Mahamed soon had dinner for them, and they enjoyed a better repast than they had done for many a day. Then the greatest treat was to come—water with which to wash their hands, and the luxury of soap. The remains of their repast was then placed before their faithful Seedees.
On retiring to their hut at night they offered up a prayer of thankfulness to the Almighty for having preserved them through so many difficulties, and at length, by His all-protecting arm, brought them in safety to the boundary of civilisation after twenty-six months of unceasing toil and anxiety. They had still, however, a considerable distance to march before they were to meet with civilised men.
Their host, Mahamed, was little better than a land pirate, who plundered and shot down the natives without compunction. Among his troops there was not a true Turk, wool predominating on their heads. They were adventurers, born from negro stock in the most southern Egyptian dominions. Numbers of such characters are found at Khartoum, ready for any employment. The merchants engage them there, and send them into the interior under the command of a chief to collect ivory and slaves. They were all married to women of the country, whom they had dressed in cloths and beads.
Mahamed, like the black chiefs, wished to detain the travellers, that they and their party might guard his camp, while
he went off on an expedition on his own account. He succeeded by depriving them of their porters, and then marched out with his army—drums and fifes playing, colours flying, guns firing, officers riding, some on donkeys, others on cows. On the 31st the army returned, after having burned down and plundered three villages, laden with ivory and driving in four slave girls and thirty head of cattle.
A few days afterwards another example of Turkish barbarity came under their notice. The head man of a village arrived with a large tusk of ivory with which to ransom his daughter. Fortunately for him it had been considered by the Turks wise to keep on terms with so influential a man; and therefore, on receiving the tusk, Mahamed gave back the damsel, adding a cow to seal their friendship.
At length, weary of Mahamed’s procrastination, on the 11th of January Speke ordered the march, telling Mahamed he might follow if he wished.
At first the villagers, supposing that the travellers were Turks, made their escape in every direction, carrying what stores and cattle they could; while others pulled down their huts, and marched off with the materials to a distant site, to escape from their persecutors.
The people do this because the Turks, when they arrive at a village, often pull down the huts and carry off the roofs to form a camp for themselves outside the enclosure.