The water had to be drawn from a depth of fifteen feet, from wells which contained nothing better than a stinking, impure pulp. These wells are the residue of great pools formed in the rainy season, and subsequently developing a wonderful abundance of animal life, although they produce nothing in any way adapted for culinary purposes. Large water-scorpions (Belostoma), beetles, and other creeping things that are ever at home in stinking pools, whirl about in these muddy depths. Here it is, apparently, that the Dinka cows and sheep renew annually their progeny of intestinal worms (Amphistoma) and cercariæ, of which the filthy beds are most prolific. Such was the drinking-water of Lao.
The natives had imagined that we should pass the night at the well; anxious, however, to take advantage of the coolness of the air, we resolved, by a forced night-march, to get quickly over the district, void of water, that lay before us. Marching on through the adjacent farms we noticed old and young hurrying off into the adjacent thickets, our arrival being unexpected. Many a smoking porridge-pot had been forsaken, and now fell into the hands of the greedy bearers, making them still more desirous of tarrying here for the night; but the orders were peremptory which had been given to our people to push forward without delay.
To the south the ground stretched uniformly for ten miles in sandy plains bare of grass, pleasantly broken at intervals by bushy shrubs and single trees. Onwards we went for five hours of the night over moonlit sands, the imagination giving a weird aspect to all around. The region strongly reminded me of the acacia-woods of Taka and Gedaref in South Nubia, which are seen in crossing the forests at the foot of the Abyssinian highlands. The character of the vegetation approximates to that of Kordofan. The commonest trees are the Seyal-acacia, hegelig, tamarind, Christ’s thorn, capparis, and that remarkable thorn, the randia, the branches of which serve as models for the pointed lances which the inhabitants of Central Africa employ. One of the trees of Southern Kordofan finds here its southern limit: this is the Albizzia sericocephala, a tree of moderate size, of which the finely-articulated, mimosa-like leaf consists of from 5000 to 6000 particles; the thick clusters of blossom gleamed out from the obscurity like snow, and the air was laden with their balmy fragrance. Thus we wandered on as through a cultivated garden, our path as smooth as if we were on gravelled walks. Reaching at length a considerable village, we encamped on the deserted site of a large cattle-park. A sudden storm of rain put the caravan into a commotion, and forced me to retire with my bedding into one of the wretched huts, which are not really dwellings, but are used for the nightly shelter of the cow-herds. Imbedded a foot deep in fine white ashes, and enveloped in a cloud of dust, I passed the remainder of the night, alternate coughing and sneezing making all sleep simply impossible.
VILLAGE OF TAKE.
On the following day we had to march for five hours without a draught of water, until a hospitable asylum was opened to us in a village of Take. We were now in the district of the Rek, a locality which formerly made a hitch in the traffic with the natives, before Petherick broke a way to the south through the Dyoor and Bongo, and opened a trade with the Niam-niam.
This Take was an old friend and ally of the Khartoomers, and had attired himself in honour of the occasion in a figured calico shirt, without regard to the prejudices of his countrymen, who despise all clothing as effeminate. Near this village in 1858 there existed a temporary establishment from in which the brothers Poncet started on their elephant hunts the Dinka territory. They called the place Mirakok, but Mirakok and its elephants are now alike unknown in this land of the past, where (transient as a shower or a tide) all the lives and deeds of men have been long forgotten. It has been a land without chalk or stone, so that no permanent buildings could be constructed; it has consequently only reared a people which have been without chiefs, without traditions, without history. Detached fan-palms (Borassus), 100 feet high, in default of anything more lasting, mark the abode of Take, a shelter which was destined to have its sad associations for the travellers.
Ghattas’s standard-bearer, a most courageous fellow and the best shot among all our Nubians, killed himself on a hunting excursion, which he had undertaken with me and my servant. I had contented myself with bagging a lot of remarkably plump wild pigeons, but he was resolved to get at some guinea-fowl; for this purpose he made his way into a thicket, where, as he was loading his piece, it accidentally went off, the charge entering his breast. This accident befell the one who was supposed to be incomparably the most skilful of our party in handling his weapons, and it may be imagined what was to be expected of the rest. Blundering accidents and wounds were of perpetual occurrence, so that I should only weary the reader by recounting them. The traveller who has to march with these so-called soldiers must be content to know that he could not anywhere more thoroughly be exposed to the danger of being killed by a chance shot; and I do not exaggerate the truth when I affirm that my life was over and over again seriously threatened.
The unfortunate Soliman, who was thus the victim of his own mischance, was the man who had saved my servant Mohammed when he had his encounter with the wild buffalo. Half the camp hastened to the ill-fated spot, to be enabled to testify to the accidental death of Soliman by his own hand. So quietly had he fallen that even my servant Osman, who was near, ascertained quite casually that he was dead; a dark mark, caused by the smoke from the powder, at the orifice of the gaping wound, showed that his gun had gone off while he was holding it. Sobbing and weeping, his friends and countrymen stood round his body, and even the stony-hearted cattle-stealers seemed as if, after all, they were not utterly devoid of all human emotion. One of them was touched with a strange remorse, the reason of which I afterwards discovered. It appeared that Soliman owed him a debt, which he declared he had paid; on the previous day, while Soliman had been emphatically persisting that the debt was discharged, his accuser, in his rage, cursed him with the heaviest imprecation he could command: “The dogs devour thee!” The disaster, therefore, was a manifest punishment from heaven; the man would indeed gladly have never uttered the curse, but yet he could not be reconciled with the dead. On the very next day, as we were about to start, another man shattered the upper part of his arm by carelessly taking his gun from a bush where he had laid it.
We left the unlucky spot, and proceeded two miles further to the village of Kudy, also an old friend of the Turks, as the Khartoomers are everywhere termed by the natives. Here we made another halt, in order to pass the day in slaughtering some cattle, in feasting on beef and goat’s flesh, and in laying in a store of corn for our large party of bearers.
LEGAL AFFIDAVIT.