JUNKER AND CASATI.
The Welle--Biography and travels of Dr. Junker--The
Niam-niam--Dr. Junker and the Niam-niam chiefs--Captain
Casati--The Mombuttu--Cannibalism--Dr. Junker in the Aruwimi
basin and at Ali-Kobo’s _zeriba_--Bad news from the
north--Junker and Casati with Emin Bey at Lado.
Emin Bey and Lupton Bey were not the only Europeans who were blocked
in the heart of Africa by the Mahdi’s victories. At that period the
Russian, Dr. Junker, and Captain Casati, the Italian, were still
farther south, investigating the basin of the Welle.
The Welle is the name given in its upper course to the most important
of the right-hand tributaries of the Congo; it is a powerful stream,
which, in length and volume, may be compared to the Danube; it receives
nearly all the water from the region situated between the northern
Congo and the ridge-line whence the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the Shari, the
Binue, and their several affluents take their source.
As the result of the explorations of recent years its upper section
is beginning to be fairly well known. It has been ascertained that,
under the name of the Kibbi, it has its source on the western slope of
the low range of the Blue Mountains, somewhat to the west of Wadelai;
that it then flows from east to west for nearly 1000 miles, taking a
slight curve, and being parallel to the Congo. Amongst many affluents,
the principal are the Garamba, the Duru, the Bomokandi, the Werre, the
Mbima, and the Mbomu.
What becomes of the Welle after its confluence with the last of the
above tributaries must as yet be held as an open question. Various
solutions have been suggested during the last fifteen years. It has
been stated that it finds an outlet into the Shari, into the Ogowe,
or into the Aruwimi; it has been asserted that it flows into a Lake
Liba, the existence of which is enigmatical, a second Lake Tchad; and
finally, it has been maintained that it joins the Itimbiri and the
Mongalla, inferior affluents of the Congo. A conclusive answer to the
question has still to be awaited; future observation can alone decide;
nevertheless geographers are now almost unanimous in accepting the
hypothesis promulgated nearly three years since by the writer of this
volume, which would identify the Welle of Schweinfurth and Junker with
the mighty Mobangi, whose confluence with the Congo a little south of
the Equator the Belgian Captain Hanssens was the first to discover, and
which was ascended by Grenfell, a missionary from England, beyond the
Zongo rapids. “It may fairly be believed,” says M. Élisée Reclus, “that
the Welle continues to flow from east to west below its confluence with
the Mbomu, and that, after describing a south-westerly curve parallel
to the Congo, it joins the Mobangi about 250 miles from the spot where
Junker left its course.”[1]
It must be added that Dr. Junker, during his explorations of the
river-basin, extending over three years, has done much to verify this
hypothesis; he has, moreover, by his numerous itineraries, provided
the material for a map of this unknown region, and has amassed such
valuable scientific information as must make the history of his
travels, now in preparation, a geographical contribution of the highest
importance.
This eminent explorer, Wilhelm Junker (to whom the present volume is
dedicated), was born at Moscow on the 6th of April 1840. He studied
at Gottingen, St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Prague. His earlier travels
were in Iceland, but in 1874, abandoning the frozen zone for tropical
Africa, he made various excursions into Tunis and Lower Egypt, whence
he proceeded to the Natron Lakes and Fayoum, and crossing to the Red
Sea, went in succession to Suakin, Kassala, and Khartoum; then, having
explored the Sobat, he made his way to Gondokoro. The year 1877 found
him in the basin of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Yei.
After four years’ wanderings, with many useful results, the Doctor
returned to Europe for rest; but the attraction of African life was too
strong to be resisted, and in 1878 he started again by way of Suakin
for Berber, going on to Khartoum, where he arrived in January 1880.
This time he had a definite purpose in view: he had determined to
explore the almost unknown regions that were watered by the Welle, and
set his mind on following its course as far as possible to the west,
that he might put to rest the dubious question of its ultimate issue.
Accompanied by a specialist in natural history, M. Frederic Bohndorf,
and by a young negro whom he had taken with him to Europe after his
first journey, he made his way to the heart of the continent, halting
at the _zeribas_ Meshra-er-Rek, Jur-Ghattas, Wau, Dem Suleiman,
and Dem Bekir, and finally taking up his quarters, as the base of his
operations, at the residence of Ndoruma, a powerful Niam-niam chief in
the Congo basin.
The Niam-niam are that strange people whose existence, surrounded by
mystery and legend, was attested by the very earliest adventurers into
the Soudan. They were the famous “men with tails” in whom certain
_savants_ imagined that they had discovered the missing link
between ape and man; and such was their weird repute that Soudanese and
Nubians alike associated their name with all the savage devilry that
imagination could conjure up. The appellation by which we distinguish
them is borrowed from the dialect of the Denka, and signifies “great
eaters,” an allusion only too suggestive of cannibal propensities.
Dr. Schweinfurth was the first to give any detailed particulars about
the Niam-niam, whose general aspect excited his repeated wonder. He
writes:--“No traveller could possibly find himself for the first time
surrounded by a group of true Niam-niam without being almost forced to
confess that all he had hitherto witnessed amongst the various races
of Africa was comparatively tame and uninteresting.” He thus describes
a Niam-niam warrior:--“The stranger, as he gazes on him, may well
behold in this true son of the African wilderness every attribute of
the wildest savagery that may be conjured up by the boldest flight of
fancy.... I have seen the wild Bishareen and other Bedouins of the
Nubian desert, I have gazed with admiration upon the stately war-dress
of the Abyssinians, I have been riveted with surprise at the supple
forms of the mounted Bagara, but nowhere in any part of Africa have I
ever come across a people that in every attitude and in every motion
exhibited so thorough a mastery over all the circumstances of war or of
the chase as the Niam-niam. Other nations in comparison seemed to me to
fall short in the perfect ease, I might almost say dramatic grace, that
characterised their every movement.”[2]
Equally well may the Niam-niam be described as a nation of hunters or a
nation of agriculturists. As with most African races, the cultivation
of the soil is carried on by the women; not that this involves any
excessive labour, inasmuch as the natural productiveness of the soil,
the exuberance of which in some districts is unsurpassed, makes all
culture exceptionally easy. The whole land is pre-eminently rich in
many products that conduce to the direct maintenance of life, and
eleusine, sweet potatoes, yams, manioc, and colocasiæ may be said to
grow all but spontaneously.
Speaking generally, it may be said that they have no cattle; cows,
goats, and sheep are hardly known otherwise than by report. The
acme, however, of human enjoyment for a Niam-niam would seem to be
_meat_; every one is a hunter, and it may be, within certain
limits, a cannibal. The cry that resounds in all their campaigns is,
“Meat, meat!”
As to cannibalism, there is no doubt that it has been attributed to
them by all the surrounding nations, and perhaps few could venture
to dispute this widespread testimony; on the other hand, it must
be acknowledged that travellers have met with Niam-niam chiefs who
vehemently repudiate the idea of eating human flesh. At the same time,
it is asserted of other chiefs that they have openly and without
reserve, if not ostentatiously, confessed their predilection; whilst it
is stated, in addition, that they adorn themselves with the teeth of
the victims they have devoured, and exhibit their skulls conspicuously
among their hunting-trophies. Moreover, it is said that the fat of the
human body is in general use.
The country inhabited by the Niam-niam is so immense that as yet it
has been but partially explored. The ridge between the basins of the
Nile and the Congo forms pretty nearly a central line through the
whole. Eastwards their population extends to Lake Albert and the Nile;
westwards they probably reach to the north of the French Congo, to the
sources of the Binue; and to the south they occupy the greater portion
of the Congo Free State, on the banks of the Welle.
They have no national unity. Schweinfurth counted no less than
thirty-eight independent chiefs in the country north of Tangasi, and a
still larger number was visited by Junker, whose travels carried him
along both banks of the Welle; he makes special mention of Ndoruma and
Semmio, well-known rulers, in whose domains he established stations,
and further speaks of Bakangai and Kanna, who reside in the Bomokandi
basin within the limits of the Congo State, as the most powerful chiefs
that he came across throughout his entire journey.
Of towns in an ordinary sense, or even of villages, the Niam-niam have
none. Their huts are grouped in little clusters, which are scattered
about the cultivated lands and separated from each other by tracts of
wilderness more or less extensive, broken by forests and savannahs that
are the haunts of innumerable herds of elephants and antelopes. The
country everywhere is picturesque, and in the valleys, where heat and
moisture are combined, the scene is often charming as fairy-land.
M. Bohndorf pronounces the climate to be superior to that of Java
or India, and considers that when the ameliorating appliances of
civilisation shall have been introduced, the mortality of the white man
will be comparatively small.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN CASATI.]
Personal security is nowhere more assured than in the majority of
the districts farther north. The European has only to use a little
tact and he may travel quite unarmed. Except on a few excursions when
he obtained an escort either from Gessi Pasha or from the Soudanese
traders, Dr. Junker made all his journeys accompanied only by a few
lads and porters. His sole precaution, before entering the territory of
an unknown chief, was to send some messengers in advance to announce
his arrival, and to declare that his intentions were quite peaceable. A
few presents went far to conciliate the favour of the chief, not only
obtaining permission for the white man’s entry, but procuring the loan
of guides to conduct him onwards.
By such prudent policy, and probably through the absolute want of
anything like military display, Junker was able to travel for more
than two years in the Niam-niam country, going southwards beyond the
Bomokandi, and westwards to a little above the confluence of the Mbomu,
in the Banjia tribe, where Ali Kobbo, a merchant, has established a
_zeriba_ for the ivory-trade. To the east he penetrated into
the abode of the Mombuttu, where, in August 1882, at the village of
Tangasi, he met the Italian explorer, Casati.
Gaetano Casati, a native of Monza, in Upper Italy, was serving as
a captain of _Bersaglieri_, when it was proposed to him by M.
Camperio, the founder of the Italian Society for the Exploration
of Africa, that he should join his countryman, Gessi Pasha, in
the Bahr-el-Ghazal, as correspondent to the geographical review,
_L’Exploratore_.
The offer was accepted; and on December 24, 1879, Casati embarked at
Genoa for Suakin, whence he continued his way to the interior, where he
has resided ever since, staying successively in the lands of the Jur,
the Denka, and the Makraka, and proceeding, after Gessi had taken his
departure, westward of Lake Albert into the district of the Mombuttu.
This interesting negro race, the Mombuttu or Monbuttoo, thirty years
back, was not even known to have an existence; it has now been brought
into notoriety by Dr. Schweinfurth, the first European to make his way
so far in that direction. According to the estimate he formed about
them, they are a people that must take a foremost rank amongst African
tribes. They are a noble race, with a higher grade of culture than
their savage neighbours. They exhibit a public spirit and a national
pride, and certainly possess an intelligence and judgment such as few
Africans can boast. Their word is sure, and their friendship lasting.
The Nubians who reside among them can never say enough in praise of
their fidelity, their military qualities, and their personal courage.
A marked development characterises their capabilities; and as potters,
wood-carvers and boat-builders, they are second to no tribe on the
entire continent. It is, however, in their architecture that the
versatility of their artistic faculty most reveals itself. Alike in
size, in arrangement, and in decoration, their buildings excel all
that travellers in Central Africa have found elsewhere; the great hall
in the palace of Munza, who was king of the Mombuttu at the time of
Schweinfurth’s visit, was not much short of a hundred feet long, fifty
feet wide, and forty feet high; not unlike the central portion of a
large railway-station, its vaulted roof being supported on three long
rows of pillars formed of polished wood.
The Mombuttu sovereigns enjoy far higher prerogatives than the rulers
of the Niam-niam. Besides the monopoly of ivory, they claim regular
contributions, levied upon the products of the soil. In addition to his
bodyguard proper, Munza was always attended by a large _suite_,
never leaving his residence without being accompanied by a retinue
of some hundred men, and preceded by a long array of trumpeters,
drummers, and couriers with large iron bells.
And yet, advanced as they seem in some respects towards civilisation,
and eminent as travellers declare them to be for hospitality, they are
a people amongst whom the practice of cannibalism is most flagrant.
They are skilled sportsmen, and hunt elephants, buffaloes, and
antelopes; they take the guinea-fowl, the francolin, and the bustard in
snares; but there is no game for which they have a keener relish than
for human flesh.
Living in a state of perpetual warfare with the inferior tribes of the
Aruwimi basin, their neighbours on the south, they have hunting-grounds
which are inexhaustible in the supply of this coveted food. The dead
bodies of those who fall in battle are immediately distributed to be
cut up, and are dried upon the field, preparatory to being carried
away. Every family would seem to have its supply, and human fat is
universally employed for domestic purposes. According to Schweinfurth,
children are regarded as a special delicacy, and are reserved for the
table of the king.
It is now accepted as a fact, established by the testimony alike of
transient travellers and of agents permanently residing in the Congo
State, that all the tribes inhabiting the vast region between the
Congo and the Welle are addicted to cannibalism; but if Schweinfurth’s
impression be correct, the cannibalism of the Mombuttu is the most
inveterate of all; he had no difficulty in getting two hundred skulls
of their victims to be submitted to him, of which he selected forty to
bring away.
Nothing short of European occupation, with the introduction of cattle
and the suppression of internecine wars, can ever avail to put an end
to the revolting practice.
Situated as it is between Emin Pasha’s province and the Congo Free
State, it is to be hoped that the Mombuttu country can hardly
be long before being brought under European influence. From a
politico-economical point of view, it holds out a promise of great
importance; its fertility, its population, its wealth, its comparative
salubrity, and its picturesqueness attract the interest equally of
travellers and traders. “The Mombuttu land,” says Schweinfurth, “greets
us as an Eden upon earth. Unnumbered groves of plantains bedeck the
gently heaving soil; oil-palms, incomparable in beauty, and other
monarchs of the stately woods, rise up and spread their glory over
the favoured scene; along the streams there is a bright expanse of
charming verdure, whilst a grateful shade ever overhangs the domes of
the idyllic huts.”[3]
Like the Niam-niam, the Mombuttu have no real villages. To quote
Schweinfurth again:--“The huts are arranged in sets following the lines
of the brooks along the valleys, the space between each group being
occupied by plantations of oil-palms. The dwellings are separated
from the lowest parts of the depression by the plaintain grounds,
whilst above, on the higher and drier soil, extend the fields of sweet
potatoes and colocasiæ.”[4]
Notwithstanding his efforts to make further progress to the south,
Dr. Schweinfurth, in 1871, found himself unable to advance beyond a
spot within King Munza’s dominions, on the left bank of the Welle, the
present site of Tangasi.
Captain Casati was more fortunate. Taking a south-westerly course, he
succeeded in passing beyond the Mombuttu frontier, and reached the
residence of the Niam-niam chief, Bakangai, who, being afraid that
he might be held responsible for the death of a European traveller,
refused to allow him to penetrate farther west into the country of the
fierce Ababua.
About the same time as Casati, Dr. Junker also arrived at the quarters
of Bakangai. Not to be deterred, he made a bold dash from Tangasi
towards the south, and managed to get across the southern ridge of
the Welle basin, and having passed through the Mabode country into
the Aruwimi valley, reached the quarters of one of their chiefs named
Sanga, a prince of Mombuttu origin.
This spot, on the banks of the river Nepoko, was destined to be the
farthest point that was reached in the adventurous enterprises of that
date.
Both Junker’s and Casati’s investigations were now to be interrupted,
and finally to be altogether checked, by the disquieting intelligence
from Khartoum that was forwarded to them by Lupton and Emin Bey.
In November 1882, just as he was leaving Semmio for the west, Dr.
Junker received a warning from Lupton that, instigated by the
Arabs, the Denka had risen in revolt, and that the route towards
Meshra-er-Rek was quite unsafe. Persevering, however, and not allowing
his schemes to be frustrated by the tidings, he pursued his way into
the unknown regions to the west, resolved, if possible, to ascertain
the real direction of the course of the Welle-Makua. He traversed
the territory of the Banjia tribes, and arrived at the _zeriba_
Ali-Kobbo, in the Abassange country, the extreme point hitherto reached
on the great river.
It was, however, only for four days that he could remain there. He
had hardly arrived when letters from Lupton overtook him, forwarded
in urgent haste, announcing the rapid progress of the Mahdi’s revolt
and the rising of the natives in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. There was no
alternative for him but to return at once; at the very moment when
he seemed to have the immediate prospect of being able to solve the
question of the Welle, he was obliged to abandon his undertaking and
beat a retreat.
By the following May he was back in Semmio. After waiting in doubt and
anxiety for six months, and still despairing of finding any way open to
the north, he set out towards the east in the direction of the province
of the Equator, where Emin Pasha was pressing him to come and join him
without delay. He reached Lado on the 23d of January 1884. Casati had
arrived there some months previously.
It was high time; the crisis was at hand; stern action must be taken.