I must confess that the first few days’ journey threatened to exhaust what spirit still remained to me, but by degrees my equanimity was restored, and persevering in my design I soon became accustomed to a practice to which I owe some of the most reliable results of the survey of my route. As a consequence of this method of counting my steps I succeeded in attaining very considerable accuracy in the relative distances noted on the map, although very probably I may have been unable to avoid an error of from 5 to 8 per cent. in the absolute distances themselves; of course, my steps were not so perfectly uniform in length as the divisions of a measuring rod; but, after all, the footsteps of a man are a much more accurate standard of measurement than those of a beast; the camel, for instance, as is well known, when it is urged to greater speed does not increase the number of its steps, but only increases their length; whilst the paces of a man, at whatever rate he may walk, do not vary much from an average length. Anyone may easily put this matter to the test for himself by measuring the distance between his footprints on the moist side of a river, and he will find that no increase nor diminution in his rate of progress will make a very material difference in their successive distances. My own paces varied, according to the nature of the roads, from two feet to two feet four inches in length, and my method of computation is readily described. I first counted hundreds, telling off each separate hundred on my fingers; when I had reached five hundred I made a stroke in my note-book, and on reaching another five hundred I made a reverse stroke upon the one already made, thus forming a cross, so that every registry of a cross betokened a thousand paces; all beyond five hundred were carried on towards the next stroke, and between the various strokes and crosses I inserted abbreviated symbols, as notes about the condition and direction of the road; thus I was prevented from either over or under estimating the number of my steps, and at the close of each day’s march was able at my leisure to sum up all the entries and duly record the result in my diary. In the six months that elapsed before my embarkation at the Meshera I had in this way taken account of a million and a quarter of my footsteps.
The route which I had taken towards the Dyoor led through Dubor and Dangah. On the 16th of December the Molmul was still full of water, but had no longer any perceptible current; the brook passed along a considerable, though gradual depression, the rising ground about Dubor being visible for a long distance to the west. All the pools and ponds by the wayside were now completely dry; a couple of swamps were all that remained of the affluent to which the copious brook near Okale,[60] with its surrounding groves of wine-palms, owes its existence. The Nyedokoo was reduced to half its former dimensions, and was now but fifteen feet wide and three deep, although the current was still strong.
Before its union with the Dyoor, the Nyedokoo receives a considerable increase in its waters from the left, and on our way north-west from Dangah we had to cross two small brooks, both flowing into the Dyoor; the larger of these was called the Kullukungoo. We made a short halt in a little Seriba belonging to Agahd’s company, and then began to descend the eastern side of the valley of the Dyoor, which might be described as a steep wall of rock eighty feet in height. We marched for a distance of four miles through a lovely wood on the right bank of the river, and were greatly diverted by the extraordinary quantity of hippopotamuses that frequented this part of the stream.
COSTUME.
I had the kindest of receptions from my old friend Khalil, who did all that lay in his power to make my visit enjoyable, and showed great sympathy with me in my misfortunes. His magazines were plentifully stored with stuffs and ammunition, and, as I had unlimited credit with him, he was able to supply me with some of the articles that were more immediately necessary. In the Seriba I found some people who understood something of the art of tailoring, and with their help I set to work, to the best of my ability, to make good the defects of my wardrobe. By taking to pieces the few garments that remained to me and using the fragments for patterns, I managed to procure some new clothes, all of which I cut out myself. In none of the Seribas was there a single piece of linen or of any durable material, and I could obtain nothing stronger than their thin calico, which, however well it might do for the costume of the effeminate Arabs, was hardly adapted for the pursuits of a hunter and botanist who spent all his days in thorny thickets. But a still more serious inconvenience was the want of any proper protection for my feet, and I could not at all get accustomed to wearing the light slippers of the Turks. The loss, too, of my hat was irreparable, but I contrived a sort of substitute by pasting together some thick cartridge-paper and sewing some white stuff over the whole; this hat possessed considerable durability, and in lightness was all that I could desire. In spite of the poverty of my wardrobe I was rejoiced to find that in cleanliness at least it was a match for that of the Khartoomers, who attach great importance to their washing-garments being of a spotless whiteness. The superiors amongst them, such as the Vokeels and the agents of the trading firms, even in these remote districts, not unfrequently appear in Oriental costume as gorgeous as though they were parading the streets of Khartoom; they all possess cloth clothes made in the Egyptian Mamelook fashion, and these are donned on special occasions, as, for instance, whenever they pay formal visits to their neighbours. For my own part I could never consent to array myself in an Oriental costume, knowing that the most meagre garb of European cut commands far higher respect throughout the domains of the Egyptian Viceroy than all the most brilliant and elaborate uniforms of the East. The adoption of the European style of dress in Egypt itself has been remarkably rapid, and between the years 1863 and 1871 I noticed a very conspicuous alteration in this respect, although unfortunately the advance was limited to this external aspect.
The 25th of December was the coldest day that I experienced during my residence in the interior. Half an hour before sunrise the thermometer registered 60° Fahrenheit, whilst on the two preceding mornings at the same hour it had stood at about 62° Fahrenheit; but it never afterwards fell so low again, and notwithstanding the coldness of the mornings the temperature at midday rose regularly above 85° Fahrenheit, and on the 28th the thermometer out of doors and exposed to a north wind registered 96° Fahrenheit in the shade, whilst inside the huts it rose no higher than 88° Fahrenheit. The uniformity of the temperature throughout the year is a remarkable peculiarity of these far inland districts, which in winter-time are neither subject to the great heat in the middle of the day nor to the cold by night, which are experienced in the steppes and deserts of Nubia. The temperature of 60° Fahrenheit was the lowest that was registered during a residence of two years and a half, and was quite exceptional, only lasting for a couple of hours just before sunrise. As a comparison between this and the relatively cool climate of Tropical America I may mention that observations in Guatemala gave the average temperature for a period of twelve years as the same as this one exceptional minimum registered throughout my two and a half years’ residence in Central Africa.
The camp of the Egyptian Government troops had been removed to the west, and was now a good seven days’ march beyond the Dyoor. For the maintenance of the troops, contributions were levied on all the Seribas: the Government, it is true, paid two Maria Theresa dollars for each ardeb (1½ cwt.) of corn; but as the bearers from the more remote places were obliged either to consume more than half of their own loads upon their journey, or else to obtain extra provisions from the Seribas through which they passed, this payment was necessarily very inadequate. Some of the controllers managed to raise their portion of the compulsory tribute by sending herds of cattle to those Seribas that were nearest to the camp, and there getting them exchanged for the required corn; but as some of the settlements were as much as twenty days’ journey from the encampment, it was perfectly impossible to provide means of transport to such a distance, and besides this difficulty, there was a constant occurrence of scarcity of corn in all the Seribas; the unreasonable Turkish commander, however, took not the smallest heed of these inconveniences, but, by insisting upon the full satisfaction of his demands, went far towards hurrying the settlements into bankruptcy and ruin.
Instead of introducing order and regularity into the country, the first measures of the Government official tended only to engender odium and discontent, and completely crippled all the more promising tendencies of the mercantile intercourse of the Seribas. For the suppression of the slave-trade they did absolutely nothing. Along the Nile, it is true, where the route was open and everything obliged to be above-board, the Governor-General had commenced proceedings for the suppression of the slave-trade by a series of bombastic and pompous proclamations; but here, in the deep interior, there was every facility for the carrying on of the avowedly prohibited traffic.
SURREPTITIOUS SLAVE-TRADE.
Nowhere in the world can more inveterate slave-dealers be found than the commanders of the small detachments of Egyptian troops; as they move about from Seriba to Seriba, they may be seen followed by a train of their swarthy property, which grows longer and longer after every halt.