The catastrophe, which I had dreaded with such ominous apprehension, befell us at midday on the 1st of December.
This most disastrous day of my life had opened in the accustomed carrying out of its routine. I had been engaged all the morning with my correspondence and in arranging the notes of the various occurrences that had transpired since the despatch of my previous budget. I had partaken of my frugal midday meal, and was just on the point of resuming my writing, when all at once I caught the sound of the excited Bongo shrieking out “poddu, poddu” (fire, fire!) Long, how long none can tell, will the memory of this burst of alarm haunt my ear. It makes me shudder even now. Eager to know the truth, and to ascertain how far the ill-omened apparition of misfortune had already spread, I rushed to the doorway of my hut, and beheld that the devouring element was doing its work at a distance of only three huts from my own; the flame was rising fiercely from the top of a hut; there was no room for hope; just at that time of day the north-east wind always blew with its greatest violence, and it was only too plain that the direction of the gale was bringing the fire straight towards my residence. The space of a few minutes was all that remained for me to rescue what I could.
MY DISASTER.
Without an instant’s delay, my people flocked to the scene of the alarm. Without stopping to discuss what was most prudent or to consider what was most valuable, they laid hold upon anything that came to hand. The negro-boys took particular care of all the stuffs, and of their own clothes as being of the greatest consequence in their estimation, and by their means all my bedding and two of my leathern portmanteaus were carried safely out of the Seriba. I myself flung my manuscript into a great chest which had already been provided against any accident of the sort, but my care was of no avail. My servants succeeded in hastily conveying five of my largest boxes and two cases to the open space of the Seriba where the direction of the wind made us presume they would be out of danger; but we only too soon learnt our mistake; the wind chopped and veered about, and the hot blasts fanned the flames in every direction till there was hardly a place to stand, and it was hopeless to reckon upon any more salvage. A prompt retreat became absolutely necessary; great masses of burning straw began to fall in every quarter, and the high fences of straw left but narrow avenues by which we could escape. The flames sometimes seemed to rise to a height of a hundred feet above the combustible structures of dry grass, and then all at once they would descend, but only to lick with destructive fury some adjacent spot, while a perpetual shower of hot sparks glared again in the roaring air. The crowds, as they rushed away before the advancing flames, were like a swarm of flies buzzing around a lighted torch. I cast a look towards the remnant of my property which we had thought we had rescued, and to my horror I perceived that the chests were enveloped in smoke, and immediately afterwards were encircled by the flames. It was a moment of despair. How my heart sank at the sight none can imagine, for those chests contained all my manuscripts, journals, and records, in comparison with which the loss of all the effects in my hut appeared utterly insignificant, though they were the burdens of a hundred bearers. Regardless of the shower of sparks, which singed off my very hair, I made a frantic rush forwards, the dogs, with their feet all scorched, howling at my side, and breathlessly stopped under a tree, where I found a shelter alike from the raging of the ardent flame and from the noonday glare. In the confusion of the flight I had been unable to get my hat, and was thus fully exposed to the midday heat.
Below us from amidst the crackling waves of fire came the crashing noise of the roofs as they collapsed, and ever and again there broke forth the louder report caused by the explosion of our ammunition, and many a loaded gun that had been left behind discharged itself and exposed the fugitives to a new and random danger. The Nubians behaved themselves with a strange composure, not to say indifference; the majority had little or nothing to lose, yet many an account-book must have perished in the flames, so that not a few of them hoped to turn the disaster to a profitable account. The priests, however, were not quite so unmoved; they stood before their doors and howled out the shrieking formulæ of their incantations, by which they pretended to control the course of the raging fire. It was very remarkable that the spot where a Faki had been buried, and which was marked with a white banner to distinguish it as a place for prayer, was spared from the general conflagration, although it was within a few yards of where my burnt chests had been laid. The departed Faki was now as good as a canonised saint, and had proved himself a genuine sheikh.
The entire Seriba by this time was wrapped in flames, which seemed still to spread in every quarter. The wind, as it rose, carried away with it whole bundles of smouldering straw, which it soon fanned into fire amidst the huts that were scattered round on the exterior of the palisade.
THE RESIDUE OF MY EFFECTS.
Very dry at this season, the steppe had hitherto been preserved, because the harvest was not yet complete, and it was not very long before this too was caught by the raging fire, and even the old trees around did not escape, so that it seemed almost as if the whole district were being submerged in a sea of flame. Half an hour had completed the great work of devastation. After that period it was possible to make a dash between the charred posts of the huts, but only for a few moments, so intense was the heat of the ground and so overpowering the glowing atmosphere that pervaded the scene of destruction. A crowd of people kept on bringing vessels of water to try and extinguish the flames before they had totally destroyed the clay “googahs” which held the sole supply of corn.
After a while I succeeded in getting to my garden, which, bereft of the greater part of its recently-constructed hedge of bamboo, presented a truly melancholy aspect. As the sun sank low we began to make a search for anything that might have been spared amidst the still glowing embers of the huts. I had saved little beyond my life. I had lost all my clothes, my guns, and the best part of my instruments. I was without tea and without quinine. As I stood gazing upon the piles of ashes I could not help reckoning up the accumulation of my labours which had there, beneath them all, been buried in this hapless destiny. All my preparations for the projected expedition to the Niam-niam; all the produce of my recent journey; all the entomological collection that I had made with such constant interest; all the examples of native industry which I had procured by so much care; all my registers of meteorological events which had been kept day by day and without interruption ever since my first departure from Suakin, and in which I had inscribed some 7000 barometrical observations; all my journals, with their detailed narrative of the transactions of 825 days; all my elaborate measurements of the bodies of the natives, which I had been at so much pains and expense to induce them to permit; all my vocabularies, which it had been so tedious a business to compile; everything, in the course of a single hour; everything was gone, the plunder of the flames. It had been for the sake of better protection, as I thought, that I had resolved not to part with my journals, and had kept my collection of insects in my own possession; I had been afraid of any misadventure befalling them; but now they might just as well have been at the bottom of the Nile.
There I sat amongst my tobacco-shrubs upon my stock of bedding that had been rescued from the flames; but I fear that I could not boast of overmuch of the spirit of resignation. The entire remnant of my property was soon reckoned up; it consisted of a couple of chests, my three barometers, an azimuth-compass, and the ironwork which survived from the different productions of the Niam-niam and Monbuttoo.