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

lat. 9 degrees 25 minutes between the Bahr el Gazal and the

Sobat. The latter river (Sobat) is the most powerful affluent of the

White Nile, and is probably fed by many tributaries from the Galla

country about Kaffa, in addition to receiving the rivers from the Bari

and Latooka countries. I consider that the Sobat must be supplied by

considerable streams from totally distinct countries east and south,

having a rainfall at different seasons, as it is bank-full at the end of

December, when the southern rivers (the Asua, &c.) are extremely low.

North from the Sobat, the White Nile has no other tributaries until it

is joined by the Blue Nile at Khartoum, and by its last affluent the

Atbara in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes. These two great mountain streams

flooding suddenly in the end of June, fed by the rains of Abyssinia,

raise the volume of the Nile to an extent that causes the inundations of

Lower Egypt.

 

The basin of the Nile being thus understood, let us reflect upon the

natural resources of the vast surface of fertile soil that is comprised

in that portion of Central Africa. It is difficult to believe that so

magnificent a soil and so enormous an extent of country is destined to

remain for ever in savagedom, and yet it is hard to argue on the

possibility of improvement in a portion of the world inhabited by

savages whose happiness consists in idleness or warfare. The advantages

are few, the drawbacks many. The immense distance from the seacoast

would render impossible the transport of any merchandise unless of

extreme value, as the expenses would be insupportable. The natural

productions are nil, excepting ivory. The soil being fertile and the

climate favourable to cultivation, all tropical produce would thrive;

cotton, coffee, and the sugarcane are indigenous; but although both

climate and soil are favourable, the conditions necessary to successful

enterprise are wanting—the population is scanty, and the material of

the very worst; the people vicious and idle. The climate, although

favourable for agriculture, is adverse to the European constitution;

thus colonization would be out of the question. What can be done with so

hopeless a prospect? Where the climate is fatal to Europeans, from

whence shall civilization be imported? The heart of Africa is so

completely secluded from the world, and the means of communication are

so difficult, that although fertile, its geographical position debars

that vast extent of country from improvement: thus shut out from

civilization it has become an area for unbridled atrocities, as

exemplified in the acts of the ivory traders.

 

Difficult and almost impossible is the task before the Missionary. The

Austrian Mission has failed, and the stations have been forsaken; their

pious labour was hopeless, and the devoted priests died upon their

barren field. What curse lies so heavily upon Africa and bows her down

beneath all other nations? It is the infernal traffic in slaves—a trade

so hideous, that the heart of every slave and owner becomes deformed,

and shrinks like a withered limb incapable of action. The natural love

of offspring, shared with the human race by the most savage beast,

ceases to warm the heart of the wretched slave. Why should the mother

love her child, if it is born to become the PROPERTY of her owner?—to

be SOLD as soon as it can exist without the mother’s care. Why should

the girl be modest, when she knows that she is the actual PROPERTY, the

slave, of every purchaser? Slavery murders the sacred feeling of love,

that blessing that cheers the lot of the poorest man, that spell that

binds him to his wife, and child, and home. Love cannot exist with

slavery—the mind becomes brutalized to an extent that freezes all those

tender feelings that Nature has implanted in the human heart to separate

it from the beast; and the mind, despoiled of all noble instincts,

descends to hopeless brutality. Thus is Africa accursed: nor can she be

raised to any scale approaching to civilization until the slave-trade

shall be totally suppressed. The first step necessary to the improvement

of the savage tribes of the White Nile is the annihilation of the

slave-trade. Until this be effected, no legitimate commerce can be

established; neither is there an opening for missionary enterprise—the

country is sealed and closed against all improvement.

 

Nothing would be easier than to suppress this infamous traffic, were the

European Powers in earnest. Egypt is in favour of slavery. I have never

seen a Government official who did not in argument uphold slavery as an

institution absolutely necessary to Egypt, thus any demonstration made

against the slave-trade by the Government of that country will be simply

a pro forma movement to blind the European Powers. Their eyes thus

closed, and the question shelved, the trade will resume its channel.

Were the reports of European consuls supported by their respective

Governments, and were the consuls themselves empowered to seize vessels

laden with slaves, and to liberate gangs of slaves when upon a land

journey, that abominable traffic could not exist. The hands of the

European consuls are tied, and jealousies interwoven with the Turkish

question act as a bar to united action on the part of Europe; no Power

cares to be the first to disturb the muddy pool. The Austrian consul at

Khartoum, Herr Natterer, told me, in 1862, that he had vainly reported

the atrocities of the slave-trade to his Government—NO REPLY HAD BEEN

RECEIVED to his report. Every European Government KNOWS that the

slave-trade is carried on to an immense extent in Upper Egypt, and that

the Red Sea is the great Slave Lake by which these unfortunate creatures

are transported to Arabia and to Suez—but the jealousies concerning

Egypt muzzle each European Power. Should one move, the other would

interfere to counteract undue influence in Egypt. Thus is immunity

insured to the villanous actors in the trade. Who can prosecute a slave

trader of the White Nile? What legal evidence can be produced from

Central Africa to secure a conviction in an English Court of Law? The

English consul (Mr. Petherick) arrested a Maltese, the nephew of

Debono;—the charge could not be legally supported. Thus are the consuls

fettered, and their acts nullified by the impossibility of producing

reliable evidence;—the facts are patent; but who can prove them

legally?

 

Stop the White Nile trade; prohibit the departure of any vessels from

Khartoum for the south, and let the Egyptian Government grant a

concession to a company for the White Nile, subject to certain

conditions, and to a special supervision. (There are already four

steamers at Khartoum.) Establish a military post of 200 men at

Gondokoro; an equal number below the Shillook tribe in 13 degrees

latitude, and, with two steamers cruising on the river, not a slave

could descend the White Nile.

 

Should the slave-trade be suppressed, there will be a good opening for

the ivory trade; the conflicting trading parties being withdrawn, and

the interest of the trade exhibited by a single company, the natives

would no longer be able to barter ivory for cattle; thus they would be

forced to accept other goods in exchange. The newly-discovered Albert

lake opens the centre of Africa to navigation. Steamers ascend from

Khartoum to Gondokoro in latitude 4 degrees 55’. Seven days’ march south

from that station the navigable portion of the Nile is reached, where

vessels can ascend direct to the Albert lake—thus an enormous extent

of country is opened to navigation, and Manchester goods and various

other articles would find a ready market in exchange for ivory, at a

prodigious profit, as in those newly-discovered regions ivory has a

merely nominal value. Beyond this commencement of honest trade, I cannot

offer a suggestion, as no produce of the country except ivory could

afford the expense of transport to Europe. IF Africa is to be civilized,

it must be effected by commerce, which, once established, will open the

way for missionary labour; but all ideas of commerce, improvement, and

the advancement of the African race that philanthropy could suggest must

be discarded until the traffic in slaves shall have ceased to exist.

 

Should the slave-trade be suppressed, a field would be opened, the

extent of which I will not attempt to suggest, as the future would

depend upon the good government of countries now devoted to savage

anarchy and confusion.

 

Any Government that would insure security would be the greatest

blessing, as the perpetual hostilities among the various tribes prevent

an extension of cultivation. The sower knows not who will reap, thus he

limits his crop to his bare necessities.

 

The ethnology of Central Africa is completely beyond my depth. The

natives not only are ignorant of writing, but they are without

traditions—their thoughts are as entirely engrossed by their daily

wants as those of animals; thus there is no clue to the distant past;

history has no existence. This is much to be deplored, as peculiarities

are specific in the type of several tribes both in physical appearance

and in language. The Dinka; Bari; Latooka; Madi; and Unyoro or Kitwara,

are distinct languages on the east of the Nile, comprising an extent of

country from about 12 degrees north to the Equator.

 

The Makkarika have also a distinct language, and I was informed in

Kamrasi’s country, that the Malegga, on the west of the Albert lake,

speak a different tongue to that of Kitwara (or Unyoro)—this may

possibly be the same as the Makkarika, of which I have had no experience

by comparison. Accepting the fact of five distinct languages from the

Equator to 12 degrees N. lat., it would appear by analogy that Central

Africa is divided into numerous countries and tribes, distinct from each

other in language and physical conformation, whose origin is perfectly

obscure. Whether the man of Central Africa be pre-Adamite is impossible

to determine; but the idea is suggested by the following data. The

historical origin of man, or Adam, commences with a knowledge of God.

 

Throughout the history of the world from the creation of Adam, God is

connected with mankind in every creed, whether worshipped as the

universal sublime Spirit of omnipotence, or shaped by the forms of

idolatry into representations of a deity. From the creation of Adam,

mankind has acknowledged its inferiority, and must bow down and worship

either the true God or a graven image; or something that is in heaven or

in earth. The world, as we accept that term, was always actuated by a

natural religious instinct. Cut off from that world, lost in the

mysterious distance that shrouded the origin of the Egyptian Nile, were

races unknown, that had never reckoned in the great sum of

history—races that we have brought to light, whose existence had been

hidden from mankind, and that now appear before us like the fossil bones

of antediluvian animals. Are they vestiges of what existed in a

pre-Adamite creation?

 

The geological formation of Central Africa is primitive; showing an

altitude above the sea-level averaging nearly 4,000 feet. This elevated

portion of the globe, built up in great part of granitic sandstone

rocks, has never been submerged, nor does it appear to have undergone

any changes, either volcanic or by the action of water. Time, working

through countless ages with the slow but certain instrument of

atmospheric influence, has rounded the surface and split into fragments

the granite rocks, leaving a sandy base of disintegrated portions, while

in other cases the mountains show as hard and undecayed a surface as

though fresh from Nature’s foundry. Central Africa never having been

submerged, the animals and races must be as old, and may be older, than

any upon the earth.

 

No geological change having occurred in ages long anterior to man, as

shown by Sir R. I. Murchison theoretically so far back as the year 1852,

when Central Africa