LEAVING KOROSKO.--EARLY EXPLORERS OF THE NILE VALLEY.
The preparations for leaving Korosko required several days. Camels were
to be hired, loads distributed, and drivers and servants engaged. A
great many small details consumed the time of our friends, from the hour
of their arrival till their departure. Twenty camels were engaged,
sixteen for baggage and four for riding purposes, three of the latter
being for the Doctor and the boys, and one for the dragoman. The boy Ali
was assigned to a place on one of the baggage camels, as he was
considered too young to have a saddle animal all to himself.
Twenty camels make a respectable procession, and the boys were in high
glee when they saw their beasts of burden drawn up in line, ready for
departure. Fourteen of the baggage camels were sent away one evening,
and our friends started early the following morning with the rest of the
train. This included their saddle camels and the two animals that
carried the things they would need on the journey from day to day.
A glance at the map of Nubia will show a great bend in the Nile between
Korosko and Aboo Hamed. Boats ascending the river and following this
bend often consume three or four weeks, while the ride over the Desert
can be made in from six to nine days. There are three cataracts in this
part of the river. They are impassable except during the rise of the
Nile, and even then their ascent is a tedious and expensive affair.
Consequently the principal route of travel and commerce is through the
Desert.
There was no trouble in keeping the road, as it is well known to the
guides and camel-drivers, and is annually traversed by great numbers of
people. The dragoman, Abdul, had been over the route repeatedly,
sometimes with small parties, and on two occasions with expeditions that
the Egyptian Government had sent to the Upper Nile and the lake regions
of Central Africa. Frank and Fred were greatly interested in the details
of these expeditions, and listened eagerly to Abdul's account of them
and the difficulties of transporting heavy articles over the Desert
sands.
[Illustration: THE NATIVE AT HOME.]
At their first halt on the journey from Korosko, Abdul told them of his
experience with the expedition of Sir Samuel Baker, for the suppression
of the slave-trade in the Soudan country, some years ago, which was
about as follows:
"In 1869-70 Sir Samuel Baker was sent by Ismail Pacha, Khedive of Egypt,
to suppress the slave-trade in the regions where we are now going. In
order that he should do so effectively he was provided with a small
army, and a suitable equipment of steamers for navigating the river,
together with a large stock of goods for opening legitimate trade. Most
of the slave-traders were Arab subjects of the Khedive, and their centre
of business was at Khartoum."
Fred asked how many men were engaged in the business.
"As to that," said Abdul, "it is not easy to say. The merchants of
Khartoum had organized a sort of military force for capturing the
negroes and bringing them to market, and one of them was reported to
have twenty-five hundred men in his pay. They were armed and drilled
like soldiers, though not very thoroughly disciplined, and were divided
into companies sufficiently strong to overpower any African village, and
make prisoners of such of the inhabitants as they wished to carry to
market. Altogether, it was thought that fifteen thousand subjects of the
Khedive had left their honest occupations and were engaged, directly or
indirectly, in the slave-trade."
"They must have occupied a great deal of country," said Frank, "for so
many of them to be engaged in the traffic."
[Illustration: ARAB SLAVE-TRADERS.]
"That is true," replied Abdul. "Every trader had a district to himself,
and his men were divided into companies, with a chain of stations or
military posts. They could thus hold sway over an immense area. One
slave-trader named Agad controlled a region containing ninety thousand
square miles, and another had a territory nearly as large.
"There was an agreement among the traders that they would not disturb
each other's territory; they sometimes got into trouble and fought among
themselves, but this was not often, as they had quite enough to do to
kill and capture the natives. Each man in his own region could do what
he chose, and the business had all the horrible features that the
slave-trade has everywhere."
One of the boys asked how many slaves were taken from Central Africa
every year, and where the slaves were carried.
[Illustration: A SLAVE-GANG ON THE ROAD.]
"It was estimated by Sir Samuel Baker," replied Abdul, "that not less
than fifty thousand slaves were carried every year from the interior to
the sea-coast, or kept in the camps of the slave-traders. The capture of
fifty or a hundred slaves means the destruction of one or more villages,
and the death of fifty or a hundred innocent persons while the
destruction is going on. The traders induce tribes that would otherwise
be at peace to make war on each other, by agreeing to buy all the
prisoners. Whole districts are depopulated, life and property are
insecure, and for every slave that is brought away it is safe to say
that three or four of his kindred have been killed or die of starvation.
It was a noble impulse of the Khedive to put an end to this state of
affairs and remove the stigma of slave-dealing from his country."
"But they still have slavery in Egypt, do they not?" inquired one of the
boys.
"Yes," was the reply, "slavery exists here, as Egypt is a Moslem
country, and the Koran expressly allows it. But the form is growing
milder every year, as the government does not protect it. Under Ismail
Pacha a man might keep slaves, but if they ran away from him he could
not call the police to assist in their capture, as he formerly was able
to do. If they chose to stay away they could do so, without fear of
being taken back; the result was that every slave-owner was obliged to
treat his human property so kindly that there would be no inducement to
leave him. Traffic in slaves is not permitted, and consequently the
institution is not flourishing, and will soon disappear altogether.
"The efforts of Livingstone, Stanley, and other travellers in Central
Africa have done much to throw light on the slave-trade, and to persuade
some of the African kings and chiefs to abandon it. The only Europeans
who encourage it at all now are the Portuguese traders, who have their
stations on the east coast of Africa, and even their support to it is
generally given in an underhand way. The most extensive slave-dealers
are the Arabs, who are not troubled by any religious scruples on the
subject, and find a market for their captives among people of similar
belief with themselves.
"When we get fairly into Central Africa you will probably see something
of the system of slavery; so we'll drop the subject now, and I'll tell
you how Baker's expedition was fitted out.
"Baker received the rank of Pacha, with absolute authority for four
years, from April 1, 1869, and was instructed to subdue the countries
lying south of Gondokoro, suppress the slave-trade, and introduce a
system of regular commerce; open the great lakes near the equator to
navigation, and establish military and commercial posts throughout the
captured country.
"Baker had already been in Central Africa and travelled in the region of
the lakes, and consequently he knew something of the difficulties he
would encounter. He made grand preparations, which consumed so much
time, and were followed by so many delays, that nearly a year elapsed
before he left Khartoum for the south."
Fred asked if the expedition went up the Nile by way of Korosko, or by
another route.
"Part of it went that way," said Abdul, "and the rest by Suakim, on the
Red Sea. From Suakim there is a road across the Desert to Berber, in
Abyssinia. Berber is on the Nile, and from there the river is navigable
to Khartoum. I was with the part of the expedition that ascended the
Nile, so that I am familiar with Korosko and the route to Aboo Hamed.
Khartoom, at the junction of the Blue and White Nile, was selected as
the point of departure, and all the supplies for the expedition were
sent there.
[Illustration: BAKER'S EXPEDITION CROSSING THE DESERT.]
"Everything had to be carried over the Desert, and it was an immense
affair, I assure you. Six steamboats were sent from Cairo, and three
others for navigating the lakes were brought from England, and carried
in sections, so that they could be put together at the points where
wanted. The boilers of the steamers were found too heavy to be
transported on the backs of camels, and it was necessary to mount them
on wheels, to which camels were harnessed.
"Hundreds of camels were required for carrying all this material, and
when the train was on the march it covered the Desert for miles and
miles. It was necessary to have many extra camels, to guard against the
breaking down of any of the loaded ones, as the loss of a single piece
of a boat or its machinery might render all the rest of little or no
use.
[Illustration: "THE FORTY THIEVES."]
"The military part of the expedition comprised about sixteen hundred
soldiers, with two batteries of artillery; but so many of the soldiers
were found unfit for duty, that half of them were sent back or left
behind at Khartoum. Baker finally selected forty men to serve as a
body-guard, and they proved to be excellent soldiers, and of more use
than all the rest that had been sent to serve him. This small force of
picked men was known as 'The Forty.' They were not of the best
character, and some of their performances when off duty caused them to
be called 'The Forty Thieves' by the English-speaking members of the
expedition.
"It was expected that there would be much opposition among the merchants
of Khartoum when they learned the object for which Baker Pacha had been
sent to the Soudan. Of course it would not do for them to declare open
hostility, but they could hinder the enterprise in various ways. When
Baker arrived at Khartoum he found that the traders had sent away all
the boatmen, as they knew the expedition could not move without boats.
The police and military were employed to hunt them up, and of course
much valuable time was lost in so doing.
"When they finally got away from Khartoum they had two steamers and
thirty-six sailing-boats. The steamers had each a sailing-boat in tow,
and on one of these boats was the commander of the expedition,
accompanied by his wife, Lady Baker, and the officers of his staff.
"I was with the officers on the other boat, and the two steamers pushed
along, with their tows, leaving the sailing craft to follow as fast as
they could. We went up what is called the White Nile. Khartoum is at the
junction of the Blue and White Nile, the landing-place being on the
former stream. The Blue Nile was long supposed to be the principal
branch of the river. It was explored by Bruce, who traced it to its
source, and thought he had found the spot where the Nile takes its
rise."
Frank remarked that one of his school-books contained a picture of Bruce
standing by the side of a spring not more than a yard across, from which
a rivulet was flowing.
Fred said he had read something about Bruce, and was sorry he had
forgotten exactly what it was.
[Illustration: VIEW ON THE BAHR-EL-AZREK.]
"Perhaps I can help you," responded Doctor Bronson. "James Bruce was
born at Kinnaird, in Scotland, in 1730, and died there in 1794. He was
educated for a lawyer, but never practised his profession. His tastes
ran in the direction of Oriental languages and literature, and after
studying them for some years he was appointed Consul-general for
Algiers. He remained there for two years, and then travelled in Tunis,
Tripoli, Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, spending nearly five years in
Egypt and Abyssinia in an effort to find the sources of the Nile. The
Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue Nile, was then supposed to be the main stream,
and Bruce followed it to its source.
"When this work was accomplished he returned to England, to tell the
story of his discovery. It was published in 1790, under the title,
'Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile, in the Years 1768-73,' and
was in five quarto volumes."
"He must have become famous as soon as the book appeared," one of the
boys remarked.
"Unfortunately for him," replied Doctor Bronson, "his statements were
questioned, and he received far more abuse than praise. Some of his
accounts were set down as absolute falsehoods, and Bruce died four years
later, before the imputation had been disproved. Subsequent travellers
have confirmed the truth of his narrative, and given Bruce an honored
place on the roll of African explorers."
"Was Bruce the first white man who ever saw the head-springs of the Blue
Nile?" Frank asked.
"No," was the reply; "they were visited by the Portuguese missionary,
Paez, in the sixteenth century, but no detailed account of his journey
was ever published in our language. He went to Abyssinia in 1603, where
he founded a mission, and remained until his death, in 1622. He was in
great favor with the King, whom he accompanied on his military
expeditions, and it was on one of these journeys, in 1618, that he
visited the springs of the Blue Nile. The account was published in
Paris, in 1667, under the title, 'Dissertation touchant l'Origine du
Nil,' and may be regarded as the earliest work of an explorer of the
mysterious river."
"How about Herodotus and Strabo?" said Fred.
"They can hardly be called explorers of the Nile," the Doctor answered,
"as they made no attempt to ascend the river. Neither of them went
beyond the first cataract, or at any rate Strabo did not, and the
accounts of both writers are largely composed of what they gathered from
others rather than what they saw with their own eyes. Their works are
the best that have come down to us from their time, and we learned at
the site of Memphis how a passage in Strabo's writings gave Mariette Bey
the clew which led to the discovery, in 1860, of the Apis Mausoleum.[2]
[2] "The Boy Travellers in Egypt and the Holy Land," p. 131.
"After Bruce," the Doctor continued, "the next traveller of note in the
upper regions of the Nile was Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, a Swiss
professor, who was educated at Leipzig and Göttingen, and devoted the
best part of his life to the exploration of Africa. He is thought to
have been the first European not a Moslem to visit Mecca, and at the
time of his death, at Cairo, in 1817, he was planning an expedition to
the sources of the Niger. He travelled in Nubia and portions of
Abyssinia, but did not penetrate so far inland as Bruce had gone before
him. Much of the time he went in the disguise of an Arab, sometimes as a
merchant, and sometimes as a sheikh, and he was enabled to do this by
his perfect knowledge of Arabic. I think I told you something about his
visit to Mecca while we were coming up the Red Sea, on our way from
India to Egypt."
Both the youths recalled the brief account which the Doctor had given
them of the perils of a journey to Mecca, and the names of those who had
succeeded in reaching there. The mention of Mecca drew from Abdul an
anecdote which illustrated the danger of attempting to travel among
fanatical Moslems under the pretence of being of their religion.
"Several years ago," said he, "I was at Jeddah, the port of Mecca, at
the time of the pilgrimage to the birthplace of Mohammed. A steamer from
Suez brought a crowd of pilgrims, and I happened to be at the
landing-place when they came on shore.
"There was a tall man among them whom I took for a Syrian Moslem, and my
belief was confirmed when he spoke to me in Arabic, with just the accent
I had heard at Jerusalem and Damascus. We talked a few minutes, and he
then walked away, and I never suspected him to be anything but a pious
Moslem, on his way to Mecca.
"As soon as he left me another pilgrim spoke to me, and said the tall
man was an impostor.
"'How do you know?' I asked.
"'Because,' said the other, 'I have watched him saying his prayers on
the way from Suez, and he has twice missed the proper motions of his
hands when he bows toward Mecca. Once he placed his prayer-rug at least
a quarter of the way round from where it should have been, and once he
put his left foot down first when kneeling.'
"It was very certain the man was not a Moslem, as he would not make
these mistakes if he had been brought up in the religion of the Prophet.
I hastened after him, told what I had heard, and warned him of his
danger. His character was already known; he would be sure to be pointed
out, his deception known, and he would never return from Mecca, if,
indeed, he succeeded in getting there.
"He looked astonished for a moment, and acknowledged that he was neither
a Syrian nor a Moslem. He was a German traveller, who had spent several
years in Moslem countries, spoke Arabic fluently, and had conceived the
design of going to Mecca. With this object in view he had learned the
Moslem forms of prayer, so as to pass himself off for one of 'the
faithful,' but it seems he had not been sufficiently careful as to the
details. He thanked me for my caution, abandoned his trip to Mecca, and
concluded to go to Central Africa instead. What befell him subsequently
I never knew."
From this point the conversation wandered to various subjects, until one
of the party dropped asleep and another followed his example. This
occurrence led to a postponement of the story of Abdul's adventures with
Sir Samuel Baker, as it was advisable for all the members of the party
to get all the sleep they could when the opportunity offered. They
followed the native custom of travelling in the morning and afternoon,
and resting during the hottest part of the day.
[Illustration: PILGRIMS ON THE ROAD TO MECCA.]