THE WHITE NILE.
Explorations of the White Nile—Dr. Knoblecher’s Voyage in
1849-50—The Lands of the Shillooks and Dinkas—Intercourse with
the Natives—Wild Elephants and Giraffes—The Sobat River—The
Country of Marshes—The Gazelle Lake—The Nuehrs—Interview
with the Chief of the Kyks—The Zhir Country—Land of the
Baris—The Rapids Surmounted—Arrival at Logwek, in Lat.
4° 10′ North—Panorama from Mt. Logwek—Sources of the
White Nile—Character of the Bari Nation—Return of the
Expedition—Fascination of the Nile.
Let me here pause a moment, at the turning-point of my journey, and
cast a glance up the grand and wonderful vista which the White Nile
opened to my view. The exploration of this river within the last fifteen
years constitutes the most interesting chapter in the annals of African
Discovery. It has been ascended to lat. 4° north, eight degrees of
latitude, or four hundred and eighty geographical miles—and at least
eight hundred miles, following the course of the stream—beyond the
island of Aba. Of the Europeans who at different times accompanied the
exploring fleets of Mohammed Ali or the annual trading expeditions, three
kept journals and made scientific observations, and two—D’Arnaud and
Werne—have published accounts of the voyage. Werne’s book, however, is
taken up with peevish comments on the conduct of D’Arnaud and Sabatier,
and the report of the former, as I learned from Dr. Knoblecher himself,
is incorrect in many particulars. The most satisfactory account is that
of Dr. Knoblecher, who ascended about fifty miles beyond the point
reached by previous expeditions. During my stay in Khartoum, I received
from him full particulars of his adventures, and was allowed to inspect
his journals and sketch-books. His reports are exceedingly curious and
interesting, and I herewith present a brief outline of them.
Dr. Knoblecher was specially educated, in the Propaganda at Rome, as a
missionary for Central Africa. After studying the Arabic language for
a year in Syria, he proceeded to Khartoum, where a Catholic Mission
had already been established. There, however, the Mission found its
sphere of operations circumscribed by the jealousy of the government,
as all attempts to make proselytes of Mussulmen are forbidden, and
the highest ambition of the slaves who are brought from the interior
is to be considered faithful followers of the Prophet. Dr. Knoblecher
was therefore directed to accompany the annual trading expedition up
the White Nile, for the purpose of ascertaining the practicability of
establishing a missionary station among some of the native negro tribes
near the Equator. He experienced much difficulty at the outset, on
account of the jealousy of the Egyptian traders, who find the company
of a European a restraint upon their violent and lawless practices, but
through the influence of the Pasha, who was at last brought to give his
consent, the missionaries secured a place in the expedition, and on the
13th of November, 1849, set sail from Khartoum. There were seven vessels
in the flotilla, and that of Dr. Knoblecher, though the smallest, proved
to be the best sailer and usually kept the lead. He had on board a
faithful and experienced Nubian pilot, named Suleyman Abou-Zeid.
After fourteen days’ sailing, the expedition passed the islands of the
Shillooks and reached that part of the river where the banks are covered
with continuous villages. The number of these is estimated at seven
thousand. It is worthy of notice that their circular tokuls of mud and
reeds are precisely similar in form and construction to those of the
tribes on the Niger and Senegal Rivers, with whom the Shillooks have
no communication, and from whom they differ in language, appearance
and character. While threading the mazes of the archipelago, a violent
whirlwind passed over the river and completely dismasted one of the
boats. Beyond the islands the river expands so that the marshy shores
are barely visible in some places. The lotus grows abundantly in the
shallows, and the appearance of the thousands of snowy blossoms as they
flash open at sunrise, is described as a scene of vegetable pomp and
splendor, which can be witnessed in no other part of the world. The
forests of sont trees which cover the islands give place to doum-palms
and immense tamarinds, and beyond lat. 10°, in the land of the Dinkas,
the beautiful dhelleb-palm is first seen. It has a tall, graceful trunk,
thick in the middle, but tapering towards the top and bottom, and a rich
crown of large, fan-like leaves.
On the twenty-eighth of November the expedition succeeded, after
some difficulty, in establishing an intercourse with the Dinkas and
Shillooks, who inhabited the opposite banks of the river. The latter in
consideration of some colored glass beads, furnished a number of oxen
for provisions. Dr. Knoblecher described their running, when they drove
the cattle together, as resembling that of the gazelle; they leap high
into the air, drawing up their long legs as they rise, and clear the
ground at a most astonishing speed. The next day the vessels reached a
large town called Vav, where the people received them without the least
appearance of fear, and brought quantities of elephants’ tusks to trade
for beads. Herds of wild elephants and giraffes were now frequently
seen on the banks of the river, and the former sometimes threw up their
trunks and spirted water into the air when they saw the vessels. Numbers
of white herons were perched composedly upon their backs and heads. The
giraffes, as they gazed with wonder at the fleet, lifted their heads
quite above the tops of the mimosa trees. On the second of December, the
expedition passed the mouth of the Sobat River, the only tributary stream
which comes to the White Nile from the east. Its source is supposed to be
in the country of the Gallas, south of the kingdom of Shoa. Its breadth,
at its entrance into the Nile, is six hundred and fifty feet. Werne, who
ascended it about eighty miles, with D’Arnaud’s expedition, states that
its shores are higher than those of the Nile, and that the surface of the
country became more elevated as he ascended, whence he infers that the
White Nile, as far as it has been explored, flows in a depressed basin of
the table-land of Central Africa.
From lat. 9° 26′ to 6° 50′ N. there is a complete change in the scenery.
The magnificent forests disappear, and the shores become marshy and
unhealthy, covered with tall grass, whose prickly stalks render landing
difficult, and embarrass the navigation of the shallows. The air is
heavy with noxious miasmas and filled with countless swarms of gnats
and mosquitoes. The water of the river is partially stagnant, and green
with vegetable matter, occasioning serious disorders to those who drink
it. Dr. Knoblecher clarified it by means of alum, and escaped with a sore
mouth. In order to sleep, however, he was obliged to wear thick gloves
and muffle up his face, almost to suffocation. The _Bahr el-Ghazàl_, or
Gazelle Lake, lies in lat. 9° 16′ N. It is thus named from the Gazelle
River, which flows into it on the western side, and which has never
yet been explored. Its depth is about nine feet, but the reeds and
water-plants with which it is filled reach to the surface, and render
the navigation difficult. Its shores are inhabited by the Nuehr negroes,
a stupid, imbruted race, many of whom are frequently carried off by the
traders and sold as slaves. For this reason it is now very difficult to
procure elephants’ teeth from them.
After leaving the Gazelle Lake, the course of the White Nile becomes
exceedingly tortuous, and its current sluggish. Innumerable estuaries,
or blind channels, which lose themselves among the reeds, perplexed the
pilots, and delayed the progress of the expedition. The land of the
Kyks succeeded to that of the Nuehrs, which terminated about the eighth
parallel of latitude. The former are a race of herdsmen, who have great
numbers of cattle and sheep. Dr. Knoblecher found them exceedingly shy,
on account of the threats of one of their _kogiurs_, or soothsayers, who
had warned them against holding any intercourse with the traders. On the
twenty-second of December they reached the village of Angwen, where the
King of the Kyks resided. The monarch received them with great kindness,
and paid distinguished homage to Padre Angelo Vinco, Dr. Knoblecher’s
companion, whom, on account of his spectacles and gray beard, he
took to be a magician. He begged the Padre to grant him four favors,
viz:—abundance of children; the death of the enemy who had slain his
father; victory in all his fights, and a cure for the wound in his head.
The latter gift was easily bestowed, by means of a plaster, but he was
not satisfied until an image of the Virgin had been hung around his neck.
South of the Kyks dwell the Elliàbs, who are less timid than the southern
tribes, because they come less frequently into contact with the traders.
In their country the White Nile divides into two branches, and here the
expedition separated, each division taking a different channel. The water
was so low that the vessels stuck fast in the mud, but were relieved by
the friendly natives, who dragged them through the shallows by means
of long tow-ropes. For this service they were paid in glass beads. The
further the vessels went into regions where intercourse with the Egyptian
traders is rare, and therefore fewer outrages are perpetrated, the more
friendly, confiding and unconcerned was the behavior of the natives.
On the thirty-first of December the expedition reached the country of the
Zhirs. The people came down to the water’s edge to greet them, the women
clapping their hands and singing a song of welcome. On the second of
January, 1850, Dr. Knoblecher saw in the south-east the granite mountain
of Nierkanyi, which lies in the Bari country, in about the fifth degree
of north latitude. It was the first elevation he had seen since leaving
Djebel Defafangh, in the country of the Dinkas, in lat. 10° 35′. All the
intervening space is a vast savannah, interspersed with reedy swamps of
stagnant water. The Zhirs own numerous flocks and herds, and cultivate
large fields of sesamè and dourra. They are very superior to the Nuehrs
and Kyks in stature, symmetry of form and their manners toward strangers.
In all these tribes, the men go entirely naked, while the women wear a
narrow girdle of sheepskin around the loins. Dr. Knoblecher, however,
confirmed the statement of Werne as to the modesty of their demeanor and
the evident morality of their domestic life.
After leaving the Zhirs the expedition entered the country of the Baris,
and on the fourteenth of January reached the rapids of the White Nile,
at the island of Tsanker, in 4° 49′ N. This was the farthest point
reached by all previous expeditions, as they found it impossible to
advance further with their vessels. The Nubian pilot, Suleyman Abou-Zeid,
determined to make the attempt, and on the following day, aided by a
strong north-wind, stemmed the rapid and reached the broad, lake-like
expanse of river above it. Continuing his voyage, Dr. Knoblecher sailed
sixteen miles further, to the Bari village of Tokiman. The country was
exceedingly rich and beautiful, abounding in trees, and densely peopled.
The current of the river was more rapid, its waters purer, and the
air seemed to have entirely lost the depressing miasmatic exhalations
of the regions further north. The inhabitants of Tokiman showed great
astonishment at the sight of the vessels and their white occupants.
Nothing, however, affected them so much as the tones of a harmonica,
played by Dr. Knoblecher. Many of the people shed tears of delight,
and the chief offered the sovereignty of his tribe in exchange for the
wonderful instrument.
On the sixteenth, the expedition reached the village of Logwek, which
takes its name from a solitary granite peak, about six hundred feet
high, which stands on the left bank of the Nile. It is in lat. 4° 10′
N., and this is the most southern point which has yet been reached on
the White Nile. Dr. Knoblecher ascended the mountain, which commanded a
view of almost the entire Bari country. Towards the south-west the river
wound out of sight between the mountains Rego and Kidi, near which is
the mountain of Kereg, containing rich iron mines which are worked by
the natives. Towards the south, on the very verge of the horizon, rose a
long range of hills, whose forms could not be observed with exactness,
owing to the great distance. Beyond the Logwaya range, which appeared
in the east, dwell the Berri tribes, whose language is distinct from
the Baris, and who are neighbors of the Gallas—that warlike race, whose
domain extends from Abyssinia to the wilds of Mozambique, along the great
central plateau of Uniamesi. The natives of Logwek knew nothing whatever
of the country to the south. The farthest mountain-range was probably
under the parallel of lat. 3° N., so that the White Nile has now been
traced nearly to the Equator. At Logwek, it was about six hundred and
fifty feet wide, and from five to eight feet deep, at the time of Dr.
Knoblecher’s visit, which was during the dry season. Such an abundance of
water allows us to estimate with tolerable certainty the distance to its
unknown sources, which must undoubtedly lie beyond the Equator.
The great snow mountain of Kilimandjarò, discovered in 1850 by Dr.
Krapf, the German missionary, on his journey inland from Mombas, on the
coast of Zanzibar, has been located by geographers in lat. 3° S. It is
therefore most probable that the source of the White Nile will be found
in the range of mountains, of which Kilimandjarò is the crowning apex.
The geographer Berghaus, in a long and labored article, endeavors to
prove that the Gazelle River is the true Nile, and makes it rise in the
great lake N’Yassi, in lat. 13° S. Dr. Knoblecher, however, who examined
the Bahr el-Ghazàl at its mouth, says it is an unimportant stream, with
a scarcely perceptible current. He considers the White Nile as being,
beyond all question, the true river. He also informed me, that, while at
Logwek, some of the natives spoke of people white like himself, who lived
far towards the south. I do not believe in the fable of a white civilized
race in the interior of Africa, and consider this rather as referring to
the Portuguese settlements on the coast of the Indian Ocean, reports of
which would readily be carried inland, from one tribe to another. Dr.
Knoblecher is of the opinion that no exploring expedition from Khartoum
will be successful; that the traveller must first stop in the Bari
country long enough to gain some knowledge of its people, and then, with
a company of the natives as his attendants, make that his starting point.
The shortness of Dr. Knoblecher’s stay among the Baris did not permit
him to obtain much information concerning them. They appeared to be
worshippers of trees, like the Dinkas and Shillooks, but to have a
glimmering idea of the future existence of the soul. They are brave and
fearless in their demeanor, yet cheerful, good-natured and affectionate
towards each other. Werne frequently observed the men walking along the
shore with their arms around each other’s necks. They are even more
colossal in their stature than the Shillooks, many of them reaching
a height of seven feet. Their forms are well-knit, symmetrical, and
indicate great strength and activity. In smelting and working up the
iron ore of Mount Kereg they show a remarkable skill. Many of the spears
in Dr. Knoblecher’s possession are as elegantly formed and as admirably
tempered as if they had come from the hands of a European blacksmith.
They also have war-clubs of ebony, which are nearly as hard and heavy as
iron. One end is of a sloping, oval form, and the other sharp, and they
are said to throw them a distance of fifty or a hundred yards with such
precision that the sharp point strikes first and the club passes through
the body like a lance. I have in my possession some of these clubs, which
were presented to me by Dr. Knoblecher.
On the seventeenth of January the expedition left Logwek on its return
to Khartoum, the traders having procured all the ivory which the natives
had collected since the previous year. The Missionaries were prevented
from accomplishing their object by the jealousy of the traders, who
persuaded the Bari chiefs that they were magicians, and that if they were
allowed to remain, they would bewitch the country, prevent the rains from
falling and destroy the crops of dourra. In consequence of these reports
the chiefs and people, who had been on the most friendly terms with Dr.
Knoblecher and Padre Angelo, suddenly became shy and suspicious, and
refused to allow the latter to take up their residence among them. The
design of the mission was thus frustrated, and the Vicar returned with
the expedition to Khartoum. He designed leaving for the Bari country
in November, 1852, but up to the present moment[5] no account has been
received of the fulfilment of his plans.
The pictures which these recent explorations present to us, add to the
stately and sublime associations with which the Nile is invested, and
that miraculous flood will lose nothing of his interest when the mystery
which veils his origin shall be finally dispelled. Although in standing
upon the threshold of his vast central realms, I felt that I had realized
a portion of my dream, I could not turn away from the vision of those
untrodden solitudes, crowned by the flashing snows of Kilimandjarò,
the monarch of African mountains, without a keen pang of regret. Since
Columbus first looked upon San Salvador, the Earth has but one emotion
of triumph left in her bestowal—and that she reserves for him who shall
first drink from the fountains of the White Nile, under the snow-fields
of Kilimandjarò.