On March 1 we started at half-past six A.M., after a terrific scramble for loads by 400 Lobore carriers, who rushed in and tugged and wrestled for their packages like wolves over a carcase. Boxes were turned upside down, and carried in that manner with an utter disregard for the contents.
The inverted canteen was discovered upon the head of a brutal Lobore, whose body was being basted with Cognac and gin that showered from the loosened stoppers of the decanters.
I never saw such a wild pack of savages; they were only fit to carry the elephants' tusks of the traders; but any civilized baggage ran a risk of instant destruction.
The old sheik, Abbio, had given me his son to keep order among the people. This young man was about twenty-seven years of age, but, although respectable in appearance, he did not appear to have the slightest control over his people, and he regarded their desertions with seeming indifference.
I had a strong suspicion that he might quietly abscond at night, in which case every man might instantly follow his example. I therefore ordered a light thong of leather to be attached to the iron collar worn as an ornament upon his neck, and I trusted him to the surveillance of a couple of soldiers told off as his guard of honour.
We marched south for sixteen miles through a fine country of hills and low forest, where the villages of the Madi had been mostly destroyed by the slave-hunting parties of Abou Saood.
We passed large tracts of land that had formerly been in a high state of cultivation, and the charred remains of numerous villages bespoke the desolation caused by these brigands of the White Nile. The road was well watered by many small streams in deep gorges, until we descended to the Asua river. This was just twenty-five miles from our camp at Lobore, in latitude N., by observation, 3 degrees 43 minutes.
We happened to arrive at the spot where the river Atabbi joined the
Asua. At this junction the Atabbi was perfectly clear, while the Asua
was muddy, which proved that heavy rain had fallen in the Madi and
Shooli countries, while the weather was dry in the mountains of Obbo.
The Asua flowed through a fine forest, but although the water was muddy from recent rains, the volume at this season was confined to a portion of the bed, in the deepest parts of which it did not exceed two feet six inches. The bed from bank to bank was about 120 yards in width, and the maximum rise of the river was about twelve feet. During the wet season this is a frightful torrent that acts as a barrier to any advance or retreat of troops encumbered with baggage.
Having waded through the river, we halted under the shady trees on the south side; here there was excellent herbage for the cattle, as the young grass after the annual fires was now about eight inches high, upon the rich soil near the river's bank.