The source of the Blue Nile

by Arthur J. Hayes

I began the next day (December 9) with a lucky shot. I had put my gun and a No. 3 cartridge—the only one I had—on the table near my bed before turning in, as I hoped that the demoiselles might be less cautious before daybreak. I was up an hour before dawn, and loaded my gun. I could hear the croaking of the birds for a long distance, and knew from the sound that they were moving. Just at the moment when I was ready, three cranes sailed over the camp. They were within range; and when I fired, a fine demoiselle collapsed and came to the ground in a heap. These birds make good eating.

All the country in this district has the same character. The low mimosa scrub is varied by patches of land which are cultivated in the rainy season. The Khalifa had his powder and cartridge factory at Bushagra, and possibly the natives thought that European vengeance might fall on them for this reason. In any case the Soudanese here showed nervousness, and made off when they saw us coming.

We ate another British breakfast—porridge and sausages—and then started on foot with our guns at half-past seven. A tramp of five miles gave us no sport, and we mounted our camels about nine o’clock. Our road lay through the hottest country I have ever known, and the temperature rose hourly as the day advanced. Smoked glasses ease the eyes a little, and there is shade under one’s white umbrella, but nothing seems able to allay the thirst which this land causes. It is a mistake to suppose that one must go east of Suez to gain experience of true human drought. The water in my bottle[3] lasted, and only just lasted, through the journey.

Hot, parched men, in a hot, uninteresting land, are not likely to be in their best temper, and we had to bear with our guide. He had asserted that he knew the whole country, but he barely knew how to follow the track, and seemed to lack ideas of time and distance. We asked him, “When shall we reach the river again?” He pointed to a large section of the heavens and answered, “When the sun reaches there.” He could not tell us the names of villages which lay on our route, and our maps were not trustworthy.

We reached the river bank after our halt at lunch-time, but left it again, and my camel’s action appeared to be more back-breaking and monotonous than ever. Two hours in the saddle seemed like four, and Xenophon’s Greeks were not more delighted to behold the sea than I was by the sight of the blue water as we approached it late in the afternoon. Our camping ground was beside the stream, and I rushed to the brink with my enamelled mug; the water was rather muddy, but the draught seemed like nectar.

I tried for a fish, without success. When I returned to camp I heard a camel grunting loudly and dismally. On going to discover the cause, I found the animal fastened to the ground by cords, while a man was scarifying its back with live cinders. The object is to produce counter-irritation as a remedy for cysts. I arrived too late to deliver the unhappy beast from the horrors of Soudanese veterinary treatment, as the operation had just been completed. However, I gave the Arabs “a piece of my mind.” They may not have understood my Arabic, but they could not mistake the meaning.

We had covered twenty miles during the day and camped beside a khor, opposite to a village called Baranku, which is situated on an island in the river.

On the following morning we started with our guns and walked ahead of the camels. Besides pigeons, we shot plovers of two kinds which I had not seen before. Our route throughout the day was over fertile soil, perfectly adapted for the cultivation of cotton. At present, grain (durrha) is grown here, and apparently only one crop is raised annually, after the summer rains. But Dupuis told me that if a canal were cut and a system of irrigation established the soil would bear “the kindly fruits of the earth” all the year round. Villages are numerous in this district, and we never lost sight of one or other of them during our day’s journey. I noticed a great disproportion between the numbers of male and female inhabitants. In a hamlet in which I made inquiry there were eighteen women to one man. Nearly all the men had perished in the days of the Mahdi and Osman Digna. As a consequence, the women worked in the fields, while their few surviving consorts led lives of idleness. I suppose they were considered, and considered themselves, too valuable to be subjected to fatigue. They were too poor to buy tobacco, or smoking might have kept them silent. As it was, when they were not asleep they were talking, and I wondered how they could possibly find topics for incessant conversation.

We halted for the night on the bank of the river, two miles from Rufa’a, which is the second largest town on the Blue Nile. Miralai[4] Blewitt Bey, the Moudir[5] of Rufa’a, sent a police officer with a courteous message, expressing his desire to do all in his power to assist us. A welcome gift of eggs and fresh milk reached us a few hours later, and at the same time two night-watchmen (Gaffirs) arrived for the protection of the camp. We were heartily grateful for our countryman’s good-will. Dupuis dined with him that evening, while Crawley and I remained in charge of the camp.

In the course of the afternoon I applied iodoform to the back of one of the camels, to keep the flies from a sore. All the drivers came clamouring to me after this, importuning me to treat every scratch on the beasts of burden in the same way. One wishes to conform to the tradition of ready helpfulness which is, happily, associated with the medical profession, but I declined to become physician in ordinary to the forty camels, as far as abrasions were concerned.