Just at this time all the controllers of the different Seribas were actively engaged in preparing for their combined and extensive ivory expedition. With their aggregated forces they hoped to subdue the refractory chieftains in the north, who had been guilty of much treachery towards the Nubians: their primary proceedings were to be taken against Ndoruma, the daring son of Ezo.
It had been the rapid diminution of the ivory in these districts that had caused the Khartoomers of late to direct their expeditions to the territories of the powerful kings of the south, leaving the smaller chieftains with a comparatively insignificant interest in the traffic. These chieftains, therefore, did all in their power to obstruct the progress of the Nubians, and endeavoured by foul means, instead of by fair, to obtain a share of the copper which they coveted. They commenced a system of hostility to get possession of the store of metal which, as long as they had ivory to dispose of, had come to them in the peaceful way of commerce. To the dismay of the Khartoomers, the natives soon showed that they were quite capable of putting whatever firearms they captured to a formidable use, and I shall very soon have to relate how completely all the Niam-niam expeditions came to grief in consequence of the vigorous opposition of the natives.
Meanwhile I was fully occupied by my preparation for the long journey before me. My anticipations were not to be realised. Just at the time when I was rejoicing that my health had braved all the perils of the climate and my good fortune seemed to be at its height, I was doomed to drink of that bitter cup of disappointment from which none of my predecessors in Central Africa have been exempt.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] This is the Mundo of Petherick.
[56] The portrait of a Babuckur woman is given in the subsequent chapter on the slave-trade.
[57] Vide ‘Barth’s Travels,’ vol. ii. p. 254.
CHAPTER XX.
A disastrous day. Failure to rescue my effects. Burnt Seriba by night. Comfortless bed. A wintry aspect. Rebuilding the Seriba. Cause of the fire. Idrees’s apathy. An exceptionally wet day. Bad news of Niam-niam expedition. Measuring distance by footsteps. Start to the Dyoor. Khalil’s kind reception. A restricted wardrobe. Temperature at its minimum. Corn requisitions of Egyptian troops. Slave trade carried on by soldiers. Suggestions for improved transport. Chinese hand-barrows. Defeat of Khartoomers by Ndoruma. Nubians’ fear of bullets. A lion shot. Nocturnal disturbance. Measurements of the river Dyoor. Hippopotamus hunt. Habits of hippopotamus. Hippopotamus fat. Nile whips. Recovery of a manuscript. Character of the Nubians. Nubian superstitions. Strife in the Egyptian camp.
The description which has already been given of the large establishment owned by the firm of Ghattas, where, with all my provisions, I was now awaiting the start of the caravan, must have made the place in a large degree familiar to the reader. For the dearer apprehension of the event I have now to relate it may be advisable to repeat the following particulars. The colony consisted of about six hundred huts and sheds, which were built almost entirely of straw and bamboo. In the intervals between the huts were erected the large sun-screens known as “rokooba,” which were made of the same materials; and, to separate allotment from allotment, there were long lines of fences, which were likewise composed of straw, and these were arranged so close to each other that they scarcely admitted the narrowest of passages, perhaps but a few feet across, to run between them. Everything that human ingenuity could contrive seemed to have been done to insure that, with the cessation of the rainy season there should commence a period of the extremest peril, and, for myself, I can avow that fear of fire became my bugbear by day and my terror by night. In spite of my remonstrances I saw the crowding together of the huts continually become more and more dense, and the enclosure packed full to the utmost limits of its capacity. It became a manifest impossibility in the case of the occurrence of fire, on however small a scale, to prevent it spreading into such a conflagration that the safety of the whole establishment must be imperilled. The material of the structures, dried in the tropical heat, would accelerate and insure the devastation that must necessarily ensue.