ARRIVED AT KASSALA—DESCRIPTION OF KASSALA—WE BUY CAMELS
AND HORSES—THE MUDIR GIVES A DINNER—JULES’ DEATH AND
BURIAL—HYÆNAS—ARAB PATIENTS—MAHOOM’S HISTORY—DEMETRIUS MOSCONAS
ON SLAVERY—MENAGERIE AT KASSALA.
We arrived at Kassala at 8 p.m., and found the camp pitched about a
quarter of a mile, or less, from it, close to a garden full of fine trees
of various kinds; in fact, between this garden and a very wide river bed.
This river is here called the Gash, but nearer to Abyssinia it is called
the Mareb. Jules’ exhaustion and pulseless condition was most alarming. I
succeeded in obtaining some eggs and milk; these I mixed with brandy, and
had this mixture administered to him every half-hour.
Whilst we were dining, at 9 p.m., we heard the peculiar cry of hyænas,
which literally swarm round the camp at night and make an awful row. I
daresay there would be 150 or 200 come round every night after dark, and
when we retired to our tents, and the lights were put out, they would
not only come close to, but actually into the camp; I can assure the
reader that I am not, as it is called, drawing the long bow when I say
that I have seen one poke his head in at my tent door more than once. We
remained here many days, and sometimes the hyænas would be so troublesome
and noisy that it was a by no means uncommon thing for one of us to
get up in the night, go to the edge of the camp in our night-shirt and
discharge the contents of one or two barrels into the noisy crowd. This
had a quieting effect, and we often found one or two dead hyænas in the
morning, the rest having scampered off.
We found Kassala a very warm place, for in the middle of January the
thermometer registered 90° in the shade. It is situated about 1,900 feet
above the level of the sea, is surrounded by a wall made of mud bricks
baked in the sun, and plastered over with mud and the refuse of cows.
The wall is loop-holed for musketry, and surrounded by a deep fosse. The
exports of the Soudan are ivory, hides, gum arabic, senna, bees’ wax, and
honey—the latter obtained chiefly from the Abyssinian border.
The Kassala Mountain, which is just outside Kassala, is an enormous,
almost perpendicular, mass of granite, several thousand feet in height,
rising straight out of the plain, and can be seen for many miles in all
directions. The population was in 1882, something like 25,000, without
reckoning the garrison, which consisted of about 1,000 Nubian troops.
There are large numbers of cows, goats, sheep, and camels in the
neighbourhood, and a great deal of camel-breeding is carried on here.
When I left England, the thought occurred to me that it would be a good
idea to take out some knives, razors, beads, and so forth, both as
presents and for barter. I, therefore, provided myself with some common
knives, about a dozen of a better class, and half-dozen hunting-knives
from Mr. T. B. Hague, of Sheffield; a couple of dozen of Mappin and
Webb’s, and Heiffer’s shilling razors, which were much prized by the
Arabs. These I found very useful at Kassala, as I bartered some of them
for a dozen beautiful long ostrich feathers, and a handful of shorter
ones. The natives were well pleased, and so was I.
January 8th.—We were now comfortably encamped, but, alas! too late for
Jules, who was fearfully emaciated and prostrate. I visited his tent
twice in the night, at one and four o’clock, but could do very little
more for him, and I fear he will soon go. All the camels that we hired
at Souâkin will have to return there with their drivers. One reason our
friends preceded us to Kassala was to let it be known that we wanted
to buy or hire camels. The result was not exactly what we anticipated,
for they kept them back awhile. When at last they were brought for
inspection, the most extravagant prices were demanded, whilst many
of them were absolute screws. We also required a few little horses
for hunting purposes; the dealers were as knowing as horse-dealers in
England, and that is saying a great deal.
January 9th.—Jules is evidently sinking fast. I visited his tent five
times in the night, but could do little for him beyond giving him drink
twice. Mr. W. James and Mr. Aylmer had taken lessons in photography
before leaving England, and were each provided with a good apparatus.
With these they took many interesting views in different parts of the
country. This day the Mudir (Governor) of Kassala sent his two little
boys and ponies to be photographed. Whilst we were at breakfast to-day
an Arab brought two playful little leopards, which he had stolen from
their nest. I could have bought them for a couple of dollars each, and
probably should have done so had I been on my way home. The Mudir paid
us a visit at noon, inviting us all to dine with him; but Mr. Phillipps
and I could not go on account of Jules’s illness, which now will be of
short duration. I understood afterwards from those who did go that the
dinner consisted of 15 or 18 courses. About 5 p.m. I visited Jules, and
found him asleep, but evidently sinking. Mahoom, who was my servant
during the whole campaign—and a very good boy he was, too—attended well
to him, and frequently sat up at nights with him. At 10 p.m. poor Jules
breathed his last. The particulars of his illness, together with other
curious and interesting medical notes, can be found in an article of mine
in the _British Medical Journal_, September 23rd and 30th, 1882. As soon
as he was dead I washed and laid him out. M. Demetrius Mosconas, a Greek
living in Kassala, was good enough to at once see about some kind of
coffin, covered with black cloth, shaped thus—[Illustration] This was to
be sent early in the morning.
January 10th.—At 10 a.m. the coffin was brought. Jules was put in it. On
the corpse were laid sprays of green shrubs all round. At 11.30 he was
carried to his last resting-place by natives, all of us following; the
Union Jack being placed on the coffin. The weather was fearfully hot,
and the roads very dusty. He was buried in a garden where three other
Christians had been buried. Mr. F. L. James read the burial service, and
we remained by the grave until it was filled up, which was very quickly
done in the following manner: The earth had been thrown up each side of
the grave, eight Arabs stood each side with their backs to the grave, and
as soon as the word was given they, with their hands, pushed the earth
between their legs, filling the grave within about ten minutes. A cross
was afterwards made of ebony by Mr. Phillipps, and placed at the head of
the grave. This concluded our last duty to poor Jules.
When we returned to camp, four horses and four camels were bought; after
lunch Messrs. Colvin and A. James, with Suleiman and a few servants,
started off for the Atbara in quest of camels, as these people were
holding theirs back in the hopes of making a good thing by so doing.
Korasi, on the Atbara, is considered one of the cheapest and best places
to buy camels.
January 11th.—Soon after my arrival at Kassala it became known that there
was a “Hakeem Ingelese,” as they called me, and I very soon found that
my patients daily increased in number. Every morning after breakfast
there was I, wearing my pith helmet, in the broiling sun, with Mahoom
as interpreter, for two hours or more attending to a large number of
Arabs—men, women, and children—who squatted round my tent on their
haunches in a semicircle. I frequently saw 60, 70, or 80 patients a day.
I did not charge them anything; probably, had I done so I should have
materially thinned out the applicants for medical and surgical relief. It
is a strange thing, but human nature is (in some respects) pretty much
the same in Central Africa as it is in England.
Ali Mahoom’s history, poor boy, was not, in early life, a very bright
one, as he was stolen by the slave-dealers. He said—
“I remember very well, sir, when dey took me. My mother was out when a
lot of mens come down and took all de little childrens dey see. Dey took
me with dem to Khartoum, and dere my mother found me. Dey let her stop
with me for a long time. She begged dem to let her have her little boy
back, but dey say, ‘No, unless you steal two little children; den you
shall have him back.’ Den I was sold to somebody else; after dat Gordon
Pasha find me, and he take me and give me to Mr. Felkin, and he has
been good to me ever since.” He gave me the name of the country he came
from, but I forget it, adding, “It is the next country but one to the
Niam-Niams.”
I had heard they were cannibals, so I said to Mahoom—
“What do they eat, Mahoom?”
“Dey eat de flesh of beobles,” he replied.
“But,” I said, “why don’t they eat antelopes and other animals?”
“Dey say de flesh of beobles is much nicer,” he replied.
He, of course, was disgusted with them. I found also that if a relation
dies they bury that relation in close relation to them, that is, at the
entrance to the hut; and if a baby, they send it to the relatives they
have most respect for, and these relatives, to show their respect for
their friends, eat the baby—cooked, I presume, but that I am not sure of.
About noon M. Demetrius Mosconas (who spoke English fairly well, and
is, in a certain sense, a brother) asked me to go and see his son, who
was very ill. I did so, and found him suffering from acute rheumatism.
Mosconas, it seems, was engaged by the Government in sinking wells in
some outlying districts, and his son, who partly superintended this work,
must have contracted this disease by sleeping out, as, although the days
were very hot, the nights were often excessively cold, and I have often
known the thermometer sink from 90° at 1.30 p.m. to 45° or lower by 11
p.m.
I had a talk with Mosconas about slavery, and learnt very conclusively
that it exists pretty openly in this part of the Soudan. He informed
me that the woman (his servant) who had just brought us two small cups
of coffee was a slave, one of a dozen owned by an Arab woman, and she
realized a living by letting them out on hire. He paid three dollars
per month for the hire of this slave. He also told me that Georgie Bey,
an Arab Army doctor, who left Kassala for Khartoum the day before our
arrival, sold two of his slaves before he went. This Georgie Bey was
since killed with Hicks Pasha’s army near Souâkin.
Another bit of information which Mosconas gave me was that some Arabs and
Greeks breed from slave-women, who are kept for profit just as cattle are
in England. The children born under these circumstances are sold by their
fathers.
Having had a long chat with Mosconas, I next paid a visit to Herr
Schumann’s collection of wild animals. I found a large building and yard
occupied by them. Schumann himself was away some distance from Kassala,
amongst the Beni-Amir tribe, where he had a zareeba. He collected animals
there, and sent them on to his manager at Kassala. Just before the rainy
season commenced, about May, he would go on himself, with quite an army
of attendants, across the Nubian Desert to Souâkin with his collection;
then take them to London, Liverpool, Hamburg, Vienna, and America, where
they would be sold. Here he had four giraffes, four gazelles, three fine
antelopes, as tame as lambs, a nice, amiable little baby elephant, five
young lions, chained to rickety old posts, which rattled up, as they
darted at a passer-by, in a very alarming manner, nine infant leopards,
two or three young hyænas, eight ostriches, some wild hogs, baboons,
tiger-cats, and other animals.