Notwithstanding the crowd of human beings thus aggregated together, the bill of health, as far as it was influenced by the climate, was perfectly satisfactory. There were, of course, occasional cases of hereditary or insidious disease; but even amongst the slaves, closely packed as they were, the mortality was inconsiderable, and the human bones that lay scattered about were comparatively fewer than what I had grown accustomed to notice in other places. The effeminate Turkish soldiers, however, grumbled excessively at their position; they besieged me with petitions that I would not only represent their misery to the Governor-General in the strongest terms, but that I would do my utmost to convince the authorities that neither profit nor glory could be gained from an enterprise which was exposing their lives to so much peril. “Do this,” they said, “and you will be doing us one of the greatest favours that it is in the power of mortal man to confer, and the blessing of Allah be with you!”
TURKS IN CENTRAL AFRICA.
Certain it is that these Turks, fit for nothing better than to lounge about on a divan, were the most unsuitable beings imaginable ever to have been sent on an expedition into the wilds of Central Africa. A year of their ordeal had scarcely passed, and already their complaints were piteous enough to melt a heart of stone; they seemed helpless as babes, and I verily believe that had it not been for the Nubians they would have been cheated and trampled on and reduced to the direst necessities in this land of solitude and starvation. They were all indifferent walkers; they could not endure the food of the country; they sorely missed their “schnaps;” they were aggrieved at the loss of their wheat-flour and their rice, and did not understand going without their habitual luxuries. It was indeed a kind of set-off against all this that they could be as indolent as they pleased. There was nothing to do, and nothing they did; they did not plant out a single plot of maize, they did not lay out a kitchen-garden of the simplest kind; but, loitering about from morning till night, they kept up their unfailing growls of discontent, dealing out their invectives against the “wretched” land and its “wretched” people. No wonder they complained of ennui. Divest a Turk of his fine clothes, his formal etiquette, his measured speech, and his little bit of honour which may be described as “l’extérieur de la vertu et l’élégance des vices,” and little remains to elevate him above a Nubian of the worst class; nevertheless, the mutual antipathy that existed between the Turks and the Nubians was very marked, and verified the proverb that “Arabs’ blood and Turks’ blood will never boil together.”
The remarkably large contingent of Gellahbas that chanced to be within the place gave the dirty crowds of men, such as are more or less to be invariably found in every Seriba, a more motley aspect than usual, and altogether the Dehm offered a deplorable contrast to the freshness of the wilderness that we had so long and so recently been traversing. The hawkers of living human flesh and blood, unwashed and ragged, squatted in the open places keeping their eye upon their plunder, eager as vultures in the desert around the carcase of a camel. Their harsh voices as they shouted out their blasphemous prayers; the drunken indolence and torpor of the loafing Turks; the idle, vicious crowds of men infested with loathsome scabs and syphilitic sores; the reeking filthy exhalations that rose from every quarter—all combined to make the place supremely disgusting. Turn where I would, it was ever the same; there was the recurrence of sights, sounds, and smells so revolting that they could not do otherwise than fill the senses with the most sickening abhorrence.
Such were my impressions as I made my entry into the Dehm Nduggo, as the settlement is called from the Kredy tribe with which the neighbourhood is populated. The first consideration I had to make for myself was whether I would become the guest of the Turks or of the Nubians; I had to choose whether I would sue for hospitality at the hands of Seebehr or of the Turkish Aga. After due deliberation I made up my mind to apply to Seebehr, for as the Turks had taken the smaller share in the affair with Hellali, I concluded that they constituted the less powerful element, and, in truth, they were themselves dependent upon Seebehr’s liberality. But what perhaps influenced me still more was that my firman from the Government had been lost in the fire, and that consequently I was lacking in credentials to make any formal and authoritative demands; and I did not wish to be at the mercy of the commander. As it was, Ahmed Aga did not even fulfil the stipulations that had been made in my favour by the Government in Khartoom, and all that I could get out of him was a supply of good writing-paper to enable me to go on with my sketching.
Amongst the effects of Kurshook Ali, on which I had set my hopes, I could discover nothing that would be of the least service to me; his successor had long since, in true Ottoman fashion, disposed of everything that could be turned to account, a proceeding that subsequently involved him in a lawsuit with the son of the deceased Sandjak.
SEEBEHR’S COURT.
Meanwhile I was most kindly received by Seebehr, and as long as I remained in the Seriba I had not the faintest cause of complaint. He was himself in a debilitated state of health; the wound that he had received in the late fray had proved very dangerous, the bullet having completely penetrated the ankle-bone. The only means employed for healing the wound was repeated syringing with pure olive-oil, a remedy which, though slow, had been efficacious; for when I saw him, after some weeks had elapsed since the casualty, the injury was all but cured.
Seebehr[72] had surrounded himself with a court that was little less than princely in its details. A group of large well-built square huts, enclosed by tall hedges, composed the private residence; within these were various state apartments, before which armed sentries kept guard by day and night. Special rooms, provided with carpeted divans, were reserved as ante-chambers, and into these all visitors were conducted by richly-dressed slaves, who served them with coffee, sherbet, and tchibouks. The regal aspect of these halls of state was increased by the introduction of some lions, secured, as may be supposed, by sufficiently strong and massive chains. Behind a large curtain in the innermost hut was placed the invalid couch of Seebehr. Attendants were close at hand to attend to his wants, and a company of Fakis sat on the divan outside the curtain and murmured their never-ending prayers. In spite of his weakness and his suffering he was ever receiving a stream of visitors, who had something to say to “the Sheikh,” as he was commonly called. I often paid him a visit, and, to my surprise at first, was accommodated with a chair by the side of his bed. He repeatedly bewailed the helplessness of his condition, saying how vexed he was at being unable personally to provide for my requirements, adding that if he had been well, he should have had the greatest pleasure in escorting me over his lands. It was a great relief to my mind that he did not apply to me for surgical advice. I was glad to encourage him by my approbation of the remedy he was using, which, if it possessed no particular virtue, had at least the recommendation of being perfectly harmless.
A draft that I made on my account at Khartoom was duly honoured, and I obtained a hundredweight of copper from Seebehr’s stores; this I employed without delay as cash, and purchased soap, coffee, and a variety of small articles from the hawking hangers-on of the slave-traders, as well as a large supply of cartridge-paper for the preservation of my botanical specimens.