The principal thing of importance for a traveller who starts on expeditions of this kind, is to see with his own eyes, and to verify by personal inspection or mental contemplation what he hears from the Natives; for the solitary traveller may have everything related to him that he wishes, and, in fact, seeks to obtain. There are no European companions, and still less eye-witnesses of the soil of happy Ethiopia, to tax him with false statements; and how easy is it to find natives who have no conception of the great importance of their expressions, and are ready, without any qualm of conscience, to assent to the preconceived notions of the traveller, when they think by that means to please him!
M. Antoine D’Abbadie, even previously, had discovered the sources of the White Nile,—as he wrote in a letter, dated 17th October, 1844, from Adoa (Adwa), in Habesh, addressed to us in Kàhira. (Preussiche Zeitung, 21st February, 1845, and others.) That glorious fountain-head was said to lie then in the land of Gmura, or Gamru, near the mountains of Bochi, or Dochi. The latitude and longitude of it were not given. He does not seem to have planted the drapeau tricolore there, any more than my French companions did at the final point of our expedition; because, had they done so, both the Turks and myself would have set up our national standard. For my part I did not let the opportunity slip of denying the claims of D’Abbadie to raise a shout of victory at having solved the question of the sources of the Nile, and to contradict his absurd etymology of the Mountains of the Moon, upon which the whole discovery was said to be based. (Monthly Report of the Geographical Society in Berlin, 7th Annual Vol., p. 20.) He thought that the name of “Gmura,” or “Gamru,” being analogous in sound to that of the Arabic language, had induced the Arabian Geographers to adopt this word, and to form it into the present Kamar (Moon). Mr. Ayrton, to whom I will afterwards advert, takes the opposite side, and is of opinion that the former denomination is a corruption of the Arabic word “Kamar.”
This Nile source of 1844 appears, however, to have been dried up again, or discarded by M. D’Abbadie, for he suddenly transplanted the true sources of the White Stream into another country; the forest of Babia, between Inarya (Enarea,) and Jumma Kaka (Djimma Kaka); and, to be sure,—between 7° 49′ N. Lat., and 34° 48′ E. Long., from Paris. (See his reports and letters of 1847).
I must, however, entirely controvert this second discovery, notwithstanding it is declared in the most positive manner. Error, indeed, is natural to man, but truth must assert its claims; besides, I do not deny that M. Antoine D’Abbadie would have liked to have made such a discovery, or to become an historical discoverer. Far be it from me, who know what travelling is in Africa,—who suffered the tortures of its deserts and its scorching heat, and struggled several times with fever and death, to consider the Tricolour which he fastened to the trees of the Babia forest as a vane or weathercock. No: I greet it rather with friendly interest as a cheerful sign to science and a way-mark to geographical progress, and as an agreeable surprise to succeeding travellers.
Now D’Abbadie makes his source of the Nile bubble up about the eighth degree of north latitude; whereas, I have navigated up the river with this Expedition, which has advanced further than any other, as far as the fourth degree north latitude, where, as already mentioned, the sources of the Nile were expressly pointed out to us as lying still farther to the South. It appears to me, therefore, a desperate and daring attempt, on the part of our discoverer, to claim for himself “primo occupanti,” that water which he saw, or even waded through, as being a priori, the real and true source of the White Stream. The pretensions to priority of discovery,—claims that were to be kept up on any terms,—may perhaps be what he has fixed his eyes upon, and which he has pursued too eagerly, without any forbearance, as is plainly perceived by his passionate letter to Mr. Ayrton, against Dr. Beke, who inclined to the opinion expressed by me concerning the source. The degree of latitude stated by him, in complete opposition to the direction of all the stream territory we visited, is no stumbling-block to him any more than the diametrically opposite opinion of the natives of Bari.
Antoine D’Abbadie specifies three points which appear to him to decide the only true source of every river; it is therefore surprising that the first of these rules laid down by him, viz. to determine the course of a river by the opinion of the people, is exactly inapplicable to the White Nile; for that is completely in opposition to his favourite idea. He tells us expressly that the aborigines dwelling at the sources of his White Nile, make these very same sources flow collectively into the Abbay (Blue Nile). It required, therefore, more than courage to throw aside the popular opinion, and to give a contrary direction to the sources, without having convinced himself personally of the fact, by a corresponding examination of these supposed tributaries. This statement of the people of Damot ought to be more valued and credited, because, according to him, they derived their origin from Gojam (Godjam), and Bagemidr; therefore from a northern country on the Abbay.
A nation connected directly with another by water-roads, as must be the case between the inhabitants of Kafa, Enarea, and Bari, according to the hypothetical river of D’Abbadie, ought to have domestic animals, and customs in common, if only partly so, being under an exactly similar climatic situation. Enarea and Kafa have coffee, horses, and asses; but these are entirely unknown in Bari, as I stated in the year 1844 (Allgemeine Preussiche Zeitung, 24th July, 1844). Sheep, poultry, and leather are said by D’Abbadie not to be in Kafa; whereas we have found them in Bari. He relates that dollars are very well known in Kafa, and that the merchants are very eager after them; but in Bari money is not known, as we convinced ourselves by enquiry. From this argument, then, the sources of D’Abbadie and the pretended countries they flow through are not connected with Bari. Besides, the names of these countries were never mentioned to us. That the mountain-land, however, lying to the east of Berri, in the neighbourhood of which the water-shed might be found, is a principal emporium for these regions, and that they are connected with the rivers discharging themselves into the Indian Ocean, follows from the facts previously specified, and even from the indications of the things found there. A slave-market does not seem, however, to exist; and, in order to attest this fact, commercial reports alone could prove whether copper also was brought from the interior of Africa. We may boldly affirm, without any self-persuasion, that the southerly direction of the stream can be determined, within a few degrees, from the island of Tshanker, by the plastic formation of the mountainous region, through the cleft valleys of which the true White Nile breaks.
The eye may, as it were, follow what we hear from the natives, who only point towards the south, and assert that they do not know of any water flowing towards E., where they are, however, in commercial relation with the country of Berri, ten days’ journey off; but they only speak of springs found there, which were translated to us by the Arabic word, “Birr.” We were given to understand, also, that this land, so rich in copper, was mountainous; from which I conjectured that there might be brooks there, especially at the rainy season, but that not one of them could stand even a remote comparison with their Tubirih (White Stream at Bari).
So, also, the beautiful fine-grained salt, brought from thence to Bari, is not the rock-salt of the desert, but is extracted from the brackish water and slime, according to the form of the vessels in which it has been boiled. I have seen, however, in the great tract of country between the lower Atbara and the Red Sea, that a land subject to tropical rains—although, as in Africa, without rivers and streams—can provide, even in the dry season, men and animals with water from its earthly womb—that is, from the torrents and water-tanks. The Anthropophagi, also living on the mountain-chain by Logojà, in the neighbourhood of Bari, have not any running water; but they take it from the ground: namely, from natural cisterns or cavities.
We had all believed that the White Stream must come from the East; therefore our enquiries about that side were more careful: but not all our signs towards the East could bring back the Natives from the South, the true source of the Stream. I remember still quite well that I wrote this down immediately, and laid it before the Geographical Society, in Berlin, some years before there was any talk of the various sources described by D’Abbadie. Moreover, it seems to follow from the whole configuration of the line of mountains, that Nature has fixed here a water-shed to the East as well as to the West; for the mountain chains of Logojà and Kùgelu stretch from East and West to South, probably as branches of a mighty mountain-stock under the Equator, from which the streams of the Bach’r-el-Abiad issue.