Now Emin loved botanizing, ornithology, entomology, studied geology, made notes upon ethnology, and meteorology, and filled note-book after note-book with his observations, and at the same time did not neglect his correspondence. I know the courtesy with which he would write to the Governor-General. I can imagine how the latter would be pleased with receiving these letters—precise, careful, methodical, and polite. Therefore Emin is pushed on in his African career from storekeeper to chief of station, then envoy to Uganda, then offered a secretaryship, then envoy of Gordon, then vice-king to the astute and subtle Kabba Rega, and finally Governor of Equatoria.
In the course of his promotions, Emin shows he is ambitious. He wants seeds for the fields; he applies to Gordon for them, and his reply is, “I don’t want you for a gardener; I sent you to govern. If you don’t like it, come away.” A proud young Englishman would have taken him at his word, descended the Nile, and parted with Gordon sulkily. Emin sent an apology, and wrote, “Very good, sir.” Later, Emin sent for a photograph apparatus, and receives, “I sent you to the Equatorial Provinces as governor, not as photographer.” Emin says in reply, “Very well, sir. I thank you, sir. I will do my duty.” Nor does he bother the Governor-General with complaints that he never gets his mails in due time, or of the provisions sent there to him. What a valuable man he was! He showed consideration and patience, and Gordon appreciated all this.
By-and-by came trouble. After 1883 he is left to his own resources. The people obey the Governor mechanically, and stations are building, and a quiet progress is evident. They do not know yet how soon that Cromwell at Khartoum may not ascend the Nile to Lado, and examine into the state of affairs with his own eyes. Emin Bey, their Governor, is a very mild ruler; that other one at Khartoum is in the habit of shooting mutineers. Therefore, though there are many Arabists, and many inclined to that new prophet, the Mahdi, among the troops of Emin, they are quiet. But presently news leak that Khartoum is fallen, and Gordon slain, and all power and stern authority prostrate; then comes the upheaval—the revolt of the First Battalion and the flight of Emin to his more faithful Irregulars and the Second Battalion, and finally universal dissolution of the government. But Emin’s tastes and nature remain unchanged.
There are some things, however, I have wondered at in Emin. I have already observed that he was earnest and industrious in making observations upon plants, insects, birds, manners and customs, so that he was well equipped for geographical exploration; but I was somewhat staggered when I learned that he had not explored Lake Albert. He possessed two steamers and two life-boats, and one station at the north-west end of the Lake called Tunguru, and another called Mswa, half-way up the west side; and yet he had never visited the southern end of the Lake, examined the affluent at the south side, sounded the Lake from the north to south and east to west; never visited the Ituri River, which was only two days’ good marching from Mswa. Had he done so he would probably have seen the snowy range and left very little for us to discover in that district. He had been to Monbuttu Land on business of his province, where he had vast stores of ivory treasured; he had sent soldiers to the edge of Turkan territory; he had been twice to Uganda and once to Unyoro; but he had never stepped on board his steamer for a visit to the south end of the Lake until March, 1888, when he came to enquire into a report concerning our arrival, and then he had steamed back again to his stations.
The Emperor Hadrian wrote of the Egyptians that he found them “frivolous and untrustworthy, fluttering at every wave of rumour, and were the most revolutionary, excitable and criminal race in existence.”
Had he been present in our camp during our tedious sojourn at Kavalli’s, could he have written differently? The revolutionary character disclosed to us compel us to endorse this description as perfect truth. “Frivolous” we know them to be to our cost. “Untrustworthy:” were ever men so faithless as these? “Fluttering at every wave of rumour:” our camp bred rumours as the ground bred flies; there were as many as the chirpings of an aviary; the least trifle caused them to flutter like a brood from under the mother bird. A mail from Wadelai caused them to run gadding from one circle to another, from hut to hut, from the highest to the lowest, emulating the cackle of many hens. “Revolutionary:”—“Up with Arabi!” “Vive le Mahdi!” “Hurrah for Fadl el Mullah Bey!” “More power to the elbow of Selim Bey Mator!” and “Down with all Governments!” And thus they proved themselves an excitable, frivolous, untrustworthy, and criminal race which required government by stern force, not by sentiment and love.
But relieved from the dread of due penalty and the coercive arm of the law by the fall of Khartoum and the death of the Governor-General, and recognising that their isolation from Egypt gave them scope to follow their vain imaginings, they were not long before they disclosed their true characters, and revolted against every semblance of authority. Happy was the Pasha, then, that the good record he had won in the memories of his soldiers pleaded against the excesses to which their unprincipled chiefs were inclined, which generally follows the ruin of government.
These were the people—practised in dissimulation, adepts in deceit, and pastured in vice—which this mild-mannered man, this student of science, governed for several years all alone, before any outbreak among them occurred. During this portion of his career as Governor of Equatoria only unqualified praise can be given. The troops were not all seized with the mania prevalent in the Soudan, to uproot every vestige of authority.
To the north, west, and east gathered the Mahdists, barring all escape by the Nile and cutting off all communication with Khartoum. On the 7th of May, 1883, the first disaster occurs. Seventy soldiers are massacred at El-del station who have been sent to reinforce the beleaguered garrison, which, in its turn, is totally destroyed. On the 27th of February, 1884, Lupton, the Governor of Bahr-el-Ghazal, informs him that the rest of the inhabitants had rebelled, and on the 28th of the following month he receives the news of the destruction of General Hicks’s army. On the 8th of April, the news is brought that the tribes of Waddiafen, Elyat, Eofen, Euknah, Kanel, and Fakam were in open rebellion. On the 30th of May he is informed by Lupton Bey, Governor of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, that the Mahdi is within six hours of his headquarters, and had summoned him to surrender his authority and province, and warning him to take immediate steps for his defence. Four days later, Karamalla—who in the meantime, had been appointed Governor of Equatoria by the Mahdi to fill his place—wrote to him to deliver up his province to him. Lupton Bey had already been vanquished. A committee of six officers having debated this serious matter, came to the conclusion that Emin had no other option open to him than to surrender. In order to gain time he expressed his willingness to conform with their decision, and despatched the judge of their province with some other officers with the declaration of his readiness to yield.[12]
But on the departure of the Commission, he set about fortifying the stations in his charge, and prepared for resistance against Karamalla, then fresh from the conquest of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. He concentrated troops from the petty stations in the vicinity at Amadi station, and strengthened that place against the expected attack of that proud chief, and also gathered at headquarters a formidable force. At this critical period he was able to weed out the most forward in their desire for submission to the Mahdi, and to separate the loyal from the disloyal, and vigorous orders were issued that traitors would meet with no mercy at his hands if found communicating with the enemy. Arbeek, Ayak, and Wafi Stations are abandoned, and the troops are gathered at Amadi. The month following witnesses the struggle proceeding. Some of the principal stations are so well defended that the Mahdists suffer repeated losses of chiefs and men, while many of the Government officers have basely abandoned their posts, and take service with Karamalla; but on the 27th February, 1885, a month after the fall of Khartoum, the enemy has surrounded Amadi on all sides, and a brisk siege is maintained. On the first of April, after extraordinary efforts, the fall of Amadi is announced, with great loss of life, ammunition, cannon, small arms, and rockets. After hearing of this disaster, measures are taken for the concentration of the force of the Province along the Nile, in order to secure means of communication with Egypt viâ Zanzibar, and Birri, Kirri, Bedden and Rejaf stations are founded, and out of the soldiers who have managed to escape with life from the many skirmishes and fights in which they were engaged, during 1883, 1884, to this date (April 1885) eight companies of eighty men each are formed, and called the First Battalion, under the command of Major Rehan Agha Ibrahim. On the 1st of June, after the small outlying stations have been abandoned, a sufficient number of officers have been collected to form a second Battalion, under the command of Major Awash Effendi Montazir, to whom was given the command of the southern stations. In his despatch of 1st September, 1885, to the Government of Egypt, we observe near the close of it the first note of discontent with the Major of the First Battalion. He says: