“The natives,” he adds, “prepare the skins of goats very beautifully, making them as soft as chamois leather; these they cut into squares, and sew them together as neatly as would be effected by a European tailor, converting them into mantles, which are prized far more highly than bark-cloth, on account of their durability. They manufacture their own needles, not by boring the eye, but by sharpening the end into a fine point, and turning it over, the extremity being hammered into a small cut in the body of the needle to prevent it from catching.”
The arrival of Sir Samuel Baker being made known to Kamrasi, he requested him to pay a visit to his capital, and sent a legion of porters to carry his baggage. Lady Baker suffered much from illness on the journey, which she performed in a litter; and Sir Samuel was also attacked by a debilitating fever. His first interview with “the king” took place on the 10th of February. He describes him as a fine-looking man, whose extremely prominent eyes gave a peculiar expression to his countenance; about six feet high; and dressed in a long robe of bark-cloth, draped in graceful folds. The nails of his hands and feet were carefully tended, and his complexion was about as dark a brown as that of an Abyssinian. He sat upon a copper stool, with a leopard-skin carpet spread around him, and was attended by about ten of his principal chiefs. Of his character as a man Sir Samuel Baker speaks in the most unflattering terms; he was grasping, mean, mendacious, and a coward. After some delay, and by dint of repeated bribes, Sir Samuel obtained from him a supply of natives to carry the baggage to the lake, where canoes were to be provided for the voyage to Magango, a village situated at the junction of the Somerset river. He went to take leave of the royal savage, and was astonished by the insolent demand that Lady Baker should be left with him! Sir Samuel drew his revolver; Lady Baker broke out into invectives in Arabic, which the woman, Bachuta, translated as nearly as she could, and with indignant emphasis, into the language of Unyoro; in short, “a scene” ensued! Kamrasi was completely cowed, and faltered out, “Don’t be angry! I had no intention of offending you by asking for your wife; I will give you a wife, if you want one, and I thought you might have no objection to give me yours; it is my custom to give my visitors pretty wives, and I thought you might exchange. Don’t make it fuss about it: if you don’t like it, there’s an end of it; I will never mention it again.” Sir Samuel received the apology very sternly, and insisted upon starting. Kamrasi did not feel in a position to interpose any further delay, and the march to the lake began.
On the road a very painful incident occurred. The expedition had reached Uafour river, which ran through the centre of a marsh, and, although deep, was so thickly covered with matted and tangled water grass and other aquatic plants, that a natural floating bridge, some two feet in thickness, was available for crossing. The men passed it quickly, sinking merely to the ankles, though beneath the tough vegetation was deep water. It was equally impossible to ride or be carried over this fickle surface; Sir Samuel therefore led the way, and begged his wife to follow on foot as quickly as possible, keeping exactly in his track. The river was about eighty yards wide, and Sir Samuel had scarcely accomplished a fourth of the distance, when, looking back, he was horrified to see her standing in one spot, and sinking gradually through the weeds, while her face was distorted and perfectly purple. She fell, as if stricken dead. Her husband was immediately by her side, and, with the help of some of his men, dragged her through the yielding vegetation, across to the other side. There she was tenderly laid beneath a tree, and her husband bathed her head and face with water, thinking she had fainted. But he soon perceived that she was suffering from a sunstroke; and, removing her to a miserable hut close at hand, he watched anxiously for some sign of returning consciousness. We shall quote his own words in all their pathetic simplicity:
“There was nothing to eat in this spot. My wife had never stirred since she fell by the coup de soleil, and merely respired about five times a minute. It was impossible to remain; the people would have starved. She was laid gently upon her litter, and we started forward on our funeral course. I was ill and broken-hearted, and I followed by her side through the long day’s march over wild park lands and streams, with thick forest and deep marshy bottoms; over undulating hills, and through valleys of tall papyrus rushes, which, as we brushed through them on our melancholy way, waved over the litter like the black plumes of a hearse. We halted at a village, and again the night was passed in watching. I was wet, and coated with mud from the swampy marsh, and shivered with ague; but the cold within was greater than all. No change had taken place; she had never moved. I had plenty of fat, and I made four balls of about half a pound, each of which would burn for three hours. A piece of a broken water-jar formed a lamp, several pieces of rag serving for wicks. So in solitude the still calm night passed away as I sat by her side and watched. In the drawn and distorted features that lay before me I could hardly trace the same form that for years had been my comfort through all the difficulties and dangers of my path. Was she to die? Was so terrible a sacrifice to be the result of my selfish exile?
“Again the night passed away. Once more the march. Though weak and ill, and for two nights without a moment’s sleep, I felt no fatigue, but mechanically followed by the side of the litter as though in a dream. The same wild country diversified with marsh and forest. Again we halted. The night came, and I sat by her side in a miserable hut, with the feeble lamp flickering while she lay, as in death. She had never moved a muscle since she fell. My people slept. I was alone, and no sound broke the stillness of the night. The ears ached at the utter silence, till the sudden wild cry of a hyæna made me shudder as the horrible thought rushed through my brain, that, should she be buried in this lonely spot, the hyæna would . . . disturb her rest.
“The morning was not far distant; it was past four o’clock. I had passed the night in replacing wet cloths upon her head, and moistening her lips, as she lay apparently lifeless on her litter. I could do nothing more; in solitude and abject misery in that dark hour, in a country of savage heathens, thousands of miles away from a Christian land, I beseeched an aid above all human, trusting alone to Him.
“The morning broke; my lamp had just burnt out, and, cramped with the night’s watching, I rose from my seat, and seeing that she lay in the same unaltered state, I went to the door of the hut to breathe one gasp of the fresh morning air. I was watching the first red streak that heralded the rising sun, when I was startled by the words, ‘Thank God,’ faintly uttered behind me. Suddenly she had awoke from her torpor, and with a heart overflowing I went to her bedside. Her eyes were full of madness! She spoke, but the brain was gone!”
II.
Happily, after suffering for some days from brain fever, Lady Baker recovered consciousness, and thenceforward her progress, though slow, was sure. After a brief rest, the march to the lake was resumed by the undaunted travellers; for the devoted wife would not allow any consideration of her comfort or safety to come between her husband and the accomplishment of the work he had undertaken. At a village called Parkani, the guides informed them that they were only a day’s journey from the lake. In the west rose a lofty range of mountains, and Sir Samuel Baker had conjectured that the N’zige lay on the other side of it, but he was told that it actually formed its western or further boundary. Only a day’s journey! That night Sir Samuel could hardly sleep; his brain was fired with the thought that he was within so short a distance of the Source of the Nile—that in a few hours he might drink of the waters of its mysterious fountain. He was up before sunrise on the 14th of March, and crossing a deep cool valley between the hills, ascended the slope, gained the summit, and there, before him, flashing in the light of morning like a sea of quick-silver or a huge mirror of polished steel, lay the long-sought lake! The height on which he stood was about fifteen hundred feet above its level, so that he could survey the entire expanse of those welcome waters which had created fertility in the heart of the desert, and made the fame and wealth and glory of Egypt. He resolved that thenceforth they should bear a great name, and as the eastern reservoir of the Nile had been named after the Queen of England, he determined that the western should commemorate her lost and lamented consort, Prince Albert. It is therefore now known as the Albert Lake.
With some difficulty, but with a grateful heart, he and his wife descended the steep to the shore of the silent, shining lake, and took up their quarters in a fishing village called Vacovia. It was a wretched place, and the soil was strongly impregnated with salt; but discomforts were forgotten in the joy of a great discovery. Sir Samuel proceeded to collect all the information he could relative to its position. The chief of the village told him that its breadth was immense, but that large canoes had been known to cross from the other side after four days and nights of hard rowing. That other side, the west, was included in the great kingdom of Malegga, governed by King Kajoro, who traded with Kamrasi from a point opposite to Magango, where the lake contracted to the width of one day’s voyage. South of Malegga was a country named Tori, and the lake extended into the kingdom of Karagwé, with whose sovereign, Rumanika, Speke and Grant had maintained a friendly intercourse. Karagwé partly bounded the lake on the eastern side, and next to it, towards the north, came Utumbi; then, in succession, came Uganda, Unyoro, Chopé.