Emin owed his elevation to the post of governor to Dr. Junker’s recommendation. Consequently the latter was very anxious to know what he had accomplished in the wilderness, so far away from civilization. As Emin conducted his guest to his private divan, it seemed to him a palace, though it would have been a very unassuming structure to us. It stood upon a plaza, on the bank of the Nile, in the form of a spacious, enclosed rectangle. On the east side, towards the river and also towards the north, was the house, surrounded by rows of dark green lemon trees, between the servants’ and watchmen’s cabins. On the west side of the plaza were two larger cabins and a great sun awning which made a most comfortable lodging for the traveller and his company. Emin’s house had doors and windows, but the entrances of the other dwellings were fitted with curtains. The houses were built of brick and stood in regular order upon broad streets which were intersected by narrower rectangular thoroughfares.
The numerous huts of the natives were constructed of straw and palm leaves. These light buildings lasted only about three years, for termites[4] and borers were busied in their destruction day and night, and they were frequently destroyed by fire in the dry season. Emin could preserve his collections only by the most constant care. Thousands of stuffed birds, his papers, diaries, and provisions had to be guarded against indefatigable insects. The termites especially swarmed in the inner passageways of the house, infested the beds and shelves and made havoc with Emin’s stores.
The arrangement of the divan was simple and recalled the comforts of home. A long massive work table was covered with writing materials, another with meteorological instruments and periodicals, and European chairs stood at each. At the side was a small library on shelves and upon several round iron tables were various useful articles, such as are common with us. All the tables had neat covers. In two corners were chests and cases and flowered curtains hung at the doors and windows.
The morning hours were spent by the two friends in conversation, but the dinner with table napkins and changes of plate was so surprising to our traveller, unaccustomed to such luxury, that it nearly took away his appetite. One morning Emin invited his friend for a walk to his storehouse and the government garden, of which he was very proud. Countless lemon and banana trees, full of fruit, shaded the passageway. Bitter oranges, sweet lemons, oranges and pawpaws, which are somewhat like our melons, only sweeter, were also cultivated. White and yellow and exceedingly fragrant flowers and golden and red fruit shone in the dark foliage everywhere. Emin had also imported pomegranates, small fig trees, and grapevines. Of vegetables there were our cucumbers, several kinds of cabbage, all the Arabian vegetables, as well as the cassava, the sweet batata,[5] and sugar cane.
The government made a profit out of the garden as the surplus of its products was sold daily for a fixed sum. There were such gardens at all the stations and Emin exerted himself to supply the natives with seeds of all kinds and instructions how to plant them so that they might have the benefit of fruit and vegetables. He explained, however, that the negroes were so easy-going and childlike by nature that he always had trouble with them. They cultivated rice, coffee, cotton, and all the products of Emin’s garden, but in spite of all his admonitions they would never remember to retain seed corn. So, when the time came for sowing, appeals for seed were made on all sides and the governor was kept busy in sending for it. The negro had no anxiety for the coming day, for “Father Emin” was in Lado. A visit was next made to the drug department, from which a shaded walk led to the back of the garden, where there were several cabins for the use of the sick. The walk was a charming one, as it was shut off from the vegetable garden near by by hedges of flowers.
They now reached a spot where the walk widened and Dr. Junker uttered an exclamation of joyous surprise. A lovely picture was before him. Under a canopy of blue and purple flowers and green vines sat a beautiful Arabian woman upon cushions rocking a charming child upon her knees. It was the little Ferida, Emin’s daughter, early bereft of her mother. She greeted her father with a joyous outcry, took the outstretched hand of the unknown guest in the most friendly manner, and gazed at him with indescribably deep, dark, serious eyes. She was a solitary child, without companions of her own age, without playthings or instruction, who would have had plenty of companions in Europe. She had to be carefully protected from the dangers of the tropical world, from snakes and deadly scorpions, which frequently made their way into the house through open windows. She could never leave the garden and go down to the river, for beasts of prey, which they often heard howling not far away, frequently attacked people and dragged them off. So Ferida had to stay the whole day with her dark-skinned nurse, a tall woman in a scarlet undergarment and white loose wrapper, eagerly waiting for the evening hour when the father would have time to see his darling.
At such times the serious man and the lovely child would sit close to each other upon a bench in the dense shade of the bananas, watching the play of the shadows which the bluish moonlight made through the foliage upon the dark red ground. Over all reigned a mysterious silence, only broken by the rustling of the banana leaves. Great bats flitted like spirits through the air. “The father of the four wings,” as the Arabs call the nightjar, with its long fantastic feathers, which in flying give it the appearance of a dragon, flew noiselessly about. Bluish lights marked the course of the great “lamp carriers,” the tropical fireflies, and whirring night butterflies fluttered about, hardly visible to the eye in their dark dress. All nature was filled with the deepest peace. Then Emin would tell her of his quiet peaceful life in the far northern cities; of his joyous yet strenuous student life in beautiful Berlin; of his journey over the blue sea, which Ferida cannot yet imagine, notwithstanding his description of it; of Constantinople and its splendid palaces with their golden domes; of the desert, with its burning sun and the silence of the dreamy nights, when the stars are unnaturally bright; of brown and black people with their different habits and costumes; of wars and adventures; of the terrors of forest fires, and of the curious dwellings of the negroes. Then he would describe the plants, birds, and four-footed animals he had studied so closely and tell her fables and romances that he had heard on his many journeys from the natives, so that his child, who had no story books, might at least have a pretty one of her own father’s telling.
Chapter II
The Slave Question
Dr. Junker greatly enjoyed the quiet, peaceful life which his friend was leading on the extreme frontier of civilization, but many serious questions were troubling him, and he availed himself of the first leisure moments to ask Emin about the condition of the slave trade in the Soudan. “I heard in Europe,” he said, “that this shameful business was to be entirely suppressed and yet I have been for a year among these unfortunate people in the district of Bahr-el-Ghazal and have seen how the Arab robbers in armed bands have fallen upon the poor negroes, carried off the young women and boys, driven away their herds, often burned their villages, and left ruin and desolation in their wake. It is dreadful to think that so many of these poor captives have perished on the way from hunger and brutal treatment and that they have been needlessly sacrificed. And yet it is asserted that the Egyptian government has abolished the slave trade and made the exporting of blacks impossible.”
Emin replied in his deep, sonorous voice: “You have touched perhaps the most painful wound from which the welfare and civilization of this region, so richly blest by Nature, are suffering. But where shall one begin to cure the evil? The negro people of the interior sell their prisoners, captured in their petty wars, and look upon it as their surest source of revenue. The Niam-Niam and other tribes simply eat their prisoners, and it is surely a step in advance if they sell instead of eat the unlucky victims. Those Arab hordes which have invaded the Soudan from Egypt and Nubia with their hireling soldiers are the worst. They have established fortified stations from which they systematically conduct their hunting expeditions.