found a shorter route to the gold fields by +way of Sofala. In this way they forestalled by some +twenty-five hundred years modern Rhodesian enterprise, +and gold was worked in the regions to the +south of the Lower Zambezi and a little to the north +of that river by Arabs or people of allied language +and race almost continuously from an approximate +period of three thousand years ago down to the arrival +of the Portuguese at the beginning of the sixteenth +century of this era. In the days before the +appalling religious disunion brought about by the +conflicts between Christianity and Islam there was +no bitter feeling against the European on the part +of the Arab, and Greek adventurers and traders appear +to have penetrated freely up the Nile, and to +have worked cordially with the Sabæan Arabs whom +they found established at various points between India +on the one hand and Zanzibar and the Red Sea on the +other. The Greek colony on the island of Sokotra no +doubt traded industriously with the opposite coast of +Somaliland.</p> + +<p>Rome displaced Greece in Egypt in the same way +that Greece had displaced Persia, and that Persia had +closed the five thousand years of fighting between +Libyan, Gala, Arab, and Nubian. In 168 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> Rome +extended her protection over Egypt. In 30 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> Egypt +became a Roman province. When the Romans really<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span> +took over the administration of the land, they too, like +the Galas, Persians, and Greeks before them, and the +French, Turks, and English after them, began to be +interested in the quest for the Nile sources. Each +newly-arrived race of Caucasian conquerors in Egypt +has felt the same interest. But much of the exploring +and recording work under Roman rule was done +by Greeks. Strabo, a native of Amasia in Pontus, +on the southern shore of the Black Sea, who was +born somewhere about 50 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, became, when quite +a young man, a geographer of the Roman world. +He accompanied in <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> 24 Ælius Gallus, the Roman +Governor of Egypt, on a journey up the Nile as far +as Philæ (beyond Assuan and the First Cataract). +Pliny the Elder, writing some fifty years after the +birth of Christ, shows us that just before and just +after that event Greek explorers (mainly from Asia +Minor) had been busy on the Nile above the First +Cataract and perhaps south of Khartum. These were +Bion, Dalion, and Simonides. Aristocreon and Basilis +are also mentioned as authorities on Nile exploration, +but not necessarily explorers themselves. Simonides, +above mentioned, lived for five years in Meroe. Dalion +is thought to have penetrated up the river some distance +beyond Khartum. The “Meroe” which is so +constantly mentioned by Greek and Roman writers +from Herodotus to Ptolemy, was a name given +originally to an important and flourishing city on +the south or left bank of the Nile in Dongola,—the +modern Merāwi. This place was also known<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> +as Napata (Egyptian, Nepet), and was the residence +of Ethiopian (Abyssinian, Gala, Nubian) +kings. Later the name Meroe was also applied to a +place on the right bank of the Nile about one hundred +miles south of that river’s confluence with the +Atbara. This is probably where the Greek Simonides +stayed and beyond which Dalion travelled. Finally, +the term Meroe was applied to the “Island” (peninsula) +formed by the Atbara, the Blue Nile, and the +White Nile, a region formerly of great fertility.</p> + +<p>The Emperor Nero, though the Beast of the Apocalypse, +had a certain genial interest in geography. He +despatched—or caused to be despatched—an expedition +under two centurions in about the year 66 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, +to discover, if possible, the source or sources of the +White Nile. Before dealing with Egypt the Romans +had taken over control of the old Greek colonies of +the Cyrenaica and on the coast of Tripoli. This had +led (<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 19) to their having extensive relations with +the Berber kingdom of Fezzan, with whom and with +the Tawareq people of Garama to the south they maintained +friendly relations. Through this friendly co-operation +a Roman expedition under Septimus Flaccus +had in the year 50 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> (perhaps) reached to some +trans-Saharan place like Bilma. Much later, about +150 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, another expedition under Julius Maternus +joined forces with the friendly Berber King of Garama, +and actually travelled to the vicinity of Lake Chad, +or, as some think, to the oasis of Air or Asben farther +to the west. It was a country which they called Agisymba,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span> +and abounded in rhinoceroses. From this expedition +the Romans derived some inkling of the +possibilities, beyond the sandy wastes and sun-smitten +rocks of the Sahara Desert, of a fertile Sudan, populated +with an excellent material for slaves. But a +hundred years earlier they had realised the enormous +difficulties which attended any enterprise (in the days +before camels were used in Africa) across the Sahara +Desert, and this gave them an added desire to follow +up the Nile and ascertain its practicability as a waterway +into Negro Africa.</p> + +<p>Nero’s two centurions were passed on by Roman +prefects to friendly Nubian chiefs, one of whom ruled +the principality of Meroe along the main Nile between +Atbara and the Blue Nile confluence. Furnished with +boats which they later exchanged for dug-out canoes, +they appear to have ascended the Nile above Fashoda, +and possibly above the confluence between the Bahr-al-Ghazal +and the Kir or White Nile. At any rate they +got far enough south to come in contact with the Great +Marsh which extends from the vicinity of Fashoda to +the frontiers of the Uganda Protectorate. Their passage +was stopped by the accumulation of water vegetation +which we now know as the “sudd.” Some writers +on ancient geography believe that the two centurions +penetrated as far south as the sixth degree of north +latitude, or the verge of the Bari country. At any rate +they got well into the land of the naked Nile Negroes. +Their discouraging reports seem to have put an end to +any further Roman enterprise in the matter.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span></p> + +<p>Greek traders in Egypt prospered greatly under the +peace imposed by the Roman Empire. Their commerce +with Arabia, East Africa, and India grew to +a wonderful development in the first century after +Christ. About 77 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> was published by a Greek of +Alexandria the celebrated “Periplus of the Red Sea,” +a pilot’s manual not unlike the modern Admiralty +“sailing directions.” This “Periplus” shows us that +the Greeks by the middle of the first century knew the +Zanzibar coast very well under the name of Azan or +Azania.</p> + +<p>Among these Greek merchants trading with India +was one Diogenes, who, on returning from a voyage +to India in about 50 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, landed on the East African +coast at Rhaptum (Pangani or the mouth of the river +Rufu?). Thence, he said, he “travelled inland for a +twenty-five days’ journey, and arrived in the vicinity +of the two great lakes and the snowy range of mountains +whence the Nile draws its twin sources.” As +nothing is recorded about his return journey, it is more +probable that he merely conversed on the coast with +Arab settlers and traders who told him that at a distance +of twenty-five days’ march in the interior began +a series of great lakes from two of which were derived +the twin sources of the White Nile; that farther to +the south of the most western of these two lakes was +a range of mountains of great altitude covered with +snow and ice, and named for their brilliant appearance +of white the Mountains of the Moon. The Nile, he +was told, united its twin head-streams at a point to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span> +the north of these two great lakes, and then flowed +through marshes until it joined the River of Abyssinia +(the Blue Nile), and so reached the regions of +the known.</p> + +<figure id="ip_23" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> + <img src="images/i_0222.jpg" width="1959" height="1256" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Mountains of the Moon: a Glimpse on one of Ruwenzori’s highest Peaks.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>This story was told by Diogenes to a Syrian geographer +called Marinus of Tyre, who published it in +his geographical works in the first century of the +Christian era. The writings of Marinus of Tyre disappeared, +probably with the dispersal of the Alexandrian +Library, but fortunately for us at the present +day all that portion of them dealing with the sources +of the Nile was quoted almost <i lang="la">in extenso</i> by another +geographer, Claudius Ptolemæus, a Greek-Egyptian, +born at Ptolemais in the Delta of the Nile, and resident +at Alexandria (perhaps in connection with the +celebrated Library). Ptolemy (as he is currently and +incorrectly called) wrote in about the year 150 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, +and therefore to Ptolemy is commonly attributed the +first clearly expressed theory as to the main origin of +the White Nile, the twin lakes (Victoria and Albert), +and the great snowy range called the Mountains of +the Moon (Ruwenzori).<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">6</a> Neither Marinus of Tyre +nor Claudius Ptolemæus was the first person to hint +at this origin of the Nile. Besides Eratosthenes and +Pliny there are indications in various records of the +two centuries before Christ that the idea of the White<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span> +Nile issuing from two great lakes and passing through +a vast marshy region before it reached Ethiopia was +vaguely known. The idea had perhaps even reached +the ears of Cambyses and of such of the earlier Ptolemies +as may have cared for geographical speculations. +The bearers of the news would undoubtedly have been +men of the Gala (Abyssinian, Somali, Cushite) race, +who at that distant period of time seem to have freely +penetrated through the lands of the brutish and unarmed +Negroes. No doubt many a Greek adventurer +in passing along the east coast of Africa brought back +tidings similar to those of Diogenes, but his grain fell +among the rocks, and the only definite record of the +existence of this theory as to the Nile’s origin is +the story of Diogenes preserved through the industry +of Marinus of Tyre and Claudius Ptolemæus of +Alexandria.</p> + +<figure id="ip_24" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;"> + <img src="images/i_0261.jpg" width="1624" height="2068" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">The Course of the Nile, according to Ptolemy.</span></p> + +<p>From the oldest version of Ptolemy’s Map in existence, about 930 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, preserved +in Mount Athos Monastery.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The recording of travellers’ tales as to the twin +lake sources of the main Nile stream and the existence +of a great snowy range called the Mountains of +the Moon was not the only contribution made by +Claudius Ptolemæus to Nile geography. The Egyptian +Greek indeed was a geographical giant compared +with any of his predecessors, nor was the height of his +knowledge concerning the geography of Europe, Asia, +and Africa reached and passed until the fifteenth century +of the present era, some twelve hundred years +after his death. The results of the later Crusades, intercourse +with the Arabs, and the journeys of Marco +Polo and other enterprising Venetians had brought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span> +in some cases confirmation of Ptolemy’s theories, had +corrected some of his errors, and had filled up gaps +in his information. But as regards the geography of +Africa more especially, Ptolemy remained ostensibly +the great authority until the end of the fifteenth century, +although, as already mentioned in a footnote, +the latest editions of Ptolemy’s maps (the latest ascribed +to Ptolemy was published about 1485) show +that the geographers at the closing part of the fifteenth +century, consciously or unconsciously, touched +up Ptolemy’s work by later information received from +Arabs, Italians, and Turks. Ptolemy discussed with +much detail the whole course of the Nile so far as it +lay to any extent within the regions of the known. +He described the approximate outline of its course +about as far as the present site of Berber, which district +he describes as the Greater Primis, a name +which Sir E. H. Bunbury takes to be identical with +the locality of Primnis<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> rumoured by Strabo. Above +this point Ptolemy applies the name of Meroe (so +often attributed to settlements or districts in Dongola) +to that great peninsula which is so nearly enclosed +between the Atbara, the main and the Blue +Niles. Ptolemy indeed, and most writers of earlier +and later days, believed this district to be an actual +island.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">8</a> The junction of the Blue and the White<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span> +Niles is wrongly placed by Ptolemy in latitude 12° +north, instead of 15° 40′, and from this point southwards +Ptolemy’s proposed latitudes of places on the +White Nile became increasingly incorrect, so that by +him the Nile system was carried a little too far to the +south of the equator. South of the site of modern +Khartum Ptolemy had but little information to go +upon, other than the account of the Centurions’ +voyage; but from such suggestions as he could obtain, +together with the story of Diogenes, he guessed that +the twin sources of the White Nile joined their streams +into one river at 2° north latitude. This junction described +with the knowledge of later days would be +equivalent to the exit of the Nile from Lake Albert, the +real latitude of this point being 2° 25′—an uncommonly +good guess on Ptolemy’s part. Ptolemy, however, +imagined nothing quite like Lake Albert, but +thought that the waters coming respectively from the +two great equatorial lakes effected their junction at a +point some two hundred and fifty miles north of the +western lake source (Lake Albert); for he surmises +that this lake lies approximately under the sixth degree +of south latitude (its southernmost extremity is in +1° 10′ north of the equator). His hypothetical Lake +Victoria lies under or extends to the seventh degree +of south latitude, instead of no farther than about +3° 30′ south. Ptolemy, however, was careful to discriminate +between the lake sources of the White +Nile and the lake (Tsana) from which the Blue +Nile issues in the highlands of Abyssinia. This<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span> +sheet of water he calls definitely Coloe, and states +that it is the source of the river Astapus (or Blue +Nile). It is thought that Strabo also made allusion +to Lake Tsana under the name of Psebo. It is probable +that both Strabo and Ptolemy heard of this +lake source of the Astapus or Blue Nile from Greek +traders who had penetrated Abyssinia; for, during +the first centuries after Christ, Axum (then called +Auxuma) had become an important trading-centre +which was reached from Adulis (Adulis being a port +on the Red Sea not far from the modern Masawa). +Ptolemy’s location of Lake Tsana, however, like the +equatorial lakes, is too far to the south. His sketch +of the main course of the Atbara (Astaboras) on the +one hand, and of the Blue Nile (Astapus) on the +other, would not be very incorrect, but for the fact +that he makes these streams unite somewhere in the +latitude of Khartum and then separate again, their +northern separation enclosing the island of Meroe. +The Græcicised names of Astapos (Blue Nile) and +Astaboras (Atbara) were recorded before the days +of Ptolemy by Eratosthenes, but were not applied in +the same definite way to the Blue Nile and the Atbara. +Eratosthenes sometimes applies the name of Astapos +to the main stream of the Nile and not specially to +the Blue Nile. He also mentions that the main stream +of the Nile is called Astasobas. It is evident that in +these words we have corruptions of local names, possibly +derived from Nubian, or it may be from Hamitic +languages. Astaboras needs but little identification<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span> +with the Atbara. Astapus (Greek = Astapos) is not +clearly recognizable under the modern Abyssinian +name of the Blue Nile,—Abai. The second part of +Astasobas certainly recalls the name Sobat, which +besides being applied by the Sudanese Arabs to the +Baro or Sobat is also sometimes given by them or by +the Nile Negroes to the main course of the White +Nile south of Khartum. Asta may have been some +Ethiopian term meaning “river.”</p> + +<p>The present writer is unable to understand why that +able geographer, Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, has doubted +the identification of Ruwenzori with Ptolemy’s Mountains +of the Moon. It must be obvious, when all facts +are considered, that Ruwenzori was the principal germ +of this idea. The Greek traders at Rhapta (Pangani) +no doubt had some idea of the existence of Kilimanjaro, +but it is doubtful whether either the single dome +of Kilimanjaro or the gleaming pinnacle of Kenia +would impress the imagination so strongly as the whole +brilliant range of Ruwenzori’s four or five snow-peaks +and thirty miles of glaciation. On such occasions, as +when this range is visible from a distance, and broadside +on, the dark blue forested slopes merge into the +morning mists of the lowlands, leaving the splendid +phantasmagoria of cream-coloured snow and gray rock +floating in the sky like an exaggerated lunar landscape. +Ptolemy places this range, as he does his lakes, too +far to the south, and associates it more with the +modern country of Unyamwezi than with the region +between the two lakes Albert and Victoria. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span> +no doubt then, as in Speke’s day, Ruwenzori and +Lake Albert were reached by Greek adventurers, by +Sabæan Arabs, or by natives who served as intermediaries, +by way of the established trade route through +Unyamwezi. This word, which means “the Land of +the Moon,” appears to be rather old for a Bantu place +name: Unyamwezi indeed seems in the history of +Bantu migrations to have played an important part, +and to have been one of those many sub-centres from +which great dispersals of the Bantu races took place. +Indeed the Zulus (who were probably the dreaded +Mazimba or Bazimba spoken of by the Portuguese) +seem to have halted in their cannibal days in Unyamwezi +before they descended on South Africa in the +sixteenth century. Ruwenzori is not, after all, such +a very long journey to the northwest of Unyamwezi, +and it is very possible that the returning travellers, +having stated that they reached the Nile sources and +these wonderful snow-mountains through the Land of +the Moon thus caused this lunar name to be applied +by Ptolemy to the Ruwenzori range.</p> + +<p>Though not an explorer, Ptolemy stands (for his +age) in the highest rank of Nile geographers; but +he had to wait something like seventeen hundred and +forty years before Sir Henry Stanley, by his discovery +of the Semliki, the Ruwenzori snow-range, and the +last problems of the Nile sources, did justice to that +remarkable foreshadowing of the main features of +the Nile system due to the genius of the Alexandrian +geographer.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"><span id="toclink_30"></span>CHAPTER III<br> + +<span class="subhead">ABYSSINIANS AND JEWS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> race of the Greek kings who ruled over +Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great +and until 30 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, and later, again, the Byzantine +Emperors of Eastern Rome did much to implant Hellenic +civilisation and the use of the Greek language +in Egypt, and their influence extended over Abyssinia, +where the kings of Ethiopian race (Gala dashed with +Arab and Jew) admired and imitated them in much the +same manner as the second Emperor of the French +was admired and imitated by the lesser potentates of +Germany. The history of Abyssinia—if it is to be +written with regard to truth—is still obscure. This +country of lofty mountains and temperate climate is +bordered on the east by the land of Afar, an inhospitable +desert inhabited by fierce Hamites (Danākil). +On the south its mountains are connected by plateaux +and ridges with the highlands of East Africa, but are +separated by much arid and parched country from the +regions of the modern Uganda protectorate. On the +west the mountains of Abyssinia descend in terraces to +the plains of the central Nile. Here the torrid climate +is that of the Sudan, but the country is better watered +by the rivers which rise in Abyssinia, and by a fairly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span> +regular rainfall. On the extreme north the Abyssinian +mountains almost overhang the coast of the Red Sea, +and are no doubt visible in clear weather from the +opposite Arabian shore. The mountains of Yaman +are remarkably similar in many points to those of +Abyssinia, and the people of Yaman when they were +seized with a desire to emigrate in search of fresh homes +were no doubt drawn to this distant land of mountains +just visible in the west. Originally no doubt Abyssinia +was peopled by the same dwarf Bushman race as that +which formed the lowest stratum of all the African +populations. Then a portion of the country came into +the possession of the big black Negroes who still +inhabit its western flanks. These again are superseded +and partially absorbed by the superior race of +the Hamites, the ancestors of the Gala, Somali, and +Ancient Egyptian. This Hamite race of Caucasian +stock with some Negroid intermixture forms the basis +of the Abyssinian population at the present day. But +in the early days of Sabæan enterprise—say four +thousand to three thousand years ago—Abyssinia was +conquered by Sabæan Arabs from Yaman. At many +subsequent periods Abyssinia and Yaman (the Red +Sea acting as no barrier) were governed by the same +dynasty, and when Yaman came under Persian influence +that influence also penetrated Abyssinia. In +this manner Abyssinia early developed a trade with +India, and even served as an emporium for the introduction +of Indian wares into Egypt on the one hand +and the remote parts of eastern equatorial Africa on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span> +the other. The Queen of Saba (Sheba) is no doubt +in many respects a legendary personage, but if she +had any real historical existence she is another instance +of an Arab ruler who governed both Abyssinia +and Yaman. She may or may not have visited Solomon, +but there is no doubt that in the time of that +Jewish king some intercourse was kept up between the +kingdom of Israel in its brief flicker of power and prosperity, +and the coasts of the Red Sea and southern +Arabia. After the smashing up of the Hebrew state +by the Assyrians there are good reasons for assuming +that a number of the dispersed Israelites migrated +to Abyssinia, as no doubt they did to other parts +of the Sabæan Empire. Jewish monotheism always +had a certain fascination (in the days before Christianity +and Islam) for the peoples of Arabia and +of Mauritania. This influence was most felt after +the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and +the subsequent dispersal of the Jews in all directions. +Several princes in southwestern Arabia adopted the +Jewish faith, more or less, and the Jewish settlers in +Abyssinia also appear to have acted as missionaries +in converting the savage, nominally Semitic, partly +Gala rulers of Abyssinia to the principles of the Jewish +faith, into which they wove Jewish legends, such as +the glory and power of Solomon. A similar influence +impressed on the Arab mind the Solomon of the +legends. The real son of David was no doubt an +unimportant Semitic prince who borrowed a little civilisation +from his Phœnician, Egyptian, and Sabæan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span> +neighbours. But the Greek influence emanating from +Egypt displaced for a time the Persian and Jewish +culture in Abyssinia. In the northern parts of that +(then) collection of Arab and Gala kingdoms, Greek +began to be used as a second language, the speech of +the Court itself being a foreign tongue (Ge’ez), derived +from the Himyaritic or some early south Semitic +language.</p> + +<p>Auxuma—the modern Auxum—in the kingdom +or province of Tigre (northeastern Abyssinia) and +near the more modern town of Adua, became an +important trade centre, frequented by many Greek +merchants, some of whom seem to have occasionally +returned to their homes in Egypt by way of the +Atbara and the Nile. Others forestalled the Portuguese +by entering into trade relations or actually +undertaking journeys which revealed to them the existence +of Lake Tsana and the upper waters of the +Blue Nile.</p> + +<p>Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Byzantine Greek, who +traded with India in the early part of the sixth century +of our era, called at the port of Adulis (near +Masawa) in 520 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> He discovered at this place a +monument which contained two separate inscriptions. +The monument was apparently one erected at the +orders of Ptolemy III. (Philadelphus), who reigned +in Egypt from 285 to 247 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> This Ptolemy led and +sent expeditions which made a partial conquest of the +coast regions of northern Abyssinia, and added to +the Egyptian Empire of that day a good deal of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span> +what now constitutes the modern Italian colony of +Eritrea.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">9</a></p> + +<p>On the same monument some four hundred and +seventy years later, in about 127 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, a Semitic +Abyssinian king (possibly Ela-Auda) recorded in +turn his own victories and extensions of rule. These +conquests seem to have done much to carry the Abyssinian +(Semitic as distinct from Hamitic) arms as +far south as the ninth degree of north latitude. Other +indications would show that from this time onwards +to about the tenth century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> Abyssinian influence +and conquests extended southward intermittently to +the vicinity of Lake Rudolf (the northern end of that +lake). Owing to these conquests, Christianity was +carried as far south as the modern province of Kaffa, +and northwestwards along the course of the Blue Nile +to the site of the modern Khartum; for at one time +Abyssinian suzerainty or rule extended almost to the +verge of Kordofan on the west.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">10</a></p> + +<p>The introduction of Islam among the Somalis, +among some of the Gala tribes, and all round the north +and west of Abyssinia in the centuries that followed the +eleventh, checked any further spread of Christianity, +and limited—even curtailed—the political aspirations +of Abyssinia. In the sixteenth century a Muhammadan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span> +ruler—Muhammad Granye—arose in the Danākil +country (Tajurra Bay), and practically smashed the +Ethiopian Christian power in Abyssinia, which did +not recover from the ravages of these Muhammadan +(Arab and Somali) armies for a century or more. +Soon after the wars of Muhammad Granye the heathen +Galas<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">11</a> from the south and southwest entered Abyssinia +in force, and it was a long time before the Semitic +rulers of that country could bring them under control. +The arrival of the Portuguese (to be described in the +next chapter) gave a fillip to the power of the Christian +Semites of Abyssinia, mainly through the introduction +of guns and gunpowder. It is possible, +indeed, that at different times after the commencement +of the Christian era Abyssinian raiders may +have ridden south on their slave, ivory, and cattle-hunting +expeditions as far as the vicinity of Mount +Elgon. At the present day their raiders come almost +to the frontiers of Busoga, for there is no tsetse fly +in all the district between Abyssinia and the Victoria +Nyanza; therefore, as the Abyssinians have possessed +horses for several thousand years, there has been little +to stop their making rapid expeditions into the Land of +the Blacks. In this way they may have raided and +traded as far south as the Victoria Nyanza and as +far west as the White Nile, bringing back with them +for the edification of the Greeks stories of the Great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span> +Lakes and Snow-mountains, and assisting, perhaps, to +distribute over the lands now comprised within the +Uganda Protectorate those remarkable blue Egyptian +beads of unknown antiquity which have been referred +to by the present writer in his book, “The Uganda +Protectorate,” as being some slight indication of +ancient trading relations between the countries of the +Great Lakes and those under the dominion of Egypt.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"><span id="toclink_37"></span>CHAPTER IV<br> + +<span class="subhead">ISLAMITES AND ITALIANS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">When</span> Egypt had become part of the Byzantine +dominions, all interest in the Nile sources +had died away, and men’s minds were mainly centred +on religious controversies of greater or less violence. +Greek Christianity penetrated to Abyssinia +and south of Abyssinia to countries not far from +the north end of Lake Rudolf. Most of the Nubian +kingdoms became nominally Christian, and Christianity +was the religion of the people on the Nile banks as +far south as the confluence of the Blue and White +Niles. It is thought by the missionaries of the White +Fathers’ Mission to Uganda that the sign of the +cross and the idea of baptism, with one or two +other practices found in the old heathen religions of +Unyoro and Uganda, may have reached those countries +from Abyssinia. Greek and Arab Christians in +the first six centuries of the Christian era certainly +penetrated to the East African coast, but after the +official adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire +all mundane knowledge began to decay. Christianity +inspired a contempt for science, and the only ideas +of geography which floated about the world were +connected with the wanderings of propagandists or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span> +pilgrimages to the shrines of saints. Arab enterprise, +moreover, in these sad centuries suffered a curious +eclipse. Far to the south, in Zambezia, no doubt the +invasion of the country by the earlier and later sections +of the Bantu Negroes brought about the destruction +of Sabæan power; and the somewhat degenerate +successors of the Sabæans from the south coast of +Arabia only occupied the coast emporiums dotted +along the littoral from Somaliland to Sofala.</p> + +<p>Then came one of the great landmarks of the +world’s history, a movement productive of a little +good and some harm to civilisation. Christianity had +first been organised as a socialistic religion, grafting +on to the beautiful and indisputable precepts of its +Founder the reaction of poor, ignorant, starved, and +enslaved people against the unmoral philosophy, unequal +wealth, and excessive materialism of the time. +It then grew to be a somewhat dismal faith, taking no +heed of the beauty of this world and of mundane +opportunities for happiness; and above all it waged +an active warfare with sexuality, not merely curbing +immorality, but (wisely or unwisely) opposing polygamy +and advocating celibacy. The Arab and the +North African were not ripe for such a faith, and +Judaism had already biassed them against the polytheistic +tendencies of Greek Christianity. Muhammad, +the prophet of western Arabia, founded on a +basis of phallic worship and animistic belief the +third great Semitic religion—Islam. His teaching +was a direct challenge to Christianity, and soon became<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span> +iconoclastic in every sense of the word. Though the +Persian, Syrian, and Iberian elements of the Arab +Empire for a time revived and perpetuated in somewhat +grotesque aspect the science of Greece, the art +of Persia, and the lore of India, the Muhammadan +religion sealed most parts of Africa to European and +Christian research. It is true, however, that the conquests +of Islam enabled Arabs to penetrate further +into the interior of tropical Africa than before, +though from the dawn of civilisation they had been +the most constant explorers of the eastern part of +that continent.</p> + +<p>The Arabs began to mention names connected with +the Niger and the western Sudan to the geographers +of Italy and Sicily. Under the impulse of Islamic, +Persian, and Arab colonies the east coast of Africa and +the north coast of Madagascar came partially under +Muhammadan rule in the tenth and eleventh centuries, +the Arabs there carrying on almost continuously the +commercial enterprise founded by their predecessors +and brothers, the Phœnicians and Sabæans. Invasion +after invasion crossed from Arabia, and passed over +the lowlands surrounding Abyssinia to the central +Sudan; or higher up, through Egypt, to Mauritania. +But the Arabs who crossed the Nile in the latitudes of +Khartum and Assuan made no attempts to follow the +White Nile, the Blue Nile, or the Bahr-al-Ghazal to +their sources,—left in fact all the Nile basin above the +confluence of the Blue and White rivers absolutely +untouched and unexplored. Egypt itself came under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span> +Arab rule in 640 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, and subsequently formed an +independent principality under the Fatimite Khalifs.</p> + +<p>The Crusades brought French, Germans, and English, +Aragonese and Flemings to the Delta of the +Nile in more or less disastrous expeditions against +the Saracen power,—a power which was fast becoming +that of the Turk. A curious relic of these +crusading days in the Nile Delta is or was (for +the present writer is not aware if they still exist) +several Spanish (originally Aragonese) monasteries, +which were established with the consent of the Muhammadan +rulers of Egypt in order to mitigate the +woes of Christian captives and to arrange terms for +their release.</p> + +<figure id="ip_40" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 20em;"> + <img src="images/i_0402.jpg" width="1275" height="1978" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">An Arab Trader (Maskati).</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Venice, however,—which had somewhat held aloof +from the religious ardour of the Crusades in order +to build up a great commerce with the Muhammadan +East,—Venice became during the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries the great neutral go-between for the +trade of India, Persia, Egypt, Arabia, and Syria with +the Byzantine Empire and the rest of Europe. Venetians +(in Arab dress, of course) ran less risk than +other Europeans when travelling in Egypt in the +days before the Portuguese discoveries. Through +the Venetians Europe became acquainted with several +strange African beasts which were brought from +the Sudan for public exhibition in Muhammadan +Egypt, and in this way European interest in the +sources of the Nile was occasionally revived. It is +remarkable to reflect that the name of Venice will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span> +probably never die out (as far as etymology is +concerned) in the very heart of Africa. In the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and perhaps later, +Venice manufactured in her arsenals improved types +of guns. She also acted as an intermediary in exchanging +muskets (manufactured elsewhere in Europe) +with the Arabs and Turks, who at that time could not +construct these firearms for themselves. Thus the +Turks and Arabs became accustomed to call any improved +type of musket a “Venetian” (Bunduqi).<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">12</a> +In this way the name of the most beautiful city in +the world has penetrated beyond the explorations of +any European into the very heart of Africa, as it has +also circulated through all the Muhammadan East.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"><span id="toclink_42"></span>CHAPTER V<br> + +<span class="subhead">A SUMMARY OF THE ANCIENTS’ KNOWLEDGE OF THE NILE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> next page in the history of the Nile Quest +is marked by the coming of the Portuguese; +but before we proceed to consider what effect this +movement had on the revelation of Africa to the +knowledge of the Caucasian species, let us sum up +briefly the purport of the foregoing <span class="locked">chapters:—</span></p> + +<p>1. The lands through which the Nile flows were +inhabited some ten thousand years ago—let us say +at a guess—by Pygmies in the north, east, and +southwest, and elsewhere by big black Negroes, these +types being offshoots from the original Negro Asiatic +stem.</p> + +<p>At some such period as ten thousand years ago +northeast Africa was repeatedly invaded from Arabia +by a branch of the Caucasian race—the Hamites—which +in Arabia had absorbed a certain proportion +of early Negro and Dravidian<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">13</a> blood. About the +same time in Egypt itself there were invasions of +other Caucasian immigrants; some perhaps of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span> +Dravidian stock still met with in Baluchistan and +India, and others of Libyan (Iberian, Algerian) race. +There had also been early minglings between the big +black Negroes on the Central Nile and Hamite invaders +which had resulted in further hybrids such as +the Nubians or “Ethiopians.” These Ethiopians constantly +invaded and raided Egypt, thus mingling with +the Caucasian Egyptians, but also at other times +acted as middlemen between civilised Egypt and the +utterly barbarous countries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and +the Sudan; they brought to Egypt knowledge of +the Pygmies and such of the bigger beasts of Africa +as had become extinct in Egypt before the arrival of +intelligent man. Through these Nubians the Egyptians +occasionally had glimmering ideas as to the +sources of the White Nile.</p> + +<p>2. The Egyptians kept up a fairly constant communication +with Abyssinia and Somaliland by sea +and overland. They had a fair knowledge of the +geographical features of Abyssinia and of the origin +and source of the Blue Nile. Moreover, through the +ancestors of the Galas and Somalis they came slightly +into contact with the peoples of Lake Rudolf and the +Victoria Nyanza.</p> + +<p>3. The Greeks, who began to travel in Egypt five +hundred years before Christ, expressed some curiosity +about the origin of the Nile, and communicated +this inquiring spirit to the Romans. This resulted +for a time in the knowledge of the White Nile as +far south as Fashoda.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span></p> + +<p>4. The Arabs of western and southern Arabia very +early in the history of civilisation developed a culture +scarcely inferior to that of the Egyptians, and entered +into trading and colonising relations with Abyssinia +and Somaliland, and with the East African coastlands +as far south as the modern Rhodesia. From their +settlements on the Zanzibar coast (such as Mombasa) +they probably journeyed inland on trading expeditions, +or else the natives, who came to trade with +them at the coast, gave them geographical information. +In one or other way they learnt the existence of great +lakes and snow-mountains. These stories the Arabs +passed on to inquiring Greeks as far back as two +thousand years ago; and an account which was an +uncommonly near guess at the truth was given to the +reading world during the first two centuries after the +birth of Christ by writers on geography like Marinus +of Tyre and Claudius Ptolemæus of Alexandria.</p> + +<p>5. This was the high-water mark of knowledge +concerning the sources of the White Nile for something +like eighteen hundred years. Information on +the subject in the interval began to grow less rather +than more. The stories of the Nile lakes were, +however, revived after the Arab invasions of northeast +Africa in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, +and were communicated to the European world of +the Renaissance through the intermediary of the Saracen +writers of Sicily, the theologians of Rome, and +the merchants of Venice.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"><span id="toclink_45"></span>CHAPTER VI<br> + +<span class="subhead">PORTUGAL AND ABYSSINIA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Portugal</span> was created by the crusading spirit. +The King of Castile, who had become the leading +prince in the northern half of Spain, despatched +a young Burgundian adventurer, Count Henry, to advance +on the Douro from Galicia (in the northwest +corner of the Spanish peninsula) and to drive the +Moors into the sea,—either the Atlantic Ocean or the +Straits of Gibraltar. Count Henry drove them at +any rate half-way down that western coastland of +the Spanish peninsula which we now call Portugal.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">14</a> +Lisbon was only eventually conquered from the +Moors by the help of a large party of English volunteers +who stopped to aid in this struggle with the +Moslem while on their way to a Crusade in the Holy +Land. Steadily, bit by bit, Count Henry and his +successors, the kings of Portugal, drove the Moors +southward into and out of the little province of Algarve, +and then, flushed with continuous success, +crossed the Straits, attacked them in Morocco, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span> +added a large part of the present Empire of Morocco +to the possessions of the Portuguese Crown.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">15</a> These +brilliant successes awoke a great spirit of discovery in +Portugal,—a spirit fomented and encouraged by that +noble and far-sighted man, Prince Henry the Navigator, +who had himself shared in the Morocco wars. +Rapidly the limits of the Portuguese explorations extended. +First they rounded Cape Bojador on the +northwest coast of Africa. Then they reached Sierra +Leone, the gold coast, Benin (where they powerfully +affected native art and industry), the Niger Delta, the +Cameroons, the Congo, Angola, and the Cape of Good +Hope. Once having passed this promontory, whence +they had once retired baffled, their great navigator, +Vasco da Gama, carried on the exploration of the +coasts of Africa eastward and northward to Mombasa +and thence to India. Succeeding vessels explored +the Red Sea, and the expeditions they conveyed attempted +to get into touch with Abyssinia, where, according +to the rumours brought home by crusaders<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span> +and Italian merchants from Egypt, there lay a +Christian country ruled by a pious monarch, John +the Priest.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">16</a> But before ever Vasco da Gama had +rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese, +by contact with the Moors, had heard of Arab settlements +on the East Coast of Africa, and of the insular +character of the great continent. Their government, +therefore, in 1486 despatched on a journey to Egypt, +India, and eastern Africa Pero de Covilhaõ to spy out +the land.</p> + +<p>This was a very risky journey in those days when +the jealousy of Venice was added to the fanaticism +of the Moslems. But Pero de Covilhaõ fulfilled his +mission. He visited Egypt, the Red Sea, and India. +He then, on his return journey, touched at many of +the Arab ports on the East African coast. Finally he +disembarked at Masawa, and travelled to Abyssinia, +the first intelligent European to enter that country for +a very long period of time,—the first, in fact, since +the Greek merchants and missionaries who traded and +travelled under the Byzantine Empire. The King of +Abyssinia was so delighted with the advent of this +white man, yet so suspicious of his country’s motives, +that he was detained as an unwilling guest in Abyssinia +for several years, and died when on his way +home. But the Portuguese fleet came to Masawa in +1520 with an embassy which remained in the country +of Abyssinia for six years. In this embassy were +the priests Bermudez and Francisco Alvarez. Alvarez<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span> +afterwards (about 1550) wrote an interesting account +of Abyssinia, describing more especially the province +of Tigre, and alluding to the Atbara (there known +as the Takaze) as the main Nile.</p> + +<p>Bermudez became for a time the primate or patriarch +of Abyssinia. The Jesuit missionaries, for the +most part Portuguese, strove hard to replace the corrupt +Greek Christianity of the country by the Latin +rite. This action not unnaturally set up against them +a strong body of opponents in the native Abyssinian +priesthood. For a time, however, the civilisation they +introduced, and their trading connection with India, +made a great impression on the king and chieftains +of Ethiopia, until, as will be seen later on, the country +became suspicious of Portuguese intentions, observing +the facility with which parts of East Africa, India, +and the shores of the Persian Gulf had been conquered +and occupied by the Portuguese. But before +this jealousy was to culminate in the expulsion of the +Portuguese from Abyssinia one hundred years later, +the Christian rulers of that country were forced to +appeal to Portugal for help and armed intervention. +As already mentioned in Chapter V., an attack on +Abyssinia had been made by a Muhammadan chieftain +of the Danakil country,—Muhammad Granye, +or Muhammad the Lame. This man was probably +of Somali race, and ruled the country round about +Tajurra Bay,—the French Somaliland of to-day. In +alliance with the Arabs and Turks, he not only created +the Somali kingdom of Adel, but ravaged the greater<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span> +part of Abyssinia. His policy was distinctly anti-Christian, +and it is conceivable that he might have +extinguished for ever the Christian Semite rule over +Abyssinia but for the intervention of the Portuguese. +The Emperor David, about 1530, managed to send +emissaries (probably Jesuit priests) to Lisbon to implore +the assistance of the King of Portugal. The +result was that Dom Estevaõ da Gama (son of the +celebrated Vasco<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">17</a>) as Portuguese Admiral entered +the Red Sea with the Portuguese fleet, and landed +at Masawa four hundred Portuguese under the command +of his brother Christophoro da Gama. The +Portuguese brought with them firearms, with which +apparently the Muhammadan invaders of Abyssinia +were at first unprovided. They threw into the +struggle with the Somalis and Arabs all the crusading +ardour with which their ancestors had driven +the Moors out of Portugal. Christophoro da Gama +was a heroic figure, a very paladin. He excited the +admiration of his Somali opponent, who at one stage +of the struggle offered him a safe conduct to the coast +and the means of departing from Abyssinia worth all +the honours of war. Nevertheless, the four hundred +Portuguese inflicted reverse after reverse on the thousands +that followed the banner of Muhammad Granye, +who at that time was practically master even of the +mountainous regions of Abyssinia. Some of the +Portuguese went to the assistance of the fugitive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span> +Emperor of Abyssinia. Those that remained under +Christophoro da Gama, despite the constant defeats +they inflicted on superior numbers, gradually found +themselves isolated and vastly outnumbered. The +Turks had taken alarm at Portuguese successes, and +had sent to Muhammad Granye’s assistance a train +of artillery, while two thousand Arabs with muskets +crossed over from Mokha and joined the Somalis. +Thus reinforced, Muhammad Granye attacked the +Portuguese entrenched camp, which he ultimately +carried, when the unfortunate Christophoro da Gama +had one arm broken and his knee shattered. A few +of the Portuguese escaped and joined the Abyssinians, +but most of them were slaughtered by Muhammad +Granye. Christophoro da Gama, however, +though wounded, managed with ten of his men to +escape on horseback to a forest. Here he was captured +by Muhammad Granye, who, after inflicting +much torture on him, offered, in admiration of his +bravery, to set him at liberty and assist him to return +to India, if only he would abjure Christianity. +The blazing indignation with which he answered this +proposal so enraged Muhammad Granye that he struck +off his head with a sword. The body of Dom Christophoro +was then cut into quarters and his remains +buried in separate places. Ultimately, however, the +bones are supposed to have been gathered together +by Roman Catholic Abyssinians, and some seventy +years later the skull of the martyr was thought to +have been found by Jeronimo Lobo.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span></p> + +<p>Amongst the Portuguese who escaped slaughter at +the hands of Muhammad Granye was Pedro Leon, +who had been body-servant to Christophoro da Gama. +Assisted by the advice of this little band of Portuguese +heroes, the Emperor of Abyssinia at last made +a successful stand against the Muhammadan invader. +In the furious battle which ensued, the Portuguese +directed all their energies against that part of the +Somali army where Muhammad Granye was commanding. +Pedro Leon, filled with a holy rage, singled +out the Somali king from amongst his men, and shot +him through the head with a musket. Muhammad +Granye did not die at once, but managed to escape +for some distance from the battlefield, being always, +however, resolutely followed on horseback by Pedro +Leon. At last Muhammad fell down dead, and Leon, +having satisfied himself of the fact, cut off one of his +ears to prove to the Emperor of Abyssinia that it was +he who had avenged Dom Christophoro. After the +death of their leader the Muhammadan forces melted +away, and Christian Abyssinia slowly recovered from +the greatest crisis in its fortunes prior to the Italian +invasion of 1896.</p> + +<p>In 1615<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">18</a> a notable advance in Nile exploration was +made. Father Pedro Paez was shown by the Abyssinians +the sources of the Blue Nile on the Sagada or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span> +Sakala Mountain in the western part of the province +of Gojam. Paez mentions that the river, before it +enters Lake Tsana, is styled the Jemma, a term which +scarcely differs from its name at the present day. He +also alludes to, though he does not describe very carefully, +Lake Tsana.</p> + +<p>In 1622 Father Jeronimo Lobo left Lisbon and proceeded +to Goa, whence, after staying for more than +a year, he started for Abyssinia. News had reached +the Portuguese at Goa, from such of the missionaries +as remained in Abyssinia, that the Emperor of that +country had decided to join the Roman Church. A +pressing demand was made for more Portuguese missionaries +to strengthen this conversion, and the missionaries +were advised to enter Ethiopia by way of +the river Nile, through Dongola and Sennar. Unfortunately +the secretary to the missionaries in Abyssinia +mixed up the word Dancala (Dongola) with the +country of the Danakil (on the Red Sea),<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">19</a> and advised +the Jesuits at Goa to land at Zeila (Somaliland), +and make their way through the Danakil country to +Abyssinia. It was attempted to carry out this unfortunate +advice. The eight missionaries who started +from Goa were to divide into two companies, one +to go to Zeila, and the other to land at Melinda +(Malindi) on the Zanzibar coast, and thence make +their way overland to Abyssinia,—rather a “large +order” at that date (to use modern slang). Those +that went by sea to Zeila were seized by the Turks,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span> +though finally released at the intercession of the Emperor +of Abyssinia, who bribed the Turkish Pasha +with the present of a zebra.<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">20</a> The other four missionaries, +among whom Lobo was one, were again +divided into two lots. Two of the fathers that were +to attempt entering southern Abyssinia from Somaliland +were duly landed at Zeila. A Muhammadan chieftain +who was styled king of the country (probably in +the neighbourhood of Tajurra Bay) seized these unfortunate +missionaries and threw them into prison. +In spite of the entreaties of the Emperor of Abyssinia, +this Muhammadan chieftain (some relation of +the Muhammad Granye who had been killed by the +Portuguese when he invaded Abyssinia seventy years +previously) finally had the Jesuits beheaded.</p> + +<p>Father Lobo and a companion were conveyed by a +Portuguese ship to the island of Lamu on the Zanzibar +coast. Thence with great difficulty they made their +way in a boat along the coast to the mouth of the +Juba River, where they came into contact with the +“Galles,”<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">21</a> probably the existing Ogadein Somalis. +These boisterous people soon made it apparent to the +missionaries that any journey overland from Kismayu<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span> +to Zeila and Abyssinia was an impossibility; so, after +many hardships, they eventually made their way back +to Mombasa and India.</p> + +<p>In 1625<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">22</a> Lobo and his companion once more +started for Abyssinia, and this time sailed past Sokotra +Island and Cape Guardafui, and finally landed +at Baylur (Bailul), a port opposite Mokha, on the +coast of the little known Danakil country. Here they +received a very friendly reception, owing to the precautions +taken by the Emperor of Abyssinia; and the +two Portuguese missionaries actually made their way +through the country of the fierce Danakil and across +the salt deserts and blazing steppes of that inhospitable +region, which along the same route has probably +never since been traversed by Europeans. “Our +clothes tattered, and our feet bloody,” they climbed the +Abyssinian mountains, rejoicing at the cool temperature, +running water, and singing birds, and at length +reached the Jesuit settlement of Fremona.<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">23</a> After undergoing +many risks and dangers owing to the hostility +with which the Abyssinians of Tigre regarded +the Latin Christianity introduced by the Jesuits, Lobo +started for the kingdom of Damot, which is in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span> +southern part of Abyssinia proper, between the Blue +Nile and Lake Tsana. Prior to his crossing the Blue +Nile, he had paid a ceremonial visit to the Emperor +of Abyssinia. He mentions that the Blue Nile (which +he not unnaturally considers to be the main stream) +is called by the Abyssinians Abavi. This may be an +older form than Abai, and is perhaps a little nearer to +the Hellenised Astapus. The Blue Nile, he found, as +his predecessor Paez had declared, takes its rise on the +declivity of a mountain called Sakala (Sagada), some +distance to the south-southwest of Lake Tsana. The +source of the Blue Nile he describes as follows: “This +spring, or rather these two springs, are two holes, +each about two feet in diameter, a short distance from +each other. One is about five feet and a half in +depth.... The other, which is somewhat less, has +no bottom. We were assured by the inhabitants that +none had ever been found. It is believed here that +these springs are the vents of a great subterranean +lake, and they have this circumstance to favour their +opinion: that the ground is always moist, and so soft +that the water boils up under foot as one walks upon +it. This is more remarkable after rain, for then the +ground yields and sinks so much that I believe it is +chiefly supported by roots of trees that are interwoven +one with another.” Father Lobo declares that the infant +Blue Nile (which bears the name of Jimma) only +enters Lake Tsana<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">24</a> on the southwest to leave that lake<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span> +not far from its entry, turning abruptly to the east and +south. It crosses Lake Tsana only at one end, “with +so violent a rapidity that the waters of the Nile may +be distinguished through all the passage, which is six +leagues.” Fifteen miles from the point where the Nile +leaves Lake Tsana it “forms one of the most beautiful +waterfalls in the world,” under which Father Lobo +rested himself “for the sake of the coolness.” He was +charmed “with the thousand delightful rainbows which +the sunbeams painted on the water in all their shining +and lovely colours. The fall of this mighty stream +from so great a height makes a noise which may be +heard from a considerable distance, and the mist rising +from this fall of water may be seen much further than +the noise can be heard.” Father Lobo notes that at +the cataracts which succeeded this splendid fall there +was a bridge of timber (logs) over which the whole +Abyssinian army had recently passed, but he goes on +to state that the Emperor had since built a bridge of +one arch in the same place, for which purpose masons +were imported from India. This stone bridge was the +first erected in Abyssinia.</p> + +<p>Father Lobo makes a truthful observation regarding +the source of the Nile floods, believing them to +arise rather from the excessive rainfall on the high +mountains of Abyssinia than from the melting of the +snows in the summer. He declares, in fact, that he +only saw snow on the Samien and Namera mountains, +and in small quantity.</p> + +<p>As to the country of Damot, to the south of Lake<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span> +Tsana, in which he was sent to reside for a time, he +expatiates enthusiastically on its beauty, fertility, and +perfect climate. He also describes here—first of all +Europeans—the wild banana, or Ensete, the name of +which he declares means “the tree for hunger,” +though it is difficult to understand, from our subsequent +knowledge of the wild banana and from Father +Lobo’s description, how it can be used as an article of +food, as its fruit is almost inedible, while the leaves +and watery trunk are quite unfit for food.</p> + +<p>But Lobo’s residence in Damot was not lengthy, as, +owing to the jealous suspicions of the Abyssinians, he +was sent back to reside with the rest of the Jesuits +in Tigre. Their settlement of Fremona, where some +hundred Portuguese priests and seminarists were established, +was attacked by the Abyssinians. The Portuguese +defended themselves bravely, and for a time +there was a truce. The friendly Emperor of Abyssinia +had died, and the subsidiary chiefs all believed +that Portugal intended to invade and annex Abyssinia. +The prowess of the four hundred Portuguese who in +the preceding century had, as the allies of the Abyssinians, +completely routed the Muhammadan invaders, +made them feel that a few thousand Portuguese warriors +would soon add Abyssinia to the Portuguese Empire. +At this juncture the Portuguese sent a strong +expedition to chastise the Sultan of Tajurra who had +killed the missionaries.</p> + +<p>After attempting to flee from Abyssinia and make +their way to the coast of the Red Sea, the whole of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span> +Portuguese colony of Fremona was handed over to +the Turks at Masawa, and by them sent to Suakin. +They underwent cruel sufferings at the hands of the +Turks, but some of the missionaries, including Father +Lobo, were allowed to ransom themselves, and return +in a ship to India. Here Lobo endeavoured to induce +the Viceroy of Portuguese India to send an expedition +against the Turks of Suakin in order to release the +priests that were left in their hands; but the viceroy +declined to take this step without the consent of the +Portuguese Government. Accordingly Father Lobo +started for Lisbon, was shipwrecked on the coast of +Natal, fell into the hands of the Dutch, but in spite of +his extraordinary hardships, and difficulties wellnigh +insurmountable, actually returned to Portugal; whence +he went to plead at Rome the cause of Latin Christianity +in Abyssinia. The missionaries left in the +hands of the Turks at Suakin were eventually ransomed, +and returned to India. The few Portuguese +missionaries who for one cause or another were left +in Abyssinia were all killed by the Abyssinians.</p> + +<figure id="ip_58" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_0582.jpg" width="1600" height="2112" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_0582_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Dapper’s Map (Amsterdam, 1686).</span></p> + <p>Giving the falsified results of Portuguese explorations in East Africa.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Portuguese contact with Abyssinia, the Portuguese +conquest of Zanzibar and long occupation of Mombassa +very naturally led to this people acquiring in +their intercourse with Arabs and Abyssinians some +idea of the geography of inner Africa,—ideas which +were added to by the information collected on the +West Coast. Nevertheless, strange to say, they were +less correct in their surmises than Claudius Ptolemæus. +The maps of the Nile and the geography of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span> +inner Africa which they formed on the reports of +their explorers and missionaries were altogether misleading. +Their delineation of the whole interior of +the western half of Africa bears absolutely no correspondence +to actuality in geographical features; moreover, +they were so ignorant of the simplest principles +of hydrography as to make one lake give rise to several +great rivers.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">25</a> The only element of truth in all their +guesses at the inner waterways of Africa lay in their +delineation of Abyssinia. They put down with some +likeness to actuality the Blue Nile, and they named +correctly the principal countries that lie to the south +of Abyssinia proper. But this contribution was vitiated +by the exaggerations regarding distances,—exaggerations +perpetrated chiefly by map-makers,—so +that the Blue Nile and its tributaries, and such provinces +as Gojam, Kaffa, Shoa, etc., instead of lying +a considerable distance north of the equator, were +dragged far to the south of the line, and these features +were even made to encroach on the basin of the +Congo. A good idea of the extent of Portuguese +knowledge and fable concerning the geography of +inner Africa may be obtained from a glance at the +celebrated Vatican map of Africa which, from information +derived from the Portuguese and from the +Abyssinian converts, was painted on one of the +panels of a gallery at the Vatican in the seventeenth +century.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span></p> + +<p>Several Portuguese adventurers were despatched in +the sixteenth century across Africa from west to east +to strike the Nile, but they were never heard of any +more. Credit must be given to the Portuguese Jesuits +for amassing much accurate knowledge regarding the +scenery, people, and products of Abyssinia. There is +a wonderfully interesting and very beautiful piece of +tapestry in the Governor’s Palace at Valletta (Malta), +which it is supposed was executed early in the eighteenth +century from the information supplied by the +Portuguese Jesuits. The characteristic fauna and +flora, domestic animals, houses, and natives of Abyssinia +are portrayed in this tapestry with great fidelity +to nature. Later in the eighteenth century Portugal +began to take up with some earnestness the scientific +exploration of such African territories as remained to +her after the revolt and the attacks of the East Coast +Arabs, but these journeys and their results do not +come within the scope of the present volume. Portuguese +influence over Abyssinia had disappeared by the +end of the seventeenth century, and almost all that +remains of it is the name which the civilised world +applies to this country. In the southeastern part of +this powerful African state is the river Hawash, or +Habash, which attempts to reach the Red Sea but +finally expires in the barren sands of the Danakil +country. The name of this river had been applied +by the Arabs to the Semiticised people living north +and west of its course. “Habash, Habshi”<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">26</a> was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span> +transmuted through the Portuguese speech to Abessi, +Abessim, Abessinia. This in time was further misspelt +in French and English as Abyssinie, Abyssinia.</p> + +<p>The Turks had always viewed with a great deal of +jealousy and anger the attempts of Portugal to establish +herself as mistress of the navigation of the Red +Sea, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and Arabian Sea. +Consequently the Turks occupied and held Masawa, +and drove away Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries from easy contact with Abyssinia, +which between 1633 and 1769 was only visited by +one European, a French doctor named Poncet (1698).</p> + +<p>Several Abyssinian converts of the Portuguese missionaries +who had become devotedly attached to the +Roman Catholic form of the Christian faith had proceeded +to Italy for further instructions. Indeed, all +through the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth +centuries Abyssinians constantly journeyed to +Italy. They were able to traverse the Muhammadan +countries of Nubia and Egypt very easily, either disguised +as Copts or affecting to be Muhammadans. +From the ports of Egypt they easily made their way +to Venice or to Naples as traders. Four of these +Christian Abyssinians, one of them known as Gregory, +were established at Rome in the middle of the seventeenth +century.</p> + +<p>At Erfurt in Saxony was born, in 1624, the celebrated +Ludolf, whose real name was Hiob Leutholf. +Ludolf at an early age exhibited a remarkable talent +for acquiring languages, and he had a special bent for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span> +the Semitic tongues. Having been entrusted with a +secret mission to Rome by the Swedish Ambassador +at Paris, Leutholf, or Ludolf, encountered in Rome +these four Abyssinians. He spent three years in enthusiastically +studying Amharic, and also the older +liturgical tongue of Ethiopia, the Gez or Ge’ez. By +the help of these Abyssinians he compiled a grammar +of the Amharic, and dictionaries of that tongue and +of the Ge’ez. He also wrote a history of Ethiopia; +but, above all (as far as this book is concerned), he +did important work in elucidating the geography of +the northeastern portion of the Nile basin, and the +information he received from Gregory and the other +Abyssinians he carefully collated with the works of +the Portuguese Jesuits. Although Ludolf never visited +even Egypt, he did a great deal to assist the +map-makers of his time to delineate the course of the +Blue Nile and of the Atbara with its various affluents. +Ludolf passed a good many years of his life in the +diplomatic service of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha. Curiously +enough, he not only visited England repeatedly, +but became an Anglophil, and desired to establish +trading connections between England and Abyssinia. +The troubles consequent on James II.’s reign, and +the jealous opposition of the Coptic Church in Egypt +baulked his scheme, which was much taken up in high +quarters in England, and which might, if it had been +carried out, have strangely anticipated events in northeast +Africa by establishing British influence in Egypt +and Abyssinia at the end of the seventeenth century.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span></p> + +<p>Attracted towards the mystery of the Nile and of +the so-called Christian civilisation of Abyssinia, that +Duke of Saxe-Gotha who had taken Ludolf into +his diplomatic service caused another Saxon, named +Michael Wansleb (born at Erfurt), to learn Amharic +first of all from Ludolf, and then to go to Abyssinia. +Here he was expected to explore, and also to collect +liturgies and other books likely to throw light on the +Abyssinian version of Christianity, which the Duke +believed would be found to be in harmony with +Lutheranism. Wansleb never succeeded in getting +to Abyssinia, but journeyed for some distance up the +Nile and wrote on the subject of Egypt, publishing +also in London, between 1661 and 1671, a number +of Abyssinian liturgies and dissertations on the Amharic +language.</p> + +<p>In 1668 the then recently founded Royal Society in +England took up the question of the Portuguese explorations +of the Nile sources, and ordered that the +translation of a Portuguese manuscript by Sir Peter +Wyche should be printed and published. This little +work is described as “A Short Relation of the River +Nile, etc.: Writings by an Eye-witness who lived +many years in the Abyssine Empire.” Sir Peter +Wyche probably did little else than translate and +collate what seemed to him the most interesting extracts +from the works of Paez and Lobo. These +works were seemingly written first of all in Portuguese, +but were never printed in that language. Paez’ +manuscript was translated into Latin and published<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span> +at Rome in 1652 by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher. +The Portuguese manuscript of Jeronimo Lobo was +translated at length into English, and published in +London by the Jesuit father F. Balthazar Tellez. +Seemingly, however, this book was issued either in +a Portuguese or a Latin version at Lisbon in 1670. +It was translated into French from the original Portuguese +manuscript by M. Le Grand in the early part +of the eighteenth century, and this translation, with +some additional matter, was rendered into English +and published in London in 1735.</p> + +<p>The Royal Society’s paraphrase of which Sir Peter +Wyche was author contains no new matter, but its date +is worthy of remark,—1668. It would seem as though +Sir Peter Wyche had had access to Lobo’s manuscript, +or to the joint works of Lobo and Paez, before +the actual publication of Lobo’s book in 1670. It is +further remarkable as showing the intelligent interest +taken in these geographical questions at that day by +the cultivated classes in England.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"><span id="toclink_65"></span>CHAPTER VII<br> + +<span class="subhead">FRENCH INQUIRIES AND D’ANVILLE’S MAPS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Towards</span> the close of the seventeenth century +Louis XIV. of France had begun to make the +influence of his country widely felt in the Mediterranean, +though before his time Richelieu had cast an +eye over the Levant with the idea of supporting +French commerce. Louis XIV. even entered into an +alliance with Turkey, in which he cut rather a foolish +figure, but which at any rate enabled him to send +Frenchmen to report on the trade of Egypt. It is +stated that the result of these inquiries was a scheme +for the conquering and colonising of Egypt which +was laid before that monarch and remained in the +archives of the French government until it caught +the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte when he rose +to power. Louis XIV. either did not notice the project +or put it aside; but nevertheless, during half of +the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century +Frenchmen were beginning to interest themselves +in the exploration of Egypt, Abyssinia, and the Nile. +When the Portuguese missionaries were irrevocably +expelled from Abyssinia, or were slaughtered in that +country by Abyssinians, or died under the hands of +the Turks of Masawa or Suakin, it was suggested to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span> +the Pope that perhaps French missionaries might prove +more acceptable to Ethiopia. Not a few Roman Catholic +Abyssinians found their way to Rome during the +seventeenth century, where, as we know, they imparted +very valuable information to the learned Saxon philologist +Ludolf. These Ethiopians seem to have conveyed +the idea to the Papal Court that it was not so +much Roman Christianity that was objected to as the +political ambitions of the Portuguese. But later on +in the seventeenth century <em>any</em> missionaries teaching +the Latin rite had become unacceptable to the Abyssinians, +and the project of sending French Capuchins +to take the place of the Portuguese Jesuits came to +nothing. But the Emperor of Abyssinia had one +reason for regretting the expulsion of the Jesuits,—an +expulsion to which he personally was less favourable +than were his powerful vassal chiefs of Tigre and +Amhara,—he had relied on the Portuguese Jesuits +for medical treatment.</p> + +<p>At the close of the seventeenth century an agent of +the then ruler of Abyssinia was suffering from stone, +and stood in urgent need of a good surgeon. His +agent in Egypt (Haji Ali) was instructed to inquire +for the services of a European who could operate, and +at first endeavoured to find one amongst the Franciscan +missionaries, who were Italians. But the Consul +of France at Alexandria, hearing of this, resolved to +obtain the post for a French physician, and eventually +Jacques Charles Poncet, a surgeon from the Franche +Comté, was engaged, and it was decided that he should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span> +journey to Abyssinia accompanied by Father Brèvedent, +a French Jesuit. They reached the country of +Sennar in 1699. Soon afterwards Father Brèvedent +died, but Poncet succeeded in reaching Abyssinia, and +afforded medical assistance to the Emperor. But his +arrival in the country, together with the rumour that +he was being followed by French Jesuit priests (who +as a matter of fact were massacred in Egypt), so +aroused the animosities of the Abyssinian clerics that +he was hurried out of the country, and returned to +Europe (Rome) in 1700. Notwithstanding his experiences, +he mixed himself up with the intrigues of an +Abyssinian agent and a priest at Rome for the despatch +of French missionaries to Abyssinia. The Pope was +prudent in the matter, and determined to find out +the truth by a Maronite priest, Gabriel, whom he +despatched from Cairo. Poncet, however, returned +to Egypt in 1703, was joined by a Jesuit, and set +out for Jidda in Arabia, but the mission came to +grief. He quarrelled with the Abyssinian envoy, +Murat, whose pretensions to represent the Abyssinian +government were probably mythical, but who had +accompanied Poncet to Italy. Poncet never succeeded +in returning to Abyssinia, but instead drifted away to +Persia and died at Ispahan.</p> + +<p>Louis XIV. now took the matter up, urged to interference +in the affairs of Abyssinia by the French +Consul at Alexandria. He decided to despatch a mission +to Ethiopia to open up diplomatic relations with +the Christian Emperor. Janus de Noir, le Sieur du<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span> +Roule, was appointed envoy and placed at the head +of this mission. The consent of the Turkish government +was given to the passage through Egypt. The +expedition left France at the end of 1703, and after +a stormy voyage of four months (!) landed at Alexandria. +Thence it pursued its way to Cairo, and so +on up the Nile and the Blue Nile to the country of +Sennar, a region at that time to a great extent under +Abyssinian political influence. Here the cupidity and +suspicion of the local chieftain were aroused. The +mission was attacked, and M. du Roule was massacred. +The Emperor of Abyssinia expressed perfunctory +regrets, and then, to use a modern phrase, +“the incident was closed,” Abyssinia being in such +an unattackable position as to make any French reprisals +impossible.</p> + +<p>Here perhaps may be mentioned a curious attempt +at Nile exploration which in an indirect way was +connected with French enterprise at this period. The +failure of M. du Roule to reach Abyssinia made a +great impression on the mind of a Frenchman named +Joseph le Roux, Count of Desneval. This nobleman +had been in the Danish navy for many years, leaving +that service in 1739 with the rank of Rear Admiral. +All this time he had been giving his attention with +laborious stupidity to the Nile problem, and was convinced +that he “had found the proper key to enter +these regions,” by studying in Denmark the reports +of unsuccessful travellers. Accordingly, in 1739, he +started with his wife for Cairo, accompanied by Lieutenant<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span> +Norden, a Dane. None of the party knew a +word of Arabic. The expedition first got into trouble +at Cairo through the haughty manners of the Countess, +who, becoming involved in a street row, slashed +at the people right and left with a pair of scissors. +Count Desneval penetrated some distance into Nubia, +and his lieutenant, Norden, went as far (possibly) as +Berber, which he mentions under its older name of +Ibrim. But the Count was obliged to turn back, and +Norden was imprisoned by the Turkish Governor, and +barely escaped to Egypt with his life. The Count then +resolved on an extraordinary expedition. He decided +to obtain a commission from Spain and start with a +fleet of ships to circumnavigate Africa, enter the Red +Sea, and so proceed to Abyssinia. But becoming involved +in the war which was then raging between +Spain and England, his ship was captured by the +British, and he was sent as a prisoner of war to +Lisbon, where his projects of Nile exploration came +to an end.</p> + +<p>The Dutch in the seventeenth century, and some of +the Rhenish geographers of western Germany, had +published remarkable maps of Africa, but with the +exception of the west and south, these maps, in so +far as the Nile basin was concerned, were based on +the information presented to the world by the Portuguese +Jesuits Alvarez, Paez, and Lobo, and on the +interesting information concerning the geography of +Abyssinia collected by the Saxon philologist Ludolf +when communing in Italy with the Abyssinian envoys.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span> +These maps, as already related, did injustice to the +Portuguese by enormously exaggerating the area of +Abyssinia. In fact, Abyssinian geography was extended +by these Dutch interpreters of Portuguese +travel notes far into the south and west of Africa, +so that Abyssinian place names such as Gojam, +Kaffa, Enarea, and the lakes and rivers of Abyssinia +were pushed down to the vicinity of the Zambezi, and +right across the Congo basin. These maps, however, +continued to maintain European interest in African exploration, +while the French consuls in Egypt and early +British travellers in that country began to transmit information +(derived for the most part from Copts and +Circassians) regarding the main course of the Nile.</p> + +<p>In 1772 a French cartographer of a much higher +order than had hitherto appeared—D’Anville—published +a notable map of Africa, in which he cleared +away much of the fantastic geography which the +Dutch and Germans had developed from the explorations +of the Portuguese. D’Anville’s map of Africa +marks an important stage in the exploration of the +Nile basin, as it approaches the maps of to-day much +more than any previous chart. The outline of the +African coast is given more correctly than heretofore, +while D’Anville brushes away the exaggerations of +Dutch and Portuguese cartographers, who had gradually +extended the geography of Abyssinia till they +had connected with the Nile all the main rivers of +Africa in an absurd system of natural canalisation.</p> + +<figure id="ip_70" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_0702.jpg" width="1693" height="2301" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_0702_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">D’Anville’s Map of the Nile Basin.</span></p> + <p>(Published 1729; Revised 1772.)</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville was born at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span> +Paris in 1697. From his boyhood he devoted himself +to the study of geography, and met with considerable +encouragement from the learned societies of +Paris and from the Court. D’Anville’s geography of +Abyssinia was mainly based on the information collected +by the Portuguese missionaries and by Ludolf. +The result is so strikingly like the map subsequently +constructed by Bruce as the result of his explorations, +that it shows how very much information had already +been collected by the Portuguese. The last edition of +this map bears the date 1772, a date which is one +year before Bruce could make the result of his explorations +known. Were these dates not certain, it +would almost have seemed as if D’Anville had obtained +access to Bruce’s information and used it in +his geography of Abyssinia. A great mistake in +D’Anville’s map, however, is made in the delineation +of the course of the Nile in its great Dongola +bend. Here the Nile is made to approach the Red +Sea at least a hundred miles nearer than is the case. +There is a fairly correct suggestion of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +(which is named) and the Bahr-al-Arab. The +White Nile above the confluence of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +is indicated more timidly. Its course passes through +a somewhat vague lake, which may be due to a rumour +of Lake Albert. Beyond this lake the sources of the +White Nile are divided, and made to flow from two +lakelets ten degrees north of the equator. To the +south of these ultimate sources is the range of the +Mountains of the Moon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span></p> + +<p>On D’Anville’s map may be seen for the first time +several modern place and river names connected with +the Nile, such as Shendi (spelled Shanedi) and Bahr-al-Ghazal. +Such other terms as Sennar, the Boran +Gala tribe, and the Shankala Negroes are also given; +but these were first mentioned by the Portuguese and +by the Abyssinian teachers of Ludolf one hundred +years earlier. There is also a hint at the Unyamwezi +country south of the Victoria Nyanza under the name +of Moenemuji, though this also was first mentioned +by the Portuguese.</p> + +<p>D’Anville, who followed to some extent the Sicilian +maps of the eleventh century in his delineation of the +Nile and inner Africa, made the opposite mistake to +Ptolemy and the Portuguese. They carried the main +Nile and the geography of Abyssinia many degrees +too far to the south. D’Anville placed the sources +of the Nile and the Bahr-al-Ghazal something like +ten degrees too far to the north. At the same time +his map marked a considerable advance in the correct +delineation of Nile geography as well as in that of +the Niger and the Zambezi.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"><span id="toclink_73"></span>CHAPTER VIII<br> + +<span class="subhead">BRUCE AND THE NILE: SONNINI, BROWNE, AND BONAPARTE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap al"><span class="smcap1">At</span> the beginning of the eighteenth century there +was a decline in Muhammadan fanaticism which +in the preceding centuries had so zealously guarded the +portals of African discovery. This was partly due to +the increase of friendliness and commercial relations +between England and France on the one hand and the +Turkish Empire on the other. Consuls were established +to safeguard the interests of British merchants +in the tributary Turkish states of Barbary and in +Egypt. Another stimulus to friendly relations was +the coffee trade. Coffee had been introduced from +Turkey into Europe in the seventeenth century. By +the beginning of the eighteenth the demand for it in +the civilised countries of northern and central Europe +became so great that British and French ships began +to ply on the Red Sea and in the Levant merely for +the transport of coffee from the ports of southern +Arabia to Suez, and thence (<i lang="la">via</i> Alexandria) to +France and England. It became possible for Frenchmen +and Englishmen to travel in Turkish Egypt without +undue risk of maltreatment, especially if they +obtained permission to do so through their consuls.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span></p> + +<p>Almost the first English traveller to start on the +Nile quest in the eighteenth century was Richard +Pococke, a learned divine (Doctor of Laws and Fellow +of the Royal Society), who afterwards became +Bishop of Meath. Pococke was remarkable for his +knowledge of Greek. He travelled a great deal in the +Levant between 1737 and 1740, and made at least two +journeys to Egypt, during which he followed the Nile +up to the First Cataract. At that period the description +of the journey from England to Egypt has a +rather modern sound. The traveller proceeds without +much difficulty overland from Calais to Leghorn, +and from this Tuscan port sails round Sicily to Alexandria, +sometimes to Rosetta.</p> + +<p>The book in which Pococke describes his adventures +and researches<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">27</a> is also in advance of its times, +and in printing and illustrations might well have been +credited to the beginning of the nineteenth century. +Pococke devoted himself mainly to making plans and +drawings of Egyptian monuments, Coptic churches, +and Muhammadan mosques. He collected a great +many Greek inscriptions (amongst others, the interesting +Greek and Latin sentences scratched on the +legs of Memnon), and besides many plans and drawings +of buildings which illustrate his book, are some +excellent pictures of plants characteristic of Egypt. +Especially noteworthy are the botanical drawings of +the branching Hyphæne palm. These etchings would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span> +not be out of place in the most modern work on +Africa. Pococke ascended the Nile to the First Cataract, +then the limit of Turkish rule.</p> + +<figure id="ip_75" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_0741.jpg" width="1681" height="1319" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">The Branching</span> <i class="taxonomy">Hyphæne</i> <span class="smcap">Palm</span> (<i class="taxonomy">Hyphæne thebaica</i>).</p> + +<p>Taken from interior of Nasr Fort (R. Sobat).</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>One amusing feature in Pococke’s sumptuous volumes +is the number of dedications to British statesmen +and notabilities of that date. The book in general is +dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, +“Groom of the Stole to His Majesty George II.” His +careful map of the Nile from the First Cataract to the +Mediterranean is dedicated to Lord Carteret, “First +Secretary to the King.” The map of Cairo and its +environs (a very interesting one with reference to the +modern growth of the city) is inscribed to the Earl of +Stafford. These dedications, however, seem to foreshadow +a growing interest on the part of English +noblemen in the problem of the Nile,—an interest +which, as will now be shown, played such a part in +the expedition of Bruce.</p> + +<p>James Bruce was the first of the great group of +notable British explorers who between them in a century +and a half have laid bare to the world nearly +every notable feature in the geography of the Nile +basin. This remarkable Scotchman was born at Kinnaird +House, Stirlingshire, in 1730. He was the son +of a land-owner, and was educated at Harrow. Soon +after leaving school he was put (against his will) into +the wine trade with Spain and northern Portugal. In +this pursuit he visited Galicia and the northwest coast +of the Spanish peninsula. His trade, never very successful, +was interrupted by the war with Spain, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span> +broke out in 1758. Bruce conceived a plan for landing +a British force at Ferrol, in Galicia, and to prosecute +this idea he obtained an introduction to the Earl +of Halifax, then president of the Board of Trade. +George Montagu Dunk, second Earl of Halifax, was +a widely read man,<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">28</a> who took an interest in many +subjects, amongst others the mystery of the Nile. He +is a curious link in that chain of persons who have +contributed efforts toward the revelation to the civilised +world of the whole course of this wonderful river. +Lord Halifax brushed aside the scheme for landing a +force at Ferrol as unnecessary and impracticable. But +he began to consult Bruce about the Nile Quest, as +a man who had travelled considerably about Europe +even at that period—his travels having been undertaken +to assuage the grief caused by the loss of his +wife. Bruce took up the matter with energy. Lord +Halifax, therefore, secured for him the appointment of +consul at Algiers, with the idea that this place and post +would enable Bruce to prepare for the exploration of the +Nile by learning Arabic and acquiring information concerning +the interior of Africa. Apparently the consulate +at Algiers in those days was not harassed with +any restrictions regarding residence; indeed, Bruce’s +consular duties appear to have been merely nominal, +for he was only a year at Algiers, and spent it in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span> +study of Arabic and Turkish.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">29</a> In 1763 Bruce started +on a remarkable tour through Tunis and Tripoli, in +which he drew and measured (with the aid of a professional +Italian draughtsman) the wonderful Roman +ruins in those countries. He then extended his journeys +to the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, and explored +Syria and Palestine. The greater part of the +drawings which he made of buildings in all these +Mediterranean lands are now stored in the British +Museum.</p> + +<p>At last, in the summer of 1786, Bruce landed at +Alexandria, accompanied by the Italian artist-assistant, +Balugano. He ascended the Nile as far as Assuan. +Then, crossing the desert to the Red Sea coast, he +took ship and sailed to Jiddah, the port of the Hajaz. +After four months spent on the coast of Arabia, where +apparently he met with no fanaticism, he sailed over +to Masawa, the port of Abyssinia, and from this point +travelled to the then capital, Gondar in Tigre. The +Emperor of Abyssinia received him with great favour, +gave him military rank, and enabled him to reach the +course of the Blue Nile, which Bruce always held to +be the main stream. Striking the Blue Nile in the +country of Gojam near its exit from Lake Tsana, Bruce +crossed the stream by its masonry bridge and travelled +due west of the source of the river in the western +part of Gojam. Bruce fixed with approximate correctness +the latitude of the source of the Blue Nile on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span> +Sagada Mountain, and also the longitude, by observation +of the first satellite of Jupiter. The latitude he +fixed at 10° 55′ 25″, the longitude at 36° 55′ 30″ east +of Greenwich. The present writer is not aware that +any subsequent observations have much upset these +computations of Bruce’s. The latitude of the Blue +Nile source is, therefore, approximately 11° north. +As the Jesuits guessed it at 12°, they were not so +much out in a surmise which, after all, was based on +nothing but vague dead reckoning, and one cannot +sympathise with Bruce when he sneers at them for +their error. Bruce, in fact, was very bitter against +the memory of Paez and Lobo when he learned from +D’Anville that these missionaries had preceded him +as discoverers of the Blue Nile sources. He admits +the genuineness of Paez’ reports, but endeavours to +show that Lobo merely copied Paez’ description, and +did not himself visit the sources of the Blue Nile. In +this contention I think he is unjust. There is certainly +a great deal of correspondence between the accounts +of Paez and Lobo, but Lobo enters into more detail +than Paez, and as, after all, he is describing the same +features, it is hardly surprising that his description +should so closely parallel that of the man who preceded +him by some ten years. As there is no doubt +that Lobo was in the country round about Lake Tsana +in the year 1625 or 1626, it would be surprising if +he had not attempted to see the sources of the famous +river.</p> + +<p>Bruce brings out as strongly as the Jesuits the fact<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span> +that the river Jimma, which rises on Sagada Mountain, +flows with a strong observable current in a circular +course through the southern part of Lake Tsana. +Lake Tsana, indeed, would seem to be nothing but a +huge volcanic crater which has been filled up by the +Blue Nile. He calculates the approximate altitude of +these sources at forty-eight hundred and seventy feet. +Near the village of Sakala or Sagada is a marsh at +the bottom of the Mountain of Gish. In this marsh +there is a hillock of a circular form a few feet above +the surface of the marsh, a more or less artificial altar +raised by the people to the sources of their Nile. In +the middle of this hillock is a hole, artificially made, +or at least enlarged by the hand of man, and kept clear +of grass or other aquatic plants. The water in it is +perfectly pure and limpid, but has no ebullition or +motion of any kind observable on its surface, though +it overflows into a shallow trench running round the +mound and entering the water in an eastward direction. +The principal fountain of the Blue Nile is only +about three feet across. Ten feet distant from this +first source is another, only eleven inches broad. This +would seem to be the deepest of the three sources, and +the one which was pronounced unsoundable by Lobo. +The water from these fountains is good, tasteless, and +intensely cold.</p> + +<p>Following by land the course of the Blue Nile +down stream till he reached the confluence with the +White Nile at the site of Khartum, Bruce then turned +northwards and descended the main Nile to Berber.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span> +From this point he travelled across the Nubian desert +to Korosko, which place he reached with the greatest +difficulty, very many dying from thirst on the way. +Having been obliged to abandon his caravan in the +desert, he started back from Korosko with fresh +camels and guides, and recovered his baggage from +the desert. Bruce’s journeys in Abyssinia and along +the course of the Nile had occupied him nearly three +years, from the middle of 1770 to the beginning of +1773. From Alexandria he made his way to Marseilles +during a brief interval of peace between England +and France. The cultivated Frenchmen of that +day received him with the greatest kindness and +<i lang="fr">empressement</i>, and he spent some time in Paris conferring +with Buffon and other scientific men. But +in Paris he learned to his great chagrin that he was +not the original discoverer of the source of the (Blue) +Nile. D’Anville, the great map-maker, was able to +prove to him that Lake Tsana and the main course of +the Bahr-al-Azrak had been made known to Europe +by the journeys of the Jesuit priests Paez and Lobo. +Moreover this geographer attempted to convince Bruce +that the Blue Nile was not the main stream, and that +the mystery of the Nile sources remained at least two-thirds +unexplored. It is curious, in fact, to reflect +that D’Anville, by his industrious gathering up of all +floating information, especially from French consuls in +Egypt, was far more correct in his delineation of the +Nile basin than Bruce himself, though D’Anville had +published his map a year before Bruce’s arrival in Paris.</p> + +<figure id="ip_80" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 23em;"> + <img src="images/i_0801_map.jpg" width="1415" height="1926" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_0801_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Bruce’s Map of the Nile Sources.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span></p> +<p>On account of this chagrin, or for other reasons, +Bruce delayed<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">30</a> the publication of his travels for seventeen +years after his return to England. They were +not published (in five volumes) until 1790. Strange +to say, Bruce’s admirable work, though so truthful<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">31</a> +and convincing as one reads it now, was received with +universal incredulity in Great Britain. Among the +stories selected for special derision was the account +constantly repeated by Bruce of the Abyssinian custom +of bleeding cattle and drinking their blood, and, +still more, of cutting raw flesh off the living animal, +which is then turned out to graze (or at least that is +the flippant rendering of the contemporary critic). As +a matter of fact, these customs had been already reported +by the Jesuits from one to two hundred years +previously, nor is there any reason to suppose that +Bruce departed from the exact truth in describing contemporary +Abyssinian customs. A hundred years later +East African travellers like New, Von der Decken,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span> +Joseph Thomson, and the author of this book, noticed +similar customs as regards blood-drinking on +the part of the Masai and the Bantu races of Kilimanjaro +and Kikuyu. The same writers constantly +make allusion to the love of raw flesh on the part of +most of the East African pastoral races, many of +whom are more or less related to the Galas in blood +(the foundation of the Abyssinian population is Gala). +The actual truth about the cutting of steaks from the +living animal seems to be this. It was sometimes customary +(even if the custom has wholly died out at the +present day) to slaughter a beast by degrees. The +great arteries and the vital parts were avoided, and +the palpitating, hot flesh was cut off strip by strip and +devoured. But in all probability the creature was not +as a general rule expected to live long after part of its +flesh was removed. It was generally finished within +two or three hours. Bruce, if I remember rightly, +only relates one instance where, after two pieces of +flesh had been removed from the buttocks of a cow, +the skin was fastened up over the wound and the +creature was driven on a little further to be finished +on a later occasion. A summarised extract from +Bruce’s travels gives a vivid description of the way +the Abyssinians feasted on raw <span class="locked">meat:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“In the capital, where one is safe from surprise at all +times, or in the country villages, when the rains have +become so constant that the valleys will not bear a horse +to pass them, or that men cannot venture far from home +through fear of being surrounded by sudden showers in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span> +the mountains; in a word, when a man can say he is safe +at home, and the spear and shield are hung up in the hall, +a number of people of the best fashion in the villages, of +both sexes, courtiers in the palaces or citizens in the town, +meet together to dine between twelve and one o’clock. +A long table is set in the middle of a large room, and +benches beside it for a number of guests who are invited. +Tables and benches the Portuguese introduced amongst +them, but bull hides spread upon the ground served them +before, as they now do in the camp and country.</p> + +<p>“A cow or bull, one or more, as the company is numerous, +is brought close to the door and its feet strongly +tied. The skin that hangs down under its chin and throat +is cut only so deep as to arrive at the fat, of which it +totally consists, and by the separation of a few small +blood-vessels six or seven drops of blood only fall upon +the ground. They have no stone bench or altar upon +which these cruel assassins lay the animal’s head in this +operation. The author, indeed, begs their pardon for +calling them assassins, as they are not so merciful as to +aim at the life, but, on the contrary, to keep the beast +alive till he is nearly eaten up. Having satisfied the +Mosaic law, according to their conception, by pouring +these six or seven drops upon the ground, two or more +of them fall to work. On the back of the beast, and on +each side of the spine they cut skin deep; then, putting +their fingers between the flesh and the skin, they begin to +strip the hide of the animal half-way down his ribs, and +so on to the buttock, cutting the skin wherever it hinders +them commodiously to strip the poor animal bare. All +the flesh on the buttocks is then cut off, and in solid, +square pieces, without bones, or much effusion of blood; +and the prodigious noise the animal makes is a signal for +the company to sit down to table.</p> + +<p>“There are then laid before every guest, instead of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span> +plates, round cakes (if they may be so called) about twice +as big as a pancake, and something thicker and tougher. +It is unleavened bread of a sourish taste, far from being +disagreeable, and very easily digested, made of a grain +called teff. It is of different colours, from black to the +colour of the whitest wheat bread. Three or four of these +cakes are generally put uppermost for the food of the +person opposite to whose feet they are placed. Beneath +these are four or five of ordinary bread and of a blackish +kind. These serve the master to wipe his fingers upon, +and afterwards the servant as bread for his dinner. Two +or three servants then come, each with a square piece of +beef in their bare hands, laying it upon the cakes of teff +placed like dishes down the table, without cloth or anything +else beneath them. By this time all the guests have +knives in their hands, and their men have large crooked +ones, which they put to all sorts of uses during the time +of war. The women have small clasped knives, such as +the worst of the kind made at Birmingham, sold at a +penny each. The company are so ranged that one man +sits between two women; the man with his long knife +cuts a thin piece, which would be thought a good beefsteak +in England, while you see the motion of the fibres +yet perfectly distinct and alive in the flesh. No man in +Abyssinia, of any fashion whatever, feeds himself or +touches his own meat. The women take the steak and +cut it lengthways about the thickness of a little finger, then +crossways into square pieces something smaller than dice. +This they lay upon a piece of the teff bread strongly powdered +with black pepper, or Cayenne pepper, and mineral +salt; they then wrap it up in teff bread like a cartridge.</p> + +<p>“In the mean time, the man having put up his knife, +with each hand resting on his neighbour’s knee, his body +stooping, his head low and forward, and mouth open very +like an idiot, he turns to the one whose cartridge is first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span> +ready, who stuffs the whole of it into his mouth, which is +so full that he is in constant danger of being choked. +This is a mark of grandeur. The greater the man would +seem to be the larger piece he takes in his mouth; and the +more noise he makes in chewing it the more polite he is +thought to be. They have indeed a proverb that says, +‘Beggars and thieves only eat small pieces or without +making a noise.’ Having despatched this morsel, which +he does very expeditiously, his next female neighbour +holds another cartridge which goes the same way, and so +on till he has finished. He never drinks till he has finished +eating; and, before he begins, in gratitude to the fair +one that fed him, he makes up two small rolls of the same +kind and form; each of his neighbours open their mouths +at the same time, while with each hand he puts their +portion into their mouths. He then falls to drinking out +of a large handsome horn; the ladies eat till they are +satisfied, and then all drink together. A great deal of +mirth and jokes goes round, very seldom with any mixture +of acrimony or ill-humour.</p> + +<p>“During all this time the unfortunate victim at the +door is bleeding indeed, but bleeding little. As long as +they can cut off the flesh from his bones they do not +meddle with the thighs or the parts where the great +arteries are. At last they fall upon the thighs likewise, +and soon afterwards the animal, bleeding to death, becomes +so tough that the cannibals, who have the rest of it +to eat, find it very hard work to separate the flesh from +the bones with their teeth, like dogs.</p> + +<p>“In the mean time those within are very much elevated; +love lights all its fires, and everything is permitted +with absolute freedom. There is no coyness, no delays, +no need of appointments or retirement to gratify their +wishes; there are no rooms but one, in which they sacrifice +both to Bacchus and to Venus.”</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span></p> + +<p>Bruce’s travels are as well worth reading to-day +as they were in 1790. A somewhat conveniently +abridged edition was published in the same year +(1790) as the five volumes appeared, but all who +are taking up the subject of Abyssinia seriously are +advised to work their way through the original five +volumes. A sumptuously illustrated edition in eight +volumes appeared after the author’s death, in 1805. +Bruce was received with some honour at court on +his return, but was awarded no special distinction. +Dr. Johnson, amongst others, denounced the brilliant +young Scotch traveller as an unscrupulous romancer; +Horace Walpole pronounced his volumes “dull and +dear.” Just as the African Association sprang into +being and directed its efforts toward the rehabilitating +of Bruce’s character as a truthful writer, Bruce +himself died in the most disappointing manner by +falling down the stairs at his house and breaking his +neck. His death was occasioned by over-politeness. +He was rushing from his study to the hall in order +to be able to escort a lady to her carriage.</p> + +<p>Bruce was really a great traveller, an accurate observer, +a splendid sportsman,<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">32</a> and a far-sighted “Imperialist.” +In 1775 he conceived the need of the English +rulers of India controlling the Egyptian route, +and actually obtained from the Turkish authorities +in Egypt a concession for the English on the shores +of the Red Sea.</p> + +<figure id="ip_86" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_0861.jpg" width="1359" height="2045" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of James Bruce.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span></p> +<p>As has been already mentioned, Bruce had been +accorded a magnificent reception by the scientific men +of France. Buffon especially was incited by Bruce’s +stories to urge the French government in the direction +of Nile exploration. Buffon had become interested +in a young man native to Alsace, Sonnini de +Manoncourt. Sonnini was born at Lunéville in 1751. +He was the son of a Roman court official who had +followed King Stanislas of Poland to his residence in +Lorraine. Sonnini, the younger, who had travelled in +French South America, had conceived the idea of a +journey through Africa from north to south, from the +Gulf of Sidra in Tripoli to the Cape of Good Hope. +This scheme, however, when recommended to the +French Foreign Office official who then had charge of +the French establishments in the Levant, was deemed +impracticable, and Sonnini was invited to restrict his +attempts to a careful exploration of the Nile from +Rosetta southward to the limits of Egyptian rule. +His travels did not extend much beyond Assuan, but +he brought back a great deal of detailed information +about Upper Egypt, its fauna, flora, and the habits +and customs of its population along the banks of the +Nile. Sonnini’s work will always remain a useful +book of reference. For the period at which he +wrote he took a great interest in the question of the +geographical distribution of mammals. He attempted +to collect information regarding the gradual disappearance +from civilised Egypt of the great fauna. +In this he followed the inspiration of Buffon. According<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span> +to Sonnini and Buffon, hippopotamuses only +became extinct in the Lower Nile near the Mediterranean +as late as 1658. Two hippopotamuses were +killed at Damietta in 1600 by an Italian surgeon +named Federigo Zeringhi.</p> + +<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> + +<p>Nearly a hundred years before Cecil John Rhodes +was brooding in his studies at Oriel College over +the advance of British South Africa toward the +equatorial regions, that same college at Oxford was +nurturing other dreams of African exploration in +the mind of William George Browne, a Londoner +by birth (1768), who at seventeen became an undergraduate +at Oriel. Browne was fired by reading +Bruce’s “Travels,” and a year after those five volumes +were published, when he was only twenty-three +(1791), he started for Alexandria, which he reached +after a month’s journey from England (not a bad +record for those days). Egypt proper prior to the +descent of the French under Napoleon must have +been fairly free from Muhammadan fanaticism and +distrust of Europeans in the second half of the eighteenth +century. Not a few travellers—French, +Italian, and English—were able to circulate in the +dominions governed by the Mameluks. Browne first +of all visited the oasis of Siwah. He spent a year +and a half on this journey, and examined the whole of +Egypt proper and the peninsula of Sinai. Being at +Assiut in March or April, 1793, he heard of the caravan +which, until quite recently, left that place annually<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span> +to travel across the desert to Darfur. Following +the same route, and in a measure attaching himself +to the caravan, he reached Darfur after a journey +of considerable difficulty. Here he found himself +amongst such fanatical Muhammadans that he was +practically a prisoner, and it was only by invoking +the aid and sympathy of the Turkish authorities in +Egypt that he induced the Sultan of Darfur to allow +him to return. Even then he was not allowed to +carry out his project of striking the White Nile from +the direction of Darfur, and thence crossing into +Abyssinia. He was obliged to return along the caravan +route to Assiut. He then continued his travels in +the direction of Syria, and arrived in London in 1798. +After publishing an account of his travels, he again +left England for the Levant. In 1812 he started for +Persia with the intention of exploring Central Asia. +Between Tabriz and Teheran his caravan was attacked +by robbers, and he was killed.</p> + +<p>The part of his book which deals with Egypt and +Darfur is excellent, much in advance of his age and +very “modern” in its accuracy, definiteness, and absence +of gushing enthusiasm. Equally remarkable for +the age is the soundness of his orthography in spelling +local names and in transcribing dialects. Browne’s +work still remains an authority on Darfur.</p> + +<p>The eighteenth century closed with some advance +in the direction of the Nile Quest. At any rate interest +in the Nile problem had revived in Europe. +The publication at the beginning of the century, in an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span> +English translation from the Portuguese, of the travels +undertaken by the Jesuit Fathers in Abyssinia,—the +fact that an English statesman (Lord Halifax) under +the second George made it possible for Bruce to start +on his great journeys, and, lastly, the creation of the +African Association, testified to the commencement of +this interest in England. In France the question had +been receiving attention from the end of the seventeenth +century, but mainly for political reasons. It +had occurred to Louis XIV. and to the ministers of +his successor that Egypt, so loosely held by the Turk, +would be an admirable base from which to effect the +conquest of India. These ideas were not lost on +Napoleon Bonaparte, and the eighteenth century closes +with the invasion of Egypt by the French, an event +as wonderful to the full and as far-reaching in its results +as the conquest of the same country by the Greeks +under Alexander the Great 2131 years previously. +Alexander’s conquest of Egypt from the Persians, or +rather from the several native Egyptian dynasties who +were ruling under Persian suzerainty, put an end to +the régime of Ancient Egypt and Hellenised the countries +of the Lower Nile and of Abyssinia. The invasion +of Napoleon Bonaparte broke the power of the +Moslem, and prepared the way for the administration +of Egypt by Europeans and Christians. Rome profited +by the exploits of the Macedonians; England has succeeded +to the task which was begun with such amazing +brilliance by Frenchmen.</p> + +<figure id="ip_90" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_0901_map.jpg" width="1570" height="2299" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_0901_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Map of Africa by Williamson, London, 1800.</span></p> + <p>Giving results of Browne’s journey to Darfur, French exploration of lower Nile, + and much Arab information from Egypt, North Africa, and Senegambia.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX"><span id="toclink_91"></span>CHAPTER IX<br> + +<span class="subhead">MUHAMMAD ALI OPENS UP THE WHITE NILE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">In</span> 1807 Jacotin published at Paris an “Atlas de +l’Égypte,” which gave a fairly accurate survey +of the Nile from the Delta to Assuan. This Atlas +gave the results of the geographical work done by +the French army of occupation. The splendid volumes +which illustrated the other scientific results of +Napoleon’s venture were not published until the Bourbons +had been restored to the throne of France. They +aroused, however, great interest in the valley of the +Nile, especially by the account they gave of its remarkable +fauna. This interest was felt as much in +England as in France; one of the first English travellers +to explore the Nile (as far as Korosko) after +the close of the Napoleonic war was the Hon. Charles +Leonard Irby, who, with James Mangles (both of +them naval commanders), travelled in Egypt in 1817–1818. +When Egypt had settled down under the iron +rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the French, who had +begun to conceive the idea of supporting the power +of that adventurer, and so once more gaining control +over Egypt, began to resume their interest in Nile +exploration. In 1819 a Frenchman named Frederic +Caillaud (of Nantes), who had been in Egypt under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span> +the Napoleonic régime, returned under the patronage +of Louis XVIII. and explored the main Nile as far +south as the present site of Khartum, and gave the +first accurate account of one of the several Meroes, +namely, that ancient Ethiopian capital which is situated +on the right bank of the Nile about one hundred +miles south of the confluence of the Atbara. Caillaud +and his companion Letorzec also accompanied a military +expedition under Ibrahim Pasha. This expedition +(which resulted in the founding of Khartum<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">33</a> +in 1823) explored the Blue Nile for a considerable +distance,—as far as Fazokl. French interest in Nile +exploration was to continue later on more merged in +the service of the Egyptian government. But British +efforts in this direction had not been lacking in the +early part of the nineteenth century. A young Swiss, +John Ludwig Burckhardt, born in French Switzerland +in 1784,<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">34</a> and a student of two German universities, +came to England in 1806 with a letter of introduction +to Sir Joseph Banks and the African Association.<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">35</a> +This Association accepted his proposals for African<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span> +exploration. Burckhardt then set himself to study +first in London and then at Cambridge, and during +his residence in England attempted in the thoroughgoing +Teutonic manner to inure himself to hardships +by exposing himself to cold, fatigue, and hunger in +many fashions. After his three years’ residence in +England he left for Malta, and reached Aleppo in October, +1809. Here he thoroughly mastered Arabic, the +contents of the Koran, and much else that appertained +to the practice of the Muhammadan religion and the +administration of its law. In 1812 he started from +Cairo with the intention of journeying across the +desert to Fezzan, but, changing his plans, followed +the Nile to Korosko, and thence travelled across the +Nubian Desert to Berber and Shendi. From this last +place he travelled to Suakin and to Jiddah. From +Jiddah he made (the first of all European Christians) +the pilgrimage to Mecca. Returning again to Cairo +and preparing once more to start for Fezzan and the +Niger, he was seized with an illness of which he died +at Cairo. His journeys had resulted in the collection +of eight hundred volumes of Oriental manuscripts, all +of which he sent to Cambridge University. All the +works of this brilliant traveller and profound Orientalist +were published after his death.</p> + +<figure id="ip_93" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_0921.jpg" width="1681" height="1317" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Blue Nile, Twenty Miles east of Fazokl.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In 1827 Adolphe Linant (Bey), a Belgian, who subsequently +called himself Linant de Bellefonds, took +service under the British African Association,<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">36</a> ascended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span> +the White Nile (first of all Europeans, so far +as we know, since Dalion the Greek), and reached a +point (Al Ais) nearly one hundred and fifty miles +south of Khartum.</p> + +<p>But the next great blow at the Nile mystery was +to be struck by the orders of the Pasha of Egypt. +Muhammad<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">37</a> Ali was the native of a little Vlach +(Wallach) town or settlement in Albania called Cavalla. +In appearance he might at any time have been +mistaken for a Frenchman of eastern France, a German, +or an Englishman. He was born in 1768, and +was adopted as a son by the Governor of the town, +who, as a reward for his bravery as a soldier, gave +him his daughter in marriage. His three eldest sons, +Ibrahim, Tusun, and Ismail, were born in Albania. +In 1801 he was sent to Egypt with the rank of a +major, rising soon to be colonel. When the French +had evacuated Egypt, the Turks endeavoured to gain +direct control over the country by attacking the power +of the Mameluks or Circassian soldiery who had really +ruled in the name of the Turks. In 1803 the British +evacuated Egypt, and gradually the situation resolved +itself into a struggle for power between the Albanian +soldiery under Muhammad Ali and the Turks. The +Albanians allied themselves at first with the Mameluk +or Circassian party, the former rulers. At length, +after a civil war lasting for two years, the Turkish +government appointed Muhammad Ali to be Governor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span> +of Egypt. In 1807 the British attempted to reoccupy +Egypt, and took possession of Alexandria. This action +temporarily united Muhammad Ali with his enemies, +the Circassian Beys. The British expedition +ended in disaster and withdrawal. At last, by means +of treachery and an appalling massacre, Muhammad +Ali got rid of the Circassian party and became the +undisputed master of Egypt. He then assisted the +Porte to put down the Wahabi revolt in Arabia. +These expeditions resulting in many military successes, +the ambition of Muhammad Ali grew, and +he desired to create for himself a perfectly disciplined +army. To this end he decided to employ his disaffected +troops who were opposed to innovations in discipline +in conquering the Sudan. He commenced with +Nubia, Dongola, and Sennar. From the Sudan were +brought back numbers of the sturdy Negroes, who +were drilled into some kind of disciplined force by +French officers at Assuan. Then came the war with +Turkey, which nearly resulted in Muhammad Ali capturing +Constantinople. But this led to the intervention +of Europe, and the ambition of Muhammad Ali +was confined within the limits of Egypt and the Sudan.</p> + +<p>In 1839 the ruler of Egypt despatched the first important +conquering and exploring expedition up the +White Nile. It was accompanied by a French officer, +Thibaut,<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">38</a> who had become a Muhammadan. This expedition +reached as far south as north latitude 6° 30′. +In 1841 a second expedition, which was accompanied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span> +by two Frenchmen (D’Arnaud and Sabatier), and by +a German, Ferdinand Werne, reached the vicinity of +Gondokoro in north latitude 4° 42′. Werne wrote an +interesting and scientific account of this second expedition. +His map of the White Nile from Khartum to +Gondokoro is a remarkably good piece of work. A +third expedition under the same Turkish commander +(Selim Bimbashi), and accompanied by D’Arnaud, +Sabatier, and Thibaut also reached Gondokoro. All +these expeditions were made in sailing boats, and those +that reached farthest were stopped by the same obstacles,—the +rapids at Gondokoro.</p> + +<p>As far back as 1820 steamers had been introduced +onto the Nile between the Delta and the First Cataract, +mainly through French enterprise. Some of +these steamers even plied between Cairo and Korosko. +In 1846 the first steamboat was put together on the +White Nile above Khartum. In 1845 a Frenchman +(Brun-Rollet) ascended the White Nile in a sailing +vessel and founded a trading post in the Kich country.</p> + +<figure id="ip_96" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 18em;"> + <img src="images/i_0961.jpg" width="1128" height="1480" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Ferdinand Werne.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Between 1827 and 1830 a German, Prokesch von +Osten, had made a correct survey of the Nile between +Assuan and Wadi Halfa, and in the later forties +this survey was continued under Baron von Müller +as far south as Ambukol in Dongola. During the +forties great interest concerning the Egyptian Sudan +had arisen in Austria. Austria was not suspected of +political views in the direction of Egypt, and therefore +no doubt Muhammad Ali and his successors were more +disposed to encourage Austrian missionaries than those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span> +of France or England. The Pope created a Bishop +of Khartum in 1849, and Austrian missionaries<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">39</a> had +founded stations on the White Nile as far distant +as Gondokoro by 1850, in which year Dr. Ignatz +Knoblecher, an Austrian missionary, extended his explorations +a few miles beyond Gondokoro to Mount +Logwek. A little, very little, information was collected +as to the course of the Nile above that seventy miles +of rapids which cuts off the navigation of the river +between Nimule on the south and Gondokoro on the +north. A vague story was collected from the Bari +to the effect that this great river came from a considerable +distance southwards and issued from a lake. +This, no doubt, was a correct hint as to the existence +of Lake Albert Nyanza. But at this point the information +stopped.</p> + +<p>In other directions progress had been made in Nile +exploration. Besides the Austrian Roman Catholic +Mission,<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">40</a> which established stations chiefly in the +Kich and Bari countries on the White or Mountain +Niles, the rapid opening up of the waterways into the +heart of Africa soon attracted pioneers of exploration, +traders, and adventurers of several European<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span> +nationalities. Far ahead of the European and the +Turk, however, went the Nubian (the native of +Dongola) and the Arab of Upper Egypt. These +men were the real pioneers of European exploration, +since they served as guides and transport agents to +the Europeans who followed along the routes they +opened up. These Nubians started a far-reaching +trade in slaves, and were guilty of many barbarities. +They made such a deep impression on the minds of +the Negroes in the Nile basin from the Bahr-al-Ghazal +to Uganda that to this day the natives of the Egyptian +Sudan are called “Nubi” or Nubian, even though +they be black Negroes from the equatorial regions. +The Nubian slave-traders laid the foundation of the +Sudanese regiments which were to serve Egypt and +England in subduing and controlling Eastern Equatorial +Africa. As the Mountain Nile (thus the main +stream is called, south of its junction with the Bahr-al-Ghazal) +led through excessively swampy, despairing +countries, and did not reach the habitable land +until it entered the Bari country near the rapids of +Gondokoro, most of the exploring enterprise for fifteen +years, between 1840 and 1860, preferred to follow +the more easily navigable streams which unite to +form the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the great western tributaries +of the Nile.</p> + +<p>Among the pioneers in Nile exploration at this stage +was the forerunner of the intelligent tourist, Mr. Andrew +Melly, a member of a Liverpool family, though +born at Geneva. Mr. Melly actually started for Khartum<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span> +and the White Nile accompanied by his wife, two +sons, and a daughter. His main object seems to have +been that of natural history collecting. He took insufficient +measures for living with health in a tropical +climate; fever attacked him on his return journey, +and he died near Shendi on his way back from Khartum. +His son George wrote a book in two volumes +describing Khartum and the Nile between that place +and the First Cataract. This book was mainly based +on the father’s journal. The expedition seems to have +been well equipped. The provisions were furnished by +Fortnum and Mason, who even in that early period +(1849–1850) supplied tinned salmon.</p> + +<p>The first of the long roll of European martyrs to +African fever in the opening up of the Sudan was +Herr Baumgarten, a Swiss mining engineer, educated +in Austria, who died at Khartum in 1839 after returning +with Muhammad Ali, who at that period had +penetrated as far south as Al Ais, in the Shiluk country. +Brun-Rollet, a Frenchman, was perhaps the first +European trader to establish himself on the White +Nile. He ceased trading, however, in 1850, after having +established posts as far south as the Bari country.</p> + +<p>In 1851 the mission station of Gondokoro was +founded by Knoblecher and Vinci of the Austrian +Mission. A short distance beyond Gondokoro, on the +west bank of the Nile, near the modern Belgian station +of Rejaf, is a little stony hill called by the Bari +Logwek. This hill was the extreme point reached by +the third expedition despatched from Khartum at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span> +orders of Muhammad Ali in 1841, and afterwards by +the Austrian missionary, Knoblecher, in 1848. Here +the White Nile, approached from the north, became unnavigable +owing to the rapids which obstruct the course +of the stream during its thousand-feet fall from Dufile +to Gondokoro. For a long time Logwek (remarkable +as being the first high and stony land which is met +with in ascending the White Nile after the many hundred +miles’ journey through the marshes) formed the +limit of European discovery coming from the north.</p> + +<p>About 1843 or 1844 D’Arnaud, one of the Frenchmen +who accompanied the exploring expeditions of +the Egyptian government, published a map of the +White Nile which carried the course of the river as +far south as 4° 42′ north latitude. Towards the end +of the forties further explorations were made from +time to time west of the White Nile by a Frenchman, +De Malzac, who at the time of his death at Khartum, +in 1859 (?), was compiling a work on the Fauna of +the White Nile.</p> + +<figure id="ip_100" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_1002.jpg" width="1381" height="1806" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Whale-Headed Stork</span> (<i class="taxonomy">Balæniceps rex</i>). + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In 1845 a Welsh<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">41</a> mining engineer named John +Petherick entered the service of Muhammad Ali, the +Pasha of Egypt. He was employed for some years +in examining the countries of Upper Egypt, the coast +of the Red Sea, and Kordofan for coal and other +minerals, apparently with little or no success. In his +interesting work, “Egypt, the Sudan, and Central +Africa,” he has left us, amongst other things, a remarkably +interesting account of Kordofan at the end<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span> +of the forties of the last century, some twenty-five +years after its conquest by the Turks from the mild +rule of Darfur.<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">42</a> In 1848 Muhammad Ali died, and +Petherick quitted the service of the Egyptian government. +Trade in the Sudan had now ceased to be a +government monopoly, partly owing to the efforts of +the English Consul-General at that time. Petherick +therefore resided at El Obeid in Kordofan for five +years as a trader in gums and other produce. In +1853 he resolved to go in for the ivory trade on the +White Nile and the Bahr-al-Ghazal. This great western +feeder of the Nile was beginning to be opened up +by the Nubian traders already referred to. For six +years Petherick traded for ivory and explored some +of the great rivers which flowed into the Bahr-al-Ghazal,—chiefly +the Jur and the Yalo or Rōl. During +the course of his explorations he was the first +European (unless De Malzac preceded him) to reach +the Nyam-nyam country (Mundo). He made some +remarkable discoveries in natural history,—the splendid +<i class="taxonomy">Cobus maria</i> or Mrs. Gray’s Waterbuck, and the +<i class="taxonomy">Balæniceps rex</i> or Whale-headed Stork. Petherick’s +skins of the <i class="taxonomy">Balæniceps</i> which he gave to the British +Museum in 1859 were the only specimens in that collection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span> +for more than forty years, until they were reinforced +by the first Whale-headed Storks obtained +on the Victoria Nyanza, which were sent home by +the author of this book. Petherick also captured and +brought to Europe a young hippopotamus. [It is interesting +to observe in his first book, “Egypt, the +Sudan,” etc., published in 1859, that the classification +of his bird collections is made by Dr. P. L. +Sclater, then and until recently Secretary to the Zoölogical +Society.] Petherick’s return to Europe with a +recital of such wonders obtained for him considerable +attention. He married in the early part of 1861, and +was invited to take charge of a relief expedition to be +sent up the Nile to meet Captain Speke and Grant, +who were to attempt descending the Nile from its supposed +source at the north end of the Victoria Nyanza.</p> + +<figure id="ip_102" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 18em;"> + <img src="images/i_1021.jpg" width="1148" height="1591" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption">John Petherick. + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>During the latter period of Petherick’s experiences +on the Nile (in 1858), he had been appointed consular +agent for the British government at Khartum. In +1861, before starting to return to the Sudan, he was +given the rank of consul. He left England in 1861 +with his wife and with an English youth named +Foxcroft, who accompanied him as bird-stuffer and +natural history collector.<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">43</a> In 1861 he despatched to +Gondokoro, to await the arrival of Speke and Grant, +an expedition under the Turks and Arabs, with boats<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span> +full of supplies. Petherick and his wife, accompanied +by Dr. Murie (who had joined them from England) +and by Foxcroft, then spent some years exploring the +western affluents of the Nile which unite in the Bahr-al-Ghazal. +In this way they revisited the Nyam-nyam +country. Petherick seems to have been partly trading +and partly collecting information on the slave-trade +and prosecuting Maltese slave-traders; and these investigations +seem to have rather taken his attention +from one of the objects of his mission, which was to +insure a proper relief to Speke and Grant. How far +he was to blame in the matter it is difficult to determine. +People in England seem to have doubted the +effectiveness of his methods to insure this relief, and +amongst others who thought it necessary to forestall +Petherick was Mr. (afterwards Sir Samuel) Baker, +who, in 1862–1863, got ahead of the Pethericks (then +deciding to go in person to the relief of the explorers), +and actually arrived at Gondokoro in time to afford +much needed assistance to the exhausted travellers. +Speke appears to have considered that Petherick had +not acted up to the assurance he had given to the Royal +Geographical Society, who intrusted him with the expenditure +of the relief fund. This criticism, together +with the bitter animosity aroused by Petherick’s prosecution +of slave-traders and reports on the misgovernment +of Egyptian officials, cost him the confidence of +the Foreign Office, and in 1864 his consulate was abolished. +It was actually alleged by some of his enemies +that he himself carried on a trade in slaves,—an allegation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span> +for which there does not seem to have been the +slightest foundation. In 1865 the Pethericks returned +to England. Petherick’s second book (“Travels in +Central Africa”) was not published until 1869. It +is impossible, after careful observation and a more +than thirty years’ interval, to avoid the impression +that Petherick was treated by his country with some +ingratitude. He did a great deal to increase our +knowledge of the Nile basin and its remarkable +fauna. His collections of beasts, birds, and fishes +enriched the British Museum. He took a number of +astronomical observations in order to fix important +points on the White Nile and in the region of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal. He died in 1882.</p> + +<p>In 1840 a French Egyptian official, Clot Bey, engaged +as private secretary a young French doctor of +medicine, Alfred Peney. For something like fifteen +years Dr. Peney carried on official medical work in +Egypt. He was gradually led, however, towards Nile +exploration through his official visits to Khartum, the +Blue Nile, and Kordofan. He was intensely interested +in ethnology and in the study of the Nile Negroes. +French influence in Egypt during the fifties +was in the ascendency. De Lesseps and the various +officials who served France as agents and consuls-general +at Cairo had known how to secure the concession +for the Suez Canal. They became jealous +that France should also secure for her citizens the +glory of having discovered and traced the course and +the sources of the Upper Nile. This blue ribbon of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span> +geographical discovery was already being sought for +by Germans and Englishmen. Dr. Peney especially +was continually urging his superiors in Cairo to organise, +or induce the Viceroy Said to organise, a Nile +research expedition under French auspices. But the +choice by the French agent of a leader for this enterprise +fell most unfortunately. Hanging about Cairo +was a Frenchman of a type not infrequently met with +at Levantine courts during the first eight decades of +the nineteenth century. This was the Count d’Escayrac +de Lauture. Men of this description were either +Royalist refugees, or the sons of such, or they were +Napoleonic noblemen who had got into financial or +social difficulties. D’Escayrac, however, appears to +have been an amiable dilettante, who had some pretensions +to be an Egyptologist. But he was utterly +unsuited to lead an expedition into Central Africa. +He was elderly, vain, pompous, and extravagant. The +viceroy, wishing that the expedition should not be too +exclusively French, ordered d’Escayrac to recruit part +of his personnel in England, Germany, and Switzerland. +This was done, but the expedition never left +Cairo for the Upper Nile. D’Escayrac made himself +perfectly ridiculous by strutting about in a fantastic +uniform, trailing a long sabre. His expensive scientific +instruments were badly packed, and arrived at +Cairo injured. The whole expedition was dissolved, +owing to the bitter dislike which d’Escayrac inspired +among his staff. The only incident in the whole of +Count d’Escayrac’s preparations which shows him to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span> +have been in any way enterprising or intelligent, was +his desire to secure good photographic views of the +Upper Nile and its natives. He had provided the +expedition with the best apparatus which could be +obtained at that period (1856). It is curious to note +that in the criticisms of his plans published at the +time, the critics animadvert more bitterly on the +extravagance of spending one hundred pounds on +photography than on any other supposed mistake in +d’Escayrac’s preparations.</p> + +<p>Dr. Albert Peney was to have been medical officer +to the expedition. When it was dissolved, he started +off for the White Nile on his own account, attaching +himself, whenever opportunity offered, to such caravans +as those of Andrea de Bono, the Maltese. Peney +made a remarkably good map (most interesting to +place on record as showing subsequent changes in the +course of the Nile) between Bor and a place which he +calls Nieki, which was situated on the Mountain Nile +very near to the present site of Fort Berkeley. Peney, +hearing rumours of great rivers to the west, crossed +the range of hills which flanks the western bank of the +Mountain Nile in the Bari country, and thus reached +the river Yie or Yeï. This river, as we know now, +flows northwest nearly parallel to the main Mountain +Nile, and joins that river some distance before its +junction with the Bahr-al-Ghazal. But Peney exaggerated +the importance of this stream, and confused +it with the accounts he heard of the many great +rivers that united to form the Bahr-al-Ghazal. On<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span> +his map he actually makes the Yie an effluent of the +White Nile, issuing from the main stream not far +from the present post of Nimule, and flowing northwestwards +until it enters the Bahr-al-Ghazal. He +thus transformed the whole region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +into an enormous island encircled by two +branches of the Nile. Peney further visited the country +to the east of Gondokoro, and was probably the first +explorer to mention the name Latuka. This country +he rightly designates Lotuka. Latuka is the incorrect +version given to the world by Emin Pasha. The <em>Lo</em> +in this word is really the masculine article met with +in so many of the Masai group of languages to which +the tongue of Latuka belongs. The root <em>tuka</em> (which +should be properly spelled and pronounced <em>tukă</em>) is +evidently a racial name widespread among that Negroid +group resulting from an ancient intermixture +of the Gala with the Negro, from which groups the +Latuka, Turkana, Masai, Nandi, and Elgumi descend.<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">44</a></p> + +<p>Dr. Peney died of blackwater fever in July, 1861, +at a point on the Nile near Fort Berkeley. Andrea +de Bono was with him at his death, and records the +characteristics of the disease from which Dr. Peney +died. Since the idea has been started that blackwater +fever is quite a new disease in these regions, it is interesting +to know that from all accounts several of the +earliest European pioneers from 1848 to 1861 appear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span> +to have died of this malady whilst exploring the Upper +Nile.</p> + +<p>About the time that Peney was exploring the Mountain +Nile, another Frenchman, Lejean, was surveying +with some correctness the Bahr-al-Ghazal estuary, of +which he published a map in 1862.</p> + +<figure id="ip_108" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 28em;"> + <img src="images/i_1081_map.jpg" width="1758" height="1895" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_1081_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Map published in Penny Magazine of 1852.</span></p> + <p>Which gives results of Nile exploration up to that date.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Not only Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans, +but Italians and Maltese had by this time appeared +as explorers, traders, and naturalists on the White +Nile and its tributaries.<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">45</a> Some of these came as members +of the Austrian Roman Catholic Mission. Perhaps +out of jealousy of Austria, or with the idea of +spreading North Italian trade and influence, the then +Kingdom of Sardinia appointed Signor Vaudet (apparently +a Piedmontese trader) Sardinian proconsul +at Khartum. Vaudet invited out his two nephews, +the brothers Poncet (one of whom published a book +on the White Nile in 1863). Vaudet was killed by +the Bari tribe near Gondokoro about 1859. This Bari +people, now so much diminished by famine and by the +raids of the Sudanese slave-traders and Dervishes, was +a far more serious bar to the prosecution of exploration +up the Mountain Nile in the direction of the great +lakes than the rapids above Gondokoro. The Bari, +no doubt, were wronged by the Europeans and Nubians, +but they were nevertheless responsible for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span> +death of not a few European explorers. But for +their determined hostility, there is little doubt that +the earlier French, Italian, German, and English pioneers +would have found their way to Lake Albert +long before its discovery by Baker. Indeed Giovanni +Miani, a Venetian, got as far south as Apuddo,<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">46</a> if +not farther, in the prosecution of his search for the +rumoured lake. Miani subsequently explored the regions +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the headwaters of the +streams rising in the Nyam-nyam country. He it was +who, first of all explorers, brought back those rumours +of a watershed beyond the Nile system, with a great +river (the Welle) flowing to the west.</p> + +<p>There seems to have been little, if any, international +jealousy in this wonderful field of exploration between +1840 and 1860. Khartum was the rendezvous, the +principal depot of the Europeans, and throughout all +these years was under a Turkish governor. Life in +Khartum between 1850 and 1860 was by no means +devoid of attractions. Several of the Europeans +who made it their headquarters brought out their +wives with them. Others were married to handsome +Abyssinian women. The houses of Egyptian +style were comfortable and cool. The place swarmed +with strange new beasts and birds; indeed, nearly +every house included a menagerie in one of its +yards. A great slave-market brought before the +eyes of astonished and interested Europeans nearly all +the principal Negro types from as far west as Wadai<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span> +and Darfur, from the confines of Abyssinia on the east, +from the lands of the naked Nile Negroes on the south; +stalwart, lighter-coloured, bearded Nyam-nyam cannibals +from the southwest, coal-black Madi, here and +there an Akka Pygmy, thin-shanked Dinka and Shiluk, +sturdy Bongo, and handsome Gala. “There ain’t no +Ten Commandments” might with some justice have +been said of society at Khartum. At any rate it +was much untrammelled as regards the more wearisome +conventions of civilised life. Nobody inquired +if M. Dubois was legally married to Mme. Dubois, +and perhaps the treatment of the doubtful Mme. +Dubois as a respectable married woman by blue-eyed +strait-souled Mrs. Jones ended by Mme. Dubois +becoming legally united to her spouse later on at +Cairo, and finishing the rest of her life as a happy +and perfectly respectable person. The air was full +of wonderment. Improvements made year by year +in firearms resulted in marvellous big-game shooting. +Though there were bad fevers to be got in the Bahr-al-Ghazal, +the climate of Khartum itself was not necessarily +unhealthy. The post seems to have arrived +across the desert on camels at least once a month. +The tyranny, social and administrative, of the British +military officer and his dame was not to come for +many years; the “smart” hotel was absent; provisions +were good, plentiful, and cheap. Those are times that +the African explorer of to-day looks back upon with +something like a sigh.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p> +<figure id="ip_111" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> + <img src="images/i_1102.jpg" width="1536" height="1254" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The River Sobat.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X"><span id="toclink_111"></span>CHAPTER X<br> + +<span class="subhead">MISSIONARIES AND SNOW-MOUNTAINS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Down</span> to 1858 all that Europe knew of the Nile +basin was this: The course of the Blue Nile +had been mapped to some extent from its source in +Lake Tsana; and the travels of Rüppell (1830–1831) +(the great German naturalist), of another German, +Joseph Russegger, of the D’Abbadies (the great +French surveyors), of Sir William Cornwallis Harris +(who was sent on a mission to Shoa), Théophile +Le Febvre, Mansfield Parkyns (1840–1845), H. +Dufton, and C. T. Beke had cleared up a good +many blank spaces in the geography of Abyssinia and +of the various affluents of the Nile flowing from +the snow-mountains of that African Afghanistan in +the direction of the Atbara, the Blue Nile, and the +Sobat. The Sobat had been explored for a hundred +miles or so, as far as steamers could penetrate. +The White Nile had been surveyed from Khartum +to the junction of the Bahr-al-Ghazal. South of +that point, under the name of Mountain Nile, it +and some of its branches, such as the Giraffe River, +had also been explored, and the River of the Mountains, +as the Upper White Nile is called by the Arabs, +had been ascended to a little distance south of Gondokoro. +The Bahr-al-Ghazal, the great western feeder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span> +of the Nile, and several of its more important affluents, +such as the Jur, had been made known, and the +existence of the Nyam-nyam cannibal country ascertained. +But the ultimate sources of the Nile stream +were still undiscovered. This problem was now to be +attacked from two very different directions.</p> + +<p>In 1829 the Church Missionary Society had resolved +to attempt the evangelisation of Abyssinia, +and sent missionaries to the northern part of that +country. Amongst these missionaries, in 1840, was +a Würtemberg student named Ludwig Krapf, sent +to prospect in northern Abyssinia. But the Abyssinians +eventually resented this missionary enterprise, +and Krapf and some others were expelled from the +country in 1842.</p> + +<figure id="ip_112" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 17em;"> + <img src="images/i_1122.jpg" width="1030" height="1634" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rev. Dr. L. Ludwig Krapf.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Hearing good accounts of the more genial nature +of the Zanzibar Arabs and of their Maskat ruler, +Krapf journeyed down the East Coast of Africa and +visited the Sayyid of Zanzibar (Majid); he obtained +permission from this Arab viceroy<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">47</a> to settle at Mombasa +and establish a Christian mission there. Krapf +was soon joined by John Rebman (another Würtemberger). +Both were well-educated men, who had been +trained at Tübingen, at Basle, and in Rebman’s case +at an English missionary college. They acquired a +knowledge of Arabic, and soon added to it an intimate +acquaintance with several African tongues. Their intercourse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span> +with the Arabs and the Negroes at Mombasa +and its vicinity soon opened their ears to remarkable +stories of the unknown interior. Already the Arabs +were pushing farther and farther inland from these +ports on the Zanzibar coast, and some of them had +reached Lake Tanganyika, while they had also heard +rumours of the Victoria Nyanza. The natives further +told the missionaries of the wonderfully high mountains +distant from ten to thirty days’ march from the +coast, the tops of which were covered with “white +stuff.” By 1850, through the agency of the Church +Missionary Society, Rebman and Krapf were able to +report from their own observation the existence of +snow-mountains nearly under the equator, Rebman +having discovered Kilimanjaro in 1848, while in the +following year Krapf not only confirmed this discovery, +but pushed his way far enough inland to catch a +glimpse of Mount Kenya, the distance of which from +the coast he underestimated. The missionaries also +sent to Europe about the same time stories of a great +inland sea. They had gathered up the reports of Lake +Nyasa, Tanganyika, and the Victoria Nyanza, and +had imagined these separate sheets of water to be +only parts of a huge, slug-shaped lake as big as the +Caspian Sea. They also reported the separate existence +of Lake Baringo. These stories they illustrated +by a map (Erhardt and Rebman) published in 1855. +Their stories of snow-mountains in equatorial Africa +only drew down on them for the most part the ridicule +of English geographers, among whom was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span> +wearisome person, Mr. Desborough Cooley, who published +fine-spun theories based on a fantastic interpretation +of African etymology; but their stories were +believed in France, and they were awarded a medal +by the Paris Geographical Society. They also impressed +an American poet, Bayard Taylor, who in +1855 wrote some stirring lines on <span class="locked">Kilimanjaro:—</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Remote, inaccessible, silent, and lone—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who from the heart of the tropical fervours</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Liftest to heaven thine alien snows.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="in0">These stories from the missionaries revived the interest +in Ptolemy’s Geography. The Nile lakes were +once more believed in, especially as the discovery of +Kenya and Kilimanjaro appeared to confirm the stories +of the Mountains of the Moon. This idea indeed was +additionally favoured by the fact that the missionaries +often referred to their hypothetical lake as the Sea +of Unyamwezi, which name they rightly explained +as meaning (we know not why) the “Land of the +Moon.”<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">48</a></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI"><span id="toclink_115"></span>CHAPTER XI<br> + +<span class="subhead">BURTON AND SPEKE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Nile</span> exploration from the north had stopped in +1851 at the rapids south of Gondokoro. It +was now felt that the problem should be attacked from +other directions. In 1839 the British government had +formally annexed Aden at the southwestern corner of +Arabia as a coaling station for ships plying between +Suez and India. Aden is opposite the Somali coast, +and has been for many centuries the outpost of civilisation +with which the Somali have traded. It was +impossible to possess Aden long without desiring to +become acquainted with the character of the African +coast across the gulf, especially as Aden depended so +much on Somaliland for its supplies of meat, grain, +and fodder, and the ostrich feathers, ivory, and skins +sold in the Aden bazaars. Aden was, and is still, +under the government of India, and officers of the +Indian army soon found their way across to Somaliland +on authorised or unauthorised surveys. Among +these was Lieutenant Cruttenden, who collected some +new information about the sterile country beyond the +coast. In 1854 a remarkable man came to Aden as +an officer in the Indian garrison,—Lieutenant Richard +Francis Burton, fresh from his wonderful journey as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span> +a pilgrim to Mecca. Burton induced the authorities +to support him in a project for entering inner East +Africa through Somaliland, and thus perhaps striking +at the sources of the Nile. Another explorer in the +bud, Lieutenant John Hanning Speke, reached Aden +soon afterwards, and obtained permission to join Burton’s +expedition.</p> + +<p>Whilst waiting for a time thought to be favourable +for travelling southwards into the Ogadein country, +Burton went off alone on a remarkably plucky +journey to the mysterious city of Harrar, to-day a +frontier town of Abyssinia. Harrar, lying to the +south of that Rift valley, which can be traced after +a few interruptions from the Gulf of Tajurra right +down into British and German East Africa, was a +walled city inhabited by a Semitic people, or rather +a people still retaining the use of a Semitic dialect +akin to those of Abyssinia and South Arabia.</p> + +<p>Speke did a good deal to increase our knowledge +of the remarkable fauna of Somaliland, but the +Burton-Speke expedition into that country got no +great distance inland, and ended in disaster, owing +to the suspicions of the Somali. The expedition was +attacked close to the seashore at Berbera. One of +the party, Lieutenant Stroyan, was killed. Speke was +severely, and Burton slightly wounded. Speke is of +opinion that much of this disaster was due to the mismanagement +of Burton. He considers that if, when +the expedition was first organised, instead of fussing +about mysterious visits to Harrar and waiting for this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span> +thing and that thing, the whole expedition had started +off boldly for the interior, the Somali would have had +no time to cultivate suspicion, and would have opposed +no resistance. It is quite conceivable that Speke +was right, and that if the expedition had started with +promptitude it might have reached the confines of Shoa +or the Gala country in the direction of modern British +East Africa. As it was, the attack on Burton’s expedition +closed for some thirty years any attempt at +penetrating the mysterious country of the Somali, +with its remarkable mammalian fauna and its as yet +unexplained ruins.<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">49</a></p> + +<figure id="ip_117" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 21em;"> + <img src="images/i_1182.jpg" width="1285" height="1966" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Swahili Arab Trader.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Burton’s attention was now drawn to the stories of +the Mombasa missionaries. With some difficulty he +obtained from the Foreign Office, the East India Company, +and the Royal Geographical Society funds to +equip an expedition which should start from the Zanzibar +coast in search of the great lake. As Speke had +lost over five hundred pounds worth of private property<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span> +in the disaster which fell on the Somali expedition, +Burton invited him to join this new expedition as his +lieutenant. Burton had been distracted for a time +from this idea by the Crimean War, but when peace +was declared, he obtained the sanction of the Geographical +Society to his plans, and started with Speke +for India to smooth the difficulties placed in his way +by the Indian government. At the very end of 1856 +the explorers reached Zanzibar. While the expedition +was being organised at Zanzibar, Burton and +Speke visited Pemba, Mombasa, and the mission station +ten miles in the interior. Fired by the stories +of the snow-mountains and the rumour of the great +lake of Ukerewe,<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">50</a> Speke proposed that they should +bring their expedition to Mombasa and start for the +lake by way of Kilimanjaro. The Masai, however, +were raiding the country right up to within ten miles +of Mombasa, and in consequence Burton was afraid +to take this route. The explorers visited the mountainous +country of Usambara, which is close to the coast, +and then returned to Zanzibar. The original instructions, +however, of the Royal Geographical Society +(which had found the bulk of the funds) had been: +“The great object of the expedition is to penetrate +inland, from Kilwa or some other place on the East +Coast of Africa, and make the best of its way to +the reputed Lake of Nyasa.” Burton found, however, +that the Arabs of Kilwa were strongly opposed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span> +to white men penetrating the interior in that direction. +He therefore decided to choose the line of least +resistance at Bagamoyo, and go along the now beaten +track of the Arabs to Ujiji. When Burton and Speke +reached Unyamwezi (Kaze) at the close of 1857, they +were received with much kindness and courtesy by the +Zanzibar Arabs established there, especially by Sheikh +Snay, who had been the first Arab to reach Uganda. +Snay promptly cleared up the mystery of the missionaries’ +great lake, telling the explorers that it was +three different lakes (Nyasa, Tanganyika, and Victoria) +rolled into one. The Arabs had also heard +through the Banyoro rumours of European vessels +travelling up the White Nile to the Bari country. +Burton was continually prostrated with fever during +this stay in Unyamwezi, so that the command of the +expedition and the solution of its difficulties temporarily +devolved on Speke. The main trouble, as on +all these expeditions, was with the question of transport. +It was very difficult to obtain porters to proceed +in any direction north or west of Unyamwezi. +At last they induced a number of their paid-off men +who had accompanied them through the coast lands +to rejoin and convey the loads as far as Ujiji. In +that way Burton and Speke discovered Lake Tanganyika, +and Speke thought (wrongly) that in the great +tilted plateau which they ascended on the east, and +from which they looked down on the beautiful blue +waters of the lake, he had discovered the Mountains +of the Moon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span></p> + +<p>After a somewhat half-hearted exploration of the +northern portion of Tanganyika in an Arab dau, +during which they heard and partially verified the fact +that no river flowed out of Tanganyika on the north, +but that the Rusizi flowed <em>into</em> the lake<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">51</a> in that direction, +they returned to Ujiji, and from this point made +their way back to Kaze in Unyamwezi. Here Burton +again became ill. Speke with some difficulty obtained +from him permission to travel northwards in search +of the Lake of Bukerebe. Burton yielded his consent +reluctantly, and appears to have given but grudging +assistance in the shape of men and guides. Full of +energy, however, Speke gathered together a caravan, +which crossed Unyamwezi and Usukuma, and on the +30th of July, 1858, he saw the Mwanza creek, one +of the southernmost gulfs of the Victoria Nyanza. +The extremity of this he named “Jordans +Nullah.”<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">52</a> Travelling northwards along this creek, +on August 3d (1858), early in the morning, Speke +saw the open waters of a great lake with a sea horizon +to the north. Much of the horizon was shut in +by great and small islands, but Speke detected through +their interstices the vast extent of open water which +stretched to the north.</p> + +<p>He realised to the full the wonder of his discovery, +and the obvious probability that this mighty lake would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span> +prove to be the main headwaters of the White Nile. +Even Speke, however, failed to appreciate then or subsequently +the full extent of the Nyanza’s area. He +only guessed its breadth at over one hundred miles, +and its length from north to south at under two hundred. +Speke inquired from the natives the name of +this freshwater sea, and they replied “Nyanza,” which +in varying forms such as Nyanja, Nyasa, Mwanza, +Kianja, Luanza (according to prefix), is a widespread +Bantu root for a large extent of water,—a river or a +lake. To this term Speke added the name of Victoria +after the Queen of England. The following extract +from his book, “What Led to the Discovery of the +Source of the Nile,” gives his first impressions of the +great <span class="locked">lake:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The caravan, after quitting Isamiro, began winding +up a long but gradually inclined hill [which, as it bears no +native name, I shall call Somerset] until it reached its +summit, when the vast expanse of the pale blue waters +of the Nyanza burst suddenly upon my gaze. It was +early morning. The distant sea-line of the north horizon +was defined in the calm atmosphere between the north +and the west points of the compass; but even this did not +afford me any idea of the breadth of the lake, as an archipelago +of islands, each consisting of a single hill, rising +to a height two hundred or three hundred feet above +the water, intersected the line of vision to the left; while +on the right the western horn of the Ukerewe Island cut +off any further view of its distant waters to the eastward +of north. A sheet of water—an elbow of the sea, however, +at the base of the low range on which I stood—extended +far away to the eastward, to where, in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span> +dim horizon, a hummock-like elevation of the mainland +marked what I understood to be the south and east angle +of the lake. The important islands of Ukerewe and +Mzita, distant about twenty or thirty miles, formed the +visible north shore of this firth. The name of the former +of these islands was familiar to us as that by which this +long-sought lake was usually known. It is reported by +the natives to be of no great extent, and though of no +considerable elevation, I could discover several spurs +stretching down to the water’s edge from its central ridge +of hills. The other island, Mzita, is of greater elevation, +of a hog-backed shape, but being more distant its physical +features were not so distinctly visible.</p> + +<p>“In consequence of the northern islands of the Bengal +Archipelago before-mentioned obstructing the view, the +western shore of the lake could not be defined: a series +of low hill-tops extended in this direction as far as the +eye could reach; while below me, at no great distance, +was the <i lang="fr">débouchure</i> of the creek which enters the lake +from the south, and along the banks of which my last +three days’ journey had led me. This view was one +which even in a well-known and explored country would +have arrested the traveller by its peaceful beauty. The +islands, each swelling in a gentle slope to a rounded +summit, clothed with wood between the rugged, angular, +closely-cropping rocks of granite, seemed mirrored in +the calm surface of the lake, on which I here and there +detected a small black speck,—the tiny canoe of some +Muanza fisherman. On the gently shelving plain below +me blue smoke curled among the trees, which here and +there partially concealed villages and hamlets, their brown +thatched roofs contrasting with the emerald-green of the +beautiful aloes, the coral flower-branches of which cluster +in such profusion round the cottages, and form alleys and +hedgerows about the villages as ornamental as any garden<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span> +shrub in England. But the pleasure of the mere view +vanished in the presence of those more intense and exciting +emotions which are called up by the consideration +of the commercial and geographical importance of the +prospect before me.</p> + +<p>“I no longer felt any doubt that the lake at my feet +gave birth to that interesting river, the source of which +has been the subject of so much speculation, and the +object of so many explorers. The Arabs’ tale was proved +to the letter. This is a far more extensive lake than the +Tanganyika; ‘so broad that you could not see across it, +and so long that nobody knew its length.’ I had now the +pleasure of perceiving that a map I had constructed on +Arab testimony, and sent home to the Royal Geographical +Society before leaving Unyanyembe, was so substantially +correct in its general outlines I had nothing whatever to +alter. Further, as I drew that map after proving their +first statements about the Tanganyika, which were made +before my going there, I have every reason to feel confident +of their veracity relative to their travels north +through Karagwe, and to Kibuga in Uganda.”</p> +</div> + +<figure id="ip_123" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_1222_map.jpg" width="1358" height="2321" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_1222_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Sketch Map by Burton and Speke, 1858.</span></p> + <p>From the Original in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Unable to delay longer in his exploration of the +southern shores of the Victoria Nyanza, as he had +promised to rejoin Burton by a certain date, Speke +returned to Kaze in Unyanyembe, to find his companion +vexed at the great discovery which he had +made. Speke did not pursue the argument as to the +Victoria Nyanza being the main source of the Nile. +The two men journeyed together on more or less bad +terms to Zanzibar, where Burton remained to wind up +the affairs of the expedition, Speke returning direct +to England. Here the wonderful news he brought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span> +prompted the Royal Geographical Society to gather +together the funds for a fresh expedition, which was +to enable Speke to make good his discovery of the +lake, and to prove to the satisfaction of the scientific +world that this sheet of water was the ultimate source +of the White Nile.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII"><span id="toclink_125"></span>CHAPTER XII<br> + +<span class="subhead">SPEKE AND THE NILE QUEST</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">John Hanning Speke</span> was born on May 27, +1827, at Orleigh Court, Bideford, North Devon. +His father’s family had its seat in Somersetshire, near +the pretty old town of Ilminster, and was of ancient +descent. The name was spelled L’Espec in Norman +times, and apparently meant a spike or porcupine +quill (the family crest was a porcupine).<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">53</a> Speke’s +mother was a Miss Hanning of Dillington Park, also +in Somerset. He was one of four sons, and had several +sisters. As his father (Mr. William Speke), +after he came into the family place of Jordans near +Ilminster, had two church livings to dispose of, he +was desirous that two at least of his sons might be +brought up to the Church. John Hanning and Edward +Speke (who was killed at Delhi) declined such +a career, however, and wished to go into the army. +Speke was a restless boy, who detested school, declaring +that a sedentary life made him ill. Whenever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span> +he could escape from his masters, he was always out +in the woods and on the heaths, displaying a great +devotion to natural history and sport.</p> + +<p>When only seventeen his mother, who was acquainted +with the Duke of Wellington, obtained for +her two sons, John and Edward, commissions in the +Indian army. The Duke asked to see the boys, and +congratulated their mother on two such fine young +fellows coming forward for service in India. Edward +Speke, as already mentioned, was killed during the +Indian mutiny at the siege of Delhi. John Hanning +Speke himself, between the ages of seventeen and +twenty-two, had seen a good deal of military service +in India, and took part in the last Sikh war, +having been at the battles of Ramnagar, Sedulapur, +Chilianwala, and Guzerat.</p> + +<p>In 1849 he first entertained the idea of exploring +equatorial Africa. Prior to this date he had shot a +great deal in India, and subsequently explored southwestern +Tibet. His first interest in Africa lay in the +possibility of amassing magnificent zoölogical collections +to illustrate the fauna of that wide stretch +of country which lay between South Africa and Abyssinia. +He wished to supplement the researches of +Rüppell on the northeast and of Harris, Gordon Cumming, +and others in the far south. Even at that date +Speke desired to land at some point on the East +African coast, and strike across to the Nile, descending +the Nile to Egypt with his zoölogical collections.</p> + +<figure id="ip_126" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 23em;"> + <img src="images/i_1261.jpg" width="1419" height="2013" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">John Hanning Speke.</span></p> + +<p>At the age of 17, on first receiving his commission in the Indian Army.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>He obtained furlough in the autumn of 1854, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span> +proceeded to Aden with the intention of landing on the +opposite coast of Somaliland. Arrived at Aden, his +plans met with stubborn opposition from Colonel Sir +James Outram, the Resident, who not only opposed +Speke’s journeys, but even those which were officially +ordered by the Bombay government to be conducted +by Richard Burton. But the Bombay government, in +regard to the latter plan, insisted on Sir James Outram +withdrawing his opposition. Sir James Outram +then attached Speke to this expedition, knowing him +to be a good surveyor. Speke had in fact mapped a +good deal of southwestern Tibet, and was thoroughly +at home with the sextant. The results of this venture +have been described in the preceding chapter. The +Somali expedition led to Speke’s accompanying Burton +in 1857.</p> + +<p>Speke returned to England alone on the 8th of +May, 1859. The day after his arrival Sir Roderick +Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society, +decided that Speke was to be sent back as soon +as possible to substantiate his discovery of the Victoria +Nyanza, and to ascertain its connection with the +Nile system. But although funds were soon secured +by public subscription, it was deemed advisable by +Speke that the new expedition should not start for +nearly a year. Captain James Augustus Grant, who +had shot with Speke in India, begged leave to accompany +him as his lieutenant.</p> + +<figure id="ip_127" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 21em;"> + <img src="images/i_1282_map.jpg" width="1326" height="2062" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_1282_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Burton’s Idea of the Nile Sources, Dec. 1864.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Burton returned to England in 1859, somewhat chagrined +to hear of the enthusiasm with which Speke’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span> +discovery of the Victoria Nyanza had been received,—an +enthusiasm which to some extent had put the +revelation of Lake Tanganyika in the shade. Burton +nevertheless was awarded, in 1860, the Gold Medal +of the Royal Geographical Society, and in returning +thanks for this honour, he uttered a handsome acknowledgment +of Speke’s services as surveyor on +this expedition to the great lakes. But the two men +were evidently on bad terms, and though the fault of +their disaccord may have lain with Burton’s conduct, +the world knew of it first through the writings of +Speke in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” and later (in +1864) in the republication of these Blackwood articles +with additions under the title of “What Led to +the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.” In these +works Speke makes certain stinging references to +Burton. So far as an impartial verdict can be arrived +at, Speke in all probability spoke the truth; but +he was perhaps unduly hard on his companion, for +whom he had evidently a great personal dislike and +some degree of contempt. In some respects Speke’s +own education had been defective (at least, we are +told that he was so much of a truant as to receive +but little schooling before going to India). He may, +therefore, have been unable to appreciate to the full +Burton’s undoubted talents. Yet again, in reading +Speke’s books it would occur to no one to say that +he was deficient in education. He had become an admirable +geographer, a keen naturalist; and whether his +writing was or was not without grace of style, it was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span> +certainly pithy and to the point. His great book, the +“Discovery of the Source of the Nile,” is good reading +all through, and strikes one who, like the present +writer, has been over much of the same ground, as +being singularly truthful. It is as good a book as +any that Burton himself ever wrote on Africa, not +excepting even the excellent “Lake Regions.” Speke +was a fine figure of a man,—tall and handsome in +an English style, with blue eyes and a brown beard. +There is no doubt that he impressed the natives favourably +wherever he went as being a man and a +gentleman. Yet there was a little hardness in his +disposition, something pitiless in his criticisms of +Burton. Burton’s own attacks on Speke scarcely appeared +in a public form until four years after Speke +had returned to Africa. They were angry, and somewhat +clumsy, but not so incisive as Speke’s criticisms +of Burton. Burton’s chief revenge lay in endeavouring +for many years to prove that Speke had made no +very great discovery; that his Victoria Nyanza was +not the greatest lake in Africa and the main source +of the Nile, but a network of swamps and lakelets. +Burton hailed with delight Sir Samuel Baker’s description +of the Albert Nyanza as being the ultimate +origin of the White Nile. To meet this view he, +against his own convictions, tried to make the Rusizi +River flow out of the north end of Tanganyika instead +of flowing into that lake, in the hope that Tanganyika +was thus connected with Lake Albert,—a +fact which, if proved, would dwarf the discovery of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span> +the Victoria Nyanza into insignificance. To this end +he published a map, and endeavoured to persuade +every geographer who would listen to him that the +Victoria Nyanza was more than half a myth, and +that its contribution to the Nile waters was insignificant +compared to the supply received from the western +chain of lakes.</p> + +<p>Speke’s character was that of many an officer in +the British army. Though his family claimed Norman +descent, his physique was emphatically Anglo-Saxon. +Born almost without fear, he had perhaps too ready +a contempt for others of weaker nerve who could +better weigh the chances of danger and the counsels +of prudence. Speke was a splendid shot, and +accurate in those astronomical observations necessary +to the determination of geographical positions. He +had a good knowledge of Hindustani,<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">54</a> but not that +great readiness in picking up languages which was +Burton’s forte. Yet he was perfectly honest about +this, as about every talent which he possessed or +lacked. On the other hand, his great dislike of Burton<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span> +sometimes made him unjust in denying to his +companion the qualities of mind he really possessed. +Burton’s <i lang="fr">résumé</i> of ethnological information concerning +the East African tribes from the Zanzibar coast +to Uganda and the shores of Tanganyika is masterly, +and due to the most careful note-taking. It may +not, perhaps, be out of place if I quote a few lines +from a letter written by Sir Samuel Baker to a +<span class="locked">correspondent:<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">55</a>—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Speke comes first as a geographer and African explorer. +He was superior to Burton as a painstaking, +determined traveller, who worked out his object for the +real love of geographical research, without the slightest +jealousy of others.... But Burton excelled Speke in +cleverness and general information, though he was not +so reliable. Speke was a splendid fellow in every way.... Grant +(his companion) was one of the most loyal +and charming creatures in the world. Perfectly unselfish, +he adored Speke, and throughout his life he maintained +an attitude of chivalrous defence of Speke’s reputation.... They +were all friends of mine.”</p> +</div> + +<p>There is little doubt that Burton, who had displayed +such cool courage on his journey to Mecca, had received +a shock over the Somali attack on his camp in +1854, from which he never wholly recovered. His +proceedings in connection with the Tanganyika journey +were marked by something approaching timidity. +It is probable that had Speke been in command of this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span> +expedition much more would have been done than was +actually accomplished. Feeling this very strongly, and +realising that he had contributed a good deal of his +private funds to the resources of this and the preceding +Somali expedition, Speke considered himself quite +justified in hurrying home with the news of the expedition’s +discoveries, the more so because Burton had +snubbed him for his pains in connection with the Victoria +Nyanza. I do not think it can be said that he +ever treated Burton unfairly, but there was perhaps +in his behaviour a touch of hardness and a lack of +generosity. He heartily disliked Burton, and that was +the reason.</p> + +<figure id="ip_132" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_1321.jpg" width="1374" height="1597" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">James Augustus Grant.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In James Augustus Grant (as is indicated by the +quotation from Sir Samuel Baker’s letter) Speke had +found a companion after his own heart. Grant was a +handsome Scotchman of the “Iberian” type,—black +hair, dark eyes, dark eyebrows, clear complexion. In +later life the hair and the beard turned white, but +the face remained singularly youthful. Of Grant Sir +Samuel Baker writes: “He was the most unselfish +man I ever met; amiable and gentle to a degree that +might to a stranger denote weakness, but, on the contrary, +no man could be more determined in character +or unrelenting when once he was offended.” Grant, +like Speke, was a sportsman; he was also—in a somewhat +uninstructed way—a zoölogist and a botanist. +The botany of Africa, in fact, was his principal hobby. +He painted cleverly in water-colours, and did more than +anybody else, down to a quite recent date, to put before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span> +our eyes some idea of the beautiful coloration of +African wild flowers. He published at his own expense, +through the Linnæan Society, three volumes +illustrating the more notable features of his botanical +collections. Although most of these flowers were +drawn for him by scientific draughtsmen, his own +sketches supplied the means for an accurate coloration +which could no longer be ascertained from the +dried specimens. In this particular Grant has made +an important contribution to African research.</p> + +<p>Before leaving England Speke made arrangements, +through the British consul at Zanzibar, to send on an +instalment of porters and property to Unyamwezi, intending +to follow his old route to the Victoria Nyanza. +The Indian government, which has often done so much +to assist the opening up or the settlement of eastern +Africa, gave to Speke’s expedition fifty carbines and +twenty thousand rounds of ammunition, and lent him +as many surveying instruments as were required. The +government of India also put at his disposal rich presents +(gold watches) for such Arabs as had assisted +him on the former expedition.</p> + +<p>Petherick, whose explorations have been treated of +in the previous chapter, had recently arrived in England +from the Upper Nile, and had been promoted to +be British Consul. Speke, before he left England, +made arrangements with Petherick to place boats at +his disposal at Gondokoro, and to send a party of +men in the same direction to collect ivory and to wait +about in the vicinity of Gondokoro in order to assist<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span> +him when he should reach that part of the Nile. +Petherick was also invited to ascend the Asua River +(then thought to be a branch of the Nile instead of +an affluent) in case it should be another means of +communication with the Victoria Nyanza. Speke and +Grant journeyed out by way of the Cape, and at Cape +Town stayed for a while with the great Sir George +Grey, who, taking the greatest interest in their undertaking, +induced the Cape government to grant the +sum of three hundred pounds to be spent in buying +baggage mules. With these mules were sent ten Hottentot +mounted police. From Cape Town the expedition +was conveyed on a gunboat to Zanzibar. At +the commencement of October, 1860, Speke’s expedition +was organised, and he started for the interior. +His expedition consisted of one corporal and nine +privates of the Hottentot police; one jemadar and +twenty-five privates of the Baluch soldiery of the +Sultan of Zanzibar; one Arab caravan leader and +seventy-five freed slaves; one kirongozi or guide and +one hundred negro porters; two black valets, who +had both been man-of-war’s men and could speak +Hindustani; Frij, the black cook (also from a man-of-war), +and the invaluable “Bombay,” who was interpreter +and factotum. (The expedition took with it +twelve transport mules and three donkeys, also twenty-two +goats for milk and meat. The Hottentots soon +broke down in health, and took to riding the donkeys, +the mules being loaded with ammunition.) The white +men, as a rule, had to walk. The Hottentots were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span> +sometimes useful as camp cooks, but they suffered +so much from fever as to become a burden to the +expedition.</p> + +<figure id="ip_135" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 21em;"> + <img src="images/i_1341.jpg" width="1291" height="1976" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Mnyamwezi Porter.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“My first occupation [writes Speke]<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">56</a> was to map the +country. This is done by timing the rate of march +with a watch, making compass bearings along the road, +or any conspicuous marks,—as, for instance, hills off it,—and +by noting the watershed,—in short, all topographical +objects. On arrival in camp every day came +the ascertaining, by boiling-point thermometer, of the altitude +of the station above the sea-level; of the latitude of +the station by the meridian altitude of a star taken with +a sextant; and of the compass variation by azimuth. +Occasionally there was the fixing of certain crucial stations +at intervals of sixty miles or so, by lunar observations ... for +determining the longitude, by which the +original-timed course can be drawn out with certainty on +the map by proportion.... The rest of my work, besides +sketching and keeping a diary, which was the most +troublesome of all, consisted in making geological and +zoölogical collections. With Captain Grant rested the +botanical collections and thermometrical registers. He +also undertook the photography. The rest of our day +went in breakfasting after the march was over,—a pipe, +to prepare us for rummaging the fields and villages to +discover their contents for scientific purposes,—dinner +close to sunset, and tea and a pipe before turning in at +night.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Speke noticed in Uzegura deposits of pisolitic limestone +in which marine fossils are observable. He +draws attention to the interesting fact that a limestone +formation occurs with a few breaks almost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span> +continuously from the southwest coast of Portugal, +through North Africa, Egypt, and part of the Somali +country, across Arabia to eastern India.<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">57</a> In connection +with this it may be mentioned as a point of great +interest that Mr. C. W. Hobley (Sub-Commissioner +in the East Africa Protectorate) discovered deposits +of limestone in the Nyando valley, about forty miles +from the northeast corner of the Victoria Nyanza.</p> + +<p>Speke’s expedition travelled on with little trouble +as far as Usagara. The complete harmony which +existed at all times between Speke and Grant contributed +much to the smoothness of the arrangements. +At Usagara, however, they had trouble with one of +their caravan leaders (Baraka). The Hottentots became +increasingly sick and helpless, and Captain Grant +was seriously ill with fever. However, they pushed +on to that East Coast range of terraced mountains +which is nowadays dotted with not a few mission and +government stations. There is charming and fantastic +scenery in these mountains, which rise in parts to +an altitude of seven thousand feet. From Usagara +were sent back some of the Hottentots, a collection +of natural history specimens, and the camera. Speke +had greatly desired to illustrate the scenery of equatorial +Africa by means of photography,—a most serious +undertaking in the sixties. Grant worked the +apparatus, but was rendered so ill by the heat of the +dark tent that Speke decided to abandon photography +and to rely instead on his companion’s drawings.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span></p> + +<p>Ugogo, which is a rolling plateau to the west of +the Usagara range, gave the travellers some trouble. +Here, as elsewhere, there was famine, owing to the +scarcity of water and the incessant raids on the part +of the Masai from the north or the Wahehe from +the south. The Wagogo themselves are a truculent +people, who have given serious annoyance to caravans +during the last hundred years. They speak a Bantu +language, but have very much more the physical +aspect of the Nilotic tribes to the north, being, like +them, very much addicted to nudity.<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">58</a> On the plains +of Ugogo Grant killed the largest and handsomest +of all the gazelles, which had henceforth borne his +name.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">59</a></p> + +<p>In Ugogo Speke also records the existence of that +strange archaic type of dog, the <i class="taxonomy">Otocyon</i>, a specimen of +which he killed. On the western frontier of Ugogo the +expedition was menaced with serious trouble. The rapacious +native chief made increasing demands on them +for taxes. A number of their porters deserted, and +their Wanyamwezi carriers who had agreed to replace +the missing men were scared away by the threats of +the Wagogo. In addition, the rainy season had come +on, and was unusually heavy, flooding the country in +all directions. The expedition would have come to +grief but for the game shot by its leaders, which kept<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span> +the men from starvation. It was only got out of its +difficulties at last by the friendly help of the Arabs +of Unyamwezi, who sent seventy porters to the relief +of the explorers. When Speke reached the borders of +Unyamwezi and took stock of his position, he found +that six of his Hottentots were dead or had been sent +back to the coast in charge of several free porters, +that twenty-five of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s slaves and +ninety-eight of the original Wanyamwezi porters had +deserted, all the mules and donkeys were dead, and +half of his property had been stolen.</p> + +<p>Unyamwezi, “the Land of the Moon,” is a remarkable +part of eastern Africa. Practically it consists of +nearly all the land lying between the Victoria Nyanza +on the north and the vicinity of Lake Rukwa on the +south. It is longer (from north to south) than it is +broad. Prior to the German occupation it had ceased +to be a single kingdom, and was divided into a number +of small and mutually hostile states only united +by the common bond of the Kinyamwezi language. +This varies a good deal in dialect, though it has distinctive +features of its own. In Usukuma to the +north it offers more resemblance to the languages of +the Uganda Protectorate; on the south it links on in +some way with the languages of the Nyasa-Tanganyika +plateau. How the country became associated with the +moon is not known; for the most part of it is an +undulating plateau, with occasional rift valleys that +contain salt or fresh water pools. A great part of its +drainage goes towards Tanganyika or Lake Rukwa.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span> +The language of its people is typically Bantu, but they +would seem to be a very mixed race physically. Some +of them have the ugly features of the Congo Pygmies; +others again are strikingly like the Galas and the +Bahima. The bulk of the nation consists of tall and +very muscular Negroes, with thoroughly Negro features. +They are celebrated as porters, being able to +carry burdens twice as heavy as could be offered to +any other carriers. They have also a keen instinct +for trade, and it is supposed that, first of all Bantu +nations of the East African interior, they opened up +communications with the coast. There has been trade +going on between the Zanzibar coast and Unyamwezi +for at least five centuries,—a trade, however, which +has been subject to prolonged interruptions. The +Zanzibar Arabs did not settle in the country until a +hundred years ago.</p> + +<p>Conversing with the Arabs of Unyamwezi, Speke +again heard from them of “a wonderful mountain +to the northward of Karagwe<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">60</a> so high and steep that +no one could ascend it. It was seldom visible, being +up in the clouds, where white matter—snow or hail—fell +on it.” The Arabs also spoke of the other +lake, which was salt and also called Nyanza, but +quite different from the Victoria.<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">61</a> From the Arabs +Speke also heard of the naked Nile Negroes to the +north and east of Unyoro, and of those of them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span> +(the Lango) who, like the Turkana farther east, wear +their hair in enormous bags down the back. They +told him that Lake Tanganyika was drained by the +Marungu River.<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">62</a> Some of this knowledge Speke +perverted to fit in with erroneous and preconceived +notions. At this interval of time, however, one is +surprised at the correctness of geographical information +given to Burton, Speke, and Baker by the Arabs. +One is still more surprised that the constant hints as to +the great snow-mountain range of Ruwenzori should +have so often fallen on deaf ears.</p> + +<p>In Unyamwezi Speke’s further progress was much +delayed, owing to the difficulty in getting porters. +The country to the east from which he had come was +convulsed with wars between the Arabs and the natives. +In these wars figured, as a bandit leader of +handsome appearance and remarkable adventures, the +celebrated Manwa Sera, a dispossessed Unyamwezi +chief. In the course of these wars Speke’s principal +friends amongst the Arabs were killed or disappeared. +Amongst them was the celebrated Snay, the first Arab +to enter Uganda, and in fact the first non-Negro to +convey the news of the existence of Uganda to the civilised +world. On the northwest trouble was threatened +by the warlike country of Usui, whose chief, Suwarora, +blocked the way to Karagwe by his extortions. To +the west and north also the country was being raided +by the Watuta, a mysterious race of warlike nomads +who were said to be of Zulu origin, and were, according<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span> +to all accounts, the furthest extension of the great +Zulu invasion of East Africa, which took place in the +first half of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>Speke attempted to recruit porters in the northern +parts of Unyamwezi, but without success. He therefore +returned to the headquarters of the Arabs at +Kaze, and from this point sent back the last of the +Hottentots to the coast. Speke, seeing that he could +get no farther without bringing some order into the +country, negotiated a peace between Manwa Sera and +the Arabs. The peace with Manwa Sera broke down. +Finally Speke decided to leave Bombay and Grant behind +in northern Unyamwezi with the loads which it +was impossible to transport. With such porters as he +had he pushed on to the northwest and entered Buzinza, +the first country ruled by Bahima chiefs.<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">63</a> Speke remarks +rightly that specimens of this Hamitic (Gala) +aristocracy extend from the south shores of the Victoria +Nyanza southwards as far as the Fipa country +and the edges of the Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau. On +pages 128 to 134 of his book<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">64</a> Speke gives an excellent +description of the maddening extortions of a +petty African chief. This behaviour on the chief’s +part should be borne in mind when the armchair geographer +is inclined to lay all the blame on the European +and Arab for commencing wars with Negro +tribes.</p> + +<p>From February to October Speke had the most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span> +trying experiences which were to await him on +this journey. He travelled backwards and forwards +from Kaze to Uzinza, endeavouring in all possible +ways to get porters to carry him to Usui. In these +journeys he caught a severe cold, the effects of which +lasted for months in a most distressing cough, and +some disease of the chest which he could not diagnose. +His caravans were robbed, though the goods +were sometimes recovered. Several of his Swahili +headmen turned traitors; Bombay alone was faithful. +Grant, when he had recovered from fever, marched +and countermarched. But Speke had fortunately managed +months before to send on word of his coming to +Suwarora, Chief of Usui, who himself was a vassal of +Rumanika, the great Hima ruler of Karagwe. Suwarora +sent an envoy with his mace to invite Speke to +proceed at once to his court. This intervention made +a good impression on the treacherous chief of Buzinza, +Lumeresi. Much of the stolen property was recovered, +and the expedition obtaining a few porters started +for Usui in October, 1861.</p> + +<p>Grant was left behind with such of the property as +could not be removed. Speke, when he left Buzinza, +“was a most miserable spectre in appearance, puffing +and blowing at each step he took, with shoulders drooping +and left arm hanging like a dead log, which he +was unable to swing.” At last, after incredible worries +and trouble, occasioned by the demands for “hongo” +(tribute) on the part of every petty chief whose territories +they crossed, they reached the large country of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span> +Usui or Busui at the southwest corner of the Victoria +Nyanza. Usui is “a most convulsed looking country +of well-rounded hills composed of sandstone.... +Cattle were numerous, kept by the Wahuma (Bahima), +who would not sell their milk to us because we ate +fowls and a bean called <i>maharagwe</i>.” In Usui the +caravan was incessantly worried at night by the attacks +of thieves until one of these was killed, whereupon +the Basui congratulated the expedition, saying +that the slain man was a wonderful magician. “They +thought us wonderful men, possessed of supernatural +powers.” Suwarora and his fellow-chief Vikora were +most exacting in their demands for hongo. At last, +after heart-breaking delays, they got away out of Suwarora’s +country.</p> + +<p>Between Usui and Karagwe was one of those no +man’s lands, which at times are such a relief to the +harassed traveller,—a land in which he can enjoy +the beauty of the landscapes, the excitement of +sport in complete freedom from the harassing attentions +of Negro tribes. In this lovely wilderness +they were greeted by officers sent to their assistance +by Rumanika, who said, “Rumanika has ordered us +to bring you to his palace at once, and wherever you +stop a day, the village officers are instructed to supply +you with food at the King’s expense; for there are +no taxes gathered from strangers in the Kingdom of +Karagwe.” Speke noted the little lake of Urigi, and +learned from the natives that this was the remains of +a much larger sheet of water. They declared, in fact,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span> +that this lake had formerly extended far to the southwards +in the direction of Tanganyika, having been at +one time a considerable gulf of the Victoria Nyanza.</p> + +<p>For the first time since leaving the coast they travelled +day after day through beautiful and attractive +scenery, in which rhinoceroses, both “white” and +black, and herds of hartebeest mingled with the +splendid long-horned cattle of the natives. Speke +and Grant shot several square-lipped “white” rhinoceroses. +(Stanley subsequently did the same in this +country of Karagwe. Though it has since been shot +on the Upper Nile, this creature is now becoming +extinct in East Equatorial Africa.) “Leaving the +valley of Uthenja, we rose over the spur of Nyamwara, +and found we had attained the delightful +altitude of five thousand feet. Oh, how we enjoyed +it!—every one feeling so happy at the prospect of +meeting the good king Rumanika. Rumanika the +king and his brother Nyanaji were both of them men +of noble appearance and size.... They had fine +oval faces, large eyes, and high noses, denoting the +best blood of Abyssinia. Having shaken hands in +true English style, which is the peculiar custom of +the men of this country, the ever-smiling Rumanika +begged us to be seated on the ground opposite to +him, and at once wished to know what we thought +of Karagwe, for it had struck him his mountains were +the finest in the world; and the lake, too, did we +not admire it?”</p> + +<figure id="ip_144" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 21em;"> + <img src="images/i_1441.jpg" width="1298" height="1679" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Hima of Mpororo, near Karagwe.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Speke subsequently went to see the queens and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span> +princesses of this royal family, who, by means of +a milk diet, were kept immoderately fat. Of one +of them he writes: “She could not rise; and so +large were her arms that between the joints the flesh +hung down like large, stuffed puddings. Then in came +their children, all models of the Abyssinian type of +beauty, and as polite in their manners as thoroughbred +gentlemen.”</p> + +<p>Rumanika and his brothers received their presents +with a graceful gratitude which was striking after +the ill manners of the Negro chiefs in Unyamwezi +and Usui. Rumanika begged Speke to remain a little +while in his country so that he might send on word +of his coming to the King of Uganda. Speke consented +to do so, and when walking about the vicinity +of the king’s capital, descried the distant cone of +Mfumbiro. This he at once identified with the Mountains +of the Moon and with the story of the snow-capped +peaks. It is curious, seeing how friendly were +all the Bahima, and what facilities were given to him +for travelling about the country of Karagwe, that he +made no attempt to enter Ruanda whilst waiting to go +on to the north, and thus obtain a nearer acquaintance +with the Mountains of the Moon. Had he done so, he +might perchance have caught a glimpse of Ruwenzori. +Grant’s drawing of Mfumbiro and other volcanoes +(since explored by many travellers) is a truthful +one.</p> + +<p>In Rumanika’s country Speke discovered the water +tragelaph which now bears his name (<i class="taxonomy">Limnotragus spekei</i>).<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span> +This creature has the hoofs very much prolonged, +so as to enable it to walk on floating vegetation +and marshy ground. Speke at once discerned +that this creature was closely allied to the water +tragelaph found by Livingstone on Lake Ngami.</p> + +<figure id="ip_146" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 23em;"> + <img src="images/i_1461.jpg" width="1455" height="1106" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Speke’s Tragelaph</span> (<i class="taxonomy">Limnotragus spekei</i>). + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The existence of this Bahima<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">65</a> aristocracy in the +countries west and south of the Victoria Nyanza was +not reported for the first time in Speke’s account of +his second journey to the Victoria Nyanza. First of +all, in the early fifties, the Zanzibar Arabs brought +to the coast—either at Mombasa or Zanzibar—accounts +of a race of “white” men who lived on the +Mountains of the Moon. Burton, analysing these +stories at Kaze in Unyamwezi, reduced them to accounts +of Bahima, who were believed to have the +features and complexion of Abyssinians. Speke’s arrival +in Buzinza and Karagwe made us partially acquainted +with the facts. We now know that at some +relatively remote period not less than two thousand +years ago the lands between the Victoria and Albert +Nyanzas were invaded from the northeast by a Caucasian +race allied to the Gala and the Egyptian. These +ancestors of the Bahima mingled to some extent with +the indigenous Negroes, and so somewhat darkened the +colour of their skins and acquired hair more like +the Negro’s wool. This pastoral people brought with +them herds of cattle from the direction of Abyssinia<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span> +or Galaland,—cattle with enormous horns, sometimes +over three feet in length. This breed of cattle +is found at the present day in southern and western +Abyssinia. It is also depicted—with other breeds on +the Egyptian monuments. It is supposed to be +allied in origin to the stock which gave rise to the +ordinary humped cattle of India,—the Zebu type. +These oxen with enormous horns—horns which are +not only very long but sometimes very large in girth—are +found westwards as far as the vicinity of Lake +Chad, and in a more degenerate type farther west still, +to the sources of the Niger. It might be thought that +they were also related to the long-horned cattle of +South Africa, but it is sometimes asserted that the long-horned +South African cattle owe their main origin to +the introduction of Spanish breeds by the Portuguese, +the cattle met with by the first Europeans in South +Africa having belonged to the humped zebu type.</p> + +<p>The Bahima once founded an empire which stretched +from the northern limits of Unyoro and the Victoria +Nile westward to the Congo Forest and southward +to the coast of Tanganyika. This ancient Empire of +Kitara split up into a number of states governed for +the most part by Hima dynasties, though in Uganda +the native kings became more and more Negro in aspect +through their fathers’ intermarriage with Negro +women. But for the most part friendly relations subsisted +between all the states into which the Empire of +Kitara was subdivided; it was only in more recent +times that the existing blood feud sprang up between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span> +Unyoro and Uganda. The Bahima were reverenced +and admired by the mass of the Negro population as the +descendants of supernatural beings who had brought to +these lands what little civilisation they possessed. Intermarriage +constantly took place between the dynasties +of Buzinza, Usui, Karagwe, Ruanda, Mpororo, +Ankole, Unyoro, and Uganda. This and other causes +for intercommunication gave intelligent chiefs like +Rumanika a considerable grasp of African geography. +These chiefs knew that their world was bounded on +the west by the impenetrable Congo Forest. They +knew all about Tanganyika, the Victoria Nyanza, the +Masai countries, the course of the Nile as far north +as Gondokoro, and even the existence of Lake Rudolf. +Perhaps also they had a glimmering knowledge not +only of the “Turks” on the White Nile (which was +the case), but also of the existence of men like themselves +in Galaland and Abyssinia. Speke and subsequent +travellers found these Hima sovereigns and their +courts very different to the petty Negro states of East +Africa. Besides the recognised king (a member of a +long dynasty), there were regularly established Court +officials and functionaries, and an orderly system of +government. Travellers like Speke were not slow to +appreciate the influence which this Gala invasion of +equatorial Africa had on the Negro types. We now +begin to feel that this Negrified Caucasian has interpenetrated +most parts of Negro Africa between the +Cameroons and Zanzibar, and between the northern +limits of the Sudan and Natal. In the western prolongation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span> +of Africa something like the same infiltration +of a superior race has been brought about by the +Tawareqs of the Sahara. This Libyan race is also of +the Caucasian family, more directly so indeed than the +curly-haired Gala, who, mixing with the Libyan, laid +the foundation of Ancient Egyptian civilisation.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII"><span id="toclink_150"></span>CHAPTER XIII<br> + +<span class="subhead">SPEKE IN UGANDA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Speke</span> and Grant both seem to have taken the +shape and existence of the Victoria Nyanza for +granted. No doubt from the highlands of Karagwe +and Buddu they occasionally caught glimpses of the +distant Nyanza; besides which the chiefs and the +Arabs spoke of its existence as a fact which could +be ascertained by one or two days’ journey to the +east. Speke was more concerned himself with losing +no time in getting to the point at which the Nile left +the Victoria Nyanza. He made little or no attempt +to delineate the coast line of that lake with any accuracy, +and as we know, he placed the west coast much +too far to the east, reducing the lake to almost two-thirds +of its actual area. Seeing how near he marched +to the coast in Buddu, it is curious that he got no +sight of the large archipelago of the Sese Islands,<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">66</a> +which can be sighted from a distance of many miles. +There is no indication of these islands on his map. +Apparently he made no attempts to check his computation +of the altitude of the Victoria Nyanza, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span> +in 1858 he computed at 3740 feet (an estimate not +far off the correct one of 3775 feet). All the other +altitudes taken by his boiling-point thermometer +seem to be too low. His surmise that the Ripon Falls +are only 3308 feet above sea-level is more than four +hundred feet too low; and if his altitudes in northern +Unyamwezi are correct (which I doubt), the waters +of the Victoria Nyanza must be a huge, pent-up +dam which would flood large tracts of German East +Africa.</p> + +<figure id="ip_151" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 34em;"> + <img src="images/i_1501.jpg" width="2165" height="976" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Ripon Falls from the West Bank.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Grant had to be left behind in Karagwe, owing +to an ulcerated leg. Speke decided upon going to +Uganda alone, but despatched the head-man of his +caravan, Baraka, with a companion to the north of +Unyoro, providing him with a letter to Petherick. +He himself entered Uganda (first of all Europeans +to do so) on the 16th of January, 1862. He travelled +along the coast country of Buddu, and soon began to +appreciate the beauty of the land.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“I felt inclined to stop here a month, everything was so +very pleasant. The temperature was perfect. The roads, +as indeed they were everywhere, were as broad as our +coach roads, cut through the long grasses, straight over +the hills and down through the woods in the dells,—a +strange contrast to the wretched tracks in all adjacent +countries. The huts were kept so clean and so neat, not +a fault could be found with them; the gardens the same. +Wherever I strolled I saw nothing but richness, and what +ought to be wealth. The whole land was a picture of +quiescent beauty, with a boundless sea in the background. +Looking over the hills, it struck the fancy at once that at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span> +one period the whole land must have been at a uniform +level with their present tops, but that, by the constant +denudation it was subjected to by the frequent rains, it +had been cut down and sloped into those beautiful hills +and dales which now so much please the eye; for there +were none of those quartz dykes I had seen protruding +through the same kind of aqueous formations in Usui +and Karagwe, nor were there any other sorts of volcanic +disturbance to distort the quiet aspect of the scene.”</p> +</div> + +<figure id="ip_152" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_1522.jpg" width="1600" height="1276" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A View in Uganda.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Speke found an Uganda not much smaller in area +than that Negro kingdom is to-day. It lacked the +large slices of Unyoro which were cut off and added +to Uganda after the commencement of the British +Protectorate, but it probably wielded a political influence +over Busoga on the east and Toro on the +west, since denied to it. The population of this kingdom +in those days was computed at not far under +four millions. Its administrators at the present time +are doubtful if the same kingdom possesses eight hundred +thousand inhabitants. The roads then were as +broad and as well kept as they are now. It is sad to +think that the people were possibly happier. True, +their despotic ruler—whom they regarded with almost +religious veneration—slaughtered and tortured +those who frequented his Court; but the people at large +were little affected by these deeds of cruelty, even if +they did not regard them with that disinterested admiration +which the Negro always accords to a display +of force. Syphilis had wrought but slight ravages +amongst them; indeed, it was a disease of but recent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span> +introduction (coming from the Nile).<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">67</a> No religious +feuds had begun. The people believed their monarch +to be the mightiest on earth, and themselves to +be the happiest folk, living in a real paradise. For +beauty the land can hardly be matched elsewhere in +Africa. The one indisputable flaw in the climate is +the frequency of dangerous thunderstorms. But for +these reminders of a harsher law the Baganda might +well have looked back on their life under Mutesa +and his predecessors as one of ideal happiness. They +had plenty to eat. Their banana groves provided the +staple of their diet unfailingly. In addition, the rich +soil grew such legumens and cereals as they required. +The rivers, lakes, and marshes swarmed with fish. +Cattle throve. Goats, sheep, and fowls were abundant. +Bark cloth from the fig-trees and carefully +dressed skins provided the clothing they were so +scrupulous to wear; for they shuddered at open indecency, +and yet led the most licentious lives, licentiousness +then paying no penalty in the spread of +malignant diseases. This would be the way in which +the average Muganda might look back on the past. +Of course there was another side to the picture, no +doubt. The paradisaical, unmoral lives of easy indulgence +in their banana groves ill fitted them in the +long run to cope with the attacks of stronger races.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span> +Fate led them under the British ægis after the country +had been brought to something like ruin by ten +years of civil war, and ten years of wretched misgovernment +at the hands of a wicked sovereign. Had +the British Protectorate not been declared, it is futile +to suppose the country could have retained its independence. +It would have been annexed by Germany +or France, have been added to the Congo Free State +or to the Egyptian Sudan.<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">68</a> If by some miracle it +had escaped any one of these masters, it would have +fallen victim later on to the Abyssinian raiders of +the present day.</p> + +<p>Speke found the country governed by a worshipped +despot, Mutesa, who had just succeeded to a throne +which had been in existence for something like four +hundred and fifty years in an unbroken dynasty +originally of Hima origin. This despot was a young +man of agreeable countenance, with somewhat negroid +features but a yellowish-brown skin. He had +the large, liquid eyes characteristic of all the princes +and princesses of this family. He lived in palaces +which, though built of palm trunks, reeds, and grass +were often imposing in appearance, with roofs rising +to fifty feet above the ground. The interior of these +dwellings had a raised floor of mud, hard as cement, +and was divided into compartments by reed screens. +The floor would be strewn with a soft carpet of fine +fragrant grass, on which leopard skins and beautifully<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span> +dressed ox-hides were laid down. The towns consisted +mainly of collections of these straw-thatched dwellings +surrounded by large gardens and banana groves, and +fenced off from the outer world by tall reed fences so +plaited as to produce an agreeably variegated aspect. +Speke and his companion, and the Swahili porters +with them, noticed the resemblance offered by this +beautifully “tidy” country of Uganda to the civilised +coast belt of Zanzibar. Negro savagery was far +removed, especially in sanitary matters, where the +arrangements were quite equal to those in force in +England one hundred years ago. The religion of the +country consisted of a worship paid to a large number +of Ba-lubari or spirits, some of which were obviously +ancestral, and others the personification of earth, +air, or water forces.<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">69</a> The ministers of this religion +were the Ba-mandwa or sorcerer-priests. Originally +these priests were of the Bahima stock. Indeed, +this religion which prevails amongst so many tribes +in western and equatorial Africa seems to have had +(like the Bahima aristocracy) a Hamitic origin, and +to have come originally from the regions east of the +White Nile.</p> + +<p>Mutesa’s Court was remarkable for its hierarchy of +officials. The principal minister is now the Katikiro, +but was formerly styled Kamuraviona. He was formerly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span> +the commander-in-chief, though now no longer +associated with such office. Some functions were hereditary, +such as the Pokino or Governor of Buddu; +but these hereditary posts were formerly the recognition +of the existence of feudatory princes. The Kimbugwe +was formerly the guardian of the king’s navel +string and the keeper of his drums. The Mugema was +the commissioner in charge of the royal tombs; Kasuju +was the guardian of the king’s sisters; Mukwenda +was his treasurer; Kauta was the steward of +his kitchen; Seruti his head brewer; and so forth. In +course of time many of these functions were purely +honorary. The system seems to have come, like so +much else of the civilisation of Uganda, from the +Hamitic invaders, and it bears a curious resemblance +to the origin of similar functionaries in the courts of +Europe.</p> + +<p>Society also was divided much as it is in our own +world. There were the Royal Family and its collateral +branches, known as Balángira, or princes. The +princesses were called Bambeja. The Baronage was +styled Bakungu. Then there was an upper class of +functionaries known as Batongoli, while the peasants +were classed as Bakopi.</p> + +<p>Speke—handsome, manly, kindly, and straightforward—became +an immense favourite with the +volatile tyrant of Uganda, with the queens (for there +were several queens—dowagers, mothers, consorts—at +once in Uganda), with the nobles, and with +the people. “My beard,” he writes, “engrossed the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span> +major part of most conversations; all the Baganda +said they would come out in future with hairy faces.” +The Royal Family of Uganda, he also remarks, gave +orders without knowing how they were to be carried +out, and treated all practical arrangements as trifling +details not worth their attention; so that Speke and his +caravan sometimes found themselves not very well off +for food. The king or the queen-mother had said, +“Let them be fed,” but ministers were not equally +eager to see the royal largesse awarded. The handsome +young king was extremely trying to deal with, +as he put a great many questions and seldom waited +for the answers. His slavish courtiers were constantly +on their bellies, uttering incessant expressions of +“Thank you very much” (“Niyanzi-ge”) for whatever +their chief was pleased to do, say, or show to +them. Not infrequently Speke intervened to save the +lives of queens or pages who for a nothing were condemned +to a cruel execution. On one occasion a picnic +on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza was attended by +the following incident. One of Mutesa’s <span class="locked">wives,—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="in0">“a most charming creature, and truly one of the best of +the lot, plucked a fruit and offered it to the king, thinking, +doubtless, to please him greatly; but he, like a madman, +flew into a towering passion, said it was the first +time a woman had ever had the impudence to offer him +anything, and ordered the pages to seize, bind, and lead +her off to execution. These words were no sooner uttered +by the king than the whole bevy of pages slipped their +cord turbans from their heads, and rushed like a pack +of cupid beagles upon the fairy queen, who, indignant at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span> +the little urchins daring to touch her majesty, remonstrated +with the king, and tried to beat them off like flies, +but was soon captured, overcome, and dragged away, +crying on the names of the Kamuraviona and ‘Mzungu’ +(myself) for help and protection; whilst Lubuga, the +pet sister, and all the other women clasped the king by his +legs, and kneeling, implored forgiveness for their sister. +The more they craved for mercy, the more brutal he became, +till at last he took a heavy stick and began to belabour +the poor victim on the head. Hitherto I had been +extremely careful not to interfere with any of the king’s +acts of arbitrary cruelty, knowing that such interference, +at an early stage, would produce more harm than good. +This last act of barbarism, however, was too much for +my English blood to stand; and as I heard my name, +‘Mzungu,’<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">70</a> imploringly pronounced, I rushed at the +king, and staying his uplifted arm, demanded from him +the woman’s life. Of course I ran imminent risk of +losing my own in thus thwarting the capricious tyrant; +but his caprice proved the friend of both. The novelty +of interference even made him smile, and the woman was +instantly released.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Speke had quitted Grant in January, 1862. The +two travellers did not meet again till the end of May +in the same year. Grant had been constantly ill, and +had been unable to make any survey of the lake shore. +It was not till the 7th of July that Speke and Grant +obtained leave to quit the capricious king on their +journey eastwards to the Nile. The day before they +started Speke <span class="locked">notes:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“On the way home one of the king’s favourite women +overtook us, walking, with her hands behind her head, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span> +execution, crying ‘Nyawo’ in the most pitiful manner. +A man was preceding her, but did not touch her; for she +loved to obey the orders of her king voluntarily, and in +consequence of previous attachment was permitted as a +mark of distinction to walk free. Wondrous world! It +was not ten minutes since we parted from the king, +yet he had found time to transact this bloody piece of +business.”</p> +</div> + +<p>On the following morning the king replied to +Speke’s farewell remarks “with great feeling and +good taste.” The king followed him with his courtiers +in a procession to his camp, and exhorted the +porters to follow the travellers through fire and water. +“Then, exchanging adieus again, he walked ahead in +gigantic strides up the hill, the pretty favourite of his +harem, Lubuga, beckoning and waving with her little +hands, and crying, ‘Bana! Bana!’<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">71</a> All showed +a little feeling at the severance. We saw them no +more.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV"><span id="toclink_160"></span>CHAPTER XIV<br> + +<span class="subhead">FROM VICTORIA NYANZA TO ALEXANDRIA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">On</span> the 28th of July, 1862, Speke stood by the +side of the Ripon Falls, where the Victoria +Nile leaves the great Nyanza at the head of Napoleon +Gulf. Grant had gone off with a portion of the expedition +on the more direct route to Unyoro. Speke +had reached the Victoria Nile first of all below its exit +from the lake, and describes the scene as <span class="locked">follows:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“It was the very perfection of the effect aimed at in +a highly kept park, with a magnificent stream of from +six to seven hundred yards wide, dotted with islets and +rocks,—the former occupied by fishermen’s huts, the +latter by birds and crocodiles basking in the sun,—flowing +between fine, high grassy banks, with rich trees +and plantains in the background, where herds of topi +and hartebeest could be seen grazing, while the hippopotami +were snorting in the water and bustards and +guineafowl were rising at our feet.”</p> +</div> + +<figure id="ip_160" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_1601.jpg" width="1696" height="1291" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">The Nile at the Isamba Rapids</span> (looking North).</p> + +<p>Where Speke first struck it.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Marching up the left bank of the Nile towards +the lake, he thus describes that river at the Isamba +<span class="locked">rapids:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The water ran deep between its banks, which were +covered with fine grass, soft cloudy acacia, and festoons +of lilac convolvuli, whilst here and there, where the land<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span> +had slipped above the rapids, bared spaces of red earth +could be seen, like that of Devonshire; there, too, the +waters, impeded by a natural dam, seemed like a huge +mill pond, sullen and dark, in which two crocodiles, lying +about, were looking out for prey. From the high banks +I looked down upon a line of sloping wooded islets +lying across the stream, which divide its waters, and, by +interrupting them, cause at once both dam and rapids. +The whole was more fairy-like, wild, and romantic than—I +must confess that my thoughts took that shape—anything +I ever saw outside of a theatre. It was exactly +the sort of place, in fact, where, bridged across from one +side-slip to the other, on a moonlight night, brigands +would assemble to enact some dreadful tragedy. Even +the Wangwana (Zanzibaris) seemed spellbound at the +novel beauty of the sight, and no one thought of moving +till hunger warned us that night was setting in, and we +had better look out for lodgings.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Speke describes the Ripon Falls, where the Nile +leaves the lake, as by far the most interesting sight +he had ever seen in Africa. The falls are stemmed +by rocky islands and crowned by magnificent trees.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">72</a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“It was a sight that attracted one to it for hours,—the +roar of the waters, the thousands of passenger-fish, leaping +at the falls with all their might, the Basoga and +Baganda fishermen coming out in boats and taking post +on all the rocks with rod and hook, hippopotami and crocodiles +lying sleepily on the water, the ferry at work above +the falls, and cattle driven down to drink at the margin +of the lake. The scene made, in all, with the pretty nature +of the country,—small hills, grassy-topped, with trees<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span> +in the folds, and gardens on the lower slopes,—as interesting +a picture as one could wish to see.”</p> +</div> + +<p>This was Speke’s furthest point eastward in connection +with Nile discovery. He confesses in his +book that he has missed much by not going through +Busoga to see the northeast corner of the lake. Had +he done so, he might have cleared up at the very beginning +the most disputed portion of that lake’s +geography. At the northeast corner of the Victoria +Nyanza is a long and narrow gulf which we now +term Kavirondo Bay. This gulf figures on Speke’s +map as a semi-independent Lake Baringo. Stanley, +in his circumnavigation, wholly overlooked it, as its +mouth is blocked by islands. Joseph Thompson read +a quarter of the riddle. One-half was guessed by Mr. +C. W. Hobley, and the remaining quarter was cleared +up by an expedition under Commander Whitehouse.</p> + +<figure id="ip_162" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_1621.jpg" width="1207" height="1146" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Ripon Falls, from Bugunga, where Speke first +saw them.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>These falls of the Nile were named after the Earl +de Grey and Ripon, then President of the Royal +Geographical Society; and the gulf of the Victoria +Nyanza, from which the Nile issued, was called Napoleon +Channel after the then Emperor of the French. +Speke and his party, with their Baganda guides, got +into canoes, and paddled some distance down the Nile +north of the Isamba rapids. But just as they were +nearing Lake Kioga (of whose existence Speke was +ignorant) they passed an important town on the left +bank of the Nile which was an outpost of Unyoro, +under a semi-independent chief. Here the party was +received with the greatest hostility, and obliged to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span> +give up the river route. Speke struck inland to the +waters of the Luajali, which he wrongly believed to +be another outlet of the Victoria Nyanza, and shortly +afterwards met Grant, who was on his return journey +from the capital of Unyoro. After some hesitation +they decided to join forces and march on Unyoro overland. +By this means they entirely lost count of the +course of the Victoria Nile for some distance, and of +the existence of the great lakes Kioga and Kwania. +As they crossed the boundary line and entered Unyoro, +Speke <span class="locked">writes:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“This first march was a picture of all the country to +its capital: an interminable forest of small trees, bush, +and tall grass, with scanty villages, low huts, and dirty-looking +people clad in skins; the plantain, sweet potato, +sesamum, and ulezi (millet) forming the chief edibles, +besides goats and fowls; whilst the cows, which are +reported to be numerous, were kept, as everywhere else +where pasture-lands are good, by the wandering, unsociable +Wahuma, and were seldom seen. No hills, except +a few scattered cones, disturb the level surface of the land, +and no pretty views ever cheer the eye. Uganda is now +entirely left behind; we shall not see its like again; for the +further one leaves the equator, and the rain-attracting +influences of the Mountains of the Moon, vegetation +decreases proportionately with the distance.”</p> +</div> + +<figure id="ip_163" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_1624.jpg" width="1178" height="1210" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">View of Napoleon Gulf, from Jinja.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Speke had sent on, many months in advance, his +head-man, Baraka, to await him in Unyoro, and possibly +to convey letters to Petherick. But for this action +in all probability a peaceful entry into Unyoro +would have been refused, as the Baganda were much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span> +detested there for their predatory raids. Kamurasi, +King of Unyoro, was very nearly as big a scoundrel +and as inhospitable to strangers as his son Kabarega, +who is now residing in the Seychelles Islands. After +innumerable difficulties caused by the caprices of Mutesa +and the jealousies subsisting between the Baganda +and Banyoro, and the fierce suspicions of Kamurasi, +they reached the capital of that monarch who considered +himself to be the legitimate emperor over all +the lands once ruled by the Bahima race. This capital +was situated then on a peninsula between the Kafu +River and the Nile, on what is now the soil of Uganda. +The Kafu River, which is a broad, marshy stream rising +not far from the Albert Nyanza, is the present +boundary between the two kingdoms. Speke wrongly +believed it to be another outlet of the Nile.</p> + +<p>For nine days Speke and his companion were kept +waiting before the suspicious king could make up his +mind to see them. From the 9th of September to the +9th of November the whole expedition was detained +at the Court of this greedy tyrant. At his Court they +heard of the existence of a large lake, “Lutanzige,” to +the west,<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">73</a> and asked permission to go and see it. This +was refused, and thus another opportunity of adding +an important piece of information to Nile discovery +was denied to Speke, who could have travelled to and +from the coast of Lake Albert in three weeks instead +of wasting two months at Kamurasi’s Court. However, +during this long stay Speke managed to send<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span> +Bombay with some of Kamurasi’s men down the +Nile and through the Lango and Acholi countries to +Petherick’s outpost. After Bombay’s return with +this cheering news, Speke was more than ever impatient +to get away. Kamurasi attempted to delay the +departure under one pretext or another, no doubt +with the object of bleeding the expedition of more +and more gifts. At last, on the 9th of November, +they descended the Kafu River to its junction with the +Nile, and found themselves on the broad Nile, still +lake-like in extent, owing to the vicinity of Lake +Kioga. In this manner, some travelling by canoe and +some by land, they reached the Karuma Falls, from +which point they left the Nile, marching across the +marshy and then steppe-like countries of the Acholi, +and came first into touch with the influence of Egypt +at Faloro, on the borders of the Madi country. Here +they met a Sudanese named Muhammad Wad-el-Mek,—quite +black, but dressed like an Egyptian and talking +Arabic. Muhammad was in command of some +two hundred Sudanese, who, by their association with +Egypt, were known as Turks by the natives. Muhammad +Wad-el-Mek at first professed to be Petherick’s +employé, and then confessed that he was really +the head-man of a Maltese trader named De Bono. +These were the men that Petherick had arranged +with De Bono were to come into touch with Speke’s +expedition.</p> + +<p>Here, however, they met with some disappointment. +Instead of being allowed to proceed directly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span> +to Gondokoro, Muhammad Wad-el-Mek sought to +detain them by alleging that no boats would be +waiting for them at Gondokoro at that season (December). +The usual heart-breaking delays took place. +Speke decided from this point (Faloro) to send back +Kijwiga,—a fairly faithful Unyoro guide, who had +been with him now, one way and the other, about a +year, having originally been sent to greet him in +Uganda. Meantime Muhammad, De Bono’s agent, +went off to the southward with his men to fight one +African chief on behalf of another so as to secure a +large quantity of ivory.</p> + +<p>Speke was shocked, during his stay in Unyoro, at +the abominable way in which the “Turks” treated +the inoffensive Madi natives. At last, on the 12th of +January, 1863, Speke, disgusted and hopeless at the +delay, started ahead to a village called Panyoro. He +was followed up by Muhammad’s men, and they arrived +at the Nile near the modern station of Afuddu +(close to the junction of the river Asua and the Nile). +At this place they found a tree with the letters M. I. +inscribed on its bark. This was the remains of an +attempt on the part of the Venetian traveller Miani +to carve his name on a tree so as to give some information +to Speke, who had long been expected in this +direction. At this place there was another halt, which +Speke and Grant employed in killing game, and giving +a great deal of the meat thus acquired to the natives.</p> + +<p>On the first of February they started again, Muhammad +having procured porters by the most arbitrary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span> +methods. They followed the Nile down to the confluence +of the Asua River. This stream Speke imagined +to flow out of what we now call Kavirondo Bay. It +is strange that so great a geographer should have had +such elementary notions about hydrography. He gives +the Victoria Nyanza something like four principal outlets, +much as the Portuguese in earlier days provided +lakes in the centre of Africa which fed impartially the +Congo, the Nile, and the Zambezi. Crossing the Asua, +they emerged along the Nile rapids until they arrived +at the verge of the Bari country. One serious attack +was made on them, but was met by the determined +measures taken by Muhammad.</p> + +<p>At last, on the 15th of February, 1863, they walked +into Gondokoro. Here their first inquiry was for +Petherick. “A mysterious silence ensued; we were +informed that Mr. De Bono was the man we had to +thank for the assistance we had received in coming +from Madi.” Hurrying down through the ruins of +the abandoned Austrian Mission to the bank of the +river, where a line of vessels was moored, the explorers +suddenly saw Mr. Samuel Baker marching +towards them. “What joy this was I cannot tell. +We could not talk fast enough, so overwhelmed were +we both to meet again.”<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">74</a></p> + +<p>Mr. Samuel Baker had conceived the idea of going +to meet Speke at the head waters of the Nile. He and +his wife (the present Lady Baker) arrived at Khartum, +and there received much information and assistance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span> +from Petherick in the furtherance of their work. +As to Petherick himself, he arrived with his wife also +a few days after Speke reached Gondokoro. Speke +seems to have been rather hard on this man. We +know that Petherick went up the river to Gondokoro +in 1862, expecting to get news of Speke, and not imagining +that he could have lost something like a year +of travel by his delays in Unyamwezi, Uganda, and +Unyoro. Being unable to remain indefinitely at Gondokoro +without news of the travellers, he arranged +with De Bono to send Muhammad and his men in +the direction of Unyoro to found a post where Speke +might be awaited. As we know, these orders were +carried out. Petherick was naturally obliged to think +of his own means of livelihood, for he was an unpaid +consul. He therefore went on an ivory-trading expedition +west of the Mountain Nile, knowing, of +course, that Baker would be awaiting the travellers, +and that runners from the direction of Gondokoro +would keep him advised as to their approach. He +and his wife reached Gondokoro only a few days after +Speke had arrived there. Speke, however, refused +all assistance at their hands, and decided to return to +Khartum on Baker’s dahabiah. Speke’s adverse report +on Petherick, combined with the intrigues of the +Turks, who disliked his opposition to the slave-trade, +practically ruined Petherick, as we have seen in a +previous chapter.</p> + +<p>The journey of this wonderful expedition from Gondokoro +down the Nile (Speke mistaking the origin and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span> +course of its affluents as he went along, so that his +map in this respect is very incorrect) was broken at +Khartum, whence the Europeans and Negroes travelled +across the desert to Egypt. Of the hundred-odd +porters who left Zanzibar with this expedition +in 1860, nineteen (including Bombay) reached Cairo +with Speke and Grant, the remainder having deserted, +died, or been sent back from various points. These +survivors were generously treated by Speke, who gave +them an extra year’s pay as a gratuity, and orders for +land and marriage portions on their reaching Zanzibar. +He also provided for their free passage from Suez +to Zanzibar via the Seychelles Islands. Somehow or +other they went on by mistake to Mauritius, where +they were treated most generously by the little colony. +Thence they were sent in safety to Zanzibar. From +this point several of these men subsequently journeyed +with Stanley and other African explorers. Bombay, +“Captain of the Faithful,” died in 1886 (?), having +been in receipt during the last years of his life of a +regular pension from the Royal Geographical Society.</p> + +<p>Speke and Grant returned to England in the spring +of 1863. By December in that year Speke had finished +his great book, the “Discovery of the Source of the +Nile.” Speke, soon after his return, was received by +the present king. In the autumn of 1863 he was +given an ovation in the county of Somerset worthy of +his achievements. “Punch” accorded him a cartoon +drawn by Tenniel, but the British government +did <em>nothing</em> for him, unless there can be attributed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span> +its influence the paltry satisfaction of granting to him +through the Heralds College supporters and an additional +motto to his coat of arms. By this grant his +family is now entitled to add a hippopotamus and a +crocodile as supporters to their shield, a crocodile to +their crest, the flowing Nile to their coat of arms, and +the additional motto, “Honor est a Nilo.”</p> + +<figure id="ip_170" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;"> + <img src="images/i_1702_map.jpg" width="1617" height="2314" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_1702_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">The last Map issued to Illustrate Speke’s Theories, 1865.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Meantime Burton had become a British consul on +the West Coast of Africa, and was returning to +England in 1864. Speke had published articles in +“Blackwood” and a book which, as already related, +made uncomplimentary references to his former companion. +The two great travellers were invited to meet +at the British Association at Bath in 1864 and discuss +their different views as to the Nile sources; for +Burton, as a tit-for-tat, had published a work in collaboration +with Petherick, in which he sought to +prove that Speke’s discovery of the Victoria Nyanza +was unimportant. Taking advantage of the traveller’s +admission that he had touched but seldom the +shores of this great lake, he denied its existence, and +reduced it to a mere assemblage of pools and swamps. +Speke, before quitting Baker at Gondokoro, had told +him much of the Luta Nzige or Western Lake which +had some connection with the Nile, and Baker (as will +be subsequently set forth) had followed Speke’s indications +with success, and discovered and named the +Albert Nyanza. His exaggeration of the length of +this sheet of water had convinced Burton that Speke +was altogether mistaken, and that he himself was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span> +wrong in having earlier stated that the Rusizi River +flowed into and not out of the north end of Tanganyika. +(Neither Speke nor Burton actually saw the +Rusizi.) Burton therefore turned the Rusizi into an +effluent of Tanganyika, and made it a connection between +that lake and the Albert Nyanza. Had he had +any glimmerings of lakes Kivu, Albert Edward, and +the Semliki, he would no doubt have been still more +certain of his hypothesis. As it was, Speke’s theories +have been shown subsequently to have been very near +the whole truth. The Victoria Nyanza is the main +source of the Nile, though that river finds another +reservoir in the great swampy lakes of Kioga and +Kwania (which again receive much of the drainage +of Mount Elgon), and a most important contribution +from the Albert Nyanza; for this last lake is the receptacle +of all the drainage of the Ruwenzori snow +range. At the time, however, Speke’s theory was not +sufficiently supported by evidence, and was certainly +open to attack, the more so because he had blundered +by giving the Victoria Nyanza so many outlets. The +two great men were to meet and discuss their differences, +and every one knew that underneath a mere +dispute on geographical theories lay deep-seated bitterness +of feeling. It was said that Speke, who hated +quarrelling, and perhaps felt some compunction as to +the frankness of his remarks concerning Burton, +looked forward to this public meeting with great dislike, +the more so as he was a poor and unready public +speaker. But the intended conference was never to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span> +come off; on the 21st of September, 1864, Speke, +whilst out partridge-shooting on his father’s land at +Jordans, near Ilminster, was scrambling over a stile +with his gun at full-cock. It was just one of those +little imprudences that even the wariest of African +travellers commits when he returns to civilisation. +Both barrels of the gun were discharged into his +body, and he died within a few hours. The news +was received by the British Association at Bath just +as the meeting was about to commence, and as Burton +was seated awaiting the arrival of his old comrade. +This terrible event hushed the difference between them. +Burton’s wife, a gifted woman, who sometimes wrote +very good poetry, inscribed some very beautiful lines +to the memory of Speke.</p> + +<figure id="ip_172" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;"> + <img src="images/i_1722.jpg" width="1602" height="2287" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Speke’s Handwriting.</span></p> + +<p>(Letter to Laurence Oliphant.)</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>We take leave here of one of the greatest of African +explorers, the second greatest only, if Stanley is to +be accounted the first. Only a man of extraordinary +energy, determination, bravery, tact, and of iron constitution +could have struggled through the difficulties +which beset Speke on his route from Zanzibar to the +Victoria Nyanza, and from the Victoria Nyanza to +the navigable Nile. The purport of the expedition +was wellnigh wrecked between Unyamwezi and the +Victoria Nyanza; it ran many risks from the caprices +of Mutesa; several times Kamurasi threatened it with +failure in Unyoro; other dangers awaited it in the +Madi and Bari countries, but it finally resulted in +affording us the main solution of the Nile Quest. As +the outcome of Speke’s journey, the Victoria Nyanza<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span> +was placed on the map with some approximate correctness +as to shape and area; the shape and size of +Lake Albert Nyanza were guessed at with extraordinary +accuracy, and the course of the White and Mountain +Nile was foreshadowed with the same amount of +truth as in the case of the Albert Nyanza. The remarkable +Hima aristocracy of equatorial Africa and +the barbaric court of Uganda were revealed to the +world. Speke broke the back of the Nile mystery, +just as Stanley did that of the Congo. It only remained +henceforth to fill up the minor details of the +map.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV"><span id="toclink_174"></span>CHAPTER XV<br> + +<span class="subhead">SAMUEL BAKER AND THE ALBERT NYANZA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Samuel White Baker</span> was born in London +on the 8th June, 1821, and was the second +and eventually eldest son of Mr. Samuel Baker, +a city merchant, who possessed large properties +and sugar plantations in Jamaica and Mauritius. +Samuel Baker, the elder, at one time maintained a +small fleet of sailing vessels. He also became one +of the first Directors of the Great Western Railway. +His family and grandfather were mainly settled at +Bristol, and were much connected with the navy in +the eighteenth century. Further back still the Bakers +were members of Parliament and Court officials. They +came originally from London, then became a Kentish +family, then moved to Dorsetshire, then to Bristol, +and finally back again to London. Samuel Baker, the +younger, was a typical English boy. His biographer, +Mr. Douglas Murray, describes him as having been +“of the Saxon type; a noble-looking boy, of very fair +complexion, light hair, and fearless blue eyes.” He +was “enterprising, mischievous, for ever getting into +scrapes, and leading others into them; but he was +never known to tell a lie or do a mean thing.” His<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span> +career was very nearly brought to a premature close +when he was twelve years old by an attempt to make +fireworks. He ignited a small heap of gunpowder on +the kitchen table, and caused a terrible explosion, which +blew him to the far end of the room and burnt his +arm severely.</p> + +<p>He hated school, and received most of his education +from a private tutor and by a residence at +Frankfurt in Germany. His father attempted to put +him in his London office; and this work, though +excessively irksome, was endured for a time, as he +had early fallen in love with the daughter of a +Gloucestershire rector, whom he married when he +was only twenty-two. Soon after his marriage he +went out to Mauritius with his wife, to attempt the +management of his father’s estates in that island. +But he was restless and dissatisfied with this career; +moreover, his three children, born in three years, all +died. He therefore started for Ceylon, to which island +he was attracted by the stories of big-game shooting. +His interest was excited in the splendid mountain region +of the interior of Ceylon, which presents considerable +areas for European occupations between six +thousand and eight thousand feet in altitude. Here +for nine years he worked at founding an English settlement +of planters, which exists to this day in a +flourishing condition, some of the land-owners being +members of the Baker family. But his wife, who +bore him many children, suffered greatly in health. +In 1855 he returned to England, and wrote a book<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span> +on Ceylon. At the end of that year his wife died, +and Baker, after leaving his young children to be +brought up in England, started for Constantinople, +which he reached at the close of the Crimean War. +His idea was to travel in Circassia, and see what advance +in that direction Russia was making towards +India; but he spent several years in a rather objectless +fashion, shooting, fishing, and exploring in Asia +Minor and Turkey in Europe.</p> + +<p>In 1859 he settled down as Manager-General of +a British-made railway from the Danube to the +Black Sea. Whilst this railway was being made +he met in Hungary the lady who became his second +wife.<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">75</a> The railway was completed in 1860, and +Baker once more became restless. Big-game shooting +in Asia Minor—splendid as it seems to have +been at that period, when he could shoot as many +bears, boars, wolves, red deer, and roe deer as he +wished—did not content him; his thoughts turned +towards Africa and the Nile. He arrived at Cairo with +Mrs. Baker in 1861, with the idea of travelling up the +Nile to meet Speke and Grant coming from Zanzibar +via the Victoria Nyanza.</p> + +<figure id="ip_176" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_1762.jpg" width="1406" height="1973" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="floatl"><cite>Photo by Maull & Fox.</cite>]</p> + +<p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Samuel Baker, 1865.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>But Baker resolved, before attempting anything so +difficult as the exploration of the White Nile above +Gondokoro, to learn something of African travel and +Sudanese Arabic. He therefore left the main Nile at +Berber and ascended the Atbara River, the last affluent +which the Nile receives on its way to the Mediterranean;<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">76</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span> +the first running river encountered by the +traveller ascending the Nile that can be said to flow +through tropical Africa,—the Africa with the typical +Ethiopian fauna and flora.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“After a scorching march of about twenty miles we +arrived at the junction of the Atbara River with the Nile +[writes Baker]; throughout the route the barren sand +stretched to the horizon on the left, while on the right, +within a mile of the Nile, the soil was sufficiently rich to +support a certain amount of vegetation, chiefly dwarf +mimosas and the <i class="taxonomy">Asclepia gigantea</i>.... The Atbara +has a curious appearance; in no part was it less than four +hundred yards in width, while in many places this breadth +was much exceeded. The banks were from twenty-five +to thirty feet deep: these had evidently been overflowed +during floods, but at the present time the river was dead, +not only partially dry, but so glaring was the sandy bed +that the reflection of the sun was almost unbearable. +Great numbers of the <i class="taxonomy">Dum</i> palm (<i class="taxonomy">Hyphæne thebaica</i>) +grew upon the banks.... The only shade there is afforded +by the evergreen Dum palms.... Many pools +were of considerable size and great depth. In flood time +a tremendous torrent sweeps down the course of the +Atbara, and the sudden bends of the river are hollowed +out by the force of the stream to a depth of twenty or +thirty feet below the level of the bed. Accordingly, these +hollows become reservoirs of water when the river is +otherwise exhausted.... These pools are full of life, huge +fish, crocodiles of immense size, turtles, and occasionally +hippopotami.... The animals of the desert gazelles, +hyaenas, and wild asses—are compelled to resort +to these crowded drinking places.... Innumerable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span> +doves, varying in species, throng the trees and seek the +shelter of the Dum palms; thousands of sand grouse +arrive morning and evening to drink and to depart.”</p> +</div> + +<p>In the pools of the Atbara Baker for the first time +shot hippopotamuses. He also started fishing with a +rod and line, and on one occasion caught an enormous +“turtle.”<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">77</a></p> + +<p>At the end of June they were nearly suffocated with +the heat and dust of the Sudan summer, but they were +to experience the effects of the melting of Abyssinian +snows and of the descent of the tropical rains on that +African Switzerland. On the 24th of June Baker was +lying half asleep on his bed by the margin of the river +when he fancied he heard a rumbling sound like distant +thunder. This roar increased in volume till it +awoke his Arabs, who rushed into the camp shouting, +“The river! The river!”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“We were up in an instant, and my interpreter in a +state of intense confusion exclaimed that the river was +coming down, and that the supposed distant thunder +was the roar of approaching water.... Many of the +people were sleeping on the clean sand of the river’s bed, +and were only just in time to reach the top of the steep +bank before the water was on them in the darkness.... +The river had arrived ‘like a thief in the night.’ When +morning broke I stood upon the banks of a noble river, +the wonder of the desert! Yesterday there was a barren +sheet of glaring sand with a fringe of withered bush and +trees upon its borders.... No bush could boast of a +leaf, no tree could throw a shade: crisp gum crackled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span> +upon the stems of the mimosas.... In one night there +was a mysterious change.... An army of water was +hastening to the wasted river, which had become a magnificent +stream some five hundred yards in width and +fifteen to twenty feet in depth. Bamboos and reeds with +trash of all kinds were hurried along the muddy waters.... +I realised what had occurred: the rains were falling +and the snows were melting in Abyssinia. These were +the main source of the Nile floods.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Baker left the Atbara in a land of wild asses and +gazelles, and travelled to Kassala,—a fortress of the +eastern Sudan since rendered famous by the struggle +for its possession between Dervishes and Italians. +Kassala is situated on the right bank of the river +Mareb, which rises close to the Red Sea on the northern +slopes of the Abyssinian plateau. The Mareb +has every intention of reaching the Nile, or rather +the Atbara, and no doubt did so in past epochs; but +at the present time northwards of Kassala it loses +itself in the desert.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“There was an extraordinary change [writes Baker] +in the appearance of the river between Gozerajup and this +spot. There was no longer the vast sandy desert with the +river flowing through its sterile course on a level with the +surface of the country, but after traversing an apparently +perfect flat of forty-five miles of rich alluvial soil, we +suddenly arrived upon the edge of a deep valley, between +five and six miles wide, at the bottom of which, about two +hundred feet below the general level of the country, +flowed the river Atbara. On the opposite side of the +valley, the same vast table-lands continued to the western +horizon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span></p> + +<p>“We commenced the descent towards the river; the +valley was a succession of gullies and ravines, of landslips +and watercourses; the entire hollow of miles in +width had evidently been the work of the river. How +many ages had the rains and the stream been at work to +scoop out from the flat tableland this deep and broad +valley? Here was the giant labourer that had shovelled +the rich loam upon the delta of lower Egypt! Upon these +vast flats of fertile soil there can be no drainage except +through soakage. The deep valley is therefore the receptacle +not only for the water that oozes from its sides, +but subterranean channels bursting as land-springs from +all parts of the walls of the valley, wash down the more +soluble portions of the earth, and continually waste away +the soil. Landslips occur during the rainy season; +streams of rich mud pour down the valley’s slopes, and +as the river flows beneath in a swollen torrent, the friable +banks topple down into the stream and dissolve. The +Atbara becomes the thickness of pea-soup, as its muddy +waters steadily perform the duty they have fulfilled from +age to age. Thus was the great river at work upon our +arrival on its banks at the bottom of the valley. The Arab +name, ‘Bahr-al-Aswad’ (black river), was well bestowed. +It was the black mother of Egypt, still carrying to her +offspring the nourishment that had formed the Delta.</p> + +<p>“At this point of interest the journey had commenced; +the deserts were passed, all was fertility and life; wherever +the sources of the Nile might be, the Atbara was the +parent of Egypt! This was my first impression, to be +proved hereafter.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Baker gives a fine description of the splendid type +of Arab who is still found in the regions of the +<span class="locked">Atbara:—</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“He was the most magnificent specimen of an Arab +that I have ever seen. Although upwards of eighty years +of age, he was as erect as a lance, and did not appear more +than between fifty and sixty; he was of Herculean stature, +about six feet three inches high, with immensely +broad shoulders and chest, a remarkably arched nose; +eyes like an eagle, beneath large, shaggy, but perfectly +white eyebrows; a snow-white beard of great thickness +descended below the middle of his breast. He wore a +white turban, and a white cashmere abbai or long robe, +from the throat to the ankles. As a desert patriarch he +was superb, the very perfection of all that the imagination +could paint, if we would personify Abraham at the head +of his people.”</p> +</div> + +<p>This fine old Sheikh brought ten of his sons, most +of them as tall as himself. He seems to have been +the father of many children,—a fortunate circumstance +for the country, though no doubt nearly all +of his stalwart descendants were extirpated in the +miserable wars following on the Mahdi’s revolt.</p> + +<p>Baker ascended the Atbara to its upper waters, +where it is known as the Settit (higher up still as +the Takaze). Here he had magnificent hunting of +big game amongst the Hamran Arabs, whose extraordinary +prowess with the sword he describes most +vividly. They would follow up elephants and hamstring +them with a single blow of their long weapons, +which were like those of the Crusaders. (As a matter +of fact, the generality of the Hamran swords were +manufactured at Sollingen in Germany.) In this land +Baker saw innumerable giraffes, and most of the big<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span> +antelopes of Central Africa, including Kudu and Oryx. +The country about the Upper Atbara below the Abyssinian +highlands was exactly like an English park, +though the trees were mainly acacias. Here and there +was a gigantic baobab. In the waters of the river was +found the now well-known Lung-fish, the <i class="taxonomy">Protopterus</i>.</p> + +<p>From the upper waters of the Atbara and its many +tributaries Baker, skirting the western terraces of +Abyssinia, reached the river Rahad,—an Egyptian +affluent of the Blue Nile which flows nearly parallel +to the river Dinder. These two streams rise +on the western flanks of the Abyssinian tableland, and +enter the Blue Nile about one hundred miles southeast +of Khartum. On his way down this river Baker, +in the country of Galabat, met two German lay missionaries +proceeding to Abyssinia in spite of the objection +expressed to their presence by King Theodore. +“One of these preachers was a blacksmith, whose iron +constitution had entirely given way, and the little +strength that remained he exhausted in endless quotations +of texts from the Bible, which he considered +applicable to every trifling event or expression.”</p> + +<p>In June, 1862, the Bakers reached Khartum. After +a long stay at the Pethericks’ house, Baker decided, +as already related, to go in search of Speke. His +wife, the present Lady Baker, accompanied him. As +already related, she was a Hungarian lady of great +beauty, and possessed of extraordinary courage. Her +fame as “<em>the</em> Lady” (Es-sitt) still lingers among the +Nile Negroes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span></p> + +<p>It has already been shown that Baker succeeded in +being the first European to greet Speke and Grant. +He received from these travellers the legacy to complete +their task of ascertaining definitely the existence +of the western Nile lake (Albert), of which Speke had +heard under the name of Luta Nzige. On the 26th +of March, 1863, the Bakers left Gondokoro on this +errand.</p> + +<p>Muhammad Wad-al-Mek, De Bono’s agent, and all +the other Nubian Nile traders, did their very utmost to +prevent Baker returning along Speke’s route through +the Bari country. They incited his Khartum men to +mutiny. Baker, being unable to obtain porters, owing +to the excessive hostility of the slave-traders, employed +the camels he had brought with him from Khartum for +his transport. As the slave-traders had threatened, if +he followed in their footsteps, to raise the natives +about him, he determined to reach the back country of +Lotuka first, and therefore deliberately strewed some +of his goods in the way so as to delay the slave-traders, +who stopped to pick them up. He was outdone +at his own game, for a large caravan of “Turks” +reached the Elliria country nearly as soon as he did. +The leader of this expedition was one Ibrahim. Mrs. +Baker resolved to see what could be done by a direct +appeal to whatever the man might possess of generosity. +The Bakers threatened that if he did them +harm he would probably be hung at Khartum, while +if he assisted them to see this lake, they would see +he was well rewarded. The result was that a truce<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span> +was patched up between the slave-traders and Baker’s +small expedition. Nevertheless, a mutiny happened +among Baker’s camel-men in the vicinity of Lotuka. +Some of these men ran away and joined a slave-trading +party, which, however, was massacred by the +Lotuka. Henceforth Baker’s few men stuck to him +faithfully, in terror of what might happen to them +from his evil eye.</p> + +<p>Baker journeyed southward through the splendid +Lotuka country,—a land of which we know even +now scarcely more than he told us forty years ago. +The Lotuka people are a splendid race of Negroids, +with a good deal more Gala blood in their veins than +is the case with the Masai, to whom they are closely +allied in language, but who dwell very much farther +to the east and south. Since the days of Baker’s +adventure some of the Lotuka have become Muhammadans, +and they are no longer completely nude in +consequence. Their country is a very mountainous +one, and on the whole well watered. It will probably +play a considerable part in the future of the Uganda +Protectorate. Working steadily south through the +Madi and Acholi countries, the Bakers forded the +Asua, the great southeastern tributary of the Mountain +Nile. Here nearly all their porters deserted, +and as their camels had died in the Madi country, +they were obliged to abandon all loads which were +not absolutely necessary,—such as ammunition, and +presents for Kamurasi.</p> + +<figure id="ip_184" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 20em;"> + <img src="images/i_1842.jpg" width="1267" height="1982" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Native of Unyoro.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>At length they arrived at the Karuma Falls on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span> +Victoria Nile, and entered Unyoro. Their first reception +in Unyoro was hostile, because Muhammad +Wad-al-Mek had preceded them, and had made the +worst impression by his treatment of the Banyoro. +At first Baker desired to follow the Nile down stream +till it entered the Albert Nyanza, but the Banyoro +would not allow him to do anything of the kind, or +to make any journey off the main road along the +Victoria Nile to Kamurasi’s capital. Contrary to their +anticipations, Kamurasi received the Bakers well; and +this was the more fortunate, as Mr. Baker was very +nearly dead with fever. But Kamurasi soon showed +his evil nature. He refused to allow Baker to proceed +due west to the Albert Nyanza, declaring that +lake was distant a six months’ journey. Ibrahim, the +slave and ivory trader, had purchased all the goods +he required, and had left Unyoro. All Baker’s porters, +except thirteen, had deserted. Finding, however, +there was nothing more to be got out of Baker, Kamurasi +relented, accepted a double-barrelled gun, and sent +off the explorer and his wife with two guides and an +escort of three hundred men. This escort, however, +was soon sent back, owing to their unruly behaviour. +Somehow or other, with such porters as could be +procured from village to village, they managed, in +the teeth of fearful misfortunes, to reach the Albert +Nyanza at a place called Mbakovia, on the southeast +coast. On this journey Mrs. Baker nearly died from +sunstroke, and Baker himself was frightfully ill. But +on the 16th of March, 1864, they had discovered a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span> +great lake “with a boundless sea-horizon to the southwards,” +which they named the Albert Nyanza.</p> + +<p>At the time of Baker’s visit no doubt (though he +does not say so) there was a good deal of mist about +this lake,—a common feature. The mist and the +clouds seem to have prevented the travellers from +getting any glimpse of the mass of the Ruwenzori +snow-range which lay not many miles distant from +them to the south. They also believed (though they +were then a day’s journey from the end of the lake) +that there was a boundless sea-horizon to the south. +Their misapprehension of the geography of this lake +has often caused surprise; but apart from a natural +tendency to exaggerate the importance of their +own particular lake, in looking to the southward they +were looking up the broad valley of the Semliki, which +was undoubtedly at one time—at any rate for a distance +of some fifty miles—a southern extension +of the Albert Nyanza. This valley was bordered on +either side by cliff-like mountains—plateau edges—continued +northwards along the coasts of the Albert +Lake. To the west of Lake Albert the plateau tilts +westwards towards the Congo basin. Baker called the +western cliffs and the foothills of Ruwenzori the Blue +Mountains,—a name they might very well continue to +bear, as there is no native designation for these heights, +which separate so abruptly and by only a few miles +the basin of the Congo from the basin of the Nile.</p> + +<p>After a short stay at Mbakovia, the Bakers got +into canoes and coasted along the Albert Nyanza to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span> +Magungo, where the lake is entered by the Victoria +Nile. They ascended the Victoria Nile and discovered +the Murchison Falls, “where the river drops in +one leap one hundred and twenty feet into a deep +basin, the edge of which literally swarms with crocodiles.” +On their overland journey in the direction of +the Karuma Falls, their porters again deserted, and +for two months they were stranded, almost at death’s +door, living with difficulty on wild herbs and mouldy +flour; occasionally, but rarely, obtaining fowls from +the natives. Once more they came within the persecution +of Kamurasi, who pestered Baker for his +assistance in a war he was carrying on against his relation, +Fowuka. Whilst Baker was hesitating, the Nile +was crossed by one of De Bono’s caravans of ivory-traders, +who had entered into an alliance with Fowuka. +They were just about to attack Kamurasi’s army (and +with their one hundred and fifty guns would have +easily defeated it) when Baker planted the British +flag in Kamurasi’s camp, and warned De Bono’s soldiers +that the Unyoro king was now under British +protection. Overawed by Baker’s threats, the ivory-traders +withdrew to the north side of the Nile. The +only return that he received from Kamurasi for this +service was that the latter placed every obstacle in +his way to prevent his leaving Unyoro. At the same +time Mutesa of Uganda, having heard of a white +man’s arrival in Unyoro, and imagining that Kamurasi +was stopping his further journey to Uganda, +sent a large army to ravage Unyoro. Kamurasi fled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span> +to some islands in the Nile, and left Baker to shift +for himself, without provisions or beasts of burden, +at the Karuma Falls. From this point he managed +to send messages to Ibrahim, the slave and ivory +trader, and the latter came to his assistance. With +the aid of Ibrahim, the Bakers, who had lost everything +except guns and ammunition, eventually managed +to return to Gondokoro, though they were nearly +killed on the way by the Bari tribe, which had risen +against the slave-raiders. At Gondokoro their troubles +were not ended, for the sudd had begun to form, and +obstructed the passage of the White Nile. Plague +also had broken out in Khartum. But the travellers +fought through all obstacles, any one of which might +have wrecked an expedition conducted by less intrepid +people, and reached Khartum in May, 1865. Here +they remained two months to recuperate, and during +this time they managed to secure the banishment of +one of the slave-traders who had incited the mutiny +of their men at Gondokoro in 1863.</p> + +<p>From Khartum they travelled to Berber down the +Nile, and then started on camels to cross the desert +to Suakin. They reached England in the autumn of +1865. By this time perhaps African exploration had +become more interesting to the British government, +for Baker received for his discoveries a well-earned +knighthood,—a distinction which might very well +have been accorded to Speke or to Grant. As a matter +of fact, the only reward given to the last-named +traveller was a C.B., which was awarded, not for his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span> +marvellous “Walk across Africa,” but for the inconspicuous +services which he rendered some years later +in connection with the Abyssinian War.</p> + +<p>As the result of the Speke and Baker explorations, +so far as published maps were concerned, our knowledge +of the Nile basin in 1865 was as follows: The +shape and area of the Victoria Nyanza were roughly +indicated, together with the outlet of the Victoria Nile +at the Ripon Falls. The course of the Victoria Nile was +mapped (with a good many blanks) from the Ripon +Falls to the north end of Lake Albert Nyanza. Baker +was able to show that there was a widening of the +Victoria Nile opposite the eastern frontier of Unyoro, +but it was some years later before this widening was +discovered to consist of two large lakes (Kioga and +Kwania). Baker had given an extremely exaggerated +size to the Albert Nyanza. Speke, on the other +hand, had sketched this lake with remarkable accuracy +merely from hearsay. The course of the Nile from +the north end of Lake Albert to its junction with the +Asua River was quite unexplored. The rest of the +course of the Mountain Nile was mapped as far as +its junction with the Bahr-al-Ghazal, but very little +was known about one of its branches, the Giraffe +River. No further researches beyond those made by +the Turks had taken place on the Sobat River.</p> + +<p>As for Sir Samuel Baker, we take leave of him +here as one of the great explorers of the Nile. He +returned to the regions of the great lakes in 1869, +having been appointed for four years in charge of an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span> +expedition to subdue and annex to the Egyptian Empire +the equatorial regions of the Nile basin. This +object involved him in incessant fighting in Unyoro, +with the slave-traders between Unyoro and Gondokoro, +and with the Bari. Some of these conflicts +were forced on him; others, it is to be feared, he +precipitated by his determination to enlarge the territories +of the Egyptian Sudan. His time would +seem to have been passed mainly in warfare with one +enemy or another, or in laying very solidly the +foundations of a civilised administration. His stay +in Equatoria resulted in but little addition to our +knowledge of the Nile and its affluents. A good +many of his efforts for the welfare of the country +were thwarted by the Egyptian Governor-General +at Khartum, and after his departure, in 1873, some +of his worst enemies among the slave-traders were +reinstated. This much must always be recorded to +the credit of Sir Samuel Baker’s work on the Upper +Nile: he inspired universal respect among the fair-dealing +natives; he, first of all, broke the back of the +immense slave-trading industry which had sprung up +on the Mountain Nile, in Unyoro, and in the Acholi +countries; throughout these regions the natives can +remember but one great and good administrator before +the present régime, and that is Sir Samuel Baker. +“Gordoom” Pasha is but a name, and represents little +to their minds; Emin they only remembered as an +enthusiastic naturalist, who did but little to check the +rapine and wrong-doing of his Sudanese soldiers; but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span> +“Baker Basha” is, in the remembrance of the old +people, the one heroic White man they have known: +terrible in battle, scrupulously just, at all times kind +and jovial in demeanour amongst friends; a born +ruler over a savage people.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI"><span id="toclink_192"></span>CHAPTER XVI<br> + +<span class="subhead">ALEXANDRINE TINNE AND THEODOR VON HEUGLIN</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> journeys of Petherick and Miani in the +western Nile basin have already been described. +The very interesting region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, +however, had been relatively neglected by scientific +explorers down to the beginning of the sixties of +the last century. Petherick’s own map of these regions +was not published till 1869. There were two +obstacles to water travel in this direction: the sudd, +and the terrible fevers which attacked Europeans. +The introduction of steamers on the Upper Nile to +some extent enabled Europeans to force their way +up streams which were not to be penetrated by sailing-vessels. +Quite a rendezvous had been created at +a place called Mashra-ar-Rak, where many great +streams coming from the Nyam-nyam country enter +the Bahr-al-Ghazal, which, as a geographical term, +applied to the western lake-like affluent of the Nile, +may be said to begin its course here.</p> + +<figure id="ip_192" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 19em;"> + <img src="images/i_1922.jpg" width="1203" height="2028" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Alexandrine Tinne.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Miss Tinne, who with her German companions Von +Heuglin and Steudner was to considerably increase +our knowledge of these regions, had already, in 1859 +and 1860, ascended the White Nile in sailing-vessels +to near Gondokoro. In 1861 she organised a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span> +expedition in steamers and boats, which was accompanied +by her mother, her aunt, and, later on, by several +scientific explorers,—such as Baron d’Ablaing, +Theodor von Heuglin, and Dr. Steudner. This expedition +was intended to explore the region of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal, to see how far the Nile basin extended +westward in the direction of Lake Chad, and +also, if possible, to discover a great lake in the very +heart of Africa, of which rumours had been brought +back by Miani and others.<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">78</a></p> + +<p>Alexandrine<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">79</a> Tinne was the daughter of Philip +Frederic Tinne and Henrietta, Baroness van Steengracht +Capellen. Her father, Philip Tinne, was a +Dutchman, who settled in England during the wars +of the French Revolution, the French invasion of +Holland having brought his family into trouble. The +Tinnes were of remote French Huguenot origin, having +emigrated to Holland from Calais. But further +back still they came from Saxony. A very far back +ancestor went to the Crusades, and distinguished +himself at Rosetta (Egypt) by clambering onto the +Saracen battlements. He received therefrom the +soubriquet of “Tinne” (in Low Dutch, a battlement) +and a coat of arms, still used by the family, +embodying battlements. It is remarkable that Miss +Tinne’s remote ancestor should have sprung into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span> +fame in the thirteenth century at the <em>mouth</em> of the +Nile. Philip Tinne, who emigrated to England at +the end of the eighteenth century, returned to Holland +after Napoleon’s downfall, and married a Dutch +heiress, the daughter of Admiral van Capellen. He +died when his daughter Alexandrine was only five +years old, leaving her the richest heiress in the +Netherlands. It is said that when a young girl she +had a serious love disappointment, and dismissed or +lost her fiancé. To stifle her mental anguish, she undertook +a course of travel;<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">80</a> and after staying for +some time in the Levant and Egypt, ascended the +Nile in dahabiahs to near Gondokoro. This journey +was followed by the great expedition to the Bahr-al-Ghazal +in 1861. It is said that this expedition was +even provided with European lady’s-maids. Probably +no equally luxurious and well-equipped undertaking +ever started for equatorial Africa. Miss Tinne commenced +her second Nile journey by ascending the main +stream as far as Gondokoro, and then, returning, she +explored a portion of the Sobat River. She set out +once more with the whole party from Khartum in +February, 1863, and entered the Bahr-al-Ghazal. This +was ascended as far as the mouth of the Bahr-al-Hamr. +From this point a journey was then made +overland to the Jur and Kosango rivers, and to the +mountains on the borders of the Nyam-nyam country.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span> +On this exploration the travellers suffered most +severely from fever. Dr. Steudner and the Baroness +van Capellen eventually died of blackwater fever, and +the remainder of the party only managed with the +greatest difficulty to reach Khartum in July, 1864, +where further deaths occurred. The geographical results +of this expedition were not published in full till +1869, though Miss Tinne’s cousin printed some notes +on their expedition at Liverpool in 1864.</p> + +<figure id="ip_195" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_1942.jpg" width="1684" height="1338" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">On the Jur River: Sudd Blocking the Channel.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>After four years spent in various places in Egypt, +Algeria, and Tunis, Miss Tinne started from Tripoli +with a very large caravan to proceed to Lake Chad, +intending afterwards to journey from Lake Chad to +the Upper Nile.</p> + +<p>Miss Tinne took with her two Dutch sailors to +assist in the organisation of her caravan, several Algerian +women-servants, and her confidential old Negress, +Saadah, who was originally a slave freed by +Miss Tinne in the Sudan. The Turkish authorities +made no opposition to her journeys, nor do they seem +to have been in any way to blame for the catastrophe +that occurred. Unfortunately, Miss Tinne, in order +to provide for the comfort of her followers as well +as for herself, decided to take with her one or more +iron tanks filled with water, which were carried by +the camels. These tanks attracted much attention +when the expedition halted for a time at Murzuk, +the capital of Fezzan, where Turkish authority was +still maintained. The rumour that they contained +treasure in coin which was to accompany this wonderful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span> +princess into the heart of Africa spread from +the bazaars of Murzuk to the Tawareq of the desert, +ever on the lookout to plunder caravans crossing the +Sahara.</p> + +<p>Miss Tinne had taken all reasonable precautions +to secure the friendship of the Tawareq on this +journey. She had sent messages to Ghat, an important +Saharan town, to the chief Ikenukhen, with +presents, and requests for guides. The chief replied +that he would meet her himself at a water place on +the way to Ghat, and send her the guides. These +guides apparently concerted measures with the Arab +and Tawareq camel-drivers of her expedition, and +plans were evidently laid for her murder and the +plunder of her goods.</p> + +<p>The expedition had halted at Wadi Aberjong to +await the Tawareq chief Ikenukhen. On the early +morning of the 1st of August Miss Tinne, in +her tent, heard the Arab and Tawareq camel-drivers +disputing about arranging the saddles of the Algerian +women-servants. She called to the Dutch +sailors to stop the noise, which had developed into +a sham fight. The Dutch sailors went amongst the +men to get at their own luggage and take their +rifles. The camel-drivers stopped their sham fight +and endeavoured to prevent the Dutch sailors obtaining +their arms. Miss Tinne, hearing the continued +clamour, came out of her tent to inquire its +meaning. She held up her right hand to command +attention. Suddenly there was a cry of “Strike,” and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span> +a Tawareq made a cut at her with a sabre, which severed +her right hand almost entirely through the wrist, +so that it hung only by tendons of skin. The poor +girl endeavoured to replace it in position, and staggered +back to her tent, where she sat on a box. At +the same moment that the blow was aimed at her one +of the Dutch sailors, Cornelius, was pierced through +the body by a spear. The other, Jacobse, was killed +by a sabre cut cleaving his head. Cornelius, with the +spear passing right through him, ran into the tent and +fell at Miss Tinne’s feet. A man followed him, pinned +him to the ground with another spear, and fired two +pistol shots into his head. Another Tawareq struck +Miss Tinne with a sabre on the nape of the neck, +which cut through the foulard enveloping her head, +and severed the long plait of her hair, but did not cut +through the spine. She fell forward to the ground, +stunned. Two men then tore off most of her clothing, +and, seizing her by the heels, dragged her out of +the tent to a spot a few yards away, where they left +her lying on the sand in the blazing sunshine. Her +poor old Negress, Saadah, followed, and raising her +head, gently rested it on her knee; but the Tawareq +tore her away, and drove her back into the camp. +The unfortunate Alexandrine Tinne lay where she +was left from eight o’clock in the morning to three +o’clock in the afternoon, when death at last ended +her sufferings. At intervals she called piteously +on her people, one by one, to bring her water, but +none were allowed to approach her. One of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span> +Arab servants was asked afterwards why they behaved +so callously. He replied, “We had no arms, +we were like women: they kept us in the tent, and +threatened to kill us if we came out.”</p> + +<p>Her baggage was ransacked by the Arabs and +Tawareq, among whom disputes then arose as to the +allotment of the Algerian waiting-maids and men-servants. +Strange to say, this dispute ended by both +parties agreeing to make no slaves. The servants +were each given a camel and a dollar, and allowed +to return to Murzuk.</p> + +<p>The Pasha of Murzuk sent soldiers out to bury the +bodies. They laid a strip of calico about thirty yards +long on the sand, and wound it round Miss Tinne’s +body by rolling it over with sticks, to avoid touching +her. Then they put boards on each side loaded with +stones, and piled sand over all. The two bodies of +the faithful sailors were laid on each side of her. +Men were afterwards sent out to mark the spot, but +the sand of the desert had in the interval been blown +over the place, thus hiding the grave of this beautiful +and talented woman.<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">81</a></p> + +<figure id="ip_198" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 36em;"> + <img src="images/i_1982.jpg" width="2302" height="1460" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Letter of Miss Tinne to her Nephew John.</span></p> + +<p>Written from Tripoli, 1869.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The leader of not a few exploring parties in Africa +has been alone to blame for disasters to his expedition, +by committing himself or allowing his followers to +commit misdeeds sufficient to justify native hostility. +But wherever Miss Tinne and her expeditions went +in Africa, they left behind them nothing but the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span> +memory of considerate treatment, kindness, and acts +of sumptuous generosity. In all the preparations +which Miss Tinne made for crossing the Sahara, and +so reaching the western limits of the Nile basin, she +showed a desire to conciliate the suspicions of the +people, and paid generously for assistance afforded. +The fierce Berber tribes which range over the Sahara +Desert from North Africa to the neighbourhood of +Lake Chad, almost alone of all African races, have +earned sharp reprisals from Europeans for their innumerable +acts of causeless treachery to explorers. If +ever the French occupy the district of Ghat, as they +will eventually some day, it is to be hoped that they +will bear in mind the massacre of Alexandrine Tinne +and avenge it.</p> + +<p>This woman was the romantic figure in Nile exploration. +Young and beautiful,<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">82</a> remarkably accomplished, +a daring horsewoman, a charming Diana; +mistress of many tongues, including Arabic, and generous +to a fault, it is little wonder that the “Signorina” +(as she was called in the days when most dragomen +were Italian or Maltese) has lingered as a beautiful +and gracious demi-goddess in the remembrance of +such Arabs and Nile Negroes of the Egyptian Sudan +as were not exterminated by the Mahdi’s revolt.</p> + +<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> + +<p>Theodor von Heuglin was a native of Würtemberg. +He was a scientific observer and a naturalist much in +the style of Schweinfurth. His interest in the exploration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span> +of the Nile basin was rather in the direction of +zoölogy and anthropology. He began to travel in +these regions in the fifties of the last century. With +Munzinger, a Swiss (afterwards Munzinger Pasha), +and Dr. Steudner, a German, he explored Kordofan, +and the regions round Khartum. In 1862 Von Heuglin +and Steudner joined Miss Tinne’s Nile expedition, +and as her guest or alone on their own account, +explored the affluents of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the +main White Nile. After the death of Steudner and +of Miss Tinne’s aunt and mother from blackwater +fever, Heuglin turned away from these regions with +some disgust, and devoted himself henceforth to the +exploration of the healthier regions along the upper +waters of the Blue Nile and of the Atbara. In all +this part of western and northern Abyssinia he made +valuable collections of natural history. Von Heuglin’s +books are of very great interest, and are full of valuable +natural history notes. His writings were published +between 1860 and 1875, generally in Germany.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII"><span id="toclink_201"></span>CHAPTER XVII<br> + +<span class="subhead">SCHWEINFURTH AND THE BASIN OF THE BAHR-AL-GHAZAL</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap al"><span class="smcap1">As</span> already related down to 1869, but little had +been placed on the map concerning the western +tributaries of the Nile in the region now styled generally +the Bahr-al-Ghazal Province. The Bahr-al-Ghazal +itself is the gathering up of some nine great +rivers. These unite to form a marshy, lake-like +stream, which indeed widens out into a lake of variable +size (Lake No) at its junction with the main +or Mountain Nile. The great breadth of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +is often disguised, and the open water reduced +to a mere thread by an immense floating +vegetable growth which we now know by the name +of <i>sudd</i>. The name “Bahr-al-Ghazal” simply means +a “River of Antelopes,” and is a designation given to +the great western affluent of the Nile by the Sudanese +Arabs. Rumours of this important contribution coming +to the Nile from the west (and the tributary +periodical streams known as the Bahr-al-Arab or +Bahr-al-Hamr extend the Nile basin as far west as +the frontiers of Wadai) reached even the Greek geographers +two thousand years ago, and induced some +of them to believe that the main sources of the Nile +lay far to the west, near where Lake Chad is situated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span> +on the map. Then this was forgotten, and it was not +until Arabs and Nubians had begun to extend their +commerce into the Sudan, when Egypt was under +Turkish rule, that the existence of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +was again mooted. This affluent of the Nile was first +sketched on the map with an approach to definiteness +in 1771, when D’Anville plainly indicates its existence. +In a very truncated form it appears on the maps of +the Nile drawn from the surveys of the Frenchmen +who accompanied the three expeditions sent by Muhammad +Ali to conquer the Sudan between 1839 and +1841. In the forties of the last century Nubian slave-traders +started in numbers to explore these regions, +firstly to purchase ivory, and secondly to acquire slaves. +The strange Nyam-nyam cannibals began to be heard +of at Khartum about 1845. Petherick himself went +in these directions in 1848. He was followed, as has +been related, by Miani the Venetian, and by Miss +Tinne and Von Heuglin. First of all Europeans, +Miani had penetrated so far south up these affluents +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal as to have heard from the +Nyam-nyam people of the existence of the Welle +River, which he reported to Petherick, and through +Petherick to Speke, as a great river flowing steadily +to the west. This was the first hint received of the +southwestern limits of the Nile basin.</p> + +<p>But little precise information about the southern +portions of this wonderful region had reached Europe +until the work of Schweinfurth was completed in +1871.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span></p> +<figure id="ip_203" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 20em;"> + <img src="images/i_2022.jpg" width="1275" height="1950" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Georg Schweinfurth</span> (1875). + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Georg Schweinfurth is a native of Riga in the +Baltic Provinces of Russia. He is consequently of +German extraction. He was born in 1837, and in +the early sixties spent much time in exploring for +botanical purposes Nubia, Upper Egypt, southwestern +Abyssinia, and the regions between these countries +and the Red Sea coast. The tropical luxuriance of +the vegetation in the outlying districts of Abyssinia +attracted him to further journeys towards the equator. +He conceived the idea of visiting the then least known +part of the Nile basin, the Bahr-al-Ghazal province. +For this purpose he obtained ample funds from the +Royal Academy of Science at Berlin. Apart from +the fact that he was a German by descent and speech, +his great explorations of the Nile were due entirely +to German support, and must be considered one of +Germany’s many contributions towards the Nile Quest.</p> + +<p>Schweinfurth landed at Suakin in September, 1867. +Before proceeding on his voyage up the White Nile, +he resolved to commence with a preliminary exploration +of the mountains to the south and west of +Suakin between the end of the Nubian Alps and the +beginning of the Abyssinian highlands. This elevated +district lies for the most part within the watershed of +the Atbara’s tributaries, though it also sends down +intermittent torrents to the Red Sea. In the mountains +to the south of Suakin first appears to any +traveller coming from Egypt and the north the characteristic +vegetation of tropical Africa, especially such +types as the dragon trees (<i class="taxonomy">Dracænæ</i>) and arborescent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span> +euphorbias. These types begin at an altitude of +about two thousand feet, as at that height they obtain +some moisture, whereas lower down the country is +mostly an arid desert. The Nubian <i class="taxonomy">Dracænæ</i> and those +of the slopes of the Abyssinian tableland are relatively +dwarfish (at most some twenty feet high) compared to +the giant forms of these tree-lilies which are met with +in equatorial Africa. Aloes, of course, grow in the +same districts as the euphorbia and the dracæna. +“Found in company with them is a wild, unearthly-looking +plant called the ‘Karaib’ (<i class="taxonomy">Bucerosia</i>), of +which the branches are like wings, prickly and jagged +round the edges like a dragon’s back. They produce +clusters of brown flowers as large as one’s fist, which +exhale a noxious and revolting smell, the plants themselves +being swollen with a white and slimy poisonous +juice.” Another item in this harsh vegetation is +the <i class="taxonomy">Sanseviera</i>, a plant belonging to the same group +as the aloes, lilies, and dracænas, with isolated, +leathery leaves like sword blades, though sometimes +with rolled edges like a thick, leathery whip. Higher +up, at altitudes of from four thousand to six thousand +feet, the trees are covered with clusters of +<i class="taxonomy">Usnea</i> lichen. On the northern spurs of the Abyssinian +highlands is found the wild olive tree, “of low +bushy shape, with box-like foliage.” The wild olive +is found nowhere else in tropical Africa beyond the +Abyssinian region.</p> + +<p>All watercourses with a supply of moist soil under +ground just sufficient for a few months’ vegetation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span> +are comprehended within the Arab designation <em>Wadi</em>. +Cheerless through the dry season, after the first rain +their level sand flats are clothed with the most luxuriant +flora; fresh-springing grasses put forth their +pointed leaves and give the sward the appearance of +being dotted with a myriad spikes; then quickly come +the sprouting blades, and the river bed is like a waving +field of corn. Half-way between Singat and Erkowit +Schweinfurth halted at a wady of this character, which +bore the name of Sarrowi. He <span class="locked">writes:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“What a prospect! How gay with its variety of hue,—green, +red and yellow! Nothing could be more pleasant +than the shade of the acacia, nothing more striking +than the abundance of bloom of the Abyssinian aloe, +transforming the dreary sand beds into smiling gardens. +Green were the tabbes-grass and the acacias, yellow and +red were the aloes, and in such crowded masses, that I +was involuntarily reminded of the splendour of the tulip +beds of the Netherlands: but here the garden lay in a +waste of gloomy black stone. One special charm of a +desert journey is that it is full of contrasts, that it brings +close together dearth and plenty, death and life; it opens +the eyes of the traveller to the minutest benefits of nature, +and demonstrates how every enjoyment is allied to a +corresponding deprivation.”</p> +</div> + +<p>When he reached the Nile, coming from Suakin, +he was received at Berber by an old acquaintance, +M. Lafargue, who was settled in that starting-point +for Suakin as a merchant and French vice-consul. +Lafargue, himself an experienced traveller on the +Upper Nile, received the German explorers with that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span> +hearty hospitality “which many other desert wanderers +have proved besides myself.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Sir Samuel Baker [writes Schweinfurth] aptly compares +such receptions to the oasis in the desert. No +necessity for letters of introduction here as with us in +Europe, no hollow forms of speech, exchanging courtesies +which perchance mean the very reverse; no empty +compliment of at best a tedious dinner; but here in the +Egyptian Sudan we are received with free and genial +amiability; all Europeans are fellow-citizens, and everything +is true and hearty. ‘What pleases me the most is +the ease with which you travel in this country; you come, +you go, you return again as though it were a walk.’ Such +were M. Lafargue’s cordial words to me. We parted +well pleased with one another; I shall not see him again.”</p> +</div> + +<p>About that part of the journey from Berber to +Khartum by way of the Nile Schweinfurth gives a +vivid description. For the first part of the voyage, +as far as Shendi and Matammah, the only considerable +towns in this district, the shore offered nothing +attractive. It reminded him of the Egyptian valley +of the Nile only in two places,—the mouth of the +Atbara, and one spot where the renowned pyramids +of Meroe formed a noble background.</p> + +<p>Matammah was then a populous town, but dull and +unenterprising. The buildings, constructed of Nile +earth, were insignificant in themselves, and irregularly +crowded together in a mass like huge ant-hills; +not a single tree afforded shade in the dreary streets, +which were filthy with dirt.</p> + +<p>The Nile voyage below Shendi was, however, rich<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span> +in the charms of scenery. This was especially applicable +to the views afforded by the river islands. These +islands were so many throughout the whole extent of +the sixth cataract between the island of Marnad and +the lofty mountain-island of Royān, “that no one pretends +to know their precise number, and the sailors +call them in consequence the ninety-nine islands.” +The landscapes on shore afforded the traveller a treat +“which no other river voyage could surpass.” Splendid +groups of acacias, in three varieties, with groves +of ‘holy-thorn,’ overgrown by the hanging foliage of +graceful climbers, made the profusion of islands set +in the surface of the water appear like bright green, +luxuriant, and gay tangles.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Wildly romantic on the contrary, reminding one of +the Bingerloch on the Rhine, are the narrow straits of +Sablu where the Nile, reduced to a deep mountain stream, +flows between high, bare granite walls that rise to several +hundred feet.</p> + +<p>“So much the more surprising appeared the breadth +which the Nile exhibited above this cataract, where it +displays itself in a majesty which it has long lost in +Egypt. Below their confluence, the waters of the Blue +and the White Nile are distinctly visible many miles +apart. It is highly probable that at certain times the level +of the streams might show a difference of several feet; +the proposed establishment of a Nilometer should therefore +take place below the confluence, in order that with +the help of the telegraph accurate intelligence of its +condition might be remitted to Cairo.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Schweinfurth reached Khartum on the 1st of November, +1868. He left that place in January, 1869,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span> +for the Bahr-al-Ghazal. Of his voyage up the White +Nile he <span class="locked">writes:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“As the morning sun fell upon the low, monotonous +shores of the flowing river, it seemed at times almost as +though it were illuminating the ocean, so vast was the +extent of water where the current ran for any distance +in a straight and unwinding course.... The districts +along the shore mostly retained an unchanging aspect +for miles together. Rarely does some distant mountain +or isolated hill relieve the eye from the wide monotony.... +The attention is soon attracted by the astonishing +number of geese and ducks which are seen day after day. +The traveller in these parts is so satiated with them, +fattened and roasted, that the sight creates something +akin to disgust. The number of cattle is prodigious: +far as the eye can reach they are scattered alike on either +shore, whilst, close at hand, they come down to the river-marshes +to get their drink.</p> + +<p>“The stream, as wide again as the Nile of Egypt, is +enlivened by the boats belonging to the shepherds, who +row hither and thither to conduct their cattle, their dogs +in the water swimming patiently behind.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Early on the third day he reached Getina, a considerable +village inhabited by Hassaniah Arabs (long since +wiped out by the Dervishes). Getina was then a favourite +rendezvous of the Nile boats. The flats here +were bright with the luxuriant green of sedges which +in their abundant growth imparted to the banks the +meadow-like character of European river-sides. Thousands +of geese (<i class="taxonomy">Chenalopex ægyptiacus</i>), in no degree +disconcerted by the arrival of humans, paced the greensward.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span> +Although in places the right bank was bounded +by sand-banks thirty feet high, the left appeared completely +and interminably flat, and occasionally admitted +the culture of sorghum. “This remarkable difference +which exists between the aspect of the two banks, and +which may be observed for several degrees, is to be +explained by a hydrographical law, which is illustrated +not only here, but likewise in the district of +the Lower Nile. As rivers flow from southerly into +more northern latitudes, their fluid particles are set in +motion with increased velocity, the result of which is +to drive them onwards so as to wash away the eastern +bank, leaving a continual deposit on the west.”</p> + +<p>About two hundred miles to the south of Khartum +more signs of Tropical Africa begin to appear. Graceful, +shade-giving acacias (<i class="taxonomy">A. spirocarpa</i>) grew on the +river banks, where also were seen great masses of +large-leaved shrubs, many of them covered with the +beautiful blossoms of the <i class="taxonomy">Ipomœa</i> convolvulus. Hippopotamuses +were abundant, lions were heard roaring +at night, and the semi-Arab, somewhat Nubian population +was gradually replaced by the naked, black, and +lanky Shiluk Negroes. Great monitor lizards (<i class="taxonomy">Varanus</i>) +and snakes rustled in the dry grass, while <i class="taxonomy">Cercopithecus</i> +monkeys, crowned cranes, and handsome +red and white waterbuck diversified the aspect of the +river-banks; huge crocodiles lay on the foreshore. In +Negro Nileland Schweinfurth first noticed the ambatch. +This is really a member of the bean tribe (<i class="taxonomy">Herminiera +elaphroxylon</i>), which grows in shallow water. Its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span> +leaves resemble those of the acacia, and its blossoms +are bold, pea-like flowers of bright orange.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The ambatch is distinguished for the unexampled +lightness of its wood, if the fungus-like substance of the +stem deserves such a name at all. It shoots up to fifteen +or twenty feet in height, and at its base generally attains +a thickness of about six inches. The weight of this +fungus-wood is so insignificant that it really suggests +comparison to a feather. Only by taking it into his hands +could anyone believe that it were possible for one man +to lift on his shoulders a raft made large enough to carry +eight people on the water. The plant shoots up with +great rapidity by the quiet places on the shore, and since +it roots merely in the water, whole bushes are easily +broken off by the force of the wind or stream, and settle +themselves afresh in other places. This is the true origin +of the grass-barriers so frequently mentioned as blocking +up the waters of the Upper Nile, and in many places +making navigation utterly impracticable. Other plants +have a share in the formation of these floating islands, +which daily emerge like the Delos of tradition; among +them, in particular, the <i class="taxonomy">Vossia</i> grass and the famous +papyrus of antiquity, which at present is nowhere to be +found on the Nile either in Egypt or in Nubia.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Schweinfurth notices a remarkable extinct volcano +called Defafang, one thousand feet high, which is situated +some five miles from the east bank of the Nile, +in about latitude 10° 50′ north. This extinct volcano +was first discovered by Ferdinand Werne, who collected +specimens of the rocks,—chiefly basaltic lava. +Defafang for a long time was the boundary on that +side of the Nile between the territory of the Negroes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span> +on the south and that of the more or less Arab shepherds +on the north.</p> + +<figure id="ip_211" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> + <img src="images/i_2102.jpg" width="1531" height="1228" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Shiluks.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>At the village of Kaka, on the east bank of the +White Nile, Schweinfurth observed ruins of a fort +which had once been the headquarters of a renowned +robber chief, Muhammad Kher. This man, +who flourished between 1840 and 1855, was a Nubian, +who gathered round him a number of well-armed +Baggara Arab horsemen. He was one of the first of +the slave-traders to show how, by means of fortified +stations, it was possible to intimidate the Negroes of +the Sudan and bring them into subjection. Muhammed +Kher and his Arabs devastated the country for +hundreds of miles along the banks of the Nile, exterminating +the population in many places. At Kaka +Schweinfurth found himself greeted by a great crowd +of naked Shiluks, who, prompted by curiosity, assembled +on the shore.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The first sight of a throng of savages suddenly presenting +themselves in their native nudity is one from +which no amount of familiarity can remove the strange +impression; it takes abiding hold upon the memory, and +makes the traveller recall anew the civilisation he has left +behind.... Although these savages are altogether unacquainted +with the refined cosmetics of Europe, they +make use of cosmetics of their own; viz., a coating of +ashes for protection against insects. When the ashes are +prepared from wood they render the body perfectly gray; +when obtained from cow-dung they give a rusty red tint, +the hue of red devils. This colour is only donned by land-owners. +Ashes, dung, and the urine of cows are the indispensable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span> +requisites of the toilet. The item last named +affects the nose of the stranger rather unpleasantly when +he makes use of any of their milk vessels, as, according +to a regular African habit, they are washed with it, probably +to compensate for a lack of salt.... Entirely bare +of clothing, the bodies of the men would not of themselves +be ungraceful, but through the perpetual plastering +over with ashes they assume a thoroughly diabolical +aspect. The movements of their lean bony limbs are so +languid, and their repose so perfect, as not rarely to give +the Shiluks the resemblance of mummies; and whoever +comes as a novice amongst them can hardly resist the +impression that in gazing at these ash-gray forms he is +looking upon mouldering corpses rather than upon living +beings.”</p> +</div> + +<p>As to the Bahr-al-Ghazal, Schweinfurth opines that +the volume of water brought down by the Gazelle +River to swell the Nile is still an unsolved problem. +“In the contention as to which stream is entitled to +rank as first born among the children of the great +river god, the Bahr-al-Ghazal has apparently a claim +in every way as valid as the Bahr-al-Jabl (Mountain +Nile). In truth, it would seem to stand in the same +relation to the Bahr-al-Jabl as the White Nile does to +the Blue. At the season when the waters are highest +the inundations of the Ghazal spread over a wide territory; +about March, the time of year when they are +lowest, the river settles down in its upper section into a +number of vast pools of nearly stagnant water, whilst +its lower portion runs off into divers narrow and sluggish +channels. These channels, overgrown as they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span> +look with massy vegetation, conceal beneath (either +in their open depths or mingled with the unfathomable +abyss of mud) such volumes of water as to be in +some places nearly unsoundable by moderate lengths +of pole or cord.”</p> + +<p>At the commencement of the real Bahr-al-Ghazal, +where that broad lake-like stream is formed by the confluence +of the Dyur (Jur) and other rivers, there was, +before the uprising of the Mahdi and the consequent +devastation of the Sudan, a large trading-station +originally founded by the Nubian, Arab, and Coptic +merchants of Khartum. This was named Mashra-ar-Rak—transcribed, +in the mincing Turkish fashion, +“Meshra-er-Rek.” Here merchants and travellers +generally started on their land journeys into the Nyam-nyam +countries. Miss Tinne had paused a long time +at Mashra-ar-Rak, and it was supposed that there her +expedition had contracted the severe malarial fevers +which eventually caused the death of five out of its +nine Europeans. Mashra-ar-Rak was situated on a +lake-like swelling of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, which expanse +is partly covered by four wooded islands. All the surroundings +of this lake-like estuary are very low and +swampy. In all directions the eyes rest on jungles +of papyrus, with the exception of the few trees on the +islands aforementioned.</p> + +<p>A short time before Schweinfurth reached this place +with its dismal record of disease amongst Europeans, +he heard that a French predecessor had died not far +from the Bahr-al-Ghazal. This was Le Saint, a French<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span> +naval officer, who had been despatched by the Paris +Geographical Society to make that extended exploration +of the whole of the region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +which Fate had destined Schweinfurth himself to +accomplish.<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">83</a></p> + +<p>Schweinfurth’s own expedition had to be conducted +in a most economical and unobtrusive fashion. He +made most of his great journeys between the Bahr-al-Ghazal +and the Congo watershed on foot. Remembering +that his expedition was purely scientific, and +was financed by a scientific society, he very wisely +concerned himself with no question of ethics or reform +such as had hitherto caused all English explorers +of these regions to be hindered as much as possible +by Nubians, Arabs, and Turks. He was not there to +undertake crusades, but to make collections. He thus +won and retained the friendship and confidence of men +of all colours, some of them, no doubt, great ruffians, +but all made equally to subserve the interests of science +by affording sympathetic support to one of the greatest +and most genial of African explorers, Georg Schweinfurth. +Schweinfurth was no sympathiser with the +slave-trade and the barbarities to which it gave rise. +“Throughout my wanderings,” he writes, “I was for +ever puzzling out schemes for setting bounds to this +inhuman traffic. On one point (i.e. the abolition of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span> +the slave-trade) all are unanimous,—that from Islam +no help can be expected, and that with Islamism +no pact can be made.” His reports on the behaviour +of the slave-traders did a great deal to bring about the +abolition of this devastation by Gordon Pasha and his +officers some years later.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"><span id="toclink_216"></span>CHAPTER XVIII<br> + +<span class="subhead">SCHWEINFURTH’S ACHIEVEMENTS AND DESCRIPTIONS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Dr. Schweinfurth</span> spent three years exploring +the regions of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and +returned to Europe in the autumn of 1871. During +the course of his journeys he took no observation of +latitude or longitude, but kept a most accurate dead +reckoning. He laid down with astonishing accuracy +much of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, of the courses of the Rōl, +the Roah and its affluents, the Dogoru and Tondi, the +Jur, Nyenam, Ji, Biri, Kuru, and Dembo tributaries +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the upper waters of the Sue and +Yabongo; lastly, he crossed the Nile watershed and +entered that of the Congo, thus discovering the upper +waters of the Welle River and its many affluents. +Here he thought that he had entered the basin of the +Shari River, but, as we know now, he had discovered +the head streams of that most important affluent of the +Congo, the Welle-Ubangi.</p> + +<p>Dr. Schweinfurth gave the first true and particular +account of the Congo Pygmies under the name of +Akka, whom he found in the thickly forested region +on the northern limits of the Congo watershed; he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span> +drew our attention to those remarkable “gallery” +forests,<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">84</a> and to the existence in the Nile basin of +the chimpanzee, the gray parrot,<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">85</a> and other West +African types. He discovered a slightly civilised +race on this Congo-Nile water-parting—the Mangbettu—speaking +a language which has no known +relations, but leading a life singularly similar to that +of the other semi-civilised Negro states of Unyoro +and Uganda. The Mangbettu and their chiefs exhibit +traces of former intermixture with Hamitic people. +Dr. Schweinfurth also told us much we did not know +before as to the Nyam-nyam,<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">86</a> the Bongo, and the +Dinka tribes.</p> + +<p>Schweinfurth possessed many qualifications for +writing a book on African exploration. He was +a scientific botanist, and knew a great deal of zoölogy. +He had a quick ear for languages, and wrote +down vocabularies of the important dialects. He +collected invaluable notes on ethnology and anthropology. +Although he was unable to do much +photography, he was a skilled draughtsman, and his +beautiful drawings are apt illustrations of his book. +As regards the value of the information he collected, +no such book as Schweinfurth’s had appeared before, +with the exception of Barth’s classical work on the +Western Sudan; but Schweinfurth’s book was far<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span> +ahead of Barth’s in the matter of illustrations. These +are as accurate as photographs, and yet much clearer. +More than any previous traveller who had written on +Africa, Schweinfurth is able to bring to our mental +vision the different aspects of vegetation. He describes +the tree-lilies (<i class="taxonomy">Dracænæ</i>), with their bouquets +of leaves like bayonets and their short, woody +stems, the Candelabra euphorbias, the coral red aloes, +the dragon-like <i class="taxonomy">Bucerosia</i>, the leathery <i class="taxonomy">Sanseviera</i>, +and the gigantic clumps of the grass-green <i class="taxonomy">Salvadora</i>, +which characterise the northern flanks of +Abyssinia.</p> + +<figure id="ip_218" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 19em;"> + <img src="images/i_2181.jpg" width="1181" height="1178" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption">“<span class="smcap">Papyrus, Fifteen Feet High.</span>” + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In another place he describes acacia groves on the +right bank of the White Nile above Khartum, with +their enormous white bulbous thorns,<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">87</a> and their oozy +lumps of amber-coloured gum. He notes the remarkable +fact that little, if any, of the floating vegetation +of the Upper Nile reaches Egypt. He describes the +jungles of papyrus, “fifteen feet high,” the floating +grass barriers and the sudd (which he calls <em>sett</em>); the +<i class="taxonomy">suf</i> reeds, the water-ferns, the floating <i class="taxonomy">Pistia stratiotes</i> +(like a pale-green lettuce), the duck-weeds, the +beautiful white and blue waterlilies. When he reached +the vicinity of the water-parting between the Nile and +the Congo, he had entered the forest region of West-Central +Africa. This mighty tropical forest has no +great reverence for geographical boundaries, but overlaps +in several places the watershed of the Nile, while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span> +of course it exists in patches in the basins of the Shari, +the Benue, the Niger, and on the coast belt of Upper +and Lower Guinea. Perhaps the most marked feature +of it, the clearest indication of its West African nature, +is the existence of the climbing <i class="taxonomy">Calamus</i> +palm, which is never found in typical East Africa. +The wonderful “gallery”<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">88</a> forests are described as +<span class="locked">follows:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Trees with immense stems, and of a height surpassing +all that we had elsewhere seen (not even excepting +the palms of Egypt), here stood in masses which seemed +unbounded, except where at intervals some less towering +forms rose gradually higher and higher beneath their +shade. In the innermost recesses of these woods one +would come upon an avenue like the colonnade of an +Egyptian temple, veiled in the leafy shade of a triple +roof above. Seen from without, they had all the appearance +of impenetrable forests, but, traversed within, they +opened into aisles and corridors which were musical with +many a murmuring fount. Hardly anywhere was the +height of these less than seventy feet, and on an average +it was much nearer one hundred; yet, viewed from without, +they very often failed to present anything of that +imposing sight which was always so captivating when +taken from the brinks of the brooks within. In some +places the sinking of the ground along which the gallery-tunnels +ran would be so great that not half the wood +revealed itself at all to the contiguous steppes, while in +that wood (out of sight as it was) many a ‘gallery’ might +still exist.”</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span></p> + +<p>Most of these gigantic trees, the size of whose +stems exceeds any European forest growth, belong +to the order of the <i class="taxonomy">Sterculiæ</i>, <i class="taxonomy">Boswelliæ</i>, <i class="taxonomy">Papilionaceæ</i>, +<i class="taxonomy">Rosaceæ</i>, or <i class="taxonomy">Cæsalpiniæ</i>; to the <i class="taxonomy">Ficaceæ</i>, the <i class="taxonomy">Artocarpeæ</i>, +the <i class="taxonomy">Euphorbiaceæ</i>, and the varied order of +the <i class="taxonomy">Rubiaceæ</i>. Amongst the trees of second and +third rank are a few <i class="taxonomy">Araliacea</i>, large-leaved figs, +brilliant-flowered Spathodeas, Combretums, and Mussændas, +as well as innumerable other rubiaceous or +papilionaceous plants. There is no lack of thorny +shrubberies; “and the <i class="taxonomy">Oncoba</i>, the <i class="taxonomy">Phyllanthus</i>, the +<i class="taxonomy">Celastrus</i>, and the <i class="taxonomy">Acacia ataxacantha</i>, cluster after +cluster, are met with in abundance.” “Thick creepers +climbed from bough to bough, the <i class="taxonomy">Modecca</i> being the +most prominent of all; but the <i class="taxonomy">Cissus</i>, with its purple +leaf, the <i class="taxonomy">Coccinea</i>, the prickly <i class="taxonomy">Smilax</i>, the <i class="taxonomy">Helmiæ</i>, +and the <i class="taxonomy">Dioscoreæ</i>, had all their part to play. Made +up of these, the whole underwood spread out its +ample ramifications, its great twilight made more +complete by the thickness of the substance of the +leaves themselves.”</p> + +<figure id="ip_220" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;"> + <img src="images/i_2202.jpg" width="1648" height="1338" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Path through the Forest.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Down upon the very ground, again, there were +masses, all but impenetrable, of plants (mainly <i class="taxonomy">Zingeberaceæ</i> +or else Arums) growing large gorgeously +painted leaves which contributed to fill up the gaps +left in this mazy labyrinth of foliage. First of all there +were the extensive jungles of the <i class="taxonomy">Amomum</i> and the +<i class="taxonomy">Costus</i>, rising full fifteen feet high, and of which +the rigid stems (like those of stout reeds) either bar +out the progress of a traveller altogether, or admit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span> +him, if he venture to force his way among them, only +to fall into the sloughs of muddy slime from which +they grow.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“And then there was the marvellous world of ferns, +destitute indeed of stems, but running in their foliage +to some twelve feet high. Boundless in the variety of +the feathery articulations of their fronds, some of them +seemed to perform the graceful part of throwing a veil +over the treasures of the wood; and others lent a charming +contrast to the general uniformity of the leafy scene. +High above these there rose the large, slim-stemmed +<i class="taxonomy">Rubiaceæ</i> (<i class="taxonomy">Coffeæ</i>), which by regularity of growth and +symmetry of leaf appeared to imitate, and in a measure +to supply the absence of, the arboraceous ferns. Of all +the other ferns the most singular which I observed was +that which I call the elephant’s ear. This I found up in +trees at a height of more than fifty feet, in association +with the <i class="taxonomy">Angræcum</i> orchis and the long gray beard of the +hanging <i class="taxonomy">Usnea</i>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Whenever the stems of the trees failed to be thickly +overgrown by some of these different ferns, they were +rarely wanting in garlands of the crimson-berried +pepper. Far as the eye could reach, it rested solely +upon green which did not admit a gap. The narrow +paths that wound themselves partly through and +partly around the growing thickets were formed by +steps consisting of bare and protruding roots which +retained the light, loose soil together. Mouldering +stems, thickly clad with moss, obstructed the passage +at wellnigh every turn. “The air was no longer that +of the sunny steppe, nor that of the shady grove; it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span> +was stifling as the atmosphere of a palm-house. Its +temperature might vary from 70° to 80° Fahr., but the +air was so overloaded with an oppressive moisture +exhaled by the rank foliage that the traveller could not +feel otherwise than relieved to escape.”</p> + +<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> + +<p>In the second volume of his work Schweinfurth +<span class="locked">adds:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The cumbrous stems are thickly overgrown with wild +pepper, and the spreading branches are loaded with bead +moss (<i class="taxonomy">Usnea</i>) and with that remarkable lichen which resembles +an elephant’s ear. High among the boughs are +the huge dwellings of the tree-termites (white ants). +Some stems already decayed serve as supports for immense +garlands of <i class="taxonomy">Mucuna</i> (a bean), and overhung +by impenetrable foliage, form roomy bowers, where +dull obscurity reigns supreme. Such is the home of the +chimpanzee.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Schweinfurth might have extended his researches +further into the unknown but for a disastrous campfire +in the Dyur country, which destroyed the greater +part of his collections, journals, drawings, and instruments. +Eventually, with such of his collections as +he was able to save from the conflagration, Schweinfurth +turned his steps northward again, and reached +Europe in 1871. He subsequently did much to increase +our knowledge of the botany of Abyssinia +and Arabia, but never resumed the rôle of African +explorer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span></p> + +<figure id="ip_223" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> + <img src="images/i_2222_map.jpg" width="1523" height="2320" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_2222_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Schweinfurth’s Map.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX"><span id="toclink_223"></span>CHAPTER XIX<br> + +<span class="subhead">STANLEY CONFIRMS SPEKE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Dr. Schweinfurth</span> evidently shared Burton’s +opinions on the subject of the Victoria +Nyanza. Speke’s great discovery may be said to +have reached its low-water mark of depreciation in +the map issued in 1873 to illustrate Schweinfurth’s +book, “The Heart of Africa.” On this map a fairly +correct estimate of the shape and area of the Albert +Nyanza is given, together with some hint of the abrupt +commencement of the Congo watershed west of +Lake Albert. But the mountainous character of Unyoro +is greatly exaggerated, and the area of the great +Victoria Nyanza is taken up by five lakes and lakelets. +Speke was dead, and Grant was tired of asseverating +that the Victoria Nyanza was one huge continuous +sheet of water.</p> + +<p>In 1873, just as Dr. Schweinfurth’s book was being +published, Henry Moreton Stanley, an Americanised +Welshman, had returned to London from the discovery +and relief of Dr. Livingstone. Soon after his +return arrived the news of Livingstone’s death. The +sorrow over this loss, and enthusiasm at the half-finished +discoveries on the great mysterious river<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span> +which Livingstone believed to be the Nile and everyone +else the Congo, caused the “Daily Telegraph” +and the “New York Herald” to unite in furnishing +funds for a great expedition which should attempt +to clear up many African problems. This expedition +Stanley (who therefrom rose to be the greatest of +African explorers) commanded.</p> + +<p>Starting from the coast opposite Zanzibar, whence +so many expeditions had set forth since Maizen<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">89</a> and +Burton had made the first attempts, Stanley travelled +by the Unyamwezi route to the Victoria Nyanza, the +south shore of which he reached at the end of February, +1875. On the 8th of March in that year Stanley (having +put together a boat which he brought in sections, +and which he named the <i>Lady Alice</i>) started—accompanied +by eleven of his men—on a most adventurous +voyage along the eastern and northern shores of +the lake. He coasted and named the important southeastern +arm of the Victoria Nyanza, which is known +as Speke Gulf. Passing rather hurriedly along the +northeast coast of the lake, he made one great blunder, +in that he overlooked the very narrow entrance to +Kavirondo Bay (which is almost a separate lake), +and created instead a broad northern gulf which he +called Ugowe Bay. Ugowe Bay actually is the native +name of quite a small shallow inlet on the Uyoma +coast. Stanley skirted at some distance the much indented +shores of Busoga, passed through what is now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span> +known as Rosebery Channel, and so on up Murchison +Gulf to the native capital of Uganda, then called Rubaga +(now known as Mengo). Here he had a splendid +reception from Mutesa, and here he met Édouard +Linant de Bellefonds,<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">90</a> a Belgian in the Egyptian government, +who had been sent by Gordon Pasha to report +on the state of affairs in Uganda.</p> + +<p>Mutesa having agreed to send a large fleet of +canoes to transport all Stanley’s expedition to Uganda, +Stanley then resumed his circumnavigation of the +lake, following the western shore. Passing between +the mainland of Karagwe and the little island of +Bumbiri, he was fiercely and unprovokedly attacked +by the natives of that island, who were a savage +people ruled over by light-coloured Bahima chiefs. +Narrowly escaping disaster, he rushed through the +opposing savages, got into the <i>Lady Alice</i>, and +his men paddled off with boards which they tore +up from the bottom of the boat. Having rejoined +his expedition, which he had left at a place called +Kagehi, near to the modern German station of +Muanza, Stanley made one more blunder in his +configuration of the lake (which he was the first to +set right years afterwards). Deceived by a chain +of islands, he curtailed the Victoria Nyanza of its +southwestern gulf, which extension of the lake Stanley +subsequently named after Emin Pasha.</p> + +<p>Reinforced by Mutesa’s fleet of canoes, Stanley’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span> +entire expedition was saved the long march through +the Hima kingdoms to the west of the Victoria Nyanza. +But on his return journey to Uganda he was obliged +to stop and give a severe lesson to the Bumbiri +islanders. These warlike people barred the passage +with their canoes. Stanley had been warned of this +opposition by the natives of Iroba on the mainland. +Stanley seized the king and two chiefs of Iroba as +hostages, who should negotiate a peace between himself +and the king of Bumbiri. These hostages caught +for him the king’s son. At this moment a large reinforcement +of Baganda canoes arrived, and volunteered +to go to Bumbiri and negotiate. But they were attacked, +and driven off with some loss. Stanley, therefore, +was obliged to inflict punishment. On the 4th +of August, 1875, he attacked Bumbiri, and drove its +natives to the interior of the island. The expedition +then pursued its way along the west and north coasts +until they entered Napoleon Gulf and arrived at the +Ripon Falls, where the Nile leaves the lake. Here +they found Mutesa encamped with a large army, engaged +in one of his periodical wars with Unyoro.</p> + +<p>Stanley not only ascertained the approximate area +and shape of the Victoria Nyanza, but he was able +to define with some approach to accuracy its principal +islands and archipelagoes. After his journey there +was no longer any doubt as to Speke’s great discovery. +The question was settled once and for ever.</p> + +<figure id="ip_226" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 33em;"> + <img src="images/i_2261.jpg" width="2102" height="1267" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Victoria Nyanza: Uganda Government Steamer in the Offing.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Leaving Uganda in December, 1875, Stanley accompanied +an expedition sent by Mutesa to the countries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span> +then governed by the Banyoro at the base of +Ruwenzori. Amazing to relate, Stanley was actually +encamped under the Ruwenzori range (called, by the +Baganda, Gambaragara), and yet was unaware of +the importance of his discovery. He guessed that the +mountain in front of him might be from fourteen to +fifteen thousand feet high, and he called it Mount +Edwin Arnold. What is so extraordinary about the +matter is that he relates (as though he disbelieved +them) the stories of the natives to the effect that +white stuff and intense cold characterised the upper +parts of this mountain range, yet he evinced little or +no curiosity to ascertain the truth of these statements. +Of course at the time of his visit all the +thirty miles of snow and glaciers were concealed +under heavy clouds.</p> + +<p>From the vicinity of Ruwenzori the party made its +way to Lake Dweru, which Stanley named Beatrice +Gulf. This he learned from the natives was (as it +is) but a loop of a much larger lake. Years afterwards +Stanley was to realise that he had discovered +a portion of Lake Albert Edward. Quitting these +regions of mysterious lakes and mountains, he journeyed +much more prosaically past the volcanoes of +Mfumbiro and the Hima kingdoms of Karagwe to +Lake Tanganyika, which he reached at Ujiji on its +northeast coast. On this portion of the journey Stanley +added a good deal to our information regarding +the ultimate source of the Nile, the Kagera, though +he was somewhat misled by native information, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span> +perhaps by exaggerated swamps, into the creation of +a non-existing lake, which he called the Alexandra +Nyanza. His subsequent route across Africa from +Tanganyika to the mouth of the Congo does not concern +the present narrative.</p> + +<p>One interesting result of Stanley’s explorations of +the Victoria Nyanza, Uganda, and Unyamwezi was +that Mr. (now Sir Edwin) Arnold<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">91</a> was inspired to +propose a Cape-to-Cairo overland telegraph wire to +pass via the Zambezi, Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, +to Uganda and the Egyptian Sudan, thereby forestalling +both Cecil Rhodes and the author of this +book in the advocacy of a continuous line of British +communications between South Africa and Egypt.</p> + +<figure id="ip_228" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 18em;"> + <img src="images/i_2282_map.jpg" width="1139" height="2030" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_2282_map_large.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Stanley’s Idea of the Victoria Nyanza.</span>. 1880.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>It has been mentioned that Stanley’s letter to the +“Daily Telegraph,” summoning missionaries to the +court of Mutesa, decided the fate of Uganda. This +letter met with an immediate response, and in 1876 +two parties of English missionaries were sent out by +the Church Missionary Society. The Rev. G. Lichfield, +Mr. C. W. Pearson, and Dr. R. W. Felkin were +despatched by the Nile route. They travelled from +Suakin to Khartum, and thence, by the help of Gordon +Pasha, to the Albert Nyanza and Uganda. The +other half of the missionary party (Lieutenant Shergold +Smith, R.N., the Rev. C. T. Wilson, and, amongst +others, Alexander Mackay, a Scottish engineer) made +the journey by way of Zanzibar and Unyamwezi.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span> +Some of these missionaries were detained at the south +end of the Victoria Nyanza. Lieutenant Shergold +Smith—a man of great promise—journeyed across +the lake in a boat and reached Uganda; but soon after +his return to the south end of the lake he was killed +in an attack made by the natives of Ukerewe (Bukerebe) +on the Arab traders. Leaving Mackay, Lichfield, +and O’Neil in Uganda, C. T. Wilson and R. W. +Felkin decided to return to Europe, taking with them +envoys whom Mutesa wished to send to England. On +their return journey they were greatly troubled by the +sudd, which then—as frequently before and since—practically +blocked the navigation of the main Nile. +They therefore made a very interesting overland journey +through Darfur and Kordofan, and thence back +into Egypt.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX"><span id="toclink_230"></span>CHAPTER XX<br> + +<span class="subhead">GORDON AND HIS LIEUTENANTS.—JUNKER AND THE NILE-CONGO WATER-PARTING</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">In</span> 1874 Colonel Purdy and Colonel Colston (Englishmen) +were despatched by the Egyptian government +respectively into Darfur and Kordofan for +surveying purposes. By their expeditions a good deal +of the country along these half-dry affluents of the +Bahr-al-Arab and the water-parting between the +Shari and the Nile was explored and made known. +Their work was added to in some respects (1875–1876) +by Sidney Ensor, a civil engineer, who surveyed +the route for a railway from Wadi Halfa to +Al Fasher, the capital of Darfur.</p> + +<p>The energetic work undertaken by Sir Samuel Baker +of suppressing the slave-trade in the Equatorial Province +of the Egyptian Sudan was carried much further +by the celebrated Charles Gordon, who was destined +to die at Khartum under circumstances conferring +on him lasting fame. Gordon Pasha (as he subsequently +became) had, as it is hardly necessary to state, +been an engineer officer. It was thought that his appointment +to the supreme government of the Egyptian +Sudan (an appointment which Baker had not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span> +held, since he worked with an Egyptian Governor-General +at Khartum) would—as it did—materially +assist the improvement of communications. Gordon +made an interesting survey of the country between +Suakin and Berber on the Nile, and together with +Lieutenants Watson and Chippendall mapped the +main Nile from Khartum to Gondokoro and Lake +Albert. He also caused the circumnavigation of +that lake to be effected.</p> + +<p>Soon after Gordon had taken up the work begun by +Sir Samuel Baker, a curious theory had been started +concerning Lake Albert Nyanza. In those days, when +so much personal feeling was very naturally imported +into Nile exploration, and one great explorer vied with +another, theories were often started by A to minimise +the work of B or to exaggerate the results of A’s own +discoveries. It has been already recounted how Burton, +piqued by Speke’s great discovery of the Victoria +Nyanza, which might have fallen to Burton’s own +lot had he been less crippled with fever, subsequently +strove to prove the non-existence of that lake as a +continuous sheet of water. Speke in the most wonderful +manner had not only discovered the Victoria +Nyanza, but had, by the collection of native information +and the deductions he drew therefrom, made, on +the whole, a remarkably accurate forecast of the Nile +system in the region of the equatorial lakes. He had +put Lake Albert on the map, merely from report, in +a shape and position closely in accordance with actuality. +Not, however, being able to visit this lake himself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span> +he had handed the task over to Sir Samuel Baker, +who had discovered the Albert Nyanza, but had not +been able to ascertain its area and shape. Both Speke +and Baker, however, assumed that the Victoria Nile +entered Lake Albert, and quitted that lake as the main +stream of the White Nile. Neither explorer, however, +nor most that came after them, could state positively +that they had mapped the Victoria Nile along its whole +course from the Ripon Falls to Lake Albert, nor had +they traced the course of the Nile from Lake Albert +northward to Gondokoro. Therefore in the early +seventies some theorist had started the ingenious +idea that Lake Albert belonged either to the system +of the Congo or the Shari, and that its waters drained +away by an unknown river at the south end, or else +by an outlet to the north, which was not the Nile, as +generally assumed, but a river which flowed westward +to the unknown. The discovery about this +time of Lake Kioga further confused notions about +the Nile system, and it was thought that the Victoria +Nile discovered by Speke did not enter Lake Albert, +but in some tortuous way joined the Asua, and so +flowed on past Gondokoro, leaving Lake Albert altogether +out of its system.</p> + +<figure id="ip_232" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_2321.jpg" width="1240" height="1191" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Victoria Nile flowing towards Lake Kioga.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>To settle these doubts, Gordon resolved to despatch +Romolo Gessi,<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">92</a> who was then little more than +a steamer engineer, though, having been the mate of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span> +Mediterranean steamer, he was able to take astronomical +observations. Gessi was therefore instructed to +circumnavigate Lake Albert. This task he carried out +in 1876. He ascertained positively that the Victoria +Nile entered Lake Albert and left it again, and he +connected his rough survey of the Albertine Nile with +the work which was being carried on up stream from +Gondokoro by two English engineer officers in Gordon’s +employ, Lieutenants Watson<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">93</a> and Chippendall. +In 1877 Colonel Mason (an American) took advantage +of the first steamer being placed on Lake Albert to +make a survey rather more careful than that of Gessi, +but neither of these explorers ascertained the existence +of the Semliki River or of the snow-range of Ruwenzori, +though it is said that in some of Gessi’s private +letters mention was made of a strange apparition +“like snow-mountains” in the sky, which had appeared +to some of his men at the south end of Lake +Albert,—a remark that attracted no attention at the +time. Gessi also records having seen the mouth of +a large river at the south end of Lake Albert, but it +never seems to have occurred to him that this river +was probably of the greatest geographical interest.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when Gessi returned to Khartum to +report the result of his Albert Nyanza explorations to +Gordon, the latter exclaimed, “What a pity you are not +an Englishman!” This remark is supposed to have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span> +been made from pique that the two English officers despatched +by Gordon (Watson and Chippendall) had +not arrived in time to accomplish what a Levantine +Italian had successfully performed. Gessi was already +somewhat offended, because he considered that he had +done an excellent piece of work, and he had only +received as a reward a present of a few hundred francs +and the decoration of the Mejidieh, third class. He +therefore flung his fez at Gordon’s feet and tendered +his resignation. He journeyed to Italy, and was received +with great distinction by the Italian Geographical +Society at Rome, who presented him with their +Gold Medal. He resolved, however, to return to work +as an explorer, giving particular attention to anthropological +and zoölogical researches. He engaged two +Austrian-Italians—Giacomo Morch and Riccardo +Buchta—to accompany him. Buchta deserves special +notice, as he was the first careful photographer to visit +the regions of the Upper Nile. His photographs of +the native types and scenery of these countries taken +between 1878 and 1882 are remarkably interesting.</p> + +<p>Soon after Gessi’s arrival in Egypt with all his +stores, he was informed that a fire had broken out +at Suez railway station, resulting in the complete +destruction of all his goods, involving a monetary +loss of something like twelve hundred pounds. He +therefore returned to Italy, gave up the idea of +exploring the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and instead resolved +to start for the river Sobat, and work his way from +the upper waters of that stream to the southern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span> +regions of Abyssinia, where two Italians—Cecchi +and Chiarini—were supposed to be wandering. +His second expedition was financed by generous +Italians and by the late King of Italy. He was accompanied +by Dr. Pellegrino Matteucci, who was +subsequently to cross Africa from east to west and +die at the end of his journey.</p> + +<p>Ernst Marno, a Viennese, had attempted, in 1870, +to ascend the Blue Nile and then enter the country of +the Galas to the south of it. After penetrating, however, +as far as Fadasi, he was obliged to turn back, +owing to the hostility of the people. The same obstacles +turned back Gessi and his companions, and +the expedition to Kaffa was given up. Returning to +Khartum, Gessi was preparing to attempt the ascent +of the Sobat when Gordon returned to his post, from +which he had been absent, and invited Gessi to re-enter +the service of the Egyptian government. A +serious revolt had occurred in the western part of the +Egyptian Sudan. The great slave-trader, Zubeir, who +had conquered Darfur, had become a danger to the +Egyptian power. By dint of a wily invitation he was +lured to Cairo, and once in Egypt, was prevented by +the Khedive from returning to the Sudan. His son +Suleiman, however, remained in Darfur, and attempted +to rise against the Egyptian government. +His attempt was frustrated by Gordon, who, however, +pardoned him, and appointed him sub-governor +of his country with a handsome salary. But in 1878 +Suleiman openly espoused the cause of the Nubian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span> +and Arab slave-traders whose devastations of the +Bahr-al-Ghazal and the White Nile regions had been +sternly suppressed by Baker and Gordon. Putting +himself at the head of these disaffected people, Suleiman +practically subjugated all the vast territory of +the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and proclaimed his independence. +Gessi proceeded with a small force on steamers to +Lado, on the White Nile, where he met Emin Pasha. +From this point he started for the Nyam-nyam country,<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">94</a> +picking up on the way all the soldiers he could +obtain from the various stations of the Sudan government. +He found that Suleiman had proclaimed +himself “Lord of Bahr-al-Ghazal, Rōl, and Makarka.” +At Dem Idris, in the most western part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +province, the great battle took place.<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">95</a> The +people of the country were on the side of Gessi and +the Egyptian forces, because of the incessant slave-raiding +of Suleiman and his men. Gessi had entrenched +himself and his small force, which at the +outside amounted to seven thousand men, regulars +and irregulars. He had several pieces of artillery +that fired grape-shot. His entrenchments were assaulted +by Suleiman’s forces, and as the result of this +attack Suleiman lost his flags, much of his ammunition, +and most of his guns, together with several +thousand of his men. Nevertheless, in spite of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span> +recovery of Egyptian prestige throughout the Sudan, +Suleiman’s power was not yet at an end. He gathered +up more forces, and continued to attack Gessi. +At last reinforcements arrived from the north which +enabled Gessi to take the offensive. He captured +stronghold after stronghold. In the spring of 1879 +Suleiman was flying for his life with only a thousand +men. Gessi destroyed almost all the strongholds of the +slavers (some of which had existed for twenty-five +years, and had devastated all the country around) in +the province of Bahr-al-Ghazal.</p> + +<p>Gordon Pasha had now come to Gessi’s assistance, +and established himself at Shakka on the Nile. He +also invaded Darfur, reconquered that country, and +prevented reinforcements reaching Suleiman from that +direction. Eventually, after a hundred fights, Gessi +succeeded in tracking Suleiman to his last refuge. At +the time he had no more than two hundred men with +him, whilst Suleiman had eight hundred. Taking the +camp entirely by surprise, he tried a game of bluff, +and sent a messenger to tell Suleiman that he had +surrounded his place with a large force, and that +resistance was hopeless. Suleiman therefore surrendered. +Gessi tried him by court-martial, and had him +shot in November, 1879. This ended the first of the +great rebellions which menaced Anglo-Egyptian authority +in the Sudan. Gessi was made a Pasha for +his services, and Governor of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +province. He slowly brought about peace among the +distracted Negro tribes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span></p> + +<p>During all the operations undertaken by Gordon +and Gessi a good many additions were made to the +geography of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the Bahr-al-Arab, +and Darfur. After Gordon’s departure from the +Sudan Gessi found it impossible to work with the +Egyptian Governor-General, Raiūf Pasha. He was +also extremely ill. He therefore decided to return to +Europe, but got no farther than Suez, where he died +in 1881, having uttered several premonitions as to the +possibility of another revolt. As a matter of fact, the +Mahdi, who had just begun to make himself known +as a rebel, did little more than carry on the reaction +against the anti-slave-trading policy of the Anglo-Egyptian +control. All the elements of Suleiman’s +revolt which had been destroyed by the splendid +valour of Gessi and Gordon gathered round the new +leader, and brought about that cataclysm which closed +the area of Nile exploration for fourteen years.</p> + +<p>Édouard Linant de Bellefonds, the Belgian official +in Gordon’s employment of whom mention was made +in the previous chapter, and who had met his death +at the hands of the Bari, was avenged by the American +C. Chaillé-Long, who inflicted severe chastisement +on the Bari and allied tribes at and around Gondokoro. +Chaillé-Long was made a colonel by the Egyptian government. +He was despatched by Gordon on a mission +to Uganda to spy out the land; but owing to the intervention +of Sir John Kirk from Zanzibar, the British +government stayed the ambitious Khedive from attempting +to include Uganda in the Egyptian Sudan.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span> +Chaillé-Long added a little to our knowledge of the +Victoria Nile, and gave a more detailed report of Lake +Kioga than had been previously gleaned from the unscientific +journey of Piaggia. He named this lake +“Ibrahim.” Chaillé-Long also travelled to the west +of the Mountain Nile in the Nyam-nyam countries. +His book (“Central Africa: Naked Truths of Naked +People”) is unfortunately marred by much incorrect +information, and by the erroneous spelling of native +names. Mutesa, the ruler of Uganda, is disguised +as “M’tse;” Uganda becomes Ugunda, while preposterous +plurals are invented for the people of Uganda +and Unyoro, who are called the Ugundi, Unyori, etc. +Chaillé-Long’s one practical contribution to Nile exploration +was the definite discovery of Lake Kioga, +which had only been hesitatingly reported by the unlearned +Piaggia.</p> + +<p>Ernst Marno, the Viennese, surveyed a good deal of +country west of Lado and the Mountain Nile,—the +valley of the Yei among other rivers. Casati, an +Italian officer, journeyed all over the lands of the +Egyptian Sudan; but as he was an unscientific observer +and lost all his journals in the troubles that +followed on the Mahdi’s revolt, his contributions to +our knowledge of the Nile regions are practically +worthless.</p> + +<p>Dr. Gustav Nachtigal, one of the great African +explorers, was born at Eichstadt, near Magdeburg, +in Germany. He was despatched on a mission to +Bornu by the King of Prussia. After years spent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span> +with great advantage to science in the Sahara, round +Lake Chad, and on the Shari River, he passed from +Wadai into the Nile basin in the country of Darfur, +and added somewhat to our geographical knowledge +of this little known part of the Nile basin. Nachtigal +reached Khartum at the end of 1874. Another +German was to contribute his share to the opening +up of the Nile basin. Dr. Wilhelm Junker was +born at Moscow in 1840 of German parents, and +was educated in Germany. He started for Egypt in +1875 with the intention of going to Darfur, but he +spent some time examining the Libyan Desert and the +curious blocked outlet of the Nile in the Fayūm. After +exploring the Atbara as far as Kasala and journeying +thence across country to the Blue Nile, he travelled up +the Sobat River to Nasr (a point at which all exploration +of the Sobat stopped for many years), and then +made his way to the White Nile and the Makarka +(Nyam-nyam) country. His journeys through the +Bahr-al-Ghazal province took him as far south as the +Kibali or Welle River. After a visit to Europe with +his collections and notes, he returned to the Welle and +the Mangbettu country. He explored the Welle and +its tributaries for some distance eastward and westward. +Munza, the celebrated king of the Mangbettu, +about whom Schweinfurth wrote so much, had been +murdered by the Nubian slave-traders, and the country +about the Upper Welle was much disordered. +Junker reached the Nepoko River, which is an affluent +of the Aruwimi. His journeys westward to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span> +Welle River near its confluence with the Mbomu convinced +him that this mysterious stream, the existence +of which had first been reported by Miani and Potagos +(a Greek trader), was after all the most northern affluent +of the Congo, and not the Upper Shari. Junker’s +journeys were now interrupted by the news of the +Mahdi’s revolt.</p> + +<figure id="ip_241" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;"> + <img src="images/i_2401.jpg" width="1654" height="1302" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nuēr Village, Sobat River.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Frank Lupton (Bey), a native of Essex, and once +a mate on a small steamer plying between the Red Sea +ports, had entered Gordon’s service, and had become +in time Governor of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province. +Lupton added a good deal to our knowledge regarding +the many affluents of the Bahr-al-Ghazal. He +unhappily fell into the hands of the Dervishes, and +eventually lost his life. Lupton managed to warn +Junker of the outbreak, and the Russo-German +traveller then made his way across country to Lado. +There he stayed until the news arrived of the fall of +Khartum. He then started for Uganda, crossed the +Victoria Nyanza by the help of the English missionaries, +and travelled to Zanzibar by way of Unyamwezi. +Junker brought home with him the invaluable journals +of Emin Pasha. His own two great works on +the Nile basin are full of interesting information concerning +the natives. He added much to our knowledge +of the southern tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, but +the chief value and glory of his work lay in the Congo +basin and was concerned with the identification of the +Welle-Kibali with the Ubangi. He also discovered the +important northern tributary of the Welle, the Mbomu.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span> +Junker’s observations regarding natural history are not +altogether trustworthy or accurate. His work in this +respect is not to be compared with that of Schweinfurth +or Emin. His books are badly illustrated, the +drawings of beasts and birds being seldom recognisable, +and the pictures of the people quite without any +scientific value.</p> + +<p>Two Italian officers, Massari and Matteucci, crossed +the Nile basin just before the uprising of the Dervishes +closed the Sudan to exploration for sixteen +years. They passed through the northern frontier +lands of Abyssinia, descended the White Nile, and +ascended the Bahr-al-Ghazal, entered Darfur and +quitted the Nile basin on the borders of Wadai, which +excessively hostile Muhammadan state they actually +traversed unharmed. From Wadai they reached the +West Coast via Bornu and the Niger, but only to die +respectively in England and Italy soon afterwards. +For daring and courage the journey was a marvel; +for geography it was a nullity.</p> + +<figure id="ip_242" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 23em;"> + <img src="images/i_2421.jpg" width="1415" height="2032" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="floatl"><cite>Photo by Maull & Fox.</cite>]</p> + +<p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Joseph Thomson and Wilhelm Junker.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>When the intensity of the Dervish rule was slackening, +in the early nineties of the last century various +Belgian officers, such as Lieutenant Van Kerckhoven, +passed the Congo basin to the Bahr-al-Arab and the +westernmost tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and +threw a little fresh light on the still mysterious hydrography +of the Nile-Shari water-parting. They +pointed the way, however, to Joseph Marchand and +his associates. This gallant band of Frenchmen, in +1897, made their way from the Mbomu River (Congo<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span> +basin) down the Jur (Sue) to the Bahr-al-Ghazal +and the White Nile, to face England at Fashoda. +Marchand was accompanied, amongst other European +officers and non-commissioned officers, by Lieutenants +A. H. Dyé and Tanguedec. Tanguedec remained till +1900 on the Mountain Nile near the Bahr-az-Ziraf. +Dyé gave, in 1902, some account of the explorations of +the Bahr-al-Ghazal region undertaken by the Marchand +expedition. The swamps which characterise the northeastern +part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province render +the definite mapping of the lower courses of its great +rivers extremely difficult. Nevertheless, in the most +systematic way, Marchand and his companions, in +their little steam launch <i>Faidherbe</i>, surveyed the +Sue or Jur (the longest stream flowing into the +Bahr-al-Ghazal estuary), the Bahr-al-Arab, Bahr-al-Hamr, +the Tonj, and Rōl.</p> + +<p>The Bahr-al-Ghazal itself, from Mashra-ar-Rak +downwards, was carefully surveyed, and many indications +were found of the changes which have taken +place since the days of its early explorers, though +M. Dyé considers the sketch given by Lejean in 1862 +as wonderfully correct in its general outlines.</p> + +<p>After describing the ferruginous laterite plateau, +which occupies the whole southern part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +province, as well as adjoining parts on the +Congo basin, Lieutenant Dyé sketches the transition +from this region, in which the streams flow in steep-sided +valleys to the sea of swamps which lies along +the ninth parallel. It is in about 7° 20′ north that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span> +the first change occurs, the river-banks opening out +and leaving between them an alluvial-flood plain, +grassy and intersected by swamps, through which +the river winds in a tortuous course, much choked +by sand-banks. At the height of the rains this is entirely +flooded. Still lower, the rocky valley sides entirely +disappear, and the clayey banks sink below the +mean water-level, the rivers becoming more and more +narrow, and diminishing in depth until they are finally +lost, each in its own belt of swamp, which forms a sea +of grass, “Um Suf” [fleecy reeds], and papyrus.</p> + +<p>Lieutenant Dyé, in his description, divides the estuary +or drainage channel of the Bahr-al-Ghazal below +Mashra-ar-Rak into three sections, each with its particular +characteristics, the general trend of the estuary, +however, below Mashra-ar-Rak being north, then +northeast, and lastly east. The first section near +Mashra-ar-Rak is at times of great width, as at the +expansion known as Lake Ambady or Ambach. +There is much floating vegetation, and the channels +frequently change with the winds. The depth is +nowhere greater than thirteen feet in this section, +which is distinguished as the region of lakes, lagoons, +and reed-beds. In the second section, characterised +by the growth of papyrus, the channel becomes much +narrower, and reaches depths of twenty feet and more, +though the figures given by former travellers seem +somewhat exaggerated. The width becomes greater +again in the last section, the banks of which are, as a +rule, marked by ant-hills covered with brushwood.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span> +Schweinfurth was mistaken in saying that the current +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is imperceptible, for, except in +expansions and side branches, some movement can +always be traced, and in the narrowest section it +reaches a speed of one mile and a quarter an hour. A +remarkable characteristic of the region is the small +variation of water-level between the seasons, owing +to the impounding of the water in the marshes. The +maximum flood-level occurs on the Bahr-al-Ghazal in +November and December, or two months later than +that on the Sue, and various facts are quoted showing +the slight effect which a rise in the upper courses +of the streams has on the water-level of the swamp +region.</p> + +<figure id="ip_245" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 21em;"> + <img src="images/i_2442.jpg" width="1314" height="1655" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">A Sternwheel Steamboat.</span></p> + +<p>Forcing its way up the Jur (Sue) or main affluent of the Bahr-al-Ghazal.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Given their resources and the distance they had to +traverse (from Loango on the West Coast to Fashoda +on the Nile, and afterwards to Abyssinia and Somaliland +via the Congo, Ubangi, Mbomu, Sue, and Bahr-al-Ghazal), +the enemies they had to encounter, the allies +they had to win, the privations they had to endure: the +journey of Marchand and his companions is one of the +most splendid feats in African exploration, and well +deserves the admiration accorded to it in France and +England.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI"><span id="toclink_246"></span>CHAPTER XXI<br> + +<span class="subhead">JOSEPH THOMSON, MT. ELGON, AND KAVIRONDO BAY</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">It</span> will be remembered that a remarkable turn was +given to Nile exploration when between 1849 and +1855 the German missionaries in the employ of the +Church Missionary Society at Mombasa reported their +explorations of inner East Africa,—explorations which +revealed the existence of snow-mountains, and which +gathered reports of great lakes in the interior. The +outcome of these researches on the part of Krapf +and Rebman was the despatch of Speke and Burton in +search of the Nile lakes. We read that only Burton’s +excessive prudence prevented this first expedition to the +lakes from starting inland from Mombasa and following +the trading route right through the Masai country +to the Victoria Nyanza. This was the route followed +by Arab traders as far back as 1850. The terror +caused by the Masai led to great exaggerations of the +dangers of this direct journey. Its chief difficulty lay +in the fact that owing to the ravages of the Masai and +the somewhat waterless character of the intervening +country, there were no inhabitants for a distance of +some two hundred miles between the coast regions on +the east and the fertile lands bordering the Victoria +Nyanza on the west. The missionaries, German and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span> +English, who were settled at or near Mombasa, continued +to collect information from Arab caravans. In +this way news arrived of the existence of the Rift +valley, with its chain of lakes, salt and fresh, and of +some greater lake beyond called “Samburu,” afterwards +known as Lake Rudolf; also of the Nilotic +Negroes in the country of Kavirondo, on the northeast +coast of the Victoria Nyanza. Much of this information +was industriously gathered up by a most +excellent missionary, the late Mr. Wakefield,<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">96</a> who +sent his notes and theories to an eminent geographer, +E. G. Ravenstein. Mr. Ravenstein prepared this information +for the use of the Royal Geographical +Society, and in about 1880 had gathered together all +that was known from surveys and reports into maps +illustrating Eastern Equatorial Africa.</p> + +<figure id="ip_247" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 36em;"> + <img src="images/i_2462.jpg" width="2304" height="1461" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">N.E. Corner of Victoria Nyanza (with Samia Hills in Distance).</span></p> + +<p>Near where Joseph Thomson struck the lake shore at the end of his long march, December, 1883.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>As the result of the interest these maps inspired, +the Royal Geographical Society resolved, in 1882, to +despatch on this search for a direct route to the Victoria +Nyanza, Joseph Thomson, a very young and +very brilliant African explorer, who had already performed +a remarkable journey to lakes Nyasa and +Tanganyika. Joseph Thomson left Mombasa in the +spring of 1883, and after several checks and disappointments, +finally crossed Masailand (Dr. Fischer, +a German, had discovered the Rift valley and Lake +Naivasha a year previously), settled at last the existence +of the much exaggerated Lake Baringo, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span> +finally reached the northeast coast of the Victoria +Nyanza, in Kavirondo Bay, on the borders of Busoga. +So far as Nile exploration was concerned, the chief +immediate result of Joseph Thomson’s remarkable +journey was to draw attention to Stanley’s blunder +about Ugowe Bay. But Thomson himself only made +a step towards the delineation of this gulf; his work +had subsequently to be finished by Mr. C. W. Hobley +and Commander Whitehouse. He discovered Mount +Elgon, however (previously alluded to by Stanley as +Mount Masawa), and was, politically, the forefather +of the Uganda Railway.</p> + +<figure id="ip_248" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_2482.jpg" width="1400" height="2055" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="floatl"><cite>Photo by Jamieson & Co.</cite>]</p> + +<p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Joseph Thomson.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The present writer supplemented Thomson’s work +in the neighbourhood of the snow-mountain Kilimanjaro, +and laid the foundations there of the British +Protectorate of East Africa. Bishop Hannington followed +in an attempt to repeat Thomson’s journey to +the Victoria Nyanza, and thus enter Uganda. The +missionary bishop was murdered on the confines of +Uganda, and his plucky enterprise added nothing to +our geographical knowledge. Then came Count +Samuel Teleki von Szek (a Hungarian) and Lieutenant +von Höhnel (an Austrian naval officer) in +1887. Although the expedition led by these gentlemen +never actually entered the Nile basin, it achieved +the most important results of discovering lakes Rudolf +and Stephanie, and thereby limiting the Nile +basin on the southeast. Ernest Gedge and F. J. +Jackson crossed what is now British East Africa in +1889–1890, and reached Elgon, the Victoria Nyanza,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span> +and Uganda. Dr. Carl Peters made the same +journey in 1890, but did not add to our geographical +knowledge in the basin of the Nile. All these expeditions +were the direct result of Joseph Thomson’s +work.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII"><span id="toclink_250"></span>CHAPTER XXII<br> + +<span class="subhead">EMIN PASHA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> remarkable man whose name is given to this +chapter was a German Jew,—Eduard Schnitzer,—born +in Silesia about 1830. Becoming a doctor +of medicine, he gradually drifted to Austria and thence +to Turkey, where he engaged in much medical service +in the suite of high officials. To some extent he +adopted the religion of Islam, and changed his name +to Dr. Emin. Attracted by the mystery of Central +Africa, he found his way to Khartum, and from being +a mere medical practitioner, became a Bey in the service +of the Egyptian government under General Gordon. +He did a great deal to add to our knowledge +of the eastern tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and +the western tributaries of the Mountain Nile. He +explored the Nile-Congo water-parting, and made +very interesting notes on Unyoro, Uganda, and the +Albert Nyanza. He also added considerably to our +knowledge of the Latuka, Bari, and Acholi countries. +Strange to relate, though he lived so much between +1877 and 1888 on the Albert Nyanza, he never once +sighted the remarkable snow-range of Ruwenzori. +This extraordinary omission may have been due to +the fact that he was very short-sighted. He would,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span> +therefore, not himself have noticed any remarkable +appearance in the sky, and probably the Negroes and +Turks around him were too dull-witted to draw his +attention to the snow-peaks on the rare occasions on +which they were visible. In travelling along the west +coast of Lake Albert Nyanza, however, he discovered +the Semliki River flowing into that lake, and called +it the river Dweru.<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">97</a> Emin Pasha’s journals and letters, +which were brought to England by Dr. Junker, +were issued as a book in 1888. Regarding this compilation, +it may be classed as one of the few great books +that have ever been written about tropical Africa. It +is full of concise and valuable information on natural +history, anthropology, languages, and geography.<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">98</a> +He gives a very interesting description of the mountainous +country of Lotuka (Latuka), and of the regions +further east.</p> + +<p>He had been received by Latome, “an elderly gentleman +of medium height and rather pleasing features,” +who was the ruler of the nude and handsome +Lotuka <span class="locked">Negroids:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Meantime a motley crowd assembled in the yard,—women +and girls, the former with leather aprons, the +latter entirely nude; men of different districts, all armed +with shields and spears,—the genuine Lotuka people,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span> +recognisable by their slight figures and long faces,—all +nude, and adorned with iron ornaments, ivory rings on +the upper arm, broad copper rings as necklaces, and helmets +of shining brass or copper plates, surmounted by +waving ostrich plumes. Some of them wore caps made +of basket work. After our reception was over, we visited +the summit of the hill, whence a splendid view is obtained, +extending from Mount Loligono in the Bēr country, +northwards over the whole Lokoya range, to the west, +and to the high peaks of the Obbo Mountains, in the +south and southwest, where the horns of Jebel Asal tower +up,—so named on Baker’s map, but called by the Bari +“Ekara,” and by the Lotuka “Chufal,”—then away to +the long lofty ranges of Molong and Killio, the defile +leading to Tarangole, with its hills rising up like sentinels, +and finally the long range of Lafit, which closes the scene +on the northeast,—a typical Alpine landscape.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The Lotuka people, it might be mentioned, are very +similar in appearance and language to the Elgumi +tribe, which is much farther south, in the vicinity of +Mount Elgon. Both these peoples are nearly related +in origin to the Masai. They should properly be +styled Lotuka.<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">99</a></p> + +<figure id="ip_252" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 20em;"> + <img src="images/i_2521.jpg" width="1269" height="1936" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Emin Pasha.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Of the Lotuka country Dr. Emin <span class="locked">writes:—</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The sky was overclouded when we left Tarangole. +Taking a southeasterly course along Khor Kos,<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">100</a> through +beautiful park land, we reached the ford in about half an +hour. The <i>khor</i> was here about twenty-two yards broad, +and full of yellowish water, which reached up to our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span> +thighs, and flowed over a sandy, rocky bottom. We had +a pleasant march over a good firm road, across sandy +country covered with open wood, the ground being rather +wet in some places; the predominance of acacias (<i class="taxonomy">Acacia +albida</i>, <i class="taxonomy">A. mellifera</i>, and <i class="taxonomy">A. campylacantha</i>) and <i class="taxonomy">Balanites</i> +gave a gray tone to the scenery. Khor Oteng, now +very insignificant, is said to pour such large volumes of +water into Khor Kos<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">101</a> in the rainy season that the passage +is often rendered impossible for hours. The ford of Khor +Kos is called Chuchur; a splendid forest of doleb palms +(<i class="taxonomy">Borassus</i>) yielding an abundance of odorous fruits, +skirts the khor, copses of various other trees intervening. +Large flat blocks of friable granite, with white streaks, +lie across the road that leads direct to the foot of the hill +of Loguren, which is about four hundred feet high. Its +summit is crowned with the dome-shaped huts of the +village bearing the same name.</p> + +<p>“Dum Palms (<i class="taxonomy">Hyphæne thebaica</i>) grow here, as they +do at the ford of Khor Kos. It appears, therefore, that +the southern limit of this tree runs along the Bahr-al-Jabl +between Bor and Lado, and then advances farther to the +south, no doubt owing to the sandy soil which connects +the Lotuka and Somal districts.<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">102</a> Picturesque groups of +rocks, inhabited by the restless Hyrax, well-tilled fields, +and here and there small clumps of doleb palms are seen +along the road to Elianga, where, on the edges of the +rocks, numerous clay vessels containing human bones +seem to say ‘Memento mori,’ a rather unnecessary warning +in Central Africa.”</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span></p> + +<p>Emin describes the Lotuka villages as being dreadfully +dirty, in contrast to the Bari settlements, which +are always kept scrupulously clean within, though +their environments are filthy. Hundreds of rats and +mice infest the Lotuka huts. These latter are built +upon round substructures about four and one-half +feet high, usually caulked and overlaid with mud. The +huts are surmounted by bell-shaped roofs (sometimes +peaked), which project considerably over the substructures. +A small doorway is left open, about two +and a half feet high, which must, of course, be entered +on all fours. The interior is kept fairly clean, +but is quite dark. The thatch is generally made of +grass; many huts are covered with split leaves of the +<i class="taxonomy">Borassus</i> palm, which are more durable and compact,—a +very desirable quality for withstanding tropical +rain. Sheep and goats are the only domestic animals +kept here; the former are long legged and of a superior +breed. The Lotuka do not seem to keep dogs. Agriculture, +as is usual among hunting tribes, is rather neglected, +although the soil is excellent, and the Sudanese +soldiers stationed in Lotuka grew without difficulty +durrah, maize, ground-nuts, and splendid watermelons.</p> + +<p>Ostriches are caught when young, and are tamed +in the Lotuka settlements. Sometimes they are +hatched from eggs buried in the sand. Snakes of +many kinds, especially viperine, frequent the Lotuka +villages unmolested by the people, and often making +their way into the huts after the rats. A poisonous +species of <i class="taxonomy">Echis</i> is, however, much dreaded.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span></p> + +<p>Okkela in the Lotuka country was a paradise for +a natural history collector like Emin. The belt of +wood round this settlement was full of treasures. +There were many Colobus monkeys, whose white +dorsal mane and tail-tuft gleamed through the dark +foliage, small families of them being led by white-bearded +old males which gazed fearlessly at the +stranger. Close by a brown baboon mother might +be giving her offspring rough lectures on good manners, +which, to judge from the howling, were not +much appreciated; “tall, fox-coloured baboons, white +on the under side,<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">103</a> were chasing one another along +the tree-tops, and barking and yelping like hoarse +dogs. A small mouse-coloured monkey with a black +face, and quite unknown to me, skulked away through +the thick bush; two varieties of <i class="taxonomy">Funambulus</i> squirrels +ran up and down the long tendrils of the creeping +plants, and the graceful <i class="taxonomy">Xerus leucumbrinus</i> squirrel +roved about upon the ground. Small cats, ichneumons, +rats, and mice had also found a comfortable +shelter in the woods, and other creatures, quite unknown, +to judge from the description, are said to +haunt it, especially at night.”</p> + +<p>Birds were even more numerous and striking. +“Gorgeous blue kingfishers (<i class="taxonomy">Halcyon senegalensis</i> and +<i class="taxonomy">H. semicærulea</i>) and beautiful bee-eaters (<i class="taxonomy">Merops +bullockii</i> and <i class="taxonomy">M. albicollis</i>) were perched on the dry +boughs waiting for insects; a large gray cuckoo, +probably a new variety,<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">104</a> could be heard in the tree-tops,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span> +as also the handsome <i class="taxonomy">Cuculus capensis</i>, whose +loud cry the Nile Negroes interpret by the word +<i>lashakong</i> (my gourd), and a charming little falcon +(<i class="taxonomy">Nisus</i> sp.) joined them with a sharp chirp, which +the natives call <i>lefit</i>, a happy imitation of its cry. +Snow-white <i class="taxonomy">Terpsiphone</i> and brilliant golden cuckoos +(<i class="taxonomy">Chalcites cupreus</i> and <i class="taxonomy">C. clasii</i>) were swinging in the +green leafy bowers, and cunning barbets (<i class="taxonomy">Pogonorhynchus +rolleti</i>, <i class="taxonomy">P. diadematus</i>, and <i class="taxonomy">P. abyssinicus</i>) +came into sight for a moment, to disappear again +directly like woodpeckers. In the thick copsewood +<i class="taxonomy">Bessornis heuglinii</i> flew off at my approach with a +sudden cry of fear, and <i class="taxonomy">Cichladusa guttata</i> sang as +loudly, but was not quite so shy. An <i class="taxonomy">Aedon</i> warbled +its beautiful song among the thickest briars, and was +accompanied by the tapping of numerous woodpeckers. +I caught <i class="taxonomy">Picus nubicus</i>, the rarer <i class="taxonomy">P. minutus</i>, and another +kind which I think is new; it closely resembles +<i class="taxonomy">P. schoensis</i>, and it is equally handsome.”</p> + +<p>Animal life abounded also in the open country of +Lotuka,—a land covered with shrubs, with broad, +grassy clearings and sandy flats. The ground was +strewn with the shells of <i class="taxonomy">Achatina zebra</i>; small lizards +and snakes of various kinds—among them the rare +<i class="taxonomy">Typhlops</i>—glided over the sand, and larger snakes +hissed frightfully and retreated. A concert of croaking +frogs would arise from the reedy margins of the +half-dry rivers, and on the sandy islands of the Kos +enormous crocodiles were watching the children bathing +close by. Herds of <i class="taxonomy">Cobus leucotis</i><a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">105</a> grazed on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span> +young grass; large wart hogs issued from holes in the +ground. “They were,” writes Emin, “no despicable +antagonists, for they can make very good use of their +huge tusks. Going further into the bush, I saw the +elegant form of a wild cat stealing off with its tail +in the air, and heard a loud growl from a leopard +which disapproved of my presence. Lions were most +plentiful.”</p> + +<figure id="ip_257" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_2562.jpg" width="1247" height="1532" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Raphia Palms by a Central African Stream.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>A herd of zebras grazing on the fresh green grass +is a pleasant picture, whether surrounded by their +frolicking young or running away at a thundering +gallop. One does not often meet with the scaly +ant-eater, <i class="taxonomy">Manis temmincki</i>, still less with the earth-pig +(<i class="taxonomy">Orycteropus æthiopicus</i>), but a fine example of +the latter edentate having fallen into a pitfall, Emin +was able to attest its presence in Nile land.</p> + +<p>Emin’s journeys in the region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +and along the water-parting between the basins of the +Nile and the Congo added greatly to our knowledge +of those countries. The forests in these regions he +described as magnificent “gallery” woods, in which +all the marvels of vegetation unfolded themselves before +the enchanted gaze of the botanist. These forests +border the streams, and exist only near to running +water. The region, however, of immense unbroken +forests, in which one may wander for hours without +seeing a sunbeam, and where one hears the rain beating +upon the summits of the trees without feeling a +drop, commences only a little to the west of the Nyam-nyam +(Zande) country. There is no doubt that much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span> +of the Bahr-al-Ghazal region was originally quite covered +with forests, to judge from the remains of virgin +woods which still exist. The gradual disappearance +of the forest is to be attributed to the comparatively +thick population, the constant removal of villages and +fields, and to the inroads of both axe and fire. Emin +saw the remains of many a gigantic and magnificent +forest-tree lying rotting on the ground, having been +cut down, and given to decay because it spread too +much shade over the crops. After many years of wandering +among these regions, he was inclined to think +that in ancient times the true Central African forest +region, that is, the permanence of evergreen woods +containing westerly species, extended much farther to +the north than it does to-day. Towards the east of the +Nyam-nyam country, as far as the district of Janda, +he observed such West African forms as <i class="taxonomy">Artocarpus</i> +and <i class="taxonomy">Anthocleista</i>, but he states that the valley of the +Mountain Nile throughout its whole length, as far +south as Lake Albert, is characterised by steppe vegetation, +as is also the entire eastern region of the Nile +basin.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"><span id="toclink_259"></span>CHAPTER XXIII<br> + +<span class="subhead">STANLEY DISCOVERS THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON +AND LAKE ALBERT EDWARD.—THE END OF EMIN</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Two</span> sets of circumstances now hindered further +exploration of the Nile basin,—the revolt of +the Mahdi, with the disasters that followed at Khartum; +and the persecution of the Christians followed by +civil war in Uganda. Emin Pasha was left to govern +Equatoria for four years, cut off from all communication +with Egypt. Dr. Junker, arriving with his collections +and journals in 1886, aroused a great wave +of enthusiasm in England and Germany. Stanley at +once offered to lead a relief expedition to the Equatorial +provinces of the Nile. The great prestige of +this remarkable man made it impossible for any other +candidate to enter the field in England. Many, however, +were in favour of entrusting the expedition to +Thomson, who believed in the practicability of conducting +it by a direct route from Mombasa to Mount +Elgon, and so across to the Nile. Whether he would +have succeeded is a moot question, owing to the fierceness +of the Nile tribes between Elgon and Gondokoro, +and the jealousy and suspicion of Uganda and +Unyoro; for the King of Uganda, having had his +fears aroused as to European aggression, had already<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span> +caused Bishop Hannington to be murdered for repeating +Thomson’s journey to Busoga.</p> + +<p>Stanley was precluded from following the old +Unyamwezi route, owing to German jealousy. He +decided, therefore, to strike at the Upper Nile by way +of the Congo, and so found himself struggling through +the dense forests of the Congo basin between the navigable +waters of the Aruwimi and the cliffs of Lake +Albert. This wonderful journey, which he took for +the relief of Emin Pasha, resulted in the discovery of +the real Mountains of the Moon [Ruwenzori], the +complete course of the Semliki River, Lake Albert +Edward, and the southwesternmost gulf of the Victoria +Nyanza. Stanley added a great deal to our knowledge +of the Congo Pygmies, who in this direction stray +over into the Nile watershed; but his grand discovery +on this occasion was Ruwenzori. On May 24, 1888, +about five miles from Nsabe, on the grassy mountains +to the southwest of Lake Albert Nyanza,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="in0">“while looking to the southeast and meditating upon the +events of the last month, my eyes were directed by a boy +to a mountain said to be covered with salt, and I saw a +peculiar shaped cloud of a most beautiful silver colour, +which assumed the proportions and appearance of a vast +mountain covered with snow. Following its form downward, +I became struck with the deep blue-black colour +of its base, and wondered if it portended another tornado; +then as the sight descended to the gap between the eastern +and western plateaux I became for the first time conscious +that what I gazed upon was not the image or semblance +of a vast mountain, but the solid substance of a real one,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span> +with its summit covered with snow.... It now dawned +upon me that this must be the Ruwenzori, which was said +to be covered with a white metal or substance believed to +be a rock, as reported by Kavali’s two slaves.”</p> +</div> + +<figure id="ip_261" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_2601.jpg" width="1397" height="2278" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="floatl"><cite>Photo by John Fergus.</cite>]</p> + +<p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Sir Henry Stanley, G.C.B.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>This view was obtained from a distance of seventy +miles,—about the distance of the chief snows of Ruwenzori +from the south end of Lake Albert Nyanza. +The constant haze rising from the Semliki valley no +doubt keeps this mountain usually invisible from the +waters of the lake. It is, therefore, not so surprising +that it was not hitherto seen by the explorers of the +Albert Nyanza, as it is that Stanley himself should +have camped at the very base of this mountain for +some days in 1875, and have been ignorant of its +true character as the highest ground and the most completely +snow-and-glacier-covered range in the whole of +Africa. The name that he has given to it unfortunately +does not completely correspond with the native +pronunciation; it should be Runsororo.</p> + +<p>The discovery of this snowy range was soon followed +by the realisation of the Semliki River, another +geographical name of Stanley’s giving which it +is most difficult to trace to any native source. (The +Semliki, in fact, is never called by any native tribe +“Semliki.” It is known as Dweru, Nyanja, Ituri, +Isango, and other Bantu terms indicating <em>lake</em> or +<em>river</em>. When first discovered by Emin Pasha, a short +time before Stanley’s arrival, it was known as the +Dweru.) This stream is really the Albertine Nile. +Its existence had been surmised by Sir Samuel Baker<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span> +without much foundation (then) for his theory. Emin +Pasha first noted it in 1884 as a feeder of Lake +Albert. Stanley, in 1889, traced the Semliki up its +course to its point of exit from Lake Albert Edward, +which sheet of water he was the first European to +discover. Albert Edward is connected by a narrow, +winding channel<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">106</a> on the northeast with a somewhat +extensive, shallow lake, usually known as “Dweru.”<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">107</a></p> + +<p>Dweru was discovered by Stanley in 1875, and +named by him Beatrice Gulf. Stanley now ascertained +that the two lakes were connected. His expedition +crossed the Kafuru, as the connecting stream +is called, and entered the till then unvisited Hima +kingdom of Ankole. Stanley’s guess at the shape of +the Albert Edward was incorrect, and it needed subsequent +expeditions to give us a truer idea of the +form and area of this sheet of water, the eastern +shore of which still remains unsurveyed.</p> + +<figure id="ip_262" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 34em;"> + <img src="images/i_2621.jpg" width="2168" height="1288" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Shores of the Victoria Nyanza, near Emin Pasha Gulf.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Passing through Ankole, Stanley reached the southwestern +extremity of the Victoria Nyanza, which he +named Emin Pasha Gulf. On his journeys of circumnavigation +in 1875, he had been deceived by a +chain of islands into an incorrect limitation of the +area of the Victoria Nyanza in this direction. He +now realised that the lake extends much further to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span> +the southwest than was previously thought by Speke +and himself, and is therefore not of the heart-shape +assigned to it in the earliest maps; it is, in fact, +much longer from north to south than it is broad +from east to west.</p> + +<p>The rest of Stanley’s great journey took him out of +the Nile watershed.</p> + +<p>But the discoveries which he made in the Albertine +region of the Nile basin whetted the curiosity of +Emin Pasha, who longed to return to these mysterious +regions.</p> + +<p>He did so in 1890, as a German official. Accompanied +by Dr. Franz Stuhlmann, a very able explorer, +he directed his steps to these regions of fascinating +interest, the Snow-mountains, and the Great Forest. +In 1891 Dr. Stuhlmann made an ascent of the Ruwenzori +range on its western aspect nearly to the +snow-line. He revealed the existence of its remarkable +Alpine vegetation of giant groundsels and lobelias. +He also attempted to discriminate between the +many different snow-peaks of this lofty range, though +with only partial success, his failure in arriving at +a complete result, like that of subsequent travellers, +being due to the constant presence of clouds. Emin +and Stuhlmann together added a good deal to our +knowledge of the Semliki, and to the clearing up of +geographical points connected with the line of watershed +between the Nile and the Congo systems immediately +west of Lake Albert. Emin Pasha resolved +to return by way of the Congo, and was therefore left<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span> +to do so by Stuhlmann, who returned to his duties in +German East Africa. Re-entering the great Congo +forest, and following a northern affluent of the +Ituri-Aruwimi, Emin was captured by one of the +slave-trading, Arabised Manyema who had recently +invaded this region to secure ivory and slaves. As +a German official, Emin (together with other Germans) +had confiscated property belonging to these +Manyema, had released slaves, and had severely punished +slave-raiders. From motives of revenge, therefore, +he was sentenced to death by his captor, and his +throat was cut in his house one day in October, 1892.</p> + +<figure id="ip_264" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 21em;"> + <img src="images/i_2641.jpg" width="1342" height="1982" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Dr. Franz Stuhlmann.</span></p> + +<p>(Deputy Governor of German East Africa.)</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"><span id="toclink_265"></span>CHAPTER XXIV<br> + +<span class="subhead">GERMAN EXPLORERS DETERMINE THE SOUTHERN +LIMITS OF THE NILE BASIN</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> acquisition by Germany of those interior +regions of the Zanzibar coast-line which now +constitute German East Africa led to a considerable +development of exploration in the southernmost regions +of the Nile basin. Prior to 1890 there had +been much discussion as to what was the Nile’s furthest +tributary,—what stream, in fact, was the ultimate +source of the Nile. Stanley’s journeys in search +of Emin Pasha had revealed the existence of the Semliki +and of Lake Albert Edward, and had thus extended +considerably the length of the Albertine Nile +system. Later on Count Götzen had shown by his remarkable +journeys north from Tanganyika that Lake +Kivu (the existence of which had been already reported +by Burton, Speke, and Stanley) was connected +with Tanganyika, and therefore with the Congo. This +put a limit to the Nile basin in that direction, and disposed +for ever of the last vestige of Livingstone’s wild +dream, by which the main course of the Nile would +have risen far south of the equator in what we now +know to be the basin of the Congo, and have flowed +through Lake Albert instead of through the Victoria<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span> +Nyanza. Speke had discovered the important Kagera +River (which he called the Kitangule), and Stanley +had extended our knowledge of this, the largest affluent +of the Victoria Nyanza. Stanley had, in fact, in +1875 christened it the Alexandra Nile, but he was +very much misled about its origin and course, and he +made it issue from a hypothetical lake, Akanyaru,<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">108</a> +which has no existence, but which was no doubt in +part an exaggeration of swamps along the course of +the Kagera, and in part a confusion with the rumoured +Lake Kivu.</p> + +<p>The Kagera is now acknowledged to be the extreme +head-waters of the Nile. A distinctly observable current +passes across the Victoria Nyanza from the mouth +of the Kagera to the Ripon Falls. In 1891–1893 Dr. +Oscar Baumann, a German official, who had previously +done some good exploring work in West Africa, +made extensive journeys through southern Masailand +and Unyamwezi to the sources of the Kagera River. +This stream (especially in its upper waters, where it +is known as Ruvuvu), was further explored in 1899–1900 +by M. Lionel Dècle, a French traveller, who had +done a great deal to increase our knowledge of Central +Africa.<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">109</a> Dr. Kandt,<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">110</a> in 1898, and other Germans, +have also put on the map portions of the +Kagera’s course, and our knowledge of this stream has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span> +received contributions from Messrs. Racey, Mundy, +and R. W. Macallister, officials of the Uganda Protectorate. +The Kagera River has two principal sources, +both of them almost within sight of the waters of +Tanganyika. The stream which is usually taken to +be the more important source rises in south latitude +3° in the country of Ruziga, about fifteen miles due +north of the north end of Tanganyika, at an altitude +of about 6,270 feet above sea-level. Some fifty miles +south-southeast of this point, however, there is another +source, which may be taken to be the southernmost +extension of the Nile system. This fountain, in south +latitude 3° 45′, is on the eastern slope of the Utembera +or Kangozi Mountains, only ten miles east of Tanganyika. +The altitude is about 6,300 feet. This would +seem to be the farthest source of the Nile.</p> + +<figure id="ip_267" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_2662.jpg" width="1395" height="1951" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Native of Unyamwezi, from near South Shores of Victoria +Nyanza.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Herr Baumann made another contribution of negative +value to Nile exploration. Stanley and some +other travellers had believed that the southernmost +source of the Nile lay in the country of Unyamwezi, +in certain streams which flowed northward into the +Victoria Nyanza, which they entered under the name +of the river Simiyu or Shimeyu. But in these deductions +they were wrong. Baumann showed that +the river Simiyu was an inconsiderable stream of +short course, and that the waters much further to the +south which had been identified with this river really +flowed northeastwards into a largish salt lake, discovered +by Baumann and called Lake Eyasi. Eyasi +has no outlet. It is situated in a rift valley which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span> +joins the great Rift valley of Masailand. The journeys +of Baumann and of other Germans considerably +curtailed the present extent of the Nile basin in +Unyamwezi. The waters of this somewhat arid tableland, +which apparently is almost below the surface of +the Victoria Nyanza, flow mainly to Tanganyika, to +Lake Rukwa, and to Lake Eyasi and other isolated +pools of the rift valleys.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span></p> + +<figure id="ip_269" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_2682.jpg" width="1363" height="1953" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="floatl"><cite>Photo by J. Thomson.</cite>]</p> + +<p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Sir Frederic D. Lugard.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV"><span id="toclink_269"></span>CHAPTER XXV<br> + +<span class="subhead">GEOGRAPHICAL WORK IN THE UGANDA PROTECTORATE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Stanley’s</span> relief of Emin Pasha led to the +withdrawal of the latter’s government from the +equatorial regions, and after a brief interval of hesitation, +to the foundation of a British Protectorate +over Uganda and the adjoining territories. Preparations +for this Protectorate were made by Captain +(now General Sir Frederic) Lugard, who, in the +course of his settlement of the disturbed country of +Uganda, journeyed round Ruwenzori to Lake Albert +Edward.<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">111</a> Shortly afterwards (as already related) +Emin Pasha returned to this part of the world accompanied +by Dr. Stuhlmann. Mr. Scott-Elliott, a +Scottish naturalist, came out in 1893–1894 for the purpose +of making natural history collections. He drew +a very neat and truthful little map of the eastern and +southern flanks of Ruwenzori,—a map which until +quite recently has been somewhat overlooked by those +who have compiled charts of this region. Scott-Elliott, +Lugard, Stuhlmann, Grogan, J. E. Moore, Malcolm +Fergusson, and several Belgian officers, such as +the late Lieutenant Meura, were not slow to point out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span> +and correct serious errors on the part of Stanley in +his rough delimitation of Lake Albert Edward. Lake +Dweru or Beatrice Gulf was also redrawn with advantage. +But curiously enough, all these travellers—Stanley +included—omitted to point out that the connection +between Lake Dweru and Lake Albert Edward +was not a broad channel, but a narrow and winding +river between high banks. It was left to the present +writer to make this correction on the map. The +author also, together with Lieutenant Meura, redrew +with greater correctness the upper course of the Semliki +River, and in 1900 added somewhat to our knowledge +of the configuration of the Ruwenzori range.</p> + +<p>The expedition of Sir Gerald Portal (especially +through the work of his brother Raymond, who died +after doing excellent service in pacifying Toro) added +to the map of the countries between Ruwenzori on the +west and Kavirondo on the east. In 1895 the late +Colonel Seymour Vandeleur (when only a lieutenant +in the army) made an excellent and systematic survey +of the Kingdom of Uganda and of much of Unyoro. +The wars against the Sudanese mutineers added to our +geographical knowledge of these districts. Colonel +John Evatt and Captain H. Maddox, amongst others, +gave us for the first time something like the true +shape of the marshy lakes of Kioga and Kwania, +which, in some respects, are huge backwaters of the +Victoria Nile. But the great addition to the geography +of the southern extremities of the Nile basin was made +by the expedition under Colonel J. R. L. Macdonald.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span> +This officer had accurately mapped the regions bordering +on the northwest coasts of the Victoria Nyanza +in 1894. About this period also Mr. F. J. Jackson,<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">112</a> +Mr. C. W. Hobley, and Mr. Ernest Gedge were filling +up the map as regards the configuration of the country +along the northeastern watershed of Victoria Nyanza +and the slopes of Mount Elgon. Mount Elgon was +ascended to its highest peak (14,080 feet), for the first +and only time, by Messrs. Jackson and Gedge in 1895.</p> + +<figure id="ip_271" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_2702.jpg" width="1364" height="2055" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">G. F. Scott-Elliot.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Colonel Macdonald was despatched more with a +political than with a geographical object. He was +to journey through the northeastern part of the British +sphere of interest in East Africa and make for the Nile +about Gondokoro, and so travel with the idea of forestalling +any possible French competitors; whilst General +(Lord) Kitchener should be defeating the Khalifa +at Khartum with a view to recovering all the provinces +of the Egyptian Sudan. But the mutiny of the +Sudanese soldiers in Uganda and other causes threw +great difficulties in the way of Colonel Macdonald’s +expedition. He succeeded however in mapping himself, +and with the aid of such officers on his staff +as Majors Austin, Bright, Hanbury-Tracey, and +others, the regions to the north of Mount Elgon. +He filled up a considerable blank in the map between +what was known east of the Mountain Nile and the +actual coast-line of Lake Rudolf. Colonel Macdonald’s +expedition first brought clearly to our knowledge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span> +the remarkable mountain-ranges of Chemorongi, +Nakwai, Lobor, Lopala, Morongole, Agoro, and +Harogo. He put on the map the upper waters of +the Asua River (an important eastern contributary +of the Mountain Nile) and its larger affluents. His +work and that of the late Captain Welby has enabled +us to define more clearly the separation between the +waters of Lake Rudolf on the east and the Mountain +Nile on the west. Colonel Macdonald discovered +Lake Kirkpatrick on the upper Asua, and mapped +more precisely Lake Salisbury and the northern slopes +and streams of Mount Elgon.</p> + +<p>Captain M. S. Wellby had travelled in 1899 round +the east and south shores of Lake Rudolf, and thence +had penetrated westwards through the Turkana and +Karamojo countries to the Nile watershed, where he +discovered two streams flowing north, both of which +he named Ruzi. These he imagined to be the head-waters +of the Sobat. Donaldson Smith and H. H. +Austin showed his theory to be wrong [?]. The Ruzis +probably flow into the rivers draining the Lotuka +highlands and entering the Bahr-az-Ziraf or Giraffe +Nile.</p> + +<figure id="ip_272" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> + <img src="images/i_2722.jpg" width="1480" height="2078" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dr. Donaldson-Smith.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Colonel J. R. L. Macdonald (assisted by Captain +Pringle) had previously (1893), when first employed +in Uganda, made an admirable survey of the British +coasts of the Victoria Nyanza, from Port Victoria +in northern Kavirondo, westwards to the German +frontier at the Kagera River, and for the first time +put on record all or nearly all the islands, bays, inlets,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span> +peninsulas, and rivers of the north and northwest +coasts of the Victoria Nyanza. Here and there his +work in this direction has been added to by Mr. +C. W. Fowler and Commander Whitehouse. Whitehouse, +as already related, was the surveyor who +finally amended Stanley’s error of “Ugowe Bay,” and +gave us for the first time the correct form of the great +northeastern gulf of the Victoria Nyanza (Kavirondo +Bay), together with the shape of the two large islands +which mask its entrance. Commander Whitehouse +also surveyed the east coast of the Victoria Nyanza +down to the German frontier, and added a lot of new +material to the delineation of this eastern coast-line. +In this direction an interesting journey was made from +Lake Naivasha to the coast of Kavirondo Bay by +Major E. Gorges in 1900. Mr. C. W. Hobley, a +Sub-Commissioner in the Uganda Protectorate, contributed +a good deal of information to fill up the blank +places of the map between Kavirondo Bay on the +south and the northwestern flanks of Mount Elgon +on the north. Captain Pringle had already mapped +these countries on the railway survey.</p> + +<p>In 1900 Dr. Donaldson-Smith, an American, traversed +the countries which lie between the north end +of Lake Rudolf and the Mountain Nile. He crossed +several dry river-beds, in a region of appalling drought +(extinct tributaries of the Sobat), and then reached the +rivers Oguelokur, Tu, and Kos which flow in a northwesterly +direction towards the Mountain Nile or its +branch, the Giraffe River. The region between the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span> +Giraffe and the Sobat remains to-day the only unexplored +part of the Nile Basin.</p> + +<p>In 1900 and 1901 Major C. Delmé Radcliffe made +the first completely accurate survey of the Nile from +Lake Albert to Gondokoro, and put on the map for +the first time many new details concerning the Asua +River and its affluents, besides streams which rise +in the hills of the Acholi and Madi countries and +enter that portion of the Nile between Gondokoro +and Lake Albert.</p> + +<p>From the Cape to Cairo was a watchword that, as an +idea, first emanated from the pen of Sir Edwin Arnold +in 1876, and as a phrase took shape in writings by the +author of this book in 1888 and 1890, and as a policy +was finally adopted by Cecil Rhodes in 1892. The first +person to carry this idea into practical execution was +Mr. Ewart Grogan, who (accompanied part of the +way by Mr. Sharp) travelled literally from the Cape +to Cairo via Lake Albert Edward and the Uganda +Protectorate. His contributions to Nile explorations +are referred to in the next chapter. He was followed +in 1900 by Major A. St. Hill Gibbons and later by +M. Lionel Dècle. Between 1898 and 1902 Colonel +E. A. Stanton surveyed the eastern part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal +and the intricate channels of the lower +Mountain Nile.</p> + +<figure id="ip_274" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 19em;"> + <img src="images/i_2741.jpg" width="1195" height="1173" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Cutting the Sudd.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In the year 1900 a very notable achievement took +place. The terrible obstruction of the sudd which +had intermittently blocked the Nile navigation from the +days of Nero’s two centurions (who could hardly force<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span> +their way through it in the year 66 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>) to our +own times was cut through resolutely by an expedition +under Major Malcolm Peake. The government +of the Egyptian Sudan has for the last two +years continued to clear away this obstacle, and in all +probability it will never be allowed to form again. +In fact, in this direction man will probably do much +to modify the subsequent history of the Nile. Sir +William Garstin has recently explored Lake Tsana and +the Blue Nile as well as the White Mountain Nile as +far as Gondokoro, Lake Albert, and Lake Victoria, +with a view to ascertaining which of the two rivers +contributes the most valuable supply of water for +the irrigation and fertilisation of Egypt. So far, +he has decided for the Blue Nile, a fact which lends +increased importance to the Empire of Abyssinia.<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">113</a> +It may be, however, that with the clearing of the sudd +on the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the Mountain Nile these +branches of the great river may send down increasing +supplies of water to Egypt. In any case the clearing +of the sudd will permit of these waterways being used +for penetrating in all directions into the heart of +Equatorial Africa.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"><span id="toclink_276"></span>CHAPTER XXVI<br> + +<span class="subhead">THE EASTERN BASIN OF THE NILE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">We</span> will now turn to the eastern part of the Nile +basin—the first to be explored, the last to be +finished. It has been already related how, alarmed at +the rapid successes of the Portuguese in India, the +Persian Gulf, and East Africa, the Abyssinians resolutely +ejected the Portuguese missionaries from their +country during the seventeenth century, and how the +attempts of Louis XIV. to supplant the Portuguese +by French influence resulted disastrously. Bruce had +broken the spell which rested on this strange country, +so fascinating to Europeans, because while being absolutely +“Africa” it was ruled, and for the most part +inhabited, by more or less Caucasian races, its rulers +having a Semitic history which attached them to the +fountains of civilisation. Our previous review of exploration +in Abyssinia ended with Bruce’s journey, and +with the attempts on the part of French and German +explorers during the early part of the nineteenth century +to enter Abyssinia up the course of the Blue Nile. +Meantime the overland route to the East had been conceived +by Lieutenant Waghorn, the British government +had seized Aden in 1839, and a much greater interest +than heretofore was taken in the navigation of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span> +Red Sea, which was rapidly becoming the main route +to India. Although Abyssinia then as now had no +acknowledged political control over any part of the +Red Sea littoral, it was early recognised that Abyssinia +was an important factor in the political problems governing +the control of the Red Sea. Even before the +safety of the British route to India became a matter +of urgent importance, we had sought to enter into +direct relations with Abyssinia. In 1805 a British +mission under Lord Valentia and Consul Henry Salt +was sent to conclude an alliance with Abyssinia +and obtain a port on the Danakil coast by means of +which Britain could, if necessary, convey troops to +Abyssinia, and so take a French Egypt in the rear. +The writings of Henry Salt added greatly to our +knowledge of the peoples, languages, and fauna of +Abyssinia and of the Zanzibar coast, but did not +contribute materially to the elucidation of Nile problems. +During the first part of the nineteenth century +Abyssinia was in the throes of civil war caused by +the struggles for supremacy between the ruler of Tigre +(the northern province) and the Ras or Governor of +Amhara (the central province). The Ras of Tigre—Sabagadis—threw +open northern Abyssinia to the +English, cordially inviting missionaries, mechanics, and +explorers to enter his dominions. In this way the +Church Missionary Society’s missions to eastern Africa +started by the despatch of Protestant missionaries +(mostly Germans in the pay of the Society) to Tigre. +On the other hand, the war between Tigre and Amhara<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span> +having resulted in the death of both the chiefs, a third +potentate, the ruler of the lofty Samien Mountains, +annexed Tigre, and out of opposition to his predecessor’s +policy invited Frenchmen to develop the +country. Captains Galinier and Ferret accepted the +commission to survey Tigre and Samien by careful +triangulation. This task was accomplished in 1842, +and resulted in the correct mapping of the affluents of +the Atbara. Meantime the British Protestant missionaries +had penetrated into Amhara, while Tigre and +Samien came under French Roman Catholic influence. +In fact, the history of Uganda was given here on a +larger scale. Simultaneously the southern province +of Ethiopia, Shoa, under the enlightened ruler Selasié +had attracted the attention of Europeans. Major +(afterwards Sir William) Harris was sent by the +Indian government in 1841 to conclude a treaty with +Shoa, as it was thought that this country might eventually +extend its influence over Somaliland, and so +come into direct contact with the Indian government +at Aden. This British mission was naturally followed +by a French one, and a French envoy applied to the +Pope for the starting of a Roman Catholic mission +in Shoa.</p> + +<p>The work of Monseigneur Massaja, who was despatched +by Pope Pius IX., though it throws much +interesting light on the structure of the Gala language, +hardly comes within the sphere of Nile exploration. +Meantime an adventurer named Kasa had arisen in +Amhara, and had gradually made himself master of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span> +the northern and western provinces of Abyssinia. +He had himself crowned King of Kings of Ethiopia +under the name of Theodore, and then proceeded to +annex the province of Shoa to his dominions.</p> + +<p>During the early part of Theodore’s reign the two +brothers d’Abbadie were at work surveying Abyssinia +and collecting invaluable information regarding the +languages, literature, coins, inscriptions, and religions +of that assemblage of Semitic, Hamitic, and Negro +states. Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie and his brother +Arnaud Michel were actually born in Dublin, their +father being French and their mother Irish. They +were however educated in France. Their bent for scientific +exploration was early recognised, for the French +Academy sent the elder of the two on a scientific +mission to Brazil at the age of twenty-five. The +younger d’Abbadie explored Algeria. This leading +his thoughts in the direction of Abyssinia, he proposed +to his brother a joint mission of exploration, +which commenced in 1838 by their landing at Masawa. +Besides carefully surveying the northern and +central provinces of Abyssinia they did work of +special novelty and interest in the south. Until the +journeys of Cecchi and other Italians twenty years ago +the d’Abbadies’ information concerning the countries +lying to the south of Abyssinia represented all that +we knew of Kaffa and Enarea,—names indeed which +had been cited by the Portuguese, but names unsupported +by geographical information. Antoine +d’Abbadie penetrated the furthest into Kaffa. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span> +collected an immense amount of information regarding +the languages spoken in the vague south and +southwest districts inhabited mainly by races of +Hamitic origin. The d’Abbadies closed their survey +of Abyssinia in 1848, though the younger brother +paid the country another short visit in 1853. They +were in no hurry to give the results of their explorations +to the world; in fact, the “Géographie de +l’Éthiopie” (of which only one volume was published) +did not appear till 1890. Their actual surveys of Abyssinia +were published between the years 1860 and 1873. +Their Ethiopian manuscripts came out also during that +period, but Antoine’s Dictionary of the Amharic tongue +was published no further back than 1881. Their twelve +years’ work in Abyssinia was the greatest contribution +that has ever been made to our knowledge of that +country, but most of their labours do not lie sufficiently +within the field of Nile exploration to admit of an +adequate description in this book. Antoine d’Abbadie +lived to the age of eighty-seven (he died in 1897). +About 1859 he found himself involved in a somewhat +acrid conflict of opinion with another Abyssinian explorer, +Dr. C. T. Beke, who visited Abyssinia in the +forties of the last century. D’Abbadie was naturally +prejudiced in favour of the Blue Nile being the main +Nile, since that river and its southern affluents had been +the special object of his researches during twelve years. +On the other hand, Dr. Beke was hotly in favour of +the White Nile, especially after Speke’s discovery of +the Victoria Nyanza. Dr. Beke was right in his main<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span> +contentions, but seems to have thrown unnecessary +aspersions on the genuineness of Antoine d’Abbadie’s +explorations in southern Abyssinia. We now know +d’Abbadie’s work to have been perfectly accurate.</p> + +<figure id="ip_281" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_2801.jpg" width="1628" height="2336" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dr. C. Beke.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Mansfield Parkyns, an Englishman, visited Abyssinia +from 1843 to 1846, wrote interestingly on the country +in confirmation or correction of Bruce’s statements, but +did not add materially to our geographical knowledge, +though his book is still often quoted in regard to habits +and customs now dying out.</p> + +<p>Amongst the Protestant missionaries first despatched +to the country by the Church Missionary Society of +London was the celebrated Krapf, already alluded to +in Chapter XI. as the joint discoverer of the East +African snow-mountains. Krapf penetrated far south +into Shoa, and gave considerable information, both +interesting and true, regarding the dwarfish Negro +tribes found to the southwest of the Abyssinian +Empire.</p> + +<p>Lij Kasa, who had become King of Kings of +Ethiopia under the name of Theodore III., showed +himself, when he had consolidated his power, very fond +of the English, and encouraged English missionaries +and consuls to go to his court. He seems, however, to +have pursued this policy more with the idea of strengthening +his prestige and improving his kingdom by the +spread of mechanical appliances and the manufacture +of superior arms and ammunition, than from any desire +to encourage missionary work. In the early sixties +he became offended at a supposed slight on the part<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span> +of the British government, which left unanswered a +letter addressed to it by Theodore in 1863. His subsequent +proceedings in regard to the imprisonment of +the consul and missionaries eventually brought about +the British expedition of 1868. A force of sixteen +thousand British and Indian soldiers under Sir Charles +Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) marched +from Masawa up and along the eastern escarpment of +the Abyssinian plateau, and captured the citadel of +Magdala, which is situated within the basin of the Nile, +close to the northeasternmost tributary of that river. +This expedition was accompanied by Dr. W. T. Blanford, +who compiled a valuable work on the geology and +zoölogy of Abyssinia, which was published in 1870.</p> + +<p>For ten years after the withdrawal of the British +expedition, in 1869, little advance was made in our +knowledge of Abyssinian geography. Theodore was +succeeded by another adventurer, also called Kasa,—a +native of Tigre,—who afforded considerable help +to the British. By means of our indirect support he +succeeded in getting himself crowned as Yohannes +(John), King of Kings of Ethiopia. Shoa alone, +where Menelik (the present emperor) was slowly recovering +the power of his father (who had lost the +country to Theodore), was not actually conquered by +the Emperor John; for just as he was starting to +subdue Menelik, he himself was attacked by the Egyptian +army under Munzinger, the Swiss Governor of +Masawa. Munzinger was urging the Khedive’s government +to occupy and annex Abyssinia, and Egypt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span> +had, as a preliminary, seized the Bogos country, the +greater part of which still remains Egyptian. But +in 1875 John inflicted a tremendous defeat on the +Egyptian army near the river Mareb, and in 1876 a +second defeat, still more disastrous to the Egyptian +power. This brought about the intervention of General +Gordon, who, in 1876 and 1879, made two attempts +to come to a friendly understanding with +Abyssinia. His journeys added a little to our knowledge +of the affluents of the Blue Nile and the Atbara.</p> + +<p>In 1879 the Earl of Mayo (who subsequently travelled +with the writer of this book in southwest Africa) +made an interesting journey along the Takaze River, +which is the upper waters of the Atbara. His sporting +expedition was followed by that of the brothers +W. and F. L. James (who subsequently explored +Somaliland). The Italians began to take an interest +in Abyssinia at the end of the seventies, but the +first expeditions undertaken by their explorers have +no connection with the Nile basin.</p> + +<p>In 1839 or 1840 one of the most important affluents +of the Nile was discovered by the expedition of Turks +and Europeans despatched by Muhammad Ali to +explore the White Nile. This was the Sobat (as it +was named by the Nile Arabs), which enters the White +River under the ninth degree of latitude. The word +Sobat was evidently an ancient Nubian or Ethiopian +term which was in existence two thousand years ago, +when it was applied to the White Nile (Asta Sobas), +in contradistinction to the Blue Nile (Ast’apos). At<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span> +the present day the Sobat is known by the name of +Kir<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">114</a> on its lower portion, and Baro on its upper +course. In subsequent years steamers ascended the +Sobat from the Nile as far as it was navigable, +namely, to a point called Nasr. Johann Maria Schuver, +a Dutch traveller in the seventies of the last +century, and several Europeans in the service of the +Egyptian government, collected a little more information +about the Sobat and its tributaries above Nasr, +but this river long remained one of the unsolved problems +of Nile geography. Schuver did much to explore +the western Gala countries between the Sobat and the +Blue Nile. On some of these journeys he was accompanied +by the Italian explorer Piaggia<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">115</a> (who had discovered +Lake Kioga on the Victoria Nile). Piaggia, +in endeavouring once more to force his way towards +the Sobat, died at Karkoj, on the Blue Nile, in 1882.</p> + +<figure id="ip_284" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_2841.jpg" width="1550" height="1230" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Natives of the Baro (Upper Sobat) skinning Hippopotamus.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The surcease of the Nile exploration which followed +on the Mahdi’s revolt in 1882, closed for a +time the exploration of the Sobat and its affluents. +But one result of this revolt was to urge European +inquirers more and more towards Abyssinia, especially +the southern provinces of that empire. A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span> +French explorer, Jules Borelli, made remarkable journeys +to the south and southwest of Abyssinia at the +close of the eighties of the last century, and, besides +discovering the river Omo, which flows into Lake +Rudolf, he gave much new information regarding +the source of the Sobat. The book which he published +in 1890—“Ethiopie Méridionale”—is one of +the best and most beautifully illustrated works which +have appeared on Africa.</p> + +<p>Italy having assumed an unacknowledged protectorate +over Abyssinia, subsidised expedition after expedition, +nominally for scientific research. Among +the best equipped of these undertakings, and the most +fruitful in geographical results, was an expedition +under Vittorio Bottego, L. Vannutelli, and C. Citerni, +which explored the head-waters of the Sobat (Baro, +Akobo, etc.) in the southern Abyssinian highlands, +and also the waters of the Didessa (Dabessa), which +is the southernmost tributary of the Blue Nile.</p> + +<p>In 1898 the celebrated Captain (now Colonel) J. B. +Marchand, who had made a most remarkable journey +across the Nyam-nyam country in the western Nile +basin from the Mbomu (a northern affluent of the +Welle-Ubangi), across the Nile watershed to the Sue +River, and down the Sue to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and +Fashoda, left Fashoda<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">116</a> in consequence of the agreement +between France and Great Britain, and travelled +to Abyssinia more or less along the course of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span> +Sobat River, thus, first of all Europeans, practically +connecting the southern provinces of Abyssinia with +the White Nile by a direct journey up the valley of +the Sobat or Baro. Marchand’s explorations were +supplemented by those of MM. de Bonchamps and +Michel.</p> + +<figure id="ip_286" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 22em;"> + <img src="images/i_2861.jpg" width="1382" height="1971" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="floatl"><cite>Photo by Pierre Petit & Fils.</cite>]</p> + +<p class="clear"><span class="smcap">Colonel J. B. Marchand.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>These explorers were soon followed in the same +direction by the late Captain M. S. Wellby. Captain +Wellby also made a most interesting journey from +Abyssinia to Lake Rudolf, down the east coast of +Lake Rudolf to Lake Baringo and the Uganda Protectorate, +and then northwest through the Turkana +country, which lies to the west of Lake Rudolf. +Here Captain Wellby found himself on the Nile-Rudolf +water-parting. To the west of the Turkana, +in the Karamojo country, he crossed an important +stream named the Ruzi,<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">117</a> which was flowing in a general +way northwest. Farther north he encountered +another river also named Ruzi, which might or +might not be the same, but which in doubt he called +Ruzi II. From the second of these Ruzis he eventually +reached the main Sobat. Thenceforth he believed +that in one or other of the Ruzis he had discovered +the southernmost affluent, or perhaps the headwaters +of the Sobat River. His theory, however, was +strongly contested by Major H. H. Austin, who, in +company with Major R. G. T. Bright, travelled over +the greater part of the Sobat system in 1900–1901, +giving us for the first time a fairly accurate survey<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span> +of that river, and of its southern affluents, especially +the Pibor-Akobo, which for length of course, though +not in volume, might lay claim to be the main Sobat +River. The Akobo rises in the mountains to the +north of Lake Rudolf, its source being very close to +the stream of the Omo, the principal feeder of Lake +Rudolf. It does receive an affluent from the south, +which is named by Major Austin “Neubari,” but +this stream is at present unexplored in its lower +course. It might turn out to be one of the rivers +named by Captain Wellby “Ruzi.” At the same +time Dr. Donaldson-Smith, who crossed this region +in 1900, does not appear to have encountered running +water where the junction of the Ruzi and the +Neubari should have taken place. Probably the two +Ruzis discovered by Captain Wellby are two different +streams, one of which flows northwestward into +the Nile and the other into the northwest corner of +Lake Rudolf. The countries to the south of Akobo +and northwest of Lake Rudolf are described by the +few travellers who have visited them as being a region +of appalling drought.</p> + +<figure id="ip_287" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_2881.jpg" width="1539" height="1218" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Gorge of the River Baro (Upper Sobat).</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Mr. Weld Blundell had succeeded the Bonchamps-Michel +expedition as an explorer of the Blue Nile, +and of its interesting southern affluent, the Didessa. +Mr. Blundell made several interesting changes in the +delineation of the course of the Blue Nile westward +of Gojam. Blundell’s work was succeeded by the remarkable +surveys of Major C. W. Gwynn and Lieutenant +L. C. Jackson, who contributed a map of the Blue<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span> +Nile from Roseires up stream to the Gubba country, +on the frontiers of Abyssinia. They also threw +a little more light on the course of the Didessa and +Yabus affluents of the Blue Nile, and the upper waters +of the Rahad, which also flows (somewhat intermittently) +into the Blue Nile. From the Rahad they +crossed the tiny stretch of mountainous country (Galabat) +to the Atbara. Here they showed that only a +distance of about five miles of mountains separates +the affluents of the Atbara from the affluents of the +Rahad, which is a tributary of the Blue Nile. But +for this intervening ridge of five miles in breadth, +the systems of the Atbara and the Blue Nile would +(as the ancients and Arabs formerly believed) have +turned the whole country of Sennar into a huge +island, in which form it was represented by most +travellers down to the beginning of the nineteenth +century. Major Gwynn also explored the head-waters +of the river Garre, which is the northernmost +affluent of the Baro-Sobat, and also the Pibor. As +to the country between the Baro or the main upper +Sobat and the Pibor, Major Gwynn describes it as +“a dried-up marsh covered with a thick choking layer +of black ash resulting from the burning of the +grass.” The Nuers, one of the eastern tribes of the +Nilotic Negroes, he describes as a wonderfully fine +race physically, averaging nearly six feet in height. +Of the work of the earliest European pioneer in +western Galaland Major Gwynn gives a generous +<span class="locked">estimate:—</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Up to this point (the Lega-Gala country) we had +been traversing a land which had to a certain extent +been explored by Schuver, and his work had, on the +whole, been found to be very accurate in detail, though +in the southern portions of his map a considerable error +in latitude had appeared.... Schuver was much liked +and respected throughout the country, and a great impression +had been produced by his dog, which must have +been a big Newfoundland. (He is still always spoken +of by the Galas as Abu Sari, ‘the Father of the Dog.’)”</p> +</div> + +<figure id="ip_289" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;"> + <img src="images/i_2884.jpg" width="1646" height="1269" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Berta Negroes.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>On the middle of the Blue Nile, north of the country +of Fazokl, the aboriginal inhabitants are purely +Negro—Berta and Barun. These Negro races were +probably first mentioned by Cailliaud, the French explorer, +and Ferdinand Werne, the German, who travelled +on the Blue Nile between 1829 and 1843. +Major Gwynn describes them as “a very black race, +large, well made, but slothful and stupid to a degree. +Going up to their villages in the hills, one finds them +stretched out, sunning themselves on the rocks, looking +for all the world like great black snails. Funny +little black pigs and stringy fowls share the huts on +equal terms.”</p> + +<p>An interesting journey was made by Mr. Oscar T. +Crosby across southern Abyssinia and down the Blue +Nile in 1900. In an article by Mr. Crosby in the +“Geographical Journal” of July, 1900, an interesting +description is given of the deep gorge of the Blue +Nile in the Gomar country of Gojam. The level of +the river at this point is 4,725 feet above sea-level. +The edge of the plateau above the river is 9,650 feet,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span> +and this plateau descends nearly five thousand feet in +a series of abrupt steps or “benches.”</p> + +<p>At the beginning of 1900 Mr. Oscar Neumann, a +German, already noted for his explorations of the +eastern part of the Uganda Protectorate, reached +Abyssinia by the now well-trodden route from Zeila +to Harar, and after visiting the Blue Nile in Gojam, +explored the northern part of the Rudolf basin, +and then reached the Galo, which is one of the rivers +that might claim to be the head-waters of the Sobat, +a river rising in those lofty, snow-patched highlands +to the southwest of Enarea. From the Galo, Neumann +crossed to the Akobo, and followed this stream +down to its confluence with the Pibor. At this confluence +he makes the Pibor such an important stream +that it may well be Captain Wellby’s Ruzi. In the +country immediately to the south of Kaffa and on the +water-parting between the systems of the Nile and +Lake Rudolf Mr. Neumann claims to have discovered +Negro races of the Bantu stock. Apparently +he means merely in physical type,—in other words, +Negroes of more or less West African affinities; but +if he or any other traveller should be able to support +this statement by specimens of the language of these +Sheko and Binesho peoples which actually showed +affinities with the Bantu family, he would have +thrown a remarkable new light on the unsolved problem +concerning the source of this interesting family of +African languages. The present writer has been able +to show that Bantu languages of the most archaic type<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span> +exist at the present day on the northwest slopes of +Mount Elgon. This is the furthest point to the northeast +to which the Bantu family has been traced. +Thence southwards and westwards it spreads as the +dominating family of languages as far as Cape Colony +and Fernando Po.</p> + +<figure id="ip_291" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 30em;"> + <img src="images/i_2902.jpg" width="1683" height="1268" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Berta Village in the Matongwe Mountains.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Almost the only large white spot now remaining +unexplored in the Nile basin is the district occupied +by Nilotic Negroes (Dinka, Nuēr, Shiluk), lying between +the Sobat River on the northeast and the main +White Nile on the west and southwest. This region +appears to be a flat country of alternate marsh and +arid steppe, producing few or no great rivers of its +own. On the west it is watered by the affluents of +an important river, vaguely known as the Oguelokur, +some of which (such as the Tu and Kos) rise in those +high mountains of the Lotuka country in the northernmost +parts of the Uganda Protectorate. Mr. +Ewart Grogan, accompanied part of the way by Mr. +Sharp, in 1899 and 1900, made a remarkable journey, +literally from the Cape to Cairo. He travelled from +the north end of Lake Tanganyika by way of lakes +Kivu and Albert Edward to the Albert Nyanza, and +thence down the Nile to the sudd barriers beyond +Bor. After which, taking to the land, he traversed +the unknown country along that branch of the White +Nile called Bahr-az-Ziraf or the Giraffe River. He +discovered another branch of the Mountain Nile +which joins the Bahr-az-Ziraf, and at the junction +of these rivers he notes the entry of a powerful tributary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span> +from the southeast, doubtless the Oguelokur. It +is sometimes supposed that the southernmost of the +Ruzi rivers discovered by Captain Wellby also joins +the Oguelokur, and not the Sobat, though the more +northern Ruzi may be the head-waters of the Pibor. +Some distance to the west of the Pibor is a river +called in Sudanese Arabic “Khor Felus.” This river +was practically discovered by Captain H. H. Wilson +in 1902. Starting southwards from the Sobat, not +far from its confluence with the main Nile, Captain +Wilson followed the Khor Felus up stream for a distance +of some eighty-five miles in a direct line due +south. He describes the country traversed by this +winding river as being flat and uninteresting,—nothing +but a vast grassy plain, with hardly a tree to be +seen. The river or khor was not traced to its source, +which indeed was said by the natives to be the White +Nile itself. If this be true, another branch of the +White Nile would start from near Bor and flow +northeastwards into the Sobat; further, more natural +canals seem to connect the Khor Felus with the Pibor +or the Upper Sobat. If this is the case, then in that +vast plain lying between the Sobat and the Nile, which +was once a portion of the “Lake of Fashoda,” we +have still remains of many old channels of the Nile +which, as the lake drained off to the northwards, +meandered over its drying bed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span></p> +<figure id="ip_293" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37em;"> + <img src="images/i_2922.jpg" width="2318" height="1621" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Nile in Egypt.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"><span id="toclink_293"></span>CHAPTER XXVII<br> + +<span class="subhead">CONCLUSION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> Nile quest is practically ended. It may be +safely said that every important branch or affluent +or lake-source of this the longest river in Africa +(very nearly the longest in the world) has been discovered, +named, and partially or completely mapped. +The only portion of the Nile basin which presents any +noticeable blank on the map is the unknown district—some +say of swamp alternating with arid steppe—which +stretches like a tongue of white in our charts +between the tributaries of the Mountain Nile and the +Giraffe on the west, and the affluents of the Sobat on +the east. In all probability whilst these lines are written +and printed this blank is being filled up by industrious +surveyors sent out by the Anglo-Egyptian government +of the Sudan.</p> + +<p>Fate has ordained that the entire basin of this river +and its tributaries (with the trifling exceptions of the +upper waters of those which rise within the political +limits of Abyssinia, a portion of the extreme source +of the Nile (the Kagera), of Lake Albert Edward, +and of the Semliki) should come under the political +control of Great Britain. We have, therefore, cast +our ægis over one of the most wonderful regions, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span> +some respects one of the most productive portions, +of Africa.</p> + +<p>On the north there is the oldest country in the +world, so far as history goes,—Egypt, with its ten +millions of Egyptians, Arabs, Europeans, and Nubians; +its cotton and wheat, maize, barley, beans, sugar-cane, +dates, rice, and clover; its petroleum, gold, and +emeralds in the eastern desert, and its alum and soda +in the Libyan wastes; Egypt, with its European or +Mediterranean fauna and flora.</p> + +<p>Then comes Nubia, producing little at present but +fierce men of mixed Hamitic, Semitic, and Negro +blood; then the richer countries of Darfur, Kordofan, +Sennar, Bogos, Kasalá, and Galabat. Here there is no +lack of trade goods,—copper, camels, asses, and, +above all, acacia gum. The vegetation in these lands is +no longer that of the Mediterranean. It is African. +On the hills above three thousand feet, appear dracænas +and euphorbias. In the lowlands there are baobabs, +acacias, giant fig-trees, wild-date palms, and the +branching hyphæne. Here begins the great fauna of +Africa,—baboons, elephants, antelopes, lions, zebras, +cheetahs, leopards, spotted hyænas, wild asses, rhinoceroses, +giraffes.</p> + +<figure id="ip_294" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_2941.jpg" width="1527" height="1216" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nubia: a “Washout” on the Sudan Railway.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Farther south comes the influence of the regular +equatorial rains. The steppe gives place to grasslands, +and, above all, to marshes,—hopeless marshes +of papyrus, of Phragmites reeds, of the fleecy +<i class="taxonomy">Vossia</i> grass, of the floating <i class="taxonomy">Pistia stratiotes</i>, the +amaranth, the water-lily, and the ambatch (a gouty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span> +bean with orange-coloured blossoms). In these +marshes swarm the hippopotamuses and crocodiles, +long banished from Egypt proper. Here strides and +poses the extraordinary <i class="taxonomy">Balæniceps rex</i> or Whale-headed +stork. Sacred ibises, spoonbills, stilts, herons, +marabou storks, white storks, black storks, saddle-billed +storks, tantalus storks, Egyptian geese, spur-winged +geese, knobnose geese, ducks of many kinds +frequent this dreary land, that, save to birds, has no +horizon; for everywhere the view is shut in with +walls of reed and rush and amphibious bush. Yet +away beyond the marshes—marshes which are really +hidden lakes and mighty rivers with false banks of +floating vegetation—is a grassy country dotted with +stony hillocks, if one travels far enough from the +river, and inhabited by naked Nile Negroes. These +are tall black men with long, thin shanks, and the +gait and attitudes of wading birds. They are cattle-keepers, +above all, and their vast unseen herds beyond +the marsh lands breed and send forth periodically for +the devastation of Africa those cattle plagues which +recur at intervals of a few years.</p> + +<figure id="ip_295" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 33em;"> + <img src="images/i_2944.jpg" width="2108" height="1244" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Tropical Forest at Entebbe, on the North-west Shores of Victoria Nyanza</span>,</p> + +<p>(Now turned into Botanical Gardens.)</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>To the southwest of Marshland begins an attractive, +even beautiful, park-like country of rolling, grassy +downs, interspersed with fine trees of ample foliage, +with belts of forest along the rivers. Beyond the parklands +rises that tremendous tropical forest which +passes thence uninterruptedly over the water-parting +into the basin of the Congo. This tropical forest, only +to be rivalled in luxuriance by that of the Amazons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span> +in South America, stretches in a crescent curve along +the southwestern edge of the Nile basin to Ruwenzori, +and, with a few interruptions, into Unyoro, +Uganda, and the northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza. +On the plateaux lying to the northeast of the +Victoria Nyanza are other areas of dense forest, but +not always tropical in character,—forests consisting +of great conifers and tree-heaths, which reappear on +the high mountains of Abyssinia.</p> + +<p>To the immediate south of the marshy country +appears more parkland on either side of the Mountain +Nile, and in the countries of the Acholi, the Lango, +and the Lotuka. Beyond this parkland is the great +area of marshes between the Victoria Nile and Mount +Elgon. North of Elgon the parkland becomes more +arid. East and west of the Victoria Nyanza are +beautiful and healthy plateaux ranging from six +thousand to ten thousand feet in altitude, and highly +suggestive of Europe and the Cape of Good Hope in +their vegetation.</p> + +<p>Between the watershed of Rudolf and that of the +White Nile are many mountains, but as one proceeds +northward in the direction of the Sobat, the country +is increasingly parched and sandy where it is not +stagnant marsh.</p> + +<p>Nileland contains within its limits the highest +point of the African continent,—the culminating +peak (whichever it may be) of the Ruwenzori range, +a ridge which presents some thirty miles of snow and +glaciers, and perhaps attains twenty thousand feet in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span> +supreme altitude. South of Ruwenzori, and still +partly within the Nile watershed, is the Mfumbiro +group of volcanoes, two of which possibly exceed +an altitude of thirteen thousand feet. Away to the +northeast of the Victoria Nyanza is the great extinct +volcano of Elgon, over fourteen thousand feet in +height, while the mountains of Abyssinia, where the +Sobat, the Blue Nile and its tributaries, and the Atbara +take their rise, reach in places to altitudes of +sixteen thousand feet, and are capped with patches +of perpetual snow. Nileland, therefore, offers a wonderful +range of climate, temperature, and vegetation.</p> + +<p>Its fauna comprises the most interesting, the biggest, +and the handsomest of African beasts. And +its human races include nearly every type of Negro +and Negroid,—Congo Pygmies, Turkana giants, +Masai like Greek athletes and Balega<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">118</a> like apes, +long-shanked Dinka and Shiluk, short-limbed Lendu, +burly Baganda, handsome Bahima, ugly Berta and +Shangala, bearded Nyam-nyam and womanish Madi; +the clothed, curly-haired Galas and the absolutely +nude Nilotic Negroes. In Egypt are pure Caucasians; +in Nubia and Abyssinia, in the lands between +the Nyanzas, are people of this regal stock variously +mixed with antecedent Negro.</p> + +<p>The Nile has been the main route by which in +ancient times the Caucasian invaded Negro Africa, +the once exclusive path by which the white man’s cultivated +plants and domestic animals reached the torrid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span> +lands and dense forests where the Negro, before the +Caucasian touched him, lived in the condition of the +semi-beast. No Negro race cared whence the Nile +came or whither it flowed. Interest in geographical +problems, as it was remarked in the first chapter of this +book, is almost the exclusive heritage of the Caucasian. +This is the human race which for some three thousand +years has felt first a flickering curiosity, latterly +an intense desire, to wrest the secret of the Nile +sources from the heart of Africa. Its aim is accomplished. +The main features of the Nile system are +placed on the maps of civilised men, are known to intelligent +Egyptians, Arabs, Indians, and Abyssinians.</p> + +<p>The Nile has been the Caucasian’s first and easiest +way across the desert to Real Africa before the +ocean could be navigated. The Nile basin, moreover, +offered to the more sensitive white man elevated +areas, oases in a land of malarial fever, wherein +he could make some home or settlement, south of the +Tropic of Capricorn, not too dissimilar in climate and +temperature to the lands of temperate Europe and +Asia. From the vantage-ground of Abyssinia, of the +Nandi and Ankole plateaux, of the Mediterranean +Delta of the Nile, the Caucasian may still direct the +education of the Nile Negroes and permeate increasingly +these black and bronze-skinned, woolly-haired +backsliders from human progress with Caucasian +blood, energy, and love of knowledge, till the Nile +Negro himself grows interested in the past history +of Nile discovery.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"><span id="toclink_299"></span>CHAPTER XXVIII<br> + +<span class="subhead">THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE NILE BASIN</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Early</span> in the geological history of the globe there +appear to have been rock-foldings, wrinkles in +the earth’s surface in the eastern half of Africa. +Sometimes this puckering of the solid crust manifested +itself simply in longitudinal strips of raised +plateaux of which Abyssinia and the highlands east +of the Victoria Nyanza, north and west of Nyasaland, +are remains. A sharper wrinkle than others +produced the remarkable snowy range of Ruwenzori, +perhaps the greatest altitude of the African continent. +These lofty plateaux and mountain ranges +from Abyssinia on the north to Nyasaland on the +south have no doubt in all times attracted an unusually +heavy rainfall from the moisture-laden clouds +which are blown inland off the Indian Ocean. The +rainfall on the Livingstone Mountains and the Nyasa-Tanganyika +Plateau drains south and east to the Indian +Ocean and west to the basin of the Congo; or +into Tanganyika, which is likewise connected with +the Congo at the present day.<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">119</a> North of the Tanganyika<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span> +system, however,—that is to say, approximately +north of the third degree of south latitude,—the +rainfall flows either towards the Mediterranean +down the valley of the Nile, or else in a north-northeasterly +direction into a string of isolated lakes which +apparently at one time communicated with the Gulf +of Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea. Supervening +on the original wrinkling of the true backbone of +Africa (i.e. the elevated ridge which extends from +the Nubian Alps to the Cape of Good Hope or at any +rate to the Zambezi) came a series of profound volcanic +disturbances, elevating, depressing, cracking, +and rending the eastern side of this ancient continent. +As a rule this volcanic action seems to have +proceeded along nearly parallel curved lines, running +from the latitudes of the Zambezi River in a north-northeasterly +direction. The first and widest of these +faults due to volcanic action was seemingly the sinking +of the ground between Madagascar and East +Africa. A nearly parallel but much narrower rift +valley was also formed up the trough of Lake Nyasa,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span> +northwards<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">120</a> to the celebrated rift valley which lies +to the east of the Victoria Nyanza, and contains innumerable +lakes, large and small, salt and fresh. +This valley, with some interruptions, extends north +and northeast till it reaches the shores of the Gulf of +Aden.<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">121</a> Westward again of this East African rift +(which some geologists believe to have been continued +with a northwesterly inflection up the Red Sea +to the valley of the Jordan) is another less clearly-defined +fault, which may have produced the valleys +of the Kafue and of the Luapula, and was then continued +northwards through Tanganyika to the Albert +Nyanza and the valley of the Nile. Various upheavals +and modifications broke up the continuity of +this western rift valley. The drainage of the Kafue +was deflected to the Indian Ocean; that of the Luapula +and its lakes and of Tanganyika to the Congo +basin. North of Lake Kivu,<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">122</a> however, the drainage +flowed northward into a vast fresh-water inland sea, +which, for want of a better name, we may call the +Lake of Fashoda. A parallel to this great circular, +shallow sheet of water existed not very anciently in +the northern basin of the Congo, and another is to +be seen at the present day in the Victoria Nyanza. +This last is the largest existing lake in Africa. So +far as is known it is shallow compared to such deep<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span> +troughs as Tanganyika and Nyasa, and is possibly not +a very ancient sheet of water as geological age may +be reckoned.</p> + +<figure id="ip_302" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_3021.jpg" width="1683" height="1368" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Napoleon Gulf, looking South, near the Outlet of the Ripon Falls.</span></p> + +<p>[Note the isolated rocks, the remains of a former barrier and fall.]</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The Victoria Nyanza is in origin little but the +widened course of the river Kagera, which flowed +along a curved depression to the eastward of the +Ruwenzori, Ankole, Mpororo, and Mfumbiro highlands. +The Kagera, in fact, at the present day may +be regarded as the extreme source of the Nile. It +rises approximately under the fourth degree of south +latitude, only a few miles from the mountainous +shores of northeast Tanganyika. Many streams descending<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">123</a> +from these Burundi mountains unite to +form the Kagera, which, after a zigzag northerly +course studded with not a few small lakes, turns, +under the first degree of south latitude, abruptly to +the east (with one dip to the south) and enters the +Victoria Nyanza a little to the north of the first degree +of south latitude. The original course of the +stream evidently lay between the Sese Islands (the +remains of high mountains) and the coasts of Buddu +and Uganda, and then through the Rosebery Channel +into the Napoleon Gulf, from which, over the Ripon +Falls, it issues as the acknowledged Nile. Apart +from the Kagera the great Victoria Nyanza receives +few rivers of size or important volume. The only +others worthy to be mentioned are the Nzoia on the +northeast, the Nyando and its affluents, which form<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span> +Kavirondo Bay, and four largish rivers which enter +the east coast of the lake. If the bed of the Victoria +Nyanza could be raised by some earth movement +about two hundred and fifty feet, it would be traversed +by a converging network of river channels +uniting with the Kagera and the main stream of the +Nile in what is at present called Napoleon Gulf; and +the geographical appearance of this dried-up lake +would be very similar to the present aspect on the +map of the many branches and affluents of the Nile +and its tributaries which converge (south of Fashoda) +at the junction of the Sobat. The surface area of the +Victoria Nyanza may at one time have been considerably +greater than it is at the present day, and have +covered a good deal of the country of Unyamwezi. +Perhaps at one time it had no outlet. The highlands +forming the eastern spine of the continent and +stretching along the eastern cliffs of the rift valley +from Abyssinia to North Nyasa prevented its overflowing +towards the Indian Ocean; while the Nyasa-Tanganyika +Plateau and the mountains bordering the +Tanganyika rift valley opposed any western escapement. +Therefore the great inland sea created by the +drainage of Unyamwezi, of the Kagera, and the rivers +from the Nandi plateau was forced up against the +ridge of highish land (4,000 feet), forming the existing +countries of Uganda, Busoga, and Kavirondo. +Attacking this ridge at its narrowest diameter, the +pent-up waters of the Victoria Nyanza slowly carved +their way northwards down the gorge now occupied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span> +by the Nile at the Ripon Falls. Nearly all the drainage +of the Uganda-Busoga Plateau runs northward, +and does not fall into the Victoria Nyanza. The tilt +of this plateau is highest round the northern shores +of the Victoria Nyanza (four to five thousand feet), +and falls gradually till it reaches the somewhat low +level (two thousand feet) of the Upper Nile valley. +The escaping waters of the Victoria Nyanza formed +another great lake (Kioga-Kwania) immediately to +the north on the other side of the Uganda ridge. This +lake again drained off eventually to the original (Albertine) +Nile. The site of its former bed is covered +at the present day with vast marshes and with the +straggling, many-armed lake of Kioga-Kwania.</p> + +<figure id="ip_304" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_3041.jpg" width="1181" height="1142" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Birth of the Victoria Nile, at the Ripon Falls.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The Albertine Nile, which some geographers think +was the original main stream of the river, rises under +the name of Ruchuru on the northern slopes of that +great volcanic mass called the Mfumbiro mountains. +These mountains have arisen in recent times in the +middle of a rift valley which, seemingly, included +Lake Kivu. The same fault may also contain the +basin of Tanganyika, but this lies at a much lower +level than Kivu. From Kivu (which no doubt once +drained towards the Nile before the volcanic dam +arose on the north) there would have been a gentle +slope downward and northward (only partially +stemmed by the extraordinary peninsula of Ruwenzori) +to the basin of the Albert Nyanza.</p> + +<p>The Ruchuru enters Lake Albert Edward,—creates +that lake, in fact,—and the Albert Edward Nyanza<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span> +has a northern gulf or tributary lake known as Dweru, +which receives much of the drainage of Ruwenzori, +and transmits the melted snows of this Central African +Caucasus to the basin of the Albert Edward. +From the north end of Albert Edward the Albertine +Nile issues again under the conventional name of the +Semliki. The Semliki flows round the abrupt western +slopes of Ruwenzori into Lake Albert Nyanza, +from the northern end of which important basin +(which lies at an altitude of 2,100 feet above the sea), +the Mountain Nile, formed by the great twin lakes, +whose existence was remotely known to the ancients, +starts on its career.</p> + +<figure id="ip_305" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;"> + <img src="images/i_3044.jpg" width="1714" height="1182" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">On Lake Albert Edward (North-West Coast)</span>. + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The Victoria Nile enters the north end of Lake +Albert, and its waters leave that lake almost uninfluenced +by their volume; in fact, Lake Albert has +almost become a river, the Albertine Nile, when the +water coming from the Victoria Nyanza enters the +river-like end of the Albert at Magungo and then +abruptly turns with full stream to the north. The +Mountain Nile,<a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">124</a> after leaving Lake Albert, maintains +a broad, lake-like character until it enters the narrow +rift valley north of Nimule in the Madi country. +Along this winding gorge, which exhibits some of +the finest scenery of Africa, the Nile flows over +nearly a hundred miles of cataracts and descends in +all about five hundred feet. At Lado (in about 5°<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span> +north latitude), where it slackens and expands, the +altitude of the White or Mountain Nile is about fifteen +hundred feet above sea-level. At the beginning +of this cataract region, north of Nimule, the Nile receives +a lengthy affluent from the southeast. This is +the river Asua, which drains the very mountainous +but slightly arid country west of the Rudolf watershed, +and north of Mount Elgon. The Asua attracted +a great deal of attention in the early days of Nile exploration, +owing to Speke having thought that it was +an additional outlet of the Victoria Nyanza, flowing +from (what is now called) Kavirondo Bay.</p> + +<p>North of Lado the Nile enters an exceedingly +marshy region, which is perhaps three hundred miles +from north to south and two hundred miles from +east to west. This area once certainly was the site +of a lake at one time as large or larger than the +Victoria Nyanza. This lake was mostly fed from +the west by seven or eight important streams, which +to-day, with their many tributaries, unite to form +that broad western branch of the Nile known as the +Bahr-al-Ghazal.<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">125</a></p> + +<p>The Bahr-al-Ghazal is little else than a great estuary +which receives contributions from many big rivers. +If, however, one of these is to be selected as the main +stream on account of general consistency of direction, +then the Bahr-al-Arab would be the upper waters of +the Gazelle. The furthest perennial source of this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span> +river is in the country of Dar Fertit, on the verge of +the northernmost limits of the Congo basin, and within +a few days’ journey of the Upper Shari. Other very +doubtful tributaries of the Bahr-al-Arab drain off what +little water is not evaporated in the somewhat arid +country of Darfur. The Bahr-al-Arab is fed by at +least four important rivers, which flow northward +from the Congo water-parting in the Nyam-nyam +countries.</p> + +<p>If volume of water is to be considered, then probably +the main stream of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is the Jur +or Dyur, which, in its upper waters, is known as the +Sue or Swe. The Sue-Jur rises in about 4° north +latitude, not many days’ journey to the east of +Mbomu. (The Mbomu is an important tributary of +the Welle-Ubangi, which again is one of the principal +tributaries of the Congo.) There is nearly continuous +steam navigation up the Welle-Ubangi and +the Mbomu to within a few days’ journey of the Nile +basin. It was up this stream (from the Congo) that +Marchand and his intrepid companions travelled in +1897. From the waters of the Mbomu they carried +their little steam-launch overland to the Upper Sue. +They were then able to descend this river for hundreds +of miles to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the main +Nile. Near Mashra-ar-Rak, at the commencement of +what the Sudanese style the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the Jur +is joined by another important stream called, in its +lower course, the Tonj, which has many tributaries +coming from the vicinity of the Welle. Nearly parallel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span> +with this river to the east are the Roa and the +Rōl (or Yalo), both of which enter the Bahr-al-Ghazal +not far from its confluence with the main +Nile. There is also a river Yei or Ayi, the direction +of which is not fully determined. This river, which +flows nearly parallel with the main Nile, some sixty +miles to the west of Lado, either enters the Rōl and +thus the Bahr-al-Ghazal, or turns into the main Nile +not far from the bifurcation of the Bahr-az-Ziraf.</p> + +<p>The Bahr-az-Ziraf is an eastern branch of the +main Nile, which leaves the parental river near Bor +(about latitude 6° 40′ north) and flows very tortuously +northwards, rejoining the White Nile about sixty +miles east of Lake No (Bahr-al-Ghazal). The Ziraf +or Giraffe River has other communicating channels +with the main Nile, and also throws off sluggish +contributions to the Khor Felus,—a western tributary +of the Lower Sobat. The Giraffe River (so named +by the Arabs for the many giraffes once sighted +from its banks) receives from the south an important +stream known (perhaps incorrectly) as the Oguelokur, +which, through its component rivers the Tu +and Kos, drains the northern slopes of the Lotuka +Mountains.</p> + +<p>The lower part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is often lost +in marshes or is widened into lake-like expanses such +as Lake No, at the confluence of the White Nile. +About a hundred miles to the east of this confluence +with the Kir or main White Nile (also called, south +of this point, the Bahr-al-Jabl or Mountain Nile),<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span> +there enters a very important affluent from the east, +the Sobat (Baro), which is formed by a number of +streams flowing from the southwestern part of the +Abyssinian Empire and the vicinity of the Lake +Rudolf basin.<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">126</a> After its confluence with the Sobat +the White Nile flows without any important tributary +for something like three hundred and fifty miles +nearly due north through a country which passes +from a tropical luxuriance of vegetation to the acacias +and thin grass of the steppe region. The influence +of the Sahara Desert, in fact, begins to make +itself felt,—that desert which extends right across +from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, interrupted +only by the exceptional mountain regions of Tibesti, +Darfur, Abyssinia, Yaman, and Jabl Akhdar.</p> + +<p>At Khartum, in about 15° 40′ north latitude, the +Nile receives its most important affluent, the Abai or +Blue Nile (Bahr-al-Azrak). This river rises on Sagada +Mountain in the Abyssinian province of Gojam, +passes through the south end of Lake Tsana (a piece +of water about the area of Gloucestershire) in the +western part of Central Abyssinia, and, after curving +to the east and south, turns west and north, and +brings to the Nile (it is said) that great increase of +volume in the summer time which causes the annual +flooding of Lower Egypt.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span></p> + +<p>Lengthy as is the course of the White Nile from the +Victoria and Albert Nyanzas to Khartum, and infinitely +greater though the mass of its waters should +be than the volume of the Blue Nile, the stream +of the White River has nevertheless been much attenuated +before it reaches Khartum by the waste of +its volume in the region of vast swamps lying between +Fashoda on the north and Lado on the south, to say +nothing also of a similar waste and evaporation of +water from the deflection of the Victoria Nile into +the backwaters and swamps of Kioga and Kwania. +Another contribution—though a much feebler one in +volume of water—comes from Abyssinia in the shape +of the Atbara, which, in its upper waters, is known +as the Takaze.<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">127</a> This river, during the dry season, +almost ceases to flow in its lower portion, though it is +flooded during the summer months from the melting +of the snows and the heavy tropical rains on the +northern Abyssinian mountains. The Atbara is considered +by Sir Samuel Baker to contribute the principal +share of the black mud which fertilises Egypt.</p> + +<p>After the confluence of the Atbara the Nile receives +no other tributary of running water during the whole +remainder of its course, though in former times of far +greater rainfall it was joined by streams of considerable +volume flowing northeast from Kordofan. The +Nile at Ambukol seems to fall into another rift valley +or series of faults, along which, and over deserts of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span> +sandstone, granite, and limestone, it pursues its way +to the southeastern angle of the Mediterranean Sea. +The great river divides in the extreme lower part of +its course into two main branches, through which, +and a number of other smaller streams and artificial +canals, it pours into the sea the attenuated volume +of water derived from the rainfall of Eastern Equatorial +Africa, much having been already spent in useless +swamps, or evaporated as it passed over a thousand +miles of desert, or diverted by man to fertilise +Lower Egypt.</p> + +<p>An interesting feature of the Nile basin, and one +which was known more or less vaguely to the ancient +Egyptians and to the Sabæan Arabs of two thousand +years ago,<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">128</a> is the existence of snow-mountains +at the head-waters of the two principal rivers of the +Nile system,—the White and the Blue Niles. Ruwenzori<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">129</a> +was probably known to the ancients as the +Mountains of the Moon. It is a mass of mainly +Archæan rock some eighty miles long, which runs +from northeast to southwest between Lake Albert +and Lake Albert Edward. This marvellous range +of snow-peaks and glaciers—a glittering panorama +nearly thirty miles in length—exhibits a greater display +of snow and ice (and that exactly under the +equator) than can be seen anywhere else in the African +continent, and is of far more imposing appearance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span> +than the isolated snow-capped summits of Kenya and +Kilimanjaro (extinct volcanoes). The entire drainage +of the Ruwenzori snows falls into the Albertine +Nile, that is to say, into Lake Edward, or the river +Semliki, which connects that lake with Albert Nyanza. +The other heights crowned with perpetual +snow in the basin of the Nile are the high peaks of +the Samien or Simen range in northern Abyssinia, +and one at least,<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">130</a> of the south Ethiopian (Kaffa) +highlands. Two of the Samien peaks rise to a little +over fifteen thousand feet in altitude and one (Buahit) +to sixteen thousand feet. They are part of a nearly +circular rim of great heights which surround Lake +Tsana. To the south of Lake Tsana the mountains +rise to heights of eleven, twelve, and fourteen thousand +feet, but have no permanent snow. On the limits +of the Nile basin, near the northeast corner of the +Victoria Nyanza, stands Mount Elgon, a mighty extinct +volcano,—perhaps the largest extinct volcano +in the world. The crater rim of Elgon rises in places +to over fourteen thousand feet in altitude, but no +snow remains there permanently. Elsewhere than +the Nile basin it is probable that permanent snow and +ice are only to be found on the adjacent extinct volcanoes +of Kenya and Kilimanjaro, and on the highest +peaks of the Atlas range far away in the west of +Morocco.<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">131</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span></p> + +<p>The lower valley of the Nile, the country which we +know as Egypt, has undergone fluctuations of level +since the beginning of the Tertiary Epoch. In the +secondary ages the last five hundred miles of the +Nile valley lay for a period of immense duration +under the waters of the ocean, where the limestone +deposits were formed. In Eocene times this limestone +bed was slowly raised to the altitude of a tableland +above the Mediterranean, but always cut off +from the direction of the Red Sea by the continuous +range of mountains which we know as the Nubian +Alps. It is possible that the drainage of the Central +African rift valleys and lakes and snow-mountains +may, by the uprising of this tableland, have been severed +from its natural escape to the Mediterranean, +and that the Nile ran to waste in what is now the +Libyan Desert. No doubt the Nile formed lake after +lake, and the overflow from these lakes slowly bored +a passage through the limestone tableland. Then in +Miocene times took place a further rise in the range +of the Nubian Alps and the adjoining land, which +caused fractures to occur in the limestone formation. +Of this the Nile took advantage, though it filled up +the rifts to some extent with its debris. The Nile +cut at one time a very deep bed through the limestone; +but then occurred fluctuations in level, a sinking +of the Nile valley which once more brought the +waters of the Mediterranean far inland, and covered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span> +the channel of the Nile with rubble washed in by the +sea. Previous to this the cracks and folds which had +occurred through the upheaval of the eastern highlands +had evidently caused volcanic disturbances by +the water of the Nile reaching through these cracks +the heated strata below. The volcanic outbursts left +behind beds of basalt through which the persistent +Nile again cut a channel. In the later Tertiary ages +Egypt was a country of abundant rainfall, the very +reverse of the absolute desert of to-day. Heavy rains +carved and scarped the surface of the country and +nourished a luxuriant forest. At this period the +lands lying to the west of Egypt, in what is now +known as the Libyan Desert, were probably a bay of +the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>After the Pliocene Epoch, when man first began +to appear on the scene, there was another lowering +of the level of the Nile valley in Egypt, and the +Mediterranean extended its waters perhaps to the +vicinity of Assiut. At this time the Mediterranean +was almost certainly connected with the Red Sea +across the Isthmus of Suez. The Nile stream was +probably rapid in its descent towards the extended +Mediterranean, and cut a deeper and deeper channel. +Then another rise of the land took place, separating +the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, and +sending back the Mediterranean to something like its +present limits; the upheaval indeed may have made +what is now the Delta of the Nile higher than it is +at the present day, while the river cut its way through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span> +a channel many feet deeper than the existing bed. +Gradually, however, the Lower Nile became more +sluggish as the land near the Mediterranean rose, +and, losing its rapidity, it deposited more and more +thickly the detritus brought down from Equatorial +Africa, Abyssinia, and Nubia, and so raised its bed +to a higher level. It has also enlarged its delta by +the deposit of mud, though the fatuity of its work +in this direction (in the presence of earth waves) is +shown by the fluctuations which have occurred even +within the last three thousand years. Not more than +a thousand years ago Lake Menzaleh was a fertile +and richly cultivated district.</p> + +<figure id="ip_315" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 34em;"> + <img src="images/i_3142.jpg" width="2158" height="1628" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><span class="smcap">In the Libyan Desert.</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Some time after man penetrated into Egypt (probably +from the east) the countries to the west of the +Lower Nile began to rise above the sea, for much of +the Libyan Desert was under the Mediterranean in +the Tertiary Epoch. This retreat of the sea coupled +with other conditions not clearly known to us brought +about a marked change in the climate of Africa north +of the fifteenth degree of north latitude. The aridity +of the Sahara Desert and of Arabia began to exercise +a potent influence over the fate of northern Africa. +Many of the lands, which as late as the human period +were still covered with plentiful vegetation and were +traversable by the apes, the elephants, and the antelopes +of to-day, began to dry up into their present +condition, an aridity which, from all we know, is increasing +and extending. Only Egypt was kept alive +by the beneficent stream which, so abundantly nurtured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span> +by the snow-mountains and equatorial rain-belt +of eastern Africa, survived even its passage of a thousand +miles through the blazing desert, and covered +the narrow ribbon of Upper Egypt and the tassel of +the Delta with an ever fruitful soil of finely triturated +mud.</p> + +<p>The Nile has a length of course of some four +thousand miles measured along the windings of the +channel of its main stream,—the Kagera-Victoria-Mountain-White +Nile. It is still doubtful as to +whether the Missouri-Mississippi in North America +is longer than the Nile, and thus the longest river +in length of course in the world. In any case the Nile +has the pre-eminence for actual length of basin, +which, in a straight line measured from the furthest +source of the Kagera to Rosetta on the Mediterranean, +is about 2,490 miles.</p> + +<p>The area of the Nile basin is approximately +1,080,000 square miles.<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">132</a> This falls short of the area +of the Congo basin by some 400,000 square miles. +The volume of water which the Nile pours into the +Mediterranean is trivial compared with the Congo’s +contribution to the ocean; but then the waters of +the equatorial zone in East Africa are evaporated +from the surface of lakes, squandered in swamps, +sucked up by the desert winds, and finally are employed +to irrigate Egypt; so that no comparison +with the output of the Congo would give a fair +idea of the catchment in the Nile basin. This, perhaps<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span> +(including the annual contribution to the Nile +lakes), reaches to two-thirds of the volume of water +poured into the Atlantic by the Congo’s single +mouth.</p> + +<p>This geographical sketch is intended to place before +the reader the main features in the geography of Nileland. +It is the summing up of the results of exploration +during four or five thousand years. The preceding +chapters deal with the history of the way +in which the Caucasian has laid bare the secrets of +the Nile to the curiosity of the civilised. It is only the +Caucasian race which has cared for geography in the +past,—the Caucasian in all his types as Dravidian, +Hamite, Semite, Iberian, and Aryan. The Mongol +of Asia and America, the Negro of Papua and +Africa has never cared to ascertain whence rivers +flowed and whither, what lands lay beyond the ocean +or the snow-peaks. Some early cross with a Caucasian +race sent the Polynesian cruising about the Pacific +and venturing over the Indian Ocean from Java to +Madagascar; but the more purely Mongoloid brother +in China and Japan did not care to trace the chain of +Aleutian Islands to Alaska and America, or if he did +so by accident, felt the question of no interest, sequence, +or importance. Only the Caucasian, and mainly the +White Caucasian, has worried about the Nile problem. +He has attacked it first from the north (Hamite, +Greek and Roman); then from the northeast +and east (Hamite and Semite, Greek, Portuguese, +and British); once more from the north (Arabs,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span> +Turks, French, British, Germans, Italians); resolutely +from the southeast (British and Germans); +latterly from the southwest (British, Belgians, and +French); and, finally and completely, from the north +and northeast.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX_I"><span id="toclink_319"></span>APPENDIX I<br> + +<span class="subhead">THE ROLL OF FAME<br> + +<span class="subhead">OF THOSE WHO STARTED ON THE NILE QUEST IN MODERN DAYS</span></span></h2> +</div> + +<table id="appx1"> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap in2">Name.</span></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap in2">Nationality.</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Francisco Alvarez</td> + <td class="tdl">Portuguese.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Pedro Paez</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in2">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Jeronimo Lobo</span></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in2">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Richard Pococke</td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">James Bruce</span></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(Scottish).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">William Browne</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(English).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Johann Ludwig Burckhardt</td> + <td class="tdl">Swiss.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Frederic Cailliaud</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds</td> + <td class="tdl">Belgian.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Prokesch von Osten</td> + <td class="tdl">German.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Eduard Rüppell</td> + <td class="tdl">German.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Selim Bimbashi</td> + <td class="tdl">Turk.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Thibaut</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">D’Arnaud</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ferdinand Werne</span></td> + <td class="tdl">German.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Brun-Rollet</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Ignatz Knoblecher</td> + <td class="tdl">Austrian.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie</span></td> + <td class="tdl">French-Irish.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Arnaud d’Abbadie</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="in2">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Mansfield Parkyns</td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Charles T. Beke</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in3">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">De Malzac</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">John Petherick</td> + <td class="tdl">British (Welsh).<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Alfred Peney</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Lejean</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Werner Munzinger</td> + <td class="tdl">Swiss.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Theodor von Heuglin</td> + <td class="tdl">German (Würtemberger).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Alexandrine Tinne</td> + <td class="tdl">Dutch.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">JOHN HANNING SPEKE</td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">James Augustus Grant</span></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(Scottish).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Samuel White Baker</span></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(English).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Florence Baker</td> + <td class="tdl">Hungarian.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Giovanni Miani</td> + <td class="tdl">Italian (Venetian).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">GEORG SCHWEINFURTH</td> + <td class="tdl">Russo-German.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Piaggia</td> + <td class="tdl">Italian.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">C. Chaillé-Long</td> + <td class="tdl">United States.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Édouard Linant de Bellefonds</td> + <td class="tdl">Belgian.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Charles George Gordon</span></td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">HENRY MORETON STANLEY</td> + <td class="tdl">British (Welsh).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Wilhelm Junker</span></td> + <td class="tdl">Russo-German.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">C. T. Wilson</td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">R. W. Felkin</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(Scottish).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Romolo Gessi</td> + <td class="tdl">Italian (Levantine).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">C. M. Watson</span></td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Mason (Bey)</td> + <td class="tdl">United States.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Johann Maria Schuver</td> + <td class="tdl">Dutch.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Ernest Marno</td> + <td class="tdl">Austrian.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Emin</span> (<span class="smcap">Eduard Schnitzer</span>)</td> + <td class="tdl">German (Silesia).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Joseph Thomson</span></td> + <td class="tdl">British (Scottish).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Frederick Dealtry Lugard</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(English).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Seymour Vandeleur</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(Irish).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">G. F. Scott-Elliot</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(Scottish).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Franz Stuhlmann</td> + <td class="tdl">German.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Oscar Baumann</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Vittorio Bottego</td> + <td class="tdl">Italian.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">James R. Lennox Macdonald</span></td> + <td class="tdl">British (Scottish).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">A. H. Dyé</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">J. B. Marchand</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">321</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">De Bonchamps</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">M. S. Wellby</td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">H. H. Austin</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="in3">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">R. G. T. Bright</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="in3">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">C. W. Hobley</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="in3">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Ewart Grogan</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="in3">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">J. E. S. Moore</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="in3">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Malcolm Fergusson</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(Scottish).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Lionel Dècle</td> + <td class="tdl">French.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Donaldson Smith</td> + <td class="tdl">United States.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Malcolm Peake</td> + <td class="tdl">British (Scottish).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Weld Blundell</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(English).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Benjamin Whitehouse</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span><span class="in3">”</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">G. W. Gwynn</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(Welsh).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Charles Delmé Radcliffe</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="in1">”</span> <span class="in1">(English).</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Oscar Neumann</td> + <td class="tdl">German.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">H. H. Wilson</td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">E. A. Stanton</td> + <td class="tdl">British (English).</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">William Garstin</td> + <td class="tdl">British (Irish).</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>This Roll includes those only who added definitely and +markedly to the map of the Nile basin, not those who travelled +through these countries for other than geographical purposes. +It comprises: 34 British (21 English, 8 Scots, 3 Welsh, and +2 Irish); 10 Germans, 13 French, 4 Italians, 3 Portuguese, 2 +Dutch, 2 Belgians, 2 Americans, 2 Swiss, 3 Austro-Hungarians, +1 Turk.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">322</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX_II"><span id="toclink_322"></span>APPENDIX II<br> + +<span class="subhead">BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS REFERRED TO OR CONSULTED IN THE COMPILATION +OF THIS BOOK</span></h2> +</div> + +<h3><i>Previous to 1840</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot hang"> + +<p><span class="smcap">History of Ancient Geography</span>, by Sir E. H. Bunbury. London, +1879.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Le Nord de l’Afrique dans L’Antiquité</span>, by Vivien de St. +Martin (full of valuable and reliable information). Paris, +1863.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Géographie du Moyen Age</span>, by J. Lelewel. (Brussels, 1852.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Documents sur L’Histoire de l’Afrique Orientale</span>, by +Guillain. (Paris, 1850.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Géographie Ancienne</span>, by D’Anville (the 1834 edition brought +up to date by Manne). Paris.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Doctrina Ptolemaei</span>, etc., by Berlioux. (Paris, 1871.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ptolemy and the Nile</span>, by T. Desborough Cooley. (1854.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Géographie des Anciens</span>, by P. F. G. Gosselin. Paris, 1798 +to 1813.</p> + +<p>Various papers by Mr. E. G. Ravenstein in the Proceedings +of the Royal Geographical Society or in the <span class="smcap">Geographical +Magazine</span>; also privately written MS.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">History of Egypt from the Earliest Times</span>, by W. M. +Flinders Petrie (4 vols.). This and the same author’s +article on <span class="smcap">(Ancient) Egypt</span> in the new edition of the Encyclopædia +Britannica, 1902, are very useful for ascertaining +what information on the knowledge of the Nile and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</span> +the Land of Punt was prevalent in Ancient Egypt and at +the time of the Muhammadan invasion of the Nile countries.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">History of Egypt</span>, Vol. 1 (1902), by Dr. Wallis Budge.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ptolemy’s Topography of Eastern Equatorial Africa</span>, by +Dr. Schlichter (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical +Society, September, 1891).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Partition of Africa</span>, by Dr. J. Scott Keltie, Second Edition. +1895.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Short Relation of the River Nile</span>, etc. Proceedings of +the Royal Society, London, Nov. 1, 1668. (Portuguese +Jesuits’ travels.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia</span>, by Bartholomeo Tellez. +1710.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Historia da Africa Oriental Portugueza</span>, por José Joaquim +Lopes de Lima. Lisbon, 1862.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Voyage to Abyssinia</span>, by Father Jerome Lobo, Portuguese +Jesuit, from the French of <span class="smcap">Le Grand</span>. London, 1735.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia</span>, 1520–1527. +(Hakluyt Society’s publications, Vol. 44, 1881.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L’Hydrographie Africaine au Seizième Siècle, d’après les +Premières Explorations portuguaises.</span> (Lisbon, 1878.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Description of the East</span> and some other Countries, +Vol. 1 (Egypt), by Richard Pococke, LL.D., F.R.S. +London, 1743.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt</span>, by C. S. Sonnini +de Manoncourt (translated by Henry Hunter). London, +1799.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in 1768, +1773</span>, by James Bruce, in 5 vols. Edinburgh, 1790.</p> + +<p>(Also an excellent abridgment in 1 vol., published in 1798.)</p> + +<p>A Second Edition in 7 vols., 1805, is considered the best +and fullest account of Bruce’s travels, with some of the +errors corrected.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, 1792–1798</span>, by William +George Browne. London, 1800. (Darfur, Nubia.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Sources of the Nile</span>, by Charles T. Beke. London, +1860.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Story of Africa</span>, by Dr. Robert Brown, Vols. 2 and 3, +1893, 1894. (A most useful and trustworthy compilation.) +London, Cassel.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Voyage à Meroe</span>, au Fleuve Blanc, etc., by Frederic Cailliaud. +4 vols. Paris, 1826.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Voyage to Abyssinia</span>, by Henry Salt, 1814.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Journal of Navigation on the Bahr-el-Abiad or the +White Nile</span>, by A. Linant de Bellefonds, 1828. African +Association, London.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels in Nubia</span>, by John Louis Buckhardt. London, +1819.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Reisen in Nubien, Kordofan</span>, etc., by Eduard Rüppell. Frankfurt +a. m., 1829.</p> +</div> + +<h3><i>From 1840 to the Present Day</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot hang"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Premier Voyage à la Recherche des Sources du Bahr-al-Abiad +ou Nil Blanc</span>: Journal de Voyage par Selim Bimbashi. +<cite>Bulletin</cite>, Société de Géographie. Paris, 1840.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Documents et Observations sur le Cours du Bahr-al-Abiad</span>, +by D’Arnaud Binbachi. Paris, 1843.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Khartum and the Blue and White Niles</span> (Journeys of Andrew +Melly), by George Melly. London, 1851. 2 vols.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Expedition zur Entdeckung der Quellen des Weiszen Nil</span> +(1840, 1841), by Ferdinand Werne. Berlin, 1848. +(With admirable map of the White Nile.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Journal of the Royal Geographical Society</span>, Vol. 17. +(Brun-Rollet on the Sobat River.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Annales de Voyage</span>(?), by Andrea de Bono. Paris, July, +1862.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Le Fleuve Blanc</span>, by Jules Poncet. 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt, the Sudan, and Central Africa</span>, etc., by John +Petherick. 1861.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels in Central Africa and Exploration of the Western +Nile Tributaries</span>, 2 vols., by Mr. and Mrs. Petherick. +1869.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die Deutscher Expedition in Ost Africa</span>, 1861–1862, by +Heuglin and Munzinger, in Petermann’s Geographische +Mittheilungen, No. 13.</p> + +<p>Heuglin also writes on Miss Tinne’s expedition in the same +periodical, No. 15, 1865, and gives further notes on the +White Nile.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels in the Region of the White Nile</span>, by Alexandrine +Tinne. 1869.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Géodésie de l’Éthiopie</span>, by Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie. +Paris, 1890. 1 vol.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Life in Abyssinia</span>, by Mansfield Parkyns. London, 1853. +2 vols.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Geology and Zoölogy of Abyssinia</span>, by W. T. Blanford. +1870.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia</span>, by S. W. Baker. 1867.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Journal of the Royal Geographical Society</span>, Vol. 36, p. 2, +article by S. W. Baker.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Journal of the Royal Geographical Society</span>, Vol. 36, pp. +1 to 18.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Albert Nyanza</span>, etc., by Sir Samuel Baker, M.A. +1866.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Albert Nyanza</span>, etc., by Sir Samuel Baker, M.A., New +Edition. 1872.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours</span>, by Dr. J. L. +Krapf. 1860.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">What Led to the Discovery of the Nile Sources</span>, by +Captain J. H. Speke. 1864.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Lake Regions of Central Africa</span>, by R. F. Burton. +1860.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile</span>, by +J. H. Speke. 1864.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Walk across Africa</span>, by J. A. Grant. 1865.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Reise in das Gebiet des Weissen Nil</span> und seine westlichen +Zuflusse, 1862–1864, von M. Theodor von Heuglin. +Leipzig, 1869.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Heart of Africa</span>, by Georg Schweinfurth. 2 vols. London, +1873.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Reise in Nordost Africa</span>, etc., von M. Theodor von Heuglin. +Brunswick, 1869.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Through the Dark Continent</span>, by H. M. Stanley. 2 vols. +1877.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Uganda and the Egyptian Sudan</span>, by C. T. Wilson and +R. W. Felkin. 1879.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir Samuel Baker</span>: a Memoir by T. Douglas Murray and +A. Silva White. London, 1895.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ismailia</span>, by Sir Samuel W. Baker. London, 1874.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Remarks on a Proposed Line of Telegraph Overland</span> from +Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope, by (Sir) Edwin Arnold, +Colonel J. A. Grant, and others. London, 1876.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Colonel Gordon in Central Africa</span>, 1874–1879, by George +Birkbeck Hill. London, 1881.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Central Africa: Naked Truths of Naked People</span>, by +Colonel C. Chaillé-Long. London, 1876.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Proceedings of the Khédivial Geographical Society of +Cairo</span>, 1860–1882. [Schuver, Marno and other travellers.]</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Articles</span> of Mr. E. G. Ravenstein on the researches of the +Rev. C. Wakefield in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical +Society, 1875, 1880.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Through Masailand</span>, by Joseph Thomson. 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travels in Africa during the Years 1875–1878; 1879–1883; +1882–1886; 1890, 1891, 1892.</span> By Dr. Wilhelm +Junker.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Seven Years in the Sudan</span>, by Romolo Gessi Pasha. London, +1892.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">In Darkest Africa</span>, by H. M. Stanley. 2 vols. 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mit Emin Pasha ins Herz von Africa</span>, by Dr. Franz Stuhlmann. +Berlin, 1894.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Éthiopie Méridionale</span>, by Jules Borelli. Paris, 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Naturalist’s Wanderings in Mid-Africa</span>, by C. Scott +Elliot. 1894.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Durch Masailand zur Nil Quelle</span>, by Oscar Baumann. +Berlin, 1894.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Journeys to the North of Uganda</span>, by Colonel J. R. L. +Macdonald and Major H. H. Austin in Geographical +Journal of August, 1899.</p> + +<p>(Also Blue Books giving reports of Major Macdonald’s +expedition.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Campaigning on the Upper Nile and Niger</span>, by Seymour +Vandeleur. 1899.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Cape to Cairo</span>, by E. Grogan and A. Sharp. 1900.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Mountains of the Moon</span>, by J. E. Moore. 1902.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Tanganyika Problem</span>, by J. E. Moore. 1902.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Among Swamps and Giants in Equatorial Africa</span>, by H. H. +Austin. 1902.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">King Menelik’s Dominions and the Country between Lake +Gallop (Rudolf) and the Nile Valley</span>, by Captain +M. S. Wellby. Geographical Journal for September, +1900. London.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Story of Africa</span>, Vols. 2, 3, and 4, by Dr. Robert Brown +(1893–1895).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Uganda Protectorate</span>, by Sir Harry Johnston. 2 vols. +1902.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Geographical Journal</span> (London) for July and December, +1901; and October, 1902.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Journal of the African Society</span> (London) 1902, +1903. [Colonel Stanton’s articles.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="section"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span></p> + +<figure id="ip_328" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_3281_map_left.jpg" width="920" height="1171" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_3281_map_large_left.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear">OROGRAPHICAL FEATURES<br> + <span class="small">of the</span><br> + NILE BASIN</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +<div> </div> +</div> + +<div class="section"> +<figure id="ip_328b" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_3281_map_right.jpg" width="918" height="1171" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="floatr"><a href="images/i_3281_map_large_right.jpg"><i>(Hi Res)</i></a></p> + <p class="clear">LAND SURFACE FEATURES<br> + <span class="small">of the</span><br> + NILE BASIN</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +<div> </div> +</div> + +<div class="chapter footnotes"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">1</a> A superior type of dark-haired white man allied with Circassian and +Persian, and perhaps a direct development from the Dravidian.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">2</a> The Kudu, which is a tragelaph rather than an antelope, exists at +the present day in the eastern part of the Egyptian Sudan, between +Abyssinia and the Nile, and its remains are found fossil in Algeria. It +may therefore have extended even within the historical period to near +the shores of the Mediterranean.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">3</a> This word is the origin of the Arabised <i>Fayūm</i>, a name given to +the remains of a curious Nile reservoir, or backwater-lake, to the west of +the Nile, in the Libyan Desert.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">4</a> The Biblical Yeôr. The Hebrews also called the Nile <i>Shikhor</i>, or +the “Black.” The earliest Greek name for the river and country is +<i>Aiguptos</i> (the origin of “Egypt”). Later the name <i>Neilos</i> (Nile) was +given to the river. This became the later Arab and European <i>Nilus</i>, +<i>Nil</i>, <i>Nile</i>, etc. The origin of the Greek names <i>Aiguptos</i> and <i>Neilos</i> is +unknown, but <i>Neilos</i> may be derived from the Persian word <i>nil</i> = blue.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">5</a> Needless to say, in all cases the iris of these eyes is actually gray; +but the gray almost verges on blue in some instances, while the absence +or presence of a dark rim round the eyes gives or withholds the violet +tinge to the gray.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">6</a> Ptolemy’s original maps have disappeared, and we only know them +through the well-nigh innumerable copies that were made by Greek +monks between 600 and 900 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, by Arabs in the Islamic Renaissance, +by Latin monks and pilgrims, by Venetian and Catalan +sailors, and Flemish or German geographers. Latterly many of these +copyists imported into Ptolemy’s maps of the Nile much recent and +modern information.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">7</a> Even to-day the local (unofficial) name of Berber or any of the +districts round Berber is Ibrim.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">8</a> This mistake is hardly surprising, seeing that at Matama, in the +country of Galabat, the most southern affluent of the Atbara approaches +to within five miles of the most eastern affluent of the Blue Nile. See +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">Chapter XXVI</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">9</a> Ptolemy Philadelphus’ chief inducement to establish stations in +Abyssinia was to procure war elephants. Thus to these Egyptian Greeks +and Ethiopians the African elephant did not appear too intractable.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">10</a> Dongola, the accepted name for the Nubian country north of Kordofan, +appears at one time to have been inhabited by a race speaking a +Hamitic rather than a Nubian language. Dongola (originally Dankala), +or its plural, Danagla, may be etymologically connected with Danākil of +the north Somali coast.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">11</a> Gala and Somali are almost convertible terms. But in this book +Somali is used to indicate that section of the Gala peoples who have +become Muhammadans, and Gala is reserved as a general term for the +whole race or for its non-Islamite tribes.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">12</a> The Arabic and Turkish name for Venice is, or was, Bunduq. This +was a clumsy rendering of the German Venedig, which again was a +corruption of the Latin Veneticum. Although the Arab <em>q</em> (a very +strong <em>k</em>) is almost unpronounceable by most Europeans, it is nevertheless +constantly used by Arabs for translating the <em>k</em>-sound in European +words.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">13</a> By “Dravidian” I mean that very early and little differentiated, +dark-coloured Caucasian of India who is only a few degrees, physically, +above the Australian race.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">14</a> At the time of these exploits Oporto, now the second town of Portugal, +was of little account; the great port at the mouth of the Douro +was called in Latin Portus Calis, or, in the local dialect, Portucal. This +place, being the most important port in the district recovered from the +Moors by Count Henry, gave its name to the little principality which +he founded.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">15</a> Algarve is simply a Portuguese softening of the Arabic words Al +Gharb, the Extreme West or place of sun-setting. At that time Morocco, +across the Straits, was also called Al Gharb for the same reason. +Therefore, after these conquests, the kings of Portugal styled themselves +“Kings of the Algarves, on this side and on the other side of the sea.” +The after-triumphs of the Portuguese in the path of exploration, conquest, +and colonisation were finally summed up in the grandiose titles of +their monarchs, which endure to the present day, and which may well be +allowed to endure with respect, seeing what the world’s knowledge owes +to the Portuguese navigators and conquistadores. The titles run, “Rey +de Portugal e dos Algarves, alem e aquem do Mar na Africa; Senhor da +Guiné e da conquista e da navegaçao d’Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia e India” +(King of Portugal and of the Algarves, on this side and on the other side +of the Sea in Africa; Lord of Guinea, and of the conquest and navigation +of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India).</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">16</a> Prester John.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">17</a> It may be interesting to some to know that Vasco is a contraction of +Velasco, meaning “hairy,” and was a nickname often given to Portuguese +in early days.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">18</a> In Lobo’s book the date is given as 1613, but Bruce shows with +some likelihood that, according to the native Abyssinian chronicles, the +date of Paez’ visit to the sources of the Blue Nile was probably 1615. +In the Latin version of Paez’ account of his travels, published at Rome +in 1652 by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, the date given is the 21st of +April, 1618.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">19</a> See <a href="#Page_30">page 30</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">20</a> Probably, from the description given, <i class="taxonomy">Equus grevyi</i>; so that this, +the largest, rarest, and the latest described of all the zebras, was probably +the first example of the striped horse to receive that name at the +hands of the Portuguese, and become known to Europe. The name is +spelt “zevra” in Father Lobo’s account, in some versions “zeura.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">21</a> The modern term, Gala or Galla, used to denominate that section +of the Hamite people closely akin to the Somalis yet heathen and dwelling +inland, is derived through the Portuguese from an Abyssinian cant +term meaning “wild,” “savage.” It is unrecognized by the “Gallas” +themselves.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">22</a> Father Lobo gives an excellent description of the coasts of the Red +Sea as known to the Portuguese at the beginning of the seventeenth century. +Among other places that are probably mentioned for the first time +is Suakin, which is written “Suaquem.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">23</a> Fremona, the first and principal seat of the Jesuits, was nine or ten +miles from Axum. It was originally called Maigoga, but the name Fremona +was given to it by the Portuguese Jesuits as being the Abyssinian +version of Frumentius, who was the so-called Apostle of Abyssinia, and +converted the rulers of that country to the Greek Church in the fourth +century.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">24</a> Lake Tsana is usually styled by Lobo and the earlier Portuguese +travellers Dambia (Dembea); but they also give it the name of Sena, +which is obviously the same as Bruce’s version of Tsana.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">25</a> Some of the blame undoubtedly must be laid on the shoulders of +the Dutch and Saxon map-makers, who used and distorted Portuguese +information.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">26</a> <i>Habsh</i>, <i>Habshi</i> is the name given to Negroes at the present day in +Hindustani.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">27</a> A Description of the East and some other countries, Vol. I., by +Richard Pococke, LL.D., F. R. S. London, 1743.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">28</a> He filled many posts between 1725 and his death in 1771. He desired +to be made Secretary of State for the West Indies, but George II. +refused. His efforts to foster British trade and colonial expansion +were much appreciated by merchants and colonials, and Halifax, in Nova +Scotia, is named after him.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">29</a> Algeria was then practically a dependency of Turkey, governed by +Turks.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">30</a> Though it is so stated, the delay was apparently caused +by the complete breakdown of Bruce’s health, a breakdown which +obliged him to spend some time at Italian sulphur baths (Poretta). +Bruce, before leaving Sennar and the regions of the Blue Nile, had received +into his system the germ of the Guinea worm. This creature +developed in the usual way. One day when Bruce was reading on a +sofa at Cairo he felt an itching on his leg, and soon afterwards through +the pimple thus raised appeared the head of the worm. Three inches +of this parasite were wound off round a piece of silk, but on the ship +which conveyed Bruce from Alexandria to Marseilles the surgeon +clumsily broke off the portion of the worm extruding from the body. +The remainder of the worm still in the leg caused the most terrible +agony for thirty-five days, which Bruce had to spend in the lazaretto +at Marseilles. Here, however, he received better surgical treatment. +Nevertheless, for some time afterwards his leg gave him considerable +trouble, and apparently, in 1774, he had to visit Italian sulphur baths.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">31</a> All except, perhaps, some of his stories of Nubia and Sennar.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">32</a> It is curious to read of his using a “rifle” in Abyssinia and thereby +astonishing the princes.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">33</a> The name of this notable African city is said to mean, in the local +Arabic, “elephant’s trunk,” as the long spit of sand on which it was +erected was supposed to resemble that feature. Other etymologies are +quoted. Apparently the name was that of a small fishing village of +grass huts which was selected by Ibrahim Pasha as a camp commanding +both the White and Blue Niles and easily defended. Khartum, from +its situation, rapidly became the metropolis of the Sudan. It was taken +and destroyed by the Mahdi in 1885. Its site was reoccupied by Lord +Kitchener’s victorious force in 1898. Khartum has since been rebuilt, +and will probably become one of the greatest cities of Africa.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">34</a> The son of a Swiss soldier in the Swiss corps subsidised by England +in the Napoleonic wars.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">35</a> Afterwards absorbed by the Royal Geographical Society.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">36</a> As this journey was financed by the African Association, it may be +regarded as a British contribution to Nile exploration.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">37</a> The name Muhammad is affectedly pronounced by the Turks Mehemet, +but is of course written by them Muhammad.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">38</a> Afterwards for nearly forty years French consular agent at Khartum.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">39</a> Mainly supported by the Archduchess Sophia.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">40</a> The names of the principal members of this Austrian Roman Catholic +Mission, which finally abandoned its labors about 1862, owing to the +terribly unhealthy climate of the Upper Nile, were Knoblecher, Beltrame, +Morlang, Ueberbacher, Ryllo, and Dorvak. Of their numbers (seventeen +in all) fifteen died of fever or dysentery, and only two returned to Europe. +Beltrame wrote important works in Italian on the Dinka language. +Knoblecher, Ueberbacher, and Morlang collected materials for +the illustration of the Bari language, which were put together by +Mitterrützner.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">41</a> Glamorgan.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">42</a> It may be mentioned here that throughout the Sudan, from the +Albert Nyanza to Khartum, the Egyptians, as distinct from their Sudanese +soldiers, are always spoken of as Turki or Turūk. Kordofan, once +the home of the Nubians and of Negro races, was overrun by Arabs for +several centuries, and more than a hundred years ago formed part of the +half-Ethiopian kingdom of Sennar. It was then subdued by the mailed +horsemen of Darfur, and held by them until conquered by the Egyptian +army under Ibrahim Pasha in 1820.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">43</a> Petherick in his last book writes in eulogistic terms of the behaviour +of this mere boy (so far as age went) throughout all the trying experiences +that the Pethericks underwent in their journeys up and down the +White Nile and the rivers of the Bahr-al-Ghazal. It would be interesting +to know what became of Foxcroft after so promising a début in +African travel.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">44</a> Many of these tribes are known to us at the present day by foolish +nicknames. For instance, the Kamasia people, who dwell in the western +part of the Baringo district, really call themselves El Tūkan. Turkana +seems often pronounced Tukana.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">45</a> Amabile, tried and sentenced to imprisonment by Petherick for +slave-trading, and Andrea de Bono, who, though ostensibly an ivory-trader, +was very unscrupulous in his methods. De Bono, however, was +the first European to explore the countries to the east of the Mountain +Nile, i.e., between the main Nile and the basin of Lake Rudolf.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">46</a> Near the confluence of the Asua River.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">47</a> Down to about 1860 the Arab ruler over East Africa was the Imam +of Maskat, the sovereign of the principality of Oman on the Persian Gulf. +For more than a hundred years, however, the Imam of Maskat deputed +one of his sons or kinsmen to be Sayyid of Zanzibar.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">48</a> By its own people this country is called <i>Wu-nya-mwezi</i>. <i>Wu-</i> is a +degenerate form of the Bantu <i>bu-</i> prefix, which is often used to indicate a +country. <i>Nya</i> is a particle, meaning “of,” or “concerning,” and <i>mwezi</i> = +the moon. Unyamwezi is, however, so far away from Ruwenzori on the +one hand or Kilimanjaro on the other that it is difficult to associate its +name (which so far as we know has been in existence for about four centuries) +with that of the snow-mountains.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">49</a> Speke and others are of opinion that there was a considerable civilisation +in Somaliland at one time, which completely disappeared after the +Muhammadanising of the country. The Somali (except those of the far +interior) were converted to Islam by Arab immigrants in the fifteenth +century. Prior to this they had been Christian to some extent, a much +degraded type of Christianity having penetrated southwards from Abyssinia. +It is hardly necessary to point out that the Somali and Gala are +practically one people in race and language. Gala is only apparently +a cant term originating in Abyssinia and unknown to the people whom +we call by that name. It is also interesting to note that Speke and other +explorers heard in Somaliland, in the “early fifties,” of the existence of +a great lake far in the interior which was in all probability the Victoria +Nyanza. The present writer has endeavoured to show, in his book on +the Uganda Protectorate, that in ancient times considerable trading intercourse +was kept up between Somaliland and the northeast shores of the +Victoria Nyanza.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">50</a> Victoria Nyanza. Often so called in earlier days by the Arabs, +from Bukerebe, a large island near the south shore.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">51</a> Though Burton subsequently recanted this opinion in order to embarrass +Speke’s theories, and declared that the Rusizi was the outlet of +Tanganyika.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">52</a> After his Somersetshire home, and the Indian word for a creek—<i>ălla</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">53</a> Walter L’Espec, in the reign of Henry I., founded three abbeys,—Kirkham, +Rivaulx, and Warden. In the thirteenth century the L’Especs +altered the spelling of their name to Speke. One Speke lost property +by faithfulness to Charles I.; another got into (and out of) trouble in +the reign of Charles II. by advocating the claims to the succession of the +Duke of Monmouth.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">54</a> In one of his books Speke shows us how Burton and himself managed +to communicate with the natives. Neither of them—not even +Burton—had a sufficient knowledge of Kiswahili during their journey to +Tanganyika to talk direct with their porters. They conversed with +“Bombay,” their Swahili interpreter, in Hindustani. Burton also was +able to speak Arabic with the Arab traders. Both, perhaps, are a little +too inclined to overlook this language difficulty in describing their conversations +with native chiefs. In all cases these must have been carried +on in the following manner: The chief would probably speak in his +native language, which would be translated by somebody else into Swahili, +and this again would be translated by Bombay, or Frij, or some other +interpreter, into Hindustani or English; or, again, Burton’s information +might be rendered by some Arab in Arabic. Direct communications no +doubt were sometimes made by both parties in broken Swahili.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">55</a> Mr. T. Douglas Murray, who afterwards became Baker’s biographer. +This letter was written near the close of Sir Samuel Baker’s +life, on the 22d of August, 1893.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">56</a> See his “Discovery of the Source of the Nile.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">57</a> Discovery of the Source of the Nile, p. 31.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">58</a> Worthy of mention here as being the southernmost extension of +“Nilotic” influence among the East African races.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">59</a> <i class="taxonomy">Gazella granti</i>, the horns of which are far longer than is the case +with any other gazelle, the animal itself being about the size of a fallow +deer.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">60</a> A Hima state, lying to the west of the Victoria Nyanza.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">61</a> This, of course, was Lake Albert, the waters of which are slightly +brackish. But it is often called the Salt Lake by the Arabs, from the +large deposits of salt on its shores.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">62</a> They meant, of course, the Rukuga, which flows through Marungu.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">63</a> Hima or Huma is the commonest name applied locally to the Gala +aristocracy in East Equatorial Africa.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">64</a> Journal of the Discovery of the Sources of the Nile.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">65</a> Throughout the writings of Burton, Speke, and Stanley, this race is +called Wahuma. The most common term, however, by which they are +known and know themselves is Bahima (<i>hima</i> being the root and <i>Ba-</i> +the plural prefix).</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">66</a> This is the more curious because, on page 276 in the “Discovery +of the Source of the Nile,” Speke writes of “a long range of view of the +lake, and of the large island or group of islands called Sese, where the +king of Uganda keeps one of his fleets.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">67</a> According to the traditions of the natives, syphilis and smallpox +entered Uganda about the same time, and came originally from Unyoro. +Unyoro received these plagues from the first Nubian slave- and ivory-trading +caravans, which were the pioneers of Egyptian rule in the +forties of the last century. Syphilis and smallpox were also brought +by the Zanzibar trading caravans from Unyamwezi not many years later.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">68</a> This, indeed, long before the British Protectorate, Gordon Pasha +meditated, and was only restrained therefrom by the intervention of Sir +John Kirk.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">69</a> It is a question whether all these spirits were not in origin deified +chiefs or medicine-men, who after death were supposed to become controllers +of the lake, of the rain supply, of certain diseases, or of certain +functions. Speke considers that a small element of phallic worship was +mixed up with the old Uganda religion.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">70</a> Muzungu, i.e., “White-man.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">71</a> This word is really a mis-hearing on Speke’s part for Bwana, which, +again, is a corruption of Abuna, the Arab word for “our father.” Bwana +is the respectful term, meaning “master,” which is applied in the Swahili +language to all persons of superior position. It was the name by +which Speke was known throughout his stay in Uganda, though it has +long since been discarded for “Sapiki.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">72</a> Since, by the unspeakable barbarism of the British Administration, +<em>cut down</em>!</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">73</a> Albert Nyanza.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">74</a> Speke and Baker had met before in India.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">75</a> Florence Ninian von Sass. Lady Baker survives her husband.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">76</a> For something like twelve hundred miles, from the mouth of the +Atbara to the sea, the Nile receives no further contribution of water.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">77</a> <i class="taxonomy">Cycloderma</i>, the Leathery Fresh-water Turtle.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">78</a> This great lake was in reality nothing but the lake-like course of +the Upper Congo. The words for river and lake in almost all African +languages are the same.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">79</a> She usually signed herself Alexine. Her full name was Alexandrina +Petronella Francina Tinne. The name is spelt without an accented <em>e</em>, +and is pronounced as it would be in German.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">80</a> Her nephew, Mr. John Tinne, however, informs the present writer +that his aunt once wrote to him saying that “ever since she was a little +girl doing lessons she had longed to see what there was on the great +blank spot on the map of Africa.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">81</a> This account of the death of Miss Tinne is derived from information +very kindly supplied to the author by her nephew, Theodore F. S. +Tinne, Esq., of Hawkhurst, Kent.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">82</a> She was only thirty-three at the time of her death.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">83</a> France was dogged with continual ill-luck in her attempts to open +up and explore the Nile basin. Expedition after expedition and explorer +after explorer, despatched directly or indirectly under French auspices, +failed (generally by death from fever) in grasping the great discoveries +which fell to more fortunate Germans and Englishmen.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">84</a> They were, however, first mentioned by Piaggia.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">85</a> Heuglin forestalled him, perhaps, as regards the Gray Parrot.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">86</a> These people do not call themselves by the designation. It is one +applied to them by the Arabs as a nickname, indicating the gusto with +which they eat human flesh. They themselves acknowledge several +names, such as Azande and Makarka.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">87</a> Pierced by the ants so that they become whistles played on by the +wind.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">88</a> First of all revealed to our notice by the Italian explorer, Piaggia, +who succeeded Miani and preceded Dr. Schweinfurth.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">89</a> A gifted French explorer who attempted to forestall other expeditions +in discovering the Central African lakes. He was murdered about +a hundred miles inland from Zanzibar.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">90</a> Younger brother of Adolphe Linant, an early Nile explorer of 1827 +and 1828.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">91</a> In a pamphlet written in conjunction with Mr. Kerry Nichols and +Colonel J. A. Grant, published in 1876, by William Clowes.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">92</a> Romolo Gessi was a Levantine Italian, born at Constantinople in +1831, who had gradually drifted into the employment of the Egyptian +government. He became a Pasha after Gordon’s departure from the +Sudan in 1880.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">93</a> Now Colonel Watson, R.E. In 1874–1875 Lieutenant C. M. Watson, +accompanied by Lieutenant Chippendall, made an admirable survey +of the main Nile from Khartum to Gondokoro, and later assisted +Gordon in completing this survey up to Lake Albert.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">94</a> A portion of this is often called Makarka.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">95</a> During this struggle Gessi was hard put to it for food, but he +quaintly notes that “Of all our troops only the Makarka and Nyam-nyam +remained healthy, owing to their feeding on human flesh. Directly +after a battle they cut off the feet of the dead, and consumed these, together +with their brains.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">96</a> Whose encyclopædic work on the Galas will soon be published. +Mr. Wakefield died in 1902.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">97</a> Dweru, like Nyanza, is a very common Bantu word which is applied +equally to lake and river. It simply means “whiteness.” With +different prefixes it becomes Mweru, Jeru, and so forth.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">98</a> In giving extracts from this as from other works of Nile explorers the +present writer often summarises. He also employs sometimes more +modern spelling in scientific nomenclature to avoid puzzling the reader +habituated to the most recent descriptions.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">99</a> Vide chap. ix. p. 107.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">100</a> This stream, joining others from farther east, enters the Mountain +Nile near the bifurcation of the Giraffe River.—H. H. J.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">101</a> Khor Kos flows into the Oguelokur, and thus into the Bahr-az-Ziraf. +See <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">chap. xxvi</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">102</a> The distribution of the branching Hyphæne Fan palm is very peculiar. +It is found right across the Sahara, south of latitude 25°, to the +vicinity of the Atlantic. It avoids the better watered regions of Nigeria +and the Bahr-al-Ghazal, but on the east extends across Somaliland and +down the coast to Mombasa.—H. H. J.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">103</a> Probably Emin refers to the lanky <i class="taxonomy">Cercopithecus patas</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">104</a> Really a plantain-eater—<i>Schizorhis</i> or <i>Gymnoschizorhis</i>.—H. H. J.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">105</a> The white-eared Kob antelope.—H. H. J.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">106</a> The Kafuru. This was re-examined by the author of this book. +It is a narrow winding channel passing between high banks. In spite of +the author’s delineation of this feature in his book, “The Uganda Protectorate,” +map-makers still continue to draw it as a lake-like straight arm +connecting the Albert Edward with Dweru.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">107</a> Dweru, as already explained, merely means a white surface or sheet +of water.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">108</a> This word is the name of one of the tributaries of the Kagera.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">109</a> M. Dècle travelled overland from the Cape of Good Hope to the +Victoria Nile in 1892–1894.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">110</a> Dr. Kandt (who first correctly mapped Lake Kivu) traced the +course of the important Nyavarongo and Akanyaru tributaries of the +Kagera. This learned explorer died in 1901.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">111</a> Lugard mapped much of the country between Uganda and Ruwenzori +and discovered Lake Wamala in western Uganda.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">112</a> Mr Jackson’s magnificent zoölogical collections, especially in mammals, +birds, and butterflies, have, with those of Mr. Oscar Neumann, +done much to illustrate the fauna of southern Nileland.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">113</a> It is said that the contribution to the Nile waters from the great +Victoria Nyanza is not more considerable than the maximum discharge +of one of the great canals in Egypt. Much of the volume of the Victoria +Nile is spread out to waste and evaporate in the Kioga-Kwania Lake, +which also receives the heavy rainfall of north and west Elgon.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">114</a> I should again like to point out how frequent amongst Nilotic Negroes +is the word Kir for a big river. This name is frequently applied +to the main Nile, and appears even to crop up again in the Bantu languages +of the Victoria Nyanza, for in Luganda the Nile is also called +Kiira.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">115</a> Piaggia was originally an Italian mechanic, born at Alexandria. He +drifted to the Sudan in 1856, and generally attached himself as a sort of +caravan leader to the traders in the Bahr-al-Ghazal. In this capacity he +explored (quite unscientifically) the Nyam-nyam country in 1863–1865, +and in 1876 he visited Lake Kioga and the Victoria Nile.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">116</a> For various reasons not all Captain Marchand’s officers could be +brought away from the Nile immediately. Lieutenant Tanguedec was +left for some two years entirely isolated on the White Nile near Bor.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">117</a> A name very suggestive of the Bantu languages.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">118</a> Negroes of the Semliki valley and forest.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">119</a> This lake is at present one of the unsolved African problems as +regards its history and affinities. Unlike other lakes of Central Africa, +its fauna has marine affinities, and would seem indeed to be actually of +marine origin. It is at the present day connected somewhat intermittently +with the Congo drainage, and therefore with the Atlantic Ocean; +and one assumption to explain the existence of its sponges, shrimps, and +jelly-fishes is that in Jurassic times it was connected with a vast inlet of +the Atlantic Ocean which occupied the northern half of the low-lying +Congo basin. Yet, when a relief map of Africa is looked at, it strikes +one at a glance that Tanganyika lies within the same rift valley as Lakes +Kivu, Albert Edward, Albert Nyanza, and the Albertine Nile. Its southern +end may also have been connected through Lake Rukwa, with the rift +valley of Lake Nyasa. It would be easy to imagine the occurrence of a +recent and slight upheaval which detached this lake from the Nile system +and sent its overflowing waters in the direction of the Congo, but +for the aforementioned marine fauna of its waters. Its history, therefore, +remains at the present moment an unsolved problem.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">120</a> With a bifurcated rift up Tanganyika.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">121</a> See “L’Omo,” by L. Vannutelli and C. Citerni.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">122</a> A small and very interesting lake which lies about sixty miles to the +north of Tanganyika, and communicates with that lake by the river +Rusizi.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">123</a> Some rising as far south as Lat. 3° 50′ S. and within ten miles of +Tanganyika.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">124</a> Bahr-al-Jabl, so called by the Turks and early French and German +explorers, because by following it up stream they came at last to mountains +after the thousand miles of marsh between Khartum and Bor.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">125</a> “River of gazelles,” i.e., antelopes, the name given to it by the +Sudanese Arabs from the dense herds of game which were formerly to +be seen on its marshy shores.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">126</a> The Ruzi River, which rises to the west of Lake Rudolf, under the +fourth degree of north latitude, was considered by the late Captain +Wellby to be the southernmost source of the Sobat, but this supposition +has not been verified.</p> + +<p>The Ruzi or the two Ruzis probably join the three big streams—the +Oguelokur, Tu, and Kos—which enter the Giraffe River.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">127</a> This name means “the terrible,” from the violence with which it +sweeps down a winding chasm from an altitude of 7,000 feet in Abyssinia +to 2,500 feet in the Nubian plains.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">128</a> Who transmitted the rumour to Greek travellers and merchants +visiting the coasts of the Red Sea and East Africa. These again handed +on the information to Greek and Roman geographers.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">129</a> A corruption of Runsororo.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">130</a> Wosho Mountain, approximately sixteen thousand feet.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">131</a> Snow may perhaps occasionally lie for a few days on the highest +points of the volcanic Mfumbiro peaks (Sabinzi and Karisimbi), which +are over thirteen thousand feet and lie almost within the limits of the +Nile basin, to the south of Lake Albert Edward; and there may be a +little permanent snow perhaps on the peaks over eleven thousand +feet in height on the southeast of Basutoland in South Africa.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">132</a> A little less perhaps than Dr. A. Bludan’s estimate.</p> + +</div> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX"><span id="toclink_329"></span>INDEX</h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul class="index"> +<li class="ifrst">Aahmes, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Abbadie, Antoine Thomson d’, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Abbadie, Arnaud d’, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ablaing, Baron d’, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Abyssinia"></a>Abyssinia, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">history of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a> + <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">geography of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, + <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">people of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>et seq.</i>,</li> +<li class="isub2">(raw-meat eating) <a href="#Page_81">81–85</a>,</li> +<li class="isub2">(feasts) <a href="#Page_82">82–85</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Christianity of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Emperor of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, + <a href="#Page_278">278</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">name of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">missionaries in, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">likeness to Bahima, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Mother of the Nile, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">mountains, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Acacia (gum) trees, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, + <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Acholi (Shuli), people, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Adel (Somaliland), <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aden, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Adua, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Adulis, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Afar, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Africa, East, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Africa, Negro, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Africa, North, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Africa, South, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Africa, West, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">African Association, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">African wild flowers, flora, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, + <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agoro Mountains, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ais, Al, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Akka pygmies, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Akobo River, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Albania, Albanians, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Albert Edward, Lake, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, + <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Albert Nyanza, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alexander the Great, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alexandra Nyanza, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alexandria, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Algarve (southern province of Portugal), <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Algiers, Algeria, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aloes, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alvarez, Francisco, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ambach, or Ambady, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ambatch (<i class="taxonomy">Herminiera</i>), <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ambukol, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="indx">America, Americans, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Amhara, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Amharic language, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ankole, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Antelopes, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Anthropology, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Anville, D’, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Apes, anthropoid, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Apuddo (Apuddu), <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arabia, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arabs, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arabs of Zanzibar, their early knowledge of African geography, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aragonese, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aristocracy in Nileland, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aristocreon, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aristotle, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arnaud, D’, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Arnold"></a>Arnold, Sir Edwin, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aruwimi River, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aryan races, languages, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Asia Minor, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Assiut, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Assuan, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span>Astaboras (Abbara, <i>see</i>) <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Astapus (Blue Nile), <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Astasobas, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Asua River, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, + <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Atbara, <a href="#Page_20">20</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Atlantic Ocean, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Austin, H. H., <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Austria, Austrians, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Austrian Mission on Mountain Nile, <a href="#Page_97">97</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Author’s contributions to Nile geography, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Auxuma, Axum, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Azania, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Baggara Arabs, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bahr-al-Arab, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bahr-al-Aswad, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bahr-al-Azrak, <i>see</i> <a href="#Nile_Blue">Blue Nile</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bahr-al-Ghazal River, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, + <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a> + <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> + <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Bahr-al-Hamr, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bahr-al-Jabl, <i>see</i> <a href="#Nile_White">White</a> and <a href="#Nile_Mountains">Mountain Nile</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bahr-az-Ziraf, <i>see</i> <a href="#Giraffe">Giraffe Nile</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bailul, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baker, Sir Samuel, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">birth and parentage, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">marriage and Ceylon, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Turkey, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">second marriage, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">commences Nile exploration, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">on the Atbara, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">starts for Albert Nyanza, <a href="#Page_183">183</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">deceived as to extent of this lake, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">knighted, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">results of his explorations, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">returns to Nileland, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">character, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baker (Florence), Lady, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Bal_niceps_rex"></a><i class="taxonomy">Balæniceps rex</i>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Balega"></a>Balega Negroes (Lendu), <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baltic provinces, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baluchistan, Baluchi, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Balugano (Italian draftsman), <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Banana, the, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bantu languages, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, + <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bantu Negro, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baobab tree, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bari country, people, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, + <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baringo, Lake, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baro (<i>see also</i> <a href="#Nasr_Sobat">Sobat</a>), <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Barth, Dr., <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Basalt, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Basilis (Greek explorer), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bath, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baumann, Oscar, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Baumgarten (Swiss engineer), <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beads, Blue Egyptian, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beatrice Gulf, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beke, Dr. C. T., <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Belgium, Belgians, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, + <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beltrame, Father, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Benue River, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Berber (Primnis, Ibrim), <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Berbera, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Berbers, the, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Berkeley, Fort, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Berlin, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bermudez, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Berta Negroes, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bilma, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Binesho tribe, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bion (Greek explorer), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Birds, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Biri River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blackwater fever, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blackwood’s Magazine, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blandford, Dr. W. T., <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blood-drinking (Abyssinian, East African), <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blundell, Weld, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bogos country, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Bombay” (Speke’s faithful), <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bonchamps, De, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bongo tribe, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Bono_Andrea_de"></a>Bono, Andrea de, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bor, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boran Galas, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Borassus</i>, palm (<i class="taxonomy">Doleb</i>), <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Borelli, Jules, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span>Bornu, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Botany, <i>see</i> <a href="#Flora">Flora</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bottego, V., <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brahuis (of Beluchistan), <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brèvedent, Father, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bright, R. G. T., <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">British, the, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Egypt, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Uganda, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Abyssinia, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Egypt and Sudan, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> + +<li class="indx">British Association, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">British government, its indifference to African exploration, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Browne, Wm. Geo., <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bruce, James, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">and the Guinea worm, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">raw-flesh eating, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">work in Abyssinian history, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brun-Rollet, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Bucerosia</i>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Buchta, Richard, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Buddu, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Buffon, Comte de (naturalist), <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bumbiri, Island of, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bunbury, Sir E. H., <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Burckhardt, J. L., <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Burton, Sir Richard F., <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>et seq.</i> (relations with Speke), <a href="#Page_128">128</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, (character) <a href="#Page_131">131</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">transference to West Africa, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">theories of geography, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">hesitation to take Mombasa route, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Burton, Lady, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bushmen (pygmies), <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Busoga, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, + <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Byzantine Empire, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Cæsar, Julius, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cailliaud, Frederic, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cairo, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cambridge, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cambyses, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Camel, the, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Camerons, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cannibals, Cannibalism, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cape of Good Hope, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Cape-to-Cairo,” phrase and telegraph, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Capellen, Baroness Van, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Carthage, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Casabi (Italian explorer), <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cattle, breeds of African, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">abundant, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Caucasian and Nile discovery, <i>prefatory note</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Caucasian"></a>Caucasian, Caucasian race, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, + <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cecchi (Italian explorer), <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Centurions, Nero’s two, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ceylon, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chad, Lake, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, + <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Chaille-Long"></a>Chaillé-Long, Col., <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charles II., <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chemorongi Mountains, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chiarini (Italian explorer), <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chimpanzee, the, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chippendall, Capt., <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Christianity, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>,37 <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Church Missionary Society, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, + <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Circassians, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Citerni, C., <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Civilisation, of Egypt, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of Mesopotamia, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of Greece, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Himyaritic, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coffee, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Colston, Col., <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Congo forests, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Congo Free State, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Congo River, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, + <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Constantinople, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Consuls, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cooley, Mr. D., <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Copper, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coptic language, Copts, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cosmas Indicopleustes, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Covilhaō, Pero de, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cow-dung, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Crocodiles, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Crosby, Oscar T., <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cross River, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Crusades, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cruttenden, Lieut., <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cyprus, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cyrenaica, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Dahabiahs on Nile, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Daily Telegraph,” the, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dalion (Greek explorer), <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Damietta, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">332</span>Damot, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Danākil (land, people), <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, + <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Danish explorers, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Darfur, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">De Bono, <i>see</i> <a href="#Bono_Andrea_de">Bono, De</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dècle, Lionel, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Defafang, extinct volcano on Nile, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Delmé-Radcliffe, Major C., <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Delta of Nile, <i>see</i> <a href="#delta_of">Nile, delta</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1"><i>also</i> <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dem Idris, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dembo River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dervishes (Mahdi’s adherents), <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Desneval, Count of, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Didessa, or Dabessa River, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dinder River, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dinka people, language, country, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Diogenes (Greek explorer), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dogoru River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Donaldson-Smith, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dongola, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dorvak, Father, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Dracæna</i> (Dragon trees), <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dravidian race, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dublin, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dueru, or Dweru, Lake, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dufton, H., <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dum Palm (<i class="taxonomy">Hyphæne thebaica</i>), <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dutch, the, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, + <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dyé, Lieut. A. H., <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dyur River, <i>see</i> <a href="#Jur">Jur</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">East Africa, British protectorate, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Edwin Arnold, Sir (<i>see</i> <a href="#Arnold">Arnold</a>)</li> + +<li class="indx">Edwin Arnold, Mount (Ruwenzori), <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Egypt, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Persian conquest of, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Greek, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Roman, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">French, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">once a very rainy country, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Egyptian government, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Egyptian temple, resemblance to an, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Egyptians, ancient, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">trading relations with Equatorial Africa, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eichstadt (Germany, Nachtigal’s birthplace), <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elam, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elephants, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elgon, Mount, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, + <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elgumi, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elliott, Scott, Dr. G. F., <i>see</i> <a href="#Scott-Elliott">Scott-Elliott</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Emin (Pasha), Dr., <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, + <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">birth and early life, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">short-sightedness, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">journals, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Lotuka, <a href="#Page_251">251</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">description of birds, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">beasts, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Bahr-al-Ghazal, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">the Congo forests, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Equatoria, <a href="#Page_259">259</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">journey with Stuhlmann, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Enarea, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">England, English, the, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, + <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ensor, Sidney, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Equatoria (Emin’s province), <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eratosthenes, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Erfurt, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Erhardt (Rev.), <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eritrea, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Escayrac, Comte d’, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Essex, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ethiopia (<i>see also</i> <a href="#Abyssinia">Abyssinia</a>), <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ethiopians, Ethiopic language, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Euphorbias, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Euphrates, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Evatt, Col. John, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eyasi, Lake, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Fadasi, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Faidherbe,” steamship, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Faloro, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fasher, Al, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fashoda, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fashoda, Lake of, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fauna, Tropical African, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, + <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fayūm, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fazokl, Fazogli, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Febore, Théophile Le, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Felkin, Dr. R. W., <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">333</span>Felus, <i>see</i> <a href="#Khor_Felus">Khor Felus</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fergusson, Malcolm, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ferret, Capt., <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ferruginous laterite formations (Bahr-al-Ghazal), <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fezzan, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fischer, Dr., <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Flaccus, Septimus, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Flemings, Flemish, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Flora"></a>Flora of Africa (Nileland), <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, + <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Foreign Office, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forests, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">“gallery,” <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fortnum and Mason, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fowler, C. W., <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Foxcroft, Mount, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx">France, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fremona, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">French, the, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, + <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, + <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Gala people, Galas, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, + <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Galabat, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Galaland, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Galinier, Capt., <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gallus, Ælius, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Galo River, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gama, Christoforo da, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Gama, Estevaõ da, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gamo, Vasco da, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Garama, Garamentes, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Garstin, Sir William, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gazelle, Grant’s, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gedge, Mr. Ernest, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geese, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ge’ez (Ethiopic language), <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geographical Society, Italian (Rome), <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geographical Society, Khédivial, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geographical Society, Paris, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geographical Society, Royal, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geology of Nile Basin, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, + <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">George II., <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Germany, Germans, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, + <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, + <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, + <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gessi Pasha, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ghat, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gibbons, Major A. St. H., <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Giraffe"></a>Giraffe River, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, + <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Giraffes, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Goa, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gojam, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gold, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gondar, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gondokoro, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, + <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gordon (Pasha), C. G., <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gorges, Major, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grand, Le, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grant, James Augustus, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, + <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gray parrot, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Greece, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Greek Christianity, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Greek dynasties in Egypt, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Greeks in Africa, <a href="#Page_14">14</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, + <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gregory the Abyssinian, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grogan, Ewart, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gum (acacia), <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gunpowder, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Guns, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, (muskets) <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gwynn, Major C. W., <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Habash, Hawash, Habshi, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Halifax, Lord, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hamitic languages, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hamitic race, Hamites, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, + <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hanbury-Tracey, Major, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hannington, Bishop, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Harrar, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Harris, Sir William C., <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Harrow School, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hebrews, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Herodotus, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Heuglin, Baron von, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hima, Ba- (Wahuma), <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">334</span>Himyarite Arabs, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hippopotamus, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, + <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hittites, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hobley, C. W., <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, + <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Höhnel, Lieut. von, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Holland, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hottentots, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hungary, Hungarians, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Hyphæne</i>, Branching Palm, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Iberian race, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Ibrahim,” Lake (Kioga), <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ibrahim Pasha, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ibrahim (slave-trader), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li class="indx">India, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, + <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, (Speke in) <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Irby, Hon. Charles Leonard, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ireland, Irish, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Islam"></a>Islam (Muhammadanism), <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, + <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Italy, Italians, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, + <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, + <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ivory, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Jaba River, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jackson, F. J., <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jackson, L. C., <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jacobin (map publisher), <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + +<li class="indx">James II., <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li class="indx">James, W. and F. L. (brothers), <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Jemma"></a>Jemma, or Jimma (Upper Blue Nile), <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jesuit missionaries, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, + <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jews, in Abyssinia, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ji River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jidda, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jimma, <i>see</i> <a href="#Jemma">Jemma</a></li> + +<li class="indx">John (Yohannes), Emperor of Abyssinia, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jordans Nullah, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Jordans” (Speke’s home), <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Juba River, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Judaism, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Junker, Dr. William, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Jur"></a>Jur, or Dyur, or Sue River, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, + <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Kabarega, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kabirondo (country), <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">(people) <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">(bay or gulf) <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kaffa, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kafu River, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kafuru River, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kagera River (extreme Upper Victoria Nile), <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, + <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kaka (on the White Nile), <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kamurasi, <a href="#Page_164">164</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kandt, Dr., <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Karagwe, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Karamojo, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Karuma Falls of Nile, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kasa, a name of several Abyssinian rulers before crowning, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kassalá, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Katikiro, the, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kaze, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Keltie, Dr. J. Scott, <i>prefatory note</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Kenya Mountain, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kerckhoven, Lieut. Van, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Khartum, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> (founding of), <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, + <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, + <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Khedive of Egypt, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Khor_Felus"></a>Khor Felus River, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Khor Kos River, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Khor Oteng River, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kibali River, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kich (Kity), <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kilimanjaro, Mt., <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kioga, Lake, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, + <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kir (name of Nile), <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kircher, Father Athanasius, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kirk, Sir John, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kirkpatrick, Lake, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kitara, Empire of, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kivu, Lake, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Knoblecher, Dr. Ignatz, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kordofan, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, + <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Korosko, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kosango River, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Krapf, Dr. Ludwig, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kudu, the (antelope), <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kuru River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span>Kwania, Lake, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Lado, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Lady Alice,” the, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lafargue, Mons., <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lakes, Nile, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, + <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>et seq.</i> (<i>see</i> <a href="#Victoria_Nyanza">Victoria Nyanza</a>), <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Lango country and people (Bakedi), <a href="#Page_140">140</a> <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Latin, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Latitudes, Ptolemy’s, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Portuguese, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Bruce’s, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Latuka"></a>Latuka (Lotuka) country and people, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lega, Ba-, <i>see</i> <a href="#Balega">Balega</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Leghorn, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lejean, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lendu tribe, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Leon, Pedro, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Letorzec, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Libya, Libyan race, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Libyan desert, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Lichfield, Rev. G., <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Limestone formations, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Linant de Bellefonds, Adolphe, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Linant de Bellefonds, Édouard, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lisbon, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Liturgies, Abyssinian, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Liverpool, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Livingstone, Dr., <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lobo, Father Jeronimo, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, + <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lobor Mountains, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Logwek, Mount, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Long, Chaillé-, <i>see</i> <a href="#Chaille-Long">Chaillé-Long</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lotuka, <i>see</i> <a href="#Latuka">Latuka</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lotuka Mountains, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Luajali River (affluent of Victoria Nile), <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ludolf (Leutholf), Hiob, <a href="#Page_61">61</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lugard, Sir F. D., <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Louis XIV., <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Louis XVIII., <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lupton (Bey), Frank, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lutanzige (Albert Nyanza), <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Macallister, R. W., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Macdonald, J. R. L., <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mackay, Alexander, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Madagascar, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maddox, Capt. H., <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Madi country, people, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Magdala, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Magungo, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mahdi, the, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, + <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maizen (French explorer), <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Makarka (Nyam-nyam), <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Malindi, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Malta, Maltese, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Malzac, De, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mameluks, the, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mangbettu tribe, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mangles, James, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Manwa Sera, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Manyema tribe, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maps, Ptolemy’s, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Sicilian, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Vatican, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Dutch and German, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Portuguese, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">French, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Speke’s, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marchand, Col. J., <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marco Polo, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mareb River, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marinus of Tyre, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marno, Ernst, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marseilles, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marshes, of the Nile, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Masai, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, + <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Masawa (Abyssinia), <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Masawa, Mount (Elgon), <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mashra-ar-Rak, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maskat, Maskat Arabs, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mason (Bey), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Massaja, Monseigneur, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Massari (Italian explorer), <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Matammah (on Desert Nile), <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maternus, Julius, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Matteucci, Dr. Pellegrino, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mauritania (Morocco, Algeria, Tunis), <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mauritius, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mayo, Earl of, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mbakovia (on Lake Albert), <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span>Mbomu River, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, + <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mediterranean, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, + <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Mehemet, <i>see</i> <a href="#Muhammad">Muhammad</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Melly, Andrew, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Menelik of Abyssinia, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mengo, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Menzalet, Lake, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Merāwi (Meroe), <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, + <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Metals, Metal-working, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Meura, Lieut. (Belgian), <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mfumbiro Mountains, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Miami, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, + <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Michel (French traveller), <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Missionaries, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, + <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mitterrützner, Herr ——, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mokha, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mombasa, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, + <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mongolian races, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Monkeys, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moon, Land of, <i>see</i> <a href="#Unyamwezi">Unyamwezi</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Mountains of, <i>see</i> <a href="#Mountains">Mountains</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moore, J. E., <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moors, Morocco, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Morch, Giacomo, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Morlang, Father, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Morongo Mountains, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moscow, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Mountains"></a>Mountains, of the Moon, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, + <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of Lotuka, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mpororo, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Muhammad"></a>Muhammad, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Muhammad Ali, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Muhammad Granye, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Muhammad Kher, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Muhammad Wad-el-Mek, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Muhammadanism, <i>see</i> <a href="#Islam">Islam</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Muhammadans, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mundy, Lieut., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Munza, King, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Munzinger (Pasha), Werner, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Murat (Abyssinian), <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Murchison Falls, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Murchison Gulf, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Murchison, Sir Roderick, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Murie, Dr., <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Murray, Mr. T. Douglas, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Murzuk, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Museum, British, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mutesa, <a href="#Page_153">153</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">his cruelties, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">name, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mwanza Creek, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mykenæan civilisation, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Nachtigal, Dr., <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Naivasha, Lake, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nakwai Mountains, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nandi, people, country, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Napata, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Napier, Lord, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Napoleon Bonaparte, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Napoleon Gulf, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Napoleon III., <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Nasr_Sobat"></a>Nasr (Sobat), <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Natal, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Neanderthaloid man, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Negro, the, <a href="#Page_8">8</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, + <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Nilotic, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, + <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">West African, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Negroid races, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, + <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Neil, O’ (Rev.), <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Neku (King of Egypt), <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nepoko River, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nero, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Neumann, Oscar, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“New York Herald,” The, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Niger River, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile alluvial mud (from Atbara River), <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile, Albertine, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Nile_Blue"></a>Nile, Blue, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_77">77</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, + <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile, Cataracts of, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile, Giraffe, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, + <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Nile_Mountains"></a>Nile Mountains, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, + <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile Quest, the, <i>prefatory note</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">stops for a time at Gondokoro, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Speke discovers main source of White Nile, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Baker’s explorations, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Alexandrine Tinne the romantic figure of the, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Schweinfurth’s share, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span>close of, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile River, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">names of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1"><a id="delta_of"></a>delta of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">origin of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">ultimate sources of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, + <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, (farthest source of all) <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">floods of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">basin of, area, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">length of, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile, Valley of the, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">like Rhine, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nile, Victoria, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Nile_White"></a>Nile, White, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, + <a href="#Page_207">207</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nileland, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_296">296</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">geography of, <a href="#Page_299">299</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Nilotic Negroes, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, + <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nimule, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">No, Lake, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nubia, Nubians, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, + <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nubian Alps, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nudity of Negroes, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nuēr tribe, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nyam-nyam country and people, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, + <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nyando valley, river, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nyanza, name of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nyasa, Lake, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nyenam River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nzoia River, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Oguelokur River, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Olive, the wild, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oman, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Omo River, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ostriches, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Otocyon</i> (long-eared fox), <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oxen, African, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Paez, Father Pedro, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Palms, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pangani, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Papyrus, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Paris, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Parklands, African, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Parkyns, Mansfield, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Parrot, Gray, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Peake, Malcolm, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pearson, C. W., <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Peney, Alfred, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Periplus of the Red Sea, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Persia, Persians, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Persian Gulf, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Peters, Dr. Carl, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Petherick, John, <a href="#Page_100">100</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, + <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Petherick, Mrs., <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Petrie, Prof. Flinders, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Phallic worship, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Phœnicians, the, <a href="#Page_9">9</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Photography, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Piaggia, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pibor River, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Pistia stratiotes</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pliny, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pococke, Richard, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Polynesians, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Poncet brothers, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Poncet (French doctor-explorer), <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pope, Papal Court, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Portal, Capt. Raymond, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Portal, Sir Gerald, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Portugal, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Portuguese, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, + <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Potagos (Greek traveller), <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Prester John,” <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Primnis (Berber), <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pringle, Capt., <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Prokesch von Osten, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Protopterus</i>, fish, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Psametik, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ptolemy (King), <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ptolemy, Ptolemæus, Claudius, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Punt, land of, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Purdy, Col., <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pygmies, Congo, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pygmy races, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Quartz, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Queen Victoria, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Queens, African, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Racey River, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">338</span>Radcliffe, Delmé, Ch. (Major), <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rahad River, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Raiūf Pasha, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ravenstein, Mr. E. G., <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rebman, John, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Red Sea, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, + <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Reeds, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rejaf, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Religions, Negro, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rhaptum, or Rhapta, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rhinoceros, the, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rhodes, Cecil, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rhodesia, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rifles, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rift Valley (Great), <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rift valleys of Eastern Africa, <a href="#Page_300">300</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Riga, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ripon Falls of Nile, <a href="#Page_160">160</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Roa River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rōl River, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Roman Catholics, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rome, Romans, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rosebery Channel, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Roseires, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rosetta, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Roule, le Sieur du, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Royal Geographical Society, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, + <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Royal Society, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ruanda, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ruchuru River, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Rudolf"></a>Rudolf, Lake, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, + <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rukwa, Lake, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rumanika, King, <a href="#Page_143">143</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rüppell, Dr. (German naturalist), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rusizi River, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Russegger, J. I., <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ruvuvu River (Kagera), <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ruwenzori Mountains, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, + <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, (Alpine vegetation) <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, + <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ruzi River, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ryllo, Father, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Saba (Sheba), Queen of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sabæan Arabs, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sabatier, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sagada Mountain, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sahara Desert, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, + <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sailing ships, their effect on African discovery, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Saint, Le (French explorer), <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Salisbury, Lake, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Salt, Consul Henry, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Samburu, Lake (<i>see</i> <a href="#Rudolf">Rudolf</a>), <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Samien Mountains, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Sanseviera</i>, plant, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sardinian (i.e. N. Italian) travellers, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Saxony, Saxe Gotha (share in African exploration), <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Schuver, J. M., <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Schweinfurth, Dr. Georg, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">birth and nationality, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">starts for Suakin, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">describes botany of North Abyssinian terraces, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Berber to Khartum, <a href="#Page_206">206</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">White Nile scenery, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Bahr-al-Ghazal, <a href="#Page_212">212</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">and the slave-trade, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">his achievements, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">anthropological discoveries, <a href="#Page_217">217</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">botany of Nileland, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">“gallery” forests, <a href="#Page_219">219</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">shares Burton’s opinions regarding Victoria Nyanza, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sclater, Dr. P. L., <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Scott-Elliott"></a>Scott-Elliott, G. F., <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Scottish, Scotland, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Selim Bimbashi, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Semitic influence, languages, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Semliki River, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, + <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sennar, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sese Islands, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Settit River (Atbara), <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Shankala, Shangala, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Shari River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sharp, Mr., <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sheko tribe, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Shendi, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Shergold-Smith, R.N. Lieut., <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Shiluk people, country, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, + <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Shoa, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span>Sicily, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Silesia, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Simiyu, or Shimeyu River, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Simonides (Greek explorer), <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Slaves, Slavery, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Slave-trade, Slave-traders, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, + <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Slave-traders’ revolt, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Small-pox, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Snakes, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Snay, Sheikh, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Snow, Snow-mountains, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, + <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, + <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sobat River, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, + <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, + <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sofala, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sokotra, Island of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Solomon, King, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Somali people, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>; language, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Somaliland, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Somersetshire and Speke, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sonnini de Manoncourt, <a href="#Page_87">87</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Sophia, Archduchess, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Spain, Spanish, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Speke, John Hanning, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Somaliland, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">starts for the Central Africa Lakes with Burton, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">discovers Victoria Nyanza, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">difference with Burton, <a href="#Page_123">123</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">returns to England, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">his birth and parentage, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">youth, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">character, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">second expedition with Grant, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Uganda, <a href="#Page_150">150</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">returns to England, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">name in Uganda, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">discovers outlet of Victoria Nyanza, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">honours, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">interview with King Edward, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">geographical theories, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Speke Gulf, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Spekes, history of the, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">arms of the, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stanley, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">greatest African explorer, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">confirms Speke, <a href="#Page_223">223</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">circumnavigates Victoria Nyanza, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Uganda, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">mistake about Ugowe Bay, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">relieves Emin, <a href="#Page_259">259</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">discovers Ruwenzori, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stanton, E. A., <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Steamers on Nile, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Steudner, Dr., <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Strabo, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stroyan, Lieut., <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stuhlman, Dr. Franz, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Suakin, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sudan, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, + <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sudanese soldiers, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">races, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sudd, the, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, + <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sue (Sive) River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Suez, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Suez Canal, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Suleiman-bin-Zubeir, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Switzerland, Swiss, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Syphilis, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Syria, Syrians, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Tajarra Bay, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Takaze River (Upper Atbara), <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tanganyika, Lake, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, + <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tanguedec, Lieut., <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tarangole, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tawareq (Tonareg), Tamasheq, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Teleki, Count S., <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tellez, F. Balthasar, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tertiary Epoch, the Nile during the, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Theodore, King, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thibaud, or Thibaut (French explorer and consular agent), <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thomson, Joseph, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, + <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tibet (Speke in), <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tigre (Abyssinia), <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tigris River, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tinne, Miss A., <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">names, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">origin of Tinne family, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">mother and aunt, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">first Nile journeys, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span>death of mother and aunt, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">starts from Tripoli to explore Sahara and reach Bahr-al-Ghazal from N.W., <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">treacherously slain near Murzuk by Tawareqs, <a href="#Page_196">196</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">character and appearance, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">on the Roll of Fame, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tinne, Theodore F. S., <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tondi River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tonj River, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Toro, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trade, Traders, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tragelaph, Speke’s, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trees, great forest, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tripoli, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Tsana, Lake, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_77">77</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tsetse fly, the, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tu River, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tübingen, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tunis, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Turkana, country, people, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Turkey, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Turks, the, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, + <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Ubangi River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ueberbacher, Father, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Uganda, <i>prefatory note</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">protectorate of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">aristocracy of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">country of, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">people of, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">King of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Stanley in, <a href="#Page_225">225–228</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">missionaries proceed to, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Gordon and, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">route, via Busoga, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Uganda Railway, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ugogo, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ugowe Bay, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ujiji, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ukerewe (Bukerebe), <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Um Suf” (<i>Vossia</i>) (reeds), <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Unyamwezi"></a>Unyamwezi, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, + <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">porters, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Unyanyembe, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Unyoro, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, + <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Usagara, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Usambara, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i class="taxonomy">Usnea</i>, lichen, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Usui, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Utica, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Valentia, Lord, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vandeleur, Seymour, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vannutelli, L., <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vaudet, Signor, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Venetians, Venice, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, + <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><a id="Victoria_Nyanza"></a>Victoria Nyanza, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, + <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">discovery of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Burton’s depreciation of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Speke’s estimate of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Stanley’s circumnavigation, <a href="#Page_224">224</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">direct route to, from Mombasa, <a href="#Page_246">246</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li> +<li class="isub1">last discoveries of Stanley’s, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">surveyed (northern coast) by Col. J. R. L. Macdonald, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">by Whitehouse, Hobley, etc., <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">general features of, <a href="#Page_302">302</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Vinci, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Volcanoes, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Wadai, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wadi Halfa, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><em>Wadi</em>, or river-bed, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Waghorn, Lieut., <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wakefield, Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wales, Welsh, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wansleb, Michael, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Waterfalls, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Watson, Col. C. M., <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wellby, M. S., <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Welle River, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, + <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Werne, Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Whale-headed storks, <i>see</i> <i class="taxonomy"><a href="#Bal_niceps_rex">Balæniceps rex</a></i></li> + +<li class="indx">Whitehouse, Commissioner B., <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">White man, <i>see</i> <a href="#Caucasian">Caucasian</a></li> + +<li class="indx">White Nile, <i>see</i> <a href="#Nile_White">Nile, White</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wilson, Capt. H. H., <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wilson, Rev. C. T., <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span>Wosho Mountain (North Abyssinia), <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Würtemberg, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wyche, Sir Peter, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Yabongo River, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Yalo River, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Yaman (Arabia), <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Yei River, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Zambezi River, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Zanzibar, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, + <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Zebra, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Zeila, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Zinza, U-, Bu-, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Zubeir Pasha, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Zululand, Zulus, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> +</ul> +</div></div> + +<div class="chapter transnote section"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> + +<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made +consistent when a predominant preference was found +in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p> + +<p>Several words appear multiple times with and without +accent marks. These inconsistencies have not been changed.</p> + +<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was +obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.</p> + +<p>Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned +between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions +of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page +references in the List of Illustrations lead to the +corresponding illustrations.</p> + +<p>Page numbers in the List of Illustrations have been adjusted to match +the actual pages on which the illustrations appear in this eBook.</p> + +<p>Transcriber added references to two maps at the +end of the List of Illustrations.</p> + +<p>Printer’s notes indicating where to insert illustrations +have been removed from this eBook.</p> + +<p>Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them, +have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed near the end of +the book, just before the Index.</p> + +<p>The index was not checked for proper alphabetization +or correct page references. +</p> +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75534 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75534-h/images/cover-small.jpg b/75534-h/images/cover-small.jpg Binary files differnew file 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