The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, Samuel White Baker [inspirational novels .TXT] 📗

few days. They

would not hear of such a proposal; they had so irritated the Latookas

that they feared an attack, and their captain, or vakeel, Ibrahim, had

ordered them immediately to vacate the country. This was a most awkward

position for me. The traders had induced the hostility of the country,

and I should bear the brunt of it should I remain behind alone. Without

their presence I should be unable to procure porters, as the natives

would not accompany my feeble party, especially as I could offer them no

other payment but beads or copper. The rains had commenced within the

last few days at Latooka, and on the route towards Obbo we should

encounter continual storms. We were to march by a long and circuitous

route to avoid the rocky passes that would be dangerous in the present

spirit of the country, especially as the traders possessed large herds

that must accompany the party. They allowed five days’ march for the

distance to Obbo by the intended route. This was not an alluring

programme for the week’s entertainment, with my wife almost in a dying

state! However, I set to work, and fitted an angarep with arched hoops

from end to end, so as to form a frame like the cap of a wagon. This I

covered with two waterproof Abyssinian tanned hides securely strapped;

and lashing two long poles parallel to the sides of the angarep, I

formed an excellent palanquin. In this she was assisted, and we started

on 23d June.

 

Our joint parties consisted of about three hundred men. On arrival at

the base of the mountains, instead of crossing them as before, we

skirted the chain to the northwest, and then rounding through a natural

gap, we ascended gradually towards the south.

 

On the fifth day we were, at 5 A.M., within twelve miles of Obbo, and we

bivouacked on a huge mass of granite on the side of a hill, forming an

inclining plateau of about an acre. The natives who accompanied us were

immediately ordered to clear the grass from the insterstices of the

rocks, and hardly had they commenced when a slight disturbance, among

some loose stones that were being removed, showed that something was

wrong. In an instant lances and stones were hurled at some object by the

crowd, and upon my arrival I saw the most horrid monster that I have

ever experienced. I immediately pinned his head to the ground and

severed it at one blow with my hunting-knife, damaging the keen edge of

my favourite weapon upon the hard rock. It was a puff adder of the most

extraordinary dimensions. I then fetched my measuring-tape from the

game-bag, in which it was always at hand. Although the snake was only 5

ft. 4 in. in length it was slightly above 15 inches in girth. The tail

was, as usual in poisonous snakes, extremely blunt, and the head

perfectly fiat, and about 2 1/2 inches broad, but unfortunately during

my short absence to fetch the measure the natives had crushed it with a

rock. They had thus destroyed it as a specimen, and had broken three of

the teeth, but I counted eight, and secured five poison-fangs, the two

most prominent being nearly an inch in length. The poison-fangs of

snakes are artfully contrived by some diabolical freak of nature as

pointed tubes, through which the poison is injected into the base of the

wound inflicted. The extreme point of the fang is solid, and is so

finely sharpened that beneath a powerful microscope it is perfectly

smooth, although the point of the finest needle is rough. A short

distance above the solid point of the fang the surface of the tube

appears as though cut away, like the first cut of a quill in forming a

pen: through this aperture the poison is injected.

 

Hardly had I secured the fangs, when a tremendous clap of thunder shook

the earth and echoed from rock to rock among the high mountains, that

rose abruptly on our left within a mile. Again the lightning flashed,

and almost simultaneously, a deafening peal roared from the black cloud

above us, just as I was kneeling over the archenemy to skin him. He

looked so Satanic with his flat head, and minute cold grey eye, and

scaly hide, with the lightning flashing and the thunder roaring around

him; I felt like St. Dunstan with the devil, and skinned him. The

natives and also my men were horrified, as they would not touch any

portion of such a snake with their hands: even its skin was supposed by

these people to be noxious. Down came the rain; I believe it could not

have rained harder. Mrs. Baker in the palanquin was fortunately like a

snail in her shell; but I had nothing for protection except an oxhide:

throwing myself upon my angarep I drew it over me. The natives had

already lighted prodigious fires, and all crowded around the blaze; but

what would have been the Great Fire of London in that storm?

 

In half an hour the fire was out; such a deluge fell that the ravine

that was dry when we first bivouacked, was now an impassable torrent. My

oxhide had become tripe, and my angarep, being covered with a mat, was

some inches deep in water. Throwing away the mat, the pond escaped

through the sieve-like network, but left me drenched. Throughout the

night it poured. We had been wet through every day during the journey

from Latooka, but the nights had been fine; this was superlative misery

to all. At length it ceased—morning dawned; we could not procure fire,

as everything was saturated, and we started on our march through forest

and high reeking grass. By this circuitous route from Latooka we avoided

all difficult passes, as the ground on the west side of the chain of

mountains ascended rapidly but regularly to Obbo. On arrival at my

former hut I found a great change; the grass was at least ten feet high,

and my little camp was concealed in the rank vegetation. Old Katchiba

came to meet us, but brought nothing, as he said the Turks had eaten up

the country. An extract from my journal, dated July 1, explains the

misery of our position.

 

“This Obbo country is now a land of starvation. The natives refuse to

supply provision for beads; nor will they barter anything unless in

exchange for flesh. This is the curse that the Turks have brought upon

the country by stealing cattle and throwing them away wholesale. We have

literally nothing to eat except tullaboon, a small bitter grain used in

lieu of corn by the natives: there is no game; if it existed, shooting

would be impossible, as the grass is impenetrable. I hear that the Turks

intend to make a razzia on the Shoggo country near Farajoke; thus they

will stir up a wasp’s nest for me wherever I go, and render it

impossible for my small party to proceed alone, or even to remain in

peace. I shall be truly thankful to quit this abominable land; in my

experience I never saw such scoundrels as Africa produces—the natives

of the Soudan being worse than all. It is impossible to make a servant

of any of these people; the apathy, indolence, dishonesty combined with

dirtiness, are beyond description; and their abhorrence of anything like

order increases their natural dislike to Europeans. I have not one man

even approaching to a servant; the animals are neglected, therefore they

die. And were I to die they would rejoice, as they would immediately

join Koorshid’s people in cattle stealing and slave hunting;—charming

followers in the time of danger! Such men destroy all pleasure, and

render exploration a mere toil. No one can imagine the hardships and

annoyances to which we are subject, with the additional disgust of being

somewhat dependent upon the traders’ band of robbers. For this miserable

situation my vakeel is entirely responsible; had my original escort been

faithful, I should have been entirely independent, and could with my

transport animals have penetrated far south before the commencement of

the rainy season. Altogether I am thoroughly sick of this expedition,

but I shall plod onwards with dogged obstinacy; God only knows the end.

I shall be grateful should the day ever arrive once more to see Old

England.”

 

Both my wife and I were excessively ill with bilious fever, and neither

could assist the other. The old chief, Katchiba, hearing that we were

dying, came to charm us with some magic spell. He found us lying

helpless, and he immediately procured a small branch of a tree, and

filling his mouth with water, he squirted it over the leaves and about

the floor of the hut; he then waved the branch around my wife’s head,

also around mine, and completed the ceremony by sticking it in the

thatch above the doorway; he told us we should now get better, and

perfectly: satisfied, he took his leave. The hut was swarming with rats

and white ants, the former racing over our bodies during the night, and

burrowing through the floor, filling our only room with mounds like

molehills. As fast as we stopped the holes, others were made with

determined perseverance. Having a supply of arsenic, I gave them an

entertainment, the effect being disagreeable to all parties, as the rats

died in their holes, and created a horrible effluvium, while fresh hosts

took the place of the departed. Now and then a snake would be seen

gliding within the thatch, having taken shelter from the pouring rain.

The smallpox was raging throughout the country, and the natives were

dying like flies in winter. The country was extremely unhealthy, owing

to the constant rain and the rank herbage, which prevented a free

circulation of air, and from the extreme damp induced fevers. The

temperature was 65 degrees Fahr. at night, and 72 degrees during the

day; dense clouds obscured the sun for many days, and the air was

reeking with moisture. In the evening it was always necessary to keep a

blazing fire within the hut, as the floor and walls were wet and chilly.

 

The wet herbage disagreed with my baggage animals.

 

Innumerable flies appeared, including the Tsetse, and in a few weeks the

donkeys had no hair left, either on their ears or legs; they drooped

and died one by one. It was in vain that I erected sheds, and lighted

fires; nothing would protect them from the flies. The moment the fires

were lit, the animals would rush wildly into the smoke, from which

nothing would drive them, and in the clouds of imaginary protection they

would remain all day, refusing food. On the 16th of July my last horse,

Mouse, died; he had a very long tail, for which I obtained A COW IN

EXCHANGE. Nothing was prized so highly as horse’s tails, the hairs being

used for stringing beads, and also for making tufts as ornaments, to be

suspended from the elbows. It was highly fashionable in Obbo for the men

to wear such tufts, formed of the bushy ends of cow’s-tails. It was also

“the thing” to wear six or eight polished rings of iron, fastened so

tightly round the throat as to almost choke the wearer, somewhat

resembling dog-collars.

 

On 18th July, the natives held a great consultation, and ended with a

wardance; they were all painted in various patterns, with red ochre and

white pipe-clay; their heads adorned with very tasteful ornaments of

cowrie-shells, surmounted by plumes of ostrich-feathers, which drooped

over the back of the neck. After the dance, the old chief addressed them

in a long and vehement speech; he was followed by several other

speakers, all of whom were remarkably fluent, and the resolution of the

meeting was declared “that the nogaras were