_The White and Blue Niles: The Barrage: Clearing the Sudd: The Suez
Canal: Ancient and modern irrigation: The Dam at Aswan: The modern
exploration of the Nile._
Between the Sudan and the Mediterranean the only perennial stream is
the Nile, a word probably derived from the Semitic root nahal, meaning
a valley or a river-valley, and subsequently a river, in a pre-eminent
and exclusive sense. The ancient Egyptians called it the Ar or Aur
(Koptic, Iaro), or black; hence the Greek word [...] allusion to the
colour, not of the water, but of the sediment which it precipitated
during the floods. In contrast to the yellow sands of the surrounding
desert, the Nile mud is black enough to have given the land itself its
oldest name, Kem, or Kemi, which has the same meaning of black. At
Khartum, where the White Nile joins the Blue Nile, the main branch has
a fall from its upper level in the region of the tropical lakes, four
thousand feet above the sea, to twelve hundred feet, while traversing
a distance of twenty-three hundred miles. From Khartum to the sea the
distance through which the waters of the Nile wend their way is about
eighteen hundred and forty miles. During the greater part of this course
the flow is level, the average descent being about eight inches per
mile. If it were not, therefore, for the obstruction met with in the
Nubian section, the course of the Nile would be everywhere navigable.
Although no perennial affluents enter the main stream lower down
than Khartum, the volume of the Nile remains with little diminution
throughout the entire distance to the Mediterranean. During the period
of low water the amount of water in different localities is still
uniform, notwithstanding all the irrigation, infiltration, and
evaporation constantly taking place. The only explanation which has been
given to this phenomenon is that there are hidden wells in the bed of
the Nile, and from their flow the waste is ever renewed.
As the earth revolves from west to east, the waters of the Nile tend
to be driven upon the right bank on the west, where the current is
constantly eating away the sandstone and limestone cliffs. For
this reason the left side of the river is far more fertile and well
cultivated than the right bank. Below Ombos the valley is narrowly
constructed, being but thirteen hundred yards in width, the cliffs
overhanging the river on either side, but at Thebes it broadens out to
nine or ten miles, and farther up, in the Keneh district, the valley is
twelve or fifteen miles in width. The river here approaches within sixty
miles of the Red Sea, and it is believed that a branch of the Nile once
flowed out into the sea in this direction.
[Illustration: 237.jpg THE PLAIN OF THEBES]
Seventy miles below Keneh the Nile throws from its left bank the Bahr
Yusef branch, a small current of 350 feet in breadth, which flows for
hundreds of miles through the broader strip of alluvial land between the
main stream and the Libyan escarpments. In the Beni-Suef district this
stream again bifurcates, the chief branch continuing to wind along the
Nile Valley to a point above the Delta, where it joins the main
stream. The left branch penetrates westward through a gap in the
Libyan escarpments into the Fayum depression, ramifying into a thousand
irrigating rills, and pouring its overflow into the Birket-el-Qarum, or
Lake of Horns, which still floods the lowest cavity and is a remnant
of the famous ancient Lake Moris. The Fayum, which is the territory
reclaimed from the former lake, is now an exceedingly productive
district, a sort of inland delta, fed like the marine delta by the
fertilising flood-waters of the Nile.
The traveller Junker wrote of this district in 1875: I found myself
surrounded by a garden tract of unsurpassed fertility, where there was
scarcely room for a path amid the exuberant growths; where pedestrians,
riders, and animals had to move about along the embankments of countless
canals. Now a land of roses, of the vine, olive, sugar-cane, and cotton,
where the orange and lemon plants attain the size of our apple-trees, it
was in primeval times an arid depression of the stony and sandy Libyan
waste.
North of the Fayum the Nile flows on to Cairo, where the narrow water
way allowed to its course by the two lines of cliffs widens, and the
cliffs recede to the right and left. There is thus space for the waters
to spread and ramify over the alluvial plain. Nearly all this portion
of Egypt has been covered by the sediment of the Nile, and from the
earliest times there have been numerous distinct branches or channels of
the river running out by separate openings into the sea. As several of
these branches have been tapped to a great extent for irrigation, all
except two have ceased to be true outlets of the Nile. In the Greek
period there were seven mouths and several [...Greek...], or false
mouths. The two remaining mouths are those of Rosetta and Damietta, and
these were always the most important of the number. They branched off
formerly close to the present spot where Cairo stands, a little below
Memphis; but during two thousand years the fork has gradually shifted to
about thirteen miles lower down.
The triangular space enclosed by these two branches and the sea-coast
was called by the Greeks the delta, on account of the likeness in
shape to the Greek letter of that name A. At the head, or apex, of the
triangle stands the famous barrage, or dam, begun in 1847 by Mehemet
Ali, for the twofold purpose of reclaiming many thousand acres of waste
land, and of regulating the discharge and the navigation through the
Delta. The idea was originated by a Frenchman in his service named
Linant Bey. This engineer desired to alter the course of the river and
build a weir at a point farther to the north, where the contour of land
seemed to favour the design more than that of the present locality.
Mehemet Ali thought his plans too costly, and accepted in preference
those of Mougel Bey. Unexpected difficulties were encountered from the
very beginning. Mehemet was exceedingly anxious to hurry the work, and
Mougel Bey had only made a beginning, when an exceptionally high Nile
carried away all the lime in the concrete base. Mehemet Ali did not
live to see the completion of this work. The object, could it have been
realised, was to hold up the waters of the Nile during the eight months
of the ebb, and thus keep them on a level with the soil, and at the same
time to supply Lower Egypt with an amount of water equal to that which
came down during flood-time. It was hoped to cover the very large
expenditure by the additional land which it was expected would come
under irrigation, and by doing away with the primitive _shadoofs_
and setting free for productive enterprise the numerous army of the
agricultural labourers who spent the greater part of their time in
slowly raising up buckets of water from the Nile and pouring them into
the irrigating channels.
[Illustration: 240b.jpg Harbour at Suez]
The barrage is a double bridge, or weir, the eastern part spanning the
Damietta branch of the Nile, the western part the Rosetta branch. The
appearance of the structure is so light and graceful that the spectator
finds it hard to conceive of the difficulty and the greatness of the
work itself. Architecturally, the barrage is very beautiful, with
a noble front and a grand effect, produced by a line of castellated
turrets, which mark the site of the sluice gates. There are two lofty
crenellated towers, corresponding with the towers over the gateway of
a mediaeval baronial castle. The sluices are formed of double cones of
hollow iron, in a semicircular form, worked on a radii of rods fixed to
a central axis at each side of the sluice-gate. They are slowly raised
or let down by the labour of two men, the gates being inflected as they
descend in the direction of the bed of that part of the river whose
waters are retained. The working of the barrage was never what it was
intended to be. After the year 1867 it ceased to be of any practical
utility, and was merely an impediment to navigation. Between the
years 1885--90, however, during the British occupation, Sir Colon
Scott-Moncrieff successfully completed the barrage at a cost of
$2,500,000, and now the desired depth of eight feet of water on the
lower part of the Nile can always be maintained.
[Illustration: 241.jpg THE NILE BARRAGE]
It proved to be of the greatest advantage in saving labour worth
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and in the irrigation and
navigation facilities that had been contemplated as among the benefits
which would naturally accrue from its successful completion.
Compared with the advance of the land seaward at the estuary of the
Mississippi and the Ganges, the advance of the Nile seaward is very
slow. This is accounted for by the geological theory that the Delta
of the Nile is gradually sinking. If this is so, the tendency of the
periodical deposit to raise the level of the Delta will be counteracted
by the annual subsidence. These phenomena account for the gradual burial
of Egyptian monuments under the sand, although the actual level of the
sea above what it formerly was is quite unappreciable.
The periodical rise in the Nile, recurring as regularly as the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, necessarily remained an unsolved
mystery to the ancients, for until the discovery of the tropical
regions, with their mountainous lakes and deluging rains, it was
impossible to learn the occasion of this increase. It is now known that
the Blue Nile, flowing out of the mountainous parts of Abyssinia, is the
sole cause of the periodic overflow of the Nile. Without the tropical
rains of the Ethiopian tablelands, there would be no great rise nor any
fertilising deposits. Without the White Nile, which runs steadily from
the perennial reservoirs of the great Central African lakes, the Lower
Nile would assume the character of an intermittent wady, such as the
neighbouring Khor Baraka, periodically flushed by the discharge of
the torrential downpours from Abyssinia. Though there is a periodical
increase in the flow of the upper waters of the White Nile, yet the
effect of this, lower down, is minimised by the dense quantities of
vegetable drift, which, combining with the forest of aquatic growth,
forms those vast barriers, known by the name of _sudd_, which not only
arrest navigation but are able to dam up large bodies of water.
The sudd, it is supposed, stopped the advance of the Roman centurions
who were sent up the Nile in the days of Nero. Sir Samuel Baker was
the one who first pointed out the great disadvantage of allowing the
vegetable matter to accumulate, both to merchants and to those who were
employed to suppress the slave-trade. In the year 1863 the two branches
of the White Nile were blocked above their junction at Lake No. Once
blocked, the accumulation rapidly increased from the stoppage of outlet,
forming the innumerable floating islands which at this part of the Nile
customarily float down-stream. A marsh of vast extent had been
formed, and to all appearance, as Baker narrates, the White Nile had
disappeared. Baker cut through fifty miles of the sudd, and urged the
khédive to reopen the Nile. The work was successfully undertaken by
Ishmail Ayub Pasha, and the White Nile became clear for large vessels
when Gordon reached Khartum in 1874. It is practically impossible to
keep the central provinces of the Nile open to civilisation unless
the course of the Nile is free. Yet in 1878 the obstruction had been
renewed, and during the occupation of these provinces by the rebel
dervishes under the Mahdi and the califa the Nile was completely
blocked, as formerly, at Lake No. The alarming failure of the Nile flood
in 1899--1900 was generally attributed to this blockade, and in
1899 fifty thousand dollars was placed at the disposal of the
governor-general for reopening the White Nile by removing the vast
accumulation of sudd which blocked the Bahr-el-Jebel from Lake No almost
as far as Shambeh. The work was started under the direction of Sir
William Garstin in 1899. In 1900 the greater part of the sudd had been
removed by the strenuous labours of Major Peake, and the Nile again
became navigable from Khartum to Rejaf. The sudd was found to be piled
up and of almost as close a structure as peat. It was sawn out in blocks
ten feet square and carried away by gunboats. In the years 1901--02
further progress was made, and twenty thousand dollars appropriated
for the work; and by means of constant patrolling the sudd is now
practically absent from the whole course of the White Nile.
The discharge of the flood waters from the Upper Nile begins to make
itself felt in Lower Nubia and Egypt in the month of June, at first
slightly, and after the middle of July much more rapidly, the river
continuing to rise steadily till the first week in October, when it
reaches high-water mark, nearly fifty-four or fifty-five feet at the
Egyptian frontier, and twenty-five or twenty-six feet at Cairo. A
subsidence then sets in, and continues till low-water level is again
reached, usually about the end of May. The floods are then much higher
and confined to a narrower space in the Nubian section of the Nile,
while they gradually die out in the region of the Delta, where the
excess seawards is discharged by the Rosetta and Damietta branches. In
place of the old Nilometers, the amount of the rise of the Nile is now
reported by telegraph from meteorological stations.
It is popularly supposed that at every rise the plains of the Delta are
inundated, but this is not the case. The actual overflow of the banks
of the river and canals is the exception, and when it happens is most
disastrous. The irrigation of fields and plantations is effected by
slow infiltration through the retaining dykes, which are prevented
from bursting by the process of slow absorption. The first lands to be
affected are not those which are nearest to the dyke, but those which
are of the lowest level, because the waters, in percolating through
under the ground, reach the surface of these parts first. In Manitoba
during a dry season sometimes the roots of the wheat strike down deep
enough to reach the reservoir of moisture under ground. In Egypt this
underground moisture is what is counted upon, but it is fed by a special
and prepared system, and is thus brought to the roots of the plants
artificially.
[Illustration: 245.jpg SCALE OF THE NILOMETER]
An analysis of the Nile alluvium, which has accumulated in the course of
ages to a thickness of from three to four feet above the old river-bed,
shows that it contains a considerable percentage of such fertilising
substances as carbonate of lime and magnesia, silicates of aluminum,
carbon, and several oxides. Where the water has to be raised to higher
levels, two processes are used. The primitive shadoof of native origin
figured on a monument as far back as 3,300 years ago, and the more
modern sakieh was apparently introduced in later times from Syria and
Persia. The shadoof is used on small farms, and the sakieh is more often
used for larger farms and plantations. These contrivances line the whole
course of the Nile from Lower Egypt to above Khartum. The shadoof will
raise six hundred gallons ten feet in an hour, and consists of a pole
weighted at one end, with a bucket at the other; when the water is
raised the weight counterbalances the weight of the full bucket. The
sakieh, which will raise twelve hundred gallons twenty or twenty-four
feet in an hour, is a modified form of a Persian wheel, made to revolve
by a beast of burden; it draws an endless series of buckets up from the
water, and automatically empties them into a trough or other receptacle.
In former times these appliances were heavily taxed and made the
instruments of oppression, but these abuses have been reformed since
Egypt came under a more humane form of government.
Another interesting feature of the water ways of Egypt is the
intermittent watercourses. The largest of these is the Khor Baraka
(Barka), which flows out towards Tapan, south of Suakin. It presents
some analogy to the Nile, and in part was undoubtedly a perennial stream
250 miles long, and draining seven or eight thousand square miles. At
present its flat sandy bed, winding between well-wooded banks, is dry
for a great part of the year. This route is extensively used for the
caravan trade between Suakin and Kassala. During September the water
begins to flow, but is spasmodic. After the first flood the natives
plant their crops, but sometimes the second flow, being too great,
cannot be confined to the limits prepared for it, and the crops are
carried away and the sowing must of necessity be started again.
[Illustration: 247.jpg A MODERN SAKIEH]
The canals of Egypt are of great aid in extending the beneficial
influence of the inundations of the Nile. In Lower Egypt is the
Mahmudiyeh Canal, connecting Alexandria with the Rosetta branch, and
following the same direction as an ancient canal which preceded it.
Mehemet Ali constructed this canal, which is about fifty miles long and
one hundred feet broad. It is believed that twelve thousand labourers
perished during its construction. Between the Rosetta and the Damietta
branches of the Nile there are other canals, such as the Manuf, which
connects the two branches of the river at a point not far from the
Delta. East of the Damietta branch are other canals, occupying the
ancient river-beds of the Tanitic and Pelusiac branches of the Nile.
One of these is called the canal of the El-Muiz, from the first Fatimite
caliph who ruled in Egypt, and who ordered it to be constructed.
Another is named the canal of Abul-Munegga, from the name of the Jew who
executed this work under the caliph El-Amir, in order to bring water
into the province of Sharkiyah. This last canal is connected with the
remains of the one which in ancient times joined the Nile with the Red
Sea. After falling into neglect it has again in part been restored and
much increased in length as the Sweet Water Canal.
Further mention may also be made of the great canal called the
Bahr-Yusef, or River Joseph, which is important enough to be classed as
a ramification of the Nile itself. As has been mentioned, this water way
runs parallel with the Nile on the west side below Cairo for about 350
miles to Farshut, and is the most important irrigation canal in Egypt.
It is a series of canals rather than one canal. Tradition states that
this canal was repaired by the celebrated Saladin. Another tradition,
relating that the canal existed in the time of the Pharaohs, has
recently been proved to be correct.
Egypt possesses not only the greatest natural water way in the world,
but also the greatest artificial water way--the Suez Canal. Before the
opening of this canal there were in the past other canals which afforded
communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. These ancient
canals differed in one respect from the Suez Canal, since they were all
fed by the fresh waters of the Nile. One of these still remains in use,
and is called the Fresh Water Canal. According to Aristotle, Strabo, and
Pliny, Sesostris was the first to conceive and carry out the idea of a
water connection between the two seas, by means of the Pelusiac branch
of the Nile from Avaris to Bubastis, and by rendering navigable the
irrigation canal which already existed between Bubastis and Heroopolis.
It is believed by some that the fragment bearing the oval of Ramses II.
found near the course of the present canal affords confirmation of this
assertion.
The first authentic account of the carrying out of the conception of
an inter-sea water way is to be found in the time of Pharaoh Necho II.,
about the year 610 B.C. Herodotus records of Necho that he was the
first to attempt the construction of the canal to the Red Sea. This
canal tapped the Nile at Bubastis, near Zagazig, and followed closely
the line of modern Wady Canal to Heroopolis, the site of which lies in
the neighbourhood of Toussun and Serapeum, between the Bitter Lakes and
Lake Tinseh. At that date the Red Sea reached much farther inland than
it does now, and was called in the upper portion the Heroopolite Gulf.
The expanse of brackish water, now known as the Bitter Lakes, was then,
in all probability, directly connected with the Red Sea. The length
of this canal, according to Pliny, was sixty-two miles, or about
fifty-seven English miles. This length, allowing for the sinuosity of
the valley traversed, agrees with the distance between the site of old
Bubastis and the present head of the Bitter Lakes. The length given
by Herodotus of more than one thousand stadia (114 miles) must be
understood to include the whole distance between the two seas, both by
the Nile and by the canal. Herodotus relates that it cost the lives of
120,000 men to cut the canal. He says that the undertaking was abandoned
because of a warning from an oracle that the barbarians alone, meaning
the Persians, would benefit by the success of the enterprise.
[Illustration: 251.jpg HIEROGLYPHIC RECORD OF AN ANCIENT CANAL]
The true reason for relinquishing the plan probably was that the
Egyptians believed the Red Sea to have been higher in altitude than the
Nile. They feared that if the canal were opened between the Nile and
the Red Sea the salt water would flow in and make the waters of the Nile
brackish. This explanation would indicate a lack of knowledge of locks
and sluices on the part of the Egyptians.
The work of Necho was continued by Darius, the son of Hystaspes (520
B.C.). The natural channel of communication between the Heroopolite
Gulf and the Red Sea had begun to fill up with silt even in the time of
Necho, and a hundred years later, in the time of Darius, was completely
blocked, so that it had to be entirely cleaned out to render it
navigable. The traces of this canal can still be plainly seen in the
neighbourhood of Shaluf, near the south end of the Bitter Lakes. The
present fresh-water canal was also made to follow its course for some
distance between that point and Suez. Persian monuments have been found
by Lepsius in the neighbourhood, commemorating the work of Darius. On
one of these the name of Darius is written in the Persian cuneiform
characters, and on a cartouche in the Egyptian form. Until this date it
therefore appears that ships sailed up the Pelusiac branch of the Nile
to Bubastis, and thence along the canal to Heroopolis, where the cargoes
were transhipped to the Red Sea. This inconvenient transfer of cargoes
was remedied by the next Egyptian sovereign, who bestowed much care on
the water connection between the two seas.
Ptolemy Philadelphus (285 B.C.), in addition to cleaning out and
thoroughly restoring the two canals, joined the fresh-water canal with
the Heroopolite Gulf by means of a lock and sluices, which permitted the
passage of vessels, and were effective in preventing the salt water from
mingling with the fresh water. At the point where the canal joined the
Heroopolite Gulf to the Red Sea, Ptolemy founded the town of Arsinoë, a
little to the north of the modern Suez.
The line of communication between the two seas was impassable during
the reign of Cleopatra (31 b.c.). It is believed by some that it was
restored during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan (98-117). During
this period the Pelusiac branch of the Nile was very low, the water
having almost completely deserted this formerly well-filled course.
If Trajan, therefore, undertook to reopen the water way, he must have
tapped the Nile much higher up, in order to reach a plentiful supply of
water. The old canal near Cairo, which elsewhere joined the line of
the former canal on the way to the Bitter Lakes, was once called Amnis
Trajanus, and from this it has been inferred that Trajan was really the
builder, and that during his reign this canal was cleaned and rendered
navigable. As there is no further evidence than the name to prove that
Trajan undertook so important an enterprise, the Amnis Trajanus was
probably constructed during the Arabic period.
When Amr had conquered Egypt, according to another account, the caliph
Omar ordered him to ship rich supplies of grain to Mecca and Medina,
because during the pilgrimages these cities and often the whole of
Hedjaz suffered severely from famine. As it was extremely difficult to
send large quantities of provisions across the desert on the backs
of camels, it is supposed that to facilitate this transportation Omar
ordered the construction of the canal from a point near Cairo to the
head of the Red Sea. On account of his forethought in thus providing for
the pilgrims to the Hedjaz, Omar received the title of Prince of the
Faithful (Emir el-Momenéen), which thenceforth was adopted by his
successors in the caliphate. One hundred and thirty-four years after
this time, El-Mansur, the second caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, is said
to have closed the canal to prevent supplies from being shipped to one
of the descendants of Ali who had revolted at Medina. Since that time it
is probable that it has never been reopened, although there is a report
that the Sultan Hakim rendered it available for the passage of boats in
the year A.D. 1000, after which it was neglected and became choked with
sand. While not thereafter used for navigation, there were parts which
during the time of the annual inundation of the Nile were filled with
water, until Mehemet Ali prevented this. The parts filled during the
inundation extended as far as Sheykh Hanaydik, near Toussun and the
Bitter Lakes.
The old canal which left the Nile at Cairo had long ceased to flow
beyond the outskirts of the city, and the still more ancient canal from
the neighbourhood of Bubastis, now known as the Wady Canal, extended
only a few miles in the direction of the isthmus as far as Kassassin.
During the construction of the Suez Canal the need of supplying the
labourers with fresh water was imperative. The company, therefore,
determined in 1861 to prolong the canal from Kassassin to the centre of
the isthmus, and in the year 1863 they brought the fresh-water canal as
far as Suez. In one or two places the bed of the old canal was cleared
out and made to serve the new canal. The level of the fresh-water canal
is about twenty feet above that of the Suez Canal, which it joins at
Ismailia by means of two locks. The difference of level between it and
the Red Sea is remedied by four locks constructed between Nefeesh and
its terminus at Suez. Its average depth of water at high Nile is six
feet, and at low Nile three feet.
A canal from Bulak, near Cairo, passing by Heliopolis and Belbeys, and
joining the Wady Canal a few miles east of Zagazig, restores the line
of water communication between the Nile and the Red Sea as it existed
perhaps in the time of Trajan, and certainly as it was in the time of
the Caliph Omar. The improvement of this canal as a means of transit is
local and external only.
Napoleon Bonaparte was the first in modern times to take up the subject
of a water connection between the two seas. In 1798 he examined the
traces of the old canal of Necho and his successors, and ordered
Monsieur Lepère to survey the isthmus and prepare a project for uniting
the two seas by a direct canal. The result of this French engineers
labours was to discover a supposed difference of thirty feet between
the Red Sea at high tide and the Mediterranean at low tide. As this
inequality of level seemed to preclude the idea of a direct maritime
canal, a compromise was recommended.
Owing to the exertions of Lieutenant Waghorn, the route through
Egypt for the transmission of the mails between England and India was
determined upon in 1839. The Peninsular and Oriental Company established
a service of steamers between England and Alexandria, and between Suez
and India. In spite of this endeavour nothing was actually accomplished
with regard to a canal until 1846, when a mixed commission was appointed
to enquire into the subject. This commission entirely exploded the error
into which Lepère had fallen in reporting a difference of level between
the two seas.
A plan was projected in 1855 by M. Linant Bey and M. Mougel Bey, under
the superintendence of M. de Les-seps, who had already received a firman
of concession from Said Pasha. This plan recommended a direct canal
between Suez and Pelusium, which should pass through the Bitter Lakes,
Lake Tinseh, Ballah, and Menzaleh, and connecting with the sea at each
end by means of a lock. A fresh-water canal from Bulak to the centre of
the isthmus and thence through Suez, with a conduit for conveying water
to Pelusium, was also proposed. This project was in 1856 submitted to
an international commission company composed of representatives from
England, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, and Spain,
and the following modification was suggested: that the line of the canal
to the north should be slightly altered and brought to a point seventeen
and a half miles west of Pelusium, this change being determined upon
from the fact that the water at this point was from twenty-five to
thirty feet deep at a distance of two miles from the coast, whereas at
Pelusium this depth of water was only to be found at a distance of
five miles from the coast. It was suggested that the plan for locks
be abolished, and the length of the jetties at Suez and Port Said be
diminished. Various other details of a minor character were determined,
and this project was finally accepted and carried through by the Suez
Canal Company.
[Illustration: 259.jpg FERDINAND DE LESSEPS]
In 1854 M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose father was the first
representative of France in Egypt after the occupation, and who was
chosen consul at Cairo (1831--1838), obtained a preliminary concession
from Said Pasha, authorising him to form a company for the purpose of
excavating a canal between the two seas, and laying down the connections
on which the concession was granted. This was followed by the drawing up
and revision of the project mentioned above, and by the renewal in
1856 of the first concession with certain modifications and additions.
Meanwhile the British government, under the influence of Lord
Palmerston, then foreign secretary, endeavoured for various political
reasons to place obstacles in the way of the enterprise, and so far
succeeded in this unworthy attempt as to prevent the sultan from giving
his assent to the concessions made by the viceroy of Egypt. Nothing,
however, could daunt the intrepid promoter, M. de Lesseps. He declared
his motto to be Pour principe de commencer par avoir de la con-fiance.
Undeterred by intrigues, and finding that his project met with a
favourable reception throughout the Continent of Europe, he determined,
in 1858, to open a subscription which would secure funds for the
undertaking. The capital, according to the statistics of the company,
approved in the firman of the concession, was to consist of forty
million dollars in shares of one hundred dollars each. More than half
of this amount was subscribed for, and eventually, in 1860, Said Pasha
consented to take up the remaining unallotted shares, amounting to more
than twelve million dollars. Disregarding the opposition of the English
government, and ignoring the Sublime Porte, which was influenced by
England, M. de Lesseps began his work in 1859, and on the 25th of April
of that year the work was formally commenced, in the presence of M. de
Lesseps and four directors of the company, by the digging of a small
trench along the projected line of the canal, on the narrow strip of
land between Lake Menzaleh and the Mediterranean. This was followed
by the establishment of working encampments in different parts of the
isthmus.
Although the first steps were thus taken, incredible difficulties
prevented de Lesseps from pushing forward with his work. Towards the
close of 1862 the actual results were only a narrow rigole cut from
the Mediterranean to Lake Tinseh, and the extension of the freshwater
canal from Rasel-Wady to the same point. The principal work done in 1863
was the continuation of the fresh-water canal to Suez. At this point a
fresh obstacle arose which threatened to stop the work altogether.
Among the articles of the concession of 1856 was one providing that
four-fifths of the workmen on the canal should be Egyptians. Said Pasha
consented to furnish these workmen by conscription from different parts
of Egypt, and the company agreed to pay them at a rate equal to about
two-thirds less than was given for similar work in Europe, and one-third
more than they received in their own country, and to provide them with
food, dwellings, etc. In principle this was the _corvée_, or forced
labour. The fellaheen were taken away from their homes and set to work
at the canal, though there is no doubt that they were as well treated
and better paid than at home. The injustice and impolicy of this clause
had always been insisted upon to the sultan by the English government,
and when Ismail Pasha became viceroy, in the year 1863, he saw that
the constant drain upon the working population required to keep twenty
thousand fresh labourers monthly for the canal was a loss to the country
for which nothing could compensate. In the early part of 1864 he refused
to continue to send the monthly contingent, and the work was almost
stopped.
By the consent of all the parties, the subjects in dispute were
submitted to the arbitrage of the French Emperor Napoleon III., who
decided that the two concessions of 1854 and 1856, being in the nature
of a contract and binding on both parties, the Egyptian government
should pay an indemnity equal to the fellah labour and $6,000,000 for
the resumption of the lands originally granted, two hundred metres only
being retained on each side of the canal for the erection of workshops,
the deposit of soil, etc., and $3,200,000 for the fresh-water canal, and
the right of levying tolls on it. The Egyptian government undertook to
keep it in repair and navigable, and to allow the company free use of
it for any purpose. The sum total of these payments amounted to
$16,800,000, and was to be paid in sixteen instalments from 1864 to
1879.
The company now proceeded to replace by machinery the manual labour,
and, thanks to the energy and ingenuity of the principal contractors,
Messrs. Borel and Lavalley, that which seemed first of all to threaten
destruction to the enterprise now led to its ultimate success. Without
the machinery thus called into action, it is probable that the canal
would never have been completed when it was. The ingenuity displayed
in the invention of this machinery, and its application to this vast
undertaking, constituted one of the chief glories in the enterprise of
M. de Lesseps.
The work now proceeded without interruption of any kind; but at the end
of the year 1867 it became evident that more money would be needed, and
a subscription was opened for the purpose of obtaining $20,000,000 by
means of one hundred dollar shares, issued at $600 a share, and bearing
interest at the rate of five dollars a share. When more money was needed
in 1869, the government agreed to renounce the interest on the shares
held by it for twenty-five years, and more bonds were issued.
By help of these subventions and loans the work was pushed onward with
great vigour. The sceptical were gradually losing their scepticism,
and all the world was awakening to see what an immense advantage to
civilisation the triumph of de Lesseps engineering enterprise would be.
[Illustration: 263.jpg THE OPENING OF THE SUEZ CANAL]
The great Frenchman had shown consummate skill as an organiser, but
still more perhaps as an astute diplomatist, who knew how to upset
the machinations of his numerous and powerful opponents by judicious
counter-strokes of policy. By the beginning of 1869, the great labours
of the company had very nearly reached their completion. The waters,
flowing from the Mediterranean, first entered into the Bitter Lakes on
March 18, 1869. Ismail Pasha was present to watch the initial success of
the grand undertaking, and predicted that in a very short space of time
the canal would be open to the ships of all the world. The first steamer
which made the passage was one which carried M. de Lesseps on board,
and which steamed the whole length of the canal September, 1869, in an
interval of fifteen hours. This was a great triumph for the intrepid and
persevering engineer, whose enterprise had been scoffed at by many men
of the greatest European fame, and the completion of which had been
delayed by incredible obstacles arising from jealousy or want of funds.
By this time the unworthy tactics of the former Palmerston ministry of
Great Britain in opposition to a scheme of such universal helpfulness
to commerce had been succeeded by an official interest in the success
of the enterprise which grew from sentiment, in the first instance, to
a willingness later to buy up all the shares held by the Egyptian
government. M. de Lesseps gave formal notice early in September that the
canal would be opened for navigation on November 17, 1869. The khédive
made costly preparations in order that the event might become an
international celebration. Invitations were sent to all the sovereigns
of Europe. The sultan refused to be present, but the Empress Eugenie
accepted the invitation in the name of the French people. The Austrian
emperor, the Prussian crown prince, and Prince Amadeus of Italy also
took part in the festivity. The initial ceremony was on November 15th,
at Port Said. Emperor Francis Joseph landed at midday, and was received
with pomp and magnificence by the Khedive Ismail. There were splendid
decorations in the streets and triumphal arches were raised. Meanwhile
salutes were exchanged between the batteries and the ships of war in the
harbour. At night there were gorgeous illuminations and fireworks. The
khédive gave a grand ball on his own yacht, at which the Emperor of
Austria and all the distinguished guests were in attendance. The French
empress then arrived in Alexandria, and was received by Ismail and
Francis Joseph with salutes of guns and the acclamations of the people.
The next day the French imperial yacht Aigle, with the empress on board,
proceeded to steam up the canal, being followed by forty vessels. They
reached Ismailia after eight hours and a half, and were there met by
vessels coming from the south end at Suez. On November 19th the fleet
of steamers, led by the French imperial yacht, set out for Suez. They
anchored overnight at the Bitter Lakes, and on November 21st the whole
fleet of forty-five steamers arrived at Suez and entered the Red Sea.
The empress, accompanied by the visiting fleet, returned on November
22nd, and reached the Mediterranean on the 23rd.
England, the country which more than any other had opposed the progress
of the canal, derived more benefit than any other country from its
completion. In 1875 the British government bought 176,600 shares from
the khédive for a sum of nearly $20,000,000; and at the present time the
value of these shares has risen more than fourfold. By this acquisition
the British government became the largest shareholder. Of the shipping
which avails itself of this route to the East, which is shorter by six
thousand miles than any other, about eighty per cent, is British. In
1891, of 4,207 ships, with a grain tonnage of 12,218,000, as many as
3,217 of 9,484,000 tons were British.
Extensive works were undertaken in 1894 for the widening of the canal.
Illuminated buoys and electric lights have been introduced to facilitate
the night traffic, so that, proceeding continuously, instead of stopping
overnight, ships can now pass through in less than twenty hours in place
of the thirty-five or forty hours which were formerly taken to effect
the passage. These greater facilities postponed the need of discussing
the project for running a parallel canal to the East which some time ago
was thought to be an impending necessity on account of the blockage of
the canal by the number of vessels passing through its course.
By the Anglo-French Convention of 1888, the canal had acquired an
international character. Both the water way itself and the isthmus for
three miles on either side were declared neutral territory, exempt from
blockade, fortification, or military occupation of any kind. The passage
is to remain open for all time to ships of all nations, whether they are
war-ships or merchantmen or liners, or whether the country to which they
belong is engaged in war or enjoying peace. Within this convention was
included the fresh-water canal which supplies drinking water to Ismailia
and Port Said, and all the floating population about the banks of
the Suez Canal. On April 8, 1904, by the terms of a new Anglo-French
Colonial Treaty, it has been jointly agreed that the provisions of the
Convention of 1888 shall remain in force for the next thirty years.
Egypt was the scene of the earliest of all advances in engineering
science. The system of irrigation, which originated in the days of the
oldest Egyptian dynasties, has remained practically the same through all
the intervening centuries until very recent times. During every period
of vigorous government the rulers of Egypt paid special attention to
irrigation canals and sluices, through which the flood waters could
be brought to some hitherto uncultivated area. The famous barrage,
projected early in the nineteenth century and only rendered efficient
for what it was intended since the British occupation, made very little
alteration in the actual supply of water during the seasons of low water
in the Nile. The most serious problem is how to ward off the periodical
famine years, of which there has been record from the earliest ages,
and of which the Book of Genesis has left an account in the history of
Joseph and the seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Without
creating such a vast reservoir in the upper waters of the Nile, that the
storage there retained can be available in years of low water to fill
the river to its accustomed level, it is impossible to prevent
the calamity occasioned by leaving many districts of Egypt without
cultivation for one or more seasons. With the desire of accomplishing
this, Sir Benjamin Baker, the leading authority on engineering works in
Egypt, prepared a scheme for reserving a vast storage of water in Upper
Egypt at Aswan. It was also decided to follow up the enterprise with
another to be undertaken at Assiut.
On February 20,1898, the khédive approved of a contract with Messrs.
John Aird and Company, which settled the much-debated question of the
Nile reservoir and the scheme for the great dam at Aswan. The government
was able to start the undertaking without any preliminary outlay. It was
agreed that the company should receive the sum of $800,000 a year for
a period of thirty years. Aswan, six hundred miles south of Cairo, was
selected as an advantageous site because the Nile at that place flows
over a granite bed, and is shut in on either side by granite rocks,
which, when the course of the river is barred, would form the shores of
the artificial irrigation lake.
Before this work started, there had been a long controversy as to the
effect produced by the rising waters upon the renowned temple on the
Isle of Philæ. Lord Leighton, the president of the Royal Academy, had
vigorously protested against allowing the destruction of this famous
ancient ruin. In the modification of the plans caused by this protest,
it was hoped that no serious harm would result to this well-preserved
relic of ancient Egyptian religion and art.
[Illustration: 269.jpg APPROACH TO PHILAE]
The enterprise was put through with great rapidity, the project
fully realising the designs of its inaugurators. By aid of this great
structure, 2,500 square miles have been added to the area of the 10,500
miles hitherto subject to cultivation. Its value to the country is at
the least worth $100,000,000. The dam extends for one and a quarter
miles, and possesses 180 openings, each of which is twenty-three feet
high, and will altogether allow the outpour of fifteen thousand tons of
water per second. Navigation up and down the Nile has not been impeded,
since, by a chain of four locks, vessels are able to pass up and down
the river. Each lock is 260 feet long and thirty-two feet wide. During
flood-time the gates of the dam are open; while the flood is subsiding
the gates are gradually closed, and thus, in a long season of low water,
the reservoir is gradually filled up for use through a system of canals,
whereby the waters can be drawn off for irrigation and the main flow of
the Nile can be increased. The lake thus formed is nearly three times
the superficial area of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, and the waters are
held back for a distance of 140 miles up the course of the river. The
reservoir is filled during the months of January and February, and from
April to the end of August the water is let out for irrigation purposes
from the bottom of the reservoir, thus enabling the sediment, which
is of such value, to be carried out through the sluices. Four or five
waterings are allowed to percolate from it to the various regions which
are thus brought under cultivation, and besides this the main supply of
the river itself is artificially increased at the same time.
The dam has been constructed of granite ashlar taken from quarries near
Aswan. These quarries are the very same from which the ancient obelisks
were hewn. The amount of rock used was about one million tons in
weight. In building the dam it was found to be very difficult to lay the
foundation, since the bottom of the river proved to be unsound, although
in the preliminary reports it had been declared to be of solid granite.
In some instances it was found necessary to dig down for forty feet, in
order to lay a perfectly secure foundation on which the heavy wall could
be superimposed. This required much additional labour, and great risk
and damage was encountered during the progress of the work at the date
of the impending rise of the waters of the Nile. Rubble dams were
raised to ward off the waters from the point where it was necessary to
excavate. The holes were gradually filled with solid blocks of granite;
then the base of the structure, one hundred feet in width, was laid,
and the massive piers, capable of resisting the immense pressure of
the water during the height of the floods, were raised, and the whole
edifice was at length completed with great rapidity by the aid of
many thousand workmen, just before the rise in the Nile occurred. The
official opening of the dam took place on the 10th of December, 1902.
The dam at Aswan is the greatest irrigation project ever yet undertaken,
but is by no means the last one likely to be executed in relation to
the waters of the Nile. A smaller dam is to be constructed at Assiut,
in order to supply a system of irrigation in the neighbourhood of that
city, and also to carry water across to thousands of acres between this
region and Cairo. This project is planned somewhat after the design of
the barrage which is below Cairo.
It is impossible to forecast what engineering skill may have in
store for the future of Egypt. One may hope, at least, that the most
prosperous days of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Romans will be
reproduced once more for the modern Egyptians, as an outcome of the
wise administration which has originated through the occupation of the
country by the English, as an international trust held for civilisation.
By aid of British initiative, Egypt now controls a vast empire in
equatorial Africa and the Sudan, and the great water ways of this
immense territory are being gradually brought under such control that
the maximum advantage to all the population will be the necessary
result. The whole Nile is now opened to commerce. The British have
guaranteed equal rights, and what has been called the policy of the
open door, for the commerce of all nations.
The history of the modern exploration of the Nile is closely associated
with the history of Egypt in modern times. The men who first
visited Egypt and ascended the Nile valley were in almost every case
Indo-Euro-peans. The early Egyptians were familiar perhaps with the
Nile as far as Khartum, and with the Blue Nile up to its source in Lake
Tsana, but they showed little or no interest in exploring the White
Nile. In 457 B.C., Herodotus entered Egypt, and ascended the Nile as
far as the First Cataract. He then learned many things about its upper
waters, and made enquiries about the territories which lay beyond.
He heard that the source was unknown; that there was a centre of
civilisation in a city of the Ethiopians, in the bend of the Nile at
Meroë (Merawi of to-day), but about the regions beyond he was unable to
learn anything. Eratosthenes, the earliest geographer of whom we
have record, was born in 276 b. c. at Cyrene, North Africa. From the
information he gathered and edited, he sketched a nearly correct route
of the Nile to Khartum. He also inserted the two Abyssinian affluents,
and suggested that lakes were the source of the river.
When Rome extended her domains over Egypt, in 30 B.C., the interest of
the Romans was aroused in the solution of the problem of the discovery
of the source of the Nile. Strabo set out with Ælius Gallus, the Roman
Governor of Egypt, on a journey of exploration up the Nile as far as
Philæ, at the First Cataract. About 30 B.C. Greek explorers by the names
of Bion, Dalion, and Si-mondes were engaged in active exploration of the
Nile above the First Cataract and perhaps south of Khartum, according to
the account of Pliny the Elder, writing in 50 A.D. The Emperor Nero, in
A.D. 66, sent an expedition up the Nile, and its members journeyed as
far as the modern Fashoda and perhaps even beyond the White Nile.
Their advance was impeded by the sudd, and, after writing discouraging
reports, their attempt was abandoned. Among the Greek merchants who
traded on the East African coast was one named Diogenes, who had been
informed by an Arab that by a twenty-five days journey one could gain
access to a chain of great lakes, two of which were the headwaters of
the White Nile. They also said that there was a mountain range, named
from its brilliant appearance the Mountains of the Moon. He was informed
that the Nile formed from the two head streams, flowed through marshes
until it united with the Blue Nile, and then it flowed on until it
entered into well-known regions. Diogenes reported this to a Syrian
geographer named Marinus of Tyre, who wrote of it in his _Geography_
during the first century of the Christian era. The writings of Marinus
disappeared, it is supposed, when the Alexandrian Library was scattered,
but luckily Gladius Ptolemy quoted them, and thus they have been
preserved for us. Ptolemy wrote, in 150 A.D., the first clearly
intelligible account of the origin of the White Nile, the two lakes,
Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and the Mountains of the Moon. But no less
than 1,740 years elapsed before justice could be done to this ancient
geographer, and his account verified. It was Sir Henry M. Stanley who
discovered the Ruwanzori mountain range, corresponding to the classical
Mountains of the Moon, and who thus justified Ptolemys view of
the topography of Africa. For many years after Ptolemy, the work of
exploring the sources of the Nile was entirely discontinued, and the
solution of the problem was still wrapped in impenetrable mystery.
The first modern explorer of any consequence who came from Great Britain
was a Scotchman named Bruce. In 1763 he travelled through many ports
of Northern Africa and visited the Levant, and subsequently Syria and
Palestine. Wherever he went he drew sketches of antiquities, which are
now preserved in the British Museum. Landing in Africa in 1786, he went
up the Nile as far as Aswan. From there he travelled to the Red Sea and
reached Jiddah, the port of Hajas. He then returned to Africa, stopping
at Massawra, and from there penetrated into the heart of Abyssinia.
The emperor received him with favour and suffered him to reach the Blue
Nile, which to the mind of Bruce had always been considered as the main
stream of the Nile. Having determined the latitude and longitude, he
went down the Blue Nile as far as the site of Khartum, where the waters
of the White Nile join with those of the Blue Nile. He next proceeded
to Berber, and crossed the desert to Korosko, returning, after a three
years journey, in the year 1773. In journeying through France many
learned men took a great interest in the story of his explorations, but
he was bitterly disappointed to hear that he had not been the first to
reach the sources of the Blue Nile. Partly for this reason he delayed
publishing his travels for seventeen years after his return. Bruce was a
truthful and accurate writer, but nevertheless his book was received on
all sides with incredulity. Although received at the British court, he
was not given any special honours or decorations. He first pointed out
the great importance to England of controlling the Egyptian route to
India, and he also secured for English merchants a concession on the Red
Sea.
In 1812, John Ludwig Burckhardt, of Swiss nationality, the first among
Europeans, made a pilgrimage to Mecca and then travelled up the Nile
to Korosko, after which he crossed the desert to Berber and Shendy.
His death occurred after his return to Cairo, and he left a valuable
collection of Oriental manuscripts to the University of Cambridge,
England, which were published after his death.
In 1827, a Belgian, named Adolphe Lisiant, ascended the White Nile to
within 150 miles of Khartum. The expedition which he led was aided by
an English society, called the African Association, which became
afterwards a part of the Royal Geographical Society. Many explorers
visited the White Nile between 1827 and 1845. In 1845, John Pethrick, a
Welshman, explored the Nile for coal and precious metals in the interest
of Mehemet Ali. After the death of this pasha, Pethrick visited El-Obeid
in Kordofan as a trader, and remained there for five years. In 1853
he ventured upon an enterprise relating to the ivory trade. For this
purpose he travelled backwards and forwards upon the White Nile and the
Bahr-el-Ghazal for a period of six years, reaching some of the important
affluents of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the Jur and the Jalo, or the Rol.
Returning to England, he was commissioned to undertake a relief
expedition to help Captains Speke and Grant, who had set out upon their
journey of exploration, and in the year 1861 he returned to Central
Africa. Interest in the slave-trade deterred him from following the
directions under which he had been sent out, namely, to bring relief
to Speke and Grant. Sir Samuel Baker anticipated him in relieving the
expedition, and this so angered Speke that he attempted to have Pethrick
deprived of his consular position. Pethrick died in 1882.
When Lieutenant Richard Francis Burton had completed his famous journey
through Hedjaz to the sacred city of Mecca, he called at the port of
Aden at the southwest extremity of Arabia. While there, he made friends
with the authorities, and persuaded them to allow him to penetrate
Africa through Somaliland, which is situated to the southwest of
Abyssinia. He hoped by an overland journey westbound to strike the Nile
at its headwaters. John H. Speke accompanied Burton on his journey, and
thus gained his first experience of African exploration. Unfortunately
this expedition was not a success, for the Somali were so suspicious
of the object of the travellers that they forced them to return to the
coast.
[Illustraton: 277.jpg THE MAIN STREAM OF THE NILE]
Once more, in 1856, the same party started farther south from Zanzibar.
Hearing of a great inland lake, they pressed forwards to make an
exploration, but were prevented by the Masai tribes. Burton was now laid
up with fever, and Speke formed a large party and crossed the Unyamivezi
and Usukuma. On July 30, 1858, they were fortunate enough to cross one
of the bays of the southern half of Lake Victoria Nyanza. They struck
northwards, and, on August 3rd, gained sight of the open waters of the
great lake. Speke did not realise the vast area of the lake at this
time, and put down its width at about one hundred miles. As he had
promised Burton to return at a certain pre-arranged date, he went back
to the coast. Burton, however, was unreasonable enough to be displeased
with Spekes discovery, and the two fell into strained relations. On
arriving at the coast, Speke at once went back to England, and there
raised funds to make a longer and more complete exploration. He was
naturally anxious to learn more about the great lake in the middle of
the continent, and, besides this, he thought that he could demonstrate
to the satisfaction of the scientific world that this vast basin of
water was the source of the White Nile. Captain James A. Grant asked
leave to accompany Speke, and became his efficient lieutenant. Grant was
a good shot, a matter of importance, for it was almost certain that
the party would have to confront the danger of being surrounded by wild
beasts and hostile natives. He was also a good geologist and painted
well in water-colours, and proved himself to be a capable lieutenant
to the leader of the party. The Indian government sent the expedition a
quantity of ammunition and surveying instruments.
The party started from Zanzibar for the interior in October, 1860. At
Usugara they were detained by the illness of Captain Grant and some of
the Hottentot retainers. A number of the instruments were now sent back
in order to lighten the burdens, and among other things was returned the
cumbrous photographic apparatus, which was the only kind in use in the
sixties. At Ugogo serious trouble arose with the native chiefs, who
demanded tolls from the party. Many of the remaining porters here
deserted, and others were frightened by the hostility of the local
tribes. When at length they reached the Unyamivezi most of the beasts of
burden had died, and half of the stores they had intended to bring with
them were found to have been stolen by the natives. The Arabs here told
Speke that there was another lake besides the Victoria, whose waters,
according to some, were reported to be salty.
Fierce internecine wars were now being waged between the tribes of the
locality, which made any thought of progress, so long as they lasted,
an impossibility. Speke, having successfully endeavoured to negotiate a
peace between the chief Mouwa and the Arabs of the region, resolved upon
the bold enterprise of pushing on without Grant and the supplies
towards Buzina, the nearest country ruled by Bahima chiefs. The venture,
however, was a fruitless one, and he bravely struggled to reach Usui.
In this he succeeded, remaining there till October, 1861, when he went
through the region of the Suwaroras, who demanded excessive tolls
for permission to pass through their territory. Proceeding into the
wilderness, they were met by envoys from Rumanika, a king whose court
they intended to visit, and who had heard in advance of their impending
journey. The messengers of the king received them well and brought them
to the court. Rumanika now desired them to remain at his capital until
he had sent word before them that the party intended to go to Uganda.
Grant, about this time, was laid up with an ulcerated leg; and, when the
time came for moving forward, Speke was obliged to set out for Uganda
alone, which place he entered on January 16, 1862. He became a close
friend of the royal family and the chief men, and his beard was a
constant source of admiration and conversation.
The illness of Grant prevented him from joining the party at Uganda till
the end of May, and on July 7th of the same year, after many delays,
they obtained leave from the king to leave Uganda. By July the 28th,
Speke had reached the Ripon Falls, where the Victoria Nyanza branch of
the Nile flows out of the great lake at the head of Napoleon Gulf. These
falls were called after the Marquis of Ripon, who was then the
president of the Royal Geographical Society. At this time, Grant, still
convalescent, was moving by a more direct route towards Ungaro. Speke
met him again on the way thither, and they finished their journey
together. After suffering vexatious impositions from the monarch,
Speke asked leave to go and visit a new lake which the natives called
Lutanzige, but was refused permission. He then sent Bombay, his servant
and interlocutor, along the course of the Nile towards the outposts
of Pethrick. The messenger returned with hopeful news that there was
a clear course open to them in that direction. The whole party then
journeyed down the Kafu River to the point where it enters the Nile.
On the way thither, they came to the Karuma Falls, and were obliged
to march across swampy ground. Finally they met a Sudanese black named
Mu-hammed Wad-el-Mek, who was dressed like an Egyptian and who spoke
Arabic. Muhammed first of all told them that he had come from Pethrick,
but it was later discovered that he was in the employment of Doctor
Bono, a trader from Malta. The Sudanese was not anxious that the
party should proceed, and told them stories about the impossibility of
ascending the river at that time, during the month of December. It was
difficult to dissuade Speke, however, and on January 12, 1863, he set
out for a place which is now called Affudu. There the party paused for
awhile in order to kill enough game to feed the native servants. On the
1st of February, having forced some of the natives into their service as
porters, they descended the Nile to its confluence with the Asua River.
They next crossed this river, and proceeded onwards to the Nile Rapids,
and from thence skirted the borders of the Bari country. On February 15,
1863, they made an entrance into Gondokoro, where the whole party was
filled with joy to meet Sir Samuel Baker, who had arrived there on the
way out to relieve them. They all advanced together to Khartum, after
which Speke and Grant returned to England, in the spring of 1863. Thus
was the task of the discovery of the sources of the Nile, which had
baffled the seekers for many centuries, at length completed. Speke was
received by the Prince of Wales (King Edward VII.), but the satisfaction
of being allowed to place an additional motto on his coat-of-arms was
the only recognition which he received for his services.
As a result of Spekes discoveries, the Victoria Nyanza took its place
on the maps of Africa, and a fair conception had been obtained of the
size and shape of Lake Albert Nyanza.
[Illustration: 283.jpg THE FERRY AT OLD CAIRO]
The whole course of the White Nile was also revealed with more or less
accuracy, and all the mysterious surmises as to the great flow of the
Nile from some unknown headwaters of enormous extent were now solved.
It was only necessary to fill in the details of the map in regard to
the great lakes and the rivers which flowed into them, and further to
investigate the extensive territory between the lakes and the Egyptian
settlements to the north. Sir Samuel Baker was the man who more than
any other helped to supply the details of the work already accomplished.
From Cairo he started on a journey up the course of the Nile. When he
had reached Berber, he chose the course of the At-bara, or Blue Nile,
the branch which receives the floods of water from the Abyssinian
table-lands. He travelled up the western frontier of Abyssinia,
proceeding as far as the river Rahad, a river flowing into the Blue Nile
from the Egyptian side. From this point Baker turned backwards towards
Khartum, which he reached in June, 1862, where he made a stay of some
duration. He now made up his mind to search for Speke, and went up the
White Nile as far as Gondokoro, where the meeting with Speke took place.
Baker left this place March 26, 1863, but met with almost insuperable
obstacles in trying to make further advance. The porters deserted, the
camels died, and the ammunition and the presents intended to ease the
way through the territory of native princes had to be all abandoned.
Thus disencumbered, his party ascended the White Nile until they reached
the Victoria affluent. The Bauyno tribes now prevented his intended
advance to the Albert Nyanza. Baker, however, had the good fortune to be
well received by the chieftain Kamurasi, and, as he was at this moment
suffering from a severe attack of fever, the friendliness of this
Central African chieftain was probably the means of saving his life. The
king graciously received Bakers present of a double-barrelled gun, and
then sent him onward with two guides and three hundred men. The party
now managed to push their way to the shores of the Albert Nyanza. They
first arrived at a place called Mbakovia, situated near the south-east
coast, and on March 16, 1864, they saw for the first time the great lake
itself, which they now named the Albert Nyanza. After a short stay at
Mbakovia, they proceeded along the coast of the lake until they reached
Magungo, where the Victoria branch of the Nile flows into the Albert
Nyanza. Continuing the journey up the source of the Victoria Nile, they
discovered the Murchison Falls. When they set out for the Karuma Falls
the porters deserted, and after many desperate adventures they at length
returned to Khartum in May, 1865. Baker then went on to Berber, and
crossed the desert to Suakin on the Red Sea. He returned to England
late in the year 1865, and was received with honour and decorated by the
queen with a well-earned knighthood.
In the year 1869 Baker entered the service of the Egyptian government,
and was commissioned by the viceroy to subdue the regions of Equatorial
Africa, and annex them to the Egyptian Empire. To succeed in this
enterprise he waged many a war with African tribes like the Boni. On
several occasions these conflicts had been forced upon him; on
other occasions Baker Pasha was the aggressor, owing to his fixed
determination to extend on all sides the limits of the Egyptian Sudan.
With all the rulers, however, who treated him well, he remained on terms
of loyalty and friendship; and, in time, he inspired them with respect
for his fairness and liberality. Baker Pasha scattered the slave-traders
on all sides, and, for the time being, effectually broke up their power.
The slave-traders of the Sudan were of Arab nationality, and were in
the habit of advancing farther, year by year, upon the villages of the
defenceless Africans, and spreading their ravages into the heart of
Africa. They always attacked the less warlike tribes, and, upon breaking
into a negro settlement, would carry off the whole population, except
the aged or sick. The slaves were herded together in vast numbers by
help of logs of wood sawn in two, with holes cut large enough to enclose
the neck of a slave, and the two sides of the log afterwards securely
fastened again, thereby yoking together a row of these unfortunate
beings. Every year, out of five hundred thousand or more slaves, at
least half the number perished.. The markets for the slaves were the
cities of the Muhammedans all through North Africa, Syria, Turkey, and
Persia. The death-dealing hardships to the slaves were for the most part
endured on the long journey to Cairo, or, when the trade was suppressed
there, to points north of the Sudan, such as Tripoli, or certain ports
on the Red Sea. Those who were hardy enough to reach the slave-markets
were usually well treated by their Muhammedan masters. During the time
of Baker Pashas administration, while he was pursuing the slave-traders
and establishing Egyptian outposts, the whole course of the Nile from
the Great Lakes became well known to the civilised world, though after
this period Baker Pasha did not make any further voyages of discovery
into unknown parts.
During the years of 1859 and 1860, an adventurous Dutch lady of fortune,
Miss Alexandrine Tinné, journeyed up the Nile as far as Gondokoro, and
in 1861 she commenced to organise a daring expedition to find the source
of the Bahr-el-Ghazel, and explore the territory between the Nile basin
and Lake Chad. She started from Khartum, and ascended the Bahr-el-Ghazel
as far as the affluent Bahr-el-Hamad. She then crossed overland as far
as the Jur and Kosango Rivers, and reached the mountains on the outlying
districts of the Nyam-Nyam country. Here the members of the expedition
suffered from black-water fever, and only with the greatest difficulty
were they able to return to Khartum, where they arrived in July, 1864.
In 1868 Miss Tinné, nothing-daunted, started for Lake Chad from Tripoli,
with the intention of closing in upon the Nile from the eastern sources
of the affluents of the Bahr-el-Ghazel. On reaching Wadi-Aberjong,
however, this brave-hearted woman was waylaid by the fierce Tuaregs, and
was beheaded August 1, 1868.
In the sixties, Georg Schweinfurth, a native of Riga, in the Baltic
provinces of Russia, set out to explore Nubia, Upper Egypt, and
Abyssinia for botanical purposes. Subsequently the Royal Academy of
Science in Berlin equipped him for an expedition to explore the region
of the Bahr-el-Ghazel. He entered the Sudan by Suakin on the Red Sea,
and crossed the desert to Berber, reaching Khartum on November 1, 1868.
The following January he set out along the course of the White Nile,
passed Getina, and examined the vegetation (sudd) which had drifted
down from all the affluents of the White Nile. He prolonged his stay
for three years on the Bahr-el-Ghazel, solely absorbed in scientific
studies, and, unlike his predecessors, he was unconcerned with reforms
and attempts to suppress the slave-trade.
Schweinfurth penetrated so far into the heart of Africa that he reached
the Congo basin and explored the upper waters of the Welle River, and on
his return to Europe he published a work, in 1873, called The Heart
of Africa. In this book he tried to demonstrate that the area of the
Victoria Nyanza was taken up by a chain of five lakes.
About this time, in the same year, the famous Henry Morton Stanley
returned to London from his adventurous discovery and relief of Dr.
David Livingstone. The distinguished missionary and explorer died not
long afterwards, and the fame of his brilliant discoveries and heroic
life aroused great sympathy and interest in African exploration. The
great river which Livingstone had explored was believed by him to have
been the Nile, but was more correctly thought by others to have been the
Congo River. On account of the interest aroused in Livingstone, the _New
York Herald_ and the _Daily Telegraph_ of London decided to send Stanley
on a fully equipped expedition to solve the many problems relating to
the heart of Africa about which the civilised world was still in the
dark.
Stanley chose the route of Zanzibar, and, landing there, he went up the
course of the river and crossed the country to the Victoria Nyanza by
the way of Unyamwezi. He reached the lake by the end of February,
1875. On March the 8th he set out to explore the shores of the lake, and
mapped the whole region, including its bays, islands, and archipelagoes,
with a considerable amount of accuracy. He also examined Napoleon Gulf,
and reached as far as Ripon Falls, at which point the waters of the lake
flow towards the Albert Nyanza. He then verified the accuracy of Spekes
supposition that the Victoria Nyanza really was the main source of the
White Nile. Stanley set out from Uganda at the end of the year 1875,
and travelled across the country to the Congo. About the same time
three English surveyors, Colonels Purdy, Colston, and Sidney Enser,
made several topographical reports on much of the territory between
the Bahr-el-Ghazel, the Shari, and the Nile. Later on, in 1876, General
Gordon sent Romolo Gesei, an Italian in the service of the khédive,
to navigate and to explore Lake Albert Nyanza. In the following year
Colonel Mason, an American, surveyed the lake, of which he made an
accurate topographical chart.
In the year 1880, Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, an eminent geographer, made some
valuable surveys of eastern equatorial Africa, which had the effect
of inciting the Royal Geographical Society to send out, in 1882, an
expedition under Joseph Thomson, a brilliant young African explorer, in
order to find out a direct route to the Victoria Nyanza. Thomson set out
from Momhasa early in the year 1883, but he never succeeded in realising
the purpose of his mission.
Emin Pasha, as we have seen, was the governor appointed by the khédive
to rule the Egyptian equatorial provinces. He made a few discoveries,
such as the Semliki River, which was called by him Divern. Whilst he
was engaged in travelling through the Bahr-el-Ghazel district, the
revolt of the Mahdi occurred, and Emin Pasha was isolated from the outer
world. In the year 1886 Doctor Junker returned to Europe from Emin, and
roused great interest by his account of the adventures of the pasha,
whom most people had believed to have died, but whom they now learned
had set up an independent sovereignty in the heart of Africa, awaiting
anxiously the advent of a relief expedition. Then Henry M. Stanley
volunteered to go out on a relief expedition to bring Emin Pasha home.
Stanley avoided the route through the German colony on the East, and
started upon his ever memorable relief expedition by the Congo
route. The veteran adventurer succeeded in relieving Emin Pasha, and,
furthermore, he discovered the Mountains of the Moon, called by the
natives Ruwenjori, on May 24, 1888. He also traced to its sources
the Semliki River, and explored Lake Albert Edward and a gulf of the
Victoria to the south-west. The remainder of this famous journey,
for the success of which he was knighted as Sir Henry M. Stanley, was
outside the basin of the Nile, and is recorded in his book, Through
Darkest Africa.
In 1900, Dr. Donaldson Smith, an American, made an important journey
through the countries between the north end of Lake Rudolf and the
Mountain Nile.
[Illustration: 290b.jpg EXAMPLES OF PHOENECIAN PORCELAIN]