To the task of tent-making succeeded tailoring. We had neglected to provide ourselves with the loose blanket suits, served out to sailors on board men-of-war in the tropics: they are most useful in passing through countries where changes of climate are sudden and marked. Besides these, the traveller should carry with him an ample store of flannels: the material must be shrunk before making up shirts, otherwise it will behave as did the Little Boy’s mantle when tried by the frail fair Guinever. A red colour should moreover be avoided, the dye soon turns dark, and the appearance excites too much attention. Besides shirt and trousers, the only necessary is a large “stomach-warmer” waistcoat, with sleeves and back of similar material, without collar—which renders sleeping in it uneasy—and provided with four flapped pockets, to contain a compass and thermometer, a note-book, and a sketch-book, a watch and a moderate-sized knife of many uses. The latter should contain scissors, tweezers, tooth-pick, and ear-pick, needle, file, picker, steel for fire, turnscrew, watch-spring-saw, clasp blade, and pen blade: it should be made of moderate dimensions, and for safety be slung by a lanyard to the button-hole. For the cold mornings and the noon-day heats, I made up a large padded hood, bound round the head like the Arab Kufiyah. Too much cannot be said in favour of this article, which in eastward travel defends the eyes from the fiery glare, protects, when wending westwards, the carotids against the solar blaze, and, at all times, checks the intrusive staring of the crowd. I reformed my umbrella, ever an invaluable friend in these latitudes, by removing the rings and wires from the worm-eaten stick, and by mounting them on a spear, thus combining with shelter a staff and a weapon. The traveller should have at least three umbrellas, one large and water proof—white, not black—in the shape of those used by artists; and two others of moderate size, and of the best construction, which should be covered with light-coloured calico, as an additional defence against the sun. At Kazeh I was somewhat deficient in material: my lazy “Jack of all trades,” Valentine, made, however, some slippers of green baize, soled with leather, for me, overalls of American domestics for my companion, and various articles of indigo-dyed cotton for himself and his fellow-servant, who presently appeared tastefully rigged out like Paul and Virginia in “Bengal blue.”
The minor works were not many. The two remaining portmanteaus of the three that had left the Coast were cobbled with goatskins, and were bound with stout thongs. The hammocks, of which half had disappeared, were patched and provided with the Nara, or Indian cotton-tape, which in these climates is better than either reims or cord. To save my eyes the spectacle of moribund fowls, suspended to a porter’s pole, two light cages were made after the fashion of the country, with bent and bound withes. The metal plates, pots, and pans were furbished, and a damaged kettle was mended by a travelling tinker: the asses’ saddles and halters were repaired, and, greatest luxury of all, a brace of jembe or iron hoes was converted into two pairs of solid stirrups, under the vigilant eye of Snay bin Amir. A party of slaves sent to Msene brought back fifty-four jembe, useful as return-presents and blackmail on the down-march: they paid, however, one cloth for two, instead of four. Sallum bin Hamid, the “papa” of the Arabs, sold for the sum of forty dollars a fine half-bred Zanzibar she-ass and foal—there is no surer method of procuring a regular supply of milk on Eastern journeys. My black and white beads being almost useless, he also parted with, as a peculiar favour, seventeen or eighteen pounds of pink-porcelains for forty dollars, and with a Frasibah of coffee, and a similar quantity of sugar for eighty dollars, equal to sixteen pounds sterling. On the 14th July the last Arab caravan of the season left Unyanyembe, under the command of Sayf bin Said el Wardi. As he obligingly offered to convey letters and any small articles which I wished to precede me, and knowing that under his charge effects were far safer than with our own people, I forwarded the useless and damaged surveying instruments, certain manuscripts, and various enclosures of maps, field and sketch-books, together with reports to the Royal Geographical Society.
This excitement over I began to weary of Kazeh. Snay bin Amir and most of the Arabs had set out on an expedition to revenge the murder of old Silim—an event alluded to in a former page, and the place had become dull as a mess-dinner. Said bin Salim, who was ill, who coughed and expectorated, and sincerely pitied himself because he had a cold, became more than usually unsociable: he could enjoy nothing but the society of Brahim, the bawling Baghdadi, and the crowd of ill-flavoured slavery that flocked into the vestibule. My Goanese servant, who connected my aspect with hard labour, avoided it like a pestilence. Already I was preparing to organise a little expedition to K’hokoro and the southern provinces, when unexpectedly,—in these lands a few cries and gun-shots are the only credible precursors of a caravan,—on the morning of the 25th August reappeared my companion.
At length my companion had been successful, his “flying trip” had led him to the northern water, and he had found its dimensions surpassing our most sanguine expectations. We had scarcely, however, breakfasted, before he announced to me the startling fact, that he had discovered the sources of the White Nile. It was an inspiration perhaps: the moment he sighted the Nyanza, he felt at once no doubt but that the “Lake at his feet gave birth to that interesting river which has been the subject of so much speculation, and the object of so many explorers.” The fortunate discoverer’s conviction was strong; his reasons were weak—were of the category alluded to by the damsel Lucetta, when justifying her penchant in favour of the “lovely gentleman,” Sir Proteus:—
“I have no other but a woman’s reason.
I think him so because I think him so;”[11]
and probably his sources of the Nile grew in his mind as his Mountains of the Moon had grown under his hand.
[11] The following extract from the Proceedings of the R. Geographical Society, May 9, 1859, will best illustrate what I mean:—
Mr. Macqueen, F.R.G.S., said the question of the sources of the Nile had cost him much trouble and research, and he was sure there was no material error either in longitude or latitude in the position he had ascribed to them, namely, a little to the eastward of the meridian of 35°, and a little northward of the equator. That was the principal source of the White Nile. The mountains there were exceedingly high, from the equator north to Kaffa Enarea. All the authorities, from east, west, north, or south, now perfectly competent to form judgments upon such a matter, agreed with him; and among them were the officers commanding the Egyptian commission. It was impossible they could all be mistaken. Dr. Krapf had been within a very short distance of it; he was more than 180 miles from Mombas, and he saw snow upon the mountains. He conversed with the people who came from them, and who told him of the snow and exceeding coldness of the temperature. The line of perpetual congelation, it was well known, was 17,000 feet above the sea. He had an account of the navigation of the White Nile by the Egyptian expedition. It was then given as 3° 30′ N. lat. and 31° E. long. At this point the expedition turned back for want of a sufficient depth of water. Here the river was 1370 feet broad, and the velocity of the current one-quarter of a mile per hour. The journals also gave a specific and daily current, the depth and width of the river, and every thing, indeed, connected with it. Surely, looking at the current of the river, the height of the Cartoom above the level of the sea, and the distance thence up to the equator, the sources of the Nile must be 6000 or 8000 feet above the level of the sea, and still much below the line of the snow, which was 6000 or 8000 feet farther above them. He deeply regretted he was unable to complete the diagram for the rest of the papers he had given to the Society, for it was more important than any others he had previously given. It contained the journey over Africa from sea to sea, second only to that of Dr. Livingstone. But all the rivers coming down from the mountains in question, and running south-eastward, had been clearly stated by Dr. Krapf, who gave every particular concerning them. He should like to know what the natives had said was to the northward of the large lake? Did they say the rivers ran out from or into the lake? How could the Egyptian officers be mistaken?
Captain Speke replied. They were not mistaken; and if they had pursued their journey 50 miles farther, they would undoubtedly have found themselves at the northern borders of this lake.
Mr. Macqueen said that other travellers, Don Angelo for instance, had been within one and a half degree of the Equator, and saw the mountain of Kimborat under the Line, and persisted in the statement, adding, that travellers had been up the river until they found it a mere brook. He felt convinced that the large lake alluded to by Captain Speke was not the source of the Nile: it was impossible it could be so, for it was not at a sufficiently high altitude.