At that time, when nothing was known either of the Dyoor or of the Bahr-el-Arab, it must have been no small surprise to the first explorers to see a stream so large suddenly end amongst a labyrinth of small islands, without any navigable affluent. Only by the help of a native pilot was such a discovery possible.
The Meshera.
MALARIOUS ATMOSPHERE.
I was compelled to linger out the remainder of February and the greater part of March in camp upon the little island, pending the arrival of the bearers who were to help me onwards to Ghattas’s Seriba. I was happy in escaping any ill effects such as might be dreaded from a protracted residence by this unhealthy river. I attributed my immunity in great measure to the precautionary use of quinine. Although by my daily occupations, botanising in swamps and continually wading amongst papyrus clumps, I had been more exposed to malaria than many others, I experienced no sickness. I swallowed every day, in three doses, eight or nine grains of quinine, enclosed for that purpose in gelatine capsules; this method is to be strongly recommended to every traveller, since the intense bitterness of the medicine taken in its undisguised form may excite a degree of nausea which, I can well believe, may contribute its part to a liability to fever. This treatment I continued, without its having any ill effect upon my constitution, until I could dispense with it in the purer air of the interior. I suppose, since this is not an universal experience, that the effects of the alkaloids may vary with different patients, and therefore it would be well for every one first to test the susceptibility of his individual constitution.
It is only too well known how many victims this treacherous climate has already claimed; it may without exaggeration be maintained, that half the travellers who have ventured into the swamps have succumbed to fever. The highest mortality was in the settlements of the Austrian mission in Gondokoro and St. Cross, now long since abandoned. Miss Tinné’s expedition of 1863 suffered the loss of five out of its nine European members, among them my unfortunate predecessor in the botanical investigation of this district, Dr. Steudner, who died suddenly quite at the beginning of the journey. Heuglin, too, lost the greater part of his valuable time in continual relapses of fever. The foundations of these miserable attacks had probably been laid in the miasma, of which the traveller had inhaled the poison during a protracted sojourn in the Meshera. The latest Job’s comfort, which had most unnerved me, had come just as I was embarking at Trieste. The French Geographical Society had, a few months previously, sent out Le Saint, a naval officer, on a voyage of discovery, having for its object the same district as myself, viz., the Niam-niam countries. His outward journey had been much lengthened by the grass obstruction in the Giraffe stream, and he died before he entered the country in which his more extended wanderings were designed to commence.
Before quitting the Meshera (the only landing-place for expeditions starting from the Gazelle) I will make a few observations on the natural character, scenery, and inhabitants of the region of this unique island world.
The Meshera had been reached by eighteen different boats belonging to Khartoom merchants, and these now lay, half-buried in mud and clay, firmly wedged in the jungle of papyrus. Every new comer could only by great exertions procure a fresh resting-place. For that purpose they proceeded in the following way: they backed their boat a little into the open water, and anchored; then a rope was fastened to a strong mass of papyrus-roots, which it towed with its loosened clods attached into open water, until the breeze carried over the entire floating mass to the opposite side of the basin. Thus was obtained one artificial Delos after another. The access to the bank is, however, still left blocked up by the compact border of papyrus thus conveyed across. By means of fire and hatchet avenues are then opened, and the long roots of papyrus are piled upon the elastic sward of its stubble until an available pathway is complete.
Most of the islands are adorned by graceful masses of bushes and by light groves of the larger trees, but the hatchet of strangers every year is altering this condition of things. In spite of all the uniformity of the tall papyrus bushes, and notwithstanding the burnt and dry appearance of the steppe-grasses, there is no lack, even in the mild winter of this little island-world, of the charms of scenery. The dark crowns of the evergreen tamarind stand out in sharp outline against the bare rugged branches of the acacias in their grey winter garb, between which the eccentric shapes of the candelabra-euphorbiæ, closely interlaced, bound the horizon in every direction, and form, as often as the eye wanders over the neighbouring islands, a fine gradation of endless shades of colour. This is especially noticeable in the early morning, when at sunrise a heavy mist hangs over the damp flats, and sometimes here, sometimes there, sets limits to the prospect, in a way that would lend enchantment to any scenery.