Abyssinian slave-girls--Khartoum--The Soudan under Egyptian
rule--Slave-trade in the Soudan--The obstacles ahead.
A rapid march of sixteen miles brought us to Metemma or Gallabat. As we
descended the valley we perceived great crowds of people in and about
the town, which, in appearance, was merely a repetition of Katariff. It
was market-day, and as we descended the hill and arrived in the scene
below, with our nine camels heavily laden with the heads and horns of
a multitude of different beasts, from the gaping jaws of hippopotami to
the vicious-looking heads of rhinoceroses and buffaloes, while the
skins of lions and various antelopes were piled above masses of the
much-prized hide of the rhinoceros, we were beset by crowds of people,
who were curious to know whence so strange a party had come. We formed
a regular procession through the market, our Tokrooris feeling quite at
home among so many of their brethren.
While here I visited the establishments of the various slave merchants.
These were arranged under large tents formed of matting, and contained
many young girls of extreme beauty, ranging from nine to seventeen years
of age. These lovely captives, of a rich brown tint, with delicately
formed features, and eyes like those of the gazelle, were natives of the
Galla, on the borders of Abyssinia, from which country they were brought
by the Abyssinian traders to be sold for the Turkish harems. Although
beautiful, these girls are useless for hard labor; they quickly fade
away, and die unless kindly treated. They are the Venuses of that
country, and not only are their faces and figures perfection, but they
become extremely attached to those who show them kindness, and they make
good and faithful wives. There is something peculiarly captivating in
the natural grace and softness of these young beauties, whose hearts
quickly respond to those warmer feelings of love that are seldom known
among the sterner and coarser tribes. Their forms are peculiarly elegant
and graceful; the hands and feet are exquisitely delicate; the nose is
generally slightly aquiline, the nostrils large and finely shaped; the
hair is black and glossy, reaching to about the middle of the back,
but rather coarse in texture. These girls, although natives of Galla,
invariably call themselves Abyssinians, and are generally known under
that name. They are exceedingly proud and high-spirited, and are
remarkably quick at learning. At Khartoum several of the Europeans of
high standing have married these charming ladies, who have invariably
rewarded their husbands by great affection and devotion. The price of
one of these beauties of nature at Gallabat was from twenty-five to
forty dollars!
On the march from Gallabat to the Rahad River I was so unfortunate as to
lose my two horses, Gazelle and Aggahr. The sudden change of food from
dry grass to the young herbage which had appeared after a few showers,
brought on inflammation of the bowels, which carried them off in a few
hours. We now travelled for upward of a hundred miles along the bank of
the Rahad, through a monotonous scene of flat alluvial soil. The entire
country would be a Mine of wealth were it planted with cotton, Which
could be transported by river to Katariff, and thence directly to
Souakim.
I shall not weary the reader with the details of the rest of our journey
to Khartoum, the capital of the Soudan provinces, at which we arrived on
the 11th of June.
The difference between the appearance of Khartoum at the distance of a
mile, with the sun shining upon the bright river Nile in the foreground,
and its appearance upon close inspection, was equal to the difference in
the scenery of a theatre as regarded from the boxes or from the stage.
Even that painful exposure of an optical illusion would be trifling
compared with the imposture of Khartoum. The sense of sight had been
deceived by distance, but the sense of smell was outraged by innumerable
nuisances, when we set foot within the filthy and miserable town. After
winding through some narrow, dusty lanes, hemmed in by high walls of
sun-baked bricks that had fallen in gaps in several places, exposing
gardens of prickly pears and date palms, we at length arrived at a large
open place, that, if possible, smelt more strongly than the landing
spot. Around this square, which was full of holes where the mud had been
excavated for brick-making, were the better class of houses; this was
the Belgravia of Khartoum. In the centre of a long mud wall, ventilated
by certain attempts at frameless windows, guarded by rough wooden bars,
we perceived a large archway with closed doors. Above this entrance was
a shield, with a device that gladdened my English eyes: there was the
British lion and the unicorn! Not such a lion as I had been accustomed
to meet in his native jungles, a yellow cowardly fellow that had often
slunk away from the very prey from which I had driven him; but a real
red British lion, that, although thin and ragged in the unhealthy
climate of Khartoum, looked as though he was pluck to the back-bone.
This was the English Consulate. The consul was absent, in the hope of
meeting Speke and Grant in the upper Nile regions, on the road from
Zanzibar, but he had kindly placed rooms at our disposal.
For some months we resided at Khartoum, as it was necessary to make
extensive preparations for the White Nile expedition, and to await
the arrival of the north wind, which would enable us to start early in
December. Although the north and south winds blow alternately for six
months, and the former commences in October, it does not extend many
degrees southward until the beginning of December. This is a great
drawback to White Nile exploration, as, when near the north side of the
equator, the dry season commences in November and closes in February;
thus the departure from Khartoum should take place by a steamer in
the latter part of September. That would enable the traveller to leave
Gondokoro, lat. N. 4 "degrees" 54', shortly before November. He would
then secure three months of favorable weather for an advance inland.
Khartoum is a wretchedly unhealthy town, containing about thirty
thousand inhabitants, exclusive of troops. In spite of its unhealthiness
and low situation, on a level with the river at the junction of the Blue
and White Niles, it is the general emporium for the trade of the Soudan,
from which the productions of the country are transported to Lower
Egypt, i.e. ivory, hides, senna, gum arabic, and beeswax. During my
experience of Khartoum it was the hotbed of the slave-trade. It will be
remarked that the exports from the Soudan are all natural productions.
There is nothing to exhibit the industry or capacity of the natives. The
ivory is the produce of violence and robbery; the hides are the simple
sun-dried skins of oxen; the senna grows wild upon the desert; the
gum arabic exudes spontaneously from the bushes of the jungle; and
the bees-wax is the produce of the only industrious creatures in that
detestable country.
When we regard the general aspect of the Soudan, it is extreme
wretchedness. The rainfall is uncertain and scanty; thus the country is
a desert, dependent entirely upon irrigation. Although cultivation is
simply impossible without a supply of water, one of the most onerous
taxes is that upon the sageer or water-wheel, with which the fields
are irrigated on the borders of the Nile. It would appear natural that,
instead of a tax, a premium should be offered for the erection of such
means of irrigation, which would increase the revenue by extending
cultivation, the produce of which might bear an impost. With all the
talent and industry of the native Egyptians, who must naturally depend
upon the waters of the Nile for their existence, it is extraordinary
that for thousands of years they have adhered to their original simple
form of mechanical irrigation, without improvement.
The general aspect of the Soudan is that of misery; nor is there a
single feature of attraction to recompense a European for the drawbacks
of pestilential climate and brutal associations. To a stranger it
appears a superlative folly that the Egyptian Government should have
retained a possession the occupation of which is wholly unprofitable,
the receipts being far below the expenditure malgre the increased
taxation. At so great a distance from the sea-coast and hemmed in by
immense deserts, there is a difficulty of transport that must nullify
all commercial transactions on an extended scale.
The great and most important article of commerce as an export from the
Soudan is gum arabic. This is produced by several species of mimosa,
the finest quality being a product of Kordofan; the other natural
productions exported are senna, hides, and ivory. All merchandise both
to and from the Soudan must be transported upon camels, no other animals
being adapted to the deserts. The cataracts of the Nile between Assouan
and Khartoum rendering the navigation next to impossible, camels are the
only medium of transport, and the uncertainty of procuring them without
great delay is the trader's greatest difficulty. The entire country is
subject to droughts that occasion a total desolation, and the want of
pasture entails starvation upon both cattle and camels, rendering it at
certain seasons impossible to transport the productions of the country,
and thus stagnating all enterprise. Upon existing conditions the
Soudan is worthless, having neither natural capabilities nor political
importance; but there is, nevertheless, a reason that first prompted its
occupation by the Egyptians, and that is, THE SOUDAN SUPPLIES SLAVES.
Without the White Nile trade Khartoum* would almost cease to exist;
(* This was written about twenty years ago, and does not
apply to the Khartoum of to-day. In 1869 The Khedive of
Egypt despatched an expedition under Sir Samuel Baker to
suppress slavery in the Soudan and Central Africa. To the
success of that expedition, and to the efforts of Colonel
(now General) Gordon, who succeeded to the command of the
Soudan, was owing the suppression of the traffic in slaves.
Within the last few weeks, under the stress of
circumstances, General Gordon has been forced to promise the
removal of this prohibition of slavery.--E. J. W.)
and that trade is kidnapping and murder. The character of the
Khartoumers needs no further comment. The amount of ivory brought down
from the White Nile is a mere bagatelle as an export, the annual value
being about 40,000 pounds.
The people for the most part enraged in the nefarious traffic of
the White Nile are Syrians, Copts, Turks, Circassians, and some few
EUROPEANS. So closely connected with the difficulties of my expedition
is that accursed slave-trade, that the so-called ivory trade of the
White Nile requires an explanation.
Throughout the Soudan money is exceedingly scarce and the rate of
interest exorbitant, varying, according to the securities, from
thirty-six to eighty per cent. This fact proves general poverty and
dishonesty, and acts as a preventive to all improvement. So high and
fatal a rate deters all honest enterprise, and the country must lie in
ruin under such a system. The wild speculator borrows upon such terms,
to rise suddenly like a rocket, or to fall like its exhausted stick.
Thus, honest enterprise being impossible, dishonesty takes the lead, and
a successful expedition to the White Nile is supposed to overcome all
charges. There are two classes of White Nile traders, the one possessing
capital, the other being penniless adventurers. The same system of
operations is pursued by both, but that of the former will be evident
from the description of the latter.
A man without means forms an expedition, and borrows money for this
purpose at 100 per cent. after this fashion: he agrees to repay the
lender in ivory at one-half its market value. Having obtained the
required sum, he hires several vessels and engages from 100 to 300 men,
composed of Arabs and runaway villains from distant countries, who have
found an asylum from justice in the obscurity of Khartoum. He purchases
guns and large quantities of ammunition for his men, together with a few
hundred pounds of glass beads. The piratical expedition being complete,
he pays his men five months' wages in advance, at the rate of forty-five
piastres (nine shillings) per month, and he agrees to give them eighty
piastres per month for any period exceeding the five months for which
they are paid. His men receive their advance partly in cash and partly
in cotton stuffs for clothes at an exorbitant price. Every man has a
strip of paper, upon which is written, by the clerk of the expedition,
the amount he has received both in goods and money, and this paper he
must produce at the final settlement.
The vessels sail about December, and on arrival at the desired locality
the party disembark and proceed into the interior, until they arrive at
the village of some negro chief, with whom they establish an intimacy.
Charmed with his new friends, the power of whose weapons he
acknowledges, the negro chief does not neglect the opportunity of
seeking their alliance to attack a hostile neighbor. Marching throughout
the night, guided by their negro hosts, they bivouac within an hour's
march of the unsuspecting village doomed to an attack about half an
hour before break of day. The time arrives, and, quietly surrounding the
village while its occupants are still sleeping, they fire the grass
huts in all directions and pour volleys of musketry through the flaming
thatch. Panic-stricken, the unfortunate victims rush from their burning
dwellings, and the men are shot down like pheasants in a battue, while
the women and children, bewildered in the danger and confusion, are
kidnapped and secured. The herds of cattle, still within their kraal
or "zareeba," are easily disposed of, and are driven off with great
rejoicing, as the prize of victory. The women and children are then
fastened together, and the former secured in an instrument called a
sheba, made of a forked pole, the neck of the prisoner fitting into
the fork, and secured by a cross-piece lashed behind, while the wrists,
brought together in advance of the body, are tied to the pole. The
children are then fastened by their necks with a rope attached to the
women, and thus form a living chain, in which order they are marched to
the head-quarters in company with the captured herds.
This is the commencement of business. Should there be ivory in any
of the huts not destroyed by the fire, it is appropriated. A general
plunder takes place. The trader's party dig up the floors of the huts
to search for iron hoes, which are generally thus concealed, as the
greatest treasure of the negroes; the granaries are overturned and
wantonly destroyed, and the hands are cut off the bodies of the slain,
the more easily to detach the copper or iron bracelets that are usually
worn. With this booty the TRADERS return to their negro ally. They have
thrashed and discomfited his enemy, which delights him; they present him
with thirty or forty head of cattle, which intoxicates him with joy, and
a present of a pretty little captive girl of about fourteen completes
his happiness.
An attack or razzia, such as described, generally leads to a quarrel
with the negro ally, who in his turn is murdered and plundered by the
trader--his women and children naturally becoming slaves.
A good season for a party of a hundred and fifty men should produce
about two hundred cantars (20,000 lbs.) of ivory, valued at Khartoum at
4,000 pounds. The men being paid in slaves, the wages should be NIL,
and there should be a surplus of four or five hundred slaves for the
trader's own profit--worth on an average five to six pounds each.
The amiable trader returns from the White Nile to Khartoum; hands over
to his creditor sufficient ivory to liquidate the original loan of 1,000
pounds, and, already a man of capital, he commences as an independent
trader.
Such was the White Nile trade when I prepared to start from Khartoum
on my expedition to the Nile sources. Every one in Khartoum, with the
exception of a few Europeans, was in favor of the slave-trade, and
looked with jealous eyes upon a stranger venturing within the precincts
of their holy land--a land sacred to slavery and to every abomination
and villainy that man can commit.
The Turkish officials pretended to discountenance slavery; at the
same time every house in Khartoum was full of slaves, and the Egyptian
officers had been in the habit of receiving a portion of their pay in
slaves, precisely as the men employed on the White Nile were paid by
their employers. The Egyptian authorities looked upon the exploration of
the White Nile by a European traveller as an infringement of the slave
territory that resulted from espionage, and every obstacle was thrown in
my way.
To organize an enterprise so difficult that it had hitherto defeated the
whole world, required a careful selection of attendants, and I looked
with despair at the prospect before me. The only men procurable for
escort were the miserable cut-throats of Khartoum, accustomed to murder
and pillage in the White Nile trade, and excited not by the love
of adventure, but by the desire for plunder. To start with such men
appeared mere insanity.
There was a still greater difficulty in connection with the White Nile.
For years the infernal traffic in slaves and its attendant horrors had
existed like a pestilence in the negro countries, and had so exasperated
the tribes that people who in former times were friendly had become
hostile to all comers. An exploration to the Nile sources was thus
a march through an enemy's country, and required a powerful force of
well-armed men. For the traders there was no great difficulty, as they
took the initiative in hostilities, and had fixed camps as "points
d'appui;" but for an explorer there was no alternative, but he must make
a direct forward march with no communications with the rear. I had but
slight hope of success without assistance from the authorities in
the shape of men accustomed to discipline. I accordingly wrote to the
British consul at Alexandria, and requested him to apply for a few
soldiers and boats to aid me in so difficult an enterprise. After some
months' delay, owing to the great distance from Khartoum, I received a
reply inclosing a letter from Ismail Pacha (the present Viceroy), the
regent during the absence of Said Pacha, REFUSING the application.
I confess to the enjoyment of a real difficulty. From the first I had
observed that the Egyptian authorities did not wish to encourage English
explorations of the slave-producing districts, as such examinations
would be detrimental to the traffic, and would lead to reports to the
European governments that would ultimately prohibit the trade. It was
perfectly clear that the utmost would be done to prevent my expedition
from starting. This opposition gave a piquancy to the undertaking, and I
resolved that nothing should thwart my plans. Accordingly I set to
work in earnest. I had taken the precaution to obtain an order upon
the Treasury at Khartoum for what money I required, and as ready cash
performs wonders in that country of credit and delay, I was within a
few weeks ready to start. I engaged three vessels, including two large
noggurs or sailing barges, and a good decked vessel with comfortable
cabins, known by all Nile tourists as a diahbiah.
On December 18th, 1862, we left Khartoum. Our course up the river was
slow and laborious. At times the boats had to be dragged by the men
through the high reeds. It is not surprising that the ancients gave up
the exploration of the Nile, when they came to the countless windings
and difficulties of the marshes. The river is like an entangled skein of
thread, and the voyage is tedious and melancholy beyond description. We
did not reach Gondokoro until February 2d. This was merely a station of
the ivory traders, occupied for two months during the year, after
which time it was deserted, the boats returning to Khartoum and the
expeditions again departing to the interior.