Four separate appeals did I take the trouble to make to the Pasha for the emancipation of my servants. Even at last my success was only partial, for I could not obtain the restitution of freedom either to the women or the children, although their confiscation had been specially illegal. The Pasha was on the point of starting for Egypt, but I could not permit any circumstance of the kind to prevent my doing everything in my power to assist my servants, who had shown such fidelity for a period of three years. I could not find it in my heart to leave them to fight out their cause for themselves with the arbitrary and disorderly administration that I knew well enough would follow the Pasha’s departure. I resolved, therefore, to take the men on with me to Cairo. I incurred a considerable extra expense by travelling with so large a retinue; but I would not be daunted, and after a world of trouble I succeeded ultimately in obtaining redress for their grievances.
I told the Pasha that, grateful as I was for all his hospitality and kindness to myself, I could not help being extremely annoyed at the trick that had been played me. Nothing, I assured him, could obliterate the impression that he had looked upon me as an easy dupe: his proceedings in this respect were quite an insult. I gave him my opinion that if he wanted to suppress the slave-trade he must see that the laws were carried out all over the country, and not merely along the river. Repressive measures, that were enforced at isolated and uncertain intervals, were of no use at all, and only served to inflame the population with increased hatred to the Franks. For what good, I asked him, was it to lay an embargo upon the boats when (to take only one example) the Mudir of Kordofan quietly allowed the slave-trade to be carried on in his province to such an extent that in a single year no less than 2700 slave-dealers had made their way to Dar Ferteet; and whilst they were there not only had the Egyptian commander raised no objection to their proceedings, but had so far coalesced with his officers as practically to become a professional slave-dealer himself.
EXPOSTULATION.
The ill-feeling and smothered rage against Sir Samuel Baker’s interference, nurtured by the higher authorities, breaks out very strongly amongst the less reticent lower officials. In Fashoda, and even in Khartoom, I heard complaints that we (the Franks) were the prime cause of all the trouble, and if it had not been for our eternal agitation with the Viceroy such measures would never have been enforced. Yet they need to be instructed that it was never the intention either of Wilberforce or any of our modern philanthropists that men should, under any pretext, be robbed of their wives, or parents of their children, or even that slaves should be wrested from the hands of the traders merely to be distributed amongst the soldiers, or to be compelled to become soldiers themselves. And, as I pointed out to the officials, the very reproaches they made tended to lower the Viceroy, just because they implied that his commands were only influenced by external pressure from foreign Powers. I tried further to make them see that it was quite impossible for any ruler to maintain proper authority unless his subordinates, whose duty it was to support him, did their utmost to contribute to his dignity.
On the 9th of August I once again took my passage on board a Nile boat, this time under more comfortable and less ambiguous circumstances. With a favourable wind and high water our voyage was very rapid. On the fourth day we reached Berber. Here I found excellent quarters in the house of my friend Vasel, and for the first time, after many months, had the enjoyment of intercourse with a well-educated fellow-countryman. Vasel had been a benefactor to the land by erecting a large portion of the telegraph lately opened between Assouan and Khartoom, and, in spite of his exertions in a climate that had been fatal to so many Europeans, had hitherto enjoyed unbroken health.
The deaths during the last fever-season had been more than usually numerous. In Khartoom, in 1870, almost all the resident Europeans had been fatally attacked, and amongst them Dr. Ori, the renowned Italian zoologist, after successfully withstanding the deleterious atmosphere for ten successive years. Soon afterwards Thibaud, the head of the French vice-consulate, was carried to the grave, followed in the course of a week by the whole of his family. He had spent forty-three years of his life at Khartoom; as an associate of Arnaud’s, and in company with Werne and Sabatier, he had taken part in the memorable expedition that in 1841 was sent out by Mehemet Ali to discover the sources of the Nile, and in the prosecution of their task ascended as far as Gondokoro. To the melancholy death of Blessing I have already referred; and now, on reaching Berber, I learnt that my old friend Lavargue had succumbed to fever only a short time before my arrival. He, too, had been residing for many years in the Soudan.
And now the next to go was my little Tikkitikki. He had for some time been marked by the unsparing hand of death, and here it was during my stay at Berber that I had to mourn his loss. At Khartoom he had been taken ill with a severe attack of dysentery, probably induced by change of air and very likely aggravated by his too sumptuous diet. His disorder had day by day become more deeply seated; my care in nursing seemed to bring no alleviation, and every remedy failed to take effect; he became weaker and weaker, till his case was manifestly hopeless, and, after lingering three weeks, sunk at last from sheer exhaustion.
Never before, I think, had I ever felt a death so acutely; my grief so weakened and unmanned me that my energies flagged entirely, so that I could scarcely walk for half an hour without extreme fatigue. Since that date two years have passed away, but still the recollection of that season of bitter disappointment is like a wound that opens afresh.
START FOR SAUKIN.
The other two negro-boys, according to my intention, were to be playmates and companions for my little Pygmy; but now that he had been taken from me I took measures to provide for them in a different way. The elder one, Amber, a true Niam-niam, I left behind in Egypt, under the care of my old friend Dr. Sachs, the celebrated physician of Cairo; my little Bongo, Allagabo Teem, was taken to Germany for the purpose of receiving a careful education.