A journey to Central Africa

by Bayard Taylor

Beside some hidden stream;

And it passed like a glorious roll of drums

Through the triumph of his dream.”—Longfellow.

The men pushed away from shore with some difficulty, as a violent north-wind drove the boat back, but the sail once unfurled, we shot like an arrow between the gardens of Khartoum and the green shores of the island of Tuti. Before reaching the confluence of the rivers, a jut of land obliged the sailors again to take to their poles and oars, but a short time sufficed to bring us to the turning-point. Here the colors of the different streams are strongly marked. They are actually blue and white, and meet in an even line, which can be seen extending far down the common tide. We tossed on the agitated line of their junction, but the wind carried us in a few minutes past the island of Omdurman, which lies opposite. The first American flag that ever floated over the White Nile, fluttered gayly at the mast-head, pointing to the south—to those vast, mysterious regions out of which the mighty stream finds its way. A flock of the sacred ibis alighted on the sandy shore of the island, where the tall king-heron, with his crest of stately feathers, watched us as he walked up and down. In front, over the island of Moussa Bey, a broad mirage united its delusive waters with those of the true river and lifted the distant shores so high above the horizon that they seemed floating in the air. The stream, which is narrow at its junction with the Blue Nile, expanded to a breadth of two miles, and the shores ahead of us were so low that we appeared to be at the entrance of a great inland sea. Our course swerved to the eastward, so that we were in the rear of Khartoum, whose minaret was still visible when we were ten miles distant. The low mud dwellings of the town were raised to twice their real height, by the effect of the mirage. The shores on either side were sandy tracts, almost uncultivated, and covered with an abundant growth of thorns, mimosas and a small tree with thick green foliage. By twelve o’clock we reached the point where Dr. Reitz had sent his dromedaries, which were in readiness, kneeling on the beach. We could not approach the shore, on account of the mud, but the sailors carried us out on their shoulders. I rode with him to a small Arab hamlet, scattered among the thorny thickets. There were but two mud houses, the other dwellings being merely rude tents of grass matting; few of the inhabitants were at home, but those few were peaceable and friendly. As the Consul had a ride of four or five hours before him, he wished me good luck and set off northward, while the sailors, who were in waiting, carried me back to the boat.

All the afternoon I sped before a strong wind up the magnificent river. Its breadth varied from two to three miles, but its current was shallow and sluggish. The shores were sandy, and covered with groves of the gum-producing mimosa, which appeared for the first time in profusion. About four o’clock I passed a low, isolated hill on the eastern bank, which the sailors called Djàr en-nebbee, and near sunset, a long ridge on the right, two miles inland, broke the dead level of the plains of Kordofan. The sand-banks were covered with wild geese and ducks in myriads, and here and there we saw an enormous crocodile lounging on the edge of the water. The sun went down; the short twilight faded, and I was canopied by a superb starlit heaven. Taurus, Orion, Sirius and the Southern Cross sparkled in one long, unbroken galaxy of splendor. The breeze was mild and light, and the waves rippled with a pleasant sound against the prow. My sailors sat on the forward deck, singing doleful songs, to which the baying of dogs and the yells of hyenas made a fit accompaniment. The distant shores of the river were lighted with the fires of the Mohammediyeh Arabs, and we heard the men shouting to each other occasionally. About nine o’clock we passed their principal village, and approached the territories of the Hassaniyehs.

The wind fell about ten o’clock, and the boat came to anchor. I awoke an hour or two after midnight and found it blowing again fresh and strong; whereupon I roused the raïs and sailors, and made them hoist sail. We gained so much by this move, that by sunrise we had passed the village of Shekh Moussa, and were entering the territories of the Hassaniyeh Arabs; the last tribe which is subject to the Pasha of Soudân. Beyond them are the primitive Negro Kingdoms of Central Africa, in almost the same condition now as they have been for thousands of years past. About sunrise the raïs ordered the sails to be furled, and the vessel put about. The men were rowing some time before I discovered the cause. Whilst attempting to hoist my flag, one of them let it fall into the water, and instead of jumping in after it, as I should have done had I seen it, suffered the vessel to go some distance before he even announced the loss. We were then so far from the spot, that any attempt to recover it would have been useless, and so the glorious stars and stripes which had floated thus far triumphantly into Africa, met the fate of most travellers in those regions. They lay imbedded in the mud of the White Nile, and I sailed away from the spot with a pang, as if a friend had been drowned there. The flag of one’s country is never dearer to him than when it is his companion and protector in foreign lands.

During the whole forenoon we sailed at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, in the centre of the river, whose breadth varied from two to three miles. The shores no longer presented the same dead level as on the first day. They were banks of sandy soil, ten or twelve feet in height, and covered with forests of the gum-bearing mimosa, under which grew thickets of a dense green shrub, mixed with cactus and euphorbia. The gum is a tree from twenty to thirty feet in height, with a thick trunk and spreading branches, and no Italian oak or chestnut presents a greater variety of picturesque forms to the painter’s eye. The foliage is thin, allowing the manifold articulations of the boughs and twigs to be seen through it. It was most abundant on the Kordofan side, and the greater proportion of the gum annually exported to Egypt comes from that country. The broad tide of the river and the wild luxuriance of the continuous forests that girdled it, gave this part of its course an air of majesty, which recalled the Mississippi to my mind. There was not a single feature that resembled Egypt.

Towards noon we reached the more thickly populated districts of the Hassaniyeh. The town of Damas, on the east, and Tura, on the west, not very distant from each other, were the first I saw since leaving Khartoum. They were merely clusters of tokuls, or the straw huts of the natives, built in a circular form, with a conical roof of matting, the smoke escaping through an opening in the top. At both these places, as well as at other points along the river, the natives had ferries, and appeared to be busy in transporting men, camels and goods from one bank to the other. On account of the breadth of the river the passage was long, and the boatmen eased their labor by making a sail of their cotton mantles, which they fastened to two upright sticks. The shores were crowded with herds of sheep and goats, and I saw near Damas a large drove of camels which were waiting an opportunity to cross. The Hassaniyehs own no camels, and this was probably a caravan from Khartoum, bound for Kordofan. In some places the people brought donkeys laden with water-skins, which they filled from the river. I noticed, occasionally, a small patch of beans, but nothing that looked like a regular system of cultivation. The Hassaniyehs are yellow, with straight features, and resemble the Fellahs of Lower Egypt more than any other Central-African tribe. Those whom we saw at a distance from the villages retreated with signs of fear as my vessel approached the shore. Dr. Péney, the Medical Inspector of Soudân, described to me, while in Khartoum, some singular customs of these Arabs. The rights of women, it appears, are recognized among them more thoroughly than among any other savage people in the world. When a woman is married, her father states that one fourth of her life thenceforth is reserved for her own use, and the husband is obliged to respect this reservation. Every fourth day she is released from the marriage vow, and if she loves some one else better than her husband, he can dwell in her tent that day, obliging the husband himself to retire. Their hospitality is such, moreover, that if a stranger visits one of their settlements they furnish him, for four days, with a tent and a wife. They should add a family of children, and then their hospitality would be complete. No reproach whatever attaches to the woman, on account of this temporary connection. The Hassaniyeh, in other respects, are not more immoral than other tribes, and these customs appear to be connected with their religious faith.

After passing Tura (the terminus of a short caravan route of four days to Obeid, the capital of Kordofan), a mountain range, some distance from the river, appeared on the right bank. The peaks were broken and conical in form, and their pale-violet hue showed with fine effect behind the dark line of the gum forests. With every hour of our progress, the vegetation grew more rank and luxuriant. On the eastern bank the gum gave place to the flowering mimosa, which rose in a dense rampart from the water’s edge and filled the air with the fragrance of its blossoms. Myriads of wild geese, ducks, cranes, storks, herons and ibises sat on the narrow beaches of sand or circled in the air with hoarse clang and croaking. Among them I saw more than one specimen of that rare and curious water-bird, whose large, horny bill curves upward instead of downward, so that it appears to have been put on the wrong way. As he eats nothing but small fish, which he swallows with his head under water, this is not such a great inconvenience as one would suppose. The bars which occasionally made out into the current served as a resting-place for crocodiles, which now began to appear in companies of ten or fifteen, and the forests were filled with legions of apes, which leaped chattering down from the branches to look at us. A whole family of them sat on the bank for some time, watching us, and when we frightened them away by our shouts, it was amusing to see a mother pick up her infant ape, and scamper off with it under her arm. The wild fowl were astonishingly tame, and many of them so fat that they seemed scarcely able to fly. Here and there, along the shore, large broods of the young were making their first essays in swimming. The boatmen took great delight in menacing the old birds with pieces of wood, in order to make them dive under water. There were some superb white cranes, with a rosy tinge along the edges of their wings, and I saw two more of the crested king-herons.