home-sick criminal had disappeared in the night, so the body of my tent
had to go by the board, a severe loss, as afterwards transpired. During
this day's march and a part of the next, the population changed
entirely, the well-bred Dinkas giving place to a miserable fishing-folk,
who are presumably the Woatsch spoken of, as reported to live here, by
Sir S. Baker. They are an extraordinary people, of a very low stage of
civilization, and showed abject terror at the sight of beads and cloth.
I imagine they took me for a god, as each village, man, woman, and
child, persisted in escorting me for a mile or so, doing the honours
with a deafening chant, and continually pointing to the sun; this,
though very flattering, hardly acted as a sedative on my fever, and I
was heartily thankful to leave them behind; at one spot there must have
been fully five hundred men who formed a solid phalanx round me, and
sang at the top of their voices for a distance of two miles. They
appeared not to have the remotest conception of barter, and hid their
faces when I produced any of my trade goods, so that it was impossible
to buy any food. Even during the night small bands approached to a
respectful distance and chanted, and at one watering-place about a
hundred loathsome hags danced a wild fandango around me, uttering the
shrillest cries conceivable, and accompanying them with a measured
flap-flap of their long pendant dugs; then, as a grand finale, all threw
themselves on their faces at my feet, and with one ear-piercing shriek
dispersed into the bush, leaving me under the impression that I was in
the Drury Lane pantomime, outside two bottles of champagne. Never in
all Africa had I met such embarrassing and impossible people. In the
intervals of these trying performances I noticed that the country was
slightly more elevated, and that there was a profusion of large trees.
This would be the best position for a Government station. But it soon
settled down again into the dismal flat of sun-baked clay, thorn, and
palm-scrub, which in places recedes, leaving large plains that are
flooded in ordinary seasons; here there were numbers of small buck, and
I saw a beautiful male _Cobus maria_. It was a most handsome little
beast, and was running with a large herd of other waterbuck, and had the
same action as the Uganda kob. I was much disappointed, from lack of
porterage, to lose the opportunity of procuring such a rare specimen.
The variety of aquatic birds was enormous; amongst others, a beautiful
black-and-white ibis; but I looked in vain for _Balaeniceps rex_. The
kites, marabouts, and vultures were a great nuisance. On several
occasions a kite actually took my dinner out of the frying-pan on the
fire while the cook's back was turned.
After the singing gentry, it was with no little relief that I met some
respectable Dinkas again with large herds of cattle; they, too, appeared
to be ignorant of the elements of barter, and it was only after an
hour's dumb-crambo business that they brought an antediluvian fish as a
feeler; this I immediately bought at great price, and then they realized
that there was something in the idea, and brought a good supply. They
have absolutely none of the fear of, and respect for, the white man that
one finds all over Africa except in the regions of Exeter Hall
legislation, but merely regard one as a great joke, and, on the whole,
not such a bad sort of fool. They are all the most inveterate,
pertinacious, and annoying beggars, and evince the greatest astonishment
when one refuses to distribute one's belongings gratis amongst them.
One in particular amused me, a 6 ft. 4 giant, who took a fancy to my
last pair of trousers, and when, pleading modesty, I refused his
request, he stamped and howled like a spoilt child. He then proceeded
to make himself very objectionable, and forced his way into my tent,
refused to quit, and brandished his club. This was too much, so I
suddenly took him by the scruff of the neck and the seat of where he
wished my trousers to be, and, trusting in the superiority of a beef and
beer diet over one of fish and thin milk, to his intense amazement, ran
him out of camp, and imparted a final impetus with a double-barrelled
drop-kick, backed by a pair of iron-shod ammunition boots. I was
surprised to find how weak he was, despite his colossal stature. The
others took it as a huge joke, and an hour afterwards he returned and
behaved himself very well, on the morrow guiding me for some miles.
From here the country changes completely, opening out into a limitless
plain, dotted here and there with clumps of borassus palm, growing on
small, flat-topped eminences which are the only possible
camping-grounds. The channel (which I christened the Gertrude Nile, and
which had never hitherto been more than half a mile from the bush) bends
away to the west and spreads out into large marshes, though its course
is still obvious, and the plain, which is a mass of matted, half-burnt
reed, hippo and elephant holes, is scored with numerous channels of
water and mud, and towards the bush, which is soon at least fifteen
miles from the river, is covered with small ant-hills. There is an
enormous population on these plains, with huge herds of cattle and
goats, though it is impossible to say where they live, and they are
wonderfully clever at hiding their cattle, and light smoke fires to
prevent them from making a noise. I marched for hours without seeing a
native, but when pitching camp I could see hundreds and hundreds
advancing in Indian file from all directions, or if I took a line that
led far from water, a group would appear like magic to put me right.
There was something uncanny about knowing that one was watched by
hundreds without ever seeing more than an occasional individual perched
on one leg, the other foot resting on his knee, on the top of a far
ant-hill, and looking like a long black stork. The first day that I
camped in the plain I was visited by at least a thousand natives.
With the exception of one or two slight fracas with my boys, they were
well-behaved, and I bought a large supply of fish; but the second day
about fifteen hundred turned up, and having nothing to sell, became very
obstreperous. They tried to steal, so I ordered the vicinity of my tent
to be cleared, and hustled several fairly roughly. One turned on me,
and I knocked him down, cutting my hand badly on his teeth. They took
my rough handling very well, but immediately resented any movement of my
boys, and one silly young blood danced a dangerous war-dance,
brandishing his spear round one of my Askaris, till I broke it for him,
and gave him two or three reminders with a heavy hippo-whip. They then
became very much excited, and I spent the rest of the afternoon with my
hand on my revolver, momentarily expecting a general _emeute_, when, no
doubt, we should have fared badly. Fortunately, there were two
respectable old gentlemen who did their best to keep the younger blades
quiet. One man bolted with a bit of cloth; a miss-fire from my .303
saved his life, and one of the old gentlemen, not knowing that I had
pulled the trigger, signed to me to hold, and had the cloth fetched
back; he then succeeded in clearing the camp of about half the turbulent
rabble, for which I was very thankful. They then began to slowly file
off, but about a hundred, including some of the most noisy ruffians,
remained; these I quickly cleared with a heavy whip in one hand and my
revolver in the other. They did not like the whip and smiled at the
revolver, evidently thinking it a sort of club, till I shot a confiding
marabout which was watching the proceedings, when there was a race for
first place to less dangerous quarters.
On the march we came upon a belated hippo out on the plain, and there
was a great hunt, about two hundred natives chasing him and plunging
their spears into his body, till at last, covered with blood, he turned
to bay, when I finished him off with a shot in the head.
A few miles further on I shot a Senegal hartebeeste, which gave us a
supply of meat. On the third day we succeeded in shaking off our too
attentive friends, and although we marched for six hours only made seven
miles, owing to the necessity of feeling one's way round the swamps and
the difficult nature of the ground. In many places the burnt vegetation
was of the consistency of coke, and severely cut my boys' feet. The
plain still widened, and the Gertrude Nile tended more decidedly towards
the west. The bush was no longer visible, but to the west of the swamps
there appeared to be a slight ridge with a dense covering of borassus.
We camped near a cattle village, and the people seemed friendly, though,
as usual, somewhat turbulent. Two came into the camp after dark,
evidently to see if we were on the alert, and were summarily ejected.
In the morning about a hundred came and gave considerable trouble, and
persisted in following us on the march. I noticed that two or three
were closing round each of my boys, while at the same time about twenty
were packing behind me. I turned round to drive them off, when my fools
of Watonga were suddenly seized with a panic, and, throwing their loads
down, ran towards me, shouting, "We are all lost!" Of course that
started the game, and my best Congo soldier fell, stabbed to the heart,
and two more went down with cracked skulls. I took the chief and his
right-hand man with a double barrel, then turning round, found my boy
had bolted with my revolver. At the same moment a Dinka hurled his
spear at me; I dodged it, but he rushed in and dealt me a swinging blow
with his club, which I fortunately warded with my arm, receiving no more
damage than a wholesome bruise. I poked my empty gun at his stomach,
and he turned, receiving a second afterwards a Dum-dum in the small of
his back. Then they broke and ran, my army with eight guns having
succeeded in firing two shots. I climbed up a high ant-hill that was
close, and could see them watching at about three hundred yards for our
next move, which was an unexpected one, for I planted a Dum-dum
apparently in the stomach of one of the most obtrusive ruffians, whom I
recognized by his great height. They then hurried off and bunched at
about seven hundred yards, and another shot, whether effectual or not I
could not see, sent them off in all directions, and the battle was
finished. It was all over in a shorter time than it takes to tell the
tale, but while it lasted it was fairly warm. I never expected to see
my happy home again, nor did I feel much happier when I had time to look
round. I was alone; at my feet lay my Congo Askari, in the last
spasmodic shudder of death; a few yards away lay three more of my men,
streams of blood slowly trickling from gaping wounds in their heads.
The distorted figures of the three Dinkas, shot at close quarters, were
the only other breaks in the dismal monotony of the marsh. I shouted,
and slowly--one by one--my miserable curs emerged from patches of reed
and bog-holes. Then the three wounded came-to from their swoon; one was
very slightly hurt, but the other two were quite mad for days after. It
was necessary, therefore, to throw away still more of our belongings.
There was only one thing that could go, and that was Sharp's 60g.
Holland and Holland paradox, half of which is peacefully reposing under
some scrub, while the other half is at the bottom of a mud-hole. After
dressing the heads of the two soldiers, who, with the trifling exception
of insanity, did not seem much the worse, one for a gash 2 in. long and
down to the bone on his temple, and the other for two gaping holes on
the top of his skull, we hurried on, fearing the Dinkas might return _en
masse_. But they contented themselves with watching us, and when I
dropped the topmost man of a bunch of five on an ant-hill at six hundred
yards, they only made further observations at a distance of a mile.
The news spread like wildfire, for, several miles further on, when
passing within half a mile of a village, a band of ten old men came
towards me, waving their arms in the air to show that they were unarmed.
I went to meet them, and when quite close they started the old singing
business, so I hurried off, after treating them to several arams with an
attempted pacific intonation. They then sent milk after me, but I waved
them off, thinking it advisable to try by forced marches to break the
line of communication.
Shortly afterwards, crossing a swamp on a dangerous bridge of weed burnt
to the water level, I saw a specimen of _Balaeniceps rex_ standing quite
close to me. I was on the point of firing, when a hippo put his head
through the bridge at about ten yards, and regretfully I had to shoot
him instead for his beef. Half a dozen Dinkas appeared, and, after
making a great pacific demonstration, approached and helped to finish
him off. He took several shots, and each time I fired they ran to a
distance of at least two hundred yards, so they had evidently heard of
the morning's proceedings. After cutting off some meat we continued our
march, and it was not till 4 p.m. that I found another place where it
was possible to camp, having buried most of my beads on the road to
further lighten the loads. For the same purpose, in the evening I made
a distribution of cloth and burnt a quantity, together with all my boys'
rags.
[Illustration: THERE WERE NUMBERS OF DINKAS FISHING HERE.]
The night passed peacefully, though I thought it advisable to put on a
double sentry, and on the morrow, weary of swamps, I struck east towards
the great burnt plain, and then marched due north, trusting to luck for
water. I found numerous holes where the water had not quite dried up,
and met many isolated groups of desponding natives spearing a loathsome
four-legged reptile or fish, some of which, for lack of more delicate
fare, I had to eat; and after marching for about fifteen miles, I again
came on extensive swamps which stretched far to the east, and seemed
likely to give me much trouble, if not to effectually prevent me going
further. Being totally ignorant of the country, and without means of
asking the simplest question of the natives, I had been fearing all
along that I should arrive at some impassable obstacle. I was very
anxious on this point, as it would have been impossible to return.
Arriving unexpectedly on the edge of the first pool, I found it one mass
of small duck, with a spur-winged goose standing up in the middle. I
fired at him with my .303, and he dropped, the bullet striking him with
most unusual noise. My boy, wading in, returned not only with the
goose, but also two duck. The bullet had struck the goose's back,
removing his intestines and half his breast, then cut off the head and
broken the wing of No. 1 duck, and neatly cleaned No. 2. It was a
Dum-dum, and must have exploded like a shell. I have often noticed that
the bullets with the most penetration, such as the solid, nickel-coated,
and the Dum-dum, shatter small animals and birds more effectually than
the more expansive bullets, such as the Jeffrey and the lead-nose. This
stroke of luck provided a very welcome change to my mournful diet of
doubtful fish, occasional milk flavoured with cow's urine, which is used
for washing the dairy utensils, and a strange cheese of my own
manufacture.
We camped on the top of a layer of burnt vegetation overlying a morass,
and my tent nearly disappeared in the night, while I was seized with
furious bouts of vomiting, caused by the quantity of salt in the water.
To make matters more cheerful, I discovered that my last two tins of
tobacco were mouldy, and I only wished that I could enjoy it as much as
the mosquitoes appeared to do, who settled in clouds on the rim of my
pipe waiting their turn for a space on my epidermis. Several either
climbed inside or bit me through a pair of ammunition boots. I had a
severe cold and a stiff arm; my cook boy had dysentery; one of the Congo
soldiers had a dreadful foot, which rendered walking a terrible torture;
and the two gentlemen with cracked skulls were semi-delirious, so that,
on the whole, we were a jovial party, our joviality being materially
increased by the impossibility of making a fire, owing to lack of fuel.
In the morning we repeated the same tactics, and after finding plenty of
water early in the march, only reached a camping-place at sunset. The
country became slightly more cheerful, several trees about the
dimensions of a healthy cabbage appearing on the horizon, and I saw the
spoor of several giraffe, though where the giraffe themselves contrived
to hide was more than I could guess. Our camp was near a large village
where there were at least one thousand five hundred head of cattle,
besides sheep and goats, and the chief brought me a fine fat bull-calf,
which settled the nervous question of food for two days. These people,
too, had evidently heard of the fracas, and only approached my camp in
small bands, for which I was very grateful.
There were numbers of Dinkas fishing here. Their method is as follows:
About a dozen men, each taking a large basket open at the bottom and
with a hole at the top, advance in line through the shallow portions of
the lagoon. Grasping the basket by the hole at the top, they dash it
down on to the mud in front of them. I suppose if they catch a fish
inside they pull it out of the hole at the top. I never saw them catch
one, although they appeared to be quite hopeful.
The styles of coiffure affected by the Southern Dinkas had now changed,
the prevailing fashion being to wear the hair long and frizzed out like
a mop, while some of the young exquisites caked it with a white clay
brought out to a peak behind. The rambling village, with its groups of
figures and long lines of home-coming cattle dimly seen in the smoke of
a hundred fires as I approached at sunset, was very picturesque.
*CHAPTER XXI.*
*IN NUERLAND.*
The following two days I still kept to the plain, on the first day
finding plenty of water, and camping near a mud-trough where the water
was flowing west; but on the second day we wandered into a waterless
wilderness, and taking a north-west course marched for hours before we
reached a stream. Our sufferings were intolerable, increased as they
were by the salt nature of the water which we had been drinking for
days. Half the boys fell by the road, and lay helpless till relieved by
the water I sent back. I was beginning to despair of saving them, when
from the only ant-hill for miles I saw a flight of birds, and after an
hour's sharp burst I arrived at a large vlei, where to my joy I found
that the water was flowing north, and was less salt. At an early stage
of that day's march I had to leave yet another load. Soon after
starting I saw a herd of at least four hundred hartebeeste, and on the
vlei, where we camped, the numbers of ducks, geese, and pelicans were
extraordinary. At my first shot I killed two large spurwings, and a few
more rounds provided geese for all the camp, while I revelled in the
luxury of _pate de foie maigre_; but the little plump teal, knowing that
I had no shot-gun, kept flighting backwards and forwards in thousands.
Two guns might have had an evening's sport that they would have
remembered for a lifetime. A few miles from camp I met some Nuer who
had come to meet me. The chief, who was very sociable, though, like
all, an incorrigible beggar, had been to Fashoda in the old times, and
again my classic Arabic came into play. He asked after Emin, and seemed
surprised to hear of his death, and also after Wadelai and Lado, and was
particularly anxious to know if there was still a zariba at Bohr. He
laid great stress on this point, asking me over and over again, so I
imagined he wished to verify reports he had received of the flight of
the Dervishes.
The following day I marched to the junction of the Kohr with the
Bahr-el-Zaraf. In Justus Perthe's old map it is suggested that this
Kohr is the outlet of the streams crossed by Lupton Bey in the hills
east of Gondokoro. This cannot be so, as the natives at Bohr assured me
that there was no water many days east; and if these streams are the
feeders of this Kohr, they must, by the contour of the country, pass
close to Bohr. Nor could the channel be dry, as the Kohr held plenty of
water. Hence I am inclined to think that Lupton's streams either flow
into the Nile south of Bohr, or pass down the other side of the
watershed into the Pibro, the largest tributary of the Sobat. As Lupton
went overland from Gondokoro to Bohr, and does not mark any significant
feeder of the Nile, it is probable that the latter hypothesis is
correct. That is, that they flow into the vast marsh recently located
as the headwaters of the Pibro. If this is correct, the Kohr must also
drain out of the Pibro marsh, in which case the country between the
Sobat and the Bahr-el-Zaraf is an island.
The whole length of the bank was cut up with giraffe and elephant spoor,
and as I could see for miles and miles in every direction and never saw
one, I suppose they come great distances for water. The Kohr, though
evidently from the exposed mud-flats of considerable width in the rains,
was here not more than twenty yards wide and four feet deep; and the
numbers of hippo and clouds of pelicans and cranes made sleep almost
impossible.
The surrounding country assumed a little more character, long lines of
palm-trees enlivening the awful monotony of that heart-breaking plain.
The Nuer, though well-set-up, appear not to have the same unusual
stature as the Dinkas; they wear circlets of cowries round their hair,
which they grow long like a mop; the woolly buttons of the negroid,
though visible from time to time up till now, have quite disappeared.
Nothing impressed me so much as the vast flocks of birds. With five
shots from a rifle I killed three geese, eight duck, and two pelicans,
and that from camp: had I fired at some of the flocks I saw on the march
I might have doubled the result.
Following the river, which has a very devious course, I saw large
numbers of natives, and they were all very friendly, insisting on
indulging in the trying practice of spitting in one's hand or on one's
chest, which signifies intense respect; the Dinkas have the same
objectionable custom.
For two days I saw numbers of natives with large herds of cattle and
plenty of small palm-tree canoes, but a very limited supply of grain,
and on the third day I came to a small Kohr with about a dozen large
villages. Hundreds of natives came out to meet me, and I had some
difficulty in driving them off, as, confident in their numbers, they
were inclined to be boisterous.
A few miles further on, one of my Congolese soldiers, who, against all
orders, lagged behind a few minutes, mysteriously disappeared, and an
exhaustive search failed to find any trace either of him or of natives.
The country was very open, and he was carrying a rifle, so they must
have spirited him away very cleverly. From here to the mouth of the
Zaraf there is only one village, so that for food I was entirely
dependent on my rifle. At first there was no difficulty, as the river
swarmed with hippo, and there were numbers of hartebeeste, Mrs. Gray's
waterbuck, leucotis, reedbuck, waterbuck, and roan. A magnificent bull
of the latter species I at first took to be a sable, owing to the
extraordinary length of his horns, and with the cussedness of his kind
he stood and watched us all pass at a distance of thirty yards. But for
several days afterwards I had the greatest difficulty in obtaining meat,
subsisting entirely on pelicans, one day being even reduced to marabout
soup, and it was not till within thirty miles of the mouth that I again
came into a game country, where the bush comes down to the river. Here
I saw numerous giraffe, and one day marched for hours through small
herds of cow elephant. It was curious that I saw nothing but bulls on
the Nile swamps, while on the Zaraf there were huge numbers of breeding
cows, and I only saw the spoor of a very few bulls, and those were
mostly small. For days the muddy tide rolls slowly on between banks of
sun-baked mud, unrelieved by swamps or vegetation. The flocks of birds
no more break the depressing monotony, naught but great, loathly
crocodiles, that slip without a sound into the turgid flow, bald-pated
marabouts, and screaming kites. No sign of hope; a vast reserve for
God's foulest creatures, and a fitting one. Ye gods, what a land! The
old boyhood's desire to shriek and break something that invariably
recurred on Sunday morning broke out afresh, and I felt that I was near
that indefinable boundary beyond which is madness.
About thirty miles south of the Abiad an extensive Kohr, which was dry
when I passed, flows into the Zaraf. Close by there is a small ridge a
few feet above the level of the surrounding country; here I camped and
saw a great variety of game. Four giraffe came and peered over a bush
at me while I was having my bath, and thoroughly enjoyed the novel
spectacle. They showed no inclination to move away, and I had a
splendid chance of having a good look at them. The situation was
quaint. It struck me as an admirable study for Rene Bull or Mr.
Shepherd.