In the past, a European traveller who visited Egypt incurred contumely and considerable risk. He was not allowed to ride on a horse; he was called “dog” by the pious who passed him in the streets, and pelted by the playful gamin; the dogs barked at him; the women turned their eyes away as if they had seen an unclean thing. But now Cairo, like Rome and Florence, lives upon tourists, who, if they are not beloved, are welcome; the city is lighted by gas: it has public gardens in which a native military band performs every afternoon; an excellent theatre, for which Verdi composed Aïda; new houses in the Parisian style are springing up by streets, and are let out at high rents as soon as they are finished. No gentleman wears a turban; and few any longer affect to despise the blessings of a good education.
Let us now pass on to the south. In the olden time the Nubian Desert was infested by roving bandit-tribes. Since the days of Mehemet Ali they have earned an honest livelihood by letting out their camels: and soon they will become navvies, railway porters, &c. Already there is telegraphic communication between Cairo and Khartoom, and a railway is about to be commenced. As for the Soudan, it was formerly divided among a number of barbarous chiefs almost incessantly at war. It is now conquered and at peace, and trade is seldom disturbed. Civilised opinion, all-powerful at Cairo, penetrates into the remotest recesses of this new African empire; the traffic in slaves is abolished, and those who perpetrated their crimes in the dark depths of the continent have lately been reached by the arm of the law.
It is my purpose in making these remarks to show what facilities for geographical research are afforded by the power and good will of Egypt. In former times the explorer began at the Nubian Desert or the Red Sea; he might be plundered of all that he possessed before he entered negro Africa at all. Supposing he arrived safely in Sennaar, he was at once exposed to those vexatious extortions and delays which so frequently robbed him of his money and his health before he had opened new ground. As it is, a firmam from the Viceroy obtains him men and boats from the governor of Khartoom, and therefore his point of departure is shifted many degrees to the south. He is now able to penetrate into the heart of Africa before he encounters an independent chief. The area of the firmam is immense, but beyond that area the dangers and difficulties of travel are perhaps increased by the aggressive policy of Egypt. The princes of Darfoor and Waday have a constant dread of annexation, and a European traveller, if he entered those countries, would find it difficult to obtain his congé. The west forest region which lies south of Darfoor and Waday, and also along the main stream of the Nile, has always been a slave-hunting ground; annual raids are made from Darfoor and Waday, the hunters taking out licences from their kings,[2] and the Egyptian company of bandits, whom Sir Samuel Baker recently dispersed, hunted the land south of Grondokoro. These wars unsettled the country and rendered it difficult for travel. The slave-hunters intrigued against the European, fearing that he would expose them to the government at Cairo; and the slave-hunted had learnt to regard all white men as their foes and oppressors. Thus it has happened that out of a host of men who have attempted to penetrate Africa from north to south only two have achieved success. The first and foremost of these is Sir Samuel Baker; the second is Dr. G. A. Schweinfurth, the author of this work.
He was born at Riga in December 1836, and was the son of a merchant. He studied at Heidelberg and Berlin, where he took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy, and devoted himself from his boyhood to the science of botany. At his first school one of the masters was a son of a missionary in South Africa; he used often to describe the wonders of that country, and perhaps it was in this manner that his mind was turned towards that country which afterwards created his career. But the proximate cause was a collection of plants placed in his hands to arrange and describe. In 1860, the young Freiherr von Barnim, accompanied by Dr. Hartmann, had made a journey in the region of the Nile, where he had fallen a victim to the climate. His collections were brought home, and as Schweinfurth day after day studied these dry corpses, a yearning came upon him to go to the land where he might behold them in all their bloom and their beauty, and where he might discover new species—those golden joys for the explorer. In 1863, he left Berlin for Egypt, and having botanised in the Delta of the Nile, travelled along the shores of the Red Sea, skirted the Highlands of Abyssinia, passed on to Khartoom, and finally, his purse being empty, returned to Europe, after an absence of two years and a half, with a splendid collection of plants. But soon he languished for Africa again, and submitted to the Royal Academy of Science a plan for the botanical exploration of the equatorial districts lying west of the Nile. His proposals were at once accepted; he received a grant of money from the Humboldt Institution, and, in 1868, he landed in Egypt. During three years he was absent in the heart of Africa, and, even before he had returned, his name had already become famous in Europe and America. Travelling, not in the footsteps of Baker, but in a westerly direction, he reached the neighbourhood of Baker’s lake, passing through the country of the Niam-Niam, and visiting the unknown kingdom of Monbuttoo. As an explorer, he stands in the highest rank, and merits to be classed with Mungo Park, Denham and Clapperton, Livingstone, Burton, Speke and Grant, Barth and Rohlfs. He can also claim two qualifications which no African traveller has hitherto possessed. He is a scientific botanist, and also an accomplished draughtsman. Park had some knowledge of botany, and Grant made an excellent collection, but both must be regarded as merely amateurs. In other works of African travel the explorer has given rude sketches to some professional artist, and thus the picture has been made; but Schweinfurth’s sketches were finished works of art. In a geographical sense, this work is of importance as a contribution to the problem of the Nile; and ethnologically it sets at rest a point which has long been under dispute, viz., the existence of a dwarf race in Central Africa. These Pygmies are mentioned by the classical writers; much has been said about them by modern travellers on the Nile; Krapf saw one on the Eastern Coast; the old voyagers allude to their existence in the kingdom of the Congo, and Du Chaillu met them in Ashango Land. Yet still much mystery remained which, thanks to Schweinfurth, is now at an end. That such a race exists is now placed beyond a doubt; and it is probable that these dwarfs are no other than the Bushmen of South Africa, who are not confined, as was formerly supposed, to that corner of the continent, but also inhabit various remote recesses of Africa, and were probably the original natives of the country.
Winwood Reade.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Gibbon, Vol. I. c. i.
[2] Mohammed el Tounsy, Wadai.
