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

for her, should she be left

alone in savage lands at my death; and gladly would I have left her in

the luxuries of home instead of exposing her to the miseries of Africa.

 

It was in vain that I implored her to remain, and that I painted the

difficulties and perils still blacker than I supposed they really would

be: she was resolved, with woman’s constancy and devotion, to share all

dangers and to follow me through each rough footstep of the wild life

before me. “And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return

from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go, and where

thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my

God: where thou diest will I die; and there will I be buried: the Lord

do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”

 

Thus accompanied by my wife, on the 15th April 1861, I sailed up the

Nile from Cairo. The wind blew fair and strong from the north, and we

flew towards the south against the stream, watching those mysterious

waters with a firm resolve to track them to their distant fountain.

 

On arrival at Korosko, in Lat. 22 degrees 44 minutes, in twenty-six days

from Cairo, we started across the Nubian desert, thus cutting off the

western bend of the Nile, and in seven days’ forced camel march we again

reached the river Abou Hamed. The journey through that desert is most

fatiguing, as the march averages fifteen hours a day through a

wilderness of scorching sand and glowing basalt rocks. The simoom was in

full force at that season (May), and the thermometer, placed in the

shade by the water skins, stood at 114 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

No drinkable water was procurable on the route; thus our supply was

nearly expended upon reaching the welcome Nile. After eight days’ march

on the margin of the river from Abou Hamed through desert, but in view

of the palm trees that bordered the river, we arrived at Berber, a

considerable town in lat. 17 degrees 58 minutes on the banks of the

Nile.

 

Berber is eight days’ camel march from Khartoum (at the junction of the

White and Blue Niles, in lat. 15 degrees 30 minutes), and is the regular

caravan route between that town and Cairo.

 

From the slight experience I had gained in the journey to Berber, I felt

convinced that success in my Nile expedition would be impossible without

a knowledge of Arabic. My dragoman had me completely in his power, and I

resolved to become independent of all interpreters as soon as possible.

I therefore arranged a plan of exploration for the first year, to

embrace the affluents to the Nile from the Abyssinian range of

mountains, intending to follow up the Atbara river from its junction

with the Nile in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes (twenty miles south of

Berber), and to examine all the Nile tributaries from the southeast as

far as the Blue Nile, which river I hoped ultimately to descend to

Khartoum. I imagined that twelve months would be sufficient to complete

such an exploration, by which time I should have gained a sufficient

knowledge of Arabic to enable me to start from Khartoum for my White

Nile expedition. Accordingly I left Berber on the 11th June, 1861, and

arrived at the Atbara junction with the Nile on the 13th.

 

There is no portion of the Nile so great in its volume as that part

situated at the Atbara junction. The river Atbara is about 450 yards in

average width, and from twenty-five to thirty feet deep during the rainy

season. It brings down the entire drainage of Eastern Abyssinia,

receiving as affluents into its main stream the great rivers Taccazy (or

Settite), in addition to the Salaam and Angrab. The junction of the

Atbara in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes N. is thus, in a direct line from

Alexandria, about 840 geographical miles of latitude, and, including the

westerly bend of the Nile, its bed will be about eleven hundred miles in

length from the mouth of its last tributary, the Atbara, until it meets

the sea. Thus, eleven hundred miles of absorption and evaporation

through sandy deserts and the delta must be sustained by the river

between the Atbara junction and the Mediterranean: accordingly there is

an immense loss of water; and the grandest volume of the Nile must be

just below the Atbara junction.

 

It is not my intention in the present work to enter into the details of

my first year’s exploration on the Abyssinian frontier; that being so

extensive and so completely isolated from the grand White Nile

expedition, that an amalgamation of the two would create confusion. I

shall therefore reserve the exploration of the Abyssinian tributaries

for a future publication, and confine my present description of the

Abyssinian rivers to a general outline of the Atbara and Blue Nile,

showing the origin of their floods and their effect upon the inundations

in Lower Egypt.

 

I followed the banks of the Atbara to the junction of the Settite or

Taccazy river; I then followed the latter grand stream into the

Abyssinian mountains in the Base country. From thence I crossed over to

the rivers Salaam and Angrab, at the foot of the magnificent range of

mountains from which they flow direct into the Atbara. Having explored

those rivers, I passed through an extensive and beautiful tract of

country forming a portion of Abyssinia on the south bank of the river

Salaam; and again crossing the Atbara, I arrived at the frontier town of

Gellabat, known by Bruce as “Ras el Feel.” Marching due west from that

point I arrived at the river Rahad, in about lat. 12 degrees 30 minutes;

descending its banks I crossed over a narrow strip of country to the

west, arriving at the river Dinder, and following these streams to their

junction with the Blue Nile, I descended that grand river to Khartoum,

having been exactly twelve months from the day I had left Berber.

 

The whole of the above-mentioned rivers—i.e. the Atbara, Settite,

Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, and Blue Nile—are the great drains of

Abyssinia, all having a uniform course from southeast to northwest, and

meeting the main Nile in two mouths; by the Blue Nile at Khartoum, 15

degrees 30 minutes, and by the Atbara, in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes.

The Blue Nile during the dry season is so reduced that there is not

sufficient water for the small vessels engaged in transporting produce

from Sennaar to Khartoum; at that time the water is beautifully clear,

and, reflecting the cloudless sky, its colour has given it the

well-known name of Bahr el Azrak, or Blue River. No water is more

delicious than that of the Blue Nile; in great contrast to that of the

White river, which is never clear, and has a disagreeable taste of

vegetation. This difference in the quality of the waters is a

distinguishing characteristic of the two rivers: the one, the Blue Nile,

is a rapid mountain stream, rising and falling with great rapidity; the

other is of lake origin, flowing through vast marshes. The course of the

Blue Nile is through fertile soil; thus there is a trifling loss by

absorption, and during the heavy rains a vast amount of earthy matter of

a red colour is contributed by its waters to the general fertilizing

deposit of the Nile in Lower Egypt.

 

The Atbara, although so important a river in the rainy season of

Abyssinia, is perfectly dry for several months during the year, and at

the time I first saw it, June 13, 1861, it was a mere sheet of glaring

sand; in fact a portion of the desert through which it flowed. For

upwards of one hundred and fifty miles from its junction with the Nile,

it is perfectly dry from the beginning of March to June. At intervals of

a few miles there are pools or ponds of water left in the deep holes

below the general average of the river’s bed. In these pools, some of

which may be a mile in length, are congregated all the inhabitants of

the river, who as the stream disappears are forced to close quarters in

these narrow asylums; thus, crocodiles, hippopotami, fish, and large

turtle are crowded in extraordinary numbers, until the commencement of

the rains in Abyssinia once more sets them at liberty by sending down a

fresh volume to the river. The rainy season commences in Abyssinia in

the middle of May, but the country being parched by the summer heat, the

first rains are absorbed by the soil, and the torrents do not fill until

the middle of June.

 

From June to the middle of September the storms are terrific; every

ravine becomes a raging torrent; trees are rooted up by the mountain

streams swollen above their banks, and the Atbara becomes a vast river,

bringing down with an overwhelming current the total drainage of four

large rivers—the Settite, Royan, Salaam, and Angrab—in addition to its

own original volume. Its waters are dense with soil washed from most

fertile lands far from its point of junction with the Nile; masses of

bamboo and driftwood, together with large trees, and frequently the dead

bodies of elephants and buffaloes, are hurled along its muddy waters in

wild confusion, bringing a rich harvest to the Arabs on its banks, who

are ever on the look-out for the river’s treasures of fuel and timber.

 

The Blue Nile and the Atbara receiving the entire drainage of Abyssinia,

at the same time pour their floods into the main Nile in the middle of

June. At that season the White Nile is at a considerable level, although

not at its HIGHEST; and the sudden rush of water descending from

Abyssinia into the main channel, already at a fair level from the White

Nile, causes the annual inundation in Lower Egypt.

 

During the year that I passed in the northern portion of Abyssinia and

its frontiers, the rains continued with great violence for three months,

the last shower falling on the 16th September, from which date there was

neither dew nor rain until the following May. The great rivers expended,

and the mountain torrents dried up; the Atbara disappeared, and once

more became a sheet of glaring sand. The rivers Settite, Salaam, and

Angrab, although much reduced, are nevertheless perennial streams,

flowing into the Atbara from the lofty Abyssinian mountains; but the

parched, sandy bed of the latter river absorbs the entire supply, nor

does one drop of water reach the Nile from the Atbara during the dry

season. The wonderful absorption by the sand of that river is an

illustration of the impotence of the Blue Nile to contend unaided with

the Nubian deserts, which, were it not for the steady volume of the

White Nile, would drink every drop of water before the river could pass

the twenty-fifth degree of latitude.

 

The principal affluents of the Blue Nile are the Rahad and Dinder,

flowing, like all others, from Abyssinia. The Rahad is entirely dry

during the dry season, and the Dinder is reduced to a succession of deep

pools, divided by sandbanks, the bed of the river being exposed. These

pools are the resort of numerous hippopotami and the natural inhabitants

of the river.

 

Having completed the exploration of the various affluents to the Nile

from Abyssinia, passing through the Base country and the portion of

Abyssinia occupied by Mek Nimmur, I arrived at Khartoum, the capital of

the Soudan provinces, on the 11th June, 1862.

 

Khartoum is situated in lat. 15 degrees 29 minutes, on a point of land

forming the angle between the White and Blue Niles at their junction. A

more