GORDON AND HIS LIEUTENANTS.--JUNKER AND THE NILE-CONGO WATER-PARTING
In 1874 Colonel Purdy and Colonel Colston (Englishmen) were despatched
by the Egyptian government respectively into Darfur and Kordofan
for surveying purposes. By their expeditions a good deal of the
country along these half-dry affluents of the Bahr-al-Arab and the
water-parting between the Shari and the Nile was explored and made
known. Their work was added to in some respects (1875–1876) by Sidney
Ensor, a civil engineer, who surveyed the route for a railway from Wadi
Halfa to Al Fasher, the capital of Darfur.
The energetic work undertaken by Sir Samuel Baker of suppressing the
slave-trade in the Equatorial Province of the Egyptian Sudan was
carried much further by the celebrated Charles Gordon, who was destined
to die at Khartum under circumstances conferring on him lasting fame.
Gordon Pasha (as he subsequently became) had, as it is hardly necessary
to state, been an engineer officer. It was thought that his appointment
to the supreme government of the Egyptian Sudan (an appointment which
Baker had not held, since he worked with an Egyptian Governor-General
at Khartum) would--as it did--materially assist the improvement of
communications. Gordon made an interesting survey of the country
between Suakin and Berber on the Nile, and together with Lieutenants
Watson and Chippendall mapped the main Nile from Khartum to Gondokoro
and Lake Albert. He also caused the circumnavigation of that lake to be
effected.
Soon after Gordon had taken up the work begun by Sir Samuel Baker, a
curious theory had been started concerning Lake Albert Nyanza. In those
days, when so much personal feeling was very naturally imported into
Nile exploration, and one great explorer vied with another, theories
were often started by A to minimise the work of B or to exaggerate
the results of A’s own discoveries. It has been already recounted how
Burton, piqued by Speke’s great discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, which
might have fallen to Burton’s own lot had he been less crippled with
fever, subsequently strove to prove the non-existence of that lake as
a continuous sheet of water. Speke in the most wonderful manner had
not only discovered the Victoria Nyanza, but had, by the collection
of native information and the deductions he drew therefrom, made, on
the whole, a remarkably accurate forecast of the Nile system in the
region of the equatorial lakes. He had put Lake Albert on the map,
merely from report, in a shape and position closely in accordance with
actuality. Not, however, being able to visit this lake himself, he
had handed the task over to Sir Samuel Baker, who had discovered the
Albert Nyanza, but had not been able to ascertain its area and shape.
Both Speke and Baker, however, assumed that the Victoria Nile entered
Lake Albert, and quitted that lake as the main stream of the White
Nile. Neither explorer, however, nor most that came after them, could
state positively that they had mapped the Victoria Nile along its whole
course from the Ripon Falls to Lake Albert, nor had they traced the
course of the Nile from Lake Albert northward to Gondokoro. Therefore
in the early seventies some theorist had started the ingenious idea
that Lake Albert belonged either to the system of the Congo or the
Shari, and that its waters drained away by an unknown river at the
south end, or else by an outlet to the north, which was not the Nile,
as generally assumed, but a river which flowed westward to the unknown.
The discovery about this time of Lake Kioga further confused notions
about the Nile system, and it was thought that the Victoria Nile
discovered by Speke did not enter Lake Albert, but in some tortuous way
joined the Asua, and so flowed on past Gondokoro, leaving Lake Albert
altogether out of its system.
[Illustration: THE VICTORIA NILE FLOWING TOWARDS LAKE KIOGA.]
To settle these doubts, Gordon resolved to despatch Romolo Gessi,[92]
who was then little more than a steamer engineer, though, having
been the mate of a Mediterranean steamer, he was able to take
astronomical observations. Gessi was therefore instructed to
circumnavigate Lake Albert. This task he carried out in 1876. He
ascertained positively that the Victoria Nile entered Lake Albert and
left it again, and he connected his rough survey of the Albertine Nile
with the work which was being carried on up stream from Gondokoro
by two English engineer officers in Gordon’s employ, Lieutenants
Watson[93] and Chippendall. In 1877 Colonel Mason (an American) took
advantage of the first steamer being placed on Lake Albert to make a
survey rather more careful than that of Gessi, but neither of these
explorers ascertained the existence of the Semliki River or of the
snow-range of Ruwenzori, though it is said that in some of Gessi’s
private letters mention was made of a strange apparition “like
snow-mountains” in the sky, which had appeared to some of his men at
the south end of Lake Albert,--a remark that attracted no attention at
the time. Gessi also records having seen the mouth of a large river at
the south end of Lake Albert, but it never seems to have occurred to
him that this river was probably of the greatest geographical interest.
Nevertheless, when Gessi returned to Khartum to report the result of
his Albert Nyanza explorations to Gordon, the latter exclaimed, “What
a pity you are not an Englishman!” This remark is supposed to have
been made from pique that the two English officers despatched by Gordon
(Watson and Chippendall) had not arrived in time to accomplish what
a Levantine Italian had successfully performed. Gessi was already
somewhat offended, because he considered that he had done an excellent
piece of work, and he had only received as a reward a present of a few
hundred francs and the decoration of the Mejidieh, third class. He
therefore flung his fez at Gordon’s feet and tendered his resignation.
He journeyed to Italy, and was received with great distinction by the
Italian Geographical Society at Rome, who presented him with their Gold
Medal. He resolved, however, to return to work as an explorer, giving
particular attention to anthropological and zoölogical researches. He
engaged two Austrian-Italians--Giacomo Morch and Riccardo Buchta--to
accompany him. Buchta deserves special notice, as he was the first
careful photographer to visit the regions of the Upper Nile. His
photographs of the native types and scenery of these countries taken
between 1878 and 1882 are remarkably interesting.
Soon after Gessi’s arrival in Egypt with all his stores, he was
informed that a fire had broken out at Suez railway station, resulting
in the complete destruction of all his goods, involving a monetary
loss of something like twelve hundred pounds. He therefore returned to
Italy, gave up the idea of exploring the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and instead
resolved to start for the river Sobat, and work his way from the upper
waters of that stream to the southern regions of Abyssinia, where
two Italians--Cecchi and Chiarini--were supposed to be wandering. His
second expedition was financed by generous Italians and by the late
King of Italy. He was accompanied by Dr. Pellegrino Matteucci, who was
subsequently to cross Africa from east to west and die at the end of
his journey.
Ernst Marno, a Viennese, had attempted, in 1870, to ascend the Blue
Nile and then enter the country of the Galas to the south of it. After
penetrating, however, as far as Fadasi, he was obliged to turn back,
owing to the hostility of the people. The same obstacles turned back
Gessi and his companions, and the expedition to Kaffa was given up.
Returning to Khartum, Gessi was preparing to attempt the ascent of the
Sobat when Gordon returned to his post, from which he had been absent,
and invited Gessi to re-enter the service of the Egyptian government.
A serious revolt had occurred in the western part of the Egyptian
Sudan. The great slave-trader, Zubeir, who had conquered Darfur, had
become a danger to the Egyptian power. By dint of a wily invitation he
was lured to Cairo, and once in Egypt, was prevented by the Khedive
from returning to the Sudan. His son Suleiman, however, remained in
Darfur, and attempted to rise against the Egyptian government. His
attempt was frustrated by Gordon, who, however, pardoned him, and
appointed him sub-governor of his country with a handsome salary. But
in 1878 Suleiman openly espoused the cause of the Nubian and Arab
slave-traders whose devastations of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the White
Nile regions had been sternly suppressed by Baker and Gordon. Putting
himself at the head of these disaffected people, Suleiman practically
subjugated all the vast territory of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and proclaimed
his independence. Gessi proceeded with a small force on steamers to
Lado, on the White Nile, where he met Emin Pasha. From this point
he started for the Nyam-nyam country,[94] picking up on the way all
the soldiers he could obtain from the various stations of the Sudan
government. He found that Suleiman had proclaimed himself “Lord of
Bahr-al-Ghazal, Rōl, and Makarka.” At Dem Idris, in the most western
part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province, the great battle took place.[95]
The people of the country were on the side of Gessi and the Egyptian
forces, because of the incessant slave-raiding of Suleiman and his
men. Gessi had entrenched himself and his small force, which at the
outside amounted to seven thousand men, regulars and irregulars. He had
several pieces of artillery that fired grape-shot. His entrenchments
were assaulted by Suleiman’s forces, and as the result of this attack
Suleiman lost his flags, much of his ammunition, and most of his guns,
together with several thousand of his men. Nevertheless, in spite of
the recovery of Egyptian prestige throughout the Sudan, Suleiman’s
power was not yet at an end. He gathered up more forces, and continued
to attack Gessi. At last reinforcements arrived from the north which
enabled Gessi to take the offensive. He captured stronghold after
stronghold. In the spring of 1879 Suleiman was flying for his life with
only a thousand men. Gessi destroyed almost all the strongholds of
the slavers (some of which had existed for twenty-five years, and had
devastated all the country around) in the province of Bahr-al-Ghazal.
Gordon Pasha had now come to Gessi’s assistance, and established
himself at Shakka on the Nile. He also invaded Darfur, reconquered
that country, and prevented reinforcements reaching Suleiman from that
direction. Eventually, after a hundred fights, Gessi succeeded in
tracking Suleiman to his last refuge. At the time he had no more than
two hundred men with him, whilst Suleiman had eight hundred. Taking
the camp entirely by surprise, he tried a game of bluff, and sent a
messenger to tell Suleiman that he had surrounded his place with a
large force, and that resistance was hopeless. Suleiman therefore
surrendered. Gessi tried him by court-martial, and had him shot in
November, 1879. This ended the first of the great rebellions which
menaced Anglo-Egyptian authority in the Sudan. Gessi was made a Pasha
for his services, and Governor of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province. He
slowly brought about peace among the distracted Negro tribes.
During all the operations undertaken by Gordon and Gessi a good many
additions were made to the geography of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the
Bahr-al-Arab, and Darfur. After Gordon’s departure from the Sudan Gessi
found it impossible to work with the Egyptian Governor-General, Raiūf
Pasha. He was also extremely ill. He therefore decided to return to
Europe, but got no farther than Suez, where he died in 1881, having
uttered several premonitions as to the possibility of another revolt.
As a matter of fact, the Mahdi, who had just begun to make himself
known as a rebel, did little more than carry on the reaction against
the anti-slave-trading policy of the Anglo-Egyptian control. All the
elements of Suleiman’s revolt which had been destroyed by the splendid
valour of Gessi and Gordon gathered round the new leader, and brought
about that cataclysm which closed the area of Nile exploration for
fourteen years.
Édouard Linant de Bellefonds, the Belgian official in Gordon’s
employment of whom mention was made in the previous chapter, and who
had met his death at the hands of the Bari, was avenged by the American
C. Chaillé-Long, who inflicted severe chastisement on the Bari and
allied tribes at and around Gondokoro. Chaillé-Long was made a colonel
by the Egyptian government. He was despatched by Gordon on a mission to
Uganda to spy out the land; but owing to the intervention of Sir John
Kirk from Zanzibar, the British government stayed the ambitious Khedive
from attempting to include Uganda in the Egyptian Sudan. Chaillé-Long
added a little to our knowledge of the Victoria Nile, and gave a more
detailed report of Lake Kioga than had been previously gleaned from
the unscientific journey of Piaggia. He named this lake “Ibrahim.”
Chaillé-Long also travelled to the west of the Mountain Nile in the
Nyam-nyam countries. His book (“Central Africa: Naked Truths of Naked
People”) is unfortunately marred by much incorrect information, and by
the erroneous spelling of native names. Mutesa, the ruler of Uganda, is
disguised as “M’tse;” Uganda becomes Ugunda, while preposterous plurals
are invented for the people of Uganda and Unyoro, who are called the
Ugundi, Unyori, etc. Chaillé-Long’s one practical contribution to Nile
exploration was the definite discovery of Lake Kioga, which had only
been hesitatingly reported by the unlearned Piaggia.
Ernst Marno, the Viennese, surveyed a good deal of country west of
Lado and the Mountain Nile,--the valley of the Yei among other rivers.
Casati, an Italian officer, journeyed all over the lands of the
Egyptian Sudan; but as he was an unscientific observer and lost all
his journals in the troubles that followed on the Mahdi’s revolt, his
contributions to our knowledge of the Nile regions are practically
worthless.
Dr. Gustav Nachtigal, one of the great African explorers, was born
at Eichstadt, near Magdeburg, in Germany. He was despatched on a
mission to Bornu by the King of Prussia. After years spent with great
advantage to science in the Sahara, round Lake Chad, and on the Shari
River, he passed from Wadai into the Nile basin in the country of
Darfur, and added somewhat to our geographical knowledge of this little
known part of the Nile basin. Nachtigal reached Khartum at the end of
1874. Another German was to contribute his share to the opening up of
the Nile basin. Dr. Wilhelm Junker was born at Moscow in 1840 of German
parents, and was educated in Germany. He started for Egypt in 1875 with
the intention of going to Darfur, but he spent some time examining
the Libyan Desert and the curious blocked outlet of the Nile in the
Fayūm. After exploring the Atbara as far as Kasala and journeying
thence across country to the Blue Nile, he travelled up the Sobat River
to Nasr (a point at which all exploration of the Sobat stopped for
many years), and then made his way to the White Nile and the Makarka
(Nyam-nyam) country. His journeys through the Bahr-al-Ghazal province
took him as far south as the Kibali or Welle River. After a visit to
Europe with his collections and notes, he returned to the Welle and
the Mangbettu country. He explored the Welle and its tributaries for
some distance eastward and westward. Munza, the celebrated king of the
Mangbettu, about whom Schweinfurth wrote so much, had been murdered by
the Nubian slave-traders, and the country about the Upper Welle was
much disordered. Junker reached the Nepoko River, which is an affluent
of the Aruwimi. His journeys westward to the Welle River near its
confluence with the Mbomu convinced him that this mysterious stream,
the existence of which had first been reported by Miani and Potagos (a
Greek trader), was after all the most northern affluent of the Congo,
and not the Upper Shari. Junker’s journeys were now interrupted by the
news of the Mahdi’s revolt.
[Illustration: NUĒR VILLAGE, SOBAT RIVER.]
Frank Lupton (Bey), a native of Essex, and once a mate on a small
steamer plying between the Red Sea ports, had entered Gordon’s service,
and had become in time Governor of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province. Lupton
added a good deal to our knowledge regarding the many affluents of the
Bahr-al-Ghazal. He unhappily fell into the hands of the Dervishes,
and eventually lost his life. Lupton managed to warn Junker of the
outbreak, and the Russo-German traveller then made his way across
country to Lado. There he stayed until the news arrived of the fall
of Khartum. He then started for Uganda, crossed the Victoria Nyanza
by the help of the English missionaries, and travelled to Zanzibar
by way of Unyamwezi. Junker brought home with him the invaluable
journals of Emin Pasha. His own two great works on the Nile basin are
full of interesting information concerning the natives. He added much
to our knowledge of the southern tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal,
but the chief value and glory of his work lay in the Congo basin and
was concerned with the identification of the Welle-Kibali with the
Ubangi. He also discovered the important northern tributary of the
Welle, the Mbomu. Junker’s observations regarding natural history
are not altogether trustworthy or accurate. His work in this respect
is not to be compared with that of Schweinfurth or Emin. His books
are badly illustrated, the drawings of beasts and birds being seldom
recognisable, and the pictures of the people quite without any
scientific value.
Two Italian officers, Massari and Matteucci, crossed the Nile
basin just before the uprising of the Dervishes closed the Sudan
to exploration for sixteen years. They passed through the northern
frontier lands of Abyssinia, descended the White Nile, and ascended
the Bahr-al-Ghazal, entered Darfur and quitted the Nile basin on the
borders of Wadai, which excessively hostile Muhammadan state they
actually traversed unharmed. From Wadai they reached the West Coast via
Bornu and the Niger, but only to die respectively in England and Italy
soon afterwards. For daring and courage the journey was a marvel; for
geography it was a nullity.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Maull & Fox._]
JOSEPH THOMSON AND WILHELM JUNKER.]
When the intensity of the Dervish rule was slackening, in the early
nineties of the last century various Belgian officers, such as
Lieutenant Van Kerckhoven, passed the Congo basin to the Bahr-al-Arab
and the westernmost tributaries of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and threw
a little fresh light on the still mysterious hydrography of the
Nile-Shari water-parting. They pointed the way, however, to Joseph
Marchand and his associates. This gallant band of Frenchmen, in
1897, made their way from the Mbomu River (Congo basin) down
the Jur (Sue) to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and the White Nile, to face
England at Fashoda. Marchand was accompanied, amongst other European
officers and non-commissioned officers, by Lieutenants A. H. Dyé and
Tanguedec. Tanguedec remained till 1900 on the Mountain Nile near the
Bahr-az-Ziraf. Dyé gave, in 1902, some account of the explorations of
the Bahr-al-Ghazal region undertaken by the Marchand expedition. The
swamps which characterise the northeastern part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal
province render the definite mapping of the lower courses of its great
rivers extremely difficult. Nevertheless, in the most systematic way,
Marchand and his companions, in their little steam launch _Faidherbe_,
surveyed the Sue or Jur (the longest stream flowing into the
Bahr-al-Ghazal estuary), the Bahr-al-Arab, Bahr-al-Hamr, the Tonj, and
Rōl.
The Bahr-al-Ghazal itself, from Mashra-ar-Rak downwards, was carefully
surveyed, and many indications were found of the changes which have
taken place since the days of its early explorers, though M. Dyé
considers the sketch given by Lejean in 1862 as wonderfully correct in
its general outlines.
After describing the ferruginous laterite plateau, which occupies
the whole southern part of the Bahr-al-Ghazal province, as well as
adjoining parts on the Congo basin, Lieutenant Dyé sketches the
transition from this region, in which the streams flow in steep-sided
valleys to the sea of swamps which lies along the ninth parallel. It is
in about 7° 20′ north that the first change occurs, the river-banks
opening out and leaving between them an alluvial-flood plain, grassy
and intersected by swamps, through which the river winds in a tortuous
course, much choked by sand-banks. At the height of the rains this
is entirely flooded. Still lower, the rocky valley sides entirely
disappear, and the clayey banks sink below the mean water-level, the
rivers becoming more and more narrow, and diminishing in depth until
they are finally lost, each in its own belt of swamp, which forms a sea
of grass, “Um Suf” [fleecy reeds], and papyrus.
Lieutenant Dyé, in his description, divides the estuary or drainage
channel of the Bahr-al-Ghazal below Mashra-ar-Rak into three sections,
each with its particular characteristics, the general trend of the
estuary, however, below Mashra-ar-Rak being north, then northeast, and
lastly east. The first section near Mashra-ar-Rak is at times of great
width, as at the expansion known as Lake Ambady or Ambach. There is
much floating vegetation, and the channels frequently change with the
winds. The depth is nowhere greater than thirteen feet in this section,
which is distinguished as the region of lakes, lagoons, and reed-beds.
In the second section, characterised by the growth of papyrus, the
channel becomes much narrower, and reaches depths of twenty feet and
more, though the figures given by former travellers seem somewhat
exaggerated. The width becomes greater again in the last section,
the banks of which are, as a rule, marked by ant-hills covered with
brushwood. Schweinfurth was mistaken in saying that the current
of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is imperceptible, for, except in expansions
and side branches, some movement can always be traced, and in the
narrowest section it reaches a speed of one mile and a quarter an hour.
A remarkable characteristic of the region is the small variation of
water-level between the seasons, owing to the impounding of the water
in the marshes. The maximum flood-level occurs on the Bahr-al-Ghazal in
November and December, or two months later than that on the Sue, and
various facts are quoted showing the slight effect which a rise in the
upper courses of the streams has on the water-level of the swamp region.
[Illustration: A STERNWHEEL STEAMBOAT.
Forcing its way up the Jur (Sue) or main affluent of the
Bahr-al-Ghazal.]
Given their resources and the distance they had to traverse (from
Loango on the West Coast to Fashoda on the Nile, and afterwards to
Abyssinia and Somaliland via the Congo, Ubangi, Mbomu, Sue, and
Bahr-al-Ghazal), the enemies they had to encounter, the allies they
had to win, the privations they had to endure: the journey of Marchand
and his companions is one of the most splendid feats in African
exploration, and well deserves the admiration accorded to it in France
and England.