I reached Khartoum at a favorable season for making the voyage. Formerly, it had been very difficult for any European to obtain permission to sail on the White Nile, owing to the trade of the river having been completely monopolized by the Pasha of Soudân, in defiance of the Treaty of 1838, which made the river free to merchants of all nations. No later than the previous winter, Count Dandolo, an Italian traveller who visited Khartoum, encountered much opposition before he succeeded in obtaining a boat for the Islands of the Shillooks. Owing to the vigorous efforts of Dr. Reitz, the monopoly had at last been broken down, and the military guard formerly stationed at the confluence of the two rivers, no longer existed I did not even inform the Pasha of my intention to make the voyage until after I had taken the boat and completed my preparations. I then paid him a visit of ceremony, in company with the Consul. He was very affable, and insisted on our remaining for dinner, although we had invited two friends to help us eat a roasted ram. We urged this in excuse, but he cut us off by exclaiming: “I am ruler here, and my commands dare not be disobeyed,” and immediately sent a servant to order our guests, in his name, to eat the ram themselves. He then despatched messengers for Abd-el-Kader Bey, Governor of Kordofan, and Rufaā Bey, who were brought to the palace in the same arbitrary manner. Having thus secured his company, he retired for the usual prayers before dinner, leaving us to enjoy the preparatory pipe. Among the manifold dishes served at dinner, were three or four kinds of fish from the White Nile, all of them of excellent flavor. The Pasha continued his discussion of Louis Napoleon’s coup d’étât, taking delight in recommending a sanguinary policy as the only course, and could not enough praise Sultan Mahmoud I. for his execution of forty thousand Janissaries in one day.
Finally, on the morning of the 22d of January, my effects were all on board, and my raïs and sailors in readiness. Achmet and Ali preceded me to the boat with many misgivings, for we were now going into regions where the Pasha’s name was scarcely known—where the Egyptian sway had never reached—a land of kaffirs, or infidels, who were supposed to be nearly related to the terrible “Nyàm-Nyàms,” the anthropophagi of Central Africa. Achmet could not comprehend my exhilaration of spirits, and in reply to my repeated exclamations of satisfaction and delight, observed, with a shake of the head: “If it were not that we left Cairo on a lucky day, O my master! I should never expect to see Khartoum again.” Fat Abou-Balta, who had promised to accompany me as far as the first village on the White Nile, did not make his appearance, and so we pushed off without him. Never was name more wrongly applied than that of Abou-Balta (the “father of hatchets”), for he weighed three hundred pounds, had a face like the full moon, and was the jolliest Turk I ever saw. Dr. Reitz, whose hospitality knew no bounds, sent his dromedaries up the river the day previous, and accompanied me with his favorite servants—two ebony boys, with shining countenances and white and scarlet dresses.
The White Nile.
CHAPTER XXV.
VOYAGE UP THE WHITE NILE.
Departure from Khartoum—We enter the White Nile—Mirage and Landscape—The Consul returns—Progress—Loss of the Flag—Scenery of the Shores—Territory of the Hassaniyehs—Curious Conjugal Custom—Multitudes of Water Fowls—Increased Richness of Vegetation—Apes—Sunset on the White Nile—We reach the Kingdom of the Shillook Negroes.
“At night he heard the lion roar
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse as he crushed the reeds