On the 18th the ferriage was resumed at dawn. By noon two more canoes had been discovered by scouts. Staits and Jephson were both very ill of fever, and I was a prematurely old man of ninety in strength and appearance and just able to walk at this time about one hundred yards. Captain Nelson and Surgeon Parke therefore superintended the work of transporting the Expedition across the Semliki. At two o’clock in the afternoon, while the ferrying was briskly proceeding, a body of fifty of the Wara Sura stole up to within 250 yards of the ferry, and fired a volley at the canoes while in mid-river. Iron slugs and lead bullets screamed over the heads of the passengers, and flew along the face of the water, but fortunately there was no harm done. Notwithstanding our admiration at their impudent audacity, a second volley might be more effective, but Captain Nelson sprang from the river-side, and a hundred rifles gathered around him and a chase began. We heard a good deal of volleying, but the chase and retreat were so hot that not a bullet found its purposed billet. However, the Wara Sura discovered that, whatever our intentions might be, we were in strong force, and we understood that they were capable of contriving mischief. In their hurried flight they dropped several as well-made cartridges as could be prepared at Woolwich; and here was a proof also what a nest of traitors there was in the Equatorial Province, for all these articles were of course furnished by the scores of deserters.
By night of the 18th, 669 people had been ferried across. At 3 o’clock of the 19th, 1,168 men, women and children, 610 loads of baggage, 3 canoe loads of sheep and goats, and 235 head of cattle had been taken across. The only loss sustained was a calf, which was drowned. It may he imagined how pleased I was at the brilliant services, activity and care shown by Captain Nelson and Dr. Parke.
A few hours later one of the Pasha’s followers was taken to the surgeon with a fatal arrow-wound. It reminded me of the anxious times I suffered, during the first eighteen months’ experiences with the equally thoughtless Zanzibaris.
On the 20th the Expedition moved through the thick forest, along an extremely sloughy path to a little village removed one and a half hours from the river. We arrived just as the intolerable pests of gnats were at their liveliest. They swarmed into the eyes, nostrils, and ears, in myriads. We thought the uninhabited forest was preferable, but at 9 o’clock the minute tribes retired to rest, and ceased to vex us. There was an odour of stale banana wine and ripe banana refuse, and these probably had attracted the gnats. Two large troughs—equal in size to small canoes—were stationed in the village, in which the natives pressed the ripe fruit and manufactured their wine.
1889.
May 20.
Awamba.
For the first time we discovered that the Awamba, whose territory we were now in, understood the art of drying bananas over wooden gratings, for the purpose of making flour. We had often wondered, during our life in the forest region, that natives did not appear to have discovered what invaluable, nourishing, and easily digestible food they possessed in the plantain and banana. All banana lands—Cuba, Brazil, West Indies—seem to me to have been specially remiss on this point. If only the virtues of the flour were publicly known, it is not to be doubted but it would be largely consumed in Europe. For infants, persons of delicate digestion, dyspeptics, and those suffering from temporary derangements of the stomach, the flour, properly prepared, would be of universal demand. During my two attacks of gastritis, a light gruel of this, mixed with milk, was the only matter that could be digested.