It was the evening of the 5th of May, 1865, when Sir Samuel and Lady Baker entered Khartûm, to be welcomed by the whole European population as if they had risen from the dead. On the 1st of July they left it for Berber. In making the passage of the Cataracts they narrowly escaped shipwreck; their boat, as it sped along under full sail before a high gale of wind, struck broadside upon a sandbank. About sixty yards below rose a ridge of rocks on which it seemed certain that the vessel would be driven, if it cleared the bank; so that to avoid Scylla was to rush into Charybdis. Sir Samuel, however, proved equal to the occasion. An anchor was laid up stream; the crew hauled on the cable, and the great force of the current pressing against the vessels’ broadside, she wore gradually round. All hands then laboured to clear away the sand, which, when loosened by their hands and feet, the swift full current rapidly carried away. For five hours they remained in this position, with the boat cracking, and half filled with water; however, a channel was opened at last, and slipping the cable, Sir Samuel hoisted sail, and with the velocity of an arrow, the head of the vessel swung round, and away she went, plunging through the swirling, boiling water, and clearing the rocks by a few inches.
They arrived at Berber, and procuring camels, started east for Souakim on the Red Sea, a distance of two hundred and seventy-five miles. There they obtained passage on board an Egyptian Government steamer, and in five days landed at Suez. Here ends the record of their heroic enterprise. [404]
INDEX.
A
A’damáwa, [116]; capital of [119]
Africa, exploration in, [365], [366]
Agadez, [97]; customs of inhabitants of, [98]
Alatou Mountains, the, [222], [225], [227]
Albert Nyanza, the, [391]–393
Aliyú, the Emir, [135]