HAULING A STEAMER UP THE NILE RAPIDS.
Jackson described the boats used in this hazardous undertaking. There were, first, the ordinary whale-boats, about twenty-five feet long and five feet high, with a crew of ten Dongolese at the oars, and two or three sails to catch the helpful northerly winds. Overhead was an awning stretched against the scorching sun, and around the sides were boxes and bags of provisions and ammunition,—five or six tons to a boat,—piled high for shelter against bullets, for no one could tell when a band of Arabs, lurking at some vantage-point, might fall to picking off the men. At a cataract the crew would go ashore, save two, a voyageur in the stern to steer and another in the bow to fend off rocks, or, in case of need, give one swift, severing hatchet-stroke on the hauling-rope. For, of course, the ascending power came from a line of Dongolese, black fellows, with backs and muscles to delight a prize-fighter, who, by sheer strength of body, would drag the boat, cargo and all (or sometimes lightened of her cargo by the land-carriers), up, up, with grunting and heaving, against the down-rush of the river.
And woe to the boat if her hatchet-man fails to cut the rope at the very second of danger! So long as the craft can live his arm must stay uplifted; yet he must cut instantly when it is plain she can live no longer. And here one marvels; for how can anything be plain in a blinding, deafening cataract? And how shall the man decide, as they rise on a glassy sweep and hang for an instant over some rock-gulf beaten into by tons of water, whether they can go through it or not? Truly this is no place for wavering nerve or halting judgment. The man must know and act, know and act, because he is that kind of a man; and, even so, in hard places above the second cataract two Indians from Caughnawaga, Morris and Capitan, fine pilots both, held back their blades too long, or, striking as the boat plunged, missed the rope, and paid for the error with their lives.
CUTTING THE LINE—A MOMENT OF PERIL.
And even with hauling-line cut in time, the pilots have only changed from peril to peril, for now they are adrift in the cataract, and must shoot down unknown rapids, chancing everything, swinging into shore as soon as may be with the help of paddle and sail. Then is all to be done over again—the line made fast, the black men harnessed on, and the risk of a new channel encountered as before. Thus days or weeks would pass in getting the whale-boats up a single cataract.
And sometimes they would face the still more formidable task of dragging a whole steamboat up the rapids, with troops aboard and stores to last for weeks. Then how the hauling-men would swarm at the lines, and shout queer African words, and strain at the ropes, when the order came, until knees and shoulders scraped the ground! This was no problem for untutored minds, but took the best wits of Royal Engineers and gentlemen from the schools, who knew the ways of hitching tackle to things so as to make pulley-blocks work miracles. At least, it seemed a miracle the day they started the big side-wheeler Nassif-Kheir up the second cataract with five hawsers on her, three spreading from her bow and two checking her swing on either quarter, and her own steam helping her.
