PART II

I

STOCKHOLM TO EGYPT

TO LONDON AND PARIS

Again we set out from Stockholm in the evening by train, and the next

morning we reach Malmö, a port on the west coast of Sweden, not many

miles north of Trelleborg, from which we started on our journey

eastwards across Asia. From Malmö a steamer soon takes us across the

narrow sound to Copenhagen, the beautiful capital of Denmark, and then

we take the train across the large, rich, and fertile island of Zealand.

There farms are crowded close together among the tilled fields; there

thriving cattle graze on the meadows, yielding Denmark a superfluity of

milk and butter; there the productive soil spreads everywhere, leaving

no room for unprofitable sandy downs and heaths, as on the west coast of

Jutland. The Danes are a small people, but they make a brave struggle

for existence. Their country is one of the smallest in Europe, but the

first in utilising all its possibilities of opening profitable commerce

with foreign lands. Much larger are its possessions in the Arctic Ocean,

Greenland, and Iceland, but there the population is very scanty and the

real masters of the islands are cold and ice.

At Korsör, on the Great Belt, we again go on board a steamer which in a

few hours takes us between Langeland and Laaland to Kiel, the principal

naval port of Germany. Here we are on soil which was formerly Danish,

for it was only during her last unfortunate war that Denmark lost the

two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

We travel by train from Kiel through fertile Holstein southwards to the

free Hansa town of Hamburg on the Elbe, the greatest commercial emporium

on the mainland of Europe, and, after London and New York, the third in

the world.

From Hamburg the train goes on through Hanover and Westphalia, across

the majestic Rhine, through South Holland, not far north of the Belgian

frontier, to the port of Flushing, which is situated on one of the

islands in the delta of the Scheldt. Here another steamer is ready for

us, and after a passage of a few hours we glide into the broad

trumpet-shaped mouth of the Thames and land at Queenborough. There again

we take a train which carries us through the thickly-peopled,

well-cultivated country of Kent into the heart of London, the greatest

city of the world.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM STOCKHOLM TO PARIS.]

After a few days' stay in London we go on to Paris--by train to Dover,

across the Channel at its narrowest part in a swift turbine steamer, and

again by rail from Calais to Paris, through one of the most fruitful

districts of France, vying with the valleys of the Rhone and Garonne in

fertility. In a little over seven hours after leaving London we arrive

at the great city (Plate XXIV.) where the Seine, crossed by thirty

bridges, describes a bend, afterwards continuing in the most capricious

meanderings to Rouen and Havre.

[Illustration: PLATE XXIV. PARIS.

Looking eastwards from Notre Dame.]

The first thing the stranger notices in Paris is the boulevards--broad,

handsome streets, with alleys of leafy trees between rows of large

palatial houses, theatres, cafés, and shops. The oldest, the boulevards

proper, were formerly the fortifications of the town with towers and

walls; "boulevard" is, then, the same word as the English "bulwark."

Louis XIII., who enlarged and beautified Paris, had these bulwarks

pulled down, and the first boulevards laid out on their site. They are

situated on the north side of the Seine, and form a continuous line

under different names, Madeleine, des Capuchines, des Italiens, and

Montmartre. This line of boulevards is one of the sights of Paris. In

later times boulevards were also laid out where there had been no

fortifications before. Under Louis XIV. and his successors Paris grew

and increased in splendour and greatness; then it was the scene of the

great Revolution and its horrors; then under Napoleon it became the

heart of the mightiest empire of that time. With the fall of Napoleon

Paris was twice entered by the forces of the Allies, and in 1871 it was

besieged and captured by the Prussians. Since then Paris has been spared

from disastrous misfortunes, and is, as it has been for many centuries,

the gayest and most animated city in Europe.

Let us take a rapid walk through the town, starting at the Place de la

Bastille, on the north bank of the Seine, where formerly stood the

fortress and prison of the Bastille. This prison was stormed and

destroyed at the commencement of the Great Revolution, on July 14, 1789,

and since that year July 14 has been the chief national festival-day. In

the middle of the square stands the July Column, and from its summit a

wonderful view of Paris can be obtained. We now follow the Rue de

Rivoli, the largest and handsomest street in Paris. On the left hand is

the Hôtel de Ville, a fine public building, where the city authorities

meet, where brilliant entertainments are given, and where the galleries

are adorned with canvases of famous masters.

Farther along, on the same side, is the largest public building of the

city, the palace of the Louvre. Like the British Museum, it would

require months and years to see properly. Here are stored colossal

collections, not only of objects of art and relics from great ancient

kingdoms in Asia and Europe, but also of the finest works of European

sculptors and painters of all periods.

We walk on north-westwards through the luxuriant gardens of the

Tuileries, and stop a moment in the Place de la Concorde to enjoy the

charming views presented on all sides--the river with its quays and

bridges, the parks and avenues, the huge buildings decorated with

exquisite taste, the wide, open spaces adorned with glorious monuments,

and the never-ending coming and going of pleasure-loving Parisians and

Parisian ladies in costumes of the latest fashion.

From the Place de la Concorde we direct our steps to the Champs Élysées,

a magnificent park with a broad carriageway along which the fashionable

world rides, walks, or drives in smart carriages and motor cars. At the

northern side of the park lives the President of the Republic in the

palace of the Élysées.

If we now follow the double row of broad avenues northwards we come to

the Place de l'Étoile, a "circus" where twelve avenues of large streets

meet. One of them, a prolongation of the Champs Élysées, is named after

the grand army of Napoleon and leads to the extensive Bois de Boulogne.

In the middle of the Place de l'Étoile is erected a stately triumphal

arch, 160 feet high, in memory of Napoleon's victories.

From here we follow a busy street as far as the bridge of Jena, and on

the opposite bank of the Seine rises the Eiffel Tower, dominating Paris

with its immense pillar 1000 feet high. The Eiffel Tower is the highest

structure ever reared by human hands, twice as high as the cathedral of

Cologne and the tallest of the Egyptian pyramids. At the first platform

we are more than 330 feet above the vast city, but the hills outside

Paris close in the horizon. When the cage rises up to the third platform

we are at a height of 864 feet above the ground, and see below us the

Seine with its many bridges and the city with its innumerable streets

and its 140 squares. A staircase leads up to the highest balcony, and at

the very top a beacon is lighted at night visible 50 miles away. From

the parapet we hardly dare allow our eyes to look down the perpendicular

tower to the four sloping iron piers at its base, especially when it

blows hard and the whole tower perceptibly swings. There is no need to

go up in a balloon to obtain a bird's-eye view of Paris; from the top of

the Eiffel Tower we have the town spread out before us like a map.

NAPOLEON'S TOMB

When we have safely descended from the giddy height, we make our way

across the Champ de Mars to the Hôtel des Invalides. Formerly several

thousand pensioners from the great French armies found a refuge in this

huge building, but now it is used as a museum for military historic

relics.

[Illustration: PLATE XXV. NAPOLEON'S TOMB.

Hôtel des Invalides, Paris.]

We pass in under the glittering gilded dome, visible all over the city,

and find ourselves in a round hall, the centre of which is occupied by a

crypt, likewise round and several feet deep and open above. On the floor

in mosaic letters are glorious names, Rivoli, Pyramids, Marengo,

Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, and Moscow. Twelve marble statues,

representing as many victories, and sixty captured colours keep guard

round the great sarcophagus of red porphyry from Finland which contains

the remains of Napoleon (Plate XXV.).

No one speaks in here. The deepest silence surrounds the ashes of the

man who in his lifetime filled the world with the roar of his cannon and

the thunder of his legions, and who within the space of a few years

completely changed the map of Europe. Pale and subdued, the light falls

over the crypt where the red porphyry speaks of irresistible power, and

the white goddesses of victory are illumined as it were with a

reflection of the years of glory.

Unconsciously we listen for an echo of the clash of arms and the words

of command. We seem to see a blue-eyed boy playing at his mother's knee

at Ajaccio in Corsica; we seem to hear a youthful revolutionist, burning

with enthusiasm, making fiery speeches at secret clubs in Paris. Pale

and solemn, the shade of the twenty-six-year-old general floats before

our mind's eye as he returns from a series of victories in northern

Italy, where he rushed like a storm over the plains of Lombardy, made a

triumphal entry into Milan, and for ever removed the ancient republic of

Venice from the list of independent States.

We recall the campaign of the French army against Egypt and the Holy

Land. Napoleon takes his fleet out from the harbour of Toulon, escapes

Nelson's ships of the line and frigates, seizes Malta, sails to the

north of Crete and west of Cyprus, and lands 40,000 men at Alexandria.

The soldiers languish in the desert sands on the way to Cairo, they

approach the Nile to give battle to the Egyptian army, and at the foot

of the pyramids the East is defeated by the West. The march is continued

eastwards to Syria. Five centuries have passed since the crusaders

attempted to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of unbelievers. Now

again the weapons of Western lands clash in the valley of the Jordan

and at the foot of Mount Tabor, and now the French General obtains a

victory over the Turks outside Nazareth. In the meantime, however,

Nelson has annihilated his fleet. The flower of the republican army is

doomed to perish, and Napoleon's dream of an oriental dominion has

vanished with the smoke of the last camp fire. He leaves Egypt with two

frigates, sails along the coasts of Tripoli and Tunis, and passes at

night with extinguished lights through the channel between Africa and

Sicily.

Again our eyes turn to the dim light under the cupola of the Invalides,

and the marble columns and statues look white as snow. Then our thoughts

wander off to the Alps, the Great St. Bernard, the St. Gotthard, Mont

Cenis, and the Simplon, where the First Consul, like Hannibal before

him, with four army corps bids defiance to the loftiest mountains of

Europe. We seem to see the soldiers dragging the cannon through the

frozen drifts and collecting together again on the Italian side. At

Marengo, south of the Po, a new victory is added to the French laurels,

and the most powerful man in France has the fate of Europe in his hands.

Then various episodes of his marvellous career pass before us. Our eyes

fall on the name Austerlitz down in the mosaic of the crypt. The Emperor

of France has marched into Moravia and drawn up his legions under the

golden eagles. A distant echo seems to sound round the crypt--it is

Napoleon's cavalry riding down the Russian guards, it is the "grand

army" annihilating the Austrian and Russian forces, it is the French

artillery pounding the ice on the lake and drowning the fugitives, their

guns and horses.

A murmur passes through the crypt, an echo from the battle of Jena,

where Prussia was crushed, its territory devastated from the Elbe to the

Oder, and its fortresses surrendered, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Stettin,

Lübeck, while the victor made his entry into Frederick the Great's

capital, Berlin. We hear the tread of the columns and the tramp of

horses through the mud on the roads in Poland, and we see the bloody

battlefields of Pultusk, east of the Vistula, and Eylau in West Prussia,

where heaps of bodies lie scattered over the deep snow. We see Napoleon

on his white horse after the battle of Friedland in East Prussia, where

the Russians were defeated. The guards and hussars rode through them

with drawn swords. Their enthusiastic cry of "Long live the Emperor"

still vibrates under the standards round the sarcophagus; and above the

shouts of victory the beat of horse hoofs is heard on the roads of

Europe; it is the courier between the headquarters of the army and

Paris.

The conqueror marches to Vienna, and threatens to crush Austria. He

gains the bloody battle of Wagram, north-east of Vienna, he wipes out

states and makes them dependencies of France and their rulers his

obedient vassals, and he gives away royal crowns to his relations and

generals. His dominion extends from Danzig to Cadiz, from the mouth of

the Elbe to the Tiber; he has risen to a height of power and glory never

attained since the golden age of Rome.

Bayonets and sabres, cuirasses and helmets flash in the sunlight as the

invincible army camps with band and music and song above the Niemen.

Half a million of soldiers are on their way to the old capital of

Russia, Moscow. The Russian roads from Vilna to Vitebsk are full of

endless lines of troops, squadrons of cavalry in close formation, and

enormous baggage trains. The Russians know that their freedom is in

danger; they burn their own towns and villages, devastate their own

provinces, and retire little by little, as they did a hundred years

earlier when Charles XII. invaded Russia. At length there is a battle at

Moscow, and the French army enters the town. We see in imagination the

September nights lighted up far and wide by a blazing flame. Moscow is

on fire. On the terrace of the Kremlin stands a little man in a grey

military coat and a black cocked hat, watching the flame. Within a week

the old holy city of the Muscovites lies in ashes.

The early twilight of winter falls over Paris, and we see the shadows

deepen round Napoleon's tomb. We fancy we see among them human figures

fighting against hunger, cold, and weariness. The time of misfortune is

come. The great army is retreating, the roads are lined with corpses and

fragments. The cannon are left in the snow. The soldiers fall in

regiments like a ripe crop. Packs of wolves follow in their tracks: they

are contented with the dead, but the Cossack squadrons cut down the

living. At the bridge over the Beresina, a tributary of the Dnieper,

30,000 men are drowned and perish. All discipline is relaxed. The

soldiers throw away their guns and knapsacks. Clothed in furs and with a

birchen staff in his hand, the defeated emperor marches like a simple

soldier in the front. Thanks to the severe climate of their country and

its great extent, and thanks also to their own cautious conduct of the

war, the Russians practically annihilated Napoleon's army.

The darkness deepens. At Leipzig Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and

Swedes oppose Napoleon. There his proud empire falls to pieces, even

Paris is captured, and he loses his crown. He is carried a prisoner down

the Rhone valley through Lyons, and shipped off to the island of Elba.

Once more he fills the world with tumult. With a brig and seven small

vessels he sails back to the coast of France. He has a force of only

1100 men, but in his hands it is sufficient to reconquer France. He

marches over the western offshoots of the Alps. At Grenoble his force

has increased to 7000 men. In Lyons he is saluted as Emperor, and Paris

opens its gates. He is ready to stake everything on a single throw. In

Belgium is to be the decisive battle. Hostile armies gather round the

frontiers of France, for Europe is tired of continual war. At Waterloo

Napoleon fights his last battle, and his fate is sealed for ever.

He leaves Paris for the last time. At the port of Rochefort, between the

mouths of the Loire and the Garonne, he goes on board an English

frigate. After seventy days' sail he is landed on the small basaltic

island of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic, where he is doomed to

pass the last six years of his eventful life. Here also his grave is

digged under the willows in the valley.

Nineteen years after Napoleon's death the simple grave under the willows

was uncovered, the coffins of wood, lead, and sheet-iron were opened in

the presence of several who had shared his long imprisonment, the

remains were taken on board a French frigate amid the roar of guns and

flags waving half-mast high, the coffin was landed at Cherbourg in

Normandy, and the conqueror of Europe once more made his entry into

Paris with military pomp and ceremony, in which all France took part.

Drawn by sixteen horses in funereal trappings and followed by veterans

of Napoleon's campaigns, the hearse, adorned with imperial splendour,

was escorted by soldiers under the triumphal arch of the Place de

l'Étoile and through the Champs Élysées to the Hôtel des Invalides,

where the coffin was deposited in the Finnish sarcophagus. Thus was

fulfilled the last wish of the conqueror of the world: "I desire that my

remains may rest on the banks of the Seine."

PARIS TO ROME

The stranger leaves Paris with regret, and is consoled only by the

thought that he is on his way to sunny Italy. The train carries him

eastwards, and he looks through the window at the hills and plains of

Champagne, the home of sparkling wine. Around him spread tilled fields,

villages, and farmhouses. Where the soil is not suitable for vines,

wheat, or beet, it provides pasture for large flocks. Men are seen at

work everywhere, and the traveller realises that France is so prosperous

because all its small proprietors, peasants, and townspeople are so

industrious and so thrifty. Now the frontier is reached. The great

fortress of Belfort is the last French town passed, and a little later

we are in Alsace.

Another frontier is crossed, that between Germany and Switzerland, and

the train halts at the fine town of Bâle, traversed by the mighty Rhine.

Coming from the Lake of Constance, the clear waters of the river glide

under the bridges of Bâle, and turn at right angles northwards between

the Vosges and the Black Forest.

From Bâle we go on south-westwards to Geneva. Along a narrow valley the

railway follows the river Birs, which falls into the Rhine, and winds in

curves along the mountain flanks, sometimes high above the foot of the

valley, and sometimes by the river's bank. It is towards the end of

January, and snow has been falling for several days on end. All the

country is quite white, and the small villages in the valley are almost

hidden.

Now we come to three lakes in a row, the Lake of Bienne, the Lake of

Neuchâtel, and the great Lake of Geneva, which we reach at the town of

Lausanne. Here the snow has ceased to fall, and the beautiful Alps of

Savoy are visible to the south. The sun is hidden behind clouds, but its

rays are reflected by the clear mirror of the lake. This view is one of

the finest in the world, and our eyes are glued to the carriage window

as the train follows the shore of Geneva.

In outline the lake is like a dolphin just about to dive. At the

dolphin's snout lies Geneva, and here the river Rhone flows out of the

lake to run to Lyons and debouch into the Mediterranean immediately to

the west of the great port of Marseilles.

Geneva is one of the finest, cleanest, and most charming towns in the

world. Between its northern and southern halves the water of the lake,

deep blue and clear as crystal, is drawn off into the Rhone as into a

funnel. There the current is strong, and the river is divided into two

by a long island.

The finest sight, however, is the view south-eastwards when the weather

is clear. There stand the mighty summits and crests of the Alps of

Savoy, now covered with snow, and glittering in white, light blue, and

steely grey tints. There also Mont Blanc is enthroned above the other

mountains, nay, above all Europe, awesome and grand, the crown of the

Alps, the frontier pillar between Switzerland, France, and Italy.

From Geneva we go eastwards along the northern shore of the lake. The

air is hazy, and the Alps of Savoy look like a light veil beneath the

sun. In this light the water is of a bright green like malachite. Beyond

Lausanne the mist disappears, and the Alps again appear dazzling white

and steep as pyramids and towers. Towns, villages, and villas cast

reflections of their white or coloured house-fronts and their light

balconies on the lake. The shore is lined by a row of hotels surrounded

by gardens and promenades. Travellers come hither from all countries in

summer to feast their eyes on the Alps and strengthen their lungs by

inhaling the fresh air.

We leave the lake and mount gently up the Rhone valley between wild

rocks. It becomes narrower as we ascend. The Rhone, a tumultuous stream,

roars in its bed, now quite insignificant compared to the majestic river

at Geneva. In the valley tilled fields are laid out, dark green spruces

peep out of the snow on the slopes, while above all the snow-white

summits of the Alps are enthroned.

A few minutes beyond Brieg the train rushes at full speed straight into

the mountain. The electric lamps are lighted and all the windows closed.

The tunnel is filled with smoke, and a continuous reverberation dins our

ears. The Simplon tunnel is the longest in the world, being 12-1/2 miles

long. It is only a few years since it was completed. Work was begun from

both sides of the mountain at the same time, and when the excavations

met in the middle and a blasting charge burst the last sheet of rock, it

was found that the calculations had not been an inch out. After fully

twenty minutes it begins to grow light, and when the train rolls out of

the tunnel we are on Italian ground.

The train now descends a lovely valley to the shore of Lago Maggiore.

Framed in steep mountains, the dark blue lake contains a small group of

islands, full of white houses, palaces, and gardens. One of these is

well known by the name of Isola Bella, or the Beautiful Island.

Night hides from our eyes the plains of Lombardy, Milan with its famous

cathedral, the bridge over the Po, and then a number of famous old

towns, including Bologna with its university about fifteen hundred years

old.

Next morning, however, we see to the south-west something like a flaming

beacon. It is the gilded dome of St. Peter's Church, which, caught by

the rays of the rising sun, shines like a fire above the eternal city.

THE ETERNAL CITY

The King of Italy has 35 million subjects, but in Rome lives another

mighty prince, the Pope, though his kingdom is not of this world. His

throne is the chair of St. Peter, his arms the triple tiara and the

crossed keys which open and close the gates of the kingdom of heaven. He

has 270 million subjects, the Roman Catholics. For political reasons he

is a voluntary prisoner in the Vatican, a collection of great palaces

containing more than 10,000 halls and apartments. There also are

installed museums, libraries, and collections of manuscripts of vast

extent and value. The Vatican museum of sculpture is the richest in the

world. In the Sistine Chapel, a sanctuary 450 years old, Michael Angelo

adorned the roof with great pictures of the creation of the world and

man, of the Fall and the Flood, and at the end wall an immense picture

of the Last Judgment. To the west of the palace stands the Pope's

gardens and park, and to the south the Church of St. Peter, the largest

temple in Christendom. The whole forms a small town of itself; and this

town is one of the greatest in the world, a seat of art and learning,

and, above all, the focus of a great religion. For from here the Pope

sends forth his bulls of excommunication against heretics and sinners,

and here he watches over his flock, the Catholics, in accordance with

the Saviour's thrice repeated injunction to Peter: "Feed my sheep."

A drive through Rome is intensely interesting. The streets are mostly

narrow and crooked, and we are always turning corners, driving across

small triangular open places and in lanes where it is ticklish work to

pass a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Yet no boulevards, no

great streets in the world, can rival in beauty the streets of Rome.

They are skirted by old grey palaces built thousands of years ago rather

than centuries, decorated with the most splendid window frames, friezes,

and colonnades. Every portal is a work of art; round every corner comes

a new surprise, a fountain with sea-horses and deities, a mediæval

well, a moss-grown ruin of Imperial times, or a church with a tower

whence bells have rung for centuries over Rome.

And what a commotion there is in all these narrow streets! Here comes a

peasant driving his asses weighed down with baskets of melons and

grapes. There a boy draws a handcart piled up with apricots, oranges,

and nuts. Here we see men and women from the Campagna outside Rome, clad

in their national costume, in which dirty white and red predominate, the

men with black slouched hats, the women with white kerchiefs over their

hair. They are of dark complexion, but on the cheeks of the younger ones

the roses appear through the bronze. The patricians, the noble Romans

who roll by lazily in fine carriages, are much fairer, and indeed the

ladies are often as pale as if they had just left the cloister or were

ready for the bier. Boys run begging after the carriage, and poor

mothers with small infants in their arms beseech only a small coin.

There are many in Rome who live from hand to mouth. But all are

cheerful, all are comely.

Now we reach the bridge of St. Angelo over the muddy Tiber, and before

us stands the massive round tower of the castle of St. Angelo, which the

Emperor Hadrian built 1800 years ago as a mausoleum for himself. On the

left is the piazza of St. Peter, which, with its surrounding buildings,

its curved arcades, St. Peter's Church and the Vatican, is one of the

grandest in the world. Between its constantly playing fountains has

stood for 300 years an obelisk which the Emperor Caligula brought from

Egypt to adorn Rome. It witnessed wonderful events long before the time

of Moses. At its foot the children of Israel sang the melodies of their

country during their servitude. It was a decoration of Nero's circus,

and saw thousands of Christian martyrs torn to pieces by Gallic hounds

and African lions; and still it lifts itself 80 feet into the air in a

single block, untouched by time and the strife of men.

At the north side of the piazza is the gate of the Vatican, where the

Swiss Guards keep watch in antique red and yellow uniforms. Before us

are the great steps of St. Peter's Church. We enter the grand portico

and pass through one of the bronze doors into the church. All the

dimensions are so immensely great that we stop in astonishment. Now our

eyes lose themselves in sky-high vaulting, glittering with colour, and

now we admire the columns and their capitals, pictures in mosaic or

monuments in marble. Rome was not built in a day, says the proverb, and

St. Peter's Church alone was the work of 120 years and twenty Popes.

Italy's foremost artists, including Raphael and Michael Angelo, put the

best of their energies into the building of this temple, where is the

tomb of the Apostle Peter. The great church contains a bronze statue of

the Apostle Peter in a sitting position, and the right foot is worn and

polished by the kisses of the faithful. High above in the vaulting over

his head is to be seen the following inscription in Latin:--"Thou art

Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and I will give unto

thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven."

Paul has also a worthy memorial church in Rome, St. Paul's, which stands

outside the walls. On the way thither we pass a small chapel where, it

is said, Peter and Paul took leave of each other before they went to

suffer martyrdom. On the façade the final words are inscribed. Paul

said: "Peace be with you, thou foundation of the church and shepherd of

Christ's lambs." And Peter: "Go forth in peace, thou preacher of the

gospel, righteous guide to salvation." Paul's tomb is under the high

altar of St. Paul's Church. In the interior of the church we notice

portraits in mosaic of all the Popes from St. Peter to Leo XIII.

Rome is inexhaustible. It has grown up during 2600 years, and each age

has built on the ruins of the preceding. The city is piled up in strata

like a geological deposit. What lies hidden at the bottom is scarcely

known at all; that is from the time of the early kings of Rome. Then

follows the city of the Republic, and upon it the Rome of the Emperors,

the cosmopolitan city, where the Cæsars from their palace on the

Palatine stretched their sceptre over all the known world from foggy

Britain and the dark forests of Germany to the burning deserts of

Africa, from the mountains of Spain to Galilee and Judæa. Many stately

remains of this time of greatness are still preserved among the modern

streets and houses. Vandals, Goths, and other barbarians have sacked

Rome, monsters of the Imperial house have devastated the city to wipe

out the remembrance of their predecessors and glorify themselves; but if

Rome was not built in a day, so two thousand years have not sufficed to

blot out its magnificence.

Then follow new strata, the Christian age, the Middle Ages, and modern

times, with their innumerable churches, monasteries, and massive solemn

palaces. Christianity built on the ruins of paganism. Ancient and modern

times are inextricably mixed. Up there on the Capitoline hill rides a

Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, in bronze. Look round, and there on the

farther bank of the Tiber another horseman looks over the eternal city,

the brave champion of young Italy's liberty, Garibaldi. You ride through

a street lined with grand shops in new buildings, and in a couple of

minutes you are at the Forum Romanum, the Roman market-place, the heart

of the world empire, the square for markets, popular assemblies, and

judicial courts, a marble hall in the open air. Over its flags, victors,

accompanied by their comrades in arms and their prisoners, marched up to

the Capitol to sacrifice in the temple of Jupiter, where now only a few

pillars and ruins remain of all the splendour Julius Cæsar and Augustus

lavished upon it.

At one time we are like pilgrims in the fine Church of St. Peter; at

another we are strolling under the triumphal arch of Titus, erected in

remembrance of the destruction of Jerusalem in the year A.D.

70.

The largest and grandest ruin in Rome is the Colosseum (Plate XXVI.), an

amphitheatre which was built by the two Emperors, Vespasian and Titus,

and which was finished eighty years after the birth of Christ. The

outside walls are nearly 160 feet high. The tiers of benches, which

could accommodate 85,000 spectators, were divided into four blocks, of

which the outermost and highest was set apart for freedmen and slaves

with their women. The tickets were of ivory, and indicated the different

places so clearly that every one could easily find his way in the huge

passages, colonnades, and staircases. The benches were covered with

marble, and many statues of the same material adorned the upper walls of

the amphitheatre. The spectacles were usually held in the daytime, and

to abate the heat of the sun immense silken awnings were stretched over

the arena and the auditorium. When the theatre was full, it presented a

scene of dazzling splendour. In the best places sat senators in

purple-bordered togas, the priests of the various temples, the Vestal

virgins in black veils, warriors in gold-embroidered uniforms. There sat

Roman citizens in white or coloured togas, bareheaded, beardless, and

closely cropped, eagerly talking in a language as euphonious as French

and Italian. All strangers who were staying in Rome were there,

ambassadors from all the known countries of the world, statesmen,

merchants, and travellers from Germany and Gaul, from Syria, Greece, and

Egypt.

A circus or theatre of our day is a toy compared to the Colosseum. The

old Romans were masters in the arrangement of spectacles to satisfy the

rude cravings of the masses. Woods and rocks were set up, in which

bloody contests were fought, and where gladiators hunted lions and

tigers with spears. The immense show-ground could be quickly filled with

water, and on the artificial lake deadly sea battles were fought; and

the bodies of the slain and drowned lying on the bottom were invisible

when the water was dyed red with blood. The arena could be drained at

once by ingenious channels, slaves dragged out the corpses through the

gate of the Goddess of Death, and the theatre was made ready for the

night performance. Then the arena was lighted up with huge torches and

fires, and troops of Christians were crucified in long rows or thrown to

the lions and bears. When a Roman emperor celebrated the thousandth

anniversary of the founding of Rome, two thousand gladiators appeared in

the Colosseum, thirty-two elephants, and numbers of wild animals.

[Illustration: PLATE XXVI. THE COLOSSEUM, ROME.]

Not far from the Colosseum begins one of the oldest and most famous

roads ever trodden by the foot of man--the Appian Way. Here emperors and

generals marched into Rome after successful wars; here their remains

were carried out to be burned on pyres and deposited in urns in

mausoleums and tombs. Here the Christians came out at night in silent

ranks to consign the remains of their co-religionists, torn to pieces in

the arena, to the catacombs of underground Rome. Here also St. Paul made

his entry into Rome, escorted by troops of Christians, as recorded in

the last chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; and to-day we find on this

road a small chapel which is called "Whither goest thou?" (_Quo vadis?_)

at the point in the road where Peter saw his vision.

POMPEII

From Rome we go on to Naples, where to the east the regular volcanic

cone of Vesuvius rears itself like a fire-breathing dragon over the bay,

and where towns, villages, and white villas stand as thick on the shore

as beads on a rosary. Our time is short; we drive rapidly through the

lava-paved streets of Naples, and cannot feast our eyes long enough with

the sight of these fine dark men in their motley dirty garments, and

cannot hear enough of their melodious songs in honour of delightful

Naples. Their warm affection for the famous city is quite natural, and

one of their sayings, "See Naples and die," implies that life is

worthless to any one who has not been there.

During our wanderings we come to the National Museum, and there we are

lost to everything outside. There we forget the bustling life of the

streets, the blue bay and the green gardens; for here we are in the

presence of antiquity--an immense collection of artistic objects,

statues, and paintings from Pompeii.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO ALEXANDRIA.]

In the sixth century B.C. Pompeii was founded at the southern

foot of Vesuvius, not far from the shore of the bay. About eighty years

before our era Pompeii came under the rule of Rome, and during the

succeeding 150 years it was changed into a genuine Roman town in all

respects--in style of building, language, trade, and manner of life. A

wall with towers enclosed this collection of streets and houses, and at

night the eight town gates were closed and shut in 20,000 inhabitants.

In its principal square, a place of popular assemblies and festivals,

stood the Temple of Jupiter among porticoes, arcades, and rows of

marble statues. In another square theatres were erected, and there also

stood an old Greek temple.

Many rich and eminent Romans loved Pompeii, and built costly villas in

the town or its beautiful environs. One of these was the famous orator

and author, Cicero, whose villa was situated near the north-eastern town

gate. Again and again he went to Pompeii to rest after the noise and

tumult of Rome, and the last time he is certainly known to have

sojourned there was in the year 44 B.C., shortly after the

murder of the great Cæsar.

From the vicinity of Cicero's villa ran north-west the Street of Tombs,

bordered with innumerable monuments like the Appian Way outside Rome.

Some were quite simple, others resembled costly altars and temples, and

all contained urns with the bones and ashes of the dead.

Some streets were lined entirely with shops and stores. Most of the

streets were straight and regular, some broad, others quite small; they

were paved with flags of lava and had raised footpaths. Here and there

stones were laid in a row across the street, whereon foot passengers

could cross over dryshod after the heavy torrential rains, which then,

as now, repeatedly converted these lanes into rivers and canals.

Pompeii had several bath-houses, luxuriously and comfortably furnished,

built of stone, dark and cool, and very attractive during the warm,

sultry summer. In the _apodyterium_ the visitor took off his clothes,

and then repaired to the various rooms for warm air, warm baths, and

cold baths. The walls in the _frigidarium_ were decorated with paintings

representing shady groves and dark forests; the vaulted roof was painted

blue and strewn with stars, and through a small round opening the

sunlight poured in. The basin itself was therefore like a small forest

pool under the open sky. The bather was thoroughly scraped and shampooed

by the attendants, and last of all smeared with odorous oils.

The houses of wealthy citizens were decorated with exquisite taste and

artistic skill. Towards the streets the houses showed little besides

bare plain walls, for the old Romans did not like the private sanctity

of their homes to be disturbed at all by the noise of the streets and

the inquisitiveness of people on the public roads. So it is still, if

not in Italy and Greece, at any rate over all the Asiatic East. Pomp and

state were only displayed in the interior. There were seen statues and

busts, flourishing flower-beds under open colonnades, and in the midst

of the principal apartment, called the _atrium_, was a marble basin sunk

in the mosaic pavement, and through a quadrangular opening in the roof

above the sun and moon looked in and the rain often mingled its drops

with the jets of the constantly playing fountain. When the master of the

house gave an entertainment, tables were carried in by slaves, and the

guests took their luxurious meal lying on long couches. They ate, and

drank, and jested, listening from time to time to the tones of flutes,

harps, and cymbals, and watched the lithe movements of dancers with eyes

dull and heavy with wine.

Happy days were spent in Pompeii in undisturbed peacefulness. People

enjoyed the treasures of the forests, gardens, and sea, transacted their

business or the duties of their posts, and assembled for discussion in

the Forum, where the columns cast cool shadows over the stone flags. No

one thought of Vesuvius. The volcano was supposed to have become for

ever extinct ages ago. On the ancient lava-streams old trees grew, the

most luscious grapes ripened on the flanks of the mountain, and from

their descendants is pressed out at the present day a wine called

Lachryma Christi. A legend relates that when the Saviour once went up

Vesuvius and stood in mute astonishment at the beautiful landscape

surrounding the Bay of Naples, He also wept from grief over this home of

sin and vanity; and where His tears moistened the ground there grew up a

tendril which has not its like on earth.

The year before the burning of Rome, Pompeii was devastated by a fearful

earthquake. The inhabitants soon took heart again, however, and built up

their town better and more beautiful than ever. Sixteen years passed,

and then the blow came, the most crushing and annihilating blow that

ever befell any town since Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire

from heaven.

The elder Pliny, who left to the world an immortal work, was then in

command of a Roman fleet anchored in the Bay of Naples, and lived with

his family in a place not far from Pompeii. His adopted son, the younger

Pliny, a youth of eighteen, spirited, quick, and talented, was also with

him. Vesuvius broke into eruption on August 24 in the year 79, and in a

few hours Pompeii and two other towns were buried under a downpour of

pumice and ashes, and streams of lava and mud. Among the victims was the

elder Pliny.

[Illustration: PLATE XXVII. POMPEII.

The Forum, with Vesuvius in the distance.]

Several years afterwards, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote to the

younger Pliny and asked him for information about the manner of his

uncle's death. The two letters containing answers to this question are

still extant. Pliny describes how his uncle was suffocated by ashes and

sulphurous vapour on the shore. He had himself seen flames of fire shoot

up out of the crater, which also vomited forth a black cloud spreading

out above like the crown of a pine-tree. He went out with his mother to

the forecourt of the house, but when the ground trembled and the air

became full of ashes they hurried off, followed by a crowd of people.

His mother, who was old, begged him to save himself by rapid flight, but

he would not desert her. And he writes: "I looked round; a thick smoky

darkness rolled threateningly over us from behind; it spread over the

earth like an advancing flood and followed us. 'Let us move to one side

while we can see,' I said,' so that we may not fall down on the road and

be trampled down in the darkness by those behind.' We had scarcely got

out of the crowd when we were involved in darkness, not such as when

there is no moon or the sky is overcast, but such as prevails in a

closed room when the lights are out." And he tells how the fugitives

tied cushions over their heads so as not to be bruised by falling

stones, and how they had repeatedly to shake off the ashes lest they

should be weighed down by them. He was quite composed himself, and

thought that the whole world was passing away.

By this eruption Pompeii was buried under a layer of pumice and ashes 20

feet thick. For a long period of years the inhabitants of the

neighbourhood came hither and digged up with their spades one thing or

another, but then Pompeii sank into the night of oblivion and slumbered

under the earth for fifteen hundred years. At last the town was

discovered again, and excavations were commenced. Country houses,

fields, and clumps of mulberry trees had sprung up on the deep bed of

ashes. Not till fifty years ago did modern investigation take Pompeii

seriously in hand, and now more than half the town is laid bare.

Strangers can ride unhindered through the streets, look into the shops

and baths, and admire the fine wall-paintings in the palaces of the

great. The columns of Jupiter's temple, so long buried in complete

darkness, are again lighted by the sun, and cast their shadows as of old

over the stone flags of the Forum (Plate XXVII.). The Street of Tombs is

exposed, and young cypresses grow up among the monuments. The dead,

which were already buried when Vesuvius scattered its ashes over them,

listen now to strange footsteps on the road. But the unfortunates who

were buried alive under the shower of ashes have decayed and turned to

dust. And yet they may still be seen in the museums, with distorted

limbs and their faces to the ground. We see them in the position they

assumed when they fell and the ashes were bedded close to their sides.

Thus they remained lying for eighteen hundred years, imbedded as in a

mould. Their bodies returned to the earth, but the empty space remained.

By pouring plaster into these forms, life-like figures of persons have

been reproduced just as they were when death overtook them. Here lies a

woman who fell outside her house and grasped with convulsive fingers a

bag full of gold and silver. Here is a man resting his heavy head on his

elbow, and here a dog which has curled itself up before it was at last

suffocated.

So the sleeping town has wakened to life again, and the dead have

returned from the kingdom of shadows. The excavated pictures,

sculptures, and art treasures of Pompeii, together with the whole

arrangement of the town, the style of building and the inscriptions,

have thrown an unexpected light on the life of antiquity. We can even

read the passing conceits scribbled on the walls. At one corner a house

is offered for hire from July I--"intending tenants should apply to the

slave Primus." On another a jester advises an acquaintance: "Go and hang

thyself." A citizen writes of a friend: "I have heard with sorrow that

thou art dead--so adieu!" Another wall bears the following warning:

"This is no place for idlers; go away, good-for-nothing." It is curious

to read the names Sodom and Gomorrah, evidently scribbled by a Jew. Low

down on the walls small schoolboys have practised writing the Greek

alphabet, showing that Greek was included in their curriculum. And once

were found written in charcoal, and only partly legible, the words,

"Enjoy the fire, Christian," a scoff at the martyrs who, soaked in tar,

were burned as torches in Nero's gardens.

From Naples we take a steamer for Egypt. After crossing the Bay of

Naples we have to starboard the charming island of Capri. On its

northern side you may swim or row in a shallow boat, under an arch of

rock three feet high, into the Blue Grotto. Inside is a quiet

crystal-clear sheet of water which extends more than 50 yards into the

hill. The roof over its mirror is more than 160 feet high. The only

light comes in through the small entrance. Owing to the reflections of

the sky and water, everything in the grotto is blue, and stalactites

hang like icicles from the roof and walls. If you dip an oar or your

hand into the water it shines white as silver, owing to the reflection

from the sandy bottom. It is possible to enter only in calm weather, or

the boat would be stoved in against the rocky archway.

On a promontory to larboard appear the white houses and olive gardens of

beautiful Sorrento, and then we steer out into the turquoise blue waters

of the Tyrrhenian Sea. To the south the rocky island of Stromboli rises

from the waves with its ever-burning volcano, like a beacon. In the

Straits of Messina we skirt the shores of Sicily and Calabria, which

have so frequently suffered from terrible earthquakes. At last we are

out in the wide, open Mediterranean. Italy sinks below the horizon

behind us, and we steam eastward to Alexandria, the port of the land of

the Pharaohs.

II

AFRICA

GENERAL GORDON

Seldom has the whole civilised world been so convulsed, so overwhelmed

with sorrow, at the death of one man as it was when in January, 1885,

the news flashed along the telegraph wires that Khartum had fallen, and

that Gordon was dead.

Gordon was of Scottish extraction, but was born in one of the suburbs of

London in the year 1833, and as a young lieutenant of engineers heard

the thunders of war below the walls of Sebastopol. As a major of thirty

years of age he commanded the Imperial army in China, and suppressed the

furious insurrection which raged in the provinces around the Blue River.

"The Ever-Victorious Army" would have come to grief without a strong and

practical leader, but in Gordon's hands it soon deserved its name. He

made his plans quickly and clearly, brought his troops with wonderful

rapidity to the most vulnerable points in the enemy's position, and

dealt his blows with crushing force. In a year and a half he had cleared

China of insurgents and restored peace.

After several years of service at home and other wanderings in Eastern

lands, Gordon accepted in 1874 an invitation to enter into the service

of the Khedive of Egypt. The Khedive Ismail was a strong man with

far-reaching projects. He wished to extend his dominion as far as the

great lakes where the Nile takes its rise, and Gordon was to rule over a

province named after the equator.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTH-EASTERN AFRICA, SHOWING EGYPT AND THE SUDAN.]

Immediately to the south of Cairo begins a plateau which stretches from

north to south through almost the whole continent. In Abyssinia it

attains to a considerable height, and near the equator rises into the

loftiest summits of Africa. These mountains screen off the rain from

Egypt and large areas of the Sudan. The masses of vapour which are

carried over Abyssinia in summer by the monsoon are precipitated as rain

in these mountain tracts, and consequently the wind is dry when it

reaches Nubia and Egypt; while the moisture which rises from the warm

ocean on the east, and is borne north-westwards by the constant

trade-wind, is converted into water during eight months of the year

among the mountains on the equator.

The rain which falls on the mountains of Abyssinia gives rise to the

Atbara and Blue Nile, which produce abundant floods in the Nile during

autumn; and during the rest of the year the White Nile, which comes from

the great lakes on the equator, provides for the irrigation of Egypt.

Thus the country is able to dispense with rain, and innumerable canals

convey water to all parts of the Nile valley. Many kinds of grain are

cultivated--wheat, maize, barley, rice, and durra (a kind of millet);

vegetables, beans, and peas thrive, numerous date palms suck up their

sap from the heavy, sodden silt on the river's banks, and sugar-cane and

cotton are spreading more and more. Seen at a height from a balloon, the

fields, palms, and fruit-trees would appear as a green belt along the

river, while the rest of the country would look yellow and grey, for it

is nothing but a dry, sandy desert.

The Nile, then, is everything to Egypt, the condition of its existence,

its father and mother, the source of the wealth by which the country has

subsisted since the most remote antiquity. Now that we are about to

follow Gordon along the Nile to the equator, we must not forget that we

are passing through an ancient land. The first king of which there are

records lived 3200 years before the Christian era, and the largest of

the Great Pyramids at Ghizeh is 4600 years old (Plate XXVIII.). Its

funeral crypt is cut out of the solid rock, and in it still stands the

red granite sarcophagus of Cheops. Two million three hundred thousand

dressed blocks, each measuring 40 cubic feet, were used in the

construction of this memorial over a perishable king, and the pyramid is

reckoned to be the largest edifice ever built by human hands. The

buildings and works of the present time are nothing compared to it. Only

the Great Wall of China can vie with it, and this is ruined and to a

large extent obliterated, while the pyramid of Cheops still stands,

scorched by the sun, or sharply defined in the moonlight, or dimly

visible as a mysterious apparition in the dark, warm night.

Twelve hundred miles south of the capital of modern Egypt the desert

comes to an end, and the surface is covered by vast marshes and beds of

waving reeds. This is the Sudan, "the Land of the Blacks." At the point

where the White and Blue Niles mingle their waters lay the only town in

the Sudan, Khartum, whither trade-routes converged from all directions,

and where goods changed hands. Here were brought wares which never

failed to find purchasers. The valuable feathers plucked from the

swift-footed ostrich were needed to decorate the hats of European

ladies; the wild elephants, larger and more powerful than their Indian

congeners, were shot or caught in pitfalls in the woods for the sake of

their precious ivory. But the most esteemed of all the wares that passed

through Khartum were slaves--"black ivory," as they were called by their

heartless Arab torturers. Elephants' tusks are heavy, and cannot be

transported on horses or oxen from the depths of the forest, for draught

animals are killed by the sting of the poisonous tsetse fly. Therefore

the tusks had to be carried by men, and when these had finished their

task they were themselves sold into Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. The

forests and deserts were not inexhaustible; ivory and ostrich feathers

might be worked out, but there would always be negroes.

[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII. THE GREAT PYRAMIDS AT GHIZEH.]

When the Khedive Ismail invited Gordon to enter his service as governor

of the new province not far from the sources of the Nile, Gordon

accepted the post in the hope that he would be able to suppress

slave-trading, or at least to check the hunting of black men and women.

He left Cairo and travelled by the Red Sea to Suakin, rode to Berber on

the Nile, and was received with much pomp and ceremony by the

Governor-General at Khartum. Here he heard that the Nile was navigable

for 900 miles southwards, and therefore he could continue his journey

without delay.

The Nile afforded an excellent passage for Gordon's small steamboat. But

the Nile can also place an insurmountable obstacle in the traveller's

way. After the rainy season the White Nile overflows its banks, forming

an inextricable labyrinth of side branches, lakes, and marshes. The

country lies under water for miles around. The waterway between

impenetrable beds of reeds and papyrus is often as narrow as a lane. The

roots of large plants are loosened from the mud at the bottom, and are

compacted with stems and mud into large sheets which are driven

northwards by the rushing water. They are caught fast in small openings

and sudden bends, and other islets of vegetation are piled up against

them. Thus the river course is blocked, and above these natural dams the

water forms lakes. Such banks of drifting or arrested and decaying

vegetation are called _sudd_, and the more it rains the greater are the

quantities that come down. At length the _sudd_ becomes soft and yields

to the pressure of the water, and then the Nile is navigable again.

Gordon's small steamer glides gently up the river. He advances deeper

and deeper into a world unknown to him, and around him seethes tropical

Africa. On the banks papyrus stems wave their plumes above the reeds. It

was from the pith of papyrus stems that the old Egyptians made a kind of

paper on which they wrote their chronicles. Here and there swarthy

natives are seen between the reed beds, and sometimes noisy troops of

wandering monkeys gaze at the boat. The hippopotami look like floating

islands, but show themselves only at night, wallowing in the shallow

water. A little beyond the luxuriant vegetation of the banks extends the

boundless grassland with its abundant animal life and thin scattered

clumps of trees.

After a journey of four days the steamer glided past an island. There

dwelt in a grotto a dervish or mendicant monk named Mohamed Ahmed, who

ten years later was to be Gordon's murderer.

In the middle of April Gordon and his companions were in Gondokoro, a

small place which now stands on the boundary between the Sudan and

British East Africa, and here he took charge of his Equatorial Province.

He forced the Egyptian soldiers, who garrisoned this and one or two

other posts on the Nile and robbed on their own account, to plough and

plant; he arrested all slave-hunters within reach and freed the slaves;

he succoured the poor, protected the helpless, and sent durra to the

hungry.

The heat was excessive, and Gordon and his staff were pestered by crowds

of gnats. It was still worse in September when the rain poured down and

large tracts were converted into swamp, from which dangerous miasma was

exhaled. In a month seven of Gordon's eight officers had died of fever,

but he himself continued his work undismayed, and wrote in his diary:

"God willing, I shall do much in this country."

He soon perceived that the best districts of his province lay around the

large lakes in the south. But the Equatorial Province was too far away

from Egypt. It hung as it were on a long string, the Nile, and from the

largest lake, the Victoria Nyanza, the distance to Cairo in a straight

line was nearly 2200 miles. Much shorter was the route to Mombasa on the

east coast, so Gordon advised the Khedive to occupy Mombasa and open a

road to the Victoria Nyanza. Then it would be easier to contend against

the slave-trade. He described the condition of the Sudan in forcible

letters, and into the Khedive's ears were dinned truths such as he

never heard from his servile pashas. He would first establish steam

communication with the lakes, and a number of boats which could be taken

to pieces were on the way to his province.

The boats came up at the time when the Nile began to rise after rain,

and then his plan was to advance farther southwards. The natives were

opposed to this progress and feared the supremacy of Egypt, and

therefore they tried to prevent the advance of the "White Pasha," who

was loath to employ arms against them. All they wanted was to be left in

peace in their grasslands and forests; and when now an intruder, whose

aims they did not understand, penetrated into their country, they

endeavoured whenever they could to bar his way, so that he was obliged,

much against his will, to resort to force.

After all kinds of troubles and difficulties he reached at last the

northernmost of the Nile lakes, the Albert Nyanza, and it was a great

feat to have brought a steamer even thus far. He did not succeed in

reaching the Victoria Nyanza, for the ruler of the country between the

lakes had resolved to oppose with all his power any intruder, were he

white man or Arab.

For three years Gordon was at work on the Upper Nile in the

neighbourhood of the equator. During the next three years we find him in

the deserts of the Sudan farther north. He was Governor-General of the

whole of the Egyptian Sudan, and Khartum was his capital. His province

was 1200 miles broad, from the Red Sea to the Sahara, and as long from

north to south. The whole country was in a state of unrest. The Khedive

had carried on an unsuccessful war against the Christian King of

Abyssinia, and the Mohammedan states of Kordofan and Darfur were in

revolt against Egypt. There half-savage Beduin tribes were scattered

about over the deserts, and there some of the worst slave-dealers had

their haunts.

In May, 1877, Gordon mounted his swift dromedary to set out on a journey

of 2000 miles. He wished to visit the villages and camps of the

slave-dealers in distant Darfur. The hot season had set in. When the sun

stood at its meridian altitude the shadow of the dromedary disappeared

beneath the animal. A dreary desert extended on all sides,

greyish-yellow, dusty, and dry.

The White Pasha skims over the desert mile after mile. He has the finest

dromedary in all the land, an animal that became famous throughout the

Sudan. Some hundreds of Egyptian troopers follow him, but he leaves them

all far behind and only a guide keeps up with him. He rushes over the

desert like the wind, and suddenly and unexpectedly draws rein at the

gates of an oasis before the guard can shoulder their arms. After giving

his orders in the name of the Khedive, he disappears as mysteriously, no

one knows whither. At another oasis, perhaps 300 miles away, the chief

has been warned of his coming and has therefore posted watchmen to look

out for him. Round about lies the desert, sandy and yellow, with a

surface as level as a sea, where the approach of the White Pasha can be

seen from a long distance. The watchman announces that two black specks

are visible in the distance, which, it is supposed, are the Pasha's

outriders, and some hours must pass before he arrives with his troops.

The two specks grow larger and come rapidly nearer. The dromedaries

swing their long legs over the ground, seeming to fly on invisible

wings. Now the men have come to the margin of the oasis. The watchers

can hardly believe their eyes. One of the riders wears the

gold-embroidered uniform of an Egyptian pasha. Never had the Sudan seen

a Governor-General travelling in this way--without flags and noisy

music, and stripped of all the display appropriate to his rank.

And as he came so he flew away again, mysteriously and incomprehensibly.

Again and again he lost his armed force. In some districts he closed the

paths leading to wells in order to bring the refractory tribes to

submission. With inflexible severity he broke the power of the chiefs

who still carried on trade in slaves. He freed numbers of black captives

and drilled them as soldiers, for his own fighting men were the scum of

Egypt and Syria. With a handful of men he dealt his blows at the weakest

points of the enemy's defence and thus always gained the victory. In

four months he suppressed the revolt and checked the power of the

slave-dealers.

Gordon had now cleared all the west of the Sudan, and only Dara in

southern Darfur remained to be dealt with. There the most powerful

slave-dealers had collected to offer resistance. He came down one day

like lightning into their camp. They might easily have killed him--it

was he who had ruined their trade in black ivory. He went unconcernedly

among the tents, and they did not dare to touch him. And when his own

troops arrived, he summoned all the chiefs to his tent and laid his

conditions before them. They were to lay down their arms and be off each

to his own home; and one by one they obeyed and went away without a

word.

But the slave-trade was a weed too deeply rooted in the soil to be

eradicated in a single day, and the revolt and troubles which constantly

arose out of this horrible traffic gave Gordon no peace. He left the

Sudan at the end of 1879, and the next two years were occupied with work

in India, China, Mauritius, and South Africa. Meanwhile remarkable

events had occurred in Egypt. Great Britain had sent vessels and troops

to the land of the Khedive, and had taken over the command and the

responsibility. The chief of the dervishes, Mohamed Ahmed, whom we

remember on the small island in the Nile, proclaimed that he was chosen

by God to relieve the oppressed, that he was the Mahdi or Messiah of

Islam. Discontent prevailed among the Mohammedans throughout the Sudan,

for Egypt had at length prohibited the slave-trade, and the Mahdi

collected all the discontented people and tribes under his banner. His

aim was to throw off the yoke of Egypt. Proud and arrogant, he sent

despatches through the whole of the Sudan, and his summons to a holy war

flew like a prairie fire over North Africa.

The British Government, which was now responsible for Egypt, was in a

difficulty. The Sudan must either be conquered or evacuated, for the

Egyptian garrisons were still at Khartum and at several places even down

to the equator. The Government decided on evacuation, and Gordon was

sent to perform the task of withdrawing all the garrisons. He accepted

the mission and set out immediately for Cairo.

Thus Gordon began his last journey up the Nile. At Korosko, just at the

northern end of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, he mounted his

dromedary and followed the narrow winding path which has been worn out

during thousands of years through the dry hollows of the Nubian desert,

over scorched and weathered volcanic knolls and through dunes of

suffocating sand.

On February 18, 1884, Gordon, for the second time Governor-General of

the Sudan, made his entry into Khartum, where he took up his quarters in

his old palace. Cruelty and injustice had again sprung up during the

years he had been absent. He opened the gates of the overcrowded gaols,

and the prisoners were released and their fetters removed. All accounts

of unpaid taxes were burned in front of the palace. All implements of

punishment and torture were broken to pieces and thrown into the Nile.

Then began the evacuation of the town. As many as 3000 women and

children were sent to Abu Hamed and through the desert to Korosko. They

got through without danger and were saved. Where women and children

could travel, it would have been easy to lead troops from Egypt. Instead

of this, however, England despatched an expedition to Suakin to secure

an outlet on the Red Sea, whereupon the rebellious tribes of the Sudan

were roused to fury, believing that the white men intended to come and

take their country. Consequently they rallied all the more resolutely

round the Mahdi, and their hatred extended to the dreaded Gordon and the

few Europeans with him in Khartum.

As long as the telegraph line was still available to Cairo, Gordon kept

the authorities informed of the state of affairs and pointed out what

should be done to ensure success. He asked especially that the road from

Berber to Suakin should be held, for from this line also the Sudan could

be controlled, but his advice was not attended to and Berber was

eventually surrounded by the Mahdi's troops and captured. Several chiefs

north and north-east of Khartum, who had previously been friendly

disposed, now joined the Mahdi. News of fresh desertions came constantly

to Khartum, and even in the town itself Gordon was surrounded by

traitors. On March 10 the telegraph line was cut and then followed six

months of silence, during which the world learned little or nothing of

the brave soldier in the heart of Africa. On March 11 Arab war parties

appeared on the bank of the Blue Nile, for the Mahdi was drawing his net

ever closer round the unfortunate town.

During the preceding years the Egyptian Government had caused Khartum to

be fortified after a fashion, and during the earlier months of the siege

Gordon worked day and night to strengthen the defences. His soldiers

threw up earthern ramparts round the town, a network of wire

entanglements was set up, and mines were laid at places where an assault

might be expected. At the end of April the town was entirely blockaded,

and only the river route to the north was still open. At the beginning

of May the Arabs crossed the Blue Nile, suffering great losses from

exploding mines and the guns of the town. In the early part of September

there were still provisions for three months, and the Arabs, perceiving

that they could not take the town by storm from the White Pasha,

resolved to starve it out.

The Nile was now at its highest, and huge grey turbid volumes of water

hurried northwards. Now was the only chance for a small steamer to try

to get to Dongola, where it would be in safety. On the night of

September 9 a small steamer was made ready for starting, and Gordon's

only English comrades, Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power, went on board,

together with the French Consul, a number of Greeks, and fifty soldiers.

They took with them accounts of the siege, correspondence, lists and

details about provisions, ammunition, arms, men, and plans of defence,

and everything else of particular value. Silently the steamer moved off

from the bank, and when day dawned Gordon was alone. Alas, the little

steamer never reached Dongola, for it was wrecked immediately below Abu

Hamed. Every soul on board was murdered, and all papers of value fell

into the hands of the Mahdi. On the other hand, Gordon's diary from

September 10 to December 14, 1884, is still extant, and is wonderful

reading.

By this time the British Government had at last decided to send an

expedition to relieve Khartum. River boats were built in great numbers,

troops were equipped for the field, the famous general, Lord Wolseley,

was in command, and by the middle of September the first infantry

battalion was up at Dongola on the northern half of the great S of the

Nile. But then the steamers had only just arrived at Alexandria, and had

to be taken up the Nile and tediously dragged through the cataracts,

while the desert column which was to make the final advance on Khartum

had not yet left England. A long time would be required to get

everything ready.

In Khartum comparative quiet as yet prevailed. The dervishes bided their

time patiently, encamping barely six miles from the outworks. Shots were

exchanged only at a distance. On September 21 Gordon learned by a

messenger that the relief expedition was on the way, and ten days later

he sent his steamboats northwards to meet it and to hasten the

forwarding of troops. But thereby he lost half of his own power of

resistance.

On October 21 the Mahdi himself arrived in the camp outside Khartum, and

on the following day sent Gordon convincing proofs that Stewart's

steamboat had sunk and that all on board had been slain. He added a list

of all the journals and documents found on board. From these the Mahdi

had learned almost to a day how long Khartum could hold out, the

strength of the garrison, the scheme of defence, where the batteries

stood and how long the ammunition would last. This was a terrible blow

to the lonely soldier, but it did not break down his courage. The death

of Stewart and his companions grieved him inexpressibly, but he sent an

answer to the Mahdi that if 20,000 boats had been taken it would be all

the same to him--"I am here like iron."

In the relief expedition was a major named Kitchener, who was afterwards

to become very famous. He tried to get into Khartum in disguise to carry

information to Gordon, and he did succeed in sending him a letter with

the news that the relieving force would set out from Dongola on November

1. When the letter reached Gordon the corps had been two days on the

march, but the distance from Dongola to Khartum is 280 miles in a

straight line.

By November 22 Gordon had lost nearly 1900 of his fighting men, but his

diary shows that he was still hopeful. On December 10 there were still

provisions for fifteen days. The entries in the diary now become

shorter, and repeatedly speak of fugitives and deserters, and of the

diminishing store of provisions. On December 14 Gordon had a last

opportunity of sending news from Khartum, and the diary which the

messenger took with him closes with these words: "I have done the best

for the honour of our country. Good-bye."

After the sending-off of the diary impenetrable darkness hides the

occurrences of the last weeks in Khartum. One or two circumstances,

however, were made known by deserters. During the forty days during

which the town held out after December 14, 15,000 townspeople were sent

over to the Mahdi's camp, and only 14,000 civilians and soldiers were

left in the doomed city. Omdurman fell, and the Mahdi's troops pressed

every day more closely on all sides. Actual starvation began, and rats

and mice, hides and leather were eaten, and palms stripped to obtain the

soft fibres inside. But the White Pasha rejected all proposals to

surrender.

Meanwhile the relief columns struggled southwards and on January 20,

1885, reached Metemma, only a hundred miles from Khartum. There they

fell in with Gordon's boats, which had lain waiting in vain for four

months, and four days later two of the boats started for Khartum.

Halfway they had to pass up the sixth cataract, there losing two days

more, and not till the 28th had they left the rapids behind them. The

noonday sun was shining brightly when the English soldiers and their

officers saw Khartum straight in front of them on the point between the

White and Blue Niles. All glasses were turned on the tall palace; every

one was in the greatest excitement and dared hardly breathe, much less

speak. There stood Gordon's palace, but no flag waved from the roof.

The boats go on, but no shouts of gladness greet their crews as

long-looked-for rescuers. When they are within range the dervishes open

fire, and wild troops intoxicated with victory gather on the bank.

Khartum is in the hands of the Mahdi, and help has come 48 hours too

late.

Two days before, January 26, the dervishes, furious at their continual

losses and the obstinate resistance of the town, had flocked together

for a final assault. The attack was made during the darkest hour of the

night, after the moon had set. The defenders were worn out and rendered

indifferent by the pangs of hunger. The dervishes rushed into the town,

filling the streets and lanes with their savage howling. It was then

that Gordon gathered together his twenty remaining faithful soldiers and

servants, and dashed sword in hand out of the palace. It was growing

light in the east, and the outlines of bushes and thickets on the Blue

Nile were becoming clear. The small party took their way across an open

square to the Austrian Mission church, which had previously been put in

order for a last refuge. On the way they were met by a crowd of

dervishes and were killed to the last man. Foremost among the slain was

Gordon.

THE CONQUEST OF THE SUDAN

The Mahdi did not long enjoy the fruits of his victory, for he died five

months to the day after the fall of Khartum. His successor, Abdullah,

bore the title of Khalifa, and for thirteen years was a scourge to the

unfortunate land. The tribes of the Sudan, tired of the oppression of

Egypt, had welcomed the Mahdi as a deliverer, but they had only

exchanged Turkish pashas for a tyrant unmatched in cruelty and

shamelessness. Abdullah plundered and exhausted the country, but with

the money and agricultural produce he extorted from the people he was

able to maintain a splendid army always ready for the field. His capital

was Omdurman, where the Mahdi was buried under a dome; but he did not

fortify the town, for long before any Christian dogs could advance so

far their bones would whiten in the sands of Nubia.

Yet after many years the hour of vengeance was at hand. The British

Government had taken the pacification of the Sudan in hand, and in 1898

an army composed of British and Egyptian troops was advancing quietly

and surely up the Nile. There was no need to hurry, and every step was

made with prudence and consideration. The leader, General Kitchener, the

last man to send a letter to Gordon, made his plans with such foresight

and skill that he could calculate two years in advance almost the very

day when Khartum and Omdurman would be in his hands.

At the Atbara, the great tributary of the Nile which flows down from the

mountains of Abyssinia, Kitchener inflicted his first great defeat on

the Khalifa's army in a bloody battle. From Atbara the troops pushed on

to Metemma without further fighting, and on August 28 they were only

four days' march from Khartum.

The green of acacia and mimosa is now conspicuous on the banks of the

river, which is very high. The grey gunboats pass slowly up the Nile in

the blazing sun, and the troops push on as steadily and as surely as

they have from the start of the expedition. Small parties of mounted

dervishes are seen in the far distance. The country becomes more

diversified, and the route runs through clumps of bushes and between

hillocks. A short distance in front are seen white tents, flags, and

horsemen, and the roll of drums is heard. It is the Khalifa calling his

men to the fight; but at the last moment the position is abandoned, the

dervishes retire, and Kitchener's army continues its march.

At length the vaulted dome over the Mahdi's grave beside the Nile bank

rises above the southern horizon, and round about it are perceived the

mud houses and walls of Omdurman. Between the town and the attacking

army stretches a level sandy plain scantily clothed with yellow grass;

and here took place a battle which will not be forgotten for centuries

throughout the Sudan.

On the morning of September 2, Kitchener's forces are drawn up in order

of battle. Single horsemen emerge from the dust on the hillocks,

increase in number, and then come in clouds like locusts--an army of

50,000 dervishes. Their fanatical war-cry rises up to heaven, gathers

strength, grows louder, and rolls along like a storm wind coming in

from the sea. They charge at a furious pace in an unbroken line, and it

looks as though they would ride like a crushing avalanche right over the

enemy. But the moment they come within range fire issues from thousands

of rifles, and the dervishes find themselves in a perfect hail of

bullets. Their ranks are thinned, but they check their course only for a

moment, and ride on in blind fury and with a bravery which only

religious conviction can inspire. The English machine guns scatter their

death-bolts so rapidly that a continuous roll of thunder is heard, and

the dervishes fall in heaps like ripe corn before the scythe. The fallen

ranks are constantly replaced by fresh reinforcements, but at last the

dervishes have had enough and beat a retreat. At once Kitchener pressed

on to Omdurman, but the bloody day is not yet at an end. The dervish

horsemen rally yet once more. The Khalifa's standard is planted in the

ground on a mound, and beside it the Prophet's green banner calls the

faithful together for a last desperate struggle. The English and their

Egyptian allies fight with admirable courage, and the dervishes strike

with a bravery and contempt of death to which no words can do justice.

Under the holy banner a detachment advances into the fire, wavers, is

mown down, and falls, and almost before the smoke of the powder has

cleared away, another presses forward on the track of the slain, only to

meet the same fate and join their comrades in the happy hunting-grounds

of eternity.

At length the day was ended and the Khalifa's army annihilated--11,000

killed, 16,000 wounded, and 4000 prisoners! The Khalifa himself escaped.

His harem and servants deserted him, and he who in the morning had been

absolute ruler over an immense kingdom, wandered about in the woods like

an outlaw. He fled to the south-west and succeeded in collecting another

army, which was completely cut to pieces the following year in a battle

in which he himself also perished.

When all was quiet in Omdurman, the victors had a solemn duty to fulfil.

Thirteen and a half years had passed since the death of Gordon, and at

last the obsequies of the hero were to be celebrated in a fitting

manner. In the court in front of Gordon's palace the troops are drawn up

on three sides of a square, and on the fourth stands the victor,

surrounded by generals of divisions and brigades and by his staff.

Kitchener raises his hand, and in a moment the Union Jack rises to the

top of the flagstaff on the palace, while a thundering salute from the

gunboats greets the new colours and the Guards' band plays the National

Anthem. Another sign, and the flag of Egypt goes up beside the Union

Jack and the Khedive's hymn is played. Then the belated funeral service

is impressively conducted by four clergymen of different Christian

denominations, the Sudanese band plays a hymn which Gordon loved, and

lastly Kitchener is saluted with the greatest enthusiasm by the officers

and men under his command.

OSTRICHES

Now all is changed in the Sudan. A railway runs from the Nile delta up

to Khartum, and another connects Berber with the Red Sea. In Khartum

there are schools, hospitals, churches, and other public buildings, and

one can travel safely by steamboat up to the great lakes. Gordon's

scheme to connect the Victoria Nyanza with Mombasa on the coast has been

carried out, and a railway has been constructed through British East

Africa. White men have advanced from all sides deeper and deeper into

the Black Continent, and have made themselves masters of almost all

Africa. Wild animals have suffered by this intrusion into their formerly

peaceful domain, and their numbers have been diminished by the chase. In

some districts game has quite disappeared, the animals having sought

remoter regions where they can live undisturbed.

In the Sahara, in the Libyan desert, on the open grasslands along the

Upper Nile, on the veldt of South Africa, wherever the country is open

and free, lives the ostrich; but it does not occur in the worst desert

tracts, which it crosses only in case of necessity, for it likes to have

water always near at hand.

The appearance of the ostrich is no doubt familiar. It is powerfully

built; its long bare neck supports a small flattened head with large

bright eyes; the long legs rest on two toes; and the wings are so small

that the animal is always restricted to the surface of the ground,

where, however, it can move with remarkable swiftness. The valuable

feathers grow on the wings. The ostrich attains a height of eight feet,

and when full grown may weigh as much as 165 pounds.

Ostriches live in small flocks of only five or six birds. They feed in

the morning, chiefly on plants, but they also devour small animals and

reptiles. By midday their stomachs are full, and they rest or play,

leaping in circles over the sand, regardless of the blazing sun or the

heated ground. Then they drink and wander about eating in the afternoon.

In the evening they seek their roosting-places.

Sight is the ostrich's acutest sense, but its scent and hearing are also

sharp. When it is pursued, it darts off with fluttering wings, taking

steps ten or twelve feet long. It is always on the look-out for danger,

and the zebra likes to keep near it to avail itself of the bird's

watchfulness. In North Africa the Arabs hunt the ostrich on swift horses

or running dromedaries. Two or three horsemen follow a male, which after

an hour's course is tired out, and gradually relaxes its pace. The

horses also are tired after such a chase, but one of the riders urges on

his steed to a last spurt, rushes past the ostrich, and hits it on the

head so that it falls to the ground. The bird is then skinned, the skin

being turned inside out so as to form a bag for the feathers. The

feathers of the wild ostrich are much finer and more valuable than those

of the tame. A full-grown ostrich has only fourteen of the largest white

feathers.

The hens lay their eggs in a shallow hollow in loamy or sandy soil, and

it is the male bird which sits on the eggs. In the daytime the nest may

be left for hours, but then the ostriches cover the eggs with sand. The

young ones leave their shells after six weeks and go out into the

desert. They are already as large as fowls, but then an ostrich egg

weighs as much as twenty-four hen's eggs, and measures six inches along

its greatest diameter.

The ostrich is remarkably greedy, and turns away from nothing. The great

zoologist, Brehm, who had tame ostriches under his care, reports that

they ate rats and chickens and swallowed small stones and potsherds, and

once or twice his bunch of keys disappeared down the stomach of an

ostrich. In one ostrich's stomach was found nine pounds of

"ballast"--stones, rags, buttons, bits of metal, coins, keys, etc.

Some say that the ostrich is inconceivably stupid, but others will not

accept such a severe condemnation. The traveller Schillings, who is

noted for his photographs of big game in Africa taken at night by

flashlight, once followed the spoor of some lions for several hours.

Suddenly he came upon an ostrich's nest with newly hatched chickens, and

he wondered where the parents were. To his astonishment, he found that

the lion had not touched the defenceless creatures, and he soon

discovered the reason. In the moonlight night the ostriches had

perceived the danger in time and sprang up to lure the lion away from

the nest. Their stratagem succeeded, for it was evident from the spoor

that the lion had pursued the flying ostriches farther and farther from

the nest. And when the pair of ostriches thought that they had enticed

the king of animals far enough off, they returned home.

BABOONS

Baboons are monkeys which resemble dogs rather than human beings, and

almost always remain on the ground, seldom climbing trees. They are

cruel, malicious, and cunning, their expression is fierce and savage,

and their eyes wicked. Among their allies they are surpassed in strength

only by the gorilla; and they are bold and spirited, and do not shun a

deadly struggle with the leopard. They have sharp and powerful teeth

with which to defend themselves, and their tusks are very formidable.

The old Egyptians paid deep homage to the sacred apes, which belong to

the baboon tribe, and had them represented on their monuments as judges

in the kingdom of death. They live in large companies among the cliffs

of the Red Sea coast of Nubia and Abyssinia, but they also occur in the

interior on high mountains. Roots, fruits, worms, and snails are their

chief food. They are afraid of snakes, but they catch scorpions,

carefully pinching off the poison gland before eating the reptiles. When

durra fields are in the neighbourhood of the baboons' haunts, watchmen

must be posted, or the animals work great havoc among the grain. And

when they are out on a raid, they, too, have sentinels on the lookout in

every direction.

During the night and when it rains they sit huddled up among

inaccessible rocks, whither they climb with wonderful activity. They

sally forth in the morning to satisfy their hunger, returning to the

high rocks at noon. Afterwards they go to the nearest brook or spring to

drink, and after another meal retire for the night.

If a party of such baboons, consisting perhaps of a hundred individuals,

is sitting in a row near the edge of a cliff and suddenly becomes aware

of a threatening danger--as, for instance, a prowling leopard--they all

utter the most singular noises, grunting, shrieking, barking, and

growling. The old males go to the edge and look down into the valley,

fuss about and show their ugly tusks and strike their forepaws against

the sides of the rock with a loud smack. The young ones seek their

mother's protection and keep behind them.

Brehm once surprised such a party huddled together on the margin of a

cliff. The first shot that echoed through the valley roused the greatest

commotion and displeasure, and the monkeys howled and bellowed in

chorus. Then they began to move with astonishing activity and

surefootedness. Two more shots thundered through the valley, doing no

damage but increasing their panic and fury. At every fresh shot they

halted a moment, beat their paws against the rocks and yelled abuse at

their disturbers. The front of the cliff seemed in some places to be

vertical, but the baboons climbed about everywhere. At the next bend of

the road the whole troop came down into the valley, intending to

continue their flight among the rocks on the opposite side. Two sporting

dogs in Brehm's caravan flew off like arrows after the troop of baboons,

but before they could come up with it, the old baboons halted, turned

round and presented such a terrible front to the dogs that these quickly

turned back. When the dogs were hounded on to the baboons a second time,

most of the latter were already safe among the rocks, only a few

remaining in the valley, among them a small young one. Frightened at the

onslaught of the dogs, the little creature fled shrieking up a boulder,

while the dogs stood round its base. Brehm wished to catch the young one

alive, but just then an old male came calmly to the boulder, taking no

heed of the danger. He turned his fierce eyes on the dogs, controlling

them with his gaze, jumped up on to the block, whispered some calming

sound into the ear of the young one, and set out on his return with his

protégé. The dogs were so cowed that they never attacked, and both the

young baboon and his rescuer were able to retire unmolested to their

friends.

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

In the lakes and rivers of all central Africa lives the large, clumsy,

and ugly hippopotamus. In former times it occurred also in Lower Egypt,

where it was called the river hog, but at the present day it is

necessary to go a good distance south of Nubia in order to find it. In

many rivers it migrates with the seasons. It descends the river as this

falls in the dry season, and moves up again when the bed is filled by

rain.

The body of the hippopotamus is round and clumsy, and is supported by

four short shapeless legs with four hoofed toes on each foot. The

singular head is nearly quadrangular, the eyes and ears are small, the

snout enormously broad and the nostrils wide (Plate XXIX.). The hairless

hide, three-quarters of an inch thick, changes from grey to dark brown

and dirty red according as it is dry or wet. The animal is thirteen feet

long, without the small short tail, and weighs as much as thirty

full-grown men.

The hippopotamus spends most of his time in the water, but goes on land

at night, especially in those districts where the rivers do not afford

much food. Stealing carefully along a quiet river the traveller may

often take him by surprise, and see two small jets of water rise from

his nostrils when he comes up to breathe, snorting and puffing noisily.

Then he dives again, and can remain under water three or four minutes.

When he lies near the surface only six small knobs are seen above the

water, the ears, eyes, and nostrils. If he is not quite sure of the

neighbourhood, he thrusts only his nostrils above water and breathes as

noiselessly as possible.

Hippopotami often lie splashing in shallow water, or climb up on to the

bank to sun themselves and have a quiet lazy time. Very frequently they

are heard to make a grunting noise of satisfaction. When evening comes

they seek the deeper parts of the river, where they swim up and down,

chase one another, and roll about in the water with great nimbleness and

activity. They swim with great speed, throwing themselves forward in

jerks, and filling the air with their gurgling bellowing cry; yet if

they like they can swim so quietly that not the least ripple is heard. A

wounded hippopotamus stirs up the water so that a small canoe may

capsize in the swell from his forequarters.

When several old males are bellowing together, the din is heard for

miles through the forest and rolls like thunder over the water. No other

animal can make such a noise. Even the lion stops to listen.

On the Upper Nile, above Khartum, where the most luxuriant vegetation

struggles for room on the banks, and the river often loses itself in

lakes and swamps, the hippopotamus, like the crocodile, seldom goes

ashore. Here he lives under lotus plants and papyrus leaves, soft reeds

and all the other juicy vegetation that thrives in water-logged ground.

He dives and rummages for a couple of minutes, stirring up the water far

around. When he has his huge mouth full of stems and leaves, he comes up

to the surface again, and the water streams in cataracts off his rounded

body.

[Illustration: PLATE XXIX. A HIPPOPOTAMUS.]

In districts where he goes on land to graze, he often works great damage

among the corn and green crops, and may even attack the villagers. And

he is not always to be trifled with if a canoe disturbs his repose. The

most dangerous is a mother when her young ones are small. She carries

them on her back as she swims and dives, sometimes to the bottom of the

river. A gun must be heavily loaded if the shot is to have any effect on

such a monster, and penetrate such a cuirass of hide. If the animal

puffs and dives, he is lost to the hunter; but if he raises himself high

out of the water and then falls again with a heavy thud, the wound is

mortal and the hippopotamus sinks to the bottom. After an hour or two

the body rises to the surface again.

Some negro tribes on the White Nile dig pitfalls for hippopotami, and on

the rivers which enter Lake Ngami (see map, p. 262) on its northern

shore the natives hunt for them with harpoons, much in the same way as

whales are killed in the northern and southern oceans. The harpoons have

a sharp barbed blade of iron, and this point is secured by strong string

to a stout shaft of wood, the end of which is attached by a line to a

float. Two canoes are dragged on to a raft of bundles of reed tied

together, and between them the black hunters crouch with harpoons and

light javelins in their hands. When all is ready, the raft is pushed out

into the current and drifts noiselessly down the river. The huge animals

can be heard rolling and splashing in the water in the distance, but

they are still hidden behind a bed of reeds. The raft glides gently past

the point, but the hippopotami suspect no danger. One of them comes up

close beside the raft. The harpooner stands up like a flash of lightning

and drives his sharp weapon with all his strength into the animal's

flank. The wounded hippopotamus dives immediately to the bottom, and the

line runs out. The float follows the hippopotamus wherever he takes his

flight, and the canoes, now in the water, follow. When the brute comes

up again, he is received with a shower of javelins, and dives again,

leaving a blood-red streak behind him. He may be irritated when he is

attacked time after time by spears, and it may happen that he turns on

his persecutors and crushes a too venturesome canoe with his great

tusks, or gives it a blow underneath with his head. Sometimes the animal

is not content with the canoes, but attacks the men, and many too daring

hunters have lost their lives in this way. When the hippopotamus has

been sufficiently tired out, the hunters pick up the float, and take

the line ashore to wind it round a tree, and then they pull with all

their might to draw the creature up out of the water.

The flesh is eaten everywhere, especially that of the young animals, and

the tongue and the fat of the older ones are considered delicacies.

Riding-whips, shields, and many other articles are made out of the hide,

and the large tusks are valuable. Hippopotami may be seen in some of the

zoological gardens in Europe, but they do not thrive well in the care of

man.

MAN-EATING LIONS

A terrible tale of man-eating lions is told by Colonel Patterson in his

book _The Man-Eaters of Tsavo_.

Colonel Patterson had been ordered for service on the Uganda Railway,

which runs from Mombasa north-westwards through British East Africa to

the great lake Victoria Nyanza, the largest source-lake of the Nile. But

in 1898, when the Colonel arrived, the railway had not been carried

farther than the Tsavo, a tributary of the Sabaki, which enters the sea

north of Mombasa. Here at Tsavo (see map, p. 237) the Colonel had his

headquarters, and in the neighbourhood were camped some thousands of

railway coolies from India. A temporary wooden bridge crossed the Tsavo,

and the Colonel was to build a permanent iron bridge over the river, and

had besides the supervision of the railway works for thirty miles in

each direction.

Some days after his arrival at Tsavo the Colonel heard of two lions

which made the country unsafe. He paid little heed to these reports

until a couple of weeks later, when one of his own servants was carried

off by a lion. A comrade, who had a bed in the same tent, had seen the

lion steal noiselessly into the camp in the middle of the night, go

straight to the tent, and seize the man by the throat. The poor fellow

cried out "Let go," and threw his arms round the beast's neck, and then

the silence of night again fell over the surroundings. Next morning the

Colonel was able to follow the lion's spoor easily, for the victim's

heels had scraped along the sand all the way. At the place where the

lion had stopped to make his meal, only the clothes and head of the

unfortunate man were found, with the eyes fixed in a stare of terror.

Disturbed by this sight and the sorrowful occurrence, the Colonel made a

solemn oath that he would give himself no rest until both the lions

were dead. Gun in hand, he climbed up into a tree close by his servants'

tent and waited. The night was quiet and dark. In the distance was heard

a roar, which came nearer as the two man-eaters stole up in search of

another victim. Then there was silence again, for lions always attack in

silence, though when they start on their night prowl they utter their

hoarse, awful cry, as though to give warning to the men and animals in

the neighbourhood. The Colonel waited. Then he heard a cry of terror and

despair from another camp a hundred yards away, and after that all was

still again. A man had been seized and dragged away.

Now the Colonel chose a waiting-place where the last man had been

carried off, but here, too, he was disappointed. A heart-rending shriek

rang through the night at still another part of the camp, and another

workman was missing.

The Indian workmen lay in several scattered camps, and evidently the

lions chose a fresh camp every night to mislead the men. When they found

that they could carry off a man with impunity every night or every other

night, they grew bolder, and showed not the least fear of the camp

fires, which were always kept alight. They paid no heed to the noise and

tumult they caused, or even to gunshots fired at them in the darkness. A

tall, thick fence of tough, thorny bushes was erected round each camp as

a protection, but the lions always jumped over or broke through it when

they wanted a man. In the daytime the Colonel followed their tracks,

which were plainly visible through the thickets, but of course could not

be perceived on stony ground.

Things became still worse when the rails were laid farther up the

country, and only a few hundred workmen remained with Colonel Patterson

at the Tsavo bridge. He had unusually high and strong fences built up

round his camp, and the fires were enlarged to blazing pyres, watchmen

kept guard, guns were always ready, and within the enclosure empty oil

tins were banged together to scare the beasts if possible. But it was

all no use. Still more victims disappeared. The Indian workmen became so

panic-stricken that they could not shoot, though the lion was often just

in front of them. A patient was taken from the hospital tent, and the

next victim was a water-carrier from another part of the camp. He had

been lying with his head towards the middle of the tent and his legs

outwards. The lion had sprung over the fence, seized the man by the

foot, and dragged him out. In his despair he had grabbed at a box

standing by the tent canvas, and instead had caught hold of a tent rope,

which gave way. Then the lion, with his prey in his mouth, had run along

the fence looking for a weak spot, and when he had found one, he dashed

right through the fence. Next morning fragments of clothing and flesh

were found on the paths. The other lion had waited outside, and they had

consumed their prey together.

Then followed an interval of quiet, during which the lions were engaged

elsewhere. It was hoped that the tranquillity would continue, and the

workmen began to sleep outside because of the heat. One night they were

sitting round a fire, when a lion suddenly jumped noiselessly over the

fence and stood gazing at them. They started up and threw stones, pieces

of wood, and firebrands at the beast, but the lion sprang forward,

seized his man, and dashed through the fence. His companion was waiting

outside, and they were so impudent that they ate their victim only

thirty yards off.

The Colonel sat up at night for a whole week at the camp where a visit

was expected. He says that nothing can be more trying to the nerves than

such a watch, time after time in vain. He always heard the warning roar

in the distance, and knew that it meant, "Look out; we are coming." The

hungry cry sounded hoarser and stronger, and the Colonel knew that one

of his men, or perhaps he himself, would never again see the sun rise

over the jungle in the east, and there was always silence when the

brutes were near. Then the watchmen in the various camps would call out,

"Look out, brothers, the devil is coming." And shortly afterwards a wild

scream of distress and the groans of a victim would proclaim that the

lion's stratagem had been successful again. At last the lions became so

daring that both cleared the fence at once, to seize a man apiece. Once

one lion did not succeed in dragging his man through the fence, and had

to leave him and content himself with a share of his comrade's booty.

The man left behind was so badly mauled that he died before he could be

carried to the hospital tent.

No wonder that the poor workmen, wearied and worn by sleeplessness,

excitement, and fear of death, decided that this state of affairs must

come to an end. They struck. They said that they had come to Africa to

work at the railway, and not to supply food for lions. One fine day they

took a train by storm, put all their belongings into the carriages, took

their seats themselves, and went off to the coast. The courageous men

who remained with the Colonel passed the night in trees, in the station

water-tank, or in covered holes digged down within their tents.

On one occasion the Colonel had invited a friend to come up to Tsavo and

help him against the lions. The train was late, and it was dark when the

guest followed the path through the wood to the camp. He had a servant

with him, who carried a lantern. Half-way a lion rushed down on them

from a rise, tore four deep gashes in the Englishman's back, and would

have carried him off if he had not fired his carbine. Dazed with the

report, the lion loosed his hold and pounced on the servant. Next moment

he had vanished in the darkness with his prey.

A few days later a Suaheli came and said that the lion had seized an

ass, and was engaged in his meal not far away. Guided by the Suaheli,

the Colonel hastened up and could see from a distance the back of the

lion above the bushes. Unfortunately the guide stepped on a twig, and

the lion immediately vanished into impenetrable brushwood. Then the

Colonel ran back and called out all his men. Provided with drums, sheets

of metal and tin cans, they surrounded the thicket, and closed in with a

great noise, while the Colonel kept watch at the place where the animal

would probably come out. Quite right--there he came, huge and fierce,

angry at being disturbed. He came forward slowly, halting frequently,

and looking around. His attention was so taken up by the noise that he

did not notice the sportsman. When he was about thirteen yards off the

Colonel raised his double-barrelled rifle. The lion heard the movement,

struck his front claws into the ground, drew back on to his hind paws as

though to gather himself up for a spring, and snarled wickedly, showing

his murderous fangs. Then the Colonel took aim at the head, pressed the

trigger, and--the rifle missed fire!

Fortunately the lion turned at that moment to go back into the thicket,

and the other shot had no effect but to call forth a furious roar and

hasten his flight. The untrustworthy gun had been borrowed for the

occasion, and after this the Colonel determined to rely on his own

weapon.

The ass lay still untouched. A platform twelve feet high was erected on

poles close to the carcase, and on this the Colonel took up his position

at sunset. The twilight is very short on the equator, and the night soon

grows dark when there is no moon. The nights in Africa's jungles are

silent with an evil-foreboding and awesome silence, which conceals so

many ambushes and costs so many lives. The inhabitants of the jungle may

expect an ambush at any moment. The lonely Colonel waited, gripping his

rifle hard. He relates himself that he felt more and more anxious as

time went on. He knew that the lion would come to feed on the ass, for

no cry of distress was heard from the adjacent camps.

Hist! that sounds like a small twig breaking under a weight. Now it

sounds like a large body crushing through the bushes. Then all is quiet

again. No, a deep breath, a sure sign of hunger, betrays the proximity

of the monster. A terrible roar breaks the stillness of the night. The

lion has perceived the presence of a man. Will he fly? No, far from it,

he scorns the ass and makes for the Colonel. For two hours he prowls

about the platform in gradually diminishing circles. Now the lion has

matured his plan of attack, and goes straight towards the platform for

the decisive spring. The animal is just perceptible against the sandy

ground. When he is quite close the first shot thunders through the

night, the lion utters a frightened roar and plunges into the nearest

bushes. He writhes, and bellows, and moans, but the sounds grow weaker,

till after a few long-drawn breaths all is quiet again. The first

man-eater has met his fate.

Before the dawn of day the workmen came out with trumpets and drums,

and, with shouts of rejoicing, carried the lion-killer round the dead

animal. The other lion continued his visits, and when he too bit the

dust a short time after, the men could quietly resume their work on the

railway, and the Colonel, who had freed the neighbourhood from a scourge

that had troubled it for nine months, became a general hero. The foreman

composed a grand song in his honour, and presented a valuable

testimonial from all the men.

One day he dined with the postmaster Ryall in a railway carriage, little

suspecting the fate that was to befall the latter in the same carriage a

few months later. A man-eating lion had chosen a small station for his

hunting-ground, and had carried off one man after another without

distinction of rank and worth. Ryall travelled with two other Europeans

up to the place to try and rid it of the lion. On their arrival they

were told that the animal could not be far away, for it had been quite

recently in the neighbourhood of the station. The three Europeans

resolved to watch all night. Ryall's carriage was taken off the train

and drawn on to a siding. Here the ground had not been levelled, so the

carriage was tilted a little to one side. After dinner they were to keep

watch in turns, and Ryall took the first watch. There was a sofa on

either side of the carriage, one of them higher above the floor than the

other. Ryall offered these to his guests, but one of them preferred to

lie on the floor between the sofas. And when Ryall thought he had

watched long enough without seeing the lion, he lay down to rest on the

lower sofa.

The carriage had a sliding door which slipped easily in its grooves, and

was unfastened. When all was quiet the lion crept out of the bush,

jumped on to the rear platform of the carriage, opened the door with his

paws, and slipped in. But scarcely had he entered, when the door, in

consequence of the slope of the carriage, slid to again and latched

itself. And thus the man-eater was shut in with the three sleeping men.

The sleeper on the higher sofa, awakened by a sharp cry of distress, saw

the lion, which filled up most of the small space, standing with his

hind legs on the man lying on the floor, and his forepaws on Ryall, on

the lower sofa on the opposite side. He jumped down in a fright to try

and reach the opposite door, but could not get past without putting his

foot on the back of the lion. To his horror, he found that the servant,

who had been alarmed by the noise, was leaning against the door outside;

but, putting forth all his strength, he burst open the door and slipped

out, whereupon it banged to again. At the same moment a loud crash was

heard. The lion had sprung through the window with Ryall in his mouth,

and as the aperture was too small, he had splintered the woodwork like

paper. The remains of the man were found next day and buried. Shortly

after the lion was caught in a trap, and was exhibited for several days

before being shot.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE

In a poor but respectable workman's home in Blantyre, near Glasgow, was

born a hundred years ago a little lad named David Livingstone, who was

to make himself a great and famous name, not only as the discoverer of

lakes and rivers, but also as one of the noblest men who ever offered

their lives for the welfare of mankind.

[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE'S JOURNEYS IN AFRICA.]

In the national school of the town he quickly learned to read and

write. His parents could not afford to let him continue his studies, but

sent him at ten years of age to a cotton mill, where he had to work from

six o'clock in the morning till eight in the evening. The hard work did

not break his spirit, but while the machines hummed around him and the

thread jumped on the bobbins, his thoughts and his desires flew far

beyond the close walls of the factory to life and nature outside. He did

his work so well that his wages were raised, and he spent his gains in

buying books, which kept him awake far into the night. To add to his

knowledge he attended a night-school, and on holidays he made long

excursions with his brothers.

Years fled and the boy David grew up to manhood. One day he told his

parents that he wished to be a medical missionary, and go to the people

in the east and south, tend the sick, and preach to any who would

listen. In order to procure means for his studies he had to save up his

earnings at the factory, and when the time was come he went with his

father to Glasgow, hired a room for half-a-crown a week, and read

medicine. At the end of the session he went back to the factory to

obtain money for the next winter course. Finally he passed his

examination with distinction, and then came the last evening in the old

home and the last morning dawned. His father went with him to Glasgow,

took a long farewell of his son, and returned home sad and lonely.

Livingstone sailed from England to the Cape, and betook himself to the

northernmost mission-station, Kuruman in Bechuanaland. Even at this time

he heard of a fresh-water lake far to the north. It was called Ngami,

and he hoped to see it one day.

From Kuruman he made several journeys in different directions to gain a

knowledge of the tribes and their languages, to minister to their sick

and win their confidence. Once when he was returning home from a journey

and had still 150 miles to trek, a little black girl was found crouching

under his waggon. She had run away from her owner because she knew that

he intended to sell her as a slave as soon as she was full-grown, and as

she did not wish to be sold she determined to follow the missionary's

waggon on foot to Kuruman. The good doctor took up the frightened little

creature and provided her with food and drink. Suddenly he heard her cry

out. She had caught sight of a man with a gun who had been sent out to

fetch her and who now came angrily to the waggon. It never occurred to

Livingstone to leave the defenceless child in the hands of the wretch.

He took the girl under his protection and told her that no danger would

befall her henceforth. She was a symbol of Africa, the home of the

slave-trade. And Africa's slaves needed the help of a great and strong

man. Livingstone understood the call and worked to his last hour for the

liberation of the slaves, as Gordon did many years later. He strove

against the cruel and barbarous customs of the natives and their dark

superstitions, and hoped in time to be able to train pupils who would

be sent out to preach all over the country. In one tribe the

medicine-men were also rainmakers. Livingstone pointed out to the people

of the tribe that the rainmakers' jugglery was only a fraud and of no

use, but offered, if they liked, himself to procure water for the

irrigation of their fields, not by witchcraft but by conducting it along

a canal from the neighbouring river. Some rough tools were first hewn

out, and he had soon the whole tribe at work, and the canal and conduits

were laid out among the crops. And there stood the witch-doctors put to

shame, as they heard the water purling and filtering into the soil.

In 1843 Livingstone started off to found a new mission-station, named

Mabotsa. The chief of the place was quite willing to sell land, and he

received glass beads and other choice wares in payment. Mabotsa lay not

far from the present Mafeking, but seventy years ago the whole region

was a wild. On one occasion a lion broke into the village and worried

the sheep. The natives turned out with their weapons, and Livingstone

took the lead. The disturber of the peace was badly wounded and retired

to the bush. But suddenly he rushed out again, threw himself on

Livingstone, buried his teeth in his shoulder, and crushed his left arm.

The lion had his paw already on the missionary's head, when a Christian

native ran up and struck and slashed at the brute. The lion loosed his

hold in order to fly at his new assailant, who was badly hurt.

Fortunately the animal was so sorely wounded that its strength was now

exhausted, and it fell dead on the ground. Livingstone felt the effects

of the lion's bite for thirty years after, and could never lift his arm

higher than the shoulder; and when his course was run his body was

identified by the broken and reunited arm bone. He had to keep quiet for

a long time until his wound was healed. Then he built the new

station-house with his own hands, and when all was ready he brought to

it his young bride, the daughter of a missionary at Kuruman.

Another missionary lived at Mabotsa and did all he could to render

Livingstone's life miserable. The good doctor hated all quarrelling, and

did not wish that white men should set a bad example to the blacks, so

he gladly gave way and moved with his wife forty miles northwards. The

house in Mabotsa had been built with his own savings, and as the London

Missionary Society gave him a salary of only a hundred pounds a year,

there could not be much over to build a house. When he left, the

natives round Mabotsa were in despair. Even when the oxen were yoked to

the waggon, they begged him to remain and promised to build him another

house. It was in vain, however; they lost their friend and saw him drive

off to the village of Chonuane, which was subject to the chief Sechele.