In what I have to say I shall not try to give any large picture
of African travel or life; I shall try only to give some accurate
notions of a limited area.
The Soudan is not a definite geographical term. Bellad es Soudan
is the country of the blacks, and is merely a general term like
Central Africa. An Egyptian Governor-General of the Soudan rules
a vast territory, extending in Gordon’s time from the Tropic of
Cancer on the north to near the equator on the south, about 1,640
miles; and from the Red Sea on the east to the western boundary
of Darfour, averaging about 660 miles in width. This territory
includes Upper and Lower Nubia, the fertile and little known
Sennaar, the wastes north of Abyssinia, the provinces of Darfour
and Kordofan, and the mysterious regions of the White Nile and its
affluents.
Nowhere else in the explored world is there an equal area so
uniform in climate and surface. The sad result of this uniformity
you see in the condition of the people. In your effort to help the
people, you must fight against these facts of nature. A monotony of
savage tribes live in a bad climate, uniform in its badness; they
inhabit a land which throughout great regions gives no variety of
surface. From these conditions they have no escape. I do not say
that no great improvement of people so situated is possible; but I
do say that man has seldom found himself in a worse position.
In the northern zone of the Soudan, down to about the twelfth
degree of latitude, the climate has admitted of a feeble
development of Mohammedan civilization; further south the
conditions are desperate.
The Arab officers of the Khedive, the Nubian slave hunters, the few
European traders and travelers who have gone as far as Gondokoro,
the handful of American and English officers who, in late years,
have tried to carry law and light into that unhappy country—every
man of them would tell you the same story of more or less rapid
failure of his own vital powers, and of the terrible mortality
among his comrades. We, at this distance, only hear of those who
go up the Nile and come back. One has but to spend a few weeks in
Khartoum to learn a long list of names of men who have gone as far
as Khartoum or Fashoda, or the Sobat or Lado, only to come back,
broken in health, often to die before getting to the sea.
Let us now glance briefly at the physical geography of the Nile
basin south of Khartoum. Below the tenth degree of latitude, the
steppe country is no longer seen. Vast marshes stretch away on
either hand, broken by peninsulas and islands of dry land. For 790
miles this is the character of the immediate valley of the White
Nile. Between latitudes 5 and 6 the swamps end and the face of
the country becomes more like our own land. From this latitude to
the equator is a charmingly diversified country, with mountains,
valleys, creeks, meadows, and not an extraordinary proportion of
swamps. Of course, this region is more healthy than the marshes of
the White Nile, but even it has a trying climate.
Here the Nile is a rapid stream, with numerous wooded and rocky
islands and long stretches of rapids and cataracts. The forests are
neither so vast nor so dense as we imagine tropical forests to be;
nor do we find here the majestic trees and the luxuriant vegetation
of the Central American forests. The herbage grows with wonderful
rapidity, and during the summer months much of the country is
covered with grass of amazing height and strength.
On the west and south the great swamp basin seems to end at a crest
of high land running northwesterly from the Nile at about latitude
5, crossing the eighth degree of latitude at 150 or 200 miles west
of the Nile, and keeping something the same general direction to
the steppes of Darfour and Wadai.
The eastern limit of the swamp region is even more conjectural than
the western, but we may expect that it will be found within 100
miles of the Nile, and that it is a line running south by west from
near the mouth of the Sobat. The total area of the swamp basin may
be 25,000 square miles.
Khartoum is the point of rendezvous and departure for all routes
into the Soudan. It may be reached from Cairo by two principal
routes; one up the Nile valley, the other by the Red Sea and by
caravan to Berber on the Nile, 250 miles north of Khartoum. The
quicker and probably the cheaper route is by the Red Sea, Suakim
and Berber. The journey by this route, allowing three days each at
Suakim and Berber, may be made in 32 days. By this route there are
but two days of hard marching necessary. The rest of the journey
can be made at a comfortable pace. Both of these routes into
the Soudan are much frequented. Special difficulties in getting
transportation may operate against one or the other of them at
different times. This is something to be decided at Cairo.
Khartoum, the capital of the Soudan, is a town of about 30,000
people, with many and fairly good shops, at which the traveler
can procure anything really necessary, except arms, ammunition
and medicines. At this great African city all lines of traffic
converge. Here boats can be procured, manned, provisioned and
stored to go up the White or Blue Nile, the Sobat or the Bahr el
Ghazalle. Here camels may be hired and caravans fitted out to go to
the East or the West.
From Khartoum to Fashoda, in the tenth degree of latitude, about
450 miles, the White Nile is practically Mohammedan. Though
the Shillooks rove considerably north of that point, they are
continually harassed by their enemies, the Bagarra Arabs from
Kordofan and the government tax-gatherers from the Nile, and lead
a very unsettled life. On the eastern bank of the Nile, also,
the Mohammedan tribes have driven the negroes south of the tenth
parallel.
South of Fashoda, however, for more than 100 miles along the west
bank of the Nile, past the mouth of the Sobat, and extending back
many miles into the interior, is the country held by the great
tribe of the Shillooks. Their huts in this region are like one vast
village. They are a powerful and spirited tribe, numbering over a
million souls, it is estimated. They have resisted the Egyptian
Government with tenacity and considerable success. Indeed, I cannot
say how much of their territory is actually subjugated to-day; but
it is probable the Egyptian power is not acknowledged far from
Fashoda.
The Shillooks are one of the finest negro tribes of which we know
anything. They are prosperous cultivators of the soil and great
hunters. Although they are greatly exasperated by the wars of the
government and the plundering of the passing slave-traders, it
is likely that they could soon be led to feel confidence in men
whom they found to be neither officials nor slavers. With their
light canoes they cross the river constantly, hunting, fishing
and raiding on the neighboring Dinkas and Nouers. Although they
have been so badly treated by the government and the traders, yet
they have learned to discriminate among white men, and it is quite
possible that they might be found more open to the influence of
Christian missionaries than the tribes farther away from the route
of travel.
On the west bank of the Nile, north of the Sobat, is a branch of
the great Dinka tribe. These people have fared even worse than the
Shillooks at the hands of the slavers, and have almost abandoned
the banks of the streams. They will probably return with the
decline of slave-hunting, if indeed they are not already occupying
again their old lands. These are docile and intelligent negroes,
and are favorite slaves. The black regiments of the Soudan were
mostly recruited from the Dinkas. Like the Shillooks, the Dinkas
are pure heathen and great cattle-breeders. The immediate southern
bank of the Sobat is now occupied by the Nouer tribe, who have also
pushed over to the north of that stream and are found far up its
course. They go to the west as far as the Gazelle River and their
southern limit is ill-defined. They are a very numerous tribe, but
perhaps inferior in intelligence to either the Shillooks or the
Dinkas, although Poncet speaks of them as clean, well-housed, and
valiant warriors and hunters.
The little that we know of the country and people up the Sobat is
not encouraging. The land is flat, and in the rainy season marshy.
On the banks of the streams are forests of the talch acacia. The
people have been hostile, and Col. Gordon withdrew his station from
that region before I went to the provinces of the Equator.
The mouth of the Sobat, and the great east and west reach of the
Nile which flows here east by south for about 100 miles, mark the
southern limit of the steppe country. South of this one should not
rest till he reaches the high lands of the Bahr el Gebel, below
latitude 5. The characteristic features of that region are truly
charming to one who has crossed the deserts, steppes and marshes on
his way from the Mediterranean.
Here are found various tribes of negroes, the Bohr, the Shir, the
Madi, and finally, to the south, the great Wanyoro and Waganda
tribes, who are thought by Speke not to be negroes. On the east
are the Latookas and the Lungo; on the west the Niambara. For our
purposes it is not necessary to discriminate very closely between
them. They are all naked heathen, given to warfare and pillage,
detesting work, and certainly not spiritually minded.
All of these people had been greatly exasperated by the
slave-traders and by the garrison left at Gondokoro by Baker. The
policy of the slave-traders had been to keep one tribe at war with
another, and by allying themselves with one and the other to get
much of the fighting done for them and to carry off the spoils in
slaves, cattle and ivory. The Egyptian garrison had imitated the
traders, and when Gordon went up it was practically besieged at
Gondokoro. In two years and a half Gordon had reduced the garrison
at Gondokoro to a sergeant and ten men, and his strongest garrison,
that at Moogi, was but 90 men. He had established stations for
300 miles at a day’s march, or less, apart, and over much of this
distance one courier could pass unharmed. The chiefs about the
stations paid tribute of corn and furnished porters readily. On the
Albert Lake he put a steamer and two large iron life-boats, which
traversed without danger or difficulty the 125 miles of river south
of Dufli. The Moogi family, for some distance on the east bank
of the river, was still hostile, but all the other river people
had great confidence in the wonderful white man who had been just
and truthful with them. How much of this condition still exists
I do not know, but the fact that it did exist in 1877 shows what
missionaries might hope to do there.
The negroes of the far Nile country, like the Shillooks, the
Dinkas, and the Nouers below, breed cattle, raise their poor
breadstuffs and a few vegetables, and hunt but little. Were it not
for the tribal wars, they would seldom suffer for food, although
local famines from drought do occur. Like the negroes farther down
the Nile, they are, too, a simple and happy people, only asking to
be let alone. They want nothing that our civilization can give them
except bright beads and wire. Therefore, to establish relations of
trade with them is not easy.
I began by promising to give you somewhat accurate notions of
certain limited regions. I find that I have been able to skim but
hastily over even the area to which I have confined myself.
I will conclude with a few words about that area as a missionary
field. I need not tell you that the poor people are densely
ignorant of Christianity, as they are of all religion. I need
not tell you again that like all savages they make each other as
miserable as they can with their poor knowledge of the art and
means of war; or that the slave-traders and the Khedive’s troops
are adding daily to their capacity in that way. I hardly need tell
you that I believe them to be human beings whose happiness might
be increased by teaching them peaceful industries and by inducing
them to give up idleness and fighting. In short, there is no
doubt that the condition of the people of Central Africa and the
Soudan is deplorable, and there is a possibility that Christian
missionaries might make it better. The question is how and where
you can do the most with the means at your command. Probably the
most can be done by working steadily up the Nile, and to moderate
distances east and west of the water-way, with a base in the more
healthful regions of the north, and a steamer to carry people back
and forth. I believe it would be a mistake to plant an isolated
mission anywhere south of the swamp region. The essential thing is
to be able to take a man away as soon as you find that he can no
longer resist the fevers, recruit him in the desert air, and then
hurry him back before he and his people have forgotten each other.
If you plant a colony in the heart of Africa and leave it for three
years, at the end of that time there will probably not be a man
of it living—almost certainly he will not be living and working
there. But it will take an ordinary man at least three years to fit
himself for really good work amongst a people whose language and
ways are so new to him.
A valuable lesson may be drawn from the experiences of Gordon and
Baker in the same country. Baker isolated himself in Unyoro, with
no base and no line of communications. He was obliged to burn his
baggage and retreat, with great courage and skill it is true,
but with the absolute waste of his expedition. Gordon kept up
fortnightly steamers to Khartoum, established his little garrisons
step by step, and when he left the Provinces the power of the
government was firmly fixed there.
The idea of the Roman Catholic mission is excellent so far as it
goes. They have built comfortable houses at Khartoum and El Obeid;
have established schools, gardens and hospitals; have a corps
of people trained in Arabic and some of the negro dialects, and
somewhat acclimated, and—there they stop and sit in their gardens.
They are capital financiers, and their mission will not be apt to
break up for want of money or recruits; but as a means of practical
good in Africa, it is nearly worthless without a chief of heroic
fibre.
The scheme that I should strongly advise is a sanitarium and school
in the north, with your own steamer on the Nile; a mission near
the Sobat; and if the White Nile is found to keep open, another at
the head of navigation. In the course of years such a scheme would
probably make a mark in the countries it reached; but to succeed
it must have at its head a man of courage and brains, a man of
sleepless energy, a man hungry and thirsty for work, and he must be
a diplomat as well, for he will be terribly worried on all sides.
I have suggested a point near the Sobat for a mission, because at
that point relations could be established with some of the largest
tribes—the Shillooks, Dinkas and Nouers—and because it is the last
point at which a colony could be planted north of the great swamp
basin. A colony south of that is liable to be cut off for months
and even years, by the formation of the “sud” or grass barrier
in the Nile. Undoubtedly the Sobat region is inferior in land
and climate to the high lands south of Gondokoro; but, as I have
pointed out, to isolate your mission so that it cannot be rapidly
recruited and supplied will be fatal. Of this I am positive. When
you find that the Soudan authorities are sure or even likely to
keep communications open up the Nile, _then_ a mission should be
sent up to Gondokoro or farther south. All the dangers in and
obstacles to this noble work should be measured and faced, and
the work so organized that a real retreat need never be made.
True progress must be very slow, and you must not look for quick
results. When you have done your best you must not be disappointed
if you seem to have done very little. To plant a mission on a solid
foundation, with the right chief at its head and the right material
at his hand, will be a great work.
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