'ON SAFARI'
Now the reader must really look at the map. To this point we have
proceeded by train and steamer with all the power and swiftness of
modern communication. If we have traversed wild and lonely lands, it
has been in a railway carriage. We have disturbed the lion with the
locomotive, and all our excursions have but led back to the iron road.
But at Ripon Falls we are to let go our hold upon machinery. Steam and
all it means is to be shut off. We are "to cut the painter," and,
losing the impulsion of the great ship, are for a while to paddle
about upon a vast expanse in a little cock-boat of our own. Back
towards Mombasa, three days' journey will cover nine hundred miles.
Forward, you will be lucky to make forty in the same time. Return at
this moment is swift and easy. In a week it will be perhaps
impossible. Going on means going through.
Everywhere great pathways are being cut into Africa. We have followed
for nearly a thousand miles one leading from the East towards the
centre. Far away from the North another line has been thrust forward
by British efforts in peace and war. From Alexandria to Cairo, from
Cairo to Wady Halfa, from Halfa to Berber, from Berber to Khartoum,
from Khartoum to Fashoda, from Fashoda to Gondokoro, over a distance
of nearly three thousand miles, stretches an uninterrupted service of
trains and steamers. But between the landing-stage at Jinja and the
landing-stage at Gondokoro there opens a wide gulf of yet unbridged,
unconquered wilderness and jungle, across which and through which the
traveller must crawl painfully and at a foot's pace, always amid
difficulty and never wholly without danger. It is this gulf which we
are now to traverse.
[Illustration: BETWEEN NIMULE AND GONDOKORO.
Capt. Read. Mr. Marsh. Dr. Goldie. Mr. Ormsby.
Col. Wilson. Mr. Churchill. Capt. Dickinson. Lieut.
Fishbourne, R.E.]
The distance from the Victoria to the Albert Nyanza is about two
hundred miles in the direct line, and it is all downhill. The Great
Lake is hoisted high above the highest hill-tops of England. From this
vast elevated inland sea the descending Nile water flows through a
channel of three thousand five hundred miles into the Mediterranean.
The first and steepest stage of its journey is to the Albert Lake.
This second body of water, which, except in comparison with the
Victoria Nyanza, would be impressive--it is more than a hundred miles
long--lies at an altitude of two thousand three hundred feet above the
sea. So that in its first two hundred miles the Nile exhausts in the
exuberant improvidence of youth about a third of the impulse which is
to carry it through its venerable career. Yet this considerable
descent of twelve hundred feet is itself accomplished in two short
steps. There is one series of rapids, thirty miles long, below the
Ripon Falls, and another of equal extent above the Murchison Falls.
Between these two declivities long reaches of open river and the wide,
level expanse of Lake Chioga afford a fine waterway.
Our journey from one great lake to the other divided itself therefore
into three stages. Three marches through the forest to Kakindu, the
first point where the Victoria Nile is navigable after the rapids;
three days in canoes along the Nile and across Lake Chioga; and,
lastly, five marches from the western end of Lake Chioga to the Albert
Nyanza. Beyond this, again, four days in canoes and steel
sailing-boats, towed by a launch, would carry us to Nimule, where the
rapids on the White Nile begin, and in seven or eight marches from
there we should reach the Soudan steamers at Gondokoro. About five
hundred miles would thus be covered in twenty days. It would take
about the same time, if trains and steamers fitted exactly, to return
by Mombasa and Suez to London.
Early in the morning of November 23rd our party set off upon this
journey. Travelling by marches from camp to camp plays a regular part
in the life of the average Central African officer. He goes "on
Safari" as the Boer "on trek." It is a recognized state of being,
which often lasts for weeks, and sometimes for months. He learns to
think of ten days' "Safari" as we at home think of going to Scotland,
and twenty days' "Safari" as if it were less than the journey to
Paris. "Safari" is itself a Swahili word of Arabic origin, meaning an
expedition and all that pertains to it. It comprises yourself and
everybody and everything you take with you--food, tents, rifles,
clothing, cooks, servants, escort, porters--but especially porters.
Out of the range of steam the porter is the primary factor. This
ragged figure, tottering along under his load, is the unit of
locomotion and the limit of possibility. Without porters you cannot
move. With them you move ten or twelve miles a day, if all is well.
How much can he carry? How far can he carry it? These are the
questions which govern alike your calculations and your fate.
Every morning the porters are divided into batches of about twenty,
each under its headman. The loads, which are supposed to average about
sixty-five pounds, are also roughly parcelled out. As each batch
starts off, the next rushes up to the succeeding heap of loads, and
there is a quarter of an hour of screaming and pushing--the strongest
men making a bee-line for the lightest-looking loads, and being beaten
off by the grim but voluble headman, the weakest weeping feebly beside
a mountainous pile, till a distribution has been achieved with rough
justice, and the troop in its turn marches off with indescribable
ululations testifying and ministering to the spirit in which they mean
to accomplish the day's journey.
While these problems were being imperfectly solved, I walked down
with the Governor and one of the Engineer officers to the Ripon Falls,
which are but half a mile from the Commissioner's house, and the sound
of whose waters filled the air. Although the cataract is on a moderate
scale, both in height and volume, its aspect--and still more its
situation--is impressive. The exit or overflow of the Great Lake is
closed by a natural rampart or ridge of black rock, broken or worn
away in two main gaps to release the waters. Through these the Nile
leaps at once into majestic being, and enters upon its course as a
perfect river three hundred yards wide. Standing upon the reverse side
of the wall of rock, one's eye may be almost on a plane with the
shining levels of the Lake. At your very feet, literally a yard away,
a vast green slope of water races downward. Below are foaming rapids,
fringed by splendid trees, and pools from which great fish leap
continually in the sunlight. We must have spent three hours watching
the waters and revolving plans to harness and bridle them. So much
power running to waste, such a coign of vantage unoccupied, such a
lever to control the natural forces of Africa ungripped, cannot but
vex and stimulate imagination. And what fun to make the immemorial
Nile begin its journey by diving through a turbine! But to our tale.
[Illustration: FOREST SCENE NEAR RIPON FALLS.]
The porters had by now got far on their road, and we must pad after
them through the full blaze of noon. The Governor of Uganda and his
officers have to return to Entebbe by the steamer, so it is here I bid
them good-bye and good luck, and with a final look at Ripon Falls,
gleaming and resounding below, I climb the slopes of the river bank
and walk off into the forest. The native path struck north-east from
the Nile, and led into a hilly and densely wooded region. The
elephant-grass on each side of the track rose fifteen feet high. In
the valleys great trees grew and arched above our heads, laced and
twined together with curtains of flowering creepers. Here and there a
glade opened to the right or left, and patches of vivid sunlight
splashed into the gloom. Around the crossings of little streams
butterflies danced in brilliant ballets. Many kinds of birds flew
about the trees. The jungle was haunted by game--utterly lost in its
dense entanglements. And I think it a sensation all by itself to walk
on your own feet, and staff in hand, along these mysterious paths,
amid such beautiful, yet sinister, surroundings, and realize that one
is really in the centre of Africa, and a long way from Piccadilly or
Pall Mall.
Our first march was about fourteen miles, and as we had not started
till the hot hours of the day were upon us, it was enough and to spare
so far as I was concerned. Up-hill and down-hill wandered our path,
now plunged in the twilight of a forest valley, now winding up the
side of a scorched hill, and I had for some time been hoping to see
the camp round every corner, when at last we reached it. It consisted
of two rows of green tents and a large "banda," or rest-house, as big
as a large barn in England, standing in a nice, trim clearing. These
"bandas" are a great feature of African travel; and the dutiful chief
through whose territory we are passing had taken pains to make them on
the most elaborate scale. He was not long in making his appearance
with presents of various kinds. A lanky, black-faced sheep, with a fat
tail as big as a pumpkin, was dragged forward, bleating, by two
retainers. Others brought live hens and earthenware jars of milk and
baskets of little round eggs. The chief was a tall, intelligent-looking
man, with the winning smile and attractive manners characteristic
of the country, and made his salutations with a fine air of dignity
and friendship.
[Illustration: PALM TREE NEAR THE ASUA.]
[Illustration: BANDA WITH ESCORT OF KING'S AFRICAN RIFLES.]
The house he had prepared for us was built of bamboo framework,
supported upon a central row of Y-shaped tree-stems, with a
high-pitched roof heavily thatched with elephant-grass, and walls of
wattled reeds. The floors of African "bandas" when newly made are
beautifully smooth and clean, and strewn with fresh green rushes; the
interior is often cunningly divided into various apartments, and the
main building is connected with kitchens and offices of the same
unsubstantial texture by veranda-shaded passages. In fact, they prove
a high degree of social knowledge and taste in the natives, who make
them with almost incredible rapidity from the vegetation of the
surrounding jungle; and the sensation of entering one of these lofty,
dim, cool, and spacious interiors, and sinking into the soft rush-bed
of the floor, with something to drink which is, at any rate, not
tepid, well repays the glaring severities of a march under an
Equatorial sun. The "banda," however, is a luxury of which the
traveller should beware, for if it has stood for more than a week it
becomes the home of innumerable insects, many of approved malevolence
and venom, and spirillum fever is almost invariably caught from
sleeping in old shelters or on disused camping-grounds.
Life "on Safari" is rewarded by a sense of completeness and
self-satisfied detachment. You have got to "do" so many miles a day,
and when you have "done" them your day's work is over. 'Tis a simple
programme, which leaves nothing more to be demanded or desired. Very
early in the morning, often an hour before daybreak, the bugles of the
King's African Rifles sounded rÈveille. Every one dresses hurriedly by
candle-light, eats a dim breakfast while dawn approaches; tents
collapse, and porters struggle off with their burdens. Then the march
begins. The obvious thing is to walk. There is no surer way of keeping
well in Uganda than to walk twelve or fourteen miles a day. But if the
traveller will not make the effort, there are alternatives. There is
the rickshaw, which was described in the last chapter--restful, but
tedious; and the litter, carried on the heads of six porters of
different sizes, and shifted every now and then, with a disheartening
jerk, to their shoulders and back again--this is quite as
uncomfortable as it sounds. Ponies cannot, or at least do not, live in
Uganda, though an experiment was just about to be made with them by
the Chief of the Police, who is convinced that with really careful
stable management, undertaken in detail by the owner himself, they
could be made to flourish. Mules have a better chance, though still
not a good one. We took one with us on the last spell of "Safari" to
Gondokoro, and were told it was sure to die; but we left it in
apparently excellent condition and spirits.
[Illustration: AN ENCAMPMENT.]
But the best of all methods of progression in Central Africa--however
astonishing it may seem--is the bicycle. In the dry season the paths
through the bush, smoothed by the feet of natives, afford an excellent
surface. Even when the track is only two feet wide, and when the
densest jungle rises on either side and almost meets above the head,
the bicycle skims along, swishing through the grass and brushing the
encroaching bushes, at a fine pace; and although at every few hundred
yards sharp rocks, loose stones, a water-course, or a steep hill
compel dismounting, a good seven miles an hour can usually be
maintained. And think what this means. From my own experience I should
suppose that with a bicycle twenty-five to thirty miles a day could
regularly be covered in Uganda, and, if only the porters could keep
up, all journeys could be nearly trebled, and every white officer's
radius of action proportionately increased.
Nearly all the British officers I met already possessed and used
bicycles, and even the native chiefs are beginning to acquire them.
But what is needed to make the plan effective is a good system of
stone, fumigated, insect-proof rest-houses at stages of thirty miles
on all the main lines of communication. Such a development would mean
an enormous saving in the health of white officials and a valuable
accession to their power. Had I known myself before coming to Uganda
the advantages which this method presents, I should have been able to
travel far more widely through the country by the simple expedient of
trebling the stages of my journeys, and sending porters on a week in
advance to pitch camps and deposit food at wide intervals. And then,
instead of merely journeying from one Great Lake to the other, I
could, _within the same limits of time_, have explored the fertile
and populous plateau of Toro, descended the beautiful valley of the
Semliki, and traversed the Albert Lake from end to end, and skirted
the slopes of Ruenzori. "If youth but knew...!"
But the march, however performed, has its termination; and if, as is
recommended, you stop to breakfast and rest upon the way, the new camp
will be almost ready upon arrival. During the heat of the day every
one retires to his tent or to the more effective shelter of the
"banda," to read and sleep till the evening. Then as the sun gets low
we emerge to smoke and talk, and there is, perhaps, just time for the
energetic to pursue an antelope, or shoot a few guinea-fowl or
pigeons.
With the approach of twilight comes the mosquito, strident-voiced and
fever-bearing; and the most thorough precautions have to be taken
against him and other insect dangers. We dine in a large
mosquito-house made entirely of fine gauze, and about twelve feet
cubically. The bedding, which should if possible be packed in tin
boxes, is unrolled during the day, and carefully protected by
mosquito-nets well tucked in, against all forms of vermin. Every one
puts on mosquito-boots--long, soft, leather leggings, reaching to the
hips. You are recommended not to sit on cane-bottomed chairs without
putting a newspaper or a cushion on them, to wear a cap, a scarf, and
possibly gloves, and to carry a swishing mosquito-trap. Thus one
moves, comparatively secure, amid a chorus of ferocious buzzings.
To these precautions are added others. You must never walk barefoot on
the floor, no matter how clean it is, or an odious worm, called a
"jigger," will enter your foot to raise a numerous family and a
painful swelling. On the other hand, be sure when you put on boots or
shoes that, however hurried, you turn them upside down and look
inside, lest a scorpion, a small snake, or a perfectly frightful kind
of centipede may be lying in ambush. Never throw your clothes
carelessly upon the ground, but put them away at once in a tin box,
and shut it tight, or a perfect colony of fierce-biting creatures will
beset them. And, above all, quinine! To the permanent resident in
these strange countries no drug can be of much avail; for either its
protection is diminished with habit, or the doses have to be
increased to impossible limits. But the traveller, who is passing
through on a journey of only a few months, may recur with safety and
with high advantage to that admirable prophylactic. Opinions differ as
to how it should be taken. The Germans, with their love of exactness
even in regard to the most uncertain things, prescribe thirty grains
on each seventh day and eighth day alternately. We followed a simpler
plan of taking a regular ten grains every day, from the moment we left
Port Said till we arrived at Khartoum. No one in my party suffered
from fever even for a day during the whole journey.
Our second day's march was about the same in length and character,
except that we were nearer the river, and as the path led through the
twilight of the forest we saw every now and then a gleam of broad
waters on our left. At frequent intervals--five or six times during
the day--long caravans of native porters were met carrying the produce
of the fertile districts between Lake Chioga and Mount Elgon into
Jinja. Nothing could better show the need of improved communications
than this incipient and potential trade--ready to begin and thrusting
forward along bush-paths on the heads of tottering men. For the rest,
the country near the river seemed the densest and most impenetrable
jungle, hiding in its recesses alike its inhabitants and its game.
The third morning, however, brought us among "shambas," as the patches
of native cultivation are called; and the road was among plantations
of bananas, millet, cotton, castor-oil, and chilies. Here in Usoga, as
throughout Uganda, the one staple crop is the banana; and as this
fruit, when once planted, grows and propagates of its own accord,
requiring no thought or exertion, it finds special favour with the
improvident natives, and sustains them year after year in leisured
abundance, till a sudden failure and a fearful famine restore the
harsh balances of the world.
After a tramp of twelve miles, and while it was still comparatively
early--for we had started before dawn--we reached Kakindu. The track
led out of the forest of banana-groves downwards into more open spaces
and blazing sunlight, and there before us was the Nile. Already--forty
miles from its source, near four thousand from its mouth--it was a
noble river: nearly a third of a mile in breadth of clear, deep water
rolling forward majestically between banks of foliage and verdure. The
"Chioga flotilla," consisting of the small steam launch, _Victoria_, a
steel boat, and two or three dug-out canoes, scooped out of
tree-trunks, awaited us; and after the long, hot business of embarking
the baggage and crowding the native servants in among it, was
completed, we parted from our first relay of escorts and porters, and
drifted out on the flood.
The next three days of our life were spent on the water--first
cruising down the Victoria Nile till it flows into Chioga, and then
traversing the smooth, limpid expanses of that lake. Every evening we
landed at camps prepared by the Busoga chiefs, pitched our tents,
lighted our fires, and erected our mosquito-houses, while dusk drew
on, and thunderstorms--frequent at this season of the year--wheeled in
vivid splendour about the dark horizon. All through the hot hours of
the day one lay at the bottom of massive canoes, sheltered from the
sun by an improvised roof of rushes and wet grass. From time to time a
strange bird, or, better still, the rumour of a hippo--nose just
peeping above the water--enlivened the slow and sultry passage of the
hours; and one great rock, crowded with enormous crocodiles, all of
whom--a score at least--leaped together into the water at the first
shot, afforded at least one really striking spectacle.
As the Victoria Nile approaches Lake Chioga, it broadens out into wide
lagoons, and the sloping banks of forest and jungle give place to
unbroken walls of papyrus-reeds, behind which the flat, surrounding
country is invisible, and above which only an isolated triangular hill
may here and there be descried, purple in the distance. The lake
itself is about fifty miles long from east to west, and eleven broad,
but its area and perimeter are greatly extended by a series of long
arms, or rather fingers, stretching out in every direction, but
especially to the north, and affording access by water to very wide
and various districts. All these arms, and even a great part of the
centre of the lake, are filled with reeds, grass, and water-lilies,
for Chioga is the first of the great sponges upon which the Nile
lavishes its waters. Although a depth of about twelve feet can usually
be counted on, navigation is impeded by floating weeds and
water-plants; and when the storms have swept the northern shore,
numerous papyrus-tangled islands, complete with their populations of
birds and animals, are detached, and swim erratically about the lake
to block accustomed channels and puzzle the pilot.
For one long day our little palpitating launch, towing its flotilla of
canoes, plashed through this curious region, at times winding through
a glade in the papyrus forest scarcely a dozen yards across, then
presently emerging into wide flood, stopping often to clear our
propeller from tangles of accumulating greenery. The middle of the
lake unrolls large expanses of placid water. The banks and reeds
recede into the distance, and the whole universe becomes a vast
encircling blue globe of sky and water, rimmed round its middle by a
thin band of vivid green. Time vanishes, and nothing is left but space
and sunlight.
All this while we must carefully avoid the northern, and particularly
the north-western shore, for the natives are altogether
unadministered, and nearly all the tribes are hostile. To pursue the
elephants which, of course (so they say), abound in these forbidden
precincts is impossible; to land for food or fuel would be dangerous,
and even to approach might draw a splutter of musketry or a shower of
spears from His Majesty's yet unpersuaded subjects.
The Nile leaves the north-west corner of the lake at Namasali and
flows along a broad channel above a mile in width, still enclosed by
solid papyrus walls and dotted with floating islands. Another forty
miles of steaming and we reach Mruli. Mruli is a representative
African village. Its importance is more marked upon the maps than on
the ground. An imposing name in large black letters calls up the idea
of a populous and considerable township. All that meets the eye,
however, are a score of funnel-shaped grass huts, surrounded by dismal
swamps and labyrinths of reeds, over which clouds of mosquitoes danced
feverishly. A long wattled pier had been built from terra firma to
navigable water, but the channel by which it could be approached had
been wholly blocked by a floating island, and this had to be towed
painfully out of the way before we could land. Here we were met by a
fresh escort of King's African Rifles, as spick and span in uniform,
as precise in their military bearing, as if they were at Aldershot; by
a mob of fresh porters, and, lastly, by the only friendly tribe
from the northern bank of the river: and while tents were pitched,
baggage landed, and cooking-fires began to glow, these four hundred
wild spearmen, casting aside their leopard skins, danced naked in the
dusk.
[Illustration: LANDING AT MRULI.]