[12] The words of the far-famed traveller are:—“It runs from Sennaar past many considerable villages, which are inhabited by white men of Arabia. Here it passes by Gerri [now Khartoom], in a north-easterly direction, so as to join the Tacazze.”—Bruce. b. vi. c. 14.
[13] In the accompanying plan it is attempted to give some general idea of this confusion.
VIEW ON THE MESHERA (PORT REK).
CHAPTER IV.
Start for the interior. Flags of the Khartoomers. Comfortable travelling with bearers. The African elephant. Parting from Shol and Kurdyook. Disgusting wells in the district of the Lao. Wide sandflats. Village of Take. Fatal accident. Arabian protocol. Halt in the village of Kudy. Description of the Dinka. Peculiarities of the race. Dyeing of the hair. Nudity. “The Turkish lady.” Iron age. Weapons of the Dinka. “People of the stick.” Weapons of defence. Domestic cleanliness. Cuisine. Entertainment of the ladies. Snakes. Tobacco-smoking. Construction of the huts. Dinka sheep, goats, and dogs. Reverence for cattle. Degeneration of cows. Intestinal worms. Deficiency of milk. Large murahs. Capabilities of the Dinka. Warlike spirit. Treatment of enemies. Instance of parental affection. Forest district of the Al-Waj. Arrival at Ghattas’s chief Seriba.
It was not until the eighteenth day of our sojourn in the Meshera that Ghattas’s second boat arrived, conveying the remainder of the newly-enlisted mercenaries and a year’s provisions for the Seriba. The agent on board was commissioned to procure for me from the interior whatever porters were requisite for my progress. The shortest possible time that must elapse before he could get to the Seriba and back was eleven days; punctually at the end of that period he returned, and placed at my disposal seventy bearers. Thus fortunately I had time enough and to spare before the commencement of the rainy season to start for the interior.
By the 25th of March all arrangements for setting out were complete, and we were ready to turn our backs upon the damp air of the swamps with its nightly plague of flies.
Several smaller companies having joined Ghattas’s expedition, the number of our caravan was a little under five hundred. Of these the armed men alone amounted to nearly two hundred; marching in single file they formed a long column, and constituted a force with which we might have crossed the largest State of Central Africa unmolested. Our course for six days would be through a notoriously hostile country, so that this protection was quite necessary; but the caravan, extending fully half a mile, was of a magnitude to require great order and circumspection. Each division had its banner, and to each was appointed its proper place in the procession. The different companies of the Khartoom merchants were distinguished by the colour of their banners, all emblazoned by the star and crescent of Islam. Instead of this, Ghattas, as a Christian, had a white flag, on which were worked the crescent and a St. Andrew’s cross. This compromise between the crescent and the true cross did not, however, exclude certain passages from the Koran, relating to the conquest of unbelievers, and which could not be permitted to be wanting on any Khartoom banner. The handsome flag of my own boat was lying wrapped away in a box. I confess I had no desire to make a display of it among savages, and in a region where its meaning could not be comprehended; but even if I had wished to exhibit it, I subsequently discovered that any attempt to do so would have been quite a failure. No Nubians would on any account have followed a flag which did not bear the crescent and the passages from the Koran. The boats on the Nile, it is true, when they carry or belong to Europeans, do not despise the European colours; but in the heart of the negro country, where no Egyptian authority exists, it is different, and consequently all European flags are worthless. The banner of Islam is to them a talisman, and they would consider it as sacrilege to replace it by the banner of any Christian country. Even the trading expeditions conducted by European merchants from Khartoom have conformed to this rule, and I have myself witnessed the flag waving on the Rohl River at the last settlement maintained by the brothers Poncet.