We had covered fourteen miles by half-past eleven, and then halted, considering that the donkeys had journeyed far enough. Our progress depended on them, and we were careful not to overwork them. Three were suffering from girth sores. We pitched our camp in a ravine about a quarter of a mile distant from the bed of the Gundar Wahar—which is the river Atbara with an Abyssinian name.
One of our escort was reported ill with fever, and I found that his temperature was 104 degrees. But quinine had brought about a decisive improvement by nightfall. I had another patient. My friend Crawley had chafed his instep, and there was a bad sore on it. I had recourse to a little doctor’s diplomacy to keep him still, and put on such a large fomentation that he could not walk. Then Dupuis and I took our guns and rifles and tramped in the jungle—for the mass of thick, lofty grass deserved the name. My companion shot a brace of partridges, and we saw some guinea-fowl, and much spoor of big game. But nothing more got into our bag, and the excursion was wearisome and disappointing.
On January 2 our road again lay through hilly, verdurous country. While the donkeys climbed or descended the steep inclines their loads slipped as before, and kept all hands busy. The boys were continually shouting for help, and the burdens were replaced amid yelling and cursing. These natives never worked without talking, singing, or swearing, and they were specially fond of hearing their own oaths. But, I think, very little ill-will went with the words, and in spite of the endless imprecations uttered over the donkeys, they treated the animals well.
During the morning I took my rifle, filled my pockets with ball cartridges, and rode ahead of our party in the hope of trying a shot at big game. But I found small parties of Habashes[30] at intervals along the track throughout a distance of two miles in front of our convoy. Clearly it would be useless to search for any large wild beast in the proximity of these groups. I recognized the men as folk who had attached themselves to our train. They made a practice of camping where we pitched our tents, and had hitherto forestalled us in the choice of ground, and settled under the most suitable trees. They sought protection from the robbers who infest the district—the most notorious at the time was a Soudanese Arab called Hakos. I was glad that these wayfarers should enjoy a sense of security, but resented having sport spoiled. So I addressed a remonstrance to Johannes, who promised that all camp followers should keep in the rear in future, and he was as good as his word.
That afternoon we pitched our tents on the banks of the Gundar Wahar, which was here a stream trickling from pool to pool. We had travelled about fourteen miles. My friend Dupuis fitted out his angling tackle, and tried his fortune in some of the pools, using an ordinary spoon-bait. He caught three fair-sized fish, belonging to the perch family. I saw him land the biggest, which weighed six pounds, and showed fight. It had to be played into the shallows, and was brought ashore in smart style. Crawley, who was lame, limped to the edge of the river and cast a line with dough on the hook. He fished patiently, and his perseverance was rewarded with two little creatures of the size of sticklebacks.
All the camping-grounds by the waterside in this district are called warshas, and as there are few distinctive names for places in the uninhabited tract, we called the spots where we halted warsha number one, warsha number two, and so on.
In this region, near the rivers, the white ants are extremely numerous. They are not seen at a distance from water, and cannot work without moisture to renew the fluid that exudes between their mandibles. This enters into the composition of the stiffened earth of which they build their dwellings. They are voracious and destructive, and have a propensity for gnawing leather, felt—which unfortunately they found in the pads of the donkeys’ saddles—and any textile material. They are most active at night, and, to preserve our bedding, we had provided ourselves with “Willesden sheets.” These are made of canvas coated with a preparation of arsenic, which the white ants avoid. The sheets were always spread under our beds when we camped, and if anything that was to the taste of the ants slid beyond the edge in the dark, destruction awaited it.
I formed the opinion that the white ants have rendered valuable service to Egypt by amassing the fertile mud which is carried down to the Nile Delta, and venture to put forward the following considerations in support of the theory. On entering the Abyssinian borderland, one cannot help remarking the structure of the ground. Our track lay generally along watercourses, and the beds of dry mountain torrents. Here the soil was composed of sand, shingle, and pebbles. On either bank, and for some distance beyond, lay an expanse of basaltic stone, on which little earth was to be seen. Grass grew there, but by no means so abundantly as in the plains, and there were climbing plants, such as convolvulus, and ivy, which clung to nearly every tree. These creepers made the path extremely difficult to follow. Further away from the watercourses lesser vegetation and longer grass appeared. The white ants’ nests, from nine to twelve feet in height, were found here, usually close to a soft wooded tree. The roots of it, in most cases, had been attacked by the insects, and converted into “white ant earth.” The trunk afterwards undergoes the same process, and by the advent of the rainy season only the outlying twigs remain intact. A heavy gust of wind will then overthrow the simulacrum of a tree. The rain falls in torrents, and the compost which the insects have made of the timber is broken up and carried by innumerable channels into the tributaries of the Atbara, and finally reaches the main stream. It is well known that the Atbara brings down the greatest quantity of this mud, the Blue Nile carrying less, and the White Nile, the most sluggish stream of the three, least. The two more rapid rivers rise in Abyssinia, in regions where the white ant is extremely destructive to vegetation. Moreover, the innumerable ant-heaps[31] are made entirely of earth, which crumbles under the rains, and is swept into the watercourses in the season of floods. And in the dry months the ants—besides devouring straw and the bark of living trees[32]—eat into every branch and twig that the past storms have brought to the ground. Carrying earth into their excavations, they hollow the wood, as in the case of the soft standing timber which they attack, and leave just the outer covering intact. I have often stooped to pick up a stick for the cook’s fire, and found that my fingers broke a thin shell of bark, and scattered the contents. Another circumstance which seemed worthy of remark was that we found no deposit of “Nile mud” within the Abyssinian boundary, nor any earth resembling it; so one may conclude that, as soon as the Atbara, when in flood, reaches the level of the Soudan, it spreads a deposit of this fertile soil beside its banks, though the great mass is carried into the Nile. According to this view, the fertility of the alluvial districts of Lower Egypt is in no slight measure due to detritus from Abyssinia, and the white ants have contributed an important share to the resources of the Nile valley. Of course, I do not for an instant contend that all the mud deposited by the river in Egypt is supplied by the white ants, but I believe that the wonderful productive property of the alluvial deposits is due to the work of these insects in the western borderland of Abyssinia. Therefore, in my belief, the white ant has justified its existence, though its room is undeniably preferable to its company.
On January 3 I saw a buffalo, tried to stalk it, and lost it. While I was on the way to rejoin our party, a water-buck sprang up within range—and so startled me, that he got away before I took an aim.
That day we marched seven hours, and covered twenty miles. Our camping-place was in the rocky course which a torrent follows in the rainy season. There were pools in it, and we had an abundance of clear water.