All thoughts of cruising along the southern coast were thus at an end. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton had cautioned us not to despise bilious remittents, and evidently we should not have been justified in neglecting his advice to return to the consulate whenever seized by sickness. With the dawn of Friday, March 6, we ordered the crew to up sail: we stood over for the island with a fine fresh breeze, and early in the afternoon we found ourselves once more within the pale of eastern civilization. Our excellent friend at once sent us to bed, where we remained for the best part of a week: we did not recover health till the end of the normal month.
CHAPTER IX.
VISIT TO SA’ADANI, THE COPAL FIELD.
Non cuivis lectori auditorique placebo:
Lector et auditor non mihi quisque placet.
A heroic treatment of quinine, beginning with 20-grain doses, and ending with two grains, per diem, and a long course of stomachic chiretta—the Kirait which the Goanese drink, flavoured with lime juice, every Sunday before church—induced a convalescence, accompanied by the usual unpleasant sequelæ. The S. West or rainy monsoon, which came in like a lion, had improved my health, but it detained the Expedition at Zanzibar. We utilized the delay by buying outfit, which for economy must be provided before the opening of the trading season; by making arrangements for an escort, and by looking to the hundred impedimenta which appertain to African exploration.
Yet I was possessed by a nervous impatience to be up and doing. During the year of grace 1867 it was proposed to penetrate into the Eastern and Central Regions from all directions. The Escayrac de Lauture enterprise has been already mentioned. Zanzibar also expected an American Expedition. A Major Cotheal, of New York, had visited the coast in his own vessel, with the view of pushing into the interior. Like his many predecessors—Captain Smee for instance—he failed to find the debouchure of the Denok, Vumbo, Gob, Gob-wen, Juba, Webbe Ganana, Govind, Dos Fuegos or Rogues[[45]] River, which forms the true northern limit of continental Zanzibar, dividing inland the Galla from the Somal, and which the hydrographers have placed in S. lat. 0° 14′ 30″, thus nearly corresponding parallel with the Gaboon. But he had observed a discolouration of the sea, which raised his hopes of being able to measure and survey the mysterious outlet. Despite the labours of Lieut. Christopher, there is still an abundance of work to be done about the embouchures and more upon the upper courses of the ‘Nile of Makdishu’ (Webbe Gamana) and the Juba (Webbe Ganana); whilst the sad loss of Baron von der Decken only increases our curiosity about the latter stream. It is doubtful, even in the present day, whether the mouth of the Juba is dry in the rainless season or not. Major Cotheal’s prospects were kept dark: it was, however, understood that the party would be composed of white men accustomed to endure fatigue and to face danger, escorted by free blacks from the United States, and by natives of the country as guides and porters. All scientific researches and even exact observations were to be postponed, lest they should impede progress: this manner of exploration, which would find scant favour in English eyes, is evidently best fitted to open a way for the physicist through unexplored and possibly dangerous regions. I never doubted that the Anglo-American, familiar with the negro race from his infancy, and strong in nervous temperament, carrying little flesh and comparatively abstemious, would be the best of African explorers, and my subsequent experiences on the west coast of Africa in the Bights of Benin and Biafra, from Cape Palmas to the Gaboon river, have confirmed the belief. Major Cotheal’s exploration, however, was fated to remain in limbo.
An expedition was also proposed at the Cape of Good Hope on a plan recommended by the lamented naturalist, Professor Wahlberg. Several waggons starting simultaneously would separate upon the threshold of the tropics, and, after exploring eastward and westward, would rendezvous at a given place, and confer upon the ways and means of further advance. Nothing appeared more feasible than such a prospect, and the brilliant success of Messrs Livingstone, Murray, and Oswell, then fresh in the public mind, had proved that intertropical Africa could be penetrated with less fatigue and risk of disease from the Cape than from any other point. Dr Wahlberg, however, was killed by an elephant, and his plan was allowed to lie in nubibus.
We left for the interior before Zanzibar Island was visited by the Père Léon d’Avanchers, whose name has since become familiar to geographers: en revauche I met M. Gabrielli de Rivalta, a capuchin of the Lyons Mission, who was proceeding to his head-quarters, the before inaccessible Kaffa country. He had lately learned at Rome that four or five other missioners would be sent to reap the unparalleled harvest reported by Monsignor Guglielmo Massaga, the Vicario Apostolico dei Gallas, who had made that place his home, and who had sent branch establishments to Enarea and Goodroo. Some 40,000 pagans had, it was asserted, embraced Christianity, and conversions were still taking place in legions. Unable to enter Africa viâ Masawah, on account of the religious excitement that burned high amongst the Abyssinians, Father Gabrielli resolved to land at Makdishu, and to march upon Ganana, travelling alone and unarmed, amongst the fiercest tribes of East Africa, the Gallas, and the Somal. The successes which have crowned the efforts of Catholic missioners in these eastern regions reflect honour upon their system, and cast a deep shade upon the desultory individualistic display of Protestant energy. On the West Coast of Africa, however, I found that both had equally and completely failed.
At length, strength and energy returning, I resolved once more to visit the coast, and to collect information upon certain interesting subjects, concerning which the Secretary of the Bombay Geographical Society had (Dec. 8, 1856) forwarded to Government the following remarks:—
‘It will be eminently interesting to know whether the great limestone formation, extending in one vast continuous band from the banks of the Burrumputra to those of the Tagus, and from which Captain Burton forwarded valuable specimens from the Somali country, prevails as far south as the Line, and to what distance it extends into the interior. It will be desirable to ascertain whether the upheaved sea-beach, such as that which forms the esplanade, and is the favourite habitat of the cocoa-nut groves around, prevails along the shores of Africa, and whether, if so, it manifests those signs of a double depression or upheaval which characterize it in most parts of the world.... Of the £300,000 worth of commerce between Eastern Africa and Western India—the principal part being that of Zanzibar—gums and resin-trees form an important part, nearly £20,000 worth being exported from Zanzibar. The most valuable of these are copal and gum Animi, the principal supplies being found under-ground, from which they are washed out by streams and torrents. Like the Dammer of Singapore, and some of the most important gum resins of Australia, they may be regarded as semi-fossils, the produce of forests which have long since disappeared.... We should like to know whether the Valeria Indica, which produces it, still abounds as a tree; as also what may have been the extent, what the position and circumstances of the extinct forests, of which it now constitutes the principal trace.... Copal has of late years become so scarce, so much in demand, and so dear, that what was formerly thrown away would probably be considered of value in the market; and there are few of the investigations a traveller can undertake the people of England value so highly as those that can be turned to commercial account. Materially to reduce the price of coach-varnish would probably be considered to entitle Captain Burton to a larger share of the gratitude of his countrymen than the measurement of the elevation of the Mountains of the Moon or the Determination of the Sources of the Nile.’[[46]]